Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tactile telekinesis was never meant to get him very far off the ground; Cadmus had only thought it a minor ability, to help him in combat. His ttk was meant to assist him with the heavy lifting that came along with being Superman; It wasn’t really supposed to help Kon fly. That’s what his wings were for.

Wings. Cadmus’ simple solution to make their very own man of steel fly. They were a last resort by the directors, when the multiple attempts to try and recreate the newly discovered aura surrounding Superman’s body could never quite produce exact results. Wings weren’t their first choice, but Superman needed to fly.

Even Kon could admit, his wings were a sight to behold. A bright mix of red and blue feathers that when fully stretched out went just past the tips of his fingers, and when put away rested neatly against his back.

His wings have always been a constant and familiar weight on his back, one that Kon can say he’s never known life without. One of the first things he can remember from his days in the tube was feeling his half formed feathers brush up against the sides of his cloning tube, when he was barely even aware of what he was or would be.

When Kon thinks back on the day he had been broken free from Cadmus, he remembers his wings hanging wet and heavy behind him. He remembers the effort that it took to lift them up enough to lay flat behind him. Kon remembers the cold air of the outside world on his back. The way it made his feathers puff up as much as they could, shaking after a strong gust of wind. The newsboys had looked on in awe, quietly whispering to one another until one of them had approached.

“Here, Westfield and his goons will probably be looking for you, this jacket should help keep those hidden.”

He’d thrown the jacket on, the thick leather of it hiding the outline of his wings.

“Uh, thanks.”

Kon hadn’t tried to fly with his wings the first night he was free. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if he even could.

But unlike his wings, Tactile Telekinesis felt different. Ttk was a constant, welcome buzz of energy that Kon could always feel flowing through him. There was a pull inviting him to use it from the start, one that felt so right to use. Flying felt natural with Ttk. Right from the first time he pushed himself off the ground. With being able to freely move around the night sky so quickly, Kon practically considered himself an expert right away.

Cadmus’ failed attempts to replicate the former Superman’s aura hadn’t made his abilities weaker; it had given him the power to control them.

———

In the days after his escape Kon always kept a jacket on, trying his best to keep his wings hidden. He had a pretty close call when his first jacket was destroyed, but he’s thankful for the brand new one GBS had gifted him. And this one did just as good of a job of hiding his wings as his first one did. Plus, with the new bright yellow S he was now sporting on his back, this one also looked way cooler.

The more Kon had started to show his face to the media, the more people had started to consider him as the brand new Superman he was trying to be. Everyone wanted a piece of him, the newest story about the supposed clone of Superman was one that everyone in Metropolis had to know. And Kon was more than happy to tell them everything there was to say, with as much charisma as possible.

The cities new interest in Kon was no problem to him at all, but it had started to make Kon want to hide his wings even more than before. He needed to be living up to what people were expecting from him if he was going to be the worlds new Superman; and Superman definitely wasn’t supposed to have wings.

Each new interview, every public appearance, and every time Kon had shown up to save the day, he had forced his wings as flat to his back as they could lay. He hoped nobody would take notice, that nobody would discover his secret. That the world would maybe still consider him worthy.

It was easy, all Kon had to do was keep his wings hidden and he could be everything he’s always wanted to be.

Being Superman, or- Superboy, was proving to be a lot harder than he thought, but at least this one small thing was easy.

Between everything that had been thrown at him in the short time he’d been alive, and pretending to himself that his wings didn’t really exist. Over the weeks, he really could’ve forgotten they even existed.

That is, if the slowly growing ache in his back didn’t feel the need to occasionally remind him that they still in fact were.

———

Even after Kal’s return, Kon has always kept his wings hidden. He’s not ashamed of his wings, that was never the case, It just never felt right to him to have them out. Kon never really let himself think much about why, though. Everything just felt a little easier when he could keep this part of himself tucked away. He has too much going on right now though to question whether that really has any deeper meaning.

Nowadays there’s only a few people outside of Cadmus who know about Kon’s wings. The only ones who know are the people Kon considers most trustworthy in his books. His friends know, because he doesn’t really like to keep secrets from any of them. Kal knows, because Kon would trust anyone he considers his family, especially Kal with most anything; which is also why Ma and Pa know, along with John Henry and Lois.

Kon appreciates that nobody who he’s told ever questions him on why he only ever flies with ttk, it’s just what he prefers.

It’s not like there wasn’t a lack of effort to try and make his wings work for him.

