Gift for Tasabian! Snow Trials, part one (1/2)
Title: Snow Trials (1/2)
From: To Be Revealed! tallihensia
For: tasabian
Type: Fic, 5,802 (~13,000 total)
Rating: PG
Warnings: The story has some angst at the beginning and off-screen deaths (nobody we know). (FYI, No matter what Clark thinks at the beginning, this is NOT a major character death fic.)
Summary: After chasing off aliens from an attack on Earth, Clark heads back to the planet to deal with the fall-out. When he goes to find Lex, Clark gets trapped and then they must work together to find a way out.
Request: Clark and Lex forced to work together.
Notes: AU off end season 3, many years later. It, ah, went a bit astray from the prompt, though it kept to the main idea. Mostly. ^^;; Hope you enjoy! (Much beta love to sue_dreams for the ultra-last-minute work!)
Snow Trials
Part One
The alien ship fired another missile at Superman. Clark automatically dodged it, then cursed his reflexes and turned to go after it. From an earlier one that had exploded on him, he could tell that it was more powerful than nuclear, and of an unknown base material. He couldn't afford to let any of the missiles pass him and impact on Earth; he didn't know what it would do to the planet. He was already worried about the bits from the earlier explosions that would fall into the atmosphere.
The other alien technologies were bad enough, the thirty-odd shuttle-like machines that had come down a few days ago and started harvesting Earth's resources. They'd totally ignored the humans, and instead settled in areas around the world to siphon water, drill for minerals, clearing trees like they were so much grass. Humans had done their own fair share of clear-cutting and fracking and blasting to exploit the natural goods, but it was nothing compared with this sheer overwhelming ruthlessness and efficiency of the alien ships. Hundreds of humans had been killed just by being in the way, and also with the natural disasters that were starting up in the wake of the disturbances.
They'd initially tried fighting the harvesting machines, and found that while they could do some damage, the machines mostly ignored them, clearing out an area, then going on to another. Eventually, one then another returned to the mother ship and then came down again, leading the Earth's attention to the larger ship out there in orbit, half the size of the moon. Pleas had gone out, weapons deployed. Both had been ignored and brushed off.
Superman had gone up to negotiate, but had been ignored like the rest. It wasn't until he disabled a returning harvester and prevented it from unloading its materials that the ship turned its attention on him. From that point, it had been attack. No communication, just flat out attack and Superman trying his best to defend. His uniform was torn and his cape in strips, showing the effect of the missile.
Grabbing the missile, Superman didn't try and stop it, but redirected it instead, pushing at an angle until it was turned around and headed for the sun. If anything got in the way between the missile and the sun, Clark wasn't going to worry about it too much. As long as it didn't hit Earth.
Clark gave a worried glance towards Earth. Something down there was attracting his attention, but he was too far away and busy out here for it to get much more than a pull of his mind.
Another missile sped out his way. This time, Clark intercepted it early and turned it. He then flew up and around so he was no longer between the ship and Earth.
He looked at the large ship almost eclipsing the world behind it in his foreshortened view. Why would anybody come and do this? Why wouldn't they talk? They seemed to barely even notice the people... automated or just utterly indifferent? He'd x-rayed the ship and seen people, a alien version of people, inside, so not completely automated. Still, though, they didn't seem to care.
He looked at the world beyond the ship, the beautiful green-blue gem that he loved so much. His home. Maybe not his birth parents' home, but it was his and he would defend it to his last dying drop.
That something that had called to him earlier returned to his thoughts and he focused his vision, seeing the clouds come into focus then through them, zooming in until he saw the plane. It was a smaller plane, a courier rather than a passenger, the nose pointing towards the mountains and smoke coming from the engines. It was hard to tell from here what had happened to it, just that it was crashing and Clark was too far away to do anything about it. Still, it called.
Feeling helpless already, Clark focused his vision to the plane, not knowing why, with a world in danger and people dying everywhere, that his attention was here. Then he sucked in his breath as he saw who was inside that plane and he prepared to fly. He may not be able to get there in time, but he had to try. He had to.
A missile exploded on his chest, knocking him back and concussing him to near unconsciousness. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on stabilizing his body, coming out of the spin the blast had put him into and stopping his momentum. There were no directions in space, only his own focus and inner directions.
When he wasn't moving anymore, Superman took an anguished glance towards Earth.
What benefit to saving a single person, when a world would die? If he saved a person now, and the world died around them, would not that person also die? Nobody would thank him, not even the person he saved... especially not that one. It was probably already too late.
Clark yearned to dive down as fast as he could, breaking sound barriers and even light barriers if he could. Anything to make it on time. But that would leave his world exposed and unprotected. There were three more missiles the ship had just launched, and if he left, they would go unchallenged until they exploded on Earth. For these missiles were aimed at Earth.
The ship had changed its tactics, no longer going against Superman alone. Apparently Earthlings had made themselves too much of a pest and pests needed to be destroyed.
With a scream that couldn't be heard in the vacuum of space, Superman sped towards the missiles and not towards the world. Part of his mind still was on the airplane, but he couldn't... he just couldn't.
One missile turned, then another. Part of his attention saw the plane crashing onto a mountain-side in the Himalayans. Silently yelling his rage and pain, Superman flung the last missile straight at the ship.
For several seconds, Clark felt nothing but the pain of knowing his past to be lost, never more to be his future again. Yes, they had fought, bitterly at times. But as long as the other was still there, still in his life somehow, there was a possibility. Now, there would be none. It hurt more than he had thought it might.
Then Superman looked towards the ship that was turning ponderously away, attempting evasive action without much time or room to do it in, and he realized what he had done.
With a gulp, Superman flew with all his speed towards the missile he'd redirected. It was coming close to the ship. He wasn't sure if he'd make it on time. But his fingertips were on it now and if he could just push it... there. Another heave and the missile was streaking somewhere else off in space. Clark hoped desperately that it and the others wouldn't impact onto anything important in the solar system. Quickly, he calculated the Earth's orbit and speed and the approximate speed and angles of the missiles as he remembered them, checking to make sure they wouldn't hit Earth again in a half-year or so. He would have to check with other solar objects when he got back to the Fortress.
For now, though, a return to battle. Superman swung around and prepared to face the alien ship again.
He frowned.
The ship was... lurching. If that could be a term used for something in space and not in gravitational seas. It was continuing its last evasive action movement, but there was something off about the way it was moving, compared with how it had faced him while attacking.
There was an explosion on one side of the ship, debris blasting out, and flames shooting into space before they were extinguished. Then another explosion. Then the ship rolled.
His mouth agape, Superman x-rayed through the ship for any indication of what might have happened. Where before he had seen a few bi-pedal aliens in what was probably the command center and some other locations (fewer than he would have thought were needed for a space journey), now he saw the command center a blackened twisted mess inside the ship, other areas worse. He couldn't see a single living being left within the ship.
