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Well, I hacked away at this in order to get to the evil switch story.
Yellow
Summary: “A Kryptonian, huh? I knew this 'I'm the only one, I'm the only one' thing was just an attention-getter.”
ETA: really, read the revised version. I promise it's better.
It was an ordinary day, until the windows blew in.
Lex had been sitting with a few of his advisors, discussing the impending midterms. He would have been much happier if he could somehow have abolished or at least suspended Congress, but even Luthor power had its limits.
As the others were getting up to leave, there was a sound like God clapping His hands, and the entire office shook as shards of bulletproof, concussionproof glass flew across the room.
When Lex raised his head, he could see Secret Service agents running towards him, a few brave souls jumping in through the hole in the wall. And three big guys in black, looking grim. The one in the middle said something that was lost in the aftershock of the big bang, and the other two materialized at his sides, grabbing him by his arms and hustling him out onto the lawn, where –
A big spaceship awaited, black maw gaping and interior lights like stars seen through city haze.
In the moment he had to look at it before he was pushed inside, he thought that it didn’t look much like Clark’s little escape pod. More like an insect with a lot of spikes. How many humanoid alien races were there, anyway? Was God like Star Trek, cheap on the makeup and repeating the same pattern over and over again?
Up the ramp and inside, his assailants’ grips strong enough to grind bone against bone. His ears were recovering from the initial blast, and he could hear the whine of some type of hydraulic system as the ramp closed behind him. In the entryway/cargo bay/whatever, another dour-looking fellow, this one with a Ming-the-Merciless beard, stood posed in a leather-esque doublet and tight pants, arms crossed so as to show off his rippling muscles.
Lex cleared his throat and said, “Take me to your leader.”
“Gobble gobble de gook gook g’Krypton,” the man said, and a little reddish box on his hip said, “Greetings, Mr. President. We are Kryptonians.”
Computerized translation – pretty damn cool. Under other circumstances. “Why have you attacked my people and kidnapped me?”
“Gobble gobble Kal-el gook g’gook ‘Superman,’” he said, and Lex had time to think ‘oh shit’ before the box chirped, “We are here to arrest Kal-el, traitor and son of traitors, whom you call ‘Superman.’”
“Traitor? As I recall, Mr. – whoever you are – Superman arrived on Earth as little more than a baby. It’s hard to imagine what crime against the state he might have committed before he could walk.”
“I am Zoltar,” the man said stiffly, and it was not too different from talking to a foreign head of state whose language he didn’t speak. His mind adjusted to screen out the nonsense words, while listening for the original tone. “Kal-el carries the blood of Lara and Jor-el, whose crimes are directly responsible for the death of our world. His life is forfeit for their treachery.”
Zoltar was lying; Lex believed this without question or hesitation. Clark could never have come from parents who could obliterate the world. A legacy like that would have manifested itself just as his own had. “Here on Earth we don’t believe that children are guilty of whatever their parents did.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true, viz. Jonathan Kent, but the subtleties didn’t need explanation.
“We are not of Earth,” Zoltar pointed out.
“Superman is, now. We won’t ask him to follow a barbaric tradition.”
“We are not asking. I have altered your technology so that this conversation is being shown across all forms of media, and all men will know what taint Jor-el carries.” The translator was clunky, Lex thought as he casually checked to make sure his tie was straight.
Suddenly Zoltar was centimeters from his face. “You are an important man, Mr. President. I think perhaps Superman, the good citizen, would trade himself for you?”
Lex almost laughed out loud. Of all the people in the world, they picked *him* as the hostage? He suppressed the laughter, but not the smirk, and Zoltar’s expression grew stormy.
“A demonstration, then.” A quick motion brought two Kryptonians to bracket Lex again, holding him in the kind of bruising grip he’d thought he’d left behind in Smallville. Zoltar grabbed Lex’s left hand, held it up (presumably so the camera angle would be right; combined with the rough trade getups, these Kryptonians were revealing a real knack for political theater), and snapped the pinky finger at the second joint.
The pain was somewhere in between a pistolwhipping and a stab wound to the shoulder. The effect was singularly unaesthetic. The finger listed to the side and above the rest of his hand at a clearly unnatural angle. Lex clenched his teeth and didn’t cry out.
