Superman for Sale - Chapter 14
Title: Superman for Sale
Author: D.M. Wyatt
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: Mostly R, some chapters are NC-17
Warnings: Physical and Emotional TC, graphic descriptions of adult sexual content, BD/SM, future fic, post rift
Spoilers: None
Word Count this chapter: 5,565
Short summary of this chapter: Clark has to deal with the monstrous robotic spider and Lex has to deal with the aftermath.
Previous updates HERE.
Part 14 of 15 (epilogue still to come)...
~:::~
Clark, dazed and woozy, staggered to his feet. He had to push aside the ruined Lincoln Navigator he'd crumpled when the huge robotic spider had knocked him into it.
He'd landed in the shadow of a building about two blocks from Lex's office building. The humongous robotic spider was again heading in the direction of Lexcorp. Clark didn't think that it was a coincidence that Lex announced he's shutting down his weapons divisions on a day a rogue weapon-like robotic spider goes on a rampage. Someone didn't seem to be happy with what Lex was doing with his defense contract divisions.
Clark sighed and flew up above the line of buildings he was shaded by. He burst into the bright morning sunlight and basked in it for a moment to let his body recharge. As he looked down on the still slowly advancing machine, he got a better look at what else was going on. He could see the Metropolis PD, no doubt used to this kind of thing with the various planetary invasions and the last swarm of flying robotic monkeys that Lex had lost control of, were already well under way with dealing with the threat the huge spider posed to the populace. They'd rolled all of their numerous S.W.A.T. teams and their Special Taskforce On Robotic Threats, or STORT.
Clark grimaced at the unfortunate acronym, but was glad they were on the job. He was relieved when he saw that the regular beat officers were organizing orderly evacuations of the buildings in the vicinity. Office buildings in downtown, all used to same sort of threat this thing posed to their workers, all had their fire alarms going and their employees and any visitors were heading to the exits of the buildings that were away from the Giant Robot Spider's path of destruction.
The streets were now deserted except for the police, Clark and, of course, the robot.
Glad that the people of Metropolis were no longer in any direct danger, he reoriented on the robotic spider and tried to think of the best way to attack it. The thing had two heads, one in the front and the other in the back. It seemed impervious to heat vision so he couldn't do a distance attack and there'd be no way to sneak up on it from behind.
He had to come at it from the side. However, it was so big it took up the entire street, so Clark had to get it when it got to an intersection. He looked at it and tried to gauge when it was going to come up on the next cross street.
Recharged, he gritted his teeth and, above the streets, zoomed in between the buildings. Still a couple of stories high, he pulled up and pressed his body against the building on the next corner. He could feel the vibrations of the robot coming closer through the granite of the old building.
He heard several helicopters approach. He looked up and frowned, added to the dozens of things he had to keep track of in order to keep Metropolitans as safe as he could while trying to fight the monster there were now TV station helicopters heading his way, trying to get the battle on camera.
Clark sighed and gritted his teeth at the thing started to go past the building he was hiding behind, heading into an intersection only two blocks from Lexcorp. He had to stay on task.
He ran into the thing full speed from the side and it only rocked to the side, but it did pause in its advance. He fell back several dozen yards to get a better look at the thing, hanging mid-air just out of reach of its remarkably powerful legs. He'd been batted aside one too many times and he didn't want to give it another chance.
However, the thing didn't apparently have a good look at him from the side, so it started to rotate its position so it could orient one of its 'heads' on his location better.
Clark grinned fiercely. Maybe he could act like bait and draw it away from the more populated downtown area. There was a less dense industrial area that started only a few blocks behind him.
He feinted just close enough to tempt the thing to try again to bat him from the sky. The thing swung and Clark, expecting the attempt, was able to pull back in time, but he had to use his speed.
That thing is quick, he thought.
The robotic spider almost looked angry. The front legs it had brought to bear on Clark shook, as if with rage. The thing didn't look complicated enough to have a high amount of Artificial Intelligence so that didn't make any sense.
He scowled at it.
The thing's skin was lined with lead, so he couldn't see inside, but he knew that there wasn't a person running things from inside the machine either. There was no hint of a human inhabitant: he couldn't hear a heartbeat or the sounds of respiration. Remote control was the only thing he could figure, but the person running the machine had to be close. The machine maneuvered well through downtown and managed to keep him at bay to boot. Whoever was running it must be able to see the downtown area.
Or, he thought it more likely, they had to have cameras onboard the thing. They were watching what this thing could 'see' with its 'eyes' and were steering it, like a remote controlled car, only it wasn't a car. It was a machine designed to destroy and he couldn't apparently hurt it with his heat vision, so he couldn't knock out the cameras from a distance.
His anger grew.
He feinted again, and quickly pulled back, but the person (or persons) running the controls of the thing must have learned to time their swings better because this time the robotic spider was able to land a glancing blow. Clark tumbled through the air and, breaking through the window, crash landed in the third floor corner office of a startled man wearing an expensive looking suit. The short, rotund man looked arrogant and stuffy, maybe a lawyer or stock broker. He looked at Clark from behind his computer monitor, which was obscenely huge.
The building's fire alarm, a warning to evacuate, was blaring. Yet the guy ignored it and was working on his computer.
Superman stood slowly and brushed the broken glass from his uniform. He took the sternest tone with the man he could as the fire alarm continued to sound from the hallway just outside his door. "There is an emergency, so you need to follow your company's emergency procedures. The same ones you should have practiced according to city codes dictating routine practice fire drills for all high rise buildings in downtown."
The man managed to act cool and dignified, apparently oblivious to the giant robotic spider going past the window just behind him. "It isn't necessary to evacuate, Superman. I talked to building security, there isn't really a fire."
"That is true, there is no fire." He stated matter-of-factly, "However, I would like to point out that you probably don't want to be in the vicinity of this room when I go back outside..." He glanced and nodded at the window behind the man, the one that Clark hadn't crashed through. "And fight that."
The man turned and saw what Clark was talking about. Superman could see the color literally drain from the man's face. All dignity lost, the man squeaked in alarm and ran from the room. Clark raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.
The fat little man ran a lot faster than Clark would have thought he would have been capable of.
Clark shrugged and flew as fast as he could, bursting through the unbroken window, and hit the thing harder this time. The thing shuddered with the impact, but it had been ready, despite apparently not having a good view of things happening to the side. One of its legs hit him in a downward motion, smashing him into a Hummer.
