A/N: Trigger warning—some physical abuse in this chapter. Not super graphic, but emotional.

Chapter 27 - Identity

Clark took deep breaths as he raised a hand to knock on Lex's door. He wasn't usually up this early—at least, he tried not to be—but Pete was in trouble, and Clark couldn't think of anyone else who could help.

"Come in."

Clark pushed the door open—Lex had already put on his suit and was tying his tie.

"I was just about to head out." Lex turned to face Clark, and frowned when he saw his face. "Everything okay?"

"Lex, you've done so much already, but I need a big favor."

"Name it."

Clark swallowed hard. "I need twenty thousand dollars, cash."

Lex's eyes widened. "You're right. That is big. You mind telling me what it's for?"

"My friend got mixed up with the wrong crowd, and now they're making him pay for it."

Lex gave him a look. "Is this the old proverbial friend who happens to be you?"

"Believe me, if that was the case, it'd be a lot easier."

"Well, tell your friend that in my experience, money-hungry thugs are like stray dogs. You feed them once, they're at your back door every night asking for more."

"Unfortunately I don't think my friend has a choice. They're threatening to kill him."

"What happened, Clark?"

Clark winced. "I wish I could tell you more."

"You can trust me. Unless . . ." Lex's eyes narrowed. "Does this have to do with your secret?"

"No." Clark took a deep breath. He knew he could trust his brother. Pete wouldn't like it, but then, he wouldn't like the fact that Clark was asking Lex for the money, either. "It's Pete. He got himself involved in illegal street racing, and gambling, and he has to come up with twenty thousand dollars by tomorrow, or they're going to kill him."

Lex frowned. "Clark . . . I want to help you, but . . . the power of wealth comes with a lot of responsibility."

"But you've always been generous with people."

"Yes. When it doesn't matter. But I have to be careful about . . ." Lex hung his head. "I wish I could give you the money."

Clark squeezed his eyes shut. "I get it. It's just, I don't know what to do for Pete. I can't let him die."

"Well, who's threatening him? I might be able to pull some strings—"

"I don't want Pete to get in any trouble."

"Sounds like he's already in trouble, Clark."

"I know, but . . ." Clark sighed. "I'll figure something out."

Lex gave Clark a pointed look, said, "Be careful," and picked up his jacket from the coat hanger, revealing his car keys just before he left the room.


The guilt at having to turn Clark down ate at Lex all the way to Metropolis. He hoped Clark would catch his hint to go ahead and take his Porsche—he couldn't have been more obvious about it if he'd turned around and winked. He would have told him directly, but he had already put on the wire Loder had given him, and he didn't want to make a show of turning it off so he could explain himself to Clark.

He hadn't told the Kents about the deal with the FBI yet. He wasn't going to hide it from them for any length of time—he knew where that would lead—but he hadn't gotten a good opportunity to sit and explain to them what he was doing, and they were certainly going to panic about the homicides Lex had been framed for. If there was any chance he might be able to wrap up the fight quickly by catching Lionel saying something suspicious within the first week or two of wearing the wire, that would mean he could deliver the good news along with the bad, softening the blow and eliminating their need to worry about him.

It was a poor excuse for lying, and Lex knew it. But he couldn't help but worry that his adoptive father would somehow find reason to be disappointed with him for his underhanded deal with the FBI, and Lex didn't want to deal with that pain, not while he was taking his biological father's abuse. If he finished out his fight quickly, he wouldn't give his family any reason to be disappointed with him.

Lionel was waiting for Lex outside of his office when he arrived. "What's this about?" Lex asked.

"Press conference. You need to report on your, ah, project."

"The one you used to set me up."

Lionel smirked. "I trust you can think fast on your feet."

Lex's mouth felt dry. He was rusty when it came to that kind of deception; he valued openness and honesty with his own employees, but there were no good options here. The full story would cause panic and undermine everything he'd been working to build with his own company.

A press conference also meant the story would make the news, which meant his parents would find out about it. That gave him a pretty quick deadline to tell them what was going on. That wasn't the worst thing, but he knew they wouldn't be happy with him for lying on live television.

It didn't help, either, that he mostly had to rely on his inner darkness to supply the words. His adoptive parents would hate that.

