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seriousficTitle: Duality
Fandom: Superman Returns and Batman Begins
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,699
Characters/Pairings: Lex Luthor, Lois Lane
Acknowledgments: Thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
damo_in_japan for betaing this.
Previous Part: Chapter 4
Next Part: Chapter 6
Summary: Superman’s back. To say Lex Luthor is displeased would be… charitable.
Everyone loved a hero. Lex Luthor most of all.
And, although Lex might’ve been projecting a little, everyone hated gods… big government… parents… overbearing spouses… whatever you wanted to call it.
What was the difference? Lex had nearly driven himself mad trying to find out. He was a respected businessman, true… but only respected. Superman was loved. Cherished. Worshipped.
He’d beaten Lex at the game and he didn’t even know he was playing.
Gone for five years and they welcomed him back with open arms. Why? Because he caught a plane? Did he have the knowledge to build that plane? To design it, to fund it, to crew and maintain it? No. All he did was swoop in and save the day.
In retrospect, sabotaging the test flight had been a mistake. Or, rather, a learning experience. It hadn’t even been done to intentionally spite him, but catching that plane had saved the meddlesome Lois Lane, who’d been a thorn in his side for longer than he cared to remember.
Lex Luthor took care of himself. His diet was balanced, and impeccable. Chefs would travel to Metropolis on their own dime for a chance to satisfy his palate. His hair, what little was left, was given better treatment than most people’s entire bodies. What little hair grew on his scalp since the meteor shower was carefully shaved to prevent stubble. His eyebrows were plucked and his face was shaved adroitly each morning and once in the afternoon. After photographs of him without his wigs had been published, he simply put baldness into fashion.
If his face was a little puffy, he’d put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. He was up to a thousand now. The rest of his work-out routine was calibrated twofold: the perfection of the human body, like the Adonis epitome, and sheer physical power. His brief stay in prison had awoken him to the sheer joy of exercising his will over someone by the most direct means possible. Not as satisfying as the Machiavellian will to power, but a guilty pleasure. And unlike Superman, his muscles were built by effort. By will.
After he’d removed the ice pack he’d use a deep pore cleanser lotion. Although some evenings he would spoil himself with a hedonistic time in the baths as well as some female companionship (Kitty was becoming increasingly disappointing in that regard), usually he showered. He would use a water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and an exfoliating gel scrub on his face. He would leave on a herb-mint facial mask for ten minutes while he went through the rest of his routine. His aftershave never had alcohol in it. Alcohol dried the face out, made one look older. Superman never aged.
When he emerged from the shower room in the silk boxers and undershirt he’d laid out beforehand, his lackeys were waiting to dress him. He’d relayed unusual instructions as to his ensemble, but they’d risen to the task. The suit they had ready for him was powerful, but understated. He would let the opulence of his surroundings speak louder than his own modest dress.
It was heroes. The ones that everyone loved had flaws and foibles. They rose to overcome their obstacles. They took risks. They had… ambition.
How could the alien understand that? He could take a bullet for the President and brush it off like it was nothing.
Heroes were brave. Superman didn’t have to be brave. He knew he could survive anything.
Mankind had outgrown gods in favor of the divinity within themselves. And now this interloper would drag them back to the dark ages of superstition and ignorance.
It was, Lex decided, wholly unacceptable.
***
Lois woke up from a dream.
In it, she’d been flying on the Kord Industries space-jet, making a nuisance of herself as usual, when the plane had crashed. Only it hadn’t crashed. Superman had caught her--them. The whole thing had been so vivid that she considered rolling over and telling Richard about it.
Oh.
She sat up and looked around. She was in a stadium parking lot, surrounded by tail-gate parties and ambulances. Aside from the butterfly bandage on her temple, she felt fine… a little sore, maybe, but no reason to call the EMTs away from patients with real injuries.
She remembered the swoony, dizzy feeling of surreality. After Superman had snatched her out of the sky (the first time), she’d felt as if she were walking on air. She hadn’t been able to believe a man could fly. Over time, she hadn’t been able to separate the dream of a god from another world courting her from the reality. Then she’d woken up to Richard and beautiful Jason. For five years she’d been awake. Now she was dreaming again.
Her cell-phone was vibrating. Lois fetched it from her purse, wincing at the sudden pain in her head as she did so. Maybe she wasn’t fine.
It was Richard. “Honey, that you?”
“It’s me… I’m okay,” she added, cutting off his next question. “Jason?”
“Fine.” Richard’s voice carried an air of relief. “Thinks Superman saving his mom was the coolest thing ever. He’s running around with a red towel wrapped around his neck.” There was a childish squawk in the background. “Sorry, he wants me to tell you it’s a cape.”
