Defying Gravity

Sully/Barri futurefic
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters are derived from characters owned by the CW and DC Comics.

Something has changed within me
Something is not the same
I'm through with playing by the rules
Of someone else's game
Too late for second-guessing
Too late to go back to sleep
It's time to trust my instincts
Close my eyes and leap!

It's time to try
Defying gravity
I think I'll try
Defying gravity
And you can't pull me down!
-"Defying Gravity" (Wicked)

At first, all she'd seen was his smile.

Sullivan Kent-- Sully-- was a beautiful man. Three inches over six feet, with dark hair and green eyes, he'd make any woman look twice. God knew she'd looked twice.

No, she'd looked a couple of hundred times, at least.

But it hadn't taken very long before she'd realized that Sully, while sweet and kind and funny, didn't have a single ambitious bone in his body. The two of them weren't at all similar. She was at Metropolis U to work. Sully was here to party.

So she'd carefully kept him at arm's distance. She allowed herself to talk to him, to become friends with him, but she'd done her best to ignore his endless flirting. And whenever she saw him macking on another woman-- a long, long succession of them-- she somehow managed to hold back her impulse to start a catfight.

Sully wasn't her type, despite the strange attraction she felt toward him, a pull that felt as inexorable as gravity. He was a sweet guy, but he just wasn't the kind of guy she needed. She'd known he was Superman's son, of course, but he apparently hadn't inherited a single one of Superman's traits. She'd grown up among superheroes, worked side by side with them, and Sully... well, he was the absolute furthest thing from a superhero.

At least, that was what she'd believed.

When she'd finally realized he ws the guy who'd put on Superman's old costume and become Superman 2, she was astonished to realize that her instincts had been right all along. Sully was the kind of guy she needed.

And so, when he kissed her in his mother's kitchen, she kissed him back.

Her fingers slid into his dark hair, and she kissed him long and hard. At last he drew back, looking astounded, as if he'd never been kissed before.

"Wow," he said.

"Wow yourself," she answered. "Not bad for a guy with so little experience."

She saw his cheeks flush slightly at her teasing, and she grinned. "I'm kidding, Sully."

"I know," he answered. "I just... well..." His cheeks grew redder. "I wish you were the first girl I ever kissed, Barri. I wish I'd tried harder when I first met you. I wish I'd tried to be a better guy then, so you'd have been interested in me. I've wasted all this time..."

"Sully." She put her hand on his cheek and looked into his eyes. "Everything you've done, the good and the bad, the right and the wrong, has made you the man you are today. And I like the man you are today."

He accepted that like a man receiving absolution for his sins, nodding gravely. "Thank you," he said softly.

She smiled into his eyes.

"I'll see you at lunch," she said.

*****

"So you really feel ready now."

Sully nodded as he sipped at his Coke. "Yeah," he answered. "I do. When I first started, I was just stumbling through the darkness without a light. But now, with everything I've learned, I think I can cope a lot better."

"I think you were doing a pretty good job already," Barri said.

He looked shyly embarrassed-- an odd expression on him, given that he was usually ridiculously cocky. "You know I was having some pretty serious issues, Barri. I was having a hard time finding a balance. If you hadn't made me take a break, I would have worked until I collapsed."

"But now you have some help from the Justice League."

"Yeah. Batman's going to make sure there's some backup here. So you can put your suit away, if you want to focus on college."

Barri sighed. "I'm not sure what I want to do."

"I thought that was my line," Sully quipped.

"Ha, ha. I'm serious. I thought I knew what I wanted, Sully. When I turned eighteen, I decided to put my suit away and focus on college for four years. But when I went back out on the street to cover for you, I realized I'd been forgetting how many people need help. I'm not sure I can justify keeping my suit packed away. I think... I think maybe it's selfish of me."

He reached out and took her hand, which seemed to be swallowed up by his enormous paw. His hand was oddly soft-- no calluses, she reminded herself-- but impossibly strong.

"I don't think it's selfish," he said. "I think you need to do whatever makes you happy."

She looked at him. "Have you been doing what makes you happy, Sully?"

"The saving people thing... yeah, that makes me happy." He blew out a breath, making her hair blow as if in a March breeze. "The college, not so much. I don't really think... well, look, Barri..." He stumbled to a halt, then went on. "Thing is, I told my mom I was dropping out of college."

"I'm not surprised," she said gently. "I don't think college was ever a good fit for you."

"Yeah, well..." He hesitated again, looking adorably and uncharacteristically shy. "I was kind of worried that maybe you might think that I'm, you know, kind of a loser..."

"Because you don't want to get a degree?" She rolled her eyes. "Sully. You save people every day. Leaving college so you can save more lives does not make you a loser, by any sensible definition. The truth is, I think maybe you might have been happier if you'd never gone to college to begin with."

"Yeah," he admitted. "I think I always knew it was wrong for me, deep down. But it was what my parents wanted me to do. Maybe I should have trusted my instincts and not come here. Then again..." He squeezed her hand. "If I hadn't come to college, I wouldn't have met you."

She felt another smile tugging at her lips. "True."

He looked down at the empty tray, and smiled ruefully. "I guess it's time for me to get back to work."

"Wait," she blurted.

He looked up at her and cocked an eyebrow questioningly.

"I..." It was her turn to blush. "I was just wondering if you'd take me flying. I've never flown. I can climb pretty high, but it's not the same thing."

"No, I suppose it isn't." He stood up and reached out his hand, which she took as a gesture of acquiescence. She wrapped her fingers around his and let him lead her outside.

In the deserted alley behind the deli, he picked her up in his arms, and the two of them shot up into the sky. Faster than a speeding bullet, she thought with amusement, recalling an old phrase that had frequently been uttered about Sully's father. The wind blew her hair back, and she laughed in delight.

"This is great, Sully!"

"It used to scare me," his deep voice confessed in her ear. "I tried never to fly if I could help it. But I've grown to love it."

"You've changed."

"Yeah," he said softly. "I guess I have."

She turned her head and buried her face in his chest. In only a matter of months, he'd changed a great deal. He'd grown from a boy to a man. And once again it made her wonder if she'd made the right choices, if there was anything she could do to grow into a better person.

You know the answer to that question, she told herself. You already know what you need to do.

And it was true. She knew. She had to put her costume back on, and help the people who needed her. She didn't have to drop out of college, but she could no longer turn her back entirely on the world, either.

The world needed all the superheroes it could get.

They flew over Metropolis, effortlessly defying gravity, and she looked down on the city-- their city-- and smiled.

-The End-

Daylight Finds You

Sullivan Kent and guest star
Futurefic
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Manip by leothelion. Used with permission of the artist.

There will be times on this journey
All you'll see is darkness
Out there somewhere daylight finds you
If you keep believing

So don't run, don't hide
It will be all right
You'll see, trust me
I'll be there watching over you

Just take a look through my eyes
There's a better place
somewhere out there
Just take a look through my eyes
Everything changes
You'll be amazed what you'll find
If you look through my eyes

All the things that you can change
There's a meaning in everything
And you will find all you need
There's so much to understand
Just take a look through my eyes...
-"Look Through My Eyes," Phil Collins (Brother Bear)

Sully couldn't believe he was standing in front of Batman. Or The Batman, as Gotham City's criminals respectfully referred to him. The man was a freaking legend.


Sully suddenly felt very young and very irrelevant.

He lifted his head, doing his best to channel the look his father used to wear when wearing the suit-- not arrogance, exactly, but a look of command, a look almost of nobility. He didn't want to look like he was intimidated by Batman. He had a feeling the guy wouldn't respect anyone who was scared by him.

Sure enough, he thought he saw a faint glint of approval in Batman's eyes. Batman looked him over, very carefully. At last he spoke.

"You look a great deal like your father," he said.

Sully thought about denying his relationship to the original Superman, but thought better of it. Of course Batman had figured it out. He was the world's greatest detective, and everyone knew it. Besides, he'd probably met the guy before, and just not realized it. Batman was one of those very closely held secret identities that even Sully hadn't managed to figure out, but the guy had almost certainly met him as Sully Kent at some point in the past.

Which was exactly why he'd decided he had to remain a blur, because too damn many people knew who he was.

"Thank you," he answered. It occurred to him he could use his x-ray vision to see the face beneath the cowl, but he decided not to. His dad wouldn't have done it, and now that he was wearing the suit, he was trying to avoid doing stuff his father wouldn't have approved of.

"Not a compliment. Just an observation." The other man walked toward him, stepping into a pool of light. He was as tall as Sully himself, three inches over six feet, and he appeared strong and well-muscled, although the lines around his mouth, visible beneath his cowl, said clearly that he wasn't a young man. "Tell me, Sully. What made you decide to take up this life?"

Sully hesitated, then blurted out the only answer he'd been able to come up with.

"Someone had to do it," he said.

He thought he saw a faint curve of Batman's mouth beneath the cowl. "I see," he said. "Your father said something similar to me when I asked him the same question."

"My father..." Sully blinked, and shook his head firmly. "He was born for this, Batman. I don't believe he ever had any doubts about what he was meant to do."

Batman's mouth twitched visibly. "When I first met your father," he answered, "he was twenty-one. He wasn't Superman then, just the Red and Blue Blur."

Sully lifted his eyebrows. "The what?"

"The Red and Blue Blur. He was doing his best to keep his identity hidden by never letting anyone see him-- much as you are."


