(Young Justice/Smallville/DCU) Fic: Luthor Family Values
Title: Luthor Family Values
Rated: G
Summary: Lex sues for custody of Superboy. A comedy about family.
Available on LJ and AO3
Lex had long been accustomed to ignoring his father’s calls, emails, anything really related to Lionel at all. He made sure that short of a nuclear holocaust, all his assistants were aware of that information. In the past 12 years of running Luthor Corp, Lex had fired countless individuals for trying to bring him his father’s messages.
However, when Mercy pointed her finger at him and strongly suggested he check all of his voicemails, Lex was fairly certain that meant his father had actually gotten his hands on nuclear weapons.
“Honestly Lex, I go to all the trouble of arranging for the perfect grandson, and you let him run around with those spandex freaks?” His father wasn’t even bothering to yell. Typical. “Get control of your son or I swear, I will snatch him right back. How many lectures of Ceasar Augustus do I have to give you to get it through your head? When you’re done having playdates with your supervillain friends, call me. I don’t know how you manage to be a constant source of disappointment... “
Lex listened to the message twice to be sure he understood it. He deleted it after the second listen and poured himself two fingers of scotch.
If Lex had followed that correctly, Lionel had built himself a grandson from genetic scratch. Knowing the way he hated children, it was most likely aged to a teenager as he’d want to maintain the kind of control nearly impossible with an adult. Lex considered the idea of an adolescent, but then he remembered the way Lionel tried to sic a pack of hounds at Lori Luthor when she turned nine. It had to be a teenager.
If the child was running around with spandex freaks, then he was mostly one of the children running around in the separate team. The Atlantian was too old to suit Lionel purposes, Robin too young, the Martian and the Archer were female....which left the Ginger and the smaller Alien. However, the smaller Alien had come from Cadmus Labs which fell somewhere under the hierarchy of Luthor Corp, buried behind a dozen dummy organizations....
Lex had a horrible sinking suspicion he knew exactly which of the two was Lionel’s orchestrated grandson. If there was one thing his father could be counted on, it was to make Lex as miserable as possible. Especially since his father had been gunning for an alliance with Superman since day one. He could still remember his father’s scathing remarks when Superman made his first flying appearance, “You should try putting out. He’s not going to cave for bribery but everyone gives in to good sex eventually, and I’m sure you can be up to the task. Lord knows I didn’t send you to a State college for the education.”
Mercy poured Lex another two fingers of scotch, and then another two once he downed those as well. Once he had a little courage in him, Lex started to plan. He had to get his hands on the boy, see how he could use the situation to his advantage, and start refurbishing the guest room in the penthouse. On second thought, Lex grabbed the bottle from Mercy and took a drink straight from the glass.
“Mercy, please get my lawyers on line one and be on standby to call child services.”
***
After a few heated calls and an irritated video conference with the other members of The Light, Lex had all the evidence to prove Lionel had actually made a child using Lex and Superman’s DNA. Not only that, but also a child programmed to be the perfect Weapon and well behaved heir.
“You’d know all this if you called me more often. You’re such an ungrateful brat sometimes. Honestly, Lillian euthanized the wrong child. No ‘Thank You’ for providing you with an heir that already knows all the correct etiquette for formal dinners?” Lionel rolled his eyes on the webcam and Lex made a mental note to shuffle him to a nursing him in Portland where his father could be surrounded by Liberal Hippies.
Lex interlocked his fingers and stared pointedly right back at Lionel. “You couldn’t have just stolen Lori and programmed her with some of the Brainiac technology?”
Lionel scowled. “You know very well the scientists involved in that Luthor Corp branch are a bunch of union monkeys and I’m not going to trust my grandson to a bunch of union jocks.” One of the nursing aides tried to make Lionel lower his voice. Lionel smacked him in the face with his cane.
Lex could feel a headache coming on. “Dad, the connection is breaking up... You’re freezing and unfreezing on the other end....I’m going to try and restart the screen.”
“Bring him by for Christmas or I’m ‘curing’ Lena.” Lionel said before he hung up on Lex.
Lex closed his laptop screen with both hands before folding his arms and putting his head down on his desk. He counted to ten slowly and then had to do another ten count after that.
He reached over to the intercom and pressed the button. “Don’t bribe any of the judges, but make sure Amanda Waller is the boy’s CPS officer and give her directions to Happy Harbor.” He hung up immediately after. If Lionel was going to make Lex miserable, the least Lex could do was take down Batman with him.
***
He did everything about the custody appeal above board. By making sure Amanda was attached to the boy, the court was practically throwing the boy at him.
Even the judge looked appalled, though because it was the situation or because of the people involved, Lex couldn’t be sure. There were three league member’s in the room, Superman, Batman, and Black Canary. The boy had been placed in a separate chamber until the court appointed his guardian. Lex hadn’t even seen him up close yet.
“Legally, speaking, the law requires that a child be placed with a biological parent, before a suitable alternative is found. Conner Kent,” Here the judge took a moment to reinspect his notes and Lex used the moment to take a picture of Batman’s thunderous expression with his phone.
Amanda hadn’t just compiled a mountain of evidence about League practices, but also unearthed the boy’s forged civilian identity and handed it over to the court in exchange for an IOU from Lex. Honestly, if she didn’t remind him so much of his mother, Lex might have married her for her blackmailing skills alone.
The judge cleared his throat and continued, “...aka Superboy has currently been living as an unaccompanied minor in what is essentially a training facility ill designed for long term co-habitation. He was provided with a false identity against federal law. While the court acknowledges that the League does have the legal authority to create identities for the sake of Global Security, hiding a child from his biological family does not constitute such a situation. Although several members of the League have petitioned for custody, it is the misuse of their resources and their negligence in regards to Conner that makes me rule them unfit for guardianship. As for the question of providing custody to Superman, his inaction in regards to Conner is gross negligence and he is deemed an unfit parent. Court awards full custody of the child to Lex Luthor. I request for you and Conner to reconvene to my chambers after the trial to set you up with legal identification.”