Kon had tried to get the hang of flying with his wings back when he first moved to Hawaii, but it had been an extremely frustrating process the whole way through. He’d fallen more times then he actually flew during those first few days of learning. He really wanted to walk away after getting sand in his mouth more than one time.

He really would have quit altogether if it hadn’t been for Roxy, who had quickly claimed herself as Kon’s personal flying coach, and had actually done a pretty good job of it. She didn’t make it easy for Kon though. Roxy refused to let him go inside each day until he had made some sort of progress; Kon wasn’t going to be a quitter on her watch.

He did eventually learn how to keep himself up in the sky, but once he had gotten the hang of it, Kon had quickly decided that flying with wings totally sucked! It was basically impossible to keep himself still.

To stay up in the air, his wings had to be constantly moving, which meant he was constantly moving with them.

When he flies with ttk, Kon can always keep himself perfectly still in the air. It never takes any effort at all to stay in one place, and it’s easy to get a clear view of the world below him. But with wings, he loses all of that. his once perfect view of the Hawaiian coastline blurs itself together, and the sound of heavy flapping drowns out the usual calming sound of waves.

Kon sighed. This wasn’t going to work.

Flying practice is eventually cut short very soon after it had started, when Kon’s attempts to get back the spear of lono ends with a fight inside a volcano. Kon is shoved inches away from the volcano’s hot lava. Lava that burns off and melts the tips of Kon’s feathers. Leaving them a not so pretty sight.

He takes a pair of scissors to them the next morning, cutting off all of the blackened feathers and charred ends. Leaving them choppy and definitely unfit for any sort of flight.

Part of Kon wishes the volcano had taken his wings off altogether, but he keeps that thought to himself.

He doesn’t try to fly with them again after they grow back. They always stay hidden now. Rarely being seen even by people he’s close with. When he’s off being Superboy they stay folded away underneath his jacket, and for everything else Kon finds a way to tie them down behind his back using a wide piece of cloth. It keeps his wings just flat enough to put a shirt on over top of them, without it being too noticeable. Kon’s grateful, this means he doesn’t have to cut any more holes into the back of his clothes.

_____

When Kon leaves Hawaii and returns to Cadmus, he tries his best to dodge any questions asked about his wings. He brushes off the multiple suggestions made to make use his wings out on the field, or to even use them at all. He’s not sure if the project isn’t aware of how much his ttk skills have improved, or if they just want him to make use of their hard work. Either way it starts to get annoying fast.

When he loses his powers for a short time, it gets even worse. He accidentally lashes out at Guardian during training when he suggests making use of his wings. He knows he really shouldn’t have; Guardian had seen enough potential in him to agree to train him even after Mickey had decided to bench him. so that he could continue doing what he loved to do, so that he could keep doing what he was meant to do.

Guardian had quickly dropped the suggestion without a word.

Kon didn’t need those pesky wings to help with his missing powers. With his legion flight ring and some totally awesome gadgets from the guru, things started to feel right again anyways. And they had felt even better when his powers eventually did come back to him.

Everything can go back to the way it’s supposed to be now. Nobody has to bring up Kon’s wings again, he can be at peace.

Well, as much peace as his wings will give him.

Kon isn’t oblivious, he absolutely knows what he’s doing isn’t healthy. He knows because he can feel the effects that months ignoring his wings is currently causing. The small aches in his back that he pushes past everyday, the sharp stabbing pain in his wing joints that is sometimes too hard to ignore. The sore patches of missing feathers scattered throughout both sides of his wings. And of course the small scattering of fallen feathers he sweeps under his bed and hopes nobody ever finds.

-🍊-

It’s been awhile since Kon was able to spend the day out in and above metropolis with Kal.

Kal had spent a few evenings at the farm for family dinner over the last month. But it had been a few weeks since the two of them had took on the city together, and oh had Kon missed it.

Kal had stopped by the farm in the early afternoon, his work at the Planet having apparently let out early. After stopping by the house to say hello to Ma, Kal had come out to the barn to ask Kon if he wanted to tag along for the day.

Kon was using his Ttk to lift the caked-on mud off of some of Pa's tools when Kal came in. but he set that task aside quickly, after asking Kal to promise not to say a word to Pa about his cleaning strategies of course. Pa loved to teach Kon to do things the old fashion way, or as Kal teased him, “the way most folks do it.”

After brushing off the dirt from himself, and changing out of his farm clothes and into his jacket and suit, he and Kal take to the sky.

