***
Fly Hard: Lex Luthor
***
He hates Clark Kent. Something about the man has always rubbed him wrong, ever since he’d cut in on Lex’s first dance with Lois Lane, and that grating feeling has only gotten worse the longer their…association…continues. Which it will, it seems, indefinitely, since Kent has attached himself so pathetically to Lois, like a limpet.
This isn’t the first time Lex has realized that the small-town reporter has graduated from being beneath his notice to being on his bad side--that award goes to the day Miranda sent him to the Planet just in time to witness Lois throwing herself all over a man so obviously beneath her--but it is perhaps the first time Lex realizes just how much he hates Kent.
Why? Why should the self-righteous do-gooder matter to him at all? He’s always hanging around Lois, of course, throwing her stupid puppy dog looks, and bristling back at Lex with all the pathetic menace of the same, but it’s not like he’s any real competition. He does usually have a sarcastic comment or three ready whenever he sees Lex, no matter that Lex is always careful to let him know he’s beneath his notice. And, perhaps most irritatingly, he never swallows the line every other reporter does at Lex’s press conferences, and always asks some question that toes the line of being dangerous.
But those are all minor details, combined in an unthreatening package, barely worth a quibble when compared to Lex’s rivalry with other, worthier foes--like Superman, for instance.
And yet, for all the reasons there are to forget the man entirely, Lex almost wishes he’d been stuck here in the Daily Planet with anyone else, if only Kent would disappear off the face of the earth. He can’t quite put his finger on why he dislikes Clark Kent so intensely--another reason to find issue with him; Lex prefers things to be kept as clear and uncomplicated as possible--he only knows that he’s envisioned over a dozen rather dire fates to bestow on the undeserving giblet in the last few hours alone.
But he has never hated the man as much as he does now, with that smug smirk on his lips and a cocky tilt to his brows while everyone there jumps to his defense.
“Don’t ask me if I’d do it again,” Kent says archly, and turns away. Dismissing him! Him, Lex Luthor. He’s worth a thousand Clark Kents! Ten thousand!
It’s then, regardless of the reasons for his hate, that Lex swears to himself that one day, someday--soon--Clark Kent will pay for his effrontery.
No one saves Lex Luthor’s life and then holds it over him. No one!
***
