Eight Crazy Nights 3 (part 2)

[rivkat]

2.

The next time he met Lex Luthor, it was as Clark Kent. He and Lois were covering the opening of yet another Luthor wing of a public building, this time at the Metropolis Museum of Modern Art. There were some amazing fluourescent sculptures, cunningly arranged so that the light was like a physical presence inside silver metal frames, and Clark was enjoying the art, as well as the hors d'oeuvres, immensely until he saw the younger Luthor. The man was standing outside the flow of the crowd, slim and elegant but clearly not looking for conversation, sipping occasionally at a glass of champagne.

His tuxedo accented the clean lines of his body, making Clark in his rented suit feel like a Neanderthal wearing a freshly skinned animal. His eyes scanned the crowd watchfully, with no hesitation when they flashed over Clark like a lighthouse beam. Of course not – Superman looked different enough, thanks to Kryptonian technology, that there was no way to connect him with Clark Kent. But Clark felt dissatisfied nonetheless.

Putting down his empty plate on a convenient table, he straightened his jacket – a useless gesture since he always looked rumpled, but it was worth a try – and meandered through the crowd towards Luthor, who managed to look decent even in the greenish glow from the sculpture by his side.

By the time he got across the room, Luthor was looking away, watching to see who was coming into the room. Looking for someone important like Superman, Clark figured.

As he stepped next to Luthor, a wave of pain and nausea hit him. It was all he could do to stand there without puking.

Apparently fluourescent gas wasn't the only component of these sculptures.

Luthor had turned, maybe because Clark had made a soft distressed sound, and saw Clark staring at the curved, spaghettilike sculpture in horror. "This one's scheduled to go back to the foyer of LuthorCorp next Monday," he commented. "What do you think?"

Clark choked and took a step back. Luthor, following, nodded with satisfaction. "I'd say my father had lost his grasp on good taste, but it's never been that firm to begin with."

After a near-stagger to get further away, the Kryptonite wasn't incapacitating. There must have been only trace amounts in the thing, maybe not even enough to trigger mutations, though Clark would have to keep an eye on the LuthorCorp receptionists. He didn’t know how Lionel had figured out that Kryptonite would keep Superman away, but this was clearly a further step in their undeclared war over the soul of Metropolis.

Luthor gave him a deliberate once-over, and smiled politely, as if to indicate the conversation was over.

"Clark Kent, I'm with the Daily Planet," he said, holding out his hand.

Luthor, who was holding his drink in his left hand, didn't raise his right in return. "Lex Luthor, Food and Drug Administration."

"What?" Clark sputtered, drawing not a few glances.

"Which part didn't you understand?" The smile was still polite, but the eyes were chromed steel.

Clark grabbed Luthor's upper arm; he looked at Clark's hand as if it were a rotting fish – a zombie rotting fish that had taken it upon itself to climb out of the ocean and attach itself to his body – but he said nothing as Clark dragged him to a side room whose red lighting combined with the Freud-like pictures on the walls to make it look like Hell's waiting room. Standing in front of a painting of a dead dog, they were far enough away from others that Clark could whisper more freely.

"Superman told me," he said in Luthor's ear. "He told me you're a spy."

Luthor jerked his arm free of Clark's grasp. "Well, I'm not."

"I don't believe you. How many FDA scientists walk around armed and hooked up to a GPS?" Clark was talking about their first meeting, but come to think of it – yes, the armanent was slightly different but no less impressive.

"Probably as many as have a history of suffering violent, unprovoked assaults –" Luthor gave a pointed look at his arm and tugged on his sleeve to straighten his tuxedo jacket – "and enough money to pay for new toys on a regular basis. Perhaps Superman was confused. I'm with the FDA. See, it says so on my card." With that, he repeated the same maneuver he'd performed at their first meeting, sliding his hand over Clark's and leaving a business card behind. His eyes never left Clark's face.

When Clark managed to look down, he saw that this card did indeed have a title and a seal on it, unlike the first one, which had been blank except for a ten-digit phone number.

