The Dance

The Dance

The Dance

Copyright April 24, 2008

A/N: This is a one shot and outside the continuity of Shadows or All I Have.

***

The Daily Planet Christmas party was in full swing. The fifth floor ballroom was decked out in evergreen swags and silver balls, mistletoe and spruce trees. This year a stage hypnotist would be putting on a show for them but currently a DJ was playing a collection old dance tunes. Richard White knew he wasn’t going to be making it out onto the dance floor, at least not with his fiancée.

Lois Lane, queen of the Daily Planet, was holding court on the far side of the room. Jimmy Olsen and several others from the newsroom were listening, nodding sagely as she spoke. No doubt she was filling them in on her latest successful investigation. It was either that or Superman. It didn’t matter in any case. Chances were that none of them were sober enough, even this early in the party, to remember any of this tomorrow. The one exception was a tall, gangly man named Clark Kent – Queen Lois’s court jester.

Kent was watching Lois and her court with a bemused expression as he nursed his one drink of the evening. It was something Richard had noticed early on about Kent. The tall Midwesterner never let drink go to his head. Richard considered that one more item on his list of reasons why he didn’t like Kent.

Richard grabbed another drink from a passing tray, ignoring his uncle’s warning glare in his direction. Richard White hadn’t even heard of Clark Kent until Perry White had announced the man was returning to the Daily Planet after a near six year absence. It was Jimmy Olsen who had filled Richard in on the particulars concerning Kent’s previous career at the Planet. In fact, Jimmy’s praise had been so effusive that Richard had wondered which team Olsen was batting for.

Lois said nothing about the man, although she seemed pleased enough when she finally saw him at work the day after Superman’s triumphal return. That was four months ago.

“Richard’s an assistant editor here who’s basically saved our international section. He’s also a pilot and he likes horror movies…” Lois had told Kent after introducing him to Richard. “Clark is… well, Clark…”

Kent had seemed innocuously inoffensive. He was a good solid writer who accepted the assignments handed to him with few comments or complaints and who rarely missed his deadlines. But that described nearly every journalist working at the Planet. Then Richard started reading Kent’s previous work and discovered one of the reasons his uncle had invited Kent to return to the Daily Planet’s family – the Midwesterner wasn’t simply a good writer. He was a great writer.

Then Richard read the pieces that Kent had written in partnership with Lois Lane and realized he could easily come to hate the tall man. Lois Lane was probably one of the best investigative reporters in North America. But with Kent by her side, the best became even better. “Together they were magic,” his uncle had told him when he asked about it.

For the sake of the newspaper, Richard said nothing when Lois chose to team up with her former writing partner to investigate the blackout that hit Metropolis followed by Lex Luthor’s mad attempt to destroy the world. Richard said nothing when Kent disappeared for two days and Lois lied to cover for him. If it had been anyone else, himself included, Richard knew that Lois would have left them hanging out to dry. But Kent was Lois’s spear carrier, confidant, personal editor, gofer, clown – at least while at work.

She had told Richard that she had never loved Superman. At the time he hadn’t asked what her feelings had been about her co-worker. Now he was afraid to.

Richard didn’t want to think about the many late nights that she and Kent were spending together on stakeouts. More reason to hate the man. Lois had stopped going on stakeouts until Kent came back.

She still said she loved him. She still slept in their shared bed. But now there was something missing. The fire that had been there in the beginning was fading away. The passion was all but gone, all but her passion for work.

Richard suspected Kent had more than a little bit to do with Lois’s change. He had even gone so far as to suggest to his uncle that Kent be transferred to someplace like Lifestyle, or even one of the Planet’s sister papers. Perry simply looked at Richard like he’d grown a second head.

Later Richard would wonder why he did what he did at the party. But at the time it seemed almost rational. It was probably the drink. One thing Richard knew about Lois was that she loved to dance. She and Richard used to go dancing at least once a week. Kent didn’t dance. Hell, the man could barely make it across the floor of the newsroom without bowling someone over.