Chapter Text
The evening was supposed to be peaceful.
Lex had canceled three meetings. Thrown out an entire rebranding proposal from his advertising team. Told someone in R&D to cry somewhere else. His schedule, as always, was full of pointless obligations and other people’s incompetence, and he’d bulldozed through all of it for one sacred thing: his evening.
He’d had his suit pressed twice for no reason other than to feel crisp and superior. Dinner had been served on the top balcony of the Luthor Tower penthouse: saffron risotto, poached lobster, and a half bottle of Pétrus he’d been saving for what he called a night of self-love, and what everyone else in the building had learned to recognize as do not disturb unless the building is literally on fire.
He had plans.
A hot bath. A crystal glass of armagnac. Possibly something classical on the speakers. And maybe, if he was feeling particularly generous, he’d let Clark come over. Or rather, let Clark arrive uninvited and pretend Lex hadn’t heard him hovering three floors below the balcony for ten minutes like a bashful hawk.
He was wearing his robe. A deep green one with black silk lining and monogrammed cuffs. Drink in hand. Slight smirk on his face.
And then he opened Twitter.
He didn’t even know why. Boredom, perhaps. Or masochism. Maybe he was a little tipsy. Maybe he wanted to hate something. It had been at least twenty minutes since he’d felt superior to someone.
He typed “Superman” into the search bar. Like someone testing the edge of a knife. Curious. Mildly amused.
And what he saw, what he read, hit him in the chest like a battering ram.
“superman’s voice could probably make me come on command. just saying.”
“if he threw me through a wall i’d say thank you”
“i bet superman’s dick glows. like softly. romantically. like a nightlight.”
“he moans. i know he moans. someone out there KNOWS what it sounds like and they’re gatekeeping 😭😭😭”
“superman if you’re out there and reading this i’m ovulating rn.”
Lex blinked.
Then blinked again.
His glass slipped from his fingers and landed on the carpet with a dull thunk. Not shattered. Just pathetic. Like him, apparently. Because he could not believe what he was seeing.
There were videos. Edits. Songs. Remixes of Superman’s voice mashed with audio of porn actors moaning and quotes like “he’s the sun and i’m the planet that needs to be ruined.”
Lex stared in horror. Someone had created a 12-tweet thread rating Superman’s “fuckability factor by region.” Metropolis got a 9.8. Gotham got a 5. Kansas had its own subsection.
The final insult, the moment Lex snapped, was this tweet:
“superman doesn’t date. that man is married to the streets 💅”
Lex’s eye twitched.
Married to the streets? The streets?
“He is not,” Lex whispers to himself, almost in shock.
He stood. Paced. Sat back down. Stood again. Looked at the glass on the floor like it had personally offended him.
Fury bloomed hot in his chest. But more than that, pettiness. A righteous, all-consuming pettiness.
This wasn’t just thirst. This wasn’t just depravity. It was disrespect. Lex did not tolerate disrespect.
He opened a private browser window. Created a fresh email, [email protected] , in order to create his new burner account. Not to be confused with his countless other burners that mainly dealt with technology rumors surrounding LuthorCorp’s competitors, he made the username @manofsteellover69.
He paused. Considered.
Then typed:
“All of you need to calm down. You wouldn’t last ten minutes with him. Trust me.”
Sent.
It took 17 seconds.
1 like
3 likes
11 likes
27 retweets
Replies:
“ok grandma”
“why are old people even on this app”
“bro you WISH”
“omg this is so embarrassing 💀”
“nobody asked for your loser headcanons king”
Lex stared in shock. In disgust. These…people. They don’t even know who they’re dealing with.
“Loser?”
He cracked his knuckles. Cracked his neck.
Fine. Fine . They wanted a war? He’d give them one.
He replied.
“This isn’t a headcanon. I’ve had his hand around my throat. I’m speaking from experience.”
Replies rolled in:
“so have i (in my dreams 😌)”
“man shut up lmao”
“you guys are getting way too creative with these delusions”
“yeah and i’m dating the batmobile 🙄”
Lex was fuming.
“He bites. Gently, sometimes. Harder when he’s desperate. He says my name like a curse and a prayer.”
“You think he’s perfect. He’s not. He’s a disaster in bed. In the best possible way.”
