"Clark... you..." Peter started, clearly wanting to ask about the S on his brother's chest.
Clark sat up and looked at him. A glint flashed in his blue eyes, and he gave Peter an almost absurdly gentle smile.
"What is it, Peter? Did you finish today's homework? And today's reflection too?"
Peter jerked like he'd been hit with a stun gun. Both hands flew up, and every question he'd been about to ask got shoved right back down into his stomach. He decided he'd bring it up later, when it was just the two of them.
He forced a smile and started backing away as he spoke.
"Nothing. I just wanted to say... that pajama top looks great on you. And that S? Very classy."
Clark nodded casually.
"If you want one, I've got plenty in my closet. I even have a pink one."
Peter looked at this brother of his, then looked back in his mind at that mysterious man from earlier, and found it impossible to believe they were the same person.
"No thanks... I think red and blue suits me just fine."
"Peter doesn't want one, but I do," Gwen said at once, patting Clark on the shoulder. "I want the pink one."
Clark nodded again. He had plenty of them. Giving one away was no big deal.
Then he checked the time on his watch and clapped his hands, telling everyone to head home and get some rest. After all, they still had school tomorrow.
Gwen and Cindy left one after the other.
That left Peter sitting there, still pretending to work on homework.
Then he turned and looked at his brother, who was sprawled across the couch watching television.
Now that Gwen and Cindy were gone, it was just the two of them.
Clark kept his eyes on the TV, but inside, his mind was tearing itself in half over whether he should finally tell Peter the truth. Because Peter had absolutely figured something out earlier.
The little devil was already cheering for confession, cracking a tiny whip in excitement.
Tell him! Tell him! Tell Peter you're the guy who tore Manhattan apart tonight! Look at the way his jaw'll drop!
The little angel, sitting miserably on a cloud with a copy of Adolescent Psychology in his hands, looked deeply concerned.
But Peter's only fifteen. His worldview is still under construction. If we suddenly tell him his brother is an alien, what if he can't handle it? Maybe we should just keep playing dumb...
"Playing dumb, my ass!" the little devil shouted, kicking the angel clean off the cloud. "You think Peter's stupid? If we keep feeding him lies now, it'll only make things worse later. Haven't you seen enough TV to know how that ends?"
Clark sighed.
For once, the little devil had a point.
For a kid like Peter, brilliant and sensitive to everything, honesty was the better choice. Better to talk now than let mistrust explode between them later in the middle of some crisis.
He waved the two little idiots away, then looked at Peter, who was now staring back at him.
Clark reached up, removed his glasses, and set them aside.
"Whatever you want to ask, ask it, Peter. I know your head is overflowing with questions right now. If you keep bottling them up, I'm worried you're going to crack."
The moment Clark took off the glasses, that other presence returned.
That quiet, Superman-like air.
That impossible stillness.
That strange sense of pressure, not hostile, but vast.
It was completely different from the ordinary, glasses-off Clark Peter knew from everyday life. Something in his whole bearing changed.
Peter physically flinched.
Even his spider-sense prickled, warning him of the overwhelming power in front of him. There was no danger in it, but his body still reacted instinctively.
"So... the one on the Manhattan streets tonight," Peter said in a rush, "the one who caught a missile one-handed, swatted cars away, whipped up that storm that nearly dropped the government helicopters, and then disappeared into the sky... that was you, right?"
Once Peter started, it all came pouring out in one long burst.
Before, he had only known his brother was stronger than normal.
But what he'd seen tonight?
Peter himself couldn't do that.
Clark didn't answer.
He only smiled faintly.
Then, right in front of Peter's eyes, Clark's face suddenly became impossible to focus on.
It was like looking at the man with the S earlier that night.
"Holy shit!" Peter shouted, instantly thrilled, the curse escaping before he could stop it. He waved a hand in front of Clark's face, then even leaned in and touched it. The bone structure was still there, exactly the same, but he just couldn't see it clearly.
Amazing, wasn't it?
The all-purpose bio-electric field.
"How are you doing that?!" Peter asked, genuinely desperate to learn the trick. It looked unbelievably cool.
And, worse, it completely refused to obey science.
Peter's science brain started rising up in revolt, only for Clark to shut it down immediately.
"If you insist on using science to explain it," Clark said, reaching over and ruffling Peter's curly hair, "then think of every part of my body as a solar battery."
He continued calmly.
"I absorb radiation from this yellow sun and convert it into energy inside my body. That energy gives me a body like steel, speed beyond sound, senses sharp enough to see through matter and hear across vast distances, and even the ability to slip free of gravity itself. But it's more than just that."
Peter's mouth dropped open.
Then suddenly one line from Clark's explanation hit him in the face.
He took two stumbling steps backward.
One of his worst theories had just turned out to be true.
"Wait... absorb radiation from a yellow sun? A normal human doing that would get sick, or die, or both. Even the best genetic engineering on Earth couldn't..." Peter stared at him in horror. "Clark... don't tell me... don't tell me you're..."
"You're thinking in the right direction, Peter."
Clark began revealing part of the truth.
He left out the part about being a reincarnated soul from another world, because that was insane even by his standards, but he kept the part about Krypton.
Though honestly, he still wasn't even sure what counted as true anymore. He had fragments of Kryptonian memory in his head. Did that mean some part of him had really lived in the DC universe before landing in Marvel? Had he somehow crossed twice?
No idea.
"I'm not human," Clark said at last. "Or more accurately, I'm not Earth-human. But I'm still... human enough."
Crack.
Peter felt like lightning had just split open his brain and let the pieces fly free.
"An... alien?!" His voice shot up into something halfway between panic and a teenage girl's shriek. "Like from Alien? Or E.T.? Oh my God, I lived under the same roof as an alien for fifteen years! We shared a bathroom! When you used my toothpaste, were you leaving behind some kind of alien parasite spores?!"
Clark immediately smacked him on the head, cutting off Peter's useless science-fiction spiral.
It still hurt badly enough to make Peter bare his teeth.
"Watch fewer trash sci-fi movies. Other than being physically stronger than humans, I'm no different in the ways that matter. Ben and May found me in a crashed spacecraft on a winter night in 1991, and they took me in. From that day on, I've been Clark Parker. Your brother."
Looking at Peter's stunned face, Clark's voice softened.
"Only Ben and May knew before this. Now you do too. This is a Parker family secret. The reason I've kept my powers hidden is because this world isn't ready for an alien with the power of a god. If the government, or men like Kingpin, ever learn what I really am, our family will never know peace again."
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