Disclaimer: I don't own any character in this Fanfic.
A/N: Hope you guys are liking the story so far.
Late August 2007, Smallville, Kansas
The Talon had been the focal point of Smallville for several years. Long enough that the communal shock of anything new had passed and young and old alike came to the talon daily. Farms met in the morning and talked about the coming harvest and how here crops were fairing in the weather. Women came and gossiped about the new preacher and the woman sheriff. And teenagers congregated and drank fancy European espresso. And for a small group of young adults it was a home away from home. Clark Kent sat at the espresso bar and read the Kansas Post. In front of him was Lana Lang manning her customary position behind the bar. Lois Lane sat next to Clark and absently stirred her cappuccino. The only odd occurrence that morning had been the absence of Chloe Sullivan. Chloe though had been prone to lateness since birth. Lois tapped her spoon against the counter until finally getting up and threw on her sued coat in frustration.
"that's it I'm going to go look for her." Lois said grabbing her keys from the counter.
"Lois sit back down. I'm sure Chloe will be here any minute." Clark said calmly not even looking away from his paper.
"All right Smallville but if something happens to her it'll be your head." Lois said sitting back down forcefully.
"Hey Lane you gonna pay for the chair when it breaks." Lana said setting down her rag and staring at her. "Anyway have you heard about Pete, Clark?"
"No I haven't, last I heard he was going to law school to study politics, right." Clark said putting down his paper.
"He called me the other day and asked me if I would escort him to this political shindig his party is holding here in Smallville." Lana replied wiping of the espresso machine.
"Wow, why is he doing it here you'd think he would go to Metropolis." Clark said somewhat dumbfounded at the idea.
"Apparently some rich guy from back east bought the old Luthor plant outside of town and wanted to use its reopening to help Pete's political career." Lana said rather matter-of-factly.
Clark nearly dropped his coffee. "Their reopening the plant!"
"Yeah what's the guys name, Bruce I think." Lana continued to clean her bar and this time it was Lois's turn to look dumbfounded.
"You mean Bruce Wayne, as in Wayne Enterprises." Lois said her with her mouth hung open.
"Yeah that's it, you know him?" Lana said returning to wipe off the counter again.
"Know him? Of course I do. Wayne is by far one of the top five richest men in the country if not the most influential. He could walk into the white house look at the president and say he didn't like they way something was being run and the president would have a research group looking into it within minutes. And on top of all that he's our age." Lois looked back and forth between the two of them and gave up when neither of them seemed to care.
Lois finished wiping off the bar and waved to one of her waitresses to take over before joining her two friends. "So anyway, Pete wanted me to invite Clark to come and figured that since the two of you are practically dating that you could escort him Lois." At Lois's expression she chuckled. "Oh don't worry I'm not jealous...much, and besides it will give us an excuse to go into Metropolis and spend ridiculous amounts of money on dresses that neither one of us will ever where again." She said with a smile on her face.
"We'll when you put it that way of course I'll go." Lois said taking Lana's arm and leading her out side while Clark remained at the bar stupefied.
Earlier That Morning...
Chloe sped down the interstate headed for Smallville. She had over slept that morning and had nearly forgotten about the weekly meetings at the Talon. She was pushing twenty over and needed to go twice that if she was going to make it in time. Ten miles out of Smallville Chloe came around a bend in the road and came face to face with a black Jaguar. Chloe slammed on her breaks and skidded off the road. She came to a stop fifteen feet into a massive corn field. Chloe lifted her head from the now deployed air bag and pulled the latch to her seat belt. Nothing happened, she pulled it over and over again and still nothing happened. Chloe began to panic and passed out in exhaustion. Chloe woke in a start, a young man had ripped the door off her car and was calling out to her. A second later her hearing returned.
"Are you hurt?" He exclaimed, worry in his voice. "Your going into shock." He pulled up her sleeve and checked her pulse. "Stay with me. How many fingers am I holding up." He said holding hold one hand and extending all five digits.
"Ugh, what happened." She said ignoring his hand.
"You have a concussion. Here we need to get you out of here." He said reaching into the cab and ripping the seat belt from the floor. He place a hand under her head and one under her legs and gently pulled her out of the car. Carrying her to the road he placed her down on the ground and put his coat under her head.
Chloe felt dizzy and several minutes passed before she felt well enough to get up. Felling her forehead she found a patch of dried blood. Her head throbbed and her whole body ached. The man hoe had pulled her out of her car was bent inside the hood of the classic Jaguar. Steam was billowing out all around him.
"So what happened to your car." Chloe asked, normally she would have been furious but the man had pulled her out of the car and made sure that she was ok.
He stepped back from the car and Chloe's heart fluttered, he stood over six foot with perfect hair and the perfect lean yet muscular build. He walked over brushing an errant lock of hair from his face. Chloe looked him over from head to foot and realized that he was wearing all Armani everything from his silk shirt to his well polished shoes. She clutched the coat that had been laid under her head and chanced a glance at the tag. She almost screamed, the coat too was Armani and from the look of it was worth more than every piece of clothing she owned. The man stuck out one hand while the other held a socket wrench.
"Hi my name is Bruce Wayne, what's yours?" He said with a wild grin on his face.
"Um... Bruce Wayne, wow." She said completely dumbfounded.
"No you see my name is Bruce Wayne I wanted to know what your name is." He replied his wicked eyes mimicking the jovial expression on his face.
"Oh sorry, my name is Chloe Sullivan." She said as her head started to clear. She began to think like a reporter again and immediately thought of a million questions to ask him. "What are you doing in the middle of Kansas."
