Summary: To save Lois's life, Clark makes a bargain with Lex. Complications ensue.
Clark/Lex, R for sexual situations and Lex being a big jerk; also (mainly offscreen) violence. If you think things like mating bonds pose issues of consent, then there are definitely issues of consent here, though not exactly mating bonds. Well, Lex in himself is a walking issue of consent, isn't he?
I should probably mention that I'm ignoring much of anything past S5.
Written for![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
mahaliem in the livelongnmarry auction. Thanks to Mary Ellen Curtin, geekturnedvamp , Gin, and Moselle Green for beta, especially ME's point about what always happens to Lex in my stories.
Read the whole thing here.
"Lois, don't," Clark said, and ever after he lived with the knowledge that if he'd used the superspeed, he could have swept her away before she opened the box. But he was still just Clark to her, and he wanted candles and flowers (and, to be honest, a place to hide while she got over the inevitable tantrum) when he did reveal himself, so he just yelled. Naturally, she ignored him, and gave the hinge a solid whack with her flashlight so that the lid popped up.
A brown cloud puffed out, enveloping her head and upper torso. Clark caught the scent of strawberries.
"Shi—" Lois began, and fell over gracelessly.
Clark did catch her before she landed, at least.
****
Lex was automatically notified of the intrusion alarm via a discreet IM on his computer, because the characteristics suggested a superpower-aided assault. If nothing else, LuthorCorp had the best event analysis software on the market; it'd made Lex a killing on emergency preparedness contracts.
Somehow it never seemed to keep Superman out, though.
This time, the target was—
Lex looked at the display and cursed.
****
"This is the sample I retrieved from LuthorCorp," Clark told Bruce, who took the vial with the expected caution. "The doctors at Met General say they can keep her breathing indefinitely, but her organs are showing signs of stress and, and—"
Lois Lane was a beautiful woman, but more than that she was a beautiful mind, quicksilver-fast and monofilament-sharp. The idea that whole sectors of her brain were shutting down under the stress of whatever Lex had been hiding in that box was too painful to bear.
Clark had no time to spend on recriminations. Not yet.
****
Lex hadn't checked in on Project A238 in several weeks, and then only to skim the summary. Reading the detailed reports now, he was impressed with the progress of the neurotoxin. It was a very good thing that LuthorCorp had all those Bush-era contracts squirreled away, never cancelled due to excellent (and expensive) lobbying. Otherwise what they'd been working on in that room would have been a federal crime. As it was, LuthorCorp was violating international law—but no one was likely to try to extradite Lex for it. At least not as long as Lex kept the matter quiet.
If Lois Lane died, he was not going to be able to keep the matter quiet.
He stared at the chemical formula and thought.
****
The penthouse was the only part of LuthorCorp that wasn't lead-lined. Clark figured Lex preferred a defined point of contact, and Clark needed that right now.
Somehow Lex's sensors had caught his direction early enough that Lex was properly posed before Clark touched down. Or maybe Lex waited like that all day long, glass in hand, contemplating the city he essentially owned.
But Lex didn't speak first, as if he thought it would be a defeat to do so. Clark just didn't care. "Lois needs your help."
Lex didn't move. Outlined against the deep blue-gray of Metropolis dusk, his head was a smooth dark shape, a hole cut in the world. Then he took a careful sip of his drink. "There's no cure, no antidote. She inhaled a potent toxin for which there is no known antitoxin. I suggest heavy doses of morphine. At least she can go easily."
"Luthor, you have to do something. You're killing her!"
"Don't try that with me. Not this time." The snap in Lex's voice was what a sudden frost must feel like to ordinary humans, waking to find the world gone cold. "You not wearing protective gear I can understand, but Lane? How many warning signs did you have to ignore to get in there?"
"Four," Clark said without thinking.
"Actually it was five," Lex corrected, swiveling to face him at last, "but the point stands. The bank robber doesn't get to blame the bank for leaving its money so temptingly in the vault." He put his glass down on his desk, a solid slab of one of LuthorCorp's prize products—transparent aluminum, Lex called it, which was some sort of joke. Like Lex, it looked fragile, but it could survive a holocaust untouched while everything around it crisped to ashes.
"Lois is dying." Lex was a stone statue, a graveyard monument. Clark wanted to reach out and shake him until the layers peeled off and he was Smallville's Lex again, Clark's Lex like when they'd first met, when he could have asked Lex for the moon and Lex would have reached up and ripped it out of the sky for him. "Lex, please." He took a deep breath as the world shimmered.
The tears were cool on his face when he knelt, echoing the long-ago time he remembered, even if Lex didn't, when Lex hadn't been Lex, but Zod. "Please."
Lex stared at him like he'd turned into a monster right in front of Lex's eyes, then looked away. "Lane's been a hindrance for years. If I were to put my scientists on the problem, you'd need to offer suitable compensation."
Clark gasped, loud and wet in the silent office. But he wouldn't have come if he hadn't been willing to beg. "What do you want?"
Lex's hands clenched into fists, right at Clark's eye level. "Far more than you can give me." Then, as if every word broke one of his bones, "But you can help."
He let the pause go on long enough to be dramatic. "Standing on the Jewel of truth and honor, in the presence of statues depicting your biological parents, we will perform the Ritual of Rao and exchange bracelets symbolizing your trust and faith in me and mine in you," Lex said, and it was like every lecture he'd ever given Clark except for the small matter of the blackmail.
Also: "What are you talking about?" Clark demanded, getting to his feet so that he could think through the humiliation. He'd never heard of the ritual of Rao. He knew Rao was the god of the sun, which meant that Rao was responsible for Krypton's death (if you believed in that kind of thing, which Clark didn't), and thus perfectly appropriate for Lex's own destructive impulses. But his Kryptonian education had never included any Rao-based rituals.
Lex smiled thinly. "Is that really a question you want to waste your time with?"
He'd never been quite certain what Lex had taken away from the Fortress, all those years ago. If Lex had snuck out with some data crystals, it was possible that he'd managed to analyze them, and extract—well, all things considered, Kryptonian cultural rituals weren't that bad.
"Why?" he asked. He put his hands on his hips, and Lex pressed his lips together in that familiar angry line, plainly recognizing that Clark wouldn't proceed without an answer to that question.
"I would think it would be obvious," Lex bit out. "With Superman at my side, all those past allegations will be forgotten, which will be a blessing for my presidential campaign. Of course part of the bargain is that you can't tell anyone why you're standing at my side. Not even your beloved partner."
"I'm not going to help you destroy—"
Lex raised his hand. "You can do whatever you want in private. I'm not asking you to stop your relentless assault on my special projects. But in public, you will smile and agree that I am the one man you trust enough to perform this ritual with, or else you'd better start writing Lane's obituary. You've got five minutes. Pull your usual Hamlet and she's already dead."
****
Lex retreated to his vault while Clark angsted. Being surrounded by the weird green glow of Kryptonite was as close as Lex got to comfort: chunks of chaos, secured under his control. The vault contained all his extraterrestrial treasures: pieces of advanced alien technology indistinguishable from mystical artifacts, fragments of space weapons so advanced they could take out a star system, a chunk of Doomsday's hide kept at absolute zero and enspelled by one of Lex's contract wizards so that it wouldn't start growing again. Little things like that.
He needed the familiarity and the reminders of his wealth. Negotiating with Clark was like being stabbed, sharp silvery pain that hurt more the more Lex let himself think about it. He hated his own weakness; an addict clinging to that which dragged him down.
But there was always so much to say to Clark. And this time, maybe, there was a chance he could get a step ahead. Clark needed him, more than he'd ever needed Lex's money and power back in Smallville. This was Metropolis, where the stakes were always higher.
It was only fair that Lex should get more out of his generosity than a chance at Clark's extremely variable respect.
He should have felt more triumph, he supposed. But years of having defeat kick him in the teeth every time he so much as considered a victorious curl of his lips had made him superstitious.
In a way, having the bracelets prepared, just in case an opportunity arose, branded him a hopeless optimist. But only in a way.
****
"What is that?" Clark demanded, horrified, when Lex returned from his cabinet of wonders. The black thing Lex was holding out was thick and rounded, puffy like a tire for a miniature moon lander. It looked like nothing more than an alien leech.
"A bracelet of binding," Lex said, managing to make the words sound completely serious, the same way he managed to make baldness look like a fashion statement. "Purple would clash too much with your ridiculous costume, so I will accept black."
Clark gaped at him. "I have to wear one too," Lex said, sounding miffed. "This is your heritage."
