Fic: This Tornado Loves You 1/1
Title: This Tornado Loves You
Author: Sorrel
Fandom: Justice League (DCAU), Smallville
Pairing(s): Cally Kent/Lex Luthor, background Cally Kent/Chloe Sullivan and Cally Kent/Bruce Wayne
Spoilers: AU-ized Justice League up through "Hereafter," AU-ized Smallville for the existence of Chloe.
Word Count: 4,601
Rating: teen
Warnings: Character death, but constrained to what happened in canon (and the end-of-episode resurrection)
Summary: Lex refuses to believe that she's dead.
Notes: Third of the Callyverse stories, follows Jeans on Friday and Shed Your Skin. This story takes place during the Justice League episode "Hereafter," and about a month after Shed Your Skin. The title is take from the song by Neko Case, and was changed from the original because this was the title I was looking for before I'd even heard it.
This Tornado Loves You.
~*~
He almost didn’t go to the funeral.
There was no point, Lex believed, in holding a funeral for Superwoman when Superwoman wasn’t even dead. It was one of the most fundamental rules of the caped world: death wasn’t final until you saw the body, and even then you’d better make damned sure. It was just as important as “innocent until proven guilty.” More important, actually, since supervillains usually proved themselves guilty in some spectacularly violent fashion, very early in the game.
Superwoman had survived countless villains, mutants, aliens, evil alternate universes, multiple forced sex changes, her own teammates, and him. How could they possibly believe that something had finally managed to kill her, when they didn’t even have a body?
No. Lex refused to go along with it.
But the funeral… well. Funerals were for the living- no, for those left behind. And Lex Luthor had worked together with Superwoman very publicly on a number of charities over the years. He didn’t want to earn the enmity of her numerous friends and allies by appearing to slight her only days after her supposed “death.”
So he put on his best black suit, and drove down to town hall, where what seemed like half the world was trying to fit itself inside the walls.
Most of the actual seats were reserved for the rich and famous, for politicians, foreign dignitaries, visiting royalty. The whole world mourned Superwoman’s loss, the loss of their heroine, their savior, their protector. And so they should; the world would reshape itself to account for her loss, and everyone’s future would be just a little less bright.
But only a small handful of people knew Superwoman personally, and they were all, save two, seated on the front row.
Chloe, Lex saw after a careful minute of searching, was seating in the press section with all the other out-of-town reporters. She was bent over, sobbing, her chic golden bob in disarray as it fell forward to hide the sheen of tears on her cheeks. Any of the Leaguers would have welcomed her with nary a question after a sharp look from Wonder Woman. But still she sat in the back corner of the room like a stranger, so caught in her own determination to keep all the important part of their lives separate that she couldn’t break away and stand up for her lover’s memory. Lex felt only the smallest stirrings of pity for her; she had brought this on herself.
Neither Bruce Wayne nor Batman was anywhere to be seen.
Lois was there, of course, seated near the end of the row next to Wonder Woman, dabbing her eyes delicately with a handkerchief. Diana was dressed in formal Amazonian robes and circlet as befitting her station, with the Martian Manhunter on her left and the rest of the League lined up next to him. The League’s allies were there- Aquaman and his queen, Dr. Fate and his wife- and Batgirl, perched on the far end of the bench and looking like she wasn’t sure she should be there, while Nightwing kept silent vigil and Robin all but disappeared into the shadows behind a column.
Batman may have chosen not to attend, but Gotham mourned Kal in spite of him. Lex could only find that fitting.
“Mr. Luthor, it’s good to see you here,” Wonder Woman said when he came forward to find his seat. “Please, do me the honor of joining me during this memorial to our dear departed friend.”
Lex tilted his head and looked at her for a long moment. What was she doing? Lex knew that there was a seat saved for him, on the other side of the chapel, reserved for all the politicians and dignitaries and VIP’s. He had no place sitting with superheroes, and everyone here knew that.
But Wonder Woman was asking. And Lex knew that Cally considered Diana of the Amazons as her sister in all but blood.
“The honor is mine,” he said, and followed her down to find his seat.
~*~
It was a nice service. Lex had been expecting a certain amount of flash and grandstanding on the part of the mayor- elections were coming soon- but apparently respect for Superwoman overwhelmed even Dan Davis’ political ambition. There was a sense of quiet grief threaded through every speech. Metropolis genuinely loved- and mourned- its heroine.
After it was over, though, Lex intended to escape. This was a perfect opportunity for a certain amount of political glad-handling; his name had been very publicly connected to Superwoman’s for years and the time was ripe to take advantage of that. But he didn’t have the stomach for it. Not today.
Wonder Woman stopped him with a hand on his shoulder when the assembly stood to exit. “Stay with me,” she said. “I’d like to speak with you later, if you don’t mind waiting.”
Lex considered refusing, but her tone was perilously close to an order, and her grip didn’t exactly leave room for escape. “All right,” he said.
Wonder Woman, he noticed, had the stomach for a certain amount of glad-handling. He wasn’t surprised; she was after all the heir apparent to a headstrong and secluded race, and politics must be second nature to her.
He was surprised by the way the rest of the League deferred to her when stopped by mourners looking to express their best wishes. Lex had known that Superwoman, while not a commander in any sense, had always been both the public face and the de-facto leader of the League, but he hadn’t realized that Wonder Woman was the heir apparent in more than one way.
He supposed people found it comforting. They’d lost Superwoman, but here was another dark-haired woman with similar powers, just another red-and-blue flash in the sky. People were sheep when it came to public appearance; it probably smoothed the transfer of power after Superwoman’s disappearance.
