Fic: Dealing With the Unexpected (SV, Clark/Lex)
Title: Dealing With the Unexpected
Author: jenn
Codes: Clark, Lex, Lois, Clark/Lex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: none specific
Summary: Being knocked up by Lex Luthor is *awesome*.
Prompt is at the end of the post
The thing is, Clark really *couldn't* have seen this coming.
"Lois. Shut up." From his position kneeling by the toilet, staring in dread down at the newly refreshed water, Clark considers how much his life has changed.
"I'm just saying, fried oysters from a kiosk--not a good idea." Even with the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears, he can hear her snapping her gum.
Life, he thinks wistfully. It had been better once. Before the uncontrollable vomiting.
"Smallville?" Lois taps on the bathroom door with the tips of her nails, and Clark wonders for a second what she'll do if anyone else comes in the men's room, which leads to thoughts of the sewer he had to rescue a sanitation worker from recently, reminding him of his sense of smell and how he'd wished he didn't have it, leading to--
"Fuck." And there goes breakfast from yesterday, he thinks sadly, keeping his eyes tightly closed as his stomach clenches, thoughtfully, like it's deciding if Clark's suffered enough.
"Wow," Lois says, sounding impressed. "So do you have a second stomach or something? I've always wondered about that, the way you eat--"
"Oh my God shut *up*," Clark grits out, hating her so much he would kill her with her own purse strap if that meant she would *shut up*. A twisting thread of dread starts weaving through his head that he ruthlessly quashes, because honestly, he can't deal with that. "I think I'm dying."
Lois is quiet for a moment. "Am I still in your will?"
*****
Back at the office, Lois fussily deposits him on the horrible orange couch in the break room that no one, in memory, has ever sat on, due to rumors it survived the black death in the middle ages and the last typhus epidemic. Picking up Clark's feet, she sets them on the arm of the couch and goes for water while Clark covers his face and wishes he could die.
A few seconds later, a cold compress flops over his eyes as Lois sits down on a chair beside him. Sitting up is a bad idea, because not only does his stomach roll in encouragement, Lois gets a hand on his forehead and slams him right back down.
"Not oysters," she says thoughtfully. "No fever, no chills, no spots, so we can rule out most boring diseases that cause nausea--you know, if you were say, vulnerable like that." He can almost hear her glee. "Can you get STDs?"
"No!" Clark pauses, reviewing what he remembers from the database. Hmm. "I don't think so."
Lois presses down again when he tries to sit up, and in all honesty, he really doesn’t want to. "Hmm. Food, disease, hey, last heroic enterprise, maybe alien microbes? Exposure to Kryptonite dust? Sudden allergic reactions to common household products? Pregnancy? Mental stress? *Emotional* stress?"
Yeah, she's enjoying this too much. Clark tries not to whimper into the washcloth.
"Shut up," he says, "and I promise never to steal your Krispy Kremes again."
"A *box* of them, Smallville," Lois says, but she sounds distracted, which can't be a good sign. "And the box had two dozen. You know, come to think, you've been eating more recently."
Clark pushes her hand off the washcloth and sits up, pulling it away to glare. "I have a high metabolism."
"A hummingbird has a high metabolism. You make hummingbirds look like anorexics recently. Seriously, kiosk fried oysters--"
Clark lays back down and breathes as his stomach jumps. He may never eat anything ocean-based again. "You aren't helping."
Lois makes a sound that's a cross between a put-upon sigh and a cough, and Clark counts to ten thousand in Kryptonian while he listens to her open the window and pretend it's for fresh air and not because she's sneaking another cigarette despite the fact she's been chewing nicotine gum like her jaw muscles will atrophy without constant high-level activity. Keeping the cloth over his face, Clark rewinds the last few days, trying to work out what he possibly could have eaten--or contracted, God, maybe it *is* alien microbes. Lex's last project was not exactly the sort that had clear warning labels on potential Superman-killing microbes that could survive heat death. Maybe--
"Clark," Lois says, sounding pre-orgasmic from the rush, "did you finish that article for Perry yet? You've been working on it two weeks, so surely you have enough from Luthor to finish it off."
Clark makes himself not groan into the washcloth. "It's like when I talk, you don't hear me.
"It's more that I don't care." Even through the cloth, Clark can smell the smoke. He wonders vaguely how far out the window she is leaning and if it would be worth the resultant nausea to go and push her out. "Well?"
"I finished it and turned it in yesterday." And he has to thank God for the cloth, because if she could see him, there's no way she could miss the blush. "Let me die in peace."
"Let me take you home." The window closes abruptly and Clark wonders if floating will decrease or increase the nausea. Ruthlessly, Lois jerks the cloth away, and Clark stares at her with the kind of hatred he usually reserves for murderous villains and non-organic beef products. "Come on, I'll explain to Perry."
"I'm *fine*."
"You're actually green." Lois stares at him thoughtfully, head tilting. It's vaguely dizzying to look directly at her. "An unattractive green at that. Hmm. Thought. When you were undercover as a secretary at that lab, did you, you know, wander into Luthor's special Kill Superman stash?"
"No, and, hell no, and do I look that stupid? Don't answer that, and no!"
Lois smirks, extending one manicured hand. With a sigh--because in all honesty, he's this close to declaring himself dead and going to die peacefully in the Arctic---he takes her hand, struggling with vertigo for a brief second before his stomach gives it up again. The last thing he hears is Lois' strangled gasp, and God help him, he just vomited on Lois' Bruno Malis.
He may not want to wake up.
*****
A few hours later, armed with ice water, saltine crackers, a thermometer, and a carton of Camels, Lois is stretched out at the foot of his bed, watching afternoon soaps while Clark hopes for her swift and painful demise.
"This is not taking care of me."
Lois kicks the crackers toward him with one foot, eyes still on the television. "Do you think Jason is ever going to remember who he was?" she asks, and Clark opens his mouth to answer that no, no he won't, but it would be a total lie. Taking another cracker, Clark watches as Jason moodily stalks across the screen and wonders if he's thinking of that last hug with his mother, and weirdly, he feels his eyes begin to prickle.
This is not, he realizes, normal behavior. Rolling slowly onto his side, Clark chews morosely, but all he can think of his Jason's heartbreak when Carly ran away from Roselawn again and how he and Sonny should have figured out a long time ago how they really felt about each other.
It's fairly disturbing. Staring moodily at another cracker, Clark rubs a hand absently over his stomach, convinced he can feel the muscles twisting beneath the skin as they attempt to assure that Clark will never enjoy food again in his life.
After General Hospital ends, Lois turns over, giving him a long look, pushing herself up on one arm. One eyebrow raises as her gaze rakes over his body once, then comes back to his face. "Hmm."
"What?"
Lois shifts to her hands and knees, crawling up the bed before collapsing on the other side of the crackers, the mattress shifting sending a wave of vertigo through Clark's already unhappy stomach. "I've been thinking," she says, which is always dangerous, "that Superman doesn't get sick. Ever. Except from Kryptonite. And seeing that there is no actual--you know, the look of something rotting--"
Clark covers his mouth and swallows hard.
"--this has to be something organic. Seriously, did you get into anything at that lab?"
Clark jerks his gaze to his pillow. "I was only there to destroy it. I didn't go *in there*. And I never felt any Kryptonite." And that he'd remember. The twisting dread becomes stronger, and Clark flattens a hand against his stomach, wondering if he can possibly feel any more sick and not vomit up an organ.
Lois watches him eat another cracker with sharp attention, and Clark shivers when something flickers in her eyes.
"When we were engaged," she starts, and a conversation that begins like that always ends badly. Clark knows from experience. "and you told me about--you know. Alienness. You said that you and I couldn't have kids because I was human."
Oh my God.
"You said biological factors. I assumed you meant--you know--the alien thing."
"Is there a reason why you're talking about this now when I could be *dying*?" Clark asks desperately.
"But you know, now that we're, you know, sitting here while you sniffle over Sonny and Jason--"
"I didn't--!"
"I could *hear* you," Lois continues, undaunted. "Combined with that lovely green color, the dizziness, the nausea, and the fact that you've just turned a really weird brownish red--I think you're blushing. Clark." The dark eyes go huge. "Oh my God. You're *pregnant*?"
Clark feels the saltines protest and knows that a lot more toilet time is in his immediate future.
*****
Lois kneels by the toilet, one hand on the back of his neck. Someone might think she was trying to be comforting. They'd be wrong.
"Oh my God. I was kidding! I was kidding and now you--oh my God, Clark, you got *knocked up*? How? Who? Where? Where does the kid come--" And Clark is convinced, by the angle of her body, that she's currently staring speculatively at his ass.
"Stop that," he says into the toilet, wishing he had the energy to move away. But Lois has got a death grip and his head isn't leaving the toilet until she can be sure her skirt is safe from assault. "Seriously. I'll fly you over the Planet and *drop you*."
"Have you told the father?" she says, feverishly curious and a sick, sick human being, which he always knew, but this is all new territory for her freakishness. Clark stares into the clear water and wonders if drowning himself in the toilet is out of the question. "Are you dating?" She pauses for a moment, as disturbed by the idea as he is. "Were you drugged?"
"No," Clark says, though he wants to say that yes, yes, he was, by freakish sexiness. "Please be quiet now."
Finally, she lets him ease up, watching him suspiciously for any sign of projectile illness before easing him to the floor, magnanimously offering up her lap for his head and pinning him in place with her hands. Technically, he should be able to easily break her grip. Weirdly, that's so not something he can do right now. Staring up at the ceiling, he glimpses dark auburn hair and brightly interested eyes. "This is not a future article."
"Sadly, no, unless I decide a career change to the Enquirer," she says, like she just might be contemplating it. "Fess up. Who is the guy soon to be traumatized by the realization that gay sex *can* lead to unexpected pregnancy?" Clark closes his eyes to block out her glee. "How far along are you?" To his horror, her hand suddenly settles over his stomach and Clark really thinks he just might cry.
"Two weeks," he says, because it's not like it's hard to figure this one out.
"Two weeks--wait. Wait a minute. One of the guys you were *investigating* at that lab?"
"God, I'm going to be sick," Clark says, but for the first time, his stomach settles and shows no sign of any sudden revolution. Stupid stomach, Clark thinks bitterly. Stupid *hormones*.
Lois is in the zone, though, and Clark can see her mental rolodex flipping, trying to pick out the unfortunate father from a line-up, and it's not like he doesn't know her. She's going to figure this out and then she'll *kill him*, and he'll wish he was in the Arctic when she's done and oh God, *there's* the nausea.
Leaning into the toilet, Clark listens to her list off names, making negating noises beside some, thoughtful in others, and then a pause, long and thoughtful and filled with horror.
"Clark," she says slowly. "You said you can't reproduce with a human?"