“He always starts slow. Always tries to be soft. And then something breaks in him. And I let it.”
The responses poured in. People mocking him. Calling him a freak. A roleplayer. Someone asked if he ran a kink blog. Someone else accused him of being an AI chatbot trained on erotica.
One particularly aggressive reply:
“ok bitch post proof or shut up. ur fanfic ass is not fooling me 💀”
Lex narrowed his eyes.
“Oh,” he murmured. “You want proof?”
He opened his photo library.
Now, Clark had rules. Soft rules. Unspoken ones, really. No faces. No identities. No locations. Nothing traceable.
Lex had always followed the rules. Technically. He was a difficult man to rule over, so he might have twisted around some of them. And it’s not even all his fault if he didn’t follow a few; Clark would never punish him how he had begged to be punished.
He found one.
Superman’s gloved hand gripping a hip. Deep. Possessive. Skin flushed where the pressure had been. A sliver of his cape draped in the background, unmistakable. The lighting low. Sultry.
Lex uploaded the photo.
Caption:
“He holds on like he thinks I’ll disappear.”
Posted.
The internet exploded.
“WHO took this”
“WAIT is this real??”
“pls tell me this is AI.”
“i’m gonna be sick”
“oh my god oh my god OH MY GOD”
Lex smiled like a snake in the sun.
And then, just for fun, he posted again:
“He snores when he’s tired. Not loud. Just… soft. Like he’s trying not to wake me up.”
Someone responded with:
“you’re either insane or you’re the luckiest bastard alive.”
Lex typed:
“Why can’t I be both?”
Then he poured himself another glass of brandy, kicked his feet up, and scrolled as the world descended into chaos.
He was trending. “#SupermanBoyfriend” was #2 in the country. There was now an entire Reddit thread trying to match shadows and materials in the photo to Luthor Tower. Some fan account called it “visual intimacy proof.”
And Clark? Clark was still nowhere to be seen.
Which meant Lex still had time. Still had pictures. Still had a vendetta.
He took another sip of his drink and opened a new tab.
His cursor hovered over the next photo: Superman’s suit rumpled, the curve of his back, sweat beading down his spine.
Lex didn’t post it. Yet.
He had so much more to say. But Clark was standing in his doorway, hair tousled from his flight over, already shouldering his cape off of his back. Lex looked up at him once, then down the picture of him on his laptop, before shutting the lid and sitting up straight in his bed.
“Hi, Lex,” Clark smiled sweetly, walking around the bed to bend down and kiss Lex on the cheek, once. Lex smirked, thinking only of those absolute idiots on Twitter who would never have any idea what any of this felt like.
“Clark,” Lex greeted.
This was complicated. Whatever they had going on. Well, a relationship is what it was. But it was different, because of Lex’s sworn mission to destroy Superman and all that he stood for, of course. But he kind of forgot worrying about that around the second or third month Clark kept coming back home in time for dinner. And it’s nice to have another warm body in bed, as Lex has learned.
Lex looked at his phone one last time before Clark slid into bed and pulled him into his arms. He had twelve notifications from Twitter. Oh, thirteen. He puts his phone down and wraps his own fingers around Clark’s muscled arms, delighting in the kiss Clark places against his neck before whispering: “Good night.”
When Clark’s breathing evens out, he grabs his phone again, reaching it up just slightly and taking an inconspicuous picture of the superhero asleep soundly against his neck. Only half of his face is visible, but it’s just enough for Twitter to have an absolute meltdown tomorrow. Lex can’t wait.
Twitter is having an absolute meltdown for the entire week. Clark, thankfully, is blissfully unaware of everything happening. Lex just adores him. He wants to put him in his pocket and carry him everywhere with him. He’s also quite disappointed in his journalistic abilities and skills if he doesn’t keep up with social media on a regular basis.
But it’s no matter. Clark makes coffee in the morning and kisses him goodbye every day, so he’ll let his oversight go without further comment.
The nobodies on Twitter, though, he will not let go. He takes every opportunity to post, to reply. His burner has become quite the celebrity on Superman Twitter. Incredibly disliked for his brash rudeness, of course. And he suspects people are quite jealous of his relationship with Superman.
But he also has somewhat of a cult following. Accounts who likes his post immediately after he hits send. People who are actually…appreciating what he’s providing.
