Archive of Our Own

There was an egg on his bed.

Lex blinked and then went to go fetch the Scotch.

When he came back, the egg was still there, as were Clark’s shirt and pants and his boxers thrown haphazardly over Lex’s fifty-grand Persian Rug like it was Martha Kent’s laundry basket. Lex’s wings flared out in indignant anger at that, because honestly.

Clark didn’t even have the decency to clean up after himself.

“You’re not here,” he pointed at the egg, which continued to sit nestled between a blanket and pillow. The accumulated stress over his sadly depressing lifetime had clearly broken him; that, and Clark fucking Kent.

He poured two fingers of Scotch in a shot glass and downed it in a single gulp.

Then, before he could start raging for real, he tucked his wings tight against body and crawled into bed beside the egg.

He turned off the light.

After an awkward moment telling himself the egg wasn’t real, and only crazy people acted as if hallucinations were real, and Lex wasn’t going to give anyone an excuse to lock him back up again— he couldn’t just sit there and watch a possibly-crazy egg go cold.

He scooped it up and wrapped his arms around it.

It was warm and glowed faintly blue in the dark, just like Clark did whenever he went into Superman mode. It helped Lex forget his and Clark’s last argument, and the consequences that were going to unfold from it. Lex wished he’d drank another glass of Scotch.

He was a Luthor. He knew how to act the ruthless businessman. But that didn’t mean the consequences didn’t hurt.

--

Lex woke up feeling only slightly hungover, the grace of his mutation kicking in.

He also woke up with an egg in his arms.

He stared at it. The egg seemed to stare back.

Finally, after a stunned moment looking at the smooth, near-white egg in the sobriety of morning, Lex hit the communication button on the wall.

“Mercy,” he said in a faint voice. “Please cancel my morning appointments.”

--

If there was one thing Lex was good at, it was working under pressure. It came from an entire childhood spent in a vicious war with his father; from dealing with extraterrestrials and mutants threatening his life; from having to face constant criticism for his youth, his baldness, the bare wings on his back that the gossip rags liked to call “chicken wings.” Lex usually went out with a decorative prosthetic that mimicked his mother’s black-speckled orange plumage, but his “disability” wasn’t a secret.

Everyone knew Lex Luthor couldn’t fly.

First, the egg was real. It was a hundred percent real unless Lex had been knocked out and was currently living a fever dream; but Lex had had a few of those and he was pretty sure his healing mutation would have kicked in by now.

Mercy saw the egg and confirmed it; Charity saw the egg and confirmed it. The Lex Corp Veterinarian he’d discreetly snuck into LexCorp Tower confirmed it, and seemed fascinated by the differences between this egg and a “standard” one.

“It’s much too big to be from any bird,” she tittered. “And its coloring! How is it glowing?”

“The tests, Doctor Rio,” Lex said, and the good doctor obliged.

Lex stared at the x-ray. Rather than a curled up ostrich or whatever kind of bird could have popped out an egg this large, the shape inside was instantly recognizable.

There was a humanoid fetus developing inside the egg.

Fuck. What the fuck. People had wings, yes, and birds were kind of like their awkward cousin twice removed, but people didn’t lay eggs. Their mammalian heritage won out, and a pregnancy was a pretty standard, tenth-month-gestation inside a womb.

But Clark wasn’t human.

Lex resisted the urge to pick up the closest object—not the egg—and chuck it at the wall. Of course. What else could have possibly gone wrong last night, what with them fucking and then fighting and then breaking up. Not just their relationship, but their friendship too. They’d broken up everything.

“I can run a DNA analysis…” the doctor was saying, but Lex shook his head. Piercing the egg was risky, and it wasn’t like there was a huge question of who this egg belonged to. It was just the how that stumped him, and possibly the why.

The egg had appeared right after Clark had stomped out; even with his super-speed, Lex doubted he’d be able to pop out something like that that fast. Plus, Clark would probably freak. Anything remotely alien always sent him in a tizzy, and if Clark had known the egg was there Lex would have come back to him hyperventilating next to the bed.

No. Clark hadn’t known, so that raised the question of how. The why came from the fact that they had broken up. Even a mystical element needed intention, and Lex had been so fucking angry at Clark he’d almost shoved an entire meteor-rock down his throat mid-argument. He doubted Clark had been thinking of babies or eggs either.

Perhaps this was a huge cosmic joke. Or maybe the egg wasn’t real. No, he’d already confirmed it was real. Maybe they could gently scratch the shell and get a hard confirmation on its DNA just to be sure.

Either way, he’d already made up is mind. If there was even the slightest chance that the child inside was his and Clark’s…

Lex ran through his current plans, calculations and projects in the blink of an eye.

“Mercy,” he said, picking up the egg and waving Doctor Rio off. “I need you to make a few calls. I’ll be taking a step back from the limelight for a while.”

“Sir?” Mercy frowned. “Your five-year plan…”

“…can be adjusted,” Luthor overrode her. “There are more important things at hand.”

--

Hiding meant minimal media coverage, which in Lex’s experience was harder than it seemed. Everyone wanted a picture of the young Luthor heir that had toppled his own father, and Lex had been building up his public image before… this.

Now, he just wanted them to leave him and the egg alone.

Mercy and Charity helped hold off the crowds as he went about his business, and he released a few strategic statements in person to make it look like he wasn’t hiding. Still, leaving the egg with Mercy to warm made him nervous. He’d always gather it back into his arms once he returned to the car.

So the first time Lex encountered an assassination attempt after he’d decided to keep the egg, he panicked.

“Mercy!” he scrabbled onto his hands and knees and looked around for the egg. Their car had flipped from the explosion, and while Lex had tried to curl around it and keep it close, it had still fallen. “Mercy, where is it?”

“Over here, sir,” Mercy said. Lex turned and saw the woman looking confusedly at the scene before her. The egg was lying beneath a large section of car, heavy enough it’d take both Lex and Mercy to lift it. Also, the section was on fire.

The egg held up under its weight like the scrap metal was light as a feather. It didn’t even darken under the heat. It just sat like this was nothing, whole and unbroken and still glowing blue.

Lex clutched it close once they moved the debris.

“Fucking Clark,” he laughed, almost hysterical.

Mercy offered him a water bottle. Lex chugged it down, wiped his mouth, and then placed the egg in a soft-but-bulletproof bag. If the egg could survive a car crash, it probably didn’t need a safety bag, but Lex didn’t care.

He strapped it across his chest and then rummaged around the wreckage of the car.

He found his handgun and a magazine.

“On the count of three, sir,” Mercy nodded, and Lex braced himself.

Then, he ran.

--

Clark didn’t contact Lex, not even to come over and pick up his belongings. Lex had half a mind to toss them into an incinerator and be done with it, but some weak and human part of him was nostalgic. When—if—the egg hatched—which it will, Lex had been keeping track of its progress and the fetus was growing bigger—it was only fair that the infant had something of Clark’s around.

Which meant he’d put all of Clark’s awful, mostly unwashed laundry into a stasis cube, which he then put in an underground storage unit beneath a perfectly legal, Superman-warded lab. If Clark wanted to dig through twenty levels of security for his favorite plaid shirt, then he could go right on ahead.

Their one and only conversation came during a rare press release. Lex announced LexCorp’s plan to invest more in the Metropolis community rather than play a political game, and move the bulk of their weapons manufacturing over to medicine.

“There have an unprecedented amount of change in LexCorp’s plans these last few months,” Clark Jerome Kent of the Daily Planet asked over the pandemonium afterwards, blue eyes sharp and suspicious. “This announcement comes years of LexCorp doing as it wants. Why the sudden change?”

Lex tamped down his rage and smiled at Clark with all his teeth. “Perhaps I’ve simply… discovered who I really am, Mr. Kent. Now, if there aren’t any further questions…”

It had felt good throwing Clark’s words back into his face like that, but it was a hollow victory. At the end of the day, Lex still sat down to work in his penthouse suite alone. Nothing but a bottle of scotch and the much heavier, much brighter egg to keep him company.

He kept Clark’s movie collection and, in a fit of masochism, put a DVD in and sat down to watch. If anything, perhaps the egg would enjoy the noise.

--

It hatched on a Tuesday. Technically it had started hatching on Monday morning, waking Lex up in the middle of the night with an earsplitting crack. He’d turned on the light to see the long, vertical line breaking the blue glow.

“I can’t leave,” Lex had honest-to-god begged when Mercy tried herding him out for work. “What if it hatches and there’s some imprinting thing…? It’s an egg, it’s possible, I have to be there.”

“You’ve already put this meeting off twice,” the woman told him unrepentantly. “And you know as well as I do that it usually takes eggs hours to hatch. Go.”

Thankfully, by the time Lex came home early to continue working from his laptop remotely, the egg was still mid-hatch. It rocked and made small thumping noises all night, and Lex didn’t dare turn off the lights and try to sleep.

He just laid the rocking egg on a towel beside him and stared at it.

At five-thirty in the morning, the infant inside managed to pry himself out with a final, triumphant crack. He flailed and then flopped out of the shell and onto the towel with a wet plop.

Clark looked human enough on the outside, but Lex still hadn’t been a hundred percent sure what to expect when the egg hatched. The infant inside looked human though, though, which was a relief. Less chance of fucking up. He might have had the city’s best OB/GYN on speed dial, but Lex wanted as little people to know about the egg—and by association Clark’s alienness—as possible.

The baby tried to make a noise and ended up spitting up instead. Lex picked him up and gently used an instrument to suck out liquid from his nose and mouth, just like that blasted book Mercy had given him had said.

The baby flailed and whined, and when Lex was done he took a good look at him.

He had dark hair and big blue eyes, and if there was any doubt he was Clark’s, one look at his face sealed the deal. Small, wet fledgling wings flopped from his back. The only non-human attribute was his two egg-nails, which were already coming loose from his index fingers.

They stared at each other for a long moment.

Then, the infant raised his fists and began to wail.

--

Lex was in the middle of typing up an important yet somewhat passive-aggressive e-mail to one of LexCorp’s frenemies when he heard soft giggles coming from his left. He only paused for a second before he continued typing.

The giggles grew louder.

“Conner,” he said before the tiny fledgling could sneak up and grab the ends of his prosthetic feathers. He turned and looked down at him with arched eyebrows, all pure Luthor businessman. “You know you’re not supposed to touch my feathers.”

His competitors would have quaked in their boots at that look, but Conner just pouted and climbed into Lex’s lap instead. He was heavy for a twenty-month old: dark-haired and curious and so much like Clark it practically hurt to look at him sometimes.

Still, he wouldn’t give Conner up for anything. He’d made life just a bit more bearable after Clark had left, even when he’d clearly inherited some of his more bizarre alien powers. Babies crying weren’t supposed to literally shatter glass. It was worth it whenever he saw that loving adoration in Conner’s eyes, though, and the way the fledgling craved his attention melted his cold, dead heart.

“The final paperwork for Conner’s cover story went through last night,” Mercy updated him that afternoon. Conner beamed from his lap and offered her a block. She solemnly accepted his present. “As well as the contingencies you put in place in case you are otherwise disposed.”

