Fic: All I Want For Christmas Is... (3/3, complete) -- for twilighthdfan !
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Original post is here
~*~*~*~*~*~
Conner was baking cookies and other assorted baked goods with Martha in the kitchen, who had flown in as soon as she'd heard what had happened. Clark was taking it easy on the couch, making cranberry-popcorn strings with Lex, and they worked in relatively-companionable silence. They hadn't gotten a tree yet, but they'd cleared a corner for it in the penthouse's living room already. Lex assumed that they would probably end up having an argument about real versus artificial, and a fight over whether Clark was allowed out onto the street to go get a live conifer with them, given his penchant for running into deadly trouble on the streets of Metropolis. Lex didn't trust him not to throw himself in the middle of a mugging, or street fight, or anything else that he might see that needed a heroic foiling, despite being powerless and highly vulnerable at the moment and not well-trained in any of the various arts of self-defense.
So, yes -- Lex was not particularly looking forward to that. The only saving grace of the entire situation might be that, with Mrs. Kent here, Clark had an authority figure who just might be able to force him to not run out and get himself killed. Lex might actually survive this month without having to tie Clark up and toss him in a cell, after all.
And, speaking of problematic Kryptonians...
"I'm worried about Conner," Lex said quietly.
"He's three; it's not surprising that he bounced back so quickly. That's what kids do."
Lex only barely kept himself from rolling his eyes. "He is not three--"
"Yes, he is, Lex," Clark said patiently. "Technically two years and ten months, but... well. He may be really really smart, but he's only got about three years of actual life experience to work off of."
Lex was about to argue with Clark over that, when something that had been nagging at him made him pause and think for a moment.
"You never leave him to his own devices," Lex said slowly.
"Not as a rule, no. He needs adult supervision."
Lex frowned at that. "Timothy looks out for him during patrols...?"
"He's the most experienced of the Young Justice set, Conner looks up to him, he likes Conner, and he doesn't mind babysitting him."
"You really don't trust him," Lex said with a sinking feeling.
"Lex, trust isn't the issue here, ok? He has the mental and social development of a three year old. He follows people around like the proverbial baby duckling. He likes the attention, and he kind of needs it at this stage." Clark finished one string, tied it off, and started on another. "...Why do you think mom snatched him up so quick? She was horrified to hear that he'd been growing up in a lab under Tess's supervision. So was I, once I realized exactly what that meant."
Lex set down his string and scrubbed at his face. "This isn't what I wanted to discuss," he half-mumbled.
Clark blinked at him. "What, then?"
"He almost killed Lana."
"Twice, technically."
Lex gritted his teeth. "The first time would have been an accident, unintentional. The second time he knew exactly what he was doing."
"I know, I saw the security footage from the roof."
How could Clark be so calm about this? "What part of 'Conner almost killed someone' doesn't have you up in arms shouting like a self-righteous--"
"--jerk?" Clark supplied.
"This doesn't worry you?" It sure as hell worried Lex.
"If you were three and someone had just killed Lillian right in front of you, and you were scared that they were going to kill Julian next, and you could kill them first to stop them from doing it, exactly how much time would you be spending thinking about the morality of strangling a murderer to death?"
Lex felt like he'd been punched in the stomach.
"Conner wanted her dead, but he listened to you. You talked him down."
"I shouldn't have had to do so."
"Lex... not everyone is like you. When you were twenty-one and you had to decide whether to save Lionel or not, and you did, maybe you didn't need help making that decision." Clark looked down at his hands. "But when I was seventeen, and Alicia had been murdered by Tim Westcott? I needed Lois to talk me down." He looked up at Lex, right in the eye. "I would have killed him, if Lois hadn't been there. So maybe he's immature, or maybe he's more like me than like you, but you were there, and you stopped him, and he's going to be ok."
Lex noted grimly that Clark hadn't brought up how Lex had killed Lionel in cold blood later. Even more scary was what Clark had just admitted about himself and what this meant when combined with Clark's vaunted longstanding 'no killing' policy. Lex knew Clark had killed Milton-Fine-the-BrainIAC-machine more than once, so robots, even intelligent ones, didn't seem to 'count'. He'd also killed -- or tried to kill -- the separated-from-human Doomsday, and Darkseid as well. So Clark didn't have a problem with killing evil monsters, either. Lex wasn't sure that that extended to evil humans though, because Clark's actions certainly didn't seem to show that -- Clark had rescued and helped out Lionel before, as far as Lex was aware, but Clark had declared Lionel to be evil in a mindblowing lecture that Lex had overheard last year, and which Lex still wasn't entirely sure how he felt about. But if Clark wasn't lying to him now, then there seemed to be a sliding scale for death-to-all-humans somewhere in that alien brain of his that didn't even necessitate the use of red Kryptonite to reach, and... Lex mentally shook himself. This wasn't supposed to be about Clark. They could hash out that scary little gem later.
"Clark, that's not the point. Conner knows he can kill now," Lex pressed.
"So do I. It made me rethink a lot of things, once I was through the other side of the pain somewhat." Clark finished off yet another string and reached for another. "I had thought that you'd have maybe noticed this by now, Lex, but pretty much everybody is capable of killing under some set of circumstances. If you keep thinking like this it's not fair to Conner. It's almost as much a moot point, and just as unfair, as asking someone if they'd go back in time and kill Hitler if they got the chance."
"Would you?" Lex asked flippantly, because now he was starting to wonder if Clark's knee-jerk reaction really was a 'no.'
Clark gave him a look. "No, I would not."
Lex snorted as he picked his half-finished popcorn garland back up. "Really? Whyever not?" he asked flippantly.
"Because time travel always makes things worse."
Lex blinked, then slowly turned to look at Clark. He hadn't expected that.
"...'Always'?"
"Always."
Lex felt vaguely alarmed, because Clark had said that like he knew what he was talking about. From personal experience, and when the hell did he...? --Let alone the 'how' of it!
"Clark..."
"You stopped him, we're all ok. Lana is in jail. End of story. Move on."
Oh, so they were switching topics now, were they? Fine. He stored away that second bit of lunacy away for a rainy-day knock-down-drag-out screaming match, and got back to the problem of his son nearly committing homicide a few hours ago. "I don't think you're taking this seriously enough," Lex accused.
