The Mosaics of Men

by Mausaics

Summary:

When a(nother) Superman double starts wreaking havoc while playing heroes, very few are able to differentiate him from the original. Those in power are fooled: Belle Reve offers Anti-Superman expert Lex Luthor a conditional freedom in exchange for his help. Despite LuthorCorp's desperate need for some PR miracle, he's frustratingly picky with interviews—until he requests a specific reporter: The Daily Planet's Clark Kent.

Lex Luthor is doing it for the PR, he says; only came to him because of his badge of Superman's Favorite Reporter, he says. Nothing to do with their past.

Clark Kent tells Lois he's only agreeing so he can keep an eye on Luthor; totally not because, due to some weird i-spent-too-much-time-going-through-dimensional-rifts effect, Lex Luthor now looks too much like his childhood best friend for Clark to stay away.

Of course, they're probably lying.

Chapter 1

One would think that, with Lex Luthor locked behind the gates of Belle Reve, Superman’s reputation would get a break.

At least that was what Clark had optimistically assumed, but sharing the thought had resulted in the longest, loudest laugh he’d ever received, as well as a nice white shirt ruined by Lois spitting a mouthful of overly sweet coffee on it.

“A man with that much money and influence won’t let a few walls and guards stop him,” she’d said. “I bet he’ll be back at it within the year.”

“Maybe some time alone will have him reflect on himself and become a better person,” Clark had argued. “There’s good in him, Lois, I know there is.”

She’d only laughed harder. Fair enough.

A year later, all traces of laughter were gone from her voice, replaced by a harshness that hit him harder than Luthor’s clone ever could.

“What were you thinking?” she spat from her side of the phone.

“Okay, okay,” Clark began, feeling very much like he was attempting to talk a bomb into defusing itself, “I know I promised I’d get this article done yesterday and I’m so sorry for breaking that promise, but it’s barely past midnight and I swear I’m almost done—”

“You—what are you talking about?”

“My…interview? With Boravia’s new president, on his plan to defund the Boravian military and use the money for—”

“Clark.” Lois’ voice had lost its venom, but its heavy solemnity sufficed to shut him up. He imagined this was at this point she would stop pacing in her living room, perhaps even sat down and leaned forward, her eyes staring intently at the wall in front of her. “Are you home?”

“Yeah?”

Rustling of keys; a door slamming shut. “I’m on my way. I need you to promise me something, and I want you looking in my eyes as you do it—no bullshit, Smallville.”

“Okay,” Clark said, but she’d already hung up.

Her knocks boomed through his apartment until he opened the door, nearly receiving her knuckles in the process. Lois Lane was a tornado of a woman as she stormed into his place, stomping to the living room without a care for the water left by her mismatched boots or her absolutely drenched shirt.

“Darn it, Lois, you’re gonna catch a cold,” Clark said—her tendency to forgo greetings had proved itself contagious about a few weeks into their friendship. “I’m getting a towel—”

“Forget it, we have a bigger problem.”

“A warm shirt, then—”

“Drop it.”

 Clark threw his hands up and dropped on the nearest seat, rubbing the spot between his eyebrows. “Fine! Don’t count on me to play nurse for you when you get sick.”

“Yes you will,” she scoffed. “You’ll bring me soup and hot coco, and I’ll be nice enough not to tell you your hot coco sucks. But that’s not what I’m here for,” she continued, barreling through Clark’s soft It does? like she hadn’t just shifted his view of the world, and planted herself in front of him, shoulders tight and nostrils flaring. “Clark. Kal-El. Look at me and promise me you spent all evening here.”

“Well… not really? I, uh, I went out for some pizza, took a little walk before the rain started for a change of scenery when I got stuck on my article.”

“But that’s all. You didn’t go anywhere else. You didn’t, say, cross half the country to defeat one of those alien glowing things by sending it crashing into a series of buildings.”

“You mean an imp?”

“Clark,” Lois said, entirely unamused. He straightened in his seat. “Promise me that wasn’t you. Please.”

Though her chin remained as high and proud as always, her voice wobbled with a hint of something desperate and ugly, the first crack of a heartbreak. Clark rose from his seat and slowly, gently wrapped her hands in his as he looked into her eyes and said, “Lois, I promise you I didn’t leave Metropolis. I swear I didn’t fight any imp, or anything for that matter, and certainly not by throwing it at buildings.” He scrunched his nose. “That sounds risky. What about the people?”

Lois broke eye contact with a blink and a step backward. “Exactly.”

The cold, harshly bright light of a phone screen shoved in his poor eyes exhausted from hours looking at his laptop had him flinching away. “Jesus, Lois, you’re trying to blind me?”

“Read, Clark.”

One did not befriend Lois Lane without learning to unquestioningly obey orders; so, Clark read. The whole article. Read it again. And again. By the sixth read, his mind still refused to process the words and the insanity they carried.

“That’s bullshit. Maybe Luthor—”

“Still in Belle Reve,” Lois interrupted him. “I called. He isn’t allowed access to a television or any smart device; they’re not even letting him interact with other prisoners. I talked to multiple people and all swore all he’s doing these days is read classic literature then stare right into his room’s camera as he makes origami with the pages of those he didn’t enjoy. He had no way of organizing it or ordering it, which means someone else is behind it.”

Clark swallowed. The Ultraman fiasco had left him with no desire to repeat the experience. “Maybe he left a recipe or something—”

Lois scoffed. “A recipe? Like what, how to bake your own Superman clone in 10 easy steps?”

“Maybe, I don’t know! I just…” He wiped a hand across his face with a groan. “Lois, this is the second time within a year. Am I really so easy to clone?”

