FIC: Journalistic Ethics
Title: Journalistic Ethics
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Lex/Lois
Summary: Lois re-interviews for her job after Lex Luthor’s takeover.
Notes: Between S7 Gemini (Luthor takeover of the Daily Planet) and Persona (Bizarro and Nulian bite it)
Word Count: 2909
Thanks to herohunter for the quick beta.
“You’ll understand if I feel like I should come in here with some kind of protection,” Lois said, walking into the large editor’s office of The Daily Planet. The black desk, she was all too familiar with, and looking at it made her feel a little bitter, especially because the man leaning back in Grant’s chair was not Grant at all. Not sympathetic, not likely to send her out of here with complements and optimistic statements about her soon-to-be fabulous and exciting career.
Since Lex Luthor had taken over at The Daily Planet, everyone had been essentially put in the position of interviewing for their old jobs. A few people had been pushed up in the ranking. A few had been pushed down. A lot had been outright fired, and there had been talk about the interviews that would be in session once Luthor was done “cleaning out” The Daily Planet. Otherwise, they were going to be seriously understaffed.
Knowing how Luthor and Chloe were so antagonistic to one another, Lois would have expected her little cousin to get the boot, but instead, Chloe had come out of the office red-faced and irritated, but otherwise fine. Apparently, Luthor had taken the opportunity to ruffle her feathers and burden her with the work of the people leaving, but had otherwise let her be.
Lois couldn’t say she faulted some of the decisions that Lex had made; they were losing a lot of dead weight. And even though Lois knew for a fact that she had all the potential in the world, and she knew that one day she would be the most famous journalist in the world with several Pulitzers under her belt (Grant had assured her of it), she hadn’t actually managed to turn in a publishable story yet. She still had a hard time typing quickly, and she didn’t have her degree, like a lot of the people around here. Granted, Chloe had been bumped up to reporter without it, but then again, Chloe was going to finish next semester, thanks to summer classes, credits from her internship, and retroactive credits from high school. The girl lacked a love life, but she worked very hard.
“Have a seat, Ms. Lane,” Luthor said coldly, gesturing to the silver chairs with black leather seats and backs that were arranged in front of the desk. Lois shifted her weight in her heels and uncrossed her arms. She moved forward deliberately, letting her hips sway and the soft mounds under her low-cut red blouse shake just a little. Luthor raised a brow quite sharply. He obviously wasn’t insensible to her charms.
He stood, as she sat, and stalked around the table, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Ms. Lane, I’ve taken the liberty of reviewing your file, although obviously I’m familiar with your employment history. So, let’s begin. You were expelled from Met U-“
“That wasn’t fair, though!” Lois protested, turning to face him. “I wasn’t-“
Luthor held up his hand. “It would behoove you not to interrupt me. I myself was expelled from Met U, so I won’t hold that one against you. After that, you began working at my coffee shop at the behest of Mrs. Kent, disappeared for the summer, and then reappeared expecting a job once again, which was generously provided for you as well as lodging above The Talon.”
“Um, yes.” Lois folded her hands tensely. Luthor sure knew how to make a girl nervous.
“After this, you were hired as Jonathan Kent’s campaign manager in his bid against me for the senate position.”
“I-“
”Again, I can hardly hold this against you. A job is a job. I could, however, hold your tactics against you. Bringing up my stay in Belle Reve was hardly well-researched and smacked of mudslinging.” Luthor paused behind her. “After that, it was back to the coffee shop, where you stayed, barely making the bills, until Martha Kent once again gave you a job you were unqualified for, her press secretary.”
“Hey!” Lois looked up at him angrily.
He smiled not unlike a Cheshire cat and squeezed the back of her seat. “Not that it lasted long, which was likely to Mrs. Kent’s benefit. You started moonlighting as a tabloid writer, did you not? You were the one to coin the term ‘Green Arrow.’ Good call on the bastard.” He smiled and shrugged. “Not that you had a shred of viable evidence for that story either. Most of your stories, actually.”
