AN: Many thanks to htbthomas and Hellish for the beta read. I so enjoy their comments and groans through the story. I usually thank them last but I thought they deserved first credit this time.

I am thrilled that so many of you are following the story even though you know it is going to get worse and worse as the plot goes. It's been a little tricky making sure I stick to everything I originally wrote. Before I get tons of messages about the whole baseball situation contradicting something from Shadow of my Father, can I ask everyone to please wait for the next chapter before you tell me I got it wrong?

Like I said, things will slow down now that I'm busy with the show, but I promise I won't abandon this story. Only one more chapter to go until the crap really hits the fan…and that's kind of the reason I wanted to write this story.

Age 9 – Heart and Soul

I could get into real trouble for doing what I did, but I just couldn't help it. I was so sick and tired of being the last one chosen for teams that I had to do it or risk being a known as the schools biggest dork. Mom and Dad have told me time and again not to play sports… just in case… but they don't have any idea what that has done to me at school. So I decided to put an end to it.

I played baseball with my friends yesterday.

And I played good!

I hit the ball hard, not as hard as I could, but it was still harder than Chris Donaldson! And when I asked for a chance to pitch, I made sure that my fastball was faster than anything Allen Garwood had thrown all day long. One of the older boys – I think he was maybe eleven or twelve – told me to come back tomorrow to play with them. I felt so great! Better than I had in a long time!

But that feeling didn't last long. Collin Ashley and I were talking after the game and for some stupid reason that I can't even explain, I told him how much I liked playing around on the piano. He started laughing at me and telling me that playing the piano was a girly thing to do. It was difficult to hide how much his comment hurt me just then.

Thankfully, my dad pulled up to the school not long afterwards and I hopped in the car more than ready to get home. I hoped he wouldn't ask me what I had done after school, but I knew better. In typical parental fashion, Dad asked, "So, how did school go today?"

"It was fine," I said, trying to brush it off, praying that he didn't want details.

No such luck. "What were you and your friends doing?"

"We were just hanging around." Maybe that would be okay.

He looked at me in the rear-view mirror. "Well, maybe it's time you had something to do after school besides hanging around."

I smirked at him. "Like what?"

"Oh, I don't know. What would you like to do?"

Sports! I want to play sports! But I didn't get the chance to vocalize my request because Dad added a very firm, "Other than sports, of course."

I sighed, my shoulders slumping forward. "I dunno. What else is there?"

"There are lots of things to do. In fact, I'm pretty sure that once we get home, you won't even be thinking about sports."

I made a face, but didn't say anything. There wasn't any point in arguing about it with him. He didn't like to talk about it much. All he would ever say about it was that I wasn't allowed to play any sports because I couldn't control my strength…yet. My point was always to say that I'd never learn how to control it if I didn't get to play sports, but Dad never let the conversation get around to that. He'd always change the subject and act as if we'd never even discussed anything.

When we pulled up to the house, I really wanted to tell Dad that he was wrong and I was still thinking about sports, but I held my tongue. I climbed out of the car with a frown on my face. Dad, on the other hand, was smiling brightly.

"Go check out the living room."

"Huh?"

He repeated his words more slowly. "Go check out the living room."

I shrugged and went into the house, dropping my school bag at the front door and kicking off my shoes in the process. I rounded the corner and headed into the living room only to come to a dead stop when I saw what was waiting there for me.

A piano.

It wasn't a grand piano. It wasn't even a baby grand. Just a plain, simple, upright piano. A real, honest to goodness piano with black and white keys and three pedals near the floor. And it was mine.

My eyes were wide with shock when Dad came up behind me. "Like it?" he asked, putting his hand on my shoulders.

"I love it!" I turned around and hugged his middle so tight!

"Hey," he said, trying to pull my arms from around him. "Loosen up there, okay?"

I jumped away from him. "Oh! Sorry!"

He laughed. "It's all right. I'm just glad you like the piano."

"I love it! I love it!"

"So, here's the deal," he said as he bent down to look me in the eye. "We don't own it yet. We're paying it off. We'll only keep it if you use it. We'll start you on lessons and see how things go, and if you keep practicing, then the piano stays. But if you start slacking off and find that you don't like practicing, then the piano goes."

I nodded enthusiastically. "When do I start?"

