FIC: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji: Winter (8/9)
Title: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji: Winter (8/9)
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji is a series set early in Batman and Superman's careers, shortly after the S/B annual #1. The full series can be found here.
Rating: G
Summary: Clark and Bruce visit a home, a grave, and a bar on a cold and windy night.
Word Count: 2100
No one spoke,
The host, the guest,
the white chrysanthemums.
--Ryouta
Clark followed the dark figure through the streets of Tokyo. "You still haven't told me where we're going." He picked up the pace enough to draw alongside Bruce. "It would be nice, you know, to have a little time to figure out whether I'm going to be dealing with yakuza, aliens, or old ladies serving tea. Or, I suppose, old lady yakuza aliens. Serving tea."
Bruce halted abruptly, the line of his jaw revealing, perhaps, a desire to laugh that he didn't wish to give in to. "We're going to Sei--to Matsunaga's house." His leather jacket brushed against Clark like wings as a gust of wind swept through the alley.
"I thought we'd already been to his place." It seemed like a very long time ago that they had been in the cluttered apartment, since Clark had first seen the garroted body.
"That was his work apartment, located over the family business headquarters. We're going to his home."
They wound through maze-like streets seemingly almost at random. "Bruce, no offense, but you do know where we're going?"
Bruce stopped and cocked a dark eyebrow at him. "Do me a favor, Clark: No more stupid questions tonight."
Clark shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "I try not to make promises I'm not sure I'll be able to keep," he muttered, following after the other man.
They eventually came to a small, attractive house, tucked between apartment buildings. Bruce rang the bell on the gate and waited. Only a very slight shifting from one foot to the other betrayed any emotion; from a man usually so stoic and controlled it was as if he had announced his unease to Clark with a bullhorn.
The speaker on the door buzzed to life. < Yes? > said a woman's voice.
< My name is Bruce Wayne. I'm--can I talk to you? >
There was a pause. After a moment, the gate opened to reveal a woman about the same age as Clark and Bruce, dressed in slacks and a sweater, her dark hair long around a face marked with recent sorrow. < Won't you come in? It's quite cold out tonight, > she said softly.
Clark and Bruce found themselves seated side by side on a sofa, cups of hot green tea steaming on the coffee table in front of them, the woman sitting on a chair across from them with her hands folded in her lap, her hair drawn like curtains on either side of her downturned face. There were white flowers in vases everywhere. The silence stretched until Clark became uncomfortable, and then it stretched longer.
Quiet footsteps, and a small boy, about five years old, entered the room. A fringe of dark hair framed a round face and wide almond eyes, staring at the two foreign guests. Clark and Bruce gazed back solemnly. The boy raised a hand politely. "Hello," he said in English, with the Japanese accent that made it sound like "Haro."
"Hello," Bruce responded, and the boy bowed, his face serious.
< Are you ready for bed, Tsutomu? > said the woman.
< Yes, Mother. >
< Can you tuck yourself in? I'll be up to read you and Jin a story soon. > Clark could hear the sounds from the second floor of a much younger child, maybe a toddler, cooing to himself.
< Yes, Mother. Good night, > the boy said, giving her a kiss on the cheek before leaving.
Another silence, broken this time by Bruce. < He has his father's eyes, > he said.
Seio's widow brushed back her hair and raised her face to meet Bruce's gaze. < He does. > She nodded slightly. < You're Bruce Wayne. My husband spoke of you. His American friend. > She waited. Clark had the impression waiting was something she had become very good at in her life.
< I would like you to know that...that your sons will have their college education covered. A trust fund. > Bruce's Japanese was more awkward than it had to be; Clark wasn't sure if he was feigning incompetence or merely uncomfortable.