Lois’s nose wrinkled. This burg didn’t smell like Metropolis… of course not, they’d taken off from Metropolis and been flying away from there when… the accident… happened…
“Richard, any word on what caused the crash?”
“Not yet. But Kord is saying that the plane’s sensors didn’t detect any mechanical failure. Of course, if the engines didn’t work, how could you expect the sensors to?”
Lois sat up. “Somewhere, Dibny’s nose is wiggling.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” She looked around. “Where the hell did I land?”
“Cleveland.”
“…send a car, Richard. Get me the hell outta here.”
Superman. All over again on this roller-coaster ride. At that moment, Lois doubted anyone hated him quite as much as her.
***
Lex looked at himself in the mirror as Mercy, acting as valet, brushed lint off his suit. Lex was a grown man. He dressed accordingly. And yet so much adulation went to the man who dressed up in a circus outfit.
As a child, Lex had tried to dress in his father’s suits. They’d been too big for him at the time. And now the alien was playing paternal to all the world.
It was mind-numbingly unhealthy.
You could always tell a culture by the heroes they venerated. The British had their proud white explorers and huntsman, the Greeks had their deified Heroes, the Americans had their folk heroes. And now the hero of today, the first global hero, was a man who hadn’t earned his powers, hadn’t proven himself worthy of anything, but had merely inherited them.
He had no more right to his “superpowers” than Paris Hilton did to her wealth.
The statesmen of the War for Independence had given way to compromisers so vague and generic that the American people couldn’t even tell them apart unless they got involved in some scandal… and then they were sure to be re-elected. It made Lex dream of running for public office, just to rip apart the whole thing from the inside.
If a few short years of worshipping at the alter of Superman could lead a nation down that path, then what might a lifetime poison?
Arch-nemesis. Foil. Mirror image. Polar opposite. Adversary. Opponent. Enemy. Villain.
He may not always do the good thing, but he always did the right thing. Lately.
What was in a name, anyway? If they wrote him into the history books as the bad guy, it would be worth it if Superman went down as the martyr. Lex would know the truth. Lex would know that he had saved the world from a dangerous alien invasion.
Arch-nemesis. What kind of word was that, anyway? If he was Superman’s arch-nemesis, than Superman was his in turn. Everything was subjective. All you had to do was change the narrator and the story changed. Shift the point of view and the hero was the villain. So Superman had them all fooled. One day, the truth would be known. If someone ever walked the Earth who was on the level of Lex Luthor’s genius, he (or she) would be able to read the treatises and the arguments… and see that Lex was right. If the common rabble didn’t see that, it didn’t matter. Lex was meant for the great men that stood on the shoulders of those sheep. Any idiot could be a man of the people. Only a hero could be a member of the elite.
Lex stared into his reflection. If it were just him, just Alexander, he might let it go. He’d been selfish, once. Lost his way. And so long as Superman stayed out of his way, he could feel free to perpetuate his schemes without any interference from the Kryptonian… perhaps, indeed, designing his plots to avoid superheroic entanglement and subsumed with the knowledge that he had outsmarted anyone who might confront him.
But that would be wrong.
Superman was poison coated in chocolate, a cancer on the planet. He would have to be excised before his influence corrupted anyone else.
***
Lois had the horrible feeling she was expected to be grateful to Superman. True, she’d won a Pulitzer thanks to him (or, more accurately, no thanks to him), but she’d been a rising star even before he’d swooped into her life. And somehow he’d managed to wrap her name up in red, yellow, and blue. Maybe it was just paranoia, but she always heard Superman’s Girlfriend tacked on to the end whenever someone said her name. Richard was the only one who had amended ace reporter to it, had actually taken a moment to look through the haze of Supermania to see a real woman behind the mystique, with feelings and needs and…
She eyed the engagement ring on her finger. How long ago had it been that Richard got down on his knees? And how long had she put him off?
That’s not the question you should be asking, Lane.
Of course. She couldn’t even give a softball interview to herself. Nope, not the General’s Daughter. Well, she’d put this off five years, she might as well admit it to herself. She’d been hoping Superman would whisk her away from all this. Even after Richard’s proposal, even after their son, she’d tried to keep herself from falling in love. From making a commitment. With her son’s father, she’d tried to keep from making a commitment. She was an idiot.
Girlfriend. What kind of word was that, anyway? It was so juvenile, so high school, so fumbling in the backseat of your father’s Ford Taurus. She had a son. She had an adult relationship with someone who was there for her, not in the Arctic in some summer home.
She wasn’t going to get sucked into this downward spiral again. She’d moved on with her life. And she had no time for Superman.
