As Superman stood near the podium to accept a key to the city from Lex Luthor, mayor of Metropolis, Lex said, "I have an announcement to make. Since I was cured of my various mental disorders due to Kryptonian psychiatric medication, I've decided to make amends to a person I once wronged greatly by asking for his hand in marriage."

"Lex . . ." said Superman, his heart beating a little faster. Silly, he thought, he's not going to ask me in front of everybody but maybe he'll say Cl . . .

"Gabe Sullivan, will you do me the honor of accepting my proposal?"

Everybody gasped including one very surprised Gabe Sullivan, who did an amazing impression of a fish gasping for water.

"Dad?" said Chloe as she wondered if he was going to have a heart attack right then and there.

"Superman is so happy he has tears in his eyes," said Lois, standing next to them.

"That's not why," said Chloe.

"Le . . . Luthor . . . what is the meaning of this?"

"In order for me not to relapse into my wicked old ways, I need a good strong partner to lean on, full of warmth and kindness, who understands the meaning of suffering and managing to soldier on. There's only one man I know who fits the bill."

Superman abruptly flew away. Lex ignored his former obsession and walked down to where Gabe Sullivan was trying not to die from shock. "So, what do you say?"

"Oh, for heaven's sakes, Mr. Luthor . . ."

"Call me Lex," Lex purred.

"We haven't even dated yet," Gabe Sullivan blurted out.

"We can totally change that."

"Oh . . ." Gabe said, looking deep into the bright blue eyes of Lex Luthor.

"Dad!"

The AI paused in its watching of Battlestar Galactica and said, "Well, yeah, he's fine."

"Proposing to Gabe Sullivan in front of everyone is NOT sane."

"And . . . if he had proposed to a man named Clark Kent, THAT would be sane?"

Clark paused. "They don't even have a relationship . . ."

"And a relationship to you is seething with jealousy and using your X-ray vision to watch as Lex goes through one brunette boy toy after another and destroying his labs and writing columns criticizing him in the newspapers?"

"I . . . I was hoping that after he changed . . . We could . . ."

"Kal-El, the reason I cured him when you brought him in after he nearly vaporized the Kansas sea trying to kill you with his Death Ray wasn't for his sake."

"No?"

"It was for yours."

"Mine?"

"Yes. Now that you don't have to be Lex's caretaker, you can move on to . . . oh, I don't know . . . conquering the world . . ."

"But why did he propose to Gabe Sullivan?"

The AI thought for a second. "I changed Lex's brain chemistry so he would crave healthier love interests, normal and non-homicidal ones. It's much like changing a dieter's craving for hamburger and milkshakes to that for raw carrots and skinless chicken. As far as I can tell, Gabe Sullivan is the equivalent of raw carrots and skinless chicken."

"Lex Luthor isn't the type to settle for raw carrots and skinless chicken."

"Well, maybe he's on the equivalent of a health kick especially after his previous diet nearly killed him," said the AI as it decided to continue watching Battlestar Galactica and pondering the idea of creating Cylons.

Clark sniffed. It was obvious that there was no sympathy for him here.

"Well, yes, honey," said Gabe as he straightened his tie to get ready for his date with Lex Luthor. "I wouldn't agree to a date with Lex if I wasn't."

"When did this happen?"

"I've always been gay. I didn't tell you earlier because I didn't want to shock you . . ."

"I'm shocked out of my gourd."

"Yes, I understand having one's father outed and proposed to by Lex Luthor isn't conducive to remaining calm."

"My issue is why are you dating him? You've read my articles about the many evil things he's done. The interviews! The news specials!"

"Superman says he's cured."

Chloe snorted at that. Clark had said a lot of things he thought he was sure about only to be wrong, she thought.

"Besides, look at me. I'm a middle-aged man who's not particularly attractive or noteworthy. He's an attractive, wealthy man who's incredibly charming. I feel flattered, Chloe."

She sighed. "He proposed to you in front of the world wide media. I've been getting calls from the Inquisitor for an exclusive. I'm being pestered by my own editor to talk. I don't know what's going on."

