Chapter 58

Now Jonathan Kent is a man with a bad heart. It is a result of a deal he struck with Jor-El to save his son when Clark was doped up on red kryptonite. It means he tries to avoid stressful situations...which is near impossible because he lives in a house full of teenage mutants who seem to face off against one foe or another every other day it almost seems like. Then there's the pranks they play on each other...

That's a whole other level of stress but Jonathan digresses. Back to his poor health. Therefore when the X-Men return this time and he gets dumped with several revelations at once Jonathan is quite frankly amazed he isn't being rushed to the hospital. He isn't even sure where to start.

He could start with his wife going off by herself, without telling him, to see her ex-fiancée, who as it turns out is the head of this secret powerful organisation. She went off to try and make a deal for the return of the X-Men who had been captured. Now even being a calm, reasonable person, Jonathan is pretty certain that earns him yelling rights and he would have as well except for the next bombshell.

His good natured, mild-mannered son had been replaced with the ultimate rebellious, disrespectful teenager from hell. Clark's alter-ego Kal was loose. For now Kal seemed inclined to stay and cause mischief around the mansion, only who knows how long that would last. Kal bores easily and for now they had no way to undo what Emma Frost had done to his psyche.

Of course that is after learning...or more accurately Kal boasting about what he had done to the Inner Circle. Now you have to take what Kal says with a large pinch of salt. He is beyond arrogant but Jonathan thinks he can work out the basics.

First Kal was playing Emma, Shaw and the rest from the start. He let them think he had joined them. Even going as far as tricking his friends into a trap and allowing them to be captured. Now what is unclear is if Kal being released was part of a plan or not. Kal was being his usual frustrating obnoxious self in talking in double-speak, innuendo and simply not answering the question.

Now we come to Kal's plan or whatever you wish to call it. Capturing the X-Men was a distraction for the Inner Circle while Spider-Man roamed around the Hellfire Club disguised as a guard and retrieved the stone. At some point Kal had freed Peter from his chains. It went unnoticed thanks to Sage who, as it turns out, defied any worry about her loyalty and helped Kal. Her ability to control machines and interact with computers meant the security cameras never showed what they should have. It was also Sage that released the collars. The 'magical' remote Spider-Man used was nothing but a fake, a useless button, that did nothing but to protect Sage from suspicion, thus maintaining her cover.

Now here Jonathan thinks Kal's ego is getting away ahead of himself. His plan was to have the Inner Circle in one place, especially Selene and then use the power of the stone to...remove them and Jonathan doesn't use that term lightly. Kal seemed to care little either way if they survived or not...which was worrying since Kal is a reflection, a twisted one to be sure, but still a reflection of Clark's own personality. It worried Jonathan what that said about Clark. It was like he had missed something that had changed within Clark lately...or it felt like he had at any rate. As soon as they figure out a way to get Clark back he needs to have a heart to heart with his son.

Jonathan wishes he could say that was the biggest revelation to be dropped on his lap since the X-Men got back. He really wishes he could say that but no. The biggest one happened to be when Martha explained to him about who Claire Selton actually is.

Now learning your wife has a teenage daughter with another man is, to put it mildly, a bit of a shock. Jonathan likes to think he is coping quite well with it. After all Martha never knew anything about it. It wasn't as if she had been lying to him their whole marriage. She had never done that and Jonathan was trying to be there for her as she tried to deal with this and the fact Claire chose to stay with the Hellions rather than come back.

As always Martha and Clark were Jonathan's priorities. Anything else was secondary at the moment. Although he will admit it boils his blood to learn what Sebastian Shaw had done when he...created Claire. It's not a good descriptive word but it is the only one Jonathan can think of. Sebastian Shaw is one of those few people Jonathan Kent can decidedly say he does not like.

All that transpired yesterday and today he was in the greenhouse with his wife, watching her tend her plants. It was her coping mechanism. He was simply being there for her.

"Greetings Parental Units!"

Jonathan momentarily closes his eyes as his 'son' walks in. He must have gotten bored playing pranks and winding people up. "Clark. Can I help you?"

Kal shrugs. "Nah. Just trying to find something to do."

