Power Corrupts - August 2nd
Twisted Shorts August Fic-a-Day Challenge - Day 2
Title: Power Corrupts
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Smallville
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Smallville people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena and Clark try to keep Clark’s powers from injuring others.
Notes: Athena Luthor Part 21 - Links Page
Seasons: S1 “Leech”
Characters: Clark, Athena, Martha, Lana, Jonathan, Lex
Word Count: 2130
Clark hissed as the doctor finished wrapping his ribs.
“How much longer is it going to hurt like this?” Clark asked.
“Oh, you’ll be fine in a couple weeks,” the doctor assured.
“A couple weeks?” Clark yelled, then winced and took a careful breath.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Athena snorted from the chair she was in.
“Clark!” Martha said as she and Jonathan entered the room. She hugged him.
“Easy on the ribs, Mom,” Clark complained.
“Sorry.”
“How’s he doing, Doc?” Jonathan asked.
“Well, nothing seems to be broken,” the doctor said. “We could get an x-ray just to be safe.”
“Um, I think we’ll just take him home.”
“It’s your choice, but I want to see him back again in a week.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Clark said.
Jonathan went to handle the paperwork, while Martha helped Clark with his shirt.
“What happened?” Martha asked as soon as they were alone. She helped Clark into his shirt, working around the cast.
“Eric just flipped out,” Clark said. “It was kind of scary.”
“That’s not it,” Athena said as she pushed her to feet. “Until this last week, Eric has been dumped on at every turn. He’s finally got the power to not have to feel that way again. And he’s using them.”
“I wish you two hadn’t gotten in his way.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Clark told Martha. “Even though Eric has my abilities, I still think of them as my responsibility.”
“What’s your reason?” Martha asked Athena.
Athena, busied herself with Clark’s shirt buttons. “Still the Slayer, even if I am easily outmatched by sheer power.”
“Athena, Clark,” Lex said as he entered at a run. “I just heard.”
“Hi, Lex,” Martha greeted. “I’m going to check on Jonathan.”
Lex gathered Athena into a hug. She gave him a minute, then shook him off. “I’m okay,” she promised.
“What were you two thinking?”
“We were just trying to stop someone from getting hurt,” Athena said. “We simply misjudged this teenage temper tantrum.”
“You two have got to be more careful.” Lex told them in his best older brother voice.
Athena went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “We didn’t mean to worry you.”
He considered a moment. “Anything I can do?”
“The bill, without the Kents finding out, leave about a hundred and fifty dollars due.”
“Athena,” Clark objected.
“Average cost for your ribs in the ER, just to be seen is about four hundred.”
Clark hesitated.
“Consider it taken care of,” Lex told them both, leaving the room.
Athena turned back to Clark and finished buttoning up his shirt.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he told her.
“You didn’t have to step up to Eric,” she reminded him.
“Neither did you.”
Athena sighed. “We are who we are.”
“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Thank you.”
88888888
“I’m here,” Athena announced as she entered the Kent house with the lead puzzle box. “What’s going on?”
“Clark wants to go after Eric,” Martha said. “We’ve been trying to talk him out of it.”
“Do you have a plan?” Athena asked as she approached Clark.
“I’m hoping that if he has my powers, he has my weakness,” Clark told her.
“Which is why you wanted this.” She unlocked the puzzle box until it revealed the meteor rock. “You want to weaken him…but then what?”
“I have to stop him, now, before he hurts anyone.”
“We,” Athena told him.
“No-”
“I’m the muscle here, Clark.” She looked behind him. “Besides, it may be the only way your parents let you walk out of here.”
88888888
It was night when they reached Eric Summers. He stood on the dam. Clark and Athena got out of the car.
“Eric! Eric!” Clark called. “Eric, don’t!”
Eric looked back at them and smiled. Then he jumped off the dam.
Athena and Clark turned and ran down to the bottom of the dam. Athena arrived in time to see Eric pull himself from the base of the dam, completely unharmed.
“Eric,” Clark said, looking around.
“You should have let me go the first time, Clark,” Eric said. “It would have been better than living like this.”
“Why did you jump off the dam?”
“I was testing myself to see if I had any limits. Apparently, I don’t.’
“You can adjust, these abilities do not have to be your entire life,” Athena said. “You have to give it time, nobody figures this out overnight.”
“How do you know?” He asked as he approached them.
“We’re just saying you got to give yourself some time,” Clark said.
“Oh, so in time, my parents won’t be scared of me,” he sneered. “The girl of my dreams won’t think I’m a freak. The cops won’t be after me.”
