Miles to Go Before I Sleep

[thisislexluthor]

Who: Lex Luthor, Superman/Clark Kent
What: Amends
Where: Arkham Asylum

"I wouldn't normally allow this," Dr. Leland said, leaning on the bars of Arkham's gate and scanning the sky, "but, well, he's Superman."

"Yes, he is," Lex said, resting his forehead against the cool metal of one of the bars.

"Do you know how he managed to get back?" Leland asked,

Comments

[theactionace]

Seconds later, the blue dot reconstituted itself in Superman's form, and he dropped to his feet. "Hello, folks," he said, but he wasn't smiling as he strode forward.

The pale figure leaning against the bars was barely recognizable as Lex Luthor, shrunk in on himself, seeming to barely hold up his own weight. It was truly outlandish to think that the same person could have cut such a swagger across anyone who got in his way, or imposed his will upon hundreds, let alone a stick of celery. Lex, in the madhouse. A year ago Superman would've said that Lex was finally where he belonged.

Today, he didn't know what to say.

[thisislexluthor]

"Hello, Superman," Leland said with a smile. Lex just stared. Leland saw him too, which meant this wasn't a hallucination. So far, so good.

"Okay, so you have the rest of the day clear, but I'd like him back by the end of the night," Leland said, resting a hand on Lex's shoulder for a moment before heading into Arkham

"Hello, Clark," Lex said, after a moment of silence.

[theactionace]

"Lex," he said, hand outstretched in a purely perfunctory gesture of friendliness. "I'm not going to beat around the bush. What happened to you? Scratch that. I don't care what happened to you."

His gaze was cold and harsh. "What I'm interested in is why you've let yourself fall so far. Explain."

He stepped back, arms crossed over his chest, and waited.

[thisislexluthor]

Yeah, that's definitely Clark, Lex thought, and for just a moment, things felt normal again.

"It wasn't just you, you know," he said, closing his eyes. "I mean, it wasn't just that you were dead and that I was responsible. That was bad, but I could have lived through it. I would have been all right."

He looked up at Clark. "But it wasn't just you. It was...the Legion was falling apart, and I didn't want to stop it. I wanted to destroy everything, and I wanted you to come back to me. I can't be one of the good guys, and I can't be one of the bad guys, and with you gone..."

[theactionace]

"Bull," Clark said simply, unmoved. "There's nothing stopping you from being either one, except for yourself. Not me, not the past, not your Legion. And you know that. You're Lex Luthor. Act like it."

[thisislexluthor]

"God, you're a self-righteous son of a bitch, you know that?" Lex snapped, stepping towards him. "You know what 'being Lex Luthor' has meant for at least a decade now? It's meant hurting people and not caring. It's meant lying to everyone I love. It's meant becoming worse than my father ever was and not looking back."

Lex shoved Superman, and God, it felt good. "Then you come along and remind me about all the reasons I wanted to be a good person in the first place! Nothing was easy after that! Nothing made sense anymore, and I spent every day second guessing myself, and then you left me. And then you practically died. And you have the fucking nerve to tell me to 'act like Lex Luthor'." He spat at Clark's feet. "I don't know what that is anymore, and it's just as much your fault as it is mine!"

[theactionace]

"You've always been obsessed with the past, Lex, and the past's the one thing you can't change. Alexander the Great is dead, what you've been doing for the past ten years is dead, I died. But I came back, and I am alive. It's more important to focus on life, on the here and now. Because it's all you can make better

[thisislexluthor]

Lex was torn between being even angrier, screaming at Clark that nothing was that easy, especially not in his life, and complete relief because Clark was here. Alive and all right.

"I guess that's a pretty sure sign that it's reall you," Lex said, sighing. "I want to yell at you and kiss you at the same time." He stepped forward and leaned against Clark, resting his forehead on his shoulder. He felt, for the first time in a long time, completely safe.

"How did you come back? I thought the Phantom Zone was inescapable."

[theactionace]

Sighing with something akin to relief, Clark hugged him. It had been too long.

