Archive of Our Own ^beta

Mercy Graves, Lex thinks to himself, must have been named ironically, because she is a woman entirely without mercy.

None of the women in his life seem to have any mercy in fact.

Lena, who had been handed control of the Luthor fortune following Lex’s ill advised leap off of the deep end into insanity, had proven herself to be something of a dictator. She is a remarkably benevolent dictator, and had rather easily handed back control of the Luthor Research & Development Division to Lex just as soon as she had been convinced of his reinstated and ongoing sanity. But she was a dictator all the same, and she had decreed that Lex would show his face at Metropolis’ Luthor sponsored Easter Carnival. And she had told him in no uncertain terms that he would be smiling too, if he knew what was good for him.

“The Luthor reputation has only just recovered,” Lena had explained in a tone that was meant to be genial but in fact came out steeped in frustration, “and it would do our image, not to mention the share price, some good for the public to see you out and about and once more on an even keel.”

Lex isn’t entirely sure why he had capitulated with so little argument; probably some kind of deeply buried fraternal love, or perhaps a little lingering guild for having lumped his little sister with the responsibility of leading the company, whilst Lex was off attempting to kill a living god and later dealing with the fallout of said attempt. 

He’d spent months locked away in Belle Reve before the Luthor fortune had bought him his freedom, and in that time she’d done a remarkable job of hauling LuthorCorp back into the realm on respectability despite her youth and relative inexperience in this particular arena. So Lex had capitulated, had gritted his teeth, had agreed forthwith to show his face and be pleasant for a single evening.

He’d put off going until the very last moment he could manage; surely even a second longer spent lingering at his desk and Mercy would’ve called Lena to tattle on him. It was a development that he wasn’t overly fond of; during his absence from the company Mercy had been made temporary assistant to Lena. He would never know quite what had happened during those months, but whatever it was they had bonded, and now the two of them were in cahoots.

So he’d eventually sucked it up and had gone to the carnival, rather than risk whatever sadistic punishment Mercy and Lena could cook up between them. It would certainly be something drastic and painful, a fate which he wished to avoid at all cost.

The bulk of the Easter Carnival event was set up in Heroes Park, though road blockades had been set up stretching down to Hob’s river, and the festivities flowed over onto the streets. There was far too much stimulation for Lex’s comfort; too many lights, too much noise, far far too many people, and of course the requisite stench that came from too much fried food and too many people all in once place. There was a reason he loved the quiet and more importantly air filtered and AC controlled penthouse office so very much.

But he’d made a promise to Lena, his merciless sister, and he would follow it through, even if doing so left him with a headache.

He’d made at least some effort to appear somewhat normal; he’d stripped off his waistcoat and tie, and had unbuttoned the top two buttons of the shirt. He had even briefly considered rolling the sleeves up to his elbow, but had decided that that would be a step too far. 

Still, dressed far more casually than normal, and with Mercy a shadow kept close to his side, he had almost, almost, been able to blend in with the masses. He’d never blend in fully. Despite Lena’s PR campaign, his was still the second most recognisable face in the city (regrettably he was second once more to Superman), and there would always be stares, always be whispers.

But he dealt with it in the only way he knew how. With his head held high, and his ears shut to anything that wasn’t rapturous praise. It perhaps wasn’t the healthiest of coping mechanisms, but it was the Luthor way.

So he had trailed around the carnival, had spent some time watching the lights of the ferris wheel, had bought and even eaten some cotton candy, an act that had left a fine film of sugar on his tongue. It made his teeth ache.

He had even allowed Mercy to goad him into playing a few carnival games. He sucked at most of them; his mind may have been the most brilliant in the city (on the whole damned continent really), but his hand eye coordination left something to be desired. 

It takes him no fewer than nine attempts to actually win something on the claw machine. He’s ever so proud of himself for exactly six seconds, before he retrieves his prize from the small slot at the bottom of the machine.

It’s a teddybear. The machine is full of them.

But this particular teddybear, with its fuzzy golden brown fur and beady black eyes, is dressed in a particularly egregious Superman costume. It takes every shred of self control he possessed not to throw the damned thing onto the ground and stomp it out of existence. There’s a roiling hatred in his gut that convinces him that he could throw a temper tantrum that would put a three year old to shame. It is only his promise to Lena to behave himself that prevents him from doing just that. Instead he plays it off with a laugh, counterfeit mirth written across his face, just in case anyone was watching, before he hands the offending item to Mercy.

“Deal with this.” He doesn’t say ‘please’. He doesn’t have the patience to do that right now. Luckily Mercy has been with the family long enough not to take offence at his lack of manners.

He doesn’t last much longer at the carnival. He stays just long enough to watch Lena walk out onto the stage in front of the ferris wheel to launch the light drones that they’re using in place of traditional fireworks this year.

He listens to people, sheeple really, ooh and ahh around him at the pretty lights. Lex doesn’t so much as spare the lights a second look. Instead he allows Mercy to guide him to a waiting car.

The ride passes without comment. Lex spends most of it staring out of the window, unblinking as the streets pass by.

He only blinks back to reality when Mercy nudges his elbow gently. He eases out of the car, moving cautiously in deference to the headache growing steadily behind his eyes.

Mercy, kindly though rather unnecessarily, escorts him up to the  apartment. 

“Cancel my meetings tomorrow please.” He says, proud of himself for remembering to say ‘please’ this time.

She nods understandingly. 

“You go brush your teeth now, I’ll fetch you some painkillers.”

He almost wants to snap at her. He’s not a fucking child and she isn’t his mother. She doesn’t need to coddle him like this. But he’s exhausted and the headache isn’t going to shift without some pharmaceutical help. So he nods, and thanks her quietly and goes to brush his teeth like he’s been told to do.

Some five minutes later he exits the bathroom. Mercy is long gone, but there’s a glass of water and a bottle of Advil on his bedside table. His bed is also already occupied. By a teddybear. By that stupid fucking teddybear in the stupid fucking Superman costume.

So yes, Mercy Graves was entirely without mercy. And worse yet she was messing with him. She was deliberately and maliciously attempting to spike his blood pressure into an unsafe range. She was attempting homicide. He made a mental note to himself to report her to the police first thing in the morning. 

He truly deeply missed the days before his dip into insanity, the days where he had still had Mercy’s respect, or at least a close approximation thereof. She would not have pulled a stunt like this before, of that he was certain.

Only now she was under his sisters thumb. And now his lovely bed with its lovely sheets and its myriad of pillows was contaminated. He’d have to burn the whole damned thing. Though that would have to wait until morning, because there was still a headache raging behind his eyes, and the kind of destruction he craved would only worsen the symptoms, and he already felt ill enough as it was.

