- - - Chapter Ten
Lex Luthor couldn't believe the level of incompetence held by those around him. Somehow, all the goons he'd managed to bribe while in prison had managed to lose all of the kryptonite he'd given them funds to dredge up. Of course, that was mostly Lois Lanes fault. She and her newest fiancé, Clark Kent, had written enough articles exposing the old lead-lined warehouses that the police had investigated. Every single one of his stockpiles had been discovered. The kryptonite had been removed by the National Guard and placed in a lead insulated vault on the outskirts of Metropolis. The base was well guarded- everyone on the skeleton crew new each other; no chance of impersonating a guard to get a hold of the kryptonite. That and the fact that General Sam Lane, Lois's father, ran the base himself.
That incompetence had led to the unfortunate demise of quite of few of his staff. Unfortunately, the troubles hadn't ended there. Oh no. It had taken them almost a year to get him out of jail, and jail was not a pleasant place to be when you are Lex Luthor. He had a reputation that made him the most feared man on the streets, but the men who would otherwise do his bidding unthinkingly felt safe enough to stand up to him in the nice guarded zones of the prison.
Of course, Lex had gotten out. He'd used people and bribed people and even killed a man to get out. But that didn't matter. He was out and he had kryptonite. It wasn't nearly as much kryptonite as he'd been expecting to have, but it would have to do. Then there was the fact that Lois Lane had felt that the time was right to go to Kansas of all places. They had located the apartment of her fiancé and had staked it out for three days before they realized that nobody was there. A little research, something Lex had to oversee personally or risk disappointment, proved that Lois, Clark, and a photographer were on a two week vacation of sorts for an article, and her son was staying with Perry White.
Perry White lived in a 'safe' neighborhood where neighbors knew and looked out for each other. That posed a problem for staking out the house. The IQ level of his goons made sure that they'd get noticed in a neighborhood like that. Somehow, they'd managed. Jason was staying in the farthest corner of the house in a bedroom right next to Perry's. That would make it difficult to sneak in and take the boy; Perry would have to be dealt with as well.
- - -
Perry wasn't sure whether he should be pissed or terrified.
He'd woken for no apparent reason just before midnight. He went in the hall and checked on Jason, finding the boy sleeping soundly. They'd had a busy day. After school and some time at the Planet, they'd gone to the park and had hotdogs from a vendor for dinner. They'd finally made it home just before Jason's bed time and the boy was sleeping like a rock. Until Perry turned to go back to bed.
Jason sat straight up in bed. Perry would've sworn he was going to start sleep walking, except he was staring around the room and looking scared, not beginning to walk around like a zombie. Jason had relaxed without noticing his uncle standing in the doorway, and Perry had dismissed it, heading back to bed. He'd just made it back into bed when the boy charged into his room. He was about to speak when there was a crash from the front of the house, and Jason let out a frightened squeal.
"It's the bad men again, I know it!" Jason said, jumping onto Perry's bed and hiding in his arms.
Perry wasn't sure what he meant 'the bad men,' but the boy was shaking. Perry had brought him to the closet, telling him to stay quiet, before taking out his trusty wooden bat and walking out into the house. He'd flipped a few light switches and found that the power was out. Just his luck. He'd felt something come into contact with his rib cage at the same moment Jason had found his cell phone in his jacket pocket in the closet and called the one number he had memorized.
Perry had been blindfolded and handcuffed, and led into a vehicle of some kind. When the blindfold had finally come off, he was in a small square room with walls made of large cement blocks. A single light bulb dangled from a wire at the center of the room casting weak yellow light that barely reached the far corners. He'd been left alone despite his loudly voiced dislike of his situation, and equally loud inquiries about Jason. He'd eventually fallen silent, and Jason had been brought in not ten minutes later. The boy hadn't looked so good; he was crying, sweating, and shaking violently as though he had a chill he couldn't quite get rid of. His breath wheezed in and out of his lungs; Perry called for the inhaler but only got the door slammed in his face by one of Luthor's henchmen.
