A/n: Because. This is what must have happened when Superboy and Lois Lane have their first encounter.

World's #1 Proxy Parent

There's a tug somewhere in the vicinity of his soul that doesn't belong in the reality in which he lives.

It pulls and tears something inside him—an absence he shouldn't feel—ever since the day he saw his face twisted in anger that wasn't his, attached to a body grafted and created to be everything he's fought against.

Superboy is painful to look at, and so Kal-El of Krypton tucks him into the background of his psyche, to be dealt with another day. Clark Kent, on the other hand, isn't so lucky.

He has a wife who loves him.

He has barely collapsed into bed beside her, ready to sleep for a few measly hours before a morning at the Daily Planet, when Lois is already poking him in the side. From amidst the pillows he squints up at her. She's on her side, propped up on her elbow and glaring at him speculatively.

"What happened?"

"Nothing sweetheart," he replies, leaning up to kiss her forehead so she cant look him in the eye and lay bare his lies before he's ready. He lies back down and pretends to sleep.

He knows she's still watching him and she knows he's faking, but neither call the other on it.

x-X-x

Superboy freezes in mid-air the moment he sees Lois Lane.

It's a crisis of epic magnitude. She's in the thick of it as always. He has never seen her before. He doesn't even know her name.

But that same tug that he felt when he saw the shield, the crest of his ancestors, of Superman's ancestors is yanking him down to earth now.

She sees him and it's like a rubber band snapping. At first she thinks it's Clark and whatatimeforhimtobeshrunkdow nImeancomeonSmallville! but then she really looks at him and sees nothing of her husband.

She yanks her wrist out of his grasp and is instantly 15 feet away, pressed against the wall searching for an escape route. "Who are you?"

"I-I'm Superboy," he's just as scared of her as she is of him and he's not quite sure why.

"Lois Lane," she says, calming down a little. "Any relation to Superman by any chance?"

Superboy isn't quite sure if he's allowed to tell her, but does anyway. "I'm his clone."

A breath he hadn't realized she'd been holding released in a whoosh. "So you're not his kid?"

He blinks, "I didn't know Superman was married." It doesn't even occur to him that it still might mean he's not. Because he's Superman. Even though he sometimes hates his almost-father, he still knows intellectually that he is a good man. The best of men. He would never- "Weird."

Because she doesn't knows if he's to be trusted she doesn't tell him anything.

When Clark gets home though, he's going to get an earful.