Chapter Text
Alexander Luthor glared at the variety of daily newspapers on his desk.
Although he had planned for his stance on metahumans and Superman to be frontpage news, he certainly didn't intend to have a foe side-by-side with him on them.
Wayne and Luthor debate the Superman issue!
Is Superman Responsible for Lionel Luthor's Death?!?
Luthor Promises Help to Fight Metahumans; Wayne Requests Tolerance and Acceptance.
Billionaires' Opposite Stances on the Metahumans' phenomenons!
Worse, some other Wayne news also made it to the front page: Thomas Wayne announced a specialized non-profit charitable Wayne foundation dealing with vaccines or legal drug production to make it affordable for average citizens.
Since long ago, Lex had heard the whispers associating the Wayne with moving charity cases, such as orphans and destitute. The Luthor name, on the other hand, had always been associated with greed, not that Lex resented it. On the contrary, most days, he revelled in it.
Now, however, his greedy appearance, opposed to the Wayne's charitable reputation, made him seem like an opportunistic man- set on making money out of weapons against metahumans- instead of a bereaved child seeking justice. That, in itself, was a blow to Lex's self-esteem; he rarely made a move on one motive; everyone should know that by now.
Of course, Lex was trying to enrich himself from the fight against metahuman; that didn't mean he didn't sincerely want Superman caught or metahumans to be under control. His foresight and vindictiveness guided him almost as much as his greed.
How dare they whisper and insinuate Lex had only announced his news by greediness!
Lex seethed at the deceivingly shy face of Clark Wayne, a new enemy to defeat.
It didn't help that his hacker, the Riddler, hadn't gotten anything too incriminating about Wayne Enterprises before getting caught by Batman. Nothing was going Lex's way.
He tried to unclench his hand from his transparent desk and failed.
The Waynes had to fall and, Lex had to be the one to catch Superman. Unfortunately, he had no pieces of Kryptonite to use to equal Superman's powers; he had already combed, in vain, all the lands his father had bought in Smallville.
Nonetheless, he still had an ace up his sleeve. Picking up his disposable phone, Lex called a specific number, one he didn't want to use.
"John Cobden," Lex greeted the grunt answering the phone, "I may need your help for something."
That man was a failure and, Lex hated failures, which is why he hadn't wanted to use him. His father had used that man more than a decade ago to terrify Smallville's farmers into selling their farms to Luthor's hidden subsidiary. Regrettably, the man had fumbled the job so badly-John Cobden had murdered two old farmers in front of a witness- that Lionel Luthor had to interfere on his behalf. Lex didn't know why his father hadn't killed off the imbecile, or better yet, bought a mercenary's services with no links to the Luthor to terrify farmers. That would undoubtedly have been Lex's modus of Operandi; make sure there is no evidence linking you to a crime. Regrettably, Lex hadn't been aware of his father's misstep until very recently.
John Cobden directly linked the Luthors to the massive Smallville properties' acquisition, a fact Lex resented.
Today, however, Lex would try to squeeze the last use out of the man before getting rid of him.
"Remember Smallville? Yes, that's it. When you were there, did you see anyone with shiny minerals with them?" Lex interrogated. "No, not gold or anything like that. Possibly green minerals with a small hue."
Lex listened intently to the answer. He smiled. "Someone wore them as a necklace? Can you find it? I'll pay you well if you do. I'll wire you disbursement payment. Go to Smallville, if you can't find the girl, look for minerals that people may keep as objects in their homes."
As Lex hung up the phone, he was already feeling more in control. Steeping his fingers, Lex thought about everything he still needed to accomplish: he had a long day of damage control ahead.
***
The shots echoed in the narrow alley, more so than in a house- a boy's memories overlapping with his adult mind. Superman stopped the bullets before they could hit their intended target, Lois Lane.
The two gangsters' eyes widened in fear at his appearance. It only stoked Bruce's fury.
However, he kept enough control to tie them up. He picked Lois up despite her recriminations and carried her away from this deathtrap.
When he dropped her in a secure location, winking-winking in a mask was a ridiculous task but helped demonstrate this superhero's avowed stupidity- and flirting, she gripped his clothes. "Lois Lane from Daily Planet, care to comment on Lex Luthor's insinuation that you might be Lionel Luthor's murderer?"
Superman tilted his head in mild confusion. "Who is this Lex Luthor guy? Is he sexy?" Inside, Bruce raged against Lex Luthor, Clark Wayne and Lois Lane and how they each messed up his life.
Lois narrowed her eyes at him. "Don't you listen or read about the news."
Superman leaned seductively into Lois's personal space. "Would you date me, gorgeous porcelain doll, if I did? In that case, I do read the news."
The grip on his clothes only strengthened. "Don't play dumb. I'm warning you: he has an army to fight metahumans; I've just confirmed that fact."
So, Bruce thought, the reason you were in danger tonight was that you were verifying the intel Bruce Kent had given you!?! I gave you that information so that you could get informants and prepare your rumour channels. Instead, you recklessly decided to verify whether Bruce was lying to you by putting yourself at risk in the Suicide Slums. You've never been this reckless before, Lois. Is it because it's about Lex Luthor? What kind of history do you have with him? Had I known you would have reacted this stupidly, I would never have told you about it.
The bullets barely missed Lois Lane; she had been lucky enough that Superman was in Metropolis and paying extra attention to the unrest in the Slums.
"If you say so, my porcelain princess," Superman purred.
Stop being this reckless! YOU'RE GOING TO GET KILLED!
