Fic: Waypoint Chlark PG (one section is R) 4 of 9
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Chloe clutched tightly when he first took off, which Clark couldn’t help appreciating. Then she couldn’t stop babbling about how cool flying was. It was cute.
It had been so very quiet without her, or really he reminded himself, without his wife. Clark smiled as Chloe shifted around to get a better look at this or that. He stopped off on the top of the Planet Globe, just because. Looking for Wayne Fitzgerald could wait for this. The smile on Chloe’s face was just as bright as he expected. She held out her arms and did a little turn, looking in every direction. She walked up to him after a few minutes and put her hand on his shoulder saying, "This is amazing, thank you."
"Yeah, it’s my favorite power." They fell silent for a while, until eventually he noticed her shiver. It was windy up here. It was probably time to move along, so he made a suggestion, "So, about Wayne. Maybe you could let me handle things. "
"What do you mean?"
"I just mean the direct approach. Generally criminals find a huge looming alien intimidating. They tend to start babbling."
"You just don’t want to change out of the cape."
"Maybe, but it works." She nodded. He put his hands on her waist. "Ready?"
"What’s my line," she teased. "I seem to have forgotten. Oh yeah, up up and away"
"That’s the one."
Clark felt a little silly standing in the hallway knocking at this guy’s door. Usually, as Superman, he liked to make a big entrance, swooping into a window or something, or just hovering outside. That was impractical with Chloe along. The stern arms crossed over chest pose just didn’t work when you were carrying a cute blonde. He heard the steps approaching the door. He x rayed the door, wary of guns. The young man came up to the peephole, took one look and backed away.
"I can see you Wayne," he said in his most authoritative tone. "Open the door. You have something you need to return." The fellow grabbed something, tucked it in his shirt, and bolted towards the fire escape. Clark super sped over to block his escape. Now seemed like a good time for picking up the bad guy by the collar. That tended to rattle the small time crooks. This man tried to twist away though, and almost went over the fire escape. Clark grabbed him under the arms, and whatever he had in his shirt fell to the sidewalk with a crash. Clark held his man, and looked down past the guy’s feet kicking in the air to where the pieces lay on the side walk. It looked like some kind of electronic device. "What’s that Wayne?" he asked.
"You’ve got the wrong guy."
"I don’t think so. What’s that?" How stern did you have to look at punk kids these days? He squeezed the guy just enough to suggest that he was capable of much much more. He heard a some scratching and a click. Did Chloe pick the lock? He looked through the walls to see Chloe opening the door and walking through the apartment.
"I don’t know what to call it. It’s my roommate’s."
Chloe had stepped into the room, and was watching the conversation frowning. "Superman," she said, "that's not the guy."
Clark listened and looked. In the bedroom, there was another man, breathing hard and clutching something. Still carrying the guy he had been holding, Clark sped into the room. There was a sucking noise, and a huge twisted bubble just like Chloe had described earlier. Then the fellow on the bed disappeared, along with some of the bedding. The bedspread and top of the mattress looked as if it had a series of oval holes cut in it. "Who’s that," he asked the man in his hands.
"Wayne, my roommate. Can you put me down, please?"
"Yes, but we’re still going to have a talk. You understand?"
"I understand," the man said.
"First your name."
"Timothy. Tim."
Oh right. It was his apartment. This was not Clark’s finest hour, but he pushed that thought aside. Think stern. Think stern. "Tim, tell me what you know about the device," Clark demanded.
"Wayne and I worked on this technology at Cal Tech. I couldn’t keep my loan, so I had to get a job." The roommate was babbling. Clark noticed Chloe giving him a very slight knowing smile. "Still, Wayne and I kept working on it, in our own time. It’s not the same stuff as what he has been doing at the University. Somehow Wayne’s prof came up with his own prototype. It looks a lot like ours. Wayne thinks Dr. Don is stealing his designs. He says Don wants to patent the technology and sell it to Luthorcorp. So he took Don’s prototype, and we were going to compare the two. We were going to prove that he had stolen the ideas."
"And why did you run?"
"You aren’t the first one to come for the device. Wayne is scared that Luthorcorp or the government or someone is going to come after it. That’s why he’s hiding out here. But I guess it was stupid of me to think Superman was trying to rob us. I didn’t even know Wayne was home."
Chloe interrupted. "Do you think you could fix the device, Tim?"
"Maybe, if you let me take a look at it."
Clark deliberately hesitated. "I’m going to keep an eye on you, Tim. But if someone comes around and you need help, you can get a message to me through Clark Kent at the Daily Planet. Let me know what you find."
On to Part 5