"I don't want it," Clark pointed out.
Lex shook his head. "No, you don't like some of the consequences. If you didn't want it, you wouldn't do it. As you've demonstrated repeatedly, no one on Earth can force you to do anything, and certainly I can't."
Clark didn't know where to begin with that. Or more accurately, he didn't know where it had ended, where he and Lex had diverged so much that Lex could pretend that caving in to extortion was somehow an exercise of free will. He almost asked Lex what had happened to him, but that was a diversion and Lex wouldn't know how to answer anyway.
"Let's get this over with," he said.
"Take us to your arctic hideaway," Lex instructed him, and Clark did.
Once they arrived, Lex called Mercy and told her to start work on Lois, keeping his side of the bargain. Clark still didn't trust Lex as far as he could throw him (though in fairness, he could throw Lex pretty far), but Lex did value his contracts.
It turned out that the Fortress could generate statues of his parents, twice as big as life and blindly staring. Clark would have liked to spend some time gawking at them. But right now he couldn't make himself lift his head enough to see them, because Lex ordered him to stand in front of them like—like they were standing together in a church.
"In the name of Rao, who kindled the sun," Lex began in passable Kryptonian. Clark blushed at the awfulness of it. Clark stared at the feet of the statue in front of him and tried not to fidget.
"In the name of Rao, who shaped the moons," Lex continued. Clark did his best to ignore him.
"Kal-El!" Hearing his Kryptonian name in Lex's angry tones made Clark snap his head up. Lex glared at him and wriggled the bracelet. Clark held out his right arm like a caught criminal awaiting manacles.
Lex continued, "I pledge to you my care and honor. My hope is ever in you." Clark would have expected the words to be mocking, but they were drained of all emotion, as if a computer had generated them. Lex took a deep breath and pushed the bracelet around Clark's wrist. The material was dull black, nonmetallic, no more chill than the air of the Fortress. The edge of the clasp slid along his skin, and then it closed around him. Clark felt a hot bright jolt, like flying through a sunspot, and shuddered in place.
Lex held out a second bracelet. "Now you."
Clark swallowed and grabbed the bracelet without touching Lex's fingers. "Uh, in the name of Rao, who shaped the moons," he began.
"'In the name of Rao, who kindled the sun,'" Lex hissed.
Like it mattered what order he used in this farce. But that was Lex all over, preferring form to content. Clark corrected himself and started again.
"'I pledge to you my faith and trust, my duty always to you,'" Lex prompted.
He hesitated, looking at the bracelet around his wrist. It was a solid ring of black, no sign it had ever been split at all. He didn't recognize the technology.
"Are you sure this won't hurt a non-Kryptonian?" he asked, desperate.
Lex tilted his head and waited.
Lois, waiting for him. Lois, for whom his word was given.
"I pledge to you my faith and trust, my duty always to you," Clark said, the words stumbling over themselves in his haste to get them out. He almost dropped the bracelet, and then he almost closed it so that it would have caught a flap of Lex's skin inside, but years of taking care over human fragility stopped him, and he ended up cradling Lex's wrist in both his hands as he slowly brought the ends of the bracelet together over the inside of Lex's right wrist, where the veins stood out royal purple under too-pale skin.
Lex twitched. Clark's thumb slipped, pressing against Lex's lifeline, the crease in his palm that went all the way to his wrist. Clark always remembered Lex's skin as cool, legacy of that very first touch when Lex had been shivering wet from the river, but this time the contact sent a gout of heat through him, as if whatever process sealed the bracelet had thrown off enough excess energy to melt steel. Clark couldn't breathe as he checked Lex's skin for burns, but apparently it had been mere illusion, just nervousness and anger leading to phantom pain.
"That's enough," Lex said roughly, pulling back. His mouth pinched in its familiar angry pout when he had to wait for Clark to release him. "Let's get back to Metropolis. I have a press release to issue, and I imagine you have a bedside to wait by."
****
Clark dropped Lex on the rooftop at LuthorCorp and was instantly gone, not even a dot disappearing into the sky. Lex wondered sometimes why Clark's passage didn't do more collateral damage. Even the laws of physics were inclined to cut Superman some slack, as if, instead of Planck and Heisenberg and Doppler, Clark's every move were attended by the little cartoon bluebirds that dressed Cinderella.
Lex snorted to himself at the image as he punched his code into the lock on the roof door. If they were doing Disney, then he supposed he had to be the evil uncle. Though the man he had to kill to achieve his kingdom was far from a kind and gentle ruler.
Fairy tales were so very Smallville. Metropolis was more a graphic novel type of place, he thought as he listened to the rattle of his feet pounding down the stairs. This building employed over two thousand people, and still the stairwell was empty, his own noises echoing back to him like he was the only one left after a neutron bomb. Almost, he wished he could stay like this, free from the demands and imperfections of others.
He'd have to look into automating the building, once the other items on his agenda had been settled.
****
Oliver called within fifteen minutes. The nurses gave Clark dirty looks, and he took his cell outside the hospital room.
"What did you do?" Oliver demanded.
"Pretty much what Lex is saying."
"Clark! How could you? Unless you take it back—"
"I gave my word, Oliver."
Oliver made a sound of disbelief mixed with disgust. "I'm gonna send Bruce—"
"Don't," Clark told him. "We'll figure it out. But it's done and there's no going back."
Oliver hung up on him. Clark couldn't really blame him. He checked through the walls and saw that Lois's vital signs were steadily improving. The LuthorCorp treatment was restoring her body, and more importantly, her brain activity was increasing every minute.
She was going to be fine. That was the only thing he wanted; the rest could be fixed later.
****
Security foiled three intrusions before Batman arrived. Between one blink and the next, he was there, silhouetted against the window. Lex put his drink down on his desk and wished, quite profoundly, that he could afford to kick the Bat so hard that the caped crusader would fall back through the reinforced glass. Batman would just use his gear to grab onto some part of the building and thus avoid pancaking, so it would only be a temporary pleasure, but there was plenty to be said for temporary pleasures.
"Which part of the threats and insults do you want to skip?" he asked instead of lunging. Batman would just dodge anyway and Lex wasn't in the mood for humiliation. The preliminary polls were—frankly, he'd never been much impressed with the intelligence of the average voter, but even he was surprised how much difference Superman's endorsement was projected to make. Point being, no dark avenger was going to get him down tonight.
Batman stared at him.
"All of them, then? I approve," he said, smiling his nastiest smile. "You're watching me, I'm watching you, we're all dangerous voyeurs and if I try to exploit Superman I'd better be prepared for the consequences. You'll let me know if there was anything I missed, of course." He dropped his gaze and considered pouring himself another slug, but he wasn't actually finished with his present drink and so the performance wouldn't have been convincing.
Batman stared at him.
Lex didn't roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. "Three options: talk, leave, or get ready for Mercy." Lex didn't think Mercy had a mosquito's chance against Batman, but it never hurt to watch an opponent fight. There was something to be learned from watching his best warrior get her ass handed to her.
Batman stared at him.
Lex reached out and slapped the security button. If Batman was in the mood to harass him, then there'd be no one awake to come running, but that would be interesting information as well.
But no, ten seconds and Lex heard the door from the main office start to open. Lex didn't see Batman's hands move, but the space where he'd been was suddenly surrounded by a dark gray cloud that smelled like licorice and burning leaves. Lex winced; another carpet lost.
Mercy charged into his line of sight, wearing a gas mask (another one skittered across the desk to rest between Lex's hands as she rushed towards the cloud; he appreciated the thought even if he was already exposed). She produced a foil from somewhere as equally mysterious as the source of Batman's smoke grenade and slashed it through the thick coils that were only slowly sinking downwards. It was pro forma, because obviously the Bat had flown, and yet Lex felt better for seeing her do it.
He wasn't worried about the threat implied by the Batman's ability to penetrate his security. Well, not deeply worried. Superheroes were so constrained by their nonlethal morality.
****
They cornered Clark at last after a foiled bank robbery in Star City, where he was patrolling while Green Arrow was off doing things Clark didn't want to know about in a country Oliver had refused to name. Oliver wasn't as accommodating of the press as Clark, for reasons that were pretty obvious, so Star City reporters had become used to descending in a crush whenever they got the chance. Clark didn't feel it was polite to fly off without a brief interview.
Unfortunately, they weren't much interested in the bank robbery, or even in Green Arrow's absence.
"Superman! Superman! Lex Luthor says that you've undergone the Ritual of Rao with him, indicating your trust and support for him. Is it true?"
