Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Look, Kon’s totally chill with the fact that he’s a failed experiment.

Seriously. It doesn’t haunt him at night. So what if Lex was expecting so much more from him?

Okay, maybe it haunts him a little.

But it’s not like Kon isn’t grateful.

Because for most people, being impaled by a giant slab of serrated glass would mean game over. In Kon’s case, he’s just in a bit of blinding agony while Superman takes care of Metropolis’s latest Bad Guy Of The Week a few streets over.

No big.

“Hear me now, Metropolis!” comes the nasally snarl of the man whose soot-covered face is taking up the digital billboard display above Main Street, broadcasting all over the city. “My partner unfathomably left me for a fictional husband! I won’t rest until all bookstores are destroyed! Call me… the Bookend!”

Kon deliberates if it’s too late to crawl back into a CADMUS test tube so he doesn’t have to sit through this guy’s yapping. Between this guy, the Condiment King guy Tim fought last week, and the other evil-doing weirdos Cassie’s filed under a folder labeled ‘Villains Nobody Asked For’ in the Titans database — Bart’s theory about there being a gas leak in every major city is starting to sound pretty legit.

Lying amid the debris of what used to be the Little Metropolis Book Cafe, he grimaces at the sharp-edged glass sticking out of his chest. It used to be a window pane, he thinks, before it hurtled at him at a million miles per hour and pierced him back-first.

That was about ten minutes ago, a consequence of the bookstores around Metropolis exploding one by one.

While Superman dealt with the guy responsible, Superboy’s job was crowd control.

But on Kon’s last fly-through to make sure Main Street was evacuated, the bookstore right under him had gone off, followed by a violent shower of demolished bricks, broken pipes, and splintered wood. He’d ironically avoided a hurtling copy of Body Repair, a Physical Therapy Guide from taking off his head, but in the next moment, he’d felt something skewer through his back, and now —

Now he’s trembling, bleeding on the pavement and debris of the evacuated street, the bookstore completely gone, ripped from the ground and smoke pluming around the space it used to be.

Out of all the ways to spend a weekend, this is truly sucking for him in epic proportions.

He tries for a positive attitude.

I’m totally stabbed, but it missed my lungs, he thinks. At least.

After all, by regular human standards, he’d be dead.

But also — by regular Kryptonian standards, it shouldn’t have left so much as a scrape on his skin.

His inner voice turns sarcastic pretty quickly after that revelation.

I’m SO grateful that I was dumb enough to be hit by a small bomb that I HEARD coming, Kon thinks. I’m literally SO grateful for not realizing the bookstore was RIGHT there when I was looking for civilians. SO grateful for the genius-level intellect Lex claims he gave me. SO GRATEFUL THAT I USED THAT INTELLECT HERE.

Pain ripples from Kon’s chest, from deep inside to outwards, sharp and cold and prickly and heavy. A warm wetness stains his suit, and doesn’t take a lot of calculation to realize what that wetness is, especially when his gloved fingers come away red.

He might be alive and breathing, but he’s still got a one-way ticket to BleedingOutAndDyingsville if his body can’t close up to heal because of the glass that’s still in him.

He goes for an experimental tug on the sides of the broken window.

The pain that follows is the kind of sensation he learns he doesn’t want to be conscious for.

Supes wouldn’t get cut up by ANY projectiles, Kon thinks bitterly, dropping his arms and staring up at the smoke rising from the explosion to the sky. But anything that hits me hard enough is basically Kryptonite. This is so not the bomb. Well, I guess it was — literally — but —

There’s a sudden agonizing throb near his heart. Kon digs his fingernails into the gravel under him as it passes.

It’s bad enough that he’s breakable — just last month, one of his ribs fractured from a hug. (“Me not sorry,” Bizarro had apologized profusely, even after Kon’s full-recovery just a few minutes later.) Healing fast is nice, but he was designed for more.

And worst of all, Superman notices.

Kon doesn’t battle alongside the Kryptonian that often, but when he so much as milks a bruised finger post-battle, Superman’s expression shutters. And every time, Kon’s ears and cheeks burn, accompanied with the oddest sensation of not knowing what to do with his hands or how to stand or… or anything, for a solid five minutes.

It’s a hollow feeling, knowing there’s something not-so-super about him, down to the genetic wiring, and there’s no way to fix it.

At least Lex, you know, yelled at him.

Disappoint me again, boy, and I’m terminating our time together. I’ll move onto the next experiment, and whatever is left of you will go in the hazardous waste bin. Am I making myself clear?

Kon is so glad that Ma and Pa do not own a hazardous waste bin in Kansas.

