nexus_sages | (no subject)

"I'm safe." That is not what he asked. She knows. Give her some time to work up to it.

"I mean. Nobody could be okay after that. But I think I will be?"

"I can understand that." His dad is lucky, in a way, he knows. He didn't spend his childhood on Krypton only to have it ripped away from him.

She gives a little nod, and then decides it's time to change the subject. "Maybe you should try thinking about what you want to symbolize to people, instead of trying to think of a name directly."

Jon is more than happy to change the subject, for her sake if nothing else. "That's one way to go about it. If I have to pick just one thing to represent me, that's a bit harder."

"Yeah... but it's not your whole identity. It's just one part. You don't have to sum up the whole of being..."

Wait.

"I'm sorry, we haven't introduced ourselves. I'm Verity." Do half-Kryptonians shake hands?

Jon smiles and offers his hand first. "I'm Jonathan Kent. Nice to meet you, Verity."

"Nice to meet you too, Jonathan." After they shake hands she folds hers in her lap to keep from fidgeting. "You new around here?"

He settles back into the couch a little, getting comfortable. "New to this part of the Nexus, I'm pretty sure. But not new to it in general. Multiverses and I go way back."

"Oh really? I haven't met too many people who've been here a while. Seems like it might be a good place for you to... practice things." Dealing with her own powers has been so much easier in the Nexus. She can only imagine the relief of having a safe place to deal with laser eyes or learning to fly.

"Practice things?" he repeats, sounding a little puzzled. "You mean my powers?"

She nods. "Not everyone likes talking about them directly, so."

"We don't when we're in public back home, but people are getting more accepting. Other kids in school knew I had superstrength, though they didn't know about any of the other stuff. Pretty much the only power I know I have that I don't have much practice in is how to fly."

"Really?" She shakes her head a little because that is hard to believe. "If I could fly, I'd be doing that all the time." Because that's the dream of everyone who grew up watching colorful heroes saving the day, isn't it?

"It's just because it's relatively new," he assures her with a smile. "I've been strong since I was a baby, was fast when I was six. I don't know when I got my dad's invulnerability because I didn't try to test it too much, but flying... that's pretty new."

"Well then, I'll be glad you're staying at a polite conversational distance instead of showing off," she teases. "Strong, fast, and you can fly? That's pretty much the whole superhero package, isn't it?"

Jon grins at that. "More like the starter kit. I don't have heat vision or freezing breath like my dad does, and I've never shown any signs of being telepathic like Mom is."

Verity would ask if he's serious if she didn't know he's serious. That's a lot of power for one person to have. "Well, it's a fine start. You're probably happier without the telepathy in the long run."

"Probably," he agrees, a little reluctantly. "One of my brothers inherited it and he's spent a lot of time by himself because of it."

"Yeah." Her gaze shifts away for a moment.

"I have a magic curse that tells me whenever someone's lying. It's not great for making a person feel social."

Jon doesn't have to think very long before he realizes why that's an issue. "Because people tell little lies all the time, I imagine. Answers to 'how are you' is a pretty big one."

She nods, and is visibly relieved to not have to explain. "All those 'polite fictions' that help grease the wheels of civilization. Every story. Every advertisement. It starts to hurt after a while. I can only imagine how much worse telepathy is."

"I'll try to keep that in mind... fortunately we've never really had to hide who we are here. The first people Dad met in the Nexus knew he was going to be Superman before he ever did, so it seemed kind of dumb to lie about not being an alien." He frowns as a thought occurs to him. "If I had my superhero name already and introduced myself that way, would that count as a lie for you?"

"It really depends on the person. If you consider that as much your identity as the name you were given at birth, no. When you're growing into it, it might. Some people change their names but wear them like a mask, and that I can tell." For such a blunt instrument, the curse is surprisingly subtle sometimes.

"Don't worry about it. It's my burden, not yours."

"Sure, but that doesn't mean I have to be insensitive about it or anything. I don't make a habit of out of lying when I don't have to, anyway. Not much point when Mom knows exactly who took the cookies out of the cookie jar without anyone saying anything."

She dips her head in concession; she's not going to try to argue him out of being nice. "That must have made for some interesting conversations when report cards got sent home."