Clark Luthor's Adventure in Wonderland, Part Three – Negotiations
Clark Luthor spent the night in the Fortress. The A.I. was done with him for the day. It had sent him off, gotten its favor, and no longer seemed to care what he did. Clark was grateful for that. He'd had his head fucked with too much in the last hour to deal with the machine's edicts and demands. The world over there made him angry inside, made it feel like something massive and angry was pacing underneath his skin, demanding to be let out.
It had all been a twist of fate, random chance.
In his world the fucking Luthors had found him and now look what he had-no real identity, at least not his original one, a woman who couldn't stand him, and a nominal other partner who was probably hoping he'd turn feral enough to be put down. The Martian, after all, never stopped lecturing him about what a disappointment he was and how great the real Jor-El was, how ashamed he'd be of what had become of the former Kal-El.
And that fucking other Clark had it all. He had the loyalty of a living, breathing Tess (the bastard), a day job and a gig as a hero that could be out in actual daylight, and Chloe.
That Chloe was broken too, and Clark had no illusions about that. She had her own problems and, God, she was gorgeous and his heart ached to think of what he'd cost Sullivan, even if he found her as alluring. That bastard Kent had everything and a child on top of that, and he could care less. Some aliens had all the luck.
At least he had a plan. It was a long shot, but everything else was. Still, he'd get to it tomorrow. Tonight, he'd try and rest and wish he had some red rocks, anything to take the edge off. Before murder would have done it, before he grew a soul of his own so to speak. Then there was always a good fuck to squelch his demons, but he only wanted one woman. For the first time in his life, even with Tess, he only wanted one and nothing else would feel right. It would only make him angrier, be a greater tease that it wasn't Sullivan. Maybe he'd see if one of his father's former holdings had some other meteor rocks in them. There were a few small vacation homes, some he'd kept hidden from Mother, ones for mistresses that Clark had been aware of.
After all, a good wet works service could be summoned anywhere.
Maybe Father had some red K somewhere. He certainly couldn't risk hunting for it in Smallville and now what was left of Queen Industries had the bulk of all the Kryptonite under lock and key like Fort Knox. Even if they didn't, he was sure that Lane had squealed to the General as well, that the military had more than its fair share of the stuff. All he wanted was a few small red pebbles, just enough to ease his mind.
Make it hurt less.
If he had some, maybe he could sleep without seeing so much red.
Clark sighed and leaned back on the small bed in a corner of the Fortress. He would at least try and sleep. It wouldn't work, that much he knew. The nightmares would flood over him in a matter of hours at best, but it was that or risk being awake enough for the damn machine to start in on him, and at least attempting, well, that was a better choice.
When he managed a few minutes of sleep, he saw honey blonde hair and long curls before it all melted into scars.
The office he blurred into lit up in neon green. Luthor figured it would, but he stayed just on the outskirts, on the entrance's threshold. The glow made him a bit dizzy from there, but he wasn't close enough to leave his blood boiling.
"We need to talk," he drawled.
The man before him was lit in a sickly green glare, and it shone in waves off of pendant he was wearing. "Clark Luthor, there's nothing for you here. In fact, only an idiot would have come to Metropolis."
He shrugged and crossed his arms over his chest. "Only an idiot would work this late at night, alone, in the Daily Planet, especially when they know how much I hate you. You threatened my family more than most."
"Way I hear it, your family's gone," Perry White said. "And good riddance to them, biggest cancer we've ever seen here."
"You flatter us," Clark said, fidgeting with the signet ring on his finger. It was a nervous habit, one he still indulged in, maybe more than before. His idol hands had found entertainment before with the flaying of skin or smashing of bone. Now more simple distractions had to suffice. "We did what we could for this crappy town."
Perry shrugged and, Clark had to give him credit, the other man's heart was pounding like a rabbit's but he was as sardonic and unimpressed as ever. "You certainly did. Clark Luthor, Ultraman…the alien invader from another world…you did more than enough."
"Again you flatter me," Clark added. "So, wheels, how have you been?"
"You can't kill me. I have enough meteor rock in here to fell you if you take another step."
