Archive of Our Own

“I think we have a cat under the porch again,” Jonathan says, not stirring from where he's sitting at the kitchen table.

Martha frowns at him, wondering why he was telling her instead of going to go deal with it.

He raises his eyebrows meaningfully.

Ah.

That type of cat.

Martha turns on her heel and goes out to sit on the porch step. “Decided to abandon society again, huh?” she asks the air.

Silence for a few long seconds, then politeness reasserts itself.

“Yes, ma'am,” says a little voice from under the porch.

“Pity,” Martha says. “Society's got pie.”

“Your society, maybe.” The voice is sulky.

“Can't feed that to a cat, though,” Martha continues, not bothering to hide her little smile at how aggravated he sounds. “They're carnivores. Meat only. Pie's bad for them. You like pie?”

“...I like pie. But I like meat, too. I could give up pie.”

Martha's full-on grinning by now. “I'm just saying, if only you were a human, not a cat, we could give you a slice. Being as we have too much for just me and Jonathan.”

Silence.

Martha waits, content that her award-winning pies are going to do their magic once again.

Sure enough, a few moments later, a muddy little boy crawls out from under the porch. The whites of his eyes stand out under the mud, which almost but not entirely conceals the black eye he's sporting.

“I can be human for a bit,” he says shyly, ducking his head a little to avoid meeting her eyes. “But only for a little - and only to help you 'cause you've got too much.”

“My hero,” Martha says, not without affection.

The boy's face twists into a scowl. “M'not a hero,” he says, wiping at his nose with his sleeve. “Heroes are dumb. Everyone says Joey's a hero.”

“You can be a different type of hero than your brother Joey,” Martha says, coaxing him to sit next to her. “He how you get that eye?”

“Nope,” the boy says, looking so shifty that it's almost an effort not to call him out on the lie. ”Heroes don't do things like that, so it can’t be him.”

“No,” Martha sighs, tentatively formed plans to call Tess Rory to tell her she's missing one of her brood again crumbling into dust before she's even finished making them. “No, they don't. And big brothers shouldn't either. You need some ice for that eye, Mick?”

“Nah,” little Mick - never Mickey - Rory says firmly. “S’fine. Just pie.” He pauses and considers. “Please.”

“Your mother know where you are?”

Mick shrugs. “She knows I can't get further away than walking distance, and what's going to happen here?”

Martha was a city girl herself, so she can hear Tess's disdainful tones in her son's voice, but she can think of plenty of things to fear: ditches to fall into, animals to encounter, sharp tools to touch, out-of-season hunters seeing the movement before identifying the shape. She'll never understand Tess Rory; she can't imagine not worrying about your kid, not even if you did have five already and another on the way.

Martha'd be happy to settle for just one.

She wonders for a brief, crazy moment if Tess would be willing to give her Mick - middle child of the current five, soon going on six, always overlooked, easily distracted and with a tendency to become attached to fanciful notions like giving up his human life and retiring to become a cat, which he seems to have confused with being a hermit - but dismisses it the next moment.

It’s not that she wouldn’t like to take him in: Mick’s a kind boy at heart, but he’s building up more and more of a defensive shell around himself every year, and the bumps and bruises his older brothers leave on him aren’t helping. Neither is the indifference of his parents.

But no. Tess doesn't actually like Martha, for all that good Midwestern politeness means that they interact fairly often.

After all, they are more or less neighbors, even if Wellsville is considered the furthest-out suburb of Keystone City and Smallville isn't. The way farms work, though, means that the Rory house edges just a bit closer to the Smallville town center, even if their land is mostly in Franklin County.

Martha pointed that out once and Tess Rory'll never forgive her for it, any more than she'll forgive Martha from being from Metropolis, a bigger and grander city than Coast City, where Tess was from.

Tess never did like not being locally known as the lady from the big city anymore, even if Martha never contradicted any one of her frankly ridiculous boasts.

“What spurred today's decision to be a cat?” Martha asks instead, leading Mick inside.

“It's not just today's decision,” Mick protests. “I'm serious about it this time, Mrs. Kent.”

“Of course you are,” Jonathan says mildly from the kitchen table, where he hasn't moved an inch. “Boys should always be serious about what they want to be when they grow up, even if it is a cat.”

Mick automatically tries to duck behind Martha when Jonathan speaks, a reflex that says more about Matthew Rory's temper than it does about Jonathan. Still, with the police chief being Rory's best friend from high school and half the local government being on the football team he helped coach, it wasn't like telling anyone would do any good. The most they can do is let Mick come by sometimes, like now, and send him home cleaner than he arrived.

“Martha,” Jonathan says, pretending not to see Mick. “It's a fine going-to-be cat you've brought in, but I think you'd better give it a wash before you let it sit at the table.”

“I can wash myself, Mr. Kent," Mick offers, head emerging from behind Martha with a blink, though he still doesn’t meet Jonathan’s eyes. “I'm human again right now.”

“You do that, then,” Jonathan says, nodding solemnly and turning a page of his newspaper.

Mick skitters off.

“Think we can convince Tess that we've just adopted a very human-shaped cat?” Martha asks after she's sure Mick is out of earshot, shaking her head.

Jonathan huffs a little laugh. “One that happens to resemble her missing son?”

“Stop using logic. You see that black eye of his?”

“Yeah,” Jonathan says, putting his newspaper down with a sigh. “And on the other side from the last one, too. Can’t be healthy, getting that many knocks to the head, but I still haven't thought of a way to deal with it. Ever since Joey saved that girl from drowning in the pond, no one'll hear a word about it.”

“You mean, ever since he ran that touchdown last Homecoming kids' scrimmage, and him only in middle school,” Martha says waspishly. She had her own opinions of how little Lana ended up in the pond despite a mortal fear of water, and it had a lot to do with her puppy crush on Joey Rory. “Everyone's been eyeing Matt Rory and talking about how big Joey's going to get - the boy is twelve, for gods' sake.”

“And Wellsville hasn't won a football championship since Matt Rory,” Jonathan says, not disagreeing. He shakes his head. He love sports as much as the next man, but he’s got sharper eyes than most; that's one of the reasons Martha adores. “And so a black eye every other month and a new bruise a week for Mick gets dismissed as a bit of boys-being-boys brotherly bullying, no matter what I say.” He pauses. “Where is Mick, anyhow?”

“I'll check.”

Mick's standing in front of the candles Martha had idly put out on the table earlier, rapt in fascination as the flames flicker and the wax drips slowly down the side. Mick’s always liked to sit by the fireplace on the few times he’s made it to Martha’s place during the winter, peacefully watching the flames moving back and forth. And Martha’s seen him standing slack-jawed by the fires that get lit sometimes in the fields during the fall.

But Martha didn’t light any candles before she went out today.

“Mick,” she says. Then, again, when he doesn’t respond, a little louder. “Mick!”

Mick blinks, long and slow, and turns to look at her, eyes glazed over like he’s just been woken up from some dream. “Yes, Mrs. Kent?”

“Did you light those candles?”

“There were matches right next to ‘em,” Mick says, sounding a little guilty.

“You know you shouldn’t touch things in other peoples’ houses without permission, Mick,” Martha says sternly, wondering exactly when Mick learned to use matches all by himself. She'd known it was inevitable, but she'd hoped it would be - later, when he was a bit older.

“Sorry, Mrs. Kent,” he says, and he means it, she can tell, but his eyes are straying back to the candles already.

“You should go finish washing up,” she says, reaching out and snuffing the candles out. Mick makes a little whine when she does that, but he obediently goes off to the washroom.

Martha bites her lip, watching him go.

“Trouble?” Jonathan asks from the doorway.

“I don’t know,” she says slowly. “Maybe nothing. Lots of little boys like to look at fires.”

“We’ll keep an eye on him,” Jonathan says. “Don’t worry.”

-----------------------------------------------------------------

“Mrs. Kent?”

“Mick, what in God's name are you doing up at this hour?” Martha says, blinking blearily at the eight-year-old standing in her kitchen. He's lost another tooth, she notes.

Also, how does he keep getting into her house? She was sure she locked up tight last night. He's developing a real talent for breaking and entering.

Despite the fact he's put his four-year-old's ambitions aside, Mick Rory resembles nothing more than a cat right now. Sneaky as a shadow and pleased as punch with himself about it.

But then, he could just be a regular eight-year-old. What does she know?

“I wanted to watch the meteor shower,” Mick replies promptly. “But Joey said it was for babies and nerds, so I decided to do it from out in the west fields instead.”

“Didn't they say the view would be blocked by clouds over there?”

“Better than being a nerd,” Mick says firmly.

Martha smiles and shakes her head. “Did you enjoy it?”

“Yeah! A meteor fell in Sanders' field!”

“Did it?” Martha says absently, making herself a much-needed coffee. “That's nice.”

“So I went to go look at it –”

“Of course you did,” she sighs.

“- and then I came straight here to tell you.”

“That’s very kind of you, Mick,” Martha says, rubbing her eyes. “I definitely didn't wake up thinking there was an intruder and sent Jonathan to get the shotgun. Definitely not.”

“But Mrs. Kent,” Mick protests, oblivious to sarcasm as always, “it's your baby!”

“It's my - what now?”

“Your baby,” Mick says, as if he’s the one making perfect sense and she’s the one being slow. “In Sanders' field. You and Mr. Kent have been trying for a baby, right?”

Jonathan and Martha have never told anybody anything about that, which naturally means everyone knows.

“Mick, babies don't grow in a cabbage patch,” Martha tries.

He wrinkles his nose at her. “I know that, I'm not six anymore,” he says with all the disdain of a boy with two six-year-old twin sisters who are widely doted upon. “But Momma said that if you guys didn't get one the natural way soon, you'd go and get one of those alien babies. And now one's arrived for you!”

“...right,” Martha says, blinking. She has absolutely no idea what Mick's talking about.

Jonathan hovers in the doorway, having put away his shotgun.

“Well,” Martha says, because even if she never did get to be Mick Rory's mother, she was going to damn well be a good substitute, “I guess we'd better go take a look?”

Jonathan, bless his soul, just sighs and goes to get dressed.

Twenty minutes later, they're staring at –

It.

Him.

Him in it.

“Oh my god it's an alien baby,” Martha says. She feels very proud of herself for not swearing. The temptation was definitely there.

“Can I babysit him after you take him home?” Mick wanted to know. “Alex gets ten bucks an hour for babysitting the Gilliam baby, and he says she doesn't do anything but sleep.”

Jonathan and Martha look at each other.

“Mick, baby, why don't you be a dear and go wait in the car,” Martha says. She doesn't make it a question.