“I understand that there are over two hundred bones in the human body,” Zoltar said. “How many do you think I will have to break before Superman comes?”
“Fewer than two hundred, in my case,” Lex said. “Missing a hand, you know.” He hoped that America was appreciating his John Wayne impression. And that his citizens would forgive him when he did break down.
“You’re a brave man,” Zoltar said, sounding impressed. “Kal-el is a coward, to shield himself with you.”
There really wasn’t a response to a statement that crazy, so Lex didn’t try.
He groaned a little and shed involuntary tears when Zoltar broke the metacarpals. Any time now, Clark, he thought as he bit halfway through his lip. Don’t hesitate on my account. No, I insist.
The mental patter helped, some.
It wasn’t until the Kryptonian snapped his radius and ulna at different places that he actually screamed.
“Couldn’t you have thought of a better name?” he gasped out as soon as he could, trying to find a focus other than pain. “I mean, Zoltar – it’s such a cliche. How much television did you guys watch before you showed up, anyway?”
Another frown – maybe the absence of a sense of humor really was a racial thing and not Clark-specific – and Zoltar stepped closer to administer another lesson in seriousness. He halted when another voice growled something in that ugly – inflected? – language.
“Very good,” Zoltar announced. “Kal-el approaches.”
He’d taken his own sweet time. Knowing Clark, he’d probably been off fighting a forest fire or getting a kitten out of a tree until someone had pointed him to a television.
“We will make the exchange.”
“Personally, I’d prefer a refund,” Lex grunted and then doubled over around Zoltar’s fist.
He was still struggling to stand when the walkway began to open, and the two poker-faced Kryptonians who’d held him down for Zoltar’s gentle ministrations took up positions at each side of the entrance.
Zoltar nodded at him, and Lex started to walk down, steady on his feet. He could see Clark at the bottom of the ramp, beginning his journey up.
They met halfway, which wasn’t a metaphor for anything in their lives to date.
“Hey,” Lex said and tried to smile. He hadn’t been this close to Clark since that last lab in Metropolis, lo these many years ago. “Last son of Krypton, my ass.”
“My birth parents may have been … optimistic,” Clark said. His eyes were watery. Not afraid; Clark was too good to be afraid. Maybe worried that these new aliens were right about his birth parents.
“Look,” he said and used his right hand to struggle with the chain around his neck. He doubtless looked terribly awkward, but his left arm was about as useful as a sock monkey, and probably looked a lot like one. He got the chain over his head – lack of hair was very helpful at times – and held it and its slight burden out to Clark. “I made this for you a long time ago. Put it on.”
Clark hesitated, long enough for the old pain to twist in Lex’s chest, and then accepted it, slipping it on and letting the ring bounce against the blue of his uniform.
“Tuck it under the suit, you look girly,” he ordered and had to look away.
“Come on!” Zoltar shouted from the craft.
Lex swallowed. “You were the best thing I ever ruined,” he said and pushed roughly past Clark, unwilling to touch him with only an artificial hand.
If Clark said anything in response, he didn’t hear it.
When his feet touched the lawn, the walkway began to retract into the ship. Hands hustled him away, soldiers stepping between him and the ship. The Secretary of Defense was on the other side of the lawn, watching through binoculars. Lex turned to him and nodded once.
He felt the missiles tearing up the earth a moment before he heard them, and dove for the ground even as the soldiers around him tried to protect him with their bodies. His arm screamed, and he probably did too as the bones ground against one another, trapped underneath a heavy man in camouflage.
The Kryptonite-tipped missiles hit the ship with a sound like heavy gongs. Then secondary explosions began, which was good news. He was facing downwards, getting grass stains on his shirt, and he wanted to see what was happening.
Finally, the soldiers began standing, and he was picked up and hustled into a side door to the Residence. His doctor was there, and immediately rushed over to fuss.
“Lieutenant,” he called and the soldier by the door snapped to attention. “I want a full report, now.” The doctor was cutting away his sleeves and positioning him on some sort of gurney.
“Sir,” another soldier said, holding a secure phone to Lex’s ear.
