Your Situation - August 8th
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 8
Title: Your Situation
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Smallville
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Smallville people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena takes shots at Whitney after his treatment of Clark.
Notes: Athena Luthor Part 5 - Links Page
Seasons: S1Ep1/2 “Pilot”/”Metamorphosis”
Characters: Athena, Lex, Clark, Whitney
Word Count: 2400
“How did you remember that?” Lex asked as they wound their way towards the school.
“Remember what?” Athena asked.
“About the kid strung up like a scarecrow I saw when I was a child.”
“Pete mentioned the Smallville High tradition earlier this week. And the way he described it was familiar. When I pointed out the field, I remembered the nightmares you had after the meteor shower.”
“Which included the scarecrow.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was Clark?”
“He’s not exactly the first guy you’d imagine being picked on,” she pointed out.
“Being six foot doesn’t stop children from bullying someone,” Lex told her, his voice a bit rough, “especially if they attack together.”
Athena looked at her brother, the dark interior obscuring most of his face, save what was visible in flashes of streetlights. Her self-confident, spit-in-the-face-of-authority, bald headed brother had been bullied. Knowing Lex, it had not been for long, but it had left enough of an impression for her to pick up.
They were slowed as they entered the area around the school. It was packed with traffic and emergency vehicles. Lex maneuvered the car past the fire trucks, following the waving of police officers directing traffic. It took fifteen minutes longer to reach the school than it should have.
“I wonder what happened,” Athena mused.
Athena and Lex got out of the car and headed for the school gym. Several posters welcomed them to homecoming. Athena waited while Lex bought tickets. She looked around, her eyes going to a spot in the shadow. It was Clark, she was certain.
He stepped around the side of the building a second later.
She grinned and walked over to him. She picked pieces of debris and cornstalk from his hair and shoulders. “You look better,” she told him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was hoping to go to homecoming.”
“Why did you stop at Reilly Fields?” Clark asked.
“A feeling,” she answered honestly. “Somehow…I just knew.”
“Clark!” Lex said as he approached them. “Feeling better?”
“Much,” he replied. He looked them over. “I should let you head inside.”
“Actually,” Lex stopped him. “I am hoping I could call upon you to escort Athena to the dance.”
“Lex,” she hissed, embarrassed.
Clark grinned. “If you’re interested, Athena.”
“I-I,” she worked to get control. “Yes. I would enjoy that.”
“Perfect,” Lex handed the tickets to Clark and kissed Athena’s head. “Have fun, you two.” He strolled away without a care.
Athena looked at Clark. “If you don’t want to.”
“I’ve been trying to ask you for two days,” he told her. “Will you go to the homecoming dance with me?” Clark asked in a rush.
“Yes,” she answered.
They walked in together. Immediately, whispers started. Some people openly stopped and stared at them.
“So what do you think?” Athena asked. “Are they talking about you or me?”
“The Luthor or the Scarecrow,” he idly pondered.
She grinned. “Would you care to dance, Mister Scarecrow?”
“Gladly, Miss Luthor.”
He took her around the waist and her hands went to his shoulders. They could both hear whispering around them, but they ignored it in favor of spinning in slow circles.
At the end of the slow song, someone approached from behind Athena. Clark’s face went hard.
“What are you doing here?” Whitney hissed in displeasure.
Athena did not immediately moved herself from where she was in front of Clark. Whitney continued to try and intimidate Clark.
Fed up Athena, removed her arms from Clark’s neck. She turned, leveling a haughty glare developed by Luthors for decades. “I suggest you back off, Fordman,” she said evenly, only loud enough for him and Clark to hear.
“Or what?” Whitney dared.
“As far as I’m aware, what was done to Clark constitutes assault and unlawful detainment, at minimum. Not to mention, you’re almost eighteen and so are some of your co-conspirators, while Clark is very much a minor. A good lawyer would have a field day digging up all the charges stringing someone up in a field constitutes. Exposure…which could be seen as attempted murder.”
“You have no proof.”
Athena smirked. “You provided it, Lana’s necklace.”
Whitney paled further.
“So here’s the deal. Go away. Tell your cohorts to stay away,” she ordered. “And maybe Clark chalks all of it up to a nightmare he’d just as soon forget.” She turned her back on him, not waiting for an answer.
“Where did you learn that?” Clark asked as Whitney disappeared back into the crowd.
