17Friendship Tinged With Madness
or
Lex Luthor's Shelter for Hopeless Idiots
Just a short psychological-oriented what-if, borrowing a (tiny) bit from Superman: Secret Origins, Superman: Man of Steel, Smallville, and All Star Superman collectively, mixing and mashing them as I please.
summary: What if Lex Luthor remembered reporter Clark Kent's friendship from their Smallville days? Pre-slash if you squint, but mostly it really is just fucked up friendship. Psychological humor/tragedy fic.
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With the Daily Planet banned from Luthercorp press conferences, and with Lois Lane throwing her new partner to the sharks to sneak in, it was more than a little surprising when they got invited after the sheer disaster that was the last conference when one of Luthor's own weapons went haywire and the newest talk in town, Superman, swooped in to upstage Luthor's own show and then apparently gave the Daily Planet an exclusive. But perhaps not so surprising, when one considered the Daily Planet was the only one who even had pictures of the man much less his spoken word, for if Lex Luthor was anything, it was a man burning with curiosity about his self proclaimed rival.
It was a sad, strangled two way interrogation. Lois Lane tried her best to get him to answer questions, like "What's up with all the disappearances of those unfortunate enough to receive Luthercorp's 'goodwill'? What's your stance on Luthercorp owning 72% of the city and strangling out unbiased media against it? On the side effects of gentrification pushing out low income residents of properties purchased by you?"
And at the same time, Luthor asked questions like "Who is Superman? What was he doing on my property? What connections do you have to him?"
Neither of them were really getting any answers, neither even really listening, with Clark sheepishly sitting quiet in the background of their verbal battle.
Lex Luthor paused for one moment, realizing he was forgetting one of the reporters in their quibbling, and looked over Clark Kent seriously for the first time. "Don't I know you from somewhere?" It was a question Clark had been dreading.
"Yes-"
It should, perhaps, also not have been surprising when Rudy the Janitor turned into a giant pink energy sucking monster and interrupted the interview, if one could still call it that, by destroying the side wall of the office.
"Hungrryyyy... must have it, it glows like the sun..."
"I can't let him get me!" Clark exclaimed and ran.
"What's the matter, Clark? Afraid he'll absorb your cowardice?" Luthor remarked scathingly as Kent ducked behind a column to escape the hideous pink blob that called itself Parasite, then as it ran past made a break for it and locked himself into a small room, really a glorified closet with an open window.
Superman swooped in not moments later, and decked it out with the man-turned-beast, forced to freeze it with his breath to keep it from sucking his energy after pleading with it to let them peacefully take him to doctors so they could try to return him to a normal man again completely failed and it became apparent close combat wasn't a smart strategy either.
Luthor pointed a finger at the caped man, "I demand you turn yourself in for trespassing on Luthor-corp property immediately."
"Superman!" Lois exclaimed. "Can you stay for an interview?"
Superman, of course, did not oblige and instead took off into the sky before he could get mobbed.
A moment later, the sound of a turning knob alerted him to Clark stumbling out of the room, tripping over his own two feet. "S-sorry, is the monster gone?"
"The pink one, or the one in the cape? The former has been dealt with, the latter flew off, too good to deal with the rest of us. I'm going to kill him for that someday." Lex faux-smiled with contempt. "I like you, Clark. You're humble, a real hard working salt of the earth, you have to strive like the rest of us to reach for the sky. In short, you're everything he's not."
"So you remember me," Clark said uneasily.
"Tall clutzy boy who liked to read, with glasses? The only one who ever willingly sought out my company who wasn't out for my father's cash?" He tilted his head. "Hard to forget. But it's been a few years. You've bulked out since you were a teen, and you never used to slouch so much."
"And you've stayed almost identical," Clark said, with a resigned fondness he probably shouldn't be allowing himself to feel.
"Wait," Lois Lane interrupted, her reporter senses tingling. "Clark, you didn't tell me you knew Lex Luthor!"
Clark gave her an intentionally baffled look. "That was years ago, Lois, I doubted he'd even remember me. It was hardly worth mentioning that we both grew up in Smallville and crossed paths a few times."
"He may have saved my life, once," Luthor said, savoring the shocked look on Lois's face as she tried to balance between thinking of Clark as a hero and wanting to yell at him for doing something so foolish as saving such an evil man.
"What do you mean maybe?" Lois asked.
"He always insisted he would have managed okay without me," Clark shrugged, not one to really fight over such trivial things. "The county fair had a tornado, and he was trying to sell his personal possessions because his father had just cut him off from every dime and penny and he desperately wanted to get out of Smallville and start his own fortune without any help from dear old Dad. I got worried he was spending too much time trying to get his things, so I dragged him to a shelter." With exasperation, he added, "As well as grabbing all of his belongings so he wouldn't be penniless."
Luthor was eying him in a way he didn't really like, like he was an interesting specimen. Clark Kent was not supposed to be the interesting one! "Yes, you could almost say that if not for Clark, I also might not be a businessman today," with the 'almost' implying he thought he'd find his own ingenious way shortly enough even with such a setback. It was a little out of character of him to say such things even with the almost, and Clark wondered why until he saw Lex's gaze flick to Lois with amusement at her torn expression. He was trying to drive the two of them apart! "You could also say he was the closest thing I had to a friend over there in that small insipid bit of nowhere. I know you have half a brain, Clark, so why not come work for me instead of the dying Daily Planet?" His gaze was still fixed on Lois, rather than shifting to Clark as one might expect at making such a proclamation - he was quite clearly saying it just to screw with her, his long term gnat stinging at his side.
