If you can stand it, this is another BatP/HoL rewrite. It's completely taken me by surprise lately. I've been posting this in nfic for the past few weeks and so far there has been anything to convert... hope you enjoy it!!
What's Love Got To Do With It?
'What's love got to do with it?
What's love but a second hand emotion...
What's love got to do with it?
Who needs a heart when a heart can be broken...'
Sung by Tina Turner
Lyrics by Terry Britten/Graham Lyle
~/~/~/~/~/~
Superman landed hard on the roof of the Lexor hotel. The day was beautiful. The sounds of the city bustling below him as people moved on their merry way gave no indication that his world was attempting to tumble around him. For the most part, it had tumbled around him.
The Daily Planet had been destroyed. A bomb had been set in the basement of the building and the building had been condemned.
His job was gone, but even worse, so was Lois.
She had just started working for Lex Luthor at LNN, his television station. The billionaire had persuaded her to work as a news researcher until the Daily Planet could be rebuilt.
His life was in limbo. His job at the newspaper, perhaps, was being held for him. It would take another couple of weeks for the renovations to be completed, but he knew that he could never work for Luthor. He didn't know what he was going to do as a permanent solution, guess he didn't see that the future was completely closed concerning Lois yet. Moving on again had crossed his mind several times in the past few days. In the meantime, he was working as a freelancer, mostly covering Superman stories.
It still horrified him to think that Lex Luthor had proposed marriage to Lois. She was totally blind to Luthor's misdeeds. Just the thought of the businessman laying a hand on her gave him the chills. Yet to his knowledge, she hadn't given him an answer. That's what kept him from spinning out of control; she didn't have a ring on her finger so it still gave him a bit of hope.
The most heartbreaking event had taken place the day and the night before. He had declared his love to Lois, as Clark, but had been rejected. He had poured his heart out to her, yet she told him she didn't feel the same way about him. During their conversation in the park, she'd mentioned that she wanted Clark to contact the superhero so she could talk to him.
So as Superman, he arrived at her apartment, through the window, knowing in his heart of hearts what she would say or ask him.
Clark closed his eyes tightly, not wanting to rehash the details again. It was hopeless. She didn't love him as Clark Kent, just a flashy superhero who was barely able to smile and carry on a normal conversation with her.
Earlier that afternoon, Luthor's secretary had called him at his apartment and asked him to get in touch with Superman. She said that Luthor wanted to discuss a very important matter concerning Lois Lane.
He had no idea why Luthor would want to talk to Superman about Lois. It was obvious they didn't see eye to eye when it came to her. Clark felt the billionaire merely wanted to possess her, while all he, Clark, wanted to do was to love her.
He waited for a moment on the roof, kicking at the tiny pebbles on the tar in frustration. How he hated it when people, mainly Luthor, made him wait – as though they were trying to get the upper hand by controlling him.
Well, he wasn't going to wait much longer. With anyone else, he would exercise more patience, but this was Luthor – the man who had the power to take Lois away from him.
Maybe that was the main reason he hated Luthor so much – he was powerless to stop the billionaire from courting Lois. Sure, he despised all the crimes that he highly suspected Luthor of committing, but as Superman, he could do something to put him behind bars. It seemed time wasn't on his side – Luthor had carefully hidden his misdeeds so it would take serious investigating and probably weeks before solid evidence could be found to support his gut feeling.
Luthor had always been just out of grasp – he had practically admitted to being behind the Mentomide drug scam and was sure he had planned the bombing of the Daily Planet. Seemed too coincidental that the destruction of the newspaper had happened on the heels of the circulation problems and layoffs. But he didn't have proof – yet.
Somehow all that didn't matter if Lois ended up saying yes to Luthor. There was one thing that could change her mind – if only, he as Superman would tell her they had a chance. Even though he had told her that he loved her in his Superman guise, it had been his turn to turn her away.
But he did love her, as Clark Kent, but she had made it clear that she didn't feel that was about him – about his real personality.
The door to the stairwell opened behind him. He whirled around on his heel and saw Mrs. Cox, Luthor's assistant, staring coolly at him.
"Superman... come with me, please." She glanced at him confidently for a second then turned her back on him. Pausing by the door, she threw one more steely look at him before disappearing down the steps.
He had to follow. If there was a remote chance that this had anything important to do with Lois, then he couldn't dismiss it without investigating. Besides, what could Luthor do to him? It was what he could do to Lois that cut him to the quick.
He followed Mrs. Cox down a flight of steps then came to a landing. An elevator was waiting for them.