Mick obeys at a speed that speaks of a deep-seated fear of strong-willed Midwestern mother figures.

“Martha,” Jonathan says.

“It's an alien,” she says.

“He’s a baby,” he points out.

“Do we know that?”

“He’s all alone.”

“He is at that,” Martha concedes. “But he’s not human.”

“So?” Jonathan says.

Martha considers this for a second. “Okay,” she says.

But naturally, her agreement makes Jonathan back off. “Are you sure?”

"Why not?"

"He might have family coming after him. Or be some sort of - trap."

"You don’t think that any more than I do," Martha says. "Any other thoughts?"

"Nope," Jonathan says. "Just want to know you're sure."

"Are you?'

“Adoption agency's not going anywhere,” Jonathan points out. They'd had that meeting three weeks back, and their prospects were apparently best termed 'dismal'. That bankruptcy a few years back may have given them a second chance on the farm, but it had ruined everything else.

“Okay,” Martha says again. “But we can't let anyone find out.”

“Government,” Jonathan says, wrinkling his nose and nodding.

“Corporations,” Martha corrects.

“I'll get the ship onto the back of the truck,” Jonathan says. “We can bury it out back.”

Always practical, her Jonathan. One of the many reasons she loves him.

Martha takes the little boy from the – ship – into her arms and back to the car.

“He's cute,” Mick says from the backseat. “Looks like your granddaddy in those old picture albums you've got.”

“Oh,” Martha says, staring down at the baby she’s holding. The Clarke family picture albums are one of the few things she had inherited after her grandfather had died, as she wasn’t speaking to much of the family by that point, but those had been put under her name specifically and no one else had cared enough about them to try to protest. “Yes. Maybe a little. Mick, baby, you can't tell anyone about this.”

“Of course not,” Mick says wisely. “Aliens aren't allowed here ‘cause of the Constitution. They're illegal. So you can't tell no one about them.”

“Right,” Martha says faintly. “One point for talk radio, I suppose.”

She makes a mental note to explain and correct Mick’s misinterpretations, and also some of the wrong-headed thinking about immigration being poured into his ears.

The baby shifts in his sleep and murmurs a little, and she pulls him close to her chest.

Eventually. She’ll explain eventually.

“Are you going to talk to Mr. Devine over in North Valley?” Mick asks eagerly.

“I don't think I know a Mr. Devine,” Martha says, blinking as her attention is pulled away from the baby and her thoughts. “Why do you ask?”

“Dad says he's the one that gets all the aliens who work on the harvest for the big companies their papers,” Mick says. “He got Joey his fake ID, and he got Dad's cousin Tommy - from Keystone - some new papers after his old ones were pegged by the Feds for, uh, RICO something."

"Oh," Martha says again. The Rory family was known locally to have a few very distant ties to some low level mob enforcers, something they bragged about so often that it was surely exaggerated, but apparently there was some truth to the saying about smoke and fire. "Well, then. By all means we will go see Mr. Devine."

"Awesome!" Mick says.

"Tomorrow," Martha says pointedly. "Alone."

Mick pouts.

"But you're welcome to come babysit baby Clark," she offers.

"Clark?" Mick says. "Like your old family's name?"

"Well, you said it yourself," Martha says. "He looks like a Clarke."

"No 'e'," Mick insists. "Only hippies spell it that way."

Martha - who would bet solid money that Mick's never seen a hippie in his life, and wouldn't recognize one if he did see one, and who maybe had a bit of a background in the counter-culture herself, years ago - smiles. "No e," she promises, looking down at the grumbling baby boy, who’s trying to snuggle into her for more warmth. Her baby boy, unless there was some angry parent following behind - and if there was, she'd be having some stern words with them about child endangerment. "Just Clark."

------------------------------------------------------------

“Mama!” Clark sang. “Mama, mama, mama!”

“Yes, baby?” Martha says, squinting at the bill. That’s definitely not right. Possibly correct, but not right. Have they raised the prices again?

“Mick’s gone away again,” he says, tugging at her sleeve, which he can barely reach. He’s big for a three-year-old, which makes Martha wonder sometimes if they misjudged his original age. Or maybe he’ll just end up being very tall….

“Gone away..?” Martha says, brain still lost in a world of numbers. Then awareness dawns. “Oh. Well, just sit next to him till he wakes up, okay, baby? It doesn’t hurt him.”

I hope, she mentally adds. Mick’s fits of distraction were getting more and more common, but try and tell Matt and Tess Rory that they ought to take their child to see a doctor and you’ll hear your ass getting handed to you half a county over.

“Okay!” Clark says. “And what about the fire?”

“The fire?” Martha says, sitting up straight. “What fire?”

“Fire!” Clark cheers, happy to have gotten her attention, and he toddles along outside.

Mick’s sitting in the yard, eyes vacant and his mouth slightly ajar, watching a little brushfire slowly spread from where someone – no doubt one of the teenagers that thought Martha wouldn’t chase them out with the broom, which she did, again, first thing this morning – had dropped a cigarette and it had finally ignited after smoldering all morning long.

Martha’s just happy that she caught it early enough that she can easily smother it.

As she does that, Clark goes over and climbs into Mick’s lap. “Mickmickmickmick,” he says. “Come back! I wanna play!”

Mick stirs a little, blinking. “Clark?” he asks.

Clark cheers.

Martha’s getting increasingly worried about those fits of distraction. It’s not good that her best case hypothesis is some mild form of dissociation, but it’s still better than her suspicion that he’s having repeated petite mal seizures. And even though her and Jonathan don’t have much money, Martha’d offered to pay for the visit to the doctor for Mick, only to get her head bitten off.

Oh, she could kill that woman.

“Hey, Mick,” she says gently. “You okay?”

“Yeah,” Mick says, looking down at the ground guiltily. “Sorry I lost track of time, Mrs. Kent.”

“It’s okay,” Martha says, then hesitates. “Was it because of the fire?”

Mick shrugs. Clark tugs on his ear, causing him to yelp.

“You’re a menace,” he tells Clark, who beams.

“Like Dennis!”

“Yeah, just like,” Mick says, smiling involuntarily. Clark had that effect on people. “You wanna go play tag?”

“No! I wanna play Hawaii!”

“Okay,” Mick says, grinning and tapping his mouth with his finger thoughtfully. “Let me think. Who should I play?”

“Danno! DannoDannoDanno!” Clark chants.

“Hmmm, okay. I can do that. But who does that leave you?”

“I’m gonna be McGarrett! And we’re gonna solve crimes and save people!” Clark swishes his hands around.

“Uh-huh. And then we’re going to watch Hawaii Five-O on the TV?”

“Yeah!”

“You’re spoiling my son,” Martha says, smiling and shaking her head.

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Kent,” Mick says earnestly. “I’ve checked the TV Guide; I don’t think the episode’s going to be too scary for Clark.”

“And I’m sure you’ll be right there to cover his eyes if it is,” Martha says, wondering – not for the first time – why she’d ever let them watch that show to begin with. But it did make them both so happy…

Mick grins at her. “Lead the way,” he tells Clark, who whoops and runs away, closely followed by Mick.

Martha looks after them, smile fading from her face.

When Mick returns an hour later with a still bouncing Clark – they apparently ‘rescued’ three kittens, two imaginary and one real, the fat one from the neighbor’s that even Mick had trouble lifting – Martha is waiting in the doorway with a plate of warm peanut butter chocolate chip cookies in her hands.

Mick and Clark take one look at the cookies and go quiet.

“I’m sorry, mama,” Clark says, eyes wide and suddenly glistening. “I promise I’ll all eat my sprouts next time.”

“I didn’t mean to lose track of time,” Mick says at the same time. “I really didn’t. Sorry, ma’am.”

Martha stares at them.

Jonathan ambles out of the house. “Hey, Martha, did you happen to see – uh. Who’s in trouble?”

“Why do you all assume someone’s in trouble?” Martha demands.

“Because you only make peanut butter chocolate chip when someone’s in trouble,” Jonathan says.

“No one’s in trouble,” Martha exclaims.

“Who do you want to talk to?” Jonathan asks.

“…Mick.”

Mick squeaks.

Clark pats him on the knee. “Bye-bye, Mick,” he says solemnly. "Love you."

Mick hangs his head and accepts Clark's well-wishes with the sort of solemnity one usually sees at a funeral.

“Oh, for the love of – I’m not angry at him,” Martha says crossly. “You’re all a bunch of loons.”

Jonathan goes over and scoops Clark into his arms.

“Aren’t heroes like you supposed to save people like me?” Mick asks Clark.

“Not against Mama,” Clark says peaceably as Jonathan carries him away.

“Fair enough,” Mick says with a shrug.

“Honestly,” Martha huffs. “You’re all drama queens. Mick, come inside and have some cookies.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“How’s school going?” she asks once they're settled at the kitchen table.

Mick blinks at her. “Terrible,” he says, picking up a cookie. “Why?”

Martha sighs and decides to cut to the chase. “Have you been starting fires?”

“And I didn’t even finish my cookie,” Mick says sadly, looking down at it. "Usually you at least let me get halfway through it..."

“Mick.”

“I'm trying not to,” he says, scowling down at the table. “I’ve got a lighter now, and that’s almost enough, most of the time.”

“Oh, Mick,” Martha sighs.

"I'm trying not to," he says, but he sounds unsure about it; like he knows he shouldn't but he isn't quite sure why.

The whole town knows about Mick Rory and his penchant for starting fires.

Martha sometimes feels like she's the only one who knows that he can't seem to help himself. No promise, no punishment, no bribe can stop him, and between his parents' attempts and Martha's own efforts, she knows it to be truth.

"I know you are," Martha says gently, almost hopelessly. "Is there anything I can do to help?"

Mick just shrugs. “Thanks for the cookie, Mrs. Kent,” he says. “I’d better be going home now.”

Martha sighs again. When Mick started indicating that he should go home, which he almost never willingly does, it was time to end the conversation. She knows it’s because he feels bad that he’s disappointed her again, but she doesn’t know how to tell him it’s not his fault. Not when those stupid parents of his won’t let him get treatment – and he’s only just turned twelve last week. Freedom is still years away.

Martha’s been reading some disturbing things about kids that start off with arson. She hopes that's not Mick - she can't imagine that being Mick - but she can't help but wishing she could just steal him away and take care of him.

“Just not when Clark’s around, okay?” she says.

“Why?” Mick says, puzzled. “Not like it burns him.”

“How’s that?” Martha says with a frown.

“He doesn’t burn,” Mick says with a shrug. “Not at all.”

Martha didn’t need to know that.

