Chapter Text
When Conner wakes, he finds the room empty.
He blinks. The white walls glare back at him harshly. The pastels in the abstract art just barely break-up the monotony of the room.
Slowly, Conner turns his head, and his neck protests the action. His skull feels heavier than lead. The sterile taste of the hospital fills his nose, and he notices that the oxygen mask is no longer wrapped around his face. The IV line is still in place however, and the connection point, buried in the back of his hand, is itchy. It’s his body, attempting to heal around the foreign object.
Through the far window, beams of sunlight lance their way through Gotham’s gray and gloomy cloud-cover. It’s a nice morning, by Gotham standards.
Conner’s eyes drift, landing on a clock sitting on the wall beside the window. It reads seven-oh-one, and then it ticks over.
There’s a lack of weight beside him, and an abundance of space. Jon is gone. The spot where he lay last night has gone cold, but there’s a dent, a hollowed out place as the only evidence he’d really been there at all.
Conner sinks further into the pillows and tries to muddle through the variety of noises and sensations assaulting him. The bedsheets are too scratchy, he has an itch below his eye, the early morning traffic blares noise outside, a cacophony of car horns and police sirens.
Familiar noises outside the room catch his attention.
“—but what if he says no?”
That’s Clark.
Conner can hear the hitch in his voice and the squeak of the plastic chair as he shifts uncomfortably. There’s fatigue there too, bone-deep exhaustion that leaves him sounding as wrung-out as a kitchen rag.
“What if he doesn’t want…”
A beat of silence passes, thick with expectation and frayed at the edges with sleeplessness.
A lump of air gets caught in his throat and Conner has to choke it down.
Is Clark talking about him?
Almost, as if by instinct, he curls a little tighter in on himself, and the muscles in his back protest the tiny tug.
Clark’s words are quiet and muffled, as though he’s buried his face in his hands, but Conner hears them clear as day.
“I’m scared , Ma.”
He can picture Clark out there. Hunching over himself, holding his head in his hands with his gaze boring through the white linoleum tiles.
Clark sounds utterly wrecked and frankly, when Ma speaks, she doesn’t sound all that much better.
“Oh my baby,” she comforts, her gentle, melodic voice spent with emotion. “It’s not your fault. It’s no one’s fault.”
Conner’s stomach roils unpleasantly.
“It is my fault,” Clark hisses insistently. He must take his head out of his hands, because his voice is suddenly loud enough to make Conner flinch. He sounds frustrated and upset.
Before, Lois had said he was proud , not upset, but—but maybe Clark had just been in shock before, or—or something, because he certainly sounds upset now.
An electric shudder stumbles through his exhale, a drunken facsimile of a steeled breath.
“I—I nearly got him killed!”
Conner recoils at the near-shout. His hands make fists in the bedsheets.
Clark’s angry, Clark’s angry, Clark’s angry. Superman called him ‘sweetheart,’ but now he’s angry—why did Clark say that? It doesn’t make sense, it doesn’t add up.
Superman isn’t supposed to care about him.
It’s wrong. It’s a mistake—Superman made a mistake.
And now, Clark is upset. If Clark is upset, Conner would rather everything go back the way it was. Because… because even though he’s tried to keep the most vulnerable parts of his heart protected, Clark wormed in anyway.
Clark sat with him on the floor, helped him get untangled, talked him through his panic attack and the afterimages of a nightmare. Far above Metropolis, underneath the stars and the hanging moon, Clark admitted he wasn’t perfect, but that he was trying.
“I don’t know what to do,” he somehow overhears Clark through the wall.
Clark had called him ‘sweetheart’ and Superman had come to his rescue when he’d called. Superman had never come when Conner called before.
He wasn’t supposed to do that. He wasn’t supposed to do any of that.
Conner never should have gone to Metropolis. He messed up, broke the fragile truce they’d been working towards, demanded more, allowed himself to be given more. Clark had been kind to him. It wasn’t supposed to happen that way, it’s not how their script goes.
Ma hums, and Conner’s thoughts are yanked back to the present with surprising force.
He can almost picture her fingers carding through the hairs on the back of Clark’s head, soothing and loving, in that way only Ma could be.
“Yes you do,” she says, sure and strong. “I know you, Clark Kent.”
Clark audibly deflates.