Like a great cat he began to pace anew. “Of course, tabloids don’t really require that sort of thing…. So I wonder how you managed to enter The Daily Planet with an unpublishable story and no evidence whatsoever for your little space ship theory.” He stopped and careened his head to the side. Lois felt her heart speed up. He thinned his lips, narrowed his eyes, and in general, looked rather unamused. “I’ve read the story, by the way.”
“I’m taking it you didn’t think the words jumped off the page like a Bengal tiger,” Lois said with a nervous laugh.
“No.” Luthor moved over to the chair next to hers and leaned over it on his forearms. “I have two questions. First of all, with a woman who has had such a short attention span for her jobs since she entered the work force, why should we trust in your continued interest in journalism? And secondarily, what makes you think a college dropout with no degree, experience at a tabloid that would actually damage both your and The Daily Planet’s credibility if you ever managed to write an article we could publish, no skills in writing, typing, spelling, or investigating-“
“I have investigative skills out the ass!” Lois exploded, standing up to face Luthor.
“You had a story on my father, and suspecting me, you broke into my office, were caught within seconds, and gave me all the information that you had. I wasn’t guilty, but had I been, that would really have been an idiotic move.” Luthor frowned and gave her a skeptical look as he pursed his lips. “The Daily Planet really needs its reporters to be more than pretty simpletons, and although you’ve been given the opportunity of a lifetime, however cliché that might sound, you haven’t managed to give us a single well-researched and well-written article. I handed you a puff piece on me on a silver platter, because I knew that Grant liked you, and you can’t even handle that”
Lois spread her hands desperately. “Look, I’m not going to stand here and let you insult me. I’m a good reporter, and I have a lot of potential. If you give me the chance, you’ll see that! I have more enthusiasm for this job than anyone out there. I really want to be good at this.”
“You also have no journalistic ethics. That makes keeping you on staff extremely problematic,” Luthor added, rolling up a dusky purple sleeve. “It would almost be impossible for me to keep a woman such as yourself on staff. I am not a Kent, Ms. Lane. I’m not going to put you in a position you don’t deserve and risk this paper falling even further into ill-repute.”
Rolling her eyes, Lois stepped closer. “Please. Like ethics means anything to you.”
“Is that a fact?” Luthor said in a dark, dangerous voice.
Lois licked her lips. “Not as long as you don’t get caught, they don’t.” She put one hand over the other and looked up at him, knowing that he was getting a good look at her cleavage, and he could likely smell her perfume from this distance. Her chin lifted gracefully as she met his eyes. “We haven’t heard any reports of Lex-girls for a long time…”
“So you think that you can keep your job the way that you got it, hm?” Luthor was giving her a derisive look. Sometimes, when she was investigating, this actually didn’t work, and it might not work now, but it would be better than being out on her ass.
“I want a chance to be a real reporter.”
Luthor’s hand moved over her hip and squeezed gently as he looked down at her miniskirt and firm thighs, before he looked up at her once again with a bit of a caught breath. “I believe you already had a chance.”
Lois reached up and smoothed her hand over his chest. He was slimmer than he looked in all those suits. That was all right. Grant had been a tiny guy as well. “Maybe I need better direction from my editor.”
Luthor’s mouth opened, and he went for her lower lip, sucking it into his mouth as she groaned softly. His hands were on her hips, possessively holding Lois to him as though he didn’t quite trust her despite continuing with this. She smiled and moved one of his hands down to her pert backside, encouraging him to touch and responding to every move, every caress.
He was surprisingly unsure of himself for someone rumored to be a playboy, but once he committed to a move, it was good. Sensual and gentle. Soon they were moving items off the desk, Luthor was removing her blouse, and Lois was once again on her back against the sturdy black glass and letting rough fingers slip her silky panties off.
Luthor tore something above her, and Lois fluttered her eyelids, gazing up to see Luthor ripping open a foil condom package with his teeth. She propped herself up on her elbows to get a good look at him, then rose her brows in appreciation. She had chosen the wrong man to use for rebounding from Oliver. Lex was even bigger than Ollie had been.
