<\/p>\n
Tony sloshes remnants of a vodka sour around the ice in his glass. It creates just enough clatter, draws the attention of the bartender.<\/p>\n
The redhead. The one who will have a limo waiting for her in the rear of the bar at the end of her shift. Tony is still uncertain whether he\u2019ll be waiting for her inside.<\/p>\n
The air changes \u2013 like it always does, has, and will \u2013 the moment Clark enters. He inhales the beer sweats, the sweet meat of roasted rabbit leg on the small plate in the darkened booth in the back corner.
\nAll of it crowded out by the scent of urinal cakes.
\nSmell is the one supersense he\u2019d gladly relinquish.<\/p>\n
Clark removes his fedora as he approaches the man in the Yves Saint Laurent suit. Tony would be out of place in this city anywhere other than the LexCorp cafeteria.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can see your liver right now,\u201d Clark says, \u201cWant a visual?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cThat\u2019s a fun party trick.
\nIt make you many friends?\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cA warted sirloin.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThanks,\u201d Tony deadpans. \u201cI think.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cI\u2019m just saying.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red makes her way down the bar toward Tony and Clark.<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cAnother of these for me.
\nA G&T for my friend. Hold the G.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cActually, I\u2019ll take a Manhattan, thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red smiles at both men, turns to the shelves behind the bar, selects bottles, begins to pour.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cWhen did you fall off?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSix weeks ago. There was a thing.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cPepper?\u201d Clark guesses.<\/p>\n
\u201cI wish. No, just another problem that I couldn\u2019t make disappear behind a pile of money, or a tin man\u2019s suit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cWorld\u2019s full of them.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cTell me about it,\u201d Tony concedes.<\/p>\n
The pair wrap themselves in the silence that sweeps over them. Red turns around, drinks in hand.<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cOn my tab, thank you.\u201d<\/p>\n
Glasses clink. An auburn ponytail swishes across the silk of a vest. Tony thinks about the limo,
\nswigs his drink in a single tilt. Clark follows suit, but more slowly. As the drink slides down the back of Clark\u2019s throat, hypersensitive cellular defenses incinerate the alcohol. He\u2019s never gotten so much as a buzz. Only more reminders he\u2019s forever chasing mortality.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cWhat happened?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cA letter.\u201d The three vodka sours already in him keep his eyes from pooling. \u201cA mother. Some kid\u2019s mom. Her son thought all heroes were infallible. Like gods.\u201d Tony picks up his glass, realizes
\nit\u2019s empty, swings it toward Clark.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cYou know that\u2019s not true. Not possible. Not by half.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark removes his horn rims. Tony, not for the first time, marvels at how little it takes to conceal one\u2019s self.<\/p>\n
The bar is nearly empty now. Tony checks his volume, \u201cHe discovered I wasn\u2019t perfect.\u201d He spins his glass in the condensation ring on the bar. \u201cThought it was permission. Decided if I could, he could. Went on a bender, poisoned himself. Spent two days in a coma before mom pulled the plug.\u201d He pauses. \u201cSeems she wrote the letter the day of the funeral.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark exhales. His glass turns frosty, but he warms it again with a glare.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cShit.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony motions to Red who is at the end of the bar counting minutes, trying to look busy folding and refolding towels. She sets to work on another round. Tony decides then he\u2019ll be in the limo. Waiting.<\/p>\n
Red delivers the next round, reaches under the bar to a radio. Alt rock replaced by Thelonious Monk. Neither man speaks for a while as percussions rise and piano slips into a jagged backbeat. Tony opens his mouth to speak when a trumpet erupts from the speakers.
\nHe let\u2019s the thought fade.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cWe can\u2019t catch them all. They fall, we fall \u2013 or stumble \u2013 and they see us as having no excuse.\u201d Tony ruminates on this and takes a drink. He wonders how many vodka sours it would take. How many have come and gone. The numbers. Realizes it doesn\u2019t make a damn difference.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cYou know I have to keep an entire city in a bell jar?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cMight have heard something about that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark shakes his head, \u201cAn entire city. Feels like a metaphor.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cHow so?\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark stares at his reflection in the bar mirror, organizes thoughts. \u201cMy presence here, on earth. No one
\nknows what to do with that. I get out far enough, I picture having placed the entire human race under a jar. They look up, see me, know they can\u2019t compete. Give up. Or worse, set out to kill me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony thinks on that. No metal suit will ever make them equals.<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cYeah, but.
\nWe weren\u2019t doing so hot before you either.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cBut what hasn\u2019t happened because of me? Would people strive harder? Would they be farther along?\u201d<\/p>\n
The billionaire, playboy, philanthropist has no answer to that.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cI met this guy once. He had a condition, synaesthesia. He saw numbers and words as colors.
\nSounds translated into lights. Found him trying to recreate the experience on the walls of a church at the corner of Siegel and Schuster.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cI know that one. Big place, lots of gilt on the architecture.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s the place. He told me that men\u2019s and women\u2019s voices appeared in separate places in his field of vision.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony, rolling his eyes: \u201cLet me guess. Yours was unlike any he\u2019d seen before.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cActually, no.
