Gift for TwilightHDFan: All I Want For Christmas Is... PART 1/3
Title: All I Want For Christmas Is...
From: To Be Revealed! josephina_x
For: twilighthdfan
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Lex, Conner (Superboy), Tim (Robin), and a few others, with references to previous Clois, Clana, Lexana...
Type: Fic, 27164 word count
Rating: R
Warnings: none categorized by clexmas.
... The author, however, includes the following: General for entire series. Fix-it fic. Lots of hurt-comfort. Lots. There is happy at the end, though. Lacks neither cheese nor wine. Unbeta'd. Rating for violence. Oh, and Super!Lana pops up for awhile to make trouble -- fair warning! Also, at one point I 'steal' many, many lines from a work that is well out of copyright; I am certain that it will be recognized as such -- if not, for shame! :-P
Request: Used in this story were: "Lex wooing Clark after the rift (maybe after one time when Clark almost got killed?)", "Clark coming to care for Lex when he's hurt, because he knows that no one else will be able to stand up to Lex (and it's Christmas! second chances and all that)", "Connor brings Clex together for christmas and Clex can't deny their feelings", and "Future Fic, happy ending, H/C, romance". Unfortunately, the "no super!Lana" part of the gift request was violated for a short while, but since a jolly old elf obtained permission for that so long as I get to depowered!Lana pretty quickly... :)
Summary: Conner knows what he wants for Christmas this year, but it may be a bit difficult to arrange...
Notes: Post-series (futurefic), takes place before the "seven-years later". Happy Holidays, twilighthdfan! I hope you like this one!
All I Want For Christmas Is...
Conner squatted on the top of the tall office building halfway across the city from LexCorp Towers and the Daily Planet, and cupped his hands around his eyes. It helped him concentrate when he was doing his telescopic vision-thing, and that was what really mattered.
When Tim had first told him that it looked a little silly when he did that, especially when he turned his hands clockwise and counterclockwise, Conner had gotten a little defensive at his tone. He'd tried to explain how blocking out objects from his peripheral vision helped him keep his focus when he was looking at things far away, because of the whole biological reflex-response humans had to focus on things in their peripheral vision -- which apparently Conner totally had in spades. Then he'd gone on to add that the 'hand turning' motion was just a mental trick -- a keyed action to help with the 'zoom' bits and he didn't really need it...
...at least until he'd realized that that particular smirk meant that Tim was teasing him, at which point Conner had grinned and changed tactics and said he did it so that Tim wouldn't feel left out when Tim had to use his big bulky binoculars, on account of having poor eyesight.
Then Tim started showing up on their joint patrols with miniature binoculars, and Conner had said that they were still way too heavy for their size and took up a whole fighting hand when he might need the other for something else like throwing batarangs.
Conner was eventually proven right after Tim lost three sets on various nightly-patrols over the course of a week. But, the telling bit had been the fourth time when Tim nearly got himself smeared across the pavement. Tim-as-Robin had been trying to toss a batarang at a gun-wielding drug dealer long-distance in a precision throw while also trying to dodge a close-up thug, and had missed his first (and only) handhold off the side of a building. If Conner hadn't seen what was going on helped out, Tim probably would've ended up with a broken leg, or at least a twisted ankle if he hadn't managed to land properly. Conner was just happy that he'd been practicing speed-catches and hadn't hurt Tim himself.
So then Tim started incorporating a set of zoom lenses into his mask, but Conner had pointed out that the buttons on the side of the mask at the temples could be hit in the middle of combat and then Tim wouldn't be able to see what he was doing. And then had proceeded to demonstrate just that himself, instead of waiting for the bad guys to be half-killing Tim in a fight first.
So Tim had grumbled under his breath bat-style and gone back to the big bulky binoculars, and took to swinging them at Conner's head to try and brain him anytime he got too close and pretended he 'just wanted to borrow them for a moment' ...up until Tim decided to go back to the mask zoom lenses.
At which point, Conner had tried to teach Tim the error of his ways all over again. Only this time, much to his surprise, while he'd swear up and down that he'd been able to mess up the magnification something awful, Conner couldn't get the better of Robin-Tim anymore until he started pushing a little into super-speed territory with his taps.
Conner finally figured it out after Young Justice conducted a night-time raid, the lights blew out, and Tim had still been able to hold his own. The next time Conner cornered Tim, he watched Tim's mask at the eyes, and after staring through the lenses carefully he finally realized that Tim was fighting him with his eyes closed. Which, honestly, was pretty kick-ass -- at which point Conner proceeded to pester Tim to teach him how to do that, too.
Conner might still totally suck at the blind-fighting thing, but his hearing had certainly improved by leaps and bounds.
Of course, that just led right into Conner laughing his ass off when they had an actual night mission and Tim donned nightvision goggles over his mask, because they were even huger and bulkier than the binoculars. Which had resulted in an irate Tim and a lecture on how "huger" wasn't a word.
And so, inevitably, that had led to Tim deciding to incorporate nightvision capability into his mask, too. That time he actually kibitzed with Conner a little bit beforehand -- which Conner thought was awesome and just the way it should be -- and they decided that the nightvision bit should fail-off and auto-off if it got damaged, rather than risk temporarily blinding him in broad daylight. ...Except that Tim couldn't quite figure out how to keep all the machinery and electronics thin enough that the mask was practical to wear with both the nightvision and the zoom. So Tim had sighed and settled on just integrated nightvision for now, though he hadn't given up on further miniaturization and weight-reduction. This meant that he was back to the bulky weight-a-ton binoculars all over again. So Conner had been teasing him again.
Conner thought Tim was really fun.
Tim rolled his eyes and told Conner he was just like his dad.
...And while that comment had kind of confused Conner at the time -- because Conner wasn't really like Lex at all, not being an quasi-not-quite-evil villain and all that -- it had percolated in the back of his brain a bit, and finally, one day, he had an idea. A really great idea. A really terrible, horrible, awful idea, in fact. (Conner had been channel-surfing and came across some Dr. Seuss cartoon the other day, and it totally fit perfectly.) He'd been so excited that he'd called Tim right away, and bugged him into meeting, and explained everything.
And now they were on top of a tall office building halfway across the city from LexCorp Towers and the Daily Planet, and Conner was watching the fruits of his labors come to... fruition. With evil, evil little fruits. Yeah.
"This is a really bad idea," Tim said, leaning against the waist-high retaining wall on the roof and gazing over the side at the buildings. His eye-'holes' weren't green, so it must've been one of the old zoom-masks.
"Oh, I hope so!" Conner said gleefully.
"--though I don't mean evil-bad, I mean..." then Tim trailed off as what Conner had said caught up to him.
Conner dropped his hands and turned to look at Tim. "Huh?" His idea wasn't evil-bad?
Tim looked just as confused as he blinked back at Conner, who usually went nuts at even the suggestion of his falling on the wrong side of the good-vs-evil line. "...You do know what I mean, right?" he said slowly.
Conner frowned at him. "But before-- I thought you said--"
Tim stood there and stared at Conner for awhile. "...I was being sarcastic. You still need to work on that, Kon," Tim finally replied, shifting his shoulders and steadying his stance against the concrete brickwork.
Conner frowned. "But I wasn't..." He decided squatting wasn't nearly as fun without Tim doing it, too, especially in broad daylight and without a cape. (Not that he could wear a cape with his t-shirt and jeans without looking like a little kid pretending to be Superman, and he wanted to be taken seriously. He wasn't about to wear the requisite tights to pull it off, though. Never in a million years.) So he took a moment to squirm into a seated position on the ledge and then gave Tim a half-glare. "I thought we agreed that it was a good time to do this -- now rather than later."
"Conner, 'never' is a really good time for you to do this," Tim said.
"Oh, c'mon -- now is the perfect time to do this!" Conner defended. "I'm going to end up trying out being a villain someday, just because of dad's Villainous Influence. If I do it now, before I'm all really powerful and really good at the fighting and potentially unstoppable, then if I decide I like it then you guys can stop me before I do something really horrible and save me from myself and either get me all re-goodified or retired before I go super-evil. And if I don't like it, then I'll know it and never wonder or get tempted again later ever. But if I don't try it out, then I'll always wonder, and maybe not do my best in the meantime 'cause I'll worry about whether I should retire before I go bad-to-evil-or-worse and go be a dentist instead, or something."
Tim stared at him.
"It's a good plan!"
Tim stared at him.
"I mean, the trying-out-villainy-right-now bit is a good plan. The plan-plan is a evil-bad plan and a really bad idea."
Tim took a deep breath, scrubbed at his face, then finally said, "Trying to get Lex Luthor and Superman together and doing the kissy-face is a bad idea." Tim couldn't imagine why Kon wasn't getting it; Conner was smart. Supposedly.
"Right!" Conner said, grinning at Tim expectantly.
"It's a bad idea," Tim repeated, slowly.
"Right," Conner agreed, nodding. "I mean, since there's no certainty that it might work at all, it can't be a heroic plan, because good plans always work; villain-plans go horribly wrong all the time. And it totally has to do with breaking up two people who everybody says have true love. So that would make it evil, except that I'm also trying to get together two people with even-truer-love after that, which is really good. Except that Clark is always saying that the ends don't justify the means, so it actually only cancels out a little bit." Then Conner saw a flicker of movement over by the top of the LexCorp Towers and turned back to them. "So, yeah. Bad idea, bad plan," he ended, ringing his eyes with his hands again.
"I don't think that's how it works..." Tim muttered. Then he started and said in mounting horror, "Wait, you're trying to break up Clark and Lois?"
"Already did," Conner said absently. "Was really easy, too. I just found a way to bring up what happened last Christmas with Lex and she drop-kicked his ass to the curb so fast it would've made Bart's head spin." Conner frowned a little, then brought his hands down again and looked back at Tim. "Which was really weird, actually, because I thought it'd take a lot more than that -- apparently there was a really long discussion and lot of yelling involved, though. I didn't think she cared all that much about me, but I guess Clark making any sort of bargain-promise-deal-thing with Lex really upsets her, even if it's for the Greater Good? Lois is kinda crazy sometimes." Then Conner turned to Tim and perked up as he shared the next bit, leaning towards him with his eyes practically sparkling. "Hey, did you know that she's broken up with Clark like, practically every couple months since they've been going out? Because I didn't know that. Not until after. Isn't that interesting? I think it's interesting," Conner grinned, nearly bouncing.
