Superman

by Matt De La Peña

  He was grinning from ear to ear now. “You told me you wanted to try ice-skating,” he said, securing makeshift blades to the bottoms of his own shoes. Clark stood up and took her hand and led her toward the pond.

  “I’m going ice-skating,” she mumbled to herself. “In spring. What is this life?”

  They stepped onto the ice together tentatively, Clark pulling her toward him. “We should probably hang on to each other,” he told her.

  “So we don’t fall,” she said.

  “Exactly.”

  A few steps in, though, Gloria slipped and dragged Clark down to the ice with her. They both laughed as they climbed back to their feet. The blades weren’t perfectly even, so it was difficult to move with any real fluidity. Holding on tightly to each other and taking little choppy steps, they were soon clumsily gliding across the ice on their jagged strips of metal. Gloria’s warm hand in Clark’s. Her eyes piercing his chest whenever she turned to look up at him. They skated like this for a long stretch, until Gloria let go of him and drifted a few feet away.

  “Ready?” she said.

  “For what?” he answered.

  “My twirl.”

  “Oh, man, I don’t know if that’s such a good—”

  Before he could even get the sentence out, she was swinging her arms around and attempting to leap into the air like some kind of Olympic figure skater. One of her skates caught and the other flew out from underneath her, and she went tumbling toward the ice. Clark lunged forward to try to catch her, but he slipped, too, and she landed in an awkward sitting position on his back.

  He craned his neck to look at her. “Saved you!”

  They both laughed as she slid off his back and he picked himself up so that the two of them were sitting on the cold ice, face to face. Their eyes locked, and slowly their smiles began to fade.

  “Thank you,” she said in a soft voice, placing a hand on his knee.

  He brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, then traced a finger lightly down her cheek. She reached up, stopped his hand, and held it there as she looked into his eyes.

  He leaned toward her slightly.

  “Clark,” she whispered.

  And then he kissed her. Softly at first, molding his lips to hers. When she began kissing him back, the kiss grew more urgent. He buried his hands in her hair, pressing her against him. They fit together perfectly. Like this was exactly where he belonged.

  Clark reluctantly drew back, knowing he needed to slow himself down, though he could have kissed her full lips all night.

  Gloria smiled against his neck and then rolled onto her back on the ice so that they were both staring up at the stars, still holding hands.

  His head was spinning like a top.

  His heart swelled in his chest.

  Tonight he had learned that he was from another planet. That he was an alien who didn’t belong on Earth. So why did he feel so…human?

  After walking Gloria back to her building, Clark wandered the quiet streets of downtown Smallville, trying to process everything that had happened. He pictured Gloria and him ice-skating across the pond, fingers linked, their eyes finding each other’s, the feel of her lips against his. He pictured Jonathan’s wounded expression as they stood across from each other in the old barn, staring at the half-buried spaceship. “You were safely tucked inside here,” he’d said to Clark, “wrapped in blankets.”

  And now another face came to mind.

  Jor-El.

  His biological father.

  What if he could’ve seen Clark with Gloria tonight? Not only safe on a planet called Earth but ice-skating. Holding hands with a girl he really liked.

  Clark was beginning to understand what his biological parents had sacrificed for him. Yes, they’d strapped him into a cold spaceship when he was just a baby, all alone and left to fend for himself. But they hadn’t abandoned him. No, they’d given him a chance to live. And wasn’t that what every person migrating from one place to another was really seeking?

  It was well after three in the morning when Clark finally checked his phone.

  He had three messages from Lana, two from Lex, and one from his mom. Lana’s and Lex’s messages all said a version of the same two things: In the past several days, the number of people who had officially disappeared had multiplied significantly. And tomorrow night they were going to meet outside the library, minus Bryan, to go on a top-secret mission. Clark needed to be there by eight o’clock at the latest.

  The message from his mom was different. She was worried about him. She asked him to please come home so they could talk. Her text was as straightforward as it got, but that didn’t stop him from reading it over and over, a lump rising in his throat every time.

  He put away his phone, forcing the image of his mom out of his head.

  He wasn’t ready.

  Instead, he shifted his focus back to Lana and Lex. When had they started working together? It was way too late to call either of them back, so he spent the rest of the night wandering all over Smallville in a kind of emotional haze. He was able to see his hometown from a totally new perspective now. Through the lens of an outsider. But also as someone who had just gone ice-skating with Gloria Alvarez.

  Life, he realized, was a profoundly complicated thing. It was filled with awe and wonder and beauty, but it was also filled with heartbreak and loneliness. Maybe that was what made it so precious. You could never know what to expect next, or who might step into or out of your world. And the truth was that we were all navigating the mystery together.

  That was why it was so important for Clark to help people.

  Because all life, he was beginning to understand, was really one life.

  And what if everyone could see it this way?

  * * *

  —

  He didn’t start heading for home until he saw the first few rays of sunlight climbing into the sky.

