Archive of Our Own

Particle Steps

"The Zantanians have gone back to their own space-time continuum. There is some clean-up work still in progress, however most of the disruptive elements have been mitigated." Green Lantern concluded his report.

"Thank you, GL." Superman flipped through his notes and stopped at one. "Flash, we were speculating that some of the problems you were having in Central City were due to the continuum disruptions. With the Zantanians are gone, have you noticed any difference?"

In the seat next to Conner, the Flash frowned. "Actually, there's been an increase. That means there might be another rip out there."

"Over in Midway—"

Conner tuned Hawkman out. Okay, the first part of the JLA meeting was interesting when they were going over various techniques that worked in the group fight against the Acaroidans... and he supposed, if he was forced to admit it, that this part was worthwhile too. But he was bored. Bored, bored, bored... He sighed.

From the head of the table, Superman gave Conner a quick look with an apologetic half-shrug before he returned his attention to Hawkman. Well, Conner had to admit it was his own fault for being here. He'd been involved in the fight and wanted to be in on the rest of it too. He just hadn't realized how much there was on the rest of it.

Uncapping his pen, Conner started doodling on his notebook, sketching out a buckyball atom. Okay, there was another reason he was stuck here – Clark wasn't letting him out of his sight in case he went running off. It was a valid reason; Conner and Dad One had had another argument about Dad Two just that morning.

Conner remembered it again, trying to see if he could figure anything new out from Dad's reasoning.

"It's been three weeks!" Conner thrust three fingers out to emphasize his point.

Clark scrubbed his face with his hand. "Look, I know you don't believe me, but Lex needs more time. If we confront him now, we'll never get him back."

"That's what you said last week! And the week before! He's going to be gone before we have a chance to get him back at this rate. Are you sure you want him?"

Conner admitted in his own thoughts now that it had been a bit of a low blow; he remembered the stricken look on Dad's face and winced. But he was tired of doing nothing. Conner looked at the completed buckyball and switched to a diamond bond.

Clark turned away from Conner for a long minute while silence dropped into the gap. When he turned back, his face was calm. It reminded Conner of the blank look that Lex used. In some ways, his two dads were a lot alike.

"If you've never gone after him before, how do you know when he'll be ready?" Conner was a little gentler, seeing the distress under the calm. Dad really did want Dad Two, and this waiting was as hard for him as it was for Conner, even if Conner didn't understand why.

Clark shook his head. He walked over to the three-month calendar on the wall and traced his finger over the dates until he stopped on one.

It had been the day that Lex had first come to the apartment, when Kon had found out he had another dad;, when he'd gotten the measure of both dads and decided that he wanted both of them. Clark alone was a great dad, even if they did argue fiercely sometimes. Clark loved him and wanted him and protected him and taught him. It was everything Kon had wanted while he lived in his tube in the lab, looking out at freedom and seeing only his scientific value in the eyes of those there.

Lex, though... that night that Lex'd come over, Conner had realized he wanted more. He'd woken up to the sounds of an argument, and had watched through the wall and listened before coming in. What he saw was another person who wanted him. Somebody who fought with Clark to protect Conner, to provide for him, to make sure he'd be okay. For all of Lois' attachment to Clark, she'd never done that for Conner. Neither had Chloe or Ollie or anybody else. They all wanted Clark and would reluctantly accept Conner to be with Clark. Lex, though, was different. He wanted Conner and would reluctantly accept Clark as part of that.

That night too, there had been something different about Clark. Sitting there arguing with Lex... Clark had been alive. There was a light in his eyes and a restrained energy to his body. Leaning towards Lex... Lex leaning back, both of them focused and intent on each other. It was obvious that the two of them shared something nobody else did.

"Alright, Kon." Clark sounded defeated. "We'll wait two more days. If... if nothing happens by then, we'll go to him."

Conner blinked. He hadn't realized that Clark had been waiting for something specific. He'd thought it was all nebulous thoughts and expectations. But the way Clark was looking at the calendar... "What are you waiting for?"

Clark's hand dropped. He turned back to Conner. "Nothing." His head and shoulders were bowed.

Seeing that, Conner felt like a heel. He'd seen during the breakfast, or more precisely in the fight after it, just how much Lex and Clark really cared for each other, even if they were at odds now. Conner didn't want Clark to give up on Lex now, even if he didn't know what Clark had been looking for. He walked over and hugged Clark, putting his arms around his dad. "It'll be okay, Dad. You'll see, it'll be okay."

Clark returned the hug and didn't say anything.

When he'd been in the labs, Conner had wanted parents. His implanted memories had parents – at least four different sets of parents. Moms and dads both. A child being held in soft arms, swung up on shoulders, hands overlaying his own as he reached for a block, a train, a doll. Gentle voices. Or at least those had been the favorite memories. There were other, not as nice ones too. Conner often wondered if the people putting in the memories had consciously selected them or just randomly dumped them. He'd wanted to ask his brothers which memories they held, but the researchers were careful not to let the clones associate too much; mostly they passed in the halls on the way from research room to tube to research room. Or as fought with each other as part of the programming training, at which point there was no talking, just fighting.

Lex was somebody that could be a father like Clark. Conner didn't want a different parent – he wasn't about to give Clark up, ever. Yet Lex fit in their lives. He fit in a way that Lois and Chloe and Oliver never had, despite the way the three were always trying to shoe-horn their way in. Round pegs trying to fit into hexagon holes. Clark tried hard to let them in, yet there were always gaps, areas they didn't fill, that they didn't even understand to fill. Lex, though... Lex fit without even trying. He just slide right in there like he belonged.

And Conner really didn't need that mental image his thought just brought. Not with his parents. With a shudder, he flipped to a new page on the pad and worked on a krypton atom. Not the most exciting of molecules, really, but it was part of the fission chain. Uranium to krypton and barium, plus some neutrons. Two parents, one child. One child, two parents? Normally the parents would come before the child, but in this case, one could safely say it was the other way around. Now, if only Conner could get the second parent back.

His two parents were two dads, but who cared about that? Two girls, two guys, three girls and a guy, maybe an alien too... Conner figured he wasn't one to throw stones, considering his origins. The irregularity of it hadn't even occurred to him until Chloe had said something when he was pestering her for information about Lex. It didn't matter. Conner wanted them both, and he wanted them together. He would have taken them separately if that's the way they'd swung, but it just made it all the more perfect that they so obviously were in love with each other too. If a little messed up about it.

"... Luthor problem."

At Batman's words, Conner snapped his pen and jerked his head up. What? He glanced over at Dad.

"I'm monitoring the situation," Superman said, looking like he'd eaten something sour.

"Monitoring?" Aquaman snorted. "Luthor was using active sonar in my ocean! He knows damn well what that does to the cetaceans."

"What was he looking for?" Superman asked cautiously.

"Something in the Kuril trench. You think he was going to tell me what he was after?"

"Did he find it?"

"I don't think so – he left when I yelled at him."

Batman folded his hands together. "That's characteristic of the current pattern for three weeks now. Luthor's been active in many areas and yet has been retreating from the field when he is discovered. That is not normally typical of his behavior."

"I'm monitoring the situation," Superman repeated, his left eyebrow ticking.

Conner watched, fascinated. He'd had no clue. Did the League regularly monitor Lex? Why? Well, okay, there was all that about a villain and all, but Lex wasn't a real villain...

"He was in Central City last week," Flash said thoughtfully. "Impulse stopped him from stealing a stone out of the Mineralogical Museum."

"Which stone?"

"Nominally, it was a chunk of charoite, but who knows what he was really after. He left after Impulse talked to him."

Batman put his hands on the table. "Superman, either you do something about Luthor or we will. This can't be allowed to continue. We all have our villains to battle, and he's a distraction."

Conner was sure Batman had been about to say something else after the 'we all have our villains' bit, but the switch had been so smooth he'd barely picked up on it.

Superman opened his mouth, however before he could say anything, the door opened.

"Sorry I'm late," Wonder Woman strode in confidently, "I had a little trouble with Luthor that delayed me."

Superman put his head into his hands as every eye around the table looked at him.

Wonder Woman paused before sitting, her elegant eyebrows raising as she looked around the table. "What did I interrupt?"

"We were just talking about Luthor," Green Lantern said dryly, "and what Superman was planning on doing about it."

"Do about it? You mean him?" Wonder Woman sat down. "Why on earth should Superman do anything about him? Lex is just acting up. He'll settle down eventually, he always does."

Conner had never considered asking Diana for information about Dad Two, mostly because he hadn't known they knew each other. She was, though, the first League member who had called him by his first name. He eyed her curiously.

"I admit, he's usually not as self-destructive as this—"

"Self-destructive?" Conner found himself blurting out.

Wonder Woman paused and Superman lifted his head. The rest of the table followed suit and Conner found himself pinned by the gazes like a bug on display. He shrank down in his seat wishing that Flash was a little larger so Conner could hide behind him.

"Superboy... did you tell Luthor about..." Wonder Woman stopped herself. Not all of the League members knew about the gene-splicing, and they certainly weren't making it public.

Conner didn't look at his dad. "Uh, no... but he found out anyhow." He wasn't about to say it was his dad who had spilled the beans. That was okay, they all knew Lex could find out stuff on his own – Dad had been right in that, the first night.

