Gigi Sinclair

Metropolis, 2026

"Lex!" It wasn't necessary for her to say his name. Lex's attention was drawn to the pretty young blonde as soon as he stepped into the room.

"Kara!" The girl came over to throw her arms around him. Lex kissed her forehead. "What are you doing here? I thought you were in Argo City."

"We got a couple of days off after finals so I thought I'd come see you."

Lex smiled, until he remembered Argo City was three hours away by plane. "You didn't…"

Kara gave him an indulgent smile. "Of course not."

Lex didn't bother to hide his sigh of relief. Relief which was as short-lived, he soon discovered, as a meteor mutant in Smallville. "I drove. Lionel bought me a Lamborghini for my twenty-first birthday."

"What?"

"He told me not to tell you, but it was three months ago. And he was only doing it to be nice." That, Lex could believe. Nice and Lionel didn't go together, except when it came to Kara. He adored her, and for once, Lex and his father had something in common. "Don't be mad, Lex."

"I'm not mad," Lex clenched his teeth. "I just worry about you."

Kara tilted her head to one side and asked, very reasonably, "Why?"

Lex shook his head and went over to pour himself a glass of brandy. "You're as bad as your father. Does he know you're home?"

"I saw him for a minute, but he had to run out."

"I see." And, after nearly twenty years, Lex was used to it. He couldn't quite bring himself to offer Kara a drink, but she came over and poured herself one anyway. "That's all right. The three of us can go for dinner." He averted his eyes from the sight of his little girl swigging back expensive liquor like a natural born Luthor. "Where's Carl?"

"He went with Dad."

Lex choked on a mouthful of brandy. "Your dad took Carl…"

"Oh, relax, Lex." Kara patted him nonchalantly on the back. "You know what Dad's like. And he's not responding to 'Carl' any more, by the way." It didn't surprise him. Lex knew, from the parenting magazines that had littered their home for years, that parents weren't supposed to have favourites, but this was hardly a normal family. Carl was Clark's child. Kara was Lex's.

Too much so, at times.

"Things going well at college, honey?"

"Of course."

"Keeping out of trouble?"

"Lex." She laughed and side-stepped the question. Which was just as well, because Lex didn't really want to hear the answer. "Your friends OK?"

"Yes." She looked up at him. "Can I tell you something?"

"Please do." Lex practically begged. He had given up sounding cool and carefree around Kara about ten minutes after they met.

"I met this new guy. He's a few years younger than me, and he's really sweet." She grinned. "But I don't think his parents really like the idea of us together."

Lex gave a pained smile, the kind that usually accompanied news of a successful hostile takeover that was going to make him look bad in the press. "You'll have to invite him for Thanksgiving dinner." So Lex could get him in a corner and castrate him with a corkscrew.

"I knew you'd understand, Lex." She flitted forward to plant a kiss on his cheek, then disappeared upstairs, calling: "Aunt Lois and I are going to ladies' night at the Cage. See you later!"

Not for the first time lately, Lex spent the evening alone with his liquor and his paperwork. It was after ten when Clark and Carl got back, no sign of blue or red spandex in sight. Unlike Lex, Clark kept his home life strictly separated from his work.

Or, he had until now. Lex gave his partner one of his patented scathing looks, the one that had withered everyone from Bill Gates to Mike Wallace, but Clark was as immune to them as he was to everything else.

"Kara's home. Have you seen her?"

"We spoke before she went out." Lex's voice was icy enough to fit in at Clark's winter holiday home (Lex had wanted to buy a chateau in the Swiss Alps, but Clark claimed the cuckoo clocks would drive him insane.)

"Something wrong?" Clark spoke to Lex, but he had his arm around Carl.

"You took Carl to work with you." It was a simple statement, with no particular emphasis or expression, but Carl was a teenager. He took it as the greatest personal insult he had ever received.

"God, Lex, you never want me to do anything! I'm not a kid! If it was up to you, I'd stay locked in my room until I die! I need to live! I hate you!" Throwing off Clark's arm, the boy stomped up the stairs and slammed his door hard enough to rattle the Lalique crystal. Moments later, they were treated to the house shaking, thumping bass of Carl's band of the moment.

"Jeez, thanks, Lex. Now I'll have to go and talk to him."

Lex hadn't thought it possible for a man on the cusp of forty to pout attractively, but that was before Clark had turned thirty-nine. At the moment, however, it wasn't quite enough. "I can't believe you put him in danger like that, Clark."

"It's not like he can get hurt."

"That's not the point." Lex would have expected Clark, of all people, to know that. He was the one who usually treated Carl like a priceless work of art. Better, given the fact that Clark had tried to unwrap the Fabergé egg Lex had given him one Easter.

Clark rubbed his eyes beneath his glasses. "It's his future, Lex. I know he's young, but he may as well start learning the family trade now."

Lex snorted at his laptop. "What's that supposed to mean?" Clark came over and put his arms around Lex's shoulders. Lex, to his great chagrin, could not physically keep himself from leaning back.

"It means," Clark planted a kiss on Lex's neck. "You're starting to sound like my father."

"I could say the same thing to you." But it would be a major mistake. Lex regretted it as soon as he felt Clark stiffen behind him. And not in a good way. Clark stood up and went back around the desk, without looking at his partner.

"I'm going to talk to Carl."

"I thought he wasn't going by that name any more," Lex joked, in the desperate way of a man who knows he will not be getting any sex for the foreseeable future.

"The other name is part of his heritage."

Maybe, Lex thought, as he watched Clark disappear up the stairs. But he'd received more than a few strange looks when his secretary had interrupted a meeting with a message from his son, Kon-El. One of the more solicitous junior vice-presidents had even asked whether Lex would be uncomfortable attending a business lunch during Ramadan.

****

Smallville 2005

A family was not something Lex had planned on having. Not having had the best of paternal role models, children were not a priority in his life. At twenty-five, he could still scarcely believe he'd settled into a long-term relationship when, one day, Clark came into his office and said:

"Lex, we have to talk."

"We've been talking for four years." And doing considerably more than that for more than two.

"Seriously."

Lex looked up from his never-ending stack of work. LexCorp was finally established as a company, and he had recently sold the Talon to Lana. Who was still relying on him for business advice about everything from balancing the books to unclogging the men's room toilet.

"What's going on, Clark?" Shoving the work aside, Lex tried to remain calm, cool and collected. And succeeded in knocking his novelty Empire State Building paperweight (a memento from one weekend in New York and, more specifically, the private plane rides that preceded and followed it) onto his foot. Pointy-end down.

Clark's eyebrows immediately furrowed in concern. "Are you OK?"

"Fine." Lex bit the inside of his mouth, un-impaled his foot, and tried to smile suavely at his lover. "What did you want to tell me?" Clark took a deep breath and looked like he was bracing himself. Instantly, the pain in his foot was the least of Lex's concerns.

Well, he thought, we had a good run. Four years was more than he'd had with anyone else. So what if it wasn't nearly enough. Life was a bitch, you learned to deal with it or you died. Which was, coincidentally, exactly what Lionel had had engraved on Lex's christening cup. Lex prepared himself not to burst into tears when Clark finally announced he was leaving. It would be so bad for the image. Not to mention the suit.

"I've got something to show you," was what Clark said, when he finally spoke. It wasn't what he had expecting, but Lex went with it, cocking a sarcastic eyebrow.

"I've seen it before, Clark. Many times."

Clark didn't blush, a testament to his preoccupation. "Something else." He blinked at Lex. "And it's really important. She's really important."

"Well, Clark, I must admit, I never thought you'd be interested in a threesome, but as long as it's not one of my exes…"

"Lex." Clark breathed in, out, and got up. "I'll be right back."

After so many years in Smallville, Lex thought his curiosity had worn itself out and taken early retirement to Baton Rouge. It came back for a flying visit. Lex waited, wondering if Clark was going to produce a hooker, a horse, or Lana. He nearly passed out when Clark came back with a little girl in his arms.

Lex wasn't good with ages, especially when it came to children, but if pressed, he would have guessed the girl was about three years old. She had blonde pigtails and a pink frilly dress and looked like she'd come off the shelf at one of the more expensive toyshops. An image which was ruined the moment Clark put her down and, squealing with delight, she picked Lex's marble-topped coffee table off the ground and said, "Look, Daddy, it's pretty!"

It said something about his life experience, Lex thought, that the question foremost in his mind was not why a toddler was lifting a three-hundred pound table like it was a Tinker Toy, but rather why she was calling Clark 'Daddy.'