***
Lex was beginning to get bored. And putting off his work could prove fatal. He’d staffed his industries with competent people, but their output could mostly be categorized as workmanlike. There was no real creativity or grand ambition there; so as not to threaten his own comfortable perch atop the corporate ladder. He’d learned how to read people down to their souls in prison. None of those backstabbers had the guts to take him or Superman down.
Most of his rejects found their way to Gotham, and that Wayne idiot. With so many go-getters under his cloak, it was only a matter of time before he was forced out. Maybe then Wayne Enterprises would be amenable to a buy-out. Something to think about.
At long last, the sensors picked up an approach. With a few keystrokes, he instructed the defense grid not to try to vaporize the intruder. As amusing as it was to watch ordinance dimple that clear skin of his, it always got frustrating after a while.
After a moment, the doors to the balcony were thrown open and Superman hovered inside. He touched down on the Persian carpet, the bright color of his boots (as well as the rest of him) contrasting electrically with the masculine dark décor.
“Kal-El,” Lex said in greeting, like they were old chums… and in a way, after all this time, they were. He swiveled in his chair to face the alien from behind his monolithic desk. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“I don’t sleep,” Superman said, stepping closer.
Lex shuffled some papers together. “Then you don’t dream.” He looked up. “Yes, that fits.” And, with a casual stroll, he stepped around the desk to face Superman. “What would a ‘Man of Tomorrow’ have to dream about, anyway?”
Superman crossed his arms just like he always did. God, five years and he might as well have been a statue, preserved in time for all eternity. Lex couldn’t get enough of it.
“I was expecting to have to hunt for you. But here you are. Right out in the open. You even put your name on the building.”
Lex smiled. Lex Tower. He'd had it built in the shape of an L, even having the roof slanted so that everyone could see the L clearly. He'd quite literally put his mark on the city. “Two hundred and twenty-two stories. A thousand meters tall, counting the mast. Not quite a Fortress of Solitude, but a nice little home away from home.”
“You can look down on everyone.” Superman ground his teeth. “You can fool everyone else, but not me. I know the real you.”
“Took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I know you’re planning something. Some plot against me, some convoluted revenge. Whatever it is, don’t go through with it.” Superman’s voice dipped close to pleading. “You keep your nose clean, I’ll consider the slate wiped clean.”
Lex couldn’t stand head to head with Superman… he was almost a head shorter than the alien… so he nonchalantly sat down atop the burgundy wood of his desk. With a finely-manicured hand he opened a humidor and drew out a Cuban cigar, rubbing it between two fingers as if he could touch the flavor.
“You’ll extend your mercy to me?” Lex said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Kal, Kal, Kal… you don’t get to judge me. This is my city. My family built it. I inherited it. And God knows I’ve earned it.” Like a conductor with a baton, he used the cigar to gesture at the city, lit up at night like stars within a web. “This city was in an economic, a spiritual depression when I found it. I gave it hope. I brought it to its feet. You’ll never be able to do as much for them as I have.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” Superman said, his eyes glowing dangerously.
“Do you know how much the crime rates shot up when you left? Batman had to come, all the way from Gotham, to clean up the mess you left behind.”
Smoke was issuing from Superman’s eyelashes and his eyes were bright red. Luthor prodded the cigar into his eye, lighting it. For a moment they stood there, seemingly locked together, as Luthor took the cigar in his mouth and inhaled deeply.
“You must’ve known I wouldn’t take your ‘generous’ offer. Why’d you really come here?”
“You’re the smart one, Lex. You tell me.”
Lex puffed on his cigar contentedly as he walked out to the balcony, Italian shoes clicking on the marble floor. He passed the Concert Grand piano that he’d once played at Carnegie Hall to a standing ovation and two encores. A single slender finger ran over the keyboard, making a zippy sound as he tripped the octaves down all eighty-eight keys. Superman winced at the noise. Out on the balcony, Lex casually held his cigar over the balustrade and tapped some ashes into the night sky.
”You want to know how I got out.” Lex said, gleeful at a new chance to trumpet his superiority. He took another long pull at his cigar, the end glowing as malignant as a star going nova. “A relative of mine stepped in: Uncle Sam.”
Superman scowled, but he couldn’t summon up the energy to fight or deny. His eyes did not glow, either red or blue.
“They wanted me to make them ‘failsafes’ in exchange for a pardon. Just in case you started fighting for truth, justice, and some other way. Kryptonite warheads… bullets with Kryptonite cores… that was just the engineering busywork, though… any MIT grad could do that for a term paper. What they really wanted was synthetic Kryptonite.”
“Did you succeed?” Superman demanded.
“Oh, Kal-El, and spoil the surprise?”
Inevitably, Superman’s hand was at his throat, lifting him off his feet.