“The craft is down,” Fordman said. “We picked it up coming in about forty-five seconds before it arrived – it doesn’t seem to have been shielded from detection in any way -- and we can’t find anything else in Earth orbit. We’ve got long-range scans going up now in case there’s something further out. We used half of what we’ve got.”
Translation: if there was a mothership, Earth was fucked.
Think about that later.
“Fine. Start hazmat procedures immediately, everyone gets a filter and no children within a mile until there’s not a micron of that poison left. Collect everything you can in case – we might be able to recycle. And send a team in to – to look for Superman. Anyone else is to be treated as an active hostile and shot.”
Fordman drew in a breath. The laws of war – were never designed to apply to a war of worlds. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“You may feel a sting,” the doctor said in his other ear, but he didn’t, among the other tortured nerves.
“That better have been a local anesthetic,” he told the doctor as the soldier took the phone away.
“Your bones are broken in nearly twenty places –“
“I was present and regrettably conscious, doctor, I can assure you I’m aware of each one. Get me strapped together so I can stand in front of a camera without anything visibly poking out.”
The doctor muttered something under his breath, but wisely didn’t argue.
The phone appeared again; it was Pete, calling from somewhere over Colorado. “You all right, sir?”
“Peachy. Anything else of interest happen while I was gone?” Now his arm was being strapped to a contraption that looked as if it were made out of steel Tinker Toys and lengths of white plastic. Just great, one hand Darth Vader and the other a rank-and-file Stormtrooper.
“The stock markets all suspended trading. I’ve been pretty busy with briefings otherwise.”
“Come on home, Pete. You aren’t getting the job away from me that easily.”
“Sir? Cl – Superman was in there, wasn’t he.”
Lex swallowed. He’d managed to forget, for a few seconds. “Yeah.” His throat felt clogged, scratchy. It was necessary – once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. Besides, the Kryptonians didn’t have anywhere else to go; they’d have tried to rule the world, and the position was already occupied. But he wasn’t about to justify himself to Pete.
Silence on the other end of the line. Would all Pete’s suspicions return, now? Though formally a Vice President was the constitutional equivalent of a backup drive, Pete’s political connections were solid enough that he could cause Lex a lot of trouble.
“Kryptonite missiles were one of your contingency plans, right?” Pete’s voice was unreadable.
Lex most definitely did not need this. “The defenses were set up in case Superman was turned somehow, maybe blackmailed. We didn’t anticipate a whole new set of players, and the only way to ensure they were subdued was to attack when they were in range and all together. We couldn’t be sure of getting another chance.”
More silence.
He did something he never did: talked to fill that accusing void. “Pete, if I could have – if I were a private citizen, I would have demanded they fire on the ship with me in it.” His voice sounded unrecognizable in his own ears.
Pete sighed. “I know that, sir. That’s why I accepted this job in the first place. You’re both – Superman always thought he had to carry the weight of the world on his own, too.”
It was the use of the past tense that broke him. “I have to go,” he said and turned his face as far into the gurney as it could go, his eyes screwed shut. Shaking as he tried to master his treacherous, weakling body. Bringing his false hand to cover his mouth, trying not to breathe too deep. Eyes closed, because he didn’t want to know that the other people in the room were watching him fall apart.
After some time, he reasserted control. Enough, at least, to get him through a press conference, and the world needed him to give a press conference. The doctor, good man that he was, had worked on through Lex’s fit, and the arm was now encased in metal and plastic, approximately the size of a fire hydrant. It was going to be a damn annoyance while healing, and a separate P.R. hell when Lana had to explain why the President’s bones knitted faster than other people’s.
“I need to make a public announcement,” he said, and the cabal of aides, assistants, deputies, secretaries, and every combinatorial possibility thereof scattered in different directions to make it happen.
Lana came to stand by his side.
“Am I ready for prime time?”
“You look like three-day-old crap. That’s okay; you’re supposed to look bloody but unbowed after being kidnapped and tortured. I want a cold pack for your eyes, so they won’t look swollen. Otherwise, no makeup.”
“Yeah, fine. You introduce me, I’ll make a brief statement, then have Fordman take over to explain what he can about the defenses and the clean-up.”
Lana nodded and hurried away. She was a good press secretary. He’d have to remember something special for her at Christmas, to compensate for yet another lost piece of her past.
