"When I was a child, I spake as a child,
I understood as a child, I thought as a child:
but when I became a man, I put away childish things." [Corinthians 13:11]

"Clark. Do you understand why you were in trouble?"

The boy twitches, and stares with greater determination at his shoes. Martha thinks it's the onset of puberty. Their eldest is-

They say he's thirteen. Maybe that's close. Maybe not. Thomas has no idea what puberty looks like, when a boy is-

Different.

The kind of different that can't be thought of. Not too often.

"You know better."

That earns a flash of young indignation.

"You don't agree?"

"He hurt Bruce!" Clark spills the words like they've been pushing at his throat to escape all this time. Too-wide eyes beg his father's understanding.

"Alfred tells me it was an accident, that Bruce took a tumble when he and Tommy were playing."

"Tommy shoved him." Flat and mutinous, so unlike their sunny boy that Thomas blinks.

From the drawn curtains in Clark's bedroom, Thomas can see the garden where Bruce fell. Where Clark broke the Elliot boy's nose. It is silent now, gilded silver, devoid of the echoes of the children's play. The fountain is still, not a ripple disturbing the glassy sheen across the water.

"Clark." The urge to kneel and take his son by the shoulders is strong, but Clark is as tall as Martha, now. "They were playing, these things happen. What you -cannot- do is hit people, certainly not children. I've splinted your brother's finger, he'll be fine." The urge overpowers, and he hugs his son around the shoulders, holding him close enough to smell the sunlight Clark carries with him. "Your mother and I know you'll always protect your little brother. We couldn't be more proud. But you -cannot- hit people. You know how strong you are, son."

Their son grows like a stalk of wheat, he's stronger every year, and Thomas won't allow himself too many physiological considerations. Clark is not a specimen. The boy shakes, only once, in his father's hold.

"Dad, why am I different?"

The question comes more frightened and uncertain with every year. Thomas can only kiss his son's brow. Protect him from that knowledge a while longer.

"Because you're our special boy."

…

The lava closes over his head.

No, not lava. Magma. Clark is relatively certain that his Earth Systems professor back at Wertham would wince at the misconception. Lava outside the volcano, magma when still dormant in the earth.

And Clark is very much -inside- the volcano, at the moment.

The urge to open his eyes is strong, but it would be unfortunate to learn that they might not be as invulnerable as the rest of him. Even through his lids, the glow of molten rock shows warm and bright. The pressure is a vise. A test of long limbs proves that he can still move.

If he couldn't? Maybe he would sink under the crushing tons of liquid rock, remain untouched until the next eruption. A few thousand years from now.

Clark experiences a nauseating certainty that he may be immortal.

Pressure, radiant amber and scarlet glowing through his eyelids. For a moment he is young again, chasing Bruce through the woods along the estate while sunset spills luminous tangerine through the branches-

Then nothingness. A moment of blessed nothingness. His name was Clark, but here he has no name. Twenty years old and he had a family, once, but that drifts away. Dissolves. Enough heat to liquefy stone, could it be enough to burn away history like it never was?

So much heat, no kiln or flickering flames can compare. His impeccable prep school education rears its head again. Depending on the composition of the rock, the magma's temperature could be anywhere from thirteen-hundred to twenty-four-hundred degrees Fahrenheit.

No, he ought to use the Celsius scale. He's in Colombia. Nevada del Ruiz. That would be – seven hundred to thirteen-hundred degrees, Celsius. An analytical part of him would like to know, exactly. For scientific purposes.

But he's been living out of a battered Honda Civic for the past two years, so he hardly has the right equipment at hand.

...

Alfred tells the story often, as if Clark won't remember.

Clark is starting to understand that maybe he -shouldn't- remember. So he never says a word, and nods when appropriate.

Maybe this isn't a typical bedtime story, but Bruce loves it, kicking his little feet under the blankets.

"Wait. Did you brush your teeth?"

Bruce squirms away from his brother and buries himself beneath the richly embroidered duvet.

"Yes! Story now please!"

Clark ducks his head under the covers, pulling at Bruce's jaw to sniff his mouth in an exaggerated fashion. "You stink, baby bro. Do you want all your teeth to fall out? Go brush or I'll tell Alfred no story tonight."