He searched. They might have been trying to exploit Earth and kill humans, but that didn't mean he could leave them to die. They were, though, all dead. It seemed like some sort of cosmic karma. That last evasive action they'd taken to avoid their own missile had broken their ship. They had pushed something beyond capacity, and it had gone up. Not a soul left alive.
Superman tried to feel bad... but he couldn't. He sorrowed in general for the loss of life, but he honestly cared more for all the humans that had died as a result of whatever it was the aliens had been doing. Most particularly, for one human.
Shutting his eyes for a long moment, Clark tried hard not to think that if he'd just killed the aliens at the start, he might have been able to save more lives. That wasn't ... that couldn't be the point. Not ever for him. Not if he wanted to continue to serve people and not to rule them.
With another long sigh, Superman flew towards the ship, figuring out in his mind the proper angles and velocity he would need to throw it for it to hit the sun. It would take days to get there, but he didn't want it just laying around inside the solar system. The missiles were too powerful and there was too much danger. Earth was not united and there was too much risk.
After he'd thrown the ship at the sun, Superman flew back to Earth. The aliens might be dead, but their machines had caused a lot of havoc and there was still much to be done.
... ... ...
Five days went by.
One rescue after another, one clean up after another. The mining had set off a volcano in Europe that had rained ash over the continent. Another drill had melted huge portions of the Arctic, flooding the northern-most countries. Clark didn't even want to think about what had happened to the Fortress; he'd check it later. So much damage, so many people hurt.
Yet, for all of those five days, there was only one life that really mattered. Every time Clark rescued somebody, every time he didn't, it was there in the back of his mind, in the front of his thoughts. A life that wasn't there.
After Smallville, Lex and his dad had fought so badly, Lionel leading his son into more and more dirty tricks and the darker shades of barely legal and non-legal dealings. Clark had watched in dismay and disapproval, not hesitating to make his views known. Lex hadn't appreciated it, and had made that known in turn. They had parted ways, fighting almost as bitterly as the Luthors.
Lex defeated Lionel and exiled him to jail. Superman appeared in the skies. Their interaction had been more restrained, though with its own sharp edges. Lex didn't like aliens and didn't trust Superman. Clark wrote articles describing LexCorp atrocities. There were, though, less of those than there had been. Without Lionel around, Lex had been slowly moving his companies to safer, more legal ways.
The last interview they'd had, just a week before the invasion... Clark had gone in ready to listen. Lex had been willing to bend. And there had been a connection. A tentative connection, a fragile connection, but it was something that hadn't been there since they were young.
Clark had gone away hoping. For all the people in his life who loved him -- through Lana, through Lori, through Lois, there had always been something missing. Partly it was his secrets and his responsibilities. Partly though, it was because Clark had never stopped loving Lex. It had been a helpless love, originally because of their age, and then because of Lex's dealings, but love wasn't rational, it just was.
Now, though...
Clark scrunched up his eyes and wondered where his tears were. They would have been a detriment to everything he had to do, yet he missed them, missed what they would mean. He missed Lex.
There was still more to be done. More rescues, more ground work, more doing.
But there was something else. Not something urgent, yet something he had to do.
After he finished up with another rescue, Superman flew off. Nobody would miss him. They would think he was off at another rescue. They wouldn't look for him.
He flew to the Himalayans but after roaming the mountain range for an hour he realized this wasn't working. He'd seen the plane go down, but the world wasn't marked with latitude and longitude positions; the perspective was too different and there was too much to search. He changed his method.
Superman flew up into space. There was no alien spaceship up here anymore and he had a moment of disorientation as he was caught between the past and present. All was quiet. Very quiet.
He looked out towards the sun and the journey the dead alien ship had been on. Then he resolutely turned away and back to Earth. He tried to remember the plane; there was no problem, it was engrained in his soul.
He dove down into the world, like he hadn't been able to days ago. The opportunity was gone, but as he flew he thought he might. He knew he couldn't, but it was there. Not quite a pretense as much as a wish.
There.
A plane, crumpled upon the slopes. Wings broken, one of them a thousand feet up. The plane had obviously slid down the steep ridge after it had hit, snow and rocks scraped in lines down the mountain, a line to the remnants. Of which... the plane was surprisingly intact. Other than the broken wings and tail, it looked like it hadn't suffered much externally. Internally, though, it must have been pretty bad, as evidenced by the graves outside the plane.
Graves outside the plane? Superman flew more slowly down, hovering and then alighting lightly as he studied them. More cairns than graves. Rocks and snow piled up in circular domes, with the snow packed and carved with names. Nine cairns altogether. Three of them even had religious symbols, two Christian crosses and an Islamic crescent and star.
Clark started reading the names, but inside he was restraining a hope that wanted to emerge. Somebody had to be alive to bury the others. Somebody.
"Superman."
There it was. That voice. The voice he'd been thinking about for the whole week. Thinking he'd never hear it again. Yet here he was, hearing it.
Clark turned around.
Lex stood there, in front of the plane, dressed in slacks and a turtleneck sweater and a heavy dark overcoat. What skin could be seen was unmarked, though it had been nearly a week. Clark knew enough of Lex's mutant healing not to expect bruises to still be around. Internal injuries might take longer, but Lex was standing tall and he looked fairly strong. He was thin, with that gauntness that suggests a recent fasting rather than a long-term lack of food.
What wasn't there was any sort of welcome. There was a guarded look in his eyes and a definite wariness in his manner.
Any comparison Clark had with that day at the farm twelve years ago vanished in an instant. He'd wanted to rush into Lex's arms and hold him again, rejoicing in his aliveness. Yet Lex called him 'Superman' and he wasn't looking at Clark the way he had back then.
Clark swallowed. "Lex."
Lex walked up beside him, not venturing too close, his attention on the graves. "Nobody else is left. Dave lived for a couple of days, but he was too hurt."
Clark winced. He hadn't thought anybody would be alive at all. If he'd flown over sooner...
"It wouldn't have helped. He was broken inside. All a hospital would have done would have been to make him more comfortable." Lex exercised the general ability he had to figure out what people were thinking. "You had more important things to do. How is the war?"
War? Well, it was sort of a war. Between humans and aliens - other aliens than Clark. The human deaths were incidental to the resource mining, though that had not helped the humans. Or the aliens. Clark closed his eyes. "I killed them."
There was a skeptical silence around him.
Clark opened his eyes again. "I was fighting them in space and their ship... they must have done something wrong. There were internal explosions and then they were all dead."
There was a small snort from Lex. "You do realize that nobody but you is going to feel sorry for that." Lex paused. "And I'm not sure why you feel bad either."