Sully thought about that for a minute. He'd somehow thought his dad's identity as a superhero had sprung fully formed from his mind. It had never occurred to him his dad might have had to work at it for a while.


"I guess it took him a while to come up with the suit," he said at last. "But at least he was out here saving the world. My mother told me he was a hero from the time he was fourteen."

He saw the faintest quirk of the mouth beneath the cowl. "Your mother," Batman said in that raspy voice, "may have overstated the case just a bit."

Sully bristled. "What are you trying to imply?"

"When I met him..." Batman paused for just a moment. "When I first met him, your father was something of an idiot."

Sully felt annoyance bubbling up inside of him. His father had been a great man, damn it. Greater by far than any other superhero on the planet-- even this one. "My mother said--"

"Sullivan." Batman spoke the name with an odd gentleness. "Surely it has occurred to you that your mother may have a certain lack of objectivity where your father is concerned?"

Sully scowled. "So what are you trying to imply, exactly?"

"I am not trying to imply anything. I'm telling you outright that your father was a very foolish young man when I first met him."

"He was only a little older than I am when you met him," Sully said between his teeth. "And he'd been already saving people for seven years."

"Yes, and resisting his destiny every step of the way. Despite the many lives he saved, Sullivan, he didn't want to be a superhero. He wanted to be an ordinary man."

Sully thought about that for a moment. He thought about his own efforts to be a "regular guy," a party animal, the amiable dude everyone liked, the popular kid who'd never met a stranger.

Even after all these weeks devoted to hero work, he still wasn't sure which Sullivan Kent was the real him. He worried he'd just put on a persona with this suit, and that maybe deep down he was still the same flaky guy.

It had never occurred to him his father might have had some of the same doubts. He'd never imagined that maybe the cape had weighed a little heavily on Dad's shoulders sometimes, too.

"What happened to change his mind?" he asked, very softly.

Batman looked at him steadily.

"He died," he answered.

Sully cocked his head. "I don't understand."

"Surely you must know of some of your father's history with Doomsday," Batman said. "The battle a few months ago was not their first encounter. The first time Doomsday fought your father, they both appeared to die."

Sully nodded. He'd known that.

"Your father was dead for three days. Your mother kept vigil by his side, refused to let anyone bury him, and insisted that he be exposed to as much sunlight as possible. And on the third day..." The lips twisted in a wry smile. "On the third day, he rose from the dead."

Sully felt his eyes sting with tears. He spoke softly. "Mom was sure he would come back this time, too. She waited... she wouldn't give up for so long... she was sure he'd come back to life..."

"We all hoped he would. It's still hard to believe he's gone." Batman hesitated, then spoke solemnly. "When I look at you... I see that he isn't. Not really."

Sully's eyes stung worse than before. "I'm no Superman," he said gruffly. "I'm not the perfect hero, believe me."

"Neither was your father, Sullivan. That's exactly what I've been trying to tell you."

"My father," Sully said through his teeth, "was the world's greatest superhero."

"Yes. He was. He was also stubborn, selfish, and quite frequently seemed to have the reasoning abilities of a jellyfish." Batman's lips quirked again, the smile of a man remembering a friend with fond humor. "He grew up a lot after his brush with death, Sullivan, but he struggled all his life to become the man he wanted to be. And he never made it. He was never everything he wanted to be."

"I don't believe that, damn you!"

"Sullivan..." Batman blew out his breath in a sigh. "Sometimes what we want to be isn't what we should be. Your father was a good man, and I wouldn't have wanted him to be anything other than what he was. Flaws and all, he did great things in the world."

Sully felt the anger drain out of him. He nodded slowly, finally understanding what the older man was trying to tell him. "You're saying that I don't have to be perfect to do good things?"

"No one is perfect, Sullivan. Not your father, not me, not you. No matter what our abilities... we're just men."

Sully swallowed. "Can you... can you tell me more about my father?"

"I could," Batman answered. "But it would be subjective, just as your mother's stories are. If you really want to know about your father-- the real man, not the Superman everyone's read about in the Daily Planet-- the Fortress might be the best source of information."

"The... Fortress?"

Batman lifted his chin in a gesture that betrayed slight surprise. "You haven't been to the Fortress yet?"

"I have no clue what you mean. What's the Fortress?"

"Your father's Fortress of Solitude, in the Arctic. There you will find a repository of information, about your father as well as his people. Fly north, Sullivan. You'll find it, trust me. I will watch over your city while you're gone."

Batman inclined his head slightly, in what looked almost like a gesture of respect, and melted into the shadows. Despite the catlike stealth with which he moved, Sully could have easily tracked him by the sound of his footsteps, but he let the other man go.

The Fortress, he thought, turning over Batman's words in his head. A repository of information.

His dad had never told him much about Krypton, and he'd thought maybe there wasn't much to know. The place had blown up when his dad was still a baby, after all. But suddenly he wanted to find out everything there was to know about his heritage, and about his father as well. The real man, not the superhuman man in the cape that everyone had read about.

When I first met him, your father was something of an idiot.

The idea that his father might have been as foolish as Sully himself was something of a revelation. He wanted to know more.

But he hesitated, because Metropolis needed him.

I'll watch over your city while you're gone.

He stood there for long moments, undecided. But intellectually he knew Batman could do the job. Hell, he'd been protecting Gotham for twenty years now. He would very likely be a more effective guardian of Metropolis than Sully himself.

His mind made up, Sully lifted up into the sky and zoomed away from his city.

*****

Daylight found him as he flew north. Before long, he saw a vast structure of ice glittering in the sunlight, a long distance ahead of him. He had no idea how, but somehow he'd been drawn toward this structure, straight as an arrow, as if in some mysterious fashion it had called to him.

From a distance, it gleamed like a cut diamond against white velvet. But up close, the edifice was enormous, a huge crystal cathedral rising out of a snow-covered plain. It was beautiful, and it stirred something inside of him, something he couldn't identify, like a half-forgotten memory or a long-ago dream.

He dropped to the snow just outside of it, and walked in cautiously.

It was dark and cold inside, but as he entered, the giant crystal formations began to light up, glowing a bluish white. He walked in a little further, going from chamber to chamber, but he didn't see a library, or a video screen, or anything that might be a "repository of information."

All he saw was a whole lot of ice.

"Hello?" he said, tentatively.

There was a long, long silence, and he began to think that Batman was wrong. Maybe there had once been some sort of library or computer here, but it was clearly gone now.

But just as he was about to concede defeat and leave the empty structure, a voice spoke in deep, sonorous tones.

"Welcome home," it said.

-The End-

The One You Need To Be

Sullivan Kent and guest star
Futurefic
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.

Come with me, I'll take you there
To a place where you'll see
Everything you need to be the one
You need to be
And all of those things that you feared
Will disappear from you in time

Everything will become clear to you
When you see things through
Another's eyes
Everything will become clear to you
Whatever's meant for you, you will find
-"Transformation," Phil Collins (Brother Bear)

Being awake really helped a guy save lives.

Sullivan Kent, a.k.a. Superman 2, swooped wildly toward an intersection where a bent, white-haired woman was inches away from being flattened by a tanker truck. He caught her up, as gently as possible, and moved her out of the way just in time, then deposited her on the sidewalk, again very gently, and blurred away before she could see him.

Barri Allen, he thought, had been right. He'd let himself way get too exhausted, and he hadn't been working at anything near peak efficiency. He'd really needed to sleep.

But now that he'd had an enforced break, thanks to Barri, his head was clear, and he was back in the game. He'd saved five people in the past hour. He thought with a small flicker of pride that Dad probably couldn't have done any better.

He looked down at the red S on his chest with a small flicker of regret. Dad had been able to let people see him, so they knew who it was who saved them. Sully hated the necessity of being a blur. His dad had worn this costume proudly, and with his actions had made it a symbol of truth and justice.

But unlike his father, Sully couldn't let anyone see him. He couldn't let himself become a symbol. His mom's life depended on him keeping his identity secret.

Problem was, as a result of doing good deeds shrouded in mystery, people tended to believe the worst of him.

Of course, he thought grimly, a lot of that was due to his mom, who was busily writing article after article defaming him. His mom had no clue that "Superman 2" was Sully Kent, college student and erstwhile party boy. She believed Superman 2 was some random stranger, trying to make a name for himself using Dad's reputation, and she was pissed as hell.

The most recent article had tried to pin a series of bank robberies on him, but over the past few weeks she'd accused him of quite a few serious felonies in the pages of the Daily Planet. He hoped that Barri Allen was right, and that he could make the Justice League believe that he wasn't a criminal, but just a guy trying to save lives. Because he really needed help here. Ever since his dad had died, the crime rate in Metropolis had spiraled out of control, and he'd finally come to realize that the biggest city in the world was too much for just one guy to patrol.

He tried to imagine what he could say to the Justice League to get them to help: Really, I know my mom says I'm a bank robber, but I swear, I help little old ladies cross the street all the time.

He rolled his eyes at himself. Unlike his father, he wasn't a Boy Scout, and never had been. He'd never been a really bad kid, but he sure as hell hadn't been a model of morals and decorum, either. He thought he'd grown into a better person recently, since he put the suit on, but he still wasn't anywhere near the guy he wanted to be, the guy he needed to be.

And problem was, a lot of Justice knew him-- well, the person he had been, before he put on the suit-- too well to give him the benefit of the doubt.

