Kon stares down into his tea. Lois’s hand is warm on his shoulder.
“Kal,” he says, hollow. “…Do you ever… Do you ever wish you didn’t come back?”
He can feel Lois stiffen, can hear both of their heart rates increase. They exchange looks over his head, but he doesn’t care enough to look up, shame sitting heavy in his gut.
“What do you mean, Kon?” Kal asks. His voice is gentle, but Kon knows him well enough to hear the fierce worry, the protective steel beneath it.
After so long being held in, the words all but pour out. Kon swallows a too-hot sip of tea that doesn’t scald going down. “I was made to be like you,” he says. “You died saving the world. I was—don’t you get it? Kal, I was made to die saving the world. I was made to die. And I did. So—” His voice cracks. “So why am I back?”
Continuity: Post-Crisis
Era: Modern Age (1985–now)
Comic/Comic arc: n/a
Main Characters: Kon-El | Conner Kent
Main Relationships: Tim Drake/Kon-El | Conner Kent, Clark Kent & Kon-El | Conner Kent
Comment: Submitted by anon.
Ever since he learned the word for it, Clark had always been fascinated by the concept of soulmates. As a child, he used to imagine sharing his ice cream of the day or Ma’s pies with that person, thinking and wondering if that person would like this flavour or if that person would find that show entertaining. He would smile and giggle and imagine sharing all of his happiness with his soulmate.
He was always captivated by stories on how his parents got together, the perfect story out of a fairy tale where they found each other in one meeting. His mother, with light red-brown eyes in the shade of the bark of an oak tree, had met Jonathan Kent, whose eyes were the colour of yellow-brown in the shade of autumn wheats. They found each other in one eye contact, recognizing each other as soulmate and stayed together through their years loving each other. There were challenges in their way, but young Martha Clark and Jonathan Kent had stayed together through them all. Clark wanted to have a story like theirs, someday.
(Please watch our for the cut below!)
He always stared at his reflection in the mirror, waiting eagerly for that little speck of colour to appear across in iris. (Maybe something brown, like Pa’s and Ma’s. Or, maybe green, like Pa’s field, like Lana’s eyes—)
But, when his powers manifested, he found out he wasn’t even of Earth.
His eyes had always been blue, almost like the shade of the sky (always almost, but never quite the same, and then he knew why). But as his various visions came, the colours subtly changed and he found out just how different he was. His eyes were the shade of blue that doesn’t exist anywhere on earth, with subtle glow of glittering stars that only added to his alien features.
For a while, he held on hope that maybe Fate still has a soulmate for him somewhere out there.
However, as time passed he buried his hope for a soulmate deep inside him. One by one, that speck of colour appeared in his friends’ eyes. Some have that little dot of colour, others ringed around one of their iris. Some fewer ones even had one of their eyes completely changed colour into the colour of their soulmate’s eyes. But both of his eyes kept their colour, the blue that doesn’t exist. So, he began to think that if he even had a soulmate, they were most likely dead together with the planet he came from.
(But, there was that a little faith in his heart, that maybe—)
He didn’t know if the changes he saw in his eyes’ appearance were due to his enhanced vision or if they shifted along with his powers, due to the yellow sun. He couldn’t know.
(But, they did change, didn’t they? Then, which colour he should look in his soulmate’s eyes? The unearthly blue, or the almost sky he had remembered?)
He was resigned, but still there was a little bit of hope that once he has perfect control of his abilities, one day maybe his colour would return. One day, he can still see another speck of colour in his eyes. Even if he may never meet them, even if it’ll be another alien colour, he hoped.
(He had perfect control of his powers, yet his almost-sky eyes never returned. Always that unearthly blue, inhuman and alien, different and –I don’t want to be different—)
The unearthly blue was unsettling, the shade indescribable, and thus just another mark on how alien he is. Even in a world where having different eye colour was the norm, he would be the only freak with alien-coloured eyes.
He hid the unearthly colour with the red subtle hue of his heat vision, turning the alien colour into murky purplish-blue. Compared to his unnatural blue, the shade of almost-skyflower his eyes had taken was much earthlier. At least, as close to earth-like he could hope to manage, without spending ridiculous amount of money for the special contact lenses he had once seen on TV.
