A/N: So this little beauty was my palate cleanser after the behemoth that was Comorbidity's first draft: after 300,000 words of intricately chaotic plotlines, I wanted something a little more managable. Something fun. Something short. Something under 50k.
I mostly succeeded.
DC notes for this work: this version of Conner is entirely the Young Justice cartoon version. Storyline takes place after season two and disregards season three. This version of Lex is based off the show, but is supplemented from the old Justice League cartoons where needed (ie, kryptonite cancer and some personality quirks). Clark is an amalgamation of varying Superman personalities.
Obligatory DC Salt: I wrote this fic because, as fans, we got robbed of the familial drama we deserved between season one and two. The characters got robbed of meaningful arcs in the face of a life conflict that doesn't have a clear cut resolution. Instead, we all got some half baked "brothers" bullshit, as though Conner's character motivations in season one didn't revolve around his frustration that Clark wanted nothing to do with him. Superman went from having (potentially fascinating) flaws and personal conflict to Perfect Unobjectionable Poster-child for Justice (TM). The uncomfortable reality of Lex being Conner's other dad only ever got a passing mention and not the dumpster fire of a showdown it deserved.
Strap in. There will be s'mores.
Stretched out on his back across the cheap motel's queen sized econo-bed and listening to the rattle of the ancient window mounted air conditioning unit try to fight the desert heat, Conner felt the exact second the lead-foil-covered-kryptonite he'd taken erupted in his stomach and abruptly realized that he didn't want to die.
God, he hadn't thought he could actually feel physically worse than he had for the last few months, but as it turned out, he hadn't quite hit rock bottom when he'd made that call. Damn it.
He lurched to his feet, knees shaking, and staggered towards the bathroom. Sucked in a pained gasp. This had been such a bad idea. How was he going to get it out of him? He'd never thrown up before, wasn't sure he could coerce his hybrid body to do it anyway even in the presence of the tiny amounts of kryptonite. There was a cheap plastic razor in the bathroom; perhaps he could pry free the blade and split his stomach open while it's radiation was still inside him. Would that even pierce his skin? He hoped so. Sure, it might kill him, but anything would be better than the burning-cold weakness spreading out from the core of him in coronas of pain-
Fortunately, his body had his back. This time, anyway.
The square terracotta colored tile of the floor rushed towards him. Barely felt it. Black fuzz encroached on the sides of his vision, like a lens special effect. Apparently Conner could vomit- a faint burning sensation spread up his throat and out his mouth, the world spinning sharply away as it spattered across the tile- oh that was his lunch, gross-
Breaking up with M'gann again had somehow been more painful the second time. Following the ejection of the Reach from their planet and Wally's death, he and M'gann had crashed back together with the inevitability of waves collapsing in the tide. She was full of so much remorse and grief, while Conner felt full to the brim with pain at the realization that she was really his only option in a world he couldn't grow alongside, burdened with problems no one else could be expected to understand nor handle. Forgiving her seemed like such a small price to pay; she was still a good person, on the whole, and he did love her. The familiar blanket of that love had been such a relief, such a comfort to draw around him again; that reassurance, that companionship, filling his evenings with affection and automatic evening plans. Whatever lingering weirdness from their break up was gone and suddenly, he had his best friend back. For someone held hostage by time, for once, Superboy had been looking forward to things going back to the way they were.
They didn't, of course.
It wasn't just Conner's growing malaise or the exhaustion creeping in at the corners of him. It wasn't the bouts of uneven sleeping interrupting a circadian rhythm he could have once set a clock by. It wasn't the noticeable diminishing of his strength and speed in training. It was the way M'gann looked at him in the quiet moments during the month of their revived relationship, the hint of a sad tenacity in her smile. A sense of perseverance for the sake of some elusive inner reward.