Clark leans further into the porcelain and bitterly hates himself for that full disclosure moment. His silence seems to be answer enough, and Lois is quiet, quiet in that way that makes him want to crawl into the toilet bowl and never come out again.
When it comes, however, it's fairly quiet.
"You know," she says, hand dropping on the back of his neck like an anvil, and he knows he's not coming back from this sane, "this explains a lot about Smallville."
*****
Clark was raised *right*. Hold open the door for your date, always say please and thank you, never lie or cheat or steal or talk disparaging about organic produce. Be kind to children and old people (if they weren't kryptomutants) and always, always clean your plate.
If you get a girl knocked up, you marry her. And if you get knocked up, well--you tell the father.
Lois, following him into LexCorp headquarters, is staring holes in the back of his head. "I'll marry you," she finally says, sounding desperate, and Clark would be touched if she hadn't walked out on him once saying she'd rather lie down with cows from his farm, but with a lot more cursing and added bonus of an engagement ring thrown at his head. "You can be a stay at home dad. I'm very well-paid."
"Lois," he hisses as the receptionist gives them a curious look. "Hi. My name is Clark Kent. I need to see Lex Luthor?"
The woman stares at him like he's about to spit on her and then take pictures. Slowly, her hand creeps toward the phone, while Lois mutters behind him and takes out her cell phone, probably to get The Planet's lawyers ready for their bail hearing. Smiling at the receptionist, Clark leans closer. "It's very important I see him. Tell him Lab Six is under investigation."
She pauses, then picks up the phone. Watching her with half an eye, he notes Lois is chewing restlessly on one thumbnail, looking miserable and like she just might break into the key-entry elevators and stomp up herself to yell down Lex for leaving him abandoned and pregnant or something. It's totally something she would do.
It's something that even visualizing leaves him faint and nauseated. Clark misses part of the conversation that the receptionist has, but she grudgingly slides two IDs across the desk as she hangs up the phone.
"Mr. Luthor will see you," she says, like she can't believe she's saying the words. In all honesty, Clark figured he'd be flying up to Lex's window after getting out of jail and end up *yelling* the double whammy of look, pregnant and oh, also Superman.
Lois follows him into the elevator dolefully, cellphone clutched in her hand like a lifeline. "I can be the other parent," she says sincerely. "I like babies." She pauses. "I mean, I've seen them and have never been overcome with homicidal tendencies. Clark. You're going to have to tell him about--the thing."
"Considering 'the thing' is the only 'thing' that makes this at all believable? Yes, yes I will."
Watching the numbers climb, Clark fights back an inappropriate bout of nausea, though mostly this time from utter terror. There's just no good way to go about this.
Lex's office is a mile of expensive carpet away, and Clark can feel Charity's eyes on him the entire walk to her granite desk, which hides several high powered rifles and not a few knives. Lois sticks to his side like glue, like she just might throw herself between him and Charity should Charity make any wrong moves.
"Mr. Luthor will see you now," Charity says, voice like broken glass as she pushes down the buzzer aggressively, and Clark swallows hard, not even trying to smile, because really, what's the point? Lois's hand closes over the back of his jacket as they walk to the door, and he wonders if this feels as much like an execution to her as it does to him.
The slick mahogany door opens easily, but Clark's hand is slick with sweat and keeps slipping, almost falling over when they get inside, and yeah, that's just how he needs to start this meeting.
Lex is leaning against the edge of his desk with his usual smirk neatly in place, legs neatly crossed at the ankles. Lois closes the door with a slam that should shake the building, or at least Lex's complacency, but then again, nothing does that, even Lois, who scares senators and small children with ease.
"Clark," Lex says silkily, like Clark is naked and tied to a bed being covered in chocolate syrup. Or that's Clark's fantasy life projecting. "What can I do for you?"
Clark gently detaches Lois' white-knuckled clutch on his jacket and takes a slow step forward.
"Well." Clark clears his throat, feeling sick and awkward and all the things that afterschool specials have always warned him would happen, but with added bonus. "I have something to tell you."
Lex waits, arms crossing over his chest in abject boredom. "I don't do seconds, Clark," he says, with such utter nauseating contempt that suddenly, Clark feels a lot less guilty about the fact he's two seconds from vomiting on fifteen billion dollar carpet made of the wool of sheep covered in pure platinum or something.
Taking a deep breath, Clark lets himself float up in the air, just for the fuck of it, and enjoys the second that Lex's jaw drops. "One, I'm Superman. You know the secret, yay for you."
Clark can feel the second his stomach gives it up, and there's no way to stop the drop, hitting the carpet with both knees, and yes, okay, vomiting is totally worth it when he can make Lex look like *that*.
"Also," he says huskily while Lois, throwing death at Lex with just her eyes, hovers over him. "I'm pregnant."
*****
Clark makes himself comfortable on Lex's trillion dollar leather couch with a soft cotton cloth over his face while Lex and Lois shout at each other across the room, complete with throwing brandy glasses and pens at each other to relieve their feelings.
It's weird, Clark thinks contentedly as he sips from a glass of Evian and nibbling on emergency saltines that Lois had in her purse, how life turns out. One day, you're normal and pretending you didn't have sex with your archenemy, and next, your archenemy is forced to give you water and have his carpet replaced. And is barefoot, because in the last forty-eight hours, Clark's learned how to aim.
"I didn't take advantage of his innocence!" Lex shouts, and another brandy glass dies tragically on the far wall. Clark turns his head enough to see Lois come up from a crouch clutching one shoe like she means to use it to beat Lex to death.
"He wasn't *pregnant* was he? How the hell was he supposed to know you had supersperm? You've *ruined his life*," Lois screams back, waving her shoe. "What is he going to do now, huh? You think of that when you were despoiling him? Did you? *Did you*?"
Lex sputters horrifically and they're about a minute and a half away from someone going for one of the many guns hidden around the room. Sitting up, Clark lets the washcloth fall away. "Hey."
Lex's eyes flicker over, then, forgetting Lois, he crosses the room, elbowing Lois out of the way, one hand going to Clark's head and forcing him back down. "Stay down," he orders, looking worried. "Still feeling sick? Do you need anything else?"
"Like *more evil sperm*?" Lois says bitterly. "Clark, come on. Let's get you home and in bed. You can't afford to lose more weight--"
"*More* weight?" Lex says, sounding utterly horrified. "Is he keeping anything down?"
Lois sniffs, but when Clark tries to sit up, her hand's the one that shoves him down. "Stay *down* Smallville. Look, Mr. I Spread My Genes No Matter Whose Life It Destroys, you--"
"My *baby*," Lex hisses. "And listen, you--"
"Right, like you're going to bother being around when he needs anything, who do you *think* is going to get him ice cream at three am and make sure he takes his vitamins and *burps the baby*? You'll just delegate it--"
"I'll be there for whatever he needs," Lex shoots back, then turns to Clark, blue eyes huge and creepily worried. "Anything. You. Need. You got that? I'll find you a doctor--"
"Oh, one of your *insane scientists*? Probably the one who drugged him into having sex with you--"
"Jesus, for the last time, he was *not drugged*--"
"--and reveal who he is and get him *lynched* or-or turned into a *lab rat*--"
"I am going to kill you the next time you open your mouth, I swear to God."
"Hey," Clark says, vaguely alarmed by the way Lois smiles back, and he just doesn't think that homicide is the answer to this one. Both sets of enraged eyes turn to him, instantly softening into creepy worry that's beginning to make him nervous. "I'm fine. The nausea goes away after a couple of weeks--"
"*Weeks*?" Lois says in horror while Lex looks at him, appalled. "No. You're coming home with me *tonight*. We'll figure out something you can keep down."
"He's not going home with you," Lex says firmly. "He's coming to the penthouse."
"Have you *lost your mind*? There's no *way* he's moving into your headquarters where you plot God knows what--he's safer with *me*. I'll be there to watch over him--"
"Hey," Clark says, but this time, they ignore him.
"He can get the best medical care with me," Lex says sharply. "This is, by definition, a high risk pregnancy and he should be under constant monitoring--"
"*In one of your labs?*"
"That's it. I'm killing you now."
Clark sits up, alarmed, and two hands push him back into the leather, cloth dropped back over his face.
"Oh *please*, you'll upset Clark and hurt the baby, you idiot. This is what I'm talking about. Responsible my *ass*."
For a moment, there's a silence that Clark might enjoy, if he didn't think if he opened his eyes, one of them was going to be dead while the other did a little dance in the blood. However, the sound of a cell phone being taken out interrupts that train of thought, and then Lex's voice. "I need a crew at Clark Kent's apartment," Lex says shortly. "Move everything to the penthouse. Now."
"Are you *kidding*?" Lois screeches, and Clark closes his eyes and gives up. "You think I'm going to let him be trapped into one of your schemes for world domination while he's knocked up and *helpless*?"
Oh dear God. Clark squeezes his eyes shut and concentrates on his stomach. This would be a perfect time for a good fit of nausea. At least then they'd *shut up*. "Guys," he says more firmly, with no anticipation of anyone hearing a word he says.
"What the hell are you going to do about it?" Lex taunts, and oh, that's so stupid, so incredibly, incredibly stupid. It's like he never met Lois.
"I'm moving in too."
Clark moans softly and wonders if there's any way he can pass out right now.
*****
Clark never really figures out how it happened. One minute, he's on a couch in Lex's office, and the next, he's on a couch in the penthouse, with Doris the housekeeper coaxing him into drinking chicken broth ("There's a lamb," she says, stroking his hair, and he's seriously falling in love with her right now) while Lois stridently orders Lex's staff on where to put her clothes and Lex yells where to put Clark's.
It's weird, but in all honesty, Clark figures that if they haven't killed each other yet, they're not likely to when he can still moan on command and Doris shoots them death glares when the threats begin. No one wants to piss off the person who cooks for them, after all, and they calm down a lot when Doris mentions that dinner may be the same broth she's feeding Clark.
There are huge, soft pillows behind his head and under his feet and a billion channels of cable to watch, and Doris gives him some wonderful tea that she swears will calm down morning sickness. Clark should probably be wondering more at how calmly she's taking the entire male alien pregnancy thing, but honestly? She's feeding him. He just does not care.
"Here, sweetie," she coos as she sets aside the empty mug and gives him some wonderful cookies that are just sweet enough to be tasty and not enough to send him running for the toilet. "You need your rest. You just sit here and I'll bring you more tea?"
"Yes, Doris," Clark says, wide-eyed, and Doris ruffles his hair and stands up, eyes narrowing at Lex and Lois, both of whom somehow became armed with small vases in the last few minutes and seem to be on the verge of open warfare. Shamefaced, they put them aside and go back to low voiced hatred that is the music of Clark's life right now.
Snuggling under the blanket that Doris pulls over him, Clark lets his eyes fall half-closed and thinks that maybe this could work out after all.
*****
As it turns out, Lex has the perfect doctor.
