Lois & Clark Forums Forums Superman In Other Canon Superman In Other Canon Fanfic Twelve Steps From Smallville 42/57 (Smallville & the Superman movies)

Perry brought his mind back to mundanity. They were approaching Metropolis General Hospital, familiarly known as Met Gen. Clark pulled into the parking structure, punched the button for a time-date parking ticket.

"We're agreed, then, Perry?" Clark asked him. "Lex Luthor invaded the house because he wanted revenge on Clark Kent and Lois Lane. Nothing about Jason except that he would be a good hostage." Clark's face darkened at the memory. "Lois got shot, but she only got winged. She only had a scalp wound, it'll probably heal in a few days." Clark glanced at Perry, and Perry was almost relieved to see that Clark had some of the same uneasiness regarding Lois' powers that Perry himself had. "Richard got shot, and he injured Lex Luthor, and Luthor's henchman was shot fatally."

Perry took over the recitation. "Superman took Clark and Jason somewhere, I don't know where," Perry said, continuing their rehearsal. "And he came back too late to keep Richard and Lois from being shot." Clark's lips tightened at this but he said nothing.

Perry continued, "And he took Lois for medical care. I assumed he was taking her to Met Gen, but he never actually said that. If the police want to know where Lois is now, they'll have to ask Superman."

Clark looked back at the road and said flatly, "And Clark Kent wasn't there for any of the shooting."

"And I escaped injury by the grace of God and because Luthor was more interested in other targets," Perry finished.

"That's our story and we're sticking to it!" Clark said. The two men looked at each other and grinned conspiratorially.

"The only thing is, does it explain all the blood?" Clark said musingly as he maneuvered the car through the seemingly endless ramps of the Met Gen parking structure.

"Let's see," Perry muttered, getting it straight in his own head, "Lois – scalp wound, bleeds a lot." He looked at Clark once again, and he knew they were both visualizing Lois as the bullet hit her straight on in the head, killing her. No, Perry. It didn't kill her. She was only mostly dead. Repeat that till you've got that straight. "Richard – he got in the crossfire, he got shot in the arm. He was bleeding a lot too."

"Actually, I've got to go up and see him," Clark said. "We have a lot to talk about."

Yeah, I'll bet. Perry just let Clark's comment lie there without response.

"And Richard was covered with Lex's blood from beating him on the head," Perry offered.

Clark frowned. "The only thing….I know I bled a lot all over Lex Luthor."

Perry swallowed again at the remembrance of Superman, holding Luthor in a limp embrace, his dead body….his mostly dead body…pinning the villain down as Richard attacked Luthor. Yes, indeed, Superman had bled copiously.

"We can say it's Richard's blood," Perry offered. "Richard did bleed on Lex, you know. Of course, Sawyer will probably have DNA testing done…maybe she won't make a point of it if Superman asks her specially…" Perry turned to Clark, who was drumming his fingers on the steering wheel. "Your point?" Perry asked, already half knowing the answer.

Clark seemed uncomfortable. "I don't know how to say this….Perry, I don't like my blood being out there. In fact, I don't like any part of me out there where people can get their hands on it."

"Not usually a problem, is it?" Perry asked sardonically. Then he castigated himself. This was no time for sarcastic remarks. They'd both had a very hard day.

"Well, no," Clark asked, not responding to the sarcasm. "When I was seventeen, though, Lionel Luthor got hold of a vial of my blood. He didn't know it was mine."

"How in the hell – " Perry stopped. This sounded like a long story, one that they just didn't have the time to get into right now.

"Well, it was another bizarre set of circumstances," Clark said apologetically.

"I repeat," Perry said, almost laughing out loud. The craziest things happened to Clark. It was like he was some sort of weirdness magnet. "Are there any other circumstances around you?"

"Not really, no," Clark said, smiling now, sharing in the joke with Perry. He turned serious. "But at that time, I found that my blood had, um, some pretty, um, unusual effects on people…."

"Unusual effects?" Perry asked, the Pit Bull roaring out of sleep.

"OK, it healed the terminally ill," Clark said, with the air of one who would prefer to not talk about it at all.

"What?"

"Fluky set of circumstances, never going to happen again, the effect didn't last, nobody would have any reason to suspect," Clark almost gabbled.

Perry was aware that he was gaping like a fool again. After a moment, he shut his jaw. He should be getting used to this sort of thing.

