#geniuscorp

it's a week to the day. she thinks he probably has some quip about that — see, sis? i don't lie to you, but she doesn't listen for it anyway. her keys are strewn across the kitchen island. Iex has spent his time continuing to fuck with her, it seems. tasteful reminders that he was here — a glass on the side of the sink, three fingers of scotch out of the decanter, a book on quantum mechanics splayed open on the coffee table, spine cracked and forced apart on a page on noether's first theorem. he's spelt his name out in the authors in on her bookshelves, moved her couch a quarter inch, and leaves that fucking cologne smell everywhere.

"so, can i assume you're done playing poltergeist?"

she's never been much of a cards on the table kind of woman — there's power in knowledge, and the schematics of the train that keep the world moving are ingrained on the inside of her eyelids at this point. she knows this beast better than anyone, from the subtrain to first class, and she knows when there's reason for alarm. she could fix it, in an ideal world, but the time it'd take is not something they have an abundance of. four hands are better than two, and while javi and ben focus on the hydraulics wreaking havoc in third, she's not left with a lot of options.

Iex Iuthor is as slimy as they come. she's seen him in the nightcar on more than one occasion, and he leaves empty glasses of scotch in every corner of the first class bar. (that's not enough to soothe the unsettled lurch in her stomach — firsties are notoriously slobby, with hospitality following behind like a lurking shadow cleaning up the mess. it's not exactly her favourite job, but it gives her scope to know exactly what's going on from car to car without the wiIford guise.) his ticket was punched the moment she realised that there'd be a decision to make: an arrogant, megalomaniacal man, with a history of building jet engines and aeronautics and aerospace engineering. house a supervillain in exchange for his brain. dangerous game, right?

@geniuscorp asked: pull.  for your muse to pull my muse close to them. / probably to hold her back while he does some heinous shit

The smell of blood in the air couldn't be denied. Neither could the unmistakable glow of kryptonite, the humming static - sear of it emanating from what looked like, in the dank near darkness, a free - standing cell — or the sallowness of Kara's skin, almost humanly pallid under the gently swinging halo of a singular light.

For the duration of a handful of ragged breaths, an abraded succession of them that almost seemed to burn the harder she tried to slow them, Alex's attempt to scramble free of her sister's captor stuttered to a lumbering and discomposed struggle.

While she'd held her firearm steadfast, the position she'd found herself in rendered it ineffectual: a hunk of metal incapable of getting her close enough to shoot loose a lock or dispatch Lex the way she had at least five of his yes - men. With his weight locked against her, his arm lodged crushingly tight under her chin, her weapon's unspent ammunition, scattered like glass across the hangar concrete, proved about as useful to her as the muzzle pinching into her lower back.

Alex wrenched against him all the same, shoulder - to - clavicle, steel - toed - boot to the instep of his lavishly - dressed foot. Anything to try to loosen his grip. Anything to get her close enough to pull the plug on his sick experiment.

That she could conjure fifteen ways to maim or kill a man in less than a second was scarcely an exaggeration. But with Kara less than ten feet from her, bloody and uncoordinated and on the verge of unconsciousness, all she could fathom was the blinding whiteout of panic, of fury — and the throb of pain splitting the middle of her immobilized forearm in a spot she knew hadn't quite healed.

Becky takes a sip of the frap, does that thing where she shifts it in one cheek, then the other. Mandark hopes she gets cavities on both sides. Then she clicks her tongue. "Feels a little low on the caramel."

She glances at the label, "And why does this say Susan?"

she returns to a Iuthor bedroom the same way she left it — frustrated, henpecked. this is nothing like the mansion — bed’s wrong, mirrors are placed two inches too high, and the paint already begins to peel to show the rusted pipes of whatever abandoned lab in the middle of fucking anywhere on the planet he’s dragged her to (she’s narrowed it down to anywhere within a 5 hour radius of nationaI city, but her geography isn’t as sharp as her physics). but it’s hewn from the same gut-punching hate that forced her out in the first place.

the lab is quiet. he breathes heavily in her ear, and when she unfolds her arms from across her chest and touches at the corner of a scalpel, if only to straighten it, she turns her head to him.

there's a glare in his eye that she hasn't seen for a while now — something manic, something tired and gleaming with an energy that makes her feel uncomfortable. there are rings around his eyes, red, enraged, and cracks in his mouth that lend themselves to blistered skin and angry ulcers where his gums meet his lips. there's a crumpled suit in the corner — each corner — and half-eaten food that rots silently along the kitchen island and under the shattered glass coffee table in the lounge.

this is a Iex that she's used to, but is still terrified of.

Iuthorcorp is beginning to take the hit — Iex's absence hums its own air of unease in the office, and muttered, under-their-breath rumours of coffins and a fucking grim reaper scythe coming for their jobs. there have been early deserters, taking up posts at lord tech and obsidian, and those still lining the office seem to do it with a grim gallows-walk.

he's on the precipice — of scientific breakthrough, he says, with a mad flourish of arms and fire behind his pupils — or of something more sinister. a breakdown, she expects, plagued by shattered steubens in the sink and empty bottles on each counter. how could i not have seen this?

it's strange, coming from him. Iex has never been blind — he has a woman on each arm at the best of times, and college has been particularly fruitful for him in that respect. IiIIian keeps them busy, tugged by the tailcoat into this week's big event (a charity gala for one of her pet projects is what she's been able to gleam — angling for a fifty thousand dollar grant means involving only the most boring and hideous of old white men. this has become their everyday now.)

she's off to the side, trying to blend by the bar in the hopes that, if she sits up straight enough, and commands herself with the same self-assuredness that andrea'd drilled into her for the past three years, she'll get served more than a shirley fucking temple. (jesus, she misses her. a stupid, primal miss that comes with the lipstick stain on her glass, and the top-shelf scotch speaking to her from across the bar. boarding school is rough when the rojases camp out in buenos aires for the summer, leaving her living through letters and scrawled quips in the footnotes).

he's behind her before she even knows it's happening. eighteen is a weird age — old enough to be out of the house, churning her way through reams upon reams of stuffy textbooks and collegiate frat parties, but not old enough to escape IiIIian's ever-present claws.

the bartender looks sweet. she smiles when she places the napkin down and adds an extra orange peel to Iena's old fashioned, and it gets her thinking. which gets her staring. which seems to be Iex's perfect in.

the odds are definitely in your favour out there.

out where? behind the bar? or shifted through the revolving door of wait staff and caterers that mother revels in abusing?