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Ten years ago, Clark saw the first superhero on TV. He was a short teenager with glowing green eyes and white hair. He made the entire planet intangible, allowing a giant asteroid to pass safely through the earth. Two years after that, people began to whisper about a man dressed in all black who might not be human and who violently policed Gotham City in New Jersey. Six years after that, Superman made his debut in Metropolis, Delaware. That had been two years ago, and many heroes came out of the woodwork since then.
Clark was nearly 25 years old and was about to write a fluff piece that would be his first real story with the Daily Planet (or at least the first one which would probably make it to the front cover).
Lois had been with the Daily Planet three years longer than Clark. She’d already made quite a name for herself in half a decade of professional journalism. Her reputation, along with her close relationship with Superman, meant she would have been perfect to write the retrospective feature, “10 Years of Heroism”.
That reputation was also why she could turn down the piece so she could work on one about LexCorp bribing city officials; and the reasons Perry listened when she recommended Clark write the feature instead.
Logically, Clark knew he needed to thank Lois profusely for the opportunity, but he wasn’t certain how much he wanted to thank her for giving him the feature. She would have turned it down anyway, given how tightly she had her teeth in the LexCorp story, but Clark getting the piece was less a kindness and more a side effect of how much Lois enjoyed teasing him. She was his closest friend for a reason, and that meant she was privy to certain facts about himself he would prefer to keep hidden, including the secret he guarded more jealously than his secret identity. Specifically, Clark’s wildly out of control crush on Phantom.
(Clark regretted ever bringing Lois home to meet his parents. She’d seen the posters of Phantom in his room and read all the news articles he’d clipped and posted around said posters. She’d cooed over the pictures of Clark dressed up as Phantom for Halloween the first three years after the asteroid.)
Of course, Perry wanted Clark to mostly write about Superman, but wisely bowed to the inevitability of Clark writing about more than one hero in a feature titled “10 Years of Heroism”. Clark was a good choice to write the article based solely on the fact that he was best at getting Gothamites to talk about the Bat and the Birds. As such, Perry expected him to dedicate significant inches to Batman. If asked, Clark would say it wasn’t hard, since all Clark had to do was project an air of “I’m nice up until you fuck with me”, which Gothamites respected.
Despite Perry’s wishes, neither Superman nor Batman would be the center of the feature. And Lois knew that, which Clark suspected may be the biggest reason she pointed Perry his direction. Every other journalist would focus on the big boy in blue or the Bat, both of whom had plenty written about them every day. Instead, Clark planned to write a more thoughtful piece, tracing the beginnings of heroism and the influence it had on the heroes that followed.
Which was why Clark got on a bus to Illinois. It was a nightmarish 24-hour trip in which he spent the entire time dressed in a suit, with his small, old suitcase tucked uncomfortably under his legs. He swapped between his legal pad and clunky laptop as he wrote up a draft of the Superman parts of the story, along with his notes on Batman and a few of the more recent heroes. He’d met most of the heroes he’d be writing about. It was easy to write a couple sentences about Flash and Aquaman, and a few paragraphs about Wonder Woman.
All of the hours he put into writing the article didn’t fill the time. He couldn’t sleep, too anxious about getting to Amity Park. He tried reading the book he brought with him, but he kept thinking about Phantom.
Clark had dreamed about meeting Phantom so many times. He knew Phantom didn’t look like the teenager from his posters anymore. He’d seen pictures of a tall, broad man, but even those shots weren’t recent. Clark couldn’t stop imagining what Phantom looked like now. Too many years of Clark’s life had been dedicated to daydreaming about the boy who saved the world. He’d dreamed about meeting when they were both children, Phantom seeing that Clark was special too and taking an interest in him. (Those dreams shifted in tone as he got older.) He dreamed about meeting him as Superman, as equals in the sky. Now he was potentially going to meet his hero, not as another hero, but as Clark Kent, who needed to keep his head down. It wasn’t the way he wanted, but maybe…
Well, he couldn’t be certain that he’d get to meet Phantom. After Phantom’s debut, Amity Park had built walls around the city. It was well known in the Phantom Watch circles (he was a fan, in the fan club, sue him) that secrets didn’t go beyond Amity Park’s walls. Clark Kent would go in, but there was no guarantee that anyone would be willing to talk to him. He may be able to get quotes out of the most paranoid Gothamites or put on enough folksy charm to get billionaires to spill their guts to the idiot farm boy, but Amity Park’s citizens were a whole other animal.
