53
Kon looked around the table. The League was not assembled there. His Uncle Bruce in full regalia was sitting in on the proceedings, but it was mainly him, his father, his mom (and how she'd let him call her that again, he didn't know), Aunt Kara and Mrs Donovan.
"Repeat that part again," Bruce asked. God his uncle never quit with the gravelly-voiced bullshit.
"I think we can save Jax, and I'm not talking about going to Zatanna and hoping she has some last chance magic solution."
"I don't necessarily endorse that," his uncle said. "There are always consequences with magic."
"Well I don't think that he'd be a zombie or there'd be a price tag on his soul, I'm just afraid magic wouldn't work. Aunt Zatanna has a bad track record." Kon offered, thinking of a bad birthday party gift. She'd been the entertainment and it had gone well, but Gerald had spent an hour as a rabbit. No permanent harm done, but he still didn't trust his aunt with a spell.
"What do you think can help now, Connor?" Mrs. Donovan asked, her tone bitter.
"I...mom can't heal him because she's not Kryptonian."
Kara narrowed her eyes at him. "We don't heal, Kon-El."
"No, but I don't think I'm explaining this right. Cassie and I were having a fight."
"That's not exactly germane," Mary snapped.
"No, I mean that we had a fight and the room got so cold that I could see my breath. That's Cass. When she's that upset her powers flare up and she sucks the warmth right out of a whole room. Hell, she sucked some of the warmth, whatever there was, out of the Fortress."
His mom frowned at him. A stor , you have to work harder to paint the picture."
"Cassie is second generation, right? Her dad's power isn't as strong. He can make ice, sure, but he can't suck the heat of a room. He can't sometimes drain it from people on accident. Cass's powers got stronger because she was born with her powers. It's like Maddie. Everyone knows she's stronger than her dad. She just uses her powers for art and good instead of to rob people."
"So you're saying?" Aunt Kara asked.
"I think Mo could do it. Mom's incredibly powerful but she doesn't have the strength to repair something at the cellular level. Mo's already feeding off of dad. She's Kryptonian, she's second gen, and she healed herself and dad. He doesn't even need a tube anymore."
"Yeah, but Mo's not born yet," his father countered. "Whatever she did to help me not need the tube, it's some reaction she had. It's not like I can do it."
Kon shrugged. "I don't know. If it's emotionally harnessed, maybe you could make it work. You didn't have a way to make the TK work when you were having me, but if you got mad, boom stuff just exploded."
"So I have to get upset?" Clark prodded.
"I don't know. I doubt being mad makes anyone heal. You should talk to mom about it. There has to be something she thinks or feels to make it work as accurately as it does now."
"I don't want to substitute in a chance for what Zatanna might be able to do," his aunt pressed.
"Well working on two fronts doesn't hurt. I think that if something Krypton-based did this then it makes a perverse amount of sense that Mo, who's Kryptonian by half, could maybe fix it."
" Maybe is such a reassurance," Mrs. Donovan said.
"I don't have a lot of ideas. We've tried Mom tons. We've tried the Fortress. We're looking into magic. We're running out of time. Jax will be dead in three days if we don't do something. I'm not saying we give up other avenues, but I think dad and Mo can do this."
"And if it lands your father in a coma?" Bruce asked.
"It won't."
"How do you know?" his mom asked.
"Because we all know how strong Mo is already. She's all of mom's strengths and all of dad's and none of the weaknesses. No one ever wanted to admit that before, but I've always seen it."
"Kon-El," his aunt started.
"No, I mean it. This is what she could probably do."
"Probably," Mrs. Donovan repeated.
"I think we're running out of other options. Dad, maybe if you and mom just work on it, like any other ability?"
"We'll try it. Batman, talk to Zatanna and see what she knows about illnesses and mystical cures," his dad replied.
"Um, that wasn't my full plan."
"You have a lot of thoughts for someone who has been gone so long," Uncle Bruce said.
"I had time to think or maybe just try and get thoughts together when we got here yesterday. We can't hold Lex forever. It's not our place."