(He’s checked. They have normal recycling.)

~~~

Twenty minutes later, Kon has made no progress on his impalement situation.

But if there’s a bright side to all this, it might be that currently, Superman is totally preoccupied and not here to see the bloodied mess he’s made of himself on the pavement.

A few streets down, past the blaring sirens of firetrucks, there’s another explosion — taking out another bookstore, presumably. The ground rumbles violently from the aftershocks. At the same time, the evacuation shelters across the city break out with shouts and screams.

A girl wails, “That bookstore had all the Agatha Christie novels, you monster!”

Kon winces as the blood squelches between his back and the ground, still way too chicken to move much. Is he going to die because of the dumbest villain ever?

Suddenly, the guy — the Bookmark or Bookshelf or whatever — stops talking. Which is comes as a relief since it’s been a special kind of torture to listen to his nasally voice while being in an insurmountable amount of pain at the same time. It’s an entirely new form of relief when Kon hears the new voice over the speakers, though.

“That’s quite enough of that.”

A tell-tale shade of red steps into frame on the digital billboard.

Kon’s eyes latch onto Superman’s familiar silhouette on screen. His heart throbs — not for the obvious impalement reasons, but in a strange I miss you way.

Which is dumb.

He was literally having dinner with Clark and the rest of the Kents just an hour ago, laughing and talking.

Or at least, everyone else was laughing and talking. Kon had been in a staring contest with his vegetable pasta so he wouldn’t make eye contact with Clark. He knew the moment he did, he’d get hit with something like how’s it going in Smallville, bud, as if Clark didn’t know exactly how it goes on a farm, and then the rest of the entire Kent family — Ma, Pa, Lois, Jon, and even Krypto — would turn to give Kon their undivided, compassionate attention. And then Kon would have said something incredibly stupid, like how the chair Lois had pulled up for him to make the round table meant for five support six was nice, but everyone’s placemats were overlapping because of him. And it would be so awkward that Kon would die from embarrassment.

That would be the exact order of events.

It’s not lost on Kon that his emotions are like a giant tangled ball of yarn he hasn’t found either of the ends to. He knows he feels something warm and overwhelming when he thinks about Ma, Pa, Jon, Krypto, Lois, and Clark.

But then there are times when he feels… odd. Like a fox, desperately trying to blend in with a pack of golden retrievers.

And he can’t help but lament how it would be so much easier to bask in their attention if he didn’t care what they thought of him. If he didn’t love —

Kon pulls his thoughts back, determined to not get mopey about missing Clark just because he’s been kebab’ed by a window. Getting caught in the middle of a battlefield is what he’s supposed to be good for.

“No!” the Bookend shouts, his face contorting in rage. “Superman, my fight isn’t with you! It’s with fiction — ”

“You can explain your fight to the warden in prison,” comes Superman’s dry reply.

“No! This won’t be the bookend of my reign — !”

The audio and visual feeds die out, and cheers break out across the city.

Kon feels a surge of awe for Superman. (Not too much, though — the man says up, up, and away like it’s a viable battle strategy, and it’s not. It’s a set of vague directions.) Coincidentally, he also feels a surge of vomit rising in his stomach. He has to turn his head to breathe the nausea away through the throbbing of his torso.

He can call Superman now, though. Kon almost reaches for the comm in his ear. But a thought stops him.

He’s going to see how much you’ve bled on the S.

Kon’s heart trembles at the thought of seeing Superman’s shuttered expression.

So he places his hands on either side of the serrated glass in his chest.

And he pulls.

(It’s his worst idea ever, probably.)

~~~

His senses shatter outwards.

Everything bombards him. The deafening tear of his skin against the glass. The stinging smell of fresh blood splattered onto the asphalt below. Groaning from the evacuation shelters of people wanting to go home already. A kettle someone forgot to turn off whistling to a shriek. Someone on a phone call with her lawyer, shouting about supervillain insurance and property damage —

The rain beating down in Smallville right now, hundreds of miles away.

Too much, make it stop, someone make it stop —

The next thing he knows, the glass is out, drenched in dark red as he drops it in favor of clutching at the gaping hole in his body, gasping and trying not to whimper. His fingers twitch involuntarily from the pain or from nerve damage, he isn’t sure. His healing factor is fast, but it hurts so bad — he can’t — he’s definitely going to throw up — he’s —

“— explosives have been deactivated, folks. You can rest easy, thankfully no one’s injured.”

Superman’s voice, a few streets away.

Kon’s breaths come a little easier.

Then the private comm in his ear crackles to life.

“Superboy, I think we’re just about done. Was everything okay on your end?”

Kon anchors himself to that voice, hearing it both in real life and through the comms, using it to fight through the pain. He blinks through tears up at the smoke-filled sky. He needs to fly up there. Meet back up with Superman. Smile, crack a joke, go home, take a shower, and — and be super.

“Come in, Superboy. What’s your status?”

Kon glares at his trembling, bloody hand hovering over his torso until it reaches his ear to respond.

“Just… peachy,” he gets out.

“Glad to hear your voice, kid. You had me worried for a second.”

With great willpower, Kon pushes himself to move.

His torso screams at him.

The world tilts.

He catches himself on someone’s white minivan, leaving a bloody handprint. Oops.

