The air smelled of cold earth, woodsmoke, and the faint, sweet decay of fallen leaves. Martha had stuffed him full of apple pie, and the ghost of cinnamon still clung to his tongue.

He hugged his mom, feeling the familiar, fragile bird-bone structure of her frame beneath her worn cardigan. “Tell Dad I’ll call him about the tractor,” he murmured into her soft, grey-streaked hair.

“He’ll just tell you not to worry,” she said, pulling back and patting his cheek, her eyes crinkling. “You worry enough for the whole planet, Clark.”

He offered a lopsided smile, the one that never quite reached the depths of his anxiety. He turned, his hand closing around the cool, weathered brass of the doorknob, and pulled the door open.

And there, on the worn welcome mat—a cheerful, sun-faded ‘Howdy!’—was a picnic basket. Not a modern, plastic thing, but an old, woven hamper, the kind his own baby blankets had been carried in. And inside, swaddled in a blanket of pale, celestial blue, was a baby.

Clark froze. The fine, dark lashes resting on the baby’s plump cheeks. The tiny, perfect shell of an ear. The minute puffs of breath fogging the crisp air. He knelt, his movements slow, deliberate, as if approaching a skittish animal. His hand, hovered over the basket. He was terrified to touch. What if he broke it? What if it was a trick?

Then, you stirred. Your face scrunched up, a tiny rosebud of discontent, and your eyes fluttered open. You looked at him, and all the chaos in his head stilled. You didn’t cry. You just stared, with a profound, unsettling calm, and then one of your tiny hands escaped the swaddle, fingers curling and uncurling in the air.

He reached out, his index finger gently brushing against your seeking hand. Your miniature fingers closed around his, and the grip was shockingly strong. “Okay,” he whispered, his voice rough with emotion. “Okay, little star. I’ve got you.”

He take you to his apartment, you cradled against his chest inside his jacket, a small, warm weight.

Months passed. And now his apartment became a landscape of pastel-colored plastic, the air smelling of formula and lavender-scented lotion. You learned to crawl, a determined little creature navigating the vast plains of his living room rug. You’d pull yourself up on his legs, using his jeans as a ladder, and he’d lift you high, your peals of laughter the most precious sound in his world. He’d talk to you, narrating his articles for the Daily Planet, calling you his “little co-pilot,” his “tiny tornado.”

The day it happened was brutally ordinary. He’d taken you to a supposedly secure, private park on the outskirts of the city. He’d let his guard down for a single, fatal moment, distracted by a bank heist downtown that required a Superman’s intervention. He was back in under a minute, but a minute was all it took.

The park was empty. The stroller was on its side. The blanket you loved, the one with the little rocketships, was trampled in the dirt. A coldness seeped into Clark’s bones that had nothing to do with the weather.

He focused, his hearing piercing through concrete, steel, and lead-lined rooms. He sifted through the cacophony of the city—the sirens, the arguments, the celebrations—until he found it. The sound of your heartbeat. It was faster than usual, thrumming with a fear you were too young to even name. And it was coming from the heart of LexCorp Tower.

You were in a clear, cylindrical chamber, not unlike a medical incubator, but this one was wired to a bank of monitors that glowed with alien script. You were standing, your small hands pressed against the cool glass, your strange, silver eyes wide and swimming with tears you were too scared to shed.

Clark moved through the reinforced security doors as if they were smoke, his footsteps silent on the polished concrete floor. The rage was there, a cold, paternal fury.

Lex turned, a smirk playing on his lips that didn’t reach his cold, calculating eyes. “Superman. I was wondering when you’d come for your… pet.”