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bagheera_sanI didn't intend to write a sequel to Except Batman, possibly, that one time, but that's how it goes. This one is probably less funny, but on the other hand it has threesomes and Stargates and Lex in a dress.
Title: Cops and Robbers - Ten Easy Steps
Rating: R, swearing and slash
Fandom: Smallville/DC/Stargate : Atlantis
Pairing: Clex, hints at permutations of Clexana, Lex/Kara, Clark/Lex/Bruce, InsectQueen!Lana/female alien
Genre: still crack
Prompts:![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
medea_aries asked for Lex and dancing and possibly glittered up. xparrot wanted Lex meeting Rodney. I doubt either of you wanted this.
1. Cops : Dark Pasts and Dirty Secrets
It is exactly thirty-seven days since Lex has done anything he would have to morally justify to anyone (not counting impulsive purchases of ludicrously expensive and entirely pointless luxury articles) and he is feeling a strange kind of hollowness in the place where the evil glee of getting away with it resided, back when he was still on the other side of this cops and robbers business. Evil glee, contrary to public opinion, does not come easily to Lex. In fact, it took years for him to achieve that perfect moment of Zen where all the guilt and the creeping fear of rejection fell off him in joyful, relaxing waves as he realized: everyone hates me already and I'll never be a good guy anyways.
His life now is just so wholesome. Wake up full of zealous energy and the will to do great good, eat cereal in the contented knowledge that you will burn the calories saving mankind, go to work and experience benevolence and honest respect towards your co-workers, graciously receive the thanks of those you save from certain peril, triumph over your evil foes, return home to your secret lair for a well-earned dinner and sleep the sleep of the righteous.
He doesn't even notice that the cracks are beginning to show until the day he walks through the watchtower in the Witness's armour, head full of plans for more efficient saving-of-the-day, and finds himself pulled into a dark corridor by Supergirl.
Now, Supergirl is the opposite of 'whom I do not want to meet in a dark alley in the dead of the night.' Supergirl is… Supergirl is so eternally fresh-faced and decent that even if you were to consider putting her into one of your dirty fantasies, you would just shamefully turn away and shake your head at your own depravity. She's the Virgin Mary, if the Virgin Mary dressed up as Lolita and had the powers of the Incredible Hulk.
In that moment, alone in a dark and deserted corridor with Kara Kent, Lex feels rather alarmed. It's her expression. Her expression is intense.
"Witness," she says, and smiles a winning smile. "We need to talk."
Things go through Lex's head (when don't they?), things that he might say if he were less cautious and not currently pretending to be anyone but Lex Luthor so Lana won't chop off his head and feed it to whatever evil pet she currently keeps, dung-beetles or something. Things like: 'I'm really sorry about that time I tricked you into my secret evil lab while you were amnesiac to find out how your alien biology ticked' and 'It may have seemed like it at the time, but I really entertained no lecherous thoughts about you whatsoever' and 'I always secretly suspected you wanted me to seduce you and corrupt you and have my wicked way with you - '
"You seem a little tense," Kara says softly, with huge eyes full of concern. She leans close. Her hair smells of spring, and faith and the things you write into a little girl's friendship book.
"It's the body armour," Lex replies. "It makes everything a little…." (here he pauses, because he can't come up with words that aren't synonyms of 'stiff').
She pats his armoured chest. "I know. You've been putting yourself under a lot of strain. All the responsibility, the danger you face daily, the expectations to live up to… and being a hero isn't exactly the kind of job you can leave behind when you go home, isn't it?"
"That kind of job exists?" Lex asks, raising a brow under his cowl.
She laughs, delighted, probably thinking he's joking. "Yes, you're right. Now, let me tell you a secret, okay?"
It's sad but true. The sight and sound of a beautiful Kryptonian promising to tell him a secret is very close to how Lex pictures bliss. There are religions that promise you nineteen nubile virgins in paradise: this is Lex's version of that.
"It's absolutely vital in our line of work," Kara goes on. "And really, someone should tell you this the moment you put on a cape," (Lex doesn't wear a cape; they're no doubt impressive, but he has analyzed Superman's weaknesses too many times to ignore the fact that capes are highly impractical), "but there you go. The thing is," Kara smiles a bit sheepishly, "you need a dark secret. Some little hidden vice… you know, something devious."
Lex would never, ever think that Supergirl is a slut, but right now he feels a little like a doubting Thomas.
"I mean, you probably think we're all perfect and you have to be, too, don't you?" she goes on. "That heroes never do anything wrong or forbidden at all. But we wouldn't be human if it were like that."
"You aren't human," Lex can't help but point out. It's habit. At least it doesn't come across as a bitter insult. "You're an alien."
"But we have human needs, too."
Alright, alright. If fate wants to throw horny Kryptonians at him, he won't be choosy.
"We all need to let off some steam once in a while. Wonder Woman likes to be tied up. Aquaman hunts dolphins for sport. Batman has Catwoman. The Flash forgets to pay for his shoplifted goods. Green Arrow indulges in capitalism. Oracle has cybersex with a guy who might or might not be Brainiac. I gossip."
Curiosity has always been his Achilles heel (one of the several dozen he has) and Lex can't help but ask, "And Superman?"
Kara sighs. "Look… we can't all be like Kal-El. Please don't try and live up to his standards."
As if. Lex has been there, done that and got really sick of it about a decade ago. And besides (evil glee steals into his thoughts) he knows that Clark has dirty little secrets by the dozen.
Beginning with the fact that he smuggled Lex Luthor into the Justice League because he can't bring himself to arrest Lana Lang.
"You mean we should let off some steam," he says, affecting nonchalance.
Kara smiles brightly. "What I'm saying, Witness, is, you need a hobby. Something a little bad, to keep the balance. So be a good boy and think of something. And tell me, will you? I love hearing these things."
And then she leaves.
2. Robbers: Hard shells, soft cores and hearts of gold
"Ha!" Lana says, throwing back her hair. "Now you wish you hadn't turned me into what I am, Superman, don't you? No one will save you now!"
