So the transmedia event practically killed me. (Has anybody ever realized the irony of drowning in feels while being "on a ship"?) And this came out of the pictures Gigi tweeted.
The Reverse Superman Effect
Emmanuelle "Emma" Darcy, aged 6, had no school today as the school's whole faculty had gone on a special retreat. James "Jamie" Darcy, one the other hand, was still to young to be in school, seeing as he was only three and one quarter. And so, on a beautiful November day, Elizabeth B. Darcy, the new model for the 2.5 WPF club, found herself on a couch in the said home that was surrounded by a white picket fence. There was a little girl beside her who was clutching her hand in suspense as they watched Lex Luthor kidnap Lois Lane. Her other relatively unharmed hand was idly playing with her son's mussed hair as he snuggled on her lap, or at least tried to. It was no easy feat as the .5 of the 2.5 kids fought for lap space and also decided the squishing his/her mother's bladder was the best amusement for the day. Jamie heaved another sigh as Lizzie apologetically extricated herself from their "Bumming pile" and made her way to the bathroom.
"Sorry, Bug. The little peanut's being hard on Mommy," she murmured as she passed by in front of him to leave their little "home theater".
"Peanut's not even born yet and he/she's already causing trouble. Jeez." It took all of Lizzie's willpower to choke back the laugh that desperately wanted to escape as she heard her daughter's comment. She moved as quickly as any woman who was 25 weeks pregnant could and was soon back to being the universally child pillow. She smiled as she saw that the final face-off between Clark Kent and Lex Luthor was about to begin and let herself enjoy the last remaining minutes of "Man of Steel".
Pretty soon, the credits were rolling and the children were getting off of her to begin their routine "post-movie discussion".
"Supewman is the awesomest hewow evew!" Jamie pronounced after Lizzie finished her lecture about the moral of the story. (How had she gotten like this? A few years back she was taking movies apart as they were either inaccurate to the movie or had senseless plots. Now she was dissecting them to procure little slivers of scenes so that she could use the movies to teach her children "good principles".)
"Yeah! He's so cool. Nothing aside from the Kri- Krypto - K- the glowing green stone could hurt him and even then he got to get away from it and win the battle. I wish I could meet him," Emma sighed wistfully at her last statement. Then, her eyes suddenly widened and she turned to her mother in excitement. "Daddy got me to meet the cool girl who wrote the fun stories about the little polka dot cat. He can get me to meet Superman too! Please please tell Daddy that I want to meet Superman!"
"Pwease, Mommy. My wanna meet him too!" Lizzie's eyes widened as her kids started to plead with her. She frantically tried to come up with an explanation as to the impossibility of the request when she suddenly thought of something.
"Why would you want to meet that Superman when you already know a real life Superman?" She watched in satisfaction as her kids both suddenly went quiet, jaws dropping in surprise. Jamie was the first to find his voice.
"We do?" He asked in reverent awe.
"Yup!"
"Who Mommy? Who's Superman?" Emma's voiced was hushed yet brimming with excitement as she asked the question.
"Well..." Lizzie purposely trailed off and stopped talking, slowly counting down the seconds before her kids started begging. 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...
"Mommy! Please tell us!" She let a triumphant grin slip out.
"Well, if you two must both know. Your daddy is."
"Your daddy is what?" A voice asked from the doorway. All three heads whipped around to seek out the source of the voice, grins immediately adorning their faces.
"Daddy! You're home!" Lizzie laughed as the two children completely forgot about her and raced to Will. She watched them from her place in the couch, to tired to get up and go to them.
"It's nice to know just how much I'm loved!" She calls out, making sure that she was loud enough to be heard by them. As if on cue, Will walked towards her, a little girl wrapped around one leg and a little boy happily attached to his side. She tried to ignore the warmth that she suddenly felt as she took in the sight of him clad in jeans, a grey v-neck shirt and his reading glasses. She couldn't help swooning a little as she noted the slightly disheveled hair and the piercing blue eyes. Eight years of marriage and she was still putty in his hands.