"Uh, yeah, but Clark always makes up with her," Tim pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but that's just 'cause he thinks he has to, 'cause she knows his secret and he likes to make nice with anybody who does," Conner said dismissively, waving his hands. "He doesn't want to be with her. Not really. I mean, think about it," he added, getting a little starry-eyed. "Lois yells and kicks him out of the apartment, and he makes up with her a little, so what. But Luthor shoots him with lasers and stuff, and Superman blows up his labs and things, and they still make-up after all that!"
"Since when?!" Tim said, looking at Conner like he was insane.
"Well, there was last Christmas," Conner pointed out.
"That doesn't count," Tim scoffed. "You were caught up in the middle of everything. They'd both want to behave: Luthor wanted to make a good impression so you wouldn't reject him out-of-hand, and Superman wanted to be a good example like he always is."
"Do you even remember last Christmas?" Conner asked in disbelief, giving Tim a look like he was brain-damaged.
Tim just rolled his eyes. "Fine, agree-to-disagree then. What else you got?"
Yeah, sure, after summarily tossing out his best example. Well, if last Christmas was off-limits for discussion, and Conner couldn't even cite his talk with Superman about Lex later that day, he'd just try something else.
"Ok, well, how about--"
... ... ...
Superman swooped in and started digging through debris.
The five-alarm fire raged above as the Man of Steel tried to clear a path for a way in that would not feed the fire -- he had to avoid causing any interior updrafts that might pull the flames through the corridors and into sections that hadn't yet been set ablaze. He couldn't just wrecking-ball his way in through the walls and zoom around at super-speed trying to rescue folks for the same reason: already-compromised structural integrity and backdrafts. If the building was a little more stable and he had more time, or a proper idea of where all the trapped people were and the progress of the fire, he could have compensated, but he didn't and couldn't. He was more-or-less going in blind.
What was really frustrating was that people were trapped in the first place -- what had Luthor been thinking when he built the place? Clearly it had been a deathtrap just waiting to happen.
But then Superman chided himself and became angry all over again for another reason: Lionel had been the one who built the building in the first place, responsible for the shoddy workmanship and cut corners and bribes, and with whom the main blame rested. But, Lex had been the one who had decided to continue to use it. He'd repurposed the complex as the base for one of his research projects without any renovations and clearly they had been needed desperately.
Apparently Clark was going to have to add "invade privacy and become further threat by X-raying all LexCorp corporate assets for building code violations and reporting them to the proper authorities" to Superman's to-do list. He only hoped Lex would understand the need for it and not take it too personally, as having been prompted by this episode rather than seemingly stemming from some inscrutable vagaries of sorts. ...Or at least the ones he could scan with X-ray vision, anyway, and perhaps that was why the building was still in use. Lead paint was outlawed now for health violations, and any building that was having work done had to meet those and all newer restrictions -- but through a loophole in the regulations, so long as no renovations to meet new codes were done on older buildings, upgrades to meet the existing mandates were not required.
Superman managed to shore up the main entrance and ducked inside at a human-fast run, continuing to try to scan floor-by-floor with X-ray while combining the information with what he was hearing to produce a usable mental map of the place. He hadn't been able to get a good 'view' of the place from outside, from the accumulated junk in the various inner and outer layers of walls; it was significantly easier to see now that he was inside, but his X-ray vision was still spotty in many areas and not an easy task to reconstruct rooms from the vague glimpses he was able to receive.
Listening for heartbeats was slightly more helpful, but only in letting him know how many people were left who were still alive and their general direction -- the corridors echoed the sounds. For better or for worse, the louder screams had petered out fairly quickly with the rapidly diminishing amount of smokeless air which could be used for such. As it was, Superman was holding his own breath and flying low -- oftentimes moving at a quick hover at crawling level now that he'd hit the hotter sections. His suit and cape might be fairly fire-retardant, but they weren't completely heat-resistant. The last thing he wanted to do was to end up giving people third-degree burns while carrying them out of the building -- not if he could avoid it.
He started in the subbasement level and worked his way back up to ground level and above, floor-by-floor, from the interior outwards. He found people curled up in corners and under desks, hiding from falling debris, and gasping for breath. He found them in bathrooms, doused with water and sobbing in fear. He found them hyperventilating as they tried to breath through shirtsleeves and towels, coughing and wheezing from smoke inhalation. He grabbed them and got them out in ones and twos; sometimes he backtracked the way he'd came, sometimes he flew them through a nearby window (only three or four rooms away) that he knew was already open.
None of the sprinkler systems seemed to be working, and when Clark tried a 'quick fix' of pulling one of the sprinkler heads off when he'd gotten to the second floor, he realized that the pipes overhead didn't even seem to be hooked up to the main water supply. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to try and go back to the basement and remedy this, and even if he had, the pipes were most likely too hot now to do anything other than instantly turn the water to steam or possibly tear and rupture at the temperature differential between the metal and the water -- and that was assuming that there weren't other blockages in the system.
Now Superman did start cursing under his breath, because some of those heartbeats he was hearing started to give out, not just move away as if they'd been rescued, being carried through hallways or out windows. And, from what he could overhear from the firefighters, they were pulling everyone out of the building -- the situation having become too hazardous even for Metropolis' less-lauded heroic group -- so he'd be receiving no more help on that count from them.
Not that he could blame them, he grimaced as half a floor came down on his head. Superman pushed his way through the mess and floated up through the hole. He needed to act fast, get as many of the remaining survivors out as he could.
He found another two collapsed under the remains of a large aquarium in what looked like a waiting area and scooped them up, got them out through another open window. He sped up once he had them out in the air, and set them down right by an ambulance, but despite this he heard one of the women's breathing shudder to a stop and the paramedics attempt to perform CPR as the heartbeat went into tachycardia as he sped back towards and into the burning building again. It all seemed so hopeless.
What was worse was that Superman hadn't found any secret labs in the building, or what looked like they could have been at one time, perhaps prior to said massive fire. But he heard faint noises still, even though he couldn't really label them as anything other than 'doesn't really sound like fire noises'. He almost gave up and left, assuming that he must be imagining things, when he heard a shattering sound and then something that was far more familiar. Extremely familiar, in fact.
Son of a... --He was supposed to be across town!
Superman swept upwards like an arrow towards the noise, ignoring all else, and smashed through the floor, long past finesse being anything worth worrying about. He came up in the middle of the smoke and heat and turned in midair, then swooped forward and grabbed three of the six people in the very extremely lab-like-looking room. He didn't feel any sort of satisfaction in having found what he'd been looking for.
He blasted a wall out of his path with 'heat vision', completely vaporizing it, and sped them out. He returned as quickly as he could and grabbed two more, and tried to grab the third but the man fought him off, hissing at him and coughing, choking on smoke trying to spit out a curse. Superman couldn't carry three people if they weren't cooperating, so he had to speed off again. But on the return trip for that last person, the wind shifted and the fire blasted up through the floor, hitting the contents of the room and smashing outwards with an explosion that sent even Superman tumbling end-over-end in midair.
Superman curled up in a ball, shielding his face with his arms, and managed to stop his motion before slamming into one of the surrounding buildings or the ground. He slowly brought down his arms and looked over the area morosely as the building finally finished collapsing in on itself, looking nothing so out of place in the small industrial section of town as if it were an entryway into the pits of hell itself.
Superman slowly drifted down to one of the ambulances, and one of the first men he'd scooped up from the lab site. The very first one, in fact.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Clark asked the man sucking down labored breaths from an oxygen mask. "The fire suppression system was completely--"
"--disabled. Terrorist attack," Lex wheezed, pulling the mask down off of his face, looking tired and more than a little pissed off. "Got a damn notice of demands. Hour ago." He batted at Clark's hands when Clark tried to put the mask loops back around his ears.
"Stop it, Lex. Your lungs are practically black. You're going to need a stint breathing 'underwater' in one of those new oxygenated-liquid baths to clear everything out." Lex quit fighting him and took as deep a breath as he could from the mask, considering the state he was in. "Why didn't you call me?" Clark gritted out. Not notifying the League, he could understand, but...
Lex glared at him over the mask. "Mole in the company. Couldn't risk it. Had to try."
"Has your security personnel traced them down?" Clark knew that Lex wouldn't have gone in like that if he'd not been trying to flush the perpetrators out and had a plan to do just that, he wasn't that stupid, and he had resources now that he hadn't had at Plant No. 3, back in Smallville.
Too bad he didn't use the main one he'd had back then today still.
"They have now."
"You going to hand him over?" Superman asked.
"It's a bit late for that now," Lex remarked slowly, between breaths, and Clark realized that it must have been the man who had resisted his rescue efforts earlier.
"Damn it," Clark said quietly, irate. Without the mole, he had nothing for the League to work with. He also had no doubt that Lex wasn't going to share anything about the backing group, just sidestep justice and quietly take them all out himself. Unless Lex is lying to me right now.
"Too busy to notice the gun?" Lex said dryly.
Superman glanced at Lex, then closed his eyes for a moment and replayed the scene in his mind. Yes, there had been a gun -- on the floor, nearby the hole he'd punched through the floor. It had fallen in with some other random scientific equipment and debris, and he'd barely paid attention to it at the time. He opened his eyes and grimly refocused on Lex.
"I couldn't actually see to disarm him through all the shielding lead paint," Clark said quietly, and Lex grew still. "I don't know what project you were working on to try and muffle ambient noise, but when it finally cut out, it was too late to go for any finesse in breaking in."
"Annoyed, much?" Lex said after awhile with a smirk.
"You have no idea," Clark replied.
"So, how many people died?" Lex asked softly... but unfortunately just a little too blithely, too casually.