The Witness crashes noisily through the window of Lana's LuthorCorp office, walks up to her, and gives her a slap.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Lana fumes, grabs her death ray that is taped to the underside of the desk, pistol-whips him and shoots him square in the chest. Defying the laws of nature, but not the laws of action cinema, the blast knocks him backwards out of the broken window. It doesn't kill him (Lex designed that fucking death ray, so his body armour damn well protects him against it) but it does take him a while to climb back up into the fiftieth floor, which gives Lana time to return to watching TV, where a monster is currently beating the crap out of her new nemesis Superman, after she has (with no little satisfaction) denied the help Clark came to ask of her. ("Where were you when I asked for a second chance?" she hissed when he made puppy dog eyes at her. "I was locked in the Fortress while you slept with Bizarro!" "Yes, and he was much better than you, too!")
The Witness crawls back into the office, brushes some shards off his armour and shoots the TV screen into smoking pieces with his grappling gun. "Rule one of having an arch-enemy: you kill them, and only you."
"Oh please," Lana sniffs. "Every little kid knows Superman never stays dead. Besides, I'm not some obsessive creep!"
The Witness rolls his eyes. Sorry, Lana, he thinks, but you hung out with me and Clark a *little* too long for that. "Rule Two: you team up even with your worst enemy if someone else threatens to bankrupt you with collateral damage to your property! Now get up and do something about this before they wreck the whole city!"
Surprisingly, the Witness isn't half-bad to work with for some arrogant little greenhorn of a side-kick.
3. Cops: Strange Encounters of the Third Kind I
This is how Batman finds out:
"I'm not going to do this while you're wearing little leather bat ears," Lex says with his arms crossed and definitely not looking at the bed, "So let's get it out of the way. You're Bruce Wayne."
Bruce grunts. "And you're Lex Luthor."
"You know." Lex narrows his eyes, too proud to ask what gave him away. "Fine."
"Fine."
"Guys," Clark whines. "What are we going to do about the aliens?"
"Considering the odds," Bruce says stiffly, "the rational answer is that we give in to their demands."
And when Batman says that, you agree. Afterwards, when his hips are still a bit sore from being bent over the table, and he's definitely not watching the way Clark keeps swallowing whenever Bruce glances at his lips, Lex has a moment of perfect clarity.
"Fuck," he mutters.
"What?" Clark asks, not quite looking him in the eyes.
"Translation error," Lex snaps. "It wasn't Fuck or Die. I think it was Dance or Die."
Bruce mutters something about Freudian slips while pulling his cowl back on. Clark squints at the large wardrobe of their lavish prison and muses, "You might be right. There's all kinds of… dressy shoes and that kind of thing."
Lex goes through their alien orders again. Especially that part about "playing the role of the female partner". Well, damn.
Bruce's expression makes it clear that he's done his part and is definitely not going to put on any dresses. Clark looks confused, and besides, none of the "dressy shoes" would fit him.
The only dress that fits Lex is some flimsy little glossy silk affair in maroon red that doesn't even cover half his thighs. Now, in hindsight, the vanity next to the bed makes more sense. At least the make-up comes in all conceivable shades. The aliens like colour (and feathers and fur and jewels – they're obsessed with mating rituals, just not the actual mating part as Lex wrongly assumed). Lex glares at his silent audience from time to time. Bruce watches the disguise with professional interest, though, which makes it bearable, and Clark – oh, Clark is becoming increasingly slack-jawed.
"Somehow," Lex says coldly, examining the result of his work in the mirror, "This all seems suspiciously like some immature prank. I never assumed that fighting evil included this."
"Those files are classified," Bruce says.
4. Robbers:Fuck Dance or Die – Strange Encounters of the Third Kind II
"Most exalted Mistress, Empress of the Arthropods –"
Lana waves her hand graciously at the small leopard-spotted purple alien. "You can call me Insect Queen."
"Yes, Your Utmost Perfection," the alien trills. "What I was saying – here is the gift you so desired from our people. Your ghastly nemesis, humiliated!"
A little giddy and quite curious, Lana slides the little disk into the convenient slot of her supercomputer. She loves the things Luthor money can buy. The room goes dark, a screen lights up, the first dramatic notes of a tango fill the air, and on the dance floor that now illuminates the screen, two small figures dance into view: one in a tight, flimsy dress, all milk-white skin and gracefully moving limbs, the other magnificently filling out a tuxedo and stumbling over his own large feet.
Lana watches, rapt. The alien watches her, equally rapt.
On the screen, Clark Kent and Lex Luthor butcher a tango mortale.
"Satisfactory," Lana says evilly when it is over, and hits 'play' again. Only when the aliens have already left does it occur to her to ask *when* they made the tape. Well, if Lex is still alive and didn't actually die in that car bombing, she decides, then at least he has been abducted by aliens.
5. Cops: Affairs with your co-workers
The lights go out on the dance floor. All of them. Clark breathes harshly in the darkness, as if he knows what exhaustion means. They fumble their way towards the wall. Lex's feet are killing him (not so much because of the shoes, but because of Clark's weight, which is not meant to rest on human feet, ever) and he's a little out of breath, too. Tango. Those bastards.
He's going to fucking kill those aliens – no, wait. He's a good guy now. Although they're sometimes allowed to kill things that aren't human when it's convenient to do so.
Clark still hasn't let go of his hand. And now he's talking, "I think I never danced with anyone who actually could dance," much closer to Lex's face that Lex anticipates, and Lex jumps a little and Clark steadies him with his other hand, right there on his waist. Large and warm through the flimsy silk dress.
"No, I don't think you did," Lex says icily (or possibly breathlessly).
"It… it must be weird to be wearing a dress," Clark stammers, and his hands wanders down. Lex's breath hitches. Clark finds the hem of the dress, still way above Lex's knees. His thumb brushes bare skin. "Does it… does it tickle?"
"Clark," Lex says, low, against Clark's neck. (It's not a plea. It's threat.) "Not too long ago, you fucked me. For the entertainment of perverted alien life-forms. In fact, we had a threesome with Batman. Now do me a favour and fucking stop being a coy tease!"
