Movie Trailer Writing Prompt 2: Batman v Superman

Sometimes I Despair

"Don't we know someone who can control the weather?" The Man in Blue and Red asked The Man in Gray and Black, by way of small talk.

"Rainmaker?" The Man in Gray and Black offered.

"California."

"Weather Wizard?"

"Jail."

"Red Tornado?"

"Dead."

"Thor?"

"Doesn't talk to me. Also possibly jail."

"Storm?"

"Wrong continuity."

"So that would be no, then." The Man in Gray and Black's voice was gravely, modulated. Out of all of them, he was the most zealous in protecting his secrets.

"You heard that voice, right? Asking me if I can bleed? People have seen me bleed. On live television." The Man in Blue and Red could sense The Man in Gray and Black's unease. Not much missed him, these days. The Man in Gray and Black's unease, the sound of the rain and how long it would last, televisions and conversations in nearby tenement blocks. A baker opening his oven on Beech street, the smell of cinnamon and caramelized sugars. Light aircraft experiencing turbulence, twenty miles out. It all filtered through. This frequently had the effect of causing The Man in Blue and Red to appear flaky, perpetually distracted.

"You made the news again," Gray changed the subject, because of course he was perfectly happy in the rain. Something changed three years ago, after that fight between Blue and his extended family leveled parts of Metropolis. He'd been active for years, but after that day...he started by rounding up his usual antagonists--then everyone else's. He deposed Kim Jong-Un, rounded up the leaders of al-Qaeda, the Lord's Resistance Army, and ISIS. He built artificial floating islands full of crops. He rebuilt crumbling, abandoned neighborhoods and turned them into free housing.

The question now asked in hushed tones in boardrooms and political offices around the country, was how long until those x-ray eyes turned on America? When you've rounded up Luthor and Kim and Kony and al-Baghdadi, how long until Cheney and Koch and Wayne?

Gray was a figurehead. He knew that Blue knew it as well. His old job at the newspaper was as an economics reporter. Gray had little idea of or interest in how his company was run or how it made his billions. All that mattered was what he could skim off the top for his personal interests. He was, as Blue, trying to make his city a better place. The head of Wayne Enterprises had intimated, "hoping you might pass it along to your friend," the question of what happens when a demigod gets fed up with petty despots and turns his eyes toward bigger fish.

They stood together, in the rain. How much good had he done? How much could he still do? And how far was too far? Gray reminded himself this had nothing to do with Wayne Enterprises holdings in South Asia. This was about free will, about choice over tyranny. As he powered up the k-ray, he even believed it.