“I hope not,” she sighed. “Let’s start by stopping this one.”

As one, their gazes fell back to the phone screen proudly displaying the article SUPERMAN DESTROYS NEIGHBORHOOD IN FIGHT AGAINST ALIEN CREATURE; 53 CIVILIANS KILLED, 38 INJURED. Of all the photos accompanying it, only one of them showed more than the ruins left by the fight. No face had been caught, but the only slightly blurry dark blue suit followed by the trail of a red cape proudly displayed a symbol Clark was more than familiar with. He often carried it on his own chest, after all.

Yeah. All those deaths, this chaos—that’d been Superman’s work.

 

Things did not improve.

It took mere days for “Clark’s evil twin” (Lois’ words, not his) to ruin Superman’s reputation more than Luthor’s PR mess of his parents’ message. Clark’s attempts to communicate with him led nowhere, mostly because they never got to actually meet. The other was quick to finish his battles, too quick for Clark to have time to reach him before the fight had ended and his mysterious double had already left the scene. Clark never stayed long either. At first, once, he’d tried to help the first responders, but the fear and flinches he received from the victims had twisted his stomach so badly he’d ended up flying to the middle of nowhere to throw up until nothing but bile splattered on the grass. This time, even Lois couldn’t blame the public for being easily influenced: the video evidence was damning. The clone wore a similar suit, had dark hair and a strong built, achieved feats like flying and throwing cars around as easily as breathing—all while ruining homes, breaking bones and slaughtering a few dozen innocents in the process. Despite Luthor’s imprisonment, Clark’s money was still on the clone thing. The other had accessed the fortress; hadn’t destroyed the robots, but their account of his intrusion didn’t go beyond “he’s like you, but different”.

It probably wasn’t a good sign that Clark barely blinked at the news.

 

Weeks later, Clark was spinning in half-circles in his chair, staring unseeingly at his screen as the television above him shared yet another segment dedicated to how dangerous Superman had become. Had Luthor been allowed access to the public discourse, he certainly would’ve had the time of his life.

Or at least Clark assumed so. Once again, he was proven wrong.

“Wait!” Lois suddenly called out, her voice breaking through the fog of his misery. “Jimmy, shut up.”

She brandished the remote at the screen like a knight raising her sword in challenge and slammed the volume button. The TV immediately conceded defeat, right in time to fill Clark’s ears with a name he was too familiar with.

Lex Luthor.

The host’s question went in Clark’s ear and out the other as he focused on the screen, frantically searching for the man in question. Only a picture showed; an old one, from before Belle Reve, with audio waves at the bottom following Luthor’s voice.

“Fuck,” Lois groaned, slurping at her monstrosity of a coffee. “They released him.”

“Well… he does have like three years of experience fighting Superman,” Cat pointed out.

“Asking Lex Luthor for help with anything means asking for trouble,” Lois argued. “I’m sorry, am I the only one who remembers he—”

Clark tuned her out once the waves began moving. He’d been too distracted to hear the host’s question, but he swore his ears could’ve caught Lex Luthor’s quietest whisper in the middle of a cyclone.

“I have to correct you: I’m not going after Superman.” Luthor’s voice: somehow able to hit both cold condescendence and warm charisma all at once. The lack of visual of the man himself left Clark wondering if the rest of him had remained as unchanged. “Come on, you can’t seriously believe that thing out there is Superman. Alien, yes, and probably of the same kind, I’ll give you that! But it’s clearly a different one.”

“I… I’ll have to take your word for that,” the host laughed, one beat of silence too late for it to come off as genuine. “Anything you can share about how you plan on, let’s say, handle the threat?”

“Well, no,” Luthor chuckled. “Can you imagine? One TV-watching alien finding this channel at the right time and we’re all screwed. For now, all I can say is that I’m working on it. You know, I spent a year with very little to do except think: think about myself, the past, what my future could be, what I am known versus what I want to be remembered for… I’m a changed man. I made mistakes, and I’m both well aware and terribly sorry for them. I hope to gain Metropolis’ trust back one step at a time.”

Absolutely disgusting. Even faceless, Luthor’s charisma bled through the screen.

Lois turned her back to the screen with a scoff and lowered the volume before throwing the remote on some desk. “I don’t know what’s more frustrating: him having the audacity to say all this crap, or the fact people will eat it up.”

Clark shrugged. “Maybe he means it,” he said—mumbled, more like; even his optimism had its limits, and the words came out weak and quiet. No one heard them. It was probably better like that. He could only defend Luthor’s humanity and potential for goodness so many times before one of his colleagues gifted him another mug with the man’s face on it. He already had four of them collecting dust in his kitchen.

He returned his attention to his article. Lex Luthor, a changed man. As much as Clark wanted to believe in his redemption, Lois was probably right.

 

Down in the street, Clark paused in the middle of a frantic search for his keys—oh, right, here they were. There was a heartbeat coming from his apartment. It wasn’t Lois’. It sounded like… no, it couldn’t be. Had Luthor’s whole redemption skit only lasted a few hours?

He doubted the other man had figured out Superman’s identity, but words came to mind, spoken on the other side of a glass wall lit by a sickly green glow. Maybe I’ll kill Clark Kent. Maybe he should spend the night at Lois’.

Or maybe he could believe in Luthor’s goodness, in the hope that something remained from those teenage years. Either way, Luthor believed he—Clark Kent—was human. Kryptonite wouldn’t be necessary to kill him; the worst he could expect was a bullet.

With this strangely reassuring thought in mind, Clark turned the key in the lock and stepped into his apartment.