“We can help.”
“I don’t want your help, Clark.” Eric reached for Clark’s shirt.
Athena attacked him. She got in a few good shots before Eric chucked her into the power station fence.
“Athena!” Clark yelled. Running to her. She moaned and slowly pushed herself up.
Eric approached. “If everyone is going to treat me like a criminal, then I’ll give them something to be scared about.”
“It’s not the answer,” Clark said, working to unlock the puzzle box as he stood to face Eric.
Eric grabbed Clark. “Come on, Clark. If you had the power to do whatever you want, what would you do?”
“Stop people like you,” he answered with a surprising ease.
“Nothing on this earth can stop me.” He slammed Clark against the generator. He grabbed a thick cable from the generator and pulled it out.
Athena reached Clark’s side and popped open the puzzle box. The meteor rock glowed. Clark grabbed it and touched Eric’s hand. Energy passed through them from the electrical wire
Athena was thrown back as a bolt of green electricity hit her. She landed a few feet away, watching as the green electricity arced between Eric and Clark. Both were screaming. Then the electricity stopped and they fell to the ground. Clark grimaced and picked up the puzzle box.
Clark checked on Eric before approaching Athena.
“Athena!”
“I’m okay,” she told him as she pushed herself upright. “I was just a little too close. Are you okay?”
Clark crumbled the cast on his arm like it was nothing. “I’ve got my powers back.”
“Good. Run up to the top of the dam, my phone is in my purse. Eric needs to be taken into custody.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Athena took a deep breath. But the pain had receded and she felt like she was okay.
88888888
Lex studied the paper.
“This is why I had to put up with that woman for the last two months?” Athena demanded as she entered his office. She threw the paper down, the article announcing that LuthorCorp was taking over Hardwick Enterprises.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s quite…devious. But can we not play keep your friends close and your enemies closer in this house?” She crossed her arms. “Or at least let me in on it.”
“I would have, but Father-”
Athena waved him off. “Yeah, let’s just call this growing pains and not keep this stuff going on in the house.”
“You have my word,” Lex agreed.
“Good.”
88888888
Clark stopped in the middle of the field. He had been exercising his powers again. He had been making sure they were still what he expected. He was fast and strong and a bit indestructible.
“Hey,” Athena said as she approached.
“Hey.”
“Everything in working order?”
“Seems to be.” He watched her. “How are you?”
“Fine.” She watched him.
“So-”
“About-”
They both spoke at the same time.
“I remember asking you if you knew what it was to be afraid of hurting others,” Athena said.
“I know you didn’t mea-”
She waved her hand to stop him. “I know it was an accident. I realized, you’re the only one I use power with, without thinking about it. I hug Lex without harming him, and interact with Lana and Pete and Chloe.” She blew out a breath. “It just…hurting you was never something I ever wanted to do.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” he told her.
“But I don’t want to stop this. I want to spend whatever time we have not overthinking every interaction. This works and not just because the powers and the secrets, but because we both stepped in front of others to protect them. Even when we know we can’t win.”
Clark stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. “With or without powers, we’re still…us.”
Athena wrapped her arms around him and nodded into his chest.
88888888
“Your brother bought the Talon,” Lana said as she dropped into a seat at the Beanery.
“I’m surprised,” Athena admitted between sips of coffee. “Talon isn’t his kind of venture.”
“He wants to tear it down and make it a parking structure. I tried to tell him what it could be, what it means to me…” She shook her head. “He didn’t take me seriously.”
“First thing about either Luthor man you should know, they view everything from a business perspective. If you have a want or opinion, you’ll need to back it up with numbers, a reason to care about it is that it’ll make them money.”
Lana frowned, working through the insight.
“Yes, that is how my relationship with my father works.”
“And with Lex?”
“No, but I also don’t ask him for money or help, so he kind of gives generously.” She sighed. “I heard a rumor…Whitney lost his scholarship?”
“Yeah. He did.”
“How’s he holding up?”
“He says he’s okay, but…”
Athena put her arm around Lana and gave her a squeeze. “It’ll work out somehow.”
Lana took a deep breath. “I know.”
88888888
Athena sat cross-legged on the floor of the Kent’s barn loft. She was writing in a notebook and lost in faraway things.
“I’m glad we got each other for the project,” Clark said.
“Pete is pretty sure we rigged it somehow,” she told him. “I think Chloe does too. But I figure better they think that than having people digging into either of us.”
“You’re safe if anyone goes digging,” he reminded her.
“Except my father, mother, and both my brothers…” she pointed out. “Most people don’t know that I had a twin, even less know that Mom killed him.”
