Chapter Text
The farmhouse is full of photographs.
Pictures crowd up the walls and countertops, filling the mantelpiece and the bookshelves. They eke out homes for themselves in warm nooks and cozy crannies, stealing whatever free space can be found.
Ma has spent years creating such a collection, finding frames at yard-sales and painstakingly putting together scrapbooks, turning what would otherwise be mere memories into something more tangible.
Conner has studied every photo.
There are many of Clark, of course, with his dark hair and soft curls that never quite reach the length to frame his face. There are dimples in every shy smile he gives, and his striking blue eyes remind Conner of a cloudless sky when they catch the sun.
He can see the faintest outline of himself in the man, but he’s come to the conclusion that they’re not really all that alike. There’s a difference, he’s decided, between a resemblance and a similarity — and he doesn’t quite know what to feel about that.
There are fewer pictures of Conner in the house.
A couple in the kitchen — one by the two-way, the other, unframed, on the fridge. There’s another in Pa’s wallet, a crumpled up old thing from when Conner first came to live at the farm. The biggest is the ebony-framed picture on the mantel above the fire, hidden slightly behind Clark at his first baseball tournament.
It doesn’t upset him how few Conner’s found himself in — he’s not very photogenic.
He’s ungracefully tall, lacking the muscle-mass that makes Clark look larger than life, his eyes a dull shade of gray that bring to mind dreary, overcast days. And in all the photographs Ma and Pa have taken over the years, Conner’s not smiling in one of them. He thinks Ma probably tried to get him to smile once or twice, but the expression never did stick. Just slid off his face like mud.
He looks like a POW coming home for the first time, twitchy and ready to duck for cover.
Conner thinks he should try to smile more. Maybe Clark would like him better.
“... Conner?”
Clark is looking down at him now, with that shy smile he’s come to know from the photographs throughout the farmhouse.
It doesn’t feel real, though. Not until a broad hand lands on his shoulder.
Clark jerks his hand away when Conner flinches reflexively; his stomach giving a guilty swoop.
The faint touch yanks him back into the present.
“ — here we are,” Lois says brightly, unaware. She tosses an easy grin over her shoulder and fumbles with her door key.
The stuttering panic between his ribs is swiftly and deliberately smothered as he offers up what he hopes is an approximation of a smile, glancing between Lois and Clark nervously.
Clark’s wounded gaze briefly catches his own, but it’s quickly buried for Conner’s sake. Which doesn’t help, it just makes him feel worse. A half-formed apology dries up in his mouth as he takes in the unhappy curve to Clark’s lips.
The ‘sorry’ stuck to his tongue doesn’t feel like enough.
He’s quick to turn back to the apartment door before the weight of failure can find him, but he’s all-too aware of Clark’s gaze on the back of his head.
With practiced ease, Lois unlocks the door with her key and then flips the keychain back into the palm of her hand, fingers closing around it with a metallic snap.
Jon bounces on the balls of his feet, glancing between Conner and his mom, uncontained glee in his pint-sized frame. He’s fourteen, but sometimes he looks so much younger.
“Home sweet home,” Lois says, ruffling Jon’s already tousled locks as she pushes the door open to let them all in. “Come on in.”
Jon kicks off his shoes the moment the door is open, hurriedly padding down the long hall with Lois on his heels.
Hiking the duffle-bag slung over his shoulder a little higher, Conner steps across the entryway and tries his best not to look or feel too entirely out of place.
He’s not an interloper, he tells himself weakly, he was invited.
Toeing off his shoes, he finds he doesn’t really know where to put them once they’re in hand; the Kent-Lane family’s shoes are sprawled throughout the entryway. In the end, he resorts to neatening up a pair of Clark’s dress-shoes to make room for his converse.
Last inside the apartment, Clark closes the door with a resounding ker-clunk behind him and Conner carefully swallows down the trapped feeling crawling its way up his throat.