It took until J'onn had returned with the results of the medical tests and told Conner he was dying before he identified the source of her look. The moment they'd gotten those news, something new had been there, for just a split second, unfurling the corners of her eyes and lips: a twitch of bittersweet relief. Not a trace of meanness, but something in her had brightened every bit as much as it dimmed.
He'd let that rattle around in his head and his heart for less than a day.
"Why did you get back together with me?" he asked her that night, as they sat watching nineties sitcoms in the main area of the temporary Bludhaven base, Wolf spread across their feet like a snoring, two hundred pound blanket.
It was quiet in the warehouse. Most of the team had found other living arrangements with more privacy than a curtain, returning only for meetings and training now that Mount Justice was officially out of commission (the Watchtower's facilities tended to get a little crowded). They had full control over the TV most evenings and few interruptions. Conner wasn't really paying attention to the screen and suspected M'gann wasn't as well; the laugh track punctuated the silence without any input from either of them.
She'd looked at him with those sad, compassionate eyes and covered his hand. "Because I still love you and I always will." She studied his face, probing gently at his mind with soothing tendrils, non-invasive. Tilted her head at his mental non-permission to enter, but withdrew. "I'm not going to leave you to face this alone, Conner, if that's what you're wondering. You know I won't. Our friends won't either."
Her hand was a cool weight on his. He stared at it as he composed his next question, brows furrowing. "I do know, but… was that true before? I mean, did you always plan to stay with me, until the end?"
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean, Conner. Did I imagine spending a lifetime with you? Of course, silly, I always have. That hasn't changed."
"My lifetime?" Conner asked quietly, meeting her eyes. "Or yours?"
She froze, eyes filling with hurt and pulled her hand back. "That's not fair. Martians live-"
"A very long time, yes," he said. Inhaled slowly. "You're already closer to a hundred than I will ever be and our relationship doesn't change that. It's the timing that gets me, though. We break up and you got together with Lagann. Afterwards, I find out that I can't age, that I won't have a normal life-" he broke off and swallowed, mind flicking involuntarily to the handful of aborted almost-relationships he'd pursued in spite of that knowledge. "-and then when you broke it off with Lagann, you came right back to me, ready to commit to something that failed once before."
"And I was to blame for that failure," she said, eyes shining with tears. "That was on me. I take full responsibility for my actions. Conner, you are my best friend and I love you-"
"I know you do. I believe it to my bones," he said, careful to keep his voice neutral. "And I love you more than I've ever loved anyone, but I need to know if you got back together with me because of that or if you wanted to make sure I wouldn't spend the rest of my painful, short life alone and unloved?"
Tears carved their way down her cheeks to glint in the dim light, but she didn't say no. Couldn't say no. A silence of admission.
He'd nodded and stood. Like that, what facsimile of happiness they'd enjoyed together was over. The next day, he'd packed up a duffel bag and, after a short conversation with Red Tornado about looking after Wolf and Sphere while he did some unspecified 'traveling', he left.
She'd meant it as a kindness, of that he was certain, but it didn't stop the bitter sting. Her love was an obligation, a phase of martyrdom; by Martian standards, his entire life and death fell within the span of what counted as her young adulthood, even if he weren't terminally ill. Devoting what was essentially her twenties to staying with him was a small price to pay for living the rest of her life without guilt over abandoning a friend. That's what that flicker of relief had been, quickly buried by sorrow- his illness was a promise of early release from a prison she'd built for herself out of her best of intentions.
Conner would rather die alone.
He might not have a lot of time left and it might not be worth much even to him, but that didn't mean he wanted to sacrifice it on the altar of M'gann not wanting to feel like a bad person.
The woods and swamps of the East Coast fell away behind him, receding to the sprawling plains of the Midwest. He avoided Kansas like the plague, routing through Yellowstone instead and then down south until he reached the sweltering desert. Rental cars at first, then busses, then eventually walking. It wasn't like he was on a timetable. He hiked, when he had the energy, though that was becoming harder and harder to come by. It would have been easier with Sphere, but New Gensian tech was easily traceable. Much as he might miss her, Wolf, and his friends, he preferred to pass alone and unwitnessed, rather than burdening everyone he cared about with his slow decline.
