He resisted the urge to take her hand and lead her. He didn't know if their relationship was at that point, if she would allow it. One minute she seemed like the touchy feely type and the next she was dodging potential contact. He had seen her touch Mark -- twice. And Mark had taken her hand to guide her into her seat. Did she just dodge him? She had only touched him once and she asked him if he was a terrorist. But the way she was in his personal space and looked into his eyes like she was searching… Then she let go as though nothing had happened.
"Rhone?" he didn't even realize he was saying it. She looked at him as they walked. "The night we met, when you took my hand…" he had hardly said anything but he saw her jerk when he said she "took his hand."
"I was monitoring your pulse," she corrected him.
"Why would you do that?" he asked. That was unexpected.
"To determine if you were lying to me. I monitored your heart rate, pupil dilation, the number of times you blinked, respiration, and other autonomic and controlled physical reactions to my question," her voice had gotten eerily flat.
He stopped in front of the first room that held a few paintings and looked at her for a moment, "Who are you, really?"
"Rhone Chade," she said evenly, looking him in the eye. It was just a name. She had gone by it for a long time. It was the truth to her now.
"You," he said after a moment, "Are not what you seem."
"In my experience, Mr. Luthor, no one is. Yourself included," she said lightly. Maybe she should have just lied and said she was holding his hand, even though she clearly had his wrist. She was actually taking his pulse at the time.
"What about me is so misleading?" he asked in response to her statement.
"Everyone says that you're intimidating," she said as a smirk crossed her face. He perked an eyebrow at her. "And you're not," she added.
"Was that a compliment?" he asked, really not sure if it was.
"That would depend on you, Mr. Luthor, what are you going for?" she said innocently.
Damn her and her self-analytical questions. He didn't know what he was "going for." People usually just judged him on the fact that he was a Luthor and that was it. He acted the way he was expected to. "Recent events have inspired me to 'go for' urbane," he said, pleasantly recalling her comment in the dining room.
I should have never said that, Rhone chided herself. Let your guard down for one second, and look at what happens. "Why go for something that you already have, Mr. Luthor?" she asked. She turned into the room that they were standing in front of, "You don't seem like the type to waste time."
Her back was to him so he took the liberty of looking her up and down. Normally, I don't waste time, he thought. He walked up behind her and gestured toward a monochromatic painting on the wall. They both began to walk over to it. "I was at an art show in Gotham when I picked this one up," he said.
She looked at it thoughtfully as she stood in front of it for a moment. She nodded, "It has balance without symmetry."
He nodded with her. That is what he liked about it too, well, that and…
"But I think this part of it right here," she gestured to a small portion of the painting, "is – expressive -- beautiful."
He quickly stole a glance at her. Whoa, he thought. They contemplated it silently for a moment. Finally, they silently agreed to move to the next painting.
Rhone gave the other paintings in the room a brief glance. She noticed one in the corner wasn't a painting. It was -- hello. She silently fell behind Lex and began walking towards to object of her attention.
"I believe the texture in this one compliments the…." Lex's voice trailed off when he looked next to him and realized he was alone. He almost did a complete turn on his heels. He spotted her in the opposite corner of the room, looking at his – oh, man. "I used to collect them -- when I was a kid," he started to explain quickly as he walked up beside her.
"Now this…" she said, slightly outstretching her hands toward it. She then paused as she looked at it.
He prepared himself for a sarcastic taunt. Why did he leave his framed copy of Warrior Angel #1 in this room? He should have gone to another room. Who would have thought that she would even notice a framed comic book? He had been mocked for it before. He mentally shook Victoria's comments from his head. He shoved his hands in his pockets and gazed at a spot between the wall and the floor.
"Is art," she finished.
His eyes were wide as he snapped his head to look at her. She didn't look back at him, only continued to look at the collector's comic.
"It's too bad," she said finally.
"What is?" he asked still in a mild state of shock -- for a Luthor, that is. She thought comic books were art. That was better than, well, any of the women he knew.