That’s why Clark had taken the bus, making himself seem entirely human. He didn’t want to leave anyone on edge or asking questions. Most places in the world weren’t Gotham (thank the heavens) and coming out as a potential threat would likely not endear him to strangers in Amity Park. Maybe. He didn’t actually know.
Win, lose or draw, Clark was still going to fly home. He wasn’t getting back on that bus.
Clark was a nervous wreck when he arrived. He walked off the bus, suit jacket over one arm and his suitcase in his other hand. He got out of the way of the other passengers and gave himself a minute to look around. The entire bus stop was decorated with little green blobby ghosts with red eyes. From mosaic walls and floor tiles to a gift shop selling everything from bottle openers to refrigerator magnets, everything was green blobby ghost themed.
There was a green woman sitting at information. Clark didn’t stare, but he couldn’t hear any heartbeat, only a vague… humming noise. The woman was reading a magazine, sipping a smoothie and didn’t look interested in anyone or anything else. Clark carefully took one of the pamphlets from the “take me” rack.
The woman looked up suddenly, her red eyes meeting Clark’s own. She stared at him for a moment before tipping her head curiously to one side. Then she vanished.
Well, that didn’t make Clark feel particularly secure. He took the pamphlets to one of the tables and spread them out. One of them was just a general town map. The other listed off the “sights” of Amity Park, which listed “Masters Manor”, “Fenton Works”, the cemetery and Amity Park University as places of interest. Clark focused on finding a place to eat.
The number one restaurant highlighted on both maps was a place (discouragingly) called “Nasty Burger”.
Clark could eat literally anything, and his body would process it, aside from Kryptonite. No matter how nasty, he could eat it. As such, he squared his shoulders and made his way to the Nasty Burger. It turned out that Clark had arrived after school ended, which meant the place was packed. He considered leaving.
“Hey there.” A voice whispered in his ear, but no one stood at his side. He turned toward the direction of the voice and found himself locking eyes with a man, as broad as Superman and taller, and more solidly human. He had bright blue eyes and a smile made for mischief, smugness, and laughter.
His heart rate was lower than any living human being should have, and inside his chest was that hum, just as loud if not louder than the ghost at information.
Clark made his way to the booth. The closer he got, the stronger the cloying scent. It was death, rot, the decay of fruit and flowers, the smell of ozone and electricity. It smelled like the Fortress, which had a cold scent, everything touched by death and loss, the stink of something not of Earth. Familiar, distracting, nauseating.
“Danny Fenton,” the stranger introduced himself. He didn’t offer a hand to shake, but he did indicate the booth seat across from him. Clark sat.
“Clark Kent,” he said. “From Metropolis. Are you related to Fenton Works?”
“That’s my parents,” Danny said. “What’s in Metropolis?”
“Lots of things,” Clark replied. “But in this case, my job, which is with the Daily Planet.”
“That newspaper?” Danny asked, tipping his head to one side.
“Yes.”
“Reporter?”
“Yes,” Clark said, with a nod.
“Well, you aren’t human, but I don’t know what you are, which is really interesting,” Danny said suddenly.
Clark’s heart dropped into his stomach. How? That fast? No, focus on the problem in front of him. Despite how busy the restaurant was, the booths on either side of them were empty, as were the tables around them. They weren’t speaking loudly. This was private, no one looking at them, no one else’s heartbeat kicked up. His secret was safe, outside of Danny Fenton. And that meant he could put all his senses on Danny.
“You’re… a ghost, and a human,” Clark said. He couldn’t quite get a read, but he was certain that humming was something integral to a ghost. Danny had the same hum. He couldn’t be moving around if there wasn’t something powering him besides his broken heart.
“Ooo, how can you tell?” Danny asked. He laid his arms on the table and leaned forward, focused entirely on Clark. There was sharpness in his eyes that reminded Clark of Diana’s sword.
A voice in his head that sounded very much like Batman said that this Danny Fenton was dangerous. A voice that sounded like Jor-El said that so was Clark.
“Your scent,” Clark said.
“You’re saying I smell? Man, not cool.” Mischief looked good on Danny’s face. Clark felt his stomach roll over.
