Chapter 3: People Who Are Not Stupid

Disclaimer: All things Supergirl/Superman belong to DC Comics, no infringement is intended.

Lex Luthor was not stupid.

One did not become the richest man in Metropolis and one of the richest men in the entire world by being stupid. He had built a billion-dollar enterprise up from nothing, he was the CEO of a company that employed thousands of people, and patents that he had developed were in use all over the world. He was a genius, actually, and not shy about telling people so. So no, he was certainly not stupid.

From his penthouse in Lexcorp Tower, the tallest office building in Metropolis, he looked out across the city. His city; it belonged to him alone. Which was why he could do whatever he wanted, no matter what the pesky laws might say. He was rich, thus he was above the law, it was as simple as that.

It had not even been that big a deal in the first place. Aviation technology was but one of many areas where Lexcorp was leading the market. So making sure than an up and coming competitor would not be able to establish themselves should have been a minor operation at best. He freely admitted that the new navigation system in that airplane was very, very good. The engineer in him admired the elegance of the design. But it wasn't HIS design, so really, who could blame him if he wanted to make sure that it never really got on the market?

The plan had been so straightforward as to almost be laughable. Sabotage the plane's engine, making it crash, then blaming it on the new navigation system. Sure, any engineer worth his salt would say that a faulty navigation system would not make an engine explode, but with the plane splattered across half of Metropolis and a few hundred people dead in the crash, no one would have listened. The company would never have recovered from this public relations disaster.

But the plan had not worked. All because some comic book superheroine had chosen that exact moment to step into the limelight. Was this a joke? Was some cosmic deity playing a prank? The world gains a superhero just in time to sabotage his plans?

With the plane mostly intact, investigators had easily found remnants of the explosive device that had taken out the engine. It was now officially an act of sabotage, treated like a terrorist attack. Of course the investigation would end up going nowhere. Lex Luthor never got his own hands dirty, there was no way to trace anything back to him. He was out a bit of money, that was all. And money was something he had more than enough of.

No, it was the principle of the thing. He had wanted that plane to crash, and it hadn't. All because of that... that Superwoman, as the press was calling her. That wouldn't do, no! It really wouldn't do!

Still, Lex Luthor was not stupid. This Superwoman clearly was extraordinary. Someone with powers far beyond mortal men. His usual methods for dealing with people that defied him – knowingly or not – would certainly not work here. He doubted someone with this level of power was susceptible to bribes or threats. And given that she was able to lift burning airplanes above her head, he doubted a bullet to the back of the head would work, either.

No, he needed to be smart about this. Being a genius, that was something that came naturally to him.

"Memo to the research department," he dictated into his computer. "Put all other projects on hold. I want to know everything there is to know about this Superwoman. I want pictures, I want information about her comings and goings, I want to know the extent of her powers, everything!"

He nodded to himself, certain that his orders would be carried out post haste. He paid the highest salaries in the business, ensuring that he had the smartest, most thorough, and most ruthless people in the world on his payroll. Pressing a button on his computer, he called up an image of Superwoman.

"It's really very simple, my dear," he told the image. "You will either work for me, or I will remove

you. One way or another."

Satisfied with himself, he turned off his computer and headed towards his private apartment. Time would tell whether Superwoman would become an asset or yet another unfortunate casualty along the way. In the world of Lex Luthor, there were but these two categories.

Everything else would be stupid.

Clark Kent was not stupid.

He might still be a young schoolboy, but that did not mean that he was unaware of the things going on around him. Especially the things people in Smallville were saying about his mom.

"She was 12 when she got pregnant with him," one of the ladies in the drugstore had whispered to another as Clark and Lana walked past them. They probably thought that he couldn't hear them, but his hearing was a lot better than that of anyone else. Except his mom's, of course. She could hear fleas sneeze. Did fleas sneeze? He would have to ask Lana about that.

"I heard she still refuses to tell anyone who the father is," the other woman whispered back. "Probably some kind of juvenile delinquent who was in foster care with her. Why else wouldn't she tell anyone?"

