AN: Sorry I was away so long. I was caught up in Harry Potter land, as I'm sure many of you were. But I'm back now and ready to press on.

Many thanks to the beta readers for all their grammar fixes. Htbthomas and Hellish red Devil are my grammar heroes! And a special thanks to Van-el, my personal comic book know-it-all, for the pretzels. I was stunned that Clark's supposedly made up fetish with mustard actually was partially canon! You'll understand when you get to the end of the chapter. Happy reading!

Age 20 part three: Fathers

…Dad…

"Jason, can you help me carry this box inside the house?"

That was a typical request, which I didn't mind, because to the unobservant eye, it didn't appear as if I was doing anything out of the ordinary.

"Jason, can you help lift this couch for me so I can vacuum under it?"

A plea that I heard at least twice a month until I moved out and went to school.

"Jason, this lid is stuck. Can you get it open?"

A personal favorite of my mother's.

"Jason, would you mind helping me out with the plane?"

It never mattered what he needed help with, Dad always asked me to do something unusual. Sometimes it meant carrying parts; other times it was lifting a certain piece so he could fix something. But to Dad's credit, he never asked me to do very much strength-wise, and I appreciated him for that. So when he called me and said he could use my help with a flat tire, I naturally agreed to help. I may have groaned a little bit like I normally did, but it was more from the fact that I didn't really want to have to go out to the house today. I needed to rehearse. Regardless, I found myself heading out of the city in the direction of my parent's house.

Dad waved to me from the driveway as I pulled up. Just as he had said, his car had a flat tire. I stepped out of my car, shaking my head as I walked over to him.

"Haven't you ever heard of a tire jack? Most new cars come with them these days." I looked at the car closely. "This is a new car, right?"

He nodded. "Do you like it?"

"It's an Audi."

"It's fully loaded."

"It's an Audi."

"It gets thirty-five miles to the gallon."

"It's still an Audi."

"So?"

"You and I have got to talk about cars one of these days," I laughed at him. "If it's fully loaded, then it had to come with a jack."

He held up his hands in surrender. "It did, but Lois did something with hers a while back, and I put mine in her car so I would feel safer when she was driving."

I tapped my foot on the deflated tire. "AAA couldn't come out here? Or did you think you could save yourself a few bucks by calling me?"

Dad shrugged apologetically.

I rolled my eyes. "Fine. I'll lift. You do the dirty work."

I took hold of the bumper of the car and easily lifted it off the ground far enough that Dad could replace the tire with his spare. He had removed the first two bolts when he thanked me for coming to help him.

"No problem," I said mildly. "Superpowers gotta be handy for something, huh?"

The next bolt came off the tire. "About that…" Dad said, making me instantly cautious. "Lois told me that you were over here a few weeks ago."

"Yeah," I said hesitantly.

"She said that you were working things out with…" The next bolt clinked to the ground. "…with your um… your father." His voice went up significantly on the word "father."

I knew I should have said something meaningful, but all I could think of was a quiet and tentative, "Yeah."

He looked up at me quickly before removing the last bolt keeping the flat tire in place. "I just wanted you to know that that's… that's good. You should work things out with him. I mean… you need to." He pulled the old tire off and picked up the spare. "After all, he is… your father, so you should—"

"Dad," I interrupted. "Don't keep calling him that, okay. He's – I mean – you're my father, okay?"

Again he looked up at me briefly as he started replacing the bolts. "I appreciate that, Jason, but he is… your father."

"Biologically," I added, trying to make a point and wondering why Dad was talking this way in the first place. "You're always going to be my dad. You're the one that I'm going to think of that way. He wasn't around enough to come first."

Dad made a face and I couldn't tell if he was having difficultly with the tire or with my assessment of my relationship with Superman. "I need to tell you something, Jason. Something you need to understand about your father." The drill whirred as the next bolt slid into place. "You accuse him of not being around much, and that, I'm afraid to say, is my fault."

I frowned at him. "No, it's not. You didn't tell him to stay away from me."

When the last bolt was secured, Dad gave the tire a jerk to make sure it was firmly in place and then looked up at me. "Yes, I did."

There was a deafening silence in the garage.

Dad stood up slowly. "You can put the car down now."

I lowered it gently to the ground, still confused and taken by surprise at my dad's announcement.

