As always, flashbacks are outlined in *** ! My apologies to people who forget and then become confused.
Thanks again to Nancy for looking over this for me!
PART TWO
“I can’t believe we’re actually engaged!” I crowed happily to Jon as he flew us back to my apartment.
“Amazing, isn’t it?” he grinned at me.
“So did you tell anyone that you were going to propose?”
“Well, I tried to keep it a secret, but Ellie knew that something was up, so she squeezed it out of me. And then she went and told my Aunt Lucy, who told my Uncle Brad and my mom, who told my dad…”
“So basically your whole family knows.”
“Well, they didn’t know that you would say yes,” he pointed out as we landed on my balcony. “So we still need to tell them how it went. How about you? Anybody you want to call tonight to share the good news with?”
“Maybe later,” I said. “I probably won’t be able to get through to my dad right away, and Jay’s off god knows where doing god knows what for the NIA. I’ll get in contact with them some other time. As for right now…” I slid the glass door open as I stretched my arm across his neck. “I think I might have a better idea of how to spend my night.”
“Oh, really? What might that be?”
I dragged Jon inside and down onto my sofa as our lips met hurriedly. I didn’t even give him time to change out his Supernova suit, and I could feel the slick spandex underneath my fingers. Jon pulled away. He opened his mouth as if to speak, but then broke off as the door to my bathroom flew open and a stocky man with dark hair and an artificial looking goatee burst out.
“Kaylie, what the hell-” the intruder began. He was soon cut off when Jon raced over to him and grabbed his neck in typical superhero fashion.
“Who are you?” Jon demanded. “What are you doing here?”
“No! Wait!” I told Jon frantically. “You can put him down, it’s all right.” Jon turned to me, still holding onto the intruder. Both pairs of eyes stared at me, begging for answers. “He’s my brother,” I finally explained.
* * *
*** Theresa all but attacked him as he walked through the hall of the dormitory on his way to visit a roommate.
“Finally! A tall guy!” she exclaimed. “Give me a hand with this will you, Jon?” Jon obediently helped his friend unroll the poster to stick on her door. He nearly dropped it, though, when he saw the picture on the poster. Him. Well, Supernova, really. However, his image happened to be doing some very un-Supernova-ish things.
“That’s not real!” he cried out in shock, anxious to deny that his alter ego had been doing anything like what was pictured on the poster.
“Of course it’s not,” Theresa chuckled. “I Photoshopped it and then had one of the print guys blow it up for me. You can still tell it’s fake. See where his hand is sliding up my shirt? The pixels don’t match up properly. Hey, you’re a computer guy, right? Do you think you can get this looking better for me?”
“No,” he told her flatly, while trying to ignore the furious blush across his face. “And I can’t believe you have a picture of you doing… *that* with Supernova. He would never do that in real life.”
“I know he wouldn’t,” she responded. “But a girl can dream, can’t she?”
“That’s about as far as you’ll ever get,” their friend Toby interjected. Theresa stuck her tongue out at him.
“Yeah, the guy’s probably got a whole pose of chicks hanging off him wherever he goes,” another chimed in. “He’s got his pick of the most attractive ladies in the world. He’s not going to settle for just anyone.”
“I bet you wish you were Supernova, Eric,” Toby teased. “Then you’d never have to worry about picking up girls at a party.”
“If I were Supernova, I’d go beyond picking up girls,” Eric replied. “I’d be able to study for midterms at super-speed so then I’d have the rest of the time to relax.”
“Forget studying. Just use x-ray vision to cheat off other people’s papers,” Theresa suggested.
“If I were Supernova, I’d use my heat vision so we could actually get some heat in this building in the winter.” Everyone laughed in agreement at this statement. Then Theresa piped up again.
“Do you think he’d be able to heat up a whole building for such a long time? Doesn’t he have some limits?”
“I dunno,” Eric replied. “Jon, you’re from Metropolis. Do you think Supernova could keep this whole building heated?”
“Um… maybe,” Jon muttered. “I don’t really know all that well what his limits are.” He was anxious to deflect the attention away from himself; however his friends had other plans.
“Have you ever met Superman?” Theresa asked. “Or, did you even get to see Supernova when you went home for Thanksgiving?”
“Well… maybe once… you know, just in passing…” he hated this blatant lying, yet he couldn’t exactly tell them the truth.
“Hey, Jon! Do you know what’s up with the tight suit? Why are two grown men like that parading around in spandex?” Jon didn’t think his face could have gotten any redder. He was obviously wrong.
“There’s nothing wrong with spandex,” Theresa defended. “I think it adds to his image.” She gazed lustily at the poster on her door. “Besides, you’re only jealous because there’s no way you could pull off wearing a suit that tight.”