Wonder Woman sighed. "Well, that explains his little rampage. Besides the more obvious things, I'm sure he's the one who has been responsible for the destruction of several research labs." She didn't say specifically, but it was obvious she meant cloning labs.

"Destruction?" Conner's heart sank.

"No loss of lives at any of them, and he even found homes for all the puppies and kittens," Diana assured him, a twinkle in her eyes.

Superman cleared his throat. "That was last week. What did he do just now?"

She lost her grin. "He was exploring Paradise Island. I retrieved him and dropped him off at his Metropolis penthouse."

Superman paled.

Conner blinked. "Um, I thought you didn't allow men on Themyscira."

"We don't." Wonder Woman folded her arms across her chest, looking remarkably like Superman as she did that. Other than the breasts and the low cleavage that the gesture directed Conner's eyes to. "Luthor is incredibly lucky that Athena and Aphrodite like him, and that he didn't actually set foot directly upon the ground. He was sailing around the island in a dingy."

In a totally different manner than Wonder Woman, Superman folded his arms on the table and dropped his head down on them, the action making him look as little like Superman as he possibly could in the costume. Conner's eyes were large. Not a word was spoken by anybody else at the table.

"Besides the lecture that Artemis gave him, I also talked to his bodyguards. They won't be letting him do anything like that again, I assure you."

Clark gave a little moan and then sat up, running his fingers through his hair and resettling into Superman. Or trying to. The attempt wasn't that successful. "All right. I'll go talk to him."

Wonder Woman blinked. "I really don't think..."

"Good," Batman said bluntly, interrupting Wonder Woman.

Clark stood up and held a hand out to Conner, beckoning him away from the table. "Wonder Woman, you have the chair. I'll see you all later."

Without listening to the protests behind them, Clark and Conner left the meeting room. They didn't speak until they were in the air and flying back home.

"Was that what you were waiting for?" Conner shot Clark a glare. If he'd been egging Dad Two on...

Clark grimaced. "Hardly. But it can't be helped. It's already ten days past... well, past when I thought we'd be able to approach him. We'll have to go to him first."

"I thought that's what we were going to do!" Conner was really seriously exasperated by his dad.

"It's what we're going to do now." Clark sounded bleak, like he wasn't sure if they would win.

Conner was about ready to scream at Clark's defeatist attitude. Yet, Kon had to admit, at the same time, he was afraid. He'd never seen anything like the anger that had flared through Lex's eyes as he'd thrown them out of the hotel. The sheer amount of determination combined with rage was foreign to him. Clark had gotten them out of there while Conner was still stunned and hurt. Conner knew he wanted Lex back in their lives... but he didn't know how. The breakfast had gone so well initially, but it had ended up a dismal failure.

They got back into Metropolis and flew through and stopped some crimes and rescued some cats from trees. They both looked at the LuthorCorp Towers, yet didn't fly there. When they'd killed a few hours doing routine superheroing, they flew home. Tomorrow was soon enough.

Changing into normal clothes was usually done on the roof of the building next door. Or the one next to it. Just in case somebody had surveillance on the apartment. The whole 'protect your secret identity' thing was still weird to Conner. He'd lived his short life in a test tube and then he was out in the world. He was who he was, and the thought of separating out parts of himself... well, it reminded him a little too much of his segmented borrowed memories. Somebody not himself.

Nightwing, however, had shown Conner just what risks there were for superheroes. Not risks for themselves, but for those they cared about. After that, it was a lot easier to follow the rules.

Still didn't mean he had to like them.

Conner pushed the glasses up his nose and sighed. Next time they went to the eye doctor, Conner was going to insist on using some of Lex's money for better frames. The cheap ones sucked.

"Next time we go to the optometrist, we'll get some better glasses for you," Clark said. "I started off with the cheap ones because that's what I had on the farm. No need for us to stuff you into the same mold."

Sometimes it was weird, but more often Kon loved these moments of synchronicity between him and his dad, like they were really just different aspects of the same being. "Thanks, Dad." He grinned as they went up the stairs.

Clark unlocked the apartment door, went in... and stopped.

Conner ran into his back. "Ouch. Hey, Dad..."

For another long moment, Clark stood frozen. Then he turned and gathered Conner into his arms in a giant hug, squeezing him so tightly a normal human would have had problems. To Conner, it felt like being home; safe, secure, and loved.

"It's okay," Clark muttered into Conner's shoulder. "Oh, Kon. It's okay. It's going to be all right. Thank God. Or more likely, thank the Goddesses. He loves you more than he hates me..."

Conner couldn't see a thing, smushed into Clark's chest as he was. The way Dad was holding onto him, Conner also wasn't about to try and get out of the hug – Dad needed this. Kon really wanted to know what was going on, though.

Finally he just x-rayed through Dad's body. There wasn't anything different about the hallway... ah. There. The dining room. There was a stack of papers and packages and stuff on the table that hadn't been there when they'd left this morning. From the way Dad was going on, undoubtedly Dad Two or one of his minions had come in and dropped them off while they were gone. But what would Dad Two have...

"My identification papers?" Conner wondered out loud.

Clark finally untangled himself, his smile wide and happy, a joy lighting up the world. "Probably. "

"This is what you were waiting for?" Conner stepped all the way inside the apartment, pushing his dad further in, too, and closed the door. "Why didn't you just say so?"

"I thought he'd send them sooner," Clark admitted as they walked to the table. "I hadn't realized just how long it had been, and then..."

"Then you were worried he wasn't going to." Yeah, okay, that was worth the silence. Conner picked up the fancy envelope on top and pulled out his birth certificate.

"Conner Ryan Wilson," Conner read. "Son of Clark Kent and Sally Alice Wilson. Sally Wilson? I thought her name was Jessie?"

After no answer, Conner looked up. "Dad?" His father was slightly pale, a hand on the table, looking at Conner with surprise written all over his face. "Uh, Dad, you okay?"

"Ryan..." Clark murmured, then shook himself all over and regained some of his color. "Jessie was in the Witness Protection program. She would have had another name and identity by the time you were born." He smiled, a faint pale imitation of his normal grin. "Lex thinks of everything."

Conner eyed Clark for a long moment, wondering if he should ask about this 'Ryan' person. Dad was now determinedly sorting through the other papers, though, and it looked like it was one of those history things. From back in the time of legend. Conner really needed a better descriptor for those days but hadn't come up with one yet, words not being his favorite thing in the world.

"There's also a completed application for a formal name change to 'Kent', and custody papers for me." Clark snorted as he read the post-it on the custody papers, then handed both sets to Conner.

It was better to be a Kent than a Wilson, in Conner's opinion. Luthor-foresight indeed. "Why do you need custody rights if you're my dad?"

"Because you haven't lived with me before. Your mom raised you, and her dad or other relatives could make a case for taking you away. The custody ruling prevents that. Well, makes it harder."

Conner looked a question at Clark. Clark shrugged. "Opportunists. Fortune-hunters, somebody looking to mess with me. Who knows. This way, no matter what, we're covered."

"Would the Justice League have thought of that?" Conner thumbed through a high school yearbook idly. He supposed he'd have to memorize some of the names in there. He wondered if Dad Two would produce people to vouch for him if needed.

There was a quiet sigh from his dad. "No," Clark admitted. "From them, you got a birth certificate, social security, some school records, and not much else."

Conner jerked his head up and stared. "Got? As in, received? As in... I've got two sets of identities now?"

The side of Clark's mouth twisted up. "I couldn't figure out how to stop them without telling them about Lex. And, well, I figured it wouldn't hurt. Just in case." He disappeared into the back room and came out with a manila envelope. "Don't mix it up with these."

Conner flipped through the papers. Conner Jonathan Kent was his name in the other universe. Dad's dad for the middle name. Conner wondered how he was going to find out about Ryan. Whoever had made up the papers was obviously a traditionalist, giving him Dad's last name when he was living with his mom. His mom in this one was Molly Rowen.

If Conner needed another identity, this one wouldn't help too much – too close to the other, even with the differences. Might be handy in other ways, though. Jobs, tax brackets, off-shore accounts... "Who put this packet together?"

"Probably Chloe as Watchtower," Clark responded casually, opening one of the other boxes. "Gus. Oh, Lex..."

Instantly, Kon put the papers back in the envelope and was at Dad's side. "Stuffed animals?" he asked incredulously. "Toys? I'm not a kid."

Clark gently held the old teddy bear he'd pulled out. "Even adults keep memories of their childhood."

Conner blinked. No, he'd never have thought of that in a million years. He took out a model spaceship and looked at it curiously.

"Project Galaxy," Clark said. "It was popular about six years ago. Lex probably has some dvds of it somewhere in here if you want to see some episodes."

That's exactly what the sticky note on the spaceship said. Conner poked through the rest of the box, reading the notes about his "childhood" toys. There wasn't any note on the teddy bear, however, and Dad was still holding it in the crook of his arm, though his attention was now in the other boxes. "What's with the bear?"

Clark put down the tattered young adult book he'd been reading. "It used to be Lex's. He had it up until he was about nine, and then his dad decided he was old enough to do without stuffed animals. All of his children's toys disappeared while he was at school. The next day, though, one of the chambermaids slipped Lex a note, a diagram to a secret cubby in his room. Lex found the bear in there. But he never saw that maid again."

Conner's mouth dropped open. "That..., that..., that's..."

"I know," Clark wistfully put the bear back in the box.

