Superman: New Beginnings
The Unseen Future
Summary: The epilogue that never was to my Superman: New Beginnings story.
Disclaimer: I own nothing.
Author's Note: I wrote an epilogue to my story and then decided I much preferred to leave it open ended but I figured some of you might like to see it so here it is.
In a certain diner several regulars are taking their usual place. Arcadia brings the order to meeting with her beloved bat. "Ok lets bring our 10th anniversary meeting to order," she announces for their little group.
"Wow 10 years," Ben remarks in awe it has been that long. "It seems longer...but that may be just having Arcadia around," he says with a smirk.
"Oh you are so getting hit for that one," Arcadia promises him pointing her bat at him menacingly.
"You've been saying that for 10 years," Ben points out and to this date she has yet to carry out the threat.
"And one of these days it'll happen. Remember what my bat did to that Zod guy," Arcadia reminds Ben. Not the bat she has but her one made out of green meteor rock that she now knows is called kryptonite.
It happened a few years ago that this other Kryptonian called Zod tried to take over the planet. Well he had Superman down, beat not too far away from where Arcadia sits right at this minute. Anyway they were all caught up in it when Black Canary came up to Arcadia and asked if she could borrow her bat. Arcadia handed it over and then Black Canary went to town on Zod with it.
"Yeah," Hellacre says with a smile. "Remember just when we thought it was over that huge ship appeared over Metropolis?"
Imfanci nods. "Brainiac," she says the name of the entity that ship belonged to.
"And then Superman and Zod had to team up to beat him," Meejay remembers.
From the neighbouring table Donny adds, "You can't blame them. Brainiac did destroy their home. The enemy of my enemy..."
"That's true," Charles says in agreement. As they learned later Brainiac had been the one responsible for the destruction of Krypton.
"Yeah but Superman got the drop on all of them in the end," Garien says with some pride in Earth's hero.
Hellacre sighs dreamily. "What a guy!" she remarks.
"True but for a supercomputer Brainiac was as dumb as a rock," Imfanci points out. "I mean it actually beamed them aboard so it could boast at them. Who does that?" she asks.
"It thought it had them beat by flooding the inside of the ship with red solar light but Superman was way ahead of them," Meejay says, gushing all over the alien powerhouse.
Ben nods. "That's right. He had this ring of blue kryptonite which he originally intended to use on Zod to render him powerless but it works by reversing a Kryptonian's biology. Under a yellow sun it renders them powerless but under a red sun it gives them power."
Donny continues the praise. "Which meant there was Superman in the heart of the enemy stronghold at full power when Brainiac thought he would be powerless."
"Then Brainiac tried to send Superman into Krypton's own ultimate prison; the Phantom Zone," Charles continues the retelling of the story.
"Only for Zod and...what was her name Faora?" Garien tries to recall the name of Zod's wife as it turned out.
"Yeah," Ben confirms.
"Only for them to turn the projector on Brainiac and trap him. They almost did the same to Superman," Garien remembers.
"But Wonder Woman saved him with her lasso that she can use to tie me up any time," Ben suggests with a waggle of his eyebrows.
The 4 ladies groans and roll their eyes. "Seriously. Get over it. She's never dating you!" Arcadia says rather harshly but necessarily so in her opinion for Ben to get over his Wonder Woman obsession.
"She's never dating anyone apparently," Imfanci points out. "I can't remember the last time we saw her on a date," she says in total disbelief.
"Apart from when she is out on the town with her sister," Hellacre amends that slightly as Wonder Woman's sister Donna Troy spent a lot of time, it seemed, hanging around her sister since she made an appearance as a hero.
"I don't know why she never got around to asking Superman out. He's perfect," Meejay argues.
"Perfect for Wonder Woman...or perfect for you?" Arcadia asks with a knowing grin.
Meejay blushes. "Uh...I plead the 5th."
"We're losing track of our story!" Ben points out.
"Oh what's to tell. Wonder Woman saves Superman and in the ensuing fight they managed to trap Zod and Faora into the Phantom Zone instead. World saved. Booyah!" Arcadia sums it up.
