Thanks Nancy again for expert BR abilities! Just a reminder that parts outlined in *** are flashbacks!
PART SIXTEEN
When you see Supernova on TV, you have a hard time believing that he has any weaknesses. And even with my knowledge of Jonathan Kent as the person in the suit, I had great faith in him. Of course he has his faults and all that. After all, nobody’s perfect. But I had never imagined that he could be so terrifyingly awful at something that most people were able to do at least halfway decently. I mean, he spent three years living on a farm! I had thought it would be an essential skill. As it turns out, I was hopelessly wrong.
“Will you watch where you’re going?!” I screeched for the third time. “You almost hit that fire hydrant!”
“The corner was sharper than I thought it would be,” Jon muttered tensely.
“Red light! Red light!” I yelled. We lurched to a stop, but Jon hadn’t braked fast enough, so the nose of my car was sticking conspicuously past the stop line. “I can’t believe your parents were going to get you a car for your nineteenth birthday,” I told him shakily. “Were they planning on murdering the entire state of Kansas?”
“It feels different now that my reflexes aren’t what they should be,” he defended.
“Yeah, sure, blame it on the lack of powers,” I scoffed. “You don’t get to be this bad of a driver without some serious practice. You’re like a little old lady and an Italian all rolled into one!” The light changed to green, and the car sputtered and died before we could make it forward into the intersection.
“Oh great! We stalled. That’s only happened about twelve times since we left my place. I thought you said you had driven stick before.” Jon revived the car, and it lurched forward through the lights. I instinctively grabbed hold of the dashboard and I heard it groan in complaint.
“Easy, Kaylie,” Jon reminded me cheerily. “You’re supposed to be relaxing.”
“Watch the road,” I growled back. I swear he takes far too much pleasure in my annoyance.
“Kaylie, it’s okay. I have driven before. Sure it was mostly farm equipment, but I still-”
“Watch out for that SUV!” Jon slowed down and narrowly missed a collision for the umpteenth time since he got behind the wheel. “Okay,” I told him as I forced my breathing to be slow and steady, “my entire life has now flashed before my eyes. Pull over.”
“Kay-”
“We’re just a few blocks from Marten Tech anyway. We’ll walk the rest of the way.”
“I take it you’re going to be driving on the way back,” Jon asked me as we started down the street.
“What I can’t understand is the speed thing,” I told him, still reliving the awful trip. “You either go way too fast or way too slow. What’s wrong with a happy medium?”
“You know, I hadn’t driven in six years. You’d think you could cut me a little slack.”
“We need to find a side entrance,” I told Jon, bringing us back to the mission at hand. “Hopefully it will be easier to get into.” We strolled casually around the building looking for a door. The building itself was closed for the day, but there were still a lot of people milling around the streets, so we had to be as inconspicuous as possible. Finally we found one that was secluded enough for us to enter without attracting suspicion. There was just one problem.
“I can’t pick this lock, it’s one of those high security ones,” I explained to Jon in frustration. “If I had planned this out in advance I would’ve-”
“You don’t need to pick it.” Jon told me calmly. “Just force it open. You have the strength.” I thought it over. It would be obvious that the lock was broken when someone next came across it, however knowing what I planned to do to the lab if we found it, a broken lock would hardly be noticeable in comparison. I seized the doorknob and forced the door open by gradually applying more and more pressure like Clark had taught me. It finally gave away with a satisfying crunch. I turned to look at Jon triumphantly.
“I did it!” I exclaimed.
“I’ve never seen someone break a door better,” he told me.
Emboldened by my success, I led us confidently into Marten Technologies. The interior of the building was sleek and professional, decorated in a way that only a cushy government contract and a wealthy private clientele could afford. Although the building appeared deserted for the night, we couldn’t afford to wander around randomly looking for an illegal weapons lab that may or may not exist. I’m sure that if Jon had his powers, he could’ve scanned the entire building with X-ray vision in seconds and found any suspicious area immediately. I didn’t have the skills he did though, despite me having temporary superpowers, so I decided to go about things the way I had been trained.
There was a directory map conveniently posted on the wall, which I studied carefully, not looking at the visitor-friendly labels, but at the composition and layout of the building. It looked like most of the research labs were placed in clusters together with a clear view into all the others. It was unlikely that Sproxton could get away with doing any top secret projects in any of those facilities. Then my eye caught sight of a small room labeled the “Observation Tower”. It appeared to be at level higher than all the others. I glanced over to Jon and saw that he was staring at the same thing. Wordlessly, we headed for the stairwell and climbed up to the top floor, then searched for the entrance to the small room. Guessing from the name of the room, I assumed there was a clear view skyward, which would enable Sproxton to send his satellite signal without a chance of interruption.
