Nobody's Child
Chapter Four: Grandparents
Disclaimer: Characters and premise are the property of DC, I'm just borrowing them for a little non-profit fun.
"So, it's been more than a day and I'm still waiting to hear a 'scientific' explanation for why Superboy is currently a kindergartner," Artemis whispered as she took the seat near Kid Flash at the back of the bioship.
"Localized time reversal," Wally offered.
"Pfft!" Artemis snorted. "He remembers stuff that happened the day before yesterday. If Circe made time run backwards; which still sounds a lot like magic to me; until Superboy was five he wouldn't remember any of us. Face it, it was magic."
"It was not magic," Wally hissed with a glance toward the control center, to make sure M'Gann hadn't heard him. "Maybe it just physically reversed the aging process. And he thinks like a little kid because, memories or not, the physical and chemical structure of his brain are a little kid's," Wally supplied before Artemis could pick at that hole in his reasoning.
"Kid Flash, a good scientist doesn't deny evidence," Batman stated flatly. "Magic is annoying, denying that it exists is foolish."
"So there," Artemis gloated.
"As is pointlessly antagonizing your teammates before a mission." Batman wondered what he'd been thinking when he chose to go on a mission with a group of teenagers. Robin was more sensible and easier to work with than most adults but that was working with one teenager, his teenager. In groups there was always the issue of hormones and related stupidity.
"Are you certain it was wise to leave Superboy with him?" Kaldur asked quietly.
'Right, that was why: to ensure that there was no one Kent could try to pawn the boy off on this time.'
"It is good that you're concerned for your teammate, but trust me. As thoroughly as Superman has blinded himself to the sixteen-year-old's need for acceptance, he will not ignore a five-year-old's more concrete needs."
"And with any luck Superman won't be as good at ignoring what's right in front of his nose as KF is," Robin added and got a dark look for exposing Batman's underlying motivation and simultaneously poking at the embers of Wally and Artemis' latest snipe-fest.
"I hope it works," M'Gann said, thinking of the psychic backlash from Superboy's nightmares, which his teammates' acceptance just couldn't heal. "We're here."
"Remember, your job is to keep her from escaping. The most effective way of dealing with magic-users is to keep them off balance," Batman advised. "I'll do the questioning. Zatara can't risk reversing the spell without more knowledge of how it was cast."
The morning was going fairly well in Clark's opinion. It had taken an hour after revealing that he was Superman before Superboy had been willing to relinquish physical contact with him. But he'd turned on the TV and it hadn't seemed too strange, the way the kid clung to him.
It was okay now though. They'd gone back to the park and were playing catch. Clark had taken Superboy back to the isolated part of the park where the little boy didn't have to worry about hiding his abilities.
Clark tossed the ball well over Superboy's head then grinned when the little boy launched himself ten feet into the air, completely over-shooting the ball in his effort to catch it.
Both of them turned toward the distant sound of shouts followed by the crack of gun-fire. Clark tuned in his hearing to gather more information. Superboy leapt from tree limb to tree limb until he had a clear view of the city surrounding the park.
"Parasite! Surrender now!" Clark heard the police shouting.
Superboy practically tumbled out of the tree. "There's a bad guy! And he looks all weird! I can help!"
Clark choked. 'Take a five-year-old into a fight?' But at the same time he couldn't not go, the police couldn't handle Parasite alone. He couldn't just leave a five-year-old alone either.
"Lois!" Clark exclaimed. "You can stay with Lois."
"I can help!" Superboy insisted stubbornly.
"No, you can't," Clark stated. "Remember what Batman said about you being too little?"
"You're going to leave," Clark cringed as the little boy's eyes began filling with tears.
Lois jumped, spilling her coffee and dropping her book on the floor, when she heard someone knocking at her window. Living on the twelfth story of her apartment building, not many people had the ability to tap on her windows. Catching sight of a vivid red cape, Lois ran her hands through her hair, trying to put it into some sort of order and spent a second wishing that she'd put on make-up that morning. She hurried across the room and pushed the window sash up.
