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Privileged	By : CeeCee Category: Smallville > AU - Alternate Universe Views: 1391 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: Disclaimer: I don’t own the Smallville fandom. These characters belong to Warner Bros. I’m not making any money to write this piece of sh…I mean, fiction.

Chapter List
- 1-Privileged
- 2-In from the Cold
- 1
- 2
Privileged
Summary: Colonial America, date to be determined. Clex. AU-verse, m/m slash.
The Kents migrated to America to provide their adopted son with a better life. But when they find employment with the wealthy Luthors, they can’t escape the shadows that lurk among them.
Author’s Note: I’m dedicating this to Gothabilly13, since we talk about Smallville once in a while and have brainstormed together on some of my other fics. And because she’s just such a big sweetie.
Jonathan MacKenna huddled closer to his wife in their crowded bunk, thankful that she had fallen asleep. Her cheeks were still gray from the almost relentless seasickness that had seized her since they lost sight of their port. Jonathan, Mairead, and their son, Connor only had each other and the clothes on their backs when they boarded the creaking, rocking ship that stank of fermenting fish and unwashed flesh. They rode in steerage class within the ship’s hull, it was cramped, and nothing was sacred. It was all they could afford.
Connor was none the worse for wear, and Jonathan was relieved that his son was so hearty from the beginning. As if he felt his father’s eyes on him, he cracked one open from where he rested against his mother’s bosom. Jonathan smiled. “Go to sleep, lad.”
“Okay,” he yawned, and his eyes drifted shut obediently, once more leaving Jonathan to his thoughts.
The future was frightening and foreign. The past they left behind was nightmarish, granted, but at least it was familiar. Jonathan and his wife knew everyone in their tiny town by name; it made it that much more painful every time someone died. It broke his heart a little more when he tilled his fields and harvested nothing but spoiled, rotted spuds, coming home with little fruit for his labor.
The rocking of the ship had taken away his appetite. That was fine with him; they had brought scarce, precious food, and they were saving it for Connor. His pants were patched and their hems let down to keep up with his rugged play and fast growth. He was tall for his age, Jonathan mused. He wondered if he would have the opportunity to go to school, now.
It was a pipe dream, Jonathan scoffed to himself. They would worry about getting a roof over their heads, first.
Metropolis. The fabled Emerald City. Jonathan pinned his hopes on it, building his dreams on its foundation.
*

Mairead woke sharply as the ship lurched to a stop, and Jonathan chuckled at her low groan. “Father above…please tell me we’ve made it,” she pleaded with him as she stretched her cramped limbs. Connor yawned and squirmed against her, and his dark waves were tousled. She instinctively reached out to smooth them, managing a smile for his benefit.
“We’ve made it, love,” he assured her. Mairead’s gray eyes lit up.
“I can’t stand it one minute longer on this miserable wreck,” she insisted. “Connor, gather up your things!”
“They won’t let us out that quickly,” he reminded her gruffly. “Slow down, sweetheart. We’ve got to make it through customs.”
“I hope you brought our paperwork,” she countered.
“Hmmm…I think I left it in my other pants,” he teased.
“Jonathan!” She raised her hand to swat him, and he caught her wrist.
“Teasing! Teasing,” he assured her with a grin.
“Da? I hafta go,” Connor complained.
“Hold on a little longer,” Mairead encouraged. She shuddered at the thought of the chamber pots and how infrequently they were emptied. Connor made a face and squirmed.
“ALL ASHORE THAT’S GOING ASHORE!” The hull was a blur of hectic activity as the passengers began gathering their meager baggage and possessions. Jonathan and Mairead counted themselves lucky that they’d survived their journey. Some of the passengers didn’t last past the third day, already too far gone from hunger and fever. Their bodies had been wrapped up in shrouds and unceremoniously chucked overboard, to their horror. The crew stood by, stoic and unfeeling for the plight of the families as they mourned and wailed. The world was a cold, cruel place. It would be the ultimate struggle to find their place in it.