Ma hums again, but this time she sounds satisfied.
“It’s normal to be scared, Clark,” she explains, with a little chuckle. “Children can be scary. You love them so much and you worry about them constantly. Are they happy? Are they safe?”
Clark snorts. “You sound like you have experience in this area,” he says with a touch of wry humor.
“I may have some, yes,” she asserts, faintly amused.
The twist of anxiety in Conner’s stomach folds like a pretzel.
Clark is going to leave him behind. Conner’s caused too much trouble and so Clark is going to leave him behind, like he should have done in the first place.
Lois had said Superman was proud of him, but… but how can that be true? Conner hasn’t done anything worth Clark’s praises. All he’d done was get himself stuck under some rubble and prove that he really is inferior and pathetic.
The moment outside, and Conner’s rapid downward spiral, is unexpectedly interrupted.
“We’re back,” says Jon, tiredly. His voice lacks its usual pep, but a night in a hospital will do that to anyone.
Kid must be exhausted…
Conner just barely manages to swallow the bitter guilt down—he’s not supposed to be making anyone’s life harder. Jon didn’t need to be here with him. Neither did Lois, frankly, or Clark. They should go home, get some sleep. It’s not the first time he’s been in a med-cot, it probably won’t be the last.
“Welcome back,” Ma greets, effectively ending the previous conversation.
There’s a rustle of plastic before Pa rattles off a list of food and drink they apparently purchased from the hospital store downstairs.
They go quiet for a minute, passing out the items, but even through the barrier between them, Conner can tell the atmosphere is morose.
“You gotta eat, buddy,” Clark says, speaking first. “You haven’t eaten since breakfast yesterday.”
Jon’s voice is practically lifeless. “‘M not hungry,” he says.
To which, Clark sighs.
“Yeah,” he agrees. “Me neither.”
By the sounds of it, Clark just drops the food back in the bag. The plastic rustles in protest.
The seat groans as Clark eases himself out of it.
“Come on then,” he murmurs, a faint clap on Jon’s shoulder accompanying. “Let’s go check on Conner.”
The sliding door to the room opens between one blink and the next, much faster than Conner had anticipated.
Conner smiles first when their eyes meet, cracked lips dry and stale.
“Hey,” he croaks, like a lame loser.
For a second, Jon just stands there in the entryway, looking somewhere between lost and dumbfounded, but then reality seems to catch up.
The kid’s eyes well-up and the first sob breaks before he’s even in the room.
Conner definitely doesn’t immediately panic.
Fortunately, he’s saved from having to rip the IV line from his person and jump out of bed to comfort the kid, because Jon runs to him.
He thinks he must be on some really good drugs, because suddenly he has an armful of child and he doesn’t even see the boy move . Jon’s just. There.
Gently, the kid maneuvers himself between Conner and all the wires he’s hooked to, very carefully navigating around them. It’s the very same spot he curled up and fell asleep in last night.
“You’re an asshole,” he sobs, clinging to Conner like his life depends on it, crying into his hospital gown. “You’re the worst and I hate you so much! Do you know how scary that was?”
The faint smile, curling the corners of Conner’s lips as he bends ever-so-slightly to plant a lingering kiss to Jon’s crown, widens further.
“I won’t ever forgive you!” Jon cries, only his hand grips Conner’s gown all the tighter.
“I know,” Conner returns, sounding as though he’d been gargling gravel his whole life. “I’m sorry, I know. I suck.”
Jon just nods into his chest and cries harder.
“You’re the worst big brother I’ve ever had!” he wails.
Conner’s smile grows. “I’m the only big brother you’ve ever had,” he returns fondly, and then freezes when Clark stiffens in the doorway.
The smile slides off his face as he meets Clark’s eyes, but somehow he’s not greeted by the expression he’s expecting to see.
Clark looks… nervous? Not unhappy , but hesitant?
The expression fades quickly when Clark meets his eye, giving way to visible relief, but Conner has to bite down on the apology reflexively forming anyway.
“Conner,” he sighs without weight, and slips into the room.
Lois follows on his heels, as do Ma and Pa.
Conner suddenly feels a little overwhelmed with all the attention. Every pair of eyes settles on him. There’s hardly room for them all. This is one of those instances where he feels as though he should exit stage left—make his way around the back of the barn or something. Go work on the tractor or fix a fence somewhere across the other side of the farm, just to give the Kents’ some space. Let Ma and Pa catch up with their son and his family.
