The Last Will and Testament of Lex Luthor, Part 3
It's been about a year since Lex Luthor was last seen. Clark has almost forgotten that Lex was even a thing. Sure, every once and a while, he'd think about Luthor, and maybe he'd even check and see if he's been spotted anywhere if he felt like it. But, at this point, he had just begun to feel nothing in regards to Lex. Not love, not hate, just a neutral feeling.
That is until a Lex-Bot tackled him and kamikazed him while he was flying.
He called Batman and the Atom over and they got to the wreckage as soon as they could. All that they could recover was a hard drive. They found it due to nanites, courtesy of Ray Palmer. It had essentially shot itself out of the Lex-Bot and into the nearest trash can. The nanites helped to find it.
After buying a random laptop because nobody wanted to put the Lex Luthor hard drive into theirs (and having an awkward conversation paying for a laptop completely in cash while in costume at a random Best Buy), they finally put the flash drive in to see what was on it. The only thing on it was coordinates. Coordinates placed a mile under Smallville, Kansas.
Clark immediately booked it out of the Best Buy and flew as fast as he could to the location. All that was running through Clark's mind was what Lex could possibly be doing in Smallville of all places. How does he even know that's significant to him? He began to run through every horrible thing Lex could be doing to his parents. He got faster. He began to think about the horrible things that could be happening to Lois because Lex would leak his secret identity. He got even faster. Clark's anxiety began to rapidly build up. He's never been more nervous in his life. He got to the coordinates and saw a big box made of lead about 300 feet down. Clark figured that Lex made that to make sure that Clark knew he was the one that made it. Clark began to spin down, creating a tunnel. He didn't have time to be subtle about this. Besides, nobody was around for about 20 miles. Which in country terms meant he had at least 20 minutes before somebody drove by on their way to somewhere else. He heated up his eyes in case he needed to go in guns blazing. Once he found lead, he tore it in two and landed right in front of Lex. His eyes glowing red and his game face on. He then calmed down upon seeing him. Seemingly dropping all potential for a fight. Lex looked over at Clark. He wasn't sitting in a desk with his parents in test tubes of Joker toxin. He wasn't in a power suit with a Kryptonite spear in hand, ready to throw down. Lex Luthor was on a hospital bed. An IV was inserted into his arm. Beside his bed was a table with a lead box. There was a monitor projecting his heartrate. Clark used his X-Ray vision to see what was going on with Lex.
Lex had heart cancer, and he was going to die. Soon. Very soon.
"You know, the coordinates I gave you would've put you right at the door. You could've simply waltzed right on in here, have Mercy walk you in, have some pretzels," Lex began to cough even more violently, "but instead you choose to punch a hole in this $7,000,000 facility."
Clark looked over at Lex and had nothing but sympathy in his eyes,
"Eh, figures. I put something in my hometown, you take it as an invitation to be as subtle as a cinder brick since there's no infrastructure around. It teaches me a lesson in the dangers of nostalgia."
Lex signals to the chair beside of him.
"Sit. Alien. I've got some things to tell you before I die."
"You're not going to die, Lex."
"Yes. I am. And there's no way in hell you're saving me."
"...what did you want to tell me?"
Lex's eyes began to fill with hatred and disdain.
Clark's look of sympathy turned into confusion,
Lex grabbed the tiny lead box on the table beside him and opened it up. As soon as Clark saw the tiniest green shine emanate from the crack of the box Lex barely began to open, he sped over to him to force the box closed. He used his heat vision to seal it shut. Lex rolled his eyes at Clark.
"Relax, Superman, there isn't any Kryptonite in there. Mercy took it away from me months ago. I just wanted to give you a little scare, you looked too comfortable," Lex noticed that Clark began to look around the lead-made building to see if he could maybe spot any Kryptonite, "I know you're trying to spot any Kryptonite. In hindsight, that scare wasn't worth it. To make sure I have your undivided attention, the only pieces of Kryptonite are in the rail gun in Mercy's arm. I really was expecting you to take the door."
Lex continued with his diatribe.
"I win, Superman. I've managed to concoct a plan to get someone you'll never beat." Lex began to violently cough, "Do you know who it is?"
Lex continued after finishing his coughing fit,
"Death. You can never beat death. Admittedly, the premise of the idea was an accident. You see, Kryptonite can obviously affect Kryptonians. However, it can also affect humans as well. Especially humans arrogant enough to keep a piece in the breast pocket of their suits for 15 years. At first I thought I'd give you cancer, too. Hijack somebody's rocket ship doing research on the sun and force you to intervene and fly extremely close to the sun, thus causing your cells to become so supercharged they start slowly killing you. But, lucky for you, I found that to be too petty. But then I realized something, I can prove I'm better than you by doing something you could never do."
Clark looked at Lex in utter terror,
"Lex, what have you done?"
"Simple, Superman. I saved the world better than you ever could. I cured cancer."