Clark walked faster, putting some distance between him and those horrible women. Sure, they didn't know he could hear them, but that didn't mean it didn't hurt. They shouldn't be talking about his mom this way. Making it sound as if she had done something wrong. His mom was a hero, she was Superwoman, the greatest hero in the world. The news said so, the papers said so, everyone said so. He just wasn't allowed to tell anyone that Superwoman was his mom, which was so unfair. It sucked!

"Are you okay, Clark?" Lana asked, hurrying to catch up with him. They were walking back home together from school, as they did most days, seeing as their homes were both a bit out of town and not too far away from each other.

"Those hags were gossiping about mom again," he said, angrily kicking a stone down the street. Neither he nor Lana noticed that it flew quite far.

Lana looked back instead, clearly wondering how Clark had understood what the two ladies had been whispering about, but then shrugged. She put her arm around her best friend's shoulders, falling into step with him.

"Don't pay attention to them, Clark! Your mom's the coolest! I wish my mom would dress like her and not like some... old person!"

Clark smiled. Lana was one of the few people who wasn't freaked out by his mom being so much younger than all the other moms in town. It was one of the reason she was his very best friend in the entire world. Really, what was it with people freaking about his mom being so young? But of course that wasn't the worst of it.

"They... they talked about my dad, too," he said, looking down.

Lana squeezed his shoulder, well aware that this was a sore topic for Clark. It wasn't like he didn't have a very dad-like person in his life. His uncle Jonathan (grand-uncle, actually, but that made him sound old and wrinkly, which he wasn't) was cool and certainly ticked all the boxes a dad should. Just yesterday they had thrown a football back and forth and the day before uncle John had let him help fixing the tractor.

And Clark loved his mom, he really did, but that she never ever spoke a word about his actual dad hurt. It wasn't like he could actually miss someone he had never met in the first place, but It was the principle of the thing. Shouldn't he know about his dad? And he had asked. He had asked her quite often. But he always got the same answer.

"Your dad was a good man, Clark", she would say. "And I promise I'll tell you about him one day, when you're a little older."

All well and good, but when would he finally be "a little older"? And come to think of it, when would he finally be old enough to start flying? Flying was the coolest thing ever, mom had taken him flying quite often. But he was supposed to fly under his own power soon, wasn't he? When? When would he finally be old enough? It was so unfair! It sucked!

"I wish I could help you, Clark," Lana said, still with her arm around his shoulder.

Clark looked at her. She was his best friend in the whole world. She told him everything (even things he didn't really want to know, but it was part of the whole best friend thing). Was he really a good friend if he didn't tell her everything in return? No, he wasn't. Best friends told each other everything, that was the rule. And if his mom didn't like it, well... well, no one said she had to know, right?

His decision made, he just hoped that he wasn't about to do something really, really stupid.

Lana Lang was not stupid.

She had been Clark Kent's best friend since they had met on the first day of Kindergarten. She had met his family more times than she could count (and she could already count quite far). She considered his mom to be one of the coolest people on the entire planet, so much cooler than her own mom. And she was well aware that there was something strange about Karen Kent.

Her parents had told her the story of Clark's mom, of course. Well, probably not the entire story. She was still a kid, after all, and adults tended to not tell kids everything, she had figured that out quite some time ago. But she did know that Karen, Clark's mom, had still been a kid herself when she had become Clark's mom. She had only been 12, which was just a few years older than Lana was now. Lana could not imagine becoming a mom at all, never mind in just a few years. And while most people around town really liked Karen (and the Kents in general), there were always some people who whispered behind her back about how scandalous it all was.

But Clark's mom being really, really young was not the strangest thing about her. For example, Lana still didn't really know what Clark's mom did for a living. She worked from home, she'd been told, but what exactly was she working? Nobody really seemed to know. Also, Lana knew that Karen often brought take-out food with her when she came home. Chinese, for example. There was but one Chinese restaurant in Smallville and it didn't have any of the food Karen had brought the last time Lana had been over. Lana knew this because she had really liked the green curry duck and had tried to make her parents buy it for her.

