Latveria's audience hall hadn't changed since the last time Orion stood in it, though this time he'd come without an appointment forced on him. He'd asked for the meeting himself, and Doom had granted it within the hour, which told him more than any greeting could have.
Doom sat in the tall chair at the room's far end, fingers steepled, watching Orion cross the length of the hall without hurrying to fill the silence.
"You return sooner than Doom expected."
"You gave me a deadline. I'm using it."
"Then use it well. Doom has little patience for men who mistake stalling for thinking."
Orion stopped a few paces short of the chair, close enough that neither of them had to raise his voice.
"I've thought about it. The credit goes on the plaque, your name, the funding, all of it, out in the open." He kept his eyes level. "You didn't corner me into this. I want to be honest about where the sanctuary came from, because pretending it built itself would be its own kind of control, aimed at the public instead of at me."
Doom didn't answer right away. He studied Orion the way he'd studied him in the yard weeks ago, head tilted, weighing the shape of the sentence rather than just its content.
"That is a more honest answer than Doom..."
The door at the hall's far end opened before he could finish, and the temperature of the room changed before anyone had said a word.
Lex Luthor walked in like he'd been invited, though nobody had invited him. He wore the same composed, unhurried expression Orion remembered from the festival, the one that made every room feel smaller the moment he entered it.
Luthor gave a small, measured bow, the kind that cost him nothing and meant less.
"Forgive the intrusion. I was in the region. Your press office has been rather quiet about the branch opening, so I thought I'd come see for myself what all the silence was covering."
Doom rose from the chair without any particular urgency, cloak settling around him.
"Luthor. Doom did not extend an invitation."
"You rarely do. And yet here I am, which I think says something about how interesting your invitations have become lately."
"Interesting is not the word Doom would choose. Uninvited comes closer."
"I've always admired how quickly you skip past hello."
Luthor's gaze drifted toward Orion, then back.
"Though I imagine you two have more pressing matters than manners."
"Doom manages both without difficulty. A skill you might study, given the state of your last press conference."
"My last press conference drew triple the ratings of your quarterly technology briefing. I checked."
"Ratings measure spectacle, not substance. Doom has never confused the two, unlike certain men who mistake headlines for legacy."
"Says the man who built an entire castle shaped like an exclamation point."
Orion watched the two of them trade shots with the ease of old rivals, and for a moment it would have been easy to let them keep going, to let the room turn into whatever theater they wanted to make of it. But the longer they went, the more it became their conversation instead of his. He hadn't come all this way to stand at the edge of somebody else's rivalry.
"Lex."
He cut into the rhythm before either man could volley again.
"You didn't fly to Latveria for banter. Say what you came to say."
Luthor's attention settled on him now, and something in his posture sharpened, the sociable mask thinning at the edges.
"Very well."
He folded his hands in front of him.
"Your press office received a question about Latverian involvement at the new branch. They never answered it. I'd like to know why, and I'd like to know here, in front of the man whose name apparently belongs on the sign."
"You already know why. You're the one who sent the question."
"I sent a question. I didn't force the silence that followed it."
Luthor let that sit a beat before continuing.
"So which is it, Orion. Is this Pokémon Home's project, run by people who answer to a welfare standard, or is it Latveria's, run by a man who answers to no one but himself? Because from where I'm standing, you can't have it both ways and still call it transparency."
Luthor had built a clean trap, the way he built everything, out of true pieces arranged to only leave two doors. Doom was watching him now too, waiting on the same answer for reasons of his own.
"It's neither of those. It's a branch that exists because Doom paid for it, and because I decided that's worth being honest about instead of hiding behind a blank sign. If you want a scandal, you're welcome to write one. But you'll be writing about a partnership I chose with my eyes open, not a secret you uncovered."
Nobody spoke for a moment. Latias, who had stood quiet near the doorway through all of it, watched Luthor's face rather than Orion's. She always read a room before she spoke.
Luthor's expression didn't crack, but his eyes moved once, quickly, the look of a man filing a result away rather than accepting a loss.
"Noted."
He inclined his head slightly, the gesture almost courteous.
"I'll be watching the opening closely, all the same. Transparency has a way of inviting more questions than it answers."
"It usually does. Ask them at the ribbon-cutting. I'll have better answers than I did today."
Luthor's gaze slid once more to Doom, a flicker passing between them that neither man explained. Then he turned and left the way he'd come, at his own pace, the door closing behind him without a sound loud enough to mark the exit as a retreat.
The hall settled into quiet. Latias crossed to stand beside Orion, arms loosely folded.
"He didn't get what he came for."
"He got an answer. Just not the one he wanted."
"That's not the same as losing."
She glanced toward the door Luthor had gone through.
"He wanted you to flinch. You didn't. That's going to bother him more than anything you actually said."
Doom, who had watched the exchange without interrupting, finally spoke.
"She is correct, though Doom suspects you already knew that."
He returned to his chair, settling into it with an authority that needed no announcing.
"Doom accepts your answer regarding the plaque. The name goes on exactly as offered, publicly and for good."
"That's it? There's no condition?"
"One."
Doom's fingers steepled again.
"Doom will attend the opening in person. A sign naming him is not enough; he intends to stand at the ribbon itself, where every camera Luthor invites can see precisely whose name belongs there."
Doom paused, deliberate.
"Doom did not build a sanctuary to have his part in it whispered about from a safe distance."
"Fine. You'll be there."
"Doom is always there when it matters."
Doom delivered it exactly as he delivered everything, each word settled into place as if it had been true long before anyone thought to argue with it.
"Try to arrive at the opening better prepared than you did to this conversation. You managed, this time. Do not mistake that for a habit."
***
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