Then she noticed Superboy in the crook of Superman's arm. The little boy looked upset. Superman gave her a strained smile. "I took him for the morning, but Parasite's causing trouble, I'm not certain where Kent's at, could you watch him?"
"I can help!" Superboy protested. "Don't leave me."
"You can't help, you're too little," Superman stated, Lois could see he was pressed for time, half his attention on whatever he was listening to across town. "I'll come right back. But you have to stay here. You have to PROMISE to stay here."
"I, I promise," Superboy said unhappily as Superman set him down just inside Lois' window. Then Superman was gone.
"Well kid, it looks like it's you and me," Lois said wryly. She shook her head getting a small taste of why Clark was acting so strangely; it was unsettling to have responsibility for a child fall on you out of the clear blue sky.
Superboy stared after Superman not saying anything. After a few minutes he sat on the floor, not moving an inch from the spot where Superman had set him down and hugged his knees unhappily.
Lois crouched down beside him. She put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't worry, he's fought Parasite before, it'll be okay." Superboy didn't look at her or respond at all. "Kid? Superboy!" Lois' voice rose worriedly. She tried to pick him up only to have Superboy grab the window sill, hanging on tightly enough to leave dents in the hardwood.
Later that morning Martha Kent was working in her garden when her son landed just outside of the neatly tilled rows with a tiny child in his arms.
"Jon!" Martha called as she dusted off her knees. "Company." she always found it awkward, knowing what to call her son when he was dressed up as Superman.
On a second glance Martha noticed that her son looked frazzled and worried. The child in his arms was hanging on to Clark as if it would take a crow-bar to pry him loose. Martha's eyes widened at the shocking familiarity of the ruffled dark hair. 'Crow-bar probably wouldn't do a bit of good,' she thought absently.
She traded a look with Jonathan as he left the barn, Krypto following at his heels.
"Ma, Pa, I want you to meet Superboy," Clark said. He looked down at the little boy burrowing into his shoulder. "Superboy, do you want to say 'hi' to your grandparents?" To Martha's ears Clark sounded desperate.
"Hi," Superboy said, talking mostly to Clark's shoulder.
"Hi sweetie," Martha said smiling warmly. She curbed the desire to hug the little boy. The way he was clinging to Clark it didn't look like he'd appreciate being taken by a stranger, even his grandma. "You look a bit smaller than when I saw you on TV."
"Magic."
"Wow, magic. Will you be staying this way long?" Clark caught a hopeful note in his mother's voice.
"Don't know," Superboy said.
"Batman was looking for a cure," Clark supplied. "Superboy, do you want to play fetch with Krypto for a little? I'm just going to change. I'm not going anywhere."
"Superdoggy?" Superboy asked letting go of Clark enough to look around. Krypto jumped up and braced his forepaws on Clark so that he could lick both of them hello. With only a little reluctance Superboy let Clark put him down.
Clark blurred inside and returned a moment later in his normal clothes. He glanced at Superboy and saw he was distracted by getting reacquainted with Krypto. He looked at his parents and said, "Help?"
"Son?" Jonathan asked.
"He was having nightmares, because I didn't know what to make of him," the explanation spilled quickly out of Clark in a low voice. "I thought it would fix everything if I told him I was Superman. But then I had to go. Parasite again. I left him with Lois. She said he curled up in a ball by the window the whole time I was gone. She couldn't get him to move at all. She's going to kill me the next time she sees me as Clark," he added as an aside. "He gets upset every time I set him down. I thought telling him would make it better, not worse."
Martha and Jonathan traded a look. "It sounds like he's acting like you did the first few months after we found you," Jonathan said. "You took to Martha and I right off but... Well, as near as we could figure, even if you weren't old enough to retain conscious memories of your birth parents, you knew they were gone."
"It took a long time before you trusted that Jon and I wouldn't vanish the moment we were out of your sight," Martha finished. "As for why he's acting like he doesn't trust you to come back... I would imagine you know the answer to that better than I do."
Clark wondered if the earth would oblige and open up and swallow him.
