-I just wanna be a cryptid-
Martha just took her grandson took for a nap. He had a nasty temper for a sixteen year old, then again, they did say that he was nine-months-old. This is the sort of fit she could see a nine-month-old throwing.
"This is Clark's old bedroom." She walked him to the bed. "I'll be right downstairs if you need anything, okay?" He sat there on the edge of the bed. "Okay?"
"Okay."
She fixed the boy's hair a little, smiling down at her grandson, and left him alone to rest.
Grandson. Not the way she expected to have her grandbabies, but she wouldn't turn it down.
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Conner came downstairs after a few hours. He hadn't expected to sleep, but he did a little. Mostly he just stared at the ceiling and let himself cool off.
"Are you feeling better, baby?" Ma Kent straightened his shield t-shirt. "I think you needed a rest."
"Yeah..." He murmured.
"I'm working on tonight's dinner." She told them. "and I'm making some cake for after dinner."
"Okay." Conner sat at the table and checked his phone.
The older woman made a show of tasting her handiwork, savoring it. "Taste test?"
"Hmm?" He looked up. She was holding out a forkful of cake. "What?" He asked.
"Open." She told him. He stared back blankly. "Open your mouth, darling." He did. Conner started as the fork was shoved into his mouth. He tried to ask what the hell she was doing. "Ah- finish chewing fist."
He swallowed hard. "Why-"
"How did it taste? Do you think we should ice it?"
"It's...good." He asked. "Why did you do that?"
"Well you can't make good food unless you taste test."
Conner watched her turn away, humming. Country people were really confusing.
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Kaldur was very tired, it was tough to stop his teammates from goofing off, or getting angry, or just disapearing! M'gann kept getting distracted by things around the quaint town and leaving the group to admire and take photos.
By the time he'd towed them back to home base, like the exhausted mom he is, the boys and Artemis were painted in dirt and grass stains. The country air and lack of school had turned them all into golden retriever puppies. M'gann floated after them, daydreaming.
When they returned, Conner had woken up and was helping set the table for dinner.
"Did you have a good nap, Sleeping Beauty?" Wally teased, shedding his filthy t-shirt.
"Hey, there's nothing wrong with needing to take a break." Ma Kent defended, offering to take their dirty laundry.
"Thank you." Wally jogged upstairs to take a shower.
"HEY! I called dibs!" Artemis called. "Kal! Wally's stealing the shower."
"WHAT?" Dick kicked off his dirty shoes and ran after them. "WALLY!"
"Use the Hose!" Wally shouted.
Kaldur sighed and collapsed into a chair.
"Are they giving you trouble?"
He looked up. "We're fine. They team is just excited to be out of school."
"That's good clean country air for you." the old woman told him. "Do you want to take a rest? I'll wrangle them for you."
"Are you sure?"
"It's not your responsibility to babysit them. You're young too. I can handle everything."
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"THIS PLACE!" Wally kicked the icy water, soaking the ends of his jeans, even though he'd rolled them up. "IS AWESOME!"
"Wally!" The blonde girl squealed, blocking her face. She viciously splashed water back at him. After dinner, Ma Kent had taken them across the road and through a small coat of woods to a small creek lacing its way through the countryside.
It was all a ploy so Kaldur wouldn't have to micromanage everything they did, but the teens either didn't know or didn't mind.
Dick had put on shorts after his shower earlier, and was on his hands and knees in the creek, searching for cool rocks.
In the woods was already cold, as the trees shaded them from the setting sun. Luckily, M'gann was used to being .5 astronomical units further from the sun, and found earth quite warm, even in icy whether. I mean, she wore sandals and a mini skirt to school in the snow. She was sat on a blanket of decaying leaves, splashing her toes in the cold water.
Dick, who had impulsively shoved his head under water, resurfaced, clutching a green marble-y rock. "Eh?" He shook water from his hair.
"That's the coolest one yet!" M'gann told him, taking the rock. She had a weird thing with Rocks, they had to keep reminding her that she lived on earth, and didn't need a collection of stones you could find in the average garden.
