Tightly Controlled

Title: Tightly Controlled
Author: April/apeygirl/TheAmazingApe
Request: For the Secret Chlark gift exchange. Lex, Alternate Universe, Something short -- with no Lois or Chlollie or post S8
Rating: R
Warnings: spoilers up to season six and part of season seven's premiere, AU after. Lex got Chloe after the morgue. No Kara involved.
Summary: One-shot. Chlark with Lex POV. AU after season six. Lex successfully kidnaps Chloe to a secret facility... with motives deeper than just snagging another metoer freak.
A/N: TwistedLyn wanted Chlark with Lex involved, either happy or tragic without Lois or Chlollie or season eight. I hope I have delivered to her satisfaction.




It was the waiting that killed him. Not the watching. The watching, there was something strangely thrilling about. Getting that peek into her inner life. Testing reactions to stimuli. It was all so interesting.

Week One was all about deprivation, darkness, the absence of stimuli. it was the same with every mutant, really. Stick them in a dark room, let them wake up and panic, watch them yell for help, watch them give up and cry. Then, rarely, watch them try to fight.

Chloe was one of the rare ones. He'd smiled secretly as he watched her. Somehow, he knew she would be. He'd seen her in action for years. He knew her tenacity. He'd even hid her for months when his father wanted nothing more than to silence the threat she represented. He knew the girl then. He supposed he was getting to know the mutant now.

Then again, she'd probably been the mutant even then, all along. His scientists, on initial examination after retrieving her from the morgue, said that there were heavy concentrations of meteor rock inside her, but that it had been previously dormant. So maybe that had no real hold over her actions, but they were still fascinatingly irregular.

She'd screamed for five minutes, cried for bare seconds, and was suddenly tearing strips from her hospital gown, testing their strength, tying them together, winding them around her own neck before holding them out and tugging each end. tightening until the fabric snapped into a straight line.

He pitied whatever wrangler he had to send in for her nightly sedation, though not enough to give heads up. Of course, the sedation might be unnecessary. He knew what she could do. It was almost anti-climactic. Despite the fact that Chloe Sullivan was now somewhere above or beneath human, he knew there was no reason to keep her here... save one.

He would come for her. It was only a question of when. So Lex waited and watched and wondered if he was doing the same, somewhere out there.

Lex nearly smiled when the barrel-chested orderly pushed into the room, the door staying, strangely enough, open behind him, then stopped in the middle, turning this way and that. Jackson, Lex's head of security, twitched beside him as she jumped on the man, winding her make-shift noose around his neck and pulling him back toward the door.

"No. Wait," Lex said, stilling Jackson. He watched as she pulled the man toward the door as he tried to grasp at her behind him even as his motions weakened with the lack of air. Lex leaned forward, wondering if Sullivan would go so far as to kill him. That would certainly justify keeping her around. But she didn't. She just stopped the door with her foot and tried to edge it open, trying to drag the weakening man through it. She let him go, then, pulling the door shut against his torso.

His other cameras caught her running down the hall, then, paper-thin gown dancing around her as she tried door after door, finding them all closed to her.

"Sir, we can't just let her..."

"Wait," Lex growled. He had no idea what he was waiting for, but something, anything to tell him that all the effort to have her wasn't a waste of his time. He suspected it might be. A fucking healer. She was no danger and she was no use. Had he really just wasted countless man-hours on her?

She slapped her hands on the wall. "Somebody! Please!"

"Fuck it," he groaned. "Get her back in."

He watched her sink down the wall beside the last door, sobbing, as Jackson radioed in, telling the guards to surround and sedate. He watched as they pushed open the door, watched her back down the hall as she seemed to try to shrink into nothingness.

Nothing. That's what she was. Nothing to him now. Maybe he should just turn her out. She could be one of those crazies that claimed they were abducted and put in white rooms and experimented on. She could run a conspiracy theory web site. God knew, he'd set quite a few of those loose on the world in his more merciful moments. Poor little mutants with powers that couldn't hurt a fly (or be harnessed for the betterment of man). Best to just break them and let them go. Maybe Sullivan was no better.

"No!" She screamed as she looked behind her, saw the men closing in on the other end of the hall. "Clark," she cried out. 

Lex nearly jumped toward the monitor, then. 

She shrunk toward the wall, looking to either side of her, then sobbing his name. "Clark!"

