Fic: Rushlight, For the 2010 Smallville Big Bang. (Part Two)
Rushlight
Author: Lexalicious70
Beta(s)dreamwvr73 and cinderella81
Word Count: 18,564
Rating: R
Pairing: Clark/Lex, Bart Allen-centric
Genre: Drama, AU, episode-related
Artist: tallihensia
Summary: When Clark and Lex decide to live together and officially begin their relationship as they work to protect Metropolis together, Clark finds himself in conflict with Lex when his good friend Bart Allen falls inexplicably ill; trust issues arise between them, but when Lex risks everything to both save Bart and repair the growing rift between himself and Clark, the results prove to be potentially deadly for himself, his partner, and for the young speedster as well.
A/N:Spoilers: Very faint for “Run,” and moderate for “Transference.” This story takes place in between the events of those episodes, though there is a longer time period between the two. Note: Lionel’s prison term began later in this story than it did in canon, shortly after the events in “Run.”
Warnings: Possible triggers for discussions of sexual assault and for PTSD. All characters owned by DC or their respective creators, not by me. A very, very special thank you to the lovely tallihensia for the great art she created for me, and for stepping in to help out.
Part One is here
An hour later, Bart stood out on the rooftop patio of the penthouse, his stomach full and his skin freshly scrubbed. A persistent but placid breeze dried his damp curls the rest of the way as he looked down at the lights of Metropolis. His long fingers gripped the railing of the balcony as he watched traffic cruise up and down the street past the building, the taillights lining up at the stoplights like a stalled parade of red commas.
“I got to be crazy,” Bart sighed. “Man, what am I doing here?”
“You came to find a friend,” Clark said from behind him, and Bart started hard before he turned. Clark paused, frowning at the tic, and then approached.
“Bart, relax.”
“I’m trying to,” Bart nodded as he rubbed his arms with both hands. Clark extended a pile of neatly-folded clothes in both hands.
“I washed your clothes for you. Is this all you have to wear?”
“I have a few more things in my pack. Don’t worry about it.”
“How much is a few?”
“Enough! Jeez, how many pairs of pants can a guy wear at once?” Bart took the offered clothes and shook out his red hoodie, which he shrugged on. When Clark had last seen it on him six months earlier, it had fit perfectly. Now, it hung on him almost a size too large. Bart had never been a big guy to begin with, and his weight loss now made him seem smaller, more fragile.
“Bart, have you been living out on the streets again? You look like you haven’t been eating enough.”
“I’m always hungry, dude, that’s nothing new, right?”
“Right. But do you want to tell me what you’ve been doing since the last time I saw you?”
“Not much. I’ve been on the road, like I said, trying to find others like me. I should probably just keep moving on.”
“You can’t go anywhere if your powers are being unpredictable. I know that Lex can help you.”
“Clark, totally no offense, but I really don’t want it.”
“Why? You don’t even know what he’s like, Bart!”
“I know what he comes from, okay? I know! Lionel Luthor is a demon! It’s like there’s no humanity in him at all!”
“Lex and I don’t hold out much hope for Lionel ever being anything less,” Clark said sharply. “But that doesn’t mean that Lex is anything like him!”
Bart put both hands to his head and gave a low moan of what sounded like pain, and Clark’s expression changed from annoyance to concern.
“Bart? Are you okay?”
“I’m gonna be sick,” Bart moaned, his lips developing a greenish tinge around them, and Clark barely got him inside and to the bathroom before Bart emptied his stomach in a series of helpless retches that made Clark wince with sympathy. He had never thrown up before, and from what it looked like, he was not eager to experience it. It left Bart weak and whimpering in pain as he groped for the square chrome button that flushed that toilet. He then slammed the lid closed and rested his forehead on the plush foam seat, his shoulders heaving. Clark patted his shoulder.
“Come on, let’s get you back to bed. You must have a virus or something.”
“Not . . . not your bed. Not gonna barf and sweat in your bed.”
Clark paused. If Bart did have a virus, he didn’t want Lex to catch it, even if Lex did claim he never got sick.
“All right.” He lifted Bart gently from under the forearms and sat him on the closed toilet seat lid. “Just stay here, and I’ll make up one of the spare rooms for you.”
Bart nodded, swaying slightly. Clark went down the hall and opened up one of the guest room doors. There were four of them, and Clark chose the one closest to his and Lex’s room so he could keep an ear out for his friend. The room was already clean thanks to their housekeeping service that came in every other day, (Lex refused to have any live-in staff,) and Clark turned down the duvet. When he stepped back out into the hallway, Lex was standing there.
“Lex? What’s wrong?”
“He’s getting worse,” Lex said, and Clark nodded.
“He just threw up and he looks really pale. I was just about to take him to the guest bedroom.”
Lex nodded, but his expression never changed.
“All right, Clark.”
“There must be someone we can call to look at him. Isn’t there a doctor you know that will come here and not say anything? His powers are gone right now anyway, it would be like treating a human!”
“We can’t risk it. If anyone discovers Bart’s abilities or yours, it’ll put you both in danger. We’ll care for him.”
Clark paused and looked down at his partner, and for the first time in five months, he saw the flicker of unshared information in Lex’s eyes. Lex turned away before Clark could be sure of what he saw, and Clark turned back into the bathroom to help Bart. The young speedster seemed half-conscious now, his skin slick with sweat. Knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to walk on his own, Clark lifted Bart into his arms, his stomach tightening in dismay as he felt how weightless the younger boy seemed. He carried him into the guest bedroom and gently laid him down. Bart looked up at him.
“Crashing and burning, amigo,” he said softly, and Clark sat down next to him.
“Don’t talk like that, Bart. You’re going to be fine. It’s probably just a flu or something.”
The corners of Bart’s mouth lifted.
“Such a bad liar that you don’t even believe yourself, man.”
