28

Clark sighed and look at the monitor. He hated this. He was The Ghost, the strongest superhero in Metropolis, except for Kara in a pinch. He was used to being the person the rest of the League called on when it just didn't look like it could be done. He had been weak once. Pregnancy, though he was loathe to admit it, tended to do that to him, but it had been over a decade ago and before he'd met Bruce. Being weak around either Emil or the Dark Knight left Clark feeling anxious and vulnerable.

Hell, on his best days, Bruce made him feel vulnerable. It was odd. Save for Chloe or Lex, he'd never met a person without powers (Chloe's were non-harmful) who could throw him off balance with a sentence. Bruce's mind was always working, always five step ahead of anyone else's, except for possibly J'onn's or Chloe's. It was most likely why Fawkes and the Batman always clashed. They saw the same angles, but always had a different plan of attack, at least until it came to how best to spy on his son.

"Clark?"

Bruce's voice was gruff. It always was, low and haunting. Clark wondered if he worked at it.

He kept his eyes trained on the excitement of the monitoring screens. No wonder Jax complained about being stuck as the tech emissary for the Titans. It sucked. "Bruce."

"We need to talk."

"I'm busy."

"You're watching the fire hydrant at Fourth and Main in Edge City."

"Well Diana and John Stewart are running a sting and-"

"Lantern and the Princess will be fine."

"I should also be-"

"The position you have is completely ceremonial and everyone in the League knows it."

Clark clenched his jaw. "You're lucky I'm not at four months yet and that Moira isn't breaking things."

He could hear the cowl move from where he sat; Bruce nodding, considering. "I had heard from Kara what Kon could do in utero. She exaggerates so often, I was unsure if it were true."

"Surprise," he replied, swiveling his chair to see the other man. Though Moira was no secret among the League-Bart was already planning the shower as any uncle would-it still made Clark feel more of an equal with Bruce (and the others) because he wasn't showing. Of course, the reason he wasn't was that Chloe's blood infusions left him ill. Weak either way, a damn catch-22.

"You don't have to be so bitter and confrontational."

"I'm defensive," he conceded, letting his hand rest against his daughter. Moira's heartbeat grew stronger every day and it left Clark feeling proud. Three months in, just five to go and he'd have another child in his life. Of course, it wasn't like he was currently doing such a bang up job with Kon.

Maybe he was crazy to have a second.

"We all encourage you and Fawkes. We're all working to ensure Moira makes it to term. It's why Andrea's taken up the slack in Metropolis to begin with."

"You and Fawkes ensure a lot of things, don't you?"

"Excuse me?" Bruce's expression under his cowl, still gave away nothing. It might be why he never felt the need to line it, especially after Clark knew his identity.

"Chloe told me that she had you spy on my son."

"Did she also tell you there was a high probability he was lying to your face and sneaking off to see Lana and Lex?"

"You're not even sorry. At least Chloe came clean and apologized."

"Fawkes loves you and she lets her emotions get in the way of the mission."

"Kon is not a mission. He's my son."

"He's the most dangerous individual on the planet. You do understand that, don't you?"

Clark stiffened and hunched in on himself. "I can still torch you where you stand."

"I'm stating facts. I'm trying to be honest with you. You and Kara have always been scarily powerful."

"You are afraid of us."

"Only a fool wouldn't be," Bruce conceded. "But Connor is so much stronger. You think I'd let his future rest on your judgment?"

"What does that even mean?"

"It means that I'd have started watching Connor, regardless. I have never trusted Lana and her intentions and I trust your instincts less."

"Excuse me?" Clark would have risen to his feet if the latest injection wasn't making him dizzy.

"You believe only what you want to. Lana said she'd not pursue the matter and you let it slide. I haven't been able to prove anything yet, but I know Kon skips seventh period every day. I haven't been able to follow him when he leaves campus. He moves too quickly, even for GPS trackers. They fall off of him."

"You've gotten that close?"

"I've got my methods, but if he leaves school at the same time every day, where do you think he's going?"

"He has The Torch then."

"Well Cassandra Carpenter must be running it for him, because he's never there."

"Kon's not some criminal. He doesn't need to be watched like this and it's not right for the two of you to work around me. I trusted Chloe all these years with our child and I still do. But I carried him. I know him. He's not doing anything wrong."

"Do you think he's so innocent?"

"He's not some monster. Just because our DNA is fucked up-"

Bruce looked at him, concentrating on his stomach, on Moira. "I'd trust Moira more, although her powers, if she survives-"

Bruce had less tact than Kara.

"She will."

"Fine, her abilities will be without precedent but she's Fawkes's. I trust that lineage, at the end of the day. I cannot trust fully someone with Lana's psychopathology in his history."