Clark looked at the bracelet on his wrist. He'd spent so much time twisting it that if he were human he was sure he'd have a rash by now. But as with everything else, his body stayed stubbornly unmarked.
"Superman!"
He had to say something about the damned bracelet. Of course Kryptonians couldn't have their rituals confirmed with secret symbols, like Mormon underwear. No, they had to go for the most undeniable displays. And he had to keep his word. The fact that he and Lex never outright lied to each other was the only thing that had kept both of them alive and Metropolis largely intact over the past decade. Break that truce, even for the best of reasons, and the longterm consequences would be much worse.
"Yes, Lex and I performed the Ritual of Rao," Clark said, not looking at any particular reporter.
"In your own words, what is the Ritual of Rao?" a woman shouted out from the back of the crowd.
Clark took a deep breath. Lex was right, this would rehabilitate his reputation with a substantial percentage of the city, and even the nation. It would strengthen his campaign, maybe enough to get him elected, even if Clark refused to endorse him. "The Ritual of Rao," he began slowly, "is a ceremony that two people perform when they hold one another in high esteem."
How could he live with himself after this? Aiding Lex Luthor's rise to power, after so many years of fighting his every step. Stopping a nuclear power plant here or an unlicensed drug trial there, those were trivial compared to swearing fealty to Lex on a national stage.
And then, quite suddenly, he had the answer.
Clark raised his head and looked directly into the nearest camera. "Basically," he said, "it's a marriage."
He flew away before any of them recovered enough to ask a follow-up.
****
If Lionel had still been alive, Lex would have known fifteen minutes sooner that he'd entered into a sodomitical marriage. Realizing that gave Lex his first and only regret over his father's death.
As it happened, Lex found out the news when he left the meeting with the representatives of the Export Bank of China. The crush of media was so great that it overwhelmed Mercy, who was under strict orders not to cause grievous bodily harm within view of a camera. "When did you know you were gay?" was the nicest, least intrusive question he heard.
Lex threw himself into the limo and slammed the door. Mercy would have to find her own way back. "Drive!" he snapped.
By the time he returned to the LuthorCorp tower, the stock was down five percent, every major news network and Oprah had called to ask for an interview, and his Iowa coordinator had resigned. His Facebook group, however, had gained ten thousand adherents.
Perhaps his fate was to go through life with some sort of reverse Midas touch.
That night, The Daily Show's segment on him was called Red to Blew. "Conservative presidential candidate Lex Luthor shocked the nation today when it was revealed that he got gay married to Superman," Jon Stewart said, smirking all the while. "Apparently he didn't realize that you don't automatically win the Iowa primary just by being married to another guy. To do that, you have to get gay married in Iowa. We go now to our senior gay correspondent, Aasif Mandvi."
As Lex watched in horrified fascination, after Stewart and Mandvi bantered a while over the meaning of "gay correspondent," Mandvi and Hugo Huang (junior gay correspondent) debated whether Lex topped or bottomed. Mandvi maintained that obviously, if a notorious playboy like Lex was going to take it up the ass from anyone, it would have to be Superman, while Huang engaged in a bit of armchair physiology and suggested that Superman-on-bottom was less dangerous, since a real pounding from Superman would tear a human apart: "You remember those anti-gun ads where the bullet hits the apple? Like that, but with semen."
Then Stewart jumped in to point out that there was a potential for a crush wound from the otherworldly power of Superman's ass, which made Huang wince and cross his legs. In fact, that observation made Lex wince also, though the five glasses of brandy he'd had since the segment began might also have had something to do with his relative empathy. "You know, those are all concerns with a woman, too," Lex told the television, even as Stewart ended on a joke about how the two of them might just lie in bed and jerk each other off—"and every woman in the audience just passed out," Stewart finished. "We'll be right back."
Not on Lex's television. He managed not to throw the remote through the screen—replacing electronics was embarrassing, and anyway he suspected his aim was off—but he did hit the power before picking up the brandy and swallowing another few ounces.
The proximity alarm went off, and it took Lex three tries to find the display.
Superman was hovering outside the penthouse, arms crossed like a gaudy Oscar statuette.
Lex hit the button to let him in, then got to his feet. He had the feeling he was going to want the freedom to pace.
"Here to gloat?" he asked, turning his back as he poured himself another drink.
"I'm following your rules," Clark said from approximately ten feet behind him.
"So, yes, then." Lex couldn't blame him. It had been a brilliant piece of political strategy. "Who suggested you do that? Bruce? Or Oliver? My bet is Oliver, he's always had a better instinct for this sort of thing. Bruce knows fear, but not this kind of fear."
"I didn't—I thought of it," Clark said defiantly.
Lex turned, raising an eyebrow. Clark's scowl, even through the image distortion of the Superman illusion, reminded him of years past when Lex had dared to suggest that Lana Lang was possibly not Clark's destiny. "Congratulations, then. It does seem a bit unfair that I'm getting all the burdens of marriage without any of the benefits. So any time you'd care to perform your conjugal duties—"
Clark's eyes widened amusingly.
"You did promise," Lex said, because he was going to extract some satisfaction from this mess one way or the other, and really, leader of the free world was an ambition worth pursuing, but messing with Clark's head was always going to be more tempting. Not to mention more immediately gratifying. "I liked how you were when you came begging to me, on your knees. I suggest you start there."
Lex had faced a lot of unexpected events in his relatively short and eventful life. Even counting meteor attack, meteor mutant attack, attempted murder by plane crash, possession by alien entity, and—well, point made—he had never found it harder to maintain his cool than when Clark actually went to his knees. From anyone else, he would have anticipated some devastating taunt, something about what Lex would never have, but that wasn't Clark, so Lex's brain just locked up like New York in rush hour. Clark stared at Lex, looking almost amazed by his own boldness, and then started crossing the room.
On hands and knees.
Lex nearly lost his balance with the rush of arousal. And then Clark was in front of him, reaching for his trousers—impatient with the catches and buttons, tearing, ten thousand dollars of Hong Kong wool gone in an instant—"Turn off that fucking illusion," Lex snarled, because as much as he wanted that mouth on him, he'd set himself on fire to avoid touching Superman. Clark did, instantly, even though Lex couldn't see how it was controlled; maybe it was purely mental, he thought, before the sight of Clark's mussed dark curls and red red lips drove speculation from his consciousness.
****
Waking up was nearly as disconcerting as when Clark had shuddered back to life in his tomb after everyone thought Doomsday had killed him. The differences: sunlight instead of pitch-blackness, the pleasurable ache of tiredness instead of the full-body bruising that had lasted weeks, and the utter and complete shock. Dying was one thing—Clark had always understood that he was going to die eventually—but sleeping with Lex Luthor (not to mention the sex), now, that was as close to inconceivable as anything that had ever happened to Clark, including parallel universes, bodyswaps, and that one time he got pregnant with the last survivors of a dying species.
Now would be a really good time to be comfortable cursing, Clark thought as he sped back into his uniform. He barely remembered to restore the image enhancer that gave him Superman's face; he never wore the uniform without the enhancer, except that when Lex had told him to be Clark he'd felt such overwhelming relief that abandoning the enhancer had been as automatic as breathing.
At least superspeed let him dress himself and sneak out without waking Lex.
Lex, who was sprawled out and still taking up only a tiny fraction of his half-acre bed, the dark and stained sheets covering only his lower legs. The sheets had been softer than butterfly wings against their skin. Lex had muttered words about giving up purple for blue, but Clark wasn't trying to remember what Lex had said, sonnets composed on the fly as Lex's hands had worked him over like Lex was sculpting him out of clay. Relaxed with sleep, Lex's skin was pale everywhere, veins tracing over him like lacework, the heavy muscles of his shoulders and back so much bulkier than they'd been when he and Lex had been kids in Smallville.
Clark had left marks last night; Lex never could. But Lex was already healed, so Clark guessed they were even.
When Lex had ordered Clark to—to service him, Clark had meant to scoff and storm out, same as ever even if the topics had grown more adult. But then.
Then he hadn't.
Clark zoomed back to his apartment, where the sight of Lex wouldn't distract him so much. He started coffee, which unfortunately couldn't be made at superspeed (this, Clark knew from vile experience) and paced, human-slow, around his living room, which was smaller than Lex's bed. No, bad comparison.
The way Lex had sounded, his voice like smoked quartz, when he'd opened Clark up. The taste of him, brandy and oranges and a hint of metal.
Clark shook his head. He needed to figure out what had caused last night's insanity, not obsess about the details.
