FIC: Gotham Nocturne (5/9)
Title: Gotham Nocturne: Chapter Five
Characters/Pairings: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Gotham Nocturne is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Bruce plans a trap for Scarecrow.
Word Count: 2400
Bruce Wayne Plans Closing Party, Scoffs at Fears
By Gazette reporter Vicki Vale
The Triumph Hotel was one of Gotham's great landmarks in the early part of the last century. Since then it has fallen on hard times, far from its former glory. But Bruce Wayne has plans for the faded beauty. A major renovation is in store for the Triumph, and Wayne is holding a farewell party to its old incarnation this Friday, inviting some of the creme de la creme of Gotham society to bid the stately building adieu. Guests will be dressing up in their best flapper attire for a party set in the Roaring 20s.
When asked if the recent phobia attacks have him concerned, Wayne laughed. "The only thing I'm afraid of is forgetting how to dance the foxtrot," he said.
"I don't like it. I don't like it, I don't like it!"
"So you've mentioned. Quite a few times." Bruce swiveled the chair away from the computer and rose to stalk across the cave to stand nose-to-nose with Clark. Or rather, nose-to-chest, as Clark was insisting on floating a bit to get the height advantage. "Get back down here, Clark. It's bad enough you're naturally taller than me without hamhanded attempts to loom."
Clark's sneakers grated slightly on the floor of the cave as he came back to earth. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, the glasses off, the effect an odd compromise between the alien and the human. He gave Bruce a mutinous glare. "I should be there."
Bruce couldn't help laughing. "Clark Kent asking to come to a party with me? Do I hear Kryptonians pigs flying by?"
"I don't--"
"--like it, I know." Bruce sighed and met Clark's worried eyes squarely. "Clark. I know Crane. I know his kind--cruel and arrogant, getting their kicks from playing God. Doctor Sugiyama's resistance to his drug will drive him into a near-frenzy. He'll be desperate to do something to prove to Batman, to Gotham--and most importantly, to himself--that he's still the one in control. He needs to strike somewhere to have a dramatic impact. He will do something, the question is if we can manipulate him into doing it somewhere where we're ready for him. This gives him a clear and simple target. A crowd of glittering socialites, ripe for the terrorizing." Bruce's lips thinned. "I've got filters planted, the highest quality available. I can get any toxin out the air quickly--and if I'm lucky, I can even get a sample of this new stuff to analyze." He reached out and traced a delicate line across one high cheekbone. "And you're not going because we don't know if the toxin affects you and I want to have you in reserve if things go terribly wrong. We'll be ready for him if we pick the battleground and force his hand."
Clark reached out and adjusted Bruce's bow tie, brushing invisible lint off the tuxedo as if reassuring himself of Bruce's reality. "I'll be listening in and ready if you need me."
Bruce covered Clark's mouth with his own. "I know," he said as he turned to leave the cave.
The cave was much more silent in the wake of his departure. Clark paced a few steps, turned and paced a few more in the other direction. He sat down at the computer and slipped his glasses onto his face like a shield. "I don't like it," he whispered to the sleeping bats.
: : :
"Mr. Wayne?" The woman dancing with him had a warm, amused voice and sparkling green eyes under black hair in a spiky, boyish cut. "Earth to Mr. Wayne." Bruce groped for her name and found he couldn't remember it, although he remembered her arriving on the arm of a major industrialist; he kicked himself mentally. He couldn't seem to stop scanning the crowd for Jonathan Crane's lanky form, even though most likely Crane wouldn't be here to deliver the toxin in person.
At least he remembered how to dance the foxtrot.
"I'm sorry," he said, forcing himself to focus on the woman in his arms instead of ghosts and phantoms in the teeming crowd. She looked slightly familiar. "Have we met?"
She dimpled. "I believe it was at a hostage-taking."
The number of hostage-takings Batman had participated in was quite high; Bruce's attendance rate much lower. "The art museum. Mr. Freeze."
"I'm flattered you remember me," the woman said, the corner of her mouth crooking amusedly.
"It would be hard to forget such a daring escape plan," Bruce said with honest admiration.
