Superboy.

I adjusted my backpack strap and stepped over a crack in the sidewalk, timing it so the loose bit of concrete wouldn’t shift under my weight.

Not that it would’ve mattered.

Still.

Habits like that stick.

To my left, my annoying yet slightly lovable friend, Mark was talking with way too much energy for a Monday morning. To my right, William looked like he hadn’t fully accepted the concept of being awake yet.

We were halfway down the path leading to school, surrounded by a mix of trees and scattered houses. Not quite rural like my place, but not city either. Somewhere in between.

Mark snapped his fingers suddenly, like he’d just had a revelation.

“I was thinking about a new superhero,” he said, eyes lighting up. “Ductape Man.”

I didn’t even look at him.

William did.

Slowly.

With the kind of expression people reserve for things that need to be put down for everyone’s safety.

“Do you want to get bullied?” William asked flatly.

I let out a quiet snort.

“You are one to talk,” I replied, rolling my eyes. “I can’t be there to protect you two always, I have a life you know.”

Mark frowned.

“Hey, it’s a good idea!”

William shook his head.

“No, it’s not. It’s a cry for help.”

Mark ignored him and kept going, hands moving as he explained.

“Think about it! Duct tape can fix anything. You could stop criminals, fix buildings, trap bad guys—”

“Trap bad guys?” William cut in. “With tape?”

“Yeah!”

William stared at him.

“…I’m begging you to stop talking.”

I laughed under my breath.

“You know,” I said, “you should focus more on your homework. If you keep getting Cs and Ds, Mr. Grayson won’t let you come with us to the movies.”

Mark immediately tensed.

“Well… maybe he would,” I added, shrugging. “But Ms. Grayson is another story.”

Mark’s face fell.

“Okay, wow,” he said. “Low blow.”

William smirked.

“He’s right though.”

Mark groaned.

“Why does everyone care about my grades all of a sudden?”

“Because they exist,” William said. “And if anyone needs a superhero is them, they are crying for help.”

“That’s not helpful!”

I chuckled, shaking my head as we kept walking.

This was normal.

Just… normal.

And honestly?

I liked it.

A lot.

Which was funny, considering everything else going on in my life.

Because while Mark was busy inventing duct tape superheroes…

And William was busy judging humanity as a whole…

Meanwhile I was trying very hard not to accidentally hear a couple arguing three blocks away about whose turn it was to do laundry.

Or, worse—

I immediately shut that thought down.

Nope.

Not thinking about that.

Not before school.

Not ever, preferably.

Super hearing.

Great power.

Terrible side effects.

Twelve years, that’s how long it had been.

Twelve years since I died, sometimes it didn’t feel real.

Sometimes it felt like it had all happened yesterday.

Time’s weird like that.

You don’t notice it passing while you’re in it. But when you stop and look back…

It’s like someone fast-forwarded your life without asking.

I still remembered the farm.

The old truck.

My dad—standing next to me, joking like he always did.

My mom—calling us in for breakfast.

That life felt… distant now.

Not gone.

Just far away.

Like something I could still reach if I tried hard enough.

I wondered about them sometimes.

If they were okay.

If they’d moved on.

If Dad still made those same stupid Superman jokes, even without me there to roll my eyes at them.

A part of me hoped they had.

Another part hoped they hadn’t.

All of me hoped they were okay, that they had moved on from this.

Did that make sense?

I wasn’t sure.

I didn’t dwell on it too much.

Couldn’t, really.

It wasn’t healthy.

“Clark.”

I blinked.

Mark was looking at me.

“You zoned out again.”

“Did not.”

“You did,” William said. “He does that. It’s unsettling, it's like he switches off his brain, is that a country boy thing?”

“I was thinking.”

“That’s what zoning out is.”

I ignored him.

“I’m just tired.”

Which wasn’t true.

I didn’t really get tired anymore. I sleep for sure, but not because I’m tired, it’s hard to explain.

Not physically, anyway.

But it was a good excuse.

Mark didn’t question it.

“Same,” he said. “Math homework destroyed me last night.”

“That’s because you didn’t do it until ten,” William pointed out.

“I had stuff to do!”

“Like inventing Ductape Man? Very important stuff.”

Mark opened his mouth.

Closed it.

“…Okay, that’s mean.”

I smiled.

These two.

They made things feel normal.

Grounded.

Like I wasn’t—

Well.

