Fic: Syncopation 6/6
Title: Syncopation: Chapter Six (of Six)
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Syncopation is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: PG
Summary: In the aftermath of Harvey Dent's destruction, Bruce locks himself in the cave, and Clark has to try and reach him somehow.
Word Count: 2200
Superman was hovering in the night sky above Metropolis when the beep sounded that requested an open channel with him. He tapped his temple to open it, grinning despite himself; Bruce almost never asked to talk to him when he was patrolling. His face fell as Alfred's voice, rather than Bruce's, came over the line.
"Sir? This is, uh, Alfred. Is this working?" A tapping noise and Clark hastened to reassure the butler he was there. Alfred continued, "I was wondering if you could come to Gotham." His voice sounded collected as always, but there was an undertone to it that Superman didn't like.
"What's wrong, Alfred?"
"It's Master Bruce, sir." Clark was halfway to Gotham before the next sentence came; Alfred slipping into using the personal name was a very bad sign. "He's...locked himself in the cave."
Superman came up short in the air. "He's what?"
"Locked the elevator down so no one from the Manor can get in. He's...very upset over this whole Dent affair."
"We all are, Alfred." Superman started toward Gotham again, but more slowly now, trying to take mental stock of the situation.
"You may not have noticed this, sir, but Master Bruce does have a tendency to, well...to brood." Alfred sounded like he was letting slip a deep family secret, which would have made Superman smile if he weren't so worried. Below him the jewel-studded darkness of Gotham came into view. Superman glared down at it, at the city that seemed determined to break his love's heart. Damn you, Gotham. If I have to share, you have to share too.
"Is he listening to you, sir?" Alfred asked.
Superman frowned and tapped the earpiece to receive sound from Bruce's end. He heard nothing but slow, steady breathing, a heartbeat, and the dim sound of bats. "Bruce? Are you listening?" No change in the breathing or the heartbeat--but Bruce was good at masking those changes. "I can't tell, Alfred. If he's locked himself out, I can't imagine why he'd be listening to me."
A sigh on Alfred's end. "I can think of one reason..." He didn't finish the sentence, however. "I'll sign off now, sir, and let you focus on him."
"I won't let you down, Alfred."
"I'm not the one you'd be letting down, sir." Alfred's voice was somewhat quelling, but he added softly before closing the channel, "I trust you, dear boy."
Superman gently lowered himself out of the air toward the waterfall entrance. Still nothing in his ear but soft breathing and bats. Bruce sitting still for so long was an unnerving concept--the man was always tinkering with something or doing exercises or research. Such quiescence was another bad sign.
As he neared the glistening waterfall, Superman suddenly drew up short.
The cave entrance had been electrified with enough voltage to knock a human out.
Superman could have brushed the force field aside like a bead curtain, of course. But the fact that it was there said enough. Clark blinked, trying not to feel rejected. Bruce was hurt right now, he reminded himself. It wasn't a personal rejection, he couldn't take it personally...he ignored the panic crawling up his throat, yammering What will I do, what will I do without him, my anchor, my heart... Angry at his selfish thoughts, he pushed the fear aside. Bruce wasn't going to abandon him, this wasn't about him at all.
He settled onto the branch of an ancient oak within sight of the cave mouth, feeling foolishly like a large blue-and-red bird perching there. There was a long silence as Clark gathered his thoughts. Superman was very good at telling villains they were doing the wrong thing, but when it came to subtleties like faith and despair, Clark felt at a loss. How to reach Bruce?
He perched there, a silly figure in garish red and blue, and wondered what he could ever say about the human heart, when he only really knew his own.
After a while, he said quietly, "Bruce? Are you listening to me?" Silence. Clark sighed.
"Bruce? Do you know how many people died when Zod attacked Earth? Nine hundred sixty five. I know the names of every one of them, Bruce. Kenneth Aaronson, a sixty-five-year old electrician and father of three. Kevin Atkins, a twelve-year-old boy. Rachael Atkins, his ten-year-old sister."
Superman went through the list he knew by heart. It took about a half hour, and at the end of it he was angry again, but not at Bruce for rejecting him. "Do you know what I was doing while those nine hundred sixty five people died, Batman? While some insane Kryptonian crushed them with buildings and destroyed them with heat vision for his sadistic pleasure? I was having sex with my girlfriend at the North Pole. When you reach that level of catastrophic dereliction of duty, then we can talk about you locking yourself away from the people who care about you, locking yourself away from your duty to this damn monstrous beautiful city you've committed yourself to." He scrubbed at his eyes angrily. "You don't get to give it all up to brood in the dark. Not you."