Clark reached out and pushed a sweaty curl off of Bart’s forehead, wincing internally at how Bart’s skin pulsed with heat.
“Just rest for now. When you feel better, maybe we can go over where you’ve been, see if there was anything that happened that might have made you lose your powers or get sick. We’ll figure this out, Bart, I promise.”
“Really tired,” Bart murmured, his eyes sliding closed. A moment later, his breathing evened into a pattern of sleep, but the signs of fever remained on his boyish face. Clark sighed and got to his feet.
“Lex?” He called as he left the guest room and went down the hall. When he reached Lex’s study, he found it empty. “Lex?” He called again as he went into the living room and then the kitchen. When he found no sign of his lover, Clark paused and focused his hearing on Lex’s pulse. It beat strong and a little faster than usual, and Clark followed it into the living room and then out onto the outdoor patio, where the small botanical garden and hot tub was. There was also a collection of outdoor furniture here, including a massive oak glider with thick pillows that could easily seat seven people and had to be flown in by helicopter when Lex had bought it from a high-end furniture company in Boston. It was on this glider that Clark found Lex. He barely glanced up as Clark came out onto the patio with its geometrical white, grey, and lavender marble tiles.
“I was looking for you,” he said as he sat down, and Lex nodded as he glanced down at the ground.
“I know. I just needed a few moments to think.”
“Are you trying to think of a way to help Bart?”
“Clark . . . I want you to understand something. You grew up in Smallville, and you saw a number of metas self-destruct soon after they came into their abilities. Their minds warped or their bodies simply couldn’t handle the changes. You may have to prepare yourself for the fact that this is what may be happening to Bart. His abilities may be the very thing that’s destroying him.”
Clark’s eyes widened and he shook his head.
“That can’t be right, Lex! Bart has had his speeding ability since he was fourteen! Don’t you think if his body couldn’t take the speed that he would already have burnt himself out by now? He’s seventeen! And his powers vanished before he got sick. Why would they do that if they were the thing that was causing this?”
“If his abilities are the catalyst that’s causing this sickness, it may be that they’ve gone into hibernation. What I’m trying to tell you is that there might not be anything we can do.”
“I can’t just accept that, Lex. Not until we’ve looked into other options! I’m going to call Chloe, see if she dig up anything on metas and sickness like this . . . in the meantime I’ll do some research of my own.”
The corners of Lex’s mouth tightened as Clark got to his feet.
“Clark-”
“I know you don’t know him and that he hates your father, Lex, and I can work on that with him, but he’s my friend! He’s sick and he’s scared, and he’s just a kid! I can’t let him die just because you say there might not be anything we can do! Look, if you’re not going to help me, can you at least stay with him until I get back? I have to go talk to Chloe.”
Lex nodded.
“Of course I will.”
Four days passed. Bart grew sicker by degrees; his fever spiked twice but never broke, and Clark tried to quell the worst of it with cool baths. The young speedster was so weak that he could no longer stand on his own, and he could only take a minimal amount of food. Clark managed to keep him hydrated with water and distilled fruit juice and then with popsicles made from the same, but Bart got no stronger. He slept in fitful dozes of an hour or maybe two before he woke up with stabbing pains in his temples and forehead that made him curl up and moan in pain and nausea before they finally passed again. When Clark wasn’t sitting with him or working, he spent hours at his laptop, diving into the Daily Planet archives online for some link between Bart’s mysterious illness and his meta abilities. He kept in close contact with Chloe, who was doing the same between her classes at Met U. Clark had shared his secret with her around the same time he’d told Lex, and ever since then, Chloe had been a steadfast ally.
Lex also sat with Bart at times, but as the days passed, Clark noticed that Lex grew increasingly anxious around him. He found excuses to stay late at work, to stay up late in his study, to get out of bed in the morning before Clark woke up. His gaze met Clark’s less and less, and although he sometimes helped Clark with his evening research, he offered Clark no new ideas or hypothesis about how to help. Several times, he reminded Clark that metas often burned out long before their time, but every time Clark looked into Bart’s eyes, it only strengthened his resolve to prevent it.
On the fourth night of Bart’s illness, Lex stayed late at the lab again, losing track of the time when Clark failed to send him his usual text about dinner. It was nearly eleven p.m. when Lex finally glanced up, and he fished his phone from his pocket, surprised by the time. There were no messages from Clark, so Lex shrugged on his coat and flicked off his lights as he left the lab. He dialed Clark’s cell as he got to the garage, and then again on the five-block drive home, but there was no answer either time. Lex parked in the penthouse’s private garage fifteen minutes later and dialed again, cursing softly as he got into the elevator. Clark’s cell went to voice mail almost instantly, and Lex barked into the speaker after the tone sounded.
“Clark? You’d better have a damned good excuse for refusing my calls! I’m coming up the elevator, and I want an explanation when I get there!” Lex ended the call, reflecting briefly that one of the main disadvantages of a cell phone was that there was no way to slam one down when ending a frustrating call. The elevator doors slid open and Lex used his key card to open the outer doors. Before he could unlock the door to the apartment, however, it swung open hard and Clark’s broad form filled the doorway. Lex looked up at him and then took a sudden step back as he saw the fury and the menace in Clark’s eyes.
“A good excuse?” Clark’s words were quiet and evenly measured, but that took none of the anger out of them. Lex would have found it much more comforting if Clark were shouting them.
“You’re on the phone demanding a good excuse and an explanation from me? I think you’re the one who owes me an explanation, Lex!” He opened the door the rest of the way to allow Lex inside. Lex set down his briefcase and took off his coat as he watched Clark’s nostrils flare.
“So you found the chip. I wondered how long it would be until you broke your own rule about using your x-ray vision on people.”
