Chapter Text
Chapter 11: Whatever happened to Sleeping beauty?
Awareness came slowly.
The soft hum of machinery as the door of the pod shifted through familiar sequences. The grinding of the metal upon metal as it bared his young form to the world. The cold air ruffling slightly at his black hair. Then green eyes on black sclera blinked open groggily; trying to adjust to the bright lights of a hauntingly familiar room.
The White Room.
For a split second, something far more chilling than the air froze his bones in place.
"Augh!" Project Match roared in a blind panic. Heart racing he took a few hurried steps forward from his pod, intent to make his displeasure known but unused muscles buckled under the task. Green on black eyes stared down at shaking fingers in disbelief as his invulnerable flesh shook in fine tremor.
Weak.
Everything was too loud. The pounding of his heart was near-deafening as it tried to claw its way from his throat. The blood rushing through his veins seem to be a crescendo of noise. With his sharp ragged breathing Project Match was feeling light-headed and dizzy. There was no air to breathe.
Disgusting.
He needed to get out. To break as much stuff as time would allow, to be put back into the safety of the pod. Break something, he thought desperately as his eye roamed rapidly around the room. Anything.
Pathetic.
With a grunt of effort, Project Match staggered to his feet blindly. With trembling hands he latched onto the first thing he could grab, then there was a groan of grinding warping metal.
STOP IT!
Project Match roared, lifting the large metal pod overhead. Break it, he thought, breakbreaknreakbreakbreakbreakitbreakit.
"Blimey, talk about waking up on the wrong side of the bed!"
Oh. That was a new voice, and with nothing familiar about it. Feminine. Soothing, almost. Yet something in the voice made him stop, made something in his head stand at attention.
"Now, I'm gonna make a scientific leap in logic here and assume by these brain activities you can understand me. So, why don't we put that very expensive piece of eguipm-No not like that!" There was a loud crash as the pod fell unceremoniously to the hit-tech floor before the speaker could even finish their sentence.
There was a brief pause of silence as Project Match looked on expectantly. "Well, hopefully, that doesn't come out of my paycheck," the speaker spoke with a happy chuckle that reverberated throughout the room. "Dubbilex! I don't have to pay for that, do I? Really?! That's a relief! Good job Match!" Hearing praise from that voice soothed him, it almost thawed the cold from his veins.
"Now with that out of the way we should start with introd-What do you mean I shouldn't tell-That's a bloody stupid protocol! It's stupid because there are only two of us! Well, Luthor can shove it!" Stunned, Project Match could only listen to what he assumed was only half of a conversation. "Well, we're not gonna bloody tell him. What is he gonna do, fire me!? I like to bloody see him try. Don't tell him I said that."
There was a soft crackle of static as the speaker let out a peal of almost whimsical laughter. He rubbed absently at his chest in confusion as a small burst of warm fire bubbled warmly in his rib cage
"Okay, okay back to business," Project Match braced himself for the worst. Since it was far too late for him to return to his pod there was only to face whatever was thrown his way. "Since Dubbi-my assistant is a stickler for rules you can call me Director. Do you understand?"
Project Match cocked his head in slight contemplation before answering with a nod. Protocol dictates that all personnel have a designation and rank that must be adhered. Yet, he could not help the feeling of disappointment that the voice, now designated Director, would follow the same set of rules. Strange.
"Not much of a talker are ya. Well, that's alright we can work with that," the Director spoke happily. "But first a slight change in scenery." Project Match steeled his nerves as the white room began to shift and almost dissolve.
What would it be this time? Would he have to fight through simulated monsters? Try to hold up a burning building for hours? Killing the Justice League? A small shudder of disgust and fear rippled through his form, a feeling he was all too familiar all of his short existence.
That had been a favorite.
But no the room transformed into something unknown to him, something new. There was no evidence of a burning building or a battlefield of dying people with an infinite number of enemies to fight. There wasn't even a crashing plane.
No, what came upon his eyes was a room, circular in shape and full of comfortable cushioned seats with armchairs and tables. There were even large ornate windows that revealed a warm sunny day with streaks of light peeking through thick red curtains. At the far end of the room, there was a fireplace with a lion resting under a tree over top of it.
It was all comfortable and very inviting.
"Okay, Match why don't you take a seat and then we can get this party started!" the speaker crackled as the Director cheered happily.
Fully expecting a trap, he cautiously took a seat in one of the cushioned armchairs. They did feel as comfortable as they looked. "That's good, very good. Now for the first test."
Project Match watched with curious eyes as the table in front of him shifted for a moment in a complicated algorithm. Then after another moment, a strange object took its place in front of him. It was a small wooden table with different shapes of similar sizes cut into its main face. Next to it were brightly colored wooden blocks of various shapes and forms.
"Okay Match," Director spoke, "now I need you to place the shapes in the right space. You can begin anytime."
---LINEBREAK---
Several weeks later.
