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Jonathan hated Bio. He had hated it in Metropolis, too, finding the subject to be full of dull memorization and of little interest to him. In Smallville, his irritation had come mostly in the form of his relentlessly upbeat teacher Mr. Stimson.
Everyone seemed to love being in his class, and he seemed like a genuinely nice guy. It wasn’t until Jon started to really understand his powers that he realized what the problem was. For all his niceties and friendliness, Mr. Stimson had a charismatic personality and Jon found it irritatingly easy to get swept up in the wake of his teacher’s influence.
He was getting better at telling the difference between his own emotions and other peoples’. Usually, he was able to stay unswayed without much effort unless it was a large crowd all feeling the same thing or a really strong emotion from someone unexpected.
Maybe it was the excitement he generated in the whole class or maybe it was just that some people had a stronger influence than others, but Stimson was always a challenge for Jon. The teen would enter the class wary and reserved and somehow always end up getting sucked into the energy of the room. He could pull himself out of it once he noticed, but it always made Jon end up feeling like he had been mind swapped.
As Jon’s abilities grew stronger, he could resist Stimson’s influence from the start, but it always took him effort that left him worn out by the end of the period.
Jordan had him for the AP section and seemed to like the teacher well enough, so Jonathan had decided to keep his irritation to himself. There was nothing for it but to suffer through and finish the class so he didn’t need end up needing to retake it.
Today, he had managed to snag a seat at the back of the room which helped a little. He listened as Mr. Stimson explained the terrarium assignment they had to complete and managed to sort of… surf on top of the teacher’s excitement rather than swimming in the middle of it. He had been watching a lot of meditation videos, of all things, and found that they gave him some helpful imagery to manage some of the unwanted sensations he was constantly faced with.
Stuff like that always made him feel very distant from the version of himself who had lived in Metropolis. The Metropolis version of Jon would have rolled his eyes after the first YouTube clip, but Smallville Jon was willing to try pretty much any technique to help get a handle on his evolving powers.
The class thankfully ended, and Jonathan was just packing up his notebook when he was approached by Amy Brooks, one of the girls in his class.
“Hey, Jon,” she greeted, bubbly positivity pouring off of her. “A bunch of us are going to the creek across the road to get our terrarium stuff after school today. Want to come? Jake’s driving and he lives right by you, right? You can get a ride home after.”
“Sure,” Jonathan agreed. “That sounds good.” A part of him hated how excited he was by the invitation. It was another difference from the Metropolis Jonathan: he had struggled so much to make friends when he first moved here. Most of the issue had been his undiscovered empathetic power screwing with his emotions, and now that he had a better handle on things, he was eager to make up for lost time.
“Great!” Amy flashed a friendly smile. “Meet you by the flagpole at the end of the day?”
Jonathan nodded with a grin. As the group dispersed, he slung his backpack over his shoulder and headed towards his next class.
The control he had managed during Bio was taking its toll. He felt a dull headache as he made his way down the hall, and Jon loosened up his defenses a little to relieve some tension. It was a balance, sometimes, between the energy needed to block out others and the emotional confusion he sensed with no barrier in place.
After wading his way through the clouds of chaotic emotions, he managed to make his way to English and park himself in a corner desk. Taking stock of the room, he sensed the calm composed presence of Ms. Hall at the front as she prepared for the start of class. Most of the students in the room were bored, wanting to get the last period of the day over with. Someone was stressed about an upcoming assignment, and Jon skipped over that quickly, knowing that getting sucked into the negativity would throw him off for the rest of the period.
Sometimes, he wished he could just be like everyone else at school who didn’t need to manage weird surges and declines of strange powers. He was getting better at it, but it added a whole layer to his high school experience that complicated things more than he would like. At least he had a twin who somewhat understood. English was the only class they had together, and Jonathan was glad to see Jordan come through the door.
With his defenses lowered, though, Jordan’s pain and frustration sang out louder than Jon was comfortable with. Jonathan stared as his brother slumped into the seat next to him, his brow pinched in pain.
