SV: Strip Minefield 1/2
Strip Minefield
SV AU; Clark/Lex. Background Chloe/Oliver. Teen and up. In which pretending to be your own stripper ex-boyfriend turns out to be more trouble than it’s worth. For the prompt from celli: “characters combining the legal field and the orgasm-creating field.” I take as a fundamental premise that, had Clark and Lex met later on in life, it might have gone better for them. Also if Clark had been a stripper.
NB: Do not base your ideas of the law on Smallville fan fiction. Thanks to
geekturnedvamp and
rheasilvia for beta.
“Oh good,” Chloe said with relief. “Oliver is tied up, and not in the fun way, so you’re our headliner tonight.” She was thumb-typing as she talked, tweeting Clark’s presence. It’s a great promotional tool, she’d explained to Clark. You’re like a food truck, only with really amazing abs.
Clark nodded acknowledgement and went to change into his work outfit. One thing about being a stripper, along with not needing to keep regular hours due to his forgiving boss: it didn’t require much from him in the way of prep, given his Kryptonian biology.
He had three sets that night, first as a cowboy, then a firefighter, then a police officer. (There had been a tearaway Superman costume available from the same company that made those and a discount for buying four, but just no.) Midway through the second set, while he was doing a backbend with his legs locked around a pole, he noticed that Mystery Guy was wearing a wig.
Mystery Guy showed up whenever Clark did, one of a small but flattering group, mostly women. He always sat in the back and tipped well, at least according to the servers. He never asked for a private dance (not that many guys did). Clark wasn’t about making anyone feel uncomfortable, so he’d never singled MG out the way he would sometimes tease a person who sat up front and looked like they’d be happy to trade a few twenties for a closer experience. Anyway, something about the angle, with Clark upside down and staring out at the upended world, made absolutely clear that MG’s hair was about as natural as Chloe’s haircolor.
Clark straightened himself, tore off the velcroed arms of his red jacket, and took another look at MG. Intense grey-blue eyes, sensitive mouth with a scar that wouldn’t have been visible to anyone else in the low light-
Holy cow, Clark realized as he snapped his suspenders against his now otherwise-bare chest. That’s Lex Luthor. He’d done something to change the shape of his face, but now that Clark had seen through the disguise, it was undeniable.
The younger Luthor had been in the news a lot since his first major act as state attorney general had been to send his father to jail, despite Lionel Luthor’s ace legal team and its arguments about how Lex was pursuing a family vendetta through the mechanism of the law.
Clark understood about trying to escape legacies. He still wasn’t sure how much of his father’s computerized ghost and Brainiac’s lectures had been accurate, but whether he’d been sent here to conquer or not, it wasn’t going to happen. Stripping by night and saving the world by day let Clark make money, increase the happiness in the world, and save lives. Also, if he didn’t show up for a set because of a monster eating lower Manhattan, it would be written off by people who didn’t know his secret as standard flakiness or at worst drug addiction, not as something suspicious. Honestly, it was hard to think of a better scenario.
Unless Luthor was trying to shut Chloe down. He hadn’t run on a morality platform, but there was always a chance that he would try to win points with the reddest of the red voters. Clark shimmied out of his velcroed pants while considering what he should do.
If this was some sort of sting, Luthor would’ve sent a few agents and had them do more than sit in the back and drink whiskey all night. They would’ve acted drunk and grabby and waved money around, trying to get a dancer to do something that could be construed as solicitation. (Clark remembered a period when that had been common, back when Chloe was just getting started and there was a corruption problem with the Metropolis police. He’d had to do some superheroing to clean that up.)
So he was here for Clark.
Clark knew how he looked. Whether in the Superman outfit/image enhancer or out of it (pretty much all the way out, when he performed), he was a good-looking humanoid. He could only hope he hadn’t been designed that way.
But Luthor was risking an awful lot-more than the flirty college girls or the bored office drones looking for a thrill-and Clark felt both flattered and protective. He didn’t want to derail a reformer in a sex scandal, especially one that would be completely made up, since Luthor had never said a word to him.
Clark finished up his set, smiled at a bachelorette party and let them feel his biceps, and collected his tips.
It seemed he’d found another job for Superman.
****
Except that Luthor wasn’t particularly receptive when Clark showed up outside his office window.
Luthor cranked open the glass, which moved with a screech that matched the annoyed look on his face. “Aren’t you supposed to wait for my signal or some such?”
Clark flew in and touched down on the carpet. “That’s Batman,” he pointed out. “Also, you don’t have a signal.”
“I wonder why that is. Other than that if you’re in any way a state actor Kansas is on the hook for roughly a billion dollars in damages, not to mention some very happy defense lawyers. I don’t suppose you’d consider taking a course in Fourth Amendment law?”
Clark folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not actually here in an official capacity.”
Luthor grimaced. “You don’t have an official capacity.”
Clark took a deep breath. “Look, I’m just here to say-” He stalled out. This had seemed much simpler in his imagination. “Uh. Clark Barr recognized you at the Metropole. He didn’t tell anyone, and he’s not going to, but he thought you should know.”
Luthor went very still. “Didn’t tell anyone,” he repeated, after a long and painful silence. “Then what are you?”
Clark devoutly hoped that the illusion projected by his suit didn’t blush. He had no good explanation for how a stripper and a superhero would-“We used to date,” he said, desperate. Superheroes were kind of like sports stars, right? And everyone knew the sports star-stripper connection. “He’s not-he wouldn’t try to exploit you. But you obviously don’t want anyone to know, so. You could try a better disguise?” Offering Luthor the use of the same technology he used to maintain his secret identity was impossible. As a government representative, Luthor would probably have to turn it over to the military-not to mention the fact that Clark didn’t want anyone to know that he had a secret identity.
All this contemplation had him distracted enough that he didn’t notice Luthor rising from behind his desk and moving so that they were nearly face to face (though Luthor, like almost everyone else, had to look up a bit). “So, Superman is gay?”
Clark blinked a few times. Yeah, okay, maybe he hadn’t thought that one through.
“Arguably,” Luthor mused, clearly sensing that Clark wasn’t yet prepared to respond, “it’s not a meaningful concept across species. Still-” and Clark could just tell that something insulting about strippers was going to come out of his mouth, no matter how attractive a mouth it was.
“Clark is a good guy,” he said defensively.
“But not good enough to hang on to you,” Luthor rejoined.
When did this get to be about Clark’s love life? Oh, yeah, when he came to Luthor’s office to tell him to ignore his apparent crush on Clark. “That’s not what happened,” Clark said. Honesty to this stranger wouldn’t do him harm. “I’m a terrible boyfriend. I have to run out all the time.”
“I’m not unfamiliar with the problem,” Luthor said, smiling slightly now. “Of course, putting corrupt politicians in jail isn’t quite at the earthquake level.”
“No, I admire the work you do,” Clark said, again letting his mouth run ahead of his brain.
Which was how he found himself with a dinner invitation. Luthor-‘call me Lex’-had a penthouse, so apparently he hadn’t lost everything in the split with his father. “If I stand you up-” Clark warned, because bitter experience had taught him that he needed to remind people about his unreliability to at least slow the accumulation of resentment.
But Lex just nodded.
****
Clark made an extra effort-Wonder Woman and Green Lantern had the situation with the manticore well in hand, anyway-and showed up on time for what was possibly a date.
Five minutes in, Clark had upgraded ‘possibly’ to ‘probably,’ though there was still the chance that Lex plied everyone he met with expensive wine and the sweet heat of tapered candles. He stopped worrying about it when Lex asked him about his recent move from local to international rescues, and they were off. Lex didn’t trust international bodies, from the UN to ICANN, whatever that was (Clark made a mental note to look it up), and he was unprepared to accept that the Justice League might be something different.
“Who do you want directing superhero activities?” Clark asked, somewhat miffed.
Lex raised an eyebrow. “Me, of course. I mean, the President of the United States,” he conceded, and Clark again wondered why a man of such obvious ambitions would risk everything to ogle a stripper, even one as admittedly a fine example of the humanoid form as Clark Barr, er, Clark Kent. Yes, public opinion was changing, and maybe Lex could get away with being gay, but Clark was pretty sure that male strippers would be a bridge (or a backbend) too far.
And then he realized that he might as well ask; after all, Lex already had what he thought was a similar revelation from Clark-that is, from Superman-about Superman’s own dating habits.
Lex looked down at his wineglass. “I suppose … I’ve always been too attracted to secrets. And my father has either paid off or seduced everyone I’ve ever had an intimate relationship with, so I decided it was better just to look.”
“Ugh,” Clark said, once he’d processed that. Lex’s quirked mouth suggested he appreciated the reaction. “But … couldn’t you use the Internet to look?”
“First of all,” Lex said, and took another sip while staring directly into Clark’s eyes, “I think you underrate your ex-boyfriend’s charms. Second, leave an electronic trail in this day and age? I might as well take a picture of my own dick and post it on Facebook. As I’ve learned from Metropolis’s drug gangs, the analog world offers much more in the way of privacy and plausible deniability.”
Clark didn’t have much to say to that. He left the serious hacking to Chloe, and sometimes the Fortress would deign to help him out (usually with some snark about Earth technology; also it didn’t really understand how humans thought, so it could be surprisingly unhelpful without even trying to annoy him, which meant that mostly he left it alone when dealing with human villains). He looked down and found that, without quite noticing, he’d cleaned his plate.
“I have to admit,” Lex continued, “I never thought I’d be part of a fanclub, however hidden, with you.”
Clark swallowed. Pretending to be his own ex was more awkward than crushing on Lana had ever been, and that was saying a lot. Also, he wasn’t comfortable praising himself, even for something as trivial as his appearance. “The thing is,” he said, “I’m not particularly good at dating either. Thinking about the publicity makes me want to fight Brainiac instead. I’m a symbol and I’m not elected, and that means a certain kind of press coverage. I look at the British royal family and think, that could be me.”
“I trust without the Nazi uniform,” Lex said, gently enough that Clark knew it was a joke. “You’re already pushing it with ‘Superman.’”
“I didn’t pick the name,” Clark said with the weariness of practice. “Blame The Daily Planet.”
“Oh, I do,” Lex said, and Clark remembered that they’d all but accused him of putting his father away in order to disguise his own corruption. “So, we’re in agreement. Public romance presents some difficulties for us, and yet we are both subject to the weaknesses of the flesh.”
Clark didn’t want to misread the situation. He was Superman; he didn’t get to suggest anything that might sound coercive. “Yes?”
“Well then,” Lex said, pushing back from the table. His mouth was very pink; the curve of his head seemed to invite a caressing hand. “Nice boots. Want to fuck?”
****
“Why are you smiling?” Chloe asked, in pretty much the same tone Wally had used earlier, before his set.
“What?” Clark asked, wondering if he could fine-tune his superhearing to listen in on Lex. It wasn’t creepy if the guy knew he had superpowers, right?
“You have that dop-I mean, you seem very happy. Like, should I be looking for the Red K happy.”
“Just in a good mood, I guess,” Clark said. Though their own awkward not-relationship was years behind them, he wasn’t ready to tell her about Lex, not just because of Lex’s need for privacy-it was very well established that Chloe could keep a secret-but because he didn’t know what he was doing with Lex. Well, beyond specific and very pleasurable acts, but he wouldn’t have shared those details with her anyway. Were they dating? Did he have a secret boyfriend to go with his secret identity?
Chloe cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Well, go on and convey that good mood to the customers. A bunch of regulars tonight, plus two bachelorette parties, and some woman who thinks she’s being sneaky about being a reporter for Newsweek, doing some human interest story on how the battle of the sexes is being fought via poledancing or something. I tell you what, anyone who wants not to be outed as a reporter probably shouldn’t be liveblogging.”
Tonight, Clark’s first set was the police officer. He walked onstage twirling his baton (the mock handjob was later in the song) and almost sent it spinning into the audience when he saw Lex in his accustomed position in the back.
