Gotham is not far from the Metropolis

After hearing the two sons recount the incident, David had followed Clark after he took the person away, worried. While crossing the school fence, he accidentally tore his clothes, then saw that Clark had already rendered that person incapacitated...

"You did well, Clark. You saved your brother and everyone else."

Jonathan pondered for a moment, then spoke seriously.

"Though we've asked you to hide your abilities, that doesn't mean you should stand by when someone's in danger."

"We believe God gave you these powers for a reason."

"God?" Clark, already a bit awkward feeling his brother hadn't needed saving at all, bristled instinctively at the word.

"What's wrong?" Jonathan noticed Clark's expression shift.

"Nothing. It's just that the madman who wanted to kill everyone at the dance also kept saying God gave him his powers."

David smiled.

"When I say God, I mean the heavens above, not necessarily that one." Jonathan scratched his cheek. He and Martha weren't devout believers.

"By the way, you subdued that man in the end. What happened to him?"

"He... he..."

Clark couldn't speak. How was he supposed to answer?

Earlier, he'd asked his brother what was going on with his body, but his brother hadn't replied, saying they'd talk at home and asking him to keep it secret for now—don't tell their parents yet.

"Clark, you'll keep my secret, right?" His brother's voice echoed in his ears.

"Of course," he'd answered.

"Clark shoved him to the ground, and he ended up a vegetable." In the room, David picked up the thread with a smile.

"What?"

Jonathan and Martha nearly shot up from the sofa in shock, quickly turning to Clark, whom they'd just praised.

"Mom, Dad, you know Clark's always been super strong."

David continued, beaming. "I don't think we can blame him."

Clark felt the phrasing was oddly familiar, recalling what he'd said to Chloe a few days ago when he was late for school: "You know, David's never really cared about me..."

"Clark, is that really how it happened?"

"Yes... yes."

Seeing his parents' probing gazes, and having promised to keep the secret, what else could Clark do? He gritted his teeth and confirmed it.

"Clark, starting tomorrow, you'll secretly practice controlling your strength on the farm."

Jonathan stood up abruptly, his expression turning grave. He pressed his son's shoulder with concern.

"What if next time you use a little too much force and accidentally kill someone?"

"Okay... okay."

Faced with his old father's worried yet firm words, Clark had no way to voice his grievance. He could only nod.

Jonathan and Martha were kind but not rigid. Clark had only made a mistake.

More importantly, that man was a murderer who wanted to slaughter students—he deserved the death penalty anyway.

So they just sternly repeated their instructions for Clark to practice controlling his strength and planned to supervise him starting tomorrow.

"You're so despicable, David."

In the warehouse, climbing up to the second-floor loft, Clark had just escaped his parents' nagging and was now saddled with the blame, so he couldn't help but feel resentful.

And his little brother held a grudge.

"Practicing your strength won't do you any harm."

Under a sky full of stars, David stood by the window with his arms crossed, glancing at him.

"Look at how you handled that guy today. You were like someone trying to help a hedgehog cross the road."

Can't touch it, can't leave it alone—no idea where to start.

"I've always been able to keep my strength at a normal human level."

That was true. Otherwise, Clark would have caused countless accidents over the years.

"But what if you have to deal with an opponent whose strength is beyond normal?"

"How many superpowered people do I need to fight?"

Clark felt David was just making a big deal out of nothing to give him trouble.

Their town was so small. He never stirred up trouble. It couldn't be that he was unlucky enough to have things keep finding him, all involving superpowered beings.

"..."

David didn't know what to say to that.

The Metahumans spawned by the Meteor Shower Clark brought—at least seven or eight had become local urban legends in the town.

As for the rest, who the hell knows how many there are.

"David, can you tell me about your body now?" Looking around, Clark asked in a low voice.

"Was it from before, or just recently...?" Since he had to hurry and change back to get to school earlier to avoid suspicion, and now they were home, David had no reason to refuse anymore.

"I was born this way," David replied. Now that he had revealed his abilities in front of Clark, he wouldn't keep hiding the truth about this constitution.

"Born?" Clark's eyes widened in disbelief. "Are you sure?"

"What? Can't accept that you've been casually exposing your strength for over a decade while I've kept mine hidden well?" He glanced at Clark and shot back.

"Honestly, a little..." Clark's emotions were mixed.

When he was young, he too had thought it was a gift from heaven—that he was stronger than anyone else. Thinking back to how happy he'd been about it as a kid, while David, equally gifted from birth, had watched coldly from the sidelines... He felt... especially ashamed.

"Are you really sure? I mean... how do you know you were like that from birth?"

"Memories." David tapped his head with a finger.

In fact, few people knew that Thanos, the Mad Titan who terrorized the entire universe, had dreamed of becoming a scientist as a child—and actually achieved it when he grew up. The Titan he grew up on was technologically advanced, but had no weapons, no murder—everything was perfectly harmonious.

"Until the birth of the Eternal mutant Thanos. To explore what made him different, he set out on a path of science. His method of exploration was dissection—from small animals, to classmates, to the biological mother who gave birth to him..."

Thanos could be said to have a super-genius brain as well. After leaving Titan, relying solely on the scientific knowledge he'd mastered, he became the second-in-command of a cosmic pirate ship, beginning his journey as a dark overlord.

When David told Clark he'd learned fighting techniques from TV, he wasn't lying. He really did just pick them up by watching.

"You need to keep my secret, Clark."

"After you used that to make me take the fall for turning someone into a vegetable just now?" Clark shot back with some resentment.

"Clark, think about how I look after using my powers. Do you want Mom and Dad to worry?" David said. He planned to wait until Jonathan and Martha had seen more abnormal people on Earth before telling them—by then, their acceptance would be much stronger.

"Besides, one Clark is already enough to keep them worried all day." Let them have a normal son for now, one they didn't have to fret over.

Mentioning his parents softened Clark's attitude.

"By the way, where did you learn that move—the one that turns people into... vegetables?" When he brought it up, his tone turned very serious again, concern in his eyes.

A precise strike to the back of the head with controlled force to turn someone into a vegetable—that wasn't something you'd see on TV, and it couldn't be mastered through shadow practice alone. It required repeated experimentation and practice. That meant the people his brother had turned into vegetables might not be just one...

"Gotham isn't far from Metropolis." David turned and headed downstairs, tossing out a line.

"Back when school had long breaks, I'd go there sometimes to hang around. You know what kind of place it is."

Simple folk, villains everywhere—shoot nine out of ten and you might get one wrong, shoot half and you might let a few slip. Finding scumbags who deserved to be shot a hundred times to practice that move wasn't hard. A few tries and he'd mastered it.

"I got tired of that old routine—superheroes throw villains in jail, and super-villains break out again and again." He decided to do something for this world, like creating a few vegetables, providing himself with some emotion points, and making the world a little quieter in the process.

"Gotham?" That name seemed to carry a demonic allure that made people tremble and fall into corruption. Hearing that his brother had been there, Clark froze for a moment, then his face changed drastically.

A bit late on the update—wrote an extra five hundred words.