“Bullies are all the same.” She grinned up at him. “What I really wanted to do was throw him across the room.”
Clark chuckled. “You probably could.”
“My karate instructor made sure of it.” She assured him.
Lana came up at the end of the next song. She hugged Athena. “You look great.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m glad Clark asked you,” Lana confided.
“He probably would have done it sooner if I’d let him get a word in,” Athena admitted.
“I’m going to get some punch,” Clark said, leaving them to talk.
Athena grinned after him.
“He didn’t dress up,” Lana noted.
“No, but I prefer this. He’s more comfortable as himself.” She smiled at Lana. “Who isn’t?”
Lana chuckled. “Did you come here to avoid your brother?”
“No, actually, we managed a peace treaty. He was bringing me here when Clark asked to be my date.”
“That’s sweet.”
Athena nodded. “We’re working on it.”
“Well, have fun,” Lana ordered her.
“Whatever the homecoming queen says.”
“I haven’t won.”
“Yet,” Athena corrected.
Lana gave her a look of annoyance.
88888888
Athena and Clark got out of the Luthor car Athena always used. They walked slowly up the drive towards the barn.
“This is a little backwards,” Clark noted.
“I’m not one for traditional roles,” Athena told him. “I like being the one to drop you at home.”
He grinned, enjoying her candor.
“Clark!” Martha’s call drew their attention. They turned to look at her. She stood in the doorway, holding the screen door open.
“See, I even get you into trouble,” Athena whispered as they approached the house.
“Athena,” Martha greeted in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Delivering my date to his door,” she replied. “See, safely home, and it’s not even midnight.”
Clark looked at his clothes. “Unfortunately, I’ve been a pumpkin all night.”
Martha grinned at the byplay. “Come inside a moment.” She went inside and started digging through a drawer until she came up with a camera.
“Mom,” Clark said exasperatedly.
“You’re going to want to remember this one day, Clark,” Martha insisted as she wound the camera and waved them together. They posed as she requested. And got three pictures before the end of the roll.
Martha put the camera down. “Oh, Athena, I made a copy of that photo for you.” She pulled a four-by-six photo out of the drawer. She handed it over.
Athena stared at the picture of her, Lex, and Clark as children, covered in fairy glitter.
“What’s this?” Clark asked.
“Our first picture together,” Athena told him. “Apparently we met when we were two.” She showed him.
“I don’t remember this.”
“It was during the adoption process,” Martha explained.
“I remember some of it,” Athena told him. “I was convinced fairy glitter would heal you and Lex.”
“Heal us?” Clark said in surprise.
“Lex from being exposed to the meteor strike,” she looked up at Clark. “And you because…you seemed sad.”
88888888
Lex grinned when he heard the front door open. He was seated in front of the fireplace with a glass of scotch. He waited until Athena appeared in the doorway.
“You’re home early,” he commented.
“It was a school dance,” she reminded him as she crossed to sit in the chair opposite him. “And we’re fourteen.”
“What do you have there?” he indicated her hand.
“Ah.” She looked at the picture, smiling. “Apparently we’re repeating patterns from twelve years ago.” She leaned forward and handed him the small picture.
Lex stared at the picture in surprise. “Where did you get this?”
“Mrs. Kent. This was a few weeks after the meteor shower.”
“The boy…?”
“Clark,” she answered.
He scoffed in surprise.
“This may explain why Jonathan Kent has such a hatred of Father,” Athena said. “I thought it was a difference in ideology, but if Mr. Kent has actually met Father…”
“Then there could be something substantial to his feelings.”
“Exactly.”
“At the bridge, after the accident, Mr. Kent seemed worried about you.”
“That was before he found out I was a Luthor,” she pointed out. “I haven’t seen him since. I have been friends with Clark for several weeks and Mrs. Kent invited me to dinner on a few occasions when studying ran long.”
“Just studying?” he asked, his eyebrow rising.
She rolled her eyes and stood, taking the picture back. “I don’t know what disturbs me more, that you think I’m like you or that you have no qualms about someone treating your sister like that.”
His smile faltered and he looked at his glass.
She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I know you’re a good guy, Lex, even if you forget sometimes.” She left him alone in his office.
Lex watched the door she had exited through. He wondered if she was right, if he was a good guy. He took a sip of his scotch. Maybe what she thought of his past actions did not matter. Maybe it was more important that he become someone she could believe in without question from now on.