He feels Clark swallow and exhale. "I'd like to… entertain them a little more."
Lex thinks: oh thank you god please. He says: "Clark… don't ever try to dirty talk."
Clark, as a silent reply, turns Lex around so he can put his hands against the wall for support, and pushes the silk dress up, and slides a hand into Lex's briefs before pulling them down.
"Fuck me," Lex orders, pushing against that touch. He can still feel Clark inside him from their translation error, and it's not enough.
The sound of a zipper, some fumbling, Clark pushes up and Lex groans, letting his forehead fall against the wall, where cool spaceship-metal is thankfully covered by velvet curtains. What kind of spaceship has a ball-room in it, he wonders in between groans. It's fast and dirty, with Clark's hands roaming over the silk dress, his fingers touching Lex's painted lips, thrusting without any unwanted consideration on Lex's behalf until he comes.
Eventually there are lights again, and they're allowed to return to their own spacecraft, alien demands fulfilled, Lex still in his dishevelled silk dress and Clark in his crumpled tuxedo, and Lex is walking strangely and Batman knows, and Clark knows.
And no one ever talks about it again. Perils of the job. Pretend it never happened. It drives Lex more insane than he already is, right up until the next time the tension between them just happens to get a little resolved in the heat of the battle.
After a while, it becomes a kind of sport. Strange radiation, colourful magic kryptonite, pollen, poison, pheromones. Any excuse will do when dating on the job is about as risky as dating underage aliens in a Kansas farming town. But it's not dating. Definitely not.
After a while, Supergirl starts looking at him approvingly, winking from time to time to tell him that his secret is safe. Belatedly, Lex remembers that he forgot to make the armour safe against x-ray vision.
6. Robbers: Marrying your fellow villains and other bad ideas
Lana never really stopped dating. It's a habit and one that's hard to shake. Her tastes have changed though, evolved you might say. How can you not become picky after you had dated both Superman and Lex Luthor? It doesn't do to lower your standards.
Or maybe they haven't changed all that much. She has dated zombies before, and aliens, and bad guys. The evil space vampires are only a natural progression of these trends.
But really, it was supposed to just be a fling. Wrapping the Queen around her fingers, chatting a bit about bugs and world domination, and then part in mutual agreement. Nowhere did this plan include being abducted to another galaxy to watch (as the royal consort) the tedious process of waking up a hibernating army and sucking the life out of innocent people.
At least the Wraith Queen isn't as clingy as Clark, or even Lex, or, well, any of Lana's previous partners. But she's annoyingly distracted by Wraith internal politics and the fight against some people living in a place that's improbably called Atlantis. And of course there's also precious alien artefacts to hunt down. She hates being neglected because of those.
Lana has lots of time for herself. And the shopping opportunities in the Pegasus Galaxy suck, and on top of that, she worries about LuthorCorp's stock value. Lionel has a tendency to return from the grave whenever it drops past a certain point.
A week after marrying the Queen (and she isn't even the only queen!) of the Wraith, Lana swears off dating in a fit of pique. It only ever gets her into trouble.
7. Cops: Teaming up with other heroes
First, they fight for no reason at all except some minor misunderstanding: Batman versus that chick with the sticks and Superman versus the nausea of Stargate travel and Lex versus the urge of throttling that big-mouthed Canadian scientist.
"Wow," the guy with the weird hair says when the girl with the sticks ends up on the floor of the gate room on Atlantis and Batman growls menacingly at the dozens of P-90s pointed at them.
"Did the freak in the rat-costume just defeat Teyla in a fair fight?" the Canadian asks, momentarily stunned into almost-silence.
"I hate this," Clark whimpers and throws up in the gate room, just as Wonder Woman finally walks through the rippling blue circle. It's the Amazons who made this whole travelling-to-another-galaxy possible by temporarily donating a thing called a ZPM called to a part of the military called the Stargate program, both of which Lex would love to get his hands on (the Stargate program and the ZPM, that is, not the Amazons). It turns out that the Amazons used to have friendly relations to an alien race commonly known as the Ancients, who, as alien races have a tendency to be, are mostly extinct nowadays.
(Whereas the Kryptonians might or might not have known a race of snake parasites called the Goa'uld, judging from the fact that they hid their Stones of Knowledge in the pyramids, which were actually spaceships. At least that's the theory some nerdy scientist guy inevitably came up with, when they started negotiating with the military about the retrieval of one Insect Queen, neé Lana Lang, from the Pegasus Galaxy. Lex fails to be surprised. )
Wonder Woman saves them all from being shot by trigger-happy marines with the power of diplomacy and looking really good in a bathing suit. She and a woman called Weir talk a lot, while Lex pesters the people who watch them with questions about their amazing alien technology. The Canadian guy sneers for a bit, but then grudgingly admits that they're *good* questions ("What are you, a chemist? It's like you saw a science book once, but then decided you'd really rather read the one about astrology!")
Clark sits around (exaggerating his moaning about motion sickness rather a lot, in Lex's opinion) and lets himself be fussed over by female scientists. Batman glares, but eventually deigns to talk to the woman named Teyla, who turns out to be something of a martial artist herself, and the military guy, Sheppard, with whom he apparently shares a tendency towards paranoia: they don't get along.
Officially, they're of course not here to save Lana. That's why Clark is here, and Lex is here because he can't stand the idea that Lana might be conquering a whole *galaxy* while he remains stuck with the Justice League, not conquering anything but the hearts of fickle and easily excitable teenagers. Diana is here to start diplomatic relations, and Batman is probably here for some obscure reason of his own, or maybe because Clark asked him to come, which always works wonders.
It turns out, however, that the Lanteans badly want Lana gone, particularly Dr. McKay, who seems badly affronted by the fact that Colonel Sheppard (who is entirely unlike any military official Lex has ever encountered, but just the type to fall for Lana's particular kind of praying mantis charm) may or may not have had a fling with her. ("I wouldn't call it a fling, Rodney," the Colonel says calmly. "I just asked her if she needed saving from the Wraith." "Asked her with your hands, huh?")