Yeah, he knew they would never utter a word of complaint. Everyone would offer sympathy and support without reserve. He just couldn't bring himself to accept it. His friends and teammates had lives of their own and he didn't want to rob their energy from those while his came to its inevitable, early conclusion. Ma and Pa would do something for him, he was fairly certain, but he barely felt like a member of their little family as it was; he couldn't stomach the thought of relying on their kindness and pity, weighing them down with sorrow during what should be a happy time. He already felt like an intruder in their affectionate unit, despite their efforts to welcome him; like an oddly shaped puzzle piece that didn't quite fit even though, by all rights, it matched the ones surrounding it.
The mere idea of telling Clark made his chest hollow out.
That's how Conner found himself wandering the desert, mostly on foot now, and chasing the sun. UV radiation was in great supply among the mesas and Joshua trees. It scorched the earth with its raw power, offsetting the worst of his symptoms. Sometimes he'd lay on the hard, dusty earth and shut his eyes, willing his cells to soak in every drop of yellow sunlight that they could. It didn't help. Wandering and waiting, feeling like a cracked jug with it's water spilling out one drop at a time. It wasn't until a flash of pain followed by spell of dizziness at a flea market had clued him in to the presence of a tiny amount of kryptonite- barely enough for the tip of a pencil's eraser, much less a proper pendant- that he realized that he was tired of his death march.
It had been nearly two months since he'd gotten the news that he'd be dead by his seventh birthday.
Killing more time waiting for the inevitable had seemed slightly worse than killing himself. Stuck between a rock and a hard place (heh, literally), Conner stared down at the kryptonite and realized he wanted to go out on his own terms.
There was a weird, regular beeping- sharp and authoritative. Actually, he could hear plenty of beeping, all at different tones and pitches. The low roar of many conversations, the echoing calls over the intercom, rattling keyboards, the quick bits of information exchanged between passing professionals. Mostly dosages and health statuses.
For the first flicker of potent super hearing he'd had in weeks, it faded as quickly as it came.
Oh, god. His mouth tasted disgusting. Now he knew: vomiting was the worst.
He inhaled sharply and sat up, only a little startled to see the bleached white sheets pulled up across his torso and the egg-nog colored machines surrounding his gurney bed. Wincing around the headache pounding in his temples, he glanced down at his arms, at the IV needles trapped close to his skin with tape. When they'd been inserted, he must have still been close to the kryptonite in his vomit, but now he was far enough from it's effects that his flesh had forcibly ejected the small invaders. He decided to take that as a sign that his body had purged it completely.
A pale medical curtain had been drawn across his side of the room. Nothing secured him to the railing of his bed- either his condition had been too perilous when he'd gotten in for them to bother or his suicide attempt hadn't been recognized as such. Frankly, it was a miracle anyone had found him in time, though in retrospect the teenaged girl at the front desk had seemed attentive to him in that pink way he'd resigned himself to and had offered to drop off any extra toiletries he'd needed. Given his incongruent-to-his-size weight, he'd probably made quite the racket when he'd hit the ground.
Ripping off the taped needles and the monitor clamped to his finger, Conner swung his legs over the side of the bed and groaned. His stomach ached with lingering, residual pain- a sensation he was becoming unwillingly familiar with- but he didn't have time to mope. Weakened infrared vision showed plenty of bodies darting back and forth in this part of the hospital. He didn't know when a nurse would be by to check on him and he didn't want to find out.
The monitor behind his bed listed his listed name as Don Canard. Good. They'd only found his fake ID, meaning the Justice League hadn't been notified. Dying in peace was harder with well-meaning spectators, he mused crankily to himself, ripping off his hospital bracelet.