She laughed as Bruce maneuvered her around the crowded dance floor. "I'm a resourceful girl," she noted.
Bruce was opening his mouth to respond when everything shifted. Bruce felt a prickle of horror go through him as he looked down at the woman in his arms and saw the same terror reflected in her widening emerald eyes. With a hoarse cry, she threw Bruce from her with startling strength, recoiling backwards into another couple in the process of scrambling away from each other. The other couple cringed away violently as well, a ripple of revulsed terror shuddering through the crowd. Someone started screaming as they collided helplessly with other bodies in the mob, and the sound infected everyone with blind panic. The ripple of movement became a stampede, people struggling toward doors, windows, any exit to get away from the unthinkable, grotesque contact of flesh on corrupting flesh.
Bruce's stomach was cramped with the same fear; he dodged a woman, her eyes blank with terror, and jumped onto a table. Pawing hands, clinging, grabbing...the table was overturned in the crush and Bruce found himself in the melee again. No... he flinched away from the contact, resisting the involuntary urge to kick, to get the flesh away from him as fast and hard as possible. They're still people, they're still people inside, he reminded himself even as his skin crawled as someone brushed by him, his face frozen in a rictus of horror and disgust.
"Bruce! Bruce! What's going on?" Kal's voice in his ear was urgent.
Someone had flung open a window and bodies crowded the sill, the stampede pressing them further, scrambling to avoid being crushed against the iron bars across the bottom...they were twenty stories up. "We need some help here! Right now!" he barked, knowing no one else would hear him over the chaos. The only person who mattered would hear him.
Shaking, he started to try and pull people away from the window, nausea twisting his guts as he laid hands on people, bile in his throat at the defiling touch of carrion flesh. Putrescence, decay...he swallowed the urge to retch and wrenched at the crowd, trying to herd them without touching them.
The crowd surged toward the freedom of the window, and the first person dropped into space with a horrified scream.
: : :
Superman was in the air on his way to the Triumph when he saw the woman falling, dropping like a doll from the window. He put on a burst of speed and caught her out of the air. "I've got you, ma'am," he said politely, holding her close and safe.
The woman shrieked in horror and clawed at his face, struggling to get away. Superman almost dropped her in his shock. Another cry of terror above him and he looked up to see another person leap, then another, and another.
He'd never catch them all.
He had to catch them all.
His world reduced to catching people and finding a place to put them as they wept and vomited and cursed him. No time to apologize, just time to dash and catch the next one. He couldn't get to the source of the problem, couldn't do anything but react, react...
"Haptophobia," a voice was saying in his ear, Bruce's voice, tight with panic, with fear. "Haptophobia. Fear of touch. Haptophobia. This is haptophobia." His voice bit off the Latin syllables as if the dead language could explain and thus stave off the terror.
Gotham's gravity seemed to be fighting him, to be pulling her people down to her breast faster than he could keep up. He hoped Bruce was able to do something to help up there.
He hoped Bruce wouldn't be the person he failed to catch.
The sound of spraying water through the transmitter--someone had set off the sprinkler system, probably Bruce. Gasps of shock cut through the screams of terror. "Good," he whispered as he captured another falling body, this one barely feet from the ground. "Good job, Bruce." The water might curtail the spread of the toxin, and maybe the shock would pull some people out of their blind panic.
"Everyone down!" He heard Bruce's voice bark, heard the command and authority that he wasn't bothering to hide beneath the facade.
Heard the fear under it.
"Everyone down on the floor! Sit and then crawl to a space where you don't have to--" Bruce's voice cut off with a choke. "Away from everyone else. But sit down and focus!"
Superman could hear the screams dying down to sobs as he snatched three more people from death. The last one's hand brushed the ground as he stopped her fall, his heart pounding. He looked up.
There were no others.
He floated up to peer in the window and find the room full of water, full of terrified people all sitting on the floor carefully apart from each other, many of them weeping and covering their faces to avoid looking at each other. Bruce was standing on a chair, arms wrapped tight around his torso, shuddering. He met Superman's eyes with a flash of anguish. "Superman," he said weakly. "Thank God you're here." The playboy's voice, but sincerity under it as well.