Disembarking from the ship took them roughly an hour. Connor, trooper that he was, held off complaining any further about his needs, even though he squirmed by his mother’s side as they waited their turn. Jonathan’s arms already ached from his lack of proper sleep, and they protested the burdens of their luggage. The air was crisp and cold, but at least it was fresh, free from the mildewy stench of the hull and the odor of rotting fish. They were bedraggled and wrinkled, hair mussed and hastily tucked under caps, except for Mairead, who covered her gleaming auburn hair with a soft green kerchief. She exhaled a shaky breath as she surveyed the docks and surrounding busy streets. The harbor was crammed with ships of every kind, showing that Metropolis was a diverse community whose denizens came from every class. Jonathan wondered hopefully if he might find labor on a fishing boat, provided that he developed sea legs soon.
Nay, he decided. That wasn’t the life for him. He came from a long line of proud farmers, men who worked the land and raised livestock. There had to be other ways to make their way. “Look at it, Jonathan,” she murmured, and her hand felt cold as it crept into his. He squeezed it, imparting some of his strength to her, and she huddled against his side.
“This could be home,” he told her.
“It has to be. It’s too late, now,” she reminded him grimly.
“When are we going home?” Connor asked petulantly. “I’m hungry.”
“We’ll see about breakfast soon,” Mairead promised. She wanted to sit down away from the bustling crowd, where they wouldn’t have to open up their meager food supply around hungry strangers. She felt a bitter pang that she couldn’t answer her son’s question, namely when they were going home.
They were alone in a new land, and so vulnerable. Jonathan was stirred into action by the feel of elbows and hands shoving him, and the tide of now-hostile strangers rushing around him as they made their way down the gangplank. “Hey!” he cried. “Careful, now, I’ve a child and woman, here! Back off!” He held tight to Mairead as she gripped Connor’s hand, and they moved as one with the crowd down to the pier. They nearly staggered at the sensation of the hollow-sounding wooden planks beneath their feet. “Land!” Mairead exclaimed. “I’ve never felt anything sweeter, Jonathan!” Her eyes shone with the beginnings of tears, and he kissed her cheek. Connor looked expectantly at their display, and they included him in their elation. Jonathan picked him up and kissed him soundly, feeling relieved at the familiar throttle of his son’s arms around his neck.
“’ey! You! This way,” a gruff voice ordered. They saw a man with the scruffy beginnings of a beard covering his burly jaw. He pointed toward a three-story building down the street.
“Where are we supposed to go?” Jonathan demanded.
“Customs. Off with you, now.”
“Da? I hafta go,” Connor whined again.
“First things first,” Jonathan muttered helplessly. They hied themselves off to find an outhouse, or at the very least, a place to discreetly use a chamber pot. The man who accosted them snorted under his breath at the straggling family and shook his head.
“Irish,” he tsked in distaste.
*
“Where did you come from?”
“County Mayo,” Jonathan supplied in his soft brogue.
“Where was that?” the man asked, exasperated with having to ask again.
“Mayo. County Mayo, sir.”
“Ah. I see.” The man wrote the name hastily in his ledger. “How many are there of you traveling together?”
“Three. Just three,” he explained. Jonathan didn’t add that it would have been more if Mairead’s sister and husband hadn’t died from the plague before they had enough funds for all of them to board the boat. He felt his wife’s sorrow at his words without even having to look at her.
“Names.”
“Jonathan McKenna. This is my wife, Mairead. And this is our son, Connor.”
“Your son? Take his hat off,” he ordered coldly.
“Why?”
“Just do as I say. It’s not your place to question me,” the customs officer snapped. Mairead frowned but complied, even though Clark had fallen asleep against her shoulder. She removed his cap, and the officer eyed him carefully. “Let me see him. Turn around so I can see his face.” Again she obeyed, all the while resenting the man’s temerity. “He looks nothing like you. You aren’t lying to me when you say he’s yours?”
“Now, see here!” Jonathan’s face darkened with anger.
“He’s… he’s our son. I promise you that. He’s our only child.” But Mairead wouldn’t deny the truth: Connor McKenna didn’t look one whit like his parents. Jonathan had slightly swarthy skin, tanned from working outside for most of his life, and thick, golden blond hair. His eyes were the McKenna blue, and he had classic European features. Mairead was petite, with creamy skin and titian hair. Her gray eyes often smiled even when her mouth didn’t.
Connor was a different matter altogether. The dozing seven-year-old had skin like peaches and cream, free of so much as a freckle or blemish. His hair was black as a raven’s wing, and when he blinked one eye open, it was an enviable, emerald green. He yawned, closed his eyes again, and settled down against his mother.
“What’s your purpose in coming to America? To Metropolis?”