“What’s wrong?” Jonathan whispered quietly. Summoning up the strength, he pulled up his mental protections again so he didn’t feel Jordan’s struggles so intensely.
Jordan shot a resigned glare at his brother. “The PA system’s broken,” he explained tightly. “Well, it’s been broken for hours, but they’re trying to fix it and all I hear is…” he trailed off and then pushed a sound at Jonathan that was so high pitched and intrusive it made his teeth ache.
“Shit, that sucks,” Jonathan murmured, keeping his voice low now that the classroom was filling up. “Why don’t you just say you have a migraine or something?”
Jordan shook his head. “I miss enough school already.”
Jonathan was about to reply but bell stopped him. Jordan flinched, and slumped even deeper into his chair but managed to relax somewhat when Ms. Hall stood at the front and began her class.
It wasn’t easy to split his attention between the lesson and his brother, but Jonathan wanted to keep a close eye on Jordan. Whatever the noise was, it seemed to come and go because Jordan reacted in waves, experiencing a rush of pain before turning to look at Jon with an embarrassed grimace, knowing that his brother could tell exactly what he was going through.
Jonathan wished he could do more to help him. He hadn’t attempted anything close to manipulating Jordan’s emotions since his had accidentally overshot with his powers that one time. Since then, he hadn’t felt like it was worth the other inevitable mistakes to figure out how to do it properly. He had been happy with just learning how to stop doing it. Now, Jonathan was wondering if it was something they should try after all. At least then he would be able to help Jordan take the edge off of the terrible noise.
Finally, one burst of sound was so intense that Jordan’s pencil crumbled in his hand. It was a sure sign that Jordan’s control was faltering, and Jon wasn’t about to let it get to heat-vision levels of distress.
He stood up quickly. “Ms. Hall, Jordan’s sick. I’m taking him to the nurse.”
Jordan must have really looked miserable because their teacher didn’t even protest. Jonathan grabbed Jordan’s backpack for him, already fishing in the front pocket for his brother’s ELT as they made their way out into the hall. Jonathan had his tucked away in his own backpack, but this one was more convenient.
His dad was there almost instantly, a feat that Jonathan still couldn’t really wrap his head around.
“Jordan, what’s wrong?” he asked as he strode down the hallway. Then he stopped abruptly and gave the speaker on the wall a surprised wince. “Oh. Wow. That sounds terrible.”
“Yeah, I’m not loving it,” Jordan admitted through gritted teeth.
“I’ll take you home.” Clark looked at his other son. Jonathan must have looked tired or something, because his father glanced at the hall clock before offering. “It’s almost the end of the day. Jonathan, did you want to…?”
“Nah, I better get back to class,” Jonathan waved off the offer. “We should have at least one of us attend school this week.” There had already been many superpower-induced absences over the last few months and Jonathan wanted to be here whenever he could.
He sank heavily into his chair once he made it back into the classroom. Helping Jordan usually didn’t take too much effort, but it had been a difficult day on top that. Glancing at the clock, he noted that there was still half an hour left in the day. Plus that Bio excursion he had planned. Jonathan settled in, trying once again to pay attention to the lesson. He refused to let his powers get in the way of living high school. He could make it through.
It was just a little bit longer.
Having two sons developing different sets of superpowers at the same time meant that Lois had learned to be prepared for anything. When she heard the familiar sound of her husband landing on the porch accompanied by a slower, shuffling set of the footsteps she prepared herself for any number of possibilities.
It was a relief, then, when Jordan came into the house looking only a little moody as opposed to traumatized. It appeared that there was no crisis. At least, not this time.
“What’s going on?” Lois asked, stepping out of her office as Jordan dumped his backpack and jacket by the door.
“My freaky ears couldn’t handle some feedback from a PA speaker,” Jordan complained dejectedly, slouching in a chair at the kitchen table.
“Some frequencies are harder to deal with than others,” Clark told his son, patting his back encouragingly. “I heard it, too, and it definitely didn’t sound good.”
“I just hope they’ve fixed it by tomorrow,” Jordan grumbled.
