His croissants were where he saw them last, on the den's table where Mercy had rescued it. Hope's Glock was on the table next to Lex's untouched newspapers, and Lex ignored it in favor of his coffee. Clark appeared out of nowhere and offered him a glass box filled with pastry things, told him to bring it with him to the lab and share it with Lilian. When Lex did not take it, Clark placed it on the table. He retrieved Hope's gun and nudged the box to where the gun was with a flick of a wrist.
Clark went away like he came. Silently.
Lex opened the box's glass lid and managed to fit one crescent-shaped pastry in a corner, next to a square chocolatine and half-propped against a triangular apple turnover. Mercy came in next, with a coat hanger that bore his suit on it. She hung it on the doorknob and made noises about not being Lex's butler.
Hope came in with his labcoat and hung it over his suitcoat. She left the same way Mercy did, grumbling about not being paid enough.
Lex wasn't sure why he was surprised to see Clark striding in with a pair of Lex-sized shoes, dangling from his forefinger and middle finger.
Suddenly he was suited and shod, cradling a glass box filled with food in one hand, and a labcoat draped on the other arm, waiting for the elevator.
Mercy and Hope took each side of him, and Clark jabbed at the button impatiently. The door slid open and Lex saw familiar wood-paneling. The last time he rode up in an elevator he emerged in another whatever-you-call-it. Lex wondered numbly whether a ride down would take him back to his own reality. Everyone moved forward and they stepped deeper to the back of the elevator. Except Clark who stepped back after telling him to say hi to Lilian and pecking him on each cheek.
The door closed with a soft sigh and opened with a groan.
Lex found Lilian sat on one of the padded benches outside of a door telling people that it was not for general admittance. The man, Lex thought, was slender and tall enough, but his hunched shoulders made him look as though he had a small beer belly. Last night he thought the man's hair was brownish. But under harsh white light, it was as red as his once was, even more so in contrast to pale white indoor skin. His receding hairline was amplified by his sharp frowning, the slope of his nose made an odd angle when taken in with his grimacing mouth—thin mouth like Lex's.
Footsteps had alerted Lilian of newcomers, and Lex saw the man bracing himself for something before relaxing slightly at the sight of him. "You changed ze password to ze locks," Lilian said by way of greeting. There's a hint of accusation wrapped in a conversational voice, mild attack squirreled beneath an observation. He remembered hearing a similar tone from Lionel, when the old man had to get used to the mansion's layout without sight.
Lex wasn't so sure he wanted a confrontation this early in the morning, and his dazed stupor was a comfortable cloak around him today. So he held out the glass pastry box and offered an "I really didn't, did I?"
Lilian accepted the pastries happily, almost tearing at the lid making the rubber stopper around it squeak a little. Mercy stepped forward and said that they did change the password but it was only because of a crazed ex-employee, and nothing against Lilian.
Mercy shot a look at Lex that implied some raised salary for covering his ass yet again—a familiar look he'd seen on the face of his own Mercy—and Lex was determined to renew his efforts to get back to his own equilibrium.
"Security should have let you in anyway," Lex added, hoping that he sounded irritated enough. "They know better than to leave you stranded."
Lilian looked up at him from his chocolatine, and his frown softened. Lex's stomach did that flip-flop thing as intelligent blue-gray eyes looked at him with an indulgence. "It doesn't mazer, I'm in one of my moods."
Lex chose to sat down next to Lilian, who offered him his croissant back. They watched Mercy punch some numbers into two sets of keypads recessed into a near wall. Hope was braced againt a wall, writing something on a notepad. The paper was handed over to Lilian as though a peace offering and Lex saw a complicated set of numbers that he would do well to remember. He knew that Clark was already suspicious about his 'uncharacteristic attitude'. Being locked out of his "own" labs would make things unnecessarily complicated.
"Tell me again," Lex said, as he leaned against the wall, watching Mercy and Hope carting Lilian's boxes and trolleys into the lab with the help of some white-clad people who emerged from inside. "What's the research on?"
Lilian just stood up and smiled at him, like a parent indulging a belligerent child, which in a way they were. Mercy came back from the lab and told him that they've put everything in his usual space. An elderly scientist—with papery olive skin—exited and went straight to Lilian, apologizing profusely for making Dr. Leclerc wait in hallways like a commoner. The old man threw worried glances at Lex, and apologized to Mr. Luthor-please-don't-fire-me also.