Several shot-down Wraith ships and trips to multiple alien planets all populated by people who look less alien than Clark later, they have finally rescued Lana (officially, of course, they have "captured" her) and Diana, Teyla and Weir are now all so chummy that their diplomatic mission is deemed a full success. They return to Earth via the Stargate and hand Lana over to the military (since she's privy to way too much classified information to just be handed over to the police) and that's that, happy end.
A couple of days later, Clark shows up in Lex's lair. Years too late Lex has realized that barging in uninvited and without greeting is not a sign of Clark's lack of respect for him, but apparently a birth defect. He still does it, only now he's wearing a nervous look and doesn't start any accusations.
Lex doesn't need to deduce that Clark has read the news, because Clark wrote it, and is bearing a Daily Planet edition.
"She must've made some kind of deal with the military," Clark hedges, and fails to hide his relief that Lana went scott-free once again.
Lex frowns at him, slipping the goggles off that he is wearing while tinkering with his armour. "Well, of course she has," he says, shaking his head at Clark's slowness. "It's what I would've done."
8. Robbers: Henchpeople
Lana keeps Lex's habit of employing female henchmen, even now that she's a respectable military contractor. Men have a tiresome tendency to fall in love with her, which inevitably ends in tears and attempted homicide. She still keeps going through girls at a fast rate. Sooner or later, even they can't resist her exceptional wonderfulness.
But she isn't even auditioning the day Chloe shows up on her doorstep, smartly dressed, perfect hair, runny make-up.
Several glasses of champagne later: "I'm just fed-up with it all! I'm a better reporter than Lois, at least as good a hacker as that Oracle person and I did the side-kick thing when Robin was still in kindergarten, and do you think anyone appreciates? No! Clark is spending all his time with that Witness guy, and you don't even kidnap me to blackmail them!"
"Jimmy loves you," Lana points out. (Not much of a consolation, sure, but still better than, "There, there.")
"Jimmy! Jimmy's too busy trying to prove that Lex Luthor isn't dead to notice anything else! Tell me again why I married a conspiracy theorist?"
"I'm sorry, Chloe," Lana sighs. She's never been good at consoling anyone, and close to a decade of villainy hasn't exactly improved her skills, either.
"So... uh... you don't need an Insect Girl?" Chloe asks hopefully.
"I was kind of thinking of quitting the whole costumed villainy thing," Lana admits, examining her nails. "We're not getting any younger, you know. Spandex gets a bit tacky once you're approaching forty."
Chloe makes a face. "Life's not fair," she wails.
"Isn't it just?" Lana agrees. "Men get to have a mid-life crisis – and all we get is wrinkles and saggy parts."
Chloe nods in sympathy, although her mutant powers have kept her in rather good shape, and Lana is... well, Lana. "There goes my career as henchwoman. So… how about you hold me hostage? Once more for old times sake?"
9. Cops: Secret Identities
It's supposed to be Lana's greatest coup. The last big feat of evil, before she exits left into the colourless world of corporate white-collar crime.
A dark and stormy night, Chloe as the screaming damsel in distress (not so much screaming as trying to stifle hysterical laughter, but you can't have everything – Lana knows it was a mistake to show her the Tape before tying her up), a rooftop, a red button at the pressing of which every screen in Metropolis will show the rather compromising footage of Clark Kent dancing tango with Lex Luthor in drag.
It's evil precisely because it's so completely pointless and petty. Lana pouts a bit because Chloe obviously doesn't believe she'll go through with it. And then Clark is finally there, for once without his new sidekick. Even better. This is personal, just between the two of them, because really, aren't they the only people who matter in this?
"I'll ruin you," Lana says, smiling at Clark's terror (he can't keep her from pressing that button because of all the kryptonite. He's doomed and he knows it.). "Not Superman, because I know Superman is a good man, and doing good things, and I'd never stop you from doing that. You know that, Clark, don't you? I never wanted anything but the best for everyone… and to crush you like you crushed me, you self-righteous bastard. So this'll ruin you, and only you. I guess afterwards, you'll better stop being Clark and just become a hero full-time. You never were much good as a human anyway."
(That line. Oh, how she worked on that line. It was the poisoned dagger under her pillow in all those long, lonely nights spent lusting for revenge.)
"That was below the belt," someone says softly behind her. Lana whips around, and finds Chloe, freed by Superman's new side-kick, standing on the roof, her blonde hair straggly from the rain and her eyes accusing. The Witness stands with crossed arms behind her.
Lana smirks at them, because they're just extras in her personal little showdown with Superman, and holds her hand over the button. "Let's just watch this."
"It really was below the belt," the Witness agrees with Chloe and pulls off his cowl.
Lana gasps. And staggers backwards. "You - !"
And then she falls backwards off the rooftop.
10. Off into the sunset
"I guess you'll take me to prison now," Lana asks coldly once she has stopped screaming. Clark swooped in at the last moment, catching her right before she hit the pavement. "For your information, I took precautions. That fall wouldn't have killed me."
"And pressing that button wouldn't have worked," Lex commented, appearing besides them in the air, carried by his body armour's anti-gravitation unit. "I cut the wires."
She makes a face, but inwardly, is a little relieved. That would have been terribly evil. "What in the world are you doing, Lex? Did you get hit over the head again or why did you switch sides?"
"He's in witness protection," Clark explains, as if that makes perfect sense. (This is the first thing he has managed to say since Lana's decidedly mean insult.)
"Was," Lex corrects, voice and expression blank. "Seeing as Lana now knows everything."
Lana stares at both of them, and has a long hard moment of thinking. If she exposes Lex, he will return from the dead, and then she'll have to fight him over LuthorCorp, and it'll get ugly, and she'll probably lose, just as she's about to make more money than ever. If she doesn't, he'll do exactly what his geeky obsessive little heart always desired, dress up in tights to play with Clark, and stay out of her way.
It's time to be a rational, grown-up woman and leave their little games behind.
