Chapter Text
Lex Luthor hunched over his lunch tray. He had no particular desire to protect his goopy mash potatoes and split peas, but it was the only food he’d seen today, so he scarfed it down at maximum speed. All around him, other prisoners were busy doing the same. No one bothered to talk, they were all focused on eating. The cafeteria was quiet, save for the chatter of a few guards.
Belle Reve was a monochromatic place–minus the orange uniforms. The walls were mostly white, but they were splashed here and there with black. The guards wore dark uniforms; the staff wore light ones. Even the peas had a dull palette. After five years stuck in there, Lex was starting to go crazy. He’d lost yard privileges in his first month. He couldn’t even remember what the sky looked like.
He shoved the last of his potatoes into his mouth. Carefully, he looked around. But there weren’t any friendly faces–not here, anyway. Across the room, DuBois gave him a little wave. Lex sneered. He might have considered hiring “Bloodsport” in another life. But now? He barely had two nickels to rub together.
The United States government was holding him in prison extrajudicially. He couldn’t even complain about it, because they were also illegally preventing him from contacting his lawyers.
Five years gone. Five years wasted–
Suddenly, he felt movement behind him. He turned, but it was already too late. Out of nowhere, a scaly, reptilian arm slammed into his side. He went flying; in fact, the whole table went flying. Lex watched himself careen through the air with a sort of detached finality. He’d been expecting this, after all. If not today, then tomorrow. If not tomorrow, then the next day.
Lex landed hard. Something in his left wrist twisted out of place. He hissed, hugging his arm to his side. Behind him, the table slammed into something soft and squishy. He heard a strangled scream, then silence.
The crocodile barreled forward. He looked pissed. He looked feral. He was more beast than man: larger than a horse and covered in scales. Waller’s team had fitted him with nothing more than a thick muzzle and then declared him safe for gen pop. What a joke. Lex already didn’t care for metahumans at the best of times, much less in a supermax prison. But experiences like this made him see the farce for what it really was.
He glanced quickly toward the guards, only to notice their backs were turned.
Ah. This was going to hurt.
A large, clawed fist aimed for his head. Lex pulled a shank out of his shoe and stabbed up, but the sharpened plastic simply glanced off the crocodile’s greenish skin. Helpless, he took the full brunt of the punch straight across the face. His jaw rattled. His brain rattled. He tasted blood. For a long second, his vision went double. It smashed together just in time for pain to erupt over his cheek and chin.
He scrambled, desperate to run. The crocodile tried punch him again. With a finesse he didn’t know he possessed, Lex ducked between the beast’s legs. Unfortunately, that just left him open for a heavy, lumbering kick. It connected with a snap that belied the metahuman’s size. None of it was fair, but it was happening to him regardless.
The crocodile sent him sprawling into the upturned table. Lex thudded against it, grimacing as the impact reverberated down his spine. He thudded to the ground afterward, perturbed to find it was bloody.
“Killer Croc! Killer Croc!” the cafeteria started cheering.
Ostensibly, Lex refused to use any bizarre codenames. It was why he was in this mess in the first place.
He spat out a mouthful of reddish saliva, curling into a tight ball. If he got lucky, he’d be able to protect his internal organs. If he got unlucky, well… Above him, the crocodile turned. He thudded across the floor with echoing, heavy footsteps. Lex closed his eyes. You wanted this, he reminded himself. He'd been planning to get slapped around enough to warrant a trip to a real hospital. Maybe then he could find a real phone and contact a real lawyer. The only other possibility was a very real death. That possibility was rapidly approaching.
The crocodile lifted his foot–
“I need him alive,” the speakers in the cafeteria crackled to life.
Suddenly, the guards scrambled into action. But they weren’t fast enough to stop the crocodile’s stomp. Lex caught the full force in the ribs. Something crunched. It shot through his side like a white-hot needle. He bit back a hoarse shout. Above him, a guard managed to swing his cattle prod around. He hit the crocodile’s flank, but that only served to enrage the beast.
A full-on fight erupted. The prisoners sensed that the guards were on the back foot. They charged forward with wild abandon. Instantly, the riot sirens started wailing. They were so loud and so bright that all Lex could taste was the color red. Red. Red. Red.
The crocodile turned away from him, batting at the guards. Lex wheezed. He expelled another mouthful of bloody saliva. Prisoners spilled around the table like a flood. Someone kicked at Lex, and he clawed at their leg with his good arm. He got a shoe to the face for his troubles, which spelled a broken nose on top of his likely broken jaw.
Desperate, he started crawling away. Every breath was agony. Every inch was hard fought and hard won. He made it around the table just as the last of the prisoners joined the fray. The rest of the cafeteria was almost serene in comparison. A few people, including DuBois, lingered near the farthest doorway.
Lex panted. He looked for somewhere to hide.
“Fuck–!” he gasped.
There was a dead body behind the table. The crocodile’s original throw had taken a chunk out of their skull. He nearly retched, but he couldn’t move his ribs without blinding pain. Instead, he shambled toward the edge of the room. Silently, he wished for the guards to come out on top, and for the stupid crocodile to be put in the ground.
Abruptly, the cafeteria door burst open. Guards in riot gear stormed the area. Lex expected them to rush by him. But instead, a group separated from the mass. He was roughly manhandled to his feet, then frog-marched toward the door. Halfway there, his legs gave out. He couldn’t breathe without a blistering ache, much less walk.
