1983, Paris
"Jeez, Clark! You scared me!" Diana's initial shock soon changed to amusement as her blue eyes took in the nude form of the Kryptonian in the corner of her Parisian apartment bedroom. The Amazonian demigoddess was coming home after her day's work at the Louvre and the last thing she was expecting was to see her now adult son standing in the corner like this, hands on top of his waiting for her.
"What?" Clark blushed. It had admittedly been a few years since he was in this position and he realised how odd it was. "Sorry Mom, I should've called," he mumbled.
"Yes, that would've been helpful," Diana laughed as she slid off her suit. She had a sleeveless red top underneath that hugged her enviable figure and a short black knee-length pencil skirt. "For a moment I thought a pervert had snuck in."
"What? Eeww!" Clark hadn't thought of that! Diana still looked the same as when she adopted him after his spacecraft crash landed on a farm in Kansas. The old farmer couple who had initially taken him in realised he was different and the US government had entrusted his upbringing to the only other enhanced superhero they could trust. "I'm sorry, but that's gross! Have you had anything like that happen here? I thought France was nice."
"Paris is indeed nice," Diana smiled. "Honey, why are you naked in my corner? You're an adult now, you're not going to be in trouble for flying around rescuing cats from trees."
"I don't do that any more mom. Cats land on their feet if they fall from trees," Clark tried to smile but faltered.
"Alright, what's wrong dear? Diana could read her boy like an open book. It had been a few months since she last saw him and years from when he was a little tyke zipping around her house and around Themyscria. He could never maintain eye contact when Mommy caught him doing something naughty. Clark was now staring at his feet, not trusting himself to look up into her lightning blue eyes.
"Mom- I uh..." Clark would've rushed over to hug her around her waist back in the day at this point, his face buried into her pillowy bosom as he tried to find a cheeky way to explain why he was flying around in public or skipping sparring to go swimming in the ocean. It had a fifty per cent success rate. He was so exceptionally cute with his dimples and winning smile that the tough Amazon warrior Princess melted and would coddle the lad.
But half of the other time- well, Diana was raised in a culture with mediaeval attitudes of child rearing and Clark was raised in the seventies. Mommy's word was law and punishment was swift.
"Clark, you're way too big for me to be bent over my knee," Diana made her way over and hugged her son. Let him feel her warmth and her kiss, let him know he was safe in her arms. "Now, tell me what happened. There's obviously a big reason why you're in time out. The last time I had to spank you, you were smoking in school, which at your age I'm not opposed to considering your biology."
"You've spanked Appolona when she was older than me," Clark focused on the first part of her comment even as he melted into her hug.
"Appolina is a dainty little thing while you're the most powerful being on our planet," Diana shook her head. She ran her fingers through his hair fondly but realised... "Clark?"
He began to cry!
"Clark Prince, what on Earth has gotten into you?" Diana would've loved it if he was little, when he could be comforted with a story and a warm cuddle on her rocking chair. But he was so big now! Pure muscle yet soft and warm to touch, tense.
"Mommy...I..." Clark realised how long it had been since Diana was Mommy but he didn't care. It was his Mommy he needed at this moment. "I'm not strong," he whispered, tears flowing down his cheeks. "I'm not strong at all! I'm a weak, pathetic boy, the same as the one who you found. Weak and helpless!"
'Oh dear!' thought Diana. "The baby I found was strong," Clark heard his Mommy's sweet whisper into his ear as she pulled him towards her bed. "You couldn't handle the air, our oxygen and would've died but you never gave in. You couldn't eat our food but you still survived till your stomach grew stronger. You learned to fly. You learned to rescue cats stuck on trees and you learned to help people Clark. Yes, you weren't strong then but you have the capacity for strength, to be the hero the world calls out for."
She kissed him. A warm gentle kiss, lovingly given. Diana wasn't holding an adult Clark Kent, his human alias, a reporter at daily planet but her baby Clark, the cute little thing always at her skirt, the toddler latched onto her breasts when he couldn't digest human food. She nurtured and raised him for a couple of decades and she realised he still needed that affection.
"I let a dozen people die," Clark broke down.
