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07/01/02
Smallville extended universe (SV + DC comics) Feedback scrolls my stonework: janestclair15@hotmail.com Summary: Lex does a favour. Disclaimer: All those within belong, conceptually, to DC comics. "Smallville" belongs to WB. The story is mine mine mine. For Te, who eggs me on.
Smog
They don't, though, and these days nobody comes to take your car. If you want to see Bruce Wayne at home, you get out and you walk like a penitent up to the door, and you knock. Which is probably why Lionel didn't come himself. He'd have had to bring people with him, to keep from getting his hands dirty, and the whole thing would have smacked of effort. And Lex didn't think about it enough to check into the man's current household arrangements before he drove out. So it's his own fault that he's shivering in the library with cold Atlantic water dripping down the back of his neck. Alfred padded in a minute ago, bearing towels and a robe, but Lex is still in the process of stripping his clothes off and rubbing himself down as best he can, and he'll be lucky if Wayne doesn't walk in on him while he's shirtless and barefoot in the not-quite dark. Worse because he doesn't have any idea what the man wants. Wayne Industries and LuthorCorp are both major shareholders in a couple of west coast tech companies that're looking more red than black lately, but that's not something you deal with at home. Or it's not something his father would send him into Wayne's home to deal with. Unless there's a deal going on that he's not in on. Dark house, strange business associate, naked Lex. It's not an idea he's really able to shake until he's got the robe on, and the slippers, and Alfred's come and gone, taking his coat and shirt and socks to be dried and pressed. Alfred leaves him with a drink, and cigarettes if he wants them. Lex thinks maybe the ones on the side shelf have opium in them, but he wasn't planning to smoke anything, so it's beside the point. Still no Bruce Wayne. Long minutes until Lex is reduced to reading something to kill the time. 'Kim' is what he gets when he pulls something from the shelf randomly. It's got the right aura of colonial authority for men who like living in Old World castles. And he might as well read, because if Wayne's late, he's not doing it for anything like a tactical reason, whatever Lionel would think about it. He's just distracted. It's why he moved the offices into the city, probably. Lex remembers meeting Bruce Wayne when he was thirteen and Bruce was twenty, remembers the way he was always distracted. Looking into the corners of the house like he didn't live there, or like he expected something to come at him. Easier to be the corporate warrior in some chrome and bleached-oak boardroom. A flash of dark at the corner of his eye makes Lex glance up. If the Wayne Manor's haunted by anything other than Bruce, it's at least probably something actually dead, and not just disgustingly mutated by meteors. Except. Skin, there in the far doorway, and what's probably the white chest of a baseball shirt. Dark sleeves, dark collar. Click of the door opposite, and feet. Lex says, "Bruce, I think you've got a burglar." Soft chuckle. Lex turns and Bruce Wayne's leaning in the doorway. He looks more comfortable in his skin than he's looked in years. And he looks older. Unless he's prematurely grey, the bright spot at his temple is just a reflection off the glossy black, but the lines at the edges of his face are real. "Sorry I kept you waiting." "It's fine. It gave me time to dry off. And meet the footpad." Bruce flickers. "Dick, are you planning to come in?"  Oh god, Bruce. No. "Dick, this is Lex Luthor. Lex, Dick Grayson." Whisper soft, "Hi." Lex is. Lex has to smile. That or hiss. He wonders how, exactly, the gossip columnists missed mentioning Gotham's billionaire master's catamite. "Do you want to stay, or do you want to go see what Alfred's up to?" Bruce asks. Lex recognizes the tone; Lionel has one like it. Go or stay, but don't lurk. Luthors don't listen at doors like servants. "I'll go. Think Alfred'll make cookies if I bug him?" "Probably. If he does, you have to share, though." "Sure. Whatever." Glittering smile, and for just a second Dick wraps himself around Bruce. Arms around his shoulders, tight hug, then he's gone. Just long enough for Lex to get a sense of how small the boy is. Shorter than Lex is, still