Clark wakes up, weakened and chained to someone else. Not a good start to the holiday season, to say the least. His head is pounding from kryptonite exposure and he can feel his own pulse, which can't be normal, but he's awake and alive and his senses are still moderately heightened.
Years of experience has him immediately cataloging his surroundings and trying to narrow down where he is, and who might have him. They're locked in a dark room made of steel and dark metals, lead lined. There's kryptonite in the chains too, not enough to drain all his powers but he's weak, still dizzy from exposure and lack of sunlight. That means whoever it is knows at least a little about his physiology. It takes only a few more seconds, a few more deep breaths, to realise that the person he's tied to is Lex Luthor.
Despite himself, Clark recognises the sound of Lex's heartbeat and sleeping breaths even when they're back to back. The scent of him is unmistakable too, now that Clark comes to admit it. Achingly so. Expensive orchid cologne, chemical traces from his labs, and something enticingly human.
"Lex?" Clark says, as softly as he can for Lex to still hear him.
There's a catch in Lex's breathing, his heartbeat accelerates - just slightly. No other reaction. Lex has himself so well trained; he has the sort of reflexive control over his body that even Clark finds difficult. A casual observer would have no idea Lex was awake. Even if you had his pulse rate on a monitor you might not know. Clark knows. Because Clark knows Lex better than he knows himself some days. Clark knows the sounds and feel of Lex waking up. He worries it makes him a pervert, and a bit of a stalker, but he's always paid attention every single time he got the chance. Especially when they were younger. Clark has always paid too much attention to Lex, even before he knew what too much was. From the moment they met, Clark has hoarded memories and moments of time; keeping his knowledge of Lex like treasure. It's only gotten worse the further apart they've grown.
"Lex?" he says again, firmer this time but still quiet. You never know who might be listening for what, especially when you're kidnapped. Clark sighs. "Luthor," he says, at last, a little louder and more certain. More Superman.
"Superman." Lex drawls the moniker with his usual cool disdain. It still hurts, every darn time. At least he's admitting he's awake.
"We've been kidnapped," Clark points out.
"I noticed." Lex sneers when he says it. Clark can hear that too. Knows it better than Lex's smile, these days. The cold twisted edge of the expression bleeds into Lex's voice, so cruel it's almost a snarl. Once upon a time those words, from Lex to Clark, could have been a joke. That time was long ago. Now it's more like a stab wound. The latest in a long line of verbal barbs.
The room is humming.
"I think we're on a vehicle. Spaceship, maybe," Clark says. He gives over the information freely, for once. Lex is more likely to know what to do with it. And that isn't just the tattered remnants of Clark's teenage crush clouding his judgment. Clark is smart. But Lex is smarter. Smartest living human, according to Batman, and Batman doesn't mess about when it comes to threat assessment.
Clark wouldn't put it past Lex to set something like this up, of course, just to mess with him. But they really might be in space, the pressure's off for Earth, and there's a kick in Lex's heartbeat that doesn't get faked. It's more than the adrenaline of a fight or a game well played. Lex is scared. It happens so seldom that it scares Clark, too.
Lex swears under his breath but doesn't otherwise respond. That might be a good sign. It shows he's thinking about it. Clark lets himself wonder if even Lex can come up with a single good reason that aliens might kidnap both the President of the United States and Superman. Clark sure as heck can't.
After a few more breaths of contemplative nothing, Lex asks, "Is the kryptonite affecting you? Do you feel sick?"
"Not really," Clark admits. "Weak, but not sick. I don't think there's much in here apart from the chains. But the walls are lined in lead."
There's no point holding any of that back either, even though admitting it feels like offering himself up as a science experiment. Lex has known his secrets for years, maybe longer. He's investigated and tricked and trapped and forced every weakness out of Clark, one after another. Just thinking about it makes Clark's fists clench. He tries to focus on the problem at hand instead. Kidnapped. Earth in danger. There will be time to reopen old wounds later, right now they need to get out of this room and possibly back to Earth as soon as possible.
There is a clanking sound and Lex sits up straighter against Clark's back. Clark twists, uselessly, to try and see the door which must be immediately in front of Lex and thus directly behind Clark. He can hear sharp, clicking footsteps.
" Good evening, World Leader Luthor, " someone says in a sibilant variant of the Interstellar Trade Dialect. It might be a female voice, as much as he can tell when the speaker may or may not even be humanoid. He thinks they are at least mostly humanoid, he can hear footsteps for two legs, and the voice has a high enough centre of gravity to be around human size. So many species in their sector of the galaxy are so similar that it tends to be the default. It makes sense. Clark strains against his bonds again but when Lex's breath catches in pain he stops.
He finds the fact he can't see the threat illogically more concerning than the kryptonite. He knows if they were going to try kill either of them, they would have done it already, but he still doesn't like it. He still has this irrational desire to put himself between Lex and any danger they might face. Sometimes Bruce looks at Clark like he knows. Like he knows that sometimes when Clark's fist twists steel in agitation, holding back during a fight, that it isn't just to stop himself from hitting Lex in his stupid, perfect face. Like he knows that the thing Clark most wants to protect from Lex is Lex, more than the world. In those moments it turns out Superman still knows how to blush.
Lex doesn't respond at first; God, Clark wishes he could see what's happening.
Their captor stomps one sharp heeled boot in what Clark assumes is irritation. " I said, good evening, World Leader Luthor, I've been told humans know basic courtesy, but maybe I was mistaken. We can always find other uses for you both if you're not willing to be civil. "
Lex still doesn't say anything, and Clark is just about to break and try get her attention, maybe try harder to break their chains. He struggles and Lex flinches.
Then, "What did she say?" Lex asks, in English. His voice is smooth as caramel, confident as if he does this everyday. Maybe he does.
Clark swallows his anxiety, and translates from the basic ITD the Fortress programmed into him so many years before. It's difficult because he gets the meanings but not always the direct translations. It's more like it skips the language part of his brain. "She says hello, she called you a word that kind of means, um… World Leader. She wants you to respond. Like, say hello back. She made some kind of threat, something about 'other uses' I might have missed the specifics or there might not be any."
Lex takes a deeper breath than he normally allows himself. "Tell her I don't speak her language and I apologise for the error. Ask her if she speaks English, or another human language, and if not humbly ask to translate on my behalf."
Clark sighs. He doesn't like being Lex Luthor's mouthpiece even when it is obviously the best play they have.
Clark clears his throat, and twists as far as he can. Clark does his best to translate, focuses on repeating what Lex said but trying to say it in ITD. It is even harder when he can't focus on the person he's speaking to, thinking about Lex makes him want to fall back into English. And not just any English, not his college and work trained tones of careful enunciation and journalistic clarity. Oh no, every syllable wants to drip in the rural Kansas drawl of Smallville. He must manage it though, because the alien laughs at them both.
" I will not speak that human grunting, " she says, still hidden from Clark but obviously talking to Lex. " The Kryptonian may translate. "
Who the heck could she be. She's disdainful of humanity, but uninterested in Clark. It just doesn't fit.
"She says she won't speak English," Clark says. Making sure Lex hears the won't, not can't. He isn't disappointed.
"Good. Can you speak Mandarin?" Lex asks, in Mandarin so it wouldn't be much use if Clark couldn't, but he can. Clark can speak any human language the Kryptonian AI had time to absorb in its years on Earth, so that's most of them these days and quite a few dead ones too.
"Shi." Clark replies, a simple yes in Mandarin, quickly catching Lex's drift.
"What about German? I think she can tell the difference between English and Mandarin, but German is closer." This time Lex has switched into German.
"Da," Clark says, resisting the urge to roll his eyes. Lex never could resist showing off.
"Excellent," says Lex, sticking with the German even though his accent is much stronger and it's obviously less well used than his Asian dialects. "She doesn't have a translation device and I don't think she can even tell the difference between German and English. Now are you going to let me talk our way out of this?"
"Yeah," Clark agrees, despite himself. "I suppose I am." Sometimes working with Lex is worse than working against him. At least when they're fighting he knows where he stands, mostly. At least when they're fighting, he knows who won.
Lex does almost talk them out of it and Clark isn't sure if he should be impressed or horrified.
They've been captured by a small band of rejected Furies, from the planet Apokolips. The primary interrogator is indeed part of a humanoid but lizard-like slave race, explaining her sibilance and gait. Even Lex doesn't seem to be sure if their plan was to impress or thwart Granny Goodness, but the point is they thought if they captured Lex and Clark they could somehow bargain for the whole of the Earth. Unfortunately, their plan B seems to be to deliver them both directly to Darkseid. Clark doesn't think even Lex can talk them out of that one.