"No, we're going to turn him, Lana, and the evidence Fawkes had and that Dinah and Kara got from ISIS yesterday over to the FBI. They can face trial for crimes against humanity," his uncle confirmed.
"But it doesn't stop them from pulling the real trigger. Lex won't let us run around free and have a Rockwell life while he's behind bars. He's got enough government contracts and informants that he could have us sent somewhere to wait until he got out. We're practically immortal and he's meta. They've got the time."
His aunt shivered. "That's not funny, Kon."
"It's not supposed to be. We have the hard copy stuff from ISIS, but who knows what drives and computers he has with back up files?"
"Well you can't just send a virus into every computer on Earth," his mom snarked.
"Actually, yes you can. Brainiac did it. He sent a virus that time for Dark Thursday. A Kryptonian computer could do it with the right programming."
"But we don't have the programming," his dad countered. "I barely know how to make the Fortress work, even with the right stones in place."
Kon nodded and offered a small smile. "Save the programmer, save the world."
"Kon, you really don't have to do this," his dad said.
"Mom's busy teaching you how to get in touch with Mo's powers. Uncle Bruce is tracking down Aunt Zatanna, and Aunt Kara is trying to keep Alura happy and calm. The rest of the League is freaking out and staring down Lex..."
"They are not 'staring down,'" his dad replied.
"Aunt Dinah won't leave the containment area. Neither will Uncle Bart or Uncle A.C. or Uncle Victor or-"
"Lex has made a lot of enemies in the League. With all of them plus Diana watching him, he's not going anywhere or getting any worried messages out."
"But mom...Lana...bio-mom, grr, whatever will know something's wrong since we never came back from the Arctic. She's free to send all her ISIS files off to the proverbial Uncle Sam and we can't let her do that. We need a virus to wipe any mention of who we really are out and the only person who could possibly make what we want is unconscious."
"If any of this works at all," his dad replied, tiredly.
"If you have better ideas, I'd love to hear them."
"It doesn't have to be you. We'll send Diana and J'onn; it's the muscle job they're great for."
"And Uncle J'onn is already are coming. I just...I need to do this."
"Going to see her, talking with her before J'onn takes her into custody, it wouldn't change anything. It doesn't prove anything."
"There are things I need to say and to hear out loud. I need things from her, does that make sense?" he asked, running a hand through his hair.
"When dealing with Lana? Yes, that does make a lot of sense."
In the end, he went just with his Uncle J'onn, although his uncle had decided to go in his best Chloe-wear. It was very disconcerting working with his uncle, hearing his uncle's thoughts in his head, and looking over to see his mother instead. Kon needed the bodyguard but he just didn't want Lana to know he had one. Luring her into a sense of complacency was best for all of them. Besides, he doubted she'd try just setting "Chloe" on fire.
He was pretty sure she wouldn't.
Like 90%.
Kon-El, I suggest we do this quickly.
Kon rolled his eyes but didn't answer out loud as he came to the gate. The wall of Kryptonite around the place was no longer there and he wondered if his Aunt Diana and Maddie had something to do with the sudden clean out. It was smart thinking on their behalf.
Just please don't do that reading thing you do. I don't like people getting into my head.
To his side, J'onn arched his left eyebrow in a way that was eerily like his mom. Kon wondered if J'onn practiced all their mannerisms in case he was needed for undercover. "I don't read teen-agers' minds. There's rarely anything interesting there," he deadpanned.
Keep it that way. he replied, reaching for the call button. "Mom, it's Connor."
There was static and crackling and, finally, a reply. "You brought her with you."
In a manner of speaking , Kon thought to his guardian. Aloud, he said, "I'm never exactly allowed to go around on my own. If you remember last time you saw me, Uncle Lex was dragging me off to the freaking Arctic."
"I notice he's not with you now."
"I can hop the fence. I'm just being polite," he countered. "May I come in or not?"
"Where's Lex?"
