Thank you, Carol! From here on out, each chapter went through several iterations. Carol only saw about half of them, but still was forced to read these or parts of them several times, but never complained.
From Chapter 50
“I told Lois last night that I like to think… well, I know I probably don’t have birth parents. But I like to think that if I do, they chose you. It wasn’t some random coincidence that landed me here. Because I know if I do have parents, and they were able to choose, they couldn’t have found anyone better.”
Mom smiled, brushing my hair off my forehead. “I don’t know about that, but I’m sure they couldn’t have found anyone that would love you as much as we do.”
She gave me another hug and Dad came over and joined us.
“So,” he said a second later, “is my tractor ready yet?”
We laughed lightly. “Just a second, Dad,” I told him as I reattached the cover.
Dad leaned over and turned it on, smiling when the engine started up. “Yeah,” he said, ruffling my hair, “I guess we’ll keep you.”
Chapter 51
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Lois as we walked off campus in search of a deserted alley.
She laughed lightly. “It’s too late, Clark. Don’t you get that? I know your secret, and unless one of your extra features is the ability to erase someone’s memory, you can’t change that.”
“I know that,” I told her. “And, no, I can’t erase anyone’s memory. Or at least I don’t think I can. But what I meant was you. Regardless of my choices, or lack thereof, you have a choice. You don’t need to get any more involved in this than you already are. You don’t need to get any more involved with me.”
“You’ve got to be kidding me!” Lois said, grinning up at me. “We’re just getting to the good stuff. And I get the feeling your mom and I are on the same page. By the time we’re done with you, you are going to make Spiderman look like… well, a comic book character, I guess.”
I chuckled. “I’m not sure if I should be happy about that or not. You’re not going to want to dress me up in spandex or something are you?”
Lois backed up from me a step as we entered the first suitable alley we passed. “Hmmm… not a bad idea, Kent. Not a bad idea. You’d look pretty good in spandex.”
“So would you,” I said, my voice a bit husky as I pulled her closer to me. We shared a kiss – potentially more heated than was appropriate for out in public, but then again, this was only sort of in public.
“Okay, let’s go, fly-boy,” she commanded me softly as we pulled apart.
“At your command,” I told her as I scooped her up in my arms.
The last few days had been… I wasn’t sure. Surreal, I guess. It was so weird to be back together with Lois – wonderfully weird, but weird none-the-less. It was even stranger that she knew my secret. It made my relationship with her completely different than any one else I’d ever known. Before Lois, no one besides my parents knew about me. I sometimes thought Grandma Clark might have suspected something, she was Mom’s mom after all, but no one else. Besides, Grandma Clark never mentioned anything, and we had still never talked about it when she died my junior year of high school.
Even if she had known though, Lois was the first person outside of my family, the first person my age, the first peer, I guess, who knew. It was frightening and wonderful all at the same time to have someone know – to have Lois know.
“It’s so beautiful up here,” Lois sighed, bringing me out of my thoughts.
I nodded, although with her eyes focused on the city lights below us, she couldn’t see me. “I’ve always loved this,” I told her. “The rest of the things were scary, but flying never was. Well, at least after the first time. But it was the last of my powers or whatever to come in, so it was somehow less scary.”
“How come?” she asked me, taking her eyes off the earth below us for a second.
“I guess,” I tried to put my thoughts into words. “by the time I woke up that morning floating, we already knew so many other things, I had lost hope of being normal. I guess maybe I’d seem a little less weird if I didn’t fly, but really, how much? I already felt alienated from my classmates a little by the other things, and I already had all these secrets. So flying didn’t change anything. Just gave me a way to get away from it all.”
“So I took to it somewhat quickly. I was also pretty good at learning to control these things quickly by that time. And once I realized how peaceful it was up here, how quiet… I guess I ended up feeling grateful. Flying feels like the one great thing about being weird.
“Still does. Without flying, I couldn’t really be the Boy in Black. It would look weird for me to be helping out all the time in Metropolis – people would probably start to realize I was doing things, even if only occasionally, that no one else could do.”
“Well, they’ll be doing that soon enough anyway,” Lois smiled at me.
“Are you sure?” I asked her, still feeling a bit uneasy about this idea she and my mom had. “Going public seems so… dangerous.”
“And freeing,” Lois said. “Think about how much better it will be to be the Boy in Black when you can help using all of the things you can do.”
I nodded as I landed in the cornfield. “That will be nice. As long as it doesn’t put my mom and dad in danger. Or you.”