Flying from the farm to Metropolis never takes them very long, but today they take a more scenic route. They cut through small multicoloured forests and half harvested fields of crops. It’s one of the last warm days of fall, and a barely windy day. Even with how high above the ground they are, the breeze is perfectly calm. Kon stares off at the farm houses down below, watching tractors pull into barns and flocks of birds fly off a few feet beneath them.

“Cloud!” Kal yells from just slightly ahead of him, before swerving around a particularly big cloud.

Kon takes another approach, sticking his hands out if front of him and dramatically parting the cloud in two, flying in between the gap he created, before catching up to Kal.

“Anything we need to check out today big blue?” Kon said after catching up.

“Nothing today, just a matter of flying around and seeing what sort of trouble we can find.”

Kon doesn't mind days like that; it’s good to know that Metropolis isn’t always leaving them hints for the next inevitable crisis. Taking on the big stuff comes with the job, but Kon has also learned to take a sense of pride in the little things he can do for his city. He doesn't need to kick the head off of a robot for the work he does to mean something to someone. Sometimes even the smallest things could make him feel some pride.

The scenes of Midwest nature start to slowly fade out, replaced with the blandness of suburbia, which means the scenic portion of their flight has come to an unfortunate end. Kal seems to notice too, glancing over at Kon quick with a smile before speeding off, the sound of his cape rumbling behind him.

Kon laughs, because speeding off quickly and leaving Superman in the dust the second the nice view has ended is usually his thing. Kal had stolen his bit!

He rolls his eyes, speeding up to catch Kal before he makes it to Metropolis all by himself. The motion of speeding up makes Kon's back tense up slightly, but he ignores the feeling, just like he always does.

Kon does eventually catch up, and the two of them arrive in Metropolis at the same time. They fly down to the city together, this time at a much more leisurely pace.

It doesn't take them more than two minutes of flying around the city until, just like Superman had said, trouble finds them. Kon feels a rumble in the ground and looks over to Kal, who has that one look on his face that means he’s listening off somewhere that is too far out of Kon's range of hearing.

Kal motions over. “We have to head over to the shipping docks, it sounds like a ship collision.”

“On it S man!” This time Kon was the first to speed off with Superman quickly behind him.

What they arrived to wasn’t a pretty sight. A cargo ship sat crooked in the loading dock, the front end of it was crushed and had dug itself into the shallow concrete of the loading bay. The entire top layer of metal shipping containers had fallen over, and some sort of oil had started leaking out of the front of the ship, causing a small but quickly growing fire.

“Seems like luckily everyone cleared out in time. The ship is empty of people, which means all that’s left is the clean up.” Kal says, scanning over the ship.

Kon looks over to the other end. In the back of the ship some of the fallen shipping containers contents had spilled out onto the ground below was that- was that cans of Zesti?

“Aw, no, not the Zesti!!” Kon said with a hand to his head.

Kal laughes quietly to himself, some air blowing through his nose slightly. It’s the same small type of laugh he always gives to Kon’s antics when he’s supposed to be acting responsible.

“I’ll handle the fire, think you can take care of the spilled containers Superboy?”

Kon gives him a salute, “Sounds like a plan, Superman!”

With the help of some of the workers who had returned from where they had originally kept their distance, it didn’t take them very long to get the boat situation fixed. Kon did the heavy lifting of getting the containers back upright on the ground, with Kal coming to help after quickly putting out the fire. What wasn’t as easy of a fix was the large amount of spilled Zesti that had now melted and gone sticky under the setting sun.

Kon floated above it, trying to avoid stepping in the pop like a few of the workers had earlier. But while looking down at the spill he noticed something other than leaves and aluminum cans stuck in it. A single bright blue feather with just a tiny little bit of red on the end. One that definitely belonged to him.

It’s not that big of a deal, he loses feathers sometimes, although it’s usually when he fully stretches out his wings which is not something Kon does often.

Kon floats closer to the pier, focusing down on the water. A moment later, with a rumble and ripple of the water he lifts a large piece of it out of the pier, forming it into the shape of an orb and bringing it back above the Zesti.

“Everybody clear out of the way!” Kon shouts.

The workers scramble back and Kal floats slightly out of the way, looking amused.

A second later Kon drops the ball of water, watching it slowly lose its form and fall into crashing waves down below. He watches as the water washes away the Zesti, the leaves, thankfully his feather, and the cans. Oh shoot, the cans!

Kon scrambles over and lifts out all of the cans floating on the surface of the water, stacking them into a miniature pyramid on the side of the pier.

“Good thinking Superboy!” Kal says smiling proudly in front of him.

