(Untitled)

[kara_zor_lol]

Who: Lex Luthor and Karen Starr
What: Just talking. I swear.
Where: Arkham Asylum, because all the cool kids are there

Comments

[thisislexluthor]

Lex raised an eyebrow. Power Girl was the last person he'd expected to see at Arkham, and a part of him wondered if she was here to whine about he and Clark getting engaged. But it seemed unlikely that Clark would have told her without mentioning it to Lex, so Lex honestly had no idea what she was doing here.

"So are they making you my new cellmate?" he asked, crossing his arms and not getting up from where he was sitting crosslegged on the bed, looking over some files from work. "Because that will make me so ecstatic that words can't even do it justice."

[kara_zor_lol]

"As flattering as the jumpsuit is," Kara replied sarcastically, pulling out the plain metal desk chair and putting her slim briefcase on the desk. "That's not why I'm here."

She pulled out a thick file marked "AP," leaving the sheaf of papers from Mó Lì Yán Labs in China, the list of metahuman names in scrawled Vietnamese, and a diary Tony found in May Ori's motel room untouched for the time being.

Holding up the file, Power Girl said flippantly, "D'you know what this stands for, Lex?"

[thisislexluthor]

He did, actually, but it was none of Power Girl's business. He had barely even begun to wrap his mind around stripping all of the illegal elements out of his business, and the last thing he needed was her sticking her nose where it didn't belong.

"'Associated Press' springs immediately to mind, but I'd advise talking to Clark about that," Lex said, "since he's the actual journalist."

[kara_zor_lol]

Maybe it was the mention of her "cousin's" name that pissed her off, but Kara advanced on him, brandishing the file like a weapon. "Don't bullshit me, Luthor," she hissed. "I've been to the lab, I've seen it all, and don't even think I won't get you an extended prison sentence for that the instant this place unleashes you."

[thisislexluthor]

Lex sighed. The Asia Project wasn't something he was particularly proud of, and he had been pondering how to deal with it even before Clark had disappeared into the Phantom Zone. Power Girl finding out about it was one of the last things he needed right now. Sixteen hours into being engaged to Clark, and this is already too hard.

"And if I wanted to, I'd get out of it just as quickly," Lex said.

[kara_zor_lol]

Kara practically snarled, teeth bared in an ugly grimace. The man's put-upon sigh, the sigh of one who has been plagued by the world, was getting under her skin like nothing else.

"If you did, Luthor," Karen's eyes flashed dangerously behind her glasses, "Then I would personally make sure justice was served, engagement. Be. Damned."

[thisislexluthor]

Lex raised an eyebrow. So she did know after all. It certainly hadn't made her any friendlier, but he hadn't really expected any different. He tossed the pen down on the bed and crossed his arms.

"You're a ray of sunshine, as usual," Lex said. "You'll notice I said 'if', Power Girl. I'm not unaware that I belong in jail. But in this case, right now, I'd do more good outside."

[kara_zor_lol]

"Good?!" Kara's voice was raised in disbelief. "What good could you possibly do anybody outside? My god, Luthor, do you even know what you've done?"

In the blink of an eye, Kara had fished some more papers from her briefcase, and was shoving a picture of May at him. "This is one of the metas, Luthor," she intoned stonily. "One of the innocent people whose lives you destroyed for your own deranged purposes. How many people did this girl murder for the promise of a better life, Lex?"

[thisislexluthor]

He ignored the picture of the girl and looked up at Power Girl. Lex couldn't focus on the people he felt guilty about right now. He needed to be as clear-headed as possible if he wanted to fix his company and start undoing the damage he'd done. Wallowing in guilt wouldn't help anyone, and there'd be time for it later.

"I don't know," Lex said flatly, honestly. "I'd have to check her file. But it was probably several people, and she wasn't the only one. Honestly, Karen, if you think I'm the Devil himself, why do you think shaming me is going to work?"

[kara_zor_lol]

"Because," she retorted, eyes full of- not just fury, but disappointment, frustration, and dull anticipation of the very worst. "This little girl died in my arms, and I want to know why. She didn't have to die choking on her own blood any more than I had to spend a month in bed recovering from radiation poisoning, Lex, so why the fuck did this all happen?"

To say Karen was being emotional was an understatement. Although the Kryptonian was keeping as much held in as possible, the trauma and horror she had undergone, the months of effort, the pain she had witnessed, the nightmares she had woken Tony from in the wee hours... it was too much to handle gracefully.

[thisislexluthor]

Lex closed his eyes for a moment, clamping down on the immediate defenses that sprang to mind. 'Because she was a danger.' 'Because this was a way of controlling someone who could destroy hundreds.' 'Because the death of one person means nothing compared to the potential progress it could lead to.'

He needed to stop thinking that way, or at least stop making all of his decisions that way. Lex supposed that he might as well get used to dealing with the rage and distrust on Power Girl's face; she certainly wouldn't be the only person who felt that way.

"Because she was easy to exploit and was desperate," Lex snapped. "Because I've spent about twenty years being attacked by various metahumans and it's made me paranoid and spiteful. Do you seriously think I'm going to give you some insight that you can't figure out on your own, or that I'm going to have some magic answer that can make it all okay?"

[kara_zor_lol]

With a deep breath, Kara tried to bring her anger down a few notches and remember that the man in front of her really wasn't evil incarnate. He was just a man, and she leaned in, honestly trying to understand.

"But... why? Why couldn't you just depower them and send them home poorer than they came, like all the others? She didn't have to fucking die." Her voice broke slightly on the last word, the only outward indication that there was a softer side behind her veneer of steel rage.

[thisislexluthor]

With a sigh, Lex leaned back against the rough wall of his cell and rubbed his forehead. He was very, very tired.

"Because she was more useful to me that way, and I evaluate people based on how useful they are to me," Lex said. "I'm not going to tell you anything you don't already know, Power Girl. I'm just now starting to recover from a brief but very comprehensive mental breakdown, and I'm rethinking nearly every decision I've made for a while, so if you want to stand here and listen, feel free, but you aren't going to get any new insight besides that people can be very cruel."

[kara_zor_lol]

Kara cocked her head, evaluating the man even as she stepped back and plopped gracelessly into the ugly metal chair. Luthor had the distinct speech patterns of a man trying very hard to believe what his therapists were telling him, and the open humanity of it nearly unsettled her.

"I was about to say I wish you had seen it," Karen's voice broke the silence roughly. "But nobody deserves that. One bullet to the stomach, Lex, and she nearly took out half of Bangkok. I had to take it instead."

She had no idea why she was telling him this. There was no part of her that imagined he would care, and Power Girl was treading close to finally revealing her secret. But then, what did it matter? It wasn't as if Kryptonite would affect her, and he seemed to be clawing his way towards the straight-and-narrow.

[thisislexluthor]

"Believe me," Lex said, "I've seen worse. You'll probably see worse, unless you get taken apart early on, which is still a distinct possibility. I'm marrying Clark, and I'm trying to make this better." He gestured. "All of it. But it's not going to bring your pet project back to life, and there's nothing I can do about it."

[kara_zor_lol]

"You'd think," Karen mused, "That I would have seen worse before this. But I've only been- doing this- for a few years. The old universe was more... mad-scientist, less slasher film."

She picked at her nylons for a minute before tossing some more papers at Lex. "Here, you should have these. I stole them from your lab in Guiyang. What were you killing those guys for, anyway?"