Chapter Text
He remembers the first time he laid eyes on the Kent boy as though it was yesterday. Or rather, the emotions he had felt at that time. Not so much the visuals or images, because he cannot reliably tell which ones are truth and what others are mere mirage.
The lineup of memories and feelings began with a broken boy in the middle of a burning cornfield. It began with frantic concern quickly giving way to anger that was slow to melt but morphed into irritation. What would he tell Lilian, was his thought that day, he would have to explain himself. Everything then receded as he felt an inexplicable desire to see the dying boy dead--perhaps sparing Lionel future inconveniences, perhaps causing more trouble. He would never find out which, because even this feeling was shortlived as instinct took over.
He ended up putting himself in debt, which was really rather unacceptable. Even as he climbed into the truck, he was already thinking about not just repaying the debt and getting out of it, but also how to gain an upper hand in all of this.
There wasn't much he could remember about the drive to the medical center. It could be hours, or mere minutes. He couldn't remember whether there was any conversation being made, pleasantries being exchanged, or whether he correctly remembered being quietly poleaxed, quite an unsettlingly unfamiliar feeling which he didn't really care to have a repeat of.
There was however, a little boy with shocking green eyes staring out of pale face. As pale as his insensate son. At night and in the middle of carnage, the boy looked stark white, even more so against a mop of hair as dark as china ink. The boy was almost translucent and oddly luminescent.
They then took his son off this hands, and some time passed until he saw Lex again, still out of it and surrounded by machines. He might've called Lilian about the incident, or maybe someone else did. There's a lack of any clear memory of her ever keeping vigil by her son's bedside. He did spend some time sitting by Lex's side, but he's not so sure how long it was, and did he sleep a little or did he work a lot? There were some visitors, but they could've been faceless people.
Yet, there's a clear memory about the Kent boy visiting several days after that night, looking oddly fixated on Lex's immobile form for some unfathomable reason. In the sterility of the room, the boy was bright and warm as though he had spent time just soaking in the sun. So full of life, especially next to Lex, that Lionel didn't even register the boy's apparent muteness and strange gestures at first.
The boy had fascinated him, an enigma as intriguing as nothing he had ever seen. Even as he helped draw up adoption papers he was thinking of perhaps telling Lilian that they could be raising a black-haired changeling.
But like most things, memories of that long, frustratingly confusing stretch of time receded. Like cicadas, they began to burrow themselves into the back of his mind, laid dormant, waiting for the time to resurface again. Biding their time patiently.
These days, he is reminded of those old memories very often. Especially since he's now reduced to being laid on his back, with little else to do other than looking out of windows. Looking at a world that marches on without needing him as an active participant.
*****
His days are marked by opening and closing doors, despite trading hospital ones with his own suite in the Plaza. This time it swings open to let his son in. He thinks of the relative irony, a reversal of events that happened many years ago. He wonders idly what Lex will remember years down the line. Despite the alcohol, drugs, and injuries both self-inflicted and otherwise--and Lionel readily admits that he contributed to some of them--Lex never seems to show anything but a perfect recall of things. Maybe Lex is just good at keeping up appearances, or it could be that his mutation runs deeper than originally thought. Perhaps both.
Lex's visits have become more frequent. So, either he is dying or Lex is just escaping.
"I know what you're thinking," Lex says in place of a greeting. "You're not dying". Unfortunately. That hangs unsaid between them, but Lionel sees it clearly in Lex's heavy gaze.
*****
He might be old and tethered to a bed. He might never walk again. He might never be able to sit up straight behind a desk anymore, but that doesn't mean he is senile. The only sport he has nowadays is verbal chess with Lex. There's business on television, and things on the newspapers. Sometimes dossiers will cross his castored desk, but mostly he gets news from Lex.
Lex tells him everything he needs to know, and then everything else he doesn't even thought of wanting to know. Clearly, concisely, completely. If he wants, Lionel can waltz back into his office as though he has never left. He likes to delude himself that it's Lex's way to try and curry approval, Lex's way to constantly want to show that he can be thorough and dependable. But he knows that it is Lex's way of telling him that the son no longer needs the father, that the son has learned everything he needs to learn from the old man and now poised for something greater than Lionel can even imagine.
He hears it underneath all of Lex's carefully chosen and precisely delivered words. Sometimes he thinks about calling in his lawyers, so that he can deliver LuthorCorp into Lex's hands finally. But maybe his illness has turned him into a procrastinator, or else he has become repulsively indecisive.
Lionel knows that Lex will never kill him; a sentiment perhaps borne out of some misguided propriety cultivated through his time with the Kent boy. But at least Lex is not above sedating his own father when the irritation becomes too cumbersome.
The nurse never gives him enough, however, so he often floats uselessly along the edge of consciousness for a while, listening to his son run a business empire from a high-backed chair across the room. Orchestrated words now punctuated with rustling papers and sharp scratches of ink on paper, rapidfire typing acts as counterpoint to steady metronomical beeps of Lionel's life monitoring machines.
*****
Surfacing back into consciousness requires effort still. Sloughing off the effects of medication has become a chore. Pushing past the unease cottoning at the back of his throat and the heaviness in his eyes. His hearing is the first one to normalize, and he notes that Lex is no longer alone in the room.
"...don't have to." Lex sounds like he has just completed a long speech, a trace of frustration serving as a punctuation mark.
"I know, but I want to." Lionel recognizes the voice and thinks of cicadas in an off-handed way. "And before you say it, I'm not allowed back at the office until next week at least." The Kent boy, Lionel remembers, is now a reporter. Daily Planet's newest Science and Technology correspondent, he recalls, has a way with words that makes science interestingly accessible to the masses. Apparently in possession of a Lemming's self-preservation, he is also talented and workaholic enough to sometimes work with Lois Lane on some hairraising Pulitzer-bait. Lex worries in private and publicly grumbles that it's Clark's way of getting his nose into Lex's business.