“Nice,” she commented with a nod as he slipped the condom on. She reached over to touch him, but he moved her hand away defensively.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” He loomed over her exposed body and opened his mouth to give one breast a slow, wet suck. “These are nice.”
“I know.”
“Hm.”
He rubbed his hard erection against her leg all the while nibbling and worshiping her breasts, as though they were life itself for a man barely hanging on by a thread. His hands were everywhere once again, never settling, always touching, wanting, needing, loving. Lois shuddered under his touch and let out a needy whimper, which made him chuckle deeply.
Her legs were spread apart unhurriedly, and two fingers moved fluidly between the folds of her labia and over her clitoris. Lois arched her back and whimpered again. Little twinges, little tremors… harbingers of feelings to come. Her knees splayed widely and she groaned, looking down on him frustratedly. If this coitus was interrupted, she was going to be very pissed off.
Luthor glanced up at her first, in askance, before brushing the tip of his cock to her. She nodded impatiently. Then he finally pushed himself inside her. It was slick. The condom was lubricated, and she gasped as he entered and stretched her.
“Oh, God, Lex,” she murmured as he began to move inside her. He seemed to frown in concentration, pulling one of her legs up a bit to change the angle. His hand dropped down once again, and his thumb rubbed over her clit as rhythmically as he moved in and out of her.
Luthor purred and bared his teeth a little as his lips curved into a smug grin.
“Faster,” she panted, and he complied.
Two bodies rocked vivaciously over Grant Gabriel’s desk, intertwined in a whirlwind of fluff and fluids that may not mean they were decent people, but meant, just for the time their bodies doubled, that they were not alone. They were with each other; they were in each other; they would rub, and fuck, and live.
Lois’s toes curled as pleasure radiated out, first wetly between her legs and then up her body, which shook and shivered happily at the rough and blissful treatment. Their staccato breathing filled the silence of the room, and then his body was limp over hers.
A few moments later, he pulled out and slipped off the desk, removing the condom, and after pulling out a plastic bag from the desk drawer and sealing the condom inside it, he locked the baggie in his briefcase.
Well, that was odd.
“There will be no more expense account,” Luthor informed her sternly, with the dignity only he could exude while not wearing pants.
Lois pushed herself up, catching her breath, and nodded as she buttoned up her blouse. His ass was small, but firmly and sleekly muscled. She realized that he didn’t have any boxers. “Understood.”
“No more using company time to go to rock concerts or to ‘fraternize’ with your coworkers,” Luthor continued. He pulled up his pants and buckled them. “I’m also taking the liberty of reenrolling you at Met U beginning in the summer semester. With my recommendation, they won’t say no. Get kicked out this time, and you’re through. Having an education is non-negotiable for this job.”
Lois nodded again and reached for her panties. Luthor snatched them up with a smirk and slipped them into his pocket. She sighed as she pulled her skirt back up. “Anything else?”
“You’re on the tip line until further notice, and your pay will be cut appropriately. Everyone else here had to work their way up. You do as well.” His sinewy body leaned against the desk. “This interview is over.”
Lois fluffed her hair a little and turned to walk away, and then looked back, with a terse quirk of her lips. “How many ‘interviews’ have ended with renegotiations like this?” she asked knowingly.
“You’re the only one. Everyone else here has journalistic ethics. Well, everyone who didn’t recently get cut from the staff. Although I would have preferred your cousin, I know better than to even ask. She’s cute when she’s angry, though.” Luthor seemed pleased at Lois’s outraged look.
She turned and clipped huffily towards the door.
“I’ll also expect one publishable article within the year,” Luthor called after her. “Mark the date. You’re on the clock. Show me what Lois Lane can do.”
Lois slammed the door and swallowed. She looked around the office swiftly, wondering if anyone had heard that, but apparently they hadn’t. They never had before, either. She smoothed her hand over her hair once more and ventured out onto the floor.
Out the corner of her eye she spotted Grant strolling down the row of offices, so she made a beeline for the stairs. Clipping down them quickly, she felt a wash of relief having avoided the man she’d been so pleased to see only a week ago. As she descended into the bullpen, she wondered if she would be avoiding Luthor or not.