"I could have amnesia," Lana suggests, out of the kindness of her heart. "Very selective amnesia."
Title: Cops and Robbers - Ten Easy Steps
Rating: R, swearing and slash
Fandom: Smallville/DC/Stargate : Atlantis
Pairing: Clex, hints at permutations of Clexana, Lex/Kara, Clark/Lex/Bruce, InsectQueen!Lana/female alien
Genre: still crack
Prompts:
medea_aries asked for Lex and dancing and possibly glittered up. xparrot wanted Lex meeting Rodney. I doubt either of you wanted this. 1. Cops : Dark Pasts and Dirty Secrets
It is exactly thirty-seven days since Lex has done anything he would have to morally justify to anyone (not counting impulsive purchases of ludicrously expensive and entirely pointless luxury articles) and he is feeling a strange kind of hollowness in the place where the evil glee of getting away with it resided, back when he was still on the other side of this cops and robbers business. Evil glee, contrary to public opinion, does not come easily to Lex. In fact, it took years for him to achieve that perfect moment of Zen where all the guilt and the creeping fear of rejection fell off him in joyful, relaxing waves as he realized: everyone hates me already and I'll never be a good guy anyways.
His life now is just so wholesome. Wake up full of zealous energy and the will to do great good, eat cereal in the contented knowledge that you will burn the calories saving mankind, go to work and experience benevolence and honest respect towards your co-workers, graciously receive the thanks of those you save from certain peril, triumph over your evil foes, return home to your secret lair for a well-earned dinner and sleep the sleep of the righteous.
He doesn't even notice that the cracks are beginning to show until the day he walks through the watchtower in the Witness's armour, head full of plans for more efficient saving-of-the-day, and finds himself pulled into a dark corridor by Supergirl.
Now, Supergirl is the opposite of 'whom I do not want to meet in a dark alley in the dead of the night.' Supergirl is… Supergirl is so eternally fresh-faced and decent that even if you were to consider putting her into one of your dirty fantasies, you would just shamefully turn away and shake your head at your own depravity. She's the Virgin Mary, if the Virgin Mary dressed up as Lolita and had the powers of the Incredible Hulk.
In that moment, alone in a dark and deserted corridor with Kara Kent, Lex feels rather alarmed. It's her expression. Her expression is intense.
"Witness," she says, and smiles a winning smile. "We need to talk."
Things go through Lex's head (when don't they?), things that he might say if he were less cautious and not currently pretending to be anyone but Lex Luthor so Lana won't chop off his head and feed it to whatever evil pet she currently keeps, dung-beetles or something. Things like: 'I'm really sorry about that time I tricked you into my secret evil lab while you were amnesiac to find out how your alien biology ticked' and 'It may have seemed like it at the time, but I really entertained no lecherous thoughts about you whatsoever' and 'I always secretly suspected you wanted me to seduce you and corrupt you and have my wicked way with you - '
"You seem a little tense," Kara says softly, with huge eyes full of concern. She leans close. Her hair smells of spring, and faith and the things you write into a little girl's friendship book.
"It's the body armour," Lex replies. "It makes everything a little…." (here he pauses, because he can't come up with words that aren't synonyms of 'stiff').
She pats his armoured chest. "I know. You've been putting yourself under a lot of strain. All the responsibility, the danger you face daily, the expectations to live up to… and being a hero isn't exactly the kind of job you can leave behind when you go home, isn't it?"
"That kind of job exists?" Lex asks, raising a brow under his cowl.
She laughs, delighted, probably thinking he's joking. "Yes, you're right. Now, let me tell you a secret, okay?"
It's sad but true. The sight and sound of a beautiful Kryptonian promising to tell him a secret is very close to how Lex pictures bliss. There are religions that promise you nineteen nubile virgins in paradise: this is Lex's version of that.
"It's absolutely vital in our line of work," Kara goes on. "And really, someone should tell you this the moment you put on a cape," (Lex doesn't wear a cape; they're no doubt impressive, but he has analyzed Superman's weaknesses too many times to ignore the fact that capes are highly impractical), "but there you go. The thing is," Kara smiles a bit sheepishly, "you need a dark secret. Some little hidden vice… you know, something devious."
Lex would never, ever think that Supergirl is a slut, but right now he feels a little like a doubting Thomas.
"I mean, you probably think we're all perfect and you have to be, too, don't you?" she goes on. "That heroes never do anything wrong or forbidden at all. But we wouldn't be human if it were like that."
"You aren't human," Lex can't help but point out. It's habit. At least it doesn't come across as a bitter insult. "You're an alien."
"But we have human needs, too."
Alright, alright. If fate wants to throw horny Kryptonians at him, he won't be choosy.
"We all need to let off some steam once in a while. Wonder Woman likes to be tied up. Aquaman hunts dolphins for sport. Batman has Catwoman. The Flash forgets to pay for his shoplifted goods. Green Arrow indulges in capitalism. Oracle has cybersex with a guy who might or might not be Brainiac. I gossip."
Curiosity has always been his Achilles heel (one of the several dozen he has) and Lex can't help but ask, "And Superman?"
Kara sighs. "Look… we can't all be like Kal-El. Please don't try and live up to his standards."
As if. Lex has been there, done that and got really sick of it about a decade ago. And besides (evil glee steals into his thoughts) he knows that Clark has dirty little secrets by the dozen.
Beginning with the fact that he smuggled Lex Luthor into the Justice League because he can't bring himself to arrest Lana Lang.
"You mean we should let off some steam," he says, affecting nonchalance.
Kara smiles brightly. "What I'm saying, Witness, is, you need a hobby. Something a little bad, to keep the balance. So be a good boy and think of something. And tell me, will you? I love hearing these things."
And then she leaves.
2. Robbers: Hard shells, soft cores and hearts of gold
"Ha!" Lana says, throwing back her hair. "Now you wish you hadn't turned me into what I am, Superman, don't you? No one will save you now!"
The Witness crashes noisily through the window of Lana's LuthorCorp office, walks up to her, and gives her a slap.
