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Oliver stared down at the trembling being before him, illuminated by the dull green glow of the cage walls that held him prisoner. He’d infiltrated this lab at Chloe’s request, not sure how it would help them defeat the kryptonians but willing to trust one of the women who’d made the resistance possible in the first place. But this… he’d never expected this in a million years. This being in front of him, barely conscious, weak and young, was one of them – a kryptonian.
Until a moment ago, until he’d walked into this lab and spotted the green glow and stepped forward to see the shape huddled between the bars, he – like everyone else on Earth – had assumed that there were only three kryptonians, three and that robot that had their abilities. Apparently he'd been wrong, on both fronts. There was a fourth kryptonian, and this was a human lab. Someone had known about this, probably for years, and kept it hidden.
Slowly, Oliver pulled his kryptonite arrow from his quiver but didn’t nock it, wondering what to do next. His instinct was to kill it – kryptonians were conquerors, without remorse or compassion, and they’d killed hundreds of thousands already – but Oliver wasn’t yet the kind of man that could kill another in cold blood, even if the other was an alien who wouldn’t hesitate to slaughter him in turn.
Plus there was another thing to consider. This was a human lab, with a weakened kryptonian at their disposal. Not a group allied with the resistance – otherwise they wouldn’t have had to break in to discover this – but even if the men who’d ran this place weren’t interested in helping them, that didn’t mean the resistance couldn’t help themselves. Any kryptonian was a dangerous kryptonian, but if they were quick about it, the secrets they could pull from this one could be monumental to their efforts.
And then, a third thing, something that Oliver was loathe to admit, even in the recesses of his own mind: the one in front of him seemed… vulnerable. There really was no other word for it. It was hard to be certain, lying on its side on the floor as it was, curled over, barely cognizant, but though it seemed tall and broad it was also all too thin and pale, with dark circles under its eyes. And young. Barely out of its teenage years, when compared to the rest of its kind, although for all Oliver guessed it could have been a hundred, given how little they knew about kyptonians.
Oliver had seen first few pages of the records for this room, which was what had led him here in the first place but hadn’t actually contained the word ‘kryptonian’. This subject, CK the files called it, had been trapped here for some time. Actually, thinking about it, it had been here since about the time the meteors had fallen over Kansas, bringing death and destruction with them. Was it possible someone had actually managed to catch the arriving aliens off guard, capturing one of them? He shuddered to think of how different the world would be if even one more kryptonian joined the ranks of those now ruling the Earth, a point against this alien’s favor, against letting it live. And if it’d been here all this time, it might not know all that much about its fellows’ plans.
Still, Oliver stood motionless, undecided, watching it shiver. And then, movement, the creature on the floor shifting, groaning, opening its eyes and blinking up at Oliver. It took a while for those eyes to seem to register him at all, and then the alien was dragging itself upward to a seated position, more or less, knees still bent, legs still askew at its side, supported by its right arm, still trembling.
The movement wasn’t quick, wasn’t threatening, and nothing else followed it as it sat there staring at him, but Oliver’s heart beat quicker in his chest and he finally nocked his arrow, pointing it straight at the being’s heart between the bars. In response, the alien only winced slightly, seemingly exhausted by its small movements, and looked away. The cage was kryptonite, Oliver reminded himself. If the alien wasn’t faking – and it seemed unlikely that it was – then he was in no danger here. Not yet.
He hesitated, but didn’t lower his bow. The seconds ticked by, Oliver’s mind still reeling with his discovery, still trying to determine where to go from here. Could they hold this facility? Could they take this alien with them?
Should they?
The seconds ticked by, and, eventually, the kryptonian lifted its head again. He seemed puzzled, a little, but also barely capable of holding his head up, dark hair falling into his eyes. When he met Oliver’s gaze, the archer was shocked by the resignation behind the confusion. Whatever he did, whatever decision he decided on, this creature, this alien, caged and weakened, wasn’t going to fight him on it. He’d been here too long; his spirit was broken.
There were too many factors to consider though, in deciding what to do next. Luckily, Oliver didn’t have to make that call alone. He’d come with a team. Without removing his eyes from the threat, no matter what his gut was telling him about the alien’s broken spirit, Oliver reached for his radio. “Watchtower, I think there’s something here you’ll want to see,” he said, calling for the team leader.