Except this isn’t the farm. This is a hospital. And it’s Conner whom they’ve all come to see. And there’s a small part of him that wonders ‘why?’ He’s not… he’s not so important that they should all be here with him. Not after he messed up so badly that Clark had to fly him all the way to Gotham just to save his life.
Half a year ago, Clark might have done the same thing, but he most definitely wouldn’t have stuck around afterwards. He wouldn’t have lingered by Conner’s bedside with that half-smile, caught somewhere between relieved and worried. Nor would Lois be here with him, or Jon, who’s still clinging to Conner like he means the world to him.
Pa takes up one of the chairs drawn close to his bedside, easing himself into it, while Ma leans over him and briefly cups his face with her knobbly fingers as her eyes run over his prone form.
Jon curls further into his side and, eventually, Ma pulls back with a smile that truly reaches her eyes.
“Are you feeling any better?”
It takes him a beat to realize it’s Lois who asks the question as Ma retreats. He tips his head to face her.
Lois stands on his left. Clark stands beside her, with one hand loosely curling around her shoulder as his hand rubs her upper arm. Belatedly, Conner realizes just how tense Lois is.
They both look… stiff.
Lifting his free hand, the one not resting now on Jon’s head, Conner wobbles it side to side.
“Yeah. OK, I guess,” he croaks. Truthfully, he still feels terrible, but he’s not going to tell them that when they’re all looking at him like he’s already died and come back to life. His chest aches, bruised and sore, even with his faster-than-human healing.
“That’s good,” says Ma on his other side, but he’s a bad liar apparently, because she doesn’t look like she believes him. Her voice is carefully even.
Clark’s eyes narrow and Conner knows he just got caught out in the lie.
To be fair, he probably looks like shit. So that’s on him.
“You had us worried for a bit there, bud,” says Pa from his chair, weathered crows-feet crinkling the corners of his eyes. “You've been through the wars, it looks like.”
Conner studies the man, taking in the big, dark circles running rings under his eyes and the tension in his frame—Pa looks dreadful too. Both Ma and he have probably been awake all night. Clark probably spent a good portion of his time flying them here, just for Conner’s sake.
He swallows around the lump in his throat and pushes away the uncomfortable feelings in his chest.
“Sorry,” he mumbles awkwardly. “I… I didn’t mean to worry you.”
Then, turning to Clark he slaps on his ready-made hero face, the one made of concrete and rebar, unbreakable even under Superman’s iciest glare.
“I’ll do better next time,” he promises. “I swear. Once I’m discharged I’ll train harder.”
I’m not useless, he wants to say.
Please don’t hate me, he doesn’t say.
Conner is already planning ahead, because even though Lois said Clark isn’t upset with him, doesn’t mean Superman isn’t disappointed with him. Superboy just barely achieved a passing score—as in, he’s still alive, for now.
Clark sighs, but this time, it’s heavier than a lead balloon.
The pretzel in Conner’s stomach twists anew.
“Conner, listen,” he starts—and Conner feels the blood drain from his profile.
Clark gestures to the room at large.
“We’ve uh, been talking.”
Oh.
Oh.
There’s a pause, a moment in which time freezes.
Something wet lops off his eyelash before he even registers it.
The tears don’t come with any great, melodramatic sobs. They just spill over, hot and salty, leaving rivulets down his cool cheeks.
They don’t want me to come back.
The thought pulses like a heartbeat.
Before the robot, before the bank and the hospital, they’d been doing… okay. Or, so he’d thought. Clark and he had been working toward something. They’d been doing okay.
The arm he has around Jon tightens as he gives an imperceptible squeeze. This could be the last hug he gets from Jon for a long time, he has to make it count.
Conner will never forget the Kents’ kindness, even if he did screw it all up in the end.
Clark draws his hand back in to wring the nape of his neck.
“We, that is, Lois and I, and Ma and Pa, thought that, you know if you wanted to we could uh—”
Clark looks up and freezes.
Conner’s not quite sure what it is the man sees, but he throws his free arm over his face anyway to hide the ugly tears streaming down his face.
“— Conner?!”
A single sob escapes him then.