Then again, Justice wasn't made up of perfect people, his dad notwithstanding. There was Plastic Man, who'd made his living as a burglar, once upon a time. Green Arrow was a notorious womanizer with a tendency to inflict retribution for crimes that often came perilously close to terrorism. And Barri Allen's dad, the Flash, had been a street thief way back when, before he'd been recruited into Justice. So maybe...

Barri Allen.

His thoughts drifted to the beautiful redhead he'd left in bed. She'd been warm and willing and very close to him, and the boy he'd been until a month ago wouldn't have walked away from her. But the man he was now wasn't sure he was worthy of her, and wasn't going to use a woman he admired for sexual release.

Anyway, he didn't have time for a real relationship right now, and Barri deserved better than the wham, bam, thank you ma'am treatment.

But he still regretted leaving her behind.

He heard shots, three miles away to the south, and his pleasant memories of Barri scattered like dust on the wind. Automatically, he swung around in midair and zoomed toward the sound.

Too late, he realized grimly as he swooped down. There were two bodies on the pavement already...

But neither was bleeding. His heart lifted a little, and he dropped out of superspeed and surveyed the situation. Guns lay on the pavement beside the inert bodies-- which were unconscious, not dead. A woman was sprawled on the sidewalk, looking dazed and relieved, but perfectly intact, with no bullet holes to be seen.

Someone had come to the rescue before he had.

Cautiously, he dropped down into the shadows, wondering who was on his turf. Suddenly he remembered Barri Allen's words: Metropolis is in good hands, believe me.

He'd been so glad to get back to work he hadn't even bothered to remember that some other superhero was out here on patrol.

He lifted his head, scanning the shadows, listening. He heard a slow, steady heartbeat behind him, and turned.

"So," a raspy, low voice said. "We finally meet."

Sully blinked, trying to adjust his vision to see in the darkness. He had a lot of inhuman visual abilities, but seeing in pitch blackness wasn't one of them. But in the charcoal gray of the city night, he could see a lot better than humans could. He squinted, and saw a dark, shadowy figure in gray and black, wearing a cowl that covered most of his face.

Sully's eyes went wide. He was standing in front of a freaking legend-- a legend who, not incidentally, had created the device Barri Allen had used to stop him earlier. This was one of the founding members of the Justice League, and one of the best-known heroes in the world.

Suddenly Sully felt very young, and very much a pretender. He wasn't even worthy of this man's notice, let alone a conversation with him. And for all he knew, the man intended to apprehend him and have him arrested for the crimes he hadn't committed. Thanks to his mom, people had reason to believe the worst of him.

And even with no superpowers, if this guy wanted to take Sully in, he'd manage it. A sudden fear filled him, making his legs shake.

Part of him-- most of him-- wanted to just blur away, but he held his ground and stared steadily back at the dark figure.

"Hello, Batman," he said.

-The End-

All These Things

Sullivan Kent/Barri Allen futurefic
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Sequel to Look to the Sky.

Oh, the power to be strong
And the wisdom to be wise
All these things will come to you in time
On this journey that you're making
There'll be answers that you'll seek
And it's you who'll climb the mountain
It's you who'll reach the peak

Though there's no one there to guide you
No one to take your hand
But with faith and understanding
You will journey from boy to man
-Phil Collins (Tarzan), "Son of Man"

When Sullivan Kent finally awakened, thick, quiet darkness surrounded him. He blinked sleepily, trying to remember where he was and what he might be doing here.

Oh, yeah. Right. He'd been abducted by the redhead he'd been lusting after for a year and a half, who'd turned out to be a fellow child of the Justice League. She'd stripped his powers from him, using some device created by Batman to stop Sully's dad, the original Superman. And then she'd gone out to patrol Metropolis for him, while he'd slept-- for how long?

He turned his head, looking for a clock, and saw glowing numerals. 2:20 A.M.

Oh, great. His mom must be wondering where the hell he was. He'd had a couple of free days, so he'd headed home, and he'd been supposed to spend a quiet afternoon at his mom's house, working on his Shakespeare paper.

And instead, he'd gone AWOL, which Mom was almost certainly going to interpret as hanging out with friends and loafing. She was probably pacing the floor and cussing a blue streak by now.

And in fact he had been loafing, but not intentionally. He'd spent the morning flying patrol over the city and saving people, but he'd been seriously worn out, and when Barri had captured him and brought him back to her dorm room-- well, he hadn't fought against sleep very long.

He'd been beyond exhausted, he thought, realizing that he'd slept over twelve hours.

He felt a lot better now. He indulged in a bone-cracking, muscle-popping stretch... and his outstretched arm brushed over something warm and soft.

It dawned on him that someone was in the bed with him.

He froze, and turned his head, very slightly, inhaling the fragrance of strawberries. Barri, he thought. She'd apparently finished patrolling the city, and when she'd come back to the dorm room she presumably hadn't wanted to wake him up, so she'd just sort of squeezed in next to him.

He wondered if she was still wearing her red, skintight costume, or if she'd changed into something a little looser. At the thought, his body reacted in the predictable male way.

Down, boy, he thought to himself. Barri had done him a huge favor today, by capturing him, and then enabling him to sleep when he hadn't been able to turn the inner superhero off. The last thing he needed to do was make things weird and awkward between them by putting the moves on her. She'd already made it very clear she wasn't interested in him that way, anyway, so...

"You're awake."

Her voice was very soft, and very husky, with a sensual quality that sent a shiver down his spine.

"Yeah," he answered, ignoring his natural impulse, which was to climb all over her. Celibacy and Sullivan Kent were two terms that rarely occurred in the same sentence, but he couldn't just pounce on her. He liked her too well to treat her like she was some random girl. "But if you're done patrolling, I guess I'd better get back to work..."

"No," she said. "You don't need to do that. I called in a favor from a friend. Metropolis is in good hands, believe me."

"Well..." He shifted under the covers uncomfortably, thinking that Barri could be in good hands, too. His hands. "I'm supposed to be spending the weekend at home, and my mom is probably wondering where I am..."

"Sully." He heard a trace of laughter in her voice. "I never thought you were a Boy Scout."

She moved even closer to him. She felt very soft and pliant, wearing a t-shirt and sweat pants, and a strange ache began to curl in his chest. It was, he thought, lust, but not any sort of lust he'd ever felt. It was more like a craving, an intense need he couldn't explain and had never before experienced.

He thought maybe it was the difference between wanting a pretty girl, and wanting a pretty girl you admired like crazy.

He closed his eyes and tried to do polynomial equations in his head, with limited success. "And I thought you weren't interested in me."

"Oh, I've always been interested in you." Her hand reached down, under the covers, and closed around his. "Ever since the first day of college, when you sat down next to me and really listened to me when I told you about how much I missed my mom and dad, I've always thought you were a sweet guy. But I also thought-- I thought--well..."

"You thought I was a lazy bum," he said, aware that there was a slight tinge of bitterness in his voice.

Her hand squeezed his in apology. "I was wrong, Sully."

"No, Barri. You were right."

"I should have trusted my instincts," she said. Her voice was very soft, but he could hear the regret in her tone. "I should have realized that deep down, you were something more."

He didn't blame her. Thing was, he wasn't sure he had been something more. That was the problem. If Dad hadn't died, leaving a vacuum that needed to be filled, would he have just wandered aimlessly through life, always taking the easiest path, always playing when he should be working, always treating life like one big party?

Or would he one day have heard the voices crying out for deliverance, and tried to help them on his own?

He honestly didn't know.

But what he did know was that he wasn't good enough for someone like Barri Allen. Not yet.

Anyway, he didn't have room in his life for a real relationship, not even with a shapely, smart superhero. Sex was one thing, but a genuine romance was another-- and he simply liked Barri too well to settle for casual sex. If he and Barri got involved, then he was going to want more than just occasional sheet wrestling. A lot more.

And right now... he just didn't have time.

He thought about his city, which he'd left in other hands for over half a day, and an odd throb of longing hit him. He suddenly realized he missed patrolling, missed the work he'd been doing, missed saving people.

There was a time, not too long ago, when the phrase lazy bum had fit him very well indeed. He'd loved to loaf, to kick back and relax, to just hang out.

But nowadays... well, God help him, he was turning into a workaholic.

Even so, he knew that Barri was right. Even with all his abilities, he couldn't handle the biggest city in the world on his own. He needed to put his pride and his fears aside, go to the Justice League, and ask for help. But in the meantime...

"I have to get going," he said, more firmly. "Take this thing off me, Barri."

He heard a faint sigh, and then her fingers touched his throat, removing the blue kryptonite-studded collar she'd fastened there earlier. She tossed it aside, and suddenly the world changed, filling with sounds he hadn't been able to hear while the collar had been around his neck. Suddenly he could hear sirens wailing, screams and gunshots, the sound of flesh being punctured by knives and pummeled by fists.

The sound of a city that needed him.

Metropolis might be in good hands, he thought. But it wasn't in his hands. And now that he was rested, and ready to go back to work, he didn't have any excuse to be lounging around in bed, not even with a gorgeous redhead.

He untangled his long cape from around him, then sat up, leaned over, and brushed a kiss over her forehead.

"Thanks," he said simply.

"Don't make me put that thing on you again," she told him. "From now on, you sleep when you're tired, or I'll kick your ass."

"Yes, ma'am," he said meekly. He climbed out of the bed, not without reluctance, and headed across the room. Light spilled into the room as he opened the door, and he looked back over his shoulder, seeing her curled up in bed, warm and soft and desirable.

