Superboy Unleashed

By Jeune Ecrivain

Rating: T

Summary: A while after 1x05, a startling truth is revealed about Jordan's powers, just in time for the Cushings to witness something they can't explain. Established Jordarah.

A/N: As promised, this chapter will focus on what exactly the Cushings saw, but I also couldn't resist also experimenting with an unrelated idea that's been bouncing around in my head for a while now. I hope I integrated it well enough.

"Jordan, you won't mind if we make a quick stop on the way, will you?"

Jordan startled slightly, as it was rare for Kyle to address him directly, but he promptly relaxed. The Cushings were quickly becoming a part of a small but valued group of people who hardly triggered any of his social anxiety symptoms even when they were all assembled around him at once. Sarah had long ceased to trigger anything. "Nah," he shrugged. "I'm in no hurry."

"Thanks," Kyle said with a nod of appreciation. "It won't take long. I gotta check out a rare car part I may have found."

"No worries," the younger male replied.

Lana rolled her eyes, though a small smile belied that her annoyance was mostly playful. "Just when I thought you'd called it quits on that '63 Impala!"

"Hey, I never give up, especially not on a classic like that!" Kyle shot back.

Sarah smiled at her parents from the back seat next to Jordan. Although she did not share her father's passion for vintage car restoration, she had come to recognize his indulgence thereof as a sign that the Cushing marriage was in the midst of one of its warmer spells. She turned to her boyfriend in time to see his face brighten at something on his smartphone.

"Oh, cool! I got a text and a photo from April! The new Oniglio's just opened up in New York!"

"April?" Sarah made a show of narrowing her eyes and pouting slightly, her playfulness masking a hint of genuine jealousy. "Should I be worried?"

"Oh, shit!" he feigned alarm and dramatically held the phone away from her while covering the screen. "I can explain! She's just a friend, I swear!"

If the twinkle in his eye or the deliberately over-the-top shiftiness of his response did not give him away, the smirk that he failed to suppress certainly did. Sarah smirked back and shoved him on the shoulder. "Ass!"

Jordan laughed out loud, unwittingly evaporating whatever lingering bit of genuine doubt she may have had. "Seriously, April's, like, about ten years older than me! I'll admit, I did have sort of a puppy crush on her when I was little and she used to babysit me and Jon, but that was a long time ago. Plus, she has a boyfriend she just moved in with a few months ago."

"So what's Oniglio's?" Sarah asked.

"It was the pizzeria her parents owned and ran back in Metropolis," Jordan replied. "Best in town! Their last name was actually O'Neil, but April's mom thought it'd be too weird for an Italian restaurant to have such an Irish name, so they basically just Italianized it, I guess. Anyway, Casey, her boyfriend was looking for work, and one day, they happened to stumble on an opportunity to rent out this building space at a real bargain rate. So, with a little investment from her parents, they decided to open up a brand new Oniglio's in New York and let Casey manage it. He had some experience unofficially managing the hockey team he played on a few years back. Apparently their official manager was one lazy son-of-a-bitch."

Sarah chuckled as she and Jordan briefly noticed the car coming to a stop at the entrance to the local junkyard. "So how did you and your family meet her?" she asked as her father stepped out of the car.

"Well, to make a long story short, Oniglio's was caught in the crossfire of a big fight between Superman and some goons. The ringleader was some metahuman weirdo that was just strong enough to keep Supes occupied, but he had a couple of armed henchmen with him who were normal but packing some pretty serious heat. April was only 16 then, but she was able to help diffuse the situation with some quick thinking and a bit of karate. Of course, since Superman was involved, my mom was the one to interview the O'Neils afterwards, and she was really impressed with April's courage!"

"Damn! Sounds really cool! I mean, scary as hell, of course, but still…"

Jordan smiled in agreement before continuing. "Anyway, that might've been the end of it if April hadn't shown some interest in going into journalism. I guess my parents saw alot of potential there and took her under their wing, especially Mom. She probably had something to do with April finally deciding to major in journalism and minor in computer science instead of the other way around. I don't think it was an easy choice for her, regardless. For one thing, she was a pretty damn good hacker even then, and I can assume she's only gotten better since. Luckily, she's only ever used her powers for good."

"A kung-fu badass with mad computer skills," Sarah summarized, genuinely impressed. "So how'd she end up in New York?"

"She went to Met-U, got an internship at the Planet, and about the time she probably would've been hired as an actual reporter there, Channel Three News caught wind of a particularly good piece of hers and 'poached' her, as Mom put it. She's both an anchor and a field reporter for their science and tech department now." Jordan chuckled. "Mom puts up a good fuss about how New York stole April from the Planet, but I can tell she's really proud of her, and even at the time, she had to admit the job offer was a really good one."

Sarah giggled briefly before she caught site of something over Jordan's shoulder. "Hey, is that a battery hooked up to that crane?"

Jordan turned to find Kyle kneeling in front of a heap of scrap metal, clearly fixated on one or two items within it. A couple of yards above him, on an electromagnetic crane, hung a lime green caravan with a heavily damaged trunk. Jordan followed Sarah's gaze to what indeed looked like a large battery or other sort of power back-up connected to the cockpit of the crane. On what he presumed was the power gauge, only a single red bar was lit among what clearly would have been two more red bars followed by four yellow and three green bars.