Yellow
Summary: “A Kryptonian, huh? I knew this 'I'm the only one, I'm the only one' thing was just an attention-getter.”
ETA: really, read the revised version. I promise it's better.
It was an ordinary day, until the windows blew in.
Lex had been sitting with a few of his advisors, discussing the impending midterms. He would have been much happier if he could somehow have abolished or at least suspended Congress, but even Luthor power had its limits.
As the others were getting up to leave, there was a sound like God clapping His hands, and the entire office shook as shards of bulletproof, concussionproof glass flew across the room.
When Lex raised his head, he could see Secret Service agents running towards him, a few brave souls jumping in through the hole in the wall. And three big guys in black, looking grim. The one in the middle said something that was lost in the aftershock of the big bang, and the other two materialized at his sides, grabbing him by his arms and hustling him out onto the lawn, where –
A big spaceship awaited, black maw gaping and interior lights like stars seen through city haze.
In the moment he had to look at it before he was pushed inside, he thought that it didn’t look much like Clark’s little escape pod. More like an insect with a lot of spikes. How many humanoid alien races were there, anyway? Was God like Star Trek, cheap on the makeup and repeating the same pattern over and over again?
Up the ramp and inside, his assailants’ grips strong enough to grind bone against bone. His ears were recovering from the initial blast, and he could hear the whine of some type of hydraulic system as the ramp closed behind him. In the entryway/cargo bay/whatever, another dour-looking fellow, this one with a Ming-the-Merciless beard, stood posed in a leather-esque doublet and tight pants, arms crossed so as to show off his rippling muscles.
Lex cleared his throat and said, “Take me to your leader.”
“Gobble gobble de gook gook g’Krypton,” the man said, and a little reddish box on his hip said, “Greetings, Mr. President. We are Kryptonians.”
Computerized translation – pretty damn cool. Under other circumstances. “Why have you attacked my people and kidnapped me?”
“Gobble gobble Kal-el gook g’gook ‘Superman,’” he said, and Lex had time to think ‘oh shit’ before the box chirped, “We are here to arrest Kal-el, traitor and son of traitors, whom you call ‘Superman.’”
“Traitor? As I recall, Mr. – whoever you are – Superman arrived on Earth as little more than a baby. It’s hard to imagine what crime against the state he might have committed before he could walk.”
“I am Zoltar,” the man said stiffly, and it was not too different from talking to a foreign head of state whose language he didn’t speak. His mind adjusted to screen out the nonsense words, while listening for the original tone. “Kal-el carries the blood of Lara and Jor-el, whose crimes are directly responsible for the death of our world. His life is forfeit for their treachery.”
Zoltar was lying; Lex believed this without question or hesitation. Clark could never have come from parents who could obliterate the world. A legacy like that would have manifested itself just as his own had. “Here on Earth we don’t believe that children are guilty of whatever their parents did.” Well, that wasn’t entirely true, viz. Jonathan Kent, but the subtleties didn’t need explanation.
“We are not of Earth,” Zoltar pointed out.
“Superman is, now. We won’t ask him to follow a barbaric tradition.”
“We are not asking. I have altered your technology so that this conversation is being shown across all forms of media, and all men will know what taint Jor-el carries.” The translator was clunky, Lex thought as he casually checked to make sure his tie was straight.
Suddenly Zoltar was centimeters from his face. “You are an important man, Mr. President. I think perhaps Superman, the good citizen, would trade himself for you?”
Lex almost laughed out loud. Of all the people in the world, they picked *him* as the hostage? He suppressed the laughter, but not the smirk, and Zoltar’s expression grew stormy.
“A demonstration, then.” A quick motion brought two Kryptonians to bracket Lex again, holding him in the kind of bruising grip he’d thought he’d left behind in Smallville. Zoltar grabbed Lex’s left hand, held it up (presumably so the camera angle would be right; combined with the rough trade getups, these Kryptonians were revealing a real knack for political theater), and snapped the pinky finger at the second joint.
The pain was somewhere in between a pistolwhipping and a stab wound to the shoulder. The effect was singularly unaesthetic. The finger listed to the side and above the rest of his hand at a clearly unnatural angle. Lex clenched his teeth and didn’t cry out.