Lex fumbled for his radio, signalling Jackson. "Sedate her and report back to me." He watched as the men crowded in on her crumpling form. "There's been a change of plans."

*******************************

Week Two was supposed to be about integration. Lex wasn't insane. He knew that those mutants that were the least dangerous, the least psychotic, needed something more than a dark room to keep them compliant. He'd give them that bit of a nod to the humanity they once possessed... in a highly supervised way. They could take meals together in the commissary. They could have exercise in the yards. Read in the library. They could, under the watchful eye of his guards and in tightly controlled groups and with a healthy dose of lead in their systems (something he'd picked up from the ex-doctors of one Alicia Baker), have all the pleasures of life.

But not her. Not yet. Still, he thought he'd given her something special all on her own.

Because Chloe was special. She was different. He suspected she would be. She would bring him in. He'd been dancing for years around the mystery that was Clark Kent. He'd thought, in drawing Lana in, that he'd struck to the heart of Clark. But he'd had it wrong. He knew that now. Hell, he even married the little sociopath and Clark had been unchanged. It was a messy affair, too, with her now "dead" and him having to get out of the "murder." Very ineffectual, in the end. He had to make it count this time. He had to hit Clark where he lived. He had to take the thing he couldn't do without. It was stupid of him, thinking it was Lana. Lana wasn't something Clark needed. Lana was something he wanted. Or maybe only thought he wanted. Lana was the prettiest girl in town. Lana, Clark could almost only look at through a telescope for years. Lana was an idea, a whim, a fantasy. The reality was Chloe. Chloe, who he spent the better part of every day with.

Chloe was the kind of girl a man needed. Just on her skill sets alone, she could prove indispensable. But Lex knew what Clark didn't yet realize. Chloe was more than that to Clark. She had to be. He didn't think Clark had gone a day without her from the age of thirteen on, save when she'd been "dead" in about the same way his poor little wife was. There was something to her. Something almost... inspiring. He'd nearly been drawn in, himself. Late night talks as they plotted Lionel's downfall had shown him she didn't just want some petty revenge. Chloe was a girl... or really a woman... with high ideals. He'd listened with fascination as she'd paced the room, quoting Donne and Shakespeare and going on and on about justice and truth and integrity. He'd been impressed, but unmoved, himself. As a man living in a world of freaks and possible aliens, he knew she was imagining black and white in a virtual sea of gray. But it was just the kind of childish, idealistic thinking that Clark might get behind. They had been friends all these years, after all. He could see Clark listening to her little rampages and feeling drawn in. Hell, he must have.

He was convinced. Have Chloe? Get Clark. So what did he do?

He gave her a new set of rooms. The best ones. More like a luxury suite than the hole he'd had her in before. He'd almost hoped she'd be grateful, or at least docile. But maybe that was too much to hope.

He'd had her feed sent to his office and his home. After all, he couldn't be expected to be at the facility day and night. How was supposed to finance these ventures? Sullivan made it rather expensive all on her own as she'd trashed the place on her first day.

"Luthor!" She upended a table. "I know it's one of you! Which one, huh?" 

He was slightly offended. It wasn't like there weren't other entities that might have reasons to contain mutants like her. The government certainly had its own stake in controlling...

"Who else?" she growled, grabbing a vase from the nightstand and hurling it against the wall. "Seriously, who the fuck else would try this? You think this changes anything?" She leaned over the bed, tearing at the luxurious bedding, throwing it this way and that. "Damn it, you come face me!" She moved to the bookshelf, shoving them off by the row before trying vainly to pull the shelf off the wall.

"It's bolted in," he pointed out helpfully, though she couldn't hear. Not that he'd let her hear him. If he decided to let her go, it would be without a shred of proof to implicate him. Silly girl. This was nothing more than a tantrum, so he called in to still his men and let it happen. He watched her childish histrionics, which ended, rather amusingly, in her trying to rip up the lush down comforter, then falling into sobs with feathers floating around her.

She moved to the window, then, hanging on the bars and sobbing before she stiffened and backed away, wiping her face, moving to the center of the room, shaking slightly as she glanced around her.

"Listen to me," she said loudly. "Whatever it is you're thinking of doing, don't. I shouldn't have... I was scared. I panicked. But I'm alright. Please, listen to me. Please, don't." She started to the window again, then backed away, sinking to the floor, wincing at what he knew were several hundred dollars worth of broken glass boring into her skin. "Please, please don't." 

