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My mistress is my mistress; this myself,
The vigour and the picture of my youth:
This before all the world do I prefer;
This maugre all the world will I keep safe,
Or some of you shall smoke for it in Rome.
-Shakespeare, Titus Andronicus
Lex waited for a few minutes after Clark - Superman - left, then gathered together the papers he needed and headed out.
"Oh, Lex," his assistant said, "you had two visitors. Cynthia Li and Clark Kent." She smiled ruefully. Well, he had told her to turn away all vindictive exes and curious reporters. He frankly hadn't expected Clark to come to his office so hadn't made an exception for him. Lex glanced at the typically overwrought note Cynthia had left and then discarded it.
It was at least a little more humane that Clark had stopped by under his own name first before appearing in the cape. Very foolish on his part though. What would he even have said? 'The kid can fly; did you clone me? Not that I can fly, nevermind, forget about it.' Sometimes Lex actually wasn't sure which he hated most, however, Superman's sanctimonious garish looming or the reporter's stuttered polyester bumbling. They were both such offenses against the sweetly beautiful young man he used to know.
Or, thought he had known.
"If Clark Kent shows up here again tell him to please call me first. Sorry to put you through all this, Ana."
She laughed. "Not a problem. Piece of cake compared to the fallout from your last corporate takeover. Provided I do get to meet the mystery boy soon."
"Definitely." She would be good for helping to get Conner socialized.
Lex took his folder of documents upstairs to the penthouse and his son and fumed all the way up in the elevator.
Clark had declared their friendship over when Dad was on trial, but he had never had the grace to just leave Lex alone after that. Lex had moved back to Metropolis shortly afterward and then Clark had ended up here as well.
Yes, Lex had given the MetU journalism department a very large anonymous donation once Clark declared his major, but why couldn't he have moved to New York or Washington after graduation like other young reporters wanted to?
And then had come Superman, who felt it was his duty to keep tabs on all the prominent citizens of Metropolis, especially Lex.
Lex tried very hard to never let on how much it hurt him to have those conversations. Just as he had tried hard, years ago, to never let on how much he was in love with a certain very young, naïve, Lana-adoring mysterious farmboy.
He had come quite close to cracking in this most recent talk. It felt like he confessed everything and Clark had given him nothing. Long ago he had affirmed that Clark was never going to tell him the truth. But now there was also Conner to consider.
Did Lex, in a moral sense, owe Clark the truth now? Never having received it from him?
If he himself had, as he was about to claim for his public story regarding Conner, indeed impregnated, knocked up, some woman, Lex would want to know about it. He would think that it was his duty to care for the child, and even more, he would want to be able to know the child. To love the child, as he loved Conner. Was that how Clark felt? It wasn't how he had acted. He hadn't even asked Conner's name.
Had Lex actually cloned Clark, well, in that case he would probably have already made his decision before he did it. But he hadn't. It was true as he had told Conner that without Clark none of this would have happened. But it was also true as Conner had said that Clark had not really had a part in his creation.
Since Lex had never sequenced the Kryptonian genome and didn't know what it contained, assuming that Conner actually had DNA, which he needed to check on soon, it was presumably human. Though he did have powers they were not identical to Clark's powers. Pursuant to further testing one could argue that he was Lex's son alone. Unless Lex's dream-creations contained information he was unaware of.
He needed to do more research.
The real question was how Clark would react and whether his knowing would be good for Conner. He certainly hadn't come in and said, 'If you cloned me I want my son.'
No, Lex was sure that Clark would never believe the truth in this case. The first thing Lex had done was make sure that someone else could actually see Conner and that he hadn't just gone insane. Clark hadn't experienced what Lex had so the more obvious possibilities would outweigh the ludicrous one. And not believing it, he would continue to be suspicious and accusative, and he would take it out on Conner. He would continue to reject and hurt Conner.
Conner...
Lex stepped off the elevator and into the living room of the penthouse and there was his son draped over the couch playing a video game. Lex had gone on a bit of an online shopping spree with him the past few days. Conner flashed a huge grin and called out, "Hey, Dad!"
Conner's happiness was more important than any abstract moral questions. It was more important than Lex's dignity and privacy. More important than anything.
Whatever Conner decided in the matter of Clark Lex would do his level best to go along with.
He settled down on the other side of the couch and watched the screen as Conner stole a car and ran over a cop.
"It's always nice to see entertainment media upholding positive social values."
"I need a getaway vehicle. I'm meeting up with some other guys to rob a bank." Conner scooted over and leaned against Lex.