He sighed. It’s more important that she is proud of me than I win Father’s approval. He contemplated if there was a way to do both.
88888888
Athena and Lex made an outing the next morning to the local farmer’s market. They had taken Athena’s understated compact, much to Lex’s chagrin, but he had allowed her to drive without much complaint when she flashed her learner’s permit.
Athena beat him out of the car and over to the Kent’s stand.
“Athena,” Martha greeted. “You’re out early.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she replied. “I wanted to thank you again for the picture. It brought back some nice memories.”
“What did you remember?”
“A lot more about Lex’s hospitalization that I thought I could.” She gave a shrug.
“Last night, before you left, you said Clark was sad, in the picture.”
She nodded. “I don’t know why. But it’s what I remember thinking of him.” She glanced at where Clark was working to move produce.
Her eyes were drawn to where Lana was walking away from Whitney. His face shifted from a smile to a menacing scowl as he turned to face the boy Lana had been talking to.
“Some people, never learn. Excuse me.”
She crossed to where Whitney was having a very low toned conversation with the other boy.
“Fordman,” she addressed him, stiffly. “I can’t believe we’re about to have this conversation twice in a twelve hour period.”
Both boys look startled.
“Luthor,” Whitney sneered.
She raised an eyebrow, but made no other outward acknowledgement he had addressed her. “I just don’t get what you don’t understand about your situation here. You’re almost eighteen. Assault charges aren’t so easily dropped at your age.” She crossed arms. “If you’re going to go after every guy who talks to your girlfriend, you’re not going to have a girlfriend.” She sized him up slowly. “Some may be too pacifistic to call your bullshit, or tell Lana, but I’m not.” She looked at the other boy. “And I’m sure…”
“Greg,” the boy provided.
“I’m sure Greg, would be more than happy to actually lodge a complaint against you for your actions, should they prove detrimental to him. After all, he has nothing to lose, you do.”
Whitney’s jaw clenched as he debated his course of action. His eyes traveled past her a moment before he turned on heel and fled.
“Wow,” Greg said. “That was…wow.”
“Yeah, I’m a touch overprotective,” she told him. “Lana is my friend. And Clark is my…friend?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“Admittedly, I’m not.” She chuckled and offered her hand. “Athena.”
“Luthor. I caught that.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Greg.”
Greg looked at her strangely. “I actually think you mean that.”
Clark and Lex watched her from across the field.
“She’s pretty fearless,” Lex commented.
“Has she always been like that?” Clark asked.
Lex thought about it a moment, remembering her stubbornness as a small child. None of it stood out more than just before she turned three, following his injury in the meteor shower. Even with as sickly as he had been, lying in a hospital bed, attached to all sorts of machines, Athena had snuck past the nurses and crawled into bed with him. She had wrapped herself around his arm and told him I love you, Lexie over and over.
“Yes,” Lex finally answered. “I’d say some of it is being a Luthor…but it’s all her, since she was little.” He shook himself from the memory. He turned to address Clark quietly. “You want to tell me what happened in the cornfield?”
“It was just a stupid prank,” Clark countered as Athena approached them.
“You were tied to a stake in the middle of the field,” Lex pointed out. “Even the Romans saved that for special occasions. You could have died out there.”
“I appreciate your help. I just want to forget it ever happened.”
“I’m not quite as able to do that,” Athena disclosed. “But I can keep from mentioning it.”
“That’s all I ask,” Clark replied quietly.
“Hey, Clark,” Jonathan called. “What is the hold up, son?”
“Mister Kent,” Lex greeted, offering his hand, “It’s good to see you.”
Jonathan shook his hand. “Lex. Athena.”
“I’m the hold up,” Athena said. “I was explaining that just because everyone knows that my last name is Luthor, doesn’t change who I was last week or the commitments I made.”
Each of the males blinked at her in surprise.
“Of course,” Jonathan managed to get out.
“Great,” she said cheerfully, smiling at them. “Then I believe I agreed to help in exchange for one of Mrs. Kent’s apple pies.” She turned and started towards the Kent’s booth.
Lex and Clark exchanged a look before watching Athena effortlessly haul a bag of apples from the truck.
“Stubborn, may be another word for it,” Lex noted with a grin.
Title: Your Situation
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Smallville
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Smallville people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena takes shots at Whitney after his treatment of Clark.