“I’ll look through the files after I clock out,” Lex said. He took the block from Mercy’s hand and put it back into Conner’s reach. “And Mercy—thank you.”

Mercy’s dark blue wings actually twitched a little in surprise. Lex closed his eyes once the woman took her leave, feeling apprehension building in his chest. After all these years, he was finally ready.

“You’re going to meet your Papa soon,” Lex informed his son, who was happily chewing on the block again. Conner flapped his little wings but was otherwise far too absorbed in his chew toy. One-track-mind, this one, just like another alien he knew. Lex pressed their cheeks together and resisted the urge to bring his wing over his shoulder. The prosthetic only allowed very basic movements, being more of an aesthetic piece than a tool.

He nipped Conner’s cheek instead and smiled when the baby burst out into giggles. “Are you excited?”

“Pa!” Conner repeated, attention drawn. And then he chucked the block at the small, framed picture of Clark Lex still hadn’t taken off of his desk. Lex burst out laughing; an auspicious start already.

--

Clark actually waited a full six hours before crashing right into Lex’s bedroom in a rage.

“You have a son,” Superman roared, and then promptly backed away when Lex pried open a lead-lined box by his bedside drawer and revealed a chunk of Kryptonite. Not enough to actually hurt Clark, but enough to make him uncomfortable.

“I’d appreciate it if you used the door like a normal person,” he said coldly, shutting the box when it looked like Clark stopped glowing with Kryptonian rage and regained his senses, “and also keep your voice down.”

“A son,” Clark continued in a slightly quieter voice. He balled his hands into fists. “He’s mine, isn’t he? How? Did you—did you clone me or something, because that’s all I can think of! What the hell did you do Lex?”

Lex just looked at him.

His silence seemed to make Clark even angrier, and the alien began pacing what used to be his bedroom too. His large red and blue wings were spread and arched above his head in rage, flexing and puffing and never sitting still.

It was a beautiful sight as usual, and brought back good memories of carding his fingers through those feathers and massaging his oil glands until Clark screamed.

That train of thought wasn’t helping.

“You know what? That’s not the biggest problem here,” Clark managed, whirling back around. A vein jumped in his throat. “You had no right to keep him from me!”

“Oh, I’m sorry,” Lex said in an icy tone. “I clearly remember someone saying he wished we’d never met, and he’d love nothing better than to wipe me from existence. You made it clear you wanted me out of your life. I simply did as you asked.”

“You know that’s not what I meant,” Clark said. “You can’t—why do you—there are things you just know.”

“It astounds me how after all these years, you still expect me to just know what a normal flock looks like,” and here, they were starting to touch on sensitive subjects. “You’ve met my father, Clark, and you know what he did to our Feather Ring. You know about my mother and my brothers, and you still hold it against me when I don’t meet your impossible moral standards because I don’t even know what I’m supposed to do.”

“Not be an evil maniac!” Clark shouted—which was when Conner finally woke up and began crying over the baby monitor.

Lex threw Clark the most scathing glare he could manage and stalked out of the bedroom. Superman floated after him, pouting to himself and generally trying to work out his illogic within his head. He stopped at the doorway to Conner’s nursery and stared.

Lex had picked the baby up in his arms and was singing softly.

“…is that the periodic table?” Clark finally said.

“Unlike some people, I prefer my son to learn useful things,” Lex stopped long enough to snap at him. He started singing again, turning his back on Clark in clear dismissal.

Clark deflated and just floated around the room. He looked at the bookshelf, at the large pile of toys and equipment and even the strong, Lex-corp patented steel furniture keeping everything in place.

When he turned around, Conner had stopped crying.

“Your company policy changes, your decision to drop out of the governor race,” Clark said, voice soft. “God, it was all because of him, wasn’t it?”

“Conner.”

“What?”

“He has a name. It’s Conner. Now that you know that, kindly get the hell out of my house.”

Clark gaped at him. “You can’t do that!”

“Yes, I can.”

“I’m not leaving him with you—”

“Oh, because the tiny hovel you call a home is the best place for a child. Not to mention your work schedule.”

“Ma—”

“—can barely run the farm, much less take care of an infant!” Lex turned away, not wanting Clark to see the honest hurt in his face. His stupid bald wings betrayed him though, arching up in frustration. He didn’t have any feathers to flare, thank god, but Clark had gotten pretty good at reading the nuances of his wing-language regardless. ”Do you honestly think I’d let any harm come to my son? I’m not my father, Clark.” He looked back at the stock-still superhero. “And neither are you yours.”

--

The media spent the next few weeks making subtle jibes at Lex’s new son and lack of partner; everything from his “condition” chasing away all suitors to him kidnapping the baby out of desperation. If only to get the press off his back, he submitted to a DNA test that confirmed a hundred percent that he was Conner’s father.

Then, he called Martha Kent.

“Hello?” the woman’s voice came out strong over the phone. Lex closed his eyes. Of all the things he’d missed since his and Clark’s separation, it was Clark’s extended family. Martha had always been good to him, even when Jonathan Kent had been forcibly trying to edge him out of their son’s life.

“It’s Lex,” he said.

There was a heavy pause at the other end of the line. He wondered if Martha would hang up.

Instead, the woman said, “He’s Clark’s, isn’t he?”

Lex pressed his lips together into a thin line. She’d always been far more perceptive than Clark, and he hadn’t expected anything less. “Did he tell you, or did you guess from the photos?”

“He’s a carbon copy of Clark when he was younger, of course I could tell by just looking,” Martha managed to sound exasperated and fond at the same time. “Lex, you shouldn’t have kept him from us.”

Rather than argue, Lex stuck by his original plan of attack.

“You’re right,” he said. “I want you to meet Conner. I can swing by the farm this weekend, if you want.”

Another long silence, this time out of apparent shock.

“Oh,” she finally managed. “Why—yes, I’d love to meet my grandson.”

“I’ll have Mercy pen it in for Saturday,” Lex said. “Have a nice evening, Martha.”

“Lex!” Martha interrupted him before he could end the call. “Is Clark coming along?”

“If you want him to come, you can ask him to come,” Lex said stiffly. “But use your own discretion. I’m sure you can imagine what would happen.”

“Yes, I can,” Martha said sadly. “Alright, I’ll let you go. And you’ve got to eat more, Lex, you’re all skin and bones. You haven’t been taking care of yourself. How will you care for a baby if you’re exhausted?”

“Good night, Martha,” Lex said loudly, and then hung up.

Still, it warmed his heart a bit to hear someone other than his chef actually scold him for his wellbeing. It meant they cared. Even after his and Clark’s falling out, Martha Kent still had enough graciousness in her heart to fill a country.

--

Conner had clearly inherited Clark’s strange, hillbilly-loving genes because he seemed fascinated by cows and fresh air. That, and he immediately adored Martha and her food and her collection of Clark’s old toys. He rifled through the box with glee while Lex sat awkwardly at the table looking at the Kent Feather Ring hanging above the fireplace. Like all rings, it kept record of a flock’s members. It seemed much barer with Jonathan’s feather pair removed: just Martha’s, Clark’s, Kara’s and—

Lex frowned.

“I didn’t realize you kept my pair,” he said. Those tattered, fledgling white feathers brought back bittersweet memories. Lex had very few of his own feathers left: the only ones he kept had been grabbed from the ground in horror right after the accident. Fistfuls of smoked, half-burnt fledgling feathers that he’d hoarded until Martha had realized Lex wasn’t part of a flock.

“If the Luthors won’t have you, we will,” she’d said, and took two of Lex’s precious fledgling feathers to stitch onto the Kent Feather Ring. Jonathan Kent had hated that, of course, but Clark and Martha had overridden him.

He and Clark had just started seeing each other then, so sure they were going to be together forever—they’d been so young.

“You’re welcome to this flock as long as you want to be,” Martha said. She prepared two cups of tea and placed one in front of Lex. “People aren’t meant to be flockless.”

“Some would say I deserve it.”

“No one deserves that,” Martha said. “People have to realize it takes a flock to pull someone back onto their feet. Abandoning someone over a mistake dooms them. It helps no one.”

“I wouldn’t say I’m doomed,” Lex said dryly, taking a sip of tea. “And I’m not… alone. I have Conner.”

Conner stopped rolling around the little wooden balls on the floor and turned at the sound of his name. His wings flared up in joy, and Lex felt his own wings twitch beneath the prosthetic.

“Lex, I have to ask,” Martha started, staring down at the baby. Her left wing flicked with nervousness. “How did Conner…?”

“I assume it has to do with Clark’s other heritage,” Lex said flatly. He bent down and scooped Conner up into his arms, finding his warm weight soothing. “If Clark tries to convince you I manufactured him as a revenge scheme post-breakup, then he’s being an overdramatic liar. He just… happened.”

“Happened?”

“There was an egg,” Lex said.

Martha stared at him. Lex stared back.

When it became excruciatingly obvious that Lex wasn’t joking, she put her teacup down and sighed.

“There’s still so much we don’t know about Kryptonians,” Martha finally said with an air of ‘fuck it, that’s my grandson and I don’t care how he got here.’ She cooed at the fledgling, who didn’t seem to notice anything but his wooden ball. “We found Clark as a toddler, so anything infant related…”

“…is a question, yes. Thankfully, Conner’s development has been manageable,” Lex said. He bounced Conner in his arms and tried to nudge his attention in Martha’s direction. “Though a few tips on how Clark’s development differed would be greatly appreciated.”

Conner finally seemed to notice his Gran. He beamed—and tossed a wooden ball right at her. Lex tried catching it with a wing, except he was still wearing his prosthetic and ended up rattling the table instead. The tea went spilling, and the ball would have hit her in the face if Martha didn’t raise her own wing to bat it aside.

“Conner,” Lex said, looking down at the baby. The fledgling’s wings drooped the longer Lex stared down at him. “What did I say about throwing?”

Conner’s wings drooped even lower. “No?”

“So why did you throw that toy?”

Conner discarded words in favor of a distressed chirrup, like cuteness overload could win his father over.

“It’s just tea, Lex,” Martha laughed and went to fetch a rag. “Trust me, this is nothing compared to Clark’s mishaps.”

“Yes, but the penthouse isn’t built to withstand that kind of careless destruction. Conner needs to learn self-control as early as possible. Don’t you?”

Conner made another chirruping noise and tried wriggling out of Lex’s grip. Lex nipped his cheek and got another chirrup in response.

“Gran’s having to work extra hard to clean up after your mess,” he lifted Conner up so he could get a good look at Martha wiping down the table. Conner squirmed backwards and pressed his face into Lex’s shoulder. The boy only feigned shyness when he knew he was in trouble. “What do you say, Conner?”

The baby plastered his wings against his little back.

Martha finished and then mock-sniffed. Conner turned to face her, alarmed. “I’m so sad, Conner,” the woman said, putting her hand to her breast. She frowned comically. “You don’t like me?”

“No!” Conner flapped his wings.

“You have to say it, Conner,” Lex prodded him.

