Cut From the Same Cape

by LaraMoon <laramoon@mac.com>

Rated G

Submitted January 2007

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Author's Notes:

This is the third installment in my "Clark Kent is Batman... NOT!" series.

The other two stories are "A Sister Would Know" and "Blind... as a Bat!" -- you don't have to read those to be able to understand this - at least, I don't think so - but they're short and funny and... you'd probably like them.

Thanks to Jessi for helping me brainstorm and for "helping" me find new and wonderful ways of procrastinating. *lol* ...and thanks to Google for giving me a hand in finding a title. hehehe!

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Cut From the Same Cape

Lois stood, rooted in place, on the tarmac of the small private airport where Miranda had tried to dispose of her just minutes before. She was faintly aware of Lex Luthor's presence near her, but she didn't much care about him anymore. He could go back to his home and burn dollar bills in his fireplace, for all the difference it made to her now. She had been kissed by Superman. Kissed. By Superman.

Yet, the most extraordinary thing about it wasn't the kiss. No.... What really had Lois completely stunned was that as he kissed her, she had understood something. Something that was almost unbelievable. Something she'd ruled out as being possible weeks ago! But there it was and, what was more, she was absolutely certain that she was right. Superman was also Clark Kent. Her eyes might have fooled her into thinking he wasn't - a different hairstyle and glasses could work if you really didn't pay enough attention - but not all her senses were that defective.

She had kissed Clark twice before. Once, on Trask's plane, as an excuse so she could get close enough to tell him about her plan, and once as he said goodbye to her when he'd left the Planet during the heat wave. And both times, although she would never - ever! - admit this to another living soul, both times she'd felt this little "something" that she was almost afraid to define. This little tingle or shiver or... whatever it was that had made the kiss special and had seared it to memory. She'd felt this exact same thing just now as Superman had kissed her. There was *no way* it was a coincidence, it couldn't be!

This wasn't her only clue, anyway. He'd let a really big hint drop a few weeks ago when he had mumbled that she'd be surprised at how good he'd look, clad in flashy spandex tights. At the time, Lois believed that Clark was Batman. Lucy had convinced her of it and so she'd tried to confront him about it. Of course he'd denied the allegations. But his comment - which she had probably never been meant to hear in the first place - had led her to believe that Clark might have had a secret identity he was hiding. And while she had crossed off Superman right away from her list of possibilities, she now knew that she'd been wrong to do so. Even if Superman had shown up in Metropolis only a few months ago, it didn't mean that he had landed on Earth only a few minutes prior to his first appearance. Similarly, Clark might have been raised in Kansas - which she knew to be a fact as she'd sat through an exhaustive presentation by his mom of several dozen baby pictures - but that didn't mean he couldn't have been born elsewhere; like Krypton, for instance.

There was too much evidence pointing to the one inescapable fact. Lois could no longer ignore or deny it. Superman was Clark. Clark was Superman. She'd been investigating stories with the Man of Steel and had been rescued from the jaws of death by her mild-mannered partner. As mind-boggling as this was, Lois knew that it had to be the truth.

And then suddenly, something else dawned on her. The baby pictures she'd seen... That incredibly cute little picture that had embarrassed Clark half to death; the one his mom had said was just the most adorable one she had - and she had over sixteen photo albums full of nothing *but* pictures of Clark! The one where a one-year-old Clark, coming out of the tub, was wrapped in a yellow towel with nothing showing of him but two big brown eyes and his bare bottom. That... was Superman? In a yellow towel. Coming out of the bathtub. Oh, dear God! That cute little baby tushy in the picture... was Superman's.

Lois burst into laughter.

She laughed so much, her knees threatened to give from under her and she had to lean on Lex for support, or she'd have fallen to the ground. It took a long while before she was able to regain her composure. Lois blamed her euphoria on the pheromone compound and hoped with all her heart that Luthor would believe the lie. Finally having gotten rid of him - after several long minutes of trying to convince him that the last thing in the world she needed was him babying her - she had gone back to the Planet.

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All the way up to the newsroom, on the elevator, Lois had willed herself into her best poker face. She needed to act casually. She couldn't very well walk in there and double over with laughter at the first sight of Clark. If only she hadn't seen the baby pictures! As the elevator doors opened, Lois took a deep breath and started walking, all the while looking everywhere except in the direction of Clark's desk. Finally, as she reached her own desk, she made herself look up at her partner.

Lois' heart started pounding in her chest. It might have been amusing a second ago to think about that baby picture Martha had been so proud to show her, but Lois wasn't laughing anymore. She had looked up at Clark and, for the very first time since she'd met him, she'd actually really *seen* him. What was it Lucy had said about him? That he was "dreamy"? Oh, he was dreamy all right - and then some!