Wavering on his legs, he tries to wipe it off with his sleeve, and smears more of it on the car. Wincing, Kon writes ‘SORRY FOR THE MESS’ with his blood-soaked fingers, since it feels like the polite thing to do. And then he adds a smiley face so it doesn’t look so ominous. By the time he realizes that his message is probably going to single-handedly traumatize the owners of the vehicle, he hears Superman in his ear again.

“Which street are you on?”

“Uh, above Main.” As he pushes himself into the sky, ice settles into his veins.

“On my way.”

Kon hopes his organs don’t fall out as he glides to a stop some hundred feet above Main Street of downtown Metropolis. He really needs like… a hundred band-aids.

Maybe he can use Jon’s Blue’s Clues ones that he spotted in the bathroom?

Oh, god, he can’t look this bloody in front of his baby brother.

He needs a shower.

Showers are nice.

God, his head is spinning.

“Hey, listen,” Superman starts out of nowhere, sounding suddenly nervous. “I— I know this probably hasn’t been the most ideal trip to Metropolis for you.”

“What makes you say that?” Kon asks absently.

Superman laughs.

“Well, for one, we missed dinner. I bet you’re hungry. I’m nearly there, we can head back together. I think we can put on a movie and have dinner on the sofa. Jon’s partial to Scooby-Doo, so I hope that’s alright.”

Kon hums noncommittally. His eyes sting from the smoke as he hovers in the air, so he flies up a few more inches, against every screaming muscle in his chest.

Superman’s still speaking, now more gently, as if there’s something important on the cusp of his words.

“I… I know this conversation can wait until we get home, but… but I’ve been thinking a lot about the family’s living situation.”

“Living situation?”

Before he can turn that over in his spinning mind, Kon’s back in the smoke again. With a wince, he lifts again. When did flying get so hard?

“I mean, Lois and I have both been, for a while now.”

Kon’s heart sinks.

Is… is this his hazardous waste bin speech?

He doesn’t want you anymore, that awful voice inside of him says.

The breeze bites at Kon’s skin. He blinks, trying to fight back tears. He’s suspected it was coming — only a matter of time before Superman realized he isn’t strong enough to be Superboy or worthy enough of the name Kon-El — but he didn’t expect it to sting as much as it does.

Everything Superman says after that stops making sense, splintering away as Kon tucks into himself, hurting and sore and heartbroken.

“We’ve been apartment hunting — well, I guess you don’t need to worry about that right now. I’m not — it’s no pressure. Because I know you love the countryside. But also, if you ever feel — well, it makes sense to both of us, but obviously your thoughts matter too — about — SUPERBOY!”

Kon’s kind of funneling through all the levels of misery right now, so he barely notices how that’s a weird way to end a sentence. Or how the wind has gotten harsher all of a sudden, chills running through him. A V-formation of geese honk noisily as they pass him.

You’re falling, idiot, the leader goose seems to squawk down at him.

Ugh, BITE me, bird-brain. Maybe you’re flying UP, Kon snarks back in his head. Then he looks down. Oh.

He tries to right himself and come out of freefall, because he doesn’t plummet, thanks — but to no avail. The tops of Metropolis’s skyscrapers suddenly come into view above him.

A second later, warm arms catch him.

The wind stops battering Kon at all angles, and his head nestles into a broad pectoral, bright red and yellow and blue. A cape whips in the air as they lift into the sky again.

“I got you.” It’s Superman, not speaking in his ear anymore, holding Kon with utmost care, an arm hooked under his knees and the other arm around his upper body. His voice is steely. “I got you, but why on earth would you drop out of the sky like that?”

Kon squints up at him, head spinning.

“I think I can speak to geese,” he slurs.

“What? Superboy, are you — ”

Superman breaks off, complexion turning ash gray as he comes to a complete stop mid-flight. Kon follows his gaze downwards to his gash, oozing dark red all over, dripping from his chest to his neck to his fingers. There’s no two ways about it. This much of his insides outside looks… majorly bad.

“Hm. Forgot about that,” Kon mumbles drowsily.

“Superboy.” Superman’s voice is dangerously low. “Who did this.”

“Um… pane?”

Superman’s grip tightens. “I know, and we’ll get you the pain meds, but if someone hurt you, you need to tell me — ”

“No… window pane.”

“What?”

Something is slamming rapidly by Kon’s ear, and it takes a second for him to realize it’s Superman’s heart. Kon curls into the older man like he belongs there, wishing he did, wishing he could just be good enough to deserve everything Superman’s given him. A lump forms in his throat.

“I need you to keep your eyes open.” Kon doesn’t remember closing them. “That’s — that’s an order, Superboy. K-Kon. Look at me. Kon?”

Kon tries to, but can’t. He can barely stay conscious, his thoughts wispy, disconnected things, unable to fathom why he feels homesick for a place he’s unworthy of. Hot tears roll down his cheeks, meeting the battering wind. Huh. Did they start flying again?