Clark was an accomplished performer at this point, his skills burnished by several years’ experience avoiding and assisting too-drunk patrons who thought they could stagesurf. Also, he was used to fighting evil under often chaotic circumstances. Self-control when confronted by the unexpected was standard.
Still, each piece of clothing he ripped off renewed his questions: Why was Lex back, after having been warned? Did this mean that Superman was just a one-night stand? Could anyone be dumb enough to want Clark over Superman?
He couldn’t go over to Lex, drawing unwanted attention. But Superman was definitely going to pay him a visit after the show.
****
“Just how ex is Clark Barr?” Lex asked, his brow furrowed quizzically, after he’d let Clark back into his office and before Clark could explain his concerns. “Not that I wouldn’t take advantage if Superman were at my beck and call, but surely you have better things to do.”
“You can’t go back to the Metropole,” Clark said, a little desperately. “You’re going to get caught!”
Lex shrugged. “I haven’t yet.”
No one could be this annoying by accident. Clark was sure of it. Half of why he’d put on the costume instead of sticking with street clothes was because people took uniforms more seriously. They tended to obey a superstrong alien whose appearance signalled that he was not just an ordinary Joe, and while Clark would never abuse that power (not while he was in his right mind, at least), he was realizing just how useful that deference was, now that he was confronted with a non-villain who nonetheless was ignoring his completely valid concerns.
“Of course,” Lex said consideringly, “if you really wanted to save me from myself …” His hand went to the knot of his dark purple tie and tugged, a motion so suggestive that Clark made a mental note to remember it for when he did his Wall Street executive act.
“Here?” Clark asked, feeling his better judgment draining away.
Lex let the tip of his tongue show through his teeth. “Perhaps not,” he conceded. “Tonight?”
Compared to sex in the attorney general’s office, it sounded reasonable. “Yes,” Clark said, wondering if he sounded as relieved to Lex as he did to himself. “But-”
“Standard disclaimers apply, I know,” Lex said.
There was a knock on the door; Clark supersped away as Lex began to turn.
****
Clark made it that night.
Repeatedly.
And somehow it became a habit, flying by Lex’s penthouse to see if Lex was there or instead, as happened regularly, pulling an all-nighter with the KBI agents about to raid a drug dealer’s warehouse or prepping for a trial. Lex was a very hands-on attorney general, as well as a very hands-on-Clark’s mind skittered away from the term ‘lover,’ but he didn’t have a better one. Anyway, he couldn’t complain about Lex’s frequent absences. Clark wasn’t exactly Mr. Availability himself. There were entire weeks when their schedules didn’t match. The battle with the mutant baby chicks and the wererabbit alone ate up six whole days, and then Lex chewed him out when he showed up because the mutant down was clogging up the city’s drains, as if Clark was responsible for them being both fluffy and evil.
Getting to see Lex, though, was almost better for the anticipation-okay, the frustration. Not that, when they did manage to get together, it was quick. Early on, Clark worked up the courage to say outright that he wanted to be told what to do-not a kink, not really, but a way of making sure that he wasn’t using his strength to get what he wanted.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Lex had said, as if the very thought of Clark being stronger than him was somehow amusing instead of a scientific fact. Then later, when Lex had him on his knees with his hands behind his back, whimpering for Lex’s touch, Lex had asked, “Are you sure it’s not a kink?” before he’d told Clark to come.
Okay, so maybe just a little bit.
Lex himself had a thing for being marked, though he usually didn’t ask until after they’d gone a few rounds and Clark was feeling relaxed. “Don’t worry,” he said when Clark bit so high up on his neck that no collar would cover it, “I heal fast.”
And sure enough, the next day he gave a televised press conference, and even in HD there was no sign, and no evidence of makeup (something Clark was now well able to detect given his experience at the Metropole).
So apparently Lex hadn’t just lost his hair in the meteor shower. That was a matter of public record, an event so bizarre that Lionel Luthor hadn’t been able to suppress it.
Quick recovery-which, come to think of it, explained a lot about Lex’s ability to keep up with Clark-was far from the worst thing the meteors could’ve done to Lex. And he was old enough now that any other abnormalities should’ve manifested themselves. Meteor mutants tended to decompensate quickly once their powers developed. Clark double-checked with Chloe about that, because though he didn’t want to invade Lex’s privacy they’d had too many bad experiences to trust anyone with significant Kryptonite exposure without further investigation. After ten days and God knew how many database hacks, she tentatively agreed that staying away from Smallville since the meteor shower seemed to have protected him from the nastier mind-altering effects.
Either that, or Lex was naturally a megalomaniac and the Kryptonite, having no work to do, had given up. Listening to Lex’s postcoital speculations about his next political moves, Clark had to give that theory at least a small chance of being correct.
In some ways-no, okay, the sex was truly amazing. But afterwards (or between rounds) was nearly as good, when Clark could manage to stay that long.
Early on, he’d asked how Lex managed to break away from the Luthor empire. Lex, sprawled back on his couch and with one hand outflung to cradle his glass of whiskey, had snorted inelegantly and rubbed his free hand over his mouth. “My father had me kicked out of Princeton’s chemistry program-all right, to be perfectly honest, my behavior made it possible for him to contrive to have me asked to leave. He thought it’d drive me back into his ever-so-loving arms. But there was a woman, a friend of my mother’s, who’d looked after me for a time when I was a child.” He paused and drank, his eyes grey with remembrance.
“Not long after my mother’s death, she left-I thought she’d abandoned me. But then, after Princeton, she sent me a message telling me that she hadn’t wanted to leave, and that I could be more than I was. For whatever reason, knowing that she still believed in me, even when I was at my worst-I started thinking about what it would take to undo the corruption I saw every time I visited my father. Thus, the law.”
Clark’s heart ached for the motherless child and the young man hounded by his father’s directives-it was a familiar story, except without family who’d believed in him all along. “It was brave of you to come back here.”
Lex smiled, thin but real. “It was arrogance. Don’t mistake me for some disinterested enforcer. I came back to beat him.”
“Then why have you stayed?” Clark asked, and Lex put the glass down on his coffee table and slithered into Clark’s arms, straddling him and answering the question with his mouth.
That was how most of their conversations ended, and Clark couldn’t honestly say he minded.
Some nights, Lex took the opportunity to get some additional work done while Clark investigated Lex’s extensive media collection. When he watched a classic film, Lex would deign to join him on the couch, correcting briefs and occasionally commenting on the action although he never appeared to look up from his laptop.
More than once Clark was torn away by some emergency. Even the time when they were literally nearing the climax of the proceedings, Lex never protested. Though his frustrated groans as he had to finish himself off echoed distractingly in Clark’s superhearing in the first minutes of the resulting fight with the Toymaker, and Clark might’ve been a bit rough as a result.
And when Lex snuck back into the Metropole, Clark told himself that Lex wasn’t doing anything he didn’t have a perfect right to do. Lex might have been risking his reputation, but he was breaking no promises.
Clark performed his routines no matter who was in the audience. He kept his smile on, the one for all the customers, and he didn’t tell Lex to go home to his boyfriend because, of course, there was no one there waiting for him.
****
Chloe regularly called a staff meeting to discuss current investigations and make sure everyone was up to date on each other’s activities. In the early years, they’d occasionally ended up working at cross purposes, him and Oliver and Arthur and a few of the others who drifted in and out of the group.
After one particularly colossal screwup (and yes, Colossus had been involved), there’d been a big blowup about trust and secrets, and Chloe had negotiated a settlement about disclosing various categories of information even if they didn’t seem like other people’s business. Since email was insecure, the staff meeting was the main vehicle for sharing supervillain-related or -adjacent events.
Right now, he and Oliver were the only superhero types operating in Metropolis on a daily basis. (Chloe was in negotiations to open a franchise in Central City, except that they’d have to change the name; anything Metropolis-related was likely to get vandalized every time there was a football game.) This meant that the staff meeting was Chloe, Oliver, Clark, and Lois Lane, despite the fact that she wasn’t actually on staff and would cheerfully report anything she deemed worthy of a byline on the home page of the Daily Planet, other than Oliver and Clark’s identities.
Oliver hadn’t bothered to change out of his costume, probably because Chloe liked it the best of all his outfits. It had started as a joke-Oliver in a silvery feathered headdress and showgirl outfit, with lipstick and heavy eye makeup-but had quickly become one of his most popular gigs. Even Clark had to admit that Oliver carried off the headdress and G-string that ended the routine with panache, though Chloe maintained that he looked best mid-strip, when he was bare-chested but still wearing a silver-fringed loincloth. ‘I like a little mystery in a man,’ she always said.
Regardless, she was leaning into him with every appearance of enjoyment, and his feathers were gently bobbing as he whispered something into her ear and she laughed, tipping her head up with uncontrolled delight. Oliver could be intensively annoying, but Clark was glad she’d found happiness with him.
“Big news tonight, strippers and strippees,” Lois announced, bringing the meeting to (dis)order.
“What does that even mean?” Clark asked, but she wasn’t listening.
“I tracked the company that offered to buy the Metropole through more shells than Georgia in pecan season. Turns out Chloe’s not the only one who’s gotten an offer that seems too good to be true in this area. And all the offers come from different names, but they trace back to the same place: LuthorCorp.”
Oliver cursed softly, and Chloe straightened, pulling away from him. The implications were obvious: LuthorCorp had plans for the Slums, plans that probably involved words like “redevelopment” and millions-maybe billions-in profit for whoever owned the land when the news went public.
“We already knew Lionel Luthor hasn’t let prison cramp his style, no matter who’s the figurehead at LuthorCorp,” Lois continued. “I’m working on finding out who on the city council’s still in his orange jumpsuited pocket. In the meantime, you guys keep an eye out. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Metropole suddenly became a lot more hazardous.”
Which was why Clark was ready when he had to put out a fire that had somehow started in the back alley later that night. He used his superbreath (mockable name, useful power) to douse it and then helped Chloe install security cameras around the entire building. Apparently LuthorCorp still had some clever goons on payroll, though, because two days later they were fighting a rat infestation that very nearly made it out into the patrons, which would’ve shut them down for days officially and killed half their business, at least, what with the social media repercussions. Only Ollie’s extremely good aim and then some quick thinking by a non-superhero stripper who used his top hat as an impromptu cage saved them from total disaster.
“This is gonna be bad,” Chloe observed as Clark threw the last tiny corpse into the dumpster, late that night. His X-ray vision had doomed him to the task of catching all the invaders.
They couldn’t go to the police. They had no concrete evidence linking the attacks to LuthorCorp, and Lionel Luthor had enough of a hold on the city that only the clearest of cases-the kind Lex had built over three years, and then three months in open court-could stop him.
Briefly, Clark considered telling Lex, asking him for help. He had intimate knowledge of his father’s methods.
But bringing Lex deliberately into the world of the Metropole would risk exposing his secret. Lex was too smart, and Superman too high-profile.
No, they’d have to take care of this without Lex. That was probably for the best anyway. Lex didn’t need a further reputation for carrying out a vendetta against his father’s company.
****
Still, the thought of trying to work with Lex in some way didn’t leave him.
“So, theoretically, if I did want to tell the police about, say, a meth lab, what would I do?”
Lex’s hands didn’t stop their motion across Clark’s back. Lex’s bed was really very comfortable, Clark thought. Especially with Lex in it, straddling him and giving him an entirely unnecessary but enjoyable massage.
“Theoretically, you wouldn’t coordinate with any law enforcement officer at any level, though unsolicited tips are welcome. I would have thought that fighting Brainiac and Godzilla and the like kept you too busy for doing police officers’ jobs.” Lex’s voice was even, but Clark had spent enough time around him that he could hear the tension.
