A/N - Some time skips - we go back to TimKon first, picking up right after the events of Ch. 6. The middle section takes place after the Ch. 7 flashback, for anyone who wants to reread those two chapters.

Chapter 11

The night before

Tim and Conner had somewhat bashfully survived changing into their pajamas for bed, Tim changing in the bedroom while Conner changed in the bathroom, but the experience was so much less embarrassing than Lex's sex talk had been that the slight awkwardness felt minimal.

"I'm so glad you're here and I met you," Conner said softly when Tim climbed under the covers next to him.

"Me, too," Tim smiled back at him, getting ready to go in for a kiss when there was a knock at the door.

Tim cautiously scooted back to his side of the bed before Conner yelled "Come in!"

Lex came in with a tender, affectionate smile on his face directed mainly at Conner, but then he looked at Tim, too, and smiled with so much warmth in his eyes that Tim felt himself tearing up.

His mom used to look at him fondly, Tim had belatedly realized after her death when the only familial regard remaining to him was his father's distant, unaffected gaze that was so chilly in comparison to the sunny light that used to shine out of his mother's eyes.

Especially in their vacation photos, Tim had discovered when he would sit crying over them after school while his father was still at work in the days and weeks following his mom's death - the photos that he now felt so guilty over resenting - because in almost all of them his mother's eyes weren't on the camera at all, but on Tim. Her smiles had been perfectly poised and posed, that was true, but the sheer affection in her eyes for her son, and the pleasure that she felt in sharing these moments with him, Tim had never noticed in the photos until she was gone.

He gulped as Lex came over to the bed, not wanting to cry again but fearing that he couldn't help it, and Lex was - what? Ohmygod.

Lex was honest to goodness snugging the covers in tight around Conner to tuck him in, and smoothing Conner's now washed and silky hair back and kissing his forehead and saying, "I love you, son," like it was a promise that he meant more than anything in the world and would back up with whatever Lex Luthor treachery was needed to fulfill it, and Conner was saying that he loved his dad, too, and Tim didn't want Lex to be a super-villain.

He liked him too much.

Especially because Lex was coming over to Tim's side of the bed, to Tim's shock, and tucking Tim's covers in just like he had Conner's, and Lex was smoothing Tim's hair back, too, but they weren't Lex's eyes at all that were looking lovingly down at Tim, they were his mom's, and Tim was bawling and wrapping his arms around Lex's slightly surprised but very willing frame and clinging to him, sobbing, as Lex gently sat down on the bed and hugged Tim back so tightly; and then Conner was crawling over and hugging Tim from behind, and Tim had never felt so surrounded by love, except for when Steph used to squeeze the life out of him with her bone-crunching hugs, and Tim was never going to get hugged like that by Steph again so he was crying even harder, but Lex and Conner kept him in their hug sandwich without hesitation and without slacking off on their comforting embrace for as long as Tim sobbed, which was a really, really, long damn time.

When Tim finally drew back after his choking tears had quieted down, Lex cupped the back of his neck and said, "I love you, son. You're my boy now, as much as Conner is, and I will always be here for you."

Tim couldn't help the shiver of affection for Lex that coursed through his gaping heart.

"How can you love me already?" Tim asked Lex, though, as he wiped his nose on his arm, which prompted Conner to bolt off the bed a little faster than seemed normal to grab the box of tissues from the bathroom.

"You just met me," Tim said to Lex before accepting the tissues from his soulmate with a grateful, albeit watery, smile.

"Love is a choice," Lex said, raising his eyebrows with a little bit of surprise. "It's what you do; how you decide to act. Anyone who thinks love is a feeling is - misinformed," he ended far more gently than he had perhaps been intending to, seeming to realize at the last minute that he was about to insult his son-in-law with his rancor against - who?

