Man Of Steel

One of the most notable things that Anton could ever remember doing was double crossing the Ghost Rider and his merry band of holy nitwits into thinking he was just some lost and stupid kid, too soft to protect himself from an angel bounty hunter. It was a fun gig and it led him to the invasion of Heaven - and his subsequent defeat - but it was one of the many, many situations where not a single soul had ever thanked him. For anything. Ever. At least, nothing from the heart. Nothing that anyone meant and certainly nothing from any good deed that Anton certainly never performed.

It made his skin crawl. He didn’t hate it - which made him hate it. “Oh.” Anton started and started at the dollhouse a little too long. “Don’t mention it,” he brushed off with a tight smile, hoping with every fiber of his demonly being that that was the last of it. 

“I’m going to mention it,” Clark said, not wanting it to be brushed away. “I haven’t exactly been welcoming to you since I came here. I judged you more harshly than I had any right to.” Despite who he was, and despite the things that had seemed obvious to Clark, it still hadn’t been his place to do it. He shouldn’t have. He should have trusted Kara’s own judgement more. She’d clearly seen something in Anton, or perhaps she’d just manifested something in him. Either way, Clark had brushed it away too easily. 

When: Present Where: Star City - Kent Household  With: Clark @kryptoniansteel​

Zach may have been out of the city when it happened, but he’d been filled in quickly enough about how the mission against NOVA went. A success? In some ways sure, the hero ban was gone, a relief to them all but… the losses had been heavy. Hell, he didn’t even know Batman and was an acquaintance at best with some Robins but, Clark had hit him harder then he’d like to admit. 

Back in his younger years he’d pretty much worshipped the ground the guy flew over and, like everyone else, he’d only spurned any attempts at kindness as he’d gotten older. Now though, he was trying, he really was, to be a little better. People weren’t completely awful, he’d just had many years of bad luck with them. 

So, he knocked on the door of the family house (locator spells came in very handy) with his dove Friede perched on his shoulder for support, and waited.

.

Clark hadn’t seen Zach in awhile, and their last interaction in Star City had been disconcerting. He’d certainly not been the young, excited kid that he remembered. He was not the type to give up hope in people, though, especially when he knew at their core there was something else. Still, they hadn’t had much interaction and he was surprised to open the door and see him. 

[ @kryptoniansteel ]

Perhaps some sun would do them both good. It was a chance, a good chance he would say no, but Diana had to try. She ached - they all did. But there was no point in hiding away in the covers, as if that ever helped anyone. She knew better than anyone that it couldn’t.

None of this was Clark’s fault. Not an ounce of it, and yet it weighed heavily on his shoulders. Everyone could see it. It was why she wanted to urge him outside, at least for the sunshine if nothing else. She would sit in silence if she had to. Diana stood outside his door, hair pulled back and overall put together. She hid a tiredness behind her gaze as she waited for him to answer.

Worse case, maybe she could open a window?

Some faces hurt a little more to see than others. Diana and Bruce had both been his best friends for so long, yet they had both been so much better at doing what they were all meant to do. They were actual heroes and Clark, with all of his gifts and abilities, felt like a fraud. It had taken him too long to put the cape back on, and once he had he’d been unable to protect both the city he’d settled in and the people he cared about. 

Clark looked… well, it wasn’t the same man that Conner was used to seeing every time he showed back up. There wasn’t that same warmth that seemed to radiate from the man’s eyes. “I just got back really. Haven’t really settled into the apartment that much even.” He spoke. He was thankful that Lex had given him access to a rather sizeable expenses account. It made the transition into the City easier and he could spend less time worrying about needing to take up mechanic jobs just to make ends meet. Still, he was a modest person and had never really had a need to learn materialistic tendencies, so he still didn’t exactly own that much to really settle in with.

“I heard about everything that happened…” He began. Better to just rip the band-aid off, right? “I’m.. sorry I wasn’t here. I should have been, but I was… preoccupied.” He explained quietly as he stepped into the room and looked around. 

