Fic: Beat - Part 4
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3
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Clark Kent received a wedding invitation today. He knew she’d picked a date, but she’d done that three times since his return. This was the first time she committed it to paper.
When he opened the lined envelope and registered what he was looking at, he barely managed to stumble to the couch in his tiny apartment and sit.
He thinks, maybe, something inside him must be a little broken. How is it he only knows what he wants when he can’t have it?
She and Richard are the kind of happy together that people only dream about. Hot on the trail of a story, she’ll drop everything for a lunch date with him. He almost literally stopped the presses the last time she got a cold.
It’s enough to make Clark grind his teeth to dust.
He’s grateful for his part in her life. She even invited him to stand up for her at the wedding as her uber-liberated “Man of Honor”. He accepted for one reason - he couldn’t bear to be the one giving her away.
Perry White will have that honor, and while it is unconventional, Chloe says she can’t think of anyone more fitting.
She doesn’t lie when she sees Richard. He can tell she’s honestly happy from the cadence of her heart.
Clark also can’t help but notice that her heartbeat quickens uncomfortably around him. She downright flirts with Superman, so it breaks him that she works so hard to keep things professional with Clark Kent when he’s all but told her what she means to him.
It’s been a rough week, and they just turned in an expose on dirty campaign contributions in the city council elections. Just the same, he plans to grab some day-old pizza and watch a few minutes of the news before he heads out on patrol tonight.
He realizes his brand of celebrating is a bit warped.
He’s just warming the pizza when he recognizes her heartbeat over the horrible clanking of the antique elevator that serves his building. He suddenly regrets giving her a key for emergencies. She’s the last person he can handle talking to right now.
Apparently, she misses his psychic pleas to leave and knocks on the door with the same brash assertiveness she approaches everything with.
He stares at the door. Maybe she’ll think he’s already on patrol.
“I know you’re in there. I can practically hear you brooding heroically.”
Oh for Rao’s sake… He opens the door grudgingly, and she breezes past him.
“Good grief, Clark!” She exclaims once she rounds the corner to the living room. “I know you’re not exactly concerned about catching something, but I’m surprised no one’s called the health department. This place is a disaster!”
“I’ve been busy. Two jobs will do that to a guy.”
He sees her eyes light on the invitation, still open on his end table, and an unreadable expression passes over her features. She spins on her heel and grabs his elbow.
“Cry me a river, Kent. Come on. We’ll grab a bite on the way over to Belle Reve.”
Life with Lois is never boring; he has to give her that.
“And why, exactly, are we visiting an asylum at…“ He consults his father’s watch. “…7:00 on a Friday evening?”
“Hot on the trail of our next headline, of course.” She’s pulled him into the elevator before he really registers that he’s out of the apartment. “Come on, big boy. It’s for the cause of truth and justice.”
And he knows she remembers the words. Her heart is pounding as soon as they leave her lips, and she puts a few feet between them for good measure before selecting their floor. He looks down, trying to give her the space she needs.
They grab a sandwich at a deli down the street while she fills him in.
“It’s a real blast from the past, Clark. You remember the Freshman quarterback that replaced you back at Smallville High?”
“Kenny Braverman?”
“The one and only. Turns out he was a member of the kryptonite-enhanced community. He’s been off the map for almost five years, and resurfaced in Suicide Slums last month rambling about black-ops CIA work.”
“How does this make for a story?”
“What, beyond the potential government manipulation of Krypto-mutants?”
“Well, yeah…that seems so ten years ago.” He tries to prod.
She rolls her eyes. “It is. Unless you consider the fact that he also claims to know the true identity of Superman.”
He coughs around his sandwich. “W-What?”
“You heard me. A lot of whack-jobs in that place claim to be Superman, but according to my source inside Belle Reve, our dear friend Kenny seems to have developed something of an obsession with you, Clark.”
He tries no to let that shake his faith on the drive over. He has Lois by his side, so he’s braver than he should be when he checks in with the guards at Belle Reve.
Kenny’s voice is low when he spots Clark. It should be his first warning to be wary.
Instead, he saunters in like a fool behind the woman of his dreams, because she’s always been stronger than she looks. Even when she let him rescue her.
Kenny is out of his chair in a heartbeat. He touches Lois casually, and she falls to the ground with a sickening thud.
That’s when Clark hears the gathering.
He doesn’t know how, but Kenny is pulling every scrap of energy in this godforsaken place into himself. The building goes dark, and the sound of power being sucked into him, from even the other inmates, is sickening.
“Clark.” When he speaks, it is low. “It was always you. I know that now. No wonder I couldn’t win.”
“I wasn’t aware there was a contest.” He raises his hand in a placating gesture, hoping beyond hope that whatever the young man did to Lois is reversible. He can’t hear her heart.
“Of course there’s a contest. It’s always a contest. My father taught me that, before he sent me away.”
“Kenny, I just want to help.”
“Of course you do, Clark. But you can’t. Not even Superman can help poor Kenny. He’s too broken.”
The grin is feral, the green lightening that shoots from his hands terrifying. Pain lances through every cell simultaneously. Clark’s muscles clench uncontrollably.
“Lex can help, Kenny.” Another voice cuts through the whiteout of pain.
Kenny cocks his head to the side, and studies the bald intruder.
It’s the first time he’s seen Lex since his return from training, and Clark is struck by the utter lack of humanity in his eyes.