Clearly, some unnamed party had earned Lex Luthor's scorn. Conner's mom, maybe? Tim wondered. She obviously wasn't in the picture and Lex had only discovered that he had a son a few years ago, Tim knew. Lex had to feel a ton of resentment towards Conner's mom for hiding her pregnancy from him, not to mention suddenly abandoning Conner. Unless maybe she had died, too?

Tim would have to ask Conner at some point when he wasn't so weepy about his own mom.

But for now, he blew his nose and smiled up at Lex and allowed himself to be tucked back in, along with Conner, by his surprisingly (and disturbingly - worryingly -) good-hearted yet utterly villainous father-in-law, who pulled the door shut after him when he left the room with a final "Good night, boys. Love you both."

Tim sniffed in the dark.

"Your dad's amazing," he couldn't help saying to Conner, with an honesty that he wished he didn't feel.

"Super amazing," Conner agreed, reaching across the bed for Tim. "Come here and snuggle," he invited, and Tim gratefully wriggled under the covers into Conner's waiting arms.

Tim sighed with contentment as he laid his head down on Conner's chest, his soulmate's arms wrapping around him with loving pets to his back and hair and -

"Oh, wow," Tim breathed out when Conner's hand slid over his hip where his soulmark would one day appear.

Electric sparks seemed to be crackling up through his skin in an aching but wonderful burn.

"I feel it, too," Conner said breathlessly, now playing with his fingertips on Tim's hip, tracing slow lines back and forth to find the edges and shape of Tim's mark. "It burns and tingles," Conner said in awe.

"Let me do yours," Tim grinned in the dark, shifting himself to lay fully on top of Conner (which, hello, Conner's cock, meet Tim's cock - oh, sorry, just passing by, can't stop to chat) so he could reach down to Conner's left hip to palm it, searching for the soulspot.

"Oh!" Tim said in surprise when a flash of heat met his hand. "That's really hot!" he exclaimed.

Conner snickered.

"I mean," Tim said, blushing in the dark, "well, you know what I mean," he mumbled.

"You're hot, too, babe," Conner teased, reaching his left hand up to thread in Tim's hair so he could pull him down into a kiss; and their previous kisses had been pretty awesome, but with their right hands massaging each other's soulspots, making out suddenly became much more than sweet affection.

Tim wanted - no, he craved Conner, and his chest caught on fire as their tongues tangled together and the heat spread down to his belly and then lower still, and Tim didn't even realize that his fingers were cramping from how hard he was gripping Conner's hip until he suddenly jerked away, embarrassed, with the sudden realization that he was grinding his now hard erection against - oh.

Against Conner's.

Oops.

"Sorry," Tim gulped, thankful that Conner couldn't see how red he was blushing as he scrambled off of him.

"It's ok," Conner said, his breathing a little hard as he sat up, too.

"Timmy. Babe," Conner said more firmly when Tim wouldn't turn back around to face him.

"Hey. Baby, it's ok," Conner soothed, scootching up next to Tim and tugging him into his side. "I liked it," Conner said when Tim didn't respond, other than by very cautiously laying his head down on Conner's shoulder.

Conner hesitated.

"We don't have to do that yet, Timmy," he said gently. "But I really didn't mind it," he grinned into his boyfriend's hair. "So if that's why you're embarrassed, you don't need to be."

"Ok," Tim mumbled, the hot prickles of shame still needling his face and chest and back, and not just because sex was new and he was still getting used to the fact that Conner Luthor, hottest boy in school, was his Premarked Soulmate.

No, Tim also felt ashamed because how was Conner going to feel one day when he learned that Tim had been Robin? Or when Tim one day in the future had to help the Justice League take down his dad? Or - or - and if they had sex - and then Conner found out - but Lex - so confusing - and Bruce hadn't saved Steph - he'd fired her - and - and -

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Conner said as he rubbed circles on Tim's arms.

Tim sniffed.

"Everything, I think," he whispered brokenly in the dark.