“I wouldn’t want to,” Toby replied firmly. “Hey, Jon, Eric and I are heading down to the gym to play basketball. Want to come?”
“I can’t,” he said reluctantly. “I’ve got an assignment due tomorrow.” Actually, he had a charity appearance to do in Metropolis followed by a couple hours of patrolling with his dad, but they didn’t need to know that.
“Well, have fun with that,” Eric replied, and the group split off to go their separate ways. Jon was truly reluctant that he couldn’t spend more time with his friends. It had been a difficult year for him so far. His classes were as challenging as ever, but now he had the added pressure of being a recently created superhero. He had decided to finish his degree at Kansas State University, but he found that the commute to Metropolis was more challenging than he though it would be. Not to mention all the offers he was getting for media interviews, charity appearances, and even product endorsement. With the help of the Superman Foundation, he was able to control some of it, yet he still found himself struggling to juggle his many commitments. But it had to die down soon, he told himself. It can’t keep going this busy forever. As his father was fond of saying, you could only go at super-speed for so long.***
* * *
“How many times have I told you to tell me when you’re coming to visit?” I asked Jay accusingly. “You can’t just break in whenever you want to.”
“Yeah, I could see how me catching you cheating on your boyfriend could be kind of awkward,” Jay commented sarcastically. “We wouldn’t want that happening all the time.”
“Look, this isn’t what it looks like,” Jon attempted to explain from his position on the sofa. We were sitting quietly together, and Jay hovered over us like an angry parent who was scolding his children for stealing cookies.
“Well I’m so glad it’s not what it looks like,” Jay spoke, dripping with derision. “Because it looks like you’ve been making out with my sister who happens to be dating another guy.” He turned to me. “Kaylie, do you mind telling me what the hell’s going on? I thought you were supposed to be seeing that Jon Kent guy.”
I chewed my lip nervously as I glanced in Jon’s direction. He was still in the conspicuous Supernova suit, yet he was hunched over, sitting on my sofa and not looking remotely heroic. I tried to think of a believable explanation, some excuse that would make sense yet still keep Jay from finding out the secret. There wasn’t anything. Even if I thought of something, I was never able to lie convincingly to Jay. He always saw right through me. Jon met my gaze, and we made a tacit decision.
“I am Jon Kent,” Jon announced to Jay. “Supernova only exists when I wear the suit, but at any other time I live a normal life just like everyone else.” Then Jon spun into his normal clothing to illustrate his point. Jay sat down heavily in my armchair, staring at Jon.
“Everyone thinks that Superman came to Earth about thirty years ago when he saved the Prometheus launch,” I explained. “But in actuality, he came here when he was just baby and was raised as a normal kid all his life, only to invent Superman later on. He got married and had kids who were born and raised here on Earth. Jon invented Supernova when he decided to follow in his dad’s footsteps, and his sister Ellie invented Nebula a few years later.”
“That’s… um… wow,” Jay stammered. “No wonder you didn’t want me investigating him when I first found out you were seeing someone.”
“This has to be kept a secret,” I emphasized. “It can’t go beyond this apartment, and especially not to anyone at the NIA.”
“Of course,” Jay agreed, snapping out of his shock. “You don’t have to worry about me spilling the beans. I’m good with secrets.”
“So I hear,” Jon said. Jay shot Jon a curious look, but didn’t question the comment.
“Speaking of secrets, you guys should maybe think about being a little more careful,”
Jay told us. “It might not have been the most polite thing for me to break into your apartment and hide out in the bathroom, Kaylie, but I could’ve been anyone and then you guys would’ve been in real trouble.”
“I know. You’re right,” I admitted. Boundaries. First with Amanda and now with Jay. We really did need to start being more careful.
“But I am sorry I blew your cover, Jon,” Jay apologized. “Your family must keep this secret pretty close and it must gall you to have a complete stranger stumble across it like this.”
“We’ll work it out,” Jon replied magnanimously. “If you’re going to be in Metropolis for a bit maybe we can arrange a meeting with the rest of the family. That will help smooth out some worries.”
“I’m planning to be here for a while,” Jay replied.
“What’re you doing in Metropolis?” I asked, snagging the opportunity to find out what was going on. But Jay just gave me the lopsided grin he always does when he’s hiding the truth from me.
“Can’t a guy come visit his sister every now and then without facing an interrogation? I just wanted to come check up on you.” I didn’t believe him, of course, and Jon sensed the tension between us.
“I think I’m going to head home for the night, Kaylie,” he announced. “You two have probably got some catching up to do.”
“I’ll come with you to the balcony,” I offered. Once we had gotten into relative privacy I turned to him to apologize. “Jon, I’m so sorry about Jay. He has this habit of dropping in at unexpected times and if I’m not there he just breaks in and waits for me to come home. I should’ve been prepared for that.”