"I'd like you to meet Cassius," Lex says as he comes into Clark's bedroom, where he's currently engaged in reading through Lex's entire Warrior Angel collection, even the really rare ones that make Lex whimper when Clark touches them with bare fingers. A tray of soup and more cookies sits on the bed beside him, and three different game consoles are hooked into the full-wall television Lex had installed when Clark had pointed out the distance between the bed and the tiny forty-two inch television that had been in here before.
Basically, aside from the nausea and carrying his mortal enemy's baby, Clark's life is pretty good. Right up until now.
"Hi," Clark says, and quickly wipes the crumbs off his lap and Warrior Angel #34. For once, Lex doesn't even start misting up the sight of his collection being slowly and methodically contaminated, leading Cassius to the bed, jerking his head at the man significantly before he finally extends a hand that Clark takes warily. "I'm glad to meet you."
Cassius looks at him thoughtfully. "Eight more weeks," he says cryptically. "But I can give him something for that. Due around Christmas."
Lex beams. "Excellent."
"I'll need to run some tests," Cassius continues as he stares into Clark's eyes speculatively. "But healthy." Letting go, Cassius steps away, one corner of his mouth tilting up in what looks like amusement. "It's good to meet you, Mr. Kent."
"Clark," Clark says quickly, feeling vaguely weirded out. Looking down at his hand, he looks back up, studying Cassius as intently as Cassius studied him. "You--by touching--"
"He's a mutant," Lex says, like it's obvious, and well, Clark supposes it is. "Never wrong. Healthy? But he's lost weight--"
"Normal, " Cassius says reassuringly. "The nausea should taper off soon and end completely by the time you start the second trimester. Just stay with soft foods. I'll schedule an exam in my office--"
"Here," Lex says firmly. Cassius frowns.
"But--"
"I'll have a room converted for your use. Several. I want you here for the remainder of his pregnancy," and it's like the words remind Clark all over again that he and Lex spent way too much time in Smallville, because wow, still doesn’t sound as freaky as it really is. "I'll double your usual pay," Lex says when Cassius opens his mouth to object. "Anything could happen. I want you in--"
"Yelling distance, yes, I get that." Sighing, Cassius runs his hand through thick blond hair, looking harassed and resigned both. "Right. I'll tell Deckter to take over my practice. Can I have a couple of days to prepare?"
Lex looks like he might argue the point, but the look on Cassius' face seems to suggest he'll not only argue it, but win, so with a sigh, Lex relents. "Fine. Two days."
"You're too kind." Cassius gives Clark another half-smile. "Just keep eating and resting for a little longer. We'll get you started on prenatal vitamins and design a nutrition plan as soon as we've had a complete physical." With a paternal pat on Clark's shoulder, he leaves, Lex glaring after him like will alone can force him to do what Lex wants. That kind of look usually works, and Clark finds himself liking Cassius for the fact he completely ignores it.
With a sigh, Lex goes to the door, closing it softly before crossing back to the bed and sitting down on the edge, staring at Clark like he has x-ray vision and is counting every rib for fear one might vanish. "How are you feeling?"
Clark waves at the tray. "Good." Lex nods, blue eyes still fixed on Clark's face with disturbing attention. "I ate a lot today," he says, wondering if Lex really is counting his bones or something.
"Good," Lex says, then glances at the TV briefly, where there's a special on Mao going on. "Hey, I like this one."
"You can watch with me," Clark says generously, because this morning, Lex forbade orange juice in the house after the smell made Clark run for the bathroom. Lex gives him a surprised look but climbs on the bed, carefully avoiding jostling Clark, to settle a foot away against the headboard, reaching for one of Clark's cookies. In the spirit of getting along with his child's father, Clark doesn't even complain.
Clark lets himself settle against his pillow as the TV drones on, and after a few minutes, Lex starts supplementing the documentary in a low voice, telling Clark about uprisings and the Cultural Revolution while mocking the historical accuracy of the show and Clark finds himself smiling as he drifts off to sleep.
*****
Maybe the weirdest thing is that Lois and Cassius totally become best friends forever.
Lex looks on in horror while they discuss colors that promote calmness and steady stomachs in various psychology journals and compare notes on Lex's rise to power while Lex looks on in helpless dismay at the two people he's not allowed to kill. They take advantage of it, too, wandering around the penthouse's two floors criticizing Lex's taste and discussing Lex's lack of ethics in loud voices.
It's pretty funny, all things considered, and Clark sometimes wanders into the kitchen to find the two of them gossiping with Doris while Lex pretends he's engaged in dark deeds while really playing Spider Solitaire and silently hating them with all of his being.
The upside is, Lex spends a lot of time in Clark's suite and Clark, still on bedrest, learns that Lex is the best foot masseuse in the history of feet.
"Oh *God*," he tells the ceiling as Lex works over the sole of his foot with strong thumbs and magic, making Lois plow in to accuse Lex of sexual assault and Cassius to say that Lex shouldn't be exciting Clark and risking a miscarriage. Life is possibly the best it has ever been, and gets even better when Lex doesn't even protest when Clark turns on Medical Miracles on the discovery channel and watches lots of dramatizations of pregnancies, though he turns strange colors and occasionally excuses himself to make a trip to the bathroom.
Around his twelfth week, when Clark begins to think he just might be able to get up without throwing up, Mom shows up, and Clark knows, knows, that psychic mom radar must have been going crazy, because not only does she know where he is, *she takes one look at him and knows what he's done*.
(Which is not a surprise, since she knew when he lost his virginity.)
"Clark, baby," she says, giving Lex a poisonous look before dropping gently on the bed beside him and cupping his face in her hands. "Oh my poor baby."
"I'm fine, Mom," Clark says earnestly while motioning to Lex to continue the orgasmic foot rubs.
"My baby is having a baby," she says, eyes filling up, and Clark notices for the first time that there is a bag by the door. Outside the room, Lois's voice cheerfully shouts, "The room by mine is empty! Here, let me show you where to put those."
Lex, who still hasn't restarted the foot rub, looks between Martha and the door with the look of a man who knows he's going to have to kill himself to get away from this. "Um, Mrs. Kent--"
"You," she says shortly, eyes narrowing as she turns her gaze on him. "So you knocked up my baby and you think you're going to *keep me from seeing him*--"
"God, no," Lex says quickly, and Clark kicks his knee until the foot massage starts again. God, better. "I was going to say, welcome. Mi casa es su casa."
Mom is not at all amused.
Lois and Cassius wander in eventually to steal Clark's cookies while Lex doggedly makes Clark's life so perfect that it can't be described in mere words. Cassius, realizing that Martha is not someone to be pissed off, goes into horrifying detail regarding Clark's state of good health, which would be humiliating except Lex is the definition of perfection with feet and Clark can't feel anything but utterly content with the entire world.
"Well," Martha says briskly, giving Cassius a smile that could melt stone, "I'm glad you're here to make sure my baby is safe." Her eyes flicker to Lex, as if to say that Lex is perhaps a greater danger than unexpected male pregnancy could ever be. "How about you show me to my room?"
"Of course," Cassius says gallantly, leaping to his feet, Lois close behind, and Clark almost smiles at the way Lex sighs in relief as the door closes.
"Hey," Clark says after a few seconds, squinting at the TV. "There's a special on the cold war on. Wanna watch?"
Lex has a habit Clark's gotten to like a lot; to wit, coming up to the head of the bed and when he thinks Clark is asleep, gently running his fingers through Clark's hair. It's almost as good as the foot rub. After ten minutes of faking yawning, Clark rearranges his pillow and pretends to drift off, and five minutes later, Lex is stroking him.
In all honesty, Clark could totally get used to this.
*****
Around the fifth month, Clark notices the first sign of gained weight in the tiny bump slowly pushing it's way from his stomach and hyperventilates in the shower while Lex tries to talk him down from outside the door.
It's weird, how you can get used to anything, even pregnancy, only to be thrown again when you start seeing the evidence.
"I can't go out in public like this!" Clark yells through the door, and perhaps his voice carries many miles, but he just can't care right now. "I look like a freak!"
"You look amazing, just like always," Lex says desperately. "I never noticed."
"And that shows how much attention you pay!" Clark says, feeling more and more like a teenage girl by the second, but he just can't bring himself to care all that much. He has a *bump* and sometimes, he can feel it move, and oh my God, he's going to be sick.
"Clark," Lex says, sounding frantic. "Open the door. Come on. You look great."
"I wanted to go to a movie," Clark says, and though until now he didn't, but now that he can't be seen in public, there are at least five that he's been dying to see and just didn't know it. Turning off the shower, Clark grabs a towel to hide his hideousness and unlocks the door. A foot massage would be good right now.
Opening it up, he goes by a startled Lex holding a paperclip and what looks like a very small but efficient bomb, grabbing a clean pair of boxer and pulling them on before collapsing on the bed, staring at the ceiling in deep self-pity. After a few seconds, Lex approaches the bed with the wariness of man hunting wild elephants in Africa. "Clark?"
"I am a freak," Clark says sadly, and Lex sits down beside him, automatically moving a hand to stroke gently through his hair. Clark sighs, leaning into it, closing his eyes to concentrate on each slow stroke, so achingly good he can feel his terror dissipating already, mostly due to the fact he's sleepy *again* and sometimes his life is like this.
"You're beautiful," Lex says with such sincerity that Clark sniffles, moving into the next touch that strokes down his cheek and the side of his neck. Good stuff. "Tomorrow night, we'll go to the movies, okay?"
"I don't want anyone else to see me like this," Clark says sulkily, burrowing into his pillow, and Lex starts rubbing gently into his shoulders. Oh God, good.
"Don't worry," Lex says firmly. "I'll take care of everything."
*****
Being knocked up by Lex Luthor is *awesome*.
"This is great," Clark says happily from the middle seat of Metropolis Metroplex, currently emptied of everyone but those required to run the movie and Lex's security, scary men in black coats and tiny earbuds under the supervision of Mercy and Hope, both of whom express their hopes of being godparents in flat, dead voices that Lex assures him are meant to be affectionate.
Lex had tempted him downstairs into the limo with promises that all the sugar that Doris had removed from the penthouse was hidden there for Clark to consume, and he'd been three quarters through a bag of M&Ms before he'd realized the car was *moving*.
In retrospect, Clark's glad that the nausea had passed and he couldn't fulfill his threat to throw up on Lex's shoes if he didn't take him home *right now*.
There's a bucket--a huge, massive, wonderful bucket--of popcorn in his lap, covered in fresh butter, salt, and Tabasco sauce; a large Coke that's already got Clark as caffeinated as he's been since Cassius cut off his caffeine; and a selection of candy being held by one of the security guys only a few feet away, ready to be summoned the moment Clark requires chocolate or Skittles. The screen has Sandra Bullock being heartbroken by her young lover and Clark wipes his tears away and uses Lex's sleeves as a handkerchief.
