"The business district is hardly the place for orphans to grow up, Master Bruce. Consider it an act of good will."

Bruce Wayne took advice from Alfred Pennyworth on a great many things, including certain business ventures. This piece of advice in particular stuck with him. They'd been reviewing some of Wayne Enterprises' newest property acquisitions in Gotham and in the process noticed the presence of a building not publicly listed as a business. With some sleuthing, Alfred had unearthed the information that it was an orphanage that had recently been opened and had since taken in placement of a good number of young girls and boys.

There were a great many things that Bruce Wayne had become numb to - but the suffering of children was not yet one of them. So, when Alfred made the proposal that Wayne Enterprises offer to purchase the old brownstone brick building and assist them in moving to a more appropriate location, Bruce immediately put in the call to make an appointment with the purveyor.

And here he was, waiting at the door of the old downtown brownstone after having rung the doorbell twice. Finally, the door opened, but rather than the expected adult, it was a young boy of about ten years who answered the door.

"Hello, sir," the young man said. "Follow me. Granny is expecting you."

Bruce didn't even have the opportunity to speak with the boy at all before he started leading him inside the building, down the entry hallway. The only thing that rang in Bruce's mind was the fact that this for ten years old, this boy was polite. He was too polite.

The young boy walked back to the glass paneled door in the back and knocked before pushing the door open to reveal a chintzy office decorated with copious amounts of fine china and floral print. Seated in a paisley armchair at an old desk was a old women with severe white hair tied into a kempt bun.

"Mister Wayne is here, Granny."

"Thank you, Brady. You may go."

The young man obediently scurried out of the room and shut the door behind him, while the old woman gestured for Bruce to sit down across from her in another matching armchair. "Can I interest you in some tea?"

"No, no, thank you," Bruce said politely, obligingly taking the seat and leaning his forearms onto the desk between himself and the old woman. "Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, miss...?"

"Granny. You can just call me Granny," the woman said with a chuckle, waving her hand dismissively. "And I would never refuse a meeting with someone so integral to the very fabric of the city, Bruce."

She smiled sweetly - too sweetly. Bruce forced himself to smile back but inwardly also wondered how pained his expression must have looked. This woman was strange, he noted, but the children he had glimpsed on his way in seemed peaceful, well-clothed, well-fed, and in good company.

"You're aware that my company had required a bit more space in order to accommodate our expanded operations," Bruce said straightforwardly, seeing no reason to dance around the subject. "And we've noticed that the area outside is hardly a place for kids to run and play... do whatever they do," he said with another forced chuckle. "So I won't beat around the bush. We'd like to offer to buy out your facility. Assist you in finding a more suitable location."

"Mm."

Granny made a noncommittal sound before pausing and taking a sip from her hot cup of tea, her eyes closing thoughtfully but lingering so long that Bruce nearly wondered if she'd fallen asleep.

"And... where would you have us go?"

"Somewhere a little more suitable than downtown. Suburbs. Probably somewhere a little safer, maybe Gotham Estates," Bruce said casually. "I think you'd agree, it's a better place to have a bunch of kids growing up, ma'am -"

"Granny, if you please," she corrected shortly, raising her eyebrows as though she were actually chiding him. She paused to take another sip of her tea before looking back up at Bruce. "I selected this location for particular reasons," she said, gently leaning across the table closer to Bruce, but her gentle demeanor was betrayed by an unexpected, steely resolve to her voice. "And with all due respect, I have no obligation to explain them to you, Bruce. I know what's best for the children."

And with finality, her lips curled into a toothy grin. Bruce knew immediately that the conversation was over.

"Well," he said, regaining his composure despite his initial surprise and getting to his feet, offering his hand for Granny to shake. "It was good meeting with you, anyway."

"Oh, come on now, dear," the old woman said, squeezing Bruce's hand with both of hers as she got to her feet as well. "I'm not uncivilized. I'll show you to the door."

Granny moved around the desk and walked out of the room ahead of Bruce, walking down the hallway and glancing at the children in the rooms as she passed, playing calmly and reading in various spots throughout the old brownstone. She grinned to herself and nodded quietly as she passed before opening the front door.