Lex stared at the monitor, wondering what she thought he was going to do. There was something strange about her words, something in the tone, so abruptly changed that he wondered if she was speaking to him at all. Had she just snapped? 

He sent them in then, when she was weak as a kitten, to sedate her and tidy up the mess she'd made of the room and herself. It was all her own fault. The next day, she had rougher, more utilitarian bedding, paper cups and plates, and no books. Maybe he'd give them back if she behaved herself or, at the least, gave him something worth rewarding.

It didn't seem she would, however. She slept and ate and only reluctantly used the toilet, draping a towel over her lap and glaring around her as if searching out a camera. Needless to say, she absolutely refused to shower for days. Then, on the fourth, he caught her dragging a chair into the bathroom and draping her blankets and sheets over the glass shower doors. He supposed she thought she was pretty clever. He let her have that victory and didn't access the feed that came from the shower's fixtures. But he knew he could and that was all that mattered.

Yes. Everything was tightly controlled. But to what end? What had any of this brought him? One less reporter on the streets? He supposed that was an end unto itself, but not one to waste his best suite and his best video feed and hours of watching a woman who hardly spoke except for that same crazed rambling. "Don't do it. If you hear me, don't. Just don't..." and so on. Really, he didn't know what she was so bothered about. Nobody had touched her save to deliver meals and nightly sedation, both of which she seemed resigned to accepting. Maybe she was just going insane. Toward the end of that week, he needed to figure out what to do with her. Watching her seemed useless. Not that he could stop.

And that was just the problem. He was getting damn little done with the possibility of her doing something lingering over him day and night.

He was just trying to decide whether to allow her to socialize with the others or turn her out before she found some way to implicate him in all this when a harried voice sounded out over his intercom.

"Sir. Clark Kent's truck is coming up the drive. You said to notify you if..."

He pressed the call button. "I know what I said." He allowed himself a small smile. He'd been waiting for this. "Ask him to state his business."

"Yes, Sir. Please exit your vehicle and... Hey! You can't just..." There was a crash and a metallic whine and a series of shouts and bangs.

He pressed the button. "Peters?"

More shouting and a squealing noise. 

"Peters, what the hell is going on down there?"

"He just drove right through the gate, Sir. He might be armed." There was a loud beep. "Second Team, Copy. There is an intruder heading to the castle dragging half the damned gate with him. Surround Mr. Luthor. Make sure he doesn't get..."

Lex backed away from the desk as the orders went back and forth, his smile officially wiped away. The fact is, he hadn't considered all angles. He'd seen this moment as a clear triumph and never thought of Clark Kent as dangerous. Sure, he knew there was something different, maybe even feared him in an abstract way. But most of him still saw a farm boy with a goofy grin and a tendency to preach. He resented him, but he'd never been truly afraid until now.

He moved to the window and damned near pressed his face to the pane as Clark's truck lumbered in, badly damaged and dragging half his gate as Peters had said. He held his breath as Clark jumped out and... just stood there. The guards rushed out and he put his hands up, his face turning upwards and toward Lex.

"You better let them take me to you, Lex!" he yelled. "Because you're about to get exactly what you want!"

*******************

Lex clutched his gun in his lap as Clark was marched in, five armed men behind him, wondering if it would be any use. Wondering if the men would be any use. He saw Clark's truck and he saw Clark. One of them didn't have a scratch.

"Send them out," he barked, as if he were in control. Lex had the sinking feeling he might be. "Or I don't give you a thing."

Lex narrowed his eyes, but didn't motion to the guards. "You seem to have some idea you have something I want."

"Because I do," he said, his eyes hard and cold. "The truth. For six years, you've wanted it and you don't get it with an audience."

He sat up straighter, still clutching his gun, and swallowed hard. "Very well." He nodded at his men. "Wait outside." He gave Clark a tight smile as they filed out, still training their guns on him. "Good enough?"

"It has to be." He moved forward, slowly though. "You satisfied now?"

Lex chuckled darkly and shook his head. "Clark, I have the feeling I'll never be satisfied. Now what could possibly be the meaning of this?" He leaned back and forced a benign smile. "Usually, you manage to come in here and accuse me of whatever imaginary offense without destroying my estate."

