SUPERMAN: THE DOCUMENTARY

A work of Fan Fiction by Pony R.

Superman is owned by DC Comics. I own nothing.

No copyright infringement is intended.

My Superman Universe is based on elements of many: The Donner films; Superman Returns, and the books by Maggin and Stern, as well as Smallville, and a few ideas of my own.

This is also a loose sequel to my previous story, A SUPER CHRISTMAS.

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'Something's wrong,' thought Clark as he tried to get a better grip on the hurtling piece of space junk that had, for the last eleven years, been an LDEF satellite.

And hurtling they both were, tumbling and skidding out of control at 17,000 miles per hour on a demolition derby track that filled the western sky. Or more like a drag strip that overarced the North American continent, as the Eldef Satellite was moving into the upper atmosphere and starting to slice into the first faint wisps of air, causing it to glow and heat at various points along its school-bus length. Superman, for his part, was trying to grab hold of something, anything that would allow him to successfully slow or deflect the huge, columnar-shaped satellite. Everything he latched onto seemed to crumble – even the craft's hard points weren't built to handle this level of stress.

The satellite had been doing fine, still functioning many years beyond its original lifespan. LDEF stood for Long Duration Exposure Facility. It was designed to test the effects of long-term exposure to the environment of orbital space on various substances, compounds, items, etc. At certain intervals, NASA's Space Shuttle would dock with Eldef and take samples, exchange hardware or experiment packages, deal with any problems, and send it on its way, bouncing around the Earth in the low-orbit-to-medium-orbit realms and, basically, letting stuff hit it. Cosmic rays, micrometeoroids, dust, pretty much anything to be found up there. But, today it'd been hit by a very large meteor. Eldef weighed ten tons and was the size of a school bus. The rock that hit it was the size of a Volkswagen, but as it was solid, it was substantially massive. And it was traveling just fast enough to crumple the side and corner of the platform, and send it into a sharp, rapid forward tumble that caused it to start losing altitude. It was the tumbling of the heavy, ungainly satellite that was most of the problem: Superman was easily able to match the vehicle's spin, although for some strange reason, doing so actually made him a bit dizzy, and that had never happened before. Quickly dismissing the sensation, however, he was more concerned about the stresses he was putting on the craft as he tried to slow it down. The attachment points simply couldn't handle the torque being placed on them when Clark would grab one and try to apply opposing pressure. Several of them bent sharply. One simply snapped-off and flew from the stunned superhero's grasp.

By now, Eldef and Superman were streaking through the mesosphere, incandescing like two magnesium-phosphorous flares in the morning sky over America's heartland. The Kryptonian simply could not seem to get any kind of a grip on the tumbling cylinder that didn't cause the thing to break up into smaller, yet still-lethal chunks. Clark was getting desperate now; the thing was a flaming ball of metal and superheated plasma, streaking into the upper stratosphere with an audible screech. Clark feared not only the possibility that it might pass through reentry and come crashing down whole in some populated area, but as well the possibility that if it broke up after reentry, it would do even more collateral damage on an impact spread over a much wider range.

Finally, desperately, Clark cocked his arm and drove a hard punch into the skin of the satellite along one of the structural members. That was all the weakened spaceframe could handle. The LDEF Satellite fractured into numerous large pieces and began to tumble away. As he watched, dismayed, Clark observed the thick trails of smoke that billowed from the glowing sections of metal frame and skin and wires. The wiring, much of it copper, glowed a brilliant green as it burned up. This was not uncommon, but this time Superman found himself watching with a stronger sense of… pause. He began rushing around after shaking himself from his reverie, trying to gather and shepherd the various burning, falling sections of the once-massive spacecraft. The smaller bits he was able to simply vaporize with a quick glance of heat-vision, but the larger ones posed a serious threat to anyone on the ground, and as the seconds ticked by, they were spreading further away from each other, and from Clark.

After what seemed like an hour, but was really only a few moments, Superman had gathered almost all of the larger pieces and had thrown each of them back up into a higher orbit. They'd still come back down over the next few weeks, but at least this gave him some time. There was one large remaining chunk, however. And it was glowing a definite green. Without considering this for more than a moment, Clark darted toward the tumbling, burning piece of debris. Getting in front of it, he slowed himself down to allow the thing to land on his chest, with the idea of grasping it, slowing down, turning forward, and lofting it up out of the atmosphere.

But as soon as the fragment, about the size of a large beach ball, settled in his grasp, he immediately felt very weak. His strength and consciousness rapidly fading, he tried to turn around to face forward, to no avail. The thing was shoving him through the lower atmosphere now, headed almost deliberately toward Metropolis, which had just come into view on the horizon, about 120 nautical miles ahead, and around 30,000 feet below. His head turned in their direction of travel, Clark could clearly see the East Coast of the Atlantic, a few wispy cirrus clouds painting the morning layers of the atmosphere with fine white brushstrokes.