"Kon's fine."

"If Lex and Lana had a turn at him, could you honestly tell me there wasn't even a chance he'd grow into his mother's son."

"Chloe is his mother."

"Not biologically."

"I don't care about biology and I thought you didn't care about names, Wayne."

"And at the end of the day, we are who we are. Lana is Kon's mother and she's part of him, somewhere. You can see it clearly in his face. His behavior, well, he can be as cunning as she is. He's already run you and Fawkes ragged, sneaking to the Luthor Mansion. Isn't that familiar?"

"My son would never be a Luthor."

"Would Lana's?"

"Damn it, Bruce, I-" Clark felt it, that spasm of pain ripping through his abdomen, the shortness of breath, the dizziness. He thought it had been easing since the infusion three hours ago, but he was feeling it again.

"Clark?"

He doubled over and forced himself to breathe, waiting for the pain to pass. "Fine. I think you made Moira kick." He lied. Stress was never good for him when he was pregnant. This sick, it just exacerbated things.

"She's too small."

"Then you made me, ouch. Damn it!" Then he stopped, something overwhelming him even beyond the pain. It was Chloe's voice.

Clark, it's Connor. He ran off to the mansion.

"No."

A gauntleted hand was on his shoulder. "Clark?"

"Bruce, I'm fine. I'll be fine. I just...it's Connor. He's run away."

"Lana?"

"Yeah, I...get Kara. I need to go."

"You can't speed."

"The hell I can't," he replied and then he was gone.

Clark was at the mansion, already into Lex's study, when something hit him hard, sending him to his knees.

"Oh god."

"Why thank you, Clark, but I'm hardly a God."

Clark blinked up at Lex but his attention was more absorbed by the pain of searing Kryptonite running through him. "God, please."

Lex smiled and knelt down next to him, placing a familiar thick lead cuff around his wrist. The second it had snapped into place, Clark felt the pain of the green K stop. The small lead box that Lex had kept it in was closed tight. "I know you, Clark. I can't afford to have you tearing up my home."

"I don't deserve that," he groused, getting to his feet. "The baby can't take that."

"Lana had mentioned she suspected as much."

"I'm sure she did and that Kon coming to you didn't hurt. Moira's very fragile, Lex, and I don't think a jolt of either Blue or Green K is good for her."

"It'll be less than an hour with the blue meteor rock and you know it. We'll talk, discuss parameters and I'll take the band back off your wrist."

"Where's Chloe?"

"She's not a part of this."

"Kon's her son."

"Lana won't talk with her in the room. Chloe's being held in the security station and, no, it's not a dungeon. There's a comfy leather sofa and a tv with digital cable and some fresh coffee."

"And armed men?"

"Well there is that and perhaps dobermans, but she's a guest currently and nothing is going to happen to her when we talk. She just isn't welcome this time."

"Lana and her fucking ego."

"What a mouth on you. I'm sure you don't want Connor to know you talk like that. Besides, you loved Lana once. Isn't that why you tried stealing her from me?"

"I was wrong." Clark shook his head. "Is there a reason the two of you never had a child. She wasn't close to maternal with Connor and you both know it."

"She's been great with him now."

"As long as she can pretend he's human, of course. When he's not screaming with a migraine triggering his X-ray vision, when his eyes don't glow, then she's fine. But Kon is all of those things."

Lex smiled as he sat down at his desk and the hunger in that look scared Clark. "He's so much more, isn't he. I can't wait for him to grow into his abilities, can you?"

"He's not your game or pet, Lex."

"He's my nephew, isn't he? He comes here, to me, because he can't deal with you anymore, Clark. Do you want to ask yourself why?"

"Because he's confused."

"Because," Lex corrected, his stupid grin still wide. "He can't take your hypocrisy either. You're a fool, Clark."

Clark looked down at the lead cuff on his wrist. He could feel the sweat pool at the beck of his neck and his heart race. He couldn't hear Moira, couldn't see her. He couldn't hear Kon or Chloe or Kara. But it was trauma, everything rushing back to him. He'd been powerless with Lex before and he'd hated it then, just as he hated it now. "I know."

"No, the bracelet, as I've promised, won't last more than an hour. You know I've enough leverage on you to permanently ruin your life. You know I can land you and everyone you ever cared about in a lab, including, Connor's 'mother.'"

"Chloe is-"

"A moot point today. I meant that you're a fool because you made the exact same mistakes with Connor that your parents made with you."

"Mom and dad didn't make mistakes."

"They left you with a sense of shame over your abilities. Clark, I'm glad you have boundaries. I'd rather not have to stop you or Kara from taking over the world."

"Um, thanks?"

"But you did lie to Connor."

