Nin (![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} nindulgence) wrote,@ 2003-04-14 11:06:00 |
|
Ninfic (SV): "Siege" (2/3)
Siege (2/3)
Chloe ran up the courthouse steps two at a time, alarming Lex's bodyguard, who moved to intercept her, then retreated at a quick touch on the arm from his employer.
Lex looked Chloe over from head to toe and back again as she paused for breath. It was a habit of his, and when Lex first arrived in Smallville, Chloe hadn't known how to react to it: should she object to being checked out, on feminist principle, or should she be gratified that at least one non-psychotic male in that small town noticed that she was a girl? Later, of course, she realized that Lex looked almost everyone up and down at the start of a conversation. It was one of the ways in which he sized up people and situations, and she had come to think of it as his "weapons-check" look. These days, she always responded to it by checking him out in return.
"Chloe."
"Lex."
Lex had filled out a little since moving to Metropolis. He looked more authoritative, sharper, and more controlled. He had become the adult she and the other teens had thought he already was back in Smallville.
Chloe squared her shoulders. "I had him," she said flatly. "I didn't need your help."
"I never thought you did," he replied, sipping experimentally at his coffee. "I have my own reasons for wanting to see Ted Wheeler squirm."
"And those are?"
"Nothing I care to reveal to one of Noah Ziegler's roving reporters." Lex grimaced a little: apparently the java at the Courthouse Cafe wasn't up to his usual standards. He settled for cradling the cup in both hands. "Are you warm enough in that?"
Chloe pulled her suede jacket a little closer. The sun was still out, but it was a cold afternoon, and the long avenue leading up to the courthouse was a notorious wind tunnel. "I'm fine, thanks."
Lex looked skeptical, but didn't press the point. "I see you've lost none of your unique fashion sense."
Chloe glanced down at her hand-painted shirt, the faintly jingling silver-charmed hiplace dangling from her beltcomp, and her vintage boots. "Uh, Lex...this is actually one of my more conservative days. We're all pretty bohemian over at MetNews."
"So I hear. You must feel very at home there."
Chloe frowned, unsure whether Lex was making fun of her or not. In the old days, as one of Clark's friends, and the daughter of a Lexcorp employee, she'd been mostly exempt from the aloof smirk that had been Lex's default expression towards the world at large. Lately--despite the fact that the now much more political Lex took care to present a neutral, even benevolent, face to the people of Metropolis--Chloe couldn't help noticing the flicker of amusement in his eyes whenever she ran into him at City Hall or cornered him with questions at a public event. It would be nice to think that Lex was laughing with her at those times, but the alternative was equally possible. Chloe didn't like that possibility at all.
"Care to tell me why you were at the courthouse today?"
"Again, no."
"I'll find out anyway, you know."
"Then you don't need to hear it from me, do you?"
Chloe changed tactics. "That was quite the public relations spot you gave us back there. Why not just run one of your usual Metrobowl commercials...or has Lexcorp diverted its advertising budget to the CS cause?"
Lex smiled, unperturbed. "As you're aware, I'm short a PR director at the moment. I have to fend for myself whenever the opportunity arises."
"Oh." Chloe stopped short. "I didn't know that position was still--"
"Have you reconsidered my offer?"
Chloe shook her head. "I'm not going to work for you, Lex."
"You feel that Lexcorp did so badly by your father?" Lex's face and voice were bland, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that made Chloe nervous.
"Don't play dirty, Lex," she protested. "You know I didn't mean that."
Lex's expression didn't change, but he did surprise her by murmuring an apology. There was an awkward pause between them. Trying to think of a way to break the silence, Chloe jumped when Lex leaned in suddenly, reaching past her to drop his coffee cup into the trash.
"How is Gabe doing?" he asked.
He probably already knew. Lex kept files on all Lexcorp employees, current, previous, and prospective. "He's good," Chloe answered. "Doing really well."
"Good," Lex nodded. They stood silently for another moment, then Lex pulled out his gloves. Chloe was about to be dismissed. She started talking fast.
"Can you tell me anything about this charity event? Will it be formal? Does it have a theme? Did it exist before this afternoon?"
Lex paused with one glove half-on. "You doubt me, Chloe?"
