A/N: Sorry it took so long to update! Thank you aforgottenwish for the read-through!Please, any reviews would be well appreciated.

I own my shoes, not the DC universe.

"Now, Master Kirby, when you enter a room you must own every aspect of it. The air in there is yours to savor, the ground you walk on was created just for you, the people there just to look at you and be in awe of your largess…"

A sigh.

"Do stop that, sir. You are used to the glory of being Superman, yes?"

"You think I come in preening?"

"No, sir, but after watching a few rescues you've come into it seems like Superman oozes…superiority,"

"Batman's butler would say that…" the superhero muttered.

"Well, Master Kirby's comings and goings should be quite similar. How do you think you walk in that Suit? Show me,"

A stifled sigh and a walk.

"Now that is a very regal walk, but we need to make it a bit unrecognizable. What you need to do is blend that air of regal alien confidence into how a normal man walks. Use the muscles in your stomach to pull up your carriage a bit more, broaden out your shoulders (but not so much that you look like the savior of the world), and elongate the neck."

"It still feels like what I normally do,"

"Hmm…thrust out your chin more. And really, sir, try smiling a little?"

He smiled. "A bit less smiling with the teeth, sir," Alfred said. "This is a smile that shouldn't meet your eyes and should tell the room that you have arrived and are better suited to the task of existing,"

"Sounds a touch conceited,"

"Just practice it, Master Kirby. Soon you will be a natural at it."

--

Perry hated people being late, especially when they were late during the lunch hour. Hell, to be late during a working lunch hour was a capital offense. Still, at least Clark had the decency to call and say he'd be late; Lois had no real excuse. He was stuck there in one of the busiest and fanciest French restaurants he had ever been in with Jimmy Olsen sticking out like a sore thumb in a bow tie and short-sleeved shirt. Their waiter came by at least five time already and on the sixth go 'round he just rolled his eyes and trotted off in a huff unsuited for a man his age. He was just about to give up and simply allow Jimmy to order when Lois came in drenched from the rain. "I'm sorry, Perry," she said as a maitre d' hurried to take her coat. "Traffic has been insane; this weather doesn't seem to be letting up."

"It's alright," Perry sighed. "Clark called; he got delayed in traffic too."

"Fantastic,"

Their waiter came, looked down his nose at the drowned rat that resembled Lois Lane, and presented her with a menu. "Why the fancy feast, chief?" she asked, scowling after the waiter.

"Officially we're here to give a rich man clout by deigning to dine with him in a ritzy place where at least five men we know are going are sitting in the back corner trying to impress the waitress with their checkbooks," Perry said with a slight tilt to the head towards the aforementioned table. "Unofficially Clark said this place had the best entrecote Béarnaise this side of Toulouse and, damn the doctor, I'm going to try it."

"Clark's been to Toulouse?" Lois said.

"Clark's been everywhere," Jimmy said excitedly. "You should hear his stories about llamas…"

Lois rolled her eyes slightly in regards to the llamas and browsed the menu. "I sure hope Clark can pull this off," she said.

"He sounds pretty confident over the phone," Perry said. "Give the man a chance to impress you."

Lois shook her head slightly. Perry could never understand her attitude towards the Midwestern reporter. Sometimes she treated him like a brat she was forced to babysit. Other times she treated him like a little brother she had to protect. Rare were the times when she treated her fellow reporter like an adult and from what Perry observed when she did that she treated him like his wife treated her overweight sister: as a good person to talk to but completely unthreatening. Clark must have been born to angels for putting up with her.

He shook his head and started to let his eyes roam around the restaurant. There were a lot of people there, mostly rich young yuppies who only got dirty playing golf or polo and pampered women with little else to do but lunch at this hour. There was one sexy slightly older number getting seen to by the maitre d' and she was standing there with a younger and ridiculously tall handsome man. They must be here for a date or a secret rendezvous; it always amazed Perry how even he could allow his brain to go tabloid. What a damnable time to be alive and reporting the news. It took Perry a second to recognize the woman. "That's Evangeline Sinclair," he announced.

Lois and Jimmy turned their heads to the door and watched as the dazzlingly sensual woman talked to the tall man. "No way, the Black Widow of Metropolis?" Jimmy whispered.

"In the slutty flesh," Lois snorted.

"That woman has buried more husbands than a mortician the same age," Perry said. "See an article from Bernard about her pass my desk every other day."