The heartbeat came from his living room. He did his very best imitation of a regular human guy casually returning home after a long shift—darn it, the shoes, the coat, the bag, why would he walk straight into his living room like this; quickly, everything where it belonged, now back to the living room—and kept his ears listening for any suspicious noise. No one else was there. Luthor’s heart beat calmly and confidently, yet lacked the happy jumps it usually slipped here and there during his confrontations against Superman. Perhaps he, in fact, wasn’t there to kill very-much-human Clark Kent.

Clark began loosening his tie and attempted a soft whistling, but choked on his hurry to cut himself off when the first note came out almost inhumanly loud.

A voice rose through his coughs. “About time. I was starting to think I’d gotten the address wrong.”

Clark turned the corner, stepped into his living room, and nearly ripped his tie into shreds.

There sat the bane of Superman’s existence, all soft and falsely harmless-looking in one of his shirts, wearing one of his pairs of shorts, closing his copy of Wuthering Heights. Blue eyes held no animosity when they locked onto his, though Clark quickly looked away, looked up, up, above the forehead, because he could now see hair. The face appeared softer from it, younger; young enough for Clark to be hit by memories of a time he often yearned to go back to, of years that had him sighing into the night when their haunting kept him awake by filling him with what-ifs.

“Hi Clark,” Lex said, like it hasn’t been a decade since he’d last deigned acknowledge his existence; like they were still having sleepovers at Clark’s every Friday.

Notes:

isn't it so silly how i wrote this like the “lex used to be my childhood friend :3” end is some crazy plot twist cliffhanger meanwhile it's literally in the tags AND the summary.

listen i know one of lex luthor's most recognizable traits is his baldness (and it's literally part of his villain origin story i'm not even kidding this man gained evil by losing his gingerness. i’m seeing nicholas hoult as i write him though so sorry ginger lex truthers but i will not be describing that) but i was searching so hard for something that'd give clark a Omg My Childhood Bestie whiplash on sight and He Has Hair Now is what i came up with. kinda fitting considering the friendship ended when that changed. idk guys WALK WITH ME!!!!

Chapter 2

Notes:

in true Superman (2025) fashion i am showing the relationship between clark kent and his love interest by a chapter filled with dialogue. so very punk rock of me.

Hi Clark , Lex had said.

The audacity. The nerve. The absolute cheek of him, to walk in uninvited and sit on Clark’s couch in Clark’sclothes, undoubtedly found from having searched through Clark’s bedroom, with utmost comfort as if he belonged there despite the decade of silence only broken by the occasional LuthorCorp disdainful statement regarding The Daily Planet’s unflattering articles on its CEO. Self-respect demanded Clark kick him out, or at least demand an apology before allowing his presence.

Memory, though, couldn’t bear the thought of seeing this vision of his childhood friend leave; one glimpse of his back walking away and Clark’s soft heart would’ve crumbled. So instead of some objectively understandable anger, Clark responded with, “Hey Lex. You look good.”

He truly did. Clark had always found him pretty (an understatement coming from a desperate attempt at saving some dignity after years of repressing a childhood crush the size of the sun; gorgeous would’ve been more accurate), even bald. Nothing could turn that man anything less than stunning, not with those cheekbones, that jawline, those lips, those insanely blue eyes—

Okay. Maybe Clark wasn’t all that good at repressing his childhood crush.

“I’d return the compliment, but it’d be a lie.” Lex uncrossed his legs and rose from his seat with a grace that would’ve fit his usual three-piece suits more than his patchwork of Clark’s gym shirt and pajama shorts. “Christ, Clark, don’t give me these kicked puppy eyes. I’m just saying those dark circles are deep.”

“I wasn’t—” Darn it; Clark was giving Lex raised eyebrows, round eyes and slightly pouty lips. He schooled his features back into something more controlled before continuing. “But yes, I am tired, and I’d love to go to bed soon if you don’t mind. So if you could please say whatever it is you came here to say then be on your way, that’d be great.”

Lex chuckled and ran a finger through the books on Clark’s shelves before replacing Wuthering Heights. Clark noticed he avoided touching Crime and Punishment, Jane Eyre and Frankenstein—all books he’d been given in Belle Reve, which he only remembered because he liked them a lot and had been deeply offended to learn from Lois that they’d been turned into a legion of swans and roses. “I’m not exactly here to talk.”

Maybe I’ll kill Clark Kent . Lex’s supposed change of heart hadn’t even lasted half a day. Disappointment settled heavy in Clark’s stomach. “Is that your idea of getting back at Superman? By killing me?”

“Killing you? Why would I ever—” Lex’s eyes left Clark’s for less than a second, but Clark’s enhanced sight caught it as well as if it’d lasted an entire hour. He’d never use the word flinch to describe anything Lex Luthor would do, but this came close. “Oh. He told you, didn’t he? No, Clark, I never considered killing you, and I’m certainly not here for it now. I was only bluffing.”

He didn’t remember hearing Lex’s heartbeat stutter as he’d delivered the threat; but then again, he’d been pretty weakened by the kryptonite, and maybe the lie had escaped his notice. He decided he could afford to grant him the benefit of the doubt: whatever the truth was, nothing Lex had planned for regular human Clark Kent could truly hurt him.

“Sure,” he sighed. “Then what are you here for?”

After a moment of quiet inspection of Clark’s library, Lex pulled a romance novel. Clark stepped forward, close enough to feel the heat of Lex’s body next to him, and pushed it back with a finger.

Lex scoffed. “Rude.”

“You won’t like that one.”

“What makes you so—oh, you have my book!”

