going to become Superman. In this part: Clark returns from training to find five years have passed, and he puts his plans for two distinct identities into effect.
: DC and Gough & Millar and all those people are the owners. I'm just playing in their world for my own amusement and intend no copyright infringement.
: Don't worry; Oliver will be present in the next part. As for this part, I hope it still works for you. I've had writer's block on it for so long that once I actually started writing it, I knew I would have no objectivity about this part at all. I was right.
. It won Moderator's Choice for Best Story. Go check out the community; it's awesome.
Part Two: Genesis
When Clark comes out of the training trance, he flies back to Smallville because it still feels more like home than Metropolis. And he can fly, now. It’s hard to be afraid of heights after everything he’s learned, and the thrill he gets from speeding through the clouds is like nothing he’s ever known.
He’s more than a little surprised to walk into the Talon and find out five years have passed, and he wishes Jor-El had been a bit more forthcoming about exactly how long his training would take. Before he does anything else, he calls his mother to tell her he’s still alive and to expect him for dinner. He has an idea, a plan he intends to put into place, but he’ll need her help.
And he wants to see his mother again. He’s missed her.
He really wants to see Oliver again, but there was a reason he’d left in the first place, and the memory of Oliver’s face that night in the alley is one that’s never faded over the years he spent standing in ice and snow and gaining the knowledge of the universe.
Just because he didn’t know how long he’d been gone didn’t mean he wasn’t aware that time was passing. It turns out his mind can think about a lot more things at one time than Clark ever thought possible. There was never a moment when Oliver hadn’t been on his mind and present in every thought that lay underneath each new fact he learned. And that look, that stunned expression on Oliver’s face, is still the most vivid of Clark’s recent memories.
So he won’t be searching out Oliver’s heartbeat and flying over to say a casual hello.
It’s not likely Oliver will want anything to do with him, anyway, if he even remembers Clark’s name after five years. Hell, he could be married for all Clark knows.
And that’s a thought that chills him more than all his time in the Arctic. For a long moment, Clark can’t catch his breath, but then he forces himself to remember that there was never anything more between them than friendship in the few months they knew each other, anyway. It doesn’t make any difference if Oliver is married or not.
It can’t make a difference.
There’s simply too much he’s going to have to do, too many responsibilities he’s about to take on. Clark knows what he has to do, now, and he doubts there will be room in his life for romance even if the possibility existed.
The world has changed. The meteor freaks seem mostly to have weeded themselves out, and if Clark knew that would happen, he would have left them to their own devices a long time ago and never tried to rein them in. But there are a lot more criminal masterminds and bizarre super-villains than he knows quite what to do with right now. And he knows he’ll never run out of the garden variety of criminals.
It seems there are also more heroes, too, however. Watching the news with his mother his first night back, Clark learns that Oliver’s justice team is off the ground and running, with fairly decent membership numbers, and some guy in a bat costume has taken over Gotham’s fight against criminal activity. It looks like Clark will fit right in with what he’s planning.
And Oliver is still alive.
Clark feels like he can breathe again, now that he knows that.
Over dessert, he fills his mother in on his ideas, and he watches her face grow increasingly concerned. Clark knows what she’s going to say before she opens her mouth, but he listens, anyway.
“Clark. Sweetie, I know you want to help people, and I can’t tell you how proud I am of you for that. Your father would be so proud, too. But are you sure you’ve thought this through?”
“Yes, Mom.”
“But, Clark, you’ll have to pretend to be someone you’re not. Recreating Clark Kent… Honey, you’ll never be able to be yourself around people. Your whole life will be a lie.”
Clark refrains from pointing out that his life has always been a lie. He’ll just be playing up the lie and exaggerating a few details.
“And what are you going to say to explain why you disappeared for five years?”
“Well, what did you tell people?”
* * *
So Clark Kent makes his triumphant, barely-noticed return from backpacking through Europe, and it’s a good thing he’s gained all that knowledge from Jor-El so he can fake his way through the conversations if and when people ask him about his time abroad. Not that there are any people left who will be curious, except perhaps Lex, but Clark has plans for that, too.
