Chapter Text
“I really appreciate the offer, Miss Luthor, but this is just… it’s a bad time for me, for my family, to take such a big risk. I can’t leave a tenured position for an abstract one, in a department that doesn’t yet exist, at a company that isn’t- that isn’t the most stable, right now. You understand, I’m sure?”
Lena grimaces at the truth in his words, but hurriedly plasters a smile on, despite the fact that this isn’t a video conference, and he has no way of seeing her face. “I completely understand, Doctor Wright. We have to do right by our families before all else.”
“Absolutely. And who knows? Perhaps, in a few years I’ll be ready to take on something new. But right now, it’s so close to the holidays, and my wife is due in just a few months, I’d hate to take her so far from her family…”
“That’s alright, Doctor, I completely understand. And good luck to you and your wife. Congratulations,” Lena replies, her well-wishes sincere as she hangs up on her former professor. Sighing, she lets the smile slip from her face and rubs tiredly at her temples. “Well, fuck.”
This had been her slam-dunk, guaranteed ‘Yes’. He’d been perfect to head up the new division, the role tailored to suit his interests and expertise, and still, he’d turned it down. Because of course he had. After all, who’d want to take such a huge risk on the word of a Luthor? She’d never be able to announce the new division now, not with the end-of-year meetings looming over her head and her mother- augh, her mother- taking every opportunity to snipe at her, her ideas, and her new direction for the company.
Lillian had been furious with Lex’s decision to leave the company to Lena, and even more so with the board’s decision to honor this request. She’d filed injunction after injunction, but to no avail. In the press, she’d been the stoic, poised woman she’d always been, painted more tragic by the figurative loss of her son and the literal loss of her husband. On the steps outside the courtroom, after Lex’s sentencing, she’d told the press how bereaved she was at her beloved son’s descent into madness. How she’d tried- they’d all tried- to help him overcome his demons, but that in the end they’d lost him to them. How she thought that moving forward was what her son, her real son, and her husband would have wanted, how proud she was of her daughter for stepping forward and taking on a mantle that by rights should never have been hers. How strong Lena was, and how she was happy to support her daughter’s efforts as a member of the board at LuthorCorp (a clever bit of maneuvering, that had been. No way to get out of it without damaging an already tarnished family name and reputation, so Lillian had quietly been given a seat of the board and the press was none the wiser at the manipulation).
It is still the only time Lena has ever heard her adoptive mother say that she was proud of her. Others would find this sad, but a rather resigned Lena Luthor simply finds it fitting; affection is never free, merely a transaction. That’d been made abundantly clear throughout her childhood.
A knock at the door and Jess pokes her head in. “Miss Luthor? Are you finished with your conference with Doctor Wright?”
Lena sighs, opening her eyes and favoring Jess with a tight smile. “Yes, our business is concluded.”
Jess winces and slips into her boss’s office, the door closing quietly behind her. “It went that well, huh?”
Lena sighs again, tempted to drop her head onto her desk in a physical display of her discontent, but refrains, deciding that that’d be a touch melodramatic, even for her. “It was not the outcome I’d hoped for, no.” She says this wryly, a half smirk on her lips, but Jess has been her assistant for years now, and knows how to recognize Lena’s disappointment.
“I’ll start compiling a new list of candidates, Miss Luthor,” Jess tells her quietly. “Your 11-o’clock is here, the gentleman from Japan.” Her subtle way of bringing Lena’s day back into focus, of keeping her on-track. Not that her employer has ever been anything less than laser-focused on any task she sets out toward.
“Yes, of course, thank you, Jess. Send him in,” Lena dismisses kindly. “And if you could clear a few hours in my schedule this afternoon, it’s been too long since I visited the R&D labs. I need to check the progress on those new exosuit designs and the prototype Second Skin.”
“Consider it done, Miss Luthor.”
As the door closes once more, Lena takes a deep, centering breath. ‘What’s done is done, Ace. Move forward. A Luthor never lives in the past. Maybes are for weaker people than you and me.’ Surely, it should bother her that her brother’s far-gone words of encouragement are her mantra. It shouldn’t be a comfort.
But it doesn’t, and it is.
The door opens, and she puts on her business smile- polite, charming, aloof- and greets the man whose company she’s about to buy. “Mr. Ito, always a pleasure.”
Lena is happier in the labs than anywhere else. It’s her home. She’s been exploring (and occasionally, exploding things) in them since she was first adopted at the tender age of five. She’s grown up here, through school and college and grad school, she’s always been most at home wearing safety goggles on her face and a lab coat on her shoulders. After a very successful meeting with Hiro Ito, she quickly changes into clothes more appropriate for a few hours in R&D and makes her way to the subbasement where the labs are housed.
She’s always welcome there, not only as the company’s CEO, but as a colleague. This had, after all, been her domain for a number of years before- before Lex. She swallows down bittersweet memories of her brother laughing as he hauled her bodily from the lab, determining that no matter how brilliant and lucrative her current breakthrough was, she couldn’t just decide to not eat or sleep for two straight days.
