Chapter Text
The apartment was quiet.
Not silent. Clark Kent could never have silence anymore. Even with the windows shut and the television off, the world leaked in through the walls like water through cracked stone. Sirens in the distance, a couple arguing two floors down, a dog barking somewhere in the next block. Beneath it all, the constant rhythm of the city’s heartbeats, thousands of them layered together in a dull living hum. Clark sat on the floor, elbows on his knees, looking over to where him and Lois had argued a few months ago. Clark closed his eyes.
“Today the Secretary of Defense said he was going to look into your actions in Boravia “ Clark chuckles.
“That’s funny?” Lois looks at him sternly and Clark's shoulders raise slightly in response.
“It’s not funny funny. It’s just... I mean, ‘my actions’? I stopped a war.”
“Maybe,” Lois shrugs, and Clark’s jaw clenches slightly.
“Not maybe. I did.”
He looked down at the red boots of the Superman suit that were still on his feet. He hadn’t taken them off yet. Normally when he came home from a rescue, he would change immediately. Fold the suit carefully, hang the cape, become Clark Kent again, there was comfort in the ritual of it. Tonight he just sat there.
“Ghurkos was going to kill people. You seem to keep forgetting” the rising frustration in Clark’s voice was becoming clear.
“So, in effect, you illegally entered a country, inserting yourself into an incredibly heated geopolitical situation.”
“Wait” Clark warned.
“Siding with a nation, Jarhanpur, which historically has not been a friend to the U.S.” Lois continued regardless.
Two weeks had passed since the Justice League had broken Lex’s control. Two weeks since the world celebrated Superman being “back.” Two weeks since Clark had realised something he hadn’t told anyone, the noise had returned. Not the sounds of the city, the weight; every decision, every life, every impossible calculation.
“Superman, did you consult with the President before entering Boravian airspace?”
Clark sighs.
“No.”
“The Secretary of Defence?”
“No.”
“Or any U.S. official before you took matters into your own hands and decided unilaterally how to handle this delicate situation?”
Clark leaned back slightly and closed his eyes. For a moment, against his will, he remembered what it had felt like under Lex’s influence; not obedience, not compulsion, just… stillness. The moment before action used to feel like standing at the centre of a hurricane of possibilities. A thousand ways something could go wrong, a thousand lives balanced against each other. When Lex had touched his mind it had all gone quiet. No doubt. Just the answer.
“But what if - and I’m just saying - the results of you seemingly acting as a representative of the United States”
Clark interrupts, “I wasn’t representing anyone but me and - good, being good, that’s all”
“Will actually cause more problems around the world, more than a war that in all likelihood would have lasted between twelve and twenty-four hours and was, practically speaking, just replacing one tyrannical regime with another?”
“You really feel like that?” Clark studies Lois’s face, looking for the truth and Lois falters slightly, before continuing.
“I’m not the one being interviewed, Superman, but I question it, yes. I would question myself in the same situation and hold off a beat from acting rashly.”
Something in Clark snapped.
“People were going to die!” he shouted, not at Lois, not at himself, but at the world.
Clark inhaled sharply and opened his eyes again. “No,” he muttered to himself. He stood up and paced the small apartment once, then again, and across the room the mirror caught his reflection; the suit, the cape, the symbol on his chest. The symbol of hope, of responsibility, of the impossible standard the whole world believed in.
Clark stared at the reflection for a long time.
“You’re Superman,” he said quietly.
The mirror didn’t answer.
But the city did.
The world came flooding back in; a distant scream, a crash of breaking glass. The fire alarm screamed from twenty blocks away, in the park, a child cried from a scraped knee, across the river, a car skidded sideways into a bridge railing, and somewhere closer, a man’s heartbeat stuttered into arrhythmia.
Clark stood perfectly still in the apartment.
One second.
Two.
Three.
He chose the fire.
Another crisis solved, another tiny weight lifted from a scale that would never balance. He listened out again, the man’s heart beat had stopped, paramedics packed up around him.
Clark landed softly on the apartment floor again and stood there breathing slowly, his chest rising and falling softly. Then his eyes drifted back to the mirror, this time he saw something else in the reflection; not the symbol, the man wearing it.
Tired.
Not physically, his body was rarely acquainted with exhaustion, but something about him screamed it. The perfect hair slightly out of place, the perfect posture slightly hunched, the perfect man, not so perfect. Clark went to remove his cape, begin the ritual, hang up the responsibility for a while, but held it in his hands for a moment longer than usual. He stood there, knowing that even when he put the cape and boots away, he still heard it, he heard it all.
The cape draped back into place.