"Clark…"

"Put it down, Kara. I can explain, Lex." Lex was sure he could. He began doing mental arithmetic. He'd seen Lana practically every day for the last four years, more's the pity, but Chloe. Chloe, Lex remembered, with a mental eureka, the blonde who had disappeared for a while to Metropolis on a mysterious high school internship about three years earlier. Lex had never heard of a paper that gave internships to high school students, but he did know of a number of nice discreet maternity homes in the city.

"I'm all ears."

Clark sat down with the girl on his lap. Immediately, her eyes fixated on the liquor bottles behind the desk and she reached out, squirming. "She's my cousin."

"What?" Clark absently picked up the Empire State Building and handed it to Kara. Just as Lex was about to question the safety of giving a sharp object to a child, Kara broke off the tip and experimentally placed the blunt end in her mouth. It was evidently not to her liking. She made a face of disgust and pulled it back out. It looked like a chewed pencil, or an unpopular local teen after a brush with the mutant of the week.

"My real cousin. My parents found her in the barn about a week ago. They don't know where she came from. I mean, no one saw any meteors or anything, but she was with the same kind of tablets they found with me."

Lex was so excited, he barely cared that Kara had slid off Clark's lap and was gouging the top of his desk with the detached Empire State spire. "Clark, do you know what this means?" It meant that Clark wasn't the only one. There were more, perhaps dozens, of the same aliens on Earth. From a scientific standpoint, it was thrilling. From an emotional point, it was even better. It meant Clark wasn't alone. Lex imagined what it would be like to find another young, bald billionaire and was happy for his friend. Mostly.

Clark, however, didn't see things quite the same way. "It means someone has to look after her. And it has to be the right people."

"Your parents, of course." Lex agreed. "They did a great job with you. I mean, your father has his moments, but your mother is brilliant. Wonderful. Magnificent."

"Not interested." Clark finished. Lex blinked.

"I can't believe that." The idea of Martha Kent refusing to care for any child, let alone another adopted alien, was inconceivable. The very reason, Lex smirked, not too excited for snide remarks, that she had taken to adopting alien babies in the first place.

"She said one's enough. And my dad agreed with her. My mom thinks…" Clark trailed off.

"What does she think?" Lex watched the girl carving in his antique oak, but didn't move to stop her. If he was honest, he didn't particularly care for the desk. He had his eye on a much more streamlined, professional model he'd glimpsed in the Ikea catalogue.

Clark swallowed, his Adam's apple bobbing like a grapefruit in an ostrich's neck. When he finally blurted it out, he sounded like an auctioneer on speed. "She-thinks-we-should-take-care-of-her."

"We? As in the three of you?"

Clark shook his head. "As in the two of us. Well, that's what my mom says. My dad thinks you'll run away. But I don't think so. Will you?"

Lex, in his time, had witnessed and/or been the victim of attacks by heat-sucking vampire football players, nerds-turned-albino-arachnids, and crazed stalkers with even crazier brothers, among other things. He had gone through a tornado and a (thankfully short-lived) period of believing Clark was his illegitimate half-brother. He had had a Jennifer Lopez-style brief marriage to a vulgar gold-digger while under the influence of her powerful pheromones. He had received so many head injuries, he sent Christmas cards to his CAT scan operators. And, not to mention that he'd fallen into lust and then love with a much younger boy who just happened to be from another planet. In all that time, he had never been quite so surprised by a turn of events as he was now.

"Us?" Since the more awkward parts of puberty were beneath the dignity of the Luthors, Lex had never gone through a voice-cracking stage. His larynx chose this moment to make up for lost time.

Clark nodded nervously. Then, out of the blue, he gave one of those brilliant grins and suddenly Lex couldn't imagine why he hadn't thought of it himself. Adopt an alien child with super-strength and an apparent bent for destruction and raise her with his gay, equally alien lover. It was so obvious. "All right. Let's do it."

"You mean it?" Clark looked at him uncertainly. For a moment, staring at the little blonde head, Lex almost changed his mind. But then he saw the look in Clark's eyes. He gritted his teeth into a smile and said:

"Yes. She's your family." And it was easy to find a good, professional nanny who knew how to keep a secret, if you had enough money to hire her. With Lex's bankroll, they could have afforded a dozen Mary Poppins.

"Oh, Lex, you're the greatest." Clark came across the desk with a speed that would have been alarming in a less desirable mutant and threw his arms around Lex. "I love you."

"Love you, Lex." Kara repeated, absently.

Clark turned back to her. "Kara, this is your…" He trailed off and glanced at Lex. "What do you want her to call you?"

Lex looked at the girl, trying to suppress the feeling that this was the biggest mistake of his life. He'd had the same feeling when he'd finally declared himself to Clark, and look how that had turned out.

"You seem to have cornered the market on Daddy." Lex didn't really see himself as the 'daddy' type anyway. And 'father' held too many bad connotations for him.

Clark shook his head. "I don't know where she came up with that. I think it was my mom. She taught Kara English."

"In the past week?"

"She's very smart." Lex didn't know whether Clark meant his mother or his daughter, or possibly both. Lex looked down at the scratches on the top of his desk and was slightly amazed to see they were letters. Pushing Clark off his lap, he took a closer look, and saw that Kara had engraved, in perfectly formed script: "I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well," into the wood.

"Clark…" Clark leaned over to read the quotation.

"She wouldn't go to sleep one night so I read her that book you gave me," he admitted, slightly sheepish. "I figured, it always has me yawning before the end of the first page…"

Lex narrowed his eyes and threatened, only half-jokingly: "That's a leather-bound collection of Alexander the Great quotations. If you don't appreciate it, I'm sure I can find someone who does."

"You have." Clark smiled. "Kara made me read the whole thing. Repeatedly. We were up all night." Lex looked at the girl, who dropped the awl, toddled around the desk and put up her arms. Clark lifted her up and settled them both on top of Lex. Before it could cross Lex's mind to worry about the weight capacity of the chair, not to mention his legs, Kara snuggled her head into Lex's shoulder and reiterated:

"Love you, Lex." There was no hard-nosed businessman on Earth who could have resisted that. Well, almost no one.

Things had changed over the past few years, but not enough for the new family to stay in Smallville. Both Clark and Lex remembered the feeling of being a freak in a small town, and since being the adopted child of the town's only openly gay young couple was freakish by Kansas standards, they moved to Metropolis for Kara's sake. But not before Lana, showing more animation than Lex had seen in years, organized a 'kid shower' at the Talon.

Lex didn't want to go. He had, in fact, arranged an unappealing but unavoidable business meeting for the same time. Then Clark telephoned him to say Kara was refusing to leave the house unless Lex came with them. So Lex rescheduled the environmental affairs meeting about the plant's methane emissions and went to collect Clark and Kara.

"Oh, isn't she just adorable!" Lana gushed, the moment they walked in the door. Kara took one look at her and dived behind Clark's legs. Lex couldn't blame her. He often had a similar reaction himself.

"Hello, Kara." Chloe appeared beside them, and smiled triumphantly when Kara inched away from Clark and, a wary eye on Lana, flung her arms around Chloe.

"She's just precious, you guys!" Lana, who had never been one to respond to subtle hints, approached Kara. "Aren't you, princess?" Lana gave a winsome sigh. "You look just like I did when my parents were killed. It was during the meteor shower…"

Lex rolled his eyes at Clark, who rolled his back. It was, Clark had confessed one night, a source of much embarrassment to him that, for more than a year after meeting Lex, he'd still believed Lana was the most desirable person in Smallville. Lex didn't think it was that bad. It wasn't like Clark had married her. That honour had been reserved for someone else.

"Whitney and I bought you a present," Lana continued, when her meteor shower sob story had finally come to an end. For now. "Would you like to see it, sweetie?"

"Present?" Kara looked up at the word which, after only two weeks with Lex, was very familiar to her. It was fortunate that Jonathan Kent hadn't put any restrictions on what Lex could buy for his granddaughter, because there was now an entire wing of the castle containing nothing but antique dollhouses and canopied pink furniture.

"It's over here," Lana extended a hand to Kara. Lex could see the girl weighing the options in her mind. Finally, she left Chloe and headed over to Lana, making sure to snag both Clark and Lex's hands as she passed. Lex smiled proudly. If she kept up like this, he thought, she'd be a corporate vice president by the age of eight.

The three of them followed Lana over to the counter, from behind which she produced a Fisher-Price kitchen decorated with a pink bow.