"Hello Elizabeth." He dislodged his two new growths and knelt down in front of her so they were somewhat at eye level of each other. He shot her a smile before bending down towards her distended belly. "And hello to you, our little peanut. Did you decide to behave for your mother?"
"No. Peanut kept making Mommy go bathwoom while we wewe watching the movie." Jamie pronounced this with a pout which Will answered with a deep laugh.
"He or she did, hm?" Will arched one eyebrow up, a smirk playing on his lips before turning completely serious again. "Honestly though, was everything alright today?"
"Of course, Will. This is my third time doing this you know? I'm pretty sure that I'd know if something went wrong." She offered him a reassuring smile. "Tell me, what exactly are you doing here at three in the afternoon on a workday?"
"Well, it was about two thirty or so when I realized that I was very lonely and very desirous of my wife's company. The only acceptable course of action to such a predicament as that was to, of course, go visit my wife. Imagine my surprise when, as I stepped into her office, I was not met with the sight of my wife's fine eyes but rather found myself in an empty room. Four harried employees and one apologetic secretary later, I had managed to glean information concerning her whereabouts and immediately proceeded home." He paused in his explanation to catch a breath before plunging right back in. "When I arrived in our home, I discerned laughter from the media room and decided that I was going to surprise my family; so I quickly changed to more comfortable clothing and here I am."
"Here you are," she echoed, a soft smile on her face. She placed a kiss on his cheek."That was very sweet of you Will."
"You and I both know that I would do anything to ensure your happiness, Elizabeth. Now," he said, changing the topic. "I would like to know why I was mentioned in what I presume to be your post-movie analysis of the latest Superman film."
"Mommy say that you's Supewman." Jamie supplies helpfully. "But Mommy not tell us why cause you came in and 'rupted us."
"It's interrupted, Jamie and I don't mind explaining now. But the three of you better sit down since it's a pretty long explanation." The three comply and she soon finds three pairs of eager and curious eyes trained on her. "Well, Superman works for a newspaper right? Which is part of what we call media. Media can be anything that teaches or reports to you about things. Like newspapers, radios and videos. Your daddy, like Superman, also works for a media company. Also, they're both very smart and very sweet and, even though their daddy and mommy are both in heaven with the angels now, they still do all they can to make their parents proud. They also both work very hard to make people happy."
"And they save the world right?" Emma eagerly chirps in.
"That's right. Your Daddy and Superman both save the world."
"No, I don't." Will is quick to protest but Lizzie stops him with a hand to his wrist.
"Yes you do." She turns her attention back to the children. "Your daddy saved my world. He helped Uncle Bing and Auntie Jane fall in love again. And he saved Auntie Gigi and Auntie Lyddie from the Wickedman."
"Who's the Wickedman?" Jamie asked, curious. Will balked at the question, a wary look on his face.
"The Wickedman is a bad man. Like Lex Luthor. His dresses like normal people too, except he has swimming goggles on his head. He likes to trick people into thinking that he's a good man, then he hurts you real bad. But Daddy, Daddy knew all that and so, when he found out that the Wickedman hurt Auntie Gigi and Auntie Lyddie, he swooped right in and came to the rescue. He made sure that the Wickedman would never ever touch them again."
The children looked at their Dad, awe written in their faces. Will shrunk in his place, his head doing that awkward nod thing. Lizzie smirked when she noticed that his ears had turned red. The guy was really awkward with compliments and way too shy even after almost a decade of her slowly drawing him out of his shell.
"So when Daddy takes of his glasses and goes to work, he's really saving the world?" Emma finally voiced a question. "Is that why the museum hall in Pemberley has a phone booth?"
Lizzie snorted in amusement at that and she saw Will slowly relax and let out a small chuckle.
"Actually, sweetheart, your daddy's the complete opposite. When he's not wearing his glasses, he's Clark Kent and when he is wearing his glasses, he's Superman. Actually, he's Reverse Superman." She tried to explain it as simply as she could but even she could tell that what she had just uttered probably made no sense at all.
"Huh?" Emma looked absolutely confused. Her nose scrunched up in an adorable manner and Lizzie could see her trying to process the statement. Sighing, she decided to explain it further.