In the short duration of their first interrogation Lex has managed to find out that Granny has set up a new suite of orphanages-both on Apokolips, now back on its side of the Boom Tube, and on several planets on the Earth side of the Milky Way. Which was a lot more than Clark knew before, having thought all the Furies and their leader long since destroyed. He has to assume Lex was equally surprised, because he can't see even Lex keeping that kind of security risk from the Justice League. Even if he tried, Clark is pretty sure Diana's contacts in the Air Force and D.O.J. would have slipped them some kind of warning before now. It is chilling, in a way that knowing Darkseid made it out of their last conflicts alive hadn't been. Something about Granny Goodness and her ability to inspire and hold such blind devotion makes Clark uncomfortable in ways that Darkseid's super-powered despotism doesn't. Some of Granny's 'girls' reminds Clark a little too much of Lex's former bodyguards turned CEOs Hope and Mercy. He wonders if Lex has noticed the same thing and has to stop himself asking.
"Tell them I'll do it, but I have to think about the terms," Lex says. "And I want to meet their leader first."
Clark finds himself translating before he realises what he just helped Lex agree to. Their interrogator bows out of the room before Clark can force out a correction. Once the lizard-alien has left Lex seems to relax, minutely.
"You can't…" Clark stutters, realises he's still not totally sure their captors can't understand English and changes into French, because it's the first thing that comes to mind. "You can't sell the human race!"
"I'm not," says Lex, following Clark into French just because he can. "I'm offering myself, unless I have the implications of the offer wrong, which I don't think I do. Do you?"
"You can't do that either!" says Clark, falling into English again in his irritation. He even spares a moment to mentally kick himself. Hearing Lex speak in French still sends shivers down his spine even when he understands it, he's always been that kind of messed up when it comes to Lex. Lex either doesn't notice or doesn't care.
"Je pense plutôt que je peux," Lex snaps back, still in French. Clark can hear the sensual syllables as his own internal translation catches up to supply the meaning of 'I rather think I can'.
"LexCorp owns ten percent of the world's resources," Clark says, switching to German as a safer option. "It's practically the same thing."
"I'm glad you've finally realised that." Lex drops the pretence of being overheard again.
"You can't marry some alien you've never even met!" Clark points out, quite reasonably all things considered.
"Why not?" Lex asks. He squirms sharply against Clark's back making Clark even more aware of their proximity. "I've married worse gold diggers. At least this one's being upfront about what she wants. And considering they come from a warrior culture, she might even obey the 'no trying to kill me' clause in the pre-nup. Wouldn't that be nice?"
"You hate aliens," Clark says, sulky even to his own ears.
Something about Lex always brings out the sixteen-year-old in him. Clark wonders if that's what makes Lex such a formidable enemy. Sure, Lex is brilliantly smart, ruthless, powerful, and rich but mostly it's Clark's fault. It's Clark's fault that Lex thinks he's evil, and Clark's fault that Superman always lets him get away. Lex has a power over Superman that someone like Toyman or Darkseid never will, no matter how much kryptonite they hoard. Lex has a very real power over Clark Kent, even if he doesn't know it, and in the end that always gives him an edge the others can't even hope for.
"Is that really what you think?" Lex goes still for a moment. His flesh and blood hand is cooler than Clark's solar charged skin and he finds himself oddly aware of it where they're bound together. "That I hate all aliens? That everything I do is just some kind of rampaging xenophobia?"
"Are you saying it isn't?" Clark demands. "Last week you told WLEX news that the leading threat to world security is 'alien interference'. Twice!"
"I'm glad you paid attention," Lex says, smug and infuriatingly calm. "Even if you didn't understand the message."
"You're trying to sponsor a resolution on alien registration in the UN. What am I meant to think?"
Lex shrugs against Clark's back. "That I care about the future of my species, perhaps? That I wanted the human race to be ready for, oh, this very situation actually."
"You keep trying to kill me!"
"I haven't done that in years," Lex says, as if that makes it all okay. Clark's so busy being outraged that it takes him a moment to realise it's true. And it didn't just coincide with the presidential campaign when Lex cleaned up a lot of his underworld dealings. It was after the last Darkseid invasion. After Clark really had died. That was when Lex stopped trying to kill him. Not that it should mean anything. Clark tries to dismiss the way his stomach clenches at that realisation.
"You still can't marry an alien." Clark knows it's useless, but he never could quite give up on Lex. Maybe he can appeal to Lex's twisted sense of self-interest. "What would the voters think?"
"Well," Lex says, laughs then squirms some more. "I'm in my second term, so that doesn't matter. And, according to the polls they wouldn't mind - at least not if it was you or Kara Zor-El. They like Kara better though, the age difference is atrocious but she looks like she's got the right bits. Sorry."
Clark laughs. It's that nervous, flustered laugh that sits much better with Clark Kent's glasses than Superman's uniform but he can't help it. This happens sometimes, if they're left alone for long enough they fall back into some messed up kind of camaraderie even when they're fighting.
"Luckily," Lex says, voice like a velvet promise in Clark's ear. "We won't actually need to find out how the American public would feel about a lizard for their first lady."
There's a sharp cracking sound and suddenly the restraints on Clark's left arm go slack.
"What did you do?" Clark asks, surprised and confused by his abrupt freedom of movement and the flooding return of most of his powers.
Lex wiggles away from Clark on the now unrestricted side and shows Clark his gloved mechanical hand and a wicked grin that makes Clark's heart break with lost opportunities.
"They planned for a human and a weak Kryptonian, didn't count on a mutant cyborg I suppose." There's something in addition to triumph in Lex's tone, something of the old self loathing that comes with every time he says Luthor in private.
It stops Clark dumb just long enough for Lex to reach across and break the second bond before Clark can come up with so much as a thank you.
"You're up," Lex says, standing and brushing himself off. Matter of fact again, as if this is nothing but an inconvenience. Like he's getting up from an awkward press interview rather than breaking out of alien captivity. Clark finds himself staring up at Lex with that old wonder, the sort that takes his breath and makes him ache to reach out and touch. As though he could capture some of that unfathomable grace and power for himself if he could just reach out and take it.
"Well?" Lex prompts.
Clark stands up a little too quickly, sending his cape swirling around him like a flag for his discomfort. Lex raises one sardonic eyebrow but mercifully chooses not to comment.
With the kryptonite still in the room Clark is constrained to half power, but that's still a lot of power. Seeing as he's not sure he can punch his way out, he settles for ripping off one of the lead-lined wall panels near the door and stepping back to let Lex inspect the wires and blinking lights his show of strength has revealed.
"Look at us, cooperating," Lex says, sneer proving why they can't get on outside of life or death situations anymore. "Wouldn't Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert love some footage of this?"
Clark folds his arms in front of his chest. 'Always so defensive, Clark, says a voice in his head when he does it. It sounds a lot like Lex, just fifteen years younger and a lot less deadly. When Clark doesn't take the bait or respond to his comments Lex shrugs, in that purposefully cavaliere way of his, and sets to work figuring out the incredibly advanced electronics in front of him. Clark does wonder if he'll live to regret giving Lex free reign with the guts of this ship, but he can't quite bring himself to care just yet.
Lex pockets his cufflinks and rolls up the sleeves of his silk blend tuxedo shirt. No jacket or tie, though. They must have captured him after some formal event. Maybe even right out of the White House. The Secret Service never stood a chance against New God tech, even the scavenged and pirated assemblage available to a bunch of escaped slaves and orphans. Clark hates thinking that maybe Lex was right about some of that early preparation stuff, but he can't help it.
Clark watches closely even though he doesn't know what he's watching for. The pale, lightly freckled skin and delicate bones of Lex's human left hand looks even more fragile in contrast to the robotic right one. The cybernetic limb is no less graceful, no less perfectly wrought. But it is made of carbon fiber, titanium, and a matte black rubberized finish which leaves the watcher in no doubt of its inhuman nature. Clark's never seen the scaring up close before. A rough diagonal line where tender human flesh merges with mechanical innovation. Clark has that unfathomable urge to touch the edge where skin meets metal. Especially when he sees how dextrous Lex is; the way the cybernetics have become part of him and it makes Clark wonder if it's warm or cold. Makes him wonder if that bionic fist could clench hard enough for even Clark to feel. It broke kryptonite-alloy chain, why not Kryptonian skin.