So he nudges the bear aside with a scowl and settles beneath the covers, burying his face in a pillow, determined to utterly ignore the world and all of his problems with it.

-

It’s not entirely uncommon for the first thing he thinks about when he wakes up to be Superman. It wasn’t every morning, not anymore, not like it had been back during his year long obsession with killing Superman. But it wasn’t uncommon. The glaring reminder perched on one of his other pillows is therefore unnecessary, after all he’s highly unlikely to forget Superman. 

He scowls at the poor bear. The damned bear rather.

The damned bear, with its fuzzy golden brown fur, and its stupid damned costume, assaults his eyes the moment he opened them. It’s an innocent enough icon, and yet rage roils through him in a manner truly unbecoming of a Luthor, of a supposed paragon of polite society. 

He’s familiar with the rage of course. Months spent at Belle Reve contemplating the many mistakes he’d made along the way, hadn’t been enough to to bleed him of his anger. But these days he usually likes to have his first cup of coffee before he drives himself into a fury and starts contemplating new and inventive ways to kill Superman.

He reaches out a hand, and flicks the bear onto the floor, knows that he ought to feel guilty for abusing a teddybear, but can’t bring himself to feel even an iota of remorse. In fact it’s something of a therapeutic act. 

He couldn’t move Superman even if he hit him with a fucking tank. But the bear goes flying ever so easily, quickly dropping off the edge of the bed and out of Lex’s sight.

The anger in his chest dissipates a little, and he’s able to haul himself out of bed and into the shower. By the time he’s dressed and ready for the day, there’s even a slight pep in his step.

He saunters from his home, not bothering to make the bed or to pick up the fallen stuffed toy. Those are problems that he pays his maids a frankly exorbitant amount of money to deal with.

He goes into the office to a day delightfully devoid of meetings, since Mercy was actually kind enough to cancel them all just as he’d asked.

All in all, despite the previous days awful end, and the nasty surprise he’d woken up to, he has an uncommonly good morning followed by an uncommonly good afternoon. He’d walked into the office with a pep in his step, and he walks back out again with the same pep still in his step.

He’s home no more than five minutes when he wanders into the bedroom, stripping off his suit as he goes, when his brilliant day is utterly forgotten in deference to the rage currently bubbling through his veins.

Because there, in his lovely bed, with its bedsheets of an exorbitantly high thread count and it’s pillows of frankly unnecessary number, is the fucking bear. 

It’s tucked up against the pillows, and half covered by the duvet.

Apparently the maids have developed a sense of humour too (and good god the disease has spread from Mercy to the office staff to his goddamned maids - it’s infectious apparently). A red haze descends over his vision, and he moves without realising it.

He’s finds himself stood over the kitchen bin, its lid open like a gaping maw ready to receive a sacrifice, when Lex looks down at the teddybear held tightly in his hands, and he finds himself contemplating whether a stint in Belle Reve really has changed him as a man after all. He looks down into the glassy black eyes of the teddybear, and wonders whether it’s possible for an inanimate object to look scared. 

He closes the bin, and places the bear on the kitchen island. 

He huffs and stares at the thing. It stares back.

“You’re stupid,” Lex says. And he really does mean it. Though he’s not entirely certain whether he’s talking to the bear or to Superman.

“You’re stupid,” he repeats, and what follows is vitriol of the purest kind.

Some five minutes later he’s quite done expounding on the worst of Superman’s qualities, and something in him feels lighter. It really was therapeutic. 

Yelling at a teddybear.

Oh how the mighty have fallen.

He regards the teddybear with a critical eye.

“Okay fine,” he says after a moment, “you can stay for now.”

The teddybear is returned to his bed. He does not tuck it under the covers like the maids had done, but he does allow it to sit on one of his pillows.

It’s the last thing he sees before he closes his eyes to sleep.

And once more it’s the first thing he sees when he wakes up.

For a little while it feels quite like he’s returned to his previous state of madness; Superman running around his head from dawn til dusk. He half worries that it’ll send him down another spiral. It doesn’t. 

Lex goes to work, and comes home. Over and over again. Sometimes he yells at the bear. Sometimes he doesn’t. More than once he’s flicked the thing off the bed just for the pleasure of watching it fall in the way he wishes Superman would. 

The bear always makes it back to the bed, either by his own hand, or via the help of the maids.

All of his maids have enough common sense not to say a damned word about it.

The same unfortunately cannot be said for Mercy. She’s a changed woman, and apparently feeling a little suicidal (one must be feeling suicidal to risk Lex’s wrath in such a manner), because on a truly dreary Thursday morning, she wanders into his bedroom whilst he’s getting dressed, already informing him of his appointments for the day, when she comes to a physical and verbal halt. She laughs. Lex has imprisoned people for less. He’s also killed for less.

Lex doesn’t laugh with her. Instead he fixes her with a scowl and he waits with limited patience for Mercy to stop laughing.

She manages to do so eventually, and she looks at him, mirth still very much present in her eyes, “you haven’t gotten rid of that thing yet?”

Lex sniffs, “Apparently the maids have caught your sense of humour, they think it’s funny to keep putting the damned thing back in my bed.”

Mercy laughs again, just a chuckle this time, but then she has the decency to look a little ashamed, “my apologies for corrupting them so.”

She doesn’t sound overly apologetic, rather she’s still amused despite the shamefaced expression on her face, “I can get rid of it if you’d like?”

Something at the question makes him pause. He should say yes. He should say yes and end this madness now.

Instead something in him freezes. The damned bear, for all that it annoys him, has been a constant enough companion for the last few weeks. He thinks, crazy though it may be, that he would miss the stupid thing.

So he just shrugs at Mercy, “no, leave it. I’ll deal with it myself. I think I’ll take a great amount of pleasure in tossing it down the trash chute.”

He lies. Though in the grand scheme of things it’s only a little lie. He’s not going to touch the bear. It can stay exactly where it is. But Mercy doesn’t need to know that.

She must buy the lie though, because she shrugs and goes back to telling Lex about his schedule for the day.

-

He ignores the problem for a while after that. Things go on as normal. Nobody asks about the bear again. He doesn’t tell anyone either.

He goes to work. He comes home again. He shouts at the bear less and less these days. He’s stopped flicking it off the edge of the bed just to see it fall.

Nothing in his life really changes. It’s all dreadfully dull. He spends more than one evening mentally drawing up designs for a death ray, and considers whether or not it’s possible to fabricate Kryptonite. He doesn’t do anything with the plans of course, he’s made promises aplenty to Lena, and he’s not going to make her job harder for her than it already is.

Except… except some things do change occasionally.

Somewhere in the back of his head he names the bear.