"Thirteen. At least." Superman said through clenched teeth. "Prepare for a long round of building inspections, Luthor. No more of this sidestepping or putting off renovations just so you can avoid removing some damned lead paint from the walls." That said, Superman drifted backwards and punched off into the sky.
"And if you have your way, no doubt any sort of privacy shielding would be listed as a fire hazard, I assume," Lex murmured out loud, watching a soot-streaked, very tired, and despairing Clark vanish into the distance.
The newscamera caught everything, but the commentator drowned out the background sounds so much that later analysis found the original audio to be unrecoverable.
... ... ...
"That doesn't really count, Superman always helps people. He doesn't stop to tell whether they're bad guys or not. Maybe he didn't realize it was Luthor at the time," Tim pointed out.
"But he didn't stop until dad was out, and dad was one of the first ones he pulled out when he finally found him," Conner said. "And they talked afterwards. That's not just some random thing."
"Hey, I saw that newscast later, and Superman did not look happy, or relieved, or anything -- he looked mad. They were fighting."
"He was worried!"
"Yeah, about the people who got caught up in the middle of everything, maybe."
Conner just rolled his eyes. "Fine, then -- how do you explain this?"
... ... ...
Lex fought the urge to pull at his tie. He was feeling a little... odd. Constrained. His suit seemed a little too small. The room seemed a little too small. And stuffy. He took another swallow of champagne and barely got it down around the lump in his throat. He knew better -- it wouldn't help, he needed hydration and alcohol did the opposite.
Lex wavered on his feet slightly as he smiled at the other guests and continued to mingle. He had to show he was indefatigable. He had to show no weakness. He had to keep up appearances. He had to keep upright. He...
...got slammed into from the side, with no warning.
"Oh, oh m-my! I am - am so so sorry!" the reporter stammered, looking for all the world like he was using Lex Luthor of all people to try to pull himself back upright.
In fact, it was rather the other way around. Lex would have toppled over if not for the sturdy arm that had wrapped around his waist to steady him.
Lex slowly -- slowly, mind you, avoiding the dizziness and nausea sudden movements was causing him -- slowly tilted his head down to stare at his shirt and tie, which were more than a little bit wet with whatever had been in Kent's... water glass.
Right.
"Should get you cleaned up -- sorry! Sorry!" Clark continued to bleat at him, pushing his glasses up and pawing at Lex's tie with a handkerchief that looked like it'd leave more grime behind than it would remove. Lex winced away, or tried to. There were more than a few titters in the room, but they quickly died to nothing as everyone ignored them both when Kent's utterly abnormal and unnatural 'aura' of inconsequentiality-through-inscrutably-ignorable-planned-actions kicked in.
Lex shortly found himself being pushed out of the ballroom with a cajoling-toned prattling-on of half-meaningless jabber dogging his every step.
"Stop it. Clark--" Lex hissed back at him. They turned a corner, and-- there went the reporter-guise. Shit.
Clark stood up straight, grabbed his shoulder, and force-marched him down the deserted hallway.
"What were you thinking? You're still recovering from your exposure to that Tamaranean Flu strain!" It had damn near killed a lot of people. If not for Lex's heightened immune system, he wouldn't have survived long enough for the vaccine to work -- he'd been one of the first few infected.
"It's not as though I'm contagious," Lex pointed out, digging in his heels as best he could.
"That is not the point! You're barely out of the hospital -- you're hardly recovered, you shouldn't be out in public."
"Get off. I am going back to that party!" Lex snarled, trying to twist out of Clark's grip. Failing that, he shot a kick at Clark's knee. He was only half-reminded of the fact that even if he connected it wouldn't do any good, Clark being damn near invulnerable and all, and he without a gram of Kryptonite on him at the moment. Clark sidestepped without letting go, and when Lex missed, he shot a rabbit punch at Clark's head with his free hand -- hoping that, if nothing else, maybe he could break those stupid glasses of Clark's.
Instead, Lex missed as Clark dodged yet again, but this time Lex lost his balance and almost fell over as his knees refused to lock for a moment.
"I swear to god -- Conner was right, you really do need a babysitter sometimes." Clark grimaced as Lex took another swing at him, grabbed his other arm, and twisted around, wrapping Lex up in himself, arms caught straight-jacket-like. Clark held Lex from behind, half-dragging him down the hallway as Luthor hoarsely cursed up a storm. "--No, I take it back, make that always."
"You let me go."
"No."
"You let me go right now Kent, or so help me--"
"Or you'll what? Fire me?"
"Yes. Yes. I will fire you."
"God, does that actually work on your staff?"
"I own the Planet! I can and will fire you!"
"...Does that actually work on your staff? Is this why they don't stand up to you when you go and pull stupid shit like this?"
"You're fired. I mean it. You are fired and I'm going to make sure that you never work in this town again!" Lex cursed as Clark kneed open a door, dragged him into a sitting room, and plopped him down on a sofa, because when Clark sat him down he didn't let go and now Lex was sitting on Clark's lap. Lex continued to struggle to no avail.
"Fine, you know what? You do just that, Lex. Go ahead and fire me for spilling water on you, because that's what was in my glass, and what everybody out there saw. And then I'll call up my grandfather -- you know, William Clark? The really awesome lawyer? -- and he will sue your ass, and you will end up in litigation up to your eyeballs. And meanwhile, I will just have even more free time to do Superman stuff. Like keep an eye on all your labs, so I can blow them up the second anybody steps out of line."
Then Clark paused, and got a small mock-innocent smile. "Or... maybe I'll just spend a couple hundred dollars and a few minutes on squeezing coal into diamonds, which I can sell as many of as I want without messing up the economy, because the dealers price-fix them and limit the supply they sell on purpose. And maybe I'll sell them all over the world, so I won't be tapping one particular store out of their cash reserve, and make millions in just one day. And then maybe I'll go and buy myself a little island in the sunny Pacific and hang out there in-between natural disasters and drink Mai Tai's and learn how to surf and never eat peas."
Lex turned and peered up at him, looking utterly disgusted, but Clark happily continued. "And... maybe if I feel like it and am having a bad day when you piss me off really badly, I'll take those millions and billions and just buy up all the LexCorp stock floating out there, call a board meeting, vote you out of power, and fire you right back."
Lex stared up at him, then when he calculated up how many shares he owned at the moment, realized how many were outstanding, and took into account the current corporate policy... Lex gritted his teeth and, oh -- if looks could kill!
"...Orrrrr, I could just keep being a reporter, doing reporter-things, working under you in a job where you can keep an eye on me for at least part of the day, and we can both pretend you never said anything about firing me. Up to you."
"Asshole."
Clark grinned. "Knew you'd see it my way."
"This is blackmail, you know," Lex sniffed, finally stopping his restless squirming. Clark offered him his handkerchief and allowed him the use of one arm.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lex."
"I hate you."
"I know."
When no-one came to check up on them, Clark took a moment to speed away and back again with a bowl of chicken soup for Lex, and a big warm snuggly blanket.
But other than that, Clark didn't let go of Lex, and he didn't leave until the party was winding down, nearly over, and Lex was finally asleep.
And when he left, he took Lex with him.
And no-one else was the wiser...
...except for Conner, who had been 'policing' the party as part of his hero-in-training work, and had been unbelievably bored, and had perked up at hearing his name, and had been listening in on Clark and Lex the entire time they were together -- it'd sort of been becoming his new obsession for awhile, because sometimes what they did (or didn't do) didn't quite make sense -- and he had heard everything.
And he saw the dark streak across the sky as Clark flew Lex back to the penthouse where he'd be as safe as he could be.
The young alien-human hybrid stood in the shadow of a column surrounded by leafy plants and tried not to hyperventilate as he vibrated with shock and... something else. It took him a long time before he was able to properly classify the latter as... excitement.
... ... ...
Tim stood there quietly for awhile.
Finally, he said, "Well, ok, so maybe Superman cares a little about Luthor. --A little," Tim emphasized as Conner started to cut in. "But that doesn't mean that Luthor--"
Oh, but Conner had him dead to rights on that count!
... ... ...
Superman smashed into the scenery and fell onto the balcony limply. His vision swam in and out. He couldn't move.
The witch above him -- floating midair, with pink magic swirling about her that, of all things, matched the color of her hair, no less -- cackled as she shot another magic-bolt at Zatanna, who was barely holding her own by comparison. The magician would be no help at all.
He vaguely heard someone calling out something once, twice...
" '...through ... breaks...' "
...and suddenly awareness came back to him with a nearly audible 'snap!'
Clark shook his heard and groaned as he levered himself up slowly.
"Hullo, 'what light through yonder window breaks!' "
The hell? Clark glanced down at the artifact that he'd managed to snag from the witch, who was apparently a real Shakespeare-hater. The little ball of metal, no bigger than his fist, was apparently ensorceled to force the actors to 'play out' the play 'for real' -- brutal sword-fights, horrible deaths, and all. Apparently, getting the leads to kill each other was supposed to be a show-stopper, clearing the way for a production she'd actually find entertaining. When Superman had grabbed it, he'd been able to 'reset' its influence a little bit so that the actors weren't caught up in it anymore -- but now Superman was, and he couldn't break it alone. The witch had taunted him with that knowledge at the worst moment, probably hoping he'd go for it, and she hadn't been lying -- he'd felt the tug of the irresistible magic 'sleep' pulling him under -- but he felt the risk had been worth it: so long as no-one else started trying to act things out again, they wouldn't get caught up in the spell. So who was stupid enough to put themselves forward like that and interfere?
"I said, 'what light through yonder window breaks!' "
Oh no.
" 'O', should I come back at a more convenient hour? When there is no more 'light through yonder window' breaking? Anybody home up there?"
That idiot.
"Stop.. it..." Clark hissed out, barely able to get out more than a whisper.
Lex had walked up to the edge of the seats and now pushed himself up onto the stage. "I can't hear you so very well -- 'Arise, fair sun!' He 'speaks yet' he 'says nothing;' --would you mind speaking up? Am I 'too bold'? Is it 'not to me' he 'speaks'?"