He hates these accounts the most. They shouldn’t be this excited to see Clark like this. That’s for Lex, not for them.
He makes another post on Tuesday: a picture of Superman’s cape draped over the back of a chair in his bedroom. It’s been in his camera roll for months. The cape was rumpled and tossed across a chair near the window, caught in the golden light of late afternoon. The folds looked almost soft, almost tender; like a blanket meant only for him.
“Post-flight fatigue. He gets sloppy when he’s in a hurry. Lucky me.”
The internet loses its mind. Fans and trolls theorize wildly, some claim to recognize the penthouse, others speculate about secret rendezvous. One brave soul begs for a face photo.
Lex replies coolly: “Faces are for fools. Intimacy is in the details.”
Wednesday is the same. His account has gained two thousand followers. All of his tweets get a minimum of fifty likes. He’s been mentioned in articles from Buzzfeed, and even on the Daily Planet. How Clark hasn’t heard yet, he has no idea. That’s why he loves him, though. He might be horribly and annoyingly smart, but he’s still got some farmboy left in him.
Clark is sitting across from him on the couch, hands gently massaging his feet where they lay in his lap. The sun is setting on Metropolis — as they can see from Lex’s floor-to-ceiling windows. Which is also a benefit for Clark, as he can see most everything occurring on the streets of the city.
Clark has his glasses on tonight, which Lex appreciated for a minute before diving head-first back into his phone.
His feet are in Clark’s lap, warm and pampered — one hand wrapped loosely around his ankle, the other expertly pressing into the arch like he was doing it out of love, not obligation. Clark’s eyes were half-lidded, turned toward the golden spill of sunset over Metropolis, his expression soft in the way Lex liked best. Distant. Trusting. Unaware.
Utterly, deliciously unaware. Lex made sure to keep it that way.
His phone lit up in his hand — new likes, new retweets, another thousand followers gained in the last twenty-four hours alone. Someone had made a tag compilation account for his posts. Someone else had made fanart based on one of the thirst traps, depicting Superman cradling an anonymous, smug-looking figure in the shadows. Lex laughed aloud at that one.
Clark glanced over, fond and confused. “What’s so funny?”
“Oh, nothing. Text from Mercy.”
“You two have inside jokes now?”
“No,” Lex lied easily, already uploading another photo.
This one was careful. Curated. Tasteful, even, depending on your definition. Superman’s hand, still gloved, tight around Lex’s throat. You could only see Lex’s hand in return, clawing at Clark’s wrist. No faces. Just muscle, tension, dominance. The kind of picture that hit like a punch to the gut for people who thought Superman was all sunshine and empty platitudes.
Lex wrote the caption with care:
“Your hero has a temper.”
He pressed post and watched the chaos unfold in real time.
“i’m going to scream until my lungs collapse. this man is living my wattpad AU.”
“superman has a ch*king kink?? canon??”
“no offense but if i ever find u irl i’m throwing hands. and also maybe proposing. depends on my mood.”
“this is giving Lex Luthor behavior. no one else is this condescending AND lucky. i fear we have found the evil twink.”
Lex doesn’t respond to any of them. He’s proud of his work for the night. Best to save his effort for the rest of the week.
Clark was still sitting across from him, entirely unbothered. Massaging his foot like some domestic demigod, without a single clue that Lex was waging a full-scale psychological campaign of thirst against the internet on his behalf.
“How was patrol?” Lex asked absently, scrolling the replies.
“Quiet,” Clark said, rubbing at the ball of Lex’s foot with a bit more focus. “One mugging, a gas leak uptown, and a cat stuck on the third floor of a walk-up.”
“Must be nice,” Lex muttered.
“What, that it was slow?”
“No. That you don’t have to deal with deranged lunatics every time you log into your computer.”
Clark gave him a soft smile. “I do know a little something about dealing with deranged lunatics.”
Lex hummed, noncommittal, and took a sip of wine. The phone buzzed again: someone had just posted a TikTok titled “why this anonymous Superman situationship account is a cultural reset”
Buzzfeed had already written a second article: “Superman’s Alleged Secret Lover Posts Another Picture: The Internet Weeps.”
And it was all Lex. Lex had broken the world with simple images of Superman in certain less-than-innocent situations. And nobody knew it was him.