It’s a sure sign of madness, he thinks to himself. That doesn’t stop him from naming the damned thing Superbear. It’s not the most creative name, he’s fully aware of that thank you, but he thinks it’s fitting for the fuzzy creature to be named for the superhero that inspired its costume. Once he’s in the habit of course, it proves near impossible to break.

Somehow he goes from calling the bear an ‘it’ to referring to the thing as Superbear. He’s honestly just glad that he’s got the self control to keep such thoughts inside his own head. He would be mortified indeed for anyone else to know that’s he’s named the teddybear that he sleeps with. Geniuses and barely rehabilitated villains aren’t supposed to sleep with teddybears, much less give them such cliche names.

Lex, of course, really ought to know better than to give the thing a name; he is after all fully aware that when you name something you often become attached to it. Shortly thereafter it becomes the norm for him to grasp the bear and to tug it close when he curls up under the duvet, sleeping with the bear pressed up against his chest. He tries valiantly to convince himself that he sleeps so peacefully like that, because he’s able to sleep strangling a facsimile of the man - the alien rather - currently driving him crazy.

But the way he cradles the bear close, careful not to grasp too tightly, sends that particular theory flying out the window.

So he does what he does with any problem that he can’t quite overcome; he ignores it until it goes away.

Except it doesn’t go away. He falls asleep curled around Superbear. He feels inexplicably guilty any time he shoves the thing off the bed in his sleep. He even finds himself apologising to it when he retrieves it from the floor.

A sure sign of madness, he thinks to himself and not for the first time.

Of course, much like Superbear, the bears namesake can’t be ignored either.

Superman continues to hover over the city, in much the same way he hovers in Lex’s mind; constant and ever present even if only in the background. 

Lex learns to put up with it. For the most part he’s very very good at avoiding the hero. He’s near enough an expert actually. The two truly have no cause to interact with each other these days; Lex has kept himself faithfully out of trouble. So with the rare exception of the occasional flyby Lex hasn’t actually seen Superman properly in almost a year. Sometimes he finds it difficult to believe that it’s really been so long since his humiliating defeat. 

Then of course it becomes apparent that Superman is not to be ignored, because almost a full year since he’d put his plan to kill the Kryptonian into play, the very creature in question comes storming into his office in the newly built Luthor Tower.

Lex experiences a bizarre sense of deja vu.

The office door slams against the wall hard enough to leave a crack in the plaster of the wall. 

“Where’s the damned dog?” Superman all but growls. It puts Lex in mind of a wild animal. 

And the sense of deja vu worsens as the flying menace looms over his desk, all but vibrating in anger. And for once Lex can honestly say that he has absolutely no hand in making Superman that way.

Instead he blinks up at his nemesis, and ensures that there is a properly baffled look written across his face when he says, “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He is perfectly sincere too.

He’s clever enough to surmise that if Superman is here looking for the mongrel then the damned thing must be missing again. Lex, having played the role of chew toy to the stupid mutt in fairly recent memory has no inclination whatsoever to be in so much as a hundred mile radius of the flying beast. So even if he had wanted Superman’s attention, which he didn’t for the record, kidnapping the dog would not be his go to method.

Superman, however, doesn’t appear at all convinced of Lex’s innocence. 

“Where. Is. The. Dog. Luthor?”

Superman’s hands are clenched around the edge of the desk, and Lex hears some worrying cracking sounds, as though the wood of the desk were preparing to splinter beneath the metahumans grip.

Lex just blinks again, “I honestly have no idea where the little beast is. And honestly at this point, shouldn’t you be keeping it on a leash anyway, it’s a danger to society?”

And okay that last bit does come out a tad bit smarmier than he intends. But he still doesn’t think that that's reason enough for Superman to upend his desk, sending it flying towards one of the floor to ceiling windows.

There’s a crack as the window splinters though thankfully remains whole, and a loud clatter as stationary falls to the floor, followed by the sounds of a china coffee cup smashing. Lex silently mourns the loss of his morning coffee. It was really good coffee too, Mercy had really outdone herself.

Lex stares at the destruction for a second, then glances up at Superman to find the alien closer than Lex is really comfortable with. It’s one thing to confront Superman with his cronies around to witness it, with Eve streaming the thing live. The last time this had happened there had been a level of protection that is entirely lacking in their current encounter. 

They’re the only two in the room, and when Lex glances at the office door, he can’t see Mercy sat at her desk just outside. 

He’s alone with an alien. And even the closest help couldn’t get to him before Superman had the chance to rend him limb from limb.

He stands. If Superman really is determined to kill him in a rage, then he’s going to die on his feet, not cowering in his chair.

Once he’s on his feet, and therefore almost eye to eye with the flying menace, he repeats himself again.

“I have no idea where the mongrel is.”

He puts as much finality into the statement as he can summon. And he’s a Luthor, so he can summon quite a lot of it too.

Superman continues to argue anyway. 

“Krypto is missing. And I know you have him.”

“Mmhmmm,” Lex hums, “and pray tell what proof have you got.”

“Who else would’ve taken him?”

And yes, Lex supposes that he can just about understand Superman’s logic. The last time the mutt had gone missing Lex was indeed behind the whole thing.

“I imagine just about anyone who’s angry enough at you would give it a try.”

“Well I’m looking at the man who’s angriest of all.”

It galls that Superman is right. The very thought makes him flinch. 

Of everyone on earth who has a reason to dislike Superman, Lex Luthor is undeniably at the top of the list. Months locked away behind the walls of Belle Reve, and the months since he’d bought his way to freedom, are not enough to have bled him dry of his anger.

Then he thinks of all the nights he’d spent shouting at Superbear, the tiny mascot standing in for the person that Lex truly wants to shout at. He thinks of the way his anger had often dissipated in the aftermath of his one-sided shouting matches. He thinks of the promises he’s kept to Lena, and the leniency he’d allowed Mercy and the rotating crew of maids who cleaned his penthouse. He thinks of the green-energy projects which had come across his desk, and the way he’d signed off on those projects but not the new super weapons that he previously wouldn’t have given a second thought to before green-lighting them.

He thinks of Superman’s self righteous speech from almost a year ago. Thinks of how the menace in question had all but proclaimed himself human, and proclaimed Lex worthy of saving in the same breath.

He thinks, with Superman glaring down at him, that even the alien doesn’t believe his own schtick. 

A year of good behaviour, of charity and hard work and following the rules like he’d agreed to, and at the first sign of trouble Superman comes to lay the blame at Lex’s door.

So, in a self-righteous mood himself, Lex sticks his nose in the air, and finds a way to look down his nose at Superman, despite the Kryptonian being ever so slightly taller.

“Be that as it may, I have no interest in crossing you again, and no interest in being within a hundred miles of the mutt. And quite frankly I would like to see exactly what proof you have of my involvement, besides your general dislike for me.”

