Chapter One

Clark Kent had just finished another day at the Daily Planet and was walking alone through the streets of Metropolis and back to his apartment. He had hardly spoken to Lois all day as she was busy on a top-secret exposé that she was adamant Clark would try to steal from her. The Chief had had Jimmy running all over the city to try to capture shots of Wonder Woman, Metropolis' latest superheroine and Superman's new girlfriend, and so Clark was left to himself most of the day. His only company was the overly sexual Cat Grant, who seemed, Clark observed, very eager to do her very own exposé exclusively for him. I wonder if Jimmy got any decent pictures of Diana, he thought to himself as he strolled through the alley that would shorten the walk to his apartment by at least ten minutes. He could have flown back, but after a long day at work he liked to relax himself by staying grounded. As he passed under a streetlamp, the only illumination on an otherwise pitch black stretch of pavement, he heard the faint muttering of a woman's voice. It was weak, but discernible. He turned to his right, the direction from which the sound had come, and saw a young lady, in her early 20s, sitting propped up against the wall. He was surprised that he hadn't seen her earlier. He could see just as well in the dark as in the light.

"Sir" the woman choked, looking up with a shy smile. She had long auburn hair, like Lana's he recollected, that was knotted in terrible clumps; just above her right ear there was a section of it that had been cut much shorter than the rest, only just falling halfway down her cheek. Her eyes looked tired and there was a fading bruise on the left side of her face. Her clothes were dirty and she wore no shoes. He saw that she had large blisters on the soles of her feet. "I'm… I'm terribly sorry to ask but…" she coughed loudly and Clark could see that she was clearly in pain. He wasn't dressed as Superman and he could very easily have just continued walking without ever looking back, but that thought never even crossed Clark's mind. Superman the hero wore a bright blue suit, but all you need to be Superman is compassion. He rushed straight over to her, took off his jacket and wrapped her in it. "No… no. I can't possibly take your jacket" the woman almost whispered now "it's so cold and you need it. I just… just wondered if you knew someplace where I could sleep tonight?" There was not even a hint of suggestiveness in her voice. She began to remove the jacket but Clark held it on her. With his super-hearing he could hear her heartbeat growing fainter. "You just come with me" he said, and he lifted her off the ground as her eyes began to close and she lost consciousness.

As soon as Clark arrived home he lay the woman down on his bright red sofa and covered her in a blanket from his bedroom. Diana is not going to be happy if she comes and finds a strange woman lying in torn clothes on my furniture Clark thought to himself. He took his thick-framed glasses, that were way too big for him, off of his face and lay them on his kitchen island. He quickly changed from his suit and tie into grey tracksuit bottoms and a white t-shirt. He went to lie down on the sofa with his book but realised that the entire length of it had been occupied. With a shrug of his shoulders he sat on the floor with his back against the hard wall, book in hand.

Half an hour had passed when Clark heard Diana's familiar heartbeat from outside the window. He leapt up and flew across the floor, opening up the doors to his third floor balcony. He gazed up into the night sky and above him was the most beautiful woman in the world. Her long, wavy black hair fell past her shoulders and even in the dark he could see her piercing blue eyes. As soon as she saw him she gave a huge smile, soaring down and embracing him with a long, passionate kiss.

"I'm so pleased to see you" Diana said to him, moving her lips away from his for only a moment before bringing them back together. "You wouldn't believe the day I've had! And to top it all off, some nerdy kid photographer kept following me everywhere I went. It was a nightmare!" Clark smiled. He had missed Diana too.

"Yeah, I'm sorry about Jimmy" Clark said, "the Chief sent him out to take photos of you. He works for the Daily Planet; I should have given you a heads up".

"Yeah, you should have done" Diana gave Clark a cheeky smile. "Anyway, I'm starving" she said, making towards the inside of the apartment, "I'll get changed into something more comfortable and then we'll go some place for dinner? I've had an unusual craving for that food we had last night. What was that called again?"

"Spaghetti" Clark reminder her.

"Spaghetti" Diana repeated the word, as if just hearing it allowed her to feel it on her tongue. A smile started on her face. "Themysciran food is far less addictive than the food in Man's World" Diana said.

"Do you have sugar in Themyscira?" Clark asked with a smile "Or aspartame?"

"No, I do not think so" Diana said, with a quizzical expression.

"That'll explain it" said Clark, putting a silly smile on his face. When she first met Clark, Diana remembered, his tendency for wearing that goofy grin on his face whenever he said something that would often go right over her head was one of the things that she disliked most about him; now she found it was one of the things that she found most attractive. That and, of course, being able to literally move the planet with his biceps.

"So what do you think?" Diana said "Want to grab some dinner with your girlfriend?" Her voice moved slightly high pitched and she swung her arms around his neck.

"Gee, Di, I really would" Clark started "but the thing is…" Diana happened to glance into the apartment and saw the young girl on the sofa. She looked at Clark with the facade of a smile whilst bringing her arms back down to her side and stepping back one pace. She reached down to her belt for her lasso.

"Clark, honey, WHAT IS THAT?"