“I understand that there are over two hundred bones in the human body,” Zoltar said. “How many do you think I will have to break before Superman comes?”
“Fewer than two hundred, in my case,” Lex said. “Missing a hand, you know.” He hoped that America was appreciating his John Wayne impression. And that his citizens would forgive him when he did break down.
“You’re a brave man,” Zoltar said, sounding impressed. “Kal-el is a coward, to shield himself with you.”
There really wasn’t a response to a statement that crazy, so Lex didn’t try.
He groaned a little and shed involuntary tears when Zoltar broke the metacarpals. Any time now, Clark, he thought as he bit halfway through his lip. Don’t hesitate on my account. No, I insist.
The mental patter helped, some.
It wasn’t until the Kryptonian snapped his radius and ulna at different places that he actually screamed.
“Couldn’t you have thought of a better name?” he gasped out as soon as he could, trying to find a focus other than pain. “I mean, Zoltar – it’s such a cliche. How much television did you guys watch before you showed up, anyway?”
Another frown – maybe the absence of a sense of humor really was a racial thing and not Clark-specific – and Zoltar stepped closer to administer another lesson in seriousness. He halted when another voice growled something in that ugly – inflected? – language.
“Very good,” Zoltar announced. “Kal-el approaches.”
He’d taken his own sweet time. Knowing Clark, he’d probably been off fighting a forest fire or getting a kitten out of a tree until someone had pointed him to a television.
“We will make the exchange.”
“Personally, I’d prefer a refund,” Lex grunted and then doubled over around Zoltar’s fist.
He was still struggling to stand when the walkway began to open, and the two poker-faced Kryptonians who’d held him down for Zoltar’s gentle ministrations took up positions at each side of the entrance.
Zoltar nodded at him, and Lex started to walk down, steady on his feet. He could see Clark at the bottom of the ramp, beginning his journey up.
They met halfway, which wasn’t a metaphor for anything in their lives to date.
“Hey,” Lex said and tried to smile. He hadn’t been this close to Clark since that last lab in Metropolis, lo these many years ago. “Last son of Krypton, my ass.”
“My birth parents may have been … optimistic,” Clark said. His eyes were watery. Not afraid; Clark was too good to be afraid. Maybe worried that these new aliens were right about his birth parents.
“Look,” he said and used his right hand to struggle with the chain around his neck. He doubtless looked terribly awkward, but his left arm was about as useful as a sock monkey, and probably looked a lot like one. He got the chain over his head – lack of hair was very helpful at times – and held it and its slight burden out to Clark. “I made this for you a long time ago. Put it on.”
Clark hesitated, long enough for the old pain to twist in Lex’s chest, and then accepted it, slipping it on and letting the ring bounce against the blue of his uniform.
“Tuck it under the suit, you look girly,” he ordered and had to look away.
“Come on!” Zoltar shouted from the craft.
Lex swallowed. “You were the best thing I ever ruined,” he said and pushed roughly past Clark, unwilling to touch him with only an artificial hand.
If Clark said anything in response, he didn’t hear it.
When his feet touched the lawn, the walkway began to retract into the ship. Hands hustled him away, soldiers stepping between him and the ship. The Secretary of Defense was on the other side of the lawn, watching through binoculars. Lex turned to him and nodded once.
He felt the missiles tearing up the earth a moment before he heard them, and dove for the ground even as the soldiers around him tried to protect him with their bodies. His arm screamed, and he probably did too as the bones ground against one another, trapped underneath a heavy man in camouflage.
The Kryptonite-tipped missiles hit the ship with a sound like heavy gongs. Then secondary explosions began, which was good news. He was facing downwards, getting grass stains on his shirt, and he wanted to see what was happening.
Finally, the soldiers began standing, and he was picked up and hustled into a side door to the Residence. His doctor was there, and immediately rushed over to fuss.
“Lieutenant,” he called and the soldier by the door snapped to attention. “I want a full report, now.” The doctor was cutting away his sleeves and positioning him on some sort of gurney.
“Sir,” another soldier said, holding a secure phone to Lex’s ear.
“The craft is down,” Fordman said. “We picked it up coming in about forty-five seconds before it arrived – it doesn’t seem to have been shielded from detection in any way -- and we can’t find anything else in Earth orbit. We’ve got long-range scans going up now in case there’s something further out. We used half of what we’ve got.”