"So Superman ... told you I was a spy?" His tone was moving from condescending to actively mocking. "I can assure you, Mr. Kent, I am a scientist with the FDA. I can bring home the bacon and tell you exactly what it's doing to your arteries. Well," he paused and flicked his eyes over Clark's body, "maybe not your arteries. I have a master's from Princeton and a Ph.D from Yale, I have articles in good medical journals, and my paycheck says 'FDA' on it. While I have no association with LuthorCorp, I do have enough money from my mother's estate that the Daily Planet ought to hesitate to print any unfounded accusations."

"Okay," Clark said, swallowing. "I don't know what your game is –"

"Then how do you know you don't want to play?" He asked the question as if it were the most reasonable thing in the world. Clark wanted to smack him, standing there so casually with that smooth shining skin that had never seen a hard day's work in the fields, that suit that could have paid the farm's mortgage for the year.

Clark scowled. "Superman isn't interested. And threats notwithstanding, from what I remember from journalism school, being accused of being a spy isn't slanderous, so your lawyers can come get laughed at by our lawyers any time. If you keep harassing Superman, you'd better hope you've got a real job at the FDA, because you'll be useless as a government agent."

Fortunately, right after the threat and before Clark could do anything lame to screw it up, Lois found them.

"Clark, what are you doing, hiding – oh."

However, Clark wasn't fond of that "oh." It was a bit too pleased for his taste.

Luthor gave Lois the same close look he'd given Clark. She did more to deserve it, though. She was wearing a black dress with a low-cut bodice and what she confidently told Clark was a handkerchief hem, though he couldn't imagine how ballistic she'd go if anyone tried to blow his nose on it. She looked terrific, her hair swept up and her heels as long and pointed as icepicks.

"Lex Luthor," she said, not as a question. "Back in town at last. What prompted you to end your exile?"

A faint flash of – discomfort, pain? – crossed his face. Clark didn't want to do him any favors, but Lois had only come over because of Clark.

"Lex Luthor, this is Lois Lane, also of the Daily Planet."

For Lois, Clark noted sourly, Luthor held out his hand. Indeed, he held on to hers past the time needed for a handshake. "A pleasure, Ms. Lane. The museum named a wing for my mother. I'm here in her memory."

"So this isn't a permanent move?"

Luthor's expression was both pleasant and hard, like a doll's face, making clear that Lois was getting nothing further from him. “I haven’t made any decisions yet. You might see me around.”

With that, he turned, snake-fast, and leaned into Clark to whisper in his ear. "By the way, Mr. Kent, slander is spoken. Libel is written. So maybe J-school didn’t cover all the angles. I’ll be seeing you.”

And he was gone, leaving Clark with Lois. Even in the reddish light, he could tell how beautiful she was. Also, how intrigued.

“What did he say to you, Kent? And how’d you get him talking in the first place? The Little Prince of Metropolis hasn’t said a printable word to the press since he lost his hair.”

“Lost his hair?”

Lois sighed dramatically. “Don’t you know anything? Answer my questions, then I’ll tell you all about the rebellious and depraved Luthor boy – who by the way has certainly grown into a fine-looking man.”

“He thought you were attractive,” Clark said, hating the lie as soon as it fell from his mouth. “What do you know about him?”

end part 2



(set after the most recent episode)

When Mohinder had been choosing between genetics programs, the answer had seemed obvious to him. Yale’s professors were working on the subjects he was most interested in, and the graduate program was better-ranked than Harvard’s. His aunties and uncles, however, had been unconvinced. “What does it matter who the professors are?” one uncle had asked when he explained his decision. Everyone knew the name Harvard, but Yale was just another American word. Jobs in India would come more easily to a Harvard Ph.D.

But the purpose of the younger generation is to make the older ones shake their heads in dismay, so he’d done as he’d thought best. Not that it mattered in the end, with his career gone beyond derailed – he’d taken up the tracks and paved them over. Sometimes he wondered whether a Harvard-educated crackpot could have returned to a university position, but he rather doubted it.

