Just so you folks wouldn't start thinking of me as a one trick pony, this story just popped into to my head and wouldn't leave until I wrote it down.
I hope you like it.
Title: Superman for Sale
Author: D.M. Wyatt
Pairing: Clark/Other (implied), Clark/Lex
Rating: NC-17
Warnings: Physical and Emotional TC, graphic descriptions of adult sexual content, BD/SM, future fic, post rift
Spoilers: None
Short summary: Clark goes missing and Lex tries to figure out why.
~:::~
"It doesn't look like he's coming, sir."
Lex frowned and lowered his kryptonite pulse beam weapon. It was a disappointment. He'd set everything up just right and even dropped some pretty big hints but 'Superman' failed to show, as was expected.
Several of the attempts he'd made lately to capture Big Blue were complete and utter failures and part of Lex wasn't all that sorry, really. It was a game they played, Lex would set up elaborate traps and Superman would always somehow elude capture.
Lex turned to look back at Mercy. "What went wrong? The bait was perfect... He should have been drawn in like a fly to honey."
Mercy shrugged, her elegantly made up face not at all troubled. "I can look into it, sir."
Her nonchalance about Clark not showing annoyed him for reasons he didn't really understand. Lex snapped at her, "You do that. I want to find out why he didn't show up."
Mercy turned and went down the steps, leaving Lex alone on the roof top. He looked up to the sky and scowled, frustrated.
~:::~
Lex hacked into The Daily Planet email server and checked Clark's emails. The diligent reporter hadn't checked his emails in several days.
Lex got into the phone company's database and checked the logs of Clark's phone calls. He hadn't made a single one for the past three days. What was more worrisome was the pattern of calls that emerged when he checked the logs from the Kent farm.
Mrs. Kent had made a lot of short calls to all of Clark's friends and to The Daily Planet, both Clark's and Lois' direct lines as well as Perry White's. She also made dozens of short ones to Clark's cell and home numbers. She was probably just calling to leave messages asking Clark to call back, but increasing frequency of the calls was worrying. He decided to ask Mercy to break into Clark's apartment and check the state of-
No. That wouldn't do.
He decided to do it himself instead. He wanted to see for himself how Clark had left his apartment and what was on his answering machine.
~:::~
Lex sat in Clark's apartment, stumped.
The mild mannered reporter's fridge was nearly empty and his place was a mess, both were probably not surprising with Clark's hectic schedule and his nightly patrols in the skies over Metropolis. Lex knew that was typical of Clark, but what wasn't typical was the fact that he looked like he'd just abandoned the apartment. Clark's suitcase sat at the bottom of his closet and all of his toiletries were still on the counter in the bathroom. He hadn't packed a thing so it was clear Superman wasn't on a trip.
His spare suits all hung in the secret compartment they were usually in. Lex had found it on one of his many break-ins over the years. He wasn't sure where Clark got the suits from, he had never been able to discover that part of Clark's enigmatic dual identity, but there they were.
He'd checked Clark's answering machine and all of his messages were pretty mundane, up until about three days ago. The first call from Clark's mother was routine. She asked why he hadn't shown for dinner like he'd promised and asked him to call her back. The dozens of calls from her after that all said pretty much the same thing, she asked Clark to please call, but each call was increasingly urgent.
Lex shook his head as he left. Where was Clark? Why didn't even his mother know where he was?
~:::~
Lex stood in the middle of a vast wilderness area, his anger building, as he held Superman's cape in his hands. It was covered in a thick kryptonite gel.
"You say this was a trap?"
Mercy looked serious. "Yes, sir." Mercy had discovered that the last reported sighting of Superman was at an attempted bank robbery. She explained further. "The police surrounded the bank and the men came out shooting, wounding several innocent by-standers. In retrospect, it was clearly bait and Superman took it. He fought them and the battle lasted several minutes, but they escaped unexpectedly via flight capable motorbikes. They zoomed off and Superman followed them here, where they appeared to have fought again."
She knelt and pointed at a scorch mark on the ground. "See the scorch mark? At the bank they fought with machine guns but once they flew off, they'd started using electromagnetic pulse rifles since bullets don't faze Superman at all. I found scorch marks like this all the way back to the bank."
"What happened? Why do you think it was a trap?"