Clark managed to lever himself up and over the balcony and cursed softly.
"He 'speaks!' "
Superman glared down at a beaming Lex Luthor. Then he saw the artifact spit pink-purple sparks and then a soft glow of the same color swirled and settled around Lex's shoulders before fading. Clark had a sinking feeling...
" 'O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.' "
And Lex orated it all without his usual accompanying gestures, hands firmly entrenched in his pants pockets. With a smirk on his face. The jerk.
And Superman felt the magic shove at him and he could do nothing but call out, " 'O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father a-and...' " his eyes went wide and he stumbled over the words in belated shock, " 'r-refuse thy... name.' " Clark shivered a little uneasily at the last, then he felt the pressure of the magic again and had to continue: " 'Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet.' " Clark had to blink at that one too. This was so messed up.
For his part, Lex took it in stride and then some. " 'Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?' " he grinned a shark-toothed grin, almost poisonously pleased somehow.
And that just pissed Clark off to no end. He threw his emotions -- his true emotions -- into it and twisted under the magic's influence, pushing--
" ' 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a' Luthor." He saw Lex start slightly, and Clark grinned almost smugly as he continued. " 'What's' Luthor? 'It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name!' "
And now Lex was glaring up at him and looking highly uncomfortable.
But Clark wasn't about to stop now, even if he could. " 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so' 'Lexander 'would, were he not' Luthor 'call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title.' 'Lexander, 'doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee take all myself,' " Clark declared, and he was sure he was blushing horrifically at the last, but it was worth it all to see that look on Lex's face.
He wished he had a camera.
Lex shifted from foot to foot, but took a breath and replied calmly, " 'I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; henceforth I never will be' ...Luthor."
Clark's eyes widened slightly before he mentally shook it off. Right. Focus. Lex just showing that he was able to fight it a bit, too. Apparently the magic wasn't quite able to force things as perfectly to-script as it had earlier. Maybe they could take advantage of that?
" 'What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?' " Clark replied, beckoning to Lex.
Lex frowned and slid his hands out of his pockets. " 'By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: my name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee; had I it written, I would tear the word.' " He took another step forward. More magic lightning exploded at the other end of the theater. Neither of them so much as flinched, eyes locked on each other.
" 'My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: art thou not' Lex... 'and a' Luthor?" Clark beckoned yet again, glancing around. There was an emergency rope ladder up here with him; two exits necessary for fire safety, there was another egress besides the staircase behind him, thank god.
" 'Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.' " Lex managed to take another two steps, but it was clearly an effort.
" 'How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and...' easy... 'to climb,' but 'the place death, considering who thou art, if any of' those witches catch 'thee here.' "
Lex blinked, then his eyes widened. He glanced at the backstage curtain and strained to move that way, but could not. He breathed in frustration and called out, " 'With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt; therefore' those witches will be 'no stop to me.' " As he talked he was able to gain another three steps, and was halfway across the stage.
" 'If they do see thee, they will murder thee,' " Clark cautioned.
Lex just smiled. " 'Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their' spells! 'Look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity.' " He flung his arms out wide.
" 'I would not for the world they saw thee here.' " And Clark meant it. Luckily, they did seem otherwise engaged.
" 'I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight; and but thou love me, let them find me here: my life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.' " Four steps this time.
" 'By whose direction found'st thou out this place?' "
" 'By love, who first did prompt me to inquire; he lent me counsel and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far as that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise.' " Another five. He was directly under the balcony now.
" 'Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek for that which thou hast heard me speak tonight. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny what I have spoke, but' receive yourself! " Lex looked a little confused at Clark's changes to the script, but Clark was able to reach down and back, a little... a little more...
Clark continued to talk, hoping and praying as he reached... " 'Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say "Ay," and I will take thy word; yet if thou swear'st, thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries they say, Jove laughs.' " And finally, Clark had it! The edge of the rope ladder! He pulled it to his chest in one smooth motion.
" 'O gentle' Lex, 'if thou dost love,' climb to me 'faithfully; or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, so thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.' " And with that Clark managed to shove the rope ladder over the railing, then collapsed against the painted wooden balcony, fair spent. He managed to groan out breathlessly the rest.
" 'In truth, fair' Lex, 'I am too fond, and therefore thou mayst think my behavior light, but trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true than those that have more coying to be' weird. 'I should have been more' trusting, 'I must confess, but' feared 'thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, my' sad dark secret: 'therefore pardon me, and not impute this yielding to light love, which the dark night hath so discovered.' " Clark shivered and felt that much worse for the too-personal impromptu changes to the script, but he'd also been pushed into saying what he had by that same magic. This was not good -- the spell was adapting.
" Love, 'by yonder blessed moon I' climb 'that tips with silver all these' hung-rope rungs--" and Lex was able to grasp the ladder!
" 'O,' a-scend 'by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.' " Clark was getting short of breath. He was having more and more difficult a time fighting the magic, having already forced such a drastic change in the script. Romeo was not supposed to climb at Juliet's direction.
" 'What shall I' climb 'by?' " Lex was slightly breathless, and it seemed to be taking him a great deal more effort to climb the ladder than it should, as well...
" 'Do' please climb it 'all;' " and Clark grimaced as he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He gripped the balcony as his vision swam as he continued. "And," he shook slightly, "And 'if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I'll believe thee.' "
" 'If my heart's dear love--' " Lex was only halfway up, and was clutching and straining at the rungs -- he was trying to move his arms upward but couldn't seem to pull his hands off of the rope, and his legs seemed invisibly weighed down as well.
Clark didn't think he could make many more changes without passing out, but Lex seemed to need help to climb any higher. " 'Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight.' " True enough. " 'It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say "It lightens." Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast!' " He'd tried, he really had, but it was all he could do to barely get out the correct words.
Lex frowned up at him a little desperately, unable to progress further. " 'O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?' "
" 'What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?' " Clark breathed out disconsolately, his head sinking against the railing.
" 'The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.' " Lex said simply, reaching his hand up towards Clark.
" 'I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: and yet I would it were to give again.' " Clark rejoined.
Lex smiled slowly, then gestured at the rope ladder. " 'Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?' " he inquired, innocently.
Clark blinked at him and sat up. " 'But to be frank, and give it thee again.' " And then Lex smiled up at him as Clark grabbed the closest rung. " 'And yet I wish but for the thing I have'!" And Clark tugged hard. " 'My' strength!" Lex chimed together with Clark "--'is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.' " And with them both reciting the last together, Clark was able to pull Lex up over the edge -- just in time, as they collapsed together bonelessly on the plywood flooring.
Clark was panting in small breaths, unable to breath out another word. This was the time for the Nurse to call, and with that he would be forced to walk out and away, when the magical artifact needed at east two to break it. But, without the Nurse...
Without the Nurse's call, Clark couldn't get out Juliet's next line, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
This should not have been a problem... under normal circumstances when he could hold his breath for an age when he wasn't tired and on the verge of collapse.
Clark tried to sit up once more, levering himself upright, but collapsed again. He tried once more, straining upwards, and failed, his head slowly sinking back to the plywood floor.
Lex was searching around for something, Clark wasn't sure what. Lex started mouthing silent curses and kicking at the balcony, as Clark's vision swam again. He was so very tired, and the last scene that had been playing out on stage when Superman had grabbed the artifact -- before Lex had rewound everything to the nighttime meeting, only temporarily it seemed -- had been the death scene, with Juliet having taken the sleeping draught. If Lex didn't do something quickly...
Lex might really be forced into the role of Romeo -- receiving a fatal poisoning, conveniently magic-supplied without need of powder or cup.
But Lex looked horribly determined as he smashed the rungs to splinters, then pulled Clark up towards him. They were both barely sitting upright, but Lex had a white-knuckled grip around a good-sized chunk of railing he'd managed to break away from the scenery. Clark wrapped his hand around Lex's, they lifted their arms together...
And brought down the wood plank on the focus of the spell with all of their combined strength.
The little metal globe shattered like it was made of glass.
They heard a horrifically enraged shriek behind them, and the force of it slammed them both back against the 'house' wall.
Clark groaned and slowly sat up. He saw the witch toss a final eldritch bolt at the stage before fleeing the premises, unable to do more than lie where he was sprawled and stare at his impending death, but Zatanna intercepted and dispelled it, then followed her out in hot pursuit. Clark slumped against the wall in pure relief at the unexpected save, then glanced downward and blinked as he watched the 'metal' shards of the miniature globe steam away into pink-grey smoke until nothing remained. Clark blew softly and dissipated the last of the vapors.
"Stupid magic," Clark sighed, dropping his head back against the 'wall'. He felt drained, so much so that he was really too tired to get properly angry over it all.
Then he glanced over at Lex, who was splayed across the balcony 'floor' and looking up at Clark, eyes sparkling.
"What are you so happy about?" Superman asked petulantly. Lex's smile stretched into an ear-to-ear grin.
"I've always wanted to be in a play!"
Clark stared.
Lex laughed.
... ... ...
Continue to Part Two
From: To Be Revealed! josephina_x
For: twilighthdfan
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Lex, Conner (Superboy), Tim (Robin), and a few others, with references to previous Clois, Clana, Lexana...
Type: Fic, 27164 word count
Rating: R
Warnings: none categorized by clexmas.
... The author, however, includes the following: General for entire series. Fix-it fic. Lots of hurt-comfort. Lots. There is happy at the end, though. Lacks neither cheese nor wine. Unbeta'd. Rating for violence. Oh, and Super!Lana pops up for awhile to make trouble -- fair warning! Also, at one point I 'steal' many, many lines from a work that is well out of copyright; I am certain that it will be recognized as such -- if not, for shame! :-P
Request: Used in this story were: "Lex wooing Clark after the rift (maybe after one time when Clark almost got killed?)", "Clark coming to care for Lex when he's hurt, because he knows that no one else will be able to stand up to Lex (and it's Christmas! second chances and all that)", "Connor brings Clex together for christmas and Clex can't deny their feelings", and "Future Fic, happy ending, H/C, romance". Unfortunately, the "no super!Lana" part of the gift request was violated for a short while, but since a jolly old elf obtained permission for that so long as I get to depowered!Lana pretty quickly... :)
Summary: Conner knows what he wants for Christmas this year, but it may be a bit difficult to arrange...
