***
Foundling: Martha Kent
***

Since the moment Martha had first lifted Clark from that crater--so small and helpless--and cradled him in her arms--smiling up at her, cute as all get-out--she’d imagined a thousand and one different reasons for him being there. A baby, tucked so carefully into blankets, propelled so carelessly out into the world, and lying there in the smoking, blackened shell of a rocketship.

She’d imagined white-coated Russians plucking a helpless infant from a destitute orphanage for the purpose of their experiments. American shadow operatives buying a baby from some desperate vagrant and using him to try to discover the secrets of space flight. Even, yes, aliens, cold-bloodedly sending their progeny out on some kind of rite-of-passage. Mostly, she’d imagined scenarios where they, whoever they were, didn’t deserve a baby, and certainly not one as good and smart and loving as Clark.

She’d named him after herself--given him her name since she hadn’t been able to give him life--and showered him with love. And for those first few years, when every approaching car or stranger had made her hold onto her baby boy extra tightly in case they meant to take him away from her, at every milestone he passed she’d been filled with a fierce pride and an almost savage triumph.

She’d been there for his first steps and his first words. She’d taught him his colors and received his report cards. She’d soothed his violent nightmares and comforted him after he’d been bullied. She’d sent him out into the world and taken him back in every time he descended from the skies to bend down and fold himself into her arms. She’d sewn his Superman suit and stitched up the rents in his regular suits. He was her son, and whoever had thrown him away did not deserve him at all. In fact, they deserved the absence of him--the not-knowing what became of him, and the void of his smiles and his hugs and his successes, and the years empty of his love.

That was what she’d thought, anyway. But Clark sat there at the table, his eyes fixed on his hands as he relayed the globe’s messages, and Martha was filled with sudden shame.

All she could see was a mother wrapping blankets around her baby while tears bathed his skin. A father placing a careful hand over his son’s skull, knowing he’d never see him again. All her imagining, her years of pictured scenes, and yet she couldn’t comprehend the horror and the fear that must have consumed that poor Kryptonian couple. Such a terrifying concept, to know their child would die if they did not send him off into the vast expanse of space.

She looked at her baby boy, grown into a man--into a hero--and she didn’t think she could have done it. What faith, what desperation, what absolute love this Jor-El and Lara had had for their child.

Her child. Her Clark, with all his inquisitive openness and gentle compassion and hidden insecurities.

Hers only because of the sacrifice, the risk, his parents had taken.

Her breath was caught in her throat like a sodden lump, and her knuckles were white with the strength of her grip on Jonathan’s trembling hand, and as they looked at their boy, she felt utterly unworthy. A usurper. An imposter. His mother, yes, but at what cost?

“But why couldn’t they save themselves?” she asked, and was not surprised when neither of her men had an answer for her.

But she knew, didn’t she? Because Clark was right in front of her, and he had been for his entire life, and she knew why they had made certain he would be safe above all. Made certain he would live, happy and healthy and whole, instead of them. He was their son, but hers too, and in the end, she could imagine it--giving their son his best chance at life no matter how scared they were or what it might cost them.

She could imagine it because she’d done the same thing, after all--wrapped him up in a Suit made partly of those same baby blankets and sent him out into the unknown, with only the hope and the faith that he’d be all right, knowing it might backfire on them all but letting him do it because it was for the best.

Because she wanted him to live. Happy and healthy and whole. She wanted him to thrive. And she felt a sudden, sharp kinship with Jor-El and Lara. They’d sent out their son, and given him to her, and she hoped they had somehow known that she and Jonathan would love their son with all their hearts.

She hoped they knew he would become the best of all of them.

***