Chapter 42 - Dinner
It could have been worse.
Clark wanted to let Lex do the talking so he wouldn't have to, but having to watch his older friend talk to his mother about his . . . urges . . . was even worse than talking about them himself. In the end, he took over the conversation and explained the whole thing to his mom, his face burning with mortification the whole time.
To her credit, she took it really well. She didn't seem shocked or embarrassed, she didn't shame him, and she didn't try to blame Lex for anything—not that Clark could think of anything Lex should be blamed for, but he was sure his dad probably could have. She was even nice about it when Clark explained he wanted to be able to experiment with the heat vision without her in the room. Lex kept especially quiet during that part of the conversation, but Clark borrowed from some of his earlier words, about how important it was that Clark learn to control this particular power, and his mom agreed. He asked what they would do about Dad. She just said she would handle it, and she left.
Clark spent the better part of the rest of the day thinking about Lana and setting little controlled fires in the experiment room. Lex mostly stayed out of the way and refrained from commenting on anything. After the sixth or seventh attempt, Clark was starting to find that there was a certain feeling that went along with setting the fires, separate from those hormonal connections, and with a little effort, he could separate them in his mind.
Out of curiosity, he tried again to light a fire in the meteor rock cell, and he found that it was a lot more difficult to control in there. It was more difficult to set the fire in general, and he didn't actually manage to do it without thinking about Lana. He figured the red meteor rock must have been a pretty significant boost; he also figured he probably wouldn't have been able to set a fire at all if the green meteor rock concentration in the walls had been any higher.
It was a relief to be able to control the fires. In the following week, though, Clark realized that he heat vision didn't seem as helpful as some of his other powers—it just felt too dangerous to be setting fires to solve problems—so he didn't use it for much more than ordinary household things, popping popcorn and toasting bread.
His dad didn't say anything to him about his mom having given him temporary permission to run unsupervised experiments at the mansion, but there was an icy tension between his parents for the next few days. Over time, Clark picked up enough hints to guess that it had less to do with his mom undermining his dad's authority, and more to do with the fact that his mom had come home with all kinds of nice things to say about how polite and civil Lex had been and how quick he'd been to attend to Clark's safety. Apparently, exposing Clark to both green and red meteor rock and then accidentally putting Clark in a position where he was in a room that was on fire with no powers to protect him wasn't Clark's dad's idea of safe or civil. Clark didn't bother trying to argue.
What caused even more tension, though, was that Clark's mom called Lex at the mansion the next day to set up a time for all of them to have dinner together. When the day came, Clark's dad kept making excuses about how he had too much work to do on the farm. Clark tried using his powers to do some of his dad's chores for him, and he got himself yelled at for using his powers without permission. He could only blame himself for that part—he had broken the rules, after all—but it was difficult not to think about the fact that his dad probably would have been thrilled if he'd used his powers to free up time for his dad to do something he actually wanted to do.
Clark didn't mention that, of course. Nor did he bring up the fact that his dad had claimed to tolerate or even have a small measure of respect for Lex only a couple of weeks ago, after they'd met in person. Saying any of that to try to get himself out of trouble probably would have been a disaster, and the last thing Clark wanted was to be grounded, especially now that he didn't have the "internship" as a cover to serve as an exception to his parents' grounding.
As predicted, Pamela panicked when she found out there had been a fire at the mansion. Lex knew better than to keep it from her; she always had a way of finding things out, even when he was a child. He submitted to the worried looks, the repeated questions after his safety and Clark's and the mansion's, the brief anger for scaring her, and then the long, long hug.
He never would have admitted it to anyone, but he had desperately missed that. He felt tears spring to his eyes as he stood in her arms, but she held onto him long enough that he had time to blink them away.
The next day, Martha Kent called to set up a time for them all to have dinner together. She invited him to come over to their place, but Pamela, who happened to be standing nearby and could apparently deduce everything that was happening on the phone, whispered, "Invite them here." He took her word for it and set a date and time. When he asked her about it afterwards, she just said, "A man like Jonathan Kent considers his dinner table to be a sacred space. You'll need to earn your place there."
