Epilogue: Exposed

Okay Lane, Lois told herself. Don't panic.

The terrorist's knife flicked. The top button of her blouse flicked off, exposing a few more inches of cleavage.

Change of plan, Lois thought. Panic!

Two of the masked terrorists held either of the pregnant reporter's arms. Bullet-proof vests, AR-15s, heavy handguns and some sort of custom-order fatigues and military-style boots. No patches or other insignia, but Lois Lane knew that whoever these people were, they weren't real military. They reeked of amateurs who thought they were special forces and paid lots of money for their gear, but real special forces guys tended to be anonymous, fit young people that you wouldn't glance at twice; these were steroid-abusing bodybuilders out to make a statement.

"I've read your columns," the chief terrorist's mask was a black balaclava with a stylized symbol on the front in white lines, the only insignia of any of them. "Liberal bullshit. Woman like you should be at home. Barefoot and pregnant."

The knife flicked, and another button popped. The reporter bit into her gag as her bra was exposed. Eighteen weeks into her pregnancy, twenty-five pounds heavier than her usual 125, and it felt like half of it had gone to her tits. It was her biggest bra and her boobs were muffin-topping out of it...but the added cleavage wasn't what Lois was worried about.

The crimson stain had spread up to just below her nipples. Another button or two...or if this pervert cut her bra...and Lois Lane's little secret would be out.

She glanced around the offices of the Daily Planet. Most of her coworkers were on their knees, hands on their heads, staring at her. There were at least a dozen terrorists, stationed at the exits, guns at the ready. One of them, a bit thinner and less muscle-bound than the others and with a baseball cap turned backwards on his head, was busy typing at Perry White's computer.

"We're going to send a message," the leader said, his knife dropping down. The clip point touched her sternum, blade resting on bra and button. "To the whole world. This whole country has gone soft...miscegenated..."

He leaned forward, and Lois could smell his sweat and rank breath through his mask.

"...is that what happened to you? Let some black animal crawl up on you and put a bastard in your belly? I don't see no ring. Maybe you need to learn a lesson..."

The knife moved away. His gloved fingers grabbed at the reporter's shirt and bra. Pulled and tore, cloth ripping in one violent exertion, buttons popping off...and for a moment, Lois felt a wave of relief as her breasts flopped free to rest on her belly...and then she tensed, as all eyes on her grew wide and stared.

"What the fuck?" The terrorist said as she stared at her bare exposed belly, like a giant smooth egg the color of fresh blood, a dark line extending up to where her belly button had popped into an outie. Her nipples had darkened too, and the creeping stain covered the undersides and threatened to engulf the now larger and softer breasts.

The hold on Lois Lane's arm's slackened, the two idiots holding her lost in shock.

Lois was wearing her stilettos today. Not ideal for pregnant women, but the steel-tipped spike of her right heel came down on the nearest boot. Steel-tipped boots, but with enough ****, that just meant that the metal would bend back on itself and crush the toes beneath. The terrorist to Lois Lane's right howled, let go...

Her right hand came up, fingers extended like claws. Instinctively, fingernails popped off as blood-red shards, sharp as talons emerged from her fingertips. Her thumb gouged into the leader's left eye socket and ripped and pulled.

He fell back instinctively clutching at the dark ruin that was his face, vision suddenly monocular. Lois twisted and turned on the man holding her left arm, her free hand balled into a fist as she brought it down to his crotch. Doubled over and collapsed, and Lois was already moving, unbalanced with her belly, reaching for his gun...and knowing there was no way she could shoot all of them in time...

A breeze went through the office. A red-and-blue blur. In the blink of an eye, all the terrorists were on the floor, tied up. The people of the Daily Planet stared around in confusion, afraid to get up off their knees...and then Superman was standing before her. A head taller than her, blue eyes icy, and for the first time Lois realized she was naked and blushed, her hands moving to cover her breasts...and he handed her an XL Daily Planet T-shirt. The reporter clutched it to her chest, blushing, suddenly aware that her stomach was exposed.

Superman smiled. Just a little, at the corner of his mouth. Gave a very slow and deliberate wink of his left eye...and then he was gone.

Perry White coughed. "Alright people, let's call 911. Is anyone hurt?"

The three terrorists that Lois had hit groaned.

"Not you, shit for brains," Perry said, uncharacteristically vulgar. "Jimmy! Get your camera. I want these folks unmasked and their ugly mugs on the front page. Robinson! Start combing social media. I want names. Lane!"

He looked over to where she stood there, hugging the t-shirt.

"Get dressed. That's an order."

The reporter gave a little grin and waddled back to her cubicle so that she could take off the ruined blouse and bra and drape the T-shirt over her distended stomach. To her chagrin, it didn't quite cover her growing gut. A crimson crescent of flesh hung out over her belt, clearly visible beneath the black tee with its bronze globe emblem stretched out over her swollen breasts.

An hour ticked by. Cops came, and an ambulance. Lois washed her claws in the bathroom sink, unable to figure out how to retract them...hell, she didn't even know how she'd extended them in the first place, but they seemed fixed now. She found herself staring at them, the long red claws that could be mistaken for nails from a distance...but they weren't. They were like Angie's claws, that she had kept carefully trimmed since they had been together, after accidentally scratching Lois during sex. The reporter had told her it was okay, that it was an accident, but Blaze had been adamant it was too dangerous for her to lose control...

Tossing the lead terrorist's eyeball into a toilet and flushing it, Lois understood now what she meant.

Hours later, when the cops were gone, she knocked on Perry's door.

Nobody had asked her about it. She had seen people look at her as she moved through the office, but not one had said so much as a word. Clark Kent had passed her, having missed the action as always, and not even glanced below the neckline of her shirt.

"Come in!" he grunted.

The cops had taken Perry's computer for evidence, and the editor was staring at piles of hardcopy. Tomorrow's issue, already being laid out in his head. Perry remembered when it was all done by hand.

"So...everybody saw," Lois said with a grimace. "It's a pregnancy symptom. The sperm donor is a metahuman, I didn't want..."

"Lane," Perry said and he eyed her levelly. "If anybody, and I mean anybody, gives you any shit about it, you come to me. And I'll fire their ass on the spot."

His mouth worked, like chomping for a cigar that wasn't there. Lois saw his sleeves were rolled up, the white square with rounded corners of a nicotine patch on the exposed skin.

"You don't have to hide," he said. Looked down at his copy. "I knew a reporter, back in the '60s. She was in a relationship with a black man. Pregnant. It was different back then. Still illegal in some places, to be in an interracial relationship. Married and working. Pregnant and working. You could get fired for that. Had to choose between her baby and her career. Her whole pregnancy, afraid of being caught. Had a heart attack in her third semester...stress. Nearly lost the baby."

He looked her in the eye. "Living in fear is no way to live. You don't have to hide anything. Not here."

Lois could have kissed him...so she did, striding across the office in three steps and leaning over the desk, her underbelly brushing the papers as she planted one right on his lips.

"Thanks, Chief," she said, and meant it.

She left the Daily Planet building feeling light as a feather...and knew, with a terrible excitement and certainty, that she was going to drain Angie's balls tonight.