The expensive steel, and notoriously rugged, machine was still no match for a robotic spider when it knocked a 225 pound Kryptonian at full speed into its roof. The SUV crumpled as its alarm sounded drunkenly.
The huge robotic spider had to back up to turn around so that Clark was again in full view of the cameras on its 'head'. It reared back on its hind legs and aimed the two kryptonite pulse beam canons at Clark.
"Uh, oh," he zoomed up into the air with a touch of speed. Clark only narrowly missed getting hit.
He hovered about fifty feet above it and he considered his options. The thing, or whoever was running it, was learning. It was adapting to his attacks and it was tough enough and fast enough to be a real threat to him. This thing wasn't going to be easy to take down.
As he hung up in the air, he thought about what he should try next. He looked down on the thing and Clark could see the heads swiveling back and forth as it tried to discover where he had gone. He realized the thing couldn't 'see' him at all where he was.
He took advantage of the pause to examine the thing more closely. He had no problem using his telescopic vision, but the lead made it so he couldn't see anything not directly in his line of sight. There was a shimmering light over the thing's body, an apparent shield of some kind.
He sighed as the thing started to move, it was turning around to no doubt again head toward Lex's office. The creator of this thing apparently had a thing against Lexcorp.
Frustrated, Clark hit it from the top with a blast of heat vision and it again halted like it had before, despite the heat vision doing no apparent damage. This time, Clark had a better look at it and it was easier to see why.
Power was being drawn away from its other functions to reinforce its electromagnetic defenses. The shield, which covered its body like a curved transparent cover, sparkled in the shadow of the building it had batted Clark into. That explained why the heat vision wasn't working. He needed to find the power source for the shielding and disable it or he was going to have problems with this thing.
He realized too late that thinking about other things probably hadn't been the thing to do. He had been completely surprised when a long serpentine arm had shot up behind him and knocked him to the pavement at the thing's feet, right underneath the meteor-rock pulse beam canons. No need for the thing to rear back. Stunned by the collision with the street, Clark was shot with twin beams of green light before he could react.
He was in agony. Convinced he was about to die, crushed underneath one of the machine's heavy legs, he was surprised when the thing turned away from him. Even though Clark was helpless and vulnerable, it turned and headed back toward Lexcorp.
Shaking his head to clear it as he stood, Clark was confused. The thing must have been designed to take him down, it was too tough and quick and armed with way too much kryptonite for it to be a coincidence. Yet whoever was running it wasn't interested in doing more than disabling him. For whatever reason, its real goal appeared to be Lexcorp.
Clark's worry turned to Lex, Lois, Jimmy and the other reporters and photographers that he knew that had been in that conference room.
He searched with his x-ray vision and he could see most of the reporters that had been in that conference had evacuated, but he couldn't see Lex, Lois, Jimmy, Mercy or Hope. His worry grew. He searched out Lex's heart beat and found him. He was getting closer. A quick look showed that Lex was running toward the intersection where Clark had forced the thing to turn away from Lexcorp.
Lex was running toward the robot, putting himself into danger? Why?
Confused, he got out of the shadow of the building and into the golden morning sunshine. It was warm on his skin and revived him, so he was able to shake off the last of the effects of the kryptonite pulse beams. It would appear that the effects weren't permanent since it left no residue (as long his exposure wasn't extended and he could get some sun), and again rose into the air. He looked to where Lex was just he pulled up and slid in behind a delivery truck.
Just before Clark slammed into the side of the robotic spider, out of the corner of his eye he saw Lex draw a pulse beam rifle, essentially a smaller version of what the thing had been using on him (just without the kryptonite), and fire. Clark didn't see what the immediate affects were because it was at that same moment he slammed into the side of the thing with both balled fists.
He hit the thing the hardest he could, trying to knock it onto its side so its multiple legs and the pulse beam canons would be less effective, but it was no use. It had too many legs to be rocked off its feet that easily, although he came closer that time.
This time, however, the electromagnetic shielding immediately charged with a whine and repelled him, sending him flying blocks away. He hit the pavement in a blinding flash of pain. Stunned, he lay in the crater his body had created in the street just in front of The Daily Planet building.
He crawled out of it to a spattering of applause from some of Daily Planet employees he recognized, he was about to call some by name when he remembered that 'Superman' wouldn't know them, he only knew them as 'Clark'...
Clark dropped the tone of his voice to a deep, yet comforting, and very Superman-like tone. "You folks should clear the area, I have this covered."
His voice held a slight waver of uncertainty that he had hoped wasn't noticeable, but he wasn't sure that he was close to having anything covered at this point. He looked around and located the robotic monster.
It had halted a block and a half away from the Lexcorp building and was firing at Lex. Hope was lying on top of him as Mercy and a large of contingent of Lexcorp security staff and the elite of the STORT forces took on the robot. The Lexcorp security team used EM pulse rifles and the municipal forces used rocket propelled grenades that were surprisingly powerful.
Lois and Jimmy looked on from the cover of a burnt out hulk of one of the tanks the STORT forces must have arrived in. Jimmy was snapping photos as Lois rattled off lines from the story she was going to write on this into a digital voice recorder she always kept in her pocket. Always on the job.
He sighed.
It's why their relationship hadn't lasted. She was married to her job, so there hadn't really been any room in her life for him. It turned out that Clark discovering that he was gay had almost been incidental to why it would have never worked long term with him and Lois.
Refocusing on the task at hand, he looked at the smoking ruin of the tank Lois was crouched behind.
Clark was worried.
The robot took down tanks as if they were made of tinfoil and batted him from the air like he was a badminton birdie. The thing appeared nearly unbeatable.
Clark brushed himself off as he saw the thing pause in its attack to put more charge into its shields. Hope took the opportunity to drag an unwilling Lex to safety, away from the Lexcorp office tower and that machine. He sighed in relief, thinking Lex would be safe. As he thought about what his next attack should be, a surprising thing happened.
The thing turned from its battle with the police and the Lexcorp forces to follow Lex.
Clark's heart clenched with a sudden fear.
That thing wasn't just after Lexcorp, it was apparently after Lex.
He realized with a growing dread that if he didn't stop the thing, it was going to kill Lex Luthor.
Time again stretched as he panicked for a moment, although it really had happened in the blink of an eye. The thought of Lex getting hurt, really hurt, or killed alarmed him.