As if he'd sensed that she was looking at him, Clark looked up at Lois; his eyes boring right through her, all the way to her soul. At the sight of the devastating smile he wore on his lips, Lois sucked in a sharp breath and staggered a little to the side. Thoughts suddenly came rushing back to her. Clark... Superman. Superman... Clark. Partner... savior. Superhero... friend. Lois felt like she was caught in a whirlpool, pulled downward and about to drown. Her head spinning, she grabbed hold of her chair and tried to steady herself enough to sit down.

Clark gave her a look of concern. "Lois? Are you OK?" he asked, getting up and hurrying over to her. It had just occurred to him that he could very well be the one to blame for her sudden malaise. He had kissed Lois mere minutes after having inhaled a 100% solution of "Revenge"... How much of it could have been left on his breath? What sort of effect could this have had on her? How could he have been so careless?

"Mmm? Oh, yeah." She shook her head, unconvincingly.

Crouching down next to her, Clark extended a hand to her forehead, worried that she might be feverish. Thankfully, Lois didn't seem to be running a temperature, but Clark did notice that she was becoming paler by the second.

"Let me take you home," he suggested, feeling increasingly guilty. "I'll come back and finish this story afterwards."

Lois just nodded and got up, letting him guide her towards the elevator, unable as she was to think straight as she attempted to conciliate the fact that the man standing next to her hid a superhero under his charcoal suit and that eyesore of a tie.

As the elevator doors closed on them, a thought popped into Lois's head and she seemed to finally regain her senses. Although she'd put two and two together and had come up with the conclusion that Clark and Superman were one and the same, she needed to have confirmation. Absolute confirmation.

Before Clark even realized what was going on, Lois had grabbed his tie and pulled him sharply towards her. As they found themselves face to face, Lois leaned in closer and crushed her lips to his. Stunned, Clark's eyes grew wide. The pheromones, he thought. Oh no! It would have been easy for him to move away, even without the use of his extraordinary strength, but Clark's willpower wasn't nearly as strong as his muscles and, throwing caution to the wind, he gave in to her and let himself respond to her kiss.

When she finally let go of his tie and set him free, Lois knew that it hadn't just been a stretch of imagination. Clark Kent really was Superman.

"Um... Lois?" he managed to say, as the shock died down. "I... think you've been affected by the pheromones again."

"Phero...? Huh? No, no. I'm perfectly lucid, Clark," she informed him.

"What? But...? I don't.... Huh?" he mumbled.

"I needed to make sure of something," Lois explained.

"Oh, oh, wait. I get it! This is another one of your little tests, isn't it? Who do you think I am, this week, Lois? Nightwing? Because I can tell you right away, I'm not. We've already established that I'm not Batman and I'm not Green Arrow. And there's no such thing as this spider-kid who clings to walls - he's just a myth. And obviously, I'm not Wonder Woman... So, tell me: who do you think I am, this week, Lois?"

"I know perfectly well who you are," she said. And as the elevator doors opened to reveal the Daily Planet lobby and she started to exit the elevator, Lois added, in a soft whisper meant only for his ears, "Superman."

Clark blinked. How could she...? he wondered. He caught up to Lois who was barely a few steps away.

"How?" was all that he managed to say.

"Like this," she told him, as she turned to face him. Grabbing him by the tie again, she pulled him in for another kiss.

"I may be blind," she explained afterwards, "but I am *not* galactically stupid!"

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Over the next few days, while the sight of Clark Kent unfailingly made Lois weak in the knees, the sight of Superman kept throwing her into a fit of giggles. She could simply not get the baby picture out of her mind! Other reporters soon started asking why Lois kept laughing and why it seemed to embarrass Superman to such a degree that he always fled the scene at super-speed. Lois had served them some ridiculous story about having witnessed Superman, who, wanting to help an old woman across a street, had been hit over the head by the lady's handbag, startled and scared as she was at the sight of this unknown man in an odd ski suit and a cape. They hadn't really bought it at all, but it was all Lois would say and they knew better than to ask Superman himself.

While she no longer finds anything even remotely funny about seeing Superman, to this day, Lois Lane most definitely still feels a little weak in the knees at the sight of Clark Kent.

~ The End ~

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Bottom Dweller's Notes: (gotta love the bottom dweller!)

This was the 3rd and last story in what I had planned to be a trilogy. As you may have noticed from the titles, they go from A to C. I'm nutty that way. *lol* If there is ever going to be a fourth part (people are asking for it already!) its title would start with a D - hopefully no one tries to make me go through the whole entire alphabet... ;)

Table of Contents

Cut From the Same Cape

Cut From the Same Cape

Bottom Dweller's Notes: (gotta love the bottom dweller!)