The baby pouted but muttered, “…sorry.” And then he squirmed out of Lex’s hold and flew-hovered to Martha. Lex fought the urge to wince. Other babies his age would have been far more confident fluttering over, but Conner only ever flew when he really had to. And when he did, it looked awkward as hell.

Martha had enough tact not to mention it. She just caught him once he fell against her and cuddled him close. She curled cream-and-brown wings around Conner in a wing-hug, and the baby giggled. “Thank you, Conner! Gran feels so much better now!”

“Gran!” Conner repeated. He nuzzled the feathers by his face, alternatively fascinated and awed at the new textures there. He even grabbed a fistful to get a better look, and was therefore more than happy to cuddle with his Gran for the rest of their stay.

Once he’d bundled Conner up and was getting ready to leave, Lex saw Martha bend down and collect one of Conner’s stray feathers from the ground. He didn’t say anything, and she didn’t offer an explanation.

“I’m telling Clark you two visited, you know,” she said instead. Conner was conked out in Lex’s arms, and she stroked a delicate wing. “And I expect to see more of this little chick.”

“Of course, Martha,” Lex said. “And… thank you.”

“Take care of yourself, Lex,” she said, and quietly shut the door.

--

Lex couldn’t avoid Clark forever. He knew it was only a matter of time before he broke into the penthouse again after Martha inevitably tattled, because god forbid Lex have any kind of contact with Martha Kent now that he and Clark were over.

Relationships were complicated, and the sooner Clark got that into his thick skull, the better.

“I see you used the door,” Lex said in an unreadable tone at the sight of Clark perching awkwardly on the couch. Conner sat in front of him, which could only mean he’d gone into Conner’s room and taken him from the crib.

Presumptuous bastard.

Lex dropped his briefcase beside the closet and toed off his shoes. He snarked, “Very impressive, Clark. Truly a feat.”

Except Clark didn’t rise to the bait. Instead, he raised his large brilliantly colored wings up as high as they could go—and Conner immediately tried to copy him. It was comical seeing the fledgling straining his own tiny wings towards the ceiling, clearly frustrated because if Clark could touch the ceiling then why couldn’t he?

“He’s been copying me since I got here,” Clark finally said. He lowered his wings and Conner copied that, too. “He hasn’t said anything. Why is he doing that? Is he copying my gestures so he can replace me? What is it?”

“You’re so self-centered,” Lex said. Clark turned and furrowed his brow at him, and only seemed to get it when Lex opened the closet door and began unclipping the buckles keeping his prosthetic in place. Once finished, he folded his naked wings tight against his back and turned to give Clark a look.

“God—sorry Lex, I didn’t think…” Clark sounded so genuinely apologetic Lex wanted to grab him by the throat and shake him. Maybe boot him out the window too; it wasn’t like Clark had any trouble flying. Rather than doing any of that, he strode to the couch and scooped his son into his arms and away from Clark.

“You came here to talk,” Lex said, getting straight to the point. Conner squirmed and made noises like he wanted to be put down, but Lex wasn’t feeling charitable. He backed up and settled into an armchair across from the couch. “Talk.”

“You visited my mom without me,” and the man actually looked hurt by this. “You showed her Conner.”

“Just because we’re done doesn’t mean I’m keeping Conner away from the only extended family he’ll have,” Lex snapped. Conner squirmed again, and Lex ran a hand through his soft, baby hair and then down his back to his wings. “And your mother has always been good to me. Perhaps I needed some grace.”

Clark looked only slightly abashed, though his expression was overall an angry one. “What about me?”

“What about you?”

“I want to spend time with him too,” Clark said, raising his chin. “He’s—he’s my son, Lex, even if he’s some weird clone baby you used to replace me.”

“Where the hell are you even coming up with these ideas?” Lex tried not to feel too insulted. To be honest, a clone baby made to replace Clark wasn’t completely out of possibility given Lex’s personality and resources. “I told you, he’s not a clone.”

Clark threw his hands into the air. “Then how did he even happen? We’re both guys—”

“I don’t know, Clark, why don’t you tell me?” Lex’s patience ran out as it always did around this infuriating man. “Because I could have sworn you ran out like a dog with its tail between its legs after dumping me post-sex like a coward. Not even a goodbye, Clark. Of course not. Just came back into the room with your f—frigging clothes lying around everywhere, and an egg on the bed where you should be!”

There was an actual, physical moment where Clark computed this. If he were a computer, his face would be a loading circle. Finally, he said, “An egg?”

“I certainly didn’t lay it,” Lex said. “I’m not the alien here.”

“I didn’t lay an egg either!” Clark squawked. “I don’t even—how—no! I couldn’t, that’s physically impossible!

“Then why don’t you go ask your space dad in the arctic,” Lex snapped, “if you’re so worried about Conner being a real boy or not. Meanwhile, I’ll be caring for him as a parent should.”

Clark pursed his lips at the jab.

“I’d have to take Conner with me,” he finally said. “The computer will need—”

“No.”

“Lex—”

“You are not taking my son to the middle of below-zero nowhere to talk to some crazy, world-conquering AI because of your trust issues!” Lex clutched Conner tighter against him. The fledgling had stopped trying to escape and was now chewing on the ends of his left wing, paying no attention to his parents’ argument.

“You know that’s not—no, no, that isn’t the point, why do you always do this!” Clark looked a second away from tearing out his hair. “Talking to me in circles, manipulating the conversation…”

“Trust issues.”

“I just want to see him!” Clark shouted. Conner stopped chewing on his feathers and stared at him, and that seemed to knock some sense into the younger man. He coughed and looked away. In an quieter tone, he said, “I mean, I know you can win any custody battle with that legal team of yours, so I wanted to just… ask.”

Lex narrowed his eyes at him. Clark’s all or nothing attitude was so exhausting to sit through; it was like post-break-up he thought Lex spent all his time doing evil, supervillainly things because he was some evil supervillain. Was it so hard to wrap his mind around the fact that Lex was still the same person? A little lonelier, a little more cynical, and a lot more responsible with a fledgling to take care of.

But still the same.

“Fine,” he said, because this was the exact point he wanted to get out of the way immediately. “But I have conditions.”

Clark crossed his arms. “Of course you do.”

“I’m sure the first one you’ll love,” Lex said. He adjusted Conner in his grip and felt his little wings flutter against him in childish satiation. It gave him strength to continue. “I want to keep our face-to-face contact to the minimum. You want to see Conner, not me. Keep it that way.”

Clark opened his mouth.

“Phone calls and text are fine,” Lex overrode him before something stupid inevitably came out of his mouth. “But one thing about break-ups is the amazing bonus of not having to see your ex again. I’m not planning to break that because of our fledgling.”

“That’s so stupid, Lex,” Clark managed.

Lex narrowed his eyes. “You’re the one that wanted me out of your life for good, Clark. Or have you changed your mind?”

Clark gritted his teeth and straightened.

“I haven’t,” the superhero said in his coldest, frostiest voice. Lex had expected it, but it still pained him to hear that tone directed at him. “Fine, I’ll play your game. No more face-to-face meetings—except for Superman business, of course.”

“Superman can kindly stop breaking into my labs,” Lex said. “Not without proof of illegal activity, because lab equipment is expensive.”

“If you weren’t testing those vials on humans—”

“On myself—“

“—I wouldn’t have to!”

“Shut up, Clark,” Lex growled at him. “There are still a few more conditions, and I need to put Conner to bed soon. You know that’s a concept for childrearing? Bedtimes and schedules?”

“How about ‘no patronizing’ as one of my conditions?” Clark sulked, but obediently sat back onto the couch. “Alright, fine. Let’s hear them, Lex. It’s not like I need sleep, and you run on the blood of innocents or something.”

“Excuse you,” Lex said. “It’s the spirit of the innocents, Clark. Don’t be gauche.”

Clark put his head in his hands like he was being the ridiculous one. Lex thought this sentiment was undeserved, but what was new.

--

Clark’s first outing with Conner was a disaster. Lex wasn’t there of course, having been quite serious on the no-face-contact rule; but that didn’t mean he wasn’t watching Clark’s every move. He’d installed a hidden camera on Conner’s clothes ages ago disguised as a button, and used its recording to assess Clark’s abilities as a parent.

He was awful.

“Conner, I don’t know what you want,” the younger man pled to the screen—Conner, who was crying his head off—and waved a plush bird at him. “Do you want a bird? A snack?”

Conner wailed louder. Lex raised a brow when he saw Clark’s awful clock on the wall crack behind him. Glass-shattering levels already, wow.

Clark blurred and came back a second later with his cell phone.

“No, I don’t know what—he just started crying after he woke up,” he babbled hysterically into the phone. Martha, of course. “I’ve tried feeding him, his diaper doesn’t need changing, he doesn’t want his toys. I don’t know what to do!”

“Hold him, you idiot,” Lex muttered at the screen in his lap. An investor sitting beside him at the board meeting twitched his wings in question, and Lex pasted on his best Yes, so interesting, like approving this new proposal wasn’t just for show look on his face.

When he glanced back down at the camera feed, Clark had picked Conner up and was bouncing him in his arms. Conner had stopped crying and was grabbing onto his sleeve instead.

“I don’t want to drop him,” Clark said. “He stopped crying, should I put him down?”

After a moment of Martha undoubtedly berating her son’s stupidity, Clark winced and said, “But Ma—”

And then, “I don’t know what I’m doing, and I can’t ask Lex—well, I could ask him, but…” He visibly deflated at Martha’s next scathing comment. “I guess that’s true. But you’ve looked after him before, right? Don’t you know… no, no, Ma. You’re right. I’ll text him right now.”

He hung up the phone and carried Conner to that ratty thing he called a couch. Conner flapped his wings, bored, and grabbed one of Clark’s indestructible feathers. He tugged. Clark flicked his wings. Conner tugged again. It was a strange, repetitive game of tug-flick-tug-flick, and Clark didn’t even seem to notice it was happening.

“Sir?” The presenter at the front of the room finally finished her droning speech. Lex shifted his attention upwards without missing a beat. “Do you have anything to add to our final conclusion?”

“Not at all, Miss Hajima,” Lex smiled charmingly. “I’m sure the final review board will alert me if anything amiss arises.”

“I assure you, our tests have proven…”

“Tests can be fallible,” Lex said, cocking his head. “Isn’t that a fact? LexCorp prizes transparency with its investors. It’s always better to be safe than sorry.”

As if on cue, his phone buzzed with a text from Clark.

He glanced down at it while the other meeting attendees began pelting the technician with questions: Clark had written a simple, kon fussy, what shud i do. fave food??

Lex maintained his poker face despite the overwhelming urge to just roll his eyes.

LEX: I put his schedule in his diaper bag. Follow the damn schedule.

CLARK: cant read it, what does 4:00 BATH/CUDDLE diap-only 30min mean

LEX: It means he normally takes a bath at 4 and then likes to cuddle with someone in just his diaper for thirty minutes. Self-explanatory.

