Work Text:
Steve held his mother's hand.
"Remember," she rasped out of her parched lips.
"I will, Mom," he said. "Please drink." He held the cup of water to her lips, but she turned her head away.
"Never forget. Hate that man for what he's done to me," she whispered.
"I will, Mom," he promised. He never really knew what the man had done to her, she would never say.
Her bony hand was cold in his. He knew calling the hospital was useless, this time. It was what they had told them when she demanded to be let out.
Steve had always tried to be a good boy. When his mother had been clean from drugs, she'd made him promise to not do them. Steve had been her "little man" and had privately vowed to not be like that man who had hurt his mother. He'd be a man of his word, even when it was hard, like refusing to get into drugs at school.
Now he privately promised to kill that man, that Randall the Great.
He held Amanda's hand gently. She had been sick almost as long as he could remember, first from the drugs, then from the shared needle that had given her Aids.
She had also made him promise to not put her into a hospital to die.
Would it be tonight? he wondered. She was much worse. What could a kid like him do, how could he keep the state from putting him in a foster home without his mother? He and his mom had struggled so hard to stay together. She got off of heroin, he kept his grades up. But if she were gone...
Then Steve realized she wasn't breathing.
"Mom!" he cried, shaking her thin shoulders. "Don't leave me! Mom!"
With a cry of anguish he ran from the room.
The roof was his only refuge. There the neighbors wouldn't complain if he screamed his lungs out. They knew he went there to not disturb his mother. They wouldn't think twice of him there.
Tears blinded him as he crashed through the door into the night and he stumbled. The edge of the roof slammed him as he fell, then, even as he tried to grab the edge, he felt himself slip over.
"Mom!" he screamed as he fell.
Almost as if her hand reached out, he realized that his fall was slowing.
Joy surged in him and he stopped all together.
He wiped the last of the tears from his eyes and stared down at the street below. Then, slowly at first, he floated up.
"I can fly," he whispered. "I can fly," he said louder, more confidently. "Mom! Look! Mom! I can fly!"
He soared up and took a loop around the building. Then he went up and up, just like Superman.
He paused in his flight, hovering in midair. He was 16, how old was Superman? He tried to remember the first story he had seen in the Daily Planet. It couldn't have been more than a few years ago, about the time his mother found that picture of Randall Phillips. But he had dark, slightly wavy hair, like Superman.
Maybe the reason his mother had never told him who his dad was because he was Superman. Steve found he liked the idea, a lot. After all, he could fly like Superman.
But remembering his mother finding that picture of Randall brought that to mind. Steve remembered her ripping the picture out and putting it with the old, torn photo she'd always had. There, when she got angry, she'd heap abuse on the likenesses.
Steve used to wonder why his mother hated that man, until Steve, had finally learned to hate him too.
Finally, Steve noticed he was drifting slowly down. He turned back, he had to deal with his mother sometime and if they wanted to put him in foster care, well, he'd just fly away.
*****
"Can I see you home, Lois?" Clark asked as he rushed after her. He barely avoided bumping into her as she stopped in her tracks.
"No, that's all right, Clark," she said. That small smile on her face. "I'm hoping someone will drop by." She looked up into the night sky.
Clark knew who she meant, but he had promised to visit his parents later.
"Oh!" Lois exclaimed. "I thought I saw something, maybe it was Superman!"
Clark looked up too. He lifted his glasses and used his super vision to scan the sky. He caught sight of someone flying just before that someone went behind a building.
"I thought I saw him too," Clark said, but didn't say that the person in light colored clothing couldn't have been Superman.
When he looked down, Lois was climbing into a cab. "See you Monday!" she said.
"Have a nice weekend!" he called after the cab.
Lois' only answer was a hand waved out the window.
*****
Stefon was falling, then he remembered how to levitate and soared into the air.
He jumped and awoke, gasping, sweat soaked.
Stefon? Did you hear that? he was asked telepathically.
What? The flying? he asked back.