“Thanks, Mick,” she says anyway, endlessly grateful for the pragmatic way Mick reports new developments like this to her (did you know Clark can hover two whole inches off the floor now? And for a whole minute straight, too! Isn’t that something, Mrs. Kent? You can tell he's been practicing!) and the way he never indicates that he thinks it's in any way abnormal. She guesses when you've got an uncontrollable passion for fire-starting that no one else understands, you yourself are a little more understanding of strange things. Or maybe it's just Mick's way, with his gruff manner that pretends not to care about the world, underlain with a bone-deep kindness. “But still, for me.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mick says. “I promise.”

“Good boy,” she says, and gives him another cookie to go. He looks so very tired, and small, and sad. “Would you like to come back tomorrow?”

“Can’t,” Mick says. “Dad says I’m old enough to help with the harvest, so I’m going to be doing that.”

Martha bites her lip. Harvest-time is hard even on adult men. Mick’s far too young – his older brothers hadn't been obliged to start really helping until they were fifteen – but she suspects that Mick’s father is trying, yet again, to work the pyromania out of his middle child through sheer exhaustion.

She doesn’t know where it’s going, but she knows it’s going nowhere good.

"I'll see you when the harvest's done, then," she says, and offers him another cookie before he goes.

She'll talk to the Rorys again come winter, she decides. Something needs to be done before someone gets hurt.

-----------------------------------------------------------------

“I want to see him,” Martha says firmly.

“Ma’am…” the policeman says, looking apologetic.

“You let me see him, Jeremy Arthur Richards, or so help me I will tell your grandmother.”

The policeman’s eyes go wide. “Yes, ma’am!” he yelps, scurrying aside. "He's right this way. But just real quick, okay? He's not supposed to be seeing anybody."

"Oh, yes," Martha says disdainfully. "Solitary confinement. That's just the way to treat a boy that's lost his whole family. Where is he?"

"Third room back."

"Thanks, Jeremy," Martha says, purposefully avoiding calling him Officer Richards like she usually does. She's not in the mood to fluff up a young man's ego, not with the rumors already flying around town and the police doing nothing to calm them.

She strides purposefully down the hallway, thankful that Jonathan is at home with Clark. Jonathan, bless his soul, is too laid-back for the sort of sound and fury needed to get results from a hostile justice system.

And right now, it is very hostile.

"Mick?" she says gently, pushing the door open.

If Mick looked small last time she saw him, he looks even smaller now, lying listlessly on the bed. His arms are bandaged up - mostly heat burns, they said, from not moving away from the fire, and a nasty one on his forearms from when he pushed through the metal frame door on the porch to get out of the burning house - and his face is still reddish from the heat, his lips dry and cracked like they've been baked.

In a way, that's not far from what happened.

"Mick?" she says again when he doesn't look up. "It's me, Martha."

After a few seconds he stirs. Whatever critiques Martha might have had about Tess Rory's parenting style, she certainly drummed a fine set of manners into the poor boy's head. "Hello, Mrs. Kent," he says dully, by rote. "How're you?"

"I'm fine, Mick," Martha says, sitting down next to him on the bed. "How about you?"

"I'm okay," he says, staring at the ceiling.

"No, I don't think you are," she says gently.

"Yes, I am," he argues back, his voice still monotone. "I haven't cried or anything yet. Nurse says it's 'cause I'm a monster."

"You most certainly are not!" Martha exclaims. Martha's contemplated murder plenty of times, but she's never had a fully-fledged plan to hunt down a woman, shoot her, and bury her in the corner of the Farriers' pumpkin patch leap into her head in quite that way before. "Get that thought out of your head. You're in shock, that's all; it's perfectly natural."

Mick just keeps staring at the ceiling.

Martha doesn't think she's making it through to him. If she ever finds that nurse, she's going to wring her throat with her bare hands.

"Do you know what's going to happen now?" she asks.

Mick shrugs. "Someone said they're gonna hang me," he offers.

Martha is going to murder this whole town, she is. If only the Rory's homestead was a few miles further west, in Smallville County instead of Wellsville, she'd know exactly who to talk some sense into. But Wellsville - officially the furthest-out suburb of Keystone - has brought in cops that came from the big city to deal with its crimes, and they thought they knew everything.

“No one’s going to hang you,” Martha says firmly. “For one thing, they don’t hang people anymore.”

“But I killed them,” he protests.

“The police investigation’s not done,” Martha says firmly, automatically, just like she’s been saying to everyone, but then she hesitates. “Mick,” she says slowly. “I hate to ask it, but did you set that fire? Tell me the truth.”

Mick shakes his head mutely.

Martha lets out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Even if he had, she wouldn’t have held it against him – Mick always tried not to set the fires, he tried; it wasn’t his fault that he couldn’t help himself sometimes – but that he didn’t do it at all, that’s even better.

“What happened, then?” she asks.

Mick shrugs a little. “I got itchy,” he says, his voice distant, referring to the feeling he got when he wanted to start a fire; though to Martha his description of a vice tightening on his chest and lungs till he felt he couldn’t breathe, the world all closing in on him, everything so loud it hurt and even regular light hurting his eyes, sounded a hell of a lot more like a panic attack than an itch. “And we’ve been so busy with the harvest that I haven’t had a chance to get away, so I went downstairs.” He rubs his eyes. “Dad took away my lighter and put it in his desk. I wanted it back.”

“Then what?” Martha asks.

“I don’t remember,” Mick says. “I got the lighter out and I was staring at it – it was really pretty – and next thing I know, I had to look away ‘cause I was coughing real bad.” He frowns a little, trying to recall. “There was smoke or something, and it was hot, and I was coughing like you were when you had pneumonia. And I thought – well, you always said fresh air would help, right? So I went to get some fresh air. I don’t know. I fell down a couple of times for some reason. I don’t remember why.”

Smoke inhalation, Martha thinks grimly. Mick can stare at that lighter for hours; the fire could have started elsewhere and grown to mammoth proportions without him ever noticing, not until the coughing fit tore his eyes away.

“I kept trying to get up, but it hurt my chest,” Mick says. “But I was only in the study, so I went out the porch door – it hurt when I pushed it open, ‘cause it was so hot, like touching a stove or something – and then I got out to the fields and then…”

He trails off.

“Then what?”

“It was beautiful,” Mick says, and his voice is dreamy. “It was so beautiful, Mrs. Kent. I’ve never seen a fire so big.”

Martha bites her lip. It’s talk like that that gets Mick in trouble, but he’s an honest boy. It wouldn’t occur to him to lie.

She reaches out and takes his hand. “I’m sure it was,” she says comfortingly.

“So beautiful,” Mick says, sighing. “God, it must’ve been half alight. You could see the fire coming out of the parlor windows, Mrs. Kent; it was beating right up against the glass.”

Martha sits up straight. “The parlor windows, Mick?” she says carefully. “You saw actual flame there, not just smoke?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mick says. “It was mostly smoke from the rest of it, but there were flames there. At least until the fire got onto the roof, then it sort of went everywhere.” He shrugs. “And everyone thinks I did it on purpose.”

Martha squeezes his fingers. “It’ll be okay, Mick,” she says. “Don’t listen to those people, okay? I believe you. I don’t think you killed anybody.”

Mick shakes his head mutely. “But I did, Mrs. Kent,” he says. “I didn’t wake anybody up, or call the cops, or nothing. I just stood there and didn’t do anything.”

“You got distracted, Mick,” Martha says gently. “It happens.”

“Yeah,” Mick says. “And now they’re dead.”

“Mrs. Kent?” some policeman calls.

Martha sighs. “I’ll see you soon, Mick,” she says, giving his hand another squeeze.

Mick just nods and turns his face away.

Martha heads outside, where there are several policemen loitering – some looking relieved that she came out and others just annoyed – and she smiles at them. Her best, politest, most unassuming Midwestern housewife smile.

All three of them take a step back and straighten their backs like they’re suddenly ten years old and got caught sleeping in church.

“Where’s the detective in charge?” she asks sweetly.

Three hands fly up to point.

“Thank you, boys,” she says, and sweeps down the hallway and into an office filled with several chattering policemen.

“Detective,” she says.

The man slouching behind the desk looks up. The name on the desk is Stevenson, but she knows John Stevenson, and this isn’t him. He must be the guy brought in from Keystone. “How can I help you, Mrs….?”

“Kent,” Martha says. “Martha Kent. I’m one of the Rory’s neighbors.”

“You mean you were,” one of the policemen says, smirking into his coffee.

“Being as there’s still one Rory left,” Martha says, her voice still calm and sweet and steely, “I still am. I just had a quick, little question, and I’ll get out of your way.”

“Certainly, Mrs. Kent,” the man behind the desk says.

“Given that I was able to figure out that Mick wasn’t behind the fire that brought down the Rory house in less than five minutes of speaking with him, being as he distinctly remembered being mesmerized by a fire in the parlor – which is to say, the other side of the house from the study where he was – then I have to ask why you haven’t cleared the matter up in public opinion where he’s currently being crucified,” Martha says, folding her hands together and widening her eyes just a little bit. “Being as I’m going to call the Keystone Gazette – and possibly the ACLU – about this miscarriage of justice the second I walk out of here, I wanted to get your opinion so I don’t misrepresent you or anything.”

The man straightens up abruptly, actually paying attention to her for the first time since she entered the room. “Mrs. Kent, was it?” he says.

“Yes, Detective…?”

“Mayhew,” the guy says. “Now, I don’t want you to get the wrong idea –”

“Have you determined that the fire is accidental, Detective Mayhew?”

“Well, yes, by and large, but –”

“And you are aware that young Mr. Rory is being harassed by numerous individuals – including, I’m willing to guess, individuals in this department, which you’re relying on?”

Mayhew looks uncomfortable.

“You recall that the boy is twelve, right, Detective?”

“We’re planning on releasing a statement shortly,” Mayhew says testily, then suddenly his shoulders go down and suddenly he smiles. “Say, Mrs. Kent, perhaps you can help us with something.”

Martha arches her eyebrows.

“Do you happen to know who the Rorys’ next of kin might be?”

Oh.

“I don’t believe they have any kin, locally,” she says reluctantly, trying to think. Mick had mentioned some cousins… “His father had a distant cousin by the name of Thomas in Keystone, I believe.”

“Thomas Rory?”

“No, Brady, I believe.”

The police in the room exchange looks.

“Am I missing something?”

Mayhew coughs. “We did identify a Thomas Brady, but unfortunately he’s unavailable, being as he’s in prison. We were hoping you could identify someone else…?”