Eventually all the polite talk and pressing of flesh was over and done with, and Wonder Woman drew him aside, to a waiting limo parked discreetly on one of the side streets. Lex allowed himself to be ushered inside, giving the “stand down” signal to Hope, who was shadowing him from a careful fifteen feet away. When he settled on the seat across from Wonder Woman and felt the limo start to move, he knew Mercy would be following in his own town car. It would go against every piece of training she’d ever had to do otherwise, and never mind that Lex was probably safer here with the world’s other greatest heroine than he was on the streets of downtown Metropolis otherwise, even with the best of bodyguards money could buy.
“Wonder Woman-“
“Call me Diana. Wonder Woman is the name given to me by this man’s world.”
“Diana,” he substituted smoothly. “Not that I’m not honored by this meeting, but…“ He trailed off and spread his hands.
“But you’re wondering why I wanted to speak with you,” she finished. “Yes.” She folded her hands neatly in her lap, her clenched fingers lost in the white folds of her robe. “Cally spoke of you often.”
Lex’s throat closed over but he held her gaze when he said, “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
She didn’t quite try to glare him into submission, but she looked like she wanted to. “Shall I say Kal-El? There’s no point in pretending between us, Mr. Luthor. I’m well aware of just how much you’ve involved yourself in Cally’s life.”
Interesting phrasing, Lex thought. She didn’t sound accusing, but she didn’t sound friendly, either. “Very well, I know Ms. Kent.”
“You use the present tense,” she noted.
“I don’t believe she’s dead.”
“Hmm.” Delusional, her face said, but she was polite enough not to voice it. “Batman says the same, but you came to the funeral, when he did not.”
“She deserves respect,” Lex said simply. “Also, when she comes back, I’d hate to be the guy who couldn’t even be bothered to go to her memorial service.”
She studied him for a long moment. “I do believe you mean that.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “I’m hardly going to lie to a woman who could snap me in half like kindling.”
“Considering your affections for Cally, I’d hardly consider that sort of thing a problem for you.”
“Yes, well.” His gaze didn’t waver. “I love her.”
She sat back in her seat, and only then did he realize how stiffly she’d been holding herself, how tightly tension had drawn her forward. “I believe you.”
Lex blinked, the only outward show of surprise he allowed himself. “She never has.”
“Cally had her own issues with sex and sexuality, and more than that I think she was always too close to read you clearly.” Something of what he was thinking must have shown on his face, because she gave that lovely, musical laugh he’d heard only a handful of times and said, “Yes, I did say ‘close.’ You’ve invested too much time in her to be modest now.”
“I never forced her into anything she didn’t-“
“Peace,” Diana said, cutting her hand between them in a quieting gesture. “That’s not what I meant, and if you’d listened more carefully you’d know that. You loved her and wanted her to love you back.” She gave him a warm smile, and for the first time in this conversation, Lex saw the woman that called Cally “sister.” “I’d hardly call it force. In fact, you were a great deal more careful and clever about your courtship than anyone else I have seen thus far in man’s world.”
“Ah.” Lex relaxed back into the smooth leather cushions of his seat. “That’s… very kind of you. And unexpected. Thank you.”
Her smile turned unexpectedly devilish. “Batman doesn’t share my opinion. But Batman is naturally a suspicious person and not, I might add, unbiased when it comes to the subject of Cally’s affections.”
The sense of satisfaction that spread through him was pretty, but it felt good, nonetheless. “I’d suspected as much, but I didn’t know how, hmm, serious he is about his feelings.”
“I don’t know either,” Diana told him. “I doubt Cally even noticed.”
“But you did.”
Diana inclined her head- not quite regally, Lex thought, but close. Some gestures, learned in childhood, never quite went away. “Yes. But I was paying attention.”
Ah. Something he hadn’t known, and he was honored- and a little flabbergasted- that she had trusted him with the information. “Thank you for coming to me,” he said. “And for saying what you did. It means a great deal to me.”
“When one warrior is lost, all she held dear must gather to honor her memory.” The limo rolled to a smooth halt. “We’ve arrived at LexCorp towers.”
“Then thank you for the ride as well.” He opened the door, got out, and then paused. “She’s not dead,” he told the interior of the car.
“And the fact that you believe that means a great deal,” Diana replied. “Goodbye, Lex Luthor. I have a wake to plan.”
Lex closed the door and watched her drive off. He was still staring at the spot where the limo had turned and the taillights disappeared from view when Mercy pulled up next to him.
“Boss?” She sounded worried. Changes to certain routines didn’t sit well with her. “You okay?”
“Never better,” he said absently. “Call Hope, will you, and get my air service on the line. I need a plane to Gotham.”
~*~
Lex never really though he’d find himself here, on the very steps of Wayne Manor, but this was a week of surprises. He’d always done his best to stay out of Gotham, because there was a big difference between baiting Bruce at some Metropolis fundraiser and encroaching on Batman’s territory. Lex was daring, not stupid.
And yes, he fully realized that what he was doing qualified as “stupid.” Mercy had said as much, at length, during the drive from the Gotham International Airport. But Lex had a few things to say to Mr. Wayne, and he considered it unlikely that Bruce was going to come to him.
The door was answered before his knuckles did more than brush the wood- of course, cameras had been tracking him since the bottom of the two-mile driveway- and when it creaked open Lex found himself under the regard of a very upright older man.
“The loyal butler, I presume.”
“Of course, sir.” Alfred Pennyworth inclined his head. “Master Bruce is not in this afternoon. May I take a message?”
“I think you can drag him out of the Batcave for me,” Lex said, and only surprise gave him the advantage needed to push past the veteran of many such maneuvers. Hope wouldn’t let someone through his front door no matter how insistent; he didn’t imagine Alfred would be any less capable.
“Sir, you can’t be in here-“
“It’s alright, Alfred.” Bruce’s low voice came from his left. “Lex Luthor goes where he wants. Don’t you, Lex?”