"If you were really interested in having me work for you, Lex, you would have scouted me out when I was job searching." Clark shook his head, just as Lex's gaze came to fix upon him once again, thankfully looking far more disinterested in him this time. "No, I think the Daily Planet needs me, and I'm genuinely interested in reporting the truth. I really think we can turn this dying paper around."
"You were always a sucker for sob stories," Lex said, sounding far more bored now. "Like mine. But as you can see, I never needed or wanted your pity, and with my focus I am more successful than you will ever be."
"I didn't pity you, Lex. I just wanted to help," Clark said earnestly. "Like I want to help everyone. I know you don't believe me."
"It's funny, Clark, but I actually do. It just doesn't matter. The world isn't the idealistic place you think it is. You can't help everyone, and there are those who would simply crawl on you for trying."
"May we quote you on that?" Lois Lane held up her pen and paper, smiling.
Lex gave her a look of utmost disgust. "If you must. But let me add, if you are so interested in the truth, that LuthorCorp does help as much as is genuinely possible. In the real world, the rest of us must struggle with problems that the man impervious to bullets will never understand, and that is why I do not trust him. Why we cannot trust him."
The sorry thing is, Clark had a weird suspicion that in some twisted way Luthor really believed that. That it was the cynical nature of reality that forced him to step on other people so often. That a man flying out of the sky like a miracle had to be too good to be true. Because no man had come to save him, from his alcoholic, abusive father. He'd had to save himself, and stand alone, and the act had permanently damaged his psyche.
Clark felt genuinely sorry for that.
He should have been there for him, and he hadn't been.
.flashback.
The scrawny boy looked over his collection of books in the library as Clark settled down to read the same book about aliens the boy had tried to sell at the Fair. "You again? I can save you some time. Yes, we are almost certainly not alone. No, xenobiology, as long as we have no actual direct evidence of alien life, is not a valid field. It's all guesswork and speculation."
"But parallel evolution is an observed phenomena on Earth," Clark rebutted. "It's unlikely aliens would not also be subject to Darwinian natural selection."
"So you do have half a brain in there," the way he said it, it did not sound the slightest complimentary. "That is true, up to a point. But the selection pressures on another planet could be entirely different. Earth-like planets may not even be the most common kind to render life: ocean world super Earths and moons around gas giants are far more common, and there's little knowing what life would look like there. And that's not even getting into the idea that life out there might inhabit places we think now are uninhabitable, something truly alien and exotic, maybe even non-carbon based."
"But that's also highly speculative. The only kind of life we have any reason to think exists is carbon. We haven't been able to get anywhere near the complexity with non-carbon compounds to assemble itself spontaneously the way we have with carbon. Comets and asteroids are littered with organic precursors. Carbon compounds. So, maybe, there could be life out there that looks just like us."
"Well, I was agreeing with you until that last part. The idea of humanoid life that looks exactly human is fairly ridiculous. There are much more common body plans that have evolved dozens of times on Earth, in comparison to the humanoid form that has evolved only once. It might be out there, due to the vast scale of the universe, but it's more likely it's so far away we'd never meet it," young Lex argued derisively. "Likely for the best, as considering our own history, it would probably be quite hostile. Or carry horrible invasives with it that wreak the planet."
"Not all contacts or people are violent," Clark protested. "With entirely different DNA, it's very unlikely the intruders would actually carry diseases that could affect us. It would be like getting sick from a pathogen that colonizes plants or bacteria, extremely unlikely. War of the Worlds was misleading and based on very early science."
"I'm not talking about just pathogens. Ferrets and rats introduced to islands can wipe out entire species. They could introduce some parasite or predator completely by accident that we've had no evolutionary experience dealing with, and die like a dodo experiencing a predator for the first time."
Clark shrank back. "That's... very cynical."
"That's the scientifically probable reality."
As Lex moved to check out, then walk out of the library, Clark spoke up hesitantly. "Do you... want to hang out sometime?"
Lex gave him a disdainful expression. "Why would I want to do that?"
Clark almost didn't answer in his frustration. To have a friend? To not be all alone as Lex clearly was? "To have someone with 'half a brain' to talk to? To share a meal with from time to time? You're saving money, right? It surely would only help if you let my Ma give you some of her wonderful meals sometime. She makes a mean pot pie."
The disdainful expression finally slipped from his face, considering. "I don't need help," he said, but it didn't have as much conviction as before.
"I know, but it's nice to have, isn't it? Tomorrow, we can share lunch," Clark promised.
"Alright." For someone so quick to proclaim the tooth and claw nature of the world, he looked awfully uneager to take advantage of Clark's offered kindness, and his agreement was reluctant and guarded.
"Ma won't bean you with a club and bake you into a dodo pie, I swear, Lex. I'm not luring you into a den of cannibals, you don't have to look at me like that."
That startled a short, genuine laugh from the boy, the first he'd heard from him. One of very few, actually, but at least it wasn't the last.
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.flashforward.
"Lois, a reporter should almost never be the story. I hope I don't have to ask you-"
"Relax, Clark," she drawled and flopped the paper and pen on her desk. "I'm not going to splash 'LUTHOR FRIENDS WITH FARM BOY ONCE, MAY ACTUALLY HAVE HAD A FLICKER OF A SOUL BEFORE HE TRADED IT TO SATAN' on the front page," Clark tried to choke back a laugh, "Perry wouldn't let me even if I would. It's not nearly as interesting as the Superman story, in any case, and that quote we got from Luthor is more than enough to show what ruthless slime he is."
"The sad thing is, I think in some way he thinks he is doing the right thing."
"You're kidding," she nearly spat out her coffee.
"He's pretty amoral, and in that sense, if you really believed the world was like that, maybe you'd feel an obligation to take it over before someone else could step on you, someone even worse," he said softly. "It's a bit messed up, but I can understand why he became this way."