Clark laughed. "Don't kid yourself. I can fry the Kryptonite, even the necklace you have on from where I stand, burn it out until it's nothing. Besides, I want to do business with you."
Perry wheeled himself from behind the desk. "Last time you did anything with me, I stopped being able to walk."
Clark shrugged. "You were lucky. I was still very young, wasn't good at killing off the bat, didn't even have my heat vision. Would have been more fun. You dug into my family. That never goes well."
I'm sorry.
Don't be sorry. We're never sorry. Just squeeze harder. You'll learn to kill more efficiently.
Should I try again, Father.
No, I like him this way…so broken.
He shuddered, forcing the memory away, and noticed the damn Pit Bull's eyes following his own. He was evaluating him. The old man had no damn right. Clark was setting the tempo for these negotiations, and no one was going to head shrink him.
"Huh, life on the run not treating you well, kid?"
"Shut up!" he shouted, his eyes blazing, and the twenty minutes of sleep he'd managed for the first time in days wasn't helping much, was it? "I want something from you."
"And I want to dance a jig. Life's unfair. You should run now, before I call every cop in the damn city."
He eyed the desk and set it on fire, and then blew it out with a thick burst of breath. Perry's eyes were large and Clark loved fear, even now. Part of him always would. The bloodshed roiled him and kept him up nights, but the fear was always gratifying, made him feel like the damn god among men he was supposed to be. "You won't. You can't dial faster than I can flash fry you. Besides, Perry, it's been thirteen years. Aren't you the least bit curious about what I want?"
"No. I only want to be part of the exclusive when I get your ass hauled off to Area 51."
"And how's your lovely wife…oh, that's right. She left you, didn't she? Father pointed that out. We had a good laugh on that. I guess everything's dead below the waist."
"Get out."
"No, these are the terms. You're alive only because I allow it, and I'll continue to allow it as long as you hear me out. Simple and takes less than a few minutes. Now, what I want, is for you to offer someone a job."
"You're cracked! You don't need the money and wherever you've been hiding, I doubt you need a byline to help expose you."
"I'm not asking for me," he said, flinging a slim folder to the desk. "Eye it. Tell me the work isn't good. I raided her work from way back at the Smallville Torch. It's solid work."
"The Torch? Why is that…oh my, the Lady Editor. She's dead," Perry said, reading through the old editorials that Clark had printed out. "I can't hire a dead girl."
"She's not, no more than I am."
"No, I know she was. I went to her services. I…she came to me a few weeks before you got to her. I tried to warn her. I was desperate to warn her. I showed her my set of wheels and she saw the empty liquor bottles all over my desk. I told her what fucking around with Luthors would get her. She was talented but naïve, and it was a shame your father got to her." Perry shook his head and tossed the folder back at him. "You got to her. I know your M.O. by now, Luthor. You blew everything up, probably took you all of thirty seconds."
Clark swallowed hard.
Fast run this time. I'm impressed. I'm going to have to schedule more on your roster nightly. Tell me, son, did she scream?
A lot, but not as much as her father.
"Huh, sharing with the rest of the class. Interesting. I knew you were a psychopath, Luthor, but I didn't think it was quite that literal. What? You hearing voices?" Perry asked. "Are you seeing a dead girl?"
He blew up one of the Tiffany lamps above them out of spite. It was gratifying to see the stained glass cut into the jowls of that old bastard. "That's not the deal, White. Like I said, I control your horizontal and vertical. You know her, know she's good. I want you to give her a chance to do visiting pieces and op-eds. That's all you need to know."
"Out of the close personal connection we share? No. I don't need any connection to you."
Clark shrugged. "I think you need to reconsider."
"I know, I know. Because you'll kill me. Did close enough of a job last time. I don't even know if I care anymore. I don't have Alice and I never see my kids. Grown now, never even send me a damn Christmas card. So do your worst."
"I don't kill anymore. You won't believe what I actually do so I won't bother. But I don't have to kill you to get you to comply. You like being editor-in-chief, don't you? It's the one thing left in your miserable life."
"What's your point?"
"Do it, or I freeze your hands. I'll give you frostbite so fast you'll be doing everything by dictation."
