I'm waiting for a cooler "Red"-based fic to be beta-ed, so I returned to this silly thing and finished it. I have no idea what strange part of my idiot brain this came from, but it's prolly not worth a beta. So...ye were warned. :p
Title: "Cure"
Author: Niggle
Rating: PG
Genre: AU/Action
Summary: I guess it sort of entered me head what it might be like if a couple of superheroes hunted Clark down and subdued him right after the bar scene in "Red".
Lana Lang shoved the door open, letting it bang against the wall with a satisfying crash. She glanced around quickly for a pay phone, hoping she could get a cab back home – this was not a situation she wanted to have to explain to Nell. She didn't want to have to explain it to anyone. She didn't want to think about it. But her mind kept returning to that moment when he'd said the things she'd always wanted him to say, when he'd kissed her as she'd never dreamed she could be kissed. She had felt something wrong then, but she had wanted so badly to believe that it was real, she'd ignored her own misgivings. Now she knew the truth. In your dreams, Lana.
The night was dark and quiet, except for the faint hum of the party still going on in the bar behind her. There were no phones and no other lights in sight. She wrapped her arms about herself and briefly considered going back in. Then she saw his face again, saw the madness in eyes. He had been so…cold. It was as if he had abandoned emotion, left behind joy as well as pain. She had never seen Clark so consumed by emptiness. There was no way she would set foot in that place again.
She wandered in the direction of Clark's borrowed car, the sleek form of the Ferrari easy to identify in the darkness. On a whim, she pulled out her cell phone and checked the display. Still no service.
"Great," she said aloud. "What do I do now?"
"Tell us where to find Clark Kent."
She jumped visibly at the unexpected response from the two slim, female forms gliding out of the shadows around her, blue eyes glimmering with reflected light.
"Who are you?"
"We're looking for Clark Kent. Is he with you?"
"Why do you want to know?" she asked belligerently, still cross from Clark's unexpected treatment of her.
"He's…not well. We want to help him," one of them responded. Lana stared at the two figures, their long dark hair shimmering even in the dimness, their eyes like luminescent ice.
Before she could offer a response, she heard several large crashes from inside the bar. The strangers turned with her to watch Clark and Jesse come tumbling out. Jesse seemed a little anxious but Clark was grinning. His smile was empty, though, and it chilled her.
As he strutted towards the car he caught sight of the two women and a semblance of piqued interest ghosted across his features.
"Come for a rematch?" he asked them.
"You're sick. You need help," one of them said.
"The first asskick didn't take, huh?" Clark laughed openly. "Well, come on then. Let's see what you got."
The two strangers looked at each other, and Lana realized with a start that their features were identical. They nodded very slightly to each other and then seemed to move towards Clark. The next thing she knew, things were crashing all around her, as if a storm were sweeping through the parking lot, tearing into metal, asphalt, wood and the earth itself like a hurricane. She screamed and started running as an errant pick-up came screeching her way, its chassis demolished.
"You're fast. But not fast enough."
The noise had stopped, and she turned back when she heard those cold, mocking words cutting across the silence. Clark was holding one girl with each arm, his large hands wrapped around their throats, pressing them into the wall of a neighboring building. Choking, their hair and clothes tangled and torn, they looked beaten – mice under a lion's paw. One of them kicked out, driving a hole through the brick behind them but failing to budge Clark. Lana wanted to run, to scream for help, but she didn't know who could make a difference in a battle that was being fought a supra-human scale.
"What's that?" Clark asked disdainfully, as the two tried to speak. He leaned his head a little closer in a taunting effort to hear them better. In a single, concerted instant, they took their hands from his and grabbed his temples. Blue-white flashes of electricity arced down their arms. Clark tore his hands away and whipped them up to his skull, screaming in agony. The two women dropped to the ground, but kept their grips, driving him to his knees. Energy swirled and writhed around the three. One stray bolt scattered chunks of concrete into the street; another tossed the already mangled pick-up twenty feet in the air before it took out a telephone pole.
Cascades of sparks rained down all around; alternating shafts of light and dark swept over the parking lot. Lana was forced to clap her hands over her ears as Clark's hoarse screams seemed to drive her ears six inches into her head. She'd never heard anyone scream like that. It hurt to listen to, and not just because of the volume.
It seemed like forever, but finally everything stopped. The noise, the light, the violence. Clark slumped soundlessly at the feet of one of the strange women, eyes closed, limbs limp. She knelt to examine him, supporting his neck with one hand. Crystalline tears sparkled on her face, but her voice didn't tremble.
"His system is purged. Remove the ring."
The other reached for Clark's hand and gently slipped his class ring from his finger. The first woman climbed to her feet, holding Clark in her arms as if his six-foot frame was nothing. Lana stepped forward, despite her bewildered fear. Her voice did tremble.
"What the hell did you do?"
They turned toward her, eyes filled with cold determination, but also strangely compassionate.
"He was sick. We helped him. He needs rest now." She walked over to the (miraculously undamaged) Ferrari and draped Clark's inert form over the passenger seat. "You'll take care of him."
Before Lana could speak a word of protest, the women were gone and the parking lot was deserted once again. Even Jesse seemed to have run off during the fight. She looked forlornly at the desolation around her.
"But…I can't drive a stick."
Finis