Inspired
A/N: Just a little one-shot, set in the aftermath of Man of Steel, dealing with how Superman's emergence has affected a few select individuals...
Barry Allen was hard at work at his lab, pondering the latest scrap of forensic evidence that had been brought his way. But, if he was to be honest with himself (and he usually was), his mind wasn't completely focused on the task at hand. Like billions of people across the globe, Barry's mind too was at least partially occupied by recent events. Events that had changed everything...for everyone. Events that raised fundamental questions about the very nature of human society, of existence itself. Events...and the mysterious, seemingly omnipotent, impossible figure at the centre of it all.
The extra-terrestrial being known as Kal-El.
Or, as the press had recently taken to calling him, 'Superman'.
Even after everything that had happened, the world could have gotten back to normal in time. But the mere presence of Superman, now exposed, meant that there would never again be any 'normal' to go back to.
What was 'normal' now was a world where a man with the power to fly and to level buildings with his punches swooped around like a modern-day Messiah, changing the course of human history with his every action. What was 'normal' now was a world where even the cynics looked to the skies for a saviour...and weren't disappointed.
There were many people, some of them quiet powerful and influential, who believed that Superman posed a major threat to humanity. But no matter how convincing their arguments sounded, Barry had serious doubts about that. He'd read a fair bit about Superman in the days following the invasion, and he'd put together quiet a different picture of this 'Man of Steel'.
Here was a man whose very physiology made him seem a freak to humanity. In all likelihood, he'd had a troubled childhood, growing up virtually an outcast. The very moment mankind learnt of his existence, they were prepared to turn him over to someone who eventually turned out to be basically an alien Adolf Hitler, no questions. And yet, despite all that hardship and rejection, despite having every reason to resent humanity, Superman had chosen instead to turn against his own people, even kill one of them with his bare hands, to save humanity. He had sacrificed his planet, his heritage, his people...to save Earth.
And no matter what anyone said, to Barry, that made him a hero. A shining example for mankind to follow in the years to come.
Superman was going to make a difference to everyone's lives, Barry's included. And Barry found himself wanting to ensure that the difference would, in his case, be a positive one. He felt indebted to the alien hero deep down; he felt he needed to live up to the trust that Superman had reposed in humanity by choosing to save them.
So he worked harder, with even greater dedication at his job, helping bring justice to the victims of crime, making a small but noticeable difference every day of his life.
And if, God willing, the day ever came when he had the chance to help people on a larger scale...if he got the chance to help people even a tenth of the amount Superman did...he wouldn't hesitate, but would simply rush towards it!
ooo
Arthur Curry leapt from the top window of his father's lighthouse and saw the ocean rushing towards him, closer and closer, until he felt the water engulf him, the very impact reinvigorating him, body and soul. He was home.
A normal person would be unlikely to survive a jump such as this one, but then again, Arthur was no normal person. He'd known he was different since he was a child, and he even knew why. His heritage was linked to what was literally one of the deepest secrets of the planet, and it afforded him strength and durability far greater than those of 'surface-dwellers' (as Arthur had, off late, taken to thinking of other people), as well as the ability to breathe underwater, and to communicate telepathically with aquatic creatures.
But lately, Arthur had come to realize that he was no longer unique to the surface world. For the world had now been introduced to the alien being known as 'Superman'. A man with powers far beyond anything Arthur had ever fathomed off. A man who was virtually a God.
For some time now, Arthur had used his natural gifts to help people who encountered trouble at sea. He'd even saved lives and averted disasters on occasion. But for the most part, he'd tried to be discrete. He didn't feel the world was ready to confront the implications of the existence of a secret underwater civilization.
But now, the world was confronting implications of far greater magnitude. The existence of alien civilizations. Alien life. Alien intervention in human affairs.
Like Arthur, the man who was now known as 'Superman' had lived among humans for years, using his gifts in secret. But he now stood revealed to the world; his very presence changing the flow of human events, his actions even more so.
Would the world be better for it? Arthur would like to think so.