He stays with his mother a few more days, long enough for her to feel she’s been appropriately supportive and motherly, and just long enough for him to learn what he needs to know about the proper documentation he will now require. And then he flies back to the Fortress to get the A.I. to create what he needs. Clark was very happy to know his parents had left him a lot more than a palace of ice with a way to kill Zod and his father’s voice able to trade corpses once and once only.
Actually, the Fortress became a lot more helpful once he had retrieved the strange diary/necklace thing of Jor-El’s from the caves. Not just a memoir, it turned out to be the missing piece that fully activated the A.I., and Clark really wants to know why his parents never thought to tell him how to turn on the wondrous machine with all the knowledge of the universe that was supposed to help him take over Earth. He’d had to figure out for himself that there even was a damn on-switch, and then he’d had to figure out what flipped it. Sheer dumb luck had led him to retrieve Jor-El’s journal and try it. Really, couldn’t they have given him some of their precious knowledge before sending him off to a distant planet? Kryptonian logic often seems lacking, in Clark’s opinion.
Regardless of their faults, however, his parents did leave him a hell of an inheritance, so although he’s still working through the details of his costume, Clark knows already what symbol will be front and center on his chest. It’s close enough to the brand he wore that first wild summer in Metropolis that he briefly considers not wearing it, but then he remembers how much he owes his birth parents and changes his mind.
Besides, Clark gets a bit of a kick out of knowing he’ll be displaying Jor-El’s symbol while saving people instead of conquering them. He thinks it might be latent teenage rebellious tendencies that make him want to thumb his nose a little at Jor-El, in spite of everything. But at least his rather dictatorial birth-father should be happy he’ll be wearing the symbol at all when he goes out, right?
In the meantime, he starts reintegrating Clark Kent into society. It’s important that he establish his new persona before introducing the superhero guise, and he knows he has to be seen and accepted in his new, harmless role by the few people left who might be suspicious. Like Lex.
Clark has made inquiries and done his research like a good little novice reporter with an online degree and a few small British publications under his belt, and he knows Lex was acquitted of all charges in Lana’s death. There was never a moment when Clark had doubted Lex’s ability to evade a prison sentence, although he is surprised to learn that the trial had lasted for nearly a year. Apparently Lionel had given evidence against his son, and Clark thinks testifying against family members must be a long-standing Luthor tradition. It makes him wonder about the car accident that killed Lionel eight weeks after the verdict, but he can’t be certain Lex had something to do with it. He wasn’t here, after all.
So this is the first thing Clark won’t confront Lex about, but it won’t be the last. If Lex is to believe he’s reverted back into the nervous, awkward, unthreatening person he’d been at fifteen, Clark will have to forego charging onto Luthor property and voicing his righteous rage, which is a shame, because he’d grown quite fond of those moments. There was nothing quite like hurling accusations at a guilty man, and Clark is grateful that his other identity means he won’t have to give it up entirely. He thinks of it as a job perk, an inexpensive form of catharsis or therapy to which he wouldn’t otherwise have access.
Pete, of course, will know it’s him once the news reports and video footage start appearing, but Pete knows how to keep his mouth shut about Clark’s secrets. Pete knows how to keep his mouth shut around him, period. In fact, Clark is still a little angry with Pete for dropping him so completely once he’d moved away. He had tried so many times to contact Pete, but it was as if after leaving Smallville, Pete had decided Clark didn’t exist. Part of Clark can’t blame him for wanting to forget and to distance himself from Clark’s dangerous secrets, but a bigger part can’t forgive the person who walked away after being his closest friend since before they started first grade.
Clark has a lot of issues, but he accepts that. Five years of study and introspection have done him a lot of good, he thinks.
The real challenge is one for which Clark had never prepared himself. Because when he walks into the Daily Planet for the first time since Chloe… since he’s been back, ready to begin his new journalism career even if he is starting in obituaries, the first person he sees is Lois. He stumbles for half a millisecond before regaining his balance, and then after another millisecond’s thought, turns it into a full-fledged trip-and-fall the likes of which no one has seen from him since freshman year.
It’s a rather stunningly humiliating debut, if he does say so himself, and it couldn’t work better as Clark Kent’s introduction to the Daily Planet. There is laughter and scattered applause, and only one person stoops to help him up and ask if he’s alright, and then Lois is there. Standing in front of him and taking in his ill-fitting suit, poor posture, cheap haircut, and heavy-framed glasses.