"You can help me, honey," Martha offers.

Kal makes a face. "Oh please. That is so dull and tedious even my other 'normal' farmboy self comes up with excuses to avoid doing that," he says in his usual blunt manner, not caring whose feelings he tramples on.

"Is that so?" Martha asks sceptically.

Kal grins. "Yep. I mean you never noticed how conveniently I always seem to need to rush off and save someone when you suggest that?"

"We'll talk about that when you're back to normal," Jonathan says.

"Who says you're ever getting me back to normal daddio?

"Because if you didn't want that you wouldn't still be here," Jonathan rather astutely deduces. After all they really have no way of stopping him leaving.

"You're mistaken."

"Am I?" Jonathan asks with a fixed look at his son, almost daring Clark to contradict him.

Kal doesn't and ends up making a confession. "Ok, maybe there was a deal and just maybe I'm stupidly honourable enough to uphold it. Doesn't mean I have to be happy about it."

"What deal?" Jonathan asks.

"The deal I made with my other 2 sides so we could trick Emma," Kal explains before he bursts out into a laugh. "And that, you have to admit, worked like a charm."

"Other 2 sides?" Martha queries, puzzled by what her son is talking about.

Kal taps on the side of his head trying to illustrate what he is talking about. "Yeah. You know the dull ol' farmboy and Mr Kal-El of Krypton. What a dullard he is."

"They're...you're all inside your mind?" Jonathan queries, trying to understand and in the process trying to understand what may have changed Clark as of late.

"Yep. Lets just say we have issues that a whole boatload of psychiatrists couldn't solve," Kal makes light of it as he picks the leaf off one of his mother's flowers. He then notices his mother wiping a tear from her eye. "What are you crying about?" he asks, rather insensitively.

Jonathan wraps an arm around his wife as he explains what should be painfully obvious even for Kal about why his wife is upset. "Claire. Have you forgotten?"

"You're still upset about that?" Kal asks, puzzled. "That was yesterday. Move on already. You're not to blame for the fact that she's stupider than Bobby...and lets face facts that's monumentally stupid," he says, meaning that more as an insult for Bobby than Claire. Kal smirks as he thinks about how many times he has already gotten back at Bobby for all the pranks the ice-generator has played on him and looks forward in anticipation to how many more times he can get Bobby...and everyone else. Yep, it's good to him.

"Clark, I know you're not yourself but can you please try and be a bit more sensitive to your mother's feelings," Jonathan requests.

Kal rolls his eyes. Sensitivity is for chumps. "Fine. You want me to be sensitive. I can be sensitive," he humours them.

Jonathan isn't buying that and this is why. "Rogue still not talking to you?"

"She's being completely irrational!" Kal protests strongly.

Martha pulls herself together a little. "Clark. At breakfast you suggested you two make-up...over the kitchen table...in front of everyone." And she says this looking uncomfortable because he was meaning they have make-up sex over the table in front of everyone.

"So? It's not like I have anything to be ashamed of...and between you and me neither does she," Kal says with a...lets go with lecherous smirk.

"Clark. Some advice, son," Jonathan offers. "Parents don't like to imagine what they're children get up to in their personal lives any more than children like to imagine what their parents get up to."

"Are you trying to make me barf?" Kal asks back, with a mildly disgusted expression.

"I'm trying to bring you some enlightenment."

"Well gee thanks dad," Kal says sarcastically. "Thanks for making me imagine stuff I'll never be able to burn from my mind like ever...and I'm immortal and forever is a long, long, long time to have to live with that," he complains at his father putting images in his head of his parents...yep he's definitely going to barf.

Martha moves over and hugs her son. "Clark, whatever state your mind is in now, know that we always love you."

Kal looks deeply uncomfortable at the display of parental love. He's a 17 year old guy. They don't get hugs from their mother...and well you know he will admit he still does think of her as his mother despite everything. He sighs...loudly. He's going soft. "Look, mom. Since I don't like to see pretty ladies upset I'm going to fix this," he tells her.

Martha stiffens. Uh oh. "Fix what?"

"This whole estranged daughter scenario we've got here. I'm going to fix it," Kal announces with his usual cocky arrogance.

