After a short celebration at the agency, Lois and I returned home to have our own private celebration. It lasted for the rest of the evening and we discussed what happened during the exam and I told her everything, even my interactions with Bakugo, Momo, and Ochako.
Without saying anything, Lois handed me my cell phone and mimed me sending a text. I understood that she wanted me to keep my promise to Ochako and I arranged an afternoon get-together to hang out. When I asked Lois if I should let her invite her friends, she shook her head. I typed ‘c u l8r’ and ended the conversation.
“Why can’t I tell her to invite backup?” I asked. “I’m sure she would be more relaxed if earphone jack girl was there, too.”
“Because she might think you want her friend instead of her.” Lois said with a roll of her eyes.
“What?” I asked in surprise. “Why would she think…”
Lois put a finger on my lips to stop me from talking. “Because if you want someone else there, then you’re not giving her your full attention. She’ll assume you don’t want to, or are making time with her friend when you should be spending it with her.”
“Buh…” I mumbled and she moved her finger. “But…”
“Think back on what happened when you went on your second date with Momo.” Lois said and reminded me of what happened.
I sighed and nodded. Deciding on a double date had derailed any plans for us to get to know each other better and Momo spent all of her time with Mei and completely ignored me.
“You don’t want Ochako to feel like that, do you?” Lois asked me.
“No, I don’t.” I said and laid back against the pillow.
“You can stick with casual dress clothes, even though you want to impress her.” Lois advised me.
“Yeah.” I said and thought hard about what to do.
“Stop that.” Lois said with a light slap to my thigh. “Don’t overthink it. Just go out and enjoy yourself. If things work out, then you can start worrying about everything else.”
“Right, okay.” I said and closed my eyes. “If you have any more advice, wake me up.”
Lois softly laughed and pulled the covers over us and cuddled into my side. “All you need to do is remember what you told me before and you’ll see that everything else in the world is just dust in the wind.”
I almost laughed at her using a line like that. She must have seen the amusement on my face, because she lightly smacked my chest and then kissed my neck a few times, then she let out a happy sigh and went right to sleep.
I stopped myself from reacting, because I had been startled at the light smack. I had actually felt it. That was concerning, since Lois was not a metahuman or had a quirk that she could use to attack someone directly. I kept my eyelids closed and gave her a once-over with my X-Ray vision and saw small glints as photons passed through her and passed through something foreign in her blood.
That was concerning, so I used microscopic vision in combination and essentially zoomed in on what I had seen. I caught my breath at seeing a nanobot working on one of her blood cells in one of her arteries. I shifted my gaze a millimeter and saw several more as they reinforced the artery wall to handle the enhanced blood cells.
When I looked deeper at the nanobots, my mind brought to the forefront the OMAC plans and blueprints that Mei had in her safe that I destroyed. I had memorized them and I was glad I did, because Lois had somehow become infected by them. Luckily, I had full control over the OMAC satellite and its functions, so I only had to wait for a short while for Lois to be fully asleep to check it.
When I had waited long enough, I slipped out of bed and used telekinesis to replace myself in her arms with a pillow. I went to my room and dug out the innocuous looking backpack and pulled out the almost completely bare device. I set it up at my computer and used the monitor to check the program, only to find she had been infected for nearly the entire time the satellite had been active.
I double-checked the programming and deactivated the mental override aspect of the program. If Lois was ever in danger, it would cover her in tiny blue armor plates and give her powers to protect herself. Another check on the protocols let me know what powers she could access.
Superhuman physiology that granted enhanced strength, speed, and durability, that was enhanced with those armor plates to make her even more durable. Energy manipulation, that she could discharge in various ways, like shooting blasts at her enemies and using it to fly. Nano-morphing, where she could change her fingers and hands into blades, pincers, and arm cannons to shoot energy.
The biggest thing she could do was adaptive countermeasures. She could develop ways to fight others with powers to counter theirs, which was helped by the OMAC satellite’s Quirk database that Mei had constructed from hacked records from the Hero Association Registry.
The next thing I did was disable the propagation program. I didn’t want anyone else to become infected or to end up having a shared hive-mind with Lois. That would definitely change her beyond recognition and what she was going through was bad enough. I checked on the progress of the conversion and wasn’t surprised to see it was at 89%, since she had been infected for so long.
By the end of the week, Lois was going to become a one woman army corps.
“That looks oddly chilling.” Lois said from behind me.
I jerked slightly in surprise, because I hadn’t heard her. At all. No cloth moving, no breaths, and no feet scuffing across the carpet. I turned slowly around to look at her and she gave me a narrow-eyed look.
“You didn’t detect me?” Lois asked.
