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VII. Embodiment
There was a person standing in the hallway. Lex didn’t recognize him, but he knew that a stranger was just an enemy you hadn’t yet met, so he yelled “Security!” while he had the chance.
Typically, despite his best precautions, he felt a jarring pain above his right ear, then nothing.
He woke in dim light, propped sitting against something jagged and gritty, cold in the way of underground hideouts.
Lex looked around and barely stifled a groan. The Kawatche caves -- he knew those rock piles, those left-over drawings, those yellow-caged lights strung by the researchers decades ago, the way he knew the shape of that first mangled Porsche.
Fucking Smallville. These Kryptonians were more obsessed with Kansas than Dorothy Gale, and her little dog too.
"Why are you smiling?" the man Brainiac was wearing asked. It had to be Brainiac. How many other Kryptonian villains were left? The League had killed the last of the Zoners years ago, and only Brainiac had resurrected even once. If the third time was the charm for its world-conquering plans, Lex was going to be ticked off.
Lex turned his head so that Brainiac came into view. Behind it, in the shadows, Kara stood like a figure at Madame Tussaud’s. "You wouldn't get it," he said easily. "So, what's the plan?"
Brainiac smiled and held out its stolen hands. "You tell me."
“Zod is dead, Krypton is gone, there’s nothing for you to do here.” Not that he thought this would make a difference, but it had to be said.
“That’s what people told Job in your Bible, wasn’t it? Curse God and die. But there was more to come for him.” Brainiac moved closer, gliding over the rough ground like a dancer made of steel and glass.
“Kara Zor-El and Kal-El can breed true Kryptonians, to be raised in the ways of Zod. My knowledge of genetic manipulation will prevent too great a weakness from inbreeding. Krypton will rise again. Zod will be New Krypton’s god. You, Luthor, will make yourself useful keeping humans in line. You know how to manipulate them, and you will do so or I will slaughter them by the millions.”
Lex blinked. "A concise summary. I'm assuming you have a clever plan to convince Superman
to go along."
Brainiac shrugged. "You can assume whatever you like."
Well, maybe it had been a bit much to hope to get the whole plan, as opposed to the part he couldn't presently do anything to resist. Kara was under its control -- best guess, her search for remnants of Krypton had led her to some Brainiac-contaminated artifact. Kryptonians had the bad habit of leaving their tech contaminated with personalities. Which also meant that Lex had--again—triggered this attack on humanity, by sending Kara off in a huff.
Even if it hadn't been his fault, he reminded himself, it would still be his job to fix it. Leader of the free world, et cetera.
Now, all he had to do was figure out how to pull off the last-minute victory. Clark and Kara could be stopped if necessary – Batman would do it if he had to, as would Pete Ross, who was undoubtedly right now wondering whether he'd have to order some deaths to get through this. But those were unacceptable scenarios, not least because Lex could hardly expect to survive them either.
As Lex ran through possibilities, discarding dozens as insufficient, he caught a glimpse of the central mandala, fifteen feet away and largely obscured by protruding rocks. The cave-computer had recognized and helped him before. And Brainiac might not know that.
Both Brainiac and Kara were between him and the interface. Would it wake up if he got closer? He weighed the possibilities and risks, and found too many unknowns.
Suddenly Clark was in the cave with them, the wind from his arrival whipping dirt into Lex’s eyes.
“I’m here,” he said, directing his speech towards Brainiac. “Now let them go.”
Like that ever works, Lex thought. He rushed towards the cave wall, yelling “Get out of here! It’s brainwashed Kara, it’s got a plan –“ He gasped in pain as Kara grabbed him and thrust him against the wall by his throat. His speech and breath were cut off, and she was only barely avoiding crushing his trachea.
Clark stepped forward, then stopped as Brainiac raised its hand. “You don’t need them.”
“I don’t need him,” Brainiac said, which was far from promising. “I can’t afford to lose a Kryptonian.”
Lex could almost watch the gears turning in Clark’s head. “Brainiac,” he said in disgust.
Brainiac tilted its head, a parody of modesty.
“You died!” Clark said, sounding almost insulted. Lex was glad Clark had been the one to say it.
Brainiac arranged its features in an approximation of a smile. “There was a backup. Solar-powered, so it has taken years to regenerate, but I am here and I am ready to reclaim this world.”
“Why is it always Lex?” Clark asked. “What is it about him?”
Lex made an outraged noise, the best he could do.
“He is the president of the United States and a captain of industry,” Brainiac said. “And a meteor mutant. Surely you noticed.”
He scrabbled for purchase on Kara’s wrists, not to pry her loose but to see if he could support some of his weight with his arms and take a real breath. It didn’t help much.
“You don’t need to tell me who Lex is.”
Even with everything else going on, that sent a little stab of ice into his chest. He wanted to say: it was easier for both of us to pretend that I was just exploiting you, just dangerous. If he was going to die here, he should –
All he got out was a garbled approximation of Clark’s name before Kara’s grip tightened, choking him again.
“If he helps me, I’ll give you to him,” Brainiac said to Clark. “I’m reasonably sure he’d find that … incentivizing.” Lex had neither the air nor the inclination to be offended.
With oxygen deprivation came clarity. He didn’t need to beat Brainiac. All he needed was to keep Clark free, and Clark would do it. Clark could never betray his adopted species.
Clark was yelling something, incomprehensible to Lex’s buzzing ears.
Rock grated against his back. There was nothing familiar in Kara’s eyes as she continued to hold him against the wall, though he dared to hope she would resist any command to squeeze harder.
Slowly – all he could manage – he wrenched his right hand up and to the side, reaching toward the place he knew the mandala was embedded in the rock. He scraped the back of his hand and hoped that he wasn’t bleeding any mutant blood that would interfere with the Kryptonian systems.