“You knew!” Clark seemed to implode rather than explode with these words, as his voice remained quiet but became hoarse and tight and his fair skin went ruddy. “You knew about the chip in Bart’s brain, but you let me think there was nothing I could do! You told me that he might be self destructing because of his powers while the whole time there was a Lexcorp chip in his head!” Clark’s big fists clenched and Lex watched them carefully; while Clark had never laid a hand on him during any of their arguments, Lex had never seen his young lover look so furious as he did right now.
“I suspected.” Lex nodded. “But no, I didn’t know for sure. It’s difficult to tell whether or not Bart remembers what happened to him, or if he’s simply pretending that it didn’t happen. Have you asked him?”
“Have I asked him? Bart is in there dying from whatever you put into him, Lex!” Clark pointed toward the guest bedroom. “Why are you still lying to me?”
“Clark, please. I swear to you, I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Bart. After my father poisoned me and I nearly died, he took over most of my holdings and all of my labs until they arrested him almost four months later! All of my research on metas and all the technology I was trying to develop became available to him. When I came out of the coma and my father went to prison for trying to kill both me and Chloe, and after you told me the truth about yourself, I couldn’t risk going back to the labs to find out exactly what he had done. Once I found out that the buildings were abandoned, all I could do was hope that the ones he took had been released or had escaped . . . one way or another. The technology that’s been implanted into Bart was done so by my father, not by me. Clark, you have to believe me.”
“You knew about what your father had done while you were in the coma? That Bart might have been held in one of those labs?” Clark’s eyes went wide. “Is that why you were trying to convince me that he might die and that there wasn’t anything I could do? So you could hide the evidence? So that Bart would be dead and you could keep your secrets?”
The horror in Clark’s voice made Lex’s lungs suddenly feel too big for his chest. It felt crowded, impossibly cramped.
“Clark, you have to understand. I was trying-” Lex paused and ran a hand over his bare scalp. “I was trying to protect you! Those chips are fail-safes that were developed by Lexcorp for its test subjects in case they escape. They release a slow-acting bacteria into the system that mimics other diseases, such as dangerous viruses. After a time, the subject eventually loses his or her abilities, becomes very ill, and eventually dies. The chip is rigged to dissolve when the test subject’s heart stops beating, as if it was never there. If an autopsy is performed, the bacteria shows up on post-mortem exams, but as a natural phenomenon. Most of the time, it looks as though that person has died of untreated pneumonia or pleurisy, or some sort of aggressive flu. The chips were still in the testing phase when my father poisoned me, Clark! If he used them, I had no knowledge of it! I couldn’t risk going back to the labs or pursuing the fate of the subjects that were still in the labs when I awoke and you told me your secret! You never would have believed that I wasn’t pursuing the work I had started before then!”
Clark’s eyes closed, the long ebony lashes sweeping down against his cheeks before they rose again to reveal Clark’s wounded green eyes.
“You’ve always said that if we trusted each other then there was nothing we couldn’t tell each other. I can’t believe you kept this from me! I can’t believe you were willing to let Bart die in order to be able to sweep your experiments under the rug! You should have trusted me, Lex!”
“It’s not about trusting you, Clark! It’s about trying to let the last vestiges of my father’s work fade! I’m sorry about Bart, but you have to understand that there’s nothing you can do! That chip has already done its work and there’s no reversing it! Bart’s going to die, and the last of my father’s failed meta experiments will die with him!”
Clark stared at Lex for a few moments and Lex felt his stomach knot and clench. Sweat broke out in a thin sheen across his upper lip. He began to speak, but then Clark turned and stalked back down the hall toward the guest room. The door shut a moment later, and the apartment fell silent. Lex picked up his briefcase and went into his study, his stomach still wound into tight knots; he didn’t need his partner’s X-ray vision to see that with this revelation, the trust that he had built with Clark over the last four months had just crashed down around them.
After leaving Lex in the hallway, Clark closed the guest bedroom door and then leaned against it as he put both hands to his head.
How could he have kept this from me? How could he just stand there and let Bart die because of what his father did? Why didn’t he trust me? Clark looked across the room to where Bart lay either asleep or unconscious, his thin frame almost lost in the dark blue duvet. Does Bart remember what happened to him or is the chip affecting his memory, too?
“I know what he comes from, okay? I know! Lionel Luthor is a demon! It’s like there’s no humanity in him at all!"
Bart’s words, tight with panic and fear, echoed up from Clark’s memory and he straightened, his eyes wide. The young speedster’s wariness of Lex, his accusations, his anger at finding Lex living there . . .
“He does remember,” Clark said to himself. He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. Bart stirred a little and drew his knees to his chest, his expression pinching up in pain. Clark squeezed his shoulder, trying to wake him.
“Bart?”
The younger man’s eyes flew open all at once. They were still glazed with fever, the corneas dull and dry-looking.
“Clark.” His name was a reedy whisper. Clark nodded and slipped his big hands under Bart’s arms, helping him sit up against the pillows.
“I need to ask you something, Bart, and I need the truth.”
“Do my best, amigo,” Bart muttered. “Hard to focus on much of anything.”
“I need you to try.” Clark poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher on the table and put it in Bart’s hands. “Sip.”
Bart obeyed, his hands shaking with the palsy of illness. He licked his lips, and Clark took the glass from him.
“When you first came here looking for me . . . I know you didn’t expect to find me living with Lex . . . but that’s not what upset you, was it. It was because of Lionel.”
Bart closed his eyes.
“Don’t, Clark. Please.”
“How long were you in one of his facilities before you escaped or were set free, Bart? Do you remember what they did to you? Do you know why you’re sick?”
Bart put both hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut.
“No! Leave me alone, Clark!”
“You have to tell me the truth! Is that why you came to look for me? Because you knew what was happening to you? That’s why you reacted so badly to Lex. You said you know what Lionel Luthor is capable of. Tell me what he did to you! I can’t help you unless you do!”