Lois shook her clothed fist without moving the superhero. "Don't call me princess," Lois gritted through her teeth, anger vaporizing as quickly as she switched gear. "Can you give me a bit of your time?"
Superman made himself smile under the mask. "Is that a date?"
Under his pretenses, he felt like a champagne cork, ready to explode.
Lois turned her charm to the max, proof in itself that she was working on front-page material, not on dating dull-witted Superman. "It can be, Superman. I do want to get to know you." She might have cooed, but her eyes were still as sharp as a knife's tip.
You want to get all information out of me, the information you'll use to get yourself killed, bullets piercing your heart and head, blood pooling around your cooling body, eyes forever unseeing. I'll stand alone amidst death, powerless to reverse its grip, incapable of drawing anything but misfortune on my acquaintances.
Superman's gloved hand cupped Lois Lane's cheek. Instead of recoiling, she bit her lips. "That's sweet of you, porcelain Queen of Hearts," Superman answered. "I'll gladly accept your gracious invitation."
Before Lois could set a date/time/location for their date, Superman flew away, leaving a frustrated Lois behind. His spiteful satisfaction at her unhappiness didn't suppress the resentment growing in his body; he couldn't think of anything, but to vent at the Fortress of Solitude, securing the world from himself.
Then, he wouldn't be able to harm them.
With that thought at the forethought of his mind, Bruce flew to his recluse safehouse, his shameful secret.
There, he yelled in frustration, broke part of the self-regenerating Fortress, let his lasers loose. He hated himself for his weaknesses.
He shouldn't have given Lois the intel on Lex Luthor's army, thus fuelling her on a self-destructive chase.
Bruce shouldn't have accepted to talk with Clark Wayne; not only had Bruce engendered Clark's life, but he had also endangered Clark's overprotective parents' lives-including Bruce's orphanage's fundraiser, Martha Wayne.
Bruce's eyes stung him as they melted the Fortress's walls again. He hit the floor with his fists, pounding on the solid material to the beat of his flaring powerlessness rage, white dust, its result, floating in the air.
Finally, Bruce crumbled to the floor, exhausted not so much by his actions, but by his emotions. Somewhere along the way, he had ripped off his clownish Superman disguise, only wearing light human clothing with streaks of blood.
To Bruce's knowledge, there were only three ways he could bleed: Kryptonite, lack of sunrays (for at least a week- he had had extensive experiments on that item) and himself. Seeing how his prior primal mindset wasn't conductive to unlocking his Kryptonite, Bruce could deduce he had hurt himself again.
No matter, he would soon heal.
His body was convenient in that regard, at least.
From the outer limit of the room, Bruce noticed the AI figure he had grown to hate, looking upon Bruce with pity etched in his face.
"Get out," Bruce growled, filled with embers of his burned-out fury.
The AI sadly shook his head. "Kal, let me help."
Blank-faced, Bruce glared at another reminder of his anger.
"I didn't intend you to grow this angry, Kal," the AI continued. "Let me help you."
"Help me," Bruce echoed in a monotone tone. "Help me," he repeated, "That's funny."
The AI tilted his head in his direction, wary at the sudden change.
"You think I don't know your secret?"
The heavy silence grew between the hologram and the man.
"I don't keep secrets from you," the AI replied.
Bruce didn't even waste his energy snorting.
"I calculated every variable,father," Bruce used a term denoting a family relationship for the first time in a conversation with his AI, an acknowledgment marred with sarcasm. "I calculated how long it took to construct a ship, how much warnings you had, how much time you thought you had left."
The AI looked more and more uncomfortable, more human than the stone-faced Bruce.
"No matter how much leeway I gave you," Bruce stated, "You still had time to construct or modify a ship for an adult and a baby."
The hologram opened his mouth and closed it. "Your chances of survival were higher if we concentrated on making a ship for you only."
Bruce's fist hit the Fortress's floor in a sickening thud. "Don't. Lie. To. Me."
He angrily gestured to the room. "You threw a baby in the air and, you hoped that someone would catch it. That's not increasing the baby's chance of survival."
"That's not true," the AI argued. "The percentage of your ship's survival was slighter higher without another living being."
"2,3%. Negligible if you consider that you instead sent a baby to fend for itself."
The AI hesitated. "You were your parents' priority as Krypton fell apart. They wanted to protect you, Kal-El."
"LIAR." Bruce couldn't hear anything but his increasingly rapid heart beating through his chest and his ears.
"That's..." the AI started.
"You and mother preferred to die on Krypton than to live with me!"
Bruce felt himself panting over his admission, reeling from all the emotions he had buried on the subject.
The truth was that Bruce had known for a long time neither of his Kryptonian parents wanted to leave Krypton alive, not even for his sake. There were other ways for Bruce and one of them to survive, but they hadn't explored those possibilities. They hadn't wanted to explore those possibilities.
Krypton was their home and, they had decided to die with it. Bruce knew from experience that surviving was harder than dying.
"Kal," the AI called in a sad tone.
For all of the AI's alleged worry about Kal's health and the fact that Kal was the last remaining part of Kryptonian culture, the AI couldn't even give Bruce one goddamn denial.
Bruce was in no mood to hear its rationalizing. So, he ordered it to shut up and leave him alone.
The AI did, a remorseful look plastered on his face.
Bruce hated how much it hurt. People had always told him he should talk about his feelings and, he'd feel better. It was such a crappy lie.
He had never felt more alone, more cursed than right at this moment.