“A human wouldn’t be able to tell,” Clark said. “I’m not certain most animals would be able to tell either. If that helps.”
“Wow, I stink that much, huh?” Danny wasn’t joking. He looked a little self-conscious.
“Not anymore than the entire town,” Clark hurried to reassure him. “It’s just the scent of death. It’s something I’m used to smelling everywhere. It’s not exactly something I can avoid. I’m just not so used to the… intensity.”
Everything in Amity Park reeked of death. It wasn’t just rot and decay. It was old bones cleaned from centuries of time tearing away signs of life, the scent of burned bodies, the perfume of the spices people used to wrap their dead, the odor of embalming fluid, the smell of tears and snot and grief; It was mushrooms and life growing from the soil. And more, so many little pieces that went into all the death rituals in the world, all condensed into one place in a way Clark had never experienced.
“I can also hear your heartbeat,” Clark added.
“Yeah, that’s pretty low,” Danny said, tapping his chest right over his heart.
“Low enough to be dead. And you hum like a ghost.”
Danny flattened the hand on his chest, tensing the tendons, surprise etched in his features. “You can hear my core?”
“Is that what it’s called?” Clark asked, putting on a disarming farm boy smile. “I don’t know that much about ghosts, but every ghost I’ve passed has the same hum. Yours is just extra loud.”
“Huh,” Danny said. Clark watched him force his body to relax. “Now, I’ve never heard of a ghost that had senses like that, nor any liminal. I’m not as versed with non-dead creatures. But you… I don’t know.” He looked at Clark like he could look through him. Maybe he could. “How do you feel about stars?”
Clark blinked slowly. He tipped his head to the side, considering his next words. Stars were a complicated matter for him. Earth’s sun was his favorite star, obviously. But he’d been hurt by plenty of other stars before, the red ones specifically. And then there was how many stars he’d experienced; how many he’d seen from afar in a way no human could; how many he’d shot past as a baby, never to see again. He’d been off Earth enough times, but he rarely went outside the Milky Way. Not that he couldn’t, but Earth kept him busy enough. Every living, sentient species he’d ever seen that had any interaction with the stars had stories about them. He could name constellations that no Earth being would ever witness.
“I like them,” he finally said after the silence had extended too far.
“I don’t know how to explain it exactly, because I’ve never seen it before, and I don’t even understand what I’m seeing. But you’re star touched, aren’t you?” Danny was certain of what he asked. He knew that Clark was, as he said, star touched. But clearly, he didn’t trust the method of understanding he used to reach his conclusion.
“I am,” Clark said.
Danny nodded slowly. “Why are you here, Clark Kent?”
Clark licked his lips. “Do you want the official reason or my personal reason?”
“Official first.”
Clark hummed. “I’m doing a piece on a decade of heroism. Phantom has to be included.”
“And Red Huntress,” Danny said quickly. “She’s also integral to keeping Amity Park safe.”
Clark nodded. He hadn’t forgotten Red Huntress. Despite Batman getting all the press as the second hero, Red Huntress truly was the second superhero ever. But there wasn’t that much known about her, not as much as was known about Phantom, who despite previous public appearances, was largely a mystery even a decade later.
“And Red Huntress,” Clark agreed. “Especially if I can find anything out about her. I’ll say, it’s like pulling teeth to get information about Amity Park’s heroes.”
Danny smiled. Clark noted that his canines were sharper than a normal human’s. Clark ran his tongue over his own canines, which were also sharper than a normal human’s. He noticed the way Danny watched his tongue move. Clark flashed his teeth in a friendly smile. Danny cleared his throat.
“And the personal reason?”
Despite the efforts Clark made to be cool, composed and friendly, he couldn’t stop the flustered expression that settled on his features while his entire face turned bright pink. He could sense that whoever Danny was in this town, that he would be a major roadblock to meeting his hero. Honesty was going to be the best policy, even if it was embarrassing.
“I really, really want to meet Phantom,” Clark said, his smile becoming properly abashed. He didn’t drop his gaze. “He was- is… he’s been my inspiration for a decade now. I really, really looked up to him when I was a kid.”
“Really? Cause it kind of sounds like you’ve got a little crush,” Danny teased.
Clark’s face went scarlet, burning as hot as the sun. He saw when Danny noticed, how his cheeks went hot as well.