“Metropolis is my home now,” Clark said, because if he’d said ‘my city’ Lex’s reaction would not have been good. Lex was a bit possessive at times, and just as prickly in interviews about Superman’s relationship with law enforcement as ever. Which at least said something for Lex’s ability to cover up his own activities. (At Lex’s pointed suggestion, Clark had taken to superspeeding into a corner of Lex’s balcony that didn’t offer any line of sight for nosy photographers, even those who could get sixty stories up with a telephoto lens. The chances of getting caught, as Superman, were low … which made Lex’s continued attendance at the Metropole even more ironic.)
Lex made a considering sound. “If you left law enforcement to the civil authorities, that would make it much easier for the people who distrust you to change their minds without having to admit they’d done so. Superheroes fighting supervillains and monsters, that they understand. It’s the stuff of summer blockbusters. Superheroes dumping drug dealers in front of the precinct house … that’s penny-ante, and it smacks of a kind of deep interference that makes many people afraid.”
Clark frowned. Lex wasn’t entirely mistaken. But then wasn’t Clark doing the wrong thing even using his X-ray vision? Yes, he invaded people’s privacy all the time. But he was trying to do what was right, just as he’d been raised.
“Relax,” Lex suggested. “You don’t have to solve all your ethical dilemmas tonight. Just the ones that affect my political prospects.”
And that was just selfish enough that Clark could laugh, and forget anything but the feel of Lex’s hands on his skin.
****
The Daily Planet ran a story about Lex’s heavy-handed tactics, hinting that he didn’t rein in the use of coercive interrogation techniques and that he’d tacitly approved the suppression of defendant-favorable evidence.
He was in a nasty mood that night. But Clark had never gotten anywhere by hiding from the tough calls. If that was really happening, Clark couldn’t be with him. Not as Superman, and not as himself.
Lex finally raised his head after Clark had stood in front of his desk for at least five minutes, arms folded across his chest.
“What the story doesn’t say,” he said, “is that all of those accusations have been tested in court, unsuccessfully, by people my office has convicted.”
Clark waited, because Lex sounded like he was trying to convince himself. And Lex did like to hear himself talk.
“Do you know just how much is legal for the police to do? It’s legal to lie to suspects. It’s legal to imply that there will be leniency if only the suspect confesses. It’s legal to use their silence against them before an actual arrest and Miranda warning. It’s legal to decline to follow a line of investigation that might provide exculpatory evidence. Practically the only thing I can’t do is bribe a witness. Unless it’s with a promise of leniency or immunity for their own crimes, because that’s perfectly legal. There’s no real need to bother with behavior that crosses the line, because the line is in the upper atmosphere.”
Clark waited a bit longer, but Lex appeared to be done. Breathing hard, fists clenching on the desk in front of him, but done. “Legal isn’t the same as right, Lex.”
Lex’s eyes flickered closed, then open, looking past Clark and into the bright lights of a Metropolis night. “And when my conviction rate goes down? When some brutal crime has been committed and the people are calling for blood?”
“I’d want to know what makes you sure it’s the right blood.” As he said it, Clark thought uncomfortably of his own extralegal activities. Maybe it was hypocrisy to ask Lex to follow a law he disregarded. But Lex was a representative of the law. He dealt with humans, and human crimes. That had to be different. Right?
Lex didn’t call him on the potential double standard. “Accuracy and due process aren’t always the same thing,” he said, and he sounded tired. “If all you want’s the former, everybody wins. I don’t want a murderer out on the street and an innocent man in prison any more than anyone else does. It’s when the rules cost money or convictions that everyone starts to squirm.”
“That’s why you have to make the tough calls,” Clark told him. “The people trusted you to do that. They never elected me.”
“So I’ve noted,” Lex said, but he looked thoughtful. And when, next week, Clark caught an item deep in the Planet’s Metro section saying that from now on the police would be recording all in-station and in-car interrogations, with a quote from Lex about how studies had demonstrated the security it gave to citizens and police both, he felt a warm glow of pride.
****
“Impressive acrobatics out there today,” Lex said as Clark fell back into the pillows, panting. (Not that he needed the oxygen, but instinct apparently overrode actual requirements.)
Clark vaguely remembered the day’s fight-some glowy probably-alien thing that could change its shape, but only slowly, like it was made out of Play-Doh. Toxic, nasty-smelling Play-Doh. Oh, and it fired flaming globs of itself at its targets, not slowly. Chloe was doing the followup of identifying it and seeing if there were protective chemicals that they could use if it showed up again.
“Thanks?”
Lex skimmed his hand over Clark’s abs, not quite tickling. “So just where does an invulnerable being learn to dodge with such athleticism?”
Clark wasn’t in a good position to shrug, so he just frowned. “I can still get hurt,” he reminded Lex. “And knocked through walls.” One of the side benefits of working at the Metropole had been added flexibility. Being able to do a split could offer a real advantage when your opponent didn’t expect that.
“Hmm.” Lex’s hand continued to move over him slowly. “In any event, you looked good.”
“I was covered in flaming purple debris,” Clark pointed out.
Lex moved lower, and Clark started to lose focus. “It didn’t obscure your finer attributes,” Lex said, and curled over him to demonstrate just which ones he meant.
****
Alcohol deliveries had been tampered with, bottles tainted with ground glass and turpentine. There were strange fluctuations in the electricity that only abated when Chloe installed a generator. They suffered through six different surprise inspections by three different city agencies in seven days.
And then there was Lex. “Your secret admirer just bought out the Champagne Room for you,” Chloe said, after his last set of the night.
Clark didn’t do many private dances, though he’d been known to give it a go for a particularly insistent and spendy bachelorette. But this was Lex, doubling down on his flirtation. Was it because Superman had hardly had time to visit in the past week, what with the trouble at the Metropole and other villainy? Clark was offended, on Superman’s behalf.
“Tell him no,” Clark said, wiping glitter off of his cheeks.
Chloe whacked him on the shoulder, then hissed in pain and wrung out her hand. “I took his money already! I don’t know what your issue is, but he’s practically paying the electricity bill on his own, and you know I have my eye on a new server rack. So go out there and smile pretty. If he breaks a rule you can break his wrist, but the Metropole delivers what it promises.”
Clark thought, not for the first time, that Chloe and Lex had a lot in common. Lex too had very little tolerance for excuses.
“Fine,” he said. He was still wearing his black leatherette short-shorts, and he put the sleeveless vest back on, along with the ten-gallon hat. Tipped over his eyes, it might disguise his annoyed expression, at least as he moved to the Champagne Room. He had to strut across the club floor to do so, because that was part of the advertising for the “individualized services” the room offered. (He’d only been solicited for actual prostitution three times in there, and he was pretty sure that two of them had been mostly dares. The third had gotten a little ugly, but that was why Clark doubled as his own bouncer.)
It was dark in the room, and Lex was backlit so that only the curve of his skull and the sharp edges of his expensive shirt were visible-he’d left his jacket behind somewhere. The champagne, which Clark knew for a fact Lex thought was little better than cold piss, was ignored on a side table. Lex’s legs were sprawled, casually taking up space.
“Clark Barr,” Lex said, purring out the name with amusement that Clark couldn’t really begrudge him; stripper names were often difficult to say straightfaced. “I was beginning to wonder if there was any way I could get your attention.”
“You bought my time,” Clark said shortly. He didn’t move further into the room. Then he shook himself internally. Chloe was right, they’d taken his money, and it wasn’t really Lex’s fault that he was giving Superman an inferiority complex.
He came to within touching distance of Lex, standing between his legs. “I’m sure you know the rules,” he said. “We take them seriously.”
Lex nodded.
As if Chloe was listening in on them (and she might well have been), the music came on, slower and more sultry than the music Clark stripped to.
And if Lex wanted this body, Clark’s body, more than the superhero, then Clark was going to show him just what he was never going to have, he thought resentfully, knowing that he wasn’t making the most sense even in his own head. He began to dance, undulating back and forth like he was riding a horse-or, he supposed, a man. He brought his hand up and carefully removed the hat, then tossed it away.
Dancing on stage was inherently ridiculous, but if you thought about it, a lot of what people did day in and day out was just as ridiculous, so Clark had learned to go with it. He slid his hands down his own chest, lingering over each muscle.
Lex wasn’t even breathing hard, according to Clark’s superhearing. Which was extra insulting considering that Lex had come here just to see Clark Barr.
He shed the vest, and turned around to show Lex his back and wriggle his ass. There-a hitch of breath, a shift of fabric. He squatted, getting so close that Lex might’ve expected him to lose his balance and land on Lex’s lap, but he was in control, moving from side to side effortlessly.
“You’re very beautiful,” Lex said, only the slightest strain in his voice.
“Thank you,” Clark said coolly.
“Please know that this won’t affect your tip, but is there any chance you’d have dinner with me?”
Clark stood and spun around, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that would probably have been more intimidating had he been wearing his uniform, or even a shirt. “Aren’t you seeing Superman?” He had the sudden and inappropriate realization that he was cockblocking himself, but pushed it away.
Lex tilted his head to one side. “Superman knows I’m here.”
Clark goggled at him. “You’re saying you have a pass to cheat?” Clark was an idiot. He knew this. Never more so than in matters of the heart-not that what he had with Lex went that far up, but-
“No, I’m saying I’m not cheating, and Superman knows it.” Lex’s heartrate was the same, his skin unvarying in temperature. He was either a sociopath or completely convinced of his own narrative. Or both.
“You know, most people wouldn’t find a stripper more interesting than Superman.”
Lex stared at him. “Do I look ordinary?”
How Clark was being the insulting one in this conversation was beyond him. “I’m just a guy,” Clark said, half desperate now. “What could you-I mean, you could have anyone.”
“Flattering, if inaccurate,” Lex said with precision. “Let’s say I’m interested in a man who spends his limited free time volunteering at a shelter, seems to give all his money away to people in need, and has managed to keep everyone who’s ever known him frighteningly loyal, which is not really standard for a sex worker.”
Clark’s mouth fell open, but no words came out.
“I’m sorry, did that sound stalkerish?” Lex did not in fact sound sorry. “As far as I can tell, you are a force for good in the world. Is it so strange that I’d find that intriguing, especially combined with your obvious physical charms?”
Clark took a calming breath, then another.
Lex sighed. “You really need to work on your self-esteem, Clark,” he said. “I know the comparison with Superman can be daunting, but you of all people shouldn’t have a problem with that.”
“… What?” Clark managed.
Lex’s expression was smoother than heavy cream. “Just keep it in mind. You know how to reach me.”
It wasn’t until the door had shut on him that Clark realized that no, only Superman knew how to reach Lex, at least via Lex’s private number instead of the AG’s office.
He left a big cash tip, which was just typical.
****
Life went on. Clark captured criminals, fended off vandals at the Metropole, took off his clothes for the customers, and visited Lex when he could. Lex continued to attend Clark Barr ‘s performances, but didn’t give him serious trouble until nearly two weeks had passed.
That night, as usual, Clark scanned the Metropole, looking for potential trouble before he went off shift. A few patrons with pills in baggies-he’d tell Chloe to have the bouncers keep an eye on them, but after that time with the allergy medicine he didn’t presume, and it wasn’t worth the effort to attempt spectroscopy on the chemicals. It was packed, only the promise of alcohol allowing the waitstaff to wriggle swiftly through the patrons.
“Where is Arthur?” Chloe asked through his earpiece. This had to be a rhetorical question, as Chloe was the one who kept track. She made a sound of frustration that promised revenge; Clark winced on Arthur’s behalf, even though he was kind of a jerk. “Clark, we are down two dancers, and we have a party in the Rumpus Room that is starting to wonder where their entertainment is. I’m gonna need you to take one for the team.”
Clark sighed. He’d already done three sets-the gladiator with the extremely inauthentic and ineffectual armor, the ever-popular firefighter, and the bad-boy biker with the improbably zippered jacket-but it was true that he was both invulnerable and very speedy at changing. “What did they order?”
