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Nine Years Later
The alarm clock was a redundant artifact in the Kent household. For Clark, the day began with the first chirp of a robin, his body attuned to the sun's crest over the horizon. For Robert, the day began long before that, in the deep, silent hours where the only light was the glow of the stars and the slow, steady burn of the power within him.
He didn't sleep so much as meditate, his consciousness adrift on the placid, golden ocean of energy that was his core. A million exploding suns, rendered docile and deep. There was no Void to fight, no inner demon to cage. There was only potential. The power to create and the power to unmake were two notes in the same chord, and he was the composer. He had spent nine years learning the instrument of his own soul, and the music was one of absolute control.
At fifteen, Robert Kent was a study in quiet contrasts. He stood six-foot-three, with a lean, muscular frame built from farm work and controlled exertion. His hair, a striking, premature steel-gray, was a source of endless small-town speculation he dismissed with a silent, internal shrug. Let them talk. His eyes, a calm and perceptive blue, missed little. He was grateful, with a depth that still sometimes stole his breath, for the life he had been given. The memory of Ken—powerless, lonely, dying on a cold convenience store floor—was a ghost he had long since made peace with. Robert was real. This family was real.
The scent of frying bacon and brewing coffee finally drew him from his bed. Downstairs, the kitchen was a warm chaos of affection. Martha fluttered between the stove and the table, her smile as constant as the sunrise. Jonathan was already poring over the farm ledger, a frown of concentration on his weathered face. And Clark… Clark was the heart of the noise, talking animatedly about a homework assignment, a football tryout, and Lana Lang's new haircut, all in the same breath.
"Morning, Rob," Clark said, his grin effortless.
Robert nodded, a small, genuine smile touching his lips. "Clark. Mom. Dad."
He took his seat, the solid, worn wood of the chair another anchor in his world. This was his sanctuary. This was the peace he had been granted.
---
Smallville High was a different kind of ecosystem, one Robert navigated with the detached air of an anthropologist. He was not an outcast; his height, his quiet confidence, and the mystery of his gray hair saw to that. But he was apart. He had friends—Pete Ross, with his easy-going loyalty, and Chloe Sullivan, whose sharp intellect and relentless curiosity he genuinely respected.
And then there was Lana Lang.
She was, by any objective measure, the town's darling. Sweet, kind, with a smile that could disarm most of the male student body. Robert saw the looks she gave him, the lingering glances in the hallway, the way she always seemed to find a reason to be near his locker. Pete never missed a chance to nudge him about it.
"Dude, Lana was totally undressing you with her eyes in English," Pete whispered as they navigated the crowded hallway.
Robert merely grunted, shifting his books to his other arm. "She's friendly with everyone."
"Not like that, she isn't," Pete insisted. "You're like a statue. What's it gonna take?"
"Nothing," Robert said, his tone final. He had no interest in being a teenage cliché. His heart, what he allowed himself to feel beyond his family, was a territory too complex, too burdened with cosmic secrets for a high school romance. He saw the flicker of disappointment in Clark's eyes when he rebuffed these advances, a silent acknowledgment that his brother carried a torch for Lana that Robert had no intention of fanning.
Clark was the sunny one, the well-liked jock with a heart of gold. Robert was the silent sentinel. It was a dynamic that worked.
---
The true test of his control never happened within the school's cinderblock walls. It happened after the final bell, when the bus dropped them off at the end of the long, gravel lane leading to the farm. Here, surrounded by endless sky and the scent of earth, they could be themselves.
Their "training" had evolved over the years. It was an unspoken agreement, a secret shared between brothers to protect the parents they loved.
One evening, they stood in the back forty, the setting sun painting the world in fiery oranges and purples.
"Okay, hit me with the heat vision," Robert said, his voice calm. "Just a flicker."
Clark frowned, his focus intense. A faint red glow emanated from his eyes, a narrow beam of concentrated thermal energy lancing out. It struck Robert square in the chest.
And vanished.