“You don’t get to call me that.”
“This suit is worth more than some people’s lives. Don’t wrinkle it.”
Superman set him down, his face twisted like someone had just burnt his childhood security blanket in an incinerator. Lex smiled slowly. A creeping thing that spread from cheek to cheek.
“That’s the great truth of our time. No matter how many times you save them, you will never be one of them. And because you’re not one of them, they’ll never trust you… like they trust me.”
Superman turned away, almost as if to take off, but Lex grabbed hold of his cape at the shoulder. Superman’s heatvision flared back to life, flooding his eyes with red. Slowly, he turned. He brushed Lex’s hand off with chilling precision. It must’ve taken every ounce of self-control not to knock him off the balcony.
“I really don’t have anything against you, Kal-El.”
“I told you not to call me that,” Superman said softly.
“In another life, we even could’ve been friends. But you have to meddle. You have to interfere with the only thing that makes this squalid, hateful little world great.”
“I save people.”
“From themselves!” Lex angrily stubbed his cigar out on the balustrade, carelessly despoiling the fine craftsmanship. “From our destiny!”
“Only a warped maniac like you could believe mankind’s destiny is to rape and pillage each other, the strong dominating the weak…”
“YES! All that and more, if need be. But as men, not children with you as omnipotent parent. Look at all I’ve done without you. I’ve turned this city into an earthly paradise. I’ve cured sickness, brought up the weak… now that you’re back, that’ll all have to be put on hold. Neither of us trusts the other enough to let our feud die.”
After a long moment, as if wanting to deny it, Superman shook his head decisively. “I won’t take responsibility for your evil.”
Something twinged in Lex, something familiar but long ignored… the splinter in his mind’s eye… he, in turn, shook it off.
“Just like you can’t take responsibility for our good. Imagine what we could have chosen to become if it weren’t for you forcing us down your narrow little path.” He practically spat the next words in Superman’s face. “Who gave you the right to be our God?”
“You’re the one who keeps trying to play God.”
Lex smiled as he ran a hand over his bald head. “Play? Children play, Superman. I just do.” He got up in Superman’s face, or as close as he could come to it. The beacon of the bright yellow and red S filled his vision. “I’m currently the third richest man on the planet. And by currently, I mean temporarily. Additionally, I have an annual income of two billion, which is two hundred million a month, seven million a day, three hundred thousand an hour, five thousand a minute… how long have we been talking, Superman?”
“Like you said, Lex… temporarily.”
Superman took off until he was well overhead, flanking the radio tower that topped Lex Tower.
“Just remember… No matter how big you build your tower, I’ll still be able to fly over it.”
Lex held back his laughter until Superman flew off. Flight. Like that meant anything these days. If Lex wanted to fly, he’d use a plane.
Looking down at someone? That was just height. He could buy a step ladder. The real mark of supremacy was knowledge. He had knowledge Superman would never have. The synthetic Kryptonite was just kid’s stuff compared to what he’d unearthed. Five years to set up a playing ground for when Superman returned. He hasn’t wasted a single second. He’d known, in a corner of his mind, that Superman was still out there. Watching him. Spying on him. Thinking about him.
After finger-flicking the cigar into an eight hundred meter drop, he went back inside. With a click of his PDA, lead shutters closed over all the windows. He stood in front of his mirror and typed in a code to the PDA, “0451.” It sent out a signal not even Superman could detect. The mirror seamlessly turned to liquid and sucked itself into the rim, opening the way to the huge vault doors that spun open as soon as they’d taken biometric readings of Lex. He stepped inside.
The crystals were still there, of course. His fingertips twitched. A few more moments and sweat from his palms would drip off them. Lex gave himself over to his anxiety for three seconds. Then he reached out and decisively grasped the one of the shoots growing out of the main crystal.
It flared in his hand, burning him, frying his hand down to the bone and sizzling skin and melting bone… but that was just his imagination, the pain his penance. After the merest moment, the shoot withdrew from between his fingers, sinking into the trunk. The crystal seemed to melt, bleed. Liquid crystal flowed past his shoes and up the walls, surrounding him in an impenetrable sphere. Light bounced around inside it, solidifying into a single mass. A face.
“He’s back,” Lex told it.
“Finally.”
Fandom: Superman Returns and Batman Begins
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 3,699
Characters/Pairings: Lex Luthor, Lois Lane
Acknowledgments: Thanks to
damo_in_japan for betaing this.Previous Part: Chapter 4
Next Part: Chapter 6
Summary: Superman’s back. To say Lex Luthor is displeased would be… charitable.
Everyone loved a hero. Lex Luthor most of all.
And, although Lex might’ve been projecting a little, everyone hated gods… big government… parents… overbearing spouses… whatever you wanted to call it.
