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Part 1 here.
"Clark."
Clark had been half-dozing when he answered the call, tired out from a heavy day of hostage-rescuing and rebuilding a Kurdish town, but he snapped awake at the harsh, pained tone of Lex's voice.
"What is it?" he asked and sped into his uniform.
"I need to see you."
The request must have cost Lex terribly. After nearly a month in his strange new world, Lex must feel as alone as Clark had ever been, lost on a planet that could never accept him for all that he was. Now more than ever, he was Clark's responsibility, and it was no longer an awful one.
"I'll be right there," he said. He was outside the Fortress before the phone circuit registered the disconnect.
Lex was waiting on the balcony of his penthouse. The highball glass in his hand was almost empty, as was the decanter on the elegant metal and glass table nearby. His collar was undone, the tie missing, his shoes gone. The look in his eyes was terrible, like a forest fire raging unchecked.
Clark's journey had given him a little time to think. Lex would be feeling vulnerable, just for asking Clark to come, and would lash out at the most minimal of excuses. Clark could help by not making Lex do more of the work.
He touched down gently a pace away from Lex. As soon as Lex put down his glass, Clark reached out to hug him, ignoring his stiffening. Clark would provide whatever Lex needed tonight. Slowly, Lex's arms came up around Clark's waist and his head pressed against Clark's shoulder.
"How did I live like this?" he asked, more to himself than to Clark. "I'm so tired of everyone staring at me like rabbits facing down a mad dog. Fearing what I'll do if they displease me. The only ones who aren't afraid of me are Hope and Mercy, and Clark, Jesus, who the hell are they? Why do they look at me like I'm their god? I think they'd walk into a spinning propeller if I said to do it."
The last question was the easiest to deal with, so that was where he began. "Mercy's name used to be Emily. Emily Dinsmore, version 6.5, they called her, before you got her out of your father's lab."
Lex looked up at him, blinking in confusion. "She doesn't look anything like the Emily I knew."
"She had – you got her – extensive plastic surgery. She dyes her hair and wears contacts. It's helped her a lot, Lex. You've helped her a lot."
"Okay," Lex said. His eyes were distant, no doubt thinking about his father, in whose physical presence he hadn't been for over five years. "Did – is her training from him? Or me?"
Clark tightened his grip fractionally. "Lionel Luthor had her trained as an assassin. You gave her the job as your head of security. She protects you. She loves you, in her way."
"And Hope?" Lex sounded almost afraid of the answer.
"You found her in the Metropolis slums." Standing over the dead body of her pimp. "You gave her stability, security." Also medication and Mercy. Together they looked after Lex, who was the most spectacularly broken of them all, because he still had a will of his own.
Lex was silent for several minutes. He must have been cold, in only his shirtsleeves high above the crisp fall night, but he didn't shiver. "Don't make me do this alone. I know I haven't done whatever it was that Lex Luthor did to make you – make you want me. But I can, Clark, I know it –"
As it turned out, Clark was less able to stand Lex's pleading than Lex himself. He moved his hands to Lex's shoulders and silenced him with a kiss, Sleeping Beauty's savior in reverse.
Being a stalker meant never having to admit you didn't know what your intended liked. Clark started with light, teasing kisses, moving away to the line of Lex's jaw with equal delicacy, then let Lex pull him back for deeper, rougher kisses. Lex bit at Clark's tongue and lips, as Clark had always known he would, and he moaned into Lex's mouth.
Clark pushed at Lex's shoulders, backing him against the glass doors of the balcony. As Clark's hands roved over Lex's body, ripping off buttons and tearing cloth, his mouth worked at Lex's throat, trying to cover it with bites. Lex slammed his head back against the door rhythmically, harder and harder as Clark's hands slid over his wind-cooled skin. Finally, Clark had to bring a hand up to cradle Lex's skull, the one place no one ever got to touch.
Lex's fingers scrabbled at the uniform, sliding off uselessly. He made a wordless, angry sound. Clark quickly pulled back. "Let's go inside." The bluish, scientific glow from the fluorescents made Lex's pale skin look like some exotic substance. His eyes were a purer blue. Clark was undone.
"Does that costume come off?"
"Inside." Clark picked Lex up, ignoring the offended struggles, and walked into the penthouse. Then he put Lex down and pushed him towards the bedroom.
"Just because you're the most powerful being on Earth, you think you can always get your way," Lex grumbled.
"I can," Clark pointed out. "You just have to make sure that my way is yours."
As they stepped into the enormous bedroom, Lex shed the remains of his clothes and Clark began to strip out of the suit. Clark frowned at the empty decanter by the bedside, a suggestion that Lex had been fighting too long on his own. Before Lex's accident, he'd suspected that Lex was an extremely high-functioning alcoholic with a stainless steel liver. He'd pay better attention this time around.
Smiling now, Lex backed towards the bed. "You've only gotten more beautiful." His voice was reverent. Clark had to blink to clear his vision.
Lex lay back on the bed, his skin shining against the royal purple of the bedcover. His muscles were thrown into relief as he posed, effortlessly, one arm thrown up over his head and the opposite knee drawn up and tilted out, his hard cock proud against his stomach. For a moment, Clark hated everyone else who'd gotten to see this, hated them so much that he could have vaporized them all. But desire swiftly cut off thoughts of the past, or the future.
He got onto the bed, crawling up to Lex like a cat playing with its supper. Hovering over Lex's body, touching only with his knees against Lex's hips, Clark wanted to freeze the moment forever. Lex stared up, his eyes wide and his mouth half-open, for once not talking.
The move to the bedroom had drained off the urgency. They kissed for centuries. Clark spent a thousand years touching every centimeter of Lex's skin, smooth and tight over his flesh like the skin of a ripe fruit, ignoring Lex's increasingly vehement suggestions for more focused attention. From the way Lex moaned when his struggles failed to shift Clark, Clark didn't think he minded all that much.
When Clark finally took Lex's cock in his mouth, Lex fairly screamed. His hands pulled at Clark's hair, as if that would do any good, and when Clark looked up his eyes were slitted tight. Clark pulled back, letting Lex slide out with a wet smack, and Lex's eyes obligingly opened.