There was no sizzle, no scorch mark on his t-shirt. Robert didn't even flinch. He felt the energy hit his skin, a pulse of intense heat that was immediately and effortlessly swallowed by the abyssal aspect of his power. It was absorbed, digested, and added to the vast reservoir within. A snack for the suns inside him.
"Nothing," Robert reported. "Try a little more."
Clark increased the output. The beam grew brighter, hotter. The air around it wavered. Still, Robert stood impassively, a black hole for raw energy. He could feel Clark's frustration, his struggle to control the power that was so innate to him.
"It's not fair," Clark finally said, letting the beam die. "You don't even have to try."
"It's just different, Clark," Robert said, his voice soft. "You have to learn control. For me... control is the default." It was the closest he'd ever come to hinting at the true nature of his power. He let Clark believe it was simple energy absorption. It was a kinder, simpler truth.
He knew Clark's struggles were rooted in something deeper, something he had known since his first conscious thoughts in this life. He knew about Krypton. He knew about Jor-El. And he knew about the one, singular poison that could strip his invincible brother of everything.
That abstract knowledge became a terrifying, tangible reality three years ago.
---
They were twelve, the summer air thick with the buzz of cicadas. They were exploring the woods that bordered the Kent property, a place of childhood adventure and imagined frontiers. Clark was a darting blur of motion, leaping over fallen logs with a grace that was already superhuman.
"Bet you can't clear this one!" Clark called back, pointing at a massive oak that had fallen in a recent storm.
Robert merely smiled. He didn't run. He simply moved, his body absorbing the friction and resistance from the world around him, gliding over the forest floor as if it were ice. He reached the log a split second after Clark.
"How do you do that?" Clark asked, for what felt like the hundredth time. "It's not like my speed. It's like... you're convincing physics to take a break."
"Something like that," Robert replied vaguely.
His attention was caught by something else. A faint, sickly green glow emanating from a patch of disturbed earth near the base of the fallen oak. A cold dread, sharp and immediate, pierced his calm. He knew that signature. He had always known it, in the way one knows a deadly predator from a textbook picture, but now he was seeing it in the flesh.
"Clark, don't—!"
But Clark, ever curious, had already knelt down. "Whoa. Look at this. It's like it's glowing from the inside." His hand reached out, fingers closing around the jagged, pulsating rock.
The effect was instantaneous and horrifying.
A strangled, guttural cry was torn from Clark's throat. It was a sound Robert had never heard before—a sound of pure, unadulterated agony. The vibrant, healthy color drained from Clark's face in an instant, replaced by a waxy, green-tinged pallor. His body began to convulse, muscles seizing uncontrollably as he collapsed into the dirt, his back arching violently.
"CLARK!"
Robert was at his side in an instant, his own heart a frantic drum against his ribs. The green rock was still clutched in Clark's convulsing hand, its malevolent radiation screaming against Robert's heightened senses. It wasn't just poison; it was anti-life, a frequency designed to unravel the very essence of what Clark was.
Panic, cold and sharp, threatened to seize him. He shoved it down. Into the abyss. There was no room for panic here.
He pried at Clark's fingers, which were locked in a death grip around the stone. The moment his own skin brushed against the kryptonite, a wave of nauseating wrongness washed over him. But beneath the revulsion, his power recognized it. Energy. Corrupted, vile, and lethal, but energy nonetheless.
He didn't fight it. He welcomed it.
He focused his will, not as a barrier, but as a funnel. He opened the gates of the Void, the power of absolute negation that was his to command. The sickly green glow didn't just dim; it was violently pulled from the rock, streamers of emerald light tearing free and flowing into Robert's palm. The sensation was excruciating—a thousand needles of icy fire injecting a cosmic venom directly into his soul. He gritted his teeth, a low groan escaping him as he felt the corrosive energy try to ravage his system.
But at his core, the million suns roared in defiance.
The kryptonite radiation was met with the heart of a supernova. It was incinerated, purified, unmade. The vile green energy was broken down into its base components and absorbed, becoming nothing more than another drop in his boundless, golden ocean.
