The thing is I don’t know what happens next. Clark Kent grew up in the middle of nowhere, hidden to the world, and became Superman. He used his power to lift tractors off trapped people and to save them from storms. He didn’t kill three people before first grade. This kid has no control and was thrust into an impossible to win situation, at least in Superman’s eyes. But this kid killed. And maybe manifested his powers for the very first time in an act of violence. What does the hero do?

If he asks for advice, Batman will almost immediately come up with a plan to eliminate the child; almost reflexively, this would put Superman into conflict with Batman. I think Clark Kent would write about the hero mother who fought off three attackers. I’m no so sure how it would play out behind the headlines.

“Like I told the cops, it was Alley Cat, the Puddle, and Snow Cone. I was just in my bathroom, getting ready to take a bath.” Mrs. Gladys Smith took a puff on what she said would be her last cigarette. It was a lie she had told herself nine times today and would repeat at least that many times many tomorrow.

The man interviewing still wasn’t taking her seriously. Alley Cat had clawed his way out of supermax twice. The Puddle was notorious for her ability to seep into the highest security bank vaults. And Snow Cone was a science experiment gone wrong that once froze the CEO 4th National Bank into a cherry flavored frozen treat on national TV. No way, he must think, that you could live after facing them with no superpowers.

“I’m the CEO of the largest stencil manufacturer in the US. It’s always a possibility that criminals will attempt to kidnap me to extort money for my family or kill me to make a point. I have the best security the ADT can provide.”

“Yeah, but ADT just sends the police to you. They don’t kill three metahumans before the cops show up. You did though. And that means my readers have questions.”

“So I was pouring my bath when I felt a draft. A seconds later, the alarm went off. The bathroom window was open perhaps two feet when I turned around, a furry black creature and a being with a visage the color of KoolAid were there. I am something of a supervillain super fan so I immediately what to do. I jumped through the shower curtain into the bath tub. Alley Cat leapt immediately after me, into the water and was flailing before he could lay a claw on me. “

“What about the Puddle? Where was she?”

“There’s a little known fact about the Puddle. She can instantly turn into water, but takes seventeen seconds to return to human. I had a moment. Snow Cone was confused, unable to figure out what to freeze by the time I was clear of the shower curtain. I’m fairly certain the last thing they ever heard the switch of the hair dryer clicking on. Their circuits needed constant cooling or they world cease functioning. I pushed the hair dryer as deep as I could. And I lived.”

“And the Puddle?”

“The Puddle was strong. Stronger than maybe even she realized. She screamed at me. How I killed something so beautiful. Her head and legs were solid but every other part of her transparent. The walls distorted and the lights refracted through her. I thought was going to die, butI could not look away. She was beautiful. Then there a violent stream of water that bashed the hair dryer from my hands into the tub. It cost Alley Cat whatever lives he had left. It was so strange being pummeled like that. I felt the water, but not actually wet. The Puddle controlled each drop off her being. It was a river that both came from her and returned to her. And I was being beaten ever lower in my own bathroom, into my own graveyard. My head touched porcelain and in some corner of my mind in a long shot plan formed in an instant. I stopped resisting and my head dove into cold water. My left hand in desperation pulled down the chromed lever of my toilet. When I woke up, there was her head and black boots on the floor next to me.”

“That’s a hell of a story, Mrs. Smith. But is it true?”

“My dear, the truth is what people are willing to believe. I could tell you that six year old son heard the alarm, melted sentient shaved ice with heat vision, shot lightning from his fingers, and used supersonic breath to save his mother. Your readers would love that. To the point where a child would never the chance to be a child. They would call him hero or murderer or a patron of justice or evil incarnate. At six, I would have done anything for my mother. If she was crying in pain, I would have run to her. I would have done anything for her. Anything I could do. But truth is what people are willing to believe. I believe a child should have a chance to grow into their own person. But what do you believe, Mr. Kent?”

Edited because I wrote this at the bar three pints in.