The woman's eyes flashed suddenly and her chin set. < My husband was the heir to the Matsunaga corporation! We will be perfectly fine without your help. >
There was a hint of steel in Bruce's level tone. The woman's face went stiff. < You have your husband's pension, but you will see nothing from the Matsunaga corporation. > Bruce's voice softened somewhat. < You will need some help. Let me help, Asaka-san. >
< I do not wish to be obligated to a stranger's charity. >
Bruce looked down at his hands. < I understand your feelings. But it would grieve me if Seio's children were not to live the life they deserve because of your pride. I don't think he would have wanted that. >
Asaka's lips were tightly compressed and her nostrils white and pinched--not with anger, but the effort to hold back tears. Bruce remained silent. Clark said nothing either, wondering why on earth Bruce had wanted him along for this, as if he could help this woman and her despair at all. After a moment, she took a long, shuddering breath and touched her eyes gently with a bit of lace from a pocket. < Well, > she said softly. < I will consider it. >
Some of the tension left Bruce's shoulders, as if he had won the argument. Perhaps he had. < Thank you. >
The woman stood up. < Please wait a moment. > She left the room. Clark stared into his tea cup and didn't look at Bruce. After a moment Asaka returned with an envelope of creamy heavy paper embedded with tiny blue threads. < He told me that if you got in touch with me, I was to give you this. >
Bruce looked at the proffered envelope for a moment, saying nothing. Then he reached out and took it, very gently, and put it away without opening it. < Thank you again. >
Asaka looked at Bruce's face for a long time, blinking back tears. < His ashes are in the family graveyard, > she said at last. < They were interred there just today. It's private property. >
Bruce bowed. < I understand. >
: : :
Batman stood in the cemetery, an icy wind billowing his cape around him. The angular, narrow Japanese gravestones stretched into the inky blackness, crowded together with no spaces between them, no green to break up the bleak expanse of gray stones. Scattered among the gravestones were wooden sticks with names written down their lengths. Batman was standing in front of a stone heaped with white flowers, largely scattered now by the wind.
Superman hovered slightly nearby, gusts crackling through his cape as well. Batman reached into a belt pocket and removed something: a tiny chip of dark blue porcelain. He put the fragment in front of the stone and bowed. Very softly, he said, "If only you have patience, all that has ever been..." The wind snatched his words away and he didn't finish the sentence. They stood there for a while, the whistling sound across the stones lying between them.
"This is why I don't have friends, Clark," Batman said. His voice was as bleak as the wind.
"I'm a little more resilient than most people," Superman noted.
Batman's shoulders lifted very slightly in something like a shrug. "That's not really the point." Another long silence. "I can't stop you from calling yourself my friend, I suppose."
Clark started to say something, then stopped and reconsidered. "Would you...like some time alone here?"
For the first time Batman turned his dark head to look at Superman. "Actually, Bruce Wayne would rather like a drink. And he wouldn't mind some company."
: : :
Bruce put the empty sake cup back down on the table gently. It was pretty good sake.
"Do you want to talk about him?" the man across the table asked, pushing his glasses up on his nose and refilling both their glasses.
"No." The single word was brutally short, but Clark didn't seem offended. Bruce sipped the next glass of sake, then put it down. "What I wanted to talk about was my ward, Dick."
This seemed to surprise Clark a little. "What about him?"
"You've been too polite to mention it, but if you continue to work with me, and if Dick someday joins me, your secret identity will most likely be in the hands of a teen-ager. In fact, if you get off the plane at the same time as me in Gotham tomorrow, he'll know you're Superman. Doesn't that bother you? Didn't you say no one but your parents and I knew your secret?"
Clark contemplated the clear sake in his glass for a moment. "Well, there's Lana."
"Lana?"
"Lana Lang. We kind of almost dated back in high school."
"Kind of almost dated? And you told her about your powers?" Bruce made a mental note to look up this Lang woman and keep track of her.
Clark frowned. "I trust her." He looked up at Bruce, eyes steady. "And if you feel you can trust the bo--Dick, then I can trust him too. When I say I trust you, Bruce, I mean it. That's not a casual turn of phrase for me. And I know that your trust is not lightly given either."