“I do find myself happier when the world accommodates itself to me rather than the other way around.” He offered a cheerful, empty smile, a perfect match to any belonging to Bruce Wayne, playboy. “But then, don’t we all?”
Bruce’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “I don’t want to spar with you today, Luthor. I lost a valued friend this week.”
The implication, of course, being that Lex hadn’t. He had to turn away against the urge to punch Bruce in the mouth. Offering violence to the Batman was like stealing a fresh kill from a pride of lions: you might feel smug for a moment, but then you were going to get mauled.
There came a second voice, younger, from the doorway Bruce blocked with his broad back. “He doesn’t look like pure evil.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Lex said lightly. “I kick puppies and everything.”
A dark-haired teenager leaned around Bruce, a skeptical you’re-not-as-funny-as-you-think-you-are look that was so common to adolescents on his face. Bruce pushed him back through the doorway. “Tim, go back to your room.”
Tim obeyed, much more docilely than Lex would have expected for Robin. Then again, orders from the Batman were probably something to be taken seriously. “Nice to meet you, Tim!” Lex called after him, and the boy turned, annoyed, to shoot him the bird.
“Tim,” Bruce said, and the boy scowled but disappeared up the steps. Lex hid a grin. Petty, but fun.
“Why are you here, Luthor,” Bruce said flatly. “I don’t have time for your games.”
“My games?” Lex shook his head, chidingly. “Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Out of the two of us standing here, I’m not the one playing games.”
Bruce’s mouth tightened to a flat line. “It’s all you ever do. You just want to be the winner, to be the one on top. Superwoman shows up and you spent the better part of a decade pursuing her so that you can be the Alpha dog again. It never means anything to you.”
Hmmm. That sounded almost like real passion in Bruce’s voice. Lex had never really been able to get him to rise to the bait before- but then, the Batman wasn’t really at his best today.
Lex, on the other hand, was here for something, and he was damned if he was going to leave before he got it. “You really think that I need to get her into bed just to massage my ego? Trust me, my ego is healthy, and I’ve always had all the power I ever needed over Cally, if that’s what I was after. It’s not.”
“You lie.”
Bruce was stubborn, that was fine. He wouldn’t be who he was if he didn’t hold on to his beliefs far past the point of logic and sanity. “I’m not blackmailing her. I’m not screwing her, and I’m not screwing her over. Is that truly so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” Bruce said flatly. “Does she know that you know her civilian identity?”
Interesting that Bruce thought of it that way. Cally called it her “real” name, but to Bruce it was her “civilian” name. Lex wondered if Bruce realized just how crazy he actually was. “Yes. She knows.”
Bruce smiled, a smug, unpleasant, ace-up-his-sleeve smirk. “And did your little background checks find out about how Cally Kent used to be Clark Kent?”
He must have moved faster than Bruce expected, because he crossed the space between them and slammed Bruce against the nearest wall, hand around his throat, and Bruce didn’t break his arm. “If you ever,” Lex said, pinning Bruce’s body against the wall with his own matching bulk, “taunt her with that, ever, I will kill you. And it won’t be supervillains and killer robots and a dastardly plot, it’ll be a sniper’s bullet through your skull from a hundred yards and no one will mourn your passing.”
“Showing your true colors, Luthor,” Bruce said, seemingly unfazed by his position. “I always knew you were a killer.”
Lex let him go and stepped back, straightening his jacket with a couple quick tugs. “We’re all killers, Brucie. You of all people should know that. How many people have died because you keep throwing the Joker back into Arkham instead of putting him down like the rabid dog he is?”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same. Your intentions are good, aren’t they? You just want to clean up your city. Nothing wrong with that; I’ve been doing the same for years. Unlike you, however, I know how to get things done without violence.”
“And that’s why you just threatened to assassinate me, of course.”
“No.” Lex shoved his hands into his pocket and smiled. “That’s for Cally. That’s because I love her, and you’ve screwed her over and broken her heart and I’m not going to let you hurt her again.”
“You don’t know what love is,” Bruce snapped, and looking at him, all twisted up with hope and grief and rage and suspicion, Lex felt his anger fade away. Cally had gotten to him, too. How could she not? She was everything that Gotham wasn’t, a bright clean beautiful thing that Bruce wanted all for his own. Lex could relate.
But there was the real difference between them. Bruce was a strong man, and a good one, though he was fucking nuts. But he wasn’t strong enough for Cally, any more than Chloe Sullivan. They were afraid of her, afraid of how much better she was, better than they could ever be, and Chloe buried herself in work and left Cally in the cold and Bruce turned away and left Cally lonely but Lex wouldn’t. Lex knew that she was better than him, and he didn’t care. She made him better, and Lex knew that he was good for her even if he couldn’t be good enough.
“I know what love isn’t,” he said. “Love isn’t hiding from your feelings because you’re happier being miserable. Love isn’t breaking a woman’s heart because she scares you. Love doesn’t hurt someone else just so you can feel safe. Love isn’t what you did to her.”
He reached out and patted Bruce on the shoulder. “It was good seeing you, Wayne. We should do lunch sometime.”
He turned and headed for the front door, and there was a moment of stunned silence before Bruce burst out with a furious shout. “What did you want, you bastard?”
Lex turned, and grinned at him, the same smile he always got when he knew he’d won. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I already got it.”
Then he nodded to Alfred, went out the front door, and left Bruce to his fear and his shame.
~*~
It was pure coincidence that he saw it on the local news first. Normally he wouldn’t go near any kind of normal news station, believing them to be laughable parodies of actual “news” and relying on his own much more thorough sources, but Hope liked watching it in the evening. She’d sit cross-legged on the floor in his media room, with six different guns spread out in front of her, disassembled, while she cleaned, oiled, and reassembled them, watching the news with the rapt attention of a child.
