Chapter 3: Sharing

Jon watched as Jordan closed his eyes on the couch.

“How long till the super hearing levels out?” Lois asked.

“My parents said probably a week if I show him how to control it, so I'll help him begin adapting tomorrow, once he's rested,” Clark answered. “It's really up to him though. No one can do it for him.”

“How long were you out of commission for?” Jon asked.

“A couple weeks,” Clark admitted. “But I didn't have the special headphones and had no idea how to focus or even that I needed to focus. My parents did their best to help, but there wasn't much they could do. We hadn't understood what was happening then.”

Lois grimaced sympathetically before looking resolute. “So hopefully Jordan will have an easier time of it than you did.”

Clark smiled. “I hope so. Ironically, the imbalance is also helping him here by serving as a bit of an inhibitor. My mother believes that will help him adjust. She also detected that the imbalance is equalizing some.”

“So the imbalance is shrinking? It'll eventually disappear?” Jon asked, hopeful.

Clark nodded, clearly relieved as well. “Yes, that's what my mother believes, though she doesn't know how long it will take.”

“I’ll call Principal Balcomb and Tann first thing in the morning,” Lois said, squeezing Clark's hand.

“So what about his riding lessons?” Jon asked. “I mean, this happened at the Darrens, right? What are they going to think about Jordan now? They have to know what happened wasn't normal. I mean, they saw light flashing out of his head!”

“I'm going to talk to them tonight, because you're right,” Clark said, resigned.

Jon's eyes widened. “You mean . . . are you going to tell them?”

Clark glanced at Lois before looking back at him. He slowly nodded. “We'd rather them know the truth than draw . . . damaging conclusions.”

Jon grimaced in grim understanding.

O o O o O

Will didn't know what to think. It was why he was still at his brother's house instead of home with his wife. His mind was currently mush. He had no idea what to do, he only knew he couldn't risk telling anyone what had happened.

Clark’s boy, a kid he had been instructing for weeks, had suffered a bizarre seizure before being whisked away by Superman that afternoon. He was still struggling to grasp what had even happened.

How Superman had just appeared, telling them to call Lois, before shooting away with Jordan the next second.

And Jordan had called out ‘Dad’.

Why had he done that? Had it been from a subconscious realization that he had needed help, so had fallen back to some primitive impulse to call for a parent even though neither were there?

But then why had Superman responded? Sure, he had super hearing, but to have responded so quickly when no one had called out ‘Superman!’ . . . ?

And, the fact remained, that had NOT been a normal seizure – or at least not a human one.

Jordan’s head and ears had been flashing with red and white light as his body seized.

Was Jordan . . . not Clark’s?

Was the reason why Superman had responded so swiftly because he always kept an ear out . . . for his son?

Did Clark know?

Lord, he hoped so.

He looked up at his brother, Nick.

“Do you think he knows?” Will asked, resuming the conversation that they had been having off and on for the last few hours.

“Lord, I hope so,” Nick stated before growing contemplative.

“What?” Will asked.

“He's got to know. Him and Lois . . . there's no way that love can be faked. But if Jordan is . . . not Clark’s, then Jon might not be either,” Nick pointed out.

Will nodded in agreement before taking a deep breath. “But if he knows. . . . Man, what would that mean?” Will rubbed his hand across his face, at a loss.

“You know . . . maybe it was an arrangement,” Nick slowly theorized, always the one to seek the happiest answers in the attempt to make sense of chaos.

“What?” Will asked, bewildered.

“No, no, think about it. Clark was sick how often as a kid? A LOT. You remember Mom and Dad talking about how worried his parents were about him all the time? Maybe whatever was going on prevented him from being able to have kids?”

Will lifted an eyebrow. “So then they asked Superman to be their donor?! Seriously?! Nick, that's really reaching.”