"That you don't collect anymore. The vintage stuff is the best. But I like where it's starting to go now. It was a little campy for a while there," she took another step towards it.
"You read Warrior Angel?" he was still staring at her. She was just -- awesome. He never thought he could actually have things in common with a woman. Usually it was just a business arrangement or casual sex.
"Among others. Before I got this job, I used to work in a comic book shop. Well, they had a lot of nerd supplies, not just comics. So, I never really collected. It was great. I would just read them as they came in…." her voice trailed off. She finally looked at him with a faint smile of remembrance, thinking of her old life. Her work history was a little more complicated than that, but she didn't see the need to elaborate.
He smiled at her "nerd supplies" comment, but his smile began to widen when he realized that she was sharing a part of herself with him. "What other comics do you read?" he asked lightly.
"The usual, I guess. And some stuff that you wouldn't know," she said, looking back at the comic book that had began the conversation.
"Try me," he said as he walked up behind her. He stopped near her and was looking at the comic as well.
"Underground comics that get away from the cliché superhero. Sometimes there are science fiction and fantasy elements and sometimes there aren't, but the characters themselves are more real," she explained. "Right and wrong aren't as clear-cut as some of those mass produced books would want you to believe," she concluded.
He had pretty much only been exposed to Warrior Angel and a few other well-known comic books. He couldn't exactly go to a comic book store and peruse; he had a recognizable face -- head. And he had an image to maintain. "They sound interesting," he commented.
She narrowed her eyes and smiled, "Well, to someone who still collected them it might be."
God, she was good. He slowly returned her smile. He watched her cross her arms over her chest and coolly gestured with her head toward the door.
"Show me," was all she said.
If he were any other man, he would have grabbed her hand, spun around, and drug her down the halls of his castle to where he kept his collection. But, he was Lex Luthor. He turned to the door and strolled toward it with her at his side.
They walked down a short hallway in silence and came to a door. Lex opened the door and gestured for her to enter. She entered the room and hid her shock. She acted casual as she walked over to one of the many shelves that lined the walls. There must have been a couple thousand comic books in this room. Rich people don't usually do anything small, she told herself. When it came to important things, she didn't either.
She gestured toward one of the shelves and he nodded. She started to look through them.
Lex was stealing glances at her as he pretended to organize the shelves. She looked content just gliding her fingers over the plastic covers that contained the comic books as she read what they were. He couldn't help but get the feeling that she was looking for something.
"Can I share something with you?" she asked, not bothering to look at him.
He stopped and looked at her, eyebrows raised in a silent "yes." She glanced at him for a second and continued what she was doing.
"When I was a girl, I dreamed of having a friend like you," she said as she stopped looking through the comics and glanced up at him again.
He smiled widely when she said the words "friend like you." He couldn't help but walk toward her with what she had just said. "What kind of friend is that?" he asked softly.
"A rich one to buy all the comic books I could ever want," she said with a wicked smile.
Not exactly what he was hoping for. "Oh," was his flat response as he leaned against the nearest of the shelves.
She thought she had offended him with the "a rich one" remark. "I was only joking, you're good for meals too," she said teasingly with a wide smile.
He looked at her out of the corner of his eye. He couldn't help but give her a small smile back.
She had an idea. She could tell that he was -- some type of moderately upset. He hid a lot of his emotions, but she was trained to read people. She held up one finger as if to tell him to hold on. She walked past him and out the door. She couldn't believe that she was doing this.
She had never meant to get to know Lex Luthor, but she had just called him her friend. Her friends were all back on the base, or were they? She never trusted civilians like that. But didn't she just spend the morning with the Kents? People who knew so much about her, things she was never going to tell anyone. Even though she had told Lex relatively little about herself, it had been more than she had just told anyone in a long time. She also felt this strange desire to -- not lie. This is dangerous, she thought as she walked down the hallway.