Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Spontaneity
Lena Keiran Luthor has been described as many things over the years, spontaneous has never been one of them. Yet here she was, in Manhattan, about to spend almost five hundred million dollars on a whim. To be fair she had been thinking about it for the last 3 weeks, but it had never been anything more than a hypothetical. But over the last 12 hours it became a reality.
So here she sat in the lobby of Rockefeller Center, waiting for the meeting she had scheduled just four hours ago. The lobby made her uncomfortable, it wanted to look like it was welcoming while being off-putting at the same time. It was impersonal in the worst possible way, like the lobby of a dentist’s office where you were just waiting for the hygenist to chastise you for not flossing.
“Ms. Luthor,” Lena looked up to see a young blonde assistant asking for her attention, “The commissioner is ready to you see now.”
Finally, Lena thought, let’s get this over with. She stood up and followed the assistant beyond the glass doors and down a hall and into a large conference room. Only one man sat in the room. Lena thanked the assistant and took her seat opposite the man, the assistant bowed her head and left the room.
“Welcome to the headquarters of Major League Baseball, Miss Luthor,” the man said.
“Thank you for having me, Commissioner Manfred,” Lena responded, “it’s a pleasure to be here.”
“Please, you’re joining the MLB family, call me Rob.”
“Well in that case call me Lena.”
“Now, usually in this sort of thing,” he began, “the selling party is here, but, uhh, Mr. Lord is currently indisposed so it’s just us.”
“Yes well,” Lena smiled, “I think the transaction will be much smoother without him here.”
“On that, I think we can both agree. Now to business, what’s remained of Lord Technologies has faxed over the paperwork, so all I need is your signature.” He handed over the paper and a pen along with that. “My assistant has marked all the places you need to sign and initial.
Lena took up the pen and hesitated for a moment. There was no going back from here. She closed her eyes and took a deep sigh, trying ignore Rob Manfred staring at her expectantly. Then she opened her eyes and signed the paper, sliding it back to him.
“And with that you now own the National City Red Hawks. Congratulations.”
What was so wrong with being spontaneous?
“For the last 15 years, the Red Hawks have been the laughing stock of the sports world,” Scott Braun, an MLB Network anchor said, “Ever since they traded Clark Kent to the Metropolis Stars for what essentially amounted to a jar of pickles, they have not had a winning season. Every year they start out as one of the best teams and then all of a sudden they collapse into one of the worst. Then, two months ago, it was revealed that their owner, tech billionaire Max Lord, was involved in selling weapons to multiple white supremacist groups. He was arrested by the FBI and is currently being held in prison. Now, this morning it is being reported by MLB Network’s own Ken Rosenthal, that Lena Luthor the newly minted CEO of L-Corp has purchased the team, and here to talk about it is the man himself, Ken Rosenthal. Ken, welcome to MLB Network.”
“Thank you, Scott,” Ken said, “It’s good to be here.”
“Tell us about this new development for the Red Hawks.”
“Well, as you just said Lena Luthor has bought the team,” Ken said, “but before we talk about that, I want to chronicle the changes that they have made. Two years ago they hired John Jones, the architect behind the amazing Padres rebuild that made the World Series as their general manager. They also called the veteran manager Snapper Carr out of retirement to helm the team on the field. But then when you add in Lena Luthor a new owner with a possible new mandate.”
“So what does this mean for the team?”
“It could mean a lot of different things. Over the last two years there have been reports of clashes between Jones and Carr, as Jones is more analytically inclined while Carr is much more traditional. If Lena Luthor can get them to work together then this could be a huge surprise story, if she can’t this team is going to completely collapse once again.”
“Yo, Blake, shut that shit off!” Mike Matthews shouted at Adam Blake in the Red Hawks clubhouse.
“You don’t want to hear what’s going on with our team?” he responded, rolling his eyes and turning the TV off, “Because they sure as well won’t tell us.” He pointed up, meaning the management of the team.