Gabe sighed. "It just so happens that your father is trying to revive his poor dead skeleton of a love life. The last time I was in love, I was dumped for someone who beat me when it came to wealth, looks and charisma. Unfortunately for you, my current suitor is one of the most famous billionaires in the country who happens to have a wee problem with his public image and proposed to me for reasons I can't fathom."

Seeing the sad look on his face, Chloe gave him a hug. "Have a good time and if he tries to take advantage of you, tell me so I can taser his nads."

"If I do get married to him, at least you won't have to support me in my old age."

"Dad!"

"Oh, really?" said Lex as he stood before a full-length mirror in a beautiful light grey suit.

"I would think he had better taste than that."

"This from the man who kneeled before my father in . . . worship. Yes, tell me what a truly awful choice Gabe Sullivan is making."

"I'm curious what you see in him. I hope it's not millions of dollars from some insane tax shelter you and some of the accountants have cooked up."

"Tax shelter?" Lex laughed at that. "Everything pales, even my former madness regarding the Kryptonian, next to this grand passion I have for Gabe Sullivan. I see you don't believe in true love . . ."

Dominic's eyes darkened. "Said by a man who's already gone through five wives and dozens of boyfriends and girlfriends. Yes, you are the genius of love."

"Just be glad I didn't propose to you . . ."

Lex laughed and walked out of the room as Dominic sputtered.

"Kal-El?" said the AI.

"What?"

"I made you something to cheer you up!" it sang brightly.

Lex came walking out, naked. However, something pinged Clark as wrong and he figured out that it was the walk. The walk was all wrong, twitchy instead of enticing. Clark used his X-ray vision and saw that it was a mere mechanical replica of the love of his life.

"Hey, not bad for a prototype, huh?" said the AI.

"What is that?" snapped Clark.

"It's a Cylon! It's programmed to do what you'd like."

A few seconds later, the android was reduced to a pile of ashes and circuits. "I don't want a robot. I want Lex. I'm going to Chloe's!" said Clark.

"But I google better than her!" yelled the AI.

A few seconds passed.

The AI decided to watch Deadwood and considered making a Cylon version of Al Swearengen.

"Hey," said Chloe as she saw Clark at her door, holding as tribute a bag of chocolate chip cookies and a latte from her favorite caf.

"Are you busy?"

"For a grande latte, I'm so not busy. Besides, I think I can guess what you want to talk about. Come in."

Clark walked into her cluttered studio apartment that had shelves of books, a good quarter of the room devoted to her computer and other related gadgets including a fax, a printer and a scanner. Her bed was in one corner. She sat on the bed and he sat next to her. Taking the latte from him and taking a good long sip, she said, "It's about Lex dating my dad, isn't it?"

"Yeah."

"You know it's all your fault, right?"

"What?"

"If you hadn't tried to cure him, he'd still be obsessed with you. Now my father is reading me some of his compositions."

"Compositions?"

"Poetry. Dreadful, brain-splitting love poetry. I love my dad but he can't write a sonnet worth a damn. So, now he's trying to write romantic limericks."

"Chloe . . ."

"Limericks, Clark! Some of them involve Lex and bowling!" said Chloe before taking another sip of her latte and taking a bite out of one of her cookies. "There was once a man from the Met, Who was quite the man to get . . . Arghhhh!"

Clark looked properly chastened.

"You said that your computer up there fed Lex some Krypto-medicine. What the heck was in it?"

"Not sure, really . . ."

"Was it really such a good idea to give Lex medicine based on a species that's extraterrestrial, no matter human said species looks?"

"The AI said it modified it for human consumption," pouted Clark.

Chloe chugged another gulp of her latte down. Oh, boy, she thought.

"What do we do now?"

"You could always ask to be best man."

"Chloe!"

"Well, I don't exactly approve of my father and your crush dating . . . Well, maybe it's a good time to step back and let them date. Let them have a nice time before things inevitably crash." Seeing Clark scowl, she said cheerily, "After all, Lex's history with love interests sucked even when he wasn't quite evil."

"But your father isn't a brunette bent on being a merry widow," moaned Clark in a mournful, not sexy way. "And Lex isn't evil anymore so they won't break up because of that."