Notes: Athena Luthor Part 5 - Links Page
Seasons: S1Ep1/2 “Pilot”/”Metamorphosis”
Characters: Athena, Lex, Clark, Whitney
Word Count: 2400
“How did you remember that?” Lex asked as they wound their way towards the school.
“Remember what?” Athena asked.
“About the kid strung up like a scarecrow I saw when I was a child.”
“Pete mentioned the Smallville High tradition earlier this week. And the way he described it was familiar. When I pointed out the field, I remembered the nightmares you had after the meteor shower.”
“Which included the scarecrow.”
“Yes.”
“Did you know it was Clark?”
“He’s not exactly the first guy you’d imagine being picked on,” she pointed out.
“Being six foot doesn’t stop children from bullying someone,” Lex told her, his voice a bit rough, “especially if they attack together.”
Athena looked at her brother, the dark interior obscuring most of his face, save what was visible in flashes of streetlights. Her self-confident, spit-in-the-face-of-authority, bald headed brother had been bullied. Knowing Lex, it had not been for long, but it had left enough of an impression for her to pick up.
They were slowed as they entered the area around the school. It was packed with traffic and emergency vehicles. Lex maneuvered the car past the fire trucks, following the waving of police officers directing traffic. It took fifteen minutes longer to reach the school than it should have.
“I wonder what happened,” Athena mused.
Athena and Lex got out of the car and headed for the school gym. Several posters welcomed them to homecoming. Athena waited while Lex bought tickets. She looked around, her eyes going to a spot in the shadow. It was Clark, she was certain.
He stepped around the side of the building a second later.
She grinned and walked over to him. She picked pieces of debris and cornstalk from his hair and shoulders. “You look better,” she told him.
“What are you doing here?”
“I was hoping to go to homecoming.”
“Why did you stop at Reilly Fields?” Clark asked.
“A feeling,” she answered honestly. “Somehow…I just knew.”
“Clark!” Lex said as he approached them. “Feeling better?”
“Much,” he replied. He looked them over. “I should let you head inside.”
“Actually,” Lex stopped him. “I am hoping I could call upon you to escort Athena to the dance.”
“Lex,” she hissed, embarrassed.
Clark grinned. “If you’re interested, Athena.”
“I-I,” she worked to get control. “Yes. I would enjoy that.”
“Perfect,” Lex handed the tickets to Clark and kissed Athena’s head. “Have fun, you two.” He strolled away without a care.
Athena looked at Clark. “If you don’t want to.”
“I’ve been trying to ask you for two days,” he told her. “Will you go to the homecoming dance with me?” Clark asked in a rush.
“Yes,” she answered.
They walked in together. Immediately, whispers started. Some people openly stopped and stared at them.
“So what do you think?” Athena asked. “Are they talking about you or me?”
“The Luthor or the Scarecrow,” he idly pondered.
She grinned. “Would you care to dance, Mister Scarecrow?”
“Gladly, Miss Luthor.”
He took her around the waist and her hands went to his shoulders. They could both hear whispering around them, but they ignored it in favor of spinning in slow circles.
At the end of the slow song, someone approached from behind Athena. Clark’s face went hard.
“What are you doing here?” Whitney hissed in displeasure.
Athena did not immediately moved herself from where she was in front of Clark. Whitney continued to try and intimidate Clark.
Fed up Athena, removed her arms from Clark’s neck. She turned, leveling a haughty glare developed by Luthors for decades. “I suggest you back off, Fordman,” she said evenly, only loud enough for him and Clark to hear.
“Or what?” Whitney dared.
“As far as I’m aware, what was done to Clark constitutes assault and unlawful detainment, at minimum. Not to mention, you’re almost eighteen and so are some of your co-conspirators, while Clark is very much a minor. A good lawyer would have a field day digging up all the charges stringing someone up in a field constitutes. Exposure…which could be seen as attempted murder.”
“You have no proof.”
Athena smirked. “You provided it, Lana’s necklace.”
Whitney paled further.
“So here’s the deal. Go away. Tell your cohorts to stay away,” she ordered. “And maybe Clark chalks all of it up to a nightmare he’d just as soon forget.” She turned her back on him, not waiting for an answer.
“Where did you learn that?” Clark asked as Whitney disappeared back into the crowd.
