For@madeunmexico (my muse is only mostly dead, so I thought I'd throw a little karamel-adjacent ficlet on here to try and revive it just a little.)
Spring has sprung, that's for sure, but it's hard for him to remember it today. The flowers are in bloom, but so are the storm clouds, out in full force since the day before yesterday. Unfortunate timing for their big celebration this weekend.
He trudges in the front door, sopping wet canvas bags dangling from his shoulders. Which for obvious reasons are faring better than the paper ones his arms are currently enveloping, as he rushes to get inside before the disintegration process is complete and his groceries tumble to the floor. Were he alone, he could have done all this at speed and largely avoided the deluge. But to do so today would be incredibly rude to the special guest gracing their home, doubly so since said guest is here to do the Danvers-El family a pretty big favor.
William follows him in, sporting the matching look of a drowned packrat laden with bags of store bought goodies. Mon-El chuckles once the bags are deposited on the kitchen counter and grabs a couple of oversize dish towels from a drawer, handing one over to Kara's coworker.
"Thanks, mate," William says, oblivious to the reality that to the Daxamite, the word "mate" has a very different and specific meaning. Mon-El does a quick double take, then ignores the cultural dissonance and moves on to unloading the groceries.
"I should be thanking YOU," Mon-El shrugs. "I like to think I'm a reasonably good cook, but I'm nowhere near your level at baking."
"No worries," William smiles. "I didn't have time to buy Allie a birthday gift. So it's the least I can do, really."
"...Uh...name day."
"What?"
"On Krypton and Daxam we called it name day, not birthday. Since birth wasn't really a thing on our home worlds, per se..."
"What do you mean? How are you here if you weren't born?"
"We had this gestational construct called a birthing matrix. It was a...whole thing."
William puts the towel down on the counter, gazes up at the ceiling while gently shaking his head, and groans. "Mate...you're killing me here. I can't believe I have a window into the marriage of Supergirl and Valor, all your adventures and history and your extraordinary life together, and I can't write a word about it."
"Sorry, man." Mon-El sighs. It's all he can say, really. They've had this conversation once or twice before, after William and his damned reporter instincts uncovered their identities a few months back. Mostly their fault, to be fair. They'd gotten careless around the Tower and eventually the clues added up. They'd never been great at hiding their heart eyes anyway, but the clincher was their eldest daughter's kidnapping at the hands of Cadmus. William has never had a child of his own, but he's been around major disasters enough to know the look in the eyes of desperate parents. Ultimately, it was impossible to deny the truth, so they told it. And brought him fully into the fold.
Which, on days like today, is more a curse than a blessing.
As they're pulling out mixing bowls, cracking eggs, and sifting flour, the back door opens and they're greeted by a familiar face.
"Ukr-nahmin!" Mon-El startles a bit, dropping a measuring cup and turning towards the older man, bowing his head slightly per the shared custom of their cultures.
Zor-El nods back with a bemused smile. "Unahmin." Son of my house. "And ah..." he turns to William, clearly uncertain. He's had few interactions with the humans of Earth during his handful of trips here.
Mon-El clears his throat and turns to his friend. "Oh, um, this is William Dey, he's..."
"...Uncle Archie?" William interjects.
"...Oh." Zor-El freezes. "... Yes. You're the young man from Kara's place of work. I am her Uncle. Ar-chie. Of... Midvale City."
Mon-El laughs out loud and shakes his head. "It's all right, he knows the whole deal now. William, this is Kara's father, Zor-El of Krypton."
"Her...her father?" The reporter looks back and forth between the two aliens, dumbfounded. "But I thought..."
"Right. It's a long, complicated story but, basically..."
"...I constructed a forcefield that protected our home city of Argo, stabilized the local atmosphere, provided life support and artificial gravity, and our people have been living there for many years," Zor-El interrupts. "Kara and Mon-El found us floating in space some time ago and we have been in communication ever since."
"...Uh, right. I guess not that long." Mon-El mumbles.
"Wow, uh...okay. I thought the not-born thing was going to be the big bombshell of the day, but it seems I underestimated you all." He shakes his head and returns to the task at hand.
"So..." Zor-El looks at the kitchen in moderate disarray. "What's all this?"
"William has kindly agreed to help me bake a special cake for Allie's birthday," Mon-El explains.
"Oh, really?" the older man perks up, intrigued. "What makes it special? And...what is a cake?"
"It's going to be spectacular!" William says, lighting up with excitement. "Cherry coconut chiffon cake with tahitian vanilla buttercream in the shape of a big pink and lavender castle. She'll absolutely love it! I mean...I hope. That is." He looks to Mon-El for approval, which he receives in the form of a broad smile and a nod.
"Castle?" Zor-El quirks his head at the apron-clad pair.
William shrugs. "Well, you know, because of the whole princess theme."
Zor-El turns to Mon-El with a wry smile. "Princess?"
Mon-El deflates slightly, but holds his ground with a good-natured eyeroll. "I know, I know. Go ahead and say it."
Zor-El clears his throat slightly. "Well, then. Should I have brought coronation robes with me, or are you providing?"