Yes. Was that you?
I dreamed it, but it wasn't me, Stefon told his boss, Witch.
Are you decent?
Stefon groped for his sheet, then indicated he was.
The blonde woman teleported into his room and flopped down in a chair, her black cape settled around her.
"Nobody else heard it," she announced.
"What? How could they not?" Stefon asked, levitating his robe over.
"It wasn't here, not in this world..."
"Not? Where was it?"
"Metropolis," she told him.
Metropolis, he let that digest. That was one step sideways from this world. He knew that Witch had visited there before, he had never been there.
"So, what are we going to do?" Stefon knew that what he had "dreamed" was a powerful telepath "breaking out" or discovering his gifts.
"We'll have to go," she said. "I don't have anyone over there prepared for that much power. Get dressed, the sooner we leave the better."
"Right," Stefon said, getting up and pulling on his robe.
Before he was even out of the bed, she was gone.
*****
"Randy," the tall, blond haired man leaned over the smaller, darker man.
"You stay away from me, Buzz, I don't want any trouble!" Randy shouted.
"Not so loud, my friend," Buzz said.
To reinforce his words, one of the three men that had Randy boxed in clamped a hand over Randy's mouth. The others took a firmer grip on his arms.
"Now listen, Randy. I need your little talents to make this haul and you will help us."
Buzz pulled a gun out of his waist band, he pointed it at Randy.
The hand was pulled away, it transferred to a grip on his hair.
"Look, Buzz, I did my time and for you. Leave me alone. I didn't rat on you. Let me go, I won't tell," Randy was almost pleading.
"No, no, no, Randy, I need you to open a safe for me." Buzz leaned forward into Randy's face. "Just one, itty-bitty safe, then we can part ways again."
Randy knew that was a lie. Buzz always lied when he talked like that.
One of the others laughed.
"Maybe 'Randall the Great' is only 'Randall the So-so,'" he said.
Randy didn't protest. He wasn't a great magician, but he could open almost any safe from either the inside or the outside.
Buzz and company laughed at the joke.
"Oh, he may only be so-so," Buzz agreed, "but he'll open that safe for us, won't you Randy - old buddy." Buzz laid the gun against Randy's temple. "Bring him!" he said and turned away.
Randy was forced after him by the hard hands.
*****
"Mom, I'm sorry, but I saw somebody flying. I have to find out who it is."
"Are you really sure?" Martha Kent asked.
"Of course he's sure," Jonathan said on the extension.
"I didn't get a really clear look, but it was somebody flying."
"Well, then, you have to find him," she agreed.
"Do what you have to do, son. That's all you can do. When you take care of the problem, you can come visit."
"Thanks, Ma, Pa. I knew you would understand."
Clark hung up the phone. Now he could go look for that other flying person. And, he smiled to himself, he could drop in on Lois. If he acknowledged he had been flying earlier it wouldn't hurt his secret identity either since he had been standing right next to her.
*****
Steve stood in the middle of the apartment. His upstairs neighbor had promised to look out for him over the weekend so social services could find his grandmother.
Not that she would want to take him in. She had never liked him and had been furious, according to his mother, that she hadn't given him up for adoption. Still, she might take him just because he was old enough to be useful in taking care of his cousins. She had gotten charge of them when his aunt went to jail for drugs.
So, he had the whole weekend to find out what his super powers were. The upstairs neighbor didn't care that he wanted to go to the apartment.
He looked around the room. His mother hated housekeeping and got upset when he tried to straighten up, it made her feel guilty, she'd say. Steve hated the mess.
He opened the window. He'd see if he had super breath by trying to blow the junk out the window. He stood by the door and took a deep breath and blew with all his might.
Nothing.
He tried again with the same results.
Well, he decided, he didn't have super breath.
Steve heard a sound in the kitchen. By the overflowing trash can he saw a big brown rat.
Rage surged in his chest.
"Fry, you sucker!" he cried. He tried to turn heat vision on the creature.