Part of him really wanted to stay with her. She was beautiful, she was kind, and she was, much to his surprise, interested in him.

But he couldn't stay. The cries of people who needed help were loud in his ears, and anything he might want out of life had to be put off, perhaps indefinitely.

Maybe, he thought, if he was able to get help, he'd have a little more spare time. And then maybe he and Barri could explore whatever this attraction was between them.

But right now... right now, he couldn't. People needed him.

He turned away from her, and blurred out into the night to protect his city.

-The End-

Look to the Sky

Sullivan Kent futurefic
Rating: PG
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.

In learning you will teach
And in teaching you will learn
You'll find your place beside the ones you love
Oh, and all the things you dreamed of
The visions that you saw
Well, the time is drawing near now
It's yours to claim it all

Son of Man, look to the sky
Lift your spirit, set it free
Some day you'll walk tall with pride
Son of Man, a man in time you'll be
-Phil Collins (Tarzan), "Son of Man"

He was falling.

Sullivan Kent tumbled toward the sidewalk below. Like Icarus, he'd tried to fly too high, metaphorically speaking, and now he was paying the price. He'd tried to fill his dad's boots, but being Superman was just too damn much for him.

And now he was going to die for it.

Served him right, really. He'd had the arrogance to believe he could help people the way his father had. He'd had the arrogance to believe he was making a difference in this world.

But compared to his father, he was nothing. Nothing at all.

And right now, with his powers stripped away and plummeting toward the ground like a safe in one of those old cartoons, he was scared out of his mind. Despite his invulnerability, despite his ability to fly, he'd always had a fear of heights, and that primitive, atavistic fear filled him now.

He kept tumbling dizzyingly through the air, aware that he was going to die in a big, ugly splat any second now. The thought terrified him, closing off his throat and compressing his lungs, so that he couldn't draw a breath.

His fear overwhelmed him, and he fell gratefully into darkness.

*****

When he woke up, he wasn't dead.

He thought about that for a moment, without opening his eyes. The last he remembered, he'd been falling toward the concrete at a terrifying speed, and therefore he certainly should be dead. So how did he know for sure he wasn't dead? What if his consciousness was in Heaven or Hell or somewhere equally metaphysical?

As he contemplated the question, he felt his stomach rumble. He'd forgotten to eat breakfast this morning, and hadn't gotten around to lunch either, and his stomach was making its indignation known. He found that reassuring. Somehow he doubted people's stomachs rumbled in the afterlife.

Slowly, he opened his eyes, expecting to find himself in some sort of high-tech jail, or maybe a sterile laboratory. Instead, he found himself alone in an ordinary dorm room. A girl's room, he figured, judging from the pink fringed lamp and the flowers on the bedspread.

Okay. Instead of dying, he'd wound up in a girl's bed.

Things were looking up.

He looked down at himself and saw that he was still dressed in his father's costume. But he felt weak and strange, weaker than even exhaustion had made him.

He thought back over the events that had occurred just before he found himself falling, and remembered the thing that had entwined itself around his neck.

Reaching up, he found it was still there. Sort of a collar, he thought, poking at it experimentally. It was made of metal, with a small stone embedded in it, and he couldn't seem to rip it off. Evidently his powers were still missing in action. He ran his fingers along it, trying to find the catch...

"You're awake."

Sully jolted, so startled he almost cried out. He was used to knowing who was in the immediate vicinity, thanks to his superhearing. But of course his superhearing had been stripped from him along with all his other powers.

The room had been empty, but now he saw a tall woman standing next to the bathroom. Obviously she'd just emerged.

She wore a crimson suit that clung to her substantial curves, and a cowl that covered most of her face. But spilling out of the cowl cascaded a waterfall of dark red hair, a strikingly unusual shade of deep, rich burgundy he'd know anywhere.

"Barri?" he said, frowning.

She sighed, and reached up, removing the cowl. A familiar face smiled at him wryly. "I guess my costume isn't much of a disguise, huh?"

He blinked at her, bewildered. He'd met Barri Allen on his very first day at Met U, and since then he'd been pursuing her, trying to get her to go out with him. And she'd kept blowing him off. She'd been friendly enough, but not interested in him that way-- probably because she was a serious, hardworking girl who devoted herself to studying, while his interests mostly revolved around parties and hanging out with friends.

But despite the fact that they possessed very different personalities, he liked her a lot, and he'd kept trying. They shared a couple of classes, and several mutual friends, and he talked to her every time he got the chance, pouring on the Kent charm that made him so popular with the ladies of Met U. He'd finally convinced her to go out with him a couple of weeks ago, but unfortunately he'd had to leave in the middle of their date to go help someone. She hadn't spoken to him since.

He'd thought of her as a smart, funny, pretty young woman. But it had never occurred to him that she might be a superhero.

He frowned, looking her up and down from her red boots to the lightning bolt on her chest to the red cowl she held in her hands. "Who the hell are you supposed to be?"

She lifted her chin. "I call myself Impulse."

"Impulse? But Impulse was a guy, and he became the Flash, a long time ago..." His voice trailed off, and he stared at her as a light dawned. "You're Bart Allen's daughter."

He'd never made the connection, because Allen was a very common name, and the Flash made his home in Keystone City, a long ways from Metropolis. He'd never actually met the guy, although he'd heard his parents laughing about him more than once.

"You've got superspeed," he said accusingly. "That's how you were able to see me."

She shrugged a shoulder, a small motion that made her breasts move slightly, in a very attractive way. Sully tried not to stare. "I have Dad's speed," she admitted. "But I also have my mom's ability to climb straight up walls. That's how I was able to get near enough to you to throw the damping device."

"The...?" He yanked at the offending collar a little more strongly. "What the hell is this thing?"

Her mouth curved. God, she had beautiful lips. He'd spent a year and a half fantasizing about kissing them. Not that his fantasies had stopped him from kissing a variety of other lips. Sully Kent had always been a big believer in variety.

"Batman created it a while back," she answered. "It was designed to stop Superman, in case he ever was taken over by a hostile influence, or just lost it for some reason. It's blue kryptonite, and it drains your powers away."

"Great. Just great."

She gave him her flashing bright smile. "Don't worry, Sully. It's not permanent. You'll be back to lifting cars like pebbles the minute I take it off you."

Sully gave up yanking at the thing, and sat up, frowning. "How did you know it would work on me? For that matter, how did you even know what I've been doing?"

"Sully." She shook her head at him. "I'm not stupid, you know. After spending half my life working with the Justice League, I knew Superman's identity, even though I wasn't supposed to. There've been articles about Superman 2 in the paper for the past month, and you seemed to be missing an awful lot of classes..."

"I always miss a lot of classes."

She nodded, a faint smile on her full lips. "But all of a sudden I wasn't seeing you anywhere. Not even parties. And then you and I had that date where you ran off without an explanation. I really didn't have much trouble putting the pieces together."

He sighed. He was clearly a total failure at the secret identity thing. "Who else knows?"

She shrugged again, and he stared at the resulting movement. He couldn't help himself. "I think some members of the Justice League suspected you at first," she answered. "But your mom is sure it's not you, and they figure she'd know. Plus... everyone knows what kind of guy you are."

He felt his cheeks flame with angry embarrassment. Yeah, everyone knew what kind of guy he was-- a lazy slacker who couldn't possibly become a superhero. Damn it. He spoke gruffly.

"So you figured out who I was. Why did you lasso me? Why take my powers?"

"I wanted to talk to you, Sully. But I knew if I approached you, you'd just deny everything. I figured I had to catch you in the act to get you to talk to me about it. And let's be honest-- if you have even half your dad's strength, I didn't have much chance of catching you as long as you had your powers. So I swiped this little device from the JLA headquarters."

"You almost killed me!"

"Don't be silly." She tossed her head, so that her luxurious cascade of hair fell into her face. "I didn't have any trouble catching you. I have some strength from Mom, too."

He tried to remember what he knew of the Justice League-- most of it information he wasn't supposed to have, but that he'd picked up via his unfortunate habit of eavesdropping. Bart Allen, he vaguely recalled, was married to Andrea Rojas, whose codename was the Angel of Vengeance. He'd seen photos of the two of them together in his parents' albums, and they'd struck him as something of an odd couple, since she was tall and beautiful, and he was short and kind of goofy-looking.

Even so, he could suddenly see their features mixed together in Barri, could see Andrea Rojas' regal cheekbones and Bart Allen's impish smile in her face. And he could easily imagine that the combination of their powers could result in a really impressive superhero.

"Okay," he said. "So you took my powers, and then saved me from going splat on the pavement. I have to admit I don't exactly know whether to thank you, or be pissed..."

"Unless you enjoy going splat, I'd go with thank you."

"Falling that far scared the hell out of me, Barri."

She looked slightly sheepish. "I didn't realize you'd be able to shoot upward so far before the damping device took effect. I thought the effect would be instantaneous. Instead it took about half a second-- which was long enough for you to get a lot higher than I expected you to. Sorry about that."

She sounded sincerely chagrined, and after a moment's thought, he decided to accept her apology. He studied her, tilting his head on one side. "I just don't get exactly why you decide to capture me in the first place."

"I've been keeping an eye on you for a while," she answered. "And I think you need some help."

He bristled. "I don't need a sidekick."

"A sidekick?" She laughed softly. "Junior, unlike you, I've been working in the superhero business since I was thirteen. I'm no one's sidekick."