“I’m sure they will,” Lois encouraged. Or at least have the damn thing shut off.
“Why don’t we take some time right now and get some practice in?” Clark suggested. “Maybe not hearing if your ears are still sensitive, but some strength training?”
“Yeah, sure,” Jordan shrugged easily. “Might as well.”
They went out to the barn, and Lois returned to her office. She had to work up a few simple stories to fill in the Gazette pages and it was only a matter of typing up her notes and getting the stories into Chrissy.
She had been working for just over an hour when she heard a strange car pull up. Assuming it was Jon with a ride home from school, she didn’t check it out right away. But when a frantic knock rattled the front door, she got up to investigate.
It was Jake… something. A teen in Jon’s class that Lois had hoped would become a friend soon. He was standing in the door with a very pale and confused looking Jonathan.
“Mrs. Kent, he just started to feel sick on the drive home,” Jake burst out. “I don’t know what’s wrong.”
“It’s okay, Jake,” she spoke quickly, moving to bring her son inside. “He… gets migraines sometimes, so it’s probably one of those. Thanks for bringing him back safely.” She tried not to slam the door right in his face, but she was glad when he easily turned to go back to his car, seemingly convinced that his friend would be okay.
Jonathan shuffled into the house and she guided him through to the living room.
“Jon, what’s wrong?” she demanded in an urgent voice, turning his head so he looked at her. “Is it your powers?” Despite all the unexpected developments he had gone through, Lois had never seen him look quite this awful.
Even scarier, he didn’t respond to her. With what seemed like great effort, he squinted at her with confusion.
“Jon!”
Lois whipped her head around to see that Jordan had come into the house at some point. He dashed across the room to get to his brother but ended up doubled over in pain before he got there.
A sick, familiar feeling came over Lois.
“Clark!” she shouted, heart pounding so loud she could feel the rush in her ears. Before she had finished speaking, he appeared in the room. “I think it’s-”
“It’s in Jonathan’s backpack,” he told her quickly. Years of marriage (and a few dangerous scrapes) had made them effective communicators in a crisis.
“What?!” Not letting her shock distract her, she grabbed the backpack and sprinted towards the back door. Swinging it by the shoulder strap, she hurled the whole thing outside as far as she could send it before doubling back to check on her family. Investigating the contents could wait; she needed to make sure her kids were okay.
Jordan was gingerly lowering himself onto the couch, looking sore but otherwise fine. Jonathan was thankfully coming out of the strange mental fog he had been in since his arrival.
“What… was that?” he wondered, shaking his head like it was waterlogged.
Clark frowned and crossed his arms in concern.
“That,” he told his sons grimly, “was kryptonite.”
Although Clark’s multiple exposures to kryptonite over the years had always been terrible, the one benefit was that he had developed somewhat of a resistance to the deadly mineral. That was made very clear when he was able to destroy the miniscule sample he had found in Jonathan’s backpack while Jordan was still pale and shaking after his brief encounter. It had been his first exposure to the natural element, and Clark wished that his son didn’t have to go through it at all.
Jonathan, as with all of his abilities, seemed to be a strange case. Clark listened along with everyone as his son explained how he had collected a variety of mossy rocks and plants for a school project. The kryptonite had been mixed in with all of that, and, unlike his brother, Jonathan hadn’t had enough of an immediate reaction to notice what he had found.
“I don’t understand.” Jonathan still looked dazed and subdued, so different from his usual outgoing, casual self. They had relocated to sitting on the porch so the boys could get as much sun as possible. “I’m not an idiot,” he continued. “I would have known what it was if I found some scary glowing rock.”
“It was a very small amount,” Clark explained. “It was probably broken up by travelling down the creek. Anything larger would have been more noticeable.”
Jordan shuddered in response to that. Clark swallowed down the guilt that swelled inside him. He could wallow in self-recrimination when he wasn’t trying to help his empathetic son sort out what had happened.
“It seems that your reaction to kryptonite is different,” he said instead. “You didn’t experience any pain?”