"On the contrary, I fully believe...that, if necessary, you can organize a major fundraising gala at a moment's notice. After all, you're the man who threw together his own wedding reception in just two days."
Lex's expression hardened, and Chloe knew that she had gone too far. "What I meant to say was--" she began, but Lex cut her off.
"Don't bother, Chloe. It was a long time ago."
Chloe relaxed a little. "Really?" For all Lex's focus on the future, she suspected that leaving old hurts in the past wasn't an easy thing for him to do.
"Really. And it wasn't all bad. My experience with Desiree taught me a valuable lesson."
"Never fall in love with a psychotic meteor-rock mutant?" Chloe ventured. "It took me about nine tries, but I think I finally mastered that one."
"Never give your heart to someone you're not absolutely sure of."
It was a reasonable enough motto; why she shivered when Lex said it, Chloe couldn't explain. Maybe she needed to get out of the wind after all.
"Is that all?"
"One more thing..."
"Just one? Are you going soft on me now?" Lex started casually down the stairs, forcing Chloe to follow him if she wanted an answer.
"That whole 'going to bat for the little guy' routine with Wheeler this afternoon--"
"Yes?"
"You think viewers are really going to buy that? Lex Luthor, Man of the People? Defender of the Downtrodden?"
"I may not be Chloe Sullivan, the Consumer Crusader, but I do care about this city and the people who live in it."
Chloe snorted. "And that 'concerned politician' speech: 'All of Metropolis is hoping for Becky's safe return.' Are you planning to actually run for Mayor, Lex, or are you just going to keep making pronouncements like that until everyone assumes you've already been elected?"
Lex stopped abruptly. "If you weren't prepared to hear my answer, Chloe, why did you ask me the question?"
Chloe had been asking herself the same thing. She was a features reporter now: unlike her colleagues on the city beat, she didn't need to lay siege to the well-defended fortress that was the public face of Lex Luthor.
Except that, for some reason, she still did.
"It's the job, Lex," she said lightly. "You and your corporate buddies build a wall out of sound bites and press releases, and people like me do our best to knock a few holes in it, to show people what's behind. Even you let your guard down on camera occasionally: as a reporter, I have to keep pushing for that, trying to offer viewers a glimpse of the real Lex Luthor behind this image you construct for the public."
Lex turned and stared at her for a long moment. "Are you still a reporter?" he asked quietly.
Chloe stared back. The crowd around them had thinned out, and she and Lex now seemed to be the only two people on the wide stone steps. His assistants had started down the stairs when he did, but were now hanging back at a discreet distance, well out of earshot of their employer's conversation. Down in the small plaza at street level, student tour groups waited for their buses, laughing and taking pictures of each other in front of the large bronze sculptures of Truth and Justice.
"I'm a reporter," Chloe said. "I'm still comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. The problems I resolve may seem small to you, Lex, but they're huge to the people who have to deal with them."
"I'm not questioning the value of the service you provide."
"Just its newsworthiness? Our little feature has brought to light some pretty big corporate scandals."
"Merriman Industries, Harcourt Foods, the city planning office, and Femweb."
Taken aback, Chloe lost the thread of her argument for a moment. "You watch 'Chloe Confronts'?"
"When I need to. Usually, I have an assistant transcribe it for me."
"I suppose I should be flattered."
"Don't be. I'm in business in this city, Chloe. I need to know what's going on."
"And it's not flattering that we've made it onto Lex Luthor's need-to-know list?"
"Only in a very loose sense of the word. Flattery implies false praise, offered for ulterior motives. Though I do have ulterior motives towards you, Chloe, I would never stoop to false praise to achieve them."
Chloe's jaw dropped. Lex was the only person she had ever met who said things like this, and she could never figure out whether he did it on purpose to put people off balance, or whether it was simply his idea of everyday conversation. Chloe couldn't think of a thing to say in reply that wouldn't sound coy, lame, or evasive. She tried to remember what they had been talking about.
"Are you happy, Chloe?"
"What?"
"Exposing corrupt landlords, shouting down small businessmen--do you find it fulfilling?"
Chloe frowned. "I do good work, Lex."