"I think you're taking it too seriously, and if you keep this up, acting like this, he's going to pick up on it and you're going to give him a complex."
"Clark--"
"Considering you're operating under a whole philosophy here of 'do as I say, not as I do'? You don't exactly have a lot of moral high ground to stand on," Clark pointed out. "And unless you're willing to try and also explain to him how modern-day soldiers and policemen manage to resolve the cognitive dissonance of killing someone versus protecting someone else and valuing life, I suggest you let it go until he's older. Because he's a hell of a lot smarter than I was at his age, biological or social or otherwise, and I don't doubt he'll ask you a lot of questions you can't or won't feel able, willing, or comfortable trying to answer."
Lex snarled under his breath.
"What?"
Right, Clark still didn't have his super-hearing at the moment. "I said, why can't that be your job? Aren't self-righteous platitudes and lectures on morality your thing?"
"Given how unhappy you are with what I've said on the subject up until now, I bet you'd be even less pleased with what I'd have to say to him about it."
"Fine," Lex grumbled. "What about your mother? --You can't be serious," he ended at Clark's uneasy look.
"Lex, when Nixon grabbed and threatened me way back when, dad did manage to get his gun away from him at one point. If it had been mom who had been the one to confront him, what do you think she would have done?"
"Don't be ridiculous," scoffed Lex. The pentultimate stay-at-home mother, loving farmer's wife? "She would have--"
Then he stalled out as his brain caught up to him and reminded him of some other relevant facts: state senator, lawyer's education, turned down running the family law firm to marry Jonathan. Former Metropolis girl. More than capable of hold her own with Lionel when she had once worked for him -- alongside him, rather. Red Queen, with a Martian Manhunter as her lapdog-agent, and some of those missions...
Lex drew a quick breath and stared at Clark. Clark, for his part, shrugged and merely said, "Just because two people are married and love each other very much doesn't mean that they agree on everything."
Lex squirmed uncomfortably in place and wished that this wasn't so important that he couldn't just give in to the luxury of switching topics to something where he wasn't in way over his head. He did not consider morality his strong suit; that was partly why Clark was supposed to be his nemesis: to keep him in line. Then something occurred to him. "This wouldn't happen to be part of why Jonathan does not demonize those who kill in self-defense, even when he himself refused to kill, would it?" Lex asked, because he doubted that even Jonathan Kent, Mr. King Of The Angry Platitude Speech himself, would be that hypocritical.
When Clark nodded, Lex grimaced, then sighed and ran a hand over his skull. "Well, we have to do something." Lex persisted. "Given Conner's level of intelligence, he's going to need or want to talk about what happened sooner or later, and he will have difficult questions for us regardless of whether we are prepared for them or not. We need to talk this through and reach a consensus about what we'll say to be ready for him -- even if we don't necessarily completely agree or show a united front," he added uncomfortably. "Even if we have to give him competing views, he ought to understand that that's ok, if we present it as such. But we do need to agree at least somewhat on what ideas we expose him to, and how to frame them, if only so we know what he's been told."
"Great, because when I think of talking to Conner about morality, what I'm really wanting to do is damage control," Clark said, voice dripping with sarcasm. "I'd much rather explain to him what everyone I know, met, or have even just briefly heard about thinks on the subject and why, and what I think and why, and let him mull things over and decide for himself. I promised him once that I wouldn't keep things from him, and I meant it, Lex. He won't trust either of us if we leave things out; he'll just get suspicious about what we don't want him to know, what we're keeping from him, and why, and the first thing he will think is not that we know what we're doing and that it's for benign purposes because we care about him. Believe me, he does better with more information, not less."
Now that just burned. Why didn't I ever get that consideration from you? Lex snarled mentally. And he hardly cared whether it was because Clark thought that courtesy automatically extended to anyone blood-related or not -- he had a right to his feelings and at this point, a damn-near monopoly on rights to that information, as well. Hell, he could write a thesis on the subject outlining the whys and wherefores. ...Well, if Clark wasn't holding back information from Conner, letting Lex know that was a tactical error in the extreme: Lex would just find a way to get Conner to ask everything he wanted to know for him. But...
"You're the one who keeps saying Conner's only three. Do you really think a three-year-old is capable of making that kind of self-determination?" Lex sneered, while privately freaking out a little -- it wasn't as though he could really stop Clark from talking with Conner about this particular topic, not without half-killing one or the pair of them. "What if he makes the wrong decision?"
"You mean, how are you going to change his mind for him if he doesn't agree with you and won't do what you tell him to do?"
Lex's hackles rose. Lex would be damned if he would ever treat his own son the way Lionel had treated him. He'd rather shoot himself permanently dead first. "That is not--"
"--what you mean to do, but that's effectively what he will see and hear if you act that way. It's just a warning, Lex; I'm not accusing you," Clark explained, holding his hands up in mock surrender, half-made garland dangling loosely from curled fingers. "He remembers mirror-Lionel, at least from the second-time-around, and he's as touchy about the possibility of being manipulated as you are, maybe even more than you, and that's saying something."
"And what will you do if he decides that murdering half the human race and taking over the world is a great idea?" Lex demanded snappishly.
"What, assuming it's not just some mind-control or bodyswap thing?' Clark didn't even seem to need to think about it. "Probably what I'd do with anybody else who isn't foaming at the mouth: fight him to a standstill, corral him into someplace remote, then let loose. Wrestle him into submission, tie him up, sit on him, and talk him out of it. Call you in if necessary -- what, you think you couldn't convince him it's a bad idea?" Clark snorted. "I know you don't want to take over the world, or let anyone else do it, and you've got your reasons; if you think you're right, you ought to be able to make your case to anybody who's even the least bit rational without having to resort to guns and Kryptonite if you can just get them to listen to you long enough! Unless you think you're wrong, can't convince him of it, and are afraid that he'll be the one doing the convincing instead," Clark challenged.
"...Don't smirk, Clark, it's creepy on you," Lex replied.
"Look, Lex, he's a good kid, you know this. And it's not like he needs to decide right away. That's one of the reasons he's a hero-in-training, and not out in the streets in the thick of things every night. He shouldn't run into those sorts of situations very often -- not anytime soon, anyway. If you want to be angry at someone about it, take it out on me for not being more careful about Lana, ok?"
