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*****
“Never?” he asked skeptically.
“No, never,” she insisted.
“I don’t believe that.”
She looked at him squarely. “Believe it,” she urged him dryly.
“You haven’t ever given a dollar to a someone on the street? Even when they ask? Even when they could clearly use the help?” His tone was still skeptical, but was sliding into the territory between disappointment and dismay.
“No.”
The sun was shining down on them as they made their way back to the Planet, but Lois was still under the same dark, gloomy cloud she’d been existing under for days. Ever since Clark brought back that all too authentic pizza.
“Does that mean that you’ve never donated anything in your life?” he asked, taking it a step further.
“Of course not!” she said, appalled. “But I don’t just hand out money to everyone who asks. Maybe some of those people could really use it, but what about the con artists out there just trying to scam you? No way! If I’m going to make a donation, I do my research and then I make an annual contribution to an official organization.”
“Name one.”
There was a little challenge in his voice, and it rubbed her the absolute wrong way.
“You think I’m lying?”
One liar would recognize another, she guessed.
“I didn’t say that.”
She eyed him as he grinned at her, unaware that inside she was fuming at his hypocrisy.
“Well, why else would you be asking?” she challenged back.
None of their conversations were simple anymore since she’d learned his secret. Now everything he said sounded like it was only half true or awkwardly truncated or a deliberate obfuscation. She was definitely getting better at pinpointing when he was lying, but she still doubted the veracity of everything he said, replaying conversations in her head and second guessing what she’d thought he’d really meant. She missed having her reliable, trustworthy friend at her side.
“Maybe I’m just curious what kind of organization Lois Lane would find worthy of a donation,” he said in a light, teasing tone.
“The Children’s Literacy Initiative,” she told him.
“You’re kidding,” he stuttered, clearly caught off guard.
“Well, don’t sound so surprised!”
“You’ve just… never really mentioned liking kids before,” he replied more carefully.
“That doesn’t mean I think they should be illiterate.” Her droll tone slipped out before she could reign it in. Sometimes they fell into sync so easily that it was hard to remember that she was mad at him.
Meanwhile, he was rolling his eyes at her. “Anywhere else?”
“Um, Safe Alliance Domestic Violence Shelter, Hope House for Women, Turning Point Women’s Shelter…” she rattled off. “And around Christmas I usually donate to First Book Metropolis; they give kids age-appropriate books for the holidays.”
“I thought you hated Christmas.”
She shrugged self-consciously. “Yeah, I do. But kids don’t.”
“Lois, I had no idea.”
The way he was looking at her, somewhere between awed and appreciative, was bothering her.
She wasn’t particularly keen on Clark seeing her in a new light right now.
“Well, you never asked,” she said uncomfortably.
“I guess you’re right. I guess there’s a lot we all assume about people,” he reflected somberly before slipping back into his playful tone. “Are there other questions I should ask you? Other things I’d be surprised by?”
“Would that go both ways?” she immediately bartered back.
“Well, sure,” he said easily enough that she knew he would never expect her to ask, ‘Are you Superman?’
She felt herself tense.
Could it be that easy?
Did she want it to be?
“You’d tell me anything I asked?” she pressed.
He made a show of eyeing her warily, but she could see the humorous twinkle behind his look. “What are you expecting to find out about me, Lois?”
“Well, all of us have something that they probably don’t even tell their closest friends,” she said, practically offering him a way out if he wanted it.
“I think your chosen profession has biased you,” he laughed. “Not everyone has some big dark secret to hide.”
The arrived at the elevator bay, and he reached forward and pressed the call button.
“Don’t you?” she asked outright.
Come on, Clark, she thought.
Please.
Please say it, hint it, just allude to it and we can end all this, and I can have my best friend back.
His hands slid into his pockets and he shrugged, modeling his body in a posture as far from Superman as she could imagine. “I’m just Clark.”
She barely registered the empty feeling swelling in her chest before the cresting wave of anger crashed over her like a tsunami. She wanted to hit him—even if it wouldn’t do any good.
The elevator arrived just then, saving her from displaying her fit of pique, and she forced herself not to stomp onto it.