No one, except maybe Mercy, who had texted him simply:
“do NOT post the one with the hickeys.”
He would be posting the one with the hickeys tomorrow.
Tonight, he reached for the last of his wine and leaned back into the couch, content to be adored in person and envied online. Clark, ever oblivious, pressed a kiss to the inside of Lex’s ankle, warm and slow and stupidly tender.
“You okay?” Clark asked.
“Never better.”
And really, it was true. As Clark snaked his way up Lex’s body from the opposite end of the couch, Lex was content to let his phone fall on the coffee table and his hand slip into Clark’s curls.
Because Lex Luthor was a bastard. But he was Clark Kent’s bastard. And as far as Twitter was concerned, the only thing better than having Superman in your bed… was making sure everyone else knew they never would.
Lex should be working.
He really, truly should. He had multiple fires to put out across LuthorCorp; figurative ones, this time, though with the way he was currently neglecting the energy division’s reactor regulations, that status was tentative.
He had an urgent update request from the Department of Energy sitting in his inbox. He had six memos unopened, two assassination attempts to reschedule, and a R&D meeting he’d already ghosted twice.
But all of that was background noise.
Because some little gremlin on the internet had just accused his carefully curated anonymous burner account of being a sad, sex-starved freak playing pretend in Superman’s sweat.
“this person’s absolutely a 43 y/o man in ohio who’s never seen a cape irl. be fr”
Lex squinted at the screen.
“Forty-three?” he muttered to himself, scandalized. How rude. He can’t even imagine being forty-three. No, no. He will be young and youthful for his entire life. He will make sure of it.
He rolled his neck and cracked his knuckles.
“Better to be 43 and satisfied than 22 and typing through tears.”
The replies came in hot.
“what makes you think u even KNOW superman? just bc u posted a blurry arm once?? LMFAO you could be anyone ur just delusional”
“like i’m not saying i believe u but also why are u so calm about it. if i was getting railed by superman i’d have a neon sign. a website. merch.”
Lex considered that for a moment. A website could be fun. He could dedicate pages to different days with Clark. Maybe update his followers on the state of the bruises left on his body. He could tell them all what they had for dinner and relish in the “Superman would never eat that” comments.
Still, he wasn’t here to enlighten the masses. He was here to taunt them.
He posted a new tweet:
“He spits in my mouth twice a week lol. Not delusional.”
He set his phone down and sipped his espresso. Maybe that was a bit much. It’s true, however, and he is not delusional. Which is something he needs to get straightened out with his audience.
Twelve seconds later, he picked his phone back up.
Five thousand likes. Eight hundred replies. “WHO ARE YOU” trending in Metropolis. His notifications were melting.
The best part: nobody had even a whiff of who he was. People had theorized he was a disguised member of the Justice League. A rogue alien. A PR stunt. A scam artist. One brave soul insisted it had to be Lois Lane.
It all made Lex snort his coffee. Of course nobody would know. Not while he kept insulting Superman in his weekly press conferences and going on tirades on his real account about the dangers of the flying alien. Well, he doesn’t actually post those anymore. He makes someone else do those. He just can’t be bothered, especially not with having to now devote all of his evenings to said flying alien.
Still, he was methodical. Every photo he’d posted had been vetted. Every caption was engineered to be just vague enough. Superman’s face never visible. His own fingerprints scrubbed from the metadata. The tone? Inimitable. Haughty. Flippant. Infuriating.
Lex was having a spectacular time. He couldn’t stop himself. He was fully invested now, hunched over in his ergonomic office chair, glint of mischief in his eye, the soft glow of his three monitors bouncing off his high cheekbones like a war criminal’s halo.
He had already forgotten the entire quarterly budget meeting happening in fifteen minutes.
He quote-tweeted someone who said Superman was too sweet and good to ever be with “someone so nasty and mean.”
“He likes it nasty. Not that you would know.”
He was having a blast.
His assistant knocked on the door to his office, peering her head in, probably to remind him of the meetings on his schedule that Lex really sees no point in attending. He waves her off with a bored look and a flapped hand. He thinks he sees her roll her eyes at him, and he’s just about to say something before the glass window is smashed by a red-and-blue blur. Now it’s his turn to roll his eyes.