"There," Lex says, familiar satisfaction lacing his tone. "I think I've got the basic concepts down, I'll need some kind of tool to understand the crystal clusters, but the rest is pretty close to advanced Earth-based electronics."
The pleased half-smile Lex turns on him makes Clark ache more than any scars or Lex's fists could. Nostalgia worse than brute force hits him full in the chest.
"Um," says Clark. Maybe Lois was right and he really is developing a split personality. Clark Kent might be a Pulitzer winning journalist and secret poet but apparently Superman can't string a sentence together when Lex Luthor smiles at him. Great.
"Quite," says Lex. The smile twitches but doesn't fall, like maybe he's considering the same thing as Clark. "Can you bend that panel? Or are you just going to cuddle it like a stuffed chihuahua?"
"It wasn't-" Clark stops himself even though that's as close as they've ever come to admitting what they both know. It wasn't a stuffed chihuahua. It was a teddy bear. Once. Before it was loved to an early demise by Supertoddler Clark Kent and put to rest on a near forgotten shelf in his bedroom. Lex had found it once, and never let it drop. Well, didn't let it drop until he'd also dropped any pretence of friendship as well. Lex shouldn't really remember that. Maybe he doesn't, he says things occasionally that hint at memory but they could be fleeting impressions. Things so repeated that they made it out of memory and into the language centres of his brain. Things like chihuahuas instead of teddy bears. "No," Clark says instead of rising to imaginary bait. "I'm not that strong yet. I need to be further away."
Which is true. His head is still spinning and if he stays in this room much longer standing might become a problem too.
"Heat vision?" Lex asks.
"Maybe, a little."
Lex nods once, sharply. Then he presses his thumb to a hidden place at the edge of his bionic hand. A tiny panel opens and he pulls out some kind of tool. He doesn't glance at Clark or make eye contact but Clark knows Lex is aware of him. Aware of how many secrets he's exposing. Knowing Lex the arm will be redesigned and refitted within hours of getting back to Earth. Lex stopped trusting Clark with his secrets when he realised Clark would never give his own. Lex's faith has always come with conditions.
After a more careful examination and a muttered curse, Lex reaches into the exposed circuitry and does something Clark can't see. There's a click.
"Heat vision, on that crystal right there," Lex says, reaching across his body and pointing with his human hand to a tiny pink crystal cube, indistinguishable from the rest. "Quickly, if you don't mind. This is probably going to explode if I keep holding it down."
Clark resists the urge to sigh and goes along with Luthor's plan for the second time that day. Clark really hates being kidnapped. In his frustration he even kind of hates aliens, not that he's letting Lex know that last part.
In the end their escape is kind of anticlimactic, as these things often are.
They've been, embarrassingly, captured by a tiny band of five, admittedly superpowered and very highly trained, mostly women (you can never be sure with an Ikothiti - Clark's not even sure they have gender). Still, Clark thinks he might leave the exact number out of his inevitable 'interview' on the matter, to save Lex's Secret Service from the embarrassment if nothing else. That justification sounds stupid even in his head but he's got other things to worry about.
Namely five subdued mostly female aliens, a couple of very angry and only recently freed prisoners, and Lex with a laser gun. Not a good combination even on a good day - or equivalent standardised measure of time, seeing as they're in space. Not really pertinent, seeing as today is most certainly not a good day. Days that start with being kidnapped seldom are.
The four humanoid aliens are chained together, including Zaka their original interrogator and their leader who seems to go by the moniker Bloody Harriet (at least Clark hopes it's a moniker, surely even Granny Goodness isn't that cruel to children). The Ikothiti are basically a giant snail race, so the one on the kidnapping crew is now being held down by sheer force of Clark. Uncomfortably this means he's sitting on top of its shell and pinning it in place while arguing with Lex. Not the most comfortable position from which to manage impromptu hostage negotiations.
"You can't kill them," Clark says, again. None of his temporary allies look convinced and Lex has that expression where he's going to say something that seems perfectly rational even though it's totally evil. Clark hates that expression, no matter how many times he thinks about it at unfortunate moments.
" We have to, " Lex says, in perfectly functional ITD which makes Clark want to kick him. Clark has less violent urges on Red K than he does from Lex Luthor smirking. It's probably a problem.
" No, we don't, " says Clark, holding on to his reasonable tone by a thread. " We can lock them up in the cells. Then we take them directly to Lantern controlled space and hand them over. Simple. "
" The cells didn't hold us, what makes you think we can hold them safely on their own ship? It's quicker and more expedient to kill them, not to mention these fine people might feel better if we did. " Lex smiles his politician's smile when he acknowledges the three prisoners they released to help in their bid to take back the ship.
A red-haired warrior woman named Angela who reminds Clark of an intergalactic Diana, an Almeracian trader who reminds Clark of the Almerac Queen, Maxima, despite his darker skin, and a black eyed and monochromatic Nebari boy called Nerri who doesn't remind Clark of anything other than black and white film stars. They make a colorful addition, both literally and metaphorically, but they all look some variant of interested in Lex's current plot so Clark doesn't expect any support from that quarter.
"Lex," Clark says, switching back to English and not really caring what their fellow escapees think about it. "You know I can't let you kill them."
"They're just aliens," Lex says, "you've killed plenty of aliens." He says it as if it's a reasonable argument. Really it's targeted to hit Clark right where it hurts, a venomous sting clothed in illogical logic. Reminding him of unhealed regrets while simultaneously revealing Clark's own constant sense of freakishness.
"Well, on this ship so are you," Clark says.
Lex surprises him by smiling at that. It's another of those painfully nostalgic ones. The one that makes Clark feel like a puppy that just learned a new trick or a fifteen year-old farm boy who just solved an advanced calculus equation faster than Lex expected or untangled a thorny Grecian parable. Before he learned those kind of tricks were dangerous to do.
" Fine, " Lex says. " We do it your way, Superman. But if we die in the cold dark vacuum of space because of this, I will find a way to come back and haunt you. Just so we're clear. "
It's probably some kind of game. Some kind of power play. It probably means a thousand other things, but Clark's treacherous heart beats a little faster because that felt almost friendly.
The problem isn't getting control of the ship, or even translating the databanks. The ship itself is a scavenged slaver ship turned pirate and is made up of a whole mess of tech, but the basis is Almeracian. The trader, who still won't tell them his name, knows nothing about science or technology but he knows enough about the interfaces and basic concepts that Lex can reverse engineer the tech from there. Lex even finds some kind of glowing tablet that lets him read and interact with the strange crystalline security system. Clark tries to ignore the similarities to Kryptonian technology, because the idea of Lex getting his hands on more of that makes him kind of sick. There is something so innocently enthusiastic, and above everyone else's heads, about Lex engaging with new technologies that it's easy to forget what he'll probably do with it. He gets so caught up in the problem and the rush of solving it, that even Clark can start to think that's all there is to it. Which is always a mistake with Lex.
The problem isn't Lex, though. Not yet. The problem is that they're already on the wrong side of a Boom Tube. The twin planets of Apokolips and New Genesis exist in a highly advanced Fold in interdimensional space which can only be reached through the Boom Tube device. Even the Kryptonian AI in the Fortress of Solitude can't decode that tech, which means even Lex doesn't stand a chance. It's not so much a danger in his hands as a huge operational risk no matter who tries to operate it. The ship's computer can crunch most of the numbers, but it all takes time and the variables are vast and complex. Even Lex seems worried.
Angela keeps looking over Lex's shoulder and making pointed but seemingly helpful suggestions. Clark can tell that Lex is about to snarl at her no matter how right she is, and finds himself stepping in before it can happen.
"Lex? Can I have a word?"
Lex nods, falling into what Clark thinks of as 'President Mode' as he stands up. Straight backed and stern, like a natural born leader - or an emperor of old.
Once they're off the bridge, Lex turns his frustrations on Clark. He's ready for it, but he's always ready for it and it always hurts.
"I wasn't aware we were on a first name basis, Kal-El," says Lex. "When did I stop being 'Luthor' might I ask? I must have missed the memo."
The day we met, Clark thinks. He can still remember the taste of river water on Lex Luthor's lips.
"When we woke up chained together," is what Clark actually says. Because that's true too. He'd slipped so easily back into old habits the moment he heard Lex's heartbeat so close, old desires burning back through his veins, easier than breathing. Something of that other, darker truth must bleed into his tone.
Lex looks up sharply, meeting Clark's eye for the first time in hours.
"I don't hate all aliens," Lex says, apropos to nothing. "Maybe you don't hate all Luthors?"