"Who the hell do you think you are?" Lana fumes, grabs her death ray that is taped to the underside of the desk, pistol-whips him and shoots him square in the chest. Defying the laws of nature, but not the laws of action cinema, the blast knocks him backwards out of the broken window. It doesn't kill him (Lex designed that fucking death ray, so his body armour damn well protects him against it) but it does take him a while to climb back up into the fiftieth floor, which gives Lana time to return to watching TV, where a monster is currently beating the crap out of her new nemesis Superman, after she has (with no little satisfaction) denied the help Clark came to ask of her. ("Where were you when I asked for a second chance?" she hissed when he made puppy dog eyes at her. "I was locked in the Fortress while you slept with Bizarro!" "Yes, and he was much better than you, too!")
The Witness crawls back into the office, brushes some shards off his armour and shoots the TV screen into smoking pieces with his grappling gun. "Rule one of having an arch-enemy: you kill them, and only you."
"Oh please," Lana sniffs. "Every little kid knows Superman never stays dead. Besides, I'm not some obsessive creep!"
The Witness rolls his eyes. Sorry, Lana, he thinks, but you hung out with me and Clark a *little* too long for that. "Rule Two: you team up even with your worst enemy if someone else threatens to bankrupt you with collateral damage to your property! Now get up and do something about this before they wreck the whole city!"
Surprisingly, the Witness isn't half-bad to work with for some arrogant little greenhorn of a side-kick.
3. Cops: Strange Encounters of the Third Kind I
This is how Batman finds out:
"I'm not going to do this while you're wearing little leather bat ears," Lex says with his arms crossed and definitely not looking at the bed, "So let's get it out of the way. You're Bruce Wayne."
Bruce grunts. "And you're Lex Luthor."
"You know." Lex narrows his eyes, too proud to ask what gave him away. "Fine."
"Fine."
"Guys," Clark whines. "What are we going to do about the aliens?"
"Considering the odds," Bruce says stiffly, "the rational answer is that we give in to their demands."
And when Batman says that, you agree. Afterwards, when his hips are still a bit sore from being bent over the table, and he's definitely not watching the way Clark keeps swallowing whenever Bruce glances at his lips, Lex has a moment of perfect clarity.
"Fuck," he mutters.
"What?" Clark asks, not quite looking him in the eyes.
"Translation error," Lex snaps. "It wasn't Fuck or Die. I think it was Dance or Die."
Bruce mutters something about Freudian slips while pulling his cowl back on. Clark squints at the large wardrobe of their lavish prison and muses, "You might be right. There's all kinds of… dressy shoes and that kind of thing."
Lex goes through their alien orders again. Especially that part about "playing the role of the female partner". Well, damn.
Bruce's expression makes it clear that he's done his part and is definitely not going to put on any dresses. Clark looks confused, and besides, none of the "dressy shoes" would fit him.
The only dress that fits Lex is some flimsy little glossy silk affair in maroon red that doesn't even cover half his thighs. Now, in hindsight, the vanity next to the bed makes more sense. At least the make-up comes in all conceivable shades. The aliens like colour (and feathers and fur and jewels – they're obsessed with mating rituals, just not the actual mating part as Lex wrongly assumed). Lex glares at his silent audience from time to time. Bruce watches the disguise with professional interest, though, which makes it bearable, and Clark – oh, Clark is becoming increasingly slack-jawed.
"Somehow," Lex says coldly, examining the result of his work in the mirror, "This all seems suspiciously like some immature prank. I never assumed that fighting evil included this."
"Those files are classified," Bruce says.
4. Robbers:
"Most exalted Mistress, Empress of the Arthropods –"
Lana waves her hand graciously at the small leopard-spotted purple alien. "You can call me Insect Queen."
"Yes, Your Utmost Perfection," the alien trills. "What I was saying – here is the gift you so desired from our people. Your ghastly nemesis, humiliated!"
A little giddy and quite curious, Lana slides the little disk into the convenient slot of her supercomputer. She loves the things Luthor money can buy. The room goes dark, a screen lights up, the first dramatic notes of a tango fill the air, and on the dance floor that now illuminates the screen, two small figures dance into view: one in a tight, flimsy dress, all milk-white skin and gracefully moving limbs, the other magnificently filling out a tuxedo and stumbling over his own large feet.
Lana watches, rapt. The alien watches her, equally rapt.
On the screen, Clark Kent and Lex Luthor butcher a tango mortale.
"Satisfactory," Lana says evilly when it is over, and hits 'play' again. Only when the aliens have already left does it occur to her to ask *when* they made the tape. Well, if Lex is still alive and didn't actually die in that car bombing, she decides, then at least he has been abducted by aliens.
5. Cops: Affairs with your co-workers
The lights go out on the dance floor. All of them. Clark breathes harshly in the darkness, as if he knows what exhaustion means. They fumble their way towards the wall. Lex's feet are killing him (not so much because of the shoes, but because of Clark's weight, which is not meant to rest on human feet, ever) and he's a little out of breath, too. Tango. Those bastards.
He's going to fucking kill those aliens – no, wait. He's a good guy now. Although they're sometimes allowed to kill things that aren't human when it's convenient to do so.
Clark still hasn't let go of his hand. And now he's talking, "I think I never danced with anyone who actually could dance," much closer to Lex's face that Lex anticipates, and Lex jumps a little and Clark steadies him with his other hand, right there on his waist. Large and warm through the flimsy silk dress.
"No, I don't think you did," Lex says icily (or possibly breathlessly).
"It… it must be weird to be wearing a dress," Clark stammers, and his hands wanders down. Lex's breath hitches. Clark finds the hem of the dress, still way above Lex's knees. His thumb brushes bare skin. "Does it… does it tickle?"
"Clark," Lex says, low, against Clark's neck. (It's not a plea. It's threat.) "Not too long ago, you fucked me. For the entertainment of perverted alien life-forms. In fact, we had a threesome with Batman. Now do me a favour and fucking stop being a coy tease!"