There’s movement by the door. Lex risks looking away from Superman to find Mercy stood at the door. There’s a gun in her hands. It won’t do jack shit against Superman, but it’s still just a tad heartwarming to see her so willing to protect him.

It seems, however, that Lex’s exclamation, or Mercy’s arrival, or some combination of the two, is enough to have Superman stepping back.

“I’ve got my eyes on you, Luthor.” The voice is firm, unwavering. The threat, no the promise, quite clear in his voice.

Not for the first time Lex wonders whether he should give up on public life and just lock himself in a lead lined bunker. Surely in such a bolt-hole he should be safe from Superman.

Lex just glares back at Superman, unwilling to flinch away, unwilling to show the slightest sign of weakness. 

“If I find out you had anything to do with it…” Superman trails off, and then turns on his heel to leave the office.

Lex watches Superman leave. His arm aches. The breaks have long since healed, but ever so often he can feel the phantom bite. It’s an awful reminder of that day. Not for the first time he remembers all too well the humiliation, the defeat, the tears he’d tried so desperately to hold back as he’d come face to face with his own weakness.

The rest of the day is quiet enough after the drama. Lex moves to one of the conference rooms to continue working, whilst he waits for the maintenance team to fix his window and heave his desk back into place. The conference room offers sweet solitude, and the kind of peace and quiet that might put his mind at ease. Despite this he gets no work done whatsoever. He spends most of the day pacing back and forth along the length of the table, muttering to himself. He’s glad that there’s no-one around to witness this, after all if anyone had seen him pacing and talking to himself there might’ve been whispers about sending him back to Belle Reve.

Despite doing absolutely no work, he winds up staying late at the office. More than once his hands hover over the keys of his laptop, no more than a few keystrokes away from opening one of the encrypted files buried deep in the LuthorCorp database; weapons, and clones, and formulas for creating a synthetic kryptonite. 

The clock metaphorically strikes eight, 20:00 blinks at him from the corner of his laptop screen without fanfare. The sky outside is still light, it’s still the height of summer. Even so Lex wishes more than anything that it was dark out, the lingering sunlight just doesn’t mesh well with his dark mood.

He doesn’t quite trust himself to get back to the apartment in one piece, in such a mood he’s liable to road rage, and running over some innocent civilian is a surefire way to undo all of the good work he’d done so far.

Instead he calls for a company car, and spends most of the ride complaining in his own head about the driver not going bloody well fast enough.

When they do finally get to his apartment building, Lex only offers a surly thanks, and doesn’t even wait for the driver to get out and open the door for him. He opens the damned door himself, he is after all not entirely useless, and he takes a great deal of pleasure in slamming the car door behind him. He slams it hard enough to make the window in the door rattle. It doesn’t break though, that fact niggles at him more than it should.

When he eventually reaches the penthouse he’s still furious, still seething with anger. He half expects to look in the hallway mirror and to see steam curling from his own ears. His hands clenching into fists, dull nails digging into his palm. His chest grows tight with it, his breathing becoming laboured. He marches through the apartment and smashes two glasses and a poorly placed side table before he makes it to the bedroom.

For once seeing Superbear tucked up safely in his bed doesn’t help; gone are the therapeutic properties of his inanimate companion, rather he sees a pale facsimile of his nemesis, and even that pale imitation is enough to fan the flames of rage.

Lex grasps the offending fiend, and marches towards the balcony. He can picture it in his minds eye; he’ll toss the damned bear from the balcony, and watch it plummet to earth. Superman always hovers, a diety come ever so benevolently to visit earth, but Superbear has no wings. Superbear would fall to the earth just as surely as Lex would should he ever take a leap from the penthouse balcony. It will be cathartic to see the bear fall.

But as he steps out onto the balcony he can’t quite bring himself to wind his arm back, to launch Superbear from the balcony. He grips the bear, probably tighter than he should. But he can’t bring himself to toss the offending scrap of fabric from the balcony.

Instead he huffs at his own weakness, and stalks back inside the apartment, slamming the balcony door shut as he goes. It’s humiliating to reckon with the fact that just a year ago he had been perfectly alright with committing murder, and now he can’t stand to mistreat a teddybear.

Still frustrated, Lex tosses Superbear carelessly onto the floor, and he marches onwards to the bathroom without so much as a backwards glance. He sheds layers of clothing as he goes, until only a minute later he’s stood beneath a spray of water, the temperature just shy of boiling, as he seethes, his for-once-righteous anger still coiling in his chest.

He brushes his teeth still imagining a different end to the earlier scene; an end where he tells Superman exactly where he could stick his self-righteous lies.

He dons a pair of soft cotton sleep pants and climbs into bed despite it still being fairly early, certainly far earlier than he usually goes to sleep. Still he closes his eyes tight, trying desperately to will himself to sleep. 

In the end it’s not anger, but guilt that prevents him from finding rest. With a frustrated sigh he stands from the bed, and pads across the plush carpet of the bedroom so that he can retrieve Superbear from where it had been tossed earlier. 

“I’m not ready to forgive you yet,” Lex says, and for the first time in a month he feels ridiculous for talking to a goddamned teddybear, “but you don’t deserve to sleep on the floor.”

In the end Superbear is exiled to the plushly stuffed loveseat that sits in front of the window. It’s enough of a concession that his recently developed conscience allows him to sleep at last. Though he only sleeps for so long. Sometime around three in the morning he wakes again, and has to retrieve Superbear, and bring him back to the bed, before he can go back to sleep.

Some thirty minutes later he regrets giving in to his conscience because it means that when Superman knocks on the balcony door at quarter to four in the morning, that when he does so Lex is sleeping curled around Superbear.

He startles awake at the sound, and tries real hard to focus on the obnoxious knocking and not the headache forming slowly behind his eyes a result of a night of broken sleep.

Much as he would like to turn over and go back to sleep, the inane knocking simply cannot be ignored. The sight of Superman hovering just above the balcony near enough sends him into a rage again.

The balcony door is thrown open, and Lex leans out, and glares up at Superman.

“Fuck offffff,” he hisses, “leave me alone you self-righteous prick!”

Superman at least has the decency to appear cowed. 

“You have the gall to lecture me, and now here you are, disturbing my sleep at four in the morning. Imagine that, a hero with no decency. What’s wrong with you?” He means for the words to sound like a tirade. But he’s tired and he has a headache, so the words come out more like a whine.

“I wanted to apologise.” Superman says, his voice low but still commanding.

“And you couldn’t do that during regular business hours?”

Apparently not, because Superman just carries on speaking. It must be quite urgent then, whatever the metahuman has to say.

“I wanted to apologise,” Superman repeats himself, “We found Krypto, he wasn’t even kidnapped, just run away.”