Three years ago

"Thank you for letting me visit," Kal said softly as he made his way over to Bruce, seated at the BatComputer.

The Bat's eyes were guarded when he nodded his head, but he wasn't wearing the cowl, and that was something, Superman supposed.

Clark sat down in the chair opposite Bruce's and took a deep breath as he lifted his eyes up to his (hopefully not former) best friend's.

"I'm so truly sorry for what I said about Jason," Kal said hoarsely. "I didn't mean it. I was angry and I felt hurt and betrayed and it was a stupid, mean, horrible thing to say, and I'm so sorry, Bruce."

A muscle in Bruce's jaw worked.

"I understand," he said calmly.

Too calmly. Damn his Bat control, Kal thought to himself, hopelessly wishing that he possessed at least a fraction of Bruce's restraint, because tears were clogging his eyes and throat and his breaths were coming way too fast.

"I - I hope we can still be friends," Clark whispered into the silence of the BatCave.

Bruce cocked his head to the side as he regarded Kal-El of Krypton.

"I understand why you said what you did to me," he said finally, "but I don't understand your feelings about Conner Luthor. And frankly, I don't care to be friends with someone who would treat a child that way."

Kal shivered and blinked hard. He went so far as to rub his nose on his uniform sleeve before drawing a raggedy breath.

"Lois and I have been trying to have a baby for the last five years," he said softly.

"Oh, shit," Bruce said in horror, his eyes opening wide.

Kal swallowed.

"We've been working with Doctor Mid-Nite," he said as a few tears began slipping down his cheeks, "but…" he trailed off and stared listlessly at the ground.

"I was enraged," Kal said after several long minutes of silence went by, which Batman naturally didn't feel motivated to break.

"Enraged, and heartbroken, and devastated, and furious - and standing smack dab in Lex Luthor's living room with this thing - my son - my SON, Bruce! - a son I should have had with Lois. A son I'd been trying to have for the last five years with my soulmate. A son created with my worst enemy's DNA - calling me his Dad -" Clark spat the word out.

Bruce grimaced.

"You are his dad, though," he said. "At least, physiologically you're his father. His dad, not so much anymore."

"No," Kal scowled, "and I don't want to be. I'm sorry, Bruce, but I don't. I hate him. I know it's not fair and it's not his fault and it's not even rational, but I hate him. I'm sorry I lied to you and the team about what he was. I'm sorry I tried to lock him up on the Watchtower. But I'm not sorry for hating him. Do you know how hard Lois cried when I had to tell her about him?"

"I can imagine," Bruce said quietly. "And I'm not without sympathy, Kal, despite what you might think," he sighed. "But hate Amanda Waller. Hate Cadmus. Don't hate the boy. Do you have any idea what they were doing to him while he was their prisoner?"

"I don't care," Kal sulked. "I don't want to know anything about him."

"Pain trials," Bruce said as if Superman hadn't spoken. "Endurance tests. Weapons tests, to see how much he could take. And when they determined just how badly they could attack him before he was too weak to fight back, they'd repeat the trials the next day with kryptonite, and the day after that with more kryptonite, and so on, for the sake of knowing everything they could about their so-called weapon's defense capabilities," Bruce said in a clipped voice.

"He was their prisoner for over a year, Kal," the Bat said. "Hell of a lot for a child to go through, only to get threatened with reimprisonment as soon as he's rescued."

Kal was silent. Bruce sighed.

"Do you want Cadmus's research and protocols for how they created him?" Batman asked.

Kal's eyes flicked up to Bruce's, hope warring with disgust and mingled with guilt-stricken gratitude.

"They never manufactured an infant, although it appears that wasn't their goal," Bruce cautioned. "They wanted an adolescent or even an adult, someone who could be weaponized faster. And… there were a lot of failures," he added somberly.

Clark gaped.

"Did they -"

"Killed them. Yes," Bruce grunted, looking slightly nauseated.