Bart slowly lowered his hands and opened his eyes. The fine grey irises were filmy with tears.
“You remember that day you asked me to stay, and we raced?”
Clark nodded.
“You said if I could catch you, you’d think about staying.”
Bart nodded and then his expression dissolved into tears.
“I should have let you catch me! I should have stayed where I was safe!” He cried, and Clark slipped his arms around Bart, uncomfortably aware of the protrusion of Bart’s ribs and collarbone as the younger man leaned against him. He stroked a hand through Bart’s hair.
“It’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”
“After I left, I went to Metropolis for awhile. Figured it was the best place to try and start over, maybe find other people like us. I looked for awhile, and it was about two weeks later that this guy approached me at this place where they sold cheap food, you know, hot dogs, hamburgers, nachos, stuff like that. I didn’t have a whole lot of cash, and after hanging out with you and with everything that happened, I didn’t want to swipe anything. He told me I could make a lot of money in a really short time, and that he could show me how if I met him that night at the Three Penny Theatre downtown.”
“The Three Penny? That’s a really bad neighborhood, Bart! It didn’t occur to you that it might be dangerous?”
Bart held up a trembling hand.
“Can you hold all lectures until I’m done, Stretch? This is hard as it is, okay?”
“Sorry.” Clark nodded and rubbed Bart’s back. “Go on.”
“He told me to meet him out front, but when I got there, there was no one waiting, so I went around the side to check out the alley. There was this huge flash of light and I remember thinking that I’d been set on fire or something, but then I passed out.” Bart wiped his eyes. “And when I woke up . . . I was in a cage. The bars glowed orange and sent out gravity waves to keep me from speeding. There were all these monitors stuck to me, and . . . and I was naked. I started yelling for help, and that’s when he walked in.”
“Lionel?” Clark asked, and Bart nodded.
“Yeah. He didn’t tell me to be quiet or anything. It was weird. He just smiled at me. He smiled and said that he’d never seen anyone before in his whole life who was so unique, and that he’d been watching me ever since I’d shown up in the Met.”
Clark’s stomach clenched. Thanks to his connections and his natural ability to squirm out from under legal troubles, Lionel hadn’t been arrested for Lex’s and Chloe’s attempted murders until about a little under four months after Bart had left Smallville; three of those during which he had no doubt spent his days experimenting on metas that he captured, using the research and technology Lex had developed before he had abandoned it all for Clark.
“How long you were there, Bart?” He asked, and Bart shook his head.
“Lost track of time. There were no windows where I was, and they didn’t let me sleep a whole lot. When I finally got out and got the chance to look at a newspaper, I realized that I’d been there about four months, give or take a week?”
Clark nodded; that fit with his own time frame. “How did you escape?”
“I didn’t. I think the place got raided. Bunch of guys with guns came through and freed us all. I was weak but I could still speed, so I just got the hell out of there as fast as I could.”
“All of the Luthorcorp facilities were shut down after Lionel got arrested,” Clark said. “But the survivors they found were taken to hospitals or returned to their families.”
“Think I was sticking around to get put into another cage or strapped to a bed?” Bart asked. “No way. Just tried to forget about most of it. Then, a few weeks ago, I started feeling sick all the time. Headaches, got sick a lot after I ate.” His grey eyes tipped up to Clark’s green ones. “That’s when I knew I had to find you, man. I knew you’d help. If you say that Lex isn’t anything like his old man, then he’ll help, too. Right?”
Clark closed his eyes.
“How much do you remember about being in the lab, Bart? Do you remember anything at all?”
Bart laid back and paused as if talking had winded him.
“Some stuff, yeah. Most of it. Other stuff is kind of blurry. The rest of it . . . I just want to forget. Lionel’s goons, the ones that ran the lab when he wasn’t around . . . they did whatever they felt like with us. There was this girl in the cell next to mine. She was blonde, tiny . . . I’m not sure what kinds of powers she had, but the guards were in there every night. She’d scream for help-” Bart closed his eyes. “This one night, a bunch of them went in. She started screaming, but then after awhile, it got quiet.” Bart swallowed hard. “The next day, she was gone and there was someone new in the cell. Never saw her again.”
Clark’s stomach gave a sudden lurch. While his friend was indeed male, he was also petite, slender, and had fine features, things that might make him a target for bigger, eager men who were alone in the dark with a bunch of helpless teenagers.
“Did they ever touch you?” He asked, and the sudden, hard flinch Bart gave Clark his answer. His throat closed with sympathy. “Bart.”
“There was no way to fight them, man!” Bart said, his voice breaking. “It mostly happened at night or during the tests, when we were strapped down. They’d take my . . . my stuff . . . for tests, and Lionel would watch. He did it himself a few times.” Bart wiped his face. “And he always looked like he was having a really good time when he was doing it. The bastard! I hope he’s rotting in that damn jail cell!”
“He’s in there for life, Bart. He’s not going to hurt anyone else.” Clark lifted the blankets and covered his friend, and then stroked a careful hand over Bart’s curly hair, along the curve of his skull where he’d seen the chip, and there it was-the ridge of a scar on the scalp where the chip had been implanted. Bart didn’t flinch or complain, which told Clark his suspicions were correct; Bart suspected that something was terribly wrong or that he might even be dying, but he didn’t know the real reason why. “Don’t worry, okay?”
“Think Lex can help me?” Bart asked. “He’s a scientist . . . and if you trust him, I have to trust him, too.”
Clark looked away so that his young friend wouldn’t see the doubt in his eyes.
“We’re both going to do everything we can,” he said, but by the time he looked back up, Bart had already fallen back into an uncomfortable sleep. Clark rose and left the bedroom, and as he shut the door, he realized that the house had fallen completely silent, and the steady, reassuring pulse of Lex’s heartbeat, present since the day Clark had moved in, was now missing.