What was the difference? Lex had nearly driven himself mad trying to find out. He was a respected businessman, true… but only respected. Superman was loved. Cherished. Worshipped.
He’d beaten Lex at the game and he didn’t even know he was playing.
Gone for five years and they welcomed him back with open arms. Why? Because he caught a plane? Did he have the knowledge to build that plane? To design it, to fund it, to crew and maintain it? No. All he did was swoop in and save the day.
In retrospect, sabotaging the test flight had been a mistake. Or, rather, a learning experience. It hadn’t even been done to intentionally spite him, but catching that plane had saved the meddlesome Lois Lane, who’d been a thorn in his side for longer than he cared to remember.
Lex Luthor took care of himself. His diet was balanced, and impeccable. Chefs would travel to Metropolis on their own dime for a chance to satisfy his palate. His hair, what little was left, was given better treatment than most people’s entire bodies. What little hair grew on his scalp since the meteor shower was carefully shaved to prevent stubble. His eyebrows were plucked and his face was shaved adroitly each morning and once in the afternoon. After photographs of him without his wigs had been published, he simply put baldness into fashion.
If his face was a little puffy, he’d put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches. He was up to a thousand now. The rest of his work-out routine was calibrated twofold: the perfection of the human body, like the Adonis epitome, and sheer physical power. His brief stay in prison had awoken him to the sheer joy of exercising his will over someone by the most direct means possible. Not as satisfying as the Machiavellian will to power, but a guilty pleasure. And unlike Superman, his muscles were built by effort. By will.
After he’d removed the ice pack he’d use a deep pore cleanser lotion. Although some evenings he would spoil himself with a hedonistic time in the baths as well as some female companionship (Kitty was becoming increasingly disappointing in that regard), usually he showered. He would use a water-activated gel cleanser, then a honey almond body scrub, and an exfoliating gel scrub on his face. He would leave on a herb-mint facial mask for ten minutes while he went through the rest of his routine. His aftershave never had alcohol in it. Alcohol dried the face out, made one look older. Superman never aged.
When he emerged from the shower room in the silk boxers and undershirt he’d laid out beforehand, his lackeys were waiting to dress him. He’d relayed unusual instructions as to his ensemble, but they’d risen to the task. The suit they had ready for him was powerful, but understated. He would let the opulence of his surroundings speak louder than his own modest dress.
It was heroes. The ones that everyone loved had flaws and foibles. They rose to overcome their obstacles. They took risks. They had… ambition.
How could the alien understand that? He could take a bullet for the President and brush it off like it was nothing.
Heroes were brave. Superman didn’t have to be brave. He knew he could survive anything.
Mankind had outgrown gods in favor of the divinity within themselves. And now this interloper would drag them back to the dark ages of superstition and ignorance.
It was, Lex decided, wholly unacceptable.
***
Lois woke up from a dream.
In it, she’d been flying on the Kord Industries space-jet, making a nuisance of herself as usual, when the plane had crashed. Only it hadn’t crashed. Superman had caught her--them. The whole thing had been so vivid that she considered rolling over and telling Richard about it.
Oh.
She sat up and looked around. She was in a stadium parking lot, surrounded by tail-gate parties and ambulances. Aside from the butterfly bandage on her temple, she felt fine… a little sore, maybe, but no reason to call the EMTs away from patients with real injuries.
She remembered the swoony, dizzy feeling of surreality. After Superman had snatched her out of the sky (the first time), she’d felt as if she were walking on air. She hadn’t been able to believe a man could fly. Over time, she hadn’t been able to separate the dream of a god from another world courting her from the reality. Then she’d woken up to Richard and beautiful Jason. For five years she’d been awake. Now she was dreaming again.
Her cell-phone was vibrating. Lois fetched it from her purse, wincing at the sudden pain in her head as she did so. Maybe she wasn’t fine.
It was Richard. “Honey, that you?”
“It’s me… I’m okay,” she added, cutting off his next question. “Jason?”
“Fine.” Richard’s voice carried an air of relief. “Thinks Superman saving his mom was the coolest thing ever. He’s running around with a red towel wrapped around his neck.” There was a childish squawk in the background. “Sorry, he wants me to tell you it’s a cape.”
Lois’s nose wrinkled. This burg didn’t smell like Metropolis… of course not, they’d taken off from Metropolis and been flying away from there when… the accident… happened…
“Richard, any word on what caused the crash?”
“Not yet. But Kord is saying that the plane’s sensors didn’t detect any mechanical failure. Of course, if the engines didn’t work, how could you expect the sensors to?”
Lois sat up. “Somewhere, Dibny’s nose is wiggling.”