"I told him to stay away from you," he explained. When I found out that he was your real father I was so angry and jealous and afraid. Afraid that he would take you away from me – or that you would want to go with him. You might not have been my flesh and blood, but I'll be damned if I didn't love you just the same. I'd believed you were mine for so long that it wasn't as if I could just flip a switch and not feel as if you were my son anymore. And by that point Lois and I were married." He looked away from me. "It was bad enough to have my suspicions confirmed about his relationship with Lois before I came along. I wasn't going to let him ruin what I'd worked so hard for."

It was the first time that I'd realized how little Dad really knew about the whole situation. I'd never thought to ask him what he knew about Mom and Superman. I'd been told that there was a time when Mom honestly thought I was Richard's son, so he and Mom had to have hooked up before they knew about me. But now I understood that Dad hadn't known how deep Mom's relationship with Superman went before he was part of the picture. I felt very sorry for him in that instant.

His eyes focused on me once again. "I told him that this was my family, not his. That Lois was my wife… and you were my son. I agreed that at some point you would need him – that as your powers developed, you'd need his guidance. But I was too selfish to just allow him to always come around and be your other father. I was too afraid that he'd become the real father and I'd become… the other one." He shook his head, lowering his eyes to the ground. "I'm sorry, Jason. If I had known how hard it was going to be on you, I would have never told him to stay away."

I was stunned beyond speech. I didn't know how to react or what to say to him. Nothing had prepared me for this kind of news. Nothing had prepared me for the guilt that he felt over something I couldn't really blame him for. Could I really pass judgment on a man for wanting to hold on to the family he loved?

"I just wanted you to know," Dad finished softly.

I nodded. "I'm glad you told me, but there's something that you need to know. It wasn't just that he stayed away from me. That was one of the big problems, yes, but there are a lot more issues than just that. So, please, don't take the blame for my troubles with him. It isn't your fault."

Dad took a step closer to me. "If only I'd been more supportive, maybe things would have been better."

"Dad," I stopped him. "You told him to stay away. Okay. I'll give you that one. But did you tell him not to ever tell me that he loved me? Because up until a few weeks ago, I'd never heard him say that to me. Or did you tell him never to call me his son? Did you tell him to make me lie and keep secrets from you and mom – secrets that even now I can't tell you about? There are so many more issues to this mess than just the fact that he stayed away."

Dad looked perplexed. "He really never told you that he loved you?"

I shrugged and made a face. "I can think of times where he tried to say it, or that he expressed it, but did he ever actually say it? No."

Dad shook his head, his eyes closing and his mouth forming a thin line.

"Hey," I said, "that's one of the things we talked about. It's one of the things we're working through. It just going to take some time. But I really appreciate that you told me this."

"I just want to help. You need your father." This time, he didn't hesitate or stumble over the word.

"Actually, I need both of my fathers," I said honestly. "He's not going to replace you. When people ask me about my dad, I automatically think of you. In fact, Kate and I just went out the other day and bought Father's Day gifts for you and for her dad. So it's not like I'm exchanging one for the other. You're still my dad… and you always will be."

For the first time since I'd arrived, Dad smiled. "Thanks, Jason." He hugged me, clapping me on the back before releasing me. "And thanks for helping me with the tire."

"No problem." I glanced at the back of the car again. "Like I said, my powers have to be good for something." A quick squint of my eyes and I saw inside the trunk of the car where the spare is usually kept… where the tire jack is usually stored. Correction – where the tire jack was currently stored. My eyes darted back to Dad.

"You know, it's interesting how you can remember I have one ability and yet forget that I have another."

"What do you mean?" Dad asked.

"The car jack… in the trunk… I can see it."

"Oh."

I gave a small smile. "You know, if you wanted to talk, you could have just said that you wanted to talk. You didn't have to go through all of this."

He smirked. "Maybe. I just didn't want to start talking and have you run away. I wanted you to stay put for a while."

"But you lied," I said, still smiling.

"No, I didn't. I told you that I gave mine to Lois, which is the truth. This is a replacement one I bought a while back. You never asked me if I actually had a jack."

I rolled my eyes. "A technicality. Just promise me that next time you need to talk, that you'll just say so. I don't particularly enjoy being your human car jack… or Kryptonian car jack... or whatever."

"Done," he said with a chuckle.

