Noticing Things

By ljp

Disclaimer: I own nothing.

Type: One shot.

Genre: Superman Returns, movieverse.

Clark didn't have to wait long before seeing Jason again; Lois brought him to the Planet the very next morning. He found it difficult, he realized, concentrating on his writing, knowing Jason was just a few cubicles down coloring a picture, practically oblivious to Clark's presence.

After he left Lois's the night before, he had flown above the clouds to both seek out the sun and think – think about Lois, about Jason, about himself as both Clark and as Superman. He came to no good conclusion, however, and half of him hoped he wouldn't be thrust into a situation where he had Jason smiling and laughing in front of him so soon.

Grimacing, Clark trained his hearing on Jason's conversation with his mother while keeping his focus on his computer screen.

"Jason, sweetheart, what are you drawing? Is that Superman?" Lois asked gently, interested.

"It's Mr. Clark," he said.

Lois paused. "Clark?" she asked, strained. "But that looks like Superman."

Jason murmured in affirmation.

Clark tensed, his already-heightened senses heightening further. Surely there was no way Jason had figured it out…

"See," the boy was saying, "these are his disguise."

"His glasses?" Lois asked, amused, but to Clark's sensitive hearing she sounded like she was choking on the words.

He turned his face just enough to watch for reactions.

"Jason, Clark isn't Superman," Lois said sternly.

The boy only shrugged, never lifting his blue crayon from the paper.

Lois caught him looking at them. He raised his eyebrows and jerked back to his computer screen as if to show he was embarrassed to be looking at her the same time she had looked at him, and he hoped she wouldn't think he was eavesdropping.

Lois cleared her throat. "But it's a very good drawing anyway," she was saying.

Sirens and a woman's scream from across town drowned out the rest of Lois's thought, and Clark knocked his coffee cup over on his way out of his chair. The brown liquid stained his notes. He pushed his glasses higher on his nose and, ignoring the coffee, hurried for the door.

"Clark!" He spun to find Lois looking at him. "Where are you going?"

"Ah, gee Lois, I forgot to pick up my suit from the dry cleaners, and I'm going to need it if I want to see your Pulitzer ceremony tonight." His gaze darted toward the doors to the elevator. The sirens were burning his ears now, worsening. "I won't be long." Without giving her a moment to reply, he raced for the door.

Lois stared at the spot Clark had just been. She shook her head a bit, closing her eyes. He was always forgetting things, always rushing off to take care of some inane task.

"Mommy, look," Jason said. He was pointing at the television suspended above her desk.

The color drained from Lois's face.

"Just seconds ago, Superman arrived on the scene," the reporter said, hope in his voice. "Three people have already been rescued from the building, and Superman has set to work on extinguishing the fire. It won't be long now–"

Lois gripped the back of Jason's chair.

"Mommy?"

She looked back over her shoulder at Clark's desk, where the coffee was dripping over the side, then down at her son.

The corners of Jason's mouth were turned down, and his blue crayon lay next to Superman's head on the paper in front of him. "What's wrong?"

She shook her head and looked at the TV, barely noticing the rush of blue and red in front of the camera. "Nothing, sweetheart, Mommy's fine."

"Mr. Clark will be right back," he said in a tone that seemed meant to comfort her. He turned back to his paper and finished the glasses on Superman's face, the glasses that Clark wore and Superman did not. "He just has to save those people right now."

Lois nodded vaguely, feeling her stomach churn and drop and her head grow heavy. There really was just no possible way, she thought, but she couldn't seem to convince even herself.