“Oh, uh, thanks! I didn’t really mean for the cans to go into the water too, but I grabbed em before they could get far.” He knows that’s not what Kal meant but Kon usually tends to ramble a bit when Kal gives him a compliment, especially when out on patrol.

“The city’s pretty quiet, what do you say we take a break? You up for burgers?”

“Heck yeah I am!” Kon responded, already starting to fly off in the direction of their usual burger place.

—

“You know if I could eat here everyday I probably would.” Kon said, half of his sentence being muffled by a huge bite of burger. There’s sauce all over the lower half of his face but Kon doesn’t seem to mind.

“Really? You wouldn’t miss Ma’s cooking at all?, rumor has it she’s making pumpkin pound cake next week.”

Kon pauses, Kon hasn’t had many home cooked meals in his life so he doesn’t have much to compare it against, but Ma’s cooking is probably some of the best food he’s ever tasted in his short life. Kal says he could eat Ma’s food anywhere and that place would feel a little like home. Kon thinks he agrees, even if the farm doesn’t feel entirely like home yet.

“Yeahhh, I might take that back, forget I said anything!”

This time Kal fully laughs, which makes Kon laugh a bit too. This is nice, it’s been awhile since they’ve been able to have a day like this, a day where there’s no dangers and nothing really goes horribly wrong.

Kon leans back on the face of the billboard they’ve decided to settle on. He’s pretty sure it’s some insurance advertisement, one slapped with an attention grabbing slogan like “you never know when disaster is about to strike.”

The view from the specific billboard they always eat on is on of Kon’s favourite views of the city, so to him this is a perfect way to end the day.

“Hey, thanks for taking me along today, it’s pretty cool to spend a few hours with just us two.”

“You’re welcome Kon, but you don’t need to thank me. It’s always a pleasure to spend some time with you.”

Kon glows a bit inside. Kal is really good at the whole making you feel accepted and important thing.

“So, how has being Superboy been treating you lately? I haven’t heard from anybody about any serious trouble, so I’m assuming pretty good?”

Kon balls up his empty burger wrapper and tosses it to the side of him. “Eh same old same old, people trying to kill me, tossing around suckers with my Ttk, doing some stuff with my friends, y’know, the usual.”

He sees Kal’s eyes widen a bit at the first thing he mentioned but he’s not really sure why, people probably try to kill Superman more then they try to kill him. It just came along with wearing the S. Though neither of them says anything about it.

When Kon glances over he can see Kal straighten up his posture and a much more pleasant expression fall over his face. Kal is about to go into loving speech mode.

“I hope you know everyone thinks you’re doing great, Kon. Me, Ma, Pa, and John Henry. We’ve all noticed how well you’ve been doing since you moved to the farm.And you’re doing incredible work as Superboy, far beyond anything I would have hoped to achieve when I was your age.”

Kal is right about that, things have been going pretty steady for one of the first times in his life since he left the slums. That one change has really made everything else more than a little easier. For a while, even though he wanted to be Superboy more than anything, something always felt not quite right. Like saving lives and doing what he loved was only ever leaving him worse off. But Kon’s glad he kept going, he’s proud that through everything he’s never lost what being superboy is supposed to be.

He realizes he got a little lost in thought, and that he probably needs to respond. He doesn't really know how to respond to Kal’s kind words, he never really does. So even though Kal had told him earlier that no thanks was necessary he can’t help but say, “Oh, uh! Thanks S man!”

“I mean if I’m gonna take over as your successor, I need to keep up with this overachieving thing, so that by the time i get there I’ll be like way past your level.” Kon jokes, elbowing Kal in the arm.

Kal smiles, “Well I’ll be more than happy to see that day when it comes.” He says clapping Kon on the shoulder.

It happens so suddenly; before Kon can think to suppress it or react in any other way, he hisses out in pain at the hand on his shoulder. An ache is now beaming from his back. He folds over on himself slightly, his left wing jolting up as much as it could from behind his jacket.

Kon feels Kal’s hand lift up from his shoulder in surprise. His left wing is shaking, the same way it annoyingly twitches when he lay’s on his back for too long, or when he accidentally bumps into something. Expect this time it’s not just annoying, this time it’s painful.

“Are you alright?” Kon hears Kal ask calmly, but there’s an unmistakable worry behind it. Kal probably thinks what just happened is his fault Kon needs to fix that.

“Yeah no I’m good! No big deal, you just hit my wing a little hard and it was sorta bothering me earlier.”

Kal looks a bit surprised.

“Your wing- how long has it been bothering you?” Kal pauses. “How often is this happening?”

