Marinette had always known she was adopted. Mostly because she wasn’t born. She was created in a laboratory with a boy she would later call her brother. But unlike him, Marinette was a mistake. She was near perfect, but that wasn’t enough.
She was meant to be a clone of Superman. Someone to seemingly replace the man of steel without anyone noticing. She couldn’t do that obviously being female.
Gina, a woman she now called her grandmother, was a scientist on Project Kr. She had given the tasks to destroy the clone. Marinette had been biologically she was 10 weeks old, physically she had was she was ten-years-old. Gina couldn’t do it. She couldn’t kill a little child, no matter who’s DNA laid her blood. Not that she had a problem with Superman, having just been in it for the love of science.
So she fakes the clone’s death and stole her away. She gave it her son and daughter-in-law who had been struggling for a child for nearly a decade. Gina made them promise to avoid anything related to Lex Luther, as he was the main benefactor of Cadmus and the source of the baby girl’s human DNA. She warned them of the powers the girl might develop and to keep them of the down-low.
Tom and Sabine Clara Marinette Dupin-Cheng, after the known name of the alien superhero Kal-El. They called her Marinette for safety.
When Marinette was eleven-years-old, physically, she met her brother; Superboy. He had found her. Marinette thought that it was because technically, they were twins; that he could sense in the same way she could sense him. She had known the moment he had been broken out of Cadmus. She didn’t know how but she did know.
They had met on the rooftop of the bakery. He was had been at Cadmus longer and was sixteen. He had looked confused, lost, and hurt.
“Connor,” He said gruffly, eyeing the small girl.
“Clara,” She introduced herself back, deciding then and there, that unlike everyone else in her life, he would be allowed to call her that.
Marinette took him by the hand and led him to the living room. She gave him cookies and milk and watched TV together until they had both been lulled into a sense of security.
Then Marinette told him how she came to live in France and all about her life. Connor told her he had always been awake for a few months and just gotten a name. They talked for hours.
Much like Connor, Marinette’s powers were limited. Marinette could fly and had laser vision. Connor had super strength, superhearing, and infrared vision. They both had super healing and invulnerability. Neither had the superspeed or any other powers Superman possessed.
Connor ended up staying with the small family for a few weeks; having been more welcomed there than he’d been anywhere in his entire life. Tom had shown him how to bake pies. (Connor loved pies). Sabine took him shopping. Marinette taught him video games, and reminded him every day that she was his sister, he was her brother, and they were family. It was nice. It was easy. He wished it could last forever. But nothing good in his life seemed to.
One day, Connor heard him, Superman, flying over Paris, speaking with Watchtower, about finding him.
With a sigh, Connor told his little sister had to go. He decided he wouldn’t reveal Clara’s existence without her permission so he found himself in the desolate area and called her the Man of Steel.
Superman landed in front of him with a disappointed look on his face, “We were worried.” Then he was blasted thirty feet back into the trees. When Kal-El looked up, he saw a little dark-haired girl, in a red superman shirt, with glowing red eyes.
She had followed Connor to meet Superman.
She floated above him, “You should be worried,” She hissed at him. The red slowly faded from her eyes leaving startling blue orbs, identical to the boy standing next to her, like Superman’s own. “My name is Clara Marinette Dupain-Cheng. You were mean to my brother. You were negligent. You were a bad dad. And if you keep it up, I’ll be the one to end you. Not Connor.”
The laughter of Batman, Wonder Woman, and the Black Canary, from where they watched from the Watchtower, filled Superman’s earpiece.
Marinette landed in front of Connor, and stood protectively in front of him, with her arms on her hips. “Do better,” She orders Superman. “Be better.”
Superman stood up and eyed the clones… No!
His children; his son who, Clark now knew after reviewing video of his clone’s time with the young justice team, had inherited his sunny disposition, and his daughter, who radiated righteous fury that she got from the Superhero.
“I’m… sorry,” Clark blurted.
Connor blinked in surprise. Marinette just nodded stiffly, “I don’t care if you don’t want to be apart of our lives. But you will not treat us like monsters.”
A long conversation later, and peace was made between the three. Clark was brought to meant Marinette’s parents, who were quick to chastise the hero and make the offer of letting Connor live with them.
But Clark had already decided before he flew to France that Connor would live with him. He would have liked Clara or Marinette, as she was called, to live with him too but he wouldn’t take her away from her family.
Instead, plans were made for the young girl to train every weekend with Clark and Connor, as a family.
A few weekends later, Clara was introduced to the Kents who marveled at their new granddaughter.
The next year, Marinette spent the entire summer split between Metropolis and Smallville. Clark also took her and Connor to the fortress of solitude where the two children were given their Kryptonian names.
Connor Kent was called Kon-El.
Clara Marinette Dupain-Cheng was called Klara El.
Unfortunately during this time, Lex Luthor had paid special attention to his old friend, and on and of again nemesis. He knew who Connor was, and had for quite some time. Lex had always known and would always know where his son was.
However, the sight of a dark-haired, blue-eyed girl in a red superman shirt flying with Superman brought up a few questions for him.
It didn’t take long for Lex to uncover the seemingly failed female clone of Superman; all evidence said the experiment had been destroyed.
As Lex stared at the picture had of Clara Marinette Dupain-Cheng, a Parisian girl who just turned thirteen, dressed in pink with the same blue eyes and dark hair of his rival, he knew that the data was wrong.
Less than forty-eight hours later, the bald man walked into the French bakery. Cool blue eyes man green, as Marinette eyed her… other father suspiciously from where she stood behind the counter.
Luckily the bakery was having a slow day, and it was empty.
“I come in peace, Clara,” Lex smiled. “I mean you no harm. There’s no reason to worry. Or alert the big man in blue or the league. I have a talk with my daughter.”
A slow smirk spread across Marinette’s face. It reminded Lex so much of his own that he briefly wondered if the backup he’d brought just in case would be enough.
“Oh,” Marinette practically sang as her eyes narrowed in a challenge. She wouldn’t use her powers against him. She was smarter than that. She’d gotten Lex’s intelligence, after all. And she knew things that the Light, LexCorp, and Cadmus had done their best to hide. Lex came into the bakery thinking he had the upper hand and would get whatever he wanted with just a bit of blackmail. But as far as Marinette was concerned this was a business meeting and negotiations were just about to start. “I’m not the one who should be worried.”
She was clearly the daughter of the Man of Steel. However, by the end of that day, no one would ever forget, she was Lex Luthor’s little girl too.