"Pay attention," Clark chided.
Lex's expression suggested that, from his perspective, Clark had his undivided attention, but he kept his eyes wide open as Clark lowered his mouth.
After that, Clark barely had time to wet two fingers and slide them inside Lex before Lex was coming, arching off the bed, cursing as he wrapped himself around Clark.
This was much better, Clark thought, than it would have been if his cheesy adolescent fantasies had come true one night in front of the big-screen TV at the mansion. Lex might have enjoyed fucking him then, but he would have been helpless, poleaxed by it. He was glad to have experience and control, and from the noises Lex was making he wasn't the only one who was grateful.
He held Lex close, watching as Lex's stunned, almost prayerful expression faded into satisfaction. Lex's eyes slowly refocused on Clark.
"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," Lex said, softly enough that it almost hid the vulnerability. "You'll have to tell me what you like."
"Easy," Clark said and bent to kiss the bridge of Lex's nose. "I like you."
"Flattering, but not entirely helpful," Lex said with a trace of lemon in his tone.
"Lex," Clark said with perfect, misleading honesty, "you've never done anything to me in bed that I didn't enjoy."
Lex's mouth worked, as if he were suppressing a series of smart remarks. Then he nodded sharply and rolled them over, straddling Clark. He bent his head and began to nip down Clark's neck to his shoulder, then reversed course to follow the collarbone.
Evidently, Lex had decided to take a thorough survey. Clark let his head sag back against the pillow and relaxed into the wonder of it all.
****
After three or four hints about how Superman could benefit the good citizens of Metropolis a lot by taking down Lionel – possibly more hints than that, but Lex was too subtle for his own good – Clark finally told Lex why Superman had generally left the battle against Lionel Luthor in the capable hands of his firstborn son.
Lionel had way, way too much meteor rock, and seemed to have a clue about its utility in keeping Superman from poking around. Clark wasn't sure he'd made the connection between Superman and the meteor shower, but the risk had kept him from taking Lionel on any number of times. There were plenty of other bad guys in the world, and Lionel's misbehavior was only occasionally dangerous to other people.
Psychological wounds didn't count.
Most of Clark's anti-Lionel acts were done in Clark Kent's identity. The Daily Planet prided itself on being Luthor-free since 2003, in Perry's words. He'd been successful enough that not even Lionel could maintain a smile when Clark called out a question in a press conference.
It was a good thing that Lex hated his father more than he ever hated Clark. If Lex had ever let Clark's secret identity slip – and he was sure it had crossed Lex's mind more than once – Lionel wouldn't have had Lex's minimal scruples (or hesitance) about blackmailing Clark.
When Clark had explained as much of this as necessary to Lex, Lex sat back in his chair, turning his tumbler around in his hands. It was filled with orange juice, because Lex was humoring him.
"If the meteor rocks are that dangerous to you, we need a way to protect you from them. My father's not going to be satisfied with sharing control over Metropolis with some extraterrestrial Schwartzenegge r in a clown suit."
Clark froze. Lex had used that phrase before. Did he remember? "That's not a very nice thing to call me," he said.
Lex rolled his eyes, but didn't seem tense. "Focus, Clark. The point is that you need some meteor rock antidote. Hasn't your Fortress been able to come up with something?"
"It's not good for the Fortress either." Clark wasn't one hundred percent sure of this, but given what happened to the space ship, he wasn't about to suggest that the Fortress try to absorb a sample of Kryptonite.
"LexCorp has a few crates stored in a warehouse," Lex continued. "I'll see what I can do."
Clark smiled and remembered how reassuring it had been to think that Lex was the smartest person he knew.
****
"Clark Kent."
"Jargon check: 'Queer'?"
"Means 'good.'"
"O brave new world," Lex said, amused. Clark closed his eyes and leaned on his elbow, letting Lex's voice wrap around him like a wool blanket, scratchy and warming. "Anything else I should know?"
"'Nice' is bad, 'squaring the circle' is implementing an innovative plan, 'in the last mile' means that most of the time allotted to a project is gone and most of the work remains to be done, and 'unlocking the DRM' is telling you something you didn't already know. That's all I can think of right now."
"That's very helpful, Clark. I do appreciate it." The tone promised obscene rewards.
Clark turned to his monitor to hide his grin from the rest of the newsroom. "No problem."
"I'll see you tonight," Lex said and hung up.
Lois had to whack him twice across the shoulder before he noticed that she wanted to talk about the Peterson feature. He almost forgot to rub his shoulder as if she'd bruised him.
****
Clark X-rayed the building and saw Lois's skeleton, distinctive through long familiarity, in a strange metal room that, checking up and down the spectrum, he identified as a freezer. She was shivering but not having trouble breathing, so he took the time to round up the various and sundry goons, tie them to pillars in the garage, call the police to come get them and the contraband weapons, and zip through the records to see who they were selling to before he changed back into mufti and went to release her.
"Kent!" Lois's arms were wrapped around herself, her bluish fingers sunk deep into her royal blue suit jacket, as she scurried out of the industrial freezer. "How'd you find me?"
Clark wondered why bad guys always seemed to have industrial freezers, or their functional equivalent, handy for use on nosy reporters. "Superman. He, um, took the gang into custody and then told me to get you out."
Lois frowned. There was a time when Superman would have come for her himself, and he could tell that she was remembering that.
"I think we can still interview Lucacs and some of the others before the police arrive, if we hurry," he suggested, which had the intended effect of distracting her.
"Well?" she asked, pushing past him. "What are you waiting for?" She headed down the hall.
"Uh, Lois?" She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. "This way."
She overtook him in a few strides, already humming with the prospect of another story that would hit Lionel Luthor's pocketbook, if not his reputation. She and Clark hadn't found a way to connect him verifiably with any of the illegal operations they'd exposed, in part because sources willing to use his name tended to have a very short lifeline. And then there'd been that guy George Huyssen, whose use of the initials "LL" to identify his boss had caused no end of trouble.
Nonetheless, Clark was confident that they'd be able to take Lionel down eventually. Especially now that they were diverted less often by Lex's shenanigans.
****
"Clark Kent."
"Query: Lois Lane dreamt up 'Truth, Justice and the American Way,' did she not?"