Kon folds his arms in, his eyes darting away at the sudden questions. He really doesn’t like when people ask him about this sort of stuff, especially when he’s not expecting it. “No, it’s fine, I’m fine. It just hurts a little sometimes when I don’t use them enough.” Kon reassures Kal.

Kal goes quiet again, his expression is clearly worried now. It freaks Kon out a little, Kal always has the right words for him, but right now he’s silent.

“Is it ok if I just have a look at your wings?” He finally asks, reaching a hand out to Kon’s arm.

Kon flinches back from him before he can think, his eyes are wide, not moving off of where he’s starting at Kal. He didn’t think this would bother him so much, but nobody ever asks about his wings. No one ever pays so much attention to them.

He tries to relax his posture again; well, as much a he can with his wing still pulsing with a faint pain. He needs to calm down. This is Kal, Kal is family, he shouldn’t have freaked out like that.

Kal puts his hand back down at his side, speaking before Kon can. “I’m sorry-“

Kon cuts him off before can finish his apology. “No it’s cool, I don’t- I don’t know why I did that.” He backtracks, that’s what he said, but Kon knows why he’s upset, he’s just not sure if he wants to say it out loud.

He fidgets with his thumb contemplating if he actually wants to say anything else. Kon looks out at the last bit of sun peaking over the metropolis skyline. He takes a deep breath.

“I don’t like them, Kal. My wings, I really don’t like them.” He gets a little choked up on the last few words.

Kal gives him a look, one that Kon thinks says “I’m so sorry you’re hurt, I love you.”

Kon doesn’t want to try words again, that look just makes him want to wrap his arms around Kal and not let go. So that’s exactly what he does.

It hurts like hell. It makes his back tense and his face scrunch up, but he doesn’t care, he just wants to hug Kal.

“Oh, Kon-el..” Kal says lovingly.

“It hurts Kal, it sucks.” He mumbles into Kal’s chest.

“I know, I know, it’s ok.” Kal says, using his thumb to rub circles into the back of Kon’s head.

“I won’t force you to show me if you don’t want to but- maybe we can go back to the farm? We’ll calm down a little bit, say hi to Ma and Pa, and only if you're ok with it, I can have a look at your wings.”

Kon breaks from the hug and wipes the tears off his cheeks. Kal is only worried about him, it wouldn’t be the end of the world to let him take a look.

Kon sighs. “Okay, we can go back to the farm.”

Kal smiles softly, he’s relieved. He helps Kon up onto his feet. “Are you okay to fly?”

Kon nods, silently floating himself off the ground.

-🍊-

Very little is said on the flight back to the farm. but this time the two of them fly side by side. Kal looks over at him every once in a while, probably making sure he’s still ok. But Kon’s fine; he deals with this sort of pain everyday, this is just the first time anyone else really knows.

The last bits of city lights blink out of view, they’re back to the fields now, only this time there’s no view to make out. It’s kind of a cool feeling, and more importantly, distracting feeling to fly at night. When Kon unfocuses his eyes from the few surroundings he can still make out, it almost feels like he’s flying through a void.

A drop of rain hits him in the forehead as they get closer to the farm, and quickly turns into a much more heavy shower. He spoke too soon. Flying at night is fun, but flying in the rain is the worst. Kon puts up a mini Ttk shield up around his face to try and block out some of the annoying droplets that would hit his face without it.

The soft yellow glow of the house’s pouch light slowly starts to come into view. Kon slows his speed down so he doesn’t wipe out in the muddy lawn.

He lands in front of the house without slipping, Kal landing just as easily next to him.

Neither of them ever need to knock to walk into the house, Ma has always made a point of reminding them both that no matter if they live here or not, this is always their home, so they should treat it that way.

When Kal creaks the door open Ma is in the kitchen standing over the sink. From what Kon can make out from the doorway, it looks like she’s washing apples. Ma turns around at their footsteps.

“Clark! Hi sweetheart.” Ma sets the bowl of apples in the sink and comes over to greet them, drying her hands on her apron. “Neighbours dropped off some apples not to long ago. That tree of theirs is over 30 years old now, makes more fruit then they know what to do with.” Ma laughs to herself.

“So what brings you two boys back home? Pa said he saw you two fly off earlier, did you spend the day in Metropolis?”

Ma has a habit of falling into conversation before anyone stopping by can even say hello. So Kal makes sure to give Ma a hug before the window where he can greet her closes. Ma shuffles Kon into the hug as well. This time he successfully covers up the slight jolt of pain the hug causes.

“Yep, I took Conner over to the city for a few hours. Been awhile since we’ve had a day out together.”

