(no subject)

[super_son]

Though Jon maybe should have been, he wasn’t afraid.  Because as far as Jon was concerned, his dad was the second greatest hero in the universe (the first being his mom).  No matter how bad things got, his dad was always there to save the day.  Not just for him, but for everyone, everywhere.  Because his dad was Superman.  And Superman always saved everyone.   This was an indisputable fact of the universe.   Even at only ten years old, he knew this.

Which is not to say that he wasn’t worried.  A bad guy, bigger than all other bad guys before, bigger than Lex Luthor or Brainiac or Darkseid or even Solaris, had come to Earth and was destroying everything.  Everything, everything, Dad had said.  Planets, stars, galaxies, everything. 

Heroes had already died fighting it.  Uncle Kyle, Aunt Jesse, Uncle J’onn…  so many of them were just gone.  He couldn’t think about it for long.  His parents hadn’t said much about how bad it was out there, but he understood enough.  If he thought about it for too long, he’d start crying.

But it must have been pretty bad.  Because Dad had insisted that he and Mom stay at the Fortress, one of the safest places on the entire planet.  As long as they were here, Dad had said, they’d be safe.

Because his dad was the second greatest hero in the whole entire world.  And there wasn’t anything he couldn’t do.

He’d save everybody.

Jon just knew it.

***

“But why do I have to get in the rocket?” Jon cried, looking from his mom to his dad.  “I don’t want to go!”

Mom wiped her eyes and hugged him.  “Because we want to make sure you’re safe,” she said.  “If this all turns out to be a big mistake, then we’ll come find you.  Right away.  I promise.” 

She hesitated, on the verge of tears again.  “But if not… then you’ll be safe.”

“Safe?” he demanded.  “What’s going on?  Mom?  Dad?”

Dad looked… tired.  In a way Jon could not remember seeing in his entire life.  So tired.  And he too, was trying to hold back tears.  Carefully, he unclipped his cape and bent down to wrap it around Jon, before pulling him into a hug of his own. 

“Things aren’t good out there, Jon,” Dad said.  “I won’t lie to you.  I don’t know if we can stop it.  The last few heroes and I, we’re going to try and stop it.  But I truly don’t know if we’ll be able to.”

He rose and tapped the small rocketship with his hand.  “This is the same rocketship that brought me to Earth when I was just a baby.  It’ll be a little cramped, but we modified it with technology from Jesse’s Cosmic Treadmill.  It will go out into the multiverse and find somewhere safe for you.  If it can, it will send a signal.  We’ll come get you, if we can.”

“What do you…?” he asked, afraid to put his question into more words.  He knew what they meant.  But they couldn’t really mean it…

Both of his parents hugged him.  A long one, that felt like it lasted forever and not nearly long enough.  It felt so… final.

“I wish you’d go with him, Lois,” Dad said.  “It’d be a tight squeeze, but I think there’d still be room.”

“We’ve barely got enough fuel as it is, Smallville,” Mom told him.  “And my place is with you.  Somebody’s got to be here when you get back.”

The Fortress shook.  And there was a terrible sound.  No, more like… the opposite of sound.  An unsound.  The sound of pure nothing.

“It’s here,” Dad said, putting himself in front of both of them.  “No.  There was supposed to be more time.  Diana and Mary were…”

Dad slumped for but a moment, then stood tall, his shoulders set back.   “Get Jon in the rocket, Lois.  I’ll try and slow it down.”  He looked back at them both.  There was the faintest, sad smile on his lips.  “Whatever happens… I love you.”

He had just enough of a moment to give Mom a kiss, and then he was a blur of red and blue.

“Mom,” Jon said.  “I can…  I can help…!”   He could!  He was super too!   Maybe just a little, but he was definitely super!

“Jon, get in the rocket.”

He crossed his arms.  “I won’t!  I can’t get just run!”

“Jon,” Mom said again.  “Get.  In.  The.  Rocket!  There’s no time!   There’s no time to argue!  It’s here, right now!”

There it was.  Mom’s “I’m not accepting any arguments” face.  He didn’t have a choice.   Tears made his face hot and wet.

“It’s not fair,” he said, climbing into the rocket.  “It’s not fair!”

“I know,” Mom said.  She brushed back his hair and placed a soft kiss on his forehead.  Tears streamed down her face again.  “Just know, that whatever happens, we love you, and we’re proud of you.”

She pressed a button on the console and the roof of the Fortress opened.   Another button sealed the canopy.  And another began to fire the rocket’s engines.   With a roar and a rush, it took off.

He shouldn’t have looked back.  But he had to.  Just in time to see a rolling wave of nothingness tear its way through the Fortress.

“Mom!  Dad!” he pounded futilely on the canopy, as the Fortress, and Earth, got farther and farther away.

And then there was no more Earth.   Looking around at what should have been stars, he realized there was hardly anymore anything.

“No… no… no…”

There, in the nothingness, he could swear he could see a hand that was somehow more nothingness, reaching for the rocket…

And then the rocket jerked and shuddered, vibrating so hard he thought for sure it would fall apart.

And the nothingness gave way to the bright red of the Bleed.