Clark frowned, confused.
He was wrong. The thought of losing Lex didn't just alarm him.
It terrified him, even petrified, him.
He couldn't bear the thought of losing Lex. With a shock, Clark realized he could finally answer his mother's question, 'Do you love him?'
A feeling of love suffused his whole body as he looked at Lex.
The epiphany rocked him to his core and somehow, in someway, Lex knew it had. He looked over Hope's shoulder at Clark as his bodyguard hurried him down a side street. Despite the hope visible on Lex's face and the love growing inside Clark, the thing had no idea anything had changed and kept on following Lex.
Now that Clark knew for sure, really knew and had no doubts about his love for Lex, a steely new determination to beat the thing resolved itself in his mind. He would kill that thing before it could hurt anyone else, much less Lex, or he would die trying.
He had to defeat it, no matter what the cost.
Lex recognized, somehow, that's what Clark had planned. He shrugged off Mercy and called out to Clark, "Don't!"
Clark shook his head and gritted his teeth as he put on a burst of speed. He summoned all the strength he had in his body and again plowed into the thing. This time, instead of open fists, he rammed into it with his hands open. He grabbed sections of hull, still only steel that was reinforced with electromagnetic shielding, as he felt the machine's body shudder with the almost explosive impact.
The EM defenses kept him from doing any serious damage, but because he was holding onto the hull Clark wasn't repulsed when the thing had turned up the deflectors. The energy sparked and surged, painfully trying to push him away from the thing's thick metal skin.
Clark screamed in anger and frustration as he pushed hard against the force field that was slowly, and painfully, pushing him away. The electromagnetic shielding was incredibly strong, but his hands held onto the hull and part of a major support strut. Applying his powers of flight, strength and speed to the task, he managed to hang on and dig his fists deeper into the thing's body, pulling apart tubes and wire and bending metal support struts.
He was surprised when the machine's serpentine arm, the one that had batted him away before, had begun to wrap around his waist. Too busy trying to hang onto its hard armored hull, Clark couldn't spare a hand to try and keep it from wrapping around him. He knew that taking the thing apart was more important. He felt confident that he would be able to take this thing down, given some time.
The shield had weakened a considerable amount and Clark thought he was close to exhausting the energy it had used to power its guns and force fields. Taking what he thought was an advantage, Clark pressed his opportunity and his position on the thing's side had seemed less precarious. He managed to open the hole in its hull wider and pull out more wires. However, the apparent weakening had turned out to have been only a momentary shift in the tide of the battle.
Although the kryptonite EM pulse canons of the monstrous robot couldn't hit him directly with his position on the thing's side (he was just out of range), the machine started firing the guns off as close as it could get them to Clark. The beams didn't touch him, they were blasting holes in the side of an office building, but the kryptonite rays were close enough to weaken him.
It was the edge that the thing had needed.
His flight ability faltered. He also lost strength and had no speed left. He quickly lost any ability to push against the pressure of the shielding; he lost his grip, so the flexible arm was finally able to pull him off of the hull.
He struggled futilely as the arm moved him out in front of the kryptonite pulse beam and he screamed in agony. Bathed in the ghoulish green light, the kryptonite rays painfully weakened him and his cries died, turning into breathless gasps, as the serpentine coils tightened around his chest and waist, painfully squeezing his chest, cutting off his air. Clark couldn't breathe.
Desperate, he tried as hard as he could to pull it off, but he was far too weak. The coils tightened further and he couldn't stop it.
Clark was losing consciousness as he felt something snap in his chest and tasted blood as agony blossomed through his body.
There was a loud explosion very close by and he was enveloped in pain as he felt himself thrown clear of the machine. He hit something hard, then the sound of breaking glass and crunching metal met his ears as black overcame him...
~:::~
Partially thanks to Clark's pushing so hard, the shielding on the machine had failed and the police department RPGs finally had taken the thing out. Lex saw Clark get thrown into the tenth floor of Lexcorp when the robot exploded. He rushed past the smoking ruin that was the giant robot spider and went back to his office building.
Mercy and Hope called out to him to stop, but he ignored them. He knew Clark needed his help and needed it now. He had felt such frustration and helplessness from Clark, but now he felt nothing at all.
Panic was rising in him as he pushed open the door to the lobby. He looked over his shoulder and yelled at them, "Call 911, now!"
~:::~
Up on the tenth floor, Lex and Mercy shifted the rubble as quickly as they could to try and uncover Superman. He could hear Hope giving directions and information to the emergency operator behind them.
Lex was frantic, he could smell the slightly sweet smell of Kryptonian blood, it didn't smell as metallic as human, and he knew only that Clark had been hurt seriously enough to bleed. He followed the scent to its source, a pile of rubble that used to be a marketing VP's office.
Lex and Mercy shifted a large chunk of the office's wall and Lex saw some red fabric, Clark's cape. He was worried when he still couldn't feel anything from Clark, he wasn't conscious, but was he still breathing? He had to make sure...
Despite the fact that he knew that Clark couldn't hear him, he still called out, "Clark, we're going to get you out! Hang in there..." He didn't think his voice cracked, but Mercy gave him a look. Lex ignored her and kept talking to Clark, "Everything is going to be okay..."
With Mercy's help, he shifted the remains of a large desk. They found Clark lying in a pool of blood.
Clark was out cold, but breathing. However, his breath came in shallow, ragged gasps.
Lex realized with a glance that Clark couldn't be moved until help arrived, he was too badly hurt. He couldn't take a chance his spine had been injured. One arm appeared broken along with both of his legs. It was his left leg that was bleeding profusely, the red blood coming out in rhythmic gushes that no doubt kept time with Clark's heart beat, all thanks to a compound fracture of his thigh.
Clark was about to bleed out, but Mercy removed her belt and tightened it around his upper leg. The bleeding slowed to almost nothing. Lex futilely tried to reassure Clark (or more likely, himself). "I'll get you out of here, Clark. Help is coming..."
Unconscious, Clark didn't respond. Lex touched his cheek and was surprised how cold his normally warm skin was.
He looked so pale and was so still, Clark appeared close to death, but Lex wasn't going to give up. He couldn't do a thing to help him, he felt so helpless, but Lex decided that he refused to let Clark die. He would keep the love of his life alive, even if he had to do it solely through the strength of his will.