Ma smiles at them both “glad to know my boys had a good day. I was just about to head up to bed, I kicked Pa up there a few minutes ago. He was trying to move all the chicken feed into the barn in all this rain but I wouldn’t let him.” Ma tsk’s and shakes her head. “But I can put the kettle on if you boys want to make yourself any hot drinks.”

Kal puts a hand on Ma’s back. “That’s alright Ma, I just need to talk with Conner for a bit.”

Ma looks over at Kon. “Everything alright?”

“Yeah, I’m alright Ma.” Kon replies. Which was true; Kal just wanted to take a quick look at his wings and then he could go to bed for the night too.

“Ok then, goodnight you two, love you lots.”

“Love you too Ma!” They both shout as Ma walks up the stairs.

Then just as Kon was about to turn around, Ma peaked her head back around the top of the stairs. “Oh! Conner! You missed supper dear, I put the cornbread casserole in the fridge, heat some up if you’re hungry, you too Clark!” And then just as quickly Ma had popped her head back upstairs.

Kon sees Kal wait for a second longer by the stairs, before Kon turns the corner into the kitchen for that mentioned casserole.

Kal joins him in the kitchen a moment later. “Would I be able to take a look at your wings now?”

Kon looks up from the counter where he was peeking under the tin foil of the glass casserole dish he had already pulled from the fridge. Ma had told him to heat it up but Kon was totally fine with the other option of eating spoonfuls of cold casserole straight out of the dish.

Kon panics a bit on the inside, remembering again why Kal was here in the first place. He also remembers what happens any time he fully stretches out his wings. The large amount of feathers that fall out, and more importantly the blood that sometimes came with it when it had really been a while.

And Kon can’t exactly remember the last time he tried to fully unfurl his wings. So Kal is definitely going to be cool about what’s about to happen. “Hm, oh yeah- we should probably do this whole thing in the barn though.”

Kal now has a concerned expression on his face. “Kon, it’s raining outside, and the barn has a hole in the roof, we’re staying in here.”

“It’s not raining too bad though! We can just sit on the other side of the barn that has no hole!” Kon argues back.

Just as Kon finishes saying that a perfectly -or not so perfectly- timed crack of thunder rumbles out above the house.

Kal looks at him as if the thunder has just proved his point. Motioning over to the living room with his hand, silently telling Kon to sit.

Kon mumbles under his voice as he marches over to the living room “We stop bullets with our bare hands every day, a little bit of rain wouldn’t have hurt us.”

Kal joins him in the living room. Kon sits on the floor facing the miniature fireplace, looking up at the photos that scattered the wall. Most of them are of Kal growing up, some are from Kal and Lois’ wedding, and there’s a few more of the entire family. The most recent one being from this summer when they all got together for a barbecue. That barbecue was one of the first times Kon had felt like he wasn’t just family with Kal, but he was also family with the Kent’s too.

There’s one more photo of Kon up on the wall, this one of just him. He hadn’t realized it till now, but it had filled in that awkward gap in between the wall of photos that always bugged him. The photo is of him sitting up on the roof the first week he moved in. Pa had snapped it without him noticing. Kon had no idea that Ma had put it up.

It felt pretty nice, Kon had earned a place in Ma’s meticulously decorated living room, among the wooden nick knacks and cross stitch pillows. Ma’s living room, which he now realizes he’s about to cover in feathers.

Kon twists around carefully to look at Kal “I’m gonna get feathers all over Ma’s living room, we can’t do this here.”

Kal sits down on the floor behind him, “Nothing that can’t be cleaned up Kon-el. It’s ok, I promise.”

Kon sighs in defeat, he really doesn’t want to argue about any more of this process tonight, he just wants this done and for Kal to stop worrying.

Time to get this over with.

Kon slides his jacket off his shoulders, tossing it off to the side. He goes to lift his shirt up over his head but pauses halfway through. His wing is annoyingly twitching again, although this time it doesn’t really hurt as much as before. Kal notices the movement anyways and moves to lift Kon’s shirt the rest of the way over his head.

His wings were visible now, and at first glance they probably didn’t look too bad when they’re folded over. Although, Kon couldn’t tell if that was true or not. It was the next part that would actually reveal the real problems.

“Am I ok to take a look now?” Kal asks. Kon hums to agree.

Kal runs his hand over Kon’s left wing, the one that had been the bigger bother of the two since they left metropolis. Kal lifts up sections of feathers on his still closed wing making sure to use as gentle of hands as possible. He switches to the other wing and repeats the same process.

