(Chapt. 9) Analysis of the Past.
Lex felt betrayed by everyone, including himself. From what he had heard from the new reels, everyone in Metropolis and perhaps the world saw him as a sociopath bent on world conquest. He finally got moved out of the medical bay once in his own room he stayed with in those walls. He ate enough to chase off hunger and hovering blurs that entered his room. He continued to audibly catch up on 20 years of lost time, the more he heard the more he fell into misery. When he finally saw the pictures to accompany the sound it was like, someone taking a hammer to his soul. Admittedly he had not been the best person in his life, but he would never have done things like this. It was like the Warrior Angel comics he had read as a kid, playing out in front of his eyes. Instead of being the bald bringer of swift justice that he wanted to be as a kid, he was the bad guy. He grew angry that he was portrayed as the criminal, enraged that his name was synonymous with scoundrel, and irate that no one had seemed to question this descent into villainy. It was like they all figured it was the proper next step for him.
He had seen the pictures, the man with his name traipsing around in a green and purple nearly spandex outfit. Real friends would know that he would NEVER don a suit a ludicrous as that. From what he had seen this super villain in no way resembled him. For one thing the man was older looking, his lips were too big, his eyes were dark and cold, and his voice was too deep. He could not really make out the man's height or weight from the film footage. This Lex Luthor also just recently wore what seemed like a technically sophisticated body armor suit, or maybe a mechanical advanced suit.
Lex learned that he has missed many fantastic things; the emergence of many heroic super powered beings, the mutual meeting of extraterrestrial beings, and the new technology shared and invented in the future. He felt like an out of place relic. Least there was one good thing coming out of all this; he was looking pretty good for a man his age, but not even that made him feel any better.
When he was done absorbing every sliver of information available about the life, people and events of this time, he ventured out only to sit in the common room to read. Virgil and Richie were there often playing some video games on the huge screen TV in the room. Lex could easily tune them out, but he never acknowledged them beyond polite greetings and partings. He could not venture outside both Clark, and Bruce Wayne were adamant about this. He continued his downward spiral into melancholy since he added bird in a cage to his list of feelings. He even turned down Richie's offers to play a couple rounds of chess.
In his stay at the fortress of Solitude, he also received exposure from the visiting team of super powered teens know as the Teen Titans. They visited one afternoon while Clark was away; they seemed to get along will with Virgil and Richie. The leader of these teens was a spiky haired youth called Robin, Lex recognized him from the newspapers, as the young ward Bruce took in years ago. He did not stay long to get the fully effect of the Titans since the alien girl called Starfire and the green adolescent known as Beast boy wouldn't leave him alone. The girl was too odd; she kept poking him, and looking at him too closely for some strange reason. The girl was too strong, and his arm ached by the second jab to the bicep. The boy kept changing into different animals and sniffing him; he was fascinated by this, but it soon weighed on his nerves. The other two remaining Titans; a tall muscular half man half machine called Cyborg, and a cloaked shadowy pale girl known as Raven just stared at him from seats around the table. He knew that after he had left, they probably talked about him incessantly.
In time, his leg, heart, and arm fully healed and he received a clean bill of health. His eyes had improved too; his vision was back to their normal better then 20/20 strength. To blow off his building steam he spent some time in the gym, it was hard at first, he was severely out of shape. He lifted weights, practiced the self defense and fighting skills he once knew. Soon he spent more and more hours in the gym pushing himself, and beating the heavy bag until he could no longer lift his arms.
He hadn't seen Clark in several days, and that was fine with him. He wasn't in the mood to deal with Clarks' look at the brighter side of life attitude. He didn't understand, none of them would ever. To be highly betrayed by family and friends, left abandoned for years, and used for god knows what purpose. He had recognized the scars on his back and joints, even before Alfred had told him. They were consistent with getting numerous spinal taps, and other blood draws. He remembered the ugly scars and bruises his mother had received, after she had gotten sick. He wondered if her grave and monument were still standing, or had it been taken down or defiled it because of the last name of Luthor. He hoped with all his heart that people had kept their hate aimed at the person, not at the name.