“To work. To eventually buy a home and be a productive member of the community.”
“How do you propose to do that?” the officer asked skeptically.
“I was a farmer. I’ve also worked as a builder,” Jonathan asserted.
“Farmer,” the officer snorted, shaking his head. “There’s no soil to farm here. All you’ll find on the ground here are cobblestones, Mr. McKenna.” Jonathan’s hopes sank, but Mairead was nonplussed.
“I’m a washer woman and housekeeper,” she told him briskly. “We’ll manage just fine.”
“You will, now?” The man chuckled, amused at the way she straightened up and pinned him with a glare that reminded him of a cranky kitten. “I’m going to do the three of you a favor.” He took the papers that Jonathan had slid across the table to him a few minutes prior and stamped them. “I’m letting you into the country. But not until I give you new names.”
“Excuse me, sir?” Jonathan was confused.
“If you want to live in America, you’ll need to sound like Americans. McKenna? What kind of last name is that?”
“It’s my family name,” Jonathan protested. “It was my father’s name!”
“Kent.”
“Excuse me?”
“It’s easier to say. You’re Jonathan Kent, now. All of you are Kents.”
“Just like that, you’re changing our names?” Mairead argued.
“Yours, especially. I can’t even say it aloud. Martha.”
“Martha?” Her mouth dropped open.
“Be proud of it. It was my mother’s name,” the customs officer shrugged. “Now it’s yours.”
“What’s my name?” Connor yawned, slowly waking up to the sound of adults arguing. The officer chuckled at the boy’s drowsy expression as Martha put his hat back on.
“What is it right now? Conal?” he erred.
“Connor,” the little scamp corrected him.
“No. Too Irish.”
“But I am Irish,” he reminded him politely. Silently Jonathan and Mairead cheered their son’s declaration while they waited to hear his new name.
“You’re Clark, now. Clark Kent.”
“I don’t like it, Da,” Connor told his father.
“Get used to it, lad. Welcome to America!” He shoved the papers across the table into Jonathan’s waiting grasp. “Go. We’re finished here.”
*

Jonathan and his family managed to find the only boarding house over a five-mile radius from the docks that wasn’t full to capacity, but the owner, a mouthy woman with dishwater blonde hair and a large mole over her lip, informed them that she was going easy on them.
“Had a few rich toffs who wanted to rent this room,” she bragged haughtily. “If they change their minds and come back, it’s out with you, I can promise you that!” She counted the silver coins that Jonathan humbly dropped into her palm. “That’s all?”
“It’s all we can spare for now, until I find work,” Jonathan offered politely. “We just need a place to stay for a short while.”
“This’ll get you two days,” she snapped as she bustled around the room, opening the drapes to air the room. The furnishings were meager, but the room was clean, and it was on the second floor, with no one living above them, so it would be relatively quiet. Martha set down their luggage, but she was chastised for taking liberties. “NO! Put that in the closet!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Don’t leave clutter lying around. If I show this room to new tenants, I expect it to be neat.”
“We’ve got two days,” Jonathan reminded her in annoyance. “Give us that much, at least.”
“I’m not above kicking tenants out into the street if they give me trouble,” she sniffed, narrowing her gray eyes. Jonathan wanted to wrap his hands around the fleshy folds of her neck and squeeze, squeeeeeze…
Mairead – Martha – gripped his sleeve, tugging it to bring him back. “We won’t be any trouble,” she promised cheerfully. “You have a lovely house.”
“Takes work to keep it that way,” she said haughtily.
“D’you need a hand?” The woman’s eyes gleamed.
“What’d you have in mind?”
“What needs to be done? Martha inquired.
“I’ll find something. Come with me.”
*

Martha’s efforts at housekeeping, cooking, and mending stayed their eviction for another three days than they originally paid for. Nanny, their landlord, was an abrasive woman who ruled her boarding house with an iron grip, but she provided the Kent family and her other residents with hot food and a roof that didn’t leak. Each day, Martha rose before sun-up and went down to the kitchen. She prepared enough bread, eggs, corn meal mush, proper oats, and slab bacon to feed the twelve people who occupied the boarding house. Once they were all served at the long table, she resumed her housekeeping, beating rugs, dusting furniture and knick-knacks, and washing everything until it gleamed.