“Is it? Lois Lane named Superman, the only survivor of his people. Maybe they talked and she learned he didn't want to be the last of his kind? And come on, I know you remember Superman's first TV interview. His attraction to her was obvious. So, is it really a stretch that they saw an opportunity to make everyone happy and took it? Heck, I wouldn't be surprised if Clark was the one who proposed it!”

Will couldn't help it. He started laughing. “Nick, do you hear yourself?!”

“Well, what's the alternative then?” Nick countered.

“You know the alternative, and while I don't like it, it's a bit more believable and realistic,” Will said, no longer laughing and suddenly deflated. “No one likes to admit heroes we adore make mistakes, but. . . .”

“You think they had an affair,” Nick stated flatly.

“Well, it is the most likely scenario, and Clark is the forgiving type, and I don't see Superman making a bad situation worse by lying about it or forcing Lois to hide it from Clark. They would have worked through it, and by the exchange I had on the phone with her, it sounded like they had. She had said they'd explain.”

“I guess,” Nick said grudgingly.

“Though, I don't know if she meant Clark and herself or herself and Superman. . . .”

“Or all three of them,” Nick interjected, still holding onto his optimistic theory.

Will shook his head. He and his brother both loved the Kent family, and the idea of Clark, ‘little Kent’ (he was over five years younger than them), being put in such a position was disheartening. What would Martha have thought? Or had she known?

Suddenly, they heard a knock at the door and startled.

They looked at each other before getting up.

“Clark?!” Nick asked, surprised as he opened the door.

“Hi! Uh, sorry. Tami said you both were here when I called Will's place and she said to just come on over,” Clark explained in a rush.

“Oh, no problem,” Will said in a daze, coming beside Nick. “So is, uh, is everything okay? Is Jordan okay?”

Clark smiled nervously. “Yeah, he'll be fine. He's home now.”

Nick, realizing they were just standing there dumbly, quickly stepped aside and motioned him in. “Oh, sorry! Come in, come in! I, uh, doubt you want to talk out here.”

Clark smiled appreciatively and entered, though he looked incredibly anxious. Will didn't blame him. He was pretty nervous himself.

They sat down in the living room, gathering around the coffee table. They all knew the coming conversation would be unlike any they had had before and Will had no clue what to expect.

Where was Lois? What had happened? What would happen now?

“Thank you for calling Lois and being as calm as you were on the phone,” Clark began, clasping his hands together.

Will waved away his thanks. “I'm just glad Jordan's okay, or will be okay. It looked . . . pretty serious,” Will said as Nick nodded.

“It's, uh, we weren't sure if it'd be, uh, this is, I mean–sorry. I'm . . . this is – Wow, sorry. This is hard,” Clark floundered.

“Clark, it's alright. You can relax,” Will said, his own nerves calming as he saw how flustered Clark was.

“Yeah, Clark. It’s okay. We figured . . . we figured it out,” Nick said.

Clark’s eyes widened. “You did?”

“Yeah, and we want you to know, no matter how this happened, we will always do everything we can to help your family. We understand this can never get out,” Nick said.

“And although we can only guess at the exact circumstances, we know Jordan's . . . biological father is, well . . . Superman,” Will said with a side glance at Nick.

“Oh. Um. Well, that is . . . uh, true, but there's a bit, um, more to it than that,” Clark stumbled. “You see. . . .” He stopped, frustrated by his inability to speak a coherent sentence. He took a deep shuddering breath. “Okay.”

Will blinked as Clark stood up and walked a few steps away before turning back around. He forced himself to relax as his eyes settled on them.

“Very few people in the world know this. It’s . . . it’s a dangerous secret, and I’m sorry for involving you because it’s definitely not an easy secret to keep either,” Clark said.

“It’s okay, Clark. We’ll keep the secret with you,” Will promised.

“Yeah. Blood or not, your boys are Kents,” Nick agreed, reinforcing what the whole town had declared after the whole Coach Gaines fiasco.