The Ritual of Rao. The words Clark had said had been different from the words Lex had said. "Duty," Clark had said, or the Kryptonian equivalent, and then Lex had repeated it last night, right before he'd demanded sex.
Maybe "duty" wasn't the full translation, and maybe the Ritual of Rao was more powerful than even Lex realized. Clark stared at the bracelet around his wrist, feeling newly betrayed by it.
If Lex could order Superman around, then Clark's bargain had been a much worse one than he'd thought. Lex wouldn't need to be electable: with his brains and Clark's powers, even the rest of the Justice League couldn't hold him off.
The only hope was that Lex didn't realize the extent of what he'd gotten from Clark. Lex had seemed shocked last night, under the thin layer of calm he could manage in any situation. Maybe he thought that Clark had just given in to a longstanding passion, never acknowledged when they'd been less than outright enemies and only acted on now because there was nothing left for them to lose.
Ridiculous, of course, but maybe Lex would believe it. Lex always did like the most complicated explanations.
Somehow, Clark would have to keep Lex from giving direct orders. And if Lex did demand that Superman assist his plots, Clark would have to figure out how to obey in the least helpful way possible, just like he'd done with the whole gay marriage scandal.
He could do this, he thought as he changed into his reporter's outfit. If it kept Lex convinced that the Ritual of Rao was just a set of words, Clark could pretend that he wanted to do those things with Lex.
****
Lex made himself—let himself—roll off, putting a few inches between them on the bed, and swallowed down on the noise that wanted to leave his throat. Beside him, Clark was breathing heavily, and Lex tried to decide if that was just some sort of habit, a useless unconscious gesture. Probably the panting was real, or as real as Clark ever got, because it made sense that his heart—or whatever he used for a heart—would speed up during sex, even if it wasn't exactly strenuous in the usual human sense.
"Whoa," Clark said, almost like he was talking to himself. For some reason, Lex very much wanted to get up and flee to his office. But that would be weakness, even if Clark wouldn't understand it as such.
He hadn't expected Clark to show up again so soon. He'd thought there would be at least a few days of agonizing, and then most likely accusations of manipulation.
Instead, he'd looked up from his computer screen, meaning to watch night fall on Metropolis. When the blue sky took the leap into darkness, he felt closer to his city than at any other time. They were both always transitioning from one thing to the next, always ready to light up fiercely.
Instead of the post-sunset blue, all he'd seen was Clark, already out of his Superman drag. The expression on Clark's face had been new, for all that Lex would have sworn that he'd rifled through every one of Clark's secrets.
After that Lex's memory was uncharacteristically blurry. He remembered everything about Clark's skin (slick, quickly sweaty; smooth except for the occasional mole) and Clark's mouth (sharp teeth, a predator's; there could be only one of him, at the top of the food chain) and Clark's hands (moving him like all his intense workouts were irrelevant, and of course they were; positioning him for maximum accessibility) and even Clark's eyes (shocked almost, wide and green as Lex's dreams of other worlds to conquer). But the physics of it, how they'd moved from LexCorp to his bedroom, that wasn't so clear. Though Lex was pretty sure that the first time had been in the office, which made the return on his investment in one-way glass a lot more substantial.
The bed smelled of them, damp salt and that special note of pure Clark, something like sandalwood cut with fresh grass—always a hint of green growing things, as if Clark's boundless vitality was going to spill over and leave flowers blooming in his wake.
The bracelet was warm around his wrist, like it had held on to the heat they made between them. Lex wanted to twist it, just to feel the unknown metal slide around him, a piece of a destroyed world that he'd shaped to his own devices. But he could already sense the nervous habit that wanted to form, and he couldn't have a blatant tell like that, so instead he just pressed his arm down a little, letting the edges of it dig into his skin.
His scientists had been unable to penetrate the secrets of this bit of Kryptonian technology. They speculated that what looked like metal was actually a complex nanodevice. It made about as much sense as any other explanation.
Clark sighed, almost soundless. Lex stared up at the ceiling, pure white twenty feet over his head. "I should go," Clark said. Lex could hear the bedsheets rustling as Clark shifted, whisper of skin on silk.
Lex swallowed. "Then go," he said—he wasn't going to fucking beg, those days were over and blasted apart. What they were doing now, he thought as Clark rolled to the edge of the bed and began gathering his clothes, had nothing to do with the early years in Smallville. Well, of course, the desire was still the same. It had been so long that every cell in his body had been replaced, but the desire was burned in deeper than that. It was like being bald: something he'd learned to accommodate, and even occasionally to use as a motivator.
But the friendship was gone. Now they had bargains. Bargains, and this.
****
Lois alternated between glaring at Clark and looking over his shoulder at the lights of the city. She was dressed to maim: tight black vest over crisp white shirt, skirt with creases like a switchblade, icepick heels. Even her earrings were silver daggers, edged with rubies. "I wanted to talk to you—" he told her.
"Yeah, I got that when you texted me for the fifth time."
She'd made him wait for ten minutes on the top of the Planet.
"I know you're probably wondering—"
"Wondering. No, I am not wondering. I am considering how to have you locked up so you can get your head looked at! I mean, obviously you made a deal to save me, which on the one hand I approve of, but on the other—marrying that snake? You could at least've bargained him down!"
He wanted to protest that her life was not a used car. Before the words came out, he remembered Lex's condition: don't admit the truth to anyone. That was an easy rule for him.
"It's not like that," he said, gently enough that she stopped sputtering and really examined him. "I was serious when I went through the Ritual."
Her mouth opened in shock. She fumbled for her cigarettes; Clark hadn't managed to steal the latest pack, so she was able to retrieve one. She'd tried to get him to light one with heat vision for a couple of months, before she'd decided that Superman was as humorless as Clark on the topic of smoking. Fishing the lighter out of the flotsam of her purse gave her something to do with her hands, and it meant that she didn't have to look the man she was halfway in love with—who was also maybe halfway in love with her—in the eyes while he explained that he had kind of married someone else, without even having the decency to tell her first.
Clark knew Lois better than she probably wanted to be known.
"Okay," she said when she'd sucked in a long hit, "so you guys, what, were pulling each other's pigtails all these years? Let me guess, Kryptonian courtship rituals consist of blowing shit up and attempted murder?" Her voice hardly shook at all, but the bobbing of the ember at the end of the cigarette was a small betrayal.
"It's complicated," he said. "I—He—" Lex could make him avoid the truth, but he couldn't lie, not about this. He put his hand around the bracelet; it disappeared beneath his fingers, and he could feel it like a band around his heart.
"Or is the sex just that good?" Lois asked, titanium-edged. "Lord knows his reputation—Holy shit." She sounded like she'd just witnessed an alien abduction; Clark knew this for a fact. "It really is the sex, isn't it?"
The Superman projection mimicked Clark's own expressions. Apparently it also transmitted blushes. "I don't—"
"Well, the Planet won't print that," Lois said, more regretful than he'd heard her up to this point. "Lex Luthor, intergalactic Casanova. Now I kinda wish I'd—"
"Lois," Clark said, pained.
"Sorry, sorry," she said, waving her free hand at him apologetically. And like that she was Lois Lane again, the girl who hid all her hurts behind a shell as impenetrable as Superman's skin. "So, what happens to all your anti-Luthor activities?"
Clark had thought a lot about this answer, especially now that he had to avoid demands from Lex. "LuthorCorp is still subject to the same laws as everyone else. When I see a violation of the law, I plan to act."
Lois took another drag of her cigarette and cupped her elbow in her palm as she turned towards LuthorCorp Tower. "I guess now you can put him on the couch if he acts up. Maybe that's the incentive he needs to start behaving."
Clark shook his head. "Not even Lex understands what makes Lex tick. I wouldn't make any predictions." It was the closest he could come to warning her that he couldn't be the guardian of Metropolis any more, not when Lex was involved.
She looked at him sidelong, her gaze still scalpel-sharp. "I never thought I'd say this, but: good luck with Lex. I have the feeling we'll all need it."
"Lois, you've been—" 'A good friend' was not entirely accurate; 'a pain in the ass' was too harsh, even if she'd understand exactly what he meant. "I need you to keep me honest, now more than ever. If I—Lex can be persuasive. Don't let me forget the costs of his plans."
Her eyes softened, the way he'd imagined they would have looked if he'd ever managed to declare himself to her. The chill wind of evening closing in on them whipped strands of her ponytail around her shoulders, and she smiled, wide and wry. "I'd like to see you try to stop me."