"It's great, Lana," Clark enthused automatically. Kara, however, looked at the plastic microwave, sink, telephone and dish rack with an expression more of incomprehension than contempt. Surprisingly, Lana picked up on it and explained:

"It's a kitchen, sweetie. See?" She bashed some plastic teacups around in the sink. Although he no longer had any financial interest in the Talon, Lex couldn't help but think that if she treated the real cups that way, it was no wonder she was in the red. "You can make dinner just like Daddy." A light bulb appeared over Kara's head. Stepping forward, she picked up the plastic phone, lowered her voice as much as possible, and said:

"Hey, sexy, will you bring in something to eat? Nothing fancy…No, if you want Mrs. Fisher to do it, then ask her yourself. That old cow gives me the creeps."

Lex liked Kara from their first meeting. It wasn't until he introduced her to his own father, however, that Lex became consumed with the same overpowering sense of parental devotion that afflicted Jonathan Kent and that had passed Lionel Luthor by. Lex had carefully engineered the meeting. When Lionel came by the house, Clark and Kara were playing in the pool, she in a frilly swimsuit and waterwings, he in a pair of baggy trunks because Lex refused to let him wear his Speedos around Lionel, even if the old man was half-blind. Stopping just inside the door, Lionel squinted at the scene in front of him with eyes that, after years of operations and treatments, were still far from perfect. A weakness which had done nothing to improve the old man's temperament. Few people could laugh disapprovingly, but Lionel managed it.

"Is that it? I must say Lex, I'm disappointed. When you told me you and Jailbait had taken on some whore's bastard, I was at least expecting a boy to carry on the Luthor name."

Lex turned to stare at him, lowering his voice. "Listen to me, you son-of-a-bitch. Kara's the best thing to happen to Clark and I ever, and if you do anything to hurt either of them you'll be glad you're half-blind, because you won't have to see me rip your fucking kidneys out." Lex didn't know where the words had come from. Or rather, he didn't know how he'd managed to say them. He'd been trying for most of his life, but they'd never quite made it out of his mouth before. Which was too bad, because the look on Lionel's face was one Lex could have gotten used to seeing.

"Well, well." Lionel recovered fast, though, pressing his lips into his habitual smirk. "I guess it's not a total loss if playing daddy dearest has given you some balls at last." Speaking of which. With a wave from Lex, Clark lifted Kara out of the pool, wrapped a towel around her, and sent her trotting across the deck to Lex. When she saw Lex wasn't alone, she stopped in her tracks and assessed Lionel.

"Who's that, Lex?"

"This is…" He hesitated. Jonathan was already 'Grandpa', and Lionel was no more a 'Granddad' or, God forbid, an 'Opa' than Lex was a 'Daddy.' "Lionel. My father."

"Hello, Lionel." Kara smiled.

"I don't like children," was Lionel's idea of a greeting. Kara put her head on one side, considering this.

"No," she finally agreed. "They're boring. I like Daddy and Lex."

Lionel laughed again. "Do you think they like you?"

"Yes." Kara looked at him like it was the stupidest question she'd ever heard. "Lex, what's funkinkinnys?"

"What's that, sweetheart?" Lex saw rather than heard his father's snort of derision at the endearment.

"You said if Lionel hurt me and Daddy you'd rip his funkinkinnys out." Damn super-hearing. And X-ray vision. Lex and Clark had been forced to have their bedroom walls lined with lead after Kara, one morning at breakfast, had turned to Lex and conversationally asked why he'd had Daddy's ding-a-ling in his mouth the night before. While Lex nearly choked to death on a Belgian waffle, Clark calmly explained that he'd caught it in the door and Lex was kissing it better for him.

"Well, I…that is…" Lex cleared his throat. But Kara had already moved on to other things. Looking very seriously at Lionel, she said:

"Daddy says you're mean to Lex. If you don't stop, I'll rip your funkinkinnys out, OK?" She gave an angelic smile. "Want to come swimming?" Lionel declined, but the next day, a library of leather-bound children's classics (including the somewhat unorthodox choice of Machiavelli's The Prince) and twenty-five antique Steiff teddy bears arrived at their new Metropolis mansion. Addressed to Miss Kara Luthor.

****

"Lex, Daddy won't let me take my favourite book to school." Lex looked up from his pool cue to see his eight-year-old daughter, a rather Kent-like pout on her lips, hovering inside the room.

"We've talked about this, Kara." He reached for the chalk and, by the time his hand returned to the cue, Kara had crossed the room and was standing beside him. After five years, Lex barely jumped at all, but he still didn't like it. "Don't do that, please. What does Daddy want you to take?"

"Charlotte's Web."

"You like that book, don't you?"

"But it's not my favourite." Kara gave a theatrical sigh. "Mrs. Daniels told us to bring our favourite book to school." Lex didn't need to ask what Kara's favourite book was. They'd read it together when she was young, and now she was older, she read it by herself, sometimes with a flashlight until well after bedtime.

"The Wealth of Nations isn't exactly a book most eight-year-olds read, sweetheart."

"I know. That's why I want to bring it." Lex rubbed his head. Since Clark had started 'working nights', he and Kara had been alone more and more often. While Lex loved Kara more than anything, she was a handful. Not that this was the only reason he missed having Clark around.

"Your dad just wants you to be a normal kid."

"But I'm not." She took on her stubborn voice, even crossing her arms over her Minnie Mouse T-shirt. "I don't want to be normal. You and Daddy aren't normal." Yes, Lex had heard the schoolyard taunts the one time he'd dropped Kara off at her local public school. If Clark hadn't reminded him of his own horrible experiences at boarding school, he would have had Kara out of that zoo and into an East Coast prep school faster than a speeding bullet.

"Listen, Kara, take whatever book you want, but it would make your dad happy if you took Charlotte's Web." To Lionel's everlasting regret, 'Luthor' wasn't on Kara's birth certificate, but it was clearly branded into her brain. She lived to make Clark happy. If she could get something for herself at the same time, so much the better.

Lex wasn't surprised when she replied, "If I do, would you buy a pony?"

Lex wasn't one to give in without negotiation, even to Kara. "You already have a pony. Two, in fact." A purebred polo-player at Lionel's and a flatulent old Shetland at Jonathan and Martha's.

"Not for me. For Tracy. She's a girl in my class. Her mom just died and I think it might help her feel better."

Lex smiled at his daughter. Although what, he thought as he handed her a pool cue and proceeded to lose miserably to someone who had to stand on a stool to see over the table, could you expect from the child who ate her morning Wheaties with Superman?

Lex was lying in bed that night when Clark got home.

"Hi." He smiled. Lex put down his bedtime spreadsheets and looked at him. Clark never wore the primary-coloured Spandex in Lex's presence, knowing that Lex's inner fashion consultant died a little every time Clark wore it outside, but Lex was apparently the only person in the city who found garish colours a turn-off. On several occasions, they'd overheard bevies of socialites engaged in graphic speculation about the contents of Superman's shorts. Clark had been shocked, but Lex knew better. The most ribald men's locker room had nothing on a group of women discussing an attractive man.

"Hi, Clark." And attractive described Clark as well now as it had when they'd first met ten years ago.

"We have to talk." Removing his shoes and his nondescript, thousand dollar trousers, Clark climbed into bed beside Lex, who raised an arm to let his lover lie against him.

"The last time you said that, I ended up drinking my cappuccino out of a 'World's Best Dad' mug." Lex joked, but his laughter died when he saw the look on Clark's face. "Oh, Clark, you have to be kidding. There's no way in hell…"

"Just hear me out. Please."

Lex removed his arm from Clark and looked defiantly away, knowing that unless he distanced himself now, by the end of the conversation he'd be driving a mini-van and buying shares in Disney. "The answer is no."

"He's all by himself, Lex. At first, I thought he was just a kid Paul Westfield had got from somewhere, but then he made a pretzel out of an iron bar." Clark furrowed his brow in that terribly concerned way that Lex always found irresistible. He gritted his teeth and forced himself to resist.

"So? What are we, a home for super-strong orphans? Better let the Rubbles know there's a place for Bam-Bam if anything happens to them."

"I think Westfield cloned himself," Clark continued.

"That's not our problem." But Lex could feel himself wavering, and he knew Clark could, too. Still, he carried on sarcastically: "If people are going to practice unsafe cloning, they're just going to have to live with the consequences."

