Massive, massive thanks to both Sineater and MariaShadow for all their help and encouragement.
WARNING: Canon MCD. You will need tissues.
There was a good reason Jeff and Lucille Tracy had moved from their army barrack housing to a remote farmhouse back home in Texas as soon as they had saved enough money to do so.
His name was Scott Carpenter Tracy.
Lucy first noticed there something unique about their son when he was nine months old.
An average baby of that age can just about crawl and maybe able to shakily walk along furniture, and Scott wasn't so different.
But his crawling was fast, and occasionally Lucy simply didn't seem able to keep him in sight. One minute he was in the playpen, the next he was behind her. Some days she swore to her mother-in-law that he could fly – it was the only plausible explanation. Either that or she was losing her marbles.
And then one day they both saw it.
Scott had been walking around the table in the kitchen while Lucy was on the vid-comm with Ruth. They were due to visit in a couple of days and there was just some details of the visit the two women wanted to finalise while she cooked dinner.
Lucy had just glanced over to where Scott was…and the boy was *floating*. As they watched, Scott moved from the kitchen into the living room and into his playpen. Distracted by actually witnessing what she'd only jokingly suggested, Lucy burnt the dinner that night for the first time in their married life.
Now they knew he really could fly the new parents – new, *scared* parents – noticed how often he did and little incidents began to fall into place.
That weekend was an eyeopener to them both. For Ruth Tracy turned out not to be the person they had thought she was too. For Ruth Sally Tracy's unassuming parents turned out to be not the Kansas farmers Jonathan and Martha Kent as she'd always claimed. They were, in fact, her grandparents.
Her parents were Clark Kent and Lois Lane.
The revelation had Jeff and Lucy stunned into silence. Into that silence Ruth explained how she and her brother had been raised by their grandparents once it became clear they could be a target. When it turned out her brother Jon had superpowers too he left to be with their parents, but since Ruth did not she continued on the farm.
Lucy's observation that Superman was just a legend from over 100 years ago had her mother-in-law laughing – but agreeing. She may not have inherited her father's powers, but she had inherited his longevity.
Ruth was almost – no, over – 100 years old.
There were a lot of things discovered and discussed that weekend, and it was agreed that moving back to Kansas where Scott could grow without fear of discovery was of top priority.
Of course, that was the weekend they discovered they were going to be parents again.
John Glenn Tracy was born the exact day Scott turned 18 months.
By this time they had moved to the other side of the large town where Jeff had grown up into a spacious farmhouse with several acres of land. One of the first things Grant and Jeff had done was to trim all the trees in the small wood at the bottom of the yard and to make sure there were fences all around the property.
Teaching Scott how to control his flying wasn't easy when there was literally no one else on Earth who could do that, but he was a very bright child and soon understood when it was safe to indulge in his special talent and when he absolutely couldn't.
Scott was absolutely besotted by his brother. He spent hours talking and 'playing' with John and 'reading' to him. And when John was two months old and they discovered Lucy was pregnant again Scott was even more delighted.
John's ability to fly manifest itself at the same age as Scott's. This time Lucy was prepared, although John seemed content to just float beside her rather than disappear completely as Scott still did on occasion.
But as his ability to hear developed, John turned into a very different child.
Lucy was tearing her hair out. Her second-born had turned from a quiet child to a crying, screaming monster by the time he'd reached seven months. Five months pregnant with their third, she was at a loss. Jeff fared no better. There was a small window of quiet in the dead of the night, but the rest of the time John cried.
It was a couple of weeks into this period that Lucy discovered quite by accident that positioning John so that his ear was directly over her heart calmed him down. It worked to a lesser extent with Jeff, but the couple put that down to Jeff not being around during John's earliest months, having been on the moon. It would work with Scott, which calmed both boys down. Scott had been increasingly upset that he couldn't help his brother.
For three bliss-filled weeks there was little crying (in comparison) from John, but they couldn't work with John constantly plastered to their chests as he and the baby both grew.
Doctors mooted that he could possibly be on the autism spectrum, although a diagnosis in one so young would be almost unheard of, but it didn't treat the problem.
It was Scott who found the solution, again quite by accident. He'd picked up a pair of noise-cancelling headphones. They had been a joke gift from Jeff to Lucy as she had complained one night he'd kept her awake snoring.