Lex couldn't eat at lunchtime; Lionel didn't, either. He spent the lunch hour berating Lex about the interview.

"Spineless. Worthless," he spat. "I used to be able to trust you to handle something like that."

"Plausible deniability, Dad. That's what you taught me."

"I taught you that the details are everything. The way you stand, the way you walk. The look in your eyes. The press can smell fear, Lex, and you—you're like a wounded animal. It's the Kents, isn't it? They're the ones who have made you weak."

"I'm not weak."

Lionel actually laughed aloud. "You've lost your edge."

"I'm as sharp as I've ever been." That was actually true enough, when it came to his own work. Getting enough sleep and ensuring his employees had the opportunity to do the same had increased productivity quite a bit.

Lionel smirked and turned away from him, walking back to a storage space in the back of the room. He returned with two foils and tossed one to Lex.

Lex swallowed. "I haven't wasted time with fencing practice in awhile, Dad."

"Nor with verbal fencing, I've noticed." He held his foil at the ready.

Lex sighed. He wasn't getting out of this. His best bet would be to lose quickly, let Lionel make whatever point he wanted to make, and move on, trying to recover lost ground.

"You idiot," his darkness spat. "This is why he treats you the way he does. You ask for it."

Lex pushed aside the taunts and focused on the fight. He hadn't yet had a chance to try to get any information, though he could feel the wire from Loder jostle against his chest with the unexpected physical activity.

As predicted, Lex lost the match quickly, falling back as he did. He lay on his back, propped up on his elbows, his foil dropped beside him as Lionel stood over him, pressing the point of the foil hard into his chest as Lex breathed hard.

"Pathetic." Lionel raised the tip of the foil to tap at Lex's left cheek. "Weak." A tap against his right cheek.

Lex forced himself not to flinch, keeping his eyes wide open. "I'm not weak."

Lionel raised the foil high and slashed the tip against Lex's right shoulder. Fire streaked across the skin where he'd been struck, and he gasped.

"You can't do this, I'm not a kid," Lex said.

"Could have fooled me." Lionel landed two more loud cracks in the exact same place. Lex clenched his teeth at the first, but the growing burn forced a shout from his lips at the second.

To his horror, the fierce sting in his arm was closely followed by a mild sting in his eyes. He could not be crying in his father's presence. That was a cardinal sin, as far as Lionel was concerned. Lex blinked rapidly.

Another stroke fell in the same place. Lex squeezed his eyes shut, and he was nineteen again, and his father was drunk, and blows from the epee rained down all over his body, relentless, unending, unyielding . . .

He was seventeen, and he'd just suggested that maybe Julian's death had been natural, and his father's fist came out of nowhere . . .

He was sixteen, and he'd just killed Duncan, and the belt whipped long and hard against the backs of his thighs, where no one would ever see the marks. This time, he welcomed the pain, letting it purge the crippling guilt, only it still wasn't enough, nothing could ever be enough . . .

He was thirteen, and his mother had just died, and he had been crying for hours after the funeral was over, and his father played the game he'd played so many times before, refusing to stop the blows until Lex stopped his tears, but Lex couldn't stop, couldn't stop . . .

He was twelve, and his father had just caught him killing Julian . . . He was eleven, whining about how his mom was too tired from her pregnancy to spend any time with him . . . He was nine, simpering about how no one at school wanted to be friends with him now that he was a bald-headed freak . . . He was six, complaining about having to clean his room . . .

And then he was twenty-three, and his father and Mrs. Kent had just been taken hostage, and it was Lex's fault, and Mr. Kent was gripping his arm so hard it bruised, and Lex was promising he'd stay away from the Kents. And then he was a few months older, still twenty-three, and Clark was pushing him all the way across the barn, yelling for him to stay the hell away.

His mind snapped back to the present. Lex was twenty-four. His father was carving a deep stripe into that one place, on the same arm Jonathan had grabbed and Clark had shoved, and Lex wasn't fighting back.

"Don't ever, ever—" one last stroke in the same place on his arm, harder than the others— "forget who you are. Or who I am."

Lex hadn't forgotten. How could he forget?

His father dropped the foil and stepped back. "Get out of my sight. Come back when you're a man."