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They’d finally had the funeral today. It had been delayed, out of some faint hope that there’d be another miracle and they wouldn’t have to go through with it. But the world couldn’t get so lucky twice. Superman was dead, again, and this time it was for good. He was gone and never, ever, coming back.
Kon has been holding it together this whole time, hoping that Kal would beat the odds again. And then Superboy had to have it together while he sat in the front row for family (but Ma couldn’t even be there, and Lois was a few rows behind with Chris for secret identity reasons, and it was just him and Kara and John Henry and Natasha not their whole family so he couldn’t even lean on them). He’d kept it together enough to give the speech he’d been allotted. He couldn’t remember anything he said, but he’d said it well enough that people hadn’t thrown tomatoes at him or something so it must have been okay. Kon’s fine. He’s completely, totally fine.
He takes a deep breath and looks in the mirror of his Metropolis apartment’s bathroom.
Kal stares back at him.
Kon handles it. He punches the mirror and screams in anguish.
He comes back to himself with his hands clutching the sink so hard it’s cracking and a spiderweb of cracked glass on Kal’s shoulder. He tries not to think about how it mirrored the spiderwebbing cracks all over Kal’s body when John Henry pulled him from the wreckage.
Kon can’t bring himself to keep looking and drops his gaze to where he has a vice grip on the sink.
The funeral was today. He said goodbye to Kal forever. That’s why he’s seeing Kal in the mirror. His brain is just . . . showing him as a last goodbye. That’s all.
He leaves the bathroom and pretends he can’t feel Kal’s concerned eyes following him through the mirror.
They hadn’t really talked about it before in hopes that they wouldn’t have to, but now with Kal buried, the conversation has to happen. There had been a plan Clark had put together with all of them, after the last time he died, but they’d been trying to not think about having to implement it.
“How are we going to handle Superman?” Lois says briskly. Kon recognizes that she was trying to conceal her emotions about this with a business-like attitude. “We don’t need someone we don’t know, who never knew Clark and why he did this to try to take his place. We have to figure out some way to preempt that.”
“Only way that happens is if someone steps up to be Superman and does it well. Otherwise, someone is going to try if his mantle isn’t picked up.” John Henry says seriously. “He did so much for so many people, and that gap will be noticed and there will be jockeying to fill it if we don’t act fast.”
Lois closes her eyes, pained. “I know.”
John Henry gently reaches out and takes her hand. She clutches it fiercely like a lifeline. Chris clings harder to her side.
“It would be easiest if it’s one of us, right?” Kara says hoarsely. It’s some of the first words that Kon has heard her say since . . . since it happened.
“Well, yes. It would be.” Lois says. “But it’s a lot to ask –”
“I’ll do it.” Kon says. Everyone turns to look at him. “I’ll be Superman.”
“Kon, you don’t have to –” Natasha says.
“Someone does.” Kon says, determined. “Someone has to uphold everything that Kal stood for, and take up the mantle. And you’re right, it should be someone who actually knew him. So I’ll do it.”
Lois lets out her breath. Her smile is wobbly, but it’s there. “Alright. Thank you, Kon.”
In retrospect, Kon really had been a naïve kid when he was first Superman. He’d thought himself so important and cool and that he was absolutely handling things well. But in retrospect, he was just a scared kid trying to fill too-big shoes for a role he didn’t really understand. He didn’t feel like he was filling them well this time either – though he was self-aware this time, at least – but he had a better idea now of what and who Superman needed to be. It was so much harder now that he truly knew that.
Superman meant so many things to so many people, in Metropolis and across the world. He was a symbol of hope, a protector, a community member, a helping hand. He was everything to everyone, carrying the world on his back. It was a lot of work, a lot of pressure, and in his darkest moments Kon wondered whether the pressure would crush him.
But someone had to do it. Someone had to, and Kon is in the best position of any of them to take up the mantle at the moment. And Kal had extended it to him some time ago, when Kon first told him that he was considering taking up a new superhero name and that he felt like he’d outgrown Superboy.
“There is no one I’d be more honored to share the name with.” He’d said at the time, and Kon had burst into tears.
It’s that conversation that Kon holds onto when he feels like he can’t handle it. Kal believed in him, all those months ago, and he’s counting on Kon to be the best Superman he can be. Kon owes it to him to follow through. Overall, he can see objectively that he isn’t doing too poorly even though emotionally he doesn’t feel that way. And others seem to think so as well, this time around.
