Cross of Steel (Patreon)

On top of Mount Royal’s six hundred and ninety-two feet, the Mount Royal Cross stands another one hundred and three feet. One thousand eight hundred and thirty pieces of steel joined by six thousand rivets—twenty-six tons of metal in total, lit by a hundred and fifty either LED bulbs to make it glow at night enough for it to be prominent then as it was during the day.

In that light, Clark Kent hid. Sitting on one of the cross-pieces that made up the thirty-six feet wide arms. He supposed to some it would be sacrilegious, but really he was seeking the same succor that anyone would take from a cross. They would sit or kneel at its base; ‘Superman’ sat inside the towering edifice. The important thing was that he wasn’t flying, wasn’t standing out from the crowd. At least, no more than a man had to when he wore a red cape. When his tight blue shirt with the sigil he’d ironed on showed an Olympian physique that most bodybuilders would kill themselves trying to achieve, but that had become his shortly after puberty. When his jeans and workboots were barely scuffed because ever since he’d learned how to fly, his costume almost never touched the ground.

It wasn’t that Clark wanted to be so ostentatious. For a long time, he’d hidden himself from the world. Doing good anonymously, a rumor without a fact, an effect without a cause. But that wasn’t enough for a world with as many problems as this one had. It wasn’t enough to stop a car accident here or a plane crash there. People needed hope. They needed inspiration. And as auspicious as his outfit was, it let people know that someone was there to help. It let them know that it wasn’t just a rumor that someone was coming to save them. It let them know that for all the evils out there in the night, that there was Good and it was on their side.

Honestly, Clark was far more comfortable being good ol’ Clark Kent. A beard and a ponytail and glasses, his musculature safely hidden under a baggy suit and his piercing eyes carefully concealed by thick glasses. If it were up to him, he’d do his good deeds from hiding. Wasn’t that how Matthew would have it?

Be careful not to practice your righteousness in front of others to be seen by them. If you do, you will have no reward from your Father in heaven. So when you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the streets, to be honored by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you give to the needy, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your giving may be in secret. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you.

I promise you, I don’t want the attention, Clark thought to the metal lit up all around him. But there’s so much talk of catastrophe and meanness in the world—shouldn’t people have goodness to talk about too?

He didn’t know if anonymity had ever been an option for him. Not for any real amount of time. In the beginning, he’d thought he was a mutant, or perhaps a descendant of one of those people who received strange powers by happenstance. A byblow of Namor, or Captain America, or one of the Liberty Legion. Their… differences recessive from generation to generation until finally surfacing in him.

He hadn’t really dared to think he was the heir to Steve Rogers, but a certain kinship he’d felt with the captain had driven him to dress up a little patriotically. If you can’t represent anything else, he figured, represent the American Way.

That all seemed a little like a joke now. The immigrant who professed love for his newfound country like a born-again believer. And no one was more an immigrant than him. He wasn’t a mutant or an Inhuman—not even an Eternal. He wasn’t anything earthly at all. He was a stranger; the ultimate stranger. And the more he looked like a man… handsome, clean-cut, even desirable… the more it felt like some sick irony. The complete outsider and he blended right in.

Pa hadn’t wanted to tell him. It wasn’t until after his death that his mother had shared the truth. Feeling he needed it, perhaps, to moor him now that such a constant was out of his life. But he’d felt more adrift than ever after learning what he really was. Not only was he an alien, but he was the last of his kind. A human Kryptonian that neither of his two homes would ever fully understand… how could they, when he didn’t quite understand himself?

And yet… something had worked itself out of that tangle of confusion. Feeling less himself than ever, he had at least learned who he wanted to be. Someone who did for others what had been done for him. Saving them, as Jor-El and Lara had done. Helping them, as Jonathan and Martha had done. And the more he helped people, the more he emerged from out of the darkness, into the light. Learning that safety was only a part of what people needed. He could save their bodies a thousand times from afar, but without aiding their souls, they would be left like he was after Pa’s death. Lost. Alone. Certain that reaching out would only touch inadequacy and corruption.

Clark was no preacher. For all his power, he felt no closer to God than any other man. But he knew there was goodness in people… the same goodness that was in him… and whatever else he doubted, he believed in that. And maybe when people saw a man with his strength wanting nothing more than to serve others, then they too could believe there was a purity in them, and in their fellow man. A purity they could share it if they reached out to each other instead of hiding away.

His parents had reached out to him when they’d had no earthly reason to. So if he had faith in anything, it was that when he reached out, someone would always be reaching back to him.