A BETTER TOMORROW

ᡕᠵデᡁ᠊╾━ ​ ┈⌯⁍𖦏 ❝ 「 You're a bad liar. 」 ❞ Jason grumbles, but his head tilts just so. Curious. Dick was always the bigger Superman fan. Him not so much. Sure he was starstruck as a kid but not by much more than the rest of the League. And now, he saw them for what they were. Lords in a high tower looking down at humanity and not walking beside them.

❝ 「 About what? 」 ❞ He knows. Knows where this is headed. That he did wrong and needed to change? He wonders what canned lines will be force fed to him. But in spite of the anger and hurt and distrust. His heart had slowed. No long distressed panic of a creature backed against a wall ready to lunge but an animal just untrusting of an offered hand. ❝ 「 You can Talk. 」 ❞ He just may not listen.

But still... An offer to be talked at is still a better response than he was expecting. And while it would be easy to seize this chance to get on his soapbox and insist that this wasn't him, that Clark knew he could be better... He doubts that will be received well. The morality lecture will have to be saved for another time, it seems.

John is thirteen, but he knows what his role is at Vought. He knows he doesn't have anyone who cares about him.

He wants someone to care about him.

As Superman soothes him with low, gentle words and that comforting swaying motion, a pair of big, teary blue eyes peek up at him. Had that really been what he'd done, in screaming through these tests? Calling for help?

(It was. He knows it was.

John just never thought anyone would answer.)

"I'm s-supposed to ... I have powers. Like you. I'm supposed to be a hero, too." He pushes off the ground to show that he can fly, but he lands just as quickly and clings to his hero. "I want my blanket. But it's - It's in the Bad Room."

To think, there could be a room worse for a child than an industrial oven. But there is, and it's just beyond them, a door with a single window where nothing good happens.

"Is everyone disappointed in me?" John hugs Superman, aware from past experiences that Superman is possibly the only person he can ever give a tight hug like this to. "Do I have to go back in the Bad Room?"

                    ❝ We'll go in for a second, only to get your blanket. ❞

Clark could rush in and get it himself, but he doesn't trust what could happen if he leaves a vulnerable, terrified child alone in a room with people who were perfectly happy to watch him cook mere minutes earlier. No, he has to be a barrier between him and them, has to be ready to fight a way out of here at the slightest sign of hostility.

                    ❝ You're not staying in there, do you understand? You've done well. No one's angry or disappointed— ❞ no one that matters, anyway, since he's sure Vought aren't too happy about this arrangement ❝ —and you've got nothing to worry about. You're safe with me. ❞

Carefully detaching from the hug, Clark finds one of John's hands and squeezes it tight. He'll feel better if there's some kind of constant contact between them, and is sure John will feel the same way.

John is not a normal human. John has been born with superpowers: laser eyes, enhanced strength, enhanced senses, enhanced durability, flight. Vought wants to know the limits of these supposedly godly, actually manufactured, powers, so they experiment upon him daily.

Today, he has been stripped of his gown and placed in an oven. Today, he watches as Frank, the operator of his torture cell, throws a wadded-up ball of paper into a wastebasket, fist pumps, and turns up the temperature. Today, John screams in agony, his tears sizzling away, and no one reacts except to take notes on how their young experiment reacts to the heat.

His skin does not char. If it did, he would mercifully die, and he would finally be free of the endless, horrific sensation of burning alive.

Today, Superman himself bursts into the laboratory, rips the door off the oven, and coaxes him outside.

John doesn't care right now that he's supposed to replace Superman. He's in agony, he's terrified, everyone's watching, he's just a kid, and it's only Superman who's saying that he's safe.

This is the single nicest thing anyone has ever done for John.

With a sob, John launches forward, burrowing his face in Superman's chest and trying so hard to hide against his hero. "It hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts it hurts, it hurts so bad, Superman it hurts!"

With careful touches, he guides the boy into a more secure position against his chest, swaying them both slowly from side to side. He can feel eyes boring into him, those who haven't yet taken the opportunity to flee standing frozen in what he can only assume is shock and horror; taken aback by how quickly he can turn from a rampaging alien threat into... this. Something sweet and kind and altogether too human, too far removed from their own deification ambitions.

                    ❝ I know it hurts, I'm sorry. I'm sorry they put you in there. ❞

He shushes the child in low, comforting rumbles, one hand cradling the back of his head protectively. It's not he who should be apologising; he wasn't the one choosing to play wastepaper basketball while a child was cooked alive mere feet away, but Clark already knows none of these so-called scientists will offer a genuine one. They might, if put under enough pressure, offer an excuse. They might say that they had no choice, they'd get in trouble if they refused, that they were just following orders.

And that may be true. But what, then, is the excuse for playing games during these sessions? Did the orders include a demand to improve one's throwing at the same time?

# NOVARAGNO

knight of nights, my moon-struck knight — be gentle and fair, in battle, tournament & fight.

A STUDY IN — picking up the blade. the rise after the fall. the inherent hubris of artists. love and obsession. martyrhood and a knight's redemption. middle ages, renaissance and modernity, forever intertwined.

              penned by NØX.   (   + 20.   she // her.   cinematography student.   )

PKMN VERSE CARRD. || SPIDERVERSE CARRD. ↻ // ♥

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