Clark swallowed thickly and pursed his lips, barely keeping the sudden lump in his throat from overwhelming him. He gruffly cleared it away with a cough. “Thank you. That means, that means a lot.” He cleared his throat again. “But you need to know something else. Jordan, and Jon, they are blood. My blood. They’re truly mine,” he clarified, before taking off his glasses, fully exposing his face.

Will reared back, his brain slowly processing the impossibility before him.

“Y-you’re . . . Superman?” Nick gasped, grasping the reality a bit faster than Will.

Clark smiled sheepishly. “Yeah.”

“What?” Will asked, flabbergasted. “But, but, as a kid, you were sick all the time!”

“I wasn't exactly sick,” Clark-Superman said apologetically. “I was just . . . developing powers. Whenever I missed school, I was learning to control them.”

Nick gasped again. “So what's happening to Jordan. . . .”

“Happened to me,” Clark admitted.

“Whoa,” Will breathed, looking Clark up and down.

He really was Superman. He could see it now!

Will forced himself to refocus. “Uh, please, sit down,” he said.

He could hardly think with Superman standing up.

Clark tentatively returned to the chair across from them and put his glasses back on.

“So what exactly happened today?” Will asked, latching onto the first thing that surfaced to help ground him.

Something other than the reality that Superman was in his house and that he was really Clark Kent.

Oh, wow! Martha and Jonathan Kent had raised Superman! His family was friends with the Man of Steel! Superman had played at his family's farm as a kid! Ridden their horses! Helped them build the barn out back!

“Jordan’s, uh, super hearing kicked in. It takes time to learn how to control,” Clark said, drawing Will back to the present. “The whole collective sonic frequency is intense without control and can cause, well, what you saw.”

“How long did it take you to learn how to control it?” Nick asked, his eyes perpetually wide.

“A couple weeks. We're hopeful it won't take him as long since I'm teaching him. When it happened to me, well, Mom and Dad were playing it by ear. No pun intended,” Clark said, and Will could see he was beginning to relax, though still wary.

“How old were you? No, wait, were you about eight?” Will asked, thinking back.

Clark startled. “Yeah. How did you know?”

“It was right before I got my driver's permit. I overheard our parents talking about how your . . . dad had rushed home after a call from your mom. You had collapsed or something? After that, we didn't see you for weeks,” Will recalled.

Clark nodded, looking a little dazed by that tidbit. “Yeah. I collapsed in the kitchen. It had been too overwhelming.”

“Does Jordan have any other powers?” Nick suddenly asked, growing excited and curious. “Since your hearing came in when you were eight and Jordan's at, what, fourteen, does that mean his powers will all mature later? Is that because he's half-kryptonian? What about Jon?”

“Nick!” Will said, scandalized by his brother's shameless nosiness.

Clark laughed, surprising Will.

“It's okay. It's actually . . . nice to be able to talk about it,” he said, relaxing. “And yeah, since they're half-kryptonian, we're not sure how much the twins will be like me yet. For the longest time they seemed completely, well, human. We don't know what to expect to be honest. A year ago, they weren't really absorbing sunlight, but now they are.”

“Is this the first display of a power?” Nick asked.

Clark grimaced. “Technically, the first was right after my mom's memorial service.”

Will and Nick both stilled. “The accident in the barn?” Nick asked.

“Yeah. The twins are nowhere near as . . . sturdy as I am, but they've become a bit harder to hurt, thankfully,” Clark admitted.

“Wow. Is there . . . stuff we should look out for? I mean, when Jordan’s ready to return to his lessons, how might other powers surface?” Will asked, suddenly wondering if other powers were as . . . alarming when they first manifested.

His thoughts inevitably went to heat vision.

Clark straightened, troubled. “Um. I suppose any changes to his vision. Or if he comments on having a headache or being dizzy, that could be the start of an optical ability. X-Ray vision for me was very disorienting when it first showed up. And as for heat vision . . . that's emotionally driven, but it came with migraines first.”

Clark looked at them hesitantly, and Will was struck by the emotion within and knowing this was also Superman. “I, uh, understand if you'd rather not continue–”

“Don't finish that sentence!” Will exclaimed, surprising even himself.

