Chapter Text
Clark still remembers when the first tragedy hit their little family.
He’d been out in the field with the cows, seventeen years old (according to when Ma and Pa found him), and still barely discovering things about himself that he’d only known in his core, let alone manifested genuinely. Feeding the cows and chickens was his daily chore - along with doing the dishes - but he much preferred the animals to the mindless motions of scrubbing melted cheese off plates from last night’s dinner. No amount of superpowers was going to make it come off any easier.
He’d discovered his super-hearing abilities earlier this year. He couldn’t really recall the exact date when he’d realized he could hear a conversation on the other end of the school. He’d had so many powers emerge that it wasn’t so shocking anymore… but it was just as exciting. Every time one popped up, it was a new idea on how he could help more people. He’d been raised that way after all. All the way from the very moment he’d developed his super strength, lifting a bed right over Pa’s head when he was two.
Through everything, he’d never once wished he didn’t have his powers.
He wished it now.
He heard the landline ringing from the house over the sound of the cows in the grass and the subtle clucking of the hens in the coop. You’d think they’d have gotten rid of their little ol’ landline from 1992, which was quite literally as old as he was. Maybe get something newer at the very least... but they never did. Ma and Pa always found it too important for Clark to be able to reach them always – and them back to him.
He heard Pa answer the phone, kind as usual, curious as always. Clark could probably listen in closely enough to hear what the person on the other end was saying if he really tried, but it hadn't occurred to him that it might be an important call instead of their usual one-a-day spam caller.
But then he heard the phone hit the wall, like his dad had dropped it so quick. And he heard Pa scream – sorrow and distress so deeply etched into the waves of his voice that the echoing through Clark’s ears moved instantly into his chest to squeeze his heart aggressively.
Clark dropped the pail in his hands, cows rearing back from the sudden movement, and ran. Running – speeding through the grass field. Heart pounding so loud in his ears and panic settling into his bones in a way that he couldn’t quite remember how to move faster. Faster- Move faster! The one time his superspeed wouldn't work... His heart shouted as he threw open the wooden doors of the house, tearing them almost clean off the hinges in his hurried aggression- “Pa!”
“Clark!” His ma shouted from the kitchen as he slid into view, slippery socks on tile, trying to tune out his dad’s screams just enough to listen. He wasn’t used to it – not the hearing, and not the screams. “Clark-” Ma was on the floor hunched over Pa, arms wrapped around him as he sobbed. Tears streamed down his face as he tried to breathe, to say anything that could help his family understand.
But how could you understand this?
Clark rushed over, pressing his hands to his dad's shoulders in an effort to ground him. To look at him, to try and fix what had clearly gone wrong. “Pa, what is it? What's wrong?”
“Mary-” Pa started, choking on his own breath, “She’s gone-! Mary’s- Mary’s gone!” Clark’s blood ran cold.
Mary... was Pa’s sister. Clark knew her well. Their family tree had basically ended up one big circle. Pa, then Mary with her husband, Richard. Then Richard's brother Ben, who had married May, Ma's sister, after meeting her at a Christmas party when Clark was five. Since then, practically every holiday had been spent with a grand total of eight.
If Aunt Mary was gone–
Shivers screamed up his spine, unnatural and unruly, as he looked up at the phone hanging from the wall. Green flowered wallpaper as old and aged as the rest of the house behind it to frame it like a movie scene. Had it been Uncle Rich who had called?
Clark reached out for the phone in the middle of his father's panic - and a little of his own - gingerly. A voice, soft but concerned, on the end of the line was trying to offer condolences and respite from Metropolis. All the way from the Metro City Center Hospital. He could barely hear the man over his dad’s sobbing in his ears. And soon, his own tears made every stimulation worse. No- No, it wasn't Uncle Richard that had called... and it wasn't only Mary who had died.
He thanked the doctor, barely choking the words out, and hung up the phone to drop back down and hold his father. It was too loud. Painful in more ways than one. In one night, they'd lost two family members. Members who'd been there almost as long as Clark could remember. His father's screams; his own memories. Too loud, too painful.
But eventually the Kent house was too quiet. It was almost haunting.
Ma and Clark sat in the living area, staring off into nowhere in particular as Clark recounted the information the doctor on the phone had tried to pass on politely. Blankets wrapped around their shoulders as he leaned into his mother’s hold – sniffling coming from both of them. He wiped his eyes occasionally… only as often as the thoughts came back to remembrance, hitting a button in his chest that was labeled 'grieve.'
Aunt Mary and Uncle Richard… Dead as a result of a fatal car crash on the freeway through Metropolis around the thirteenth hour. The clock showed midnight, pitch black outside illuminated only by the warm-lit lamp behind Ma's head. It always made her hair look like fire.