John had been particularly fractious, and Scott had been wearing the headphones and pulling faces in an attempt to distract his brother. It hadn't worked, so Scott put the headphones on John.
He quietened down immediately and promptly fell asleep.
When the discovery was discussed with Ruth she admitted that Clark could hear for miles, and it seemed that this was an extra ability John had. They set about finding some hearing aids that could help him filter out sound until he was old enough to learn how to do that himself.
With home life beginning to calm down again the family prepared to welcome their third child.
Virgil Grissom Tracy was a balm to Lucy's frayed nerves. He was the quietest of children, and forever asleep. She even needed to wake him up for feeds. As he grew he too developed the ability to fly, and like John he followed Scott around most of the time. But when he wasn't with Scott or wasn't curled up with John beside her, Lucy would invariably find him in the garden.
As he got older, though, this presented its own unique issue. Whereas Scott seemed to have a suicidal ideology even at only five – which he took great delight at showing by throwing himself off anything high and not letting his flying kick in until the very last second…, and John had super-sensitive hearing that necessitated noise-cancelling headphones any time they were out of the house if his – and Lucy's – sanity was to stay intact, Virgil's…thing…was more 'normal', if it could be called that.
Virgil ate the dirt. The worms. The snails. From the age of around 8 months Lucy would find him with his ear to the ground, humming. Sometimes there were bugs around him. Sometimes the dirt had…moved and Virgil was in a hollow. Whatever it was, Virgil was attracted to the Earth.
Thankfully Virgil grew out of his pica period before he turned three, much to everyone's relief.
It became how clear he was connected when he was three. They were on holiday in Florida and suddenly Virgil began to tug on his parent's hands. The toddler was clearly upset, and something in his urgency made Jeff scoop up Scott and John while Lucy took Virgil and they ran.
Just as a sinkhole opened up behind them.
While Ruth couldn't remember anything particular about Clark's connection with Earth, she did recall that he had telekinesis. Maybe this was a manifestation of that power, the ability to feel the earth move.
When Virgil was four, John five and Scott seven, he showed another power when part of a wall collapsed just as he and Lucy were walking past. No one in town could believe that they had survived, and she told them that there had been a small pocket in the brickwork, but the reality was that Virgil had held the wall up over them and only let those bricks fall when his mom had told him to.
They had both escaped with bruising and some minor cuts which prevented any suspicions, but Scott had been excited to hear all about it. Jeff and Lucy had been worried that Scott would be upset that both his brothers had extra powers than he did, but he seemed genuinely ecstatic that they did.
Gordon Cooper Tracy was born the following year.
From the start this baby was different. He didn't have an interest in flying, and for the briefest of moments his parents believed that maybe he was a 'normal' child.
And then, when he was eleven months, old John fell into the lake. Scott was at baseball practice; Virgil was at home with Lucy and Gordon and John had gone into the woods to collect leaves for a school project. He'd flown up one of the trees to find a fresh specimen but the branch he had landed on was too brittle to hold even his light weight.
Startled by the sudden plunge John hadn't been ready to fly when he'd been knocked out by a branch and landed, unconscious, in the water.
Gordon had reacted instantly. He'd flown straight there with Virgil on his tail and down into the icy water. He immerged seconds later with John and Virgil had pulled them both out. By the time they had arrived home John was shivering and still unconscious, but Gordon seemed to be fine and before Lucy could do it he'd lit the flre set in the living room with what looked like lasers from his eyes.
That day they found out that not only could Gordon fly, he could control water. Another manifestation of telekinesis, Ruth said, and everyone knew about Superman's heat vision.
Once again Scott was happy with the powers shown by a brother and didn't show any jealousy at all.
By the time he was ten the family was complete. Alan Sheppard Tracy was their last addition as his birth had been…difficult and there would be no more children.
Unlike his older brothers Alan showed no inclination to fly as Gordon hadn't at that age. Gordon was enamoured of his only youngest brother in the same way Scott had been with all of his. Even before Alan's first birthday the pair were as thick as thieves. And like Gordon, Alan's first hint of the powers he possessed came because a brother was in need.
Gordon and Alan had been playing in the yard. One minute they were beneath the old red oak, the next the tree was on the ground and the pair was nowhere to be seen. Lucy had heard the noise and run out in time to see the tree flatten the ground beneath it exactly where Gordon and Alan had been seconds before, but of her boys there was no sign.