(His parents tried buying it for him once, but they melted off once his heat vision heated his cornea, even when his eyes barely turned red. It was a waste of money that his parents couldn’t afford for a second time, so he never asked again)
In the beginning, it was trying. Keeping the hue as it was without glowing obviously and releasing the heat, without harming anyone or anything he saw, needed the kind of constant focus he needed to train for himself. Over time, it became a second nature to him, to activate the heat vision just for the sake of gaining that reddish hue the moment he wakes. Every moment of every day, when he looked at a mirror, the almost-skyflower colour greeted him.
He didn’t see the unnatural blue for a very long time. Even when his father died, when he started roaming the world, not once he ever tried to see the true colour of his eyes. He didn’t see the point.
But, sometimes when he was alone, in a room where no one knew who he was, he wondered. That little bit of hope in him was pushed back since a long time ago, but it was always in the back of his mind. The what if, what if—
So, one day he looked at a mirror and let his true colour emerge.
The brown speck that greeted him shocked him into speechlessness.
He couldn’t care how ridiculous he looked, with jaw hanging wide and eyes rounded up. His hands almost cracked the mirror when he accidently used super-speed to get closer, his nose and cheeks mushed against the surface and almost cracked that spot too. But he really couldn’t care, not when there’s a speck of brown in his left iris.
The shade was one he couldn’t yet give word to, not when he was too overwhelmed by the fleck in his eye, oh god he had a fleck in his right eye! But, at first glance, Clark likened it to the tilled soil of Pa’s farm, the brown dirt beneath the scorching sun. Another thought that appeared was also of Pa’s mound of grave, but still—
It was almost home.
Without moving away from the mirror, Clark moved one hand from the cracked surface to trail a finger under his right eye. Clark didn’t know how long he was there; face pressed ridiculously to the mirror surface, mouth still hanging open as he admired the little brown dot just beneath his pupil, stark against the alien blue of his eyes.
(Later, the image of Jor-El would tell him of another possibility, that it was simply the result of using the red hue of laser vision constantly, a side effect of him hiding his eyes for so long. But, Jor-El also didn’t know if it truly wasn’t his soul-mark. After all, he was the one and only, the last of his kind. Kryptonians didn’t look for mates through their soulmark, but it didn’t mean Kal-El couldn’t have developed a soulmark due to the yellow sun, adapting even further into life on Earth. No one could know for sure, so he dared to dream.)
He traced a parallel line underneath his lower eyelid, in awe of the dark, lustrous brown in his right iris, the very human shade against the backdrop of his alien blue.
For the first time in a long while, he thought that maybe, maybe, he didn’t have to be as alone as he thought.
(He cried for that sliver of hope, the thought of not being alone)
After, Clark still hid his alien eyes, but knowing the brown fleck was there made him smile every day. The red hue turned that brown speck into a more reddish brown, though Clark didn’t know why he hadn’t noticed that little change much earlier. He thought that maybe it was because he didn’t look, and didn’t want to look. Now, that little dot, either in its reddish brown or the dark brown was all he saw when he looked at a mirror. When he felt lost, or in his darker moments, all he had to do was see that little down d his heart would be a little bit lighter.
Still, sometimes he’d wake up and simply admired that fleck in the mirror in its true color. He found words and words for that little brown fleck that seemed to fit the shade. He imagined the person with such warm shade to be passionate, perhaps even energetic with fiery personality. The harvested soil beneath the autumn sun. He imagined them to be warm and patient, accepting.
Home.
(Millions of people, millions of shades, milions of possibility. One of the brown-eyed people out there must have the shade of his home.)
When he fell for Lois, he imagined the brown of his eyes fit hers, and the blue in her fits his almost-sky long ago.
(Later, he would notice how her brown was just a shade lighter than the speck in his eyes and how the blue in her has a shade of grey, more the colour of winter sky. How there was no almost in her shades. But, still he imagined.)
Lois was one of the rare people who weren’t swayed by soulmates, and she liked Clark. She knew Superman. She knew every sides of him, beautiful in her passion for Journalism. Her eyes were striking when they burned, when she chased for her story, no matter the consequences.
(He loved her, he did, but after years of wanting for a soulmate, he couldn’t help but wishing their colours fit. But, he loved her.)
And then—
Then—
He wasn’t the last, after all.
Zod came, and with him, destruction.