By the time Superman and the last bit of Eldef passed over the border of New Troy, Clark was almost totally unconscious, flying in a backwards attitude in much the same way he had stopped the falling Boeing 777 from augering-in to the baseball diamond of Metro Stadium when he had first arrived back on Earth. The flames were now gone from the chunk of satellite in Clark's arms, but the faint green glow remained.

Together, as if guided by the hand of God, or the 9-iron of Tiger Woods, they were headed straight over the skyscrapers of Downtown Metropolis and aimed perfectly "down the fairway" toward the globe atop The Daily Planet building, as if Eldef, in it's last moment of play, was going for an Ace right off the tee. The fact that Clark had managed to slow their descent and forward velocity to about 120 miles per hour was probably more autonomic or instinctive than actually a thoughtful act on his part. By the time they slammed into the building's roof, just below the base of the globe, Superman was not aware of anything at all.

Jimmy Olsen and Lois Lane watched from the roof of The Daily Planet as Superman and the glowing green beach ball came barreling down at them. They were up there because they knew Clark had raced off less than an hour after they had arrived at work, when Clark had learned of the Eldef's imminent reentry, and they wanted to not only watch the skies for any sign of the action, but they also figured that if all three of them were seen returning from the roof, it would appear as though they'd simply gone up there for a break, as many workers tended to do. Lois and Jimmy could both cover for Clark's "disappearance" and nobody would be the wiser. Also, Perry wanted them there in case they could pull a story out of the situation. Jimmy had his camera plastered to his face, its'auto-drive cranking-off six frames per second as the red-caped superhero loomed larger and larger by the second. Finally, just as "target fascination" was starting to hold him in place, Jimmy felt a pair of hands grab his right arm (spoiling the last few frames) and yank him out of the way of 225 pounds of flying Kryptonian and 75 extra pounds of satellite equipment just before he would have been squashed. The impact of Superman hitting the base of the globe sent a loud gonging sound resonating up through the huge metal sphere and shook dust from everything on the roof. And then, just as suddenly, it was over, and all was quiet except for the sounds of the street far below, the ticking and creaking of the gigantic Daily Planet globe like a car engine cooling-down, and the last of the thrumming sound as the resonance vibrations died off.

After a moment of trepidation, Lois and Jimmy cautiously moved forward to the point where Superman had come to rest. As the dust cleared, they saw him.

On his back, the glowing green metal sphere still clutched in his arms.

His nose and mouth were bleeding. And he was out like a light.

As Clark struggled to regain his senses, to break through the fog surrounding his thoughts and the strange disjointed-ness of incoming sensory stimuli, two things swam into clarity at the same time: Lois' voice, and pain.

'It HURTS!' was the first coherent thought he had, rapidly followed by, 'God, Lois, can you be quiet for a second?'

"Sorry, Clark… wait… you can hear me?" her voice replied.

'Uh-oh. Did I just tell Lois to be quite for real?'

"Yes, you did, Smallville," came the reply, with a combination of amusement and concern.

'Owww. It really, REALLY hurts,' Clark thought, as he finally gained the ability to pry one eye open. In his vision, which was still spinning a bit, he saw Lois and Jimmy bending over him. The weight on his chest was gone, and turning his head to one side (which brought on a new level of throb) he was able to make out the misshapen fragment of satellite that had been the last thing he remembered grabbing, about 30 feet away, having been rolled off of him by Lois and Jimmy as soon as they had gotten to Clark's side. It looked to be a container or tank of some kind, roughly globular or capsule-shaped, and metallic, at least where it wasn't scorched black. It was resting at the base of the parapet that ran along the edge of the roof.

Prying open the other eye, he willed his vision to stabilize, his stomach to stay still, and his mind to work. Looking at Lois in confusion and relief, the first words out of his mouth were, "Sorry, Dear. I. uhhh… oh my God…"

His eyes started to lose focus again.

"Looks like you took some damage, Clark," Jimmy supplied. "How do you feel?"

Earth's greatest superhero and only official extraterrestrial looked his best friend like he had grown two heads.

"Jim, look at me. I feel like I got smacked with a ten-ton satellite!"

Lois tried, unsuccessfully, to hide a little smirk, but Jimmy was crestfallen. "Gee, Clark, I'm sorry. I was just worried about you. You're hurt."

The Kryptonian made an easy effort to soften his gaze. It wasn't every day he was in such pain, and he had not intended to be irritable. Reaching painfully up, he put his hand on Jimmy's shoulder. "I know, pal. I'm sorry. I just… it really hurts."