He most certainly doesn’t jump when Clark brushes past him, just fractionally too forceful in the tight space — and he doesn’t feel bad when Clark sees him recoil too fast and winces in return, forehead creasing as Conner plasters himself against the wall for a minute, aiming to make it look natural.
He takes up too much space here already.
Conner’s not entirely convinced this whole experience isn’t a fucked-up nightmare. That when Jon suggested a sleepover — of all things — Clark would be strangely agreeable and say yes.
A sleepover. With Conner. In their apartment in Metropolis.
Over his square-rimmed glasses, Clark glances up at him as he pulls off his own shoes. Bits of mud from the farm flake off onto the doormat, but the man doesn’t seem to notice. Nothing comes out of his mouth, even though it opens and closes several times like he’s trying to find the right words.
He knows this is awkward for Clark.
It’s awkward for them both.
With a nervous re-adjustment of his bag, Conner steps out of the doorway and shuffles after Lois in just his patchwork, pin-striped socks, before Clark can finally settle on something to say. Heaven forbid they start talking about their feelings now.
They were gonna start slow. Warm up to each other. Maybe go apple-picking in the summer. A movie, a restaurant, bowling, or something.
But a sleepover, really? That wasn’t going slow.
Conner just hadn’t had the heart to tell Jon no after Clark had already said yes. So he agreed to go. And —
— and it’s a little late to start regretting poor decisions now.
The narrow hall he walks down meets a wide, well-lit living space.
There’s a lounge, currently occupied by a pull-out made into a bed. Also, a TV on the wall, and a few bookcases and a filing cabinet.
On the furthest side of the room Conner finds big windows facing east, overlooking the city. It means he’ll wake up to the sun warming his skin, but that’s fine by him. He’s used to getting up at dawn, living on the farm and all that.
On the right side of the room he can see the shape of the kitchen, a combined dining space with a small table. Loose papers in haphazard piles decorate the counter-tops and there’s a fruit bowl with an assortment of oranges and grapefruits.
“You can put your bags down here, sweetie.”
Lois gestures to the big couch-turned-bed in the middle of the room with one hand while fiddling with the AC with the other.
“Would you like a drink? Hot cocoa? Tea, coffee—” she squints at him— “does Ma let you have coffee?”
“Um, hot cocoa is fine,” he says softly as he drops his bag at the foot of the bed and surveys the space. “Thank you, Ms. Lane.”
“I’ve told you,” she rolls her eyes playfully. “It’s just Lois. None of this ‘Miss Lane’ stuff, you sound too much like Clark when I first met him.”
Conner feels a heat crawl up his ears.
“Yes, well,” Clark coughs behind his hand, sending Conner an embarrassed smile. “Ma raises polite men out Smallville way.”
The sentiment appears both amusing and charming to Lois, if the peck to Clark’s cheek as she passes on her way toward the kitchen means anything.
Conner drops his gaze to the floor, then internally berates himself for it. He should have smiled back or — or something.
God, he doesn’t know what he’s doing.
He feels terrible that Clark is so clearly trying and that he’s stuck going round and round in circles, wrestling with his wants and fears. It’s painfully apparent that Clark wants a fresh start with Conner — and Conner wants that too! It’s just that one of them seems to be finding it more actionable than the other.
Every word that comes out of Conner’s mouth is met with a smile, a nod, an agreeable word. It leaves him feeling unmoored. He doesn’t know where the boundaries are, what’s going to make Superman snap. It’s a little terrifying. He’s so scared he’s going to screw it all up, step over a line somewhere that there’s no coming back from.
Conner almost preferred it when he knew for sure Clark would get angry. At least then he knew what the consequences would be.
He resents the kindness and patience and all the fucking smiling.
Clark just seems so determined to put the past behind them, but he’s running a marathon and Conner can’t keep up.
Now, with all the — the shy, awkward glances and the painfully earnest attempts at trying not to spook him.
