Super to Me
A commission for tetrazene!
Enjoy!~
"Jake! Can you please, please just tidy up the kitchen for me? It's been a very long day and I need to sleep because I have another shift in just six hours!"
"What, ma? I can't hear you! Maybe if you used super voice!" His own voice boomed out, amplified by the powers passed on by the part of his genetic makeup inherited from his father, Superman. While Superman had fathered him, he'd taken off only a few days into his life.
"Come on! Jake! You can spare an hour! You have double the time of a normal human who needs to sleep! Please, just this one favor for me!" Her face was flushed with the heat of the kitchen and the glow of having been at work all day and now home to work for even longer.
"Mom! Seriously?" With a sudden, massive thud the kid threw the door coming up from the basement open hard enough that the handle actually smashed through the drywall on the other side.
His mother was a woman of a mere 31 years, though her face was pulled down currently with exhaustion. Her entire body slackened with a worn out sigh at the hole, though not an ounce of surprise flickered on her face. The boy's destructive habits marked the entire house with patches of filled in holes, re-painted tears of color from the walls, and repaired furniture and decor. She raised one hand, rubbing at her forehead. "Can you please just this once try to be gentle?"
Jake blinked, peering into the hole with surprise. "Oh! Woops!" he shrugged, strolling into the living room with a whistle. At only 12, he looked like a regular kid until he actually acted. His arms had a subtle tone, but it was truly what raced through his blood that powered the strength that powered him. His strength appeared at random moments, whenever he meant to supply only a regular amount, it would suddenly burst out smashing walls, breaking drawers, and causing general mayhem and destruction.
That strength, combined with the general rambunctious nature of a young boy and Jake's unique mischievous traits, meant he usually left a path of destruction in his path. Down the entire hall of his school, he'd accumulated a stack of damages charges that sat waiting on the kitchen counter for his mother to work to paying them back.
And like any other teenaged boy, he ate. Though with super strength, he super ate. Bending into the fridge, he began to rummage madly through the drawers. "Jeez, mom! Why is there no food!" he groaned.
"What do you mean no food? I just went to the store yesterday!" She gasped out, peeking over his shoulder to the nearly empty fridge. "How could you eat all that so fast! You're sucking me dry here, kid! The least you can do is clean up the kitchen! Some dishes, take out the trash, and then you can patch the drywall- again!"
"Mom!" he groaned, rolling his eyes at her while he started to claw through the pantry instead, burning the top of a can off with a squint of his laser eyes before he began to heat the Spaghetti O's with his gaze.
"I have been at work all day! I worked a double shift! I have been awake since four! I have another early shift tomorrow! I haven't eaten! I haven't showered! I would like to be able to take care of myself for once and have you step in with the house work, it's not like it's even hard for you given your powers!" While she lectured at him, he casually slurped through the Spaghetti O's and re-inspected the pantry to find it dry now. Then, without the woman even noticing, he began on a journey at super speed. He raced from the kitchen, to the front door where his mother's purse sat, dug for cash, and sped through the supermarket. He paused just long enough to pay before he was back at the kitchen table, eating Bugles off his finger tips.
"W-where did you get Bugles? I said enough with the junk food. I didn't buy any?" his mother demanded, fixing a stern glare onto the absent boy.
He didn't respond, silence her own reply except for the crunch of the chips as he chewed.
"Jake!" she demanded, raising her voice.
"Jesus! I have super-hearing! That hurts!" he suddenly snapped, glaring up at her.
"Well, if you'd respond to me the first time! Where did you get those chips?"
He shrugged. "I bought them."
"When?" Forgetting, for a moment, who she was talking to the woman groaned as he told her "just now" in his smug, cheeky voice. "Where did you get the money? If you had money it was supposed to go to the repair fund!" Her hand shook at the glass jar behind the stack of Damages Receipts utterly empty.
"From your purse-"
"My purse? That-That was my lunch money! For the week!" she groaned, rubbing a hand up through her hair before she stared at him a second long, idly chomping through her entire fund for her lunches at work. "Guess I'm not eating tomorrow on top of not sleeping..." Then, she just sighed and pivoted away to go find the wall sealant to repair the fresh hole.
Blocks away, back at the supermarket that had been practically ransacked by the superspeed of the boy racing through its aisles acting like a vortex to pull everything down from their places and even toppling a few end caps, the shop owner's plight had drawn the attention of a local hero.
Stalking through the doors, Batman peered around the situation. The shopkeeper through up his hands, explaining. "It was that kid again!"
Batman nodded, leaving with the resolution that something had to be done to this child's mindless destruction. He was just a child, perhaps it wasn't his fault, but he couldn't wield these strengths any longer. Back in his quiet home, the solemn hero poured over information taken from one of Jake's hairs lefts at the scene of the super market. Analyzing his DNA, a picture slowly gathered in the man's mind.