“Businessmen,” Chloe said. “I’ll try to send someone else in once you’ve warmed them up. Wear the glasses.”
He didn’t get the appeal, but it was true that using the chunky black frames with his suit did increase his tips by more than 20% (Chloe also kept track of this). “Okay,” he said, and he supersped back to his changing room to get into costume. At least the body glitter and hair gel didn’t need reapplying.
His entrance was greeted with cheers and wolf whistles. According to the writing on the cake by the door, this was a thirtieth birthday party. “Hello, ladies,” he said, which got its own applause. They were in a good mood, though there was one brown-haired woman next to the apparent birthday girl who was frowning-she was probably the organizer, the one who knew there were supposed to be two dancers. Oh well.
“I had a rough day at the office,” he continued. “How about you?”
He stepped forward through the roars of approval, tugging slightly at the knot of his tie. “You know, when I work too hard, I find that I really just need to relax.” (No one ever said he was good at patter.) “And to relax, I like to dance.”
He bit his lip, always a crowdpleaser, as he loosened the tie further and stepped to the center of the room. The hipshimmy was next, then a turn so that he could work the jacket slowly off of his shoulders. When it finally started to fall, he caught it and slung it over his shoulder, shaking his ass to highlight that it was now much easier to see, and turned back, grinning at the crowd.
He was down to just his boxer-briefs, with the thong still concealed underneath, when Lex walked in.
Clark stopped for a moment, then continued his circuit of the room because he was a professional, dammit, and not everyone had yet had a chance to get up close and personal with his chest and arms. The brunette went over to Lex and said something in his ear. Lex’s face changed, smoothing into something pleasant and terrifying. He did something odd with his feet-he was toeing off his shoes, Clark realized-and stepped forward.
“Am I too late to join the party?” he asked, his voice pitched to be heard by everyone, and Clark remembered that he was used to talking to large groups. Convincing large groups, because he had the room now; even the girl with her hand on Clark’s bicep was staring at Lex.
Lex wasn’t wearing a tie, but he was wearing a vest under the jacket and he made a production of removing first the jacket, then the vest, button by button. Clark had already known just how much lean muscle was concealed under those well-tailored suits, but now the entire birthday party was getting the idea. And they weren’t at all sad about it.
Standard policy was to confiscate camera phones, and warn guests that they’d be ejected if they snuck pictures. But if someone evaded the ban, this could be a disaster-yes, the wig changed the entire look of Lex’s face, giving him a squarish hairline and turning Lex’s unforgettable sleekness into someone you might expect to encounter at a frat party. And Clark knew that the small alterations he’d made with putty to his cheekbones and nose would fool facial recognition programs. Still, he couldn’t shake the dread that someone would recognize Lex. It was like when he’d first gone out as Superman, expecting other people to intuit that he was Clark Kent despite the different appearance.
It was the same now as it had been then: no one was really looking at Lex’s face.
Clark forced himself to continue smiling invitingly and moving to the rhythm of the music.
Lex unbuttoned his dress shirt with a seductiveness he rarely showed Clark when they were alone, since they were usually too hungry for each other and short on time. Every move was heavy with sensuality, and Lex’s eyes were locked on him, like the room was otherwise empty. Lex removed one cufflink, sparkling with diamonds that the audience must’ve assumed were fake, and tossed it to Clark, who snatched it out of the air and stashed it in his waistband tip pouch, then did the same with the next.
When Lex shrugged off the shirt to reveal a tight white sleeveless undershirt, the women roared like concertgoers. Lex’s hips did something that ought to be illegal, and he slinked over to Clark.
Lex nodded at him and the birthday girl yelled out “take it all off!” Clark reached out, slowly enough to give Lex time to dance away, and settled his hands on Lex’s hips. The noise reached levels that probably threatened human hearing, and redoubled when Clark began to tug Lex’s undershirt free from his pants, up over his torso. The cotton was so smooth and soft under Clark’s fingers that Clark expected it had been woven from plants that had been given massages on a daily basis.
Clark drew the undershirt up as Lex raised his arms. Lex didn’t have a weightlifter’s six-pack, but his abs were defined, and the clean lines of his pelvic cut disappearing into his pants were like a Greek statue’s come to life. The reveal of his pecs drew further screams, and his upper arms flexed as Clark tangled the shirt around his forearms and then gave up as if that had been his intention all along.
Lex shifted backwards, opening up some space between them, and tossed the undershirt at the woman Clark had pegged as the party planner, her frown long disappeared. His shoulders were blocky with muscle and slick with sweat, the contours standing out even in the low light.
Lex brought his hands to his belt, sliding the leather out of the buckle like he was giving a handjob. Clark knew he should be doing more than swaying to the music, but honestly they were lucky he was even standing given the display Lex was putting on. Lex let the belt fall to the floor, buckle gleaming with the sheen of pure silver, and did something complicated that let the pants fall open just enough to get a peek of his boxer-briefs, which were dark gray.
Then Lex swiveled back towards Clark and hooked his fingers into Clark’s waistband. Clark gasped, louder in his ears than the cheering surrounding them, as Lex pulled their lower bodies together, his groin brushing up against Clark’s thigh. Clark thought he could feel Lex’s half-hard cock, but that might’ve been imagination; Lex was giving them a show, wriggling his ass in a way designed to tease the onlookers rather than give himself maximum contact.
Clark had already known that Lex could move, but he hadn’t known this. Lex started to bend backwards from the waist, his hand still curled around Clark’s boxers, stretching the elastic dangerously until Clark grabbed his wrist to make sure he didn’t rip the fabric and give himself a concussion. Lex let go, relying on Clark’s grip, and bent until he was in an arc of gleaming flesh, his pants slipping a few inches down his hips. From Lex’s belly to his chest to his neck he was a long vulnerable curve, stretched out in front of Clark like a sacrifice. His thighs bracketed Clark’s, squeezing enough to give himself some stability and to make Clark remember just how good those thighs felt when they were naked.
If he wasn’t careful, that thong was going to be a lot less concealing than he needed it to be.
When Lex came back up, he put his hands on Clark’s shoulders and stared into his eyes. Clark barely felt the tug at his hips, but he noticed when Lex began to squat, keeping his face so close to Clark’s torso that he might as well have been licking it, peeling the boxers down as he went. The women were whooping continuously now, and a few of them were throwing balled-up dollar bills, pinging softly off his skin.
Clark thought about Kryptonite, and about Lionel Luthor, and about shoveling cow shit as the boxers puddled on the floor and he stepped out of them on autopilot. The thong was the same red as his tie had been, and when he looked down he was not violating any indecency laws, so he pulled away from Lex and began his circuit of the room. If he thought about Lex at all he was going to be arrested, propositioned, or both, and so he concentrated on doing his job, smiling at the customers and letting them touch him (they mostly followed the rules and stayed above the waist unless they were stuffing bills into the thong, which was good because he was in no condition to respond to any real violations).
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lex, now pantsless, collecting tips of his own. He didn’t seem to be aware of the rules, and more than once Clark saw a woman’s hand wrap around his ass-over the boxers, or Clark would’ve had to act-or linger on its way down the center of his chest.
The brunette nudged him. “The cake?” she prompted. Clark agreed that it was time for something else to happen, so he headed over to the waiting birthday cake. With his back to the customers, he saved time by lighting the candles with his heat vision, and turned to present it, wearing his biggest and most practiced grin.
The celebrant wanted to eat her cake off of Clark’s chest, which was against club rules and probably Department of Health regulations too. But when Clark tried to explain this, Lex stepped up and volunteered himself, as long as she limited herself to frosting (“crumbs just get stuck in the strangest places, you know”). And then Lex was spread out along one of the tables, looking almost like a vampire’s victim as at least eight of the partygoers took him up on his invitation. Lex had his head turned so that he could watch Clark’s reaction, and Clark couldn’t look away. The bulge in Lex’s boxer-briefs was substantial now, not all the way hard but getting there, and Clark could all but hear Lex saying, this is for you, even as the women bent their heads to swipe their wet tongues all over his legs and abs and nipples.
Clark stood there, frozen, until the party planner started handing out the favors-Clark stopped looking when he saw that everyone was getting the novelty vibrator that was cherry-red and had Superman’s crest on it (Lois had done a human interest story on it a week ago under the heading ‘Does Superman Need a Trademark Lawyer?’). Then he managed to give the birthday girl the standard peck on the cheek and escape to the back.
A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door of his dressing room. Lex didn’t wait for an answer before entering, carrying his suit and shirt carefully folded over his arm. There was still a patch of skin on his left pec that looked a little sticky, like he needed some extra oral attention.
All Clark’s prepared lectures escaped him. “What-where-how-?”
“You sound like a newspaper reporter,” Lex said, not unkindly. “I came in looking for you, the brunette thought I was the rest of the entertainment, and I thought, I’ve been watching you for a long time and, how difficult can it be? No offense intended.”
“None taken,” Clark snapped, then felt his shoulders droop. “You weren’t bad,” he admitted.
Lex smiled, small and secretive. “I have many hidden talents. I’d like to show you more of them.”
Really?
“Also,” Lex said, extending a hand filled with wads of cash, “I can’t legally accept gifts of this sort, so consider them my contribution to your take for tonight.”
Clark accepted them, for lack of anything better to do. The money was still warm from contact with Lex’s body.
“You said you were looking for me,” Clark realized.
“Looking for you, looking at you-nothing more urgent than the usual,” Lex said, his eyes running up and down Clark’s body in a way that made Clark realize that he was still only thong-clad. “Have a drink with me.”
Clark blinked a couple of times. “That’s still not a good idea,” he said carefully, since Lex obviously wouldn’t know a good idea if it stripped naked in front of him wearing body paint that said ‘Good Idea.’ Or didn’t strip, which was really more the point.
“I’m wealthy, respectable, and only occasionally accused of felonies,” Lex said calmly. “Also, according to your patrons, I’ve got a great ass. What’s not to like?”
The part where you’re already sleeping with Superman? Clark thought. “I don’t date customers.”
“Make an exception,” Lex suggested.
That might work for him most of the time-okay, Clark was willing to bet that worked for Lex Luthor almost all the time-but Clark had too much experience with what happened when he broke his own rules. People got hurt. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Lex must’ve been able to see the finality in his expression. “All right,” he said. “Just remember, it’s not an offer with an expiration date.” And then, right there, he began to put his clothes back on, dressing with the same grace he’d used to strip. He’d even retrieved his shoes, though the socks were lost, which didn’t surprise Clark-nobody without X-ray vision could’ve found a small object like that on the floor of the Metropole, and nobody with X-ray vision would want to.
He put his dress shirt on and tucked it into his pants, then stopped, as if waiting for Clark to change his mind.
“Um,” Clark said.
“My cufflinks?” Lex asked. “They have sentimental value.”
They had to be worth six figures, if what Clark knew from various robberies he’d stopped was any guide. “Right!” Clark said, and scrabbled in his tip pouch. “Here you go. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lex said, his fingertips warm on Clark’s palm as he retrieved them. “I’ll be seeing you.”
And he was gone before Clark could formulate instructions about how he needed to see less of Lex, in pretty much every way possible. Clark looked glumly at the money crumpled on his makeup table, then finished emptying his tip pouch. Rent was due in a few days, after all.
The next person to barge in on him was not unexpected, and at least he’d managed to put on some pants. “What the hell was that?” Chloe demanded. “I checked the cameras and your mystery fan was gyrating-nicely, I’ll concede-up against you. Did you take in another stray without telling me? And more importantly, how much did you promise we were going to pay him?”
Clark swallowed. “He’s not-it was a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding like all those times I misunderstood seeing you use your powers before I knew your secret? Or some other kind of misunderstanding?”
“It won’t happen again,” Clark promised.
Part 2
comments on DW | reply there. I have invites or you can use OpenID.