Lex wanted to do just that, but he couldn't -- not in good conscience. Lana was a weakness and a blind spot for both of them; Lex had known that for some time. He was just as culpable for the blame as Clark was, if not moreso, because he at least damn well knew better. But, damnit -- what good was he if he couldn't protect his own son?
Clark leaned back, stretched, and sighed. "Look, can't we just talk about something happy and Christmas-y? I mean, it is December, and we are right in the middle of decorating," Clark complained, gesturing with the garland. "I mean, geez, you're so doom-and-gloom I'm starting to think we ought to send the popcorn back to the kitchen and ask mom to burn it black. You'd think somebody had almost died, or something."
"You didalmost--!" Lex clamped his mouth shut and tried to take deep calming breaths. He succeeded at the 'deep' part, at least.
And then he was distracted by a big green furball slamming into his lap.
"Flowerrrrrrrs!" it exclaimed.
Lex quickly raised the needle above his head to get it and most of the garland out of the way as he was tackled farther back into the couch with a soft 'oof!', then tried to resituate said furball on his lap one-handed.
"No, Garfield -- stop," Lex said as the miniature shapeshifter of all things animalia grabbed at the garland string with both hands. Gar got it caught around his claws, and Lex grimaced and started to disentangle him. "Let go, don't eat that--!" Too late, he was already munching away around the string.
"Those are not flowers," Lex tried, given the young boy's earlier exclamation. Garfield just looked up at him with big fur-lined green eyes and blinked at him as he continued munching. Lex sighed and gave up.
"Don't know why I bother," Lex said grouchily, holding out the end of the string so that Clark could cut the needle away with the scissors he was now holding. "At least don't eat the string," Lex warned, tugging at the ends dangling out of Gar's mouth.
"Kkkkkay," Gar said around a mouthful of cranberries and popcorn.
"Oh, so now you listen to me, I see how it is," Lex said, sounding annoyed to uphold general principles because he had to, but softening it by petting Gar on the head absently, leaning back into the cushions and relaxing a little.
"Mmmmm," said Gar.
Clark chuckled quietly before reaching forward and tugging at the string himself. "Eat like a person, Gar," he said, and he managed to exchange the half-munched-on string for one of the bowls of popcorn. "One at a time," Clark cautioned as he handed it over into Gar's lap.
"Kaaaay!" Gar said happily, carefully snagging one bit of popcorn by the claws and doing just that.
"Hey! Why does he listen to you?" Lex exclaimed.
"Food!" said Gar.
"He's well-trained," Clark added.
Lex gave him a look. "You aren't."
"Well, yeah, of course not -- Mom's had me longer," Clark replied with a grin. Lex rolled his eyes.
When Lex reached for a piece from the bowl himself, Gar yelped and whined, "No, Clark gave! Mine!" batting his hand away.
"Tch, that's my popcorn from my kitchen you just gave away," he huffed at Clark. "I get no respect from you younglings. No respect," he growled mock-angrily, hugging Gar closer and briskly scrubbing his hands up and down Gar's sides. Gar giggled and squirmed.
Then his head popped up and he twitched his nose. "Cookies!" he growl-grinned, wriggling out of Lex's grip. Lex pulled the bowl out of the way and let him go.
Gar shifted into a cat-form and raced into the kitchen. Shortly after, Conner walked out balancing a tray with glasses of milk and a plate piled high with sugar cookies, Gar dancing around his heels. After awhile, Gar shifted back to human to gain a little more height as a person than he had as a four-footed feline.
"First batch, so it's lucky and the best," Conner declared, setting the tray down on the coffee table and carefully shoving the other bowls and garland-making errata to one side. Gar was literally bouncing at this point and once it was down he launched himself at it, but was intercepted by a half-human hybrid's arm wrapped around his chest scooping him up.
"Uh-uh," Conner chided. Gar frowned angrily up at him, up until Conner said: "Hands!" and Gar's eyes widened for a moment.
"Awwwww," said Gar, looking dejected.
"Come here, Garfield, there's a sink in the kitchen," Martha called from the doorway, wiping her own hands on a towel and looking amused. "You can have some cookies after that."
"Yay!" Garfield yelled, shifting to cat again and racing into the kitchen like a streak of green.
Conner rolled his eyes as Martha laughed. "Well, it is faster, and he is going to wash after," she said with amusement in her eyes, turning around to follow the little metahuman back in with a matronly smile tugging at her lips.
Lex tilted his head at Clark, wondering what that was all about.
"Hands to feet to hands?" Clark supplied.
Lex got it immediately. "My floors are perfectly clean!" he protested as he reached forward and got himself a cookie and some milk.
"So clean you can eat off them?" Conner snarked.
Lex refused to stick his tongue out at his son; he would need a good example from somewhere, after all, and now he wasn't entirely sure Clark or Mrs. Kent was it.
"Gar's too young to figure out relative cleanliness one way or the other right now," Clark sighed.
"And half the time he forgets when he's shifted, or that he's shifted at all," Conner added around a mouthful of cookie. "He needs to learn to pay attention," he said with an air of parroting something he had heard many times before.
"Don't talk with your mouth full," Clark and Lex chimed in, one a rejoinder, the other in only lightly-veiled disgust.
"Oooh, stereo," Conner grinned, but only after gulping it all down with a generous helping of milk. Lex figured that it was better than nothing: snark with obedience more welcome than a lack of any obedience at all.
Martha walked back in, carrying Garfield on her hip like a pro. He pushed himself towards Conner once he saw him, and she set him down on Conner's lap. Conner took it in stride, like there was nothing more natural than for him to have a giggling green kid on his lap, feeding him bite-sized cookie pieces and helping him with a sippy cup of milk. Lex had to felt a lump in his throat at the kindly brotherly behavior. Then he blatantly lied to himself, telling himself that it was just that he'd swallowed too much sugar cookie at once.
Then Lex felt a little tense-relaxed as Martha took a seat in a nearby chair. Since his 'return from the dead', they had had an uneasy unspoken truce: Lex didn't bring up anything about her work as the Red Queen, and she didn't bring up his nemesis status, his irregular villainous behavior, or how he tried to subjugate, control, or kill her eldest son on a rather distressingly frequent basis, now or in the past. Lex had a feeling that he got the better end of that deal.
Apparently, that was about to change.
"So, I've been thinking..." Martha started, steepling her fingers.