In his hand, the rock turned a dull, lifeless gray. It crumbled, disintegrating into a fine, inert powder that sifted through his fingers.
As the last of the radiation vanished, Clark's body went limp. The terrible convulsions stopped. He lay still, too still, his breathing shallow and ragged. Robert gathered his brother into his arms, feeling the frightening lightness, the profound weakness that had taken hold.
"Clark? Clark, can you hear me?"
Clark's eyelids fluttered. He looked up, his eyes hazy with pain and terror. "Rob... it... it hurt..." he whispered, his voice a broken thing.
"I know," Robert said, his own voice thick with an emotion he rarely showed. "I know. It's gone now. It's gone."
He half-carried, half-dragged Clark all the way home, the weight of his brother's helpless body a heavier burden than any tractor. The fear in Martha Kent's eyes when she opened the door was a physical blow.
"Dear God! Jonathan!"
That night, the cozy farmhouse kitchen felt like a courtroom. Clark, wrapped in a blanket and sipping hot cocoa, still looked pale and shaken. The air was thick with unspoken truths. The green rock had been a key, turning a lock none of them had dared to touch.
"That... thing," Clark began, his voice trembling slightly. "It was meant for me, wasn't it? It's connected to... where I came from."
Jonathan and Martha exchanged a long, heavy look. It was a look of a secret long kept, of a story whose telling had been dreaded for fifteen years. Martha finally nodded, her eyes glistening.
She told the story then, her voice soft but steady. The night of the meteor shower. The great fire in the sky. The strange, metallic craft they found crashed in their field. And the baby inside, swaddled in blankets unlike any on Earth.
"And then," Jonathan continued, his rough hand covering Martha's, "just a few hours later, we heard another cry. From the porch. We found another basket. Another baby. You, Robert. There was no note, no ship, nothing. Just you."
Robert listened, his face a mask of calm. He let them see the appropriate surprise, the feigned confusion. Inside, he felt only a profound swell of love for these two people who had opened their hearts and home to two strange, fatherless boys.
"We found you together," Martha said, tears finally spilling over. "You were a pair. How could we ever separate you? You were both our sons from that moment on."
Then, Jonathan brought out a small, locked metal box. From within, he produced an object that made Clark sit up straighter. It was a key, but unlike any key on Earth. It was crystalline, multifaceted, and pulsed with a faint, internal light.
"This was in the ship with you, Clark," Martha said softly. "We never knew what it was for. We just kept it safe."
Clark reached for it. As his fingers closed around it, a complex series of emotions flashed across his face—recognition, unease, a deep, gravitational pull, and a flicker of fear. He looked from the key to Robert, his brother who had just pulled him back from the brink of death.
"Are we... are we both from out there?" Clark asked, his gaze lingering on Robert's gray hair.
Robert shook his head. "I don't know what I am, Clark. But I know who I am. I'm Robert Kent. And you're my brother."
It was the truth, as far as he was willing to give it.
The mystery of the key was set aside, for now. The immediate shock had passed, replaced by a new, unshakeable foundation. The secret was out. They were a family bound not just by love, but by cosmic circumstance. They were the Kents of Smallville, and they had two extraordinary sons.
Later, in the darkness of their shared room, Clark's voice was a quiet murmur from the other bed.
"Rob?"
"Yeah?"
"Thanks for today.For... you know."
"Always,"Robert said, the word a vow.
He lay awake long after Clark's breathing evened out into sleep. He looked at the key, now sitting on Clark's bedside table, glowing softly in the dark. He knew what it was. The key to the Fortress of Solitude. The beacon of Clark's destiny. It was calling.
And Robert would be ready. Not as a sidekick, not as a follower, but as the anchor. The brother who held the sun and the abyss in perfect balance, standing in the sunlight so that his family would never have to face the dark alone.
[Yo guys how was that it took me to write 2:36 hours.i have kidney stone,so give me some Stone and tell me how was that chapter ]
[Tell me what should we do with lana 😅😏]
Word count:2400..