…Clark…

I hadn't really spoken to him in a month. I suppose it seemed odd to think that we worked through some of the big issues only to once again find ourselves at a distance, but sometimes that's just how it worked. I needed time to think and adjust and process all the information I had learned. Once again, if it hadn't been for Kate and her desire to meet Superman again and prove that she, too, could be civil, I might not have even spoken to him this soon. However, she felt she had waited long enough and wanted the chance to make amends. Kate had gone through similar motions with my mother, and to my astonishment, things had ended up fairly well. Now she wanted that same opportunity with the "Man of Steel" himself. And that meant that I had to talk to him first.

I called him on his cell, for even though I had begun to get over some of my personal issues with him, I didn't think I'd ever feel comfortable approaching him as Superman. Clark was infinitely easier to talk to, in my opinion. As usual when talking to him though, I got that nervous ball of energy in the pit of my stomach.

"Clark Kent."

I swallowed. "Hi, Clark. It's Jason." I noticed that for the first time in a long time I didn't fumble over my words.

"Hi," he said brightly. "How are you?"

"I'm good. I just haven't seen you in a while and thought that maybe you and I could talk."

"Yeah, of course!" I could hear the happiness in his voice. "I would have called you, but I was just – you know I didn't think – I didn't know – I thought that maybe you'd kind of want your space. But – but – I can talk. Sure."

It was almost laughable how the roles had reversed and now he was the one stumbling for what to say.

"Not over the phone, though," I said. "Can we meet up?"

"Sure. Sure. Whenever. Just let me know."

"Okay, well, barring any major catastrophes… are you busy tomorrow night?"

"No," he laughed lightly. "Where do you want to meet?"

That was a good question. Where could we meet and talk about what we needed to talk about without drawing attention to ourselves? I figured a busy bar would be better than a restaurant. No one makes you feel as if you have to leave a bar too soon, and you can easily go overlooked for a greater amount of time. So we agreed to meet up at O'Malley's Pub, just down the street from his apartment for dinner.

I wasn't nervous about meeting up with him until I actually saw him sitting there at the back of the pub waiting for me. I'd never had a public conversation with him like this, and it had been years since we'd actually had a meal together. That ball of tension returned to the pit of my stomach and sat there like a lump. This would certainly be awkward, but I had to go through with it. I mentally steeled myself as I opened the door.

Clark had chosen a table at the back of the pub where the lighting wasn't so bright and we would be out of the way. Had it not been for the off-the-rack suit and cheesy grin he was wearing I would have felt like a gangster having some sort of secret meeting with his mob boss. As it were, this was just supposed to be a casual conversation between a father and his son – as casual as a conversation could be between two people who had never had a casual conversation before.

He waved when he saw me and stood up as I approached the table. His smile, although a bit eager, was warm and genuine. It had been a long time since I'd seen him smile at me like that.

"Hi, Jason."

"Hi."

Our first awkward moment came when he didn't know exactly how to greet me. From the way his hand moved forward and then retreated away from me in a fist, I could tell he was debating between shaking my hand and giving me a hug. I just smiled and sat down across from him. He did the same, taking a big gulp of his beverage as he did.

His choice of drink shocked me. "Heineken?" I said.

He swallowed. "Why are you looking at me like that?"

"You drink beer?"

"Oh, yeah. Something wrong with that?"

"No, I just wasn't expecting that. I mean, you're—" My hand waved in the air at him as I tried to find the right word. Morally decent? No, that wasn't right. As decent as he was, I couldn't very well say he was too moral to drink alcohol. He had a child out of wedlock, after all. A boy scout? No, that made him sound too innocent. Pure? No. Certainly not. "You're you," I concluded.

"Don't be so surprised," he said. "It's not like I'm doing anything illegal. Besides, I'd have to drink an entire keg to even get remotely tipsy."

"Right," I agreed. I knew from personal experience what he was talking about.

"Do you want one?" he offered, signaling for the waiter.

"I'd love one," I replied, "but I'm not twenty-one, so I can't."

Awkward moment number two had arrived and caused him to blush furiously. "Oh."

"My birthday was in March."

"I know when your birthday is," he said quickly, firmly.

"It's okay. I don't know how old you are, so I can't blame you for not knowing—"

He cut me off. "I know how old you are. It was stupid of me. I'm sorry."

We sat in silence until the waiter asked for my order. I asked for an iced tea and said we'd hold off on the food for now. So far, things hadn't gone so smoothly. I didn't know if trying to sit through an entire dinner would be the best thing right now.

Clark took a long drink from his beer and looked over at me. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have snapped at you like that."