“Huh?”
“Never mind.” She looked around. “Where the hell did I land?”
“Cleveland.”
“…send a car, Richard. Get me the hell outta here.”
Superman. All over again on this roller-coaster ride. At that moment, Lois doubted anyone hated him quite as much as her.
***
Lex looked at himself in the mirror as Mercy, acting as valet, brushed lint off his suit. Lex was a grown man. He dressed accordingly. And yet so much adulation went to the man who dressed up in a circus outfit.
As a child, Lex had tried to dress in his father’s suits. They’d been too big for him at the time. And now the alien was playing paternal to all the world.
It was mind-numbingly unhealthy.
You could always tell a culture by the heroes they venerated. The British had their proud white explorers and huntsman, the Greeks had their deified Heroes, the Americans had their folk heroes. And now the hero of today, the first global hero, was a man who hadn’t earned his powers, hadn’t proven himself worthy of anything, but had merely inherited them.
He had no more right to his “superpowers” than Paris Hilton did to her wealth.
The statesmen of the War for Independence had given way to compromisers so vague and generic that the American people couldn’t even tell them apart unless they got involved in some scandal… and then they were sure to be re-elected. It made Lex dream of running for public office, just to rip apart the whole thing from the inside.
If a few short years of worshipping at the alter of Superman could lead a nation down that path, then what might a lifetime poison?
Arch-nemesis. Foil. Mirror image. Polar opposite. Adversary. Opponent. Enemy. Villain.
He may not always do the good thing, but he always did the right thing. Lately.
What was in a name, anyway? If they wrote him into the history books as the bad guy, it would be worth it if Superman went down as the martyr. Lex would know the truth. Lex would know that he had saved the world from a dangerous alien invasion.
Arch-nemesis. What kind of word was that, anyway? If he was Superman’s arch-nemesis, than Superman was his in turn. Everything was subjective. All you had to do was change the narrator and the story changed. Shift the point of view and the hero was the villain. So Superman had them all fooled. One day, the truth would be known. If someone ever walked the Earth who was on the level of Lex Luthor’s genius, he (or she) would be able to read the treatises and the arguments… and see that Lex was right. If the common rabble didn’t see that, it didn’t matter. Lex was meant for the great men that stood on the shoulders of those sheep. Any idiot could be a man of the people. Only a hero could be a member of the elite.
Lex stared into his reflection. If it were just him, just Alexander, he might let it go. He’d been selfish, once. Lost his way. And so long as Superman stayed out of his way, he could feel free to perpetuate his schemes without any interference from the Kryptonian… perhaps, indeed, designing his plots to avoid superheroic entanglement and subsumed with the knowledge that he had outsmarted anyone who might confront him.
But that would be wrong.
Superman was poison coated in chocolate, a cancer on the planet. He would have to be excised before his influence corrupted anyone else.
***
Lois had the horrible feeling she was expected to be grateful to Superman. True, she’d won a Pulitzer thanks to him (or, more accurately, no thanks to him), but she’d been a rising star even before he’d swooped into her life. And somehow he’d managed to wrap her name up in red, yellow, and blue. Maybe it was just paranoia, but she always heard Superman’s Girlfriend tacked on to the end whenever someone said her name. Richard was the only one who had amended ace reporter to it, had actually taken a moment to look through the haze of Supermania to see a real woman behind the mystique, with feelings and needs and…
She eyed the engagement ring on her finger. How long ago had it been that Richard got down on his knees? And how long had she put him off?
That’s not the question you should be asking, Lane.
Of course. She couldn’t even give a softball interview to herself. Nope, not the General’s Daughter. Well, she’d put this off five years, she might as well admit it to herself. She’d been hoping Superman would whisk her away from all this. Even after Richard’s proposal, even after their son, she’d tried to keep herself from falling in love. From making a commitment. With her son’s father, she’d tried to keep from making a commitment. She was an idiot.
Girlfriend. What kind of word was that, anyway? It was so juvenile, so high school, so fumbling in the backseat of your father’s Ford Taurus. She had a son. She had an adult relationship with someone who was there for her, not in the Arctic in some summer home.
She wasn’t going to get sucked into this downward spiral again. She’d moved on with her life. And she had no time for Superman.
***
Lex was beginning to get bored. And putting off his work could prove fatal. He’d staffed his industries with competent people, but their output could mostly be categorized as workmanlike. There was no real creativity or grand ambition there; so as not to threaten his own comfortable perch atop the corporate ladder. He’d learned how to read people down to their souls in prison. None of those backstabbers had the guts to take him or Superman down.
Most of his rejects found their way to Gotham, and that Wayne idiot. With so many go-getters under his cloak, it was only a matter of time before he was forced out. Maybe then Wayne Enterprises would be amenable to a buy-out. Something to think about.
