Chapter Text
Smallville 2000
Clark Kent sweated in the late August Kansas heat as he bailed hay from the barn to take out to the cows. The summer had been just as boring as every other summer here in Smallville. Besides the occasional ‘wall of weird’ adventure, Clark had spent his time either out here on the farm or snarking at Lois and the first few weeks of his senior year of highschool hadn’t changed much.
A shadow passed over his face.
Clark looked up at the cloudless sky as it filled with flashing lights. A portal opened up in the field before the barn and two dark-haired figures came crashing through.
“Fucking shit!” the larger one yelled before he hit the ground and went silent.
Metropolis 2023
Connor Kent was having a very bad, no good, horrible day.
A horrible couple of months if he was being honest.
He dodged a beam of light the purple-robed figure flung at him and swung to punch, but the being teleported a few feet away just before he could connect.
Ever since the death of Superman, Connor felt like he was always three steps behind where he needed to be.
Today’s highly-powered- individual-attacking-Metropolis usually wouldn’t have been a worry for him, but now he was late picking up Jonny from school, the league wanted him to investigate this new group of magic users with unknown intentions, and he couldn’t remember the last time he and Tim had actually sat down for a date night.
Connor ducked just a second too late as a beam of light hit him square in the chest and sent him flying into a dumpster.
The sounds of a TV wafted out of the open door beside him and Kon sang along to the ending of the Scrubs theme:
“‘cuz everybody knows that I’m nooooo… superman”
Connor let his head flop back onto the trash to bask in the divine timing and close his eye, just for a second.
“DAD!” Jon yelled. Conner grabbed him, placing his body between his younger brother and Lex Luther. Conner pressed Johnny’s face into his chest. Superman’s eyes went wide as he stood and watched the bullet fire out of Luther’s gun and-
Conner bounced back onto his feet and squared up to face… nothing.
The purple-robed figure was gone.
“Great. That's… great” Conner dusted himself off and turned to fly toward Metropolis Elementary.
By the time he got there, Jon was sitting by himself on the curb with a mildly annoyed-looking teacher standing next to him.
Conner landed in a bush a few feet away and swapped out his S T-shirt for a plain black one.
“I’m here, I’m here!” he fast-walked toward the school entrance.
“Mr. Kent, so glad to see you.” the teacher said.
“I’m sorry I’m late again Mrs…”
“It’s Miss” she wrinkled her nose and Connor remembered that he had been lying in a pile of trash 30 seconds ago.
“Ok.” Conner cringed internally.
“I know that these are unusual circumstances, Mr. Kent, but the school has policies about late pick-ups. If it happens again we will have to start charging a fee.”
“I’m sorry, Miss, it won’t happen again. I just got held up at work.”
“I understand, but I have work to do too, you know.” she turned to Jon, “Goodbye Jon, I’ll see you next week!”
“Bye Miss Jameson,” Jon replied.
They walked in silence for a couple of minutes.
“Can we have pizza for dinner?” Jon asked.
“We had pizza last night, you should probably eat a vegetable or two. Lois would be pissed if she knew how we’ve been eating the past few nights.” or weeks , he thought.
Jon kicked a rock. “It’s not like she’d care. Mom barely remembers to call.”
Connor groaned and shut his eyes internally and sighed externally, “Look buddy, it’s- she doesn’t-” he sighed again. “Grief does funny things to people. She still loves you, she’s just trying to figure some stuff out right now. I’m sure she’ll be back to normal soon.”
Jon glared up at Conner, “How are things ever supposed to be normal with Dad gone?”
“I know,” Conner searched the sky for answers, “Things aren’t ever going to be the same, but we’ll figure out how to make a new life. We’ll move on. I mean we won’t forget him or leave him behind, we’ll- we’ll carry his spirit with us. Yeah, he’s looking down on us right now, still with us so-”
“Just stop,” Jon sighed. “You’re not Dad, you can’t do his whole wisdom thing.”
“Hey, what did you find out about The Hexadecimals?” Jon asked, perking up.
That’s their name! Connor thought.
“Nothing much, I ran into one of them today, but they vanished.”
“Damien said that they could teleport,” Jon nodded.
“Well, that would have been nice to know.”
“Did the League not send you a debrief? They always sent dad stuff with all the new information.”