Conner doesn’t know what to think.
Or feel.
All he knows is that what he is feeling isn’t it.
If he keeps flinching and deflecting and recoiling, Clark’s gonna start believing Conner doesn’t want him around anymore. Which is the last thing he wants.
He does want to know more about Clark Kent, he’d said as much to the man’s face that day they’d spent too long staring out at the corn on the porch having a heart-to-heart that Conner’s still not sure he’s entirely made sense of.
He wants to know what it means to be Kryptonian. And he wants to belong.
“Right then,” Lois says, leaning against the bench and looking at Clark and Jon expectantly. “Why don’t you boys give Conner the apartment tour while I make drinks?”
Clark straightens.
“The tour,” he blurts. “Right, the tour.”
Jon’s by his side without warning, tugging Conner toward his room and Clark dutifully follows behind.
Jon’s room, recently renovated, is frankly, adorable. And it suits him. The red and blue color scheme is a little on the nose, Conner thinks, but who is he to judge. There are lots of toys and books, along with a gaming system and a TV to boot.
It’s not a room that could be easily cleaned out in a day, unlike Conner’s.
Conner’s room back on the farm isn’t really his at all, even if he’s added a few personal details to it in the last few years. It belonged to Clark once, still does really — “you can stay in Clark’s room,” were Ma’s words exactly, when he’d first shown up. There are a few holes in the wall detailing Clark’s teen years, and Conner occasionally finds old letters from someone called Lana about the place, but he puts those right back where he finds them.
Still, there’s nothing in his room that can’t be quickly cleaned out if Clark decides he wants it back for any reason. Not that Clark wants it back, of course, thankfully. He’s a grown man with a wife and child, why would he want his childhood bedroom back?
But still. It’s — it’s there if he wants it. Titan’s tower always has a bunk free for Conner, if need be.
In contrast, Jon’s room is all Jon. And it’s adorable. The kid clearly has a lego hoarding problem, though, if the shelves and shelves and shelves full of meticulously built creations are any indication.
Duly, Conner follows Jon and Clark around the apartment, nodding at the appropriate times and watching carefully as he is shown how various items are turned on and off.
By the time they start wrapping up the tour, Clark looks marginally more relaxed.
Conner can’t exactly say he feels the same.
The phone in his pocket buzzes. He smiles when he pulls it out, Ma’s name flashing up on screen.
“Just Ma,” he says when he sees Lois looking, setting steaming mugs down on various coasters at the table. “Letting her know we arrived.”
Clark slides into the seat beside him, reaching for a freshly brewed mug of coffee. Conner tries not to stiffen.
“How is everything going up on the farm?” the man beside him starts innocuously, wrapping his fingers around the mug handle. “Pa says you helped him get the old tractor up and running again?”
Licking his lips, Conner reaches for his own mug of hot cocoa and nods.
“Yeah, we, uh, I just did what Pa told me.” He stares down at the dark liquid in his cup. His cheeks feel hot. He didn’t know Pa talked to Clark about him.
“Still,” says Lois encouragingly, a little chuckle escaping. “That’s more than I could do, I’m sure. I wouldn’t know the front from the back end of a tractor.”
He frowns. She’s just being nice to him, that’s all. She doesn’t really mean that.
“You like fixing things, Conner?” Clark asks.
They’re talking to him all careful-like. Cautious, like he’ll bolt if given the opportunity.
He shrugs. “I guess. Like working with my hands.”
Jon kneels on his seat, grinning with hot cocoa cream bits around the corners of his mouth. “You wanna help me build my Lego train later?” he asks. At least Jon’s acting normal.
He reaches over and ruffles the kids hair with a huff, feeling his shoulders fractionally unwind.
“Sure, kid,” he says.
Clark watches the whole interaction, but Conner can’t read the look on his face. Carefully, he withdraws his hand and swallows down an irrational apology.