She offered Conner the rock, he was sitting cross-legged on the dirt next to her. He admired the rock and returned it. "Volcanic, a few hundred years old, maybe five-to-eight-hundred."
"WOW." She stared at it, intrigued. "Everything is so much older than you think..."
"It is a good rock." He agreed.
They ignored the two fifteen-year-olds trying to drown each other in the creek.
"We need to go home now!" Their host called from where she'd been reading (and occasionally watching them) on the forest bank. "It's getting late, you're all going to catch cold."
"One sec!" Artemis grabbed a fistful red hair and tried to force him underwater. Wally kicked, now thoroughly soaked through, and pulled her under with him.
Both teens re-emerged, sopping wet and choking. Without Kaldur there to keep the friends in line, it took almost ten minutes for Ma Kent to get them out of the creek. Mostly soaked through, the teens trailed back to the house. The humans were shaking violently from the cold, and the pale-skinned Wally had even turned blue on his lips and eyelids.
By the time they returned, it was about seven-thirty. "Warm up. You three go put on dry clothes... again." She retrieved soft towels and began drying the teens. They took the towels, insisting they could do it themselves. "Go put on your dry clothes. I need to make a call, and then I'll let you pick rooms, I don't want you sleeping on the livingroom floor again."
"Thank you." Dick took his towel and fluffed his hair in it. "Calling Clark?"
Ma Kent either didn't hear, or didn't want to reply. She took the landline off the hook, and went for a walk around the farm (She didn't want Superboy listening in. There was no need, though. Clark didn't pick up. She called thrice.
"Clark Kent, I know it's only six-thirty pm in metropolis." She warned the answering machine. "Call me back right away!"
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"This is Clark's old bedroom." She told Conner. "I was thinking you could have it since you were up here earlier."
"It's...big." He told her. "I'll just have the closet."
"There's no room to sleep in the closet!"
Dick interjected. "I don't know about that. Superboy's slept in much smaller places. He slept upright in a box drawn on the floor once!"
Conner huffed a little. "It reminds me of my pod."
"If Conner wants the closet, I'll gladly take the bed." Wally told them.
"Well, you can share it if you want." Ma Kent suggested. "The boys can have this room, and the girls can have the guest room- no, the boys won't all fit in here..."
"There's no point in separating the sexes, we aren't wholly heterosexual." Wally commented. Artemis nudged him. Seriously? Telling their elderly small town host they're gay?
"Well that's alright." Ma told them. "There's more than enough room for gay people in the world."
The team tried to disguise the sound of their hearts melting. Imagine being accepted? Wild!
"Then I'm crashing here." Artemis announced.
The teens separated, mostly either changing into sleepwhere, washing their faces, or brushing their teeth. Artemis was doing the latter while M'gann and Wally cleansed their faces, she'd pulled her hair out of it's ponytail and ran a brush through it.
"Such beautiful hair..." She almost jumped as she felt Ma Kent touching her hair. "It must get tangled at night."
"It does." She pulled her hair away. She tried not to let relative strangers connect to her.
"Do you do anything with it?"
She shrugged. "When I was a kid My sister put it in braids at night, but now I just pop it in a bun or something."
The woman ran her fingers through Artemis' locs "Would you like me to braid it?"
"...sure I guess." Artemis finished brushing and spat. She winced from the sensation of someone else holding her hair.
"How did you get it this colour?"
"What?"
"Do you dye your hair?" Ma asked, starting a French braid.
Artemis frowned a little. "My dad's white." She said. "He has blonde hair."
"Ah. That makes sense." Artemis stood there, letting Ma Kent braid her hair. "There we are, all done." She pet Artemis' shoulder. "Finish up and go get into bed, dearie."
"Thanks Ma- ma?" Artemis muttered. closing the bathroom door.
Wally joined her at the sink to rinse his face. He was grinning like an idiot. "Excuse me, mama."
She shoved him. "Shut up, you're not used to parental affection either!"