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“Sweetie, can you grab the corn flour?” Lois asked.
“Sure thing,” Kon replied.
He summoned the bag from the pantry with his powers, but not without creating a cloud of yellow dust when it hit his hand at ten miles an hour. They both coughed as Lois opened a window.
“Slowly, next time.” She smiled fondly. “Can you also grab the milk and eggs? Normally, please.”
“Bart says normal is for people who can’t think of a better way,” he joked.
Lois measured the flour. “Honey, Bart once asked me what I do while I wait for the camera to snap a photo.”
She closed the bag and Kon handed her three eggs. As she whisked it in the flour, he poured a steady trickle of milk, watching as the powdery clumps melted into liquid gold that smelled like a baker’s dream and glimmered in the sunlight.
“Can I whisk it?”
She shook her head, chuckling. “I remember the last time one of you tried to whisk.”
He pouted. “Clark ruins everything.”
She laughed. “Can you start putting things away while I preheat the oven?”
“Aye aye, captain!”
Kon wiped his hands on the custom-stitched apron Ma made him and carefully levitated the ingredients back to the fridge. The oven dial still tick-tick-ticked, so he sped to the mixing bowl, finger at the ready over the batter.
“Don’t even think about it,” Lois said.
“Please?” he asked. “For quality control.”
“This isn’t a Betty Crocker factory,” she said, greasing a round pan. “Though I admit, it’s nice seeing you act your age.”
She said that a lot whenever he was back home—when his clothes weren’t torn by shrapnel and he didn’t smell like a tank full of gunpowder. When he hosted sleepovers, marathoned TV shows, fished with Pa and Clark, biked with Jon, danced to Ma’s Elvis Presley records, stuffed himself with homemade baked goodies, and did pretty much everything he couldn’t when his guard was up. But that didn’t mean he knew what it meant, especially when he was the eight-year-old clone of two middle-aged men in a sixteen-year-old body. Kon simply smiled and agreed with Lois as he wiped the counter.
She had just put the cornbread in the oven when the door burst open and Kon’s pint-sized Superboy sequel all but flew into the room, glasses smudged and askew and unzipped backpack spilling onto the floor.
“Mom Mom Mom! Guess what happened today.”
Lois took the glasses off his face and wiped it on her shirt. “Do tell.”
“Okay, so you know how there’s the end-of-the-year school carnival and each class gets to pick a game idea? Well, my class voted between me, Colin, Maya, and Damian’s ideas and guess what?”
She handed the glasses back. “I don’t have the faintest clue.”
Jon bounced on his heels like a kettle boiling over. “My idea won! We’re gonna do a relay race and the winners get a whole tray of balaclavas.”
“What’s someone gonna do with a tray of ski masks?” Kon asked as he picked up the pencils that rolled under the table.
“No, it’s a dessert recipe that Damian’s mom gave Alfred. He brought some for lunch once and it’s suuuper good.”
Lois ruffled Jon’s hair. “I think you mean baklavas .”
“That’s what I said.”
Kon put the pencils back in the backpack and zipped it up. He handed it to Jon, who took it as he kept talking.
“So here’s my idea. The race starts at the soccer field, then…”
Kon quietly excused himself, mumbling about feeding the animals.
The shed held traces of innocence that didn’t need to be there, yet filled each and every crack in the planks. The bell from an old bike sat on top of a box of ball bearings as rusty as Pa with smartphones. A corkboard leaned against the wall, covered in stickers and market scribbles. Next to that was a fishing rod too small for anyone taller than four feet and a blue plastic bucket to match. It smelled like the usual musty wood with hints of Fourth of July sparklers.
Kon threw two feed bags onto each shoulder.
Inside the barn, he let his thoughts wander as he filled the troughs.
In another life, maybe he wouldn’t have had to worry about being a half-baked knockoff of the world’s greatest superhero. He’d have been born a typical kid, and maybe he would’ve met his friends under different circumstances. At the back of a classroom, Bart would’ve been the class clown and Cassie was the cool-but-not-too-cool girl that everyone knew and loved, meanwhile, Tim could’ve been the straight-A student who pulled off all kinds of mischief because the teachers loved him and would’ve never suspected him of putting a king-sized bed in the cafeteria. Kon wasn’t quite sure how he’d fit into the picture. Ideally, as the intimidating punk masking his secret soft side, but he was more like those kids who got detention for looking at the hall monitor the wrong way.
Boy, that sounded like a dream—even the piles of homework assigned by teachers on a power trip. Because yes, those things sucked, but they were normal.