Clark swallowed down some bile, not wanting to ask what he suspected that he already knew.

"I - I would appreciate the research, Bruce," he said in a shaky voice. "We both would. Lois and I."

Batman nodded.

"I'll send the files to Doctor Mid-nite, then," he said. "But Kal?"

Superman looked at him questioningly.

"Don't fuck up your second kid the way you fucked up your first."

Kal met Bruce's steely eyes with regretful ones.

"Maybe I can work on my attitude towards Conner," he mumbled slowly.

"You do that," said Batman, turning back to the Batcomputer.

"Thank you, Bruce," Kal said quietly, hesitating for a moment before laying a tentative hand on the Bat's shoulder, which promptly earned him a snarky, offended glare.

"Friends don't touch each other," Batman growled.

"Right," Kal said quickly, rapidly withdrawing his hand. "Of course not. My mistake."

Batman's derisive snort wasn't nearly quiet enough that Superman would have needed his super-hearing to pick it up, and Kal supposed that meant that he was forgiven.

If only he could forgive the clone for existing as easily as Bruce managed to forgive Kal for being a terrible friend… Kal would have thought that Superman could out-forgive Batman any day of the week that ended in -y, but apparently humble pie was today's lunch menu special, and it did not go down nearly as easily as his Ma's apple pies did, and Clark had a feeling that digesting his just desserts was going to be a stomachache and a half.

Yesterday afternoon

"Kal?" Bruce's raspy voice sounded so defeated that Clark hardly recognized it.

"Bruce," the reporter said back from the privacy of the roof of The Daily Planet. "I heard about Spoiler," Clark said compassionately.

"It's my fault," Bruce mumbled. "I fired her as Robin. She started the gang wars and I lost track of her and Black Mask captured her and tortured her - he tortured her, Kal, for days! God knows how long. She was only sixteen," Bruce said numbly. "A year older than Jason."

"I'm so sorry, Bruce," Clark said gently.

"You were right," Bruce muttered.

"About what?" Clark said, furrowing his brow.

He couldn't recall any conversations he'd had with Batman about his new Robin, other than the fact that the Bat had gotten one after Tim Drake's father had pulled the plug on Robin the Third.

"About me putting kids in capes," Bruce said. "I get them killed."

"Oh, Bruce, no -" Clark said, tears filling his eyes as he remembered his hurtful words to his best friend, uttered so many years ago in the Batcave in front of Jason's memorial.

"Yes," the Bat argued with him. "I do. It's my fault. Leslie said so. You said so. Jason said so. I shouldn't - I should have listened to you. You were right."

"Bruce," Clark said again. "Spoiler was out there on the streets long before she became Robin."

"Doesn't matter," Bruce grumbled. "She didn't go around starting gang wars trying to prove herself to Batman before I made her Robin - and then fired her."

"Ok," Clark said slowly, "but you told me she broke into the Batcave and begged to be Robin."

"Why are you defending me, Kal?" Bruce sighed. "I don't deserve it. Steph's dead."

Clark was silent for a moment.

"I know I can't convince you right now that you're a good person, Bruce," he said finally, "but know that I still believe it and will always believe it, because it's the truth."

Batman snorted derisively, but Clark didn't take offense.

"I hate to bring more bad news," Clark said nervously, swallowing hard.

"What?" Batman said, instantly tense and alert. "I didn't get a League alert," the detective said tautly, tapping rapidly away on the Batcomputer in the background.

"You wouldn't have, about this," Clark sighed. "I just overheard it at work. My day job," he clarified. "Tim Drake and Conner Luthor are Premarked."

"Oh, fuck," Bruce said in horror.

"Yeah," Clark said grimly. "Lex is calling in a favor, having Cat Grant do an interview with them. For a kind reason, actually," Clark said, grimacing at the thought and knowing that if he were human, he'd be getting one of Lois's migraines right now.