This time I didn’t hesitate in breaking the door open, and when we entered the room, it was pretty obvious that something different was going on than some harmless stargazing. The beast of a machine that stood in the center of the room was obviously designed for transmitting something as opposed to receiving it. There was a couple computers sitting on a counter near the wall, a mess of scientific equipment and carefully organized papers filled the rest of the counter space.
“Okay, here’s the plan,” I told Jon. “You wipe those computers clean, I go through the papers to glean important information, and we find a way to dismantle that machine.”
“Sound simple enough,” he agreed, and then began working on the computers.
I had finished with the files earlier than Jon was done with the computers, so I wandered over to the machine to see how we could deactivate it. Although our problem wouldn’t really be solved until we were able to catch Sproxton, incapacitating the machine would ensure that Clark and Ellie were safe from any future attacks. I noticed a small door on the side of the machine, so I bent down to yank it open. A small lump of glowing red crystal tumbled out onto the floor. I stared at it curiously, and it sucked me into its glow.
“So that’s what Kryptonite looks like,” I commented idly.
“Kaylie, get away from there!” Jon exclaimed from across the room. I heard a frantic scuffling and then he swooped down and scooped the rock into a small box.
“How do you know that’s lined with lead?” I asked him, still feeling a little dazed.
“It’s heavy for its size,” he explained. “I knew they must have had one around here somewhere, so I just… But that’s not really important, Kaylie. How are you feeling?”
“Relax, Jor. Jon,” I told him. “I feel fine.” But as I made a move to stand up again, the world spun violently, and I fell down on the floor.
“Kaylie, what’s wrong?” Jor asked anxiously.
“Dizzy,” I muttered to him as I tried to lift myself to my knees. I couldn’t seem to center my balance, and the world around me seemed to dance crazily in front of my eyes.
“We need to get you out of here,” he decided. He grabbed me firmly around the waist and heaved me too my feet. “Just lean on me for support, okay?” I groaned noisily. “Kaylie? What’s wrong?”
“I think I’m going to be sick.”
* * *
***The first time he had seen his father affected by Kryptonite was just over a year after he found out the secret. He was in Metropolis for Christmas holidays and was sitting at home reading a book when his parents shuffled into the house. Lois sat Clark down heavily on the sofa and helped him out of his coat.
“I’m feeling better now, Lois,” Clark told her. “We got away from it fast enough so it wasn’t too bad.” His wife looked him over critically.
“I’ll get you a cup of tea,” she finally said, and left for the kitchen.
“Dad, what happened?” Ellie asked fearfully.
“I’m okay, Ellie,” Clark reassured her. “Mom and I were going to meet a source and it turned out that they had some Kryptonite on them. But we were able to get away fast enough, so I’m just a little bit tired and sore right now. But don’t worry, I’ll bounce right back.” He smiled tiredly at her.
“Could Kryptonite affect me and Jon too?” Ellie asked, her scientific curiosity piqued.
“Hopefully not,” Clark replied. “But I don’t really know for sure.”
“I’ll ask Uncle Brad when I see him again,” Ellie decided. “It would be good to know; just in case.”
Jon didn’t share her enthusiasm. His parents had told him that Kryptonite did actually exist, but he had never really understood the danger until now. He looked at his father taking off his glasses and leaning back against the cushions, grunting a little with the effort. Although Clark occasionally looked tired and stressed, this was taking it to a level that Jon hadn’t seen before. It scared him. Somewhere out in the world was a substance so terrible that it could hurt Superman. And maybe it could hurt him too.
Lois reentered with a hot mug of tea. She sat beside her husband and carefully passed the mug to him.
“Now remember,” she told him, “This is hot. You have to be careful or else you’ll burn your tongue.”
“Thanks, Lois,” Clark replied gratefully.
Jon watched the man who could fly into burning buildings without hesitation, the man who could soar into space and rescue astronauts, the man who had nothing to fear. Reduced to sipping tea carefully to avoid burning his tongue. All because of a rock.***
* * *
I managed to wait until we got outside of the building before I was sick. Although Jon had only a fraction of his formal strength, he still kept a strong arm around me which enabled me to walk mostly upright. We ducked around the alley, and Jon called Ellie while I was busy throwing up in the gutter. She came, picked us up, and took us to Jon’s apartment. By then, I was already starting to recover from my brief exposure, and there wasn’t really anything that Ellie could do to help me, so she left us, taking the red Kryptonite with her. Even though I had made a complete mess of the evening, Jon had had the presence of mind to take the box with the red K and the papers I had collected with us when we left. I had started paging through the new research when Jon come to sit beside me on the sofa, and handed me a cup of tea.