At long last, the sensors picked up an approach. With a few keystrokes, he instructed the defense grid not to try to vaporize the intruder. As amusing as it was to watch ordinance dimple that clear skin of his, it always got frustrating after a while.
After a moment, the doors to the balcony were thrown open and Superman hovered inside. He touched down on the Persian carpet, the bright color of his boots (as well as the rest of him) contrasting electrically with the masculine dark décor.
“Kal-El,” Lex said in greeting, like they were old chums… and in a way, after all this time, they were. He swiveled in his chair to face the alien from behind his monolithic desk. “Isn’t it past your bedtime?”
“I don’t sleep,” Superman said, stepping closer.
Lex shuffled some papers together. “Then you don’t dream.” He looked up. “Yes, that fits.” And, with a casual stroll, he stepped around the desk to face Superman. “What would a ‘Man of Tomorrow’ have to dream about, anyway?”
Superman crossed his arms just like he always did. God, five years and he might as well have been a statue, preserved in time for all eternity. Lex couldn’t get enough of it.
“I was expecting to have to hunt for you. But here you are. Right out in the open. You even put your name on the building.”
Lex smiled. Lex Tower. He'd had it built in the shape of an L, even having the roof slanted so that everyone could see the L clearly. He'd quite literally put his mark on the city. “Two hundred and twenty-two stories. A thousand meters tall, counting the mast. Not quite a Fortress of Solitude, but a nice little home away from home.”
“You can look down on everyone.” Superman ground his teeth. “You can fool everyone else, but not me. I know the real you.”
“Took the words right out of my mouth.”
“I know you’re planning something. Some plot against me, some convoluted revenge. Whatever it is, don’t go through with it.” Superman’s voice dipped close to pleading. “You keep your nose clean, I’ll consider the slate wiped clean.”
Lex couldn’t stand head to head with Superman… he was almost a head shorter than the alien… so he nonchalantly sat down atop the burgundy wood of his desk. With a finely-manicured hand he opened a humidor and drew out a Cuban cigar, rubbing it between two fingers as if he could touch the flavor.
“You’ll extend your mercy to me?” Lex said, his voice thick with sarcasm. “Kal, Kal, Kal… you don’t get to judge me. This is my city. My family built it. I inherited it. And God knows I’ve earned it.” Like a conductor with a baton, he used the cigar to gesture at the city, lit up at night like stars within a web. “This city was in an economic, a spiritual depression when I found it. I gave it hope. I brought it to its feet. You’ll never be able to do as much for them as I have.”
“I’ll do whatever I can,” Superman said, his eyes glowing dangerously.
“Do you know how much the crime rates shot up when you left? Batman had to come, all the way from Gotham, to clean up the mess you left behind.”
Smoke was issuing from Superman’s eyelashes and his eyes were bright red. Luthor prodded the cigar into his eye, lighting it. For a moment they stood there, seemingly locked together, as Luthor took the cigar in his mouth and inhaled deeply.
“You must’ve known I wouldn’t take your ‘generous’ offer. Why’d you really come here?”
“You’re the smart one, Lex. You tell me.”
Lex puffed on his cigar contentedly as he walked out to the balcony, Italian shoes clicking on the marble floor. He passed the Concert Grand piano that he’d once played at Carnegie Hall to a standing ovation and two encores. A single slender finger ran over the keyboard, making a zippy sound as he tripped the octaves down all eighty-eight keys. Superman winced at the noise. Out on the balcony, Lex casually held his cigar over the balustrade and tapped some ashes into the night sky.
”You want to know how I got out.” Lex said, gleeful at a new chance to trumpet his superiority. He took another long pull at his cigar, the end glowing as malignant as a star going nova. “A relative of mine stepped in: Uncle Sam.”
Superman scowled, but he couldn’t summon up the energy to fight or deny. His eyes did not glow, either red or blue.
“They wanted me to make them ‘failsafes’ in exchange for a pardon. Just in case you started fighting for truth, justice, and some other way. Kryptonite warheads… bullets with Kryptonite cores… that was just the engineering busywork, though… any MIT grad could do that for a term paper. What they really wanted was synthetic Kryptonite.”
“Did you succeed?” Superman demanded.
“Oh, Kal-El, and spoil the surprise?”
Inevitably, Superman’s hand was at his throat, lifting him off his feet.
“You don’t get to call me that.”
“This suit is worth more than some people’s lives. Don’t wrinkle it.”
Superman set him down, his face twisted like someone had just burnt his childhood security blanket in an incinerator. Lex smiled slowly. A creeping thing that spread from cheek to cheek.