"Yes," Clark admitted. He leaned forward so his computer screen would hide his expression from Lois.
"So the question arises: if she thinks that the American way is neither truth nor justice, but something else entirely, what does she think it is?"
Clark sputtered, caught between outrage and laughter. "It's not – it's *inclusive*."
"What, like 'Kansas, Illinois and North America'? I don't think so."
"Like – like 'spam, spam, eggs and spam.'"
"Now truth and justice are just processed meat products to you? I fear for the future of the country."
He caught himself just before saying Lex's name. "You're a deeply strange person, you know that?"
"Whereas your strange is only skin deep. I'll talk to you later – if I don't kill this company quickly, the jackals will tear at it for years."
Clark put the phone back on the hook, grinning like an idiot.
"Who was that?" Lois asked. Lois was a very smart woman.
"Just a friend. Old college joke."
She looked at him skeptically. "You have friends, Smallville?"
"Strange but true," he said and leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head and smiling at her.
****
"Hey, Lex. How was your day?" Clark asked, striding into the penthouse office. He got a real kick out of being able to do that, even if the very thought of adding "honey" or some other endearment was enough to make him cringe and blush simultaneously.
Lex was sitting at his desk, headset on and computer screens surrounding him, looking almost like an air traffic controller, and probably keeping just about as many planes in the air. He looked up at Clark as if he were scouting in enemy territory. Clark didn't like that expression, full of speculation and fraying trust. He kept his face curious and open.
"Not very interesting," Lex said at last, pushing back from his keyboard and unhooking his headset. "A man named Don Rohr came to see me."
Clark had been relaxing already, luxuriating in Lex's presence after a long day involving a car chase (reporter business), a trip to India to save a mosque from a mob (superhero work), and then some dumpster-diving for dessert (reporter again, naturally), but Lex's words put him back on full alert. He ran the name through his memory and came up with a handsome, narrow-faced man, a lawyer for the Russian mafia trying to expand into Metropolis through a front of legitimate businesses. "Really? What did he want?"
"He wanted me to participate in a far-reaching scheme to skim money off of government contracts throughout Metropolis. He seemed to think I'd be more than willing."
Clark looked down.
"I knew my reputation wasn't great, but I had no idea I was regarded as a criminal by the criminals themselves." Lex's tone was still mild, careful.
"You keep your eyes and ears open for me," Clark said. "Like an informant."
"I said I'd get back to him within the week. So what was our usual procedure, when we trapped some unsuspecting criminal?"
Yikes. "It didn't happen a lot, Lex. We improvised. You've just got to get him to give you information."
"It might be difficult. Mr. Rohr seemed quite a careful fellow."
Clark stepped closer, until Lex had to look up from his chair to meet Clark's eyes. He was watching Clark with the distant, evaluative look that belonged to the horrible blue room in the castle.
"I'll make it worth your while," he said, making his voice low and rough.
Lex swallowed, his pupils dilating so that the irises were only thin rings of blue, like the ocean in old maps of the world. Here there be dragons. His hand reached up, hooking his fingers into Clark's waistband, and he tugged Clark half a step closer.
"I suppose," he said, "I can think of something."
****
Later, when they were lying together, Lex staring at the ceiling and Clark watching Lex, he brought it up again. "I think Rohr should be the last one."
"What?"
"There have got to be other ways for you to get information – hell, I can get information other ways than being a shady character. And I don't want us to be public enemies," Lex said, his voice painstakingly light. "I'm not saying we should reveal everything, but I'd prefer not to have half of Metropolis looking for my secret evil motives anytime I act."
Clark put his hand on Lex's shoulder and squeezed, then turned his grip into a caress. The satin of Lex's skin, the solid human muscle underneath, distracted him for a moment. "We decided to do it this way for a reason, Lex," he said, because Lex would expect some resistance.
Lex's face was turned away. "I can't say that I understand my reasons. We'd be fine as casual acquaintances. You've been in Metropolis long enough that it wouldn't be suspicious if I seemed to know you."
Lex wasn't saying how lonely he was, or how much he wanted the intelligent people of Metropolis not to despise him. He probably would say that if Clark made him.
"You know," Clark said slowly, "you're right. Things have changed. As long as we're discreet, we can end the antagonism."
Lex rolled over, facing Clark. His eyes were light, and some of the strain was gone from his face. "We'll take it slow. Don't worry. I'll handle everything."
****
Clark did let Lex take care of the timing. Even at two-thirds' cunning, Lex's grasp of PR was superior to Clark's. A change in the pattern of LexCorp's political donations and lobbying goals. An acquisition or two in which Lex didn't reflexively lop off the heads of the old management, but kept a few who were actually good at their jobs, even if they hated him more than they feared him. After a few months, a public lunch with Superman, at which they politely discussed regional and national affairs and Lex listened thoughtfully to Superman's suggestions for urban policy.
It wasn't all that hard, because so many of Lex's manipulations had never been disclosed to the public, for all Lois and Clark's hard work.
There were no front-page headlines about Lex Luthor's slide onto the side of the Light, the way there'd been about his ascension when he'd first taken on his father. "People want a fast fall, but a slow climb," he said when Clark worried that public opinion was still tied to the old Lex, not the new one. "What would I say? That I'd let Jesus Christ into my heart? That may have worked for George W. Bush, but do you think anyone would believe *me*?"
"They should," he said stoutly, and Lex looked charmed and indulgent.
One lunch turned into a regular weekly appointment, which just about drove Lois insane, especially when Superman declined to comment. Lex built a hospital wing and didn't demand assistance in his biological experiments in return. He spent twenty hours at a time hurrying between lab and office and came up with a new waste treatment that meant the end of dumping on Native American territory, as well as another fortune for LexCorp. He discovered a woman spying for Lionel and didn't ruin her parents' and children's lives beyond sending her to prison.
It wasn't easy. Lex still wanted to take every advantage, even the unfair ones. "You can't con a man unless he has a little larceny in his heart, Clark," he said.
"Maybe so," Clark said, "but being better at it doesn't make you a better person."