  He made a pit stop at Alvarez Fruits and Vegetables, his heart dropping when he saw it boarded up. Carlos and Cruz were always at the stand before dawn on Saturday mornings—setting things up, stocking fruit, listening to their Spanish radio station. Clark peeked through the wooden slats. Only a few pieces of fly-infested fruit were still there. How could anyone think it was a good idea to put an end to their business? Who were they harming?

  The Kent farm was quiet when Clark returned. He looked up at the old farmhouse and felt a strange sense of nostalgia. As if the childhood he’d experienced here was gone now, and something else had taken its place. He walked down the gentle slope toward the old barn, studying the crater in the field.

  Clark pulled open the door and was relieved to see the spaceship still in the corner of the barn, covered only by the tarp. He was surprised Jonathan hadn’t piled all the junk back on top of it. But maybe once something so important was uncovered, it didn’t seem right to cover it right back up.

  Clark removed the tarp and stared down at the capsule. It wasn’t quite as shocking to him now. It felt strange yet familiar at the same time. He undid the latch, and the top opened with a hiss.

  He watched the hologram of his biological father again, this time concentrating on the man’s face as much as his message. He saw himself now. It was the man’s eyebrows. And his mouth and strong chin. Clark studied the details in the background, too. A strange picture of a robot. A rounded doorframe. Just beside his father was some kind of large control pad.

  When it was over, Clark watched it again.

  And then a third time.

  This was as close as he would ever come to his home planet. To his own flesh and blood. And he wanted to soak it all in. After the third time through, he lowered the lid and stared at the spaceship, trying to imagine the state of his planet when his biological parents were forced to place him inside and send him off on his own.

  Just as Clark fini
shed replacing the tarp, he spotted Jonathan standing in the barn doorway. He was wearing the same clothes from the night before. “You came back,” he said, entering the barn and coming to stand alongside Clark.

  Clark nodded. He could tell there was something wrong by the blank look on Jonathan’s face, and he knew it was their difficult conversation the night before. Clark softened, studying the new lines of worry on the man’s face. And he realized something: all the traits he most valued about himself—his work ethic and principles, the way he treated others—were the direct result of being raised by Jonathan and Martha. Talking to Gloria had made him understand this. If he’d had to crash-land on Earth from another planet, he couldn’t have done any better than the Kent farm.

  Clark stood up to face Jonathan. “Dad,” he said, “I owe you an apology.”

  Jonathan held up his hand. “The things we kept from you all these years…I’d understand if you never—”

  Clark moved forward and hugged his dad.

  When they separated, Jonathan was teary-eyed. “Your mother and I…we love you very much.”

  “I love you guys, too.” Clark looked at the spaceship again, an anger suddenly rising in his throat. Someone had tried to break into the barn to steal a piece of his story. “You don’t think anyone knows about this, do you?”

  Jonathan shook his head. “Even if those men had made their way in here before you could run them off, they wouldn’t know what they were seeing. No one can activate the holographic message without your hand—that much we do know. It’s more likely they would think we’d built this ourselves or stolen some kind of government tech and hidden it away in here.” Jonathan put a hand on Clark’s shoulder, adding, “We do need to find out what they wanted, though.”

  Clark nodded as he and his dad looked at each other.

  It almost seemed as if his dad was giving him permission to use his powers, without actually saying as much.

  “Come with me,” Jonathan said. “Your mom has something to show you.”

  The two of them walked up the hill together in silence. And when they went through the front door, Clark found his mom sitting at the kitchen table with a medium-sized wrapped box in her lap. He was surprised to see a fire going in the adjacent living room. He hadn’t spoken to his mom since he learned about his true origins, and just seeing her made the world feel a little more sensible. He dropped his backpack and went over and hugged her.

  She hugged him back, whispering in his ear, “I wish I could take away all the confusion, Clark, but just remember: your greatest strength is inside here.” She tapped the side of his head with her finger.

  Clark nodded as they separated. Before he could say anything, she handed him the box. “It’s a little early for a birthday present,” she said, “but now feels like the right time.”

  “What is it?” Clark asked.

  She motioned toward the package. “See for yourself.”

  His dad cleared his throat. “We meant to give it to you sooner. But it never quite seemed appropriate. Until now.”

  “I also had a little trouble with the material,” Martha added.

  Clark turned over the box, trying to imagine what could be inside. He tore through the comics-section wrapping paper and lifted the top of the repurposed box. Inside was a bright, spandex-like material. Only denser. Stronger. Colored a familiar blue and red.

  He unfolded it, assuming it was a coat, and held it up.

  It wasn’t a coat.

  “I made it from the blankets inside your ship,” his mom said. “It’s for you to wear whenever you need to use your powers.”

  Now his mom was saying it was okay to use his powers, too?

  “Hopefully, this will cut down on the amount of clothing you ruin,” she added with a grin.

  It was some kind of bodysuit. All in one piece. The entire body and legs were a deep navy blue that shimmered unnaturally. There was a red-and-yellow symbol on the chest that looked like an S inside a diamond. And a deep red cape draped from the back.

  Clark tried to hide his confusion. They didn’t expect him to actually wear this, did they? He looked up at his mom and dad. “Uh, thanks, guys.”