"What would cause that?" Lois asked.

Superman looked over at the fragment again. It looked like an ordinary piece of the satellite. No green glow.

"I think that thing may have some Kryptonite inside it," he panted, nodding in the direction of the object. "And, as such, I'd appreciate it if one of you could get it to the other side of the roof. Put as much of the walls and machinery between me and it as you can."

Jimmy immediately grabbed the object, which weighed about 70 pounds, and removed it from the area. In a moment, Clark could feel himself getting stronger, but at a slower rate than he would have liked. It was then that the door to the stairwell opened, and Perry White, Editor-In-Chief of The Daily Planet, and the man they all reported-to, came out onto the roof. Turning to one side, he saw Lois kneeling down beside Superman, who was lying on the floor, his back up against the masonry of the globe's foundation. Some of the stonework was cracked. And Superman's face was bloody.

"Great Caesar's ghost!" He rushed over, bending down beside Lois. By now, Jimmy was also returning. "Clark, my God man, what happened?"

"Hey, Chief," Clark responded, trying to smile. It wasn't pretty, as most of his teeth were covered in a thin film of blood. Clark started to struggle as if to rise, but three sets of hands shoved him unceremoniously back down.

"No, no, no you don't," barked Lois. "You're staying right where you are. We don't know how hurt you are yet."

"Trust me, Lois, I'm feeling better already," Clark insisted.

"I gotta tell you, son, Lois is right. You are bleeding, y'know. That in and of itself is pretty alarming," Perry added.

"And what if Cat, or Gil, or any of the other staff come up here and see you guys hovering over a bleeding Superman? I musta made quite a racket when I hit the building," Clark responded, wiping his nose and mouth with his hand. When he looked at the blood on his fingers, he appeared quite amazed.

"Don't worry, I told everyone it was just Maintenance doing work on the globe. They're all at their desks. Besides, with the big Weekender Edition coming out day after tomorrow, nobody has any time for breaks," the Great Gray Mastodon of the city's greatest newspaper growled.

"So how'r you gonna explain Lois, Jimmy, and I being gone?" Clark asked his boss. Normally he wasn't insolent, but his head was still ringing, and frankly, he felt lousy.

Pursing his lips, Perry glanced away in annoyance. "Don't know. Think of somethin'," he muttered. He looked back at the team of Lane and Kent. Two great reporters and civilian crime-fighters. It still sometimes gave Perry a feeling of warm, fuzzy willies that his Number 2 star reporter (right behind Lois Lane at Number 1) was not only his friend, but the world's greatest superhero as well. Even so, Clark had such a way of putting people at ease, that for the most part Perry looked on him as an almost-son, and as such, Clark's abilities had come, in Perry's mind, to seem simply like… just another part of Clark. But, occasionally, the idea, or more accurately, the sense, that he was in the presence and good graces of something holy and, no pun intended, otherworldly, would cause a pleasant little chill down Perry White's spine. Still, as cool as it was to know the living icon the world knew as Superman, for Perry the best part was knowing the whole man who was Clark Kent. And, like any loved-one, Perry didn't want to see one of his own injured or in pain. But, that this was Kal-El who was bleeding and in pain added a great urgency to the situation. "What scares me is, why are you bleeding? What the hell happened up there?" Perry asked gently.

"Me thinks there be Kryptonite here," Clark gurgled, trying to do his best Caribbean pirate impression. It always gave Jason a laugh, and what the heck, he figured a little humor might relax his friends and wife just a bit. Instead, they seemed to become more alarmed. Lois' heart rate doubled, and Jimmy let out an audible gasp. Clark indicated the object, which Jimmy had taken to the far end of the roof. "That piece was the last one I grabbed, and as soon as I did, I felt sick and weak. It really did feel like being hit by a car or something. Almost before I realized what was happening, I was here with you guys standing over me. I'm just glad I was able to prevent any real damage."

At that, Jimmy's face took on a stricken look, as did Lois'. Clark was clearly in shock by now, but he still was able to read the expressions passing between two of the people he loved most. "What?" he asked, dread tingeing his voice.

"Well, Dear..," Lois began.

"Look, don't worry about anything right now other than letting us get you some medical attention," Perry barked, effectively derailing their thoughts. "Your bleeding should have stopped by now, and it hasn't."

"Guys, c'mon look, I'll be alr…"

"Goddammit, Clark, shut up and sit still!" Lois snapped.

That got everyone's attention. Meekly, Clark replied, "Yes, Dear."

"You got that right," Lois grumbled, pulling out her cellphone. Punching in a full number from memory, she waited for the other end to pick up.