He stooped, grabbing a plastic drawstring bag from the chair beside his bed: his personal effects. Listening to the low drone that had begun when he'd removed his heart rate monitor, he quickly replaced the hospital gown he'd been dressed in with his own clothing. Or at least, as much of it as he could find- everything was there except his shirt, likely covered in vomit and set aside somewhere if not outright cut off him when the paramedics arrived.
Damn. A shirtless man- teenager, really- leaving the hospital would raise questions. He'd have to steal something to wear before he left.
At least his wallet had been returned to his pocket, as well as his motel room key. All his cash. It was nice to find out his rescuers had all been honest.
Conner took another steadying breath. He wouldn't go back to the motel, he decided, dropping the key on the chair. It'd be memorable, returning after only hours after they'd called an ambulance for him. Not that he needed anything in his lone duffel bag anway. Just spare clothes, stuff like that- he wasn't dumb enough to bring a phone or communicator.
Escaping the emergency department took little time. Most of his life had been spent in covert ops, after all. Conner darted into the first open room with a sleeping patient and no visitors, snatched the blue plaid flannel shirt from the middle aged man's wardrobe (leaving a crinkled fifty dollar bill in its place), and strode down the hallway like he knew precisely where he was supposed to be going and was in a bit of a hurry to be there. (The only thing Conner made a priority was finding a drinking fountain- stat.) It didn't actually matter how quickly he found the exit, it didn't even matter if it was the nearest one, so long as he left the wing without being recognized as a patient. He got lost twice, exiting somewhere near the children's ward to find a bus stop conveniently located just outside the doors.
He didn't relax until the doors hissed shut behind him and the bus bounced gently away, the hospital receding in the distance behind them. It was sunset now. Fiery orange and purple swept across the sky like brushstrokes, framed by the craggy sandstone mountains and crumbling mesas. The window was cool against his forehead and he shut his eyes.
The driver had the station set to a smooth jazz station. Conner tuned most of it out but caught snatches as it transitioned from music to a talk-news hour. -the business world today, CEO Lex Luthor of LexCorp just announced he will be stepping down from his duties immediately, citing long term health concerns. Official statements from the company support this claim, but insiders say that the fifty-one-year-old tycoon was forced out due to the many pending charges against the company for its alleged knowing involvement with the Reach's invasion plans. Superman was unavailable for comment, but-
Conner grimaced. Despite his exhaustion, he was in no actual danger of falling asleep here. The faint headache and the gnawing hunger never really seemed to go away, the fatigue pressing in on him from the sides promising him everything but sleep. It could have been worse, he tried to remind himself.
A pang in his chest contradicted that.
Bells chiming as he pushed open the door, Lex paused to study Conner from across the dingy roadside diner. His genetic legacy sprawled forward on a dented formica tabletop, head buried in the pillow of his arms, and surrounded by twice the amount of empty plates than Lex expected for a party of one. A lazy finger fiddled with his straw, making tiny swirls in the half finished orange soda. The only sign of life. He'd chosen the corner booth furthest from the door, far from the other two occupied tables. Perhaps it was the bars of sunlight slanting across the surface that held the real appeal for the semi-solar powered hybrid- he gave off the air of a bedraggled tomcat, posture discouraging helpful waitresses and passerbys alike while he basked.
A waitress with an ill-advised nose ring looked up from the till and asked Lex if he wanted a seat at the bar. He ignored her.
It was hard to tell from this distance, of course, but something in his posture suggested he was unwell. Hungover, he would have assumed in anyone for whom that was biologically possible.
Lex shoved down his prickle of unease.
"You know, son," he said conversationally, sliding onto the bench across from him. "If I'd known-"
"No." Conner's head shot up and shadowed, suspicious eyes glared at him. He pushed himself onto his elbows. "What do you want?"
Lex raised an eyebrow and grabbed a menu. "Initially? Just to talk. Now I'm considering pie."