He feels Clark swallow and exhale. "I'd like to… entertain them a little more."
Lex thinks: oh thank you god please. He says: "Clark… don't ever try to dirty talk."
Clark, as a silent reply, turns Lex around so he can put his hands against the wall for support, and pushes the silk dress up, and slides a hand into Lex's briefs before pulling them down.
"Fuck me," Lex orders, pushing against that touch. He can still feel Clark inside him from their translation error, and it's not enough.
The sound of a zipper, some fumbling, Clark pushes up and Lex groans, letting his forehead fall against the wall, where cool spaceship-metal is thankfully covered by velvet curtains. What kind of spaceship has a ball-room in it, he wonders in between groans. It's fast and dirty, with Clark's hands roaming over the silk dress, his fingers touching Lex's painted lips, thrusting without any unwanted consideration on Lex's behalf until he comes.
Eventually there are lights again, and they're allowed to return to their own spacecraft, alien demands fulfilled, Lex still in his dishevelled silk dress and Clark in his crumpled tuxedo, and Lex is walking strangely and Batman knows, and Clark knows.
And no one ever talks about it again. Perils of the job. Pretend it never happened. It drives Lex more insane than he already is, right up until the next time the tension between them just happens to get a little resolved in the heat of the battle.
After a while, it becomes a kind of sport. Strange radiation, colourful magic kryptonite, pollen, poison, pheromones. Any excuse will do when dating on the job is about as risky as dating underage aliens in a Kansas farming town. But it's not dating. Definitely not.
After a while, Supergirl starts looking at him approvingly, winking from time to time to tell him that his secret is safe. Belatedly, Lex remembers that he forgot to make the armour safe against x-ray vision.
6. Robbers: Marrying your fellow villains and other bad ideas
Lana never really stopped dating. It's a habit and one that's hard to shake. Her tastes have changed though, evolved you might say. How can you not become picky after you had dated both Superman and Lex Luthor? It doesn't do to lower your standards.
Or maybe they haven't changed all that much. She has dated zombies before, and aliens, and bad guys. The evil space vampires are only a natural progression of these trends.
But really, it was supposed to just be a fling. Wrapping the Queen around her fingers, chatting a bit about bugs and world domination, and then part in mutual agreement. Nowhere did this plan include being abducted to another galaxy to watch (as the royal consort) the tedious process of waking up a hibernating army and sucking the life out of innocent people.
At least the Wraith Queen isn't as clingy as Clark, or even Lex, or, well, any of Lana's previous partners. But she's annoyingly distracted by Wraith internal politics and the fight against some people living in a place that's improbably called Atlantis. And of course there's also precious alien artefacts to hunt down. She hates being neglected because of those.
Lana has lots of time for herself. And the shopping opportunities in the Pegasus Galaxy suck, and on top of that, she worries about LuthorCorp's stock value. Lionel has a tendency to return from the grave whenever it drops past a certain point.
A week after marrying the Queen (and she isn't even the only queen!) of the Wraith, Lana swears off dating in a fit of pique. It only ever gets her into trouble.
7. Cops: Teaming up with other heroes
First, they fight for no reason at all except some minor misunderstanding: Batman versus that chick with the sticks and Superman versus the nausea of Stargate travel and Lex versus the urge of throttling that big-mouthed Canadian scientist.
"Wow," the guy with the weird hair says when the girl with the sticks ends up on the floor of the gate room on Atlantis and Batman growls menacingly at the dozens of P-90s pointed at them.
"Did the freak in the rat-costume just defeat Teyla in a fair fight?" the Canadian asks, momentarily stunned into almost-silence.
"I hate this," Clark whimpers and throws up in the gate room, just as Wonder Woman finally walks through the rippling blue circle. It's the Amazons who made this whole travelling-to-another-galaxy possible by temporarily donating a thing called a ZPM called to a part of the military called the Stargate program, both of which Lex would love to get his hands on (the Stargate program and the ZPM, that is, not the Amazons). It turns out that the Amazons used to have friendly relations to an alien race commonly known as the Ancients, who, as alien races have a tendency to be, are mostly extinct nowadays.
(Whereas the Kryptonians might or might not have known a race of snake parasites called the Goa'uld, judging from the fact that they hid their Stones of Knowledge in the pyramids, which were actually spaceships. At least that's the theory some nerdy scientist guy inevitably came up with, when they started negotiating with the military about the retrieval of one Insect Queen, neé Lana Lang, from the Pegasus Galaxy. Lex fails to be surprised. )
Wonder Woman saves them all from being shot by trigger-happy marines with the power of diplomacy and looking really good in a bathing suit. She and a woman called Weir talk a lot, while Lex pesters the people who watch them with questions about their amazing alien technology. The Canadian guy sneers for a bit, but then grudgingly admits that they're *good* questions ("What are you, a chemist? It's like you saw a science book once, but then decided you'd really rather read the one about astrology!")
Clark sits around (exaggerating his moaning about motion sickness rather a lot, in Lex's opinion) and lets himself be fussed over by female scientists. Batman glares, but eventually deigns to talk to the woman named Teyla, who turns out to be something of a martial artist herself, and the military guy, Sheppard, with whom he apparently shares a tendency towards paranoia: they don't get along.
Officially, they're of course not here to save Lana. That's why Clark is here, and Lex is here because he can't stand the idea that Lana might be conquering a whole *galaxy* while he remains stuck with the Justice League, not conquering anything but the hearts of fickle and easily excitable teenagers. Diana is here to start diplomatic relations, and Batman is probably here for some obscure reason of his own, or maybe because Clark asked him to come, which always works wonders.
It turns out, however, that the Lanteans badly want Lana gone, particularly Dr. McKay, who seems badly affronted by the fact that Colonel Sheppard (who is entirely unlike any military official Lex has ever encountered, but just the type to fall for Lana's particular kind of praying mantis charm) may or may not have had a fling with her. ("I wouldn't call it a fling, Rodney," the Colonel says calmly. "I just asked her if she needed saving from the Wraith." "Asked her with your hands, huh?")