"I can tell you that. Please open the gate," he asked, taking in measured breaths as he waited for the gate to open. As with Lana's replies on the intercom, it was slow and hesitant in coming but eventually the massive iron gates swung forward and he walked to the door, his uncle trailing behind him. Idly, Kon wondered what it was like to change even sizes as frequently as his uncle could. Kon was not tall but he was now taller than his mom. For every step he took, J'onn would trot a step and a half. It surprised him that it was Lana who opened the door. Perhaps the servants had off for the day or perhaps she wanted to send "Chloe" a message about whose territory they were on. Kon didn't know.
Lana regarded them both coolly, keeping her gaze planted on his Uncle J'onn. "Where's Lex?"
"It's funny how when I ask that question about Jax, I don't always get an answer," his uncle replied.
Kon blinked. His uncle was good. Maybe he should go into acting.
"Where is Lex, Connor?"
"The Watchtower, now do you want to talk here or inside to get the details?"
"Why aren't you in the Watchtower? Did you defect back?"
He blushed and looked away. He'd been fickle and he knew that. It was only obvious and right that his bio-mom would call him on that. Hell, he'd probably gotten some of that from her, joy of joys. "I'm here to explain terms. I can do that here or in Lex's office. It's all what you prefer."
"Or at the Tower in cuffs? I didn't expect you to be this much like Clark."
Kon looked back at her but ignored the bait. "I didn't expect a lot of things," he replied brushing past her. Instead of going into the office, Kon instead slumped to a seat on the stairs. He was high enough on them to be eye level with Lana, but he still decided to sit. He was not big on looming over people.
"Comfortable?"
"Mainly," he said, as he watched his uncle shut the door behind them. "Will you call security?"
"It'd be pointless. Wonder Woman took every bit of Kryptonite I had at the mansion, and we both know that unarmed, normal people don't have a chance against you."
Kon swallowed but kept working to ignore the bait. He knew what she was doing. It was what he'd enjoyed doing with Jax a dozen different times before the other man kicked him out of Boston. He knew the transparent jabs when he heard them.
"I understand that. The League has Lex. They broke into ISIS, but you knew that."
"And LuthorCorp and the penthouse in Metropolis. They were busy breaking and entering yesterday. Like old times, wasn't it, Chloe?"
His uncle shrugged. "If you keep taking things, Lana…"
"It's not stealing if it's yours ," she corrected, and Kon shivered at that.
"I'm me," he replied. "I don't belong to you or to Chloe, not like a pet."
"I didn't say it like that exactly," Lana snapped. "Chloe meddles."
J'onn stared at Lana but said nothing. He was less volatile in some ways than Chloe. It made him being there preferable to the real item. The very sight of his "mother" was enough to set Lana off, make her tongue unguarded.
"She's here because this is the end of the line," he continued. "The League has reams of proof about what you did back before I was even born and, now, the fifteen years after. It has so much on you and Lex that you'll be serving back to back to back life sentences. Illegal cloning, abduction, civil rights violation, murder-"
"Sometimes people die on the table."
" Murder ," he continued, spitting out the word.
"Quick to turn, aren't you?"
"I didn't get it."
She smiled like he'd seen Uncle Lionel do on occasion. "Of course you didn't."
"I didn't!" The remains of the brass casting for the chandelier shook above him. Maddie had already gotten to it first.
"Connor Sullivan," Uncle J'onn started.
"I know. I am calm. I just…you know what you and Lex did."
"You didn't want to see it, did you? Or maybe," Lana said, climbing just one step. "You knew and wanted to turn your head. Maybe it's what you think, deep down. Some of those meteor freaks are dangerous. You've always said as much."
Kon looked away, ignoring the gleam in her eyes. "No one deserved to get sliced up."
"Conveniently now after you were taken up by Clark and Chloe."
"Lex hurt Jax. We don't even know if he's going to live. He threatened Cassie and her family."
"So it matters when it's your family. How decent and outstanding of you," she drawled.
"I didn't say that."
"You only seemed to care when someone you knew was affected. You didn't want to dig deeper when it was just 'them.'"
Kon took deep breath but didn't change his gaze. "I know."
Kon-El don't let her bait you.
He eyed his uncle. "I know I have a lot to account for but the rest of it ends here with you. I'm willing to give you something."