“The Rorys don’t really talk to most of their family,” Martha says, starting to be worried. “If you don’t find anyone willing to take him in, what’s going to happen to him?”

“He’ll probably have to go into the system, ma’am,” Mayhew says. “Could you ask around?”

“I will,” Martha promises, and turns to leave. Before she does, though, she pins Mayhew with her best glare. “I look forward to seeing that statement, Detective. Given the sort of rumors you’ve let fly around this town this past week, I’m sure you’re planning on making it an excellent one.”

“You won’t be disappointed,” Mayhew says, his fingers twitching like he wants to salute.

Martha goes home.

“Jonathan, the Rorys didn’t have any extended family, did they?” she asks, sweeping in. “Other than that Brady boy?”

Jonathan looks up from where he’s playing with Clark. “No, Martha,” he says. “Matt Rory’s only brother died in Vietnam, and Tess Rory was an only child. You’d have to go to second or third cousins, like that shady Brady character.”

“Shady Brady,” Clark repeats, laughing.

“And given how much the Rorys liked to burn bridges - no pun intended - there’s a decent chance of them not taking him in, right?” Martha asks, heading towards the kitchen, brain buzzing. The Brown family had a spare bed left over – they could move it into Clark’s room. Clark would be delighted, of course; he’s always wanted a brother, and he already adores Mick…

Jonathan picks Clark up and puts him on the couch. “Stay,” he says, pointing at their son, and follows Martha. “Martha.”

After enough years of marriage, you learn to read tones of voice.

Martha spins. “You can’t be serious,” she hisses, voice low so that Clark won’t overhear. He's been making a serious effort to avoid overhearing things that are deliberately in hushed voices.

“We can’t take him in,” Jonathan says, his face miserable.

“Why not?!”

“Because they check out foster parents before they certify them,” Jonathan says, voice also hushed. “And with us they won’t bother to do a whole check.”

Martha frowns.

“They’ll just ask for our adoption application papers.”

Martha winces, all the wind taken out of her sales in one single gut punch. No one can be allowed to start nosing around too closely for those; they might find the flaws and so find Clark. She wouldn't risk Clark for the world, and Mick'd be the first one in line to stop her if she tried. “But Jonathan,” she says, wrapping her arms around herself. “He’s all alone.”

“I know,” Jonathan says, wrapping his arms around her. “I know.”

--------------------------------------------------

“Did you get my care package, baby?” Martha asks, phone shoved between her shoulder and her ear as she tries to mix up the increasingly thick pancake batter. She's trying a new recipe today and she's not entirely sure she likes it.

“Yes, ma’am,” Mick replies shyly. “Thanks for sending it. Me ‘n the other boys –”

“The other boys and I.”

“The other boys and I,” Mick says obediently, “really enjoyed it. Especially the cookies.”

“Well, I should hope so,” Martha says, smiling as Clark comes downstairs, yawning, his eyes going wide with excitement when he sees she’s on the phone. “I made sure to make them good, especially once you told me that that friend of yours has never had triple chocolate anything.”

“He’s still got a look on his face like someone punched him out,” Mick says, sounding fond.

Martha’s got mixed emotions: on one hand, she’s happy Mick found a friend. On the other, she wishes he hadn’t gotten himself sent to juvenile detention first for it to happen.

“How long have you got?” she asks instead of getting into that again.

“Just another five minutes,” he says regretfully. “They’re enforcing the rules about how long we can be on the phone, and there’s lots of other kids in line.”

“Well, talk to Clark for those five,” Martha says decisively. “He’s been dying to talk to you since he missed you last week. And you keep yourself out of trouble, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am!”

She hands the phone to Clark.

“Mick!” Clark exclaims happily. “I went to a sleepover last week! That’s why I missed you!”

Martha can’t hear Mick’s response, but Clark wanders away happily, saying, “No, I’ve gotten over my flying dreams, Mom would never have let me go otherwise – it was great, we told all sorts of scary stories –” with all the vigor of an excitable seven-year-old boy.

Who can fly – or at least float.

Martha shakes her head.

Only her boys.

But she is glad that Mick found a friend. He'd sounded so disbelieving when he told her about it, on one of the rare times she managed to go up to the detention facility and check him out for an afternoon.

Mick apparently saved this boy's life - Martha had nearly thrown a fit after she'd gotten home and looked up what a 'shiv' was - and the boy had repaid Mick by becoming his partner in crime.

Leonard Snart, as he was apparently called, is- according to Mick - absolutely brilliant. He's witty, charming (at times), fierce, generous, intelligent, sneaky...

Mick is deeply confused, and touched, by the fact that this Leonard Snart seems to want nothing from him but his company. Even Mick's services as a brawler - Martha disapproves, but she doesn't know how to stop Mick from going down the road he's on – are apparently unimportant compared to the simple pleasure of Mick's company.

Mick smiles a lot more with this Snart around.

So Martha does the only thing she can and doubles up on cookies and care packages.

Her only regret, really, is that this Snart boy seems to be determined to embark on a life of crime, and Mick seems perfectly content to go along with him.

Perhaps she'd try to have a talk with this Snart next time she can take a day off to go see Mick...

"-and I think they're lasers!"

Martha sighs.

"Clark!"

"Oops," Clark says without the slightest shred of guilt. "You wanna say goodbye, Mom?"

Martha takes the phone.

"Don't worry, Mrs. Kent," Mick says, sounding amused. "Just a movie."

"A movie, or a, ah, movie?"

"Regular movie," Mick promises. "He saw it on his sleepover. There was an evil robot."

"Of course he did," Martha says, shaking her head. "Tell me, is that the sort of thing that's useful for a boy to learn about? Evil robots?"

"You never know what the future brings, Mrs. Kent," Mick says, laughing. Then he sobers up. "Uh, Mrs. Kent..."

"Yes, dear?"

"Clark said..." Mick sounds oddly hesitant.

"Yes?"

"He said he wanted me to come by in the fall, after I'm out, for Thanksgiving," Mick says, all in a rush.

Martha blinks. "Well, of course you should come!" she exclaims. "Why not?"

"It's not just that, Mrs. Kent," Mick says, still sounding strange. "He said - he said it was because everyone else's brothers came home for Thanksgiving."

"A lot of the boys his age have brothers in college," Martha says agreeably.

"He meant me," Mick says, like Martha doesn't realize. "He, uh -"

"Mick Rory," Martha says, "if you don't know by now that the only reason you're not formally a member of this family is because of that silly paperwork issue, then I'm going to come up there and knock the stuffing out of your head."

"Oh," Mick says. "Oh. I -"

"Unless you don't want to be, of course."

"Oh, no!" Mick exclaims. "Of course I want to be Clark's older brother! Of course! I just - aren't you worried, or something? Because of - you know -"

"Clark isn't afraid of fire," Martha says, not without irony. "As you know. And I'm not afraid of anything."

Mick laughs again, sounding almost giddy. "Thank you, Mrs. Kent. Oh, man. Just wait till Lenny hears about this. Thank you, Mrs. Kent!"

"You know, if you're calling Clark your brother, I feel we've moved beyond the formalities," Martha says, amused.

"Oh – I, uh – oh –"

"Think about it," Martha advises. "Now go tell, ah, Lenny."

"Good idea! Bye!"

Martha grins at the phone. Mick had become rather taciturn, but she and Clark could always coax him out. Though clearly she was going to have to resign herself to being called Mrs. Kent for a little longer.

Maybe she could convince him to call her Ma Kent or something...

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Leonard Snart is a thief, a liar, violent, ruthless and very likely a master criminal. He represents, in his sum total, everything Martha has strived to teach Clark not to ever become.

"I think I want to give him a hug," Martha whispers to Jonathan, utterly bewildered by the instinct.

"You always did like picking up porcupines," Jonathan murmurs back.

Martha didn't even get a chance to demonstrate any of the steel in her spine to the poor boy; he's been terrified stiff since the second he walked through her door. Judging by the circles under his eyes, he's been terrified since Mick told him that he was bringing him to meet his foster mom, a title Mick has never bestowed on any of the women who actually fostered him (Etta, whom Martha has met, came at the very end and was by far the best, and Martha gets along with her like a house on fire - no pun intended).

Mick's hovering protectively over his friend, too, while pretending that that's not what he's doing, which is the most darling thing Martha's ever seen.

Clark's off at summer camp, of course; Martha had wanted a chance to meet "Lenny" on her own before introducing him to her baby.

Honestly, she hadn't really ever thought of introducing him, except, well, he's been Mick's best friend for going on six years now.

Mick's been hinting around about it, too, which he almost never does, so Martha knows it means a lot to him.

So does Lenny, judging by the way he looks at her food like it's going to kill him but tries to eat it anyway, leading to a hushed argument between him and Mick when they think Martha's out of earshot –

"Lenny, if you eat when you're like this, you'll be sick later!"

"I can’t just turn it down, Mick! I don't wanna be rude!"

"You'll throw it all up!"

"Yeah, but I can do it quiet and no one'll know."

"I'll know, and your stomach'll know, and it's bad for you, you idiot!"

"Sure, I’ll know, but they won't."

"I'm asking for bread."

"Don't you dare!"

Martha heats up some of yesterday's rolls and brings them out like she'd just forgotten them in the kitchen, and coaxes Leonard to accept one. Mick looks relieved.

Eventually, after a tortuous meal in which Leonard paints a smile on his face, hides his shaking hands, and says as little as possible, Martha says, "Mick, since you're here, could you give Jonathan a hand with the tractor? Normally we'd ask Clark, but he's away."

"But..."

"Thanks, dear."

Mick went.

"Maybe I should go help them," Leonard says, belatedly realizing that he's being abandoned to Martha's mercy and making as if to get up.

"Nonsense, you're a guest," Martha says briskly. "Now, Leonard, a question."

He turns wide eyes to her.

"I'm not saying I'm unaccustomed to being treated like a rattlesnake," Martha says. "But normally it only happens after I bite, and I don't think I've bitten you. So what's the issue?"

"There's no issue," Leonard protests, but the way his voice cracks like a teenager's in the middle of his sentence is telling.

Martha arches her eyebrows and pins him with a look.

"I've never met anybody's parents before," he admits.

"What, never?"

"Not really," Leonard says. "I couldn't really have friends when I was in school, 'cause they'd want to come over to my house, and my dad - wouldn't have liked that." He rubs his arms, like he's cold, or in pain.

Martha purses her lips. "Your mother?"

"Died or split when I was six. My sister's mom stuck around till I was twelve, though."

"Your sister?"

