Jonathan and Martha looked at each other, going over the word in their heads. They had known each other for almost thirty years by that point, and by now could almost tell what the other one was thinking before they knew it. And this time, they were both thinking the exact same thing.

"Superman sounds good," Pa Kent said, simultaneously nodding his approval. A thought dawned on him, and he reached down for the paper where his son Clark had sketched pages of pentagram-shaped designs for the chest of the costume. As his son and wife watched, he very quickly drew a simple shape on the paper before presenting it to them.

"And, it gives me an idea for that emblem."

Clark and Martha leaned in simultaneously. On the paper, Jonathan had drawn out a five-sided shape, with a large letter "S" inside it. The letter was large enough that it touched all five borders of the shield at one point or another.

Clark nodded his approval. "I like it."

"It could use a little jazzing up," his mother added, "but I think the idea's a good one. And it gives us a good place to leave off for tomorrow."

"I agree," Jonathan groaned. "I'm getting too old to stay up this late."

Clark smiled. "You never could stay up this late, Pa."

"Farmers aren't exactly known for their part-animal habits. Besides, I seem to recall a certain someone who couldn't make it past ten without getting cranky until he was fifteen years old."

Clark looked hurt. Sensing the potential for trouble, his mother stepped in to end the argument. "I say we all go to bed and get a fresh start on all this in the morning, okay? We'll all be a lot fresher then."

The two men - Clark really was a man now, she marveled – nodded their agreement, and turned for the staircase to head to bed.

The next morning, Jonathan Kent came downstairs at 5:15 as was his fashion to get a pot of coffee ready, only to find to his amazement his son seated at the kitchen table, sipping at a mug and reading the morning paper.

"Mornin', Pa," Clark said, and raised his mug in greeting to his father. "I started the coffee up for you." He gestured to the kitchen counter, where the coffee maker was slowly dripping its bitter brown treasure into the glass container. Jonathan approached the machine cautiously, as if its already having been turned on by the time he came downstairs would have disturbed the fabric of the universe to such a degree that his mere presence near it would threaten the entire farm.

"So what are you doing up so early, son?" he asked as he poured himself a cup of bean juice.

Clark shrugged as he took another swallow out of his mug. "I guess I was just too excited about this whole…secret identity thing to get much sleep. I was up by 4."

Jonathan sighed to himself in amazement as he pulled up a chair to the table and grabbed the sports section of the paper. Though like most farm boys, Clark had needed to be an early riser in order to accomplish his chores before school, his powers had always allowed him to accomplish his chores inside of ten minutes in the morning – allowing Clark to sleep in until nearly six-thirty on most school days. Of course, also like most farm boys, just because he had had to get up early to do chores didn't mean he had to like it. So to Jonathan, the idea that his son would willingly get up before himself was rather unusual. But he'd long since gotten used to his son's occasional changes.

"Excuse me," Clark said as he stood from his chair and departed with the comics for the bathroom. As the door closed, Jonathan leaned over the table to stare into his son's mug, only to chuckle as he looked within at the half-drained hot cocoa, frothy foam of melted whipped cream clinging to the sides in a couple of places.

Then again, there are some things about Clark that will never change.

Clark's finishing in the bathroom came almost simultaneously to his mother's arrival in the kitchen; she had barely had time to ask her husband where Clark was before the toilet flushed. After the usual morning greeting, Martha's offer of bacon and scrambled eggs for Clark (and, to Jonathan's discontent, oatmeal with brown sugar for him) was quickly accepted, and the family dug into their respective breakfasts at the first possible opportunity. As they ate, Clark outlined what he'd done with his additional waking hours.

"After I got up, I shot over to Metropolis to pick up that fabric from LuthorCorp. I grabbed five sheets of it, each one almost six feet long. They should work perfect for the cape," he said between bites. "I was hoping we could get right to work on it – after the chores, I mean," he hastily added.

His parents, of course, had no intention of getting in his way. They hadn't seen him get this excited about anything since his family's road trip to southern California during his junior year in high school. "I'll get started on the sewing right after breakfast," his mother assured him. "But you and your father need to get to work figuring out that emblem."

By the time the cows had been let out and their trough filled, and Clark had taken his usual three-hundred-mile-per-hour patrol of the fields to ensure nothing had been damaged during the night, it was already well into the morning. While Martha got to work at her sewing machine delicately attaching the cape to his shirt (Clark had had to heat up the needle until it was almost red-hot in order to push it through the fabric), Jonathan and Clark had gone to work up in Clark's loft trying to design a suitable stylized letter S for the front of the costume. Jonathan had rejected Clark's first design as "too spacey," while Clark found his dad's initial plan "way too small, and kinda feminine." This, of course, had prompted Jonathan to make a design that was far too large and far too bold for anything short of a Mardi Gras float. As Clark said, "Dad, I could see that thing through a lead wall." Clark's second effort, however, had come off as too futuristic in his father's eyes, so that one was set aside too. It was on Clark's third effort that he finally came up with something that both he and his father could agree on. The "S" was wider than it was tall, and seemed to curl back on itself like some kind of serpent – an image helped along by the stylized bumps at the tips of the letter. It bulged wider in other places than others. To Clark, it seemed strong, bold, and courageous. To his father, it was perfect.