The only gratitude Nanny ever showed her was her continued threat that they were taking up valuable space, even as she allowed them to stay another day. “You missed a spot! And put away that casserole pan, you’re letting my nice kitchen turn into a pigsty, Martha! Lazy wretch!” Clark wisely hid behind the edge of the sofa when Nanny was in one of her moods. But her beady blue black eyes would eventually find him. “I see you,” she growled, making him flee upstairs. “Children should be seen, not heard,” she grumbled.
Jonathan’s reading skills were limited, but each day, he went into town, looking for “Help Wanted” posts in shop windows. Every day, doors were shut in his face, sometimes slammed. He put on a brave face for his wife and son every morning, but once he shut the boarding house door behind him, his handsome face darkened and settled into grim, heavy lines. He pulled his scarf more tightly around his neck against the chill and soldiered on. There was no help for it, and he had no choice.
When he came home one night with a bundle of groceries in his arms, Martha’s heart leapt and her eyes shone. But Jonathan interrupted her and cut her embrace at the door short.
“Easy now, colleen,” he chided her, handing her a loaf of bread wrapped in a checkered piece of cotton. “Don’t get your hopes up.”
“Did you find anything, luv?” she pressed as she helped him ease out of his heavy coat.
“Nay, I didn’t,” he confessed, “but I stumbled across a hoity-toity woman who mistook me for someone working in the shop. I helped her load her things in her wagon, and she tipped me a coin.”
“Which shop?”
“Luthor’s,” he muttered. “It appeared to be a clothing shop.”
“Like a boutique?”
“I don’t think so. I didn’t see women’s things in the front window,” he reasoned. “It was different. It was enormous,” he added. “Biggest place on the block.”
“I wonder if they need a seamstress,” Martha wondered aloud as she brought the bread into the kitchen. Jonathan sat at the table and frowned as she began to slice it.
“I’d prefer it if you stayed here in the boarding house. You have to watch Clark,” Jonathan pointed out.
“One day, Clark will go to school,” she argued. “When that day comes-“
“When? When will that day come, Mairead?”
“That’s Martha to you,” she told him saucily, pulling a face as she made him a cheese sandwich.
“I’m serious.”
“So am I. We’re in a new land, Jonathan. We’ve opportunities we never had before. Connor will go to school.”
“We can barely afford to pay the rent here, colleen, much less send our boy to school.” He caught her wrist as she set the plate in front of him, and her whole body tensed. Her eyes flattened as he plead his case. “Don’t get your hopes up yet.”
“My hopes are all I have, Jonathan. There’s nothing wrong with dreaming, and I dream big. Connor McKenna is just as good as every other child drawing breath and walking on American soil! He deserves the same chance. He won’t just be another starving farmer, Jonathan. I won’t let that happen.”
“You won’t,” he muttered. She snatched her arm away and flounced to the counter, where she’d filled a basin of water to start the dishes. “I want the same things for Clark that you do, colleen.”
“Then don’t expect me to give up hope.” Martha turned back to her chore while Jonathan ate his lunch. “Was that shop hiring?”
“Not that I could tell,” Jonathan mentioned.
“Go back,” she suggested. “It can’t hurt to ask.” He sighed, then nodded.
“Aye.” He wasn’t looking forward to more rejection, but he allowed himself the luxury of imagining himself behind the store’s counter, serving the public. His hands missed the feel of his tools, the heft of a hoe in his hands as he worked the furrows of potatoes and other vegetables. That was the other element that was missing, he considered: The land wasn’t green. Metropolis was a teeming city, paved with cobblestones and lined with brick houses for miles, its north end surrounded by the harbor. From the prow of the ship they arrived in, it was beautiful, but once their feet were on dry land, Jonathan saw its true substance and its dirty soul.
He saw grifters on the pier, playing shell games and cheating immigrants and tourists at cards. Women of ill repute wore too much makeup and hovered by taverns and storefronts. He heard strange dialects and missed the sound of Irish brogue and true Gaelic.
The classes were distinctly separate. The toffs didn’t mingle with the have-nots; he saw many a carriage roll by with the curtains pulled to block out the unsavory sight of the streets. The owners who stepped out were always well-fed and overdressed in heavy wools and sleek furs. Jonathan learned his place; they seldom made eye contact with him, and when he caught the odd glance, it was filled with scorn for his humble clothing and tanned skin earned from a lifetime of working outside.
*
“Da? Can I come with you?” Jonathan looked up from his bread and jam and smiled at his son’s eager face. He ruffled Connor’s – Clark’s – dark waves.