When Perry had touched Jason, it felt like the boy's skin was on fire. After several minutes, Jason had stopped wheezing and shivering, and just clung to Perry. He was still almost intolerably warm and still trembled slightly. He wouldn't say anything, but would whimper occasionally in distress.
"It's okay, Jason. You'll be okay," Perry muttered constantly, holding the boy close and stroking his hair. It didn't seem to do anything to comfort Jason, but he clung closer, more desperately. Whatever Luthor had done to the boy was still affecting him. Where's Superman? Perry wondered.
Suddenly, Jason perked up. He had the same look on his face that he'd had earlier that evening- morning, really. Slowly, he stood up, looking at the far wall, the one they were leaning against, as though he could see straight through it.
"Jason?" Perry asks, looking at the uninteresting cement blocks and trying to see what Jason was seeing.
Jason nodded at the wall and Perry looked at him like he was crazy. Without a word, Jason grabbed Perry's hand and dragged him over to the wall across from where they were sitting, standing to one side of the door and pressing backwards.
"Jason, what is it?" Perry asked again. Jason just shook his head, his breath getting a little more difficult. "Jason?"
The far wall imploded. It wasn't a violent implosion, but an implosion none the less. A section of the large bricks fell into the room, landing heavily and sending a cloud of dust into the air. A man stood just inside the now not-so-complete wall wearing a faded olive bathrobe, and dark gray pajama pants. Perry didn't recognize Superman at once, it took a moment; the hero's hair was in its usual fashion, all but a single curl slicked back by the wind, but without the suit he looked much like somebody else that Perry couldn't quite name.
"Daddy," Jason whispered, relieved.
Perry was silent as Superman came farther into the room and gathered his son into his arms; they hugged each other tightly for a moment. His skin was oddly pale, even for Superman, and Perry would know after pouring over photographs of him with Jimmy for hours in the past months. "Daddy?" Perry asked, looking between father and son and shocking himself when he noticed many shared traits. The eyes stood out first, then the jaw line, and the thick, dark hair.
"Superman," Luthor's voice came from the doorway, cold and somewhat amused as usual. "You always make an entrance, don't you?" He smirked, pulling a broken shard of kryptonite out of his pocket. "I kept a souvenir from our last encounter."
Superman stumbled, setting Jason down on the floor next to him and leaning against the wall. Perry fought to come to some sort of conclusion. If Jason was Superman's son, why wasn't he hurting just as much as Superman right now? Jason seemed just as confused.
"Daddy?" He asked, "What's wrong? That's not real kryptonite…"
"Jason…" Superman started, but he didn't get far; Luthor took a step closer, pressing the shard against his skin. Perry could see the sweat on Superman's forehead and bare chest. The skin around the scar that he knew to be from the encounter with the 'Kings' was flushed, the pale scar itself was tinged with green.
Luthor pressed the kryptonite deeper into the skin near his collarbone, letting blood spill over the top edge and onto his fingers. Clark winced but didn't flinch away. It was the third time in his life he'd seen his blood, not counting the scrapes he'd gotten when he was a child. Clark did his best to glare at Luthor, the man who had made him bleed two out of those three times.
"No! Stop hurting Daddy!" Jason cried out, leaping forward. Luthor's hand slashed backwards, angling the kryptonite so that it would take Jason in the stomach. Clark leaned forward, shoving Luthor's shoulder and sending him backwards with enough force to make him miss Jason and land on his backside a few feet behind him. The kryptonite he held in his hand didn't miss, though. It cut through Jason's bright orange pajamas and shattered against his skin.
The three men in the room froze, as did the goons standing outside the door. Jason was wheezing again and Clark immediately reached into his robe pocket and pulled out one of Jason's inhalers. Jason grabbed it up and inhaled deeply with Clark watching him with worried eyes, ignoring the blood dripping down his chest. Perry was standing and watching the scene, mouth hanging open. Luthor pushed himself to his feet, staring at the rip in Jason's pajamas.
