His parents had gotten into it much more quickly than Clark had. After his dad had explained the idea to his family over the dinner table, Martha had jumped on board immediately. Clark wasn't so sure; he didn't know if his father's idea was necessarily the smartest thing to do. After all, hadn't they been the ones to always caution him to keep his abilities a secret, keep people from learning about them? They'd been furious when he'd admitted that he'd told Pete Ross his secret, and had nearly disowned him when the learned that Alicia Jacobs had ever found out about his...talents. But, as Clark learned, his parents had learned a few lessons since them. Or, as his dad said to him as they brought the dishes inside, "You have as much right as anyone to use your talents for the good of the world."

As Martha Kent did the dishes, Jonathan and Clark continued their discussion as they brought the cows in for the night. Clark had argued that going around the world in public using his powers in front of people would probably set him up for all kinds of unimaginable trouble. He'd said, "Just think about all the psychos here in Smallville that seemed to get attracted to me when I did anything superhuman. Imagine what the rest of the world has in store." His father, on the other hand, had argued that Smallville was hardly representative of the rest of the world; in fact, it was really a place without comparison – "in both good ways and bad." In addition, he said that Clark did truly have exceptional gifts, and that while using them covertly could help plenty of people, he could help far more if he wasn't so preoccupied with making sure no one saw him when he was using them. By the time the two were walking back to the house after putting the herd to bed, Clark was sold on the idea. Pa Kent had always been good at convincing his son.

"Now," Clark had said, "how do we make it work?"

That was at 8:30. It was now a quarter to 11, and the family's cavalcade of ideas was finally beginning to come together into a workable concept. The idea of a disguise had been agreed upon by all from the start, but it turned out that there were two separate camps on that topic: Martha and Clark wanted Clark's alter-ego to be the one wearing the disguise, while Jonathan reasoned that it had to be Clark himself who wore the disguise in everyday life.

"People won't be as trusting of you if you run around wearing a mask, and we have to have people's trust for this to work. If people are afraid that there's a risk of you having some sort of agenda besides helping others, the world will be looking for the slightest reason to bring you down," he said.

Martha, on the other hand, didn't want her son to have to hide who he truly was. "What about all the people Clark knew back in high school, or in college, or just here in town, who saw his face – who knew him? Don't you think they'll see through this in two seconds?"

There's a chance, her husband said, but the risks are far greater if the world ends up fearing Clark.

At this point Clark quietly pointed out that he had been away for a whole year from just about anyone, that he hadn't (much to his regret) been able to spend very much time with other people his age in Metropolis between classes, helping out on the farm on weekends and the occasional odd job in the city, that his face had changed since during high school, and that most of the people already close to him already knew his secret anyway. "Besides, I don't think I want to go around wearing a mask anyway. It just…wouldn't feel right."

With that issue settled, talk quickly turned to how to distinguish Clark and his alter-ego. His "super-side," as his mom started to call it, came first.

"Clearly," Martha had declared, "you're going to need some kind of uniform."

Clark had immediately lobbied for something dark and mysterious looking, with lots of "sharp angles, badass shadowing – lots of silver and black." This prompted both his parents' objections – dressing up like some sort of Matrix refugee, Pa said, would probably not do much to make him trustworthy. It needed to be something bright and simple – easy to remember. Besides, Ma had said, no son of hers would be caught running around "like a ghoul."

However, Clark had one more suggestion to make: "I think I should get a cape." His father immediately protested, saying how hard it would be to hide when not playing hero, how it would probably get caught on things left and right, how it wouldn't be close to his skin so it would get damaged easily, and on and on – Clark's protestations about how cool it would be not withstanding. Martha, though, stood with her son on this, saying that a cape would certainly make him look heroic and stand out – "and wasn't that the whole point of this thing?"

"And I just heard about this new fabric that was developed. It's as durable and soft as cotton but as fire-resistant as Nomex and about as tough as Kevlar," Clark added.

Jonathan crossed his arms in resistance to the idea. "And probably costs five thousand dollars a yard."

"It's actually not for sale just yet. But seeing as how LuthorCorp is the one who's developing it…" Clark's eyes narrowed as his lips split into a malevolent grin. "…I wouldn't have any ethical problems about liberating a few sheets of it from their lab."

By now it was 9:20, and the topic turned to designing the uniform. For this, Clark asked for – and received – just about complete creative control. He shooed his parents off into the other room to watch TV while he set about sketching out his ideas. A tight blue bodysuit for the base of the outfit, stretching from head to toe – the underarmor shirt and pants from his football days were perfect for the task. The cape – long and red – stretched from his shoulders down to his ankles. A pair of tight-fitting, thin-soled leather boots, colored to match the cape and able to fit under his street shoes. A thin belt of red around the waist, broadening into two sleek forms that pointed towards his groin up front. (A little Jimi Hendrix, he had thought, but it looks good.) Finally, strangest of all, a giant pentagram sat across his chest, stretching from about two inches above his collarbone almost down to his belly button. The shape was yellow, with a thin border of red around it. It was this that most confused his parents when they came back into the room.

"It's for the emblem," Clark explained. "I figure I need some kind of symbol on the chest, something for people to easily identify me. Unfortunately," he gestured to the pages of doodles showing dozens of different pentagram-filling squiggles and shapes, "I can't think of anything that seems to work."

"We'll come back to it," they'd said.

By 10:30, talk had turned to what Clark was going to call himself while he was "in costume," as his theater-performing mother had said.

"Why don't you just call yourself Kal-El? It certainly wouldn't be hard to remember," she said.

"Because it sounds alien, and the last thing Clark wants to do is sound alien. It'll make him less trustworthy in most people's eyes."

"And plenty of people in Metropolis heard me call myself Kal back when I ran away," Clark added. "Any one of them could make me and blow the whole thing apart."

"Well, you need a character name, Clark," Martha said. "You need something that sounds trusting, and wholesome. Something simple."

His father added his two cents. "It needs to make clear your humanity…but emphasizes your gifts, too."

The three stared off into different directions, their minds working furiously. As the clock struck 11:45, a word snapped into Clark's head as if out of thin air. His mind raced over it – it fit every criteria. It even had a historical reference, though a tenuous one. And, he thought as his eyes glanced over his idea for the outfit, it just seems to work.

"How about Superman?"