“S-sorry,” he hiccups.
Just give me a minute, he prays.
But, although Superman has been kind to Conner recently, he isn’t now.
“Hey, hey, hey,” Clark starts over, a touch of something desperate in his tone. The bed dips unexpectedly with his weight and a hand pries Conner’s arm away from his face.
He lets it happen.
Clark slips his hand into Conner’s own. Maybe for comfort. Or maybe to stop him from covering his face again. Clark’s other palm comes up to cup his cheek, much like Ma’s had done earlier. The pad of his thumb brushes at the tears spilling over.
“It’s alright,” Clarks soothes, even though he sounds a little too bewildered and shocked to really sound comforting. “It’s alright, it’s okay, you’re okay.”
Conner wants to believe that, but he knows better.
“Sor-ry,” he apologizes again, trying to tug his hand away.
Clark’s hold on him tightens.
“None of that now,” he comforts, and, much to Conner’s surprise, leans in.
Clark all but buries his nose in Conner’s hair.
“I—I didn’t mean to be so much trouble,” Conner says in a whisper. “I just… I wanted you to…”
Like me, he doesn’t say.
Love me, he cries out in the silence of his own mind.
Conner stiffens abruptly as Clark presses a lingering kiss to his crown.
“Conner,” he says anew. “You’re no trouble, kiddo.”
Conner doesn’t think that’s true.
He knows that’s not true.
He knows Clark can’t possibly think that’s true!
“I’m sorry,” he apologizes again. “I thought—I thought I could handle it and all I did was get in your way.” Then, a little quieter he adds: “I’m sorry I disappointed you, sir.”
For some reason, Clark jerks back.
Conner thinks the word for Clark’s expression must be: stricken . The way his face contorts reminds him of a scrunched up piece of paper.
With a deep breath, Conner steels himself.
“Anyway,” he starts again, in the pause Clark’s silence is leaving. “You said—you said you wanted to tell me something, and—”
Conner bites his lip and briefly scrunches up his eyes. A few straggler tears leak out, leaving behind a damp on his eyelashes.
“—and it’s alright. I already know what you’re going to say.”
Between one blink and the next, his eyes find Clark’s face.
“So, um. Thanks for letting me stay over this weekend. And uh, for saving me. You didn’t have to, but I—I’m glad I was able to be part of your family for a couple days.”
It’s a risky thing to say. There’s a small part of him that still expects Clark to tackle him into the nearest grain silo and loudly proclaim that Conner isn’t and never will be part of his family, but that doesn’t happen.
Instead, Clark’s hand tightens around his hand and then he visibly swallows as he composes himself.
“What—” he starts, then clears his throat. “Just what do you think I was going to say?”
Conner shakes his head sadly.
“You’ve been so kind to me,” he says, then glances around the room. “All of you,” he adds, finding Lois over Clark’s shoulder. “And I know you didn’t have to be.”
“Conner, what are you—”
“I—I know you don’t want me to visit Metropolis again, but that’s okay. I… I know that’s what you were going to tell me, but that’s okay, sir.”
Conner’s not sure if the wobble in his voice he’s trying very hard to control gives him away, but he can’t ask for more than this. He doesn’t deserve it. He hasn’t earned it.
And Conner’s always had to earn his place. Nothing comes unconditionally, he knows that.
“Will you visit me?” he asks, hating the way he sounds so small and winded. “Just… once in a while?”
A few months ago, that would’ve been the last thing Conner would have requested.
“Visit… you?”
Clark looks dumbfounded.
Conner winces.
Right. Maybe he’s asking for too much after all.
Lois smacks Clark’s shoulder lightly, and Clark jumps.
For a moment, he seems to struggle to form words.
“Conner, I…” he runs a hand through his hair and a few strands are pulled loose. “That’s… not what I was going to say.”
Oh.
Conner tries and fails not to shrink in on himself.
“Oh,” he mimics out loud.
“Actually,” Clark says, pulling a weird little expression that’s halfway between a smile and a grimace. “We were hoping you’d um… stay a little longer.”
Conner startles, just barely.
What? Longer?
“But I have school tomorrow!” he blurts, even though that’s the last thing on his mind. He’s probably not going to be all healed up by tomorrow anyhow.
Clark winces.
“Uh, yes, well… by longer I actually meant… A lot longer… than that.”