"What?" his bio-mom asked, her posture rigid. "What could you possibly offer me?"
"Mercy."
Kon-El…
He shook his head a little, just enough for J'onn's keen eyes to notice the movement. "I know that if we leave without you, without taking you to the Tower that you'll go straight to the government about us out of spite. That you'll ruin dad and Aunt Kara's lives, probably mine."
"I could protect you. I have the resources."
He shrugged. "You wouldn't want to."
"I could. You can come home and let the rest to whatever happens."
"Like having Alura in a cage? Or like what Lex did to strip Jax of his powers? Mo's not even born yet."
"And you know better than anyone that that kind of power has to be contained."
"You can teach someone to contain their own powers. Mo shouldn't grow up under lock and key."
Lana smiled slowly. "You're here because you know what I'll do. What Lex and I built is in danger, everything we made."
"Yes the secret evil labs. How could anyone live without those?" his uncle deadpanned.
Lana ignored him and inched closer up the stairs until she had height over him. "You choose a side now, Connor. Either you stay with her and get rounded up with the rest of them or you come home to be with me. We can get Lex out."
"I can, you mean."
"Of course. They'll hand him over to a conventional prison that anyone with your strength could break through."
"That's not the deal I want to offer."
Kon-El. I think that-
I have this, he replied, not looking at his uncle. To Lana he added. "We have the cards here. You don't. I'm offering you a very simple chance."
"What kind?"
"You leave my family alone, agree not to whisper a word to anyone about who we are, keep Lex from doing the same, and you get a head start to any non extraditing country you prefer. I'll take you myself."
"Connor!" Uncle J'onn shouted. "That's not part of any deal."
"It's mine to offer," he replied, his eyes going red for a moment. "If you can show mercy, I'll make sure you have some."
"They'd be after me. Everyone knows what the Batman did to Lao, dragged him out of Hong Kong."
Kon nodded. "I can take you some place today in an instant. You know that. If you're smart enough to keep a low profile and drain from whatever Cayman's money you probably have, then that's your business. I can't stop the Leauge, I can just make it more difficult." His uncle started to him and Kon thought hard to keep him planted in place.
Not funny, Kon-El.
Wait for it. I need this, J'onn.
"No strings. If I want to be in China in five minutes, you'd do that?"
"Filial loyalty," he replied. "But the cost is still there. You and Lex never touch my family, never go near them or Jax or Cassie again, and you can do whatever you want as long as it's not on this continent. You wouldn't want to come back anyway."
"I'd have to agree not to make Clark or Chloe suffer?" she asked, eying J'onn, who still was trying but failing to step forward.
"You touch them, and the deal would be off and I'd drag you to Commissioner Sawyer myself."
"No."
Kon let out a breath he didn't even realize he'd been holding. He wasn't sure he'd have been able to keep up the bargain had she taken it, but he didn't think she would have. He just wanted to know if there was any part of her that could be reached, that could even be bothered to care. He wanted to know if she were capable of mercy.
If he could be capable of it.
"What?"
Kon let his uncle go and he stumbled forward, almost landing on one knee. "Connor."
"No, mom?" he said, gritting his teeth on the word as he spoke to Lana. "You won't take it?"
Lana walked down the stairs and came to stand nose to nose with his uncle. There was barely a foot between them. "I want her to suffer. She took what was mine . There's no deal good enough for that."
He stood up and nodded at his uncle. "Now is fine."
"Now for what?" Lana asked.
His uncle said nothing as he melted then grew to his full seven feet. Lana was screaming by the time he was done. Clamping one hand firmly on her wrist, his uncle started dragging her to the door.
"The Watchtower's waiting, mother ."
"Is it true?"
Kon looked up from the picture he'd been coloring. Alura had crawled to sleep with Aunt Kara in one of the guest rooms of the Watchtower. He was still busy giving Ariel the right shading of red hair. It wasn't manly but it was distracting. Shading in and of itself was a lost art, but not something he could ever get right with just crayons. He needed some pastels or greatly cared for colored pencils to really give things depth.