"How long has the power meter looked like that?" Lana voiced the concern her daughter was feeling, as she too had noticed it at about the same time.

Just a couple of seconds later, as if to answer their nascent apprehension, the single red bar suddenly went dim, and an ominous creak sounded from the crane. Immediately horrified, both Sarah and Lana grabbed the latches on their respective doors and leapt out, neither registering in that heart-stopping moment that there was little they could do as the caravan lurched downward.

Kyle looked up just in time to see the mass of metal just a couple of feet from his face, and it took a seemingly eternal second of stark terror before he realized it miraculously was not coming any closer.

Meanwhile, Sarah and Lana had barely taken a single hopeless step towards Kyle before Jordan appeared almost as if out of nowhere, hovering a few feet above the ground and supporting the massive vehicle with two outstretched palms spread as far apart as he could manage.

"Jesus Christ!" Kyle recovered just enough sense to stumble out of the caravan's reach.

On their part, Lana and Sarah broke out of their momentary reverie at Jordan's feat and turned their terrified attention back to Kyle, whom they instantly embraced in a desperate three-way hug.

"Oh, my God!" croaked Lana. "Are you okay?" She gripped his face in both hands and inspected him with wide, moist eyes.

Sarah was outright crying as she managed to say, "Holy shit, Dad! Are you alright?"

Kyle wrapped one arm around each of his family members and closed his eyes in immense relief. "I'm okay," he said after a tense pause, nodding as much to himself as to his wife and daughter. "I'm…fine." The second reassurance was slowed by bewilderment as his eyes refocused on Jordan. Sarah and Lana followed his gaze, staring in awe and confusion just as Jordan let himself sink back down to Earth, his shoes making a soft scratching noise as they met the ground.

Sarah looked back into the Cushing car to confirm that Jordan was not somehow still in the back seat and then just stared at her boyfriend, who suddenly looked more scared than she had ever seen him. "How the hell…?" was all she could utter.

"Y-you guys are s-seeing this too, right?" Lana stammered as Jordan awkwardly set the vehicle's front wheels on the ground.

"If you're seeing a scrawny teenage boy hold a several-ton car above his head," Kyle answered in a daze, "then yes."

Jordan did his best to ignore the scrutiny of six shocked eyes on him and concentrate instead on setting down the rest of the automobile, which did not feel as heavy to him as it probably should. He took a few clumsy steps to bring himself out from under the caravan, shifting his arms as he did so until he was able to guide the back wheels slowly back to the ground. No sooner was it safely resting and out of his hands, however, than he gave in to his nascent panic, wringing his hands nervously. "Okay, look, I…" he began in vain. "Please don't tell anyone! You guys weren't s'posed to know about this! No one was! But I didn't know what else to do! I couldn't just let…" He trailed off and ran his hands through his hair. "Can we just…forget this ever happened, or something?"

"Kid, not only did you just save my life," Kyle exclaimed, "you did it by holding a whole actual car above your head and floating in mid-air! There's no forgetting that!"

Lana finally recovered from her shock just enough to fully recognize how apprehensive Jordan was and take a gentler approach. "Jordan, what you just did should've been impossible! I can't even begin to express how grateful I am that it wasn't,…" She shook her head, and suddenly overwhelmed with gratitude, she moved to hug him, but her daughter, presumably overcome with a wave of similar emotion, made an abrupt beeline for her boyfriend and beat her to it. Lana wept as she approached the two teens and hugged Jordan herself as best she could with Sarah already clinging to him. "…but still," she continued as she withdrew after a thorough embrace, "…that shouldn't have been even remotely possible."

Sarah finally pulled back and wiped her tears away. "Seriously, Jordan, how did you do it?"

"We won't tell anyone," Lana reassured him. "We'll help you keep whatever secret seems to be weighing on your shoulders,…but I think it would help all of us if you gave us at least the gist of what that secret is."

Jordan nodded but simultaneously started to hyperventilate. "I…uh…"

Sarah cupped his face in her hands. "Jordan, look at me," she said softly.

He met her gaze, and she could not help but be alarmed at the fear in his eyes.

"Let's talk about Oniglio's again for a minute," she said. "You said it was the best in town. What specifically did you like most about it?"

Jordan exhaled and thought for a moment. "The sauce," he said. "It was smooth. It didn't have any chunks of solid tomato. I never liked those in pizza or pasta. It had a really nice flavor to it, too. I could never quite put my finger on it."

"Cool," Sarah smiled. "Did you ever tell Mr. or Mrs. O'Neil that?"

"I don't think so, but I remember telling April once, and she probably passed it along."

"Speaking of April, did you ever meet her boyfriend? Do you know his last name? Do you like him?"

"It's Jones, I think. And yeah, I met him once when we visited April in New York about a year ago. He's cool."

"Do you know where in New York his new Oniglio's is?"

Jordan paused. "I believe it's at the corner of Eastman Boulevard and Laird Avenue."

"Cool! Maybe you can take me there sometime!" Sarah paused and smiled gently, noticing that his breathing had returned to normal over the course of their brief digression. "Now, do you feel comfortable talking a little more about what just happened?"

Jordan sighed and smiled at his girlfriend, realizing what she had done for him and grateful for it. He glanced between Sarah, Lana, and Kyle. "Look, if it were completely up to me, I'd probably tell you everything, but I really think we need to talk to my parents first."