Most of the media was referring to him as “Superman, formerly Superboy” and “the current Superman”. Not just Superman, though unlike last time they were referring to him as Superman and not Superboy. They respected him as a Superman, but didn’t quite see him as completely Superman yet. It made sense. It was sudden and new and he wasn’t Kal. Of course people weren’t outright referring to him as just Superman yet. That would come with time, and Kon honestly wasn’t sure he wanted it just yet. Lois was one of the only journalists referring to him as simply Superman, and that stung just as much as it comforted him.
All of the support from family, from Lois to John Henry to Natasha to Kara, stung as much as it helped lately. They all knew what had been lost better than anyone, and what Kon needed to be Superman in a way that lived up to Kal’s legacy. And that helped quite a bit. But it also hurt, that they were pushing aside their own grief about seeing someone else take up the cape to support Kon. He hates that he’s doing this to everyone, especially Lois and Kara and John Henry.
Kara, as Superwoman, has been sticking close to Kon as Superman lately. It’s part reinforcing his legitimacy as Superman, part stubborn protectiveness and terror borne from Kal’s death. She didn’t want to lose him too, so she was doing everything in her power to make sure he was never hurt at all. It was sweet, but also somewhat stifling.
“I’m okay, Kara.” He says after a fight against Metallo, gently brushing away Kara’s worried hands.
“You’re sure about that?” Kara says, eyes stormy with grief.
“Yeah. I’m okay. I promise I’d tell you if I wasn’t.” Kon grins crookedly.
“Alright.”
Kon sees something in the corner of his eye and glances over at the windows of the skyscraper next to them. In their reflections in the window, he sees Kal floating next to Kara.
“What are you looking at?” Kara asks, looking over at the skyscraper herself.
He resolutely jerks his head away. “Oh, nothing. Hey, Superwoman, how about we go get something to eat? I’m famished!”
Kara laughs and drops the subject. Kon can’t help but glance back and see Kal again, but clearly, Kara couldn’t see him at all. She would have said something. It’s just a trick of the light in Kon’s eyes, that’s all. Nothing to worry about.
The time he saw Kal’s reflection while flying with Kara is not an isolated incident. He keeps seeing Kal in the corner of his eye as he flies through Metropolis, and turning to see his reflection in windows. It was . . . disconcerting. Kon keeps forgetting that Kal is dead and turning to greet him in excitement and say how much he missed him to find it to just be the reflection again. He can see that same frustration in the reflection as well. Which, well, duh. It was his reflection. So of course it looks frustrated! Because Kon is! It’s not like it’s actually Kal.
Kon decides to do what he often does when he was frustrated or confused about something; drop by the Steelworks to pester John Henry until he coaxed Kon into talking about what was bothering him. Well. He definitely wouldn’t pester John Henry like he usually did. Since it happened, John Henry has been so worn and tired. He’d been the one to find Kal’s body, after all. Kon was pretty sure that Lois was one of the only things keeping him afloat in Kal’s absence, and vice versa. He’s glad that they still had each other.
He isn’t going to be a bother or a burden to John Henry in his grief – no, he has to be a comfort instead. So he steels (ha!) himself and lands gracefully through the skylight entrance.
Well. Almost gracefully.
Kon’s cape almost goes over his head; only a timely prevention with TTK stops it from doing so entirely. It still felt odd to have a cape instead of his jacket over his shoulders, and it moved very differently. The rest of his outfit is the same, but the cape feels like an absolutely necessary addition for being Superman. Kon hadn’t quite figured it out, but he could manage it.
John Henry snorts. “Having some trouble there?”
“No, no, I have it.” Kon sputters.
“Sure, kid.” John Henry laughs.
“How are you doing?” Kon askes, and then winces. Foot meet mouth, what a dumb question to ask.
John Henry just smiles sadly. “Oh, coping, as one does.”
John Henry had been one of Kon’s strongest supports, the first time around, and he’s been there for him ever since. Kon would never be able to do this without him. But he can’t ask for too much, be too much. John Henry is grieving Kal too. So Kon has to be there for him.
“Anything I can do to help?”
John Henry stares at him like he’d grown a second head. “Kon, it’s not your job to look after me. We’re family, we help each other, alright?”
John Henry always has been really good at reading him. Kon can’t hide himself entirely here. “Alright, alright. I’ll be here for you, you’ll be here for me. I got it.”
“Are you going to actually take me up on that?” John Henry asks wryly.
“I will. Come flying with me?” Kon offers tentatively.