It was the happiest moment of Lex’s life that didn’t involve deathrays. Mercy’s head camera was recording all of the League’s reactions, with backup files being saved to multiple locations. Once he left the court, he could burn them it to blue ray and watch Superman make that face over, and over and over again. He nearly forgot to pick up Conner, he was so delighted by the circumstances.
When he was lead into the room by the bailiff, he was suddenly reminded of himself. The boy had black hair and blue eyes like Superman, but the black had a touch of red in it, like Lex’s mother and the sprawling slouch, sulky expression, and animalistic snarl were nearly exactly like Lex at that age. Lex’s teenage years involved a deep seated rage and everything in the world. He had worked furiously hard to try and win his father’s affection and the only thing that ever impressed Lionel back then had been drugging his own sister and encouraging his half-brother’s gambling addiction to get rid of the competition.
The boy could have easily passed for family, especially with a sulk like that and hatred so strong, Lex could tan in it. The boy glowered at him and said, “Batman says I have to go with you.”
Lex wanted to laugh and take photographs to compare with photos of himself at fifteen. Even if he and the boy eventually evolved the standard Luthor family relationship, at least Lex would get his hands on a very fun experiment of nature versus nurture.
“What’s so funny?” the boy demanded.
“Science. With a haircut and an electric guitar, you could very easily pass for me at your age.”
The boy’s horrified look set off another peal of laughter in Lex. At the very least, Lex was starting to understand why everyone always seemed constantly amused around teenagers. They were highly entertaining.
***
It took an hour to get the paperwork on the boy squared out. His birth certificate listed July 4th, as his birthday with the correct year and an additional notation of an approximate age of 16 listed beside it. The longest part was agreeing on a surname. When the judge casually suggested hyphenating the Luthor name with Superman’s kryptonian family name of El, Lex and Conner argued for several minutes over hyphenation, Luthor alone, or keeping Kent. The judge managed to get them to compromise of El as a middle name and Lex felt like sulking himself.
“The way people are obsessed with Luthor alliterations, the newspapers are going to be using your middle name all the time. El Luthor sounds like a masked wrestler,” Lex grumbled as he signed the birth certificate.
“I like wrestling,” the boy added with an argumentative tone.
Lex felt like throwing his hands in the air. “Is there anything you don’t like?”
The boy was quiet for a few minutes and said, “Monkeys” with the same seething hatred Lex used when he said, “Superman” and the same hatred Lionel used when he said, “Liberals.”
“Noted,” Lex almost smiled.
***
The first day they spent together were very disorienting for Lex. Mercy had arranged for the boy to receive a fully furnished bedroom. Lex had his chef deliver meals to Lex at his home office and Conner’s to the dining room, but there was some confusion where Conner was convinced he was a prisoner under guard.
Lex considered sending Mercy to explain the situation, but she would be more emotionally detached than himself and the last thing he needed was for Conner to convince himself and everyone that he was a prisoner. Their stock was at an all-time high and Lex wanted to enjoy the benefit of positive publicity for at least another week.
“Boy,” Lex said, knocking at the boy’s suite door before pushing it open. He was, unsurprisingly, curled over playing tug of war with his giant wolf. Lex wanted to roll his eyes. State of the art computers, phone, game stations, weapons systems and tactical simulations that Air Force Generals would kill for and the boy chose to use an old piece of rope as entertainment.
“What,” Conner glowered at Lex. His happiness was already fading into a scowl.
Lex cleared his throat and gestured to the table in Conner’s sitting room. “I’d like to clarify the situation for you.” With a couple pointed questions, Lex discovered that Conner was convinced Lex had falsified information to make Conner a glorified prisoner. It was true in a way, Lex mused, at least as true as it was for most other teenagers.
“I didn’t have to falsify any documents.” Lex placed his briefcase on the table and opened it. He passed the papers he accumulated from Cadmus, transcripts of Lionel’s emails and phone calls, and a lead lined box. “When you are done reading those documents, you can check it yourself. If you prefer verifying the science yourself, there are blood sample kits in the box and blue kryptonite.” As Lex spoke, he pulled out pieces of the kit, pricking his own finger and smearing the blood on a glass slide. “Here, a sample from me. I trust you can research how to do it yourself. The reference library has been programmed to accept your fingerprint. It’s the green door on the East side of the pent house.”
The boy went quiet and still as he paged through the files.
“To clarify, you are no more a prisoner than any other child. As the Luthor Corp heir, you will be expected to attend school and do well. You will be expected to attend business events and gather intelligence on other individuals. As a Luthor, you will surpass all competition.”
The boy looked away. He looked towards the wrinkled black t-shirt in the corner. The wrinkles made the S symbol indistinguishable from any other t-shirt. “I won’t fight for you Luthor.”
At that Lex couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Please, I’m not Lionel. I don’t want you to be the best Luthor possible. I want you to be the best version of you. Let me worry about conquering the world, you work on being successful at what you love. If it gives Superman and my father a heart attack in the process, then great.” Please let him grow up to be a communist vegan musician, Lex quietly prayed. Please.
“Luthors are successful. I won’t accept anything less than success for you. In exchange, you can receive any assistance from me that you need. Not want, need. You can come to me with questions and so on. We will breakfast together and spend one hour each evening together. You may work with your former team so long as it does not interfere with your studies. Is that understood?”
The boy looked strangely hopeful but uncertain. Good. Lex didn’t want him to become too sure of himself and do something foolish, like entertain the idea of sabotage his work against Superman.
“I don’t really understand,” the boy started to say but Lex had finished with the conversation. Either someone else could fill him in or he could think it out on his own. Lex had a board meeting to attend to.
