The RV

Prologue

Clark shifted uncomfortably in his chair, glancing around nervously as he took in the green's and brown's of his therapist's office.

'Would you like a pillow?' she asked softly, gesturing to a window seat with several soft decorative cushions.

'No, it's fine…' Clark replied, trying to sound as relaxed as possible. 'Sorry I'm just… I'm not used to being in this kind of setting. Well… I'm not used to being the one that's interviewed at least.'

'Is that how this feels? Like an interview?' she asked curiously.

'I mean, I know it's different... it's just... it's usually me trying to make the other person feel comfortable enough to tell their story,' Clark explained.

'You're good at making other people feel comfortable?'

Clark shrugged awkwardly at the suggested compliment. 'I show people respect. Kindness. I think they know they can trust me.'

'And how about you? Do you find it easy to trust people?'

Clark looked at her intensely, unsure how to answer the question. He was used to pretending to be the most trusting small town guy in Metropolis... but if this was going to work, he needed to be honest. Maybe more than he ever had.

'Uhh… I guess not. I mean, I believe in people. I trust that there's good in everyone. There are just parts of me I don't always feel safe sharing with people,' he said hesitantly, looking down at his hands and expecting her to jump at his admission like an open wound.

'That's absolutely fine,' she reassured him, to his surprise. 'We can take this as slowly as you need.'

'Thanks,' Clark smiled, relieved she seemed so willing for him to set the pace.

She seemed like a good person... he just hoped she could handle the burden he knew he was eventually going to put on her.

'Though I'm not sure there's time to take it slowly,' he added anxiously.

'Something feels really urgent,' she reflected.

'It's literally life and death.'

'That sounds like a lot of responsibility you're carrying,' she offered, tilting her head slightly as she did.

'You have no idea,' he responded in practically a whisper.

There was a moment of silence before Clark looked up to see her considering him thoughtfully. He was surprised to find himself feeling curious about her response rather than threatened by it.

'How can I help?' she asked sincerely.

Chapter 1

*One week earlier*

Clark gave Lois a wary look as they approached the Smallville diner.

'I gotta say, I don't love the idea of leaving you alone with him,' he admitted, knowing it would likely do nothing to change her mind.

The mysterious 'reporter' Marcus Bridgewater clearly knew a lot more than he was saying, and she was determined to find out what that was.

Realistically, he would never expect her to stop doing what she did best. She was Lois Lane, world renowned investigative reporter. That was who he'd fallen in love with, and he wouldn't want her to change.

Still, he worried about her. He couldn't help it. In fact, he worried about a lot of things that he tried not to let her see.

'Well, get used to it, cause he's here,' Lois said with a sigh, nodding towards Marcus as he entered the diner.

'And what exactly am I looking for?'

Clark had agreed to snoop around Marcus' RV while Lois kept its owner busy, but so far all either of them knew was that he seemed to have some unusual tech and a surprising knowledge of X Kryptonite.

He could be anyone.

The so called reporter's true identity was just one of several mysteries they had come up against since moving to Smallville. Who was this 'Stranger' that seemed to be hell bent on killing him? And what was Morgan Edge doing in his hometown, digging for x-kryptonite and feigning altruistic intent?

Add to that Jordan's emerging powers and Jonathan struggling with leaving his life behind in Metropolis, and the past few weeks had left Clark feeling like their hopes of a simpler life here in Smallville might have been a bit optimistic.

After all, when had their lives ever been that easy?

'You'll know it when you see it,' Lois reassured him, sounding nonchalant.

Clark wasn't so sure. His wife's investigative instincts were her own super power - one he could never quite match.

They'd been partners for years, and he'd happily accepted his role in their dynamic. She was the one with the nose for news, who always knew the right questions to ask, the right clues to follow. He had a gentler approach, great at putting people at ease and gaining their trust. He'd often add a bit of emotion to their writing, tell the human side to the story.

Somewhat ironic, considering his true origin.

She reached for his hand and pulled him towards her, shaking him out of his thoughts.

'Wish me luck,' she said, before planting a kiss on his lips.

He returned the kiss, sighing softly as he once again acknowledged how helplessly in love with this woman he was, despite her insistence on placing herself in harms way.

'Good Luck,' he replied, watching her leaving with both admiration and concern on his face.

Then his eyes drifted towards the RV and the task at hand.

Lois walked confidently into the popular diner where her boys often came after school.

She spotted Marcus and headed towards the booth he'd chosen halfway down the room. He looked more tense than she'd seen him before, like he was nervous about what he was going to say.

'Ordered you a trente green tea with a splash of almond milk,' Marcus said as she sat down, gesturing towards the cup.

Lois gave him a sceptical look and raised her eyebrow. How did he know what she drank?

'It's what you got last time,' he said with a smile, answering her unspoken question.