He was pretty good, and even without giving her privileges, he seemed to have a real plan for her that Grant never seemed to have. Oh, sure, Grant talked a good game, but he had never done much but mark up her stories in red and give them back to her with more waxing on about what a star she was going to be one day. She didn’t really want to go back to college, but who knew? Now that she hardly ever drank anymore, it would probably be easier.
She smoothed her hands down her skirt and headed for her desk, hoping her cheeks weren’t too flushed. Chloe had disapproved of Grant. Her head might explode over Lex.
“How did it go?” Chloe asked with a cringe, looking up from a huge pile of papers another reporter had just dropped in her lap. “Are you still with us here at the DP?”
Lois sat down and looked around her desk, which was rather cleaner than Chloe’s at the moment, since she didn’t really have any work to do. However, there was a file over her keyboard, sealed in an envelope. She opened it tentatively and pulled out the article inside. It was the one she had turned in to Grant when she’d begun working here. And it was covered in cramped, left-handed scrawls pointing out stylistic issues, informality, and problems with the story itself. ‘Source’ was written about six or seven times, and he hadn’t touched the spelling, but rather written at the top, ‘Get Chloe to show you how to use spellchecker.’ Luthor had read it, all right.
“Uh, yeah. He kind of gave me a rough time, but I get to keep my job anyway. At a cut in pay. No more trips.”
Chloe thinned her lips and shook her head. “Consider yourself lucky. He’s been getting rid a lot of people who have been here for years.”
“Yeah?” Lois pecked at her keyboard, pretending to have something to do.
She had to learn to type. Really type. Fly on the keyboard, like Chloe did, and learn all those little things that the other reporters knew. She wasn’t just some pretty little simpleton. Not some college-dropout muffin peddler. That wasn’t who she was supposed to be in life. She’d show that arrogant Luthor that she was worth so much more than he thought of her. The trail was probably cold on that thing that happened with Wes, but she would find something.
She would find it. And Lois Lane would write the expose that put that smug bastard in his place.
Rating: NC-17
Pairing: Lex/Lois
Summary: Lois re-interviews for her job after Lex Luthor’s takeover.
Notes: Between S7 Gemini (Luthor takeover of the Daily Planet) and Persona (Bizarro and Nulian bite it)
Word Count: 2909
Thanks to herohunter for the quick beta.
“You’ll understand if I feel like I should come in here with some kind of protection,” Lois said, walking into the large editor’s office of The Daily Planet. The black desk, she was all too familiar with, and looking at it made her feel a little bitter, especially because the man leaning back in Grant’s chair was not Grant at all. Not sympathetic, not likely to send her out of here with complements and optimistic statements about her soon-to-be fabulous and exciting career.
Since Lex Luthor had taken over at The Daily Planet, everyone had been essentially put in the position of interviewing for their old jobs. A few people had been pushed up in the ranking. A few had been pushed down. A lot had been outright fired, and there had been talk about the interviews that would be in session once Luthor was done “cleaning out” The Daily Planet. Otherwise, they were going to be seriously understaffed.
Knowing how Luthor and Chloe were so antagonistic to one another, Lois would have expected her little cousin to get the boot, but instead, Chloe had come out of the office red-faced and irritated, but otherwise fine. Apparently, Luthor had taken the opportunity to ruffle her feathers and burden her with the work of the people leaving, but had otherwise let her be.
Lois couldn’t say she faulted some of the decisions that Lex had made; they were losing a lot of dead weight. And even though Lois knew for a fact that she had all the potential in the world, and she knew that one day she would be the most famous journalist in the world with several Pulitzers under her belt (Grant had assured her of it), she hadn’t actually managed to turn in a publishable story yet. She still had a hard time typing quickly, and she didn’t have her degree, like a lot of the people around here. Granted, Chloe had been bumped up to reporter without it, but then again, Chloe was going to finish next semester, thanks to summer classes, credits from her internship, and retroactive credits from high school. The girl lacked a love life, but she worked very hard.