“I can’t even hear your heartbeat.” I admitted and her narrow eyes widened, almost comically. I didn’t laugh, though. “You slapped my chest earlier and I actually felt it, so I did some investigating…”
Lois caught her breath and put a hand over her mouth and her other finger pointed at the various diagnostics and displays on the monitor. “That’s me?”
“Yes, it is.” I said and took her pointed hand. “You can’t tell me you didn’t notice that you’ve been keeping up with me in bed lately. You mentioned feeling less tired a few weeks ago and we thought it might be because of how much I’ve been… ahem… sharing with you.”
“I had hoped…” Lois paused and placed her other hand on my shoulder. “What is it? Really?”
I wasn’t going to lie to her, not ever, so I told her exactly what the OMAC satellite was, how it worked, and how I was going to use it to track down the villains now that I was an actual hero. Once I set that in place in her mind, I then explained what had happened to her almost right after I had built the new connection device and what it was doing to her to make her into the perfect counter to powers.
“I do remember being shocked when I touched it that night.” Lois said and had a thoughtful look on her face for several seconds. “I wonder why it didn’t work on you?”
“Because I’m not human. I’m Kryptonian.” I answered.
“Half-Kryptonian.” Lois corrected.
I smiled and shook my head. “Remember me telling you how robust Kyryptonian DNA is? Can you guess what’s becoming dominant inside of me at the same time your own body is being enhanced?”
“So, you’re still half human, only it’s being repressed by the much stronger DNA.” Lois responded.
“Exactly. I’m sure by the time I have kids, it won’t be the 50-50 shot that they’ll have powers like you and Clark thought about me.” I said and she looked shocked. “They’ll still have powers, it’s only their toughness that’ll be hit or miss.”
“Because the DNA by that point would be diluted down to a quarter.” Lois said.
“Unless there’s another Kryptonian out there somewhere, there’s no way for me to ensure that my species doesn’t fade and die out completely in a few generations.”
Lois gave me a searching look for almost ten full seconds before she nodded. She let my hand go and pulled her other hand off of my shoulder and walked out of my room. I thought about watching what she was going to do; but, for some reason, I knew I shouldn’t.
So, I went back to check the programming one last time, locked everything down, set a ridiculous password almost no one would guess, and unhooked it from the monitor. I put it back into my backpack and put it into the closet on a hanger. I thought about actually hiding it, then shrugged. Anyone that knew about the device would assume I had hidden it and wouldn’t think I’d leave it out in plain sight.
I closed the closet door and turned around, only to pause with Lois standing there with a similar metal briefcase that she had given to me to store my superhero suit inside. She stayed silent as she placed it on my bed and then she motioned for me to open it. I thought about asking her why she didn’t, then shrugged and knelt beside the bed and put my thumbs on the two lock releases.
Something tried to poke my thumbs and hit my telekinetic field that I maintained constantly. I jerked back and looked at Lois. She let out a sigh and pointed to her eyes and at the locks. I chuckled and two blasts of intense heat vision popped both locks and I opened the case, then I gasped at the 8 inch long glowing green crystal that sat there inside a velvet covered slot.
“Clark was too afraid of travelling all the way to the North Pole to use it, whatever it is.” Lois said.
“How did he know where to put it?” I asked.
“He gained the coordinates when he touched it the first time.” Lois said and then sighed. “He also gained the obsessive compulsion to go there and complete its suggestion.”
“And you’re giving it to me?” I asked.
“He said it would have whatever answers you might have, since he didn’t have them himself and he couldn’t tell me what he didn’t know.” Lois explained and put her hand back on my shoulder as I stared down at the crystal. “Since you’re a licensed hero and have your own agency, you’re old enough to make these kinds of decisions for yourself.”
I thought about it, I really did. A quick flight around the world, a stop near the North Pole, and then tossing the thing into the snow to find out what would grow from it. The problem with that, was that if it was anything like the ones I knew about, I could be gone from a few months to a few years as I learned about Krypton and the history of the known galaxies.
I closed the case and used heat vision to melt the locks back together and stood. I turned around and saw the shock on Lois’ face. Instead of saying anything, I gave her a kiss, handed her the case, and walked out of my room. It wasn’t that long before it was time for breakfast, so I went to the kitchen to start cooking.
It wasn’t long before I felt delicate hands slide around my waist and hug me. I felt her lips on my back and I turned slightly to give her a one arm hug and a kiss on the lips, then went back to cooking breakfast. Neither of us spoke as I worked and Lois eventually let me go to set the table and we sat down to enjoy the meal together.
“This is my last week at the Daily Planet.” Lois said and scooped some perfectly cooked eggs into her mouth.
“This is my last week off before I need to get to work.” I told her.
Lois glanced down at her coffee cup and I chuckled and gave the cooling liquid a blast of heat vision. She saluted me with the cup and sighed happily after sipping it.