"Hm... Kryptonian energy..." he mused, eyeing the way Jake's cells reacted the kryptonite samples, causing instant instability. "I believe, stimulated correctly, I could transfer these powers to a more responsible person... though they'd have to have genetic relatedness and complete a physical circuit." Eyebrows furrowing, he decided. "I'll talk to his mother."
***
"Miss Lewis? There's someone here to see you. Outside." The tired woman looked up from her work, nodding before she slipped out the back door only to come face to face with the familiar black mask she often saw spread over the news. "Batman?"
"Hello, Miss Lewis." he greeted, tone dull and somber. "I'm here to talk to you about your son."
She fixed her jaw, sternly before she nodded. She was used to 'talking about her son.'
"He is out of control. He is costing people all around town thousands in damages. He's running you dry, I see it. He is simply too young and immature to wield such power. Now, I studied his genetics, you see, and his powers can be transferred out of his hands, but only to someone with shared genetic makeup."
For a moment, the woman didn't understand before she gave a gasp. "I can't do that! Not to my son! He'd be devastated to lose his powers!"
"Ma'am, he's out of control-"
"No! I don't want to do that to my own son!" Then, with a harsh pivot, she turned and returned to work.
***
"Jake! I'm home, did you-" Her question died in the air as the woman hit the kitchen. Crumbs of orange Bugle dust were smeared from the kitchen into the white carpeted living room. One of the two remaining chairs of the dining room had been broken, the back legs snapped in half from the boy rocking back and thrusting too hard onto the wooden supports. "There's my next paycheck!" she scoffed to herself, turning just in time to see the hole she'd repaired last night smashed through again. On top of it all, the kitchen was still a mess.
"That's it!" she cried out, stomping to the phone still in her purse. "If anyone should have powers in this household, it's the one who does all the work!" She clutched onto the phone, instantly dialing from the card Batman had left at her front desk. As he picked up, not even speaking, just clicking on the call acceptance, she spat out her consent. "I agree. Let's do this."
***
Meeting outside of her home, mother and Batman began the search for Jake only to find him outside of a YMCA downtown, peering intentfully at the brick wall separating him from the women's locker room. His eyes were locked intentfully, initiating his X-ray vision, to peer into the depths of the room. "Ooh ooh ooh! Bow chicka wow wow!" he murmured to himself.
"Jake!" she shouted out, stalking across the parking lot.
"Mom! What! Jeez!" he demanded, thrashing as her arms grabbed onto his to pull him away from his Peeping Tom spot, but Batman appeared behind, clutching a thin sheet of kryptonite to weaken the boy.
"What are you guys doing?" Jake demanded, trying to pull away from his mother's hold, but the kryptonite weakened his muscles, made a sudden sluggish sensation seep through body. His mother shivered with anxiety at the idea of robbing her son of his favorite thing, his powers, yet she couldn't deny deep down she felt a lust for the powers.
She could see herself, in imagined snippets in the back of her mind, flying through her paperwork and leaving the office within an hour. She imagined being able to go to the gym again and blowing people out of the water in the weight room! She imagined being able to fly to work, no more bus for her! It'd be so nice! Finally a break! Finally, she'd have what it took to do all that was expected of her, plus even less since half of her work came from cleaning up after Jake's messes.
"Mom?" Jake asked, looking up at her with a fierce expression just as the transfer started. Batman only had to shoot a small shot into the mother's veins, a sort of summoning agent to pull the transfer into her and away from Jake's veins. All at once, Jake felt his body starting to weaken. The sounds, all around him, that he heard amplified and layered all over each other yet somehow all seperate, began to jumble then he felt them fading out. His world began to silence. His legs, that always seemed to ebb with the power within them, began to feel wobbly in comparison. Looking over at his mother, who still clutched his arm, he could see her biceps starting to firm up. Her face flushed with more color and warmth, all the exhaustion disappearing since she no longer needed any sleep at all.
On her end of the exchange, the sudden energy she felt exploding through her entire body made her audibly gasp. She'd been tired for days, maybe years trying to raise the trouble of a child, but now she felt nothing draining her body!
As more and more power began to leave him, and the pressure of his mother's hold on his arm began to feel tighter and more powerful with each second, Jake started to cry out against the change. "Mom! What are you doing!? Mom! Mom! Can't you hear me?"
She actually laughed, surprised to hear him saying something she demanded quite often of him! "Hah! With super hearing, I can hear everyone! Including you, Jake. I'm choosing not to listen, just like you seem to enjoy doing!" She felt a sudden rush, the empowerment of finally having the upper hand in this power struggle between mother and child. For years, she'd despised his father for leaving her with a super-powered handful. She loved her son, yes, but it was a constant battle to exert any dominance or discipline on a toddler who can break down a brick wall. But now, now it was her who wielded this!
