My Mom was abusing me, but not as often or as intensely as I wanted.
She rarely took baths or showers with me anymore. She didn't pull me onto her lap or hug me as often. She didn't touch me as much as before. It was… Disappointing. But not surprising.
She was also arguing and fighting with Dad a lot more. Usually about little things that didn't matter.
"Martha, what the hell's gotten into you lately?!" Dad's voice was loud. Even if I wasn't superman I'd be able to hear it easily from my room upstairs.
"What's gotten into me?! You're the one who's constantly losing your temper lately!" Mom screamed back at him, "You nearly assaulted that man earlier!"
"I wasn't actually gonna hit the bastard!" Dad retorted, "Drunk prick tried to grab your ass!"
"Oh please, how long were his arms then?! Ten feet?! Jonathan, you need to stop drinking! It's gonna kill you!" She shouted back at him.
"Drinking a beer or two every now and then ain't gonna kill me, but you might! I'm working my ass off every day to provide for this family and every night I have to deal with your bitching!"
"You son of a bitch! You think I don't do anything around here?! You think it's easy cleaning up after two boys?! If I didn't do your taxes, the IRS would be up our asses by now!"
"Damn it Martha, I didn't mean it like that!" Dad's voice sounded hoarse.
"Then how the hell'd you mean it?!" Mom's was even hoarser.
I had to deal with enough of this shit in my last life. I should've ran away so many times back then, but I always stuck around. This life is different though. I don't have to stay here. I don't have to deal with this bullshit.
This was a type of abuse that was socially acceptable. Parents yelling at each other and stressing their children out. Arguing and fighting constantly. It was so damn common too. People can't get along all the time. It was normal to have issues sometimes.
Especially when one of them was secretly molesting her 4 year old son, while the other was on meds for a heart condition and still drinking alcohol regularly.
The two of them usually got along pretty well, but this summer has been rough. The house barely had functional air conditioning too, so that was another issue.
The temperature was a bit too high for the two of them, but they were both very stubborn and stingy regarding energy bills.
I'll stick around for a while longer and hope that things go back to normal or get better. But if it comes down to it… I'm a Kryptonian. Pretty soon, even gravity won't hold me back.
Maybe Mom and Dad would be better off without me?
…
I didn't run away from home. I know, disappointing, but in the end, I still love my parents. Mom calmed down after going on some anti-anxiety meds, but it also killed her sex drive completely.
Dad stopped drinking completely after he had a heart attack and ended up in the hospital for a few days. In order to take care of their son, the two of them got their fucking acts together and lived happily ever after.
It was all disturbingly mundane. Things didn't escalate any farther and Mom stopped molesting me.
She also didn't let me see her naked anymore. Which was really annoying. Dad needed me to help out more and more around the farm in order to keep the place functional without hiring some farmhands.
We didn't just have cornfields by the way. We also had a bunch of chickens, a few cows and a cute black pony. The pony was actually a gift from Lex for saving his sister.
She was adorable, but not really anything more than a pet. Sure, I could ride her, but I could also carry her above my head and run faster than she did, so it was kinda pointless. Well, not completely pointless.
"Maria, charge!" Lena shouted excitedly as I sprinted underneath the pony. She was riding on Maria's back and I was carrying them both, traveling nearly a hundred miles an hour through the grassy pasture. It was kinda silly, but still a great workout.
Not just a matter of strength either. I had to use my biological forcefield to protect the two of them the entire time. It's funny how a big part of Superman's abilities were actually psychic bullshit.
"Eheeeheheh~!" Maria was excited too.
"Jump!" The little brat ordered as I approached a tall wooden fence. It was too high for the pony to escape, but even while carrying both of them, I easily hopped over it like a small hurdle. "Weee~!" It was always nice seeing her act like a normal kid.
My ankles and feet hurt a little as I landed, but with the sunlight above me, any muscle damage or bruising would heal almost instantly.
It was stupidly overpowered. With the healing, I was getting stronger. Every sore muscle that healed instantly would be stronger immediately. I think that's actually the key to Superman's overwhelming power, or at least part of it.
It's not like exercise was meaningless for Kryptonians. Whether it's Superman, Supergirl or any of the other miscellaneous motherfuckers, they all needed to work out their bodies to a certain extent. I have a feeling the reason Zod and the others were so strong is because they grew up on Krypton under a Red Sun.
Their bodies were compressed by 10x Earth's gravity without access to their usual superstrength, regeneration or other abilities. Of course, bathing in Yellow Sunlight is probably a better method of gaining power, but there are also instances of that backfiring.
Like with Overgirl having heart problems because she literally flew too close to the sun or some bullshit.
People always used to say they'd just go up and sleep in the sun for a thousand years to become invincible, but what happens when some existential threat obliterates the universe while you're napping? You also need to be strong enough to make it to the sun and survive there.
Superman took decades to reach that point. Golden Superman wasn't a fucking baby when he started sleeping in the sun, he was already like a hundred years old or some shit.
He watched pretty much everyone he loved and cared about die from old age or violence, then decided he was done with it all and retired.
At least I think that's how that story went? Either way, I can't fly yet. I sprinted through the open field for a while and then made it into the woods, before I started running back to the pasture.
"Jon, Clark is a special kid. He's wasting the best years of his mental development in a regular elementary school." I could hear Lex talking with my father inside the barn from about a mile away.
Dad was cleaning Maria's stable, while Lois and Martha were milking cows nearby.
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A/N- Read 50 Chapters ahead on Patreon. I also post three chapters a day there.
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