Part 2
Clark/Lex, R for sexual situations and Lex being a big jerk; also (mainly offscreen) violence. If you think things like mating bonds pose issues of consent, then there are definitely issues of consent here, though not exactly mating bonds. Well, Lex in himself is a walking issue of consent, isn't he?
I should probably mention that I'm ignoring much of anything past S5.
Written for
mahaliem in the livelongnmarry auction. Thanks to Mary Ellen Curtin, geekturnedvamp , Gin, and Moselle Green for beta, especially ME's point about what always happens to Lex in my stories.Read the whole thing here.
"Lois, don't," Clark said, and ever after he lived with the knowledge that if he'd used the superspeed, he could have swept her away before she opened the box. But he was still just Clark to her, and he wanted candles and flowers (and, to be honest, a place to hide while she got over the inevitable tantrum) when he did reveal himself, so he just yelled. Naturally, she ignored him, and gave the hinge a solid whack with her flashlight so that the lid popped up.
A brown cloud puffed out, enveloping her head and upper torso. Clark caught the scent of strawberries.
"Shi—" Lois began, and fell over gracelessly.
Clark did catch her before she landed, at least.
****
Lex was automatically notified of the intrusion alarm via a discreet IM on his computer, because the characteristics suggested a superpower-aided assault. If nothing else, LuthorCorp had the best event analysis software on the market; it'd made Lex a killing on emergency preparedness contracts.
Somehow it never seemed to keep Superman out, though.
This time, the target was—
Lex looked at the display and cursed.
****
"This is the sample I retrieved from LuthorCorp," Clark told Bruce, who took the vial with the expected caution. "The doctors at Met General say they can keep her breathing indefinitely, but her organs are showing signs of stress and, and—"
Lois Lane was a beautiful woman, but more than that she was a beautiful mind, quicksilver-fast and monofilament-sharp. The idea that whole sectors of her brain were shutting down under the stress of whatever Lex had been hiding in that box was too painful to bear.
Clark had no time to spend on recriminations. Not yet.
****
Lex hadn't checked in on Project A238 in several weeks, and then only to skim the summary. Reading the detailed reports now, he was impressed with the progress of the neurotoxin. It was a very good thing that LuthorCorp had all those Bush-era contracts squirreled away, never cancelled due to excellent (and expensive) lobbying. Otherwise what they'd been working on in that room would have been a federal crime. As it was, LuthorCorp was violating international law—but no one was likely to try to extradite Lex for it. At least not as long as Lex kept the matter quiet.
If Lois Lane died, he was not going to be able to keep the matter quiet.
He stared at the chemical formula and thought.
****
The penthouse was the only part of LuthorCorp that wasn't lead-lined. Clark figured Lex preferred a defined point of contact, and Clark needed that right now.
Somehow Lex's sensors had caught his direction early enough that Lex was properly posed before Clark touched down. Or maybe Lex waited like that all day long, glass in hand, contemplating the city he essentially owned.
But Lex didn't speak first, as if he thought it would be a defeat to do so. Clark just didn't care. "Lois needs your help."
Lex didn't move. Outlined against the deep blue-gray of Metropolis dusk, his head was a smooth dark shape, a hole cut in the world. Then he took a careful sip of his drink. "There's no cure, no antidote. She inhaled a potent toxin for which there is no known antitoxin. I suggest heavy doses of morphine. At least she can go easily."
"Luthor, you have to do something. You're killing her!"
"Don't try that with me. Not this time." The snap in Lex's voice was what a sudden frost must feel like to ordinary humans, waking to find the world gone cold. "You not wearing protective gear I can understand, but Lane? How many warning signs did you have to ignore to get in there?"
"Four," Clark said without thinking.
"Actually it was five," Lex corrected, swiveling to face him at last, "but the point stands. The bank robber doesn't get to blame the bank for leaving its money so temptingly in the vault." He put his glass down on his desk, a solid slab of one of LuthorCorp's prize products—transparent aluminum, Lex called it, which was some sort of joke. Like Lex, it looked fragile, but it could survive a holocaust untouched while everything around it crisped to ashes.
"Lois is dying." Lex was a stone statue, a graveyard monument. Clark wanted to reach out and shake him until the layers peeled off and he was Smallville's Lex again, Clark's Lex like when they'd first met, when he could have asked Lex for the moon and Lex would have reached up and ripped it out of the sky for him. "Lex, please." He took a deep breath as the world shimmered.
The tears were cool on his face when he knelt, echoing the long-ago time he remembered, even if Lex didn't, when Lex hadn't been Lex, but Zod. "Please."
Lex stared at him like he'd turned into a monster right in front of Lex's eyes, then looked away. "Lane's been a hindrance for years. If I were to put my scientists on the problem, you'd need to offer suitable compensation."
Clark gasped, loud and wet in the silent office. But he wouldn't have come if he hadn't been willing to beg. "What do you want?"
Lex's hands clenched into fists, right at Clark's eye level. "Far more than you can give me." Then, as if every word broke one of his bones, "But you can help."
He let the pause go on long enough to be dramatic. "Standing on the Jewel of truth and honor, in the presence of statues depicting your biological parents, we will perform the Ritual of Rao and exchange bracelets symbolizing your trust and faith in me and mine in you," Lex said, and it was like every lecture he'd ever given Clark except for the small matter of the blackmail.
Also: "What are you talking about?" Clark demanded, getting to his feet so that he could think through the humiliation. He'd never heard of the ritual of Rao. He knew Rao was the god of the sun, which meant that Rao was responsible for Krypton's death (if you believed in that kind of thing, which Clark didn't), and thus perfectly appropriate for Lex's own destructive impulses. But his Kryptonian education had never included any Rao-based rituals.
Lex smiled thinly. "Is that really a question you want to waste your time with?"
He'd never been quite certain what Lex had taken away from the Fortress, all those years ago. If Lex had snuck out with some data crystals, it was possible that he'd managed to analyze them, and extract—well, all things considered, Kryptonian cultural rituals weren't that bad.
"Why?" he asked. He put his hands on his hips, and Lex pressed his lips together in that familiar angry line, plainly recognizing that Clark wouldn't proceed without an answer to that question.
"I would think it would be obvious," Lex bit out. "With Superman at my side, all those past allegations will be forgotten, which will be a blessing for my presidential campaign. Of course part of the bargain is that you can't tell anyone why you're standing at my side. Not even your beloved partner."
"I'm not going to help you destroy—"
Lex raised his hand. "You can do whatever you want in private. I'm not asking you to stop your relentless assault on my special projects. But in public, you will smile and agree that I am the one man you trust enough to perform this ritual with, or else you'd better start writing Lane's obituary. You've got five minutes. Pull your usual Hamlet and she's already dead."
****
Lex retreated to his vault while Clark angsted. Being surrounded by the weird green glow of Kryptonite was as close as Lex got to comfort: chunks of chaos, secured under his control. The vault contained all his extraterrestrial treasures: pieces of advanced alien technology indistinguishable from mystical artifacts, fragments of space weapons so advanced they could take out a star system, a chunk of Doomsday's hide kept at absolute zero and enspelled by one of Lex's contract wizards so that it wouldn't start growing again. Little things like that.
He needed the familiarity and the reminders of his wealth. Negotiating with Clark was like being stabbed, sharp silvery pain that hurt more the more Lex let himself think about it. He hated his own weakness; an addict clinging to that which dragged him down.
But there was always so much to say to Clark. And this time, maybe, there was a chance he could get a step ahead. Clark needed him, more than he'd ever needed Lex's money and power back in Smallville. This was Metropolis, where the stakes were always higher.
It was only fair that Lex should get more out of his generosity than a chance at Clark's extremely variable respect.
He should have felt more triumph, he supposed. But years of having defeat kick him in the teeth every time he so much as considered a victorious curl of his lips had made him superstitious.
In a way, having the bracelets prepared, just in case an opportunity arose, branded him a hopeless optimist. But only in a way.
****
"What is that?" Clark demanded, horrified, when Lex returned from his cabinet of wonders. The black thing Lex was holding out was thick and rounded, puffy like a tire for a miniature moon lander. It looked like nothing more than an alien leech.
"A bracelet of binding," Lex said, managing to make the words sound completely serious, the same way he managed to make baldness look like a fashion statement. "Purple would clash too much with your ridiculous costume, so I will accept black."
Clark gaped at him. "I have to wear one too," Lex said, sounding miffed. "This is your heritage."
"I don't want it," Clark pointed out.
