Chapter Text
Lancer was a man who knew all too well what following your life’s passion often meant: Suffering alone, and suffering in silence.
Not always.
But…it sure happened enough.
For Lancer, it was his bizarre mix of majors and minors that landed him squarely in the unsociable zone, partially due to how he was doomed to vigorous study to keep up with a double major in Literary Arts and Historical Anthropology. Although, it was definitely due to his pursuit of two Masters degrees in Education and Developmental Psychology and Historical Preservation that killed his social life forever.
Lancer learned the hard way that his area of specific interest, even within those fields, was less than appealing to his peers.
However, for Lancer’s ex-boyfriend from high school, following your life’s passion meant breaking up with him weeks before graduation to join the army, disappearing into some special forces unit, and apparently dying in combat or something. Unfortunately, Lancer didn’t know for sure.
Life went on. Lancer walked across stage after stage with a terminal lack of friends.
He got his teaching license and became a high school teacher.
He found joy in listening to the games his kids loved, and secretly becoming the best player in every game he could so his kids wouldn’t feel so listless. Knowing about the games, and being able to dangle the olive branch of ‘the more work you finish, the more time you have to play’ worked extremely well with teens. It shouldn’t have worked as well as it did, but the apathy-to-spite pipeline was amazing.
He drowned in debts.
He partnered with niche research institutions no one was really interested in and wrote papers that were published and seemingly went straight into the void at a hundred miles an hour. Lost teaching arts were dug up from extinction and pieced back together by Lancer’s hands. He gained Doctorates after his Masters. He was an expert in his field. He was a nobody.
He spent every night alone in his old, run down house on the edge of Amity Park. It was affordable. Quiet. He built a massive bookshelf in his basement-turned-home study.
Eventually, he could sleep at night without worrying about the debts.
One day, as Lancer watched his students take a test on the rise and fall of Sparta, an email found itself in his inbox. That itself wasn’t strange. Lancer was harassed by emails constantly.
It was weird because it came from a news station several states away.
The email, while claiming to be for professional reasons, was an inquiry for a personal matter.
Dear Professor L. Lancer,
My name is Clark Kent. I am a journalist associated with the Daily Planet in Metropolis. I’m emailing you in regards to an interest in the papers you have released that indicate an early contact with other civilizations of the greater universe as marked by a significantly abstract change in approach and regard to pre-established ancient civilizations.
I was wondering if I would be able to pick your brain on the logistics of one of those potential civilizations being that of Krypton. I understand that this topic is quite a small field of study, but I am still interested to hear if you would be willing to meet with me, either online or in person.
Please feel free to reach out to me at any point in time, even if it’s to decline. I thank you for your time,
Clark Kent,
Daily Planet Journalist
Lancer couldn’t help but re-read the email a couple times as he tried to figure out which of his papers had the journalist connecting his papers to aliens.
He glanced at the clock.
“Alright, students. You have exactly twenty-six minutes left to complete your test. When you’re finished, feel free to come and hand it in after reviewing your answers, and head out early for lunch today,” Lancer smiled.
He turned his attention back to his computer.
Dear Clark,
Admittedly, it is not often that someone contacts me regarding research and academics. Additionally, I do not have an incredibly in-depth knowledge of Krypton or its history in order to speculate such a connection at this time.
My focus tends to stray into the advancements in cognition and abstract conceptual integration throughout lost periods of civilization, or through periods of history in which there is a significant potential for the information regarding the development of, and implementation of, those lost arts. This is particularly so when regarding lost information and its restoration. Krypton would be a fascinating exploration into restoration at an incredibly grandiose scale as well as an interesting point of contention in some academic circles as to the prior records of interstellar contacts.
I’d be more than happy to schedule a time to discuss this further. As the journalist partially known for recording the exploits of Superman, I imagine you have gathered quite an amount of expertise on the subject. Consider me intrigued.
Due to my location, I highly doubt meeting in person is possible at this time. However, I am more than willing to meet online. I do teach during the day, but I am free every day from 12:00pm-1:45pm, or any time after 3:00pm.
Please feel free to get back to me with a preferred date and time that works best for you to meet.
Thank you for your inquiry,
L. Lancer
Mr. Kent had emailed him articles from the Justice League themselves on Krypton and its known history. Granted, those documents were redacted and thin regardless of the redactions.
Lance Lancer was no stranger to redacted documents. Metaphorically speaking, redactions were his entire focus. That made it very interesting when he read the documents Clark had sent, and had to ask himself what kind of tyrannical civilization the Kryptonians had to be in order to conquer worlds with relative ease.
It was a fascinating read that had him deep-diving into the archives where he suspected such a thing may be hinted.