“—never –” Clark said. Lex’s vision was closing in, black gnats eating away at the sides of Kara’s face. Not the worst thing he could see as his last living vision, all told, but unfortunate nonetheless. His own weight was dragging him down, choking him on her unmoving grip.
Then her head turned and her grip loosened. He saw a wash of light over her left cheek, so he knew the mandala had activated. “Help Kal-El,” he gasped, but the words were incomprehensible even to himself. “Help Kal-El,” he said again, his hand still scrabbling against the wall.
Light and heat exploded from beside him, blinding him and throwing Kara aside. He felt his head crack against the rock, and he slumped to the ground like a discarded costume.
When his vision returned, Kara was struggling to stand, rubbing her head and blinking. Clark was pounding the shit out of Brainiac, who was splayed out on the floor with at least one limb detached. Clark’s face was set and grim, pure Superman, and for once Lex didn’t mind. The long-suffering electric lights were all blown out, but the light from the mandala was still whirling in a headache-inducing spiral, fading slowly. There were scorch marks on Brainiac and on Clark’s cape.
At last Brainiac stopped moving, and soon after that the light failed. Lex guessed that he’d just drained yet another Kryptonian artifact, but Clark didn’t get to be mad this time. He could hear them all breathing in the darkness – Kara, Clark, and himself, all ragged and upset. His body was a collection of bruises, and he could feel a burn rising on his face where the skin had been exposed to the mandala’s light.
“Clark?” Kara asked, more uncertain than he’d ever heard her.
“Kara.” There was a pause, then the noise of Clark moving effortlessly across the cave floor – damned multispectrum vision. “You’ll be fine soon. I had – actually, this cave had a program from my father that did the same thing to me, a long time ago. Now that the control’s broken, you’ll be able to resist it if anything Kryptonian tries again.”
Lex let out a relieved breath. Brainiac would have to find another trick if it resurrected, and that would have to be enough for now.
“How did you end up with Brainiac in your head?” Clark asked, sounding as accusatory as if they were a few miles and decades away, back in Lex’s study at the mansion. But he wasn’t talking to Lex, and Lex wasn’t inclined to draw attention to his presence. Also, he was still feeling dizzy and numb.
Kara sighed, hesitated, and then began, “I was trying to find one of the remaining ancient Kryptonian artifacts. Lex always says there are a few still scattered around the world; I got Oracle to help me find some promising magnetic signatures – but we got the ancient thing wrong, I guess.”
“But – why? Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
“It’s a damn good thing I didn’t!” Kara snapped, which Lex thought was a good point under the circumstances. He’d bet they were glaring at each other like a couple of action figures, arms crossed and ready to break out the heat vision. “Anyway, I didn’t ask you because those artifacts exist as part of a plan to colonize Earth. As in, subjugate and exterminate all these people you say you want to protect. I wanted to show you what Krypton really was – and I guess I did, even if it didn’t go down like I hoped.”
“It wasn’t all like that,” Clark said, and Lex realized that what he was hearing was only a little anger; most of it was fear. “I used to think that – I thought my father was a tyrant, but he really just wanted the best for me.”
Lex was very glad they were so focused on each other; surely they weren’t watching his face.
“You’re right,” Kara said softly. “It wasn’t all like that. But some of it was. Just like here. Just like here, Clark. This is where we live. It’s no better, and it’s no worse, and it’s what we’ve got.”
“If we were on Krypton, we’d be normal,” Clark said, sounding like a man confessing under torture.
Lex laughed.
He could hear them turn, noticing him again. His skin stung where dirt and gravel pressed into his burns, and his hand was so white-hot with pain he was surprised it wasn’t generating its own glow.
“You’re the son of the one man and woman who realized that their planet was going to explode and invented a technology to keep him safe across half a galaxy,” he explained. If he was going to break his vow to himself not to go groveling to Clark, it would at least involve knowing something Clark didn’t. “You brought together an organization of over a hundred ego-crazed and fractious superhumans, at least five of whom could take you in a fair fight – and Batman -- but you’re the leader because they know there’s more to heroism than big punches. You could never be anything other than extraordinary.”
“You don’t --”
Kara gasped.
“What?” Clark and Lex asked simultaneously. Lex grimaced, and could only assume that Clark had the same sour look on his face.
“Lex,” she said, and her voice shook, “your hand.”
He blinked in the darkness, uncomprehending, then brought his hands together – but they didn’t meet.
Kara grabbed him, not choking him this time but holding him in place, one hand on his left wrist and the other on his right bicep.
Lex’s mind correlated – burns, scorch marks, where he’d been when the mandala activated. “How bad is it?” he asked, proud that his voice was as smooth as old brandy.
Kara made a small, choked sound.
“Get me out of here,” he said, and closed his eyes.
****
There were a number of consequences to get through. He called various world leaders and reassured them; he called various donors and did the same. He briefed the Joint Chiefs and talked to Pete, whose hard-earned politician’s smoothness couldn’t stop him from staring at the bandaged stump.
He listened to Wonder Woman’s strained and honorable apology, unable to derive the slightest satisfaction from it precisely because she was entirely honorable and because there was no way she could have known that Kara was compromised. “You know,” he said at last, cutting her off, “people debate ‘Batman or Superman?’ all the time. They don’t ask how you’d do. Partly it’s sexism, partly it’s about showmanship. But you’re the one who’d win, because you’re not sentimental. So learn from what happened and move on.”
She stared at him for a full minute, then nodded and left. He’d never admit it, but he was hoping that one of these days she’d tell him that he would have made a good Greek. Athenian or Spartan, he wasn’t picky. Though now, he supposed, he’d have to hope for Athenian, since the Spartans would have despised his new, crippled status.
