![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seriousficTitle: Duality
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,225
Characters/Pairings: Richard/Lois, Jason White, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen
Acknowledgments: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
damo_in_japan for betaing this.
Previous Part: Chapter 12
Next Part: Chapter 14.
Summary: Richard has to get the story. Why would Lois pass up flying with Superman to stay earthbound with him?
Richard White was a victim of his own success. The international section was a stitch-up; Superman doing this in Paraguay or that in Sierra Leone. By the time he had put it to bed, though, Lois was jonesing for a trip to Gotham to cover the Masquerade Massacre (as she’d dubbed it, with one too many As) and Jimmy was on the roof, looking for a shot of Superman to replace the stock photo on Lifestyle’s front page.
Clark had already turned in his assignment and gone home early. Richard envied him a quiet evening at home. He hadn’t had to keep three correspondents from phrasing “Superman saved the day” the same.
Grabbing his coat and slinging it over his arm, Richard walked into his uncle’s office. Perry was adjusting the front page lay-out, a dart stuck to his forehead. Jason was taking cover behind an overturned chair, reloading his toy gun.
“Jason, what’ve we told you about shooting unarmed men?”
Jason relinquished his weapon as Richard hoisted him up. “It’s good?”
“No, the other thing.”
“Bad?”
“That’s the one.”
Richard tapped on the window, attracting Lois’s attention. She looked up from her computer and Richard brandished Jason at her, asking if she wanted him. She motioned for him to bring their son over. Richard opened the door for Jason and sent him on his way, closing it behind him.
“Richard, you’ve got a good kid.” Perry reached into his desk for a humidor. “Shame I care too much about him to smoke one of these with him in here.”
“And me?” Richard asked, sitting down.
“This is the closest you’ll ever come to a fine cigar,” Perry said as he lit up. “You can thank me later.”
“You’re all heart, Uncle Perry.”
Richard crossed his legs and leaned back as Perry continued to work on the front page. One wall was covered in notable front pages Perry had shepherded, many of them having to do with Superman. You couldn’t help but feel inadequate next to him. Sure, if there was some objectivity you could be inspired or protected, but when you knew a comparison was being made… Richard made a muscle with his arm. Maybe it was about time for him to renew his gym membership.
“Something bothering you?” Perry asked through his cigar.
“It’s nothing.”
“Lois?”
“Yeah.”
“Go on, spill. My brother will never forgive me if he doesn’t get his grandkids.”
“I already have—“
“Plural. And a ring around her finger would be nice too, while I’m asking.”
Richard stood up and, hands in his pockets, approached the wall. Superman always seemed to be in a pose that showed off every muscle, like he had been chiseled by some classical artisan. In every image he was rippling with power, yet still modest… confident, but not arrogant. Masculine, but not macho. Richard knew from experience it was an alluring combination. Certainly, Lois had seemed to go for it when it was him…
Damn.
“What was she like, Lois?” Richard questioned, staring at the byline under I Spent The Night With Superman. “When Superman was around, what was Lois like?”
“Not cynical.” Perry joined Richard by the wall, arms crossed under his chest. “You know Peter Pan?”
“Dad used to read it to me.”
“Our mom used to read it to him. Peter Pan made people fly. He made them young at heart. He made them let go of their worries and fears…”
“But he also kept them from growing up, made them forget what was real…” Richard looked out the window to where Jason was sitting on Lois’s lap, ‘helping’ her write her article. “Forget what was important.”
“Everyone and everything has a dark side, Rich.” Perry clapped his nephew on the shoulder. “Superman may have made Lois feel like a girl again, but she grew up and chose you. And why would she go back to Never-Never Land when she has you?”
“To fly?”
***
Richard loved the Metropolis night. He’d traveled the world, seen the Van Gogh/Starry Night baroqueness of Gotham after dark, the visual smorgasbord of the Strip at night. But the Metropolis city lights, almost as bright as the huge stars that mirrored them, were like a promise of the coming morning. The darkness didn’t hold sway here.
A red comet with a gold nucleus skimmed the sky. It slowed, turned, and Superman waved at them. Richard waved back a bit pettily as Jimmy took a picture.
“So what’s the story with him and Lois?”