Lex didn't have time to acknowledge the stream of apologies, as they were swallowed by interesting results and newest-batch-coming-out-nicelies. Lex walked a few paces behind them, pretending he didn't hear Hope counterpointed scientific discussions with "Lex has been acting weird all morning", how she hoped that Lilian would have time to help them "figure out what's wrong".
Going by the ceiling, Lex figured out that the lab was actually quite large. Yet, it was dwarfed by the sheer amount of boxes and stuff that Lilian had brought with him. Things were set up efficiently enough, however, as though Lex's people had done this before. A bespectacled, bepimpled young man as tall as a beanpole stood by Lilian's side talking animatedly about something. Lilian nodded here and there, half his attention was over supervising the unboxing of his many possessions.
Mercy and Hope had left a few minutes ago, told Lex that they're going to be upstairs dealing with their proper job as Heads of Security, and handed him over to the Geek Squad. One of those white-suited men—a person that looked like he could break someone's arm and shoot someone in the face while reciting the periodic table sideways and backwards—repeated obediently after Mercy's recitation of several key dos and don'ts.
He looked over everyone's shoulders, noting documents and equipments being arranged on all available workspaces. He noted with much interest the Labglass by LexCorp beakers and flasks, wondering why he never thought to set one up himself. Considering the rate of destruction he had to endure on a weekly basis… clearly an oversight to rectify once he returned to his proper timeline. He caught snippets of "indigenous to Smallville" comments from Lilian and "pyrolysis results of meteorite crushings" from various Lex-paid scientists. He wondered what kind of things could possibly be indigenous to Smallville, but he figured out that many things would have been mutated beyond common species recognition like Smallville's many menace. He now wondered whether lifeforms actually came embedded in those meteorites.
So, they're researching Smallville and meteorites under Clark's nose, and he's... okay with it? Lex thought back bitterly at his own Superman Problems™, which inadvertently circled back to his meteorite research. Nevermind his arguments, forget his good intentions. It's like Superman had a kneejerk reaction to the words Meteorite and Smallville. It was like waving a red cape at a raging bull—someone was bound to get hurt.
Looking around, Lex began noticing that everything was leadlined—thick-gauged drywalls, lead-glass windows and partitions, various sizes of radioisotope cabinets and storage boxes in LexCorp colors. Remembering the inordinate amount of sterile checkpoints between the elevator banks and this room, Lex wondered whether the lab wasn't designed so much as to keep an alien menace out but to keep the alien safe.
What's different here, then? The itch to know was a slow burn under his skin.
But even if Clark was as important to this-reality's Lex as he appeared to be, Lex wondered whether this level of safety was not overkill.
Working next to Lilian like this, surrounded by stainless steel workspaces and marble slabs, reminded Lex of a long-buried memory. In that memory, he was a small red-headed child kneading dough, and the air smelled like gingerbread men. Looking across the room at Lilian, he wondered whether this Lilian had ever been in a kitchen with children.
The hiss of sliding doors opening behind him shook him out of his thought. A woman exuding good genes inched past him, almost knocking over a sample tube over his papers. A "Sorry Mr Luthor" was thrown at his general direction and that was the extent of it. She slapped a printout in front of Lilian and all but demanded the good doctor to check it over. The separation wasn't going well and they would need to redo the whole catalyst calculation.
"J'en étais sûr," Lilian replied with a sigh. "I was calculating it when Clark kidnapped me from my lab. I think..." Lilian looked up and spotted Lex. "I think 'ee should do the calculations for me as punishment, non?"
What was he supposed to say? Was that a rhetorical question? Was it an acquiesce-expectant question, or something that needed to be mildly debated? Which side should he take? Defend Clark or plot with them against Clark? This was like being under the Kent-microscope all over again; exposing him to the reality of his inadequate experience of answering non-volatile parental questions. What sort of answers do well-meaninged parents expect when they ask questions like these?
Lilian answered his own question by picking up the phone on the wall. Two short stabs and a quick hello, so he must be calling the penthouse. Lex glanced at his watch, its little steel hands barely visible under his triple latex gloved wrist. It was way past lunch time, which pleased Lex. When was the last time he could indulge a solid half-day in uninterrupted scientific pursuits? But it made him curious as to why Clark was expected to be in his penthouse on a workday afternoon. What does this world's Clark do for a living? He doubted Clark of any worlds could settle down as a live-in lover. He had too much calories to burn and energy to spend.
