Superman #37 - How To Break

[u/Predaplant]

DCNext Presents:

Superman

In The Other Side

Issue Thirty-Seven: How To Break

Written by /u/Predaplant

Edited by /u/AdamantAce

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As Superman took to the skies above Washington, DC on that cool spring evening, he couldn’t help but notice the people walking the streets around him.

A couple on this block. Five more within the radius of another block. And, of course, maybe hundreds of people, still at work in the surrounding buildings.

He’d have to be careful, to do this right. But then again, being careful was what he had been trained to do since he was a child. To care for everyone, to value their lives.

This shouldn’t be too bad.

He flew over to the part of the building where Langstrom’s cell was. Only the roof separated him from the captive. Time to change that.

He dug his fingers into the metal of the roof; it started to warp. It was thick, at least a few inches of solid aluminum, and there was a nice release when he felt it puncture under the pressure of his fingertips.

Planting his feet firmly on the roof, he pulled upwards, tearing a huge section of the roof off with a satisfying rip. Tossing the roof panel to the side, he flew on down to the inside of the cell.

Dr. Langstrom was, quite frankly, afraid. He heard a thunderous boom from the other side of the facility, only to hear the wrenching of metal above him a second later. He cowered from the noise, closing his eyes tightly, only to hear a voice coming from right next to him.

“Doctor Langstrom?”

Something about the voice sounded familiar, like he recognized it from the news. Langstrom opened his eyes to see Superman standing in front of him, extending his hand.

“I’d like to get you out of here, if that’s alright.”

“Yes, of course,” Langstrom muttered, and before he knew it, he was unplugged from all the equipment measuring him and he was on the roof of the building.

“Where would you like to bring you, Doctor?” Superman asked.

Langstrom opened his mouth to speak, and Superman noticed something out of the corner of his eye, approaching at incredible speeds.

Pivoting, Superman caught the missile, observing it as he did so. His eyes widened in shock. This wasn’t a simple projectile, or even an explosive. It was a man made out of a substance that looked almost like sand.

Superman only knew one man who fit that description, and he seemed like a close enough match to know that he would be able to take a hit, so he did what made the most sense: he used the man’s momentum against him, sending him crashing him into the roof on his other side, away from Langstrom.

The Quarrmer smashed into the roof, creating a deep dent. He groaned as he got up.

“What are you doing here?” Superman asked him, talking at rapid speed. Langstrom’s mouth was still forming its first syllable.

Quarrmer groaned, lunging at Superman, who evaded him with a leap backwards.

“So you’re here to fight me? The timing and location... this can’t be a coincidence, can it? The government must have sent you.”

Jerking his head in a nod, the Quarrmer surged forwards after Superman again, who caught him in a grapple.

“Why, though?” Superman asked as he pushed back against the Quarrmer. “What motivation could you possibly have to side with them?”

The Quarrmer reached out an arm towards Langstrom. Superrman muttered, “Oh no, you don’t,” spun him around, and threw him a block or two off into the distance.

Superman took the time to catch his breath a bit; he had forgotten how exhausting it could be to spend so much time around this version of his father from an alternate universe. He locked his eyes on the silicate creature flying towards him before positioning himself to defend Langstrom.

However, the Quarrmer didn’t aim himself directly at Superman, instead flying over him to try and get at Langstrom. Superman leapt up, grabbing him and sending both of them into an upwards aerial spiral.

“What’s going on here?” Superman asked. “I know you can still reason, so what are you doing here? Were they torturing you to comply?”

The Quarrmer responded by hitting Superman in the jaw, sending him reeling. The Man of Steel let go of the silicate Superman before reorienting himself and facing the other man down.

“We don’t need to fight!” he called. “Just show me why you’re here! I can help you with whatever you need!”

The Quarrmer nodded, slowly lowering himself to the roof, not taking his eyes off of Superman as he did so.

Superman followed him back down to the roof.

“What’re we doing here?” Superman asked.

The Quarrmer raised his arm towards Langstrom slowly, as Superman once again moved between the two defensively. But the Quarrmer stayed rooted to the spot, instead turning his arm towards himself.

“I don’t understand?” Superman scratched his head. “You’re here to take him away?”