His assistant barely even flinches, turning around to look at the disturbance before Lex hears the click-clack of her heels leaving the area.
“That was rude,” Lex tells him, not even looking up from his phone. His notification count is nearing quadruple digits. Someone’s just made a thread of so-called “proof” that his burner is, actually, Martian Manhunter. It makes him laugh.
“Lex,” Clark states, in that stupid tone of voice that makes him sound like a parent disciplining their child. Lex often hears it when Clark stumbles across data that wasn’t meant for him, or when he finds Lex in possession of certain black site schematics that someone swore under oath no longer existed.
Lex scrolls absently, eyes still glued to the screen. "Don't say it like that. You sound like you're about to ground me."
Clark’s boots hit the office floor with a sharp thud. He’s fuming, Lex can tell without even looking up. There’s a low hum in the air from residual static, always a telltale sign that Superman is trying not to fry the whole building.
“Lex,” Clark repeats, slower this time, like he's forcing patience. “Are you the one behind this account?”
Lex finally lifts his eyes, blinking slowly. He looks at Clark like he’s just asked if Lex has ever heard of fire. Poor guy has finally figured it out. Oh well, Lex thinks, he’s had enough fun. Or maybe this could lead to even more fun.
“What account?”
Clark doesn’t even dignify it with words. He simply holds up his phone and there it is, bright and glowing on the screen: a tweet from Lex’s burner.
“Didn’t realize how many bruises I had until I sat down, ugh. Morning surprise.”
Lex’s smirk is involuntary. He looks positively ridiculous right now. Ridiculing Lex in his office because of tweets that cannot even possibly be linked back to him, all in his over-saturated eyesore of a costume. “Ah. That account.”
“So you do know it,” Clark says, stepping closer. His eyes are narrowed and his jaw is clenched in that way that means he’s genuinely upset — not just hero-posturing. “Lex.”
Lex tosses his phone down on the desk and leans back in his chair, folding his hands over his stomach. He hears his employees walking around outside his office, but nobody has bothered to check in or see what the ruckus is all about. He makes a mental note to reprimand them all. Superman could be killing him, for god’s sake.
“I know of it. So do half the internet trolls with a death wish and a desperate need for validation. It’s become somewhat of a cultural artifact.”
“Lex.”
“Oh, come off it,” Lex says, gesturing vaguely. “You’re famous. People thirst over you constantly. That someone with a sharp tongue and exquisite taste is doing it with a little literary flourish should not surprise you.”
Clark just stares. “They’re using photos. Private photos.”
Lex tilts his head, faux thoughtful. “Are they?”
“You think I don’t recognize that chair? That’s your bedroom.”
Lex shrugs. “Could be AI.”
“You hate AI.”
“Yes, but the public doesn’t know that.”
Clark exhales through his nose. “So you’re denying it?”
Lex’s smile turns slow and dangerous. “I’m denying nothing. I’m confirming nothing. I'm simply basking in the chaos.”
There’s a long silence. Clark crosses his arms, his cape swishing behind him like punctuation. “You need to stop.”
“Why?”
“Because it’s invasive.”
Lex lifts a brow. “It’s not invasive if no one knows it’s me. Or you. Or us.”
Clark gestures to the screen again. “That tweet says I left bruises.”
“Did you not?”
Clark sputters. Lex basks in it. He’s always enjoyed flustering Clark. He enjoys it slightly more than planning Superman’s demise from his public throne.
He leans forward, smug and unrepentant. “Look, darling, I’m not leaking classified Justice League launch schedules. I’m not committing war crimes or giving tech to alien regimes this week. I’m tweeting about your hands.”
“It’s a violation of—”
“My own privacy, technically.”
“That’s not—” Clark breaks off, flustered, running a hand through his hair. “Lex. I’m asking you. Stop. Please.”
Lex stares at him. For a moment, he almost looks sincere. He stands slowly, walks around the desk, until they’re eye to eye. He puts a hand on Clark’s chest, closing his palm over his heart and feeling it beat calm and steady. If Clark listens in on his own, he’ll hear the same beat.
“I’ll think about it,” he says sweetly, brushing invisible lint from Clark’s chest. “But only because you asked nicely.”
Clark groans, head tipping back in frustration. “This is not how grown adults behave.”