“So, Clark and I were thinking of a movie today,” Lois says, blowing the steam off her coffee. “There’s a new action flick showing at Wireless City, how’d you boys like to go?”
“Yes!” Jon hisses with a little fist pump, rounding on Conner excitedly. “Arizona Smith and The Temple of Agony, here we come!”
He raises an eyebrow. He thinks he’s heard Bart mention that name before, but— “Arizona Smith?”
Jon gasps as though Conner has mortally wounded him.
“You don’t know about Arizona Smith? Marauders of the Covenant? The Final Campaign?”
Slowly, he shakes his head.
“Go easy on him, Jon,” Clark chuckles, startling Conner a little. “The movie theater in Smallville only shows on a Sunday.”
He turns around, wide-eyed. Clark looks back.
“There’s a movie theater in Smallville?” Conner asks, wondering where on earth the tiny town has been hiding this revelation from him.
Clark frowns. “The Talon? Nell Potter’s place?”
“Clark, honey,” says Lois, stretching out a hand. “The Talon was turned into a coffee shop ten years ago.”
“Oh, that place,” Conner adds, deflating. He tries to bring the shape of it to mind. “I think that closed down two or three years back.”
Clark makes a winded noise, like Conner just shot him through the back.
“Oh,” he sighs, head slightly bowed as his eyes drop to the table. And one-handedly pushes his glasses up his nose when they slip.
Conner curls his socked feet against the wood floor under the table and hunches over his cocoa.
“That’s too bad,” Clark says finally, glancing up again with a quirk to his mouth, looking right at Conner. “I liked that place.”
He offers up a strangely watery smile. But Conner can’t return it. He just digs his fingers further into his mug.
“So, um, what do teens in Smallville do these days then?” Clark asks, clearing his throat and wrapping a palm around the nape of his neck sheepishly.
Cow tipping, mostly.
“Well, I—” I don’t really have any friends in Smallville “—usually spend the weekends with the Titans.”
Lois gives him a strange look. One he can’t quite decipher.
“I think Clark meant what do you do for fun, Conner?” she clarifies, licking her lips and taking a sip from her coffee mug.
Conner blinks.
“For—for fun?” He’s not proud of the way his voice cracks. “Well, I mean, sometimes I go to the farmers market with Ma. She, uh, usually appreciates the help.”
Jon pouts.
“Boo,” he huffs. “You’re just as boring as dad.”
Both Clark and Conner wince.
“I’m not boring,” Clark protests weakly.
Conner keeps his trap shut.
“Well,” says Lois kindly, with a look of sympathy that makes him feel too small and just a little pathetic, if he’s honest. “You’ll have lots of fun with us this weekend, Conner, I promise. Won’t he, Clark.”
Clark jerks in his seat and swallows his mouthful of hot coffee visibly too fast. “Yeah, definitely! Of course, yes.”
Conner tries to smile, but he thinks it winds up more as a grimace. “Cool,” he says, trying not to sound apprehensive and—lame, he sounds lame.
After coffee and hot cocoa, Conner excuses himself for a shower; he smells like the farm, musty like hay. He’s not offended when they nod, maybe just a touch too eagerly.
Turning up the heat in the shower, the bathroom is steamy and the water is basically boiling by the time he steps under the spray. The heat of the water doesn’t hurt, though his skin turns a salmon pink as he absently wonders whether or not Superman even feels heat the same way. The water that comes out of the shower on the farm doesn’t have half the amount of pressure, and Conner melts into it, letting the heat unwind his tense muscles. Slightly brown water pools at his feet on the white tiles and then slides down the drain; he scrubs and scrubs until he’s sure he is as spotless as the day he came out of his cloning tank.
They’re probably still out in the kitchen, Lois and Clark. Talking about him, no doubt.
Conner worries his lower lip and wonders what they’re saying about him, and then decides he probably doesn’t want to know.