CLARK: IS NOT

CLARK: wait hes breathing funny fuck

Lex stared at the camera feed and saw Clark’s large face staring worriedly back at him. At Conner. Lex would have been worried too if he wasn’t a hundred percent sure what was happening.

LEX: he’s just pooping

LEX: he does that after cuddles

CLARK: why????

LEX: bc he feels relaxed, relaxed equals poop, seriously Clark I wrote it on the schedule READ THE SCHEDULE

CLARK: NEVER

And Lex had to put his phone away, because that was getting dangerously close to how they used to text. Just… ridiculous and a bit flirty, and not good for his mental health at all. Nothing hurt more than softening up after a few texts and then suddenly having to face cold, judgmental Superman whenever they met face-to-face.

This way, at least Clark kind of treated him like a person and not a villain.

Despite all of his other father’s troubles, Conner was returned in relatively good shape, sans a few locks of hair and a smudge of unidentifiable goop on his cheek. Lex wiped it off before realizing that something was different.

Conner’s wings were unusually soft and shiny, almost glowing in the dim light. Lex snuffled the feathers and almost wished he hadn’t.

It’d been forever since he last smelled Clark’s wing oil. He used to go to sleep to that scent after Clark would massage it into his bare, easily-dried wings before bed. It was thicker and more moisturizing than human wing oil, and clearly attributed to the impossible physics Superman’s wings went through on a daily basis.

Lex felt his own wings try and flutter, though the resulting wave of goosebumps and twitching came off as more disturbing than sensual. Unless you were a freaky alien with freaky alien egg-laying powers, in which case all bets were off.

“Pa?” Conner babbled while Lex put him to bed, flapping his little wings and even wrapping them around his arm in a small wing-hug. A single day with a feathered person, and Conner was already picking up wing language like a duck in water.

“Perhaps that idiot’s good for something after all,” he murmured to his fledgling while tucking him in. He gently nuzzled his face and then went and turned off the light, telling himself to ignore the pain in his chest.

Conner needed Clark to be there and teach him everything Lex couldn’t. He needed Martha and the rest of his extended family, especially once his… powers grew stronger.

He wondered if Clark realized how much sway he had over Conner’s life. Lex could care for him now as a fledgling, but once Conner was old enough to flit about and want to learn more about himself?

Who wouldn’t want a family like the Kents?

--

Still, that didn’t mean Lex was going to let Clark’s more ridiculous stunts slide.

“—can’t believe you just barged in when you knew I had Conner in the meeting room with me. If he had gotten hurt in any way—”

“He called me ‘Pa!’ I was in uniform—if anyone pieced together…”

“Oh, so your secret identity if more important than our son, is that it?”

“That’s not—”

“Get out.”

“We’re talking on the phone, Lex!”

“I’m talking about you needlessly endangering a three-year-old fledgling; you’re talking about secret identities like no one can look at your face and tell who you are.”

“That’s not—it’s not that easy!”

“Yes it is.”

“Lex, you know I didn’t mean to do anything. We got intel that there was something happening at that lab that needed to be urgently shut down.”

“Our fail-safe systems were more than capable of shutting the reactor down, thank you very much. And next time you crash through a window, at least use that x-ray vision of yours to see who’s on the other side.”

“Fine. Fine. Look, Lex, I need to go…”

“And tell Bruce he owes me for those windows. God knows if you’d be able to pay for them with that journalist salary.”

“Bye.”

“Or I’ll blow up another Wayne Tech lab.”

“Lex!”

Lex hung up the phone.

“Always get the last word in,” he told Conner, who was floating in the air and giggling at him upside-down. He’d started floating a few weeks ago, a clearly an inhuman trait given that his wings didn't flap at all.

Clark did the same thing when he moved at supersonic speeds, but he’d been trained since childhood to flap his wings for appearance’s sake anyway. Lex tickled the fledgling’s stomach and smiled when Conner giggled again and kicked out his legs.

“Your five o’ clock meeting’s coming up,” Mercy poked her head in. She raised a brow at Conner, who perked up at the sight of her and began to awkwardly float-flap over. “I can take Conner upstairs and get him fed.”

“There’s food prepared in the fridge,” Lex sighed. He wasn’t looking forward to his five o’ clock; he never looked forward to rubbing elbows with idiots with superiority complexes, but he had to if he wanted to secure his next deal. “And if he asks to watch TV, tell him no.”

“TV!” Conner said, and finally made it to Mercy. He grabbed her lapels and clung to her like a baby koala, and Mercy put up with the cuddling with her usual, stoic professionalism.

“Very well, sir,” she said, and then turned heel and strode back to the elevator—Conner still clinging to her front. Lex pursed his lips and pulled up his Conner Spreadsheet.

Almost three years old now, and Conner still couldn’t fly.

--

His last scheme hadn’t gone well at all, mostly because a band of vigilante hero complexes interrupted negotiations halfway through and ruined everything.

Well maybe not everything.

“You honestly couldn’t hold them off for three more seconds,” he seethed at the Batman, who glowered at him through his cowl. “It’s in your interests for me to secure this deal too; you're smart enough to know that.”

“This company conducts illegal experiments,” Clark intervened, because he still didn’t get it.

“Yes, and now that you’ve stopped them signing a deal with me, they’re just going to go to the next highest bidder,” Lex snapped. His prosthetic rose awkwardly, reflecting the way his own wings were trying to flare in anger. “If they agreed to join LexCorp, I could have established oversight that would keep that tech from falling into the wrong hands. Now it’s probably going to end up in the hands of some insane whacko like the Joker!”

“That won’t happen,” Batman growled. “I’ll make sure of it.”

“Well the ball’s in your court now, isn’t it,” Lex snarked. “I try to do some good, and I get thrown off a building instead.”

“You were never in any danger. Superman will always catch you.”

“Oh yes, I feel so safe,” Lex looked up to the sky and gritted his teeth. Clark’s glowing wings and skin shone all around him, its light cold and unwelcome compared to Conner’s occasional warm glow. Superman shone like an avenging angel; Clark Kent was just another man with exceptionally colored wings.

Lex hated them both so much it hurt.

“Take him back to Metropolis,” Batman ordered. He began to fly off, and was interrupted by Clark’s, “Wait, we’re not going to bring him in?”

“It’ll take too much time and resources to even attempt arresting him,” Batman said. “We need that time to track down the company. Good news is, Flash is now tailing them to their base. But we need to operate on a legal level too to shut them down.”

“They’re a Metropolis-based syndicate,” Lex said. “Do you really think you can corner them with legal or business tactics without my help?”

“Don’t listen to him,” Clark said.

Lex glared at him. “Shut up.”

“He’s just planning something nefarious—”

“Oh yes, Luthors are always conniving backstabbers in your book—”

“—and you can’t trust him—”

“—that’s true, you should never trust me,” and Lex was getting sick of being held mid-air like some broken-winged fledgling. He didn’t like vulnerability. “You shouldn’t trust anyone.”

“Enough,” Batman flapped his wings in annoyance. “Superman, bring him back to Metropolis. Keep an eye on him. He makes a good point; we might need LexCorp’s help to keep them locked away.”

“You can’t be serious,” Clark grumbled, and Batman gave him the patented Batglare in response. Not even Superman could fight the Batglare. Clark’s wings drooped, and he reluctantly flew off.

Lex didn’t say anything until they made it back to his penthouse, and then he immediately wriggled out of Clark’s arms and went to fetch the Scotch.

Clark watched him knock back an entire shot glass before turning off his glow and perching awkwardly on the couch. Lex poured another glass.

“It’s a bit early for alochol, isn’t it?” Clark said.

“Fuck you, Clark,” Lex wasn’t in the mood to play their games. He knocked the second shot back and slammed the glass on the counter. “You know, it amazes me how you can still think the worst of me after all the years we’ve known each other. How you haven’t a single shred of evidence and you still insist on treating me like some monster.”

“You’re a murderer, Lex,” Clark said, wings flaring up and puffing in anger. “And you lied about it—you still lie about it—”

“One time!” Lex shouted. “So what, you think because of this one thing everything else was just an act? Like I was somehow planning to trick you when I was just a kid?”

“I don’t know, Lex!” Clark said. “I don’t know anything anymore. I still can’t—how could you?”

Lex didn’t say anything. He paced the room and stopped himself from pouring a third glass, because three glasses of scotch showed a weakness he couldn’t afford in front of Clark.

Finally, he said in a quiet, deadly tone: “Lionel deserved everything he got.”

“He was your father.”

“He was going to hurt you, and he was never going to stop,” Lex said. He looked right into Clark’s angry, self-righteous eyes and said, “So I did what I had to do. I don’t regret it.”

Clark’s face crumpled the same exact way it did that last night together. Right before their argument spiraled out of control and Lex was stomping out of the room, knowing full well that when he returned that Clark would be gone for good.

He might’ve started shouting again if Conner didn’t crawl through the living room door, their fight clearly having woken him up. He perked up at the sight of his other father.

“Pa's here!” he said, floating up into the air. Clark startled. Before he could react, the fledgling landed on his shoulder and wrapped white wings around his face. “Papa!”

“Kon!” Clark staggered back and plopped down onto the couch. “You can’t hug my face! I can’t see.”

“You have x-ray vision,” Lex said unrepentantly.

He watched with mixed feelings as Clark gently pried the toddler off of his face and settled him into his stupid spandex-covered lap. Conner beamed and flapped his wings in a bid for more attention. Clark smoothed large hands down his feathers and straightened them without thought. Preening came second nature to him; it was something Lex always had to work at.

He turned around and went back to his bedroom, feeling exhausted. How many times were his efforts to help going to be rejected? How many times should he try before giving up?

He shucked off his wing prosthetics onto the floor and fell facedown on his bed. He wondered if he had too much drink.

Probably.

Well, it wasn’t like Clark was going to trash his penthouse with Conner distracting him. Lex closed his eyes and breathed.

--

When he woke up, he was surprised to find warm, red-and-blue wings wrapped around him. They were sinfully, inhumanly soft and familiar, and Lex couldn’t help but nibble at the closest feather to his face. Clark’s wings twitched. Lex came back to himself with a blush, and he let go and assessed the situation.

There was something else between them, cuddly and soft.

Lex growled when he realized what it was. Clark, that conniving bastard.

He knew Lex couldn’t shove him off with Conner tucked comfortably between them; not without scaring their fledgling and proving Clark right. He turned and checked on the little chick. He was snoozing away, tucked under Clark’s strong arm and snuggling against his chest. One tiny arm and wing were stretched over Lex, though, in a clear possessive way.

Lex stroked a feather, and Conner’s wings twitched the same way Clark’s did.

He smiled wryly before settling back and closing his eyes. He didn’t want to be awake for when Clark left. It was too painful.

He was anyway.

“Pa,” Conner whined when Clark finally got ready to leave. The fledgling squirmed and sat up, though Lex couldn’t see his face with his own eyes firmly shut.

“Shh,” he heard Clark say. “Sleep with Daddy. I need to go.”

“Papa stay,” Conner demanded.