“I can’t afford to pay you this much overtime, Ace.” He’d laughed as he said it, grinning over his shoulder at her as she swatted half-heartedly at his back, bouncing with every step he took.
She shakes her head slightly and greets the new director of the department, her successor, and settles in for a few hours of what she really loves. She allows herself these escapes only infrequently, as a sort of reward for doing all of the aspects of her job that she hates, and to keep the enjoyment fresh and new.
Besides, her team of scientists, engineers, and jittery, over-caffeinated students (with perhaps a bit too much free time on their hands) never fails to impress her. The strides they’re making in bioengineering are astounding, let alone the exosuit they’ve designed for use in emergency situations- search and rescue, disaster relief, etc. - being almost completed, with only a few bugs to work out (one of which, Lena discovers while piloting it, is that the arms are a bit overpowered, smashing though the tons of bricks to rescue the lifelike mannequin rather than carefully sifting through them. Officially, Lena is only slightly disappointed by this. Unofficially, Lena punches through several tons of bricks, smirking in satisfaction all the while. Sometimes, you’ve got to let loose.). She jokes slightly with the staff that she remembers from her own days here and introduces herself to the newer additions, professional but kind in her manner toward them.
All too soon, though, it’s time to return to reality, and with a last promise to check their progress later in the week, Lena boards the elevator. She examines her manicured hands, noting with no small delight the engine grease on her fingers and under her nails. Lillian would be absolutely appalled by the state of her. Lena, for her part, legitimately couldn’t care less if she tried. She tries to ignore the anxiety that builds with every floor she zips past, keycard preventing anyone else from boarding the elevator with her. Straightening her spine and assuring that her face is impassive, she walks from the elevator to her office, greeting those she passes with a courteous smile which, while genuine, invites no conversation. She changes back into her ‘adult clothes’, as Lex had so mockingly called his own assortment of suits and business wear, and readies herself for her next meeting, scheduled in 35 minutes. “Jess?”
The intercom picks up smoothly. “Yes, Miss Luthor?”
“Order me something for lunch, would you? Something light? I don’t want to fall asleep in my late meetings, however boring they may be.”
A knock at the door, and Jess enters the office with several carry-out bags from various restaurants throughout the city, a smile on her face. “Will this suffice?”
Lena grins. “You’re an absolute lifesaver. What would I do without you?”
“Apparently, starve,” Jess observes blandly as she places the bags on Lena’s desk, careful to avoid any potentially important papers or files.
Lena snickers in a very un-ladylike manner, and Jess leaves the office with a proud smirk as her boss tucks into a well-deserved late lunch.
Jess had never expected this to be her life, assistant to one of the most powerful female CEO’s in the world. Especially since, when she hired on, Lena was merely the newly promoted head of R&D at the tender age of 21. She’d been slightly intimidated before the interview; after all, not all bosses received multiple degrees from prestigious universities by the time they could legally drink. But Lena Luthor had been shockingly normal. A bit reserved in her manner, and obviously very intelligent. But normal. It was a relief. Jess is a year Lena’s senior, but it’s fairly easy to forget that. Her boss has never seemed to be her own age. Always older. Always a bit somber, which makes sense, considering all that she’s lost in her relatively short life. Her mother when she was barely four, then her father when she was 16 and all the way across the country at CalTech and then her brother, who Jess knows for a fact she’d worshipped and adored. She’d seen the two of them together far too often to miss the obvious affection between them, how Lex Luthor brought out a mischievous side in his sister rarely seen outside his company.
And she’d been there that day, in Metropolis, when Lena had arrived at her office, shaking, covered in ash and grime, and wrapped in a blanket as several officers attempted to convince her to go to the hospital. She’d politely, firmly, refused, asked Jess to clear her schedule for the day, and vanished into her office. The only sounds that emerged that day were a heavy thud and, several hours later, a glass shattering against the wall. When Lena left that night, there was nothing out of place, either on her, or in the office. Except for one crystal tumbler, which was missing from the set she’d received from Lex when she’d been given her own office. Jess, being a dutiful assistant, took note of it, ordered a new one without being asked, and neither she nor Miss Luthor had mentioned the sudden increase in her pay the day after it had arrived. There was no need.
It hadn’t even been in question when Lena had announced that she was moving to National City, that Jess would be joining her, claiming that she was built for more mild weather, anyways, pretending not to notice the way Lena had teared up at her announcement.
But Jess still worries for her boss, and it is this worry that spurs her to leave food on Lena’s desk, and to anticipate the days when there will need to be a gap in her schedule for her to go to the labs or shuffle through paperwork listlessly for an hour or so. She keeps Lena Luthor’s life as simple and linear as she can. She is very good at her job.
With a slight shake of her head, Jess begins again the search for perfect candidates. She never expected this to be her life, sure. But it certainly isn’t a bad one.