“Bullies are all the same.” She grinned up at him. “What I really wanted to do was throw him across the room.”
Clark chuckled. “You probably could.”
“My karate instructor made sure of it.” She assured him.
Lana came up at the end of the next song. She hugged Athena. “You look great.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m glad Clark asked you,” Lana confided.
“He probably would have done it sooner if I’d let him get a word in,” Athena admitted.
“I’m going to get some punch,” Clark said, leaving them to talk.
Athena grinned after him.
“He didn’t dress up,” Lana noted.
“No, but I prefer this. He’s more comfortable as himself.” She smiled at Lana. “Who isn’t?”
Lana chuckled. “Did you come here to avoid your brother?”
“No, actually, we managed a peace treaty. He was bringing me here when Clark asked to be my date.”
“That’s sweet.”
Athena nodded. “We’re working on it.”
“Well, have fun,” Lana ordered her.
“Whatever the homecoming queen says.”
“I haven’t won.”
“Yet,” Athena corrected.
Lana gave her a look of annoyance.
88888888
Athena and Clark got out of the Luthor car Athena always used. They walked slowly up the drive towards the barn.
“This is a little backwards,” Clark noted.
“I’m not one for traditional roles,” Athena told him. “I like being the one to drop you at home.”
He grinned, enjoying her candor.
“Clark!” Martha’s call drew their attention. They turned to look at her. She stood in the doorway, holding the screen door open.
“See, I even get you into trouble,” Athena whispered as they approached the house.
“Athena,” Martha greeted in surprise. “What are you doing here?”
“Delivering my date to his door,” she replied. “See, safely home, and it’s not even midnight.”
Clark looked at his clothes. “Unfortunately, I’ve been a pumpkin all night.”
Martha grinned at the byplay. “Come inside a moment.” She went inside and started digging through a drawer until she came up with a camera.
“Mom,” Clark said exasperatedly.
“You’re going to want to remember this one day, Clark,” Martha insisted as she wound the camera and waved them together. They posed as she requested. And got three pictures before the end of the roll.
Martha put the camera down. “Oh, Athena, I made a copy of that photo for you.” She pulled a four-by-six photo out of the drawer. She handed it over.
Athena stared at the picture of her, Lex, and Clark as children, covered in fairy glitter.
“What’s this?” Clark asked.
“Our first picture together,” Athena told him. “Apparently we met when we were two.” She showed him.
“I don’t remember this.”
“It was during the adoption process,” Martha explained.
“I remember some of it,” Athena told him. “I was convinced fairy glitter would heal you and Lex.”
“Heal us?” Clark said in surprise.
“Lex from being exposed to the meteor strike,” she looked up at Clark. “And you because…you seemed sad.”
88888888
Lex grinned when he heard the front door open. He was seated in front of the fireplace with a glass of scotch. He waited until Athena appeared in the doorway.
“You’re home early,” he commented.
“It was a school dance,” she reminded him as she crossed to sit in the chair opposite him. “And we’re fourteen.”
“What do you have there?” he indicated her hand.
“Ah.” She looked at the picture, smiling. “Apparently we’re repeating patterns from twelve years ago.” She leaned forward and handed him the small picture.
Lex stared at the picture in surprise. “Where did you get this?”
“Mrs. Kent. This was a few weeks after the meteor shower.”
“The boy…?”
“Clark,” she answered.
He scoffed in surprise.
“This may explain why Jonathan Kent has such a hatred of Father,” Athena said. “I thought it was a difference in ideology, but if Mr. Kent has actually met Father…”
“Then there could be something substantial to his feelings.”
“Exactly.”
“At the bridge, after the accident, Mr. Kent seemed worried about you.”
“That was before he found out I was a Luthor,” she pointed out. “I haven’t seen him since. I have been friends with Clark for several weeks and Mrs. Kent invited me to dinner on a few occasions when studying ran long.”
“Just studying?” he asked, his eyebrow rising.
She rolled her eyes and stood, taking the picture back. “I don’t know what disturbs me more, that you think I’m like you or that you have no qualms about someone treating your sister like that.”
His smile faltered and he looked at his glass.
She leaned down and kissed his cheek. “I know you’re a good guy, Lex, even if you forget sometimes.” She left him alone in his office.
Lex watched the door she had exited through. He wondered if she was right, if he was a good guy. He took a sip of his scotch. Maybe what she thought of his past actions did not matter. Maybe it was more important that he become someone she could believe in without question from now on.