Clark feels pinned by the intensity in Lex's eyes. Worse than kryptonite. Lex takes a step closer, too close by normal human standards. Clark's knuckles burn as he holds his fists at his sides and resists the urge to reach out and touch his mortal enemy in a very inappropriate manner. He should step back. He should re-establish the lines they've built over decades of animosity.
"You should be more careful," Lex says, then like the admission it is: "You still say it the exact same way."
Clark doesn't need to breath, but his body still wants to. Right now he's forgotten how. His lungs are screaming at him, but his mind is winning the fight for his focus.
"Astonishment," says Clark, "mixed with a hint of dread, but a hopeful finish." He knows the line by heart.
He feels the truth of every word, even more so in that moment. Because Lex was meant to have forgotten, all of their history. All of Clark. But he hasn't and Clark doesn't know what to make of any of that. They're standing so very close. So close he can feel the hope in his bones and wonder in his blood.
A glassy chime sounds, sharp and jarring and alien around them.
Lex doesn't step back but he doesn't move in either. He just smiles up at Clark with a knowing edge and turns around a moment before the bridge door opens and Angela leans out to talk to them.
"The calculations are finished," she says, unaware of the fateful moment she just broke into. "We're ready for the jump."
Destiny works in different ways this far from Earth, but not so different that Clark can catch a break. Then again, maybe he just did.
They end up on the right side of the Fold but still several parsecs out from Lantern territory. Luck of some kind is with them though, because Angela knows the zone and directs them to a place called Knowhere. They can get a message out and wait for pick-up from the base. It's anticlimactic but Clark will take it. The longer he's out here, the less sense Earth rules start to make. Clark has long feared that Superman is nothing without the rules and this close to the galactic frontier feels a very special, magnetic kind of lawless that he just doesn't trust. And this close to Lex, being Lex again, he doesn't trust himself, either.
It takes a few hours to get where they're going, but Clark manages to avoid Lex despite the close proximity of the small ship. Lex lets him, which is either a very good sign or a very bad one. Clark can't decide which. He finds something like an observation deck and it's Angela, not Lex, who finds him there.
She stands next to him, strong and silent, and reminding him of Wonder Woman in more ways than her fighting style. The strange ribbons of her uniform catch in a non-existent wind, moving like living things around her. Clark wants to ask, but Superman knows better.
"Where did you learn our languages?" he asks instead.
She keeps her gaze trained on the blurring stars but she answers him. "Both very near and as far from here as you can be," she says.
Cryptic, that's more Lex than Diana. Clark has never had the patience for advanced quantum theory.
"Right." Clark doesn't bother asking for clarification. He's dealt with Doctor Fate, Madame Xanadu, Swamp Thing and, on one memorable occasion, Death herself. Clark knows when asking for more information is just going to confuse him further.
" We live a long time, where I'm from, " Angela says, in perfectly formed Kryptonian. Clark's not sure if it's related to his original question or not but he lets her speak. " We die in battle and are reborn in clay. The past is long and confusing. We are all born and fated to fight in the Eternal War. Eventually, we learn that there may be unnumbered tomorrows, but there is only one today. Today is a difficult battle to fight, and an even harder one to share. It is usually worth it, in my experience, if you can. "
"Thank you," Clark says with the solemnity he's sure her proclamation deserves. He doesn't understand what she's telling him yet but that doesn't mean he won't one day. That's the problem with prophetic wisdom, it doesn't make sense until after you needed it.
Angela smiles like she understood the thoughts behind his sentiment. Maybe she does, she's strong enough and strange enough to be psionic or some kind of psychic.
"We're nearly there," she says and she's right. The ship decelerates with a concerningly audible moan of metallic tension and Knowhere suddenly hangs in the space before them.
Knowhere takes his needless breath away again.
A skull the size of a planetoid, populated by a confusing array of spaceships, tankers, satellites, and self-powered spacefarers. It shimmers in the dawns of two suns, interstellar ice glistening on ancient bone and mummified and void-proof flesh.
"Celestials are even older than Angels," Angela tells him. "I doubt this one has any wisdom left to share. Maybe his inhabitants will be more help with your human problem than I. We've always been more warriors than guardians; your adopted home got many things about us wrong, Kal-El, but not least of all that."
Clark doesn't know what to say to her, but it turns out he doesn't have to. She leaves him to his thoughts and goes to help talk the control tower into giving them a docking bay.
"I'm not letting you go out there alone," Clark says, falling back on Superman's commanding diction more for his own sake than any hope Lex is going to listen to him.
"What, you don't trust me in a wretched hive of scum and villainy?" Lex says, his boyish excitement about a bona fide space adventure bleeding through his pure contempt for Clark. "Are you protecting me or them, Kal-El?"
Clark isn't sure. He's never sure with Lex, not anymore and maybe never was. When they were kids, Clark couldn't trust himself with trusting Lex. Now he knows he can't trust Lex, even when the rest of the world seems to think they can, but he keeps on slipping anyway.
Luckily for Clark's fraying stability, Lex lets Clark follow him off the ship with no further protests. Angela agrees to watch the prisoners until they find somewhere else for them. Even Lex seems to think they can trust Angela if not their other two tentative allies who both quickly make their way into the crowds in search of more permanent freedom. Clark should probably try to hold them in case the Lanterns are looking for them, both of them too keen on escape for his liking. But he can't quite bring himself to force the matter.
Lex assures Clark, once they're further from the ship, that he doesn't think they'll need the ship, even should worst come to worst. Of course Lex doesn't spare a thought for their now captive captors. It's like he just doesn't know how, without Clark reminding him he forgets all about little things like morality and empathy. It should be exhausting, and it has been in the past and it will be again, but right now it's kind of exhilarating compared to everything else. Having that kind of influence over someone like Lex Luthor is always a thrill in its own right; it doesn't matter if it is given freely, as it was when they were younger, or grudgingly as it is now.
The spaceport is bustling and Lex ends up in the lead again, acting like he knows where they're going even though Clark is the one with all the off-planet experience. Worst of all the Luthor walk works just as well here as it does on Earth and the crowds part around them, letting him through and Clark in his wake. No one spares a second glance for Clark. His Kryptonian inspired uniform isn't even notable in the color and noise of the diverse crowds.
Just like the Earthly equivalents, news travels fast in a market founded on information as much as goods and capital.
"Where's the human?" a man's voice calls through the crowd. He sounds cheerful and his English doesn't sound techno-translated, but it's still a bad sign.
Clark sighs and places himself between Lex and the approaching Han Solo wannabe and the rag tag group of aliens following him. He marches right up to Clark and Lex, eyes on a device in his hands which he pockets once he reaches them and looks them over with a pirate's appraisal. Coming to a conclusion, he speaks to them, in English again.
"Dude, you can't keep humans as pets," The young man tells Lex.
" Why not, we do! " says the very well armed and distinctly raccoon shaped creature accompanying the man.
"I am not a pet!" says the guy to the probably-not-raccoon. Both comfortably shifting between ITD and English with the sort of fluidity that only comes to people who have worked together long enough they don't even realise they don't need their translation devices anymore. If Clark listens very carefully he can just hear something like Kansas in the guy's vowel sounds.
It looks like they've had this argument before as they fall into an easy bickering patter, part distraction technique and part genuine interaction. Clark kind of likes them, even though they remind him of some of the less questionable elements of Batman's Rogues Gallery. Perhaps because of it. From Lex's bemused expression he's feeling something similar.
"Actually, Lex is the human," Clark says, interrupting the bickering pair before they really get going. It's a risk to show their vulnerabilities like that but he's pretty sure he can take them all out if he has to. "And I'm not a pet, either." Clark adds, as an afterthought.
The guy looks Lex over, bald head to polished loafers, and frowns. "You sure?" he asks.
Clark's not sure which statement he's questioning, but chooses to think it's Lex's humanity.
"Mostly," says Lex, coming to the same conclusion and glaring at Clark like that's his fault.
Which, well it sort of is really. It was Clark's ship that brought the kryptonite that caused Lex's mutation and it was ultimately Clark's actions that led to the cybernetic hand too. Clark's got better with the whole hero and guilt complex thing, but it's still there, deeper down but still troubling if someone pokes it. Of course Lex does. Pressing the places that ache has always been one of Lex's more carefully honed skills.
The young man and his furry companion both accept 'mostly' as an answer though and draw Lex's attention back to themselves as the rest of their own odd little group catch up.
"Cool," says the young man. "Me too. Half-human, that is. Not many of us out this far, I'm Star-lord."