***
Breakfast was nearly as uncomfortable as their heart-to-heart but not so much. The chef laid out their plates at each end of the table, and of course, the boy had to be hustled in by Chastity, who was essentially Mercy’s right hand. The boy actually looked vaguely terrified that someone had the ability to manhandle him at all.
Lex frowned. The boys was still wearing the same t-shirt and jeans from the day before “Why isn’t he in his uniform?”
“Excelsior has instituted casual Fridays,”Chastity said, clapping her hands together, “Isn’t that neat?” Lex had forgotten why he rarely used Chastity. She had optimism and enthusiasm, especially in the morning. It was unnatural. He suspected she was inhuman but he had never found any definite proof.
“Chastity, I’m reassigning you to the boy.” Their reactions confirmed his decision. Chastity looked delighted and the boy looked disturbed. A match made in hell. Perfect.
“Conner.” The boy growled. His wolf growled as well, but after years of spraying Krypto with acid laced water, angry canines had lost their touch.
Lex waved his hand. Semantics. “You’re his Mercy now. Congratulations. Now take him to Neiman Marcus and find him something suitable. Nothing middle class, I mean it. We’re not Weasleys.”
Conner had enough time to grab a strudel off his plate before Chastity manhandled him out of the room.
She sent him pictures to his phone after their shopping trip. The boy Conner looked much more presentable in button-down eggplant, but it could be his natural weakness for the color. Good woman. She also sent Lex pictures of Conner sulking in the limo, sulking on an escalator, and sulking outside his homerooms. He knew there was a reason he couldn’t fire her.
**
According to Chastity’s reports, the boy essentially spent his days at Excelsior and this evenings with Young Justice. Lex wasn’t sure if it made him want to yell or be proud that the boy was already pushing his luck. During their designated ‘together’ time, Lex read up on LuthorCorp lab reports while the boy read his school books. Inquiries with his surveillance team revealed that the boy spent his free time in Happy Harbor working on car engines. Lex couldn’t help but be vaguely interested in seeing his abilities.
“I’ve recently purchased a Chevy Impala but the engine requires a great deal of work. We’ll start spending our time together working on the design schematics.” Lex said.
The boy scowled. “Can’t you just buy one the way you want it?”
“I could,” Lex said pleasantly enough, “but then you wouldn’t learn how to draft design schematics, or how to build, repair, and alter combustible engines to function in multiple environments.”
The boy crossed his arms. “Explain.”
Lex rolled his eyes. “So impatient. If you want your own spaceship, you have to build it yourself.”
That knocked the unpleasant expression off the boy’s face. “You got me a spaceship?”
“Not very clever are you,” Lex sneered. “What part of multiple environments did you not understand? We’re going to take a car and alter it so it can function on land, under water, and in space.”
“Why are you doing this?” the boy asked. “Why are giving me all these things?”
Lex considered lying about the good of his heart and parental love, but one thing Luthors didn’t do was outright lie to each other. Imply falsehood, sure, but a direct question? That was too much. “Because I like building death rays and I’m hoping it’ll give Superman an aneurysm to see us performing Earthan family bonding rituals. Also, I find your expressions highly entertaining.”
When the boy scowled again, Lex couldn’t resist reaching across the short table and ruffling his hair. “What if I don’t want lasers in my car?” the boy asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lex sputtered. His own flesh and blood rejecting something as intrinsically fascinating as lasers. It was absurd. “One of your best friends live in Gotham. I’m not letting you anywhere near the Joker without a death ray. It’s just unprofessional.”
Oddly enough, Lex’s reaction made the boy produce a small smirk that was clearly what passed for a smile with him. It was strangely reassuring.
***
The boy’s grasp on mechanics was fantastic. The drafting portion went quickly once Lex let the boy use his titanium space pen. Everything else kept breaking. Conner had a fantastic grasp of fluid dynamics, and without needing to concern themselves with ‘prefabricated parts,’ they could make any kind of design.
“Standard terrain first, then we’ll work on water proofing. The real challenge, “ Lex said, feeling his eyes light up, “is going to be keeping the appearance of the interior and exterior the same. You need to calculate the in dampener’s effect here. Redo your math.”
Conner crossed the numbers out, his slight confusion evident. “Why do we need to keep them intact.”
“Damage a genuine Winchester Chevy Impala, purchased from the set of Supernatural?” Lex made a face. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”
After a pause, Conner said, “My favorite show is No Signal,” tapping his pen over the paper before looking up. “I find it meditative.” After couple moments, he calculated out a propulsion system twice as efficient as Lex’ prized Porsche convertible.
Lex resisted the urge to call him fucking weird. That was a Lionel move and Lex was not going to end up like his father. “Perfect calculations, good work. Now draw out the dynamics and make sure to leave enough space for a cosmetic secondary hood under the primary hood,” Lex said, and then he leaned over the design with his own pencil to make corrections to the draft. “Before you ask, it’s to install a fake flux capacitor. A car without a flux capacitor is like an ice cream sunday without fudge or sprinkles.”
Conner scowled. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Come on, when I’m done yelling at my father over skype, you can try one for yourself.” Lex adjusted a couple of the angles on the carburetor design. They’d need ice cream after family time with Lionel.
***
“Look at you, so handsome. What’s your name,” Lionel beamed at Conner from his webcam and Lex could feel another tension headache coming on. Of course his father was going to spoil the boy. Of course he would.
“Superboy,” Conner said before Lex smacked him lightly on the back of the head. “Hey. Oh right. It’s Conner. Conner El Luthor.”
Lionel nodded. “Very nice. You have your mother’s features, thank god. You should have seen Lex at that age. He looked like a some sort of angry, bald stork. He couldn’t even get a date to the prom.”
“I was twelve,” Lex protested. “Twelve when I graduated High School. Who has a girlfriend that young?”
