On the Road to Gotham

Title: On the Road to Gotham
by Scylla Blue
Rating: N-17
Pairings: Lex/Whitney, possible threesome with Clark.
Disclaimer: I obviously do not own Smallville, Superman, or any incarnation thereof, since if I did, Whitney would. Not. Have. Died. I stopped watching Smallville after that, since the show turned into the Clark Mutual Appreciation Society. Blagh.
Summary: Whitney didn’t die! Nearly ten years after Whitney ran away from Smallville Lex stumbles into him in Gotham, a detective for the Metahuman Crimes Unit.
***


Lex Luthor’s life changed in the early morning of Gotham. His flight from Metropolis for his week of meetings with Bruce Wayne had arrived at Gotham International ten minutes ahead of schedule. The limo was waiting twenty steps from the plane when he disembarked, trailing a retinue of assistants and various lackeys he wasn’t certain of the purpose of. Someone in the limo called Bruce’s assistant when they merged onto the expressway to confirm Lex was on schedule. Lex finished his latte and asked for the Sports section. Seconds later it was proffered.

Then the limo careened wildly and swerved into oncoming traffic.

***

The door was crumpled in, jammed tight, but the window had broken, allowing Lex to escape the smoke filled compartment. He wasn’t sure how long he had been unconscious. Someone was crying softly, the jagged sound drowning out the wail of the sirens. Lex thought it was Alicia, his coordinating assistant, and called out her name, but the crying didn’t stop. He needed to get help.

There was chaos outside, a confusion of metal and colors that his brain couldn’t process as other cars, people, his eyes rendered blind. He coughed on the black smoke that thickened the air and did not see the threat headed towards him. Hands grabbed at him, spinning and jerking him hard against something that felt too cold to be flesh. Through tearing eyes he looked down at the meaty grey appendage rumpling his shirt. It had warts on it. One of those grotesque hands wrapped around Lex’s slender throat, forcing his head up as he gasped for breath. Just beneath the heavy stench of the smoke he could smell something sweet and rotten, pressing the length of his body and staining his skin where the thing dared to touch.

He was going to burn this suit.

“Back off, boys, or I’ll snap baldy here’s scrawny neck.” The voice sounded like pulverizing rock, words barely understandable as English, but their meaning was quite clear. Lex didn’t know who the ‘boys’ were, but he hoped they put in an appearance soon.

As though his fancy conjured them, hazy figures materialized from the smoke, their measured steps spreading them in a rough semi-circle about Lex and his assailant. Their features were indiscernible, but by their posture Lex guessed they were armed. There was a legs spread, arms braced stance every professionally trained gunman adopted. If anyone shot him it was really going to ruin his morning.

“Let the man go, Croc.” Woman’s voice, to the left.

“No! Don’t want to go back.” Croc sounded sullen and mulish, like a child told to go to his room. Fingers tightened and Lex choked, his air cut off.

“Croc! What did Ivy tell you about her plants, Croc?” Another voice, male, but Lex could barely listen over the rush of blood.

“Don’, don’ touch her plants,” the creature mumbled obediently, obliviously to Lex’s pained choking noises.

“That’s right. So let the plant go, Croc. You don’t want Ivy to get unhappy with you, do you, Croc?" Plant? Spots dancing in his vision Lex roundly cursed to realize he’d fallen into psychotic’s hallucination.

The beast sounded close to tears as he sobbed. “Don’ let the green lady be mad at me!” Fingers scrambled at Lex’s shirt, then stilled. “Green. Gotta be careful with green.”

Released suddenly, Lex stumbled. Croc was lumbering over the limo, but his pursuers were right behind him, shouting blurs Lex barely saw rushing past him. Air rushed into his starved lungs, black and thick, and he choked again. Pain tightened in his chest and he would have fallen but for the arm that circled his waist.

“Lex? Are you okay? Lex?” The man in question blinked, trying to make sense of the face hovering over him. There was something black on its head, a snout of sorts, and he wondered why this new monster knew his name. “Just breathe, Lex. Deep breaths. That’s it. Shit, you’re bleeding.”

Lex closed his eyes. Then opened them. Tears from the smoke still obscured his vision, but he could make out there was a handsome young man with a gas mask perched atop his head leaning over him. A young man who looked vaguely familiar, with a gun in his other hand. Maybe he’d met him at a club? Light reflected from his chest and Lex glanced down to see a police badge swinging against a dark blue vest. A police officer. Had he had sex with an officer of the law and not known? How disappointing.

The hand holding the gun awkwardly touched the side of his face. “Just stay still, Lex. You might have a concussion.”

“Fordham! Captain wants you!”

Fordham? Squinting at the face given to him in profile, Lex felt his stomach drop as memory clicked. Nearly ten years had passed, but the features were still flawless, beautiful and masculine. The last news he’d heard about the boy he’d joined the Marines. The princess of Smallville Lana Lang’s perfect prince, star quarterback Whitney Fordham.

sSs

“Detective.” Whitney looked up from his computer screen to see the vision of Lex Luthor standing at the corner of his desk, once more impeccable in a dark gray suit with a pale blue shirt and tie. The whole squad room was staring at the man they had rescued this morning from Killer Croc, but at the time, Whitney had been the only one who knew. Once the news crews had arrived the billionaire had been ousted, but he was already with the paramedics by that time.

