Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Conner wasn’t always over at the Lane-Kent apartment, but it did happen sometimes. He missed the old apartment. It was smaller and a little homier, but most importantly, it didn’t have a baby.

It’s not that Conner didn’t like Baby Jonathan, it’s just that the whole situation made Conner a little uncomfortable.

Conner had never been a baby himself. He also wasn’t that much older than Little Jonathan. So it was weird.

It was also even weirder that he wasn’t supposed to use his powers around Baby Jonathan because Lois and Clark wanted the kid to have as normal a childhood as possible with an alien father and aunt, a mostly-alien half-brother, and being a half-alien himself.

Which, when he thought of it that way, was totally fair.

But Conner still didn’t know how to act around little kids. And honestly, it had been easier when Jonathan was an actual baby because he was oblivious to Conner’s awkwardness.

Though, now that Jonathan was a toddler, he still didn’t seem to care that Conner was awkward. Especially since the little squirt had wandered into Conner’s room—or, well, the guest room that served as Conner’s room when he was in Metropolis.

“Con-new,” Jonathan was babbling. “I wawah prrltay wiff doa truunie an’ doa deenno-sawwy.”

Conner was silent, not sure what he was supposed to do. He did sink off the bed and onto the floor, though. Jonathan tumbled into Conner’s arm with a cheery giggle.

“Con-new!” the tot screeched. “truunie an’ deenno-sawwy!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Conner told the child honestly. Reaching with one hand to run a finger lightly over Jonathan’s small fist. Jonathan took the bait and quickly wrapped his small hand around Conner’s proffered finger. He shook it wildly, excited at the contact, apparently. Maybe Conner wasn’t so bad with kids.

“Prrltay wiff me,” Jonathan tried to explain.

“You want me to… play with you?” Conner asked.

Jonathan’s smile doubled in brilliance—that was Clark’s sun-smile alright—and he giggled brightly. “Yeah! Wiff truunie an’ deenno-sawwy!”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Conner repeated.

Jonathan sighed like an old CEO exasperated that his receptionist hadn’t cleared his schedule like he’d asked.

“Can you go get the toys?” Conner suggested.

“No!” Jonathan screeched suddenly, volume making Conner wince. “Day on doa toffp sheff an’ I cann week dem.”

“…Clark!?” Conner called, seeing Jonathan was closed to tears.

Clark didn’t take long to poke his head in the room. “What’s up?”

Jonathan turned at the sound of his father’s voice. “Da!”

“Hey, Jonno,” Clark cooed.

“Da, I wawah prrltay wiff doa truunie an’ doa deenno-sawwy. Buhta day on doa toffp sheff an’ I cann week dem.”

“Oh, okay. Well, hang on.” Clark ducked out of the room for a moment before returning with a brightly colored train and a toy T-Rex that looked exactly like the one from Toy Story. “Here you go!” he cheered softly to Jonathan as he knelt down to hand the small boy the toys.

“Yay! Truunie an’ deenno-sawwy!” Jonathan immediately plopped his rear on the ground and started to play some made-up game with the toys.

Conner looked up at Clark in awe. “How... What?”

Clark chuckled softly, watching Jonathan for a moment before looking up at Conner. “Trainy and Dinosaury,” he translated. “We put them up last night to vacuum but the shelf is out of Jon’s reach.”

“And he was telling you that?” Conner asked.

“Trying to, at least. Words are still a little hard,” Clark answered, making Conner feel a lot better. “When you’re around him all the time, you learn to speak his language.”

“Con-new!” Jonathan shouted, slamming the T-Rex, Dinosaury, onto his leg. “Prrltay!”

Conner grabbed the T-Rex right when Jonathan released it. “Oh!” He glanced up at Clark.

“Play,” he translated again.

Conner felt slightly embarrassed because he’d already figured that one out but had forgotten in his awkwardness. “Right. Uh, how?”

Clark shrugged, standing up. “Make something up. And if he corrects you, it’s probably because he just made up another story line or something. You really can’t mess it up.”

“Okay,” Conner breathed, focusing back on Jonathan as he was playing with the train. “Rawr!” he started. Jonathan giggled wildly. Seems he was on the right track.

Babysitting was usually a lot easier when the baby was asleep. And Kara usually managed to keep Jonathan down for a nice long nap while Lois and Clark required her to be on duty.

Today was the exception, apparently.

“An’ Kiwi?” Jonathan asked, holding his blanket and rubbing his eyes like a scene from a Disney movie.

Truthfully, Kara had never enjoyed her name being butchered but something about the way Jonathan called her Kiwi made her day every time. “Yeah, buddy?” she asked, reaching to pull him into her lap.

Rao, she loved this kid. And if he helped her healing process? Well, wasn’t that just dandy. But it did, honestly. Jonathan was just enough like Kal for her to pretend it was her little baby cousin she was watching, just like she had been supposed to. But, at the end of the day, when she didn’t want to be in charge anymore, she had the ability to pawn little baby over to Kal himself. It was a win-win situation. And anytime she felt a little guilty using this cute hybrid child as her healing mechanism, she remembered that Jonathan was healing for Kal, too. And also probably Lois.

“Bjou bwim flummy rnden cow louw,” he mumbled sleepily.

There was no way she was translating that. Her English was just a little less a work-in-progress that Jonathan’s was, in all honesty (Kal disagreed, but whatever). “Kaaaaalllll!” she called, flopping back onto the couch, dragging a giggling Jonathan with her.