He didn’t pretend to understand the ritual. She was good enough at her job that none of the guns needed cleaning; on the days they did she didn’t clean them on his living room floor. And he’d never one heard her offer any kind of opinion on current events, so he didn’t understand the draw of the news. Maybe it was the violence; Lex didn’t know and didn’t ask. He usually sat in the kitchen when the news was on, which put three completely sound-proofed walls between him and the atrocity that was Metropolis News at 11!
But this time, he was there. Later, he didn’t remember why, there was probably something he’d meant to ask Hope, or maybe there was something on one of the shelves he needed, but for whatever reason, he was in the media room when the Channel 12 report of Superwoman’s triumphant return splashed across the screen.
Hope didn’t say anything at first, just twisted around and canted her head back till she was looking up at him, still standing next to her, gaping like a fool at the screen. “Not dead after all,” she said, with that quiet smile that was closest Hope ever got to outright happiness.
The footage was incredibly poor, even for Channel 12, just a blurred shot of Superwoman taking off into the sky, the rest of the Justice League around her. It could have been anyone in that suit, there’d been any number of imposters over the years, this would be a perfect time for one to insinuate themselves into the League. The hair wasn’t even right, the normal healthy tan glow of her skin replaced by pallor, it didn’t even look like her.
But Lex knew it was Cally. His Kal.
“No,” he said. “Not dead.”
~*~
She came to see him the next night. The headlines were screaming about Superwoman’s triumphant return, but she didn’t look very triumphant slumped on his couch, her cape a blood-red puddle on the cushion beside her. She looked tired, and thoughtful, and sad.
“Making the rounds?” he asked lightly, coming back from the kitchen with a bottle of her favorite white zinfandel and two glasses. This was a celebration, after all. “I guess I should be grateful I’m somewhere on the list.”
She didn’t rise to the bait, which was worrying, but instead gave him a wan little smile that make him want to switch out the wine for hot chocolate. With little marshmallows. Lots of them.
“I had some things to take care of.”
He could only imagine. There were her parents to reassure, the media to placate, and she’d have to resume her place with her team and make peace with her girlfriend, as well as come up with a convincing lie for the disturbingly canny, if blindly self-centered, Lois Lane. Not a comfortable to-do list by any reckoning. “That’s what happens when you come back from the dead.”
“Back from the future is a little closer to the truth.”
He’d seen the reports, yes. Even his curiosity about how the Toyman had accomplished the feat wasn’t enough to distract him.
“I’ve heard people say your life is like a movie, but I don’t think that’s what they had in mind.”
“Things never turn out how you expect them to be, haven’t you noticed?”
That was so uncharacteristically defeatist that he followed his impulse to set aside his wineglass and lean forward to take her hand. “Kal-“
“Cally.” She shook her head at the look on his face. “You know, there’s a reason I don’t use the name I was born with. Jor-El’s son… I haven’t been that person in a very, very long time. Maybe ever.”
“I know that,” he said. “I just-“ He realized what he was about to confess and stop.
She cocked her head, birdlike. “What?”
What the hell, it wasn’t like he’d ever been able to keep much of anything from her. The only things she didn’t know about him were things she’d kept herself from knowing. “I like being the only who uses it.”
“You have a strange idea of what makes a good pet name,” she said, but she was smiling. He loved that smile of hers. He’d gone to unbelievable lengths to get it turned in his direction, in the past.
Clearing his throat, Lex said, “I can’t believe Batman doesn’t still have you under observation.”
She made a face and sat back, allowing him the unsubtle change of subject. “You and me both. Normally he’d be all over me with those instruments of his, but this time he just said ‘welcome back’ and disappeared back to Gotham. It was strange. Do you think something’s wrong with him?”
Lex knew what had been going through Bruce’s head, hiding his blind hope behind scientific “proof,” and to see her return like that, to see her back when he’d started to believe that he’d made a mistake and she was truly gone after all… Oh yes, Lex understood him perfectly well. And because he understood him, Lex had nothing like respect for him, for a man who’d been so afraid of his own feelings that he’d deliberately and callously hurt those of a woman who’d done nothing more than care for him in spite of himself.
“Forget about Batman,” Lex said, surprising himself with the anger in his voice. He usually had more control than this. Even around her, he was better than this. “He doesn’t deserve you worrying over him.”
Cally blinked, a little startled by his outburst- oh yes, he’d always been so, so careful around her, damn his tongue anyway- but she didn’t flinch back, like he was half expecting. Instead she offered him a tentative smile, like she had to comfort him, and took a sip from her wineglass. “I’m guessing there were words exchanged between you two.”
Lex looked away. “You could say that.”
Her hand over his was warm, inhumanly so. It wasn’t hard to imagine her body as the giant solar battery it was, storing the light of the sun long past the time it had slipped over the horizon. She certainly seemed to glow in his eyes. “I won’t ask. But whatever it is, I have a feeling I owe you a thank-you.”
He couldn’t look away this time. “You don’t owe me anything.”
She didn’t look away either. In all the pictures, her eyes were bright blue, but up close, he realized that they were actually very, very green. “Thank you, Lex.”
He swallowed hard. “You’re welcome.”
She let go of his hand, finally, and let go of his gaze. They both sat back, and drank their wine, and she told him about the incident with Lobo, and Diana’s much-embroidered stories of her wake, while he told her about his business, and some of the more amusing disasters to come out of the lab. They didn’t talk about Batman. They didn’t talk about her time away. They didn’t talk about anything important, really.
But she was here, with him, after everything had been settled. She’d come to him.
And he realized, with a sensation like birds taking flight in his chest, something that was almost like hope-
He remembered that she’d called him Lex.
.end.
My love
I'm an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing
This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?