The problem was that Lex wasn't just good at manipulation. He was exquisite. He could walk into a room, look around, and start living in everyone else's skin, seeing with their eyes, breathing with their lungs, all the time retaining a perspective that let him know what they were fooling themselves about. It was, Clark thought, why Lois hated him so much – he'd seen the flash of lust in her eyes (Lex was used to recognizing that) and smiled to let her know that he knew, and it was all downhill from there. Why Lex had decided to antagonize Lois wasn't completely clear, though Clark suspected it had to do with Lex's insane desire to beat the best.
Clark tolerated minor financial misbehavior and thanked the Fortress for hacking into Lex's private accounts to get rid of Lex's scientific temptations, projects Clark had always known he'd have to shut down if Lex made too much progress. Funds were rediverted so they actually reached their nominal destinations, personnel transferred or pensioned, all without disturbing Lex. Lex knew the Fortress could read his mail, since it was the AI that had provided him with his files right after the accident, but he didn't seem particularly concerned. Clark was beginning to hope that sharing Superman's secrets had been enough to assuage his paranoia.
There was a bad hour when one of the terminated employees tried to burst in on Lex, like long-ago Dr. Hamilton had, but Mercy took him out before Clark heard about the incident, and he was reduced to reporting the attack with Lois and then babying Lex for the next three days. The man didn't die, which was a relief, but he did hit his head pretty hard – also something of a relief, given the injury's effects on his demeanor and credibility. Clark had given up feeling guilty for most of the people he couldn't save years back, and he refused to let an amoral scientist be one of the exceptions.
Lois suspected a conspiracy. She knew better than to accuse Perry of being a part of it when he wouldn't let her print Dr. Morris's allegations, but it still gnawed at her, the way all the things about Lex they'd never been able to prove to the satisfaction of the Planet's lawyers gnawed at her. Lois called her ulcer "Luthor," even though she knew full well it was the fault of a bacterium rather than a man.
"He's up to something," she said, staring fiercely at her blank screen. "I can smell it."
"All I smell is stale coffee," Clark said and leaned back in his chair.
"You're an innocent, Kent." She picked up a pen, flipping it through her fingers, one of her many nervous habits.
"You know I'm usually with you, Lois," he said conciliatorily. "All I'm saying is that I don't think there's anything underhanded going on this time."
"Hmmph," she said.
Clark was willing to leave it at that.
****
"Come home early; I've got to go to Japan tomorrow, and I want to spend the evening with you."
Clark had grabbed the phone from the far side of his desk, since he'd been halfway out the door when it rang, and now he walked awkwardly around, trying not to let the phone cord knock over anything important.
"Lois answers this line sometimes, you know."
He could hear Lex grin, not nicely. "Wouldn't that be an interesting conversation."
"Look, I'll be there, but I gotta go. I have an interview with the mayor, and after that a – thing," which was his code word for a job for Superman, this time a reconstruction project in South America where flooding had destroyed several towns.
He was talking to the plastic handset.
Clark wouldn't ever tell Lex this, but he loved it that Lex always hung up without saying goodbye. He'd done it back in Smallville, to show what a badass, busy guy he was, and having him do it again made Clark feel that all the years between had truly been erased.
He'd lost Lois, who was probably getting into a taxi already, so he shrugged happily and hurried after her.
****
Clark was yelling at Lex, calling him 'Luthor,' telling him he couldn't play with people's lives the way he did.
Lex leaned against the rooftop wall, his hands in his pockets. The sun was behind Clark's back, but Lex stared at him unblinkingly. "Check out the beam in your own eye, *Superman*." He was wearing a light blue seersucker suit, the jacket unbuttoned, and a yellow tie, looking like the kind of man who offered candy to children.
Clark couldn't let that go, so he started to list Lex's crimes, starting with all the investigations and lies in Smallville.
"Oh, get over it," Lex snapped. "You're always going on about what happened to you years ago. I've been through twice as much with no superpowers to save me, and I've stopped being that whining adolescent you knew back in Smallville."
"I don't believe that," Clark said stoutly, changing roles as quickly as Lex did. "The man I knew – the man I called my friend -- is still in there."
Lex looked down at his chest and inspected it. "Nope, don't see him." His tone was intimate. "Maybe I ate him."
Suddenly, there was a device in his hand, a thing like a remote control. "Here's a reminder, since you seem to need one." He pressed a button, and silvery bubbles swarmed around them, each showing a distorted image. People who had died because of Lex or had their lives ruined, dead cows in a field, raw sewage pumping into a river, Clark's blood gleaming in the blue laboratory light, Chloe's still face, Lois with her arm in a cast after a narrow escape from Hope and Mercy – they darted around Clark like butterflies, popping when he touched them. He swung his arms around frantically, trying to clear the air.
He was stunned when his hand touched solid flesh. In a blink, the bubbles were gone, and he could see Lex flying backwards, his spine hitting the top of the wall with a terrible crack. Lex didn't even look surprised as he teetered and fell headfirst.
Clark hurried to the edge of the roof and looked down. Lex was at the center of an enormous crater in the concrete, limbs tangled in chunks of broken stone, staring back up at him and smiling, red blood over white teeth.
"Clark!"
Clark was out of the bed and pressed up against the door before he realized he was awake.
"Clark?" Lex's voice was concerned and careful, a man dealing with a dog that might bite. "You were moaning and thrashing around. Bad dream?"
He'd hit Lex in the dream. "Did I hurt you?" His voice was thin, fragile.
Lex shook his head, but Lex's definition of hurt might be somewhat different than Clark's. Clark scanned him, just to be sure, and didn't see any damage. "You called out my name."
"You were in trouble," Clark said, trying to work up the courage to go back to the bed. "I – I couldn't get to you in time." He shouldn't be feeling guilty. He wasn't lying to protect himself. It was for Lex.
Lex studied him for half a minute. "Freud says that anxiety dreams are the unconscious's way of reassuring us that everything will actually be fine. 'See,' your unconscious mind says, 'you didn't show up naked for school last time, and you won't next time. It's a silly fear, so don't worry.'"
Clark smiled weakly. "So you think I'll always save you?"
"Clark," Lex patted the bed next to him, "I know it."
"Clark."