Leonard's face suddenly undergoes a transformation: he abruptly looks his own age, neither frightened child nor world-weary adult, just a young man talking about something that delights him. He has a face full of mischief and life, just like Mick described in halting words; this is the Leonard Snart he knows, Martha's sure, rather than the one that has been sitting at her dinner table.

"Her name's Lisa, and she's amazing," he says. "She's an ice skater - she's only nine, but she's already in competition track, and keeping up with her homework at the same time, too!"

Martha's been to enough PTA meetings to know exactly how to talk to someone about their beloved child. She gets nearly five full minutes of excited conversation - Lisa's report card, and her private training, and how smart she is, how intelligent, witty, charismatic, beautiful - before he abruptly remembers who he's talking to.

"I'm probably boring you," he says, wringing his hands, the anxiety sneaking back in.

"Not at all," Martha assures him. "I see we're back with the rattlesnake. What has you so worried? You seem like a fine young man, and you've been friends with Mick for years. You can't think I'm going to disapprove."

Other than of your unfortunate criminal streak, she added mentally.

Leonard stares at her, still terrified, still mute.

Well, then.

If it hadn't been her foster-son's closest friend, and if he wasn't so obviously hiding something, something about her in particular - something he didn't want to reveal but was certain that she could detect - and if she didn't have so very many secrets she needed to protect - she might have had mercy.

As it was -

Gloves off.

Martha looks him dead in the eyes. "Leonard Snart," she says, slow and certain. "What aren't you telling me?"

"I'm in love with your foster son," he blurts out, then his eyes go really wide and he slaps his hand over his mouth.

Martha sits back.

Well.

That - wasn't what she was worried about.

Or expecting.

At all.

She starts to smile. "Oh, really?" she says gleefully. "And you're trying to get our approval? How delightful!"

"I ain't even told him that yet," Leonard says through his hand, eyes still wide with horror. "Oh my god."

Martha reaches over to pat his shoulder, then pulls back when she notices his instinctive flinch. "Don't worry about it," she says instead. "It's a mother thing."

Like most boys, Leonard buys it completely.

"So, what are you planning to do about it?" she asks.

In love! Oh, she hadn't heard something so delicious in ages.

She'd been wondering if Mick would ever bring anyone home, given his universe of interests seemed limited to fire, fighting, drinking, playing with Clark, and Leonard. It had never occurred to her that her worries about Mick being lonely could be solved internally to those spheres.

Not that it would be a problem if it wasn't, of course, as long as he was happy. But this has the potential to make him happy, and so Martha approves.

"Don't suppose you know if he's..?" Leonard says hopelessly.

"I'm afraid not," Martha says, not without sympathy. "Would you like me to feel him out for you?"

Judging by the look on his face, it doesn't appear as though Leonard had realized that was an option.

If she ever meets the father who put such lack of faith in parents into this boy - and let him virtually become one at far too young an age -

"Could you?" Leonard asks. "We ain't always the best at talking, Mick and me."

"You can't have a relationship without talking," Martha says. "So I'm willing to, but it really does sound like you ought to do it." She pauses. "For what it's worth, I approve."

"You...do?"

"Can't say I'm happy about the crime," she says, giving him a Look. "But he does care about you."

"And you don't mind that we're both...?"

"It is possible to be liberal minded, even if you live in the country," Martha says, and watches with amusement as he flushes.

"I'll tell him," he says, straightening his back.

"Go tell Jonathan I need him in the house," Martha suggests.

Leonard goes.

Jonathan comes.

"What mischief are you up to?" he asks the second he sees her face.

Martha grins wickedly. "Matchmaking."

"Between who?"

"The boys!"

Jonathan blinks. Then he shrugs. "Well, it isn't any stranger than Clark."

"Words to live by," Martha says with a laugh.

-------------------------------------------------------

"It's okay, baby," Martha says, as soothingly as she can given that she's half out of her mind with panic. "Shhhh, calm down."

"Mom," Clark whimpers, keeping his eyes squeezed shut.

"It'll be okay," Martha says firmly, petting his forehead until he starts to relax. "Jonathan, get me a cold compress and turn off the light."

Jonathan's eyebrows shoot up, but he goes.

"It'll be okay," Martha says again. "Shhh, just relax, okay? I want you to take a deep breath and count to three before you let it out again. With me, okay? In -"

Clark slowly starts to unwind, stress leaving his body inch by painful inch. Martha coaches him along, retrieving the compress from Jonathan when he arrives with it, wrapping it in a towel and putting it over Clark's eyes gently to help reduce the swelling and redness. "You rest, okay, baby?" she says comfortingly. "Sleep a little. We'll figure it out."

"Yes, mom," Clark yawns, already slipping away into an exhausted doze.

Martha then gets up and goes to the kitchen to rest her forehead against the refrigerator.

"Martha?" Jonathan asks.

"It'll be okay," she says again, because if she says anything else, she'll scream.

"What was that with the light and the compress? The boy's eyes have turned into uncontrollable heat rays; he doesn't have a migraine!"

"What was I supposed to do about it?" she snarls, aware that her voice is shaking. "He can't even control it right now! He can't keep his eyes shut forever!"

"I know that," Jonathan hisses back. "I just -"

The phone rings.

They both stare.

Martha peers at the caller ID and then snatches the phone off the hook. "Oh god, Mick, you called, oh god," she says, aware that she's about to start blubbering. "I don't know what to do. It's Clark. His eyes - oh god -"

"Don't worry, Ma," Mick says. "I got a plan."

"You - you do?"

"Well, I told Lenny, and Lenny's got a plan," Mick amends. "Hold on, here he is."

"Mrs. Kent?" Leonard's voice came through the line.

"Yes?"

"Go to the post office and get your mail," he says.

"What?!"

"Go get your mail," he says, "and open the yellow envelope in public. That's step one of the plan."

"How is that going to help Clark's eyes?" she asks, puzzled.

"Trust me," Leonard says. "Now give the phone to Mr. Kent and go."

Out of sheer confusion and lack of better options, she does.

The post office is pretty busy, which is unsurprising given that it shares a building with both the local bank and the best breakfast spot in town.

"Martha, dear! Are you all right? You look dreadful," Carol, the postal worker, exclaims.

"Just a bit of a tiff with Clark," Martha says, rubbing her eyes. "You know how it is..."

"Oh, do I," Carol - who has four kids - says with a sigh. "He's - let me think - my, he's fifteen already, isn't he? How the time does fly by. Don't worry, Martha, all teenagers get like this."

Not all teenagers, Martha thinks, a little hysterically. Not quite like this they don't. Not the ones from around here, anyway!

"Yes, well," she says. "I figured I'd get my mail and cool off."

"Good choice," Carol says approvingly, digging up Martha's mail and passing it over.

Martha glances through it - bill, bill, advertisement, credit card offer, advertisement - and then sees the glaringly yellow envelope. "What's this?" she asks, not having to fake her surprise. It's really horrifically yellow. She would've expected Leonard to have better taste, at least.

"Not sure," Carol says. "But it's marked important."

"Well, then," Martha says, and opens it. Then she stares. "Oh. Oh, my. Oh, my."

Carol scurries around to take a look over Martha's shoulder. "A full expenses paid vacation to the Caribbean?!" she shrieks, loud enough that the whole room hears it and turns to stare. Heck, half the state probably heard that.

"It - seems so," Martha says, dazed, reading onward. Private plane, tickets included, the flyer says. Enjoy a wonderful beach vacation for you and your whole family on our secluded shores. Get away from it all. "I have to go tell Jonathan."

"God, yes, of course!" Carol says, making shooing motions. "I'll figure out who can watch the farm for you; don't you dare let him refuse!"

"The deadline on these tickets is tomorrow," Martha says, growing alarmed. "We have to go to the airport to use them or we forfeit the flight."

"They must have gotten lost in the mail," Carol says. "We'll take care of it. Go! Tell Jonathan the good news!"

Martha goes straight home, bypassing Jonathan for the phone. "Leonard Snart," she exclaims. "What in the world?"

"You got the tickets?"

"I can't go on vacation now! I have Clark to think of!"

"Exactly why you're going to go," Len says. "We've booked the flight ourselves, out of the private airfield over in Brookstown. Just one pilot who's been paid for discretion, nice big seats that recline. We're on our way to pick you guys up and help you pack."

"But how will this help?"

"We're going to tape up Clarkie's eyes for now," Len says. "Just for a bit - say he fell off the side of the barn or whatever it is that happens to you country people - and we're gonna fly him to this place we found. Well, first we fly, then we boat, but it's secluded as all hell, Mrs. Kent."

"Language."

"Uh, sorry. Anyway, there's basically no one there. It's the off season, y'see. I went ahead to make sure it's functional enough and chase away anyone else, and it's all set up for us. Lisa's keeping an eye on it now."

"But why?"

"I figure it's like Clarkie's bad breath phase," Leonard says. Martha hadn't even been aware that he'd known about the ice breath fiasco. "It'll work itself out in a few weeks. We take him to the middle of nowhere and he can practice with it all he likes without the neighbors finding out or your house getting destroyed."

"Oh, Leonard..." Martha says, feeling tears well up in her face.

"I will personally pay you anything you like if you don't cry on me, Mrs. Kent," Leonard says, sounding alarmed.

"I'm baking you all the pies you could ever want," she tells him. "Forever. I don't know how to thank you."

"That works," Leonard says. "But really, don't worry about it. Has Mick mentioned how much I like sci fi movies?"

"No?"

"It's as bad as his ninja thing. Anyway, I figure between the two of us and Lisa, we can set up some sort of - training montage."

"How did you get Lisa away from...?" Martha asks. Leonard's sister is even younger than Clark, and had something of an adorable crush on him, which Clark is hilariously embarrassed about.

"Told dad it was a school trip," he says with a sigh. "Told the school our grandfather died. Hopefully they never figure it out."

"I hope so," Martha says. "If you need anyone to mimic a principal's secretary's voice, you just let me know."

"Thanks, Mrs. Kent," Leonard says, sounding deeply relieved.

"But how did you afford all of this?" she asks. "And don't say you went to the ATM!"

"No," Leonard says. "I asked some - friends. I'll owe them a couple of favors. It's no big deal."

"If you're sure," Martha says dubiously. She didn't know anyone with friends that could devise a private island.

But then Mick and Len arrive in a pick-up and everything turns into a flurry of packing and phone calls to arrange people to watch the farm and the house - Carol is as good as her word, and Martha gets half a dozen half-admiring, half-envious calls about her good luck in the sweepstakes she'd "entered" - and next thing she knows, she's helping Clark, his eyes carefully bandaged shut, onto the plane.