Resolved, Lex gritted his teeth and said, "No, you're not going to leave me." Lex gently held Clark's hand from his unbroken arm, a sadly affectionate smile touching his face, and added quietly, "I won't let you use a rogue robotic spider to get out of our deal..."
Lex heard the sound of approaching sirens. "You'll be fine, you'll see. I'm going to make sure of it."
He waited with Clark as he heard Hope still talking to the 911 operator, giving directions to their location. He held Clark's hand as he knelt in a pool of his blood, quietly waiting for the rescue crew that would save Clark's life.
~:::~
The paramedics had told Lex that finding Superman when they did, and Mercy putting a tourniquet around his leg, had probably saved his life. However, they also thought it was a miracle that Superman was still breathing since he had no discernable blood pressure and his heartbeat was so faint.
Lex watched sadly as they had put in an IV line to get some fluids into Clark. They had no problems getting it started and that made Lex realize just how vulnerable Clark was. He was so weak his normally bulletproof skin couldn't even protect him from a small needle.
~:::~
Later, at the hospital, the first hours were agony for Lex. They'd operated on Clark's chest, leg, and set his bones. They'd put him back together enough that he wasn't in any immediate danger of dying, but his blood pressure was still incredibly low.
A human would have died before his blood pressure could get even close to being that low. The heart wouldn't have had enough blood in it to keep on pumping.
The doctor had told Lex that they had stored up a back-up supply of Superman's blood, stock-pilling a pint a month for a year (stored in sunlight so it would never go bad), so they had plenty to give him. Vulnerable and deprived of sunshine, afternoon thunderstorms had moved over Metropolis, the stored solar energy in the blood was probably Superman's best chance for a recovery.
Despite the surgery and transfusions stabilizing his condition, it would take Clark at least several days to recover, if he ever did. The doctor didn't know for sure since, to his knowledge, Superman had never been hurt this badly before.
He had grimly told Lex that Superman's family and friends should be notified of his condition.
Accepting just how serious Clark was injured, he nodded solemnly, as the fear for his safety threatened to overwhelm Lex.
He was nearly completely unable to cope as he tried to contact Mrs. Kent. She was on her way back to Washington to attend a special session of Congress, so she had been in the air as her son had laid dying in Lex's Marketing VP's office. Desperate, it had taken Lex hours to get hold of her.
Lois walked into the waiting room as he finally talked to Clark's mother. She'd only seen the video from that morning while she waited for her bags at Reagan National. Frantic, she would get back as soon as she could.
Lois hugged him after he had hung up. It was only her comforting, warm embrace that kept him from breaking down altogether.
Chloe was in Phoenix working on a story, but she'd seen the news reports on TV, the video from the helicopters that showed Clark getting injured. However, she was having problems booking a flight and couldn't back to Metropolis before morning, a redeye the only available flight on such short notice, but she told him that she would be there.
Lana, in Marseilles for a fashion show, said it would take at least a day, maybe a couple, but that she would get there too. The news reports on the French stations had broken her heart.
He hoped they both hurried because Clark's injuries were so serious and he looked so pale and his skin was so cold.
Clark looked terrible. He had bruises, cuts and scrapes all over his body, but most, like the injuries on his face, were concentrated on the left side. That was the side that had hit first when he had been thrown though the side of his building by the exploding robot.
His right leg was broken, it was in a cast to the knee, but his left leg had been shattered. They'd had to operate and place external fixators to stabilize the bones all up and down the limb. The hardware holding his leg together had half a dozen rings that circled the limb, with pins radiating from them into his bones at a dozen different points of his leg. The metal pins would keep his severely fractured bones stable until Clark's abilities reasserted themselves and he could heal the rest of the way on his own.
There were bandaged incisions up and down his left leg and on his chest, where they had repaired some of the internal damage. Both legs were elevated to keep them from getting any more swollen than they already were. His left arm was in a cast that went up past his elbow and was immobilized by a sling. The left side of Clark's face was battered and swollen and his breathing was ragged from all his cracked and broken ribs.
As he looked at Clark's battered body, Lex tried to bear it. He tried to be strong, but he had to fight the urge to break down in his agonizing worry.
He'd never seen anyone as badly hurt as Clark was. How could Clark survive long enough for his abilities to recover and allow him to heal?
Worse than any of that, Lex also felt guilty. Mercy had discovered, while Lex had waited with Clark, that it had been completely Lex's fault. She hadn't said that, but it was his fault just the same.
The design hadn't been exactly like the design that Lex had developed, it had been a modified version of his plans which had made some very lethal changes. The man who had built it had been an employee and had constructed the thing with Lexcorp's corporate resources. His original plan had been to complete a weapon he thought Lex was wrong for not constructing. However, when the plans Lex had for shutting his weapons division had been rumored, the man changed the plan and decided to turn the weapon against his boss.
He should have known, it had taken the man months to create the robotic monster and it'd taken nearly a hundred million dollars worth of Lexcorp material set aside for research for him to build the thing. He should have caught the man before it had gotten this far. The man was still on the loose, but the police called and told Lex that they were closing in.
Lex couldn't feel Clark's emotions since he was unconscious. Added to his guilt, the absence of Clark's feelings just made things more difficult. He'd gotten so used to feeling them all the time. Not sensing them doubled his pain and made it far worse to bear.
Hours later, while wearing clothing still stained with Clark's blood, Lex sat next to his bedside as blood dripped into him and an oxygen mask covered half his face. A thunderstorm raged outside and the constant sound of the rain pelting the windows made all other sounds seem muffled.
Careful of the IV lines attached, Lex gently held Clark's right hand. His hand felt far too cold. Clark's skin was always warm, almost fever hot. It only added to the unreality of the situation. He looked toward the window, he wished for the sun to shine on Clark and make his skin warm and golden again.
Part of Lex thought it was all some sort of nightmare and that Clark would soon wake, but it wasn't a dream.
It was real.
His eyes stung with unshed tears as he looked at Clark, the center of his universe, now so still and cold.
Lex looked up as he heard hurried footsteps come down the hallway. He stood as Clark's mother stepped into the room.
Her face said it all: Martha was white as a sheet and looked like she'd been crying. She started to cry again when she saw Clark. Yet, her red-rimmed eyes shifted to Lex. She rushed to him and pulled him into her arms.
It wasn't until then, wrapped in Martha's warm arms, that Lex finally broke down and cried.