"Then what--"

"Ever since you ran off in the middle of our date," she went on as if he hadn't spoken, "I've been watching over you. You've hardly eaten or slept in all that time, Sully. You're going to work yourself to death if you're not careful."

He hunched his shoulders defensively. "People need me, Barri."

"Is that why you put on the suit? Because people needed you?"

"Not me, exactly." He sighed. "The world needs a Superman, Barri. But problem is, I'm not Superman. I'm just plain old Sully Kent, and I can't do it all. Hell, I can't do a fraction of what needs doing."

"Look..." She put the cowl down on her desk, and suddenly she was sitting next to him on the bed. He realized she'd briefly gone into superspeed, moving more quickly than he could see in his current depowered state. Her hand dropped lightly onto his. "Every superhero goes through this when they start, Sully. It's not just you. Once you realize how many people are out there who need help-- well, it's really hard to take any time for yourself."

He had to fight to avoid turning over his hand and wrapping it around hers. He'd liked Barri Allen since the moment he met her, and having her this close-- well, she smelled good, and her skin felt soft and warm against his. And the red costume didn't leave the slightest doubt as to how nice her curves were.

But more than the way she looked or smelled, he appreciated the sympathetic understanding in her voice. He'd been struggling through his problems alone for a month, and he really wanted to talk to someone about everything he'd gone through.

"I can't take any time for myself," he said, a little sullenly. "When I stop, people die."

"I know. Believe me, I know." She squeezed his hand. "But if you don't learn how to get enough rest, you're going to make a stupid error, and get people killed. Already your reaction time is all shot to hell. That device was designed to move fast enough to stop Superman, and you didn't have much chance of avoiding it-- but you didn't even try to get out of the way."

He couldn't deny it. He knew perfectly well that ordinarily, he would have stood a much better chance of evading the device. He needed sleep in a big way. But sleeping in was no longer an option for him. He fumbled out more words, trying to explain the problem.

"When I'm not working... I can hear them."

She cocked her head. "What do you mean?"

"All of them. Everyone in Metropolis who needs me. I can hear them calling for help."

She nodded slowly. "I can see why that would be difficult to ignore."

"It's impossible to ignore, Barri. I can't..." He heard his voice tremble, to his immense embarrassment. He was tired and hungry, so exhausted that he was on the verge of tears again.

Way to impress the girl, he thought glumly.

"You can't turn off your superhearing?"

He shook his head, closing his eyes and bowing his head. "Not when people are calling for help. I hear them, and I can't... I can't... I mean, what else am I supposed to do?"

"You have to sleep," she said.

"Can't. When I sleep... they die."

She sighed. "Sully, you need help."

"I can handle it." He did his best to square his shoulders and look Supermanly, although he suspected the big circles under his eyes detracted from the look. "I'm working it out, Barri."

"You're working yourself into an early grave," she said, a little more tartly. "Look, Sully, you were right about one thing. The world needs a Superman. But even Superman can't do it all."

"There's no one else who can do it," he said tiredly. "Metropolis has been going to hell in a handbasket since my dad died, Barry. The city needs me."

"There are plenty of other superheroes out there. All you have to do is ask them to help."

He stared at her. "Are you talking about... contacting the Justice League?"

She nodded.

"But I--" The thought of actually just walking into the JLA headquarters and saying, Hey, dudes, I could use some help over in Metropolis, blew his mind. College kids didn't just walk up to living legends like Wonder Woman and Batman and Aquaman and ask for help.

Anyway, he wasn't a member of the JLA, and he never would be. He wasn't Superman, just a kid in a Superman suit, and no real superhero was going to give him a hand.

Were they?

"All you have to do is ask," she told him again. "I'm not a member, but I've worked with them before, and I think they'll help you out if you ask."

"No. My mom--" He shook his head wearily. "She's been writing all these articles painting me as some sort of supervillain. No one in the JLA is going to believe that I'm only trying to help."

"Sure they will." She patted his hand. "Like I said, I've been keeping a very close eye on you for the past week or so, Sully."

"You've been stalking me?" He couldn't stop the tired smile that tugged at his mouth. "Wow, Barri, I didn't know you cared."

"Shut up," she said, rolling her eyes. "I wanted to know what you were up to when you were wearing the costume. I know exactly what you've been up to-- and it hasn't been robbing banks."

He thought about that. Barri, with her superspeed, was one of the few reliable witnesses he could hope to have. Ordinary people couldn't swear that he hadn't disappeared for ten milliseconds and robbed a bank or something. But if Barri had been watching him that closely, then she knew exactly what he'd done, every single second she'd been observing him. And since she was the Flash's daughter, the JLA would almost certainly believe her.

Hope began to blossom inside him, along with the optimistic thought that maybe he wasn't alone in this battle after all. There were other superheroes out there, people who could help him. People who might even want to help him.

Maybe she was right. Maybe he didn't have to do it all on his own.

"Anyway," she went on, "you really need to let your mom in on what you're doing. I know she's being kind of irrational right now..."

His mom was kind of irrational about Superman 2 like he'd kind of had pimples when he was fourteen. She hated Superman 2 so much she practically foamed at the mouth when she talked about him. She reminded him of that guy in New York, the editor of the Daily Bugle, who gave Spiderman such a freaking hard time. Everything Sully did, she was determined to cast in an evil light. If he saved the Pope from getting hit by a bus, he was willing to bet she'd write an article blaming him for slowing down mass transit in the city.

"But if she knew it was you," Barri went on, "I'm sure she'd be proud of you."

Sully bowed his head and looked at the pink, girly throw rug she'd tossed over the industrial tiles. Flowers again. The girl liked flowers. "I'm not so sure about that," he said, very softly.

"Of course she would." Barri squeezed his hand again. "In only a few weeks, you've done an awful lot of good things, Sully."

"Yeah. Maybe. But..." Sully hesitated for a long moment. He'd been telling himself that he couldn't let Mom know what he was doing because he didn't want to worry her, but all at once he knew that wasn't true. Not exactly.

He blurted out his deepest fear. "I'm not sure she'd think I was, well, worthy of this suit, Barri."

"Of course she would. She's your mother."

"Yeah, but she knows the kind of guy I am. The person I've always been. I have a bad feeling that maybe she'd feel like that by wearing this suit, I'm, well..." He laughed softly and without humor. "Sullying it."

Barri was silent a long moment. At last she answered, just as softly. "Is that what you think, Sullivan? That you're not worthy of wearing it?"

Sully didn't look up to meet her gaze. She had deep brown eyes that he knew from experience could look right through to his soul-- and right now, he really wanted to keep his soul to himself.

"No one could be worthy of this suit," he answered. "Not really. I mean, there are plenty of superheroes in the world. But there was only one Superman."

Her hand tightened on his again. "I know what you mean," she answered. "I mean, I only got to work with him a few times, but your dad was... well, he wasn't like anyone else. He was... awesome. I mean, literally. It filled you with awe just to be near him. There isn't anyone else in the JLA like that, except maybe Wonder Woman."

"Exactly." Sully nodded. "He was super. And I'm just an ordinary guy."

"An ordinary guy who can fly and shoot lasers out of his eyes."

"Heat, not lasers. And anyway, it's not the same thing, you know? I mean, yeah, I have all his abilities, but deep down... I'm not the man he was. I don't think I ever will be."

"And you figure your mom wouldn't be proud of the fact that you're trying?"

"I don't know." Sully sighed, deeply enough that if he'd had his powers, the papers on her desk would have gone flying. "I just worry she'd think exactly what she already thinks about 'Superman 2'-- that I'm using Dad's name instead of making my own. I'm honestly not sure if she'd be proud, or disappointed."

Barri was quiet for a long moment. At last she said, "I guess the only way to find out for sure is to tell her."

"I don't want to tell her, Barri."

"You don't think she'll figure it out eventually? She's an investigative reporter, and she's already hot on your garish red ass. She's going to figure it all out inside of a few more weeks. I can guarantee it."

"But what if she--"

"Look," she interrupted, "I don't know your mom, so I honestly don't how she's going to react. But... well, when I got involved in the family business, I can tell you my mom and dad were really proud of me."

"It isn't the same thing. First of all, you're not wearing your dad's old suit."

"Obviously," she drawled, sticking her chest out just a little. He tried to keep his eyes in their sockets, and went on.

"And second, your dad is-- well, the Flash is terrific, but he's not larger than life, you know?"

"Sure, I know that. I just think..." She hesitated. "I think maybe you're undervaluing yourself a little, Sully. The things you've done since I've been watching you, the way you've pushed yourself almost to the point of collapse... well, I don't think you're the same Sullivan Kent you were a month ago. And I think maybe your mom will realize that."

"Maybe. But I don't see how I can ever live up to Dad in her eyes." His voice dropped almost to a whisper. "God knows I can't live up to him in mine."

She fell silent. At last she said, "Sully, why don't you get some sleep? Maybe things will look a little brighter when you're not running on empty."

"Weren't you listening earlier?" He looked at her tiredly. "I can't sleep. I can't. They need me."

"I was listening," she answered. "But I told you, you can't go on like this. You sleep, and I'll patrol Metropolis for the rest of the day. I have to admit, it's been a while since I worked as a superhero. I pretty much packed away my suit when I left the Key, so I could focus on my schoolwork. But you're right. Metropolis is a mess these days, and it could use some help."

He frowned at her. "Don't you have a class this afternoon?"