“Let’s go somewhere else,” Danny said suddenly.
He grabbed Clark’s arm and pulled. On instinct, Clark resisted, but Danny pulled him along anyway. He was strong, Clark could tell, but Clark didn’t move because of strength but because gravity ceased to work on him.
If Clark hadn’t started to suspect the truth by then, he would have when Danny made them invisible and intangible and flew them out of the Nasty Burger up into the overcast sky. The invisibility made Clark feel sick. Being blocked from the yellow sun while Clark could still see it there over his head physically affected him.
When the invisibility dropped, Clark and Danny were in the clouds. Danny had let Clark go, and Clark got to watch as rings of light formed around Danny’s middle. It went over him like a Xerox light, changing him from the handsome man Clark met in the Nasty Burger to the hero Clark had been desperately in love with since the moment Clark knew he existed.
Clark realized a bare second later that he was flying of his own will and had been since Danny let him go.
“So,” Phantom said. There was the slightest echo to his words, just enough to distort his voice. If Clark hadn’t seen Phantom change, Clark might not have identified his voice. “Just who are you, exactly?”
Phantom crossed his arms over his chest, reclining back on air. To Clark it looked less like actively flying and more like gravity simply didn’t affect Phantom at all. His body language was not that of someone projecting being in control, but someone who was actually in control. It was a great look for him: the slight smirk that tugged his lips, the easy looseness of his body, the way his eyes sparkled with sharp interest and watchful vigilance.
Clark stared for a second before he reached up, undoing a couple of buttons, just enough to open his shirt where Phantom could see the S on his chest.
Phantom’s eyes blew wide. He dropped his arms, moving to stand straighter when before he’d been practically lounging. His calm was gone, replaced with the anxious nerve Clark had been feeling the entire trip.
“No way,” Phantom breathed out. Green, green eyes flew up to meet Clark’s blue.
Danny’s heartbeat was gone, but his core was humming so loudly that it almost took on a beating pattern of its own.
“How? I just- wow, okay. That wasn’t what I expected. Have I mentioned I really, really like stars and space?” Suddenly Phantom wasn’t so mischievous. He was nervous, and God, that really was a familiar type of nerves.
“No, but I probably could have guessed,” Clark said. “Calling an alien ‘star touched’ is particularly poetic.”
“Oh ancients,” Phantom whispered. He was blushing, except his cheeks turned green than a more human pink. It was like his blood was entirely gone, replaced with a green substance (probably ectoplasm). It was fascinating. It was also super cute.
“There’s no need to be embarrassed,” Clark said, making his voice reassuring.
“I feel like that’s supposed to be my line,” Phantom said. He awkwardly scratched the back of his head. Clark had seen Phantom do that in an old interview, back when they were both just 14.
“Don’t remind me,” Clark begged. If he thought about that too hard, he might spontaneously combust.
“Dude, you’re like the coolest hero there is. You telling me that you look up to me is going to give me a complex. I’m either going to get a big head or get scared of failing.”
“I was 14, and my powers were coming-in in fits and spurts. You were my age, and you saved the whole world. And you could fly too. When I saw you, I didn’t feel like I was alone anymore,” Clark explained.
The look Phantom was giving him made his chest hurt. There was a longing there, a bone deep longing to be understood, to not be alone. Clark experienced that feeling consistently.
“You have a place to stay while you’re here?”
“Not yet,” Clark said. “I was just going to get a motel room.”
“Yeah, nope, not happening.”
Phantom reached for Clark, and Clark stayed still. He didn’t even breathe. He wasn’t certain what he thought Phantom was going to do, but it wasn’t button his shirt back up. Somehow, covering him up felt like one of the most intimate moments of Clark’s life. Physically, Phantom put off cold, not warmth. His fingers were deft, but not quick. Technically, the ghost hero probably didn’t need to breathe, but Clark listened to his breathing hitch when his fingers brushed against the material of Clark’s suit.
Three buttons, three tugs of fabric, six seconds, and somehow Clark was certain that moment rewrote his DNA.
“Just pretend like you can’t fly,” Phantom said. The Xerox lights passed over him again, and Clark was left looking at Danny. He didn’t get to do so for long before Danny grabbed him and dragged him back down to the booth the way they’d come from. Danny dropped him back near his seat like nothing had happened.
“Okay,” Clark wheezed once they were back.