Two days after he’d been returned, when the League was finally off high alert, Kara asked to see him. He approved the visit, even though it gave the Secret Service a collective myocardial infarction. In the end, they worked for him, and they had to accept that.
He waited for her in his private rooms. They probably weren’t going to discuss matters of state.
When she arrived, he could tell that her stiffness was discomfort and not some new version of possession. “If this is going to be about apologies,” he said as he stood to greet her, “we can skip them.”
"Do I have something to apologize for?" she asked.
Had he ever even seen her for herself? She must be wondering that too. "No."
"We're pretty sure Brainiac is gone for good. We found where the backup was. It's not there
anymore." Her delivery was clipped, efficient.
He nodded, lacking the desire to point out that anyone from the League could have told
him that. By email.
"Lex," she said.
He looked at her. Krypton had taken – and given -- so much that was his that he had no idea what he'd be without it. Last son, last daughter, and him, in this together. It was a little comforting.
"You could do it, if you wanted," he said. "Have children, Kryptonian children," he clarified at her blank look. "Or half-Kryptonian, if that's what you want. I could make sure they'd be healthy. I couldn't promise anything on the psychological front, obviously, but you and Clark should be able to handle that."
"Oh-kay," Kara said warily. "Did you get hit on the head again? Because, A, what the hell, and B, why would I want to carry out Brainiac's mission now that I'm not, just for example, a brainwashed puppet?"
Lex motioned her to the couch opposite him, and they both sat. Kara had her knees together, like a well-trained debutante in a seedy bar.
"You were the one looking for your Kryptonian heritage. Maybe it's not in the past but in the future. I just wanted you to know, if and when you're ready, I will do anything in my power to make it happen." He didn’t need to project sincerity, not with Kara.
Kara’s face moved through bemusement, uncertainty, and introspection before settling on tolerance. “I’ll keep it in mind, really I will. But what I actually want from you is some sort of weapon to keep on hand to destroy Brainiac if it pops up again. Mind control is seriously creepy.”
“Fair enough,” Lex said, because it was. “I’ll put a few of my mad scientists on it.”
“Listen,” she said, leaning forward, her hands clasped loosely in front of her, “I don’t want to fight any more, and I really don’t want to talk about my feelings or your feelings or, actually, anyone’s feelings. So can we be friends again and let Diana off the hook? She’s been really nice about it, but she hates it here.”
“Works for me.” They smiled at each other, and it was almost comfortable. He had missed having a person around who was nearly a friend, even if certain subjects were off-limits.
Naturally, that was when the Superman alert flashed on his phone. Kara looked over at the blinking light with dismay, but not surprise. “I should have known when you had a light just for him,” she said. “I mean, that’s not even a metaphor, is it?”
Lex was years beyond blushing, but he looked away.
He hit the button for his assistant. “Let him up.” He stood, the better to prepare himself, and Kara did as well, probably because she was restless from five minutes of sitting. An aide opened the door, and Clark stepped in, cartoonish and oversized as always.
The air was too thin, or too thick.
“Kara –” Clark said. “Can we – have a moment?”
“Oh, it had better take longer than that,” she said, and flashed him one of her super-grins. “But before I go –”
She turned to Lex. He had never been one for the great romantic clinch, bending a girl backwards so as to make her feel ‘swept off her feet’ – mostly because he always worried about dropping her. There’d be no recovering from that. So he was entirely unprepared to be grabbed and tilted back like the nurse in the famous VJ-Day photo. Kara’s lips were warm and welcoming. He quickly got his hand on her shoulders, and he chose to ignore what was missing. He kissed her with all the affection and frustrated lust he’d ever had for her, dizzy with relief and the mocha sweetness of her mouth.
When she returned him to an upright position and stepped back, they stared at one another. Then she nodded briskly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Right. Just so you know.”
He reached out and caught her shoulder. “Kara. I know.”
She pulled away quickly, almost tripping over a table before she found her way to the door. Lex watched her go, both because it was pleasant and because he wasn’t quite ready to look at Clark.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the eye-gouging red and blue of the costume as Clark moved to stand beside him. He’d never wanted to be weaker than Clark, so he turned.
Clark was aging, not badly, not even that obviously, but his face had settled into a new configuration, a little harder, a little more confident. Lex, after he got over the initial surprise, thought he looked good.
They stared at one another. I should say something, Lex thought. He should say something.
He cleared his throat. “So,” he said, then stopped.
After a minute that lasted a geologic era, Clark said, “So? That’s it?”
“Were you hoping for something in particular?” Smooth, antagonistic, just like old times.
“How about, ‘So, I’m sorry I destroyed your Fortress and never said a word to you again’?”
Lex backed up a step. “Do you really think an apology would help?”
“You could have tried!”
“Like all the times I tried in Smallville, when I didn’t even mean to do you harm? That worked wonderfully, as I recall. And you could have come to me any time you wanted. That was always your specialty, interrupting me for any perceived injustice –”
“Perceived?!” Clark stepped forward, his face white with outrage. “Perceived?”
Lex winced. “No, what I did to you was real. That’s why – that’s why I couldn’t apologize. It was real, it was intentional, and I – couldn’t stand the thought of facing you when I had done something of that magnitude to you.”
“You’re not saying it was wrong,” Clark said slowly, as if he were still analyzing Lex’s words.
Lex couldn’t respond. He wanted to say he wasn’t sure. He wanted to say he still believed. He even would have said Clark was right, but his throat had seized up like an engine that had thrown a rod.
“If you had told me,” Clark continued – and here was all his grief, raw in his voice and on his face – “I could have salvaged something. Even bits and pieces of Krypton. Instead it’s all gone.”