He busied himself with circling the peaks of his chromatograms, annotating his equations, then acting surprised when Lilian came to stand across of him. "Ze boy's at work," Lilian said, one eye on the woman typing on his computer. "I think you should go and take 'eem out for a late lunch."
The hint, combined with Lilian's focus on the woman, was unmistakable. Lex tried very hard not to accuse Lilian as a dog. He had no problem calling Lionel every sort of name under the sun, but he was still trying to wrap his mind around this man.
"Tell Clark to check 'eez email for ze spreadsheets," Lilian said, as he hooked one gloved arm under Lex's elbow. One free hand pushed a purple release button and the door hissed open. "'ee can call me or Pamela if zere's any problems."
It was a wonder that he didn't break his own neck or suffer from severe whiplash. He turned around so quickly that he almost yanked Lilian to the ground with him. "Pamela? Pamela Jenkins?"
The woman at the computer lifted her head, her frantic typing stopped mid-sentence. "Yes, Mr Luthor?" She looked at him expectantly, every bit of patience on her face. Lex was only now realizing how much of his childhood and youth he had forgotten. It was the only reason why he didn't recognize Pamela immediately. Now he was sure; she even had the same haircut as she did when Lex's mother was alive. The same crooked smile, the same anticipation in her eyes, and possibly the same duties—as Lilian's closest confidante, only perhaps not quite the same. "Do you need something else?"
That question broke his stupor and Lex watched two worried looks being directed at him. Now he noticed the lines around her mouth, the gray in her hair, the stoop of her age-worn shoulders. Good genes, definitely. Not so young then, Lex thought. Not so unknown, either.
Lex shook his head, as much to state the negative as to shake cobwebs off his mind. "I thought I did," he croaked. "But I have everything I need."
A jolly clap on his shoulders. "Bien!" A paternal push, and Lex found himself scrubbing out of the labs dutifully. His clothing had disappeared magically between the first bank of showers and the second, but there was a set of fresh clothing waiting for him in the clean room. He thought he heard Lilian's concerned remarks about Lex's well-being filtering through the air vents, but he dismissed it as voices in his head.
Freshly scrubbed, managing not to drown in the chemical shower or be flushed down the toilet, Lex waited patiently for the elevator. He looked around trying to spot invisible employees, debating whether this reality's Lex had ninjas in his employ or just very efficient mechanical disposal systems.
The elevator opened. He stepped in and found that the lobby had already been chosen for him. He stared at the lighted button a while, didn't even register the pressure building in his ears due to the rapid, uninterrupted ascent. He hadn't realized how far down they were, didn't even realize it was an engineering possibility.
The door opened and the lobby was sufficiently quiet at this time of day, illuminated by the late afternoon sun slanting through invisible glass walls. He stepped out and found a car door already opened for him. He couldn't remember asking for it. He thanked the doorman—or at least someone he thought was dressed like his doorman—and watched his car door swing shut.
"Where to, Mr Luthor?" was a question, and he truly did not recognize this driver though his black-and-gilt nametag declared him as Sloane. He also didn't know what Clark's job was or where he worked. If he was a betting man, he would bet on Journalist and Daily Planet for both questions. He settled for "I'm meeting Clark."
The driver looked at him like he'd grown another head. "He's just across the street," the driver remarked, staring at him expectantly. Expecting what? "I'll call him," Sloane capitulated finally. Lex watched as Sloane slide out of his seat. The door to the other side of Lex opened unceremoniously, and he could see the Daily Planet's main entrance framed perfectly in the negative space it made.
He saw Clark talking to someone behind the Planet's revolving door, lifting his head just in time to see Sloane waving at him. Clark ducked his head and Lex watched Clark execute a clumsy getaway. He was still smiling when Clark slid next to him, door closing behind him, and car starting underneath them.
"So, Lilian called. Told me to feed you," Clark grinned at him. "Good day at the lab?"
It was just a small fleeting touch of lips, but Lex felt like it was the bridge all over again. He wondered if he could orchestrate a car-crash here, in the middle of a Metropolis as familiar as it was foreign to him.