Kal puts some light pressure on the middle section of his back where his two wings meet. The motion makes Kon’s slightly slouched back go completely straight, his face winces in pain.

Kal pulls his hand back quickly. “Sorry, are you alright?”

“Yeah, I’m great.” Kon says with much less confidence than he would have wanted to. “You can keep going now.”

He feels Kal’s hands lift off his wings. “Would you be able to open your wings?”

This is going to completely suck, but Kon can do this.

He starts with the right wing, Kon thinks it’ll probably be easier and way less painful than the dreaded left wing. Kon takes a deep breath, squeezes his fists together, and slowly opens his wing.

the familiar feeling of stinging and pulling gets stronger the further he opens his wing.
The entire time his right wing is trembling. And then right at the halfway point, his wing makes a horrible loud pop.

Kon folds over on himself letting out a broken yell. He covers the sound with his hand. What was that? It’s never done that before, it’s- it’s never hurt this bad before.

“Kon!” He hears Kal shout behind him. His hand is now on Kon’s lower arm, his voice is full of worry.

Kon hisses through his teeth as he tries to sit back up. “No, it’s fine now it’s out. That’s just- never happened before.”

Kon blinks his eyes. He hadn’t realized they were watering. Something's wrong; he can’t keep his wings like this. He needs to get his other wing out.

Before Kal can stop him he jolts open his left wing about a quarter of the way, trying to get it over with as quickly as possible. before he can get his wing open the rest of the way a similar but stronger pain makes him stop. Fast was definitely not the right way to be doing this.

This time he can’t muffle the pain, his yell breaks turning into a small sob.

“Kon-el, what are you doing, stop!” Kal yells behind him.

He ignores Kal; he bites the inside of his cheek, and continues to open his wing. His eyes are squeezed closed, but he can hear tiny little pops as he keeps going. Kon grabs onto whatever he’s managed to grab onto, holding it as tight as he can.

Finally with one last awful loud snap it’s over. His wings are out.

Kon opens his eyes, he’s lightheaded. His hands are shaking. He looks down, his hands are still squeezing onto Kal’s arm where it’s been resting on his this entire time.

“I got it Kal” Kon was out of breath, his voice wobbly but also relieved.

He hears Kal sigh. “You did Kon, but please don’t do that again. I really don’t want you to make your injury worse than it already is.”

“I won’t.” Kon says, giving a thumbs up, his voice still in the same tone as before.

“You’re bleeding.” Kal says.

“Yeah, that happens sometimes when I haven’t taken my wings out in a while.”

Kal goes quiet behind him for a second. “Does it usually bleed this much?”

That makes Kon pause, eyes going a bit wide. It’s normally only a few spots of blood, usually something you’d really have to search through his feathers to find. Just how bad was this?

Kon reaches his hand behind his back ignoring the pain the motion causes. When he brings his hand back in front of him his fingers are covered in blood. Oh.

He hears Kal get up quickly. footsteps are walking over to the kitchen. One of the noisy cabinets under the counter top squeaks open then quickly shuts closed. The kitchen faucet turns on, Kon tries his best to turn around at the sound of running water. Turning around goes as well as he expected. He sits back again, facing the fireplace.

Kal returns just as quickly as he left, sitting back down. A warm washcloth presses against Kon’s back, Kon melts a bit at the feeling. He feels his shoulders relax a little and he lets out a deep sigh.

Then Kal moves the cloth slightly down his back, Kon cries out in pain.

“I know, I know, I’m sorry.” Kal says to him softly.

Kal works at his wings, washing them clean of blood. He runs his hands through them, gently breaking up the sections of mangled and crooked feathers, laying them down as neat and flat as they would lay.

Kon let Kal work mostly in silence, he stared down at the living room floor tracing his finger against the pattern of the woodgrain. Occasionally Kal would move a feather that would make his wings twitch, making his shoulders jolt up and his teeth grit.

“I’m almost done ok? I promise.” Kal repeated each time. But Kon didn’t really mind.

Aside from the occasional painful twitch or wrong move, the worst of the pain had mostly subsided once his wings were fully out. And when Kal started to run his hands though his feathers to make them neat again, it actually felt really nice. When Kal had started again pausing after each twitch, his whole body would start to relax.

He’s grateful for how well Kal is taking this. It’s something Kal never does, but it feels like Kal should be scolding him for this. Kon knows that he never should have let his wings get to this point, he really messed up.

“Sorry…”

Kal’s hands stop at the break in silence. “It’s ok Kon-el, I just wish you had told somebody sooner if your wings were causing you so much trouble.”