"Nicely put," Imfanci congratulates Arcadia's summing up.
Garien shakes his head. "Man can you believe it's been 5 years since Superman first appeared. Where does the time go?"
"Who knows," Charles says in agreement. "Been a busy 5 years with the JSA and that Cadmus lot."
Donny nods in agreement with that.
Just then the door to the diner opens and in steps a tall man in glasses with dark curly hair. Behind him is a grumpy looking boy in his late teens of slightly shorter stature but bearing a remarkable resemblance to the older man. Must be his son although the man hardly looks old enough to be the father of a teenager.
Following them is a shorter blond woman who is so stunning she makes every man in the diner stop and look. Holding her hand is a little blond haired girl no more than 3 years old.
The family make their way over to a table where the little girl leaps into the teenager's lap and he isn't happy about it. "Get off of me you little..."
"Connor!" the woman shouts immediately. "Be nice to your sister."
"Yeah Connor. Be nice to me," the girl says in what seems like smug tones.
The boy, Connor, glares at her as she continues to sit in his lap. "You may have them fooled but I know what you are. One of these days Kara, I swear," he whispers angrily.
The girl, Kara, smiles sweetly as if butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. "Connor you're just a big mean grumpy-head. Isn't that right mommy?"
The woman smiles at the girl as if she is the most precious thing in the world. "Yes sweetie. He's just like his father," she says with a teasing grin.
The man folds his arms across his chest and looks at the woman with a 'Oh ha ha aren't you so funny' expression.
The woman smiles sweetly at him in the exact same expression as the little girl.
Behind his glasses Clark Kent rolls his eyes. Honestly some days he wonders why he puts up with it. Then he sombrely remembers the period of time he didn't...or more accurately Dinah stopped putting up with him.
Clark sighs as he looks over at her. 5 years since he first met her and if anything she was more lovely than ever. Being a mother seemed to agree with her which is ironic since it was motherhood that split them up.
To be precise Maxima's motherhood. Clark had been more than shocked...more than stunned the day he finally met Maxima again to not only find she was a Queen of an alien Empire but that he had fathered a child with her.
Understandably Dinah had not taken that at all well. In fact it basically put an end to a relationship that was under deep stress anyway. The stress caused by the fact they were going through a pretence of belonging to the government backed Justice Society of America(JSA)...or the Cadmus backed JSA as it was really.
Both Clark and Dinah knew this fact and that was why they joined. To find out what Cadmus was really up to but it can be hard work, to say the least, to maintain a relationship when you know you're being spied on while you try to spy on those spying on you.
Maxima and the revelation of Clark's fatherhood was the straw that broke the camel's back as far as he and Dinah were concerned at that time. As for his daughter with Maxima...well Maxima had been pretty...very blunt about not wanting Clark anywhere near Almerac so that none of her advisers got some stupid idea about marrying her off to him.
Clark agreed with the sentiment but obviously desired to have some influence on his daughter's life. They had worked out an arrangement for their daughter that allowed her to periodically visit Earth and stay with Clark. He did his best to tone down the superiority complex she had inherited from her mother but he worried about her. Worried that he had helped give birth to some future tyrant that he would end up having to stop. He hoped it would never come to that.
"Clark?" Dinah queries. "You alright?" she asks as his expression was very far away.
Clark smiles at her. "Sure. Just thinking."
Dinah smiles back and wonders what he is thinking about. Hopefully it is that he is as happy that they are back together as she is. They had had some problems...ok they split up. Partially that was their fault. Partially that was Maxwell Lord's fault.
What a douche he was!
And the mind control powers he had weren't fun either. Basically, as it turned out, the JSA was Lord's way of getting a superpowered army under his control. Dinah remembers him having Clark, who was under Lord's control, force her to her knees and make some chauvinistic comment that she looked good on her knees. Dinah got him back though she thinks with an evil grin. Dinah kneed him so hard in the groin Lord was never having children.
How did Dinah get out of that one you may ask.
Thank Diana and the Justice League. Despite everything, the bad fallout from Donna and the Justice Lords, the League survived under new leadership. It had been a rough few years but it was back on an even keel now. Diana and the League pulled Clark away and Dinah took out Lord. He was locked up after they did some brain surgery on him to remove the part of the brain that gave Lord his mind control powers.