"Clark. That's not nec..." Martha never gets to finish her caution as the gust of wind blows her hair about that indicates Clark's gone. She looks to Jonathan who has the same worried expression she has about what Clark is away to do.

Academy of Tomorrow...

Since they got back from New York Claire had basically not left her room. Emma had been on the phone non-stop with the other members of the Inner Circle trying to save her own ass while Claire tried to come to terms with her new reality. The people she thought were her parents were not really her parents. Her parents are Sebastian Shaw, Black King of the Hellfire Club, a man who has...not the best reputation.

Not like she can judge. She hasn't got a great reputation either.

Her mother is Martha Kent...the first person who treated her like a person and not some freak of nature.

Claire has no idea what to do as she sits looking out the window. It was so much easier when she could just fry things.

Then there is a sudden gust of wind.

"Oh yeah. The brooding thing. I know a lot about that."

Claire's head snaps to her right to find Superman standing there. "How did you get in here?"

Kal shrugs with a happy go lucky smile. "It's a lot easier than you might think...especially when you happen to be me." Kal moves and sits down on Claire's bed. He picks up a light blue bra that happens to be lying there. "Yours...or Tarot's?" he asks with a glint in his eye.

Claire frowns and snatches it from him. "How about none of your damn business!" she snaps.

Clark raises his hands slightly in a defensive manner. "Oh easy, sister. I'm just here to help."

"You can't help me," Claire insists.

"Sure I can," Kal argues. "You're caught between your 2 parents. Both have a pull on you. You have a connection to both but they want entirely different things from you yet, somehow, you feel obligated to do what you think it is they both want of you. That somewhere near the mark?"

"Spot on," Claire says astounded.

"I've led an interesting life," Kal says. "To be blunt I've been where you've been. Want to know what I learned?"

Claire nods. If he has some advice that can help she thinks she'll take it at this juncture.

"You can love and respect your parents, listen to their views but in the end you have to do what you think is best for you...and sticking around here with Sebastian Shaw is not what is best for you."

"I probably have more in common with him," Claire says and she feels it true. Yeah she has heard stories and considering some of the stuff she has done she is probably closer to being like him than her mother.

Kal bursts into laughter in reaction to that statement.

"What's so funny?" Claire asks him, annoyed.

Kal wipes a mock tear away. "You hate being used right? Lionel Luthor, Stryker, you pretty much hate them?"

"I loathe them," Claire says, her eyes flaring with fire at her true loathing of the people that used her as a weapon.

"You think your daddy is any different?" Kal asks her to consider. "Lets look at the man. He's a power hungry douchebag who cooked you up in a lab because he has issues letting go of a woman who was smart enough to dump his ass. After he cooked you up he left you in the hands of your surrogate parents because he didn't have time for you...or more probable, in my opinion of the man, you didn't live up to what he wanted."

"You can't know that," Claire argues strongly.

"Can't I? We know you're not a natural born mutant like him. You don't have the x-gene. When you were little you were just another normal human being. It was the meteors that gave you your powers...which raises an interesting question."

"What question?"

"What were you doing in Smallville that day?"

"I...uh, can't remember."

"Of course not. I didn't expect you to...but consider this. Your 'parents' were lackeys in daddy's employ and they just happened to come to...well lets face it Smallville is the ass-end of nowhere but it does have one thing...or more accurately one person who is important to you."

"Mom?"

"Yes Dorothy, she does have a brain," Kal quips. "There was no way it was a coincidence Claire. Ok being in town the day fire rained from the sky was but being in Smallville...hardly. No-one just happens to drop by on Smallville. There's nothing there. Now I'm not a mind reader. I can't know why Shaw sent his lackeys plus you to Smallville. Maybe it was just to spy on mommy. Maybe it was part of a plot to use you to lure her back to him. What I can be certain about is that he hardly went out of his way to find you afterwards."

"He thought I was dead," Claire ends up making a defence of her father.

"Oh he thought you were dead," Kal mocks. He snorts. "Please. You were rescued, yes?"

Claire nods.

"You knew your name?"

Again Claire nods. She gave her rescuers her name.