"Lex, we both know what it was like to grow up as an outsider." Clark moved in for the kill, rubbing Lex's back with one hand in case the words alone weren't quite enough to sway him. "And an only child. Kara is spoiled. It would be good for her to have a little brother."

"Where's the kid now?" Lex tried to make it sound like an idle question, but Clark took it as acceptance. He planted a sloppy kiss on Lex's mouth.

"I knew I could count on you. Superman left him with Social Services. But I have the feeling Lex Luthor is going to go by tomorrow and inquire about adoption." Lex sighed even as Clark kissed him again. "Of course, when he hears that, Superman is going to be very grateful indeed."

"Then he'd better express his gratitude now, because I don't think either of them is going to see much action in a house with two kids."

If Kara was a Luthor with a little bit of Kent, then Carl was a Kent with a little bit of annoying whining brat. Lex knew it was a terrible way to think of his own son, and, visions of Lionel in his head, he tried to love Carl, but it was tough. Clark didn't seem to have a problem. While Lex and Kara discussed Greek philosophy or dissected the libretto of Madame Butterfly, Clark and Carl pushed Tonka trunks around the floor and threw a football around in the mansion's large, landscaped back yard.

Lex cared about his son, of course. He worried endlessly when Carl went to school, even more than he had when Kara had started. Lex bought the boy gifts so extravagant, Jonathan tutted censoriously and even Clark told him, on more than one occasion, that a ten-year-old boy had no use for a fully restored Model T Ford or a professional hockey team. Lex wanted to love Carl. They just didn't have anything in common.

Not, however, that Lex and the rest of his family were exactly peas in a pod. No matter how many discussions they had or how many operas they went to, Kara still went to Clark when she discovered new powers, or when she wanted to look at a boy she liked without worrying about setting him on fire, or when she was just tired of being different. Clark was good at the comfort thing, Lex had to admit. He always knew what to say, because he'd lived the same thing himself. Lex had no insight to offer his children. Neither of them were the prematurely bald offspring of a mentally abusive billionaire, and Lex worked hard to make sure they never would be.

****

Lex poured himself another drink. Upstairs, the pounding music stopped and, although he was not gifted with super-hearing, Lex could imagine what Clark was saying to their adolescent son. He was doubtlessly telling him that Lex was only concerned for Carl's safety, but that he, Clark, would talk him into letting Carl go to work with him more often. Because Clark could talk Lex into anything.

It was three-thirty before Kara came stumbling in, smelling like cheap liquor and Lois's Turkish cigarettes. Lex had waited up for her, which he regretted as soon as he saw a pair of men's leopard-skin bikini briefs peeking out of the corner of her purse. Clark, who had told Lex they would wait up together before falling asleep in the leather armchair, opened his eyes, said: "Like father, like daughter", and went up to their bedroom. Lex didn't bother. He would be getting up in two hours anyway.

After rubbing his eyes through two morning meetings and yawning through a conference call with Tokyo, Lex retired to his office. He had barely sat down when his secretary buzzed him to say:

"Mr. Luthor, your eleven o'clock is here."

"My eleven o'clock?" He flipped open his Palm Pilot, but before he could discover who his eleven o'clock was, the door was flung open and, completely unfazed by Sheila's protests, Victoria Hardwick walked in.

Briefly, Lex wondered how many plastic surgeons had retired early on her fees. But it had been worth it. Victoria barely looked a day over twenty-five.

"Hello, Lex, darling. Long time no see." She was still beautiful, and Lex was still over her. Had never really been 'on' her, actually.

"You don't need to speak pidgin to me, Victoria. I may be American but my English is impeccable."

Victoria laughed and kicked the door shut behind her. "Haven't changed, have you? I didn't expect you to."

"Is it a question you've spent a lot of time considering?"

"Not really." She gave him a look which might have been coquettish, had she actually been twenty-five. "Why? Have you thought of me?"

"No."

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised, darling. Between your yummy little boy-toy and those rugrats of yours, I'm sure you haven't got the time for anything else." She sat down and took the framed photograph off Lex's desk. "May I?" The picture had been taken on their last family vacation, to Monte Carlo. Clark was resplendent in white tie and tails, Kara was wearing a sparkly sequinned gown, and even Carl had deigned to put on a pair of well-tailored pants for the occasion. Lex wasn't in the picture. He'd been on the phone trying to resolve a crisis in New York at the time. "Lovely." Victoria sighed. "And to think, I used to believe you when you said he was like your little brother."

"Why are you here, Victoria?" She laughed throatily again. Dimly, as if from another life, Lex remembered that this sound had once been enough to turn his knees to jelly, but now he heard it for what it was. The strangled cough of a woman who, if she wasn't dead from lung cancer, it wasn't through lack of trying. He should, Lex thought, really introduce Victoria to Lois Lane.

"Can't an old flame stop by for a chat? Must there be an ulterior motive?"

"When it comes to you, yes."

"Us, darling. Don't forget, we always had much more in common than you wanted to admit."

"Victoria…" He glanced pointedly at his Rolex.

"Oh, all right, Lex. I'll be quick. That is, after all, how you always preferred to be yourself." Lex looked at her evenly, and she continued. "I need your help."

"Really."

"Carlton Industries is in trouble." Lex knew that. He also knew that Victoria had married the founder of Carlton Industries more than ten years previously. Less than six months after the wedding, he, a man with no previous health problems, had dropped dead of a heart attack, leaving the new widow in charge of the company. "I need to get rid of some stock, but I can't be seen to be dumping it. So I want you to take them off me first.. You've done an excellent job of ostentatiously avoiding me all these years. I doubt there's a pundit on Wall Street who doesn't know how much you hate me, so there will be no question of insider trading."

"Forget it."

"It's simple. I have the stocks transferred to your name, you sell them off and collect the money, you pass it on to me."

"No," Lex reiterated, but that wasn't a word Victoria had ever been fond of.

"Of course, there'll be something in it for you. Twenty percent of the total. My sincere gratitude," she lowered her eyes flirtatiously, but Lex remained unmoved. "And, of course, your adorable little family won't have to hear about our affair."

Lex sighed. Victoria had never been the most stable of people. He wasn't altogether surprised that she had become completely unhinged.

"Victoria, Clark already knows. He was there for most of it."

"Not that affair. The one we had just after my husband died."

"We didn't…" Victoria produced an envelope from her purse and lay it on the desk. Against his better judgement, Lex opened it, and removed half a dozen glossy photographs. Lex and Victoria sitting in the Ferrari he had sold seven years ago. Lex heading into a downtown hotel, and Victoria doing the same. The two of them in the lobby of the Carlton Tower. And, a fuzzier photograph which appeared to have been taken through a window of a bald man who could have been Lex lying in bed with a woman who was obviously Victoria.

"Are you kidding? No one's going to believe this."

"Of course not. You and Clark have the perfect relationship. I'm sure he trusts you implicitly. So when he looks up the dates I tell him we were together, I'm sure he won't even mind that they're all times one of you was out of town." Victoria smiled. "Of course, even if he does fall for it, he'll probably forgive you. It was ten years ago, you were helping get over my husband's death. I don't know, though, if he'll be prepared to forgive the second affair."

"Which…"

"This one." Lex was used to members of his family super-speeding all over the place. He wasn't, though, used to Victoria doing that. He fell backwards when she lunged over the desk and attached her mouth to his. He ended up on his back on the floor with Victoria on top of him.

"Twenty percent, Lex." Victoria repeated, standing up and straightening her blouse. "You know better than to turn down an offer like that."

"I also know better than to get involved with you again."

Victoria dismissed that with a condescending shake of her head. "Don't be silly. We were always great together. We could have been even better, if you hadn't dumped me for super-stud there." Lex froze for a moment, but, no, it was a false alarm. Victoria arranged her hair—dyed, Lex assumed, although far too professionally done for it to be noticeable—and left the office without a backward glance.

For the first hour after she left, he didn't even bother considering the offer. Clark wouldn't believe her no matter what she told him, so it was an empty threat. But then, just as he was negotiating a merger with one of Bruce Wayne's Gotham City software companies, he was struck with a thought. Clark wouldn't believe Victoria, but why shouldn't he?

Since he'd first put on the tights, they spent two nights a week together, if they were lucky. Even when they went on vacation, Clark headed back to Metropolis at least three or four times to deal with some crisis or other. From the very first, it had been made clear to Lex that neither he nor the children were welcome at the Fortress of Solitude ("I'm sorry, Lex, but you know how it is. I need some space just for me.") Lex had plenty of time for an affair. Although he was over forty, he was still in good shape and, judging from the looks he got from secretaries and fellow executives of both genders, still attractive to other people. Clark acted like he'd marked Lex at fifteen and there was no way he could ever want anyone else. Which was true. But Clark didn't have to assume it.