"Who's she married to now?" Jimmy asked, amusing Perry as he drooled a little while the woman tossed her head back with a carrying laugh.

"A Stanford Lewis," Lois said.

Jimmy and Perry looked at her strangely. "He's an old fishing magnet who is going on this retreat," she supplied. "I have better things to do than be fascinated with which husband she's on."

"Who's the guy she's with?" Jimmy asked, ignoring Lois's distain. "Is he going on the retreat too?"

Lois stared at the man as he took Evangeline's hand and kissed it eloquently. He then leaned into her ear and said something that had to be a dismal for the woman's body seemed to sag for a second before she perked up again. They watched as Evangeline pouted and sauntered off to a table occupied by another well-dressed woman who immediately seemed to grab her in gossip. It seemed that more eyes were on the man who she was talking to a minute ago. He sort of reminded Perry of a movie star he was forced to stare at for two hours while his wife cried about something or another.

"I don't know," Lois shrugged. "He's probably a playboy for the rich or something. I heard that they work places like this to get little old ladies to sign over their children's trust funds."

"Whoever he is he's coming this way and we certainly don't have any little old ladies," Jimmy said.

Perry watched as the man walked towards their table. He seemed to draw every single eye towards him as he weaved his way through the tables and patrons. He was dressed in a very well cut suit of dark charcoal with a light gray shirt and tasteful tie. He was well-tanned, as though he spent his days lounging by a pool and all and all he was the kind of guy Perry used to envy before he became more comfortable in his skin.

The man arrived at their table and looked at all of them with an appraising eye, pausing at Lois's wet form for a minute. Perry had to marvel as his tough future niece-in-law blushed like a school girl as the man smiled. He turned to face Perry again and was met with two green eyes of a stern nature. "Perry," the man said as he extended his hand. His voice was so smooth and commandingly deep that Perry had no choice but to accept his warm firm handshake. "I'm sorry I'm late, but traffic was horrific."

"Sorry," Perry frowned.

The man raised an eyebrow and looked to Lois and Jimmy, who just shrugged. "It's me, Chief," he said.

"Me who," Jimmy laughed.

"Clark,"

Lois laughed. "No," she said. "You are not Clark Kent."

"Yes I am, and you're Lois Lane, and that's James Olsen and in front of me's Perry White and I am late meeting the three of you," he smiled.

Lois gave Perry an incredulous look but Perry suddenly noticed how the man's nose looked the same. He stared at it for a while and soon everything else came together. "Great Caesar's ghost," he breathed. "Clark?"

Clark laughed. The laugh didn't sound anything like Clark's nervous chuckle. "Wow, Clark," Jimmy breathed. "What did you do to yourself?"

"A guy puts on a different pair of glasses and suddenly he's unrecognizable..."

"That's not it," Perry said. He attempted not to inappropriately prod one of his reporters to ascertain validity and instead cataloged what he could visually. He really could not fathom this man as the reporter he hired from Smallville. For a second the little boy in him that enjoyed serials and comics thought of some pod people movies. Out of the corners of his eyes he noticed many a patron's head have turned to their table, several of which were crowded by high society ladies. "You look…taller…"

"I think it's the shoes," Clark smiled.

"Where have you been all this time?"

"I had a friend who was most helpful,"

Jimmy smiled. "Well you look good, Clark," the younger man enthused, extending his hand for Clark who shook it firmly.

"Good, you look like you stepped out of a magazine," Perry said. "Why haven't we seen this before?"

He shrugged. "I did not have the budget then," he said simply. "Speaking of which, I have my receipts in order for Accounting and will be faxing them from another location every week. I would rather not be audited."

"Your voice is off," Jimmy frowned. "Have you gotten voice lessons?"

There was another laugh, this one sounding very much unlike anything Perry ever heard from Clark. For some reason unknown to Perry it was almost scary and he didn't like it one bit. "Oh, those were fun," he sighed once he controlled himself. "But really, we should order…"

Their waiter appeared out of thin air and rattled off the specials in a nasally French accent obviously hiked up for the poorer-looking people sitting at the table. When Clark asked him a very fluid question in a highly musical French of his own the waiter blinked and dropped the accent, asking them what they wanted in a Bostonian accent. Perry was stunned that Clark knew French. He really needed to go back and look at his resume; if the man knew a lick of Chinese he'd have him shipped over to International faster than Superman could stop a bullet. Clark looked at him curiously after he finished with his question, making him realize how much he had been staring. Shaking himself slightly, he went back to the menu.