Clear blue eyes widen at the betrayal. Bruce kicks his feet again, once, and dashes out from beneath the blankets as though his pajamas flaming.

When they're settled against the pile of pillows again, and Bruce is curled against his brother's side (all sins of toothpaste forgiven) Alfred allows them an indulgent smile before continuing.

Bruce still has a day nanny, since Clark is well into the first grade. Helene goes home at night, and Alfred tells better stories, anyway.

"When you were born, Master Bruce, there was a great tumult in the household," the butler intones, with all the gravitas of Greek myth. "Your mother and father left for the hospital in the night. Young Master Clark was scarcely three, and quite confused in the morning. His parents had vanished, and no matter how many times he had begged your mother to let him feel you kicking at her stomach – and I assure you, it was often – it seemed improbable that anything should -happen-.

"We walked in the garden, fed the geese at the pond, and Master Clark helped Miss Suzanne in the kitchen with all the dishes. But every time a floorboard creaked, or a door opened, your brother ran for the door. He even insisted on building a fort in the sitting room closest to the foyer, out of tablecloths and chairs stolen quite effectively from the dining room."

"And he fell asleep on the floor," Bruce interjects eagerly, lifting his head from Clark's ribs. "Then what happened?"

"As you seem to know already – why one would think you had heard this story before, Master Bruce," Alfred teases, schooling his mouth into sternness beneath his mustache. "Perhaps you would rather hear another?"

"No! Tell it, tell it!" Bruce wriggles so insistently against Clark's side that he fears they will both tumble out of bed. Bruce's bed. There is nothing wrong with Clark's bedroom, it's spacious and comfortable, and he could sleep with only a sheet as he preferred, no stifling blankets.

The seeming vastness of a room to a boy of four, to Bruce, means there are monsters seething in the dark corners, in the ominous closet, beneath the bed. The rocking chair takes on sinister guises in the night. Clark will sweat through sleep under any number of blankets to chase nightmares away.

"Shortly before dawn, I lifted the tablecloth and roused your brother from the pile of pillows he insisted upon taking as a bed. Your parents had returned – quite changed from their departure.

"Your father pushed your mother in a wheelchair, very carefully. She was tired, but radiant, and she held – you. She beckoned your brother close, very quietly, you were sleeping. When she tilted her arms and pulled back the blanket, Master Clark could see. And she said 'This is your brother. This is Bruce.'

"If you'll forgive me, Master Bruce, you quite spoiled the moment by waking and emitting a wail at a decibel with which I was previously not acquainted. You were terribly red and wrinkled, also, though you may not believe it now. But your brother – his eyes went round as saucers, and his mouth fell open, and I have never seen a child so enraptured by the most elaborate toys or films of spaceships and cowboys. Much less a squalling infant-"

"What's a squall?"

"You, crying really, really loud." Clark tickles Bruce's ribs. "Listen to the story."

"Indeed. And 'really, really loud' is an accurate description. But he simply -stared-, and followed your parents all the way to bed to watch you. It took a week to convince Master Clark to sleep in his own room – a matter of some difficulty to this very day – as we finally assured him that you would not vanish in the night without his supervision."

"Mom told me about changelings," the elder protests, flushing against the dove gray sheets. "I thought the fairies would come steal Bruce."

"From you, Master Clark? Never."

…

Bruce can't remember the day. The curtains are drawn tight in their parents' bedroom. He and Clark ought to shower. Their faces are stiff with the salt of dried tears, hair matted from tossing and turning in bed, unclean.

They cling, burrowing in sheets that still smell of Mother, Father. Wake. Sob. Collapse into wretched sleep again. When there are no more tears, sometimes Bruce screams. Clark holds him more tightly then, trembling as if his strong, fearless older brother might shatter at any moment.

Six days. Maybe a week. It doesn't matter.

Then Alfred comes again. Not with a silently borne tray of food, or cool hands for their brows. He helps them wash, dresses them in clean pajamas, robes, slippers for their bare feet.

Alfred takes them to a room beneath the basement that Bruce never knew existed.

Inside there is poured cement, a bare bulb, and a spaceship.

A/N: Hopefully the revisions will allow the chapter to flow more coherently. Feedback is always appreciated.