title: four eyes
author: jessica
mail: thegirlinglasses@illuminatedtext.com
date: february 08, 2003
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"I'm a pretty smart guy, Clark." Lex continued as he moved around the room. Clark was distracted with only half an ear on his boyfriend's speech. "I went to Met U, I went to Princeton. Harvard wanted me too, did you know that? MIT, I always wanted to go to MIT."
"I know," Clark said at what he hoped was the right time.
"I'm a pretty smart guy, Clark, and even I don't understand what we're doing here."
Clark turned away from the mirror, looking down at Lex through a pair of horn-rimmed glasses. His eyes shone like the tiny rhinestones embedded in the frames.
"You don't like them?" Clark tried to ask with a straight face. Lex didn't answer and didn't move until Clark took them off. "I'm buying a pair of glasses, Lex. Didn't I tell you?"
"You don't need glasses."
"No, Superman doesn't need glasses. Clark Kent, however, has been having some trouble with distances."
Clark found a pair with round lenses and slipped them on. "Could you love me if I were John Lennon?" he laughed.
Lex stepped forward to take them off. He searched the wall, almost immediately reaching for a pair of black plastic frames. "I don't know why you can't wear a mask like all the rest of them." Clark helped him slide the glasses on then turned back to the mirror.
"I look like a dork."
Lex kissed a line down his jaw. "Sexy dork."
"That wasn't a complaint." Clark twisted his head around to find Lex's mouth. It was awkward, the glasses sliding down to his nose, pressed up against Lex's face as they tried to kiss. Clark pulled away before he started to laugh. "I think a dork is exactly what Clark Kent needs to be."
He wasn't like the other superheroes. Superman didn't have cars or gadgets, he didn't have a mask or a sidekick. This was just another way that he was different.
"But you can see through walls and long ways away. Why do you need glasses to read me a story?"
"Well, I don't need them." Clark gave the glasses to Nicky to play with. "I got them a long time ago, when Clark and Superman were two different people."
"And now that you're Daddy, you don't need them?" His eyes looked huge behind the lenses. With Nicky sitting up in bed with a book in his lap and glasses on his nose, Clark found himself buying into the stereotype and Lex's fantasy of the Luthor prodigy. Nicky was smart, but he also knew when to nod and when to speak during Lex's breakfast table lectures.
"I don't need them. But I like them. What do you think?" Clark took his glasses back. "Doesn't Daddy look cool?"
Nicky held it in as long as he could, but the laugh leaked out. "I'm sorry, Daddy. The secret identity doesn't get to be cool."
"What about Wally? Or Bruce? You like them."
"Yeah," Nicky nodded, considering his next words. "Maybe it's just a Daddy thing."
"A Daddy thing, huh?" Clark gave him a stern look he'd never been able to pull of. He set the book aside and got up off the bed. "I think it's time for bed."
"Wait, we didn't finish the story."
Clark leaned over, pulling the covers up and kissing Nicky's head. "Maybe if you're quiet, I can send your cool dad up and he can finish the story for you."
"She says he's having trouble paying attention." Clark ate his cereal standing at the counter. It was Sunday and he was still in his pyjamas. The suit and glasses don't come out on days like that. "She says he might need glasses. It makes sense, Lex. If he's sitting at the back of the room and can't see the board."
Lex listened from behind his paper, made a sound of agreement. A quiet morning breakfast, his son bouncing upstairs, and Clark close-by, it was times like that that made Lex think he could run for President. 'A picture of the new American family', the ad would say.
"You're not even listening, are you?" Clark grinned, putting his bowl in the dishwasher. "You're planning your campaign."
Lex pulled the paper down, sharply, to look at him. Clark did that a lot. It wasn't a super thing, just a Clark thing.
"You've got that look," Clark explained, even though Lex didn't ask.
Clark took a bowl from the cupboard, a spoon from the drawer, and set a place across the table from Lex. He watched Clark leave the kitchen, then heard him calling up the stairs.
"Nicholas, get down here. And have your teeth brushed this time."
There was a loud crash upstairs, then the sound of footsteps. Lex followed them, out the door, down the hall, a turn right, then down the stairs. Nicky was in his chair less than a minute later.
"A new record?" Lex asked. Nicky just laughed. Clark handed him the cereal and the milk and Lex's 'new American family' sat down to breakfast.
"What are you guys doing today?" Clark asks.
"Movie," he said through a mouthful of Sugar Bombs. "Something with dogs, I think."
Nicky spends most Sundays with Lois. It was good for both of them, Clark always said. Lex always said they got more out of it than Lois and Nicky.
There was the campaign to fantasize about and the dishes to do. Nicky probably needed glasses and Martha and Jonathan would be here next weekend. But Sundays weren't about any of that. Just Clark and Lex and pyjamas in the afternoon.
"Notice anything different?"
Judy took a minute, studied him carefully, made him do a full turn before she shook her head 'no'. Nicky glared and, using fingers on both hands, pointed to the tiny circular frames on his face.
"Are you blind?" he asked.
Judy couldn't hold the grin in any longer. "No, but you must be." She's away, across the playground and giggling. Nicky would have followed, but the smudges on his glasses made her hard to see.