"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," Lex says, warily eyeing his jacket before reaching for a single piece of popcorn. "So you wanted to see *Love Me One More Time*?"
"It's a love story," Clark says, swallowing as Sandra's mother comes to the garden to sit with her. Sipping his coke, Clark gives Lex a sideways look, watching him stare at the screen like he's in pain. "A *beautiful* love story."
"I see that," Lex says, taking another piece of popcorn with a hand that's not quite steady. Clark wonders idly what Lex would be doing if he wasn't here; taking over a small country? Making new advances in the dark side of genetic engineering? Destroying someone's career? Dating some drop dead gorgeous brunette with a hidden homicidal streak? Eating another handful of popcorn, Clark fights off the question hovering on his tongue that some part of him wants to ask. And that would be stupid. If Lex is seeing some drop dead gorgeous brunette on the side, it's really not Clark's business.
It doesn't stop it from worrying its way into Clark's head, though.
"Well," Lex says as the lights come on and security swarms around them. Clark clutches the remains of his popcorn to his chest with a growl when one of them reaches for it. "That was--interesting."
Clark surreptitiously wipes his eyes with his free hand as he thinks of Sandra locked in a steamy embrace with her childhood sweetheart. "I liked it." Then again, he's been watching a lot of the Lifetime channel, so in all honesty, Clark knows he's no judge.
Following Lex to the car, parked right at the door, Clark lets Lex usher him first, making himself comfortable on the soft leather seats as Lex gives orders to the driver, taking another handful of popcorn as Lex leans back, looking--tired.
Tired?
"Late night?" Clark says with careful neutrality. Though it couldn't have been too late, because Clark has a faint memory of waking up to Lex in his room last night, sitting by the bed, watching him with half-closed eyes, an unreadable expression on his face. Leaning uncomfortably into the seat, Clark frowns as the bump shifts, stealing another glance at Lex's face.
"Paperwork," Lex says absently, but his eyes flicker down involuntarily before jumping back to Clark's face.
The bump moves again, and Clark frowns, looking down. "Okay, less fun side of pregnancy. That's--weird."
It was weird in Cassius office, in the shower, in bed last night, and it's just as weird *now*, but Lex looks fascinated, and on impulse, Clark reaches for his hand, pulling it to the spot on his stomach just as it moves again.
Lex's hand flexes against his before curving to the shape of his body, and Clark looks up in time to see wonder flare in the blue eyes, something warm and sweet and unfamiliar that makes something in Clark tighten.
They stay like that all the way to the penthouse, and Clark doesn't say a word.
*****
The sixth month, things are surreal enough that Clark stops wondering and just goes with it.
"Nursery," Lois says in disbelief as she watches various LexCorp employees carrying various types of hardware into the bedroom beside Clark's, paint and wood and more electronic equipment than a newborn could ever possibly need. "What? You think the baby's staying here?"
Lex looks at her from his slightly superior height and his seat beside Clark on the couch. There's a guaranteed ten feet safety zone around Clark that she's used before. "The statistics on two parent households--"
"Bullshit," Lois says succinctly, eyes narrowing as Lex takes Clark's feet in his lap with the serene expression of a man who knows his enemy is impotent and helpless before him. It's a sexy look. Clark's always thought so. "You are plotting."
"I'm *planning* for my--our child's future," Lex says, rubbing his thumbs into Clark's instep, which feels so good Clark's prone and moaning before Lois can finish gawking. It's how Lex got him to agree to this insane plan. "Security," he says firmly, ticking the points off like he's lecturing his stockholders. Clark bets that Lois *loves* that. "Safety Support for Clark. Assistance with the baby. Financial--"
Lois looks like she wants to say something, and it will probably be indecent, but Cassius comes in looking windblown and tired. Clark levers himself up on one elbow to watch as Lois turns in his general direction with an interestingly worried look on her face.
Lex smirks, but he keeps his eyes on Clark's feet.
More workmen come through, and Clark sits up, swinging his feet to the floor and narrowly missing Lex's head. Standing up, careful of the shift in his center of gravity as the bump grows, Clark makes his way toward the nursery, Lex pacing him like a professional spotter. Peering inside, Clark takes in the clean white walls, the pale green wallpaper being hung, the drop clothed floor and the dizzying amount of security wiring and smiles as Lex's hand lands gently on his shoulder. "I like it," Clark says, then yawns, surprised to see it's dark outside.
"Come on, let's get you to bed."
Clark nods, already feeling the pull of sleep as Lex's hand circles his wrist gently, pulling him down the hall and into his room, where Clark's noticed a migration of things that aren't his--Lex's favorite laptop and Lex's shoes and shirts that definitely aren't part of the Clark Kent School of Fashion, as he sleepily changes into the soft flannel pajamas that Lex got him when his own stopped fitting. Crawling into bed, Clark curls up on his side, waiting patiently as Lex removes his shoes and the mattress shifts, until Lex's hand is stroking gently through his hair.
Clark yawns sleepily. "This isn't subtle," he murmurs into the pillow, catching his breath as Lex rubs the base of his spine with clever, clever fingers, easing the ache away. There's warm breath against his bare shoulder, then the lightest dry touch of lips.
"I'm not trying to be."
*****
When Clark comes into the living room two weeks later to find Lois and Cassius making out on the couch, he gets his apple potato broccoli juice from the fridge in perfect silence by dint of floating, returning to his room and dropping on the bed.
Clark sighs and stares blankly at the wall. "Right. You win."
Lex smirks and rubs gently at the ever growing bump that represents baby. "I'll collect, you know."
Clark raises an eyebrow. "I figured."
*****
It doesn't so much slow Lois down as divide her attention, which makes things both more comfortable and weirder, because getting a proctological exam in preparation for the miracle of childbirth from the guy banging his partner and former fiancée is new vistas of weird.
Luckily, Cassius seems to feel equally weird, and spends no time at all deep in scientific curiosity about how this birth canal thing is going to work during labor. Sitting up, Clark pulls down the gown as best he can and tries to remember what it was like to have dignity and personal privacy and not know that this entire exam will be repeated to Mom, Lex, and Lois in exacting detail.
There are moments that it is not so great to be knocked up by Lex, and this is one of them. "So?"
Cassius snaps off the rubber gloves and tosses them before turning to look at Clark thoughtfully. "Three weeks, give or take a few days," he says, "if the dilation is anything to go by." The tanned face turns faintly green, and Clark and Cassius agree with a look not to ever think about dilation again until they absolutely have to.
"Right," Clark says, reaching for his sweatpants, custom made by the same man who designs Lex's suits. They're comfortable, stretchy, and so soft Clark catches himself stroking his own thighs. "So next week?"
Cassius shakes his head as he finishes washing his hands. "Every other day," he says firmly. Clark opens his mouth to protest, but Cassius is still talking. "This is a unique pregnancy and I can't be absolutely sure I'm right. I want to survive your gestation if it's all the same to you."
Clark waves morosely as he pulls on a t-shirt, now distressingly tight around his stomach, and goes back downstairs to where everyone is pretending they aren't waiting with bated breath for the results of Cassius' latest round of Alien Obstetrician.
"Three weeks," Clark says, like he's not aware that they all suspend hostilities for the sake of the betting pool currently established for the actual due date. Pretending he can't see them arguing, Clark gets some fried chicken and chocolate dipping sauce before he sits down in the vast kitchen to reconsider the direction of his life.
He's a Daily Planet reporter on indefinite leave, because there was no way to explain the truth to Perry without the kind of humiliation that Clark can seriously live without, and a superhero on maternity leave, because the Justice League wasn't something you could just wander away from to have a baby without them figuring it out fairly quickly.
Dipping strips of chicken into the chocolate, Clark chews thoughtfully, resting one hand on the kicking fetus that's currently responsible for the fact his ankles are swelling and floating everywhere has become more a necessity than a fun event.
"You know," Clark says, feeling a kick against his palm, "it's going to be fun to explain sex ed to you."
A tiny answering kick makes Clark grin, and he rubs absently, finishing off the chicken before tossing the plate and empty sauce bowl into the sink and going back to his room, finding Lex curled up on his half of the bed, laptop on his knees, plotting something terrible that Clark probably should care about but really can't bring himself to care. Somehow, Lex *has* a half of the bed and he's been sleeping here for long enough for his pillows to smell like him. Climbing on the bed, Clark shuts the laptop with one hand and collapses across Lex's lap, ignoring the choked sound Lex makes and pulling a pillow under his head.
Lex smoothes slow strokes down Clark's back, and while Clark can feel him staring at his laptop longingly, he pretends that he always meant to stop and pay Clark all the attention he wants. "If you break my heart again," Clark says into the pillow, closing his eyes, "I swear I'll never forgive you."
Clark feels lips brush his hair, and when Lex speaks, his voice is so low Clark can barely hear it. "I won't."
*****
D-Day, or rather, Delivery Day, goes down so anticlimactically that Clark's almost disappointed.
The water breaking wasn't too bad, mostly because Lex, the picture of cool calmness in both crime and business, starts yelling for Cassius before Clark's even aware the bed is wet. Then there's Lois and Mom, hovering over the bed to ask ever more freaked out questions while Lex calls in every single medical professional he can reliably blackmail while Doris tries to point out that Lex is wandering through the penthouse without pants.
It's pretty funny, really, and Clark's still giggling when he's lead to the elevator, floating a good two feet above the floor while Mom and Lois make soothing noises and pretend that this is perfectly normal.
Cassius is dressed and waiting when Clark's taken to the recently outfitted delivery room, complete with creepy and sometimes unidentifiable equipment, and it's a short forty-five minutes of labor that is mostly Clark promising Lex he'll rip off his balls if he ever thinks of touching him again before Clark's high on endorphins, and Lex is breathing into a paper bag while Mom gives Clark his newborn daughter.
She's bald, which Lois swears proves paternity, with Lex's eyes and chin and Clark's mouth, and she's possibly the most perfect thing Clark's ever seen in his life.
Clark shifts over dreamily as Lex sits on the bed beside him, looking grey and utterly amazed. One finger touches her tiny cheek, and when Clark looks over, Lex looks like he just saw the world born anew.
"Marian," he murmurs, and Clark leans into his shoulder, Lex's arm tightening around him. Letting Lex take her, Clark thinks on his waistline returning and wearing jeans and the fact that he won't have to go home to a quiet apartment ever again.
He grins, closing his eyes. "It's a little early, but. Merry Christmas."
*****
From inside her cubicle walls, Holly Christmas had secretly pined for Connor Knight, craving just one evening of incendiary passion with the elusive millionaire. So when Connor sought a few hours of solace in his virgin secretary's arms, she readily succumbed.
Then, a few weeks after their clandestine encounter, Holly received a surprising late Christmas gift: she was pregnant. Connor quickly offered to take care of her, but Holly knew her scandalous past would never allow her to accept his proposal…not even for the sake of their baby. - seperis
Author: jenn
Codes: Clark, Lex, Lois, Clark/Lex
Rating: PG-13
Spoilers: none specific
Summary: Being knocked up by Lex Luthor is *awesome*.