“Smallville. God, you went to the dogs, didn’t you? What the hell are you doing here?”
He wonders if it’s possible that five years wasn’t long enough for his training.
“Hi, Lois. Wow, it’s really great to see you, again. It’s my first day on the job, today; you’re looking at an actual reporter for the Daily Planet. What about you?”
And that’s when he gets the shock of his life. Lois Lane is the Planet’s newest investigative reporter, and Clark doesn’t know how the hell that happened. He fakes a sneeze to cover his surprise, but as he explains about his allergies, he is forcibly reminded of the last time he sneezed in this building, when he and Chloe had been learning about his new ability. Watery eyes are an excellent reinforcement of his purported allergies, however, and he supposes he should be thankful for that.
He still doesn’t know what to make of Lois Lane, reporter, though. It’s the biggest surprise he’s had since he came back.
What turns out to be a little less surprising and more reassuring, if a bit hurtful, is how quickly and effortlessly Lois accepts the new Clark Kent. She acts as if Clark was always a rumpled, accident-prone, helpless geek, and part of him knew that was how she always talked about him, but he never knew it was how she actually thought of him.
As he walks home from work that first night, Clark reminds himself that this is exactly what he wanted to happen, what he’d been planning for. He’ll have to grow accustomed to people being slightly contemptuous of him, because from now on, Clark Kent won’t be miraculously in the right place at the right time. He won’t be mysterious or intriguing at all. No, Clark Kent will be downright tedious and forgettable.
It’s a good thing he will have his other identity as a saviour from above to soothe his battered ego.
* * *
It is more of a strain than Clark had anticipated, holding off on the implementation of his new identity. He knows it is necessary to have Clark Kent firmly entrenched in his life and thus free from any suspicion or scrutiny when he flies onto the scene in the outfit he can’t quite believe he let his mother talk him into, but not using his powers means he has to listen to too many things happen that he could prevent.
And Clark has to keep reminding himself he won’t be able to save anyone at all if he’s locked up in a cage or a lab, although that doesn’t help him sleep any better. His powers seem to grow stronger as he ages—the effect of the yellow sun accumulating as if he were a solar panel, as he learned from Jor-El—and a pillow over his head is even less effective at drowning out the noise than it was five years ago.
The thing he regrets most about being this new Clark is his inability to go out and pick up the kind of anesthesia he once found at Obsidian. Especially since he’s still dreaming about Oliver. Dreams that are as erotic and explicit as ever, and Clark is grateful he doesn’t have to explain to anyone why he washes his sheets so often. He sleeps so rarely, these days, and when he does, he can’t exactly call it restful. He misses sex and the feeling of being inside another person’s body. Or having someone else inside him.
But this Clark Kent would never attract the kind of attention he used to, and he can’t risk flying to another city to play Kal and get laid until he brings out his other identity and won’t have to worry about people seeing a flying man.
Until then, he dreams.
He tries not to pay too close attention when Queen Industries makes the news, but there is a stack of newspaper clippings and press photos in a box under his bed that Clark keeps carefully dusted. And his fast-approaching heroic debut means he needs to stay current on this Justice League that Green Arrow had founded, so if a few blurred Green Arrow photos make their way into the box, it’s not as if he has someone in his life to hide it from.
Clark succumbs quickly to his burning need to know about Oliver, and he’s rather pathetically relieved to find out Oliver is unmarried. He doesn’t have to wonder why; secret identities are not conducive to long-term, healthy relationships.
He does wonder, though, what made Oliver cede leadership of the League to this Batman person. The Oliver he remembers liked being in charge and was good at it. Clark finds it hard to believe that Oliver would willingly be a subordinate to anyone, or that a man in a batsuit would ever be a better leader than Oliver. Of course, he could be biased, but then, one of the things Clark knows he has to work on the most is being impartial. He has never been terribly objective about the people he loves, and it is unfortunate that the only person he really cares about other than his mother is also in the hero trade. Clark has heard all about the dangers of personal relationships in the workplace, and he supposes he should be thankful that Oliver will probably avoid him as much as possible when their paths cross while saving the world.
