Five years later...
Lionel prayed as fervently as he could that nobody would recognize him. That they'd think he was just another looter. Even if it meant staying in this prison forever, or being shot. Either was infinitely preferable to what would happen if somebody looked at him more closely and said, "Wait a minute..."
Fortunately, the guards who were taking him and the other prisoners in seemed entirely bored by their jobs and he was shoved to the floor against a wall, among others sitting there. The guards radiated boredom, the prisoners apprehension. Every now and then, somebody was brought to their feet with a kick and taken elsewhere, without a word passing.
He'd kept his head lowered but still saw the legs stop in front of him. He'd endure whatever would follow bravely, he tried to promise himself. "Mr. Luthor, will you come with us, please?"
It was so far removed from the possibilities he'd envisioned that it wasn't until he heard the request repeated that he understood and rose, with the unexpected aid of a firm arm under his elbow. It was some official, rather than a guard, though they both wore the same symbol of a globe under an eye and hand extending from the well-known image of the House of El. The official hardly looked the way he should after the capture of an underground leader: He looked rather embarrassed. But Lionel still had no option other than to follow him.
As they walked, he tried to create a mental map of their surroundings, but was disoriented at least twice as he was sure that they had already passed a certain landmark, but at a different angle or from above or below. "Soon there, Mr. Luthor," the official escorting--there couldn't be another word for it--him said just as he wondered if this was some hallucination of an interminable passage to an unknown end.
When the official finally opened a door with an air of finality, Lionel was only moderately startled to see that it looked like a very comfortable hotel room. "Kal-El expects that he will join you later tonight. In the meantime, if there's anything you'd like, please dial 0."
Left alone, or at least without overt observation, Lionel inspected the room, prodding the bed, which seemed almost unbearably clean and soft, reading the titles of the books that were carefully lined up in a small bookcase, and finally drawing closer to the greatest temptation, the marble-lined shower. Fresh, hot water, real soap... Part of him wanted to resist for the sake of not accepting any benefits from Kal-El. But all the rest decided that he might as well take advantage while he could and that part won this dispute.
He had just barely gotten out when there was a knock on the door and an unfamiliar voice calling, "Mr. Luthor?" as it opened. By this time, it almost seemed inevitable that it was another earnest-faced underling carrying a room-service tray. "Kal-El regrets that he's delayed and probably won't return until tomorrow, so he'd like you not to wait up for him."
As ruthless conquerers went, Kal-El, whom he'd known only as his son's rather sullen protege, seemed to be downright diffident when it came to one of his inexorable foes.
AN: This story took a bizarre twist about five years into the future. Or maybe it's a standalone. Who knows? The Muse has resumed her experiments with the shreds of my mind, that's all I know!