Perry and Clark got their steaks and Jimmy had a time pronouncing his chicken dish. It was when it was Lois's turn that the three of them noticed that she hadn't said a word since Clark settled down. The trio looked to Lois who had been gaping at Clark without saying a word. This was extremely rare; he knew Lois as the type of woman who would work a strange situation to her favor in less than five minutes. Hell, even with her swooning over Superman in the beginning she still composed herself more than Superman's adoring audience and turned in cognizant and objective articles about him. If Perry had not been gaping himself he would have felt sorry for his nephew. Tentatively, Jimmy waved his hand in front of Lois's face, causing her to snap out of it. "Sorry?" Lois frowned.

"It's time to order," Clark said.

For the second time, Lois blushed and quickly ordered a salad. Once the waiter left Clark smiled again at all of them, this time the smile reached his eyes and looked more like the Clark they knew. "We should get down to business before the food comes," he said.

"Of course," Perry said as Jimmy scrambled through his messenger bag. Jimmy handed Clark a file, which Clark immediately thumbed through, and a PDA. "We will have a limo pick you at eight tomorrow. Your flight is at ten-thirty and a car will pick you up at the airport upon your arrival and take you to Sandy Shore. There is an itinerary included; Mr. Alexander has allotted time to speak on the fourth day of the second week. If we can get the story by then I know some people in Accounting who'd be happy."

"Excellent, we can start by getting to know him and the people he would be more likely to associate with in this outing," Clark said. "I see that there's a polo game the day before his presentation. I think Lois should be able to handle sneaking into his rooms to provide us a decent heads-up…"

"What?"

Perry and Jimmy turned to find Lois having finally snapped out of her stupor to stare at Clark with a new expression: annoyance. Uh oh… Out of the corner of his eye Perry saw Jimmy flinch visibly as Lois narrowed her eyes. Clark was ignoring the warning in Jimmy's and Perry's eyes with a smile towards Lois. "Yes," he said. "You can sneak into his rooms and look for information."

"And what will you do?"

Clark gave Perry an incredulous look that threw Perry off completely before turning back to Lois. "I will be playing polo, Lois," he said with all the patience of a kindergarten teacher. "According to what I have found out about Mr. Alexander he has an affinity for polo; it would be a good opportunity to make sure he is distracted. He has been known to be a paranoid person, so the three guards he typically uses would be at the field while he's playing. And you are not a stranger to sneaking around in a possibly dangerous situation so I believe it will work out well."

Lois seemed to want to argue but didn't. Maybe it was the tone in his voice; polite but dismissive all at once. Maybe it was the fact that Jimmy was watching and thus she felt restrained from exploding. Or, it could have been the tidbit about the story: "How did you find information on Sergei when all I got from my research was basic fluff?" she asked tightly.

"I have my sources."

"You could have shared."

"I could have, and I am."

He bent sideways to his suitcase and retrieved three folders, which he handed out as their food came. Perry was as impressed with the folder's thoroughness as he was with the tenderness of his steak. "Clark, when did you come here, this is excellent," he asked.

"I came yesterday; their wine list is truly superb,"

"How did you come yesterday?" Lois scowled. "And why didn't you check in with me, we could've coordinated…"

Clark frowned slightly. Perry could definitely mark this as the first time he saw Clark annoyed with Lois; normally he seemed to be either awed by her audacity or struck dumb with affection. In the corner of his eye he could see Jimmy almost vibrating with some sort of glee; Lois had been damn near impossible during the two weeks Clark was out of the office and all of that ire went towards Jimmy. Perry perused the folder a bit more, impressed with how much detail there was about Sergei Alexander. "So the birth certificate's definitely a fake?" he asked.

"Yes, sir," Clark said. In the background Lois bristled over her question being glossed over. "Unfortunately, that's as far as my source was able to delve; we have no real idea who he was before he became Sergei Alexander. This certainly smells of Lex Luthor, but considering the amount of megalomaniacs, terrorist organizations, and whack jobs out there that could have an interest in kryptonite we can't just make any assumptions."