"He's demented, not just a little bit messed up, Kent!" Back to Kent, now. He'd twerked her chain. Lois was the last person who ever wanted to feel sympathy for Luthor. But she was also a reporter, so she narrowed her eyes and said, "You mentioned his father cut him off? What did he do, realize his son is a garbage slime pile before the rest of us? Good for him!"
Clark sighed. "Not quite. Lionel was not a good man, even worse than Lex Luthor if you can believe that." By her snort, he knew she couldn't. "He was at least as ruthless as Lex, but without his appreciation of science, and a raging alcoholic on top of that. He used to... beat Lex, but was careful never to leave too much evidence." Say what one liked about Lex and his string of dalliances, but at least he'd been careful never to have a kid he didn't want to take care of.
Lane swore, got up from her chair, and paced twice before turning to him again with her finger pointed at him. "Well, okay, so he has a sob story." You were always a sucker for a sob story, Kent. "So do many people, and they don't turn into raging psychopaths."
"I know. I'm not excusing his actions." Clark was aware he really wasn't making her his fan today. "I'm just saying he has a viewpoint beyond 'Mwahaha, time to be evil!''
"Evil people don't think of themselves as evil, but they still are, Kent. As long as you remember that." She took a long sip of coffee.
"Don't worry. I'm not about to write a happy puff piece on him." He hesitated. "Well, not unless he does a total 180 and completely turns his act around, and stops trying to kill Superman for good, and not just pretending to fake us out either."
"If he stops trying to kill Superman, I'll write him a puff piece myself," Lois scoffed. "It'll never happen. Superman has been in town for, what, three whole months? And Luthor has already tried to kill him multiple times."
Clark hunched his shoulders. He knew that. He knew. He just wished it wasn't like that.
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Alien invasion was the disaster of the week, and Clark really should have gone in, when he spotted Lex in trouble, as Superman. But damn it all if he could turn away when Lex looked at him with such desperation as his weapons were failing on him, managing to spot him and say, "Where is that bravery you showed in that tornado, Kent?"
He knew you before. It would seem out of character if you didn't at least hesitate now, and he'd wonder what had changed, he consoled himself, trying to reassure as he whirled around and ran to Lex and the rubble that he was really doing the right thing to not run away and come back as Superman. He made a show of using his mass - he was a big guy, after all - rather than just his brute strength to knock the alien approaching Lex down, then grabbed Lex's weapon and shot it one more time, turning his head and back to the other man so Lex wouldn't see him augmenting the blast with his heat vision. The alien soldier squealed and died, turning into a puddle of white goo.
"Like a dodo meeting a club for the first time," Lex muttered to himself, and it took Clark a moment to recognize the reference as he lifted a bit of rubble off Lex, making a show of wheezing and straining as he did it.
"I think they even came from Mars," Clark said, causing Lex to look at him properly. "No sign of cross contamination by germs, though, so I was right on that one," he joked, trying to leaven the mood. "Can you walk?"
"I can limp," Lex said, the scathing note directed more at himself than at Clark, who helped him up. "He brought them here."
There was only one He in Lex's vocabulary, when he talked like that. "Superman?" Clark said, confused as he guided them to a makeshift shelter. "I'm pretty sure this is a totally different species. He's from Krypton, not Mars."
"Not directly, you fool. But having one alien here, it's like carrying a giant road sign declaring Earth is open to stellar business. He paved the way for them to infiltrate in, taking us off guard, making us think other aliens would be harmless." A dark look was in his eyes, completely unfocused from Clark despite staring in his direction. "I was right. All my genius, and I couldn't even fight off the alien menace."
"Hey, we haven't all been baked into pot pies yet!" Clark mock-complained, and gave him a cheery smile as he helped sit him down in the relative safety of the shelter. "I think it's too soon to say that it's not going to be alright."
"And where are you basing this overflowing optimism on? Please," Lex begged, "Don't say Superman will save us."
"No, I won't say that." He knew how much Lex would hate it. "Maybe I will save you," Clark said pithily, moving back toward the entrance.
"Right," Lex said sarcastically. "Good luck on that one." Then his smile dropped. "Are you really leaving the safety of the shelter to go out there?"
Where's your cowardice, Clark?
He heard the unspoken question, and made a show of frightful hesitation, turning his head around and biting his lip. "I-it's not like I want to! But someone has to get the story." That was the facade he'd tight-walked himself into now. The reluctantly brave coward. No other act would be bought, would make sense against the evidence so far presented of his character. And then, for God* knew only what reason, he found himself stupidly adding on to it, "You know Lex, if you wanted, we could hang out sometime."
Lex looked totally bewildered, despite the familiarity of the banter. "Hang out?" And then, as if everything was on repeat today, said, "Whatever for?"
"Well, you certainly don't need anyone to make you meals any more," Clark said thoughtfully. "But I still think Mum's recipe for chicken soup is the best in the world when you aren't feeling well, and you've got a banged up leg right now. And as it happens, I know the recipe." And even if he didn't, he could fly there and back in minutes, but Lex didn't have to know that.
Lex stared at him in such a way that for a minute, Clark was afraid he had started to look alien rather than just incidentally be alien. It was true his offer was completely ridiculous, Clark and Lex were essentially enemies now even if not mortal ones the way Superman and Luthor were (and oy, did that make his head hurt) with the Daily Planet never failing to take an opportunity to print a negative article about him, and Clark was an honest (well, relatively honest) reporter on a lowly salary and Lex a ruthless business man with practically as many riches as you could ever dream for. They had almost nothing in common these days.
And yet, Clark had invited Lex to eat soup with him. Soup.
He half expected Lex to yell and tell him only farm boy plebeians like Clark eat humble chicken soup, the rich dine on caviar and wine, that he was asking something of him far below his station. But he didn't.