Prompt is at the end of the post
The thing is, Clark really *couldn't* have seen this coming.
"Lois. Shut up." From his position kneeling by the toilet, staring in dread down at the newly refreshed water, Clark considers how much his life has changed.
"I'm just saying, fried oysters from a kiosk--not a good idea." Even with the sound of his own blood pounding in his ears, he can hear her snapping her gum.
Life, he thinks wistfully. It had been better once. Before the uncontrollable vomiting.
"Smallville?" Lois taps on the bathroom door with the tips of her nails, and Clark wonders for a second what she'll do if anyone else comes in the men's room, which leads to thoughts of the sewer he had to rescue a sanitation worker from recently, reminding him of his sense of smell and how he'd wished he didn't have it, leading to--
"Fuck." And there goes breakfast from yesterday, he thinks sadly, keeping his eyes tightly closed as his stomach clenches, thoughtfully, like it's deciding if Clark's suffered enough.
"Wow," Lois says, sounding impressed. "So do you have a second stomach or something? I've always wondered about that, the way you eat--"
"Oh my God shut *up*," Clark grits out, hating her so much he would kill her with her own purse strap if that meant she would *shut up*. A twisting thread of dread starts weaving through his head that he ruthlessly quashes, because honestly, he can't deal with that. "I think I'm dying."
Lois is quiet for a moment. "Am I still in your will?"
*****
Back at the office, Lois fussily deposits him on the horrible orange couch in the break room that no one, in memory, has ever sat on, due to rumors it survived the black death in the middle ages and the last typhus epidemic. Picking up Clark's feet, she sets them on the arm of the couch and goes for water while Clark covers his face and wishes he could die.
A few seconds later, a cold compress flops over his eyes as Lois sits down on a chair beside him. Sitting up is a bad idea, because not only does his stomach roll in encouragement, Lois gets a hand on his forehead and slams him right back down.
"Not oysters," she says thoughtfully. "No fever, no chills, no spots, so we can rule out most boring diseases that cause nausea--you know, if you were say, vulnerable like that." He can almost hear her glee. "Can you get STDs?"
"No!" Clark pauses, reviewing what he remembers from the database. Hmm. "I don't think so."
Lois presses down again when he tries to sit up, and in all honesty, he really doesn’t want to. "Hmm. Food, disease, hey, last heroic enterprise, maybe alien microbes? Exposure to Kryptonite dust? Sudden allergic reactions to common household products? Pregnancy? Mental stress? *Emotional* stress?"
Yeah, she's enjoying this too much. Clark tries not to whimper into the washcloth.
"Shut up," he says, "and I promise never to steal your Krispy Kremes again."
"A *box* of them, Smallville," Lois says, but she sounds distracted, which can't be a good sign. "And the box had two dozen. You know, come to think, you've been eating more recently."
Clark pushes her hand off the washcloth and sits up, pulling it away to glare. "I have a high metabolism."
"A hummingbird has a high metabolism. You make hummingbirds look like anorexics recently. Seriously, kiosk fried oysters--"
Clark lays back down and breathes as his stomach jumps. He may never eat anything ocean-based again. "You aren't helping."
Lois makes a sound that's a cross between a put-upon sigh and a cough, and Clark counts to ten thousand in Kryptonian while he listens to her open the window and pretend it's for fresh air and not because she's sneaking another cigarette despite the fact she's been chewing nicotine gum like her jaw muscles will atrophy without constant high-level activity. Keeping the cloth over his face, Clark rewinds the last few days, trying to work out what he possibly could have eaten--or contracted, God, maybe it *is* alien microbes. Lex's last project was not exactly the sort that had clear warning labels on potential Superman-killing microbes that could survive heat death. Maybe--
"Clark," Lois says, sounding pre-orgasmic from the rush, "did you finish that article for Perry yet? You've been working on it two weeks, so surely you have enough from Luthor to finish it off."
Clark makes himself not groan into the washcloth. "It's like when I talk, you don't hear me.
"It's more that I don't care." Even through the cloth, Clark can smell the smoke. He wonders vaguely how far out the window she is leaning and if it would be worth the resultant nausea to go and push her out. "Well?"
"I finished it and turned it in yesterday." And he has to thank God for the cloth, because if she could see him, there's no way she could miss the blush. "Let me die in peace."
"Let me take you home." The window closes abruptly and Clark wonders if floating will decrease or increase the nausea. Ruthlessly, Lois jerks the cloth away, and Clark stares at her with the kind of hatred he usually reserves for murderous villains and non-organic beef products. "Come on, I'll explain to Perry."
"I'm *fine*."
"You're actually green." Lois stares at him thoughtfully, head tilting. It's vaguely dizzying to look directly at her. "An unattractive green at that. Hmm. Thought. When you were undercover as a secretary at that lab, did you, you know, wander into Luthor's special Kill Superman stash?"
"No, and, hell no, and do I look that stupid? Don't answer that, and no!"
Lois smirks, extending one manicured hand. With a sigh--because in all honesty, he's this close to declaring himself dead and going to die peacefully in the Arctic---he takes her hand, struggling with vertigo for a brief second before his stomach gives it up again. The last thing he hears is Lois' strangled gasp, and God help him, he just vomited on Lois' Bruno Malis.
He may not want to wake up.
*****
A few hours later, armed with ice water, saltine crackers, a thermometer, and a carton of Camels, Lois is stretched out at the foot of his bed, watching afternoon soaps while Clark hopes for her swift and painful demise.
"This is not taking care of me."
Lois kicks the crackers toward him with one foot, eyes still on the television. "Do you think Jason is ever going to remember who he was?" she asks, and Clark opens his mouth to answer that no, no he won't, but it would be a total lie. Taking another cracker, Clark watches as Jason moodily stalks across the screen and wonders if he's thinking of that last hug with his mother, and weirdly, he feels his eyes begin to prickle.
This is not, he realizes, normal behavior. Rolling slowly onto his side, Clark chews morosely, but all he can think of his Jason's heartbreak when Carly ran away from Roselawn again and how he and Sonny should have figured out a long time ago how they really felt about each other.
It's fairly disturbing. Staring moodily at another cracker, Clark rubs a hand absently over his stomach, convinced he can feel the muscles twisting beneath the skin as they attempt to assure that Clark will never enjoy food again in his life.
After General Hospital ends, Lois turns over, giving him a long look, pushing herself up on one arm. One eyebrow raises as her gaze rakes over his body once, then comes back to his face. "Hmm."
"What?"
Lois shifts to her hands and knees, crawling up the bed before collapsing on the other side of the crackers, the mattress shifting sending a wave of vertigo through Clark's already unhappy stomach. "I've been thinking," she says, which is always dangerous, "that Superman doesn't get sick. Ever. Except from Kryptonite. And seeing that there is no actual--you know, the look of something rotting--"
Clark covers his mouth and swallows hard.
"--this has to be something organic. Seriously, did you get into anything at that lab?"
Clark jerks his gaze to his pillow. "I was only there to destroy it. I didn't go *in there*. And I never felt any Kryptonite." And that he'd remember. The twisting dread becomes stronger, and Clark flattens a hand against his stomach, wondering if he can possibly feel any more sick and not vomit up an organ.
Lois watches him eat another cracker with sharp attention, and Clark shivers when something flickers in her eyes.
"When we were engaged," she starts, and a conversation that begins like that always ends badly. Clark knows from experience. "and you told me about--you know. Alienness. You said that you and I couldn't have kids because I was human."
Oh my God.
"You said biological factors. I assumed you meant--you know--the alien thing."
"Is there a reason why you're talking about this now when I could be *dying*?" Clark asks desperately.
"But you know, now that we're, you know, sitting here while you sniffle over Sonny and Jason--"
"I didn't--!"
"I could *hear* you," Lois continues, undaunted. "Combined with that lovely green color, the dizziness, the nausea, and the fact that you've just turned a really weird brownish red--I think you're blushing. Clark." The dark eyes go huge. "Oh my God. You're *pregnant*?"
Clark feels the saltines protest and knows that a lot more toilet time is in his immediate future.
*****
Lois kneels by the toilet, one hand on the back of his neck. Someone might think she was trying to be comforting. They'd be wrong.
"Oh my God. I was kidding! I was kidding and now you--oh my God, Clark, you got *knocked up*? How? Who? Where? Where does the kid come--" And Clark is convinced, by the angle of her body, that she's currently staring speculatively at his ass.
"Stop that," he says into the toilet, wishing he had the energy to move away. But Lois has got a death grip and his head isn't leaving the toilet until she can be sure her skirt is safe from assault. "Seriously. I'll fly you over the Planet and *drop you*."
"Have you told the father?" she says, feverishly curious and a sick, sick human being, which he always knew, but this is all new territory for her freakishness. Clark stares into the clear water and wonders if drowning himself in the toilet is out of the question. "Are you dating?" She pauses for a moment, as disturbed by the idea as he is. "Were you drugged?"
"No," Clark says, though he wants to say that yes, yes, he was, by freakish sexiness. "Please be quiet now."
Finally, she lets him ease up, watching him suspiciously for any sign of projectile illness before easing him to the floor, magnanimously offering up her lap for his head and pinning him in place with her hands. Technically, he should be able to easily break her grip. Weirdly, that's so not something he can do right now. Staring up at the ceiling, he glimpses dark auburn hair and brightly interested eyes. "This is not a future article."
"Sadly, no, unless I decide a career change to the Enquirer," she says, like she just might be contemplating it. "Fess up. Who is the guy soon to be traumatized by the realization that gay sex *can* lead to unexpected pregnancy?" Clark closes his eyes to block out her glee. "How far along are you?" To his horror, her hand suddenly settles over his stomach and Clark really thinks he just might cry.
"Two weeks," he says, because it's not like it's hard to figure this one out.
"Two weeks--wait. Wait a minute. One of the guys you were *investigating* at that lab?"
"God, I'm going to be sick," Clark says, but for the first time, his stomach settles and shows no sign of any sudden revolution. Stupid stomach, Clark thinks bitterly. Stupid *hormones*.
Lois is in the zone, though, and Clark can see her mental rolodex flipping, trying to pick out the unfortunate father from a line-up, and it's not like he doesn't know her. She's going to figure this out and then she'll *kill him*, and he'll wish he was in the Arctic when she's done and oh God, *there's* the nausea.
Leaning into the toilet, Clark listens to her list off names, making negating noises beside some, thoughtful in others, and then a pause, long and thoughtful and filled with horror.
"Clark," she says slowly. "You said you can't reproduce with a human?"
Clark leans further into the porcelain and bitterly hates himself for that full disclosure moment. His silence seems to be answer enough, and Lois is quiet, quiet in that way that makes him want to crawl into the toilet bowl and never come out again.