"You lie."
Clark shrugged and let out a blast of arctic breath. It was directed at Perry's right leg below the knee. It was a block of ice in seconds, would be useless once he got the paramedics here. The other man howled and looked at him, eyes wide and now his heart was hammering so hard that Clark almost worried the editor would give himself a heart attack. That would be no good.
He held up his hands. "Look, I want to leave. I go and you're free to call the cops. The paramedics get to you in time and you won't die. I don't want you dead, like I said, I can't get Chloe Sullivan hired that way. Besides, Perry, you weren't doing anything with that leg anyway."
"Fuck you."
"Ah, no thank you. Besides, do you want me to do the other one? Then I really will have to move onto hands and you'll be speaking your pieces. That would be a shame. Hire Sullivan. The folder on the floor has an email for me. You send all the paperwork there and the conditions for how often and everything else. I'll give it to her, and then you can proceed working just with Sullivan. I never had a nose for news."
"I…"
"Do it, Perry, because you won't be happy if I have to come back and ask again. After all, I have a lot of powers and they're not all fatal." With that, he took back off to his apartment. Maybe mindless TV could keep him company tonight because sleep was not an option, but at least his strong arm might work. Well, after Perry was out of Met Gen. He could hear those sirens coming for the Planet even back at his penthouse.
"You're a day late, alien," Sullivan said.
She was facing her monitors, and he figured she wouldn't even eye him. He wasn't shocked. After everything that had happened, he was lucky she didn't flash fry him with her power on sight or, Hell, at least have J'onz here. The other man was powerless, but he glowered like a champion and a (now) non-powered person with Kryptonite could still do damage. Was it pathetic that the fact she hadn't come packing for him or asked for back-up was the only thing that made him think he had a chance?
"Chloe, I was busy setting a few things up."
She spun around then and bolted towards him. Chloe came to stand no farther than a foot away and her hands were already glowing rose; she was warning him. "You don't call me that. 'Sullivan's' fine. Hell, I'll even take 'Frankenstein' over other options. I made it clear, Luthor. We're not friends and we're sure as Hell not lovers. It's better to keep it business and first names confuse everything."
He nodded and kept his jaw clenched tightly. It hurt fresh, worse than it ever had to see her, to see the scars and the shiny white skin from where he'd burned her. The other Chloe was this litmus test, this yard stick that had permanently embedded in his brain and damn photographic memory, reminding him of all the damage he'd wrought. If only he could change things…
But that was the mantra of his life over the last about thirteen months.
"I get that. I made a massive mistake on the roof. I get that."
Sullivan's eyes narrowed and, for just the tiniest instant, he thought he'd seen sadness there or disappointment. Then they were as hard as ever and her hands were just as bright and glowing. So much for giving even a damn inch. But that hard-ass routine was Super Sullivan, vigilante extraordinaire. Bitch might never show feelings again, after all the yelling she'd done on the Planet's roof. Maybe the other Chloe had read everything wrong in the scenario. Hell, maybe there was no gesture good enough for her.
"I told you that. Look, alien, you obviously have a problem. I mean, it's understandable. You said so yourself, you're stir crazy. You can't get laid because anyone out there knows you're public enemy number one. I'm probably the only girl you've spoken to in a year, outside of however you sneak into your penthouse. It's actually reasonable that you got confused."
He wanted to scream at her, to tell her that she was reaching and her theories were so much bullshit. He could fly anywhere he wanted. If he needed to go seduce the damn Amish or someone in the deep Amazon, her could. Besides, he could do things closer to home. The right amount of money still bought a lady of the night off, even for America's most wanted. Defense mechanism crap, but she'd threatened to kill him last time, left him wounded and exhausted. If she were at least talking to him, then it was progress.
"Maybe I'll take an extended vacation to the South Seas this weekend," he said, voice low. "Scratch and itch."
"If it helps you stop thinking things are there that aren't, sure, alien, I'd advise that. We don't want to make this complicated," she finished, her hands finally snuffing out. He realized that it was easier to breathe and that made him realize that, okay, maybe a little, he was scared of her. "I blame myself, really."
