[ Clark doesn't flinch. If anything, something in his expression hardens - stubborn, unwilling to accept that anyone, at any time, could be nothing. ]

I think you're wrong about that. Whatever your reasons were, Athena, you fought, and you survived, and you did everything you did with your own hands. You made yourself. What you become is up to you now. [ Though his voice is still pitched low and steady, there's a quiet kind of conviction in the words. Maybe there are things he still isn't seeing, but what he does see is potential, and he just can't let that go. ] There must be some part of you that knows you're more than anything Atlas could make.