"Ah yes, I'm vacationing hear before heading back to College. I just bought the Luthor Castle a few miles from here." He said nonchalantly. He seemed to be much more interested with something on her face. "You have gorgeous eyes." He said before heading back to his car. "Your that columnist at the Daily Planet right. The one obsessed with mid western folk lore."
"I wouldn't say I'm obsessed." She said defiantly.
"Of course, I apologize. No insult was intended." He closed the trunk and went to try and start the vehicle. "I have to admit that I am something of a novice investigator of American archetypes myself."
"Really, just a hobby I'm sure." She said she had met rich men like him before they liked thinking that they were just as intelligent as they people they associated with.
"Ah don't start over analyzing me. I'll have you know that I am majoring in both psychology as well as superstition and religion." He said finally getting the car to start he got out and walked back over to Chloe. "I would feel much better if I had my doctor take a look at your head." He said pointing to the dried blood on her forehead.
"No I couldn't possibly impose on you like that." She said blushing.
"I insist, after all if it wasn't for me you wouldn't have smashed up your car." He said his charming smile cutting right threw her.
Why was she getting so caught up in this man? He was just another rich boy after all, wasn't he?
"Sure I suppose I should have this looked at." She said. Bruce opened up the passenger side door and waited for her to sit down. She could just see Lois's expression when they realized she wasn't going to be there. Oh well there were worse things than making Lois Lane mad, not a whole lot but there were some things.
It took them about ten minutes to reach what used to be the home of Lex Luthor. As the car pulled up to the castle Chloe had a dreadful feeling that Lionel Luthor somehow haunted the grounds. Bruce got out of the car and opened her door offering her his arm as they walked up to the front doors. The castle had changed enormously. All of the stained glass was gone and numerous colorful suits of armor lined the walls. People walked up and down the halls unpacking boxes and hanging portraits and various pieces of Old English artwork on the walls. The castle felt much more welcoming. Chloe was taken back by the difference that Bruce had made on the fell of the mansion.
"What do you think of the place?" Bruce said making wide gestures toward the walls.
"I like it a lot more than when Lex owned it." She confessed.
"That's right you used to work for Lionel didn't you." Bruce said inspecting a portrait that hung in the center of the foyer. The placard under it read 'Thomas Wayne Sr.'
"I was never his employee." Chloe said her reverence for him waning
"Don't start lying to me now. I did just buy Luther chemical. I know for a fact that you were on Lionel's payroll. In fact you received a hefty salary for working on something called the Kryptonite project. I was just going over the records of that project last night." Bruce finished meticulously aligning the portrait and motioned to the drawing room.
Chloe followed him into the room. Gone was Lex's pool table and glass furniture and in its place were several pieces of wooden furniture and a large screen television. The coffee table that sat in the middle of the room was covered in files and paper and siting in the middle was a large piece of meteor rock.
"I would get rid of that if I were you." She said pointing to the meteor rock.
"Why?" Bruce asked looking at the rock. "So you do know what this is."
"Yes, and I would strongly advise you to lock that up." She was frantic with fear. She needed to keep him from reading anymore into those files before he found out about Clark.
"It isn't dangerous is it?" He said looking at the green rock.
"Well let's just say that Lionel didn't get cancer because he smoked." She said trying to sound desperate. She knew that it would take a lot of exposure to get cancer from the meteor but he didn't have to know that.
"Ok I will." He said slipping a folder underneath the rock and carrying it over to the lead safe built into the wall. Once it was locked he walked back and sat down on the couch. "Well that catastrophe has been averted."
"Sorry about that I kind of freak when I see that stuff." She said trying to sound innocent.
"That's all right, I'm glad you warned me." He said sitting back on the sofa. "But now I know for sure that you worked for Luthor."
Damn, Chloe thought. She had been so concerned about Clark that she hadn't even thought about what she was doing. "You've got me."
"So since your on my payroll anyway you can't refuse this." He said handing her a linen made envelope. She opened the envelope and pulled out a pure white piece of linen paper with gold lettering.
"This is an invitation to Pete Ross's big party tomorrow!" She clutched the invitation in her hand. She scanned the invitation a second time and her eyes dropped. "This is made out to you."
"I know, I am currently lacking a date." He said standing up from the sofa. "Would you allow me the pleasure with me?"
Chloe's heart began to flutter again. His deep eyes melted her resolve completely. "Of course."
"Excellent well I won't keep you any longer I believe your head is quite fine now." He placed a hand around her waist and lead her out the front door where a man wearing an off white Armani suit was standing next to a black Bentley.
"Hello madam please excuse Mr. Wayne's manners." He said with a British lilt in his voice. Chloe turned around and found that Bruce had disappeared.
"Hi my name is Chloe." She said descending the stairs.
"I know Miss Sullivan." he said opening the door to the back seat of the Bentley.
"He set me up didn't he. Everything from the car to the files he found in Lex's mansion it was all a set up to get me to be his date." Chloe said starting to put together the pieces.
"I would put nothing past that man Miss Sullivan." He said while Chloe climbed into the car.
"You don't look like an average chauffeur. What's your name?" Chloe said as he got behind the wheel.
"My name is Alfred Pennyworth, and no I am not a chauffeur. I used to be the head butler at the Wayne estate. However after the death of his parents I raised Mr. Wayne. You could say I adopted him only not legally. Now though I manage all of Bruce's personal ventures." He explained as they drove toward Metropolis. "Now Bruce will pick you up tomorrow however I would hazard to guess that you lack the appropriate attire."
"What are you poking at Alfred." Chloe said as a smile returned to her face.
"I believe there is a wonderful little store in Metropolis that caters to the slightly more well to-do." Alfred said smiling back at her through the rearview mirror.
"You're on Alfred." Chloe said, Bruce Wayne was not going to get away with setting her up like that without hr milking him for all he was worth.