The rat leaped into the air with a squeak, fell over and lay still.
Steve went over and looked at it. It didn't seemed burned. He gingerly, picked up the body. Looking over the limp creature. There was no burn, it wasn't even hot, but it was definitely dead.
Puzzled, but disgusted, he pitched the dead rat out the window.
He'd killed the rat by looking at it, but not, it seemed, with any heat. He'd try again. He looked at a wad of paper on the floor and tried to make it burn with his eyes.
Nothing, not a singe.
Furious, he kicked the wad.
How had he killed that rat?
He started picking up things and throwing them out the window in hopes of flushing another rat. He worked his way away from the window, still pitching things behind him toward it. He hoped that some of the stuff would sail out and, if not, at least it'd be that much closer to the window. Not that he cared if any actually hit the dumpster, more or less, below, but who would notice any new trash in the alleyway.
About halfway across the room, without any more rats, he straightened and looked back.
To his surprise, the trash was gone.
Puzzled, he tossed an empty Styrofoam take out box toward the window.
It fell to the floor.
He frowned, then wished, hard, for it to go out in the trash. It picked itself up and flew out the window.
Steve ran to the window and looked out. All the trash he'd thrown toward the window as in and about the dumpster.
He turned around. A pile of trash half buried a chair. He wished it out the window. It sat stubbornly in place. He wondered if it was because he stood so close to the window. He moved and did it again. Still nothing.
"Maybe I don't want it enough," he said to himself. "I really wanted the place to be clean before."
While looking at the pile, he wanted it out the window and into the dumpster.
The trash obligingly picked itself up and sped toward the window.
Steve realized the pile wasn't going to make it out like it was and wanted it to fit through the window. Parts of the pile slowed while other bits sped up and the whole thing slipped out the window and down into the dumpster, not one scrap missed.
"I have to want it enough!" Steve exclaimed. "I didn't want to fall and die, that's why I flew and I wanted that rat dead."
Steve paused. "There's another rat I want dead," he said softly and looked at the pictures of the man his mother hated, Randall the Great.
*****
Stefon and Witch appeared in what could have been nearly any of the drug rehabilitation centers, the Lion's Den, that he had ever been in. The telepathic traces, however, told him that this was a city he had never known.
"Witch!" exclaimed a middle-aged woman, "we're glad you came."
"How bad was it, Mazie?" Witch asked.
"The buffers in the Den protected those of us here. But it was Saturday night and I'm afraid that a bunch of our people have been staggering in with migraines. We've even had a few transported to the hospital when they collapsed." She looked puzzled at Stefon.
"This is Stefon Parvel," Witch introduced. "He picked it up in his sleep in the other world. My guess is that if anyone can find this youngster, it'll be Stefon."
"Great! My guess was that this young man, and boy did we get that info loud and clear, will be trying out his gifts. I've got people out trying to 'hear' him."
"Excellent," Witch said. "Let's get Stefon clear of the Den and see what he hears."
"I suggest the Metropolis building, it's one of the tallest buildings in town and nobody should bother us up there at this time of night," Mazie suggested.
"Give us a sighting and we'll go."
Mazie did so. Stefon was pleased that she was able to teleport herself there as the trio appeared on an observation platform much like on the Empire State Building in his universe.
The two women shielded themselves to give him an unobstructed view of the unseen, telepathic city around him.
He got a sudden, loud blast from an unknown, non-human mind.
Stefon threw up his shield instinctively and stepped back beside his companions.
A moment later a figure sailed by the building.
"Who, or what, was that?" he asked.
"Oh," Mazie said. "That is Superman."
"Superman?" Stefon's eyes followed the figure across the sky.
"Nobody knows much about him, but he's one of the good guys. Kind of noisy though."
"I'll just wait until he's a little further away to try again," Stefon told them.
*****
Superman soared across the night sky. His supervision did not detect anything smaller than a helicopter in the sky with him. He rose even higher to get a better look between the tall buildings.
