Chapter Text
Jordan ran a critical eye over the spread of snacks that he had laid out across the kitchen table. Second guessing things, he shifted the bowl of Doritos to other end so it was beside the Lays.
“Do you think we have enough food?” he asked his brother, raising his voice a little so it would reach the living room. Jonathan’s superhearing was pretty much settled by now, but he still wasn’t up for actively testing it while they were busy with party preparations.
“People aren’t gonna care as long as there’s enough beer,” Jonathan replied, dragged the large, heavy armchair off to the side. “Just come help with the—”
“Oh, yeah. Sure.” Jordan rushed to help his brother, easily pushing the sofa back towards the wall to clear more space in the living room. “You hear from Wellnitz yet?”
Jonathan pulled out his phone and flicked his fingers across the screen. “Yeah, he’s got it. He’ll be here in an hour.”
“Good,” Jordan nodded, feeling an anxious flutter within him despite his efforts to squish it down.
Jonathan glanced at him carefully. “You’re sure you’re okay with this?”
“Yes. Definitely,” Jordan insisted.
Maybe it was a little dumb to host a party out here when their parents were gone for the weekend, but they were allowed to be a little dumb every once in a while, right? And after the summer they had had, it felt good to be able to plan something completely normal with no hint of Kryptonian powers or time travel.
Jordan didn’t want to say it out loud, but he knew that Jon especially needed this right now. He had finally announced his decision not to join the football team this year, and although it was the right choice with the superspeed that had recently set in, it was still a big change for him. Having the party was a way he could still try to maintain some of the friendships they had both formed last year, and Jordan just wanted to make the whole transition easier for his brother.
“You still have those cups, right?” Jonathan checked, gathering up throw blankets from the furniture to pack away for the night.
“Yeah, they’re up in the loft,” Jordan confirmed. The sleeves of red solo cups would have been a dead giveaway for their parents, and although keeping them in the barn had been a risk with their dad, it had felt a little safer than bringing them inside the house. “I’ll go grab them while you finish up here?”
He had made his way out of the house and was partway to the barn before his ears latched onto two heartbeats that were tucked inside the building.
Jordan frowned. They were expecting people here tonight, sure, but why would anyone hide in the barn if they had arrived early rather than just come into the house? With everything that was hidden inside, Jordan didn’t love the idea of anyone poking around unsupervised.
Moving quietly, he slipped inside and trained his ears so he could find out more.
“Dude, this is totally your fault,” the first voice complained.
A wounded scoff answered him. “It’s not! You’re the one who made me open up that box.”
“Yeah, well, you weren’t supposed to freaking tear the whole thing apart.”
There was a heavy, irritated sigh in response. “I wasn’t trying to. It’s hard, okay? I don’t always have it figured out.”
“Well, can’t you—Wait, someone’s here.”
Jordan stilled, surprised that he had been noticed by the intruders. But it was his barn after all, so he pushed forward and marched towards the voices he had heard.
It was two teenage boys, both looking to be about the same age that he was. One wore a black t-shirt with sprawling, messy text printed across it. His dark hair was gelled into a swooping shape and shaved all along one side. He stood a little taller that the other teen, whose slightly longer and slightly lighter hair hung sloppily over his eyes.
They both sucked in a surprised gasp when they saw him, eyes that were exactly the same shade of brown widening at exactly the same time.
“Uh… Hey,” Jordan greeted with a confused frown. He was pretty sure he hadn’t ever seen them in Smallville before. “Are you guys Wellnitz’s friends or something? You know, you’re a bit early.”
The lighter-haired boy let out a nervous laugh that was silenced by a sharp elbow from the other teenager. They stared at him some more.
“I’m Jordan,” he spoke again, powering through the uncomfortableness and wishing that Jon was with him. “Do you want to come into the house? My dad doesn’t really like people hanging out in the barn, so…” Their silence was starting to unnerve him, and he tried his hardest to keep from looking in the direction of the hidden cellar door.
But to his surprise, the two teenagers’ eyes floated in that direction anyway. The darker-haired one gave a smirk that looked very, very familiar to Jordan. The hair and the outfit may have been completely different, but that reaction was very much what Jonathan would have pulled and a horrible suspicion settled onto Jordan.