Clark only stared at him for a long time... then longer. "Are we done?"

"Done?"

"I'm not dancing around this anymore, Lex. Let's just have it out. Now." Clark suddenly lunged at Lex's thick glass desktop.

Lex jumped back, grappling with his gun and backing to the wall as Clark fell on it, smashing right through it, bringing Lex's computer and phone crashing on top of him amid the shards. He stood back, trembling, wondering if Clark had stumbled and wrecked himself before he saw, outright saw him now, get up and shake himself off.

"Doesn't even hurt," Clark said as glass tinkled to the floor in tiny clashes. "But you knew that."

"Sir!" The door handle turned.

"It's alright," Lex called out, his eyes widening on Clark. Yes. He knew. He'd tried to call it a suspicion, but he knew. But seeing it...

"Want to try that gun?" Clark growled, stepping over the rubble and backing him against the wall.

"I don't..."

Clark grasped it in his hands, put it to his chest. "Shoot me!"

"I don't know what you're trying to prove, Cla..."

"Just do it!" He tightened Lex's limp fingers on the trigger, then squeezed. The report was loud, ringing in Lex's ears. But he saw it. He saw the bullet slide from under Clark's T-shirt, flattened, to the floor.

"Guards?" he choked, then took a bigger breath.

"Don't bother. They can't hurt me. But why call them?" He gripped Lex's shirt and shook him. "Do you think I'm going to kill you, Lex? I came here to give you what you wanted. So take it!"

"Sir!" The door rattled again.

He eyed Clark shrewdly. "Damn it, don't you dare come in here," he called out.

"You want to know Lex?" Clark backed away, moving to the ruins of his desk. He picked up the torn cord that had once gone to Lex's computer. "Do you want to know how I always get into your house?" He pressed the cord to his chest. Lights flickered, currents flashed and ran and burned holes in his shirt, but he still stood and pulled the cord away. "An electric fence is not going to stop me." He dropped it and moved up the stairs to the second level of the study. "You want to know how I survived that car crash?" He threw himself off, making a heavy dent in the floor, but getting to his feet, all the same. "Not even a scrape," he rasped, brushing splinters off him. "So now you know."

Lex sagged against the wall, dropping his useless gun. "And what do I know?" This felt like the moment, felt like all he'd wanted, but... Damn. It felt less than he imagined, somehow. Things like that usually did, but still...

Clark stared at him for long moment before he spoke. "You know what I am. A... a meteor freak," Clark choked out. "I'm... I'm one that can't be hurt. That's better, isn't it? Better than her. So let her go."

He felt himself perk up, then managed a shrug. "I'm at a loss, Clark. Let who go from wh..."

Clark moved closer and Lex was ashamed of how noticeably he flinched. "Chloe, Lex. You have no reason to keep her."

He widened his eyes and stood back, knowing Clark had an idea, but wanting to draw this out. It wasn't every day a man got all he wanted. He wanted it to measure up. Even though it wasn't so far, maybe it could. "Chloe's missing?"

"Don't you dare..."

"If she's been taken, maybe there's a good reason. She's a meteor mutant, Clark. She might..."

"What?" Clark gripped his collar again. "Heal too many people?"

"Do all of you freaks just know?" Lex sneered

"Stop it, Lex. You know you have no reason to keep her. Take me!"

Lex shook with the hands fastened to his lapels. Yes. He wanted Clark.

Clark let him go and stepped back, nodding his head backward to the doors. "You know they can't hurt a... a freak like me. You'll never take me down. I'll go willingly if you just... just let her go."

**************************************

Week Three was supposed to be about stimuli and repsonse. Rorschach, electro-shock, hydro-therapy, IQ tests, behavior modification. Methods both mental and physical, old-fashoned and modern. Then he tested their limits. He liked to taylor everything to the person. For Chloe, he should have been having her heal paper cuts and quickly inflicted gashes to start. For Clark... maybe put him against a wall and see how many cars crashed into him before they left a bruise. He supposed he'd get there. But, for now, he'd keep watch. There was more to see. 

So he tossed him in there with her. 

That wasn't the deal, of course. But he found Clark amenable to compromise when he told him that Chloe Sullivan, wherever she may be, would probably only know freedom after Clark proved himself fully cooperative first. Clark didn't seem too fussed about changing the terms. But he made Lex promise to take him right to her. That wasn't even a question. Of course, he would. What else would he do with him?