At least he was trying. I owed it to myself to give him the benefit of the doubt. With a shrug I said, "I've snapped at you plenty of times. I guess I deserved it."

"No, you didn't. I just wasn't thinking. I was anxious to talk to you and just got ahead of myself. I'm sorry."

That was the third time in about as many minutes that he had said he was sorry. "Will you stop apologizing? People make mistakes."

"Except that my mistakes are a bit bigger than the average ones. I don't think I can apologize enough."

"For forgetting how old I am?"

His eyes met mine bravely. "For everything. For everything that I've ever done that hurt you in some way."

"Hey. Whoa. Wait." I held up my hands and leaned back in my chair. "What brought this on again? I didn't come here to be all moody and remorseful or place blame or argue. I just came here to talk."

I could tell he was confused. "But usually when you want to talk it's to yell at me for something I did wrong."

That hurt, but he was right. "Not tonight," I corrected.

He squinted at me. "I didn't do anything wrong this time?"

A chuckle escaped me. "Not since the last time we talked. No."

He took a deep breath, relief crossing his face as he smiled. "We haven't talked in a long time. I thought you were still upset with me about… everything."

Feeling a bit guilty, I looked down. "I guess that's something I need to work on. Kate accused me of something similar when I didn't talk to her about something right away."

"How is Kate?" he asked hesitantly.

"She's good. She wants to meet you – officially."

The waiter chose that moment to return to the table with my drink, another beer for Clark, and asked for our orders. The conversation had perked up a bit in the last few moments, so I ordered a burger and fries. Clark did the same.

He ran his hand through his hair and took a drink before picking up where we left off. "She wants to meet me officially, huh?"

"Well, not you but… the other you. You know what I mean."

He hummed thoughtfully and I interpreted it to be that he didn't approve.

"She already knows pretty much everything, so what's the big deal?"

"It's not a big deal," he said, shifting forward in his seat. "Does she know… me?" He pointed to himself to emphasize his meaning.

"No. How would she?"

"True."

"So she just wants to talk to…"

I nodded.

He inhaled through his teeth. "Okay. When?"

"Whenever you have time. Sooner rather than later, if that's fine with you."

He frowned. "What do you want me to say to her?"

"I dunno," I shrugged. "I guess that depends on what she wants to say to you."

"And that would be…?"

I laughed. "I dunno."

"You're a lot of help." He smiled and took a drink. His face took on a pensive look. "You told me her mom died in a fire, right?"

"Yeah."

"So she'll probably want to know why I didn't help."

I shrugged. "It's possible."

"Which I have no excuse for." He leaned back in his seat, his eyes downcast and sorrowful. "I should have been there. I guess I can add that to my list of failures."

"Will you stop it already?" I scowled at him. "Look, I'm willing to talk to you and work through things, but you can't go pulling this 'woe is me!' crap every time I mention something that went wrong."

"But I feel badly about it."

"Well, so do I. I feel badly about a lot of stuff, but the more I think about that stuff, the worse things seem to be. We both have said and done things that we shouldn't have, right?"

He nodded. "To put it mildly."

"Okay, so I say we need to move on then."

"But it's difficult to move on when there is so much pain in the past."

Putting a stop to the conversation, the food arrived and we took a moment to settle down and calm the nerves. I squirted my usual helping of mustard on my plate and dipped my fries in. I avoided Clark's eyes and he avoided mine. After a few bites of food, Clark spoke up again, nervous and tense as ever.

"What is it that you want from me, Jason?" He shifted. "No, what is it that you need from me? I'll do whatever you ask to mend things as best as I can."

I swallowed my food and decided to start with something simple. "Well, I'd like more chances to talk – to meet up with you more often. I don't see how we will ever get past this anxiety between us unless we spend more time together on a regular basis."

He seemed rather surprised, and stated as much. "What about staying away from you – staying out of your life?"

I offered him a smile. "That's rather pointless, isn't it? Besides, there are things I have questions about. I mean, I hardly even know you outside of the obvious. I didn't even know you drank beer."

He smiled back at me. "I would love to spend more time together, Jason. There's nothing I want more than a real relationship with you."

"Okay, so then we should just plan to do this kind of thing more often."

"Absolutely," he grinned.

I looked him squarely in the eyes. "Second of all, I need you to tell mom the truth."

He sighed deeply, slumping back in his seat.

"You promised you would," I reminded him.

"I know I did, and I will. I just need… time."