Instead, he looked rather broken. "Why not? We're all going to be dead or enslaved soon, so why not agree to a tomorrow that will never come to pass?"
So melodramatic. So very him. Just because Lex couldn't defeat them didn't mean the entire day was ruined or all of humanity doomed!
"It's-" hm, not a date, he was still interested in Lois and would have to be insane to go with Luther, "an appointment!"
And then before he could do anything even more stupid, he forced himself to go out into the chaos, and meet up with the beginnings of the Justice League who were already there and struggling to try and handle the disaster. If he hadn't known other superheroes were out there, he wouldn't have spent half the time he had, guilt over being unable to save Lex from his father or not.
.flashback.
The first time he saw young Lex wince from bruises hidden under his shirt, and realized who had done it to him, was the first time Clark had ever felt the urge to murder someone.
It was a terrifying feeling.
"Don't." Lex insisted. "Don't do anything. You can't, anyway. He has a team of bodyguards nearby at all times because, affable and saintly man that he is, he's made a ton of enemies, and his lawyers would eat you alive even if you could get past them. Which you can't."
Clark bit his lip. But oh, he could. If only Lex knew how he could, he'd scream at him for standing so idly by all the time. He'd never trust Clark again. Although, honestly, he wasn't sure if he trusted Clark now. He'd only told him because Lex hated saying anything stupid like 'I fell down the stairs', and it was abundantly obvious someone had done this to him.
"Ma's chicken soup will make you feel better, I'm sure of it." Stuffing him with hospitality was the only thing he knew for sure how to do, if he couldn't punch the man responsible.
"Clark," Lex said exasperatedly. "You know that's for the flu, not child abuse, right?"
"It can't hurt, right?"
Lex rolled his eyes.
flashforward.
He wasn't too surprised when Luthor actually showed up at his apartment, although he was surprised that Lex had, for him, come somewhat incognito, arriving helmeted on a motorcycle instead of in a limo. It reminded him of Lex, the first time he'd made his own real significant amount of money, coming speeding by the farm and nearly hitting him off the road in the process, which would have been one way of unveiling his secret identity far more successful than any plan Luthor had actually managed to come up with. Actually, he wasn't sure Lex even suspected him of something so mundane as 'walking among mortals' each day like he was one of them, from the way he often ranted.
His bodyguard Mercy was with him, and gave him a very confused look. "This is where we were headed? This dingy place?" she said with disgust, surveying the apartment complex and already surmising Clark's place would be lucky to have more than three or four rooms. Not, frankly, that he needed that much space. A bathroom, a bedroom, and a living room combined with a kitchen were all he needed.
"I lost a bet, of sorts," Luthor said dryly. The truth was, Lex could be a man of his word, in his own twisted way. If he promised to do something, like chase you to the ends of the earth, he generally would. "If you really wish, you may leave." Now that was unusual. Mercy made a protesting noise. "Clark Kent would never leave me decapitated in an alleyway, and no one else knows we are here. Or wait outside." To that, Mercy dipped her head in agreement, but still spared one last look of disgust at the apartment.
Clark tolerated their snottiness like only someone with a true reporter's patience could. "Well, come on in, the soup won't take long to warm up at all. We could watch War of Worlds," he said with amusement, "if you like, or something else if that's a little too recent a reminder."
"Clark, why did you really invite me here?"
"I just want to see everyone happy," Clark admitted. "Even you."
"You are the human incarnation of a golden retriever," Lex shook his head, like Clark was unbelievable. "Somehow, the world produced a man like you."
Clark tried to suppress a wince at the exact phrasing. Human, not exactly. Would Lex take it as evidence of his defectiveness if he knew the truth? Maybe his forgiving nature wasn't totally human. Hadn't Kryptonians been selectively breeding themselves to have only a small soldier class and avoid war for hundreds of years? It was embarrassing, but maybe he really was the equivalent of a golden retriever. Without knowing any other Kryptonians for comparison, he'd never know for sure. But he couldn't let himself get suspiciously glum for no reason. Not, especially, when Lex himself looked rather under the weather. He had to be a good host, so he put on a smile.
He let them in to the small place, offered to take Lex's jacket, and set the soup on.
"How are you, Lex? You seem a little depressed. Would you like some hot cocoa, or some other beverage?"
"Coffee, if you have it. It's pretty much all I drink these days." The statement matched the bags under his eyes.
"I remember how you like it," Clark said. "Still with cream?" he double checked.
"Still with cream," Lex confirmed.
"Is War of Worlds alright? Or did you want to just be in and out? The soup should be done pretty quickly, but I know this really short Japanese animation we could watch instead while we wait, although I haven't seen it myself yet so I have no idea how good it is."
"War of Worlds is fine," Luthor said, but his gaze and voice said that everything was not, in fact, fine. "It can be a reminder."
Now Clark planted himself in front of Lex, offended. "I did not invite you here just so you could mope. We'll watch something else."
And they did. Lex would scrunch his nose up occasionally whenever something he thought was completely inane appeared in the anime, which was often, but at least he wasn't moping when he did that. He got engrossed enough at grouching at the characters for their vast stupidity that he barely noticed when Clark finally pressed the bowl of soup into his hands.
A part of Clark wondered if it was entirely sane, cheering him up, if the end result was probably just going to be to inspire him to try and come up with another plot against Superman. Making someone happy just to have them murder you later was not a very sound plan, even by Clark's often very on the spot improvisational standards. But it wasn't like he was egging him on to go do that, either, and Lex had been his friend, sort of, once.
And this meeting was just this once, right? Just a freak event where they both pretended to be normal for a change.
"That was a terrible movie, Clark. The characters were inane beyond all measure. And their eyes," Lex shuddered. "They were so huge, glittery and horrifying."