“You’re stalling,” Clark accused him, partly so he wouldn’t have to admit he’d only used it as a paperweight so far. “Seriously, why are you here?”

Lex retreated from the shelves with a click of his tongue. “Because I just got out of prison after a year, my place is a mess, I have to wait through some slow and infuriatingly complicated legal proceeding to get it back—too complicated for you, I’ll spare you the details; it’s boring, anyway—and there’s probably half a dozen mercenaries playing snipers on the rooftops near it to satisfy whatever grudge they hold against me for what happened last year or to prevent something similar from happening.”

“Will it? Will something similar happen?”

Lex’s smile was joyless. “Of course not. You might not trust me, Clark, but trust the government; they didn’t let me go without ways to keep me on a leash. Obviously, that—” He gestured at an ankle monitor that Clark hadn’t noticed despite his bare legs, too distracted by his head full of hair. “—is only a decoy meant to reassure the public if I’m recognized while out. Yes, it is a functional one, and it does track me, but they have more effective means to control my moves than to merely track my location.”

Clark didn’t like the sound of that. He did a quick x-ray vision scan of Lex—something he should’ve done as soon as he’d seen him, and would’ve done it had he not been caught by such shocking nostalgia—and. Oh. Oh. Was that a bomb?

He swallowed. His mouth had turned suddenly dry. “Those means, are they… are they safe?”

Lex rolled his eyes. “Again, Clark, I have no intentions of killing or hurting you. What would I tell your mother?”

Ma’s face, should someone ever break the news to her that her beloved, only son had died… He nearly snapped. “Don’t joke about that.”

Clark had his grievances with Lex Luthor, obviously, but a bomb in his neck; a device set to kill his childhood friend with the mere push of a button; a tiny, small explosive to keep a human being, a person in check like some animal… Regardless of who it’d been given to, his whole being itched with the urge to grab Lex, fly him to the fortress and set his robots on the task of removing the offensive bug. He would’ve done it, had he not suspected Lex of throwing himself out of his arms and choosing a death by asphalt-splashing over being saved by Supershit.

(No, Lois, he was not still bitter about that one, shut up.)

“Lex,” he called, quietly, “what do you need?”

Lex finally, finally, set his eyes back into his. “Right now, a place to stay. Then, a reporter and an interview.” He paused; debated something. “Actually, not a reporter. You. It has to be you.”

Clark couldn’t stop a bitter chuckle. “I’ve been a reporter for years and you never let me interview you. What changed?”

“Uh, I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but after the… incident and with my absence, my reputation has been free falling for an entire year. My PR team is good, but even they can’t do miracles if I’m not there to give my name another topic for headlines.”

“Even with you back, I doubt people will easily forget how you funded a war.”

Lex snorted. “Please, Clark, like I’d ever let a foreign military use my weaponry. The weapons I sold were faulty, and I dare you to find even a single bullet that was fired from anything sent by LuthorCorp; from my side, the conflict was only a mean to expose Superman as the threat it is and get the government’s authorization to stop it.”

I should’ve let Krypto throw you around for at least five more minutes . “You want me to believe you spent years sending weapons that didn’t work and no one ever noticed?”

“They’re all fucking idiots,” Lex said bluntly and without heat, only the coldness of unemotional facts. “Their military built its hierarchy based on who rode Vasil Ghurkos’ cock with the most enthusiasm—don’t make that face, we’re both grown men—and they only ever fought unarmed, untrained civilians. Not a single one of them was competent enough to realize there was something wrong with their weapons and not just with their skills.”

Clark’s mind held onto the terrible ease with which Lex had said only ever fought unarmed civilians. He couldn’t tell if the dripping contempt in his voice had been about the men’s actions or merely their incompetency—it was well-known that Lex Luthor despised the latter no matter the situation—and decided maybe he didn’t want to know. “And you decided to publicly associate your company, your name, the work of your lifetime, with these people?”

“I’d hardly call basic weaponry the work of my lifetime,” Lex argued, as if that was the main issue. Then, he shrugged. “It was a means to an end, with the greater good in mind. Besides, much as I hate the alien, I knew it would never have let those innocent people die. To enslave and rule over a people, you do need them alive, you know.”

“Superman has no intention of doing anything like that,” Clark said. “He only wants to help.”

“So he claims,” Lex sighed. His hand went for a pocket that wasn’t there, and ended up sliding against Clark’s pajama shorts before lamely staying at his side. “You’re still so naïve, Clark. One day you’ll end up trusting the wrong person and your poor, gigantic heart will crumble from the realization that not everyone is as good as you believe them to be.”

“Don’t worry,” Clark said, eyes digging holes into the other. “I’m already well-aware of that.”

Lex blinked, then raised a hand in an imitation of a toast. “Touché,” he chuckled. “I handed you that one, didn’t I?”

This was where Clark should’ve kicked him out. Anyone would’ve; Lois certainly would’ve done so with a smile on her face. Shockingly, time hadn’t robbed him of his ability to tolerate Lex Luthor’s presence when most would’ve found him annoying.

Instead, he managed to limit his frustration to a sigh. “So you need me to interview you, okay. But what’s in it for me?”

Lex arched an eyebrow. “What do you mean?”

“It’s all about you,” Clark said. “The benefits, I mean. You get to send your side of the story—very probably filled with twisted truths carefully crafted by your PR team—and save face, all thanks to me, and I don’t know if that’s a responsibility I want. You’ve done some objectively terrible, immoral things. I’m not sure I want my name and work to help you save your name and your company’s, all so you can reclaim your power to hurt others.”