Because aside from never outright asking her if she ever made charitable donations, he also hadn’t asked her if she’d ever figured out his deepest secret and was now going through ever increasing stages of being furious with him about it. He hadn’t asked her if she was going insane every day, knowing that her best friend lied to her nearly every time he opened his mouth. He hadn’t asked if she was constantly at war with herself, trying to decide if she should tell him or punish him or reveal him or forgive him or beg him to forgive her. And he hadn’t asked her if she walked through her days absolutely heartbroken and unable to tell anyone.
“Lois?”
“Huh?” She snapped out of it.
“You okay?”
Her standard reply was out of her mouth without conscious thought. “I’m fine.”
“Okay.”
The elevator made its slow progress upward.
“Because, for the last week or so, you’ve just seemed, well, kind of—“
He hesitated, looking for the right word, and she jumped in before he could finish.
“Actually, I’ve been thinking that if the mayor was accepting bribes masked as campaign contributions, maybe members of the city council were in on it, too.”
“What?”
She’d thrown him a little.
Good, she thought vindictively.
Because she wasn’t about to have the conversation he’d been angling toward.
If he wasn’t going to tell her what he should have already told her, she wasn’t going to offer him any information either.
“I think I’m going to start on it tonight,” she plowed on. Councilman Wittier was always a little too friendly with the Mayor. I think I’ll start with him first.”
He looked at his watch. “It’s after five already. You really want to start tonight?”
“Yes, definitely,” she insisted.
“Okay, well, then, do you want to get Jimmy started on pulling the research and I’ll pick up dinner?”
Her guilt twinged that she’d really managed to turn her capable, competent partner into a pizza boy, and she said, “Let’s just call for a pizza. Then we can jump right in.”
He smiled at her warmly, as if he were looking forward to spending the evening working beside her. “Sound good to me.”
The space between them was suddenly just as intense as the look in his eyes, and all at once she felt like she had to get out of the enclosed elevator, even if it meant tearing through the walls herself.
Because it was moments like this where she had to remind herself exactly why, as much as it was killing her to acknowledge, she and Clark weren’t really the friends she’d once thought they were.
The elevator finally landed and she hurriedly stepped out as the doors opened.
She was so focused on effecting her escape without gasping for air aloud that she brushed past Cat on her way out of the elevator.
“Whoa, Lois! Where’s the fire?” Cat shot toward her in an annoyed tone. Her voice completely changed though, now dripping honey, as she glanced past Lois and said, “Hi there, Clark.”
Lois turned, really seeing what she’d missed as her mind waffled over her partner, which was that Cat was dressed in a royal blue evening gown with a thin spaghetti straps, a plunging neckline, and silk shiny enough to make you want to reach out and touch it. Lois watched Cat close her manicured hand around Clark’s upper arm like a Venus fly trap and her felt her temper flare.
“Clark’s busy, Cat. We’re not going to waste time standing here doing the math to see if that dress actually shows more than it covers.”
“Is that why you were in such a rush?” Cat scoffed. “Just can’t stand to be this close to good taste?”
“Why are you dressed up?” Lois asked, her curiosity getting the better of her.
“Vanity Fair is opening an office in Metropolis, and tonight’s their launch party. Everyone who’s anyone is going to be there. Oh,” she said, sounding suddenly surprised, her plucked brow arched, “that must be why you’re not invited.”
“Well, then, go,” Lois spat, unable to tamp down her simmering ire.
“Can’t. I’m waiting for Myerson,” Cat said, rolling her eyes. “He got sent out on that hostage situation.”
For once, Lois could see her point. Myerson was a solid enough reporter, but a little dim as arm candy at this sort of event.
“What hostage situation?” Clark asked.
Cat tugged on her dress a bit, somehow exposing even more of her décolletage. “Something about a robbery and a silent alarm.”
“Way to be up on the breaking news, Cat,” Lois muttered.
But even while she was verbally sparring with Cat, Lois was really watching Clark, who had turned his head slightly and lowered his glasses.
She felt her own head tilt in curiosity.