He thinks Lois likes him fine enough, but Clark he’s still unsure about. Maybe that’s just his insecurities talking, though. Clark seems to, at least, be trying for his sake. Like he promised, that day back on the farm.
With a depressed sigh, he washes that thought loose along with the suds in his hair, and when he steps out of the shower, he feels fractionally more himself.
Padding out into the living room in his fresh change of clothes, he finds Lois on the phone in the kitchen and Clark and Jon absent from the main room. He digs out his hair brush from the bottom of his bag and scrapes it through his wet locks before mussing it up a little so that it doesn’t dry square.
Then, slowly, he eases himself down onto the made up sofa-bed and tucks his feet up.
He picks at the hole in the sole of his sock, thinking he should really mend it soon, otherwise it’ll only get bigger. Ma will go out and spend her money on him if she finds out, but Conner doesn’t want her wasting their hard earned dimes when he could just repair his own dang socks.
Across the room, Lois finishes her phone call with a long, drawn-out sigh and mutters something about deadlines as she pinches the bridge of her nose and heads toward a door he assumes leads to the master bedroom.
Conner’s alone then, for a while.
He gets up at one point, and looks out the big windows that overlook the city. It’s a good view, he doesn’t dare wonder how much this place costs to rent.
Maybe he’ll want to move to Metropolis when he’s older, like Clark did. But he wouldn’t know what to do in a big city like this. He’d have to find work, and probably share an apartment with three other people, maybe four. It’s not cheap living in the city these days, he hears.
The farm is quiet, and he pays board by helping out around the fields and the barn and wherever else Ma and Pa need a hand. And he doesn’t mind that it’s quiet. He’s not looking for adventure, he gets enough of that with the Titan’s. Really, all he’s looking for is a place to belong, that would be enough.
He wonders if he’ll ever feel more than temporary. ‘Cause he’s never felt anything but.
Conner thinks about Jon’s bedroom, how personal it feels, and then he thinks about all the photographs around the farmhouse and how many of them Clark is in and how few he is in and—
“Whoo-hee!”
Jon lets out a high laugh behind him as he leaps up onto the sofa-bed and flops backward, sprawling out all over it.
“Dude,” he snorts, shuffling over to poke the kid in the side. “I’m supposed to sleep there, now it’s going to smell.”
Jon pretends to look offended.
“Are you saying I’m stinky?” he gasps.
“The stinkiest,” Conner grins.
Jon pokes out his tongue.
“Not as stinky as you, farmboy.”
“Hey,” he yells, grabbing the kid in a headlock and going for a noogie, the same way he does with Bart when the speedster gets bossy. “I took a shower, thank you very much.”
Jon squeals and Conner releases him and then gets a mouth-full of pillow for his troubles.
But—when he pulls the thing off his face, his easy grin goes with it.
He feels his fingers go slack. “Superman,” he whispers tightly, and swallows, feeling dehydrated for the first time since stepping out of the shower.
Clark is standing in the kitchen stiffly, and Conner’s not sure if he’s really unballing his fists and smiling so rigidly or if it’s in his imagination, but Conner sets down the pillow anyway.
Some of the tension, imaginary or not, shakes loose from Clark’s frame as he strolls over and perches on the arm of the sofabed.
“So, Lois— mom —and I thought that, since we have some time to kill before the movie, we’ll grab some ice-creams. How does that sound?”
Jon grins, and then whips his head back to look at Conner. “Oh man, you’re gonna love ‘Lazy Daizy’s’ for sure!”
Clark gives Jon a quick, fond smile, the corners of his mouth curving still as he divides his attention to Conner.
“Are you ready to go?”
Jon nods enthusiastically and Conner mumbles his way through something affirmative. They all get up off the sofa bed haphazardly and start shuffling in the general direction of the hall as Lois reappears from the master bedroom, this time layered in a thin jacket.
Conner takes a second to breathe out all the tight anxiety still lingering in his chest.