Grace felt a small tinge of nervous energy coursing through her as she twiddled with her hands. "The data shows the rapid development of cognitive and motor skills. It is a vast improvement in comparison from the previous data I was able to dig up." She cleared her suddenly dry throat with an awkward cough," And can I say, the bloke who wrote his notes down has terrible handwriting. Because blimey was it awful to read and locate, mind you. I mean have these guys never heard of properly archiving their data." She chuckled trying to fill the empty room.
Grace cursed her nervous babbling, a bad habit she had not been able to put to rest, not even with Draco Malfoy as a teacher. But it was the only thing she could do as she sat in front of a silent Lex Luthor.
The man had barely said a word in the last two hours. The only sound in the room was the shuffling of paperwork and the clicking of buttons on the keypad when he would play a video for a brief moment. Even when he had replayed through the recordings of Match's tests, he had barely raised a brow at her little speech, which only served to make her sweat more. Grace had thought she had scrubbed that, damn it!
The worst part was that Luthor had already had access to most, if not all, of the data. Except for a few crucial details, which Grace would be taking to her grave if she had anything to say about it. She had been sending them to him three times every week, as per his request, via private attachment. The man should, and could, be doing this in some private bunker on some private island he probably owned.
He just showed up out of the blue, in the middle of her lovely lunch break, and asked, i.e demanded that she show him all of her progress.
But Lex had not only requested all of her notes and archives but the previous information from her predecessors that she had used as a building block. Grace barely had time to grab the essential information from her terminal, and then she had to put them into a cohesive narrative that he could follow.
More nerve-racking was that some of her notes had to be tweaked a bit to hide any magically strange abnormalities with the 'cure' she had given to both subjects. There was no way she could explain the whole magic thing to Luthor, especially not with Statute of Secrecy. Squip or not she still had to obey the rules of magic. And she had a strong feeling he would not take her word for the cure so easily. So Grace came up with a plan, a bit of subterfuge to explain away most of the questionable details. The key factor being the Kryptonian DNA and using it as a bit of smoke and mirrors. While it had been studied extensively at Cadmus there was still a number of numerous unknowns.
So what if she happened to stumble across a few miracles with it, who could even dispute her claim?
But looking at the ever so serious Luthor she was starting to have her doubts.
"Curious," Grace nearly jumped from her seat as Luthor's quiet musing knocked her from her panicking thoughts.
"Excuse me," she blinked, her worry mounting.
"Oh, just confirming a theory," Luthor said. "Subject Match doesn't seem to speak. In all the recordings I've seen he never utters a word. Even with your unique form of shall, we say, communication."
A small bit of relief washed over her but then the feeling was quickly replaced with a bit of annoyance. Did Luthor just come all the way down here just to sate a curiosity? The man had interrupted her lunchtime for this!
"Well, there could be a number of factors which could contribute to this development." Grace had to say her words carefully, as not to shed any negative light on Match. Even though Luthor had allowed her access there was still a chance he could terminate her tests and Project Match. No, Grace thought firmly, she could not allow Luthor to think the project was a failure in any way.
"It's a common occurrence mainly in children born in isolated or shall we say unique environments. These environments are usually lacking the chance for them to gain such skills. And I have a feeling that getting him to talk wasn't much of a priority. " It had been the same for her when she was living with the Dursley. She had never spoken a word until she reached the age of four, or maybe five. Hell, the only reason she had been able to speak was that people were beginning to talk, and Aunt Petunia could not stand for such judgment passed onto her family, especially because of the 'freak' child she had been burdened with.
Grace shook away from her bitter thoughts, "Children are always developing as they are basically born sponges. They soak up the feedback loop from their environments. We just have to trust Match will speak on his own terms, no sooner." She stated firmly wanting to get that point across.
"And if he never speaks," Luthor raised his brow at her in amusement.
"Then we find some other way to communicate," Grace said. "Match is perfect as he is, whether he chooses to talk or not."
Luthor blinked at her in mild surprise, "What a very powerful answers Doctor. It almost sounded a bit maternal there."
"It wasn't," Grace fought to keep the mild flush from coloring her face. "Just that children should never be put under such microscopes and I place my trust in my subjects, both of them."
"Indeed," Luthor smiled. The prick.
Trying to quickly change the subject Grace continued on, "And as we both know Project Match was born without that constant feedback loop or even a chance to properly garner such crucial social behaviors. It's something to think about when it comes to Project Kr as well."
"Do not worry for my son," Luthor waved his hand absently, "there are already plans in place to help him in that development."
"Yes, the Gnomes," she failed to keep the slight discomfort from her face. Luthor had made the request to install gnomes for Project Kr as an opportunity for him to gain any necessary skills. Another phase that was apart of the original time table for the subjects. Grace was able to argue him away from giving one to Match, mainly for the concerns of his delicate repairing mind.
Most, if not all of Match's slow brain activity had more to do with his damaged DNA which showed far more extensive tinkering. It seems the previous scientist had tried multiple attempts to force a quick fix for Match's crumbling body.
The sad fact of the matter is that they had been working from a broken foundation from the beginning. The continuous attempts only served as a detriment to Match's recovery. From what she could gather, they seemed to be working in a rush. It seems Luthor. Sr had a tight timeline that demanded immediate results.