Clark grimaced. If Lex knew that Clark was Superman, Lex would know why he felt bad. But Lex had always thought of Superman as an alien threat, somebody with unknown morals and who could turn upon Earth in a moment when it suited his alien whims.
"I don't like killing, and we were never able to talk to them."
Lex shrugged, then went back to the original topic. "So everything else...? Their machines did a lot of damage."
"Yeah." Clark thought back over the last several days. He wasn't even sure how to answer Lex. "Things are... recovering."
"I'm honestly surprised that my plane made your rescue list, with how much you had to do."
"When I was in orbit, fighting the aliens, I saw your plane crashing. I had to come and see. I didn't think anybody would have survived, I'm sorry."
"After the volcanic ash from the eruption killed the engines and our plane stalled, Dave managed to pull the nose up long enough to lose a lot of our velocity. That and I believe the angle of the slope and the way we hit preserved the cockpit." Lex was silent for a moment. "The odds were very much against it."
Clark looked at the nose of the plane, which was pointing upslope, the way the plane had skidded around. It looked in pretty good shape compared with the rest of the plane. Opposite how things normally went in airplane crashes. Lex's luck held again - for him. It didn't seem to do much for the people around him, and Clark felt a pang of sympathy. Clark also was not always a good person to be near.
"We should get going," Clark said finally. "We can mark the coordinates for later. Is there anything you want to bring with you?"
Lex regarded the graves, then turned towards the plane. "Just a moment." He went in through the rear hatch door, shutting it behind him.
When he came out, Lex had a backpack and a carry-on luggage case. Clark raised an eyebrow.
"Selected personal effects of the deceased for their next of kin," Lex explained briefly. "Plus the research I've been working on." He glanced towards the cockpit. "I wish I could bring the radio - I've been making a lot of modifications to try and increase range and channels, but I wrote down all my notes. It might be useful for future designs."
Of course Lex hadn't just been sitting around waiting for help. Clark grinned a little, involuntarily. Then he stepped over to gather up Lex and his luggage.
And nothing happened.
Clark blinked and then tried again. Still nothing. He let go of Lex and took a few steps back and tried to fly. He couldn't... it just wasn't there, gravity held him. He looked over at the plane and couldn't see through it. He took a few more steps away and tried that second-oldest of his powers, his speed, and that failed him as well.
With a fury born out of fear, he turned on Lex. "What did you do?!"
Lex was frowning, his attention focused on Clark as Clark had gone through his trials. At Clark's accusation, he blinked and then tilted his head to one side. "Fair enough assumption, I suppose. I've tried hard enough in the past to find something to neutralize you. You have too much power for a single person. It would, however, be idiotic of me to do something now. Being stuck here with a five week supply of food is not my life's ambition."
Despite his fear, Clark was caught by Lex's words. Five week supply of food? It was a fairly small plane with ten people and a short trip. Considering how thin Lex was already, he must have rationed out the food for the absolute minimum a person could survive on. Perhaps a bit less, relying on his healing to compensate somewhat.
Clark sighed, giving up his brief flirt with the thought Lex might have done something. It wasn't Lex, at least not directly. He looked around the area, trying to see with normal sight. He'd had his powers before he got here, and now he didn't. What was here? He paced around, looking at the ground, studying the rocks.
"Kryptonite?" Lex also strode out, his gaze sharp upon the surroundings. "You don't look like you're in pain."
"I'm not. It's not green, whatever it is."
Lex stopped dead. "There are different varieties?"
Shoot. Clark hadn't meant to let that slip. He grimaced and kept checking.
"I can't help if I don't know what I'm looking for," Lex said with exasperation.
"I don't know," Clark replied heatedly. "I don't know. I just..." He was starting to feel the cold on his face and his hands. His uniform was built to resist extremes and the cape could be used to shelter normal people, which he now was, apparently. There were different varieties of kryptonite, yes, but none of them he knew of could do something like this. However, he kept finding new ones, so he didn't know. "Magical items can affect me, though not reliably."
"Magic?" Lex's voice sharpened in disbelief.
Clark knew some of the things Lex had dabbled in, and he shot a return disbelieving look at Lex. His disbelief was rooted in the idea that Lex would even say that.
Lex caught the look and held his attitude for a few moments longer before he capitulated and grinned instead. It lit up his whole face, bright and friendly. "Worth a try."
Why had their friendship ever broken? Cark missed that grin, turned upon him, shared experiences and perfect understanding. Damn the lies.
They both searched around the plane area for a few hours, looking for anything that might be causing Superman's loss of powers. Clark tried periodically, at varying distances from the plane, but he still couldn't fly. At one point, he thought he might have used his x-ray vision, but after he blinked he couldn't so it must have been his imagination.
"We should go inside," Lex finally said, with a glance up to the darkening skies. "The temperature drops dramatically without the sun."
Clark agreed. He'd been breathing on his hands for the last hour, unused to the chill, and there was nothing to show for all their searching. His nose was cold. His nose hadn't been cold since he was a kid. Even though he'd lost his power several times over the years for one reason or another, he'd never lost them while on a freezing snowy mountain at high altitude. It made a difference. He tried to remember the sensations to store up for the next time he wasn't human again.
They went to the tail of the plane and entered through the rear hatch. There was only just the room for the two of them before there was another hatch. Not standard issue. It looked like it had been cobbled together from somewhere else, possibly the cargo hold area. Despite the obvious improvisation, it seemed to be sturdy and well fitting. They went through the second door and there was a third one.
"What's with the doors?" Clark asked.
"Insulation," Lex replied briefly. He put his coat on a hook and took off his boots. He glanced over at Clark and narrowed his eyes.
"Um," Clark's instinctive manners tried to take over, but there wasn't much he had. He unhooked his cape.
"No, keep it," Lex unexpectedly said. "The boots too. Your costume hasn't picked up any snow at all, even on the seams, and from the way you've been wandering around in it outside it obviously has excellent thermal coverage."
"Uniform."
Lex raised an eyebrow as he stripped off his socks and then put two new pairs on plus new boots that were obviously more for indoors. Also not his own, since they were too big and a red color that Lex Luthor would never be seen in.
"It's a uniform, not a costume," Clark sighed. It was a sore point with him, though not one he expressed very often.
Lex stood up and opened the next door. "Fair enough, though I do wonder I haven't heard it before. The newspaper articles and the museum exhibit all call it a costume."
Clark winced. "They also named me Superman. I don't have much say in what the press says."
There weren't any more doors. The rest of the inside was normal plane space. Though there was obviously a project in progress to cover all the windows and several vertical areas with more salvaged plane parts. The vertical areas were cracks that had been roughly patched already but needed more work.
"Really?" Lex snorted. "You need a PR person. You never, ever, let the media dictate what they say. They'll write it, but you feed them what they should have. Sometimes it comes out garbage, so you have to pick the reporters who are good at what they do. Give them eggs and most will make omelets but some will make soufflés."