Kon sighs he knows, he really does but… “I just wanted to forget they existed… I hate them Kal, they’re useless! I didn’t need them when Cadmus gave them to me, I don’t need them to do anything I can do now, and I sure as hell don’t want or need them if I’m gonna be Superman one day!” He's a bit out of breath now, but he really needed to get that out.

Kal gets up from behind him, sitting next to him so the two are face to face. “Oh Kon-el,” he moves away a piece of hair stuck to Kon’s forehead. “You're allowed to not be ok with your wings, and you're allowed to not like what they remind you of, but I don’t want you to keep living in pain so that you can forget they’re there.”

Kon looks behind him as far as he can manage. He wiggles his right wing a bit; it doesn't hurt as much.

“I want to wrap up the base of your wings, you had a lot of broken pin feathers and damage there. The first aid kit is in the bathroom. I’ll be back, stay put.”

He feels sort of weird. Kon isn’t really sure what Kal did to get rid of so many uncomfortable sensations in his back and wings, but whatever he did seems to have done it’s job. Of course It didn’t get rid of all the pain. He can still feel some in his joints, but Kon knows that’s not something that can be fixed in one night. But this is better, his shoulders relax for what feels like the first time.

Kon yawns, it feels late. How long had all of this taken?

Kal returns with the old scraped up metal tin that is the Kent’s first aid kit. The tin looks older than Kal, but when he pops it open it’s full to the brim with all sorts of supplies for fixing up all sorts of stuff. What would Ma and Pa need all this for? Maybe Kal wasn’t always as durable as he is now?

Kal grabs a roll of tensor bandage and some gauze from the kit. Kon sits back the way he was, and Kal again gets to work, wrapping up the base of Kon's left wing.

“Hey, Kal?”

Kal hums in acknowledgment.

“When my wings are all healed do you think you can still do that thing you were doing with my feathers? It actually felt pretty nice.”

Was that a strange thing to ask? Kon’s not sure, but for a moment it was the most relaxed he’s ever felt in his life, so he doesn’t think it hurts to ask.

“Well I, or someone else, is going to need to if you don’t want something like this to happen again.”

Kon raises an eyebrow. “Wait, really? I thought you were just making them look neater.”

Kal laughes, “Well I was doing that, yes, but I was also preening them. It’s supposed to keep your feathers healthy and stop them from getting damaged.”

Kon didn’t know that was a thing he had to do for himself. He knew what preening was, he watches the chickens do it all the time. But he never really thought about the fact that his wings would need maintenance too.

But it suddenly explains a lot; the piles of fallen feathers under his bed, the broken feathers that had snapped and frayed, too brittle to grow back healthy. It’s a bit frustrating how simple of a solution to some of his pain really was.

“There we go, that’s better.” Kal said, tucking the last bit of bandage away on Kon’s other wing. “Just don’t fold them back down tonight, I want you to leave time for everything to heal, and for your wings to have a rest out of that position.”

“Got it Kal,” Kon stands up for the first time in over an hour, trying not to bump his wings into anything in the living room. This is sure going to be a fun healing process.

Kon moves over to the couch, using his foot to kick the lever on the side, popping the couch into pull out mode.

Kon wants to flop on the couch like usual, but this time he makes sure to lay on his stomach slow and carefully. He does however plop his head down into the mountain of embroidered pillows.

“You sure you don’t want to go up to your room? More space up there.” Kal asks.

“Bleh, no, too tired.” Kon says, his voice muffled.

Kal ruffles his hair. “Alright then.” He says softly.

Kon tilts his head to the side, he looks down at the floor, it’s absolutely scattered with red and blue feathers. With how many there are on the floor, he wonders what's left on his wings.

He looks back over at Kal who is still staring down at him.

Kon yawns. “You have to head back to Metropolis now don’t you?”

This breaks Kal from whatever deep thought he was in, looking down at Kon.

“No, not yet if you don’t want me to. I have the day off at the Planet tomorrow, and Lois won’t mind.”

“You should stay then, don’t want you to go.”

Kal smiles softly. “Alright then Kon-el.”

Kal sits back in the rocking chair across from the couch. Kon, now content, finally closes his eyes.

Tomorrow will probably be full of talks; letting Ma and Pa know about everything, talking about what can be done for Kon’s wings, and probably all sorts of other things Kon isn’t exactly looking forward to. But for now Kal is with him, and for the first time, there’s less of a weight on his back. He lets his shoulders relax.

Kon drifts.