"Try to sleep on the plane," she advises him. "It's supposed to help with jet lag. Have you brushed your teeth? Did you remember to pack it when you were done? Did you spill any on yourself since you couldn't see what you were doing?"

"Mooooooom," Clark says, blushing. "Not in front of Len and Mick."

Such a teenager.

"Mick's your brother and Leonard's all but," Martha says briskly. "They don't mind."

"But still!"

The flyer had said something about a resort, but from Leonard's description, Martha was anticipating something fairly relaxed. A beach house, perhaps.

Well, she supposes that yes, technically, a beach mansion is a form of beach house.

"Leonard," Martha says, staring at it as Jonathan and Mick help Clark out of the car, saying that they were going to head straight to the beach to let Clark look out at the ocean unimpeded until he burned himself out. "What friends did you say you'd gotten this from?"

"Uh," Leonard says. "It's complicated?"

"Leonard Snart."

"It's a Family house," he says grudgingly. "But it's the offseason, so no one's using it, and they said I could take it for a few weeks in exchange for me doing some jobs for them."

"I thought you said you wanted to try something not theft related, for Lisa?"

Leonard shrugs. "Without a high school degree, I wasn't going to get all that far anyway, Mrs. Kent," he says.

"But Leonard -"

"It's okay," he says firmly. "I'll be fine. Besides, I had to do something. Clarkie's family, too."

Martha hugs him, much to his surprise. "You're a good man, Leonard Snart," she tells him, ignoring his round, disbelieving eyes. "No matter how many ATMs you rob or how many jewelry shops you steal from, don't you believe anyone who tells you differently. You're my hero right now."

Her voice cracks a little on the last part.

"Please don't cry," Leonard says, deeply alarmed. "Please, please, please -"

Martha laughs tearfully.

Things are going to be okay.

-----------------------------------------------------------

“Jeremiah and Eliza will take good care of her,” Martha repeats, not for the first time.

“Yes,” Jonathan says patiently.

“And she’ll be better off having Alex around.”

“Having someone her age is a good thing.”

“You don’t think –”

“She’ll be fine, Martha. It’ll be better for her to grow up with them than with us out here,” Jonathan says firmly. “We’re too old to start from scratch, and Jeremiah and Eliza are good people.”

“And we don’t want anyone looking to closely at those adoption papers,” Martha sighs. “Especially with the government being all sneaky again.”

“Aren’t they always?”

“I don’t like that Henshaw fellow,” Martha says. “I don’t know what he’s up to, not yet, but – the D.E.O. I don’t like the sound of that. I don’t even know what it stands for, but I don’t like it.”

“Len did say he was trouble,” Jonathan observes.

“He did, at that,” Martha agrees. She pauses. “Do you think we should have warned Jeremiah and Eliza about them?”

Jonathan blinks at her. “What, about Len and Mick?” he asks. “They’re just taking the girls to the county fair, s’all.”

“Yes, yes. I didn’t mean about today. I meant…in general.”

“Jeremiah’s no homophobe,” Jonathan objects. “Besides, you see plenty more gay couples on television nowadays; it’s not like it’s rare the way it used to be.”

“That isn’t the issue.”

“What is, then?” Jonathan asks. “The Danvers were good enough about Clark, enough to take Kara in; I can’t imagine what would be strange about Mick –”

“The fact that they’re criminals, Jonathan!”

“Oh,” Jonathan says. “That.”

“Yes, that.”

Jonathan thinks about it for a long moment.

“Honestly, I don’t think Jeremiah’s any more fond of the government than anyone else out here,” he finally says. “As long as they mostly rob banks and rich folks…”

Martha sighs.

A car door slams outside.

Martha opens the porch door and peers out.

“Martha! Martha!” Alex and Kara are both shouting, beaming widely.

“Hello, girls,” Martha says, grinning at them in response. “How was the fair?”

“Mick won the pig wrestling!” Kara announces. Alex nods furiously.

The last few weeks, Kara has been amazed at every last little new thing she’s encountered on Earth, much to Alex’s embarrassment. Apparently, Mick and Len had solved the problem by taking them to do something that wasn’t done in Midvale.

Something like pig wrestling.

“He did what now,” Martha says flatly.

“He took a shower, Mrs. Kent,” Len says, coming up behind them. “But don’t worry, he’s coming by another car anyway.”

“He got first prize!” Alex says. “You should’ve seen him – I’ve never seen a pig that big –”

“I’ve never even seen a pig!” Kara puts in.

"I thought it'd be more like, you know, in Charlotte's Web..."

"What's Charlotte's Web?"

"I'll show you, don't worry about it."

"Oh, oh!" Kara suddenly exclaims. "And Cousin Len won us prizes at the game booths!”

Kara zips back and forth in a quick (and yet incredibly familiar) blur, reappearing with –

“My lord,” Martha says, staring. “Those are some very large stuffed animals.”

“They had a shooting booth,” Len says with a shrug. “I’m very good at shooting.”

“Just tell me you didn’t let Kara do the strength test.”

Silence, other than the rumble of the approaching second car which Martha can see contains Mick and Len’s sister, Lisa.

“Len.”

“Don’t worry, Aunt Martha,” Kara says earnestly. “Cousin Len proved to everyone that it was rigged right afterwards.”

“It was funny,” Alex says, grinning a little. “He’s a really great announcer. You ought to be a circus ringleader,” she tells Len.

“He really ought to be, at that,” Lisa drawls as she climbs out of the second car, which Martha sincerely hopes wasn’t stolen. “You’ve got a sharp eye, Alex.”

Alex blushes and looks down at the ground.

Martha contemplates attempting to casually mention to Eliza that her daughter has a crush on a budding career criminal like Lisa and decides that the whole thing is best not mentioned. Besides, at Alex’s age, Martha has no idea if she even realizes that it’s a crush.

She mentally resolves to mention her approval of Len and Mick’s relationship wherever possible around Alex, just in case.

“It was a good fair,” Mick says cheerfully.

“Yes, so I’ve heard,” Martha says. “Who wants some pie?”

This time, there are two blurs heading towards the kitchen, and one of them’s entirely natural to the planet Earth.

(Len and Lisa aren’t fooling anyone with their purposeful walking-far-too-quickly, either.)

“Mick,” Martha says, as Mick starts to follow.

“Yeah, Ma?”

“Pig wrestling?”

“You want me to teach Clark how to do it?” he asks innocently. “I’m sure he’d do great.”

“Don’t be absurd.”

“No, really! And Kara can be next –”

“Michael Rory, if you think you’re turning Kara into the next pig wrestling champion, you’ve got another thing coming.”

“Oh, shucks,” Mick says, wrapping an arm around Martha and squeezing. “I guess we’ll have to make do with just having another journalist in the family. What Clark likes with all that reading, I’ll never know.”

“You’re dyslexic, not illiterate, Mick,” Martha says, but she’s laughing. “Besides, Kara might want to go into another profession. We don’t have a doctor in the family yet, after all.”

“Journalist,” Mick says firmly. “I’ll bet you one of your famous apple pies.”

“You’re on,” Martha says, then pauses. “What does Len think she’ll be?”

“He says that she’ll go anywhere she wants, but that she’s going to start out as a personal assistant,” Mick says, shaking his head. “Said she’d probably undervalue herself and want a human mentor first.”

“…Len is very strange.”

“Yes,” Mick says agreeably. “But is he ever wrong?”

“I wouldn’t bet a pie on it,” Martha agrees.

-----------------------------------------------------------

"I'm gonna fly over," Clark says.

"You're doing no such thing," Martha says sternly.

"I can make it quick -"

"No, Clark."

"But he might've gotten hurt again!" her son protests.

"Mick's a big boy and he can handle himself," she tells her son firmly.

"But!"

"No," Martha says, even though she is worried. Normally she gets an I'm-okay call after a heist. Especially after that time when he'd been arrested and wound up with two broken bones from 'resisting arrest'.

Martha didn't care if he was resisting arrest; a man shouldn't go into a police station fine and come out battered and broken.

"Mom. We have to do something if he’s in trouble. It's Mick."

"Who knows the potential consequences of his actions," Martha says, crossing her arms. "His criminal actions, let me remind you. He'll call."

"You know how he is around fire," Clark says stubbornly. "He can't help himself. We knew he was in that town, and there's a fire, and he hasn't called -"

The phone rang.

Martha reaches for it and it materializes in her hand, courtesy of Clark's super-speed. "Oh, thank god, Mick," she says. "Tell me you're okay."

"Mrs. Kent -" Len says, and his voice is horse and pained and upset - and Leonard Snart never lets his voice show how upset he is.

Martha's hands tighten on the phone. "Len. Where's my son?"

"The whole building went up -"

"Is he okay?" she cries out, and there's a sudden breeze where there had previously been a young man home from his first few months at his new Metropolis journalism job.

"Mrs. Kent -"

"Don't you ‘Mrs. Kent’ me! Where is he? Tell me he's safe. Clark's on his way. Don't tell me he's still in the fire!"

"No, I got him out," Len says, voice ragged and getting worse. "I got him out. But he looks - the fire - oh, fuck -"

"Len?" Martha asks, abruptly concerned. Len did not break down. "Len, tell me he'll make it."

"He'll make it," Len says, voice thick. "I stuck up an ambulance. They say he'll make it. Fuck. I can't. I can't -"

"He'll be okay," Martha breathes, relieved. "Oh, thank god..."

"I can't," Len says again. "Oh god, I can't."

"Len? What's wrong?"

"I - I have to go," Len says, and his voice is weird. Tight and - panicked. Mick had told her Len had issues with anxiety, panic attacks, and she'd never seen a hint of them, but he sounds like he's drowning. "I have to - not be here. Not be. I can't."

"Len! Don't hang up!"

"I'm sorry, Mrs. Kent," Len says. "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have taken him in there. I won't do it again."

He's not talking to her anymore. He's having a panic attack.

"Len - Len, listen to me -"

"I'm sorry," he says numbly. "I have to go."

"Len!"

The phone line goes dead.

Clark returns half an hour later. "I broke him out of the ambulance," he reports, worry creasing his brow. "Checked him in to a clinic in Tulsa. The doctors say he'll be okay. Some bad scarring, probably, but he woke up, he knew me, he's okay. He'll be okay."

"Thank god," Martha says, collapsing into Clark's arms.

"They're keeping an eye on him in case of infection," Clark says. "That's what they're really scared of. But - he woke up. He was confused, but not too much. The doctor said it was normal. Better than normal; he said it was promising," He let out a long breath. "I don't think I've ever been so scared."

"Did you see Len?" Martha asks, mind stuck on the call with the man she considered her son-in-law, now that she was assured that Mick was okay.