The familiarity of it all annoyed her. This guy had showed up in her new town, knocked on her family's door, pretending to be someone he wasn't. He was clearly hiding something, and she was in no mood to pretend like they were friends.

'I think it's time we moved past favourite drinks and actually got to know each other,' she said matter-of-factly, getting out her reporter's notepad.

'Absolutely,' he agreed, pulling his hands back and sitting up straight,

He seemed to be trying to convey willingness with his body language. Good, she thought. Maybe Clark snooping around the RV won't be the only route to some answers today!

'Great, I'll go first – you've been lying to me ever since we first met,' she said boldly, looking straight at him.

Her eyes dared him to deny it.

'You're wrong about that,' he started, but she could see his recognition that he couldn't keep up the charade any longer. 'I mean, obviously not the name part, but… everything else is true.'

Clark finally felt the lock give way under his tools and briefly smiled to himself.

There was something so satisfying about breaking into somewhere without his powers. His strength was second nature, but picking locks was a skill he'd had to work to master, and something he'd had to pick up quickly while working alongside Lois Lane.

He stepped into the RV and shut the door behind him quietly, glancing around the interior. His eyes quickly adjusted to the low light inside. The RV's windows were covered with curtains and blinds, even the front windshield - clearly, he had something to hide.

'Welcome back Captain,' said a robotic female voice. Clark looked around for the source, his eyes landing on a small round flashing device on the counter. 'How was your conversation with Lois Lane?' the device continued.

Clark stayed silent and started making his way to the front of the RV slowly and quietly, feeling wary of setting anything else off.

He looked at the cupboards and compartments on each side of the vehicle but felt cautious about using his powers to see what was inside. There was something eerily unsettling about the presence of the AI in the small space - he felt like he was being monitored at all times.

His eyes fell on a large compartment near the driver's seat that seemed out of place somehow. Its doors were a different colour to the rest of the interior, indicating it was possibly an addition to the original design.

'Captain Luthor?' the device called out behind him.

Clark felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up and his breath hitched in his throat. He spun around and looked at the device with a mixture of confusion, disbelief, and horror on his face.

No... No... Not Luthor... It can't be... Clark tried to reason with himself. His heart started racing and his thoughts were swirling so fast he felt dizzy. He tried to pull himself together.

Obviously, Marcus wasn't Lex… but if the Luthor name was involved at all, then this was a lot worse than he thought.

'Then who are you?' Lois demanded, clearly tired of him talking in riddles.

Her empty notepad had been set uselessly to one side and she gave him an exasperated look.

'It's complicated,' Marcus replied, his eyes shifted down to his coffee.

He knew he was doing a bad job of getting across what he needed her to know, but being in the presence of his wife's doppleganger wasn't exactly easy. The way she brushed her hair back from her face when it fell. Her perfume. The intimidating way she raised her eyebrow. It was all the same.

He had to focus a lot of his mental energy just reminding himself that the woman he loved was dead. Superman had killed her.

'Well, you'd better start boiling it down', she said, her frustration starting to show.

It was clear she wasn't going to accept anything but the whole truth… but how could he just come right out and say it? She'd think he was insane.

'Telling you who I am will only confuse things,' Marcus tried to evade. 'What's important is that you understand what Edge is really planning.'

He wished he could just explain to her what she had meant to him. To let her know that she could really trust him, more than anyone… that he'd never let anything happen to her. That he loved her... in another life.

Clark swallowed the massive lump that had formed in his throat at the sound of the name Luthor and willed his body into action. He moved quickly towards the compartment he'd spotted earlier, fighting off the urge to simply get the hell out of there. He needed to find out everything he could about this man while he had the chance.

He pulled at the handle and the compartment door easily swung open. At the back of the deep cupboard, Clark spotted the now familiar metal suit that belonged to the mysterious figure they'd named 'The Stranger'.

Displayed on the walls were an arsenal of weapons, some of which seemed to be giving off an emerald, green glow.

The wave of pain & nausea hit him instantly and he stumbled backwards, trying to distance himself from the kryptonite. His hand flew to his stomach and his torso bent forwards in response to the sudden discomfort. He fought to stay standing, teeth clenching against the pain.

He quickly closed the door and let out a breath of relief as the pain and dizziness subsided. He looked around for the device that the AI had spoken from. It was pointing right at him, a small red light flashing in the top corner of the screen like a rolling camera.

Fear stirred in the pit of his stomach again. He let his head fall back against the compartment door and closed his eyes for a moment to try and calm his racing thoughts.

Marcus was the 'Stranger' who had been trying to kill him?

How was Luthor involved in all of this? Was he still in his coma, or had Clark's worst nightmare come true... had his enemy somehow regained consciousness and escaped from the DOD? Or had he found another way to get to him, even from deep within the prison of his own mind?