“Story? Where’s a story? I always figured that Lois had something worked out with old Supes. He knew she was the best, so he gave her the inside scoop. Plus, and I only know this cuz of my deep insight into his character and psychology and whatnot, I think Superman had a bit of a thing for her.”
Superman had a thing for his fiancé. It was like hearing Colin Farrell had bought your girlfriend a drink.
“And did she… reciprocate?”
Jimmy laughed a little. “You know Lois.”
“Not as well as I thought, apparently. James, listen, do you think…”
“What’re you so worried about? Lois loves you.”
“Yeah. Of course.” Richard looked into the stars. Somewhere out there, Superman was winging away to another crisis. Keep going. You’ve seen wonders I’ve never even dreamed of. Let me keep this one.
Lost in thought, he went back inside. Jimmy was excitingly babbling about how he’d caught Superman with the exact right lens for the exact right distance, but this time Richard couldn’t pay him any mind. Lois had been… different, since Superman returned. It wasn’t just guilt from the article. When she typed, her fingers flew across the keyboard. When she laughed, it was richer than he’d heard before. When they made love…
Richard clenched a fist, listening to the knuckles pop. He was really letting this get away from him. Issues of inadequacy making him see things that weren’t there. No matter what Lois had had with Superman, she had built a life with him and she wasn’t the kind of person who would chuck that to the wayside just because an old beau was back in town. He had nothing to worry about.
***
He kissed Lois on the cheek when he came back, ruffled Jason’s hair with his hand. “It’s getting pretty late. I’ll take Jason home. You gonna be long?”
“Not long now. Don’t wait up. Apostrophe in the possessive form of it? I keep forgetting…”
“No apostrophe, just an s.”
“Groovy.” Lois resumed typing.
Just before they were out of Lois’s earshot, Jason said “Can we get McDonald’s?” and Lois automatically answered “No,” which Richard mouthed along with. Jason looked adorably downcast.
***
The car ride alone nearly put Jason to sleep, so instead of waking him Richard just carried him to bed, tugged his sneakers off, and tucked him in.
“Don’t I gotta brush my teeth?” Jason asked sleepily.
“You brushed after dinner, right? That’ll do until morning.”
“Daddy, can you tell me a story?”
Richard sat down on the bed. “Sure thing, slugger. Anything in specific or is it more of my adventures as a high school quarterback?”
“Tell me a story about Superman.”
Richard bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t really know any stories about him. I didn’t live in Metropolis when he was around.”
“But there’s gotta be something… please?”
Richard thought about it. “There was this one time that was in all the papers. Superman thought he was the last survivor of Krypton, but there were three others. Criminals, trapped in a very special prison…”
***
Richard flipped through channels. The news blitz on Superman wasn’t just news. It was in sketch comedies, an episode of South Park, talk shows, a Mythbusters rerun about his powers… everywhere.
When Lois got home, Richard was stretched out on the couch with his shirt unbuttoned and his socked feet on the armrest; his shoes, tie, and jacket were neatly put away. Lois locked the door behind her and checked the home security system. It was on.
“Oh hey Lois,” Richard said, staring at a blaring infomercial. “I know you said ‘don’t wait up,’ but I must’ve ate something that went down wrong, because I can just not get my eyes shut.”
Lois sat on the back of the couch, reaching down to pet him along the back of his neck. “Come on. It’s been a long day and...”
“What if they’re all long days?” Laboriously, Richard sat up. “Huh?”
Lois began resolutely unbuttoning her blouse. “Richard, I don’t know what you’re on about. All I know is that it’s been a long day and I want to go to bed.”
Richard sat up a little further as Lois peeled off her blouse. A thin, satiny lace bra enclosed her breasts. His eyes bored into the valley between them.
“You coming?”
Undoing the last few buttons on his shirt, Richard followed her to the bedroom.
***
It was good, but she wanted it to be better. Forgoing gentleness, she clutched at his ass, cinched his waist within her legs. He drove into her harder and Lois moaned into his mouth as he kissed her roughly, hands groping her, their lovemaking so fast and wild that the sheets flew off their bodies. Lois came with Richard over her, then listened to his breathing slowly lessen until he’d caught his breath.
“Felt like I was flying,” she said as she cozied into his chest, his arms thick and strong around her.