Sirens in the street below. "Tell them not to touch anyone," Bruce said to Superman. "Please."
: : :
"I'm surprised you're here, Superman," Jim Gordon said. "I didn't think Batman allowed you into Gotham."
Kal winced at Gordon's piercing gaze and affected a haughty look. "I heard the screams, and he didn't seem to be taking the time to show up."
"Well." Gordon looked tired again. "Life would be easier for all of us if you boys could learn to work together instead of doing your little alpha-male rituals."
"Do I have your permission to go, sir?" Kal was suddenly tired of it all himself. He had seen only glimpses of Bruce in the traumatized crowd, seen him flashing enough money to be let go early. Kal could hear him breathing softly, the whir of bats overhead.
He had to get to Bruce.
Gordon flapped a hand at him. "Far be it for me to keep you here," he murmured.
Kal was in the air immediately, making his way toward the Manor in erratic bursts of speed to lose any prying eyes. "Bruce," he whispered. "Are you all right? Is it all right if I come there?"
Bruce's voice was dry as autumn leaves, rustling. "Yes. Come here."
Through the waterfall and into the cavern, shaking off water. Maybe the toxin had worn off, maybe Bruce's antidote had worked...
Bruce stood in the middle of the cave, still in his tuxedo, his posture stiff and awkward. Kal met his eyes and saw the fear there; he moved further away. "Bruce. I shouldn't be here if you're still--"
"I need--" Bruce swallowed hard. "I need to--touch you." His voice broke at the end.
"The toxin..."
"Is still there, in my system."
"So you can't..."
Anger replaced the fear in Bruce's eyes for a second. "I can. I won't let him...I won't let anything keep me from touching you."
Kal knew he should probably just leave, but the fierceness in Bruce's eyes seemed to keep him riveted in place. "It will wear off in five or six hours, Bruce. There's no reason to endanger yourself."
"You don't understand." Bruce's voice was bleak. "When I imagine--imagine--" he shuddered, "--touching someone, even you...it's like putting my hands into a cesspool, corruption, mortality incarnate. I won't let anyone or anything do that to me, I won't let my reactions to you be dictated to me. I'll break this." His eyes blazed. "Nothing can keep me away from you, Kal. Ever."
He should leave. He shouldn't let Bruce risk his mind to prove a point. It was weak of him to want that reassurance, to have Bruce touch him despite the fear.
He was weak.
"Promise you'll back off if it's too much?"
"Of course," Bruce said with a shaky smile.
Kal bit his lip. "What should I do?"
"Just...stand perfectly still for now. And be patient with me." Bruce edged forward a half-step, then another. He stopped at the third, staring at Kal's eyes fixedly. A deep breath, and another step.
Finally he was in front of Superman, just a few feet away. He raised his hand into the space between them, bringing it closer with incredible slowness. "Kal," he whispered, more to himself than to his partner. "This is Kal." His hand was shaking. "This is your Kal." The very tip of his index finger brushed Kal's cheek, and he made a terrible gulping noise, almost a retch. "No," he said. "This is your love. My love."
The finger came back and rested, feather-light, on Kal's cheekbone. For a very long time they stood there, frozen, every muscle in Bruce's body clenched with the impulse to flee. A trickle of sweat beaded down Bruce's temple in the cool cave air, and there were tears of strain at the corners of his eyes. "I--I--won't--" he gritted, and brought his hand in to cup Kal's cheek. Breath hissed through his teeth, and Kal yearned to hold him, to comfort him...but he remained perfectly still, unmoving, as Bruce's lips skinned back from his teeth and he swallowed a hoarse breath.
"No," Bruce said again, his voice shaking, as if answering a voice only he could hear. "Beloved, incorruptible, unblemished--" his voice broke in something close to a sob, "--My adamantine love. My heart." Both Bruce's hands were cupping his face now, and Bruce was smiling. "Never to be separated from me." He stepped closer, until his body was lightly touching Kal's, the expression on his face that of fear transported into rapture, transcendent, incandescent. "Never," he whispered, his arms lowering to slide around his lover.
They held each other, nothing more, and to be held was an ecstasy beyond most Kal had ever known.