Several shot-down Wraith ships and trips to multiple alien planets all populated by people who look less alien than Clark later, they have finally rescued Lana (officially, of course, they have "captured" her) and Diana, Teyla and Weir are now all so chummy that their diplomatic mission is deemed a full success. They return to Earth via the Stargate and hand Lana over to the military (since she's privy to way too much classified information to just be handed over to the police) and that's that, happy end.
A couple of days later, Clark shows up in Lex's lair. Years too late Lex has realized that barging in uninvited and without greeting is not a sign of Clark's lack of respect for him, but apparently a birth defect. He still does it, only now he's wearing a nervous look and doesn't start any accusations.
Lex doesn't need to deduce that Clark has read the news, because Clark wrote it, and is bearing a Daily Planet edition.
"She must've made some kind of deal with the military," Clark hedges, and fails to hide his relief that Lana went scott-free once again.
Lex frowns at him, slipping the goggles off that he is wearing while tinkering with his armour. "Well, of course she has," he says, shaking his head at Clark's slowness. "It's what I would've done."
8. Robbers: Henchpeople
Lana keeps Lex's habit of employing female henchmen, even now that she's a respectable military contractor. Men have a tiresome tendency to fall in love with her, which inevitably ends in tears and attempted homicide. She still keeps going through girls at a fast rate. Sooner or later, even they can't resist her exceptional wonderfulness.
But she isn't even auditioning the day Chloe shows up on her doorstep, smartly dressed, perfect hair, runny make-up.
Several glasses of champagne later: "I'm just fed-up with it all! I'm a better reporter than Lois, at least as good a hacker as that Oracle person and I did the side-kick thing when Robin was still in kindergarten, and do you think anyone appreciates? No! Clark is spending all his time with that Witness guy, and you don't even kidnap me to blackmail them!"
"Jimmy loves you," Lana points out. (Not much of a consolation, sure, but still better than, "There, there.")
"Jimmy! Jimmy's too busy trying to prove that Lex Luthor isn't dead to notice anything else! Tell me again why I married a conspiracy theorist?"
"I'm sorry, Chloe," Lana sighs. She's never been good at consoling anyone, and close to a decade of villainy hasn't exactly improved her skills, either.
"So... uh... you don't need an Insect Girl?" Chloe asks hopefully.
"I was kind of thinking of quitting the whole costumed villainy thing," Lana admits, examining her nails. "We're not getting any younger, you know. Spandex gets a bit tacky once you're approaching forty."
Chloe makes a face. "Life's not fair," she wails.
"Isn't it just?" Lana agrees. "Men get to have a mid-life crisis – and all we get is wrinkles and saggy parts."
Chloe nods in sympathy, although her mutant powers have kept her in rather good shape, and Lana is... well, Lana. "There goes my career as henchwoman. So… how about you hold me hostage? Once more for old times sake?"
9. Cops: Secret Identities
It's supposed to be Lana's greatest coup. The last big feat of evil, before she exits left into the colourless world of corporate white-collar crime.
A dark and stormy night, Chloe as the screaming damsel in distress (not so much screaming as trying to stifle hysterical laughter, but you can't have everything – Lana knows it was a mistake to show her the Tape before tying her up), a rooftop, a red button at the pressing of which every screen in Metropolis will show the rather compromising footage of Clark Kent dancing tango with Lex Luthor in drag.
It's evil precisely because it's so completely pointless and petty. Lana pouts a bit because Chloe obviously doesn't believe she'll go through with it. And then Clark is finally there, for once without his new sidekick. Even better. This is personal, just between the two of them, because really, aren't they the only people who matter in this?
"I'll ruin you," Lana says, smiling at Clark's terror (he can't keep her from pressing that button because of all the kryptonite. He's doomed and he knows it.). "Not Superman, because I know Superman is a good man, and doing good things, and I'd never stop you from doing that. You know that, Clark, don't you? I never wanted anything but the best for everyone… and to crush you like you crushed me, you self-righteous bastard. So this'll ruin you, and only you. I guess afterwards, you'll better stop being Clark and just become a hero full-time. You never were much good as a human anyway."
(That line. Oh, how she worked on that line. It was the poisoned dagger under her pillow in all those long, lonely nights spent lusting for revenge.)
"That was below the belt," someone says softly behind her. Lana whips around, and finds Chloe, freed by Superman's new side-kick, standing on the roof, her blonde hair straggly from the rain and her eyes accusing. The Witness stands with crossed arms behind her.
Lana smirks at them, because they're just extras in her personal little showdown with Superman, and holds her hand over the button. "Let's just watch this."
"It really was below the belt," the Witness agrees with Chloe and pulls off his cowl.
Lana gasps. And staggers backwards. "You - !"
And then she falls backwards off the rooftop.
10. Off into the sunset
"I guess you'll take me to prison now," Lana asks coldly once she has stopped screaming. Clark swooped in at the last moment, catching her right before she hit the pavement. "For your information, I took precautions. That fall wouldn't have killed me."
"And pressing that button wouldn't have worked," Lex commented, appearing besides them in the air, carried by his body armour's anti-gravitation unit. "I cut the wires."
She makes a face, but inwardly, is a little relieved. That would have been terribly evil. "What in the world are you doing, Lex? Did you get hit over the head again or why did you switch sides?"
"He's in witness protection," Clark explains, as if that makes perfect sense. (This is the first thing he has managed to say since Lana's decidedly mean insult.)
"Was," Lex corrects, voice and expression blank. "Seeing as Lana now knows everything."
Lana stares at both of them, and has a long hard moment of thinking. If she exposes Lex, he will return from the dead, and then she'll have to fight him over LuthorCorp, and it'll get ugly, and she'll probably lose, just as she's about to make more money than ever. If she doesn't, he'll do exactly what his geeky obsessive little heart always desired, dress up in tights to play with Clark, and stay out of her way.
It's time to be a rational, grown-up woman and leave their little games behind.
"I could have amnesia," Lana suggests, out of the kindness of her heart. "Very selective amnesia."