When it comes, however, it's fairly quiet.
"You know," she says, hand dropping on the back of his neck like an anvil, and he knows he's not coming back from this sane, "this explains a lot about Smallville."
*****
Clark was raised *right*. Hold open the door for your date, always say please and thank you, never lie or cheat or steal or talk disparaging about organic produce. Be kind to children and old people (if they weren't kryptomutants) and always, always clean your plate.
If you get a girl knocked up, you marry her. And if you get knocked up, well--you tell the father.
Lois, following him into LexCorp headquarters, is staring holes in the back of his head. "I'll marry you," she finally says, sounding desperate, and Clark would be touched if she hadn't walked out on him once saying she'd rather lie down with cows from his farm, but with a lot more cursing and added bonus of an engagement ring thrown at his head. "You can be a stay at home dad. I'm very well-paid."
"Lois," he hisses as the receptionist gives them a curious look. "Hi. My name is Clark Kent. I need to see Lex Luthor?"
The woman stares at him like he's about to spit on her and then take pictures. Slowly, her hand creeps toward the phone, while Lois mutters behind him and takes out her cell phone, probably to get The Planet's lawyers ready for their bail hearing. Smiling at the receptionist, Clark leans closer. "It's very important I see him. Tell him Lab Six is under investigation."
She pauses, then picks up the phone. Watching her with half an eye, he notes Lois is chewing restlessly on one thumbnail, looking miserable and like she just might break into the key-entry elevators and stomp up herself to yell down Lex for leaving him abandoned and pregnant or something. It's totally something she would do.
It's something that even visualizing leaves him faint and nauseated. Clark misses part of the conversation that the receptionist has, but she grudgingly slides two IDs across the desk as she hangs up the phone.
"Mr. Luthor will see you," she says, like she can't believe she's saying the words. In all honesty, Clark figured he'd be flying up to Lex's window after getting out of jail and end up *yelling* the double whammy of look, pregnant and oh, also Superman.
Lois follows him into the elevator dolefully, cellphone clutched in her hand like a lifeline. "I can be the other parent," she says sincerely. "I like babies." She pauses. "I mean, I've seen them and have never been overcome with homicidal tendencies. Clark. You're going to have to tell him about--the thing."
"Considering 'the thing' is the only 'thing' that makes this at all believable? Yes, yes I will."
Watching the numbers climb, Clark fights back an inappropriate bout of nausea, though mostly this time from utter terror. There's just no good way to go about this.
Lex's office is a mile of expensive carpet away, and Clark can feel Charity's eyes on him the entire walk to her granite desk, which hides several high powered rifles and not a few knives. Lois sticks to his side like glue, like she just might throw herself between him and Charity should Charity make any wrong moves.
"Mr. Luthor will see you now," Charity says, voice like broken glass as she pushes down the buzzer aggressively, and Clark swallows hard, not even trying to smile, because really, what's the point? Lois's hand closes over the back of his jacket as they walk to the door, and he wonders if this feels as much like an execution to her as it does to him.
The slick mahogany door opens easily, but Clark's hand is slick with sweat and keeps slipping, almost falling over when they get inside, and yeah, that's just how he needs to start this meeting.
Lex is leaning against the edge of his desk with his usual smirk neatly in place, legs neatly crossed at the ankles. Lois closes the door with a slam that should shake the building, or at least Lex's complacency, but then again, nothing does that, even Lois, who scares senators and small children with ease.
"Clark," Lex says silkily, like Clark is naked and tied to a bed being covered in chocolate syrup. Or that's Clark's fantasy life projecting. "What can I do for you?"
Clark gently detaches Lois' white-knuckled clutch on his jacket and takes a slow step forward.
"Well." Clark clears his throat, feeling sick and awkward and all the things that afterschool specials have always warned him would happen, but with added bonus. "I have something to tell you."
Lex waits, arms crossing over his chest in abject boredom. "I don't do seconds, Clark," he says, with such utter nauseating contempt that suddenly, Clark feels a lot less guilty about the fact he's two seconds from vomiting on fifteen billion dollar carpet made of the wool of sheep covered in pure platinum or something.
Taking a deep breath, Clark lets himself float up in the air, just for the fuck of it, and enjoys the second that Lex's jaw drops. "One, I'm Superman. You know the secret, yay for you."
Clark can feel the second his stomach gives it up, and there's no way to stop the drop, hitting the carpet with both knees, and yes, okay, vomiting is totally worth it when he can make Lex look like *that*.
"Also," he says huskily while Lois, throwing death at Lex with just her eyes, hovers over him. "I'm pregnant."
*****
Clark makes himself comfortable on Lex's trillion dollar leather couch with a soft cotton cloth over his face while Lex and Lois shout at each other across the room, complete with throwing brandy glasses and pens at each other to relieve their feelings.
It's weird, Clark thinks contentedly as he sips from a glass of Evian and nibbling on emergency saltines that Lois had in her purse, how life turns out. One day, you're normal and pretending you didn't have sex with your archenemy, and next, your archenemy is forced to give you water and have his carpet replaced. And is barefoot, because in the last forty-eight hours, Clark's learned how to aim.
"I didn't take advantage of his innocence!" Lex shouts, and another brandy glass dies tragically on the far wall. Clark turns his head enough to see Lois come up from a crouch clutching one shoe like she means to use it to beat Lex to death.
"He wasn't *pregnant* was he? How the hell was he supposed to know you had supersperm? You've *ruined his life*," Lois screams back, waving her shoe. "What is he going to do now, huh? You think of that when you were despoiling him? Did you? *Did you*?"
Lex sputters horrifically and they're about a minute and a half away from someone going for one of the many guns hidden around the room. Sitting up, Clark lets the washcloth fall away. "Hey."
Lex's eyes flicker over, then, forgetting Lois, he crosses the room, elbowing Lois out of the way, one hand going to Clark's head and forcing him back down. "Stay down," he orders, looking worried. "Still feeling sick? Do you need anything else?"
"Like *more evil sperm*?" Lois says bitterly. "Clark, come on. Let's get you home and in bed. You can't afford to lose more weight--"
"*More* weight?" Lex says, sounding utterly horrified. "Is he keeping anything down?"
Lois sniffs, but when Clark tries to sit up, her hand's the one that shoves him down. "Stay *down* Smallville. Look, Mr. I Spread My Genes No Matter Whose Life It Destroys, you--"
"My *baby*," Lex hisses. "And listen, you--"
"Right, like you're going to bother being around when he needs anything, who do you *think* is going to get him ice cream at three am and make sure he takes his vitamins and *burps the baby*? You'll just delegate it--"
"I'll be there for whatever he needs," Lex shoots back, then turns to Clark, blue eyes huge and creepily worried. "Anything. You. Need. You got that? I'll find you a doctor--"
"Oh, one of your *insane scientists*? Probably the one who drugged him into having sex with you--"
"Jesus, for the last time, he was *not drugged*--"
"--and reveal who he is and get him *lynched* or-or turned into a *lab rat*--"
"I am going to kill you the next time you open your mouth, I swear to God."
"Hey," Clark says, vaguely alarmed by the way Lois smiles back, and he just doesn't think that homicide is the answer to this one. Both sets of enraged eyes turn to him, instantly softening into creepy worry that's beginning to make him nervous. "I'm fine. The nausea goes away after a couple of weeks--"
"*Weeks*?" Lois says in horror while Lex looks at him, appalled. "No. You're coming home with me *tonight*. We'll figure out something you can keep down."
"He's not going home with you," Lex says firmly. "He's coming to the penthouse."
"Have you *lost your mind*? There's no *way* he's moving into your headquarters where you plot God knows what--he's safer with *me*. I'll be there to watch over him--"
"Hey," Clark says, but this time, they ignore him.
"He can get the best medical care with me," Lex says sharply. "This is, by definition, a high risk pregnancy and he should be under constant monitoring--"
"*In one of your labs?*"
"That's it. I'm killing you now."
Clark sits up, alarmed, and two hands push him back into the leather, cloth dropped back over his face.
"Oh *please*, you'll upset Clark and hurt the baby, you idiot. This is what I'm talking about. Responsible my *ass*."
For a moment, there's a silence that Clark might enjoy, if he didn't think if he opened his eyes, one of them was going to be dead while the other did a little dance in the blood. However, the sound of a cell phone being taken out interrupts that train of thought, and then Lex's voice. "I need a crew at Clark Kent's apartment," Lex says shortly. "Move everything to the penthouse. Now."
"Are you *kidding*?" Lois screeches, and Clark closes his eyes and gives up. "You think I'm going to let him be trapped into one of your schemes for world domination while he's knocked up and *helpless*?"
Oh dear God. Clark squeezes his eyes shut and concentrates on his stomach. This would be a perfect time for a good fit of nausea. At least then they'd *shut up*. "Guys," he says more firmly, with no anticipation of anyone hearing a word he says.
"What the hell are you going to do about it?" Lex taunts, and oh, that's so stupid, so incredibly, incredibly stupid. It's like he never met Lois.
"I'm moving in too."
Clark moans softly and wonders if there's any way he can pass out right now.
*****
Clark never really figures out how it happened. One minute, he's on a couch in Lex's office, and the next, he's on a couch in the penthouse, with Doris the housekeeper coaxing him into drinking chicken broth ("There's a lamb," she says, stroking his hair, and he's seriously falling in love with her right now) while Lois stridently orders Lex's staff on where to put her clothes and Lex yells where to put Clark's.
It's weird, but in all honesty, Clark figures that if they haven't killed each other yet, they're not likely to when he can still moan on command and Doris shoots them death glares when the threats begin. No one wants to piss off the person who cooks for them, after all, and they calm down a lot when Doris mentions that dinner may be the same broth she's feeding Clark.
There are huge, soft pillows behind his head and under his feet and a billion channels of cable to watch, and Doris gives him some wonderful tea that she swears will calm down morning sickness. Clark should probably be wondering more at how calmly she's taking the entire male alien pregnancy thing, but honestly? She's feeding him. He just does not care.
"Here, sweetie," she coos as she sets aside the empty mug and gives him some wonderful cookies that are just sweet enough to be tasty and not enough to send him running for the toilet. "You need your rest. You just sit here and I'll bring you more tea?"
"Yes, Doris," Clark says, wide-eyed, and Doris ruffles his hair and stands up, eyes narrowing at Lex and Lois, both of whom somehow became armed with small vases in the last few minutes and seem to be on the verge of open warfare. Shamefaced, they put them aside and go back to low voiced hatred that is the music of Clark's life right now.
Snuggling under the blanket that Doris pulls over him, Clark lets his eyes fall half-closed and thinks that maybe this could work out after all.
*****
As it turns out, Lex has the perfect doctor.
