Chapter Text
There were four Supermen.
After finding out about the first, cyborg-type Superman on TV, he’d discovered the other two by fishing a newspaper out of the trash for more information. He’d torn it apart, leaving a mess of desperation and jealousy all over the disgusting alley in which he was crouched. Articles about “Visored Superman” and “Cyborg Superman” and “Metal Superman” littered the ground.
And his first thought was:
He wasn’t the only clone.
And then he fished three additional papers fished out of the trash—including one called the “Metropolis Enquirer,” which had way more interesting stories than the other papers—and he found out that one of the Supermen was either a guy in a suit or an android who didn’t have any powers. And Cyborg Superman was…well, a cyborg, which Superman, speaking from personal experience, wasn’t. And one of the Supermen was playing judge-jury-executioner, leaving criminals in body bags instead of holding cells.
Superman didn’t kill. He might not have his memories, but that wasn’t something you had to remember. That kind of thing you just knew. And he knew he wasn’t a killer.
So…none of them were clones. He was, like, eighty-seven percent sure.
The knot in his chest loosened slightly.
Unfortunately, that wasn’t the end of his problems. There were still four Supermen.
Or—no. There were three imposters and one Superman.
And Cadmus wanted him back.
Here’s the thing: reborn Superman should have been splashed over every news outlet available—and even created some that weren’t available before, just to spread the news. Ecstasy should have been felt across the entire globe, not just Metropolis, at seeing him in the skies again.
But there were other Supermen claiming to be reborn already, which meant the hubbub he was expecting to keep him out of Cadmus’ reach wasn’t there. Only the Project knew he was the one-and-only genuine article, and they’d be working double-time to get him back so they could “fix” their half-baked plans.
These Metropolis reporters didn’t know Superman. So they didn’t recognize fakes when they saw them and weren’t going to be any help.
Wait. Reporters didn’t know Superman…
One reporter knew Superman.
He dug through the paper skins of articles littered around the alley where he crouched until he found it—the recent article about Visor Superman and the guy he’d burnt to a crisp for trying to take a purse off an old lady.
‘…Self-endorsement using Superman’s symbol means nothing if it brings fear instead of hope. Superman doesn’t kill.’
It wasn’t a quote. The actual article said, like it was fact the reporter could verify, that Superman didn’t do that.
He checked the by-line and—sure enough, it was the same name staining so much of his knowledge about who he had been before. The authority on Superman.
So. Tomorrow. He’d just go talk to Lois Lane. Because once she recognized him as Superman—the real Superman—Cadmus wouldn’t dare try to get their hooks back into him.
By the time he’d finished his research, the air was so bruise colored it was hard to see through, so he decided it wasn’t worth trying to scoot around and do more Superman-ing at the moment. Running into Guardian while there were too few people around to put up an outcry was a risk even he wasn’t willing to take. Better to take the night off and start anew after getting his badge of endorsement in the morning.
He thought longingly of the park bench he’d slept on the night before. Sure, it had been rough and cold, but it was better than nothing. And the temperature had been rising all day—an unprecedented heat wave, Metropolis Star had reported when he turned the page on an article expecting it to continue and finding the weather instead—so it wouldn’t even be cold anymore.
But it felt too much like offering himself on a platter to Cadmus.
He considered roofs. And remembered how easily Guardian had snagged him out of the air. How fast Guardian had moved to get that shield off the ground and onto his arm.
If Batman had taught the world anything, super training could almost compete with superpowers.
And Batman hadn’t been around half as long as the Guardian.
Sadly, he ruled out rooftops. It was just too conspicuous.
Which, even more sadly, left him with…the alley he’d been squatting in for the last few hours. It was unlit with only one exit, which wasn’t a problem for him because he could fly, but meant he only had to watch one door.
He sighed. It would have to do.
He tucked himself behind a dumpster to ensure no one walking by would get a glimpse of Superman sleeping in an alley. Sure, it smelled…terrible wasn’t a strong enough word. But the idea of someone seeing Superman like this made his chest feel tight with mortification.
He wished they’d managed to transfer his memories. Sure, it’d be weird to have several decades of life crammed into a sixteen-year-old brain, but he’d like to remember where he got food before. Or shelter.
Maybe he could ask Lois.
Yeah. He could ask Lois. He would ask Lois. First thing in the morning.
…
“So. Where does Superman live?”
He blinked at the black-haired, brown-skinned man who had dragged him into the glass walled room, every inch of his bespectacled face just as sarcastic and disinterested as the tone with which he had asked the question.