Lex swallowed, like drinking acid. “I didn’t trust you.” There it was, the truth of his heart, the worm that had burrowed inside him all these hard seasons. He’d told himself that Clark would never trust his judgment, never agree to the necessity of using the Eradicator, and that was probably true. But truer was that Lex hadn’t dared to ask. He hadn’t given Clark the chance to believe in him or betray him, and so he’d exorcised the ghost of a world, even though its son still needed to hear its stories.
He reached out with his remaining hand – to what, he had no idea. “Asking forgiveness for that would have been obscene. And I – needed to pay a price for what I’d done. What I’d done to you. You deserved – to not be confused about what I was.”
Clark blinked rapidly. “That’s – so messed up it almost makes sense. For you.” There was a pause, during which Clark brought his hands up, then down, then put his fists by his hips. “Did you ever – did you love me?”
It wasn’t a painful truth any more. It wasn’t a secret from anyone but Clark. “Every moment of my life.”
From the look on Clark’s face, it would have been easier on him if Lex had lied. And Lex understood – it was one thing to be unloved, and quite another not to be loved enough. Especially by Lex, who’d never say that he loved honor more, or some other abstract and beautiful ideal.
Lex knew how to compromise, in every possible way, but Clark had never been about compromise. It only meant failure to him. If Lex waited, Clark would decide that this was just another disappointment. And then Lex could go back to work.
“You were always the one who came and apologized,” Clark said.
“I often had reason to do so,” Lex said, not even knowing why he was playing along.
“So I waited, and I waited, and you told everyone in the world what you’d done but you didn’t talk to me. Then it was so long ago that I didn’t know how to start. I couldn’t think of any reason that things had changed, so I didn’t change them. Sometimes I thought, maybe tomorrow, but then the next day there’d be an earthquake, or Darkseid would show up. And I guess I knew it was always going to be ‘tomorrow.’ But when I saw – you could have died right there, in front of me. And I thought – is that what you’re waiting for?”
“What are you trying to say?” Usually Lex had a better idea where a conversation was going – with Clark, the answer had generally been ‘nowhere good,’ but there’d been comfort in knowing that. This didn’t have the rhythm he remembered.
“We aren’t those kids any more,” Clark said, as if he could read Lex’s mind. “At least, I’m not. I’ve had this picture in my head of what my life could have been like. But – it’s just a picture. It’s not real.” Lex was unable to look away from those verdant eyes, as green as the reborn jungles of Earth.
“I don’t know what it is that you want from me,” he found himself saying. His hand was shaking, so he clenched it into a fist, with an answering ache from its missing counterpart.
Clark took another step forward. There was nowhere to go, so Lex stood his ground, looking up at Clark’s intent face. “I’ve been wondering – whether maybe you think you’ve paid enough for what you did.” He gestured at the place where Lex’s hand had been. Lex felt a chill. It was just like always, Clark toting up his misdeeds and checking the bottom line –
“That’s not what I meant!” Clark said, and Lex snapped his eyes back to Clark’s face. “Lex – Lex, you were always the one who needed to be giving more.”
Clark took a deep breath, the skin around his eyes tight with tension. “I told myself that I didn’t love you, that it was just memories and the drug.”
It went through Lex like a shot – or maybe like a reversal of being shot, as if the film of his life were suddenly running backwards. Lex felt he owed some equivalent confession, if he could find it. “I told myself it didn’t matter that I loved you.”
Clark smiled, not the old innocent Smallville grin – too much had changed for that – but something wiser, more certain. “Yeah, well, both of us told ourselves really stupid things.”
“I could betray you again,” Lex said, testing.
Clark leaned forward. “That would piss me off. But it wouldn’t make me stop loving you. And I can tell you, I know that for a fact. I think – the choice we have is whether love is going to make us happy, or miserable. My guess is, happier’s more likely together.”
“I’ve still got the formula,” Lex said when he could speak.
Clark chuckled, and his hands were suddenly on Lex’s shoulders. “You don’t just have the formula,” he said. “You’ve got it mixed up and ready.” At Lex’s surprised look, he smiled sunnily. “Still can’t see through lead,” he said. “But I know you. You always have a contingency plan, and you’re not the patient type.”
“I’m not a type at all,” Lex said. It was hard to get the words out with Clark so close, with nowhere to look except his perfect face.
Clark lowered his head so that their foreheads were almost touching. Lex could feel the heat from his body and barely stopped himself from shivering. “Neither am I,” Clark whispered, his breath warm against Lex’s open mouth.
Lex closed his eyes. He knew it wasn’t that simple. There was a reason he dealt in archetypes and oppositions. They were natural, necessary, emergent: protagonist, antagonist; Earth, Krypton; secrets, truth. Still, origin stories were just that – not endings.
However well the years apart had shaped Clark, he tasted the same, fresh as grass and sweeter than victory.
When they kissed, Lex didn’t lose himself. There were still things to say. But with Clark so close, he could believe that Clark would hear them, and that he’d listen in turn.
The logical explanation for this irreversible imperative was altered biology, his own human responses twisted out of true like the rest of him. But it would be the same if the meteors had never come – he’d be meat and bone like everyone else, like everyone else driven by chemicals and electrical impulses jumping from nerve to nerve. The only difference – the everything – was that Clark was here.
“I’ll get it,” he said, not trying to move away.
Clark pulled back just enough that Lex could see his smile. “You don’t need to,” he said. Lex could feel the truth of it against his body. He closed his eyes and leaned into the embrace. Clark had changed him, was still changing him, and the one thing he hadn’t let himself believe – that he might change Clark – seemed like it might be possible after all. He hooked his arm around Clark’s neck, pulling him down, trusting Clark to keep them from falling.
“Clark,” he said for the first time since he’d given up hope. His face pressed against that alien skin, the smell still the same, the heat of it. “Clark.”