"How much time," I frowned.

He sniffed. "Well, I've been thinking about it and… I would very much like to be at your wedding."

I made a face. "My wedding? What's that got to do with anything?"

"Everything. I anticipate that Lois won't be too happy with me once she learns the truth."

"I can agree with that." I had a feeling Mom would go ballistic, but it was something that needed to be done regardless of how much it would hurt. It didn't surprise me that he seemed worried about telling her. He should be. After all, I didn't get my temper from Clark.

"Seeing as how I can't very well attend your wedding as… Superman," he mumbled almost inaudibly, "I'm going to have to show up as Clark. If Lois is angry at me for not telling her sooner, then I doubt she will be happy about having me at the wedding. I don't want to ruin another important event in your life, Jason. So if it's all right with you, I would like to wait until after you are married to tell Lois everything."

I thought for a moment. "You realize that we aren't going to get married for a few years yet. We want to graduate first."

"I know." He looked back at me with pleading eyes, hopeful that I would see his reasoning and agree to it.

"Okay," I said after a long pause. "But it has to be soon after the wedding… whenever that may be. Not two or three months."

"Fine." But I could tell that it wasn't fine. It was far from fine. His face was somber as he picked at his food, almost as if I had issued a death sentence with my request.

"I'm not asking you to do this to be mean," I explained. "I'm asking you because I can't keep lying. Pretending for the world is one thing, but hiding all of this from Mom is something else. I can't keep it up."

He nodded. "I understand. It was unfair of me to even ask it of you in the first place."

"Yeah, it was," I agreed. He looked up at me in surprise. "But you know if I've learned anything over the last few months it's that there is no greater relief than being honest with the people you love. I was so worried about Kate knowing the truth, but now it's like this huge weight has been lifted off of my shoulders. I want to kick myself for waiting as long as I did to tell her everything. I can't even imagine going for twenty years keeping a secret like this."

"Your mother did know at one point. She knew everything."

"But she doesn't remember that."

"Jason…" His eyes shifted away from mine, lost somewhere in the past. I held my breath and waited for whatever information he would pass to me. "She wasn't Lois. Instead of this formidable, challenging woman, she was miserable… sad… always crying…" His voice became a whisper. "I'd never seen her cry like that. I couldn't just leave her like that. I loved her too much. I still love her."

It had always been uncomfortable for me to hear him speak of how much he loved my mother, mostly for the unwanted reminder it brought to the surface that he was, indeed, my father. But this time as he said it I only felt sorrow for him. I too had been faced with the possibility of losing the woman I loved, so I now had a better understanding of what it must have felt like to have come so close only to lose in the end. He did love my mother. I understood that now better than ever before. He loved her, and just like he had with me, he'd made the wrong choices in trying to show her his love.

"Hey," I said, trying to draw him out of his memory. "If someone would have told me a year ago that I'd be sitting here having lunch with you and not arguing, I wouldn't have believed them. So anything's possible, right?"

He smiled softly, "I'll keep that in mind." Suddenly, his eyes lingered on my plate. "You dip your fries in mustard," he said in amazement.

"Yeah, so?" It was something I'd become used to over the years. Not being a fan of ketchup, I preferred mustard to the sugary, sweet tomato paste.

He was still looking at my food in wonder. "Who taught you that?"

"I dunno. No one really. I just don't like ketchup."

A chuckle escaped him and he placed a hand over his mouth. "My dad hated ketchup, so we never had it. We always dipped our fries in mustard, which I thought was weird. So one day at school – I must have been ten or eleven – I tried the ketchup. I didn't like it at all. It was too… sweet."

"Sugary," I offered.

"Exactly." His eyes met mine. "I especially like mustard on pretzels."

My brows shot up. "Really? Me, too. My favorite is this guy over by Centennial Park."

"Mahfood's pretzels?"

"Yeah, that's the guy."

"Best pretzels in Metropolis."

We stared at each other for a moment, taken by surprise that two people could actually bond over mustard and pretzels. "Well that proves it then, doesn't it?" My voice dropped in volume. "Forget the sensitive hearing – the super-strength – the x-ray vision. Those things are just clues to make me wonder. But the mustard – the mustard proves that I'm…" It was supposed to be a joke, but for some reason I got hung up on the punch line.

"That you're my son," he finished for me without hesitation. He picked up a fry, smothered it in mustard, and held it up. "Cheers."

I followed suit. "Cheers."