Clark had been half-dozing when he answered the call, tired out from a heavy day of hostage-rescuing and rebuilding a Kurdish town, but he snapped awake at the harsh, pained tone of Lex's voice.
"What is it?" he asked and sped into his uniform.
"I need to see you."
The request must have cost Lex terribly. After nearly a month in his strange new world, Lex must feel as alone as Clark had ever been, lost on a planet that could never accept him for all that he was. Now more than ever, he was Clark's responsibility, and it was no longer an awful one.
"I'll be right there," he said. He was outside the Fortress before the phone circuit registered the disconnect.
Lex was waiting on the balcony of his penthouse. The highball glass in his hand was almost empty, as was the decanter on the elegant metal and glass table nearby. His collar was undone, the tie missing, his shoes gone. The look in his eyes was terrible, like a forest fire raging unchecked.
Clark's journey had given him a little time to think. Lex would be feeling vulnerable, just for asking Clark to come, and would lash out at the most minimal of excuses. Clark could help by not making Lex do more of the work.
He touched down gently a pace away from Lex. As soon as Lex put down his glass, Clark reached out to hug him, ignoring his stiffening. Clark would provide whatever Lex needed tonight. Slowly, Lex's arms came up around Clark's waist and his head pressed against Clark's shoulder.
"How did I live like this?" he asked, more to himself than to Clark. "I'm so tired of everyone staring at me like rabbits facing down a mad dog. Fearing what I'll do if they displease me. The only ones who aren't afraid of me are Hope and Mercy, and Clark, Jesus, who the hell are they? Why do they look at me like I'm their god? I think they'd walk into a spinning propeller if I said to do it."
The last question was the easiest to deal with, so that was where he began. "Mercy's name used to be Emily. Emily Dinsmore, version 6.5, they called her, before you got her out of your father's lab."
Lex looked up at him, blinking in confusion. "She doesn't look anything like the Emily I knew."
"She had – you got her – extensive plastic surgery. She dyes her hair and wears contacts. It's helped her a lot, Lex. You've helped her a lot."
"Okay," Lex said. His eyes were distant, no doubt thinking about his father, in whose physical presence he hadn't been for over five years. "Did – is her training from him? Or me?"
Clark tightened his grip fractionally. "Lionel Luthor had her trained as an assassin. You gave her the job as your head of security. She protects you. She loves you, in her way."
"And Hope?" Lex sounded almost afraid of the answer.
"You found her in the Metropolis slums." Standing over the dead body of her pimp. "You gave her stability, security." Also medication and Mercy. Together they looked after Lex, who was the most spectacularly broken of them all, because he still had a will of his own.
Lex was silent for several minutes. He must have been cold, in only his shirtsleeves high above the crisp fall night, but he didn't shiver. "Don't make me do this alone. I know I haven't done whatever it was that Lex Luthor did to make you – make you want me. But I can, Clark, I know it –"
As it turned out, Clark was less able to stand Lex's pleading than Lex himself. He moved his hands to Lex's shoulders and silenced him with a kiss, Sleeping Beauty's savior in reverse.
Being a stalker meant never having to admit you didn't know what your intended liked. Clark started with light, teasing kisses, moving away to the line of Lex's jaw with equal delicacy, then let Lex pull him back for deeper, rougher kisses. Lex bit at Clark's tongue and lips, as Clark had always known he would, and he moaned into Lex's mouth.
Clark pushed at Lex's shoulders, backing him against the glass doors of the balcony. As Clark's hands roved over Lex's body, ripping off buttons and tearing cloth, his mouth worked at Lex's throat, trying to cover it with bites. Lex slammed his head back against the door rhythmically, harder and harder as Clark's hands slid over his wind-cooled skin. Finally, Clark had to bring a hand up to cradle Lex's skull, the one place no one ever got to touch.
Lex's fingers scrabbled at the uniform, sliding off uselessly. He made a wordless, angry sound. Clark quickly pulled back. "Let's go inside." The bluish, scientific glow from the fluorescents made Lex's pale skin look like some exotic substance. His eyes were a purer blue. Clark was undone.
"Does that costume come off?"
"Inside." Clark picked Lex up, ignoring the offended struggles, and walked into the penthouse. Then he put Lex down and pushed him towards the bedroom.
"Just because you're the most powerful being on Earth, you think you can always get your way," Lex grumbled.
"I can," Clark pointed out. "You just have to make sure that my way is yours."
As they stepped into the enormous bedroom, Lex shed the remains of his clothes and Clark began to strip out of the suit. Clark frowned at the empty decanter by the bedside, a suggestion that Lex had been fighting too long on his own. Before Lex's accident, he'd suspected that Lex was an extremely high-functioning alcoholic with a stainless steel liver. He'd pay better attention this time around.
Smiling now, Lex backed towards the bed. "You've only gotten more beautiful." His voice was reverent. Clark had to blink to clear his vision.
Lex lay back on the bed, his skin shining against the royal purple of the bedcover. His muscles were thrown into relief as he posed, effortlessly, one arm thrown up over his head and the opposite knee drawn up and tilted out, his hard cock proud against his stomach. For a moment, Clark hated everyone else who'd gotten to see this, hated them so much that he could have vaporized them all. But desire swiftly cut off thoughts of the past, or the future.
He got onto the bed, crawling up to Lex like a cat playing with its supper. Hovering over Lex's body, touching only with his knees against Lex's hips, Clark wanted to freeze the moment forever. Lex stared up, his eyes wide and his mouth half-open, for once not talking.
The move to the bedroom had drained off the urgency. They kissed for centuries. Clark spent a thousand years touching every centimeter of Lex's skin, smooth and tight over his flesh like the skin of a ripe fruit, ignoring Lex's increasingly vehement suggestions for more focused attention. From the way Lex moaned when his struggles failed to shift Clark, Clark didn't think he minded all that much.
When Clark finally took Lex's cock in his mouth, Lex fairly screamed. His hands pulled at Clark's hair, as if that would do any good, and when Clark looked up his eyes were slitted tight. Clark pulled back, letting Lex slide out with a wet smack, and Lex's eyes obligingly opened.
"Pay attention," Clark chided.