"Well, the store that sold us the piano offers lessons, too. I set it up so that you'll meet with a teacher tomorrow after school. You'll go once a week on Wednesday, but you have to practice here on your own."

"I can do that!"

"I know you can."

I hugged him again, not as tight as last time, but still tight enough to show him how happy I was about this. I'd only been asking for a piano for months now. This was exactly what I wanted.

My excitement continued all evening as I plunked my way through "Heart and Soul" and a few other songs I knew. It lasted all night long as I imagined what my lesson would be like tomorrow and how much fun it would be. But it was out of control the next day at school. I was so distracted thinking about the lesson that I messed up on a math test and even spilled my milk on my shirt at lunch.

At 3:15 when the bell finally rang, I raced outside to wait for Dad to pick me up and take me to my lesson. Chris Donaldson and the older boy that I played ball with yesterday called to me from the ball field.

"Hey, White!" Chris said. "Come on over!"

"I can't," I said in all honesty. "Not today."

They looked at each other before running across the field to talk to me.

"What do you mean, not today?" Chris said.

"I've got plans. My Dad's going to be here any minute."

"I told you he'd wuss out," the older boy mumbled.

Chris looked at me in a way that made me catch my breath. He looked scary all of a sudden. "You said you'd play today. I got these guys here and everything," he said angrily, pointing at the crowd gathering on the field. "I bet money that we would win. Now, you're my little secret weapon here. You can't just bail out on me."

"Well," I said slowly. "I'm sorry, but I just can't play today."

Chris said a word that I wasn't allowed to say without getting punished.

"Nah, it's okay, Chris," the older boy said. "How 'bout tomorrow? You free then?"

I should have said no. I knew I wasn't supposed to show off like I had yesterday, and I wished now that I hadn't ever done it. But something inside of me made my mouth form the words, "Yeah, I can play tomorrow. I can play whenever you want, just not on Wednesday."

"What's on Wednesday?" Chris asked.

"I, um…" For some reason, I was afraid to tell them about the lessons. "I just…Dad and I…do stuff together on Wednesday." Suddenly very confident in my lie, I said, "You know, guy time – just me and Dad – without my mom."

"Sure, whatever," the older boy said. "You're off the hook today, but you better show us some smokin' fast-balls tomorrow."

I nodded quickly, wanting to make sure they weren't angry at me for pulling out of the game today. It felt good to know that they wanted me around. For a long time, no one would let me play with them, Chris especially. He wasn't exactly the nicest guy in school, but he was still pretty popular. To know that he was expecting me to be on his team meant something to me. But at the same time, I felt guilty for not just telling the truth about my lessons. I wanted these lessons more than I wanted to play any game of baseball, and yet I made it seem the other way around.

As Chris and the other boy rejoined the team on the field, I headed down the street so that they wouldn't glare at me. Dad would pass this way and stop to pick me up, so I wasn't worried about that. My thoughts were muddled, jumping between the piano lesson and the lie I had told to my friends – if I could even call them my friends. I wasn't paying any attention to where I was going when I walked right into someone.

"Oh, sorry," I said, looking up at the stranger. Only it wasn't a stranger. "Mr. Clark?"

"Hi, Jason. You okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. What are you doing here?"

"I just, um…" He looked over my head to where the guys were playing ball. "What was going on with those boys? Is everything all right?"

I shrugged. "They just wanted me to play and I can't today."

"It sounded a little bit more serious than that. It sounded to me like they were threatening you."

I had to think about that for a moment. Even though I knew who Mr. Clark really was, I sometimes forgot that he could do all those amazing things when he wasn't wearing the boots and cape. Of course, he had heard the conversation I had with the guys. All of it.

"They weren't threatening me. They just…you know…wanted me to play."

He nodded. "What did he mean by 'smokin' fast-ball'?"

I froze, knowing I had been caught. My mom was pretty close with Superman, and I knew that she had told him about some of the things I could do. I also knew that he knew I wasn't supposed to do those things. I had no choice but to explain myself.