Part Three
Author: Lexalicious70
Beta(s)dreamwvr73 and cinderella81
Word Count: 18,564
Rating: R
Pairing: Clark/Lex, Bart Allen-centric
Genre: Drama, AU, episode-related
Artist: tallihensia
Summary: When Clark and Lex decide to live together and officially begin their relationship as they work to protect Metropolis together, Clark finds himself in conflict with Lex when his good friend Bart Allen falls inexplicably ill; trust issues arise between them, but when Lex risks everything to both save Bart and repair the growing rift between himself and Clark, the results prove to be potentially deadly for himself, his partner, and for the young speedster as well.
A/N:Spoilers: Very faint for “Run,” and moderate for “Transference.” This story takes place in between the events of those episodes, though there is a longer time period between the two. Note: Lionel’s prison term began later in this story than it did in canon, shortly after the events in “Run.”
Warnings: Possible triggers for discussions of sexual assault and for PTSD. All characters owned by DC or their respective creators, not by me. A very, very special thank you to the lovely tallihensia for the great art she created for me, and for stepping in to help out.
Part One is here
An hour later, Bart stood out on the rooftop patio of the penthouse, his stomach full and his skin freshly scrubbed. A persistent but placid breeze dried his damp curls the rest of the way as he looked down at the lights of Metropolis. His long fingers gripped the railing of the balcony as he watched traffic cruise up and down the street past the building, the taillights lining up at the stoplights like a stalled parade of red commas.
“I got to be crazy,” Bart sighed. “Man, what am I doing here?”
“You came to find a friend,” Clark said from behind him, and Bart started hard before he turned. Clark paused, frowning at the tic, and then approached.
“Bart, relax.”
“I’m trying to,” Bart nodded as he rubbed his arms with both hands. Clark extended a pile of neatly-folded clothes in both hands.
“I washed your clothes for you. Is this all you have to wear?”
“I have a few more things in my pack. Don’t worry about it.”
“How much is a few?”
“Enough! Jeez, how many pairs of pants can a guy wear at once?” Bart took the offered clothes and shook out his red hoodie, which he shrugged on. When Clark had last seen it on him six months earlier, it had fit perfectly. Now, it hung on him almost a size too large. Bart had never been a big guy to begin with, and his weight loss now made him seem smaller, more fragile.
“Bart, have you been living out on the streets again? You look like you haven’t been eating enough.”
“I’m always hungry, dude, that’s nothing new, right?”
“Right. But do you want to tell me what you’ve been doing since the last time I saw you?”
“Not much. I’ve been on the road, like I said, trying to find others like me. I should probably just keep moving on.”
“You can’t go anywhere if your powers are being unpredictable. I know that Lex can help you.”
“Clark, totally no offense, but I really don’t want it.”
“Why? You don’t even know what he’s like, Bart!”
“I know what he comes from, okay? I know! Lionel Luthor is a demon! It’s like there’s no humanity in him at all!”
“Lex and I don’t hold out much hope for Lionel ever being anything less,” Clark said sharply. “But that doesn’t mean that Lex is anything like him!”
Bart put both hands to his head and gave a low moan of what sounded like pain, and Clark’s expression changed from annoyance to concern.
“Bart? Are you okay?”
“I’m gonna be sick,” Bart moaned, his lips developing a greenish tinge around them, and Clark barely got him inside and to the bathroom before Bart emptied his stomach in a series of helpless retches that made Clark wince with sympathy. He had never thrown up before, and from what it looked like, he was not eager to experience it. It left Bart weak and whimpering in pain as he groped for the square chrome button that flushed that toilet. He then slammed the lid closed and rested his forehead on the plush foam seat, his shoulders heaving. Clark patted his shoulder.
“Come on, let’s get you back to bed. You must have a virus or something.”
“Not . . . not your bed. Not gonna barf and sweat in your bed.”
Clark paused. If Bart did have a virus, he didn’t want Lex to catch it, even if Lex did claim he never got sick.
“All right.” He lifted Bart gently from under the forearms and sat him on the closed toilet seat lid. “Just stay here, and I’ll make up one of the spare rooms for you.”
Bart nodded, swaying slightly. Clark went down the hall and opened up one of the guest room doors. There were four of them, and Clark chose the one closest to his and Lex’s room so he could keep an ear out for his friend. The room was already clean thanks to their housekeeping service that came in every other day, (Lex refused to have any live-in staff,) and Clark turned down the duvet. When he stepped back out into the hallway, Lex was standing there.
“Lex? What’s wrong?”
“He’s getting worse,” Lex said, and Clark nodded.
“He just threw up and he looks really pale. I was just about to take him to the guest bedroom.”
Lex nodded, but his expression never changed.
“All right, Clark.”
“There must be someone we can call to look at him. Isn’t there a doctor you know that will come here and not say anything? His powers are gone right now anyway, it would be like treating a human!”
“We can’t risk it. If anyone discovers Bart’s abilities or yours, it’ll put you both in danger. We’ll care for him.”
Clark paused and looked down at his partner, and for the first time in five months, he saw the flicker of unshared information in Lex’s eyes. Lex turned away before Clark could be sure of what he saw, and Clark turned back into the bathroom to help Bart. The young speedster seemed half-conscious now, his skin slick with sweat. Knowing he probably wouldn’t be able to walk on his own, Clark lifted Bart into his arms, his stomach tightening in dismay as he felt how weightless the younger boy seemed. He carried him into the guest bedroom and gently laid him down. Bart looked up at him.
“Crashing and burning, amigo,” he said softly, and Clark sat down next to him.
“Don’t talk like that, Bart. You’re going to be fine. It’s probably just a flu or something.”
The corners of Bart’s mouth lifted.
“Such a bad liar that you don’t even believe yourself, man.”
Clark reached out and pushed a sweaty curl off of Bart’s forehead, wincing internally at how Bart’s skin pulsed with heat.