“You’re staying with me,” Danny said. He grabbed Clark’s suitcase and walked off. Clark grabbed his jacket and followed Danny out onto the street.
“I’m staying with you,” Clark repeated a bit stupidly.
“Yeah, I’ve got a place,” Danny said.
“I mean, I assumed you did,” Clark said.
“Well, it’s just an apartment right now. It’s close. We can fly if you want.”
“I’m good,” Clark said. He did not want to be turned invisible again. The second bout of invisibility was still turning his stomach.
Danny laughed; a loud, wild sound that had Clark’s stomach swooping for a different reason.
Clark ‘jogged’ to keep up with Danny. It seemed like everyone in the city knew Danny. He was waving at people about as often as Clark did when he visited Smallville.
“You’re popular,” Clark noted.
“Thank ancients,” Danny said. “Because that was super not true to start.”
“I bet,” Clark said. His constant battles with Lex Luthor were proof that not everyone appreciated a hero, no matter how well intentioned.
“Yeah, it’s a whole thing. My parents were ghost hunters. When I started out, I didn’t tell them what I was. I didn’t tell them until after the whole world saving thing, but they’d figured it out by then. Anyway, they’d really wanted to capture Phantom and experiment on him. At the time, they didn’t think ghosts were sentient or sapient.”
“The Anti-Ecto Acts,” Clark said. “That phrasing was used 37 times in that document.”
“Oh wow, you really do your research. And yeah, it was based on my parents’ work from back in the day. To be a little fair to them, they’d only dealt with blob ghosts before, which are like a transition from ambient ectoplasm to a full ghost with a whole personality. Even animal ghosts are closer to being sentient. By the time they actually met a real ghost they already had bad conclusions.”
Clark nodded. “And the research was exactly what the government needed.”
“Also, the fact that when I first started, I was seen exactly like the ghosts I was fighting. That, plus a frame job, some mind control and a fruit loop, meant outside of the kids from my high school and my teachers, everyone hated “Inviso-bill”, which is what the papers named me before I could clarify.”
Clark wrinkled his nose. “That’s terrible.”
“Entirely,” Danny said. “Anyway, it’s amazing what can change in a year. You save your whole town a few times and then the world and get rid of the weird mayor and suddenly everyone loves you, and they decide you deserve to be compensated.”
“Wait, you’re paid to be a hero?” Clark asked.
“Me and Red, yeah,” Danny explained. “I mean, we’d do it anyway, but this way we don’t have to worry about maintaining a job. I’ve got ghost stuff to handle besides keeping my rogues busy. Ghosts love fighting. I’m basically friends with all the troublemakers, but they will cause mucho property damage if no one comes to fight them. To be honest, both Red and I had to take special classes and an extra year of school to graduate because we had to keep running off to fight. We have shifts now. And we have people who can fill if we need. Basically, everyone gets to have an actual life- ah, here we are.”
They arrived at an apartment building. Danny didn’t guide Clark in, he did turn them intangible and fly them to the top floor.
“A little warning next time,” Clark said when Danny let him go.
“Wait, it actually bothers you?” Danny asked.
“Star touched,” Clark reminded him weakly. “I’m solar powered. It’s not like I lose my powers, but it’s extremely unsettling when I can see it and stand in it, and it can’t touch me.”
“Oh, hell, I should have thought of that,” Danny said. “I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know,” Clark said. “So, can I assume everything you just told me is off the record?”
“Just the stuff about my parents… I try to keep that part of my identity a secret, the fact that I have a family. I generally try to let people guess if I’m actually alive or not, but I’m not against people knowing I get paid. People have already figured out I started young and that I age.” He shrugged. “Just how much do you have to do for your job?”
“I promise I won’t include anything you aren’t comfortable with, nor will I tell anyone anything you aren’t comfortable sharing,” Clark said. “I know the importance of secrecy.”
“You do, don’t you,” Danny said. There was a sad smile. “Listen… listen… He was hesitating, saying the word, opening his mouth to speak, closing it, swallowing and trying again, to no avail.
“I’m listening,” Clark said, trying to help Danny break the cycle.
“The last son of Krypton, that’s not a bit, that’s real, right?” Danny looked pained just asking. Those words lanced through Clark’s heart like a physical wound. He barely kept from gasping, and only because he thought doing so would hurt Danny too.