But Lex is already walking away, back toward his desk with the lazy confidence of someone who knows he’s won. He picks up his phone, flicks through a few notifications with one hand while sipping his coffee with the other. “Besides,” he calls over his shoulder, “it’s not like anyone knows it’s me. You’re the one with the recognizable…everything.”
Clark follows him, arms crossed, looming in that way he always does when he's trying to look imposing and morally upright. Lex has seen scarier vending machines.
“I can’t believe you’ve made people come up with theories of who my mystery lover is,” Clark mutters, shaking his head in disbelief.
Lex doesn’t look up. “My personal favorite is the one that thinks you’re hooking up with Nightwing. So scandalous. So… flexible.”
Clark opens his mouth to retort to this comment, probably something about near blasphemy and how it’s painful for him to even imagine, but it closes just as fast. A slight smirk plays on his face, one that makes Lex’s eyebrow quirk in curiosity.
He walks around to stand behind where Lex is sitting, bending forward and planting a large hand on the wood of his desk, placing the other on the arm of the chair, barely ghosting Lex’s suit jacket. Clark leans in close, nosing at Lex’s cheek and letting his warm breath fan down his neck. It makes him shiver. It feels scandalous. But he can’t work it out.
“Doesn’t it get under your skin, just a little?” Superman whispers. “That they all want me, and don’t even care that you have me?”
Lex smiles. He knows what he’s trying to do. It’d be a wonderful angle if Lex hasn’t already considered it himself. Yes, it did get under his skin, originally, before he remembered nobody else was posting anything even remotely close to what he was. Nobody has a camera roll like him.
He leans back in his chair, just slightly, until the crown of his head brushes Clark’s shoulder. “Darling,” he says, perfectly blasé, “jealousy is a very tedious emotion.”
Clark huffs softly above him, a warm rush of breath flutters down his neck. He doesn’t touch him, not yet; but Lex can feel the outline of him, hovering just barely behind the chair like the shadow of a choice Lex hasn't quite made yet.
“So you’re not jealous,” Clark says, slow and syrupy, dragging the words out like he’s rolling them across Lex’s bare skin. “Not even a little?”
Lex doesn’t answer. He doesn’t even blink.
He exhales—precise, practiced, faintly annoyed. The sound of a man who has spent far too much time entertaining weaker minds and now finds himself reluctantly doing it again. The kind of sigh that makes assistants quit and generals second-guess their nuclear strategy.
The silence stretches between them like gold wire—taut, glinting, deliberately unbroken.
Clark leans closer, finally, his breath warming Lex’s temple as his voice drops into something meant to both soothe and provoke.
“Not even when they keep drawing fan art of me and Nightwing, late at night, all alone, on rooftops?”
A beat. A pause. The barest flicker of Lex’s eyelid.
“That fan base is unhinged,” Lex says blandly. “They were pairing you with Shazam last week. They’re all simply desperate.”
Clark hums, a low and knowing sound. “You saw those, huh?”
Lex’s eye rolls skyward. “Please. I see everything.”
His tone is flat, arch, infuriatingly dismissive. But Clark knows him. He knows the difference between genuine disinterest and this; Lex’s too-cool performance, the slow, glacial shift of something tight and uncomfortable under his skin.
Lex flicks a hand through the air, as if wafting away the topic itself. “You’re confusing boredom with jealousy again,” he says. “And if that’s the best bait you’ve got, I’m disappointed. Honestly, I thought you’d at least try to weaponize Aquaman. Or that feral archer. He’s more your speed. You both think leather and attitude are character traits.”
Clark lets out a soft laugh, deep in his chest. “I’ve got better taste than that.”
“Oh?” Lex says without looking. “Thank god one of us does.”
The tension between them is fine-grained, intimate, ancient. It runs in their blood by now—an old argument, a game that has outlived presidents and planets. And still, Lex plays it like it’s the first time, like it’s sacred.
Clark finally moves, just slightly, the shift of his weight deliberate as his arms slip forward to brace against the arms of Lex’s chair. He doesn’t grab. Doesn’t hold. Just surrounds. The gesture is casual, but the message is not.
It’s a subtle kind of possessiveness. One Lex has never admitted to enjoying. One Clark has never stopped offering.