“Just rest for now. When you feel better, maybe we can go over where you’ve been, see if there was anything that happened that might have made you lose your powers or get sick. We’ll figure this out, Bart, I promise.”
“Really tired,” Bart murmured, his eyes sliding closed. A moment later, his breathing evened into a pattern of sleep, but the signs of fever remained on his boyish face. Clark sighed and got to his feet.
“Lex?” He called as he left the guest room and went down the hall. When he reached Lex’s study, he found it empty. “Lex?” He called again as he went into the living room and then the kitchen. When he found no sign of his lover, Clark paused and focused his hearing on Lex’s pulse. It beat strong and a little faster than usual, and Clark followed it into the living room and then out onto the outdoor patio, where the small botanical garden and hot tub was. There was also a collection of outdoor furniture here, including a massive oak glider with thick pillows that could easily seat seven people and had to be flown in by helicopter when Lex had bought it from a high-end furniture company in Boston. It was on this glider that Clark found Lex. He barely glanced up as Clark came out onto the patio with its geometrical white, grey, and lavender marble tiles.
“I was looking for you,” he said as he sat down, and Lex nodded as he glanced down at the ground.
“I know. I just needed a few moments to think.”
“Are you trying to think of a way to help Bart?”
“Clark . . . I want you to understand something. You grew up in Smallville, and you saw a number of metas self-destruct soon after they came into their abilities. Their minds warped or their bodies simply couldn’t handle the changes. You may have to prepare yourself for the fact that this is what may be happening to Bart. His abilities may be the very thing that’s destroying him.”
Clark’s eyes widened and he shook his head.
“That can’t be right, Lex! Bart has had his speeding ability since he was fourteen! Don’t you think if his body couldn’t take the speed that he would already have burnt himself out by now? He’s seventeen! And his powers vanished before he got sick. Why would they do that if they were the thing that was causing this?”
“If his abilities are the catalyst that’s causing this sickness, it may be that they’ve gone into hibernation. What I’m trying to tell you is that there might not be anything we can do.”
“I can’t just accept that, Lex. Not until we’ve looked into other options! I’m going to call Chloe, see if she dig up anything on metas and sickness like this . . . in the meantime I’ll do some research of my own.”
The corners of Lex’s mouth tightened as Clark got to his feet.
“Clark-”
“I know you don’t know him and that he hates your father, Lex, and I can work on that with him, but he’s my friend! He’s sick and he’s scared, and he’s just a kid! I can’t let him die just because you say there might not be anything we can do! Look, if you’re not going to help me, can you at least stay with him until I get back? I have to go talk to Chloe.”
Lex nodded.
“Of course I will.”
Four days passed. Bart grew sicker by degrees; his fever spiked twice but never broke, and Clark tried to quell the worst of it with cool baths. The young speedster was so weak that he could no longer stand on his own, and he could only take a minimal amount of food. Clark managed to keep him hydrated with water and distilled fruit juice and then with popsicles made from the same, but Bart got no stronger. He slept in fitful dozes of an hour or maybe two before he woke up with stabbing pains in his temples and forehead that made him curl up and moan in pain and nausea before they finally passed again. When Clark wasn’t sitting with him or working, he spent hours at his laptop, diving into the Daily Planet archives online for some link between Bart’s mysterious illness and his meta abilities. He kept in close contact with Chloe, who was doing the same between her classes at Met U. Clark had shared his secret with her around the same time he’d told Lex, and ever since then, Chloe had been a steadfast ally.
Lex also sat with Bart at times, but as the days passed, Clark noticed that Lex grew increasingly anxious around him. He found excuses to stay late at work, to stay up late in his study, to get out of bed in the morning before Clark woke up. His gaze met Clark’s less and less, and although he sometimes helped Clark with his evening research, he offered Clark no new ideas or hypothesis about how to help. Several times, he reminded Clark that metas often burned out long before their time, but every time Clark looked into Bart’s eyes, it only strengthened his resolve to prevent it.
On the fourth night of Bart’s illness, Lex stayed late at the lab again, losing track of the time when Clark failed to send him his usual text about dinner. It was nearly eleven p.m. when Lex finally glanced up, and he fished his phone from his pocket, surprised by the time. There were no messages from Clark, so Lex shrugged on his coat and flicked off his lights as he left the lab. He dialed Clark’s cell as he got to the garage, and then again on the five-block drive home, but there was no answer either time. Lex parked in the penthouse’s private garage fifteen minutes later and dialed again, cursing softly as he got into the elevator. Clark’s cell went to voice mail almost instantly, and Lex barked into the speaker after the tone sounded.
“Clark? You’d better have a damned good excuse for refusing my calls! I’m coming up the elevator, and I want an explanation when I get there!” Lex ended the call, reflecting briefly that one of the main disadvantages of a cell phone was that there was no way to slam one down when ending a frustrating call. The elevator doors slid open and Lex used his key card to open the outer doors. Before he could unlock the door to the apartment, however, it swung open hard and Clark’s broad form filled the doorway. Lex looked up at him and then took a sudden step back as he saw the fury and the menace in Clark’s eyes.
“A good excuse?” Clark’s words were quiet and evenly measured, but that took none of the anger out of them. Lex would have found it much more comforting if Clark were shouting them.
“You’re on the phone demanding a good excuse and an explanation from me? I think you’re the one who owes me an explanation, Lex!” He opened the door the rest of the way to allow Lex inside. Lex set down his briefcase and took off his coat as he watched Clark’s nostrils flare.
“So you found the chip. I wondered how long it would be until you broke your own rule about using your x-ray vision on people.”
“You knew!” Clark seemed to implode rather than explode with these words, as his voice remained quiet but became hoarse and tight and his fair skin went ruddy. “You knew about the chip in Bart’s brain, but you let me think there was nothing I could do! You told me that he might be self destructing because of his powers while the whole time there was a Lexcorp chip in his head!” Clark’s big fists clenched and Lex watched them carefully; while Clark had never laid a hand on him during any of their arguments, Lex had never seen his young lover look so furious as he did right now.