“It’s — it’s going to be okay. Just let me see those eyes, sweetheart.” Superman’s voice has gotten incredibly soft, the way he does when he’s speaking to Lois or Jon, and Kon wants to cry a little.

“They’re… not blue,” Kon mumbles, not even sure what he’s saying it for. “Not… like yours.”

Superman makes a noise in the back of his throat, like he’s in pain. “That’s — that’s perfectly okay. Nothing wrong about that.”

“Don’… don’t wanna go back to Lex.”

Something wet and heavy fills his throat, and he coughs, hacking out the taste of iron. When he opens his eyes, through hazy vision, he sees the S on Superman’s chest is flecked with his blood.

He can’t even apologize as he chokes, gasping for air.

“No, no, no — ” Superman’s voice is frantic. “It’s okay, Kon. Just — just hang on. We’re almost there.”

The world gets icier, and Kon can’t fight it. Someone calls his name. Darkness envelopes him.

He’ll heal. His body is good at that.

It’s supposed to be, at least.

Chapter Text

Kon finds himself in a murky, dreamless void.

He can’t pull himself out. He’s not sure which direction to go.

And it’s cold.

It’s as if his very core has frosted over.

Something buttery and warm begins to work its way into the edges of him, pulsing feeling back into his fingers.

Sunlight, Kon realizes.

Someone’s large, warm hand is placed over his, resting on his abdomen. Something beeps in the background keeping in time with his heart, and the scent of antiseptic hangs in the air. Something whirs, distantly, and he hears clinking against a plate, like tiny glass shards on steel. A soft pain begins to ripple through him.

A phone sounds softly with an incoming text. And then a few more. Then someone’s tapping out a reply — but the hand on his doesn’t leave.

Weakly, Kon manages to curl his fingers around the thumb of the bigger hand. He grips it desperately, terrified of the now returning pain, but his muscles are slow and stiff and it would only take a gentle pull to be rid of him.

“Kon?” comes Clark’s voice, alarmed and scratchy from nearby. “No, he shouldn’t be — he’s burning through the anesthesia too fast — ”

The hand begins to slip away from Kon’s, and an overwhelming fear crumples his heart like paper.

Don’t go, Kon thinks. Don’t leave me.

But he must have mumbled it out loud, as it startles a broken gasp from the other man.

There’s something cold in his veins now, for the stubborn burn of the pain. Distantly, he feels a tear rolling down his face, behind eyelids too heavy to lift. There’s a tender brush against his cheek, and a pair of lips press against his forehead.