"Then they would have tried to track down your relatives. An orphaned little girl...hell you were probably on the news. Even if you weren't Shaw's rich enough and well-connected enough to have tracked you down if he really wanted to. He obviously just didn't care enough. On the other hand mommy has been turning herself grey out of worry about you. Seriously she's heading for an aneurysm."

"S-she is?" Claire asks, worried that her mother might be making herself ill.

"Yeah, well, she's like that," Kal says, not meaning it as a compliment really.

Claire finds that Superman makes a good case about her father and why she shouldn't choose to stay with him. She can vaguely remember the social workers that took care of her talking about failing to find any family for her. "Then why did he seem happy to have me back?" she asks about her father, still trying, as foolish as it might seem, to make some sort of defence for him.

Kal arches an eyebrow. "Seriously? You don't know. I thought power hungry douchebag explained that. You went from a normal human to a very powerful mutant, Claire. He probably thought Christmas had come early because that makes you useful to him. That makes you a tool to be used. It matters little that you're his daughter. For him it's merely a useful connection that makes you more malleable."

"You can't know that."

"Sure I can. This personality that Emma unleashed," he says, pointing at himself. "He's a selfish asshole...and proud of it by the way. Anyway Sebastian Shaw is also a selfish asshole. I know exactly how he thinks because I think that way. I can see exactly how to manipulate and use you."

"And is that what you are doing?" Claire asks, her expression growing slightly wary of him.

"Hell no!" Kal rejects that. Proof of that being he isn't telling her she's his sister. "I'm here because seeing mom all upset is working my last thread of compassion. Getting you back will make my life so much easier."

"You're an ass," Claire accuses him of being at the fact he cares more about making his life easier rather than truly trying to help her mother.

"That is the general consensus of everyone back home. Hell Rogue's refusing to talk to me until I'm back to 'normal'," he makes air-quotes. "By the way you just proved you care more about people's feelings than I do. Guess you're not like daddy after all."

"Of course I care. I'm-I'm not a monster."

"Never said you were...oh wait. This is about those MRD guys isn't it. Seriously get over that," he tells her.

"That's easy to say!" Claire yells at him as he hits a particularly sensitive nerve.

"It's easy to do. You said it. You're not a monster. You don't go around planning to kill people do you?"

"No. It was just...they hurt Amara and I got angry," she tries to explain and a splash of shame slips into her tone.

"Ah. A crime of passion."

"They deserved it!" she says too forcefully as if trying to convince herself of the truth of that statement.

"Absolutely. Couldn't agree more."

"You do?" Claire asks, uncertainly, surprised to hear that from...from well a hero.

"When I'm out heroing..."

"Heroing?" Clare queries with a peculiar expression.

"It's a word!" Kal insists, with a frown at her questioning him.

"Right. Whatever you say," Claire says, so not believing him.

"As I was saying when I'm out heroing I come across rapists and murderers and paedophiles and people much much worse, you don't think I don't think for just one moment they deserve to die?"

"But you don't kill them," Claire points out.

"Oh you can't imagine how hard that is not to. You're all so fucking fragile. Seriously you're like brittle glass under my fingers," he describes it as, his expression and tone becoming briefly and worryingly dark before it passes and the lighter, more jovial Kal re-emerges. "But you don't want to hear about my problems. No, I don't kill them. I'm not their judge. Have no wish to be either. I'm all about protecting the innocent...especially when they come with 36D curves."

Claire rolls her eyes as Kal grins unapologetically.

"I'm not your judge either Claire but you seem intent on judging yourself guilty. You seem intent in judging that the people you care about will be repulsed at you. Why? Because you think they should be...just like you're repulsed at yourself. You claim not to feel guilt over what you did...let me tell you from an expert liar you're shit at it. You running off. You joining the Hellions. It's all some attempt to not look at yourself in the mirror. The mirror being how people you care about view you. Let me let you in on something. Been there. Done that. Spent at least the last 15 months brooding over it but has it stopped me doing the right thing? Hell no! Turned into a selfish jerk yet I still did the right thing and screwed Shaw and Frost over," he says with pride at himself. "I'm not going to lie to you. You have to live with it for the rest of your life what you have done. The only question is where do you live with it. Here with these jackoffs or back at the Institute...with the lesser jackoffs."

