(TSSFH) CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT: SUPERMAN II

Carol Dallon’s office smelled faintly of coffee and the ink of too many legal binders. The walls were lined with shelves heavy with books, and stacks of files lined the surface of her desk in neat towers, every sheet a small battle in the war she’d been fighting since before Leviathan had leveled half the city.

She sat behind that desk now, her posture slouched, the exhaustion of long nights spent working too long and early mornings etched into the lines of her face.

He looked every inch the polite stranger who had patiently waited a week for this meeting, his glasses slightly smudged by the light rain, tie knotted too simply to be stylish, and voice soft when he introduced himself. Clark had requested this appointment, Clark had left the messages with her assistant, and Clark had waited a week for her to find an hour between court dates and private consultations.

But when he slid that notepad across the desk, pages filled with overheard names, amounts, and connections, it wasn’t Clark Kent she saw.

It was Superman.

Carol’s eyes lingered on the neat, blocky handwriting before rising to meet his. Her expression was unreadable, the kind of mask only a lawyer—and a cape used to living in two worlds—could wear.

“This is… detailed,” she said carefully, tapping one finger against a line of figures. “Too detailed for an outsider. You don’t stumble into this kind of information at a bar, Mr. Kent.”

Clark held her gaze calmly. “I followed the trail where it led.”

“And it just happened,” she pressed, not looking away once, “to lead you into an Empire Eighty-Eight dog-fighting ring. A ring that was raided the same night Superman appeared, broke it apart, and vanished before the authorities could so much as cordon off the block?”

He exhaled slowly. “Yes.”

Her hand stilled. Then she leaned back in her chair, eyes narrowing, the fatigue in them sharpening into a thought-out suspicion.

“You’re Superman.”

The silence that followed stretched long enough for the slow tick of the office clock to become deafening. Clark’s hands tightened against each other before he let them ease open again. There was no point in pretending, at least not with her.

“Yes,” he said quietly. Then, just for her, as a sort of demonstration, his shoulders broadened, and the nervous hunch he had disappeared. His voice deepened too, becoming resonant in a way that seemed to fill the room even though he hadn’t raised it at all.

And suddenly, he wasn’t Clark Kent, mild-mannered unknown anymore. He was unmistakably Superman, the same presence that had silenced a hundred baying crowds, that had stared down powerful humans and monsters alike.

“Yes, I am,” he finished, and as quick as it came, he let it go. His chin lowered slightly, frame shrank inward, and his glasses caught the office’s light like any other man’s.

Carol hadn’t moved the entire time, but her knuckles were white against the notepad she held. Then, suddenly, the corner of her mouth twitched, almost imperceptibly. It wasn't from surprise since she’d already suspected, but from confirmation. She let out a breath through her nose, and for a moment, the stern lawyer mask slipped enough for the implications of what she’d just uncovered to show.

“Most capes cling to their masks like lifelines,” she said. “You give yours up like it’s nothing.”

Clark’s lips curve in not quite a smile. “That’s because this is who I am.”

Something in her eyes softened, just briefly, before she finally closed the notepad and slid it aside. The lawyer returned, voice even. “Fine. Let’s set that aside for now. If I’m to take this seriously, and I do, I need to know what exactly you’re asking of me. Because if you leave this with me and vanish, I can’t promise it won’t die in transit, buried before it ever sees daylight. Anders has reach everywhere.”

Clark leaned forward. “I want him exposed as the corrupt CEO he is, laundering money and funding white supremacists while campaigning as Brockton Bay’s mayor. I want the truth in the open.”

Carol studied him, long enough that Clark heard the faint hitch of her heartbeat, the hesitation of someone weighing risks against opportunity.

“You’re asking me to go after one of the most connected men in this city. A man with more money than sense, judges in his pocket, cops on his payroll, and a campaign machine that makes him look like a hero. You want me to challenge him in court, as a civilian attorney. Just me.”

“I’m not asking you to stand alone,” Clark said. His voice was gentle, but carried the same unshakable certainty that made people believe the impossible. “I’ll be with you, every step of the way.”

Her jaw tightened, and for a moment she looked away, toward the rain streaking down the window, at the distance toward something. When she turned back, her mask of composure was firmly in place again.

“Then we’ll need more than scribbled notes and overheard conversations.” she said. “We’ll need bank records, signed contracts, and affidavits from people who are willing to risk testifying. This—” she tapped the notepad “—is a beginning, but only that.”

Clark nodded once. “Then I’ll get you what you need.”

And just like that, the meeting was over.