More shuffling, and Conner’s soft pudgy body was suddenly dropped onto Lex’s chest. The fledgling, not wanting this at all, flapped his wings right in Lex’s face.

“Kon, please,” and Clark’s voice had that panicked tenor he adopted whenever Conner was being particularly fussy. “Don’t wake him up. Go back to sleep.”

“No!”

“Kon.”

“Papa!”

“Shh,” Clark said. Lex cracked his eyes open in time to see Clark lean down and kiss the fledgling on the forehead. “Sleep.”

Conner’s eyes filled with tears. Clark paled—and then caught sight of Lex’s eyes on him. He paled even further.

Lex wrapped his bare wing around Conner and gently toppled him over beside him. The fledgling squirmed but seemed less upset when being cuddled against someone.

“Go,” Lex said.

“Lex…”

“Go,” Lex turned away from him and wrapped his arms and wings around Conner. He heard rather than saw Clark open the window and escape into the night, and he wondered why the universe was making him relive this awful night again. Conner’s dozing form in his arms, however, made it somewhat better.

He snuffled the fledgling’s hair.

At least this time, he wasn’t left alone.

--

Conner wished he saw Pa more often. He vaguely remembered a time when he'd swoop Conner into his arms and whisk him away to the Farm, to the Fair, to all sorts of places. But then Conner had gotten older, and the news outlets had gotten smarter in following him around. It took a close call where Dad had to step in and pay off several people to make some photos disappear for Papa to step away. No one could find out Conner's Pa was Superman; not even if it meant Conner saw him less and less.

"Kon-El," he'd say on the rare occasions he saw him, ruffling his hair and smiling down at him. His huge wings would wrap around them both, soft and so brightly-colored and Conner just wanted to bury himself in those feathers forever. "How about we go to... hm. What country are you learning at school?"

"Japan!" Conner shouted, and Pa grinned at him. And then it was just a sweep up and a whoosh, and they were in a sushi bar Pa told him was Dad's favorite.

"Lex has always liked sushi more than me," he told Conner, completely unaware of how much Kon craved these kind of bizarre, unknown facts about Dad. "I mean, I like the cooked stuff well enough, but the raw fish? I'm too small-town for that."

Conner grinned at him and took a huge piece of raw salmon and put it into his mouth. Pa made a face.

"Mo'r fo' meh," he said with his mouth full, and Pa laughed.

Conner loved these moments. He wished he had more of them.

But no. The worst would always be the inevitable argument that'd happen once they got home.

It was stupid how they fought through the phone rather than in person, but whatever. Conner thought they shouldn't be fighting at all.

Pa's voice rang out from the office: "You don't want people to see us together, fine. But Lex, can you at least let me visit him at the penthouse?"

"You've had an open invitation to visit since the beginning."

"Only when you're not there! And you're always there when Conner is there, which means I can't ever come in and see him!"

"You can always visit him when Martha babysits," Dad would usually end the argument in that cold tone he only used when he was about to crush some small company's morale for good. "No one's stopping you. But no, too busy to pop over to the farm when there are cats to save, hm? There are plenty of opportunities for you to visit Conner; they're just too inconvenient."

And around and around they'd go. Conner knew he wasn't supposed to hear any of that, and so he usually pretended he was drawing pictures when Dad came out of his office. He was drawing pictures— pictures of Papa in his Superman outfit holding hands with Dad in his Business Suit. Conner didn't usually draw himself in these pictures. He was himself. Duh.

Still, despite being arch-nemeses, Conner knew they loved each other. It made things worse, not better, especially with Dad's habit of bringing back strange woman in the middle of the night.

"Go away!" he hissed at Dad's latest fling, some stupid redhead who was after Dad's approval for some proposal or another. She looked startled at the fledgling jumping out at her from the couch, and quickly made a retreat once Conner drew his wings back and hissed again.

"Conner Luthor," Dad chided from the doorway. "What do you think you're doing?"

"You don't even like her," Conner got to the point immediately.

"It's not about liking her, it's about using her," Dad buttoned up the rest of his shirt. "I've told you before not to interfere."

"Pa wouldn't use people."

"Clark has always been more of a bleeding heart than me," Dad said, not rising to the bait. "Now get ready for school, Conner. Up you go."

His act would've been more convincing if Dad didn't sometimes get this look on his face when he talked to Pa over the phone. They didn't fight all the time; sometimes they just talked about Conner and his embarrassing mistakes and, if Dad had enough to drink, about things from the past that Conner was absolutely forbidden from asking about. Dad would smile in the way he usually reserved only for Conner.

The most telling thing was how his naked wings would fold out. Dad always drew them tight against his back when he wasn't wearing those stupid prosthetic wings, hiding them away as much as possible. They relaxed a bit around Conner, but when he and Pa were talking? Sometimes he'd stretch them out enough to touch the floor.

Gran would've been able to explain the move in a clearer way. Something about wing language and reading feathers, both of which Conner was bad at.

He just didn't realize how this particular weakness of his would solve some things and complicate others. The epiphany happened on a cold wintry day during recess.

“It’s not that high up,” one of his classmates said from where she’d perched on a high branch in a tree. “C’mon, Conner! Don’t be a chicken!”

“’M not,” he insisted, flaring his wings indignantly. The other first-graders hadn't ever flown so high before, but it seemed like boredom had gotten the best of them and they'd spread their wings. Only Conner remained at the tree base, because Conner...

Conner couldn't fly.

He never had to, not with his floating abilities and Pa carrying him around, and it wasn't like Dad needed to fly anywhere. The best he'd ever gotten was gliding, and only if he jumped off a higher vantage point—which was when he had an idea.

“Where are you going?” the girl asked as Kon ran back towards the school. Glancing around, he made sure no one was watching before gently floating himself onto the rooftop. He crawled across the shingles and up to the huge bell tower that overlooked the courtyard.

“Conner’s on the roof!” someone screamed, and suddenly everyone below was looking up. One of the chaperones flared her violet wings out in surprise.

“Conner Luthor!” she shouted, wringing her hands. “Don’t move—I’ll get you down from there!”

Before she could flutter up, however, Conner took a deep breath and jumped.

After a heart-wrenching second, he opened his eyes and saw that he was indeed gliding. Breaking out in a triumphant smile, he steered his way to the Playground Tree where everyone was gaping at him—which was when the large gust of wind struck.

Conner found himself tumbling backwards, careening away from the tree and right towards the hard concrete. He barely had time to yelp before he was crashing into the ground with a sickening crack.

“Conner!” the adults were tittering after him. Kon sniffed and hauled himself up. He wasn’t hurt, not really—but everyone was staring at him anyway. It took him a moment to realize it wasn’t him so much as the concrete below him. The crack hadn’t been his skull breaking; it had been the sound of the concrete shattering below him, leaving Conner in a small, fledgling-sized crater right in front of his classmates.

--

“You aren’t homeschooling him, Lex!” Papa was shouting over the speakerphone. “Conner needs to interact with other students his age!”

“Have you forgotten how he pretty much revealed his invulnerability in front of an entire class of fledglings?” Dad said in his eerie, calm I’m-actually-really-mad voice. “The media outlets have been hounding me all morning. Do you really think he’ll be able to have a normal childhood with that on his record?”

“Just say he’s a meta. It’s not technically untrue…”

“It’ll take time to clear the air and get Conner’s name out of the news,” Dad ignored him. “Time where he needs to stay away from the spotlight. So I can either send him overseas where neither of us can see him, or I can hire tutors to teach him at home.”

“You’re being paranoid, Lex.”

“I’m a Luthor,” Dad said. “Clark Kent might be unremarkable whenever you turn that glow off, but Luthors are never out of the spotlight. I’m doing what I need to do.”

There was a long pause, and Conner really, really wanted to turn around and talk to Papa himself. Except Dad had sent Conner to the corner of his office for pulling a stunt like that in public, and Conner sneaking out of his time-out would just get him a longer time-out.

“I’m coming over,” Papa finally said.

“Like hell you are!”

Too late. Papa was already prying the window open, and Dad couldn’t chase him off with his evil green box because Conner was still in the corner.

“Someone needs to teach him how to fly, Lex,” Papa said, dropping himself next to Dad's desk like he'd been speaking to him in person for years. Conner stared at them from the corner of his eye: Dad's hands were clenched white with anger, but he wasn't pressing the button that'd summon Mercy. If anyone can chase Superman away, it was Mercy. Papa said, “I’m his father, and it should have been my responsibility.”

"Because I can't do it," Dad said flatly. "Of course. Fine. Take him from me."

"For crying out loud, Lex, I'm not taking him from you! I just want to be a part of his life— and don't pretend you haven't been sabotaging that these last few years."

Dad didn't say anything, not even when Papa went to Conner in the corner and scooped him up into his strong arms. Conner dropped all pretense of not eavesdropping and turned to look into his Papa’s eyes with an excited smile.

“You’re going to teach me?” he said. What went unspoken was: I'm going to see you regularly? You'll be around?

“Sure, kiddo,” Papa bounced him in his arms. He ran a large hand over the curve of Conner's wing, and Conner flared them out in proud display for him. “By the time we’re done, you’ll be shooting through the atmosphere.”

“He will not,” Dad hissed, and Papa just gave Conner a secret little smile in response.

--

They compromised on a local, fancy private school that owed Dad enough of a favor that they were willing to take in a student mid-semester. Their biggest selling point, however, was their media black-out policy past their huge brick gates.

“It’s like a prison,” Papa said, frowning at the massive gate. Conner bounced on his toes beside him, hand clasped in his. They’d just come back from a flying lesson back at Gran’s farm, and Conner had managed to flap his way in the air for a full five minutes. Even better, Papa had even agreed to come visit the school with him. Papa never went with Conner in public, not anymore, and so the fledgling knew how special today was. “Honestly, Kon, if you want me to talk to your father…”

“I’ve put in too much work to get him in here for you to mess things up, Clark,” Dad’s voice came out behind him. Papa jumped.

“Lex,” he said abruptly, turning and looking at Dad with wide, panicked eyes. “…I thought Mercy would come and lead him through the tour?”

“You think I’ll miss his first day at a new school?” Dad said coolly, crossing his arms. The air was tense enough to cut with a knife. It took a moment for Conner to realize that this was the first time he’d seen his parents meet up in person... without fighting. Every other time Papa broke their no-face-time agreement, it was because he was too angry to follow rules and act like an adult. At least, that's how Dad put it.

Pa's red and blue wings half arched in panic, because clearly he had no idea how to act towards Dad without rage alight in his bones.

Dad’s prosthetic wings shifted the longer the silence dragged out. They were ugly and inconvenient and so much harder to read than Dad’s bare wings, but Conner was getting better at “seeing” the gestures underneath. Dad was feeling a bit hurt, like Papa thought he didn’t care about Conner.

Which was stupid.

“I wanna go see my classroom,” he reached out and tugged on Dad’s arm before he could escape. “Come on!”

Thankfully, this seemed to settle their silent argument. Papa and Dad led him into school together, albeit with a few awkward glances and cold-shouldering.

