Superman Movieverse Forum

Title: Family Reunion
Author: Mr. Beeto
Rating: PG-13
Beta: htbthomas and Shado Librarian
Summary: AU Twist on Donner/Singer Movieverse: Tie the three films together into a cohesive whole, and provide a more credible and interesting reason for Superman to have returned to Krypton.

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Author’s Notes:
Thanks again to the beta team of htbthomas and Shado Librarian, a.k.a. dandello.

Chapter 30 – Setbacks

Tuesday, October 3, 2006 1:00PM EDT
Richard expertly guided his de Havilland DHC-3 Otter floatplane along the Hob’s River towards the pier behind his house, cutting the engines and slowly coasting the final twenty feet to the dock.  He casually stepped through the plane’s door onto the dock and tied down the mooring lines to secure the aircraft in place.  He then reentered the plane, and emerged a moment later with a duffle bag and after locking up the plane, he marched briskly up to the house.

Though the two days in Chicago had been a welcome escape from the tension that had recently permeated his relationship with Lois, it hadn’t been the relaxing diversion he had hoped for.  His parents had been walking on egg shells around him, and the few comments they offered on his relationship were all in the past tense.

“Well, it’s probably all for the best,” his mother had said.  “She was never right for you.”

“Mom, we haven’t broken up,” Richard protested.

“Oh…  Well, I guess you’ve still got a lot to think about, then.”

Richard recalled that the friends he’d gathered with the previous evening had likewise referenced the relationship in the past tense, offering words of encouragement for “next time” and giving him disbelieving looks when he insisted it wasn’t over.  Do they really think it’s that hopeless? Richard thought.  Well, the fat lady’s not singing yet.  If I can just get Lois to slow down for a few minutes and actually talk about things, we can get past this.  We’ll have to practically start over from the beginning, though, given how drastically things have changed.

After entering the house, Richard dumped his duffle by the couch and raided the refrigerator, pulling out some week-old left-over Chinese takeout and a can of Diet Coke.  He transferred the Chinese food from the takeout cartons to a dinner plate and reheated it in the microwave.  After walking over to the kitchen table and sitting down, he pulled over the scattered sections of that morning’s Daily Planet in front of him.  He took a sip of his beverage, pulled out the front section of the paper and spread it open in front of him.  He eyes widened in surprise at the headlines, and he thought, Perry’s got to be walking on cloud nine with this on the front page.

The top story that morning had been Polly and Susan’s interview with the Man of Steel, under the headline “Superman Finds Luthor Release ‘Disturbing’”.  Though the hero had offered some anecdotal testimony on Luthor’s crimes, the article had primarily been a comprehensive legal analysis of the evidence presented against the madman during his original trial and the flaws in the appellate ruling that overturned the conviction.  Superman had even predicted that the ruling was so flawed that the Supreme Court would eventually be obligated to rule on the issues caused by the lower court’s decision and the untenable precedents it established.

Below the fold was Lois’ story with Clark, “Luthor’s Hired Help Indicted in Morgue Murder”, which included mug shots of Brutus Martin and Grant Hunter below the headline.  As with the Sunday story, they connected the dots back to Luthor’s fight for the Vanderworth fortune, this time in the context of the medical examiner’s recent announcement that they had reclassified Gertrude’s death as a homicide.  They’d presented strong circumstantial evidence implicating Luthor in her death and the subsequent cover-up, albeit without explicitly accusing the madman of her murder.

The microwave beeped and Richard pulled out his lunch, skimming through the paper as he ate, eventually discovering the coup de grâce of the Luthor coverage in the editorial calling for a Supreme Court review of the appellate decision.  Perry pointed out that though it had been more than the ninety days required for a ‘timely’ filing of petition for review, a Justice of the Supreme Court could extend that deadline for good cause.  The editorial made a the case for good cause and laid out a cohesive strategy by which the District Attorney could still achieve a high court review of the case, even at this late date.  They could really be stirring up a hornet’s nest here, going after Luthor so aggressively, Richard thought.  He’s just the kind of S.O.B. that’d come after us for the bad press.  Of course, to point that out to Lois would be ‘risk aversion’, and we can’t have that, can we?

After finishing his lunch and cleaning up the dishes, Richard retrieved his duffel bag and trotted up the stairs.  He dumped the bag on his bed and looked off into space pensively for a moment.  No point lounging around here – I’ve had enough of that the past couple days, Richard thought.  Besides, it’s better to get a head start catching up on the backlog at the office this afternoon rather than to be swamped in the morning.  He opened up the closet, and picked through it briefly before pulling out a grey suit and fresh white shirt and changing out of his jeans and sweatshirt.