"Why?" he asked, arching an eyebrow and trying to keep his composure, do everything he could to bring forth the trademark Luthor insouciance. "For what?"
"I've been too nice to you."
He laughed. "How have you been nice? Is it because you don't have me locked in some cage until it's time to pull out the weapon at night? Is it more because I'm allowed to keep my penthouse? Maybe it's because once every week I can convince you to let me stay over for breakfast when I'm starving. Yeah, milk of human kindness there, Frankenstein."
She rolled her eyes and it reminded him hard then of the other Chloe. "I shouldn't have started treating you as a friend. I tried so hard. It's why I limit the physical contact, and why we talk business. I started getting sloppy, letting myself joke with you. I should never have done that. I forget sometimes, even if I shouldn't. I forget that you're not…"
"Human?" He swallowed hard at that and everything tasted bitter on his tongue. "I thought you made it clear every time you called me an 'alien,' and you do it a lot. After all, I'm your secret weapon. You use me just like Lionel did. Some hero you are."
She sighed and started back to her monitors. He grabbed her arm to still her. "Clark, don't start with me. You won't like it if I get angry."
"You can say the same for me," he said, letting his eyes go red.
She didn't yank her arm back but she gave a small, derisive snort. "You can't hurt me permanently, but I think I have the upper hand on you."
"So you say, short stuff," he quipped. "My point is that for one of the good guys, Sullivan, you have a lot to answer for. I don't want to be treated the way I have been. Do me a favor. If I'm your dog, then just get me a real cage, don't confuse me. If you treat me like a friend, then actually admit we are friends. It'll hurt less if you just be honest."
"It was smarter to placate you."
He dropped his hand in disgust. Clark was this close to being out of her, this fucking close. It was only having seen the damage things like the phantoms could do that kept him from rushing off. He'd been able to stop them when even Sullivan's considerable talents had fallen short. He had no illusions there weren't more dangerous things out there and, yes, without someone like him his adopted planet would be toast. He used to not care about things like that and he could only blame Kent and the Fortress so much for that.
She cared so he did.
Damn Sullivan.
"I see. Then fine. We keep the lines where you want them. Don't even bother to call me 'Luthor' at all. Maybe I'll get a collar and leash. Would you like that?"
She flinched, green eyes wide and surprisingly soft. "Don't be dramatic."
"No, let's define the terms, make sure I never make a dumb mistake again. We're not lovers, and we never will be. I now that now," and he hoped to God that his voice was as even as he was trying to make it. "I was wrong and, you're right, I'm just stir crazy. But are we friends or am I your weapon. You tell me which you want from here and I'll be just that. So tell me, Sullivan, which do you think is best? Which placates me more?"
She frowned. "That sounds bad."
"They're your own words so you have no one but yourself to blame."
"Fine," she said, starting to pace. "I don't know what I want from you. I can't completely trust you because I know better than anyone what you can do, what a monster you really are."
"Thanks, all I needed to know. Let me go find a green rock myself, not that you personally need it."
"No, stop Clark."
He stilled and blinked back at her. "What?"
"Friends. I…I had a long time to think about things on the way back from Metropolis. I had a cell and got J'onn to wire me a bus ticket. It took four days to get back here."
He worked hard then not to even breathe, not to let his face fall. Four days. It would be four days of stares and whispers and things she shouldn't have to go through. Four days he somehow owed her evne if he had no idea how to make it up to her. "Okay and?"
"Don't ever get confused again, okay? Don't pretend feelings are there that aren't. I know I'm not anything, okay?"
"Sullivan-"
"No, I need to get this out, but I do like talking more than just patrols with you and I do like waffles and even your damn Tabasco sauce. I like it and you ruined me and I don't even know what fucked up thing it says about me that this is the best year I've had since the damn explosion but it is, okay? So, Luthor, you're not just a weapon, alright? Are you happy now? Just don't make me regret it."
Clark wanted to sweep her into a hug right then, and reminded himself that next time he was over the damn rainbow-and there certainly would be a next time thanks to his kaleidoscope McGuffin-that he'd strangle Kent at least twice. Once for the other Chloe's pain and once for making him some soft moron, for giving him a conscience and a yearning for connection he'd never had before.