Instantly, Kon took the bear and walked into his room and put him on the dresser next to his alarm clock. No bear should ever be so unloved. And Lex's dad was an ass.

When he came back, Conner was determined. "Dad, we should go see Dad Two now.

Clark had apparently stopped going through the boxes and was now in the kitchen, getting dinner ready. Dad nodded even as he stirred the macaroni and cheese. "We should. But it'll be you."

"What?" Kon got out a pair of glasses and poured milk in them.

Clark accepted his gratefully as Kon handed it to him. "Tomorrow. Go hunt Lex down and talk to him." He took a sip. "But don't break into his penthouse or evade security to get to him. Just... go up to him at some point when he's not surrounded by a lot of people. You can trust Mercy. Or Hope. Well, trust them to protect Lex and all Lex's secrets, and you can be counted as one of his secrets, so you'll be good with them."

"You're not coming with me?" Conner asked faintly. As much as he wanted them to talk to Lex, he didn't want to do it himself. It was... it would be wrong, to talk to Dad Two without Dad One there. Plus, he was scared.

Clark shook his head. He tested the mac and cheese and then scooped it out on plates for them, the whole packet for just the two of them. "Just you. Lex will talk to you. He won't to me yet."

"But..."

"Trust me on this, Kon." Clark sat down at the newly cleared table. "I bungled badly at that breakfast. Too much, too soon."

"We were doing fine until I had my little fit about super-heroing." Conner cast his eyes down, still slightly ashamed for his outburst.

With a shrug, Clark dismissed that part. "It's still me. Lex will let you in. He sent you Augustus. That's... that's more than I ever thought he'd do. Lex wants you, and he'll let you in – if you're not with me."

"But I want both of you."

"One at a time, Kon. One at a time." Clark smiled at Conner, his love in his eyes. "We're on about step five right now, between us and Lex, and you'll take the next one forward, and maybe he'll take the next, or maybe he'll step back and you'll have to step forward again... but there's still a lot of steps to go. Rome wasn't built in a day, and neither was the space shuttle. I'll join you when Lex is ready."

Yeah, okay, it did make sense, even if Conner didn't want it to. He focused his vision to see inside his bedroom, with the teddy bear sitting there alone. Lex didn't give up the things he loved, and there was proof of it. They were just well hidden so nobody could take them away. Including himself? Probably, yes, himself at least, and possibly also including Dad, who was one of those things both loved and feared. Conner dug into his dinner and tried to think of how to approach Dad Two on his own.

... ... ...

Dad Two was never alone. How the heck did he do any villaining at all, with all the stuff he did in a day? Meetings at LexCorp. Meetings at lunch. Meetings in the limo driving to another meeting across the town. Lex's day was just full of people, people, and more people. The only time he was alone was when he was in his office between meetings, or up in his penthouse. And Conner was under strict rules not to break into either. The first day, Conner had suggested it would be easier. Clark had said no. Well, actually, he'd gone on and on and on about the 'no', but it boiled down to a 'no'.

Finally, Conner saw a chance. Lex had gone for an early inspection at one of his labs. He had to come out at some point, didn't he? Or maybe this is how he went a-villaining, slipping out from lead-lined buildings to who knows where.

Conner stuffed his hands in his pockets and waited. He was just outside of any security camera range, sitting on a steel girder by the walkway. It wasn't outside of teenage human means to climb up there, so it wasn't too weird, hopefully. Security at this lab wasn't quite as tight as it was at LexCorp, and the guards rarely looked up. Conner wouldn't have been able to do this at any one of Lex's real buildings.

"Oh, thank deities." There was Lex at last. Just when Kon's stomach was starting to growl. The car was being brought around for him, and this was Kon's only chance. He hopped off the girder and walked over.

"Hey D—" Shit. He hadn't thought of a name for Lex. And he didn't have a chance to now as everybody turned and the shit hit the fan.

A gun on his neck, another pointed at his stomach, and at least three tasers out. Conner didn't take another step, his eyes wide. Holy crap, that was a lot of gun-power. One of those tasers wasn't actually a taser but a prototype something-or-another – Conner could see inside the structure but that didn't mean he knew what the structure was.

Lex leaned casually against the open door of the car (passenger side of the back seats, Conner noted absently), his blue eyes glittering with cool amusement. "Well. Clark Kent's son, I believe. Trying for a career in journalism so young?"

"Uh..." Conner carefully put out a finger and inched the gun at his throat a slight distance away. The dark woman whose gun it was watched him carefully all the time, permitting the gesture but letting Conner know she wasn't to be messed with.

"I actually wanted to thank you." Conner's gaze met Lex's firmly.

Lex's mouth twitched. "Thank me for what? Giving your father an opportunity for another front news headline?"

Oh God, Lois and Clark hadn't run another expose on LexCorp recently, had they? Conner frantically searched his memory but he honestly didn't pay any attention to the news. Or at least their news. And Lex was waiting for an answer. Six people around them at least, not counting those gathering in the lobby. Think, Kon, think. He couldn't say for his papers... "For the scholarship."

One pale eyebrow darted up swiftly then came down again. "I have nothing to do with LexCorp scholarships. If you won one, it was on your own and your doing, not mine."

Dad Two just wasn't going to make this easy on Conner, was he? Clark had been right not to come – it would be a thousand times worse with him there. "You could have blocked it. Because of my dad. Because of you and he. You could have said, "no, not that one," yet you didn't. You let it go through. Thank you."

Lex made a gesture and all the guns disappeared. "You're welcome," he said dismissively, beneath his notice. Lex turned to get inside the car.

"Lunch?" Conner blurted, frantic. Lex was leaving. He'd finally gotten to talk to his other Dad and now that dad would be gone and Kon couldn't just wait like Clark was, he just couldn't. "Please? Um, my treat? To thank you for the scholarship?"

There was a stunned surprised silence from everybody around them. The security guards, the body guards, the scientists that had walked out from the lab with Lex, from Lex himself. From Conner, too, actually. What had he been thinking?

"What is it with Kents and food?" Lex asked as he faced around again. "The scholarship is to pay for education, not bribery."

Conner flushed hot. "I didn't mean it like that! I just..." His shoulders slumped, defeated. He couldn't think up anything good enough, and perhaps there wasn't actually anything.

Blue eyes regarded him dispassionately. Physically, the eyes were match to Conner's own, yet they were so much more guarded.

"Dinner," Lex finally said.

Conner blinked. Then blinked again. "What?"

"7 pm. Hope will go with you." Lex nodded at the dark woman standing next to Conner, the gun-wielder. Then he got in the car, shutting the door. A tall pale woman with black hair got in the driver's side.

That would be Mercy, Lex's other main bodyguard. Clark had pointed both of them out to Conner before, he'd just never met either of them in person. As the car drove off, Conner looked at Hope, still standing there next to him. "Um... Hi, I'm Conner." He held out his hand.

With a laugh, Hope holstered her gun that she'd never completely put away despite the earlier stand-down. Then she shook his hand. "I'm Hope. Come on, we can walk there."

She turned and started away. Conner watched for a moment, mesmerized by the feminine hips swaying from side to side. Then he shook his head and caught up. "Walk where?"

"To the tailor's. You're not going to dinner with Lex in that," Hope nodded at Conner's jeans and t-shirt.

"Hey!" They weren't holey or worn to threads or even cheap like his dad's suits. These were good quality jeans!

Hope's mouth curved up. "The restaurant has a certain reputation to maintain... not that Lex cares about that, but you'll attract less attention if you blend it."

"You don't blend in." It came out of his mouth before he thought, he swore it did.

"Mercy and I aren't supposed to blend in. We're a distraction, and while people are looking at our breasts and our hips, that's when we shoot them."

Conner eeped a bit, having started to turn red at the mention of breasts and then abruptly reminded of who he was talking to. Then he blinked. "Hey, is that why Wonder Woman wears such a skimpy costume?"

Hope tilted her head. "One of the reasons. We learn from the best. What do you think of verbs?"

"Uh, necessary? Irregular? Spanish ones are easier? What?" Conner blinked.

"How about blood?"

Conner grimaced. "Ick. Um, B-positive?"

"Philodendron."

"Is that Latin?"

Hope rolled her eyes. "Cats."

"Cuddly and cute." Conner was, by this time, simply going along with the flow. He had no idea what they were doing, but he was sure there was a point to it somewhere.

"Acetate."

"Carbon, Hydrogen, Oxygen."

Hope blinked. Then turned her head while they walked to study him thoughtfully. "Top, bottom."

"Charm, strange."

"Microwave."

"Klystron."

Hope laughed. "Okay, Physics it is."

Well, yeah, but... "What is?"

"Your scholarship. We have to give it to you in something you're actually good at, and botany was rather obviously not it."

That must have been the 'philo-something' Hope had asked earlier. Conner stopped in his tracks, indignant. "I wasn't asking for anything!"

Hope walked back to him, her eyes scanning all around them. "It's been five minutes since we left StyCo. By this time, at least fifteen other people know that Lex Luthor was accosted by Clark Kent's son and that said son has a scholarship from LexCorp. In another ten minutes, Perry White is going to be asking your dad about it. We have to have one for you, retroactively, or the whole thing falls apart."

"Dad won't know anything about it," Conner said weakly. "He told me not to break into Lex's penthouse! There wasn't much other choice."