Never to be separated from me.
Characters/Pairings: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Gotham Nocturne is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Bruce plans a trap for Scarecrow.
Word Count: 2400
Bruce Wayne Plans Closing Party, Scoffs at Fears
By Gazette reporter Vicki Vale
The Triumph Hotel was one of Gotham's great landmarks in the early part of the last century. Since then it has fallen on hard times, far from its former glory. But Bruce Wayne has plans for the faded beauty. A major renovation is in store for the Triumph, and Wayne is holding a farewell party to its old incarnation this Friday, inviting some of the creme de la creme of Gotham society to bid the stately building adieu. Guests will be dressing up in their best flapper attire for a party set in the Roaring 20s.
When asked if the recent phobia attacks have him concerned, Wayne laughed. "The only thing I'm afraid of is forgetting how to dance the foxtrot," he said.
"I don't like it. I don't like it, I don't like it!"
"So you've mentioned. Quite a few times." Bruce swiveled the chair away from the computer and rose to stalk across the cave to stand nose-to-nose with Clark. Or rather, nose-to-chest, as Clark was insisting on floating a bit to get the height advantage. "Get back down here, Clark. It's bad enough you're naturally taller than me without hamhanded attempts to loom."
Clark's sneakers grated slightly on the floor of the cave as he came back to earth. He was wearing a sweatshirt and jeans, the glasses off, the effect an odd compromise between the alien and the human. He gave Bruce a mutinous glare. "I should be there."
Bruce couldn't help laughing. "Clark Kent asking to come to a party with me? Do I hear Kryptonians pigs flying by?"
"I don't--"
"--like it, I know." Bruce sighed and met Clark's worried eyes squarely. "Clark. I know Crane. I know his kind--cruel and arrogant, getting their kicks from playing God. Doctor Sugiyama's resistance to his drug will drive him into a near-frenzy. He'll be desperate to do something to prove to Batman, to Gotham--and most importantly, to himself--that he's still the one in control. He needs to strike somewhere to have a dramatic impact. He will do something, the question is if we can manipulate him into doing it somewhere where we're ready for him. This gives him a clear and simple target. A crowd of glittering socialites, ripe for the terrorizing." Bruce's lips thinned. "I've got filters planted, the highest quality available. I can get any toxin out the air quickly--and if I'm lucky, I can even get a sample of this new stuff to analyze." He reached out and traced a delicate line across one high cheekbone. "And you're not going because we don't know if the toxin affects you and I want to have you in reserve if things go terribly wrong. We'll be ready for him if we pick the battleground and force his hand."
Clark reached out and adjusted Bruce's bow tie, brushing invisible lint off the tuxedo as if reassuring himself of Bruce's reality. "I'll be listening in and ready if you need me."
Bruce covered Clark's mouth with his own. "I know," he said as he turned to leave the cave.
The cave was much more silent in the wake of his departure. Clark paced a few steps, turned and paced a few more in the other direction. He sat down at the computer and slipped his glasses onto his face like a shield. "I don't like it," he whispered to the sleeping bats.
: : :
"Mr. Wayne?" The woman dancing with him had a warm, amused voice and sparkling green eyes under black hair in a spiky, boyish cut. "Earth to Mr. Wayne." Bruce groped for her name and found he couldn't remember it, although he remembered her arriving on the arm of a major industrialist; he kicked himself mentally. He couldn't seem to stop scanning the crowd for Jonathan Crane's lanky form, even though most likely Crane wouldn't be here to deliver the toxin in person.
At least he remembered how to dance the foxtrot.
"I'm sorry," he said, forcing himself to focus on the woman in his arms instead of ghosts and phantoms in the teeming crowd. She looked slightly familiar. "Have we met?"
She dimpled. "I believe it was at a hostage-taking."
The number of hostage-takings Batman had participated in was quite high; Bruce's attendance rate much lower. "The art museum. Mr. Freeze."
"I'm flattered you remember me," the woman said, the corner of her mouth crooking amusedly.
"It would be hard to forget such a daring escape plan," Bruce said with honest admiration.
She laughed as Bruce maneuvered her around the crowded dance floor. "I'm a resourceful girl," she noted.