Clark wants to scoff at that moniker, but then remembers that he's Superman and manages not to. Star-lord offers Lex his hand which Lex takes even though he has to do it with his bionic one.
"Lex Luthor," Lex says. "President of the United States of America. For the next three weeks, anyway."
"Whoa, cool," says Star-lord, like he knows what it means and means it. "This is Rocket, he's not a racoon, and that's Groot in the pot, he's a Groot and he's normally bigger but we ran into some trouble last run past the Kiln. The big guy is Drax the Destroyer. And that's Gamora hiding in the shadows, most dangerous woman in the galaxy but she's alright once you get to know her."
The various aliens acknowledge their introductions and Lex accepts all of them all with a statesman's grace. Clark falls back on what he knows, crossing his arms over his chest and waiting for trouble.
"Star-lord, meet Superman," Lex says, smooth as satin. The only thing giving away his sardonic sense of humor is the glitter of it in his eyes when he says the two names. When Lex looks at him Clark almost feels like he's in on the joke.
Star-lord doesn't offer Clark his hand. Clark's about to be offended when he realises a handshake is a human gesture and Clark's already identified himself as a non-human. The half-human is waiting for Clark to take the lead. He must have been off planet for a long time if he doesn't know who Superman is.
"Call me Kal-El," Clark says, offering his own hand and sparing a frown for Lex over his prior choice of introductions. "I'm Kryptonian, but I grew up on Earth. Most people even think of me as an honorary Earthling these days. Mr President excluded, of course."
"Kryptonian?" Gamora asks, stepping in and brushing Star-lord aside. He lets her like he's used to it.
She doesn't sound like she believes Clark's heritage. But considering how few of his species there are left that's probably fair. She walks around Clark like he's a stock animal she's considering buying, then stops right in front of him and pokes him in the chest. Hard and sharp. Hard enough to break a rib on a human. She's strong. Almost strong enough to hurt him. She smiles when he hardly reacts to her seemingly innocent attack. Maybe noting the same power equivalence.
"I have never fought a Kryptonian," she says, but she makes it sound like a very different kind of proposition.
Clark begs his skin not to blush. Lex is watching them both carefully, and checking out the green skinned woman in a way that has got to be dangerous for all of them. Clark is very tempted to ask what part of 'most dangerous woman in the galaxy' sounds like a good idea to Lex. He doesn't. Because he knows how to listen to a warning when he hears one. Sometimes.
" Shit, " says Star-lord, slipping into Vandaran Pirate Code which even Clark is lucky to understand. " Please don't hit on the US President's um-Consort. "
Vandaran lacks any equivalent of air quotes or implicative case, but if it had them Clark thinks Star-lord would have said 'friend' in a very knowing way instead. The same way women's magazines call Harley Quinn and Poison Ivy 'gal-pals'. That doesn't help when Clark's mind conjures images of just what 'consort' might mean. At least it's better than pet. Probably.
" I wasn't flirting, " Gamora says, in the same code. She gives Clark a slow as treacle smile but she's still speaking to Star-lord." Until you told me not to. "
Clark backs up a step automatically and almost stands on Lex.
"I really don't understand what they're saying," Lex admits, in an undertone. Heck, that must be like pulling teeth for Lex. Actually, Lex probably finds it easier to pull a tooth. His teeth grow back.
"You probably don't want to know," Clark tells him. He has to bend down slightly to keep the comment private, it must look all the wrong kinds of intimate. He can almost taste Lex's cologne.
"Oh," Lex smirks up at him just the way he used to. "If it makes you this flustered, I definitely want to know."
Clark fights down the urge to grab his mortal enemy and kiss him senseless, choosing to change the topic at hand instead.
"We need to get in touch with the Green Lantern Corps," Clark tells the now bickering probably-space-pirates and pretending to ignore Lex. "Any idea how we can do that?"
"Oh, those guys," says Rocket with a dismissive wave. "Sure thing pal, those guys love us."
Love might be too strong a word for it, if the local Lantern's put-upon demeanor and fed-up expression over the comlink is anything to go by. Even in holographic form the woman looks exhausted at the idea of dealing with the self-styled 'Guardians of the Galaxy'.
" You know you're not allowed in the Earth sector Star-lord Quill. "
" It's not for me, " Star-lord argues back. " It's really not. "
" Last time you were in the Sol system your father nearly blew it up. We can't afford anymore intergalactic incidents with the Spartax empire and you promised to stay out of trouble, Peter Quill. We might be able to arrange an escort, but you are absolutely not to be involved. Understood?"
Eventually, Lex does the rest of the talking and the Lantern agrees to get a message to Hal Jordan - but she assures them that any rescue could take at least a galactic week due to distance and their proximity to the Kiln prison making some forms of travel unstable. Lex is actually going to murder something if Clark can't distract him.
'Cosmos can be taking Apokoliptik prisoners into holding,' cuts in the intrusive, and bizarrely Russian, telepathic voice of Cosmo, the station security chief.
They're in Cosmo's office to use the comlink so Clark can't really complain too much about the whole awkward telepathy thing. Star-lord had talked them into the station control by talking up Lex but still making 'President' sound a lot like 'Feudal Warlord' in translation. Cosmo, once they found him, had simply said 'Of course Cosmo knows what President is. Cosmo was being first Earthling in space, Cosmo knows Earth things.'
Unlike Rocket, Cosmo actually is the kind of mammal he looks like. An Earth based canine. He just happens to be cosmically enhanced and older than Clark. He's some kind of golden retriever cross and it's difficult not to try and pat him. Clark might have been raised on a farm but even he knows randomly petting sentient creatures is generally frowned upon, no matter how soft they look.
Clark just lets Lex agree for them. He's starting to feel genuinely tired, he's been too far from the yellow sun of home for far too long. He's not about to lose his powers, but he already feels more susceptible, more natural. More human. It's ironic that the only place he feels like an actual Earthling is almost as far from Earth as he's ever been. He's been awake for thirty hours and his head is spinning. Someone must notice because the next thing he 'hears' is Cosmo again.
'Konechno, Cosmo can find guest suite. Knowhere is not having many official visitors, but has ambassadorial quarters - so far from fat mining pits smell is almost not bad.'
The smell is bad. Sure, it is actually worse on the market levels but the multitude of other scents from the markets themselves help cover it.
The ambiance isn't helped by the single bone wall and ceiling, it adds a creepy reminder that this whole space station was once someone's skull. The rest of the room is made of salvaged steel and titanium which is better, even if it does have that 'fall apart around you' kind of feel. The room is polished off with bolted plate flooring and a single oversized bunk built into one wall. It manages to look invitingly claustrophobic despite its large size. There's a room not much bigger than a cupboard which Clark recognises as an optical ion shower and en suite. It is more than ample by space station standard. Habitable space is always at a premium this far into the Black.
Clark sits down heavily on the edge of the bed and rubs his temples. It's usually an affected gesture of Clark Kent's but right now Superman genuinely needs to try and hold a headache at bay.
"I think this is the best we're gonna get," says Lex, following Clark into the room and closing the door behind him.
Clark isn't surprised that Lex is there. If Lex is within the five hundred yards or so that Clark can't ignore then he always knows exactly where Lex is. He knows the way Lex's heart beats. As long as Lex isn't in a lead lined bunker, Clark often hears him even outside of that radius. What startles him is the fact Lex bothers speaking to him. Meaningless small talk isn't really their thing unless it's secretly a conversation about where the bomb is hidden.
Right now there's no bomb, no kidnappers, no giant robot or alien invasion and most of all, no press. There's no reason for President Luthor and Superman to be talking, there's not even really a reason for Lex and Kal-El to be talking. Lex doesn't talk to anyone without an agenda, and in his sun-starved state Clark can't figure out what it might be right now.
Clark looks at Lex instead of responding. His clothes are rumpled in a way that he doesn't normally allow, there's even a tear in one leg of his trousers. There's a smudge of some kind of shimmery silver grease on his cheek and his skin looks even smoother than usual under the diffuse artificial light of the space station. His eyes are bright and fully focused on Clark, that old familiar tension building between them like it never left. Because it didn't. It might have been sublimated, translated into antagonism, but it never left. Red threads of Fate tying them too close to ignore. Too close to resist.
Seeing Lex like this, when Clark is tired like he hasn't been in years, makes him long for a second chance. Or a third, or fifth, or whatever they're up to now. Lex looks so young, he used to age normally and Clark doesn't know when that stopped. Maybe the same time Clark's own body clock slowed down, and what does that say about their destiny.
When Lex smiles at him, that half curve private thing, Clark thinks he might shatter on it's edges.