He looked disbelievingly at Luthor's assistant. Did she honestly think that he would need to take an elevator down to wherever he needed to go? Usually he wasn't this cocky about his stature as Superman, but being that Luthor was behind it, he couldn't help his attitude. Yet he followed her inside and watched as she pressed the button to the basement.
Clark stood with his arms crossed in front of his chest. This was almost like a showdown; he could feel the electricity in the air as the elevator raced down.
Mrs. Cox stared coolly at the closed doors, not making any attempt to start a conversation or small talk. He wondered if he should try to get her to reveal something about what Luthor wanted to meet with him about. But it didn't seem likely that she would know. Luthor didn't strike him at all as the type who would confide in his assistant unless she had to know - not a simple meeting like this.
The doors opened and Mrs. Cox nodded in gesture that he should take the lead. He walked a few feet before arriving at a rather strong looking metal door. Mrs. Cox stepped in front of him and knocked loudly. Clark activated his supervision and saw that their destination was a dusty old wine cellar. It appeared to have been here long before the building was ever build overhead. After she ushered him in, Mrs. Cox left quietly.
Luthor held a bottle of dusty wine in his hand and was staring at it thoughtfully. After wiping it clean, he held it up and looked through it to the light of a small lamp on the wall.
Sighing contemplatively, Luthor said, "They say that civilization was invented so that man could cooperate in the making of wine."
Clark was already growing tired of Luthor's sophisticated act. A man who murdered for his own gain was no gentleman; Luthor was merely living in his own fantasy world.
"What do you want, Luthor?" Clark asked impatiently.
"A favor..."
"From me? You must be joking!" Clark replied, his annoyance edging his voice.
Lex put the bottle of wine down and met Superman's eyes challengingly. "Hear me out."
Clark stared at his enemy and waited for him to continue.
Lex spoke his next words carefully. "It seems as though my future fiancé, Lois Lane, has an unhealthy fixation on you... I need you to help me with persuading her to accept my proposal of marriage."
"Now why would I do that? Lois should be able to make up her own mind as to whom she wants to marry."
"And she will. Seems as though she misses her friends at the Daily Planet. I'm currently working on providing a convenient avenue of amusement for her. Renovations are almost complete. But I think it's your responsibility to help persuade her not to pass an opportunity up to marry me."
"Luthor, your arrogance astonishes me," Clark replied, ready to turn around and leave.
"Thank you, Superman. I'm merely living up to all my money... Now, what is more important is that Lois feels as long as you're around, there's a chance for you and her to - oh, how disgusting! – get together."
"I feel the same way about you and her." Clark's mounting anger was about to go out of control. Either he had to leave or twist Luthor's neck into a pretzel. "Let her go, Luthor!"
"Ah... but only one of us will be able to win her." Luthor turned away from Superman and placed the bottle of wine down. He touched a lever on the wine rack and a cage of steel bars dropped from the ceiling. "I don't intend to lose to the likes of you."
Clark almost laughed as the metal bars fell around him. Crossing his arms he stared at Luthor and said, "Do you honestly think that this will hold me?"
Luthor sneered and laughed, "No, but this will."
Lex pulled another lever hidden in the wine rack and suddenly the bars began glowing a bright sickly green. Kryptonite! Clark immediately felt the affects and doubled over in pain.
"Ah... my good friend, kryptonite! You see, Superman, with you out of the way, Lois is sure to come to me for comfort. Her hero will have fallen and will be no more. She will have no choice but to marry me."
As the pain began to course through his body, he resisted the urge to tell Luthor, 'over my dead body', for he was sure that was what Luthor intended.
After a moment, Luthor moved the lever again and the bars glowed less brightly than before. The pain was still there but at a duller, more tolerable level.
Luthor picked up an axe at the door but put it down slowly. "It's much more fun to let the effects linger. Killing you would be too easy." Luthor merely smiled and said, "See you tomorrow, Superman."
A few moments after Luthor left, Clark was able to get to his feet, and tried to pull apart the bars. But it was too late. His powers were already gone.
*****
"No, mother. I haven't said 'yes' to Lex. Yes, I am considering it... It just hasn't been the right time to tell him yet."
Lois held the phone away from her ear. "Mother! I know he's the third richest man in the world and that I'll be well to do for the rest of my life... Yes, Mother, even if it ends in divorce, but..."
"Yes, I'll think about all that you've said tonight. I'd hate to be the disgrace that sent you into hiding in the Metropolis social scene – I know how important that is to you…"
She sighed as a frustrated tear suddenly sprang to her eyes. "Mother, I've got to go. The ice cream delivery man is here."
Lois hung up the phone and sighed a huge breath of relief. There was no ice cream delivery man. She just didn't need her mother adding to all of her confusion over deciding about Lex's proposal. Sure she was flattered and a bit awed over the prospect of becoming one of the most influential persons in Metropolis', no, the world's wife, but somehow she just couldn't quite say yes.