It was rare seeing them interact like this, though, and Conner couldn’t help but notice the way Papa’s wings flicked and moved.

They rose when Papa was startled or questioning; they flapped when he was thinking or confused. Conner recognized all of those signs. The only one he didn’t recognize was this little flutter he did occasionally, usually while staring at Dad with a strange expression on his face. Those sleek, bright feathers would flutter lightly, sometimes rippling across the span of the wing, and Conner had never seen Papa’s wings do that before.

“You have our phone numbers,” Dad told him, patting him on his shoulder before he entered his homeroom. Conner puffed his chest out, wings flared. He wasn’t a chick, he was five! “And remember what you do if there’s an emergency?”

“Hide and call for Papa,” Conner said obediently.

“That’s my boy,” Dad smiled and ran a soothing hand down the curve of Conner’s wing. He gave Papa a strange, unreadable look and stepped back. “I need to head back to LexCorp for a meeting. Goodbye, Clark.”

“Lex,” Papa said, his wings fluttering again. "Wait— I can take you back."

This time Dad saw it, and he seemed surprised. Dad never seemed surprised. Conner wanted to stare, but the teacher had already spotted him in front of the door.

“Conner Luthor,” she beckoned him towards her desk, pale pink wings flaring in greeting. “Hello and welcome to Metropolis Prep. I’m sure you’ll fit right in here.”

“Hello,” Conner said politely, not wanting to go to her at all.

"Flying me like a damsel, Clark?" he heard Dad say from the hall, "I'd rather walk."

"Stop lying, you'd cry if you wore out those shoes," and Conner had never heard anyone talk to Dad like that, not even Mercy. Papa, though. Papa had always been able to say whatever he wanted.

"Conner," the teacher repeated, and he reluctantly let himself be herded into the classroom while considering what he’d seen.

--

Sometimes, after another newsworthy story involving Superman and Batman and the other Justice League members thwarting some evil plan—possibly funded by LexCorp, because everyone knew Lex Luthor was Superman's greatest enemy—Conner wondered how much easier his life would be if his parents got back together. They'd stop trying to kill each other, maybe.

"We're not trying to kill each other," Dad corrected him. Conner had just submitted his six-page proposal on why he and Pa should get back together for the sake of LexCorp. "I'm just knocking him down a peg or two."

"You threw meteor rock powder in Pa's face," Conner said. "You know he hates that."

"Well, he threw me off a building and into a pile of garbage," Dad said. He flipped through the proposal with a raised brow. "So we're even."

The next time Conner and Pa flew back towards Gran's farm so they could help oversee the workers there—read: make sure they weren't scamming a dashing widow of her hard-earned retirement funds—Conner dipped down and landed on Pa's back.

"You're too old to be carried," Pa said, and looked surprised when Conner waved his proposal in his face. "What's this?"

"Reasons you and Dad should get back together," he said.

Papa just sighed. "Kon, we're not... it's complicated."

"Why?" They landed on Gran's lawn and Conner folded his arms. "I've listed all the property damage that would be prevented, as well as the destroyed lab equipment, and—and—the employees Dad has to hire and fire all the time. And I've estimated how much it'll affect Gran's health without the stress of you two fighting. You can increase her lifespan by 2.3%! Don't you want Gran to live 2.3% longer?"

"Sometimes people just don't see eye-to-eye anymore," Papa argued back lamely. "They just don't work out."

"You guys worked out for a long time before me," Conner said. It didn't escape how notice how neither of his parents denied loving each other; of all things, they'd never denied that. "Why can't you work things out now?"

Papa just shook his head and herded him into Gran's kitchen for lemonade and cookies.

Clearly, Conner was going to have to change his approach. That was fine. He was okay at writing essays, but Conner was always a more hands-on kind of fledgling anyway.

--

Unfortunately, he ended up getting himself kidnapped. He didn’t mean for it to happen, because who in their right mind wanted to get knocked out of the sky and tied up and stuffed into the back of a slow-moving vehicle? They’d even gagged him so he couldn’t call for Pa and snapped some collar on his neck that kept his powers from working. Conner was forced to stew in the dark for the duration of the ride.

On one hand, he was pretty sure they couldn’t do anything to him. Dad owned most of the meteor rock in Metropolis, and even if the goons had some of that, almost no one knew it affected Conner too.

Almost ten and no one had pieced two-and-two together yet—just as Dad had planned, though sometimes Conner wished he could freely walk around with Papa without worrying about cameras. Life would be so much easier, and maybe Papa would be around more often.

His second, more urgent thought was: Mercy was going to kill him.

He’d only meant to deviate from his schedule by a scant fifteen minutes. That was long enough for him to pop over to the nearest post-office and mail the carefully-constructed letter he’d written in Dad’s name, because someone had to take the first step and neither of his parents were going to do it. Mercy would have been upset at him for not flying straight home, but he could have waved it off as the teacher forcing them to stay overtime or bad air traffic.

Getting kidnapped, though, was going to ruin everything. Conner had just convinced Dad to let him fly to and from school on his own without a chaperone, and this incident was going to earn him a Mercy-shadow until he was twenty-five.

The goons didn’t even have to decency to be stupid. Papa would have found him by now with a sweep of x-ray vision, which meant they’d lined the trunk with lead.

He squirmed when they opened the trunk up and tossed him into another vehicle. He tried floating or using his telekinesis or just breaking out of the bonds entirely, but the little black collar they’d strung around his neck drained it all out of him.

“Y’sure the inhibitor collar’s gonna hold?” one of the goons said. “We don’t even know what kind of meta powers this kid has…”

“I’d worry less about the meta powers and more about Luthor on our tail,” his associate snapped. “C’mon, we need to get to Gotham on schedule or we’re screwed.”

Gotham, Conner noted. Batman lived in Gotham and he was friends with Papa, so maybe that was a good thing?

Except he remembered that Gotham was an absolute cesspool and being shipped there was probably the worst thing ever. They were going to hold him down and try to tear him apart for scientific experiments, just like his parents had always feared. Conner’s lips trembled. Dad wasn’t going to let that happen. He wouldn’t.

And then something crashed into the truck and Conner found himself being flung onto the thick metal wall. There was a screech and a loud crack, and the vehicle was toppling onto its side and making an awful skidding noise on the ground.

Shouts and bangs and the sounds of fighting broke out, and then suddenly the back of the truck swung open.

Conner had expected Batman. He didn’t expect the tiny fledgling blinking owlishly down at him.

“Conner Luthor?” he asked. He fluttered beside Conner and cut his ties with a sharp batarang. When he removed his gag, Conner coughed and managed, “Who are you?”

“Robin,” Batman’s growl came from outside. The boy sat up, and the Dark Knight himself appeared in silhouette at the open door. “We need to head back as soon as possible. Is he injured?”

“No, but he’s got an inhibitor collar,” this ‘Robin’ said. He scooped Conner up, which was a feat since he easily had four inches on the twerp and wasn’t exactly cooperating, and hauled him out of the truck without hesitation. Batman’s wings spread in consideration. “It looks like there’s a remote trigger on it. I don’t think it’ll affect him with his… background, but…”

“We can’t risk it,” Batman said flatly. “We’ll need to take him back to the Cave and dismantle it there.”

“Cave?” Conner echoed.

Batman ignored him and tapped something by his ear. “Yes, we got him—no, you’re needed in Metropolis. This was a diversion to keep Luthor’s attention away, but you’re definitely needed there too. Superman, that’s an order. Stay. There.”

“Papa?” Conner said. His father must have been listening for his voice, because he began chattering a mile a minute into Batman’s earpiece.

“I told you, he’s fine,” Batman overrode him. “Now go punch a hole in those robots like I said. Batman out.”

“Giant robots,” Robin whispered, almost in awe. Conner wanted his Papa to come and pick him up, but even he had to admit that robots were cool. He’d have to look through Dad’s surveillance of the battle later, because the news outlets were okay but no one was better at capturing the action than LexCorp tech.

--

Taking the collar off took five minutes max, and then Conner was free to flit around the Cave and poke at gadgets until Batman turned and glared him into sitting quietly on the staircase. He watched Robin move and practice forms instead. Conner felt an idea taking root in his mind. The boy was close to his own age and much less powerful—if he could do it, why couldn’t Conner?

“No,” Papa said once he came back from his Giant Robot battle, looking a bit singed but otherwise glowing in perfect, Supermanly glory. He floated down onto the cave floor and smiled when Robin stopped and gazed at him in wide-eyed hero-worship. Conner scowled and landed right in front of him, drawing his attention back. “Absolutely not, Kon. Your father would kill me.”

“I can protect Dad too,” Conner argued back. As if to prove himself, he floated up into the air and flapped his wings with a little Superman-like glow. He twirled and gave Papa a look. “And you go fighting all the time.”

“I’m an adult.”

“He’s not an adult!” Conner pointed at Robin, who gave him a betrayed look like Why are you making me look bad in front of Superman?

“Tim’s different,” Papa tried.

“Why?”

“He’s—”

“He’s not even a meta!”

“I also think you should train him,” Batman intervened from the computers. He swiveled around in his chair. “There will undoubtedly be more attempts on his life, especially if word gets out that he’s yours. Today’s attack was on Luthor, but you almost compromised your own cover with your panic. If the world finds out, the attacks will increase.”

“That’s even more proof that he shouldn’t fight with me,” Papa argued back. “Everyone’s going to know I have a kid if he’s—I don’t know, Superboying it up next to me!”

“You do have a kid,” Conner snapped, sick of everything. Sick of hiding. He folded his arms and flattened his wings on the ground. “Me.”

“Kon,” Papa tried, but Conner was having none of it. He flew up towards the highest point of the cavern and huddled onto the huge dinosaur in teary frustration. He barely saw Papa enough as it was; hearing how he didn’t even want to hang out with him hurt even more.

It surprised him when the first person to approach was little Robin.

“Supes is your dad, huh?” he said matter-of-factly, settling beside him. “That’s really cool.”

“Not when no one knows,” Conner scowled, folding his wings over himself and hiding away. “Sometimes I don’t think he wants me around at all.”

“That’s definitely not true,” the other boy said. “He was totally freaking out when he found out you didn’t come back from school. He called Bats right away even though Gotham’s on the other side of the river—it was just good luck they were en route here so we could stop them.”

Conner scowled and pulled his wings tighter against him.

Robin curled up too, and then they were sitting there wing-to-wing. Finally, he offered, “I don’t even think my parents would know if I disappeared. They’re gone so often, it’ll probably take them months to notice.”

“Oh,” Conner said. He wasn’t sure what to say to that.

“Though Luthor and Superman? How did that even happen?” Robin said, more muttering to himself than actually asking a question. Conner answered anyway, chin raised.

“Because they love each other,” he said.

Robin stared at him.

“They’re arch-enemies,” the boy finally said. “Luthor tries to kill Supes like every week.”

“If Dad wanted him dead, he’d be dead,” Conner said. He fluffed up his wings in irritation. “They still love each other, even after—well, they broke up a long time ago. I just wanted them to talk about it, so I went off schedule. It was stupid.”