SV AU; Clark/Lex. Background Chloe/Oliver. Teen and up. In which pretending to be your own stripper ex-boyfriend turns out to be more trouble than it’s worth. For the prompt from celli: “characters combining the legal field and the orgasm-creating field.” I take as a fundamental premise that, had Clark and Lex met later on in life, it might have gone better for them. Also if Clark had been a stripper.
NB: Do not base your ideas of the law on Smallville fan fiction. Thanks to
geekturnedvamp and
rheasilvia for beta.
“Oh good,” Chloe said with relief. “Oliver is tied up, and not in the fun way, so you’re our headliner tonight.” She was thumb-typing as she talked, tweeting Clark’s presence. It’s a great promotional tool, she’d explained to Clark. You’re like a food truck, only with really amazing abs.
Clark nodded acknowledgement and went to change into his work outfit. One thing about being a stripper, along with not needing to keep regular hours due to his forgiving boss: it didn’t require much from him in the way of prep, given his Kryptonian biology.
He had three sets that night, first as a cowboy, then a firefighter, then a police officer. (There had been a tearaway Superman costume available from the same company that made those and a discount for buying four, but just no.) Midway through the second set, while he was doing a backbend with his legs locked around a pole, he noticed that Mystery Guy was wearing a wig.
Mystery Guy showed up whenever Clark did, one of a small but flattering group, mostly women. He always sat in the back and tipped well, at least according to the servers. He never asked for a private dance (not that many guys did). Clark wasn’t about making anyone feel uncomfortable, so he’d never singled MG out the way he would sometimes tease a person who sat up front and looked like they’d be happy to trade a few twenties for a closer experience. Anyway, something about the angle, with Clark upside down and staring out at the upended world, made absolutely clear that MG’s hair was about as natural as Chloe’s haircolor.
Clark straightened himself, tore off the velcroed arms of his red jacket, and took another look at MG. Intense grey-blue eyes, sensitive mouth with a scar that wouldn’t have been visible to anyone else in the low light-
Holy cow, Clark realized as he snapped his suspenders against his now otherwise-bare chest. That’s Lex Luthor. He’d done something to change the shape of his face, but now that Clark had seen through the disguise, it was undeniable.
The younger Luthor had been in the news a lot since his first major act as state attorney general had been to send his father to jail, despite Lionel Luthor’s ace legal team and its arguments about how Lex was pursuing a family vendetta through the mechanism of the law.
Clark understood about trying to escape legacies. He still wasn’t sure how much of his father’s computerized ghost and Brainiac’s lectures had been accurate, but whether he’d been sent here to conquer or not, it wasn’t going to happen. Stripping by night and saving the world by day let Clark make money, increase the happiness in the world, and save lives. Also, if he didn’t show up for a set because of a monster eating lower Manhattan, it would be written off by people who didn’t know his secret as standard flakiness or at worst drug addiction, not as something suspicious. Honestly, it was hard to think of a better scenario.
Unless Luthor was trying to shut Chloe down. He hadn’t run on a morality platform, but there was always a chance that he would try to win points with the reddest of the red voters. Clark shimmied out of his velcroed pants while considering what he should do.
If this was some sort of sting, Luthor would’ve sent a few agents and had them do more than sit in the back and drink whiskey all night. They would’ve acted drunk and grabby and waved money around, trying to get a dancer to do something that could be construed as solicitation. (Clark remembered a period when that had been common, back when Chloe was just getting started and there was a corruption problem with the Metropolis police. He’d had to do some superheroing to clean that up.)
So he was here for Clark.
Clark knew how he looked. Whether in the Superman outfit/image enhancer or out of it (pretty much all the way out, when he performed), he was a good-looking humanoid. He could only hope he hadn’t been designed that way.
But Luthor was risking an awful lot-more than the flirty college girls or the bored office drones looking for a thrill-and Clark felt both flattered and protective. He didn’t want to derail a reformer in a sex scandal, especially one that would be completely made up, since Luthor had never said a word to him.
Clark finished up his set, smiled at a bachelorette party and let them feel his biceps, and collected his tips.
It seemed he’d found another job for Superman.
****
Except that Luthor wasn’t particularly receptive when Clark showed up outside his office window.
Luthor cranked open the glass, which moved with a screech that matched the annoyed look on his face. “Aren’t you supposed to wait for my signal or some such?”
Clark flew in and touched down on the carpet. “That’s Batman,” he pointed out. “Also, you don’t have a signal.”
“I wonder why that is. Other than that if you’re in any way a state actor Kansas is on the hook for roughly a billion dollars in damages, not to mention some very happy defense lawyers. I don’t suppose you’d consider taking a course in Fourth Amendment law?”
Clark folded his arms over his chest. “I’m not actually here in an official capacity.”
Luthor grimaced. “You don’t have an official capacity.”
Clark took a deep breath. “Look, I’m just here to say-” He stalled out. This had seemed much simpler in his imagination. “Uh. Clark Barr recognized you at the Metropole. He didn’t tell anyone, and he’s not going to, but he thought you should know.”
Luthor went very still. “Didn’t tell anyone,” he repeated, after a long and painful silence. “Then what are you?”
Clark devoutly hoped that the illusion projected by his suit didn’t blush. He had no good explanation for how a stripper and a superhero would-“We used to date,” he said, desperate. Superheroes were kind of like sports stars, right? And everyone knew the sports star-stripper connection. “He’s not-he wouldn’t try to exploit you. But you obviously don’t want anyone to know, so. You could try a better disguise?” Offering Luthor the use of the same technology he used to maintain his secret identity was impossible. As a government representative, Luthor would probably have to turn it over to the military-not to mention the fact that Clark didn’t want anyone to know that he had a secret identity.
All this contemplation had him distracted enough that he didn’t notice Luthor rising from behind his desk and moving so that they were nearly face to face (though Luthor, like almost everyone else, had to look up a bit). “So, Superman is gay?”
Clark blinked a few times. Yeah, okay, maybe he hadn’t thought that one through.
“Arguably,” Luthor mused, clearly sensing that Clark wasn’t yet prepared to respond, “it’s not a meaningful concept across species. Still-” and Clark could just tell that something insulting about strippers was going to come out of his mouth, no matter how attractive a mouth it was.
“Clark is a good guy,” he said defensively.
“But not good enough to hang on to you,” Luthor rejoined.
When did this get to be about Clark’s love life? Oh, yeah, when he came to Luthor’s office to tell him to ignore his apparent crush on Clark. “That’s not what happened,” Clark said. Honesty to this stranger wouldn’t do him harm. “I’m a terrible boyfriend. I have to run out all the time.”
“I’m not unfamiliar with the problem,” Luthor said, smiling slightly now. “Of course, putting corrupt politicians in jail isn’t quite at the earthquake level.”
“No, I admire the work you do,” Clark said, again letting his mouth run ahead of his brain.
Which was how he found himself with a dinner invitation. Luthor-‘call me Lex’-had a penthouse, so apparently he hadn’t lost everything in the split with his father. “If I stand you up-” Clark warned, because bitter experience had taught him that he needed to remind people about his unreliability to at least slow the accumulation of resentment.
But Lex just nodded.
****
Clark made an extra effort-Wonder Woman and Green Lantern had the situation with the manticore well in hand, anyway-and showed up on time for what was possibly a date.
Five minutes in, Clark had upgraded ‘possibly’ to ‘probably,’ though there was still the chance that Lex plied everyone he met with expensive wine and the sweet heat of tapered candles. He stopped worrying about it when Lex asked him about his recent move from local to international rescues, and they were off. Lex didn’t trust international bodies, from the UN to ICANN, whatever that was (Clark made a mental note to look it up), and he was unprepared to accept that the Justice League might be something different.
“Who do you want directing superhero activities?” Clark asked, somewhat miffed.
Lex raised an eyebrow. “Me, of course. I mean, the President of the United States,” he conceded, and Clark again wondered why a man of such obvious ambitions would risk everything to ogle a stripper, even one as admittedly a fine example of the humanoid form as Clark Barr, er, Clark Kent. Yes, public opinion was changing, and maybe Lex could get away with being gay, but Clark was pretty sure that male strippers would be a bridge (or a backbend) too far.
And then he realized that he might as well ask; after all, Lex already had what he thought was a similar revelation from Clark-that is, from Superman-about Superman’s own dating habits.
Lex looked down at his wineglass. “I suppose … I’ve always been too attracted to secrets. And my father has either paid off or seduced everyone I’ve ever had an intimate relationship with, so I decided it was better just to look.”
“Ugh,” Clark said, once he’d processed that. Lex’s quirked mouth suggested he appreciated the reaction. “But … couldn’t you use the Internet to look?”
“First of all,” Lex said, and took another sip while staring directly into Clark’s eyes, “I think you underrate your ex-boyfriend’s charms. Second, leave an electronic trail in this day and age? I might as well take a picture of my own dick and post it on Facebook. As I’ve learned from Metropolis’s drug gangs, the analog world offers much more in the way of privacy and plausible deniability.”
Clark didn’t have much to say to that. He left the serious hacking to Chloe, and sometimes the Fortress would deign to help him out (usually with some snark about Earth technology; also it didn’t really understand how humans thought, so it could be surprisingly unhelpful without even trying to annoy him, which meant that mostly he left it alone when dealing with human villains). He looked down and found that, without quite noticing, he’d cleaned his plate.
“I have to admit,” Lex continued, “I never thought I’d be part of a fanclub, however hidden, with you.”
Clark swallowed. Pretending to be his own ex was more awkward than crushing on Lana had ever been, and that was saying a lot. Also, he wasn’t comfortable praising himself, even for something as trivial as his appearance. “The thing is,” he said, “I’m not particularly good at dating either. Thinking about the publicity makes me want to fight Brainiac instead. I’m a symbol and I’m not elected, and that means a certain kind of press coverage. I look at the British royal family and think, that could be me.”
“I trust without the Nazi uniform,” Lex said, gently enough that Clark knew it was a joke. “You’re already pushing it with ‘Superman.’”
“I didn’t pick the name,” Clark said with the weariness of practice. “Blame The Daily Planet.”
“Oh, I do,” Lex said, and Clark remembered that they’d all but accused him of putting his father away in order to disguise his own corruption. “So, we’re in agreement. Public romance presents some difficulties for us, and yet we are both subject to the weaknesses of the flesh.”
Clark didn’t want to misread the situation. He was Superman; he didn’t get to suggest anything that might sound coercive. “Yes?”
“Well then,” Lex said, pushing back from the table. His mouth was very pink; the curve of his head seemed to invite a caressing hand. “Nice boots. Want to fuck?”
****
“Why are you smiling?” Chloe asked, in pretty much the same tone Wally had used earlier, before his set.
“What?” Clark asked, wondering if he could fine-tune his superhearing to listen in on Lex. It wasn’t creepy if the guy knew he had superpowers, right?
“You have that dop-I mean, you seem very happy. Like, should I be looking for the Red K happy.”
“Just in a good mood, I guess,” Clark said. Though their own awkward not-relationship was years behind them, he wasn’t ready to tell her about Lex, not just because of Lex’s need for privacy-it was very well established that Chloe could keep a secret-but because he didn’t know what he was doing with Lex. Well, beyond specific and very pleasurable acts, but he wouldn’t have shared those details with her anyway. Were they dating? Did he have a secret boyfriend to go with his secret identity?
Chloe cocked a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Well, go on and convey that good mood to the customers. A bunch of regulars tonight, plus two bachelorette parties, and some woman who thinks she’s being sneaky about being a reporter for Newsweek, doing some human interest story on how the battle of the sexes is being fought via poledancing or something. I tell you what, anyone who wants not to be outed as a reporter probably shouldn’t be liveblogging.”
Tonight, Clark’s first set was the police officer. He walked onstage twirling his baton (the mock handjob was later in the song) and almost sent it spinning into the audience when he saw Lex in his accustomed position in the back.