Even though that might’ve been a Freudian slip, Richard let it go. What had he been thinking, going around all day suspicious that he was in a love triangle with Superman, of all people? Nothing had changed. Lois still loved him, was the mother of his child, for Christ’s sake, and they were all still one big, happy, mildly dysfunctional family.
Lois went to sleep, her flushed skin slowly returning to its midnight pallor. He wondered what she was dreaming of as she began to lightly snore, her eyes already twitching beneath her shut eyelids…
***
Lois awoke, and was instantly quite sure she was having a dream. She was just that kind of reporter. Her brain couldn’t even switch off during a fantasy.
In this one, she was at her old penthouse apartment, on the balcony, having a smoke… and even the dream of nicotine felt great. She puffed satisfyingly and wondered when her subconscious was going to throw her a loop. Lois was generally a pretty well-put-together woman, without the insecurities or anxieties that plagued most, so anything that she had to deal with in the dream-world instead of the waking world would have to be amazingly disconcerting. More than one story had haunted her here, awaiting resolution. But other than the sabotage, which she was already making headway on, there was nothing…
“Ms. Lane,” Superman said, as he came out onto the balcony through her apartment. He was as bright and optimistic as she remembered him, with the garish, larger-than-life costume he’d worn when he was just starting out. This must’ve been before he’d become disillusioned… before he’d left.
Superman had never set out to change the world, just help it. And yet, there must’ve been times when it seemed he couldn’t even do that. And maybe, just maybe, there was one part of the world he’d wanted for himself that had been denied to him…
“Superman,” Lois said, reading from a script in her head that compelled her to follow its unknown text. “God, that’s a mouthful. Can’t I call you something shorter?”
She sauntered toward him, feeling a pang of guilt. But this wasn’t real, wasn’t anything more than her mind trying to digest some unresolved psychobabble.
“Supes?”
It was perfectly harmless for her to invade that bubble of awe and sometimes fear that kept most people away…
“Big blue?”
Perfectly harmless to lay her hands on the shield of his costume and feel the passionate beat of the heart underneath.
“Kal-El?”
“Kal would be fine,” Superman said in a tone that was warm even for him. Invitingly warm. His heart was doing double-time, but that could’ve just been his alien physiology.
“Kal, then.” She reached up to tilt his head downward, seeing his lips part slightly and his eyes dart over her body. “Call me Lois.”
“Lois,” he said, drawling it out into a playful, seductive tease, as he kissed her, pressing her back, his hands sure and confident as they asserted where she fumbled, stripping her clothes from her body as they made their way to the bed, plush, silvery, shining like it wasn’t of her world at all…
But instead of falling to its soft contours, she met nothing but air. She fell, leaving Superman above her to dwindle into the distant red of his cape, a crimson star in the night sky that winked out. Lois screamed, fell forever, was caught. She looked to her savior and saw a pair of spectacles over blue eyes, a square jaw with a smile etched over it.
“Easy, Lois, I’ve got you,” Clark said.
And that’s when she woke up, her heart pounding, her flesh oiled with sweat.
“Can’t sleep?” Richard asked.
Lois used the bedsheets to mop at her face.
“Me neither.” He grabbed the remote from the bedstand. “Any preferences?”
“Something made after the 1970s.”
“But that’s when they stopped making good movies,” Richard protested mildly, switching the TV on.
They channel-surfed for a while, though infomercials and public domain movies and Luthor Classic Movies, which showed actual classics in widescreen and without commercials, but Richard couldn’t watch it with Lois around. Lois cuddled into Richard as he relentlessly worked the channel button.
Richard wondered whether anyone else saw her like this. Not vulnerable, but… open. Beyond even the warmth demanded of motherhood, there was a part of her that wanted to lean on someone, and be leaned on as well. There was a part of her that wanted a family, and not one like the Daily Planet staff that she could keep at arm’s length. But more than that, there was something in her that wanted to believe in fairy tale princes and magic kisses.
He just hoped he could live up to it.
“Wait, go back,” Lois said, grabbing Richard’s remote hand. He flipped back to a talk show, one of those insipid ones that they handed out to celebrities like door prizes. There was a Superman graphic on the bottom of the screen. Richard resisted the urge to groan. It was the wee hours of the morning in Metropolis, but due to the time differential, Gotham was up and at ‘em. So was its morning show.