While it was hard to remember that she was angry at Clark, it was almost harder to remember why. Because until he started in on a new round of truly terrible and pathetically hurried lies, as he excused himself to head to a rescue, he was just so, well, normal. It was so easy to just relax into Clark being Clark.
But he wasn’t Clark.
He was Superman.
So… was he looking for the hostage situation?
He slid his frames back up his nose, and she immediately turned her focus back to Cat, though she’d missed whatever caustic barb she’d been served back.
“You know, a hostage situation could take a while,” Clark said.
She was immediately irritated anew. It could take a while, but based on what she’d just seen, she knew that Clark knew that it would take a while and was trying to pass off his fresh knowledge as a well-educated guess. And while she did, of course, understand there was no way that Clark Kent could tell two reporters that he’d just looked through several buildings to ascertain that Myerson wouldn’t be joining them any time soon, she was angry that she and Clark hadn’t gotten past this yet.
They’d been partners for a year. A year! In that time, she could have come up with a whole battery of worthwhile excuses to use on his behalf. They could have worked out a signal by now, so that he could communicate in public that he’s just used one of his super skills and now needed to dash off to use more of them. He could be telling her what he saw over her new favorite spicy pork and noodle dish that he’d specifically offered to pick up from Shanghai. They could be even closer friends than they’d been a week ago, an unstoppable team that was so in sync that it was hard to tell where one of their thoughts ended and the other’s began.
But he hadn’t told her.
So instead they were here.
In purgatory.
His hand went to his tie and she felt her frustration mount at the familiar gesture and what she now knew it meant. He was going to go to that hostage stand-off and lie to her again. Her anger was rising so high in her throat that she felt sick.
Meanwhile, Cat huffed. “I’d better go tell Perry he needs to assign someone else to come with me, then.” Her head turned back to Clark, and her voice turned saccharine and sultry at the same time. “Unless you’d like to escort me tonight?”
“That’s a great idea,” Lois heard herself say.
“What!?” Cat asked incredulously.
“What?” Clark asked at the same time, surprise written across his features.
“I think that’s a great idea,” she said again, hating this plan of sending her partner off with Cat but just plain hating him more right now.
“But Lois,” Clark protested gently, “weren’t we going to go over the council’s campaign records?”
“Ugh, snore,” Cat editorialized.
“I can do it on my own,” Lois dug in stubbornly.
Clark looked visibly uncomfortable, and his hand went back to the knot at his tie.
She suddenly understood. He needed to work with her tonight so that he could then escape her and go help the robbery hostages, the same way he had a hundred other times with a hundred other rescues. He was about to lie to her again.
And she couldn’t stand it.
She knew he needed to help those hostages.
But it didn’t need to be her that he lied to.
She reached past Cat and hit the elevator’s call button to go back down. “So you go on with Cat, and I’ll just get a head start on those financials.”
Cat looked between them, obviously sensing the discord.
“Lois, I can’t let you do it all on your own," Clark protested. "Besides, I was going to get us a pizza for dinner and—“
She already heard the lie coming. He was setting it up right now. She snapped.
“And I think the financial records will still be there tomorrow,” she said in a rush, herding him toward the slowly opening elevator doors.
“But Lois—“ he protested again.
“Oh, don’t worry about it! I’ll go let Perry know,” she said, standing in front of the doors so he couldn’t easily slip out.
The last thing she saw as the doors closed on him were Cat’s manicured claws sinking into his arm.
Good, she told herself unconvincingly.
Let him try to get away from that.
He deserved it, she reminded herself, feeling herself deflate.
So why didn’t she feel better?
Dropping her hand from the elevator door, where it had inadvertently landed, she spun around down the ramp.
“Jimmy!”
She’d tell Perry about Cat’s man swap for the evening and then spend the night with Councilman Wittier’s recent bank deposits.
At least, half her attention would be on the bank records.
The other half would be on the televisions mounted to one wall of the bullpen, and specifically on whichever news channel was covering the ongoing hostage situation.
Because she’d been the person that had made it harder for Superman to get to that rescue.
So if anything happened to any of the hostages…
It would be her fault.
It was going to be a long night.
As she headed toward Perry’s, she sort of wished she’d let Clark pick up that pizza after all.
*****