“That’s the great truth of our time. No matter how many times you save them, you will never be one of them. And because you’re not one of them, they’ll never trust you… like they trust me.”
Superman turned away, almost as if to take off, but Lex grabbed hold of his cape at the shoulder. Superman’s heatvision flared back to life, flooding his eyes with red. Slowly, he turned. He brushed Lex’s hand off with chilling precision. It must’ve taken every ounce of self-control not to knock him off the balcony.
“I really don’t have anything against you, Kal-El.”
“I told you not to call me that,” Superman said softly.
“In another life, we even could’ve been friends. But you have to meddle. You have to interfere with the only thing that makes this squalid, hateful little world great.”
“I save people.”
“From themselves!” Lex angrily stubbed his cigar out on the balustrade, carelessly despoiling the fine craftsmanship. “From our destiny!”
“Only a warped maniac like you could believe mankind’s destiny is to rape and pillage each other, the strong dominating the weak…”
“YES! All that and more, if need be. But as men, not children with you as omnipotent parent. Look at all I’ve done without you. I’ve turned this city into an earthly paradise. I’ve cured sickness, brought up the weak… now that you’re back, that’ll all have to be put on hold. Neither of us trusts the other enough to let our feud die.”
After a long moment, as if wanting to deny it, Superman shook his head decisively. “I won’t take responsibility for your evil.”
Something twinged in Lex, something familiar but long ignored… the splinter in his mind’s eye… he, in turn, shook it off.
“Just like you can’t take responsibility for our good. Imagine what we could have chosen to become if it weren’t for you forcing us down your narrow little path.” He practically spat the next words in Superman’s face. “Who gave you the right to be our God?”
“You’re the one who keeps trying to play God.”
Lex smiled as he ran a hand over his bald head. “Play? Children play, Superman. I just do.” He got up in Superman’s face, or as close as he could come to it. The beacon of the bright yellow and red S filled his vision. “I’m currently the third richest man on the planet. And by currently, I mean temporarily. Additionally, I have an annual income of two billion, which is two hundred million a month, seven million a day, three hundred thousand an hour, five thousand a minute… how long have we been talking, Superman?”
“Like you said, Lex… temporarily.”
Superman took off until he was well overhead, flanking the radio tower that topped Lex Tower.
“Just remember… No matter how big you build your tower, I’ll still be able to fly over it.”
Lex held back his laughter until Superman flew off. Flight. Like that meant anything these days. If Lex wanted to fly, he’d use a plane.
Looking down at someone? That was just height. He could buy a step ladder. The real mark of supremacy was knowledge. He had knowledge Superman would never have. The synthetic Kryptonite was just kid’s stuff compared to what he’d unearthed. Five years to set up a playing ground for when Superman returned. He hasn’t wasted a single second. He’d known, in a corner of his mind, that Superman was still out there. Watching him. Spying on him. Thinking about him.
After finger-flicking the cigar into an eight hundred meter drop, he went back inside. With a click of his PDA, lead shutters closed over all the windows. He stood in front of his mirror and typed in a code to the PDA, “0451.” It sent out a signal not even Superman could detect. The mirror seamlessly turned to liquid and sucked itself into the rim, opening the way to the huge vault doors that spun open as soon as they’d taken biometric readings of Lex. He stepped inside.
The crystals were still there, of course. His fingertips twitched. A few more moments and sweat from his palms would drip off them. Lex gave himself over to his anxiety for three seconds. Then he reached out and decisively grasped the one of the shoots growing out of the main crystal.
It flared in his hand, burning him, frying his hand down to the bone and sizzling skin and melting bone… but that was just his imagination, the pain his penance. After the merest moment, the shoot withdrew from between his fingers, sinking into the trunk. The crystal seemed to melt, bleed. Liquid crystal flowed past his shoes and up the walls, surrounding him in an impenetrable sphere. Light bounced around inside it, solidifying into a single mass. A face.
“He’s back,” Lex told it.
“Finally.”
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Date: 2008-07-28 07:41 pm (UTC)That said, I think you did a good job of capturing the Lex from SR, because he was actually pretty much right - I mean, honestly, how many people would trust an alien with god like powers, and seriously, say what you will, but Lex is good at what he does. Unfortunately, he's also kind of psychotic. And I think you nailed both of those.
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Date: 2008-07-28 07:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2008-07-29 03:11 am (UTC)Wasn't the comic's title "Superman's Girlfriend, Lois Lane"?
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Date: 2008-08-05 08:20 am (UTC)And the cigar in the eye...! I'm loving this story, and can't wait to see where it goes.
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Date: 2008-10-26 07:17 pm (UTC)Fellow Lois and Clark fan, huh? XD