The Man of Yesterday
The coffee sat on his desk mockingly, breaking his concentration with its knowing leer. Clark Kent reached to pick it up and let the steaming caffeine clear his head, yet the seeping warmth down his throat just made him grow more melancholy by the second. It was perfect, with just the right amount of cream and sugar that he liked, yet that fact distressed him further. For it just served as another reminder of the one who had given him the coffee. The drink's pleasant taste seemed to jeer at him in a singsong voice:
Clark and Lois sitting in a tree
K-I-S-S-I-N-G!
He sighed in exasperation. Her. The girl of his dreams. Lois Lane. He found that everything he did reminded him of her in some way. The simplest, most mundane of actions she performed seemed to him as the workings of an angel. The way she smiled as she had walked into work today; how her eyes had shone when she had laughed at something Perry had said; the nonchalant manner in which she had slid the frothing paper cup onto the corner of his desk, winking at him with that cheeky slanted grin of hers. It was all heaven to him. She never seemed to find a way out of his head. Maybe, he reflected, that was because she had found a permanent spot in his heart. For he loved her, more than he had ever loved anyone here on Earth in his entire life.
Yet, in the five years they had spent working together at the Daily Planet, he had never gotten around to telling her how he felt, and it was this fact that plagued him the most. She seemed to remain quite unaware of how much he was enamored with her, and was probably the only one to remain so; it seemed the whole rest of the staff had discerned the truth, and were always keeping their eyes and ears open for the next development.
Sometimes, he hated working in a place that paid people to be nosy about the business of others.
Dejected, he set the coffee cup back down on his desk; even the paper cup seemed to know the truth. He stared out the window, hoping to let the towering skyline of the city take his mind off matters…
…only to hear a scream in the distance. His eyes widened, and he leapt up to the window, his eyes locked on the hovering aircraft that enveloped half of Metropolis in its shadow.
"Greetings, citizens of Metropolis!" boomed a voice that resounded from the aircraft. A voice that Clark knew all too well. "It appears that once again, I have you all trapped under my thumb, ready to squish you with a simple flick of this switch! Try to escape me, and my high-powered artillery won't hesitate to blow you all to smithereens!" The voice laughed loudly in amusement at the very non-amusing situation. More screams issued from the city streets below.
"However, there is one way out of this deathtrap, provided you are willing to cooperate…" the voice drawled on. "Deliver me the Man of Steel. Give me Superman, and you all can go on your way as if I was never here. You have one hour. No Blue Boy Scout…no deal." And with that the voice cut off, to the sound of raucous cries and shouts that flooded the streets of the panicked city.
With that, the office of the Daily Planet was in motion, ready to capture the story of the latest attack of Lex Luthor on Metropolis. In the confusion, Lois scanned the building for Clark, but he was nowhere in sight.
Clark burst out the side door of the building, racing through the alley whilst tearing off his shirt, the bright yellow and red logo of the shield and the letter S appearing on his chest underneath. Stripped of his outer layer of clothes, he threw them into a trashcan along with his glasses as he picked up speed and felt his powers tingling within him at full force, crackling into his awareness like wildfire. His cape whipping behind him, he leapt into the air and took flight, streaking like a speeding bullet towards the airship.
The roaring crowd suddenly gasped and cheered, with shouts of "There he is! It's Superman!" rippling through the streets. Superman, far used to the recognition he received from his city, let the words settle to the edge of his brain; he had a job to do. He circled around the enormous aircraft, searching for its most vulnerable point. It appeared to be fully armed with all sorts of heavy artillery projectors, and made Luthor's threat of blowing Metropolis to smithereens seem quite possible, indeed. Then, a whistling sound reached Superman's ears from the craft, as a missile launched towards him. He effortlessly outmaneuvered it, only to be struck by another right behind it. His skin of steel easily deflected the blow, but it certainly set his flight off course, as he tumbled haphazardly through the air. He quickly righted himself and dodged another missile, and another, and another. The projectiles that flew past him, however, continued on their flight and crashed into the next object in their path, sending shards of glass and steel tumbling down from struck skyscrapers. The crowd beneath them screamed and bolted for cover, trying to avoid the rain of debris that crashed down on top of them.