"Oh, admit it, you liked listing to yourself all the ways they should have died horribly! Don't pretend I didn't hear you." Clark laughed. "It wasn't that bad a feature."
"If that is your taste, then you really need to watch a genuinely refined movie, so you can see what you are missing out. Like Psycho, or Citizen Kane."
"The sad Rosebud is the sled movie?" Clark's eyebrows knitted together. "I can't say I've ever watched that one."
"It shows," Lex said with his typical dryness, a relaxed humor in his eyes, as he moved to grab his jacket. "It's an appointment, then."
Clark faltered, completely taken off guard that there would actually be a second time of this. "I don't have that movie, so does that mean... your place?"
Lex looked considering, more reluctant and guarded now as the full implications of what this might mean raced through his mind. "I suppose. You will not abuse our appointment to snoop."
"I would never." If Lex wasn't trying to kill Superman on those days, then Clark was more than glad for the vacation. "On those days, anyway," he said, trying to make it clearer where they stand. This was just a break, a temporary truce for those times only, a salve to when the unrelenting war started becoming too much to take. "No promises for when we don't have an 'appointment'."
On every other day, he tried to remind himself, they would be enemies.
.
Going there felt awkward, even in his best suit he felt totally out of place in the vast luxury, and Clark Kent really had no excuse to be there if he wasn't snooping. On the other hand, he was not exactly famous and it was easier for him to go in with barely any notice than it was for Lex to swing by his own place.
"Lex, I'm curious, why did you ask me over? Was my lack of cultured taste really such a horrible disappointment to the world that you had to mend it yourself right away?"
Lex looked at him flatly, expression unyielding, and decreed, "The absolute worst."
It was in moments like this, with Lex's dry humor, that he genuinely liked the man and wondered why they couldn't just get along.
.
.
It was hard going back to being mortal enemies, or even just reporter and nefarious reportee, harder than Clark had realized it would be. He tried not to look hurt the first time after their meetings that he had to fight Lex again, or to look too conflicted in the aftermath when Lois and Clark tried to interview the man. And he definitely tried not to panic when Lex looked at him with too-interested eyes and remarked, "Strange how your cowardice comes and goes, aye Clark?" He knew the man was saying it just to heckle him, but he also really didn't want that to be something Luthor thought about too deeply, lest he connect him to Superman. Then their friendship really would be over forever.
Lois looked between them, reporter's ears twitching. "Clark. You still call him Clark?"
The humor on Lex's face vanished, as the man realized he had made a mistake. He would not be so open in front of her in the future. "Yes. As I call you Lois, despite our last date being ages ago," he swiftly and smoothly amended the situation. Lois's face screwed up in annoyance at the reminder of dating that 'human slime'.
But it took a little more than that to deflect her attention. "Yes, our date. Just how close were you and Clark?" she asked, switching her questions away from the normally more interesting aftermath of a battle with Superman, which made him worry she had caught a scent like a bloodhound.
"Not like date close, Lois!" Clark blanched. Although he tried not to judge those sorts of things, and would never stop anyone from loving who they wanted, growing up in the rural South he'd had a hard time not internalizing such phobias against himself. He didn't know how his father would feel if he ever came out as gay, or, considering his previous interest in women, bisexual, and the thought gave him a tinge of worry. He never wanted to do anything to upset his parents, ever. He loved them too deeply.
"As such a crusader for justice, you don't really think there is something wrong with that, do you Clark?" Lex asked, toying with them again, as this set Lois to glaring at Clark if he so much as considered for a second saying something bigoted.
"No, of course not!" he held up his hands as if to ward them away, really flustered. "I'm just not gay, is all. Or bi."
"Sometimes the loudest denial indicates denial of a different kind," Lex teased, and made Lois snort with amusement, before looking appalled at herself for having any agreement whatsoever on anything with Luthor, however tiny.
"Come on Clark," she wound her arm around his. "We aren't getting anything out of him today." As they walked away, she asked, "Is it just me, or is Lex more... I can't quite put my finger on it. Playful than usual?"
"He did dangle Superman over a very absurd magma death trap in a most Bond villain fashion instead of trying to finish him off immediately like usual," Clark agreed. "Maybe he was just bored or wanted to try something different since the other approaches hadn't worked. Although I really wish he hadn't tried to summon a volcano right in the middle of Metropolis. I mean, that's not got to be any good for his property values, am I right?"
"I suppose. He's never really cared that much about breaking his own things," Lois remarked. "It's why I want you to be very careful around him."
"What? Me?" Clark gave her a befuddled look.
"Don't give me the clueless farm boy act. I see it in your eyes, deep down you still want to be friends with him and his behavior pains you like a personal insult, heck knows why. But don't you do it, Clark Kent. He's not worth you."
Guilty, he looked away. "I just want everyone to be happy and get along. Is that really so terrible to wish for?"
She pursed her lips. "No. But it's exactly why he doesn't deserve you. Because I can guarantee you, Lex Luthor doesn't wish for anything of the sort. He wants the world to worship at his feet, and his enemies to eat themselves alive, for all of them to be the same sad lonely power hungry bastard he is, because I've never met a man who projects his own flaws on to other people like Lex Luthor does." Then she laughed. "Except maybe you, and you have so few flaws besides your cowardice and clumsiness that you risk thinking everyone is a saint, which is a flaw in and of itself."
"Hey!" He was fairly sure he should protest that. "I'm sure I have some other flaws."
"Yes," she said sincerely. "Your biggest one is that you care about Lex Luthor. It's the same flaw Superman has, oddly enough, the man just won't let him die even when his own follies set him up perfectly for it."
"Lois," he said, concerned. "The law has to judge Lex Luthor's crimes, not Superman."