John Henry melts, and drops a heavy, reassuring hand onto his shoulder. “Of course.”
The two of them take off, Superman and Steel flying together once more.
Kon can’t say he is entirely surprised to see Chris out and about with a surprisingly good replica of Kon’s Superboy outfit (though with a blue cape instead of a jacket) and fighting muggers in an alleyway. He hovers, seeing that Chris seems to have the situation in hand. Once Chris returns the victim’s wallet, he clears his throat, hiding his amusement at the way that Chris jumps.
“Lor-El.” He says evenly.
“Kon-El.” Chris says sheepishly.
“How’d you get that?” Kon says, hands on his hips.
Chris blinks up at him innocently. “I asked Kelex to help me make it at the Fortress. I said it was for a Hallowe’en costume because Superboy is my favorite hero.”
“Uh-huh.” Kon says skeptically, though he couldn’t help but feel warm about Chris’s hero worship. Obviously, Kal had been Chris’s favorite superhero, so Chris was saying this to butter him up, but it was still flattering. “It’s nowhere near Hallowe’en, mister, and Hallowe’en certainly doesn’t include you doing superheroics.”
Chris looks away guiltily. “I just want to help.”
“And I don’t want you to get hurt.” Kon says.
“I have powers and I want to help with them!” Chris pleads. “We’ve got a duty!”
It tugs at Kon’s heartstrings. He remembers being young and feeling invincible and wanting to help. Who is he to turn down that kind of plea? And he knows that Chris would do this whether he says yes or not. If he says yes, then he could look out for him. Chris deserves to be safer than he was; deserves to have people nearby looking out for him. He can be that for Chris, in the way that Kal was for him. “Alright. But I’m not the one you have to convince. You get to be the one to tell Lois about this.”
Chirs grimaces. “She’ll come around! She’s just being really protective.”
“Yeah. Can’t imagine why.” Kon tucks Chris under his chin, blinking back tears.
Their conversation with Lois is fraught, but she relents and does agree to Chris going out as Superboy.
“Your dad and I thought you would be doing this soon anyway.” Lois says. “I am so glad you have Kon looking out for you.
“I promise I’ll protect him,” Kon says solemnly. Lois meets his eyes and nods. Kon only hopes that he can keep this promise for once, since he couldn’t even keep Kal safe.
That is what haunts him as he heads home. If he couldn’t help Kal, how could he ever truly be enough to keep Chris safe?
He pushes that question to the back of his head as he approaches his apartment. It’s been a long, long night, and if he keeps thinking about it he’ll never get to sleep. And with the frenetic pace of being Superman, Kon definitely needs sleep. He’s unsure if he’s ever been this tired.
But the night is not done yet.
To top it all off, Kal’s ghost seems determined to haunt him through his mirror. Every single time he looks, Kal is looking back at him. It’s getting to Kon, just a little bit.
And after those conversations with Chris and Lois, Kon really can’t handle it tonight.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t save you!” Kon shouts at the mirror, tears in his eyes. “I’m doing all that I can to make up for it! I won’t let Chris get hurt, I promise.”
Kal looks immeasurably sad, and the reflection’s hands come up as though to cup Kon’s face. Kon turns away and breathes in sharply.
He is Kal’s clone, after all, and now he is Superman. It isn’t too big of a stretch to think that he is just . . . seeing Kal in his own reflection, because they looked alike. Yeah. That had to be it.
He’d just ignore the fact that the Kal he sees in the mirror doesn’t follow his own movements and seemingly moves independently. It’s nothing, really.
Everything is fine.
Kon has taken to hanging out on rooftops lately. He stands up high and lets the sounds of Metropolis filter through the air, on lookout for anything he needs to take care of, while his TTK stretches through the city to see if anything was amiss. It is comforting, in a way, to be able to look over the city he’d vowed to protect and monitor so many things to make sure people were alright.
“Brooding again?” Natasha’s voice filters down from above.
“It’s not brooding!” Kon complains.
Natasha laughs and settles down next to him, swinging her armored legs back and forth over the edge. “Sure, you’re totally not brooding at all.”
“Can’t a man think in peace?” Kon says plaintively.
“Nah, not while I’m around.” She lets the silence stretch between them until he feels ready to break it.
“Was it this hard when you became Steel?” Kon asks quietly.
“Kind of.” Natasha thinks for a moment. “It was really hard to do it without Uncle John backing me up. I mean, he was there to give pointers on mechanical things and tips, but – I always thought that if I became a superhero too he’d be beside me the whole time to teach me, you know? But he was at least there.”