Lex refrained from asking how on earth he was supposed to do that. Instead, he asked her if she'd be willing to be there for their dinner together. She smiled gently and said that she would be honored.
On the night he'd planned to have the Kents over, Lex ended up changing clothes three times. Pamela made him. He was too dressed up at first, then too casual. He protested emphatically that he knew how to dress himself—he of all people knew how much of an impact appearances could make on others—but she just gave him a little smile and said he still had much to learn when it came to small towns and farm families.
Lex called in an impressive order to the chefs at the mansion, which Pamela immediately cancelled and amended to include only what Lex's father would have called peasant food—maybe not his exact words, but it was what Lex took from it. Lex raised his eyebrows in surprise, and Pamela just smiled and said, "Trust me."
At Pamela's advice, Lex didn't send a servant to let the Kents in the front gate. He went outside to greet them himself, and Pamela came with him.
Clark and Martha stood at the gate. Martha held a box of chocolate chip cookies, which Lex could smell from halfway up his driveway.
"Glad you could make it." Lex wasn't sure how to comment on Jonathan's absence. A little part of him was aware of the rejection, but on the whole, he couldn't help but feel relieved.
Pamela nodded to Clark and smiled at Martha. "Pamela Jenkins."
"Martha Kent. It's nice to meet you."
Pamela looked down at the tin. "Those cookies smell delicious, Mrs. Kent."
"Please, call me Martha."
"Martha, then. Is that cinnamon I detect?"
"Cinnamon, and a little bit of ginger."
They both began to wander toward the house, and Pamela went on, "That sounds amazing. My aunt used to put a bit of cayenne in her chocolate chip cookies."
"Cayenne? That's very unusual."
"Not enough to make them spicy, just enough . . ." Their voices trailed off as they left his range of hearing.
Clark grinned after them. "Well, that didn't take long."
Lex watched them for a moment, then he turned back to Clark. "Dad couldn't make it?"
"Uh." Clark rubbed the back of his neck. "He had a lot of chores to get done . . ."
"And he didn't want to take your help."
"Um, my powers aren't helpful with everything . . ."
"He still hates me."
Clark sighed. "I'm still working on it."
"Don't, Clark. You're still earning his trust back for yourself. His opinion of me can wait."
"If you say so." Clark frowned, and they both walked toward the house. "I don't know how you put up with it. If, I dunno, Pete's dad treated me the way my dad treats you, I don't know if I could be friends with Pete."
Lex shrugged. "I'm used to it."
The words were out before Lex could think better of them.
Clark looked away. "I'm sorry, Lex."
"You're the past person who should be sorry," Lex said softly.
As soon as they reached the dining room, Lex understood why Pamela had changed his order to his chef. The whole place smelled a lot like the way the Kent house had smelled, the few times Lex had been inside. It made Lex's mouth water in a way that the so-called delicacies he had been raised on never did.
The four of them conversed over dinner for a few minutes before Pamela and Martha split off and had their own conversation, about baking and gardening and eventually descending into increasingly embarrassing stories about things Clark and Lex did when they were little. Eventually, Clark and Lex chatted on their own while their moms—well, mom and nanny—talked to each other.
Lex knew the whole point of Martha wanting to do dinner with Lex had been to give Jonathan an opportunity to get to know him better, and that wasn't happening, but Lex just couldn't bring himself to mind. He had mentally prepared himself for arguments and berating and tension and awkward silences. Instead, it was a nice night.
After his fourth cookie—he'd promised himself he wouldn't have more than one or maybe two, but all thoughts of restraint went out the window after his first bite—Lex's phone started to buzz.
It was the hospital in Metropolis.
Clark's brow furrowed. "Lex? Everything okay?"
"My apologies. I have to take this," he said, and he slipped into the next room. "This is Lex Luthor," he said.
"Mr. Luthor, this is Dr. Lee. I'm calling about your father."
Lex swallowed hard. "Is everything alright?"
"Better than alright. He's awake, and he's asking to see you."
Lex almost dropped the phone.