"You know I'm not going anywhere, right?" Lex asks.
Clark blinks at him, confused, and shakes himself awake, just in case. It's exactly the sort of thing Lex says in Clark's deepest dreams and never in reality.
"I meant I'm staying here," Lex clarifies. "We've been assigned the same room and I'm too exhausted to care."
"Oh," says Clark, showing off the value of his MetU journalism major, once again.
"Either they're very low on space, or they think we're together," says Lex, with another tiny smirk. He watches Clark like a panther and makes him feel very much like a small hoofed animal instead of a superpowered alien. "I wonder who gave them that impression, Kal?"
"You can't speak Vandaran," Clark says, close to desperate and still not sure what for. "They've never even been near Earth!"
"No," Lex admits, coming closer. It's only two steps, he's still almost as far away as he is near, but it feels like two steps too many, and half a dozen too few. "But I can read you like your tenth grade textbooks."
Not a tenth grade textbook, your tenth grade textbooks. As in, Clark's tenth grade textbooks, the ones Lex was endlessly unimpressed with. That wasn't a slip. Lex doesn't slip, not with words.
"I suppose I'll just have to let you stay then," Clark says, before he can think better of it. "If it's my fault you're here."
He grins up at Lex. Clark doesn't even know what that expression looks like on Superman's face. God, is he flirting? He's totally flirting. Worse, he's flirting like an idiot because Clark never had to learn how. Superman doesn't need to, and Clark Kent shouldn't know how. Flirting draws too much attention.
Lex almost laughs. Then his eyes snatch Clark's again, crystalline and dangerous. Something sets in Lex's jaw and his predatory grace is directed at Clark in a way he hasn't noticed before. He's not a panther, Clark realises, Lex is a chimera or a sphinx, mythical and hypnotic. When Lex watches him like that it makes Clark start to think that being the prey might not be so bad. Lex lifts his chin, like the challenge it is, and starts to unbutton his silken tuxedo shirt.
Clark looks away, he hadn't thought that invitation through at all. Lex sleeps in the nude, knowledge Clark has kept close and woken fevered by when he first found out. Lex refuses to be self-conscious the same way he refuses to lose. Viciously and unstoppable. Objectively, Clark knows Lex like no one else does. He knows that Lex hates the way he looks. Clark knows that Lex's constant and unrelenting sensuality is a weapon and a protest to the world he thinks unfairly cast him as the freak. Clark never understood it, but he knows it. It is utterly unfair, because Clark's never seen anything he wants to touch more than the alabaster skin of Lex Luthor.
"Uh, I think that's a sonic laundry drawer," Clark offers and indicates the potential appliance next to the en suite alcove. He only recognises it because it is so similar to the ones J'onn insisted on having installed in all the Watchtower rooms as a basic form of hygiene.
"How do you even clean that thing, anyway?" Lex asks, indicating Clark's uniform with a tilt of his jaw before turning back to his overly complicated buttons. He says it like it's an honest question. Nothing but the curiosity of a man in love with possibility. Clark wants to believe him. He really does.
"Ah…" says Clark. Both because he doesn't really know the specifics but all he does know is that the Fortress does it, and he's not ready to cross that line yet. Or ever, he corrects himself. Not yet. Ever. He's never crossing that line. He's not going to admit things he assumes Lex might remember. Lex might not even know the Fortress exists. He's not going to hand Lex his secrets like a chew toy.
"Your laundry's a secret?" Lex says, spitting 'secret' like a swear word. He doesn't sound angry though, just tired and a tiny bit incredulous. "Of course it is."
It isn't just that. His base of operations is a secret. His secrets are secret for a reason. And they're his, not Lex's. That's the whole point. But this, right here, is a tipping point either way.
If Clark strips off his uniform he'll be admitting everything.
Mostly his secret identity relies on his glasses, Kryptonian hypnotic glass in the lenses influences those who see him to forget his appearance just as quickly. But the same tech is in his suit. Mostly in the El crest on his chest but in the cape too. Instead of forgetting him, the uniform encourages people to see nothing else but the red and blue. It subtly alters his face, too. That's holographic and still disturbing when he catches his reflection. Photos aren't a problem, but seeing Superman's face on his reflection still feels wrong. The differences really are minute, blue eyes instead of green and a longer jaw. Little things, the Clark Kent of old could still pass for Superman's brother but most of the time it's enough because no one remembers what Clark Kent looks like unless they knew him before.
Occasionally an enterprising Smallville local has tried to go to the press with half an idea about 'that Kent boy' who was always there at the right time. Luckily they've all gone to Chloe - because Smallville folk really only trust other Smallville folk - and she can usually talk them out of it. Most of the evidence is long gone, even if they could find a journalist with no connections to Lois, Chloe, or Jimmy Olsen and also willing to investigate one of their own. Some of it gone because of Lex. Which is a perilous trail of thought when Lex himself is so close and watching Clark like he matters again. It hurts too much to look at any of that too close.
Lex ignores Clark's inner turmoil and figures out the drawer. It's not that complex, even Clark understands it: put clothes in, close drawer and they come out clean and smelling like ozone a few minutes later. Lex focuses on it anyway. He ignores Clark and what he maybe offered, and maybe took back only moments ago.
Clark knows Lex. He knows the way he plots and plans and manipulates the world to meet his needs. Clark knows he could and would orchestrate this very situation if he wanted. He knows it's probably yet another trick. He knows he can't trust anything about it, but he wants to. He wants to with the same harrowing confusion he felt at sixteen. Only now it's an even more treacherous desire. Then, he wanted to trust Lex because he thought he could but other people told him not to. Now, he wants to trust Lex despite the evidence of his own experience and scarless wounds in his own skin. He wants Lex to be a man neither of them can live up to. But he only wanted it because Lex made him think it was possible.
"You never did end world hunger," says Clark, because it's the only safe thing in his head right now.
Lex looks surprised, or as surprised as Lex ever looks when he doesn't want people to know about it. A tiny twitch under his left eye that Clark never misses. His breath in, just before he speaks, is slightly deeper than normal.
"I'm close, though," Lex says.
Which is true. He is close. They are close. There's a double entendre in there too, but the world is closer to ending human hunger than it has ever been.
Clark hadn't really noticed it happening; but that's how Lex works. Even when he's in the spotlight saying one thing, what he really wants is happening in the shadows behind the stage. Complicated games of politics and science, cross and double cross. The sort of things even Lois Lane can never fully untangle. A long game played for years and years. Each year there are fewer and fewer hungry people. Then one day, the world will wake up and there won't be any. That's how Lex works. Not because he cares about the individuals all that much, but because he needs to prove he can.
"Move over," Lex says. "I don't care if you want to pretend you're not as tired as you obviously are. I've given up trying to solve the mystery of your motivations. I genuinely do not care what you do. But some of us really are mostly human, and I'm going to try and sleep off this godawful day."
Lex starts unbuckling his belt which really forces Clark to look away. His uniform wasn't made for this kind of situation. Even in the face of Lex's exhaustion, and his own, Clark isn't made for this kind of situation. Clark stands up, turning his back on both Lex and the now intimidating bed. After a moment of indecision, Clark unfastens his cape. Lex already has plenty of samples of the fabric, and he's still Superman without it. He won't pretend he's safe. He's about to literally sleep with the enemy and he's never safe with Lex, least of all from himself. But he's safe enough. He'll sleep in the suit. He's done so often enough.
Lex asks him a question and forces Clark's focus back on all of Lex's porcelain flesh even when it should be on the words.
"I said," Lex says, repeating himself petulantly. "Do you know how this works or do I have to reverse engineer the showers too?"
Clark smiles at the reminder, then awkwardly shows him the sensor points and where to look. He's not really sure Lex needed the tutorial, but he's just grateful that Lex still has his pants on.
He doesn't when he steps out of the light shower a few seconds later. He is still wearing mauve silk boxer briefs as a concession to Clark's modesty but the way he meets Clark's eyes suggest he knows just how difficult he's making everything. He lets Clark into the en suite but he looks up at Clark through his lashes when they pass. It would be called coquettish on anyone less Luthor.
Despite having a door, the shower cubicle isn't made for a 6'4" humanoid to strip in. He manages it and wishes for water as the ion shower slides over his body instead. He always feels too clean after one of these. Like he's been stripped of more than dirt and microbes. It's also far too quick. Getting back into his uniform is even worse. He normally has it on under his clothes for the quick change.
Lex, having some small shred of mercy left in him has gotten into bed in the minute which Clark's shower took. He's even turned his back.
