“Pa’s tractor needs a new belt,” Clark said, nodding toward the barn.

“We saw you. In Metropolis. On the news.”

Clark’s hands stopped kneading. He knew what was coming. The bridge collapse last week. The chemical fire. The footage of a red-and-blue blur catching a school bus before it plunged into the river.

He looked at her—this small, strong woman who had found a baby in a spaceship and decided to love him. She didn’t see the cape. She saw the boy who scraped his knee, who cried when a calf was stillborn, who needed to be reminded that he was allowed to be human.

“You know,” she said, nudging him. “Your father always said the strongest thing you could be was kind. He’d be proud.”

Clark leaned his head on her shoulder, letting the weight of the world slide off him. It was the only place in the universe where he felt truly, completely safe. Not because he was invulnerable. But because Martha Kent was there.

He let out a breath. “I am tired, Ma.”

For one perfect evening, he wasn’t the last son of Krypton.