Like I wasn’t what I was. I loved my new life, as much as I could, but it had its negatives, especially when everyone and everything around you was so brittle.

Different life.

Different struggles I reckon.

Funny enough, same name. Heck, I even had the same darn last name.

Close enough, I guess.

Even to this day I was still surprised all of this had happened, even though I had no idea how or why.

A baby next to a crashed spaceship.

Which is still a sentence I can’t believe applies to me.

Adopted by two young farmers.

They could’ve called someone.

The government.

The police.

Anyone.

Instead, they took me home.

Raised me like their own.

Never treated me like I was anything less than their son.

Even after—

Well.

After everything.

After the powers showed up.

After I accidentally uprooted a tree when I was seven.

That had been… a day.

I still remember the look on Dad’s face.

Not fear.

Not exactly.

More like—

Concern.

Curiosity.

A little bit of “we need to talk about this immediately.”

Mom handled it better.

She always did.

We figured things out.

Slowly.

Carefully.

It wasn’t long before I could fly.

Badly, of course.

Very badly.

Let’s just say I learned the importance of controlled landings the hard way.

Multiple times.

The barn roof still had a dent from one of them.

Mom still brought it up occasionally.

Usually when she wanted to win an argument.

Then came super hearing.

Which, for the record—

It is not fun at first.

At all.

Imagine hearing everything.

At once.

Every conversation.

Every car.

Every dog barking.

Every—

Yeah.

It was a lot.

It took months to figure out how to tune it out.

To focus.

To choose what I wanted to hear.

Before that?

Let’s just say I learned way too much about people in town.

Stuff I absolutely did not need to know.

Ever.

I still struggled in places with too much noise, but it was getting better I think.

I rubbed the back of my neck slightly at the memory.

William glanced at me.

“You look like you just remembered something unpleasant.”

“I did.”

“Was it Mark’s grades?”

“Hey!”

“No,” I said quickly. “Different kind of unpleasant.”

William narrowed his eyes.

“…I’m not asking.”

“Good choice.”

Mark kicked a small rock as we walked, sending it skittering across the pavement.

“So,” he said, clearly not done with the topic, “you guys are seriously telling me Ductape Man wouldn’t work?”

“Yes,” William said immediately.

“Absolutely,” I added.

Mark threw his hands up.

“You’re both impossible.”

“We’re realistic,” William corrected.

“There’s a difference.”

Mark glanced at me.

“You don’t think it’s even a little cool?”

I tilted my head, pretending to think.

“…No.”

He groaned.

“Wow. Betrayal.”

“You’ll survive,” I said.

“I don’t know, man,” William added. “This might be the end of him.”

“I hate both of you.”

“You say that every day,” I pointed out.

“And yet we’re still here.”

Mark huffed, but there was a small smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.

We reached the school entrance, blending into the usual crowd of kids heading inside. Lockers slammed somewhere down the hall, voices overlapping into that familiar background noise that most people just… ignored.

I didn’t.

I couldn’t.

Not completely.

Even now, with years of practice, the sounds layered over each other in a way that never fully went away. I filtered most of it out automatically, focusing on what was in front of me, but every now and then something slipped through.

A laugh from across the building.

A teacher calling out a name two hallways over.

A locker door slamming harder than necessary.

It was manageable.

Pushing through the masses, we stopped by our lockers.

I spun the dial without thinking, opening it in one smooth motion.

Mark, meanwhile, was struggling.

“Come on… come on…” he muttered.

“You forgot the combination again, didn’t you?” William said.

“No!”

“You did.”

“I just—hold on—”

He turned the dial too far, groaned, and started over.

William leaned against the lockers.

“This is why you’re failing math.”

“I’m not failing math!”

“Maybe you should become F-man! And use the power of your grades to fight crime.”

“That doesn’t even make sense!”

I chuckled, grabbing my books.

“I think I saw that in an episode of the fairy odd parents.”

“A man of culture I see,” William chuckled

Mark finally got his locker open and pointed at us both.

“I will have my revenge.”

As I closed my locker, I caught a glimpse of myself again in the metal.

It took practice to look… smaller than I actually was. Less noticeable.

“Hey, Clark.”

I looked over.

Mark was watching me.

“You coming to my house today?”

I blinked.

“I was there two days ago.”

“Yeah, but I’m asking again.”

“Why?”

“Because now it’s more official.”