“Do you want me to leave him out?”
“No. It’ll work as something unexpected.” She looked over at him. “How was your adoption done? Orphaned, abandoned, from the state? I doubt putting ‘fell from the sky’ was on the origin paperwork.”
Clark shrugged. “I never asked.”
“I’ll have to ask your mom, just so it can inform what I put in about your birth and adoption.”
“Do you have to?”
“More suspicious to leave it out than to fabricate it.”
He sighed.
“Clark,” they heard Martha call out.
He stood and moved to the loft door. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Can I get some help with the groceries?”
“Sure.”
Athena stood, setting her notebook down. They headed for the car, helping to unload it.
“Athena,” Martha greeted. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“Not tonight, Lex and I have plans.” She shook her head. “That’s not quite true. Today is fifteen years since a tragedy in my family and I’m never the best company.”
“Oh dear, your mother, of course.”
“My twin, actually.” She continued on. “I had a couple questions about Clark’s adoption.”
“Why?”
“A school report. We have to write about each other,” Clark explained.
“It’s a biography,” Athena said. “So I was hoping to stick to the details as they are.”
Martha nodded. “Of course. Well, the adoption was done privately. Clark was presented as a child whose parents had to give him up.”
“Okay,” she started thinking about the way to write it. “And he was two?”
“Yes.”
Athena looked at Clark. “And you don’t remember anything about where you came from?”
Clark shook his head. “The lead we have is the ship.”
“Ship?”
“I’ll show you.”
They headed out of the house and near the field where the cellar was. Clark opened the cellar and led her down. There was a large object covered in a tarp at the back of the cellar.
He pulled the cover off.
“Wow,” Athena breathed. The ship had a pewter look. It was a sharp-nosed ship, with a ball compartment where only a small toddler could have been protected. “This ship was designed for a baby.”
Clark touched the edge of the ship. “I know.”
“You must have so many questions.” She said softly as she pressed her hand to the side of the ship. “I know why my mom died but I still have questions for her.”
“I do,” he agreed.
Title: Power Corrupts
Author: hermione2be
Rating: PG/FR13/K+
Crossover: BtVS/Smallville
Disclaimer: I do not own any of BtVS/Angel or Smallville people, places, or ideas. This fiction is done simply for pleasure and I receive no profit.
Summary: Athena and Clark try to keep Clark’s powers from injuring others.
Notes: Athena Luthor Part 21 - Links Page
Seasons: S1 “Leech”
Characters: Clark, Athena, Martha, Lana, Jonathan, Lex
Word Count: 2130
Clark hissed as the doctor finished wrapping his ribs.
“How much longer is it going to hurt like this?” Clark asked.
“Oh, you’ll be fine in a couple weeks,” the doctor assured.
“A couple weeks?” Clark yelled, then winced and took a careful breath.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
Athena snorted from the chair she was in.
“Clark!” Martha said as she and Jonathan entered the room. She hugged him.
“Easy on the ribs, Mom,” Clark complained.
“Sorry.”
“How’s he doing, Doc?” Jonathan asked.
“Well, nothing seems to be broken,” the doctor said. “We could get an x-ray just to be safe.”
“Um, I think we’ll just take him home.”
“It’s your choice, but I want to see him back again in a week.”
“Thanks, Doc,” Clark said.
Jonathan went to handle the paperwork, while Martha helped Clark with his shirt.
“What happened?” Martha asked as soon as they were alone. She helped Clark into his shirt, working around the cast.
“Eric just flipped out,” Clark said. “It was kind of scary.”
“That’s not it,” Athena said as she pushed her to feet. “Until this last week, Eric has been dumped on at every turn. He’s finally got the power to not have to feel that way again. And he’s using them.”
“I wish you two hadn’t gotten in his way.”
“I don’t know what it is,” Clark told Martha. “Even though Eric has my abilities, I still think of them as my responsibility.”
“What’s your reason?” Martha asked Athena.
Athena, busied herself with Clark’s shirt buttons. “Still the Slayer, even if I am easily outmatched by sheer power.”
“Athena, Clark,” Lex said as he entered at a run. “I just heard.”
“Hi, Lex,” Martha greeted. “I’m going to check on Jonathan.”
Lex gathered Athena into a hug. She gave him a minute, then shook him off. “I’m okay,” she promised.
“What were you two thinking?”
“We were just trying to stop someone from getting hurt,” Athena said. “We simply misjudged this teenage temper tantrum.”
“You two have got to be more careful.” Lex told them in his best older brother voice.