Clark wasn't sure if he was insulted for his profession or not. Even though Lex and he argued bitterly, Lex Corp still regularly had Lois and Clark in as invited reporters to cover press announcements and other events. So he made soufflés? He couldn't even cook.
But he was Superman at the moment, not Clark Kent. "I rescue people and help where I can. That's not PR, that's what I do. I'm not doing things for the publicity."
Lex shook his head and got out some plastic wrapped items. He handed one to Clark. "If you really think it's a uniform, you shouldn't let them label it a costume. It's how you approach what you do, and how the world sees what you do." He lifted one shoulder and dropped it in a partial shrug. "I had no idea, and you and I have had words on more than one occasion. We've fought, and I saw you as a costumed menace."
"So now I'm a uniformed menace?" Clark unwrapped the pre-packaged meal. Instinctively, he tried to heat it up, but his heat vision still wasn't working.
Lex huffed out a little laugh. "Uniform implies a duty, a job, a responsibility. Costume implies frivolity and something that can be taken off as easily as the next. You have never before denied it as a costume."
"Cirque du Soleil performers may not appreciate that description of their costumes," Clark pointed out, before chewing on a slightly frozen meat patty. Heated was much better. Lex did, however, have a point on the terminology. Clark was used to separating his two jobs and hadn't ever considered the hazards of terminology with his "superhero" status. He didn't think much of that term either, but had never done anything about it.
Nibbling on a carrot, Lex waved that aside. "That could be the same argument made for your outfit. Whose views are the most valid - the audience looking on, or the people wearing them? Besides, they put on several different costumes throughout a performance, depending on what scene is being played. It's part of the entertainment. A police officer does not change his uniform, unless he or she gets promoted."
Clark noticed that Lex's meal, unlike his own, had already been partially eaten. And Lex was already finishing up his few carrots and single bite of meat and wrapping it up again. He stared longingly at his own meal, three-fourths eaten just in their conversation and nowhere near satisfying his hunger. Forcing himself to put down the bread, he tried to wrap it up, but he'd been less cautious than Lex in opening it and couldn't.
"Go ahead and finish it," Lex said. "It won't really make any difference anyhow. The cold is going to get us long before the food is gone."
Clark looked pointedly at Lex's own sparse meal.
Lex shrugged. He was silent for several long moments and then he shrugged again. He got out a spare plastic bag, wrapped Clark's meal in it, then put both of them away in the cooler again.
They talked for awhile about other things. The conversation was wide-ranging and stimulating, covering many topics and sometimes getting heated, but always with logic and supporting background to each side.
It was close, very close, to what they used to have, and it was driving Clark crazy; Lex wasn't talking to Clark, he was talking to Superman. There was a reserve in his manner, a distance between them, a coolness in his eyes, even when he was smiling or sharing a joke.
When they'd been young, Lex had never been that guarded, not to Clark. Even nowadays, if he was talking to Clark Kent, the reporter, Lex had many things in his gaze - annoyance, anger, skepticism, mockery - but he was never indifferent to Clark.
Clark had the impression that even though they were having a good conversation, that this was all part of a day's work for Lex, part of the politics and the boardroom, the art of being social. Superman could be anybody he was trapped in a small plane in the middle of the Himalayans with.
It was a weird feeling, to know that Clark as himself rated higher on Lex's scale than Superman did. He didn't think that had ever happened with anybody before. His mom, maybe, but then, his mom knew who he was.
They also were poking at each other, taking this opportunity with just the two of them to find out more about the other. Lex was asking questions about Superman and his motives and power. Mostly subtly, never coming right out and saying it, though if the conversation went that way he didn't forego the blunt. Clark took the opportunity to question Lex right back, asking about Lionel and the company and pointedly remarking on some of Lex's less-than-legal actions that Superman had broken up in years previous.
When they finally said 'goodnight' and gathered airplane blankets to curl up in first class airplane seats to sleep, Clark was both happy and frustrated. He thought they had made some real progress in understanding each other, no longer just the alien menace nor the corporate raider.
But... It wasn't him. It was Superman. While this was good, because it got Lex thinking, it was the lie. The lie that had defined their youth. Clark wanted to tear the last bandage off, no matter how painful and tell Lex who he was. Lex lied too, though, and Clark didn't necessarily trust him. He wanted to, but the stakes were high. What if Lex was angry at him? Lex could hurt him badly, and not just him but his mom and his friends. It could put Lex in danger. Superman's identity was secret for a reason.
It hurt. It always hurt. Every time the question came up with people that Clark wanted to be friends or more with. It had ruined as many relationships as Clark had ever tried to start.
Even if he and Lex could start getting along as Clark and Lex or as Superman and Lex, it would not be enough.
Clark curled up in his cape and tiredly went to sleep.
... ... ...
The next day, he woke up warm and comfortable. Clark blinked at the ceiling in the airplane and then focused and looked through it to the clouds. He smiled and floated up from the seat.
"I take it your powers are back," Lex said in dry tones.
Clark floated back down and smiled beatifically at Lex, who was sitting close to the cockpit, with wires and tools all around him.
"You can stop working on the radio," Clark announced. "How do you test it anyhow, without power?"
"There's a bit of power, I'm just keeping it for emergencies. This wasn't the radio; that's in the cockpit." Lex made a final adjustment to whatever it was he'd been working on, which he didn't explain, then stood up, brushing at his pants. "Do you want breakfast, or just to go?"
"No offense to your food, but I think I'd like to get breakfast at home." Clark was still hungry from the bites from last night.
Lex smiled. "None taken." He gathered up the backpack and suitcase he'd had the day before. "Let's go."
They exited through the multiple doors, Lex putting on his boots and coat along the way.
Outside, Clark grasped Lex, completely professionally, and flew up.
Clark didn't start off fast, looking down at the plane and the cairns around it. He flew a little ways up the mountain, following the skid marks until he could see where the plane had first bounced. It was amazing that Lex had survived. In his arms, Lex was quiet, not saying anything, though he looked.
With a gulp, Clark turned from the mountain and started more seriously to fly away.
Then... gone.
His powers were gone again, just like that. Mid-flight and carrying the most precious cargo ever.
Clark spent a costly second or two in disbelief, then he tried everything he could to get his flight back. Pressing upon gravity in a demand for it to release him. Gravity was stronger.
Gravity was also trying to take Lex from him. Clark wrapped his arms more tightly around Lex and refused to be separated. They were falling fast, and Clark didn't know if they would have more chance on their own, but if he let Lex go and then regained his powers.... He held onto Lex. Then there was the ground.
Pain, sharp and sudden, more direct and instant than any kryptonite ever had been. Then whiteness that faded into nothing.
... ... ...