“I’m sixteen weeks and have a girlfriend. M’gann is very nice.” Conner added. Lex made a mental note to install a head camera in Chastity. If she couldn’t be bothered to inform him of his son’s relationships, clearly she was a too loyal to Conner for Lex’s purposes.
“Irish?” Lionel asked, with a vague look of distaste.
“Martian,” Conner crossed his arms in front of his chest. Lex needed to teach that boy how to hide his emotions with body language. He’d never survive Metropolis, let alone a LuthorCorp Christmas Party at this rate.
Lionel made an approving noise. “Well done! Telepaths make fantastic false alibis. A true Luthor move.”
Lex covered his face with his hands and counted to ten slowly while Lionel chattered on about Conner meeting Lena and Lori.
“Dad, you’re breaking up...I’ve got to restart the browser....”
Lionel frowned, the same nose wrinkling look that Conner was also giving him. “Don’t be such a pussy about hanging up, Lex.” Lionel said just before his father hung up on them.
“He’s not so bad,” Conner gave the computer a wistful look. “You didn’t have to hang up.”
Lex fumbled in his desk drawer for his aspirin bottle. “He didn’t want to wait for grandchild, so he stole my DNA, violated the strongest alien he could find, and purposefully created Genomorphs as an enslaved race just so he could have you aged and programmed as fast as possible. It was hang up or let him make racially inappropriate comments about your girlfriend. C’mon, we need ice cream.”
It wasn’t until they were huddled in the entertainment room with hot fudge sundaes that Lex realized Conner was channel surfing for his favorite show.
“Hold on,” Lex got up from the couch and unplugged the satellite cable from his flatscreen. The cable immediately dissolved into static. When he went back to the couch, Conner was curled up a little closer to Lex’s spot.
“Thanks.”
Lex looked at the way Conner looked almost happy. It wouldn’t be right if Conner grew up well adjusted. He might end up mediocre or middle-class. Lex could help fix that. “We’re going to watch my favorite movie when we finish our Sundays.” He was pretty sure it would only take one viewing of ‘Conquest of the Planet of the Apes’ to give Conner either nightmares or an undying hatred for Gorrilla Grodd. Either way, win.
***
Of course, the first day Conner drove his car to Happy Harbor, Lex’s investor meeting was interrupted by Superman floating outside and glaring at him through the glass. Lex took in the expression and wondered how anyone could have thought Conner was some sort of clone when Superman always looked like a wet, constipated cat.
“Excuse me gentlemen,” Lex said, adding a bow to the foreign investors. “My son’s biological mother appears to need my attention.” He went into the adjoining office and opened one of the full length windows he had installed as a cost saving measure. Superman pushed past Lex when he entered, clearly too angry for once to behave with any sort of manners.
“Are you here to cause structural damage or have you finally decided to pay child support?” Lex asked, enjoying the way Superman’s rage made the veins in his neck bulge. It reminded Lex of those entertaining stressballs that stretched into interesting shapes when squeezed. It was very soothing.
Superman lunged at him, apparently too angry to use his superspeed correctly, and Lex easily dodged him. “Superman, you left your clone wandering around my city flaunting his daddy issues - and I thought you'd forgotten my birthday." Lex grinned, there was nothing he loved more than a good lie - other than death rays.
“Of course I was going to investigate him,” Lex added. “You can just imagine my delight at discovering that he wasn’t a clone with daddy issues at all! They were mommy issues,” Lex was laughing too hard to dodge Superman’s grip that time.
“You sent Superboy to Happy Harbor with a bomb,” and there it was. Superman’s self-righteous grandeur, his need to be judge and lawman at once. His irrational hatred so bright that Lex wanted to soak it in and return it with a vengeance. This time, Lex hadn’t even done it.
“A bomb with my son? I don’t know where you get these flights of fancy. Conner is a very well educated, he’d never commit a faux pas like homicide on a school night,” Lex leaned into Superman’s bruising fingers and tried not to giggle.
Superman clearly didn’t like the reaction at all, because he gave Lex a hard shake. “You were going to kill a bunch of innocent children with a car bomb. That is the last straw Luthor. You’re not getting out of this one,” Superman dragged him towards the open window.
It only took Lex a second to process Superman’s thought process.
“It’s not a bomb you moron, it’s a souped up car. Don’t you know anything about engineering?” It wasn’t enough to make Superman hesitate, but it was enough to make Lex positively giddy when he was released from police custody a few hours later.
***
A quick GPS search led the police to discover the location of the car (the roof of Lex’s penthouse apartment) and the engineers confirmed that the car engine was nothing more than a car engine. A car engine built like a NASA design for NASCAR, but still a car engine. In fact, they even managed to uncover the reason for Superman’s mistake.
Lex laughed until tears came out of his eyes when Mercy picked him up. “He though the cosmetic flux capacitor was an antimatter container. The flux capacitor. He’s such a freak.”
Mercy didn’t so much as crack a smile. Neither did Conner. That was enough to sober up Lex.
“Cadmus didn’t provide you with cultural references?” Conner scowled and turned his head to look out the window. Lex pulled out his phone and started rearranging his schedule. “This will not do. Mercy, call Excelsior and inform them that Conner will not be attending school tomorrow.”
Conner gave him a curious look.
“We’re watching Back to the Future tonight, tomorrow we’re doing the Star Stars trilogy and the Warrior Angel films. I can not allow your ignorance on such subjects to continue,” Lex muttered, wondering idly if he should try and schedule a parent-teacher conference with Batman. He could use this incident to file a restraining order and have the deep pleasure of lecturing Batman on child safety. He blocked off Thursday evening in his schedule just in case.
Conner turned back to the window, this time, with the hint of a smile. Lex turned to look out his own window and if he was smiling himself, then it had to be from thwarting Superman.
