SUPERBOY'S SMALLVILLE

"Saving the Stray"

Chapter One

Kent Farm

Smallville, Kansas

October 2023

"Hey, Dad?" Jordan called from the corner of the attic, where the Kent twins were rummaging through boxes and suitcases, pulling out all the things that had been packed up in the family's move to Smallville five years ago, kept safe and waiting for them, if they ever… no, whenever they returned. "Take a look at this, I think I found some of your old stuff up here."

He moved aside to let his twin take a look at the old trunk, too. As big as a pirate's chest, it was carved with drawings of maps and stars, and covered in far more than five years' worth of dust.

"Yeah, Dad, real old," Joel said with a fake cough and wheeze.

A moment later, Clark Kent came up the attic stairs, having dropped the previous load of boxes in the twins' room. He couldn't help but grin every time he saw his eldest sons, or the relief that washed over him, even though they were still just twelve years old when their birth certificates said seventeen. No time had passed for them, or anyone else lost and returned during the "Blip." On the one hand, he was glad they hadn't had to endure the last five years as the world struggled to recover; but of course, on the other, he mourned for the time they had all lost together.

Jon, their younger brother, hadn't been blipped, and was the nine years old he was supposed to be, having been almost three when his brothers vanished. He floated up into the attic behind his father, peering over Clark's shoulder.

The dad of steel ruffled his youngest boy's hair and smiled at the twins, glad to have his family all back where they belonged. He knew Jon was happy, too, always buzzing with excitement, and eager to spend time with the older boys. But the youngster was still adjusting to having his big brothers back, his actual memories of them fuzzy at best. And on the flip side, Joel and Jordan, for their part, were faced with a baby brother who, from their perspective, was not only suddenly almost as old as they were, but had already started to come into his powers, too, while theirs had yet to manifest. All things considered, the reunion was going well so far, but this new life would still take a lot of getting used to, for all of them.

Clark's grin widened when he saw what the twins had found, though all three Kent lads caught the brief tinge of sadness that crossed his face before settling into a faraway wistfulness in his eyes. "Oh. Wow. I haven't seen that in a long time," he said.

Jordan and Joel each scooted to one side to give their father room as he came up and knelt with them in front of the trunk, while Jon clung to Clark's back, arms hanging loosely around his neck.

With a short puff of very restrained super-breath, Clark blew the dust away from the trunk, directing it in a tight funnel up and out a vent in the ceiling. He wiped some grime from the nameplate set into the front of the chest, above the latch, where three engraved letters, initials, could now clearly be seen. Each had been carved by a different hand.

"C.R.L?" Joel asked. "So, what, it's just… like, cleaning supplies and stuff? Lame." Jordan smacked him in the arm, making him wince.

"That's C-L-R, you dip, and clearly not," the boy's fraternal twin replied, rolling his eyes. "Hush."

Joel rubbed his elbow, while Jon tried not to giggle at them. The twelve-year-old held up his hands defensively. "Hey, it was the dyslexia, I swear."

Clark just chuckled and cupped the back of Joel's neck, affectionate and reassuring, and ruffled Jordan's hair with his other hand. Then he pointed to the initials, index finger touching them each in turn. "Clark. Ryan. Lex."

"LEX?!" all three of his boys squeaked at once, incredulous. They all had expected one of the many different L-named people in their dad's life, but that one wasn't even on the list of possibilities.

Clark let out a full laugh that rumbled through his whole body, letting it wash over him. The tightness that had gripped him when he'd first seen the chest after all these years melted away, and he felt himself unclench. "Yeah, that Lex. You guys know we were close, once upon a time. This was from back then. It was sophomore year, I was fifteen, and everything was…so intense."

He fumbled with the chest's old padlock. The key had long since vanished, probably destroyed by now. He could break it easily, but doing so felt wrong. The old trunk held memories, fragile and precious as they were. He traced his fingers over the carvings. It was a memory in and of itself, and he had to be gentle with it. Raising his head, he looked around the attic, and over Jordan's shoulder, he spied some paper clips and bobby pins mixed into a pile with rubber-bands, hair ties and clothespins, all from some old junk drawer. He pointed it out to the boy, who understood, and passed him one of the longer clips.

Clark unfolded the thin, silver metal and twisted it into a more suitable shape, carefully poking it into the lock, and using his x-ray vision to guide it. A moment later, the latch popped open, and Clark carefully removed it, passing it to Joel who turned it over in his hands, examining it, before setting it down on the attic floor.

Throwing the lid open, Clark let his sons get a good look, already knowing the contents in intimate detail himself. Among the other assorted mementos and detritus from what seemed like a lifetime ago were an old bomber jacket, a trio of Halloween masks, carnival tickets, a case of cufflinks, a cassette tape and Walkman, some polaroids, a stack of Warrior Angel comics, and – what Clark reached for first – a few special, framed photographs.

Letting the boys search through the rest, knowing they'd be careful with anything they found, Clark turned around and sat, his back resting against the trunk as he looked at the pictures he'd locked away after senior year and hadn't seen since.

Others from that time were in the photo albums downstairs, in pride of place on the bookshelf in the living room. Fond memories, of family and friends past and present, like his parents, and Pete and Landon, Colin and Harry, even J'onn in some of his old disguises, and yes, even some of the two boys who peered back at him from dusty glass now. But these pictures meant something more. And after the meteor shower on graduation day – after everything changed – he hid them away under lock and key, the memories too painful for him to bear back then.