"I don't want to talk to you," Conner said, glancing around as though expecting an army to pour through the dirt streaked windows that offered a rather unexciting view of what passed as Main Street in this backwater town. There were no threats to be found, of course. Lex had told Mercy to circle in the car and await his text. Otherwise, he'd come alone. Blue eyes narrowed on him. "I'm too tired to deal with you right now. How did you find me?"
Lex nearly pointed out the contradictory nature of those statements but decided not to belabor the point. Starting a conversation was the goal, after all.
He dropped the laminated menu on the table and crossed his legs."I'll admit it was a challenge. No one I spoke to knew where you were, but fortunately, LexCorp owns the most popular hospital data software in the country. I wasn't looking for you there, given your imperviousness to injury, but you tripped my passive alerts for "glowing green mineral" related admittances. Hospital security footage confirmed. Tracking you here was a matter of correlating bus routes." Lex drummed his fingers on the table and gave his kid a flat look. "Also, your fake ID is Donald Duck? Really?"
Conner rolled his eyes as the waitress came to their table, leaving promptly when all Lex ordered was coffee. "It's funny how many people's heads that goes over."
"Land of the monolinguals, yes." Lex studied him. "How did you come to ingest kryptonite in the first place?"
He had a guess, of course. Hospital analysis of Conner's vomit showed unusually high amounts of lead. Conner's sense of taste would have made that impossible to disguise and assassins weren't usually so considerate anyway. There were only so many logical conclusions.
"That's none of your business."
"Whose business is your suicide attempt, exactly?" Lex folded his arms and wrinkled his nose. Whatever had gone wrong in the boy's life to cause him to spiral like this, it was probably stupid. Lex was only occasionally a betting man, but his money had something to do with that Martian girl. "Superman's? The League? That's the same shirt you stole from the hospital. When was the last time you bothered to shower or glance in a mirror?"
"What do you want, Lex?" Conner demanded. A quick glance at the door clued Lex in to his offspring's intention to leave any second now. "I'm not going to play your stupid games. I know you've been kicked out of your own company, so I'm guessing either revenge or a power grab is what this boils down to. It doesn't matter. Whatever it is, I want nothing to do with it."
Lex pressed his tongue against the inside of his teeth. He might as well get on with it, even if Conner's current condition gave him plenty to chew on.
The waitress returned with a white ceramic mug and a pot of brown sludge. He waited until she'd stepped away. "I'm not currently plotting anything, as I'm sure you'll be relieved to hear. No, my goals are far more personal. I was hoping for your… assistance."
Conner gave him a flinty stare.
Lex held up a hand. "Not your powers or anything like that. I'm dying."
A snort. "Get in line."
"Cancer," Lex went on. "Non hodgkin's lymphoma. I've had it before, only this time it's been exacerbated by keeping a kryptonite ring on my person at all times. I'm sure you can imagine why I thought that was a good idea."
A dry snort. "Self important paranoia? Extra-terrestrial xenophobia?"
"Unfortunately, it's proven a lot more resistant to treatment than my last bout," Lex continued. "Everything my doctors and I can throw at it has failed to stop it. Radiation. Chemotherapy. I even injected myself with my own modified stem cells. The most I've managed to do-" and here, Lex tugged aside the collar of his dress shirt, just enough to show Conner a glimpse of his green containment vest "-is slow it down, but that won't stop it from killing me eventually. I could have weeks. I could have years. Either way, I hate waiting. I'd rather have this fight on my own terms."
Conner set his jaw and looked away. "What has this got to do with me?"
Lex shrugged. "I've gone through several options, both actual and theoretical, and my greatest odds of success lie in more stem cell therapy. Donor cells this time, and relatives are the best match. While yours are half kryptonian, and thus fatal for me to inject directly, I believe that with enough processing-"
Conner laughed.
Ignoring Lex's cool glare, he tipped his head back and slumped against his seat, letting the sudden, jagged sound wind down of its own accord. Dark mirth stole across his face. "Oh, that's a shame. An ironic shame. You can't have any of mine."