“Wait…” His eyes drifted between the two visitors. “Am I… Uh, am I supposed to, um, know you?” He took another step towards them, searching their faces to pick out any other familiar features.
The two of them exchanged a meaningful glance and once again Jordan was hit with a weird feeling of déjà vu. He was usually the one who participated on the other half of those looks. They had to be at least brothers, and Jordan suspected there was even more to it. There was no way he’d be the first one to say anything, though. If he was somehow wrong, he’d end up looking completely crazy.
“Look, you guys are gonna have to just come out and say it,” Jordan told them. “I’m pretty sure I know exactly what’s going on, anyway.”
Finally, the lighter-haired teen sighed and nodded, turning from his brother to look at Jordan.
“Okay, yeah, fine. It’s not like we have any other options. Hey, Dad. We’re your kids. And we’re from the future.”
Jonathan really should have figured that they couldn’t have at least one normal night without things going completely sideways. Jordan had only been gone for a few minutes when he had come back inside with the two newcomers in tow, both of them looking wide-eyed and full of guilt. They were plunked side-by-side on the sofa that Jordan had moved out of the way, and Jonathan stood beside his brother, staring openly at his future nephews.
The family resemblance wasn’t as obvious for them as it was with Chelsea and Caleb, but it was still there. The slightly taller one, Mark, had hair the exact shade as Jordan’s and Jonathan was sure it would have coiled into the same curls if it was a little longer and had a bit less product in it. Although the other one, Joe, didn’t share that feature, his eyes scanned the room restlessly in a way that was eerily similar to Jordan, right down to the way he ducked his head lower to let his messy brown hair fall into place.
“So,” Jonathan began, crossing his arms in front of him to hide his nervousness. “You guys just ended up here by accident?”
“Uh, yeah,” Mark admitted sheepishly, picking at the ripped hole in his black jeans. “I know it was dumb, but when, uh, our dad put this mysterious box in the barn and was all secretive about it we just wanted to see what was in it. No one tells us anything.”
Jonathan shared a look with his brother. It was pretty dumb, but they didn’t exactly have a clean record themselves when it came to accidental time travel.
“So… you guys are the same twins as before, right?” Jordan checked, eyes bouncing between the two of people sitting in front of him. “The ones we didn’t meet when we were in future?”
Jonathan couldn’t help but smirk. The idea of these guys somehow being a whole other set of twins that the future Jordan had was pretty ridiculous, but he could see why Jordan felt the need to make sure. Everything about this was ridiculous.
Mark nodded (thankfully). “Yeah. We heard about all that over the years, but we got shipped off to Uncle Jon—I mean,” he turned to Jon, “your place for basically the whole time.” He turned his head towards his brother for confirmation.
“Well… not my place,” Jon objected awkwardly. He wasn’t the same person that his future self was, the guy with a wife and a kid and his own place in whatever city or town it was he lived in. Although that was all feeling a little muddled as he looked at the people in front of him.
“Yeah, I guess not,” the Joe agreed, staring back at them once again. “You know, Lori and Caleb said how weird it was, but I never really got it until now. Is this still the summer you’re fifteen?”
Jordan nodded. “Yeah. We go back to school soon.”
Identical grins lit up on the twin’s faces.
“We’re fifteen, too,” Mark shared smugly.
Joe nudged his brother, shooting him a nervous glance. “Maybe we shouldn’t say that,” he fretted. “What if that messes something up?”
“That’s probably not going to make a difference,” Jonathan shrugged, leaning against the wall. “Just maybe don’t tell Jordan who your mom is.”
Jordan shot his own (matching) nervous glance towards his brother, and a quiet laugh escaped Jonathan. This whole thing was just so damn weird…
“Well, anyway, we should avoid saying specifics,” Joe decided. “And we just need to get home as soon as possible.” He looked expectantly at Jonathan and Jordan.
It took a beat for Jon to realize that he was somehow supposed to weigh in on that issue.
“Well, we don’t know what to do,” he spoke, an edge of panic in his voice. “We’ve only time travelled once, and it was totally by accident. Grown-up Jordan was the only reason we got home.”
“Oh,” Mark spoke quietly. “Then… what should we do? Call Grandpa?”
“I guess.” Jon wasn’t really sure if his dad could help with all this time travel stuff, either, but it seemed to be their only option right now.