Clark would never admit it to Lois, but there wasn't a day that went by when he didn't check with his super hearing to hear the sound of his enemy's machine-assisted breathing and heart rate. He just needed to hear it. For his own peace of mind. To know that they were safe.

But even hearing the man's broken body hanging on at the brink of death couldn't truly reassure him. If that psychopath could find a way to get to him, there was no doubt in Clark's mind that he would. As much as he hated the power Lex still had over him, he knew - as long as he lived, he would always be looking over his shoulder.

But this wasn't just his arguably justified sense of paranoia - the AI had spoken Luthor's name. And Lois was in that diner with the very man it was referring to.

He needed to get her away from him. Now.

His anxious thoughts were quickly interrupted as a pulsing alarm began sounding loudly inside the RV, and his eyes snapped open in surprise.

He stood frozen like a deer in headlights, searching around for the source and praying the RV was soundproof.

Marcus looked down into his coffee mug again, memories of the attack on Metropolis coming in and out of his mind. So much death and destruction.

'I know he's making people with powers,' Lois offered, as though trying to let him know she wasn't totally clueless.

She kept steely eyes on him, and he wondered if he saw a bit of empathy there every now and then. Could she see right through him, deep into the pain in his heart?

Marcus looked up and stared right back into those deep brown eyes he used to wake up to every morning.

'She thinks she knows, but she has no idea what's coming,' he thought to himself.

'Not people… an army,' he corrected her.

'An army to do what?' she asked.

'Take over the world,' he replied.

He kept his tone even and his gaze steady, trying to show her how serious he was. He needed her to listen to him, to fully understand what was at stake.

Clark moved to peer through one of the RV windows to see if anyone had heard the alarms, but his view was cut off abruptly as automatic metal blinds shot down all around him, sealing him inside. Now plunged into darkness, he tried to use his x-ray vision to see outside. To his shock, he found he couldn't - the walls must have been lined with lead. He turned around and looked for the door handle to get out the way he came, ready to bust the lock open the easy way if he had to, but to his dismay he found a metal sheet had also come down to cover the exit.

Starting to lose all sense of caution about giving away evidence of his visit, he threw himself at the place where the door had been, putting all of his weight behind him. He painfully bounced back from the wall, leaving only a slight dent as evidence of his effort. He clutched his aching shoulder protectively. It seemed the unexpected kryptonite exposure followed by a total absence of sunlight had left him pretty far from full strength.

A shiver ran through him as he realised he was trapped, with no way of knowing whether Lois was okay.

Suddenly, two glaring beams of light activated, turning the prison an ominous red. As their light washed over him, Clark felt himself weakening even more. All his remaining energy began draining slowly from his body, and he found himself leaning against the wall, sliding down weakly to a sitting position on the RV's floor.

His breath came in uneven rasps, memories of being weakened in the back of another red solar panelled vehicle filling his thoughts...

'Identification required,' demanded the device.

Clark said nothing, too fearful of the consequences of giving anything else away. He shook his head slightly, trying to bring his now blurry vision back into focus.

At least it seemed like no one had heard the alarm, or Marcus surely would have come bursting in by now. He might still have some time to find a way out and get to Lois... if he could just get his brain to co-operate!

He managed to pull himself back up to a wobbly standing position, but before he could figure out his next move, the device suddenly scanned him from head to toe. Clark froze as his eyes followed the downwards motion of the lasers.

He felt completely exposed.

'Warning, Kryptonian threat detected,' the device said, it's tone shifting to something much more threatening.

Clark's heart pounded in his chest – if he didn't shut this device down and get out of there quickly, his secret would be out.

And if Luthor was involved somehow, that meant he'd finally know the one thing Clark had fought to keep hidden from him at all costs, no matter what torture he'd endured as a result.

He couldn't let that happen. Especially not now. He had his sons to protect. There was no way he was letting Lex anywhere near them.

He grabbed the device angrily and tried to crush it, grunting with the pain and effort as he pushed with his bare hands. Finally, the device gave way to the pressure and the broken pieces fell from his shaking fingers, leaving small cuts and bruises behind. He looked around expectantly, but the lights and the alarm continued.

'In T minus 10 seconds, you will be eliminated,' the voice warned, now coming from somewhere he couldn't' determine. It began an intimidating countdown.

'10'

'9'

A mechanical sound caught Clark's attention and he saw two guns emerging from hidden compartments in the RV's roof.

'8'

'7'

Once again there was a tinge of green illumination surrounding them. Clark winced as yet another sensation of pain began spreading through his body to add to his already weakened state. He found himself falling to the floor once more, just about managing to put his arms out as he did.

The kryptonite sent fire through his veins as he shakily held himself upright on all fours, his body protesting against the effort; but something in him knew that if he let himself collapse, he wouldn't be getting back up. Adrenaline started to kick in as the seriousness of his situation became apparent.