There’s absolutely nothing in that statement that couldn’t have waited until Lex was back in the office and available to receive visitors.

So he clicks his tongue impatiently and musters his very best sneer, “I’m not going to say I told you so, but I do need you to know that I’m thinking it.”

And with that he turns on his heel and heads back into the bedroom. He sweeps his arm to close the door behind him, but he’s a few steps away from the doors when it computes that he hasn’t actually heard the door click closed. So he turns around again, only to find Superman’s foot in the way of the door.

The Kryptonian has the gall, the the audacity, the sheer insolence to slide the glass door open and to invite himself into Lex’s bedroom. 

He thinks perhaps that he ought to feel a thrill of fear, just the way he had done earlier in his office. He’s alone with a very dangerous being; someone who doesn’t have to do more than lift a finger to kill Lex. But it’s 4am, and a disturbed night’s sleep has only made the simmering anger all the worse.

“Listen,” Lex says, his top lip curling in disdain, “I don’t know where you get off on inviting yourselves into other peoples homes, but you need to leave.”

Lex stands his ground, folds his arms over his chest and glares at Superman. Superman, apparently, does not get the message, because he pads closer, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet.

Superman comes to a stand still just in front of Lex. And the Kryptonian seems to be doing his very best impression of puppydog eyes. Lex grits his teeth. Puppydog eyes haven’t worked on Lex in a long damned time, and that’s not about to change now.

“I wanted to apologise,” Superman says again.

“You already said as much,” Lex huffs in frustration.

“I mean it.”

“Yes I’m sure you do,” Lex mutters, though the words are undoubtedly clear to an alien with superhearing. 

“I do mean it,” Superman says, “I know now that you had nothing to do with it, and it was unfair of me to come barging into your office on nothing more than a hunch.”

Lex finds himself blinking at the sincerity in the aliens tone.

“Well,” Lex says slowly, just a little stumped for words, he hadn’t been expecting a sincere apology, “well, you’ve said your piece. The apology is accepted, though not really appreciated given that it’s the crack of fucking dawn. You can go now.”

Yes. That ought to do it. Short and sweet; the apology has been accepted, Superman can go on his way and Lex can settle back into the equilibrium he had become so accustomed to. He might even be able to forgo plans to build a death ray, now that the apology had quite taken the wind out of his sails.

He watches, satisfied, as Superman nods in agreement. And waits for the other man - the alien, the thing - to turn and go so that Lex can close the door properly this time. 

Except Superman’s eyes become fixated on a point behind Lex’s back.

“What’s that?” Superman asks, and there’s a silly kind of wonder in his voice.

Tired and frustrated Lex twists to see what Superman finds so amusing, only for his eyes to fall on Superbear, left lying on the bed where Lex had abandoned him before going to open the balcony doors.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Fuck.

Shit.

Could the night actually get any worse?

Lex isn’t sure, and he honestly doesn’t want to tempt fate by asking.

Instead he whips back round to face Superman, and watches with horror as an amused smile spreads across the bastards face.

“It’s nothing,” Lex snaps, trying to push a note of finality into the tone.

It doesn’t work.

“It doesn’t look like nothing,” the irritating alien has the gall to say, the smile still spreading.

“Well it is,” Lex tries again to end the conversation. He even reaches out to try and turn Superman away.

He’s not really sure why he tries this. Lex is already fully aware that Superman can’t and won’t be moved unless he wants to be. A wrecking ball wouldn’t be enough to shift him if he really doesn’t want to be moved.

Perhaps it’s delirium brought on by a lack of sleep. Or maybe it’s just a desperate need to do something, before Superman can start asking questions about why Lex Luthor has a Superman teddybear.

Predictably Lex’s shoving achieves nothing, except that the two of them are now close enough to share breath. Lex tries very very hard not to think about that fact too deeply, not to think about how just a year ago he might’ve rejoiced being so close to his beloved nemesis.

For all that Lex likes to pontificate on the subject of whether Earth should be treating aliens as heroes, he is unable to deny Superman’s magnetic appeal. He understand fully why so many people fell under Superman’s spell. He’s personally too strong to fall for it, but he can understand why others would. And pressed up so close he’s reminded once again of the magnetism. 

All the while Superman seems entirely unaffected by the new development which has lead to them standing so close. Instead the superhero seems content to lean around Lex to get a better look at the bed.

“Hmmm, I think you’re lying.” There’s a definite teasing tone in Superman’s voice, seasoned with a hint of delight.

Lex of course takes umbrage with being called a liar twice by the same person in a less than 24hr time span.

“Well, it is nothing, and I think it’s time for you to leave.” Lex huffs, and tries to shove the other man again. Honestly he’s not quite sure why he keeps trying. It’s said that the definition of insanity is trying the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. Lex wonders whether he’s maybe, just maybe, dipped his toes back into the never-ending well on insanity that he’d only just managed to heave himself out of.

Superman of course doesn’t go anywhere, though he does try to step around Lex to get a better look. Had the metahuman been going at full speed Lex wouldn’t stand a chance of beating him, as it happens though Superman seems to be going roughly human speed, and thus Lex has the chance to dart in front of him, and snatch up Superbear, hiding the caped mascot behind his back.

Superman has the gall to laugh of course, and he looks Lex up and down with an assessing gaze. Lex tries real hard not to show just how the look affects him, how goosebumps erupt over his skin, how his stomach clenches and his hands flex where they’re wrapped around Sueprbear. 

“You do recall that I have x-ray vision, right?” Superman asks, that faint hint of amusement still clear in his voice.

And yes, Lex does actually recall this fact. Not that he’s about to dignify the question with an answer.

Instead he tilts his chin up, and gives his very best haughty glare.

“I think you’ve made your point,” Lex says firmly, “you can go now.”

Superman holds his hands up in defeat. And Lex is painfully reminded that Superman is defeated only because he allows himself to be. If Superman really wanted to try, really wanted to get a better look, then he could and Lex wouldn’t stand so much as a snowballs chance in hell of stopping him.

Somehow the reminder of his own fragility in comparison to Superman’s indestructibility doesn’t infuriate him the way it normally does.

Superman does turn to leave, though not without a final knowing grin spreading across his face.

Lex dumps Superbear on the bed, and goes to lock the balcony doors. He pulls the blinds too, for all the good they will do against x-ray vision.

When he is finally able to return to bed a tiny tiny part of him is tempted to to toss Superbear from the bed again. Eventually, however, he decides that Superbear does not deserve to pay the price for Superman’s egregious actions, to he pulls the bear close and closes his eyes, forcing himself to rest until his alarm goes off.

-

He walks into work the next day, only to be greeted by the sight of Lena perched neatly on the corner of his new desk.