“You want to help me find work?” he teased.
“I’m big and strong,” he reminded him. Jonathan’s smile faltered.
“I know that, son. But… that’s something I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about, man to man.” Jonathan stilled a moment when Nanny waddled into the kitchen and pinned him with a glare.
“I hope you wiped your nasty boots before you came in,” she accused.
“Never fail,” he promised, raising his cup of coffee in a mock toast. She snorted.
“And I have my eye on you,” she reminded Clark, whose eyes were gleaming with suppressed mischief. “Stay out of those shortbreads, do you hear me?” Clark ducked his head and nodded, but a hint of a smile played around his lips.
“He will,” Martha assured her. Nanny harrumphed and waddled back out, and Martha swatted Clark’s rump with her tea towel. “Scamp.”
“He’s a growing boy, Mairead.”
“He’ll eat us out of house and home before we even have a home,” she mused. “And it’s Martha, Jonathan. Get used to it.”
“Can I go, Da?” Clark’s eyes shone hopefully, and Jonathan sighed.
“I don’t see the harm,” he decided. “But when I need to talk to someone about a job, stay out of sight and out of mischief, understand?” Clark nodded solemnly, but he grinned when Jonathan told him, “Get your coat and hat.”
He was off in a flash, kicking up a breeze behind him that ruffled the curtains and flipped the small rug off the floor. “Jesus!” Jonathan snapped.
“Don’t take his name in vain, Jonathan! Clark!” Martha called out. Clark had no sooner left than he reappeared, fully buttoned into his coat, not even winded. “You know better than that,” she scolded soundly.
“Ma,” he began, but she ignored his pout.
“Nay. Never do that again, Clark, do you understand?” He shrugged his shoulders. “Understand me now, lad. You can’t be caught doing those special things we talked about. Nanny won’t understand. We’ll get in trouble, and we won’t have a home.”
“When will we have a home just for us?” Clark asked. His small arched brows drew together, and Mairead sighed, ruffling his hair.
“Da needs to find work. Then we’ll see.”
“We will,” Clark promised earnestly. He reached up to embrace her and kissed his mother’s cheek. It was difficult to let him walk out the door with his father, waving back to her so plaintively, as though he didn’t want her to worry.
It broke her heart.
*
They pounded the cobblestones all afternoon until Jonathan felt the sole of his boot wear through. It rubbed a sore against his heel, but he weathered it. Clark trotted beside him tirelessly, and he was grateful for his son’s vigor and resilience. Clark never complained about being tired, sore or cold; Jonathan often wondered if he even knew how it felt to experience them.
Connor McKenna was special from the moment he came into their lives. Jonathan often watched him wistfully, often wondering why fortune smiled on him and gave him such a gift. His friends had all lost children in the wake of the famine, but his Connor was sturdy, never succumbing to the fever. Jonathan felt he was luckier than he deserved when he hustled his wife and child onto that ship, and luckier still when they disembarked onto American soil.
Jonathan urged Clark toward a shop with a row of empty crates alongside its left side. His legs throbbed and he knew Clark had to be hungry. He reached for the sandwich wrapped in a handkerchief that Martha packed for them, and Clark eyed it greedily. Jonathan broke off a small portion for himself and handed over the remainder, which Clark devoured with relish, seating himself on one of the crates. They rested for a few minutes and watched the crowd pass by on the busy street.
Toffs rode by in shining carriages and two men, too far gone with ale, staggered out from a seedy looking tavern. Jonathan cringed at the thought of working in such a place, even though he couldn’t afford to be choosy. Clark watched the men clamoring and making a ruckus with saucerlike green eyes. Jonathan pondered coming back after he returned Clark to Martha and Nanny…
An enormous carriage pulled by two of the finest Morgan horses pulled up to the curb, and Clark watched expectantly as the footman climbed down and opened the latch on the door.
“It’s so big,” Jonathan heard him murmur. “What’s it like riding in one of those, Da?”
