"Except, half the time, my opponents can't even pull it hard enough to make much of a difference," Clark pointed out, arms folding over his chest in defiance. Really. His cape was fine. Martha Kent had thought long and hard about the design on his costume and, as far as Clark could tell, she had long since figured that the cape was more than ideal. It went with the flight, right? Plus, it made him look kind of intimidating. In spite of the bright colors that made up his costume, that was. Also, more to the point, Clark was pretty sure that the cape brought out his features. The red of his cape hit the red on the symbol in his chest perfectly, which toned into the blue spread throughout the rest of his costume and brought a real shine into those eyes of his. Furthermore, the cape rid him of that chunky feeling that he seemed to discover every time he slipped into his costume without it. Really, all around, the costume in itself was just as much about style as it was practicality. Surely, as ridiculous as it may have been upon first sight (Clark wasn't going to deny that, seeing as he, too, had been more than horrified when his mother first presented it to him), the costume worked for him. It had to, right? Otherwise, by now, more than one person would have called him out on the ridiculousness of his cape.
Okay, okay. Maybe Clark was trying too hard to come up with practical explanations for his costume. Still, he wasn't about to bad mouth something that his mother had gone far out of her way to make for him. The material that made up his costume was born of raw Kryptonian material, which meant that his mom had gone through hell and back to get it to do what she wanted. Clark wasn't about to look down on the hard work and dedication his mother had put into making what he was wearing today. She may not have been anywhere near where he was now, but he was far from interested in shooting any disrespect her way. Pa Kent would cross over from both the grave and one universe to the next to give him the sternest look of disapproval he could muster the second he so much as dared considering doing so and, frankly, Clark knew he'd never be able to fight the unbearable wave of shame that never failed to follow whenever that happened. Twenty-one years old and Clark still felt like a little kid being lectured whenever he thought of letting that old man down.
"No," Clark replied, watching as the muggers twitched on the wall curiously, "she didn't. It wasn't a joke. This is what she made for me and she made it with good intentions in mind. It's...kind of important that I wear it." Not only to protect his own identity, but as a symbol. It represented both where he came from and what he was going to do for the world. Or try to do for the world. Clark wanted to help everyone as best as he could, even if that meant he had to wear an ideally ridiculous looking costume to do it.
"Maybe you should let me take care of these guys?" Clark offered helpfully, looking to one of the nearby poles standing on the corner. It was a little comic book cliche to his character and all that (yeah, yeah, he'd been reading up on how this world had decided to portray their version of himself), but Clark wasn't entirely against wrapping that pole around the four of them and calling the police. It'd be a good way to contain them, it'd give Allana reason to take off, and Clark could keep an eye on the scene until the cops got there.