“This should help settle your stomach,” he told me softly.
“Thanks,” I said abstractly. I took a sip and then set it down on the coffee table, not really tasting it. I had to concentrate on sifting through this information. “So I’m thinking that it’s kinda weird that there was only red Kryptonite in that machine,” I told Jon. “We had decided that it was both red and green Kryptonite that had hurt you. Maybe there’s something in the schematics-”
“Kaylie,” Jon interrupted forcibly. “It’s late. We’ve both had a long day. I know from personal experience that red K is difficult to come off from. You need to get some rest.”
“Not yet,” I insisted. “I still need to figure this out because I have hunch that-”
“Kaylie,” he said again, this time laying his hand over mine to stop my frantic flipping through files. “You look dead tired. It can wait.”
“No, it can’t, Jon!” I burst out angrily. “I have to work this out.”
“Why? Why does it have to be tonight?” he demanded.
“Because I screwed up!” I finally admitted. “You warned me before about the Kryptonite, but I still let myself get exposed to it, and we had to leave that lab that held all the answers. I was impulsive, and stupid, and I almost got us caught. We were incredibly lucky to escape that building without being found by someone and it was all my stupid fault.” I remembered the training I had gone through when I first became an agent. Over and over I had been told that I was too impulsive, took too many risks, a liability. Those words came back to me now and pounded at my fragile nerves, leaving me with shattered fragments of guilt. Jon pulled me toward him and held me tight as frustrated tears squeezed out of me. I had never felt comfortable about crying in front of another person until I met him, and it appeared that I was now making the most of it.
“We did fine, Kaylie,” Jon comforted me. “Even though it wasn’t the perfect investigation, we still accomplished a great deal. I wiped both of those computers, and you disabled the machine for the time being. Plus, we now have Sproxton’s chunk of red K.”
“But if it wasn’t for you…” I couldn’t let myself finish off that thought. “You did everything that was important,” I said instead. “I just messed everything up.” Jon pulled away from me in order to look me in the eyes.
“Are you always this hard on yourself?” he demanded. “You didn’t mess everything up, Kaylie, you were terrific. You’re dealing with a whole spectrum of new abilities; it’s bound to be difficult to anticipate every possible outcome. And maybe I did have to help you out near the end, but there was no way I could’ve done it all by myself. Even,” he spoke, anticipating my objection, “if I had my powers. I probably would’ve ended up being the one needing help out of Marten Tech.” Upon considering this, I decided that he might be right. The chunk of Kryptonite had just tumbled out of the machine when I jostled it.
“I guess I just don’t like the idea of me dragging you down,” I admitted. “I don’t like other people having to step in and help me when I fail at something.”
“First of all, Kaylie, you did not fail. You just needed some backup. And second: isn’t that the whole point of loving someone and being with them? We’re a team together, filling in the other person’s gaps.” As if to illustrate his point, he drew me in close again until we fit tight together, filling the gaps between us.
After a while, he reached lazily over to the coffee table and picked up my tea, handing it to me meaningfully.
“It’s probably cold by now,” I commented from my position lying back against him.
“This’ll give you a good chance to practice your heat vision, then,” he replied. With no small amount of trepidation, I carefully stared at the cup of tea, and concentrated on it until a ribbon of steam rose from it. Then, I immediately clamped my eyes shut until I was sure they were no longer giving off heat. “Hey, you did it!” Jon congratulated me. I sipped the tea carefully, and although it was a little hotter than I would normally like, my invulnerable tongue protected me from being scalded.
“I’ll be so glad when I can give these powers back to you,” I told Jon.
“You don’t like them?” he asked.
“Well, the X-ray vision is kinda cool,” I admitted, “but I hate having to be so careful all the time with everything I do. Plus, I still can’t fly.”
“Mmm.” I could feel his chest rumbling on my cheek. “We could probably work on that. I have an idea.”
A huge yawn cracked my jaw. “It would have to be tomorrow, I think,” I said lazily. I was starting to realize how tired I was. “I should get going,” I commented abstractly, yet not really meaning anything. I was far too comfortable to consider moving.
“You don’t have to go just yet,” Jon told me. “After all, you’re car is still parked outside of Marten Tech, and I don’t think Ellie would like being woken up again to-”
Those were the last words I heard as I tumbled into sleep.