“Hello, brother!” She is far chirpier than she should be at such a horrifically early hour. The fact that he’s had a night on interrupted sleep does not help the matter.

“What do you want?” He asks, in as kind a tone as he can muster under present circumstances.

“Ooohh somebody pissed in your cheerios this morning!” She grins at him, and he finds himself scowling at his sisters crudeness.

“I didn’t sleep well,” Lex says by way of apology, then asks again, “what do you want, Lena?”

She just watches him with amused eyes. She tracks him across the office, and observes quietly as he all but throws himself into his desk chair.

“We’ve had a request for an interview with you, from the Daily Planet.”

He doesn’t like where this is going. He doesn’t like it at all.

“I presume you turned down the request.” Lex says, but his voice is devoid of hope.

“You presume wrong,” Lena grins at him, “you have an interview scheduled tomorrow morning at 10am! You will be here to receive their reporter, and you will be on your very best behaviour!”

The ‘or else’ is unspoken but heavily implied.

Lex grits his teeth and nods.

And the next morning at 10am he is immediately regretful of the fact that he didn’t put up more of a fight.

Because at 10am on the dot Clark fucking Kent comes tripping through the doorway of his office.

Lex has never been convinced of the existence of deities or higher powers, but if such things existed Lex is completely and utterly convinced that they are looking down on him and laughing.

Lex spends a full minute scowling as Kent finally comes to stand in front of his desk. He’s half tempted to tell Kent to go fuck himself. But he thinks of Lena’s sunny grin, and the promise she’d all but made to make his life hell if he didn’t cooperate. So he stands and pastes a smile on his face and greets Kent with a handshake.

“Welcome to LuthorCorp, it’s a pleasure.”

Lex leads them over to the couches arranged by the window. He drops gracefully on to one of them, and watches as Kent all but stumbles over his own feet to take a seat on the other.

Good grief, is this really what counts as a reporter these days?

He quite carefully keeps such thoughts to himself, it won’t do to go around insulting the reporter, when the goal is to get a glowing review for the company.

“Would you like anything to drink before we get started?” Lex asks, and Kent glances up with something of a deer in the headlights look plastered across his face. He looks almost surprised that Lex would make the offer.

“Water - a water would be lovely.” Kent says eventually. Lex waves at Mercy still stood in the doorway, though she’s already turning to fulfil the request.

Shortly thereafter she deposits a fresh coffee in front of Lex, and a glass of water in front of Kent, and then the two of them are alone in the office.

Lex watches idly as Kent sets up his dictaphone, and grabs his notepad and pen to take notes, and he prepares himself to waste half an hour, which is the length of time that has been promised to the journalist. Mercy has strict instructions to interrupt at the 30 minute mark. This will not drag on longer than it has to.

Even so the time goes by excruciatingly slowly.

Lex finds himself sighing at the mediocrity of it all. He’d had a few notions about Clark Kent. He’d imagined that there must be something special about him in order to attract Superman’s attention. But the reality is disappointing. There is nothing at all special about Clark Kent.

He’s nice enough to look at; tall, dark, and handsome really is a winning combination. But there’s no spark. Nothing to catch the eye. The questions had all been perfunctory. There was nothing there to challenge Lex. And not for the first time he wonders about Superman’s judgement.

Of course that’s when Kent pipes up with one final question.

“Actually I have one last question, Mr Luthor.”

Lex fights the urge to correct him. His Mr Luthor is his father, he is just Lex, and he likes it that way. He’s becoming a little too much like his father as it is, he doesn’t need any further reminders.

“Go on,” Lex says and waves a hand languidly to give permission.

“One of our sources has recently advised that you are in possession of a Superman teddybear, would you care to comment on the validity of the claim?”

And Lex freezes. If he had known that would be the question he would’ve told Clark Kent to fuck right off with his one last question.

There is of course only one source that it could possibly be to have shared this information with the journalist.

Mercy is far too loyal to go selling stories to the press, and the maids are either too well paid or too scared to be doing the same. Which means that the source is Superman, and Lex is suddenly overwhelmed with the need to re-open the Kill Superman Project.

Instead he keeps a calm countenance, though he does tilt his head back slightly so that he can look down his nose at the reporter, “Wherever are you getting these ridiculous stories from? You need better sources.”

“Superman told me!” Kent says with a sunny grin. Lex would quite like to punch him on that smiling mouth.

“Well Superman is lying,” Lex scowls, “you can publish that in your article too, that Superman is a perpetrator of fake news.”

Kent, the bastard, has the gall to look amused, and Lex is all too quickly reminded of two nights previous. Superman had worn that same self-satisfied look. Maybe that’s why Superman chose Clark Kent as his pet journalist; they’re both smug smarmy bastards. It makes perfect sense.

Kent doesn’t ask any follow up questions, just goes about packing the last of his things. 

He leaves the office with a quiet thanks, and a handshake. Lex had been sorely tempted to smack the hand away, it’s only years of media training and the threat of Lena making a nuisance of herself that stops him from doing so. Though he does squeeze Kent’s hand a little harder than necessary, after all he has to get his amusement somewhere, right?

Lex goes about his day, and tries hard to put the interview out of his mind. He doesn’t succeed, and rather than focus on work he spends most of the day thinking about Superman and Clark Kent talking behind his back.

He goes home and tells Superbear all about the idiot reporter. He doesn’t shout, not this time. Though he does call Kent a twat. It makes him feel better.

He’s halfway to sleep when he hears the knock on the window. He turns over to see the outline of what is very clearly Superman, a shadow against the lights of the city. 

“Fuck off,” he groans, and flops back on the bed.

He knows full well that Superman can hear him. Superman does not, however, do him the favour of fucking off. The knocking continues.

With a huff he sits up and hurriedly stuffs Superbear behind the myriad pillows on the bed. He knows full well that a pillow won’t stand up to x-ray vision, but it’s the thought that counts, right?

Then he marches over the the balcony, and flings the door open.

“What do you want?” Lex grouches.

Superman just gives him that irritatingly sunny smile.

Lex tries to hold firm, tries to keep Superman outside of the apartment this time. But Superman approaches and Lex is left with one of two options; move back of his own accord, or stay standing still and wind up pressed against Superman, and be moved anyway.

He moves of his own accord, and eventually just waves Superman into the bedroom.

Lex flops down onto the overstuffed loveseat, and watches with tired eyes as Superman stands somewhat awkwardly in the middle of the bedroom.

“What are you doing here?” Lex asks eventually, “did you do something else that you need to apologise for?”

Superman just shakes his head, still smiling, “I heard you had an interview with Clark Kent today!”

Lex groans and rolls his eyes, “ah yes your pet reporter.”