By the time he closed the WayneTech deal and asked a lackey to bring the car around, Lex had decided he would teach Clark a lesson, and he would use Victoria to do it. After all, using each other had been the extent of his relationship with Victoria twenty-five years previously, there was no need to change anything now.

Lex enjoyed the drive home. It was just like old times, when he was on his way to see Clark and he'd plan exactly what he was going to say and which quotations—often looked up specially—he would use to impress him. It was a simple pleasure, but not something he'd had lately. Not since he and Clark had gotten into more complex pleasures, anyway.

For the first time in at least six months, the entire family was eating together, which served Lex's purpose well. He waited until just before dessert, when it was most conversationally inappropriate, and said:

"Guess who I saw today? Victoria Hardwick." He added a touch of guilt to his voice and stared at the sideboard.

"Really?" Clark was unimpressed. "Know who I ran into last week? Millicent Dupres. Remember her?"

"Shelly Dupres's bitch of a mother," Kara put in, and got a censorious glare from her father. "Oh, Dad, she is. She's the one who campaigned to get 'My Two Dads' banned from the elementary school library."

"She was quite pleasant when I saw her." Clark replied. "She asked after you. Shelly's working as a waitress at Chez Louis. I told her you and I'd be sure to ask for her next time we're there, Lex."

"Hm." Lex was tenacious. It was, he remembered, one of Clark's favourite things about him. "Victoria's looking well, though. Hardly changed at all." It wasn't quite as artful as he would have liked, but it got the job done. Clark stopped talking about the Dupres woman, whom Lex had subtly and elegantly forced into bankruptcy only a few months after the library book incident, long enough to ask:

"So what did she want?"

"Nothing." Lex made sure to answer too quickly. He repeated it for good measure. "Nothing at all. Really."

Clark smiled, more at the cook wheeling in the chocolate mousse than at him. "Good. She won't be disappointed, then."

"Well, Lex, I must say you've surprised me." Victoria fluttered her eyelashes at him. Lex tried to look intrigued rather than nauseated. "To be honest, I didn't think you'd take me up on my…offer."

Lex turned his back, under the guise of pouring two very large drinks. "I was surprised myself." Lex tried to sound seductive. He was out of practice. He hadn't seduced anyone different in twenty-five years, and for the last ten years, he'd rarely even done it to Clark. Sex was just another part of the weekly routine, usually sandwiched between a "Birds of Prey" rerun on channel 231 and a concerned discussion about how Carl was doing in school. "Seeing you again, after all this time…you caught me off guard."

This was ridiculous, Lex thought angrily. He was a middle-aged man, world-famous, head of a vast corporate empire, widely rumoured to be a future candidate for public office, and here he was, acting like the ingenue in a French farce. He was ashamed of himself. But not enough to stop.

"I never thought I'd be lucky enough to be invited here." Victoria laughed. Taking a deep breath, Lex sat on the couch beside her. "It's so…quaint." Lex saw her arch an eyebrow and look over his shoulder to the far wall. "Your taste in art has changed." Lex didn't bother looking. The same picture, a crayon masterpiece made by Carl on his first day of kindergarten, had been hanging there for years. It depicted a bald man, a taller man with a thatch of black hair, Kara adorned with a few squiggles of lemon yellow on her head, and Carl himself, wearing his blue and red pyjamas.

"I've changed in a lot of ways, Victoria." His eyes slid to his watch. Clark had been gone for nearly two hours. He had to be back soon. Just in time to catch him and Victoria in Lex's study, looking slightly guilty, and to become slightly jealous. Only slightly. Enough, Lex had decided, to make Clark think twice about taking him for granted.

"You're still a businessman."

"You're right." Lex raised his eyebrows and took a sip from his glass. "I've always got one eye on my…chief assets." It was amazing, Lex thought, how easily he could fall back into the old innuendo game. He'd stopped playing it with Clark when Kara was three and a half, mostly because, while it had taken her father more than a year to catch on to the meaning behind Lex's words, Kara got it straightaway.

"Oh, Lex." Victoria leaned forward. Her blouse shifted downwards, giving him, quite deliberately Lex was sure, a view of more silicone than could be found in the computers of NASA. "I have missed you."

"And I've missed you, Victoria." He tried to keep the boredom out of his voice. Kara had again gone out for the evening, but Carl's music was pounding away upstairs. Victoria didn't seem to find it the least bit off-putting.

She leaned even further in. "You know, I was shocked when I heard you'd taken yourself off the market. The Lex I knew thought monogamy was the wood in his headboard."

"I do miss the variety." A lie. He'd known from the moment he saw Clark that there would never be anyone else. That was how it had been when they had been horny adolescents sneaking off to the coatroom at every opportunity, and that was how it was now they were adults who sometimes fell asleep before they could get all of their clothes off.

Victoria snaked her tongue into her brandy glass. Lex hoped she wouldn't get lipstick on the crystal. "I can imagine." She lowered her eyes. "I'm sure super-stud is quite a…handful, but a man like you needs a woman to really appreciate him."

"You're absolutely right, Victoria." Lex yawned, mentally rehearsing how he would guiltily jump up when Clark came in. He wondered if a stammer would be overdoing it. He wanted Clark to think he might be having an affair, not wonder if his multiple head injuries had finally caught up with him.

"Fortunately for you, I know just how to…appreciate a man."

Lex felt nothing when Victoria stuck her tongue in his mouth and her hand between his legs. Well, Lex thought scientifically, not quite nothing. But his body found it about as arousing as a three-hour HR meeting about employee benefits.

"Victoria…" Lex pushed her away.

"That's all right, Lex." She gave him a squeeze. "You're not used to it, that's all. Let's start with something a little more familiar." Placing her glass on the coffee table, she slid off the couch and kneeled between his legs.

"Victoria, please." An expensively manicured hand began working on his fly. Since actually having an affair with Victoria wasn't part of the carefully laid out plan, and since the idea held very little appeal indeed, Lex was about to sit up when the office door opened. His eyes on a textbook, Carl came in, said:

"Lex, could you help me with my…" And trailed off when he saw what was going on.

"Carl." Lex jumped up, even more guiltily than he had planned. He knocked Victoria over, giving Carl an eyeful of breasts younger than he was. For the first time in his life, Carl was struck speechless, blushing so fiercely that for a moment, Lex wondered if he was biologically related to Clark after all. The possibility became even more likely when blinking, Carl said:

"Lex…" In that same pleading, bewildered tone that his father had used twenty-five years earlier.

"Why, hello there." Victoria, always the professional, recovered first. Standing up, she adjusted her blouse, although not too quickly, and sauntered over to the door. "You must be Chris. Lex has told me so much about you."

Carl blinked at Lex again, as anger slowly replaced confusion. "Oh, man, Lex. I'm telling Dad."

"Telling me what?" The best laid plans of mice and men, Lex thought miserably, as Clark joined them in the study. Later, it was of some comfort to him to know that, even in the moments before his life fell apart, he could still recall literary quotations.

"You were trying to make me jealous?"

Lex looked over their bed at Clark. After dispatching with Victoria and sending Carl back to his stereo and his chemistry homework, they had moved to the bedroom, as they always did whenever they wanted to have an argument, a discussion about Christmas or birthday gifts, or any kind of private conversation at all. The meteors may have strengthened Lex's immune system, but he still didn't feel like lining every room in the house with lead. "That's pretty immature, Lex, even for you."

"I…what? " "You're immature," Clark repeated. "Always have been."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I mean, mature people aren't jealous of their children."

Lex was about to deny it, but stopped himself when he realized it was true. He was jealous, of Clark for being so close to the children, of the children for being so close to Clark, and of all of them for having a bond that could never be broken. They were the family, he was the outsider, just as he had been all his life. When he died, as, despite LexCorp's research into genetic engineering, Lex was sure he one day would, Kara, Carl and Clark would just go on as normal. Lex doubted they would even miss him. And that frightened him, more than any plummeting stock options or failing business venture ever had.