“What?” came his whispered response from three cities away.

“Vokai, sokao,” she requested of her cousin. Turning to her nephew, she asked, “Can you say that again for me, us?”

“Bjou bwim flummy rnden cow louw,” Jonathan graciously repeated, snuggling closer to his Auntie Kiwi.

“He’s saying, ‘you can’t go sleepy without cuddle,’” Kal translated, with way more sass than strictly necessary. It wasn’t Kara’s fault she didn’t understand toddler-speak.

“Kyth!” Kara swore under her breath, dutifully ignoring Kal’s protests to such language—it wasn’t like she was swearing in English! Kal himself didn’t speak much Kryptonian, so what did he care? “Khap tulem uhlzon zhod?” she asked, rather petulantly—though she was kindly using basic words that Kal was sure to know. Was it a butchered translation? Yes. But, again, Kal hardly knew much Kryptonian. It would be up to him to put the puzzle together.

“Zhi,” Kal answered, exasperation evident. “Gehd nim goah osh rrip.”

“I kryptahniuo nahn dol,” Kara complained to him, about him.  

“Khahp kehp voiehd raozh,” he grumbled.

“Skilor rrup,” she bid farewell.

“Zhi, skilor rrip,” he returned.

During her entire conversation with Kal, she’d been holding little Jonathan to her while also rubbing a hand down his back in slow, methodical gestures. Looking down at him, she was pleased to find that he was asleep. Maybe listening to your aunt make fun of your father in a very foreign language served as a lullaby? She didn’t much care, either way. What she did care about was not waking the baby. And that’s how she ended up falling asleep on the couch.

It wasn’t often that Lois and Clark had to bring Jonathan to work, but it did occasionally happen. And it was even less often that they had to leave Jonathan in the care of someone else. There were two occasions Jonathan was left napping in Perry White’s office—if anyone saw Perry acting like a proud, doting grandfather, no one mentioned it—and three occasions where Jimmy was put in charge of watching Jonathan for a little while.

“I wanbna swee druh pihctah, Dimmdy!” Jonathan babbled, hands pressing into Jimmy’s upper leg while also pushing his face into Jimmy’s shirt.

“I know, kiddo,” Jimmy soothed.

“Dimmdy, I wanbna swee druh pihctah!” Jonathan repeated.

“I know, kiddo,” Jimmy also repeated.

“I wanbna swee druh pihctah, Dimmdy!” Jonathan said a third time, whine apparent in his tone.

“I don’t know, kiddo,” Jimmy admitted. “I don’t know what you mean!”

Fortunately for Jimmy, Clark was back in the office. Unfortunately for Jimmy, he’d heard at least part of the conversation and found it funny. He stopped by the desk, chuckling at the situation.

“C.K., I don’t understand,” Jimmy whined.

“He wants to see your picture,” Clark explained, still chuckling softly. “Right, Jonno?”

“Dah!” Jonathan agreed, before turning to his father. “Da!”

Jimmy could have sworn he said the same thing twice, though. Only Jonathan’s nod with the first annunciation helped differentiate for Jimmy.

“That’s right, buddy!” Clark cheered, helping Jimmy further understand the difference between what Jonathan had said, “I’m back!” Clark had kneeled down and brought his hands up to Jonathan’s middle. The kid was so tiny that one of his dad’s hands could envelope most of his little torso. Why Clark needed both was probably because of little kids’ habits of squirming. “Will Jimmy show you the pictures?” Clark asked, also reminding Jimmy of what Jonathan had been trying to ask himself.

“Yeah, here,” Jimmy offered, scooting away from his computer a little. Clark effortlessly lifted Jonathan into the air so he could see the computer screen.

“Woooowwww,” Jonathan drawled, eyes wide in delight. It was Jimmy’s most recent picture of Superman. And since Lois especially loved buying Jonathan Superman-themed things, Jimmy had no doubt that the munchkin had an idea of who he was seeing. “Supa-mam!” Jonathan observed excitedly, confirming Jimmy’s theory.

“That’s right!” Clark confirmed, just as excited as his son—the apple didn’t fall far from the tree, as Clark might say—before pressing a kiss to his son’s temple.

“Is it just a parent thing to speak toddler fluently?” Jimmy asked as Clark stood up and adjusted Jonathan to where the child was seated on Clark’s forearm.

Clark nodded. “It is specific to the parents’ child, though. I wouldn’t be of any help translating another kid’s babbling. Well, okay, maybe I’d be better than someone who doesn’t have kids yet, but you get the idea.”

“Parents speak a specific dialect of baby-speak but could use what they know to potentially cross-reference other dialects of baby-speak,” Jimmy concluded.

Clark laughed, loud and clear, which also made Jonathan giggle. “Yes, that sounds about right.” He turned to Jonathan and gently grabbed the boy’s wrist to start waving it. “Say bye-bye to Jimmy,” he instructed.

The kid quickly realized what was being asked of him and started waving his hand without his father’s assistance. “Bye-bye, Dimmdy!”

“Bye-bye, Jonny,” Jimmy returned, also waving.

Clark smiled in farewell and turned to leave. Little Jonathan shifted in his father’s grasp and started waving goodbye with his other hand.

“Bye-bye, Dimmdy!” he repeated, louder now that he was being moved away.

“Bye!” Jimmy called back, waving a final time before turning back to his computer, smile on his face.