'6'

'5'

Frantically, Clark surveyed the entire RV, trying to focus his x-ray vision on the cabinets around him. It faded in and out in his weakened state and caused his temples to throb with pain, but he managed to make out what looked like an electrical board above him.

'4'

'3'

His X-Ray vision flickered off and his hands instinctively flew up to his forehead, the pain almost overwhelming his system. He couldn't stop now though. With all the remaining strength he had left, he focused his heat vision at the board, letting out a scream of agony as he did.

'2'

'1'

Sparks flew as the board was destroyed by the blast of heat. Smoke rose from the charred remains of the cabinet and a burnt electrical smell travelled towards him, tickling his nose and throat.

All at once, it was over.

The lights went out, the guns retreated back into their hiding places, the blinds and shutters came up and the countdown stopped.

Clark broke into a coughing fit, the irritating smoke combined with that last scream leaving his throat feeling raw. He collapsed onto his back, wheezing heavily. The strain of using the last of his powers and the fear that had taken hold as the seconds counted down, left him feeling completely spent.

Most of the pain had been relieved when the lights and kryptonite were gone, but his energy reserves were ridiculously low.

He closed his eyes and tried to focus on the feel of the low light coming in from the windows. Even though it wasn't the direct sunlight his body craved, he felt himself beginning to gain some strength.

After a full minute of frustrating helplessness, he was finally able to pick himself up off the floor and open the door, relieved to feel the sun on his face.

Clark tried to look as natural as possible exiting the RV and crossing the road to his truck whilst simultaneously dialling his wife's number.

His head was spinning, both from the present brush with death and the memories that had been triggered when the AI spoke his old adversaries name, experiences he'd hoped he could keep buried forever.

This couldn't be happening, could it? Could Lex Luthor really be back in their lives?

'Metropolis will be the first city to fall,' Marcus revealed dramatically.

'You seem awfully sure of that,' Lois asked sceptically.

He spoke as though he was from the future or something. Which would seem insane, if they hadn't seen so many out of this world things in their time. Maybe he did have some kind of knowledge of a coming threat? She couldn't dismiss the possibility.

'Because it's the truth,' he stated simply, as though that was all she needed to know.

His lack of elaboration was infuriating. Couldn't he see that it wasn't the information itself that was hard to accept, but the lack of context?

Maybe it was growing up with a military father, but if there was one thing Lois Lane hated, it was being told only what someone else decided she should know. It was part of why she became a reporter – she hated being kept in the dark, being treated like she didn't deserve or couldn't handle the full truth.

'And why should I believe you?' she said, leaning in closer to him and allowing her anger to rise.

A beeping sound interrupted them from what felt like the beginnings of a confrontation. Lois looked down at her phone and saw Clark's caller ID. She frowned internally but kept her face expressionless.

Something must be wrong.

She picked the phone up wordlessly, trying to make it seem like nothing at all, and walked away from the table and Marcus' prying ears.

'Hey,' she said softly.

'Lois…' Clark started, and that was all she needed to confirm something was seriously wrong. There was pain in his voice. 'You need to get out of there, now. He's dangerous.'

'Clark, what happened?' she asked, more concerned about him than any danger she might be in.

'There was... kryptonite,' he revealed.

Lois heart sank at the mention of her husband's poison. 'Are you safe?' She asked urgently.

'I'm fine,' he confirmed, but he didn't sound too convincing. 'I'm in the truck,' he explained.

Lois relaxed slightly knowing that he wasn't in any immediate danger. She looked back at Marcus and tried to put on a reassuring half smile to appease his questioning face, before returning to her husband.

'Clark, I was just getting somewhere with him. I think he wants to tell me what he knows, he's just holding back the full truth for some reason…' she tried to protest.

'You can't trust anything he says...' her husband stated, his voice filled with urgency. 'Lois… Luthor's involved.'

Lois froze, the weight of the Luthor name suddenly making the entire diner seem like a much less safe place.

She glanced towards the exit, all thoughts of continuing her verbal dance with Marcus gone from her mind.

'I'm on my way,' she told him simply, hanging up the phone and briefly heading back to the booth to grab her things.

'We'll have to pick this up another time, something came up,' she told Marcus as casually as she could, trying not to give away the new information she had by letting him see the worry in her eyes.

'Lois, this is serious… I need to speak to Superman,' Marcus insisted, clearly shocked she was just abandoning their conversation.

Lois looked up at the sound of her husband's alias, and a flash of protective anger crossed her face.

What did this man actually want with him anyway? What had seemed like a potentially innocent request to share useful information with the man of steel, now seemed much more sinister. If Lex Luthor was involved, there was no way this man's intentions with Superman were peaceful.

'Maybe when we are on a first-name basis,' she countered, giving him one last uneasy look before heading out the door.