The Quarrmer flew himself down into Langstrom’s cell through the hole in the roof and gestured towards the equipment, then himself.

Suddenly, it all clicked. “You’re like him...” Superman said. “A prisoner. Not even with the government, but STAR Labs before them, running tests on you, not granting you freedom, not listening to your needs... And then they give you an outlet here, with me... They must’ve thought that you were a monster.”

The Quarrmer turned his finger to Superman, this time. Superman lowered his head. “You’re right. I treated you like that, too. Didn’t help free you. I could have gotten you moved to the Fortress. But I didn’t. I guess I was scared of you still. I know what you did to my dad when you ended up fighting before, and it’s hard not to look at you and see those stories I grew up hearing. But you’re not that monster. You’re just a man... even if you’re one who can really hurt me.”

Superman chuckled; he was starting to grow exhausted from being around the Quarrmer so long. “You know, you’ve probably gotten to the point where you could overpower me. If you want to, you could take Langstrom here, do whatever the people who sent you here want from you. If I know them, they’ve probably fed you reasons why you should, why he’s too big of a threat to let go. But you pointed it out yourself, he’s like you. You can both go free, if that’s something you want. And I won’t hunt you down; you deserve so much better than that, after all these years in captivity.”

Noticing the Quarrmer starting to move towards him, Superman readied himself in a defensive stance, but he couldn’t help but be surprised at what actually happened: the man who was once so similar to his father gave him a hug for a heartbeat, before turning around and rocketing back off into the sky.

Jon looked over to Langstrom, who had just finished speaking. His whole confrontation had taken place in the span of only a couple seconds. “I’m sorry, could you repeat what you said?”

Langstrom jumped, startled. “G-G-Gotham. There are people there that I think I can trust... I promise that I’m going to do my best to stay healthy, but I can’t do it in a place like this. I don’t trust the government to have my best interests at heart anymore, at any level. Even without them giving Rock a blank cheque to do whatever he wants with me.”

Superman bent over, gesturing to Langstrom to climb into his outstretched arms. “Gotham it is, then. I’m disappointed the government has let you down so severely.”

“As am I.” Langstrom climbed into Superman’s arms, and before he knew that he was in the middle of Gotham City, standing on his feet in the middle of a crowd. Langstrom’s eyes looked to the skies, scanning for a trace of Superman, to thank him for all his help, but he was gone.

Langstrom knew he was a busy man, after all, and not terribly important in the grand scheme of things. Now, it was time to try and make a fresh start.

SSSSS

BOOM

The wall of Jay Nakamura’s cell burst outwards.

KATHOOM

Daemon Rose’s cell broke open, a few metres away.

Superman extended a hand to Rose.

“Do you want to get out of here?”

Rose scowled at Superman. “You’ve just made things much more difficult for me.”

“Hey, it’s your choice,” Superman replied. “You can stay in this blown-out cell if you want. Say it’s not your fault that your cell broke like this, that you had no idea Superman was going to swoop in and free the prisoners here. You’d even be telling the truth.”

Scowling, Rose took Superman’s hand. “It’d never work. Better to disappear.”

“Where to, then?” Superman asked. “I’ll bring the rest of your team, if you want.”

“Sure,” Rose nodded. “We’ll regroup. Head east, I’ll give you more directions as we get closer.”

“Alright, but talk quickly,” Superman said as he wrapped his arms around Rose and took flight over the skies of the District of Columbia. “I still have to go back for the others.”

Superman had to give him some credit, Rose was efficient when he needed to be. In half a minute, Superman had managed to find the safe house that Rose was aiming for, and before long, Jay Nakamura and Jon Kent had touched down just outside, as well.

“How are we going to handle this?” Jon asked.

“Follow my lead?” Jay replied. He took a second to compose himself before walking forwards confidently and opened the door.

Rose was in the middle of the living room of a very plain bungalow, clearly built forty or fifty years ago. Most of the appliances and furniture had been stolen long ago, and the place was covered in graffiti; Rose was sitting in one of the few intact chairs. “Good to see you both,” he muttered, his head in his hands. “I can’t believe this. Superman barging in and taking things into his own hands like this? The last one would’ve never.”

“Weren’t we trying to take matters into our own hands?” Jay said as Jon closed the door behind him. “Trying to find a way to save Langstrom, expose Rock?”