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Author: Sorrel
Fandom: Justice League (DCAU), Smallville
Pairing(s): Cally Kent/Lex Luthor, background Cally Kent/Chloe Sullivan and Cally Kent/Bruce Wayne
Spoilers: AU-ized Justice League up through "Hereafter," AU-ized Smallville for the existence of Chloe.
Word Count: 4,601
Rating: teen
Warnings: Character death, but constrained to what happened in canon (and the end-of-episode resurrection)
Summary: Lex refuses to believe that she's dead.
Notes: Third of the Callyverse stories, follows Jeans on Friday and Shed Your Skin. This story takes place during the Justice League episode "Hereafter," and about a month after Shed Your Skin. The title is take from the song by Neko Case, and was changed from the original because this was the title I was looking for before I'd even heard it.
This Tornado Loves You.
~*~
He almost didn’t go to the funeral.
There was no point, Lex believed, in holding a funeral for Superwoman when Superwoman wasn’t even dead. It was one of the most fundamental rules of the caped world: death wasn’t final until you saw the body, and even then you’d better make damned sure. It was just as important as “innocent until proven guilty.” More important, actually, since supervillains usually proved themselves guilty in some spectacularly violent fashion, very early in the game.
Superwoman had survived countless villains, mutants, aliens, evil alternate universes, multiple forced sex changes, her own teammates, and him. How could they possibly believe that something had finally managed to kill her, when they didn’t even have a body?
No. Lex refused to go along with it.
But the funeral… well. Funerals were for the living- no, for those left behind. And Lex Luthor had worked together with Superwoman very publicly on a number of charities over the years. He didn’t want to earn the enmity of her numerous friends and allies by appearing to slight her only days after her supposed “death.”
So he put on his best black suit, and drove down to town hall, where what seemed like half the world was trying to fit itself inside the walls.
Most of the actual seats were reserved for the rich and famous, for politicians, foreign dignitaries, visiting royalty. The whole world mourned Superwoman’s loss, the loss of their heroine, their savior, their protector. And so they should; the world would reshape itself to account for her loss, and everyone’s future would be just a little less bright.
But only a small handful of people knew Superwoman personally, and they were all, save two, seated on the front row.
Chloe, Lex saw after a careful minute of searching, was seating in the press section with all the other out-of-town reporters. She was bent over, sobbing, her chic golden bob in disarray as it fell forward to hide the sheen of tears on her cheeks. Any of the Leaguers would have welcomed her with nary a question after a sharp look from Wonder Woman. But still she sat in the back corner of the room like a stranger, so caught in her own determination to keep all the important part of their lives separate that she couldn’t break away and stand up for her lover’s memory. Lex felt only the smallest stirrings of pity for her; she had brought this on herself.
Neither Bruce Wayne nor Batman was anywhere to be seen.
Lois was there, of course, seated near the end of the row next to Wonder Woman, dabbing her eyes delicately with a handkerchief. Diana was dressed in formal Amazonian robes and circlet as befitting her station, with the Martian Manhunter on her left and the rest of the League lined up next to him. The League’s allies were there- Aquaman and his queen, Dr. Fate and his wife- and Batgirl, perched on the far end of the bench and looking like she wasn’t sure she should be there, while Nightwing kept silent vigil and Robin all but disappeared into the shadows behind a column.
Batman may have chosen not to attend, but Gotham mourned Kal in spite of him. Lex could only find that fitting.
“Mr. Luthor, it’s good to see you here,” Wonder Woman said when he came forward to find his seat. “Please, do me the honor of joining me during this memorial to our dear departed friend.”
Lex tilted his head and looked at her for a long moment. What was she doing? Lex knew that there was a seat saved for him, on the other side of the chapel, reserved for all the politicians and dignitaries and VIP’s. He had no place sitting with superheroes, and everyone here knew that.
But Wonder Woman was asking. And Lex knew that Cally considered Diana of the Amazons as her sister in all but blood.
“The honor is mine,” he said, and followed her down to find his seat.
~*~
It was a nice service. Lex had been expecting a certain amount of flash and grandstanding on the part of the mayor- elections were coming soon- but apparently respect for Superwoman overwhelmed even Dan Davis’ political ambition. There was a sense of quiet grief threaded through every speech. Metropolis genuinely loved- and mourned- its heroine.
After it was over, though, Lex intended to escape. This was a perfect opportunity for a certain amount of political glad-handling; his name had been very publicly connected to Superwoman’s for years and the time was ripe to take advantage of that. But he didn’t have the stomach for it. Not today.
Wonder Woman stopped him with a hand on his shoulder when the assembly stood to exit. “Stay with me,” she said. “I’d like to speak with you later, if you don’t mind waiting.”
Lex considered refusing, but her tone was perilously close to an order, and her grip didn’t exactly leave room for escape. “All right,” he said.
Wonder Woman, he noticed, had the stomach for a certain amount of glad-handling. He wasn’t surprised; she was after all the heir apparent to a headstrong and secluded race, and politics must be second nature to her.
He was surprised by the way the rest of the League deferred to her when stopped by mourners looking to express their best wishes. Lex had known that Superwoman, while not a commander in any sense, had always been both the public face and the de-facto leader of the League, but he hadn’t realized that Wonder Woman was the heir apparent in more than one way.
He supposed people found it comforting. They’d lost Superwoman, but here was another dark-haired woman with similar powers, just another red-and-blue flash in the sky. People were sheep when it came to public appearance; it probably smoothed the transfer of power after Superwoman’s disappearance.
Eventually all the polite talk and pressing of flesh was over and done with, and Wonder Woman drew him aside, to a waiting limo parked discreetly on one of the side streets. Lex allowed himself to be ushered inside, giving the “stand down” signal to Hope, who was shadowing him from a careful fifteen feet away. When he settled on the seat across from Wonder Woman and felt the limo start to move, he knew Mercy would be following in his own town car. It would go against every piece of training she’d ever had to do otherwise, and never mind that Lex was probably safer here with the world’s other greatest heroine than he was on the streets of downtown Metropolis otherwise, even with the best of bodyguards money could buy.