Superman cocks his head to the side, and Lex is inexplicably reminded of a golden retriever puppy, “do you not think it went well?”

Superman actually sounds concerned, as though he were somehow hoping that Lex might smile and gush at the remembrance of the ridiculous interview.

“It was fine,” Lex shrugs, and then squints at Superman, “though I do have a bone to pick with you.”

Superman looks at him, perfectly innocent, as though butter wouldn’t melt in his mouth.

“You’ve been going round telling lies to reporters.” Lex accuses, “i didn’t think the almighty Superman would stoop so low as to tell lies about teddybears.”

Lex sits there patiently and waits for Superman to beg for his forgiveness. Instead the bastard just looks amused, and glances significantly towards the bed where Superbear is currently hidden amongst the pillows.

The ‘I didn’t tell a lie’ remains unsaid, but it hangs in the air nonetheless.

“Well you snitched,” Lex says, “and that’s worse than lying.”

Superman doesn’t dignify that with an answer.

Instead he proceeds to give Lex a slow once-over, and Lex becomes to the rather uncomfortable realisation that he’s wearing thin cotton sleep pants and not much more, whilst Superman stands before him in full uniformed glory. Superman, of course, has the gall to look puzzled.

“What’s wrong now?” Lex asks with a put upon sigh.

“You just look different than I’m used to, is all.”

“What? Did you expect me to sleep in a three piece suit?” Lex huffs out a laugh.

“Of course not,” Superman scoffs, “I’ve never given much thought to what you wear to bed.”

And Lex, for all his promises to be on his best behaviour, to not cause any more trouble, can’t quite help himself. He stands, and wanders closer, comes to a stop just within arms reach of the other man.

“What? You’ve never thought about it? Not even once?” He asks, and tilts his head down just a little, and looks up at Superman through his lashes.

Something buried deep in the back of his mind flares with victory as he watches Superman blink, utterly stunned.

“I - erm - I - no I don’t.” Superman can’t quite seem to decide what he wants to say.

Lex fakes a pout, “what a shame, see I think about you quite a lot.”

That draws a laugh out of Superman, “yeah I bet; a million and one ways to kill Superman, huh?”

“Amongst other things,” Lex says, and shrugs nonchalantly, “you are lucky though that it’s been fairly cool these last few weeks, because if it gets too hot I tend to sleep in the nude. If it had been any warmer I’d be stood here naked listening to you talk yourself in circles.”

And Lex watches with utter delight as Superman blushes. The alien can blush! Oh that is too delicious to be true.

Still, that’s probably enough trouble for one night, antagonising his once-nemesis further probably isn’t the best idea.

“Well if you’re not here to apologise, and you have nothing of actual substance to say to me I will invite you to leave so I can get to sleep.”

Lex shifts, and gestures towards the door, and finds himself quite suddenly with Superman’s hand wrapped around his bicep. He spends several long seconds wondering at the fact that Superman’s hand can almost, almost, wrap fully around his arm. He’s so distracted by the fact, that he almost misses what Superman has to say next.

“I did have something to say actually,” Superman says, “or rather I have something to do.”

Lex cocks an eyebrow, and tilts his head to the side in curiosity.

Superman telegraphs his moves clearly before he makes them, Lex has ample enough time to move away, to say no, to do any myriad of things. Instead he watches, his mind gone to static, as Superman leans down and presses their mouths together in a kiss.

It’s not a particularly remarkable kiss, soft and closed-mouth; but all the same Lex feels his world tilt violently on its axis. He’s held down to the earth only by Superman’s grip on his arm, surely without it he would’ve gone flying.

Then Superman pulls back, and Lex realises belatedly that he hadn’t in fact been much of an active participant in the kiss.

“Sorry,” Superman mutters, and goes to step back, releasing his grip on Lex’s arm.

“Why did you?” Lex asks, not entirely sure of what he’s asking. Why did you kiss me? Why did you stop?

“I was curious,” Superman says, the admission coming readily to his lips, “I have been for a while I think. You’ve always had my attention, but I suppose recent events have changed that attention, have had me looking at you from a different angle. I just wanted to try - I wanted a taste.”

It feels like vindication.

He thinks back to all those months he’d spent plotting and planning, and how his mind had never settled until Superman was looking his way. He thinks even further back to an adolescence chasing approval from his peers, and a childhood spent chasing the love of his father. He thinks of every instance where he wasn’t enough; not enough to love, no enough to earn even a scrap of approval.

And he thinks of the easy way in which Superman, his rival, his nemesis, the other side to the coin that was Lex Luthor, has just admitted to paying attention. 

Something in his chest loosens, a tightness that he’d long since stopped being aware of.

He thinks that if he spends too much time pondering the topic, that he’ll end up in tears. 

But there are so many much better things he could be doing right now.

“Well,” Lex huffs, ignoring the slight lump in his throat, “your curiosity may have been sated, but mine hasn’t been.”

And with that he loops his arms around Superman’s neck and brings the alien down into a kiss. It is perhaps a testament of how much Superman wants another kiss, that he acquiesces so quickly to Lex’s directions.

This time it’s a proper kiss. This time Lex is an active and enthusiastic participant. This time he gets to revel in the taste of hero and quasi-deity. This time he gets to enjoy the feeling of being held close as Superman wraps a strong arm around Lex’s waist. This time he loses precious brain cells to the distraction. 

He’s not at all sure how much time passes in the haze. His ability to think comes back gradually as he acclimatises himself to the physical sensations. And as his common sense returns he realises that they would both be much more comfortable if they were horizontal for this particular event.

He successfully backs Superman up towards the bed, never once breaking the kiss, and watches as the hero collapses onto the mattress just as soon as his knees hit the bed. Lex wastes exactly no time at all, and climbs shamelessly onto Superman’s lap, his legs spreading wide over Superman’s generous thighs.

“Have you got a name?” Lex finds himself asking, “I can’t sit here and moan ‘Superman’, that just feels wrong in so many ways.”

Superman of course just throws his head back and laughs, it’s more attractive than Lex would care to admit.

“Kal-El,” Superman says, “you can call me Kal-El.”

That is a marginally better name to be moaning than Superman. Lex nods in acceptance, and then goes back to kissing Superman - goes back to kissing Kal-El.

Lex spends a few seconds considering the name. He breaks the kiss and tests the name silently on his tongue. His mouth curls around the unfamiliar vowels. He decides that he quite likes the name.

“Kal-El,” he says, this time a little louder than silent, a breath, a whisper, “Kal-El.”

And Kal-El smiles at him, and it is radiant. Lex kisses him again purely so he doesn’t have to think too hard about why the smile gives him butterflies; after all Lex truly is champion when it comes to ignoring the inconvenient facts of life.