Mon-El chuckles in response. "I think good old fashioned party hats will suffice." He reaches into one of the untouched bags and produces a gold paper crown with attached rubber band, handing it over to the Kryptonian.
Zor-El decides to play along, placing the ridiculous circlet atop his head for a moment and checking his reflection in the microwave door, before placing it down on the counter with a laugh, which Mon-El shares.
"Sorry, I sense I'm missing something here," William says with confusion.
"Oh," Mon-El handwaves dismissively. "It's just a family joke about my lineage. And Allie's, by extension."
"What lineage is that? I mean, I know Daxam was a monarchy and all, with, you know, the whole megalomaniacal Queen and everything, but..."
"Ah. Right. I forget this part isn't common knowledge on Earth." Mon-El crosses his arms and looks down at his feet. "The Queen...uh, Rhea? She was sort of...my mother."
The mixing spoon drops from William's hand. "Your...your mother? But that would make you..."
"...The Prince," Zor-El finishes. "Making Allie, in the most technical sense..."
"...No," Mon-El says firmly, but with kindness. "Because as you'll recall I abdicated a long time ago, and Daxam is long gone anyway."
"...Indeed." Zor-El clams up, only now realizing he's strayed into uncomfortable territory.
"Wait...so Allie is sort of a real princess?" William's mind is reeling too much to catch on to the changed tone of the conversation.
"Again, no, because..." Mon-El pulls out a chair to sit him down at the kitchen table, since the reporter's brain seems to have short circuited.
"....And you fought against her?"
"Who?" Mon-El asks.
"Your...your mother."
"Well, yes, of course we did, she was invading Earth after all, and..."
"And... wait, but...that means your... Kara...she...she's the one that killed her, isn't she?"
"Who?" Zor-El pipes in, somewhat alarmed by this sudden turn.
Mon-El looks up from tending to a shell-shocked William, who is now holding his face in his hands, in a state of near catatonia. "Uh...we told you that Kara and I defeated my mother when she attacked this planet, but...we may have glossed over a few details."
"Such as?"
"Kara was forced...to kill her. To drive her armies from Earth."
"But...you're married to the woman who killed your own mother?" William shakes his head. "How did you get past it? I can't even imagine...the forgiveness that must have taken..."
Mon-El shrugs helplessly. "There... was nothing to forgive. My mother left Kara no choice. She was more or less set to destroy National City. There was no other way."
"But still..."
"William," Mon-El sighs, with some fatigue. "Look, do you know why I love my wife? I mean, there's a million reasons, obviously, but...she tried. So hard. I told her, and really we both knew...that my mother couldn't be reasoned with. But she tried anyway. She gave her every chance to choose another path. Until there were no chances left. I mean I loved my mother, the way all children are hard wired to love their mothers. But...I knew what she was. What she was capable of. And I've never loved Kara less for doing what she had to do. I've loved her more for it."
There's a silence that lingers on past the point of discomfort.
Finally, Zor-El speaks. "What...of your father?"
"My father?" Mon-El replies, curious.
"You've spoken of your mother, but...what happened to your father? Was he lost in the destruction?"
"Uh...no. He arrived on Earth. He...he showed us mercy. Kara and me, I mean. He...saw that we were happy together, and he let us go. And for that, my mother...killed him."
"...Oh..." is all Zor-El can muster. William, for his part, is still silently processing all this.
"I'm lucky, I suppose, that my mother was one of those villains that likes to monologue." Mon-El makes a feeble attempt to lessen the tension. "She admitted to Kara what she'd done when they were fighting. Of course, she told me that his death was my fault. Because of course she did." A melancholy chuckle escapes him.
At length, Zor-El sits at the table with them, and speaks. "You recall how things were between us when you and Kara first found us on Argo?"
"Uh...I do..." Mon-El nods, with some confusion. Their sudden arrival had been joyful, at first, until fissures had started to appear. Zor-El had not been thrilled to find his daughter already wed to the Prince of Daxam, and the discovery of their burgeoning family, when she doffed her cloak to reveal her swollen, pregnant belly, had only worsened the situation. Mon-El still recalls awkwardly sitting with Alura, as Kara and her father loudly argued in the next room. The altercation was muffled through a shut door, but words such as "defiled" and "debased" were unfortunately unmistakable. Never before that day had Mon-El regretted his fluency in Kryptonese.
The chasm between daughter and father had eventually been mended, and slowly Mon-El had fallen into a familiar and generally cordial status with his father-in-law. One with room for occasional levity, but little in the way of closeness.
"I see now. What I could not see then." Zor-El nods to himself, as though making a decision, and leans over, enveloping a startled Mon-El in a warm embrace.
The front door opens again, and Kara walks in with Alura, taking off raincoats and chatting in their native tongue.
"Honey?" she says. "Are you here? Looks like the storm 's breaking, finally. The sun's even peeking through. Is William still coming over to....uh..." She enters the kitchen, struck dumb at the sight of her father hugging her husband, both with shining, slightly watery eyes.
"Oh..." Alura starts as she comes in just behind, similarly affected by the scene. "What have you all been up to?"
Zor-El speaks first, the only one of the three apparently capable in the moment. "What does it look like, zhremin? We're baking a name day cake!"