"I'm willing to offer you-"
Conner shook his head. "Even if you talk me into it, they won't do you any good. They aren't doing me any good either. I'm dying too."
Lex's eyes narrowed. Forcibly relaxed his clenched fists. "Explain."
Conner rubbed his face. "Fuck off."
"It shouldn't be possible," Lex insisted, studying him. Perhaps his initial assumption of suicide had been incorrect. Had Conner somehow ingested a larger amount of kryptonite and it was still poisoning him? It seemed implausible, but so was the existence of the benevolent, all powerful alien turned he'd pilfered DNA from. Leave it to their combined offspring to be both ambitious and bizarre with his own problems. If that was the case, why was he wandering the desert alone instead of seeking medical treatment? "You should be immune to almost all disease and sickness. Your genome-"
Conner let out a harsh chuckle and leaned forward. "Well, that's the thing. You could say I'm dying from a bad case of being a clone. My DNA is degrading. I'm not absorbing solar radiation properly anymore. My powers have faded. I feel ill, weak, and in pain all of the time now."
Lex frowned. "What caused this? Apart from the idiot idea to snack on radioactive space rocks three days ago."
Conner grimaced. "Nothing. So far as the League's scanners can tell, this is a standard hybridization failure. Under normal pressure, my cells stopped replicating correctly after so many cycles. Eventually, my organs will shut down. American manufacturing these days, I guess."
Lex scowled. "Hybridization failure? Not possible. I sequenced and designed your genetic structure personally ."
"Well, that explains it."
Lex crossed his arms, ignoring the jab. "What tests did they run? I want to see the full panel of results. This sounds like a misdiagnosis at best. 'Raging incompetence' is far more accurate, I suspect."
"I don't know and no." Conner scowled and rubbed his arm. "Doubt the best medical care in the world, sure, but you can't doubt my symptoms. My powers have dwindled. My cell cultures are a nightmare and my immune system is sinking faster than your career. Your ego's preference for terminology aside, I'm dying."
Lex shut his eyes. "How long do you have?"
"Half a year, but only when an optimist does the math." Connor took a sip of his soda.
"Then what are you doing here?" Lex demanded, jerking an accusing hand at the dusty town outside the large windows. The dilapidated bowling alley across the street had a blue and pink neon sign, half of which failed to illuminate. An actual tumbleweed chose that moment to drift across Main Street. "The League has access to some of the most advanced medicine on the planet, with at least sixteen different alien races represented. They confiscated enough of Cadmus's data on you to get a baseline- and I assure you our work was both extensive and thorough. I supervised every step of your creation, with exactingly detailed notes. Even were this a hybridization failure, unlikely as that is given the scope of my-"
"There's nothing they can do," Conner said, pressing his fingers gently over his eye sockets. Lex wasn't sure if he was merely exhausted or trying to block out his vision of him. "I'm welcome to all the treatment I want, but they can only partially alleviate my symptoms; perhaps even improvise a series of painful procedures that may do more harm than good for the sake of buying me a few weeks. It isn't a matter of altering the DNA of a few wayward cells- it's all of them. There's no cure, because there's nothing to fix. You just made me wrong."
" I made you perfect ."
They stared at one another for a long moment; Conner exhausted and incredulous, Lex insistent and intense. It startled Conner, the vehemence with which his DNA doner said that with. He sincerely seemed to believe it.
Conner couldn't tell whether he should chalk it up to the man's narcissism or his arrogance, though he suspected it was at least in part desperation. An estranged-partial-alien-clone's stem cells couldn't be Lex's first option for alternative cancer treatment; probably right up there on the list with magic spells and fondling random lamps in the hope of stumbling upon a genie. The man was dressed as though his illness wore away at his wardrobe; instead of the impeccable suit and tie he'd favored before, he sat across from Conner in a white dress shirt with two buttons hanging loose to show the grazing neckline of the vest beneath, it's sleeves rolled up. A faint hint of stubble clung to his cheeks, coming in mostly gray. He seemed pale. Restless. Old.