END
There was a person standing in the hallway. Lex didn’t recognize him, but he knew that a stranger was just an enemy you hadn’t yet met, so he yelled “Security!” while he had the chance.
Typically, despite his best precautions, he felt a jarring pain above his right ear, then nothing.
He woke in dim light, propped sitting against something jagged and gritty, cold in the way of underground hideouts.
Lex looked around and barely stifled a groan. The Kawatche caves -- he knew those rock piles, those left-over drawings, those yellow-caged lights strung by the researchers decades ago, the way he knew the shape of that first mangled Porsche.
Fucking Smallville. These Kryptonians were more obsessed with Kansas than Dorothy Gale, and her little dog too.
"Why are you smiling?" the man Brainiac was wearing asked. It had to be Brainiac. How many other Kryptonian villains were left? The League had killed the last of the Zoners years ago, and only Brainiac had resurrected even once. If the third time was the charm for its world-conquering plans, Lex was going to be ticked off.
Lex turned his head so that Brainiac came into view. Behind it, in the shadows, Kara stood like a figure at Madame Tussaud’s. "You wouldn't get it," he said easily. "So, what's the plan?"
Brainiac smiled and held out its stolen hands. "You tell me."
“Zod is dead, Krypton is gone, there’s nothing for you to do here.” Not that he thought this would make a difference, but it had to be said.
“That’s what people told Job in your Bible, wasn’t it? Curse God and die. But there was more to come for him.” Brainiac moved closer, gliding over the rough ground like a dancer made of steel and glass.
“Kara Zor-El and Kal-El can breed true Kryptonians, to be raised in the ways of Zod. My knowledge of genetic manipulation will prevent too great a weakness from inbreeding. Krypton will rise again. Zod will be New Krypton’s god. You, Luthor, will make yourself useful keeping humans in line. You know how to manipulate them, and you will do so or I will slaughter them by the millions.”
Lex blinked. "A concise summary. I'm assuming you have a clever plan to convince Superman
to go along."
Brainiac shrugged. "You can assume whatever you like."
Well, maybe it had been a bit much to hope to get the whole plan, as opposed to the part he couldn't presently do anything to resist. Kara was under its control -- best guess, her search for remnants of Krypton had led her to some Brainiac-contaminated artifact. Kryptonians had the bad habit of leaving their tech contaminated with personalities. Which also meant that Lex had--again—triggered this attack on humanity, by sending Kara off in a huff.
Even if it hadn't been his fault, he reminded himself, it would still be his job to fix it. Leader of the free world, et cetera.
Now, all he had to do was figure out how to pull off the last-minute victory. Clark and Kara could be stopped if necessary – Batman would do it if he had to, as would Pete Ross, who was undoubtedly right now wondering whether he'd have to order some deaths to get through this. But those were unacceptable scenarios, not least because Lex could hardly expect to survive them either.
As Lex ran through possibilities, discarding dozens as insufficient, he caught a glimpse of the central mandala, fifteen feet away and largely obscured by protruding rocks. The cave-computer had recognized and helped him before. And Brainiac might not know that.
Both Brainiac and Kara were between him and the interface. Would it wake up if he got closer? He weighed the possibilities and risks, and found too many unknowns.
Suddenly Clark was in the cave with them, the wind from his arrival whipping dirt into Lex’s eyes.
“I’m here,” he said, directing his speech towards Brainiac. “Now let them go.”
Like that ever works, Lex thought. He rushed towards the cave wall, yelling “Get out of here! It’s brainwashed Kara, it’s got a plan –“ He gasped in pain as Kara grabbed him and thrust him against the wall by his throat. His speech and breath were cut off, and she was only barely avoiding crushing his trachea.
Clark stepped forward, then stopped as Brainiac raised its hand. “You don’t need them.”
“I don’t need him,” Brainiac said, which was far from promising. “I can’t afford to lose a Kryptonian.”
Lex could almost watch the gears turning in Clark’s head. “Brainiac,” he said in disgust.
Brainiac tilted its head, a parody of modesty.
“You died!” Clark said, sounding almost insulted. Lex was glad Clark had been the one to say it.
Brainiac arranged its features in an approximation of a smile. “There was a backup. Solar-powered, so it has taken years to regenerate, but I am here and I am ready to reclaim this world.”
“Why is it always Lex?” Clark asked. “What is it about him?”
Lex made an outraged noise, the best he could do.
“He is the president of the United States and a captain of industry,” Brainiac said. “And a meteor mutant. Surely you noticed.”
He scrabbled for purchase on Kara’s wrists, not to pry her loose but to see if he could support some of his weight with his arms and take a real breath. It didn’t help much.
“You don’t need to tell me who Lex is.”
Even with everything else going on, that sent a little stab of ice into his chest. He wanted to say: it was easier for both of us to pretend that I was just exploiting you, just dangerous. If he was going to die here, he should –
All he got out was a garbled approximation of Clark’s name before Kara’s grip tightened, choking him again.
“If he helps me, I’ll give you to him,” Brainiac said to Clark. “I’m reasonably sure he’d find that … incentivizing.” Lex had neither the air nor the inclination to be offended.
With oxygen deprivation came clarity. He didn’t need to beat Brainiac. All he needed was to keep Clark free, and Clark would do it. Clark could never betray his adopted species.
Clark was yelling something, incomprehensible to Lex’s buzzing ears.
Rock grated against his back. There was nothing familiar in Kara’s eyes as she continued to hold him against the wall, though he dared to hope she would resist any command to squeeze harder.
Slowly – all he could manage – he wrenched his right hand up and to the side, reaching toward the place he knew the mandala was embedded in the rock. He scraped the back of his hand and hoped that he wasn’t bleeding any mutant blood that would interfere with the Kryptonian systems.