Cassie was standing there, the circles under her eyes still dark, her hair tangled.
"Have you even slept?"
"I went home to see dad and Mindy and everyone this afternoon but had your aunt bring me back for a while before bed. We're not all nine year olds and it's still just ten."
"They're cool with that?"
"Your aunt vouched that Kent farm was okay territory."
Kon looked around the gleaming metal of the Tower. "It's not very farm like."
"But what's safer than the League's headquarters? No one can get you here."
"That's somehow not going to make living here any easier if someone gets word out to the government about us before Jax can counteract it."
She nodded and crossed her arms over her chest. "You have a lot of faith all of a sudden in a tadpole you used to hate."
He winced and closed the book. "I earned that, didn't I?"
"Yeah, you really did."
"I don't hate her."
"Shocker," Cass said leaning against the wall.
"I…I'm scared of her. That's why I think this will work. It's not faith or love or any of that. I can do the math. I know how powerful she's going to be. Hell, since her powers really came online, dad's not really even been sick. Yeah, his powers are wonky but that's part of the deal. She's kept him in better shape in the last two months than he's been since he got pregnant."
"And she's not even born yet."
"No, I guess she's not, but I can just feel it, Cass."
"Does part of feeling things include offering that bitch an out?"
Kon grew pale. "Did J'onn?"
"He told me. He didn't tell your parents or Kara, just me."
"Is he going to?"
"Kara half wants your head anyway and your dad's trying to harness whatever inner chi he has to save Jax's life tomorrow. J'onn didn't find it a good idea."
"But you?"
"He said he had experience with women talking sense into the House of El. You? You're a jack-ass."
"It's not what you think," he said, leaning back in his chair and squeezing the bridge of his nose.
"You were going to offer that bitch immunity. She came after all of us. She and Lex combined have enough to ruin all our lives cause you dragged me into this bullshit with them too, and you'd not just let her walk but help her pack?"
"She was never gonna take the deal."
"You offered it. That's what matters."
"I…I had to know what she'd do."
"If given a free pass to France, a lot of people would take it."
"I had to know if she would. If she'd let it go. I don't want to make Jax create a program if he can be woken up."
"If again."
"It's a lot to ask. I thought I could reason with her. I just…I had to know, Cass."
"What? That she's a heartless bitch?"
Kon looked down at his hands and sighed. "Yes."
Cass stilled, some of the fight taken out of her. "What?"
"I knew, deep down, that she wasn't going to take the deal. Owning things matters more to her than anyone. It's not that there's a person attached to the ownership. It's like she's permanently five years old. She might not want the toy when it's no longer shiny, but god help her if someone else has it."
"You mean her and Mrs. Kent?"
"Over me. Mom and Lana over me. I know that's not how mom thinks about it but Lana does. It didn't matter when I asked her for mercy that she was putting a fucking fetus and a nine year old in the line of fire. As long as she could make Chloe suffer, she was gonna go for it. I was a side thought."
"Or not one at all."
"No, I was a thought. I think as a means to an end. It's funny, she gave me this," he said, pulling the watch out from his pocket.
"A rolex?"
He nodded at it. "Can you see it?"
"What?"
"Look closer," he replied, holding his hand up to the watch. It glowed a bright turquoise.
"Wow, that's different."
"It's blue Kryptonite. She gave it to me for Christmas."
Cassie nodded and walked over to the table, pulling out a chair for herself. "Nothing says I love you like a radioactive rock."
"Maybe. I thought of wearing it," he said, tapping his fingers against the face.
"It's not on."
"I don't…I like a lot of my powers."
"News to me."
Kon sighed and looked down at his hands. He'd started really hating his powers when the hearing came, when his head felt like it was splitting in two and he'd never be able to control it. Then there'd come other things. It wasn't so much the 'alien' thing, although that was huge. It was knowing that he could hurt someone so badly. His… he'd manage to do damage to shower tiles just doing that . If he could…if just showers led to bad things that shattered tile, he'd never fit with anyone, even a meta.