"I'd like you to meet Cassius," Lex says as he comes into Clark's bedroom, where he's currently engaged in reading through Lex's entire Warrior Angel collection, even the really rare ones that make Lex whimper when Clark touches them with bare fingers. A tray of soup and more cookies sits on the bed beside him, and three different game consoles are hooked into the full-wall television Lex had installed when Clark had pointed out the distance between the bed and the tiny forty-two inch television that had been in here before.
Basically, aside from the nausea and carrying his mortal enemy's baby, Clark's life is pretty good. Right up until now.
"Hi," Clark says, and quickly wipes the crumbs off his lap and Warrior Angel #34. For once, Lex doesn't even start misting up the sight of his collection being slowly and methodically contaminated, leading Cassius to the bed, jerking his head at the man significantly before he finally extends a hand that Clark takes warily. "I'm glad to meet you."
Cassius looks at him thoughtfully. "Eight more weeks," he says cryptically. "But I can give him something for that. Due around Christmas."
Lex beams. "Excellent."
"I'll need to run some tests," Cassius continues as he stares into Clark's eyes speculatively. "But healthy." Letting go, Cassius steps away, one corner of his mouth tilting up in what looks like amusement. "It's good to meet you, Mr. Kent."
"Clark," Clark says quickly, feeling vaguely weirded out. Looking down at his hand, he looks back up, studying Cassius as intently as Cassius studied him. "You--by touching--"
"He's a mutant," Lex says, like it's obvious, and well, Clark supposes it is. "Never wrong. Healthy? But he's lost weight--"
"Normal, " Cassius says reassuringly. "The nausea should taper off soon and end completely by the time you start the second trimester. Just stay with soft foods. I'll schedule an exam in my office--"
"Here," Lex says firmly. Cassius frowns.
"But--"
"I'll have a room converted for your use. Several. I want you here for the remainder of his pregnancy," and it's like the words remind Clark all over again that he and Lex spent way too much time in Smallville, because wow, still doesn’t sound as freaky as it really is. "I'll double your usual pay," Lex says when Cassius opens his mouth to object. "Anything could happen. I want you in--"
"Yelling distance, yes, I get that." Sighing, Cassius runs his hand through thick blond hair, looking harassed and resigned both. "Right. I'll tell Deckter to take over my practice. Can I have a couple of days to prepare?"
Lex looks like he might argue the point, but the look on Cassius' face seems to suggest he'll not only argue it, but win, so with a sigh, Lex relents. "Fine. Two days."
"You're too kind." Cassius gives Clark another half-smile. "Just keep eating and resting for a little longer. We'll get you started on prenatal vitamins and design a nutrition plan as soon as we've had a complete physical." With a paternal pat on Clark's shoulder, he leaves, Lex glaring after him like will alone can force him to do what Lex wants. That kind of look usually works, and Clark finds himself liking Cassius for the fact he completely ignores it.
With a sigh, Lex goes to the door, closing it softly before crossing back to the bed and sitting down on the edge, staring at Clark like he has x-ray vision and is counting every rib for fear one might vanish. "How are you feeling?"
Clark waves at the tray. "Good." Lex nods, blue eyes still fixed on Clark's face with disturbing attention. "I ate a lot today," he says, wondering if Lex really is counting his bones or something.
"Good," Lex says, then glances at the TV briefly, where there's a special on Mao going on. "Hey, I like this one."
"You can watch with me," Clark says generously, because this morning, Lex forbade orange juice in the house after the smell made Clark run for the bathroom. Lex gives him a surprised look but climbs on the bed, carefully avoiding jostling Clark, to settle a foot away against the headboard, reaching for one of Clark's cookies. In the spirit of getting along with his child's father, Clark doesn't even complain.
Clark lets himself settle against his pillow as the TV drones on, and after a few minutes, Lex starts supplementing the documentary in a low voice, telling Clark about uprisings and the Cultural Revolution while mocking the historical accuracy of the show and Clark finds himself smiling as he drifts off to sleep.
*****
Maybe the weirdest thing is that Lois and Cassius totally become best friends forever.
Lex looks on in horror while they discuss colors that promote calmness and steady stomachs in various psychology journals and compare notes on Lex's rise to power while Lex looks on in helpless dismay at the two people he's not allowed to kill. They take advantage of it, too, wandering around the penthouse's two floors criticizing Lex's taste and discussing Lex's lack of ethics in loud voices.
It's pretty funny, all things considered, and Clark sometimes wanders into the kitchen to find the two of them gossiping with Doris while Lex pretends he's engaged in dark deeds while really playing Spider Solitaire and silently hating them with all of his being.
The upside is, Lex spends a lot of time in Clark's suite and Clark, still on bedrest, learns that Lex is the best foot masseuse in the history of feet.
"Oh *God*," he tells the ceiling as Lex works over the sole of his foot with strong thumbs and magic, making Lois plow in to accuse Lex of sexual assault and Cassius to say that Lex shouldn't be exciting Clark and risking a miscarriage. Life is possibly the best it has ever been, and gets even better when Lex doesn't even protest when Clark turns on Medical Miracles on the discovery channel and watches lots of dramatizations of pregnancies, though he turns strange colors and occasionally excuses himself to make a trip to the bathroom.
Around his twelfth week, when Clark begins to think he just might be able to get up without throwing up, Mom shows up, and Clark knows, knows, that psychic mom radar must have been going crazy, because not only does she know where he is, *she takes one look at him and knows what he's done*.
(Which is not a surprise, since she knew when he lost his virginity.)
"Clark, baby," she says, giving Lex a poisonous look before dropping gently on the bed beside him and cupping his face in her hands. "Oh my poor baby."
"I'm fine, Mom," Clark says earnestly while motioning to Lex to continue the orgasmic foot rubs.
"My baby is having a baby," she says, eyes filling up, and Clark notices for the first time that there is a bag by the door. Outside the room, Lois's voice cheerfully shouts, "The room by mine is empty! Here, let me show you where to put those."
Lex, who still hasn't restarted the foot rub, looks between Martha and the door with the look of a man who knows he's going to have to kill himself to get away from this. "Um, Mrs. Kent--"
"You," she says shortly, eyes narrowing as she turns her gaze on him. "So you knocked up my baby and you think you're going to *keep me from seeing him*--"
"God, no," Lex says quickly, and Clark kicks his knee until the foot massage starts again. God, better. "I was going to say, welcome. Mi casa es su casa."
Mom is not at all amused.
Lois and Cassius wander in eventually to steal Clark's cookies while Lex doggedly makes Clark's life so perfect that it can't be described in mere words. Cassius, realizing that Martha is not someone to be pissed off, goes into horrifying detail regarding Clark's state of good health, which would be humiliating except Lex is the definition of perfection with feet and Clark can't feel anything but utterly content with the entire world.
"Well," Martha says briskly, giving Cassius a smile that could melt stone, "I'm glad you're here to make sure my baby is safe." Her eyes flicker to Lex, as if to say that Lex is perhaps a greater danger than unexpected male pregnancy could ever be. "How about you show me to my room?"
"Of course," Cassius says gallantly, leaping to his feet, Lois close behind, and Clark almost smiles at the way Lex sighs in relief as the door closes.
"Hey," Clark says after a few seconds, squinting at the TV. "There's a special on the cold war on. Wanna watch?"
Lex has a habit Clark's gotten to like a lot; to wit, coming up to the head of the bed and when he thinks Clark is asleep, gently running his fingers through Clark's hair. It's almost as good as the foot rub. After ten minutes of faking yawning, Clark rearranges his pillow and pretends to drift off, and five minutes later, Lex is stroking him.
In all honesty, Clark could totally get used to this.
*****
Around the fifth month, Clark notices the first sign of gained weight in the tiny bump slowly pushing it's way from his stomach and hyperventilates in the shower while Lex tries to talk him down from outside the door.
It's weird, how you can get used to anything, even pregnancy, only to be thrown again when you start seeing the evidence.
"I can't go out in public like this!" Clark yells through the door, and perhaps his voice carries many miles, but he just can't care right now. "I look like a freak!"
"You look amazing, just like always," Lex says desperately. "I never noticed."
"And that shows how much attention you pay!" Clark says, feeling more and more like a teenage girl by the second, but he just can't bring himself to care all that much. He has a *bump* and sometimes, he can feel it move, and oh my God, he's going to be sick.
"Clark," Lex says, sounding frantic. "Open the door. Come on. You look great."
"I wanted to go to a movie," Clark says, and though until now he didn't, but now that he can't be seen in public, there are at least five that he's been dying to see and just didn't know it. Turning off the shower, Clark grabs a towel to hide his hideousness and unlocks the door. A foot massage would be good right now.
Opening it up, he goes by a startled Lex holding a paperclip and what looks like a very small but efficient bomb, grabbing a clean pair of boxer and pulling them on before collapsing on the bed, staring at the ceiling in deep self-pity. After a few seconds, Lex approaches the bed with the wariness of man hunting wild elephants in Africa. "Clark?"
"I am a freak," Clark says sadly, and Lex sits down beside him, automatically moving a hand to stroke gently through his hair. Clark sighs, leaning into it, closing his eyes to concentrate on each slow stroke, so achingly good he can feel his terror dissipating already, mostly due to the fact he's sleepy *again* and sometimes his life is like this.
"You're beautiful," Lex says with such sincerity that Clark sniffles, moving into the next touch that strokes down his cheek and the side of his neck. Good stuff. "Tomorrow night, we'll go to the movies, okay?"
"I don't want anyone else to see me like this," Clark says sulkily, burrowing into his pillow, and Lex starts rubbing gently into his shoulders. Oh God, good.
"Don't worry," Lex says firmly. "I'll take care of everything."
*****
Being knocked up by Lex Luthor is *awesome*.
"This is great," Clark says happily from the middle seat of Metropolis Metroplex, currently emptied of everyone but those required to run the movie and Lex's security, scary men in black coats and tiny earbuds under the supervision of Mercy and Hope, both of whom express their hopes of being godparents in flat, dead voices that Lex assures him are meant to be affectionate.
Lex had tempted him downstairs into the limo with promises that all the sugar that Doris had removed from the penthouse was hidden there for Clark to consume, and he'd been three quarters through a bag of M&Ms before he'd realized the car was *moving*.
In retrospect, Clark's glad that the nausea had passed and he couldn't fulfill his threat to throw up on Lex's shoes if he didn't take him home *right now*.
There's a bucket--a huge, massive, wonderful bucket--of popcorn in his lap, covered in fresh butter, salt, and Tabasco sauce; a large Coke that's already got Clark as caffeinated as he's been since Cassius cut off his caffeine; and a selection of candy being held by one of the security guys only a few feet away, ready to be summoned the moment Clark requires chocolate or Skittles. The screen has Sandra Bullock being heartbroken by her young lover and Clark wipes his tears away and uses Lex's sleeves as a handkerchief.