“—never –” Clark said. Lex’s vision was closing in, black gnats eating away at the sides of Kara’s face. Not the worst thing he could see as his last living vision, all told, but unfortunate nonetheless. His own weight was dragging him down, choking him on her unmoving grip.
Then her head turned and her grip loosened. He saw a wash of light over her left cheek, so he knew the mandala had activated. “Help Kal-El,” he gasped, but the words were incomprehensible even to himself. “Help Kal-El,” he said again, his hand still scrabbling against the wall.
Light and heat exploded from beside him, blinding him and throwing Kara aside. He felt his head crack against the rock, and he slumped to the ground like a discarded costume.
When his vision returned, Kara was struggling to stand, rubbing her head and blinking. Clark was pounding the shit out of Brainiac, who was splayed out on the floor with at least one limb detached. Clark’s face was set and grim, pure Superman, and for once Lex didn’t mind. The long-suffering electric lights were all blown out, but the light from the mandala was still whirling in a headache-inducing spiral, fading slowly. There were scorch marks on Brainiac and on Clark’s cape.
At last Brainiac stopped moving, and soon after that the light failed. Lex guessed that he’d just drained yet another Kryptonian artifact, but Clark didn’t get to be mad this time. He could hear them all breathing in the darkness – Kara, Clark, and himself, all ragged and upset. His body was a collection of bruises, and he could feel a burn rising on his face where the skin had been exposed to the mandala’s light.
“Clark?” Kara asked, more uncertain than he’d ever heard her.
“Kara.” There was a pause, then the noise of Clark moving effortlessly across the cave floor – damned multispectrum vision. “You’ll be fine soon. I had – actually, this cave had a program from my father that did the same thing to me, a long time ago. Now that the control’s broken, you’ll be able to resist it if anything Kryptonian tries again.”
Lex let out a relieved breath. Brainiac would have to find another trick if it resurrected, and that would have to be enough for now.
“How did you end up with Brainiac in your head?” Clark asked, sounding as accusatory as if they were a few miles and decades away, back in Lex’s study at the mansion. But he wasn’t talking to Lex, and Lex wasn’t inclined to draw attention to his presence. Also, he was still feeling dizzy and numb.
Kara sighed, hesitated, and then began, “I was trying to find one of the remaining ancient Kryptonian artifacts. Lex always says there are a few still scattered around the world; I got Oracle to help me find some promising magnetic signatures – but we got the ancient thing wrong, I guess.”
“But – why? Why didn’t you ask me for help?”
“It’s a damn good thing I didn’t!” Kara snapped, which Lex thought was a good point under the circumstances. He’d bet they were glaring at each other like a couple of action figures, arms crossed and ready to break out the heat vision. “Anyway, I didn’t ask you because those artifacts exist as part of a plan to colonize Earth. As in, subjugate and exterminate all these people you say you want to protect. I wanted to show you what Krypton really was – and I guess I did, even if it didn’t go down like I hoped.”
“It wasn’t all like that,” Clark said, and Lex realized that what he was hearing was only a little anger; most of it was fear. “I used to think that – I thought my father was a tyrant, but he really just wanted the best for me.”
Lex was very glad they were so focused on each other; surely they weren’t watching his face.
“You’re right,” Kara said softly. “It wasn’t all like that. But some of it was. Just like here. Just like here, Clark. This is where we live. It’s no better, and it’s no worse, and it’s what we’ve got.”
“If we were on Krypton, we’d be normal,” Clark said, sounding like a man confessing under torture.
Lex laughed.
He could hear them turn, noticing him again. His skin stung where dirt and gravel pressed into his burns, and his hand was so white-hot with pain he was surprised it wasn’t generating its own glow.
“You’re the son of the one man and woman who realized that their planet was going to explode and invented a technology to keep him safe across half a galaxy,” he explained. If he was going to break his vow to himself not to go groveling to Clark, it would at least involve knowing something Clark didn’t. “You brought together an organization of over a hundred ego-crazed and fractious superhumans, at least five of whom could take you in a fair fight – and Batman -- but you’re the leader because they know there’s more to heroism than big punches. You could never be anything other than extraordinary.”
“You don’t --”
Kara gasped.
“What?” Clark and Lex asked simultaneously. Lex grimaced, and could only assume that Clark had the same sour look on his face.
“Lex,” she said, and her voice shook, “your hand.”
He blinked in the darkness, uncomprehending, then brought his hands together – but they didn’t meet.
Kara grabbed him, not choking him this time but holding him in place, one hand on his left wrist and the other on his right bicep.
Lex’s mind correlated – burns, scorch marks, where he’d been when the mandala activated. “How bad is it?” he asked, proud that his voice was as smooth as old brandy.
Kara made a small, choked sound.
“Get me out of here,” he said, and closed his eyes.
****
There were a number of consequences to get through. He called various world leaders and reassured them; he called various donors and did the same. He briefed the Joint Chiefs and talked to Pete, whose hard-earned politician’s smoothness couldn’t stop him from staring at the bandaged stump.
He listened to Wonder Woman’s strained and honorable apology, unable to derive the slightest satisfaction from it precisely because she was entirely honorable and because there was no way she could have known that Kara was compromised. “You know,” he said at last, cutting her off, “people debate ‘Batman or Superman?’ all the time. They don’t ask how you’d do. Partly it’s sexism, partly it’s about showmanship. But you’re the one who’d win, because you’re not sentimental. So learn from what happened and move on.”
She stared at him for a full minute, then nodded and left. He’d never admit it, but he was hoping that one of these days she’d tell him that he would have made a good Greek. Athenian or Spartan, he wasn’t picky. Though now, he supposed, he’d have to hope for Athenian, since the Spartans would have despised his new, crippled status.