“I want you to have fun on your date today.” Lois said and ate a piece of toast.
I gave her a crooked smile and wagged my eyebrows at her implying what kind of fun I could have. Lois barked a laugh and threw a piece of bacon at me, which I caught and I tossed it into my mouth to chew loudly.
“Ochako sounds like a nice girl.” Lois said and sipped her coffee and went back to her eggs. “I doubt she’ll let you do more than grab her butt when you hug her.”
“Is that considered second base or third base?” I asked, jokingly.
“It’s on the way to third. Just don’t try to get to third while you’re there, even if she’s into it.” Lois warned me and I nodded. “The last thing you want to do is make another mistake like that.”
I agreed with her, so I promised I would be careful and wouldn’t assume anything was going to happen, just because she had been so forward about asking me out after trying to get to know me.
*
Ochako wasn’t sure what had happened or how things had devolved into what they were now. The date with Connor had started out like a typical date, where he said they could do whatever she wanted. She chose an arcade first, mostly because she wanted to know how competitive he was when it didn’t involve heroics.
Going there first had somehow changed to going back to her place so she could change out of her too nice outfit for an arcade and Connor didn’t want her distracting everyone with how nice she looked. Ochako had been flattered and he promised to bring them back after the arcade to let her change again so they could go out to a nicer place to eat.
As they played a few games, she wondered how they had started talking about the upcoming internships and how he had already been hired without any sponsorship. It was an innocent question, except he said he had started his own agency and that they weren’t constrained by the current rules because of it.
When Ochako asked about that, Connor regaled her about how he had brought in ringers to give his agency the best chance to succeed, including the current number one hero’s secretaries. It also legitimized his own license, since he had been picked up by a registered hero agency.
According to the official paperwork, it didn’t matter if he was a provisional hero or not. As long as he had a valid hero license, which he did, the agency could be registered in his name and he immediately hired himself as an intern.
Needless to say, Ochako was instantly turned on because of him manipulating the law like that and asked if he could do the same thing for her. When he called Lois Lane and then his general manager to start the paperwork to hire her for the next two weeks after the short break, they had to rush back to her place to let her change out of her casual outfit and into a more appropriate business outfit.
Well, she was supposed to change. Instead, she had thrown herself at him while wearing only a bra and panties, then she sucked him off and tossed off her last vestiges of clothing and rode him as hard as she could. Her virginity had disappeared even faster than her dignity had and she thoroughly enjoyed him as much as she could.
As she lay on the bed and Connor’s fluids flowed out of two of her holes, Ochako could only think about the paycheck she was going to receive for the two weeks of working as a full fledged hero. She wasn’t only going to earn a pittance because it was a learning experience, like she had when working with Gunhead. Some of her fellow classmates hadn’t received anything last time, actually.
“This was not how I thought this was going to turn out.” Connor commented as he lightly petted her hair.
Ochako blushed slightly before she decided that it was worth it, just to ease some of her family’s worries. Those two weeks at full pay were going to pay for a lot more than just her rent. It would put a significant dent into the debt her parents were suffering through as their construction business fumbled. Other companies could do the same job for less, because of their huge volume of work, and her parents struggled to make ends meet. Not anymore, though.
“I know.” Ochako said, her face red. “I didn’t think… well, I did think about it, only… it wasn’t because of… you know.”
Connor chuckled and pulled her into his side and lightly kissed her cheek. “You don’t have to explain, Ochako. I knew Momo would be spreading a few rumors that Mei fed her, some of which came from my only ex-girlfriend.”
“How would you know that?” Ochako asked.
“Mei’s a bit of a hacker.” I answered. “I don’t doubt she’s accessed a lot more private information than anyone else on the planet, thanks to her skills in both support and programming.”
Ochako nodded and relaxed. “Is it true you go down on girls in the library during school hours instead of going to class?”
Connor laughed. “That rumor’s made it into the general population?”
Ochako looked a little disappointed. “So it’s not true?”
“It wasn’t when the rumor was started.” Connor hedged and Ochako perked up and gave him a questioning look. “Let me tell you about Hannah and how I insulted her by saying she was a safe option to hang out with after a breakup.”
“A safe option?” Ochako asked, surprised. “There’s no way she felt that way!”
“Oh, she didn’t.” Connor said and smiled. “She even proved it right there by giving me a blowjob and then she asked me about the library thing.”
“No way!” Ochako exclaimed and then giggled. “You made it into the truth!”
“I did.” Connor said and his smile widened. “She has a quirk that lets her manipulate dust…”
Ochako laid there in the arms of her lover and didn’t feel guilty or slutty as she listened to him describe what happened between him and the girl that clued him in to the lies his ex-girlfriend had spread about him.
