He was merely a lone shadow among the many towering ones surrounding him. A lot had changed since his boyhood. The bulbs on the street lamps needed changing. The hedges around Gateway Park needed trimming. The shop windows needed a good scrubbing. Someone was needed for every one of those jobs. No one came, though.

He knelt beside the stone, his cape billowing behind him. He hardly took off the costume anymore. There was no point. Clark Kent was dead to the world. Superman was who he was now. Now until forever.

When he was younger, he had always cursed his abilities. Until she told him that they were a gift from the heavens, something to be honed into his ultimate gift for mankind. He had believed her then. Not anymore.

There was a cry in the distance, followed by a gun shot. When he was younger, he would have bolted over there. Now he knelt beside the stone, tracing its engraving with his thick fingers.

When he first started, he was naïve enough to believe that good would always triumph over evil. Light would blind the dark. Justice would find some way to prevail. Then, one day, he was proved wrong.

As he knelt there, he listened for sirens, knowing that they would never come. They didn't. Law enforcement didn't enforce laws for the city. They enforced laws for Luthor.

The crowd had cheered him on his first day. They had never seen such a sight before. A man in tights, flying around, saving the day. They continued cheering him until that day. The day that they cried with him, as he cradled her lifeless head in his hands.

His fingers stopped moving. He held them in a fist as the tears came. Every night since that day, he had come down here. And every night, he cried, a lone shadow under a much larger one.

He cried for himself. But most of the time, he cried for her. For the life that she hadn't even had the chance to live. He knew that she would never want him to blame himself, but he did. He did.

The day that she was taken from him was the day that he stopped trying. Cries for Superman went unanswered. His reign as the protector of Metropolis was over. A new reign had begun.

A creak of the swings sounded behind him.

The day after her death, Luthor was voted into office.

He had considered burying her back in their hometown, under their tree. But something told him not to. He was right. Fifty years later, Smallville was no longer Smallville. It was now MetroFutures, a research and dumping ground for all of Luthor's experiments.

Instead, he kept her in Metropolis, in the park that they had spent most of their afternoons in during their first years in the city. He had bought the park with the money that he had received from selling the farm. It was the one place that even Luthor couldn't touch. Not that he dared to.

A few years after her death, he planted an oak tree above her grave. It was nothing short of majestic as their tree back home.

Behind him, the swings creaked even louder.

He leaned forward until the words engraved on the stone became clear. Lana Lang. The true hero.

He stood, turning away from the stone. The swings were suddenly still. With heavy steps, he made his way over to the swing set.

There, he took up a swing, careful to watch the strain on the chains. The swing next to him began to move again. The branches of the young oak tree swayed in tune with the swing.

He closed his eyes and listened. He listened to the creak of the swing next to him, the rustling of the leaves, and the beating of his heart. He listened to her laughter, like musical bells on Christmas morning. He listened to her voice, the words coming out softly. And he listened to their heart.

She had given him wings once again. The wings that he needed to soar through the clouds, gathering hope. Hope for the day that he would be blessed enough to join her in her eternal rest.