Lois and Clark strolled out of Perry’s office following an impromptu afternoon briefing, and as they made their way back to their desks, Lois reflected that Perry had a hard time maintaining his curmudgeonly façade.  Lois turned to Clark and commented, “Looks like Perry is pretty happy with today’s stories.”

“Looks that way.  Harold Junior is probably happy about it, too, especially with this morning’s editorial so closely following his recommendations,” Clark agreed.  He glanced around them, and pitched his voice low as he added, “You missed a couple calls on your cell while we were in Perry’s office.”

Lois nodded her acknowledgement, and once they reached her desk, she fished the phone out of her purse hidden in the bottom drawer, and played back the messages.  Clark continued towards his own desk, but stopped suddenly and returned to Lois, waiting patiently as she listened to her messages.   She finally shut the phone off and looked over at him.  “Eavesdropping?” she teased in a low whisper.

“Not intentionally, but…” he whispered back.

“But you heard the message from Jason’s teacher,” Lois finished.  She leaned back in her chair and muttered.  “They want us to consider the T.A.G. school, because Jason’s too far ahead of the other kindergartners.”

“I remember your discussion with Richard…”

“Argument, you mean,” Lois corrected.  “Well, you’re Jason’s father – you need to be part of that decision, too.  I think we’re going to have to send him to the Montessori school.  You might want to consider sending Kara there, too.”

“She’s doing fine where she is,” Clark insisted.

Lois lowered her voice to a whisper and asked almost inaudibly, “Didn’t you tell me she learned English in a day?  No country school is going to be able to keep up with her.”

“I did fine there when I was her age,” Clark whispered insistently.  “Besides, the Montessori school would probably find a Kansas home address a little strange, assuming I could even afford it.”

“That will be a problem soon or later no matter what we decide about the kids’ school,” Lois pointed out.  “You really need a place here in town.”

Clark leaned against Lois desk, sighed deeply and said seriously, “I’m not sure I could afford anything here that’s suitable for Kara.  Everything out here is so expensive.”

“I could sublet the penthouse to you,” Lois suggested.

“I thought you had a tenant.”

“It’s month to month.”

“I – I couldn’t ask you to evict someone,” Clark insisted.  “Besides, that’s probably still out of my price range, and things are working out pretty well for us the way things are, with Mom there to help.”

“Yeah, she a great lady,” Lois commented, struggling to keep the smirk off her face and failing completely to suppress a brief giggle.

“What’s so funny?” Clark asked as he echoed Lois’ smile.

“Oh, nothing.  I just…” Lois began causally.  She then looked up at him with a mischievous expression and whispered teasingly, “I just can’t shake that image of naked-boy climbing out of that trench thirty years ago.”

“Lois!” Clark complained loudly, blushing furiously as Lois laughed heartily at his reaction.  “I was barely three,” he protested in a loud whisper.   He glanced around and noticed their amused coworkers smirking back at him and became suddenly self-conscious at the attention, exaggerating his slouch even more than usual, and lowering his head to hide his blush.

Lois smiled widely back up at him and said with a barely contained giggle, “Clark, sometime you make this too easy.”



Richard walked into the empty elevator from the underground parking garage and pressed the button for the editorial floor.  As the car climbed up to his destination, his thoughts again drifted to his personal life and the recent days’ soul searching.  I’m starting from scratch, he reminded himself.  The woman I thought I knew never existed – that was just a fantasy.  I have to start from the beginning, but will she meet me halfway, and will I ever get to know her as well as Clark apparently does?  Or Perry, for that matter?

Clark’s a bit of an enigma there, too, Richard reflected.  A nerdy rube whose reputation belies his writing skill and whom you’d never guess to be the unwed father of two children from two different women – especially given that one of those women is Lois.  You’d think that this ‘Mad Dog Lane’ persona of hers would chew him up and spit him out.  How is it that he not only got past that brash exterior, but managed to get into her bed? …It would be easier if I was competing against Superman – at least that I could understand.  After all, he’s Superman.  But how can I possibly be coming in second to Clark…  Why would she even be considering him over me?

Well, at least Jason’s affections haven’t changed, Richard reminded himself.  I’m still ‘Daddy’.  I think I’d go mad if I were losing Jason, too.  The sharp ding of the elevator bell announced the editorial floor and broke Richard from his ruminations.  He took a deep breath and marched out of the elevator, automatically shifting his gaze to Lois’ desk, where she was talking to Clark.  He couldn't help but notice Lois’ bright eyes and mischievous smile as she whispered something to her partner.  Richard was surprised to see Clark’s sudden deep blush and hear Lois’ hearty laughter.