“It won’t,” Lois said, as I set her on her feet. “I’m pretty sure we’ll figure it out.”
************************
“Okay,” Mom said, a myriad of fabric samples on the table in front of her. “My first thought is that you need a costume.”
Lois picked up a bright red piece and grinned at me. “Spandex.”
I glanced at Mom.
“Spandex is practical,” she told me. When I gave her a disbelieving look, she continued, “The goal of the costume is to keep your identity hidden. Thanks to your… well, whatever it is, you stay looking lean and fit. Spandex will keep eyes on your body rather than your face,” Mom said.
“Hey, wait a minute,” Lois said. “I’m not so sure this is a good idea.”
I laughed. “Really?”
“I don’t want lots of women ogling you,” she said, but I could tell from the look on her face that she was kidding.
“They can ogle all they want,” I told her, “but only you can touch.”
“Um, Clark,” Dad said, reminding me that Lois and I weren’t alone.
“PG type touching,” I mumbled as I felt my face get hot.
“We’ll be okay with PG-13,” Mom said with a smirk. I had to admit to feeling a little bit of satisfaction when Lois blushed, too.
“Right,” Dad agreed, picking up a piece of plaid fabric. “Really, Martha?” he asked.
“Oh, that one’s for you,” Mom said. “I thought it would make a nice kilt.”
“You wear kilts?” Lois asked Dad disbelievingly.
Dad chuckled. “Not routinely. Just for Halloween. I lost a bet back when I was in high school. Now I need to dress like a Scotsman every year, including a kilt.”
Lois laughed, while Mom and I, who knew the story, smiled.
“Sure makes me wish ole Bill Malloy would move out of town,” Dad admitted.
“It’s his own fault,” Mom told Lois. “He bet Bill he could get me to go to the homecoming dance with him.”
“I thought you were from Boston?” Lois said.
“I was. I spent my freshman year of high school here, though. My grandfather’s dream was to own a farm, so when they retired, they moved here. One year my mom got sick and my parents decided I should live with my grandparents for awhile.”
“She was quite popular,” Dad told us. “Far prettier than any of the local girls.”
“Don’t let him fool you,” Mom told them. “Things don’t change. I was only popular ‘cause the boys all thought a city girl would be… willing to go further with them than the local girls.”
“Hey, I never…” Dad started.
“I didn’t say you did,” Mom smiled at him. “I went out with you only because I knew you weren’t like that.”
“But not to the homecoming dance?” Lois asked.
“I didn’t know him yet,” Mom said. “So I thought he was just like all the other boys.”
“I was,” Dad mock whispered to us as he grabbed Mom around the waist. Mom smiled and turned to give him a kiss before breaking away.
“So, I got a few other fabric types, but I really think spandex is the best option,” Mom said, coming back to the topic at hand.
“Clearly,” I said, looking through the pieces on the table. She had bought spandex in several colors.
“I like the red the best,” Lois declared. “It really stands out.”
“I like the blue,” I offered, thinking maybe I’d blend in with the sky a bit, although it was a pretty bright blue.
“Don’t look at me,” Dad said. “I’m still not sure about this idea at all.”
“Well, I tried something in green all ready,” Mom told us, going into the closet and pulling something out. It was a costume made of a forest green spandex. It was all green, but it had… not briefs, but something like them, and on the outside no less. They were the same green, but with stripes.
“I’m not wearing my underwear on the outside,” I told her.
“They aren’t underwear,” Mom said.
“You wear boxers…” Lois said, trailing off when she realized she’d admitted to knowing what kind of underwear I wore in front of my parents.
Mom laughed and Dad chuckled, so I decided to ignore it.
“No one else knows that,” I said.
“Maddie doesn’t?” she asked me. I felt the flush creep up my neck all the way to the top of my hairline. Did she really want to have this conversation in front of my parents? “Right. Not the point,” she mumbled.
“Just try it on,” Mom said.
I took it from her, already hating it, but carried it up to my bedroom. It was really hard to get on. It took quite a bit of pulling, and then once it was on, it was quite tight. It definitely would require some getting used to, and I was already in favor of a different material. Plus, it looked ridiculous.
Both Mom and Lois wolf whistled when I came downstairs, and I glared to let them know I didn’t appreciate it. “It looks stupid,” I told them.
Mom nodded. “Yeah, the stripes definitely aren’t right.”