The two brought the design to Martha, who had just finished up adding the cape to Clark's old shirt; however, as they arrived she had to inform them of some bad news.

"Clark, I don't think this belt design around the middle is going to work out. The only way I can do it is to sew the pieces on, and it'll look sloppy. I think we have to come up with another idea. Saying that," she reached down for something beneath her feet, "I found this."

And with a flourish, she pulled out a pair of red boxer brief trunks.

Clark groaned. Loudly.

"Mom, you can't be serious! There's no way I can go around wearing a pair of underwear on my outside! I'll look like an idiot! I mean, if Spider-Man gets ridiculed at just for wearing his outfit, I'll be laughed off the planet if I go out in those things!"

Martha Kent took on the stony, hurt look that made Clark instantly regret his words. "First of all, Clark, you are not Spider-Man. Spider-Man is a fictional creation, from a comic book. You are a real, flesh and blood person – not a movie character. Secondly, that costume will look far too blue without something in the middle to break it up. And this was the best thing I could come up with, goddamn it!"

Clark looked meekly at the floor. "Okay, Ma. It's fine. The trunks will look great on it."

His mother smiled sweetly – too sweetly for Clark's taste in the situation – back at him. "I'll try to make it look a bit better, hon. Spice it up, add some color. Trust me – I'll make it work."

Clark managed to suppress his sigh of resignation – he knew any further sign of protest would only further anger his mother. Still, there was a hint of his reservations in his voice. "All right, Mom – I trust you."

The rest of the costume went quickly after that. While Martha began sewing the emblem onto the shirt of the outfit, Clark and his dad heat-molded the red leather around the younger man's feet in the barn. They considered adding a full sole with heel to the boots, but decided against it; it would be hard to wear them under Clark's shoes that way, and besides, it wasn't like he really needed it, did he? The underwear was the last thing to go onto the pants; Ma Kent, in her stylistic wisdom, had decided to add a belt loop to them in order to string an old belt from her son's baseball pants around them; the yellow almost perfectly matched that of the emblem's negative space, and as she said, "it takes a bit of the emphasis away from your crotch."

"Mom – never say that again, okay?" Clark said as he blushed.

Jonathan tried to steer the conversation back in its desired direction. "So, honey, we all finished? Everything done?"

Martha, beaming with pride, passed the neatly folded costume over to her son. "Clark just needs to try it on."

Clark grasped the package in his hands. The crimson S on top seemed to stare into his soul. You think you can handle this, Kent? He imagined it saying. Throw me on, and we'll see what you can really do.

A thin smile cracked across Clark's lips. This was one challenge he had been looking forward to meeting. Confidently, he strode out through the living room, up the stairs and into his room, where he began to change.

Blue spandex for blue denim. The cling of the fabric felt tight around his genitals, and it took a minute to make it comfortable.

Red dress boots for yellow work ones. The leather clung to his feet like a second skin.

Blue longsleeves for a white tee. He tugged the cape over his shoulder, and let it fall towards the ground. The outfit was complete.

Clark turned towards the mirror, and nearly did a double take at himself. The costume made him look older, stronger – tougher. His chest seemed to swell in the outfit, making him look even more heroic. The bold colors seemed to leap out at him in the reflection. He began to smile as he surveyed himself, but caught himself. Something didn't seem quite right. It took him a moment, but then he realized what it was – his hair. With his right hand, he reached up and coiled one of his forelocks around his index finger, then let it spring loose. The lock fell across his forehead into a shape that, at first glance, almost looked like the letter S.

Now, Clark smiled.

"Mom? Dad?"

Jonathan and Martha whirled at the sound of their son's voice – to see a stranger standing behind them. This…caped man, with his bulging muscles, unruly forelock and flashy outfit…he couldn't be their Clark, could he? Their little Clarkish, who used to play hide-and-seek with them in the barn; their little boy who had come home crying one day from school because some bullies had knocked him down and taken his lunch; their young son who it had taken thirteen years to summon up the courage to kiss the girl next door, this couldn't be him, could it?

"What do you think?" Clark's eyes stayed away from theirs – he could sense the pride they felt as it was, and knew that seeing it in their eyes would only make him blush red enough to match his cape. But, after several long seconds, when no sound ever came, he had to look up – at which point he saw his two parents, on the brink of tears.

"No, don't cry!" Clark exclaimed as he wrapped his arms around them in the biggest hug he could summon. "Please don't cry. I'll take it off, I'll never wear it again if it makes you cry."

"No, Clark," his father said as Jonathan put his own arms around his son. "We're crying because you look so perfect in it. Because…well, if you ever have kids some day, son, and you finally realize what they're put on earth for, you just might cry too."

Clark smiled at that, a smile that broke out wide across his face.

"Thank you, guys," he whispered.