The second she walked off, Clark stupidly sat upright. His muscles tensed, his throat suddenly felt like it was closing in on itself, and Clark immediately loosened up his grip on poor Ethan as best as he could without dropping him. One wrong move was all that it would take. If Clark so much as breathed the wrong way...
He had tried to pay attention when Darcy stopped to explain how he was supposed to hold Ethan. He had let her shift his arms around, he had put on a pointedly attentive face, but - in spite of his efforts at attempting to understand what he was supposed to do - Clark had failed to fully take in what Darcy had said. In spite of his attentive demeanor, underneath that mask of his Clark had been caught up in such emotional turmoil that he honestly found he couldn't remember much of anything that Darcy had told him to do. What if he was holding Ethan the wrong way now? What was he supposed to do if he started crying? Was he insane? Why had he agreed to hold him? How was this even helping if he was putting Darcy's son at risk?
Clark opted to do the simple thing: avoid movement. The less he moved, the less likely he'd be to do something wrong. Arms stiffly in place, Clark peered down at Ethan with uncertain blue eyes, watching as the boy tangled his tiny fingers around one of Clark's own.
"So, uh, between you and me?" Clark started quietly, peering back uncertainly to make sure that Darcy was nowhere to be seen. When he found that she was still busy with Sammy, Clark re-focused his attention on Ethan, who looked up at him curiously at the sound of his voice. "I have no idea what I'm doing. I mean -" Clark shrugged awkwardly, movement minimized greatly for Ethan's sake. "- I just...you're so little." And fragile. Very, very fragile. "I'm not used to hanging around little guys like you," Clark admitted, putting on a sort of uncertain, yet sheepish sort of look. "So, in fairness to you, I'm putting all this out on the table, front and center, right now. Don't take it personally if I bumble around in the future when your mommy asks me to help you and your brother out, all right? I'm just a silly alien who doesn't know what he's doing. Promise not to hold it against me?"
If Ethan found that agreeable, Clark couldn't tell. The kid was more focused on keeping a grip on his finger, which seemed to be the more fascinating aspect of his new holder at the moment. Clark smiled lightly at that, decidedly going back to sitting awkwardly while praying that Darcy would make a quick return soon.
She did. But not to him. Even though only minutes had passed, it felt like it had been near an hour when Darcy finally walked back into the room. She called him a natural and Clark couldn't help but raise a semi skeptical eyebrow. "I don't know about that," he replied, shaking his head, "I feel like I'm probably...doing something wrong. Do you want him back...?"