Eventually Kal-El lies back on the bed, and Lex leans over him, then Kal-El uses the tiniest fraction of his strength to roll them to that he’s pressing Lex down into the mattress. Lex, normally not one to allow such manhandling, can’t really find it within himself to be upset at the turn of events.

Of course he only remains so, until he sees Kal-El’s head turn towards the pile of pillows where Lex had very hastily stashed Superbear before he’d gone to open the balcony doors.

“Ohhhhh shut up,” Lex hisses, and Kal-El looks back at him.

“I didn’t say anything?”

“You didn’t have to, I could hear you thinking it.”

“You’ve developed psychic powers now?” Kal-El, the bastard, sounds amused.

Lex just huffs.

“You’re really not going to tell be about the teddybear?” Kal-El asks, voice softening a little.

“Do you really want to sit here talking about a stuffed bear, when there are so many other things we could be doing?”

“I don't see why we can’t do both.” Kal-El says with a grin, then lowers his head to press kisses again Lex’s neck. Lex lets out a shuddered breath.

“Can’t talk right now,” Lex says, “you’re too distracting.”

And then horror of all horrors Kal-El pulls back, and Lex finds himself squawking in indignation.

“Hey, get back here,” Lex says, “I didn’t give you permission to stop.”

“You think you’re in control here?” Kal-El asks with a grin, and Lex would very much like to say yes, except the way the other man grins makes him think that Lex isn’t quite as in control as he wants to be.

“Tell me about the bear and I’ll go back to what I was doing.”

Lex gives Kal-El an indignant look, but the alien doesn’t so much as shift a muscle. Lex usually isn’t the kind to back down in a war of wills, except that there are other things that he would like to be getting on with actually, and being stubborn will only delay those things.

“I won him at the Easter carnival,” Lex admits eventually, “it was Mercy’s fault that he ended up in my bed, and it was probably my fault that I got attached.”

Kal-El is back to smiling, that stupid smarmy grin.

“There that wasn’t so difficult was it?”

“Yes, it was,” Lex hisses through his teeth, “and you have your story, so I’d like my reward now.”

Kal-El, luckily, proves to be a man of his word, because a second later he lowers his mouth back down to Lex’s neck, and Lex tries valiantly to retain enough brain cells to get Kal-El out of his stupid suit.

By the time he actually succeeds in stripping the other man naked, Lex is very very glad that he’s chosen to hide Superbear behind the pillows; after all there are some things that an innocent teddybear just doesn’t need to see.

-

It becomes a thing.

Superman - Kal-El -  comes to the balcony. He knocks until Lex gets out of bed to let him in. They talk for a while. Mostly teasing, mostly flirting. They have sex. Very athletic sex, that leaves Lex delightfully boneless. It apparently makes him a better man too; more than one employee or associate has commented on Lex’s near permanent good mood. His sister even asks him if he’d figured out the secret to a personality transplant. Even that isn’t enough to quell the good mood.

He doesn’t tell anyone anything of course. It’s the kind of thing that would inevitably get back to the press, and Lex simply doesn’t relish the thought of waking up to see a headline claiming ‘Luthor heir; cured by alien dick’.

Sometimes they argue. Lex’s road to salvation is not a simple one. He falls off the wagon once or twice, lets his ugly side out to play. So they fight. The make-up sex is always worth it.

Eventually Lex starts leaving the balcony door unlocked.

Eventually Kal-El starts staying the whole night.

Morning sex is fantastic. As is waking up to see Kal-El’s face bathed in golden sunlight.

Eventually it becomes more than a thing.

-

Some six months into whatever kind of relationship they’d managed to build, Kal-El sits him down on the overstuffed loveseat in the bedroom and tells him that they need to have a serious conversation. For precisely two seconds Lex thinks that Kal-El is trying to break up with him. Horror floods him, and he has to fight back tears, not that he would admit that to anyone. 

Then Kal-El very slowly and almost reluctantly says that he thinks it’s high time that he tell Lex about his secret identity.

And Lex finds himself inexplicably holding his breath. Something itches at the back of his mind, a reminder of the person he had been two years ago. The villain that still lives buried deep within his subconscious rejoices at the news, pleased to know this vital and highly sensitive information. Lex swats at the thought, and pushes the villain back into his subconscious, and listens intently to whatever Kal-El wants to tell him.

As it turns out Kal-El doesn’t so much tell his as show him. His boyfriend reaches into some sort of hidden pocket within his cape, and withdraws a pair of glasses.

Lex wants to make a joke about Superman having bad eyesight, but he doesn’t get the chance to do so before his boyfriend dons the glasses and Lex finds himself looking at Clark Kent.

Whatever he had been prepared for it wasn’t this.

Clark Kent?

Clark fucking Kent?

Lex finds himself on his feet and pacing back and forth in front of the loveseat where Kal-El, where Clark, is still perched.

He spends several long minutes ranting as Superman - Kal-El - Clark Kent - ugh too many names - grows steadily more silent and worried. Somewhere in the midst of the rant Lex gets his hands on Superbear and actually launches the poor teddybear at his boyfriend. 

Kal-El catches the bear, and Lex finds himself pondering the sight of his boyfriend, of Superman, gently clutching a teddybear dressed as Superman. It’s a cuter sight than it has any right to be.

Then Lex pauses in his rant, and squints at Kal-El, at Clark - oh for fucks sake this is getting silly, he thinks to himself.

“Wait,” Lex says slowly, “does that mean you’ve been interviewing yourself? There’s got to be some sort of ethical boundary crossed there?”

Kal-El blinks at him.

“You’re okay with war and genocide, but, what? You draw the line at lack of journalistic integrity.”

The other man has a point. Lex, however, is not about to acquiesce without a fight.

“Well,” he says, and tilts his head back so he can look down his nose, “I have to draw the line somewhere don’t I?”

Somehow the discussion about secret identities turns into a bickering match about the dubious ethics involved in interviewing yourself, the potential argument about keeping secret identities is forgotten, at least for the night.

They go to sleep still bickering back and forth, though they do pause long enough to give each other goodnight kisses. Lex counts himself the winner of the argument, because Kal-El falls asleep first. He will tell his boyfriend this in the morning, and doubtless will receive an eyeroll in response. He’s prepared for that too.

But until then he’s content sleep, content to have Kal-El, to have Clark sleep beside him. Something warms in his chest that Kal-El, the man who had once been his greatest nemesis, trusts him enough to reveal such vital information. It’s a risky move on Kal-El’s part. Lex doesn’t say so out loud, but he makes a silent promise to be worthy of the trust place on his shoulders.

He goes to sleep with a small smile still on his face.

Superbear, still perched on the loveseat where Kal-El had left him, watches over the pair of them until morning.