"I don't care where you sleep…" Lex says, as if he can feel Clark's indecision. "Just sleep somewhere. I don't need you collapsing on me in an emergency."
After a few more moments Lex rolls over and raises one eyebrow. "The bed's not bad," he says.
It's even big enough for both of them. Clark gives in. He finds the panel to dim the lights and gets into the dreaded bed.
Lex waits until Clark is under the superfine and highly insulating blankets before he comments.
"You're really going to sleep in it."
"Yes," says Clark in his firmest tone and trying to Superman his way out of his own discomfort.
Lex huffs, something between a sigh and a laugh and rolls over again.
"Goodnight, Superman," Lex says, playing it off as an afterthought but saying the name with venom.
"Night, Lex."
Clark falls asleep to the rhythm of both their heartbeats, his own racing and erratic and Lex's twitchy but ever controlled. In the near silence of the interstellar night, if he ignores the humming buzz of the station around them, it almost sounds like home.
Clark wakes up, warm and wrapped around Lex. Even Clark's not surprised by it. He's always been a bit of a cuddler and he's been frantic to touch Lex since he was a teenager. His arm is slung loosely across the hot skin of Lex's waist and his face is buried in the crook of Lex's neck and shoulder. When all Lex does is mumble and stretch Clark lets himself stay there for a few more deep breaths of peace before the inevitable storm.
Lex manages to smell even better with the exotic perfume stripped away. Skin and salt and the slightly acrid smell that Clark has come to know as permanent kryptonite damage and mutation. By all accounts that should send Clark running, but it has quite the opposite effect. Maybe the fact he's never been able to disentangle poison and lust says something about him. Or something about Lana. Or maybe both. Whatever it means, he's not going to solve it now. His cock is hard but his uniform constrains him a bit, and at least he's not floating. There are worse ways to wake up.
Lex wakes up the exact same way he did in chains. All at once and almost imperceptibly. His fingers slide into Clark's hair like they belong there.
Clark thinks the kiss should surprise him, but it doesn't. They've been heading this direction for more than a decade. It feels a bit like destiny.
Lex tilts Clark's chin and kisses him, cunning and confident. He doesn't even open his eyes, barely admits he's awake, but Clark has no doubt about Lex knowing exactly what he's doing and to whom. It isn't ferocious like Clark always expected, but it is certain and it is possessive. Lex rolls towards Clark and pulls him closer; Clark gives himself over to it, yields to Lex's desires and questing tongue, molten and completely overthrown. It is a slow agony of bliss, too languidly controlled for a typical first kiss - but they've never been typical and it's not technically their first. Clark kissed Lex back to life on the river bank, the very first day they met. He didn't hesitate then and he doesn't this time either. Lex's free hand traces Clark's jaw and throat. Clark moans and tries not to grip too tight when all he wants to do is hold on to this kiss, keep it forever, cling to Lex and never let go. Lex bites Clark's lower lip as he pulls away, hard enough to break skin on a human, just teasing at the merciless and primal possibilities between them.
Lex is breathing hard and fast now, passion undoing his martial artists precision like no battle ever has. His eyes are still closed and Clark has the urge to force them open. It's not right for Lex to refuse to look at him. It's not right for Lex to seem so fragile in anything other than his skin and bones.
Clark pulls him closer, pulls their bodies flush against each other. He's rougher with Lex than he would be with anyone else; old violence is eclipsed but not forgotten every time they touch. Lex goes with it. Clark's fast healing and smooth talking devil unravels into tentative silence and lets Clark take what he wants, for now. When Lex rolls his hips and moves against Clark's body it is extraordinary sensual and excruciatingly good. Lex has his hands on Clark's skin, his face, his hands, his hair, but his body presses in close and arches up. Skin like satin slithers against the flesh-like fabric. Lex rakes his nails down Clark's impenetrable sides; makes a frustrated sound then does that mind blowing thing with his hips again. Clark loses himself in the luxurious feeling of Lex Luthor in his arms.
Lex has his head bent and pressed into Clark's shoulder, eyes still tight shut. Something like concentration on his brow as his hands move over Clark, laying claim. Clark gasps when Lex's hand slides across his throbbing cock, gasps and lets Lex take what Clark's always wanted to give. Lex kisses Clark's throat then bites his shoulder, hard enough to hurt himself. Demanding Clark's pleasure the same way he's always claimed anything and everything he wants. Hands and hips, flick of the wrist and clawing fingers, chest and limbs and so much naked skin. So much smooth, precious, human skin. Clark grasps at Lex, barely holding on, only almost holding himself together and their bodies close. He throws his head back and Lex bites his ear.
Clark comes, quivering in his symbolic red pants, sticky and satiated and whimpering Lex's name. Lex holds him through it, allows Clark to shiver his last gasp of gratification before pushing away again. He's not quite out of reach but far enough to leave Clark cold and uncertain in the space between.
Lex finally opens his eyes and frowns into Clark's.
"Interesting," says Lex. He traces the line of Clark's jaw again, so tender it ought to leave a mark. "We haven't done that before," he says.
It's only barely a question.
"Depends on how you count it," Clark admits. "You wouldn't remember, even if we had."
He knows he shouldn't say it. But Lex isn't the only one with insatiable curiosity. Lex isn't the only one who wants the final piece of the puzzle. Even Clark knows that kissing Superman isn't an incidental event, making him come in his trousers like a teenager even less so. So he pushes them both with careless words, pushes at the places they've hurt each other, harder than he should.
Lex licks his lips, buying time before he answers, and Clark wants to follow Lex's tongue with his own.
"I remember more than I should, and less than I'd like," Lex says at last. His hands toy with the collar of Clark's suit as he speaks, and his eyes follow his fingers so he doesn't have to look at Clark. "I remember threats and lies and fights, but I remember smiles and kindness, and skin. I remember blood, and baths, and swimming in sunlight. I remember more than enough to solve your riddles. I remember falling ice and falling in love. The blanks were easy to fill. But I don't think I'll ever figure out when or why you'll lie to me, Clark. No matter how many pieces I get back."
Hearing his name on Lex's lips again causes Clark's heart to skip a beat. For too long, he's been nothing to Lex but 'Superman' said in loathing, or worse 'Mr Kent' said with no emotion at all.
Then Lex ruins the gift by smiling - it's not the one Clark wants. It isn't the secret one that haunts Clark's dreams and drove him near mad with desire as a teenager. It isn't even the smug one that makes Clark want to hit him as much as kiss him.
It's that broken, self-deprecating smile that makes Clark want to tear apart whoever caused Lex to make it. It isn't a rational reaction, least of all when it's so often Clark's own fault, but it's not a rational smile, either.
"Sorry," Clark says. He means it. He's not going to change, but he means it.
Before Lex can react immediately, Clark kisses him again. Harder, faster, almost frantic. He's not sure how long Lex's waking pliability will last, so he stores up each press of lips and tongue just like he's always collected every other knowledge and memory of Lex. Kept hidden but safe inside him - wrapped up and buried deep, something dangerous and precious.
Lex lets Clark kiss him for a few more seconds. Lets him taste everything he's ever tried not to want. Then, Lex breaks the kiss, pushing Clark away like a punishment, and says, "Sorry is a terrible kind of denial, Clark. Even for you."
The words cut because they're meant to; and Clark knows Lex says his name again as some kind of test. It's a razor sharp attack and a threat of more to follow. The thing is, Superman is invulnerable and so is Clark. Razors can't cut him, but Lex has always scared him.
Clark knows a lot of things about Lex Luthor. His cherished stockpile of facts and phrases, memories and dreams, knowledge held so close it's become part of him. Some facets of Lex are uncertain, some contradictory, most never quite predictable. If there is one thing Clark knows for sure about Lex, it's that he's smart. It's the one thing that never changes. The one fact that is always part of the complex calculus of Lex. He's so smart he's deadly. So smart and so inquisitive he'll shred himself and anything in his way while looking for answers. He's in love with information and infatuated by hidden things. So smart that you can only lie to him for so long before it's pointless. So smart he's most dangerous to himself. Sometimes, giving in is its own kind of prize.
"That's because it's called an apology, Lex, not a denial."
Clark reaches out for him, tries to drag him back in but Lex's eyes fall to the crest on his chest and Lex pulls away further.
Lex might be the only person who has ever wanted Clark Kent more than Superman. Clark acts without thinking, he sits up, letting the shimmering soft blankets fall to his waist. He reaches back and activates the hidden KNA coded catch that lets the uniform unravel into loose folds around him. The reaction is worth it. Lex's breath catches and stays caught, literally breathless as Clark pushes away the last vestige of his disguise.