Behind him, Lois rolls her eyes.
“What Clark means to say,” she interjects, shuffling right up to the bedside. “Is that we were hoping you might consider coming to stay with us permanently.”
Conner feels his eyebrows shoot up of their own volition.
“Like, forever?” he breathes, quick and reverent, as though uttering a prayer.
Clark squeezes his hand one more time for good measure.
“Yes,” he replies seriously, coupled with a short nod and a hopeful look. “Forever.”
Conner feels as though all the wind has been knocked right out of him. His head lolls to the side.
“But the farm—” he says, finding the form of Pa by his side. The old man is smiling, even if he is a little watery around the corners.
“Don’t worry about us, son,” he replies, surprisingly firm. “Ma and I will manage without you just fine.”
Conner feels his lower lip tremble traitorously.
Clark is offering—
“It won’t be right away,” Lois clarifies quickly, and he turns his heavy head back to her. “If you decide this is something you want, Clark and I will start looking for a new apartment.”
Clark nods firmly, and pushes his glasses further up his nose.
“We’ll find a three-bedroom, somewhere you and Jon can have your own rooms.”
Conner isn’t quite sure he understands.
“You want me to live with you?” he asks, confusion made plain in his suddenly tight throat.
Clark’s thumb gently brushes over his bruised knuckle, and he nods.
“Why?”
The word comes out strangled.
He gives Conner a soft, sad little smile and Conner almost can’t stand the tenderness in his gaze.
Clark brushes a hand across Conner’s forehead, gently brushing his bangs out of his eyes.
“I know, from your perspective, what I must look like, Conner,” he starts, voice thick with emotion and eyebrows knitting together. “I spent so much time pushing you away. Knowing where you came from, I thought—I wanted to believe we were nothing alike.”
Clark visibly swallows, Adam's apple bouncing the length of his throat.
“I couldn’t even hate you, not really ,” he goes on, tightly. “Because I didn’t actually know you. I didn’t want to know you. And then, that day up on the farm… I hurt you.”
Conner remembers. The blue sky, the cool wind, the reliable weight of the silo against his frame. The way the bones in his shoulder ground together, the bruise around his collarbone.
“And I remember asking if I’d hurt you,” he continues, pressing on through the strain in his voice. “Because I didn’t know it was possible. I didn’t know you weren’t invulnerable like me. I’d never stopped to think about it.”
Clark exhales on a shudder and closes his eyes, as though relieving the memory.
“I’ll never forget the lie you told me. The way you said: ‘I’m fine,’ the way you wanted to back away even though you had nowhere to go, the way you gripped your shoulder and hunched over yourself. You were so scared of me,” he says. “And I realized something that day: I was a monster to you. I’d terrorized you and I resented you even though I didn’t even know you.”
Conner nearly bites his own tongue.
“Today, when I saw you laying under all that rubble and rebar, I realized I’d never told you how much had changed for me. How I’d never said how much your smile brightens up a room. How I realized I’d never said I love you.”
Clark’s eyes flutter open.
“I love you, Conner. So much. I want you to be happy. I want to be a part of your life, not some shadowy, grotesque monster looming over it. Once, I said that one day I hoped we could become family. I still hope that. I want that more than anything.”
Conner doesn’t quite know what to say. His mouth feels dry. But the words come to him without much thought anyhow, and they blurt out in the same way, spilling out over his lips.
“You want… to be my dad?”
The words sound wrong rolling off his tongue, and yet somehow still sound like music to his ears.
The room goes utterly silent, but Clark doesn’t let the quiet fester like a sore.
His hand slips along Conner’s cheek and cups it fondly.
“Very much,” he says with a warm smile.
Jon cuddles him just fractionally tighter.
Over Clark’s shoulder, Lois looks to be on the verge of tears.
These people actually want him?
These people love him?
Ma and Pa are holding hands, looking a little teary-eyed themselves.
“Oh,” he says, eloquently.
Clark swallows again, this time looking fractionally nervous.
“Is… is that something you want, Conner?”
Suddenly, the conversation he overheard before all makes sense.
He tips his chin. Down. Up. Down.
“I… do.”
Clark’s smile is blinding.
His hand drifts to the back of Conner’s head and Clark scoops him up like he weighs nothing, drawing him forward into a hug, mindful of his injuries. Jon shifts and sits up.