Chloe thought for a second. "You know about the best man idea . . ."

"Oh, hi," said Superman to Lex as he landed on the roof of his penthouse.

Lex looked up from his lawn chair as he was reading Zen for Dummies while wearing sunglasses and sunning himself. "Hi."

"I was just checking how you were . . ."

"I'm fine." Lex went back to reading his book.

"Um, I was wondering if you had any symptoms come back like obsession with making phallic weapons designed to shoot at me and only me or any desire to bring me to heel and on my knees . . . that sort of thing."

"No, I'm cured of that. You must be happy."

"Happy?"

"Because you can wake up in the morning and know that you no longer trouble my thoughts. My delusions of epic conflict and destiny are now just things I look back on with amusement. I won't be troubling you anymore. In fact, I have to laugh at myself for being so concerned."

Superman blinked several times. "I . . . I was wondering who you were going to get as best man?"

"Best man? You want me to get married?"

"Getting married . . . yeah, that would be great," said Superman, gazing at the sight of Lex smiling at him, wearing nothing but a pair of swim trunks and sunglasses.

"Are you angling for the position?"

"Actually, there's someone who'd like to ask you face-to-face but he's rather embarrassed."

"Who?"

"Clark Kent. I . . . He . . . said that he really wants to talk to you . . . After hearing that you've changed your ways . . . he wants to . . ."

Lex was about to say something when a cell phone on a nearby table rang. Lex picked it up. "Oh, hi, Gabe. Sure, I'll go miniature golfing with you. Dinner? You like sushi, right? Good. Oh, thanks for last night. I . . . have a guest right now but I'll be over within the hour. Bye . . . love you, too," said Lex into the phone. He turned the phone off and put it back on the table. "Sorry for the interruption."

Superman clenched his fists and tried to keep from grimacing. He's using that tone of voice he used to use just for me . . . "How about tomorrow? He'll drive to pick you up. Just name the time."

Lex pondered. "Sorry, I . . . don't think that would be a good idea."

"Why?"

"Because . . . I know he'll give me a lecture on how dare I think myself worthy of a celestial being like Gabe Sullivan."

"Oh, I assure you he won't. Really, he'll talk about anything under the sun other than that. It's a guarantee."

Lex took off his sunglasses and folded them. "Then he'll find something else to lecture me about. Or maybe he wants a column."

"I promise you he won't and he isn't angling for writing material. Look, at least let him make his case to you in person. It's only fair . . . It would be the good thing to do," said Superman brightly.

Lex sighed. "Even if I can't stand him."

Superman blinked several times and did an approximation of a smile. "He's willing to let go of the past. Can't you do the same?"

"I suppose I'll hear him out. Tell him to come tomorrow at noon. Sorry to end this conversation but Gabe hates it when I'm late."

Superman watched as Lex sashayed back into his penthouse to get ready for his date before he flew off.

"Why? Were you planning on performing the same services for Lex that you did for his father? You've got some nerve telling me what to do . . . This discussion is over!" Gabe hung up the phone.

"Something wrong, Dad?" said Chloe, who was over at her father's condo for her monthly visit. "I could hear yelling all the way from here?"

"Just a crank caller, honey!" said Gabe as he walked into the kitchen where Chloe was putting the pan of lasagna on the place mat in the middle of the kitchen table. "Mmmm . . . smells great."

"Dad, what's that on the table?" Chloe said, noting the little jewel box.

"It's an engagement ring." Gabe look a little sheepish as he opened it up and took out a ring that had a beautiful little pink diamond that was the size of an olive.

"Dad?"

"Yes?" said Gabe as he put the ring back in its box.

"Are you sure about this?" Chloe said as she took the oven mittens she had used and put them on the counter.

"Yes."

"Are you in love with Lex? Enough to marry him?" said Chloe as she put a piece of lasagna each on two plates with spatula.

"I . . ."

Chloe put the spatula in the sink before saying, "Dad, don't you . . ."

"He makes me feel needed and appreciated. In return, I'm going to do as much as I can to make him happy and stay on the straight and narrow, so to speak. Isn't that enough?"

Chloe frowned. "I just don't think that's fair to either of you."