He sighed. It’s more important that she is proud of me than I win Father’s approval. He contemplated if there was a way to do both.
88888888
Athena and Lex made an outing the next morning to the local farmer’s market. They had taken Athena’s understated compact, much to Lex’s chagrin, but he had allowed her to drive without much complaint when she flashed her learner’s permit.
Athena beat him out of the car and over to the Kent’s stand.
“Athena,” Martha greeted. “You’re out early.”
“Yes, ma’am,” she replied. “I wanted to thank you again for the picture. It brought back some nice memories.”
“What did you remember?”
“A lot more about Lex’s hospitalization that I thought I could.” She gave a shrug.
“Last night, before you left, you said Clark was sad, in the picture.”
She nodded. “I don’t know why. But it’s what I remember thinking of him.” She glanced at where Clark was working to move produce.
Her eyes were drawn to where Lana was walking away from Whitney. His face shifted from a smile to a menacing scowl as he turned to face the boy Lana had been talking to.
“Some people, never learn. Excuse me.”
She crossed to where Whitney was having a very low toned conversation with the other boy.
“Fordman,” she addressed him, stiffly. “I can’t believe we’re about to have this conversation twice in a twelve hour period.”
Both boys look startled.
“Luthor,” Whitney sneered.
She raised an eyebrow, but made no other outward acknowledgement he had addressed her. “I just don’t get what you don’t understand about your situation here. You’re almost eighteen. Assault charges aren’t so easily dropped at your age.” She crossed arms. “If you’re going to go after every guy who talks to your girlfriend, you’re not going to have a girlfriend.” She sized him up slowly. “Some may be too pacifistic to call your bullshit, or tell Lana, but I’m not.” She looked at the other boy. “And I’m sure…”
“Greg,” the boy provided.
“I’m sure Greg, would be more than happy to actually lodge a complaint against you for your actions, should they prove detrimental to him. After all, he has nothing to lose, you do.”
Whitney’s jaw clenched as he debated his course of action. His eyes traveled past her a moment before he turned on heel and fled.
“Wow,” Greg said. “That was…wow.”
“Yeah, I’m a touch overprotective,” she told him. “Lana is my friend. And Clark is my…friend?”
“You don’t sound sure.”
“Admittedly, I’m not.” She chuckled and offered her hand. “Athena.”
“Luthor. I caught that.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Greg.”
Greg looked at her strangely. “I actually think you mean that.”
Clark and Lex watched her from across the field.
“She’s pretty fearless,” Lex commented.
“Has she always been like that?” Clark asked.
Lex thought about it a moment, remembering her stubbornness as a small child. None of it stood out more than just before she turned three, following his injury in the meteor shower. Even with as sickly as he had been, lying in a hospital bed, attached to all sorts of machines, Athena had snuck past the nurses and crawled into bed with him. She had wrapped herself around his arm and told him I love you, Lexie over and over.
“Yes,” Lex finally answered. “I’d say some of it is being a Luthor…but it’s all her, since she was little.” He shook himself from the memory. He turned to address Clark quietly. “You want to tell me what happened in the cornfield?”
“It was just a stupid prank,” Clark countered as Athena approached them.
“You were tied to a stake in the middle of the field,” Lex pointed out. “Even the Romans saved that for special occasions. You could have died out there.”
“I appreciate your help. I just want to forget it ever happened.”
“I’m not quite as able to do that,” Athena disclosed. “But I can keep from mentioning it.”
“That’s all I ask,” Clark replied quietly.
“Hey, Clark,” Jonathan called. “What is the hold up, son?”
“Mister Kent,” Lex greeted, offering his hand, “It’s good to see you.”
Jonathan shook his hand. “Lex. Athena.”
“I’m the hold up,” Athena said. “I was explaining that just because everyone knows that my last name is Luthor, doesn’t change who I was last week or the commitments I made.”
Each of the males blinked at her in surprise.
“Of course,” Jonathan managed to get out.
“Great,” she said cheerfully, smiling at them. “Then I believe I agreed to help in exchange for one of Mrs. Kent’s apple pies.” She turned and started towards the Kent’s booth.
Lex and Clark exchanged a look before watching Athena effortlessly haul a bag of apples from the truck.
“Stubborn, may be another word for it,” Lex noted with a grin.