Disclaimer: I wouldn't bet my life that I own anything but the plot and neither should you.
Her penchant for going all out was perhaps why she was attacked walking to her car after the pageant. It was definitely why she woke up tied to a chair in the middle of an antiquated warehouse with only booty shorts and a flowy strapless top covering her. Dust and old furniture were all she could see around her. It was night now and the water dripping through cracks in the roof meant it must have started storming in the hours she was unconscious.
Just perfect. And right when I thought my life couldn't handle more clichés. Pretty soon I'll be knocked out only to wake up to Prince Charming planting one on me.
"Ah, you're awake now," her captor – at least she assumed it was her captor, who else lurks around warehouses waiting for tied up women to wake up so they can say 'Ah, you're awake now' in a decidedly creepy manner? - said.
"You going to show yourself or do I have to guess who you are? I'm always up for a game of twenty questions, but are you?" she asked.
He stepped out of the shadows and Lois vaguely recognized him as an intern from the Daily Planet.
"Please tell me you're jealous of my reporting skills and that's why you kidnapped me," she sighed.
"No, I'm going to use you to lure the Blur out of the shadows and become Metropolis's greatest reporter." He grinned at the idea, a nasty expression that was only exacerbated by the dark lighting.
He probably planned it that way, the psycho.
Lois was pulled out of musing about exactly how much thought this guy put into having every cliché possible by the man speaking again.
"You're a good reporter, if you join with me, we could make a great team. Ditch the lumberjack and help me unmask the Blur. I might even let you go untouched."
"I'd rather eat barbed wire."
"You know, I've been watching you, Lois. For a long time. But you never noticed me. We worked together so much and you never even remembered my name." He had been calm before but anger was breaking through his control.
"I am better than Clark Kent. Why can't you see that?" he roared. "He lets people down time after time and everyone just brushes it off like it's nothing. Watching you pine after him is almost as pathetic as watching him pine after you."
"Don't be stupid. Clark doesn't feel the same way about me. He's still hung up on Lana."
Wow, way to go Lane, focus on the least important aspect of his evil speech of evil. Don't go focusing on something useful now. Ugh, just keep him talking until you get out of these ropes or someone finds you.
"You really are naïve. What rock have you been living under that you can't see what every other sane person in Metropolis sees?"
Lois objected to him grouping himself in with the sane given her current situation. She kept a lid on that though, better to keep him talking about his convoluted ideas. She'd have time to piss him off later.
"And what is that?"
His resulting laugh echoed around the warehouse but never seemed to fill the empty spaces.
"I'm genuinely surprised that the worldly Lois Lane, a woman who can sniff out a story from a mile away, can't see what's right in front of her."
Everyone seemed to have more pieces of the puzzle than she did and expected her to know exactly how to piece together the few she did have. Tied up in a warehouse with not much to lose, Lois did what any sane person would do in her situation. She snapped.
"That's it! I have had it with people always knowing more about my business than me! So you either fess up now or shut up and let me be a hostage in peace and I'll pry it out of you when I visit you in prison," she growled.
"You're not in much of a position for bargaining."
He looked at her bonds pointedly, but as he did he took in the wild expression in her eyes that suggested she was a more dangerous foe than the Blur. He saw too the way that she was straining against the perilously thin ropes. They were so much thicker hanging on the display at the store than when wrapped around Mad Dog Lane. Coming to the obvious decision, he continued.
"Hmm, let's put it this way. You're a fascinating woman, even the Blur thinks so. Out of all of Metropolis, he picks you to get close to. So it really shouldn't be news to you that Clark Kent is head over heels for you. He practically doesn't even see other women. He's got women at the Planet lined up to go out with him but he always turns them down so politely."
The kidnapper's resentful tone was bordering on manic fury just at the thought.
"He's so 'nice,' as you said, that they just fawn over him even more and they can't see he's just stringing them along. And during all of that, he never lets any guys get close to you!"
Lois barely stopped herself from telling him that recently all the guys that had tried to get close to her were raving lunatics. She'd learned from experience that it tended not go over so well when her audience was one of those raving lunatics.
"It's always the death glare whenever you can't see him and let me tell you, he is nowhere near as friendly as he pretends to be. Whenever someone gets close to you, he takes them into the copy room for the third degree. It's pathetic. Terrifying and, yes, okay, very effective, but completely pathetic," he whined, pacing around her chair.
"I don't know, I think it's kind of sweet in a completely Smallville way. But this just shows you, he's playing the overprotective big brother, that doesn't mean he's in love with me."
So stop telling me he is because I can't get my hopes up, I can't get left behind again. To him, I'm just another damsel in distress he needs to rescue. He does the same for everyone, that's part of why I lo- that's part of his charm.
He scoffed at her.
"Whatever, you're as crazy as everyone else at the Planet and if you won't join me then you can die tonight. I've placed a bomb in the warehouse and he'll set it off when he comes to rescue you. Whether you live or die, it doesn't matter. Either way I'll get my story and the promotion I deserve."
He paused, laughing.
"You know I never really bought in to the whole therapy spiel, but it is nice to get this all off my chest. I'm not going to tell you anything more about my plan, you understand. Can't have you screwing it up just because I got cocky and wanted to brag. But there is something to be said about telling someone everything that bugs you. After this is all over, I might try a therapist, you never know."
"The Blur will come after you, he'll find out who you are and he won't just let you go. If anything happens to me, he'll hunt you down," Lois warned, hoping it was the truth.
He was silent for a minute and only his soft footsteps told Lois he was getting closer to her, until they stopped right behind her and she could feel his breath on her bare shoulder.
"I'll have the leverage after tonight, Miss Lane. Trust me when I say he won't come after me until it's too late."
The footsteps receded until Lois knew she was alone. She sighed resignedly when she realized that even the bad guys in her life left her behind; she really couldn't catch a break.