Lucinda and Lex stood awkwardly under the small concrete overhang outside the nondescript building—Lex's secret laboratory, because of course the billionaire with trust issues had a hidden lab. If he didn't, she might actually worry.
Rain hammered down in sheets, turning the parking lot into a shallow lake. The helicopter waited somewhere on the roof, but at this rate, it might as well have been on the moon.
Lucinda folded her arms beneath the oversized coat, the gesture meant to look casual but hiding the knot of worry tightening in her chest. If they didn't make it home tonight, entire scenes could unravel like bad improv.
But then again… did Lex and Roger have that confrontation scheduled for tonight? Or was that supposed to happen tomorrow night?
Somewhere along the timeline, Lucinda had misplaced the memories. And possibly her sanity.
She sighed silently this time. At the very least, she's alive. That's what matters for now. At least Lex hadn't done what she'd irrationally braced for the entire elevator ride: no nod to a scientist lurking in the corner, no sudden syringe to the neck, no waking up in a high-tech aquarium with her organs catalogued alphabetically.
In fact, Lex had been surprisingly… normal. Gentlemanly even. Which was suspicious in its own way. But then again, it's still season 1.
Lex looked at the rain, expression tightening with mild annoyance. "This wasn't in the forecast."
Lucinda snorted softly. "You sure you're not secretly controlling the climate, too, Mr. Luthor? Hidden lab, hidden helicopter… rain machine feels like the next logical thing."
Lex didn't smile, but his eye twitched. That was good enough.
"We can't take off in this," he murmured, stepping forward only for the wind to immediately shove a spray of rainwater in his face. He froze, blinked once, then stepped calmly back under the awning with all the dignity of a man pretending that did not just happen.
Lucinda bit her lip hard to keep her laugh silent.
"It appears," Lex continued stiffly, "that we are… temporarily stranded."
Lucinda nodded. Of course they were. "So, uhm… should we head back inside or something? Until the rain stops?"
"We could," Lex conceded, pulling his phone from his coat pocket, "but I could also call one of my drivers to—" He stopped mid-sentence, blinking at the black screen. The device was as lifeless as his shampoo budget. "Let's head back anyway."
He turned immediately, opened the heavy door, and—ever the gentleman when the universe forced him into it—gestured for Lucinda to step inside.
Rainwater dripping from Lex's sleeves, so Lucinda immediately stepped back inside the building with a solemn resignation.
The moment the door shut, silence swallowed the pattering rain, leaving only the hum of electricity and the echo of their footsteps. The narrow passage ahead felt more like the entrance to a villain's lair than anything else—long, metallic, windowless, illuminated by cold overhead lights that flickered just enough to remind her of every horror movie mistake ever committed by a female lead.
The air carried a faint sterile scent, mixed with something suspiciously chemical. Lucinda swallowed. He really does have a lab under every city block he owns, doesn't he?
Lex walked ahead with absolute comfort, hands behind his back like this entire hallway was simply his version of a Sunday stroll. "Mind the grates," he warned without looking, just as Lucinda's foot caught one. She pretended she meant to do that.
They made a few turns again—left, right, another right, a spiral staircase that absolutely did not look up to code—before finally stepping into the main chamber.
Lucinda had seen it earlier, but the shock was still fresh.
It was massive. A high-ceilinged room of chrome counters, glowing monitors, and rows of glass enclosures. Scientists in white coats moved like quiet ghosts, pausing only to nod respectfully at Lex or to avoid making eye contact with Lucinda, who may or may not have looked like a walking beige burrito with Lex's coat still swallowing her.
Several small animals were tucked into observation pods—white mice, a shaved guinea pig, something Lucinda suspected used to be a rabbit before science got creative. Each enclosure was meticulously labeled with terms like Trial 4C and Enhanced Follicular Reaction.
Lex paused by one of the counters, gesturing to a set of sleek vials filled with a shimmering blue liquid he had not yet shown Lucinda earlier.
"These," he said with the solemnity of a man presenting national treasures, "are attempts to trigger cellular regeneration."
Lucinda nodded slowly. "For… curing cancer?"
"No," Lex replied, unashamed. "For curing my baldness."
Lucinda blinked. She wasn't sure if she wanted to laugh, cry, or applaud the sheer audacity.
Lex continued walking, explaining each project, while Lucinda followed, nodding with the seriousness of someone pretending this wasn't incredibly surreal.