too thin to be more than an adolescent. Bruce is huge. Bruce sighs and sits down. To Lex, he says, "Do you want another drink?" Lex shakes his head. Wonders if this was tactical. Some sort of statement of how far Bruce Wayne is outside the law. Power that doesn't apologize for itself. He wonders whether Wayne Industries is big enough to do them serious damage. Bruce doesn't drink. Just water. Ice in his hands, condensation on the glass and the tips of his fingers. And he almost collapses back into the armchair. Gnaws on the second knuckle of his thumb for a minute, then looks over. "Lex, are we friends?" "No." Ghost of a smile. "Fair enough. Allies?" "What are you offering?" "I need a favour." "Corporate?" "Personal." "I'm not my father's messenger." "Yes you are. But I'm not asking your father." "Then I'm listening." "I need you to take Dick for me." It's not what he expected. Something darker. Or. Less sticky than this, more convoluted. Take the boy. Move him. Get him out of the country? "Why?" Silence. "Lex, what do you think he is to me?" "There's no safe answer to that." "Try." "I won't." "I'm not." Beat. "What?" "I'm not." Hesitation. "I want to say I'm not sleeping with him, but on a purely technical level that isn't true. He has nightmares." Smile. "And cold feet." "He can't be more than fourteen, Bruce." "He's twelve. Thirteen next week." Good god. "Who is he?" "I adopted him. Four years ago, after his parents were murdered. It shouldn't have happened. It was my fault." Misery. "It's not what you think." "Bruce, I'm not sure you should be telling me this." "I'm not fucking him, Lex." Quiet. He doesn't think it's a word he ever expected to hear the man say. Bruce is almost icily polite, most of the time. Better manners than anybody ever beat into Lex, but maybe being raised by Alfred makes a difference. "So what do you want?" "I told you. Take him away for a while." "Why me?" "Because if I send him anywhere myself, he's going to think I'm angry. He hasn't done anything wrong." "Then why send him?" "Because if I don't, I'm going to do something." Lex believes it. He's seen Bruce smile maybe six times in his whole life. He remembers when he was sixteen and Bruce was twenty-three, kissing him in the winter garden out behind this castle during some hopeless, awful party. Bruce pulled back against the ice-covered trees and shook, and Lex got to understand in the next couple of days, through a pair of convoluted e-mails and one in-person apology and a lot of thinking afterward, that Bruce doesn't deal. Somewhere in the folds of his brain, Bruce is only about twelve, too. And if somebody loved him on that level . . . Fuck. "How long?" It's a yes he hasn't said yet. "I don't know. Long enough for me to think." Lex nods. He doesn't think his father would want Bruce for a son quite so much if he knew him better. "Can you think of a reason why?" "It's going to be summer in a week or two. We'll be buried in smog until it cools. Other people send boys his age to camp." "So why not send him to camp too?" "Even I'm not that cruel." Lex thinks maybe every scion of mid-Atlantic nobility's been through at least one summer of cabins, canoes, and carnality on some obscure lake on the Canadian border. Maybe his generation and Bruce's will have the sense to wipe those places out. "Take him out of the smog?" "Into the country. Find him someone to play with. I won't lie to you and tell you he's quiet, but he's good at staying out from underfoot." Lex nods. He doesn't think he's going to see much of Dick at all, even if he does take him. Wonders how he'll notice if the boy disappears. "When?" "I was thinking tomorrow." Somewhere behind his eyes, Bruce is mentally packing the kid up. Out of the house. Get out. Get out. Lex wonders if Dick will have fewer bruises than he did when Bruce pushed him off. Watches Dick come barrelling in, sugar-shocked and grinning, and bounce, landing on the arm of Bruce's chair. Watches him offer a still-warm cookie, too close to Bruce's mouth for the man to do anything but take it in his teeth. Bruce warms up to the smile he gets in return, and there's an almost-gasp of laughter when Dick drops over the chair's arm into his lap. No kiss, but almost. Alfred touches Lex's shoulder, offers him two cookies on a
very clean
plate. Thickly armoured, like he already knows this is going to hurt
like
hell.
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