"Yes, but it wouldn't hurt him to simply... not save him, from his own awful magma trap, sometime."
Clark couldn't help but protest. "That seems like a really awful way to die."
"Exactly, so he shouldn't have tried to set it on other citizens. It's exactly what he deserves, Clark," Lois said fiercely. "Exactly. Don't forget that he's evil, Clark."
He sighed, not wanting to talk about this anymore. "Let's just get Dinky Doughnuts for Jimmy and the rest of the office again."
Was anyone truly evil? Or were they just, messed up in the head in a way they couldn't help? Only the Joker, one might argue, was crazy enough to choose insanity. Thankfully, he was Batman's problem, not his, and even Batman had decided not to kill his villain. He was hardly about to choose a path darker than Batman, lord of brooding himself.
But she was right. Was he forgetting that Lex truly wasn't a good man? Why was he doing this to himself, when it ate him up inside?
.
.
Batman was kind of nuts, but ultimately a good man despite being on the less savory edge of vigilantism. Clark still couldn't believe he'd strapped a bomb to himself, just so Superman wouldn't know he was lying when he said if Clark took him in, an innocent would die if he pressed a button! But one thing he said to him kind of stuck with him, after he expressed his sympathies to Magpie, one of Batman's villains who was less than mentally stable and broke down in tears when they caught her, proclaiming she just wanted pretty things.
"You feel sorry for her, but I feel sorrier for her victims."
Batman was right, of course. But Clark was about to get a reminder of just how right he was.
Lex kidnapped Lana Lang, and interrogated her, tortured her with drugs despite her body's low tolerance for it, and ransacked his parents' home leaving Clark scared he'd killed or kidnapped them, because he became convinced Clark Kent and Superman had some kind of connection. It was stupid: the connection was staring him in the face, all along. But Lex simply couldn't believe it, even when a computer analyzed and spit it out for him as the most likely possibility, that Clark Kent was Superman. For once, Clark was tempted to tell him the truth, to spit it in his face. He was so angry, and afraid. How could he do this to him? To other townsfolk he'd grown up with?
Clark's relationship with Lana, like with Pete, had fallen into disrepair after his reveal of his powers. Lana hadn't been able to take it, she claimed he'd 'ripped the world away' from her, when the moment she thought he would confess love to her he confessed his alieness to her and the world instead. That hadn't been the way he'd meant for her to take his reveal at all, but Clark would be the first to admit that sometimes he could be truly socially clueless. Lois had to save him from getting scammed on more than one occasion, because he just didn't see that in people unless it was blindingly obvious even to an innocent farm boy what was going on.
This was pretty obvious, and yet... it hurt all the same.
"Lex, how could you do this to me? If you wanted to know those things, if you had wanted to see my birth certificate, you could have just asked me. I would have given them to you, as long as you promised to give them back when you were done looking," he protested hotly, this time not as Superman but as Clark Kent. He didn't really even care about Lex going after Superman, his alter ego was nigh invulnerable and didn't matter that much to him because as far as he was concerned, Superman was a mask. But other people? And Clark, his real self, after he thought maybe they were making progress?
That hurt.
Lex looked slightly surprised, like Clark just giving him the information he'd wanted had never occurred to him. "Then tell me. What's your connection to Superman?"
Clark couldn't help it, he laughed. "Isn't it obvious, Lex? And does the exact nature of that connection really matter to you? Whether we're friends, brothers, neighbors or just acquaintances? You just want to know how to use me. But you can't. I've told him not to interfere when we meet, not to rescue me. I don't really want him looking in when I'm meeting up with you, wondering if I'm doing something wrong." He shrugged. Great, now he was describing his internal struggles with himself in third person. "And I don't want him on the discussion table when we meet for lunch, either. You know that would ruin the neutrality of our meetings. Are those over, Lex? Because you ambushing my parents makes me think you want this to be over."
Lex looked like he had rather mixed feelings about this. "You... told him not to look in on us?"
"Yes, Lex," for a certain definition of tell. "Haven't you noticed Superman never swoops in to harass you when I'm there?" Although that mostly because Lex genuinely wasn't up to anything nefarious while Clark was there watching him. You didn't get more innocuous than eating popcorn.
Lex looked a mixture of pleased and suspicious. "Then you have more sway with him than I thought."
Clark resisted the urge to face palm at the mono-focus on Superman. "He's not the real reason I came here. I'm angry about what you did to Ma and Pa. And Lana. Lex, you could have killed Lana, she's not that drug tolerant! And you can't just kidnap and truth serum people whenever you feel like it!"
"But I did not. Your parents were completely unharmed, merely knocked unconscious for a little while." He paused, then fiddled with something in his pocket for a moment, then held out a key. "Here. Take back your things from the room this unlocks. I don't need them anymore."
Clark sighed. Trust Lex to weasel, then show off some meaningless 'gift' to smooth things over. "I don't really care about my things. I care about my family. I can get a replacement birth certificate, I can't get a replacement identical Ma and Pa. Don't you ever do that again, Lex."
Lex got a funny look in his eyes like he often did when he was thinking about science. "Suppose you could get a replacement for your parents-"
"Don't you dare finish that sentence, Lex. I don't want to hear it!" He made an X with his arms.
"What do you want?" Lex's eyes glittered dangerously. "Money? Favors? Women? Or perhaps, men?"
"No, Lex! When will you learn I don't care about those sorts of things? I just want you to apologize and promise you'll never do it again."
Lex stared at him like he was the one who went around kidnapping people and stealing their things. "You want me to apologize," he said flatly.
"Yes."
"And to promise never to do it again."
"Yes. Why is this such a difficult concept for you?"