Notes: Post-series (futurefic), takes place before the "seven-years later". Happy Holidays, twilighthdfan! I hope you like this one!
All I Want For Christmas Is...
Conner squatted on the top of the tall office building halfway across the city from LexCorp Towers and the Daily Planet, and cupped his hands around his eyes. It helped him concentrate when he was doing his telescopic vision-thing, and that was what really mattered.
When Tim had first told him that it looked a little silly when he did that, especially when he turned his hands clockwise and counterclockwise, Conner had gotten a little defensive at his tone. He'd tried to explain how blocking out objects from his peripheral vision helped him keep his focus when he was looking at things far away, because of the whole biological reflex-response humans had to focus on things in their peripheral vision -- which apparently Conner totally had in spades. Then he'd gone on to add that the 'hand turning' motion was just a mental trick -- a keyed action to help with the 'zoom' bits and he didn't really need it...
...at least until he'd realized that that particular smirk meant that Tim was teasing him, at which point Conner had grinned and changed tactics and said he did it so that Tim wouldn't feel left out when Tim had to use his big bulky binoculars, on account of having poor eyesight.
Then Tim started showing up on their joint patrols with miniature binoculars, and Conner had said that they were still way too heavy for their size and took up a whole fighting hand when he might need the other for something else like throwing batarangs.
Conner was eventually proven right after Tim lost three sets on various nightly-patrols over the course of a week. But, the telling bit had been the fourth time when Tim nearly got himself smeared across the pavement. Tim-as-Robin had been trying to toss a batarang at a gun-wielding drug dealer long-distance in a precision throw while also trying to dodge a close-up thug, and had missed his first (and only) handhold off the side of a building. If Conner hadn't seen what was going on helped out, Tim probably would've ended up with a broken leg, or at least a twisted ankle if he hadn't managed to land properly. Conner was just happy that he'd been practicing speed-catches and hadn't hurt Tim himself.
So then Tim started incorporating a set of zoom lenses into his mask, but Conner had pointed out that the buttons on the side of the mask at the temples could be hit in the middle of combat and then Tim wouldn't be able to see what he was doing. And then had proceeded to demonstrate just that himself, instead of waiting for the bad guys to be half-killing Tim in a fight first.
So Tim had grumbled under his breath bat-style and gone back to the big bulky binoculars, and took to swinging them at Conner's head to try and brain him anytime he got too close and pretended he 'just wanted to borrow them for a moment' ...up until Tim decided to go back to the mask zoom lenses.
At which point, Conner had tried to teach Tim the error of his ways all over again. Only this time, much to his surprise, while he'd swear up and down that he'd been able to mess up the magnification something awful, Conner couldn't get the better of Robin-Tim anymore until he started pushing a little into super-speed territory with his taps.
Conner finally figured it out after Young Justice conducted a night-time raid, the lights blew out, and Tim had still been able to hold his own. The next time Conner cornered Tim, he watched Tim's mask at the eyes, and after staring through the lenses carefully he finally realized that Tim was fighting him with his eyes closed. Which, honestly, was pretty kick-ass -- at which point Conner proceeded to pester Tim to teach him how to do that, too.
Conner might still totally suck at the blind-fighting thing, but his hearing had certainly improved by leaps and bounds.
Of course, that just led right into Conner laughing his ass off when they had an actual night mission and Tim donned nightvision goggles over his mask, because they were even huger and bulkier than the binoculars. Which had resulted in an irate Tim and a lecture on how "huger" wasn't a word.
And so, inevitably, that had led to Tim deciding to incorporate nightvision capability into his mask, too. That time he actually kibitzed with Conner a little bit beforehand -- which Conner thought was awesome and just the way it should be -- and they decided that the nightvision bit should fail-off and auto-off if it got damaged, rather than risk temporarily blinding him in broad daylight. ...Except that Tim couldn't quite figure out how to keep all the machinery and electronics thin enough that the mask was practical to wear with both the nightvision and the zoom. So Tim had sighed and settled on just integrated nightvision for now, though he hadn't given up on further miniaturization and weight-reduction. This meant that he was back to the bulky weight-a-ton binoculars all over again. So Conner had been teasing him again.
Conner thought Tim was really fun.
Tim rolled his eyes and told Conner he was just like his dad.
...And while that comment had kind of confused Conner at the time -- because Conner wasn't really like Lex at all, not being an quasi-not-quite-evil villain and all that -- it had percolated in the back of his brain a bit, and finally, one day, he had an idea. A really great idea. A really terrible, horrible, awful idea, in fact. (Conner had been channel-surfing and came across some Dr. Seuss cartoon the other day, and it totally fit perfectly.) He'd been so excited that he'd called Tim right away, and bugged him into meeting, and explained everything.
And now they were on top of a tall office building halfway across the city from LexCorp Towers and the Daily Planet, and Conner was watching the fruits of his labors come to... fruition. With evil, evil little fruits. Yeah.
"This is a really bad idea," Tim said, leaning against the waist-high retaining wall on the roof and gazing over the side at the buildings. His eye-'holes' weren't green, so it must've been one of the old zoom-masks.
"Oh, I hope so!" Conner said gleefully.
"--though I don't mean evil-bad, I mean..." then Tim trailed off as what Conner had said caught up to him.
Conner dropped his hands and turned to look at Tim. "Huh?" His idea wasn't evil-bad?
Tim looked just as confused as he blinked back at Conner, who usually went nuts at even the suggestion of his falling on the wrong side of the good-vs-evil line. "...You do know what I mean, right?" he said slowly.
Conner frowned at him. "But before-- I thought you said--"
Tim stood there and stared at Conner for awhile. "...I was being sarcastic. You still need to work on that, Kon," Tim finally replied, shifting his shoulders and steadying his stance against the concrete brickwork.
Conner frowned. "But I wasn't..." He decided squatting wasn't nearly as fun without Tim doing it, too, especially in broad daylight and without a cape. (Not that he could wear a cape with his t-shirt and jeans without looking like a little kid pretending to be Superman, and he wanted to be taken seriously. He wasn't about to wear the requisite tights to pull it off, though. Never in a million years.) So he took a moment to squirm into a seated position on the ledge and then gave Tim a half-glare. "I thought we agreed that it was a good time to do this -- now rather than later."
"Conner, 'never' is a really good time for you to do this," Tim said.
"Oh, c'mon -- now is the perfect time to do this!" Conner defended. "I'm going to end up trying out being a villain someday, just because of dad's Villainous Influence. If I do it now, before I'm all really powerful and really good at the fighting and potentially unstoppable, then if I decide I like it then you guys can stop me before I do something really horrible and save me from myself and either get me all re-goodified or retired before I go super-evil. And if I don't like it, then I'll know it and never wonder or get tempted again later ever. But if I don't try it out, then I'll always wonder, and maybe not do my best in the meantime 'cause I'll worry about whether I should retire before I go bad-to-evil-or-worse and go be a dentist instead, or something."
Tim stared at him.
"It's a good plan!"
Tim stared at him.
"I mean, the trying-out-villainy-right-now bit is a good plan. The plan-plan is a evil-bad plan and a really bad idea."
Tim took a deep breath, scrubbed at his face, then finally said, "Trying to get Lex Luthor and Superman together and doing the kissy-face is a bad idea." Tim couldn't imagine why Kon wasn't getting it; Conner was smart. Supposedly.
"Right!" Conner said, grinning at Tim expectantly.
"It's a bad idea," Tim repeated, slowly.
"Right," Conner agreed, nodding. "I mean, since there's no certainty that it might work at all, it can't be a heroic plan, because good plans always work; villain-plans go horribly wrong all the time. And it totally has to do with breaking up two people who everybody says have true love. So that would make it evil, except that I'm also trying to get together two people with even-truer-love after that, which is really good. Except that Clark is always saying that the ends don't justify the means, so it actually only cancels out a little bit." Then Conner saw a flicker of movement over by the top of the LexCorp Towers and turned back to them. "So, yeah. Bad idea, bad plan," he ended, ringing his eyes with his hands again.
"I don't think that's how it works..." Tim muttered. Then he started and said in mounting horror, "Wait, you're trying to break up Clark and Lois?"
"Already did," Conner said absently. "Was really easy, too. I just found a way to bring up what happened last Christmas with Lex and she drop-kicked his ass to the curb so fast it would've made Bart's head spin." Conner frowned a little, then brought his hands down again and looked back at Tim. "Which was really weird, actually, because I thought it'd take a lot more than that -- apparently there was a really long discussion and lot of yelling involved, though. I didn't think she cared all that much about me, but I guess Clark making any sort of bargain-promise-deal-thing with Lex really upsets her, even if it's for the Greater Good? Lois is kinda crazy sometimes." Then Conner turned to Tim and perked up as he shared the next bit, leaning towards him with his eyes practically sparkling. "Hey, did you know that she's broken up with Clark like, practically every couple months since they've been going out? Because I didn't know that. Not until after. Isn't that interesting? I think it's interesting," Conner grinned, nearly bouncing.
"Uh, yeah, but Clark always makes up with her," Tim pointed out.
"Well, yeah, but that's just 'cause he thinks he has to, 'cause she knows his secret and he likes to make nice with anybody who does," Conner said dismissively, waving his hands. "He doesn't want to be with her. Not really. I mean, think about it," he added, getting a little starry-eyed. "Lois yells and kicks him out of the apartment, and he makes up with her a little, so what. But Luthor shoots him with lasers and stuff, and Superman blows up his labs and things, and they still make-up after all that!"
"Since when?!" Tim said, looking at Conner like he was insane.
"Well, there was last Christmas," Conner pointed out.
"That doesn't count," Tim scoffed. "You were caught up in the middle of everything. They'd both want to behave: Luthor wanted to make a good impression so you wouldn't reject him out-of-hand, and Superman wanted to be a good example like he always is."