Sylar had thought he could get Mohinder to come running by threatening Molly. And that much was true. Next time, Sylar would take a different tack. Mohinder was confident that he’d be back; obsession was like that.

He expected that Sylar would have a new story, plausible questions, tempting answers. Something to do with the fact that he’d been deliberately infected with the virus, evidence that the Company was in the wrong.

Mohinder had given Sylar good reason to think that Mohinder could be swayed with arguments about accepting the lesser evil for the greater good. And it was evident that his relationship with the Company needed to be reassessed. But even when he had thought that Sylar was a kindred spirit, he had never allowed the man’s judgment to substitute for his own.

So he would keep Molly out of danger and cure Niki Sanders. He’d wait for Sylar’s return. And then, as always, he’d do as he thought best.



Set in early S6.

It was full October dark outside, but the Talon was bright and warm as ever inside, the cheery yellow giving Lana an emotional lift even as she stared down at the envelope in her hand.

Met U wanted to know if she was coming back.

She hadn’t bothered to register for fall classes. Somehow, after nearly having an alien god-king take over the world and make her his unwilling consort, the idea of picking a major just hadn’t seemed all that appealing.

Even so, the letter said, she could return for the spring semester, as long as she let them know. She wondered if this lenience was Lex’s doing.

There was a thud against the window, like a bird bouncing off, and then another. Lana looked up in time to see three more – somethings, dull orange, thwack against the windows and the glass door hard enough to make them shudder, leaving smears behind.

She hurried around the counter to pick up her baseball bat and then moved cautiously forward. The things were hitting like hail now, but they didn’t seem to be getting harder; if anything, the residue they left behind seemed to cushion the blows from the continuing barrage.

As she approached the door, she could see – dear God, the Talon was under assault by pumpkins, their stringy, seedy flesh now coating most of the glass – and probably the bricks she couldn’t see. In among the pale seeds and the orange rind there was an occasional green dot.

Slowly, she lowered the bat. Some idiot’s use of meteor rock fertilizer was unfortunate and messy, but if she didn’t go outside, it was probably one of the less deadly days in Smallville.

As for why they’d attack the Talon – she’d long ago given up wondering why meteor mutants sought her out. Maybe it was for the same reason the meteors had struck down her parents. Maybe she was just a meteor magnet, the way Chloe claimed.

It was not the why but the how and the what next that mattered. So she was meteor catnip; so Zod took one look at her and saw the mother of a new generation of alien conquerors. It meant that she had a chance to influence things. That she could, maybe, stop some of the worst from happening.

The trash was full of the day’s used napkins and cups. The letter from Met U drifted soundlessly on top of them.

Comments

[ladyagnew.livejournal.com]

It meant that she had a chance to influence things. That she could, maybe, stop some of the worst from happening.

Chilling.


Luthor, who was holding his drink in his left hand, didn't raise his right in return. "Lex Luthor, Food and Drug Administration."

Heh. thief!AU Lex is growing on me, with his layers like an onion (shiny, pearlescent layers) and threats of suing Clark and The Daily Planet and perfectly constructed facade. Glad that even AU and never having met Clark, Lex is still uniquely damaged; Lionel is good for something.

Also, must concur about Freud's creepy art. "Hell's waiting room" indeed.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

Thank you! I like Lana once she gets her darkness on.

Lex Luthor: the cocktail onion of woobies!

[cryptoxin.livejournal.com]

"Lex Luthor, Food and Drug Administration" is such a happy thought that will unfortunately leave me giggling at inappropriate moments for the rest of the day.

[rivkat.livejournal.com]

If Chuck can do it, so can he!

[samsom.livejournal.com]

Oh, call me completely shallow, I don't care - I cannot wait for the secks to commence. You're setting this up so beautifully. Lex's cool unflappable-ness is delicious when compared to Clark's....flappable-ness. I love how he reacts to Lex, especially when Lois comes around. I don't think Superman/Clark is used to being unbalanced by anyone. It's fun. More, soon, I hope.