Because if the world accepted Superman, and the potentially positive implications his existence could have, then perhaps, they would be willing to broaden their horizons further.
Perhaps, they would be willing to accept Arthur as well.
Arthur could only sit back and watch. For now. But in the meantime, he would go on doing what he did, in secret, and save lives. Superman could take to the skies and be humanity's guardian angle...while he would master the seas.
ooo
Hal Jordan executed a perfect dive, swooping between the two mountains, nearly scraping his jet against one of them. In his earpiece, his boss, and sometimes girlfriend, Carol Ferris, who was monitoring the test flight remotely, was yelling at him for his reckless manoeuvre, but Hal took it in his stride, as usual. Which meant, he completely ignored her and flew on, undeterred.
For as long as he could remember, Hal loved flying. He loved the skies. The skies had been a second home to him...hell, at times they'd felt like his only home.
It was the ground that betrayed you, Hal often thought. The ground was where you'd come crashing down, engulfed in flames, dying...like his father had been. But in the skies, one was truly free. Free from doubt. Free from responsibility. Free from fear.
'The man without fear', Hal's fellow pilots jokingly, sometimes grudgingly called him, and for the most part, Hal allowed himself to believe they were right. But the world had become a whole lot scarier lately. Alien invasions, unprecedented mass destruction...and a man who could fly, literally fly, see and hear everything, and shoot laser beams from his eyes!
And in this brave new world, Hal wasn't quite sure he could afford the luxury of being 'fearless' any longer.
To be honest, it wasn't so much that Hal was afraid of the idea of having this 'Superman' around. After all, for all intents and purposes, the guy was here to help. The truth was, that Hal felt just a little bit envious of this Man of Steel. To have the power to fly, unaided, unencumbered by potentially faulty machinery and tedious safety checks...that was true freedom.
Superman had changed everything. If the world now believed that a man could fly, they would be ready to believe a lot of other things. Hal had a feeling that a Pandora's Box was about to be opened, if it hadn't been already. A lot of truths would be revealed. And the truth often made for a world with greater suspicion, insecurity...and fear.
And Hal knew that to remain 'fearless' in such a world, he would have to really up the ante. He had to believe, now more than ever, that it wasn't Ferris' planes or his Air Force training that kept him up in the skies. It was his will. And as long as he could believe that, then all the fear in the world would bounce of him like bullets bounced off Superman!
ooo
Princess Diana had to admit, for the first time in an eternity, that she was impressed!
For most of her life, she'd had something very close to contempt for Man's World, and for the patriarchal society that controlled it. For centuries, man had dominated, oppressed and enslaved woman, by means of his sheer brute force. A force that concealed his underlying cowardice and lack of integrity. Only once in a generation, if even that, Diana felt, came a man worthy of the respect of an Amazon...but such men were nothing but flashes; infinitesimal sparks of brightness in a dark, corrupt world.
But here was a man who shone brighter than all the others. In fact, he shone positively golden, in Diana's estimation. A man who truly lived up to the title Man's World had seen fit to bestow him with...
Superman.
Here was a man, a legend in the making, who'd descended from the skies like the God's of old. He'd saved the lives of millions, and dispatched monsters to hell. And he asked nothing in return, but for mankind to trust him to serve them with all his power, all his conviction.
Diana knew that Superman was not of this world. He was the product of an alien civilization; a world far more advanced than the society of Man's World. A world, not of magic, but of science. But a world that would seem magical in comparison, to most mortals of the planet Earth.
But Superman has been raised as a human being. He'd lived for years among people totally unlike him; as part of a culture that should, by all rights, have been alien to him. Diana fleetingly wondered what it would be like to live in a different culture, a different world. Especially one that was, in many respects, inferior to her own. Would her superior abilities make her look upon others in contempt? Or would she feel morally, and emotionally, compelled to look upon them kindly, as people to be protected?
She somehow knew that Superman had already made that decision. And she was confident that she had more than enough strength, both physically and morally, to make that decision as well, when the time came.