Lex shook his head. "No, you don't like some of the consequences. If you didn't want it, you wouldn't do it. As you've demonstrated repeatedly, no one on Earth can force you to do anything, and certainly I can't."
Clark didn't know where to begin with that. Or more accurately, he didn't know where it had ended, where he and Lex had diverged so much that Lex could pretend that caving in to extortion was somehow an exercise of free will. He almost asked Lex what had happened to him, but that was a diversion and Lex wouldn't know how to answer anyway.
"Let's get this over with," he said.
"Take us to your arctic hideaway," Lex instructed him, and Clark did.
Once they arrived, Lex called Mercy and told her to start work on Lois, keeping his side of the bargain. Clark still didn't trust Lex as far as he could throw him (though in fairness, he could throw Lex pretty far), but Lex did value his contracts.
It turned out that the Fortress could generate statues of his parents, twice as big as life and blindly staring. Clark would have liked to spend some time gawking at them. But right now he couldn't make himself lift his head enough to see them, because Lex ordered him to stand in front of them like—like they were standing together in a church.
"In the name of Rao, who kindled the sun," Lex began in passable Kryptonian. Clark blushed at the awfulness of it. Clark stared at the feet of the statue in front of him and tried not to fidget.
"In the name of Rao, who shaped the moons," Lex continued. Clark did his best to ignore him.
"Kal-El!" Hearing his Kryptonian name in Lex's angry tones made Clark snap his head up. Lex glared at him and wriggled the bracelet. Clark held out his right arm like a caught criminal awaiting manacles.
Lex continued, "I pledge to you my care and honor. My hope is ever in you." Clark would have expected the words to be mocking, but they were drained of all emotion, as if a computer had generated them. Lex took a deep breath and pushed the bracelet around Clark's wrist. The material was dull black, nonmetallic, no more chill than the air of the Fortress. The edge of the clasp slid along his skin, and then it closed around him. Clark felt a hot bright jolt, like flying through a sunspot, and shuddered in place.
Lex held out a second bracelet. "Now you."
Clark swallowed and grabbed the bracelet without touching Lex's fingers. "Uh, in the name of Rao, who shaped the moons," he began.
"'In the name of Rao, who kindled the sun,'" Lex hissed.
Like it mattered what order he used in this farce. But that was Lex all over, preferring form to content. Clark corrected himself and started again.
"'I pledge to you my faith and trust, my duty always to you,'" Lex prompted.
He hesitated, looking at the bracelet around his wrist. It was a solid ring of black, no sign it had ever been split at all. He didn't recognize the technology.
"Are you sure this won't hurt a non-Kryptonian?" he asked, desperate.
Lex tilted his head and waited.
Lois, waiting for him. Lois, for whom his word was given.
"I pledge to you my faith and trust, my duty always to you," Clark said, the words stumbling over themselves in his haste to get them out. He almost dropped the bracelet, and then he almost closed it so that it would have caught a flap of Lex's skin inside, but years of taking care over human fragility stopped him, and he ended up cradling Lex's wrist in both his hands as he slowly brought the ends of the bracelet together over the inside of Lex's right wrist, where the veins stood out royal purple under too-pale skin.
Lex twitched. Clark's thumb slipped, pressing against Lex's lifeline, the crease in his palm that went all the way to his wrist. Clark always remembered Lex's skin as cool, legacy of that very first touch when Lex had been shivering wet from the river, but this time the contact sent a gout of heat through him, as if whatever process sealed the bracelet had thrown off enough excess energy to melt steel. Clark couldn't breathe as he checked Lex's skin for burns, but apparently it had been mere illusion, just nervousness and anger leading to phantom pain.
"That's enough," Lex said roughly, pulling back. His mouth pinched in its familiar angry pout when he had to wait for Clark to release him. "Let's get back to Metropolis. I have a press release to issue, and I imagine you have a bedside to wait by."
****
Clark dropped Lex on the rooftop at LuthorCorp and was instantly gone, not even a dot disappearing into the sky. Lex wondered sometimes why Clark's passage didn't do more collateral damage. Even the laws of physics were inclined to cut Superman some slack, as if, instead of Planck and Heisenberg and Doppler, Clark's every move were attended by the little cartoon bluebirds that dressed Cinderella.
Lex snorted to himself at the image as he punched his code into the lock on the roof door. If they were doing Disney, then he supposed he had to be the evil uncle. Though the man he had to kill to achieve his kingdom was far from a kind and gentle ruler.
Fairy tales were so very Smallville. Metropolis was more a graphic novel type of place, he thought as he listened to the rattle of his feet pounding down the stairs. This building employed over two thousand people, and still the stairwell was empty, his own noises echoing back to him like he was the only one left after a neutron bomb. Almost, he wished he could stay like this, free from the demands and imperfections of others.
He'd have to look into automating the building, once the other items on his agenda had been settled.
****
Oliver called within fifteen minutes. The nurses gave Clark dirty looks, and he took his cell outside the hospital room.
"What did you do?" Oliver demanded.
"Pretty much what Lex is saying."
"Clark! How could you? Unless you take it back—"
"I gave my word, Oliver."
Oliver made a sound of disbelief mixed with disgust. "I'm gonna send Bruce—"
"Don't," Clark told him. "We'll figure it out. But it's done and there's no going back."
Oliver hung up on him. Clark couldn't really blame him. He checked through the walls and saw that Lois's vital signs were steadily improving. The LuthorCorp treatment was restoring her body, and more importantly, her brain activity was increasing every minute.
She was going to be fine. That was the only thing he wanted; the rest could be fixed later.
****
Security foiled three intrusions before Batman arrived. Between one blink and the next, he was there, silhouetted against the window. Lex put his drink down on his desk and wished, quite profoundly, that he could afford to kick the Bat so hard that the caped crusader would fall back through the reinforced glass. Batman would just use his gear to grab onto some part of the building and thus avoid pancaking, so it would only be a temporary pleasure, but there was plenty to be said for temporary pleasures.
"Which part of the threats and insults do you want to skip?" he asked instead of lunging. Batman would just dodge anyway and Lex wasn't in the mood for humiliation. The preliminary polls were—frankly, he'd never been much impressed with the intelligence of the average voter, but even he was surprised how much difference Superman's endorsement was projected to make. Point being, no dark avenger was going to get him down tonight.
Batman stared at him.
"All of them, then? I approve," he said, smiling his nastiest smile. "You're watching me, I'm watching you, we're all dangerous voyeurs and if I try to exploit Superman I'd better be prepared for the consequences. You'll let me know if there was anything I missed, of course." He dropped his gaze and considered pouring himself another slug, but he wasn't actually finished with his present drink and so the performance wouldn't have been convincing.
Batman stared at him.
Lex didn't roll his eyes, but it was a near thing. "Three options: talk, leave, or get ready for Mercy." Lex didn't think Mercy had a mosquito's chance against Batman, but it never hurt to watch an opponent fight. There was something to be learned from watching his best warrior get her ass handed to her.
Batman stared at him.
Lex reached out and slapped the security button. If Batman was in the mood to harass him, then there'd be no one awake to come running, but that would be interesting information as well.
But no, ten seconds and Lex heard the door from the main office start to open. Lex didn't see Batman's hands move, but the space where he'd been was suddenly surrounded by a dark gray cloud that smelled like licorice and burning leaves. Lex winced; another carpet lost.
Mercy charged into his line of sight, wearing a gas mask (another one skittered across the desk to rest between Lex's hands as she rushed towards the cloud; he appreciated the thought even if he was already exposed). She produced a foil from somewhere as equally mysterious as the source of Batman's smoke grenade and slashed it through the thick coils that were only slowly sinking downwards. It was pro forma, because obviously the Bat had flown, and yet Lex felt better for seeing her do it.
He wasn't worried about the threat implied by the Batman's ability to penetrate his security. Well, not deeply worried. Superheroes were so constrained by their nonlethal morality.
****
They cornered Clark at last after a foiled bank robbery in Star City, where he was patrolling while Green Arrow was off doing things Clark didn't want to know about in a country Oliver had refused to name. Oliver wasn't as accommodating of the press as Clark, for reasons that were pretty obvious, so Star City reporters had become used to descending in a crush whenever they got the chance. Clark didn't feel it was polite to fly off without a brief interview.
Unfortunately, they weren't much interested in the bank robbery, or even in Green Arrow's absence.
"Superman! Superman! Lex Luthor says that you've undergone the Ritual of Rao with him, indicating your trust and support for him. Is it true?"