Robin blinked and extended a wing over his. It felt different having a non-flock member brushing up against him, but not in a bad way. Conner shivered, giving a full-wing shudder.

“I don’t like it when they fight,” Conner whispered. “Why can’t they just get along?”

“Different views,” Robin said. “Adults care a lot about that.”

“That’s stupid.”

“Adults are stupid,” Robin shrugged. Conner lowered his wings unhappily, and was surprised when Robin lowered his own wing with him. “That’s just the way things are sometimes.”

--

Clark loved and hated his superhearing for a variety of reasons, but hearing Conner sound so broken cut him deep. He knew he'd been too absent sometimes, drawing back when Lex pushed him away when he should've fought harder for Kon. It was the coward's way out, and he'd tried involving himself more with Kon's flight lessons and trips to the farm. Clearly, however, Conner was growing too old to ignore his and Lex's fighting.

He'd probably always known about their fighting.

"What's this?" Bruce rumbled at him when Clark handed him the little packet of papers Conner had given him a few months back.

"Kon's proposal on why me and Lex should get back together," Clark said.

Bruce didn't even look at the paper. "You and Lex should get back together."

"Bruce!" he hissed, mostly out of surprise. "You know why we broke up. That's always been a hard line for you, and you're asking me to just ignore that?"

"No," Bruce said, turning back to the monitors. "But Luthor was notably more manageable with you by his side, and the last decade has proved the two of you cause more trouble apart than together. We waste far too many JLA resources on your spats. It'll be easier to keep an eye on him if he's in your pocket, Clark. That's just a fact."

"And I don't have any say in this?"

"Are you saying you don't still want him, Clark?" Bruce's gaze flicked upwards, and Clark wilted. If there was anyone who could look so judgmental without actually moving a facial muscle, it was Bruce Wayne. "How many lovers have you taken in the last decade?"

"I've had a few," Clark mumbled.

"Lois doesn't count."

"She totally does! I mean, we didn't really do anything, and she's always been better as a partner than a girlfriend..."

"If there's anything I've learned over these years," Bruce said, tapping at the computer like he had nothing better to do, "it's the sheer amount of wasted time that goes into denying the undeniable. Forget your hang-ups about morality and past events, because it isn't as if you haven't got a few skeletons in your closet. Focus on what you can do now. What's best for everyone in the present."

Bruce turned and looked up at the dinosaur where Robin and Conner were huddled together. Clark followed his gaze and bit his lip.

God forbid he won a single argument with the Batman. Other than Lex, he was probably the only other person in the world who called him out on his bullshit.

--

Lex had had enough scares today for him to seriously consider his top-alpha maneuver number 109 and lock himself and Conner somewhere safe forever. But that was an extreme reaction, and Lex knew better than to act on extreme reactions.

He was in the middle of finishing off an entire bottle of Scotch when Clark flew back—sans Conner.

He sat up immediately. “Where is he?”

“Staying over Bruce’s for the night,” Clark said, like he had any right to decide that without consulting Lex. “He’s a bit shaken up, and I just… we need to talk.”

“Yeah, we do,” Lex slammed the bottle onto the end table and gave Clark his coldest glare. “You almost gave away your role as Conner’s other father today. Do you know how hard it was for my PR team to cover your huge, robot-sized tracks?”

“Do you know why Conner got captured?” Clark blurted out, as one-tracked-minded as ever. Lex wished the bottle wasn’t empty; fetching another one would undoubtedly draw too much of Clark’s attention. “He was trying to get us back together, Lex.”

“What?” Lex narrowed his eyes at him.

“And I went and checked where he’d been abducted, and there was this letter he wrote—he was going to send it to you pretending to be me—”

“What?”

"He said— Lex, we have to stop," Clark folded his arms. “He hates seeing us fight. It—it really hurts him, and it’s not like I like fighting with you either, Lex. We can’t keep doing this.”

Lex stared up at the ceiling. Finally, he said, “I’m not the one who wants to fight.”

“What does that even mean?” Clark said.

“It means you’ve always stuck your nose in my business without reason—“

“I wouldn’t have to if you weren’t blatantly breaking the law!”

“Where’s your proof?”

“My x-ray vision,” Clark said. “My enhanced hearing. I know what you’re up to, Lex.”

“Then tell me,” Lex spread his arms. He would’ve normally shut Clark down by now, but the alcohol was clearly affecting his judgment. “What great and evil plan have I been concocting all this time?”

Clark flushed. “I don’t—I’m still not sure, but it involves earning money—”

“I’m a businessman, that’s literally my job.”

“—and conducting experiments—”

“What kind of laboratory doesn’t have experiments?”

“—and just looking into dangerous things no one should be looking into!”

“How do you think humans have advanced over the centuries, Clark? By sticking our head in the sand and hoping nothing bad happens? Curiosity is the foundation of development, and we can’t discover things without putting alien materials under test.”

“You don’t have to! We’ve got a containment center in the Watchtower—”

“There are so many things wrong with that, I don’t even know where to start,” Lex muttered. “I’m too drunk to have this conversation with you. I've been having this conversation with you for years, I don't want to have it drunk.”

“You don’t get drunk easily,” Clark said. Lex waved the empty bottle of scotch at him, and he winced. “Alright, fine. But Lex…”

“Shut up,” he said.

“I don’t want Conner to think we hate each other,” Clark bulldozed ahead, because he didn’t know when to just let things go. “I don’t hate you, you know. Not all the time. Lex, you know I've always been angry because I know you could be better. You are better.”

Lex didn’t say anything. He just lay on the couch as Clark approached, and suddenly he had an infuriating, flashy-winged alien leaning right over him. Lex tried shoving him away, but Clark was immovable.

“Don’t,” he muttered, but was helpless when Clark scooped him up into his arms and carried him to his bedroom. “Clark—”

“Circles and circles,” Clark said, dropping him onto the bed. It had been years since Clark had been in his bedroom, and Lex wondered if he was living another fever dream. Especially when Superman himself began stripping off his spandex with precise, practiced movements. “It just feels like—such a waste sometimes, and I don’t even know why we do it.”

“Because you’re an asshole,” Lex said, watching the way Clark’s gorgeous muscles rippled in the dim lighting. Clark was always gorgeous. It wasn’t fair. The younger man crawled beside him stark naked and nuzzled his cheek, and Lex was weak enough to nuzzle back before getting a hold of himself. “And I’m an asshole, and what do you think you’re doing.”

“I asked Jor-El, you know,” Clark said. Lex stiffened but didn’t move away. He let Clark drape a huge wing over him and wrap an arm around his waist. “When Conner was around six or so. I didn’t—I didn’t want to know for the longest time, but I asked how he even happened.”

“Tell me he’s not planning to force Conner to take over the world,” Lex mumbled, distracted. Because Clark was draped over him like he used to do when they were younger and drunk on love; and while Lex hadn’t been celibate since their breakup, he hadn’t really cuddled either.

“Jor-El called Conner a love-egg,” Clark said. “You know that—glow that happens when I use my powers? It’s kind of a mystical, magical element…”

“No, I didn’t notice you shone like a nightlight,” Lex said sarcastically.

Clark ignored him. “It’s me, kind of. My aura. When two kryptonians sync up and never want to leave the other, the aura can sometimes manifest into an egg.”

Lex was too drunk for this. “We broke up that night. It seems like the opposite of never wanting to leave each other.”

“I was angry, but I didn’t want to leave,” Clark said. He fluttered his wings like he didn’t know how much Lex liked it when he did that. “That moment when I put my foot down, I remember thinking…”

“…that this wasn’t actually the end,” Lex squeezed his eyes shut. Fuck. Putting it that way, it made a horrible, ironic kind of sense.

“Lex,” Clark said. Slowly, almost hesitantly, he reached out and began unbuttoning his collared shirt. Lex should probably stop this because of his drunkenness, because Clark was clearly emotionally vulnerable and not thinking straight, but he’d missed this the most out of everything. Clark was gorgeous and compelling and Lex had had him to himself for so long; no one else could match up to how it felt when Clark fucked into him. "It's not the end, is it?"

Clark was never shy about touching his bare wings, either. He’d run his palms up the smooth skin, trace the edge of his humerus and elbow and down to where his ulna and radius came together into a knobby end. He’d kiss his bare scapulars and rub his naked glands shamelessly, spreading the oil down his back past the swell of his ass.

When Clark pressed his fingers into him, his wings arching above and his breath warm and welcoming back his neck, Lex felt less like a freak. He felt—accepted. Which was ironic, given everything, but Clark was a mass of contradictions. Lex couldn’t even splay his wings properly in invitation, but Clark read his face just fine.

“Not a good idea,” he managed, even as he reached up and grabbed fistfuls of Clark’s increasingly glowy feathers. He ran his hands down the insides as Clark did as he liked; even half-drunk, Lex had to wince when Clark wriggled a third finger without enough lube. “Ow. Ow!”

“Sorry,” Clark mumbled, dipping his other hand behind his back and gathering more oil on his fingers. He smeared it across his hole and went back to fingering. “I just—tell me that’s better?”

“Impatient asshole,” Lex growled, because Clark was clearly hoping it was enough. It still stung, but it wasn’t like Lex was a stranger to Clark’s youthful impatience. He hooked his legs around his hips and tugged him forward. “Fine. Go ahead—it’s not like I want to come sometime tonight.”

“Can you not pick a fight with me?” Clark muttered, but took up the invitation without argument. He grabbed Lex up by the hips and just—sank right in. Lex inhaled sharply, because it should have felt like too much too fast. Clark wasn’t small, and his temperature tended to run a bit higher than a human’s. He was hot and rough and far too strong for him to push off, and Lex should have felt scared.

He loved it.

“Clark,” he hissed, the burning stretch inside him on the edge of just right. God, he’d missed this. He’d missed it, and feeling Clark inside him again felt so achingly familiar it was like he hadn’t left. He realized he was saying that out loud when Clark let out a low groan, and he would've felt more embarrassed if Clark didn't pull out and ram back in again. Lex gasped. “Clark that’s—”

He didn’t even let him finish. Clark flared his wings out in arousal, arching up and out towards the ceiling—and then he was moving. Sharp, honest thrusts that had Lex’s wings spreading behind him, that hurt and aroused in turn. He wrapped his wings around Lex midway through, holding him up and manhandling him around like a ragdoll. Lex bit a feather reflexively. Ran his hands beneath Clark’s wings and against the soft, downy feathers lining his back. He curled his hands around Clark’s thick neck and clung to him, tight and possessive.

“You’re so good, Lex,” Clark gasped. Lex vaguely registered that they were floating in the air, that Clark had lost control of his powers once again and was literally using his wings to keep him up and spread around his cock. “This feels—you’re so hot.”

“Always so eager you forget, Clark,” Lex said. It would’ve come out bitchier if he wasn’t out of breath. “You’re so—oh. Hm.”