"The only cure is time, you need to prove to him that even if you do leave he can trust you to come back. You're lucky you changed your mind before he did. That little incident on the bridge was televised," Martha frowned. "The camera wasn't close enough to pick-up what was said, but I do know your body-language."
"You've been avoiding our calls," Jonathan remarked. "We don't even know were he came from. Although I do know enough about biology to wonder how he's possible?"
"Mad scientists, a clone," Clark explained shortly.
"Well, that explains why I haven't been able to pick out any trace of his mother in his features," Martha commented. "What's his name?"
"Er, Superboy," Clark admitted, he bit his lip and waited for it.
"Clark Jerome Kent! That is not a proper name!" Martha exclaimed. "You are not leaving this farm until he has a REAL name. I don't care if the sun is about to explode. You have had MONTHS and there is absolutely no excuse for him not having a name yet!"
"Yes, Ma."
Superboy scratched behind Krypto's ears, loving the way it made the dog wriggle with pleasure. He stole a quick glance back at the house and relaxed a bit at the sight of Clark sitting down beside Martha on the porch, a laptop shared between them. Clearly he wasn't going anywhere.
"Do you know what 'grandparents' are, Superdoggy?" he asked in a whisper. "Robin would say... he'd take it apart. 'Parents', but grand. More-than-parents? Superman-Clark is parents now, he even said family. But more-than-parents... I don't wanna be given away again! Not even to Lois or Canary. They're really nice. Lois is nice, even if Batman doesn't like her. But they're... they're not MY person. Canary took me because he didn't want me, but I now he said he does want me. I want him to want me."
Superboy gave Krypto a worried look then hugged the dog tightly. "I still love you," he assured the dog. "You're different. You're Superman's. Even if he gives me to you, well you're his so I'd still be his." he nodded, pleased with his logic.
Krypto tore off a tree limb and offered it to Superboy. "More fetch?" Superboy asked. Krypto kept hold of his end of the branch. "Superdoggy, I can't throw it with you holding on," Superboy informed him seriously.
Krypto whined around the branch and tugged. Superboy tugged back, getting the idea of the new game. For several moments they pulled back and forth, until the branch snapped in half under the strain. Superboy tumbled backward. To his surprise Jonathan was there to help him back up.
"Easy there," Jonathan said. "Thought I'd see if you wanted to help gather the eggs. Clark used to help me with that back when he was your size."
Superboy looked at him skeptically. "Superman was little?" he asked.
Jonathan nodded seriously. "I've got picture to prove it." He pulled out his wallet and showed Superboy a faded picture of Clark sitting on Jonathan's lap, helping to drive a tractor.
"That's you with Superman!" Superboy exclaimed. "Why's your hair yellow?"
Jonathan laughed. "And here I'm wondering why's it's grey now."
"Why?"
"It's something that happens when you get old," Jonathan explained. "It's been a long time since Clark was my little boy."
"Superman's yours?" Superboy asked.
Jonathan nodded. "That's what 'grandparents' means. I'm his pa, like he's yours."
"Pa? That's a father?" Superboy asked. "Wally calls his 'Dad'."
Jonathan nodded. "Father, Pa, dad, pop, all means the same thing. Grand in front means your parents' parents."
"Not more-than-parents? I though grandparent was that, maybe."
"I suppose you could think of it that way," Jonathan said.
"I didn't know, so I took it apart like Robin," Superboy exclaimed.
"That's smart," Jonathan said and Superboy beamed. "So how about those chickens? The eggs won't gather themselves."
"We got eggs from the grocery store," Superboy said. "Before I was little."
Jonathan grimaced. "A farmboy like Clark letting you think eggs come from the grocery store? I'm going to have to have words with that boy."
Superboy giggled, Jonathan sounded like Canary when they weren't serious in practice. When she pretended to be mad but actually liked to see them having fun.
"Come on then. It's high time you see where eggs really come from. Better show you the old milk cow too while I'm at it."
Superboy took Jonathan's offered hand. "Okay Moredad."