Only the predator is left behind. He has met this man before, and he knows how much he has to fear.
“Come with me, and we can walk out of here together.” Lex extends a hand foolishly.
Kenny seems to consider it a moment.
Lex continues. “We could be great together. Clark Kent was never worth greatness.”
That seems to get Kenny’s attention, and he’s crossing the room before Clark’s fully recovered from the first attack. His body still seizes outside his control.
Lex looks at him with distain, before stepping over him. “Clark.”
It is an acknowledgement and a dismissal in a single breath, but all Clark can focus on is regaining control of his limbs and getting to Lois.
She still isn’t breathing.
---
Everything hurts.
His hands shake, warm tears trail down his face, and he can taste blood.
None of that matters as he lurches like an inchworm on crack toward where she lays. Clark is trying desperately to listen for her, but the fear and his own ragged breath drown out everything.
He can feel the blackness trying to swallow him whole, and he’ll be damned if he’s going to give in. Chloe, Lois…the name doesn’t matter. He has no intention of living in a world without her smile.
His right hand seems to be the only one listening to him, and even that’s questionable. He’s terrified to touch her when he finally drags himself to her side. One uncontrolled swing could crush bone, and she doesn’t need anything else to worry about.
A high-pitched whistle seems to accompany his every breath, but he leans in to listen anyway.
The silence is like a knife in his gut. He feels nauseous.
This can’t be how their story ends. Even if he never got her the way he wanted her, he doesn’t know how to face a sunrise she won’t see. It’s wrong in a million little ways, and his mind is railing against the reality of it all.
Lex…
The bastard knew this was going to happen. He knew Braverman would take them both out.
The anger seems to do Clark good, and he can feel a cold calm steal over him. He knows what he has to do.
He listens one last time, and brushes the hair out of her face before pressing a chaste kiss to her lips. “I’m so sorry.”
In the span of a heartbeat, he’s dressed as his alter ego and hurtling through the sky toward a Cadillac SUV on Route 71. He can hear Lex’s pulse, slow and smooth, next to Kenny’s staccato beat.
They are both going to die tonight. Then Chloe can decide what to do with them.
He finds it fitting that 13 years after he performed the miraculous save that put him on Lex’s radar, the man still looks surprised when he tears the roof off his plush SUV and knocks the driver out with a tap to the head.
He has them both out of their seatbelts and hovering at 15,000 feet in a matter of seconds.
Kenny grits his teeth and raises an open palm. “You shouldn’t have done that, Superman.”
“No!” Shouts Lex.
“Do it.” The grin is feral and completely out of place on the face of a supposed hero. Clark couldn’t give a damn.
“Kenny, don’t. We’ll fall, and then we can’t fix you.”
“But…”
“He can’t fix you, Kenny, any more than he can fix himself.” Clark practically spits. “Besides, neither of you are going to get that chance.”
Lex’s eyes widen at that. “Superman doesn’t kill people.”
“Any other day, I’d agree with you.” He spreads his arms and they both struggle against his iron grip. The display of power, the fear, is intoxicating. The world will be better off without them.
Suddenly, he’s aware of a flutter, a slow cadence at the edge of his consciousness. He almost cries out when it settles into a familiar rhythm.
He’s breathing hard, tears tracing silent trails down his face, and he realizes with a jolt what he’s about to do. He will lose her forever if he does this. She fights for justice, and these two are unworthy of revenge.
He sends a quick prayer that she’s alright and flies at top speed to the nearest recycling plant without regard for the comfort of his cargo. He uses his heat vision to create rubber bindings for Kenny, but that doesn’t stop the younger man from trying to give him another charge.
It’s like watching a transformer overload, and he doubts Kenny will claim to know anything about Superman after this. He leaves both of them at the nearest police station with instructions on how to safely transport Kenny back to Belle Reve.
In street clothes again, her heartbeat guides him back to the room they were in, and he watches in horror as the paramedics work feverishly to provide her with oxygen. He rides with them to the hospital, and leaves only when he sees Richard coming down the hall. There are too many questions, and he’s still a mess.
Smallville Medical. He can’t help but laugh at the irony. Both Chloe and Lois spent far too much time here when they were young.
He spent three hours patrolling Metropolis and confirming that Lex and Kenny are taken care of, but he can’t stay away. Daisies in hand, he heads for the room he knows she occupies.
He stops around the corner, peering through the wall to see a distraught Richard at her side. He’s weeping the same way Clark was earlier, so he decides to give the man his pride. He settles a chair against the opposite wall and waits.
“Come on, Lois. You’re a fighter. Stay with me.” Richard begs. “You are the strongest woman I’ve ever met. Did you know that? I was terrified that first day, when I asked you to the Sharks game. When you said no I bought season tickets, just so I had an excuse to try again.
“Three seasons, I dragged my dad to every game. It hurt like hell every time you turned me down, and I was terrified I could never compete with a ghost, but you were worth the wait, Lois Lane.”
He sniffs, and she stirs.
“Lois?”
“Mmm…Clark?”
Richard’s face crumples and he buries his face in shaky hands, weeping openly. Clark leaves the daisies at the nurse’s station and resumes his patrol with an added burden.
He’d love to see Richard as an opportunist who took advantage of Lois when she was lost and alone. But the simple truth is, he’s a good guy who loves her as much as Clark does and who never once broke her heart.
How can he stand in the way of that?
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Continued here.