"Len?" Clark says, blinking. "I - no, actually. The ambulance - I'm pretty sure he waved a gun in their faces, they were really twitchy and really happy when I took him away."

"Yes, he did say he stuck it up," Martha says, dismissing the little bout of criminality. "But he wasn't there?"

"No."

"We need to find him."

"You think he's hurt, too?" Clark asks, alarmed.

"I think -" Martha starts, then pauses, thinks about her words. "I think he's probably physically fine right now. What I don't know if he's going to stay that way."

Clark looks horrified at the suggestion. He’s loved his brother-in-law since the second Len had found out the origins of Clark’s name and started calling him Clarkie (short, he claimed, for Clarke, which he pronounced Clark-"e"); the thought of Len getting hurt was no more palatable than Mick.

"We should -" Martha starts, but she's already talking to thin air. "We should teach you discretion, that's what we should do," she mutters.

Still, she hopes Clark finds him.

Len always did blame himself for every hurt that everyone around him got; she suspects that's why he's so cold and cruel, sometimes. Better to be in control and hurt them on purpose than to be helpless.

And he loves Mick so very much.

"Martha?" Jonathan asks.

Martha goes to him, tears spilling from her eyes. "There's been a terrible accident," she says. "Mick's been burnt, and Leonard - isn't handling it well. Clark's gotten Mick to a hospital and is looking for Leonard."

Jonathan wraps his arms around her.

Martha puts her head on his shoulder.

God, she hopes they're okay, her strange, criminal cuckoos, that never listened to her urgings to go straight but who loved her fiercely nevertheless, the ones who straightened out the farm's mortgage with stolen diamonds and broke into Monsanto to steal the stupid contract Jonathan should have never signed, the ones that she and Clark worried over every night.

The men that had taught Clark how to play ball and hockey and soccer, the way he never could in school, and never judged him for the occasional lapses in his control of his powers.

The men that taught Clark, more than anything Martha could have ever said to him, that criminals were people too.

They've got to be okay.

They’ve got to be.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

In what is retrospectively totally unsurprising, Len is the first one to call.

"Kent residence," Martha says to the phone. "Martha speaking."

"Mrs. Kent? It's Len."

"Len, of course!" Martha exclaims, pleased. "How are you? Are you calling about..?"

"No, no," he says hastily. "No. I still think it's better if we stay apart."

"And I still think you're wrong," Martha says, but it's an old argument by now. And even if Len did want Mick back, he'd have to make a hell of an argument - Mick misses him so much it hurts to watch, even now that the physical therapy's done and he's out on his own again, but Mick's also a stubborn blockhead. They both are.

"Mrs. Kent..."

"But that's not why you called," she says briskly. "What can I do for you?"

"You can tell me what the hell Clarkie's doing in Metropolis, to start with!"

"What do you mean?" Martha asks, pressing her lips together in amusement. "He's a journalist."

"Oh, sure," Len says. "A journalist. Say, has he had a chance to cover the biggest craze in Metropolis? The big blue boy scout in a cape saving people from fires?"

"And petty criminals," Martha points out. "And illegal environmental dumping -"

"Mrs. Kent!"

"I can't imagine where the man doing it got the idea that acting outside the law like that is right," Martha says, and that shuts Len right up. "But he does seem to be doing a lot of good, doesn't he?"

"He's going to get himself hurt," Len says, and he might sound cool and calm as always, but Martha can hear the thread of concern. “You know they’re calling him a superhero? Like in the comics?”

“What’s the problem with that?”

“Where superheroes go, supervillains follow.”

“I can’t imagine that that’s actually going to become a problem.”

“I can,” Len says darkly.

“It’s nice of you to be so concerned about Metropolis’ alien superhero.”

“I’m not!” Len protests, knowing what she means. Neither of them think the line's tapped, but you never know. "I don’t care about the - alien – but rather, about Clarkie. Living in a city like that. There's a lot of powerful people there, even before you start adding supervillains to the list; a journalist could get on the wrong side of them."

"I'm sure," Martha says mildly. "Lucky for him, he has you to help, hmm?"

"Of course," Len says indignantly. "Just say the word, and I'll be there. Does he need anyone to crack that asshole Luthor's labs to see what he's cooking up? That’s the guy who’s been doing all the PR about the ‘alien invasion’ bullshit, right?"

"Yes, he is, and no, he doesn’t," Martha says, though she's not sure. "Not yet, anyway. Leave it be, Len; I'm sure if Clark needs help, he'll let you know."

"Pass along the offer," Len advises, then asks about Jonathan and the farm before hanging up. He doesn't ask about Mick, but he doesn't hang up when Martha tells him about him, either, and that's just as telling.

About four hours later, the phone rings again.

"Kent resid-"

"What the hell is Clark up to?!" Mick bellows.

Martha starts laughing.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

“You finished early today?” Martha asks Jonathan with a wicked smile, reaching out a hand to trail up his arm.

He gulps.

She loves the fact that she can still have that effect on him, even after all these years.

“Yeah,” he says, voice a little hoarse.

“Good,” Martha purrs. “Because I was thinking –“

“Mom?”

“- that Clark would be flying by to visit,” she concludes with a sigh, shoulders slumping. Jonathan grins and pats her hand.

Martha raises her voice. "Yes, baby? Come in."

Clark pops the living room window open and floats in, because he has no chill whatsoever when he's nervous, as he clearly is now.

“Hi, Mom,” he says, his ears looking a little red. “I just had a question.”

“And you decided to help us keep our phone bill down,” Martha says. “Thanks, sweetheart.”

Clark blushes. “I forgot. And it's not really - phone line conversation.”

“I've heard very good things about VOIP,” Jonathan says mildly. “Very secure. Used by hackers, I think.”

Jonathan made it a point to keep up with encryption techniques. There is apparently a very nice young lady in Starling that circulated a quarterly newsletter.

“I'll look into it,” Clark promises. “I just don't know how to deal with this.”

“Not another power?” Martha says, slightly concerned. Once Kara had arrived, she'd laid out the whole list of things they might expect and Clark had already all but filled it out, but you never knew how the Earth's yellow sun might affect things. Clark's puberty had been rather hellish for everyone involved.

Mick and Len had had far too much fun 'training' Clark with his laser eyes (read: throwing things in the air and tell him to look at them until the lasers went under control), but it had been a delightful vacation.

“No, nothing like that,” Clark says.

“Then what?”

“Well, maybe I'd better start at the beginning. Yesterday, Len gave me a call and asked if I was still restricting myself mostly to Metropolis.”

Martha nods.

“I said I was, and he asked if I was in Central for some reason. I said no, he said thanks, and that was it.”

“Well, Central City did have that Particle Accelerator explosion some nine, ten months ago, didn’t they?” Jonathan says thoughtfully. “Maybe the dark matter had some effect that made him think you were involved.”

“I have heard something about a streak of red and yellow lightning that been stopping crime in Central,” Martha says, tapping her lip. “Maybe he thought it was you speeding around?”

“Well, it isn’t,” Clark says crossly. “But, uh…have you seen the news?”

Martha frowns. “Why?”

Clark coughs.

Jonathan reaches over and turns on the local news channel.

“– the individual in question has been dubbed ‘Captain Cold’ by an anonymous tip, and the name has stuck,” the reporter was saying, replaying images of a derailed train and of a familiar-looking man with salt-and-pepper hair and a blue parka jumping off, glowing futuristic blue gun in hand. “No one on the train was hurt; many reporting that they were rescued by the mysterious red streak that has been seen around Central City. Is it possible that Central City has joined the ranks of American cities that is in possession of a superhero – and their more unpleasant counterpart, the supervillain?”

Clark reaches for the remote and turns the TV off.

They sit in silence for a long moment.

“Was that Leonard?” Jonathan says.

“That was definitely Leonard,” Martha says.

“He’s a supervillain,” Clark wails.

“Yes, he definitely is,” Martha says. “Oh, that boy. How does he get these ideas into his head?”

“Ideas?” Clark says. “He’s a supervillain! I have to stop him!”

“No, you don’t,” Martha says practically. “You’ve decided to focus on Metropolis and Leonard has promised not to do anything there, remember? As long as he stays in Central City, he’s not your problem.”

“But –”

“He was a criminal before,” Martha points out.

“But supervillains team up!”

Jonathan laughs.

Martha and Clark turn to look at him.

“Supervillains team up,” Jonathan says, as if that explains everything.

“In my experience so far,” Clark says.

“If Leonard makes a name for himself in Central City, he might be able to team up with some supervillains in other cities,” Jonathan says. “Like Metropolis.”

“That’s what I’m worried about!”

“Leonard would never hurt Clark,” Martha objects.

“No, he wouldn’t,” Jonathan says, smiling. “And he wouldn’t let anyone else do it, either. What’s the saying – keep your friends close, and your enemies closer?”

“He’s doing this in order to team up with my villains?” Clark yelps.

“He would, the idiot,” Martha says with a sigh. “I guess we’ll ask him at Thanksgiving.”

“I guess so.”

-----------------------------------------------------------

“The turkey looks great, Mrs. Kent,” Len says cheerfully as he strolled in through the door.

“I’m going to stab you with a meat thermometer,” Martha replies.

“I’m not going into the supervillain business without my partner,” Len says, like it’s reasonable and also like he’s rehearsed this answer, the cad. “We play with the Flash off and on, get a name for ourselves, and keep an ear out in the grapevine for anyone peddling green-and-shiny.”

“You gave Mick a heat gun?!”

“It was the only other thing I had!”

“Leonard.”

“…and I wanted him to forgive me, okay?”

“Leonard,” Martha sighs, anger dissipating immediately. “You know you don’t have to trade material goods for affection with Mick.”

“I know,” Len says, even if his voice betrays some doubt as to the idea. “But it doesn’t hurt.”

“You’re both hopeless,” Martha says.

“How’s Clark doing with Lois?” Len asks innocently.

“You’re all hopeless,” Martha amends, rolling her eyes. Then, because Len should never be allowed to think he’s won an argument, she adds, with an over-dramatic sigh, “I’m never getting grandchildren.”

Len looks alarmed. “Were you expecting grandchildren from Mick?”

“I did send you that notice regarding the legalization of same-sex marriage,” Martha says placidly. “Adoption agencies prefer married couples.”

Len looks vaguely green.

“Look on the bright side, Leonard,” Martha says, patting him on the shoulder. “Mick’s not pregnant or anything. It’s impossible.”

“So is a man running faster than sight,” Len says, looking more alarmed. “He wasn’t in Central City during the night of the particle accelerator, was he?”

Martha taps her lips. “You know, I don’t remember…”

“Mrs. Kent!”