Perry nodded with a touch of pride. He loved being surprised and Clark certainly was doing that in the thirty minutes he had been there. Lois was still vibrating in attack mode so diffusion of the situation was warranted. He gestured to Jimmy, who almost shook his head frantically as Lois's eyes went to the younger man. "Jimmy will be your eyes here," he announced. "When neither you nor Lois can get in contact with me you talk to him and he will research what you can't on the ground. The PDA would be the best method to contact him."

Clark smiled. This smile was completely familiar with his editor-in-chief and he had almost missed it. "Great," he said. "Now, Lois, you made some profiles concerning your persona and the attendees?"

Lois narrowed her eyes back towards Clark and dug through her own bag. She handed out thick folders to the three of them. "Great," he said again. "Thanks."

Perry and Jimmy read through her folder before, Perry noting the boredom and annoyance within his star reporter's notes on the rich attendees. Even her profile lacked the Mad Dog flourish in style if not in content. There was a moment of silence as the four of them enjoyed their meals. Around him he noticed Lois was frowning at her salad as though it wronged her, Jimmy was shoving in his food, and Clark was eating at a fairly normal clip while he read the folder. After a while he looked up with a raised eyebrow. "This will work," he said.

"Why do you sound so skeptical?" Lois snapped.

"Well, it's nice and all but I couldn't help but noticed that you added some notes in here for me."

"And…"

"It's interesting, but I'm fine with what I've worked out. I emailed you the details."

"Email, what email?"

"I sent you an email earlier this week."

"I didn't get it."

"You should check your emails more often, Lois. Otherwise you're going to lose out."

The two reporters glared at each other. Jimmy snorted into his water, the sound not going unnoticed by his boss but effective in snapping Clark out of it. Instead, he chuckled as well and leaned back in his chair. That sort of thing would've caused the Clark Kent that Perry knew to topple over. This man in front of them merely shrugged and gave Lois a look full of confidence. "I'm sure we can work on a decent merger of how we think I should act," he said charmingly.

From Clark Kent that was pretty rude, though honestly it was also sort of deserved. Perry looked at Lois carefully. She seemed ready to explode. Tactfully, Perry looked down and realized that it was time to head into the office. Well, he was the boss so really any time was time to go back into the office. Either way, Lois had not eaten all of her salad and she looked like she was willing to throw it at someone. "Well, we should get going," Perry said.

Jimmy looked like he wanted to protest, but Perry gave Jimmy his sternest look. "You have my cell?" the young man asked as Perry settled the bill with the hovering waiter.

"Certainly."

The men stood up. Clark shook their hands, pleasing Perry yet again with his strong grip. "I'll give you a report upon our arrival," he said to Perry as he shook Jimmy's hand.

"Can't wait," Perry said.

He and Jimmy looked at Lois, who was staring straight at where Clark had been sitting. Perry decided that it was time to snap her to attention and get her moving. "Lois, didn't Richard want to meet you after lunch to talk about Jason," he asked.

Lois blinked and stood up, almost upsetting the table as she went. "Um, yes, of course," she laughed, though the laughter did not reach her eyes. She looked at Clark with slightly narrowed eyes and nodded to Clark. Obviously thinking better of it, she extended her hand. "See you tomorrow then?"

Clark took the hand and kissed it, the move so suave that Perry almost went back to the pod person theory. "Of course," he said as though he kissed women's hands every day.

If it weren't slightly embarrassing and if Jimmy wasn't there for Perry to mentor the older man would've laughed as his star reporter turned beet red, mumbled something like "looking forward to it", and tripped on the bag she came in with, kicking off a shoe in the process. Clark, who should have been used to such klutzy behavior on his part, steadied Lois by her elbow and helped her put her heel back on. Lois blushed some more, recovered, and almost ran out of the restaurant, muttering something about Richard. Perry looked at Clark to find an expression on his face that was entirely strange and yet familiar somehow; the man seemed triumphant. Clark caught Perry looking at him and flashed him a smile with too many teeth. "Chief," he said cordially. "Jimmy, I certainly hope we get a resolution quickly. Now, if you will excuse me there are some things I must attend to before my departure…"

"Of course," Perry said.

Clark smiled again and left the restaurant as well, many an eye following his departure. Jimmy turned to Perry with an amused but puzzled look on his face. "What was that?" he asked, having also noticed the triumphant look on his friend's face.

"I don't know," Perry said, straightening his coat, "but this should be a hell of a month."