~:::~
Continued HERE....
Author: D.M. Wyatt
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: Mostly R, some chapters are NC-17
Warnings: Physical and Emotional TC, graphic descriptions of adult sexual content, BD/SM, future fic, post rift
Spoilers: None
Word Count this chapter: 5,565
Short summary of this chapter: Clark has to deal with the monstrous robotic spider and Lex has to deal with the aftermath.
Previous updates HERE.
Part 14 of 15 (epilogue still to come)...
~:::~
Clark, dazed and woozy, staggered to his feet. He had to push aside the ruined Lincoln Navigator he'd crumpled when the huge robotic spider had knocked him into it.
He'd landed in the shadow of a building about two blocks from Lex's office building. The humongous robotic spider was again heading in the direction of Lexcorp. Clark didn't think that it was a coincidence that Lex announced he's shutting down his weapons divisions on a day a rogue weapon-like robotic spider goes on a rampage. Someone didn't seem to be happy with what Lex was doing with his defense contract divisions.
Clark sighed and flew up above the line of buildings he was shaded by. He burst into the bright morning sunlight and basked in it for a moment to let his body recharge. As he looked down on the still slowly advancing machine, he got a better look at what else was going on. He could see the Metropolis PD, no doubt used to this kind of thing with the various planetary invasions and the last swarm of flying robotic monkeys that Lex had lost control of, were already well under way with dealing with the threat the huge spider posed to the populace. They'd rolled all of their numerous S.W.A.T. teams and their Special Taskforce On Robotic Threats, or STORT.
Clark grimaced at the unfortunate acronym, but was glad they were on the job. He was relieved when he saw that the regular beat officers were organizing orderly evacuations of the buildings in the vicinity. Office buildings in downtown, all used to same sort of threat this thing posed to their workers, all had their fire alarms going and their employees and any visitors were heading to the exits of the buildings that were away from the Giant Robot Spider's path of destruction.
The streets were now deserted except for the police, Clark and, of course, the robot.
Glad that the people of Metropolis were no longer in any direct danger, he reoriented on the robotic spider and tried to think of the best way to attack it. The thing had two heads, one in the front and the other in the back. It seemed impervious to heat vision so he couldn't do a distance attack and there'd be no way to sneak up on it from behind.
He had to come at it from the side. However, it was so big it took up the entire street, so Clark had to get it when it got to an intersection. He looked at it and tried to gauge when it was going to come up on the next cross street.
Recharged, he gritted his teeth and, above the streets, zoomed in between the buildings. Still a couple of stories high, he pulled up and pressed his body against the building on the next corner. He could feel the vibrations of the robot coming closer through the granite of the old building.
He heard several helicopters approach. He looked up and frowned, added to the dozens of things he had to keep track of in order to keep Metropolitans as safe as he could while trying to fight the monster there were now TV station helicopters heading his way, trying to get the battle on camera.
Clark sighed and gritted his teeth at the thing started to go past the building he was hiding behind, heading into an intersection only two blocks from Lexcorp. He had to stay on task.
He ran into the thing full speed from the side and it only rocked to the side, but it did pause in its advance. He fell back several dozen yards to get a better look at the thing, hanging mid-air just out of reach of its remarkably powerful legs. He'd been batted aside one too many times and he didn't want to give it another chance.
However, the thing didn't apparently have a good look at him from the side, so it started to rotate its position so it could orient one of its 'heads' on his location better.
Clark grinned fiercely. Maybe he could act like bait and draw it away from the more populated downtown area. There was a less dense industrial area that started only a few blocks behind him.
He feinted just close enough to tempt the thing to try again to bat him from the sky. The thing swung and Clark, expecting the attempt, was able to pull back in time, but he had to use his speed.
That thing is quick, he thought.
The robotic spider almost looked angry. The front legs it had brought to bear on Clark shook, as if with rage. The thing didn't look complicated enough to have a high amount of Artificial Intelligence so that didn't make any sense.
He scowled at it.
The thing's skin was lined with lead, so he couldn't see inside, but he knew that there wasn't a person running things from inside the machine either. There was no hint of a human inhabitant: he couldn't hear a heartbeat or the sounds of respiration. Remote control was the only thing he could figure, but the person running the machine had to be close. The machine maneuvered well through downtown and managed to keep him at bay to boot. Whoever was running it must be able to see the downtown area.
Or, he thought it more likely, they had to have cameras onboard the thing. They were watching what this thing could 'see' with its 'eyes' and were steering it, like a remote controlled car, only it wasn't a car. It was a machine designed to destroy and he couldn't apparently hurt it with his heat vision, so he couldn't knock out the cameras from a distance.
His anger grew.
He feinted again, and quickly pulled back, but the person (or persons) running the controls of the thing must have learned to time their swings better because this time the robotic spider was able to land a glancing blow. Clark tumbled through the air and, breaking through the window, crash landed in the third floor corner office of a startled man wearing an expensive looking suit. The short, rotund man looked arrogant and stuffy, maybe a lawyer or stock broker. He looked at Clark from behind his computer monitor, which was obscenely huge.
The building's fire alarm, a warning to evacuate, was blaring. Yet the guy ignored it and was working on his computer.
Superman stood slowly and brushed the broken glass from his uniform. He took the sternest tone with the man he could as the fire alarm continued to sound from the hallway just outside his door. "There is an emergency, so you need to follow your company's emergency procedures. The same ones you should have practiced according to city codes dictating routine practice fire drills for all high rise buildings in downtown."
The man managed to act cool and dignified, apparently oblivious to the giant robotic spider going past the window just behind him. "It isn't necessary to evacuate, Superman. I talked to building security, there isn't really a fire."
"That is true, there is no fire." He stated matter-of-factly, "However, I would like to point out that you probably don't want to be in the vicinity of this room when I go back outside..." He glanced and nodded at the window behind the man, the one that Clark hadn't crashed through. "And fight that."
The man turned and saw what Clark was talking about. Superman could see the color literally drain from the man's face. All dignity lost, the man squeaked in alarm and ran from the room. Clark raised his eyebrows in mild surprise.
The fat little man ran a lot faster than Clark would have thought he would have been capable of.
Clark shrugged and flew as fast as he could, bursting through the unbroken window, and hit the thing harder this time. The thing shuddered with the impact, but it had been ready, despite apparently not having a good view of things happening to the side. One of its legs hit him in a downward motion, smashing him into a Hummer.