Athena went up on her toes and kissed his cheek. “We didn’t mean to worry you.”
He considered a moment. “Anything I can do?”
“The bill, without the Kents finding out, leave about a hundred and fifty dollars due.”
“Athena,” Clark objected.
“Average cost for your ribs in the ER, just to be seen is about four hundred.”
Clark hesitated.
“Consider it taken care of,” Lex told them both, leaving the room.
Athena turned back to Clark and finished buttoning up his shirt.
“You didn’t have to do that,” he told her.
“You didn’t have to step up to Eric,” she reminded him.
“Neither did you.”
Athena sighed. “We are who we are.”
“Yeah.” He leaned down and kissed her. “Thank you.”
88888888
“I’m here,” Athena announced as she entered the Kent house with the lead puzzle box. “What’s going on?”
“Clark wants to go after Eric,” Martha said. “We’ve been trying to talk him out of it.”
“Do you have a plan?” Athena asked as she approached Clark.
“I’m hoping that if he has my powers, he has my weakness,” Clark told her.
“Which is why you wanted this.” She unlocked the puzzle box until it revealed the meteor rock. “You want to weaken him…but then what?”
“I have to stop him, now, before he hurts anyone.”
“We,” Athena told him.
“No-”
“I’m the muscle here, Clark.” She looked behind him. “Besides, it may be the only way your parents let you walk out of here.”
88888888
It was night when they reached Eric Summers. He stood on the dam. Clark and Athena got out of the car.
“Eric! Eric!” Clark called. “Eric, don’t!”
Eric looked back at them and smiled. Then he jumped off the dam.
Athena and Clark turned and ran down to the bottom of the dam. Athena arrived in time to see Eric pull himself from the base of the dam, completely unharmed.
“Eric,” Clark said, looking around.
“You should have let me go the first time, Clark,” Eric said. “It would have been better than living like this.”
“Why did you jump off the dam?”
“I was testing myself to see if I had any limits. Apparently, I don’t.’
“You can adjust, these abilities do not have to be your entire life,” Athena said. “You have to give it time, nobody figures this out overnight.”
“How do you know?” He asked as he approached them.
“We’re just saying you got to give yourself some time,” Clark said.
“Oh, so in time, my parents won’t be scared of me,” he sneered. “The girl of my dreams won’t think I’m a freak. The cops won’t be after me.”
“We can help.”
“I don’t want your help, Clark.” Eric reached for Clark’s shirt.
Athena attacked him. She got in a few good shots before Eric chucked her into the power station fence.
“Athena!” Clark yelled. Running to her. She moaned and slowly pushed herself up.
Eric approached. “If everyone is going to treat me like a criminal, then I’ll give them something to be scared about.”
“It’s not the answer,” Clark said, working to unlock the puzzle box as he stood to face Eric.
Eric grabbed Clark. “Come on, Clark. If you had the power to do whatever you want, what would you do?”
“Stop people like you,” he answered with a surprising ease.
“Nothing on this earth can stop me.” He slammed Clark against the generator. He grabbed a thick cable from the generator and pulled it out.
Athena reached Clark’s side and popped open the puzzle box. The meteor rock glowed. Clark grabbed it and touched Eric’s hand. Energy passed through them from the electrical wire
Athena was thrown back as a bolt of green electricity hit her. She landed a few feet away, watching as the green electricity arced between Eric and Clark. Both were screaming. Then the electricity stopped and they fell to the ground. Clark grimaced and picked up the puzzle box.
Clark checked on Eric before approaching Athena.
“Athena!”
“I’m okay,” she told him as she pushed herself upright. “I was just a little too close. Are you okay?”
Clark crumbled the cast on his arm like it was nothing. “I’ve got my powers back.”
“Good. Run up to the top of the dam, my phone is in my purse. Eric needs to be taken into custody.”
“I’ll be right back.”
Athena took a deep breath. But the pain had receded and she felt like she was okay.
88888888
Lex studied the paper.
“This is why I had to put up with that woman for the last two months?” Athena demanded as she entered his office. She threw the paper down, the article announcing that LuthorCorp was taking over Hardwick Enterprises.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“It’s quite…devious. But can we not play keep your friends close and your enemies closer in this house?” She crossed her arms. “Or at least let me in on it.”
“I would have, but Father-”
Athena waved him off. “Yeah, let’s just call this growing pains and not keep this stuff going on in the house.”
“You have my word,” Lex agreed.
“Good.”
88888888
Clark stopped in the middle of the field. He had been exercising his powers again. He had been making sure they were still what he expected. He was fast and strong and a bit indestructible.