Bruce took a long sip of sake and looked at the man across the table from him, who had gone back to studying his glass like it was terribly interesting. He remembered, in the involuntary flash of an instant, how he had felt in the moment when Kyodai put his knife to Clark's neck. Which was ridiculous--rationally, the only person in danger of being hurt there was Kyodai, when his dagger shattered on that invulnerable column.
Ridiculous.
"No, it's not," he agreed with Clark eventually. Clark looked at him with something like hope in his eyes, a hope which dimmed when Bruce didn't add anything to the statement. It didn't go away entirely, however.
Bruce drained his cup. "Time to head back."
: : :
Clark walked beside Bruce though the wind-lashed streets, the towering buildings forming canyons that funneled wind into rivers of force. Bruce's gait was very slightly unsteady, from the drink or the wind Clark couldn't tell. He put out his arm toward Bruce, but the other man shrugged him off irritably. "I don't need your support." Clark backed off slightly, eyeing Bruce's pale, set face, the dark hair tossed by the wind. Bruce's eyes had the inward-turned look Clark remembered from his farm days, that of an animal in pain too great to bear. His eyes, Clark realized abruptly, were the same color as that chip of porcelain on Seio Matsunaga's grave.
Safely back in the hotel, out of the wind, Clark pushed his unruly hair off of his forehead again and followed Bruce to their rooms. Bruce didn't say anything at all until Clark's door was open; then he called down the hall. "Clark."
Clark turned a little more quickly than he had wanted to. "Yes?"
"Thank you. For coming along tonight."
Clark made a small scoffing sound. "I was no help at all. I didn't even say a single word to her."
Bruce started to enter his room, going far enough in that Clark could only see his hand on the door frame. "I didn't ask you along to help Asaka," he said. The door started to close.
"What are friends for?" said Clark, a little less casually than he had wanted to.
The door stopped moving for just a second, then finished swinging shut.
Clark entered his own room and lay down on the bed fully clothed.
It was supposed to be a hypothetical question. So why did it seem so important?
He lay there for a long time, unsleeping. The lights of Tokyo sparkled outside.
-------
Note: Bruce's actions and words at Seio's grave are a reference to Isak Dinesan's short story, "The Blue Jar."
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: 36 Views of Mt. Fuji is a series set early in Batman and Superman's careers, shortly after the S/B annual #1. The full series can be found here.
Rating: G
Summary: Clark and Bruce visit a home, a grave, and a bar on a cold and windy night.
Word Count: 2100
No one spoke,
The host, the guest,
the white chrysanthemums.
--Ryouta
Clark followed the dark figure through the streets of Tokyo. "You still haven't told me where we're going." He picked up the pace enough to draw alongside Bruce. "It would be nice, you know, to have a little time to figure out whether I'm going to be dealing with yakuza, aliens, or old ladies serving tea. Or, I suppose, old lady yakuza aliens. Serving tea."
Bruce halted abruptly, the line of his jaw revealing, perhaps, a desire to laugh that he didn't wish to give in to. "We're going to Sei--to Matsunaga's house." His leather jacket brushed against Clark like wings as a gust of wind swept through the alley.
"I thought we'd already been to his place." It seemed like a very long time ago that they had been in the cluttered apartment, since Clark had first seen the garroted body.
"That was his work apartment, located over the family business headquarters. We're going to his home."
They wound through maze-like streets seemingly almost at random. "Bruce, no offense, but you do know where we're going?"
Bruce stopped and cocked a dark eyebrow at him. "Do me a favor, Clark: No more stupid questions tonight."
Clark shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "I try not to make promises I'm not sure I'll be able to keep," he muttered, following after the other man.
They eventually came to a small, attractive house, tucked between apartment buildings. Bruce rang the bell on the gate and waited. Only a very slight shifting from one foot to the other betrayed any emotion; from a man usually so stoic and controlled it was as if he had announced his unease to Clark with a bullhorn.
The speaker on the door buzzed to life. < Yes? > said a woman's voice.
< My name is Bruce Wayne. I'm--can I talk to you? >
There was a pause. After a moment, the gate opened to reveal a woman about the same age as Clark and Bruce, dressed in slacks and a sweater, her dark hair long around a face marked with recent sorrow. < Won't you come in? It's quite cold out tonight, > she said softly.