Finally, he spiraled down and landed gently on Lois' porch, where she was waiting.
"Superman!" she greeted, her eyes lit up with pleasure.
Superman wished she'd do that for Clark, but was willing to settle for what he could get.
"I thought I saw you earlier this evening," she told him.
"I have been patrolling this evening," he acknowledged, unwilling to lie, but he had been out for a while now.
Lois realized she was staring and jerked her eyes away.
"Would you like something to drink?" she asked. She waved her hand toward the table she had set up. One glass of wine was poured, but a bottle of water sat on the table indicating that she had been hoping he'd come by.
"I'm sorry, Miss Lane," Superman said, truly sad he didn't dare sit down for a visit, "but I must continue my work."
"Oh," Lois said. Superman found it amusing how tongue-tied Lois always got around him. Much like how he felt, but didn't dare show in costume. "Of course." She turned back and caught herself staring again and looked away.
"Good-bye, Miss Lane," Superman said. He floated upward and gave her a wave.
"Bye," she said. She wiggled her fingers as he floated away.
*****
Randy staggered away from Buzz, holding his jaw.
"Look, I'm not stalling!" he shouted.
"Shut up," Buzz warned, ominously.
"Hitting me isn't going to get that safe open any quicker," Randy said, more softly.
"Just hurry the hell up," Buzz hissed.
"This is a new kind of safe," Randy said, "its going to take some time." He returned to the safe.
One of the Buzz's buddies was watching the window, another was out in the corridor and the final one was watching him through a crack in the door. They all had guns so Randy had no real choice but to co-operate, at least for now.
He heard a click as he slowly rotated the lock. He noted the number and started for the second one.
*****
Steve called the bar where Randall the Great performed on most Saturday nights. They told him that the magician had taken ill that night and wasn't in. Steve couldn't get them to give him Randall's address or phone number.
"I'll just fly around some," Steve decided. He decided to change clothes, it was getting cool out. He pulled on a navy sweat suit he'd gotten out of a church poor box and the upstairs neighbor had shown him how to sew up the hole. He had always wanted to sew something on the front to cover up the patch, maybe an 'S' like Superman's, but could never find material to do it.
He slammed the door and ran upstairs.
"You going to the roof, Stevie?" came out of the open door.
Steve slid to a stop. "Yes, Mrs. Garcia," he asked.
"You dressed warm enough?" she asked, sticking her salt and pepper head out the door.
"Yes ma'am," he said. She eyed the sweat suit.
"You going to sleep up there again?" she asked.
"If it doesn't rain."
Of all the people Steve had ever met, she was the most like what the TV said a mother was like, and had four children to prove it. He hated to lie to her, she'd seen that he and his mom ate, even though he knew money was tight for them as well with the whole family to feed and a husband who was frequently gone.
"You take this quilt," she ducked into her rooms and came out with a threadbare quilt.
"Yes, ma'am," he said, gathering the dusty thing in his arms and dashed away before she could ask him in.
Steve rolled up the quilt and tucked it where he usually slept.
"Let's see if I can still fly," he said to himself.
Remembering how he'd seen Superman take off on the news once, he took a few running steps, but not too close to the edge, then jumped.
A surge of pleasure filled him as he flew upward.
*****
Stefon turned around abruptly. "He's flying again."
Witch and Mazie dropped their shields. It was a surprise to find how quiet he was this time.
"I believe he's only developed levitation at this point," Witch stated. Her eyes wide, trying to see what wasn't in front of her.
"I'm not about to sail around trying to pinpoint him in the air," Stefon told her. "He'll be much easier to deal with on the ground."
"I agree," Mazie said. She also had the vacant eyed look of a telepath trying to see where someone else is.
"Absolutely." Witch had no intention of flying about a strange sky with someone like Superman in it. She half guessed he was also looking for their flyer and was glad he was one of, as Mazie had called, the Good Guys.
*****
Randy tried the lever on the safe. Nothing. He spun the dial and hit the first three numbers before.
