Chapter Text
He was frantic. Though invincible, he could feel his heart rapping against his ribcage like a fist pounding on a door.
Perhaps it was residual from his days back in Smallville, but somewhere along the way, Clark had trained his brain to pick up on the sound of a few select voices whenever they called. For a long time that list included Lana, Chloe, Lois, his Mom, his Dad and…Lex.
He was in New York City when he heard it. That familiar voice that sliced through the entire din of humanity’s cacophony to reach him. It was a blood curdling scream that had Superman immediately drop what he was doing and take to the skies.
Something was unfolding in Metropolis and it wasn’t good. Lex was pleading, crying, screaming.
Clark became so concerned that he broke the sound barrier. The wave-front in the air sent a shock rippling out with a massive BOOM, and he’d made the mistake of doing it over Indianapolis. With no planes at his altitude, he knew people on the ground would put together that it was him and wonder what the emergency was.
He didn’t care.
It felt like flying in slow motion, as if he were trapped in a dream and physics wasn’t cooperating. Despite it only taking a few minutes, it seemed like a lifetime before he saw the mammoth buildings of Metropolis peeking up from the Earth and growing larger.
Lex let out an ungodly scream and Clark’s stomach dropped.
He raced through the air and finally reached the city. He hovered, momentarily lost, until Lex made another sound and his head whipped to the west side of the city.
Luthor was choking out little sobs and Clark frantically x-rayed the buildings once he narrowed down his “enemy’s” location to a single block.
What he saw on x-ray made his blood freeze in his veins. An unholy terror paused his breath in his lungs and tears sprang to his eyes. For a moment, he was stopped in place, hovering, mouth open, until he came to his senses.
Truth be told, he passed his senses.
He saw red.
Lex was being raped.
Luthor was naked, his pale marble-like skin marred with cuts and bruises. His arms were bound to a table that he was bent over, and a large man was behind him with his pants down around his knees.
Lex had been crying. There was a large knife sticking out of his left forearm. He was spread open and exposed.
He turned his head and with red, tear filled eyes, saw Superman hung in suspension, too shocked to move. A split second later, he watched the hero close his shocked mouth and a righteous anger overtake his expression.
Then Superman was no longer in the air.
In a blur of furious red and blue, Superman dashed down and into the abandoned apartment building where the atrocities were taking place.
With his full speed, he slammed into the guard with a machine gun. The man went flying clear across the room and when his head hit the opposite wall, it exploded like a watermelon.
Another guard tried to run and he caught him and punched him so hard that nothing was left of his head.
He screamed as he lifted a third, huge man, by the feet, swung him in a half circle and smashed him into the concrete floor.
Another man had made it to a doorway and Superman dragged him back into the room by his legs. The offender was begging and pleading, but he swung him up and over his head like a lasso and let go of his legs once he was aimed at a window. The beggar went crashing through a plate glass window and fell forty stories down.
All that was left was the man who’s erection had withered. He’d gone from raping Lex to scrambling to pull up his pants and boxers. He was white as a sheet and must have known that he was a dead man walking.
“H-hey,” he tried, hands up. He walked over to the side of the table and started undoing Lex’s handcuffs without looking. The metal clinked and Lex winced as the restrictive bracelets came off. He didn’t have enough strength to stand, so he slid to the end of the table and slumped to the floor, trying to catch his breath.
Superman’s eyes were glowing red. When he blinked, you could still see the red irises, like molten lava behind the lids. He glanced at Lex briefly to make sure he was (mostly) physically okay(ish), then he fixed his deadly stare on the rapist.
“Y-you’re not a m-murderer,” the man tried, but it was a weak argument considering the entire space was splattered in bone and muscle and brain matter. His words stuck to Superman the way water sticks to a duck. Clark didn’t even hear the words, didn’t even register them. He was too busy thinking of how he could make this rapist’s death slow and painful.
He zipped behind him and pushed him forward, then zipped in front of him and pushed him back. He punched him but controlled the hit so that it’d only be as hard as a human's. He kicked his knees out from underneath him and hit him again and again and again. Then he grabbed him by the legs and flew over to an exposed cement beam. He grabbed some steel chain that was lying on the ground and hung the man up by his feet.
With a squint, he was lighting him on fire.
Screams filled the room but all Superman did was turn his back to the man burning alive.
He took his cape off his back and wrapped it around Lex who was still slumped on the floor, his eyes wide with shock. He gathered Lex up in his arms and flew out the window that he’d chucked a human being out of just a few moments ago.
Lex shivered violently in his grasp and Superman only held him tighter. He could still hear his rapist’s screams as they flew away. Looking down, he saw the man who fell forty stories to his death.
Luthor swallowed dryly, unable to comprehend everything that had just taken place.
He had been violated in the most heinous way. If he had eaten recently he would have thrown up, but there was nothing in his stomach. His body hurt all over, especially in that most private place. Not to mention his left arm with a knife jutting out of it. It was a prostetic arm, but top of the line, which meant that he had full feeling in it. In short, he was bleeding profusely and the wind was wiping away the tears he hadn’t realized he was still crying.
He tucked his head into Superman’s chest and didn’t look up again until they landed on a rooftop adjacent to Metropolis General.
“No,” he choked out. “Take me home,” he stared up at his savior, shocked by the blood that splattered his hero’s face.
Superman looked down at him, his face stone, but Lex knew that just a whisper of a breeze, just the wrong words would crumble that stone facade to a thousand pieces. He could feel the Man of Steel being melted down by what he’d just witnessed - and he hadn’t even yet come to terms with what he’d just done. Absently Lex wondered if Superman even registered what he’d done.
They were airborne again and landing on Lex’s penthouse balcony in a matter of seconds. Superman stood, Lex in his arms, at the massive glass doors. Luthor didn’t even want to see his own reflection, he simply uttered, “open,” and the doors slid apart.
Clark wasn’t sure what to do.
“You need a doctor,” he said weakly.
“Can you just put me in my bedroom? It’s down the hall, last door on the left.”
Superman floated him there softly and laid him gently on the bed.
“Shit,” Lex closed his eyes with a huff. “My cellphone and wallet are…back there. I need my phone to call my doctor.”
Superman disappeared in a whoosh of air and returned just a few seconds after he’d gone. He was holding Lex’s phone, wallet and watch. He handed Lex the cell and set the other items down on the nightstand.
Luthor texted his doctor and then set his phone down on the bed next to him. He was still wrapped in Superman’s cape but was cold. He held it around him more tightly but shivered.
“Can I lay down next to you?” Superman asked timidly.
“Yes, please.”
Superman floated gracefully up and over and down and found himself unsure of what to do with his arms once he laid down. But then Lex curled into him. He hung on to his former enemy and tears slid down his blood splattered face.