The golden rays of sunset painted the Kent farmhouse in amber hues as Jason sat on the porch, watching his mother and grandmother bustle around the kitchen. Eighteen years. He had lived eighteen years in this world, with memories of another life still haunting his dreams—a world without heroes, without gods walking among men, a world where Superman and Wonder Woman were just characters on pages and screens.
Yet here he was, their son. The son of legends.
The farmhouse buzzed with activity as Martha Kent placed the final touches on an elaborate birthday cake, her weathered hands moving with practiced precision despite her age. Diana, Princess of Themyscira, Wonder Woman to the world, stood beside her, helping with decorations that mixed Amazonian and Kryptonian symbols—his heritage.
"He would be proud of you," Martha said softly to Diana, though Jason's enhanced hearing caught every word. "Kal would be so proud of the man his son has become."
Diana's smile didn't quite reach her eyes. "Yes, he would."
Five years. Five years since Superman had disappeared while investigating a disturbance at the edge of the galaxy. Five years of waiting, hoping, scanning the skies. Five years of watching his mother maintain her strength before the world while sometimes weeping silently in the night when she thought no one could hear.
But Jason heard. His Kryptonian heritage ensured that.
"Happy birthday, my little warrior," Diana approached, ruffling his hair as if he were still a child, though he now stood a head taller than her.
Jason smiled, memories of two lives converging in his mind. In his previous life, Wonder Woman had been his childhood crush on the screen—powerful, beautiful, untouchable. Now, she was his mother, yet in this second chance at life, something had shifted within him. Something he had been fighting against for years.
"The League sends their regards," Diana continued, sitting beside him on the porch swing. "Barry wanted to come, but there's trouble in Central City. Arthur and Mera sent gifts from Atlantis."
"And the world?" Jason asked, knowing that birthday celebrations took a backseat to global crises.
"The world stands on edge, as always," Diana replied, a hint of weariness in her voice. "Without your father... the balance has shifted. But we manage. We always do."
After the cake had been cut and Martha had retired for the evening, Jason followed Diana to the rooftop terrace of the farmhouse. This had been their tradition since he was young—stargazing on his birthday, secretly hoping one of those distant lights would be Kal-El returning home.
They sat in comfortable silence, the vast Kansas sky stretching endlessly above them, stars scattered like diamond dust against black velvet.
"So," Diana finally said, turning to him with a gentle smile. "Eighteen years. A man by the standards of this world. What gift would please you, my son? Your grandmother has already given you Jonathan's watch. I thought perhaps a journey to Themyscira, to complete your Amazon training under Antiope?"
Jason's heart hammered in his chest. The moment he had rehearsed countless times had arrived, and suddenly his courage threatened to fail him. But he was half Amazon, half Kryptonian—fear was not in his blood.
"I want something else," he said, his voice deeper than intended. "Something I've wanted for some time now."
Diana tilted her head, curiosity dancing in her ancient eyes. "Name it."
Jason took a deep breath. "I want you, Mother—no, Diana—to be my woman."
The words hung in the air between them, heavy and transformative. Diana's expression shifted from confusion to shock as understanding dawned.
"Jason," she whispered, stars reflecting in her wide eyes.
"I know how it sounds," he continued quickly. "But I'm not... I'm not just your son. I have memories, a whole life before this one. I was reborn into this world, into this body. I've loved you since before I knew you—but not as a son loves a mother. You've raised me, protected me, taught me everything I know. And now I want to protect you, to stand beside you not as your child but as your equal, your partner."
Diana stood, stepping away from him, her face unreadable in the moonlight. "This is... unexpected."
"You've been alone since Father disappeared," Jason persisted, rising to stand before her. "I've seen your sadness, heard your tears. The world needs Wonder Woman at her strongest, and you need someone who understands you, who can match you."
Diana was silent for a long moment, her gaze fixed on the distant horizon. Then, with deliberate slowness, she turned to face him.
"You speak of love and partnership," she said, her voice taking on the formal tone she used when addressing Amazonian matters. "Yet you know nothing of what it means to stand as my equal. You have Kal's blood, yes, and my training—but you have not proven yourself."
Hope flared in Jason's chest. Not an outright rejection.
"Then let me prove myself," he urged. "Test me however you wish."
Diana's eyes flashed with something ancient and warrior-like. "If you wish me to see you as more than my child, then you must defeat me in combat. Not as my son, but as a warrior worthy of an Amazon's consideration."
"Name the place and time," Jason replied without hesitation.