“Hey,” Athena said as she approached.
“Hey.”
“Everything in working order?”
“Seems to be.” He watched her. “How are you?”
“Fine.” She watched him.
“So-”
“About-”
They both spoke at the same time.
“I remember asking you if you knew what it was to be afraid of hurting others,” Athena said.
“I know you didn’t mea-”
She waved her hand to stop him. “I know it was an accident. I realized, you’re the only one I use power with, without thinking about it. I hug Lex without harming him, and interact with Lana and Pete and Chloe.” She blew out a breath. “It just…hurting you was never something I ever wanted to do.”
“That’s exactly how I feel,” he told her.
“But I don’t want to stop this. I want to spend whatever time we have not overthinking every interaction. This works and not just because the powers and the secrets, but because we both stepped in front of others to protect them. Even when we know we can’t win.”
Clark stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. “With or without powers, we’re still…us.”
Athena wrapped her arms around him and nodded into his chest.
88888888
“Your brother bought the Talon,” Lana said as she dropped into a seat at the Beanery.
“I’m surprised,” Athena admitted between sips of coffee. “Talon isn’t his kind of venture.”
“He wants to tear it down and make it a parking structure. I tried to tell him what it could be, what it means to me…” She shook her head. “He didn’t take me seriously.”
“First thing about either Luthor man you should know, they view everything from a business perspective. If you have a want or opinion, you’ll need to back it up with numbers, a reason to care about it is that it’ll make them money.”
Lana frowned, working through the insight.
“Yes, that is how my relationship with my father works.”
“And with Lex?”
“No, but I also don’t ask him for money or help, so he kind of gives generously.” She sighed. “I heard a rumor…Whitney lost his scholarship?”
“Yeah. He did.”
“How’s he holding up?”
“He says he’s okay, but…”
Athena put her arm around Lana and gave her a squeeze. “It’ll work out somehow.”
Lana took a deep breath. “I know.”
88888888
Athena sat cross-legged on the floor of the Kent’s barn loft. She was writing in a notebook and lost in faraway things.
“I’m glad we got each other for the project,” Clark said.
“Pete is pretty sure we rigged it somehow,” she told him. “I think Chloe does too. But I figure better they think that than having people digging into either of us.”
“You’re safe if anyone goes digging,” he reminded her.
“Except my father, mother, and both my brothers…” she pointed out. “Most people don’t know that I had a twin, even less know that Mom killed him.”
“Do you want me to leave him out?”
“No. It’ll work as something unexpected.” She looked over at him. “How was your adoption done? Orphaned, abandoned, from the state? I doubt putting ‘fell from the sky’ was on the origin paperwork.”
Clark shrugged. “I never asked.”
“I’ll have to ask your mom, just so it can inform what I put in about your birth and adoption.”
“Do you have to?”
“More suspicious to leave it out than to fabricate it.”
He sighed.
“Clark,” they heard Martha call out.
He stood and moved to the loft door. “Yeah, Mom?”
“Can I get some help with the groceries?”
“Sure.”
Athena stood, setting her notebook down. They headed for the car, helping to unload it.
“Athena,” Martha greeted. “Are you staying for dinner?”
“Not tonight, Lex and I have plans.” She shook her head. “That’s not quite true. Today is fifteen years since a tragedy in my family and I’m never the best company.”
“Oh dear, your mother, of course.”
“My twin, actually.” She continued on. “I had a couple questions about Clark’s adoption.”
“Why?”
“A school report. We have to write about each other,” Clark explained.
“It’s a biography,” Athena said. “So I was hoping to stick to the details as they are.”
Martha nodded. “Of course. Well, the adoption was done privately. Clark was presented as a child whose parents had to give him up.”
“Okay,” she started thinking about the way to write it. “And he was two?”
“Yes.”
Athena looked at Clark. “And you don’t remember anything about where you came from?”
Clark shook his head. “The lead we have is the ship.”
“Ship?”
“I’ll show you.”
They headed out of the house and near the field where the cellar was. Clark opened the cellar and led her down. There was a large object covered in a tarp at the back of the cellar.
He pulled the cover off.
“Wow,” Athena breathed. The ship had a pewter look. It was a sharp-nosed ship, with a ball compartment where only a small toddler could have been protected. “This ship was designed for a baby.”
Clark touched the edge of the ship. “I know.”
“You must have so many questions.” She said softly as she pressed her hand to the side of the ship. “I know why my mom died but I still have questions for her.”
“I do,” he agreed.