"It's going to be the most conscientious and rational relationship we've both been in. In the past, both of us have followed our hearts . . . right off a cliff. This time, we are holding hands, looking both ways before crossing and waiting for the `walk' signal. There's nothing wrong with playing it safe and using one's noggin. Now, why don't you concentrate on your love life? That Kent friend of yours is still single, right?"

Chloe groaned. "Daddy, I'm so OVER him."

"I promised I'd hear you out," said Lex. "I didn't say I was going anywhere."

"Even though I brought my mom's cherry pie."

"It's probably filled with broken glass."

"Lex!"

"I only let you come up here because you're a friend of Gabe's daughter . . . and I'm trying to be a better person. Superman said you wanted to be best man. Why?"

"I've . . . missed you."

Lex looked at him intently but said nothing.

"I've missed you a lot. I hate the fact that the only time I've seen you is from across a crowded room at a press conference or a business function. And the only conversation we've had for the past five years is an ambiguous answer to a question. I miss you and I was . . . I was hoping that this could mean a new beginning for us . . ."

"Clark, I sense that what you want isn't simply friendship but a romantic relationship."

Clark nodded reluctantly.

"The first time I met you, I swore to myself that I'd never let you go . . . that one way or another, I'd be a part of your life."

Clark stepped forward towards him only to watch as Lex took several steps back and put up his hand, signaling for him to stop.

"But you were bad for me like one of those atrocious snack cakes Gabe is so fond of eating. What are they called, ding-a-lings and hos?"

"Ding-dongs and ho-hos." Damn, he thought, that doesn't sound any better.

"I just couldn't eat it anymore. I thought our friendship would be the stuff of legend but the legend it most reminded me of was Prometheus getting his liver pecked out everyday by a vulture except in my case, it was my heart."

Clark felt crushed by that statement as if he were a junky car being compacted for the landfill after being stripped of useful parts.

"But it's clear that you really need closure. So, I'm going to make you my best man. You're going to help me buy my tuxedo, help me prepare for my wedding to my sweetheart and give me your blessing."

Later that week, Superman saved a woman from being mugged.

"Superman, thank . . . ewww . . . You smell like beer and you've got major stubble."

"Can't . . . Can't a superhero have a really bad day now and then?" he said before flying off.

At her dinner table in her apartment, Chloe looked at the remains of her Chinese takeout dinner before breaking open her fortune cookie. "You may attend a party where strange customs prevail," Chloe read. "Hey, Clark, I might be attending an orgy in the near future! What does yours say?"

"An old love may come back to you," said Clark. "Yeah . . . with news that he's moving on at the speed of light!" He promptly turned the fortune into ashes.

"Hey, you'll set off my fire alarm!"

"Sorry."

"I take it that your attempted seduction of my father's boyfriend didn't work."

"No, do you have any other ideas?"

"I only helped you this one time because I wanted to know if Lex was easily tempted but if he's immune to you all gussied up by my fashion designer friends, well . . . you're on your own."

Clark looked mournfully at the remains of his sweet and sour pork.

If that wasn't enough, there was a fashion magazine spread that Gabe and Lex had done. Colorful and glossy, it showed Gabe and Lex bowling, having breakfast and Lex showing Gabe how to play pool. It also showed Gabe actually looking good with his hair done and his clothes upgraded.

And they were on the cover and posters of that magazine was all over the city. He was getting a headache from trying to restrain his heat vision, which was only worsened by being pestered by the media about being the best man.

It was the society wedding of the year. Guests from much of Luthercorp from all levels attended. Members of Gabe's bowling team as well as various workers from Smallville who used to work under Gabe attended. Lois, Lucy and her father also attended. On Lex's side of the pews were various billionaires and members of the upper crust of various cities. They were all under the roof of the largest and oldest cathedral in Metropolis whose most lovely feature was a beautiful rose window.

Lex stood smiling at the altar, resplendent in his beautiful white tuxedo that Clark had helped him choose. Clark watched in despair as Gabe walked down the aisle, accompanied by his daughter who was dressed in a lovely peach-colored dress. There was one moment when all was going as planned when . . .