Two days after he’d been returned, when the League was finally off high alert, Kara asked to see him. He approved the visit, even though it gave the Secret Service a collective myocardial infarction. In the end, they worked for him, and they had to accept that.
He waited for her in his private rooms. They probably weren’t going to discuss matters of state.
When she arrived, he could tell that her stiffness was discomfort and not some new version of possession. “If this is going to be about apologies,” he said as he stood to greet her, “we can skip them.”
"Do I have something to apologize for?" she asked.
Had he ever even seen her for herself? She must be wondering that too. "No."
"We're pretty sure Brainiac is gone for good. We found where the backup was. It's not there
anymore." Her delivery was clipped, efficient.
He nodded, lacking the desire to point out that anyone from the League could have told
him that. By email.
"Lex," she said.
He looked at her. Krypton had taken – and given -- so much that was his that he had no idea what he'd be without it. Last son, last daughter, and him, in this together. It was a little comforting.
"You could do it, if you wanted," he said. "Have children, Kryptonian children," he clarified at her blank look. "Or half-Kryptonian, if that's what you want. I could make sure they'd be healthy. I couldn't promise anything on the psychological front, obviously, but you and Clark should be able to handle that."
"Oh-kay," Kara said warily. "Did you get hit on the head again? Because, A, what the hell, and B, why would I want to carry out Brainiac's mission now that I'm not, just for example, a brainwashed puppet?"
Lex motioned her to the couch opposite him, and they both sat. Kara had her knees together, like a well-trained debutante in a seedy bar.
"You were the one looking for your Kryptonian heritage. Maybe it's not in the past but in the future. I just wanted you to know, if and when you're ready, I will do anything in my power to make it happen." He didn’t need to project sincerity, not with Kara.
Kara’s face moved through bemusement, uncertainty, and introspection before settling on tolerance. “I’ll keep it in mind, really I will. But what I actually want from you is some sort of weapon to keep on hand to destroy Brainiac if it pops up again. Mind control is seriously creepy.”
“Fair enough,” Lex said, because it was. “I’ll put a few of my mad scientists on it.”
“Listen,” she said, leaning forward, her hands clasped loosely in front of her, “I don’t want to fight any more, and I really don’t want to talk about my feelings or your feelings or, actually, anyone’s feelings. So can we be friends again and let Diana off the hook? She’s been really nice about it, but she hates it here.”
“Works for me.” They smiled at each other, and it was almost comfortable. He had missed having a person around who was nearly a friend, even if certain subjects were off-limits.
Naturally, that was when the Superman alert flashed on his phone. Kara looked over at the blinking light with dismay, but not surprise. “I should have known when you had a light just for him,” she said. “I mean, that’s not even a metaphor, is it?”
Lex was years beyond blushing, but he looked away.
He hit the button for his assistant. “Let him up.” He stood, the better to prepare himself, and Kara did as well, probably because she was restless from five minutes of sitting. An aide opened the door, and Clark stepped in, cartoonish and oversized as always.
The air was too thin, or too thick.
“Kara –” Clark said. “Can we – have a moment?”
“Oh, it had better take longer than that,” she said, and flashed him one of her super-grins. “But before I go –”
She turned to Lex. He had never been one for the great romantic clinch, bending a girl backwards so as to make her feel ‘swept off her feet’ – mostly because he always worried about dropping her. There’d be no recovering from that. So he was entirely unprepared to be grabbed and tilted back like the nurse in the famous VJ-Day photo. Kara’s lips were warm and welcoming. He quickly got his hand on her shoulders, and he chose to ignore what was missing. He kissed her with all the affection and frustrated lust he’d ever had for her, dizzy with relief and the mocha sweetness of her mouth.
When she returned him to an upright position and stepped back, they stared at one another. Then she nodded briskly and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “Right. Just so you know.”
He reached out and caught her shoulder. “Kara. I know.”
She pulled away quickly, almost tripping over a table before she found her way to the door. Lex watched her go, both because it was pleasant and because he wasn’t quite ready to look at Clark.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the eye-gouging red and blue of the costume as Clark moved to stand beside him. He’d never wanted to be weaker than Clark, so he turned.
Clark was aging, not badly, not even that obviously, but his face had settled into a new configuration, a little harder, a little more confident. Lex, after he got over the initial surprise, thought he looked good.
They stared at one another. I should say something, Lex thought. He should say something.
He cleared his throat. “So,” he said, then stopped.
After a minute that lasted a geologic era, Clark said, “So? That’s it?”
“Were you hoping for something in particular?” Smooth, antagonistic, just like old times.
“How about, ‘So, I’m sorry I destroyed your Fortress and never said a word to you again’?”
Lex backed up a step. “Do you really think an apology would help?”
“You could have tried!”
“Like all the times I tried in Smallville, when I didn’t even mean to do you harm? That worked wonderfully, as I recall. And you could have come to me any time you wanted. That was always your specialty, interrupting me for any perceived injustice –”
“Perceived?!” Clark stepped forward, his face white with outrage. “Perceived?”
Lex winced. “No, what I did to you was real. That’s why – that’s why I couldn’t apologize. It was real, it was intentional, and I – couldn’t stand the thought of facing you when I had done something of that magnitude to you.”
“You’re not saying it was wrong,” Clark said slowly, as if he were still analyzing Lex’s words.
Lex couldn’t respond. He wanted to say he wasn’t sure. He wanted to say he still believed. He even would have said Clark was right, but his throat had seized up like an engine that had thrown a rod.
“If you had told me,” Clark continued – and here was all his grief, raw in his voice and on his face – “I could have salvaged something. Even bits and pieces of Krypton. Instead it’s all gone.”
