Lois hadn't seen Clark since the day of his trial two months ago. Uncertainty marked her steps as she headed towards the visitor's area, wondering what she might find. Would he rage at them, would he behave coldly? One thing that was certain is that he wouldn't be contrite.; he didn't have it in him.
Maybe that's why she was a little surprised by the hopeless air that seemed to hang over him like one of those cartoon, storm clouds. He must have been a lost and broken man without the machinations that had been a part of his entire life. It had to cause an identity crisis to be stripped of your wealth and power because without them what made Clark, Clark? One look at them, however, and the fervor of his hatred seemed to bring him to life. "You!" he spat. "What do you two want?"
"Turns out you're not such an anomaly after all," Oliver said wryly, folding his arms on the table.
Clark looked genuinely confused. He hadn't heard.
She explained, "There are people who arrived on Earth claiming to be Kryptonian."
He scoffed as he took a seat. "What? That's impossible. I don't know much about where I came from. I never cared to connect with my Kryptonian side, but this one thing I do know is that I'm the last of my kind."
Oliver shook his head. "The man's so egotistical he can't even entertain the possibility that there's more like him."
Clark ignored the remark other than to send him a glare. He addressed Lois, "The planet was destroyed when I was a baby. How could they just now be getting to Earth?"
"We don't know much," she said. "Only that there are a lot of them, and they don't seem intent on blending in peaceably. In fact, they seem to be preparing for war."
"I see, and what does this have to do with me exactly?"
Oliver emitted a low growl in his throat, but Lois continued, playing his game. "We need your help. The best chance we have is to advocate for peace, and the best person to do that is someone like them. They're more likely to listen to you."
"I don't believe this. My powers are taken from me, I'm locked up with the key thrown away, and now all of a sudden I'm needed. Why should I help? What's in it for me?"
"I knew this was a waste of time," Oliver said, starting to get up.
Lois pushed on his shoulder, plopping him back in his seat.
"How very Luthorlike of you," she said.
"I am a Luthor," he returned.
She shot Oliver a told-you-so look. To consider himself a Luthor, he had to consider himself human first. Then she looked at Clark again. "That you are, so let's cut a deal. We have to clear it with the proper authorities first, but you talk to the invaders and figure out how to live in harmony at best or how to defeat them at worst and you earn your freedom."
"Lois, are you crazy?" Oliver cried.
She kept her focus on Clark, and he stared right back as he weighed her words. "Then I accept your proposition, Lane."
"But you fail or try to join up with them, it's back to prison," she warned.
"You wound me. This is my planet. Why would I want to share it?"
Not the response she wanted but one she had foretold. It always went back to domination and control with him, the desire to forge an empire, but he was willing to help and that was the main thing. "We'll be in touch. Come on, Ollie."
He followed her, but he was sputtering, and once out of hearing, he said, "You might have warned me the about trying to cut him a deal. I would have talked you out of that lunacy."
"It was a spur-of-the-moment decision, but he wasn't going to agree to anything less."
"And you think you can arrange for his freedom?"
"We're talking about the entire world being in jeopardy. If that doesn't call for a presidential pardon, I don't know what does. I'll leave it to my father to do the arranging. He'd know if the military was that desperate yet, but I have a feeling they already are."