"Okay," I started, "I know I'm not supposed to, but I played ball yesterday. See, I'm really tired of all the kids thinking I'm too sick to do anything, when in reality I can do lots of things they can't do. Like baseball – I'm a really fast runner and I can throw a ball really hard and really fast. Now, I didn't run as fast as I could. And I didn't throw the ball too hard. I was just fast enough to show them I wasn't sick. And I threw the ball just hard enough to show them I'm good at something. I mean, Chris is really popular and he was the captain of his Little League team last summer and now he wants me to play on his team. That's really cool for me."

"Jason—"

"Please don't tell my parents," I cut in before he could scold me. "I promise that I won't show off too much. But I'm better than these kids at sports and they think that I'm a wimp because I won't play anything. Mom and Dad have no idea how much I get teased about stuff like this. It's not fair for them to ask me to not play sports."

"Jason, I understand. I really do." He put a hand on my shoulder.

For the first time, I considered that he did know what it was like to be able to do things and not tell anyone. After all, Mr. Clark couldn't do amazing things. It was Superman who had all the gifts. When he was Mr. Clark, he held back and didn't show anyone that he could fly or lift a truck with his bare hands or set fire with his eyes.

"So, you won't tell?" I begged.

He took a deep breath. "You said Richard is on his way to pick you up, right? You're having a day with him?"

I smiled brightly. "No, not really. Mom and Dad bought me a piano and I'm starting piano lessons today!"

He smiled back at me. "Oh, that's great! I know you love music." His eye-brows went up suddenly. "That's your Wednesday commitment, isn't it?"

I nodded with excitement.

"Why didn't you just tell your friend that?"

I rolled my eyes. "I can't tell them that. They'll think I'm a wuss." I frowned up at him. "You don't think playing the piano is too girly, do you?"

He laughed. "No, not at all. If it's something you like, then you should have the chance to learn about it."

"I do like it. I like it a lot!"

"More than baseball?"

"Yes." I made a face. "But I like baseball, too. I wish I could do both."

He was quiet for a moment.

"Are you going to tell?" I asked again. And then, before I could stop myself, I added, "I keep secrets for you. Can't you keep this secret for me?"

His face grew very hard and he thought about my words. "I won't tell Lois or Richard about today. But you have to be very careful from now on. You don't want to draw too much attention to yourself." His voice was deep and powerful – the voice he used when he was Superman.

"Why not?" I shrugged. "Maybe I'll grow up to be some famous Major League pitcher or something!"

"Maybe you'll grow up to be a concert pianist," he replied.

"Whatever," I laughed. Then it suddenly hit me. "Maybe I can grow up to be like you."

Mr. Clark blinked. "What?"

"Well, I'm a pretty strong kid, and I'm fast and all that. I know I can't do all the amazing things you can do, like flying and stuff, but I could still help people."

His face softened as he looked down at me. He touched my head, brushing my hair out of my eyes. Something about the way he looked at me then made my insides lurch. He'd never looked at me like that before and it made me…uncomfortable. I told myself it was nothing. This was Superman, after all. But even still, it was a very awkward moment.

Thankfully, I saw my dad pull up to the cub in his car just then.

"Dad!" I yelled to him.

Mr. Clark jumped. "What did you say?"

"My dad's here," I said, pointing to the car.

"Oh," he said in surprise. "Right."

By that time, my dad was approaching us. "Clark? What are you doing here?"

"Hi, Richard. I just…um…I was d-d-doing some research for a story and um…saw Jason." He used his Mr. Clark voice again, which made me want to laugh.

Ruffling my hair, Dad asked, "You ready to go, Munchkin?"

"Dad," I rolled my eyes and whined. "I hate that name."

He made a face. "Oh, sorry. Jason." He stilled his hand on my head, brushing my hair back from my forehead in an eerily familiar gesture. "You're growing up so fast."

What was going on with all the adults today? Whatever it was, they needed to stop it.

"Can we go now?" I said impatiently. The longer we stood here, the greater the risk that Mr. Clark would tell my dad what I had done.

"Sure, come on." Dad turned to Mr. Clark. "Good luck with your story, Clark. See you around."

"Bye, Richard. Bye, Jason," he called, waving at us as we climbed into the car.

As we drove off, I glanced back at Mr. Clark, thankful he had kept my secret. I noticed that he was watching the car with a longing I didn't understand. It was another look I'd never seen before from Mr. Clark. If I didn't know any better, I'd say Mr. Clark looked… jealous.