One of the guests, a portly middle-aged man and Gotham regular, was in mid-sentence. “--socially transformative. Since the Batman started his campaign against crime, corrupt cops have been rooted out, James Gordon has become police commissioner, there was a sharp decline in crime…”
“Followed by a return to status quo, not to mention the Arkham Asylum break-out and the Crane terrorist gassing,” another guest retorted. “Across the board, Gotham’s citizens report that they’re still afraid to walk the streets at night. In fact, they’re more afraid! Now they have a psychopath who dresses up like a bat to worry about. The exact same thing will and is happening to Metropolis, and the world. Now that we have Superman to rely on, what incentive is there for us to solve our own problems?”
“Another of Lex’s sock puppets,” Lois groused bitterly.
Richard turned up the volume.
“Could that be why Superman left?” the host asked. “Because he thought mankind was too dependent on him?”
“Superman left because he knew he wasn’t welcome after the Zod attacks.”
“But couldn’t there be something to how astronomers detected a signal from the site of Superman’s homeworld mere weeks before he left?”
“That’s hardly conclusive. Krypton is dead, Superman told us so himself. Why would he abandon a live world for a dead one?”
“But we only have his word that Krypton is dead.”
“I would like to note at this point that my colleague still clings to his sleeper agent theory.”
“Which was vindicated, I should add. Zod and his soldiers…”
“Zod was defeated by Superman.”
“So he claims. Superman won’t tell us where he’s imprisoned the Kryptonians, he won’t tell us where he’s been for the last five years—“
“He told us—“
“I think the most pressing question of the 21st century is what does Superman have to hide? He says he lives in a Fortress of Solitude… heh, why a fortress? If Krypton is as advanced… heh heh… as he claims, why won’t he share this – aha – potentially lifesaving technology with the public? And… hehehe… what’s with the red underwear outside the pants? HA! Seriously, it’s been five years and he hasn’t figured out that underpants go on UNDER the PANTS! HAHAHAHAHA!”
The audience was laughing along, like they were at a sitcom, tittering at each syllable, losing themselves in riotous laughter, hacking and coughing as their laughter became deranged. The host looked around, confused at her own laughter, eyes wide and scared, before she laughed up a gurgle of blood. The camera fell on its side, the cameraman obviously falling victim to the same disease.
Lois was already out of bed, throwing on a pair of pants. She threw Richard some clothes as well. “Get the Gotham desk on the phone, something’s happening, this show is broadcast nationally…”
“Lois, look!”
The camera had righted itself, the lens smudged by gloved hands. A pale man in a purple tuxedo stepped back, holding a stack of cue cards. He smiled at the camera, the rictus making Lois shiver, and showed his first cue card to the screen.
It was a cartoonish scrawl of a bat, done in crayon.
The smiling man dropped the cue card. The next one had the same bat, but with a red circle around it and a cross drawn through it.
“People of Gotham, America, and the world… I… am the Joker. Hold your applause, please.”
He sauntered over to the host’s desk, dumping the rictus-grinned corpse out of her chair, and sat down, putting his feet up on the desk.
“For too long, there’s been a fascist freak in tights… perhaps you’ve heard of him, goes by the name of Batman, ‘bout ye high, wears a cape… deciding who lives and who dies in Gotham. Well, I’ve gotta tell ya… that sounds like fun! So from here on out, I’m gonna cop a page from the Bat’s handbook. So consider this me serving notice… William Earle. You die at midnight, tonight. But until then…”
The Joker reached under the desk and pulled out a sombrero, which he put on.
“Why not spend some time at Uncle Nick’s Fajita Round-up? An affordable dining experience you’ll never forget, free enchiladas with every meal, and a chicken fajita platter for just four dollars. It’s the finest Tex-Mex north of the border. Off Interstate 17, just north of Phoenix.” He threw the sombrero away like a frisbee. “What? I’ve got bills to pay too. Show’s over, folks. Get up, go to work, and always remember… you’re nothing more than cavemen playing dress-up.”
The screen went to a test pattern.