"Promises and apologies are empty words, Clark. You can't trust them," Lex insisted. It was always kind of strange, the way Lex would sometimes undermine himself like that, if he were more interested in being truly manipulative he shouldn't have explained the manipulation. It was, he supposed, a sign of Lex's compulsive need to have everyone agree with him. Or even Lex's strange way of being protective of Clark, if he squinted, trying to tell the naive sheep how the world really worked.
Lionel would promise not to beat Lex ever again.
Then he would, again and again.
"I want to hear it anyway."
"Fine." Lex set down his wine glass. "I am sorry, and I promise not to knock your parents unconscious again."
"Or kidnap them or kill them."
"I never did that."
"Lex..."
"Fine, or kidnap them or kill them. Happy?"
"Yes." Clark gave him a radiant smile. "Or, more than before. I'm still not happy about how you treated Lana. She was just an innocent bystander."
"My men caught her by accident," Lex dismissed. "She was not an original target, and she knew nothing of interest. I have no reason to go after her again." That was, for Lex, probably as good as it was going to get.
"Alright," Clark said, deciding he had enough of being angry for now. It only did so much good, and he'd frankly gotten more out of Lex than he'd been expecting. "I'll get my things and cool off. Maybe see you next weekend if there isn't some natural disaster?"
Lex laughed. "Clark, there is always a natural disaster."
"No, no, sometimes, most of the time, it's an unnatural disaster. But you are right, that option might be even worse for my schedule."
"We could watch Sailor Moon again."
"Goodness no, Clark. That was a disaster. Although I did approve of the villains preying on foolishness. I would prefer Dexter."
"Only you, Lex, only you." Clark shuddered. "That show was a bit gore filled for my taste, how about a compromise - one of the many iterations of Sherlock Holmes?"
"Many of those cases aren't as coherent or as brilliant as they are supposed to be." But he did not actually say no.
"Of course not, Lex, they are fiction and it's hard to find real life geniuses who want to waste their time writing fictional murder cases."
"Point. Would you like some brie or wine before you go?"
"Ah, no, you know me, I'm not really a drinker." Clark waved off.
He couldn't believe he was still hanging out with this guy. Clark Kent, if you weren't practically made of steel, someone should be real worried about you. And maybe they should just for his sanity. Kent, you are completely hopeless.
.
.
The first time Lois walked in on them having lunch in his apartment, she first looked horrified and then really exasperated. "Clark Kent, didn't I tell you exactly not to do this?"
"Not to feed him in my apartment?" he pretended stupidity, which frankly might not be far off from the truth.
"Not to befriend him!" she exclaimed. "And he's a billionaire, he can feed himself! He's not a stray cat you have to take in the moment he mewls at you!" Then she paused and looked at all the stray cats currently inhabiting Clark's apartment. Plus one dog. "Speaking of..."
"The no-kill shelter was overflowing, I couldn't do nothing," he pleaded.
"Make Lex take them in, he certainly has enough money to open many shelters several times over," Lois grouched, and then handed a perplexed Lex Luthor a box-full of kittens, then shoved him out the door with them.
"Don't manhandle me!" he hissed. "And I do not mewl!"
"Not even for Clark?" she sassed, completely unafraid. She closed the door on him and whirled around. "And you! Clark Kent, you are the biggest idiotic lunkhead in the Universe! What were you thinking?"
And that was how Lex Luthor ended up opening a new shelter for homeless animals. Clark misheard this as Shelter for Hopeless Animals, and the name stuck, especially after Lois announced that this suited Clark perfectly and he clearly belonged there, because he was clearly pretty hopeless.
.
.
One time, when Clark walked in looking like shit, he thought it said something how once this wouldn't have garnered the slightest reaction from Lex, but now he looked furious. Then again, Lex always had the capacity to be possessive.
"Who did this to you?"
Indirectly, you, when you decided to give away the secret of Kryptonite to all my enemies.
"Metallo. Some of us don't handle the miss-aimed blasts of radiation as well as others," he coughed. "I think I've always been kind of, uh, weak constitution, and allergic. I might have to skip today, unless you mind me crashing on your couch?" He stumbled and sat. "Okay, I guess I am crashing..."
"Metropolis is mine. No one should operate without my expressed permission." Of course that was what Lex took away from this. Of course it was. "The only one allowed to kill you is me."
"I'm sorry, what?" Did he hear that right? That was just messed up. "I thought you only talked like that about Superman." He wasn't starting to get obsessed with both identities, was he?
But Lex wasn't paying much attention to him, which probably was for the best as he'd mistakenly brought up the topic of Superman again, and that was a great way to get Lex ranting. "I'll have to have a word with Metallo. Tell him to be more careful about where he's aiming on my streets." Yeah, and to only aim at Superman? That would be such a big fat help.
Clark gave an involuntary pained groan and sank against the cushions. They were rather nice cushions, he reflected.
Lex turned his attention back to him. "I can get you a doctor. I have the best doctors in the world on payroll, might as well get my money's worth."
Clark sat straight up. "No, no doctors! I'm allergic to doctors." That was exactly the last thing in the world he needed.
"You're hard to figure out, Clark. You run out into a tornado without blinking, but an alien invasion shakes you, and a single mutant sends you running in terror," Lex said slowly, pacing nearer and making Clark nervous. "It doesn't add up. It doesn't make sense."
"People can be erratic?"
"Don't phrase that as a question. You are a terrible liar, Clark." If only you knew. "You do it to hide who you really are, don't you?" Clark gulped. "You want people to underestimate you, to think you weaker than you are. I approve. I had no idea you had it in you to be so conniving. But what is it you really want, if you've been hiding all this time?" He moved close to Clark, a dangerous edge in his voice. "Have you been playing me, Clark?"
They locked gazes.
