Chapter Text
“Mr. Luther! What prompted you to acquire your new ward?”
“Mr. Luther I’m Noah Reyes with the Daily Star! Would you be interested in an interview concerning the events of this afternoon?!”
“Mr. Luther, What do you have to say about the rumors regarding your financial assets being named as inheritance to your new ward?”
“Mr. Luther! Sources are saying that you wanted full legal guardianship over your new ward! Will you be fighting the state in order to properly adopt him!”
“Mr. Luther!... “
“Mr. Luther!...”
“Everybody wants to know-”
“Just who is-”
“Who is-!?”
“Rex Salazar!” Across the city, and away from Lex Luther and his horde of paparazzi and reporters, Rex Salazar leaned against the outer stone walls of the Metropolis School of Science and Technology. Glancing up from his phone, he half smirks half smiles at the attractive woman calling out to him.
“My names Lois Lane,” the genuineness of her smile reminds Rex of Doc Holiday, and he’s already crushing on her before she can even finish introducing herself. “And I’m a reporter for the Daily Planet. I’m sorry to ambush you at your school. I would have reached out properly but you're a very hard young man to get a hold of.”
Rex laughs, scratching the back of his neck. “Yeah, I’m kind of a ghost right now. Lex keeps saying I should get a twitter or something, but there’s so many things I can’t talk about yet that there’s not really a point to getting one.”
“I understand Lex is having some difficulties in getting full custody over you.”
“Sorry Lois, but” Rex makes the motion of sealing his lips.
“Of course Rex. I'm not as interested in Lex's troubles as I am in getting to know you.”
“Oh yeah?” His grin’s cocky.
“What do you say? Are you interested in doing an interview with me?”
Folding his arms, he leans back against the wall. “And what’s in it for me?”
“What do you want?”
“How ‘bout a date?”
Lois’s polite smile strains just a little bit. “ I hardly think that’s appropriate.”
“C’mon, it’s just a date. I’m still new to the city so you could show me all Metropolis has to offer. I’ll pay for dinner?”
“Hmm,” Lois taps her chin, faux thinking. “Counteroffer, We share a strictly professional dinner, and I’ll answer all your questions about Metropolis. You’ll share a little bit about yourself, and…” She smiles playfully, “We’ll split the check.”
Rex sighs and his grin turns to a more sincere smile. “That’s about the best I’ll get huh… Well that sounds fine to me. You’ve got a place in mind?”
“There’s an Italian restaurant down the street that my husband and I go to all the time.”
“Your- hah” Rex laughs, shaking his head. “That sounds great! Lead the way.”
The two make their way to the restaurant, Rex harmlessly flirting the whole way.
And in the sky a man watches, amused. “Kids these days.” Shaking his head, he flies off, disappearing into the clouds.
“So Rex, what’s your story? How’d you end up in Metropolis?” Distant murmurs and the sound of cutlery fill the background, though Lois and Rex’s voices come out clear.
“Honestly, it’s kind of too much to explain. I don’t have a family anymore, and the world is in a weird place right now. I guess the best way to sum it up is that I was just in the area, and I could either try my luck in Metropolis or in Gotham. And I don’t think Batman would like me staying in Gotham.”
“Why not?”
“I’m a meta. I heard Batman doesn’t like metas in his city.”
The audio cuts off for a second before continuing.
“-coming out anyway. Lex knows it’s not something he has a right to hide.”
“I see. Speaking of Luthor, how did you two meet?”
“He almost ran me over.”
“He-”
“It was my fault. I came shambling into the street like a goddamn zombie.” Rex laughs. “This city's layout can be pretty disorientating. Anyway, I turned his car into spare parts, and I guess he found that interesting cause he ended up taking me in. It was a weird couple of weeks, and we had some… disagreements but he’s turning into a pretty nice guy. It turns out, we can relate to each other a lot.”
“In what ways?”
There's a pause.
“I never had much control in my life. It got better, but then I lost my family and now I’m stuck here. Lex… he understands what it’s like to not have control. And once we realized we had that in common, we ended up finding a bunch of other ways we were similar.”
“You sound like you have a high opinion of Mr. Luthor.”
“I do. I know he’s done awful things in the past. And maybe he’ll do something awful in the future. But I’ve spent a lot of time with him over the past two weeks I’ve been here, and I can see that he’s trying to become a better person. Not just for himself but for me.”
“And I know there’s going to be a lot of people that think he’s using me for my meta abilities. There’s nothing I can say to change their minds. People will believe what they want to, and I can’t stop that. What I will say is that I’m not helpless. I know what I’m worth and I know what’s okay and what’s not. Just because I trust Lex doesn’t mean I’ll let him walk all over me.”
“That’s a good mentality to have. Let's move away from Lex Luther and focus on you. You mentioned your meta abilities. What are they?”
“I’m a technopath. I can talk to machines and build them from my body with my mind. I can do other stuff too, but that's the main part of it.”
“That sounds very interesting. Do you like building things?”
“I do now! I never really got the chance to learn about engineering before, and it’s not like my powers came with an instruction manual. My family… well I guess it was just my grandpa, he didn’t want me to learn anything to do with engineering cause he thought I’d get too strong. Too dangerous. I acted like it didn’t bother me and like I wasn’t interested, but now that I’m learning about it, it’s kind of like I’ve finally found a piece of myself that was missing. Plus, I have more control over my powers than I ever did before.”
“I’m glad you finally have the freedom to do what you enjoy.”
“Ha- Thanks.”
“I think I’ve learned a lot about you today. Is there anything you’d like Metropolis to know before we end our interview?”
“Yeah,” His wink can practically be heard from the audio. “I’m single.”
“Thank you for joining me for this interview Rex. I hope this won’t be our last.”
“Same here. Thanks for listening to me.”
The audio ends and Lex looks at Rex, his body sprawled along the couch and looking exceedingly proud of himself. Really, there's only one thing he can say to him.
“You're a pest.”
Rex’s laugh chases him out of the room.