Rated: G
Summary: Lex sues for custody of Superboy. A comedy about family.
Available on LJ and AO3
Lex had long been accustomed to ignoring his father’s calls, emails, anything really related to Lionel at all. He made sure that short of a nuclear holocaust, all his assistants were aware of that information. In the past 12 years of running Luthor Corp, Lex had fired countless individuals for trying to bring him his father’s messages.
However, when Mercy pointed her finger at him and strongly suggested he check all of his voicemails, Lex was fairly certain that meant his father had actually gotten his hands on nuclear weapons.
“Honestly Lex, I go to all the trouble of arranging for the perfect grandson, and you let him run around with those spandex freaks?” His father wasn’t even bothering to yell. Typical. “Get control of your son or I swear, I will snatch him right back. How many lectures of Ceasar Augustus do I have to give you to get it through your head? When you’re done having playdates with your supervillain friends, call me. I don’t know how you manage to be a constant source of disappointment... “
Lex listened to the message twice to be sure he understood it. He deleted it after the second listen and poured himself two fingers of scotch.
If Lex had followed that correctly, Lionel had built himself a grandson from genetic scratch. Knowing the way he hated children, it was most likely aged to a teenager as he’d want to maintain the kind of control nearly impossible with an adult. Lex considered the idea of an adolescent, but then he remembered the way Lionel tried to sic a pack of hounds at Lori Luthor when she turned nine. It had to be a teenager.
If the child was running around with spandex freaks, then he was mostly one of the children running around in the separate team. The Atlantian was too old to suit Lionel purposes, Robin too young, the Martian and the Archer were female....which left the Ginger and the smaller Alien. However, the smaller Alien had come from Cadmus Labs which fell somewhere under the hierarchy of Luthor Corp, buried behind a dozen dummy organizations....
Lex had a horrible sinking suspicion he knew exactly which of the two was Lionel’s orchestrated grandson. If there was one thing his father could be counted on, it was to make Lex as miserable as possible. Especially since his father had been gunning for an alliance with Superman since day one. He could still remember his father’s scathing remarks when Superman made his first flying appearance, “You should try putting out. He’s not going to cave for bribery but everyone gives in to good sex eventually, and I’m sure you can be up to the task. Lord knows I didn’t send you to a State college for the education.”
Mercy poured Lex another two fingers of scotch, and then another two once he downed those as well. Once he had a little courage in him, Lex started to plan. He had to get his hands on the boy, see how he could use the situation to his advantage, and start refurbishing the guest room in the penthouse. On second thought, Lex grabbed the bottle from Mercy and took a drink straight from the glass.
“Mercy, please get my lawyers on line one and be on standby to call child services.”
***
After a few heated calls and an irritated video conference with the other members of The Light, Lex had all the evidence to prove Lionel had actually made a child using Lex and Superman’s DNA. Not only that, but also a child programmed to be the perfect Weapon and well behaved heir.
“You’d know all this if you called me more often. You’re such an ungrateful brat sometimes. Honestly, Lillian euthanized the wrong child. No ‘Thank You’ for providing you with an heir that already knows all the correct etiquette for formal dinners?” Lionel rolled his eyes on the webcam and Lex made a mental note to shuffle him to a nursing him in Portland where his father could be surrounded by Liberal Hippies.
Lex interlocked his fingers and stared pointedly right back at Lionel. “You couldn’t have just stolen Lori and programmed her with some of the Brainiac technology?”
Lionel scowled. “You know very well the scientists involved in that Luthor Corp branch are a bunch of union monkeys and I’m not going to trust my grandson to a bunch of union jocks.” One of the nursing aides tried to make Lionel lower his voice. Lionel smacked him in the face with his cane.
Lex could feel a headache coming on. “Dad, the connection is breaking up... You’re freezing and unfreezing on the other end....I’m going to try and restart the screen.”
“Bring him by for Christmas or I’m ‘curing’ Lena.” Lionel said before he hung up on Lex.
Lex closed his laptop screen with both hands before folding his arms and putting his head down on his desk. He counted to ten slowly and then had to do another ten count after that.
He reached over to the intercom and pressed the button. “Don’t bribe any of the judges, but make sure Amanda Waller is the boy’s CPS officer and give her directions to Happy Harbor.” He hung up immediately after. If Lionel was going to make Lex miserable, the least Lex could do was take down Batman with him.
***
He did everything about the custody appeal above board. By making sure Amanda was attached to the boy, the court was practically throwing the boy at him.
Even the judge looked appalled, though because it was the situation or because of the people involved, Lex couldn’t be sure. There were three league member’s in the room, Superman, Batman, and Black Canary. The boy had been placed in a separate chamber until the court appointed his guardian. Lex hadn’t even seen him up close yet.
“Legally, speaking, the law requires that a child be placed with a biological parent, before a suitable alternative is found. Conner Kent,” Here the judge took a moment to reinspect his notes and Lex used the moment to take a picture of Batman’s thunderous expression with his phone.
Amanda hadn’t just compiled a mountain of evidence about League practices, but also unearthed the boy’s forged civilian identity and handed it over to the court in exchange for an IOU from Lex. Honestly, if she didn’t remind him so much of his mother, Lex might have married her for her blackmailing skills alone.
The judge cleared his throat and continued, “...aka Superboy has currently been living as an unaccompanied minor in what is essentially a training facility ill designed for long term co-habitation. He was provided with a false identity against federal law. While the court acknowledges that the League does have the legal authority to create identities for the sake of Global Security, hiding a child from his biological family does not constitute such a situation. Although several members of the League have petitioned for custody, it is the misuse of their resources and their negligence in regards to Conner that makes me rule them unfit for guardianship. As for the question of providing custody to Superman, his inaction in regards to Conner is gross negligence and he is deemed an unfit parent. Court awards full custody of the child to Lex Luthor. I request for you and Conner to reconvene to my chambers after the trial to set you up with legal identification.”