\nSaid mine was the same as anyone else\u2019s. Surprised both of us.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony who, five minutes ago was sure this whole idea had been a mistake, feels his jaw sag a bit. Snaps it back quick as he notices.<\/p>\n
Clark puts a hand on Tony\u2019s shoulder, \u201cIt\u2019s not about being a hero. It\u2019s living heroically. Righting
\nwhat\u2019s wrong with ourselves. Finding the version that\u2019s true as possible.\u201d
\nClark looks down at Tony\u2019s glass. Tony shrinks from the grip, but Clark holds tight. Red passes by, it\u2019s last call.<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cThere\u2019s no better version of you at the bottom of that glass. It wasn\u2019t at the bottom of the last one. You won\u2019t see it through the bottom of the next.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cNothing that hasn\u2019t occurred to me already, thanks.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cBut you thought about it.
\nOn some level, that means you know it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red drops off the bill with Tony\u2019s black credit card. She\u2019s written, \u201cThanks,\u201d a winking smiley face
\nunderneath it. Tony scrawls a wavering line, after doubling the total for her tip. He thinks about Red, and the kid. All the things he won\u2019t see, the people he won\u2019t meet, the heroes he\u2019d discover. The ones that would still \u2013 somehow \u2013 let him down.<\/p>\n
Clark finishes his Manhattan. Knocks the bottom of the tumbler on the pine. Red reaches for the radio, Monk\u2019s last few bars reverberate in empty space.<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cThanks for meeting me. Honestly.\u201d<\/p>\n
Clark: \u201cAnytime. Thanks for the drinks.\u201d<\/p>\n
The two men embrace. Tony can tell Clark is holding back, but Tony can\u2019t discern if it\u2019s for safety or by choice. Probably wouldn\u2019t be easier were he sober.<\/p>\n
Clark, whispering: \u201cWhat I\u2019m trying to say is that the world needs both of us. And all other kinds of heroes.\u201d<\/p>\n
He watches Clark depart. He\u2019s back in Kent mode. Slouching just enough to throw off suspicion. Red picks up the receipt. Her eyes grow two sizes.<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cHow soon you closing up?\u201d<\/p>\n
Red: \u201c\u2019Bout twenty minutes. Just need to count the till.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cThere\u2019ll be a ride out back. Give the driver your keys. He\u2019ll arrange getting your car home.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red draws back, throws him a skeptical look.<\/p>\n
Red: \u201cNo strings?\u201d<\/p>\n
A momentary hesitation then, \u201cNo strings.\u201d<\/p>\n
Red: \u201cThank you, Mr. Stark.\u201d A knowing grin.<\/p>\n
Out in the frigid night, Tony draws his coat close, flips up the collar. He arranges the limo on his handheld. Walks three blocks to the gray Town Car. Jarvis already has the seats warmed, the temperature a soothing seventy-seven.<\/p>\n
Jarvis: \u201cHave a good evening, sir?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cNot the worst ever.\u201d<\/p>\n
Jarvis: \u201cHome then?\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony: \u201cNot tonight, my friend.
\nLet\u2019s just drive a while.
\nI need to think.\u201d<\/p>\n
***<\/p>\n
Nine minutes ago:<\/p>\n
Clark steps through the door of the bar. Luckily, the streets are mostly empty at this hour on a weekday. A couple holding hands walks away from him. Three college kids on the corner across the street are all looking at their phones, faces illuminated by LCD glow. Funny how phones still provide him cover, he thinks.<\/p>\n
A blur and he\u2019s up, up, away. Out over the city lights, he sheds his suit, watches shirt, coat and slacks fall away in thin air. Blue and red fabric from an extinct planet suck at his skin. His feet are bare. In seconds, he\u2019s suspended over the plains of Kansas. The lights below him: sparse and winking out with reassuring uniformity.<\/p>\n
An image manifests in his mind. His father on the combine kicking up clouds in his wake. Specks of dirt sticking to his own skin, the feel of the grit as he trails the machine, chasing down a dust devil. In everything he\u2019s seen, every disaster averted, nothing ever made him feel so purely human. The life of a farmer wouldn\u2019t have been easy, but it is the one he knows best.<\/p>\n
He lives two lives, but ones he can\u2019t trouble him most. He puts them in jars in his mind, pulls one off the shelf at moments like these and watches other Kal-Els navigate existences mundane and extraordinary. They are endless \u2013 fascinating \u2013 the ones who don\u2019t have to be a hero to superheroes.<\/p>\n
He looks east, watches Tony walk away from the bar to a car. A deep cobalt limo arrives where the evening began. An explosion to the west draws his attention back to his path. La Plata, Colorado.<\/p>\n
Another blur, and he is gone.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
(This is a work of fan fiction and there are no claims being made to the characters referenced this work.)<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tony sloshes remnants of a vodka sour around the ice in his glass. It creates just enough clatter, draws the attention of the bartender. The redhead. The one who will have a limo waiting for her in the rear of the bar at the end of her shift. Tony is still uncertain whether he\u2019ll […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2252,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[102,101],"class_list":["post-2251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-fan-fiction","tag-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2251"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2254,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2251\/revisions\/2254"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/2252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/erichowald.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}