If there had been darkness at the door, Lex had missed it. Instead, hands fisted in the fabric of his skirts, attention fixed on the miserable set of Clark Kent's mouth. Reaching out with clever fingertips to probe and pull and pry, purring, "open up, handsome."
The light went out. Door like a thunder clap. Black swept in and Lex's head jerked up in alarm- the rush of movement in the room, just a rustle and then pain.
Punishing. Pinning. Pulling them back, legs giving a fearful kick as fingers squoze down on his throat.
Bare skin, sharp and scraping, hand clenching on Lex and dragging him into the dark. Something sudden, painful in the curve of Lex's shin. He toppled back against the savage shadow snarling in his ear.
Strangled, unable to protest, to claim- not even enough air to try to squeak that Kent liked it, enjoyed it, asked for it--
No breath. Not enough in the blood to think of anything beyond the breathless buzz of fear.
The Bat. The Bat. The Bat with his claws ripening bruises, hauling Lex with a command in blackened tones. Lex fought Gods. Lex fought sky-sent. Superman. Strength contained in arrogance that turned Lex's gut to nausea. This wasn't some alien conqueror. This was no God, alight in the air, cape rippling in the wind. No careful, alien consideration. No God.
This was a devil. The Bat. Claw cragged. Wolf humid command rankling- leave this city, leave this house, leave this man, leave this meat behind, leave this meal, leave it. Pain belonged to other people in this place. Other creatures.
Lex fought Gods and never Devils.
The Bat raised Lex overhead and discarded him. Shattered them, and percussive, Lex struck the ground, whatever breath they had left beaten out of them by the impact.
It was only afterwards, struggling to scrape air back into their lungs that Lex tasted it: a sob, another, spilling the breath from them again. Crying in a shaking heap, thrown from a window.
It took him so long to find the wherewithal to sit. Longer to stand. Waiting for the wraith to come down from the dark window, and finding that the Bat hadn't followed him.
"What the fuck," Lex wheezed. Voice a strained whine. Scrabbled to find their phone, hammering a number into it- "Oh my God. Fuck. Fuck. New Jersey's so fucked up..."
Relief at the line connected. "Earn your goddamn pay and help me now. The Bat threw me from a window. He's in the manor. Kill him. Kill him, kill the fucking bat, that's an order."