"I'm glad you're enjoying yourself," Lex says, warily eyeing his jacket before reaching for a single piece of popcorn. "So you wanted to see *Love Me One More Time*?"
"It's a love story," Clark says, swallowing as Sandra's mother comes to the garden to sit with her. Sipping his coke, Clark gives Lex a sideways look, watching him stare at the screen like he's in pain. "A *beautiful* love story."
"I see that," Lex says, taking another piece of popcorn with a hand that's not quite steady. Clark wonders idly what Lex would be doing if he wasn't here; taking over a small country? Making new advances in the dark side of genetic engineering? Destroying someone's career? Dating some drop dead gorgeous brunette with a hidden homicidal streak? Eating another handful of popcorn, Clark fights off the question hovering on his tongue that some part of him wants to ask. And that would be stupid. If Lex is seeing some drop dead gorgeous brunette on the side, it's really not Clark's business.
It doesn't stop it from worrying its way into Clark's head, though.
"Well," Lex says as the lights come on and security swarms around them. Clark clutches the remains of his popcorn to his chest with a growl when one of them reaches for it. "That was--interesting."
Clark surreptitiously wipes his eyes with his free hand as he thinks of Sandra locked in a steamy embrace with her childhood sweetheart. "I liked it." Then again, he's been watching a lot of the Lifetime channel, so in all honesty, Clark knows he's no judge.
Following Lex to the car, parked right at the door, Clark lets Lex usher him first, making himself comfortable on the soft leather seats as Lex gives orders to the driver, taking another handful of popcorn as Lex leans back, looking--tired.
Tired?
"Late night?" Clark says with careful neutrality. Though it couldn't have been too late, because Clark has a faint memory of waking up to Lex in his room last night, sitting by the bed, watching him with half-closed eyes, an unreadable expression on his face. Leaning uncomfortably into the seat, Clark frowns as the bump shifts, stealing another glance at Lex's face.
"Paperwork," Lex says absently, but his eyes flicker down involuntarily before jumping back to Clark's face.
The bump moves again, and Clark frowns, looking down. "Okay, less fun side of pregnancy. That's--weird."
It was weird in Cassius office, in the shower, in bed last night, and it's just as weird *now*, but Lex looks fascinated, and on impulse, Clark reaches for his hand, pulling it to the spot on his stomach just as it moves again.
Lex's hand flexes against his before curving to the shape of his body, and Clark looks up in time to see wonder flare in the blue eyes, something warm and sweet and unfamiliar that makes something in Clark tighten.
They stay like that all the way to the penthouse, and Clark doesn't say a word.
*****
The sixth month, things are surreal enough that Clark stops wondering and just goes with it.
"Nursery," Lois says in disbelief as she watches various LexCorp employees carrying various types of hardware into the bedroom beside Clark's, paint and wood and more electronic equipment than a newborn could ever possibly need. "What? You think the baby's staying here?"
Lex looks at her from his slightly superior height and his seat beside Clark on the couch. There's a guaranteed ten feet safety zone around Clark that she's used before. "The statistics on two parent households--"
"Bullshit," Lois says succinctly, eyes narrowing as Lex takes Clark's feet in his lap with the serene expression of a man who knows his enemy is impotent and helpless before him. It's a sexy look. Clark's always thought so. "You are plotting."
"I'm *planning* for my--our child's future," Lex says, rubbing his thumbs into Clark's instep, which feels so good Clark's prone and moaning before Lois can finish gawking. It's how Lex got him to agree to this insane plan. "Security," he says firmly, ticking the points off like he's lecturing his stockholders. Clark bets that Lois *loves* that. "Safety Support for Clark. Assistance with the baby. Financial--"
Lois looks like she wants to say something, and it will probably be indecent, but Cassius comes in looking windblown and tired. Clark levers himself up on one elbow to watch as Lois turns in his general direction with an interestingly worried look on her face.
Lex smirks, but he keeps his eyes on Clark's feet.
More workmen come through, and Clark sits up, swinging his feet to the floor and narrowly missing Lex's head. Standing up, careful of the shift in his center of gravity as the bump grows, Clark makes his way toward the nursery, Lex pacing him like a professional spotter. Peering inside, Clark takes in the clean white walls, the pale green wallpaper being hung, the drop clothed floor and the dizzying amount of security wiring and smiles as Lex's hand lands gently on his shoulder. "I like it," Clark says, then yawns, surprised to see it's dark outside.
"Come on, let's get you to bed."
Clark nods, already feeling the pull of sleep as Lex's hand circles his wrist gently, pulling him down the hall and into his room, where Clark's noticed a migration of things that aren't his--Lex's favorite laptop and Lex's shoes and shirts that definitely aren't part of the Clark Kent School of Fashion, as he sleepily changes into the soft flannel pajamas that Lex got him when his own stopped fitting. Crawling into bed, Clark curls up on his side, waiting patiently as Lex removes his shoes and the mattress shifts, until Lex's hand is stroking gently through his hair.
Clark yawns sleepily. "This isn't subtle," he murmurs into the pillow, catching his breath as Lex rubs the base of his spine with clever, clever fingers, easing the ache away. There's warm breath against his bare shoulder, then the lightest dry touch of lips.
"I'm not trying to be."
*****
When Clark comes into the living room two weeks later to find Lois and Cassius making out on the couch, he gets his apple potato broccoli juice from the fridge in perfect silence by dint of floating, returning to his room and dropping on the bed.
Clark sighs and stares blankly at the wall. "Right. You win."
Lex smirks and rubs gently at the ever growing bump that represents baby. "I'll collect, you know."
Clark raises an eyebrow. "I figured."
*****
It doesn't so much slow Lois down as divide her attention, which makes things both more comfortable and weirder, because getting a proctological exam in preparation for the miracle of childbirth from the guy banging his partner and former fiancée is new vistas of weird.
Luckily, Cassius seems to feel equally weird, and spends no time at all deep in scientific curiosity about how this birth canal thing is going to work during labor. Sitting up, Clark pulls down the gown as best he can and tries to remember what it was like to have dignity and personal privacy and not know that this entire exam will be repeated to Mom, Lex, and Lois in exacting detail.
There are moments that it is not so great to be knocked up by Lex, and this is one of them. "So?"
Cassius snaps off the rubber gloves and tosses them before turning to look at Clark thoughtfully. "Three weeks, give or take a few days," he says, "if the dilation is anything to go by." The tanned face turns faintly green, and Clark and Cassius agree with a look not to ever think about dilation again until they absolutely have to.
"Right," Clark says, reaching for his sweatpants, custom made by the same man who designs Lex's suits. They're comfortable, stretchy, and so soft Clark catches himself stroking his own thighs. "So next week?"
Cassius shakes his head as he finishes washing his hands. "Every other day," he says firmly. Clark opens his mouth to protest, but Cassius is still talking. "This is a unique pregnancy and I can't be absolutely sure I'm right. I want to survive your gestation if it's all the same to you."
Clark waves morosely as he pulls on a t-shirt, now distressingly tight around his stomach, and goes back downstairs to where everyone is pretending they aren't waiting with bated breath for the results of Cassius' latest round of Alien Obstetrician.
"Three weeks," Clark says, like he's not aware that they all suspend hostilities for the sake of the betting pool currently established for the actual due date. Pretending he can't see them arguing, Clark gets some fried chicken and chocolate dipping sauce before he sits down in the vast kitchen to reconsider the direction of his life.
He's a Daily Planet reporter on indefinite leave, because there was no way to explain the truth to Perry without the kind of humiliation that Clark can seriously live without, and a superhero on maternity leave, because the Justice League wasn't something you could just wander away from to have a baby without them figuring it out fairly quickly.
Dipping strips of chicken into the chocolate, Clark chews thoughtfully, resting one hand on the kicking fetus that's currently responsible for the fact his ankles are swelling and floating everywhere has become more a necessity than a fun event.
"You know," Clark says, feeling a kick against his palm, "it's going to be fun to explain sex ed to you."
A tiny answering kick makes Clark grin, and he rubs absently, finishing off the chicken before tossing the plate and empty sauce bowl into the sink and going back to his room, finding Lex curled up on his half of the bed, laptop on his knees, plotting something terrible that Clark probably should care about but really can't bring himself to care. Somehow, Lex *has* a half of the bed and he's been sleeping here for long enough for his pillows to smell like him. Climbing on the bed, Clark shuts the laptop with one hand and collapses across Lex's lap, ignoring the choked sound Lex makes and pulling a pillow under his head.
Lex smoothes slow strokes down Clark's back, and while Clark can feel him staring at his laptop longingly, he pretends that he always meant to stop and pay Clark all the attention he wants. "If you break my heart again," Clark says into the pillow, closing his eyes, "I swear I'll never forgive you."
Clark feels lips brush his hair, and when Lex speaks, his voice is so low Clark can barely hear it. "I won't."
*****
D-Day, or rather, Delivery Day, goes down so anticlimactically that Clark's almost disappointed.
The water breaking wasn't too bad, mostly because Lex, the picture of cool calmness in both crime and business, starts yelling for Cassius before Clark's even aware the bed is wet. Then there's Lois and Mom, hovering over the bed to ask ever more freaked out questions while Lex calls in every single medical professional he can reliably blackmail while Doris tries to point out that Lex is wandering through the penthouse without pants.
It's pretty funny, really, and Clark's still giggling when he's lead to the elevator, floating a good two feet above the floor while Mom and Lois make soothing noises and pretend that this is perfectly normal.
Cassius is dressed and waiting when Clark's taken to the recently outfitted delivery room, complete with creepy and sometimes unidentifiable equipment, and it's a short forty-five minutes of labor that is mostly Clark promising Lex he'll rip off his balls if he ever thinks of touching him again before Clark's high on endorphins, and Lex is breathing into a paper bag while Mom gives Clark his newborn daughter.
She's bald, which Lois swears proves paternity, with Lex's eyes and chin and Clark's mouth, and she's possibly the most perfect thing Clark's ever seen in his life.
Clark shifts over dreamily as Lex sits on the bed beside him, looking grey and utterly amazed. One finger touches her tiny cheek, and when Clark looks over, Lex looks like he just saw the world born anew.
"Marian," he murmurs, and Clark leans into his shoulder, Lex's arm tightening around him. Letting Lex take her, Clark thinks on his waistline returning and wearing jeans and the fact that he won't have to go home to a quiet apartment ever again.
He grins, closing his eyes. "It's a little early, but. Merry Christmas."
*****
From inside her cubicle walls, Holly Christmas had secretly pined for Connor Knight, craving just one evening of incendiary passion with the elusive millionaire. So when Connor sought a few hours of solace in his virgin secretary's arms, she readily succumbed.
Then, a few weeks after their clandestine encounter, Holly received a surprising late Christmas gift: she was pregnant. Connor quickly offered to take care of her, but Holly knew her scandalous past would never allow her to accept his proposal…not even for the sake of their baby. - seperis