"I'll skip it."

He gaped at that sentence-- the last sentence he'd ever expected her to utter-- then closed his mouth and grinned. "Slacker."

She narrowed her eyes at him, looking annoyed by his teasing. "Shut up and lie down."

He couldn't help himself. His grin got wider. "I've been waiting to hear you say that for a year and a half, Barri."

"Shut up," she said impatiently, and pushed him over. He flopped over on his back, because right now she was a lot stronger than he was. And that reminded him...

"Are you going to take this stupid thing off my neck?"

"Hell, no," she answered, getting to her feet and walking over to the desk. She slid the cowl into place and grinned at him. "If I take it off, you're going to go right back to flying over the city, whether I'm on patrol or not. You get a decent amount of sleep, and I'll think about removing it."

"Fine." He sighed, dropping an arm over his eyes. Already his muscles felt like they were dissolving into liquid. God, he was so tired. "Take care of things for me for a while, Barri."

"I will," she answered. There was a sudden whoosh and a blur of red his normally powered eyes couldn't follow, and then she was gone.

He lay still. With his powers gone, he couldn't hear the calls of people who needed him. All he could hear was what anyone else could have heard-- the faint hum of fluorescent overhead lights and the whisper of air conditioning, and occasional muffled sounds of laughter and conversation in the dorm hall.

The mattress felt soft against his back, and his eyelashes felt impossibly heavy. He couldn't fight against sleep any longer. His eyelids drifted shut, and before he knew it sleep had slipped over him like a warm blanket.

Exhausted as he was, he slept heavily. But even in the thick, dark depths of sleep, he dreamed.

He dreamed of standing alone in the streets of Metropolis, gazing up at the sapphire sky. He dreamed that in the midst of his lonely despair, he saw brightly attired figures flying through the sky, and hope filled him as he realized he wasn't alone any more. The Justice League was coming to help him.

He dreamed that he saw them all, Wonder Woman and Batman and Aquaman and the Martian Manhunter, the Angel of Vengeance and Green Arrow, the Flash and Cyborg and Green Lantern. Living legends, men and women whose capes he wasn't worthy to touch.

And leading the way, he saw his father, the real Superman, his bearing proud and regal, his crimson cape rippling behind him in the wind.

Sully stood there in his dream, earthbound and staring up into the sky, his eyes stinging with tears as his father approached. He was bitterly aware that he himself couldn't save enough people. He couldn't get everything accomplished that needed to be done. But Dad, he thought, could save Metropolis. Dad could save the day. Dad had always saved the day.

But as he stood there staring up at the superheroes, so far above him, they flew lower, and he saw Superman's face clearly for the first time. Shock ran through him like a jolt of electricity.

Because in his dream, the man coming to rescue Metropolis wasn't his father.

It was him.

-The End-

The World I See

Sullivan Kent futurefic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Sequel to The Path Unwinding.

There's been a change in me
A kind of moving on
Though what I used to be
I still depend on
For now I realize
That good can come from bad
That may not make me wise
But oh it makes me glad

And I never thought I'd leave behind
My childhood dreams
But I don't mind
For now I love the world I see
No change of heart
A change in me
-Beauty and the Beast (Musical), "A Change in Me"

When Sullivan Kent woke up, the sky had just begun to lighten from ebony to a charcoal gray. He rolled over on the hard wooden planks of the porch and threw an arm over his face, groaning.

God. He'd just gone to sleep, what, three hours ago?

Three hours of sleep ought to be enough for any self-respecting party animal. Problem was, Sully hadn't spent the night partying, but rather flying around Metropolis, helping people. He was as invulnerable as his father had been, but that didn't mean that physical exertion didn't take it out of him. He got tired, just like anyone else did.

Besides, he hadn't had a decent night's sleep in weeks, and it was beginning to tell on him.

He closed his eyes, blocking out the unwanted sight of the rapidly brightening sky. He wanted to go back to sleep, but the noises of the city crowded in on him. Even here, in what most people probably thought of as the quiet suburbs on the outskirts of Metropolis, he could hear the sounds of the city, and pick out the people who needed helping.

A woman being beaten by her husband, pleading quietly for him to stop. A small child, lost and alone and crying hopelessly for his mother. A man trapped in a building that had collapsed, calling for help.

He couldn't sleep, not when they needed him.

He managed to push himself up into a sitting position, noticing that sometime during his few hours of sleep, Mom had snuck out to the porch and put a blanket over him. He didn't really need a blanket, of course, because he could run around butt naked in Antarctica and not get cold. Even so, he appreciated the gesture. He knew it was a peace offering after their fight, Mom's way of saying, You may be an idiot, Sully, but you're my idiot.

He hugged the blanket to his chest, very briefly, and then stood up, staggering slightly. As he did, his gaze fell on the newspaper, which had been tossed to the foot of the porch. The sound of it landing on the concrete walk was probably what had awakened him. He made his way down the stairs, grabbed it, and opened it.

The first thing that jumped out at him was a headline: POLICE SUSPECT SUPERMAN 2 IN STRING OF BANK ROBBERIES.

He growled as he saw Mom's name under the headline. Mom was still on her insane one-woman crusade to bring down the man she thought was illicitly using her dead husband's name. She hated "Superman 2" the way most people hated lice and ticks and leeches. She thought he was a parasite, just using Superman's name to make himself famous, and she was using every weapon in her reporter's arsenal to get rid of him.

And the irony was that for once in his life, he hadn't done a single thing wrong. Not since he'd put on the suit, anyway. Before he'd put on the suit-- yeah, he'd been a bit of a rebel. He'd done all sorts of things he probably shouldn't have, including underage drinking, a tendency to shatter speed limits with his old sports car, and the occasional illicit use of his x-ray vision to scope out really nice-looking girls.

But since he'd put on the suit, he hadn't done a single thing that Dad would have frowned on. Somehow wearing the suit had that effect on him. It wasn't that he thought of himself as Superman, not really. But since he'd put on the suit, he couldn't help seeing the world a little differently. He couldn't shut it out the way he once had. He was tuned in, to an almost painful level, to everything going on around him.

Anyway, he wasn't going to tarnish Dad's image by doing anything wrong.

Don't need to do anything wrong, he thought, not without bitterness. Mom's doing a great job of making me look like a felon, all by her lonesome.

Chloe Sullivan Kent was persistent as hell, and she was driving him crazy with her repeated insinuations in the Planet that he was a bank robber or a kitten murderer or whatever else she could come up with to try to link to him. But there wasn't anything he could do about it, short of telling her the truth.

And that, he refused to do. The last thing Mom needed was to spend her life worrying that another member of her family was going to be taken from her.

He sighed, so deeply that the birch tree in the front yard waved its limbs in the sudden breeze. He tossed the paper back down on the porch, putting the headline out of his mind, and headed into the house to get his costume on.

It was too damn early to be up, but he didn't have much choice in the matter.

There were people to be saved.

*****

By noon the sun was high in the sky, and Sully should have been at full strength. He was powered by the sun, just as his dad had been, but his cells didn't hold onto the solar charge quite as long as Dad's had. He could feel a subtle but noticeable difference in his strength between noon and midnight. At noon, he was ordinarily just about as strong as his father had been.

But right now, he didn't feel like he was at his strongest. He felt weak and drained, like he was running on empty. He felt like he was driving down the highway and struggling to hold his eyes open so he wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel.

He seriously needed a nap. He hadn't had a nap since he was six, but he sure as hell needed one now. He thought longingly about going back to Mom's house, stretching out in his warm, familiar bed, and passing out for a while. Mom would probably nag him about his Shakespeare term paper, but he was so tired he thought he could sleep right through her nagging right now.

Anyway, he didn't want to go back to his dorm room. He was so tired he felt like a little kid who just wanted to go home.

He spun in the air, heading toward the house where he'd grown up, but hesitated as he heard a voice crying out for deliverance. He sighed, forced his eyelids wider open, and dove toward the city.

*****

"Help!"

An hour later, he heard yet another cry. By now, he was beyond exhausted and right into dead. He promised himself that this was the last one, that he'd head for bed right after he helped whoever needed him this time.

Of course, he'd made himself the exact same promise three times in the past hour. And yet he was still here, even though he was practically asleep in the air.

He headed toward the cry, moving so fast he was only a red and blue streak. As he approached the street where he'd heard the call for help, something blurred toward him, so fast that even he couldn't see it clearly.

Ordinarily he could have evaded it, but right now he was so tired that he couldn't have evaded a rabid snail. The mysterious something wrapped itself around his neck, and startled, he instinctively shot upward, toward the sky.

But within a fraction of a second, before he'd even reached the top of the buildings, he lost everything.

His powers, his ability to fly, all of it.

All gone.

Suddenly he found himself plummeting toward the sidewalk, and fear gripped his chest so tightly he couldn't breathe. He clenched his eyes shut, seized by terror. Ordinarily, of course, he was invulnerable. But he'd felt his powers drain away, and he was pretty sure he wasn't invulnerable right now. And that meant when he hit the ground... there was going to be a really big splat.

Despite his terror, he managed to force his eyes open, and looked at the sidewalk rushing up toward him.

Shit, he thought grimly. I always knew flying was a bad idea.

-The End-

The Path Unwinding

Sullivan and Chloe Kent futurefic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Sequel to Going the Distance.

