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AN: All thanks to Storyshark2005 for vigilantly fighting against my shitty grammar in record time!
“Mercy, what exactly am I looking at?”
“An invitation to an auction of sentient merchandise,” Mercy replied dryly. “Highly illegal, I assume.“
“It was sent by aliens,” Lex continued. “Why are aliens sending me invitations to anything in the first place?”
“You have a good reputation?” she proposed, the tone of her voice exactly the same as before.
Lex sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. He didn’t have the time or patience to spare for this nonsense. There were many eyes on him, suspicious or even downright hostile: other corporations, the press and the self-appointed superheroes, all of them waiting for him to make a single mistake. Sometimes they even dared to try and provoke him. Sometimes it worked.
Like now. The alien menace known as Superman was laying low, which was an oddity of its own. Just what was he trying to accomplish, going off the radar like that?
If he was trying to lull his enemies into a false sense of security, he was more idiotic than Lex ever expected him to be, the behavior so out of character it would surely alarm everyone.
What was the plot behind this scheme, Lex wondered, his eyes idly wandering from the documents in front of him, towards the pile of papers delivered by Mercy, to finally stop on the invitation. It looked alien, it looked illegal and it looked like someone had a Kryptonian to sell.
That… that couldn't be possible, wasn't it? The mere thought was ridiculous.
For all the naivety and all the sacrificial play, Superman would go surprisingly far when it came to self-defense and Lex knew about it all too well. When it came to Superman, choosing the safety of his secrets would always take priority over anything else. At least now the pang of betrayal felt somewhat humorous - Superman, the savior of all being the most utilitarian of them all! - instead of the old kind of pain, like someone had torn out Lex's heart and stepped on it.
Lex shook his head. Involving himself with this would be an absolutely horrible idea. A mistake he had repeated during his life over and over again, like an absolute fool, hoping for a different outcome. It never came and it never would, so Lex should let it go. It was the logical choice, it was the reasonable choice. It didn't change the fact that Lex felt twenty years younger and just as raw.
Maybe Lex could generously leave a hint for Superman's friends…Or act like an utter fool once more.
"Mercy?" Lex opened the comm. "We're going to space!"
x
"We're pleased to have you as our honored guest," the alien said.
The words spilling from his all too human-like mouth lacked substance, their only goal being sucking up to Lex's ego. It wouldn't work even if Lex wasn't angry about how yet another group of aliens had the audacity to look human.
When he was younger and still full of wonder, he expected life in outer space to look vastly different, to be foreign and fascinating, and so very strange. Apparently, his life was the sum of a great many disappointments, because the aliens looked so boring even Mercy had decided against being Lex’s shadow and stayed on the ship.
Lex let himself be led to a balcony, where he was left to reign all on his own. The lesser guests of the auction were squeezed together literally beneath him and four other balconies.
The place was much like the opera, allowing Lex to comfortably look at the crowd beneath and the podium, where the auctioneer bowed lowly, rich, colorful robes and wide sleeves sweeping the floor. The monitors above the scene offered a close up, blocky text below a translation of the words.
"Gentleguests! Noble guests! It brings me a great amount of happiness to welcome you here-"
Lex sighed deeply and stopped listening. Knowing speeches like that, he would be greeted for the next ten minutes.
The escapade felt more and more like a colossal waste of time, Lex thought, habitually hacking into the ship systems and downloading the data. One never knew when a bunch of alien code could become useful. That’s how he’d ended up with a spaceship of his own in the first place.
The auction eventually started, with little exotic items presumably meant to build up the appetites for the main event. Lex looked up at the screen now and then, making note of the supposed value of certain items, while taking over the systems and skipping through the camera feed, trying to locate the holding cells.
"And now, what everyone is waiting for! Our special offer, a Kryptonian!" the auctioneer cheerfully announced. "As you are aware, the sadly extinct race had admirable healing abilities! A vial of Kryptonian blood would definitely help you deal with many ailments! Now available for-"
Wait, what? Lex blinked, words buzzing away from reality, face feeling ice cold and lax.