Translation: if there was a mothership, Earth was fucked.
Think about that later.
“Fine. Start hazmat procedures immediately, everyone gets a filter and no children within a mile until there’s not a micron of that poison left. Collect everything you can in case – we might be able to recycle. And send a team in to – to look for Superman. Anyone else is to be treated as an active hostile and shot.”
Fordman drew in a breath. The laws of war – were never designed to apply to a war of worlds. “Yes, sir,” he said.
“You may feel a sting,” the doctor said in his other ear, but he didn’t, among the other tortured nerves.
“That better have been a local anesthetic,” he told the doctor as the soldier took the phone away.
“Your bones are broken in nearly twenty places –“
“I was present and regrettably conscious, doctor, I can assure you I’m aware of each one. Get me strapped together so I can stand in front of a camera without anything visibly poking out.”
The doctor muttered something under his breath, but wisely didn’t argue.
The phone appeared again; it was Pete, calling from somewhere over Colorado. “You all right, sir?”
“Peachy. Anything else of interest happen while I was gone?” Now his arm was being strapped to a contraption that looked as if it were made out of steel Tinker Toys and lengths of white plastic. Just great, one hand Darth Vader and the other a rank-and-file Stormtrooper.
“The stock markets all suspended trading. I’ve been pretty busy with briefings otherwise.”
“Come on home, Pete. You aren’t getting the job away from me that easily.”
“Sir? Cl – Superman was in there, wasn’t he.”
Lex swallowed. He’d managed to forget, for a few seconds. “Yeah.” His throat felt clogged, scratchy. It was necessary – once you pay the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane. Besides, the Kryptonians didn’t have anywhere else to go; they’d have tried to rule the world, and the position was already occupied. But he wasn’t about to justify himself to Pete.
Silence on the other end of the line. Would all Pete’s suspicions return, now? Though formally a Vice President was the constitutional equivalent of a backup drive, Pete’s political connections were solid enough that he could cause Lex a lot of trouble.
“Kryptonite missiles were one of your contingency plans, right?” Pete’s voice was unreadable.
Lex most definitely did not need this. “The defenses were set up in case Superman was turned somehow, maybe blackmailed. We didn’t anticipate a whole new set of players, and the only way to ensure they were subdued was to attack when they were in range and all together. We couldn’t be sure of getting another chance.”
More silence.
He did something he never did: talked to fill that accusing void. “Pete, if I could have – if I were a private citizen, I would have demanded they fire on the ship with me in it.” His voice sounded unrecognizable in his own ears.
Pete sighed. “I know that, sir. That’s why I accepted this job in the first place. You’re both – Superman always thought he had to carry the weight of the world on his own, too.”
It was the use of the past tense that broke him. “I have to go,” he said and turned his face as far into the gurney as it could go, his eyes screwed shut. Shaking as he tried to master his treacherous, weakling body. Bringing his false hand to cover his mouth, trying not to breathe too deep. Eyes closed, because he didn’t want to know that the other people in the room were watching him fall apart.
After some time, he reasserted control. Enough, at least, to get him through a press conference, and the world needed him to give a press conference. The doctor, good man that he was, had worked on through Lex’s fit, and the arm was now encased in metal and plastic, approximately the size of a fire hydrant. It was going to be a damn annoyance while healing, and a separate P.R. hell when Lana had to explain why the President’s bones knitted faster than other people’s.
“I need to make a public announcement,” he said, and the cabal of aides, assistants, deputies, secretaries, and every combinatorial possibility thereof scattered in different directions to make it happen.
Lana came to stand by his side.
“Am I ready for prime time?”
“You look like three-day-old crap. That’s okay; you’re supposed to look bloody but unbowed after being kidnapped and tortured. I want a cold pack for your eyes, so they won’t look swollen. Otherwise, no makeup.”
“Yeah, fine. You introduce me, I’ll make a brief statement, then have Fordman take over to explain what he can about the defenses and the clean-up.”
Lana nodded and hurried away. She was a good press secretary. He’d have to remember something special for her at Christmas, to compensate for yet another lost piece of her past.
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