Opposites (SV, Clark/Lex)

[oliviafic]

This is a birthday ficlet for gabby_silang. It was going to have Wally in it, but then he was busy, so it's just the boys. Keep in mind that I wrote it in half an hour at 3 am.



“Everything would be easier,” Clark shouts at Lex from the air above downtown Metropolis, “if you would just agree to be my sidekick.”

Lex is standing in the street, adjusting the connections on his latest invention. He doesn’t look up. “This is more fun.”

Clark crosses his arms. “You really prefer villainy to heroics?”

“I think,” Lex remarks calmly, “that the word you’re looking for is Supervillainy.” He grins at Clark, feral and bright, and presses a large red button on the top of the contraption. “You have five seconds to save the city, Superman.”

Clark sighs, and Superspeeds through clearing away the bystanders and disarming the bomb. Lex gets more creative daily, today’s masterpiece one more rung on the complicated DNA-ladder of his science. It is difficult, but Clark finishes finally, and rubs the burn of heat-vision from his eyes. “Would it help if I said please?”

Lex smiles. “Sorry, Clark. I don’t like your color scheme.”

“You’d rather I looked like Warrior Angel?”

Lex tilts his head thoughtfully. “As a matter of fact--“

Clark shudders. “No, Lex. No lavender.”

Lex looks down at his lavender shirt, artistically framed in black. “You never did have the taste in this relationship.”

“At least I wear the tights.”

The words fall painfully into silence, and Clark thinks about flying off with the tattered vestiges of his dignity, leaving Lex alone to clean up the remains. He waits too long, and spots the sharp-edged wheels of a plot spinning behind Lex’s eyes.

“All the best Supervillains have outfits,” Lex muses. “And I am the best.”

Of course he is. Lex is always the best. Tomorrow, he’ll be wearing lavender spandex emblazoned with an ‘L.’ “Sure Lex. But why--“ Clark begins, then stops. “Never mind. I’d better get back to the League.”

“Why enemies?” Lex asks, filling in his blank. Clark nods.

“Because,” Lex says, grinning a little maniacally, “the best things are built of opposites.” Clark blinks, surprised, and Lex takes advantage of his confusion to blow him a kiss before striding off down the street.

Clark is smiling as he flies back to the League, whistling a snatch of something under his breath. Tonight, he’ll stop by the penthouse under the pretense of helping Lex design his costume. Tomorrow, Lex will cook up another preposterous scheme and Clark will counter it. It’s what they do, what makes them who they are, and they’ll keep doing it for as long as they can.

Comments

cYocAPywzKxT

[(Anonymous)]

I agree with other comments that we need more of this type of inoamrotifn, and not the fanaticized paranoia that is to be found across TV stations, political party announcements and online. If we are so anxious to be proud and worthy of our ancestors, we should be able to distinguish ablogos from abpathos . At our current state of political and cultural degeneration, their bones are probably shaking in their tombs, as the greek saying goes. Whatever each person votes, we should at least base it on informed and realistic assessments of the situation. Our future governments and the future of our country will mirror our own level, so we need to make critical decisions with a cold head.And as others have mentioned, we need to realize that we need reforms anyway, irrespective of the currency. Fantasies that getting out of the euro is the easy way out of problems are quite naive. We have always been a poor country and prosperity does not come free. Euro or drachma, unless we make the necessary painful reforms, we cannot expect to have a high standard of living.Current rhetoric however revolves around the horrible abausterity on the one hand, and some imaginary abrevolution on the other, which will revert things back to their prior status: a corrupt, gigantic state, always willing to hire, providing lush benefits and immune to outside pressures. There's a middle ground and we need to tap into it.