Still silence. Was there the faintest shifting noise? Was Clark speaking entirely to himself? It was important to say it anyway.
"Bruce...Harvey had people all around him who cared about him, but he couldn't accept that love, couldn't allow himself to depend on others and be 'weak.' That's what finally broke him, that he couldn't be vulnerable to anybody. Couldn't reach out to the people who wanted to help him, who loved him. Bruce, will you lock yourself into that too? Because then whatever it was that consumed him will win, Bruce, and it will laugh at us both. At all of us who love."
Silence. Clark had run out of words at this point and just sat, desolate. He had failed, anyone would have done better than him, he had lost Bruce to the dark...
The force field came down.
Clark just stared at it for an instant, then was in the cave before Bruce could change his mind.
Bruce was still standing by the controls to lower the field. He was in the suit, but with the cowl down. He turned to look at Clark in the dim light from the control panels, the only light in the cave. Something in his eyes kept Clark from approaching more closely.
"Clark." Bruce started, then stopped for a long time. He met Clark's eyes and continued again. "Clark. Henri Ducard was a friend of mine. He met me and befriended me and then I destroyed him. Harvey was my friend. He trusted me, he got close to me, and he was destroyed. I--" He swallowed. "I love you, Clark, more than I ever loved them. Will--" He halted again and looked at his lover, half in defiance, half in anguish.
Clark smiled. He was on ground he felt sure of now.
"You've got your cause and effect backwards, Bruce. They weren't damaged because they came close to you. They drew close to you because they were damaged. Because you attract people who are wounded, who aren't whole, who have..." He paused and tilted his head slightly. "...empty places inside. Like this crazy city of yours, riddled with hollow places it demands you to fill. You're a magnet for the broken and the lost and the ones who need. And for a while you can give those people some peace. You don't cause self-destruction, Bruce, you delay it. As much as you can, you make us whole"
There was a long silence. "Us?" Bruce said quietly.
Kal-El's smile was as clear and remote as the stars. He said nothing.
After a time, Bruce stepped forward into Clark's arms.
Superman held him there, feeling the muscles underneath his hands slowly relaxing. He kept silent, waiting. Bruce leaned his head on Clark's shoulder and Clark felt it gradually grow heavy with exhaustion against him, pressing against him. As Bruce slipped into sleep at last, his knees buckled, but Clark supported him, taking his weight fully on himself, holding Bruce steady so he could finally rest. He told himself he didn't scoop Bruce up and carry him to a bed for fear of waking him, but he knew that really he just wanted to feel the other man's body against him a little longer, warm and heavy, holding him down to the earth.
Filling the empty spaces with his breath and the beating of his heart.
He stood there supporting Bruce for two hours, maybe three. Then Bruce stirred and stepped away. "Thank you," he said.
"You need a fuller night's sleep than that."
Bruce pulled the cowl back up over his head. "And I'll take it soon, I promise. But Batman has a visit to make first."
: : :
The Arkham guards might have heard a rustle, might have seen a shadow move past them. But Arkham is full of odd rustles and strange shadows, and they heard and saw nothing more concrete to indicate their security had been breached. Soon Batman stood outside the cell of the man who had once been Harvey Dent, shackled and sleeping. "Wake up," he said.
The livid yellow eye snapped open like a blind. The hazel eye on the right opened more slowly, blinking with sleep.
"Ah, Bat," chortled the growling voice. "Have you come to weep over poor lost Harvey too? Oh, boo hoo, poor baby." Melodramatic sobbing noises broke from the lipless mouth.
"No. I didn't come to talk to Harvey. I've come to talk to you." The jaundiced eye glared at him, unblinking. "I've come to tell you this: you don't get to win. You don't get to define the rules, and you don't get to keep Harvey's soul. We'll beat you someday. I'll beat you. Everyone who cares about Harvey will beat you. And most importantly, Harvey will beat you. Because he's a good man, and a strong man, and you can't win forever." The figure before him opened his mouth again, but Batman's voice grated over anything he might have said. "I don't give up. Not on Harvey, not on Gotham...and not on myself," he added more quietly.
