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Man Of Steel Bars: Superman
***

He’s humiliated. Ashamed. Embarrassed, so much so that he almost wishes the earth would open up and swallow him into its depths. Always before he’s been able to fly away, but now even the skies are denied him, and all that’s left is this prison. This cell. These steel bars.

There’s nothing to do (besides survive the taunts of these adult bullies), nobody to save, nowhere to go--even his job is covered for a while. He should be able to just sit and think, plan what his next move should do (what he’ll do if it turns out he’s really causing this heat wave).

But he can’t think.

Or rather, all he can do is think--about too much, about everything, about nothing.

He’d never envisioned going to jail. Not once. And now that he is here, surrounded by cops patting him on the back or shaking his hand or smiling at him and thanking him for all that he’s done even while they lock him up, he can’t help but wonder if he’s given away his secret identity.

He’d pushed over the filing cabinets so they wouldn’t search him (he doesn’t want them wondering why Superman carries ordinary clothes compressed tightly into a pocket of his cape).

He’d ruined the small podium they’d used to take his prints (he can’t have Superman’s prints on record, not when they can so easily be matched to Clark Kent’s).

He’d given as many pictures as they wanted (he’d rather they be thinking about his celebrity-like status than as to why he needed to make a phone-call and who he could be calling at all).

He thinks he’s done everything he needs to make sure the lines between Superman and Clark Kent don’t blur into illegibility.

But what if he’s missed something?

The inmates are jeering at him, slapping him, tugging on his cape, and all he can see is these same people--so shameless in their bullying; so defiant in their perceived safety--going after his parents. This man with his dirty hands reaching out to slap his mom aside. Or punch his dad. Or tug on Lois’s dress.

All he can see is his entire fragile house of cards coming down around him.

He’s Superman right now, imprisoned, under an injunction (that he will break in an instant if he needs to, he knows he will, so he can’t even be angry at his incarceration), and Clark Kent is so very vulnerable.

Missing. Alone. Unaccounted for.

At least not right now. Not yet. But what about during his next hearing? Or tonight when they need to find a place to keep him? Or tomorrow when he might have to face the people of Metropolis and tell them he’s leaving should it come to that?

But then…what if he has to set Superman aside and only be Clark Kent?

He doesn’t think he can do that either. Not anymore. Not after he’s gotten a taste of being able to help so many people without fear of reprisal. Without hiding in the shadows. Without having to move on in the meantime.

“You want to help me out here?” his tormentor asks him when Superman finally ducks aside (he learned a long time ago how to deal with bullying).

“Sorry,” he says (though he really isn’t). “Like you said…can’t use my powers.”

Besides, he thinks, his heart sinking deep inside his dense musculature, he doesn’t know how to help. Not anymore. Not when he’s going to lose either Clark or Superman.

Not when he can’t figure out, in this moment, which one is worse.

***