“No, no, I know all that,” Lex said, dismissing his protests with a wave of his hand. “Yes, I did expect your soft mushy heart to have an issue with the morals at play here, but you can’t seriously believe I’d be the only one gaining anything from it. You get to interview me, Lex Luthor, fallen from grace, unheard of for an entire year with the sole exception of a 3-minutes call on a news show that was less about me than about the government showing that somethingwas being done to deal with the alien threat.” He scratched at his nape, right over the device. Clark wondered if there was a scar there. “I don’t particularly enjoy being a puppet. I want some control over my PR.” His lips twitched. “Calm your pure heart, Kent. I’m not asking for a scripted interview either, just to at least get the choice of the reporter interviewing me.”

Clark’s brow furrowed. “I don’t get it. Of every reporter in Metropolis—in America, even—you chose me? After years of pretending I didn’t exist?”

“I chose Clark Kent, reporter from The Daily Planet, the one who gets all those interviews with Superman. That gives you credibility regarding Superman-related topics; if I get you to endorse a statement in which I swear I’m a changed man, one done targeting it and am entirely focusing on the new threat, people will believe it.”

“Might help to stop calling Superman an ‘it’,” Clark mumbled under his breath. “Really, if it’s about Superman’s interviews, Lois Lane—”

“Would never ever do this, let’s be honest. She’d laugh in my face, then tell me to get fucked.”

“Yeah, she does that a lot.” Clark coughed. “Uh, not the last part.” Not to him—never seriously, at least—but he couldn’t deny she’d absolutely do it to Lex. Might even add a slap to it, which he’d disapprove of, but wouldn’t be able to call undeserved.

“Clark! Come on,” Lex almost whined. “Think of the attention this would get! An interview with a public figure so known and hated, who spent a year off the spotlight and now refuses to be approached by any reporter but you! Hatred sells; so does mystery. You’ll sell more newspapers, get more likes, shares, clicks and whatever the fuck goes on with online articles than any of your work with the alien!”

Clark barked a bitter, disbelieving laugh. “So it’s about Superman. Even now, you’re seeing him as competition, trying to defeat him in some way.” Granted that defeating him in social media numbers was the most harmless anti-Superman plan Lex had ever come up with, but gosh did it sicken him to know the lengths to which the other would find a way to see him as the enemy.

Lex flopped back onto the couch, a hand resting comfortably over its back. “Who else could it be about?”

Me , Clark wanted to scream. Instead, he managed to turn on his heel and left the living room. He returned with a blanket and a pillow.

“If you don’t mind taking the couch, you can stay.”

Lex tracked his moves with an air that probably aimed for detached and uncaring, but something cracked through his mask; even if Clark hadn’t had his hearing to notice the hitch in his heartbeat, he would’ve caught the fleeting rubbing of his knuckles. He had no doubt the nervous habit would’ve gone unnoticed in the middle of a LuthorCorp board meeting, but here, faced with one who’d grown with him, it was no more subtle that if Lex had looked Clark in the eyes and loudly stated his discomfort. An uncharacteristic viciousness awoke in Clark. He hoped the thought of sleeping at his place brought back memories of frequent sleepovers, back when Lex slept in Clark’s bed more than his own; hoped this forced him to face the friendship he’d abandoned like it’d never really mattered.

But one blink later, Lex had regained his confident nonchalance. “You’re having a guest over and you’re not offering him the bed? Rude.”

Clark bit back a Maybe if you asked. Despite the years, he didn’t mind sharing a bed, not at all. He’d shared one with Lois on multiple occasions, when she didn’t want to be alone and wanted some warmth at her back and someone to cackle and snort with until way too late like two little kids. With the right person, being adult didn’t take away the magic of sleepovers.

Alas, this was Lex Luthor.

“You come to my place, after attacking my friend, and you ask for my bed? Be lucky I bothered digging through my closet for a blanket that fits your stupidly long legs instead of the dog’s quilt!”

Lex’s heartbeat hiccupped again. “You have a dog?”

Oh, come on. Krypto hadn’t hurt him that bad, had he?

“Uh—no, not really? He’s my cousin’s?” Why had it all sounded like questions, gosh, this was so terribly suspicious. “I just babysit him sometimes. Nice dog. He’s, erhm, calm and harmless. Totally. Yeah. But he won’t come over anytime soon, so…” Don’t worry? Don’t be scared? Stop looking at me like that one time you broke my father’s insanely ugly ceramic pig and I learned how much fear could fit in someone’s eyes?

Lex didn’t give him time to figure out what he wanted to say. “I was kidding. The couch’s fine.”

“There’s cold water in the fridge and ice cubes in the freezer if you get thirsty,” Clark said, remembering Lex’s grimaces every time he’d attempted to drink water straight from the tap—too lukewarm, he’d always said. “I—uh, I don’t really know how to say it, but—I don’t know what they fed you back there or how much, so if you get hungry, you can take whatever you want.” He hesitated, but ultimately offered, “I can make pancakes tomorrow if you want any. It’s Ma’s recipe. I don’t know if you remember—”

“I do,” Lex said, rolling his eyes. “It’s been years, not centuries. But there’s no need to bother; I don’t eat much of that sugary stuff anymore.”

—but they were your favorite.

“Oh. Uh, I have fruits if you want to make a smoothie, or—”

“Go to bed,” Lex interrupted him again. Really, that was getting both annoying and rude, had his parents never taught him—oh. Better not to go there, not when Lex looked like that, impossible to see as the manipulative and cold-hearted CEO Lex Luthor rather than his childhood best friend grown from child to man. “I’ll be fine, Clark. Thank you for letting me stay.”