Clark and Bruce found themselves seated side by side on a sofa, cups of hot green tea steaming on the coffee table in front of them, the woman sitting on a chair across from them with her hands folded in her lap, her hair drawn like curtains on either side of her downturned face. There were white flowers in vases everywhere. The silence stretched until Clark became uncomfortable, and then it stretched longer.
Quiet footsteps, and a small boy, about five years old, entered the room. A fringe of dark hair framed a round face and wide almond eyes, staring at the two foreign guests. Clark and Bruce gazed back solemnly. The boy raised a hand politely. "Hello," he said in English, with the Japanese accent that made it sound like "Haro."
"Hello," Bruce responded, and the boy bowed, his face serious.
< Are you ready for bed, Tsutomu? > said the woman.
< Yes, Mother. >
< Can you tuck yourself in? I'll be up to read you and Jin a story soon. > Clark could hear the sounds from the second floor of a much younger child, maybe a toddler, cooing to himself.
< Yes, Mother. Good night, > the boy said, giving her a kiss on the cheek before leaving.
Another silence, broken this time by Bruce. < He has his father's eyes, > he said.
Seio's widow brushed back her hair and raised her face to meet Bruce's gaze. < He does. > She nodded slightly. < You're Bruce Wayne. My husband spoke of you. His American friend. > She waited. Clark had the impression waiting was something she had become very good at in her life.
< I would like you to know that...that your sons will have their college education covered. A trust fund. > Bruce's Japanese was more awkward than it had to be; Clark wasn't sure if he was feigning incompetence or merely uncomfortable.
The woman's eyes flashed suddenly and her chin set. < My husband was the heir to the Matsunaga corporation! We will be perfectly fine without your help. >
There was a hint of steel in Bruce's level tone. The woman's face went stiff. < You have your husband's pension, but you will see nothing from the Matsunaga corporation. > Bruce's voice softened somewhat. < You will need some help. Let me help, Asaka-san. >
< I do not wish to be obligated to a stranger's charity. >
Bruce looked down at his hands. < I understand your feelings. But it would grieve me if Seio's children were not to live the life they deserve because of your pride. I don't think he would have wanted that. >
Asaka's lips were tightly compressed and her nostrils white and pinched--not with anger, but the effort to hold back tears. Bruce remained silent. Clark said nothing either, wondering why on earth Bruce had wanted him along for this, as if he could help this woman and her despair at all. After a moment, she took a long, shuddering breath and touched her eyes gently with a bit of lace from a pocket. < Well, > she said softly. < I will consider it. >
Some of the tension left Bruce's shoulders, as if he had won the argument. Perhaps he had. < Thank you. >
The woman stood up. < Please wait a moment. > She left the room. Clark stared into his tea cup and didn't look at Bruce. After a moment Asaka returned with an envelope of creamy heavy paper embedded with tiny blue threads. < He told me that if you got in touch with me, I was to give you this. >
Bruce looked at the proffered envelope for a moment, saying nothing. Then he reached out and took it, very gently, and put it away without opening it. < Thank you again. >
Asaka looked at Bruce's face for a long time, blinking back tears. < His ashes are in the family graveyard, > she said at last. < They were interred there just today. It's private property. >
Bruce bowed. < I understand. >
: : :
Batman stood in the cemetery, an icy wind billowing his cape around him. The angular, narrow Japanese gravestones stretched into the inky blackness, crowded together with no spaces between them, no green to break up the bleak expanse of gray stones. Scattered among the gravestones were wooden sticks with names written down their lengths. Batman was standing in front of a stone heaped with white flowers, largely scattered now by the wind.
Superman hovered slightly nearby, gusts crackling through his cape as well. Batman reached into a belt pocket and removed something: a tiny chip of dark blue porcelain. He put the fragment in front of the stone and bowed. Very softly, he said, "If only you have patience, all that has ever been..." The wind snatched his words away and he didn't finish the sentence. They stood there for a while, the whistling sound across the stones lying between them.