Reluctantly, Zatanna stood from the couch, thinning her lips in contemplation. She had people who expressed their concerns, but she reassured them that she was fine. The desire to work grew, urging her manager to allow her to assist with cleaning the theater after each performance. As such, the exhaustion from the past few nights took its toll on her lower backside, eliciting a hiss moments after standing up. 

She slipped on her black heels before slowly making her way towards the front door. Her arms crossed loosely against her chest. Dark brown eyes narrowed its gaze, eyebrows furrowed the closer she got. She stopped a few inches shy of the front, clearing her throat and calling out to the visitor on the other side.

“Yes?”

“I wondered if you could use some company,” he offered as he heard her through the door, hoping she’d recognize his voice. He could use company, preferably somewhere besides his house, and not the kind who’d come there to offer him pity or tell him that something wasn’t his fault. Hearing that a hundred times had not really made it feel less like something he was responsible for. 

@kryptoniansteel

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Lois didn't know what to do. The news of Bruce's death was still vibrating in her skull, the words fresh and hollow-feeling, and she couldn't bring herself to repeat them in the silence. There was no denying that something was wrong. She sat stubbornly silent, her lips pressed together as her fingers worked through the back of Clark's hair, and she took another breath. As much as she didn't want to be the one to tell Clark, she also didn't want anyone else to do it. It was her voice he would have to remember uttering those heavy words, the ones she was so reluctant to say, and she barely recognized her own voice when she finally managed to tell him.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, as if that would undo the reality of Bruce's death, and her eyes were closed when she hugged him. Lois had been home with Kara and Eva for over an hour. They were all unharmed, though Kara and Eva suffered the aftereffects of kryptonite contact, but Lucy was gone. No one told Clark yet, though she suspected he already knew.

.

It felt selfish to get any kind of relief, but it wasn’t as if he could stop it. Once he’d been able to see Lois, Jon, Kara, and Eva with his own eyes, to reach out and touch them, it was relief. Relief and gratitude. He owed Anton a thank you for getting to them when he couldn’t and no doubt plenty of others alongside it. Thank yous and so many apologies. 

The thought of both fled when Lois spoke. For just a moment, he wasn’t sure that he’d heard her. There was a ringing in his ears instead, some unearthly sound that blocked out the rest. He thought he dimly heard the end, her voice telling him that she was sorry. She was sorry...as if she’d done anything at all. 

What had he done?

What had he done?

“My friend who I couldn’t do anything for, and I couldn’t even do anything for anybody at all. I got caught when I should’ve been more alert.” Jon chastised himself over the fact that his entire family was put at risk, and he could’ve easily stopped it. That’s what he thought, he could’ve prevented so much heart ache and pain if he had just been better, stronger, someone worthy of carrying the S on his chest. “I’ve been thinking about Damian a lot, and I don’t know how to go to him right now. What do I say? What do I do?”

“What if we get caught again, what then?” Jon asked, looking at his dad looking for answers he knew very well Clark just didn’t have. “I hate feeling so useless, I hate the fact that I couldn’t do anything for Damian, for anybody.”

“That wasn’t your fault,” he assured him. “Kara didn’t expect it either. It’s hard to constantly be worried about the worst thing that could happen.” And he didn’t want his son to have to live that way, either. Jon had extraordinary gifts, but he was still, as far as Clark was concerned, too young to think that everything sat on his shoulders. He’d never wanted that for him. What had happened couldn’t have been further from his fault. 

Steve stepped inside, his eyes on Clark as the other seemed completely burdened by what he had done. He could see it in the weight in his shoulders. The pain in his eyes. He could see it in the way he almost seemed reluctant to meet Steve’s eyes. Steve knew how that was. He knew what it felt like to carry the weight of your best friend’s death on your shoulders. And what it felt like to have let everyone down. 

“I’d ask how you’ve been holding up, but… the question almost seems insulting,” he said. “I’m glad to see you’re not completely shut down, though.”