***************************
It’s late; late enough that even Lena thinks so. Sighing in resignation at the knowledge that there will be no more work completed tonight, she turns off the lamps in her office and begins her journey home. She’d sent Jess home hours ago, but her assistant had compiled dossiers on several potential candidates to head up the new department and had left them on her desk for Lena to peruse later. Lena scoops up the rather impressive pile, and makes her way back to the elevator, firing off a quick text to her driver as she went. Her ride home is quiet, as it always is, and when she finally arrives at her apartment, she allows herself to slump against the door and heave a sigh. It’s been a very long day.
She kicks off her heels and removes the light jacket she’d been wearing, hanging it in its place beside the front door. She groans as her freed toes stretch and curl against the rug at the door, then sets about making herself comfortable. Her dress is placed with the others to be sent to the cleaners on Tuesday, and she shrugs out of her bra- is there any greater feeling than removing one’s bra at the end of the day?- and into a well-loved sweatshirt from her university days and a pair of leggings. This done, she goes to the rather expansive and comically under-used kitchen, opening the fridge to discover that after leaving the office, Jess had come by and dropped off her dinner. Lena smiles. Her loyal assistant is going to have to accept another raise. The reheating instructions are carefully written on a note on the container, and she dutifully places it in the oven, fixing herself a drink while she waits.
It’s been a productive day, all things considered. Hiro Ito had been surprised, but not displeased, at her offer, and had made a point to stipulate that part of the sale would involve keeping as many of his employees on as was possible, something she agreed to readily. She has no desire to upend lives halfway ‘round the world, she simply wants access to the technology they’re unconsciously developing, wants to refine and market it in a way that Ito’s company, while popular and well-known in Asia, won’t be able to accomplish.
The meetings with the marketing team had been equally successful, making great strides in the progress of rebranding the LuthorCorp empire. They’re confident that the rebranding could be completed as early as February. Her mother is furious at the idea, accusing Lena of pettiness over the name-change, which is all she saw of this development, but it was more than that; it was a total company overhaul, ethically speaking. No more sweatshops in poorer nations, no more animal testing, no more unsafe testing, no more dubiously legal pollution. No more. Lex had left her the company for a reason, and she’s determined to put it to work as a force for good. As expected, her mother, along with some of the older board members, are unhappy with this new direction, seeing only the initial hit to their bottom line and not how this will benefit their image and company name in the future.
“A real Luthor would never stoop to this level, hiding who they are to be liked by their inferiors,” Lillian had snapped.
“Well, Mother, I suppose you and I wouldn’t know what a real Luthor would do, would we?”
She’ll be ousting a few key board members, holdouts from Lex’s or even Lionel’s days, quietly over the next several months. Nothing sinister, merely a suggestion that they step down, and simple reasons for doing so. An uncovered affair here, embezzlement there, all kept quiet if they resign without a fuss. She snorts air through her nose. Her mother would be so proud if she knew. She’d always been impressed at how good Lena is at chess. Her dinner ready (vegetarian lasagna from her favorite Italian bistro) and a fresh drink in her hand, Lena settles comfortably on her couch with the stack of dossiers.
‘No rest for the wicked,’ she thinks wryly as she begins to sift through the first file.
Several hours later Lena stretches, satisfied at the candidates she’s narrowed down to. One is almost a local, a professor at a university in Star City. The other two, interestingly enough, are a mother and daughter located in a suburb a few hours outside Metropolis, scientists both, who specialized in xenobiology and medicine, and bioengineering, xenobiology, and quantum engineering, respectively. She can’t help the light snort that escapes her. Evidently, she isn’t the only daughter with something to prove to her mother.
The mother has been out of the field for a few years, dealing first with the sudden loss of her husband and then her own mysterious illness, but still does occasional consult work and is widely regarded as the foremost expert in her field. Her daughter, while less accomplished, seems to be no less impressive, completing her degrees in very little time and already making a bit of a name for herself, having published an article recently that’d been noticed even outside the STEM community. Words used to describe her are ‘passionate,’ ‘driven,’ and ‘dedicated,’ all things Lena prides herself on being.
Her eyes narrow. She is going to be in Metropolis for the following month anyhow, seeing as all the corporate parties and board meetings are still being held there until the rebranding and relocation of her company’s headquarters was completed in a few months. Technically speaking, as of now the National City offices are just a satellite branch of LuthorCorp, though for the past year she’s been steadily transferring many of the core operations here. This was both to distance her company from the tragedy, and to distance herself from the overwhelming memories of her brother that linger in every corner of the Metropolis headquarters.
But this could work out very nicely; interview the candidate from Star City in the next two weeks, and when she’s in Metropolis she could arrange to interview Drs. Danvers. It’ll probably be the highlight of her trip to the home of her adolescence, if she is being honest. But hopefully, a month of schmoozing and meetings and awful, awful holiday parties will be paid off with the beginnings of a team for her new department.
This could work out, she decides. Hopefully, Eliza and Alexandra Danvers are worth a look.