Clark's eyes fade back to unremarkable hazel green as the blue of his last active trace of Kryptonian power fades from him. He lets down every last defence and waits for the siege. Clark swallows, tamping down his nervous anticipation and forcing himself to look at Lex. He's naked to the waist now, in more ways than one. Lex looks like he wants to devour him. An open, wanting kind of hunger. Insatiable and utterly intoxicating.
"Clark?" Lex asks. Not really asking who he is but seeking confirmation that he's real and he's really doing this. That it's them and they're both awake and alive and who they ought to be. Wonder and doubt, and yeah, there it is, a hopeful finish.
"You know," Clark says, grinning at Lex and knowing just what it looks like this time - it's the smile only Lex ever brings out in him. Bright and broad, very real, slightly crooked, unlike Superman's perfect symmetry, and, thanks to Lex, just a little bit evil. "You still say it the exact same way."
Lex surges up to kiss him. And this time, finally, it's the dramatic, primal thing Clark's been waiting for. Lex kissed Superman like he wanted to own him, he kisses Clark like he knows he always has, and wants him all the more for it. Ferocious doesn't even start to cover it. It's a declaration of war, a battleground, a surrender and a peace treaty all in one hectic, desperate, blissful collision. Clark ends up with a lapful of Lex's smooth skin, and a chest full of shuddering, gasping breath and broken whimpers. They kiss, frantic and climactic. It tastes like redemption.
Sleeping with Lex doesn't tame him. It doesn't change either of them and it doesn't erase the past. Making love doesn't make everything magically better. But it does free them both from chains neither realised they were carrying. No matter their professions, there are some words better spelled by the tongue on sweat stained and straining flesh. There are some ideas that can only be kissed not spoken. Some promises best made with rolling hips and bated breaths, worshipful hands on silken skin. It hurts as much as heals and it's far too good to stop.
Also, sex is an excellent distraction technique. Even if it hadn't turned out to be the best thing he's ever felt, Clark should have seduced Lex years ago. Or let Lex seduce him. Something like that. Lex Luthor gets up to a lot less trouble when he's turning that brilliant, devious mind of his to finding new and exciting ways to make Clark come.
On the other hand, it might be making Clark more docile too. Lex takes up some kind of illicit and highly hazardous form of space poker and gets very good at it, very quickly. He even uses the original space ship as his initial stake, despite the fact it is technically impounded pending Lantern custody and in no way is it Lex's to bet. He says something sly about preferring to gamble with other people's money. Clark lets Lex suck him off instead of fighting it out. Lex looks fantastic in the space-pirate get-up he ends up buying or trading or whatever; so Clark's pretty sure he wins in the end even if this is the start of LexCorp's interstellar trading arm.
In moments of clarity he knows he's got it bad. Clark knows he shouldn't let Lex get his hands on elemental technologies, Clark lets it slide when Lex slides his hands over his body. Clark can't even find it in himself to moralise when Lex places bets on Clark's own ability to perform feats of daring-do that mostly amount to party tricks. Appallingly, Clark even goes along with some of them.
It feels kind of good to be in on the joke again. That's the real risk.
It's almost too easy, this far from home. Deep in the Black, no one knows who they are and no one cares. On Knowhere, they're just two more strange aliens more tangled in each other than the galaxy around them. It can't last, Clark knows it won't, but he surrenders while he can. He indulges in the illusion and very carefully doesn't think about what happens next. He distracts himself in exploring the lines of Lex's body instead. It might be a mirage but it's a good one.
A week isn't long, but it'll have to be long enough.
A week isn't long enough.
Hal is apologetic when he gets there which makes Clark feel even worse. The entire planet has been worried about him, about both of them, and Lex and Clark have been playing house in space the whole time. The stellar class Lantern cruiser hangs in the night sky, heavy with the threat of liberation and homecoming.
Goodbyes are harder than he thought they'd be. Angela has already gotten herself involved in a war, the Guardians of the Galaxy seem to be planning a heist. Cosmo does actually like having his ears scratched. A week isn't long enough, but the galaxy keeps spinning.
Clark is already accustomed to touching Lex when and how he wants. It takes more restraint to step back and resist than it used to. Lex spares him a sideways glance before stepping up to Hal and shaking his hand as if they're old friends. He says something about the United States and gratitude, other Presidential platitudes. Clark remembers that he's Superman and acts like it.
Clark can't quite fathom the idea that they'll be back on Earth within the week. Most of that time will be spent travelling to the edge of the unstable zone that Knowhere inhabits, before a quick jump to the outer edges of their own system. Every inch of the distance he maintains from Lex throbs, like an open wound full of kryptonite.
"We can put him in the brig?" Hal offers, when he catches Clark frowning at Lex's back. It's a joke but it falls flat. Clark shakes it off and pretends the aching pressure behind his ribs is normal.
"Still no water in the showers," Lex says. "I never thought I would get sick of hyper-clean antibacterial light tech, but here I am." He's lounging in the doorway to Clark's small onboard quarters.
Clark's heart kicks up a notch. Lex still looks like a Star Wars fantasy come to life.
"I'm sure the White House has baths, Lex. It's not long."
"Hmm, yeah it does with those jets you like. So does Camp David."
Clark blinks at him in mild confusion. Lex steals his ability to form words even when he isn't pressing him into a mattress or kissing him like a showdown.
"Of course, the Secret Service aren't going to let me out of their sight, after this. At least not until Sander's inauguration in January. But they'll let me go to Camp David if I force the point. It makes them feel better when they know who laid the flooring."
"Right," says Clark. Lex is backlit in green and gold. Neoclassical and perfect.
Lex steps forward and the doors swish closed behind him. Clark doesn't need it but it still feels like Lex takes up all the oxygen in the room as soon as those doors close.
"I'm pretty sure you could sneak into Camp David. If you can get past Mercy and Hope on a bad day, you can get past the Secret Service on their best, with your eyes closed."
"Are you- inviting me to have a bath?" Clark is amused as much as he is relieved.
"Only if you let me get you filthy first," Lex says, he smirks and he's about to say something further. But Clark is on him before he catches the breath for it.
There's an edge of violent vulnerability in the way Lex kisses him. It's addictive and ambrosial, full of secrets and promises. A challenge and a dare, a seduction and a guarantee. Lex kisses Clark like he wants to give him the world. Clark kisses back like he already has.
Having sex with his mortal enemy doesn't fix anything, but it sure does feel fantastic.
Six weeks after they get back to Earth, the Metropolis Inquisitor runs a blurry picture that might be Superman kissing former President Lex Luthor, or might be some cats in a tree. The speculation that runs alongside it is too factual for comfort however.
Lois offers Clark anything and everything, up to and including her first born, in exchange for an exclusive. Clark declines, it would be all too easy for Oliver Queen to add a kryptonite tipped missile to his Green Arrow arsenal.
Batman isn't surprised. He only makes three ominous predictions of doom, which is practically giving his blessing.
Diana tries to be supportive and congratulates him awkwardly.
Everyone else is mostly just confused. Clark's mother calls him from Washington, but all she does is offer to bake cherry pie.
The moment Clark lands on his office balcony, Lex offers to have it all covered up; it's his go-to response to any media controversy right after trying to kidnap Lois Lane - which isn't an option in this instance.
Lex is watching the city instead of Clark, looking at the glimmering lights of life far below them. Lex hasn't been back in Metropolis long, but the whole city seems more alive for it. Clark wonders, not for the first time, what Lex really sees when he looks out from the top if his mighty tower. He can't focus in on things like squirrels and squabbling kids the way Clark can. All Lex can see from up here is the light left behind by other people's lives. Like distant stars. Only hinting at what they might have been.
"We could go to Vortuma instead?" Clark offers, because Aquaman was talking about it last week and it sounds idyllic and far enough away not to count. "It's a water planet with a yellow sun. The whole thing has less land mass than New Zealand."
"It's also full of Hexapuses," Lex points out with a sly grin. "Don't tell me you've developed some kind of tentacle fetish Clark, because there's only so much bioengineering I'm willing to put myself through. Even for you."
Lex's voice is like warm chocolate on a cold night. Indulgent and tempting. A soothing luxury that Clark hopes will never end.
When Clark kisses him, out in the open, on a spring-scented Earth evening, Lex doesn't stop him. He doesn't run away. He doesn't hide and no one gets shot. It's a start and it might not seem like much, but for them it's a miracle.
~FIN~