But Clark was a fool if he thought Lex would just let her go. What leverage would he have, then? Against the man that couldn't be physically hurt?

But there was more to it than that. He felt strangely dissatisfied. So Clark was a freak. So was half the county, especially after the second meteor shower. And, speaking of that, there were holes. Sure, he now knew the mystery behind the car crash, but what about the caves? What about the Yukon and Chloe's strange appearance there? Maybe these things weren't about Clark alone. He had theories ranging from secret freak meetings to hive minds. The only thing he knew for sure was there was more. He'd find out more from Chloe and Clark, from what they said and didn't say. Between the two of them, they always seemed to be at the center of it all. One or the other had fucked up everything her ever tried to do and he damned well wanted to know why, how, and what the fuck made them so special.

So he made sure he was there to watch the monitors from the minute the doors closed behind Clark Kent. 

Chloe had been half-asleep, not sedated yet as it was mid-afternoon, but sleeping was something she did more and more these days. It was getting fucking tiresome. But she was awake now. She nearly shot right out of bed when she saw him. Then she just threw herself right at him. Not surprising, from what Lex knew of her history of doing just that. She wound her arms around his neck and sobbed loudly into his shirt.

He frowned at that. Clark shouldn't have had his clothes on by now. Sure, he'd had him pat down for weapons, but he should be in a hospital gown after having been checked over by his doctors. That was the way it should go. But Clark had been so insistent about being taken right to Chloe that Lex had seen no way out of capitulating. It would be best to have him near Chloe so Lex could use her to keep him cooperative. He'd seen what Clark could survive up close now. He was sure none of his men could stop him leaving if he...

"Fucking hell," he breathed. What was to stop him now? He could leave this second. With Chloe. And Lex just took him right to her!

"Sir?"

He waved Jackson off and swallowed hard. That was ridiculous. Sure, Clark couldn't be hurt. But he could hardly break through metal and concrete with no leverage or height. "Nothing," he turned to his technician. "What's she saying?"

Platt shook his head. "Nothing. Just sobbing. Might be words. Too muffled."

Lex smirked. "We should have put her in with the others if she wanted something to cry about." This seemed to go on for some time, all the same, her sobbing unintelligibly into Kent's shirt and him making soothing noises that were equally unintelligible. Lex was dangerously close to having his men set off an alarm just to stop the damned thing when she finally pulled away, lifting her hand to his cheek as she sniffled. Lex leaned forward, waiting for words, anything that would open this up, some piece of the puzzle that made all the others click. 

Her face changed, then. Her brows drew together, her cheeks reddened, her mouth drew into a taut line before it opened. "Clark, I told you..." She barely got out the sentence before Kent gripped her shoulders and sealed his mouth to hers. 

Now that was definitely surprising. 

Lex had his ideas about Kent and Sullivan, through the years. And they'd never really changed. Chloe dangled after Clark and Clark dangled after Lana. Though the fact that Clark needed Chloe was something Lex had recently discovered, it hadn't changed the facts as he knew them. Now he wondered if he'd had it wrong. Kent certainly wasn't letting her up for air.

Maybe absence had made the heart grow fonder and all that. How touching. Whether they'd kissed before or not, there was something so... new about this. The way they handled each other seemed careful and hesitant. At any rate, it was better to watch than tearful embraces.

Until it wasn't. In fact, it went on even longer than they had.

He had to admit, he'd become a little bored until the two had separated and Chloe, with a strangely determined look, had pulled him backward to the bed. He'd nearly sent his men out of the room as this seemed almost too... intimate for two men that didn't know them outside of their files. It was different for him to see more. He knew them, after all, even cared for them in a strange way. At the very least, he'd never rejoice at seeing them bruised and bloody and there weren't many people he could say that for. As it was, he didn't send the men out. He still needed them and, fact is, nothing seemed to change but their position from standing to sitting.

"Jesus!" Pratt pulled out a cigarette. "How long can two people make out?" 

Lex rolled his eyes at Pratt. He kind of understood. With all the years between these two, maybe they were due for a nice, long kiss. He shook himself, wondering when he'd become so romantic.

"Think somebody would have grabbed at something by now," Jackson chuckled.

