Work Text:
If this incident were ever to be documented somewhere, which it wouldn’t, if Lex had anything to say about it, Lex would have wanted it shown that he had seen this coming. Granted, he had to admit, if only to himself, that he had failed to anticipate the scope of the problem.
While Lex was not popular with children. Thankfully, they tended to respect their mutual disinterest in each other, and avoid him as he avoided them. Only rarely would a child he had never met before glare so openly and obviously at him, especially at a gala, where children tended to be marginally better trained and kept on relatively short leashes. Given that this was a benefit regarding philanthropic donations to the rebuilding of Gotham following the earthquake, there was actually a slightly higher chance that he’d be regarded positively by Gotham youths. The evening’s notable exception, a redhead, with relatively well maintained but unfashionably long curls, was putting significant effort into making his displeasure known, the child’s lips peeled back from his teeth in a silent but nearly animalistic snarl. It drew attention, not just to himself, but to Lex. This, in addition to the not insignificant visual resemblance, was the first proof that more was afoot than just an ill tempered adolescent.
Lex’s cover for his clone’s control of his financial assets had been that Luthor II was an unknown illegitimate child. It had worked, yes, but it had also allowed the public to come to the incorrect conclusion that it was possible to get access to Luthor money by being “related” to him. The number of libelous tabloids, grifters, and spurious lawsuits had gone up accordingly. Thus, Lex had identified the redhead as a problem, but assumed, given the information he’d had at the time, that it was mostly a minor PR issue.
The boy’s guardian would find a way to approach and attempt to bring up some imagined past, usually a sob story of abandonment and financial hardship. A recent discovery, then some faux modesty before they would, inevitably, ask for money. That was usually the point at which Lex sued them into bankruptcy.
Lex hid his face behind his glass of champagne and looked surreptitiously for where the relevant chaperone would be staring at him, a classic tell, and usually enough to ascertain the details of the upcoming grift. Instead, the child appeared to be accompanying Bruce Wayne, who did not need Lex’s money, and seemed entirely oblivious to the enmity, but then, Bruce Wayne had also previously pretended to be unaware of a fire having caught on his person.
Wayne, with whom repeated unavoidable social and business associations had made clear he was not nearly as air headed as he pretended—His company ran too smoothly and edged Lex out of his contracts too frequently for it to be true—had always been nearly unnervingly cheerful at these events, and often accompanied by one or more children. Since being disliked by children came off as untrustworthy, this, he supposed, at least partially explained Bruce Wayne’s clown act. Considering Gotham’s history with clowns, Lex imagined that Brucie Wayne was the closest they could get.
Wayne’s parade of unfortunate children were usually similarly black haired, blue eyed and jovial. They had tended towards pretending Lex didn’t exist, excepting one incident in which a previous unfortunate had spent a significant portion of time attempting to make eye contact with him, in order to accomplish, quote “the cut direct” as his indiscreet whisper to his guardian had later revealed.
Lex didn’t have the dubious privilege of hearing the boy speak until after his carefully scripted and precisely delivered acceptance speech, when, as he dismounted the stage, a voice cut through the scattered applause. It was a Gotham accent saying a sentence that he was nearly positive was more likely to be some kind of watchphrase for mind control or demonic possession than a legitimate statement of opinion.
“Ugh, him? Are you sure? I preferred the Joker.”
Lex’s eyes found the pair immediately before the boy executed a theatrical dry heave in order to emphasize his response to whatever it was Wayne had replied. Interestingly, the boy did not seem to have an outsized affection for Bruce Wayne either, considering that the man’s attempted pat on the shoulder was dodged with nearly as much prejudice. The boy made scathing eye contact with Lex, before turning to leave the gala both unfashionably early and without his chaperone.
Brucie Wayne waggled the fingers of the hand not holding his glass of champagne at him in a wave as he rounded the corner and disappeared from sight. Wayne turned such a completely vacant smile onto Lex that he had to repress the urge to shudder at the sight of it and said, in all apparent honesty, “Isn’t he such a lovely boy? The youth of today are so spirited.”
~
After the gala had reached its natural conclusion, Lex began his research. He was not stupid enough to ignore a threat simply because it was from a minor under 5’9”. Unfortunately, the information he had dug up thus far meant little to him. Lonnie Machin was an entirely unfamiliar name, attached to an entirely unfamiliar boy. Lonnie Machin was seemingly completely normal, except for all the discrepancies, a middle class boy with genius level grades at school, a sealed juvenile record, and a suspiciously flimsy connection to Bruce Wayne, considering their mutual attendance. Bruce Wayne did not take every disagreeable child he met while volunteering at a soup kitchen to high society Metropolis events, even if they were recent orphans. Particularly when the child had been there for mandatory community service after committing what looked to be several counts of assault.
More concerningly, Lonnie Machin, age 16, had been christened such at the age of three months in a closed adoption, and with the exception of a christening where the father’s name had, for some reason, been marked “Jack Napier,” and a now voided certificate from the GCPD announcing him Missing, Presumed Dead, the retraction filed the same day that the boy’s adoptive parents received theirs, there was no legitimate paper trail to follow from there, but nearly everyone directly involved in the adoption ended that tax year with tens of thousands more than projected. This meant that paternity was, unfortunately, circumstantially plausible. He’d need a DNA test to know for sure.
Lex remembered his reasoning, at the time, for not keeping an eye on the results of that particular misadventure after the legalities had been settled and he, to a point, still agreed with the principle of the decision. Scrutiny could be noticed, records could be stolen, and information gathered could easily become information shared. Sixteen years ago was before he’d experienced any of his most troublesome brushes with familial manipulation, the Contessa, Lena, arguably Supergirl. He’d been, if not necessarily more innocent, less paranoid. So, NDAs with vague but strictly binding terms had been drafted, appropriate amounts of money had been delivered to and from all relevant parties, and Lex Luthor had firmly washed his hands of the unanticipated results of a one night stand.
Lex had often found that the most frustrating problems to deal with were the ones he had created for himself, even if only because, with his intelligence, he should have been able to avoid them. This particular problem had been left to fester for sixteen years, and had grown opinions. According to the boy’s website, his opinion appeared to be that rich business owners and the government acted against the interests of the common people for their own benefit, which Lex considered an accurate assessment. The boy considered this a bad thing, and championed the dissolution of the government in favor of …nothing. As far as he was concerned, society would work itself out, because people were good. It certainly was an opinion for an alleged son of his to have. Lonnie Machin had, at 14, apparently written a book in order to better articulate his ideas, “How to Beat the System by Stepping Outside It” also available on his website. Lex would not be purchasing it, thank you.
Signing away parental rights had unfortunately not insulated him from parental consequences, however, if the alert informing him of a tripped alarm at his corporate headquarters in Metropolis meant anything. It was the silent backup alarm as well, which explained the way that only every third camera he had pulled up showed anything at all amiss instead of looped footage from half an hour ago. The intruder was clad in red from head to toe, and when their head tilted enough to show it, was revealed to be wearing a golden mask beneath their broad brimmed hat. Between the large “A” marked on their chest and the matching golden staff they were using to short out the electronic locks on the doors, the intruder was almost certainly Lonnie Machin. Lex abruptly felt every hour he’d been awake past midnight, as he watched what he still stubbornly hoped was not his son start hacking into his computers.
The police were less than 4 minutes out, and could easily be bribed into acquiring a DNA sample to test against his own. Ideally, the child would not be his problem, but Lex knew his luck better than to count on it.