Frantically she'd begun digging out the soil around it, desperate for her youngest and she'd been digging for a couple of minutes when a hoarse shout from her fourth-born stopped her in her tracks. She looked up so see Gordon floating with Alan. Both boys were wide-eyed and what could only be described as windswept, but then Lucy supposed she didn't look much better, dirt on her knees and hands up to her elbows and in her hair.
She'd held her arms open and they had flown into them; and once there Alan had promptly burst into tears. It was Gordon who told her that Alan had seen the tree falling and it was Alan that had flown them out of harms way.
Only, Alan had been so fast they had ended up halfway to Grandpa's house before Gordon had even registered that they had moved.
So, not only could Alan fly, he was fast. Super fast.
As life settled down it appeared that there were no more surprises to be had on the superpower side. Many conversations were had with their Grandma about Clark Kent's superpowers, but as she'd been mostly raised by her grandparents Ruth really did know only the basics, and it seemed that the boys had them pretty much covered.
They'd had it drummed into them at the earliest opportunity how dangerous it would be for all of them if someone was to find out about them, and they had so far understood and followed the unspoken rules.
A week before Alan's second birthday they all went on a skiing holiday.
It was a joint celebration – Alan's second and Scott's twelfth birthdays. They had a whole two weeks in a cabin on the side of a mountain, a ski resort that had been chosen for its' exclusivity which meant the family would get some privacy.
Everything was going well right up until the eight day.
Alan had woken up with a little bit of a temperature, and while all the boys healed exceptionally fast it didn't mean they didn't get sick, it meant that sicknesses were shorter and more intense. By midmorning Scott wasn't feeling brilliant either – no surprise to any of the adults since the two boys had been practically glued to each other. So Lucy stayed behind while the others went out to play.
No one was really sure how the avalanche started. Scott never could recall later exactly what had happened either.
One minute he was asleep, curled around Alan and leaning on their Mom, the next he was waking up surrounded by snow.
Little Alan was plastered between him and Mom, and Scott was the first to wake up. There was the crisp smell of snow and the bite of cold, but the overwhelming smell was the sharp tang of blood.
Scott couldn't move. The snow was packed so tightly around them, but somehow the couch had come to rest above them, forming a natural air pocket. He felt around as much as he could, wiggling his hands and fingers until there was a small area he could move in and he tugged on what he hoped was his Mom.
It seemed to take forever, but eventually Lucy's eyes fluttered open. The darkness confused her at first, but as the numbing cold quickly began to make itself manifest she realised what must have happened.
'Scott? Are you with me?'
'Mom?'
Her eldest's voice wavered in relief but there was an edge of hysteria to it and she wondered how long he'd been awake, alone and panicking.
'It's ok, Scott. I'm here. Is Alan with you?'
'He – he's between us both but he's still asleep.'
'Ok. Ok, that's fine, Scotty.'
'I tried to help, Mom.'
'I know you did, Scott, and you have. You have.'
It wasn't fine at all, but she needed Scott to keep his head. Because Lucy knew she wasn't getting out of this. She could feel the blood, smell it even. But even over that Lucy could feel something else.
There was a feeling of calmness, of acceptance of the situation from herself, but there was also a hot feeling of something else. It was warmth and love and longing all wrapped up in defiance and an absolute refusal to let go. It took Lucy far too long to recognise what it was, but when she did Lucy knew she had to channel it before it imploded.
'You have helped, Scott. You kept us all going. But now I need you to let go of me and concentrate on Alan.'
'Mom?'
'Concentrate on Alan and keeping Alan safe, sweetheart. On keeping all your brothers safe. And – and look after your Dad for me.'
'No, Mom. No! No, I can't. I won't let you go!'
'You have to, Scotty. You're not strong enough for both of us and it will consume you if you try.'
'But we need you, Mom. Alan needs you.' I need you.
'Listen to me, Scott. One day you and your brothers are going to save the world. That's why you've been born, why you and your brothers have such powers. Something is coming and the Earth knows and has prepared you all to save it. You all have to live, to grow, to come into your powers. But first you have to let me go.'
'No…Mom, please…'
'I love you, son. I love you so, so much. And I'm not afraid. You'll always have me, I'll always be with you, in your heart and soul. Now, let me go and save Alan. It will be alright, Scott. I promise.'
'I – I love you, Mom.'
And Scott Tracy let go.