chapter one
Smallville!Lex Luthor x Marlowe Kent (fmc)
Word count: 2.3k
Summary: Marlowe Kent is back in Smallville, just like Lex Luthor is.
Warnings: none for this chapter.
A/N: For the sake of the story I have in mind, I have changed some things. It loosely follows some of the storylines the show had, but I took the liberty of changing it here and there. xoxo
Marlowe
Flipping through the pages of the Daily Planet, I come to the realization that Violet Collapse has officially kicked off LuthorCorp from its front-page throne. It doesn’t matter what LuthorCorp invests in, what shady business they were involved in.
All journalists nowadays care about is how I broke up one of the most famous alternative rock bands, just because I was mad I got cheated on by my boyfriend—the drummer of the band.
Had I just accepted the drummer’s new girlfriend, we would still be making hit after hit after hit.
Little did they know that I knew about the affair for two years. Little did they know that I tried to ignore it, to accept it. Little did they know how much I was hurting behind the scenes.
The reason I ran away from Smallville four years ago was because I felt like I had to spread my wings. Smallville was suffocating me and I needed to take a breather. I ran away to Metropolis in the hopes to finding Lex Luthor, but when I walked into Club Zero, I bumped into Felix instead, who was charming and gave me everything I needed to hear.
That’s how Violet Collapse started, how I got into the rock scene, how I eventually was selling out stadiums with our success.
But all successes come with a cost and even though the experience taught me a lot, it now left me with broken pieces of myself. The quest to find myself, what I want to do in my life, has proven itself to be a difficult one.
Maybe in the end, it has proven itself to be a failed one.
I place the newspaper back in the rack and start my walk through the town I used to call home, but now feels so fucking foreign.
I adjust the cap on my head a little, burying my hands in the pockets of my hoodie and saunter over the curb.
When I was six, my parents Jonathan and Martha Kent adopted me. I had been going from foster home to foster home and a case worker brought me to Smallville, telling me she knew a couple that would love to foster me. I didn’t believe her. At only six years old, I had stopped believing in families and in adults really. All they said to you was that they were so happy to take care of you, but they never meant it. The second you cried, you dropped something, you had a temper tantrum, they grabbed you and your stuff, put you in the back of the car and made you CPS’ problem again.
But not Jonathan and Martha.
They gave me a change and when I had a temper tantrum from hell, they remained calm. No one raised their voice at me. Then, as I grabbed my suitcase, because I figured I knew what was gonna happen as it was inevitable, Martha crouched down in front of me and grabbed the suitcase from my hands.
“Where do you think you’re going?” she had asked.
“You’re gonna bring me back,” I answered her. “It’s what always happens.”
She shook her head. “No honey, you are staying right here. You belong here.”
Jonathan had nodded and started to unload my suitcase. “You’re a Kent and Kents don’t run away from their problems. They face them,” he said and that was it.
I was officially their child.
Now, at age twenty-one, I had shown them plenty of times that maybe I wasn’t really a Kent. I ran away from Smallville when I was seventeen and only called them every month to let them know I wasn’t dead. Then my career took off and I didn’t even bother to visit Smallville.
And now I’m back because my career and personal life backfired straight into my face.
When life gives you lemons, make lemonade, but what do you concoct if life gives you loads of crap? The farm girl in me says manure, however that doesn’t sound so appealing.
The yellow house creeps in closer and with lead in my soles I climb the porch stairs. While Mom and my younger brother Clark loved having me back, Dad hasn’t really opened up his arms to me. I have to help around the farm and we strike up minor conversations, but it’s mostly him telling me what to do, as if I don’t remember how to help around here.
So, it’s making me green and sick with envy to see him doting on Clark.
Guess adopting Clark wasn’t a mistake like adopting me was.
“What did you do?” I ask when I spot Clark with wet hair sitting on the couch. “Fell in the lake when you were talking to Lana?”
He glares at me. “No.”
“Lex Luthor hit him with his car and they fell into Elbow River,” Mom explains.
In any normal family, you would be insanely worried about the fact that someone hit your brother with a car, but I don’t even bat an eye. I was nine when Mom and Dad somewhat illegally adopted Clark after we found him after the meteor shower.
My brother was different, and I have carried that secret with me for twelve years now.
One time I accidentally lit him on fire and naturally I thought I had killed him. When only his clothes were burned and I didn’t see a scratch on him, I knew my brother had the potential to become incredibly dangerous or something along the lines of a myth.
Either way, it’s been a learning curve for all of us, because how do you deal with someone who was literally brought to this earth in a spaceship?
“Oh.”
“He saved Lex’ life.”
I clear my throat. “Don’t let that rise to your head, Clark,” I say. “Hero complex isn’t all that attractive to the ladies.”
“That lunatic drove with a million miles an hour. He could’ve killed anyone else!” Dad is pacing through the living room.
“Thankfully he just hit Clark. No offense.” I pat my brother’s shoulder, before I walk up the stairs and hide in my childhood bedroom.
Apparently, my parents didn’t deem it necessary to change it after I ran away. Seventeen-year-old Marlowe Kent’s spirit is still with me in this room and I’m too tired to change it up. Besides, if I changed it up, I would have to admit that I am staying here. It’s like admitting my defeat.
Lex Luthor’s name lingers in my mind.
I’ve seen him two times in my. I’ve seen his name in the headlines and deep down I wished that I had bumped into Lex that night I was at Club Zero, and not my ex-boyfriend Felix.
I wonder what my life would have been had I never rolled into a life that Violet Collapse brought.
I hear three knocks on my door. “What?” I ask.