"Always a really bad idea," Conner grinned. "--For other-people-not-us, I mean!" he added quickly when Lex glared at him. He shrank into his chair a bit.
Lex found Conner's behavior rather disturbing. He really didn't have the best relationship with Mrs. Kent anymore -- it was rather adversarial in a highly subtle way, actually -- but while he might entertain notions of homicidal aims for her at times, he would never be rude. His mother had raised him right. Clearly he needed to have a talk with Conner about manners.
"You see, Conner and I have been talking about his recent behavior, and what he wants for Christmas," Martha continued.
Lex looked between Conner and Mrs. Kent. It also had not escaped him earlier how very oddly Conner had been acting on the roof, and Lex wasn't about to reward him for attempting to act like a villain -- far from it. He couldn't think of any good reason for Conner to do so, nor had he any idea as to whatever convoluted reasoning his son could have used to come to thinking he should do something like that in the first place. This 'playing at villainy' before everything had gone so horribly wrong was frankly a large part of what had been worrying Lex so much. Lex wasn't entirely sure how to go about punishing Conner for it, though, if that was the best method of handling the situation.
"Apparently, the two are rather closely linked," she ended.
"I see," Lex said neutrally, glancing over and watching Conner look slightly embarrassed. And what does villainy have in common with a Christmas present for Conner? he wondered.
Martha smiled at him. "So I offered to help by talking to the two of you about it, since Conner hasn't had a lot of experience with planning something and then seeing it through and I think a more direct approach might be best, given the circumstances."
Lex turned back to her, frowning. "I'm afraid I don't understand," he said, trying to put together what little he had gotten out of Clark earlier. Something about Conner planning and plotting something, but Clark hadn't really been specific at all. It must have had something to do with getting them together in the same place, because of the emails and the remote surveillance, given the timing... but what did that have to do with Conner trying to be villainous? Lex was drawing a blank.
Martha leaned back in her chair. "Well, I think that the best thing to do in this situation would be for Conner to not continue to do things as he was, and instead behave as he normally does from now on, for reasons I have talked out with him," Lex saw Clark relax a bit out of the corner of his eye, "and for the two of you to give Conner what he wants for Christmas this year."
"All right," said Lex, easily.
"Hk!" went Clark, simultaneously.
Interesting. Lex hadn't thought it possible for Kryptonian biology to let Clark choke on a mouthful of milk, but he certainly seemed to be doing the closest approximation he was capable of, if not.
"I, um... mom?" Clark asked weakly.
"Yes, dear?" Martha asked sweetly.
"You, uh, you want...? I mean, you think it'd, uh, be a good idea for... us... to...?" Clark was turning quite red as he stammered, and his voice started hitting the higher registers near the end, and Lex began to wonder how horrifically indulgent it could possibly be. This was Conner they were talking about, and he'd never seemed to want anything unreasonable from him before. Either of them. And Lex felt he was certainly more than capable of producing, obtaining, or otherwise procuring anything that Conner might need or want, so what was the problem?
"I think it'd be for the best," she smiled, laying her arms lightly along the armrests.
"Right. Sure. Ok, then," Clark squeaked, looking anywhere but at Lex.
Lex frowned. Clark had alluded earlier to knowing what Conner had wanted, having overheard his plans at some point, but surely it couldn't be that bad -- he would have talked it out with Conner before ever getting to the point of bringing it up with Lex, otherwise.
Conner, on the other hand, looked absolutely ecstatic, and Gar picked up on his good mood, growling away happily and kicking his feet.
"Well, then, it's settled," Martha said, standing and running her hands down the front of her dress, smoothing it down. "I have a few things to do in D.C. tomorrow, so a stop-over in Connecticut shouldn't be too much trouble. We'll all fly out and take care of it then."
Well, that had been fairly odd. What was in Connecticut that Conner could want? But for the rest of the day Martha and Clark studiously avoided talking about and otherwise steered the subject clear from anything other than Christmas preparations, decorating the penthouse, and the planning of other assorted seasonal activities.
Lex wasn't stupid; he knew when he was being maneuvered into something. But for the life of him, he couldn't figure out what.
In retrospect, the one thing he should have done, which he hadn't even contemplated trying, was to simply ask outright, What is it that you want me to do?
~*~*~*~*~*~
Well, Lex had certainly fallen right into it.
And, when the time came, he really could say nothing else but "Yes."
After all, it only made sense. Conner would be happier for it. He'd have a more stable life. Both Lex and Clark would have an easier time looking out for him. Conner would be able to stay with Lex. Clark wouldn't have to worry about his cycling issues with Lois anymore, or be troubled about extra apartments and making rent. Lex wouldn't be quite so lonely anymore. And it wasn't as though Lex couldn't afford it.
It could work. Maybe.
Clark was nervous the entire way through it. He blushed unbelievably red before giving Lex a quick, chaste kiss.
Lex's lips still tingled a bit.
Martha recorded everything on her cameraphone.
Gar ate all the daisy petals off the stems in the bouquet.
Conner valiantly tried to be solemn about it when he handed over the rings, but his grin could have lit up a stadium.
Perry White, who was apparently Martha's tag-along date to the affair -- how weird was that? -- made a comment about how "a demand for a Planet staff member to accompany him on important business" really wasn't a good cover story for an under-the-radar marriage ceremony when Lex specified exactly which staff member he wanted in the same memo, and Lex sighed when he realized how generic that order from above, which he'd made to cover Clark's absence from work while he healed, really had been if it could cover even this.
So, Lex Luthor and Clark Kent. Married. Because Martha Kent had told them to.
Stranger things had happened, but this one was pretty far up the list.
When Clark reminded Lex that he needed to draw up a prenuptial agreement that they could sign, for both their protection, Lex had to mentally slap himself, because it should be impossible for Clark, talking about dry legal documents, to somehow come across as... sweet.
Well, given Lex's track record, a prenup would be a good idea. At least the odds were probably pretty good that Lex wouldn't need rescuing from an irate, murderous, soon-to-be ex-wife, since Clark was his husband.
Lex absently wondered if Martha and Garfield would be moving into the penthouse with him and Clark and Conner. It hadn't really come up.
They'd left in the early morning and were back in Kansas the same day, home in time for dinner.
It was surreal.
Especially when it came time for bed.
Lex stayed up a bit later, lagging behind while Clark showered. When Lex finally entered the room, he discovered Clark already in bed, asleep, with half the covers kicked off.