“Have a seat, Ms. Lane,” Luthor said coldly, gesturing to the silver chairs with black leather seats and backs that were arranged in front of the desk. Lois shifted her weight in her heels and uncrossed her arms. She moved forward deliberately, letting her hips sway and the soft mounds under her low-cut red blouse shake just a little. Luthor raised a brow quite sharply. He obviously wasn’t insensible to her charms.
He stood, as she sat, and stalked around the table, slipping his hands into his pockets. “Ms. Lane, I’ve taken the liberty of reviewing your file, although obviously I’m familiar with your employment history. So, let’s begin. You were expelled from Met U-“
“That wasn’t fair, though!” Lois protested, turning to face him. “I wasn’t-“
Luthor held up his hand. “It would behoove you not to interrupt me. I myself was expelled from Met U, so I won’t hold that one against you. After that, you began working at my coffee shop at the behest of Mrs. Kent, disappeared for the summer, and then reappeared expecting a job once again, which was generously provided for you as well as lodging above The Talon.”
“Um, yes.” Lois folded her hands tensely. Luthor sure knew how to make a girl nervous.
“After this, you were hired as Jonathan Kent’s campaign manager in his bid against me for the senate position.”
“I-“
”Again, I can hardly hold this against you. A job is a job. I could, however, hold your tactics against you. Bringing up my stay in Belle Reve was hardly well-researched and smacked of mudslinging.” Luthor paused behind her. “After that, it was back to the coffee shop, where you stayed, barely making the bills, until Martha Kent once again gave you a job you were unqualified for, her press secretary.”
“Hey!” Lois looked up at him angrily.
He smiled not unlike a Cheshire cat and squeezed the back of her seat. “Not that it lasted long, which was likely to Mrs. Kent’s benefit. You started moonlighting as a tabloid writer, did you not? You were the one to coin the term ‘Green Arrow.’ Good call on the bastard.” He smiled and shrugged. “Not that you had a shred of viable evidence for that story either. Most of your stories, actually.”
Like a great cat he began to pace anew. “Of course, tabloids don’t really require that sort of thing…. So I wonder how you managed to enter The Daily Planet with an unpublishable story and no evidence whatsoever for your little space ship theory.” He stopped and careened his head to the side. Lois felt her heart speed up. He thinned his lips, narrowed his eyes, and in general, looked rather unamused. “I’ve read the story, by the way.”
“I’m taking it you didn’t think the words jumped off the page like a Bengal tiger,” Lois said with a nervous laugh.
“No.” Luthor moved over to the chair next to hers and leaned over it on his forearms. “I have two questions. First of all, with a woman who has had such a short attention span for her jobs since she entered the work force, why should we trust in your continued interest in journalism? And secondarily, what makes you think a college dropout with no degree, experience at a tabloid that would actually damage both your and The Daily Planet’s credibility if you ever managed to write an article we could publish, no skills in writing, typing, spelling, or investigating-“
“I have investigative skills out the ass!” Lois exploded, standing up to face Luthor.
“You had a story on my father, and suspecting me, you broke into my office, were caught within seconds, and gave me all the information that you had. I wasn’t guilty, but had I been, that would really have been an idiotic move.” Luthor frowned and gave her a skeptical look as he pursed his lips. “The Daily Planet really needs its reporters to be more than pretty simpletons, and although you’ve been given the opportunity of a lifetime, however cliché that might sound, you haven’t managed to give us a single well-researched and well-written article. I handed you a puff piece on me on a silver platter, because I knew that Grant liked you, and you can’t even handle that”
Lois spread her hands desperately. “Look, I’m not going to stand here and let you insult me. I’m a good reporter, and I have a lot of potential. If you give me the chance, you’ll see that! I have more enthusiasm for this job than anyone out there. I really want to be good at this.”
“You also have no journalistic ethics. That makes keeping you on staff extremely problematic,” Luthor added, rolling up a dusky purple sleeve. “It would almost be impossible for me to keep a woman such as yourself on staff. I am not a Kent, Ms. Lane. I’m not going to put you in a position you don’t deserve and risk this paper falling even further into ill-repute.”