"Dad? Lo' here. You busy?" A pause. "Sorry, but we got a code green. Can you get over to the office?" Another pause. She looked over at her husband. Clark looked back, a deer in the headlights. "Standby-one," she said, turning to Perry. "Chief, any chance we can get the company chopper to bring Dad over to the old building? He can get here from there quicker than if he takes a car in from home."

The "old Building" to which Lois referred was the newer skyscraper which had been the temporary home to The Daily Planet for a number of years back when Clark had first started with the paper. The original building, where they worked now, was far older, with an art-deco rooftop globe and patio area, whereas the newer tower sported a flat roof with a helipad. The reason the offices had been housed in the newer tower when Clark started was that, at that time, the older building was being gutted and cleaned of asbestos and other carcinogens that had been common in construction dating from the 1910's. In the end, many of the office floors had been enlarged and re-designed with a more contemporary layout and infrastructure. By the time Clark had returned from his "Five Year Mission" as he and Lois had taken to calling his absence, The Daily Planet's editorial offices were once again housed in the building that bore its namesake, the famous bronze and glass globe which had become the landmark of the Symbol of Hope for the city of Metropolis. The newer tower, at 220 East 42nd Street, was the home of The Planet's printing presses and distribution arm, as well as handling the printing for a number of other papers, and was also the headquarters of WGBS, the largest broadcasting station on the Eastern Seaboard.

There were only two people in the world Clark Kent could trust to act as his primary-care physicians. Lucious Fox was one, even though he was not licensed as a medical doctor. The other was Lois Lane's father, General Sam Lane, United States Army (Retired) who had been licensed to practice medicine anywhere in the U.S. when he was on active duty. The fact that he was treating a lone Kryptonian never seemed to General Lane as anything other than doing his civic (and familial) duty.

"No, I don't think he's bleeding internally. Looks more like… blunt force trauma. Clark, can you tell me if you think there is anything broken inside?" Lois asked him. After a moment of deep breathing, running his hands over his form, he looked back up at her and shook his head. Which, as soon as he did, he realized his mistake. That hurt! he thought, ironically. I wonder if this is what a hangover feels like?

As if reading Clark's mind, Jimmy leaned down and said quietly, "Clark, you look the way I feel after a few too many drinks at The Ace O' Clubs!"

Clark looked at Jimmy with an expression of long-suffering dismay. Taking the hint, Jimmy cast his eyes down and muttered, "Sorry, Clark. I didn't mean to…"

Looking at Jimmy as understandingly as possible considering the pain he was still in, he started to say, "Actually, Jim, that's something we need to talk…" but before he could get any farther, he dimly heard the sound of cries for help. His expression becoming something his friends had become very familiar with, he pushed himself up shakily from the floor, stood swaying for a moment on his feet. Lois was just hanging-up the phone, and turned back to them. Perry had already gone downstairs to phone the chopper crew and alert them that they would be making an unscheduled passenger run.

Meanwhile, Clark had already reached the edge of the roof. Following his gaze, Jimmy could see two things happening at once: one was the helicopter lifting off from the roof of the other Planet building on 42nd Street. The other was a fire that was burning it's way out of the windows of a skyscraper about a mile away. There was a ragged hole in one side of the building, about 50 stories up from the ground, and it was from there that the fire was originating. Clearly Superman had missed some of the debris from the falling Eldef Satellite. And now, people were in harm's way as a result of his blunder.

"Where the hell do you think you're going?" his wife demanded.

"Clark, really, you need to stay down. You're hurt," Jimmy added, placing his hand on Clark's arm in a placating gesture.

Looking at them with as much compassion as he could muster with a throbbing skull and bloody nose, he responded, "Those people are going to be hurt a lot worse if I don't try to help. They're well above the height that even the tallest rescue ladder or hook-and-ladder can reach. I have to do something!" He was trying his best to use his "Superman" voice, but to those who knew him so well, he sounded shaky and coarse.

Before Lois or Jimmy could protest any further, Clark had launched himself from the edge of the roof, in the direction of the burning skyscraper. His leap carried him all of eight feet before, much to his surprise, and Lois and Jimmy's horror, he plummeted straight down toward the street, some 50 stories below.

As they watched, riveted, they could distinguish his cape flapping upward as he rapidly dwindled in size, falling at terminal velocity until he was nothing more than a large red and blue dot. They could just make out his voice, drifting up to them as he yelled, "Loooook oooout belowwwww!" just before he hit the pavement of the sidewalk, shattering the cement into a spiderweb of broken concrete. At least five car alarms went off, and the display window in the adjacent shop at the ground floor exploded inward in a spray of glass shards from the concussion.

Lois and Jimmy, for their part, were already running down the stairs to the nearest elevator bay, hoping for the best, but fearing the worst.

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