“Lois!” Clark complained.  He then whispered something that Richard couldn’t hear, provoking his curiosity.

I can’t ever remember Lois laughing like that before, Richard thought.  Jason would have her giggling on occasion, but never the deep, joyful laugh like this.  He quietly approached the pair, straining to hear whatever they were saying.

“Clark, sometimes you make this too easy,” Lois said mirthfully, still struggling to contain her laughter.

Clark suddenly looked up at him nervously and Richard said irritably, “Am I interrupting something?”

Lois visibly stiffened at his words, her laughter forgotten.  “Inside joke,” she said curtly.  “I didn’t think you were due back until this evening.”

“I left early,” Richard said simply.  “Sorry if that makes me a killjoy.”

“Um, actually, your timing’s perfect,” Clark said nervously.  “We were, um, discussing Jason’s school options.”

Lois rolled her eyes, and said, “There’s nothing to discuss.  We need to put him in the Montessori school.  Kara, too.”

Clark ignored her protest and asked pleasantly, “Say, Richard, didn’t you say his teacher was recommending the T.A.G. school?”

“Yeah, she was.”

“Well, I’ve done a little research, and that school’s really getting high marks,” Clark informed him.

“Clark, you heard what we said about that last week,” Lois pointed out huffily.  “It’s too far.  He won’t know anyone from our neighborhood.”

“That’d be a problem with the Montessori school, too – parents bring their kids from all over,” Clark countered.  “There’s no guarantee that the friends he’d make there would be from your neighborhood.”

“The T.A.G. school’s just up the street from here,” Richard reminded her.

“The bullpen’s not a day-care center,” Lois snapped.

“I’m sure we could come up with some after school arrangements that don’t have Jason running through the bullpen,” Clark said cheerfully.  “Lois, all any of us want is what’s best for Jason.  Why arbitrarily eliminate options for him without at least getting complete information on the choices first?  At least talk to the teachers at the T.A.G. school – find out what they have to offer.”

Lois opened her mouth to object then snapped it shut without speaking.  After a moment, she sighed deeply and said testily, “Fine, but you make the appointment.  And it’s just to talk with them – I’m not committing to send him there.”

“Swell,” Clark replied happily.  “Um, Richard, what does your calendar look like this week?”

“My calendar?”

“Well, you’re as much Jason’s father as I am, if not more so,” Clark said seriously.  “You’ll need to talk to them, too.”

Richard stared at Clark for a moment and thought, Why’s he throwing me a bone, and how the hell did he get Lois to actually listen to him?  Aloud, he finally said quietly, “I’ll probably still be swamped catching up on everything tomorrow – first day back, you know.  Thursday or Friday should be good.”

“After deadline,” Lois interjected.

“That’ll mean Friday,” Richard told them.  “Jason has a dentist appointment Thursday afternoon.”

“That’s this Thursday?” Lois asked incredulously.

“Yes, that’s this Thursday.”

Lois rolled her eyes and grumbled something that Richard didn’t catch.

“Okay, I’ll try to set something up for Friday,” Clark declared.

“Well, if you two are done ganging up on me, I got a lot of work to do, so shoo,” Lois said insistently.

Clark backed away and returned to his own desk, nearly tripping over a wrinkle in the carpet.  Richard also withdrew and continued to his office, where Perry was waiting for him.  Richard unlocked his office door and walked in with Perry right behind him.  Perry closed the door and asked gruffly, “Are we going to have to have another little talk?”

“What? No, of course not.  We were just discussing some school arrangements for Jason,” Richard replied defensively.

“Really,” Perry commented skeptically.

Richard sighed and said irritably, “We’re talking about transferring him to either the T.A.G. school or the Montessori.  Oddest thing…  Clark actually argued my position with Lois about that… and she conceded the point.”

Perry snorted and said mirthfully, “He always had a gift for that.”

“He’s a tough one to figure out,” Richard confided.  “As meek as he seems, you wouldn’t expect him to last ten minutes with this ‘Mad Dog Lane’ you rave about.  But not only does he survive, he’s one of the few people she lets through that tough outer shell.”

“Tell me about it,” Perry agreed.  “Richard, I’ve stopped trying to figure out why that works – it just does.  And it certainly puts the Midas touch on their writing.”

“So I noticed – this morning’s paper was pretty impressive.  It looks like you’ve got a full court press going on against Luthor,” Richard observed.  “Is something new breaking loose there?”

“Richard,” Perry began impatiently.