Stupid Lex Luthor. Kon tossed the empty bag aside.
The last time he hit something for catharsis, Bruce Wayne had to write a check to replace every punching bag in the Watchtower’s gym. So instead, Kon hit one on speed dial. It didn’t even begin ringing when it clicked.
“Yello yello, what’s shakin’, Konno?”
He chuckled. “Nothing much. How ‘bout you?”
“Just the usual.” Bart dramatically sighed and flopped onto his bed. “Guess who ran to the North Pole and was bitterly disappointed.”
Kon flew onto the upper deck, which was mainly old stuff the Kents had been hoarding—reins, wheels, spare tools. He sat on a butterfly-shaped rug and watched the animals chow down. He traced a finger in the dust.
Kon cleared his throat. “Hey, Bart, I know you’re probably busy, but I was wondering if you wanted to hang—”
WHOOSH!
“…out.”
The sudden gust sent the cows into a frenzy. Kon quickly worked to calm them while Bart stood there awkwardly, arms ladened with gas station snacks.
“My bad,” Bart said.
“It’s fine, these ladies are easily spooked.” Kon patted the top of Bessie’s head. “Maybe we should go somewhere where we won’t bother them.”
Bart nodded. “How about the roof?”
“That works.”
A few seconds later, they were sitting on top of the barn, Kon’s TTK being the only thing keeping the snacks from sliding down the slope. He poked a straw into a juice box a little too forcefully, spraying fruit punch all over the place. He groaned and set it aside while Bart wiped his face and laughed.
“Go figure,” said Kon.
“That reminds me of the cake thing. Remember that?”
Kon smiled. “I’m still living in fear of Cissie’s revenge.”
“Good times, good times.”
Bart leaned back. Kon joined him, watching the sky paint the passing clouds a periwinkle hue.
Kon said. “That one looks like a crab.”
“And that one looks like a giraffe in rollerskates.”
Another one looked like a kid playing fetch with their dog, but Kon ignored it in favor of the one that looked like a curly mustache. He was just projecting.
Bart nudged him. “Talk to me.”
Kon sighed. “I don’t know how to put it without sounding stupid.”
“Then say it stupidly.”
“It’s just… why can’t my idea be voted for the fifth grade carnival?”
“What?”
He sighed and sat up. “Told you it was stupid.”
“Not to me.” Bart mimicked him, drawing his knees to his chest. “What I’m hearing is you wanna be a kid.” Before Kon could say anything, Bart kept doing. “If I’m being honest, seeing Jai and Irey do stuff like go to birthday parties makes me wish I’d done those things too.”
Kon laughed. “The two of us would’ve eaten the entire cake before they brought it out.”
“Maybe, maybe not. Who knows how our bodies would be different, but at least we would’ve had the opportunity.”
“I bet it would’ve been Tim’s party, and his dad would’ve paid to serve a whole wedding cake.”
“And Cassie would steal extras.”
A quiet moment passed as the edge of the sun brushed the swaying wheat.
“What do you think our lives would’ve looked like if we were normal?”
“We are normal,” Bart said. “It’s everyone else who’s weird.” He traced the pattern on one of the shingles. “I know what you mean, though. I still don’t completely understand why I had to be born the way I was. I don’t hate it, but it’s too confusing to fully embrace.”
As embarrassing as it might’ve been, Kon said, “Sometimes, I trick myself into thinking I’m actually Clark and Lois’s son, and that Jon’s actually my little brother.”
“I do the same—I pretend I grew up with my cousin Wally near me the whole time.”
“Or we might’ve turned out totally different. Who knows.”
“Maybe we’ll find out in the next life.”
“Unless we turn out exactly the same again.” He chuckled half-heartedly. “Man, that would suck.”
And that, perhaps, was the hardest truth in all of their messed-up lives to contend with. While Superman and the Flash were heroes by night, they were also kids at one point. And now they were passing their legacies onto two people who didn’t even have the faintest taste of that life—of everything that heroes were supposed to fight for.
Bart placed a hand on Kon’s shoulder, expression softening. “If we do get another shot at life, I hope I can share it with you again.”
Kon smiled softly. “I hope we do.”
A call from below startled him.
“Kon, dinnertime!”
“Coming!”
“And tell Bart he’s welcome to join too,” Lois added.
Bart said, “Kon, tell Ms. Lane I’d love to.”
“Tell her yourself,” Kon snorted. “Race you down?”
Bart grinned. “On three.”