Peter staggered in through his bedroom window and, after barely making it inside, slid straight onto the floor.
"That hurts so bad... cough, cough..." He lay there clutching his abdomen and yanked off the bloodstained mask from his head.
He quickly stuffed it away somewhere hidden so Uncle Ben and Aunt May would not see it.
Most importantly, so Clark would not find out just how close he had come to getting himself killed.
"Whew... whew... whew..." Peter blew on his hand, which also hurt like hell, and tried to comfort himself. For Uncle Ben, these injuries were worth it.
Then the door, which had been locked before, suddenly clicked.
Click.
Seeing the state he was in, Peter instantly forgot about the pain and dove under the covers, pretending he had been asleep for a while, lying there perfectly still.
Outside, Aunt May peeked in, saw Peter apparently sleeping, and decided not to come in. She assumed school had just worn him out.
After waiting a while, Peter listened carefully until he was sure there was no movement on the floor and Aunt May had gone back downstairs. Only then did he sit up, planning to quietly treat his injuries and slap on a few Band-Aids or something.
"You think real life is a comic book or a movie? You put on a cheap little mask, and suddenly you're bulletproof? You think pure passion is enough to beat killers who've been doing this for years?"
Clark's voice suddenly rang out from somewhere in the room.
Peter was so startled he shot straight onto the ceiling.
Honestly, that was even scarier than facing the guy in armor had been.
At some point, Clark had already entered the room.
And apparently had been watching him for quite a while.
Clark stepped out of the darkness holding the bloodstained mask Peter had just hidden away. He had deliberately gone for a Batman-style dramatic entrance, purely to scare his little brother, the kind of idiot who would charge into absolutely anything.
"Whew... it's just you, Clark!" Peter let out a huge breath and dropped down from the ceiling. "When did you get in here? I didn't notice you at all."
"Hm... probably around the moment you came back," Clark said, sitting down at Peter's desk and casually picking up a book.
"So," he asked lightly, "how'd it feel? Saving Uncle Ben from danger?"
The moment he brought that up, Peter lit up.
He immediately launched into his heroic account of the night. "I really liked it. I was at home working on the web-shooters when I heard the report, and I didn't even think, I just ran for it, because I didn't want Uncle Ben to leave me the way Dad did."
"And then I dropped those guys who attacked the building with one punch!" Peter said, showing off a little, though things had clearly not gone that smoothly.
Clark set the book down and stood up, looking down at the younger boy, who still looked small to him.
As Peter's brother, he did not want to crush him.
But he also could not let a fifteen-year-old start running out to fight criminals.
Using his X-ray vision, Clark checked Peter's injuries and nodded to himself.
Not too serious.
For a first outing, running into a supervillain and still making it home alive was already better than expected.
"Peter, what do you think would've happened if Shocker had decided to kill you outright and aimed at your head instead of your stomach?"
Peter thought back to the fight.
There was really only one answer.
At best, he would have ended up horribly disabled.
At worst, dead.
Head trauma did not leave much room for luck.
"Looks like you understand," Clark said with a sigh. "Sit on the bed."
Peter obeyed at once.
At the core of it, what he had done today had been brave and good, but it had also come very close to getting two members of the household wiped out in one night, so now he was being extremely well-behaved.
Clark lifted Peter's injured leg.
"From now on," he said, "every time you go out fighting crime, you're writing a reflection afterward. A full summary."
As he spoke, he began channeling his power into Peter's injuries.
Peter's eyes went wide.
For one glorious second, he considered making a run for it, but Clark was holding his leg and there was absolutely no escaping. So he immediately began howling.
"No! Absolutely not! I already have way too much homework every day!"
"Before you go to sleep tonight, you're writing up everything that happened at the Bugle," Clark said, completely unmoved. "As for your injuries, they'll be gone in a minute."
He was not having this.
Other people might be beyond his control.
His little brother definitely was not.
Clark released Peter's leg, and Peter's body now began healing at high speed, combining Clark's energy with his own regenerative ability.
The bruised skin rapidly returned to normal color. His cracked ribs knit back together at a speed that bordered on miraculous.
In less than two minutes, Peter realized breathing no longer hurt.
He was back to normal.
"Clark... did you study magic or something?" Peter touched himself all over, completely intact, then stared at his brother in total shock.
This was way beyond just "being strong."
This was straight-up magic territory.
"Just a little trick," Clark said. "Be more careful next time. And don't forget the reflection, because if you skip it next time, I'm not healing you."
After listening to all that, Peter finally caught onto one crucial detail.
"Wait... you were at the Daily Bugle too?!"
"You could say that. Every move you made was in my sight."
"But... why didn't you step in?" Peter frowned, then slowly worked it out himself. "Because you don't want to reveal yourself, the same way you've always been hiding what you can do!"
"Peter, the world isn't at the point where I should appear yet. Human desire has no limit, and the stronger a person becomes, the more those desires grow with them. I know that very clearly." Clark still kept his power on a tight leash. Even now, he still did not know where his upper limit truly was.
"Besides, you did well too. Your tactics were smart. You used your webbing in a rational way instead of trying to brute-force everything with strength. You're not fully grown into this yet, so you have to rely on your brain in a fight."
Peter nodded.
"I understand, Clark."
"Now go take a shower. Give me the bloody clothes. Uncle Ben should be home soon, and we can't let them notice too much."
Clark patted Peter on the shoulder and returned to his own room.
Once inside, he tossed the clothes into the air. His eyes flashed red, and two thin beams of heat vision shot out. The clothes turned to ash and drifted away on the breeze.
While Clark had been lecturing Peter, the Daily Bugle building had already been cordoned off with long stretches of yellow police tape.
Police officers and tactical teams were combing through the scene.
But inside the ruined remains of the twelfth-floor newsroom, two men stood there who did not fit with the police at all.
One was Phil Coulson, his receding hairline as dependable as ever.
The other was the one-eyed man who had now become director of S.H.I.E.L.D.
Nick Fury.
"Director Fury, S.H.I.E.L.D.'s scene analysts have already produced a preliminary report."
Coulson held out a tablet and passed it over to Fury.
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