#trunksandcapes

@trunksandcapes

Sharon tipped her head to the side, looking at the approaching group with a new intensity. "No," Sharon said simply. "No, we're not doing that. I'm not dealing with this shit." That was what she said, at least. The reality of the situation was that Sharon was stretching out her shoulders already and sighing. Figuring that this was going to be a fight of some kind. (They were pumpkins - or people wearing pumpkins as heads. It was very strange and Sharon didn't want to put too much thought into understanding it. It was a giant headache, and that's all that mattered.) The pumpkin creature (thing?) opened its mouth and Sharon made a disgusted noise. "You ever been pumpkin smashing before?"

No matter how much Lucifer enjoyed the partying at a wedding, he was always going to end up critiquing as well. Mainly since no party ever compared to one of his, but also since he had been to his share of weddings over the centuries, and no matter how extravagant humans these days thought they were getting, they did not come close to some past ones.

"As weddings go, I suppose it's alright," he said, noticing that a guy was walking past him without looking at him, so naturally he wanted to draw attention to himself, "You should have seen Napoleon and Josephine's wedding! And I swear Henry the Eighth tried to top each previous wedding every single time. Really, people today need to step up their game!"

It was supposed to have been a week. Three, tops. A summer vacation--sleepaway camp, but to space!--to get a better handle on that pesky little extraterrestrial legacy of his was.

Clark and Lois had raised him as human as they possibly could. There was the farm, a dog (who had his own set of powers, sure, but that was a separate problem), video games, Converse, thick-framed glasses just in case anyone looked at him a little too closely. They’d done their best, and they’d done a pretty good job of it, too, all things considered. He’d made it through middle school with all his limbs intact (yeah, he was indestructible, but it was still middle school). But he’d always been more than. 

He’d look up at the stars speckling that open Kansas sky and wonder what it was like out there, what a world that no longer existed would think of him and his knobbly knees and his cowlick. He was too human to be alien and too alien to be human, and probably legally not allowed to take a 23andMe for risk of starting an international security crisis.

It was easier to ignore when he was little and didn’t know better, but as he got older, Jon started to understand what his dad being Superman meant. But he wouldn’t really understood it until he got out there, and when he did, he understood it better than he’d ever anticipated. So that was what it was to keep going because you knew it was the right thing to do, the good thing to do, even when everything in you was terrified. That was what it was to buckle up and fend for yourself before you were ready because you didn’t have another choice.

The difference was, though, when it all went sideways, Jon still had had a home and a family to come back to. There was no chance any of them would find him up there, so he’d had to find them, and he did. It just took a little longer than he’d expected. For him. The newspapers he’d found? Barely three weeks past the day he’d left.

Gotham skies tended to stay muggy and dark, the smog hiding the stars from view. It was familiar. It was home, it had been since he was a kid. Growing up in the underbelly of Gotham meant Jason was always looking up, wishing for something more. Anything. Now on rooftops he was still looking up, wishing for something more. Though, he wasn’t sure what that was these days. Things were better with his siblings. It was always easier with them, them hating his methods but they didn’t push him away. Not even when he did it first. He wasn’t sure anything could ever really be mended when it came to the old man.

There was a ruffling of a cape and the sound of feet landing on the rooftop, Jason not bothering to look back with his helmet held underneath his arm against his side. “You know, you guys have really different footstep patterns, lighter than most people I assume because of the flying aspect, but I learned to pick up on yours faster.” He finally shot a wry smirk at Clark, “far too many attempts at trying to scare you while I was running behind the old man to League meetings.” Ten, almost eleven, years seemed like a lifetime now but also just like it the day before.