“I suspected.” Lex nodded. “But no, I didn’t know for sure. It’s difficult to tell whether or not Bart remembers what happened to him, or if he’s simply pretending that it didn’t happen. Have you asked him?”
“Have I asked him? Bart is in there dying from whatever you put into him, Lex!” Clark pointed toward the guest bedroom. “Why are you still lying to me?”
“Clark, please. I swear to you, I didn’t have anything to do with what happened to Bart. After my father poisoned me and I nearly died, he took over most of my holdings and all of my labs until they arrested him almost four months later! All of my research on metas and all the technology I was trying to develop became available to him. When I came out of the coma and my father went to prison for trying to kill both me and Chloe, and after you told me the truth about yourself, I couldn’t risk going back to the labs to find out exactly what he had done. Once I found out that the buildings were abandoned, all I could do was hope that the ones he took had been released or had escaped . . . one way or another. The technology that’s been implanted into Bart was done so by my father, not by me. Clark, you have to believe me.”
“You knew about what your father had done while you were in the coma? That Bart might have been held in one of those labs?” Clark’s eyes went wide. “Is that why you were trying to convince me that he might die and that there wasn’t anything I could do? So you could hide the evidence? So that Bart would be dead and you could keep your secrets?”
The horror in Clark’s voice made Lex’s lungs suddenly feel too big for his chest. It felt crowded, impossibly cramped.
“Clark, you have to understand. I was trying-” Lex paused and ran a hand over his bare scalp. “I was trying to protect you! Those chips are fail-safes that were developed by Lexcorp for its test subjects in case they escape. They release a slow-acting bacteria into the system that mimics other diseases, such as dangerous viruses. After a time, the subject eventually loses his or her abilities, becomes very ill, and eventually dies. The chip is rigged to dissolve when the test subject’s heart stops beating, as if it was never there. If an autopsy is performed, the bacteria shows up on post-mortem exams, but as a natural phenomenon. Most of the time, it looks as though that person has died of untreated pneumonia or pleurisy, or some sort of aggressive flu. The chips were still in the testing phase when my father poisoned me, Clark! If he used them, I had no knowledge of it! I couldn’t risk going back to the labs or pursuing the fate of the subjects that were still in the labs when I awoke and you told me your secret! You never would have believed that I wasn’t pursuing the work I had started before then!”
Clark’s eyes closed, the long ebony lashes sweeping down against his cheeks before they rose again to reveal Clark’s wounded green eyes.
“You’ve always said that if we trusted each other then there was nothing we couldn’t tell each other. I can’t believe you kept this from me! I can’t believe you were willing to let Bart die in order to be able to sweep your experiments under the rug! You should have trusted me, Lex!”
“It’s not about trusting you, Clark! It’s about trying to let the last vestiges of my father’s work fade! I’m sorry about Bart, but you have to understand that there’s nothing you can do! That chip has already done its work and there’s no reversing it! Bart’s going to die, and the last of my father’s failed meta experiments will die with him!”
Clark stared at Lex for a few moments and Lex felt his stomach knot and clench. Sweat broke out in a thin sheen across his upper lip. He began to speak, but then Clark turned and stalked back down the hall toward the guest room. The door shut a moment later, and the apartment fell silent. Lex picked up his briefcase and went into his study, his stomach still wound into tight knots; he didn’t need his partner’s X-ray vision to see that with this revelation, the trust that he had built with Clark over the last four months had just crashed down around them.
After leaving Lex in the hallway, Clark closed the guest bedroom door and then leaned against it as he put both hands to his head.
How could he have kept this from me? How could he just stand there and let Bart die because of what his father did? Why didn’t he trust me? Clark looked across the room to where Bart lay either asleep or unconscious, his thin frame almost lost in the dark blue duvet. Does Bart remember what happened to him or is the chip affecting his memory, too?
“I know what he comes from, okay? I know! Lionel Luthor is a demon! It’s like there’s no humanity in him at all!"
Bart’s words, tight with panic and fear, echoed up from Clark’s memory and he straightened, his eyes wide. The young speedster’s wariness of Lex, his accusations, his anger at finding Lex living there . . .
“He does remember,” Clark said to himself. He crossed the room and sat down on the edge of the bed. Bart stirred a little and drew his knees to his chest, his expression pinching up in pain. Clark squeezed his shoulder, trying to wake him.
“Bart?”
The younger man’s eyes flew open all at once. They were still glazed with fever, the corneas dull and dry-looking.
“Clark.” His name was a reedy whisper. Clark nodded and slipped his big hands under Bart’s arms, helping him sit up against the pillows.
“I need to ask you something, Bart, and I need the truth.”
“Do my best, amigo,” Bart muttered. “Hard to focus on much of anything.”
“I need you to try.” Clark poured a glass of ice water from the pitcher on the table and put it in Bart’s hands. “Sip.”
Bart obeyed, his hands shaking with the palsy of illness. He licked his lips, and Clark took the glass from him.
“When you first came here looking for me . . . I know you didn’t expect to find me living with Lex . . . but that’s not what upset you, was it. It was because of Lionel.”
Bart closed his eyes.
“Don’t, Clark. Please.”
“How long were you in one of his facilities before you escaped or were set free, Bart? Do you remember what they did to you? Do you know why you’re sick?”
Bart put both hands to his head and squeezed his eyes shut.
“No! Leave me alone, Clark!”
“You have to tell me the truth! Is that why you came to look for me? Because you knew what was happening to you? That’s why you reacted so badly to Lex. You said you know what Lionel Luthor is capable of. Tell me what he did to you! I can’t help you unless you do!”