But he couldn't say all that, not even to Clark. All his old defence mechanisms kicked in, he put on his most sarcastic sneer and said:

"Who wouldn't be jealous? Thanks to you, they're more spoiled than Imelda Marcos." Clark blinked, possibly trying to figure out who Imelda Marcos was. Lex continued: "When I let your kids move in here, I didn't think I'd have to take out a bank loan to cover the expenses. Maybe I should ask your parents to spot me a few hundred. It was their idea in the first place."

Lex turned his back to Clark, so he didn't have to see the expression on the other man's face. He couldn't look at Clark when they were arguing, not if he wanted to have any chance of winning. Or even just not giving in the second Clark's eyes started to mist over.

"Don't bother," Clark finally replied. "If that's the way you feel, Carl and I will just go out there for a while. By ourselves. If that's the way you feel." It wasn't.

"By all means. Although maybe I should be the one to go. I can work from anywhere, but Carl's in school and your job is kind of specific." Lex could hear the words coming out of his mouth, but he wasn't conscious of actually producing them. It was as though his mouth was working independently of his brain. Which it often did, although the situation and the consequences were usually more pleasant. "I was thinking of spending some time with Victoria anyway."

Clark snorted in disbelief. "Don't worry about us, Lex. We can commute." Clark didn't move, giving him, Lex knew, the chance to take it back. Which he would have done in an instant, if Luthors did that. But they didn't and, while all those years with Clark had changed him up to a point, he was still a Luthor.

"Fine. I'll get Manuel to pack your things."

"We'll do it ourselves."

Lex had been on his own before. Many times. After twenty-five years, his relationship with Jonathan Kent had improved, but not enough to make Lex want to spend a considerable amount of time with the man. A couple of times of year, usually during the school holidays, Clark and the children went to Smallville while Lex stayed behind to work.

This was different. Before she'd gone back to Argo City, Kara had told him, with a stern disapproving look, that he'd better figure out a way to apologize, because she wasn't about to start dividing her vacation time between him and Clark. Lex snapped at her to mind her own business, which was perfect because it meant that Kara had stormed out in a huff, completing his alienation of his family. Pun intended.

The easy answer, Lex knew, would be to apologize. Show up in Smallville with a helicopter full of roses and a hand-written poem, maybe drop to one knee in the Talon and plead that Clark forgive him. But that wouldn't solve anything, beyond getting Clark and Carl back home. He would still be the outsider. He would still be the one who would die without anyone being particularly concerned, other than his shareholders. Besides, Luthors weren't fond of going for the easy answers anyway. So instead of going to Smallville, Lex went to the office.

Since the advent of Kara and Carl, Lex hadn't spent a lot of time at work. What was the point, he rationalized, to himself and everyone else, in having a fully equipped, technologically advanced home office if you didn't use it? Clark wasn't fooled.

"You work at home because you like being with the kids," had been Clark's undeniable conclusion. Lex had been about to deny it anyway, when Clark had put his arms around him and added, lowering his voice to murmur in his ear: "It's the sexiest thing I've ever seen."

Twenty minutes later, Kara arrived home from school to find her flushed, rather breathless parents gathering scattered paperwork and desk accessories from various corners of the office.

Now, of course, there was no motivation to spend his days at home. Rather the reverse. The evening of his second day of renewed bachelorhood, Lex was still at work at nine o'clock, looking over spreadsheets when the office door opened.

"I do hope I'm not interrupting, Lex, dear."

"Not at all, Victoria." What the hell, Lex thought, saving the work and shutting down the computer. He had more in common with Victoria than he did with Clark, anyway. At least they belonged to the same species.

"Did you and super-stud patch things up?" She bared her teeth. "The last thing I wanted to do was break up your…friendship."

"We've known each other since we were kids, Victoria. You could never break that up." Disagreements over the children, a monotonous routine and overloaded work schedules, though, that would do the trick.

"Oh, good. I was rather counting on him to get my deal for me."

"You can have the deal. I already told you that."

"Lovely." She fluttered her eyelashes. "And what can I do for you?" Lex hesitated, but only for a moment. Then he glanced down and saw the picture he kept on his desk. Clark, Kara and Carl at the Smallville Fourth of July picnic. The All-American family, sitting on a gingham blanket and keeping Jonathan and Martha's dog out of the wicker basket. Lex had been back in Metropolis at the time, attending to a PR emergency that had arisen when fourteen dismembered human limbs had been found in a freezer belonging to the vice-president of LexCorp's meat processing plant.

He pushed away the doubts that were bearing down on him like an angry neighbourhood mob at a re-zoning meeting and stood up. "Surprise me."

Victoria licked her lips. "I always could, Lex."

****

When Lex awoke, his mouth felt like the bottom of a birdcage and his head was pounding like a military parade ground. He pried his eyes open, blinking, and stared at an unfamiliar ceiling. It wasn't until he tried to heave himself into a sitting position, though, and nearly jerked his arm out of the socket that he realized he was handcuffed to the bed.

His first thought was, how the hell did I talk Clark into this one? That feeling of pleasant confusion gave way to common or garden confusion when he couldn't remember any of the previous night's foreplay—and, with Clark, foreplay generally lasted about as long as a Wagnerian epic—which in turn changed to horrified confusion when he remembered Clark had been at his parents' for days.

"Good morning, Lex." Victoria, her face already made up and her hair styled, appeared in Lex's field of vision.

"What the hell…"

"I must remember to send Clark a thank-you gift. He's certainly taught you a thing or two."

"Victoria…" Lex tried to sit up again, and again came closer to severe injury since he'd left Smallville. "What is this?" He couldn't imagine having any kind of sex with Victoria. Sex with accessories was even less likely.

"I'm crushed you don't remember. It's not something I'll be forgetting anytime soon. What a pity we won't be doing it again."

"Why's that, Victoria?" Lex swaggered, as much as it was possible for a man to swagger while chained to his own bedpost. "Not up for a repeat performance?" After spending his entire life in business, Lex had developed a knack for bluffing. He was naturally cautious about how much he revealed. Living with three aliens had just made him a better liar.

Victoria laughed. "Oh, anytime, Lex, love. I just thought you might find it rather difficult to get it up when it's burnt to a crisp. Still," she leaned over him, far enough to give Lex a nice eyeful down the front of her blouse. Unfortunately, he was too distracted by the monogrammed gold cigarette lighter in her hand to fully appreciate the view. "You never know. From what I've heard, you've been flaming all your life, and that hasn't dampened your enthusiasm yet."

She disappeared from his field of vision. Lex craned his neck, only to be rewarded with the decidedly non-comforting sight of Victoria, in business suit and heels, dousing the room with thirty-year-old scotch. She spread it over his Persian rug and Chippendale furniture ("Not that kind of Chippendale," he'd hastily explained to Clark), then poured the remainder over the bed. Somehow, Lex had never thought Victoria would soak his sheets with that particular fluid. "It's really too bad that you returned to your old ways, Lex. Forty-five is far too old to be picking up rough trade. Especially those with arsonist tendencies."

"Victoria, we can talk about this." Luthors never begged, except in specific recreational circumstances, so Lex kept his voice neutral. And was rather proud of that accomplishment, considering he was about to be burned to death. "If it's about the money…" He didn't think it was that simple, but it was worth a try.

"Oh, it's not."

"Then what…"

"Revenge is a dish best served cold, Lex. The two of you should know that. It sounds like one of those pretentious things you would say."

"The two of us?" Clark didn't go in for pretentious quotations. But, of course, Victoria wasn't talking about Clark.

"Yes. You and your bastard father." She dropped the bottle, wiping her hands daintily on Lex's sheets. "Don't think I didn't consider doing this to him. But then I realized time will do it soon, anyway." Lex snorted. She was in for a disappointment. He'd been thinking the same thing for twenty years. "And what better way for him to go than knowing his son's dead and he's completely alone in the world?"

"He doesn't care about me, Victoria. You know that. If you think killing me is going to hurt Lionel, you're wrong." Now, if it was Kara, that would be a different story. For everyone. While Lex wasn't exactly thrilled to be there himself, he felt physically ill imagining Kara in his place. Or Carl, or Clark.

"Perhaps." Victoria nodded thoughtfully. "But I'll still enjoy it." She flicked open the lighter and brought it to life. Lex's life flashed before his eyes. He was just getting to the good part, the part where he met Clark, when the door flew open and he was treated to the sight of that very man, standing theatrically with his hands on his hips and his cape billowing out behind him, despite the fact that the house had been thoroughly draft-proofed.

"Not so fast, Victoria."

Victoria laughed, casting a critical glance up and down the Spandex. "Superman. I heard you'd moved to San Francisco."