"Do you even remember last Christmas?" Conner asked in disbelief, giving Tim a look like he was brain-damaged.
Tim just rolled his eyes. "Fine, agree-to-disagree then. What else you got?"
Yeah, sure, after summarily tossing out his best example. Well, if last Christmas was off-limits for discussion, and Conner couldn't even cite his talk with Superman about Lex later that day, he'd just try something else.
"Ok, well, how about--"
... ... ...
Superman swooped in and started digging through debris.
The five-alarm fire raged above as the Man of Steel tried to clear a path for a way in that would not feed the fire -- he had to avoid causing any interior updrafts that might pull the flames through the corridors and into sections that hadn't yet been set ablaze. He couldn't just wrecking-ball his way in through the walls and zoom around at super-speed trying to rescue folks for the same reason: already-compromised structural integrity and backdrafts. If the building was a little more stable and he had more time, or a proper idea of where all the trapped people were and the progress of the fire, he could have compensated, but he didn't and couldn't. He was more-or-less going in blind.
What was really frustrating was that people were trapped in the first place -- what had Luthor been thinking when he built the place? Clearly it had been a deathtrap just waiting to happen.
But then Superman chided himself and became angry all over again for another reason: Lionel had been the one who built the building in the first place, responsible for the shoddy workmanship and cut corners and bribes, and with whom the main blame rested. But, Lex had been the one who had decided to continue to use it. He'd repurposed the complex as the base for one of his research projects without any renovations and clearly they had been needed desperately.
Apparently Clark was going to have to add "invade privacy and become further threat by X-raying all LexCorp corporate assets for building code violations and reporting them to the proper authorities" to Superman's to-do list. He only hoped Lex would understand the need for it and not take it too personally, as having been prompted by this episode rather than seemingly stemming from some inscrutable vagaries of sorts. ...Or at least the ones he could scan with X-ray vision, anyway, and perhaps that was why the building was still in use. Lead paint was outlawed now for health violations, and any building that was having work done had to meet those and all newer restrictions -- but through a loophole in the regulations, so long as no renovations to meet new codes were done on older buildings, upgrades to meet the existing mandates were not required.
Superman managed to shore up the main entrance and ducked inside at a human-fast run, continuing to try to scan floor-by-floor with X-ray while combining the information with what he was hearing to produce a usable mental map of the place. He hadn't been able to get a good 'view' of the place from outside, from the accumulated junk in the various inner and outer layers of walls; it was significantly easier to see now that he was inside, but his X-ray vision was still spotty in many areas and not an easy task to reconstruct rooms from the vague glimpses he was able to receive.
Listening for heartbeats was slightly more helpful, but only in letting him know how many people were left who were still alive and their general direction -- the corridors echoed the sounds. For better or for worse, the louder screams had petered out fairly quickly with the rapidly diminishing amount of smokeless air which could be used for such. As it was, Superman was holding his own breath and flying low -- oftentimes moving at a quick hover at crawling level now that he'd hit the hotter sections. His suit and cape might be fairly fire-retardant, but they weren't completely heat-resistant. The last thing he wanted to do was to end up giving people third-degree burns while carrying them out of the building -- not if he could avoid it.
He started in the subbasement level and worked his way back up to ground level and above, floor-by-floor, from the interior outwards. He found people curled up in corners and under desks, hiding from falling debris, and gasping for breath. He found them in bathrooms, doused with water and sobbing in fear. He found them hyperventilating as they tried to breath through shirtsleeves and towels, coughing and wheezing from smoke inhalation. He grabbed them and got them out in ones and twos; sometimes he backtracked the way he'd came, sometimes he flew them through a nearby window (only three or four rooms away) that he knew was already open.
None of the sprinkler systems seemed to be working, and when Clark tried a 'quick fix' of pulling one of the sprinkler heads off when he'd gotten to the second floor, he realized that the pipes overhead didn't even seem to be hooked up to the main water supply. Unfortunately, he didn't have time to try and go back to the basement and remedy this, and even if he had, the pipes were most likely too hot now to do anything other than instantly turn the water to steam or possibly tear and rupture at the temperature differential between the metal and the water -- and that was assuming that there weren't other blockages in the system.
Now Superman did start cursing under his breath, because some of those heartbeats he was hearing started to give out, not just move away as if they'd been rescued, being carried through hallways or out windows. And, from what he could overhear from the firefighters, they were pulling everyone out of the building -- the situation having become too hazardous even for Metropolis' less-lauded heroic group -- so he'd be receiving no more help on that count from them.
Not that he could blame them, he grimaced as half a floor came down on his head. Superman pushed his way through the mess and floated up through the hole. He needed to act fast, get as many of the remaining survivors out as he could.
He found another two collapsed under the remains of a large aquarium in what looked like a waiting area and scooped them up, got them out through another open window. He sped up once he had them out in the air, and set them down right by an ambulance, but despite this he heard one of the women's breathing shudder to a stop and the paramedics attempt to perform CPR as the heartbeat went into tachycardia as he sped back towards and into the burning building again. It all seemed so hopeless.
What was worse was that Superman hadn't found any secret labs in the building, or what looked like they could have been at one time, perhaps prior to said massive fire. But he heard faint noises still, even though he couldn't really label them as anything other than 'doesn't really sound like fire noises'. He almost gave up and left, assuming that he must be imagining things, when he heard a shattering sound and then something that was far more familiar. Extremely familiar, in fact.
Son of a... --He was supposed to be across town!
Superman swept upwards like an arrow towards the noise, ignoring all else, and smashed through the floor, long past finesse being anything worth worrying about. He came up in the middle of the smoke and heat and turned in midair, then swooped forward and grabbed three of the six people in the very extremely lab-like-looking room. He didn't feel any sort of satisfaction in having found what he'd been looking for.
He blasted a wall out of his path with 'heat vision', completely vaporizing it, and sped them out. He returned as quickly as he could and grabbed two more, and tried to grab the third but the man fought him off, hissing at him and coughing, choking on smoke trying to spit out a curse. Superman couldn't carry three people if they weren't cooperating, so he had to speed off again. But on the return trip for that last person, the wind shifted and the fire blasted up through the floor, hitting the contents of the room and smashing outwards with an explosion that sent even Superman tumbling end-over-end in midair.
Superman curled up in a ball, shielding his face with his arms, and managed to stop his motion before slamming into one of the surrounding buildings or the ground. He slowly brought down his arms and looked over the area morosely as the building finally finished collapsing in on itself, looking nothing so out of place in the small industrial section of town as if it were an entryway into the pits of hell itself.
Superman slowly drifted down to one of the ambulances, and one of the first men he'd scooped up from the lab site. The very first one, in fact.
"What the hell were you thinking?" Clark asked the man sucking down labored breaths from an oxygen mask. "The fire suppression system was completely--"
"--disabled. Terrorist attack," Lex wheezed, pulling the mask down off of his face, looking tired and more than a little pissed off. "Got a damn notice of demands. Hour ago." He batted at Clark's hands when Clark tried to put the mask loops back around his ears.
"Stop it, Lex. Your lungs are practically black. You're going to need a stint breathing 'underwater' in one of those new oxygenated-liquid baths to clear everything out." Lex quit fighting him and took as deep a breath as he could from the mask, considering the state he was in. "Why didn't you call me?" Clark gritted out. Not notifying the League, he could understand, but...
Lex glared at him over the mask. "Mole in the company. Couldn't risk it. Had to try."
"Has your security personnel traced them down?" Clark knew that Lex wouldn't have gone in like that if he'd not been trying to flush the perpetrators out and had a plan to do just that, he wasn't that stupid, and he had resources now that he hadn't had at Plant No. 3, back in Smallville.
Too bad he didn't use the main one he'd had back then today still.
"They have now."
"You going to hand him over?" Superman asked.
"It's a bit late for that now," Lex remarked slowly, between breaths, and Clark realized that it must have been the man who had resisted his rescue efforts earlier.
"Damn it," Clark said quietly, irate. Without the mole, he had nothing for the League to work with. He also had no doubt that Lex wasn't going to share anything about the backing group, just sidestep justice and quietly take them all out himself. Unless Lex is lying to me right now.
"Too busy to notice the gun?" Lex said dryly.
Superman glanced at Lex, then closed his eyes for a moment and replayed the scene in his mind. Yes, there had been a gun -- on the floor, nearby the hole he'd punched through the floor. It had fallen in with some other random scientific equipment and debris, and he'd barely paid attention to it at the time. He opened his eyes and grimly refocused on Lex.
"I couldn't actually see to disarm him through all the shielding lead paint," Clark said quietly, and Lex grew still. "I don't know what project you were working on to try and muffle ambient noise, but when it finally cut out, it was too late to go for any finesse in breaking in."
"Annoyed, much?" Lex said after awhile with a smirk.
"You have no idea," Clark replied.
"So, how many people died?" Lex asked softly... but unfortunately just a little too blithely, too casually.
"Thirteen. At least." Superman said through clenched teeth. "Prepare for a long round of building inspections, Luthor. No more of this sidestepping or putting off renovations just so you can avoid removing some damned lead paint from the walls." That said, Superman drifted backwards and punched off into the sky.
"And if you have your way, no doubt any sort of privacy shielding would be listed as a fire hazard, I assume," Lex murmured out loud, watching a soot-streaked, very tired, and despairing Clark vanish into the distance.
The newscamera caught everything, but the commentator drowned out the background sounds so much that later analysis found the original audio to be unrecoverable.
... ... ...
"That doesn't really count, Superman always helps people. He doesn't stop to tell whether they're bad guys or not. Maybe he didn't realize it was Luthor at the time," Tim pointed out.
"But he didn't stop until dad was out, and dad was one of the first ones he pulled out when he finally found him," Conner said. "And they talked afterwards. That's not just some random thing."
"Hey, I saw that newscast later, and Superman did not look happy, or relieved, or anything -- he looked mad. They were fighting."
"He was worried!"
"Yeah, about the people who got caught up in the middle of everything, maybe."
Conner just rolled his eyes. "Fine, then -- how do you explain this?"