“Jon!” Jordan hissed. “We can’t! We’ve got, you know, people coming over.”
Things just seemed to be getting worse and worse.
“Crap,” Jonathan acknowledged, chewing on his nail as his eyes drifted to the snacks they had laid out in anticipation for the party. There was no way they could spread the word of a cancellation fast enough at this point and he didn’t even want to think about how much trouble they’d be in with all this. But did they really have an option?
The sound of the front door banging open made Jonathan jolt in surprise. There was no way that was Wellnitz just busting in like that. Was it his parents back unexpectedly? He swiftly pivoted to see who it was, and he gasped in surprise at the sight of that very familiar blonde hair.
“Chelsea!” His eyes widened as he took in the sight of her.
She was even older than the last time he had seen her. Maybe in her low twenties? That kind of made sense if she was from the same time period as Mark and Joe were. They had both been little kids when he and Jordan had visited the future, so it had to have been about ten years ago for them. The teenage awkwardness she had been swimming in at the time was now completely gone. A serious and determined expression was on her face that gave Jon an echo of the even older version of her that they had all glimpsed very briefly when she had come with the older Lori to help them out.
Man, his life was impossibly weird. Not even Jordan had met four versions of any of his future kids.
Chelsea didn’t seem surprised to see them at all and gave him and Jordan and tense smile in greeting.
“Hey, you two. It’s been a while.”
Jonathan felt a little strange as he hesitantly returned her smile. She had grown even taller than he was right now, and he had never expected to once again be faced with a version of her that was older than him.
“Did you, uh, come here on purpose?” he asked, desperately hoping that to be the case and not even caring that he was putting his future daughter into the role of the responsible adult in the room.
“Yeah,” she assured him. “I came here to pick up these two nimrods. I’m guessing you’re the ones who found them?”
Mark scoffed in a wounded tone. “Chels, it was an accident! And Joey was the one who opened that box!”
“Hey! Only because I’m the one who actually has superstrength. You’re the one who was so set on doing it.”
Chelsea’s mouth was set in a firm frown. “You know the deal, Joe. Your power; your responsibility. Although this is a big enough problem that you’re probably both gonna get in trouble.”
“Oh, c’mon,” Mark complained, “we obviously didn’t mean to come back here.”
“Yeah,” Joe agreed. “It’s not like we wanted to meet a weird version of Dad and Uncle Jon. Uh, no offense.”
Jonathan just waved off the apology, too overwhelmed by everything else going on to feel insulted.
“You can argue about whose fault it is later. Why did you guys even leave the barn?” Chelsea demanded, bad mood mounting as she spoke. “That’s where you took off from so that’s kinda where I expected to find you!”
“Uh… I guess that’s on me,” Jordan admitted. “Is it… Um, why is that a big deal?” He looked over at Chelsea guiltily and she sighed in response, plopping down onto a nearby armchair.
“It’s not your fault,” she grumbled. “You wouldn’t have known. The portal moves in time, but it doesn’t move in space. We were able to figure out when they had got to and I was all ready to just snap them back to the present, but I couldn’t leave the portal open long enough to find where they had moved. Now it’s closed and I can’t get another one open for at least twelve hours.”
Mark grimaced guiltily. “Sorry, Chels. We didn’t think about that.”
“It’s okay,” she relented and then caught Jonathan’s eye. “This is my first solo trip,” she explained, tucking her hair behind her ear. “I was just kinda hoping that everything would go according to plan. But I guess it’s still not too bad. We just need to stick around here for the night, and we should be able to head out tomorrow morning.”
“Yeah…” Jordan spoke up cautiously. “So, it might not be as easy as that.” His head was angled towards the front of the house, and that’s when Jonathan heard the sound of a car door closing.
“Yo, Kents! You better not make me unload these kegs by myself. It’s bad enough I’m the one who had to haul all this booze out to your party.”
Jonathan froze, feeling the weight of three pairs of judgemental eyes settling onto him.
“No freaking way.” A delighted smirk was beginning to grow on Mark’s face. Chelsea was frowning as she started to look around the house critically, clocking the snacks and drinks that were already set out for guests.
Joe, on the other hand, looked confused. “But you said you guys never had any parties here in high school,” he said. “You said it was never worth it because alcohol doesn’t work on you.”
Chelsea snorted. “Joey, that’s really on you if you’re that gullible.”