“Mister Luthor,” Whitney carefully started, not certain why he was being singled out. Surely the man didn’t want to reminisce about Smallville? Whitney had been a senior when Lex moved into his ancestral castle to take over the LuthorCorp plant that employed most of Smallville. He’d really only met the older man a handful of times, barely an acquaintance. “Have you come in to give your statement?”

“In part.” The handsome bald man smiled enigmatically, but the assessing gaze that took him in from toe to head was far less subtle. Whitney squirmed and fought the blush that made Lex’s smile widen. “I have just given my statement to your captain,” he continued, propping one hip on the edge of the detective’s desk. “He informed me that I have you to thank for my life. Stopping here was my last business for the day. Would you join me for dinner? It is the least I can do in thanks.”

Over Lex’s shoulder the blond caught the significant look his superior officer was giving him and bit back a sigh of defeat. “Sure. Just give me a few minutes to clean up here?”

Lex twisted to see whom Whitney had agreed to and met the beaming smile of his captain. If he had any comment on his motivation, he thankfully didn’t voice it. “Certainly.” If nothing else, Lex Luthor was gracious in victory. “I shall await you downstairs.”

Fifteen minutes later Whitney stepped out of the precinct house to see a limo idling out front. It was longer than the one Lex had had this morning. The rear most window rolled down as an attendant came from the other side to open a door for him. Lex’s face appeared in the window.

“Detective, if you would please?”

Knowing his whole squad was probably hanging out the windows to watch he did as asked. God, he was never going to hear the end of this.

“I would have been good with the Porsche, Mr. Luthor.”

Lex laughed, a gentle noise that filled the spacious compartment. The red leather couches were long enough for Whitney to stretch out his six foot frame and there was a bar next to Lex, but the blond couldn’t take in the smaller details once he got a good look at his host. The suit jacket was gone and most of the buttons of his shirt were undone, giving him a teasing glance of Lex’s smooth chest.

“Um,”

“Sorry for the limo, but Lex Luthor must maintain a certain standard. Scotch?”

***

“So. A plant?”

Whitney had the grace to blush, twirling his fork in the remains of his pasta. “Croc has a crush on another Arkham inmate, Poison Ivy. He’s not the brightest bulb to begin with, but he gets dumber under stress. Your shirt this morning was green.”

“I must remember to thank my tailor,” Lex murmured. “What I don’t understand is why that creature was allowed out in the first place.”

A shrug was his immediate answer. Then, “It’s his legal right to a parole hearing.”

“Does he not have to be first declared mentally competent?”

“Define competent,” Whitney dryly fired back.

“The man caused a seventy car pile-up when he threw the armored police van into on-coming traffic.”

“Yeah,” Whitney calmly agreed. “Parole board turned him down for early release.”

Lex snorted derisively, then grinned. “This morning really doesn’t bother you, does it?”

“I work Special Crime. All day I deal with metahumans. Croc’s a little more violent than some, but he’s working on his anger management.”

“My entire entourage is in their hotel rooms or at the hospital, near comatose on valium.”
“Carrying a gun helps,” the detective offered.

“I imagine so,” Lex laughed. “You will have to tell me sometime how you fell into this life.”

The statement implied a future relationship. Lex signaled a passing waiter and Whitney took the moment to glance around the small restaurant. The dress code varied from jeans to suits and the décor was starkly done in silver, white and black, but the menus had no dollar amounts and none of the wait staff would look him in the face long enough to remember him. He’d caught the name of the place on the way in, The Blooming, and though he didn’t recognize it, the quality was easy enough to see. Their dinner had been the best he’d had in years and he wondered what it said, bringing him here. The place seemed big on privacy; he hadn’t seen a camera since they got here, so maybe it was just Lex being discreet. Whitney already knew the man was rich, so there was no need to impress him with it. What was Lex after? Their conversation through most of dinner had been light. He’d let Lex lead and tried to answer intelligently about stocks, the rise in beef imports, the viability of the JLA as comic book characters, and the traffic on 5th since the new donut shop went in. Lex was a witty, eclectic conversationalist and left Whitney feeling like he was being interviewed.

He wasn’t sure how to feel about that.

His scan of the room had taken seconds. Turning back to his host, he listened to Lex order Halawa, a Middle Eastern dessert, with half an ear while he studied the man across from him. Back in Smallville he’d never been interesting enough to warrant Lex Luthor’s attention. No, that honor had gone to Clark Kent and sometimes Lana Lang, Whitney’s old girlfriend. He didn’t think Lex wanted him now, not on a permanent basis anyway. People didn’t date Whitney Fordham with long term commitment in mind, especially not someone like Lex Luthor. If Lex wanted anything, it was most likely a business trip fuck.

So the question became, did Whitney want a one-night with Lex?

The waiter left and Lex smiled at him, invitation clearly lettered in his silvery blue eyes. “Like what you see, Whitney?”

“I’m getting there.”

sSs
TBC.