One of the framed photos was of Clark and Lex, relaxing in the hot tub at Luthor Mansion, drinks in hand, smiles wide and eyes bright. Lex's drink was champagne, Clark's was a virgin pineapple something-or-other. A third drink, a Shirley Temple, sat on the edge of the tub, waiting for the photographer.

The next picture was of the two of them wearing tuxes for the Homecoming Dance, which had been a formal event that year. Their arms around each other's shoulders, smiling and laughing into the camera while a younger boy, also tuxedoed, with chestnut hair and soulful eyes, leaned against them with arms crossed in that nonchalant, cheeky manner, his head turned upward, a wide, bright grin just beaming at the two boys he thought of as big brothers. Ryan.

A third photo was from a couple of years later, Clark, Lex and Ryan, along with Shelby and Hercules, the Golden Retriever and Rottweiler that they'd rescued. Shelby had stayed at the farm, while Lex had taken Hercules in at the mansion. It had been the last photo like that the three of them had taken together; the end of the time before.

But it was the bottom photo in the stack, taken before all the others, that was the hardest for Clark to see, to remember. Just a few years later, after the meteor shower, when he'd had to leave Smallville, he had tried to bury the pain and these connections to his past, even as he set out to find his future.

The shot was still of the three of them, but Ryan and Lex were in the basket of a hot air balloon, floating a couple of hundred feet above the Kansas farmland. Once again, they were all smiles and genuine laughter, with Lex's arm held affectionately and protectively around the boy, a Warrior Angel comic peeking out from inside of Ryan's bomber jacket. In the photo, Clark was perched on the basket's edge, leaning into frame with a cheeky grin of his own… His hair was different, more like he wore it as Superman these days, with the familiar curl against his forehead. He wasn't wearing his glasses…but he was wearing his Superboy costume; not the full one made from Kryptonian fabric, but the t-shirt, jeans and half-cape version that he could pass off as cosplay if he had to. Lex had set up the camera on an arm attached to the balloon's frame and taken the picture with a remote. He'd gone up in the balloon with them, as Clark, but when they were far enough away and out of eyesight from the ground, he'd let Ryan talk him into changing and showing off some of his aerial maneuvers just for fun. It was the only time Clark had let himself get photographed as Superboy alongside people he knew and cared about. The only time he'd been able to let his guard down like that with…with the boys he loved.

His breath hitched, and he covered his mouth. But his sons must have heard it, because almost immediately, Jon slid down next to him, small arms wrapping around one of Clark's and leaning in, while the twins plopped on the floor in front of him as well.

The shorter-haired Joel had pulled on the bomber jacket and was flipping through its pockets, while curly-headed Jordan was fidgeting with the tape and Walkman.

"You okay, Dad?" Jordan asked, ever the sensitive one, eyes flicking from Clark's to the photo frames. He picked up the one with the dogs. "Aww, Shelby. Really miss that ol' guy." The retriever had been eleven or twelve when the twins were born, but he'd been a constant presence for the first few years of their lives.

Clark nodded. He pinched his eyes shut and took a deep breath, letting it out slowly. "Yeah, boys. I'm okay. Just remembering."

"Remembering what?" Jon asked. He'd picked up one of the frames and was tracing a finger over young Clark's tux in the photo from the dance.

Joel had grabbed another photo, the one of the balloon ride, and stared at it, eyes wide as he realized what it meant. "Waitaminute. Dad… This is Lex, and Superboy? He knew your secret identity?"

"Yeah, he did. And then," Clark shrugged and shook his head, "later on, he didn't. Lex went through a lot back then. We all did, in those few years before I left Smallville and started traveling." He tapped the image of the grinning little boy in the tuxedo. "You guys remember how I met your Uncle Ryan, right?"

Starting when they were about seven or eight, he'd told Joel and Jordan stories from his Superboy days in Smallville, and Jon had heard it just a year or two ago. They all nodded.

"He was running away and Gramps hit him with the car!" Joel said, a little too enthusiastic at the idea of vehicular assault, however unintentional it had been. "Then you guys took him home from the hospital, and a couple of days later, he accidentally learned your secret from reading your parents' minds." Joel twisted his fingers at his temples and made a cross-eyed face that must have meant "brain-melting mental powers" in the universal language of preteens.

Jordan chimed in, slightly more restrained than his brother. "Then his stepdad came looking for him and kidnapped him and Lex, and you chased 'em down to a bowling alley, threw a totally banger strike, and saved the day."

Clark nodded. They'd gotten some of the details a little wrong, but they had the gist.

Then Jon's voice piped up, obviously glad to be on the same page with his brothers rather than them or him having to catch up. "And your folks wanted to adopt him, but he had to go live with his uncle instead." Under his mop of dark, wavy hair, the boy's frowning face communicated just how unfair he thought that was, and he buried his head against Clark's shoulder.

"More or less, yeah," Clark said. "You guys got it." He hugged his youngest son, settling Jon onto his lap, and then opened his arms to make room, so the twins could lean against him.

Casting his memory back thirty years, Clark tried to think of where to begin. It was a story that would be new to his sons, because for the longest time he couldn't bring himself to dwell on it, let alone tell the whole thing.

"This was about, oh, almost six months later, I guess. Around this time of year, actually. Just a few weeks before Halloween…"