The guards didn’t slow down. They dragged him into the hallway just the same.
Lex tried to struggle, but it was hopeless. They carried him past the cell-block and straight toward the heart of the prison. His bloody saliva was becoming plain blood. Some of it spilled out of his mouth and onto his lips. His breaths were coming shallower and shallower. He could feel the signs of shock, but he was so out of it that he couldn’t remember the proper treatment.
The guards moved quickly. Doors flew open in their path one after the other. They barreled forward like they were running a gauntlet. Dazed, Lex looked around. Were they still in the prison? He’d never been here before. People were wearing normal clothes. People were wearing colors.
His shoes dragged over the ground. He stared down at them absently. Blood coated the soles. He was smearing it across the floor.
They banged through another doorway. Another.
This part of the building was an office. He knew because he was dropped roughly into an office chair. One of the guards hit him with a spring-loaded injection, and his thoughts turned fuzzy. It wasn’t a painkiller; it was more like a muscle relaxer. Lex went slack-jawed. His injured wrist folded awkwardly against the armrest. He could barely keep his eyes open, but he fought off a wave of darkness despite himself. Every inch of his body was screaming bloody murder. If he passed out now, who was to say if he’d ever wake up?
“Get a doctor in here.”
“Waller,” Lex slurred.
Amanda Waller was completely unfazed. She was dressed smartly. Lex could see the overhead lights reflecting off her pearls. Nothing in Belle Reve happened without her approval, or at the very least, her knowledge. This was her world, and none of his attempts to breach it had worked.
He hated her almost as much as he hated the metahumans he was trapped with. And he hated them so much it made him sick.
At his side, his hand twitched.
“You know very well what will happen if you attack me,” Waller said coldly.
Lex bared his teeth, though it was a pathetic attempt. The muscle relaxers made everything slushy. He could barely look around. And though it would've pleased him greatly to destroy Amanda Waller, they both knew he had a bomb in the base of his skull. They both knew she could detonate it whenever she saw fit. He’d seen it happen before, and it wasn’t pretty.
What do you want? Lex tried to force the message with his eyes.
Waller lifted a thick file folder. Then she let it fall back onto a table with an audible thunk.
“When they first sent you here five years ago, I had no idea what I was dealing with. You’ve been involved in contraband smuggling, physical altercations with my staff, and we have reason to believe you taught Blackguard how to make,” she paused and flicked open the file, turning her head to read it, “chlorine gas.”
Lex smiled despite himself, though the expression came out all wrong.
“That was your first week in my building. Need I continue?”
Before he could attempt a reply, the door swung open again. One of the medical staff trundled over to Waller’s side. They exchanged a rapid volley of words in hushed tones. Lex tried to lift his head to hear better, but it kept lolling uncomfortably on his shoulder. He could tell he was having increased difficulty breathing. No matter how much air he tried to suck in, it wasn’t enough.
“Go ahead,” Waller said to the doctor.
The doctor was a sweaty bald man who looked afraid of his own shadow. But he pulled a canister out of his briefcase. Lex could just make out the word “Cadmus” on the side. How very grandiose. Had the King of Thebes himself come calling?
It turned out the canister was just a fancier injection. But to Lex’s surprise, it hurt worse than all of his broken ribs combined. He nearly chipped a tooth trying to hold back a sudden cry of agony. His insides squirmed. It felt like his organs were trying to cannibalize themselves. It felt like his skin had turned inside out. It built and it built until Lex truly believed he was going to explode.
“A stabilizer,” Waller explained dispassionately.
“Fuck you,” he choked.
His voice came out clearer than he expected. But he didn’t care. It burned. His whole body burned.
“There’s been a change in your… unique situation.”
Lex tried to squeeze his eyes shut. His head was spinning a million miles an hour. If he’d been able to move, he would’ve been contorting and thrashing. As it was, he sat there like a puppet with cut strings. A few bubbles of blood blew past his lips, then they abated. He realized his wrist was turned the wrong way around.
“At this time, I regret to inform you that we cannot remove the safety device in your skull.”
He knew that was permanent. Anyone with half a brain would know that. Once a bomb, always a bomb. Belle Reve’s property forever. So what did she want? What was she driving at?
“Pursuant to U.S. code…”
She started rattling off a whole list of numbers and letters. They didn’t stick in Lex’s mind. The more he tried to focus, the more his attention wandered. Across the room, the doctor excused himself. He lumbered back out the way he’d arrived. On the other side, a water cooler gluged. Then a red light over the door stopped blinking.
“Killer Croc contained,” crackled one of the guard’s earpieces.
Lex moved his eyes as if in slow motion.
“As of eleven forty this morning, consider yourself released from Belle Reve’s custody,” Waller’s voice snapped back into focus.
That couldn’t be right. She was letting him go? Had his family done something? A tiny spark of hope bloomed in his chest.
“In our stead, you will be placed under indefinite house arrest in care of a qualified custodian…”
Qualified custodian? He’d pay them off, whoever they were. If not with money, then with technology or influence. Unless it was someone he knew already. Wouldn’t that be nice.
“Due to today’s unusual circumstances, the custodian is here to complete the transfer personally.”
Lex looked up.
The door swung open yet again.
A very familiar figure walked into the room.
“Superman,” Waller nodded. “I believe you already know Mr. Luthor…”