He stood by the window. Metropolis glittered below; millions of people, millions of problems, millions of choices waiting for him. Clark closed his eyes again. Just once, he told himself, just to understand, just to ask. He stepped out onto the ledge, but hesitated, what if this was more of Lex’s control, still lingering, what if that was what was compelling him. It was a weak argument, Clark knew it, but it was enough, just enough, to allow him to step off, to seek the answers he needed.
He lifted into the air, and flew toward the tallest building in the city.
Lex saw his approach a mile off, the security systems in his penthouse alerting him to the otherworldly presence. He stood them down, sat in his chair, and waited.
—
The blue and red figure hoovered there, outside the window of the penthouse, cape gently lapped up the wind. Lex calmly sat up, adjusting his tie and pushing a button under his desk, filtering the windows to allow in more light and noise. The lights in the penthouse hum softly and behind the glass of the skyscraper, Lex Luthor walks calmly up to the hero, like he’s been expecting this moment since the incident with the Justice League. He contains a smile, the corners of his mouth turning upwards ever so slightly.
"Ah," Lex says calmly. "I was wondering how long it would take for you to come here, ask your questions." Clark’s jaw tightens and Lex brushes off invisible lint before folding his hands calmly, as if he was delivering a rehearsed presentation.
"Let me speed the process up for you, Superman”, the name comes out harshly, like a smug criticism, “you think I controlled you," he says, “but that’s not quite right." Clark’s eyes narrow. Lex continues, voice soft and precise., “I removed the noise."
"The noise?" Clark repeats.
"All those pesky human contradictions you drown yourself in. Mercy versus justice. One life versus a thousand. The constant fear that the moment you choose wrong, heaven forbid, someone dies." Lex tilts his head. "You carry the entire planet on your conscience. I simply,” he pauses “ lifted it."
"You made me hurt people."
"No," Lex replies innocently, “I made you efficient. There’s a difference."
Clark slams a hand against the glass, his cape thrashing behind him at the sudden motion, body tensed, controlling strength that could easily rip the building in half. His breath fogs the glass, the barrier only an inch thick.
Lex doesn’t flinch.
"You turned me into a heartless machine, people died, people that could have survived, gone back to their families." He slowly removes his fist from the glass, regaining the momentarily lost control, his rage turns to guilt, sorrow, his voice softens, “they could have lived.”
"And yet," Lex says quietly, "you came back." The two lock eyes and silence fills the air. Clark looks away first causing Lex to flash a smirk. “For a moment the perfect mask cracks,” Lex says, looking the hero up and down. The hero everyone believes in, the symbol, the hope, the impossible standard, slips just enough to reveal the exhausted man underneath. His head dipped slightly, shoulders rounded.
"You don’t understand," Clark mutters, a war raging in his head.
Lex chuckles.
"Oh, I understand perfectly. That’s why I designed it that way."
Clark looks back sharply, questioning, and Lex leans forward, eyes gleaming.
"I could have made you a puppet. A monster. Something the world would fear, more than it does so already"
He pauses.
"But I didn’t”
He pauses again, revelling in Superman hanging onto his every word.
“I gave you peace."
Clark’s heartbeat quickens at the thought.
"You’re trying to manipulate me."
"Of course," Lex says. "You’re the most powerful being on Earth. If you were going to break, it wouldn’t be through force."
Lex tilts his head.
"It would be through relief."
Clark’s fists slowly clench, threatening to hit against the glass again, or worse. Lex smiles.
"I showed you the truth." Clark stares at him, his fists now clenched fully, seemingly without his knowledge. Lex’s smile grows wider, enjoying the rage he could elicit from a so-called god, how easy it was to see his pressure points, and push. "The truth is that no one, not even a god like yourself,” Lex snarls “can carry that much responsibility forever." Another long silence, at least for Lex. For Clark, far below them, he can hear the city; car horns, a distant siren, a child crying somewhere blocks away, a mother desperate to find them.
"You’re not here because I controlled you, Clark."
Clark’s eyebrows furrow, annoyed, it was as if Lex was dispelling the lies he had told himself to allow him to even look in the other man’s direction. When he speaks, Clark’s voice is barely above a whisper. "Then why am I here?" Lex’s eyes gleam, and then he says the one thing he knows Clark won’t be able to forget, plugging in the knife.
"Because for the first time in your life, you realised how good it feels to stop being Superman."
The words sit heavy in the air. Clark’s body is relaxed now, his chest moves slowly up and down, he looks almost vulnerable, the anger gone, replaced with something else, something more raw.
Shame.
Clark slowly turns to leave, but before he does, Lex speaks again.
"Tell me something."
Clark stops mid-turn and Lex tilts his head slightly, ready to twist the knife.
