This is the 'secret ability' on that timeline I posted in the FDK of Chromaticity, it's not that it hasn't been done before but I'm going to use it later for something else with him learning it as a child. =)
Creaks and Clicks
by Lieta
Disclaimer: This is a fan work based on “Lois and Clark: The New Adventures of Superman.” All rights to the characters belong to DC Comics and Warner Bros. No profit was made off this work.
Jonathon and Martha watched as their son tore through the carnival games at the corn festival. He always loved playing as many of the games as they allowed him to and he also always did well. His superior coordination for his age saw him walking away with ample prizes (though he usually took the voucher that allowed him to save up for a better prize at the end).
Normally, Clark preferred games that were skewed in the favor of the hawkers. The ring toss, pop the balloon, anything that required precision was his mainstay. (However, they refused to let a nine year old loose with the air guns just yet.)
This year, however, they were slightly puzzled.
Clark was kept going to the few games kids as a whole normally avoided. These were games which had a simple objective, like placing a ring around a single bottle, but you had to be spun around until you were disoriented first. They were fairly new games favored by some of the high school and college age kids. Martha hoped they wouldn't catch on for long as they tended to involve a fair amount of nausea, falling, and awkward movement... then again that might be why the kids loved them.
But Clark seemed to be excelling at them. And Clark got dizzy far more easily than other children it seemed. Yet now he almost didn't seem dizzy at all.
"Y'know, Mizz Kent. If I didn't know better, I'd swear that boy weren't spinning at all," said the man running the latest booth with a shake of his head.
Both Martha and Jonathon struggled to smile and brush off the comment but the man had driven a splinter under the nail of their ever-present paranoia about their son. After a break for lunch, they pulled Clark aside.
"Clark," started Jonathon, "how did you get so good at these spinning games?"
Clark gave them a startled look and them seemed to curl in on himself. "Is it weird?" he murmured.
Martha's heart broke at the question. How she hated that they had had to try to mold their son into passing for 'normal'. But there was still the chance that a flag would be raised somewhere and their son could be torn from their arms. She wrapped an arm over her precious boy's shoulder and pulled him close. "It's fine, Clark. Maybe a touch strange when you play so many of those games in a row, but nothing *bad*."
Clark scuffed his toe against the gravel and sighed. "I just wanted *someone* to win those stupid games... they always take people's tickets and no one ever gets a prize!" he complained.
Jonathon chuckled. "I like your sense of fairness, son, but how *are* you not getting dizzy?"
Clark sighed. "I taught myself last summer. You know how I can hear really good?" His parents both nodded. "Well, I figured out I can make a really high clicking noise with my tongue and, when I block out my eyes (like I block out extra colors) I can 'see' the sound. I also figured out how to ignore the sloshing when I get spun around."
Martha shared a blank look with her husband before asking, "Sloshing?"
Clark frowned at her. "Yeah, sloshing. I can hear it in my head whenever I move it too fast or get spun around." He sighed. "Guess you guys don't hear it?"
Jonathon patted him on the shoulder. "No, son, we just feel dizzy." He mussed the boy's hair. "Maybe it's your brain bumping around in your head."
"No, that's much louder, Dad. I head *that* when you fell off the ladder last month," Clark corrected matter of factly.
Martha gaped. Clark had *heard* her husband's brain moving around when he'd managed to give himself a concussion last month?
Jonathon quickly glossed over her shock. "I think it's time to go back to the games, how about you, Clark?"
Clark sighed. "No more echoes?"
Jonathan pursed his lips in thought for a moment before offering, "How about we just only do a few dizzy games in between other games?"
Some tension they'd failed to notice until now bled out of their son. "So it's not bad?"
Martha blinked back tears. "Son, *nothing* you do is bad. We just don't want to draw too much attention. I'm always fascinated by what you can do though." She gripped his chin to make sure he looked her in the eyes. "Don't ever stop exploring your abilities or using them, just don't make a big fuss about them with other people around."
With a relieved smile, the family headed back into the main area of the festival.
It was the next spring that Clark managed to lead his friends out of an abandoned coal mine where they'd gotten trapped by a cave-in. Using mostly his ability to echolocate and see the faintest of light to pick the right tunnel to explore.
End.
