New Troy, Metropolis
“Four years of prosperity, four years of growth, and most importantly of all, four years of security at home and abroad. That is what a Kelly administration has brought us and what only a Kelly administration can bring us again. On November 8th, 2016 cast your vote for Robert Kelly and secure the better, brighter future that your children deserve.”
The campaign advert by President Kelly came to an end and Kansas Jayhawks basketball took to the screen. Sat in front of it on a couch was Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Clark looked visibly worse for wear and his right eye was black and swollen. It was a souvenir from his run-in with Hank Henshaw in the Arctic. Clark had placed the half-cyborg, half-Kryptonian in his Fortress prison and returned to Metropolis after a short discussion with his Martian friend. Clark’s appearance had distressed Lois but not halfway as much as hearing about Terri Henshaw and her struggle. They had been discussing it prior to Kelly’s face appearing on the television and now that it had passed, with Kelly’s advert observed in stony silence, Lois felt free to pour out her sympathy for Henshaw’s former wife.
“I can’t even begin to imagine what that must have been like for that poor woman. All those years spent waiting for her husband to come back and when he finally does he’s something monstrous. Is she going to be okay?”
Clark let out a sigh. His eyes were trained on the Jayhawks players making their way up and down the court.
“The heat vision burned her shoulder up pretty badly but Cross thinks he’ll be able to salvage the arm. It’s still touch and go whether she’ll still have full mobility in it but he said he’d keep me updated.”
There was heaviness to Clark’s voice and dullness to his eyes that was uncharacteristic. Even in the darkest of times the Kansas farm boy was usually never short on self-assurance. It was what made Clark Clark. He knew where he stood at all times, he had no trouble discerning between right and wrong, no matter how bad things got. On this evening though something seemed amiss.
“What’s wrong?”
Clark reached for the remote and turned the basketball down.
“I can’t get the look on Henshaw’s face out of my mind. It was my face, Lois. He was looking at me through my own eyes and all I saw in them was rage. What if J’onn hadn’t sensed Henshaw coming? What if we hadn’t got there in time to meet him? He was more machine than man, more hate than man. He could have killed thousands if we weren’t there to stop him and he would have done it wearing my face.”
Lois frowned and punched her boyfriend in the arm playfully.
“Give yourself a break every once in a while, Clark. You stop a homicidal cyborg in his tracks and what do you do? Do you congratulate yourself for a job well done like a normal person? No, you’re sat here wondering what might have happened or what could have happened. Might and could don’t matter at this point. You stopped him, Clark. That’s all that matters. The world is safe for another night thanks to you, so stop over-thinking things, and try to relax for a minute.”
Clark shook his head.
“How am I supposed to relax when whoever sent Henshaw to Earth is still out there? He gave him my face, put my family’s crest on his chest, and sent him directly to the Fortress of Solitude, Lois. That means he knows who I am and where I come from. How am I meant to not over-think now that I know that?”
One of Lane’s hands reached across the couch and took hold of one of Clark’s hands. She wondered sometimes what it must be like for Clark. He carried the whole weight of the world on his shoulders. There weren’t many men better suited to carry that burden but it was a heavy burden all the same. She had observed firsthand the guilt he felt when he fell short, when lives were lost, or disasters were not averted that could have been. To have the hopes and dreams of so many on his shoulders took a toll on Clark, though it was one he bore silently, and sometimes he needed to be reminded that he wasn’t alone.
“Do you trust J’onn?”
Clark looked up at Lois with an earnest stare.
“With my life.”
“Then trust that he’s going to find out who this guy is before he can come after you again. Otherwise you’re going to drive yourself mad looking round every corner for the next threat. For all we know, Henshaw was this guy’s best shot.”
Clark shrugged his shoulders.
“Or he could be the warm-up act.”
Lois sighed exasperatedly as she searched for the right words to breathe confidence into her love. After a few moments she found them and took to admonishing Kent. Her thin fingers jabbed him in the centre of his broad chest as she spoke.
“What do you want me to say? That you should be scared of your own shadow? That you should be walking on eggshells at all times? Because I can say that if you want me to hear but I don’t think either of us want to live like that. There’s a reason you have that “S” on your chest. There’s a reason that children look up to you. You give them hope, Clark. You make them dream big. Leave the paranoia to Batman.”
Clark listened in silence, his face initially a blank canvass, but it shifted into something more resolute and determined by the time that Lois had finished speaking. The last line in particular seemed to amuse him and he looked to Lois with a charmed, playful smile that sat more naturally on Clark’s face than his previously defeated expression had.
“You know, once you get to know him a little Batman’s actually a pretty nice guy.”
Lois laughed and lent over to place her head in Clark’s chest. He hugged her to close to her, taking comfort in her warmth, and reached for the remote. He flicked the volume up on the basketball and the blue and red of the Jayhawks jersey bounced along his clear blue eyes. From his chest came a murmur.
“Have you thought about how you’re going to explain that shiner of yours at work in the morning? You look like you’ve been mugged.”
Clark smiled.
“I’ll think of something.”
An unimpressed Lois cocked her neck up to look at Clark with a frown.
“You’ll think of something? That’s it? We work alongside some of the most forensic investigative journalists on the planet and you really think you’ll be able to come up with something on the spot that’s going to fool them? Come on. You’re going to have to do better than that, Clark.”
Clark’s smiled widened a little.
“I’ve been hiding behind a pair of thick-rimmed glasses and a side parting for the best part of a decade and they haven’t seemed to notice, Lois. I think I can sneak a black eye past them.”
Even after all this time, Lois still couldn’t believe that she hadn’t seen it. The change Clark underwent when he put that uniform on was remarkable. She wondered sometimes whether she would have ever worked it out. She liked to think so. Heck, she was definitely in the wrong profession if she hadn’t been able to eventually. She wanted to take exception to the point or make some excuse for her own inability to deduce Superman’s identity but instead she shrugged her shoulders and buried her head in Clark’s chest again.
“Point taken.”
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