“Nowhere near, as far as I know,” Martha assures him. “And I don’t think that’s been recorded as a side effect.”

“I don’t think I’m cut out to be a parent,” Len says.

“Lisa might disagree.”

“Lisa practically raised herself.”

“You nearly burned down your house baking for her PTA fundraiser,” Martha says. “You were a parent.”

“But…!”

“Don’t worry,” Martha says. “You have a few more years to be footloose and fancy free before I expect you and Mick to settle down.”

“I’m taking that time traveler up on his offer,” Len says, horrified. “You’ll never find me.”

“Don’t doubt me,” Martha replies placidly. “Now go set the table.”

“Yes, Mrs. Kent,” Len says, and slinks away.

------------------------------------------------------------

“Martha! Martha, are you all right?”

Martha blinks her eyes open, disoriented. The last thing she remembered, she was in her kitchen, making a cup of coffee; why was she on the floor now…?

“Jonathan?” she croaks.

“Oh, Martha,” he says, pulling her up into a hug.

“Where are we?”

“In my home,” a rough-voiced man says from the door. He’s dressed all in green, with his hood pulled up. “I’m sorry for the inconvenience, Mr. and Mrs. Kent, but you were in terrible danger.”

“Green Arrow, right?” a black man sitting not far from Martha and Jonathan. He doesn’t sound impressed.

“Yes, Mr. West,” the man says. “You’ve all been placed on a special list of individuals whose lives are currently in danger –”

“Don’t worry, Joe,” a younger man in red says, appearing in a burst of lightning. “We’ll keep you safe. The bad guys are going after anyone who they think is affiliated with, well, superheroes.”

Martha sighs. It was really only a matter of time, she supposes.

“Well, it’s nice to meet all of you,” she says politely, holding out her hand for a blond woman to shake. “Martha Kent.”

“Um, hi,” the woman replies. “Felicity Smoak.”

Jonathan brushes off his knees. “Smoak? You do that quarterly circular on modern updates in cybersecurity, right? Good stuff.”

Felicity looks as though she’s been sucker-punched. “Uh, yeah, that’s me. I…you read that? Aren’t you a farmer?”

“Farmers read,” Jonathan says tranquilly.

Felicity blushes. “Oh! I mean – I didn’t mean –”

“And you are?” Martha asks the black man.

“Joe West,” he says. “And this is my daughter, Iris, and my son, Wally. Our friends, Caitlin Snow and Cisco Ramon, and, uh, HR. He’s here. I guess.”

“A pleasure to meet you, albeit an unexpected one,” Martha says.

“Quentin Lance,” an older man grunts.

“Jenna Jackson,” a black woman says. “And this is Clarissa Stein.” An elderly white woman smiles and waves.

“Good to meet all of you,” Martha says, then turns to the men at the door and holds out her hand to them as well.

They stare at her.

She arches her eyebrows and keeps her hand outstretched, letting the social awkwardness sit there. She's learned that the weight of years of socialization in polite behavior will affect just about anyone.

(Getting that horrid Mr. Luthor to apologize three times for ruining her Christmas dinner by kidnapping her son in an (unknowingly ironic) attempt to bait Superman was a highlighted achievement. He'd even bought her a new ham. Jonathan had stopped her before she'd managed to bully him into baking her a new tray of cookies personally, because he was a party pooper.)

“We should probably introduce ourselves too, I guess,” the younger man says. Awkwardly. His hand keeps inching forward.

“We should not,” the other man says, but she sees his fingers twitch. No one wants to offend the grey-haired woman; that's one of the reasons she started dying it when her hair first started having streaks. She's only sixty (...something), but sometimes it's better to look older.

Martha decides to put them out of their misery.

“Barry Allen, Oliver Queen,” she says. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both. Now would one of you like to shake my hand?”

“You know who we are?” Barry says, surprised and pouting.

“Yes, dear,” Martha says, still holding her hand out. “Now, my hand is getting tired…”

Barry takes her hand sheepishly and shakes it. A second later, grudgingly, so does Oliver.

Kara shows up a minute later. “Hi, Mrs. Kent!” she says. “How’s it going?”

“Well enough, dear,” Martha says with a smile. “How have you been?”

“Good! Alex has got our parents squared away with, D.O.E -"

"Oh, dear."

"Yeah, Mom's spitting tacks. Be glad you're not there - I am - but anyway we needed to bring the rest of you into protective custody. Sorry about that.”

“Perfectly understandable,” Martha says. “I’m sure it was important.”

Clark shows up a second later, looking preemptively sheepish. Martha smiles at him, because she’s always happy to see her baby boy, and also to convey how much trouble he’s in.

Clark quails before her, as every good boy should before his mother.

“You told them who we are,” Oliver says accusingly before Clark can say anything.

“Uh, no I didn’t,” Clark says, taken aback.

“He didn’t,” Jonathan says mildly.

“Then how’d you figure it out?”

“My son-in-law has – had, I suppose – a limited capacity for secrets,” Martha says. “He needed to tell someone or he’ll burst, and we rarely have anyone to tell anything to, so we were good choices.”

“Your son-in-law?” Barry says, looking surprised at glancing at Clark.

"Wait, like, actually married?" Kara says, brightening. "I didn't know that!"

Martha opts not to mention that Kara hadn't been invited to their tenth anniversary party due to both participants being in prison at the time. Martha had brought cupcakes, as cake was deemed a suspicious item.

(They'd broken out a few weeks later anyway.)

"Married?" Oliver says, crossing his arms and glaring.

“My other son,” Martha clarifies.

“I didn’t know you had…” Oliver starts.

“Heeeeey, sorry we’re late!” a tall man wearing a futuristic suit of armor says, coming in through the door. Martha’s glad – she has the distinct feeling that Oliver had been about to say ‘a real son’, which would have necessitated her punching him, and then Clark would feel obligated to defend her, and then where would they be?

“Don’t you have a ship capable of time travel?” Oliver asks, distracted and looking annoyed.

Martha wonders if he has any other expression.

“Time travel’s not that effective,” Barry interjects. “Trust me.”

Mick ambles through the door, along with a crowd of others. Martha looks at him critically. He’s gained some weight, and there are circles under his eyes; he’s not handling Len’s loss well at all. She wishes he hadn’t decided to go back with the Waverider; she’s terrified he’s going to get himself killed and she’ll never hear about it.

She’s been terrified of that for a long time, to be fair, and he’s always made it back so far. But then again, he’s always had Len to help him make it back before, whether the man was there in person or not…

Introductions are being made all around, but Martha decides to be rude and ignore the rest of them, making her way over to Mick instead.

She puts a hand on his arm.

Mick grunts and drapes a hand over her shoulder. “Hey, Ma Kent. How’s the book club?”

“Catastrophic as always,” Martha says, smiling up at him. “Thank you for asking, dear.”

The room goes silent, all but Clark who’s still introducing himself to a disbelieving but fascinated Jenna Jackson.

“What?” he says, turning around.

“Your mom knows Heatwave?” Barry squeaks.

“Sure,” Clark says, looking puzzled. “Mick’s my big brother.”

“Black sheep of the family,” Mick says, not without satisfaction.

“He’s your what,” Oliver says.

“With Superman,” Barry says.

“You’re pulling our legs,” Sara says.

“Nope,” Mick says.

“But you’re a supervillain.”

“There’s one in every family.”

“No there isn’t.”

“Oh, hey, Mick,” Clark says, suddenly distracted from the mouths that have dropped around the room. “I have news for you. I – think it’s good news? I’m not sure.”

“Oh?” Mick says, looking disinterested. Martha’s not happy with how disconnected he looks, how unhappy, how slowed down. He’s depressed and grieving, and she doesn’t know how long it’s been for him, but he doesn’t seem to be getting better. She needs to do some investigating to make sure those Legends are treating her baby right.

“Yeah,” Clark says. “I think, uh – I think Lenny’s back.”

Mick’s hand abruptly squeezes tight on Martha’s shoulder. “Clark,” he says, long and slow and warning.

“I wouldn’t tell you if I wasn’t sure,” Clark says apologetically. “But it’s definitely Lenny.”

“From the past?” Mick asks suspiciously, but Martha can see the life rushing back into his face.

“No idea, but he’s working with the Legion of Doom,” Clark says. “Which, to be fair, seems like a Lenny thing to do.”

“Wait,” Sara says. “Lenny as in Leonard Snart? You – Superman – call him Lenny?”

“He started it,” Clark protests. “He calls me Clarkie all the time.”

Sara makes a strangled sound.

So do several others.

“What?” Clark says, blinking. “He does! In public! It's terrible!"

Mick laughs.

Martha smiles.

"Wait," the man named Cisco says, expression of revelation on his face. "Is this why STAR Labs got a gift basket with pie after I helped fix your guns?"

"I did teach my boys some manners," Martha says mildly. "Though they seem to have interpreted it somewhat differently – Clark seems to have learned the politeness part and Mick the apologizing part."

Cisco gapes at her.

"That was very good pie," Barry says after a minute.

"My special recipe," Martha says. "I'm glad you enjoyed it."

Cisco rounds on Barry. "You! You ate the rest of that pie! I knew it!"

"I was hungry! My metabolism -"

"That was everybody pie! Not Barry pie!"

"I'm glad you all enjoyed it," Martha amends.

"Why don't I know how to bake your pie?" Kara wonders aloud. "I could totally use that."

"Now I want pie," Felicity says mournfully.

"Can we stop talking about pie and get back to business?" Oliver growls.

"Ma Kent's pie is serious business," Mick tells Oliver. His eyes are a little suspiciously wet, and have been ever since Clark told him about Len. Martha squeezes his hand. She really hopes Clark is right.

"Hey, then why haven't we had any?" Ray asks.

"What are you talking about, I made you some after Russia."

"Wait. The ultimate pie of ultimate awesome was your pie? That's why Gideon couldn't replicate it?"

"It's a very good recipe," Jonathan says proudly. "Won several awards."

"At the local fair, really, Jonathan."

"Does anyone else want to talk about the bad guys trying to kill everyone, or is it just me?" Oliver demands.

"If you have a kitchen, Mick and I could show all of you how ," Martha says.

"Yes, please!" half the room says in unison.

Oliver groans in frustration.

Martha waits until everyone else is excitedly discussing how to split a pie amongst so many people, then gives Oliver her best Leonard Snart-inspired smirk.

Oliver gapes.

Martha turns back to the discussion. "I can make several," she announces. "But first things first, we need to go somewhere more comfortable. Now, this is what I think we ought to do -"

After all, no one was getting away with bossing around her boys.