The expensive steel, and notoriously rugged, machine was still no match for a robotic spider when it knocked a 225 pound Kryptonian at full speed into its roof. The SUV crumpled as its alarm sounded drunkenly.
The huge robotic spider had to back up to turn around so that Clark was again in full view of the cameras on its 'head'. It reared back on its hind legs and aimed the two kryptonite pulse beam canons at Clark.
"Uh, oh," he zoomed up into the air with a touch of speed. Clark only narrowly missed getting hit.
He hovered about fifty feet above it and he considered his options. The thing, or whoever was running it, was learning. It was adapting to his attacks and it was tough enough and fast enough to be a real threat to him. This thing wasn't going to be easy to take down.
As he hung up in the air, he thought about what he should try next. He looked down on the thing and Clark could see the heads swiveling back and forth as it tried to discover where he had gone. He realized the thing couldn't 'see' him at all where he was.
He took advantage of the pause to examine the thing more closely. He had no problem using his telescopic vision, but the lead made it so he couldn't see anything not directly in his line of sight. There was a shimmering light over the thing's body, an apparent shield of some kind.
He sighed as the thing started to move, it was turning around to no doubt again head toward Lex's office. The creator of this thing apparently had a thing against Lexcorp.
Frustrated, Clark hit it from the top with a blast of heat vision and it again halted like it had before, despite the heat vision doing no apparent damage. This time, Clark had a better look at it and it was easier to see why.
Power was being drawn away from its other functions to reinforce its electromagnetic defenses. The shield, which covered its body like a curved transparent cover, sparkled in the shadow of the building it had batted Clark into. That explained why the heat vision wasn't working. He needed to find the power source for the shielding and disable it or he was going to have problems with this thing.
He realized too late that thinking about other things probably hadn't been the thing to do. He had been completely surprised when a long serpentine arm had shot up behind him and knocked him to the pavement at the thing's feet, right underneath the meteor-rock pulse beam canons. No need for the thing to rear back. Stunned by the collision with the street, Clark was shot with twin beams of green light before he could react.
He was in agony. Convinced he was about to die, crushed underneath one of the machine's heavy legs, he was surprised when the thing turned away from him. Even though Clark was helpless and vulnerable, it turned and headed back toward Lexcorp.
Shaking his head to clear it as he stood, Clark was confused. The thing must have been designed to take him down, it was too tough and quick and armed with way too much kryptonite for it to be a coincidence. Yet whoever was running it wasn't interested in doing more than disabling him. For whatever reason, its real goal appeared to be Lexcorp.
Clark's worry turned to Lex, Lois, Jimmy and the other reporters and photographers that he knew that had been in that conference room.
He searched with his x-ray vision and he could see most of the reporters that had been in that conference had evacuated, but he couldn't see Lex, Lois, Jimmy, Mercy or Hope. His worry grew. He searched out Lex's heart beat and found him. He was getting closer. A quick look showed that Lex was running toward the intersection where Clark had forced the thing to turn away from Lexcorp.
Lex was running toward the robot, putting himself into danger? Why?
Confused, he got out of the shadow of the building and into the golden morning sunshine. It was warm on his skin and revived him, so he was able to shake off the last of the effects of the kryptonite pulse beams. It would appear that the effects weren't permanent since it left no residue (as long his exposure wasn't extended and he could get some sun), and again rose into the air. He looked to where Lex was just he pulled up and slid in behind a delivery truck.
Just before Clark slammed into the side of the robotic spider, out of the corner of his eye he saw Lex draw a pulse beam rifle, essentially a smaller version of what the thing had been using on him (just without the kryptonite), and fire. Clark didn't see what the immediate affects were because it was at that same moment he slammed into the side of the thing with both balled fists.
He hit the thing the hardest he could, trying to knock it onto its side so its multiple legs and the pulse beam canons would be less effective, but it was no use. It had too many legs to be rocked off its feet that easily, although he came closer that time.
This time, however, the electromagnetic shielding immediately charged with a whine and repelled him, sending him flying blocks away. He hit the pavement in a blinding flash of pain. Stunned, he lay in the crater his body had created in the street just in front of The Daily Planet building.
He crawled out of it to a spattering of applause from some of Daily Planet employees he recognized, he was about to call some by name when he remembered that 'Superman' wouldn't know them, he only knew them as 'Clark'...
Clark dropped the tone of his voice to a deep, yet comforting, and very Superman-like tone. "You folks should clear the area, I have this covered."
His voice held a slight waver of uncertainty that he had hoped wasn't noticeable, but he wasn't sure that he was close to having anything covered at this point. He looked around and located the robotic monster.
It had halted a block and a half away from the Lexcorp building and was firing at Lex. Hope was lying on top of him as Mercy and a large of contingent of Lexcorp security staff and the elite of the STORT forces took on the robot. The Lexcorp security team used EM pulse rifles and the municipal forces used rocket propelled grenades that were surprisingly powerful.
Lois and Jimmy looked on from the cover of a burnt out hulk of one of the tanks the STORT forces must have arrived in. Jimmy was snapping photos as Lois rattled off lines from the story she was going to write on this into a digital voice recorder she always kept in her pocket. Always on the job.
He sighed.
It's why their relationship hadn't lasted. She was married to her job, so there hadn't really been any room in her life for him. It turned out that Clark discovering that he was gay had almost been incidental to why it would have never worked long term with him and Lois.
Refocusing on the task at hand, he looked at the smoking ruin of the tank Lois was crouched behind.
Clark was worried.
The robot took down tanks as if they were made of tinfoil and batted him from the air like he was a badminton birdie. The thing appeared nearly unbeatable.
Clark brushed himself off as he saw the thing pause in its attack to put more charge into its shields. Hope took the opportunity to drag an unwilling Lex to safety, away from the Lexcorp office tower and that machine. He sighed in relief, thinking Lex would be safe. As he thought about what his next attack should be, a surprising thing happened.
The thing turned from its battle with the police and the Lexcorp forces to follow Lex.
Clark's heart clenched with a sudden fear.
That thing wasn't just after Lexcorp, it was apparently after Lex.
He realized with a growing dread that if he didn't stop the thing, it was going to kill Lex Luthor.
Time again stretched as he panicked for a moment, although it really had happened in the blink of an eye. The thought of Lex getting hurt, really hurt, or killed alarmed him.