Clark looked at the bracelet on his wrist. He'd spent so much time twisting it that if he were human he was sure he'd have a rash by now. But as with everything else, his body stayed stubbornly unmarked.
"Superman!"
He had to say something about the damned bracelet. Of course Kryptonians couldn't have their rituals confirmed with secret symbols, like Mormon underwear. No, they had to go for the most undeniable displays. And he had to keep his word. The fact that he and Lex never outright lied to each other was the only thing that had kept both of them alive and Metropolis largely intact over the past decade. Break that truce, even for the best of reasons, and the longterm consequences would be much worse.
"Yes, Lex and I performed the Ritual of Rao," Clark said, not looking at any particular reporter.
"In your own words, what is the Ritual of Rao?" a woman shouted out from the back of the crowd.
Clark took a deep breath. Lex was right, this would rehabilitate his reputation with a substantial percentage of the city, and even the nation. It would strengthen his campaign, maybe enough to get him elected, even if Clark refused to endorse him. "The Ritual of Rao," he began slowly, "is a ceremony that two people perform when they hold one another in high esteem."
How could he live with himself after this? Aiding Lex Luthor's rise to power, after so many years of fighting his every step. Stopping a nuclear power plant here or an unlicensed drug trial there, those were trivial compared to swearing fealty to Lex on a national stage.
And then, quite suddenly, he had the answer.
Clark raised his head and looked directly into the nearest camera. "Basically," he said, "it's a marriage."
He flew away before any of them recovered enough to ask a follow-up.
****
If Lionel had still been alive, Lex would have known fifteen minutes sooner that he'd entered into a sodomitical marriage. Realizing that gave Lex his first and only regret over his father's death.
As it happened, Lex found out the news when he left the meeting with the representatives of the Export Bank of China. The crush of media was so great that it overwhelmed Mercy, who was under strict orders not to cause grievous bodily harm within view of a camera. "When did you know you were gay?" was the nicest, least intrusive question he heard.
Lex threw himself into the limo and slammed the door. Mercy would have to find her own way back. "Drive!" he snapped.
By the time he returned to the LuthorCorp tower, the stock was down five percent, every major news network and Oprah had called to ask for an interview, and his Iowa coordinator had resigned. His Facebook group, however, had gained ten thousand adherents.
Perhaps his fate was to go through life with some sort of reverse Midas touch.
That night, The Daily Show's segment on him was called Red to Blew. "Conservative presidential candidate Lex Luthor shocked the nation today when it was revealed that he got gay married to Superman," Jon Stewart said, smirking all the while. "Apparently he didn't realize that you don't automatically win the Iowa primary just by being married to another guy. To do that, you have to get gay married in Iowa. We go now to our senior gay correspondent, Aasif Mandvi."
As Lex watched in horrified fascination, after Stewart and Mandvi bantered a while over the meaning of "gay correspondent," Mandvi and Hugo Huang (junior gay correspondent) debated whether Lex topped or bottomed. Mandvi maintained that obviously, if a notorious playboy like Lex was going to take it up the ass from anyone, it would have to be Superman, while Huang engaged in a bit of armchair physiology and suggested that Superman-on-bottom was less dangerous, since a real pounding from Superman would tear a human apart: "You remember those anti-gun ads where the bullet hits the apple? Like that, but with semen."
Then Stewart jumped in to point out that there was a potential for a crush wound from the otherworldly power of Superman's ass, which made Huang wince and cross his legs. In fact, that observation made Lex wince also, though the five glasses of brandy he'd had since the segment began might also have had something to do with his relative empathy. "You know, those are all concerns with a woman, too," Lex told the television, even as Stewart ended on a joke about how the two of them might just lie in bed and jerk each other off—"and every woman in the audience just passed out," Stewart finished. "We'll be right back."
Not on Lex's television. He managed not to throw the remote through the screen—replacing electronics was embarrassing, and anyway he suspected his aim was off—but he did hit the power before picking up the brandy and swallowing another few ounces.
The proximity alarm went off, and it took Lex three tries to find the display.
Superman was hovering outside the penthouse, arms crossed like a gaudy Oscar statuette.
Lex hit the button to let him in, then got to his feet. He had the feeling he was going to want the freedom to pace.
"Here to gloat?" he asked, turning his back as he poured himself another drink.
"I'm following your rules," Clark said from approximately ten feet behind him.
"So, yes, then." Lex couldn't blame him. It had been a brilliant piece of political strategy. "Who suggested you do that? Bruce? Or Oliver? My bet is Oliver, he's always had a better instinct for this sort of thing. Bruce knows fear, but not this kind of fear."
"I didn't—I thought of it," Clark said defiantly.
Lex turned, raising an eyebrow. Clark's scowl, even through the image distortion of the Superman illusion, reminded him of years past when Lex had dared to suggest that Lana Lang was possibly not Clark's destiny. "Congratulations, then. It does seem a bit unfair that I'm getting all the burdens of marriage without any of the benefits. So any time you'd care to perform your conjugal duties—"
Clark's eyes widened amusingly.
"You did promise," Lex said, because he was going to extract some satisfaction from this mess one way or the other, and really, leader of the free world was an ambition worth pursuing, but messing with Clark's head was always going to be more tempting. Not to mention more immediately gratifying. "I liked how you were when you came begging to me, on your knees. I suggest you start there."
Lex had faced a lot of unexpected events in his relatively short and eventful life. Even counting meteor attack, meteor mutant attack, attempted murder by plane crash, possession by alien entity, and—well, point made—he had never found it harder to maintain his cool than when Clark actually went to his knees. From anyone else, he would have anticipated some devastating taunt, something about what Lex would never have, but that wasn't Clark, so Lex's brain just locked up like New York in rush hour. Clark stared at Lex, looking almost amazed by his own boldness, and then started crossing the room.
On hands and knees.
Lex nearly lost his balance with the rush of arousal. And then Clark was in front of him, reaching for his trousers—impatient with the catches and buttons, tearing, ten thousand dollars of Hong Kong wool gone in an instant—"Turn off that fucking illusion," Lex snarled, because as much as he wanted that mouth on him, he'd set himself on fire to avoid touching Superman. Clark did, instantly, even though Lex couldn't see how it was controlled; maybe it was purely mental, he thought, before the sight of Clark's mussed dark curls and red red lips drove speculation from his consciousness.
****
Waking up was nearly as disconcerting as when Clark had shuddered back to life in his tomb after everyone thought Doomsday had killed him. The differences: sunlight instead of pitch-blackness, the pleasurable ache of tiredness instead of the full-body bruising that had lasted weeks, and the utter and complete shock. Dying was one thing—Clark had always understood that he was going to die eventually—but sleeping with Lex Luthor (not to mention the sex), now, that was as close to inconceivable as anything that had ever happened to Clark, including parallel universes, bodyswaps, and that one time he got pregnant with the last survivors of a dying species.
Now would be a really good time to be comfortable cursing, Clark thought as he sped back into his uniform. He barely remembered to restore the image enhancer that gave him Superman's face; he never wore the uniform without the enhancer, except that when Lex had told him to be Clark he'd felt such overwhelming relief that abandoning the enhancer had been as automatic as breathing.
At least superspeed let him dress himself and sneak out without waking Lex.
Lex, who was sprawled out and still taking up only a tiny fraction of his half-acre bed, the dark and stained sheets covering only his lower legs. The sheets had been softer than butterfly wings against their skin. Lex had muttered words about giving up purple for blue, but Clark wasn't trying to remember what Lex had said, sonnets composed on the fly as Lex's hands had worked him over like Lex was sculpting him out of clay. Relaxed with sleep, Lex's skin was pale everywhere, veins tracing over him like lacework, the heavy muscles of his shoulders and back so much bulkier than they'd been when he and Lex had been kids in Smallville.
Clark had left marks last night; Lex never could. But Lex was already healed, so Clark guessed they were even.
When Lex had ordered Clark to—to service him, Clark had meant to scoff and storm out, same as ever even if the topics had grown more adult. But then.
Then he hadn't.
Clark zoomed back to his apartment, where the sight of Lex wouldn't distract him so much. He started coffee, which unfortunately couldn't be made at superspeed (this, Clark knew from vile experience) and paced, human-slow, around his living room, which was smaller than Lex's bed. No, bad comparison.
The way Lex had sounded, his voice like smoked quartz, when he'd opened Clark up. The taste of him, brandy and oranges and a hint of metal.
Clark shook his head. He needed to figure out what had caused last night's insanity, not obsess about the details.