What was she holding out for? Love was out the question; she simply didn't love the man. Still, the pressure from both Lex and her mother was beginning to get to her. Out of self-defense, she was about to say yes and that thought disturbed her.
Lex was very pleasant to be around; he treated her as though she was special and he even said that he loved her. Maybe it was the declaration of love that kept her from saying yes. Although he had spoken the words, she didn't quite feel that the billionaire meant it. Love was just another complication thrown into yet another relationship.
Lois closed her eyes tightly and tried to blot out all her thoughts. Maybe ice cream was the answer after all.
******
Must be a low-level dosage of kryptonite, Clark thought desperately as he lay on the floor the next morning. Some altered version of the element Luthor had either found or derived from the original.
His body ached and complained with every move that he made, but it wasn't unbearable. It was getting cold in the wine cellar... he wrapped his cape around him tightly as his teeth began to chatter. Must be getting a low grade fever…
His hands were raw from trying to pull the bars apart. Although the bars burned him painfully, he had tried for hours to separate them but couldn't even budge them. It was to no avail.
Clark swallowed dryly. His mouth was parched and his throat felt as if it were on fire from shouting for help. Each breath was becoming more laborious to take; his muscles were just too sore to use. As he lay curled up in a ball on the floor, he thought of the only thing, the only person that could help him through. Ironically, it was the one person, who supposedly, this was all about – Lois.
His thoughts drifted back to the last time he saw her, not as Superman, but as Clark.
It had been yesterday afternoon. He'd met her at LNN at her request and she'd tried to persuade him to work with her at Luthor's television station until the Daily Planet reopened.
As he was observing the rather sterile interior of the television station, Lois had come bounding up to him excitedly...
/~/~/~/~/~/
"Clark, thanks for coming!"
"What's going on?"
"Plenty. I've been here all afternoon."
"Lois, what am I doing here, exactly?"
"I'm going to work here, at least until Lex opens up the Daily Planet again. I want you to come work here, too. We can still be partners."
"I'm a newspaper reporter."
"You'd still be writing the news. Copy for our reporters. Or you could be a correspondent. Look around you: it's so modern."
"Sterile."
"Efficient."
"Soulless."
"Fast-paced."
"Superficial."
"Clark, where's your open mind?" Lois said, exasperated.
"I can't believe you've given up so soon... on the Planet. Did it mean that little to you?"
"The Planet meant as much or more to me as it did to you. And that's where I have some good news for you. Lex is putting it back together." She regarded the frown on Clark's face. "Isn't that exciting?"
"I will never work for Lex Luthor."
"This is only temporary for me now, but what about us? What about 'partners'?"
Almost exasperated, Clark looked around the highly efficient television station and sighed. "Is there someplace we can talk, alone?"
A few minutes later, they were walking silently in the park. Clark motioned to an empty bench and then sat down after Lois. She turned to him and asked, "What is it, Clark?"
He stared wistfully at the beautiful woman next to him and hoped he had the courage to continue. After deciding to tell her the truth about his feelings for her, he'd been a nervous wreck. And scared to death at the thought of losing her. There had been no way he was going to work for the Daily Planet or LNN news – not as long as Luthor owned them. The thought of being removed from Lois' life both professionally and personally was literally tearing him up inside. His options as remaining her partner were practically nil at the moment and now he needed to know where he stood with her romantically.
Taking a deep breath, he began. "Lois, when I thought about losing my job at the Planet, saying good bye to Perry, Jimmy, everyone... I realized something. I realized I could lose all that and still go on. I realized there was only one thing I didn't want to live without... and that was you. Seeing you every morning, working with you, being with you..."
"That's why you should...
"No. Lois, listen to me. I'm not talking about the partnership. I'm talking about us." He looked at her earnestly. "I've been in love with you for a long time."
Lois looked up from staring at her lap and found Clark's eyes.
"You must have known."
Clearly taken aback by his declaration, Lois blurted, "I knew... well I knew that you liked me, were attracted to me, but... I'm sorry. I don't think about you in that way... romantically." Clark could see she was clearly uncomfortable.
"Clark, You're my best friend, the only partner I could ever stand to work with. I admire you, respect you, and I do love you, but only as a friend."
His heart had broken into a million pieces. "And Luthor? Do you love him?"
"I don't know. I do have feelings for him. I haven't said yes, yet. And I won't, until I've talked it over with someone else."
"Who?"
"I think you know. If you see him will you tell him I'm looking for him?"
He looked at her pointedly and asked, "Lois, do you know what you're asking of me?"