William snorted.

“What does that even mean?”

“It means,” Mark said, straightening up, “you are formally invited to experience the culinary masterpiece that is my mom’s pizza.”

“That she buys frozen,” William added instantly.

Mark swung at him again.

William dodged.

Again.

“Yeah, I’ll come.”

Mark grinned.

“Nice.”

William crossed his arms.

“I’m still coming too.”

“You’re not invited.”

“I don’t need to be. Your mom loves me.”

We started walking toward class.

The hallway was getting more crowded now, students moving in every direction.

I kept my pace steady, automatically adjusting so I didn’t bump into anyone too hard.

That was another thing.

Control.

Everything came down to control.

Strength.

Movement.

Even something as simple as walking.

Because if I stopped paying attention for even a second…

Things could go wrong.

Really wrong.

And not just for me.

For everyone around me.

That’s the part people don’t think about when they imagine having powers like this.

It’s not just about what you can do.

It’s about what you might do by accident.

Everything feels… fragile.

Doors.

Desks.

People.

All of it.

Breakable.

And you’re not.

That difference…

You never really forget it.

“Clark.”

I snapped back.

Mark again.

“You’re doing it.”

“Doing what?”

“That thing where you disappear into your own head.”

William nodded.

“It’s unsettling.”

“I’m thinking,” I said.

“That’s what zoning out is,” William replied.

“I wasn’t zoning out.”

“You were.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

I looked at him.

“…You’re really committed to this, huh?”

“I believe in accuracy.”

Mark laughed.

“Just admit it, you were daydreaming.”

“About what?” William asked. “Emily from second period?”

I shrugged.

“Something like that.”

“Alright,” Mark said as we reached the classroom door. “Important question.”

“That’s never a good sign,” William muttered.

“If Ductape Man had a sidekick—”

“No,” William said immediately.

“—what would their name be?”

“No.”

“Like, think about it—”

“I’m not thinking about it.”

I smiled slightly.

“You’re not giving this up, are you?”

“Nope.”

William sighed.

“We’re doomed.”

We stepped into the classroom, taking our usual seats.

The room buzzed with conversation as everyone settled in.

Backpacks dropped.

Chairs scraped.

Someone in the back was already arguing about something.

I leaned back slightly in my chair, letting out a quiet breath.

Another day.

Another normal day.

Mark leaned over.

“I’m serious, though,” he whispered. “Ductape Man has potential.”

I glanced at him.

“…Mark if you keep at it, I will bully you, I swear to God.”

He grinned.

“You’ll see.”

William leaned in from the other side.

“If this becomes a real thing, I’m transferring schools.”

“Same,” I said.

I left school with Mark and William like usual, at least for the first few minutes.

That was the tricky part about having a normal life and a not-even-remotely normal second life at the same time. You got good at smiling through conversations while one part of your brain was listening to a car horn six blocks away and the other part was making sure you didn’t accidentally hear something you’d regret hearing for the rest of the day.

Mark was talking about the movie we were supposed to watch at his place.

William was talking about how Mark’s taste in movies was “an active crime against storytelling.”

Mark called him dramatic.

William said he was correct.

I mostly listened and nodded in the right places.

Then I heard glass break.

Not nearby.

A few streets over.

It was followed by shouting. Then a woman yelling. Then the kind of voice people use when they’re scared and trying not to sound scared.

My steps slowed for half a second.

Mark noticed immediately. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” I said, too quickly. “Uh. I just remembered I promised Mom I’d call her when I got out.”

William gave me a look.

Not suspicious, exactly. More like he thought I was being weird, which, to be fair, I was.

Mark shrugged. “Alright. You coming over after?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I just gotta do something first.”

William narrowed his eyes. “That sounded vague enough to be concerning.”

“It’s farm stuff.”

He looked unconvinced. “At four in the afternoon.”

“Farm stuff doesn’t care about the clock.”

That one, at least, was true.

Mark laughed. “Fair enough. Don’t take too long. Mom said the pizza has to be eaten while it’s still pretending to be homemade.”

William pointed at him. “See? Even you know.”

I smiled despite myself. “I’ll be there.”

We split at the corner.

I waited until they were far enough ahead that they wouldn’t see me, then stepped into the narrow alley between a laundromat and a hardware store, took one quick look around, and shot straight up into the sky.

Flying still felt good.