One monitor even displayed a time-lapse of a mouse growing a patch of bright orange fur… on its back. Lex stared at it critically.
"Side effects," he muttered, clicking the screen off.
Lucinda pressed her lips together to contain a noise.
Honestly, she had fully expected him to interrogate her here—to ask her about future technologies, methods, cross-dimensional anomalies, literally anything. But Lex simply walked, toured, pointed things out like a museum guide dedicated to the noble pursuit of not being bald before 30.
Lucinda exhaled, a tiny puff of relief escaping her. Until she noticed him glancing at her from the corner of his eye now and then—thoughtful, calculating.
He may not have been asking questions now. But she could feel him filing away every word, every twitch, every slip—quietly, efficiently, like reorganizing a private library titled "How to Prove Lucy Is Lying." And somehow, that was far more terrifying than waking up in a tank with her organs stored in color-coded Tupperware.
"Perhaps," Lex began, with the dangerously calm tone of a man pretending this was a casual inquiry, "in the future… was there any technology that could cure baldness?"
Lucinda's lips thinned. She knew exactly where this was going.
"I believe so," she answered carefully. "But… it varies by condition. You said the kry—" She coughed sharply, nearly swallowing her tongue when she almost said Kryptonite.
Thankfully Lex was too busy scrutinizing a microscope to notice her near-death experience. "I mean—you said the meteorites caused your baldness. And since you never had hair since, even surgery wouldn't help. But—"
She lifted a finger, the universal sign of wait there's more!
"I did some reading before," she continued. "For my research defense. And I found out that modern science is currently inventing hair-follicle cloning. They grow lab-engineered follicles from your own cells and transplant them. Totally real. Totally advanced. Totally… not available right now."
She tried to smile reassuringly. It came out shaky.
"It's actually very cool," she added, desperately. "You'd love it. Very futuristic. Very… follicular."
Lex slowly straightened from the microscope, his expression caught somewhere between resignation and math-in-progress. "So, I have to wait until 2023, ah? Twenty-two years…" His lips twitched—not quite a smile, not quite a grimace. "If that's the case, then none of the trials I'm running now would amount to anything."
Lucinda watched him carefully. Beneath the precise posture and expensive indifference, disappointment pooled in his eyes—quiet, sharp, and far too real. Losing hair wasn't the tragedy; losing control over something so personal was.
"Well," Lucinda blurted before her better judgment could tackle her, "base in this conversation, are you saying that if you somehow found a cure now, you'd… share it? To everyone with the same condition?"
Lex turned to her slowly, as though considering how she managed to ask the one question he hadn't rehearsed for. His brows lifted—not offended, not amused, but intrigued in that soft, dangerous way of his.
"Share?" he echoed, almost tasting the word. "I suppose that depends."
Lucinda blinked. "On… what exactly?"
"On whether it's a cure," Lex said calmly, "or an advantage."
He held her gaze for a beat too long—assessing, calculating, filing her reaction away somewhere in that growing internal archive labeled "Lucy."
Then, with a faint exhale, he softened just a fraction. "But yes," he added quietly, "if it were genuinely possible to help others… I would consider it."
Lucinda's jaw clenched.
Because for the briefest moment, she saw it—the version of Lex she'd always wanted to see longer. The one who smiled on the helicopter. The one who wasn't a villain yet.
The one who might have been good, if the world ever let him.
"Damn that Lionel," she muttered suddenly, letting the words escape before she could stop them. Both she and Lex froze, blinking at each other in perfect, startled unison.
"What?" Lex asked, raising a brow.
"What?" Lucinda echoed, feigning innocence as she turned toward a nearby container, hoping to steer the conversation elsewhere. "Ohh… what kind of plant is this?" Her eyes widened slightly at the small leafy thing inside.
Lex let out a soft sigh, the kind that carried exasperation more than irritation. "It's a rose, Lucy. Don't tell me roses are extinct in 2023?"
Lucinda turned to him, shrugging with exaggerated innocence. "I have no idea. I haven't seen roses since… uh… I was a kid." Of course, she was bluffing through every syllable.
"Your boyfriend didn't give you one?" Lex asked, voice curious, almost measuring her reaction. Lucinda's lips thinned imperceptibly, though he probably noticed.
"I never had one. Sad, truly," she replied, nodding as she carefully placed the container back on the table. "So… what time are we heading back home? I believe Roger Nixon only gave you 24 hours to hand him his hundred thousand?"