Lex swallowed, like drinking acid. “I didn’t trust you.” There it was, the truth of his heart, the worm that had burrowed inside him all these hard seasons. He’d told himself that Clark would never trust his judgment, never agree to the necessity of using the Eradicator, and that was probably true. But truer was that Lex hadn’t dared to ask. He hadn’t given Clark the chance to believe in him or betray him, and so he’d exorcised the ghost of a world, even though its son still needed to hear its stories.
He reached out with his remaining hand – to what, he had no idea. “Asking forgiveness for that would have been obscene. And I – needed to pay a price for what I’d done. What I’d done to you. You deserved – to not be confused about what I was.”
Clark blinked rapidly. “That’s – so messed up it almost makes sense. For you.” There was a pause, during which Clark brought his hands up, then down, then put his fists by his hips. “Did you ever – did you love me?”
It wasn’t a painful truth any more. It wasn’t a secret from anyone but Clark. “Every moment of my life.”
From the look on Clark’s face, it would have been easier on him if Lex had lied. And Lex understood – it was one thing to be unloved, and quite another not to be loved enough. Especially by Lex, who’d never say that he loved honor more, or some other abstract and beautiful ideal.
Lex knew how to compromise, in every possible way, but Clark had never been about compromise. It only meant failure to him. If Lex waited, Clark would decide that this was just another disappointment. And then Lex could go back to work.
“You were always the one who came and apologized,” Clark said.
“I often had reason to do so,” Lex said, not even knowing why he was playing along.
“So I waited, and I waited, and you told everyone in the world what you’d done but you didn’t talk to me. Then it was so long ago that I didn’t know how to start. I couldn’t think of any reason that things had changed, so I didn’t change them. Sometimes I thought, maybe tomorrow, but then the next day there’d be an earthquake, or Darkseid would show up. And I guess I knew it was always going to be ‘tomorrow.’ But when I saw – you could have died right there, in front of me. And I thought – is that what you’re waiting for?”
“What are you trying to say?” Usually Lex had a better idea where a conversation was going – with Clark, the answer had generally been ‘nowhere good,’ but there’d been comfort in knowing that. This didn’t have the rhythm he remembered.
“We aren’t those kids any more,” Clark said, as if he could read Lex’s mind. “At least, I’m not. I’ve had this picture in my head of what my life could have been like. But – it’s just a picture. It’s not real.” Lex was unable to look away from those verdant eyes, as green as the reborn jungles of Earth.
“I don’t know what it is that you want from me,” he found himself saying. His hand was shaking, so he clenched it into a fist, with an answering ache from its missing counterpart.
Clark took another step forward. There was nowhere to go, so Lex stood his ground, looking up at Clark’s intent face. “I’ve been wondering – whether maybe you think you’ve paid enough for what you did.” He gestured at the place where Lex’s hand had been. Lex felt a chill. It was just like always, Clark toting up his misdeeds and checking the bottom line –
“That’s not what I meant!” Clark said, and Lex snapped his eyes back to Clark’s face. “Lex – Lex, you were always the one who needed to be giving more.”
Clark took a deep breath, the skin around his eyes tight with tension. “I told myself that I didn’t love you, that it was just memories and the drug.”
It went through Lex like a shot – or maybe like a reversal of being shot, as if the film of his life were suddenly running backwards. Lex felt he owed some equivalent confession, if he could find it. “I told myself it didn’t matter that I loved you.”
Clark smiled, not the old innocent Smallville grin – too much had changed for that – but something wiser, more certain. “Yeah, well, both of us told ourselves really stupid things.”
“I could betray you again,” Lex said, testing.
Clark leaned forward. “That would piss me off. But it wouldn’t make me stop loving you. And I can tell you, I know that for a fact. I think – the choice we have is whether love is going to make us happy, or miserable. My guess is, happier’s more likely together.”
“I’ve still got the formula,” Lex said when he could speak.
Clark chuckled, and his hands were suddenly on Lex’s shoulders. “You don’t just have the formula,” he said. “You’ve got it mixed up and ready.” At Lex’s surprised look, he smiled sunnily. “Still can’t see through lead,” he said. “But I know you. You always have a contingency plan, and you’re not the patient type.”
“I’m not a type at all,” Lex said. It was hard to get the words out with Clark so close, with nowhere to look except his perfect face.
Clark lowered his head so that their foreheads were almost touching. Lex could feel the heat from his body and barely stopped himself from shivering. “Neither am I,” Clark whispered, his breath warm against Lex’s open mouth.
Lex closed his eyes. He knew it wasn’t that simple. There was a reason he dealt in archetypes and oppositions. They were natural, necessary, emergent: protagonist, antagonist; Earth, Krypton; secrets, truth. Still, origin stories were just that – not endings.
However well the years apart had shaped Clark, he tasted the same, fresh as grass and sweeter than victory.
When they kissed, Lex didn’t lose himself. There were still things to say. But with Clark so close, he could believe that Clark would hear them, and that he’d listen in turn.
The logical explanation for this irreversible imperative was altered biology, his own human responses twisted out of true like the rest of him. But it would be the same if the meteors had never come – he’d be meat and bone like everyone else, like everyone else driven by chemicals and electrical impulses jumping from nerve to nerve. The only difference – the everything – was that Clark was here.
“I’ll get it,” he said, not trying to move away.
Clark pulled back just enough that Lex could see his smile. “You don’t need to,” he said. Lex could feel the truth of it against his body. He closed his eyes and leaned into the embrace. Clark had changed him, was still changing him, and the one thing he hadn’t let himself believe – that he might change Clark – seemed like it might be possible after all. He hooked his arm around Clark’s neck, pulling him down, trusting Clark to keep them from falling.
“Clark,” he said for the first time since he’d given up hope. His face pressed against that alien skin, the smell still the same, the heat of it. “Clark.”
END
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