“Wonder Woman-“
“Call me Diana. Wonder Woman is the name given to me by this man’s world.”
“Diana,” he substituted smoothly. “Not that I’m not honored by this meeting, but…“ He trailed off and spread his hands.
“But you’re wondering why I wanted to speak with you,” she finished. “Yes.” She folded her hands neatly in her lap, her clenched fingers lost in the white folds of her robe. “Cally spoke of you often.”
Lex’s throat closed over but he held her gaze when he said, “I have no idea who you’re talking about.”
She didn’t quite try to glare him into submission, but she looked like she wanted to. “Shall I say Kal-El? There’s no point in pretending between us, Mr. Luthor. I’m well aware of just how much you’ve involved yourself in Cally’s life.”
Interesting phrasing, Lex thought. She didn’t sound accusing, but she didn’t sound friendly, either. “Very well, I know Ms. Kent.”
“You use the present tense,” she noted.
“I don’t believe she’s dead.”
“Hmm.” Delusional, her face said, but she was polite enough not to voice it. “Batman says the same, but you came to the funeral, when he did not.”
“She deserves respect,” Lex said simply. “Also, when she comes back, I’d hate to be the guy who couldn’t even be bothered to go to her memorial service.”
She studied him for a long moment. “I do believe you mean that.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “I’m hardly going to lie to a woman who could snap me in half like kindling.”
“Considering your affections for Cally, I’d hardly consider that sort of thing a problem for you.”
“Yes, well.” His gaze didn’t waver. “I love her.”
She sat back in her seat, and only then did he realize how stiffly she’d been holding herself, how tightly tension had drawn her forward. “I believe you.”
Lex blinked, the only outward show of surprise he allowed himself. “She never has.”
“Cally had her own issues with sex and sexuality, and more than that I think she was always too close to read you clearly.” Something of what he was thinking must have shown on his face, because she gave that lovely, musical laugh he’d heard only a handful of times and said, “Yes, I did say ‘close.’ You’ve invested too much time in her to be modest now.”
“I never forced her into anything she didn’t-“
“Peace,” Diana said, cutting her hand between them in a quieting gesture. “That’s not what I meant, and if you’d listened more carefully you’d know that. You loved her and wanted her to love you back.” She gave him a warm smile, and for the first time in this conversation, Lex saw the woman that called Cally “sister.” “I’d hardly call it force. In fact, you were a great deal more careful and clever about your courtship than anyone else I have seen thus far in man’s world.”
“Ah.” Lex relaxed back into the smooth leather cushions of his seat. “That’s… very kind of you. And unexpected. Thank you.”
Her smile turned unexpectedly devilish. “Batman doesn’t share my opinion. But Batman is naturally a suspicious person and not, I might add, unbiased when it comes to the subject of Cally’s affections.”
The sense of satisfaction that spread through him was pretty, but it felt good, nonetheless. “I’d suspected as much, but I didn’t know how, hmm, serious he is about his feelings.”
“I don’t know either,” Diana told him. “I doubt Cally even noticed.”
“But you did.”
Diana inclined her head- not quite regally, Lex thought, but close. Some gestures, learned in childhood, never quite went away. “Yes. But I was paying attention.”
Ah. Something he hadn’t known, and he was honored- and a little flabbergasted- that she had trusted him with the information. “Thank you for coming to me,” he said. “And for saying what you did. It means a great deal to me.”
“When one warrior is lost, all she held dear must gather to honor her memory.” The limo rolled to a smooth halt. “We’ve arrived at LexCorp towers.”
“Then thank you for the ride as well.” He opened the door, got out, and then paused. “She’s not dead,” he told the interior of the car.
“And the fact that you believe that means a great deal,” Diana replied. “Goodbye, Lex Luthor. I have a wake to plan.”
Lex closed the door and watched her drive off. He was still staring at the spot where the limo had turned and the taillights disappeared from view when Mercy pulled up next to him.
“Boss?” She sounded worried. Changes to certain routines didn’t sit well with her. “You okay?”
“Never better,” he said absently. “Call Hope, will you, and get my air service on the line. I need a plane to Gotham.”
~*~
Lex never really though he’d find himself here, on the very steps of Wayne Manor, but this was a week of surprises. He’d always done his best to stay out of Gotham, because there was a big difference between baiting Bruce at some Metropolis fundraiser and encroaching on Batman’s territory. Lex was daring, not stupid.
And yes, he fully realized that what he was doing qualified as “stupid.” Mercy had said as much, at length, during the drive from the Gotham International Airport. But Lex had a few things to say to Mr. Wayne, and he considered it unlikely that Bruce was going to come to him.
The door was answered before his knuckles did more than brush the wood- of course, cameras had been tracking him since the bottom of the two-mile driveway- and when it creaked open Lex found himself under the regard of a very upright older man.
“The loyal butler, I presume.”
“Of course, sir.” Alfred Pennyworth inclined his head. “Master Bruce is not in this afternoon. May I take a message?”
“I think you can drag him out of the Batcave for me,” Lex said, and only surprise gave him the advantage needed to push past the veteran of many such maneuvers. Hope wouldn’t let someone through his front door no matter how insistent; he didn’t imagine Alfred would be any less capable.
“Sir, you can’t be in here-“
“It’s alright, Alfred.” Bruce’s low voice came from his left. “Lex Luthor goes where he wants. Don’t you, Lex?”
“I do find myself happier when the world accommodates itself to me rather than the other way around.” He offered a cheerful, empty smile, a perfect match to any belonging to Bruce Wayne, playboy. “But then, don’t we all?”