Diana glanced at the farmhouse below. "We cannot risk Martha's home. Follow me."
She launched into the night sky, a streak of starlight against the darkness. Jason followed, his body cutting through the air with the same natural grace. Being the child of Superman and Wonder Woman had its advantages—flight had come to him as easily as walking.
They landed minutes later in a vast, empty plain miles from the farm. No structures, no people—nothing to damage but the earth itself.
"Here," Diana said, removing her casual attire to reveal the armor of Wonder Woman beneath—golden eagle breastplate gleaming in the moonlight, Lasso of Truth at her hip. "If you truly wish me to consider your... proposal, then you must defeat me in combat. Show me that you are no longer a child to be protected, but a man who can stand at my side."
Jason felt the blood of two worlds surge through his veins. His Kryptonian cells supercharged by the yellow sun, his Amazonian heritage burning with the spirit of battle. He had trained with her since childhood, but always as student and teacher, never as equals.
"I won't hold back," he warned, removing his outer shirt to reveal the black and silver uniform he had designed himself—a combination of Kryptonian and Amazonian styles, but deliberately bearing neither the House of El symbol nor the Wonder Woman insignia. His own identity.
"I would be insulted if you did," Diana replied, and without further warning, she attacked.
The ground shattered beneath her feet as she launched forward, her fist connecting with his jaw before he could fully register her movement. The blow sent him hurtling backward, carving a trench through solid earth for fifty yards before he regained control.
Jason spat blood and smiled. No more training sessions. This was real.
He rocketed toward her, feinting left before striking from the right, a technique Batman had taught him. Diana anticipated the move but not his speed—his fist grazed her ribs, the first real hit he'd ever landed on her in combat.
"Good," she acknowledged, her warrior's smile fierce in the moonlight. "But not good enough."
What followed was a battle that would have leveled a city had they fought anywhere else. Diana's centuries of combat experience against Jason's raw power and dual heritage. For every blow she landed with practiced precision, he countered with innovative combinations of his parents' abilities—her warrior technique with his father's raw strength, her agility with his heat vision.
The ground beneath them cracked and cratered as they exchanged blows that would have shattered mountains. Diana's lasso snared his ankle at one point, pulling him from the sky, but he used the momentum to drag her with him, both of them crashing into the earth with such force that a dust cloud billowed hundreds of feet into the air.
"You've improved," Diana acknowledged, blood trickling from a cut above her eye—the first time Jason had ever seen her bleed in combat. "But I have been fighting wars since before your father's civilization existed."
She moved like liquid lightning, her bracers deflecting his heat vision back at him, her sword—which she had summoned from seemingly nowhere—slicing through the air where his head had been a millisecond before.
"I've been watching you fight my entire life," Jason countered, catching her sword between his palms, the edge cutting into his skin but not breaking through. "In this life and the one before."
With a surge of strength, he shattered the blade—not her godly sword, he realized with relief, but a practice blade of Amazonian steel. Still, the feat shocked them both.
The battle raged for what felt like hours but was likely only minutes. The Kansas plains would bear the scars of their combat for decades to come—deep craters, scorched earth from his heat vision, trenches carved by their bodies.
Diana fought with increasing intensity, pushing him beyond limits he didn't know he had. This was not a mother testing her son—this was Wonder Woman at nearly full strength, holding back only the killing blows.
The decisive moment came when Jason combined powers in a way he never had before. As Diana charged, he used his freeze breath—inherited from his father—to create a momentary sheet of ice beneath her feet. The fraction of a second of instability was all he needed. He moved at superspeed, sweeping her legs while simultaneously using his father's tactic of directed concussive thunderclaps with his hands.
The combination sent Diana crashing to the ground with such force that the earth split beneath her. Before she could rise, he was there, hovering above her with one hand extended to help her up, the other clenched in a fist ready to strike if needed.
"Yield," he said softly.
Diana lay in the crater, breathing hard, studying him with new eyes. Something had changed in her expression—the shock was gone, replaced by something unreadable.
"I yield," she said finally, taking his offered hand.
He pulled her to her feet, both of them battered and bloodied in a way neither had experienced before. They stood amid the devastation of their battle, the moonlight illuminating the destruction around them and the new understanding between them.
"You fought well," Diana said, wiping blood from her lip. "Not as my son, but as a warrior worthy of respect."
"And your consideration?" Jason asked, his heart pounding for reasons beyond exertion.
Diana looked at him long and hard, seeing him truly for perhaps the first time—not as the child she had raised, but as the man he had become, with memories and feelings that transcended conventional understanding.