Claire sniggers at that.

Kal smiles a little at the fact he got her to laugh. Was never easy to get her to laugh. "The difference is Claire that back at the Institute there are people who genuinely care. Hell they even forgave me for my misdemeanour which, without retelling the dull details, is right up there with what you did. Heck it was probably worse because the life I took was completely innocent," he says, referring back to the fact he caused his mother to lose her unborn baby.

Claire blinks and stares at him, totally shocked to hear him say that. She wonders what he did.

Kal's arrogant demeanour fades momentarily as the memory of what he did rises to the surface. His expression becomes somber serious, perhaps even a little guilt ridden. It only lasts a moment before normal service resumes and he picks back up with his story. "Like I said I was forgiven by people who cared for me just like they care for you. Can't figure out for the life of me why but then again thanks to Emma I'm not exactly as you remember me at the moment," he says with a quirk of his lips at the irony of saying that because, thanks to Wanda's spell, Claire doesn't really remember him at all. He continues, "You know it's not a bad thing being like this. It's nice to say what I really think from time to time and not give two fucks about whose feelings I trample over," he says, actually expressing a genuine feeling the farmboy him has deep down.

"But people's feelings do matter," Claire argues back at him. Having a girlfriend means you have to realise these things.

"Wow. You've really gone soft haven't you."

"It's a truth I've learned."

"You'll learn the truth can vary greatly depending on someone's point of view. The question is what truth do you believe now. That your future is here or back at the Institute?"

"It doesn't really matter where I go, my life is now a complete mess," she says morosely. "I thought I knew who I was and now...

"Now it feels like your whole life is a lie and you want to shout and scream and make someone pay for screwing around with you."

Claire blinks at how personal he is saying that. "How did...?"

"Like I said. Been there. Done that. The whole discovering you're a science project, you can ask Rogue about."

"Rogue?" Claire queries, puzzled.

"Oh right. I guess you left before we got around to revealing it. Remember Stryker?"

Claire's expression tightens in anger. "Yes," she says from between gritted teeth.

"He created Rogue...and Domino and all those other mutants we met in his little squad." Kal then laughs.

"What's funny?"

"I was just wondering what was worse. Learning you're a science project or learning your father is Logan."

"What?"

"Logan. Turns out he's Rogue's biological father. We did some tests."

"That's...crazy," is all Claire can come up with.

"Yeah but what are ya goin to do?"

"How did she... is she..."

"Coping?"

Claire nods.

"Yeah. More or less. The question still is...and I swear we're going round in circles here, where do wish to learn to cope? And we really are going in circles Claire. Time to choose before I hoist you over my shoulder and drag you back," he says pleasantly, which is a completely inappropriate way tone when threatening to carry someone, kicking and screaming if necessary. Kal is not prepared to take no for an answer in this situation. After all he never fails and is the side of Clark who always gets what he wants.

"That's not giving me a choice."

"Sure it is. I carry you like a lady or I carry you like a sack of spuds. That's your choice."

"You're nuts."

Kal smiles a little insanely. "Yeah. It's fun isn't it."

Claire rubs her brow and sighs. She thinks he's joking. "It's not that simple to just leave here. There's a complication."

A knowing expression comes to Kal's face. "Ah. I think I know what that is," he says. He then zips off the bed, over to the door and opens it. Upon doing so a teenage girl with brown hair falls down, indicating she had had her ear pressed up against the door and was listening in. "The girlfriend," Kal describes what the complication is.

Claire wonders how long Marie has been there and how much she heard...and then wonders how long Superman knew that Marie was there and let her listen in to their conversation.

Marie looks up with a sheepish, caught grin. "Um...Salut!"

Kal looks down at her with a strangely enigmatic smile. "Now what are we going to do with you?"

Author's Note: Yeah, so I decided not to just let the Volcana situation drag out and who better to fix it than our not quite right in the head Kryptonian. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; What do we do with Volcana and Tarot...and visitors literally drop in on the Institute.