“Baker, you’re an old man, you’ve been in the bigs a long time,” Matthews turned to his teammate Buddy Baker, “What happens when a new owner takes over.”
Baker sighed and turned around to reveal that is iced arm, “It largely depends on how the owner took power. In this situation I think you should expect some radical changes, but it really depends on how hands on Luthor wants to be, is this just an investment or does she actually care about this. Only she has the answer.”
National City had the best skyline in the world. At least that was Lena’s opinion, and most people probably thought that their home had the best things. She used to live in Metropolis, and had loved the city for many years, now it reminded her of Lex, which was not something she wanted to think about right now, or ever again really.
But of course now that was all she could think of. She remembered all the games of chess, all the times they played make-believe, Lena always wanted to be Morgana Le Fay, she relished in the power of the figure. Lex always chose some genius like Alexander Graham Bell or Albert Einstein. It never really made sense to her, but it was fun nevertheless.
“Ms. Luthor,” her secretary Jess’ voice cut through her thoughts, and she was brought back to her office. She turned her chair to face the young woman.
“Yes, Jess,” Lena breathed out.
“Jack Spheer is on line one for you.”
“Ahh Jesus,” Lena straightened her back, “put him through.”
Jess nodded and left the room. Lena pressed a button on the phone.
“Please tell me this is a joke, Lee,” Jack said as soon as he was forwarded through.
“I don’t believe I know what you’re talking about.”
“C’mon Lena, you bought a Major League Baseball team!”
“You don’t have to shout Jack.”
“Apparently I do, it’s the only way I can get things through your thick skull you idiot!”
“Jackson I am a grown woman, I can make my own decisions with my own money.”
“Lee, stop calling me that.”
“Then stop being a condescending ass.”
“Look, I’m sorry Lena, but baseball is a dying sport, you know this.”
“It is a dying sport that is still very profitable,” she leaned back in her chair, “besides this is a great opportunity to soften my image in National City.”
“Okay, there may be some logic to your thinking,” Lena breathed out a sigh of relief, it seems she was able to calm him down. “But do you even like baseball? You were never really a huge sports person when we were in college.”
“Well, first off, I don’t really have to run the team, I have people who do that for me, and I’ve been doing some reading, and there’s a lot of mathematics to baseball and I don’t know if you are aware of this, but I am very good at mathematics.”
“Is she here yet?” John Jones loved Winn Schott like a son, he truly did, not that he would ever let him know, but sometimes he could be so annoying.
“I will give you the same answer I gave you 5 minutes ago,” he said as calmly as he could, “No. And I will let you know when she arrives.”
“I’m just really nervous,” Winn said stepping into John’s office without invitation. John Jones, like most Major League General Managers, had a large office. It was broken off into two sections. One had John’s large desk which faced the door, the other held a large meeting table for organizational meetings.
“I hadn’t noticed.” He motioned for the young man to take a seat before him.
“I just really don’t want to lose my job.” Winn took the seat.
“You’re not going to lose your job.” He couldn’t promise that.
“You can’t promise that.”
“Look, Winn,” John leaned in, “I find it hard to believe that she would fire, I doubt she even knows who you are.”
At that very moment there was a knock on the door and Lena Luthor entered. Both men stared at the woman, and Winn gulped audibly. She stood in the doorway for a moment and then back to the two men. The silence enveloped the room, as all three did not know how to begin the conversation. Finally, after a few seconds Lena decided it was her job to talk first.
“Hello, Mr. Jones,” she began, “It’s nice to finally meet you in person after talking on the phone several times.” She turns to look at Winn and his face somehow simultaneously turned white and burned bright red at the same time. “And is this Mister Schott?” Winn nodded slowly. “Good, I’m glad you’re already here, I was hoping to speak with both of you.” She motioned over to the table.
Winn and John followed Lena over to the table. John almost always sat at the head of the table, but today he was relegated to sit on the side.