Despite being a more prolific liar than Pinnochio, Conner didn't doubt Lex was telling the truth about having cancer.
There was a trace of poetic justice to the whole situation. Dr. Frankenstein and his monster dying in tandem. He didn't necessarily like it (no, wait, there was a vein of venomous glee), but he could appreciate it on an intellectual level.
Conner downed the rest of his soda. "Obviously not."
"I assure you, this issue did not start in your DNA. I made you-"
Wow. The man really could not admit he'd failed, despite the overwhelming evidence to the contrary. It was almost fascinating, how massive Lex's ego had to be to eclipse the obvious. "-unable to fly or use heat vision or age?" Conner finished, propping his chin in his hand.
Lex glowered at him with envy-green eyes. "It's not my fault your so-called friends took you before you were finished incubating. What? Did you think we wanted to deal with a teenaged Superman? The limits imposed on your abilities by your human DNA were meant to erode with maturity; you weren't supposed to be operational until you were biologically twenty four. I didn't make you wrong, you're just…" he waved a hand, looking for the right term, "half-baked."
Conner sat back in his seat, widening his eyes. "Oh, I'm Half-Baked Superman? Thank you . That's so much better than Defective Superman or Watered Down Superman, or my previous personal favorite, Diet Superman. Promise me you'll make sure they engrave that on my headstone ."
After a moment, Lex glanced away. Silence flowed between them. Conner was expecting the man to stand and storm out, but instead, he muttered, "Come with me."
"What?"
"Don't give me that. Your hearing is better than most dogs." Lex let out a heavy breath and shook his head, folding his hands together with a thoughtful frown. "Come stay with me. I'll ensure that you're comfortable while I run my own tests to suss out the root cause of your condition. Lord knows I need a project. You'll be no worse off than this, at any rate."
Conner stared at him like he'd revealed a lifelong desire to join the Justice League. "What, in our entire fucked up history together, made you think I would even consider saying yes?"
Lex shrugged and took a sip of his coffee, obviously just buying himself time to put his thoughts in order. "Several reasons. One, you have nothing to lose. Even if I am plotting something, which I'm not, you'll be dead soon anyway. Staying with me has to at least be comparable to swallowing kryptonite, and we both know you're willing to consider that. Two, I take it from the solo trip and fake ID that you've kept your friends in the dark about the situation, which suggests you've already decided not to spend your final time with them. Why is that, I wonder?"
Conner's jaw worked. He looked away without answering.
"At any rate, eventually someone is going to come looking for you or you'll collapse somewhere you're recognized. I imagine being returned to the League on death's door runs rather counter to your desires. Third, despite the League having the most extensive medical data on the planet, I have the most extensive knowledge regarding your biology specifically. If anyone can figure out the problem, much less have a hope of treating it, it's me." Lex's lips twisted. "Despite what you might think, my ousting from LexCorp's leadership has neither robbed me of all my resources nor influence. I have what I need to look into this. And fourth, I'm your father."
A bark of laughter ripped free of his throat before Conner could help it. Not that he tried hard.
Lex waved a vague hand. "You carry my genes, son. The basic tenets of biology require me to be invested in your continued survival-"
"You're not my father," Conner said, slamming his palms on the table.
The empty plates and silverware rattled, drawing the gaze of the other patrons. After a few seconds passed without follow up, they resumed their conversations at half volume.
"Oh, god, you're one of those." Lex crossed his arms, his eyes appealing to the ceiling for answers. "'Home is where the heart is'. 'Your true family is the one you choose.' No and no. A home is a building that's lived in; a family is a group of people with the misfortune to share DNA. Words have meanings. Concrete, linguistically agreed upon meanings. Why do idealists insist on trying to change them for the sake of feelings?"
"Because they're capable of having any?"
