My Brother's Keeper (a Superman story)

Chapter 26: Afflicted (Part I)

"What the hell were you thinking?!" Clark shouted.

"I don't have to answer a single one of your questions!" I snapped. "Besides, all you ever do is run away whenever things start getting remotely bad!"

"You and Rüya are still too young to even be thinking about doing what you two just did! Have you thought about the consequences or what if she gets pregnant? How the hell are you two going to raise a child at your age?!"

"At least I wore protection and made absolutely sure, it was functional!"

"Wow, and that makes me feel so much better!"

"You are no one to tell me a damn thing! How about you and Lana?"

"What about her?"

"Our rooms are right next to each other and the walls are paper thin and heard way more than I ever should have!" he looked taken aback. "Wow, nothing to say?!"

"Leave Lana out of it!"

"No, because you didn't exactly hold back with her, and yet you're ragging on me because I did the same thing as you?" I looked at him incredulously. "I even once overheard Mom and Dad having a very serious talk with you about that! So don't get all hypocritical with me when I've done no differently than you!"

"How did...?" he looked almost surprised.

"I was a sneaky little kid. I used to spy on your ass all the time and yet, I never saw you using your powers."

"Drop the sarcasm."

"How about, no?!"

"What has gotten into you? Ever since mom killed Nour, you've been out of control!"

Believing our mom had killed Nour, only added to the guilt I was feeling. It was getting worse by the second. Only, this lie had already gone way too far. So far, it had been cemented into the ground and I knew if I told him I was the one who did it, it would make things a million times worse between us.

"My problem is how you always run away when things get tough. Running away after what happened to dad, I can almost understand but when it came to mom..." I once again held back, because I could not say she did it when she hadn't.

"I don't kill. And mom killed our aunt without thinking twice!"

"Wow, you're so blinded by your way of thinking that you can't see the bigger picture in all of this!"

"The bigger picture of what, exactly?"

"That she was a threat! She was married to your worst enemy that even you banished him back to the Phantom Zone! And she kidnapped not just Lucy or Lois, your fiancée, but our mom and she was going to kill her! What would you have done had you lost your powers and a high-powered alien like her, was about to kill mom or Lois?!"

He stayed quiet and looked me in the eye, then turned his eyes away from me.

"You can't answer, can you?" I realized he could not look me in the eye.

"It's not that I can't answer. It's that she did not try and de-escalate the situation."

"You and Kara were out there fighting Zod while I was left alone, protecting mom! I lost my powers and you have zero clue about anything that went on!"

"I get what you're saying..."

"No, you don't!" I shouted. "You think the world is black and white but sadly, it isn't! Sometimes, things are in gray whether you want to accept that, or not! You have no idea how scared I was, that I was going to lose mom, another parent after already having lost one!"