So yes, Lana was aware that there was something strange about Karen Kent. Something much stranger than her having been a mom at age 12. Probably even stranger than her ability to find green curry duck in rural Kansas. Lana could never have imagined how strange, though.

"You're going to get us into so much trouble, Clark," Lana complained.

"Just wait, it'll be worth it, I promise!"

For some reason Clark had led Lana to a remote corner of the Kent farm where an old water tank was rusting away. It looked like it had been here for a century or so. Clark then showed her that there was a tear in the tank, just big enough for a child to climb inside. Which they did. The inside of the tank stunk really badly.

"Why are we hiding in this smelly old thing? Why can't we just hide somewhere else? And why are we hiding in the first place?"

"We're hiding because that's the only way I can show you what I want to show you. And we're hiding in here because mom won't see us in here."

Lana was even more confused now. "Clark, there are dozens of hiding places here on the farm. Most of which don't stink."

"Hiding places from Uncle John and Aunt Martha, maybe. Believe me, this is the only place around here where mom won't see us!"

Okay, this really didn't make any sense to her. He almost made it sound like his mom had some kind of super-vision or something. She wasn't even on the farm, they had checked. She was off somewhere (despite supposedly working from home), Clark didn't know where. He did know, though, that she always came home in time for dinner unless there was some sort of emergency. And for some reason he wanted Lana to see her come home. Lana really didn't understand.

"Just keep an eye on the barn," he told her. They could see the building through the tear in the tank. They didn't have to wait long. Clark squeezed her hand and pointed at a dot that was coming down from the sky. A dot that quickly grew... into a person? Why was a person falling from the sky? No, not falling, floating. Floating down gently as a feather. A person that... wore a red and blue suit?

Lana would have cried out in surprise if Clark hadn't swiftly moved his hand over her mouth. Right there before her was Superwoman. THE Superwoman, the hero from TV. The one they said was saving people all over the world. She was there, blue and red suit, cape, everything, just floating down. Lana had never seen her in person before, but there was no mistaking her. The big S on her chest was clue enough. And the flying, of course. Especially the flying.

Lana had never before noticed that the Kent farm's barn had an open sky light, but it had and Superwoman floated into it, disappearing into the building. Only a few seconds later the barn door opened and someone came out, someone not Superwoman. It was Karen Kent, Clark's mom, dressed in Jeans and a flannel shirt, her long blonde hair up in a ponytail and the glasses she always wore set on her nose.

It took Lana almost a full minute (or so it felt) to wrap her young mind around what that meant. Karen Kent was Superwoman! Her best friend's mom was Superwoman!

Clark's hand was still on her mouth, which was the only thing stopping her from babbling like crazy. Even when Karen had reached the main house he left his hand in place, a finger in front of his lips. Right, his mom was Superwoman! Which meant she could probably hear a flea sneeze on the other side of town. Did fleas sneeze?

Clark made them wait another hour (probably closer to five minutes, but it sure felt like an hour) before he finally took his hand off her mouth and motioned for them to climb out of the tank. He looked over to the house, seeing that his mom was now in the kitchen and talking to her aunt.

"Told you it was worth it," he said, grinning.

Lana, finally able to speak, didn't know what to say. It was all she could do to stop herself from squeewing uncontrollably.

"Your mom is Superwoman!" she finally said, forcing herself to whisper, clenching her little fists so tightly she was probably leaving marks in her palms.

"Yeah, she is. Isn't that cool?"

Cool? No way, cool was now officially way too weak a word for the awesomeness that was Clark' mom. She was Superwoman. SUPERWOMAN!

"This is so awesome!" Okay, there was a little squeew in there. But who could blame her? It was SUPERWOMAN!

"But you can't tell anyone!"

Lana blinked, looking at her best friend as if he had just told her that that water was wet.

"Of course I won't tell anyone," she said, slapping him on the shoulder. "Do you think I'm stupid or something?"

Kara-El was not stupid.