Rolling her eyes, Lois stepped closer. “Please. Like ethics means anything to you.”
“Is that a fact?” Luthor said in a dark, dangerous voice.
Lois licked her lips. “Not as long as you don’t get caught, they don’t.” She put one hand over the other and looked up at him, knowing that he was getting a good look at her cleavage, and he could likely smell her perfume from this distance. Her chin lifted gracefully as she met his eyes. “We haven’t heard any reports of Lex-girls for a long time…”
“So you think that you can keep your job the way that you got it, hm?” Luthor was giving her a derisive look. Sometimes, when she was investigating, this actually didn’t work, and it might not work now, but it would be better than being out on her ass.
“I want a chance to be a real reporter.”
Luthor’s hand moved over her hip and squeezed gently as he looked down at her miniskirt and firm thighs, before he looked up at her once again with a bit of a caught breath. “I believe you already had a chance.”
Lois reached up and smoothed her hand over his chest. He was slimmer than he looked in all those suits. That was all right. Grant had been a tiny guy as well. “Maybe I need better direction from my editor.”
Luthor’s mouth opened, and he went for her lower lip, sucking it into his mouth as she groaned softly. His hands were on her hips, possessively holding Lois to him as though he didn’t quite trust her despite continuing with this. She smiled and moved one of his hands down to her pert backside, encouraging him to touch and responding to every move, every caress.
He was surprisingly unsure of himself for someone rumored to be a playboy, but once he committed to a move, it was good. Sensual and gentle. Soon they were moving items off the desk, Luthor was removing her blouse, and Lois was once again on her back against the sturdy black glass and letting rough fingers slip her silky panties off.
Luthor tore something above her, and Lois fluttered her eyelids, gazing up to see Luthor ripping open a foil condom package with his teeth. She propped herself up on her elbows to get a good look at him, then rose her brows in appreciation. She had chosen the wrong man to use for rebounding from Oliver. Lex was even bigger than Ollie had been.
“Nice,” she commented with a nod as he slipped the condom on. She reached over to touch him, but he moved her hand away defensively.
“Flattery will get you nowhere.” He loomed over her exposed body and opened his mouth to give one breast a slow, wet suck. “These are nice.”
“I know.”
“Hm.”
He rubbed his hard erection against her leg all the while nibbling and worshiping her breasts, as though they were life itself for a man barely hanging on by a thread. His hands were everywhere once again, never settling, always touching, wanting, needing, loving. Lois shuddered under his touch and let out a needy whimper, which made him chuckle deeply.
Her legs were spread apart unhurriedly, and two fingers moved fluidly between the folds of her labia and over her clitoris. Lois arched her back and whimpered again. Little twinges, little tremors… harbingers of feelings to come. Her knees splayed widely and she groaned, looking down on him frustratedly. If this coitus was interrupted, she was going to be very pissed off.
Luthor glanced up at her first, in askance, before brushing the tip of his cock to her. She nodded impatiently. Then he finally pushed himself inside her. It was slick. The condom was lubricated, and she gasped as he entered and stretched her.
“Oh, God, Lex,” she murmured as he began to move inside her. He seemed to frown in concentration, pulling one of her legs up a bit to change the angle. His hand dropped down once again, and his thumb rubbed over her clit as rhythmically as he moved in and out of her.
Luthor purred and bared his teeth a little as his lips curved into a smug grin.
“Faster,” she panted, and he complied.
Two bodies rocked vivaciously over Grant Gabriel’s desk, intertwined in a whirlwind of fluff and fluids that may not mean they were decent people, but meant, just for the time their bodies doubled, that they were not alone. They were with each other; they were in each other; they would rub, and fuck, and live.
Lois’s toes curled as pleasure radiated out, first wetly between her legs and then up her body, which shook and shivered happily at the rough and blissful treatment. Their staccato breathing filled the silence of the room, and then his body was limp over hers.
A few moments later, he pulled out and slipped off the desk, removing the condom, and after pulling out a plastic bag from the desk drawer and sealing the condom inside it, he locked the baggie in his briefcase.
Well, that was odd.