After the exposure of JSA, Lord and Cadmus both Clark and Dinah joined the League as a show of unity amongst Earth's heroes. To show that they couldn't remain apart or divided they would fall as they almost did.
The thing with Lord had been pretty close. Closer then Dinah likes to admit even to herself. All it would have taken was a twitch of Clark's fingers and Dinah's neck would have been reduced to dust. She tried not to think on it too much.
"Can I have beans mommy?" Kara asks for her lunch, breaking Dinah out of her thoughts.
"Of course honey," Dinah assures her little girl and she was her little girl...her literal little girl.
If you wanted to know what brought Clark and Dinah back together after their split have a look at the two other people at the table.
Joining the JSA had been a risk. Clark and Dinah knew that. What they hadn't anticipated was that the strain would crush their relationship and also what Cadmus would do with more access to their DNA. Not that Clark and Dinah ever gave it to them voluntarily. They stole it.
You'd think they had learned their lesson after Donna but hell no.
In the aftermath of Cadmus' fall there was the discovery of just what they had been up to.
First there was finding Connor floating in a glass tube and at first they assumed he was a teenage clone of Clark because that was what the data on the computers said he was.
Clark had...not taken that revelation very well and basically gave Connor the cold shoulder.
Dinah refused to let him get away with it. She didn't care how estranged they were. Connor was Clark's son and he needed to take responsibility and she told Clark so right to his face and refused to accept anything but his agreement.
What Dinah hadn't realised at this point was that cloning Kryptonians was slightly beyond human technology and that to fill in certain gaps in Connor's genetic structure they had used her DNA.
Connor was her and Clark's son although almost all his facial features were Clark's...except for perhaps the nose. That was slightly different. It also explained why Connor didn't have Clark's full range of abilities and even those he did were watered down.
So anyway this forced Clark and Dinah to spend time together to take care of Connor. They talked and resolved a few issues. Dinah forgave him over Maxima and they grew back closer and eventually the inevitable happened. 3 years later they're still together and damn if anything Clark's more handsome than ever. Dinah still finds him as irresistible as ever and has she ever mentioned the benefit of the fact he doesn't really tire...like ever!
"You're a little snot you know," Connor mutters at Kara, still in his lap.
Kara sticks her tongue out at him.
Dinah rolls her eyes. Motherhood! Connor's always been a tad grumpy. Understandable up to a point as he was created to be a weapon.
Still he is her son and she loves him even if she missed out on a whole period of his life because he came out of the tube 15 years old. Now her daughter on the other hand Dinah got the whole joy of sleepless night and diaper changes.
As it turns out Connor wasn't the only clone they tried to make. He was the best one...in their idiotic opinion. After Donna they were trying to avoid having another female weapon. Sexist pigs!
Anyway one of their clones went wrong...bad word. It didn't go as Cadmus planned is what Dinah means. When filling in the gaps in the genetic code they accidentally reversed the gender and hence Kara. When they realised their error, as they saw it, they left her essentially frozen as a baby.
It was a few months after discovering Connor that Clark and Dinah found her in another Cadmus lab.
Dinah's heart almost melted into a puddle of goo the first time she held Kara and she looked at Dinah with blue eyes that match her own.
The ironic part is that from the study of Kara's DNA it seems she might well be closer to having Clark's full range of abilities when she grows up than Connor and Cadmus considered Kara the failure.
Morons!
Oh their names. How did they come up with that?
Connor was...uh...it was pretty random really. Like any other parent she and Clark went through names until they found one they liked. Connor was the one they liked...and the only one Connor himself didn't object to like the hundred others he had grumpily rejected before.
Kara was a little different.
The Project that gave birth to the two of the was called Project Kr.
Kara was actually created first and so was labelled Subject KrA. Connor was KrB.
KrA was expanded out to K-A-R-A. Kara. Dinah thinks Clark thought of it because it rhymed with Lara, his mother's name.