... ... ...
Lex fought the urge to pull at his tie. He was feeling a little... odd. Constrained. His suit seemed a little too small. The room seemed a little too small. And stuffy. He took another swallow of champagne and barely got it down around the lump in his throat. He knew better -- it wouldn't help, he needed hydration and alcohol did the opposite.
Lex wavered on his feet slightly as he smiled at the other guests and continued to mingle. He had to show he was indefatigable. He had to show no weakness. He had to keep up appearances. He had to keep upright. He...
...got slammed into from the side, with no warning.
"Oh, oh m-my! I am - am so so sorry!" the reporter stammered, looking for all the world like he was using Lex Luthor of all people to try to pull himself back upright.
In fact, it was rather the other way around. Lex would have toppled over if not for the sturdy arm that had wrapped around his waist to steady him.
Lex slowly -- slowly, mind you, avoiding the dizziness and nausea sudden movements was causing him -- slowly tilted his head down to stare at his shirt and tie, which were more than a little bit wet with whatever had been in Kent's... water glass.
Right.
"Should get you cleaned up -- sorry! Sorry!" Clark continued to bleat at him, pushing his glasses up and pawing at Lex's tie with a handkerchief that looked like it'd leave more grime behind than it would remove. Lex winced away, or tried to. There were more than a few titters in the room, but they quickly died to nothing as everyone ignored them both when Kent's utterly abnormal and unnatural 'aura' of inconsequentiality-through-inscrutably-ignorable-planned-actions kicked in.
Lex shortly found himself being pushed out of the ballroom with a cajoling-toned prattling-on of half-meaningless jabber dogging his every step.
"Stop it. Clark--" Lex hissed back at him. They turned a corner, and-- there went the reporter-guise. Shit.
Clark stood up straight, grabbed his shoulder, and force-marched him down the deserted hallway.
"What were you thinking? You're still recovering from your exposure to that Tamaranean Flu strain!" It had damn near killed a lot of people. If not for Lex's heightened immune system, he wouldn't have survived long enough for the vaccine to work -- he'd been one of the first few infected.
"It's not as though I'm contagious," Lex pointed out, digging in his heels as best he could.
"That is not the point! You're barely out of the hospital -- you're hardly recovered, you shouldn't be out in public."
"Get off. I am going back to that party!" Lex snarled, trying to twist out of Clark's grip. Failing that, he shot a kick at Clark's knee. He was only half-reminded of the fact that even if he connected it wouldn't do any good, Clark being damn near invulnerable and all, and he without a gram of Kryptonite on him at the moment. Clark sidestepped without letting go, and when Lex missed, he shot a rabbit punch at Clark's head with his free hand -- hoping that, if nothing else, maybe he could break those stupid glasses of Clark's.
Instead, Lex missed as Clark dodged yet again, but this time Lex lost his balance and almost fell over as his knees refused to lock for a moment.
"I swear to god -- Conner was right, you really do need a babysitter sometimes." Clark grimaced as Lex took another swing at him, grabbed his other arm, and twisted around, wrapping Lex up in himself, arms caught straight-jacket-like. Clark held Lex from behind, half-dragging him down the hallway as Luthor hoarsely cursed up a storm. "--No, I take it back, make that always."
"You let me go."
"No."
"You let me go right now Kent, or so help me--"
"Or you'll what? Fire me?"
"Yes. Yes. I will fire you."
"God, does that actually work on your staff?"
"I own the Planet! I can and will fire you!"
"...Does that actually work on your staff? Is this why they don't stand up to you when you go and pull stupid shit like this?"
"You're fired. I mean it. You are fired and I'm going to make sure that you never work in this town again!" Lex cursed as Clark kneed open a door, dragged him into a sitting room, and plopped him down on a sofa, because when Clark sat him down he didn't let go and now Lex was sitting on Clark's lap. Lex continued to struggle to no avail.
"Fine, you know what? You do just that, Lex. Go ahead and fire me for spilling water on you, because that's what was in my glass, and what everybody out there saw. And then I'll call up my grandfather -- you know, William Clark? The really awesome lawyer? -- and he will sue your ass, and you will end up in litigation up to your eyeballs. And meanwhile, I will just have even more free time to do Superman stuff. Like keep an eye on all your labs, so I can blow them up the second anybody steps out of line."
Then Clark paused, and got a small mock-innocent smile. "Or... maybe I'll just spend a couple hundred dollars and a few minutes on squeezing coal into diamonds, which I can sell as many of as I want without messing up the economy, because the dealers price-fix them and limit the supply they sell on purpose. And maybe I'll sell them all over the world, so I won't be tapping one particular store out of their cash reserve, and make millions in just one day. And then maybe I'll go and buy myself a little island in the sunny Pacific and hang out there in-between natural disasters and drink Mai Tai's and learn how to surf and never eat peas."
Lex turned and peered up at him, looking utterly disgusted, but Clark happily continued. "And... maybe if I feel like it and am having a bad day when you piss me off really badly, I'll take those millions and billions and just buy up all the LexCorp stock floating out there, call a board meeting, vote you out of power, and fire you right back."
Lex stared up at him, then when he calculated up how many shares he owned at the moment, realized how many were outstanding, and took into account the current corporate policy... Lex gritted his teeth and, oh -- if looks could kill!
"...Orrrrr, I could just keep being a reporter, doing reporter-things, working under you in a job where you can keep an eye on me for at least part of the day, and we can both pretend you never said anything about firing me. Up to you."
"Asshole."
Clark grinned. "Knew you'd see it my way."
"This is blackmail, you know," Lex sniffed, finally stopping his restless squirming. Clark offered him his handkerchief and allowed him the use of one arm.
"Whatever helps you sleep at night, Lex."
"I hate you."
"I know."
When no-one came to check up on them, Clark took a moment to speed away and back again with a bowl of chicken soup for Lex, and a big warm snuggly blanket.
But other than that, Clark didn't let go of Lex, and he didn't leave until the party was winding down, nearly over, and Lex was finally asleep.
And when he left, he took Lex with him.
And no-one else was the wiser...
...except for Conner, who had been 'policing' the party as part of his hero-in-training work, and had been unbelievably bored, and had perked up at hearing his name, and had been listening in on Clark and Lex the entire time they were together -- it'd sort of been becoming his new obsession for awhile, because sometimes what they did (or didn't do) didn't quite make sense -- and he had heard everything.
And he saw the dark streak across the sky as Clark flew Lex back to the penthouse where he'd be as safe as he could be.
The young alien-human hybrid stood in the shadow of a column surrounded by leafy plants and tried not to hyperventilate as he vibrated with shock and... something else. It took him a long time before he was able to properly classify the latter as... excitement.
... ... ...
Tim stood there quietly for awhile.
Finally, he said, "Well, ok, so maybe Superman cares a little about Luthor. --A little," Tim emphasized as Conner started to cut in. "But that doesn't mean that Luthor--"
Oh, but Conner had him dead to rights on that count!
... ... ...
Superman smashed into the scenery and fell onto the balcony limply. His vision swam in and out. He couldn't move.
The witch above him -- floating midair, with pink magic swirling about her that, of all things, matched the color of her hair, no less -- cackled as she shot another magic-bolt at Zatanna, who was barely holding her own by comparison. The magician would be no help at all.
He vaguely heard someone calling out something once, twice...
" '...through ... breaks...' "
...and suddenly awareness came back to him with a nearly audible 'snap!'
Clark shook his heard and groaned as he levered himself up slowly.
"Hullo, 'what light through yonder window breaks!' "
The hell? Clark glanced down at the artifact that he'd managed to snag from the witch, who was apparently a real Shakespeare-hater. The little ball of metal, no bigger than his fist, was apparently ensorceled to force the actors to 'play out' the play 'for real' -- brutal sword-fights, horrible deaths, and all. Apparently, getting the leads to kill each other was supposed to be a show-stopper, clearing the way for a production she'd actually find entertaining. When Superman had grabbed it, he'd been able to 'reset' its influence a little bit so that the actors weren't caught up in it anymore -- but now Superman was, and he couldn't break it alone. The witch had taunted him with that knowledge at the worst moment, probably hoping he'd go for it, and she hadn't been lying -- he'd felt the tug of the irresistible magic 'sleep' pulling him under -- but he felt the risk had been worth it: so long as no-one else started trying to act things out again, they wouldn't get caught up in the spell. So who was stupid enough to put themselves forward like that and interfere?
"I said, 'what light through yonder window breaks!' "
Oh no.
" 'O', should I come back at a more convenient hour? When there is no more 'light through yonder window' breaking? Anybody home up there?"
That idiot.
"Stop.. it..." Clark hissed out, barely able to get out more than a whisper.
Lex had walked up to the edge of the seats and now pushed himself up onto the stage. "I can't hear you so very well -- 'Arise, fair sun!' He 'speaks yet' he 'says nothing;' --would you mind speaking up? Am I 'too bold'? Is it 'not to me' he 'speaks'?"
Clark managed to lever himself up and over the balcony and cursed softly.
"He 'speaks!' "
Superman glared down at a beaming Lex Luthor. Then he saw the artifact spit pink-purple sparks and then a soft glow of the same color swirled and settled around Lex's shoulders before fading. Clark had a sinking feeling...
" 'O, speak again, bright angel! For thou art as glorious to this night, being o'er my head as is a winged messenger of heaven unto the white-upturned wondering eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.' "
And Lex orated it all without his usual accompanying gestures, hands firmly entrenched in his pants pockets. With a smirk on his face. The jerk.
And Superman felt the magic shove at him and he could do nothing but call out, " 'O Romeo, Romeo! wherefore art thou Romeo? Deny thy father a-and...' " his eyes went wide and he stumbled over the words in belated shock, " 'r-refuse thy... name.' " Clark shivered a little uneasily at the last, then he felt the pressure of the magic again and had to continue: " 'Or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I'll no longer be a Capulet.' " Clark had to blink at that one too. This was so messed up.
For his part, Lex took it in stride and then some. " 'Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?' " he grinned a shark-toothed grin, almost poisonously pleased somehow.
