It started to rain – fat, heavy drops that reduced visibility to a few feet and made the ugliness of an hour-long commute to Richard's new apartment even more frustrating than usual. He'd looked for a place in the city, but the prices… There had just been no point, since he was moving to New York next week.

He didn't want to move to New York. It certainly wasn't going to do any good for his custody case or for his career, but staying was proving to be an impossible proposition. He felt like he was being pushed out of Metropolis, by Lois and her life, and he resented it. A lot.

The radio station that had been playing music interrupted it for news of a series of terrorist bombings in Romania, and oh, how wonderful, Superman had just arrived on the scene. Richard turned it off.

"When do I go back to Mommy? I forget."

"Two days. Unless I keep you forever." Richard looked over his shoulder at the happy little boy in the backseat and winked, although he wasn't entirely convinced that he was joking.

Jason grinned. "You can't do that, Daddy!"

"Oh yeah? Just watch me, kiddo." Traffic was picking up again as they left the outer fringes of the city, heading into another patch of suburbia. He flicked the wiper blades to a faster setting. "What sounds good for dinner?"

"Pizza!"

Richard made a game-show buzzer noise. "Nice try, but nope."

"I can eat the cheese and the tomato sauce and the pepperoni," Jason said in a pleading whine. "Mommy lets me."

Mommy lets me. Three words to win every argument.

There were days when he wished Jason wasn't so smart.

"Well, we'll see," he said, carefully holding his voice neutral.

Up ahead flashing taillights caught his attention. He slowed automatically, trying to see what was going on.

A car was stopped on the shoulder of the road with its emergency flashers on. There was a woman standing next to the vehicle, huddled under an umbrella, looking miserable and anxious. It was a stretch of highway without a lot of businesses – just one big office building, which was plainly closed and empty. Other drivers were whizzing past without pause.

Richard felt a tug of sympathy. He would've liked some help himself, earlier. And he sure knew what it felt like to be abandoned to the wolves by the rest of the world.

"Hold on," he said to Jason, pulling over. "I'm just going to see if this lady needs any help, okay?"

"Okay," Jason said. He had his Superman ring out and was swooping it through the air.

"Don't take off your seatbelt. I'll be right back."

He got out of the car, shutting the door but leaving the engine on for Jason's sake, and was soaked to the skin well before he reached the woman. "Hi," he said, raising his voice over the noise of traffic and weather. "Need some help?"

"Yes, thank you," she said, relieved. "There's something wrong with the engine." She was older than he'd thought, and not a local – she had a precise British accent, although he thought he caught a hint of another underneath that. Something Slavic, maybe.

"Your engine, huh." Richard's expertise with engines ran to small aircraft. Moreover, he didn't really want to play mechanic in the middle of a monsoon, with his kid waiting in the car. The rain wasn't doing anything to rinse off the black grease on his clothes. "Uh… Do you have a cell phone?"

She shook her head. "No, I don't."

"I can call someone for you, if you want."

"No," she said as he reached for the phone in his pocket, and the sudden whipcrack of authority in her voice made him pause. He blinked and she was holding a gun in her free hand, pointed at his chest. "I don't. Keep your hands out, where I can see them. Are you Richard White?"

"Who –"

"No talking," she ordered. The accent was thicker, more clipped; the air of helplessness was gone. "That's your son in the car? Jason White?"

Dread settled in the pit of his stomach, swift and horrible. He glanced at his car and saw a black SUV pull up behind it. "Why do you want Jason?" he demanded.

The woman's mouth twitched in a cruel smile. "Because he's not your son."

Richard felt a raw fury rise up and take over, blotting out reason and good sense. He looked at the smug expression on the woman's face and swung a fist at her jaw.

It connected.

She staggered.

The gun went off, but it missed him.

He turned and ran back towards the car, back towards Jason, heart pounding, getting the driver's door open before the woman was there again, knocking him down somehow, holding the gun on him. Pressed to his head this time. Raindrops spattered and pinged against the barrel.

There were cars driving past. People driving past. What was wrong with them, that they didn't notice this?

And where the hell was Superman?

"Daddy?!" Jason cried, scared, pulling against his seatbelt.

Richard wanted to answer him, reassure him, but he couldn't. The words stuck in his throat as lies. Pain was spreading through his back where he'd fallen against the car. The metal O of the gun barrel hurt where it dug into his scalp.

"Don't move," the woman said flatly. She had to raise her voice; the door ajar tone was sounding in a continuous implacable whine. "We are going to take the boy."

"No," Richard spat. Every fiber of his body wanted to come up off the ground and fight, but the gun at his head was holding him in check. Don't get hurt, he was thinking, you have to save Jason, can't save him if you're hurt. Can't protect him if you're dead. "No, you're not. Don't even try to-"

She was ignoring him. She looked up and nodded at someone he couldn't see. The back door opened and Jason made a frightened noise, then yelped in pain.

"Jason! That's my son!" Richard yelled at the woman, not forgetting but no longer caring about the gun. He had to get to Jason - He had to protect Jason, he had to stop them - He surged up, pushing, shouting, "You can't -"

There was a sound like the universe shattering.

And then nothing.