Thread by @SymbolicSavior

|Bᴇʜɪɴᴅ Tʜᴇ Sᴍɪʟᴇ.|

In the hours after he’d defeated Zod, he’d felt unstoppable; the adrenaline rushing through his veins had prompted him to soar through the air at lightning speeds, letting go of everything as he shouted that he’d done it, he’d done it, »

« he’d saved humankind!

Reality caught up quickly, though. It was hard to miss the crater he’d left in the landscape, even from the stratosphere; glass spires, roads, metal, and people alike all turned into grey dust. There was a desert where the city »

« should be.

He was the first rescue team. Paramedics had to come from the next city. Long before they arrived, he was calling himself hoarse—both from exhaustion and emotion—and listening desperately for any answering cries.

There were some, but too few, »

« not enough. When his ears detected a scream for help, or sometimes simply a pained gasp, he would dig through the debris with all his might, trying to catch that fragile piece of life.

Clark knew he was a coward when he couldn’t bear to meet the eyes of »

« his victims.

Lois kept him grounded throughout. She constantly reminded him about the fact that he wasn’t responsible for the annihilation—Zod and his crew were. They were trying to obliterate the entire Earth and Clark had suffered so much to stop them. »

« It wasn’t his fault that there were a few casualties along the way. It was unavoidable. He couldn’t save everybody. There were hundreds of thousands of casualties, true, but they were barely a hundredth of a percent of the entire human race.

“Open your »

« eyes to everyone you did save,” she said, “and don’t forget that it was Zod’s world engine that toppled those skyscrapers in the first place.”

“People aren’t just numbers,” he replied. “I’ll be fine; I just need a little breathing room.”

Deep down »

« inside, he knew he was at least partially responsible. If not for the initial wreckage, then most certainly for the subsequent devastation. Now that he had time for reflection, he was shocked at the rage he had felt for Zod, the pure, undiluted desire to »

« rip Zod to pieces for trying to exterminate Clark’s people.

Clark had always thought he had a tight rein on his anger; that was what his father had taught him, after all.

All those years of bullying and shame, and he’d never acted on his desires. In »

« time, the anger dwindled until he felt nothing but pity. Inevitably, those bullies were weak, insecure, utterly pathetic people. They could never hurt him, so Clark forgave them, though he still stood up for those the bullies targeted. He was always »

« careful not to hurt anyone, though, and a show of strength was usually enough to stop the bullies in their tracks. If not, he endured their hits until they realised that his willpower prevailed.

This ferocity was entirely new. This fury was entirely new. »

« This vengeful beast was entirely new. The focus, though, was not new. He had always kept his view small; he had closed his eyes to what was happening around him. For a long time, his entire world had been his mother and his father. Then it was just his »

« mother. Now, he admits that Lois is there, too.

On his quest to discover his origins, to find his identity, he’d saved other people, whenever he could. But they had stumbled into his periphery by chance; when their tragedies were happening right before »

« his eyes, of course he had to do something to help. He never sought out those who were under distress.

It has been decades, but he still remembers her voice vividly, can still hear those words that helped him cope with the overwhelming stimulus around »

« him, the same words that he’d taken to heart ever since.

The world’s too big, Mom.

Then make it small.

Superman is what people are calling his alter-ego, now. He’s not really sure if his mother’s words are good advice anymore, not for Superman, who has »

« to have the entire world in his mind’s eye.

In those intense moments of rage and pain, Zod had taken up his entire attention. The buildings that had shattered around them were simply background noise. How ironic that someone with extremely heightened »

« senses could be deaf to the cries around him. He should have driven Zod away from the city, towards the farms and deserts of more rural areas. He could’ve done it. This is a fact that Clark is sure of, and one that he can barely acknowledge, even to »

« himself.

It’s days before he thinks to fly back to his fortress in the North Pole. There’s just so much to do, so much need for this newly unveiled “Superman” in the world, to help humanity get back on its feet after an honest to God alien invasion.
Clark »

« can’t really wrap his mind around that part yet.

Sure, he’s technically an alien as well, and even the same species as the invaders, but no matter how his far his lonely travels drove him, the humans called to him more strongly than Zod had. Not to »

« mention that his only experience with Kryptonians had been attempted murder of himself and mass genocide of his entire planet, other than his father of course, but that didn’t count. Jor-El was his father, was his family.

So Superman spends his time »

« helping to rebuild, to extend a hand to a people who’ve been knocked over, to encourage them with a smile when sometimes that was all they really needed. And Clark Kent spends his days settling into his new job, getting to know Lois Lane and the rest of »

« his coworkers, and travelling the city learning the ropes of journalism. It’s exhausting work, in both his personas, and there’s just so much to occupy his attention, to anchor him in the world, that he doesn’t once feel the restlessness that drove him to »

« wander far from his family’s farm. And yet it’s the thought of his family—not Ma, though he’s made a point to check in with her every few days, join her for dinner just to see her smile, but his birth family—that makes him pull up short one day at »

« work.

“And I want that article by—” Perry cuts himself off, presumably at the look on Clark’s face. “Kent. Are you alright?”

Clark blinks. “Uh, actually, not really, sir. Suddenly got this weird feeling…”

“Weird feeling?” Perry says skeptically. “You »

« look like death warmed over all of a sudden. Maybe you should go home early today. In fact, why don’t you head home right now?” Clark shuffles his feet, wondering if he should protest, but wanting to get out of there as fast as he could. “You can work on »

« that article from your home,” Perry adds.

Clark forces a smile. “Thanks, sir.”

And then he’s grabbing his jacket and heading out the door, tossing out a “See you, Monday!” to a startled and concerned Lois. He finds a convenient alley to disappear into »

« and Superman flies out of it.

The North Pole is cold and bleak when he lands, exactly how he remembers it, but the Fortress is ruined. He knows it as soon as his feet enter the doorway and his father is not there to greet him, a smile as welcoming as Ma’s »

« always is warming the stern features. He looks around blankly, the walls that remain exactly the same, and yet different. Once, they seemed to pulse with life, with the last remnants of his native culture, with home. Now they are silent and »

« unforgiving.

He doesn’t know why he’s surprised to see the message Zod left for him. “He died knowing I would destroy you.” And Clark—Kal—feels something twist deep inside him. He falls to his knees in front of the console where he had first entered his »

« house sigil and seen his father. That sigil is lost forever, blown to bits to save his adopted planet. And he can’t bring himself to regret it, even if his heart feels hollow and lost in a way he hasn’t felt for a long time, because he knows what he had »

« bought with the destruction of that sigil and all that it had meant.

He is Superman, a symbol of hope and justice far more important than the prices paid by Kal-El and Clark Kent.

Superman walks out of his fortress into the blinding whiteness of the »

« Arctic and takes off to answer the cries for help always echoing around the earth, his home.

And if sometimes the part of him named Clark Kent, who sometimes feels more like a small lost child than a superhero, aches a little because he’d never gotten to »

« say goodbye to either of his fathers, Superman just smiles a little wider, pours a little more heart into whatever he’s doing, whoever he’s helping.

If he's lucky, it sometimes hurts a little less that way.