“Did they say what caused it?” Ma asked gingerly. Ever the strong one, she was. Brushing one hand through Clark’s hair and the other rubbing tight circles into his shoulder to try and still her poor boy’s heart. Just as much of a mush as his father, she’d say to whoever’d listen. Determined as her, sweet as John. It was no question who raised him if you looked hard enough around Smallville.
Clark shook his head, willing himself not to cry anymore. He needed to allow himself to mourn; he knew that… But if he cried now, the tears might not stop; then who would comfort Ma when the rest of the world went to bed? “The doctor didn’t have that info,” he whispered, staring at the red flowers of his mother’s wallpaper. “Said the police’ll call us in the morning with the report since Pa is Mary’s oldest next of kin.” It was quiet for another beat, or two, of Clark's heart before Ma thought it best to ask...
“Was there any mention’a Peter?”
His heart squeezed. Eyes widened at the ceiling; bile rose in the back of his throat from the sheer volume of emotional pain in his chest. How could he have forgotten that? His baby cousin, barely six years old as of August- Little Peter with his caramel curls and May brown eyes. Clark couldn’t stop the sobs coming to the surface this time. The bubbled like a long-forgotten pot of milk on the stove; he cared too much. Did he know?
Did he know that his parents were dead? His little cousin - had anyone told him? Or had he been in the car, now alone at the hospital bleeding and bruised- No. Who was he with? Surely he was with May and Ben– they wouldn’t let a six-year-old wander Metropolis alone- they would have told them had Peter been at the hospital...
Right?
Ma’s arms wrapped tight around Clark’s chest as he shook, sobbing into his arm to quiet himself, teeth into his own skin. He couldn’t wake Pa... that wasn’t fair. Pa needed the rest more than anyone in the house now. A few hours of peace before his world came crashing down again in the morning with the rooster crowing.
Ma let out gentle shushing, hand returning to run patterns through his dark curls for however long Clark had cried. And when his tears had dried up, they left an even numbness, which cradled an innate need to curl into nothing… Only then, could he let it out. “No- The doctor didn’t say anything about Peter,” he admits, voice croaking as he stared at the wall-matched carpet across the wooden floor.
Ma nods, squeezing her boy tight for a moment. “If they didn’ mention Pete, he’s gotta be safe with May and Ben, bug,” she mutters into his hair. He nods. The only intentional action he really had left in him. A sigh escapes. And then another shaky breath in and out. Exhaustion or lack of oxygen, who knows by now? Only his body, and not his mind. He wasn’t even sure what time it was anymore.
“Ma,” he starts, hearing her quiet tone of acknowledgment in his ear. “What do we do?” His voice cracked. For a second, he looked like any average teenager looking to his mother for guidance. Even with his glasses pressed against the side of his face in such a silly manner. Her chest lifted and slowly fell, bringing her darling son with it in a careful bob.
“We keep movin’ forward,” she whispers, patting his hair. “We pray, an’ we keep goin’ through... all of it.” Clark swallows thickly, closing his eyes to ignore the burning from the exhaustion. Raising his hands to keep his ma’s hands close around him for at least a few more minutes. Tomorrow would bring more sorrow – but it could bring light. Knowledge and truths that they needed. He alone had so many questions, let alone Pa... Had it been intentional? Raining? Road rage? Or had it only been a freak accident and just a matter of sheer bad luck?
He supposed they’d find out when the sun rose.
He laid there picking out the red and green patterns in the carpet. Lying on a sage green corduroy couch in front of a bricked stone fireplace, and a myriad of Ma’s pastimes scattered in boxes across the room. Home. Their home.
And slowly as time ticked, he moved forward. Just like Ma said. Sitting up, standing to his already-tall-at-seventeen height, and helping Ma carefully off the couch and down the hall so he could do her one last service and put her in bed…
And only once he was sure she was comfortable, with a kiss on her forehead and Pa’s arm around her – heartbroken in his sleep – Clark crept as quietly as he could over creaking floorboards to his bedroom at the back of the house.
Red and green shifted to red and blue hues, brown wood drowning his wall, and posters of punk rock bands hanging tacked to it. Some small medals from school awards, clothes strewn around a white hamper, even though they really should be in the hamper... and a small little crayon drawing of a spider hung, loved, beside his dresser mirror. Peter’s little four-year-old handwriting of his own name in the corner. He was safe; Clark had to be sure. And if he somehow wasn’t… he would fly to Metropolis himself.
Absentmindedly, he did his routine, sure in his mind that if Peter wasn't safe, he would make sure he was. Shoes off, pants tossed, and his shirt somewhere by the hamper where it had been just that morning. Glasses clattered towards the edge of his nightstand. He tucked himself into his own bed, the wood groaning at any weight, and curled towards the door. It made him feel safer, knowing he could see down the hall to his parent's door.
And as he turned off the lamp that cast gold into his room, he pushed the thoughts of Mary and Richard Parker, dead, out of his mind – focusing only on his favorite little cousin and that little 6 year smile with missing teeth.