Batman backed up a step from the cell door. "Remember that. This isn't over. You don't get to win." Then he was gone with a swirl of cape.
He probably imagined the very quiet "Thank you" behind him as he made his exit.
: : :
From the roof of the asylum, the stars looked larger and clearer than anywhere else in Gotham, preternaturally bright and lustrous. Batman stared up at them a while, the gargoyles of Arkham leering at him from the nooks and crannies of the Gothic architecture. Finally, he tapped his ear. "If you're free, I wouldn't mind a lift home."
A disturbance in the air, and Superman hovered before him, solid and bright and real against the disturbing angles of Arkham. "Going my way?" asked Clark.
"And what way would that be?"
Superman threw out one arm with a flourish, sending his cape skirling in the air about him. He gestured grandly ahead of the two of them. "The future!" he said dramatically.
A pause, and Clark looked carefully at Batman. "Is that...okay with you?" he added uncertainly, rather undermining his grandiose pose.
Batman took one step closer to Superman. "Actually...I was kind of hoping you'd say 'home,'" he said dryly.
The tentative look on Superman's face dissolved into a dazzling, almost shy smile. He moved forward in the air until he could reach out and touch the other man. "Well, we could stop by there on the way, if you like." He took Bruce's face between his hands very gently, as if his lover was made of porcelain, fragile and precious, as if he might break.
Bruce reached up and put his hands over Clark's, pressing them harder against his face, pulling his lover close for a crushing kiss that nearly drew blood. Clark's fingers tightened along his jawline and Bruce knew there'd be bruises there in the morning and he didn't care.
He wasn't going to break.
When Bruce pulled away Clark's breathing was hoarse and his eyes dark. "Screw the future, I'm taking you home," Superman said, somewhat weakly.
Bruce felt a warmth inside him that he knew could become a smile if he let it appear on his face, could be hope if he let it into his heart. It was his choice.
With his feet on Arkham Asylum and his eyes on Kal-El's face framed by the infinite stars, Bruce paused.
A smile crossed his face.
Then he stepped into his lover's embrace, darkness and light together, and left Arkham brooding behind them in the night.
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Syncopation is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: PG
Summary: In the aftermath of Harvey Dent's destruction, Bruce locks himself in the cave, and Clark has to try and reach him somehow.
Word Count: 2200
Superman was hovering in the night sky above Metropolis when the beep sounded that requested an open channel with him. He tapped his temple to open it, grinning despite himself; Bruce almost never asked to talk to him when he was patrolling. His face fell as Alfred's voice, rather than Bruce's, came over the line.
"Sir? This is, uh, Alfred. Is this working?" A tapping noise and Clark hastened to reassure the butler he was there. Alfred continued, "I was wondering if you could come to Gotham." His voice sounded collected as always, but there was an undertone to it that Superman didn't like.
"What's wrong, Alfred?"
"It's Master Bruce, sir." Clark was halfway to Gotham before the next sentence came; Alfred slipping into using the personal name was a very bad sign. "He's...locked himself in the cave."
Superman came up short in the air. "He's what?"
"Locked the elevator down so no one from the Manor can get in. He's...very upset over this whole Dent affair."
"We all are, Alfred." Superman started toward Gotham again, but more slowly now, trying to take mental stock of the situation.
"You may not have noticed this, sir, but Master Bruce does have a tendency to, well...to brood." Alfred sounded like he was letting slip a deep family secret, which would have made Superman smile if he weren't so worried. Below him the jewel-studded darkness of Gotham came into view. Superman glared down at it, at the city that seemed determined to break his love's heart. Damn you, Gotham. If I have to share, you have to share too.
"Is he listening to you, sir?" Alfred asked.
Superman frowned and tapped the earpiece to receive sound from Bruce's end. He heard nothing but slow, steady breathing, a heartbeat, and the dim sound of bats. "Bruce? Are you listening?" No change in the breathing or the heartbeat--but Bruce was good at masking those changes. "I can't tell, Alfred. If he's locked himself out, I can't imagine why he'd be listening to me."
A sigh on Alfred's end. "I can think of one reason..." He didn't finish the sentence, however. "I'll sign off now, sir, and let you focus on him."
"I won't let you down, Alfred."