“I’m not trying to interfere,” Richard insisted with his hands up in a surrender gesture.  “It’s hottest story on the press right now.  Can you blame me for being curious?”

Perry carefully scrutinized his nephew for a moment, then walked over to the guest chair and sat down.  He looked up at Richard and said seriously, “There’s a lot happening on that story right now and all hell will probably break loose soon.  The big thing is the coroner’s report, which Lois managed to get a copy of – Bernie Klein over at Star Labs reviewed it for us.  Not only did Gertrude Vanderworth die of arsenic poisoning, but Luthor pumped a ton of mind-controlling narcotics into her – looks like he brainwashed her into signing that will.”

“That should help the Vanderworths’ case,” Richard commented.

“It should.  They’ll try to throw out the new will as soon as they get the report back from their expert witnesses,” Perry confirmed.  “The police have reviewed Luthor’s psychological profile are they’re worried he’ll try something desperate once the shit hits the fan.  Kind of the ‘if I can’t have it, nobody can’ kind of desperate.”

“That part’s got me a bit worried, especially considering what appears to have happened with the Finemans,” Richard admitted. “Luthor’s going to be plenty pissed off when it all comes crashing down, and if the cops are right about that psych profile, he’ll probably be looking for payback.”

“I haven’t said anything to Lois or Kent yet, but I’ve already discussed that problem with our publisher,” Perry revealed.  “When the shit hits the fan, those two are getting temporarily relocated, along with Jason.  There should be room for you there, too, if you can tolerate each other.  Officially, it’ll be an out of town assignment.”

“For how long?”

“A couple weeks.  After that... well, we’ll just have to play it by ear, though Wayne indicated that we’d have his full support, whether that means providing a safe house or installing top of the line home security systems.  That should help.”

“I hope it’s enough,” Richard replied apprehensively.

“Me, too,” Perry said simply.  “Now…  We both need to get back to work, and I want a hundred percent from you this afternoon.”

“You’ll get it,” Richard assured him.

“Good,” Perry replied gruffly.  He then rose from the seat, and strolled over to his own office.



Tuesday, October 3, 2006 2:30PM EDT
Lex Luthor pulled the banded earplugs over his head and carefully seated them inside his ears before opening the door to the shop next to the yacht’s engine room.  As he opened the door, the sharp whine burst through the door, and Lex looked over at the source of the noise, where Stanford was slowly boring a hole through the center of the kryptonite sample.  They’d finally acquired the shaping equipment that morning from a Metropolis supplier, and their prize would soon have the proper form for launching Gotterdammerung in the nose of the Russian missiles.

The kryptonite had already been turned and was now a perfect cylinder, though the evidence of its former incarnation were scattered across the watery trough on the work surface under the power tools.  Lex walked over to the table, picked up one of the shards and held it up to the light.  It was about an eighth of an inch thick, ten inches long and tapered from nearly two inches wide at one end to a fine point at the other.  The perfect head for Hagen’s spear, Luthor thought.  He dried off the fragment with a towel from the counter, inserted it in his jacket pocket and exited the room, pulling off his hearing protection as soon as the door closed behind him.

Though pleased with the progress forming the kryptonite, Luthor was enraged by the setbacks caused by the imbeciles on his payroll and the Daily Planet’s nosy reporters.  Grant and Brutus had been indicted in the morgue murder, and the Planet had identified them both as Luthor employees, again linking the break-in to his fight over the Vanderworth fortune and chipping away at the credibility he needed to persevere in his legal battles – battles where his overpriced attorney was proving woefully impotent.  Not only had he failed to get the old hag cremated, he’d been equally inept against the Planet’s lawyers.  They’d been unimpressed by the legal threats and not only had refused their demands, they had practically dared Luthor to sue, citing case law where the courts had imposed onerous penalties on entities attempting to suppress the Freedom of the Press through legal intimidation.

  Intimidation? Luthor thought.  They don’t know the meaning of the word.  Neither, apparently, does my lawyer, if this morning’s paper is any indication.  The Planet actually seemed emboldened by their complaint, and had aggressively published the case against Luthor.  Well, we’ll put a stop to that rather quickly, Lex mused.  Why is good help so hard to find?  Is it too much to ask that the people I hire to take care of such mundane details actually do the job?

Luthor walked into the Alexander the Great’s ballroom and marched over to his desk, relaxing in his chair and glancing over at a pile of several file folders sitting in front of him.  They were full of background material on his primary adversaries at the Daily Planet, gleaned from illegally obtained credit reports, tax returns, online bank and credit card statements as well as from a variety of legitimate sources.  He’d spent most of the morning gathering the materials and performing the preliminary analysis, and he was confident that he’d be able to find a way to silence the journalists.  His preference would have been eliminating them, but given the high profile of the recent stories and the scrutiny he was under, he’d have to find less obvious means of controlling them.