That time would likely come sooner than later. Even now, Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, and her mother, was pondering the decision to send an emissary to Man's World. And Diana, one of the finest warriors of the Amazons, gifted by the Gods themselves, had every reason to hope that she would be the one chosen to reveal to the world yet another one of its hidden wonders!
ooo
Bruce Wayne seated himself before the large console. A cup of coffee and a cold sandwich by his side, he continued reviewing the footage of the 'alien attack' in Metropolis, and of the mysterious individual at the centre of the incident. Kal-El, the alien being from the planet Krypton; whom the press, and increasingly the public, had taken to referring to as 'Superman'.
The whole seemed impossible. An extra-terrestrial invasion, a space-craft buried under 18,000 year old Arctic...a man who could fly. It was all an anathema to Bruce's rigorously logical mind. At first. But as Arthur Conan Doyle had once written – "Once you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth".
The existence of this 'Superman' was now an indisputable fact. What remained in the realm of rumour and conjecture, were his motives, his ideological inclinations if any, and the implications, both large and small, of his actions.
By revealing himself, Kal-El had fundamentally shifted the balance of power. No, not just the balance...the very conception of power. For thousands of years, power in human society was wielded by the wealthy, the influential, the inventive and the resourceful. There was the power of the judge's mallet and the legal document. The power of a man with an army of warriors at his disposal. There was the power of the protestor on the street and of the voter through the ballot. Then there was always, however much it disgusted Bruce personally, the undeniable power of the gun, which made even the cowardly and spineless feel invincible.
But all these powers paled in comparison to the raw power exuded by this one man...
Superman answered to no master, be it a judge, a President or a king. Superman soared far above his critics and his opponents. Superman could literally demolish several armies with his bare hands. And bullets were nothing before his steely skin,
Superman was power. And that made Superman a very dangerous man indeed.
Bruce knew that a lot of other people shared that sentiment lately, despite the fact that the alien had, all said and done, saved the world. Most people had a visceral fear of the unknown, especially if the unknown appeared to be threatening. But Bruce had long trained himself to overcome fear; to wield it instead as a weapon. So why did he feel so threatened by the idea of a virtual God in a red cape flying about?
Perhaps it was because Superman, with everything he did, everything he was, made everything else seem so...small, in comparison.
For years, Bruce had prepared himself, physically and mentally, for a mission. A war against crime and corruption. Gotham City was his battlefield. And the guise of the 'Bat-Man' was his weapon. He'd brought criminals to justice. He'd saved lives. From out of the shadows, he'd made a dedicated attempt to bring a ray of hope to his city.
And now, it all seemed so inconsequential. Like a very small drop in an infinite ocean of possibilities...
After all, what good was saving one city from the terror of a handful of mobsters and psychopaths, when there were forces on this world that were capable of obliterating entire cities. What good was saving the lives of dozens, when someone was out there, saving the lives of millions with barely any real effort?
Was he envious of the Superman? Bruce refused to entertain that possibility. Logically, it made little sense to be envy someone or something one could never realistically aspire to become. Besides, he had to believe, more than ever now in this world of alien 'Gods', that mortal men like him could truly make a difference. He had to believe that mankind, which had evolved for millennia, would evolve still further in response to Superman.
He had to believe...no, he did believe, that the world wouldn't become perfect just because an extra-terrestrial 'saviour' was around to try and protect it. He believed that there were some things humanity would have to struggle with, and accomplish, themselves.
Mankind's horizons had been exploded deep into the universe. It was perhaps natural, Bruce reasoned, to be blinded by sheer possibility. But it was necessary to be bound by reality. And the reality was that Superman, for better or for worse, was an unpredictable element in an already chaotic world. Ergo, he would have to be watched.
And yet, beneath all the cold logic and calculation, beneath all the rationality, on a purely instinctive and emotional level, Bruce had to admit that Superman had come to mean something else to the world, and to him personally. A symbol of hope. A promise of change. A crusader.
For the first time in a while, Bruce felt a kindred spirit. For the first time in a while, Bruce felt inspired.