From the day we arrive on the planet
And blinking, step into the sun
There's more to see than can ever be seen
More to do than can ever be done

It's the circle of life
And it moves us all
Through despair and hope
Through faith and love
Till we find our place
On the path unwinding...
-From The Lion King, "Circle of Life"

"Do you know what time it is?"

Oh, no, not again.

Sullivan Kent sighed as he turned around to face his mom, who looked pissed. Big surprise there. Mom always looked pissed with him nowadays.

He opened his mouth to reply, but Mom plowed right on without waiting for his answer. "It's four o'clock in the morning!"

Sully threw a look at the mantel clock, and couldn't quite resist mouthing off. "Actually," he drawled, "it's 3:52."

He didn't really want to stand here and argue with his mother. He'd been out all night, flying patrol over Metropolis, and he was totally exhausted. All he wanted to do was throw himself down on his bed and check out the inside of his eyelids. But Mom stood between him and the staircase, glaring in a way that said he wasn't going to get to his bed without a big fight.

"And let me guess. You've been partying with your friends again." She looked simultaneously angry and disgusted. "Didn't you tell me you had a term paper to write this weekend? That's why you said you came home, to get a little peace and quiet so you could concentrate."

Sully shrugged. Term papers had never been really high on his list of priorities, and they still weren't. Difference was that he'd once spent most of his free time partying and hanging out with friends, and now he was spending almost all his time flying around, trying to save people. "I'll get it done tomorrow, Mom..."

"It is tomorrow!"

Damn it, he thought irritably. His life was a big enough mess right now without Mom making it worse. Actually, she was already making it worse, by writing articles dissing "Superman 2" every time she got the chance. She was a well-known journalist for the Daily Planet, and she had the whole city believing that he was some sort of criminal, when all he was doing was trying to save people. Between her lectures and her articles, she was really ticking him off.

"Get off my back," he said crankily, and tried to shove his way past her.

She didn't move. She crossed her arms and stood squarely in front of the staircase, blocking his access to the stairs, and got right up in his face, waving her index finger at him. He was almost a foot taller than she was, a hundred pounds heavier, and superpowered to boot, but that didn't stop her from trying to push him around.

"You told me you were getting a D in your Shakespeare class!" she yelled. "You said you were going to use your term paper to bring your grade up!"

"Shakespeare's boring." He couldn't quite resist needling her a little more. "And writing is boring."

Her eyes narrowed like he'd issued a personal insult. "So you're going to flunk out of college because you're bored?"

"Some people get along just fine without college," Sully answered. "Aunt Lois did."

"Aunt Lois" was his mom's cousin, who'd gotten kicked out of college before she'd even earned a semester's worth of credit, then jumped from job to job till she wound up as a popular DJ on a Star City classic rock station. Her show was syndicated, and Sully listened to it all the time, even though she did play a little too much Whitesnake for his personal taste. He thought Lois was cool, but for some reason Mom got annoyed whenever he brought her up.

Sure enough, Mom looked outraged. "Lois was lucky! But you can't rely on luck, Sully! You have to get a degree, or..."

Sullivan sighed, because he'd heard the rest of this lecture like a thousand times, and it hadn't gotten any more exciting with repetition. "Mom," he interrupted. "Lay off, will you? I'm tired and I'm going to bed."

She glared at him for a moment longer, then shook her head.

"Fine," she said, lowering her voice. She didn't sound angry any more, only very disappointed. "I'm tired of trying to talk sense into you, Sully. If you can't be bothered to keep your grades up-- well, it's your problem, not mine. If you really want to flip burgers for the rest of your life, go right ahead."

The disappointment in her voice cut him to the quick. She couldn't have said My son is a big stupid loser any more clearly if she'd actually said the sentence out loud. He stared at her for a minute, but didn't quite dare open his mouth, for fear that something really bad might come out. Dad had only died five months ago, and he honestly didn't want to upset Mom any more than he already had.

Instead of saying anything, he turned around and stalked right back out the front door.

Once outside, he sat down on the front porch to think.

He'd spent a lot of nights on this porch as a kid, gazing up at the stars and wondering about them. There had been a time when he found them familiar and comforting.

But the sight of the stars didn't comfort him the way they used to. They just reminded him that he was an alien-- well, half alien-- and that he didn't truly belong on this planet. Sure, he had lots of friends, and he'd always been popular... and yet he'd never found his place here, not really.

Lately, he'd been thinking that when he'd put Dad's red and blue suit on, maybe he'd finally found his place in the world. But after a month of flying around, saving people, he was having to come to grips with the fact that he wasn't his father. He was no Superman.

He sucked in a deep breath of cool night air and dropped his face into his hands, trying to get a grip on himself. God, he was tired. He hadn't gotten a decent night's sleep in weeks.

How the hell had Dad managed, anyway? His dad had held down a job at the Daily Planet, moonlighted as Superman, and somehow'd found time to be home with his family a reasonable amount of the time.

Sully couldn't even manage to get to his freaking classes.

And for once in his life, he wasn't loafing. Just the opposite. Whenever he sat down to read, or write a paper, or even just talk to a friend, he heard someone who needed help.

He'd had superhearing for a long time, of course. It had developed about the time he turned sixteen. But all he'd ever really used it for was to listen in on private conversations and find out what people were planning for his birthday, or listen to Mom and Dad argue about how long they wanted to ground him.

When he put on Dad's costume and started saving people, though, suddenly he'd become aware of people calling for help. All the time. Metropolis was a city of ten million people, and it seemed like someone always needed help. That was the real reason he'd come home this weekend, because Met U was practically downtown, while his mom lived out in the suburbs. He'd hoped it would be quieter here.

But it wasn't, not really. Even from here, he could hear the sounds of the city perfectly clearly, and he'd responded to their calls and gone out on patrol, because what else was he supposed to do? He'd been working, flying over the city and rescuing people, since eight o'clock last night. And he was just too tired to go on.

But he could still hear them calling for help.

He bowed his head, covered his eyes, and let his tears fall, tears of frustration and exhaustion and anger. When he'd put on Dad's suit, he hadn't realized that being "Superman" would consume his life. He'd actually been worried that he might slack off, that he might get bored and wind up walking away from it all.

It had never occurred to him that the opposite might happen, that saving people would become so important to him that he wouldn't be able to manage to scrape out any time for his own life.

Truth was, he'd never been really good at balancing stuff. He'd always had trouble getting things accomplished, because he was always too busy having fun. And now that saving people had become important to him, he couldn't seem to figure out how to get other stuff done.

Even his formerly busy social life was suffering badly. A couple of weeks ago he'd gone out for the first time with a redhead he'd been pursuing since freshman year. He'd taken her out for dinner, then back to his dorm room, and just when things were getting... interesting, he'd heard someone calling for help.

He'd made a weak excuse and run out the door, leaving her sitting there, and when he'd gotten back, she'd been gone. She hadn't deigned to speak to him since.

Problem was that when he stopped to write term papers, or hang out with friends, or even to sleep, people died. He knew Dad hadn't worked as Superman 24/7, that he'd taken time for himself, and for his job, and for his family. And Sully knew if he couldn't figure out how to do that himself, he was going to drive himself crazy.

But if he didn't save the people who needed saving, he was going to go just as crazy, because he could hear their cries for help echoing in his ears.

God, he wished Dad was here. He needed to talk to him, to find out how he'd coped with this life. He needed to know how Dad had managed to find a balance. He needed to know how Dad had walked this path without making himself nuts.

But then again, if Dad were here, Sully would never have put on the damn suit, and he'd still be loafing and having fun and partying.

He wiped the tears from his eyes with an impatient gesture, wishing that Mom would come out and talk to him some more. The two of them fought all the time-- even more now that Dad wasn't around to act as a buffer-- but he knew Mom loved him. After their arguments, she usually regretted being sharp with him, and came to hug him good night. He hoped she'd come out tonight, because he desperately needed to talk to someone.

True, he couldn't tell Mom exactly what the problem was, because the last thing he wanted was for her to worry about him. But if he told her how overwhelmed he was feeling, maybe she could give him some advice on how to balance things a little better. At the very least, she'd give him a hug. And he really needed a hug right now.

He waited for a long time, but she didn't come. Eventually the lights in the house went off, and he realized she'd gone to bed.

He couldn't hold his eyes open any longer. He didn't even think he could make it up the stairs to his own bed. He was just too damn tired.

He stretched out on the wooden planks of the front porch and fell asleep, all alone in the darkness.

-The End-

Going the Distance

Sullivan Kent, Chloe futurefic
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: These characters belong to the CW and DC Comics, not to me.
Sequel to The Journey Begun.

I have often dreamed
Of a far-off place
Where a great warm welcome
Will be waiting for me
Where the crowds will cheer
When they see my face
And a voice keeps saying
This is where I'm meant to be

I will find my way
I can go the distance
I'll be there someday
If I can be strong
I know every mile
Will be worth my while
I would go most anywhere
To feel like I belong
-From Hercules, "Go the Distance"

When Sullivan Kent wandered sleepily down the stairs around midday, his mom was sitting at the oaken kitchen table, staring at the paper.

No big surprise there, he thought blurrily, rubbing his eyes. Mom had spent her entire adult life writing for the Daily Planet, and she was rarely seen without a paper or an internet device in her hand. She was into news the way he was into loafing.

But she didn't even look up at the sound of his footsteps on the staircase the way she usually did, didn't offer him a smile and a sardonic, Well, look who finally decided to join the land of the living. And there was something odd on her face that made him hesitate on the bottom step.