"We told him what he could know. We never hid Kryptonian stories from him, we never told him not to use his abilities. We only told him to be careful."

"But Krypton was Oz and 'be careful' is assuredly the Kent code for guilt, as always, Clark."

"I didn't..."

"Didn't you, mom ?"

Clark was relieved and angered by the petulant tone ringing out from the doorway. Kon was there, standing hand in hand with Lana. That angered him more. "What have you done?"

"Clark," Lana said, her tone clipped. He wondered if it was his imagination that he'd ever seen her look at him with more than revulsion. "How is your pregnancy?"

"None of your damn business."

Kon snorted. "See and you can't even be nice to my actual mom."

Clark was tempted to try snapping the lead off his arm at that point. He'd never ever been into corporal punishment with his son, but that tone and those words, it made him furious. "You've lied to us for weeks."

"Well it's not the same as 15 years, is it?" he said, taking a seat across from Clark on one of the leather sofas. Lana sat down next to him, stroking his hair. It was a sight that, years ago, Clark would have given anything to see. Now it merely made him angrier.

That was Chloe's place.

"So, Connor," Lex asked, his tone chipper. "Do you feel like you taught to be 'careful' or 'afraid?'"

Kon eyed Clark and only him. The sneer on his face so like Lana's. "I was never scared. I knew my dad or my uncles would take care of things. Even if I didn't know who Uncle Oliver or Victor really were, I knew they'd take care of me."

"But did you feel like you were trusted?"

"I used to."

"Kon, buddy," Clark said, banishing his anger. "Let's just go home, alright? I'm not mad." Lie. "I just want us to go home so we can talk it all over together with your mom."

"Mom's here."

"You know what I meant. None of this has to do with the Luthors."

"I think it does," Kon replied, breezily. "I think it really does. They get me."

Clark couldn't breathe. This was everything he'd fear he'd hear one day. "Kon, you don't understand. Do you see this?" He asked, holding up his bracelet. "This has blue meteor rock in it. It strips my powers. With this on, I can't do anything. I can't hear you or your sister. I can't use my strength or speed. They had this on my wrist when we were here last time. They locked me up like a prisoner or a breed mare. Pulled me out to nurse you-"

"Dad!"

"And when they were done with me, they shoved me in a locked room again, let you almost starve."

Kon grabbed Lana tightly. "It's not true."

"It was a miscalculation. We had to keep Clark from running away with you, didn't we? And you were exceptionally bright. You refused formula or substitutes. Only wanted, ahem, mommy Clark," Lex replied.

"They took us, Connor Sullivan, and had us locked down in a lab like how you think of us, like aliens ."

"We are," Kon bit back and Clark could see his son's eyes tear up. God, what had he done?

"But we didn't deserve to be locked up or, god, they made you use your powers, Kon. They tricked you. Played loud noises to make your hearing hurt until you couldn't help but use your TK. Please, let's not stay here."

He hated begging, hated that Lex always managed to reduce him to it.

"Is that before or after they gave me the inoculations that saved my life or the nutrients to put weight on me. Kangaroo, how can I trust anything you tell me?"

"Kon, look," he replied, picking up an enveloped from the table and running its edge quickly across his thumb. A thin line of blood welled up. "This is true."

His son's eyes widened. "That's not possible."

"There are so many things we should have told you, that we shouldn't have protected you from. But they took us and they did terrible, humiliating things. Don't trust them."

"I can't trust you."

"We can fix that," Clark begged. "We can do something. Connor," he said, setting his arm on the table with a clunk. "It's a manacle. What kind of people do that?"

"What's Jor-El?"

"What?"

"That's what mom and Lex just asked me about. What's a Jor-El? How do I have other grandfather?"

"We will never talk about this here," Clark replied. "Never, Lex. You won't get anything out of me or my family and fuck you for trying."

"Language," Lex replied coolly, pressing a button on his phone. "Hendricks, let Chloe Sullivan go and escort her out of the gate. Connor and Clark will be joining her now."

"What?" he asked, incredulous. Lex had cuffed him and he lied. Now he was just going to be let go, even with the unique life growing inside of him.

"Clark, my husband is letting you go," Lana said coldly. Then she kissed Kon's forehead. "Sweetheart, it's not time yet."

"But I want to stay, I think."

Clark surged to his feet. "You're not staying here ever."

"It's not the right time, yet, Connor," Lex continued. "Now, I think you need to try working things out with your kangaroo and Chloe."

"I..."

Clark reached out and took Kon's hand, relaxing as Lana took a key and undid his wrist. "If you two ever try touching my son again-"

"Don't make idle threats until you know what your son actually wants, Clark," Lex replied. "Now, see you later, maybe sooner than you think."