End Part One....
continue to Part Two
From: To Be Revealed! tallihensia
For: tasabian
Type: Fic, 5,802 (~13,000 total)
Rating: PG
Warnings: The story has some angst at the beginning and off-screen deaths (nobody we know). (FYI, No matter what Clark thinks at the beginning, this is NOT a major character death fic.)
Summary: After chasing off aliens from an attack on Earth, Clark heads back to the planet to deal with the fall-out. When he goes to find Lex, Clark gets trapped and then they must work together to find a way out.
Request: Clark and Lex forced to work together.
Notes: AU off end season 3, many years later. It, ah, went a bit astray from the prompt, though it kept to the main idea. Mostly. ^^;; Hope you enjoy! (Much beta love to sue_dreams for the ultra-last-minute work!)
Snow Trials
Part One
The alien ship fired another missile at Superman. Clark automatically dodged it, then cursed his reflexes and turned to go after it. From an earlier one that had exploded on him, he could tell that it was more powerful than nuclear, and of an unknown base material. He couldn't afford to let any of the missiles pass him and impact on Earth; he didn't know what it would do to the planet. He was already worried about the bits from the earlier explosions that would fall into the atmosphere.
The other alien technologies were bad enough, the thirty-odd shuttle-like machines that had come down a few days ago and started harvesting Earth's resources. They'd totally ignored the humans, and instead settled in areas around the world to siphon water, drill for minerals, clearing trees like they were so much grass. Humans had done their own fair share of clear-cutting and fracking and blasting to exploit the natural goods, but it was nothing compared with this sheer overwhelming ruthlessness and efficiency of the alien ships. Hundreds of humans had been killed just by being in the way, and also with the natural disasters that were starting up in the wake of the disturbances.
They'd initially tried fighting the harvesting machines, and found that while they could do some damage, the machines mostly ignored them, clearing out an area, then going on to another. Eventually, one then another returned to the mother ship and then came down again, leading the Earth's attention to the larger ship out there in orbit, half the size of the moon. Pleas had gone out, weapons deployed. Both had been ignored and brushed off.
Superman had gone up to negotiate, but had been ignored like the rest. It wasn't until he disabled a returning harvester and prevented it from unloading its materials that the ship turned its attention on him. From that point, it had been attack. No communication, just flat out attack and Superman trying his best to defend. His uniform was torn and his cape in strips, showing the effect of the missile.
Grabbing the missile, Superman didn't try and stop it, but redirected it instead, pushing at an angle until it was turned around and headed for the sun. If anything got in the way between the missile and the sun, Clark wasn't going to worry about it too much. As long as it didn't hit Earth.
Clark gave a worried glance towards Earth. Something down there was attracting his attention, but he was too far away and busy out here for it to get much more than a pull of his mind.
Another missile sped out his way. This time, Clark intercepted it early and turned it. He then flew up and around so he was no longer between the ship and Earth.
He looked at the large ship almost eclipsing the world behind it in his foreshortened view. Why would anybody come and do this? Why wouldn't they talk? They seemed to barely even notice the people... automated or just utterly indifferent? He'd x-rayed the ship and seen people, a alien version of people, inside, so not completely automated. Still, though, they didn't seem to care.
He looked at the world beyond the ship, the beautiful green-blue gem that he loved so much. His home. Maybe not his birth parents' home, but it was his and he would defend it to his last dying drop.
That something that had called to him earlier returned to his thoughts and he focused his vision, seeing the clouds come into focus then through them, zooming in until he saw the plane. It was a smaller plane, a courier rather than a passenger, the nose pointing towards the mountains and smoke coming from the engines. It was hard to tell from here what had happened to it, just that it was crashing and Clark was too far away to do anything about it. Still, it called.
Feeling helpless already, Clark focused his vision to the plane, not knowing why, with a world in danger and people dying everywhere, that his attention was here. Then he sucked in his breath as he saw who was inside that plane and he prepared to fly. He may not be able to get there in time, but he had to try. He had to.
A missile exploded on his chest, knocking him back and concussing him to near unconsciousness. Closing his eyes, he concentrated on stabilizing his body, coming out of the spin the blast had put him into and stopping his momentum. There were no directions in space, only his own focus and inner directions.
When he wasn't moving anymore, Superman took an anguished glance towards Earth.
What benefit to saving a single person, when a world would die? If he saved a person now, and the world died around them, would not that person also die? Nobody would thank him, not even the person he saved... especially not that one. It was probably already too late.
Clark yearned to dive down as fast as he could, breaking sound barriers and even light barriers if he could. Anything to make it on time. But that would leave his world exposed and unprotected. There were three more missiles the ship had just launched, and if he left, they would go unchallenged until they exploded on Earth. For these missiles were aimed at Earth.
The ship had changed its tactics, no longer going against Superman alone. Apparently Earthlings had made themselves too much of a pest and pests needed to be destroyed.
With a scream that couldn't be heard in the vacuum of space, Superman sped towards the missiles and not towards the world. Part of his mind still was on the airplane, but he couldn't... he just couldn't.
One missile turned, then another. Part of his attention saw the plane crashing onto a mountain-side in the Himalayans. Silently yelling his rage and pain, Superman flung the last missile straight at the ship.
For several seconds, Clark felt nothing but the pain of knowing his past to be lost, never more to be his future again. Yes, they had fought, bitterly at times. But as long as the other was still there, still in his life somehow, there was a possibility. Now, there would be none. It hurt more than he had thought it might.
Then Superman looked towards the ship that was turning ponderously away, attempting evasive action without much time or room to do it in, and he realized what he had done.
With a gulp, Superman flew with all his speed towards the missile he'd redirected. It was coming close to the ship. He wasn't sure if he'd make it on time. But his fingertips were on it now and if he could just push it... there. Another heave and the missile was streaking somewhere else off in space. Clark hoped desperately that it and the others wouldn't impact onto anything important in the solar system. Quickly, he calculated the Earth's orbit and speed and the approximate speed and angles of the missiles as he remembered them, checking to make sure they wouldn't hit Earth again in a half-year or so. He would have to check with other solar objects when he got back to the Fortress.
For now, though, a return to battle. Superman swung around and prepared to face the alien ship again.
He frowned.
The ship was... lurching. If that could be a term used for something in space and not in gravitational seas. It was continuing its last evasive action movement, but there was something off about the way it was moving, compared with how it had faced him while attacking.
There was an explosion on one side of the ship, debris blasting out, and flames shooting into space before they were extinguished. Then another explosion. Then the ship rolled.
His mouth agape, Superman x-rayed through the ship for any indication of what might have happened. Where before he had seen a few bi-pedal aliens in what was probably the command center and some other locations (fewer than he would have thought were needed for a space journey), now he saw the command center a blackened twisted mess inside the ship, other areas worse. He couldn't see a single living being left within the ship.