Clark was an accomplished performer at this point, his skills burnished by several years’ experience avoiding and assisting too-drunk patrons who thought they could stagesurf. Also, he was used to fighting evil under often chaotic circumstances. Self-control when confronted by the unexpected was standard.
Still, each piece of clothing he ripped off renewed his questions: Why was Lex back, after having been warned? Did this mean that Superman was just a one-night stand? Could anyone be dumb enough to want Clark over Superman?
He couldn’t go over to Lex, drawing unwanted attention. But Superman was definitely going to pay him a visit after the show.
****
“Just how ex is Clark Barr?” Lex asked, his brow furrowed quizzically, after he’d let Clark back into his office and before Clark could explain his concerns. “Not that I wouldn’t take advantage if Superman were at my beck and call, but surely you have better things to do.”
“You can’t go back to the Metropole,” Clark said, a little desperately. “You’re going to get caught!”
Lex shrugged. “I haven’t yet.”
No one could be this annoying by accident. Clark was sure of it. Half of why he’d put on the costume instead of sticking with street clothes was because people took uniforms more seriously. They tended to obey a superstrong alien whose appearance signalled that he was not just an ordinary Joe, and while Clark would never abuse that power (not while he was in his right mind, at least), he was realizing just how useful that deference was, now that he was confronted with a non-villain who nonetheless was ignoring his completely valid concerns.
“Of course,” Lex said consideringly, “if you really wanted to save me from myself …” His hand went to the knot of his dark purple tie and tugged, a motion so suggestive that Clark made a mental note to remember it for when he did his Wall Street executive act.
“Here?” Clark asked, feeling his better judgment draining away.
Lex let the tip of his tongue show through his teeth. “Perhaps not,” he conceded. “Tonight?”
Compared to sex in the attorney general’s office, it sounded reasonable. “Yes,” Clark said, wondering if he sounded as relieved to Lex as he did to himself. “But-”
“Standard disclaimers apply, I know,” Lex said.
There was a knock on the door; Clark supersped away as Lex began to turn.
****
Clark made it that night.
Repeatedly.
And somehow it became a habit, flying by Lex’s penthouse to see if Lex was there or instead, as happened regularly, pulling an all-nighter with the KBI agents about to raid a drug dealer’s warehouse or prepping for a trial. Lex was a very hands-on attorney general, as well as a very hands-on-Clark’s mind skittered away from the term ‘lover,’ but he didn’t have a better one. Anyway, he couldn’t complain about Lex’s frequent absences. Clark wasn’t exactly Mr. Availability himself. There were entire weeks when their schedules didn’t match. The battle with the mutant baby chicks and the wererabbit alone ate up six whole days, and then Lex chewed him out when he showed up because the mutant down was clogging up the city’s drains, as if Clark was responsible for them being both fluffy and evil.
Getting to see Lex, though, was almost better for the anticipation-okay, the frustration. Not that, when they did manage to get together, it was quick. Early on, Clark worked up the courage to say outright that he wanted to be told what to do-not a kink, not really, but a way of making sure that he wasn’t using his strength to get what he wanted.
“I’ll be sure to keep that in mind,” Lex had said, as if the very thought of Clark being stronger than him was somehow amusing instead of a scientific fact. Then later, when Lex had him on his knees with his hands behind his back, whimpering for Lex’s touch, Lex had asked, “Are you sure it’s not a kink?” before he’d told Clark to come.
Okay, so maybe just a little bit.
Lex himself had a thing for being marked, though he usually didn’t ask until after they’d gone a few rounds and Clark was feeling relaxed. “Don’t worry,” he said when Clark bit so high up on his neck that no collar would cover it, “I heal fast.”
And sure enough, the next day he gave a televised press conference, and even in HD there was no sign, and no evidence of makeup (something Clark was now well able to detect given his experience at the Metropole).
So apparently Lex hadn’t just lost his hair in the meteor shower. That was a matter of public record, an event so bizarre that Lionel Luthor hadn’t been able to suppress it.
Quick recovery-which, come to think of it, explained a lot about Lex’s ability to keep up with Clark-was far from the worst thing the meteors could’ve done to Lex. And he was old enough now that any other abnormalities should’ve manifested themselves. Meteor mutants tended to decompensate quickly once their powers developed. Clark double-checked with Chloe about that, because though he didn’t want to invade Lex’s privacy they’d had too many bad experiences to trust anyone with significant Kryptonite exposure without further investigation. After ten days and God knew how many database hacks, she tentatively agreed that staying away from Smallville since the meteor shower seemed to have protected him from the nastier mind-altering effects.
Either that, or Lex was naturally a megalomaniac and the Kryptonite, having no work to do, had given up. Listening to Lex’s postcoital speculations about his next political moves, Clark had to give that theory at least a small chance of being correct.
In some ways-no, okay, the sex was truly amazing. But afterwards (or between rounds) was nearly as good, when Clark could manage to stay that long.
Early on, he’d asked how Lex managed to break away from the Luthor empire. Lex, sprawled back on his couch and with one hand outflung to cradle his glass of whiskey, had snorted inelegantly and rubbed his free hand over his mouth. “My father had me kicked out of Princeton’s chemistry program-all right, to be perfectly honest, my behavior made it possible for him to contrive to have me asked to leave. He thought it’d drive me back into his ever-so-loving arms. But there was a woman, a friend of my mother’s, who’d looked after me for a time when I was a child.” He paused and drank, his eyes grey with remembrance.
“Not long after my mother’s death, she left-I thought she’d abandoned me. But then, after Princeton, she sent me a message telling me that she hadn’t wanted to leave, and that I could be more than I was. For whatever reason, knowing that she still believed in me, even when I was at my worst-I started thinking about what it would take to undo the corruption I saw every time I visited my father. Thus, the law.”
Clark’s heart ached for the motherless child and the young man hounded by his father’s directives-it was a familiar story, except without family who’d believed in him all along. “It was brave of you to come back here.”
Lex smiled, thin but real. “It was arrogance. Don’t mistake me for some disinterested enforcer. I came back to beat him.”
“Then why have you stayed?” Clark asked, and Lex put the glass down on his coffee table and slithered into Clark’s arms, straddling him and answering the question with his mouth.
That was how most of their conversations ended, and Clark couldn’t honestly say he minded.
Some nights, Lex took the opportunity to get some additional work done while Clark investigated Lex’s extensive media collection. When he watched a classic film, Lex would deign to join him on the couch, correcting briefs and occasionally commenting on the action although he never appeared to look up from his laptop.
More than once Clark was torn away by some emergency. Even the time when they were literally nearing the climax of the proceedings, Lex never protested. Though his frustrated groans as he had to finish himself off echoed distractingly in Clark’s superhearing in the first minutes of the resulting fight with the Toymaker, and Clark might’ve been a bit rough as a result.
And when Lex snuck back into the Metropole, Clark told himself that Lex wasn’t doing anything he didn’t have a perfect right to do. Lex might have been risking his reputation, but he was breaking no promises.
Clark performed his routines no matter who was in the audience. He kept his smile on, the one for all the customers, and he didn’t tell Lex to go home to his boyfriend because, of course, there was no one there waiting for him.
****
Chloe regularly called a staff meeting to discuss current investigations and make sure everyone was up to date on each other’s activities. In the early years, they’d occasionally ended up working at cross purposes, him and Oliver and Arthur and a few of the others who drifted in and out of the group.
After one particularly colossal screwup (and yes, Colossus had been involved), there’d been a big blowup about trust and secrets, and Chloe had negotiated a settlement about disclosing various categories of information even if they didn’t seem like other people’s business. Since email was insecure, the staff meeting was the main vehicle for sharing supervillain-related or -adjacent events.
Right now, he and Oliver were the only superhero types operating in Metropolis on a daily basis. (Chloe was in negotiations to open a franchise in Central City, except that they’d have to change the name; anything Metropolis-related was likely to get vandalized every time there was a football game.) This meant that the staff meeting was Chloe, Oliver, Clark, and Lois Lane, despite the fact that she wasn’t actually on staff and would cheerfully report anything she deemed worthy of a byline on the home page of the Daily Planet, other than Oliver and Clark’s identities.
Oliver hadn’t bothered to change out of his costume, probably because Chloe liked it the best of all his outfits. It had started as a joke-Oliver in a silvery feathered headdress and showgirl outfit, with lipstick and heavy eye makeup-but had quickly become one of his most popular gigs. Even Clark had to admit that Oliver carried off the headdress and G-string that ended the routine with panache, though Chloe maintained that he looked best mid-strip, when he was bare-chested but still wearing a silver-fringed loincloth. ‘I like a little mystery in a man,’ she always said.
Regardless, she was leaning into him with every appearance of enjoyment, and his feathers were gently bobbing as he whispered something into her ear and she laughed, tipping her head up with uncontrolled delight. Oliver could be intensively annoying, but Clark was glad she’d found happiness with him.
“Big news tonight, strippers and strippees,” Lois announced, bringing the meeting to (dis)order.
“What does that even mean?” Clark asked, but she wasn’t listening.
“I tracked the company that offered to buy the Metropole through more shells than Georgia in pecan season. Turns out Chloe’s not the only one who’s gotten an offer that seems too good to be true in this area. And all the offers come from different names, but they trace back to the same place: LuthorCorp.”
Oliver cursed softly, and Chloe straightened, pulling away from him. The implications were obvious: LuthorCorp had plans for the Slums, plans that probably involved words like “redevelopment” and millions-maybe billions-in profit for whoever owned the land when the news went public.
“We already knew Lionel Luthor hasn’t let prison cramp his style, no matter who’s the figurehead at LuthorCorp,” Lois continued. “I’m working on finding out who on the city council’s still in his orange jumpsuited pocket. In the meantime, you guys keep an eye out. I wouldn’t be surprised if the Metropole suddenly became a lot more hazardous.”
Which was why Clark was ready when he had to put out a fire that had somehow started in the back alley later that night. He used his superbreath (mockable name, useful power) to douse it and then helped Chloe install security cameras around the entire building. Apparently LuthorCorp still had some clever goons on payroll, though, because two days later they were fighting a rat infestation that very nearly made it out into the patrons, which would’ve shut them down for days officially and killed half their business, at least, what with the social media repercussions. Only Ollie’s extremely good aim and then some quick thinking by a non-superhero stripper who used his top hat as an impromptu cage saved them from total disaster.
“This is gonna be bad,” Chloe observed as Clark threw the last tiny corpse into the dumpster, late that night. His X-ray vision had doomed him to the task of catching all the invaders.
They couldn’t go to the police. They had no concrete evidence linking the attacks to LuthorCorp, and Lionel Luthor had enough of a hold on the city that only the clearest of cases-the kind Lex had built over three years, and then three months in open court-could stop him.
Briefly, Clark considered telling Lex, asking him for help. He had intimate knowledge of his father’s methods.
But bringing Lex deliberately into the world of the Metropole would risk exposing his secret. Lex was too smart, and Superman too high-profile.
No, they’d have to take care of this without Lex. That was probably for the best anyway. Lex didn’t need a further reputation for carrying out a vendetta against his father’s company.
****
Still, the thought of trying to work with Lex in some way didn’t leave him.
“So, theoretically, if I did want to tell the police about, say, a meth lab, what would I do?”
Lex’s hands didn’t stop their motion across Clark’s back. Lex’s bed was really very comfortable, Clark thought. Especially with Lex in it, straddling him and giving him an entirely unnecessary but enjoyable massage.
“Theoretically, you wouldn’t coordinate with any law enforcement officer at any level, though unsolicited tips are welcome. I would have thought that fighting Brainiac and Godzilla and the like kept you too busy for doing police officers’ jobs.” Lex’s voice was even, but Clark had spent enough time around him that he could hear the tension.