Bart slowly lowered his hands and opened his eyes. The fine grey irises were filmy with tears.
“You remember that day you asked me to stay, and we raced?”
Clark nodded.
“You said if I could catch you, you’d think about staying.”
Bart nodded and then his expression dissolved into tears.
“I should have let you catch me! I should have stayed where I was safe!” He cried, and Clark slipped his arms around Bart, uncomfortably aware of the protrusion of Bart’s ribs and collarbone as the younger man leaned against him. He stroked a hand through Bart’s hair.
“It’s okay. Just tell me what happened.”
“After I left, I went to Metropolis for awhile. Figured it was the best place to try and start over, maybe find other people like us. I looked for awhile, and it was about two weeks later that this guy approached me at this place where they sold cheap food, you know, hot dogs, hamburgers, nachos, stuff like that. I didn’t have a whole lot of cash, and after hanging out with you and with everything that happened, I didn’t want to swipe anything. He told me I could make a lot of money in a really short time, and that he could show me how if I met him that night at the Three Penny Theatre downtown.”
“The Three Penny? That’s a really bad neighborhood, Bart! It didn’t occur to you that it might be dangerous?”
Bart held up a trembling hand.
“Can you hold all lectures until I’m done, Stretch? This is hard as it is, okay?”
“Sorry.” Clark nodded and rubbed Bart’s back. “Go on.”
“He told me to meet him out front, but when I got there, there was no one waiting, so I went around the side to check out the alley. There was this huge flash of light and I remember thinking that I’d been set on fire or something, but then I passed out.” Bart wiped his eyes. “And when I woke up . . . I was in a cage. The bars glowed orange and sent out gravity waves to keep me from speeding. There were all these monitors stuck to me, and . . . and I was naked. I started yelling for help, and that’s when he walked in.”
“Lionel?” Clark asked, and Bart nodded.
“Yeah. He didn’t tell me to be quiet or anything. It was weird. He just smiled at me. He smiled and said that he’d never seen anyone before in his whole life who was so unique, and that he’d been watching me ever since I’d shown up in the Met.”
Clark’s stomach clenched. Thanks to his connections and his natural ability to squirm out from under legal troubles, Lionel hadn’t been arrested for Lex’s and Chloe’s attempted murders until about a little under four months after Bart had left Smallville; three of those during which he had no doubt spent his days experimenting on metas that he captured, using the research and technology Lex had developed before he had abandoned it all for Clark.
“How long you were there, Bart?” He asked, and Bart shook his head.
“Lost track of time. There were no windows where I was, and they didn’t let me sleep a whole lot. When I finally got out and got the chance to look at a newspaper, I realized that I’d been there about four months, give or take a week?”
Clark nodded; that fit with his own time frame. “How did you escape?”
“I didn’t. I think the place got raided. Bunch of guys with guns came through and freed us all. I was weak but I could still speed, so I just got the hell out of there as fast as I could.”
“All of the Luthorcorp facilities were shut down after Lionel got arrested,” Clark said. “But the survivors they found were taken to hospitals or returned to their families.”
“Think I was sticking around to get put into another cage or strapped to a bed?” Bart asked. “No way. Just tried to forget about most of it. Then, a few weeks ago, I started feeling sick all the time. Headaches, got sick a lot after I ate.” His grey eyes tipped up to Clark’s green ones. “That’s when I knew I had to find you, man. I knew you’d help. If you say that Lex isn’t anything like his old man, then he’ll help, too. Right?”
Clark closed his eyes.
“How much do you remember about being in the lab, Bart? Do you remember anything at all?”
Bart laid back and paused as if talking had winded him.
“Some stuff, yeah. Most of it. Other stuff is kind of blurry. The rest of it . . . I just want to forget. Lionel’s goons, the ones that ran the lab when he wasn’t around . . . they did whatever they felt like with us. There was this girl in the cell next to mine. She was blonde, tiny . . . I’m not sure what kinds of powers she had, but the guards were in there every night. She’d scream for help-” Bart closed his eyes. “This one night, a bunch of them went in. She started screaming, but then after awhile, it got quiet.” Bart swallowed hard. “The next day, she was gone and there was someone new in the cell. Never saw her again.”
Clark’s stomach gave a sudden lurch. While his friend was indeed male, he was also petite, slender, and had fine features, things that might make him a target for bigger, eager men who were alone in the dark with a bunch of helpless teenagers.
“Did they ever touch you?” He asked, and the sudden, hard flinch Bart gave Clark his answer. His throat closed with sympathy. “Bart.”
“There was no way to fight them, man!” Bart said, his voice breaking. “It mostly happened at night or during the tests, when we were strapped down. They’d take my . . . my stuff . . . for tests, and Lionel would watch. He did it himself a few times.” Bart wiped his face. “And he always looked like he was having a really good time when he was doing it. The bastard! I hope he’s rotting in that damn jail cell!”
“He’s in there for life, Bart. He’s not going to hurt anyone else.” Clark lifted the blankets and covered his friend, and then stroked a careful hand over Bart’s curly hair, along the curve of his skull where he’d seen the chip, and there it was-the ridge of a scar on the scalp where the chip had been implanted. Bart didn’t flinch or complain, which told Clark his suspicions were correct; Bart suspected that something was terribly wrong or that he might even be dying, but he didn’t know the real reason why. “Don’t worry, okay?”
“Think Lex can help me?” Bart asked. “He’s a scientist . . . and if you trust him, I have to trust him, too.”
Clark looked away so that his young friend wouldn’t see the doubt in his eyes.
“We’re both going to do everything we can,” he said, but by the time he looked back up, Bart had already fallen back into an uncomfortable sleep. Clark rose and left the bedroom, and as he shut the door, he realized that the house had fallen completely silent, and the steady, reassuring pulse of Lex’s heartbeat, present since the day Clark had moved in, was now missing.
Part Three