Jake's bottom lip had started to wobble, the realization that she was sapping away all he had to make him special hitting him. He had spent his whole life honored, adored, feared, lavished in attention and love because he could do things. What would he do now? As just a normal boy? "Mom! How could you!" he cried, actually throwing his arm out in a punch into her arm, but she barely felt it! Though his knuckles instantly flinched back the instant he made contact and it felt like he'd smacked his hand into a boulder. She couldn't help but laugh, watching his pointless temper tantrum. She muffled it, but the little bursts of giggles escaped.
"It's not funny!" he cried, but she just chuckled silently. "No, no, honey. Of course it's not! But, perhaps the lesson here is it's not okay to hit people! No matter how angry we are!" Then, without ceremony, she scooped him up behind his knees and back like he was an oversized baby and leapt into the air. Instantly, she began to soar through the air. His weight, in her arms, felt like nothing.
Yesterday, a load of laundry had felt like a ton of bricks in her tired, weakened arms; but now she lifted up her 12 year old son without hesitation! Though it'd taken them a half hour to drive to the YMCA on the trip there, to get back only took a minute! It amazed her! So much! Already, she started to feel a rising sense of impatience towards her son now with even more perspective! This much time! This must ease and he could never help her!"
As they dropped into the front yard, she set him down. "Now, you're going to clean the kitchen like I've been telling you to do for a week. Then, you'll do all your homework and patch the wall-"
"Why me? You have the powers now!"
"And you had them before? What did you do with them? Help me? Oh! Wait! No! You didn't!" She shook her head at him, scoffing with impatience rising again. "You get in that house and get to work! After all, you're going to have to sleep tonight for the first time in years!"
"Mom?"
"Now!" She watched him stride away, pouting. Then, she looked up at the sky with a whine. "Now what?" she thought to herself, knowing she couldn't let her motherly instincts break in just yet. She had to be firm. "Be strong. Be strong." she chanted quietly.
Eyeing the sky again, she suddenly realized she could fly for more than getting home! With a push, she soared up into the air. She burst through clouds, breaking through them like they were just fluffy clouds. She threw her arms above her head, feeling the power racing through her veins, the energy! She spun through the air, squealing with sudden, indescribable joy!
With a little grumble, her stomach announced it's hunger. "Oh! I didn't eat today!"
"Oh! I'd love to go to that French bakery downtown..." A sudden thought occurred to her.
"Or...?" And, within minutes, she had soared across the dividing ocean and arrived at a true French bakery. The Eiffel Tower winked out of the landscape in front of her as she strode through the glass doors, breathing deeply in the scent of butter and fresh dough. She made an order, only to hear swearing from the back as a disgruntled employee struggled to lift a bag of flour. "Pardon, ma'am. Our usual delivery man is out, we don't have the muscles for it."
"May I help?" she asked sweetly, the man's brows furrowed with confusion, but he shrugged. She leapt over the counter, easily hefting the bag and then hauling all their goods in from the truck in record time!
"Merci! Merci!" they all cried, thanking her with a complimentary bag of goodies which she took off towards home toting. As she burst through the door at home, she found Jake still scrubbing at the kitchen floor. "I brought you a snack," she offered, trying to comfort him, but when he looked up at what she'd brought he scowled. "Where did you get those?"
"A bakery!"
"From where?"
A bit sheepish, she shrugged. "Does it matter?"
"Yes! You went to Paris! You stole my powers and now you are using them to just gallivant around! You just did this for you!" he shouted at her, scowling.
Still wanting to comfort him, her face softened. "I'm sorry. That was never the intent! Here, how about I help you? I'll clean the kitchen floor and you get the trash taken out? We can tackle it together?"
He shrugged, grumbling still, but silently agreeing. He bagged up the strewn pieces of trash and headed out and the woman descended onto the stained carpet. Within the two minutes it took to take the trash out, she had cleaned the entire kitchen, repaired the broken chair with some glue, notched it up to dry, done the dishes, scrubbed down the floor, re-organized the Pantry by color and by letter, and then moved into the living room too.
Jake saw it all, this stark reminder that he no longer was the super one and he just groaned. "Mom!" he cried out, she suddenly froze, stopping her super speed whirl through the house, putting away laundry as it came out of the machines upstairs. "Oh honey, there you are. You took a bit long there didn't you?" she asked, already adjusted to having the powers, though not enough to realize that her picture of time based on what she could do in a certain time frame was drastically different than the normal human- including her own son.
"You're just using my powers to taunt me!" he cried, stamping a foot. "I can never be super again! You robbed me!"
His mother moved in, scooping him up while he thrashed around in her arms, but he couldn't pull away from her strong grasp- even when it was gentle. She stroked at his hair, cooing at him. "Don't worry, honey. You'll always be super to me!"