Lex wanted to send them out, then. They didn't get it. Sure, Clark's hands had remained on her waist as Chloe's stayed looped about his neck. In his position, Lex would probably have had her shirt off by now, but this was Clark. Whatever lies Lex had sensed over the years, his purity had never seemed an act. Lex sometimes wondered if he loved or hated that about him. Maybe both at once. 

"Anyway, this one was raised on a farm in Kansas or something," Jackson pointed out.

"That's no excuse."

"Could the two of you shut up?" But as much as their talk cheapened things, they had a point. Not about Clark, but Chloe. She'd always seemed a little more forward, a little... wild, even. Tight skirts, tighter tops, emotions just barely held in check, a face that could be read so easily. Maybe Clark might hold himself in, but not Chloe. Something seemed off. "Zoom in," he barked. "Tight."

Pratt sat up straighter and did so. And, damn it...

"They're not kissing!" He supposed it looked like that, with their mouths pressed together. "They're whispering." Whispering and most likely planning and plotting and it pissed him the hell off. "I need more sound," Lex growled.

"The mics are as up as they go. I'd say get a lip reader, but it would be too obscured and..."

Lex's vision turned to red and he clapped Jackson on the shoulder, ready to tell him to break it up when Chloe jerked away from Clark. 

"No! This isn't the way!" 

"Chloe, it has to be." He tried to pull her back, but she beat at his chest.

"I told you not to! I told you every night!"

"Stop it," he hissed loudly, catching her hands in his. "Don't hurt yourself."

"But now..."

"Chloe, I'm not an idiot. Do you think I would be here if I..." Clark seemed to stifle himself, then, look around, as if remembering they must be watched. Lex supposed he wasn't a complete idiot, but he really wished he was. 

They leaned in again, their voices muffled again. If Lex had any hair, he'd have torn it out by now. Luckily for him, Chloe pushed away again. "Why did you..."

"Not everything," Clark broke in. "I swear, Chloe. It was only enough. When they hear it..."

"I don't want this! Just get out now, Clark. Before they..."

"Not without you!"

"Clark," she moaned, her voice breaking. "Don't you know by now? After everything? Do you really think this isn't something I can get through... for you?"

His face softened. "I know by now. " He lifted one of the hands he was still holding to his face. "But it goes both ways, Chloe. That's something you should know by now."

Lex was sort of pleased by their sudden soulful confessions. If it should put them off their guard, then it was worth waiting through. Besides, he was still sifting through what they'd let out so far. All so damned vague except for one thing. I told you not to! I told you every night! he remembered her mumbling now. If he could get something to expound on that... Had she found some means of communicating with him? But how could she? He was starting to give his hive mind theory more weight when Chloe threw herself at Clark and Clark hit the floor. It was so sudden, he forgot to be disappointed they'd stopped talking. And they weren't. They weren't even whispering now.

This wasn't a pressing of lips with whispered breath and hands demurely settled. This was grasping and desperate and... riveting. Chloe writhed over him, sliding her hands down his chest and under his shirt. Clark seemed to flail for just a moment before he gripped her hips, then slid his hands over her ass, pressing her into him. Their hips undulated and their lips opened and their tongues tangled and harsh breaths and muffled moans fell on Lex's ears. 

Jackson's voice cut in. "Sir? Should I..."

"Shhh!"

He'd often admonished the men over keeping the feed on the prettier girls... or boys... at shower time. It was trashy for his tastes. But now, he felt the draw.

He'd always wondered if he was a little perverted, as in more than the average man. The fact that he hadn't put a stop to this showed he might be if given free reign. There was no shame in wanting to see and he knew that even as he chastised his men. But he started to wonder if this was more than he should see. He knew them, after all, had known them for years. This was more than the visual violation of some stranger. But damned if he could look away.

Fuck her. Fuck her now, he nearly whispered as Clark rolled Chloe over, pressing his hips into her. His hands fisted in her gown and, though it was flimsy, it seemed too ready to tear under his hands. His eyes were drawn to Chloe's hands as they moved between them. He heard the click of a belt buckle and the slight rasp of a zipper. 

He drew in a breath and backed to the wall, trying to get himself under control. He was no prude. He was wordly enough to admit that the idea of seeing Clark's cock excited him every bit as much as seeing the pert, full breasts he always imagined under Chloe's tight, little tops. But he knew his men didn't need to see him affected. "They're not saying anything," he said, trying to keep his voice from breaking. "This is a waste of time." 