Apparently Clark slept in boxers.
Lex slept in the nude.
Usually. Somehow that didn't feel very appropriate, now, so he ended up sliding under the covers wearing both underwear and silk pajamas, top and bottom.
It was too easy.
Clark liked the right-hand side of the bed, Lex liked the left. They hadn't even had to talk about it.
With Clark unable to be Superman in the near-term as he healed, and Lex having no inclination to try any villainy before the New Year rolled around, they didn't really have much to fight about, especially since neither of them were willing to dig up old arguments just for the sake of having an excuse to yell at each other.
This left them with basically no recourse but to fall back on old habits -- very old habits -- of movie nights and fencing lessons and long talks over coffee, the simpler times from when they'd first met.
It only took Lex three days to realize that this was the true trap Martha had sprung on him. And he'd fallen for it, been snapped up, swallowed down, and now was stuck deep inside the steel belly of the beast. At this point, if he wanted out, he'd basically be hard put to do so. It would be like trying to cut through the walls of his cage with a laser in the dark, and he'd surely end up losing limbs and other vital parts of himself in the process. And this didn't even touch upon the the internal damage he would have inflicted upon Clark to do so, by the time he was done: Clark didn't do things by half-measures, especially his emotions, and Lex was beginning to get the feeling that Clark had never stopped caring about Lex in the first place.
Damn them.
But Conner was around, always there, always cheerful, always happy to see him, be with them both. Both his dads. He'd started out tentatively calling Clark 'dad' and when he hadn't been corrected, he'd gotten bolder.
When Lex thought about it, Clark had been acting more like a father than an older brother to Conner for quite some time. It had probably been Lois who had kept him from admitting what he'd really wanted. Lex knew this because he recognized Clark's response for what it was: Clark's reaction to more time with Conner was basically the same as his own.
Conner was the better for it. Clark didn't seem the worse for it. Lex...
Lex was too smart to not want to struggle against the bars of his self-made cage that he was slowly building, and then been unceremoniously shoved into and locked shut.
Unfortunately, he was also too smart to ignore the fact that his cage was rather well-appointed, and a niggling, very seductive voice deep inside kept asking him why he would even want to think of giving this up in the first place. Because, was it really so bad a thing to be unable to escape his confines, if he never really wanted to leave? Were those locks really on the outside, or in?
But of course, it just had to go horribly wrong. Lex knew that.
Yet somehow the universe kept putting it off like it was taunting him in a sadistic version of keep-away. Hey, here's a great idea -- let's make it that much better so that he has that much farther to fall! It made him uncomfortably overwhelmingly nervous at times.
Lex tried to enjoy it all while he could: ice skating and trips to the park to see the Christmas lights and roasted nuts served piping-hot from a street vendor. Teaching Conner Christmas carols and introducing him to seasonal TV specials. Window-shopping and actual gift-shopping. They ended up getting a live tree, after all, and setting it up without incident. Stockings hung from a mantelpiece.
They still kept sleeping in the same bed, but sometimes Clark rolled over in the night and cuddled Lex in his sleep. Lex kept wearing significantly more clothes to bed than he was used to.
He started getting antsy as Christmas approached and passed, somehow without incident. He felt similarly when the New Year rolled around.
He stole a kiss from Clark under mistletoe, and again when the ball dropped.
They'd all stayed in both nights, eschewing the corporate parties-that-weren't for more intimate company.
Lex had to go back to work on the second. Conner started attending school on the third, and Clark went back to work the same day after dropping him off at the local public high school in the morning. They'd all three sat down and decided after a long discussion that a) private school kids sucked and b) private school couldn't offer him anything more advanced education-wise that he couldn't get more and better of from private tutors. This led to the conclusion that the whole reason of having Conner go to school at this point was to make friends and socialize: to better understand the people around him, what they did and felt and said and why, and how to talk and interact with them. He could learn university-level subject matter at home without even needing tutors, and did -- he liked it that way. Lex still lectured him on history from time-to-time, though, and Clark was more than happy to help him with his math.
Superman didn't show up in the national news for another week, and he had only got involved in helping dig people out of a mudslide in the Philippines. It took Lex awhile to determine -- without having to ask outright because that would be embarrassing -- that Clark had actually finished healing and gotten his powers back a week and a half before that.
Lex noted that there were at least three minor heroes now operating in Metropolis who were taking care of the petty crime in the area. None of them were Clark in a new disguise.
When Lex started to worry that he was going to get soft, he complained to Clark about it... and Clark told him he'd work something out, and could Lex give him a day?
That made Lex uneasy and borderline testy, because how the hell was he supposed to pick a fight with Clark when Clark wasn't pushing back?
Sure enough, the next day, Lex's worst fears were confirmed when a different hero showed up, hovering outside his office window.
Apparently, Clark had misunderstood him when he'd said that someone needed to provide a better workout because someone else was plateauing at their current level of skill. The implication was supposed to be that Clark needed to work on his self-defense, not that Lex needed someone better to effectively 'spar' with.
He'd scoffed at the "Wonder Woman" character, clad in something more revealing than many two-piece bikinis he'd seen -- and how exactly was that supposed to be armor when it exposed more than it protected? -- who claimed to be an Amazonian warrior from Themyscira -- not Themiscyra, because apparently she couldn't even spell properly, as well.
Then she'd systematically proceeded to destroy his normal security systems, his automatic targeting lasers, his killer robots, and in rapid unflinching succession literally everything he could throw at her with a smile on her face, at which point it had stopped being funny.
When all was said and done, Lex had been about ready to try strangling her with his bare hands if need be -- except that when she approached him after their no-holds-barred battle she'd expressed nothing but pure delight at the proceedings. Apparently she'd enjoyed herself, thought it was wonderful fun. She wanted more, better, and was hoping for a rematch in the future, and for all his efforts, try as he might, Lex could not see her as being anything but completely honest and earnestly meaning what she was saying, almost respectful in her requests. She apparently lived for battle, wanted to improve, wanted him to improve because she liked a challenge, was more than willing to point out strengths and weaknesses as she saw them to help out, and Lex found himself liking her despite knowing that he really ought to do better by hating her instead.
He managed to wrangle a promise out of her to teach Clark some martial skills as part of their 'battle-practice' deal, though. Lex wasn't about to let Clark escape a good thrashing, too.