They leave the apartment behind and take the elevator to the first floor, exiting past the hundreds of tiny letterboxes, some with junk mail still poking out.
The street is busy. People hustle like they’ve got places to be, jobs to do and people to see, even though it’s the weekend.
Conner feels crowded.
It’s… a lot. It’s too much. But he bites his lip and follows along after Jon, for whom all the noise doesn’t seem to bother at all.
They walk two-abreast down the street, Lois and Jon upfront, engaged in a conversation, Jon’s arms flailing about wildly while he talks, Lois chuckling along indulgently, Conner and Clark in the back.
Clark stares at him weirdly.
“You alright?” he asks, softly, curiously.
Conner sees Clark’s hand rise, before he suddenly seems to think better of it. The aborted motion makes him wince.
In return, he hums back. “Just— loud,” he manages.
The faint worry lines on Clark’s forehead smooth out knowingly.
Clark was concerned, not of him, but for him. It’s a lot to unpack, really. So he files that knowledge away for later, when he can take it out of its box and rotate it in his hands and examine it properly.
“Was the same for me,” Clark says, looking up at the blue sky, dotted with fluffy white clouds. “When I first moved to Metropolis, I mean.”
“Really?” Conner asks, blinking back. This might be the first time Clark has voluntarily shared anything with him, relating to his superpowers.
Clark nods.
“I missed the farm,” he continues, a touch of longing and fond nostalgia in his voice. “Used to wonder what on earth I was doing in a big city like this. I was just a farm kid, and used to wide open spaces and acres of land and quiet nights.” He twists his neck, and Conner finds a smirk on his lips. “None of that to be found here. Always lively in Metropolis.”
The question bubbles up before he bothers asking himself if he really wants to know the answer.
“Do you miss it, still?” he asks, and the question makes Conner feel raw and seen when Clark’s smirk softens.
When he looks at Clark, all he sees is a man who’s attained every dream he ever had. A man who aimed for the moon and made it. A model upbringing with loving parents, a dedicated and driven wife, a lively and good-hearted son…
So, he’s surprised when Clark answers—
“Always.”
And then he laughs when Conner stares openly.
“You look like you don’t believe me,” he chuckles, hands loose in his pockets and empty of the tension he’d held in his muscles all day.
“I don’t,” says Conner frankly, a little lost, and then hurries to add: “I mean, why would you? You’ve got a perfect life!”
Clark sighs, and the smile slips a little.
“My life isn’t perfect, Conner.”
And— oh.
Right.
He physically curls as the wind leaves his lungs.
Of course Clark’s life isn’t perfect.
Conner exists in it, after all.
Conner doesn’t apologize, but only because he thinks Clark is probably tired of hearing it. Only after the silence they lapse into drags a beat longer than expected does the man suddenly cringe out of the blue, like he’s just now realizing who he’s talking to.
A lungful of air exits in a swift rush, lips pursed almost as if he’s about to start whistling. A maze of lines creases up his forehead, that he lifts a hand to rub away.
The words, when they make it out past his audibly tight throat, are measured and far more deliberate.
“That is, to say, I didn’t mean—”
Conner cuts him off.
“It’s cool,” he shrugs. It’s not, and he sounds hoarse when talks, but. “It’s fine. Don’t even worry about it.”
That does nothing to wipe the pained expression off Clark’s features, but he remains, blessedly, silent.
They don’t talk after that.
When they make it to the ice-cream parlor, Conner lets Jon choose a flavor for him and waits on the faux-metal chairs by the plastic table so no one else claims their spot.
It’s a nice day, he’ll admit. The weather is good, not too cold, and ‘Lazy Daizy’s’ overlooks a lovely green park. Occasionally, he spots a runner or someone walking their dog as they fly past on the trail, but it’s not a particularly busy park, it seems. Several squirrels posture on tree branches and skitter about the sidewalk, running this way and that, and Conner even sees a raccoon hanging out surreptitiously by the trash, rifling through it.