Bruce’s mouth tightened into a thin line. “I don’t want to spar with you today, Luthor. I lost a valued friend this week.”
The implication, of course, being that Lex hadn’t. He had to turn away against the urge to punch Bruce in the mouth. Offering violence to the Batman was like stealing a fresh kill from a pride of lions: you might feel smug for a moment, but then you were going to get mauled.
There came a second voice, younger, from the doorway Bruce blocked with his broad back. “He doesn’t look like pure evil.”
“Looks can be deceiving,” Lex said lightly. “I kick puppies and everything.”
A dark-haired teenager leaned around Bruce, a skeptical you’re-not-as-funny-as-you-think-you-are look that was so common to adolescents on his face. Bruce pushed him back through the doorway. “Tim, go back to your room.”
Tim obeyed, much more docilely than Lex would have expected for Robin. Then again, orders from the Batman were probably something to be taken seriously. “Nice to meet you, Tim!” Lex called after him, and the boy turned, annoyed, to shoot him the bird.
“Tim,” Bruce said, and the boy scowled but disappeared up the steps. Lex hid a grin. Petty, but fun.
“Why are you here, Luthor,” Bruce said flatly. “I don’t have time for your games.”
“My games?” Lex shook his head, chidingly. “Bruce, Bruce, Bruce. Out of the two of us standing here, I’m not the one playing games.”
Bruce’s mouth tightened to a flat line. “It’s all you ever do. You just want to be the winner, to be the one on top. Superwoman shows up and you spent the better part of a decade pursuing her so that you can be the Alpha dog again. It never means anything to you.”
Hmmm. That sounded almost like real passion in Bruce’s voice. Lex had never really been able to get him to rise to the bait before- but then, the Batman wasn’t really at his best today.
Lex, on the other hand, was here for something, and he was damned if he was going to leave before he got it. “You really think that I need to get her into bed just to massage my ego? Trust me, my ego is healthy, and I’ve always had all the power I ever needed over Cally, if that’s what I was after. It’s not.”
“You lie.”
Bruce was stubborn, that was fine. He wouldn’t be who he was if he didn’t hold on to his beliefs far past the point of logic and sanity. “I’m not blackmailing her. I’m not screwing her, and I’m not screwing her over. Is that truly so hard to believe?”
“Yes,” Bruce said flatly. “Does she know that you know her civilian identity?”
Interesting that Bruce thought of it that way. Cally called it her “real” name, but to Bruce it was her “civilian” name. Lex wondered if Bruce realized just how crazy he actually was. “Yes. She knows.”
Bruce smiled, a smug, unpleasant, ace-up-his-sleeve smirk. “And did your little background checks find out about how Cally Kent used to be Clark Kent?”
He must have moved faster than Bruce expected, because he crossed the space between them and slammed Bruce against the nearest wall, hand around his throat, and Bruce didn’t break his arm. “If you ever,” Lex said, pinning Bruce’s body against the wall with his own matching bulk, “taunt her with that, ever, I will kill you. And it won’t be supervillains and killer robots and a dastardly plot, it’ll be a sniper’s bullet through your skull from a hundred yards and no one will mourn your passing.”
“Showing your true colors, Luthor,” Bruce said, seemingly unfazed by his position. “I always knew you were a killer.”
Lex let him go and stepped back, straightening his jacket with a couple quick tugs. “We’re all killers, Brucie. You of all people should know that. How many people have died because you keep throwing the Joker back into Arkham instead of putting him down like the rabid dog he is?”
“It’s not the same.”
“It’s exactly the same. Your intentions are good, aren’t they? You just want to clean up your city. Nothing wrong with that; I’ve been doing the same for years. Unlike you, however, I know how to get things done without violence.”
“And that’s why you just threatened to assassinate me, of course.”
“No.” Lex shoved his hands into his pocket and smiled. “That’s for Cally. That’s because I love her, and you’ve screwed her over and broken her heart and I’m not going to let you hurt her again.”
“You don’t know what love is,” Bruce snapped, and looking at him, all twisted up with hope and grief and rage and suspicion, Lex felt his anger fade away. Cally had gotten to him, too. How could she not? She was everything that Gotham wasn’t, a bright clean beautiful thing that Bruce wanted all for his own. Lex could relate.
But there was the real difference between them. Bruce was a strong man, and a good one, though he was fucking nuts. But he wasn’t strong enough for Cally, any more than Chloe Sullivan. They were afraid of her, afraid of how much better she was, better than they could ever be, and Chloe buried herself in work and left Cally in the cold and Bruce turned away and left Cally lonely but Lex wouldn’t. Lex knew that she was better than him, and he didn’t care. She made him better, and Lex knew that he was good for her even if he couldn’t be good enough.
“I know what love isn’t,” he said. “Love isn’t hiding from your feelings because you’re happier being miserable. Love isn’t breaking a woman’s heart because she scares you. Love doesn’t hurt someone else just so you can feel safe. Love isn’t what you did to her.”
He reached out and patted Bruce on the shoulder. “It was good seeing you, Wayne. We should do lunch sometime.”
He turned and headed for the front door, and there was a moment of stunned silence before Bruce burst out with a furious shout. “What did you want, you bastard?”
Lex turned, and grinned at him, the same smile he always got when he knew he’d won. “Don’t worry,” he said, “I already got it.”
Then he nodded to Alfred, went out the front door, and left Bruce to his fear and his shame.
~*~
It was pure coincidence that he saw it on the local news first. Normally he wouldn’t go near any kind of normal news station, believing them to be laughable parodies of actual “news” and relying on his own much more thorough sources, but Hope liked watching it in the evening. She’d sit cross-legged on the floor in his media room, with six different guns spread out in front of her, disassembled, while she cleaned, oiled, and reassembled them, watching the news with the rapt attention of a child.
