"Luthor," Lex said into his office phone while still typing a few more figures into the spreadsheet he'd been working on. It was his business line, and since he wasn't anticipating a call about anything important, he expected it to be a fairly mundane conversation about either fertilizer, personnel, or accounting.

"Mr. Luthor, there's something you should know about Mutant RGN."

Lex's fingers stilled over the laptop keyboard and he sat back in his chair, tightening his grip around the phone. He kept his voice mildly curious as he asked, "What did you find?"

"The blood sample you sent last week was significantly different than the original samples. Mr. Luthor, RGN mutated again. His DNA is noticably different in the XY chromosomal pair, and there are minor changes in three other pairs. We ran a full battery of tests on the new sample. The Mutant's white blood cell count is up, blood sugar is down, and, Mr. Luthor, hormone levels are elevated far beyond the norm. Sir, we think he's pregnant."

Only long association with his father kept Lex calm. The scientist sounded disturbingly gleeful about his predicament. "Has the new mutation affected the regenerative ability?" he asked, proud of himself for how businesslike and unconcerned he sounded.

There was a slight pause on the other end. "If anything, I'd theorize that it increased. But, sir, you need to bring the Mutant in."

"To the lab?" Lex asked, traces of his incredulity seeping into his tone.

"Look, I know you're trying to protect him, but he needs medical attention. We're already under more confidentiality contracts than the average CIA spy, and Dr. Johansen was an ob/gyn before she switched to bio-research. You can protect him best by bringing him in to get a check-up."

Lex closed his eyes and ran the background checks for the two Mutant RGN researchers through his mind. Neither of them had been caught in anything unethical, and both had proven trustworthy in the months since LexCorp was founded. "I'll bring him in tomorrow morning. Does Johansen have everything she needs?"

There was the muffled sound of talking, then a woman's voice came on the line. "Mr. Luthor?"

"Dr. Johansen, do you have what you need to do a check-up on a pregnant man?"

"We haven't an ultrasound, Mr. Luthor."

Lex took a moment before responding to that. "Fax me a proposal for why you'd need one in your research, without mentioning Mutant RGN's condition, and you'll have one by morning. I don't want any mention of his pregnancy anywhere in the regeneration study documentation."

"Sir, RGN is only barely human anymore. How he reproduces -" He didn't let her finish that sentence. It was best to nip some overly scientific thoughts before they could fully form.

"Dr. Johansen, RGN is a successful person who works and interacts with other people the same as anyone else. His private life is not a xenobiological test case. Besides which, LexCorp can't market anything that would come from such a study so we're not having one. I'm bringing him in tomorrow only because Dr. Vogel said it was in his best interest to be looked at by a doctor and I doubt he trusts the local hospital."

"It is in his best interest," Johansen hurried to assure him. "The male body isn't built for carrying children. If left alone in this, RGN could very easily die."

Lex swallowed and felt a chill run down his spine. "I'll see that he and the ultrasound are there at 9:00 tomorrow."

Lex didn't knock. He owned the lab, he paid the scientists, and he funded the research. Hell, he was the research. His long black leather duster was unseasonably warm, but it did a good job of hiding his shape while he walked in the semi-public arenas of such places as parking lots and Cadmus Labs hallways.

Johansen was a middle-aged, slightly overweight blond woman who looked past Lex and frowned when she didn't see anyone behind him. Vogel was older still with grey hair and a closely trimmed beard. He also looked for someone to enter with Lex. He was the one who articulated the thought. "I thought the Mutant was coming this morning, Mr. Luthor."

Lex turned his back on them, removed his jacket, hung it on a wall peg, then took a deep breath and faced them again. "He's here."

They looked equal parts shocked and horrified. Neither seemed quite able to resume conversation. Uncertainty, no doubt, about whether to address him as Mr. Luthor, RGN, or Mutant.

He gestured toward what he vaguely recognized as an ultrasound. "I trust this is of adequate quality."

Johansen nodded, "Yes, it's fine, Mr. Luthor. If, if you'd take a seat?" The chair she indicated reminded him of a torture device his father had installed in the castle dungeon. This, however, did not stop him. He'd been running on bravado since he entered the lab, and he saw no reason to stop now. He sat.

He assumed that it was because, as previously noted, he owned the lab, funded the research, and paid the scientists, that she was almost deferential in unbuttoning his lavendar shirt and pushing his pants and underwear below the bulge of his stomach. "Do you know when conception took place?" she asked, doing something with the machine.

He gave the date and time.

Apparently, that level of precision wasn't expected because both scientists gave him looks he wasn't sure he wanted to interpret. Johansen moved on. "Do you know when the second mutation occurred?"

This date and time was one minute before the one previously given.

The scientists exchanged looks with each other this time. Vogel took up the questioning, "The meteorite was present?"

Lex nodded, and prayed they never learned the contents of his father's vault. "Yes, refined bars of it. I cut myself on them."

They looked at each other again. Lex was beginning to find that annoying. "Sir," Johansen said, "I don't mean to lecture, but shouldn't you, of all people, know better than to let that happen?"

Lex hoped that scowling at her didn't seem petulant under the circumstances. "Yes," he managed to grate out, "but given the situation, I was preoccupied with other things."

"Like being screwed by another man?"

Lex transferred the scowl to Vogel. "You have a problem with that?"

"N-no, Mr. Luthor."