He searched. They might have been trying to exploit Earth and kill humans, but that didn't mean he could leave them to die. They were, though, all dead. It seemed like some sort of cosmic karma. That last evasive action they'd taken to avoid their own missile had broken their ship. They had pushed something beyond capacity, and it had gone up. Not a soul left alive.
Superman tried to feel bad... but he couldn't. He sorrowed in general for the loss of life, but he honestly cared more for all the humans that had died as a result of whatever it was the aliens had been doing. Most particularly, for one human.
Shutting his eyes for a long moment, Clark tried hard not to think that if he'd just killed the aliens at the start, he might have been able to save more lives. That wasn't ... that couldn't be the point. Not ever for him. Not if he wanted to continue to serve people and not to rule them.
With another long sigh, Superman flew towards the ship, figuring out in his mind the proper angles and velocity he would need to throw it for it to hit the sun. It would take days to get there, but he didn't want it just laying around inside the solar system. The missiles were too powerful and there was too much danger. Earth was not united and there was too much risk.
After he'd thrown the ship at the sun, Superman flew back to Earth. The aliens might be dead, but their machines had caused a lot of havoc and there was still much to be done.
... ... ...
Five days went by.
One rescue after another, one clean up after another. The mining had set off a volcano in Europe that had rained ash over the continent. Another drill had melted huge portions of the Arctic, flooding the northern-most countries. Clark didn't even want to think about what had happened to the Fortress; he'd check it later. So much damage, so many people hurt.
Yet, for all of those five days, there was only one life that really mattered. Every time Clark rescued somebody, every time he didn't, it was there in the back of his mind, in the front of his thoughts. A life that wasn't there.
After Smallville, Lex and his dad had fought so badly, Lionel leading his son into more and more dirty tricks and the darker shades of barely legal and non-legal dealings. Clark had watched in dismay and disapproval, not hesitating to make his views known. Lex hadn't appreciated it, and had made that known in turn. They had parted ways, fighting almost as bitterly as the Luthors.
Lex defeated Lionel and exiled him to jail. Superman appeared in the skies. Their interaction had been more restrained, though with its own sharp edges. Lex didn't like aliens and didn't trust Superman. Clark wrote articles describing LexCorp atrocities. There were, though, less of those than there had been. Without Lionel around, Lex had been slowly moving his companies to safer, more legal ways.
The last interview they'd had, just a week before the invasion... Clark had gone in ready to listen. Lex had been willing to bend. And there had been a connection. A tentative connection, a fragile connection, but it was something that hadn't been there since they were young.
Clark had gone away hoping. For all the people in his life who loved him -- through Lana, through Lori, through Lois, there had always been something missing. Partly it was his secrets and his responsibilities. Partly though, it was because Clark had never stopped loving Lex. It had been a helpless love, originally because of their age, and then because of Lex's dealings, but love wasn't rational, it just was.
Now, though...
Clark scrunched up his eyes and wondered where his tears were. They would have been a detriment to everything he had to do, yet he missed them, missed what they would mean. He missed Lex.
There was still more to be done. More rescues, more ground work, more doing.
But there was something else. Not something urgent, yet something he had to do.
After he finished up with another rescue, Superman flew off. Nobody would miss him. They would think he was off at another rescue. They wouldn't look for him.
He flew to the Himalayans but after roaming the mountain range for an hour he realized this wasn't working. He'd seen the plane go down, but the world wasn't marked with latitude and longitude positions; the perspective was too different and there was too much to search. He changed his method.
Superman flew up into space. There was no alien spaceship up here anymore and he had a moment of disorientation as he was caught between the past and present. All was quiet. Very quiet.
He looked out towards the sun and the journey the dead alien ship had been on. Then he resolutely turned away and back to Earth. He tried to remember the plane; there was no problem, it was engrained in his soul.
He dove down into the world, like he hadn't been able to days ago. The opportunity was gone, but as he flew he thought he might. He knew he couldn't, but it was there. Not quite a pretense as much as a wish.
There.
A plane, crumpled upon the slopes. Wings broken, one of them a thousand feet up. The plane had obviously slid down the steep ridge after it had hit, snow and rocks scraped in lines down the mountain, a line to the remnants. Of which... the plane was surprisingly intact. Other than the broken wings and tail, it looked like it hadn't suffered much externally. Internally, though, it must have been pretty bad, as evidenced by the graves outside the plane.
Graves outside the plane? Superman flew more slowly down, hovering and then alighting lightly as he studied them. More cairns than graves. Rocks and snow piled up in circular domes, with the snow packed and carved with names. Nine cairns altogether. Three of them even had religious symbols, two Christian crosses and an Islamic crescent and star.
Clark started reading the names, but inside he was restraining a hope that wanted to emerge. Somebody had to be alive to bury the others. Somebody.
"Superman."
There it was. That voice. The voice he'd been thinking about for the whole week. Thinking he'd never hear it again. Yet here he was, hearing it.
Clark turned around.
Lex stood there, in front of the plane, dressed in slacks and a turtleneck sweater and a heavy dark overcoat. What skin could be seen was unmarked, though it had been nearly a week. Clark knew enough of Lex's mutant healing not to expect bruises to still be around. Internal injuries might take longer, but Lex was standing tall and he looked fairly strong. He was thin, with that gauntness that suggests a recent fasting rather than a long-term lack of food.
What wasn't there was any sort of welcome. There was a guarded look in his eyes and a definite wariness in his manner.
Any comparison Clark had with that day at the farm twelve years ago vanished in an instant. He'd wanted to rush into Lex's arms and hold him again, rejoicing in his aliveness. Yet Lex called him 'Superman' and he wasn't looking at Clark the way he had back then.
Clark swallowed. "Lex."
Lex walked up beside him, not venturing too close, his attention on the graves. "Nobody else is left. Dave lived for a couple of days, but he was too hurt."
Clark winced. He hadn't thought anybody would be alive at all. If he'd flown over sooner...
"It wouldn't have helped. He was broken inside. All a hospital would have done would have been to make him more comfortable." Lex exercised the general ability he had to figure out what people were thinking. "You had more important things to do. How is the war?"
War? Well, it was sort of a war. Between humans and aliens - other aliens than Clark. The human deaths were incidental to the resource mining, though that had not helped the humans. Or the aliens. Clark closed his eyes. "I killed them."
There was a skeptical silence around him.
Clark opened his eyes again. "I was fighting them in space and their ship... they must have done something wrong. There were internal explosions and then they were all dead."
There was a small snort from Lex. "You do realize that nobody but you is going to feel sorry for that." Lex paused. "And I'm not sure why you feel bad either."
