Heroes Aren't Perfect
I finally saw Superman Returns in its entirety and for the first time in my life I found and incarnation of Lois Lane that I genuinely hated. This was my attempt to bring Smallville into that world and try to redeem it a bit.
Summary: In the future where nearly all the superheroes are gone, some of them are ready to take a stand again. Oliver asks Lois to write the story, and is surprised to see that she's changed too.
Lois was stunned into silence for about three point five seconds as Oliver plucked the cigarette she had been smoking from between her fingers, splitting it in half and tossing it to the ground.
Oliver didn't say anything. He uncapped his bottle of sparkling water and set a fresh cup of coffee in front of Lois. He wondered when he missed the checkered flag. When exactly did life change?
"Oliver," Lois said calmly, "What exactly was that for?"
"Don't do that." Oliver took a sip of his water, "Those will kill you. It doesn't suit the intrepid reporter, anyways."
"I didn't realize you were my keeper." Lois retorted, "And you're not exactly one to talk."
Zing. Oliver knew he should have expected that. It still hurt though. That was the thing, it didn't matter how much he tried to distance himself from Lois, how much he convinced himself that they were over, and that he didn't care; that she was just a friend, and hardly even that, just his former plus one…
She was still the one that got away. Lois was the only one he still wanted to hold on to, and didn't know how to.
What business did he have anyways? It had been more years than he cared to count since they were a 'thing'. It had been years since she knocked him off her speed dial.
"And there's the Lois I knew and loved." Oliver decided to ignore her comment and grinned at her. "You're in fine form today."
"Why'd you ask me to meet you, Oliver?"
He worried sometimes that she would be the second woman he ruined. Sometimes he had himself half convinced that if he was going to do the best thing for Lois, he would push her away-but he couldn't. Lois was all he had left. Chloe was gone, and Clark was gone….and they were left behind to carry on.
"I've got a story for you." Oliver nodded his head once. "You're the only one who can write it."
"Ollie," Lois said, "I stopped writing for you and yours when they hung up their boots and tacky leather jumpsuits. "
"That's sort of what this is about." Oliver said carefully.
"Oliver," Lois sighed, "What are you saying?"
"Tess forwarded me your manifesto." Oliver said, having already formed what he was going to say carefully. "When did you lose your faith in heroes, hmm, Lois?"
"I lost my faith in you Oliver, when they all made a group decision to desert the world."
"Did you ever think that they aren't perfect, Lois? We aren't perfect. We've made mistakes, and we learn from them. The world didn't want us anymore, and so we blended back in as humans."
"I noticed." Lois smiled, "Congratulations on Queen Industries, Ollie. You've done spectacularly well for yourself."
He wanted back the Lois he fell in love with. Oliver wanted back the woman who stormed his house, and threatened his life because he was going to take back his anonymity and leave Green Arrow in the past. What happened to the Lois Lane who hunted them down one by one begging them not to give up on the world?
"Who better to chronicle the return of superheroes than the woman who believed in us first?" Oliver gave her a smile, "I won't let you down this time."
"If I had a dollar for every time you let me down, Ollie…I'd be richer than Lex Luthor."
Oliver bit his tongue; bit back every retort about the rumors that circulated in his society about his ex-girlfriend and Lex. Even if it was truth, he didn't want to know.
"We haven't given up, Lois. I just thought that maybe you would give us a chance to prove it before you tell the world to give up on us."
"What exactly do you want me to write, Oliver? That Green Arrow and his friends had a change of mind and they think they'd like to be heroes again? The only heroes they have anymore are people like-"
Lois cut off her sentence prematurely and Oliver didn't need to hear the rest to know what she was going to say. He sheathed Green Arrow, Clark disappeared, the others followed suit…and Lex got to become a hero.
"Like Lex, right? Is that what you were going to say?" Oliver raised an eyebrow at her, angry. He wasn't just angry at her. He was angry at himself, angry that everyone had given up, and angry…
He was just angry.
"Because you're right, Lex is a real hero." Oliver continued sarcastically. "Where would we be without him trying to eradicate our population."
"Don't snipe, Oliver." Lois said coldly, and Oliver knew he'd argued himself right out of her potentially good graces. "Leave your green tights in the closet."
Lois stood up from the table, "The city's doing fine without their weekend warriors."
She turned her back to him.
"So you've given up," Oliver called after her, "Clark too?"
It was a low blow, and he knew it.
Lois turned around and looked at him with a glint in her eyes.
"Clark and Chloe made a decision to abandon the city on their own, and you just followed their path. I'm moving on." She glanced over him, "You should too."
Lois turned her back on him and the table, and this time Oliver didn't have anything to say. Lois lost her faith in them, and so he was just going to have to prove himself-they would all have to prove that they were worthy of her support.
Oliver leaned back in the chair and sighed, pulling the crumpled draft out of his pocket. Why The World Doesn't Need Superman.
He didn't know if this was Lois' manifesto for a born hatred of superheroes, or her kiss off to Clark for leaving her. Oliver understood the temptation of the latter. The first time Chloe had left him, he'd understood more or less. The second time…
Well, he still didn't have an answer. All he knew was that she was gone and he was here.