Not new, exactly. That had worn off years ago. But good in a way that never really got old. Clean air, fast movement, the ground dropping away under me. It helped me think.

Or it usually did.

Today I was focused on the shouting.

I narrowed my hearing as I flew, filtering out traffic, dogs barking, TVs through apartment walls, a guy singing badly in his shower, and locked onto the scene ahead.

Convenience store.

Three armed men.

At least that’s what it sounded like.

One at the register, yelling at the cashier.

One near the door.

One in the back, shoving someone to the ground.

Normal robbery, I thought.

Bad, but normal.

This was exactly the kind of thing I usually handled. Quick in, quick out, no one gets hurt, and then I make some excuse about being late.

I landed on the roof across the street, crouched low, and listened for another couple seconds.

And without wasting a second, I moved.

One second I was on the roof.

The next I was inside.

I hit the first robber before he finished turning toward the blur of motion. He flew into a chip rack, which exploded in a rain of bright plastic bags and stale corn chips. The second guy near the register shouted and raised his gun. I grabbed the barrel, bent it upward like it was made of warm clay, and took it out of his hand before he could process what had happened.

“Whoa, okay,” I said, a little too brightly. “Nobody shoot anybody. That’s my one big rule, really.”

The cashier just stared at me.

The third robber came charging out of the back with a crowbar raised over his head.

I caught his wrist.

He grunted, shoved harder, and got nowhere.

“Really?” I said. “You saw the flying, right?”

He blinked. “The what—”

I took the crowbar away, spun him around, and set him down on the floor a little harder than I meant to. He groaned.

That should’ve been it.

It usually was.

Three guys. Bad plan. Easy stop.

Then the wall behind the register exploded.

Not metaphorically.

Actually exploded.

Brick, drywall, and shelving blasted inward in a cloud of dust and shattered product. The whole front half of the store shook. Someone screamed. My head snapped toward the hole just as a massive green tail lashed through the smoke and smashed what was left of the lottery display.

I stared.

“Well,” I said to nobody in particular. “That escalated.”

The smoke cleared enough for me to see a tall, scaled figure in body armor step through the opening. Green skin. Heavy build. Long snout. Yellow slit-pupiled eyes. He looked like a crocodile and a linebacker got fused together by a mad scientist.

Komodo Dragon.

What was a member of the lizard league doing here?

Right on cue, another figure vaulted through the hole from outside. Smaller. Lean. Green suit with a ridged mask and blades at the wrists.

Then another voice from the street: “I told you we had the wrong address theres no government facility down a fucking convinience store! Thank fucking god I set up some backups to avoid getting attention.”

My hearing caught the rest all at once.

Fighting downtown.

Police scanners lighting up in three different areas.

Explosions across the city.

Fake hits.

Diversions.

And here, hidden under the noise of a street robbery, the real operation. Or attempt to, because the address was wrong? This was honestly a bit funny.

I looked at the terrified cashier, then back at the lizard people tearing through the store like they owned it.

“You’ve gotta be kidding me.”

Komodo pointed a clawed hand at me. “And who are you supposed to be, shrimp?”

I cleared my throat. “Uh. Superboy.”

One of the others laughed. “Seriously?”

“Litsen,” I said, pointing at the armed robbers still groaning on the floor, “I was in the middle of stopping a completely different crime, but I won’t complain.”

Komodo lunged.

Fast.

Way faster than I expected.

I shifted to the side, but not far enough, and his shoulder clipped my chest hard enough to send me skidding across the floor and through a refrigerator full of drinks. Glass shattered around me. Cold soda exploded everywhere.

I sat there for half a second in a pile of broken shelves and root beer, blinking.

That…

That was new.

Komodo grinned, showing a mouthful of sharp teeth. “Not so tough, are you?”

I stood up slowly.

Not hurt. Not really. More surprised than anything.

I’d fought people before. Bullies, muggers, the occasional idiot with a weapon and more confidence than sense. But they’d all been… normal. Fragile. Easy to stop if I was careful.

This guy had actually moved me.

Actually made me feel the hit.

Not pain, exactly, but resistance.

For the first time in my life, I was fighting someone who could push back.

And I’d be lying if I said that didn’t do something weird to my brain.

Part of me got excited.

Part of me got cautious.

And a bigger part of me immediately thought, Okay, no more guessing.

The smaller lizard one came at me from the side with both wrist blades aimed for my neck.