"What?" Buzz demanded.
"It isn't a three number lock," Randy told him.
"Well, hurry," Buzz hissed, waving his gun at him.
Randy cringed away. "Just let me do this, Buzz." He didn't want to get hit again.
"Right, right," Buzz's voice went from threatening to a coo.
Randy heard the tumbler click. He didn't quite understand why other people couldn't do this, the clicks seemed loud enough for even Buzz, across the room, to hear.
*****
Steve flew low over the buildings, sometimes even between them. He looked fearlessly into windows as he sailed by and down at the people on the street.
"After I get that rat, Randall, I'll take care of the dealers," he told himself. "Too bad Mom's dealer got himself blown away last spring, I'd take him out right now."
Steve flew down an alley and saw a mugging. He landed on a fire escape and picked up some trash cans and threw them at the muggers. In a few moments the victim ran out of the alleyway. Steve nodded to himself. Emptying one last can on the muggers, he leaped into the air.
A few moments later a trio appeared on the fire escape.
"Rats," Stefon muttered.
Witch looked down into the alley. "He's a busy boy," she commented, "but it seems his heart is in the right place."
"He's got hate on his mind," Stefon told her. "I hope we catch him before he hurts someone."
"Let's go back to the Metropolis Building," Mazie said.
"Right," Witch agreed. The trio disappeared again.
*****
Steve spotted Superman overhead. Torn between the desire to fly up next to him and hiding. He hid, dropping down to a roof to watch him.
As Superman flew on, Steve took off, hanging low among the buildings.
Not considering what he was doing, Steve followed his hero.
*****
Superman flew slowly, he was about to give up looking for the flying person. He saw something wrong.
He made a wide, banking turn and circled the building, coming up much closer. He had seen a man looking furtively out a window and there seemed to be something suspicious going on inside.
He used his x-ray vision to see what was going on.
Superman flew up, then dropped down into the window.
*****
When the window shattered, Randy fell away from the safe.
Buzz spun toward the window where Superman had caught his buddy by the collar.
Buzz fired.
Randy scrambled away and froze as Buzz's other two friends dashed past him. He ran out the door as they also opened fire on Superman.
The window in the hall crashed and another person dropped in.
Randy got the impression of a youth in a dark sweat suit.
"You!" the boy yelled.
Randy turned to run.
It seemed as if a vise clamped close on his chest and he collapsed.
*****
"Got him," Stefon and Mazie said together. In a quick meld, the trio teleported together.
They took in the boy and the power he was projecting at the man on the floor. Witch threw up a shield, then handed it off to Stefon.
Stefon caught it just as the teen turned his attack on them. Witch jumped to the man's side. Stefon felt the shield shake and Mazie was flung 20 feet and slammed against the far wall before he managed to firm the shield again.
"Don't interfere!" the teen yelled. "I have to kill him! I promised!"
Stefon looked at the youth. He had dark hair, combed back from his thinnish, angular face and dark features.
Mazie staggered up next to him. "He looks a lot like you," she murmured.
Stefon's concentration slipped and the shield weakened as he glanced at her, startled.
"Why do you have to kill this man?" Witch asked. She knelt next to the man, having helped him to sit up.
"He hurt my mother," the boy snarled.
Stefon glanced over. The man looked even more like himself than the teen did.
"Don't you realize he's probably your father?" Witch demanded.
*****
Superman disarmed the tall man who shot at him. As the other two men came in and fired, he let go of the first man and caught the bullets. Then, moving with super speed, he disarmed them as well. There were too many people to have bullets flying about.
He caught up a few of the steel implements from the bag by the safe and quickly twisted the objects around around the four men's wrists.
A fifth man had fled, but had been stopped just out in the hall.
A lot had been out of his sight, but a few moments after the man had fallen, a woman in an engulfing black cape had appeared by his side.