Giving both scientists another final glare, he gestured once more at the ultrasound. "Now that we've established that the not-currently-disowned Luthor heir is not only a mutant but a bisexual mutant who is five months pregnant, can we move on?"

They moved on. The ultrasound revealed a fetus that Johansen declared was 'normal' until she saw the raised eyebrows she was getting for using that adjective. "Well, as normal as a five month fetus can be when growing inside a muta- a male." Almost as if to make up for almost calling her employer a mutant to his face, she added, "Do you want to know if it's a son or daughter, Mr. Luthor?"

He preferred being called a mutant than being reminded that he was soon going to be a father. Talking about the 'fetus' was fine, but he wished she hadn't used the terms 'son' and 'daughter'. Knowledge, however, was power, and the Kents had the right to know as early as possible. "Yes."

She smiled. "Congratulations, it's a girl."

Lex slumped in his chair. "Thank God. Does she have hair?"

"It's too soon to say for sure. I take it you didn't want a son?"

Lex shook his head, "I don't want a kid, period, but Dad'll make less fuss if he finds out about an illegitimate girl. The hypocritical bastard." Opting not to expand upon either example of his father's wild oats, Lex diverted attention back to the vessel containing the younger of them. "So do I have a clean bill of health, aside from my tenant's existance?"

"Not so fast," she said with more authority than she had exerted so far. "I want more blood work, and I want a physical examination to see if there are any visible differences between you and a human male."

A human male, not a normal male. Lex inwardly seethed, directed a deadly glare at the woman, but did not verbally argue his classification. He couldn't take the risk that she'd explain in scientific detail exactly how far from the human norm he had strayed. On the positive side, if he was almost another species now, at least inbreeding probably wouldn't be a problem.

Blood was drawn with little difficulty, and he survived the indignity of being examined without firing or threatening to kill either scientist, which he counted as an omen that he wasn't destined to become his father after all. Warning them that he knew where their families lived didn't count; that was just an exchange of already known information. They told him that he was hairless but appeared otherwise normal, he told them the addresses of Johansen's mother, Vogel's sister, Johansen's two brothers, and Vogel's grown children. Having anticipated the possible need for such details, Lex had memorized these statistics last night.

Eventually, the examination reached its conclusion. The currently favored theory was reached through the creative, if unpleasant, use of both probes and ultrasound. The mutant womb was attached to the anal canal, but was presently closed off, presumably to keep it clean. Johansen suggested that it would open when aroused and during labor. Lex suggested that she make sure she had everything she needed for a Caesarean because he wasn't going to have an entire infant exit his body via that route if it was at all avoidable.

After putting on his coat and leaving the lab, he leaned breifly against the wall just outside the door to reclaim his sense of Being A Luthor that he would need to make it back to his Porshe. From inside, he heard Johansen's voice breathe out heavily, "God."

Vogel seconded the thought, "Jesus. Luthor."

Outside, Lex smirked. He was evidently in divine company. The smile faded quickly as Johansen spoke again, "Do you think he's stable?"

Vogel answered immediately, "Luthors are born unstable." Then he apparently felt the need to qualify that slander. "Seriously though, all things considered, Lex Luthor is remarkably well-adjusted. I doubt the mutation will drive him to insane violence. His father, perhaps, but not the mutation."

Lex stayed still and silent in the hall outside, barely breathing. Johansen laughed nervously. "That inspires me with unsurpassed confidence. He knows where my mother lives."

Muffled movement, then Vogel's voice, "Audrey. His reputation and future are on the line here. He doesn't trust us, but he can't afford not to. He wouldn't be a Luthor if he didn't threaten us a little. I've met his father. By comparison, RGN was very nice about it."

"RGN?" Johansen questioned the chosen form of address even as Lex narrowed his eyes and straightened to his full height outside.

"I'm uncomfortable calling him 'Lex'," the shrug was obvious in the words, "but 'Luthor' was inexact given that I was just talking about his father." Lex relaxed and stopped composing the scientist's pink slip. Still, he didn't like being referred to by the code name that was, for months, interchangeble with the phrase 'the Mutant'. It hadn't bothered him when he was nothing more than a blood sample to them, but now it was different. Vogel and Johansen had seen him naked, examined his insides, and now knew him better than anyone outside his father, the Kents, and Gabe Sullivan.

They should call him 'Lex' not 'RGN' like he was something less than human. But he hadn't made the invitation, and he wasn't about to go back inside and admit to eavesdropping.

"Well, I see now why Luthor was willing to take blood from RGN but refused to let us ever meet or run tests on him before this happened."

Vogel snorted. "No kidding."

"The next time he gets a concussion do you think he'll let us watch him heal?" Not wanting to consider the implications of that question, Lex decided it was past time for him to leave. Johansen was a bloody scientist holed away in Cadmus labs. How the hell had she heard that he got concussed about once a month?

Getting into the Porshe, he pulled away and drove at a good clip back toward the mansion. Opening his cell phone, he made a quick call and left a message when he got the answering machine. "Martha, hello. This is Lex Luthor. I won't be needing your services for that husbandry event we discussed. I know you had other obligations, so I found another veternarian." He snapped the phone closed without a goodbye.

God, first he was a science project and now he needed a vet. This pregnancy better hurry up and finish before his ego started taking these subterfuges to heart.

Remembering something else, he opened the phone again and added another message to the same answering machine. "Lex again. One other thing. The exchange student you asked about? It's a girl."