Fandom: Nolanverse Batman, Superman Returns
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,225
Characters/Pairings: Richard/Lois, Jason White, Perry White, Jimmy Olsen
Acknowledgments: Thanks to
damo_in_japan for betaing this.Previous Part: Chapter 12
Next Part: Chapter 14.
Summary: Richard has to get the story. Why would Lois pass up flying with Superman to stay earthbound with him?
Richard White was a victim of his own success. The international section was a stitch-up; Superman doing this in Paraguay or that in Sierra Leone. By the time he had put it to bed, though, Lois was jonesing for a trip to Gotham to cover the Masquerade Massacre (as she’d dubbed it, with one too many As) and Jimmy was on the roof, looking for a shot of Superman to replace the stock photo on Lifestyle’s front page.
Clark had already turned in his assignment and gone home early. Richard envied him a quiet evening at home. He hadn’t had to keep three correspondents from phrasing “Superman saved the day” the same.
Grabbing his coat and slinging it over his arm, Richard walked into his uncle’s office. Perry was adjusting the front page lay-out, a dart stuck to his forehead. Jason was taking cover behind an overturned chair, reloading his toy gun.
“Jason, what’ve we told you about shooting unarmed men?”
Jason relinquished his weapon as Richard hoisted him up. “It’s good?”
“No, the other thing.”
“Bad?”
“That’s the one.”
Richard tapped on the window, attracting Lois’s attention. She looked up from her computer and Richard brandished Jason at her, asking if she wanted him. She motioned for him to bring their son over. Richard opened the door for Jason and sent him on his way, closing it behind him.
“Richard, you’ve got a good kid.” Perry reached into his desk for a humidor. “Shame I care too much about him to smoke one of these with him in here.”
“And me?” Richard asked, sitting down.
“This is the closest you’ll ever come to a fine cigar,” Perry said as he lit up. “You can thank me later.”
“You’re all heart, Uncle Perry.”
Richard crossed his legs and leaned back as Perry continued to work on the front page. One wall was covered in notable front pages Perry had shepherded, many of them having to do with Superman. You couldn’t help but feel inadequate next to him. Sure, if there was some objectivity you could be inspired or protected, but when you knew a comparison was being made… Richard made a muscle with his arm. Maybe it was about time for him to renew his gym membership.
“Something bothering you?” Perry asked through his cigar.
“It’s nothing.”
“Lois?”
“Yeah.”
“Go on, spill. My brother will never forgive me if he doesn’t get his grandkids.”
“I already have—“
“Plural. And a ring around her finger would be nice too, while I’m asking.”
Richard stood up and, hands in his pockets, approached the wall. Superman always seemed to be in a pose that showed off every muscle, like he had been chiseled by some classical artisan. In every image he was rippling with power, yet still modest… confident, but not arrogant. Masculine, but not macho. Richard knew from experience it was an alluring combination. Certainly, Lois had seemed to go for it when it was him…
Damn.
“What was she like, Lois?” Richard questioned, staring at the byline under I Spent The Night With Superman. “When Superman was around, what was Lois like?”
“Not cynical.” Perry joined Richard by the wall, arms crossed under his chest. “You know Peter Pan?”
“Dad used to read it to me.”
“Our mom used to read it to him. Peter Pan made people fly. He made them young at heart. He made them let go of their worries and fears…”
“But he also kept them from growing up, made them forget what was real…” Richard looked out the window to where Jason was sitting on Lois’s lap, ‘helping’ her write her article. “Forget what was important.”
“Everyone and everything has a dark side, Rich.” Perry clapped his nephew on the shoulder. “Superman may have made Lois feel like a girl again, but she grew up and chose you. And why would she go back to Never-Never Land when she has you?”
“To fly?”
***
Richard loved the Metropolis night. He’d traveled the world, seen the Van Gogh/Starry Night baroqueness of Gotham after dark, the visual smorgasbord of the Strip at night. But the Metropolis city lights, almost as bright as the huge stars that mirrored them, were like a promise of the coming morning. The darkness didn’t hold sway here.
A red comet with a gold nucleus skimmed the sky. It slowed, turned, and Superman waved at them. Richard waved back a bit pettily as Jimmy took a picture.
“So what’s the story with him and Lois?”