He didn’t pretend to understand the ritual. She was good enough at her job that none of the guns needed cleaning; on the days they did she didn’t clean them on his living room floor. And he’d never one heard her offer any kind of opinion on current events, so he didn’t understand the draw of the news. Maybe it was the violence; Lex didn’t know and didn’t ask. He usually sat in the kitchen when the news was on, which put three completely sound-proofed walls between him and the atrocity that was Metropolis News at 11!
But this time, he was there. Later, he didn’t remember why, there was probably something he’d meant to ask Hope, or maybe there was something on one of the shelves he needed, but for whatever reason, he was in the media room when the Channel 12 report of Superwoman’s triumphant return splashed across the screen.
Hope didn’t say anything at first, just twisted around and canted her head back till she was looking up at him, still standing next to her, gaping like a fool at the screen. “Not dead after all,” she said, with that quiet smile that was closest Hope ever got to outright happiness.
The footage was incredibly poor, even for Channel 12, just a blurred shot of Superwoman taking off into the sky, the rest of the Justice League around her. It could have been anyone in that suit, there’d been any number of imposters over the years, this would be a perfect time for one to insinuate themselves into the League. The hair wasn’t even right, the normal healthy tan glow of her skin replaced by pallor, it didn’t even look like her.
But Lex knew it was Cally. His Kal.
“No,” he said. “Not dead.”
~*~
She came to see him the next night. The headlines were screaming about Superwoman’s triumphant return, but she didn’t look very triumphant slumped on his couch, her cape a blood-red puddle on the cushion beside her. She looked tired, and thoughtful, and sad.
“Making the rounds?” he asked lightly, coming back from the kitchen with a bottle of her favorite white zinfandel and two glasses. This was a celebration, after all. “I guess I should be grateful I’m somewhere on the list.”
She didn’t rise to the bait, which was worrying, but instead gave him a wan little smile that make him want to switch out the wine for hot chocolate. With little marshmallows. Lots of them.
“I had some things to take care of.”
He could only imagine. There were her parents to reassure, the media to placate, and she’d have to resume her place with her team and make peace with her girlfriend, as well as come up with a convincing lie for the disturbingly canny, if blindly self-centered, Lois Lane. Not a comfortable to-do list by any reckoning. “That’s what happens when you come back from the dead.”
“Back from the future is a little closer to the truth.”
He’d seen the reports, yes. Even his curiosity about how the Toyman had accomplished the feat wasn’t enough to distract him.
“I’ve heard people say your life is like a movie, but I don’t think that’s what they had in mind.”
“Things never turn out how you expect them to be, haven’t you noticed?”
That was so uncharacteristically defeatist that he followed his impulse to set aside his wineglass and lean forward to take her hand. “Kal-“
“Cally.” She shook her head at the look on his face. “You know, there’s a reason I don’t use the name I was born with. Jor-El’s son… I haven’t been that person in a very, very long time. Maybe ever.”
“I know that,” he said. “I just-“ He realized what he was about to confess and stop.
She cocked her head, birdlike. “What?”
What the hell, it wasn’t like he’d ever been able to keep much of anything from her. The only things she didn’t know about him were things she’d kept herself from knowing. “I like being the only who uses it.”
“You have a strange idea of what makes a good pet name,” she said, but she was smiling. He loved that smile of hers. He’d gone to unbelievable lengths to get it turned in his direction, in the past.
Clearing his throat, Lex said, “I can’t believe Batman doesn’t still have you under observation.”
She made a face and sat back, allowing him the unsubtle change of subject. “You and me both. Normally he’d be all over me with those instruments of his, but this time he just said ‘welcome back’ and disappeared back to Gotham. It was strange. Do you think something’s wrong with him?”
Lex knew what had been going through Bruce’s head, hiding his blind hope behind scientific “proof,” and to see her return like that, to see her back when he’d started to believe that he’d made a mistake and she was truly gone after all… Oh yes, Lex understood him perfectly well. And because he understood him, Lex had nothing like respect for him, for a man who’d been so afraid of his own feelings that he’d deliberately and callously hurt those of a woman who’d done nothing more than care for him in spite of himself.
“Forget about Batman,” Lex said, surprising himself with the anger in his voice. He usually had more control than this. Even around her, he was better than this. “He doesn’t deserve you worrying over him.”
Cally blinked, a little startled by his outburst- oh yes, he’d always been so, so careful around her, damn his tongue anyway- but she didn’t flinch back, like he was half expecting. Instead she offered him a tentative smile, like she had to comfort him, and took a sip from her wineglass. “I’m guessing there were words exchanged between you two.”
Lex looked away. “You could say that.”
Her hand over his was warm, inhumanly so. It wasn’t hard to imagine her body as the giant solar battery it was, storing the light of the sun long past the time it had slipped over the horizon. She certainly seemed to glow in his eyes. “I won’t ask. But whatever it is, I have a feeling I owe you a thank-you.”
He couldn’t look away this time. “You don’t owe me anything.”
She didn’t look away either. In all the pictures, her eyes were bright blue, but up close, he realized that they were actually very, very green. “Thank you, Lex.”
He swallowed hard. “You’re welcome.”
She let go of his hand, finally, and let go of his gaze. They both sat back, and drank their wine, and she told him about the incident with Lobo, and Diana’s much-embroidered stories of her wake, while he told her about his business, and some of the more amusing disasters to come out of the lab. They didn’t talk about Batman. They didn’t talk about her time away. They didn’t talk about anything important, really.
But she was here, with him, after everything had been settled. She’d come to him.
And he realized, with a sensation like birds taking flight in his chest, something that was almost like hope-
He remembered that she’d called him Lex.
.end.
My love
I'm an owl on the sill in the evening
But morning finds you
Still warm and breathing
This tornado loves you
What will make you believe me?
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