"Let's talk somewhere more private," he said, with a backward glance towards the black hulk of a building as he guided Lex down the path. "Where to? Haven't visited any of the old haunts yet. First break I've taken since getting back, actually. You wouldn't believe what Jimmy's been up to. Anyway, what d'you say we... well, I know you get airsick, and it's a long way to the Arctic..."

[thisislexluthor]

"I wouldn't mind seeing the Fortress again," Lex said, still leaning his head against Clark's shoulder. Touching Clark grounded him in a way that nothing else really could, his presence solid and reassuring. Plus, the idea of getting away from Arkham for any amount of time was very tempting. That building place was not good for anyone's sanity.

"How is Jor-El? I did my best to make sure he was functioning after Zod, but, uh, I wasn't at my best."

[theactionace]

"You can ask him yourself," said Clark cheerfully, opening the door to his sadly run-down car for Lex. He gave the interior a second glance and then looked sheepish. "Sorry about the, uh, car. It's no limousine, but it'll do. And here--" he took off his cape and passed it through the window "--I think you'll need this."

With that he picked up the car by the front end and they were off, sinking back into that feeling of quiet timelessness that passing over so many fields and winking cities made. Clark navigated the familiar route unthinkingly, gradually putting on speed until the Fortress was in sight, and then taking care to set Lex down on a relatively sheltered patch of ice at the entrance.

[thisislexluthor]

Lex was half-asleep by the time they reached the Fortress, the warmth of the car and his near constant state of exhaustion working against him. He woke up fairly quickly once Clark set the car down, and stumbled out the driver's side door, shivering in the cold.

"Good to see the Arctic hasn't gotten any warmer," Lex remarked, looking over the familiar view from the entrance to the Fortress. "And still no polar bears."

[theactionace]

Clark wrapped the cape around Lex, sheltering him from the wind with his body over the few steps to the entrance. Lifting up the corner of the doormat, and finding nothing, he frowned, perturbed. Then he shifted the flower pot and straightened up, satisfied, key in hand. He herded Lex in as soon as the huge door swept upwards, snow blowing around them.

"Jor-El?" he said, looking around as a small troupe of robots approached them. He brushed Lex off carefully as the robots began fussing over them. "Something warm for Mr Luthor, please. Milk? Is that okay? Scotch. I'm not sure if... no, I'm fine, thank you. N-no, that's fine-- we'll be fine. I think they're a little paranoid that I'll disappear again," said Clark in an aside to Lex. "Hm. Wonder what Jor-El's up to..."

[thisislexluthor]

"Milk is fine," Lex said with a smile. "I'll hold off on the drinking while I've still got medication in my system. It's not the preferable way to die."

He ran his fingers over the cold ridges of the crystals, eyeing the robots as suspiciously as they were eyeing him. By now, the Fortress felt as familiar as the penthouse, which is something Lex never really thought he'd be able to say about a giant alien supercomputer made of crystals.

"You know, this place is always a little different everytime I come here," Lex said. "Or everytime I break in, whichever."

[theactionace]

"I like it that way," said Clark, looking around the cavern with a certain quiet pride. "There's always something to do around here. Something to improve upon."

He patted a stalagmite fondly, then glanced back at Lex. "Jor-El made a few renovations while I was away. Interested? I'd ask him to do the talking, but he's, ah... he seems to be preoccupied. Zod's more of a simple troublemaker than a real threat, now, but he still manages to get himself tangled up in the systems pretty thoroughly."

[thisislexluthor]

"There's probably a way to get rid of him permanently," Lex said. He shrugged. "Odds are, it's just some remnant of the original program that contained Zod. Of course, I'm not sure if that actually counts as killing him or not."

Lex sighed and leaned against a railing, looking out over the Fortress. Even now, when just about everything in his life had gone disastrously wrong and this was the first time in months he and Clark had had a civil conversation, a part of his mind was still scheming, pondering the technology laid out before him.

"How am I going to do this, Clark?" Lex asked, not looking at him. "How do I undo all the things I did?"