I ducked, caught their forearm, and flicked them into the ceiling hard enough to leave a crack before they dropped to the floor in a stunned heap.

Another one rushed from behind the counter with some kind of stun baton.

I kicked it out of their hand and tapped them in the chest. They flew backward through the candy aisle and didn’t get up.

Komodo roared and charged again.

This time I met him head on.

The floor cracked under both of us as we collided.

His hands clamped onto my shoulders.

Mine locked around his wrists.

For a second, we just stood there, pushing.

His muscles bulged.

“You’re strong,” I admitted.

He snapped his jaws an inch from my face. “Strong enough.”

Then he shoved.

And to my genuine surprise, I slid back half a step.

Half a step.

But still.

That had literally never happened before.

“Okay,” I said. “Wow.”

He swung a clawed fist at my head. I caught it. He brought the other one around, and that one hit my side hard enough to knock me through a shelf of cleaning supplies. Detergent and paper towels went everywhere. The place was absolutely trashed now. I was definitely apologizing to the owner later.

Komodo stalked toward me through the wreckage. “You should’ve stayed out of this.”

I got to my feet.

The others were down or barely moving. The three human robbers had all crawled under a display and were probably rethinking every life choice that led them here.

“Yeah,” I said, dusting drywall off my jacket, “I get that a lot.”

He came in low this time, trying to tackle me around the waist. I let him get close enough to commit, then hooked one arm under his and lifted.

His eyes widened.

I slammed him onto his back hard enough to crater the tile.

The whole store shook.

For one second everything went quiet.

Komodo coughed and tried to rise.

I planted a boot on his chest.

Not hard.

Just enough to keep him down.

He grabbed my ankle and snarled, and that was the moment I finally stopped treating him like a regular guy I needed to be extra careful with.

Not because I wanted to hurt him.

Because if he really could take more than a normal human, then pulling my punches too much might actually drag this out and get someone killed.

“Sorry,” I said, and I meant it.

He roared and tried to lunge up again.

I caught both wrists.

Twisted.

There was a horrible crack.

Komodo screamed.

I froze.

The sound cut straight through me.

I let go instantly and stepped back like I’d touched a hot stove.

“Oh my God. I am so sorry.”

Komodo writhed on the floor, clutching both arms.

I crouched next to him, horrified. “I’m sorry. I thought— I really thought you were stronger. For a second there I thought you could actually match me, and I just— I adjusted, and that was clearly too much, and I am so, so sorry.”

He stared at me in disbelief through obvious pain. “What is wrong with you?”

“A lot, probably,” I said honestly. “But right now, specifically? Guilt. A lot of guilt.”

One of the other Lizard League members groaned somewhere behind me and tried to crawl away.

I zipped over, took their weapon, bent it into a knot, and set them gently back down on the floor. “Please don’t move. I’m trying very hard not to make this worse.”

Sirens were getting closer now.

Good.

I needed the police here before any of them recovered enough to be a problem again.

I flew outside, scanned the block, and spotted the getaway van double-parked in the alley. I picked it up, carried it back, and set it upside down across the hole they’d blasted in the wall so none of them could leave that way.

Then I darted back inside, checked the civilians. Cashier shaken but okay. One customer with a bruised arm. Another with a cut from flying glass, but not bad. I used a torn strip of clean shirt fabric from the stock room to wrap it while mumbling another apology on behalf of the entire situation.

The cashier finally found his voice. “Kid… who are you?”

“Superboy,” I said. “Uh. Sorry about the store.”

He looked around at the wreckage. “You know what? I’m just happy to be alive.”

“Right. Yeah. Good.”

The sirens stopped outside.

I could already hear officers shouting, boots hitting pavement, radios crackling.

Time to go.

I looked back at Komodo, who was still glaring at me from the floor, arms bent wrong and breathing hard.

“I really am sorry,” I said again. “The ambulance should be here any second.”

He bared his teeth. “I’m going to eat you.”

“That feels unlikely,” I said, then winced. “Sorry. Bad time for jokes.”

I shot up through the broken roof and into the sky before the police came in.

The wind hit my face, cool and clean after all the dust and smoke.

My heart was pounding.

I had never hurt someone this bad, ever. His arms now look like that pasta that’s all twisty, I don’t know the name, but it looks like that.

“Okay,” I muttered to myself. “Less force next time.”

Then I angled toward Mark’s neighborhood.