"And we do appreciate that," Hope said, her mouth quirking up. She motioned for him to keep walking with her again. "The details are just something that needs to be filled in. Your dad doesn't need to know – you applied for it without telling him."

Conner opened and closed his mouth, then asked cautiously, "Did you used to play with toy trains?" That was one of his other 'childhood memories' in the box.

"Mercy did. She wanted to be a conductor when she was young – always watched the trains going through SS without stopping, coming from a place that was good and going to one better, the mess in-between invisible to the trains."

SS would be the Suicide Slums, the corner of Metropolis that not even Superman could save. For every criminal he put away, another one sprang up. For every child rescued, another returned to their abusive family. He was making headway on it, from both the super-heroing and also from Clark's articles and pleas for reformation on the edges, but it was slow-going. Anybody who made it out of the SS was... well, obviously Mercy had.

"I donated the books. Andre Norton was a favorite."

He'd never read any. Some of his stolen memories had, but they didn't have details, just broad outlines. Space and anthropology, esper powers and time travel. Cats. Had Conner ever read a book in his life? His real life, not his implanted memories life, and a real book, not a text book? He didn't think so. Maybe he should try Hope's. "Thank you. It was... it was all great. I wouldn't have thought of most of it."

"You're welcome." Hope walked in silence next to him for a bit. "You know, Conner, Lex would have done it no matter what. It helps that you're smart and quick and can banter with him – makes it easier on all of us – but it's not just because of that. Today, if you hadn't come up with the scholarship, he would have thought of something else. He likes to play with us, but if we can't keep up – which we don't always – it's still all right."

Conner was confused for a moment. Then he realized what she meant. It was the experiments, the tests, the hoops he'd jumped through as a clone to prove himself and not to be tossed out like last week's garbage. In the lab, he'd always had to excel, to be the best, the smartest. A clone that didn't make the grade wasn't seen again. Hope was saying that Lex would have loved him even if he'd failed all the tests. Conner had to swallow and look away. An accident of cloning, just some genes spliced in, and somehow, miraculously, that made him a son.

"Hey, if it was a test, I would have already failed," Conner managed a weak grin. "I didn't think of anything except how to meet him."

"You could have made an appointment." Hope didn't look at him.

"Ummm..." Alright, he hadn't thought of that either. Mostly because then he would have had to come up with a reason for the appointment, and, well, obviously, he didn't think of reasons. Just barreling straight on ahead, ignoring everything in his path. Conner sighed. He had a bit more growing to do.

"But I have to admit, this is more fun."

Fun? Conner glanced at his walking companion.

She smiled, the expression brightening her face remarkably. "Coming up with things like this is so much more interesting than our usual. For the scholarship, there'll be your application, your proposal, the program for the winners, scouting out other winners and making sure they'd actually applied for something. And before, gathering up your data, laying the groundwork... Creation is more interesting than destruction."

Conner gulped a little at the list of what would have to happen to back up his impromptu thanks. "I don't mean to cause you trouble," he said weakly.

"You weren't listening; it's no trouble."

A thought struck him. "Who is we?"

Hope hadn't ever stopped looking at everything around them, but at that question, she pulled out a gadget that Conner recognized from Chloe's training. It was a highly sophisticated scanner, checking for electronic surveillance and also came with a silencer, an emp field and static generator. He wore a smaller version with the detector in the frame of his glasses. Looking at Hope with more attention than he'd given before, he could see her detectors woven into the sleeves of her suit and even one in her hair-band. She was right – the physical distraction of the breasts and hips had kept him from seeing the tech.

When she was satisfied that they weren't being observed from afar, at least not with electronics, she answered him in a voice that didn't carry further than his super-hearing and without moving her lips. "Me, Mercy, Charity, Justice, Concord, and Lex himself. You can talk to any of us; don't approach anybody else."

Conner blinked. "Okay, once is normal, twice is coincidence... what the heck is it with the rest of you?"

Hope laughed. For a bodyguard, she was a lot more friendly than Conner would have expected. He suspected, though, that if he wasn't Lex's son, she wouldn't be so nice. Or maybe it was another part of the distraction layer.

"It's a little bit of nature and nurture both. Mercy, Justice and Charity all came from SS, where irony is the by-word of the day. They had the names before Lex found them. The rest of us... It amuses us. I started it, when I was paired with Mercy. What really gets funny is when the want-to-bes start scrambling to try and find virtue names to try and make it to the inner circle, and some even make it to the outer rims. The men have the worst time figuring out new names; it's a little easier for the girls."

"Doesn't that put a target on you?"

Hope shrugged. "It takes the target off Lex, which is part of our role. Lex doesn't necessarily approve, but that's the way it is. Charity, however, is trying to switch her name to Sue in mainstream, and Concord is still Mayik. So it's not all visible to the outside world."

Conner carefully stuffed inside his skull the comparison with superhero and villain identity names. Hope might not be offended, but better not to go there. "Does Lex have another name?"

"Not until you renamed him. He's generally fairly resistant to that sort of thing. Says it goes with tights and costumes and he's not going there."

Maybe he didn't have to repress the other thought. It made him warm, though, to know that Lex had accepted Conner's impromptu naming. And had shared it? Obviously for making up the package of information, Lex had to involve these others, but... "So he has friends." Kon had wondered. Among the superheroes, Lex Luthor was known as a loner, working by himself mostly. Minions, yes, but not like some of the other villains who had their own other identities with lives and sometimes even families.

Hope glanced at him and half-shrugged. "As far as he will allow. He is careful, even among those of us he trusts. We were surprised when he told us about you."

"But you're loyal to him, everybody knows this... all the others, their minions will cave if we push, but you two... never have."

"And never will." Hope touched her hip where the gun was holstered, hidden behind her coat. "I'm answering you now, yet we are watching. There is hope here, but we will guard him as we can. Your little trip to Casablanca... we haven't seen Lex that out of control, ever. And if you hurt him, we will destroy you."

Conner gulped. He suddenly believed everything he'd ever heard about Lex's two bodyguards. It wasn't so much the words as the way Hope spoke. He believed her, totally.

Hope put the scanner away. "We're here." She nodded at a store they were approaching.

Oh. Right. Clothes. "I hate suits. Why can't I just treat him to pizza? He eats pizza, right?" He ate scrambled eggs with ketchup... Dad Two surely liked pizza.

"Do you know how hard it is to secure a pizza parlor? The higher-end restaurants make our job easier." Hope paused outside the window to check the inside before they entered.

"I can protect him," Conner bristled.

With her hand on the door handle, Hope stilled. Then she abandoned the store, grabbed Conner by the arm and hauled him off to a side. "Listen, pipsqueak. You might think you're hot shit now, but you know nothing! You're trailing identity hints all over the place – hell, just saying something like that in public period is stupid! You saw me turn off the scanner." Which was back on again, Conner noticed. "Not even Superman can stop every bullet."

Conner opened his mouth. Hope pulled her gun and flipped what looked like a safety on it. As the green kryptonite radiation washed over him, Conner shut his mouth and fought to stand upright.

"If you sit with him at a deli, concentrating on what you're talking about, would you even see a bullet coming? If it was fired from fifty feet away, with a high tech silencer, would you hear it? If they used a laser, how would you know? You wouldn't, not until his head exploded all over you."

Conner had seen exploding heads before. He shuddered at the thought of it happening to one of his dads. "It wouldn't."

"You couldn't stop it. Not if you didn't know it was coming, or unless you could reverse time. Nine-tenths of security is prevention. We stop it before it gets anywhere near him. Lex has enemies... you don't even know how many. And you want to take him away from us and put him into a place where anybody can come in and kill him. I say no."

"You didn't do such a good job two days ago!" Conner growled, "The world is unsafe! You still have to live in it."

"Sometimes, Lex agrees with you, and that's when he gets himself into trouble. He didn't let us know about that little jaunt ahead of time, but you can bet he's not going to be doing it again!" Hope flicked the switch on the gun again and the radiation faded. "Look, I'm not saying you can't meet with him, I'm saying there's more to it than you can see. You can't protect him, not like we can, and even if you could, we wouldn't let you because it would expose you. Don't get huffy about it, just accept it."

Conner blinked a few times, regaining his strength and thinking over what Hope had said. Curious, he x-rayed the gun, but no surprise, it had a lot of lead in the mix and he couldn't see the details. Regarding the information... Conner sighed. He'd over-reacted, and he knew it. It was stupid of him to make such a blatant remark and stupid to press it. "Sorry."

Hope watched him for a moment, evaluating his answer. Then she nodded and went back to the shop, leaving him to trail in her wake.

With a sigh, Conner followed. Great, he'd managed to piss off one of Dad Two's main minions. Not one of his better ideas.

The shop wasn't like any clothing store he'd been in before. Instead of racks and walls of clothes, it was more like a living room, with sitting areas, sketchbooks on the tables, and a few discreet mannequins. A tall man with features from India approached them, his gaze flickering over Conner then focusing on Hope.

"Ms. Watkins. How nice to see you. What is your pleasure today?"

Conner wondered if shop-keepers knew just how that sounded. He stifled a nervous giggle. He really hated suits.

Hope gestured at Conner. "Dinner guest for Mr. Luthor tonight at the Kramilor. No suits."

"Not his style," the man agreed. "He wears Nalain jeans, so he is not opposed to money, just to formality."

Conner glanced down at his jeans. There wasn't anything obvious on them that showed the brand, so that was really impressive. He looked back up at the tailor with respect.