Pratt chuckled. "But what a nice waste. Bet she has nice tits."

Lex glared at the man, ready to do more than toss him out now when Chloe seemed to stiffen under Clark, her eyes flying wide and darting about the room. "Clark... Clark, stop..."

Clark stilled and dropped his head to her chest. "Sorry. So sorry. I shouldn't..." 

"Cameras," she gasped, trying to push him off. 

"Oh... Yes. Sorry." His hands braced on either side of her, digging into the floor. 

Lex figured this little peep show had to end sometime and was disappointed until he finally opened his eyes to the fact that Clark's fingers were in the fucking floor.

Snatches of conversations fell into place. Not everything. Lex supposed he didn't know half of it. Only enough. Enough to get Clark here. So he could get her out. Get out now. Clark could. Any man that could sink his fingers into stone like it was pudding could get out easily. But he hadn't.

What Clark did do was rise and pull Chloe up after him. They could leave this second. Nothing could stop Clark. But Clark hadn't thought of everything.

He pushed Jackson aside and reached for the intercom button, sweating now. "You should know that there are armed men all around this compound."

Clark looked around, as if searching out the camera, his eyes narrowed. "I know that."

"They might not be able to stop you, but do you really think Chloe would be able to survive a virtual hailstorm of bullets?"

"See?" She pushed at him. "I told you. Just go, Clark."

Lex smiled and punched the button again. "Yes. Go, Clark. I can't stop you. But you'll be leaving alone."

"Just shut up!" Chloe yelled. "Dear God, I was hoping for weeks to hear your voice, just to know for sure! Now I remember what a fucking prick you are!"

He had to smile. Damn it, he did like her when she wasn't sleeping.

"Anyway, he will be leaving alone," she shouted.

"No, I won't," Clark pulled her close. "I don't think there'll be any shooting, Lex." He had the nerve to smile. "In about two minutes, we'll be nicely escorted out."

"And what makes you think I'll let that happen?" he growled. "My men..."

"Not by your men, Lex. By the government. See, our conversation and your taking me, put together, made up an admission of guilt. We were recorded and we were followed and this place is surrounded by now."

"The government?" Lex backed away from the screen, letting out a shaky laugh.

Clark's eyes seemed to land on the right camera and they stayed. Lex nearly felt he could see him. "It's over, Lex."

He could hear that, hear the shouts from outside the walls, in the halls, the marching of many booted feet, twice over what he had.

Lex laughed in earnest now, mad barks escaping as his back hit the wall. "I guess it is. You little bastard."

*************************

Depending on who you ask, it was a happy ending. 

He supposed the thirty-three harmless, happy meteor mutants who'd been set free were happy. Considering the facility housed 315, there was a greater number who weren't. But the government didn't see fit to divulge that part.

He supposed Chloe was happy. She had months and months of front page face time. After her initial expose where she finally got to use her "Crimes Against Humanity" headline, she wrote a series of articles interviewing every single freak, culminating in an exclusive interview with the brave meteor mutant who made it all happen, cloaked in anonymity of course. 

As for that bravely anonymous freak, Clark seemed fairly happy with himself. Planting a digital recorder ahead of time, notifying his mother and using her government connections, making a sweet deal for himself where he exposed his invulnerability, though little else, in exchange for freeing that lucky thirty-three. Lex had to hand it to him. He wasn't as stupid as Lex originally thought. Of course, Clark also wasn't as clever as he himself thought, either. 

Lex opened today's paper. Chloe had the headline again. More mutant rights drivel. With the initial hoopla over, she now spent her time campaigning for the rights of meta humans and writing scathing stories of corruption wherever she found them. He was surprised to see Clark's name at the bottom, indicating a human interest piece on board and care homes somewhere inside. How sweet. How pleased they must be with themselves. Living their little dreams, happy and safe with Lex tucked away in the nuthouse.

He gave a bitter chuckle. He wished he was in a nuthouse. It might have better service. "Jackson!"

Jackson marched in, looking annoyed. He was always annoyed, these days. He was used to controlling an operation, not a penthouse. Maybe Lex should take pity on him, send him off to be with General Standen's men at the new compound in Scarsdale. But why do that? Then again, why not? Lex thought he might be getting a bit soft these days. The tropics tended to do that to a man.