His voice had grown quiet, soft. That was real. His presence wasn’t some step in a cartoonishly evil plan to take Superman down no matter the lives he’d have to risk or kill on the way; in that moment, he truly was merely a man in need of a safe place, and he’d decided that place was Clark’s. The things this did to Clark’s heart… he couldn’t word them.

Clark cleared his throat and fluffed the pillow, mostly so he could look away from the other. “Of course. Get some rest. We’ll figure out all that… interview stuff tomorrow. Good night.”

“Good night,” Lex said, already burrowing himself under the blanket. He didn’t sleep on his stomach anymore. Somehow, the sight bothered Clark.

He shoved those (stupid useless ridiculous) feelings away before he could fall too deep in them, but couldn’t resist stopping just shy of the two sliding doors leading into the hallway to his bedroom.

“For what it’s worth, despite everything that happened, I’m glad you came to me,” he said.

After he’d slid the doors shut behind him, only his enhanced hearing allowed him to catch the whispered So am I.

 

“And of course, you told him to get fucked.”

“Well…” Clark’s voice trailed off, high and awkward in his shame.

Lois groaned. When he’d woken up to find his apartment empty, he would’ve believed the previous evening to have been a dream had it not been for the folded blanket left on his couch. He’d taken Lex’s absence with a hint of worry, but also as an opportunity to call Lois. Unsurprisingly, she didn’t appear to like the idea of those exclusive interviews, no matter how good of a journalist she was—or perhaps because of it; while Clark had no doubt she’d ruthlessly murder Lex on paper and set his reputation’s remains on fire, his own approach was guaranteed to be softer, gentler. He knew she respected him both as a person and as a reporter, but also knew she believed Lex Luthor didn’t deserve anything soft or gentle.

“It’s a terrible, terrible idea,” she continued. He heard soft thumping as she emphasized every noise with a punch at something, probably a pillow. “I can’t believe he had the audacity to ask that of you—no, I can’t believe he even thought of it. Really, I almost admire his nerve.”

Clark laughed at that. “You have nothing to admire. If you’d been in his shoes, you wouldn’t have asked; you’d have demanded, and the other side would’ve yielded within the hour.”

“I’d never be in his shoes in the first place,” she said, but he could hear he’d pleased her. “Anyway, where’s the bastard now?”

“No idea,” Clark admitted. “He’s wearing an ankle monitor though, so don’t worry about him running away. Anyway, if we’re to believe what he said yesterday, he doesn’t really have anywhere else to go right now.”

Lois snorted. “If Lex Luthor told me fire is hot, I’d stick my hand into flames to double-check it myself. This brings us back to the issue: whatever he asks of you, don’t give it to him, even if it seems harmless right now. It’s Luthor; nothing he comes up with is ever harmless.”

 

“I don’t know… Wouldn’t it be useful to keep an eye on him?”

“The government is already doing that, Clark. Look, I know kindness is punk rock and all, and you believe that there’s good in everyone and probably that he deserves a second chance or something like that—”

“He does!” I know there’s good in him; I’ve seen it, he privately added.

“—but he’s Luthor. And you’re you. What will you do when your interview helps him gain back the public trust and he uses it to hurt others again?”

“That’s exactly what I told him!”

“Great, so you know it’s a shitty idea,” Lois concluded. “And you know you can’t do it. Clark, I…” A sigh. Silence. Clark waited for her to find the words. If she needed so much time to word whatever it was she wanted to say, then it was important. “I’m not just thinking about the others, you know. I’m also saying it for you. It’d break your heart, to think you’ve played a part in his scheme, that he couldn’t have done it without you. I—I like your kindness. I don’t want him to make you hate it.”

“I won’t let him,” Clark promised her.

“Right, because you’re not doing those interviews.”

He sighed. As much as he hated to admit it, Lois was right. “I suppose I’m not, no.”

“And you’re kicking him out the second he shows his little bald head back at your place.”

That was an entirely different matter, one Clark wasn’t certain he could agree with, but… “Sure,” he said, because it didn’t hurt to promise this when Lex wouldn’t show his bald head anytime soon. The power of semantics, or whatever.

He could almost see Lois’ squinted eyes. “That was easy,” she commented, her words muffled by the pen she’d just shoved between her teeth. “Almost too easy—”

The creaking of his apartment’s door saved him from breaking within seconds under Lois’ investigation. He threw a rushed Sorry, gotta go before hanging up, tossed his phone on the counter, and ran his hands through his hair with a sigh. He had mere seconds—possibly minutes if the other accepted his offer of breakfast and allowed him to stall—to figure out how to reject Lex’s request, and gosh, he’d never been good at telling him no.

Lex walked into the kitchen in the same clothes he’d been wearing to bed, though now covered with dark patches, and an old faded baseball cap. Sweat pearled at his hairline and shined on his cheekbones. He walked past Clark with a breathless Hi and plucked an apple from the fruit bowl.

“Where were you?”

Lex snorted. “Relax, mom. I was taking a run around the park two blocks away. Didn’t think I needed your permission to enjoy the fresh air and the sun’s warmth; you know, what I spent a year without.”

Clark only felt bad for half a second before annoyance took over. “You’re trying to guilt trip me.”

“Not really,” Lex admitted. “I knew you’d see through it.” He distractedly ran his apple under water, eyes on a brand new phone that Clark knew to have been released only a few months ago, due to an event he’d attended for The Daily Planet.

“I thought Belle Reve kept you away from technology.”