And that just pissed Clark off to no end. He threw his emotions -- his true emotions -- into it and twisted under the magic's influence, pushing--
" ' 'Tis but thy name that is my enemy; thou art thyself, though not a' Luthor." He saw Lex start slightly, and Clark grinned almost smugly as he continued. " 'What's' Luthor? 'It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face, nor any other part belonging to a man. O, be some other name!' "
And now Lex was glaring up at him and looking highly uncomfortable.
But Clark wasn't about to stop now, even if he could. " 'What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet; so' 'Lexander 'would, were he not' Luthor 'call'd, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title.' 'Lexander, 'doff thy name, and for that name which is no part of thee take all myself,' " Clark declared, and he was sure he was blushing horrifically at the last, but it was worth it all to see that look on Lex's face.
He wished he had a camera.
Lex shifted from foot to foot, but took a breath and replied calmly, " 'I take thee at thy word. Call me but love, and I'll be new baptized; henceforth I never will be' ...Luthor."
Clark's eyes widened slightly before he mentally shook it off. Right. Focus. Lex just showing that he was able to fight it a bit, too. Apparently the magic wasn't quite able to force things as perfectly to-script as it had earlier. Maybe they could take advantage of that?
" 'What man art thou that thus bescreen'd in night so stumblest on my counsel?' " Clark replied, beckoning to Lex.
Lex frowned and slid his hands out of his pockets. " 'By a name I know not how to tell thee who I am: my name, dear saint, is hateful to myself, because it is an enemy to thee; had I it written, I would tear the word.' " He took another step forward. More magic lightning exploded at the other end of the theater. Neither of them so much as flinched, eyes locked on each other.
" 'My ears have not yet drunk a hundred words of that tongue's utterance, yet I know the sound: art thou not' Lex... 'and a' Luthor?" Clark beckoned yet again, glancing around. There was an emergency rope ladder up here with him; two exits necessary for fire safety, there was another egress besides the staircase behind him, thank god.
" 'Neither, fair saint, if either thee dislike.' " Lex managed to take another two steps, but it was clearly an effort.
" 'How camest thou hither, tell me, and wherefore? The orchard walls are high and...' easy... 'to climb,' but 'the place death, considering who thou art, if any of' those witches catch 'thee here.' "
Lex blinked, then his eyes widened. He glanced at the backstage curtain and strained to move that way, but could not. He breathed in frustration and called out, " 'With love's light wings did I o'er-perch these walls; for stony limits cannot hold love out, and what love can do, that dares love attempt; therefore' those witches will be 'no stop to me.' " As he talked he was able to gain another three steps, and was halfway across the stage.
" 'If they do see thee, they will murder thee,' " Clark cautioned.
Lex just smiled. " 'Alack, there lies more peril in thine eye than twenty of their' spells! 'Look thou but sweet, and I am proof against their enmity.' " He flung his arms out wide.
" 'I would not for the world they saw thee here.' " And Clark meant it. Luckily, they did seem otherwise engaged.
" 'I have night's cloak to hide me from their sight; and but thou love me, let them find me here: my life were better ended by their hate, than death prorogued, wanting of thy love.' " Four steps this time.
" 'By whose direction found'st thou out this place?' "
" 'By love, who first did prompt me to inquire; he lent me counsel and I lent him eyes. I am no pilot; yet, wert thou as far as that vast shore wash'd with the farthest sea, I would adventure for such merchandise.' " Another five. He was directly under the balcony now.
" 'Thou know'st the mask of night is on my face, else would a maiden blush bepaint my cheek for that which thou hast heard me speak tonight. Fain would I dwell on form, fain, fain deny what I have spoke, but' receive yourself! " Lex looked a little confused at Clark's changes to the script, but Clark was able to reach down and back, a little... a little more...
Clark continued to talk, hoping and praying as he reached... " 'Dost thou love me? I know thou wilt say "Ay," and I will take thy word; yet if thou swear'st, thou mayst prove false; at lovers' perjuries they say, Jove laughs.' " And finally, Clark had it! The edge of the rope ladder! He pulled it to his chest in one smooth motion.
" 'O gentle' Lex, 'if thou dost love,' climb to me 'faithfully; or if thou think'st I am too quickly won, I'll frown and be perverse, and say thee nay, so thou wilt woo; but else, not for the world.' " And with that Clark managed to shove the rope ladder over the railing, then collapsed against the painted wooden balcony, fair spent. He managed to groan out breathlessly the rest.
" 'In truth, fair' Lex, 'I am too fond, and therefore thou mayst think my behavior light, but trust me, gentleman, I'll prove more true than those that have more coying to be' weird. 'I should have been more' trusting, 'I must confess, but' feared 'thou overheard'st, ere I was ware, my' sad dark secret: 'therefore pardon me, and not impute this yielding to light love, which the dark night hath so discovered.' " Clark shivered and felt that much worse for the too-personal impromptu changes to the script, but he'd also been pushed into saying what he had by that same magic. This was not good -- the spell was adapting.
" Love, 'by yonder blessed moon I' climb 'that tips with silver all these' hung-rope rungs--" and Lex was able to grasp the ladder!
" 'O,' a-scend 'by the moon, the inconstant moon, that monthly changes in her circled orb, lest that thy love prove likewise variable.' " Clark was getting short of breath. He was having more and more difficult a time fighting the magic, having already forced such a drastic change in the script. Romeo was not supposed to climb at Juliet's direction.
" 'What shall I' climb 'by?' " Lex was slightly breathless, and it seemed to be taking him a great deal more effort to climb the ladder than it should, as well...
" 'Do' please climb it 'all;' " and Clark grimaced as he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He gripped the balcony as his vision swam as he continued. "And," he shook slightly, "And 'if thou wilt, swear by thy gracious self, which is the god of my idolatry, and I'll believe thee.' "
" 'If my heart's dear love--' " Lex was only halfway up, and was clutching and straining at the rungs -- he was trying to move his arms upward but couldn't seem to pull his hands off of the rope, and his legs seemed invisibly weighed down as well.
Clark didn't think he could make many more changes without passing out, but Lex seemed to need help to climb any higher. " 'Well, do not swear. Although I joy in thee, I have no joy of this contract tonight.' " True enough. " 'It is too rash, too unadvised, too sudden; too like the lightning, which doth cease to be ere one can say "It lightens." Sweet, good night! This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath, may prove a beauteous flower when next we meet. Good night, good night! As sweet repose and rest come to thy heart as that within my breast!' " He'd tried, he really had, but it was all he could do to barely get out the correct words.
Lex frowned up at him a little desperately, unable to progress further. " 'O, wilt thou leave me so unsatisfied?' "
" 'What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?' " Clark breathed out disconsolately, his head sinking against the railing.
" 'The exchange of thy love's faithful vow for mine.' " Lex said simply, reaching his hand up towards Clark.
" 'I gave thee mine before thou didst request it: and yet I would it were to give again.' " Clark rejoined.
Lex smiled slowly, then gestured at the rope ladder. " 'Wouldst thou withdraw it? For what purpose, love?' " he inquired, innocently.
Clark blinked at him and sat up. " 'But to be frank, and give it thee again.' " And then Lex smiled up at him as Clark grabbed the closest rung. " 'And yet I wish but for the thing I have'!" And Clark tugged hard. " 'My' strength!" Lex chimed together with Clark "--'is as boundless as the sea, my love as deep; the more I give to thee, the more I have, for both are infinite.' " And with them both reciting the last together, Clark was able to pull Lex up over the edge -- just in time, as they collapsed together bonelessly on the plywood flooring.
Clark was panting in small breaths, unable to breath out another word. This was the time for the Nurse to call, and with that he would be forced to walk out and away, when the magical artifact needed at east two to break it. But, without the Nurse...
Without the Nurse's call, Clark couldn't get out Juliet's next line, and it was getting harder and harder to breathe.
This should not have been a problem... under normal circumstances when he could hold his breath for an age when he wasn't tired and on the verge of collapse.
Clark tried to sit up once more, levering himself upright, but collapsed again. He tried once more, straining upwards, and failed, his head slowly sinking back to the plywood floor.
Lex was searching around for something, Clark wasn't sure what. Lex started mouthing silent curses and kicking at the balcony, as Clark's vision swam again. He was so very tired, and the last scene that had been playing out on stage when Superman had grabbed the artifact -- before Lex had rewound everything to the nighttime meeting, only temporarily it seemed -- had been the death scene, with Juliet having taken the sleeping draught. If Lex didn't do something quickly...
Lex might really be forced into the role of Romeo -- receiving a fatal poisoning, conveniently magic-supplied without need of powder or cup.
But Lex looked horribly determined as he smashed the rungs to splinters, then pulled Clark up towards him. They were both barely sitting upright, but Lex had a white-knuckled grip around a good-sized chunk of railing he'd managed to break away from the scenery. Clark wrapped his hand around Lex's, they lifted their arms together...
And brought down the wood plank on the focus of the spell with all of their combined strength.
The little metal globe shattered like it was made of glass.
They heard a horrifically enraged shriek behind them, and the force of it slammed them both back against the 'house' wall.
Clark groaned and slowly sat up. He saw the witch toss a final eldritch bolt at the stage before fleeing the premises, unable to do more than lie where he was sprawled and stare at his impending death, but Zatanna intercepted and dispelled it, then followed her out in hot pursuit. Clark slumped against the wall in pure relief at the unexpected save, then glanced downward and blinked as he watched the 'metal' shards of the miniature globe steam away into pink-grey smoke until nothing remained. Clark blew softly and dissipated the last of the vapors.
"Stupid magic," Clark sighed, dropping his head back against the 'wall'. He felt drained, so much so that he was really too tired to get properly angry over it all.
Then he glanced over at Lex, who was splayed across the balcony 'floor' and looking up at Clark, eyes sparkling.
"What are you so happy about?" Superman asked petulantly. Lex's smile stretched into an ear-to-ear grin.
"I've always wanted to be in a play!"
Clark stared.
Lex laughed.
... ... ...
Continue to Part Two