Chapter Text
Note: Man of Steel activated another muse. Darn. Anyway. I know it's Kal-El, but Lois doesn't. I write it as I think she imagines it's spelled.
The first time they really meet, she's terrified of him.
She's down and she bleeds – it hurts so much – whatever that thing did to her, and she watches with growing horror as this man crushes the machine effortlessly. Inhuman strength. Inhuman place. Inhuman. Alien. So far removed from the incongruous man who helped her dismount and carried her luggage. The fact that such inhuman power tried to pass itself off as a harmless nameless laborer threatens her greatly.
The alien shifts his attention to her, and she thinks this is it. Her curiosity has cost her everything this time. She suspected her luck would one day run out. She just never imagined she'd be kidnapped or killed by an alien. Her pain-fogged brain can't make sense of it as she warily watches him hover over her. He looms. He hunkers down and hunches over her, talking her language and soothing her, but he's too close. She hates herself, but her eyes are broadcasting terror. She can't play it cool. The pain has made her vulnerable. He tells her that things are going to be all right, but how can that be? She's a trespasser on his property and she has obviously seen too much. Besides. She's dying. This much is obvious.
His hands are on her, and she continues to retreat, frightened and suffering overwhelming pain. Then he looks at her... just looks at her – a look that seems to challenge her to let go of her fear of him. She can almost read his thoughts, but she doesn't think he's doing that on purpose. Trust me. Please. I won't hurt you. How can you believe otherwise?
She nods, hesitantly. After all, what else can she do? Maybe she can trust the kindness in those eyes. His hands immediately move to unbutton her coat, but although the scene screams 'rape', she knows that isn't his intent. He is obviously gaining access to her wound.
He tells her she's bleeding internally and that he has to cauterize the wound to save her. She wonders how he'll do it, and vocalizes that thought, imagining Doctor McCoy showing up out of 'sickbay' with some fancy space-gadget that will heal her without pain, but he tells her he can do what others can't. This is something she'd already figured out on her own.
He gives her precious little warning. Hold my hand. This is going to hurt.
He pins her down and the rape imagery returns with blinding force – for he is not only pinning her down and preventing her from bucking up and away from him – he is burning her – and it hurts more than anything ever has. She fights him, but his hold is unbreakable. She does the next best thing and screams until mercifully she loses consciousness – the last thing she sees is his unearthly glowing eyes.
It's odd to be facing him here, and now – at a graveyard in Smallville, Kansas. She feels a tremor of remembered fear – a visceral terror brought about by remembering the pain he inflicted in order to save her, but she squelches it. This time he's the one who's afraid. His entire body language is awkward. The cap he wears tries to hide his glorious presence but fails – instead it just draws more attention to his tall and broad shouldered self. She smiles at his terrible attempt at seeming incongruous.
She wonders why he hides and he begins to tell her a story that he's likely never told anyone other than his mother and … she's torn for him. Standing by the gravesite of one who died in order that his secret be kept makes her quest for that Pulitzer prize seem churlish and petty. In a flash she doesn't see him as her quarry – his story has bound him to her as a friend. He's shared something painful. Something that burns him as badly as he'd burned her. He burned her to save her. Her poking around has opened up painful wounds for him – she only hopes she can help save him in the end.
She knows she won't print the story.
He comes for her.
Terror transformed the US government agents into thugs. They kidnapped her – and while they treated her well, she was oh so obviously a hostage. Bait for this alien. Kallel. And he comes... shockingly and yet not shockingly, he hovers above the men looking inhuman in his alien garb. Of course the fact that he's flying without assistance is likely what emphasizes the inhuman part. She is deeply affected when he demands her release. The others regard her speculatively.
The cuffs are incongruous. She knows he can break them. She saw him crush a steel robot. But he wears them to put the others at ease, and while that could be condescending, or even worse, a cat toying with prey, she understands that his desire to live and let live is truly a part of his innate character. She smiles as he calls them on their fear. He understands their suspicions and doesn't seem to condemn them for it.
He thanks for her what she did for him. What she did? She basically held back on exposing him at the eleventh hour after already doing so much damage with her internet leak. If she hadn't done all this, perhaps the aliens would never have been able to capture him. Certainly the government would not have been able to use her as bait, forcing his hand, because that's the sort of person he clearly is. The kind of person who protects others. She's depressed and tells him that her actions didn't matter and he tells her they did to him, and in those words she feels an entire lifetime of pain. Her simple act of caring about what he wanted and accepting him as a man, and not simply an alien, meant so much to him. She wishes she had a whole lifetime to protect him and shield him from any pain, but it appears his time is about to run out. The hurt is too much to bear.
His gaze on hers is kind and somewhat fretful. She holds his hand and feels his fear. She knows that he's terrified to face whoever these people are, and she wants to impart to him her strength, because as crazy at it sounds, she knows that he needs it.
He's afraid for her, and she hears this when he tells her to go. She feels a quick sense of irony that just so recently she was afraid of what he might do to her, back in that cold ice cave – and now, she knows better. He would die to save them, and she feels she could do the same for him.
The alien woman who addresses him is cold. Lois's heart breaks a little. She knows now that this man had no idea where he was from – that his adoptive parents hid him in hopes of keeping him safe, and now, when finally faced with one of his own – a beautiful young woman, no less, this female is cold and Lois can feel Kallel's pain.
He looks at her as she approaches. She sees he's terrified but hiding it well. How has she learned to read him so well. Can he see her fear too? He can probably hear her heartbeat. She wants to comfort and also ask for comfort, but she knows if they give this woman any reason to believe that Kallel cares for her beyond a simple friendship they will do unspeakable things to her to hurt him. She doesn't know how she knows this, but she does.
On the ship she feels a surge of laughter. She's been kidnapped by aliens. She wonders if now she'll have to work for the National Inquirer. A hand graze hers and she looks down, wondering if he's comforting her, but he isn't. Her heart sinks a bit, but she realizes he's handed something alien to her. Something important and her heart lifts knowing he trusts her to do the right thing. His expression says everything. Whatever you do – keep that hidden.
His fingers brush hers quickly again and there is this look in his eyes that says something more. His gaze apologizes and she quickly shakes her head negating his need. This is not his fault and no matter what they do to her, she needs him to understand that they've both been captured by aliens. Not just her, because now she knows he's more human than anyone she's ever known.
He's choking on his own blood and dying under atmosphere that should embrace him. She wonders how he survived on earth when he came here so young. How did Earth's atmosphere not do this to him then, when he was too fragile to fight? Fierce protectiveness surges - she has to save him.
She's screaming, but nobody cares. They take her away.