Movie Night
Clark and Querl were married for just under two years before Clark managed to bring up the fact that he wanted kids. At Querl's stare Clark admitted that he knew they couldn't have biological children, since they were both men, but before Clark could bring up adoption Querl had scoffed and rolled his eyes.
Really Clark should have known better then to doubt Querl's 12th level intelligence. Completely organic or not, Querl was still a genius and a scientific mastermind, which was just being repetitive but sometimes things just needed to be repeated. It took less then a week for Querl to build what looked like a giant test tube that Querl called something Clark couldn't pronounce before simplifying it to it being an artificial womb that would combine their DNA to form a child in the same way a sperm meeting an egg would work. It was like variation on cloning to create a new person that would start as a child and grow just like any other.
If they weren't already married, Clark would have proposed again.
With the use of some Kryptonite Querl drew some of Clark's blood to combine with some of his own that he had drawn out earlier to start the process. Without Clark's knowledge Querl programmed the womb to favor Clark's DNA over his own but left it up to the womb to natural pick out what the child would get from each parent otherwise. It had been tempting to pick and choose what the child would inherit from them, such as Querl's intelligence, Clark's eyes, Clark's hair, Clark's smile, though a smile wasn't exactly genetic, but he already felt he had gone behind Clark's back enough making the womb favor Clark's DNA over Querl's so he didn't tempt fate further.
Who knows, if this turned out to be successful they could try for a second child that favored Querl's DNA. Or maybe gave it a 50/50 shot to see what the womb came up with. Then again one child might be more then enough.
During the ten months that the child, their son, grew it became increasingly difficult for Querl not to panic and ask Clark if this was really what he wanted. Querl never had any paternal role models to base being a parent on except for abandonment and, if he looked further at his bloodline, abuse and a tendency to mental breakdowns. Did he really want to risk exposing a child to that?
Still Querl had to admit the bigger their son got, Querl able to watch the whole growing process through the womb's specialized glass, the more attached he felt towards the unborn child. He had nearly lobotomized Validus when the beast had struck the Legion Headquarters, not even on the same side as his lab, and then put up so many force fields around it that Garth had to cut him off. He still wasn't sure how that happened but it made him realize that if he was going to be this paranoid before the baby was born he was going to have a nervous breakdown at every scraped knee afterward.
For his sanity's sake, Querl prayed that the child would get Clark's invulnerability.
When their son was born Querl suggested that Clark be the own to name him since everything that Querl thought of Garth thought of a way to make fun of.
The fact that Clark wanted to name their son Conner made it hard for Querl to not show that he was very close to having a heart attack. Clark no idea that he wanted to name their son the same name that would be bestowed on Superboy, another clone of Superman but unlike Superman X, the teen clone had died.
But there was no way of rejecting the name without explaining why, without possibly changing history so Querl kept his 12th level worries to himself and agreed to the name. At times he wondered if he had rejected the name he wouldn't spend long periods of time just staring at his son, watching for any features to emerge that would resemble the doomed clone of the past.
At first Querl rejected the idea of Conner going to the past at all. He tried to argue that it could alter time but really he didn't want Conner to get any ideas of spending time on his own there when he became older. In the end Querl consented to allowing Conner to visit the Kent farm, he couldn't deny the Kents knowing their grandson after all, and the occasional visit to Clark's apartment in Metropolis but not a step outside of it.
This was one of those occasional nights, their family at Clark's apartment on his darkish green "L" shaped couch with Clark sitting in the corner, extending out his legs on the short extension as Querl laid out on the long part, head in Clark's lap as Conner, almost out of his toddler stage, altered between laying alongside Querl, snuggled up to his chest and sitting up, tucked under Clark's arm as he gobbled up old fashioned 21st century microwave popcorn.
The movie was something age appropriate for Conner that Clark had nostalgia for that Querl didn't fully understand but found moments of amusement in it. Even as one of Conner's escaped popcorn kernels bounced off his chest, Querl couldn't help but marvel at how perfect nights like these were.