Now You're Gone

18

Their modest Victorian home swam into focus. Lois surveyed the broken planters on their porch through the misty clouds. Her mouth soured at the memory of Barry. She had been so focused on her own Leaguer she completely forgot about their friends. The Flash was running with a bomb strapped to his ankle."Barry?"

"Back home with Iris, and the boys," Clark duck through their open bedroom window. "He ran through a glacier and vibrated the bomb off," Clark unzipped the suit.

"Bat's idea?" Lois plopped into the armchair by the closet to watch Clark undress. He kicked the red boots off with attitude. Her head pounded with his unchecked anger.

They were his plans to begin with!

course he had a failsafe. What's his contingency plan for backstabbing family members?

"How long are you going to punish him?"

"Till I die," he said dramatically.

"Smallville, you can forgive him for attacking the League, but not this little hiccup?"

"He lied to me for years Lois!"

I will never forgive him.

"Lying by omission is not a lie," She threw Clark's words back at him.

"The thing with Superman was an entirely different situation!" Clark screamed. "You and I are not related."

You were not the last of your people.

There was an excited yap and Krypto wriggled onto her belly. Lois mindlessly scratched the mutt behind the ears. "You still let me believe you were two separate people for years."

"Not the same!" He reiterated. "You have no idea what it's like to be alone. You have six first cousins and that's not including their kids," he slowly unzipped the spandex, fingers trembling with fury. "I had nobody."

"Cry me a river!" Lois was getting frustrated with this poor-pitiful me bullshit. "You had Jill. Is she not your cousin anymore? If this doesn't work out," she rubbed her belly. "Are you going to treat our adopted children any different?"

"That's beside the point!" Clark pried the spandex off and threw it in the laundry basket. The two triangles on his chest were harsh red lines in the dimly lit bedroom. "He let me believe I was the last Kryptonian for decades!"

Batman even taught me Kryptonese!

"And you didn't think that was a red flag worth investigating?"

"He's Batman," Clark shrugged. "Batman knows weird shit."

"God, you're so naive, but I love you," Lois chuckled. Clark scowled. "Do I need to spell it out for you?" She sat upright and Krypto jumped down and wandered to the window. He sniffed a puddle of melted snow under the curtain. "Only a Kryptonian could have taught him the dead language."

"Well, yeah . . . I just thought—"

"You thought what, Clark?" Lois was in stitches.

"The Batcomputer taught him?"

"Something like that."

Batman told me he found a Kryptonian android and learned from him.

"And you believed him?"

"It seemed legit at the time!" Clark's ears reddened. "You see? Lies upon lies. Would it have been so bad if I knew?"

"He was trying to protect you."