Lex's expression suggested that, from his perspective, Clark had his undivided attention, but he kept his eyes wide open as Clark lowered his mouth.
After that, Clark barely had time to wet two fingers and slide them inside Lex before Lex was coming, arching off the bed, cursing as he wrapped himself around Clark.
This was much better, Clark thought, than it would have been if his cheesy adolescent fantasies had come true one night in front of the big-screen TV at the mansion. Lex might have enjoyed fucking him then, but he would have been helpless, poleaxed by it. He was glad to have experience and control, and from the noises Lex was making he wasn't the only one who was grateful.
He held Lex close, watching as Lex's stunned, almost prayerful expression faded into satisfaction. Lex's eyes slowly refocused on Clark.
"I'm afraid you have me at a disadvantage," Lex said, softly enough that it almost hid the vulnerability. "You'll have to tell me what you like."
"Easy," Clark said and bent to kiss the bridge of Lex's nose. "I like you."
"Flattering, but not entirely helpful," Lex said with a trace of lemon in his tone.
"Lex," Clark said with perfect, misleading honesty, "you've never done anything to me in bed that I didn't enjoy."
Lex's mouth worked, as if he were suppressing a series of smart remarks. Then he nodded sharply and rolled them over, straddling Clark. He bent his head and began to nip down Clark's neck to his shoulder, then reversed course to follow the collarbone.
Evidently, Lex had decided to take a thorough survey. Clark let his head sag back against the pillow and relaxed into the wonder of it all.
****
After three or four hints about how Superman could benefit the good citizens of Metropolis a lot by taking down Lionel – possibly more hints than that, but Lex was too subtle for his own good – Clark finally told Lex why Superman had generally left the battle against Lionel Luthor in the capable hands of his firstborn son.
Lionel had way, way too much meteor rock, and seemed to have a clue about its utility in keeping Superman from poking around. Clark wasn't sure he'd made the connection between Superman and the meteor shower, but the risk had kept him from taking Lionel on any number of times. There were plenty of other bad guys in the world, and Lionel's misbehavior was only occasionally dangerous to other people.
Psychological wounds didn't count.
Most of Clark's anti-Lionel acts were done in Clark Kent's identity. The Daily Planet prided itself on being Luthor-free since 2003, in Perry's words. He'd been successful enough that not even Lionel could maintain a smile when Clark called out a question in a press conference.
It was a good thing that Lex hated his father more than he ever hated Clark. If Lex had ever let Clark's secret identity slip – and he was sure it had crossed Lex's mind more than once – Lionel wouldn't have had Lex's minimal scruples (or hesitance) about blackmailing Clark.
When Clark had explained as much of this as necessary to Lex, Lex sat back in his chair, turning his tumbler around in his hands. It was filled with orange juice, because Lex was humoring him.
"If the meteor rocks are that dangerous to you, we need a way to protect you from them. My father's not going to be satisfied with sharing control over Metropolis with some extraterrestrial Schwartzenegge r in a clown suit."
Clark froze. Lex had used that phrase before. Did he remember? "That's not a very nice thing to call me," he said.
Lex rolled his eyes, but didn't seem tense. "Focus, Clark. The point is that you need some meteor rock antidote. Hasn't your Fortress been able to come up with something?"
"It's not good for the Fortress either." Clark wasn't one hundred percent sure of this, but given what happened to the space ship, he wasn't about to suggest that the Fortress try to absorb a sample of Kryptonite.
"LexCorp has a few crates stored in a warehouse," Lex continued. "I'll see what I can do."
Clark smiled and remembered how reassuring it had been to think that Lex was the smartest person he knew.
****
"Clark Kent."
"Jargon check: 'Queer'?"
"Means 'good.'"
"O brave new world," Lex said, amused. Clark closed his eyes and leaned on his elbow, letting Lex's voice wrap around him like a wool blanket, scratchy and warming. "Anything else I should know?"
"'Nice' is bad, 'squaring the circle' is implementing an innovative plan, 'in the last mile' means that most of the time allotted to a project is gone and most of the work remains to be done, and 'unlocking the DRM' is telling you something you didn't already know. That's all I can think of right now."
"That's very helpful, Clark. I do appreciate it." The tone promised obscene rewards.
Clark turned to his monitor to hide his grin from the rest of the newsroom. "No problem."
"I'll see you tonight," Lex said and hung up.
Lois had to whack him twice across the shoulder before he noticed that she wanted to talk about the Peterson feature. He almost forgot to rub his shoulder as if she'd bruised him.
****
Clark X-rayed the building and saw Lois's skeleton, distinctive through long familiarity, in a strange metal room that, checking up and down the spectrum, he identified as a freezer. She was shivering but not having trouble breathing, so he took the time to round up the various and sundry goons, tie them to pillars in the garage, call the police to come get them and the contraband weapons, and zip through the records to see who they were selling to before he changed back into mufti and went to release her.
"Kent!" Lois's arms were wrapped around herself, her bluish fingers sunk deep into her royal blue suit jacket, as she scurried out of the industrial freezer. "How'd you find me?"
Clark wondered why bad guys always seemed to have industrial freezers, or their functional equivalent, handy for use on nosy reporters. "Superman. He, um, took the gang into custody and then told me to get you out."
Lois frowned. There was a time when Superman would have come for her himself, and he could tell that she was remembering that.
"I think we can still interview Lucacs and some of the others before the police arrive, if we hurry," he suggested, which had the intended effect of distracting her.
"Well?" she asked, pushing past him. "What are you waiting for?" She headed down the hall.
"Uh, Lois?" She stopped and looked at him over her shoulder. "This way."
She overtook him in a few strides, already humming with the prospect of another story that would hit Lionel Luthor's pocketbook, if not his reputation. She and Clark hadn't found a way to connect him verifiably with any of the illegal operations they'd exposed, in part because sources willing to use his name tended to have a very short lifeline. And then there'd been that guy George Huyssen, whose use of the initials "LL" to identify his boss had caused no end of trouble.
Nonetheless, Clark was confident that they'd be able to take Lionel down eventually. Especially now that they were diverted less often by Lex's shenanigans.
****
"Clark Kent."