“Story? Where’s a story? I always figured that Lois had something worked out with old Supes. He knew she was the best, so he gave her the inside scoop. Plus, and I only know this cuz of my deep insight into his character and psychology and whatnot, I think Superman had a bit of a thing for her.”
Superman had a thing for his fiancé. It was like hearing Colin Farrell had bought your girlfriend a drink.
“And did she… reciprocate?”
Jimmy laughed a little. “You know Lois.”
“Not as well as I thought, apparently. James, listen, do you think…”
“What’re you so worried about? Lois loves you.”
“Yeah. Of course.” Richard looked into the stars. Somewhere out there, Superman was winging away to another crisis. Keep going. You’ve seen wonders I’ve never even dreamed of. Let me keep this one.
Lost in thought, he went back inside. Jimmy was excitingly babbling about how he’d caught Superman with the exact right lens for the exact right distance, but this time Richard couldn’t pay him any mind. Lois had been… different, since Superman returned. It wasn’t just guilt from the article. When she typed, her fingers flew across the keyboard. When she laughed, it was richer than he’d heard before. When they made love…
Richard clenched a fist, listening to the knuckles pop. He was really letting this get away from him. Issues of inadequacy making him see things that weren’t there. No matter what Lois had had with Superman, she had built a life with him and she wasn’t the kind of person who would chuck that to the wayside just because an old beau was back in town. He had nothing to worry about.
***
He kissed Lois on the cheek when he came back, ruffled Jason’s hair with his hand. “It’s getting pretty late. I’ll take Jason home. You gonna be long?”
“Not long now. Don’t wait up. Apostrophe in the possessive form of it? I keep forgetting…”
“No apostrophe, just an s.”
“Groovy.” Lois resumed typing.
Just before they were out of Lois’s earshot, Jason said “Can we get McDonald’s?” and Lois automatically answered “No,” which Richard mouthed along with. Jason looked adorably downcast.
***
The car ride alone nearly put Jason to sleep, so instead of waking him Richard just carried him to bed, tugged his sneakers off, and tucked him in.
“Don’t I gotta brush my teeth?” Jason asked sleepily.
“You brushed after dinner, right? That’ll do until morning.”
“Daddy, can you tell me a story?”
Richard sat down on the bed. “Sure thing, slugger. Anything in specific or is it more of my adventures as a high school quarterback?”
“Tell me a story about Superman.”
Richard bit the inside of his cheek. “I don’t really know any stories about him. I didn’t live in Metropolis when he was around.”
“But there’s gotta be something… please?”
Richard thought about it. “There was this one time that was in all the papers. Superman thought he was the last survivor of Krypton, but there were three others. Criminals, trapped in a very special prison…”
***
Richard flipped through channels. The news blitz on Superman wasn’t just news. It was in sketch comedies, an episode of South Park, talk shows, a Mythbusters rerun about his powers… everywhere.
When Lois got home, Richard was stretched out on the couch with his shirt unbuttoned and his socked feet on the armrest; his shoes, tie, and jacket were neatly put away. Lois locked the door behind her and checked the home security system. It was on.
“Oh hey Lois,” Richard said, staring at a blaring infomercial. “I know you said ‘don’t wait up,’ but I must’ve ate something that went down wrong, because I can just not get my eyes shut.”
Lois sat on the back of the couch, reaching down to pet him along the back of his neck. “Come on. It’s been a long day and...”
“What if they’re all long days?” Laboriously, Richard sat up. “Huh?”
Lois began resolutely unbuttoning her blouse. “Richard, I don’t know what you’re on about. All I know is that it’s been a long day and I want to go to bed.”
Richard sat up a little further as Lois peeled off her blouse. A thin, satiny lace bra enclosed her breasts. His eyes bored into the valley between them.
“You coming?”
Undoing the last few buttons on his shirt, Richard followed her to the bedroom.
***
It was good, but she wanted it to be better. Forgoing gentleness, she clutched at his ass, cinched his waist within her legs. He drove into her harder and Lois moaned into his mouth as he kissed her roughly, hands groping her, their lovemaking so fast and wild that the sheets flew off their bodies. Lois came with Richard over her, then listened to his breathing slowly lessen until he’d caught his breath.