He was…confused.
He’d been talking to Lois, he was sure he’d been talking to Lois, and then she’d dropped her head in her hands and glasses guy had grabbed him by the arm and suddenly they were in this empty conference room with glass walls, blinking at each other.
Maybe he’d just missed the part where Lois followed them in? He spun around slowly until he was facing glasses guy again, just as hunched over his notepad as before.
“Uh, what happened to Lois? Is she—like, she’s joining us, right?”
Tiny dots of ink stabbed at glasses guy’s notepad as he tapped his pen lazily. “How about you think of my job as like a pre-interview? Like, I’ll ask some base questions so Lane knows exactly what to drill into to get to the most exciting stuff.”
“Oh. Oh, yeah, sure!” That sounded fair. Like the reporter equivalent of skimming the Wikipedia page before starting your homework assignment. Except his Wikipedia page was probably in need of a refresh, considering he guaranteed it listed a start and end date to his life. So they had to do things this way.
Glasses guy looked relieved. “Great. Now, my question: where does Superman live?”
“Dude. People don’t care about that.” Like, yeah, it had crossed his mind, but that had been one wild moment of insecurity, long gone now in light of much more important things.
“Sure they do, kid—I mean, Superman. People want to know where you came from.”
He had a sudden revelation—people probably would be interested to find Superman had spent the night sleeping behind a dumpster. But kryptonite couldn’t pry that out of him. Much less mild questioning.
He grinned wildly.
“Krypton. Everyone knows that.”
A snort knocked the guy’s glasses down his nose. He scribbled something on his pad, a little too vigorous and confined to be words. “Right. Of course. Uh, well then, how about this: how are you back from the dead?”
“I told Lois: clone.”
“Without memories.”
He shot a finger in the guy’s direction. “You got it. Hey, ask me something cool, like how many people I’ve saved or what’s my plan for the next super villain who tries to take on Metropolis?”
Glasses guy peeled the page of his notepad back and wrapped it around to reveal a fresh one. Printers grinding out paper copies of articles, quiet and not-so-quiet conversations, and the general rumble of life broke up against the glass walls around them. When he glanced around, he could see people casting furtive glances into the conference room. That one mustached guy had his arms crossed and wasn’t even pretending to be doing anything but staring.
He waved at the guy.
The filtered office noise didn’t seem to be bothering glasses guy. Actually—maybe glasses guy couldn’t hear the outside noise. Maybe his super hearing was finally kicking in!
He was so busy being stoked about that idea that he completely missed glasses guy’s next question.
“Uh, sorry man. What?”
“You mentioned how many people you’ve saved.” The pen tapped away at its pad again. This time he could see that the tip wasn’t even clicked out, so it left little circle indents instead of ink dots. “Any highlights you want to share?”
“Oh! Yeah! Do you want the most humanizing one—that’s a thing, right?—or the most front-page worthy?”
Glasses guy chuckled, snapping his pen out and running it in micro swirls along the gutter of the page. “Well, let’s just wait and see, huh? ‘Ron Troupe’ is still a pretty new name here, but—”
“But since Lois will be writing the actual front-page,” he finished, getting the gist of the conversation, “save those stories for when she’s here. Got it.”
Glasses guy—Ron, apparently—looked mildly uncomfortable. Probably really coming to terms with the fact that it should have been Lois in the room all along. “Uh. Right.” He clicked his pen twice, then moved it to the top of the lined portion of the page. “Hit me with your best shot, then, kid.”
“Not a kid,” he corrected, because he’d been pretty old when he died, in Earth years, plus you had to add in the fifteen or sixteen years of human knowledge they’d crammed into this clone body. So he was, what, like three weeks old and in his fifties?
Ew.
“I’m Superman.”
“You’re still a kid, aren’t you?”
In the strictest sense of the word, maybe. He frowned. “I’m Superman.”
“Right. Sorry.”
“Right. Anyway!” He hoped up onto the back of one of the chairs. It leaned with him, but stayed upright. “As a taste of what I’m talking about: while I was waiting for you guys to wander into work, I stopped three car jackings, two muggings, patrolled the entire downtown area, and even helped a bodega unload their morning stock.”
He’d also hovered over the park, in case mowing down joggers was a regular Metropolis thing (and—partially, very partially—in case hotdog guy started work early and maybe wanted to get rid of a few again). And he’d found a perfectly good pair of shades in the middle of the street, not even scratched, which he took as a sign that the universe was on his side, because they looked pretty damn sharp on him.