Regardless, it had forced Grace to start from the basics for learning and critical thinking. She had even resorted to reading children's books to him to display social behaviors in a positive light. It was all in an effort to there were no ill effects left around. But other than the first display of aggression Match had been strangely docile.
"Now, now," Luthor spoke teasingly, "I know you disagree with their usage but they do have their uses. I assure you that everything is fine and the Gnomes are safe.."
"You gotta work on this whole reassuring thing," Grace complained. "You're not that good at it and its only serving to make me worry more."
"Oh, my ability to comfort is fine," Luthor chuckled. "It just seems you do not trust me too much."
Well, he had her there.
"I must say your work is very impressive, Ms. Evans," Grace felt another form of relief wash over her as Luthor glanced at his watch, hoping this marked his exit.
"Impressive is one word for it," she rolled her eyes in annoyance. "But it's all there. And while Project Match is not at 100% he is definitely getting there. And Project Kr will be too."
"Of that, I have no doubt," Luthor smiled with warmth, which only served to raise her suspicion. "Your results far exceeded any expectations I had hoped. It is simply a work of miracles. I must say you are nothing short of brilliant."
"Oh you know, it was nothing," Grace mutter, squirming nervously in her seat at Luthor's intense gaze.
"Nonsense," Luthor scoffed, "I would no sooner dismiss your work then cut off my own arm. So allow me to thank you by taking you out to eat."
"Ah, blimey you don't have to-Wait what!?" she sputtered, gobsmacked.
"How about a nice restaurant? Say the la façon de la cour? My treat, of course." Luthor looked at her panicking form with amusement. "To thank you for all your hard work, nothing more."
"la façon de la cour!" Grace felt her jaw drop. Even she knew of the overly expensive french restaurant located in the more famous side of Metropolis. You practically needed a two-year reservation just to get on their waiting list. The food alone would take her two months pay for just an appetizer! By Merlin, that place flew in world-famous chefs every few tenures to work there. Heck, there was even a blog she followed which talked about the various chefs and changing food pallets.
"Well that's a generous offer but I simply can't," Grace felt herself break out in cold sweat. Price tags were mounting in her head. "That place is no bloody joke."
"Now, now, none of that Dr. Evans. I'm aware you've been running yourself ragged with this project, a little r and r would do you some good. And serve to allow me to pay back my debt." Luthor deflected her concerns effortlessly. "And didn't you miss your lunch? And would you look at that, its already so late! Surly the cafeteria would be closed for today."
Like that bastard did not know what time the cafeteria closed! And he was the on to interrupt her lunch in the first place.
"Well I'm not sure if I have anything I could wear," Grace tried for the easiest excuse. "I don't think I have anything that could cut it for such an expensive place."
"It does not matter to me," Luthor replied smoothly with a shrug. "Wear what makes you comfortable. This is your reward after all. But if you wish I could even procure you something, as well."
Grace narrowed her eyes in further suspicion. Getting a reservation for such a restaurant took time. This wasn't a last-minute decision, Luthor or not there was no way to jump on the list. The man probably had this prepared in advance and her answer was basically a moot point. There was something more going on here, something she wasn't seeing.
While it was true she had been practically surviving on scraps that did not mean she was that overly helpless, either. So what if she missed a meal or two or that Dubbilex had to nag her to eat something or take a rest when she had pulled a few all nighters back to back. Or sometimes she woke in the shower muttering equations to the water. What if the only thing she had eaten was a few hurried bites of some cold biscuits.
Why was she arguing this again?
She had worked hard damn it. A free ticket meal to a fancy-ass restaurant all on her boss's tab at that! Luthor was right, she did deserve that and more! Even if it proved to be some nonsense, she could at least get a couple of steaks in her belly.
"Well, how could I possibly say no," she shot back with a beaming smile. Her head was already full of award-winning food. "And there is no need for your offer I think I have something I could wear. Just give me some time to get dressed and I'll be happy to go."
"Of course, " he replied smoothly. "Our reservation is at nine, you have all the time to prepare," Luthor gave a nod towards the ever-vigilant Mercy. Who, at the beginning of this impromptu meeting, had taken her designated spot at the back of the room. "Just let Mercy know when you are ready, I will meet you there,"
"For shame," Grace answered back with a chuckle, "not gonna wait for a girl to get herself together."
"I would be happy if circumstances would permit," Luthor began to clean the various papers in front of him. "But as you are well aware, work waits for no one."
"Well it sounds like I'm not the only one who needs a bit of r and r," Grace said with worry as she looked Luthor over for any sign of fatigue but the man looked as fit as ever. Must be all the money.
While she may think of the man as a bit of arse he still an alright sort. He had been willing to do whatever it took to save his son, even calling on the aid of a stranger. One he could keep his eye on, of course, but it was still a gamble on his part.
Besides, the man did sign her paychecks too.
"Oh I take pleasure when I can," Luthor's smile stretch across his face, the shadows of the room serving to highlight his canines. "And well, you know what they say. When you doing what you love, can it really be called work."