Bruce was opening his mouth to respond when everything shifted. Bruce felt a prickle of horror go through him as he looked down at the woman in his arms and saw the same terror reflected in her widening emerald eyes. With a hoarse cry, she threw Bruce from her with startling strength, recoiling backwards into another couple in the process of scrambling away from each other. The other couple cringed away violently as well, a ripple of revulsed terror shuddering through the crowd. Someone started screaming as they collided helplessly with other bodies in the mob, and the sound infected everyone with blind panic. The ripple of movement became a stampede, people struggling toward doors, windows, any exit to get away from the unthinkable, grotesque contact of flesh on corrupting flesh.
Bruce's stomach was cramped with the same fear; he dodged a woman, her eyes blank with terror, and jumped onto a table. Pawing hands, clinging, grabbing...the table was overturned in the crush and Bruce found himself in the melee again. No... he flinched away from the contact, resisting the involuntary urge to kick, to get the flesh away from him as fast and hard as possible. They're still people, they're still people inside, he reminded himself even as his skin crawled as someone brushed by him, his face frozen in a rictus of horror and disgust.
"Bruce! Bruce! What's going on?" Kal's voice in his ear was urgent.
Someone had flung open a window and bodies crowded the sill, the stampede pressing them further, scrambling to avoid being crushed against the iron bars across the bottom...they were twenty stories up. "We need some help here! Right now!" he barked, knowing no one else would hear him over the chaos. The only person who mattered would hear him.
Shaking, he started to try and pull people away from the window, nausea twisting his guts as he laid hands on people, bile in his throat at the defiling touch of carrion flesh. Putrescence, decay...he swallowed the urge to retch and wrenched at the crowd, trying to herd them without touching them.
The crowd surged toward the freedom of the window, and the first person dropped into space with a horrified scream.
: : :
Superman was in the air on his way to the Triumph when he saw the woman falling, dropping like a doll from the window. He put on a burst of speed and caught her out of the air. "I've got you, ma'am," he said politely, holding her close and safe.
The woman shrieked in horror and clawed at his face, struggling to get away. Superman almost dropped her in his shock. Another cry of terror above him and he looked up to see another person leap, then another, and another.
He'd never catch them all.
He had to catch them all.
His world reduced to catching people and finding a place to put them as they wept and vomited and cursed him. No time to apologize, just time to dash and catch the next one. He couldn't get to the source of the problem, couldn't do anything but react, react...
"Haptophobia," a voice was saying in his ear, Bruce's voice, tight with panic, with fear. "Haptophobia. Fear of touch. Haptophobia. This is haptophobia." His voice bit off the Latin syllables as if the dead language could explain and thus stave off the terror.
Gotham's gravity seemed to be fighting him, to be pulling her people down to her breast faster than he could keep up. He hoped Bruce was able to do something to help up there.
He hoped Bruce wouldn't be the person he failed to catch.
The sound of spraying water through the transmitter--someone had set off the sprinkler system, probably Bruce. Gasps of shock cut through the screams of terror. "Good," he whispered as he captured another falling body, this one barely feet from the ground. "Good job, Bruce." The water might curtail the spread of the toxin, and maybe the shock would pull some people out of their blind panic.
"Everyone down!" He heard Bruce's voice bark, heard the command and authority that he wasn't bothering to hide beneath the facade.
Heard the fear under it.
"Everyone down on the floor! Sit and then crawl to a space where you don't have to--" Bruce's voice cut off with a choke. "Away from everyone else. But sit down and focus!"
Superman could hear the screams dying down to sobs as he snatched three more people from death. The last one's hand brushed the ground as he stopped her fall, his heart pounding. He looked up.
There were no others.
He floated up to peer in the window and find the room full of water, full of terrified people all sitting on the floor carefully apart from each other, many of them weeping and covering their faces to avoid looking at each other. Bruce was standing on a chair, arms wrapped tight around his torso, shuddering. He met Superman's eyes with a flash of anguish. "Superman," he said weakly. "Thank God you're here." The playboy's voice, but sincerity under it as well.
