At First Sight

By NostalgiaKick <feli290412@gmail.com>

Rated G

Submitted May 2015

Summary: Just what was Clark thinking when he first met Lois Lane?

Story Size: 719 words (4Kb as text)

Author’s note: Thanks again to KenJ and Trina for beta-reading and to IolantheAlias for getting it ready for the archives.

Disclaimer: All recognisable characters are the property of DC Comics, Warner Bros and December 3rd Productions.

***

I never believed in love at first sight.

I believed in love, sure — my parents were living proof that it existed. But at first sight? I scoffed, dismissing it as a flight of fancy, food for poets and bad romance novels.

Until today.

…

My name is Clark Kent. I’m a 27-year-old currently unemployed reporter. I was raised in Smallville, Kansas, though my birthplace is anybody’s guess.

For the last few years — ever since college, in fact — I’ve been working as a freelancer. I’ve lived in a multitude of places, never staying anywhere any more than 6 months before moving on — usually precipitously and often in the dead of the night.

I have a secret, you see. Though I look like your average Joe, I’m not quite human. I don’t know what I am — experiment, alien, freak of nature — though I hope to find out. One day. Whatever my origins, I am undeniably different. I can fly and move at faster than the speed of sound. I can start fires with my eyes and freeze things with my breath. I’m also apparently invulnerable, immensely strong and can see through most objects.

Wherever these gifts — curses(?)- come from, they must be for some purpose. I choose to believe that it’s to do some good in the world. That’s the reason I’ve moved on so often. Sooner or later I come across someone that needs my help — and then I have to leave before they can discover my secret. I want to help, but I also want to have a normal life — as much as that’s possible anyway.

But I digress.

Despite all of my travelling, up until now I’d never visited Metropolis. I’ve left it till last, saving it. You see, Metropolis is the home of the Daily Planet, arguably the best newspaper in the world. I’ve dreamed of working there since I first discovered copies of it in the Smallville town library. It has a reputation for unimpeachable integrity and objectivity, its journalists are routinely awarded Merriwethers, Kerths and the much-coveted Pulitzer, as well as a host of lesser awards and its current editor-in-chief happens to be an old friend of one of my college professors, Professor Carlton.

At my request, Professor Carlton called his old friend Perry White and got me an interview. Sometimes it’s not what you know, it’s who you know.

***

It happened during my interview.

Things weren’t going well. Mr. White was distracted and harassed, and I could see my dreams of working at the Planet crumbling.

Then there was yet another interruption. I looked up — and my heart stopped. Barging into Mr. White’s office was the most beautiful woman I have ever seen. I don’t remember standing, yet suddenly I was on my feet. She was a slender, dark haired whirlwind of activity, demanding action on a story about the space program. I stared, I know I did. Never before have I had such an instant reaction to someone, such an instinctive feeling of rightness. It was like a thunderclap, like I’d been living in the dark and suddenly someone had turned on the lights.

It wasn’t just that she was beautiful. I’ve met a lot of beautiful women, and I’m human enough to feel attraction. She was a ball of energy, of fire and passion and humour, and I knew in that instant that I would never be the same.

Our encounter lasted less than thirty seconds — a quick introduction, her petition to investigate the space program, a quip about her assignment — and she was gone.

Soon after, so was I. I didn’t get the job — yet. What I did get was an overwhelming sense that Lois Lane was the one woman I’d been searching for. And a resolve to do anything I had to do to get closer to her.

No matter how long it takes.

THE END