Clark frowned, confused.
He was wrong. The thought of losing Lex didn't just alarm him.
It terrified him, even petrified, him.
He couldn't bear the thought of losing Lex. With a shock, Clark realized he could finally answer his mother's question, 'Do you love him?'
A feeling of love suffused his whole body as he looked at Lex.
The epiphany rocked him to his core and somehow, in someway, Lex knew it had. He looked over Hope's shoulder at Clark as his bodyguard hurried him down a side street. Despite the hope visible on Lex's face and the love growing inside Clark, the thing had no idea anything had changed and kept on following Lex.
Now that Clark knew for sure, really knew and had no doubts about his love for Lex, a steely new determination to beat the thing resolved itself in his mind. He would kill that thing before it could hurt anyone else, much less Lex, or he would die trying.
He had to defeat it, no matter what the cost.
Lex recognized, somehow, that's what Clark had planned. He shrugged off Mercy and called out to Clark, "Don't!"
Clark shook his head and gritted his teeth as he put on a burst of speed. He summoned all the strength he had in his body and again plowed into the thing. This time, instead of open fists, he rammed into it with his hands open. He grabbed sections of hull, still only steel that was reinforced with electromagnetic shielding, as he felt the machine's body shudder with the almost explosive impact.
The EM defenses kept him from doing any serious damage, but because he was holding onto the hull Clark wasn't repulsed when the thing had turned up the deflectors. The energy sparked and surged, painfully trying to push him away from the thing's thick metal skin.
Clark screamed in anger and frustration as he pushed hard against the force field that was slowly, and painfully, pushing him away. The electromagnetic shielding was incredibly strong, but his hands held onto the hull and part of a major support strut. Applying his powers of flight, strength and speed to the task, he managed to hang on and dig his fists deeper into the thing's body, pulling apart tubes and wire and bending metal support struts.
He was surprised when the machine's serpentine arm, the one that had batted him away before, had begun to wrap around his waist. Too busy trying to hang onto its hard armored hull, Clark couldn't spare a hand to try and keep it from wrapping around him. He knew that taking the thing apart was more important. He felt confident that he would be able to take this thing down, given some time.
The shield had weakened a considerable amount and Clark thought he was close to exhausting the energy it had used to power its guns and force fields. Taking what he thought was an advantage, Clark pressed his opportunity and his position on the thing's side had seemed less precarious. He managed to open the hole in its hull wider and pull out more wires. However, the apparent weakening had turned out to have been only a momentary shift in the tide of the battle.
Although the kryptonite EM pulse canons of the monstrous robot couldn't hit him directly with his position on the thing's side (he was just out of range), the machine started firing the guns off as close as it could get them to Clark. The beams didn't touch him, they were blasting holes in the side of an office building, but the kryptonite rays were close enough to weaken him.
It was the edge that the thing had needed.
His flight ability faltered. He also lost strength and had no speed left. He quickly lost any ability to push against the pressure of the shielding; he lost his grip, so the flexible arm was finally able to pull him off of the hull.
He struggled futilely as the arm moved him out in front of the kryptonite pulse beam and he screamed in agony. Bathed in the ghoulish green light, the kryptonite rays painfully weakened him and his cries died, turning into breathless gasps, as the serpentine coils tightened around his chest and waist, painfully squeezing his chest, cutting off his air. Clark couldn't breathe.
Desperate, he tried as hard as he could to pull it off, but he was far too weak. The coils tightened further and he couldn't stop it.
Clark was losing consciousness as he felt something snap in his chest and tasted blood as agony blossomed through his body.
There was a loud explosion very close by and he was enveloped in pain as he felt himself thrown clear of the machine. He hit something hard, then the sound of breaking glass and crunching metal met his ears as black overcame him...
~:::~
Partially thanks to Clark's pushing so hard, the shielding on the machine had failed and the police department RPGs finally had taken the thing out. Lex saw Clark get thrown into the tenth floor of Lexcorp when the robot exploded. He rushed past the smoking ruin that was the giant robot spider and went back to his office building.
Mercy and Hope called out to him to stop, but he ignored them. He knew Clark needed his help and needed it now. He had felt such frustration and helplessness from Clark, but now he felt nothing at all.
Panic was rising in him as he pushed open the door to the lobby. He looked over his shoulder and yelled at them, "Call 911, now!"
~:::~
Up on the tenth floor, Lex and Mercy shifted the rubble as quickly as they could to try and uncover Superman. He could hear Hope giving directions and information to the emergency operator behind them.
Lex was frantic, he could smell the slightly sweet smell of Kryptonian blood, it didn't smell as metallic as human, and he knew only that Clark had been hurt seriously enough to bleed. He followed the scent to its source, a pile of rubble that used to be a marketing VP's office.
Lex and Mercy shifted a large chunk of the office's wall and Lex saw some red fabric, Clark's cape. He was worried when he still couldn't feel anything from Clark, he wasn't conscious, but was he still breathing? He had to make sure...
Despite the fact that he knew that Clark couldn't hear him, he still called out, "Clark, we're going to get you out! Hang in there..." He didn't think his voice cracked, but Mercy gave him a look. Lex ignored her and kept talking to Clark, "Everything is going to be okay..."
With Mercy's help, he shifted the remains of a large desk. They found Clark lying in a pool of blood.
Clark was out cold, but breathing. However, his breath came in shallow, ragged gasps.
Lex realized with a glance that Clark couldn't be moved until help arrived, he was too badly hurt. He couldn't take a chance his spine had been injured. One arm appeared broken along with both of his legs. It was his left leg that was bleeding profusely, the red blood coming out in rhythmic gushes that no doubt kept time with Clark's heart beat, all thanks to a compound fracture of his thigh.
Clark was about to bleed out, but Mercy removed her belt and tightened it around his upper leg. The bleeding slowed to almost nothing. Lex futilely tried to reassure Clark (or more likely, himself). "I'll get you out of here, Clark. Help is coming..."
Unconscious, Clark didn't respond. Lex touched his cheek and was surprised how cold his normally warm skin was.
He looked so pale and was so still, Clark appeared close to death, but Lex wasn't going to give up. He couldn't do a thing to help him, he felt so helpless, but Lex decided that he refused to let Clark die. He would keep the love of his life alive, even if he had to do it solely through the strength of his will.