Jonathan chuckled softly, enjoying his new title.
Clark stared in dismay at the child trailing happily behind Jonathan with a tin full of eggs. Superboy's hair, skin and clothes were all a uniform shade of pale, dusty brown. He looked like he'd found a puddle of the finest dust and rolled in it.
"All yours, Son," Jonathan declared, clearly getting into the spirit of grandparenting.
"What happened to you?" Clark asked as he knelt in front of Superboy. He picked several clumps of straw out of the little boy's shirt-collar and made a futile effort at dusting him off.
"There was hay!" Superboy declared, his teeth gleaming brightly in contrast to his grimy skin. "In a stack! And I climbed it! And I jumped on it!"
"You can help me rebuilt the hay stack later," Jonathan added to Clark.
"You never let me jump on the hay stack," Clark remarked.
"Not after you were seven and could knock the whole thing down with one jump."
"Moredad says cows eat hay," Superboy informed Clark. "Cows are silly. Hay tastes bad. I'd rather eat cheeseburgers."
"So you met the cows?" Clark asked. "And the hay stack."
"And the chickens," Superboy continued excitedly. "The chickens don't like Superdoggy. So he had to stay outside while we visited their house. We got eggs! Chickens make eggs, and they sit on them and they peck you when you try to take them. It tickles!"
Martha accepted the tin of eggs from Superboy. "Well, being pecked does a bit more than tickle for most of us," she said. "Thank you for getting the eggs for me."
Superboy smiled shyly, unused to being thanked.
Martha grinned at her very dirty grandson. "It's such a nice evening. What do you say to having dinner out here on the porch?"
"And pie?" Superboy asked, his eyes lighting up.
"I see you inherited your father's sweet-tooth," Martha said. "Yes, I always keep a pie in the freezer in case Clark drops by."
Superboy glowed at the easy way in which she called Superman his father. Or maybe it was Clark? Clark was the one who played with him and held him, Superman was the one who always had more important things to do. 'Or maybe it would be okay if I just called him Daddy," Superboy thought wistfully.
Martha snapped a quick picture of Clark losing the battle to get soap in Superboy's proximity yet again then dropped camera in her pocket. "I come baring toys and bubble bath," she declared.
"Ma, you're brilliant," Clark said.
"You take lots of pictures," Superboy observed as he watched the snowy white mountains of bubbles build up around the taps. There was something very appealing about those bubbles but he had a sneaking suspicion that they were just soap in disguise. From Clark's earlier effort at removing tomato sauce from his hair Superboy had learned that soap was a nasty stinging thing that attacked eyes and he wanted nothing to do with it.
"Well, if you're only going to be little for a bit I have to get all my baby pictures of you right away," Martha explained. "I have to add you to the family album."
Superboy looked puzzled
"I'll show you once you're out of the bath," Martha offered.
Superboy nodded.
"Clark, I brought down some of your old clothes from the attic for him to wear while his are in the wash. They're laid out in your room."
Some time later Clark lifted a markedly cleaner Superboy out of the tub and wrapped him in a towel. Superboy nestled easily in the crook of Clark's arm, fitting himself against Clark's side as Clark carried him.
As Clark helped Superboy to get dressed Superboy's cooperation became increasingly less enthusiastic. As he pulled the top over Superboy's head Clark felt like he was dressing a doll. The shirt settled into place and Clark saw there were tears streaming silently down the little boy's face. "What's wrong?"
"You don't want me," Superboy whispered as he tugged unhappily on the hem of the shirt Clark had dressed him in.
Clark stared at the boy in utter bewilderment for several second. Then it hit him. "No, oh no. I do want you." He picked Superboy up and cuddled him. "I'm not taking it away from you. It's just all your clothes are dirty. And my clothes from when I was little don't have the S-Shield, there wasn't a Superman then. I'm not taking it away, I promise."
Clark jogged downstairs, still carrying Superboy. "Ma, how close is his shirt to washed?"
"Clark, I barely put it in the machine five minutes ago." Martha stared, her son looked panic stricken, her grandson looked utterly miserable.