Now finished with his captives, he went to the door. He saw a youth and the broken window. The man on the floor was supported by the woman in the cape. Another woman and a man in a long fringed jacket stood about halfway along the landing.
"Superman!" the boy exclaimed.
"Thank you for stopping him," Superman said.
"They forced me, I didn't want to help them!" the man gasped. He was clutching his chest as if it hurt to breath.
"I did see something like that," Superman told him.
"Don't believe him," the boy snarled.
Superman was surprised at the hatred in the youth's tone.
The man in the fringe took a step toward the teen.
"You don't get it, do you Steve." The boy looked surprised that the man called him by his name. "Why do you think your mother hated him so?" He waved his hand in the direction of the man on the floor. "He is your father."
To Superman's extended vision, he saw light crackle between the boy and his challenger. Not understanding what he was seeing, but unwilling to allow Steve to hurt anyone, he dashed to the boy's side and turned him.
"Stop it," he told the teen. "You will not hurt him."
Steve looked at Superman, surprised.
"Let the police deal with him," Superman said.
"But, I didn't..." Randy said. He was helped to his feet by the woman.
Superman let go of Steve and turned. "I saw him holding a gun on you," he told him. "I will let the police know how they gained your co-operation."
The woman in the cape had disappeared into the room, a moment later the four men staggered out.
"Mazie, give Steve your number, we need to be going," she said.
Superman recognized that tone of voice. This woman was used to giving orders, he certainly heard it enough from Lois.
Mazie pulled a business card out of a pocket and, before Superman's widened eyes, sailed it across the twenty foot gap between her and the boy. It hung in the air until he took it.
"Since you seem to have things well in hand, Superman, we'll go now. Mazie, Stefon," she said. They turned as if to leave and before Superman could say a word, they vanished with a final snap of her black cape.
*****
Steve called the police while Randy helped Superman get Buzz and company down to the lobby. While waiting for the police to arrive, Superman maneuvered the father and son together, keeping an eye on them to be sure that the boy didn't hurt the man, however he did it.
"You're Amanda's son?" Randy asked.
"I don't believe you are my father," the boy snapped.
"You may not want to believe it, I'm not sure I do, but it explains why your grandmother slammed the door in my face.
"She did?" Steve asked. Anyone his grandmother didn't like couldn't be all bad.
"Steve, I loved your mother. We went to school together, we were going to elope. Then Buzz wanted to go out one night. Turned out it was to rob a place. Buzz had always been my friend and protector in school. I'd open up locks on lockers and he'd rig them to dump everything on the floor. I always was good with combination locks.
"That night he broke into a business and drug me in with him. Buzz talked me into opening up the safe for him. Oh, I was so stupid back then." Randy put his head down on his hands. "The police caught me, but I didn't betray Buzz. I still thought he was my friend.
"When I got out of jail, I worked various jobs until I finally worked up my act as an escape artist magician. I've also got a day job at a key shop. But I could never find Amanda. I looked, Steve, I did look."
"She's dead," Steve told her bluntly. "Aids, today."
"Today!" Randy paled and swayed. "Aids... how?"
"Drugs," Steve spat. "She said it was your fault."
"But I never did drugs..." Randy started. Then he shut his eyes and hung his head again. "I see, she started using them after she thought I left. But I wrote and she sent my letters back, unopened."
"Granny is a mean old lady. I'd bet she'd not let Mom ever see your letters. I bet she even encouraged Mom to hate you."
Now Steve hung his head. "I'm sorry I tried to kill you."
"It's okay, Steve." Randy took the teen's shoulders in a firm grip. "I think those people were right. I do believe I'm your father and I want to try to be a real father to you, too."
Steve looked up at the man. He saw the earnest look in Randy's eyes.
"We can try," he said.
A father, Steve thought, even if he was going to have to try and forget the enmity his mother had built up for the man, would be great. In time maybe the social workers would let them live together.
With a chill, Steve realized he had been stopped by those people from killing his father. He fished the card he had gotten from them out of his pocket.
He'd have to give them a call.