Lex caught a glimpse of Clark in Superman's momentary expression of puzzlement. There wasn't time for him to figure it out. Moments later, Victoria set the bed on fire.

The years in Smallville had given Lex experience of a number of different injuries. He had, however, only been burned once. He'd almost forgotten how much it hurt. But now, as then, it was only seconds before Clark was on top of him, smothering the flames, and Lex was treated to quite a different memory.

He hadn't thought of Desiree in years. His brief marriage to her had been nothing but a major mistake and the only good to come of it was a renewed appreciation for the family lawyer who had insisted on an extensive pre-nuptial agreement, and had then, without any sermonizing, arranged the quickie annulment. At least, that's what he told people who asked. In truth, Lex couldn't regret the incident with Desiree. It was what had brought him and Clark together. Until then, Lex had wilfully ignored the hints Clark had been sending his way. Things were too complicated and life was too unfair for him to risk paying attention to them. It was hard not to pay attention, though, when the teenaged object of your desire straddled you and felt you up in the guise of saving your life. Again.

While young Clark had seen flaming Lex as an opportunity for a grope, Superman was all business. Force of habit, Lex supposed, what with the prevalence of sexual harassment suits these days. He put out the fire. By that time, of course, Victoria was long gone. But she didn't get far. The wailing of a siren, the crashing of metal and a familiar scream that Lex had heard a lot once upon a time, let him know that, as usual, Superman wasn't about to let the villain get away. Lex blinked up at Clark, who was leaning over the bed, furrows of concern in his brow.

"Thanks, Superman."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine." Apart from the burns to his body, the handcuff still chafing his wrist, and the flammable liquid all over his bedroom. Lex parted his lips slightly, knowing what was supposed to come next. He had two good lines in mind. He hadn't yet decided between, 'Aren't you going to kiss the victim?' and 'If you want, we can leave the handcuff on," when Clark stood up, said:

"Good. Then I can tell you you're a complete jerk and I hate you." With that, Superman disappeared, leaving Lex staring after him. After about fifteen minutes, an elderly policeman with a heavy Irish accent finally showed up to take off the handcuff and get Lex to hospital.

***

"So you want my advice. That's rich, considering the way you've treated me." Lex stepped gingerly over a small Everest of clothes topped by an industrial-strength brassiere and looked through the blue smoke to Clark's best friend.

"Come on, Lois. I've always liked you," Lex lied. "You know Clark better than anyone," the reason the first part was a lie.

"Yeah. And I've been telling him to leave you for years." She laughed until she wheezed, tapping the cigarette on an already overflowing ashtray. "Now he finally has, you want me to bring him back for you? Keep dreaming, buddy."

Lex gritted his teeth and wished he had his family's X-ray vision, just so he could comfort himself with a glimpse of Lois's blackened lungs. "It's not for me. It's for the kids. You know Kara and Carl will be devastated if we split up." He wasn't at all pleased about the development himself.

"Yeah, yeah. I came from a broken home. I turned out OK." She pushed the first ashtray to one side and produced another, decorated with a picture of Niagara Falls.

"Lois, please."

Lois gave a theatrical sigh. She had always reminded Lex of Chloe Sullivan from Smallville days. Lex suspected she even harboured her own unrequited crush on Clark, although while Chloe had dealt with it by obsessing over her high school paper and her Wall of Weird, Lois favoured Turkish cigarettes and a hard-bitten, man-hating attitude. And, speaking on behalf of his gender, Lex thought, the feeling was mutual.

"If you don't know what he wants, I sure as hell can't tell you."

"Thanks for your time." Lex turned around, clenching his fists in his pockets to avoid 'accidentally' knocking over a framed photograph of Clark and Lois at a Daily Planet Christmas party. He was nearly at the door when Lois remarked,

"Though it wouldn't kill you to make an honest man out of him."

"What?"

"Hell, you've been living together for decades. And it's not even illegal anymore. Might be an idea to do something about it."

"Is that really what Clark wants?" Lex couldn't remember the subject of marriage ever coming up between them. Which was just as well, because Lex thought it was ridiculous.

"No, I'm only suggesting it because I look great in pink organza and I don't get much chance to wear it." Lex looked at her. "What do you want from me, Luthor? You ask for my help, then when I give it to you, you come back with the attitude. Maybe that's why Clark left you, ever think of that?"

"I'm sorry." It was the most sincere apology Lex had ever uttered, although that wasn't saying much. "It's just that he's never said anything to me."

"Why would he? Every time he brings up the subject, you retreat into full sarcastic bastard mode."

"I don't…" But a memory was slowly surfacing. Clark, going alone to some Smallvillian wedding partly because Lex was busy but mostly because Lex couldn't be bothered to watch one of Clark's dull friends…was it Pete Ross? Tying the knot with some equally dull provincial girl. Coming back with stories of how lovely the wedding had been, how happy the couple, how perfect everything was. How Clark wished they could do the same, for his parents and their children, if not for themselves. Clark wasn't usually one for broad hints and wistful sighs, but Lex picked up on that. And told him in no uncertain terms that the only people who got married were those too insecure or too unappealing to hold on to their mates without legal bonds. Then Clark had mentioned Lex and Desiree, which Lex had taken as a case in point. The subject hadn't come up again. "But that was years ago."

"And you shut him down completely."

"He didn't seem that upset." If Lex had known how important it was to him…

"He wasn't. He told me you'd already changed your life for him and the kids. He wasn't going to push you to do it again."

Lex hesitated, considering. He couldn't imagine himself as a groom. Still, if it was the only way he could get his family back, even if it was a family he would never fit into, that's what he would do.

"Tell me, Lois, will you be bringing a guest to the wedding?"

Lois barked. "Not unless you know a guy with an eight-inch dick and a couple of million in the bank." Not for the first time, Lex reflected on how fortunate he and Clark were to have Lois as a role model for their daughter.

Lex had his staff begin the wedding preparations as soon as he came home. He decided to keep it a surprise for the moment, at least until they had confirmed the basilica for the ceremony and the Metropolis Museum of Modern Art for the reception. He was debating the relative merits of the pheasant and the imported smoked salmon when the telephone rang.

He never could keep secrets from Kara.

"That's great!" she enthused, as soon as he announced his engagement. "Dad'll be thrilled. When's it going to be?"

Lex flipped through the stack of notes his personal assistant had given him. "The Metropolis Philharmonic are only available from the twelfth to the sixteenth, but if we'll take the Ritz-Carlton instead of the museum for the reception, we can have the Metropolis Symphony Orchestra instead and they're open until the twenty-third."

There was a lengthy pause on the other end of the line. Finally, Kara said: "Unlock the front door, Lex. I'll be right there."

"I'm not sure about this."

"About what?" Kara looked down from the ladder, where she was hanging the last pink and purple rosette from the top of the rented marquee. The Luthor mansion in Smallville, long since donated to the Historic Homes of Kansas Society, had been closed to tourists for the occasion. Not that there were many of those anyway. Driving out to the middle of nowhere to see the former home of an eminent businessman appealed only to the truly desperate vacationer. "Dad? It's a little late for that, Lex."

"No. About…this." Kara's ideas of her parents' wedding varied widely from what Lex had had in mind. Kara, of course, won out. He hadn't expected this, though. "It looks…" Just like his last wedding. Right down to the unusual decorations and the Martha Kent-decorated wedding cake. And the conspicuous absence of Lionel, who had, once again, claimed to be too busy to attend his only child's wedding. Kara made her way down the ladder, finishing by jumping off the fifth rung. Lex was too nervous to even be concerned about that. "Listen, Kara, I never told you this, but a long time ago, before your dad and I…knew each other…"

Kara lay a hand on his arm. "Lex, I know you were married once."

"How?" Lex didn't know why he was bothering to ask. Secrets were something that had disappeared from Lex's life the minute Clark put the first car seat in his Ferrari.

"The same way I know Dad is going to love this. It's exactly what he wants."

"You sound pretty sure of that."

"I am." Kara kissed him on the cheek.

The feeling was not mutual. By the time Clark finally got back from the city, Lex was going out of his mind. Kara wouldn't let him drink, because she didn't want him slurring his way through the vows she had painstakingly revised with him. Instead, he waited behind the tourist-containing velvet rope in his old pool room, on the same leather couch he and Clark had once spent hours on, back when life was simple. Simpler, anyway.