Jon was barely paying attention to their exchange anymore, too shocked by why Joe had casually proclaimed. He knew that alcohol didn’t affect his dad, but he (stupidly, naively) hadn’t thought about it for himself yet. It had sure worked at the Harvest Festival last year, but a lot had changed since then. Had he lost yet another mark of his humanity without even realizing?
A hard tapping at the window forced Jon back to their current problem. Wellnitz was peering in through the glass.
He grinned broadly. “Hey, you got helpers. Bring ‘em out here and let’s get this going.”
“We’ll be right out!” Jordan called, eyes drifting frantically to his future sons. “Just, um, need a sec!”
“I guess we gotta figure out how to cancel,” Jonathan decided reluctantly as they watched Wellnitz meander back to his car.
“No!” Jordan insisted. “We can still make it work.”
“Seriously?!” Jonathan waved his hand towards the teenagers sitting on the sofa and then to Chelsea, who was frowning thoughtfully as she chewed on her fingernail.
“Actually…” she began slowly. “I don’t think you two should cancel. That’s always been your—uh, Uncle Jordan’s rule for time travel: don’t change anything unless it’s absolutely necessary. If you guys had this planned tonight, we should let you go through with it.”
“Ha. See? Future me agrees.” Jordan smiled triumphantly, taking a step towards the window to check on their friend. “Look, I’m gonna go out and stall him a bit while you guys figure out a plan, okay?”
“Oh, c’mon!” Jonathan objected, shouting after Jordan as he slipped out the front door. “That’s the easy part,” he grumbled.
The twins sat on the sofa, nudging each other and sharing a look that Jonathan couldn’t quite decipher.
“Okay, I think Mark and Joe and I should find a place to lay low for the night,” Chelsea decided. “It’s easiest if we just stay out of sight.”
“What?! No way do I want to be stuck in some bedroom for however many hours,” Mark whined.
“And,” Joe added smugly, “that guy outside already saw us so it’d be weird if we just disappeared, right?”
The two teens had a hopeful expression on their faces that Jonathan recognized from his own attempts to get permission to do something fun. And he knew how much it sucked to be shoved to the side… He wasn’t really sure what it was like between the future Jonathan and these two, but he decided that for tonight at least he could be the fun uncle.
“Yeah, I think it’d be suspicious,” he agreed. “You guys would probably blend in better if you’re just in the mix with everyone. We can say you’re, like, distant cousins or something.”
Chelsea stared at them with narrowed eyes, and Jonathan tried his best to channel the authority and confidence of the future him.
“Okay, fine,” she relented. “But you two have to fly under the radar. That means it isn’t ‘Dad’ or ‘Uncle Jon’; it’s Jordan and Jonathan, got it? Avoid giving any personal details and if someone starts talking about Harry Styles or some other super old celebrity just nod along with them and try not to look too confused.”
“Yeah. Got it,” Joe agreed quickly, Mark giving an eager smile as well.
Chelsea’s face puckered in concentration and Jonathan watched in surprise as she shrank just a little in her seat, features shifting and blurring slightly as well.
“What are you doing?” he wondered.
“Well,” she began, shucking off the tailored tweed jacket she wore to reveal a plain t-shirt underneath, “it’s bad enough that I’m stuck chaperoning my own dad’s party, I’m not going to spend the rest of the night sticking out like a sore thumb and having everyone bugging me to go on a booze run for them. At least your shady hookup friend didn’t get that good of a look at me yet.”
Standing up and peering into the decorative mirror perched on the mantle, she nodded in satisfaction. She still looked very much like herself, but now she appeared to be about the same age as everyone else in the room. Jonathan was standing exactly at eye level with her, which only added to the strangeness of being faced with someone who had the same hair, the same eyes, and the same age as him.
It didn’t go unnoticed by Mark and Joe, either.
“You totally are the girl version of Uncle Jon,” Joe pointed out with a grin.
She snorted. “Yeah, heard that before.” Closing her eyes, her brow wrinkled once more. When she opened them, they had shifted from their vivid blue colour to a murkier hazel shade. “It’s probably too late to change the hair,” she decided, “but this’ll make it a little less creepy.”
Jonathan shrugged in response. Blue eyes or no, this night was going to be a lot weirder than he had ever expected.