Something is said to him in a soft voice, but he doesn’t hear, slipping mercifully back into the void, a respite from feeling anything any longer.

~~~

Not that he wakes up in the Fortress of Solitude post-battle very often, but Kon’s grown accustomed to having a direct view of armpit whenever he does. That is, the massive Jor-El statue’s armpit, the one that holds up Krypton with his wife and looms above the medbay.

But this time, when Kon wakes up in Superman’s safe haven — the pale, ice-like walls of Kryptonian crystal unmistakable — he’s in a bedroom, cushioned in a large, soft pale blue bed.

And instead of an armpit, there are diamonds above him.

Kon waits a moment for his vision to sharpen. Turning his head against the pillow, he sees that beyond a tablet-sized holoscreen with scrolling Kryptonian by the bed, the rest of the room is just as nice as the crystal chandelier above him. An ornate dresser with a large mirror spanning its width sits across the room, with framed pictures and a decorative vase with a stunningly pretty plant Kon’s never seen before decorating the dresser’s surface. Off to the side, through the open balcony doors that look inward within the fortress, he can see the side profile of the massive Lara statue, the swell of her smiling cheek.

He’s in one of the main bedrooms of the Fortress, then, he realizes in awe. Why, though? He’s never been up here before. It’s… it’s private, for Superman. Not for him.

Gingerly, he pushes himself to sit up, expecting a fight from his body — but there’s no pain. Looking down at his chest, he sees that he’s not wearing anything except his briefs, and a small, crystal-like adhesive patch on his unmarred, not bloody, healed-up-all-the-way skin.

Rad. Impalement, zero, Kon, one.

But where are his pants?

Curious, he peels the adhesive patch off his chest, but there’s no injury beneath it.

Huh.

As his grogginess fades, the realization dawns on him that Superman must have brought him here. That Superman saw him, broken and bleeding. Holy crap. Did Superman really have to catch him because he couldn’t fly? Kon looks at his clean fingers, realizing that Superman must have wiped the blood off of him.

Oh, hell, no.

He cringes, burying half his face into his palm, horrified at the images that pop into his head of Superman dragging his crusty body into the sparkling Fortress and having to clean him up, with like, a wet towel or something. What must have gone through his mind while wiping the dried blood off his skin?

Then he spots the figure looming in the bedroom doorway, staring directly at him.

Kon shrieks.

“What the — knock much, dude?”

The Eradicator doesn’t look the least bit apologetic.

But then again, the guy wasn’t really programmed to be.

While technically a person-shaped “artifact” from Krypton, to Kon the Eradicator is just Krypton’s creepiest invention with the personality of a paper towel and the functionality of being a massive pain in the rear. When they’d first met, the Eradicator had pummeled Kon into the earth at his own press conference all because he found it logical.

They are on slightly less murderous terms now.

“What are you doing here, anyway?” Kon asks, eying the hard light construct with suspicion. “I mean — I know you kind of live here — so to speak — ”

The Eradicator’s voice is as dry as always. “You disconnected the post-op biometric monitor. It was uncertain whether you were alive or not from my post at the center console.”

The holoscreen, Kon notices then, has changed. Instead of the scrolling words across it, now a large warning in red has appeared. And Kon might not know a lick of Kryptonian, but he’s sure it says something like: KON-EL — VITALS OFFLINE — POSSIBLE CAUSE: SUBJECT TOTALLY DEAD.

Something that the Eradicator said nudges Kon’s brain.

“Wait. Post-op? I needed surgery?”

“Due to the glass debris embedded deep within your ribcage, your body’s attempts to heal itself last evening were thoroughly unsuccessful.”

Oh. No wonder he’d kept bleeding, like, all over the place. Gross.

“Well, uh… thanks, I guess,” Kon says, thumbing the edge of the duvet over his legs. “For saving me.”

“Do not mistake my service for compassion,” the program says. “I was simply following the last son of Krypton’s request to ensure your survival.”

Then the Eradicator moves forward, raising a hand towards him. Kon flinches, but there’s no energy blast knocking him to the opposite pole. Instead, he feels the cool press of the biometric patch being reattached to his chest.

The hard light construct pulls away, all business as he returns to the holoscreen.

“Rest assured,” the Eradicator adds flatly, “I had no personal investment to save a blight on the legacy of Krypton.”

It’s not said as an insult but as a cold, objective fact. Kon drops his gaze. Pinches the duvet between his fingers, feeling warm and cold at the same time. There’s a speckle of sunlight on his hand, he notices, and when he lifts his head up to the chandelier, that’s when he sees that it’s coming from some window throughout the fortress, reflecting and refracting throughout the room. Did Superman put him in this room because it gets more sunlight?

Kon’s heart doubles over, and he wishes, desperately, Lex had made him a bit more like the Eradicator. Stoic and to the point and never feeling desperate for Jon’s tight hugs or craving Ma’s fresh pies or cracking up at Pa’s corny knock-knock jokes. He’d be better off never thinking twice about how the placemat Lois pulls out for him throws off the radial symmetry of the table. Heck, he misses Krypto right now, homesick for the little dog in his arms, his wet nose sniffing his neck with aggressive curiosity and enthusiasm.

Kon rubs the side of his face, realizing how completely whipped he is for the Kent family. Just a smile from any of them means the world to him, and it shouldn’t.

The Eradicator taps a few buttons on the holoscreen until Kon’s vitals are up again.