“I have good people around me.” One less than before, but Bruce would not have been the one there in his home, anyway. He wouldn’t kid himself about that even in the wake of his death. He had his own ways of showing support, but being the shoulder to cry on (metaphorically, anyway) tended not to be one of them. “You know how that is. They’re always stronger.” He could say that easily, even on the good days. He’d always thought it about Lois, Diana, his friends...Clark could do things that they couldn’t, sure, but every single one of them had strengths he didn’t share.

Lucy’s absence was overwhelming. 

While Anton never anticipated the closeness he’d felt in the past year or so that they had her, he didn’t have the foresight to realize how much it would hurt if she ever left. It was a feeling he adamantly tried to smother away out of stubbornness, out of an absolute desire to not hurt. It was frustrating and he felt weak for it, especially when he never even wanted her to begin with. Now, Anton was stuck with the ache.

His gaze swept over to the dollhouse and lingered there a moment in silent mourning when he’d stepped through the threshold; the clearing of his throat grounded him and he looked to Clark, then. Anton felt uncomfortable. It was hard to miss the news on Bruce Wayne’s abrupt passing, and while he didn’t know the man himself, he knew of the position the man held on the League. He knew of the contributions, and the relationships from an outsider’s perspective. He’d never had anyone close enough to mourn them - not a friend, or even someone he considered family in that way. Lucy was the closest example for him; he couldn’t imagine what Clark was feeling, though there was a fairly good guess.

Consolation was never one of Anton’s fortes.

He awkwardly clasped his hands together in front of him, posture casual, but he was clearly out of his element. “How are you… feeling?”

How was he feeling? There were dozens of things. Most of them were terrible. Most of them had landed Clark in yet another dark moment of his life, helpless to either prevent or remove himself from it despite being who he was and all that he was typically capable of. He didn’t disdain weakness or fragility, exactly. When those traits showed themselves in others, the only desire he had was to protect them and allow it. In himself, though? Weakness was foreign, and it felt like an utter failure not because it was bad, but because it was not him. He was the one who was supposed to be able to save people, help people...and instead his choices had killed his best friend. Not only that, but he’d failed to keep Lucy out of the hands of her demented father, too, with Harley not a far cry off.

To the question, he just shook his head. Anton wasn’t exactly the first person on the list of people he wanted to talk to about what was wrong. There was something he needed to say to him, though, that had nothing to do with that.

“I don’t have anything else to do or anywhere else to be.” She replied quickly, knowing the dejection would be thrown in her way. She stood on her tiptoes to peer in the house. “You alone? Come on I brought some food and a game.” She hoisted up her backpack and shook it just slightly to entice him. That way they could spend time distracting themselves, or talking about what happened. Really, it’d be up to Kal. But she was coming in.

She squeezed past him only a few moments later, setting her things down. She glanced around the apartment, hands on her hips. It was sporadically cleaned. No doubt to the numerous visits and attentions he’d been getting. “I know going through this with family and friends can be hard.” Donna said, her tone softer and more gentle than before. “Like you have hold yourself together or something. But we can just…hang, relax.” She motioned around them, “Whatever you want. I’m not expecting anything from you Kal, I just came to give you a break from the beating I know you’re giving yourself.” She paused, smiling sadly, “We’re more alike than you might think.”

He sincerely doubted that, but if he’d insisted anymore it would have seemed like he was sending her away. The last thing he wanted to be right then was rude, especially to Donna, who had pulled him out of that warehouse. Literally. He owed her at least the courtesy of letting her inside. Just as she was making that decision for herself anyway, he moved aside and nudged the door closed behind her. “Lois is out picking up a few things. It’s just us for now.” 

Clark was not so sure that he’d been doing a wonderful job of holding himself together, either for his sake or anyone else’s. There was a wide gulf between his usual demeanor and how he held himself right then, and being aware of it did not suddenly imbue him with the strength to stop. He didn’t even want to. It would have been disrespectful to Bruce, to all their teammates and friends, if he had simply acted as if it was fine when nothing was further from the truth. “Is it that obvious?” It was, and he knew it.