"You know as well as I do that while pulse beams will slow Superman down, they don't really hurt him. They waited until he was here to use their kryptonite gel canon; only once he was alone and far from any help." She held up the edge of the scarlet cape in Lex's hand. "You'd have to have the gel on this analyzed to be sure, but it doesn't look concentrated enough to do any real damage. It certainly wouldn't kill him. I think they wanted to just disable him."
She looked back over her shoulder at the open expanse around them. "There is gel spattered over several square miles. They must have tried hundreds of times before he made a mistake and they finally were able to hit the cape. It's not damaged at all. I think he must have dropped it to try and escape, but it was clearly too late." She walked over to a Superman sized indentation in the ground. There were traces of the green gel in the outline of his body. "This is where he fell before they took him away."
There were imprints from the flying motorbikes and dozens of footprints in the ground surrounding where Clark had lain.
"You think he was kidnapped."
"No doubt in my mind, sir." Mercy agreed. "They laid a trap and Superman was taken."
Lex thoughtfully fingered the golden yellow shield on the cape and looked up into the sky, angry.
It wasn't right someone had taken him. He was Clark's arch nemesis. If anyone should finally succeed in capturing Superman, it should have been him.
He didn't like losing to some two bit hoods with rocket powered motorbikes.
~:::~
Lex worked in his office, trying to forestall another hit to Lexcorp's stock. He had some negative numbers that he was trying to hide in the company's balance sheets, all mostly due to Clark's interfering with Lexcorp R&D projects.
So what if human experimentation was unethical?
"Superman" didn’t have the right to destroy hundreds of millions of dollars of expensive lab buildings to show the world how bad a person Lex really was. Although, Lex had to admit he did like watching him do it. Clark destroying things was surprisingly erotic.
Lex looked at the now clean cape draped over the back of a chair that sat across from his desk. He frowned.
It had been nearly a week since Clark had been last seen chasing the men who had ended up kidnapping him. Lex could find no information that indicated who would have taken him or why, and he had turned over every single rock he could think of, and several that hadn't occurred to him before now, trying to find out just where Clark had been taken.
It was a mystery that Lex would solve.
He wanted the head of whoever it was that had kidnapped his greatest enemy. Superman was his plaything and Lex had never really learned to share, so it irked him no end that someone else had managed to take Clark away when he had always failed.
He really thought his latest kryptonite powered electromagnetic pulse beam rifle would have worked. Too bad he never had a chance to try it out before someone else got to Superman first.
Well, so what if he hadn't really been all that disappointed that Clark always got away. Superman was still his demon to fight.
His phone buzzed and the intercom clicked on.
Mercy spoke. "You have an urgent call, sir."
Lex sighed and got up. "I told you that I didn't want to be disturbed, Mercy."
He walked over to the cape and felt its silky texture. It was so soft and yet Lex knew how indestructible it was. He should know. His scientists hadn't been able to even take a sample of the fabric. The secret of its composition could make his apparel firms billions; the military applications alone would be highly lucrative.
The financial gain from that would more than make up for all the money he'd lost to Clark's holier-than-thou crusade against him. However, he'd never be able to copy the fabric if they couldn't get a sample. He thought of maybe trying a kryptonite based laser. That might work if the secret of the fabric's manufacture was based on technology from Clark's home world...
Mercy interrupted Lex's reverie. "I think you might want to take this call, sir."
"Why?"
"The woman says she has something for sale you will want to buy."
Lex was confused. "Like what?"
"She didn't say, just that what she had for sale was something that you'd lost."
"Did she at least give you her name?"
"No. Do you want me to just get rid of her?"
Lex was about to reply when he looked at the golden shield on the cape under his fingers, the sign of the House of El. Everyone knew now the 'S' didn't really stand for Superman although that stupid Lane women had thought so, or maybe even still did... He looked at the phone, perhaps she was connected to Clark's disappearance. Maybe he'd finally find out who had taken his enemy without his permission.
He took a deep breath. "No. Put her through."
Mercy cleared her throat. "She called in on the video conference line, that's how she bypassed the switchboard. You'll have to..."
Lex snapped. "Fine, but give me a minute."
He grabbed the cape and walked back over to his desk and tried to compose himself.
He initialized a video conference and waited for Mercy to patch the caller to it. He tried hard to appear calm, he didn't want to appear too eager to talk to this bitch. He said as coldly as he could muster, "Yes?"
Her voice was throaty, an old woman's voice, totally at odds with how she looked. Lex had to admit she looked very good. The video quality wasn't all that great, but she was obviously a beautiful woman.