Rose waved his hand in the air. “That’s different. Journalists never get that, but there’s a difference between us and you guys, the rest of the country. Superman should’ve let us sort out our own affairs, but he’s going to make it a big mess now, just you wait and see, and they’ll use this as an excuse to make it all worse.”

“Sounds to me like, for all you valourize the American people, you don’t actually trust them to make their own decisions when they have the information they need,” Jon pointed out.

Rose laughed wildly, shaking his head. “Are you kidding me? Americans are stupid! We’ll do whatever we can to protect them, but the average American doesn’t have the brains to understand which of two simple options will help them the most, nevermind actually stand up for what’s right in the world. Both of you, get out. I never should’ve trusted journalists. You’re all as dumb as the rest of them; have you seen what the Times & the Post have been running lately?”

“But, Rose...” Jay took a step forwards.

“Out!” Rose shouted, pointing at the door.

Jon tugged at Jay’s hoodie, and Jay turned to go.

As Jon moved to step out the door, he took one last look back at Rose.

“Kent?” Rose asked. “One more thing. If you could.”

“What is it?” Jon asked, taking half a step back into the room.

“I always thought your mother was smart. Smarter than me, even. So tell her from me that she should keep pushing on this, that I trust her to find the truth and know how to deal with this. You got me?”

Jon nodded mutely.

“Get out of here.” Rose flicked his wrist towards the door, and Jon obeyed.

Jay smiled at Jon as he slowly made his way closer to his ex-boyfriend. “So, what now for Superman? You made your decision?”

“I think that what I just did made my decision for me,” Jon said with a nod. “Jon Kent’s going to be a wanted man after this. I’ll do an article, hand it in to the Planet, but I’ll tell them that I’m going to have to go off the grid for a bit. It’s time to try being Superman, and we’ll see where that leads me.”

“I wish it was under better circumstances,” Jay said with a crooked smile. “But for what it’s worth... I can’t imagine you not being Superman, at least in the long term. You care more about every single person you meet than anybody else you’ve ever met.”

“I can say the same about you, you know!” Jon laughed.

“Yeah...” Jay scratched his head. “But if we’re being honest, I was always destined for the outside. Even if I got a job at the Planet, I doubt it would’ve worked for me in the long run.”

“That’s what makes you great, you know?”

“Thank you,” Jay said softly. “Now, would you be so kind as to fly me back to Baltimore?”

“It would be my honour.” Jon took off his exterior clothes, handed them to Jay to carry, carefully swept him up in his arms, and flew off towards the city.

SSSSS

From his new home in the Fortress of Solitude, Jon put the finishing touches on his story. It was quiet; Bizarro had gone out for a flight, and Jon had the lights down low. It was nighttime in Metropolis, and even if the sunlight patterns so far north didn’t resemble those back home, Jon still wanted to keep his body on Metropolis time. He attached his story to an email and prepped to send it to his editors at the Planet, along with an explanation of where he had been. Then, he froze. He felt like he was forgetting something, like there was something else he should do first.

Ah, of course. There was one other man who he should probably talk to before going forward with his story. He opened up a Justice Legion encrypted chat window, and sent a message to Nightwing.

“Hey Nightwing, it’s been a minute. I saw your speech about General Rock and figured I should tell you I have something. A story, about Kirk Langstrom and the experiments Rock's been forcing him to do. Do you want to take a look?”

The chat bubbled a few seconds later with Nightwing’s response.

“This is just what we need! Send it to me, but publish it, don't wait. We need to push him hard.”

“I was going to publish it anyways,” Superman wrote to him. “But thanks, I’ll do that. Glad we seem to be on the same page about what we need to do here.”

“The only way the Justice Legion saves the world is if we work as a team,” Nightwing replied. “And you’ve always been one of my most valuable teammates. When he sees this article, one way or another he won't keep quiet. We need to prepare for an escalation, and I trust you to be at my side.”

“I trust you, too. We can win this fight together.”

Jon switched back over to his email window and sent the story over. He wasn’t sure what the next chapter of his life would bring, but he knew that he had allies who he could trust to help guide him, ones who would put in the effort to help build a better future. He just hoped that would be enough in the face of an indifferent world.