Clark kissed him, and Lex wasn’t made of stone. He kissed back eagerly, opening his mouth and letting their tongues tangle. It felt good, as did the slick slide of Clark thrusting inside him. It felt good when he registered the strong movements of Clark’s muscles rippling beneath his touch; when Clark reached between them and rubbed a thumb up his own swollen cock—

When he came, he bit Clark’s lower lip hard.

Being a near invulnerable bastard, Clark just groaned instead of yelped in pain like any normal person would. He stroked him through his orgasm, thumb caressing his cockhead almost fondly. And then he manhandled Lex onto his stomach and bit into his shoulder as he fucked him hard and fast. Lex’s wings shivered against his naked chest, at the sheer power being demonstrated. When Clark came, he pulled out and jerked himself off onto the bedspread.

“Christ,” he muttered once he finished. He kissed up Lex’s neck and lowered them back onto the sheets. “Goddammit, Lex.”

“You’re not blaming this on me,” Lex said. He sniffed and pressed a kiss to Clark’s jaw. “I’m the drunk one here. The victim. You’re the evil meta that forced me.”

“Don’t even joke about that,” Clark said.

“I wouldn’t if you weren’t such a pigheaded martyr,” Lex mumbled. "You're always blaming things on me."

There wasn't any sting behind his words, though, and Clark knew it. "Sometimes you are to blame."

"Shh," Lex waved a hand. "That's a secret." And then he gave into instinct and buried his face in the crook of Clark’s neck, raising his bare wings and pressing them up below Clark’s puffy red ones. The younger man covered them both immediately. It was like dozing under the warmest, most comfortable blanket ever… and Lex couldn’t help but drift off to sleep.

--

He was surprised to wake up and find Clark still in bed with him. He’d propped his head up on an elbow and was furrowing his brow at something.

“I don’t know how to make this work,” he finally said. He wasn’t taking a jab—he was being completely honest, expression open and frustrated. “I’m not good at planning things out, Lex. You’ve always been the brains.”

“Well, there are a few options,” Lex mumbled, because of course his brain could crunch numbers seconds after waking up. Probably because he felt satiated and well-fucked and therefore willing to indulge Clark’s bizarre hang-ups. “But the easier one right now is to continue what we’ve been doing—just with less break-ins and property damage. We'll consider the moving-in thing again later once we prove we won't kill each other.”

Clark frowned, “No evil experiments.”

“Less experiments,” Lex snuffled Clark’s shoulder. “Science necessitates experiments.”

“But…”

“Ask Bruce about it if you’re unsure,” Lex closed his eyes. “You always assume the worst.”

“Sorry,” Clark actually apologized, which was the sign of the incoming apocalypse. “Just—it’s hard for me to think of things in gray. You know that.”

“Good old Jonathan Kent,” Lex sighed. He loosely propped his naked wing across Clark’s side and smiled when Clark didn’t flinch. He never did. “You’re not your father, Clark. I told you that once, I’ll tell you that again.”

“You’re not yours either,” Clark whispered. He kissed Lex’s forehead. “I wouldn’t love you if you were.”

“Hm,” Lex leaned into his touch. “I hope not.”

Clark let Lex push him down onto his back and crawl on top of him, not nearly as awkward as it should be after so long. "Tell me when Conner's coming home again?"

"When I— Lex!" Clark jumped when Lex slicked up a hand and grabbed both their cocks with his hands. His grip was firm but completely still, and Clark was going to go crazy if he didn't move.

"Clark," Lex's voice brought him back to the question.

"When I call Bruce," he arched his wings when Lex began to move, sinfully tight pressure around him and a fire-hot warmth against him. He whispered, "Do I want to know why?"

"You're not that stupid," Lex rolled his eyes and gently pressed a kiss to his mouth, if only to hide his own low groan of pleasure.

Later, Clark brought up the greatest concern he'd had since Bruce had affirmed his decision to fly back to Lex. It was something even he wasn't sure what the right thing to do was.

“Will you tell Conner, Lex?" he whispered, running his fingers down Lex's neck. He didn't have feathers anywhere on his body, but Clark liked feeling the smooth feel of his skin regardless. "Why we broke up.”

Lex was silent for a long, long moment. Finally, he said, “Eventually. But not now.”

“Not now,” Clark agreed, and swept his wing over them both.

--

It wasn't until Clark's next visit that Conner found out. Clark actually flew by the penthouse for once rather than picking Conner up at the corner store as usual; and if that wasn't noteworthy enough, he kissed Dad on the cheek when he came to the door. Conner's eyes went wide as saucers. Which was cute and all—until he suddenly vaulted so high up, he crashed through the ceiling and the roof and would have broken through the atmosphere if Clark hadn’t flown after him and yanked him down.

“I knew it!” Conner said happily, as if he hadn’t just given Lex a near heart attack. “I knew you still loved each other!” After a pause, he began to wriggle in Clark’s grip. “Pa, let me down!”

“If I let you go, you’ll go right through the ceiling again,” Clark said dryly. “I already owe Lex enough in property damages, and you’re not helping.”

“Dad has a Superman fund set aside just for you,” Conner informed him. “So I wouldn’t worry about it.”

“Conner,” Lex snapped, but couldn’t feel too angry when his fledgling was so honestly, purely happy. “Go eat the rest of your breakfast. Mercy’s going to be here to pick you up in fifteen minutes.”

“Boo,” Conner slumped, and this was apparently enough sad news for gravity to affect him again.

“I’ll take you to the Watchtower later,” Clark offered, even after Lex kicked him under the table. “Maybe Tim’ll be there.”

“You will not,” Lex hissed. “Conner shouldn’t be anywhere near your hero club—”

“He needs to hang out with kids more like him.”

“Which he can find right here in Metropolis—”

“Tim?” Conner scrunched his nose up before realization lit up his face. “Oh! You mean Robin! Will he really be there, Papa?”

“Probably,” Clark said.

“Clark—” Lex tried again.

“He’s pretty cool, though he’s small,” Conner babbled. Now that his parents were Officially Together, it seemed like their fighting just went through some Conner Filter and didn’t register at all. Lex wasn't sure it he should be concerned or relieved; he never knew what to think at his son's selective denseness. “And he’s got these big ears too. Anyway, I wanted to show him some new tricks! He’s not even a meta and he beat me, which so isn’t fair.”

Clark threw Lex a triumphant grin the longer Conner went on, and Lex just fumed. With how excited Conner was, Lex wasn’t going to be the monster to tell him no.

“An hour,” he said. “And no missions.”

“Yes!” Conner said, and wolfed down the rest of his pancakes with gusto. He was so like Clark sometimes, Lex couldn’t help an indulgent smile from spreading on his face.

Extra

Conner was raised with proper manners, as was required of a Luthor constantly thrust into the spotlight. Dad had always expected him to behave himself in public, and Gran had filled him in on the more interpersonal manners Dad seemed to disregard without realizing.

So it was only natural that he approached courting with the same attitude. Namely, the old tradition of asking a flock head for permission to court, which was easier said than done.

Tim Drake’s flock head was the goddamn Batman.

“Conner!” Dick Grayson opened the manor doors with a surprised raise of his brow, his gray wings pulled politely against his back. “If you’re looking for Tim, he’s not here right now.”

“Uh—no, I was actually hoping to talk to Bruce? I mean Mr. Wayne. Bruce Wayne.”

Tim’s older flockmate considered him with calculating eyes.

He sighed and opened the door wider. “Come in and good luck.”

An auspicious start.

Bruce Wayne sat rigid and intimidating at his sprawling desk in his study. Dick rapped the wooden door and poked his head in, “B, Superboy wants to talk to you.”

The older man didn’t even look up. His pitch-black wings were eerily still behind him. “Send him in.”

Conner swallowed. Come on, he was a Luthor and kind of sort of a Kent; he lived through his parents’ increasingly ridiculous attempts to kill each other during his formative years, he could live through this. He stepped inside and raised his black-specked red wings before sweeping them to the floor. A wing-bow, or the equivalent of. Bruce just stared at him, unimpressed.

“Kon-El,” he said in a flat tone. “Please, take a seat.”

Addressing him by his Kryptonian name. That wasn’t a good sign.

Conner sat and tucked his wings tight against him in polite respect. “Mr. Wayne.”

Bruce stared at him.

His nerves got the better of him, and Conner blurted out: “CanIDateTim?”

The stare quickly sharpened into a Batglare, and Conner gulped. He repeated in a slower voice: “I—I’m asking permission to court Tim, sir. Please?”

Bruce glared at him even harder. Conner could’ve sworn his hair was starting to singe under its intensity, and then the man sat back in his chair and opened a drawer.

Inside was a gun.

Conner paled.

“I have fifteen Kryptonite guns ready to go in the Bat Cave,” Bruce said, matter of fact “I can have them all installed by tonight.”

“Uh,” Conner said.

“That’s answer enough, isn’t it?”

“Uh,” Conner said—and then beat a tactical retreat. By flying straight up and out of the manor through the roof, destroying floors and property in probably his least intelligent idea ever. Still, he felt it was justified. This was the Batman. Batman.

“Conner, why has Wayne Enterprises sent us an invoice for property damage?” Dad brought up the following night.

Conner didn’t say anything. Maybe if he sat still enough, Dad will think he’s lost the ability to speak and leave him alone. Unfortunately, luck was not on his side. Dad pinched his wing elbow and Conner yelped.

“Dad!”

“Conner.”

Conner flapped his wings nervously. “I… kind of escaped from the manor. By flying straight up and through the roof?”

Dad closed his eyes and rubbed his temple.

“I didn’t mean to!” Conner wailed. “Just—there was a kryptonite gun and he wouldn’t let me court Tim!”

“What did I tell you about trying to court Tim Drake?” Dad snapped.

Conner crossed his arms. “I can’t just sneak behind the Batman’s back. He’ll find out, and then he’ll kill me.”

“He will not,” Dad said. “He touches a single hair on your head, I’ll go after Wayne Enterprises with all I have. It’ll be a nice little war. Really sort things out between us.”

“Dad no,” Conner said.

“All you’ve done is alert him of your intentions,” Dad said, calmly planning things out already in his usual amoral way. “It’ll be far more difficult to court your Robin without catching his attention.”

“If Pa was here he’d tell you that’s a bad idea.”

“Clark has a huge blind spot where that man is concerned. He’s certifiably psychotic.”

“Which is why you can’t pick a fight with him,” Conner argued. He blinked when Dad stopped planning long enough to throw his head back and laugh. “…Dad?”

“Nothing, just,” Dad shook his head with a wry grin. “You’re so much like me too, sometimes.”

“Duh,” Conner flapped his wings. The red on both sides came from Pa, obviously, as did the blue tips on his outer wing. The black speckles, though? Those ran in the Luthor family. Dad’s wings would’ve probably had them too if he wasn’t bald. “Now what do I do?”

“I have a few different options, but I believe the smartest choice would be to consult Tim Drake himself,” Dad said, voice dry. “He knows the Batman best, after all.”

Conner lit up. “Why didn’t I think of that? Dad, you’re the best.”

“I am the best,” Dad said with a soft smile, and ran a gentle hand down the curve of Conner’s wing.