Evergreen
Part 3
2010
She was barefoot on the grass, like a pretty white swab of paint on a green expanse of Monet brushes. He adored watching her twirling happily as if she had no care in the world. Her laughter tinkled in the air like the windchimes his mother used to hang by his window.
Sh turned towards him and stopped. Chloe extended her arms towards him and gave him a vibrant smile, beaming all her joy. "Take my hands, Bruce," she urged him.
Seated on the blanket where most of their lunch remained half-eaten, Bruce shook his head. "I'll stay here. I just want to watch you."
Chloe's eyebrows furrowed, and she grinned lopsidedly. Then, with her hands on her waist, she cocked her head to the side. "Watch me?" she repeated. "What do you want to watch me for? There's nothing extraordinary for you to see here." With a teasing glint in her eye, Chloe turned her back to him and called out into the wind, "Are you going to watch me shake my booty?" Chloe carefully rolled her hips. Then, she whirled around and with the same coy look, she extended her hands again.
"You don't even have to say a word," he murmured. Bruce rose to his kness, then onto his feet. He placed his hands over hers. "I adore you."
"You adore my hips," she parried playfully.
"I don't deny it," he said, smiling. Bruce leaned down and brush his lips on the tip of her nose. "But not as much as your nose." Then her lips. "And your sometimes potty mouth."
"Awww shut the hell up. You're so romantic."
He raised her hand to his lips. "But your fingers could use improvement."
She snatched her hand away. "Now why did you have to go and say that?"
"Don't pull away, Chloe. I have just he thing to make your hand perfect."
Her heart stopped when he undid the top two buttons of his shirt. Hanging from a gold strand around his neck, Chloe glimpsed the sparkle of twin gold bands and a diamond ring.
Bruce smiled proudly, because he had aimed to take her breath away. It took a lot to silence her, and he had done that today. Bruce Wayne had risen victorious in countless biddings and deals. For the first time, his heart thundered as he waited for her response.
"Bruce, no," she whispered.
And the strong heart fractured at those two words. "Do you love me?"
"You don't have to ask."
"Then why?" he asked, looking deep into teary green eyes.
"I will accept the ring," she assured him. "Don't ever doubt that. Give me a week, Bruce. Let me just finish something."
"Master Bruce," a man's voice broke through in his subconscious, shattering the remnants of memory that had been nestling on his lashes. "Master Bruce." He shook himself awake and found himself completely devoid of the brightness of the dream. Instead of th lovely young woman he had been holding in his arms, he looked up into the face of an aging man who served him well.
"Alfred."
"Master Bruce, everything's prepared."
They were the same words that Alfred had uttered a few days ago, back when Bruce still saw hints of a silver lining behind he clouds.
"Thank you, Alfred."
"Bring her back, Master Bruce. If anyone can find her, you can."
Bruce Wayne nodded, and walked before the butler towards the door. "Your breakfast is in the dining room." Instead of turning left in that direction, Bruce snatched his jacket from the chair and stalked out of the manor. "Very well, Master Bruce."
Bruce Wayne ran towards the helicopter waiting on the grounds. Before he climbed in, he was stopped still by the rush of memories. On this very patch of green grass now ruined by the aircraft, Chloe had stood a few days ago.
"Don't send me away. Not because of this," she insisted.
"Listen to me," he had said harshly, needing to hold her to him forever but knowing that it was the decision he had to make. "Lex Luthor will not stop until he has everything. I will not let him touch you. I'll come for you when I bring him down. I swear."
"When?"
"Someday soon," he had vowed to her against her temple. He had tried to warm her, because she was then so very very cold. "I'll come for you soon."
Bruce Wayne closed his eyes and tried to forget the promise of a reunion that now seemed so impossible. He boarded the helicopter and remained still as they lifted from the ground.
It had been an endless nightmare that started when four hours from takeoff, he had received word that the plane he had forced her to get into was lost over the Pacific. Only last night did he hear the news he had been waiting for and dreading.
The crash site had been found.
"I'll come for you soon," he vowed.