Con picked up his phone and saw the several hundred unread emails waiting for him.
“Maybe they forgot,” Connor lied. He looked around to make sure the street they were on was deserted. “Race you home?”
“You’re on!” Jonny said.
They arrived back at the apartment to find that Tim had made them a healthy meal of take-out pasta from down the road.
“At least it’s not pizza again,” Tim said with a shrug.
Conner kissed him appreciatively.
“Gross!” Jonny sat down with his plate, “Can Damien and I go on patrol so I don’t have to watch this?”
“Finish your dinner first,” Conner said. “And your homework!” He was proud of himself for remembering.
After their meal, Jon sped to his room to get his work done and left Tim and Conner to clean the table.
“Hey, you look exhausted,” Tim opened his arms for a hug.
“Look who's talking,” Conner replied. “When’s the last time you slept?”
“Doesn’t matter, I’ve spent so much time researching that gang recently that I got way behind on the Wayne Foundation stuff.” Tim sipped his Red Bull. “Have to keep up appearances.”
Conner huffed a laugh. “It sounds like we could both use a nap.” He glanced over his shoulder at Jon’s closed bedroom door. “Jon’s supposed to be occupied for the time being. We could go into our room. Netflix and Chill? I feel like I haven’t seen you in ages.”
Tim laughed, “We live together! How is it this hard to find time to hang out?”
“I don’t know,” Conner pressed his face into Tim’s shoulder and started walking them into the bedroom.
* * *
Conner laid his head on Tim’s chest and exhaled for what felt like the first time in weeks.
Conner couldn’t pull his eyes away from the body laying in the street. Or where the body had been. The paramedics had put a sheet over Superman and begun loading him onto a stretcher. They’d already removed Lex’s body with much less ceremony.
Conner felt a hand claps his shoulder, “You can let go now, son,” A gravely voice said.
“I-I didn’t let him see- I couldn’t- he couldn’t see that- I didn’t-” Conner stuttered.
“I know, Kon-El, you did good. But you’re safe now, you can let your brother go.”
Conner slowly relaxed the death grip he didn’t even know he was holding and realized that Jonny had been sobbing against his chest.
He still couldn’t take his eyes off of the red smeared across the city street where his father once lay.
Conner sat bolt upright with a gasp. Beside him, Tim was frantically trying to silence Conner’s phone.
“Why are you on your laptop? You were supposed to sleep too,” Conner said.
Tim shrugged, “You needed it more than I did.”
“We can both sleep,” Kon grumbled as he reached for his phone.
Hexadecimal is on the move. Location incoming
Conner sighed. “It’s the League. Duty calls.”
“Go. I’ll take care of Jonny.” Tim leaned over to give Conner a tender kiss. “I love you.”
“I love you too,” Conner sighed.
Conner stumbled out of his bedroom door trying to pull his leather jacket over his shoulders.
“Let me come! Please!” Jonny stood in his doorframe pleading.
“No, bud, It’s too dangerous. I’ll be back soon. You stay here.”
“Dad would have let me go,” Jonny muttered.
Kon squeezed his eyes shut as he flew out the window and into the sunset.
The lights flashed as Connor tried to duck another blast from the robbed figures.
Ringing filled his ears as his vision went black.
Maybe I’ll just lie here , Conner thought, Maybe I just won’t get up again .
In the distance, someone screamed.
It’d be nice to take a big long nap. Maybe I’ll see dad again. Without seeing his brains splattered across the road.
The screaming was getting closer, and it sounded… familiar.
“JON?” Conner sat bolt upright.
“Kon! Where are you?” Jon continued to yell.
Ignoring the weight of his fatigue, Conner stumbled to standing and moved toward the screaming.
“Jon, I told you to stay home!” Conner yelled the second he could see his younger brother.
“I want to help!” Jon yelled back. “What are they doing?”
“I don’t- oof” Conner stumbled as a beam of light knocked him out of the sky.
“Kon!” Jon screamed again as Kon aimed his descent to land next to him.
Taking up a defensive stance in front of his brother, Conner Kent scanned the area. There were 4, 5, 7, 12 people wearing purple robes walking toward them with their arms raised.
Where did they all come from? Conner wondered.
The air filled with light and suddenly Conner was falling, and falling, and falling into a blissful black sleep.