It was the happiest moment of Lex’s life that didn’t involve deathrays. Mercy’s head camera was recording all of the League’s reactions, with backup files being saved to multiple locations. Once he left the court, he could burn them it to blue ray and watch Superman make that face over, and over and over again. He nearly forgot to pick up Conner, he was so delighted by the circumstances.
When he was lead into the room by the bailiff, he was suddenly reminded of himself. The boy had black hair and blue eyes like Superman, but the black had a touch of red in it, like Lex’s mother and the sprawling slouch, sulky expression, and animalistic snarl were nearly exactly like Lex at that age. Lex’s teenage years involved a deep seated rage and everything in the world. He had worked furiously hard to try and win his father’s affection and the only thing that ever impressed Lionel back then had been drugging his own sister and encouraging his half-brother’s gambling addiction to get rid of the competition.
The boy could have easily passed for family, especially with a sulk like that and hatred so strong, Lex could tan in it. The boy glowered at him and said, “Batman says I have to go with you.”
Lex wanted to laugh and take photographs to compare with photos of himself at fifteen. Even if he and the boy eventually evolved the standard Luthor family relationship, at least Lex would get his hands on a very fun experiment of nature versus nurture.
“What’s so funny?” the boy demanded.
“Science. With a haircut and an electric guitar, you could very easily pass for me at your age.”
The boy’s horrified look set off another peal of laughter in Lex. At the very least, Lex was starting to understand why everyone always seemed constantly amused around teenagers. They were highly entertaining.
***
It took an hour to get the paperwork on the boy squared out. His birth certificate listed July 4th, as his birthday with the correct year and an additional notation of an approximate age of 16 listed beside it. The longest part was agreeing on a surname. When the judge casually suggested hyphenating the Luthor name with Superman’s kryptonian family name of El, Lex and Conner argued for several minutes over hyphenation, Luthor alone, or keeping Kent. The judge managed to get them to compromise of El as a middle name and Lex felt like sulking himself.
“The way people are obsessed with Luthor alliterations, the newspapers are going to be using your middle name all the time. El Luthor sounds like a masked wrestler,” Lex grumbled as he signed the birth certificate.
“I like wrestling,” the boy added with an argumentative tone.
Lex felt like throwing his hands in the air. “Is there anything you don’t like?”
The boy was quiet for a few minutes and said, “Monkeys” with the same seething hatred Lex used when he said, “Superman” and the same hatred Lionel used when he said, “Liberals.”
“Noted,” Lex almost smiled.
***
The first day they spent together were very disorienting for Lex. Mercy had arranged for the boy to receive a fully furnished bedroom. Lex had his chef deliver meals to Lex at his home office and Conner’s to the dining room, but there was some confusion where Conner was convinced he was a prisoner under guard.
Lex considered sending Mercy to explain the situation, but she would be more emotionally detached than himself and the last thing he needed was for Conner to convince himself and everyone that he was a prisoner. Their stock was at an all-time high and Lex wanted to enjoy the benefit of positive publicity for at least another week.
“Boy,” Lex said, knocking at the boy’s suite door before pushing it open. He was, unsurprisingly, curled over playing tug of war with his giant wolf. Lex wanted to roll his eyes. State of the art computers, phone, game stations, weapons systems and tactical simulations that Air Force Generals would kill for and the boy chose to use an old piece of rope as entertainment.
“What,” Conner glowered at Lex. His happiness was already fading into a scowl.
Lex cleared his throat and gestured to the table in Conner’s sitting room. “I’d like to clarify the situation for you.” With a couple pointed questions, Lex discovered that Conner was convinced Lex had falsified information to make Conner a glorified prisoner. It was true in a way, Lex mused, at least as true as it was for most other teenagers.
“I didn’t have to falsify any documents.” Lex placed his briefcase on the table and opened it. He passed the papers he accumulated from Cadmus, transcripts of Lionel’s emails and phone calls, and a lead lined box. “When you are done reading those documents, you can check it yourself. If you prefer verifying the science yourself, there are blood sample kits in the box and blue kryptonite.” As Lex spoke, he pulled out pieces of the kit, pricking his own finger and smearing the blood on a glass slide. “Here, a sample from me. I trust you can research how to do it yourself. The reference library has been programmed to accept your fingerprint. It’s the green door on the East side of the pent house.”
The boy went quiet and still as he paged through the files.
“To clarify, you are no more a prisoner than any other child. As the Luthor Corp heir, you will be expected to attend school and do well. You will be expected to attend business events and gather intelligence on other individuals. As a Luthor, you will surpass all competition.”
The boy looked away. He looked towards the wrinkled black t-shirt in the corner. The wrinkles made the S symbol indistinguishable from any other t-shirt. “I won’t fight for you Luthor.”
At that Lex couldn’t suppress a chuckle. “Please, I’m not Lionel. I don’t want you to be the best Luthor possible. I want you to be the best version of you. Let me worry about conquering the world, you work on being successful at what you love. If it gives Superman and my father a heart attack in the process, then great.” Please let him grow up to be a communist vegan musician, Lex quietly prayed. Please.
“Luthors are successful. I won’t accept anything less than success for you. In exchange, you can receive any assistance from me that you need. Not want, need. You can come to me with questions and so on. We will breakfast together and spend one hour each evening together. You may work with your former team so long as it does not interfere with your studies. Is that understood?”
The boy looked strangely hopeful but uncertain. Good. Lex didn’t want him to become too sure of himself and do something foolish, like entertain the idea of sabotage his work against Superman.
“I don’t really understand,” the boy started to say but Lex had finished with the conversation. Either someone else could fill him in or he could think it out on his own. Lex had a board meeting to attend to.