"That's not what I asked." Lex could be as persistent as Chloe herself when he wanted an answer. He moved up a step, bringing him eye to eye with Chloe and just a little too close for her comfort. "This isn't exactly what you had planned for yourself back in Smallville," he said softly. "Is it?"
Chloe shrugged. "I was just a kid then."
Lex's eyes narrowed. "I know ambition when I see it, Chloe, and I recognized it in you the day we met. You knew then exactly what you wanted: to be a great reporter, to write headline news for the Daily Planet."
Chloe glanced around to make sure they were still alone on the steps before replying. "Things change, Lex. I can't be a hard news reporter in this city, because I can't write about--well, you know what I can't write about. It would be too easy to make a mistake, to let something slip. And I can't let myself get famous as a print journalist at all, because I can't afford to have anyone interested in the things I wrote when I was back in Smallville."
"You've wiped all the official records of your articles in the Torch."
"But I can't destroy every hard copy. They're still there, in people's attics, tucked into their yearbooks. If anyone ever went looking for those stories...it would be too easy to make all the right connections."
"So you work for MetNews, where your audience couldn't care less about your journalistic background, because all they want to know about you is who your favourite bands are and where you buy your clothes. You're a glorified veejay, Chloe."
"That's not true."
"And while you try your damnedest to do the work of a reporter in this city without tipping anyone off to the fact that you actually are one, Clark is writing front-page news for the Planet." Lex's voice had dropped to a whisper. "He's doing the job you've wanted since high school--and in doing it, not only does he risk exposing to the world the very connection you're working to conceal...he also seems to leave himself very little time for old friends."
There was really nothing Chloe could say to that.
"Do you really intend to sacrifice your future to protect his?"
Lex studied her intently, and Chloe felt herself crumple a little under his scrutiny. She had never been good at keeping her emotions off her face.
"Lex, I--"
Chloe stopped at the sound of a distant car alarm. Lex turned his head and listened with her as the alarm was followed by another from a block or two down the avenue, then another, then another. In a moment, the air was filled with high-pitched wails, whoops, and staccato beeps, as cars parked around the courthouse joined in the din.
Lex looked back at Chloe. "Superman," they said together.
End of Part 2
~
Siege (2/3)
Chloe ran up the courthouse steps two at a time, alarming Lex's bodyguard, who moved to intercept her, then retreated at a quick touch on the arm from his employer.
Lex looked Chloe over from head to toe and back again as she paused for breath. It was a habit of his, and when Lex first arrived in Smallville, Chloe hadn't known how to react to it: should she object to being checked out, on feminist principle, or should she be gratified that at least one non-psychotic male in that small town noticed that she was a girl? Later, of course, she realized that Lex looked almost everyone up and down at the start of a conversation. It was one of the ways in which he sized up people and situations, and she had come to think of it as his "weapons-check" look. These days, she always responded to it by checking him out in return.
"Chloe."
"Lex."
Lex had filled out a little since moving to Metropolis. He looked more authoritative, sharper, and more controlled. He had become the adult she and the other teens had thought he already was back in Smallville.
Chloe squared her shoulders. "I had him," she said flatly. "I didn't need your help."
"I never thought you did," he replied, sipping experimentally at his coffee. "I have my own reasons for wanting to see Ted Wheeler squirm."
"And those are?"
"Nothing I care to reveal to one of Noah Ziegler's roving reporters." Lex grimaced a little: apparently the java at the Courthouse Cafe wasn't up to his usual standards. He settled for cradling the cup in both hands. "Are you warm enough in that?"
Chloe pulled her suede jacket a little closer. The sun was still out, but it was a cold afternoon, and the long avenue leading up to the courthouse was a notorious wind tunnel. "I'm fine, thanks."
Lex looked skeptical, but didn't press the point. "I see you've lost none of your unique fashion sense."
Chloe glanced down at her hand-painted shirt, the faintly jingling silver-charmed hiplace dangling from her beltcomp, and her vintage boots. "Uh, Lex...this is actually one of my more conservative days. We're all pretty bohemian over at MetNews."
"So I hear. You must feel very at home there."