The Ritual of Rao. The words Clark had said had been different from the words Lex had said. "Duty," Clark had said, or the Kryptonian equivalent, and then Lex had repeated it last night, right before he'd demanded sex.
Maybe "duty" wasn't the full translation, and maybe the Ritual of Rao was more powerful than even Lex realized. Clark stared at the bracelet around his wrist, feeling newly betrayed by it.
If Lex could order Superman around, then Clark's bargain had been a much worse one than he'd thought. Lex wouldn't need to be electable: with his brains and Clark's powers, even the rest of the Justice League couldn't hold him off.
The only hope was that Lex didn't realize the extent of what he'd gotten from Clark. Lex had seemed shocked last night, under the thin layer of calm he could manage in any situation. Maybe he thought that Clark had just given in to a longstanding passion, never acknowledged when they'd been less than outright enemies and only acted on now because there was nothing left for them to lose.
Ridiculous, of course, but maybe Lex would believe it. Lex always did like the most complicated explanations.
Somehow, Clark would have to keep Lex from giving direct orders. And if Lex did demand that Superman assist his plots, Clark would have to figure out how to obey in the least helpful way possible, just like he'd done with the whole gay marriage scandal.
He could do this, he thought as he changed into his reporter's outfit. If it kept Lex convinced that the Ritual of Rao was just a set of words, Clark could pretend that he wanted to do those things with Lex.
****
Lex made himself—let himself—roll off, putting a few inches between them on the bed, and swallowed down on the noise that wanted to leave his throat. Beside him, Clark was breathing heavily, and Lex tried to decide if that was just some sort of habit, a useless unconscious gesture. Probably the panting was real, or as real as Clark ever got, because it made sense that his heart—or whatever he used for a heart—would speed up during sex, even if it wasn't exactly strenuous in the usual human sense.
"Whoa," Clark said, almost like he was talking to himself. For some reason, Lex very much wanted to get up and flee to his office. But that would be weakness, even if Clark wouldn't understand it as such.
He hadn't expected Clark to show up again so soon. He'd thought there would be at least a few days of agonizing, and then most likely accusations of manipulation.
Instead, he'd looked up from his computer screen, meaning to watch night fall on Metropolis. When the blue sky took the leap into darkness, he felt closer to his city than at any other time. They were both always transitioning from one thing to the next, always ready to light up fiercely.
Instead of the post-sunset blue, all he'd seen was Clark, already out of his Superman drag. The expression on Clark's face had been new, for all that Lex would have sworn that he'd rifled through every one of Clark's secrets.
After that Lex's memory was uncharacteristically blurry. He remembered everything about Clark's skin (slick, quickly sweaty; smooth except for the occasional mole) and Clark's mouth (sharp teeth, a predator's; there could be only one of him, at the top of the food chain) and Clark's hands (moving him like all his intense workouts were irrelevant, and of course they were; positioning him for maximum accessibility) and even Clark's eyes (shocked almost, wide and green as Lex's dreams of other worlds to conquer). But the physics of it, how they'd moved from LexCorp to his bedroom, that wasn't so clear. Though Lex was pretty sure that the first time had been in the office, which made the return on his investment in one-way glass a lot more substantial.
The bed smelled of them, damp salt and that special note of pure Clark, something like sandalwood cut with fresh grass—always a hint of green growing things, as if Clark's boundless vitality was going to spill over and leave flowers blooming in his wake.
The bracelet was warm around his wrist, like it had held on to the heat they made between them. Lex wanted to twist it, just to feel the unknown metal slide around him, a piece of a destroyed world that he'd shaped to his own devices. But he could already sense the nervous habit that wanted to form, and he couldn't have a blatant tell like that, so instead he just pressed his arm down a little, letting the edges of it dig into his skin.
His scientists had been unable to penetrate the secrets of this bit of Kryptonian technology. They speculated that what looked like metal was actually a complex nanodevice. It made about as much sense as any other explanation.
Clark sighed, almost soundless. Lex stared up at the ceiling, pure white twenty feet over his head. "I should go," Clark said. Lex could hear the bedsheets rustling as Clark shifted, whisper of skin on silk.
Lex swallowed. "Then go," he said—he wasn't going to fucking beg, those days were over and blasted apart. What they were doing now, he thought as Clark rolled to the edge of the bed and began gathering his clothes, had nothing to do with the early years in Smallville. Well, of course, the desire was still the same. It had been so long that every cell in his body had been replaced, but the desire was burned in deeper than that. It was like being bald: something he'd learned to accommodate, and even occasionally to use as a motivator.
But the friendship was gone. Now they had bargains. Bargains, and this.
****
Lois alternated between glaring at Clark and looking over his shoulder at the lights of the city. She was dressed to maim: tight black vest over crisp white shirt, skirt with creases like a switchblade, icepick heels. Even her earrings were silver daggers, edged with rubies. "I wanted to talk to you—" he told her.
"Yeah, I got that when you texted me for the fifth time."
She'd made him wait for ten minutes on the top of the Planet.
"I know you're probably wondering—"
"Wondering. No, I am not wondering. I am considering how to have you locked up so you can get your head looked at! I mean, obviously you made a deal to save me, which on the one hand I approve of, but on the other—marrying that snake? You could at least've bargained him down!"
He wanted to protest that her life was not a used car. Before the words came out, he remembered Lex's condition: don't admit the truth to anyone. That was an easy rule for him.
"It's not like that," he said, gently enough that she stopped sputtering and really examined him. "I was serious when I went through the Ritual."
Her mouth opened in shock. She fumbled for her cigarettes; Clark hadn't managed to steal the latest pack, so she was able to retrieve one. She'd tried to get him to light one with heat vision for a couple of months, before she'd decided that Superman was as humorless as Clark on the topic of smoking. Fishing the lighter out of the flotsam of her purse gave her something to do with her hands, and it meant that she didn't have to look the man she was halfway in love with—who was also maybe halfway in love with her—in the eyes while he explained that he had kind of married someone else, without even having the decency to tell her first.
Clark knew Lois better than she probably wanted to be known.
"Okay," she said when she'd sucked in a long hit, "so you guys, what, were pulling each other's pigtails all these years? Let me guess, Kryptonian courtship rituals consist of blowing shit up and attempted murder?" Her voice hardly shook at all, but the bobbing of the ember at the end of the cigarette was a small betrayal.
"It's complicated," he said. "I—He—" Lex could make him avoid the truth, but he couldn't lie, not about this. He put his hand around the bracelet; it disappeared beneath his fingers, and he could feel it like a band around his heart.
"Or is the sex just that good?" Lois asked, titanium-edged. "Lord knows his reputation—Holy shit." She sounded like she'd just witnessed an alien abduction; Clark knew this for a fact. "It really is the sex, isn't it?"
The Superman projection mimicked Clark's own expressions. Apparently it also transmitted blushes. "I don't—"
"Well, the Planet won't print that," Lois said, more regretful than he'd heard her up to this point. "Lex Luthor, intergalactic Casanova. Now I kinda wish I'd—"
"Lois," Clark said, pained.
"Sorry, sorry," she said, waving her free hand at him apologetically. And like that she was Lois Lane again, the girl who hid all her hurts behind a shell as impenetrable as Superman's skin. "So, what happens to all your anti-Luthor activities?"
Clark had thought a lot about this answer, especially now that he had to avoid demands from Lex. "LuthorCorp is still subject to the same laws as everyone else. When I see a violation of the law, I plan to act."
Lois took another drag of her cigarette and cupped her elbow in her palm as she turned towards LuthorCorp Tower. "I guess now you can put him on the couch if he acts up. Maybe that's the incentive he needs to start behaving."
Clark shook his head. "Not even Lex understands what makes Lex tick. I wouldn't make any predictions." It was the closest he could come to warning her that he couldn't be the guardian of Metropolis any more, not when Lex was involved.
She looked at him sidelong, her gaze still scalpel-sharp. "I never thought I'd say this, but: good luck with Lex. I have the feeling we'll all need it."
"Lois, you've been—" 'A good friend' was not entirely accurate; 'a pain in the ass' was too harsh, even if she'd understand exactly what he meant. "I need you to keep me honest, now more than ever. If I—Lex can be persuasive. Don't let me forget the costs of his plans."
Her eyes softened, the way he'd imagined they would have looked if he'd ever managed to declare himself to her. The chill wind of evening closing in on them whipped strands of her ponytail around her shoulders, and she smiled, wide and wry. "I'd like to see you try to stop me."
Part 2
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