"-for severe ailments we have a one of a kind offer of organs-"
"Over my dead fucking body you are," Lex declared, feeling like an electric current was running through him, limbs moving on autopilot: up and out, down the stairs and into the net of corridors.
If Lex felt like having a bit of fun, he would sneak around. He didn't. It was much easier to simply walk like he owned the place. Moving with a clear goal in his mind, especially since he already felt like murder even without looking at Superman's face. People usually knew better than to get in his way.
Lex wasn't even sure why he felt furious right now; was it the colossal waste of time? Was it the fact that someone else stole his enemy and along with it all the fun Lex had? Or was it the vision of Clark getting cut open and bleeding that for some reason made him feel nauseated?
"Sir? I'm sorry, but this is a restricted section of the ship!" one of the guards was either braver than the rest or hopelessly clueless. Their uniforms looked new and all the buttons were polished, so they were hired to look pretty, while the real security was hidden away, ready to disappear troublesome guests. Or at least it’s what Lex would do, if he wanted to appear non-threatening for any reason.
"I'll help you get back to your rooms if you need it!"
"Do I look like I don't know where I'm going?" Lex snarled. There was no lie there; he knew exactly where he was heading.
"You -uh...!"
"I assure you," Lex continued. "I do know. And now I'm asking you to stop wasting my time."
The poor idiot indeed stopped wasting his time. For now. Sooner rather than later someone would figure out that their systems were compromised and the camera feed was altered.
Lex continued to march through the alien spaceship, filled mostly with boring human-like clueless fools, to save another human-shaped clueless fool, the irony of the situation only adding to his boiling anger.
The holding cells were more like a museum display, a spacious room with neat rows of blueish energy shields surrounding whatever goods they were protecting. Jewels gleaming in the artificial light, oddly shaped artifacts and supposedly rare specimens of alien flora and fauna, and the absolute gem of the collection; a Kryptonian placed in the containment field by the wall, bound and chained. Slightly roughed up, with messed up hair and that idiotic cape torn, but otherwise fine. And glaring.
"It looks like you've got yourself in a bind," Lex couldn’t help but snicker. Probably because of the chains. Bulky and hilariously over the top, wrapped around the man like he was a naughty Christmas present.
"Lex," Superman’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.
"How did you even get here?" Lex continued. "Please, do satisfy my curiosity. Because this? This is ridiculous."
"I'm not here to satisfy you!"
"No, you're here to get butchered and cut into pieces. They're auctioning your liver now, apparently it has certain health benefits," Lex rolled his eyes. "And if that's something I have to deal with I really wish to know how exactly a civilization so ignorant managed to defeat you and successfully kept you in prison?"
"Well, there are these little green rocks, not sure if you’ve heard about them," Clark rolled his eyes.
"You almost sound like you want to stay here," Lex dryly pointed out. "Currently, you have two choices. You either take your chances with the dietary habits of the folk that caught you or you can go with me."
"Aren't you here because of the auction?"
"Are you expecting me to pay them?” Lex blinked. “Don't be ridiculous, partaking in the auctioning of sentient beings is illegal, I would never!"
"So instead you decided to just steal the merchandise?"
"Do you want to get stolen or get chopped? Hurry up, I don't have all day and it looks like I’m your only hope of getting out here anyway."
"Alright, Obi-Wan,” Clark sighed. “Let's go with stealing."
"...I regret not recording this conversation."
A push of a button later, all the bindings sprang open, unceremoniously dropping Superman on the ground like a particularly flashy bag of produce. The man hit the floor with a graceless thud.
"Are you quite done?" Lex asked, turning off the rest of the force fields, letting everything alive out. Predictably, the scared, confused animals proceeded to run in every direction, crashing into the displays and creating an absolute ruckus around them.
"Sorry," Clark hissed into the floor panels. "I'm a little tied up here."
Lex quirked an eyebrow.