“Felt like I was flying,” she said as she cozied into his chest, his arms thick and strong around her.
Even though that might’ve been a Freudian slip, Richard let it go. What had he been thinking, going around all day suspicious that he was in a love triangle with Superman, of all people? Nothing had changed. Lois still loved him, was the mother of his child, for Christ’s sake, and they were all still one big, happy, mildly dysfunctional family.
Lois went to sleep, her flushed skin slowly returning to its midnight pallor. He wondered what she was dreaming of as she began to lightly snore, her eyes already twitching beneath her shut eyelids…
***
Lois awoke, and was instantly quite sure she was having a dream. She was just that kind of reporter. Her brain couldn’t even switch off during a fantasy.
In this one, she was at her old penthouse apartment, on the balcony, having a smoke… and even the dream of nicotine felt great. She puffed satisfyingly and wondered when her subconscious was going to throw her a loop. Lois was generally a pretty well-put-together woman, without the insecurities or anxieties that plagued most, so anything that she had to deal with in the dream-world instead of the waking world would have to be amazingly disconcerting. More than one story had haunted her here, awaiting resolution. But other than the sabotage, which she was already making headway on, there was nothing…
“Ms. Lane,” Superman said, as he came out onto the balcony through her apartment. He was as bright and optimistic as she remembered him, with the garish, larger-than-life costume he’d worn when he was just starting out. This must’ve been before he’d become disillusioned… before he’d left.
Superman had never set out to change the world, just help it. And yet, there must’ve been times when it seemed he couldn’t even do that. And maybe, just maybe, there was one part of the world he’d wanted for himself that had been denied to him…
“Superman,” Lois said, reading from a script in her head that compelled her to follow its unknown text. “God, that’s a mouthful. Can’t I call you something shorter?”
She sauntered toward him, feeling a pang of guilt. But this wasn’t real, wasn’t anything more than her mind trying to digest some unresolved psychobabble.
“Supes?”
It was perfectly harmless for her to invade that bubble of awe and sometimes fear that kept most people away…
“Big blue?”
Perfectly harmless to lay her hands on the shield of his costume and feel the passionate beat of the heart underneath.
“Kal-El?”
“Kal would be fine,” Superman said in a tone that was warm even for him. Invitingly warm. His heart was doing double-time, but that could’ve just been his alien physiology.
“Kal, then.” She reached up to tilt his head downward, seeing his lips part slightly and his eyes dart over her body. “Call me Lois.”
“Lois,” he said, drawling it out into a playful, seductive tease, as he kissed her, pressing her back, his hands sure and confident as they asserted where she fumbled, stripping her clothes from her body as they made their way to the bed, plush, silvery, shining like it wasn’t of her world at all…
But instead of falling to its soft contours, she met nothing but air. She fell, leaving Superman above her to dwindle into the distant red of his cape, a crimson star in the night sky that winked out. Lois screamed, fell forever, was caught. She looked to her savior and saw a pair of spectacles over blue eyes, a square jaw with a smile etched over it.
“Easy, Lois, I’ve got you,” Clark said.
And that’s when she woke up, her heart pounding, her flesh oiled with sweat.
“Can’t sleep?” Richard asked.
Lois used the bedsheets to mop at her face.
“Me neither.” He grabbed the remote from the bedstand. “Any preferences?”
“Something made after the 1970s.”
“But that’s when they stopped making good movies,” Richard protested mildly, switching the TV on.
They channel-surfed for a while, though infomercials and public domain movies and Luthor Classic Movies, which showed actual classics in widescreen and without commercials, but Richard couldn’t watch it with Lois around. Lois cuddled into Richard as he relentlessly worked the channel button.
Richard wondered whether anyone else saw her like this. Not vulnerable, but… open. Beyond even the warmth demanded of motherhood, there was a part of her that wanted to lean on someone, and be leaned on as well. There was a part of her that wanted a family, and not one like the Daily Planet staff that she could keep at arm’s length. But more than that, there was something in her that wanted to believe in fairy tale princes and magic kisses.
He just hoped he could live up to it.