"It's hard. It goes both ways. I can do so much and I don't know how to live without the speed and stuff. It'd be like being handicapped."
"But?"
"I can hurt people."
Cassie sighed and touched the face of the watch. As she closed her eyes, he watched as the metal turned cool under his touch and then began to crystallize and crack as it grew cold. Reaching back, Cassie smashed the whole thing, what had once been gold and glass, under her hand. It was as if it had been dipped in liquid nitrogen.
"I can too. When I get excited…you don't notice it as much as everyone else does. I have to be so careful around Jason or Mindy. I have to think hard and not get upset. I let things get lax with you cause I can, cause you can't freeze or at least I'm not strong enough to drain even you."
"I-"
"You're not the only person who was ever scared of what they could do," she replied, one hand cradling a chunk of ice. "Your dad, me, a lot of the League, I'd bet. A lot of us have dangerous powers."
"It's not the same."
"Nothing makes you more special than I am," she gruffed.
"Not in an elitist way. I can't explain this right."
"At least you're trying for once."
Kon sighed and reached out for the back of her chair. Cass's back went rigid and he hated that he was still mad enough at him that she didn't want to be touched. He'd done that to himself. "I wasn't going to…here," he finished, crushing the metal behind her neck, leaving his finger prints in the metal.
She frowned and twisted to look behind her. "Kon?"
"I can hurt you. I know it. I get it. Dad and my bio-mom and Aunt Kara and Uncle Jimmy and Mo's here now. I know my dad and my aunt can do it. I just," he sputtered, blushing deeply.
"Huh?"
"Never mind, Cass, it's too late."
A gentle yet cold hand was on his cheek. "It's not nothing. You were thinking like that about me?"
"I…not in a bad way. I mean, okay, fifteen, but not in a creepy way, more like in a we could go to the movies and end up back on my parents' couch way or whatever."
"You mean as in a 'date.'"
"It's stupid though."
"Well now that's not going to happen any time soon, no. You just ignored everything. I put trust in you, when I told you what I could do and you broke that to Lex Luthor of all people. I can't…I have to learn to trust you again. You have to show you can be the guy I thought you were." She dropped her hand and scooted back.
He frowned with the lack of contact. He had a feeling that would be the last of it for him for a long time. "But you don't get what I did with Lana?"
"You were gonna let her walk."
"I was gonna see if she could be reasoned with and she can't."
"Duh, could have told you that. She's crazy."
"She's my mother."
"I thought you and Mrs. Kent were on better terms."
"We are. Dad apparently wore her down into the second chance giving category when he was young and bone headed, but Lana Luthor's still my mother. I mean, biologically-"
"Which means a lot of shit."
"She's my mom. If she's a crazy, vindictive psycho…"
Cass took his hand and squeezed it. "You're an asshole a lot of the time, Kon. You're not crazy."
"But I'm a lot like her. I just…she wanted dad and everyone else to hurt but she used to love him, right? I mean, I'm here. They were clearly fucking a lot."
"I think they thought they loved each other, if it makes you feel better. I think your dad loved her and that Lana thought she could love, at least tricked herself into it."
"I don't think that's better. Like I said, that makes Lana sound like a sociopath because she can't love anyone else. I don't want to be like her."
"Then don't be."
"What?"
Cassie quirked her chin up at him. "Don't be like her."
"It's not that easy. The things I think-"
"They suck but it doesn't make you her unless you act on them. So just don't be a jerk anymore."
"That's not very prosaic."
She shrugged. "It's honest. Stop being even a little like her. Everyone thinks bad things. Everyone has moments where they want to be the bad guy, or think it would be easier. You just don't act on them."
"I don't want to think that way."
"Then more meditation with Maddie, I dunno. They're your hang-ups, but if you don't want to be your mother, then maybe you just made a start."
"How? By offering her a trip to China?"
"Warped her not, you did give her one last chance to show she could change. I think that's something your dad would do. I know it's something I can't do, not with her or Lex."
"Or I could just…my bio-mom basically needs a black mustache to twirl, Cass."
"Then you're very lucky Mr. and Mrs. Kent rock."
