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Being bald, bookish, and new money, Lex Luthor was never destined to win any popularity contests at Excelsior Prep. The nature of his ambitions were far greater than that anyway. But by his sophomore year, finding himself surrounded in the courtyard by three older, larger, thuggier, boys looking to start trouble with him had become routine- hardly warranting a reaction. Schoolyard bullies, even at elite prep schools, were still nothing more than knuckle dragging dimwits to Lex, and he met their arrival with an indifferent glance before returning his attention back to his book.
After standing around for a few seconds without getting the desired reaction, the largest of the three piped up, “Hey, what happened to your hair, freak? You have cancer or something?”
“If I said I did, would you be nicer to me?” Lex said, bored, not looking up from the page he was reading.
The thuggy one made a face like he was struggling to parse the comment before settling on yelling “Fucking weirdo!” and punching Lex in the arm.
The friend beside him took the opportunity to kick over Lex’s bookbag, sending pens and papers scattering across the ground.
In the grander scheme of abuse Lex had suffered at the hands of more competently violent neanderthals, it was a fairly amateur-ish attempt, and Lex didn’t even bother mustering up a scathing retort to throw back at them as they retreated back to the dorm, snickering and high-fiving each other.
Bruce Wayne had a habit of materializing silently as fog and just out of periphery so Lex refused to dignify his appearance behind him with a reaction either as he picked up his things off the ground and stuffed them back in his bag.
Presumably he’d seen what happened because he watched Lex with his arms crossed over his chest and asked “Why don’t you ever fight them back?”
“Because I tend to value being alive and with all my limbs attached. I can be funny like that.” Lex scoffed.
“They’re bigger than you but if you worked at it, you could be stronger than them. I’ve seen you in fencing club- you’re not a weakling.” Bruce said darkly.
“Strange. I don’t remember asking for advice.”
“And you’re disciplined.” Bruce continued, ignoring him. “If you trained, you could beat them.
Lex sighed. “I could spend weeks in the gym and punch as hard as them, but they could spend years in the library and never be as smart as me. Isn’t that satisfaction enough?”
Bruce’s eyes lingered on the comic book Lex was brushing dirt off of that had fallen from his book bag, the cover torn at the top.
“You tell me.” he said, evenly. “But if I was in your place, I wouldn’t let them get away with it.”
Lex shoved the remaining items in his bag and closed it, sitting back on the bench. “Who said I was letting them get away with it?”
Bruce regarded him skeptically and Lex just smirked.
“Whoever said ‘success is the best revenge’ may have been just short of the truth- successful revenge is the best revenge.” Lex explained. “I could try to fight those idiots and end up with all of my bones broken for the trouble, or I could seek vengeance by other means.”
Bruce, unsurprisingly, looked confused by this concept but Lex went on to explain.
“Take those three that were giving me a hard time just now for example. The one who kicked over my book bag? That’s Max Beardsley. He’s in my AP history course as well- always throwing things at the back of my head when the teacher isn’t looking. He’s going to get kicked out for drug possession later this week.” he said nonchalantly.
“Max does drugs?” Bruce asked, brow furrowing.
“No.” Lex said. “But my roommate does. So I planted some of his in Max’s locker and left an anonymous tip off in the dean of student's mail box."
Bruce gave him one of those menacing, constipated, glares of disapproval he kept on reserve for Lex’s bad behavior.
“And the guy in the middle? The one who hit me?” Lex went on. “I happen to know his father’s company is about two billion dollars in debt after making an ill advised expansion into pharmaceuticals. What he might not realize is that Luthorcorp is actually the holding company on many of his father’s ventures. I’m sure my father was already planning on demanding repayment on the debt at some point but I think a scandal that causes their stock to fall below 200 points will expedite that.”
Bruce frowned, crossing his arms over his chest. “A scandal I’m sure you’ve already figured out a way to orchestrate…?”
Lex waved his hand breezily. “It’s a work in progress. But you can expect that by the end of the semester his father’s business will have been absorbed by Luthorcorp.”
“And the third guy?” Bruce asked.
“Oh, him?” Lex shrugged. “I slept with his sister on spring break and never called her back.”
Lex flashed a smile at him that would make a hungry lion run with its tail between his legs and hitched his book bag up on his shoulder. “See? You have your methods, I have mine.”
“Yeah… I can see that…” Bruce grumbled, still leveling him with one of his ‘no fun allowed’ glares.
"Besides, I’ve always thought that getting beaten up by bullies and then beating them up harder lacked sufficient finesse." Lex said, pointedly looking at Bruce who jutted his chin out slightly at the thinly concealed gibe.
“I think you could stand to learn a thing or two from me, Wayne.” Lex said over his shoulder as he walked away. “Your version of vengeance won’t get you very far when you’re outside the playground.”
End.