Lex actually found it more difficult explaining away the large explosions from that afternoon to the rest of the city.
But the worst of it came when Clark accosted him in the living room one night when Conner was at a sleepover with Tim at Wayne Manor. He'd strode in all impatience and frustrated anger, just like the old angry confrontations he'd had storming the Luthor mansion library, and surreptitiously dropped a stack of file folders on an end table with a heavy thud.
Lex braced himself, lips starting to curl back from his teeth in anticipation of a horrific onslaught, and Clark proceeded to exceed all expectations.
In completely the wrong way.
Clark started with something he had heard -- a rumor. Then he talked about how he'd found out that it was in-part true, and which parts were which. Then he'd talked about how it was all horribly wrong and how Lex had to stop. And why. There was a logical sequence. A buildup. He had points of contention and reasons for them. Good reasons. He had questions for Lex and he wanted them answered. He wanted to know why Lex had done as he did. He had ideas for alternative options where he felt continuation or a wind down was more appropriate than a complete halt and immediate shutdown of operations.
He didn't let Lex stonewall him, or distract him, or lead him astray with personal attacks. He called Lex on every lie, half-truth, omission, and vaguely implied response. He didn't let up. He assumed very little and when Lex insisted on secrecy or refused to respond, Clark would not be swayed and would not move on to the next topic until Lex gave in and talked to him about it.
Clark didn't raise his voice once. He didn't threaten, either.
It was completely insane.
Lex enjoyed himself far more in their argument that night than any other confrontation he'd ever had with Clark in or out of the Superman uniform.
He'd been just on the verge of drifting off to sleep when that minor revelation flitted across his mind out of nowhere, and it had him sitting bolt upright, wide-awake, horrified and desperately reviewing how he'd come to that conclusion to try and find fault in it somehow, except that he couldn't.
That was when Lex knew he was really in trouble.
~*~*~*~*~*~
"Are you happy, dad?" Conner asked him one night after dinner, when Clark was out doing Superman work on the other side of the world.
"I suppose so. Why?"
"It's just... I thought if you and dad... other-dad... if you... I just thought that maybe you would..." he trailed off, looking a little forlorn.
"Conner, why did you want Clark and me to get together?"
"Because I've been known to believe in something after the whole world tells me I'm wrong," Conner said quietly, staring out the window at all the tiny, cold and glittering lights.
...Well, at least now Lex knew where his Warrior Angel collection had gone.
Lex sighed and gathered him up in a hug from behind, watching over the city with him.
~*~*~*~*~*~
After he and Clark were found out -- their marriage-ship discovered and accidentally gossiped to all and sundry by Cat Grant of all people, how embarrassing was that! -- and they weathered that shitstorm together somehow without capsizing, Lex finally came to realize that whatever this was wasn't going away.
Against all odds and rational expectation, they'd made a somewhat stable life for themselves. Clark had assured Lex that Superman wasn't going anywhere, that Metropolis was his home and that he would still personally deal with any major threats to their city, but that other cities had higher crime rates and fewer heroes than Metropolis now, so he would be conducting his nighttime patrols elsewhere. Incredibly, Superman's workload was lighter in general as more heroes stood up to do good works than villains appeared to try and tear them down, and nowadays Clark spent most of his time helping put out fires and mitigate natural disasters rather than any villain-thwarting.
So of course Lex just had to push his luck.
After all, why not? Lex had a family, a son who loved him. Why not a loving spouse?
More than once he caught himself daydreaming during a LexCorp managerial meeting, coming up with elaborate, intricate, clever, completely unworkable plans for what essentially amounted to more-or-less 'tricking' Clark into loving him, falling in love with him. Sweet, terrifying, sappy, obsessive, romantic, jealous, unconditional, never-let-him-go-ever-again love.
They were already married anyway, so why couldn't Lex have him?
Unfortunately, even Lex knew that one couldn't simply use cold logic to argue someone into feeling an emotional response. ...Well, perhaps anger or frustration at being wrong, or smug pride at being right. But love?
No, this was going to require romance. And wooing. There would have to be wooing.
Lex was an expert at getting women into bed, but he didn't have a lot of experience with men. ...Well, make that no experience, if he didn't believe Oliver's lies about one drunken bender he'd had in college when he'd actually blacked out. He also had to admit, with brutal honesty, that he also didn't have a lot of experience at keeping those women around once he'd slept with them, let alone happy, but Lex was pretty sure that Clark wasn't going anywhere, and he'd forgiven Lex's mistakes before, so Lex figured more than likely had multiple chances to get it right if he screwed it up. Not that he was planning on screwing up.
But really, the main crux of the issue was this: all Clark seemed to know about romance was what he'd learned at Lex's knee, way back from Smallville when he'd been infatuated with Lana and Lex had been stupid enough to try and help him pursue the girl. This meant that Lex had a distinct advantage in knowing what knowledge Clark had.
It also meant the blatant disadvantage of Clark probably being patently unable to recognize any romantic gesture outside of what he had been taught, and that had been a pretty small, sad and downright pathetic subset of the extant possibilities, unfortunately.
So, it was fairly simple: Lex was going to have to get creative, and maybe a little blunt.
He decided to be methodical about it and plan his moves out carefully and well in-advance.
The easiest thing to start with was listing off all the various date and date-like things that Lex could think of that Clark might like, that would also be within Clark's budget -- because Clark was still being adamant about splitting things fifty-fifty as much as possible, and Lex didn't want to worry about trying to be a gentleman and instead getting into an argument over a check. That would just kill the mood.
Once he had a good showing after his brainstorming, he read through the whole list.
Watching movies. A walk in the park. Eating out. Rearranging their schedules to have lunch together. Talking about work. Talking about interesting current events. Driving someplace interesting. Driving nowhere, just exploring. Going to the museum. Attending a sporting event. Cooking together. Listening to live music at a concert hall. Attending a small, intimate party with just a few friends. Horseback riding. Picnics. Dancing. Going out for a cup of coffee.
Lex reread the list again and cursed. He'd already done all these things with Clark, many times over, way back when they'd been trying to be friends! How the hell was he supposed to get Clark's attention doing things they'd already done, when all the best things he could think of as intimate dates to spend time with Clark wouldn't be able to stand out as any different from anything that came before?
