"We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope."
-Martin Luther King, Jr.
Come ye now wind and quit the rage of flames.
Finish your rage and find your slumbering ember.
Silent now lays the land, a flag posted upon it.
Stands he vigilent, red and blue, amongst the sleeping ash.
"It looks like it's out."
The statement need not have been said but the man overseeing the situation nodded with relieved approval all the same.
"Yeah, no thanks to the state. We would have been here all weekend if it hadn't been for you."
"Just doing my job."
The fire marshall kicked a dead stump and watched the brittle, blackened, wood turn to so much ash at his feet.
"No, you're doing my job too. And the job of a hundred other people. And the job the state should have been doing. That makes you something special."
The hero, the savior, the god, just shook his head.
"I'd rather just be me- not something special. If I'm special, I'm exempt from morality."
"Yeah yeah, to err is to be human. I'm just glad we have you."
Superman smiled paternally, "I'm just glad you let me."
The two shook hands, a bond of mutual respect spread between them and Clark, for one moment, was reminded of his father's handshake. This was why he'd stood sentry over Earth, his adopted home, for the last twenty years- the genuine relieve and respect of the people he saved. Eath was a good place. Sure, people bickered and fought but they were not inherently bad. Clark couldn't believe anyone was bad at their core. Maybe that was a fallacy but he'd accept the dangers in exchange for a brighter hope for the future.
The wind cut at his face, tugging when it should have been ripping- his speed in excess of that of sound. Then there was nothing. Just void and silence as he broke the atmosphere. Silence, that is, until he reached out to hear. He could sense it all. All the voices, all the people, all the goings on of Earth. There were a hundred languages being spoken and he understood them all- every cry of pain, every sobbing tear, and every joyous yell. He felt humanity. He came up here sometimes just to feel it. He heard the zeitgeist of Earth, he heard in like the combined instruments of a 7 billion piece orchestra that was the human race and he heard beautiful music. Achievement and kindness outweighed sorrow and loss. All the hate that got center state on the media channels was just a percussive beat in the background. Necessary and frail it was beat back by the waves of sound that poured out from the rest of the world. He could do so little to dull the drum beat further but he did what he could.
A rural town, somewhere in western China, where three men were on a rampage. An outbreak of a plague in Berlin. A terror attack in Wales. They were horrible but finite. Each he addressed in turn. Each he managed best he could.
"Your a good man Clark."
"No. I'm just a man." Replied the reporter later that night in the cafe on 5th and main.
Across from him and his cup of coffee was a mean nearly as old as him, the tips of his straw colored mustache twinged with white at the ends. Oliver rubbed at the stubble- it took a lot of work the late hours he did and still show up for coffee after his shift on the streets were over.
"I saw the news. Four situations handled in one day? Your making the rest of us look bad."
Clark smiled and sipped at his coffee, "I saw you too. Your work is no less important Oli."
"Yeah? Didn't feel like giving me a hand when Balthazar nearly took my head off?" He asked rubbing his neck where the big ex-con had landed a sound blow on the archer's neck before being returned to jail.
Clark sighed, "I'd say you're braver than me- you don't have powers and still do the same kind of work I do, but I know you'd resent the comparison."
"Yeah... I guess you're right. Still- you can't be everywhere at once."
"I don't think I'd want to."
"What do you mean Clark?" There was genuine concern in Oliver Queen's face, his long goatee wagging a little as he spoke.
"In truth, I could be Oli. I could stop every bullet. Every criminal act. Every crime. Or at least a lot more than I do."
Oliver was taken aback and unconsciously sat up a bit straighter, "So? Why don't you? And don't give me any of that innocent until proven guilty bullcrap."
He hadn't wanted to go down this road but he had and owed his friend an explanation.
"It's not about innocence Oli. It's about trust. Trust and free will. If I stopped everything, I'd be imposing my will on humanity. Good and evil wouldn't be a choice- it'd be a forgone conclusion. I do what I can, but only when it's necessary. Small things. Most situations work themselves out. Trust me- I hear them all."
The old blond man across from him was silent for a moment then he sat back and crossed his arms.
"I don't like that Clark. We're down here in the dirt, fighting every mugger and wishing we could do more and you are up there picking and choosing who to save?"
"It's not like that Olie. It's about choice. If I take that away, I'm not the man I want to be."
Oliver put down a few bills on the table, more than enough to cover both of their coffees and a generous tip.
"I know Clark. It's just... frustrating sometimes."
"Your a good man Oliver Queen."