Lex snickered, a low sound that carried both amusement and a trace of warning. "You're quite nosy for a housemaid, Lucy."
"Well," she said, shrugging with an exaggerated air of defensiveness, "if you don't keep dragging me around, I wouldn't even know much. And honestly, Mr. Luthor, sir, I'm concerned. I might end up knowing too much… and you might kill me in the end."
Lex pinched the bridge of his nose, massaging it in that particular way that said, this is why I deal with fools—and yet, I can't help but find you interesting. "People in the future," he muttered dryly, "must have seen enough. They start hallucinating."
"Oh, I completely agree," Lucinda said with a soft, conspiratorial smile, leaning slightly against a lab counter.
"Until the rain stops, I'm afraid we're staying here for a while," Lex said, gesturing vaguely around the sprawling laboratory. "I believe it won't take long—"
Before he could finish, a scientist appeared, materializing like an exhausted ghost from one of the lab's many hallways. White lab coat slightly rumpled, circle lenses perched precariously on his nose, hair perpetually tousled, and the unmistakable aura of someone who had survived far too many caffeine overdoses, he cleared his throat.
"Rain will become heavier tonight, Mr. Luthor, as per forecast," the man said, pushing his glasses up with a finger that trembled slightly from overuse—or lack of sleep.
"Of course," Lucinda grimaced. "So… like, there are sleeping quarters here, right? You know, in case the weather gets nasty?"
The scientist blinked at her. "We only have storage rooms, Miss."
"You sleep there?" Lucinda gasped, taking a small step back as if the very idea were criminal.
"No," he replied calmly, almost as if he were stating the obvious. "We go home, even when it's flooding outside."
Lucinda and Lex exchanged a quick glance—his eyes briefly meeting hers, both registering the subtle absurdity of the exchange—before turning away.
The scientist excused himself with a polite nod, disappearing down the hallway.
"I… I'll try contacting my driver," he said, voice clipped, though the faint edge of annoyance betrayed him. He followed the scientist down the lab's twisting, narrow corridors, leaving Lucinda alone among the blinking monitors, glass containers, and the low hum of refrigeration units that smelled faintly of antiseptic… and ambition.
"H-Holy crack—" she gasped, eyes widening. "So… if he can't reach a driver, we're stuck here… alone?"
Lucinda practically vibrated in place, one hand slapping over her mouth. Alone with Lex was already enough to induce horror; now add a cavernous laboratory with all its sterile, ominous vibes, and she might as well be in the set of a horror movie—or worse, a crime scene. "W-what if he's planning all this so he can… secretly dissect me—"
"I told you, no dissecting, Lucy."
Lucinda cringed so hard, she might just become the first-ever meme in history.
Lex stepped back in, dripping wet, carrying the two containers Mrs. Kent had given him earlier.
"I was trying to find a signal outside using one of the scientists' phones," he explained, voice tight with mild frustration. "Apparently, the rain's busted some lines. Couldn't get through to anyone." He handed the containers to Lucinda. "I brought these in case you got hungry."
She picked up the container on top, curiosity piqued. "What is this anyway?"
Lex glanced at it briefly. "Clark dropped it by earlier. From Mrs. Kent."
"Oh," Lucinda said, opening the lid. Sure enough, Martha had sent apple pie. Her lips curved into a smile. "That's… really sweet of her."
Lex nodded, placing his own container carefully on a clear table, well away from the experiments. "I asked them to clean at least two of the storage units before they leave. Unfortunately… they only managed to empty one."
Lucinda waved him off. "It's fine. I used to be a Girl Scout. I'll survive."
Lex raised an eyebrow. "You mean…"
"I'll survive sleeping in the cold, even outdoors," she said earnestly.
Lex let out a long sigh. "You're very thoughtful, Lucy. But also incredibly dense."
Lex shrugged, slipping off his drenched coat and hanging it on the nearby coat rack. "They found some warmers, too," he said. "You can use them… and the storage unit," he added, gesturing toward it.
Then he turned, eyes briefly landing on Lucinda's coat. "I just need mine back," he said, nodding toward her coat with a faintly impatient lift of his brow.
Lucinda stared at him for a moment, then slapped a hand over her mouth. "Really… damn that Lionel."
Lex frowned. "What?"
Lucinda shot him a quick blink. "What?" she echoed, mimicking his confusion.