"Lex wants Cat to spin Stephanie positively, given her colorful background," Clark said, "to protect Tim's feelings, apparently," he muttered with just the slightest bit of snark intended towards Lex, not Tim, which he was sure that Bruce understood.

"How is Tim?" Bruce said with concern. "He hung up on me earlier today when I called to tell him about Steph. I know he must be taking it hard."

"I haven't seen him," Clark clarified. "The interview's tomorrow morning. I just, um, listened in on the conversation."

"Finally, Superman breaks some rules of etiquette," Batman snarked under his breath, making Clark smile.

Bruce picking on him was a good sign. His friend had sounded practically lethargic at the beginning of their call.

"I guess you can't tag along on the interview…?" Batman asked him only semi-hopefully.

Clark sighed.

"You know I can't," he said. "We don't know for sure that Lex knows my identity, but if he does, well… and I don't belong around Conner, anyway," Clark said quietly. "I need to honor the terms of my sentence. I put him through enough."

"Ok," Bruce said heavily. "You're right, of course. I just -" he groaned, sounding lost and confused and so unlike himself that Clark's throat constricted.

"I could fly over to Gotham tonight," Clark offered. "Help with patrol, keep you company?"

"No," Bruce said. "Thank you -" and the depth of Bruce's despair pierced Kal's heart, because when had Bruce ever thanked him for anything? "- but I need to be alone right now," Batman finished saying.

"I understand," Clark said softly. "If you need me, I'm just a shout away, though."

"Nosy bastard," Bruce teased, prompting the corners of Kal's mouth to curl up slightly.

"I would expect that Tim is coming back to Gotham for the funeral," Clark said to Bruce. "You'll talk to him then, I guess? And let me know how it goes? I'm sure he must be concerned about his sudden relationship to Lex."

Batman grunted.

"As if he hasn't been through enough already," Bruce said. "One more kid I fucked up."

"Bruce, no -" Clark tried to say, but the Bat had hung up.

Last night

"What's 'everything' that's wrong?" Conner asked Tim gently, still holding him in his arms as they sat side by side in bed. "You can tell me, Timmy. Whatever it is," Conner softly pleaded.

Tim blinked his tears away. Part of him wanted to, he really wanted to. Conner was so excited about being Premarked and so clearly already adored Tim and Tim didn't really expect Robin to bother Conner in and of itself, but Conner was so close to his dad, and Tim didn't know if he could ask - or trust - his brand-new soulmate to hide something so big from Lex - especially if Conner didn't know that Lex was a villain.

Besides, Tim was at this very moment sleeping (trapped, one might extrapolate) in Lex's penthouse. Not the best place for secret identity reveals.

But once they were back in Gotham…

"I'll tell you tomorrow," Tim said, turning his head to look into Conner's (beautiful, amazing, even-when-hidden-by-moonlight-and-shadows) eyes.

"Ok," Conner said with relief, leaning into Tim's lips for a soft kiss. "I don't care what it is, babe; I've got your back," the teenager said firmly.

"...always?" Tim said hesitantly, winding his fingers around the collar of Conner's t-shirt.

"Always," Conner said in surprise. "Of course. You're my soulmate, Timmy. You come first," he said as if it should be obvious.

Tim buried his face in the crook of Conner's neck and let his arms slip around his boyfriend.

"Promise?" he whispered in Conner's ear.

"Promise," Conner said, and Tim wanted to believe him.

He just wasn't sure he could.

A/N Thanks for reading! Comments are love! You can follow me on Tumblr as River9Noble, come say hi!

I'm working hard on Ch. 49 of Red Knight at the moment, and that should wrap up with Ch. 51 before Christmas.

In the meantime, I'm hoping to get Fate pouring out fast again in between working on Red Knight and Light in the Dark. Got a bit slowed down the end of October with longfic updates and some exchange fics but don't have much else going on anymore besides my longfics, so looking forward to some great productivity going forward!