“Also, I was gonna deal with the whole Doomsday thing,” he added, belatedly sensing that none of the things he said would be perceived as overly ‘Superman-y.’ “Was getting around to it.” And he was, as soon as he realized the body was still around.
Except that the way he’d realized it was by reading the headline that that Cyborg imposter had chucked the villain into outer space. But if he’d thought of it before then, he totally would have done that too!
“Well, Superman,” Ron Troupe said, adding another few bullet points to the list he’d compiled. “That’s a pretty impressive list—not to mention the jogger incident in the park, which I’m starting to suspect was you as well?”
“Yeah, totally!”
“Totally,” muttered Ron to himself. “Well!” Ron looked up, smiling brightly. “I guess that brings us to my last question: what’s next for our young clone hero?”
What was next? Uh…be Superman? It wasn’t like he could just, like, predict when and where the next disaster was going to be!
More immediately, the next thing on his personal list was getting Lois Lane to put his face front-and-center of whatever news outlets she could find. That kind of publicity would take care of his thing with Cadmus—and clear up some public perception around who, exactly, was entitled to wear the S.
So maybe his next thing was dealing with all those imposters. Or—figuring out how to deal with them. Having a conversation with them, maybe. Or punching. Because he was pretty sure superheroes communicated primarily through punching.
“If you’re looking for suggestions,” Ron said, “there’s an antique car show down in Southside today and tomorrow.”
His brain snapped into the present. “Wh—antique cars?”
“Come on,” Ron wheedled, that bright smile still plastered across his face. “I’m sure they’d be relieved to have the extra security of knowing Superman was watching out for them!”
That was—what? That—that didn’t sound like a job for Superman. It sounded like—
“—you’re trying to hustle me out of here!”
His eyeline jerked past Ron’s flinch to the two-person scene on the other side of the glass wall.
Character one was some old guy with—yep, another mustache. Bald Captain Crunch was barring the entrance to an office with real walls, arms crossed, face stoic and unbothered by the person in front of him. He said, “Take it or leave it.”
Character number two was a black pencil skirt, yellow top, full lips pushed out in a pout, broad nose, thin eyes that narrowed even further as they glared in front of her, black hair that whipped over her shoulder. She said, “I’m an investigative reporter. And you’re asking me to write a piece on a charity bake off.”
Captain Crunch shrugged. “You’re still in school. You can call yourself whatever you want, but…”
You’re still a kid. He heard it in Ron’s head before Captain Crunch even finished talking.
Holy crap.
They were blowing him off.
“Just let me talk to Perry White—I promise, I can make him see that—”
“Perry’s busy. Think of this like a pre-trial. Do good on this and you’ll—”
“They’re never gonna let you see him.”
“Oh, they will!” she shouted. “After I write the best piece they’ll ever read and—and—and…” The black haired reporter’s voice stuttered off against a backdrop newsroom and Ron Troupe swearing, fumbling out of the glass conference room he’d just dashed from.
“…Are you flying?”
He grinned. “For you? Honey, I’m floating.”
“You’re…” Her eyes stuttered over his chest. “You’re one of those Supermen? But you’re so—so—”
“So…much better in person?” He lowered the sunglasses in what he hoped was a flirty kind of gesture and not a librarian-peering-at-you thing.
He must’ve got it right, because her entire face flushed. “So young.”
“Oh that.” A small crowd was gathering now. Rude. Couldn’t they see this was a private conversation? Wasn’t Superman entitled to—actually. Was Superman entitled to privacy?
Yes. Probably. He’d done exclusive interviews with Lois Lane, right? Which, by necessity, had to be private. And he was talking to a reporter now. So people should know the deal.
Especially in a newsroom. Especially after Lois Lane had tossed away her chance like a gas station receipt.
“This is insane. Does anyone even—”
“Hey, hold that thought, ok, beautiful?” Before anyone could eavesdrop further, he darted forward, hands hooked under her arms, and left the newsroom behind.
She didn’t even have time to finish her scream before they were out a window—one that was supposed to open this time—and whipped around up onto the roof. A giant gold ball spun idly above them.
“There!” He hopped backwards onto the platform holding up the planet and smirked down at her, hands on his hips in the most super heroic of all the poses. “Now we can talk. I’m Superman, by the way. In case that was unclear.”
“We…can…” She stared at him, eyes roaming from his S up to his face, then back, then down, then up once more. The red and blue of his outfit reflected in the wideness of her eyes.