"N-no! You know I don't want money or all of that other stuff, Lex. I don't know if it means anything to you, but, I've always wanted to be your friend. Just like old times. Remember, Lex? You had nothing to give, but I gave to you, anyway."
Lex was the first to look away. "I remember. I always thought it was so foolish." He gave a ragged laugh. "And what good did it come to? I killed him, you know." The first man he had hated, more than any other in the world, who had seemed godlike in his control over his life. "Took out the insurance money on him through a loop hole in his cut off of my inheritance, and wrangled out ownership of the old company share by share the hard way, cutting down all the other board members who got in my way."
Clark sucked in a breath, wanting to hug him but at the same time knowing he would probably not appreciate it and just push him away. "I always suspected."
"You must hate me Clark. Must be glad you finally dragged out that confession of murder you've always been waiting for."
"No, I'm not," Clark insisted, shaking his head. "For that one, I don't blame you Lex. I don't blame you at all. You were just a boy." He clenched his fist. "And I wasn't there for you. And I should have been."
"But you were. You made me soup when no one else would, bandaged my wounds when no one else would, gave me a place to hide when no one else would, and most astoundingly, put up with my snideness when no one else would. I know I wasn't pleasant company, at first, because I tried to say things to hurt you on purpose!"
"I should have done more. I shouldn't have left you to deal with him yourself. I should have dragged you home and never let you go back there again."
"You couldn't, Clark. You would have gotten in trouble legally, if Lionel didn't just kill you. You may be a lot of things, but you aren't Superman."
Clark's eyes closed. "That's why you hate him, isn't it? Because you didn't get saved by him."
Lex startled. "No, God no Clark! That never crossed my mind. Superman wasn't even around back then. That's not why I hate him at all. Don't you ever listen to me rant? I'll tell you why I hate him. Because he's too perfect. Because he doesn't have to struggle and hurt like the rest of us. Because I don't trust him, or any man that is not myself with such unlimited power. Because, and I'll be honest for once, I'm jealous of him. I strove to have everything, he has it without even trying, it's just not fair, which is funny because I don't even believe in fairness, yet he's always trying to shove the concept down our throats and ensuring we can never forget it. He's a mockery to all hard work in the world, Clark."
A weird mixture of relief and self loathing flooded Clark at the same time. "Of course. That's what you've been saying all this time. But Lex... you might not trust him, but, would you trust me?" Please?
Lex went very still. "With unlimited power, Clark? Even with you, that's a bit much."
"It's not truly unlimited," Clark corrected, but knew it made no real practical difference. His shoulders sagged. Should he leave? What difference was he making? Lex was never going to stop hating him, the other-him. He was never going to trust him. He was never going to be not-broken. Just like one would never be able to get rid of all crime and suffering or cure every mental illness.
But. Maybe that was alright. Maybe one did not have to fix everything. Maybe you didn't have to save everyone, or stop all crime. Maybe it wasn't his fault for not being as perfect as Lex kept claiming he was, for not stopping it all in time.
What mattered was that you tried.
He hugged Lex, then, even knowing the other would stiffen under it reflexively, not used to being touched, because he didn't really have words just then to express himself, didn't know how else to say it, and let go quickly, his eyes slightly wet. He wasn't even sure what he was saying. That he cared. That it was all going to be okay, even if he was bitterly disappointed.
That it was okay that it was not okay, as paradoxical as that was.
"I'm sorry, Lex."
I'm so sorry that I can't fix you.
.
.
When they finally nail him on something enough to send him to jail for a moderate time, Clark is equal parts grieved and relieved. Relieved that this is finally over. Grieved that this is finally over, unless he escapes. Which, considering who he is, seems probable if he ever decides he doesn't want to play nice in hopes of early parole and getting back his company. As it is, the few short years he'll be in there seem both too long and impossibly brief for all he has done, and they know in many ways he's gotten off very easy.
"Do you want me to visit you?" Clark asks.
"No, I don't want you to see me weak. Powerless." He paused. "Though I am never truly powerless as long as I still have my mind."
"I've already seen you weak," Clark pointed out. "Don't want me to see, or don't want me seen by other people? I'm a big guy, I can take care of myself."
Lex shook his head, and turned to let them march him away in cuffs.
Lois doesn't understand his grief, or his strange need to drag in stray kittens pulled out from trees or urge to befriend strange homeless men who looked drugged and half deranged like they wanted to stab someone in a cracked up frenzy, but she was always supportive. Her hand finds its way to his tall broad shoulder and gives it a squeeze.
He is somehow not surprised when his depression is interrupted by Luthor breaking out in under a week, plotting yet again how to kill Superman.
Somehow, in spite of everything, nothing really changed.
Somehow, in spite of that, he still loved him as his old friend.
.
Note: *I don't usually write religious characters but Clark is, being a typical Kansas boy, and it fits him to be blindly faithful, especially my puppy golden retriever in human form version. Luthor, on the other hand, I can't see as anything but an atheist like myself unless he stared face to face with a God, and then he'd stare at them in contempt and ask them what a fucked up job they thought they were doing. In Man of Steel Luthor outright says he's not religious.
I originally intended this as serious fic but at some point, the moment Clark decided to invite him for lunch again, it started turning rather more silly. Then it got sad again.
There are some people in this world you really just can't fix. Most 'fix it attempt' fics focus on how you can, so this ended up turning into something of an antidote. That doesn't mean you have to hate that person or wish them unwell, although it does mean you should put restraints on them to prevent them from causing more harm. Our society doesn't really know how to handle broken people very well, it tends to simply condemn them. But this can easily turn into a terrible cycle of broken sons and broken fathers, a mere band aid plastered over each time that ignores systemic issues.
...or you could just ignore this and punch all the bad people, I guess.