"Mr. Luthor, I'm so pleased you took my call." As she talked, she seemed to be petting something out of the camera's view since her arm moved rhythmically back and forth.
"I'm a busy man. Let's get to it. What is it that you want to sell me?"
"Just something that you've lost and I've found."
"Something you stole, you mean. There is only one thing that I'm missing that I want back. Is it something that wears a lot of primary colors? Is that what you're talking about?"
She smiled. "I'll show you exactly what I'm talking about." The woman nodded to someone off camera and the camera started to zoom out slowly. As the field of view widened, Lex could see that she had her fingers on something dark.
The camera zoomed back more and what he could see made his heart stop. She was seated on a large chair, almost like a throne, and Superman knelt at her feet, his head leaning against her knee. He wore his suit without the cape and her fingers stroked his head the way someone would stroke a beloved pet.
Superman's pose might have seemed affectionate except for the fact that he was obviously in some pain. There was no telltale green glow but Clark's muscles were tense, his face strained, and his breathing hitched. He wasn’t restrained at all either. Yet, Superman still knelt there quietly and didn't look at the camera as her fingers continued to gently caress his dark curls.
She smiled more broadly at Lex's building anger. "I was right that you might want to buy this. Is this valuable to you?"
Lex tried to sound casual. "He's a royal pain in my ass. He has cost me a fortune this fiscal year alone, so you've actually done me a favor. I'm glad that the alien is finally out of the skies, but why would I want to pay you for him? As far as I'm concerned, you can keep him."
She smiled. Clark looked at her when she held up a large, beautifully lettered sign that read 'Superman for Sale'.
"If you don't want to buy him, I'm sure I could find someone else who would. I might even put him up on eBay." She sat forward, looking more intently into the camera. "His new owners might want to cause you even more problems than he has. You have even more enemies than he does." She dropped the sign and reached into her pocket. Clark visibly flinched when he saw what she had in her hand but said nothing.
Lex was intrigued by that reaction. It didn't look dangerous; it just looked like a small gray stone. It was oval in shape and glinted in a strange way.
She held up the stone. "I'm not sure anyone else would find this as valuable as you would."
Clark frowned and his eyes flicked over at the camera and then back to the stone in the woman's hand. Lex was definitely intrigued. "What is that?"
"It's just a way to control the uncontrollable." She leaned over and whispered into Clark's ear. "Kiss my feet, my pet." Clark hesitated and she gently rubbed the stone with her fingers. Her gentle caress of the small stone had an instantaneous effect on Superman.
The man was in agony, even though she hadn't touched him aside from her fingers still in his hair. Lex leaned forward to get a better look as the woman spoke softly. "My pet, why do you make it so hard on yourself? You know that doing as I bid is the only way to avoid the pain. Don't you?"
Clark growled his response through clenched teeth, "Yes... mistress."
She again stroked the stone softly and it was like a knife had been jabbed into Clark's stomach. He cried out and fell forward onto the floor, his hands wrapped across his abdomen. His chest heaved and his body shook with the pain.
"You know to make the pain stop, my pet, you have to do as I've commanded. I don't understand why you hesitate..." Clark looked back at the camera and she followed his gaze. "Oh, I see... you don't want your greatest enemy to see you serve another; to be humiliated in front of him." She touched the stone again and Clark gasped with an apparent increase in pain. "However, I need a demonstration of my power over you, my pet. Do it, or the pain will just continue to get worse."
Clark whispered a pained "Yes, mistress." Trembling with the effort, Clark managed to get up on all fours and he pressed his lips against her dainty foot. As soon as he did, the pain must have stopped because his chest heaved with apparent relief.
She spoke again, "Kneel at my feet as you had been doing, my pet." This time Clark didn't need to be told twice. He pushed up and knelt at her feet, again placing his head against her knee. He briefly looked in shame at the camera before he turned his face away, his eyes hidden by a dark fall of curls.
The woman looked at the camera, smug. "I think having Superman willingly at your beck and call would be something a man of your tastes would pay a lot of money for. Am I right?"
Lex sat back and looked at the woman's cold eyes. She was right. "How much?"
"That will be something I want to negotiate with you in person about."
Lex felt sure that the sum was going to be a very big one, but to own Clark finally after all his failed attempts it just might be worth it. "Just tell me when and where, but be sure to bring him with you."
Part 1 of 15 or so....
Continued here...