“But the idea is good,” Lois said. “I like the briefs over the rest of it, breaks it up a bit. Makes it seem less like a cat suit or something.”
“The spandex isn’t that comfortable,” I told them.
“You’ll get used to that,” Lois told me.
“And it really does make sense,” Mom said.
“I know. Eyes off my face,” I repeated her words from earlier.
“Plus it’s thin, so you can wear it under things. That will be useful when you’re not in class – you won’t need to go back to your room to change if you want to go somewhere,” Lois added.
“And it will bring down your wind resistance when you fly,” Mom pointed out.
“Mom, I fly now in normal clothes,” I reminded her.
“And think how much faster you’ll be in spandex,” she replied with a smirk. We both knew it was unlikely I’d get much faster.
I turned towards Dad for his opinion. He shrugged. “I have to agree with your mother on this. I think if you wear spandex no one will look at your face.”
I blushed and avoided eye contact with Lois. Sometimes my parents were a little too supportive.
************************
Several hours later, a mess of different spandex pieces around us, we had made a decision. I wasn’t completely happy with it – it was still spandex and thus still tight, plus it still had the underwear on the outside, but I had to admit it looked better than the others. It was blue with red underwear and a yellow belt.
“Just wear it for a little while,” Lois said. “See if you get used to the feel.”
I shrugged. It was hard to imagine I would, but then all I had done for the last several hours was pull the stuff off and on. Maybe leaving it in one place for a little while was a good idea.
Mom was still looking at me critically. “It’s missing something,” she announced.
“What?” I asked.
Mom shrugged. “I’m not sure. Just something to break up the blue on your chest.”
“Like a crest or something,” Lois suggested.
“Exactly,” Mom agreed. The two of them stood looking me over like a piece of meat. I felt distinctly uncomfortable.
“Whatever it is, it should have the red and yellow in it,” Lois said.
“That’s it!” Mom exclaimed and ran up the stairs.
We all turned around to watch her, and then gave each other looks to confirm that no one knew what she was talking about when she disappeared from view. She came downstairs a few moments later with a piece of blue flannel.
“This was covering you in your ship,” she announced, holding it out to me.
“It was?” I asked, opening it slowly. It was a blue baby blanket. It was wrapped around some sort of crest – just like Lois had suggested. The crest was even made out of red and yellow.
“I must have subconsciously been thinking about this when I chose these colors,” Mom said.
I didn’t say anything, just stared down at the blanket. “What do you think it means?” I asked Mom, Dad, and Lois. “I mean the crest? Do you think it’s a family crest? And the blanket… I mean… if I was really just a science experiment, no one would have bothered to put a blanket on top of me, would they?”
No one said anything for a moment, and then Lois stepped over to me. “I don’t know what it is, Clark, but it means that even if you are a science experiment, someone who knew you before your parents, even if it was just one of the scientists, cared about you.”
I nodded my head in agreement. Someone had covered me with a blanket. Like Lois had said, someone who had known me before my parents had cared about me – had wanted me to be warm while I was in the ship. Even if I was science experiment, I hadn’t been completely unwanted. Well, okay, maybe I was, but I wasn’t completely unloved.
Mom reached over to grab my hand and Dad moved over to put his arm around me and Mom. Lois grabbed my other hand as I stared down at the blanket. It was silly really how much this stupid piece of flannel meant to me, but it did mean a lot.
Lois reached out to caress the crest still sitting on top of it. “It’s perfect,” she whispered. “Look,” she smiled up at me. “It’s even an S. It’s perfect for Superman.”
“I told you, I’m not using that name,” I said, looking up to see Lois grinning at me. “I’m not,” I insisted.
“Well, whatever,” Lois said, dismissing my comment, “I’m sure whoever put the crest in your ship would be happy to have it on this suit,” Lois said.
Mom nodded. “I’m sure they’d be very proud of the choice you’re making,” her voice cracked slightly. “I know your Dad and I are.”
Dad didn’t say anything, but his arm tightened slightly around me.
“So this is it then?” I asked, gesturing to the crest.
“Well, maybe we should wait to put it on until you’re sure you want to wear this suit,” Mom said. “I don’t want to ruin the crest by sewing it on. You may want it some day.”
“I’m sure now,” I told her. Now that I saw the blanket, saw how well the crest matched the suit Mom had created, I knew I wouldn’t want to change to anything else. This was it. My costume would be the one my mother created decorated with the emblem or crest or whatever that someone before Mom and Dad laid over me.