"Impossible," he whispered. Jason handed the inhaler back to Clark, smiling slightly before he remembered where they were. Luckily, he didn't have another attack. Luthor had come to his senses, though, snapping his fingers. The goons outside the door came in, moving to handcuff Perry. Clark reacted first, pulling Perry away and lifting Jason into his arms, ignoring the throbbing he felt in his old and new wounds as he passed close to the kryptonite.
Jason clung to him like there was no tomorrow, and Perry quickly moved in front of him. At least until the goons stopped them; Clark wasn't moving as quickly as he normally did because of the kryptonite.
Just before Clark took flight, he faltered and felt Jason tense against him. He leaned against the edge of the wall, and would've dropped Jason if his fingers weren't locked into his robe so tightly. "What?" Perry asked, spinning around as soon as he noticed that Superman had stopped.
"Kryptonite poisoning," Superman muttered, sinking to his knees with Jason still held close.
"Lex," an annoyed voice came from the doorway. "One of your guys just dropped this off."
Kitty Kowalski was standing in the door, holding a crystalline chunk of kryptonite lazily in one hand.
"Thank you, Kitty," Lex said, taking the kryptonite from her and smiling; it was moments like these that had earned her a ticket out of prison with him.
"There's a whole bunch more of it downstairs, but it was too heavy," Kitty shrugged, snapping her gum.
Clark felt Jason go limp in his arms, his fingers unclenching from the robe it was buried in. Clark's eyes were fixed on the kryptonite, examining it. What made this chunk so different from the shard Luthor had had that it affected Jason when the other hadn't? The only thing he could tell from his position was that it looked more like something that had been grown with New Krypton rather than something that had come with the meteors from Krypton. Could that be it?
"Superman?" Perry was asking, "Jason?"
Lex was looking at them curiously, looking at the kryptonite in his hand and comparing it to the kryptonite shattered on the floor.
"Go get handcuffs for the other two," Lex ordered, bending over to pick up the shards of kryptonite on the floor. "Move them into a secure room and keep this close."
The three of them were handcuffed, even little Jason who was still unconscious. Clark put up a fight when the henchmen took Jason away, but the kryptonite was eating away at his strength faster than it ever had before.
The new room was similar to the old one, only bigger. With what Clark had left of his x-ray vision he discovered that the far wall separated them from open air and the morning sunrise over Metropolis.
A pair of goons were stationed just inside the doors, one of them holding the kryptonite, the other a handgun. The handcuffs were removed from Jason and Perry, but not from Clark. Clark dragged Jason across the room anyways, getting them as far away from the kryptonite as possible before sinking down against the wall beside his son. Perry crouched nearby, watching.
"Is there anything I can do?" He asked.
Feel like taking on a guy with a gun? Clark wanted to say, but knew better. "For Jason? He just has to wake up on his own."
"Anything else?"
Clark was silent, looking at Jason before turning his eyes to his own hands. He broke the handcuffs apart, wincing as the metal pressed into his skin. Super strength was still there to a point, but the invulnerability was gone. He ran a systems check on himself; definitely no flying until the kryptonite was farther away, super speed was a possibility but it wouldn't be as good as usual, just like the super strength wasn't up to par. Invulnerability was gone; x-ray vision was fading… heat vision. "Go grab the gun," Clark ordered. Perry looked at him like he was crazy, but Clark was already squinting at the metal.
The goon threw the weapon away from him, shaking his hands around wildly to cool them off while his counterpart looked on in confusion. Perry was up in a flash, dashing across the room and snatching the gun up. He pointed it at the pair of them, ordering them to raise their hands above their heads. They complied, and the kryptonite fell to the floor. Surprisingly, it bounced, sending a few chips scattering away, instead of shattering.