But Clark isn't telling the truth. At least not the whole truth. He does so as not to worry Oliver. Clark is a man of truth but some truths are greater truths- ones that to reveal would be to lie, to betray the integrity of the secret it holds. Clark has been up there standing vigil over the flickering candle of Earth for too long. He has began to see patterns in the way the candle flickers. He imagines seeing rhythms. Waves of hope and despair too mathematical, too orders, to be pure chaos. He has measured it. He has studied it. He has dreamed about it. Still, he knows no more about it than he did when he started. He thinks himself growing weary- a child imagining shadows as demons. He knows telling Oliver would do him no good, it would only rob Green Arrow of the few precious hours of sleep he gets. No, he can tell this only to a man who never sleeps. The only man who never truly sleeps. A man whose dreams are worse than his own.
An explosion. Gas. Three kinds mixing with the fumes and flames.
A toxin, a paralytic, and a mood altering substance.
Clark knows what it is even before he hears the tell-tale laugh.
He knows what will happen even before his enhanced senses pick HIM up falling atop the madman.
He doesn't interfear. This is his fight. His way. His city.
Clark watches from the sky, framed by the Gotham skyline and backlit by the moon.
The moon always seems brighter in Gotham, like it's making up for the dreariness of its days.
There is cackling, hooting, laughing. A sound of leather on bone. A head hitting the floor. A missing tooth skidding across concrete. The laughing stops but the breathing continues.
It was Bruce alright.
"Would it stop you if I told you he's unconscious."
"No." Bruce's voice was gruff and concentrated and his fist fell one last time on the Joker's face.
"You could have killed him you know?"
"No. I wouldn't have."
So sure. Bruce had a way about him that even Superman could not truly grasp. There were so many vigilantees with masks and a gimmick but Bruce somehow seemed above it all. So sure. So confident. So professional. He didn't care about the superhero "game". No politics. No distractions. No adventures. Just business.
"Why are you here."
It wasn't a question, it was a threat.
"Does Bruce Wayne still entertain reporters?"
Bruce's eyes narrowed but he nodded eventually. He knew something else was afoot and he hated when Clark used his real name in public. Only to him it wasn't his real name- to Bruce he wasn't a Wayne but a bat. The playboy was the cover, his night life was all that was left of him.
It wasn't long, a stop off at Arkham, a car ride to a remote location, the usual runaround and the two men were seated in the wet cave that was the abode of the bat.
"Bruce, you know I wouldn't call on your lightly."
"I know."
There was malice in the way he spoke. Something deep. Something like the drum beat of hatred in the world. Something finite. Something small.
"It's just that... I can't bring it to anyone else."
Bruce sat with his cowl down, the night's work still on his face. Cuts and bruises were blossoming and drying. His pupils still hadn't fully returned to normal.
"There is a pattern to his Bruce."
"To what?" Bruce's face was stone. Carved from harder stuff than men should be made from.
"To it all. To the world. There is a beat. A rhythm. A way in which the candle flickers."
Bruce didn't say anything. He just waited as his butler poured tea.
"I've been watching the world for decades Bruce. I hear it all. I can filter it too. I hear pain and suffering and there is a very long pattern to it all. To greatness and to sorrow. I... don't know what to make of it. Maybe I'm just finding patterns where there are none."
Bruce finally stirred, adjusting himself in his weariness to a more comfortable position. He was old. Older than any man doing the sort of things he did on a nightly basis had any business of being.
"Your point?"
"My point is... I don't know Bruce. Is there a way to stop it all?"
"Do you want to stop it all?"
Clark's mind flashed back to the other man he'd talked to that night.
"Not all of it. But if there is a pattern there is a reason. What is the reason Bruce?"
"If we knew that we'd be out of a job I'd imagine."
"It's a puzzle Bruce. You like puzzles. Why aren't you interested?"
"I solve puzzles. I don't like them. They are necessary."
"Isn't this necessary?"
"To the work you do Clark. This isn't a matter that concerns me."
He was right. Oliver was right. This wasn't a matter for them. They couldn't see it. In all honesty it was probably him and him alone that could see it. He couldn't quantify it. He couldn't express it- it was just something he felt. Intuition derived from experience and no one else has the experiences he had. He heard it knocking, like some secret knocking on a speakeasy door.
"It's called apophenia Clark. Seeing patterns where none exist."
"You think I'm making this up?"
"I think you think you aren't. You are trying to find a reason for wickedness in the world and there isn't. It's random and brutish and all around us."
"Your wrong Bruce. The sound I hear is hope. I hear it and it means something."
"To you Clark. Only to you."
Alone again, only the void and voices for comfort. Clark listened and listened well. Now that he knew what to look for he saw it everywhere. Knock, knock, knock. It was in the small and the large. Small acts of kindness clustered in the pattern. Too regular to be natural and too natural to be artificial. A door held. Forgiveness offered without being asked. A family accepting their children's choices. Tiny clusters all following the same impossibly complex formula. Everywhere he looked he saw it. Was this apophenia? Was this the natural progression of things?
What was The Knock?
"Who knocks?"
"It is I. She who knows the way to knock."
"How is it that you know to knock?"
"I have known the knock since I was made."
"Why were you made?"
"To serve the sound, the sound of the Knock."