"Are the damned satellites back online yet? The storm was hardly a shower and I'm missing breakfast!"

Jackson looked down at the coffee Lex had barely touched yet. "You said you didn't want breakfast at this ungodly..."

"Not mine, you idiot, theirs! Tell them to hurry up. I need to see what they do."

"Yes, Sir."

"And get me Doctor Weil." 

He wheeled his chair up to his console, absently gulping at his coffee. He was expecting some kind of smug celebration. It wasn't every day Clark got his first byline.

Yes, he was sure they were happy.

And Lex? Well, he couldn't complain. He always had a Plan B. Granted, it was no Plan A, but it would do. In exchange for taking the fall, being denounced as no better than a mad scientist, and losing control of his company (at least publicly), he had control of something better. Not of the whole operation. In the end, it had gotten rather tedious, housing the invisibles, mind-readers, and bug men. The government could have them, even with his continued funding. He had Clark Kent. 

He supposed, if the government knew what they were giving him, in letting him handle Kent and Sullivan, they might not have been so willing. Fact is, he'd have preferred to find a way to keep them in the compound and silence the whole thing. But Senator Martha Kent had started raising such a public stink before they even marched on Lex that the government couldn't afford the bad press. Also, he'd had no idea how to stifle Clark that night. He didn't know what he knew now.

He had to laugh, much as he had that night four years ago, at Clark's naivete. Did he really think a man could house over three hundred freaks without any government cooperation? It just showed what a little farm boy Clark was and always would be. Even under the lies and all he hid, that much was true.

Chloe wasn't quite as gullible. She spent that first week urging Clark to run away, telling him the government would never let him stay free, telling him something was strange. But nothing happened and Clark seemed to convince her his mother had pulled some strings and, really, she seemed seduced in the end by having everything she ever wanted... and by Clark.

"Back online with your little reality show," Jackson called irritably from the door.

"Fuck you," Lex said, turning on his monitors.

"Back at you, Sir."

He chuckled, thinking it was a bit like a reality show, and reminded himself not to reassign Jackson. Of course, if the world had this, nobody would even look twice at a Kardashian. The special effects alone made it worth tuning in for. He'd bet twitter would have exploded the first time Clark floated to the ceiling. 

He hadn't exactly missed breakfast. They were making waffles. Seemed like they'd burn, though, with Clark pounding away at her on the floor. They had a certain kink for the floor which Lex found amusing, considering he saw the first instant of it. Waffles didn't sound bad, actually.

"Jackson, radio Mrs. Espinosa and tell her to make waffles. And, damn it, get me Doctor Weil before I..."

"Weil texted. Said he'd phone in later. But they implanted her with the last viable hybrid at her last dentist appointment."

Lex turned away from the rather enthusiastic couple. "And did it take?"

"He..."

"No. Don't tell me." He waved Jackson away. He didn't want to know too much, after all. Then what would be the point in watching?

And Lex had been watching. He'd been there when they toasted his downfall. Chloe, slightly drunk on champagne and Clark -- Well, Lex knew by then he couldn't be drunk --- surely overcome, had finally tore at each others clothes and fell to the floor together, moaning and writhing.

He'd been there when they finally said they loved each other, months later. It took many visits from him to her and from her to him, all of which consisted of hours of talking endlessly about this friendship they didn't want to ruin and all of which ended in a frantic fuck they said they'd never repeat... every time.

He'd been there when they signed the lease on the apartment they were in danger of burning down even now. Been there when they decided to do away with Chloe's apparently useless birth control, planting the seed of his latest endeavor.

In between, there was always intrigue. This little gang of Clark that fancied themselves so heroic made a few appearances, but Lex relegated them to guest star status in his mind. He was sure someone would find it all very interesting and often thought of tipping off General Standen to what was going on under his nose. But he couldn't bring himself to care. Let them have their fun. As long as he was there.

"You might be having a baby," he whispered to the oblivious couple as they giggled and wiped batter off each other's hastily straightened clothes. "I wonder if you'll say this is when it happened. Probably going to be a shock, but I'm sure you'll be happy."

As long as they were in his control. Always tightly in his control.

The End

Notes:

Yes. I am aware of the blatant homoeroticism in everything Clark and Lex have said to each other in this fic. 

As far as happy or tragic, I opted for a bit of both :) Chlark are certainly happy. But so is our evil mastermind.