And Clark has no doubt that Oliver will know the person flying around in tights is Clark Kent. For all the aspects of his life he had kept secret from him, he had shared too much with Oliver for him not to figure everything out. Not that he worries Oliver will tell anyone, or that Bart, Victor, and A.C. will. There are still a few people he can trust in this world, even if the number is fast dwindling.
He tries not to think about an endless graveyard.
Clark tries not to think about Oliver’s grave, in particular.
When he wakes up one morning from yet another dream of Oliver, aching and hard, with a suspicious wetness on his cheeks, Clark decides he can’t wait any longer. If people don’t dismiss Clark Kent as harmless and utterly uninteresting by now, they never will.
Even Lex had looked right through him when they’d run into each other after Lois’s interview last week. There had been no trace of Lex’s former obsession with Clark and what Lex thought he could do. So Clark hadn’t gotten to use his kiss of oblivion, after all, which was somewhat disappointing, but he holds out hope for its use should Lex become suspicious once he starts hearing about a man who can fly. (The kiss is a bizarre Kryptonian power, but he finds it fascinating.)
But right now, Clark has let enough time pass for no one to connect his reappearance with the emergence of a new flying hero, and he’s anxious to put everything he’s been working toward into action.
That day at the Planet, when Clark’s hearing picks up the implosion of the old hospital going horribly awry, he has already twisted loose his tie and hit the stairs before he registers what he’s doing. And then it’s just the suit and the sky and the thrill of flight.
* * *
Three and a half weeks after Clark Kent starts working at the Daily Planet, Lois Lane writes the story of her career.
She’s being forced to cover the hospital implosion as punishment for a few minor, unsubstantiated accusations she’d made about Lexcorp’s latest defense contract that had caused some legal problems before she’d printed a retraction, and she’s bored out of her skull. Smallville’s not even around to mock for his hideous lack of style, and she’s wondering if she can sneak off for a coffee while all the boring speech-making is occurring, when there is an ahead-of-schedule explosion and the building starts coming down with everyone still way too close.
All she can do is wonder who will write this story when all the reporters are here and about to be dead.
Then suddenly, all eighty-two journalists, politicians, demolitions experts, and gawking passersby are several blocks away watching a red and blue blur flying around and minimizing the damage to every neighbouring building.
When the dust clears, their mysterious saviour turns to go without saying a word.
And Lois never wears heels for exactly this reason. She’s running for a cab and already composing headlines about the flying man when she sees him pause, mid-air, long enough for her to see intense blue eyes and the kind of body only Michelangelo could really create, and it’s all on display in material so tight and revealing her underwear gets damp.
The weird S-shape on his chest catches her eye and forces her to raise her gaze above the belt, and ‘SUPERMAN’ pops into her head like the brightest and most clichéd light bulb ever.
She thinks she might be in love.
Continued in Part Three: Repercussions, or What Oliver Did
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ollieville. It won Moderator's Choice for Best Story. Go check out the community; it's awesome.
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Date: 2007-07-15 12:44 am (UTC)this was a great chapter and i love the emergence of superman. can't wait till he joins the league.
that last line was priceless. :)
great work! can't wait to see more. :D
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Date: 2007-07-15 01:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 12:50 am (UTC)Anyway, they should just talk to YOU. Obviously, you know what you're doing. LOL
I'm dying, DYING, for more of this. I can't wait to see what's going on with Ollie, and for the two of them to meet again. You have me on a hook...don't be cruel, now. LOL
Bravo, Kay!
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Date: 2007-07-15 01:40 am (UTC)I do wish Smallville would jump 5 years ahead and call itself 'Metropolis' which is partly why I wrote this, I guess. I'm glad it's working for you.
I've started an Ollie part, and I hope to have it finished relatively soon. He's being all evasive on me, but I'm chasing him down.
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Date: 2007-07-15 12:57 am (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-07-15 01:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 11:27 am (UTC)Loving it.
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Date: 2007-07-15 06:41 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-07-15 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-07-15 07:28 pm (UTC)this part was really intriguing to me! I hope you will have in the future have chapters from Ollie's POV!
plus, I like that you incorporated the kiss of oblivion, and I am curious, if you will use it in your fic in the future!
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Date: 2007-07-15 08:01 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: 2007-07-17 12:31 am (UTC)