In the wake of Metropolis’ devastation, he didn’t dare to dream anymore. As more and more spoke against him, blaming him for the lives lost, destroyed homes, he figured his soulmate wouldn’t want him anyway. What he lost that day wasn’t only his last connection to Krypton, to his blood family, but also his hope for his soulmate.
(In the end, the speck in his eye might as well just be that, a speck. No human could ever be the soulmate of an alien like him)
Lois was enough.
(Lois was his world)
(Yet, still he found himself staring at that brown in his loneliest nights)
Once the man stepped out of the car, the photographers around him went wild. There were flashes of cameras, everyone shouting for the man to look their way, for a moment of his time. Clark watched, almost overwhelmed by how the rest of the press suddenly come to life as that man walked into the building.
“Who’s that?”
The photographer he asked looked at him weirdly, incredulous that he didn’t know who the man was. As if he questioned Clark’s integrity as one of the press.
“You must be new to let them eat cake beat. That is Bruce Wayne.”
Bruce Wayne.
There was a sense of curiosity due to the familiarity of the name. His eyes can’t help but follow the tall form of Bruce Wayne as he disappeared into the building. There was a moment when the flash went off and shined on Bruce’s eyes. Clark noticed the sheen on them, one that Clark recognized when someone was wearing colored contact lenses. He wondered why a man like Bruce Wayne would hide his soulmark.
He wondered what kind of man Bruce Wayne was.
Bruce Wayne is an ass.
(But, there was a second when Bruce Wayne walked away and he followed that he thought the man has a nice ass.)
Bruce Wayne was also one suspicious asshole, especially with the secret conversation and instructions in the man’s ears. Though, Clark believed it was nothing more than corporate espionage, so when the news came on and he heard so many people asking for help, following Bruce Wayne was no longer important.
And then, later it turned into Bruce Wayne is Batman.
Then, Batman is trying to kill him. And there’s another frustrated Batman is not listening!
And then, Batman is seriously trying to kill him. And he needs to listen!
(He didn’t want to fight, not for Luthor, not when his mother—)
Then, finally, Batman is listening, his mother was saved.
But, of course it didn’t end there. Instead, there was another, a monster, made from the body of Zod and the Kryptonian technology and Luthor’s depraved mind. There was Doomsday.
Then, there was a woman with strength of a Goddess, a beautiful warrior with sky (heaven, spring, cloudless) blue eyes and dark hair. With her, the three of them fought together.
With them, he fought.
(‘I’m not fighting alone this time)
It didn’t even matter that Batman had tried to kill him just a few hours before. It didn’t matter that he had no idea who the woman was. Only now, unlike when he fought Zod, he’s not fighting alone.
When he had to punch and shoot laser from his eyes and kept the monster from destroying even more things, there’s someone in his hearing processing and strategizing and giving him direction when all he could think of was protect and save. When he was tired and desperate and felt like nothing was working, there’s someone punching and slashing and bashing the monster with him. Helping him. Helping them.
When the Kryptonite Spear came into play, it was almost like fate how things played out.
(If Batman hadn’t tried to kill him, Doomsday would’ve won. If they hadn’t been in the same place, more destruction would’ve been brought. If—)
The decision of bringing the spear himself felt even more right than when he had to end Zod.
(It had to be him)
Seeing Lois again for the last time made him realize again that ah, I love her, and how it wasn’t fair for her, to be his whole world, when she has a whole world to be live in. It wasn’t fair, how he kept comparing the color of her eyes to the brown no one else knew existed in his eyes. There was a little bit of regret too, for not realizing it sooner, for not seeing it sooner, that he never had to save the world on his own.
(See, Clark? Batman had existed long before you were Superman. Yet, even after roaming the world, why only now you’ve known him? And, the Goddess that fought by your side, how long has she lived, how long had she existed? If there were others like them, even if there’ll be no other like you, you’ve never been alone, if only you had reached out—)
He closed his eyes, the pain fading out, and his last thought after I love her was one of absent curiosity—
Fic rec: put my mask on first (no, i don't want to talk about myself) by unexpectedchair (@faemorrigan) 🔒
https://archiveofourown.org/works/41624688
Summary:
"Thank you," Jay said quietly, looking down at his feet. "For… for spending today with me. And actually, y'know, caring."