"It's generally bad form to attack a cop before the robbery if you want to successfully pull it off."
Wrapping his arms around Lex's waist, Conner rubbed his cheek on Lex's shoulder in clear invitation. Lex reached up to stroke his hair. The control pad was resting in Conner's lap now and the buttons kept popping up and down as his car took a tight turn on two wheels. The digital modeling just barely obeyed the laws of physics. The actual room did not.
Conner was very physically affectionate. Lex had managed to figure out for most of his dream-memories whether they were Conner or not. He just had to hope and assume that otherwise... He was definitely not going to cross any inappropriate lines now.
"Can you pause for a moment?" The image on screen froze. "I'm almost done with the preparations for your paperwork. We just need to go over a few details."
Lex opened the folder.
"Your newly-created mother was Claire Jessica King. She and I had a very brief relationship when we were both traveling," he waved his hand glibly to indicate how brief, "and then she returned to her native Hawaii and had you without telling me. That's as far from here as one can get without leaving the country and will hopefully hinder anyone accessing your records. You'll need to do research on where you grew up. She recently died in a tragic car crash. You'll need to act sad when she's mentioned. At that point I was finally informed of your existence and brought you here to live with me. My lawyers are working on finalizing the custody arrangement."
He looked down and Conner nodded.
"I do want your input on a few things, such as a middle name. I was thinking Julian... Unless you had another preference?" Lex knew there was no reason for some random woman to have named her child that but he wanted it anyway. "We should probably use King on the birth certificate but we can start the process for changing it along with custody."
"Conner Julian Luthor sounds good," was the soft response. Conner's breath was warm on his neck. "It's up to you to name me."
"And how old are you? Fifteen, sixteen?" He thought suddenly of driving lessons and Conner leaving for college. "I vote fifteen." In some ways Conner was very adult and mature, others totally a teenager, and yet others like an infant.
"Okay." He sounded a little wistful. Lex wasn't sure what he was thinking.
It was all a bit of a strange story. But what else could he do? According to the math Lex had been seventeen when Conner was conceived. Passing Conner off as younger than fourteen just wasn't plausible. He had made the mother twenty, which possibly helped explain why she or her parents, who had both died a few years before she did, had never sued a filthy rich Luthor for child support, as most people would have. Maybe the woman hadn't known who he was at the time; though she had obviously found out at some point, possibly when he appeared in the news, because Conner was with him now. At least Lex wasn't supposed to have talked to her since over fifteen years ago so he could legitimately claim ignorance about why she had or hadn't done anything. And she'd never explained it to her son either.
Lex tightened his fingers in the soft dark curls. "And your birthday?"
"You know that."
"March 21st." Three days ago. "Just at the vernal equinox. The first day of Aries, coming out of Pisces. The beginning of a new cycle."
Conner's aura crawled over Lex as he squeezed. "So clearly you need to throw a birthday party for me."
"To make up for all the ones I missed when you were a kid?"
"Of course. All fourteen of them. Which tended to involve going to the beach with all my friends- I'm going to need to learn how to surf."
"We'll do that. Speaking of learning… We should probably enroll you in the LuthorCorp school for now since there's not much of the school year left. Then you can figure out what you want for next year and that'll give us time to make some academic records for you." Lex was able to hire the best people because he provided the best benefits. After instituting full day care he had created a corporate school that allowed all employees' children to homeschool, or take classes at the many private and public schools in the city he'd arranged agreements with, or would set up any tutorials, internships, or other events they requested.
"Yes, Dad. So long as I get to go outside now." He lifted his head from Lex's shoulder to wink teasingly.
"I expect you home for breakfast and dinner every day for family bonding time, but otherwise you may go wherever and do whatever you please."
"Whatever I please? Because you know I still want to do the whole superhero thing."
He sighed. "Even that. But, Conner, don't make the same mistakes he did. Do wear a mask. Unless you want to copy the slouching and ridiculous glasses?"
Conner shuddered. "I guess I'd rather wear a costume then and not now." That was some relief at least. Lex would prefer that Conner not dress up and risk himself saving other people at all. But he understood that it was part of Conner's basic nature to want that. To need that. It was part of what Lex himself had transmitted to him. So Lex would just have to do his best to protect Conner in whatever happened.
"And… It's your decision whether and what to tell Clark. I would recommend not explaining anything to him. But whatever you choose I'll back you up on it."
Conner pulled himself impossibly even closer to Lex. "You're the best." Lex rested his head atop his son's and let himself smile.