Clark grimaced. If Lex knew that Clark was Superman, Lex would know why he felt bad. But Lex had always thought of Superman as an alien threat, somebody with unknown morals and who could turn upon Earth in a moment when it suited his alien whims.
"I don't like killing, and we were never able to talk to them."
Lex shrugged, then went back to the original topic. "So everything else...? Their machines did a lot of damage."
"Yeah." Clark thought back over the last several days. He wasn't even sure how to answer Lex. "Things are... recovering."
"I'm honestly surprised that my plane made your rescue list, with how much you had to do."
"When I was in orbit, fighting the aliens, I saw your plane crashing. I had to come and see. I didn't think anybody would have survived, I'm sorry."
"After the volcanic ash from the eruption killed the engines and our plane stalled, Dave managed to pull the nose up long enough to lose a lot of our velocity. That and I believe the angle of the slope and the way we hit preserved the cockpit." Lex was silent for a moment. "The odds were very much against it."
Clark looked at the nose of the plane, which was pointing upslope, the way the plane had skidded around. It looked in pretty good shape compared with the rest of the plane. Opposite how things normally went in airplane crashes. Lex's luck held again - for him. It didn't seem to do much for the people around him, and Clark felt a pang of sympathy. Clark also was not always a good person to be near.
"We should get going," Clark said finally. "We can mark the coordinates for later. Is there anything you want to bring with you?"
Lex regarded the graves, then turned towards the plane. "Just a moment." He went in through the rear hatch door, shutting it behind him.
When he came out, Lex had a backpack and a carry-on luggage case. Clark raised an eyebrow.
"Selected personal effects of the deceased for their next of kin," Lex explained briefly. "Plus the research I've been working on." He glanced towards the cockpit. "I wish I could bring the radio - I've been making a lot of modifications to try and increase range and channels, but I wrote down all my notes. It might be useful for future designs."
Of course Lex hadn't just been sitting around waiting for help. Clark grinned a little, involuntarily. Then he stepped over to gather up Lex and his luggage.
And nothing happened.
Clark blinked and then tried again. Still nothing. He let go of Lex and took a few steps back and tried to fly. He couldn't... it just wasn't there, gravity held him. He looked over at the plane and couldn't see through it. He took a few more steps away and tried that second-oldest of his powers, his speed, and that failed him as well.
With a fury born out of fear, he turned on Lex. "What did you do?!"
Lex was frowning, his attention focused on Clark as Clark had gone through his trials. At Clark's accusation, he blinked and then tilted his head to one side. "Fair enough assumption, I suppose. I've tried hard enough in the past to find something to neutralize you. You have too much power for a single person. It would, however, be idiotic of me to do something now. Being stuck here with a five week supply of food is not my life's ambition."
Despite his fear, Clark was caught by Lex's words. Five week supply of food? It was a fairly small plane with ten people and a short trip. Considering how thin Lex was already, he must have rationed out the food for the absolute minimum a person could survive on. Perhaps a bit less, relying on his healing to compensate somewhat.
Clark sighed, giving up his brief flirt with the thought Lex might have done something. It wasn't Lex, at least not directly. He looked around the area, trying to see with normal sight. He'd had his powers before he got here, and now he didn't. What was here? He paced around, looking at the ground, studying the rocks.
"Kryptonite?" Lex also strode out, his gaze sharp upon the surroundings. "You don't look like you're in pain."
"I'm not. It's not green, whatever it is."
Lex stopped dead. "There are different varieties?"
Shoot. Clark hadn't meant to let that slip. He grimaced and kept checking.
"I can't help if I don't know what I'm looking for," Lex said with exasperation.
"I don't know," Clark replied heatedly. "I don't know. I just..." He was starting to feel the cold on his face and his hands. His uniform was built to resist extremes and the cape could be used to shelter normal people, which he now was, apparently. There were different varieties of kryptonite, yes, but none of them he knew of could do something like this. However, he kept finding new ones, so he didn't know. "Magical items can affect me, though not reliably."
"Magic?" Lex's voice sharpened in disbelief.
Clark knew some of the things Lex had dabbled in, and he shot a return disbelieving look at Lex. His disbelief was rooted in the idea that Lex would even say that.
Lex caught the look and held his attitude for a few moments longer before he capitulated and grinned instead. It lit up his whole face, bright and friendly. "Worth a try."
Why had their friendship ever broken? Cark missed that grin, turned upon him, shared experiences and perfect understanding. Damn the lies.
They both searched around the plane area for a few hours, looking for anything that might be causing Superman's loss of powers. Clark tried periodically, at varying distances from the plane, but he still couldn't fly. At one point, he thought he might have used his x-ray vision, but after he blinked he couldn't so it must have been his imagination.
"We should go inside," Lex finally said, with a glance up to the darkening skies. "The temperature drops dramatically without the sun."
Clark agreed. He'd been breathing on his hands for the last hour, unused to the chill, and there was nothing to show for all their searching. His nose was cold. His nose hadn't been cold since he was a kid. Even though he'd lost his power several times over the years for one reason or another, he'd never lost them while on a freezing snowy mountain at high altitude. It made a difference. He tried to remember the sensations to store up for the next time he wasn't human again.
They went to the tail of the plane and entered through the rear hatch. There was only just the room for the two of them before there was another hatch. Not standard issue. It looked like it had been cobbled together from somewhere else, possibly the cargo hold area. Despite the obvious improvisation, it seemed to be sturdy and well fitting. They went through the second door and there was a third one.
"What's with the doors?" Clark asked.
"Insulation," Lex replied briefly. He put his coat on a hook and took off his boots. He glanced over at Clark and narrowed his eyes.
"Um," Clark's instinctive manners tried to take over, but there wasn't much he had. He unhooked his cape.
"No, keep it," Lex unexpectedly said. "The boots too. Your costume hasn't picked up any snow at all, even on the seams, and from the way you've been wandering around in it outside it obviously has excellent thermal coverage."
"Uniform."
Lex raised an eyebrow as he stripped off his socks and then put two new pairs on plus new boots that were obviously more for indoors. Also not his own, since they were too big and a red color that Lex Luthor would never be seen in.
"It's a uniform, not a costume," Clark sighed. It was a sore point with him, though not one he expressed very often.
Lex stood up and opened the next door. "Fair enough, though I do wonder I haven't heard it before. The newspaper articles and the museum exhibit all call it a costume."
Clark winced. "They also named me Superman. I don't have much say in what the press says."
There weren't any more doors. The rest of the inside was normal plane space. Though there was obviously a project in progress to cover all the windows and several vertical areas with more salvaged plane parts. The vertical areas were cracks that had been roughly patched already but needed more work.
"Really?" Lex snorted. "You need a PR person. You never, ever, let the media dictate what they say. They'll write it, but you feed them what they should have. Sometimes it comes out garbage, so you have to pick the reporters who are good at what they do. Give them eggs and most will make omelets but some will make soufflés."