“And other inmates,” Lex confirmed. “Said it was for my own safety—I am, after all, terribly skinny, fragile and so boringly human compared to most of these brutes—but I think it was also out of fear I’d talk them into a riot.” He waved the phone. “I met Angela at the park so she could give me this. I’m currently attempting to convince her to swing by and bring me actually decent clothes.” He raised the phone to his mouth, pressed on the screen, and, in a voice whiny enough to rival toddlers, begged Pleasepleasepleasepleasepleasepleaseplease.

All right. Clark chose to ignore that part. “What’s wrong with my clo—wait, how did you get in touch with Angela?”

“Exellent question!” Lex crossed his arms and tapped his chin with his phone. “Let’s see. I have her number… you have a phone… Come on, that’s not rocket science.”

“My phone’s locked.”

Lex shrugged. He dropped his phone onto the counter to rub the water off his apple. “Last two digits of your father’s birth year, then your mom’s, then yours.”

“Well now I have to change it,” Clark sighed, thinking of—

“To the date of their marriage,” Lex guessed. He’d guessed right. “But now that I guessed that one, you’re thinking of the date of your first front page at The Daily Planet.”

“Uhm, no,” Clark said, though he’d been hesitating between that and switching his part of his current password for Lois’ birthyear—darn it, he totally would’ve ended up choosing the front page’s anniversary.

“You so are,” Lex said. He draped himself over the back of a chair, biting into his apple. Despite some determined slurping, a thin trail of juice rolled down his chin. Clark’s ears burned when he realized his eyes had been following it.

“I can’t,” he blurted out. “The interviews. I can’t do it.”

Lex chewed. And chewed. And swallowed, and took another bite, and kept chewing, never looking away from Clark. At this angle, he had to look at him from under his eyelashes, yet his silence had Clark feeling small.

“Okay,” he eventually said. “Why?”

“Because…” There was so much he could say. Too much. “You’re you.”

That summed it up pretty well.

Lex nodded. He gave his apple’s stem a twist for each of his words. “I see. And you’re you, obviously. Not really a good mix.” His stem broke off. He let it fall onto the table.

It used to be.

“Should I leave?”

Clark’s throat tightened at the thought of it, at the inevitability of it. He had to. Lex had to leave, or else he’d break and would end up giving him what he wanted. He couldn’t stay around him and stick to his refusal, not when he looked like that.

“I don’t want to kick you out,” he answered carefully. “But if there’s any other safe place you could go to, I think… I think that’d be for the best. I’m sorry.”

Lex pulled the chair and dropped himself on it, still munching his apple. “Huh,” he said, finally looking away. “You really are. Many would think it’s only what I deserve; don’t you?”

“I don’t care about others. What I think you deserve is a second chance,” Clark said, folding his arms as he leaned against his counter. “But I can’t trust it’s truly what you want.”

Lex crossed his legs in a show of such blatantly practiced sass that Clark couldn’t find it genuine. Had it been real, he would’ve placed his feet on the table, like he did when he was at his parents’ place, or when he wanted to make Ma laugh and call him a rascal. “You know, I expected those years to make you boring. I’m glad to see I was wrong; your mind is as fascinating as ever, so hopeful in the good of others it gets naïve.”

Despite the harsh words, Lex’s voice had been filled with something closer to wonder and amazement than contempt and derision. Clark doubted he’d seen the resemblance between him and the mindset Lex mocked so harshly when coming from Superman.

“Anyway, if that’s all right with you, I’d like to take a shower and borrow some clean clothes before leaving.”

Leaving. Lex was leaving, stepping out of Clark’s life, again.

“How did you know?” he blurted out. “That the one everyone calls Superman isn’t actually him? Back on that show, you acted like it’s so obvious.”

Even Lois had been fooled. It’d only lasted mere minutes, of course, and she’d found it uncharacteristic of him, but she’d still believed it. Lex had laughed the assumption off like he’d never heard something so ridiculous, like he hadn’t believed it for even a second.

“Isn’t it?” Lex said. “What, did you think they were the same?”

“That’s different,” Clark said, avoiding the question. Would Clark Kent, merely Superman’s media contact, have been fooled? “It took you three years to actually meet him face to face, and even if we combine all of it, your time together amounts to less than half an hour. How could you know this, this… this mess isn’t his?”

Lex refused to meet his eyes. “I just did.”

“Come on, don’t be like that! Give me something.”

For a moment, Clark worried Lex would slip his fingers through that crack of weakness, bargain for an interview in exchange of his answer. As such, it was troubling, really, when Lex missed this blatant opportunity.

“Fine.” Lex left his thoroughly gnawed-on apple core on the table to start raising fingers. “For starters, this one understands the meaning of under wear. Its suit is more grey than blue, and either extremely tight or padded for muscle definition in a show of vanity that the actual Superman, for all the flaws I can give it, has never demonstrated. That absolutely horrendous hairline doesn’t compare—”

“Okay, okay, I get it,” Clark stopped him, feeling vaguely disappointed. Whatever he’d been looking for, it wasn’t yet another proof of Lex Luthor’s obsession with Superman.

“You were the one pushing me to give you something!” At that, Lex’s eyes returned to his. “So, you have it now. That’s how I knew.”

That’s how I knew . At those last words, his heartbeat, that’d lulled Clark’s ears with a sure and steady thumping ever since the previous night, increased.

Lois was going to hate him.

“Lex.” Clark stepped away from the counter to sit in front of his old friend, elbows on the table and fingers interlaced to point at the other. “Why are you doing this? Why would you of all people argue in defense of Superman instead of using this as an opportunity to take him down by, I don’t know, create another message from his planet—”

Lex’s shoulders jumped to his ears. “The message was not my creation,” he snarled. “I don’t care what the media reported after Eve exposed me, I did not fake it. We can debate over its thoughts regarding those words and the possibility of it truly knowing nothing of it before I revealed it to the world, but its parents did intend for it to rule over humankind.”