“I haven’t the foggiest,” Jonathan admitted humbly. He’d owned a tiny, rickety wagon that he ended up selling for a pittance in an effort to raise the funds to travel abroad. He watched as a tall, distinguished man of about fifty climbed out, nimbly stepping down to the small stool his footman placed on the ground and avoiding a shallow puddle. He wore a long wool coat and black silk top hat, and a charcoal gray cravat was tied impeccably around his throat. His face was ascetic and lean, his sandy, graying beard neatly trimmed, and his eyes were his prominent feature, large, deep-set and blue; they were shrewd, and his mouth only smiled with irony, Jonathan knew. He carried a fine cherry wood cane with a gold handle, which he rapped against the door, beckoning to someone else inside.
“Look, Da,” Clark murmured as he saw the second passenger climb out, just as self-possessed as his companion. “He’s my size.”
“Might even be your age, lad.” That was where the similarities ended. Jonathan watched the boy step down to the street and peer about at his surroundings with eyes that were no less shrewd than his father’s, and it made Jonathan slightly unsettled to see the boy’s jaded, almost world-weary air. He was fair-skinned to the point of being pale, owning none of Clark’s rosy-cheeked glow. He wore an expensive looking wool cap pulled down over his ears, heavy wool mittens and a navy blue worsted wool coat. He must have felt Jonathan and Clark’s eyes on them; he turned with a slight jerk and pinned them with a wary look.
Clark smiled at him and waved. The young stranger sneered and looked away. Clark shrugged up at his father.
“He’s rude, Da.”
“He’s rich, lad.”
The street teemed with traffic in an instant, and suddenly the toff and his entourage disappeared from view. The carriage circled and parked a few blocks down the street, its groomsmen and driver standing indolently nearby, chatting with the local shopkeepers and smithy. Jonathan sighed wearily.
“I think your mam misses us by now, Connor.”
“It’s Clark, Da,” he reminded him, continuing to practice his new identity. Jonathan patted his head roughly, chuckling. He admired his son’s willingness to adapt to their new home.
“Let’s go.”
“I’m still hungry.”
“You’ve a hollow leg, laddie.” Clark kept up with his father’s long strides easily at a near-trot, enjoying the brisk weather, which for the most part he hardly felt. Mairead always marveled at their child’s hardiness; extremes of weather never bothered him. He seldom broke a sweat during the most humid of Indian summers, and the blustery winter winds never chapped his skin or caused him any chilblains.
“ALEXANDER!” Father and son turned at the booming voice and the rush of footsteps. Out of the corner of his eye, Jonathan saw a blur of navy blue, and he heard the boyish voice answering back with more insolence than he’d ever allow from Connor.
“I want my satchel!”
“ALEXANDER! Confound it! Come to me, at once!” Connor watched astonished as the boy pelted down the sidewalk’s cobbles toward the carriage once he spied it, holding onto his hat as he ran.
“He’s not as fast as me,” he muttered under his breath.
“He shouldn’t tear along like that, he could-“ Before the words could leave his mouth, Jonathan’s immediate fear came true. The boy’s fine leather boots caught a slick of ice, which he careened over in a breath-stealing spasm, every contortion meant to catch and stop himself. He fell with a grunt that Jonathan heard as well as felt, making the man wince in sympathy.
His momentum carried him off the curb, where he landed in a murky, ice-crusted puddle of slush.
“ALEXANDER!” his father boomed again, trotting after him with difficulty in his long, stiff coat. Instinctively Jonathan ran toward him, not caring about the boy’s earlier disdain.
Alexander sputtered, shocked from the damp cold and his throbbing palms and a knee that felt skinned. His ears rang and he’d bitten his tongue. “Ow,” he moaned as he reeled from mingled pain and surprise. He stood up shakily, shivering from the slushy water that soaked his trousers and stained the hem of his expensive coat.
“That’s a shame,” Jonathan tsked. He reached into his pocket and took out a large handkerchief. “C’mere, laddie. Let’s clean some of that off before you’re soaked through.”
“My name’s not ‘Laddie,’” he informed Jonathan huffily. Jonathan wasn’t sure if the rosy color blooming in the boy’s cheeks was from the cold or from embarrassment. “I’m Alexander Luthor!”
“That’s a fine name, lad,” Jonathan shrugged. He half-heartedly swabbed the boy’s fine coat with the handkerchief, knowing it would do little to help.
“Are you cold?” Clark asked him uncertainly.
“Well, what do you think?” the strange boy demanded.
“You’re teeth are chattering,” Clark informed him.
“Then that probably means I’m cold,” Alexander told him sharply.
“Alexander,” his father snapped, “mind your manners.” The gentleman approached them and offered them a tight, efficient smile that lacked sincerity. “You don’t have to do that, friend.”