The alien frowned slight, shifting in pain, and looked away from Oliver’s gaze again. Oliver got the feeling it was more from exhaustion trying to hold his head up – its head up, not his, Oliver reminded himself, and when had he started thinking otherwise? – than any other reason. Curiosity, and caution, prompted Oliver to keep his watch on the creature, but he did lower his bow slightly as he waited for his friend.
He heard Chloe before she entered the room, all senses on full alert, but he wasn’t prepared for her reaction when she got a glimpse of the alien before him.
She hesitated in the doorway briefly, taken aback, staring, before she managed to utter a single word of astonishment that shocked him to his core. “Clark?”
Oliver barely had time to process that – the human name, the name of Clark Kent, Chloe’s best friend, the friend she and the Kents had been looking for all this time, who couldn’t possibly be this alien before him – before she ran past him, falling to the ground in front of the cage and grabbing desperately at the bars. The alien, in turn, had moved to face her fully, expression slowly moving from confusion to surprise, though the widening of his – its – eyes was slight.
Before the alien could get the chance, the time, for a proper reaction, Oliver was surging forward. His bow and kryptonite arrow were in one hand, at his side, as he used the other to grab Chloe’s shoulder and pull her away from the bars.
“Chloe!” he said, startled enough to forget codenames. “We don’t know what it’s capable of, even with the cage!”
Chloe shook him off, standing, but didn’t make to get any closer to the bars again. “He, not it,” she said emphatically, not taking her eyes off the huddled figure. “And I know exactly what he’s capable of. He’s my best friend.”
Oliver’s mind had already clicked the pieces into place – this was subject CK, after all, and Chloe had already called him Clark – but he refused to believe it. “Clark?” he asked, putting his hand back on her shoulder and spinning her around to face him. “Clark Kent?! You’re telling me this is your high school buddy, a kryptonian. The Kents’ son?” Chloe’s reaction matched with the evidence (and, now that Oliver was looking closely, the few photographs of Clark he’d seen), but it didn’t make sense. The kryptonians had landed only a few years ago; Chloe had supposedly known Clark since junior high. Unless that, like some other crucial details apparently, had been a lie.
But Chloe flushed, looking away in a way that told Oliver everything he needed to know. Clark Kent was kryptonian and Chloe had known this (and the Kents had known this, and who else?) and had never stopped looking for him. Chloe’d probably suspected that Clark had been held here at the start of the mission – it was probably the reason they’d targeted this lab in the first place. How many other times had they gone after targets because Chloe had pushed for it? How many of those had been her subtly looking for Clark?
Before she could explain, before she could muster herself and come up with any kind of reply, the alien finally spoke.
“Chloe?” he asked hesitantly, voice scratchy and hoarse with disuse, but tinged with a hope that Oliver didn’t want to believe was there.
The woman in question pulled herself from Oliver, kneeling in front of the alien again, and the archer tightened his grip on his bowstring. Chloe’s best friend or not, he didn’t trust the creature in front of him.
“Yeah Clark, it’s me,” Chloe reassured him, offering a soft, sad, grateful smile.
Clark – the kryptonian – frowned, shifting as he looked around the cage, the room, eyes glancing over Oliver again and only hesitating there a moment. “What… what are you doing here?”
“We’ve come to get you out of here.” As if she finally realized what she was saying, Chloe looked around the room, eyes finally settling on a control panel just outside the cage, back by the door. “Oliver, can you…?”
There was no need to finish the question – Oliver understood immediately what she was asking. He just wasn’t sure he wanted to follow through.
“Chloe –” there was no need for codenames now “– he’s kryptonian.”
Chloe shot him a look, sharp and scolding. “Oliver,” she snapped out, half commanding, half pleading.
The desperation in his name shook him. Chloe was the leader of this mission. Not the first line of defense – that was him – but the one who called the shots, who'd found this place, who decided what they’d take back with them and what they left behind. He’d trusted her this far, on every mission before this. Could he trust her with this?
“Oliver,” Chloe repeated, less commanding, more pleading. “You’ve met the Kents. You know them. Clark isn’t like the others. He didn’t know anything about their arrival.”
Oliver’s gaze moved back to the creature – the young man – in the cage. Clark Kent, apparently. He had met the Kents. He’d heard them talk about their son, seen them take care of others in the camps and the hidden tunnels and the safe houses. He trusted Chloe; he had to trust Chloe, or half the resistance would fall apart, which meant he had to trust her just this little bit more.