“Wait, go back,” Lois said, grabbing Richard’s remote hand. He flipped back to a talk show, one of those insipid ones that they handed out to celebrities like door prizes. There was a Superman graphic on the bottom of the screen. Richard resisted the urge to groan. It was the wee hours of the morning in Metropolis, but due to the time differential, Gotham was up and at ‘em. So was its morning show.
One of the guests, a portly middle-aged man and Gotham regular, was in mid-sentence. “--socially transformative. Since the Batman started his campaign against crime, corrupt cops have been rooted out, James Gordon has become police commissioner, there was a sharp decline in crime…”
“Followed by a return to status quo, not to mention the Arkham Asylum break-out and the Crane terrorist gassing,” another guest retorted. “Across the board, Gotham’s citizens report that they’re still afraid to walk the streets at night. In fact, they’re more afraid! Now they have a psychopath who dresses up like a bat to worry about. The exact same thing will and is happening to Metropolis, and the world. Now that we have Superman to rely on, what incentive is there for us to solve our own problems?”
“Another of Lex’s sock puppets,” Lois groused bitterly.
Richard turned up the volume.
“Could that be why Superman left?” the host asked. “Because he thought mankind was too dependent on him?”
“Superman left because he knew he wasn’t welcome after the Zod attacks.”
“But couldn’t there be something to how astronomers detected a signal from the site of Superman’s homeworld mere weeks before he left?”
“That’s hardly conclusive. Krypton is dead, Superman told us so himself. Why would he abandon a live world for a dead one?”
“But we only have his word that Krypton is dead.”
“I would like to note at this point that my colleague still clings to his sleeper agent theory.”
“Which was vindicated, I should add. Zod and his soldiers…”
“Zod was defeated by Superman.”
“So he claims. Superman won’t tell us where he’s imprisoned the Kryptonians, he won’t tell us where he’s been for the last five years—“
“He told us—“
“I think the most pressing question of the 21st century is what does Superman have to hide? He says he lives in a Fortress of Solitude… heh, why a fortress? If Krypton is as advanced… heh heh… as he claims, why won’t he share this – aha – potentially lifesaving technology with the public? And… hehehe… what’s with the red underwear outside the pants? HA! Seriously, it’s been five years and he hasn’t figured out that underpants go on UNDER the PANTS! HAHAHAHAHA!”
The audience was laughing along, like they were at a sitcom, tittering at each syllable, losing themselves in riotous laughter, hacking and coughing as their laughter became deranged. The host looked around, confused at her own laughter, eyes wide and scared, before she laughed up a gurgle of blood. The camera fell on its side, the cameraman obviously falling victim to the same disease.
Lois was already out of bed, throwing on a pair of pants. She threw Richard some clothes as well. “Get the Gotham desk on the phone, something’s happening, this show is broadcast nationally…”
“Lois, look!”
The camera had righted itself, the lens smudged by gloved hands. A pale man in a purple tuxedo stepped back, holding a stack of cue cards. He smiled at the camera, the rictus making Lois shiver, and showed his first cue card to the screen.
It was a cartoonish scrawl of a bat, done in crayon.
The smiling man dropped the cue card. The next one had the same bat, but with a red circle around it and a cross drawn through it.
“People of Gotham, America, and the world… I… am the Joker. Hold your applause, please.”
He sauntered over to the host’s desk, dumping the rictus-grinned corpse out of her chair, and sat down, putting his feet up on the desk.
“For too long, there’s been a fascist freak in tights… perhaps you’ve heard of him, goes by the name of Batman, ‘bout ye high, wears a cape… deciding who lives and who dies in Gotham. Well, I’ve gotta tell ya… that sounds like fun! So from here on out, I’m gonna cop a page from the Bat’s handbook. So consider this me serving notice… William Earle. You die at midnight, tonight. But until then…”
The Joker reached under the desk and pulled out a sombrero, which he put on.
“Why not spend some time at Uncle Nick’s Fajita Round-up? An affordable dining experience you’ll never forget, free enchiladas with every meal, and a chicken fajita platter for just four dollars. It’s the finest Tex-Mex north of the border. Off Interstate 17, just north of Phoenix.” He threw the sombrero away like a frisbee. “What? I’ve got bills to pay too. Show’s over, folks. Get up, go to work, and always remember… you’re nothing more than cavemen playing dress-up.”
The screen went to a test pattern.
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