“Metropolis is my home now,” Clark said, because if he’d said ‘my city’ Lex’s reaction would not have been good. Lex was a bit possessive at times, and just as prickly in interviews about Superman’s relationship with law enforcement as ever. Which at least said something for Lex’s ability to cover up his own activities. (At Lex’s pointed suggestion, Clark had taken to superspeeding into a corner of Lex’s balcony that didn’t offer any line of sight for nosy photographers, even those who could get sixty stories up with a telephoto lens. The chances of getting caught, as Superman, were low … which made Lex’s continued attendance at the Metropole even more ironic.)
Lex made a considering sound. “If you left law enforcement to the civil authorities, that would make it much easier for the people who distrust you to change their minds without having to admit they’d done so. Superheroes fighting supervillains and monsters, that they understand. It’s the stuff of summer blockbusters. Superheroes dumping drug dealers in front of the precinct house … that’s penny-ante, and it smacks of a kind of deep interference that makes many people afraid.”
Clark frowned. Lex wasn’t entirely mistaken. But then wasn’t Clark doing the wrong thing even using his X-ray vision? Yes, he invaded people’s privacy all the time. But he was trying to do what was right, just as he’d been raised.
“Relax,” Lex suggested. “You don’t have to solve all your ethical dilemmas tonight. Just the ones that affect my political prospects.”
And that was just selfish enough that Clark could laugh, and forget anything but the feel of Lex’s hands on his skin.
****
The Daily Planet ran a story about Lex’s heavy-handed tactics, hinting that he didn’t rein in the use of coercive interrogation techniques and that he’d tacitly approved the suppression of defendant-favorable evidence.
He was in a nasty mood that night. But Clark had never gotten anywhere by hiding from the tough calls. If that was really happening, Clark couldn’t be with him. Not as Superman, and not as himself.
Lex finally raised his head after Clark had stood in front of his desk for at least five minutes, arms folded across his chest.
“What the story doesn’t say,” he said, “is that all of those accusations have been tested in court, unsuccessfully, by people my office has convicted.”
Clark waited, because Lex sounded like he was trying to convince himself. And Lex did like to hear himself talk.
“Do you know just how much is legal for the police to do? It’s legal to lie to suspects. It’s legal to imply that there will be leniency if only the suspect confesses. It’s legal to use their silence against them before an actual arrest and Miranda warning. It’s legal to decline to follow a line of investigation that might provide exculpatory evidence. Practically the only thing I can’t do is bribe a witness. Unless it’s with a promise of leniency or immunity for their own crimes, because that’s perfectly legal. There’s no real need to bother with behavior that crosses the line, because the line is in the upper atmosphere.”
Clark waited a bit longer, but Lex appeared to be done. Breathing hard, fists clenching on the desk in front of him, but done. “Legal isn’t the same as right, Lex.”
Lex’s eyes flickered closed, then open, looking past Clark and into the bright lights of a Metropolis night. “And when my conviction rate goes down? When some brutal crime has been committed and the people are calling for blood?”
“I’d want to know what makes you sure it’s the right blood.” As he said it, Clark thought uncomfortably of his own extralegal activities. Maybe it was hypocrisy to ask Lex to follow a law he disregarded. But Lex was a representative of the law. He dealt with humans, and human crimes. That had to be different. Right?
Lex didn’t call him on the potential double standard. “Accuracy and due process aren’t always the same thing,” he said, and he sounded tired. “If all you want’s the former, everybody wins. I don’t want a murderer out on the street and an innocent man in prison any more than anyone else does. It’s when the rules cost money or convictions that everyone starts to squirm.”
“That’s why you have to make the tough calls,” Clark told him. “The people trusted you to do that. They never elected me.”
“So I’ve noted,” Lex said, but he looked thoughtful. And when, next week, Clark caught an item deep in the Planet’s Metro section saying that from now on the police would be recording all in-station and in-car interrogations, with a quote from Lex about how studies had demonstrated the security it gave to citizens and police both, he felt a warm glow of pride.
****
“Impressive acrobatics out there today,” Lex said as Clark fell back into the pillows, panting. (Not that he needed the oxygen, but instinct apparently overrode actual requirements.)
Clark vaguely remembered the day’s fight-some glowy probably-alien thing that could change its shape, but only slowly, like it was made out of Play-Doh. Toxic, nasty-smelling Play-Doh. Oh, and it fired flaming globs of itself at its targets, not slowly. Chloe was doing the followup of identifying it and seeing if there were protective chemicals that they could use if it showed up again.
“Thanks?”
Lex skimmed his hand over Clark’s abs, not quite tickling. “So just where does an invulnerable being learn to dodge with such athleticism?”
Clark wasn’t in a good position to shrug, so he just frowned. “I can still get hurt,” he reminded Lex. “And knocked through walls.” One of the side benefits of working at the Metropole had been added flexibility. Being able to do a split could offer a real advantage when your opponent didn’t expect that.
“Hmm.” Lex’s hand continued to move over him slowly. “In any event, you looked good.”
“I was covered in flaming purple debris,” Clark pointed out.
Lex moved lower, and Clark started to lose focus. “It didn’t obscure your finer attributes,” Lex said, and curled over him to demonstrate just which ones he meant.
****
Alcohol deliveries had been tampered with, bottles tainted with ground glass and turpentine. There were strange fluctuations in the electricity that only abated when Chloe installed a generator. They suffered through six different surprise inspections by three different city agencies in seven days.
And then there was Lex. “Your secret admirer just bought out the Champagne Room for you,” Chloe said, after his last set of the night.
Clark didn’t do many private dances, though he’d been known to give it a go for a particularly insistent and spendy bachelorette. But this was Lex, doubling down on his flirtation. Was it because Superman had hardly had time to visit in the past week, what with the trouble at the Metropole and other villainy? Clark was offended, on Superman’s behalf.
“Tell him no,” Clark said, wiping glitter off of his cheeks.
Chloe whacked him on the shoulder, then hissed in pain and wrung out her hand. “I took his money already! I don’t know what your issue is, but he’s practically paying the electricity bill on his own, and you know I have my eye on a new server rack. So go out there and smile pretty. If he breaks a rule you can break his wrist, but the Metropole delivers what it promises.”
Clark thought, not for the first time, that Chloe and Lex had a lot in common. Lex too had very little tolerance for excuses.
“Fine,” he said. He was still wearing his black leatherette short-shorts, and he put the sleeveless vest back on, along with the ten-gallon hat. Tipped over his eyes, it might disguise his annoyed expression, at least as he moved to the Champagne Room. He had to strut across the club floor to do so, because that was part of the advertising for the “individualized services” the room offered. (He’d only been solicited for actual prostitution three times in there, and he was pretty sure that two of them had been mostly dares. The third had gotten a little ugly, but that was why Clark doubled as his own bouncer.)
It was dark in the room, and Lex was backlit so that only the curve of his skull and the sharp edges of his expensive shirt were visible-he’d left his jacket behind somewhere. The champagne, which Clark knew for a fact Lex thought was little better than cold piss, was ignored on a side table. Lex’s legs were sprawled, casually taking up space.
“Clark Barr,” Lex said, purring out the name with amusement that Clark couldn’t really begrudge him; stripper names were often difficult to say straightfaced. “I was beginning to wonder if there was any way I could get your attention.”
“You bought my time,” Clark said shortly. He didn’t move further into the room. Then he shook himself internally. Chloe was right, they’d taken his money, and it wasn’t really Lex’s fault that he was giving Superman an inferiority complex.
He came to within touching distance of Lex, standing between his legs. “I’m sure you know the rules,” he said. “We take them seriously.”
Lex nodded.
As if Chloe was listening in on them (and she might well have been), the music came on, slower and more sultry than the music Clark stripped to.
And if Lex wanted this body, Clark’s body, more than the superhero, then Clark was going to show him just what he was never going to have, he thought resentfully, knowing that he wasn’t making the most sense even in his own head. He began to dance, undulating back and forth like he was riding a horse-or, he supposed, a man. He brought his hand up and carefully removed the hat, then tossed it away.
Dancing on stage was inherently ridiculous, but if you thought about it, a lot of what people did day in and day out was just as ridiculous, so Clark had learned to go with it. He slid his hands down his own chest, lingering over each muscle.
Lex wasn’t even breathing hard, according to Clark’s superhearing. Which was extra insulting considering that Lex had come here just to see Clark Barr.
He shed the vest, and turned around to show Lex his back and wriggle his ass. There-a hitch of breath, a shift of fabric. He squatted, getting so close that Lex might’ve expected him to lose his balance and land on Lex’s lap, but he was in control, moving from side to side effortlessly.
“You’re very beautiful,” Lex said, only the slightest strain in his voice.
“Thank you,” Clark said coolly.
“Please know that this won’t affect your tip, but is there any chance you’d have dinner with me?”
Clark stood and spun around, crossing his arms over his chest in a way that would probably have been more intimidating had he been wearing his uniform, or even a shirt. “Aren’t you seeing Superman?” He had the sudden and inappropriate realization that he was cockblocking himself, but pushed it away.
Lex tilted his head to one side. “Superman knows I’m here.”
Clark goggled at him. “You’re saying you have a pass to cheat?” Clark was an idiot. He knew this. Never more so than in matters of the heart-not that what he had with Lex went that far up, but-
“No, I’m saying I’m not cheating, and Superman knows it.” Lex’s heartrate was the same, his skin unvarying in temperature. He was either a sociopath or completely convinced of his own narrative. Or both.
“You know, most people wouldn’t find a stripper more interesting than Superman.”
Lex stared at him. “Do I look ordinary?”
How Clark was being the insulting one in this conversation was beyond him. “I’m just a guy,” Clark said, half desperate now. “What could you-I mean, you could have anyone.”
“Flattering, if inaccurate,” Lex said with precision. “Let’s say I’m interested in a man who spends his limited free time volunteering at a shelter, seems to give all his money away to people in need, and has managed to keep everyone who’s ever known him frighteningly loyal, which is not really standard for a sex worker.”
Clark’s mouth fell open, but no words came out.
“I’m sorry, did that sound stalkerish?” Lex did not in fact sound sorry. “As far as I can tell, you are a force for good in the world. Is it so strange that I’d find that intriguing, especially combined with your obvious physical charms?”
Clark took a calming breath, then another.
Lex sighed. “You really need to work on your self-esteem, Clark,” he said. “I know the comparison with Superman can be daunting, but you of all people shouldn’t have a problem with that.”
“… What?” Clark managed.
Lex’s expression was smoother than heavy cream. “Just keep it in mind. You know how to reach me.”
It wasn’t until the door had shut on him that Clark realized that no, only Superman knew how to reach Lex, at least via Lex’s private number instead of the AG’s office.
He left a big cash tip, which was just typical.
****
Life went on. Clark captured criminals, fended off vandals at the Metropole, took off his clothes for the customers, and visited Lex when he could. Lex continued to attend Clark Barr ‘s performances, but didn’t give him serious trouble until nearly two weeks had passed.
That night, as usual, Clark scanned the Metropole, looking for potential trouble before he went off shift. A few patrons with pills in baggies-he’d tell Chloe to have the bouncers keep an eye on them, but after that time with the allergy medicine he didn’t presume, and it wasn’t worth the effort to attempt spectroscopy on the chemicals. It was packed, only the promise of alcohol allowing the waitstaff to wriggle swiftly through the patrons.
“Where is Arthur?” Chloe asked through his earpiece. This had to be a rhetorical question, as Chloe was the one who kept track. She made a sound of frustration that promised revenge; Clark winced on Arthur’s behalf, even though he was kind of a jerk. “Clark, we are down two dancers, and we have a party in the Rumpus Room that is starting to wonder where their entertainment is. I’m gonna need you to take one for the team.”
Clark sighed. He’d already done three sets-the gladiator with the extremely inauthentic and ineffectual armor, the ever-popular firefighter, and the bad-boy biker with the improbably zippered jacket-but it was true that he was both invulnerable and very speedy at changing. “What did they order?”