"I do hope you'll come see us again, Bruce. Maybe stay for a bite to eat next time. You'll see, the children are doing very well right here," she said with a saccharine grin. Bruce again forced a smile, one last time, before wordlessly nodding his goodbye and stepping down the front stoop. Granny only watched him for a few steps before closing the door behind him and murmuring to herself, "Granny Goodness knows what's best for the children..."

It was now confirmed that Granny, as far as Bruce Wayne was concerned, was completely of her rocker. The instant he was out and the door was shut behind him, it was the greatest relief he had felt all day to be able to wipe that ridiculous grin off of his face. While well-intentioned, this had been a complete and utter waste of an evening.

As he got into his car, however, Bruce caught from the corner of his eye a bright streak like a shining star, glowing with a metallic glint and clouded by a dark haze. As his gaze followed it, however, he realized it did not simply streak across the sky - it fell to earth, somewhere near Metropolis Bay.

And in times like these, no object falling inexplicably from the sky could be presumed benign. Getting into his car, he immediately slid open the concealed panel on the center console, revealing a button that glowed red when he pressed it.

"Something urgent, Master Bruce?" Alfred's voice lilted over the sound system as Bruce pulled out of the parking space and began racing in the direction of the fallen object.

"Track my coordinates. Send the team," Bruce ordered sternly. "I've got a bad feeling about this."

"So you think it's a ridiculous idea."

"I didn't say it was ridiculous," Claire said, laughing and shaking her head. "I said it was an idea that I respectfully disgree with."

Lex had a habit now of taking Claire out to the very same spot overlooking Metropolis Bay when he needed to talk through an idea, or process a day at work, or when it appeared she needed to do the same. They would park the white Rolls Royce at the overlook and lean against the hood, staring out at the water. Today in particular, Lex had attempting pitching an idea to respond to Wayne Enterprises' expansion into Metropolis by conversely expanding into Gotham.

Claire respectfully reminded him that their carefully crafted image required them to keep from stooping to petty competition. That wasn't what LexCorp prided itself on being about. Lex agreed, but felt sour at the fact that he was being corrected on the mission of his own company. It was, perhaps, a criticism he took only because it came from Claire.

"I just think we need to focus on what matters," Claire said calmly, leaning back against the hood of the car. "You spread yourself too thin, you lose sight of the things that are most important."

"Indeed..."

The disproportionate introspection in Lex's voice in speaking that single word, Claire turned her head to look at him curiously, catching sight of him fidgeting slightly with his hands as though he were nervous about something. Her brow furrowed, and out of habit, she reached over and placed her hand over his, gently squeezing. Realizing that she had picked up on the nervous energy, however, Lex let out a brief, dismissive laugh before pushing off the hood of the car, pacing peacefully back and forth in front of Claire.

"Five," he said, making an upward pointing gesture with an index finger, "months."

"What?"

"Your attention to detail is slipping, I see," Lex smirked, pausing in his pacing and resting his hands on his hips with an almost chiding expression. "Today marks five months since the agency first sent you to the mansion as my nurse. And in five months," he continued, raising his eyebrows as his voice took on an almost sing-song tone, "you have managed to make a most delightful mess of things."

"My pleasure," Claire said, rolling her eyes gently at Lex's choice of words. "Good to know -"

"Not finished," Lex lilted, reaching over and gently resting his index finger over Claire's lips in a shushing motion. "I'll take comments from the peanut gallery shortly. Now, where was I? Ah, yes."

Lex took a few shuffling, nearly dance-like steps so he could lean on the hood of the car again with one arm, hovering closely over Claire.

"See, I've come to realize that partnership is central to power. True power is not," he said, raising his eyebrows meaningfully, "a solitary venture. That's why my father ultimately... lost in the end."

Lost was perhaps an understatement, but it was the best euphemism that Lex had in his arsenal. Now, after all, was neither the time nor place to discuss just how his father ended up losing.