If someone had told Lance back in high school that one day a reporter would be having an earnest academic discussion with him about the potential validity of a near-extinct civilization of alliances making contact with the ancient civilizations of earth and influencing their growth, he might have asked his boyfriend at the time to punch them. That was saying something, considering Lancer would have rather punched them himself than have Slade take care of things on his behalf.
“I admit I have a personal interest in looking into the Kryptonians,” Clark joked with a grin. He pushed his glasses up on his nose as he leaned into the camera with more excitement than he probably meant to show.
“I can see why,” Lancer nodded, “Given that the Kryptonians are well understood to be an advanced alien race of similar capabilities as ourselves when on a planet further from the sun than our Earth is, it is an interesting path of academics to look into. If Kryptonians made it to Earth, would they not stay, and if not, why? Admittedly, I never cared much for extraterrestrial pursuits of history before.”
Considering Lancer was often harassed by ghosts that loved disrupting his lessons, and were very often not… well, definitely-human. Humanoid? Perhaps.
Lancer watched Clark’s face raise into a bright smile.
“I’m happy to add it to my research and publish what I find, if that was your intent on reaching out to discuss things with me,” Lancer offered, “I won’t lie. It’s caught my interest.”
“Really?”
“Yes, it has,” Lancer hummed as he flipped through his own notes off screen.
“I didn’t think that the world’s leading researcher in the restoration of ancient cultures would be interested in this stuff, really,“ Clark admitted with a flush, “No one else was, or they were just conspiracy theorists.”
“That’s… not quite accurate. Regardless, while my work wasn’t necessarily directed towards interstellar cultural recovery, I’m not opposed to it,” Lancer hummed, “The fact that my existing work has… semi-raised the question of a connection at all is admittedly curious enough for me to look into it. Even if on a basic level.”
“Yes!” Clark beamed before he tried to reign himself in quickly from the over-excitement. He cleared his throat, "Do you mind if we keep in regular contact?”
“Not at all. I look forward to getting to know you throughout this,” Lancer chuckled as he slid his book to the side, “When it comes time to publish, how do you want to be credited?”
Lancer watched what remained of the flush vanish, overtaken by a white tint.
“Actually, I’d really rather not be credited in any way,” Clark began anxiously. He fixed his glasses again as he held a hand aloft, “I don’t want to seem, you know…”
“It’s alright. I don’t need an explanation.”
As far as piecing together a dead culture’s lost methods of rearing, and the evolution of cognition and abstract conceptualization that would allow both educational and evolutionary milestones large enough to reach a point where it matched with published data of Krypton and it’s society and biology could possibly go from a research and hypothesis standpoint, Lancer figured he was doing okay.
In a way, it was the ultimate test for Lancer.
Could he decode enough of Krypton’s educational and cultural arts to clearly define the growth and influence contained within Kryptonian culture itself, and, in doing so, clearly (or as clearly as possible) discern the methods that the Kryptonians used in their paths to conquer entire planets.
Maybe Lancer wasn’t as honest with Clark as he could have been regarding exactly what he was looking into.
It was for the best.
Lancer had to tell himself that it really was for the best.
If Clark was correct about the Kryptonians visiting Earth and influencing it enough to create cultural shifts and developments in the educational arts, then why wasn’t Earth another Krypton?
Lancer stayed in close contact with the overexcited reporter. Even as far as erratically passionate and quirky reporters went (and Amity had a few of them), Clark Kent took the cake.
Then again, it was extremely clear that Clark Kent was a nerd.
He showed an avid interest in Lancer’s work, even past the Krypton Inquiry. It was kind of cute considering Clark didn’t seem to get half of it. The study of education evolution, restoration, and preservation was definitely not most people’s strength, certainly not in the extremes that Lancer himself had taken the studies.
In Lancer’s very specific case, he had to wonder if he was alone in his studies. It wouldn’t change much if he was or wasn’t. The research institute that Lancer worked with approved his research proposal with the same distance his academic advisors did back in university.
They approved his proposal regardless.
Lancer went to work.
“I was wondering if you’d be at all interested in meeting up in person?” Clark grinned at him during their now-commonplace lunch calls. If Clark had moved his lunch back to accommodate how Lance seemed to always be saddled with lunch monitoring duty at his high school, well, Lance would never know.
Lancer covered his mouth with the back of his hand as he pulled up his calendar on his laptop, “I can’t go this weekend, but next weekend I can take a trip to Metropolis? If that works?”
“... You wanna come to Metropolis?” Clark perked up with a grin.
“Well, Amity’s a little unpredictable. Hotel’s are… the city has issues with being the most haunted place in North America for a reason,” Lancer shrugged, “Frankly, I could use a plane ride and a weekend where I read fictional literature for fun and met up with you.”
“Awesome! It’s a date!... Wait!”
Lancer smirked at the flustered reporter, “Yes, Clark, it’s a date .”