Without returning his kryptonite arrow to his quiver, Oliver made his way over to the control panel, hesitated for one moment more, then powered off the cage with the flick of a switch. The green glow faded until nothing but silver metal remained and immediately, watching as closely as he was, Oliver could almost see the life come back into Clark. He kept a tight grip on his bow, ready to raise it at a moment’s notice.
He pressed a different button on the panel, and the cage unlocked. Chloe was quick to take advantage of that, hurrying to her friend and helping him to sit up properly. Clark was still pale and thin, but he seemed more alert and Oliver could see the way his body relaxed a little, no longer in constant pain.
“Chloe?” Clark asked, confusion still strong in his tone. “How did you even –”
“Find you?” Chloe finished for him, smiling wider than Oliver had ever seen. He stepped closer to keep a watchful eye on the two of them and could have sworn there were tears in her eyes. “It’s a long story.” Relief flowed from her every word, forcing Oliver to the realization that she’d been spending a lot more effort looking for Clark than he’d ever realized. But there would be time for questions later (a lot of questions, and maybe some accusations too) – now they had to decide what to do with the alien before them.
“Well, that,” Clark admitted, accepting Chloe’s hand as they both stood, Clark’s legs still thin and trembling. He was unsteady for a moment, as though it’d been a while since he stood, and eventually Chloe threw his arm over her shoulder. “But, I never told you…”
“I found out,” Chloe admitted, studying her friend from beneath his arm. Her expression turned serious again. “How much do you know about what’s happened?”
Clark shook his head, seemingly deep in thought as he stared down at himself, flexing his free hand, watching the tendons tighten and the fingers move. Oliver was willing to bet it’d been a long time since he’d been free of the influence of kryptonite. “I… I know it’s been years,” he said hesitantly, evidently still adjusting to talking again too. “And I could,” he looked down and away, wincing at what was probably a memory, “I could hear them talking, sometimes, about finding a way to control me. I think, something happened to the world. They wanted to use me to fix it.”
“Your kind happened,” Oliver said harshly, far from ready to accept or even think about trusting Clark Kent.
Clark blinked up at him, frowning. “My… what?”
“Kryptonians,” Chloe answered gently. “A few of them landed on Earth a couple weeks after you went missing and decided to reshape the world in their image. They can do everything you can, with none of your morals.”
The gentle words didn’t seem to clear up Clark’s confusion any, and Oliver knew he and Chloe both sensed a long conversation coming.
“We’ll explain more when we get out of here,” Chloe said, looking to Oliver again.
Oliver hesitated. He’d chosen to trust Chloe. He had. “Right,” he said, looking back to the door. “Let’s get out of here, then.” He strode to the doorway, cleared the hallway, and peeked his head back inside to see Clark start to take a few hesitant steps, still supported by the much smaller woman beside him. He seemed to be making an effort not to lean on her too much, but it wasn’t all that effective, weak as he was.
That’ll all change when he gets some sunlight, Oliver couldn’t help but think, but he was trusting Chloe.
Finally, they reached him at the doorway, Clark pressing his free hand against it to support his weight as they paused. “Thanks,” he said.
For a moment, Oliver thought he was talking to Chloe, but they’d exchanged quiet words in the room as Chloe had been helping her friend from his cage. No, Clark was looking at him, was thanking him. Oliver wasn’t sure what to do with that. “Didn’t know you were even in here,” he finally decided on. It wasn’t quite turning down the kryptonian’s thanks, but it hopefully conveyed the message that he still didn’t trust him.
“Not for that,” Clark countered. He seemed to try and straighten best he could, under the circumstances. He wasn’t quite breathless, but the lines of pain hadn’t entirely left his face. Oliver realized he still had the kryptonite arrow out – Clark hadn’t said anything. “For, for having her back,” he managed to say.
It was Oliver’s turn to blink at him. Everything the Kents had ever said about their son, anything anyone left from Smallville ever said about their son, was running through his head at full speed. He couldn’t trust a kryptonian. He couldn’t bring himself to do that.
But a man who’d been raised on Earth, who’d grown up here, who'd believed himself to be human for so long… Maybe he could trust that man.
Still worried, still paranoid, still not sure if he’d made the right decision, Oliver nodded and allowed himself to picture, for the first time, what it might just mean to have a kryptonian fully on their side. It looked a little like hope.