“Humankind,” Clark echoed. “Those same lives that you have no problem endangering for the sake of your own agenda. Before your complot with Boravia, you limited it to property damage—”

“That I paid for in donations largely exceeding the value of what I’d destroyed,” Lex pointed out.

“—but Jarhanpur proved you’re able to cross a line. And I can’t help but worry that this second chance will only end the same.”

Lex rose from his chair. Even in shorts and a sweaty shirt, he managed to give a lion-like royalty to his pacing as he gesticulated with frantic, trembling hands. “Boravia was a mistake, yes, I’ll admit that! Yes, I got emotional and I let my frustration blind me and I fell for the trap of a possibility to get Superman exactly where I wanted him to be—” A vein bulged on his neck. He was blinking rapidly, eyes snapping back at Clark every few words only to dart away just as quickly. “—and yes, I should’ve been better, but it won’t happen again!”

Clark shot up from his seat with absolutely none of the graceful rage Lex had shown, not when his own anger was tainted with disappointment and hurt. “You can’t make ‘mistakes’ like this, Lex! You have power; you’re rich, you’re influential, you build and sell weapons—one mistake of yours can end lives; you don’t get to play with that risk, no matter the end goal. And you don’t get to even use the word when that is not what you did. It wasn’t a mistake when you chose to create that pocket reality and imprison others in it, kill in it, it was a choice! A choice you made several times!”

His words had turned the tip of Lex’s ears red and brought to his eyes a look Clark couldn’t decipher. Anger? Shame? Hatred? That hadn’t been how he’d looked at Superman that one day, but he’d also never looked at Clark this way.

“You think I want to kick you out? To watch you walk away from me again, this time knowing it’ll be years before you deign to speak to me again? Darn it, Lex, I’d love to help you. From a personal and a professional point of view, I’d love to spend nights coming up with questions then afternoons sitting down with you and receiving answers that’ll blow my mind from the witty genius of yours; but whatever your end goal is this time, I can’t risk helping you. I can’t give you these interviews and revive your influence only for you to use it to hurt others again! I don’t care about Superman, the guy can handle himself.” Mostly. “But I can’t have you ruining hum—civilian lives thanks to me. That is why I have to refuse and send you away.” He stretched a hand, slammed his palm against a wall for his arm to interrupt Lex’s pacing as the other nearly bumped into it. “So please, give me a reason why I wouldn’t.”

Rather than stepping away, Lex rested a shoulder against the wall, so close to Clark’s hand his fingertips brushed against a patch of drying sweat, and leaned even closer, invading what little private space Clark had left between them.

“Because I swear to you, Clark Kent, that I am both well-intentioned and not fucking stupid. My freedom relies on my help against the alien threat. Working on that would be much easier if the people trusted me. There’s no secret evil scheme this time, not when this alien leaves destruction and death behind it every single time it appears and has thwarted our every attempt to stop it with terrifying ease. Looking at everything it’s done so far, I think it’s not far-fetched to say we might be looking at Superman’s alien kin more receptive to its parents’ message, and I’m—” He interrupted himself with a choked cough. “People are dying. I truly only want to help.”

Steady heartbeat. Clark’s eyes lingered on the device under Lex’s skin. Maybe he didn’t have to stand on guard, not with a bomb already doing it for him.

“Then I’ll help you,” he heard himself saying. “I’ll do the interviews, but not only that. I’m familiar with Superman in a way you’re not; maybe that knowledge could be useful against his evil double.”

Time seemed to stretch as Lex stared, face impassive and eyes cold. Then, he grinned. Proximity made it so the small puff of air from his chuckle ruffled the curls on Clark’s forehead. “I’m sure I can find a way. Glad to work with you again, Kent.”

Clark smiled back. “Oh, it’s not just me. In fact, I have an entire team in mind.” He stepped away, kind enough to pretend not to notice the way Lex chased after him for a quick second before catching himself. “I’ll get you some other clothes; shower, change, then we’ll meet with them.”

Lex snorted. “I don’t think the Justice Gang will be overjoyed at the news.”

“Not quite who I was thinking of,” Clark said, then patted Lex’s shoulder.

Forget hating him; Lois was going to kill him.

Notes:

sorry for the delay, guys! i never wanted to leave y'all hanging like that (especially after so many kudos, hits and absolutely lovely comments in such short time oh god you all made me so happy <3) but i spent the weekend at an artist booth at otakuthon and oh it was EXHAUSTING. hopefully this longer update will compensate for the wait. this being said, I'LL BE AT FAN EXPO TORONTO NEXT WEEKEND!! anyone else going? i'll give my stand's number if anyone's interested (might do a little something special for people who come to me saying they're from this fic hehe <3)

you probably noticed i've yet to describe lex's hair color. bestie babes, a most important question needs to be answered... which one are we fw the most: brunet lex or blond lex? i'm so sorry my beloved gingex-truthers i'm not putting "ginger nicholas hoult" into the universe <3

yes, i did add smut tags!! i always planned on writing some, but i was hesitating between putting those scenes in this fic or making it a series and publishing them separately (while still having them be in this universe). i've decided to keep the smut in the fic, but to add warnings in the beginning's notes including how to skip it (ex: "smut starts at XYZ line and ends at ABC line") and to add a summary in the end's notes for what happened regarding their relationship in it (ex: if one of them said ily or something like that). hope that's okay with everyone!!