Clark walks in and it’s beyond me that my little brother has grown so much, that I barely reach his midriff. Guess that’s what happens when you adopt two kids—one with Japanese descent, the other from outer space.
“Can I come in?”
“Suit yourself.”
He stands in the doorway, crossing his arms in front of his chest. “Why are you so angry, Marlowe?”
I glare at him. “My life fell apart for the world to see.”
“But it brought you back home.” He shrugs with a small smile. “I missed having my sister around.”
I roll my eyes but can’t help but grin. “I’m sorry I wasn’t there a lot when you grew up.”
“It’s okay, I… It was actually pretty cool to brag about my amazing sister at school.”
He’s just saying that… “How are you?” I ask. “Considering you got hit by a car.”
“I’m good. I just wondered about how Lex must’ve felt. I mean, he sort of died.”
“He has had all sorts of strokes with death,” I tell Clark. “Besides, he’s a Luthor. Even if you would shoot them point blank, they’d manage to survive.”
Clark laughs. “I guess so.”
It’s on the tip of my tongue to tell him about Lex and how much two interactions with him meant to me as a kid, but I quickly swallow all the words. “So, how’s school? How’s Lana?”
For someone who is physically unbreakable, faster than light and strong as hell, he sure as hell blushes violently at the mention of Lana Lang, the girl he has been crushing on since he can probably remember.
“Creeped onto her porch yet from the barn with your freaky telescope?”
“Shut up.”
“Still happy I’m here?”
Clark plops on my bed and smirks. “Well, it’s better coming from you than from Chloe and Pete.”
I sit down next to him and let out a deep sigh. “Now what?” I ask.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I just keep wondering if this is gonna be my destiny?”
“Saving people?” I shrug. “Maybe. Would be kind of fun if you turned out to be some sort of superhero.”
“But what if that’s all I have to offer? What if saving lives is what I do for the rest of my life?”
“Is that so bad?”
He shakes his head. “No, it’s not bad, but what if I don’t get to live?”
“That’s up to you,” I softly tell him. “I… I don’t have to hold back like you do, but I would advise you to just take a risk, take a chance. Be a teen. That’s what your teenage years should be about. Finding out who you are, discovering what you like and don’t like. And personally, if I could go back in time, I would much rather figure that out here in Smallville than what I did.”
“Offer to kick Felix’ ass still stands.”
I smile. “I know, but it’s okay.”
Clark nudges my side. “How about you and I go to the barn and we both steal something from the kitchen?”
“I’m stealing the marshmallows.”
He groans. “So, I have to make the hot chocolate?”
“Well, only you can make that in like two seconds, so… yeah, you must.”
⚡︎
The next day, Clark sits in the passenger’s seat of Dad’s beat up truck. I know that technically Clark could be home in like five seconds, but I was feeling generous today and I had to get out of the house, so naturally I grabbed the car and drove to Smallville High.
“What on earth is that?” I ask, as we slow down on the driveway.
A gorgeous red truck with a bow on it stands there proudly and I deep down hope Dad bought me one.
We get out of the car, just in time to see Mom stepping on the tractor. “Mom, whose truck is that?” Clark asks.
“Yours, Clark,” Mom says and my stomach sinks. Great, Dad loves Clark more than me, that’s just what I need to know. “It’s a gift from Lex Luthor.”
She hands him an envelope with Clark’s name on it. My brother’s eyes light up and I mutter from next to him, “What do you think he’ll give me if I randomly do mouth to mouth on him?”
“You could find out,” Clark chuckles, as he rips open the envelope. “Dear Clark, drive safely. Always in your debt, the maniac in the Porsche.”
I cross my arms as I look at Mom, who doesn’t look all too happy. Considering she had the envelope and isn’t making an effort to grab a key, I can only guess how this is gonna unfold.
“Where are the keys?” Clark asks.
Mom smiles, patting him on the arm. “Your father has them.”
“Good luck,” I say to Clark. “Maybe if you give the truck back, you can convince Lex to give it to me and you and I can share. After all, I am an adult.”
“Without a job or a house,” Mom says, throwing salt into my wounds and rubbing in the fact that I’m indeed both homeless and unemployed and dependent on my parents.
Clark snorts.
“Shut up, you rat,” I hiss.
Clark saunters toward my dad, who is working on the woodchopper. Mom stands next to me and wraps an arm around me. “How are you holding up, sweetheart?”
“Well, considering I’m homeless and unemployed, I’d say I’m two seconds away from throwing myself off the Loeb Bridge.”
She bumps her hip against mine. “Don’t say that.”
“Mom, I can see the way Dad looks at me. I’m nothing but a big giant failure in his eyes.” I shrug and wiggly myself from her grasp. “Maybe Dad and I are more alike than I initially thought,” I say, “considering I see myself as a big failure as well.”
Mom calls my name, but I already walk toward the kitchen.
⚡︎
There’s a maniac in a different car than a Porsche stopping by two days after he gifted my brother the truck. Dad forced Clark to give it back, so now we’re a one truck type of family again.
Lex steps out of the car, a black trench coat covering the expensive looking suit. His dress shoes make a crushing noise on the gravel and he’s too busy looking around to see me sitting in front of my bedroom window.
Thanks to the Daily Planet and their abundant reporting on him, I know exactly what he looks like and what he’s up to nowadays. Knowing Clark and my parents are in the barn, I walk out of my room and go down the stairs. When I approach the door, I hear him knocking.
The last time I saw him in real time was when I was nine and I know that I shouldn’t be so invested in a guy who I saw as a child years ago, but I can’t help it.
I open the door. “How can I help you, mister Luthor?”
His eyes widen as he assesses my face. “Marlowe.”