Kara had convinced Lex not to tell Carl about the wedding. Kara claimed this was because her brother was a "blabbermouth" who would let the cat out of the bag, but Lex knew better. It was because Kara wasn't sure Carl wanted the wedding to happen. Lex didn't require much convincing. He wasn't sure, either.

Martha's voice warned him of their impending arrival. Lex stood up, then sat down again, as he heard Clark say:

"Look, Mom, I've got a lot of work to do, so if you don't mind, I'll just head home."

"I told you, the Historic Homes people asked me to check on the place during the off-season." Martha could barely suppress her laughter. Acting had never been one of her great skills, Lex remembered. Although presumably Jonathan Kent fell for it.

"What's that got to do with me?"

"You can reach the cobwebs." As Martha patiently explained the extraordinarily implausible (but no more implausible than most of the reasons Clark had given for coming to Lex's) reason for dragging her son out to the castle, Lex wondered how he should be discovered. He tried reclining suavely on the sofa, then leaning against the pool table. He was about to try casually examining the bookshelves when he tripped over the velvet rope and ended up sprawled on the floor as the door opened.

"Lex? What are you doing here?" Clark didn't sound particularly thrilled to see him. Lex struggled to his feet, brushed off his knees (the house really was extremely dusty) and looked at Clark. And had no clue what to say.

"I'm…" He tried desperately to remember all, or even just one, of the various romantic proposals he and Kara had practised over the last two weeks. He came up blank. So he, Lex Luthor, master of witty repartee, king of the verbal joust, simply said: "Want to get married?"

"Married?" Clark sounded as if Lex had just asked him to use his powers for evil, or even just to jump the drive-through line at McDonald's.

"Lex and Kara have been planning this for weeks," the beaming Martha put in helpfully. "Look at this." She took Clark by the hand and dragged him over to the window. As Kara had promised, his expression changed the moment he saw the white tent decorated with the pink and purple bows. Clark flung both his arms around Lex, planted a kiss on his mouth, and said:

"Oh, god, Lex. Of course I do! Give me a minute to get changed." He sped out of the house, leaving Martha clutching Lex's arm and Lex wondering if perhaps the crepe bows contained trace amounts of meteor dust.

"This sucks. How come I have to wear a suit?" Carl pulled irritably at his tie, borrowed from his grandfather and tied by his grandmother. Kara, looking rather more stunning than Lex was comfortable with in her yellow sundress, scowled at her brother.

"Because it's a wedding, jerk-off. And it wouldn't kill you to be pleasant for once."

"Dad!" Carl called automatically. Then, when he realized Clark was nowhere in sight, Carl looked around, finding only one possible ally in the immediate vicinity, said: "Lex, did you hear what she called me?"

"Come on, guys." Lex rubbed his eyes, trying to ignore the butterflies that had taken up residence in his stomach and seemed to be having a kegger. It was completely irrational to be so nervous. Lex knew this. He also knew that he hadn't been the slightest bit worried before his last wedding. Granted, he had also been under the influence of powerful mutated pheromones at the time, but that couldn't explain it all. The scientist part of him wanted to analyze this, to figure out why he had married a woman he barely knew without a second thought while the idea of marrying Clark, the man he'd loved for twenty-five years, was just about to give him a stroke. The more practical part of him, though, was more concerned with making it down the aisle without puking over his tuxedo. That was the kind of thing that could really damage one's reputation.

"This is stupid." Carl continued, miffed. "It's not like it's going to change anything. I don't even know why you're doing it." For once, Lex and his son were in complete agreement. Then Clark appeared.

Over the last two and a half decades, Lex had seen Clark in every imaginable outfit. From the flannel and jeans of his adolescence, Clark had graduated, with a little help from Lex, to subtly expensive suits and well-tailored shirts when he was at his day job, and, with no help from Lex, to the primary-coloured Spandex uniform of his other job. When the children were younger, Clark had dressed up every Halloween, and for several years had rented a Santa suit at Christmas, giving Carl and Kara their very own version of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus" with which to regale their classmates in January. In short, after so long, nothing Clark wore could surprise Lex. Although the sight of him in a tuxedo, red shirt and white cummerbund came close.

"Wow, Lex." Clark stopped in the doorway and looked Lex up and down with frank appreciation. He was usually more discreet in the presence of their children, but Lex didn't care. He was staring at Clark like he was twenty-one again. "You look great!"

"So do you." Lex smiled as half the butterflies passed out from sheer exhaustion. "But I thought we weren't supposed to see each other until the ceremony." Clark laughed and came into the room, briefly hugging both Kara and Carl as he passed. Then he put his arms around Lex and said:

"Nothing about this is traditional, Lex. That's why it's so perfect." Clark pulled him into the first real, passionate kiss they'd shared in months.

There were few guests. Lana Fordman, widowed some three years previously when her out-of-shape husband had suffered a heart attack playing football with their four sons, came, as did Pete Ross and his wife. Chloe Sullivan, chief writer for the National Inquisitor, had sent her regrets, saying she was too busy researching the appearance of the Virgin Mary in an oil stain on the forecourt of a gas station in Tupelo, Mississippi. Lex was rather disappointed about that. He would have enjoyed seeing her and Lois together.

Lois, who had, despite her promises of pink organza, come in a rather tasteful pantsuit, sat in the front beside the Kents. She gave Lex a lewd wink as he and Clark proceeded up the aisle, with Kara and Carl following. Lex couldn't be sure, but he assumed she was also the one who yelled: "Get a room!" When their nuptial-binding kiss dragged on a little longer than strictly proper for a public event.

The reception was a quiet affair, but, after decades of child-enforced imprisonment at home, Lex had lost his party knack. Even the dull LexCorp Christmas parties and business dinners tired him out. After an hour or so, he left Lois loudly sharing her opinion of men with Lana and Carl sniggering about something with the perpetually adolescent Pete, and went to look for his husband.

When he couldn't find Clark anywhere in the castle, Lex drove over to his in-laws'. Lex didn't have to look far. He was almost nostalgic as he climbed up to the loft and found Clark, in his tuxedo, balancing on the hammock.

"What are you doing up here?" Lex smiled.

"Thinking," was Clark's concise reply.

"About what?"

"Lots of stuff. How lucky we are." That was something Lex could agree with. "How lucky I am, really."

"Clark…" Lex developed a sudden fascination with the floorboards. He hadn't been brought up to accept compliments gracefully, and a lifetime in business wasn't the best way to learn.

"No, Lex, I'm serious. I couldn't have done any of this without you. We couldn't have." He got up and went over to the old couch, pulling a wrapped gift from under the cushions. "This is from the kids and I. I got it a long time ago, but I kept forgetting to give it to you." Clark handed the present over and Lex tore off the brown wrapping paper. Inside was a white coffee mug, decorated with symbols Lex recognized. ?a???sµ??? ?a??te??? pat??a?. Not Kryptonian, but Greek, reading, if Lex's Greek was up to speed, 'World's Best Father.' "It was Carl's idea, actually," Clark continued, smiling. "He really loves you. We all do."

"The feeling is more than mutual," even in Carl's case. Lex smiled. "And thank you."

"Hey," A lightbulb appeared over Clark's head. From the grin that accompanied it, and the subsequent slide of Clark's eyes over the hammock, Lex surmised it wasn't an entirely pure lightbulb. "You know, I always wanted to…"

"Clark, I'm not that coordinated."

"Come on, Lex. If anyone can manage sex on a hammock, it should be Superman and the World's Best Dad."

****

"Mr. President, you have Fidel Castro on line one and Mr. Kent on line two." Lex sipped cappuccino from his trademark Greek coffee mug and thanked the aide. Then, without hesitation, he picked up line two.

"Hi, Clark."

"I'll be quick. I know you're busy."

"Not too busy." Castro wasn't going anywhere. Unfortunately. He had apparently been drinking from the same fountain of youth as the ninety-three year old Lionel.

"Kara and her kids are coming up for Christmas."

"Great."

"And there was one more thing. It's kind of important." Clark's voice changed. He cleared his throat, and Lex flashed back to the day they'd acquired Carl, now a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter. And Kara, the leotard-wearing working mother and saviour of Argo City. Surely he couldn't…No, Lex shook his head. They were far too old. Grandfathers, for God's sake. "You see," Clark continued, in a rush, "I know you don't like pets, but Superman found this dog who's kind of…special."

"Special?" Lex sighed.

"Like us. His name is Krypto. Can we…" Lex looked at his mug, sitting beside the Oval Office stationery. Hell, if Richard Nixon could have a dog…

"Why not, Clark?"