Suddenly overwhelmed with the urge to be a little shit, Kon peels off the biometric patch once more, disconnecting the data and causing the warning on the holoscreen to reappear, right in the Eradicator’s face.

Kon looks at him with angel-like innocence. “Oops?”

“Clone.”

“No personal investments, huh?” Kon notes innocently, stealing the holoscreen away from the Eradicator. He swipes the display of offline vitals away, searching until he finds the operation details. Everything’s written in Kryptonian, so his eyes latch onto the diagrams and charts speckled in the report. “I dunno, Eradicator, performing a thoracotomy on me is kind of sweet of you.”

The Eradicator stares at him with the driest expression ever.

“Your statement is illogical.”

Chipper, Kon sing-songs, “Keep telling yourself that.”

“Enough,” the Eradicator orders, picking up and pressing the biometric patch on Kon’s chest. “Your juvenile attempts to provoke me will not work.”

Kon’s pretty sure the Eradicator isn’t allowed to kill him, which causes a surge of delightful mischief within him. His laugh dies out when a more graphic image appears on his next swipe.

“Uh, ew? Is that my bone?” he asks, gagging. “Tell me Superman paid you, dude.”

The Eradicator’s hand comes out to push Kon’s head against the pillows, gracefully re-obtaining the holoscreen, but says nothing.

Kon makes a face, lifting up on his elbows. “So no?”

“I honor Kal-El’s wishes, as he is the last son of Krypton.”

“Gosh, Eradicator,” Kon says in a dramatic hush. In an act of immaturity, he peels off the biometric patch again, rendering the vitals unreadable. “Have you ever considered leaving some of Kal-El’s butt for the rest of us to kiss?”

For a fascinating split second, Kon thinks he sees one of the Eradicator’s eyes twitch.

The ajar balcony doors burst wide open at that moment so loudly Kon jumps. But it’s Superman, in a flurry, hair messy and shadows under his eyes, in a clean but rumpled plaid shirt and cargo shorts and his glasses nowhere to be seen. Nothing like the Superman Kon had seen on the digital billboards for all of downtown Metropolis.

“Eradicator!” Superman demands, eyes wide and blazing. “Why did Superboy’s vitals go down? Is he — ”

He breaks off, hovering there in the balcony doorway, staring at Kon. Kon stares back, taken aback by the sheer lack of the usual perfection the Kryptonian wears. He doesn’t get a word out before Superman’s feet make contact with the floor in a stumble to get to his bedside, a hand immediately there in his hair to cup the back of his head, and the touch is so soft and so different from the sensation of having glass in him that Kon’s eyes begin to water.

Superman’s eyes flash in attention to that, so Kon bites his tongue to prevent himself from blubbering like a fool.

“Let me see you,” Superman orders, then murmurs as he turns Kon’s head this way and that. “Pupils — pulse — blood pressure… normal. Okay. Okay, good. That’s… that’s good.”

Superman lets out a shaky sigh, staring at him with equal parts relief and desperation as he pulls away. His gaze lingers over his chest for a purposeful moment, probably scanning his bones with his x-ray vision, but it’s still bare. Kon flushes, feeling the weight of shame from all his failures in the past twenty-four hours that have rendered him almost naked. Again, where are his pants.

“I will take my leave,” the Eradicator announces curtly.

“Thank you, Eradicator,” Superman says distractedly.

“Gratitude is not necessary. But please ensure that your halfling replica departs as soon as possible.”

The Eradicator departs, but Superman stares after him with a growing frown. Kon rolls his eyes.

“He totally has a loose wire up his — uh.” Catching the eye of the man who is the personification of clean language, Kon presses his lips together sheepishly. “Sorry.”

To his surprise, Superman doesn’t chide him. Instead, the man reaches over to push a stray curl out of Kon’s eyes. “It’s good to have you back, bub.”

Bub?

Kon blinks very slowly. That’s what Clark calls Jon. The initial stab of confusion is replaced with a growing concern that Clark might have hit his head or something — because Kon knows better than to assume Superman meant to say it to him, a full-grown teenager who isn’t the same as his five-year-old child.

“Did — did you get any sleep?” Kon asks, noting the dark circles under Clark’s eyes.

Clark chokes on a weak, surprised laugh, a wrinkle forming between his brows and an expression that looks as if he’s just swallowed a bunch of Kryptonite. “Kon. You nearly died last night, and you’re worried about me?”

Died?

Kon sits up straighter.

“It wasn’t that close, was it?” he asks.

“With all the broken glass so close to your heart, you were losing blood faster than you were healing,” Clark says stiffly. “And — and the anesthesia wasn’t strong enough to keep you under, do you remember that?”

“N-no. I kept waking up?”

“Just a little. I kept giving you more, but it wasn’t — you were stirring awake, just enough for it to have — it must have hurt.” Clark pauses, and with some feeling, adds, “You were brave.”

Brave isn’t the word Kon would use, but he keeps that to himself.

“Well… thank you for saving me,” Kon says, remembering his manners.

But he might as well have slapped Clark, from the look that crosses the Kryptonian’s face. Kon cringes at himself. Because, hello, he’s not supposed to be thanking Clark, he’s supposed to be apologizing.

Because he shouldn’t have been in a position where he needed saving in the first place.

Wordlessly, Clark reattaches the biometric patch to Kon’s chest, pressing in the edges before pulling the holoscreen over, expanding it so that it hovers between the two of them like a translucent wall of glowing cyan letters and symbols.

“It won’t happen again,” Kon blurts into the silence, feeling a horrible blush start to spread from his cheeks to his neck. “I — I got too close to the building, and that’s how the whole — the whole window thing happened.”