“No,” Jonathan shook his head. “Well, other than a massive headache that sort of built up on me. But it was still weird. It felt like everything was cloudy. I couldn’t think straight, and it just got worse the longer I was in the car.”
“Your abilities are all mental abilities,” Lois theorized. “It makes sense that you felt the kryptonite in that way.”
“Why was it even there?” Jordan wondered.
Clark sighed. “It’s from when I arrived.” He had thought that most of the green kryptonite had already been removed from the Smallville area. While he didn’t love that it was now in the hands of the DOD (and other less well-intentioned people), he had assumed that at least there was no way his sons could accidentally stumble upon it.
“Clark, you’re not going to go scouring the town for every trace of this, stuff,” Lois told him reasonably, knowing exactly where his mind was going.
He sighed, knowing that she was right. It still didn’t make him feel any better about it.
“Jordan, I’m sure you’ll recover from any lingering effects soon,” Clark reassured him. “We’ll stay outside until the sun’s gone down. It’ll help.”
Jordan nodded, looking towards the lowering sun in the horizon.
“Jonathan…” Clark realized he had no reference to help with his son’s unique experience. “How are you feeling now? Are things better?”
“I can think more clearly,” Jon replied slowly. “And the headache’s fading.”
“Good.” Lois replied decisively. “You must be over the worst of it, then.”
“I just-” Jonathan cut himself off abruptly, shaking his head.
“What?” Clark asked with concern. “What’s wrong?”
“I don’t think my powers are working,” he confessed. “I can’t feel anything from you guys at all. And I know I should be.”
Lois glanced worriedly at Clark, who was at a loss for an explanation. He always felt he came up short when understanding Jonathan’s distinctive gifts.
“Have you tried any other abilities?” Lois asked him.
“Not yet,” Jonathan replied. Rising from his seat, he placed his cup of water on the porch railing and then stepped back. There was a frozen, suspenseful moment as he stared down the glass. Then, he shuddered and pulled back, hand flying up to massage his head.
“Okay, that’s enough.” Clark put his arm around Jon and brought him back to his chair. “Don’t hurt yourself.”
“It feels like my head is just one big mushy bruise,” Jonathan complained, still squeezing his eyes shut.
“You still must be feeling the effects of the kryptonite,” Clark explained. “It was a small amount, but you were exposed for a long time.”
“What if my powers never come back?” Jon asked seriously. “What if it’s permanent?”
Lois shared a worried look with Clark. He wished he could look more confident, more encouraging. The fact of the matter was that Jonathan was different, so there was no absolute certainty.
“Kryptonite is always temporary for your dad,” Lois finally said with conviction. “Other things may be different, but there’s no reason to think that the effects will be permanent for you.”
Jonathan nodded hesitantly, and Clark could only hope that his son would find it in him to believe them.
It was late that same night, and Jordan was alone in his room when Jon came to talk with him.
“I’m really sorry,” he apologized, hovering in the doorway with a cautiousness that he didn’t normally have. “I can’t believe I brought kryptonite home.”
“You didn’t know,” Jordan shrugged. “It’s not your fault.”
Jon didn’t say anything in response. He just stared searchingly at Jordan for a moment. Feeling uncomfortable, Jordan cleared his throat awkwardly and Jonathan snapped out of whatever weird funk he had slipped into.
“How are you feeling now?” Jonathan asked him, entering the room and sitting on his favourite beanbag chair. “Does it still hurt?”
“Not really,” Jordan reassured. “I’m just tired.”
Jonathan nodded, still looking at Jordan in the strange, intense way that Jordan was unused to.
“What about you?” Jordan asked. “Still no powers?”
Jonathan grimaced. “No. And…” he dropped his head and sighed, “It’s super weird. Remember how I figured out that I’ve kind of always been using the empathy thing? I’ve gotten a lot better, but I still constantly get hints of what someone’s feeling when I talk to them.”
Jordan stayed silent, waiting for Jonathan to explain his powers more. Jon apparently took the silence to mean judgement because he rushed to clarify further.
