Review Comments:

jade2nightwing - I thought about pairing Bart and Kara, but I found another pairing for him that I liked a little bit more. I strongly suspect that I'll find a partner for Kara in another chapter, but look for the Bart pairing in the next few chapters.

sunset - Yeah, I was pretty disappointed to hear she wasn't going to have much of a bigger role in Season 10. Kara represents Clark's only biological family and that's pretty huge for him. I hope she'll appear again before the end of the show, there was a quick reference to her by Emil in one episode, so she's still on Earth doing her Supergirl thing. I'm crossing my fingers for her return.

PSB - Thanks, I really liked League too. I've always enjoyed the 'real life' side of Superheroes, maybe thats why I like Smallville so much, haha. A lot of these chapters will show that side, so it's good to hear that you enjoyed it.

Author: CaptainTightPants12

Rating: K

Pairing: Clois

Disclaimer: If I owned Smallville or it's characters, I'd be saving this for the spring and you would be watching it on TV.

Summary: A series of 'Kill me or Kiss Me?' moments.

Chapter: #9, Brainiac

Author's Note: I absolutely love this character. When he came back in 'Homecoming', I thought James Marsters' performance was great. This is one of those characters that traveled the road not often traveled, coming back as a good guy after being such a bad guy. Just the way he talks and the simplistic way he says such complex and huge notions, I loved him and one of my favorite Smallville lines were uttered by this guy. You'll see it below. Enjoy.

We've got excerpts from a few episodes in this one. Quote from 'Absolute Justice' at the tippy top, scenes from each of 'Crusade', 'Crossfire', and finally 'Homecoming'. I tried to pick some of the bigger moments, without using ones that I have in other chapters.


"You are the one he will need. He is the one you will need." - Doctor Fate, Absolute Justice.

How do you show the World's Greatest Hero the error of his ways? How do you show him the path?

Brainiac had quickly decided, as he had done everything, that he would show Kal-El the most defining moments of his life. His father's death was simple enough because it was the moment Kal-El chose to blame himself. The Green Arrow should be suffice in showing Kal-El how he has chosen to not only blame himself, but blame others for their past mistakes as well, never moving on and letting it consume him.

And then there was Lois.

Even a super-computer like Brainiac 5 was stumped on what to reveal to Clark. He had to show him something, she was more the point to this than anything else. He simply could not show him the way without her. Should he show when they first met?

Was that...was that a body? 'Oh god, not again,' she thought. 'Why am I always hitting things with my car? Wait, is he naked?'

Lois got out of her car, walking around to the front. Whoever this guy was, he didn't seem hurt. He was starting to stand and, well, she was starting to stare. 'Why was there a naked guy in the middle of the freakin' corn field?' she thought to herself.

"Oh my god," she started. "Are you...are you okay? What's your name?"

He told her he didn't know.

"I need to get you to a hospital," she told him. He had the nerve to say he was fine. "You've just been hit by lighting, you're stark naked, and you don't remember your own name. You have a fairly loose definition of the word 'fine'."

When he turned around, she had to shoot her head up to avoid looking at what she would come to refer to fondly as 'Clark Jr'.

"Look at his face," yeah, well, she was never one for self-control. She looked elsewhere, and it wasn't at corn. "I have a blanket in the trunk, don't move. I'll be right back" she had told him. This was officially the weirdest night of her life.

"Wait, who are you?" he asked.

"Lois. Lois Lane." She said it so weightless, neither knew that their lives had just been changed forever.

No, that didn't show what he needed to see. Possibly something more recent, like their first kiss?

He wasn't sure what the plan was here. Chloe told him to ask himself what he wanted, and what he wanted was Lois. What he didn't want, was to ruin what they had. He knew he if pushed her too fast, too soon, things would never be the same and he couldn't live with that. She was standing at her desk, looking beautiful as always. For a man that was practically invincible, he had never been more scared in his entire life.

"Lois?"

She turned with a fury. "Did you hear? The brilliant brass over at KZXP have decided to go with someone else for their morning show."

He swallowed. He said her name once more, but she continued one.

"After everything that happened, after Ollie and I almost got killed, guess who they've decided to go with?" She thrust a photo of his blind-date in his face. At this particular moment, he couldn't even remember her name. "Apparently blondes test better with morning viewers."