  His dad was beaming. “It’s an amazing suit, isn’t it?”

  “It’s, uh…” Clark didn’t know how to phrase it without hurting any feelings. “I’ll definitely wear it when I’m practicing my powers around the farm.”

  He made sure his mom was still smiling. The last thing he wanted to do was offend her.

  Martha came over and took the suit out of Clark’s hands. “Watch this,” she said, throwing it directly into the fire in the living room. Flames quickly engulfed the bright fabric.

  “Mom!” Clark shouted.

  Martha pulled the tongs off the tool rack and reached them into the fire. She pulled out the suit and tossed it to Clark. Not only was it entirely unharmed, but it was still cool to the touch.

  “It’s some kind of strange space material,” his mother explained. “Unlike anything we have here on Earth.” She lifted the bottom of the cape and pulled as hard as she could. The material stretched, then snapped back into form. “Doesn’t rip. Doesn’t burn. Doesn’t stain. It’s really something.”

  “Your mother had to make sewing needles out of wire from the ship’s control panel,” his dad said. “That was the only thing that would penetrate the material.”

  “It took me some time, all right,” his mom said.

  Clark looked down at the suit again. He appreciated all the work that had gone into the gift, and it was pretty cool that it couldn’t be burned or ripped. But what was he supposed to do with it? He looked up at his mom. “So, what’s with the cape?”

  This seemed to excite her even more. “There was a good bit of leftover material. And I thought…Well, you kids have your own styles these days. And I felt like the suit could use a little extra…flair. I remembered one of the jackets you ruined. I kind of liked the way it looked flapping around in the wind behind you.”

  Clark laughed nervously. The last thing a shiny blue jumpsuit needed was extra flair. He pointed to the chest of the suit. “What about this S?”

  “That’s my favorite part,” Jonathan said, turning to his wife. “Your mother was very adamant about this, actually.”

  Martha met eyes with Clark. “Listen, you will always be our son. You know that. But there were two important people back on your home planet who loved you very much. We thought it was important to honor them.”

  “The S,” his dad added, “is so you’ll never forget who you are.”

  Clark fingered the letter on his suit.

  “It’s not actually an S, of course,” Martha said. “It’s some kind of symbol.”

  Jonathan nodded. “We believe it’s your family crest. It’s on the front of the spaceship, too. And I don’t know if you remember from the hologram message, but it was also etched into the collar of your father’s shirt.”

  “Wow.” Clark now understood the weight of their gesture. “This really is an amazing gift. Thank you.” He gave his mom and dad a hug. When he saw that they were still staring at him, he said, “What?”

  “Why don’t you go try it on,” his dad said.

  “Now?”

  “Oh, leave him alone.” Martha took Jonathan’s hand and held it. “We don’t need to force Clark to play dress-up.”

  Jonathan nodded. “I guess you’re right.”

  Clark was relieved. He’d feel too ridiculous, even in front of his parents. He took the suit up to his room and hung it in his closet.

  It looked so out of place next to his jeans and T-shirts and flannels. He sat at the end of his bed and stared at it. The suit seemed to almost glow. He imagined his ex-teammates all giving him grief if they ever caught him wearing a tight suit with a cape. Looking like some kind of space freak.

 
Clark slumped down on his bed. He lay back on his pillow and stared at the ceiling, thinking of the hologram again. And the spaceship. And someone trespassing on his family’s farm. Then he turned onto his side and looked at the strange suit in his closet again.

  The cape was the most ridiculous part. Other than a magician, who in the world would intentionally wear a cape? He stood up, pulled the suit off the hanger, and spread it out across his bed. He stared at it. The S on the chest was cool, though. He loved that his mom and dad were so respectful of where he’d come from.

  It was still so strange to think that he was actually from another planet.

  Out of pure curiosity, Clark stripped out of his clothes and stepped into the suit, one leg at a time. He pulled it up over his torso and slipped his arms into the armholes, and the suit automatically nestled into each contour of his body. It was the strangest feeling Clark had ever experienced, like being cocooned inside some familiar echo of who he was supposed to be.

  When he looked in the mirror, an odd feeling came over him. He was no longer awkward Clark Kent from Smallville, Kansas. He was someone new. Someone greater. He reached a hand up to touch his family crest, the framed S-like symbol resting directly over his heart.

  Now you understand who you are, son.

  Yes.

  You are Kal-El. Lone remaining survivor from the planet Krypton.

  Clark’s chest heaved. I’m Kal-El.

  You have found refuge on Earth, where you will love and protect. But you must never forget where you come from. And who you were meant to be.

  I will never forget, he promised the mirror.

  Not ever.

  When Clark awoke from his nap, he found himself lying across the foot of his bed, still dressed in the suit. He stretched and reached for his phone to check the time.

  7:34 p.m.

  He bolted upright, looking out his window. The sun hung low in the sky, which meant he’d been sleeping for hours. Now he was supposed to meet Lana and Lex in front of the library in less than thirty minutes.

  He had two texts from Lana and one from Gloria.