“Sorry, I ran a little late, there were complications at the office,” Lena began, “but I wanted to speak with you both before I addressed the team,” she turned to see Winn who was stiff as a board, “Is he okay?”
“He’s fine,” John responded, “he’s just worried you’re going to fire him.”
“I’m not firing either of you.”
“Oh thank god,” Winn said letting out a humongous puff of air.
“He’s also your biggest fan,” John added.
“I have fa--,” Lena stopped herself, “You know what we’ll deal with that later. But first I wanted to go over the roster with you two,” she looks from John to Winn, “the GM and the head of the analytics department.”
John and Winn looked at each other. Neither was sure how to deal with this or what was honestly happening.
“Look, Max wasn’t really this hands on,” John began, “He really just let us do what we needed to do as long as we didn’t spend too much of his money.”
“Okay,” Lena sighed, “I don’t know if you’re aware of this, but Maxwell Lord gave weapons to terrorists. So I’m not sure he is the model of how things should be done. Therefore I will be doing things differently. Now, let’s go over some of the players on the roster, shall we?” John nods, “Thank you.” Lena takes a large manila folder out of her bag and sets it down on the table, opening it to reveal about 45 scouting reports, “Let’s begin with James Olsen.”
James “Jimmy” Olsen was a catcher for the National City Red Hawks, this was his fifth year on the team, and at the end of the season he would be a free agent, and have a choice to make about whether he wanted to stay with the team or go somewhere else. If anybody even wanted him. Catchers were a buyers market, really free agency was a whole. He loved catching, you had the whole game in front of you and you had a sense of control over the the game. But as much as he loved it, it was painful. The amount of bruises he already had only 3 weeks into the season would surprise even his teammates.
“You okay, man?” Buddy Baker was his closest friend on the team. It largely came from his being the longest tendered pitcher on the team, you spend that much time with someone, you better hope you become friends with them, because if you don’t, those five years are going to be horrible.
“I’m fine,” he responded, “Just in a lot of pain after yesterday.”
“Yeah,” Buddy sits down next to him in the clubhouse, “I feel like I’m kind of responsible for that.”
“Eh, it’s not your fault. You’re supposed to throw, and you did, I just didn’t do my job of catching what you threw.”
“Maybe. I guess I’ll have to be better next time,” he chuckles.
“Danvers! My office! Now!” came the shout from Manager Steve Lombard’s small office on the side of the clubhouse. The Midvale Mud Cats clubhouse was small, like most AAA clubhouses. The amenities weren’t great and plumbing was constantly a problem, but it was something you had to endure if you wanted to make the majors, which every single player in the room did.
“Oooo,” comes the jeer from Guy Gardner, “Somebody’s in trouble.”
“Shut up,” Kara said, she said. She stood up and sighed, stealing a moment for herself, before she walked into her manager’s office.
“Danvers,” Lombard motioned to the decrepit chair in front of his desk, “Sit down.”
Kara did as he instructed. She looked around his office, despite this being her second season in AAA, she hadn’t been in here enough to fully register all the memorabilia in the room. Steve Lombard had been a Major League Baseball player for a few years, but was forced to retire early because of a bad injury. Kara wasn’t entirely sure the specificity of it. Lombard talked about it constantly, claiming he would have been one of the greats if not for the injury. She wasn’t entirely sure if she believed him. She wanted to, but she also had a nagging feeling he was exaggerating.
“Congratulations, Danvers,” Lombard said, leaning back, “You’ve been called up to the show.”
“I’m sorry, what?” Kara blinked, she was pretty sure she heard incorrectly.
“You’re being called to the Majors,” Kara still stared blankly, “You are going to be a starting pitcher for the National City Red Hawks.”
“I’m sorry,” Kara said, “But how long has this been in the works, like was there a plan from the beginning or…”
“As far as I’m aware, it was a spontaneous decision.”