"You can have it back as soon as it's dry," Clark promised. "Why didn't I think to bring your overnight bag?"
"Oh!" A light bulb went on for Martha. "It's not the shirt you need." She ran up to the attic and came back with the baby blanket they'd found Clark wrapped in. She tucked it around Superboy's shoulders.
After a few moments Superboy noticed the bright red blanket with the S-Shield and hugged it to his chest, still sniffling.
Later that night most of the lights around the farm house had been turned off, leaving just a few reading lights on in the living room. It felt like the world beyond those puddle of light had ceased to exist, just leaving behind one warm cozy room.
Jonathan and Clark quietly discussed Clark's reduced list of names. Superboy sat in Clark's lap, the baby blanket still clutched tightly but he was leaning over Clark's arm to look at pictures albums with Martha.
He watched the progression of Clark growing up in the pictures with amazement. Occasionally he'd flip back to pictures of Clark as a small child or pictures of him as a teenager, then turn to stare at the grown Clark who was holding him. "You get bigger," Superboy observed.
Clark nodded absently.
"You will too," Martha said. "And not just when the spell making you five is undone. Actually, Clark? Isn't he normally about the age you were when your heat vision and flying started?"
"You couldn't always fly?" Superboy asked intently.
"Thank heavens no," Martha answered. "I can't imagine how I would have coped with a flying toddler! Clark didn't start flying until he was eighteen."
"Then! Then I'm not put together wrong! 'Cause I can't fly!" Superboy exclaimed excitedly "I'm sixteen! That's two less than eighteen!"
"I didn't know you thought that," Clark said guiltily. "No there's nothing wrong with you. You have the same powers I had when I was sixteen."
Martha and Jonathan exchanged a look that said, 'He's taking care of it now, no point in belaboring it.'
Martha and Superboy went back to looking through the albums. Martha's most recent volume was mostly newspaper clippings. Stories about Superman or ones that were written by Clark. When Martha turned to an empty page she brought out a stack of newly printed photos from the day's activities. Superboy gasped with astonishment as she added pictures of him to the album.
After Martha finished adding the new pictures of her grandson Superboy went and got another album off the shelf. When he opened it he looked at Martha in confusion. "No colors?"
"These are old pictures," Martha explained. "Cameras weren't as good when I was a little girl."
Superboy pointed to a picture of a tall man, "Who's that?"
"That's my father, your great grandfather, Conner Clark," Martha replied.
Superboy glanced at Clark, "They've got the same name, but his Clark comes last?"
Martha smiled. "That's it exactly. Clark was my maiden name, my family name before I married Jonathan. I was an only child and so was my father, and his father only had sisters. There wasn't anyone to carry on the Clark family name. I didn't want the name to vanish, so when we found Clark, we named him for my father."
Clark watched Superboy touch the pictures curiously. "Do you like the name Conner?" he asked.
Superboy nodded.
"So, that will be you," Jonathan said. "Conner Kent. Conner for your great grandfather."
"Like Clark," Superboy interjected.
"And Kent because you're a part of this family," Jonathan finished.
"Now we just need a middle name," Martha commented.
Superboy remembered her tone when she called Clark, "Clark Jerome Kent." Middle names were clearly for when you were in trouble. "I don't need a middle name," he declared virtuously.
"I've been thinking. You should have a Kryptonian name," Clark said.
"Like Kal-El?" Superboy asked. "The Gegnomes told me you were Kal-El and Superman."
Clark nodded. "The 'El' part means the same thing as this," he pointed to the S-Shield on the baby-blanket. "When I was learning about my history I read about a member of my family called Kon-El. He was brave and a good person, because of that he was adopted into my family on Krypton. I'd like to call you Kon-El. Kon of the house of El. That means that even if your crest gets torn, or dirty and has to go in the wash, you still have the right to wear it. And that's not something that can be taken away from you."
"Really?"
"Really, Conner Kon-El Kent. You're part of my family and no one can take that away from you. Not even me."