***
Breakfast was nearly as uncomfortable as their heart-to-heart but not so much. The chef laid out their plates at each end of the table, and of course, the boy had to be hustled in by Chastity, who was essentially Mercy’s right hand. The boy actually looked vaguely terrified that someone had the ability to manhandle him at all.
Lex frowned. The boys was still wearing the same t-shirt and jeans from the day before “Why isn’t he in his uniform?”
“Excelsior has instituted casual Fridays,”Chastity said, clapping her hands together, “Isn’t that neat?” Lex had forgotten why he rarely used Chastity. She had optimism and enthusiasm, especially in the morning. It was unnatural. He suspected she was inhuman but he had never found any definite proof.
“Chastity, I’m reassigning you to the boy.” Their reactions confirmed his decision. Chastity looked delighted and the boy looked disturbed. A match made in hell. Perfect.
“Conner.” The boy growled. His wolf growled as well, but after years of spraying Krypto with acid laced water, angry canines had lost their touch.
Lex waved his hand. Semantics. “You’re his Mercy now. Congratulations. Now take him to Neiman Marcus and find him something suitable. Nothing middle class, I mean it. We’re not Weasleys.”
Conner had enough time to grab a strudel off his plate before Chastity manhandled him out of the room.
She sent him pictures to his phone after their shopping trip. The boy Conner looked much more presentable in button-down eggplant, but it could be his natural weakness for the color. Good woman. She also sent Lex pictures of Conner sulking in the limo, sulking on an escalator, and sulking outside his homerooms. He knew there was a reason he couldn’t fire her.
**
According to Chastity’s reports, the boy essentially spent his days at Excelsior and this evenings with Young Justice. Lex wasn’t sure if it made him want to yell or be proud that the boy was already pushing his luck. During their designated ‘together’ time, Lex read up on LuthorCorp lab reports while the boy read his school books. Inquiries with his surveillance team revealed that the boy spent his free time in Happy Harbor working on car engines. Lex couldn’t help but be vaguely interested in seeing his abilities.
“I’ve recently purchased a Chevy Impala but the engine requires a great deal of work. We’ll start spending our time together working on the design schematics.” Lex said.
The boy scowled. “Can’t you just buy one the way you want it?”
“I could,” Lex said pleasantly enough, “but then you wouldn’t learn how to draft design schematics, or how to build, repair, and alter combustible engines to function in multiple environments.”
The boy crossed his arms. “Explain.”
Lex rolled his eyes. “So impatient. If you want your own spaceship, you have to build it yourself.”
That knocked the unpleasant expression off the boy’s face. “You got me a spaceship?”
“Not very clever are you,” Lex sneered. “What part of multiple environments did you not understand? We’re going to take a car and alter it so it can function on land, under water, and in space.”
“Why are you doing this?” the boy asked. “Why are giving me all these things?”
Lex considered lying about the good of his heart and parental love, but one thing Luthors didn’t do was outright lie to each other. Imply falsehood, sure, but a direct question? That was too much. “Because I like building death rays and I’m hoping it’ll give Superman an aneurysm to see us performing Earthan family bonding rituals. Also, I find your expressions highly entertaining.”
When the boy scowled again, Lex couldn’t resist reaching across the short table and ruffling his hair. “What if I don’t want lasers in my car?” the boy asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” Lex sputtered. His own flesh and blood rejecting something as intrinsically fascinating as lasers. It was absurd. “One of your best friends live in Gotham. I’m not letting you anywhere near the Joker without a death ray. It’s just unprofessional.”
Oddly enough, Lex’s reaction made the boy produce a small smirk that was clearly what passed for a smile with him. It was strangely reassuring.
***
The boy’s grasp on mechanics was fantastic. The drafting portion went quickly once Lex let the boy use his titanium space pen. Everything else kept breaking. Conner had a fantastic grasp of fluid dynamics, and without needing to concern themselves with ‘prefabricated parts,’ they could make any kind of design.
“Standard terrain first, then we’ll work on water proofing. The real challenge, “ Lex said, feeling his eyes light up, “is going to be keeping the appearance of the interior and exterior the same. You need to calculate the in dampener’s effect here. Redo your math.”
Conner crossed the numbers out, his slight confusion evident. “Why do we need to keep them intact.”
“Damage a genuine Winchester Chevy Impala, purchased from the set of Supernatural?” Lex made a face. “It’s like you don’t even know me.”
After a pause, Conner said, “My favorite show is No Signal,” tapping his pen over the paper before looking up. “I find it meditative.” After couple moments, he calculated out a propulsion system twice as efficient as Lex’ prized Porsche convertible.
Lex resisted the urge to call him fucking weird. That was a Lionel move and Lex was not going to end up like his father. “Perfect calculations, good work. Now draw out the dynamics and make sure to leave enough space for a cosmetic secondary hood under the primary hood,” Lex said, and then he leaned over the design with his own pencil to make corrections to the draft. “Before you ask, it’s to install a fake flux capacitor. A car without a flux capacitor is like an ice cream sunday without fudge or sprinkles.”
Conner scowled. “I don’t know what that is.”
“Come on, when I’m done yelling at my father over skype, you can try one for yourself.” Lex adjusted a couple of the angles on the carburetor design. They’d need ice cream after family time with Lionel.
***
“Look at you, so handsome. What’s your name,” Lionel beamed at Conner from his webcam and Lex could feel another tension headache coming on. Of course his father was going to spoil the boy. Of course he would.
“Superboy,” Conner said before Lex smacked him lightly on the back of the head. “Hey. Oh right. It’s Conner. Conner El Luthor.”
Lionel nodded. “Very nice. You have your mother’s features, thank god. You should have seen Lex at that age. He looked like a some sort of angry, bald stork. He couldn’t even get a date to the prom.”
“I was twelve,” Lex protested. “Twelve when I graduated High School. Who has a girlfriend that young?”