"You see, when your daddy isn't wearing glasses, it's like he's in disguise. Do you remember how Superman had to pretend that he was really quiet and shy and not ver strong at all when he was being Clark Kent?" The two children nod. "Well, Daddy's like that too. When he's not wearing glasses, he's all shy and quiet. Actually-"
"Before your mother found out about my secret identity, she thought I was a robot. She never called me by my real name. She only called me Darcy or Darcybot sometimes," Will butted in smoothly. His smirk from earlier was back.
"Will! I-"
"But Darcy is your weal name. It's my name too!" Jamie protested.
"What Daddy meant was that Mommy never called him Will before." Emma adopted her indulgent tone. "But, is it really true Mommy? Did you think that Daddy was a robot?"
"For a little while," Lizzie admitted with shame. "But, I got to know him and he showed me his secret identity. That's when I decided that he could be my friend and I fell in love with him."
"Like Lois."
"Yes, Jamie, exactly like Lois."
"But that doesn't 'splain why Daddy's Superman when he wears glasses."
"Your daddy's Superman when he wears glasses because the Daddy we know, the funny, kind and sweet Daddy that we all love is the Daddy that decided to save all those people. And we only see that awesome awesome Daddy when he wears his glasses. So that's why he's Superman."
"That is so cool!" Jamie breathes. "I can't wait to tell my friends on Friday."
Lizzie smiled as the two children started debating on how they were going to tell their friends about their daddy being Superman. Jamie had this weekly play school every Friday and apparently, he wanted to bring Will for show and tell. Emma wanted a more subtle approach. She was only going to tell her best friends because his secret identity was important and the Wickedman might find out.
"So, the Wickedman. I wonder how George would feel if he knew that Batman was know a supervillian known as Wickedman and that the once infamous Darvid is actually Superman." Lizzie shivered as she felt his breath on her neck.
"We could always make another vlog series. Let's call it The Adventures of the Reverse Superman."
"Sounds promising. I do believe the CEO of Pemberley Digital would heartily approve of this project."
"Ah. But the Head of the Creative Projects Department refuses to acknowledge both the proposal and its approval. And, if relentlessly pursued in order to gain her cooperation, she threatens to resign and kick a certain CEO to the couch."
"That's not quite so terrible a loss. The CEO has been trying to convince the Department Head to take an extended leave and the couches are quite comfortable." He ducked in anticipation of her punch but she was smart enough to anticipate his reaction to his anticipation and managed to land a solid, albeit not so damaging, blow to his arm. Rubbing his sore arm, he amended, "Of course, being deprived of the Department Head's company is too great a loss to even consider that. After all, what am I to do without you in my life?"
"You could be ignorantly blissful of the pain of heartbreak and you would have been spared all the grief I have caused." Her voice was soft and, even now, regret tinged her voice.
"I would also be ignorantly blissful of how amazing it is to be loved by you and miss out on the most incredible thing in my life: a family with you, Elizabeth." He leaned in to kiss her but is stopped by her suddenly jolting up. Without warning, she grabbed his hand and placed it on her stomach.
"Finally! I thought you were never gonna be here to feel him or her kick." He laughed breathlessly, elated at the sensation. This was his favorite part of the whole thing, feeling the life growing in her kick and just acknowledge them. "Seems like this little one is pretty excited about the prospect of meeting his amazing all, this little peanut has Superman for a father."
The particular picture of DVG with his iconic Darcy look pushed me into overdrive and made me think of this. Funnily enough, as I checked my Tumblr one paragraph into my story writing (I needed a break okay?) I stumbled upon yesknopemaybe's pic. Glad to know someone else thinks this. The "Wickedman" name is taken from Dreams and Expectations, which, I believe, can be found in Dwiggie's Epilogue Abbey.
Disclaimer: I have no idea what the plot for Man of Steel is as it hasn't shown yet. Whatever is mentioned in the story is simply part of my imagination and is hopefully vague enough to not be used against me. Anyway, hope you enjoyed the story and don't forget to leave a review.