After a minute, Clark said, more soberly, "And it goes back to the whole primitive magic and voodoo thing. You know, if you've got someone's blood, you've got a handle on the whole person."

Perry could see the truth in that. The ancient thaumaturgic laws of sympathy and contagion. Were they really only superstition? Or were they truth?

Clark shrugged, continued. "So I really don't like having my blood out there. My blood is on Lex's clothing, which is now in the custody of the MPD, if I know Maggie Sawyer," he said seriously. "And you've just seen how effective the Metropolis Police evidence sequestration is." A tinge of bitterness at the reminder of Luthor's kryptonite ring.

A thought came to Perry. "I don't know if you have to worry, Clark," he said slowly.

"What?" Clark had slowed the car, unconsciously, and they were barely creeping on the parking structure ramps.

"When I pulled you off Luthor," Perry began, once again seeing the massive wounds disfiguring Superman's torso, "you had bled all over Luthor. I mean, his jacket, his vest, even his shirt – they were soaked. In your blood."

Clark looked at Perry intently.

Perry continued. "And Lois was hanging on to you, and she told me to get the ring off Luthor."

Clark nodded. He'd heard this before when they were rehearsing their story.

"Anyway, I got your blood on my hands while I was doing all this stuff with Luthor," Perry went on. "And it tingled." He looked at Clark accusingly. "Your blood felt funny."

"Sorry," Clark mumbled. "Can't help it."

"And when I got the ring off Luthor, and I was holding it up and looking at it, then your blood, on my hands, it bubbled. It felt warm. It was like your blood was boiling when it got near the kryptonite."

"That's what happens, all right," Clark said grimly.

"Oh, no," Perry said. Realization struck him. "You mean when you're exposed to kryptonite…?" he asked in a whisper.

"Yes. My blood literally boils," Clark said flatly.

"That's, uh, gotta hurt," Perry said lamely.

"You might say so," Clark said with a tight smile. He sighed. "I asked the Artificial Intelligence in the Fortress. It speculated that, um, you know how I absorb energy from Earth's yellow sun?"

"Yep. Lois mentioned that in her first interview with you," Perry said.

"It's the basis of my superpowers," Clark said. "I store that energy, and I can transform the potential energy into kinetic energy – like flying, or super-speeding, or strength. Or it's exuded as my invulnerability aura, or heat vision, or whatever. It all depends on the photoelectric effect and quantum physics – you know, certain wavelengths are absorbed and the electrons can jump to a higher orbit in a quantized manner - "

"Um, I left my quantum physics textbook in my pajamas, Clark, and we need to park the car…"

"Uh, yes. Well, the AI thinks that when I'm exposed to kryptonite, all that stored energy comes out in an uncontrolled release." Clark twisted his features in a parody of a smile. "So my blood boils."

"Oh." Perry took a deep breath. He couldn't imagine, didn't want to imagine, what blood boiling felt like from the inside. "Well, anyway, to make a long story short – or to make a long story endless, whichever you prefer – "

"Now you get to the point, Perry," Clark said teasingly.

"I took a whole lot of kryptonite off Luthor," Perry said. "By the way, Clark, it's all stored in Lois and Richard's gun safe. I put some boxes of lead ammo around it."

"I'll have to have Lois get it out of there," Clark said, his eyes looking off in the distance.

"But, Clark," Perry said, drawing the younger man's attention back to him, "after I saw that kryptonite made your blood boil, and by the way, that's very disturbing, I noticed the spots on Luthor's clothes where the blood had boiled and it looked different. That's how I found where he was carrying all the kryptonite bits he was carrying."

"And?" Clark prompted, seeing that Perry had more to say.

"And I didn't feel right about leaving the blood on Luthor all patchy and different colors, so I moved the kryptonite around enough to make all of the blood boil," Perry said. "I didn't need to do much, it was almost all exposed anyway. I don't know why I did it. It just seemed the thing to do."

Clark gave a triumphant whoop, surprising Perry. "Perry, that's the best thing you could have done." He lowered his voice. "I don't have to worry about it now. The blood's denatured, it's ruined, it can't be used against me anymore." He smiled at Perry. "DNA testing won't work either. Good job."

"Even though I didn't know what I was doing?" Perry asked.

"Perry, even when you don't know what you're doing, you're ten times more competent than most people."

Perry couldn't help but chuckle. "Not quite, but I'll take the compliment."