"When you flew here tonight, did you come to resist the temptation?"
A pause.
"Or to see if I could do it again?"
Clark doesn’t move. The wind pushes lightly at his cape, but otherwise he hangs there perfectly still, a red-and-blue silhouette against the night over Metropolis. Inside, Lex Luthor hasn’t looked away from him. For a long moment neither of them speaks. Then Clark slowly turns and lowers himself until his boots touch the ledge outside the window, he doesn’t come in, he just stands there on the other side of the glass.
Lex studies him for a moment, really studies him; not the symbol, not the alien god hovering outside his building, the tired man underneath, and Lex smiles faintly. "You’re always responsible. Every natural disaster you can reach. Every collapsing building. Every war you can hear starting on the other side of the planet." Lex gestures vaguely toward the city below him. "You’ve made the entire world your problem."
"That’s the job," Clark replies.
"No," Lex says calmly.
"That’s the prison."
Clark’s eyes harden.
"You don’t get to pretend you helped me."
"I didn’t help you," Lex says immediately. "I studied you."
He steps closer to the glass, closing in on his prey.
"When I took control of you, I wasn’t interested in destruction. Anyone can make a god break things, that part was very difficult” Lex’s voice is dripping with thinly veiled joy at seeing the ‘perfect’ man in front of him break a little more with each sentence, then, his voice drops slightly.
"I wanted to see what would happen if I removed the burden."
Clark says nothing, and Lex taps a finger lightly against the glass between them, raising his eyebrows.
“And, now we both know."
Clark’s expression hardens.
"You’re saying I liked it."
Lex puts a finger in the air, ready to clarify, "ah, ah, ah, I’m saying you noticed the absence." He leans closer. "For the first time since you put on that cape, the consequences weren’t yours to carry."
Clark looks past him for a moment, out over the city lights. He closes his eyes and listens. He can hear thousands of heartbeats, car crashes, arguments, sirens starting up in three different neighbourhoods, pleading, screaming, the child still crying. All the noise Lex talked about. His voice is quieter when he speaks again.
"That doesn’t make it right."
"I never said it did, I’m not interested in that angle."
Clark catches himself and opens his eyes again, sharply looking back at him.
"Then what’s your point?"
Lex spreads his hands slightly. "My point is that you came here,” he says, now opening out his arms and gesturing around at the absurdity of the situation. The words hang between them. Clark doesn’t deny it. Lex watches him carefully, raising an eyebrow. "Your friends think they saved you," he continues. "They think they broke my control, “but they didn’t remove the memory." Lex places a finger against his temple and smiles sadistically, “the guilt that maybe you’re not so perfect after all”
Clark’s voice drops. "You think this is a victory for you."
"No," Lex says nonchalantly. "I think it’s inevitable."
Clark’s eyes narrow.
"What is?"
Lex steps right up to the glass now, close enough that they’re almost face to face.
"Eventually," he says quietly, "you’re going to face a problem you can’t solve the way you want to, a disaster where you can’t save everyone. A moment where mercy costs more lives than efficiency. It won’t be some masterfully crafted plan, it won’t be a one in a million occurrence, it will be the world doing what it does best, being cruel." His eyes gleam. "And when that happens," Lex places a finger on the glass, pointing at the other man’s chest, moving in for the kill, “you’re going to remember how simple it was when I was making the decisions."
Clark stares at him. "And what," Clark asks slowly, "makes you think I’d ever let you do that again?"
Lex chuckles softly.
"Oh, I don’t think you’ll let me." He glances down at the city, the city filled with so much pain. Then back up at the man hovering outside his window. "I think one day," Lex says, almost conversationally, "you’ll ask."
For a long time Superman doesn’t move, and inside the penthouse, Lex Luthor simply waits. Because the most dangerous part of the experiment was never the control, the personality tweaking. It was letting Superman discover how heavy the world feels once he knows it doesn’t have to be placed on his shoulders, and seeing what happens.
Clark opens his mouth, and for a moment Lex thinks he’s going to say it.
A moment later, a red-and-blue blur vanishes into the night sky, but behind the glass, Lex Luthor smiles. Because the most powerful man in the world just proved something very important.
For a long time after Superman disappears into the night, the penthouse stays quiet. Below LexCorp, Metropolis keeps moving; cars crawl through traffic, police sirens flare and fade, a helicopter sweeps across the skyline. Somewhere in that chaos though, a red-and-blue streak answers the next emergency, and the next, and the next. Lex watches it go. Then he turns back toward his desk like a man finishing a lecture. Because the important part isn’t what Clark said tonight. It’s what he didn’t say.
He didn’t deny it.