There was a good reason Lex had always kept his friendship with the Kents secret from his father.

When he was still a teenager, it was a game. Convince his father that the punishment he'd doled out for the incident with Duncan back in his junior year of high school had been sufficiently cruel, cruel enough that he earned himself a second summer at the Kent farm the following year when he started intentionally getting involved in drug scandals. Those two summers on the farm had been the best of his life, and he was sure his father still believed they had been the worst. Child's play.

He'd earned yet another long stay in the crap town after his performance in college, this time managing the Smallville plant. In fairness, his first few weeks working at the plant had been pretty miserable. Anti-Luthor prejudice ran strong: almost everyone he met was snide with him before they even got to know him, no matter how pleasant and polite he himself was. But as far as Lex could tell, that wasn't the reason his father believed it would be a suitable punishment. Lex's father believed that Lex had traumatic memories associated with the town because of the meteor shower—he wasn't wrong, but that trauma was massively overshadowed by the happy memories he'd built at the Kent farm.

His father also probably thought of it as an insult to send his son to a dying factory. Lex just didn't care much about the disgrace. The important thing in a home town was having people to care about. In the Kents, he had far more than he needed.

Aside from all of that, though, Lex's job at the plant wasn't bad in the end. The employees were smarter than he'd expected, and they worked hard in response to good leadership. Lex defied their expectations just by treating them with respect. Within a few months of Lex's installment, the plant was turning a profit for the first time in years.

Lex had purpose, he had earned respect, and he had friends. For the first time ever, other than during those glowing summers in high school and during the first few months after Julian's birth, his life was actually good.

But if Lex were honest with himself, even the best of the comforts of Smallville weren't quite as compelling to him as its mysteries. Maybe it was his Luthor blood speaking, but he couldn't imagine himself being content to merely be happy. He had to be working toward something, learning something, digging into something. And Smallville, with its meteors, mutants, and monsters, delivered in every way.

Over the past year, Lex's collection in his Room of Obsession had grown. Chloe came by two or three times a month to bring various items, evidence, and copies of newspaper clippings she had added to her own Wall of Weird. Lex kept an eye on Belle Reve as well, as they accumulated more and more meteor mutants.

The months had made him thankful he'd decided to connect with Chloe. He'd debated with himself long and hard about it. Had Lex believed Clark were intentionally or maliciously keeping secrets from him, he would have considered it a family issue; he never would have brought anyone else into it. It came down to the fact that Lex trusted Clark; if he was keeping something from Lex, it must be dangerous somehow. Clark had lied quite a bit over the past year—he was a terrible liar—and it stung a little, but Lex didn't take it personally.

But the bigger reason he ultimately chose to involve Chloe was because in the end, these investigations weren't really about Clark. They were for him, in a way, since Lex was sure knowing more about the meteor rocks would protect the Kents. Even if Clark was a meteor mutant himself—and the more Lex saw, the more he doubted that Clark's involvement was that simple—he was far from the most crucial data point, in Lex's mind. There was something about the rocks themselves, maybe something about the town, possibly even something that happened the day of the meteor shower. That was what Lex was most interested in, and it had nothing to do with Clark.

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Chloe was the perfect ally. Her age made her inconspicuous, and her tenacity as an investigative reporter made her indispensable. She dug into the backgrounds of each and every meteor mutant that emerged, a surprising number of which seemed to be Smallville High students. She was genuinely interested and enthusiastic, and she didn't mind bending the rules, though she had principles she wouldn't break, which he respected. He taught her a bit of self defense, including the basics he'd learned from his father's chauffeur, as well as some things he'd learned from exchanging letters with Dean. Chloe could also keep an eye on Clark when Lex couldn't, which made Lex feel a little safer.

Of course, he never would have reached out to her if he had known that it would eventually lead to his father figuring out his secret.

It was an afternoon in early May. Lex had had a particularly productive meeting that morning with his upper level managers, and a great dinner with the Kents the night before. There was almost a spring in his step when he returned to his study to work for the afternoon; it was going to be a good day.

And then his father called a meeting with all of Lex's employees, shut down the plant, fired every last one of the workers, and blamed it on Lex.

In the moment, Lex couldn't gather his thoughts to form a coherent response. "You just fired 2500 people and blamed it on me."

"One day you'll thank me, Lex. Smallville isn't in your future. It's just a brief chapter in your biography."

"Don't do this!"

"We live in a meritocracy, Lex. The weak get left behind. The plant wasn't producing. I had no other option."

"Spare me the corporate barbarian spiel! Those people have husbands and wives, children, mortgages!" He knew it was a useless plea. Rooted in emotion, sentiment. But he couldn't help but make it.

"We're in business to make profits, not friends! You can't let your emotions get in the way of making tough decisions."

"Don't lecture me about letting emotions get in the way! This plant was showing a profit. You're only shutting it down because I wouldn't go work for you in Metropolis!"

His father turned to look at him, raising his eyebrows with amusement. "You think this is because of that."

Lex swallowed hard. He looked his father in the eyes, and it hit him at once.

His father knew.

Lex had a guess as to how it had happened, too. It was because of Chloe. It wasn't her fault; Lex hadn't told her to keep his friendship with the Kents on the down low. But one of her most recent stories in the Torch was more or less a review of her meteor rock encounters over the school year, and it cast LuthorCorp in a positive enough light to gain a bit of attention—it was an unusual take, coming from a Smallville citizen. Lex's involvement in her research was all too obvious, even though his name was never mentioned, and that must have allowed Lex's father to trace Lex's meteor rock research.

"What are you trying to do? Keep me away from the meteor rocks?"

"Oh, it's not the meteor rocks. It's the Kents."

Lex swallowed. His next words were crucial. Under any other circumstances, he'd be trying to convince his father that the friendship was recent, that it was practical. Considering the meteor rock involvement, though, his best bet to protect them was to convince his father they had nothing to do with any of that. Which meant a full confession. That would probably mean more retaliation for him, but it would keep the Kents out from under Lex's father's microscope.

"Okay," Lex said. "You got me."

"How long?" his father asked.

"Since that first summer."

"I always wondered."

"The plant closure . . . it isn't because I turned down your job offer," Lex said, in a voice that almost wasn't loud enough to be heard over the helicopter.

"No, it isn't."

"So you're punishing me? For lying to you about the farm?" 2500 people had lost their jobs because Lex had played games with his father. Lex had never been so ashamed of who he was.

"No," his father said, and he took a step closer. "That's coming later. This? This is for Duncan."

Hot chills ran down Lex's spine.

With that, his father climbed back into his helicopter and took off.