But that wasn't what they had. She was giving him a trial relationship, allowing him to be a friend for once, for real. It was a step. It wasn't what he wanted, but maybe her one concession and his gesture…maybe they were a start. He'd have to worry about how to work on Sullivan's clear insecurities later. She just needed to know she could trust him
He was mostly on the up and up after all. Perry hadn't really been using that leg over the last thirteen or so years. He wasn't going to miss it, and Clark must have been more than persuasive because he'd gotten the paperwork in hundred twenty-four hours. The only reason he'd gone back late to the headquarters (again lair sounded bad) was because he and Perry had finalized the details to ensure Sullivan had the best salary options.
He'd done a damn fine job in negotiations if he did say so himself.
Pain comes first, not always physical, son. Think bigger, exploit anything you can. Novices think of a quick jab, but you want the pain to last, to play into their worst fears.
Clark shook his head and noticed Sullivan staring at him. "What?"
"You were mumbling to yourself? Do you do that often, and, weirdness aside, Luthor, I think you'll find I have no more fears to exploit. You already ruined me, after all."
He flinched and looked down at his hands. "I know this doesn't change a damn thing and it never will, but if I had any moment in my life-any damn one-I'd never have exploded that house."
"Even more than killing Queen? Even more than landing on the run? Christ, you murdered your own brother and I'm your regret. Luthor, just don't."
"Friends can regret things, Sullivan," he said quietly. "We can also try and make it right, okay?"
"Unless you know a meteor mutant with cosmetic surgery powers, then you can't," she said, and then shook her head. "I need to get the readouts. We've both left NYC on its own for over four days, and we have a world of robberies and drug deals to sort through. I think there's even some odd satellite activity. Maybe we have more aliens to kill. Won't that be something?"
"As long as they're not me, personally, then I'm game. Been too long since I broke something, too damn long."
"Then we ride again," she said, smirking back at him. God, he loved her, loved the violence simmering in her too. At least being monsters together had its upsides. "Besides, how were you thinking of making it up to me?"
He grinned and handed her the Manilla folder. "I'm looking at The Daily Planet's newest op-ed contributor, Miss Sullivan."
She glared back at him. "We were doing so well, too. Don't even joke, Luthor. It's cruel and pathetic."
"I'm not," he continued, shoving the sheaf of papers into her hands. "Read all of it. Perry and I had a talk and a few more over e-mail. He's going to start with you as remote editorials and the perks aren't bad either."
She frowned but slipped out the first letter and looked back at him, her eyes wide. "That's a lot of zeros. Luthor, why would you do this?"
"Because I stole your life from you, and I want to make it up. I…it's just a friendly gift. Just call Perry-he included his cell-and see, okay. I know it's not the same as being famous under the Tiffanies and I know you can't use a dead woman's name, I do, but I'm trying, alright? I made a lot of mistakes in my life and if I patrol to even my ledger then I can do this to make some amends to you. Friends would do that, right?"
"Just friends," she said, her tone firm. "I just…I haven't been a reporter in forever, alien. I probably forgot how."
"Oh you have tons of opinions, Frankenstein. Start from there," he joked. "But you'll take the offer?"
"I'll think it over, that's something for now. You can't replace my life."
"I didn't say I could any more than I can bring Oliver back from the dead or make Metropolis not a burned out husk but J'onn says I'm going to live a long time, and I want to do something to try and fix it while I'm here, okay? It'll help me sleep nights."
"Like you need it," she joked, but he noticed her smile was kind and genuine. It was a look he'd never seen on her before. The other Chloe had been right after all, at least about the gesture part.
He nodded and followed her back to the computer bank. It would be good to plan out a patrol, to have something he could smash into submission again. He knew how to do that. It was the one thing he was good at, even now. So he stood there and fought the urge to squeeze her shoulder, to be more to her than she'd already allowed. She was wrong about one thing, though. He needed the rest, needed it desperately, and he wasn't sure how much longer he could keep from falling apart.