"Gabe! Gabe! Gabe!"

Everyone turned to see Dominic screaming at the top of his lungs from the upper floor balcony.

"Dominic, what are you doing here?" said Gabe.

"I'm objecting to the marriage!" said a very drunk Dominic.

"Oh, for God's sake, Dominic. You're the one who dumped me! Our relationship ended years ago!"

Ughh, thought Chloe. Dominic and my dad?

Clark, however, was smiling.

"I know and I'm sorry. I was completely sucked in by his power, wealth, charm and that thick mane of hair. I didn't realize until it was too late what I'd thrown away for that Magnificent Lying Bastard!"

"You're embarrassing me!" yelled Gabe.

Lex suddenly felt sorry that he was no longer evil because he no longer had the ability to order a hit on Dominic like he had always wanted.

"Don't make the same mistake I made!" Dominic screamed as he ran down the stairs, only to trip and fall, cursing as he went. The cathedral had wonderful acoustics so everybody could clearly hear all the colorful and vulgar words as they issued out of his gob.

Gabe ran to his former boyfriend and said, "Are you all right?"

"I think I busted my nose," said Dominic, whose nose was bleeding quite profusely.

Gabe took out a handkerchief, wiped his nose, pinched it and said, "Tilt your head back."

"OK."

"Dominic, you're such a drama queen. You probably wouldn't be bleeding so much if you hadn't been drinking."

Lex looked at the care Gabe was wasting on one of his minions and sighed, "Gabe, I can't marry you."

"Lex?"

"It's obvious you've got unfinished business with this . . . man."

"Lex, I . . ." Gabe said before he was distracted by another piteous moan from Dominic.

"I'm so sorry, Lex," said Chloe.

"I know this is rather sudden, Ms. Sullivan but . . ." said Lex before Superman suddenly appeared out of nowhere and flew him out of the cathedral, wrecking the rose window, which if you think about it, must be some type of crime.

"Why were you about to propose to her?" said Superman as he flew up into the sky with Lex's arms around his neck.

"Who said I was proposing?"

"Well, what were you about to do?"

"I started out this beautiful sunny day trying to marry a good person so I could get some help in staying good. Well, you saw how that plan fell through. I was going to ask if she . . . Why do you care?"

"Lex, I'm not good enough?"

"Aren't you tired of watching over me?"

"I'm tired of the ballistic missiles, the Death Ray machines and the mecha King-Kong you came up with one summer but other than that . . ."

"You don't want to give that job to someone else?"

Superman shook his head.

"I heard Clark Kent wants the job."

Superman said, "Would it help my case if I told you that if you chose me, you'd be getting two people to watch over you instead of just one."

Lex raised an eyebrow. "You're saying . . ."

"Reach behind my left shoulder. There's a little hidden pocket there."

Lex reached and pulled out a small jewel box. He opened it and saw the rings that he had ordered for his doomed wedding.

"I was holding them for your and your fianc at the altar. I'm Clark, Lex." He noticed the lack of surprise on Lex's face. "You don't look that surprised."

"Well, I suspected as much but hearing it from you . . . Well, I was wondering if that was going to ever happen."

They landed in a secluded wooded area on the outskirts of Metropolis near a small lake. "Lex . . ." said Clark as he held the little jewel box. "Do you think it's possible that we could be the relationship that these rings are about. Preferably a legend that doesn't have a vulture?"

Lex took the box and threw it into a nearby lake.

Clark looked sad until Lex said, "I think for something like that, we should start from scratch before we look for some new rings, don't you?"

As Chloe watched her dad nurse his not-so-ex boyfriend and wondered if she had missed her opportunity to be one of the richest women in America, Chloe heard someone call her name. She turned to see a tall guy smiling at her. "Hey, long time no see."

"Who are you? And don't you know it's a cliche to hit on the maid of honor?" she said.

"You don't recognize me?"

Chloe smiled and frowned at the same time. "No."

"It's Bart . . . We met in Smallville. I'm Clark's friend."

"Oh . . . You really grew up."

"And you really look good in that dress. I brought you a slice of wedding cake. I figured it didn't matter who sliced it anymore."

The End