"Query: Lois Lane dreamt up 'Truth, Justice and the American Way,' did she not?"
"Yes," Clark admitted. He leaned forward so his computer screen would hide his expression from Lois.
"So the question arises: if she thinks that the American way is neither truth nor justice, but something else entirely, what does she think it is?"
Clark sputtered, caught between outrage and laughter. "It's not – it's *inclusive*."
"What, like 'Kansas, Illinois and North America'? I don't think so."
"Like – like 'spam, spam, eggs and spam.'"
"Now truth and justice are just processed meat products to you? I fear for the future of the country."
He caught himself just before saying Lex's name. "You're a deeply strange person, you know that?"
"Whereas your strange is only skin deep. I'll talk to you later – if I don't kill this company quickly, the jackals will tear at it for years."
Clark put the phone back on the hook, grinning like an idiot.
"Who was that?" Lois asked. Lois was a very smart woman.
"Just a friend. Old college joke."
She looked at him skeptically. "You have friends, Smallville?"
"Strange but true," he said and leaned back in his chair, lacing his hands behind his head and smiling at her.
****
"Hey, Lex. How was your day?" Clark asked, striding into the penthouse office. He got a real kick out of being able to do that, even if the very thought of adding "honey" or some other endearment was enough to make him cringe and blush simultaneously.
Lex was sitting at his desk, headset on and computer screens surrounding him, looking almost like an air traffic controller, and probably keeping just about as many planes in the air. He looked up at Clark as if he were scouting in enemy territory. Clark didn't like that expression, full of speculation and fraying trust. He kept his face curious and open.
"Not very interesting," Lex said at last, pushing back from his keyboard and unhooking his headset. "A man named Don Rohr came to see me."
Clark had been relaxing already, luxuriating in Lex's presence after a long day involving a car chase (reporter business), a trip to India to save a mosque from a mob (superhero work), and then some dumpster-diving for dessert (reporter again, naturally), but Lex's words put him back on full alert. He ran the name through his memory and came up with a handsome, narrow-faced man, a lawyer for the Russian mafia trying to expand into Metropolis through a front of legitimate businesses. "Really? What did he want?"
"He wanted me to participate in a far-reaching scheme to skim money off of government contracts throughout Metropolis. He seemed to think I'd be more than willing."
Clark looked down.
"I knew my reputation wasn't great, but I had no idea I was regarded as a criminal by the criminals themselves." Lex's tone was still mild, careful.
"You keep your eyes and ears open for me," Clark said. "Like an informant."
"I said I'd get back to him within the week. So what was our usual procedure, when we trapped some unsuspecting criminal?"
Yikes. "It didn't happen a lot, Lex. We improvised. You've just got to get him to give you information."
"It might be difficult. Mr. Rohr seemed quite a careful fellow."
Clark stepped closer, until Lex had to look up from his chair to meet Clark's eyes. He was watching Clark with the distant, evaluative look that belonged to the horrible blue room in the castle.
"I'll make it worth your while," he said, making his voice low and rough.
Lex swallowed, his pupils dilating so that the irises were only thin rings of blue, like the ocean in old maps of the world. Here there be dragons. His hand reached up, hooking his fingers into Clark's waistband, and he tugged Clark half a step closer.
"I suppose," he said, "I can think of something."
****
Later, when they were lying together, Lex staring at the ceiling and Clark watching Lex, he brought it up again. "I think Rohr should be the last one."
"What?"
"There have got to be other ways for you to get information – hell, I can get information other ways than being a shady character. And I don't want us to be public enemies," Lex said, his voice painstakingly light. "I'm not saying we should reveal everything, but I'd prefer not to have half of Metropolis looking for my secret evil motives anytime I act."
Clark put his hand on Lex's shoulder and squeezed, then turned his grip into a caress. The satin of Lex's skin, the solid human muscle underneath, distracted him for a moment. "We decided to do it this way for a reason, Lex," he said, because Lex would expect some resistance.
Lex's face was turned away. "I can't say that I understand my reasons. We'd be fine as casual acquaintances. You've been in Metropolis long enough that it wouldn't be suspicious if I seemed to know you."
Lex wasn't saying how lonely he was, or how much he wanted the intelligent people of Metropolis not to despise him. He probably would say that if Clark made him.
"You know," Clark said slowly, "you're right. Things have changed. As long as we're discreet, we can end the antagonism."
Lex rolled over, facing Clark. His eyes were light, and some of the strain was gone from his face. "We'll take it slow. Don't worry. I'll handle everything."
****
Clark did let Lex take care of the timing. Even at two-thirds' cunning, Lex's grasp of PR was superior to Clark's. A change in the pattern of LexCorp's political donations and lobbying goals. An acquisition or two in which Lex didn't reflexively lop off the heads of the old management, but kept a few who were actually good at their jobs, even if they hated him more than they feared him. After a few months, a public lunch with Superman, at which they politely discussed regional and national affairs and Lex listened thoughtfully to Superman's suggestions for urban policy.
It wasn't all that hard, because so many of Lex's manipulations had never been disclosed to the public, for all Lois and Clark's hard work.
There were no front-page headlines about Lex Luthor's slide onto the side of the Light, the way there'd been about his ascension when he'd first taken on his father. "People want a fast fall, but a slow climb," he said when Clark worried that public opinion was still tied to the old Lex, not the new one. "What would I say? That I'd let Jesus Christ into my heart? That may have worked for George W. Bush, but do you think anyone would believe *me*?"
"They should," he said stoutly, and Lex looked charmed and indulgent.
One lunch turned into a regular weekly appointment, which just about drove Lois insane, especially when Superman declined to comment. Lex built a hospital wing and didn't demand assistance in his biological experiments in return. He spent twenty hours at a time hurrying between lab and office and came up with a new waste treatment that meant the end of dumping on Native American territory, as well as another fortune for LexCorp. He discovered a woman spying for Lionel and didn't ruin her parents' and children's lives beyond sending her to prison.
It wasn't easy. Lex still wanted to take every advantage, even the unfair ones. "You can't con a man unless he has a little larceny in his heart, Clark," he said.
"Maybe so," Clark said, "but being better at it doesn't make you a better person."