"Cashmere sweater. Fine slacks. No tie. Comfortable and loose, so he can move, yet tailored to show that magnificent body. Or a fine silk shirt, if you prefer collars."

Hope shrugged. "Try him on both. We'll get both for tonight and see about others for later."

"Later?" Conner squawked. "I can't... Hope, I can't even afford this! Dad will have a cow if I get anything else."

"You're having dinner with Lex Luthor, and if you don't do anything to lose your scholarship, you will probably be having more meetings as well. You'll dress in a manner that will be appropriate. I'll talk to your dad." She paused. "Think of it more like a loan of the clothes than a gift. They'll be LexCorp property and you're just using them for the scholarship meetings."

"I can't wear them other places?"

Hope looked at him in exasperation. "I thought you didn't want the clothes..."

The tailor laughed, "He wants them, as long as they're not a suit. Come with me, young man, and we'll find you something for tonight that you will be happy wearing, and I will work on sketches for the future."

Conner glanced at Hope but went willingly enough. If suits were off the list... he was game. He just didn't want to know what Dad was going to say about it.

... ... ...

Clark looked from Hope to Conner to Hope again. "Scholarship," he said dryly. "Dinner."

Conner uneasily shifted from foot to foot. He held the package with his new clothes in his arms and wished he could hide them.

"Lex Luthor will not be happy if Conner does not show up."

Hope was much more stern facing Clark than she had been talking with Conner. Conner could really see her just as sternly facing down Superman without regard to any hero-status, secure in herself and her boss.

"He'll be there," Clark said grimly. "Thank you for escorting him home." He shut the door on Hope and then turned to face Conner.

Conner opened his mouth, but Clark held up his hand. They both waited until they heard Hope walk away and watched with x-ray as she left the building.

"I take it you found Lex." Clark raised his eyebrows.

"Um, yeah. It sort of snowballed."

"It usually does. What's in the package?"

Conner shifted it between his hands. "Uh, clothes?"

"For dinner." Clark nodded, then walked into the family room. "What time do we have to get you there?"

"7 pm... you're not mad?" Conner followed him and put the clothes on the table.

Clark quirked a grin, "I used to accept clothes too. Or borrow them, rather. Told Mom, not Dad. Didn't do it often, but it just didn't make any sense to go to Lex's gatherings in the same one suit I owned over and over again."

Dad looked a little wistful. Kon tilted his head to one side as he watched Clark's expression and the retreat into memory. Gatherings, plural. They'd been going out on dates. Maybe not stated as such, but they obviously had been. And Dad wanted to go on this one but was excluded.

"It'll be okay, Dad."

"Yeah." He forced a grin. "So tell me about it."

As Conner related the tale, Clark alternatively was amused and dismayed. He was particularly interested in how Lex looked and wanted all of Lex's words exactly, which Conner couldn't quite manage but was close enough. The discussion with Hope got a fascinated stare.

Clark turned to the desktop computer and clicked it out of sleep. Then he went through a double set of passwords and brought up a folder of files Conner hadn't seen before. Clark opened one and a diagram of the gun Hope had used came up. "Dual bullets. The gun has two kryptonite bullets inside, separate from the standard cartridge of regular bullets. The switch flips the bullets in the loaded barrel, and then back again." Sorting through the diagrams, Clark showed how the mechanism worked.

Conner leaned in, fascinated. "All of LexCorp security has these?"

"Just Mercy and Hope. Lex doesn't let kryptonite out to those he doesn't trust except when his scientists get infected and go insane, which happens more often than not." Clark shook his head in disapproval. "Some of the walls in LexCorp have layers of kryptonite inside, however he keeps them lead-shielded most of the time. Just activates them if he's annoyed at me." Clark's face stilled as he added, "Or is protecting himself from me. All his panic-rooms have the layers."

"He doesn't need protection from you!"

"How does he know that? How do I? If I get exposed to red kryptonite, or magic, I don't always know what I'll do. Lex is careful, and he reminds me I'm dangerous."

His two dads really had a screwed up relationship. Conner decided not to touch that one. "Do you have everything in there about their defenses?"

Clark shrugged, "It's always changing. Everything we know at the moment. If you're going to be going in and out of Lex's areas, you'll need to know them, too. He wouldn't deliberately use them on you, but if you accidently got into range of the kryptonite, it would be a problem."

Conner didn't want to develop a persona like Clark's where he was clumsy and a little fragile despite his physical strength. It worked to cover up Clark's disappearances and his weakness when exposed to random kryptonite... but Conner really didn't want to be like that. He didn't think he could and have it be convincing. Clark's persona had been reinforced by years of people in his youth wearing kryptonite necklaces, playing with kryptonite dust mixtures, bringing pretty rocks in for show and tell... Dad said he hadn't even known for years just what caused his dizzy spells. Conner, though, had only ever been faced with kryptonite as Superboy. Today was his first experience as Conner Kent. He would, however, have to think something up for the future.

"Any advice for dinner?"

"Try not to cross identities." Clark shrugged. "It's going to be natural to want to talk to somebody who knows, but it's public. For all the restaurant's security, it's still public. You'll have to play with Lex on his level, twisting the words around." Clark's mouth twisted wryly. "Have fun."

"Thanks, Dad," Kon said dryly.

"Do you really like physics?" Clark switched subjects.

Conner nodded. He hadn't thought about it until Hope had worked it out, yet it really was something not just that he knew but that he liked doing. He wondered what sort of fields he could do as both superhero and physicist. Maybe after he graduated he could get a job at LexCorp. Dad Two would let him take off for hero'ing things. Wouldn't he? Maybe.

Dad was trying hard not to ask. Conner thought he'd give him a break and offered instead. "It's not the memories. Or not any specific one. I have a mixture of them, but they tend to be the biology-type ones, playing with slugs as kids..." Conner recoiled from a memory, a couple of them actually... "Setting them on fire with magnifying glasses? Salt? Why would anybody do that to a slug?"

Clark coughed. "One kid tells another, then they do it... morality doesn't come into it until later. Daring each other to lick a slug..."

In some ways, Conner was glad he didn't have a normal childhood if those sorts of things were in it. Shuddering, he switched back to the original subject. "It's the data-dumps, I think. We got stuffed with all sorts of earth knowledge – languages, physics, chemistry... apparently not botany. Or that just didn't take on me. Not all of it did. Stu liked math. He would recite equations to distract himself."

"Stu?"

"My..." It was hard, sometimes, putting clone-relationships into normal terms. "My older brother. He was the next clone up from me, a few weeks older. Mik was my younger. We could see each other in the tubes, and when we'd go out for more tests. We couldn't talk to each other much, but sometimes..."

Clark's eyes went dark with pain. He turned to the computer again, pulling up a file labeled 'family'. Inside was a spreadsheet of DNA sequences, numbers, codes... Kon recognized it as some of what had been in the lab. This must have been what was recoverable. DNA... Conner gulped. He tried not to think much of what had happened to all his brothers, but it was inevitable. It was there in both their thoughts, always.

Kon pointed at the line for ST-13. "Stu." There was no code for Mik on the spreadsheet. "Mik was MK-44. I was KN-5." Nudging Clark away from the keyboard, Conner filled in the rest of the sheet, putting in their names in a new column next to the codes, and adding in those clones he'd known about but weren't listed there. Their names were from a scientist who didn't like the alphabet labels. The naming, though, wasn't done out of kindness. It was more like a farmer who named the chickens in the pen and called for them by that name when one was needed for the stew pot. And done with as little thought.

So many dead. How lucky had Conner been, to be the one picked? To survive. To find a family where the creators had never anticipated one. Superman, fighting him without fighting... being wounded as Kon attacked him yet never hurting Kon. Well, not hurting much. Not like Conner had been hurting Clark. "I don't ever want to hurt you again."

Conner's nightmares were full of it. Attacking Superman, not able to do a thing about it. Not wanting to, wanting to. His body, not his mind. All the clones had had regular training with the control, and in fighting each other. Kon had killed Lan, back when they'd been only a week old. A week before he'd left to fight Superman, Kon had killed Will. He'd come so close to killing his dad...

There were warm arms around him and reassurances of love and want and need in his hearing. His dad wanted him. Despite all that Kon had done, despite being a freak of scientific madness. Superman wanted his son. Superman would fight for his son. Clark would love him. And Lex... Lex somehow wanted him too. How had Kon gone from so little of that in his life to so much? He held his dad tightly and knew he'd never let go.

... ... ...

Conner hovered nervously outside the restaurant, afraid to go in. He wished Dad was here. But Dad had dropped him off and firmly told him he was on his own. It was a gesture of trust, yes, but one that Conner didn't quite want.

"Well, you look spiffy."

As Hope melted out of the shadows, Conner jumped two feet. Quickly, he came back to the ground, hopefully before anybody noticed he'd been in the air just a little too long for gravity. Hope's raised eyebrow told him that she, at least, had noticed.

"Come on, Lex is waiting."

Lex hadn't been there earlier, Conner had x-rayed the restaurant. Back door? "Do you really think I look okay?"

"I said so, didn't I?" Hope quirked a grin. "You're fine. Let's go."

Conner really wished they'd gone for pizza. He could have handled pizza. With a sigh, he followed Hope.

Inside, Lex was at table back in a corner behind a corner. Not quite a separate room, yet fairly private. The pale lady was standing next to him as they talked softly about something.