“I know,” Clark says quietly as he scans over the Kryptonian words with ease. “I saw the CCTV footage.”

Kon lifts his head sharply. “Footage?”

“From a nearby parking garage. I saw you pull that piece of glass out of your chest, Kon.” The man busies his hands with the holoscreen, looking over vitals, but there’s a raw distress in his eyes, with an intensity that Kon’s not familiar with. “I saw it all.”

Kon feels his stomach drop out of him.

So not only did he embarrass himself by falling out of the sky, there’s tangible evidence of his screw-up? Footage that Superman can watch over and over again until all his respect for Kon leaves?

Kon can already feel the slew of consequences he’ll have to face. The things he doesn’t deserve finally being taken away from him, because Superman came to his senses.

No more Superboy, and having Tim, Bart, and Cassie see him as a real person, instead of a distorted copy.

No more Conner Kent and Smallville High and feeling the sun on his skin and winning over the chickens so they’ll let him collect their eggs on chilly mornings.

No more Kon-El, because now that Superman has footage of Kon absolutely wiping out, it’s a no-brainer that he’s not worthy of a Kryptonian name.

“Okay, w-wait, Superman,” Kon says in a rush. “I know how it looks, but — but I promise, I — I don’t break easy, Supes. Not normally. Please don’t,” — his voice starts to crack, which he kind of hopes is a sign of sudden Kryptonian puberty instead of the very real possibility that he’s about to cry — “fire me over this.”

“Fire you?” Superman’s fingers stop fluttering over the holoscreen, fixing Kon with a befuddled look. “I wasn’t going to… alright, look. Yes, you should have called for me when you got hurt. I really hate that you didn’t tell me, Kon.”

“I’m sorry, I just — I thought I could handle it.”

Clark’s voice has sharpened, which means there’s no arguing. “There are things that you handle on your own, but then there are some things you just don’t. You call in for help.”

Okay. Fine. Makes sense.

“It was foolhardy, to go through all of that alone.”

Right, so maybe Kon deserves that.

“I never want you to do that to yourself again, Kon, am I making myself clear?”

Kon nods, feeling layers of misery start to weigh on him. He’d been stupid. Clark’s shoulders sink in relief.

“Good,” he says. “Oh, and you’re not fired.”

Kon slowly lifts his head, relieved, but also confused. Is there a worse type of demotion in his future? He rubs his arms, feeling goosebumps under his fingertips. Is he going to get kicked out into outer space? He’s not sure he can breathe there. And there’s definitely none of Ma’s hot glazed cake donuts, which has been his most recent obsession —

A fierce shudder rolls through Kon.

Clark perks up, gestures the holoscreen away — sending the thing to the far wall — and crosses the room to the dresser with a clumsy sort of speed. A moment later he’s holding a folded dark red sweatshirt and matching sweatpants out for Kon.

“I’ve got the Kryptonian synthesizer working on a new suit, since I had to cut yours off of your body,” he says, rubbing the back of his neck. “This might help in the meantime.”

Of course. Even as Clark’s demoting him, he can’t help but care enough to give him sun and warm clothes. He’s nice. Nice to Kon, who doesn’t deserve it. Kon graciously pulls on the sweatshirt, reveling in its softness as he pulls the sleeves over his palms in appreciation. Only when it’s on does he realize it has the Daily Planet’s logo on the front.

“I thought you and Lois might be the same size,” Clark says with a note of satisfaction in his voice. “She has a few of her things here.”

“Wait, this is hers — ?”

“She won’t mind,” Clark says, practically reading his mind.

“Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

Something warm and embarrassing happens in his stomach, so Kon shoves that feeling into a metaphysical closet, and instead focuses on the practical thing, like when Clark will give him the actual news of his fate now. Will he yell? Or worse — in that gentle father-like way of his, tell him that Kon has to give up Kon and Superboy, because he’s failing at both. Is the sweatshirt a test? Kon feels instantly warmer in it and really doesn’t want to take it off.

“Just don’t do that again to me, Kon,” Clark says solemnly. “You’re such a sweet kid, and I almost… I almost lost you.”

The admission feels like something’s snapped in the room. All pretense, all beating around the bush is gone. Kon nods carefully. Then he waits for the shoe to drop. For the scolding to come. The rebuke, the rejection, the stripping of Superboy’s title from him.

But Clark leans over and… and ruffles his hair.

“Alright. Well, if you’re feeling up for it, I can whip up some breakfast for you. What do you say?”

And… that’s it?

Dread sweeps through Kon. He waits for something else, for a follow-up that breakfast means something else. But he is hungry, and when his stomach twists with a sharp pang, he grimaces, a hand coming up to his midsection.

“What’s wrong? What hurts?” Clark demands, leaning forward.

“Nothing,” Kon bursts out, the shame burning his face mixing with a flood of irritation. He’s fragile in Clark’s eyes, and maybe he can’t complain about that, but how long is Clark going to string Kon along? When is he going to kick Kon out of this really nice bedroom? “I’m not helpless.”

Clark pulls back, relieved but surprised. “I never said you were.”

“But you think it, all the time,” Kon mutters, pushing the blankets off his legs as he gets out of bed.

He can’t keep sitting here. He needs to get out. He needs to escape his own head, which has started to buzz in annoyance. His legs waver as he leans against one of the bedposts, and realizes he never put on Lois’s sweatpants. He reaches for them.

Clark’s watching him with a frown now.

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Never mind.” Kon lifts his leg to get into the sweatpants, but his balance is off — understandably so, from all the blood he’s still regenerating.