Suddenly, an idea struck the superhero. He turned towards the airship, facing the missile that sped towards him, and grabbed it right before it hit his face. His massive strength holding it in place, he turned it around and hurled it for the head of the ship, towards where he believed the arch villain who had planned this catastrophe to be sitting, commanding the aircraft. The turncoat missile flew with deadly precision into the ship, burying itself deep into the hull and exploding the section of the ship. Satisfied that his idea seemed to be working, Superman grabbed another missile, and began flinging them all at the ship that launched them. Soon the massive aircraft was spinning out of control, and in a spew of scarlet flame the engine burst out. The aircraft-turned-fireball rocketed through the air violently, as a lone escape pod streaked from the flying wreckage, the criminal mastermind inside laughing at the disaster the Man of Steel had created for himself.
Superman flew after the burning airship, ready to catch it and keep it from crushing the city as it plummeted to Earth, when his inhuman ears picked up a voice that stood out from all the rest. A voice that made his heart clench and his stomach drop faster than the damaged aircraft.
"Help!"
Help.
Lois needed help.
Scanning his eyes through the crowd in an attempt to hone in on the cry's source, he suddenly found her, standing wide-eyed and alone as she gazed in frozen shock at the gigantic mass that was headed straight for her. The rest of the crowd had vacated the area, but she stood trembling, her sheer panic rendering her unable to move.
With a wild cry of "No!" Superman launched himself after her, trying desperately to outrace the airship that was about to crush the woman he loved. The intense heat licked at his body as he hurtled dangerously close to the flaming craft, yet just before it collided into the ground, he swept Lois into his arms, away from the earth-shattering crash.
The crowd cheered as he lifted her into the air, flying them both into the sky. He soon stopped just above a low-hovering cloud, their feet just brushing the wispy vapor, as if standing on top of it.
"Thank you," Lois breathed, still trying to regain her breath and recover from her shock. She turned from the burning fireball below them to gaze into the face of her savior, only to start suddenly with recognition as she looked upon the face of…her coworker.
"CLARK?" she exclaimed, flabbergasted that her mild-mannered friend could be behind the identity of Metropolis's guardian.
"Yes, it's me, Lois," he answered quietly, his eyes lowered in burning shame. "Don't let all these flashy air shows fool you, though. Behind Superman, I'm just Clark Kent. The same old, ordinary Clark Kent."
Lois raised a hand to his face, cupping his cheek tenderly as she turned his head back to hers.
"You've always been my hero, Clark," she whispered, covering his lips in a kiss that made time stand still.
xxx
Bruce reclined on the couch in his living room, watching the credits flash on the screen while the music of John Williams blared in the background. Now the movie had ended, he turned to the man next to him, who sat back with his arms crossed, watching the film with raised eyebrows and pursed lips. "So, what did you think?" Bruce asked him.
Joker sighed, attempting to formulate his opinion in the best phrasing. "It was…executed alright," he began slowly, "and the visual effects were great, it's just…"
"Just what?"
"It's the whole…premise that bothered me. I mean, think about it. An ordinary guy who dresses up in a costume and cape and flies around protecting the city?"
Bruce furrowed his brow and met Joker's face with a quizzical look. Joker met his expression with eyes that glowed in amusement at his jab at Batman's profession, before adding his last criticism of the movie.
"…in the daytime?"
Bruce's face slowly melted into laughter, and he leaned over to kiss his lover deeply as the credits rolled.
Even Joker agrees: Superman ain't got nothin' on Batman. Bet you thought I'd put this in the wrong fandom, didn't you? Teehee, I love messing with my readers' minds. ^^
I love John Williams. To death. His work is amazing, no matter what it is. I could listen to him all day and all night. I was listening to the Superman theme once upon a midnight clear, and of course my mind immediately went to Batman, and...here we are. Another product of my idle musings.
Oh, by the way, didn't want to give the ending away in my summary, so here is the necessary warning: contains BrucexJoker mild SLASH! (Then again, coming from me, what else did you expect?)