While she was barely into her twenties, she had already gotten a lot of experience when it came to parenting. Martha and Jonathan were her primary ideals, of course, given that they had done most of the heavy lifting during Clark's early childhood and had also served as her own surrogate parents. She also had plenty of memories of her own parents to draw an, though they were somewhat less of a help here on Earth. No nanny robots, for starters, who could always keep an eye on the kids. Maybe she should build some of those?

Anyway, Kara knew exactly what was going through Clark's mind. Oh, she never doubted that he loved her, but she also knew that there were some elements of resentment there. He regularly saw her performing super-powered feats, both on TV and in person, and couldn't help but be jealous that his own powers were still in their infancy. He was so proud of being the son of Superwoman, yet he was not allowed to tell anyone about it. And then there was the fact that she was keeping so much from him.

Clark still believed that Kara was his mom and she dreaded the day she would reveal to him that it wasn't so. The more complicated part was the identity of his father, of course. The imaginary human father that had gotten Karen Kent pregnant at the tender age of 12 did not exist, after all, and Kara didn't know how to tell Clark about Jor-El without revealing the entire truth. Plus, she really didn't think it fair to tell him about Jor-El and leave out Lara, his real mother. So instead she told him nothing, promising to do so when he was older. Yes, she was fully aware how unsatisfying an answer that was to a child.

Clark did have reasons to be a bit resentful of his supposed moms, she respected that. Which was why she allowed him some small acts of rebellion now and then. She was aware that he sometimes snuck off into the woods to try and practice his still nascent powers. She kept an eye on him and pretended she didn't know about these excursions. She was also aware of the old rusting water tank at the edge of the property, which contained enough lead that her vision powers could not penetrate it. She was actually rather proud of Clark that he had correctly figured that out and so she allowed him a refugee where he was safe from his mother's ever-present gaze.

She was also very glad that he had found such a good friend in the Lang girl from the next farm over. The Langs were good people (despite Mrs. Lang's inability to completely hide her misgivings about Karen's early motherhood) and Lana was happy, grounded, and just lots of fun to be around. She was a regular fixture at the Kent farm and Kara was a bit smug that the girl thought her so much cooler than her own mom. Well, Mrs. Lang did tend to dress like she was already in her sixties.

Right now, though, Kara feared that she had let the reigns slack a little too much.

"Your mom is Superwoman!"

The words were whispered, but to Kara's hearing they might as well have been shouted. She tended to tune out most of the noises and conversations around her, both to respect other people's privacy and not get overwhelmed by the sheer amount of sensory input, but the mention of her nomme de guerre caught her attention immediately. She also recognized the voice.

"Crap!"

"Karen Colleen Kent," Martha immediately admonished her. "What have I told you about that kind of language in my house?"

"Sorry, Aunt Martha," she said automatically, "but we have a bit of a problem."

Her gaze found the source of the words and she saw Clark and Lana standing next to the old water tank. It didn't take a genius to figure out what had happened. Kara was relieved to hear Lana immediately promise not to tell anyone, but that didn't change the fact that Clark had deliberately broken her most cardinal rule.

"I really hate this part of parenting," she sighed, moving towards the door.

She waited until Lana had left, keeping an ear on the girl just to make sure that she didn't immediately blab to her parents. Most of her focus was on Clark, though. When the boy turned around to head back to the farm, he almost ran into the unyielding body of his mother, who was hovering half a foot off the ground just behind him and looked very angry.

"Clark Joseph Kent!"

Clark swallowed hard, apparently quite aware that he had done something rather stupid.

End Chapter 3

Author's Note: Lex Luthor in this story is based on the version appearing in the post-Crisis Superman comics, meaning he is an utterly corrupt businessman, a good deal older than both Clark and Kara, and has never even heard of a town called Smallville before. Lana Lang is also based on the comic book version, certainly NOT on the extremely annoying character portrayed by Kristin Kreuk in the Smallville TV series. Lana's parents are alive and well, no meteor showers in this Smallville.

Sorry for this chapter being a bit short on action, but Lex really insisted on being introduced early in the story and I wanted to showcase Clark's thoughts about his current state of life, too.