Her expression was one of shock and shame. "I'm so sorry, Clark. I'll find a way to contact him myself. Forget it."
He'd been forgiving Lois her callous thoughts for a whole year now. Guess one more didn't matter now.
"It's okay. I'll get a hold of Superman for you." He stood up and let himself look at her one more time before turning around and walking into the wooded area of the park.
/~/~/~/~/~/
Clark moaned as he shifted in pain on the floor. Even the thought of that conversation brought stabs of anguish to his heart. Lois had rejected him completely as Clark, yet had asked for Superman. A cardboard cutout.
A desperate fabrication created in order to serve mankind. Sometimes he wished he'd never created Superman – then maybe, just maybe Lois would have fallen for his real identity, Clark Kent. Just maybe, without Superman swooping in on the scene, he, plain ol' Clark Kent, would have had a chance.
He struggled to sit up and get the blood flowing in his body. This wasn't a time to give up. He had no idea what Lois was going to do with the rest of her life and even though she had rejected him as Clark, he couldn't give up on her to the likes of Luthor. Not while there was a breath in his body.
He laid his head in his hands as the room seemed to swirl around him. What was that monster doing with the woman he loved? He had said he was going to pull out all stops in order to win Lois. He just prayed that Lois wouldn't fall victim to whatever Luthor had planned.
******
The next morning, Lois shrugged off the chauffeur's attempts to help her out of the limousine in front of LNN news. She thought she could get used to being driven around but it had been frustrating rather than a convenience.
For one, she missed yelling at the other drivers and bullying her way around on the road. Even when she had taken a cab before, she could be a backseat driver and shake her fist at the latest maniac who crossed her path.
She supposed the real reason she didn't care for being carted around was that she felt she was losing her independence. Lex probably meant well by offering his staff to be at her disposal but it was beginning to cramp her style.
After waving the driver off, she stopped for a moment on the steps and remembered when she and Clark had walked down them almost two days earlier.
She wondered how he was doing and whether he was okay after she'd rejected his declaration of love. He probably was feeling the same way as she was about Superman's rejection. She hadn't given much thought to Clark in the past forty-eight hours, being so preoccupied with Superman.
Come to think of it, she hadn't heard any news from the superhero either. The skies had been oddly quiet ever since she had last seen him. There had been a couple of incidents where people had wondered why the Man of Steel hadn't shown up to help in the rescue. But that was all that had been reported in the news.
Yet, the last time she'd seen him, he had flown through her window and had said goodbye. Like he'd meant it.
She shrugged off the thought of Superman – it wouldn't do to start crying on the steps of her new workplace – at least until Lex reopened the Daily Planet.
A hand cupping her elbow startled her out of her thoughts and she lifted her head to see Lex watching her, looking quite pleased with something.
"Come, my dear! I have something to show you." He produced a small velvet blindfold and held it out to her. "Would you allow me? I have a surprise for you."
He gestured towards the limousine that hadn't left the curb yet. "I had your driver inform me when you arrived."
Lois smiled slightly and sighed. Lex could be so charming. Guess it wouldn't hurt to give in and follow his wishes. Turning around so that he could place the blindfold across her eyes, she said, "As long as you don't mind me having a bad hair day for the rest of the day, or you're taking me off to be your prisoner in a cage or something..."
Lois felt a bit of uncertainty as the velvet cloth tightened a bit too much as Lex tied it around her eyes. Then he loosened it and tucked her arm into his.
"Ready, my dear?" Lex said sweetly into her ear.
"As ready as I'm ever going to be." Lois placed her other hand on his and allowed herself to be placed in the limousine. Wherever Lex was taking her was sure to be interesting.
Twenty minutes later, the car's engine was turned off and Lois was being helped out.
"Lex, are you sure this blindfold is necessary? I hate surprises," she exclaimed as she stumbled a bit, but Lex was there to steady her.
"Believe me, it'll be worth it," Lex crooned next to her.
After walking for a while and an elevator ride, Lex stopped and placed her hands on the blindfold. "Whenever you're ready, take it off."
Lois immediately tore at the soft material and blinked at the light. When her vision came back into focus, she knew she was in a familiar place. Renovated and updated, but a place she knew and loved – the bullpen of the Daily Planet.
The banisters had been re-varnished and the interior freshly refurbished and decorated. The computers and furniture were brand-new but even the newness of the equipment couldn't take away the feel that she was back in the place she loved.
"Oh, Lex!" She turned to him with tears in her eyes. "You did it! You've brought the Daily Planet back!"
"Yes, Lois," he said. "But there's more... this is your wedding present. Once you marry me, the Daily Planet is all yours."
Her mouth dropped open in complete surprise.
*****