“Then… w-welcome to the family, Kon-El.”
Conner blinks and draws back, just a little.
“Kon… El?”
Clark wraps his palm around the nape of Conner’s neck and presses together their foreheads.
“Your Kryptonian name. El is our family name.”
Conner doesn’t quite know why this makes him tear up all over again, but he does. Clark buries a kiss in his crown and cradles him as Conner sobs against his chest.
In the moment of shared vulnerability, Clark whispers, “You belong here, with us. You’re not alone, Conner. We’re family, and I love you.”
Conner pulls back with a wobbly smile.
“Family, huh?”
Clark nods.
“Family.”
— 🦸 —
“Heeeeeeeeeeeelloooooooooo~!”
“Jon, stop yelling and finish packing up your Legos.”
“Aw man. But the bathroom echoes now, mom! It’s so empty!”
Conner snorts and delicately pulls the next family photograph off the hallway sideboard. There’s already a pile next to him in the packing box, neatly wrapped in newspaper and bubble wrap, ready for transit.
Clark finishes taping up the last box, placing it beside the couch in the open living room.
“How ya doin’ over there, champ?” the man asks as he wanders back over, plopping himself down criss-cross-applesauce beside Conner.
Conner, for his part, slides down off his knees and gently places the picture frame in the waiting newspaper.
It’s been almost two moths since his hospital stay and he feels totally healed up and perfectly fine! But he’s been relegated to light packing duties by Lois anyhow.
A hand falls on his shoulder, but Conner doesn’t flinch or shy away. Instead, he turns his head to face Clark.
“Good,” he returns with a smile, and leans into the touch Clark is offering. “Nearly finished.”
Clark leans forward, eyes drawn to the photograph, and taps the edge of the wooden frame lightly.
“We need to take more like this,” he says with a nod.
Conner smirks.
“I can always go get crushed by a building again?”
Clark tears his eyes away from the picture to pin him with a sour look, but Conner’s grin doesn’t falter.
The photograph is one that a nurse took for them the day Conner was discharged. Clark has an arm wrapped around his shoulder and Jon’s grinning brightly in front. Lois has her arm looped around Jon’s neck, and Ma and Pa are squished up right alongside her, with big happy smiles on their faces. They really do look like a family.
“Don’t even joke about that,” Clark says sternly, but the words lack heat. The way Clark tugs Conner close and presses a quick kiss to his temple fills him with a nicer kind of warmth.
“Sorry,” he says, coupled with a little laugh.
Clark ruffles his hair and allows him to sit up straight again.
Conner finds it a bit strange, sometimes, with how gentle and patient Clark is with him these days.
“I can’t wait to move into the new place,” says Clark, wrapping the photograph up carefully. “I’m excited for us to all live together.”
Their knees knock together as they work side by side.
Conner hums. “I hope Pa will manage alright on his own,” he admits quietly, yanking off a new strip of tape. “He told me, once, that he didn’t know how he was going to manage the farm after you left for the city…”
Clark pauses in his work.
“Conner, I know Pa can be a stubborn old man,” he starts. “But even he knows his limits. The things they can do, they’ll keep doing. And the things they can’t do, they’ll ask us for help. They’re not on their own, buddy, they have us. We’re just a phone call away.”
Clark lightly knocks their shoulders together.
“You have us too,” he adds, a solid weight beside Conner. “You can rely on us a bit more.”
Conner hums. Then, he picks up the family photograph Clark just finished wrapping.
“Actually,” he asks, holding the picture aloft. “Can I take this?”
Clark looks a little surprised, but nods anyway. “Of course, kiddo,” he replies with the smallest smile.
Conner unwraps the picture again.
“It’s a good picture,” he says out loud, running his fingers gently over it. “I… I like it.”
Everyone looks so happy. Even him.
Clark tugs him in for another side-hug.
“I like it too,” he agrees. “We’ll have to take a lot more like it.”
“Yeah,” Conner breathes.
The farmhouse is full of photographs.
Pictures crowd up the walls and countertops, they fill the mantlepiece and 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 her collection, finding frames at yard-sales and painstakingly putting together scrapbooks, making what would otherwise be mere memories into something more tangible.
Maybe, Conner thinks to himself, he can do the same.