"He no longer had my mother to compensate for his deficiencies," Lex continued. "Too many flaws. Too many blindspots. But when my father had her, he was the greatest. And Superman, Superman has always had his Lois Lane," Lex recited.

"And you have me," Claire supplied carefully, her gaze growing concerned that this conversation had taken this turn - that Lex's fixation on his father and on Superman had slowly been bubbling back to the surface.

"Mm." Lex said with a vague, thoughtful smile. "Precisely. I have you. And in order to attain and keep the peak of my power, I intend to keep it that way."

And Claire felt her breath catch in her throat as she looked at Lex reaching into his coat pocket for something on his other side, obstructed from her view. Her first instinct was to stop him from asking what she thought he was going to ask - not because she didn't want to hear it, but because she knew that if he did ask, she no longer felt like she would want to refuse. But she knew. She knew that this was happening because he was clinging to allies, in light of the news that Superman was alive, and Bruce Wayne was slowly infiltrating Metropolis. She wanted to offer him some comfort, but she had no way of knowing whether it would be any comfort at all to tell him that he was no longer their primary concern.

Claire foresaw the question, and she wasn't prepared to hear it if it was asked out of strategy and not sincerity.

Before Claire could speak up, however, the sky above them which had already grown darker with the dimming light of sunset, grew briefly bright again as something like a shooting star crossed the sky, drawing closer and closer to where they stood until they realized it was heading right for them with a whirring noise that grew louder and louder.

Instinctively, Claire reached out for Lex's wrist and pulled him down to crouch behind the car, just seconds before the strange object from the sky crashed into the ground, still whirring loudly for a few moments before lulling into a dull buzz.

Lex stood up first and looked over at what had fallen from the sky, and immediately, his eyes widened in an almost hypnotized expression as he recognized the familar object from the footage he had obtained of Dr. Silas Stone. It appeared dented. Damaged. But it was unmistakable. He started walking closer to it, drawn like a moth to a burning fire that meant imminent destruction. He was going to get burned. He didn't care.

"It's found us," Lex said in an almost crazed sounding voice, laced with a weak, high-pitched laugh. "It's here..."

"Lex," Claire said sternly, trying to pull his attention away from the broken Mother Box wedged into the ground in front of them like Excalibur into the stone. "Lex, come back here."

But it was useless - this object that had fallen from the sky, faintly glowing, waxing and waning in strength, had Lex enthralled. This was validation. This was proof that he had been right. And Claire knew what this was, but she could not let on. She could not let on the information she'd learned from Bruce Wayne and kept from Lex about the Mother Box and Superman.

Even if she could not say why, however, she had to stop Lex from falling prey to whatever this was - because if Superman had only barely been able to best it in its quest for a body, a mere mortal obviously in Claire's mind stood no chance. Lex perhaps loved her, but he also loved power, and love of power easily overcame a person. But Claire knew she had to try.

"Lex."

Claire finally launched forward and took a hold of Lex's hand, attempting to pull him back, but just as she managed to get him to pivot where he stood to look at her, the Mother Box seemed to almost explode with thick, black fog. It surrounded them, turning everything to blackness without filling their lungs like smoke. Everything was a deep, inky black, save for the faint, silver glow of the Mother Box a few yards in front of them.

Then, the sound of a voice came among them - around them, between them, surrounding them as though it had no singular source, and for the first time in the encounter, Claire felt Lex's hand tighten around hers. In fear.

"Bow," the voice boomed ominously, still enveloping them in the black smoke. "before Darkseid."

A/N

After a great deal of planning, I've decided that there are going to be multiple Darkseid story mini-arcs, because I ultimately had things I liked about the comics, cartoons, and some of the Smallville Darkseid plot points. So, I know there may be some DC purists out there - please trust that I'm going to do my best to do justice to canon while also putting my own spin on things. Darkseid will not be Smallville-style for long, but it's a necessary part of the story.

As always, thank you for all of your support, everyone! We're getting ready for the real fun to start now, so I hope you stick with me through all of it! Until next time, cheers!