Chloe frowned, unsure whether Lex was making fun of her or not. In the old days, as one of Clark's friends, and the daughter of a Lexcorp employee, she'd been mostly exempt from the aloof smirk that had been Lex's default expression towards the world at large. Lately--despite the fact that the now much more political Lex took care to present a neutral, even benevolent, face to the people of Metropolis--Chloe couldn't help noticing the flicker of amusement in his eyes whenever she ran into him at City Hall or cornered him with questions at a public event. It would be nice to think that Lex was laughing with her at those times, but the alternative was equally possible. Chloe didn't like that possibility at all.
"Care to tell me why you were at the courthouse today?"
"Again, no."
"I'll find out anyway, you know."
"Then you don't need to hear it from me, do you?"
Chloe changed tactics. "That was quite the public relations spot you gave us back there. Why not just run one of your usual Metrobowl commercials...or has Lexcorp diverted its advertising budget to the CS cause?"
Lex smiled, unperturbed. "As you're aware, I'm short a PR director at the moment. I have to fend for myself whenever the opportunity arises."
"Oh." Chloe stopped short. "I didn't know that position was still--"
"Have you reconsidered my offer?"
Chloe shook her head. "I'm not going to work for you, Lex."
"You feel that Lexcorp did so badly by your father?" Lex's face and voice were bland, but there was something in the set of his shoulders that made Chloe nervous.
"Don't play dirty, Lex," she protested. "You know I didn't mean that."
Lex's expression didn't change, but he did surprise her by murmuring an apology. There was an awkward pause between them. Trying to think of a way to break the silence, Chloe jumped when Lex leaned in suddenly, reaching past her to drop his coffee cup into the trash.
"How is Gabe doing?" he asked.
He probably already knew. Lex kept files on all Lexcorp employees, current, previous, and prospective. "He's good," Chloe answered. "Doing really well."
"Good," Lex nodded. They stood silently for another moment, then Lex pulled out his gloves. Chloe was about to be dismissed. She started talking fast.
"Can you tell me anything about this charity event? Will it be formal? Does it have a theme? Did it exist before this afternoon?"
Lex paused with one glove half-on. "You doubt me, Chloe?"
"On the contrary, I fully believe...that, if necessary, you can organize a major fundraising gala at a moment's notice. After all, you're the man who threw together his own wedding reception in just two days."
Lex's expression hardened, and Chloe knew that she had gone too far. "What I meant to say was--" she began, but Lex cut her off.
"Don't bother, Chloe. It was a long time ago."
Chloe relaxed a little. "Really?" For all Lex's focus on the future, she suspected that leaving old hurts in the past wasn't an easy thing for him to do.
"Really. And it wasn't all bad. My experience with Desiree taught me a valuable lesson."
"Never fall in love with a psychotic meteor-rock mutant?" Chloe ventured. "It took me about nine tries, but I think I finally mastered that one."
"Never give your heart to someone you're not absolutely sure of."
It was a reasonable enough motto; why she shivered when Lex said it, Chloe couldn't explain. Maybe she needed to get out of the wind after all.
"Is that all?"
"One more thing..."
"Just one? Are you going soft on me now?" Lex started casually down the stairs, forcing Chloe to follow him if she wanted an answer.
"That whole 'going to bat for the little guy' routine with Wheeler this afternoon--"
"Yes?"
"You think viewers are really going to buy that? Lex Luthor, Man of the People? Defender of the Downtrodden?"
"I may not be Chloe Sullivan, the Consumer Crusader, but I do care about this city and the people who live in it."
Chloe snorted. "And that 'concerned politician' speech: 'All of Metropolis is hoping for Becky's safe return.' Are you planning to actually run for Mayor, Lex, or are you just going to keep making pronouncements like that until everyone assumes you've already been elected?"
Lex stopped abruptly. "If you weren't prepared to hear my answer, Chloe, why did you ask me the question?"
Chloe had been asking herself the same thing. She was a features reporter now: unlike her colleagues on the city beat, she didn't need to lay siege to the well-defended fortress that was the public face of Lex Luthor.
Except that, for some reason, she still did.
"It's the job, Lex," she said lightly. "You and your corporate buddies build a wall out of sound bites and press releases, and people like me do our best to knock a few holes in it, to show people what's behind. Even you let your guard down on camera occasionally: as a reporter, I have to keep pushing for that, trying to offer viewers a glimpse of the real Lex Luthor behind this image you construct for the public."