Lex reread the list. He thought about how many of those times he had been the one to invite Clark along, and how many of those times Clark had invited him. He frowned to himself as he tallied it up.
Lex reread the list. Then something occurred to him.
...If he'd still had any hair left on his head, it wouldn't have lasted long -- he'd have pulled it all back out again.
Goddamnit!!!
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex strode into the Daily Planet in a very foul mood.
"Kent!" he yelled, scanning the top floor. "Where is he?!" he turned and demanded of one of the staff reporters, who cringed away from him. Useless!
Lex stormed the main bullpen and finally caught sight of him slouching and shuffling over by Lane. He immediately made a beeline for him, fisted the front of Clark's button-down shirt, and pulled Clark after him, ignoring his feeble protests. He dragged Clark into one of the very soundproof file rooms and slammed the door shut after him, then locked it.
"What the hell?!" Lex yelled at Clark, rounding on him.
"Isn't that my line?" Clark demanded, straightening to full height. "What are you doing barging in here like that while I'm at work?"
"I own the place, I can do what I want in it!" Lex snarled back.
"I want a straight answer, Lex," Clark said imperiously, stepping close and towering over him.
"So do I!" Lex yelled back. "Why the hell didn't you tell me!?!"
"Tell you what? You stomp in here, acting like a two-year-old--"
Lex grabbed Clark, slammed him back against one of the file cabinets, and shoved his tongue into Clark's mouth, kissing him hard.
Clark froze. Then he twitched. Then he leaned forward and... shoved Lex off of him, out to arm's length, wide-eyed and blank-faced.
It dawned on Lex that he may have made a slight tactical error in his choice of approach.
"You-- you--" Clark repeated, staring not quite through him. Clark was shivering, and twitching, and did not look the least bit happy at all. Lex tried not to wince at the hurt or the pain -- Clark was clenching his shoulders a little too hard.
"I don't have to take this from you," Clark said hoarsely, shoving him further backwards to accentuate the point. "I-- Chloe-- she--" He twitched again. "You don't get to do this to me. She-- no. Not again."
"Chloe's kissed you in a backroom before?" was what Lex got from that.
"Assaulted. Grabbed. Kissed." Clark said blankly, like he couldn't classify it properly. "Wasn't expecting... acted like nothing... didn't mean... after..." Clark stated without inflection, and Lex realized that Clark wasn't quite all there at the moment, and that maybe some of his previous relationships had left him far more damaged than Lex had ever imagined.
"Clark..." Lex said slowly, raising a hand to Clark's cheek, but he flinched away from Lex's touch.
Lex's blood went cold.
Clark squeezed his eyes shut, took a shuddering breath, and after another shiver-twitch, spasmodically let go of Lex's shoulders and took two steps back.
No. This wasn't right. Lex had been sure. He couldn't be this wrong--
"Don't do that again," Clark whispered, eyes opening again, downcast, but in his eyes Lex saw...
"I'm not wrong," Lex breathed, warmth flooding back into him again, because in Clark he saw anger, panic, hurt, shame. ...Shame? What? No! Why--? This would not do!
Clark's head snapped up at what Lex had said and he echoed blankly, "...Not wrong?" but Lex wasn't about to give Clark any time to think -- he just stepped forward well into Clark's personal space and kissed him again, far more gently this time, not forcing it.
Clark tried to back away, but Lex followed him, curling his hands up to cradle Clark's head.
Clark froze up on him again, but this time he had fine tremors going. Then Lex felt wetness at his fingertips and, startled, he broke away.
Clark was crying and he didn't even look like he was aware of it.
"Stop it," Clark said shakily.
Lex smiled thinly, then leaned forward, molding his body right up against him. "No, Clark, I won't--"
Lex's head ached and he flinched reflexively as he suddenly found himself half-sitting half-sprawled at an uncomfortable backwards angle over two boxes stacked unevenly, his wrists held above his head against the wall encompassed by one large hand. Another firm hand with a steel-vise grip on his jaw. Clark was straddling him, kneeling above and looking down on him, absolutely enraged.
There was madness threatening in the back of Clark's eyes, and Lex didn't know how to fix this.
Clark leaned down, inches from Lex's face. "You sick bastard. Getting off on this," he gritted out, glancing down at Lex's crotch for a moment with a derisive snarl. Lex froze. "I don't know how you found out. I don't particularly care. But if you really believe that knowing this gives you power over me, you're insane."
Lex couldn't help but flinch at the last. His mental health was not up for debate, damnit. He tried to move but Clark held him steady, unable to even squirm much.
Clark's eyes were clear cold sparks. He was shivering; Lex felt it through Clark's restraining hands. Clark leaned in closer, looking him straight in the eye. "I am not weak. I will not let you toy with what I feel, take advantage of it, and use me."
"So, just to be clear, this is not you having a problem with homosexuality, this is just you being delusional about my motives for kissing you," Lex stated more than asked.
Lex grimaced as Clark moved his hand from his jaw to his throat and shoved him farther backwards, head and neck now fully-flush against the wall.
"Fuck, Clark. Who is it that you don't trust? You? Me? Everyone?" Lex protested, getting angry. They hadn't fought for weeks, almost months, and now this? Where the hell was this coming from?
"What the hell do you want from me?" Clark spat, lips pulling back from his teeth. "Was all this really just an act? Just to get close and--?"
"Air would be a nice start -- I'm not into breathplay!" Lex growled. "I'm physically attracted to you, but you're sure as hell making it difficult to feel that way right now!"
Clark went expressionless, but he loosened his grip from around Lex's throat. Lex hoped he wouldn't have bruises -- he didn't think Clark had been holding him that hard, and he'd exaggerated a great deal about the pressure, but he wasn't feeling very comfortable about his safety in Clark's presence at the moment and he wanted some space. Clark was far too on edge over this. Lex resisted the urge to inform him that he might need a little therapy. Maybe a freighterload or two.
"Liar!" Clark snarled at him.
Lex kicked out and wrenched at his wrists, for all the good it did him.
"Idiot!!" he yelled. "What the hell is this? Do I really have some uncontrollable meteor-freak ability where prolonged close proximity to me drives people to homicidal madness?! GET THE HELL OFF OF ME!"
That actually seemed to snap Clark out of it a little, because Clark reared backwards slightly, then seemed to make the conscious decision to finally let go of him.