"There's Kryptonite in the chains?" It didn't appear so; Lex experimented with the mineral often enough to know it made pretty much all alloys a very characteristic shade of green. A mistake on his part, he should've waited until they were on the way out. Oh well.
"I think there might be some in me?"
"Oh."
"Yeah, breaking chains is not happening. A little help here?"
Having little choice, Lex stepped over what looked like a very confused green cat and picked the lock on the shackles. It was offensively basic.
Clark pushed himself up from the ground with a grunt once he felt the chains loosening up, brow furrowed with effort and sweat sparkling on the back of his neck and traveling down the line of his nose.
"Would you be able to walk?"
"I think so," Clark muttered.
"Get to it then," Lex replied. "I'm sure we won't be alone for long."
The Kryptonian obediently pushed himself up. The chains slid off him and clanged loudly against the floor. He moved slowly, carefully and Lex observed him like a hawk, making note of the heavy grunt as the man straightened, his wobbly first few steps.
"Do you have a plan? Because I don't think I'm going to be very helpful," Clark said after a short moment.
"Nothing new," Lex said with a shrug. "Follow me, the docking bay is this way."
“That’s… surprisingly easy?”
Lex groaned. Of course. Of course he just had to jinx it before they even got through the doors.
The real security appeared, in asphalt-gray body armor, faces hidden behind visors and sturdy masks, weapons in hand.
“Let go of the merchandise!”
“Oh, I sure did let it go,” Lex smirked.
The men couldn't risk using chemical weapons or spraying them with bullets because they could charm the precious, confused animals. It forced them to rely on close-range, bulky weapons.
“You were warned!”
A buzz filled the air, electric and menacing as the men twisted their batons. The weapons expanded slightly, revealing a menacing steel blade, shining with the current going through it.
Lex stepped back, feigning fear, then made another step, carefully circling around one of the flat podiums where a particularly ugly vase was still proudly standing.
The guards moved towards him, crowding in the exit.
“Lex…” Clark murmured, shoulders tense with worry. Lex made another step, more to the side, so the vase was obscuring his movement. Then it was a matter of reaching into his pocket and pushing on the flat screen. The force fields around them blossomed to life, bright and steady, turning the room into a labyrinth of nooks and crannies.
“That’s not going to help you!” the guard warned him. “It’ll only prolong the inevitable. You can still-”
His voice was cut out by the high shriek of the alarm going off. The animals screamed right back, panicked by the overwhelming noise, charging in all directions, bumping into force fields, crashing into the walls and trampling the guardsmen who desperately tried to prevent their escape.
“Now!” Lex hissed, grabbing Clark by the hand and pulling him forward.They rushed after the animals, using the chaos as their chance.
Lex snatched a lost weapon off the floor and swung it like a baseball bat, sending a guard skidding across the floor.
“You can’t-!”
“I assure you, I can.” Lex led them into a dark corridor and stabbed at the door panel. It cracked and buzzed with a rain of sparks, and the doors shut automatically.
“How did you know?” Clark asked.
“That was the most boring illegal auction I’ve ever seen.”
“Been to many?” Clark squinted.
“Do you want to be left here?” Lex asked. “Because I swear, I will shove you into a broom closet if you don’t turn your reporter side off.”
Clark opened his mouth like he wanted to argue back, but then the words registered with him and he promptly changed his mind.
“And if you shove me into a wall, I swear, you’ll be wishing to have your liver chopped!”
His answer was a simple nod.
Good, Lex decided. Not exactly the place for an argument. Besides, he didn’t really want to leave Superman here. Annoying as he was, Lex had already invested too much time, effort and credibility into his rescue to just drop it.
Lex led them further into the ship, one eye on the way in front of them, the other going through the data on his tablet. He was still hacked into their systems and used that to his full advantage. The sirens were blaring, the doors were opening and closing without sense or rhyme, airlocks were randomly popping open, sucking out the atmosphere and messing things up even further.
The formerly empty corridors were now full of panicked aliens, all of them completely ignoring the security personnel trying to stop the stampede. Clark and Lex joined the river of bodies, getting lost in the crowd. Everyone was trying to run away anyway.