“It’s not like I’m spying on people,” he insisted. “It’s just this extra sense that’s always running in the background somehow. Well, now I’m getting nothing from you guys, and I feel like I’ve gone blind or something.”
“Is that why you keep staring at me?” Jordan realized.
“Uh, probably, yeah. Sorry,” Jonathan apologized, “I didn’t know I was doing that.”
“Whatever,” Jordan waved aside. His brother didn’t look any different to him, but clearly Jonathan was going through a very confusing experience. Jordan also felt strange knowing that the connection they had shared for years was suddenly nonexistent.
Hesitantly, he sent out the well-known sun image he always used as a shorthand in their telepathic conversations. It didn’t feel any different for Jordan, but he could see that his twin was completely oblivious to his efforts, his eyes roaming restlessly around the room instead.
“You know, it’s ironic,” Jonathan continued. “At school today, I was just wishing that I didn’t always have to deal with all the powers and stuff. And now I’m all weirded out when they’re gone for even a little bit.”
“I think it’d be weird for me, too,” Jordan confessed. “I’ve gotten used to things like my extra strength and being able to hear things from miles away. If all that just suddenly disappeared, then I don’t think it would feel right to me anymore. This is just how I am now.” Even the fatigue he was feeling right now felt unfamiliar. He couldn’t remember the last time he had been physically tired at the end of the day.
Jonathan nodded gratefully, and then looked at Jordan directly again, examining his face carefully.
He huffed a frustrated sigh. “Are you really okay? I can’t tell if you’re just lying to make me feel better and you’re actually mad about what happened.”
“I don’t blame you,” Jordan reassured his brother. “But… I just hate the idea of kryptonite. And, like, more than just because it hurts. It was the same with that virus that Dad passed onto me,” he explained. “You and mom were fine while I almost died. And, okay, you were probably just fine because it only affects your mind and not your lungs. But, still, it just made me realize how different I am from everyone else.”
“Yeah, I get that,” Jonathan nodded. “When I was in Jake’s car, everyone else was completely normal, and I could barely string two words together.”
“I just don’t like being reminded how different I am,” Jordan confessed. “I never want to feel kryptonite again.” As he said it, an uncomfortable foreboding came over him. He was pretty sure his dad felt the same way, yet he was still constantly being exposed to the stuff.
Jordan doubted that he would manage to avoid the same fate.
The next morning, Jordan was feeling completely recovered, glad that the exposure hadn’t had any long-term consequences. The rest of the family was already gathered around the breakfast table when he came into the kitchen. He was glad to see that Jonathan looked rested as well.
“I can give you guys a ride into school today,” Lois told her sons. “I’m going into the Gazette this morning.”
“Okay,” Jonathan nodded as he reached to pour himself a glass of juice. Suddenly, the carton dropped out of his hand as he groaned in pain and hunched over.
“Jonathan, are you okay?” Lois asked with concern.
Jordan felt the hair on his arms stand on end and the breakfast things laid out in front of them began to rattle ominously. The puddle of spilled juice quivered, and a few drops began to float upwards.
“Jonathan?” Clark spoke. “What can I do?”
Jordan could sense the tense energy his father held, ready to act in an instant if needed.
“Just… Give me a minute,” Jon gritted out. His head remained buried, but soon the eerie energy that Jordan sensed quieted, and the table returned to normal. Jonathan took a slow, steadying breath before looking up to face his concerned family.
“So, I’m back,” he told them awkwardly. “Ta-da.”
Everyone sighed in relief.
“I told you it’d be temporary.” Lois squeezed Jonathan’s shoulder. “I’m glad you’re okay.”
The tension broke, and the family dug into breakfast like they hadn’t all just been anticipating a telekinetic disaster.
“Is everything back?” Jordan thought to check. He sent his brother the same sun picture that had failed last night.
Jonathan snapped his head up from his plate in response to the image. He looked across the table at his brother.
“Yeah, it is,” he replied with confidence. He gave Jordan a playful, self-aware grin. “Everything’s back to normal.”