“And Kal isn’t here.” Kon’s voice cracks.
“Yeah.” Nat wraps an arm around his shoulders and lets him lean into her.
“Kal actually offered me Superman months before all of this,” Kon admits.
“Wow, really?”
“Yeah. I’d said I felt like I was outgrowing Superboy and needed to be something else but I didn’t know what. And Kal said he thought I’d be a great Superman and that he’d be proud to share the name with me, if that’s what I wanted.” He takes a deep breath and turned towards Nat. “Do you think that Kal would be proud of what I’m doing here?”
“Oh, Kon.” Natasha says. “Of course he would. You’re doing amazing at this. Kal couldn’t ask you to do any better than you are.”
“Thanks, Nat.” Kon sniffles.
“Hey, this is what I’m here for.” Nat affectionately punches his shoulder. “Just remember that you’ve got this, okay? You’re an amazing Superman.”
Natasha’s pep talk buoys him throughout the day. For the first time since Kal’s death, he feels as light as the air he flies through as he heads home. And it’s easier, somehow, to face Kal in the mirror.
“I think I’ve finally got a handle on all this, Kal. Or at least I know what I need to do.” Kon says. Kal smiles, fond and bittersweet.
Absent-mindedly, Kon taps his finger against the mirror near Kal’s hand. Kal taps back, and Kon feels it on his own hand and with TTK.
Kon stares.
This is real. He didn’t imagine it. The image of Kal had tapped back, and Kon had felt it.
“Kal? Are you really there? Can you hear me?” Kon breathes out, a small flicker of hope curling in his chest.
Kal nods and presses his hand against Kon’s through the mirror. The sensation is odd, but undeniably there.
“You’re alive!” Kon whoops.
Kal chuckles, though Kon can’t hear him.
“You’re stuck, aren’t you? You’ve been stuck the whole time.”
Kal nods.
“Who else knows?”
Kal points at Kon.
“Just me?”
He nods.
“I’m the only one that can see you?”
Kal nods again, and gestures between the two of them.
“And we’re . . .” Kon trails off, trying to decipher it. “Connected? I mean, yeah – oh! You’re bound to me?”
Kal beams and gives him a cheesy thumbs up.
And Kon had been ignoring him this entire time thinking it was nothing or that he was just slowly losing his mind or something. Fuck.
Kon knows that he can’t get help for this without proof – since no one else could see Kal, they’d just think he was seeing things because he wanted Kal to be alive. They all want Kal back so much that they wouldn’t be able to believe it without some kind of proof. He can’t blame them; he’d probably think the same thing if it was happening to someone else. But fortunately, he knows someone who’d believe him instantly, and might have some unique insight.
“Dude, what.” Bart says, bemused to find him pounding on his window at 1 AM, but lets him in anyway, headphones still on. Kal is chuckling in the window.
“What’s bugging you?” Bart asks immediately and bluntly. “You’re really twitchy.”
“It’s super weird and hard to explain.”
“So, like, our entire lives?”
Kon runs a hand through his hair. “So ever since Kal died I’ve been seeing him in my mirror. And like, all reflective surfaces. I thought it was just my mind playing tricks on me but he . . . contacted me today? Through the mirror? And I could feel him on the other side of. He’s alive and I’m the only person who knows that because I’m the only person who can see him.”
He looks at Bart nervously. “Does that make sense?”
“Oh it’s super weird, but that sounds right.”
Kon bites his lip. “It sounded kind of like that mirror guy that the Flash fights sometimes.”
“Oh, ugh. Him. Yeah, it does sorta. He even turns people to glass with a weird gun.”
“What?”
Bart gestures wildly. “Supes’ body! It was all crackly like glass, right?”
“Right,” Kon says slowly.
“And he got hit with something while holding up that building.”
“I was there, Bart.” Kon says, frustrated.
“I’m just establishing facts,” Bart says, “and you guys still don’t know what it was?”
“John Henry and Lois have been working pretty much this whole time on figuring it out.” Kon admits.
“So what if Mirror Master’s gun had something weird going on and it didn’t fully turn Kal into glass? And he’s stuck between the Mirror Dimension and here?”
“That . . .” Kon thinks about it. With what he knows, that did sound like what seemed to be happening. “. . . isn’t the worst theory. But why am I the only person who can see him?”
Bart shrugs. “Who knows? Maybe ‘cause he’d just pushed you out of the way?”