“It’d be a shame to ruin such fine winter clothes.”
“When you’re as fortunate as we are, there’s nothing that can’t be replaced.” The stranger set his hand on his son’s shoulder and squeezed a brief warning, putting an end to his scowl; chastened, Alexander stared down at his feet.
“He can have my coat if he wants,” Clark announced, and his stubby fingers flew over the buttons, opening the careworn, clean coat. Jonathan abandoned his cleaning efforts with the cloth, and before he could chide Clark, his son shucked his own coat and hurried forward with it, shoving it toward Alexander. The boy looked back toward his father, annoyed and confused. “I’m not cold,” Clark offered easily. “Take it,” he instructed.
Fear seized Jonathan and made his heart race. Damn it, Connor! They can’t know!
“Young man, it’s unforgiving out today! You’ll catch your death!”
“I don’t want your coat, anyway, dummy-“ Alexander’s harsh words were abruptly cut off by the cuff across the back of his head. “OW!”
“Manners, Alexander.” A battle of wills took place between them, stern blue eyes boring into slate gray.
Once again, his son dropped his eyes in shame, mittened hands clenching at his sides.
“It’s all right. You can take it,” Clark assured him, just in case he hadn’t understood.
“No, thank you,” Alexander told him gruffly. “Just put it back on. Everyone else has on a coat.” Clark’s brows beetled, and he peered down the street. The boy had a point; Clark watched store patrons filing down the street, bundled to the teeth.
“All right.” Clark shrugged back into the faded garment and tucked his hands into his pockets, resigned. So what if the fancy-looking boy didn’t want his offer of help? At least he asked. Clark scuffed his foot in the slushy snow and puffed out his cheeks, blowing out little streams of mist like Old Man Winter. Alexander stifled a smirk.
“That was a decent gesture, young man, and don’t think for a moment that it went unappreciated.” The stranger reached out to him, extending a gloved hand. “My name is Lionel Luthor. You’ve met my son, Alexander.”
“Alex,” his son corrected him sulkily.
“That’s not your given name.”
“This is Clark,” Jonathan offered as his son returned the perfunctory handshake. Jonathan took his turn, and was impressed to find a strong, uncompromising grip. “I’m Jonathan Kent.” It felt strange to use the adopted name, but it was as good a time as any to acquaint himself with it.
“Kent? Is that British? Did you come from across the pond?”
“Er… no. Not exactly. We’re new to Metropolis.”
“Straight off the boat?” Lionel hinted.
“Aye…er. Yes.”
“County Donegal? Or County Orange?” Lionel’s eyes glinted with amusement, and Jonathan paled.
“County Mayo,” he admitted.
“I hear it’s lovely. You don’t have to talk in circles regarding where you’re from. Once you’re in America, Jonathan, you’re an American.”
“I’d wager that few in the city feel the way you do, sir.” Lionel followed his eyes, taking in the store front signs, crudely written and larger than life.
“Don’t group me so hastily with the rest of the ignorant masses. The Luthor family wasn’t born in this great land, Jonathan. My parents were poorer than tinkers when they reached these shores, and they worked their fingers to the bone for everything they had, and that we now enjoy.” He gripped his son’s shoulder as he began to fidget, and Alexander automatically stilled. “Metropolis is a city of opportunity for those who would reach out for it.”
“Aye,” Jonathan agreed easily. He cleared his throat; Lionel’s face was shrewd and impatient. “We’d best leave you to your affairs. It was a pleasure, sir. Alexander,” he told the child, nodding.
“Goodbye,” he replied solemnly.
“Are you going to get your satchel now?” Clark inquired.
“I’d have it by now, if-“
“Alexander, that’s enough. Please, excuse my son’s bluntness. Oh, before you take your leave… you never mentioned where you’re staying?”
“Nanny’s. A boardinghouse a mile or so from the harbor. Martha takes in some mending and helps in the kitchen in return for board.”
“Does she? Martha? Your wife?”
“Aye. You won’t find a better cook.”
“And she mends? Is she handy with a needle?” Jonathan’s smile widened at the chance to boast.
“Her quilts have won top prize at the fair five years in a row. You won’t find any handier with a needle and thread than my sweet wife.” A light went on in Lionel’s eyes.
“Jonathan, an opportunity may have just fallen into your hands.
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