A/N: Sorry this is a few days late! Repetitive stress injury in both hands; I mostly have to write using voice-to-text these days, which I dislike doing very much. (It also makes a lot of typos, but I've done my best to catch and fix them)

Chapter 65 - Explosive

Lex hadn't known exactly what to expect from his father in the way of petty revenge.

He did drop by the penthouse where his father was staying to hint at the question about the swapped soda, but despite years of practice, he couldn't quite tell whether his father was lying about not having intentionally asked someone to change it out. Out of caution, Lex reassigned the servant who had brought in the soda so he wouldn't be working with food or drink at all; he didn't quite have the heart to fire the man with no solid evidence, though he did put an investigator on the case.

He didn't know how else it might've happened, but he also didn't know exactly what his father was trying to accomplish by getting Clark drunk. Lex's father had done pettier things in the past to try to sabotage Lex's friendships so that he would end up lonely and bitter, but this had been a particular shot in the dark, especially considering it wasn't quite successful. Lex still had his friendship with the Kents.

Lex doubted Clark's dad would have been able to convince Clark to stop coming by the mansion at this point, considering all they'd been through, but ultimately, the incident wasn't enough to get Jonathan to even try to break up their friendship. All it did was force Lex to sit through a very uncomfortable lecture about a social rule he knew nothing about: apparently, it was inappropriate for him to be drinking around Clark, since he was under age. Lex's father had been drinking around him regularly since he was a child, but then, Lex himself had started drinking in his early teens. Lex suspected that if this incident had happened six months ago, the reaction in the Kent family might have been quite a bit more explosive. As it was, Jonathan wasn't exactly kind or gentle, but he was more or less reasonable and didn't try to accuse Lex of anything.

He was thankful for that, because today he needed to focus on earning back the favor of the Smallville community. Earning respect from a small town community was different from earning the favor of the media in a large city. The rules were infinitely more complex, somehow, or maybe they weren't complex at all: if your last name was Luthor, you couldn't win. End of rules. But he suspected he might have had no trouble at all if he had managed to win Jonathan's favor when they first met, thus earning the loyalty of all of the Kents friends, and all of theirs, and so on. As it was, he usually held the respect and loyalty of his highest level employees, the ones he worked with regularly and who knew him well.

These days, he hardly had that. Ever since that first accident with the steel drum detaching its machinery, people had been suspicious. Even Pamela had been asking questions, making sure Lex really did everything he could do to keep the workplace safe. He realized after a few minutes of tense back-and-forth that she was concerned about his safety, not his negligence, but it was still awfully hard to take. Some days, he felt like Clark was the only one who really believed in him. Then again, Ryan did, too. He could see directly into Lexi's mind to see his good intentions. And then there was Lana, who was still working with him at the talon, and periodically reassured him that she knew none of the things she was hearing or his fault. For better or for worse, it was through her that he heard about most of the gossip at the school and in the community. One overheard a lot at a coffee shop. It didn't make him feel better to know that the people who trusted him were all preteens and teenagers.

Today was going to change that. He was unveiling a new set of machinery, one that would be more efficient and productive and put his competitors out of business, allowing him to give pay raises to most of his employees, but it would also be safer than all of his old systems. And he had fifty students from various classes at Smallville High for the grand opening.

Lex took a deep breath, straighten his tie, and stepped out in front of the group of students and employees. He didn't see Clark among them, not that he was expecting to—Clark wasn't in any of the classes that had been invited on the field trip. Lex wished he had signed some sort of exception form.

As he scanned the unfamiliar faces. Lana was at the very front of the group, eyes wide and smiling and trusting.

This was going to be a good day. He let himself smile and breathed in to begin his speech.

It was the second field trip to the plant the Clark had had to miss.

The first one, his dad had forbidden him from attending, and he ended up going anyway, because Earl Jenkins had taken the plant hostage with all the kids in it. This one, he just wasn't a part of because none of his classes were eligible for the trip. Lana was going, though, since she was taking a business course.

He first heard about the accident from her.

She called him from the hospital, and he almost dropped all the chores he was working on to go see her. At the last minute, he remembered to let his parents know where he was going, but then he ran all the way there before they could really reply.

There she was, laying in a hospital bed, faced away from the door with a book open.

"Hey," he said, knocking on the door jamb. "How are you feeling?"

She turned around to face him, setting the book aside. He had a hard time holding in his gasp. Her face was covered in cuts and burns and bandages.

She shifted in bed, wincing as she sat up. "They've got me on some pretty strong pain meds," she said, in an even softer voice than she usually used.

Clark frowned. "I still don't understand what happened."

"I don't know exactly myself. Lex was showing us this new machinery, he said it was going to be safer and better than what they had before, that it was going to lead them into a new age of prosperity or something. And then . . . one of the moving pieces started moving too fast, and next thing I knew, there was some kind of explosion. And I woke up here."

"Wow." Clark couldn't keep his eyes from wandering to all the injuries on her face. "What did your aunt say?"

"She's pretty upset. She wanted to see the plant closed down. Lex said he would pay for my medical bills, and that only just barely calmed her down."

"I thought they were friends."

"Not after this."

"Does she think he did this on purpose?"

"I think she's just starting to agree with everyone in the town."

"About what?"

"Well, a lot of people are starting to say that Lex is a little . . . unstable? That he takes risks he doesn't need to in the name of progress."

Clark swallowed. It reminded him a little of his dad's first impressions of the work they were doing in the experiment room, but Clark also knew exactly how careful Lex always was. "You don't agree with that, do you?"

" I . . . I don't know, Clark. I thought I knew him, but there's been a lot of weird things lately. And he's been acting weird."

"Weird how?"

"Like, a little paranoid? I'm not sure how to describe it. Like he's always watching his back."

Clark held himself back from getting angry. He was tired of hearing those kinds of things; he could explain the situation with Lex's father, but Lex wouldn't want him to. "That doesn't mean he's endangering people."

"No, but I have to worry he might not be . . . in his right mind."

Clark paced a couple of steps away, grimacing. He couldn't exactly blame Lana for thinking that way, and he doubted many people in the community were going to support Lex. Even his parents would probably see this as one too many things, given the recent incident with the alcohol.

Come to think of it, if the alcohol had been Lionel's doing, that might've been his intention. To make sure Clark's parents weren't in the mood to defend Lex if anything like this came up. The whole community had turned against Lex, and there would be nothing he could do about it.

Clark suddenly felt like he needed to go. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

She smiled gently. "I really appreciate you coming to see me."

"Of course," he said, but he could see the fatigue in her eyes, and he took the hint. "I'll come back real soon."

Her smile brightened a little, and he left the room.