Kon looks away. He can see Kal’s reflection looking like he wants to comfort him out of the corner of his eye. “Maybe.”
Kon is feeling a little more settled now that he has Bart’s backing, but they can’t solve this alone. They don’t have the knowledge to do so, and the rest of the family deserve to know what’s going on.
Natasha feels like the easiest person to tell first, so he and Bart head to the Steelworks that morning. If Kon can explain it all to Nat, it will be that much easier when he brings it to Lois and John Henry.
“Hey, Nat, I’ve got something for you –”
Unfortunately, luck isn’t on his side here. Instead of Natasha working in this out of the way lab like she usually does in the morning, John Henry and Lois are bent over the weapon that killed Kal.
Shit.
Lois takes one look at his face and immediately realizes something was up. “Kon? What is it?”
“Nat’s not in at the moment but I can look over it.” John Henry offers, tearing his attention away from the weapon.
“It’s, uhh,” Kon absolutely doesn’t want to tell them first. They’ll take it the hardest if he’s wrong and whatever plan they come up with doesn’t work.
“Oh that does look like Mirror Master’s gun!” Bart blurts out, blurring over to peer over John Henry’s shoulder.
“What?” Lois asks sharply.
Double shit.
Time to come clean, then.
“I don’t think Kal’s actually dead,” Kon admits.
Lois and John Henry exchange sympathetic looks with each other.
“I’m serious. This isn’t me saying it cause of grief or something. I have evidence.”
“I want to believe that, Kon, I really do, but I can’t get my hopes up.” John Henry pleads.
“I get it, I thought I was losing it or something for weeks until I figured it out. Just. Trust me enough to hear me out?” Kon asks.
John Henry sighs. “Yes. Okay. I trust you.”
“We’ll hear you out, Kon.” Lois assures him.
Kon lets out a huge breath. “Thank you.”
Kal is grinning at him from the screen of John Henry’s computer. It’s more than a little disconcerting.
Lois’s gaze is fixed steadily on him. It’s the look she uses when she’s trying to suss out a source’s reliability. Kon tries to not fidget under the scrutiny. Right. Here goes nothing.
“I’ve been seeing Kal in the mirror since he died. And I know that sounds silly ‘cause I’m his clone, of course I’m seeing him in my reflection, but – it’s different. He moves independently of me, and I thought that was just because I was imagining stuff or something. But I felt him through the mirror and we communicated a bit yesterday. He says that he’s trapped in the mirror and kind of bound to me so I’m the only person who can see him. That sounded like Mirror Master stuff so I asked Bart.”
“And is it?” Lois asks carefully. As one, they all turn to look at Bart.
“Huh?” Bart looks up from where he’s been poking around at some contraption on Natasha’s workstation. “Oh, yeah. It sounds right and that’s his gun over there but it’s super broken. Dude just didn’t know how to use it so Kal’s stuck. What’s this do?”
“I’m not sure. Don’t touch it.” John Henry says.
“Too late!” Bart says cheerfully. The whatever it is sparked but did nothing else. “Huh.”
“Okay. So you’re sure that Kal is actually alive and stuck and we can get him out?” Lois gets them back on track.
“I mean I’m no tech expert that’s why I was going to get Nat so I can’t say –” Kon rambles.
“Kon. I’m not asking you to be 100% certain. I’m asking if you’re confident enough to say there’s something to it.” Lois squeezes his shoulder.
Kon catches Kal’s eyes in his reflection. “Yes. I am.”
Lois lets out a breath and slumped, no longer the fierce reporter but just someone who misses their partner. “Alright. John, does that follow with what we’ve figured out on the weapon so far?”
John Henry adjusts his reading glasses. “Yes, it does explain some of the odd results we’ve been getting, but I’d need some data on the Mirror Master to compare it to.”
“Alright.” Lois nods, and then gently snags Bart by the shoulder. “Impulse, tell John Henry everything you know about Mirror Master and help him out. You too, Kon.”
“Aye aye,” Bart salutes with a lopsided grin and zips over to John Henry’s side. Kon makes his way over far more sedately.
“What about you?” Kon asks belatedly.
“I’ve got a phone call to make.” Lois says briskly, dialing a number as she walks out of the room. “Linda? Hi, it’s Lois. Is your husband in? I need something from him. Yes, as soon as possible. Tell him –”
Kon can still made out the words if he tries, but his brain is buzzing too much to do so. They’d believed him and Lois had a plan. And if there was anyone who could pull this off it was Lois and John Henry.