"Mom?" he said hesitantly. "You okay?"

His mom looked up, and he saw a strange mixture of hope and worry in her eyes.

"Superman is back," she said.

Oh, shit. Sully's father had been Superman, and he'd been killed four months ago, in a battle with a bone-spiked monster named Doomsday. Sully had come home from college this weekend to spend some time with his mom, and yesterday, on impulse, he'd put on his father's suit and flown out into the troubled city of Metropolis.

He'd been so pleased with his exploit, and the successes he'd had, that it hadn't occurred to him that some of the people he'd saved had seen him, and would doubtless talk to reporters about it.

And judging from the hopeful light in Mom's idea, she'd leapt to an entirely wrong conclusion.

"Mom," he said more gently, stepping down into the kitchen and walking over to her. He put a comforting hand on her shoulder. "Listen... Dad's gone. He's not coming back."

She nodded, biting her lip. "It has to be a hoax of some sort," she agreed, very quietly. "Or a copycat. But these people-- they saw him fly, Sully. And one of them got a cell phone picture. It's blurry and distant, but..."

Sully looked down at the grainy photo. It did look a lot like Dad. And Sully knew why. Because he bore an extremely strong resemblance to his father.

Given that fact, he was slightly surprised that Mom hadn't drawn the right conclusion. Mom had been an investigative reporter practically forever, and she had a talent for figuring out stuff that eluded a lot of other people.

But maybe it wasn't surprising she hadn't guessed who the new "Superman" was. He'd always hated flying, so he'd never let on he knew how. And besides, Mom thought he was a slacker. A goofball. He'd always been one, after all. He'd never given the slightest hint that he wanted to follow in Dad's footsteps.

Truth was, until yesterday he'd never so much as thought about it. "Sully" and "superhero" were not two words most of the people he knew would ever think of placing in the same sentence. Not even his mother, who loved him a hell of a lot.

He knew Mom would rip him a new one if she realized he'd put on the cape, but he was firmly resolved, for the first time in his life, not to give up on what he was doing. He really didn't want to let her know what he was up to, not because he was afraid of being lectured-- God knew he was used to that-- but because he knew she'd worry like crazy, and after what she'd been through with Dad, he didn't want her to stress about him.

Even so, he couldn't let Mom think that there was the slightest possibility that Dad might be alive. If she thought that-- he'd have to tell her the truth.

But she was nodding slowly, looking at the photo. "It's a hoax," she said, and the hope in her eyes faded, to be replaced by the hard-edged common sense of the investigative reporter she'd always been. "It has to be."

"Yeah," Sully agreed. "It's gotta be, Mom."

She glared at the paper so hard that Sully was surprised it didn't start smoking.

"I'm going to find out who's doing this," she said, very softly. "I'm going to find out what they're up to, and why. And I'm going to expose them to the world."

"Mom..." Sully hesitated. "What if they're just trying to help?"

"This person is pretending to be Superman," she answered, so coldly that her voice practically dripped icicles. "Maybe I've grown too suspicious, but I can't believe he has good intentions. At the least, he's trying to make himself famous, using your father's name. At the worst, he's a criminal of some sort, trying to hide behind Superman's identity while he commits crimes."

It wasn't like his mom to jump to conclusions, or to be this irrationally angry, but she was obviously still extremely sensitive on the subject of Superman, protective of his reputation even though he was gone now, and Sully couldn't really blame her. Given the fact that he didn't want his mom to think too hard about all this, he decided it was best not to say anything at all. But inwardly, he cringed.

Great, he thought. Just what he needed... the Daily Planet's top reporter on his tail.

*****

SO-CALLED SUPERMAN 2 FAILS TO SAVE INNOCENT BYSTANDERS.

Sully sat in his own dorm room at Met U two weeks later, glowering at the headline. Thanks, Mom, he thought glumly. Thanks so much for the freakin' support.

Thing was, the headline, and the article accompanying it, were distinctly and profoundly biased. His mom had always prided herself on her journalistic objectivity. But she was clearly pissed about the new guy who'd had the nerve to put on Superman's suit, and her anger showed through in her articles. Like this one.

Yes, a car bomb had gone off in downtown Metropolis, and he'd failed to save five people. But what the headline didn't mention, and what was buried a long way down in the article, was that he'd saved dozens of people.

Thinking of the five he'd lost still made his chest hurt. And yeah, maybe the headline was right, to a certain degree. Maybe Dad could have figured out a better solution. Probably would have, actually. But Sully was new to the superhero business, and he'd done his best, damn it.

He'd tried to pick up the car first and get it out of the way, only to realize that it made him weak somehow. He knew some explosives companies used green kryptonite, which made him ill, and he guessed the device in this car incorporated the substance.

So, unable to move the car, he'd moved the bystanders.

He wished he could have gotten them all. Honest to God, he did. When the bomb had gone off, and he'd realized five people had died in the explosion, he'd flown up into the sky, and cried.

It was the first time he'd failed to save someone, but he knew it wouldn't be the last. Intellectually, he knew full well that failure was part of the hero gig. But that knowledge didn't make it easier to bear. He was grief-stricken over the people he hadn't succeeded in saving, and terrified at the prospect of losing others.

And it didn't help his confused heartache to have his own mother make it sound like he'd let a bunch of people die on purpose. It didn't help to have his own mother dissing him in front of the world as a failure.

He wasn't a failure, damn it. He was doing a halfway decent job, despite the people he'd lost yesterday.

Yeah, sure, he'd admit he wasn't Superman. He knew that. He was just plain old Sully Kent.

But he was becoming a better Sully Kent all the time.

Ironic thing was, when he'd first put on the cape, he'd thought that Mom would be proud of him, for the first time in his lazy life. But because he couldn't tell her who he was, he'd just wound up pissing her off. Now she was on a one-woman crusade to expose him, to discover his identity and publicly discredit him. She hated "Superman 2" the way she'd once hated Lex Luthor.

But that was better than her worrying about him, he figured. He was grimly determined to keep Mom from knowing about him. In fact, it had slowly dawned on him that because he didn't really have a secret identity, because he looked pretty much the same with or without the suit, he had to keep everyone from knowing about him.

He was extremely careful to move in superspeed all the time now, so no one got a good picture of him. He couldn't talk to little kids any more, or reassure people that they'd be fine, or stop to offer any sort of comfort, because if he slowed down, even for a second, someone was going to snap a picture. And then someone would figure out who he was.

And then Mom would be in danger.

Maybe, he thought, it would be smart to tell Mom who he was, so she'd quit sending photographers after him. If Mom knew who he was, then she'd be covering for him instead of trying to expose him every minute. Letting her in on his secret made a lot of sense.

But he remembered the way she'd wept over Dad's battered body after his battle with Doomsday, and he knew he couldn't do that to her. She'd spent enough of her life worrying about Dad's safety. She didn't need to spend the rest of her days wondering if her only son was going to get himself killed one day.

It was better if she just thought of him as a screwup college student.

Sully sighed, and threw himself back on the bed. This superhero shit was hard, damn it. When he'd put on the suit that first day, it had just been a spontaneous thing, a whim. He hadn't thought any of it through.

But the more he wore the suit, the more complicated life seemed to become, and the more he worried. Not so much about himself, as about everyone else.

He flung an arm over his eyes, and wondered glumly if this was what growing up felt like.

Thing was, he wasn't sure his own intentions had been pure when he started. In fact, if he was going to be totally honest with himself, he was pretty damn sure they hadn't been. He remembered Mom's angry words: At the least, he's trying to make himself famous, using your father's name.

Maybe, he admitted to himself, that had been true, at first. He'd told himself that he needed to put the suit on, that Metropolis had to have a protector, but he had to admit that on his first day, he'd gotten a little charge out of being recognized as "Superman." It had been cool to have little kids looking at him with awe, even if he realized he wasn't really the one they were in awe of.

But now he had to save people without stopping to let anyone oooh and ahhh over him. He moved at top speed, often so fast people never saw him at all. He was doing a hell of a lot of work, and getting very little notice for it-- and most of the notice he'd gotten lately was negative, thanks to Mom.

When he'd put on the suit, he knew that on some level he'd wanted to be recognized as a hero, instead of the lazy bum he'd always been. He'd wanted Mom to think he was awesome. He'd wanted the world to admire him.

Instead, Mom was doing her best to make the citizens of Metropolis fear him, and most people he helped never even realized he'd saved them.

If it was tough being a hero, it was even tougher being a hero who flew under the radar and got zero credit. No one cheered when he flew overhead. No one shouted, Look! Up in the sky! For the most part, no one even noticed his passing. And if he'd been smarter the first day he'd put on Dad's suit, no one might have ever noticed his presence in Metropolis at all. Unlike Dad, he was doing his best to stay invisible.

Which meant he didn't get the benefits of being a hero. He wasn't recognized as Metropolis' protector, the way Dad had been. He was just a fleeting shadow who was scarcely noticed.

But being a hero wasn't about getting written up in the paper, or about being admired as he flew by. Deep down, he knew that. Being a hero was just about being there for people who needed saving.

No one was cheering for him, and if he played it smart, no one ever would. And that didn't matter, not really.

All that really mattered was that he didn't give up or wimp out, the way he usually did. He couldn't lose interest, or lose his nerve, or quit because he thought of something else he'd rather be doing. This time, he had to be there for the people who needed him... for as long as he was needed.

This time, he had to go the distance.

-The End-