Lionel listens to Lex make a half-hearted objection, low and indecipherable.
"Please?" Lionel doesn't need eyes to imagine the Kent Offensive, a series of well-executed puppy eyes and pouty lips. "After my last assignment and you trying to keep two companies moving at breakneck speed, I think we both deserve this, don't you think?" and everyone in the room knows that Lex will never turn down any offers of spending more time with Kent Junior.
"I doubt we'll be doing much communing, Clark. I'm barely alive as it is. I swear dad is loitering around in bed waiting for me to die where I stand. You know the Japanese has a word for it."
"I can help you with work, that way we can be together. I'll move my desk into your study when we get home tonight."
"What about conflicts of interest?"
"What about them? I thought you said: 'By all means, Clark, help yourself to my secret papers' or have you changed your mind?" Kent punctuates his sentence with a snort and, Lionel bets, a prodigious eye-roll that seems to be the purview of the very young. "Besides, you know I'm only good for research. I'll do all the mind-numbing stuff, and you can use the intel to go forth and decimate, okay?"
A brief hesitation, characteristic of when Lex is contemplating an unrequired heroic sacrifice of the day. Then, "What about... you know..."
"I live with a multi-billionnaire, workaholic CEO. I think I've learned a bit about delegating, even if it's only through osmosis."
"Smartass." There's a sound much like a shuffle, a rustle, then a door creaking. "I'm going to shower, then we're going to feed you, then we'll talk about this redecoration you're talking about earlier."
***
"Hello Mr. Luthor." The Kent boy greets with a singsong-y i-know-you're-awake quality to his voice. Lionel opens his eyes and smiles what he thinks should be suitably predatory.
The boy merely smiles benignly back at him, "Good to see you're looking well, Mr Luthor. I hear you're getting better."
"I can't say I'm touched by your concern," he replies, rearranging himself against the headboard. "But thank you all the same."
"Can't really say I'm concerned about you either," the boy parries audaciously, clearly no longer the lily-livered country boy who postures and blushes at the drop of a hat. "But I do hope you'll stick around long enough for Lex's sake."
Ah, spoken like a boy being raised on a steady diet of milk, corn, and the sanctity of a united family.
"Lex knows the score."
"Of course." No trace of doubt in his voice, just a kind of conviction that is either foolish or brave. "But I think it will do him a world of good if you hurry up and get better."
"I have no intention of dying anytime soon."
There's a pause, the boy cocks his head towards the en-suite bathroom door. The water has stopped running a few moments ago, the boy frowns and looks thoughtful for a while, then returns Lionel's gaze with earnest eyes. "There's no question about it." A slow smile. "I think it's my new life's mission to make sure you live long enough to watch Lex pick LuthorCorp apart."
*****
"Hate to break your lovely conversation, but..." Lex exits the bathroom looking impeccable and ready for another round of fuck-you-worlds.
"But nothing," Kent moves in on the empty half-note of the conversation, effectively blocking Lionel's attempt at getting words in edgewise. "Just saying how great it is that Mr. Luthor will be well enough to return to work soon."
"Can't wait to kick me out, dad?" A tinge of bitterness, though he shouldn't have. Then, "You shouldn't rush yourself, dad. I don't want you to keel over again so soon." Lionel knows his son enough to hear genuine concern lurking beneath equally genuine nonchalance. He can also see the slight relaxing of muscles and read Lex's thought loud and clear as though he's a mindreader. Fucking finally.
He has never seen it until now, even though he should've realized it: the toll of trying to nurture two competing companies had on Lex, like a considerate parent trying to balance one's own child and that annoying stepchild. It would've been easy for Lex to quietly tunnel through LuthorCorp in favor of LexCorp especially when Lionel isn't there to parry his move. But Lex never likes it easy. Lionel has eavesdropped on a lot of telephone conversations, bugged enough meetings, and read enough documents to know that Lex always negotiated the best for LuthorCorp, making deals that were nigh on impenetrable, even on contracts that would go into direct competition with LexCorp. Lex has always liked playing chess against himself.
"The AGM," Lionel decides. Galas are too frivolous, quarterly meetings too common. "Sufficient, don't you think?" Ignores Lex's half-hearted attempt at indignation that only lasts a fraction of a second. Lex measures him against his words, and it feels like a long while. Lionel doesn't know what conclusion his son has come up with, except that he turns around to leave. Kent follows him like a hungry, overgrown puppy, Lionel all but forgotten.
The door stays open and Lionel watches Lex leave instructions to the nursing and security staff outside. He then sees the silhouette of his lawyer lurking just beyond the hall. Can't remember when he had summoned the man. Then, he remembers his earlier thought of getting his lawyers to start a transfer of ownership to Lex, and almost chokes himself laughing.
The sound must have traveled, because Lex turns so quickly that Kent has to reach out and keep Lex from greeting the floor headfirst. The nurse takes a step towards the door but Lionel signals them all to stay or go away with an imperious wave of his hand. Even his lawyer sees his gesture; has worked for him long enough to know that he too has been dismissed.
Lionel watch Lex sneak another glance at him, worried for some reason. It's over in a second. Lionel watches his son disappear around the corner. If he's any less of a father, he would just call his lawyer back, go ahead and deny Lex his final triumph. But Lionel thinks that he is benevolent enough to be selfless for once, to bring the final battle to Lex.
The door finally closes with a sharp, firm click. Just him now and his thoughts. Outside his window, Metropolis glitters at night, bright and feels like home. For the first time since falling ill, Lionel feels well again.