"This is why I don't have friends, Clark," Batman said. His voice was as bleak as the wind.
"I'm a little more resilient than most people," Superman noted.
Batman's shoulders lifted very slightly in something like a shrug. "That's not really the point." Another long silence. "I can't stop you from calling yourself my friend, I suppose."
Clark started to say something, then stopped and reconsidered. "Would you...like some time alone here?"
For the first time Batman turned his dark head to look at Superman. "Actually, Bruce Wayne would rather like a drink. And he wouldn't mind some company."
: : :
Bruce put the empty sake cup back down on the table gently. It was pretty good sake.
"Do you want to talk about him?" the man across the table asked, pushing his glasses up on his nose and refilling both their glasses.
"No." The single word was brutally short, but Clark didn't seem offended. Bruce sipped the next glass of sake, then put it down. "What I wanted to talk about was my ward, Dick."
This seemed to surprise Clark a little. "What about him?"
"You've been too polite to mention it, but if you continue to work with me, and if Dick someday joins me, your secret identity will most likely be in the hands of a teen-ager. In fact, if you get off the plane at the same time as me in Gotham tomorrow, he'll know you're Superman. Doesn't that bother you? Didn't you say no one but your parents and I knew your secret?"
Clark contemplated the clear sake in his glass for a moment. "Well, there's Lana."
"Lana?"
"Lana Lang. We kind of almost dated back in high school."
"Kind of almost dated? And you told her about your powers?" Bruce made a mental note to look up this Lang woman and keep track of her.
Clark frowned. "I trust her." He looked up at Bruce, eyes steady. "And if you feel you can trust the bo--Dick, then I can trust him too. When I say I trust you, Bruce, I mean it. That's not a casual turn of phrase for me. And I know that your trust is not lightly given either."
Bruce took a long sip of sake and looked at the man across the table from him, who had gone back to studying his glass like it was terribly interesting. He remembered, in the involuntary flash of an instant, how he had felt in the moment when Kyodai put his knife to Clark's neck. Which was ridiculous--rationally, the only person in danger of being hurt there was Kyodai, when his dagger shattered on that invulnerable column.
Ridiculous.
"No, it's not," he agreed with Clark eventually. Clark looked at him with something like hope in his eyes, a hope which dimmed when Bruce didn't add anything to the statement. It didn't go away entirely, however.
Bruce drained his cup. "Time to head back."
: : :
Clark walked beside Bruce though the wind-lashed streets, the towering buildings forming canyons that funneled wind into rivers of force. Bruce's gait was very slightly unsteady, from the drink or the wind Clark couldn't tell. He put out his arm toward Bruce, but the other man shrugged him off irritably. "I don't need your support." Clark backed off slightly, eyeing Bruce's pale, set face, the dark hair tossed by the wind. Bruce's eyes had the inward-turned look Clark remembered from his farm days, that of an animal in pain too great to bear. His eyes, Clark realized abruptly, were the same color as that chip of porcelain on Seio Matsunaga's grave.
Safely back in the hotel, out of the wind, Clark pushed his unruly hair off of his forehead again and followed Bruce to their rooms. Bruce didn't say anything at all until Clark's door was open; then he called down the hall. "Clark."
Clark turned a little more quickly than he had wanted to. "Yes?"
"Thank you. For coming along tonight."
Clark made a small scoffing sound. "I was no help at all. I didn't even say a single word to her."
Bruce started to enter his room, going far enough in that Clark could only see his hand on the door frame. "I didn't ask you along to help Asaka," he said. The door started to close.
"What are friends for?" said Clark, a little less casually than he had wanted to.
The door stopped moving for just a second, then finished swinging shut.
Clark entered his own room and lay down on the bed fully clothed.
It was supposed to be a hypothetical question. So why did it seem so important?
He lay there for a long time, unsleeping. The lights of Tokyo sparkled outside.
-------
Note: Bruce's actions and words at Seio's grave are a reference to Isak Dinesan's short story, "The Blue Jar."