“Businessmen,” Chloe said. “I’ll try to send someone else in once you’ve warmed them up. Wear the glasses.”
He didn’t get the appeal, but it was true that using the chunky black frames with his suit did increase his tips by more than 20% (Chloe also kept track of this). “Okay,” he said, and he supersped back to his changing room to get into costume. At least the body glitter and hair gel didn’t need reapplying.
His entrance was greeted with cheers and wolf whistles. According to the writing on the cake by the door, this was a thirtieth birthday party. “Hello, ladies,” he said, which got its own applause. They were in a good mood, though there was one brown-haired woman next to the apparent birthday girl who was frowning-she was probably the organizer, the one who knew there were supposed to be two dancers. Oh well.
“I had a rough day at the office,” he continued. “How about you?”
He stepped forward through the roars of approval, tugging slightly at the knot of his tie. “You know, when I work too hard, I find that I really just need to relax.” (No one ever said he was good at patter.) “And to relax, I like to dance.”
He bit his lip, always a crowdpleaser, as he loosened the tie further and stepped to the center of the room. The hipshimmy was next, then a turn so that he could work the jacket slowly off of his shoulders. When it finally started to fall, he caught it and slung it over his shoulder, shaking his ass to highlight that it was now much easier to see, and turned back, grinning at the crowd.
He was down to just his boxer-briefs, with the thong still concealed underneath, when Lex walked in.
Clark stopped for a moment, then continued his circuit of the room because he was a professional, dammit, and not everyone had yet had a chance to get up close and personal with his chest and arms. The brunette went over to Lex and said something in his ear. Lex’s face changed, smoothing into something pleasant and terrifying. He did something odd with his feet-he was toeing off his shoes, Clark realized-and stepped forward.
“Am I too late to join the party?” he asked, his voice pitched to be heard by everyone, and Clark remembered that he was used to talking to large groups. Convincing large groups, because he had the room now; even the girl with her hand on Clark’s bicep was staring at Lex.
Lex wasn’t wearing a tie, but he was wearing a vest under the jacket and he made a production of removing first the jacket, then the vest, button by button. Clark had already known just how much lean muscle was concealed under those well-tailored suits, but now the entire birthday party was getting the idea. And they weren’t at all sad about it.
Standard policy was to confiscate camera phones, and warn guests that they’d be ejected if they snuck pictures. But if someone evaded the ban, this could be a disaster-yes, the wig changed the entire look of Lex’s face, giving him a squarish hairline and turning Lex’s unforgettable sleekness into someone you might expect to encounter at a frat party. And Clark knew that the small alterations he’d made with putty to his cheekbones and nose would fool facial recognition programs. Still, he couldn’t shake the dread that someone would recognize Lex. It was like when he’d first gone out as Superman, expecting other people to intuit that he was Clark Kent despite the different appearance.
It was the same now as it had been then: no one was really looking at Lex’s face.
Clark forced himself to continue smiling invitingly and moving to the rhythm of the music.
Lex unbuttoned his dress shirt with a seductiveness he rarely showed Clark when they were alone, since they were usually too hungry for each other and short on time. Every move was heavy with sensuality, and Lex’s eyes were locked on him, like the room was otherwise empty. Lex removed one cufflink, sparkling with diamonds that the audience must’ve assumed were fake, and tossed it to Clark, who snatched it out of the air and stashed it in his waistband tip pouch, then did the same with the next.
When Lex shrugged off the shirt to reveal a tight white sleeveless undershirt, the women roared like concertgoers. Lex’s hips did something that ought to be illegal, and he slinked over to Clark.
Lex nodded at him and the birthday girl yelled out “take it all off!” Clark reached out, slowly enough to give Lex time to dance away, and settled his hands on Lex’s hips. The noise reached levels that probably threatened human hearing, and redoubled when Clark began to tug Lex’s undershirt free from his pants, up over his torso. The cotton was so smooth and soft under Clark’s fingers that Clark expected it had been woven from plants that had been given massages on a daily basis.
Clark drew the undershirt up as Lex raised his arms. Lex didn’t have a weightlifter’s six-pack, but his abs were defined, and the clean lines of his pelvic cut disappearing into his pants were like a Greek statue’s come to life. The reveal of his pecs drew further screams, and his upper arms flexed as Clark tangled the shirt around his forearms and then gave up as if that had been his intention all along.
Lex shifted backwards, opening up some space between them, and tossed the undershirt at the woman Clark had pegged as the party planner, her frown long disappeared. His shoulders were blocky with muscle and slick with sweat, the contours standing out even in the low light.
Lex brought his hands to his belt, sliding the leather out of the buckle like he was giving a handjob. Clark knew he should be doing more than swaying to the music, but honestly they were lucky he was even standing given the display Lex was putting on. Lex let the belt fall to the floor, buckle gleaming with the sheen of pure silver, and did something complicated that let the pants fall open just enough to get a peek of his boxer-briefs, which were dark gray.
Then Lex swiveled back towards Clark and hooked his fingers into Clark’s waistband. Clark gasped, louder in his ears than the cheering surrounding them, as Lex pulled their lower bodies together, his groin brushing up against Clark’s thigh. Clark thought he could feel Lex’s half-hard cock, but that might’ve been imagination; Lex was giving them a show, wriggling his ass in a way designed to tease the onlookers rather than give himself maximum contact.
Clark had already known that Lex could move, but he hadn’t known this. Lex started to bend backwards from the waist, his hand still curled around Clark’s boxers, stretching the elastic dangerously until Clark grabbed his wrist to make sure he didn’t rip the fabric and give himself a concussion. Lex let go, relying on Clark’s grip, and bent until he was in an arc of gleaming flesh, his pants slipping a few inches down his hips. From Lex’s belly to his chest to his neck he was a long vulnerable curve, stretched out in front of Clark like a sacrifice. His thighs bracketed Clark’s, squeezing enough to give himself some stability and to make Clark remember just how good those thighs felt when they were naked.
If he wasn’t careful, that thong was going to be a lot less concealing than he needed it to be.
When Lex came back up, he put his hands on Clark’s shoulders and stared into his eyes. Clark barely felt the tug at his hips, but he noticed when Lex began to squat, keeping his face so close to Clark’s torso that he might as well have been licking it, peeling the boxers down as he went. The women were whooping continuously now, and a few of them were throwing balled-up dollar bills, pinging softly off his skin.
Clark thought about Kryptonite, and about Lionel Luthor, and about shoveling cow shit as the boxers puddled on the floor and he stepped out of them on autopilot. The thong was the same red as his tie had been, and when he looked down he was not violating any indecency laws, so he pulled away from Lex and began his circuit of the room. If he thought about Lex at all he was going to be arrested, propositioned, or both, and so he concentrated on doing his job, smiling at the customers and letting them touch him (they mostly followed the rules and stayed above the waist unless they were stuffing bills into the thong, which was good because he was in no condition to respond to any real violations).
Out of the corner of his eye he saw Lex, now pantsless, collecting tips of his own. He didn’t seem to be aware of the rules, and more than once Clark saw a woman’s hand wrap around his ass-over the boxers, or Clark would’ve had to act-or linger on its way down the center of his chest.
The brunette nudged him. “The cake?” she prompted. Clark agreed that it was time for something else to happen, so he headed over to the waiting birthday cake. With his back to the customers, he saved time by lighting the candles with his heat vision, and turned to present it, wearing his biggest and most practiced grin.
The celebrant wanted to eat her cake off of Clark’s chest, which was against club rules and probably Department of Health regulations too. But when Clark tried to explain this, Lex stepped up and volunteered himself, as long as she limited herself to frosting (“crumbs just get stuck in the strangest places, you know”). And then Lex was spread out along one of the tables, looking almost like a vampire’s victim as at least eight of the partygoers took him up on his invitation. Lex had his head turned so that he could watch Clark’s reaction, and Clark couldn’t look away. The bulge in Lex’s boxer-briefs was substantial now, not all the way hard but getting there, and Clark could all but hear Lex saying, this is for you, even as the women bent their heads to swipe their wet tongues all over his legs and abs and nipples.
Clark stood there, frozen, until the party planner started handing out the favors-Clark stopped looking when he saw that everyone was getting the novelty vibrator that was cherry-red and had Superman’s crest on it (Lois had done a human interest story on it a week ago under the heading ‘Does Superman Need a Trademark Lawyer?’). Then he managed to give the birthday girl the standard peck on the cheek and escape to the back.
A few minutes later, there was a soft knock on the door of his dressing room. Lex didn’t wait for an answer before entering, carrying his suit and shirt carefully folded over his arm. There was still a patch of skin on his left pec that looked a little sticky, like he needed some extra oral attention.
All Clark’s prepared lectures escaped him. “What-where-how-?”
“You sound like a newspaper reporter,” Lex said, not unkindly. “I came in looking for you, the brunette thought I was the rest of the entertainment, and I thought, I’ve been watching you for a long time and, how difficult can it be? No offense intended.”
“None taken,” Clark snapped, then felt his shoulders droop. “You weren’t bad,” he admitted.
Lex smiled, small and secretive. “I have many hidden talents. I’d like to show you more of them.”
Really?
“Also,” Lex said, extending a hand filled with wads of cash, “I can’t legally accept gifts of this sort, so consider them my contribution to your take for tonight.”
Clark accepted them, for lack of anything better to do. The money was still warm from contact with Lex’s body.
“You said you were looking for me,” Clark realized.
“Looking for you, looking at you-nothing more urgent than the usual,” Lex said, his eyes running up and down Clark’s body in a way that made Clark realize that he was still only thong-clad. “Have a drink with me.”
Clark blinked a couple of times. “That’s still not a good idea,” he said carefully, since Lex obviously wouldn’t know a good idea if it stripped naked in front of him wearing body paint that said ‘Good Idea.’ Or didn’t strip, which was really more the point.
“I’m wealthy, respectable, and only occasionally accused of felonies,” Lex said calmly. “Also, according to your patrons, I’ve got a great ass. What’s not to like?”
The part where you’re already sleeping with Superman? Clark thought. “I don’t date customers.”
“Make an exception,” Lex suggested.
That might work for him most of the time-okay, Clark was willing to bet that worked for Lex Luthor almost all the time-but Clark had too much experience with what happened when he broke his own rules. People got hurt. “I’m sorry,” he said.
Lex must’ve been able to see the finality in his expression. “All right,” he said. “Just remember, it’s not an offer with an expiration date.” And then, right there, he began to put his clothes back on, dressing with the same grace he’d used to strip. He’d even retrieved his shoes, though the socks were lost, which didn’t surprise Clark-nobody without X-ray vision could’ve found a small object like that on the floor of the Metropole, and nobody with X-ray vision would want to.
He put his dress shirt on and tucked it into his pants, then stopped, as if waiting for Clark to change his mind.
“Um,” Clark said.
“My cufflinks?” Lex asked. “They have sentimental value.”
They had to be worth six figures, if what Clark knew from various robberies he’d stopped was any guide. “Right!” Clark said, and scrabbled in his tip pouch. “Here you go. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Lex said, his fingertips warm on Clark’s palm as he retrieved them. “I’ll be seeing you.”
And he was gone before Clark could formulate instructions about how he needed to see less of Lex, in pretty much every way possible. Clark looked glumly at the money crumpled on his makeup table, then finished emptying his tip pouch. Rent was due in a few days, after all.
The next person to barge in on him was not unexpected, and at least he’d managed to put on some pants. “What the hell was that?” Chloe demanded. “I checked the cameras and your mystery fan was gyrating-nicely, I’ll concede-up against you. Did you take in another stray without telling me? And more importantly, how much did you promise we were going to pay him?”
Clark swallowed. “He’s not-it was a misunderstanding.”
“A misunderstanding like all those times I misunderstood seeing you use your powers before I knew your secret? Or some other kind of misunderstanding?”
“It won’t happen again,” Clark promised.
Part 2
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