He leans his chin lightly against Lex’s shoulder, close enough to feel the faint thrum of thought inside that skull of his; always moving, always calculating, always angry about something.
“I’m just saying,” Clark murmurs, “the account’s getting...big. Bigger than you meant it to be. The posts. The pictures. It’s not just you being irritating online anymore. It’s becoming a mythology. People are piecing things together. They’re hungry for answers. You keep feeding them breadcrumbs.”
Lex tilts his head, just enough to glance sideways up at him. “Clark,” he says dryly, “if I were feeding them breadcrumbs, I’d be smart enough to lace them with arsenic.”
Clark lets out another soft laugh, but there’s a thread of seriousness woven under it. “This isn’t just your secret anymore. It’s ours. And I’m the only one who hasn’t even said yes to sharing it.”
That lands. Just barely. Lex's fingers pause over his phone, the glowing screen still casting blue light across his knuckles. A half-drafted post blinks back at him. Sharp. Careful. Suggestive. Maybe too much so.
He sets the phone down with a deliberate quietness. Not a surrender. A pause.
“You’re mistaking my ego for carelessness,” Lex replies coolly. “Again. You’re confusing vanity with vulnerability.”
“I’m not,” Clark says. “You’re smarter than that. And I know you’ve already gamed out the worst-case scenarios. How long before someone recognizes the city skyline in a reflection? You’ve done the math. So have I.”
Lex doesn’t argue. He doesn’t need to. They both know it’s true.
He turns then, slowly, letting Clark’s arms slide away as he swivels the chair to face him. He studies him like he’s a threat and a temptation rolled into one—eyes narrowed, mouth set, unreadable.
“What’s in it for me?” Lex asks, voice soft now, silk over glass.
Clark smiles, because of course he does. It’s his best weapon. He puts his hands on his hips, a similar stature to his usual pose. Lex finds it infuriating. He looks too good . Too flawless.
“A clear conscience?”
Lex snorts. “I had that removed for efficiency.”
Clark tilts his head, brow raised. “Public dignity?”
“I lost that during the Metropolis Christmas Gala. You were there. You knocked over a nine-foot ice sculpture and called it diplomacy.”
Clark chuckles. “Dinner, then. Your favorite place. And afterwards…”
Lex raises a brow.
“…a very nice evening,” Clark finishes, “full of very… eventful activities.”
A pause. Lex watches him, eyes slightly narrowed.
“You’ll be compliant?” Lex asks, voice quieter now, with just a hint of suggestion behind it.
Clark leans down, his lips brushing Lex’s own with practiced precision. His voice is nothing but a murmur, warm and slow. When he talks, he speaks his words into Lex’s mouth, forcing him to swallow them all down without question.
“Utterly at your mercy.”
Lex considers this, lets the silence stretch just long enough to make Clark wonder if he’s about to be dismissed or devoured. Then, finally, he sighs. Deep. Resigned. Dramatic.
“Fine,” Lex mutters, as if handing over nuclear codes. “You win. Temporarily.”
Clark presses a kiss to the corner of his mouth, soft and smug. “Thank you.”
“I didn’t say it was altruistic,” Lex replies, hands grabbing hold on Clark’s collar as he tries to pull away and stand up straight. He gives himself another moment of intimacy. Kisses him once more. Twice more. “I still expect dinner. And debauchery.”
Clark’s voice dips into something lower. “Your wish is my command.”
Clark leans forward, kissing him sweetly, a complete contrast to his promises of what’s to come as a reward for Lex’s… goodness. Ugh. What a horrible word to be associated with. He gives him a smile when he pulls back, walking to the window he broke on his way in. Which was so unwarranted. He keeps doing that. As if only to show Lex that he can. It’s enraging.
A moment later, there’s a gust of warm wind and a low swoosh of displaced air. Clark’s gone, out the window with a rush of motion that still sets Lex’s nerves slightly on edge, no matter how often it happens.
Lex watches the empty space he left behind, then turns back to the phone on his desk. He stares at it, unmoving, as if it might do something on its own.
Then, with a lazy swipe, he opens the app. Hovers for a second.
He taps out one last post, quick and efficient, his thumbs moving like knives:
“Just got personally reprimanded by a certain caped superhero. Logging off before I get grounded. Or worse.”
He logs off. But he doesn’t deactivate. Not yet.