Lex grumbled to himself a little as he pushed himself backwards a bit, sitting farther upright with his back flush with the wall, and rubbed his wrists, wincing at the soreness. "I am about to lose patience with you, Clark!" Oh, and what he wouldn't give for a good chunk of green-K right now. "What, exactly, do you think I am lying about?"
"You like girls; you're not homosexual. You're not attracted to me," Clark sneered.
"Yes, correct, and wrong," Lex challenged, in order.
Clark stared at him, and then looked like he was having some severe cognitive dissonance that was only two steps away from deciding strangling Lex was a working solution.
"Tell me what you're thinking, Clark." He paused, then added, "Please."
Clark grimaced and looked like he was one step closer to the strangulation solution. "You can't be physically attracted to me if you're not homosexual," he said, trying to sound calm and rational about it.
"Christ, Clark! 'Homosexual' really only applies to sexual attraction between members of the same species, didn't they ever teach you about pheromones in biology class?" he snapped, and why was Clark was staring at him like...? "--Oh god, they didn't go over pheromones and human sexuality in--" Fuck. Double-fuck. Lex hated the Kansas public school system. Clark wasn't insane, nor had he suddenly snapped and lost it for unknown reasons -- he'd just been operating under an incredibly-wrong series of assumptions. While Lex could berate Clark for not extending to him the benefit of the doubt, he couldn't fully criticize Clark's reasoning -- it hadn't exactly been unsound, starting from what he had thought he knew. Damnit. Lex wasn't sure if he was more relieved, or downright furious.
Clark frowned down at him. "No, we learned about pheromones and all that stuff. It was the first day of sophomore school year and--" he paused, then shook his head. "So the film stopped halfway through because of the fire, but I did some reading when I was trying to figure out Desiree..." He stopped when Lex laid a careful hand on his arm.
"Clark, do us both a favor and tell me everything you know on the subject, exactly as you remember it," Lex demanded.
Lex tried not to marvel at Clark's memory, which had to be photographic or eidetic or similar because he seemed to be reciting word-for-word what he'd read and heard. The former he stated without inflection, but the latter he was repeating parrot-like while mimicking the sound of the voices he'd heard. Lex reminded himself that he was still mad at Clark, shook it off with some effort, and focused on the content of his speech, instead.
"You might note that all of the information you just related to me is limited to heterosexual pairings." Lex pointed out blandly. "Between humans."
Clark reared back to argue with him, then paused as he seemed to reshuffle through his memories for ammunition he couldn't find, and then he slowly slumped.
"That's--" Clark looked frustrated in the extreme. "But--" Then he rethought everything that had happened earlier in their confrontation in a new light and started. Then he looked angry all over again. "Why didn't you tell me you felt that way?!" Clark yelled at him, fisting his hair.
"I asked you first," Lex said tiredly, dropping his head back against the wall.
"What??" Clark froze, went expressionless again for a moment, then a lot of things flashed across his face. "Son of a--" he muttered, scrubbing at his face. "I don't believe this," he said shakily.
"I'm waiting," Lex said, crossing his arms. He'd be damned if he didn't get an answer to his question after all this.
"It's not-- that isn't--" Clark stumbled in his speech, slowly relaxing and slumping into a more comfortable lower kneeling posture. Then he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck. "I don't know."
Lex frowned at him.
"I really don't!" Clark protested. "I just... I think I knew it, but didn't know it, for a long time. That I was attracted to you, I mean. It just wasn't... something I thought about like that. I don't think about you like that," he tried to explain. "It's like, brotherly almost? --But not. Because I've thought about... kissing-things with you sometimes, but not other..." he shook his head. "I've tried watching and reading... things..." he waved his hand. "It just doesn't... I've seen how most people -- humans -- react to things like--"
"Porn?"
"Well, uh, yes."
"And it just doesn't do anything for you."
"No."
"Hm."
Clark scrubbed his palms down his thighs and bit his lip. "I really don't have anything against homosexuals or any of that stuff."
"I didn't think you did."
"Good."
There was a short pause, then:
"Lex, when did you...?"
Lex grimaced and ran a hand over his skull. "I was attracted to you from the moment we first ...met." Clark looked startled. "I wasn't about to do anything when I realized you were grossly underage," Lex added. "And it's not as though I was incapable of self-control when not under the influence of vast quantities of drugs or alcohol. I just thought I could ignore it and push it under and it would go away, and I thought it had."
"You thought...?"
"I came to the conclusion that we'd been dating for years back when we'd been... friends and I just hadn't realized it. After deciding that I wanted to try to pursue a more... meaningful relationship with you, and trying to think of how I could gain your attention."
"We weren't dating!" Clark protested. "I didn't think of them like dates! And you didn't either; you just said so. Both people have to think that for it to count. We were just hanging out! And... wait, you thought yelling and angry kisses at work was a good way to get my attention?!"
"No, I thought dates and spending lots of quality time together was a good way of doing that, but then I got sidetracked because I thought you were keeping more secrets from me! And you were!" Lex ended hotly.
"So were you!"
They glared at each other.
"Damn it, mom and Conner both knew, didn't they," Clark realized.
Lex realized that he really didn't want to think about that one too closely, because if they'd noticed, then who else had?
They were both silent for awhile.
"I'm sorry I manhandled you," Clark said. "I shouldn't have done that."
"I'm sorry that you still don't trust me," Lex retorted evenly.
"Well, you didn't either! We were both scared to say anything, and I bet it never even occurred to you that that might be it. It isn't fair to get so mad at me for things you do, too, you know. You always complain about how I hold you to an impossible higher standard, but you do it, too!" Clark groused.
Lex sighed and closed his eyes.
"Look, can we just start over?" Lex asked.
"Well, I don't know about that," Clark said stuffily.
Lex slitted his eyes open, watching Clark, and felt unbelievably tired.
"I mean," Clark continued. "I'm pretty sure Conner would have something to say about you trying to wreck one of your cars by driving it off a bridge, and I bet it won't be nice."
Lex slowly started to smile.
He leaned forward and touched a gentle kiss to Clark's lips. This time, Clark slowly responded to Lex's advances, sliding forward and deepening the kiss. More soft touches, and a slight sigh from Clark as they finally parted.
"We'll do better this time," Lex said.
~*~*~*~*~*~
END
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