“I’m sixteen weeks and have a girlfriend. M’gann is very nice.” Conner added. Lex made a mental note to install a head camera in Chastity. If she couldn’t be bothered to inform him of his son’s relationships, clearly she was a too loyal to Conner for Lex’s purposes.
“Irish?” Lionel asked, with a vague look of distaste.
“Martian,” Conner crossed his arms in front of his chest. Lex needed to teach that boy how to hide his emotions with body language. He’d never survive Metropolis, let alone a LuthorCorp Christmas Party at this rate.
Lionel made an approving noise. “Well done! Telepaths make fantastic false alibis. A true Luthor move.”
Lex covered his face with his hands and counted to ten slowly while Lionel chattered on about Conner meeting Lena and Lori.
“Dad, you’re breaking up...I’ve got to restart the browser....”
Lionel frowned, the same nose wrinkling look that Conner was also giving him. “Don’t be such a pussy about hanging up, Lex.” Lionel said just before his father hung up on them.
“He’s not so bad,” Conner gave the computer a wistful look. “You didn’t have to hang up.”
Lex fumbled in his desk drawer for his aspirin bottle. “He didn’t want to wait for grandchild, so he stole my DNA, violated the strongest alien he could find, and purposefully created Genomorphs as an enslaved race just so he could have you aged and programmed as fast as possible. It was hang up or let him make racially inappropriate comments about your girlfriend. C’mon, we need ice cream.”
It wasn’t until they were huddled in the entertainment room with hot fudge sundaes that Lex realized Conner was channel surfing for his favorite show.
“Hold on,” Lex got up from the couch and unplugged the satellite cable from his flatscreen. The cable immediately dissolved into static. When he went back to the couch, Conner was curled up a little closer to Lex’s spot.
“Thanks.”
Lex looked at the way Conner looked almost happy. It wouldn’t be right if Conner grew up well adjusted. He might end up mediocre or middle-class. Lex could help fix that. “We’re going to watch my favorite movie when we finish our Sundays.” He was pretty sure it would only take one viewing of ‘Conquest of the Planet of the Apes’ to give Conner either nightmares or an undying hatred for Gorrilla Grodd. Either way, win.
***
Of course, the first day Conner drove his car to Happy Harbor, Lex’s investor meeting was interrupted by Superman floating outside and glaring at him through the glass. Lex took in the expression and wondered how anyone could have thought Conner was some sort of clone when Superman always looked like a wet, constipated cat.
“Excuse me gentlemen,” Lex said, adding a bow to the foreign investors. “My son’s biological mother appears to need my attention.” He went into the adjoining office and opened one of the full length windows he had installed as a cost saving measure. Superman pushed past Lex when he entered, clearly too angry for once to behave with any sort of manners.
“Are you here to cause structural damage or have you finally decided to pay child support?” Lex asked, enjoying the way Superman’s rage made the veins in his neck bulge. It reminded Lex of those entertaining stressballs that stretched into interesting shapes when squeezed. It was very soothing.
Superman lunged at him, apparently too angry to use his superspeed correctly, and Lex easily dodged him. “Superman, you left your clone wandering around my city flaunting his daddy issues - and I thought you'd forgotten my birthday." Lex grinned, there was nothing he loved more than a good lie - other than death rays.
“Of course I was going to investigate him,” Lex added. “You can just imagine my delight at discovering that he wasn’t a clone with daddy issues at all! They were mommy issues,” Lex was laughing too hard to dodge Superman’s grip that time.
“You sent Superboy to Happy Harbor with a bomb,” and there it was. Superman’s self-righteous grandeur, his need to be judge and lawman at once. His irrational hatred so bright that Lex wanted to soak it in and return it with a vengeance. This time, Lex hadn’t even done it.
“A bomb with my son? I don’t know where you get these flights of fancy. Conner is a very well educated, he’d never commit a faux pas like homicide on a school night,” Lex leaned into Superman’s bruising fingers and tried not to giggle.
Superman clearly didn’t like the reaction at all, because he gave Lex a hard shake. “You were going to kill a bunch of innocent children with a car bomb. That is the last straw Luthor. You’re not getting out of this one,” Superman dragged him towards the open window.
It only took Lex a second to process Superman’s thought process.
“It’s not a bomb you moron, it’s a souped up car. Don’t you know anything about engineering?” It wasn’t enough to make Superman hesitate, but it was enough to make Lex positively giddy when he was released from police custody a few hours later.
***
A quick GPS search led the police to discover the location of the car (the roof of Lex’s penthouse apartment) and the engineers confirmed that the car engine was nothing more than a car engine. A car engine built like a NASA design for NASCAR, but still a car engine. In fact, they even managed to uncover the reason for Superman’s mistake.
Lex laughed until tears came out of his eyes when Mercy picked him up. “He though the cosmetic flux capacitor was an antimatter container. The flux capacitor. He’s such a freak.”
Mercy didn’t so much as crack a smile. Neither did Conner. That was enough to sober up Lex.
“Cadmus didn’t provide you with cultural references?” Conner scowled and turned his head to look out the window. Lex pulled out his phone and started rearranging his schedule. “This will not do. Mercy, call Excelsior and inform them that Conner will not be attending school tomorrow.”
Conner gave him a curious look.
“We’re watching Back to the Future tonight, tomorrow we’re doing the Star Stars trilogy and the Warrior Angel films. I can not allow your ignorance on such subjects to continue,” Lex muttered, wondering idly if he should try and schedule a parent-teacher conference with Batman. He could use this incident to file a restraining order and have the deep pleasure of lecturing Batman on child safety. He blocked off Thursday evening in his schedule just in case.
Conner turned back to the window, this time, with the hint of a smile. Lex turned to look out his own window and if he was smiling himself, then it had to be from thwarting Superman.