“It’s my fault, too,” Jon replied. “I should’ve checked your apartment to make sure that no one was there.”
“And even though we didn’t do anything incriminating earlier at the Planet,” I added, “we still should’ve been more careful.”
Jon nodded. “I guess that’s something we need to work on, huh?”
“Yeah,” I whispered. Then I glanced through the glass door at Jay sitting in my armchair. “Sorry we won’t get to spend more time together tonight,” I apologized.
“Well, at least now you get to tell someone about this.” Jon lifted my hand up so the ring sparkled.
“You know, I almost forgot with all the excitement,” I told him. Jon brought my hand up to his lips and kissed it tenderly.
“I’ll call you tomorrow,” he said before he flew off into the sky. I let myself back into my apartment, and went over to sit across from Jay. I could see the sunken bruising around his eyes that came from lack of sleep, and I noticed that he had lost a little weight since I had last seen him. Stress, probably. But I knew he wouldn’t want me to fuss over him like that, so instead, I focused on another problem with his appearance.
“You know, you don’t have the face for facial hair,” I commented. “Even if it was real, it never looked very good.”
“I was planning to lose it soon anyway. You’ll notice that my hair is at its natural color though.” I glanced up at his nearly-black hair that stuck up a little in messy spikes.
“No, its not.”
“Okay, maybe not,” he smiled a little hollowly. “But at least it looks natural.”
“How are you handling the whole Jon thing?” I asked. He still seemed pretty shaken up.
“Still in shock, I think,” he replied. “How long have you known that he was Supernova?”
“I dated him as Supernova,” I answered. “It wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I found out what his real identity was.”
“Leave it to you to date a superhero,” Jay commented with amusement.
“I don’t think any other guy could handle all my… uniqueness,” I replied.
“Kaylie, how much does Jon know about the NIA?” Jay asked critically.
“We don’t have any secrets between us,” I answered.
“So he knows abut me then.”
“I’ve mentioned you and dad a couple times,” I replied, “but nothing specific. I don’t even know any specifics about what you’re doing anymore.” Jay ignored my blunt hint and instead began pacing the room.
“Didn’t you say he works for a newspaper?” Jay asked me.
“It’s going to be fine,” I reassured him. “Jon’s kept the biggest secret there is for years, he’s not about to just blab ours for the sake of a headline.”
“Yeah, you’re right,” Jay agreed. “It just makes me nervous knowing that he knows.”
“How do you think he feels?” I countered. “He just met you and you know his whole family secret. The only thing you have going for you is that you’re an NIA agent, which frankly, doesn’t help much as the Kents have had a lot of problems with the agency in the past.”
“I didn’t mean to do that, Kaylie; you know that, don’t you?”
“Lucky for you, your inability to subscribe to social conventions is something I’m very familiar with,” I replied. “Otherwise, I might be suspicious.” I twisted my new ring with agitation. “We’re just going to have to convince the Kents that you’re trustworthy.” Jay’s gaze landed on my hand, and I could see his brow furrow in concentration.
“When did that happen?” he asked, with a hint of surprise in his voice.
“Just before we came here,” I answered with a faint smile growing on my face from the memory. “He took me back to the place where we first met and proposed.”
“Congratulations, Kaylie,” he told me sincerely. “It looks like you’ve got yourself a real life now. What you’ve always wanted.” I noticed the sadness in his voice.
“Jay-” I began but didn’t know how to finish. It was true. While I had always maintained a boundary between NIA work and my real life, Jay hadn’t had an existence outside the agency since high school. “What are you really doing here?” I finally settled on asking.
“An assignment, of course. Look, Kaylie, I can see that I’m just going to be in your way here, but I do really need somewhere to crash in Metropolis for a few days until I can find a place of my own. I’ll be public, so you don’t have to worry about keeping a secret tenant.”
“Who will you be?” I asked. It was a pertinent question. Jay spent probably close to seventy percent of his time undercover, and even when he did surface as himself, it was almost always in NIA headquarters.
“I’ll be your brother,” he answered simply. Then he paused for a moment, running his hand through his hair. Then he sighed tiredly. Finally he met my eyes. “I’m taking a leave of absence from the agency.”
“What? Why?” I asked with surprise. Jay was incredibly dedicated to the NIA, despite the challenges that created, and I certainly hadn’t seen this coming.
“I need a bit of a break. There are just a couple things I need to fix up before I’m completely done.”
“What things?” I asked curiously.
“I need to finish what I started,” he said determinedly. He didn’t elaborate on it anymore, but I could sense the tension behind his eyes. Something was going on with him. But like always, he wasn’t going to tell me.