"I'm not the one you'd be letting down, sir." Alfred's voice was somewhat quelling, but he added softly before closing the channel, "I trust you, dear boy."
Superman gently lowered himself out of the air toward the waterfall entrance. Still nothing in his ear but soft breathing and bats. Bruce sitting still for so long was an unnerving concept--the man was always tinkering with something or doing exercises or research. Such quiescence was another bad sign.
As he neared the glistening waterfall, Superman suddenly drew up short.
The cave entrance had been electrified with enough voltage to knock a human out.
Superman could have brushed the force field aside like a bead curtain, of course. But the fact that it was there said enough. Clark blinked, trying not to feel rejected. Bruce was hurt right now, he reminded himself. It wasn't a personal rejection, he couldn't take it personally...he ignored the panic crawling up his throat, yammering What will I do, what will I do without him, my anchor, my heart... Angry at his selfish thoughts, he pushed the fear aside. Bruce wasn't going to abandon him, this wasn't about him at all.
He settled onto the branch of an ancient oak within sight of the cave mouth, feeling foolishly like a large blue-and-red bird perching there. There was a long silence as Clark gathered his thoughts. Superman was very good at telling villains they were doing the wrong thing, but when it came to subtleties like faith and despair, Clark felt at a loss. How to reach Bruce?
He perched there, a silly figure in garish red and blue, and wondered what he could ever say about the human heart, when he only really knew his own.
After a while, he said quietly, "Bruce? Are you listening to me?" Silence. Clark sighed.
"Bruce? Do you know how many people died when Zod attacked Earth? Nine hundred sixty five. I know the names of every one of them, Bruce. Kenneth Aaronson, a sixty-five-year old electrician and father of three. Kevin Atkins, a twelve-year-old boy. Rachael Atkins, his ten-year-old sister."
Superman went through the list he knew by heart. It took about a half hour, and at the end of it he was angry again, but not at Bruce for rejecting him. "Do you know what I was doing while those nine hundred sixty five people died, Batman? While some insane Kryptonian crushed them with buildings and destroyed them with heat vision for his sadistic pleasure? I was having sex with my girlfriend at the North Pole. When you reach that level of catastrophic dereliction of duty, then we can talk about you locking yourself away from the people who care about you, locking yourself away from your duty to this damn monstrous beautiful city you've committed yourself to." He scrubbed at his eyes angrily. "You don't get to give it all up to brood in the dark. Not you."
Still silence. Was there the faintest shifting noise? Was Clark speaking entirely to himself? It was important to say it anyway.
"Bruce...Harvey had people all around him who cared about him, but he couldn't accept that love, couldn't allow himself to depend on others and be 'weak.' That's what finally broke him, that he couldn't be vulnerable to anybody. Couldn't reach out to the people who wanted to help him, who loved him. Bruce, will you lock yourself into that too? Because then whatever it was that consumed him will win, Bruce, and it will laugh at us both. At all of us who love."
Silence. Clark had run out of words at this point and just sat, desolate. He had failed, anyone would have done better than him, he had lost Bruce to the dark...
The force field came down.
Clark just stared at it for an instant, then was in the cave before Bruce could change his mind.
Bruce was still standing by the controls to lower the field. He was in the suit, but with the cowl down. He turned to look at Clark in the dim light from the control panels, the only light in the cave. Something in his eyes kept Clark from approaching more closely.
"Clark." Bruce started, then stopped for a long time. He met Clark's eyes and continued again. "Clark. Henri Ducard was a friend of mine. He met me and befriended me and then I destroyed him. Harvey was my friend. He trusted me, he got close to me, and he was destroyed. I--" He swallowed. "I love you, Clark, more than I ever loved them. Will--" He halted again and looked at his lover, half in defiance, half in anguish.
Clark smiled. He was on ground he felt sure of now.
"You've got your cause and effect backwards, Bruce. They weren't damaged because they came close to you. They drew close to you because they were damaged. Because you attract people who are wounded, who aren't whole, who have..." He paused and tilted his head slightly. "...empty places inside. Like this crazy city of yours, riddled with hollow places it demands you to fill. You're a magnet for the broken and the lost and the ones who need. And for a while you can give those people some peace. You don't cause self-destruction, Bruce, you delay it. As much as you can, you make us whole"
There was a long silence. "Us?" Bruce said quietly.