Lex looked up. "Conner Kent," he identified him. "The scholarship recipient."

Conner hadn't needed the reminder. Well, okay, maybe he did. Lex's speaking had forestalled Conner's more exuberant greeting.

The pale blue eyes slid past him to Hope. Hope shrugged. "He was alone."

A flicker of... relief, regret, went across Lex's face. Conner couldn't figure out which emotion was predominant, and was surprised he was seeing it at all. He guessed Dad knew what he was doing. Lex just wasn't ready to see Clark yet.

Pulling out a chair, Conner sat down, managing to avoid catching the tablecloth or causing any disasters. With a sickened fascination, he eyed the set of silverware in front of him. There were at least five more than he was used to using, and why so many types of forks?

"You can ignore the ones you're not familiar with," Lex said dryly. "The food doesn't care."

Oh, good. Conner gave Lex a relieved grin. "Can I use my fingers?"

"On the finger-food, yes. On the steaks, no."

It was Lex. Despite the fancy surroundings and the whole 'I don't know you' attitude, it was still his Dad Two. Conner relaxed. "Thanks again. I really do appreciate it, and it's just all so cool. So much more stuff there than we were expecting."

Hope cleared her throat and handed Lex a folder, then handed Conner an identical one. Then she nodded to Conner and left. Mercy followed, though Conner saw her settle into a watchful stance just outside their double-corner. Hope was probably going to patrol. Curious, Conner flipped to x-ray until he found her prowling through the kitchen.

A glare that Conner could feel returned him to the table where Lex was frowning at him. Um, yeah, oops. That use of x-ray was probably fairly obvious. Not to mention rude. "Sorry," Conner muttered, flipping open his folder.

Oh. It was his scholarship! Along with 'his' research paper that got him the award. Conner skimmed the details quickly, noting as he did so that Lex was doing the same. There were also notes that the 'selection committee' had made on Conner's paper. Conner was amused to note that he was "brilliant but undisciplined" and "needs training, good potential." He was sure those comments were straight from Hope. He basked in the "brilliant" and chose to ignore the "undisciplined."

Lex snorted. "Undisciplined. That does describe this morning accurately."

"But brilliant!"

"I did read that part," Lex said dryly. "I employ hundreds of brilliant people, it does not make you unique. There are many more I do not employ for that same lack of discipline."

From what Conner knew of Lex's non-legitimate projects, he was pretty sure that Lex employed those folks too. Just not through LexCorp.

Lex caught the look and his mouth twitched in amusement – neither a denial nor an affirmation, as he would say.

"Explain your ideas around the light source."

It was, perhaps, a bit unfair, considering Conner hadn't actually written the report himself. Yet he'd absorbed what was there, and he was actually looking forward to playing this out. Hope had given him enough warning to know that this was fun for Lex too.

"It's based on the previous generation of synchrotron radiation, and—" Conner was off and running.

Lex interjected appropriate questions, drawing out the ideas and probing into Conner's knowledge. Somewhere in the middle of their discussion, dinner arrived that Conner didn't actually remember ordering. It was good, though. Nice large steak medium-rare without a lot of sauce covering up the meat taste. Fancier potatoes than he was used to, but still good. Pepsi on the drink, and Conner eyed Lex at this knowledge of his likes – Dad preferred Coke.

When they switched to dessert, Conner switched topics. This was all well and fun, but there was another agenda he wanted to get to. "So... you knew my dad in Smallville."

Lex paused mid-bite, then smoothly finished, chewing slowly and swallowing. "I did."

"Maybe you can explain something for me..."

"Your father and I ran in very different circles in Smallville and we haven't associated in many years. I may not know what you want to know."

That was bull, but it was public bull so that was okay. Conner shrugged; let Dad Two have the wiggle room, it didn't really matter. "The things I'm curious about are back from when my mom was there too."

Lex picked up his wine glass. "Remind me... who was your mother?"

"Her name back then was Jessie Brooks. She was a transfer student in Dad's sophomore class."

"Ah yes. Jessie... I remember when your dad was involved with her, but I never met her."

Which was pretty much what Lex had said before, but that was okay too since the question wasn't about her. "When my dad saw my birth certificate, he kind of freaked and I was wondering... do you know who Ryan was? I'm named after him, middle name, but Mom never said."

Lex went still, a shadow crossing his face. "He was upset?"

Conner rubbed his nose. That wasn't what he meant to say but it was interesting that Lex was interested. "Well, when Dad saw it, he kind of went a little quiet and a bit still and he got all nostalgic looking. He smiled, but he never said why."

Lex relaxed and reached for his water instead of the wine. "You didn't ask him?"

"It wasn't a good time," Conner said vaguely.

"Ah." Lex took his sip and put the glass down. "I don't know about your mom – she might have had a cousin, or just liked the name."

Conner glared at his second dad.

Lex made a very slight movement of his shoulders, almost too subtle to be called a shrug. "Ryan is not an uncommon name. However, it's possible it could have been for Clark's friend. Jessie was in town about a month or so after it happened, and I'm sure she heard all about it at school, if not directly from Clark. I often wondered if that was why, in fact, Clark behaved so unusually with Jessie. Grief does affect people in strange ways."

"Grief?" Okay, that explained a lot right there. Conner still wanted the full tale.

"A year or so before this, Clark rescued a boy from an abusive couple who were forcing him to steal for them. His name was Ryan and he was a couple of years younger than Clark. They..." Lex paused for a moment and looked away. "They really hit it off. Like long-lost brothers or something. For awhile there, they were almost inseparable, and you could tell for them, it was family. The Kents brought Ryan in and made him welcome."

There was an undercurrent there. "You didn't like him?"

Lex laughed sourly. "I liked him just fine. He was another Warrior Angel fan, and when he was there, Clark smiled."

Conner raised an eyebrow.

"He didn't like me," Lex admitted. "Of course, that was pretty typical. I was a Luthor, after all. Everybody except for my one friend, and I was never quite sure why he liked me. Luthors are not meant to be liked, only worshiped."

Conner's eyebrows were doing a dance up and down, trying to absorb this. The friend, of course, had to be Dad. Dad liked Ryan. Ryan didn't like Lex... Jealous? But twelve... probably not. Well, not that type. Anyhow, Kon just had to address Dad Two's last statement. "Bull."

"Excuse me?" Lex's face did a dance of expressions itself.

"I said bull. There's nothing in a name, it's all in the person, and you're not "a Luthor" – you're Lex Luthor, and I'm sure there's lots of good reasons to like you. So maybe not everybody looks past the money. Doesn't mean they're not there. Even so, ¬friendship doesn't need a reason, it just is."

From the water back to the wine. Lex drank slowly, watching Conner with shuttered eyes. When he finished, he put the glass down. "You are very like your father. Except, of course," he added dryly, "in that you're not trying to tear me apart on paper."

Conner frowned. He wasn't too happy about the put-downs, either to his dad or to his other dad. When Clark had left Lex... was there anybody for him? "Finish the tale," he said shortly.

Lex's mouth twitched. "And bossy. Definitely your father's son."

It was on the tip of his tongue to respond with "and my other father's as well" but Conner stuffed it down before it came out. Restaurant. "I have two parents," he said instead.

Lex tilted the glass at him in salute. "Ryan stayed with the Kents for about a month until his aunt was located and she could take him home. He and Clark traded periodic letters, but they were both boys and teenagers and it wasn't all that regular. A year later..." Lex's mouth tightened. "A year later, he came back. He was having medical problems and his aunt had thought she'd gotten him into a good hospital, but they weren't. He came to Clark, in need of a friend. Clark tried to help, get him better doctors, do something, anything, but in the end, he could only be a friend. Ryan died of a brain tumor."

Conner couldn't find anything to say except, "That sucks."

"Indeed." Lex wiped his mouth with his napkin. "Excuse me for a moment, I'll be right back."

As Lex walked away, Conner finished up his neglected dessert, thinking heavily. Fictitious mom aside, it was Lex who had named him, and he'd named him after Clark's deceased brother. It wasn't that Lex only wanted Conner and didn't want Clark. He wanted Clark too, he just... Okay, Clark was right. It wasn't any sort of conditioning; Lex was simply afraid of wanting Clark. In the tale of Clark and Ryan, there were also the wistful wants of somebody who had only had the main one friend. And that friend had rejected him. Conner sighed. It was going to be more work than he'd thought, to get them back together again. At least Dad Two was seeing Kon, that was a good start.

The dessert was gone and Lex still hadn't come back. Conner rolled his eyes. Okay, he'd seen Lex, past tense. Shoving his chair back, Conner went in search of a restroom.

Fancy restaurants, fancy bathrooms. Conner washed his hands, marveling at what people did with money. He didn't actually disapprove; it did make things nicer. Better than a gas station room.

"So you're Clark Kent's son..."

A dark thoughtful voice had Conner turning away from the sink. He was confronted with an old man with wrinkles in his face and hands, yet his deep-set eyes were clear and penetrating. A quick x-ray showed no weapons.

Conner moved to the paper towels. "I am." There was no reason to deny what was true.

"Dining with a Luthor. Your grandfather would be turning in his grave."

That took Conner a bit aback. True, yes, but this guy just didn't feel like someone who would have known Jonathan Kent. Kon didn't answer, throwing away the wet paper instead.

"I hear you've won a scholarship. Your mother, Molly, would have been proud."