Jon returns ahead of Lois and Clark, and passes over a ‘Classic Chocolate Surprise.’
“What’s the surprise?” he asks suspiciously, eyeing the ice-cream on a stick warily.
Jon just grins at him. “You’ll have to eat it and find out.”
They sit around the table and enjoy their sugary treats. Lois gets a brain-freeze at one point, and Jon spends so long talking about Arizona Smith that his ice-cream starts to melt down his hand, forcing Clark to get up and get some hand wipes from the ice-cream counter.
Conner finds out that the surprise in the ‘Classic Chocolate Surprise’ is that there is no surprise. Go figure.
“You were surprised, though,” Jon points out, and Conner can’t argue with that.
Lois checks her watch as they finish up and decides they can probably start to wander in the direction of the movie theater. They switch it up this time though, and Conner walks in the front with Jon, while Clark and Lois hang back, holding hands.
He thinks he hears his name once or twice, but it’s hard to hear them over the sounds of the traffic, and the city noises are irritatingly difficult to tune out. It’s frustrating, and he misses the easy, clean breezes of Smallville and the small amount of control he had over his powers. Everything is harder here, in Metropolis.
Jon talks the entire walk. He fills Conner in on the three previous films he’s apparently missed out on, and promises—or maybe threatens—to binge them with him the next time he visits. If there is a next time, of course.
When they arrive at Wireless City, Lois purchases their tickets and Clark gives in to Jon’s begging for popcorn.
Conner takes up a seat along the wall, pulling out his phone to check while he waits.
He’s got one missed text from Cassie, who has simply sent him the date and time of the next Titan’s board game night. He leaves a thumbs up on the message by way of reply and then stashes the phone away again when he sees Lois approaching.
She hands him his ticket and he slides off the stool.
Lois passes it over with a smile, and Conner glances down to find his seat row and number as she begins to talk.
“Thanks for coming this weekend,” she starts, earnest, but happy. She speaks lowly, but her words and eyes are alight with genuine joy. “I know Jon is really glad you’re here—Clark too.”
He doesn’t know what prompts him, exactly. Maybe the kick his heart gives his ribs. But the half-piqued grin curls one corner of his mouth into a smile.
“Yeah?”
The word feels punched out of him, all the air going with it, making him sound somewhere between hoarse and winded.
For some reason, she returns the question with a fond look.
“Yeah,” she says, even more gently, ruffling his hair the same way he’s seen her do to Jon. “You’re a good kid, Conner.”
Something warm and bright sparks to life in his chest, and he has to look down just to check he’s not visibly glowing from the inside out. He resists the urge to place his cool hands on his flaming cheeks.
When he looks up again, he finds Jon and Clark approaching from the other end of the foyer, arms laden with popcorn and sodas.
Lois frowns, exasperated, as they come to a stop. Clark has the good sense to look sheepish.
“Didn’t you just eat?” she asks Jon, who seems unrepentant with his life choices.
“It’s about the movie experience, mom,” he retorts, rolling his eyes just a little, in that way only teens can do. “Besides, dad agreed: we wanted Conner’s first movie experience in Metropolis to be the real deal, okay? And that means popcorn!”
Lois sighs, but her exasperation melts into fond amusement. “Oh, it was for Conner’s sake, huh?” she says with a knowing twinkle, gathering her arm around her son’s shoulders and steering him toward the direction of cinema number two.
“Totally,” Jon says seriously. Clark snorts.
Showing their tickets to the sleepy college student manning the entrance, they slip into the dark cinema.
They take their seats quickly, with Jon in the center of the row and Conner right next to him. They share a jumbo popcorn and Clark passes them sodas when the advertisements light up the room long enough to see.
Then, after fifteen minutes, the movie begins to play, and Conner relaxes the longer it goes on, losing himself in the story and finding a happy simplicity in rooting for the protagonist.
If only real life were so simple.