Evergreen promises were meant to be kept.
Metropolis
Lex Luthor lay on the bed, watching her every move since she slipped into the dark hospital room. She reached for his pale hand that lay on top of the white sheets. Her hair was a mess, and it looked as if she only threw on a pair of jeans and a shirt. It was so obvious to him that when she had heard about his collapse, she had rushed to the hospital immediately. She was his delicate girl whe wasn't thieving around.
Two years ago, when Lex saw her again after so long, he had no idea losing his phone would change his life so. She had intrigued him with the way she took from him. He had seen her in action. She was fantastic. It was later that night when he found that she had picked McNamara's pocket for his proximity card. It was the same thing she needed from Lex's own wallet. She had been setting up her own privilege access for the largest corporations, starting with Lex and McNamara to get her insider scoop on the Kings and Luthor bids. Little did she know that a few months after that, in a whirlwind romance that they struggled to keep from the press, she would have all the access she needed to LuthorCorp as Lex Luthor's wife.
"You collapsed in the office? Really Lex... Are you sure this new diet is for you?"
He smiled, because she was too transparent. That's why she should be his wife and not an investigative reporter. He had discussed this with Chloe. No two people escalated to their level of commitment so fast, so soon, without sharing the important things.
She sat beside him and peppered his hand with kisses. Chloe brushed her fingers over the sore skin where the doctors had placed his dextrose.
"You're going to be visiting the hospital more frequently, you know. Are you ready for that?"
"Hmmm." She did not want to agree to that, because it meant he would be sick for a long time.
He knew she knew. Her beautiful eyes held too much intelligence not to have found out by now. When the doctors first diagnosed him with a cancer because of his prolonged exposure to the meteor rocks, Chloe had vanished for days.
He knew she knew, because when she came back her green eyes were not as vivid as they were when she left.
He had known. He had known for a long time and finally, he addressed the knowledge she was forcing herself to hide.
"I know you're frustrated," he told her. "I am too."
"You're paying your researchers so much and they can't even reproduce it?"
The only antidote rested in the restricted projects department of Wayne Enterprises. It was the unpublished and secret research that Wayne had buried because it was found illegal. The same crime Luthor Corp committed when Lex manipulated the rocks that stole ino his veins.
"Wayne has invested his own research into it as well, I believe. The government has completely banned it. There is no way we can even filch a copy of the formula. No one in my team is that good."
Chloe squeezed his hand. "I am. I can take it from Wayne."
"I can't ask you to do that."
She smiled. "You didn't." Chloe stood up and leaned down to kiss his forehead. "Hang on, Lex. Why did I perfect my craft if I can't take what I need from Bruce Wayne. I've done it to you right?"
"Chloe, I don't want you to go there. Bruce Wayne can be... ruthless."
"So can I," she said lightly. Then, Chloe whispered into his ear, her voice firmer and more determined. "I'll come right back, Lex, I swear. I'll make you better. I will not become a widow sitting down."
He shook his head and took her hand. "Going to Wayne and taking something, endangering yourself like this... you don't need to do it, Chloe. You've made me better the very day you walked back into my life and made a fool out of me."
"I love you," she swore, and left a lingering kiss on his lips.
Chloe had blown him a kiss on her way out of the door.
It was the very last sight he had of Chloe. Two months later, the antidote arrived by FedEx. He had been half-insane with worry when she did not return. Five months after that Lex Luthor's splintered. He turned on the tv set and learned that his wife had become Bruce Wayne's fiance. Divorce papers came by UPS.
Strengthened by medicine that cost him his entire heart, Lex Luthor plotted against the woman who stole more than mobile phone.
Later, he learned that Bruce Wayne's mad scramble to hide Lex's estranged wife had shattered his own world.
Lex Luthor turned on the television to the coverage of the crash site.
Lex grabbed the bottle of the antidote and threw it into the television screen, crying out his anger and despair.
Pictures of the burning wreckage embedded in the picture perfect virgin forest was starkly etched in his brain.
Evergreen colored death and ruin haunted his steps.
tbc