Clark blinked at him. Will took a deep breath. Grief, he had just yelled at Superman!

“Look, I'm not going to lie and say I'm not totally freaking out on the inside right now, because I am, but this isn't going to stop us from doing what we've been doing since our family first met yours,” Will explained.

Clark swallowed and nodded his gratitude. “Thanks. You two are, well, the first outside the family to learn. I wasn't sure how you'd react. I know it's a lot.”

“It's going to take a bit to sink in, that's for sure,” Nick admitted. “I mean, you're Superman!”

Clark smiled nervously.

“The kid who got in trouble for sneaking chocolate bacon to snack on during class grew up to be Superman,” Will added, amused, before his thoughts abruptly went elsewhere. “Oh man! Tal-Rho is your brother! And you got stabbed!”

Clark rubbed the back of his neck with a chuckle. “Yeah. . . .”

Will shook his head, feeling rather scrambled. “And Lois and the boys were here that whole time you were in Japan, having to act like you were okay.”

Clark sighed. “Yeah.”

“Well, if anything like that happens again, they won't be alone,” Nick decided.

Clark stilled, utterly touched. He swallowed thickly. “Thank you.”

“You’re Martha Kent’s son, and you’ve saved the world more than once, to boot!” Will declared, certain that, powers or not, Clark was still much like him at heart: just a small town family man. “Anything we can do to help you, consider it done.”

Clark put his face in his hands, needing a moment to collect himself, before looking back up.

“Just, uh, can we tell our wives? Only them?” Nick asked hesitantly. “You know how they are, and, uh, keeping this from—”

Clark laughed as he quickly wiped his damp eyes with his hand. “Yeah. If our positions were reversed, there's no way I'd be able to keep a secret like this from Lois. And, uh, once you tell them, you all should come over for dinner or something. I know there will be questions and . . . well, I know Lois will want to formally welcome you four into the fold.”

Thrilled beyond words, even though they were still in the process of comprehending all the implications of the revelation, Nick and Will nodded excitedly.

“Okay,” Nick said, utterly jittery now. “Man, this is beyond anything. . . .” He trailed off, focusing back on Clark. “Gosh, how weird this must be for you!”

Clark chuckled. “Yeah, it’s pretty weird.”

“So it's really just been your parents, Lois, and your kids in the know?” Will asked, amazed.

“And Sam, Lois’ dad,” Clark added with a nod.

“Oh man, that must have been rough,” Nick said with a grimace.

Clark winced as well, though for a slightly different reason. “Yeah, that had been a rough week, I'll admit, but Sam actually took it pretty well. I can't say he took it as well as you two,” he said with a smile. “But it definitely could have been worse.”

They fell into a comfortable silence and looked at each other.

“Well, I should head back. Jordan is sleeping, but I know Lois is anxious to hear how things went here,” Clark said, slowly standing up.

Will and Nick both stood up as well and walked him to the porch.

“Okay,” Will said, knowing he needed to get home himself and talk with his wife, Tami.

He was both excited and nervous for that conversation. She had always said Clark was special – now Will would reveal how much.

“Where's your truck?” Nick asked suddenly.

“Oh. Well, since I knew I'd be telling you, I didn't see a point in driving,” Clark said with a sheepish shrug.

Will blinked and Nick grinned, suspecting what was coming.

“Anyway, let me know when you and your wives want to come over for dinner,” Clark said, holding out his hand.

“We will,” Will assured, before shaking Clark's hand. Nick followed soon after.

“Good night,” Clark said, stepping back with a dorky wave and smile.

He then shot up into the night sky with a whoosh and a blur.

“Should we tell our wives?” Nick asked after a long moment, still looking up at the sky.

“That Superman’s a dork?” Will asked with an amazed chuckle as he headed back inside to grab his car keys. “No, they’ll figure that out themselves.”

O o O o O

To be continued in ‘Steel’

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