Chapter Text
Bernard was eating ice cream and watching the broadcast of Metropolis's last superpowered idiot’s rampage. It was entertaining. At least Gotham villains had some real pizazz about them.
Metropolis was dumb.
What was less dumb were the people being interviewed in the face of saving the city. Or, well, Bernard was really less interested in Superman and more interested in Superboy.
He’d pieced together most of the supers’ identities by the time he was sixteen. His conspiracy theory channel was to throw people off their trail. Real ‘do the butts match’ mentality.
Plus, it annoyed Tim to no end. Especially because he thought he couldn’t correct Bernard without being suspicious.
As if he wasn’t already suspicious.
But then he’d shown up, dragging Conner Luthor, recently named heir to the Luthor empire after him and declared that his best friends needed to meet.
Bernard knew who Conner Luthor was.
Conner had clearly come into the meeting a bit hostile and a lot jealous. And yeah, maybe Bernard sort of got that, he was sure the guy didn’t have many friends. And given their line of work, he was sure to be protective of them.
So Bernard killed him with kindness, obliviousness, and a whole bunch of silly conspiracy theories.
By the end of it, Conner had left with a shy smile, a new friend, and Bernard’s phone number.
Bernard sent him incessant stupid superhero conspiracy theory memes. He made half of them himself.
In exchange, Conner sent over any conspiracy theories he found in the wild.
It wasn’t like they were close or anything, but it made Bernard smile and he liked to think he made Conner’s day just a bit better.
So yeah, he was watching the news because it was entertaining to see Metropolis get blown up for the thousandth time, but he kept watching the interview for the chance to see Conner.
He had a red S on his chest and he was grinning broadly at the camera as the reporters on the scene praised him and Superman for their quick reaction time and how they’d kept even the injuries to almost none.
And then one of them asked a simple question. Really, it wasn’t a big deal.
How does it feel being a father-son duo in the heroics industry?
Bernard watched as Conner’s expression turned nervous. Unsure.
He was paying so much attention to Conner that he hadn’t noticed Superman’s face hardening until he was speaking.
“Ah, we’re not actually a father-son duo. Superboy’s a clone. We’ve landed on brothers.”
Bernard looked back to Conner in time to see his face crumple before he smoothed it back over.
But his smile wasn’t wide anymore. There weren’t crinkles around his eyes.
Bernard didn’t hold any particular hatred towards Superman. On one hand, he was from Metropolis, on the other, he was a hero.
But in that moment, Bernard wanted to do something stupid and ineffectual.
Five minutes later there was a soft knocking on the front door of his townhouse. It interrupted his plotting.
He opened the front door to find Conner on his stoop.
“Conner?”
Conner shuffled his feet. “I uh… I--”
“What are you doing here?” Because like, Bernard knew they probably - hopefully - counted as friends, but he didn’t realize they were close enough for Conner to show up on his doorstep.
“I’m sorry,” Conner blurted out. “I’m just going to-- to go. I’m sorry.”
“No!” Bernard said, just a bit too fast, lunging forward to catch Conner’s wrist, well aware that he had no hope of truly holding the other boy. “No, come in. Just-- what’s going on?”
Conner let himself be guided inside and settled at Bernard’s kitchen counter.
“I uh… I’m not-- not sure how much Tim’s told you. But I don’t… it’s nothing.”
Bernard fixed him with a look. “You wouldn’t have shown up on my doorstep if it was nothing.”
Conner bit his lip, refusing to meet Bernard’s gaze. Bernard saw the tears shining there anyways. “My family life isn’t… great. And I uh-- I just-- Tim gets all… I feel like he’d either enact some megalomaniac plan on my… on him. And like, I just-- I didn’t want to talk to someone who knows. I just--”
Bernard studied him. He was still going to maybe go a little supervillain on Superman’s ass, but it wasn’t like Conner needed to know that.
“Well, I was thinking about starting a new draft for the YouTube channel. I was thinking, recently, that if Superman’s an alien, maybe he’s actually like, this super weird bug creature and it’s just like, alien cloaking tech making us think he looks like one of us.”
He carefully pretended not to notice when Conner reacted to the name drop. Instead, bustling over to the living room to retrieve his laptop.
“I’m… sorry?”
“Oh come on,” Bernard called over his shoulder, “It’s not that weird. I was thinking about combing through the Green Lantern’s public alien database. Anything about bug aliens. Wanna help me?”
Conner blinked at him as Bernard slipped into the seat next to Conner.
“Yeah. Yeah… sure.”
Bernard noticed the little smile tugging at his lips and smirked to himself, just a little.
If the video went a little bit viral, well then. Superman deserved the nickname ‘Superbug’ to be thrown around the papers and social media for a couple weeks.
“Bernard?” Tim sounded worried.
“Yeah?”
“So like, Lucious - Lucious Fox - called me. He said your parents’ company was trying to purchase some of WE’s kryptonite.”
Bernard pursed his lips and kept working on his ‘Superbug’ ‘fan’art without looking at Tim.
The thing was, Tim’s parents were never around, but they loved him. Bernard’s parents were around, but they’d never loved him.
He’d tried to gain their love by caring more about their company than they did. To prove he was worth something.
They never did turn around and admit to him that he was important and they loved him. Didn’t even think it. But he did have functional control over their company. Which was… nice.
Bernard was calling most of the shots. Like: Sure, Lex Luthor is definitely a supervillain, but his business practices are pretty good. So Bernard was willing to work with them on the business side of things but not the ‘supervillain trying to take down Superman’ thing.
And then Superman had gone and done something really fucking awful and Bernard had reached out to Lex to ask if he needed any kryptonite. If he wanted Bernard to see if he could pry some out of Wayne Enterprises.
Lex had jumped at the opportunity.
One part his general hatred for Superman and one part, carefully talked around, his frustration with the way Superman treated their son.
And seriously, fuck Clark Kent too. He had a whole support system and he couldn’t just lean on them. Could he? No, he had to act all overwhelmed and treat his son like shit.
So Bernard was trying to carefully act as a middle man.
“We are. Is that a problem?”
“Why?” Tim sounded, maybe less worried. More flat.
“Superman made Superboy cry on TV. I told Lex I’d make an exception if he made something nonlethal.”
That was a lie. He hadn’t made Lex make any such promises. But Tim didn’t need to know that.
“He did?” Bernard wondered how Tim had ever thought he was hiding the truth from Bernard when his carefully controlled anger was on full display.
“Yeah. He did.” Okay, so maybe Conner hadn’t cried on TV, but he had cried. At Bernard’s kitchen counter.
Tim nodded slowly. “Yeah. Okay. It’s a one time expectation?”
“Just the one time,” Bernard promised. And mostly meant it.
“Alright. Yeah, I’ll tell Lucious it’s all good.”
Half an hour later, Bernard had an email in his inbox, sent by the CEO of WE. He was willing to play ball.
Bernard grinned.