“There will be no more expense account,” Luthor informed her sternly, with the dignity only he could exude while not wearing pants.
Lois pushed herself up, catching her breath, and nodded as she buttoned up her blouse. His ass was small, but firmly and sleekly muscled. She realized that he didn’t have any boxers. “Understood.”
“No more using company time to go to rock concerts or to ‘fraternize’ with your coworkers,” Luthor continued. He pulled up his pants and buckled them. “I’m also taking the liberty of reenrolling you at Met U beginning in the summer semester. With my recommendation, they won’t say no. Get kicked out this time, and you’re through. Having an education is non-negotiable for this job.”
Lois nodded again and reached for her panties. Luthor snatched them up with a smirk and slipped them into his pocket. She sighed as she pulled her skirt back up. “Anything else?”
“You’re on the tip line until further notice, and your pay will be cut appropriately. Everyone else here had to work their way up. You do as well.” His sinewy body leaned against the desk. “This interview is over.”
Lois fluffed her hair a little and turned to walk away, and then looked back, with a terse quirk of her lips. “How many ‘interviews’ have ended with renegotiations like this?” she asked knowingly.
“You’re the only one. Everyone else here has journalistic ethics. Well, everyone who didn’t recently get cut from the staff. Although I would have preferred your cousin, I know better than to even ask. She’s cute when she’s angry, though.” Luthor seemed pleased at Lois’s outraged look.
She turned and clipped huffily towards the door.
“I’ll also expect one publishable article within the year,” Luthor called after her. “Mark the date. You’re on the clock. Show me what Lois Lane can do.”
Lois slammed the door and swallowed. She looked around the office swiftly, wondering if anyone had heard that, but apparently they hadn’t. They never had before, either. She smoothed her hand over her hair once more and ventured out onto the floor.
Out the corner of her eye she spotted Grant strolling down the row of offices, so she made a beeline for the stairs. Clipping down them quickly, she felt a wash of relief having avoided the man she’d been so pleased to see only a week ago. As she descended into the bullpen, she wondered if she would be avoiding Luthor or not.
He was pretty good, and even without giving her privileges, he seemed to have a real plan for her that Grant never seemed to have. Oh, sure, Grant talked a good game, but he had never done much but mark up her stories in red and give them back to her with more waxing on about what a star she was going to be one day. She didn’t really want to go back to college, but who knew? Now that she hardly ever drank anymore, it would probably be easier.
She smoothed her hands down her skirt and headed for her desk, hoping her cheeks weren’t too flushed. Chloe had disapproved of Grant. Her head might explode over Lex.
“How did it go?” Chloe asked with a cringe, looking up from a huge pile of papers another reporter had just dropped in her lap. “Are you still with us here at the DP?”
Lois sat down and looked around her desk, which was rather cleaner than Chloe’s at the moment, since she didn’t really have any work to do. However, there was a file over her keyboard, sealed in an envelope. She opened it tentatively and pulled out the article inside. It was the one she had turned in to Grant when she’d begun working here. And it was covered in cramped, left-handed scrawls pointing out stylistic issues, informality, and problems with the story itself. ‘Source’ was written about six or seven times, and he hadn’t touched the spelling, but rather written at the top, ‘Get Chloe to show you how to use spellchecker.’ Luthor had read it, all right.
“Uh, yeah. He kind of gave me a rough time, but I get to keep my job anyway. At a cut in pay. No more trips.”
Chloe thinned her lips and shook her head. “Consider yourself lucky. He’s been getting rid a lot of people who have been here for years.”
“Yeah?” Lois pecked at her keyboard, pretending to have something to do.
She had to learn to type. Really type. Fly on the keyboard, like Chloe did, and learn all those little things that the other reporters knew. She wasn’t just some pretty little simpleton. Not some college-dropout muffin peddler. That wasn’t who she was supposed to be in life. She’d show that arrogant Luthor that she was worth so much more than he thought of her. The trail was probably cold on that thing that happened with Wes, but she would find something.
She would find it. And Lois Lane would write the expose that put that smug bastard in his place.