Lex turned and stared at her for a long moment. "Are you still a reporter?" he asked quietly.
Chloe stared back. The crowd around them had thinned out, and she and Lex now seemed to be the only two people on the wide stone steps. His assistants had started down the stairs when he did, but were now hanging back at a discreet distance, well out of earshot of their employer's conversation. Down in the small plaza at street level, student tour groups waited for their buses, laughing and taking pictures of each other in front of the large bronze sculptures of Truth and Justice.
"I'm a reporter," Chloe said. "I'm still comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. The problems I resolve may seem small to you, Lex, but they're huge to the people who have to deal with them."
"I'm not questioning the value of the service you provide."
"Just its newsworthiness? Our little feature has brought to light some pretty big corporate scandals."
"Merriman Industries, Harcourt Foods, the city planning office, and Femweb."
Taken aback, Chloe lost the thread of her argument for a moment. "You watch 'Chloe Confronts'?"
"When I need to. Usually, I have an assistant transcribe it for me."
"I suppose I should be flattered."
"Don't be. I'm in business in this city, Chloe. I need to know what's going on."
"And it's not flattering that we've made it onto Lex Luthor's need-to-know list?"
"Only in a very loose sense of the word. Flattery implies false praise, offered for ulterior motives. Though I do have ulterior motives towards you, Chloe, I would never stoop to false praise to achieve them."
Chloe's jaw dropped. Lex was the only person she had ever met who said things like this, and she could never figure out whether he did it on purpose to put people off balance, or whether it was simply his idea of everyday conversation. Chloe couldn't think of a thing to say in reply that wouldn't sound coy, lame, or evasive. She tried to remember what they had been talking about.
"Are you happy, Chloe?"
"What?"
"Exposing corrupt landlords, shouting down small businessmen--do you find it fulfilling?"
Chloe frowned. "I do good work, Lex."
"That's not what I asked." Lex could be as persistent as Chloe herself when he wanted an answer. He moved up a step, bringing him eye to eye with Chloe and just a little too close for her comfort. "This isn't exactly what you had planned for yourself back in Smallville," he said softly. "Is it?"
Chloe shrugged. "I was just a kid then."
Lex's eyes narrowed. "I know ambition when I see it, Chloe, and I recognized it in you the day we met. You knew then exactly what you wanted: to be a great reporter, to write headline news for the Daily Planet."
Chloe glanced around to make sure they were still alone on the steps before replying. "Things change, Lex. I can't be a hard news reporter in this city, because I can't write about--well, you know what I can't write about. It would be too easy to make a mistake, to let something slip. And I can't let myself get famous as a print journalist at all, because I can't afford to have anyone interested in the things I wrote when I was back in Smallville."
"You've wiped all the official records of your articles in the Torch."
"But I can't destroy every hard copy. They're still there, in people's attics, tucked into their yearbooks. If anyone ever went looking for those stories...it would be too easy to make all the right connections."
"So you work for MetNews, where your audience couldn't care less about your journalistic background, because all they want to know about you is who your favourite bands are and where you buy your clothes. You're a glorified veejay, Chloe."
"That's not true."
"And while you try your damnedest to do the work of a reporter in this city without tipping anyone off to the fact that you actually are one, Clark is writing front-page news for the Planet." Lex's voice had dropped to a whisper. "He's doing the job you've wanted since high school--and in doing it, not only does he risk exposing to the world the very connection you're working to conceal...he also seems to leave himself very little time for old friends."
There was really nothing Chloe could say to that.
"Do you really intend to sacrifice your future to protect his?"
Lex studied her intently, and Chloe felt herself crumple a little under his scrutiny. She had never been good at keeping her emotions off her face.
"Lex, I--"
Chloe stopped at the sound of a distant car alarm. Lex turned his head and listened with her as the alarm was followed by another from a block or two down the avenue, then another, then another. In a moment, the air was filled with high-pitched wails, whoops, and staccato beeps, as cars parked around the courthouse joined in the din.
Lex looked back at Chloe. "Superman," they said together.
End of Part 2
~