It was two sentences, but it was so earnest and vulnerable that Jon had to hold back a wave of emotions at it. Once again, it was something. Jon smiled warmly, and pulled Jay into a quick kiss.
Jon suddenly felt a wave of determination overcome him. To push that something, and to tell Jay-
"I'm worried about you."
--
Jay Nakamura has been dealing with pain alone for a long time. But, despite his best efforts to continue dealing with it alone, Jonathan Kent will do anything to break down his walls.
It just so happens Jay likes Jon too much to keep him out forever.
Continuity: Infinite Frontier
Era: Current Era (2021–now)
Comic/Comic arc: Superman: Son of Kal-El (2021)
Main Characters: Jay Nakamura, Jon Kent
Main Relationships: Jon Kent/Jay Nakamura
Comment: This was written by my wonderful friend mimo which I only found out when I got to the end! Great fic and a must read if you like Jay Nakamura.
Fic rec: Help! My (42M) Son’s (10M) Favorite Superhero Is Booster Gold (37M), And He’s A JERK! by Hinn_Raven
https://archiveofourown.org/works/22027717
Summary:
Clark Kent has never really gotten along with Booster Gold. Unfortunately Christopher Kent has decided that Booster Gold is his all-time favorite superhero. And his birthday’s coming up. Clark’s going to have to come to terms with this.
Continuity: Post-Crisis, Rebirth
Era: Modern Age (1985–now)
Comic/Comic arc: Justice League: Generation Lost (2010) [Referenced], 52 (2006) [Referenced]
Main Characters: Clark Kent, Michael Carter | Booster Gold, Chris Kent
Main Relationships: Clark Kent & Michael Carter, Chris Kent & Clark Kent
Comment: Canon Divergent AU [Chris Kent in Rebirth Continuity]. Chris Kent acknowledged! Rani acknowledged! Clark's deep and abiding antipathy towards Booster present and hilarious! Submitted by @flibbertygigget.
Fic rec: character assassination by bunnybaekbyun (hand_of_letters) (@sta-sams-ara)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/86275846
Summary:
“Do you…” Prime found himself asking before he could stop himself. “Do you feel like we’re redeemable?”
He was surprised by Jason’s immediate answer, as if he was expecting this, or maybe he’s always willing to play this game that never had clear answers. “Depends what your idea of being redeemable is.”
“Redeemable like… if we’re worth trusting again.” He thought of the billowing red cape, the broad chest with the symbol of hope embroidered across it in bold, bright colours. He shoved down the immediate thought that it made him feel like a fraud if he ever thought he could wear that suit again like he’d ever deserve it. “If we’re worth believing in.”
Prime has a hard time believing that he’s doing anything worthwhile in his path to redeem himself, and Jason tries to talk him down from the ensuing mental spiral.
Continuity: Infinite Frontier
Era: Current Era (2021–now)
Comic/Comic arc: n/a
Main Characters: Superboy Prime, Jason Todd
Main Relationships: Superboy Prime & Jason Todd, Superboy Prime/Jason Todd
Comment: a nicely written canon based fic where prime and jason talk about redemption and what it means for each of them. Submitted by anon.
A murder mystery at Smallville High drives Kon to brush up on his detective skills – and his undercover work. He might need to call in some help. Good thing his best friend is an expert at both.
Continuity: Post-Crisis
Era: Modern Age (1985–now)
Comic/Comic arc: Adventure Comics (2009)
Main Characters: Kon-El | Conner Kent, Tim Drake
Main Relationships: Kon-El | Conner Kent/Tim Drake, Kon-El | Conner Kent/Cassie Sandsmark
Comment: Canon Divergent AU. [Murder Mystery.] Submitted by Anon. [Mod note: there is also a podfic by bessyboo on ao3]
Fic rec: You'll Never Know, Dear, How Much I Love You by corvuss (@corvin-whump)
https://archiveofourown.org/works/82351766
Summary:
Kal-El has a breakdown; Ma's there to comfort him.
Continuity: Absolute Universe | Earth-Alpha
Era: Current Era (2021–now)
Comic/Comic arc: Absolute Superman (2024)
Main Characters: Kal-El, Martha Kent
Main Relationships: Kal-El & Martha Kent
Comment: Submitted by anon.