“It is,” Clark said after he took a second to compose himself.
Danny nodded, licking his lips. “It would probably take time, but the place where ghosts come from, it’s called the Infinite Realms. All living things can become ghosts. Anything with a personality, basically… what I’m saying is… shit. Okay, this is difficult.”
Danny scratched his head and then shook out his hands, trying to get some of the nervous energy out.
“There are dead Krytonians,” Clark said. He was guessing at what Danny was trying to say, but he wasn’t certain exactly what he was getting at.
“Well yeah, but that’s not everything,” Danny said, hurried, his voice hushed. “Ghosts are made when someone can’t let go of the living plane. A lot of times there will be a lot of ghosts after a natural disaster. Murder victims are more likely to become ghosts. When it’s sudden, sometimes people won’t realize they’re dead. When they get the chance to pass on, they don’t realize what it is, so they stay as ghosts… How did Krypton end?”
“Suddenly,” Clark said, realizing what Danny was saying. “You think my family-?”
“It’s possible.” Danny’s words were soft but urgent. “I can’t make promises. The Infinite Realms are infinite. Needle in a haystack doesn’t begin to cover it. I may not ever be able to find them. They may not be there. We may never know. But I’ll look, if you want.”
“I do,” Clark said quickly. “I- sorry. I just don’t… My parents sent me a few things, but there’s so much I don’t know.”
Danny nodded slowly. “Earlier, in the sky, you said that you- you saw me and thought you weren’t alone. Well, I’ve felt like that too. What I am- half alive, half dead, but all alive and all dead all at the same time, that’s not normal. There are two others sort of like me, but also not like me. There’s the fruit loop, but his half-death was slow. It was more like an infection. He isn’t really like me. And well, I have a clone-sister. She was never properly born, never existed as only alive before. Whatever cocktail of universal fuckery I got, it makes me stronger. And no one knows why… I know what it’s like to be alone and want answers. And I know what it’s like when there isn’t any.”
Danny’s eyes were sad. Clark felt like they were both alone on their own crumbling rafts on a vast, dark ocean, the tides carrying them past each other, too far away to touch. It felt hopeless.
But it wasn’t. Clark knew how to swim, and both of them could fly.
Clark reached for Danny, taking his hand between his own. He gave a very gentle squeeze.
“I knew from the moment I saw you on TV that we weren’t exactly alike. What you could do wasn’t something I could do, even though we can both fly, and I hear you also have ice breath, and that you have a supersonic scream.”
“Something like that,” Danny said with a weak chuckle.
“Point is, I saw you and I knew you were different, and you didn’t fit, and maybe you were wrong the way I felt wrong. But you turned that strangeness, that wrongness, into something beautiful and perfect. When I saw you, I saw hope. I saw someone who was different, who was good and kind and lovable. I was a teenager, with adopted parents who were so good but so normal that I’d started to believe that they only loved me out of pity. I didn’t think I could be-” He sucked in a breath.
“Like you could be loved,” Danny finished. He made a strained sound that could be a laugh or cry. Clark knew that feeling well.
“Yes,” Clark said.
“That sounds insane to me- don’t get me wrong, I do get it. But some days I still feel like Inviso-bill, and I expect to be hated. And yeah, I have ghost stuff to handle, but outside of that one fluke, I only protect my own city. You protect the whole world all the time. And holy shit, you have an actual job. I could barely handle school. You’re so amazing. I don’t know what to do with you. And you came here and just wanted to… to meet me? I still feel too different sometimes.”
“Me too,” Clark admitted with a soft smile. “So… how would you feel about being different together?”
“What, you asking me out on a date?” Danny asked.
“Of course I am,” Clark said.
Danny stared at him in silence for a second before he burst into real laughter. He made his hand intangible and slipped right out of Clark’s hold. (That would be a nightmare to handle in a fight.) Hands free, Danny threw his arms around Clark’s neck and hugged him tightly. Clarks arms wrapped around Danny automatically.
“Insane,” Danny laughed in his ear. “My life is insane.”
“Is that no?” Clark asked. He tightened his grip. No matter how tight he held on, Danny could slip away if he wanted. But Danny stayed in his arms.
“It’s a yes.” Danny pushed back so he could look Clark in the eyes. Danny wore a big, big smile. It was toothy, a little crooked and wonderful.