Perry ordered the goons to open the door. Keeping the gun trained on them, he kicked the kryptonite out into the hall. He glanced down and kicked one of the larger chips away too before having them close the door again. "Now what?" He asked Superman.
Before Clark could answer, Jason came around. "Daddy?" He asked softly, looking up and smiling when he found his father's worried blue eyes looking down at him.
"Ready to go, Jason?" He asked; the boy nodded excitedly before looking around. His face fell.
"How're we going to get out? Where did the kryptonite go? How come I still feel sick?"
"We'll be okay, Jason," he assured him softly so that the others in the room couldn't hear. "I still feel sick, too. It'll be over soon."
"Okay, Daddy."
The pair of them got to their feet, Clark leaning on the wall with one hand and helping Jason up with his other. He moved Jason into one corner and walked to the other corner, glancing at Perry. He still had the goons at gunpoint. Clark drew a deep breath; this was going to hurt, probably a lot. Not as much as launching New Krypton into space, though.
He gritted his teeth and made a fist. Then he shoved the fist through the back wall. It hurt like hell and he expected to feel his bones breaking, but they didn't. The hole wasn't nearly as big as he'd hoped for. The cement walls were thick, and he didn't have all his strength; the abomination that the crystals and sea water had morphed the kryptonite into was still affecting him. Clark set his jaw and pulled the blocks away, widening the hole until it would be big enough for him to escape through.
After a few minutes, he was satisfied with the hole in the wall, and Clark cracked his knuckles, not letting any of the pain he felt when he moved his fingers show on his face. He could already see bruises forming on the knuckles of the hand that he'd used to punch through the wall. "Bring them over here, Perry," he instructed.
Perry kept the gun pointed at them and directed them over to Superman. They looked at him with fear, worrying he was going to throw them out of the hole he'd just made. Before they could say a word, Clark pushed them together just hard enough to knock them unconscious.
"Daddy!" Jason said, surprised.
"They'll be okay, Jason," Clark assured him, motioning for Perry to come over. "They'll wake up in a little bit with a headache- we just can't leave them awake when we escape or they'll go tell Luthor that we got away."
"The bald one?"
"Yes, the bald one," he smiled. "Perry, I need you to lie them in front of the door," Perry did as he was told.
"I think he kind of looks like a mean Mr. Clean," Jason remarked while they watched Perry dragging the criminals away.
"Mr. Clean?" Clark asked.
"Yeah, the guy on the cleaning bottles Mommy uses in the bathroom," Jason said.
"That Mr. Clean," Clark chuckled. "Yes, he kind of does." Perry looked at them like they were both insane to be talking about Mr. Clean at a time like this.
A minute later all three of them climbed out the window. Clark tested himself, hovering a few feet above the floor inside before deciding he could carry the other two while in flight, at least for awhile. Clark went out first, hovering level with the window as Perry passed him Jason, who latched onto him like he had before. Perry climbed out and looked down uncertainly.
"I won't let you fall," Clark assured him, taking his under the arms and lifting away from the building. Perry flailed a bit, gripping Clark's forearms and keeping his elbows at ninety degree angles. It would be an uncomfortable flight like that, but Clark wasn't complaining. They were away from Luthor and the kryptonite.
He heard shouting from inside the building they'd been held captive just as they lifted above the clouds. Luthor was not a happy camper; his prisoners had all escaped and he was left with two unconscious goons, a broken slab of kryptonite, and a gun folded in half.
Clark was feeling stronger by the minute, and he could tell Jason was feeling better too. Perry, on the other hand, wasn't liking the heights so much.
It took almost half an hour to reach Smallville. They'd had to set down twice so that Perry could flail his arms about to bring the blood back into them. It was a nice break for Clark, who still wasn't feeling quite up to scratch even after flying in the direct sunlight. Perry had refused point-blank to be carried any other way, insisting he was comfortable enough. Clark had only chuckled at the fact that Perry had the guts to even yell at Superman, but then, Superman was currently wearing a bathrobe.