He stumbles, only for Clark to move faster. Kon loses his grip on the sweatpants but is saved from falling to the floor by face-planting into Clark’s chest.

“Kon, I don’t think you’re helpless,” Clark says. After a beat, he adds gently, “Do you need help with your pants?”

Okay, so clearly Kon has lost the fight against the universe for some preservation of his dignity.

He wants to say no, but his legs are cold and he has the stability of an overcooked noodle. So he just mumbles his acquiescence into Clark’s very firm pectorals. A totally normal way to have a conversation with someone.

Clark bends down, working each of Kon’s bare feet through the leg holes. Kon leans on Clark’s shoulders for balance as the other man slides the waistband up his legs. Kon doesn’t flinch at all — something that dawns on him as odd, given that he used to hate it when the CADMUS scientists touched him.

“I don’t want to see you get hurt, is all,” Clark says softly, tying the drawstrings together. “Is that such a bad thing?”

“Kinda,” grumbles Kon, swaying a little without realizing until Clark’s hands grab his waist to steady him. Man, he’s still really off his game from the blood loss. His mouth just sort of moves without permission as he adds, “Since I care about what you think of me.”

Silence.

Clark’s hands still.

Kon steps away shakily, face burning. He hadn’t meant to say that. Why did he say that? Now he can’t meet Clark’s eyes. But the words begin to tumble out, much to his horror.

“I… I know I’m mega disappointing, okay? I can’t do everything you can. And when I totally whiff it in battle, you just stare, and I know that you’re thinking that I’m not as strong as you. But you just… you never say anything. You — it — it doesn’t make sense. When I mess up, you’re — you’re supposed to like, give me an ultimatum, or, like, not talk to me for a week, or… or let the scientists have a field day with my bone marrow or whatever they get excited about. But you’re nice to me. And I can’t tell if you’ve given up on me yet, because — when Lex — it was — he was — he gave up, because I — ”

Kon feels a lump growing in his throat, and as much as he wants to swallow it away, it won’t go.

“Why aren’t you punishing me?” he asks tiredly.

Clark’s staring at him in open-mouthed horror.

“Oh, Kon.”

The hero of Metropolis is shaking his head vehemently, his eyes searching Kon’s face, as if suddenly seeing something there that he hadn’t before — which is ironic, considering how unreadable Superman has seemed to Kon.

“You’re not a disappointment. Kon, I would never punish you for something you have no control over. But I never want you to feel ignored. Do you want me and Lois to… to ground you? Would that make it better?” Clark asks carefully, his eyes wide and desperate and — oh, no. Is that a tear? Kon feels like a massive shit for making Superman cry. “Kon, you’re perfect. I wouldn’t change anything about you. Even the way you came to me — I… I’ll admit, it wasn’t ideal, but you’re — you’re mine, okay? I’m not running some kind of tally in my head against what you can and can’t do, or thinking about getting rid of you whenever something happens. God, no.”

The sweet words fall over his stinging heart like a balm, but Kon shakes his head, unwilling to believe it.

“But Lex always said — ”

“Lex is an idiot, sweetheart. And I am going to have a word with him next time I see him,” Clark adds darkly — in a way that makes Kon suspect there will be less words and more fists. “And you’re never going back to him. Not under my watch.”

And Kon… believes him.

The Man of Steel’s gaze turns soft again as he looks back at Kon, soft and raw and open for the first time in ages — or maybe it’s Kon who’s seeing him for the first time. Just how long had he been construing ever emotion Superman had towards him as disapproval?

When Clark reaches for Kon, he steps in closer, resting his head in the open palm.

“I don’t mean to make you self-conscious, Kon,” he says. “If I’m breathing down your back too much, I’ll ease up, but — I guess I just worry. You’re not my clone, or my soldier, or even whatever the Eradicator called you.”

“Halfling replica?”

“He can’t talk to you like that,” Clark says fiercely. “I’m going to have a word with him, too — but the point is, you’re not temporary. You’re my kid. Even if you mess up, you’re still my kid, sweetheart. You don’t ever have to question that.”

His kid.

Shocked, it takes Kon a minute to unstick his tongue from his mouth.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, oh.” Clark snorts. After a long moment, his fingers gently scrunch the back of Kon’s head. It’s a tender motion Kon’s seen him do for Jon more than a few times. He feels his heart leap in a massively stupid way.

It’s not going to last, a mean voice from the back of Kon’s mind tells him. He’ll tire of you. And Ma and Pa won’t keep you around if Clark doesn’t tell them to — they’ll kick you off the farm one day —

Kon uses all his accrued wisdom and maturity to think of an adequate response to that inner voice and comes up with, shut up.

Because in this moment, his fears are a little bit smaller.

Closing his eyes, he wraps his arms around Clark’s sturdy frame, burying his face into the other man’s bicep.

“Thanks for your help with the pants,” he mutters.

It’s not just the sweatpants, obviously, but there’s a kiss pressed to his forehead.

“Anytime, bub.”

~~~

They head back home together — Kon in Superman’s arms because the latter refuses to let him fly even though Kon’s feeling much better — and when they get back to the apartment in Metropolis, Jon squeals and runs to Kon, Krypto at his heels, to give him a big hug. And as Kon squeezes him back, burying his nose into Jon’s bat-themed pajama onesie, Lois’s hand is on the back of his head, Ma and Pa are crowding in, and Clark’s somewhere behind him.

Kon can’t help but laugh.

He’ll be okay.

His heart’s made of steel, after all.