The problem was that Lex wasn't just good at manipulation. He was exquisite. He could walk into a room, look around, and start living in everyone else's skin, seeing with their eyes, breathing with their lungs, all the time retaining a perspective that let him know what they were fooling themselves about. It was, Clark thought, why Lois hated him so much – he'd seen the flash of lust in her eyes (Lex was used to recognizing that) and smiled to let her know that he knew, and it was all downhill from there. Why Lex had decided to antagonize Lois wasn't completely clear, though Clark suspected it had to do with Lex's insane desire to beat the best.
Clark tolerated minor financial misbehavior and thanked the Fortress for hacking into Lex's private accounts to get rid of Lex's scientific temptations, projects Clark had always known he'd have to shut down if Lex made too much progress. Funds were rediverted so they actually reached their nominal destinations, personnel transferred or pensioned, all without disturbing Lex. Lex knew the Fortress could read his mail, since it was the AI that had provided him with his files right after the accident, but he didn't seem particularly concerned. Clark was beginning to hope that sharing Superman's secrets had been enough to assuage his paranoia.
There was a bad hour when one of the terminated employees tried to burst in on Lex, like long-ago Dr. Hamilton had, but Mercy took him out before Clark heard about the incident, and he was reduced to reporting the attack with Lois and then babying Lex for the next three days. The man didn't die, which was a relief, but he did hit his head pretty hard – also something of a relief, given the injury's effects on his demeanor and credibility. Clark had given up feeling guilty for most of the people he couldn't save years back, and he refused to let an amoral scientist be one of the exceptions.
Lois suspected a conspiracy. She knew better than to accuse Perry of being a part of it when he wouldn't let her print Dr. Morris's allegations, but it still gnawed at her, the way all the things about Lex they'd never been able to prove to the satisfaction of the Planet's lawyers gnawed at her. Lois called her ulcer "Luthor," even though she knew full well it was the fault of a bacterium rather than a man.
"He's up to something," she said, staring fiercely at her blank screen. "I can smell it."
"All I smell is stale coffee," Clark said and leaned back in his chair.
"You're an innocent, Kent." She picked up a pen, flipping it through her fingers, one of her many nervous habits.
"You know I'm usually with you, Lois," he said conciliatorily. "All I'm saying is that I don't think there's anything underhanded going on this time."
"Hmmph," she said.
Clark was willing to leave it at that.
****
"Come home early; I've got to go to Japan tomorrow, and I want to spend the evening with you."
Clark had grabbed the phone from the far side of his desk, since he'd been halfway out the door when it rang, and now he walked awkwardly around, trying not to let the phone cord knock over anything important.
"Lois answers this line sometimes, you know."
He could hear Lex grin, not nicely. "Wouldn't that be an interesting conversation."
"Look, I'll be there, but I gotta go. I have an interview with the mayor, and after that a – thing," which was his code word for a job for Superman, this time a reconstruction project in South America where flooding had destroyed several towns.
He was talking to the plastic handset.
Clark wouldn't ever tell Lex this, but he loved it that Lex always hung up without saying goodbye. He'd done it back in Smallville, to show what a badass, busy guy he was, and having him do it again made Clark feel that all the years between had truly been erased.
He'd lost Lois, who was probably getting into a taxi already, so he shrugged happily and hurried after her.
****
Clark was yelling at Lex, calling him 'Luthor,' telling him he couldn't play with people's lives the way he did.
Lex leaned against the rooftop wall, his hands in his pockets. The sun was behind Clark's back, but Lex stared at him unblinkingly. "Check out the beam in your own eye, *Superman*." He was wearing a light blue seersucker suit, the jacket unbuttoned, and a yellow tie, looking like the kind of man who offered candy to children.
Clark couldn't let that go, so he started to list Lex's crimes, starting with all the investigations and lies in Smallville.
"Oh, get over it," Lex snapped. "You're always going on about what happened to you years ago. I've been through twice as much with no superpowers to save me, and I've stopped being that whining adolescent you knew back in Smallville."
"I don't believe that," Clark said stoutly, changing roles as quickly as Lex did. "The man I knew – the man I called my friend -- is still in there."
Lex looked down at his chest and inspected it. "Nope, don't see him." His tone was intimate. "Maybe I ate him."
Suddenly, there was a device in his hand, a thing like a remote control. "Here's a reminder, since you seem to need one." He pressed a button, and silvery bubbles swarmed around them, each showing a distorted image. People who had died because of Lex or had their lives ruined, dead cows in a field, raw sewage pumping into a river, Clark's blood gleaming in the blue laboratory light, Chloe's still face, Lois with her arm in a cast after a narrow escape from Hope and Mercy – they darted around Clark like butterflies, popping when he touched them. He swung his arms around frantically, trying to clear the air.
He was stunned when his hand touched solid flesh. In a blink, the bubbles were gone, and he could see Lex flying backwards, his spine hitting the top of the wall with a terrible crack. Lex didn't even look surprised as he teetered and fell headfirst.
Clark hurried to the edge of the roof and looked down. Lex was at the center of an enormous crater in the concrete, limbs tangled in chunks of broken stone, staring back up at him and smiling, red blood over white teeth.
"Clark!"
Clark was out of the bed and pressed up against the door before he realized he was awake.
"Clark?" Lex's voice was concerned and careful, a man dealing with a dog that might bite. "You were moaning and thrashing around. Bad dream?"
He'd hit Lex in the dream. "Did I hurt you?" His voice was thin, fragile.
Lex shook his head, but Lex's definition of hurt might be somewhat different than Clark's. Clark scanned him, just to be sure, and didn't see any damage. "You called out my name."
"You were in trouble," Clark said, trying to work up the courage to go back to the bed. "I – I couldn't get to you in time." He shouldn't be feeling guilty. He wasn't lying to protect himself. It was for Lex.
Lex studied him for half a minute. "Freud says that anxiety dreams are the unconscious's way of reassuring us that everything will actually be fine. 'See,' your unconscious mind says, 'you didn't show up naked for school last time, and you won't next time. It's a silly fear, so don't worry.'"
Clark smiled weakly. "So you think I'll always save you?"
"Clark," Lex patted the bed next to him, "I know it."
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