The hardest nut to crack would be the editor-in-chief, Perry White.  Luthor reviewed the information on White and found very little that could be used to influence him.  I could target the wife, Luthor pondered.  If that would shut White down, it’d be the end of my press problems.  Unfortunately, easily intimidated men did not often get the top jobs at major newspapers like the Planet, and Luthor concluded that Perry White was the type that would call in the cavalry rather than capitulate, regardless of the consequences.  Luthor closed the folder and set it aside as he sorted through the remaining folders.

On the other extreme from Perry was Polly Harper, the Man of Steel’s most recent press contact.  He was singularly unimpressed with the samples of her writing, and concluded that the woman’s career must be unremarkable.  The Planet bio seemed to confirm that assertion, with no mention of anything out of the ordinary in the four decades of the woman’s career.  Definitely a little fish, Lex concluded.  The freak probably wanted someone he could control after the way Lane turned on him…  Harper would be easy for me to manipulate, but there’d be no point.  She’s just there for his press releases.

The next folder on the file summarized the background for Clark Kent.  He had been surprised to discover that Kent had only recently rejoined the Planet after an absence of several years.  The information gathered on Kent’s hiatus had been even more surprising – he’d spent the past six years working as a farmer in Kansas, according to the his tax returns, and with a pitifully small adjusted gross income.  Further research showed that the homestead listed as his primary residence had only recently transferred into his name, apparently passing to him from his mother.

The record doesn’t match his Planet bio, Luthor observed.  The moron lied…  Probably didn’t want anyone to know of his stupidity, going home to help on the farm.  Well, he should be embarrassed, taking a pay cut like that.  He should have just kicked the old lady out and sold the place – he’d have gotten a good penny for all that land.  Lex looked over the summary page in the folder and frowned.  Though there was plenty to be found on the Kent’s Kansas life, Luthor was frustrated by the lack of information on his life in Metropolis.  He couldn’t even find a local address.  There should have at least been a credit report from the apartment manager or credit card charges if he was in a hotel.  But there was nothing.  He’s found somebody to pay his bills, Lex concluded.  Maybe a relative or an old girlfriend.  No matter, I’ll find out where’s he’s hiding sooner or later.

Luthor flipped the page over to the summaries of Kent’s work and quickly skimmed the articles, most of which were published prior to his hiatus.  It seemed to be a fairly even mix of public interest stories and investigative reporting.  According to the Planet bio, Kent had half a dozen nominations for various journalism awards over the years and had won the Kerth for investigative reporting in ninety-nine.  Well, he may be highly regarded by his peers, but there’s no way that country hick is in the driver’s seat with Lane, Lex concluded.  She’s the one with the vendetta against me.  Kent’s just her errand boy, though he seems to be a good one and that makes him a problem.  But I can shut him down if I can figure out what he’s hiding, and he has to be hiding something – nobody’s that clean.

Unfortunately, stopping Kent doesn’t help unless I can also stop Lane, Lex pondered.  He set the folder on Clark Kent aside, and opened the thick file on Lois Lane.  He reacquainted himself with her work as he skimmed through the samples.  Luthor observed that her investigative reporting hadn’t been very hard hitting during Superman’s absence, but she’d come back strong after his return.  What’s she trying to do, impress that big dumb alien? Luthor wondered.

He turned his attention to her Planet bio, which like Kent’s, had boasted of a plethora of award nominations and a handful of wins.  However, with the exception of the Pulitzer for her wonderful editorial, “Why the World Doesn’t Need Superman”, all of the accolades had been prior to the Superman’s disappearance.   Luthor found an obvious explanation for her reduced activity – the additional dependent currently listed on her recent tax returns.  Mothers are so remarkably pliant when they fear for their children, Lex mused.  Unfortunately, they’re also remarkable unpredictable when that fear turns desperate, as it did with that Fineman bitch. 

Luthor closed the folder and set it aside, afterwards leaning back in his chair with his eyes closed and his brow wrinkled as he considered his options.  The challenge is to push hard enough to get them to back down without pushing so hard that they strike back desperately or set something to blow up in my face, he pondered.  Lane’s the key here – if I can shut her down, Kent and the others will fall in line...  Actually, there may be a way kill two birds with one stone and rid myself of both of those pests.  Luthor opened his eyes, spun back around to the desk and pressed the intercom button.  “Reilly!”  Luthor barked.  “Get down here.  We have work to do.”


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