The docking bay was just as crowded and even more chaotic than the rest of the ship. Here, people were running towards the ships, dropping all pretense and manners, fighting with anything that they could get their hands on just for the chance to escape.
Mercy, of course, was waiting for him, guarding the ship with a smoking rifle in her hands. She quirked an eyebrow at the sight of Clark, but stepped aside, letting them in, firing towards the crowd.
“Are those warning shots?”
“Don’t ask questions you don’t want answered,” Mercy joined them before Lex managed to get angry enough to answer the question. “Boss, open the doors for us.”
Not waiting for the confirmation, she jumped into the pilot seat and started up the engines, aiming at the closest exit.
“Hey! Don’t you have to wait for the doors to ope-!” Clark didn’t finish the sentence. Well, there was a high pitched scream as Marcy pushed the ship forward.
X
"Thanks for not letting me get cut into dubious health supplements," Clark said sheepishly.
The ship was cutting through the dark void towards Earth, the light outside the windows bent into the shape of twisted noodles, painting the darkness into uneven stripes and shades of gray.
"Thank you for trusting me," Lex replied.
"Ow," Clark winced.
"You've deserved that."
"I know."
"Do you?"
Clark looked down for a moment. Then his gaze returned right back to Lex.
“You didn’t have to save me. Now or…” his brow furrowed. “How many times have you saved me?”
“Oh, you decided to figure it out now?” Lex rolled his eyes. “Way too many, but we all have our vices.”
“But why?” Clark kept pushing. “I’m like… I’m like a bad penny for you, always turning up when you don’t want me to, not letting you take over the world. And stuff.”
“You’re a good reminder that a man can’t have everything he wants,” Lex replied before he could stop himself. At least he didn’t wince from all this painful honesty.
“Want?” Clark’s eyes widened slightly. “Lex, you can literally buy whatever you want and build the rest!”
It was difficult to not chuckle at that answer. Good old Clark, as dense as ever. It almost felt like he was back in time, like they weren’t worlds apart. Lex could almost see it: the flannels instead of this silly outfit, dust particles dancing in the warm sunshine flooding his office, longing and alcohol burning in his chest.
“Couldn't you?" he replied with a question. "With all that strength and speed you, you could have the whole world bowing to you in no time."
"That wouldn't be love," Clark shook his head. "It wouldn't even be real."
"Exactly," Lex smiled. "Emotions are such silly things, aren't they? You can't even choose what your own heart is feeling."
"What are you trying to say?"
"Don't bother yourself with it," Lex said with a small shrug. "Hearts of others are too difficult even for me. Let's just get you back home and go our separate ways, like we always do, hm?"
This was such an old song and dance for them, as if they were stuck in a loop, going through the motions over and over again, each time getting so close just to fall apart.
Clark looked at him, intense, brow furrowed in concentration.
It felt like he was staring right into Lex's soul.
Maybe he was.
“Are you…flirting with me?” Clark gasped, then his eyes widened even more. “Wait, how long were you flirting with me for?”
Mercy made a face and pushed a button, raising the wall between the passenger space and the cockpit, abandoning Lex to face a long long history of idiotic behavior on his own.
“Much longer than I care to admit,” he replied.
“You've admitted nothing!”
“And you’re arguing… why?” Lex tilted his head. “What do you need that knowledge for?”
"I… might be an idiot," Clark said slowly. "Use small words with me?"
Clark leaned forward slowly, eyes bright blue and observant, until there was no more distance between them.
Just a soft sensation of another lips on his own, a warm brush of breath on his skin.
"And? Any words?" Clark asked as he broke the contact just a second later.
"I have none," Lex admitted, feeling like the stars were whirling around him, like a never-ending explosion of fireworks. Words had never worked for them anyway, their meaning always twisted and skewed somehow.
So Lex did the one thing he could, the only one that would speak clearly for him. He leaned forward and kissed Clark.