Clark wasn't sure if he was insulted for his profession or not. Even though Lex and he argued bitterly, Lex Corp still regularly had Lois and Clark in as invited reporters to cover press announcements and other events. So he made soufflés? He couldn't even cook.
But he was Superman at the moment, not Clark Kent. "I rescue people and help where I can. That's not PR, that's what I do. I'm not doing things for the publicity."
Lex shook his head and got out some plastic wrapped items. He handed one to Clark. "If you really think it's a uniform, you shouldn't let them label it a costume. It's how you approach what you do, and how the world sees what you do." He lifted one shoulder and dropped it in a partial shrug. "I had no idea, and you and I have had words on more than one occasion. We've fought, and I saw you as a costumed menace."
"So now I'm a uniformed menace?" Clark unwrapped the pre-packaged meal. Instinctively, he tried to heat it up, but his heat vision still wasn't working.
Lex huffed out a little laugh. "Uniform implies a duty, a job, a responsibility. Costume implies frivolity and something that can be taken off as easily as the next. You have never before denied it as a costume."
"Cirque du Soleil performers may not appreciate that description of their costumes," Clark pointed out, before chewing on a slightly frozen meat patty. Heated was much better. Lex did, however, have a point on the terminology. Clark was used to separating his two jobs and hadn't ever considered the hazards of terminology with his "superhero" status. He didn't think much of that term either, but had never done anything about it.
Nibbling on a carrot, Lex waved that aside. "That could be the same argument made for your outfit. Whose views are the most valid - the audience looking on, or the people wearing them? Besides, they put on several different costumes throughout a performance, depending on what scene is being played. It's part of the entertainment. A police officer does not change his uniform, unless he or she gets promoted."
Clark noticed that Lex's meal, unlike his own, had already been partially eaten. And Lex was already finishing up his few carrots and single bite of meat and wrapping it up again. He stared longingly at his own meal, three-fourths eaten just in their conversation and nowhere near satisfying his hunger. Forcing himself to put down the bread, he tried to wrap it up, but he'd been less cautious than Lex in opening it and couldn't.
"Go ahead and finish it," Lex said. "It won't really make any difference anyhow. The cold is going to get us long before the food is gone."
Clark looked pointedly at Lex's own sparse meal.
Lex shrugged. He was silent for several long moments and then he shrugged again. He got out a spare plastic bag, wrapped Clark's meal in it, then put both of them away in the cooler again.
They talked for awhile about other things. The conversation was wide-ranging and stimulating, covering many topics and sometimes getting heated, but always with logic and supporting background to each side.
It was close, very close, to what they used to have, and it was driving Clark crazy; Lex wasn't talking to Clark, he was talking to Superman. There was a reserve in his manner, a distance between them, a coolness in his eyes, even when he was smiling or sharing a joke.
When they'd been young, Lex had never been that guarded, not to Clark. Even nowadays, if he was talking to Clark Kent, the reporter, Lex had many things in his gaze - annoyance, anger, skepticism, mockery - but he was never indifferent to Clark.
Clark had the impression that even though they were having a good conversation, that this was all part of a day's work for Lex, part of the politics and the boardroom, the art of being social. Superman could be anybody he was trapped in a small plane in the middle of the Himalayans with.
It was a weird feeling, to know that Clark as himself rated higher on Lex's scale than Superman did. He didn't think that had ever happened with anybody before. His mom, maybe, but then, his mom knew who he was.
They also were poking at each other, taking this opportunity with just the two of them to find out more about the other. Lex was asking questions about Superman and his motives and power. Mostly subtly, never coming right out and saying it, though if the conversation went that way he didn't forego the blunt. Clark took the opportunity to question Lex right back, asking about Lionel and the company and pointedly remarking on some of Lex's less-than-legal actions that Superman had broken up in years previous.
When they finally said 'goodnight' and gathered airplane blankets to curl up in first class airplane seats to sleep, Clark was both happy and frustrated. He thought they had made some real progress in understanding each other, no longer just the alien menace nor the corporate raider.
But... It wasn't him. It was Superman. While this was good, because it got Lex thinking, it was the lie. The lie that had defined their youth. Clark wanted to tear the last bandage off, no matter how painful and tell Lex who he was. Lex lied too, though, and Clark didn't necessarily trust him. He wanted to, but the stakes were high. What if Lex was angry at him? Lex could hurt him badly, and not just him but his mom and his friends. It could put Lex in danger. Superman's identity was secret for a reason.
It hurt. It always hurt. Every time the question came up with people that Clark wanted to be friends or more with. It had ruined as many relationships as Clark had ever tried to start.
Even if he and Lex could start getting along as Clark and Lex or as Superman and Lex, it would not be enough.
Clark curled up in his cape and tiredly went to sleep.
... ... ...
The next day, he woke up warm and comfortable. Clark blinked at the ceiling in the airplane and then focused and looked through it to the clouds. He smiled and floated up from the seat.
"I take it your powers are back," Lex said in dry tones.
Clark floated back down and smiled beatifically at Lex, who was sitting close to the cockpit, with wires and tools all around him.
"You can stop working on the radio," Clark announced. "How do you test it anyhow, without power?"
"There's a bit of power, I'm just keeping it for emergencies. This wasn't the radio; that's in the cockpit." Lex made a final adjustment to whatever it was he'd been working on, which he didn't explain, then stood up, brushing at his pants. "Do you want breakfast, or just to go?"
"No offense to your food, but I think I'd like to get breakfast at home." Clark was still hungry from the bites from last night.
Lex smiled. "None taken." He gathered up the backpack and suitcase he'd had the day before. "Let's go."
They exited through the multiple doors, Lex putting on his boots and coat along the way.
Outside, Clark grasped Lex, completely professionally, and flew up.
Clark didn't start off fast, looking down at the plane and the cairns around it. He flew a little ways up the mountain, following the skid marks until he could see where the plane had first bounced. It was amazing that Lex had survived. In his arms, Lex was quiet, not saying anything, though he looked.
With a gulp, Clark turned from the mountain and started more seriously to fly away.
Then... gone.
His powers were gone again, just like that. Mid-flight and carrying the most precious cargo ever.
Clark spent a costly second or two in disbelief, then he tried everything he could to get his flight back. Pressing upon gravity in a demand for it to release him. Gravity was stronger.
Gravity was also trying to take Lex from him. Clark wrapped his arms more tightly around Lex and refused to be separated. They were falling fast, and Clark didn't know if they would have more chance on their own, but if he let Lex go and then regained his powers.... He held onto Lex. Then there was the ground.
Pain, sharp and sudden, more direct and instant than any kryptonite ever had been. Then whiteness that faded into nothing.
... ... ...
End Part One....
continue to Part Two