Conner stiffened. "That's not my mother." Yet the name sounded familiar. "Who are you?"

"Nobody important." The man grinned sharply, showing straight white teeth not yellowed by age. "I suspect you will be, though. Get used to reporters, my boy."

The old man left, silently departing while Conner was still deciding if that was a threat or not. Reporters, and his scholarship. Guess Hope had been right about how quickly the word had gotten around. Though weren't most reporters... younger? Well, not all. Look at Perry White.

With a shrug, Conner went back into the restaurant and found the table. Lex was sitting at it, with a data phone out, quietly talking with Mercy while working on something.

"Guess even in the best of places, you can't keep the creepy reporters out of the restrooms," Conner announced cheerfully as he sat down.

All conversation cut out on the instant, then Lex was standing as Mercy raised her hand up. "Perimeter alert, go tidal." With her other hand, she took out a gun.

"What did he look like?" Lex had shifted to where he could see all the entrances, pulling Conner with him.

Conner blinked. "Uh, old. Tanned Caucasian, grey hair short cut, wrinkles, blue eyes, white teeth, dark grey three-piece suit, white inner shirt, black oxfords. He asked if I was Clark Kent's son. Well, actually, he said so."

Lex held up a hand when Conner would have kept going. "That's no reporter," he said grimly. "Mercy, we're going, now."

"Yes sir." Mercy again activated her radio. "Tsunami, we're pulling out. Car at 7." She covered them as they made a quick exit out of a side door Conner hadn't seen originally.

Hope was at the wheel of a nondescript silver Honda. Lex and Conner got in the backseat and Hope drove off.

"What about Mercy?" Conner turned to look out the tinted windows.

"She'll continue to search for him, though he's probably long gone," Lex said grimly.

"Who was it?" Conner faced back.

Lex was silent for a moment, his face lined with worry. "An old enemy of mine. What did he say to you? In detail."

Conner related the incident. As he spoke the name the guy had used for his mother, he realized. "Oh! It was my mom. Or rather it was the other mom, from the other ID." That put a whole different spin on everything. He gulped, realizing the implication.

Unsurprised, Lex nodded. "The Justice League is not as secure as they like to think they are. But then, nobody is." The last was said grimly, almost resigned. "That was a slip on his part. He didn't know about the second identity and was just poking at you. Instead he's revealed his own connections." Lex grimaced, "And he'll now know about mine."

"But all your stuff was so detailed... more real."

"Exactly. Who else could it be? If not the League, it was me. Which now he'll know that we had a connection before this day, and will use that." Lex's face drew down in even more worry lines, tracing out a thousand moves on a three-dimensional chess board.

All of Hope's warnings about keeping Lex safe were suddenly much more real than they had been on a sunny day on the streets of Metropolis. Conner touched Lex's arm. "Are you okay?"

Lex blinked, confusion spreading across his face chased by incredulousness and then wonder. He curved a corner of his mouth up. "I'm fine, Conner. Don't worry about me." The curve went back down. "We might, however, have to cancel the plans for your scholarship."

"Fuck, no!" Conner turned in his seat, facing Lex fully. "DT, if this is going to be one of those pathetic attempts people make to "protect" other people, there's no way in the darkest deepest hell I'm going to let you do that! You're my dad, and pushing me away isn't going to protect me. Cutting me off from you isn't going to protect me. If you try and do that, I will show up at the penthouse. And everywhere else you go. Stalker won't even begin to cover it, if you cut me out of your life."

"If you do that, I will make your and your dad's life a living hell," Lex hissed. "If he thought the last three weeks were bad, I will make them even worse. Aquaman will see Atlantis destroyed, Batman's enemies will all be released from Arkham, Green Lantern will find himself in yellow quicksand."

Conner stared for a moment, then burst out laughing.

Lex glared at him until Conner ran down.

"Oh God," Conner hiccupped, holding his sides. "Is that what you do to Dad? Seriously? Oh, that's good. Oh, he'd totally fall for that. Oh, geez. Yellow quicksand..."

"I can do it," Lex said, anger lacing through his voice.

"Uh huh, yeah, I know you can. But why would you?"

"If you—"

Conner cut him off. "Yeah, yeah, yeah – I did hear you the first time, but if you're trying to protect me, isn't that kind of missing the point?"

There was snickering from the front. "He's got you there, Lex."

"Oh, shut up," Lex snapped. He leaned back in the seat, silently sulking.

"Did you just rename him again?" Hope asked.

Conner looked at the rear-view mirror and met her glance. They grinned at each other. "Nah," Conner said. "I figured DT would be quicker to say than Dad Two all the time."

"And it can be used publically. But what does it stand for in public?"

"Double Trillionaire? Deal Train? Dastardly Trince?" Conner laughed.

"That wasn't a word," Lex muttered. "Look, Conner, I'm serious – this could be bad. Being the son of Superman is dangerous, but your identity as Clark Kent's son is supposed to be safe. By connecting your Kent identity with me, you're bringing yourself into danger from my enemies. You should not have to suffer for my sins."

Conner frowned, watching his other dad. Lex really was serious. Already knowing he wasn't going to take the buy-out, Conner still thought about it, about what it meant for Lex to offer, about the other forces in play on the table. "What did you do with the puppies?" Conner asked.

"What?"

"The illegal cloning labs that you've been shutting down, destroying. Wonder Woman said you'd rescued all the puppies and kittens."

Lex's eyes narrowed. "Wonder Woman..."

Hope cut in from up front, "You know her... the very kind lady who rescued you from the angry Goddesses? Lex, you are not going to even think about doing anything to Diana, or Mercy will be very very angry. And so will I."

Lex tightened his lips and didn't say anything.

"He gave them to various no-kill animal shelters, mostly," Hope answered Conner's question. "Or had Justice do it, rather. The more... uh, special ones are in our labs, but I promise they've got homes as well."

"I'm not leaving," Conner said quietly. "No matter how much you try and push me away, Dad Two, I'll just keep coming back. Let me have the scholarship and the public meetings, and I'll go by your rules for it. Cut me out of it, and I'll make my own."

Lex sighed, closing his eyes. Pain showed on his face, and that was an indication in itself of how torn he was. "All right," he replied just as quietly. "You can look for the details in the mail. If you need anything..."

"I'll call," Conner said, his heart lightening. The seatbelt tugged and he realized it wasn't just metaphorical. He forced himself back down to the seat, reapplying gravity.

With a snort, Lex pulled out a business card and wrote a number on the back. "This one will actually get through. There's no way a general number call would make it to me."

Conner took the card and memorized the number. He would put the card in with his other precious memories, perhaps with Gus. Speaking of which, "I'll take good care of Augustus," he promised.

Lex didn't answer, turning his head away. "We're here. Be careful, Conner."

They were at his apartment building. Conner reached over and gave an unresponsive Lex a hug. "You too, DT. See you later."

He waved at Hope as he got out, then headed inside. He watched through the stairwell as the car drove away. Then he went home.

... ... ...

"Do you know who it was?" Conner asked as he watched Clark pace around the room.

"No." Clark tapped the sketchbook where Conner had drawn the old man as best he could. "I don't recognize him. One of Lex's enemies... but I don't like that reference to my dad, or his interest in you."

"You're not stopping the scholarship program!" Conner growled. He could argue this one just as well with his other dad too.

"No..." Clark said again, but slower. "It wouldn't... at this point, it wouldn't be productive. And I suspect it might be playing into his hands."

"What?" Lex hadn't said anything like that.

"He's Lex's enemy, and he's needling Lex. Appearing in the restaurant, slipping through Lex's security – and believe me, it's hard to slip through Lex's security even with superpowers. Talking to you. Letting you, a new contact, bring the word back to Lex. If you were anybody else, Lex would then be wondering if you were in cahoots with this fellow. From what Lex has been through in his life... all of those close to him betray him, even, or especially, the ones he loves."

Clark started pacing again. "This was done to provoke Lex, to unsettle him, which it did. It also could very well have driven Lex away from you. Lex has Hope and Mercy, but that is a very small number of people he can count on and Hope told you that he keeps himself from being actual friends with them. If we, either Lex or I, keep you from the scholarship... that removes Lex from us. We can't let that happen."

Conner was glad somebody else agreed with him. "What about the Justice League?"

"We don't tell them."

That shocked Conner to his core. "But... security breach!"

"About something that hurt Lex," Clark said softly. "Superheroes are only human, and this... I don't want them to know that you have another identity, a better identity, nor that it was supplied by Lex. Most of them don't like Lex and they won't understand. I don't want to expose Lex to them, not like this."

Which, okay, Conner could understand. But still... "Security breach."

"I'll tell Batman. And I'll tell him why I don't want to tell the others. He'll check into it, discreetly."

"Batman?" Conner hadn't gotten very good vibes from him at the meeting. Well, ever, really. If it wasn't for Tim and Nightwing, he'd have told Clark he wasn't taking any more lessons from him either.

"He's the one person I can be absolutely sure that did not do it. He would never do anything to hurt you, for you are one of the children, and his life is dedicated to helping them."

Conner blinked a few times. "Batman?" he repeated in disbelief. "He sends his children out to fight and die!"

Clark closed his eyes. "Conner..."

"Well, seriously! Why kids?"

"Because they're the only ones he can't say 'no' to. And you're a kid too, by that standard! Tim is older than you are."