"Lois!"

But she just kept on. "I'm sorry, I never should have tried out in the first place, or dragged you with me, and I just-"

He did it. He did the one thing he'd been wanting to do since he saw her standing there. He kissed her. And needless to say, she was shocked. But he wasn't going to pull away. If she wanted to end it, she could pull away. Thank god, she didn't pull away. She roped her arms around him and kissed right back.

No. He needed to see what she meant to him. What she drove him to become. Maybe something a little ahead in the future?

"I am going to kill you, Clark Kent!" she raged in the Kent kitchen.

He stood there silently. He knew better than to open his mouth. It really wasn't his fault, technically speaking, he was kind of unconscious and under the rubble of an entire building. Sure, he held up the first couple of floors, but that was a big building, he couldn't keep it all from falling on him.

"Honestly, I am your wife! Did it never occur to you that I would be scared? That I would be worried? When you ran off to face that...that...what the hell do you call that thing?" she screamed at him. He flinched, considered explaining the unconscious thing, but decided just to answer.

"Mongul."

"When I let you run off to face that Mongul thing, I thought you were sure you take it. But oh no, you let it kick your red and blue ass all across the city and finally, you let an entire building fall on top of you. Therefore burying you under tons and tons of bricks and metal. You are lucky that Kara was wearing an outfit that lent her the option of pockets so I could call her, because without her x-ray vision, who knows how long it would have taken to find you!"

Shelby made his way downstairs to see what all the commotion was, seeing Lois pacing, he made a quick u-turn back towards the living room.

'Smart dog,' Clark thought.

"Do you know how I felt? Do you, Smallville? Do you have any idea?" she asked.

Clark shifted uncomfortably in his seat. He shook his head every so slightly. He was so certain she was going to kill him. They both knew that he kept some green kryptonite in a lead box inside of the far left drawer, just in case. They had enough slip-ups to know better.

"I wanted to kill you for almost getting yourself killed! I wanted to wring your stupid, stupid, stupid, plaid-wearing neck!" she shouted. She had begun to smack his arm with every 'stupid', and when she got to 'neck', she grabbed him around his neck. "And now? Do you know how I feel now?"

Clark gulped and looked around at all the potential weapons in the kitchen. He looked at her with a look of fear despite being invincible to just about anything she had to throw at him. But when she suddenly jammed her lips into his and sent both him, the chair, and herself to the kitchen floor, he realized something.

'Even I'm not invincible to a Lois Lane kiss.'

No, somehow, that wasn't going to get the point across. Ultimately, he decided to show him a future where protected his secret. A future where she chose to stand along side him and push him to become the man he was destined to be.

Not that Kal-El was willing to wait that long, and because of his disobedience, Brainiac had ended up in the Dark Ages where you have to answer a lot of questions if you pop out of thin air. Luckily, he avoided the torches and pitchforks, sending himself to meet Kal-El in the future at the Daily Planet. When they returned to the present, they saw Greg Arkin show his gratitude to Lois for what Clark had done to him, and he knew that Kal-El finally saw it.

"A hero is made in the moment, not from questioning the past or fearing what's to come. Just remember that Kal-El."

Clark probably didn't even correctly understand the statement at the time. Thinking off to some moment where he was facing a monster or a task that seemed impossible to overcome. But Brainiac knew the truth. He knew that this hero, was made in this moment. Because this was the moment he chose to let Lois Lane into his life completely. This was the first step towards a partnership that would define him more than the cape or the shield ever would.

This was the moment that all the roads of Clark Kent, Kal-El, the Traveler, the Blur, and Naman crashed together.

This was the moment that he became Superman, he just didn't know it yet.


Author's Note: So, we have that 'she is going to kill me' moment followed by the BOOM, lip-on-lip contact. I think it'll get old to have 'kill me or kiss me' in every chapter, so I figured why not have some actual action? I really liked seeing Brainiac as a good guy and I loved James Marsters performance, so I had to bring him back. I hope you guys liked it, wouldn't mind a review to let me know it.

Next up: Not sure yet, probably Jor-El, there is something else in the works that might push Jor-El to Chapter 11.