Resolved, Lex gritted his teeth and said, "No, you're not going to leave me." Lex gently held Clark's hand from his unbroken arm, a sadly affectionate smile touching his face, and added quietly, "I won't let you use a rogue robotic spider to get out of our deal..."
Lex heard the sound of approaching sirens. "You'll be fine, you'll see. I'm going to make sure of it."
He waited with Clark as he heard Hope still talking to the 911 operator, giving directions to their location. He held Clark's hand as he knelt in a pool of his blood, quietly waiting for the rescue crew that would save Clark's life.
~:::~
The paramedics had told Lex that finding Superman when they did, and Mercy putting a tourniquet around his leg, had probably saved his life. However, they also thought it was a miracle that Superman was still breathing since he had no discernable blood pressure and his heartbeat was so faint.
Lex watched sadly as they had put in an IV line to get some fluids into Clark. They had no problems getting it started and that made Lex realize just how vulnerable Clark was. He was so weak his normally bulletproof skin couldn't even protect him from a small needle.
~:::~
Later, at the hospital, the first hours were agony for Lex. They'd operated on Clark's chest, leg, and set his bones. They'd put him back together enough that he wasn't in any immediate danger of dying, but his blood pressure was still incredibly low.
A human would have died before his blood pressure could get even close to being that low. The heart wouldn't have had enough blood in it to keep on pumping.
The doctor had told Lex that they had stored up a back-up supply of Superman's blood, stock-pilling a pint a month for a year (stored in sunlight so it would never go bad), so they had plenty to give him. Vulnerable and deprived of sunshine, afternoon thunderstorms had moved over Metropolis, the stored solar energy in the blood was probably Superman's best chance for a recovery.
Despite the surgery and transfusions stabilizing his condition, it would take Clark at least several days to recover, if he ever did. The doctor didn't know for sure since, to his knowledge, Superman had never been hurt this badly before.
He had grimly told Lex that Superman's family and friends should be notified of his condition.
Accepting just how serious Clark was injured, he nodded solemnly, as the fear for his safety threatened to overwhelm Lex.
He was nearly completely unable to cope as he tried to contact Mrs. Kent. She was on her way back to Washington to attend a special session of Congress, so she had been in the air as her son had laid dying in Lex's Marketing VP's office. Desperate, it had taken Lex hours to get hold of her.
Lois walked into the waiting room as he finally talked to Clark's mother. She'd only seen the video from that morning while she waited for her bags at Reagan National. Frantic, she would get back as soon as she could.
Lois hugged him after he had hung up. It was only her comforting, warm embrace that kept him from breaking down altogether.
Chloe was in Phoenix working on a story, but she'd seen the news reports on TV, the video from the helicopters that showed Clark getting injured. However, she was having problems booking a flight and couldn't back to Metropolis before morning, a redeye the only available flight on such short notice, but she told him that she would be there.
Lana, in Marseilles for a fashion show, said it would take at least a day, maybe a couple, but that she would get there too. The news reports on the French stations had broken her heart.
He hoped they both hurried because Clark's injuries were so serious and he looked so pale and his skin was so cold.
Clark looked terrible. He had bruises, cuts and scrapes all over his body, but most, like the injuries on his face, were concentrated on the left side. That was the side that had hit first when he had been thrown though the side of his building by the exploding robot.
His right leg was broken, it was in a cast to the knee, but his left leg had been shattered. They'd had to operate and place external fixators to stabilize the bones all up and down the limb. The hardware holding his leg together had half a dozen rings that circled the limb, with pins radiating from them into his bones at a dozen different points of his leg. The metal pins would keep his severely fractured bones stable until Clark's abilities reasserted themselves and he could heal the rest of the way on his own.
There were bandaged incisions up and down his left leg and on his chest, where they had repaired some of the internal damage. Both legs were elevated to keep them from getting any more swollen than they already were. His left arm was in a cast that went up past his elbow and was immobilized by a sling. The left side of Clark's face was battered and swollen and his breathing was ragged from all his cracked and broken ribs.
As he looked at Clark's battered body, Lex tried to bear it. He tried to be strong, but he had to fight the urge to break down in his agonizing worry.
He'd never seen anyone as badly hurt as Clark was. How could Clark survive long enough for his abilities to recover and allow him to heal?
Worse than any of that, Lex also felt guilty. Mercy had discovered, while Lex had waited with Clark, that it had been completely Lex's fault. She hadn't said that, but it was his fault just the same.
The design hadn't been exactly like the design that Lex had developed, it had been a modified version of his plans which had made some very lethal changes. The man who had built it had been an employee and had constructed the thing with Lexcorp's corporate resources. His original plan had been to complete a weapon he thought Lex was wrong for not constructing. However, when the plans Lex had for shutting his weapons division had been rumored, the man changed the plan and decided to turn the weapon against his boss.
He should have known, it had taken the man months to create the robotic monster and it'd taken nearly a hundred million dollars worth of Lexcorp material set aside for research for him to build the thing. He should have caught the man before it had gotten this far. The man was still on the loose, but the police called and told Lex that they were closing in.
Lex couldn't feel Clark's emotions since he was unconscious. Added to his guilt, the absence of Clark's feelings just made things more difficult. He'd gotten so used to feeling them all the time. Not sensing them doubled his pain and made it far worse to bear.
Hours later, while wearing clothing still stained with Clark's blood, Lex sat next to his bedside as blood dripped into him and an oxygen mask covered half his face. A thunderstorm raged outside and the constant sound of the rain pelting the windows made all other sounds seem muffled.
Careful of the IV lines attached, Lex gently held Clark's right hand. His hand felt far too cold. Clark's skin was always warm, almost fever hot. It only added to the unreality of the situation. He looked toward the window, he wished for the sun to shine on Clark and make his skin warm and golden again.
Part of Lex thought it was all some sort of nightmare and that Clark would soon wake, but it wasn't a dream.
It was real.
His eyes stung with unshed tears as he looked at Clark, the center of his universe, now so still and cold.
Lex looked up as he heard hurried footsteps come down the hallway. He stood as Clark's mother stepped into the room.
Her face said it all: Martha was white as a sheet and looked like she'd been crying. She started to cry again when she saw Clark. Yet, her red-rimmed eyes shifted to Lex. She rushed to him and pulled him into her arms.
It wasn't until then, wrapped in Martha's warm arms, that Lex finally broke down and cried.
~:::~
Continued HERE....