"I've been through more, even if I'm not real," Conner said tightly. "He should say no."

Clark eyed Conner thoughtfully. "Is that really what you think? That his assistants have no knowledge of evil like you do? Take a look around Gotham the next time we're there. The whole city is a giant Suicide Slums, and you know how little we've been able to do there. Take a look at the children who come out of SS and tell them to their faces that they don't know evil.

"Batman fights the crime in Gotham because when he was young, he could do nothing about it. Now he can. But he also hears all the voices of those who cry out because they can't... and he remembers what it was like when he was young and could not. Who is he, to deny them their chance to help? It is their choice, and believe me, they do know the risks. Batman tried to say "no" once. Ask Nightwing how well that worked."

Conner grimaced. He still didn't like it. Yes, Tim wanted to be doing all that, but Conner had seen what had happened to one of the other Robins. He didn't want that to happen to Tim. And yeah, okay, he was doing the exact same thing Lex had tried to do to him, that Clark hadn't done, and he really shouldn't be throwing stones considering his own situation. "Okay, fine. But what are we going to do about Lex's enemy?"

After a moment of more watching, Clark flipped one of his hands up. "I'll see what I can find out, but I suspect it won't be much. I don't recognize the sketch, and Lex has a lot of enemies with resources. That's probably not even close to what he really looks like. Lex will be working on it from his end – you know Mercy and Hope won't let go of it.

"In the meantime..." Clark picked up the folder with the scholarship information. "We wait for the next move."

More waiting. Conner flopped down on the couch with a sigh. He hated waiting.

... ... ...

The event was a lot more social than Conner would have expected out of a bunch of nerds. But then, parents of the scholarship recipients were there too. After the tour, they'd been separated out to a reception area in the back away from the experimental halls while the kids got more talks that were specifically addressed to them.

During the initial tour where they'd all been together, Clark had been right up next to Conner, peering with evident fascination at the klystrons and the alignment lasers, asking questions about construction in the earthen berm and then diving into investigating the cooling system. Always making notes on his reporter's pad.

Sometimes, Conner thought it was a little scary how good an actor his dad could be. Superman was a regular advisor at the STARlab Accelerator. Yet Clark Kent had never been near one, and it was Clark with Conner, so Clark asked questions.

Conner glanced at his dad mingling with the other parents, a perfectly normal reporter, slightly nerdy, fitting in with the other proud but puzzled parents of their smart kids.

Then Conner returned his attention to Charity as she told the group of teenagers just what LexCorp provided for them in the working scholarship program. It was all in the material, of course, but she made it engaging and interesting while she talked about it in person.

In their group, there were some seriously bright kids here. Conner had already been drawn into several fascinating conversations; he wasn't bored like he usually was around normal schoolmates. Being with quick minds that were interested in the same sort of things he was... it was like being among the superheroes, or getting trained by Nightwing with Tim beside him. For once, Conner thought that being a normal person might actually be good too. He'd always seen it before as the necessity between the superheroing, not in and of itself a way of life.

There was, though, something about the other teenagers that had him holding back a little. It took him awhile to pin it down and even then he still couldn't figure out a word for it. Dad would have known one. But almost all the other teenagers had an... well, it wasn't quite 'innocence'. It was just that they hadn't known pain yet. Loved by their parents, safe in their homes, raised in a world that protected them.

Conner finally figured out what it was when he met the other two that were like him. The three of them had shadows in their eyes and in their pasts, and they recognized without a word exchanged the same shadows in each other. One of them was Justice's daughter, which was really scary since Lex's Chief Scientist was younger than Clark. On meeting them, Conner also realized how right that Clark had been, about the children of Gotham. They were not sheltered, and Batman was right to let them in. As much as Kon wanted in, so also would they.

After Charity's talk, several scientists came up to describe projects they were working on. Conner was paying rapt attention until he heard Lex's voice.

Lex had initially greeted the group, congratulating the awardees in a group. However he'd then melted away during the tour, disappearing like he'd never been there. Now he was back, talking with the group of parents.

Conner turned to look, hoping... but no, Lex wasn't with Clark. He was on the opposite side, in fact, talking with other parents easily, nowhere near Clark. Conner sighed a little. He'd really hoped... He looked at Clark.

Clark was watching Lex, a wistful expression upon his face. After a moment, he turned his gaze to Conner, meeting his eyes with a rueful smile. At almost the same moment, Lex also turned to Conner.

Blinking, Conner looked between his dads, trying to will them together by sheer force of his wish. Then he gave up and turned back to the scientist. However, he kept his hearing open to Lex, not paying attention so much to the conversations, but following him around by the sound of his voice.

Lex drifted from parent to parent, talking a bit with each one, making his way through the group. Finally, he got to Clark, the last one left. Conner sharpened his hearing, ignoring now the scientist in favor of his dads.

"Conner is a very smart young man. You must be proud of him," Lex finally said after they'd stared at each other in silence long enough for Conner to have glanced around again.

"He is, and I am," Clark replied, his voice warm. He smiled in Conner's direction and Conner remembered to turn back to the scientist. This dual-attention thing was hard to do.

Clark laughed a little, still talking to Lex. "Though I don't know what right I have to be proud. Conner did it all himself. I wasn't even in his life until recently."

"What does that have to do with it?" Lex sounded genuinely baffled.

Conner was curious too. He gave up on trying to listen with his back to them and edged around until he was at the corner of the group and could watch his dads while nominally appearing to be listening to the scientists.

Clark was silent for a moment. "To be proud means taking a share of the credit, that something you have done has accomplished this."

Lex snorted. "As your son would say, bull."

Involuntarily, Clark laughed at the phrase. "Why?"

"I'll admit that there is a certain amount of proprietorship in pride, but this has nothing to do with investments. Citizens are proud of their country, fans of their sports teams, parents of their children, friends of each other. With the object being approved of, the first person feels a type of ownership, true, however it doesn't always exist in equal amounts on the other end. Countries can reject illegal citizens, teams ignore fans, a child despise a parent, a friendship be broken. That doesn't mean pride does not still exist, nor does it negate the accomplishments or lessen them."

Conner had to admit that one. In the cloning lab, the scientists had been very proud of him, and he'd hated that, wishing they weren't. Yet Conner loved Clark's pride and basked in his approval. The pride existed on both sides... and Conner would much rather have Clark's, though Clark had had less to do with his shaping.

Clark's thoughts had been going a different direction, apparently. "You sent me a gift for my graduation." His voice was so low, Conner wasn't sure if Lex could hear it, not having super-hearing like them.

"I expected you to send it back," Lex admitted, obviously having more abilities than Conner knew. Or he read lips.

"Well, you didn't exactly put your name on it..." Clark's mouth curved up in memory.

Lex shrugged. "Still, you knew it was from me."

"Yeah." Clark almost, but didn't quite, reach out to Lex. "Thank you."

Lex didn't answer, yet he also didn't move away. His gaze followed Clark's hand as it dropped back to his side.

Clark's smile grew a notch. "Oh, also, thank you for the kittens – Conner loves them."

Lex blinked a few times. "What kittens?"

"The little calico and ..." Clark trailed off and tilted his head to one side as he studied Lex. "That looks like real surprise."

"It is real surprise," Lex growled. "But I think I know where this blame lies." He turned is glare to an upper platform in the room where Mercy overlooked the group, her watchful gaze not letting a single teenager or parent off the hook.

"I think they're cute, too," Clark purred a bit, bringing Lex's attention back to him on the instant. "Sitting up batting at each other one moment, grooming the next, then all curled up in a pile asleep on each other and us. It's adorable."

Lex was still for a very long moment, his blue eyes yearning but his body not moving. Then he shook himself and switched topics. "I hear you're in op/ed now."

Clark shrugged. "Conflict of interest, with Conner's scholarship and all."

"I... didn't intend that."

"Conner was the one who applied for it." Clark smiled. "And I think I'm happier. It's hard, to always be suspicious of everything and questioning the whys of the world. It might have suited me at one point... but I like having opinions again, real ones, and getting to explore other ideas."

"Really."

"Yeah."

Conner had to turn his full attention to his dads as they gazed into each others' eyes for the longest time. He refrained from yelling, "Kiss him! Kiss him!" though he was tempted to.

Finally Lex cleared his throat. "I need to... I need to go mingle some more. Talk to the others."

"Yeah," Clark said again.

Neither of them moved.

Conner jumped when the group all around him broke up and started streaming everywhere. Some headed for the parents, some for the machines, some for the scientists. Obviously, the last talk had finished. When he could refocus, his dads had moved apart. Lex was, as promised, talking to others. Clark was watching him silently, partially removed from the group. Yet there was a smile on his lips.

Conner threaded through the crowd and hugged his dad tightly. Holding him like he knew they both wanted to hold Lex too. "This is all so neat," he enthused. "Thanks, Dad."

Clark put his arm around Conner's shoulders. "It's all your doing, Kon. I'm really proud of you."

"You encouraged me, helped me, loved me, and didn't say, "no"," Conner answered. "You took the first step and showed me the next, and now we're all walking together."

On cue, as if he could hear, Lex turned toward them. Conner waved at him. Lex grinned and then went back to his conversation.

"Together," Clark repeated softly.

They stood together for a moment, watching their third. Then Conner dragged Clark off to see the Range Chopper Spectrometer. Lex was here, and they would have plenty more opportunities to be together now.