For the first time, he felt exactly like Superman was supposed to feel.
“I, uh…uh, Tana Moon. Um. Pleasure to meet you.” She dragged a deep breath in, while her hands raked through her hair, trying to get it flat again. “No one’s ever flown me anywhere before.”
“What? All these super posers all over the place and none of them have noticed you? Criminal.”
A flicker darted across Tana’s face, like she might match him snark-for-snark, before she wrangled it back into something less bold. “You lay it on thick, huh? So.” The flicker came through again, this time in her eyes, where the careful practice of her muscles couldn’t do a thing about it. “What was that all about? Finish your interview with Lois Lane and couldn’t bear to see me embarrass myself any further? I don’t suppose you’d want to throw me a bone and share any leads you might have for an aspiring star reporter?”
That sounded like what should have happened. It was nice to know he wasn’t the only one who felt the world had got a bit off-script. “What makes you think I only talk to Lois? I can talk to whoever I want. Second go at life should mean some changes, right?”
Surprise dropped into her eyes. For the first time, he watched Tana’s confidence ripple. “Wait, so you—”
“Were blown away by your go-getter attitude and figured we might be able to help each other out? You got it in one.”
Tana’s eyes narrowed, like they had back in the newsroom, trying to refine her suspicion down to a point. “This is…what, pity? I don’t need pity. I am a reporter, you know. At GBS. They just—wouldn’t give me anything important, so I thought maybe Daily Planet would—”
“Nah, nothing like that. I just need someone to get the story out that people can hang up their mourning veils or black arm bands or whatever it is people have been wearing since I clocked out. And no offense to Lois, but my death really aged her. Not sure she can keep up.”
Tana tried so hard not to laugh at that her nose crinkled, but even if she did manage to wrestle her smile down, it had still been there. She pulled out her phone. “Well, hot stuff, if I’m going to cover you, I’m going to do it right. We need to break this story before Daily Planet does.”
He realized the phone was pointing at him. There was no blinking red light, like in old movies, but Tana raised her eyebrows expectantly, rolling one hand forward through the air.
“Oh. Right!” He shot up into the air—but he…didn’t really know what to do after that. He flashed a grin to hide his uncertainty. Better do something before Tana started suggesting things—like laser vision or ice breath. “Hey world! Miss me?”
He winked at the camera to buy himself some time, but apparently that was all that Tana wanted—or she could read his mind, because she snatched the camera back around to herself, proclaiming, “That’s right, folks! Not a hoax! Not a dream! The Metropolis Marvel is back! Stay tuned for exclusive updates coming soon with Tana Moon!”
She tapped the phone screen furiously, while he floated around to hover over her shoulder. “That was alright? You were snappy.”
“It was perfect,” she promised, grinning up at him wildly. “You’re a natural. How about a TV interview?”
TV would be way better than any article Lois was ever going to write, even if it ended up as the top search result for “Superman” in the next twenty-four hours. People didn’t read. He didn’t even need implanted knowledge to tell him that, he could just feel it in his soul. After all, he’d been forced to read to find out about the imposter Supermen and that was terrible.
But. It wasn’t like he had the ability to get himself in front of a studio.
“What’d you have in mind?”
“I told you—” Tana was stuffing her phone in her bag, wrangling her hair back, eyes glowing amber with excitement. “I’ve got an in at GBS. It’s not great right now—but the minute they see this video, it will be. Meet me there in an hour. Can you do that?”
He opened his mouth—and paused. It—the Daily Planet thing had taken longer than he’d thought. He’d meant to just pop in, tell Lois what was up, and then snap back out. People needed him. Metropolis needed him.
The world needed Superman.
But…
Right now, Cadmus wanted him. And if they got their way, the world was going to go on needing him, because he wouldn’t be around. So…so really, this would be more helpful. In the long run.
And—and Tana needed this, right? Sure, it wasn’t saving people from life-or-death, but it was saving someone. In a way.
She hadn’t doubted he was a clone. She’d known he was Superman. And she was willing to give him exactly what he wanted: press.
Better press, even, than Lois could get.
And—although it shouldn’t have mattered as much as the others—she was looking at him like he was the greatest thing since sliced bread. Like, maybe, she’d never even heard of sliced bread.
…He could see why he hadn’t worked anonymously the first time. That kind of look would pay for a lot of sleeping in alleys and scrounging food.
He beamed down at Tana. “Are you serious? For you, I’d do just about anything.”