Kal-El's smile was as clear and remote as the stars. He said nothing.
After a time, Bruce stepped forward into Clark's arms.
Superman held him there, feeling the muscles underneath his hands slowly relaxing. He kept silent, waiting. Bruce leaned his head on Clark's shoulder and Clark felt it gradually grow heavy with exhaustion against him, pressing against him. As Bruce slipped into sleep at last, his knees buckled, but Clark supported him, taking his weight fully on himself, holding Bruce steady so he could finally rest. He told himself he didn't scoop Bruce up and carry him to a bed for fear of waking him, but he knew that really he just wanted to feel the other man's body against him a little longer, warm and heavy, holding him down to the earth.
Filling the empty spaces with his breath and the beating of his heart.
He stood there supporting Bruce for two hours, maybe three. Then Bruce stirred and stepped away. "Thank you," he said.
"You need a fuller night's sleep than that."
Bruce pulled the cowl back up over his head. "And I'll take it soon, I promise. But Batman has a visit to make first."
: : :
The Arkham guards might have heard a rustle, might have seen a shadow move past them. But Arkham is full of odd rustles and strange shadows, and they heard and saw nothing more concrete to indicate their security had been breached. Soon Batman stood outside the cell of the man who had once been Harvey Dent, shackled and sleeping. "Wake up," he said.
The livid yellow eye snapped open like a blind. The hazel eye on the right opened more slowly, blinking with sleep.
"Ah, Bat," chortled the growling voice. "Have you come to weep over poor lost Harvey too? Oh, boo hoo, poor baby." Melodramatic sobbing noises broke from the lipless mouth.
"No. I didn't come to talk to Harvey. I've come to talk to you." The jaundiced eye glared at him, unblinking. "I've come to tell you this: you don't get to win. You don't get to define the rules, and you don't get to keep Harvey's soul. We'll beat you someday. I'll beat you. Everyone who cares about Harvey will beat you. And most importantly, Harvey will beat you. Because he's a good man, and a strong man, and you can't win forever." The figure before him opened his mouth again, but Batman's voice grated over anything he might have said. "I don't give up. Not on Harvey, not on Gotham...and not on myself," he added more quietly.
Batman backed up a step from the cell door. "Remember that. This isn't over. You don't get to win." Then he was gone with a swirl of cape.
He probably imagined the very quiet "Thank you" behind him as he made his exit.
: : :
From the roof of the asylum, the stars looked larger and clearer than anywhere else in Gotham, preternaturally bright and lustrous. Batman stared up at them a while, the gargoyles of Arkham leering at him from the nooks and crannies of the Gothic architecture. Finally, he tapped his ear. "If you're free, I wouldn't mind a lift home."
A disturbance in the air, and Superman hovered before him, solid and bright and real against the disturbing angles of Arkham. "Going my way?" asked Clark.
"And what way would that be?"
Superman threw out one arm with a flourish, sending his cape skirling in the air about him. He gestured grandly ahead of the two of them. "The future!" he said dramatically.
A pause, and Clark looked carefully at Batman. "Is that...okay with you?" he added uncertainly, rather undermining his grandiose pose.
Batman took one step closer to Superman. "Actually...I was kind of hoping you'd say 'home,'" he said dryly.
The tentative look on Superman's face dissolved into a dazzling, almost shy smile. He moved forward in the air until he could reach out and touch the other man. "Well, we could stop by there on the way, if you like." He took Bruce's face between his hands very gently, as if his lover was made of porcelain, fragile and precious, as if he might break.
Bruce reached up and put his hands over Clark's, pressing them harder against his face, pulling his lover close for a crushing kiss that nearly drew blood. Clark's fingers tightened along his jawline and Bruce knew there'd be bruises there in the morning and he didn't care.
He wasn't going to break.
When Bruce pulled away Clark's breathing was hoarse and his eyes dark. "Screw the future, I'm taking you home," Superman said, somewhat weakly.
Bruce felt a warmth inside him that he knew could become a smile if he let it appear on his face, could be hope if he let it into his heart. It was his choice.
With his feet on Arkham Asylum and his eyes on Kal-El's face framed by the infinite stars, Bruce paused.
A smile crossed his face.
Then he stepped into his lover's embrace, darkness and light together, and left Arkham brooding behind them in the night.