And indeed, one consultation and prying of information out of Wally West later, they know what they need to do and what their next steps are. Not all of them are pleasant or easy, but they could do something.
Kal’s body looks exactly the same as it was when they first found it in the rubble, weird cracks and all. He almost looks like he’s asleep.
Kon and Nat and Kara exchange looks.
“Let’s get the graverobbing over with.” Natasha says uneasily.
“Agreed,” Kon shivers. It’s eerie here. Carefully, he threads his TTK through the coffin and Kal’s body to keep everything steady as he moves it over to their transport. If the body breaks up – which is apparently possible given the malfunction – it’ll make things much more difficult for them, and they may not be able to bring Kal back at all.
Kon stays next to the coffin the whole way back to the Steelworks, making sure everything is steady and undisturbed. It’s the least he can do for Kal.
Kara sits next to him, a hand on his shoulder, sitting vigil together.
It took weeks of work to get everything just right to figure out how to get Kal out of the mirror safely. It would’ve been much easier if Mirror Master’s gun hadn’t been broken – clearly, it was when it was fired, and it had broken more in the process, and it had to be in exactly the same state to be able to reverse this.
Of course, this was merely a challenge and not an impossibility to John Henry and Natasha. With Lois’s help in backtracking to figure out exactly how damaged the weapon had been, they’d been able to meticulously fix just the right places so that it would do what they needed to do.
With knowledge on how the Mirror Dimension works from Bart and Wally, they figured out the exact set up needed to free Kal. They’ve carefully positioned mirrors around Kal’s body at exactly the right angle so that the beam should bounce just right to free Kal from the mirror and into his body at the exact moment his body turns back. John Henry and Natasha have spent days calculating the precise angles needed, and double and triple and quadruple checking their work. The stakes are high. If this goes wrong, Kal could be stuck forever. If it goes right, he’s free.
Kon himself is right in front of Kal’s statue body. His connection to Kal’s reflection is key to getting him out, apparently, and his position has been calculated to the millimeter. He’s incredibly afraid of twitching and messing this all up.
Especially in front of everyone watching.
John Henry and Natasha and Lois are there to run things, with Bart providing a burst of speed for some added energy. Kara and Ma are there as family, so that they’d be there no matter what the result is. The original plan was to not have Chris here, in case something went horribly wrong. He shouldn’t have to see that. But he’d fought long and hard, leveraging his new status as Superboy even, until they all relented and let him come. He’s standing between Kara and Ma right now, each of them holding one of his hands for comfort. He gives Kon a smile and Kon smiles and nods back.
“You ready, Kon?” John Henry asks.
“As I’ll ever be!” he says, fake-cheerful.
“Alright. Impulse, start running. Activating in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 . . . now!”
There’s a blast of sound and light as the weapon activates, eerily similar to when Kal got stuck as a reflection originally. It’s so bright and loud that Kon can’t look and just locks his muscles in place, hoping he didn’t move and mess it up.
The light clears, and Kal’s reflection stumbles forward out of the mirror, blurring into his body. Cracks heal and the rigid almost-statue melts into life. Kal topples forward. Kon catches him on reflex. Kal slumps into his shoulder, breathing heavily.
“Hey, Big Blue.”
“Hey, Little Blue.”
Kal’s out. Kal’s really, really out of the mirror and alive and leaning on Kon right now. It’s all a bit too much for him, and he bursts into tears.
“I’m sorry I ignored you for so long. I should’ve gotten you out sooner.” Kon sobs into Kal’s shoulder.
Gently, Kal raises his head and cups Kon’s face so that he is looking into Kal’s eyes. “It’s not your fault. You did all you could and I am so, so, so proud of you. Thank you.”
Kon only cries harder at that as Kal wraps him up in a hug. For the first time since Kal died, Kon feels like things are alright.
Chris runs forward and slams into their legs, breaking the moment slightly. It gets Kon out of his head and gasping for breath. Kal ruffles Chris’s hair and laughs. It’s as though that breaks whatever is holding the rest of the family back, because they’re soon swarmed by everyone else. Kal and Chris pull Lois into the middle with them, and John Henry’s broad arms wrap around all of them. Natasha wiggles her way in next to her uncle, and Kara folds herself in on the other side with Ma. Bart presses in along Kon’s back, still crackly with static from running. Kara’s elbow is digging painfully into Kon’s back, but he does not care at all. Laughter pours out of Kon now, with everything as it should be.
Yeah. Here, with his family all around him, the world feels right again.