So anyway Dinah gets to be a mother and even if it was through illegal experiments she loves and cherishes them because in all likelihood she and Clark can't conceive a child the natural way. You know her human, him alien. It took a whole lot of those illegal experiments and many, many failed ones to produce Connor and Kara. Left to nature human and kryptonian DNA was very unlikely to combine.
Although as Clark jokes it doesn't mean they can't have fun trying to do it the natural way and they do have a lot of fun trying often. Especially up at Clark's little igloo in the snow where they can be all alone.
Dinah mentally laughs. He hates it when she calls his 'Fortress of Solitude' an igloo. In reality the structure that data crystal built was beyond a simple igloo. It was a huge place of massive interlocking crystal, designed to be a monument to Krypton. It was...beautiful beyond description. Just like Clark.
Dinah watches with loving eyes as Clark tries to stop Kara and Connor sniping at each other. For only 3 Kara was scarily clever, Dinah has to say. Dinah was certain there was more going on in that little blond head than Kara ever let anyone see.
Ok so she maybe being a little bit paranoid there she might just have to concede.
Dinah smiles as she watches because Clark is just great with the kids now and because she loves him so much.
Clark loves being a father. Make no mistake of that. True Connor's existence had been a shock and he hadn't handled it as well as he could have but on the plus side if he had acted in that positive fashion Dinah would never have had to tell him off and they would never had spent as much time together as they did.
If it wasn't for Connor they may have not gotten back together at all. Zatanna had made it clear during the period he was single that she was interested in starting something and Clark can't deny he wasn't interested. Zatanna is a beautiful woman but it never happened because he and Dinah had to look after Connor.
That meant they talked, resolved their issues, realised how much they still cared for each other and they restarted their relationship and he is so glad they got back together.
He loves her. He tells her that every day.
Back to his children they seemed to be constantly sniping at each other. It was like a battle of wits and Connor kept losing to his 3 year old sister which may explain why he's so grumpy so much of the time.
Dinah says they need to find him a girlfriend.
Well he has been hanging out with Donna a lot recently. Donna was...well like a superpowered Amazon in her early 20s. Turns out Donna had essentially retained a copy of her sister's powers more or less. Hippolyta had done an amazing job in taking the amnesic 15 or 16 year old as she was 5 years ago and turning her into a responsible young woman as Donna was now.
Sometimes, though, Clark wondered if Donna remembered some things that she shouldn't. Occasionally she would say odd remarks as if she was recalling the memories she was suppose to have lost. J'onn had scanned her mind many times and assured everyone there was nothing there and her DNA tests never showed up anything but Diana and Hippolyta's DNA but still Clark wondered.
Clark knew Bruce still wondered if hidden somewhere inside Donna was still that creature she almost turned into.
Hopefully that was Bruce just being paranoid about it because Clark was pretty certain Connor liked Donna and he hoped that something might happen there with his son and Donna if it would lead to Connor being happy.
"Snot," Connor mutters again at Kara.
"Big grumpy, meanie-head," Kara retorts as they continue their little sniping back and forth.
"Can we have one meal where you two don't fight, please," Clark says in some exasperation.
"She started it!/He started it!" Connor and Kara say at the same time blaming the other.
Clark looks to Dinah for help. She just ducks behind a menu, shaking her head and smiling in a way that told Clark he was on his own. She had given up trying to stop Connor and Kara. Deep down she knew they loved each other. Really, really deep down but still.
"I think I preferred fighting Zod," Clark mutters to himself. It was probably easier than looking after these 2.
He feels Dinah's hand reach out and take his at that and she squeezes it slightly. She knows it had hurt Clark to find some of his kin only to discover they were insane megalomaniac tyrants.
Clark looks at her and smiles warmly.
They had been through a lot, broke up, found out they had kids created by some secret organisation hell bent on their destruction and got back together. They weren't married...yet.
This part of their relationship was like many parts of their relationship. It wasn't perfect by any means but it was real. They had their differences, they had fights, they had fantastic make-up sex after the fights, they had their kids.
They had seen other worlds where they had other people as their partner but in this world it was just them.
Clark and Dinah.
And that was enough.
The End.