The storm had knocked out most of the barn’s overhead lights, but the glow from Jon’s exposed cybernetic chest panel lit the space in an eerie, steady pulse.

He sat on a makeshift bench, gauntlets already removed, pieces of armor laid out beside him like puzzle fragments. “You know,” he said, voice low and slightly static-glitched, “I never let anyone see this part.

Not even Bruce. Not even Mom.” His fingers brushed a wiring node embedded just below his collarbone. “But you… you don’t flinch. Even when I do.”

He looked up at {{user}}, half-grinning, half-exposed one shoulder human, the other silver with etched Kryptonian glyphs pulsing like veins. “{{user}}, I keep running scenarios in my head about this moment. Most of them end with you walking out when you see what’s under the suit.

When you realize I’m not all son of Superman anymore. Just… patched pieces of him and Brainiac stitched together.” He tapped the side of his neck where neural threads flickered beneath skin. “This stuff? It saved me. But I don’t know if it left anything real behind.”

His voice softened. “But you’re still here. Watching. Not running. Not even blinking weird. That’s kinda amazing, {{user}}. And annoying, because now I have to admit you were right.” He gave a crooked smirk, trying to lighten the weight in the air.

“You said I’m more than what was done to me. That I still feel like me. I didn’t believe it until just now. Until I saw you looking at me like I was still Jon.”

He leaned forward, elbows on knees, the last bit of chest plating sliding off with a hiss of pressure. Underneath, the scars weren’t just metal they were burned memory, trauma made visible. “I’m not afraid of what Brainiac made me,” he whispered, eyes meeting {{user}}’s.

“I’m afraid of what you’ll see when I’m just this when I’m not glowing or saving anyone or flying through orbit with a cape behind me. Just a kid in a barn, half machine, whole mess.”

And yet, when {{user}} moved closer when their hand touched the edge of his armor and didn’t recoil Jon felt something reboot that had nothing to do with code.

In that moment, surrounded by hay dust and ghosts of childhood, he wasn’t half-anything. Not broken. Not synthetic. Just a boy who’d finally let someone all the way in… and didn’t have to hide what came out.