Lex gave him a patient, bland look. "Fifty percent of your DNA says I'm your father. Not wanting a relationship with me does not mean we don't have one. Things can be true and complicated at the same time. In particular, you seem to conflate good with meaningful. Regardless of how either of us feel about it, 'father' is an accurate word."
"Delusional might be a better one."
"Agree to disagree, Conner. Whatever baggage you've attached to the terminology, I was raised in an environment where contention and conflict merely flavored familial relationships: the very existence of any one member was the manifestation of an old vendetta against another. If anything, your constant attempts to disown me do more to convince me of your paternity than you think- I essentially did the same at your age. Anyone who says family isn't complicated is either a liar or under the age of ten, and yes, that does mean you have another four years at least before I hold it against you."
And Lex had the nerve to criticize him about baggage. Christ.
There was too much to unpack in so few sentences, so Conner opted for appalled silence.
Lex held up his final pinky finger. "And fifth on my list of reasons, is that you already know what I want: to save my own life. Your stem cells would have to be healthy for me to even begin and since I haven't yet discovered how they'll help me, I need a living source. Curing you gets me one step closer to that, so if you can't trust my good intentions, you can trust my self-preservation."
"Trust you to be an asshole, you mean."
"Consistency is king, son."
Conner let out a low chuckle. "You're a piece of work, you know that?" He slumped forward over his crossed arms again, mind racing.
It would be so easy to tell Lex to fuck off. Of course, that would mean resigning himself to either swallowing more kryptonite or more aimless wandering while he waited to die.
(That didn't help Lex's case as much as he probably thought it would.)
Something like hope flickered dully in his chest. Maybe it was a new form of resignation, but Conner found himself actually considering Lex's proposition. His first point had been on the money, to give credit where it was due: Conner had little to lose, even if he trusted Lex less than a Nigerian prince who swore he could only communicate via email. And there was an admittedly small chance that Lex would succeed in curing him; statistically unlikely, but enough to make his heart leap a little.
Besides, Lex's presented motivations were the only ones that fit: Conner was too ill and weak to be of any use to the man as a soldier even under mind control, even less as a test subject, and by that note, a bad ransom candidate if Lex wanted to leverage Conner's life against the Justice League. Idealism and loyalty aside, there was only so much they could do on behalf of someone who was dying anyway.
Frankly, if Lex wanted to use him as a prop for his mid-life-crisis/cancer scare, it might not kill Conner to go along with it. It would be nice to offload some of his problems for a bit. The man's company couldn't be quite as bad as swallowing kryptonite again (close, but not quite, the optimist inside him dared to posit) and it had been luck that Conner had found any in the first place.
It wasn't like he could try again. Killing himself wasn't even an option.
And that left Lex.
Conner covered his face with his hands and let out a disgusted groan. If anything, Lex should take responsibility for this entire mess; not only had he made him out of his shitty DNA and breathed life into something that should never exist, he'd made him wrong .
While Conner had serious reservations about burdening anyone he cared about with his end-of-life care, those qualms certainly didn't extend to his Mean Science Dad.
"Fine."
Lex canted his head slightly, brows furrowing. "Fine, I'm your father, or fine, you'll come with me?"
"Both, I guess." A fluttery sigh. "Fuck it, I'm too tired for this. I'm too tired for everything. I don't care anymore." Conner pushed himself back up to a half sitting position. "Just promise me that if you're going to kill me, you'll make it fast and that I won't see it coming. Don't be a dick about it. No monologuing. Not even a short speech. I want instantaneous murder."
Lex snorted and texted something on the phone he pulled from his pocket, signalling for the check. "I don't like this vague suicide ideation, Conner. That's not how the men in our family do things. You're supposed to shove down all your existential dread into the place your soul should be and channel it into spite, megalomania, and alcoholism."
"Wonderful," Conner grumbled, rubbing his face as he stood behind Lex. "Another legacy to disappoint."