Sirens in the street below. "Tell them not to touch anyone," Bruce said to Superman. "Please."
: : :
"I'm surprised you're here, Superman," Jim Gordon said. "I didn't think Batman allowed you into Gotham."
Kal winced at Gordon's piercing gaze and affected a haughty look. "I heard the screams, and he didn't seem to be taking the time to show up."
"Well." Gordon looked tired again. "Life would be easier for all of us if you boys could learn to work together instead of doing your little alpha-male rituals."
"Do I have your permission to go, sir?" Kal was suddenly tired of it all himself. He had seen only glimpses of Bruce in the traumatized crowd, seen him flashing enough money to be let go early. Kal could hear him breathing softly, the whir of bats overhead.
He had to get to Bruce.
Gordon flapped a hand at him. "Far be it for me to keep you here," he murmured.
Kal was in the air immediately, making his way toward the Manor in erratic bursts of speed to lose any prying eyes. "Bruce," he whispered. "Are you all right? Is it all right if I come there?"
Bruce's voice was dry as autumn leaves, rustling. "Yes. Come here."
Through the waterfall and into the cavern, shaking off water. Maybe the toxin had worn off, maybe Bruce's antidote had worked...
Bruce stood in the middle of the cave, still in his tuxedo, his posture stiff and awkward. Kal met his eyes and saw the fear there; he moved further away. "Bruce. I shouldn't be here if you're still--"
"I need--" Bruce swallowed hard. "I need to--touch you." His voice broke at the end.
"The toxin..."
"Is still there, in my system."
"So you can't..."
Anger replaced the fear in Bruce's eyes for a second. "I can. I won't let him...I won't let anything keep me from touching you."
Kal knew he should probably just leave, but the fierceness in Bruce's eyes seemed to keep him riveted in place. "It will wear off in five or six hours, Bruce. There's no reason to endanger yourself."
"You don't understand." Bruce's voice was bleak. "When I imagine--imagine--" he shuddered, "--touching someone, even you...it's like putting my hands into a cesspool, corruption, mortality incarnate. I won't let anyone or anything do that to me, I won't let my reactions to you be dictated to me. I'll break this." His eyes blazed. "Nothing can keep me away from you, Kal. Ever."
He should leave. He shouldn't let Bruce risk his mind to prove a point. It was weak of him to want that reassurance, to have Bruce touch him despite the fear.
He was weak.
"Promise you'll back off if it's too much?"
"Of course," Bruce said with a shaky smile.
Kal bit his lip. "What should I do?"
"Just...stand perfectly still for now. And be patient with me." Bruce edged forward a half-step, then another. He stopped at the third, staring at Kal's eyes fixedly. A deep breath, and another step.
Finally he was in front of Superman, just a few feet away. He raised his hand into the space between them, bringing it closer with incredible slowness. "Kal," he whispered, more to himself than to his partner. "This is Kal." His hand was shaking. "This is your Kal." The very tip of his index finger brushed Kal's cheek, and he made a terrible gulping noise, almost a retch. "No," he said. "This is your love. My love."
The finger came back and rested, feather-light, on Kal's cheekbone. For a very long time they stood there, frozen, every muscle in Bruce's body clenched with the impulse to flee. A trickle of sweat beaded down Bruce's temple in the cool cave air, and there were tears of strain at the corners of his eyes. "I--I--won't--" he gritted, and brought his hand in to cup Kal's cheek. Breath hissed through his teeth, and Kal yearned to hold him, to comfort him...but he remained perfectly still, unmoving, as Bruce's lips skinned back from his teeth and he swallowed a hoarse breath.
"No," Bruce said again, his voice shaking, as if answering a voice only he could hear. "Beloved, incorruptible, unblemished--" his voice broke in something close to a sob, "--My adamantine love. My heart." Both Bruce's hands were cupping his face now, and Bruce was smiling. "Never to be separated from me." He stepped closer, until his body was lightly touching Kal's, the expression on his face that of fear transported into rapture, transcendent, incandescent. "Never," he whispered, his arms lowering to slide around his lover.
They held each other, nothing more, and to be held was an ecstasy beyond most Kal had ever known.
Never to be separated from me.