Gardens of Wayne Manor: Leap in the Dark (14/37)
Title: Chapter Fourteen: Leap in the Dark
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Oswald Cobblepot, Jim Gordon
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: The Gardens of Wayne Manor is an AU series in which Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne's lives intertwine at an early age. Click here for the complete series and series notes.
Word Count: 2400Summary: Bruce and Clark must save themselves and then Jim Gordon from the clutches of the smugglers.
There was a gun pointing at Clark Kent's head.
There was a man behind Clark, and a hand holding him motionless, and a gun pointing at his head.
Bruce Wayne knew three judo throws that would leave the man flat on the floor. He knew six karate techniques that would break his wrist, or his nose, or leave him doubled-up in pain. He knew all of them, but the information was abstract, distanced. It didn't seem connected to his body at all. He had no way to use it.
"Just what do you think you're doing here?"
At that distance, the bullet would take off the side of Clark's head. Clark's eyes were huge, his face white. He had come along to try and keep Bruce safe and now there was a gun pointing at his head.
Bruce raised his hands very slowly. They were shaking. "Please. Let him go."
The man glanced from one boy to the other. "It's you kids," he said. "What the hell are you--"
"George, George, George." A squawking voice came from the shadows, and Oswald Cobblepot strolled into the dim light. His eyes were flicking around the cave, from the speedboat to the boys to his henchman, but his smile was ingratiating. "There's no need to be so bellicose."
"Uh...sure. I guess." George didn't seem certain what "bellicose" meant, but he could read his boss's tone. The gun moved away from Clark's head slightly, and Bruce's breath came just a bit easier.
"Now, what are you charming lads doing here? Apparently saving a soul from the cruel surf yesterday only whetted your appetite for adventure." Cobblepot waved a hand around the cave's dank walls. "And you have discovered this chateau del mar, as did we. I'm certain that, like us, you were investigating yesterday's unfortunate incident and came across this hidey-hole. Have you...explored much of it? Seen the sights?" His eyes glittered in the darkness. George's fingers were still tense on the gun pointing at Clark.
Bruce opened his mouth, but no words came out. His thoughts felt congealed. He couldn't think. He couldn't act. Not with Clark still--
"Are there sights?" Clark's voice was full of innocent curiosity. "This is as far as we'd gotten. Is it an old pirate hideout? Is it totally cool?"
Cobblepot smiled at him indulgently and gestured to George. George put away the gun, glowering. "It's nothing terribly noteworthy, I fear. Some old bottles and trash, but mainly rather dull. You boys really shouldn't be here." His voice was touched with frost and his smile had too many teeth. "George almost mistook you for a troublemaker of some sort. That would have been so unfortunate."
"You're absolutely right, sir," said Clark, starting to back slowly toward the cave entrance. He grabbed Bruce's sleeve and tugged, and Bruce let himself be led out of the cave. "We're so sorry," Clark called from a safe distance.
George and Cobblepot watched them scramble back out of the cave.
Clark's hand was warm on his arm, his breath coming fast. "Bruce," he hissed urgently as they made their way over the slippery rocks, "Gordon was back there!"
"What?" Bruce's attention snapped back into place.
"He was in the back of the speedboat, in one of the sacks. I saw it moving. What else could it be?"
Bruce's feet slipped on the seaweed-covered rocks. "I didn't see that."
Something must have been odd about his voice, because Clark's hand on his arm tightened. "Are you okay?"
Bruce wanted to shrug his hand and the question off, but he heard himself say in a strange, remote voice, "I froze up. He had a gun on you and I couldn't...I couldn't..."
"Hey." Clark put his other hand on Bruce's shoulder. "It's natural. It's instinct."
"I have to be better than my instincts. I can't afford to freeze up every time someone has a gun."
"Are you planning to make this a regular occurrence?" Clark's voice was jesting, and this time Bruce did shrug off his hands and begin picking his way back toward their boat. "Hey! What'd I say?" He struggled to catch up with Bruce, splashing when his feet slipped and he stepped into tidal pools. He caught up with Bruce as they were at the boat. "You are, aren't you?" he said. "Bruce, what are you planning? Are you going to be a policeman?"
Bruce looked away over the water, heaving dark under the inky sky. "Maybe," he said at last. "I don't know. Maybe something...bigger. The CIA, FBI. Interpol. I want to do something...big. That'll keep people safe." The sea air was cool but he felt his face heating up. "I know it sounds stupid."
"Are you kidding?" Clark's teeth gleamed in the darkness. "It sounds awesome." He reached down and untied the boat, jumping lightly into it. "You're going to do great things, Bruce Wayne. I know it."
His voice was so certain that Bruce slipped on the rocks again, feeling suddenly almost ungainly in the face of such confidence. He scrambled into the boat. "Okay," he said, trying to sound like the kind of person who did awesome things, "Let's go to where they're going to rendezvous with the Eastern Star and save Gordon."
"But..." Clark's voice had turned uncertain. "Okay, we have that rendezvous time you found, but the ship could be anywhere. Wait..." He narrowed his eyes at Bruce. "Don't tell me you memorized the coordinates on that map so fast." Bruce was already scribbling on the boat's map. "Gosh," Clark said with a world of admiration in his tone, "You really are great."
Bruce snorted as he started up the boat's engine.
"You're going to need a super-spy code name," Clark continued as the boat sped out toward the open sea. "One that I can call you when I write news stories about you. Like...the Dark Shadow." Bruce snorted again. "The Demon? The Eagle's Talon? The Scarlet Shark?" Bruce rolled his eyes and didn't deign to answer. A long pause. "How about the Silent Jackass?" Clark suggested cheerfully, and Bruce kicked him.
: : :
Bruce cut the engine as they reached the rendezvous point and they drifted in darkness, some distance away from the actual coordinates. After a time, two sets of lights began to converge near the spot: one a massive tanker, cutting through the water, and the other a smaller boat. Clark could hear voices drifting across the water: the squawking tones of Oswald Cobblepot, along with Clarence and George's lower voices.
Clark put his mouth close to Bruce's ear. "Do you think--Do you think they've already..."
He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, but Bruce shook his head. Locks of hair tickled Clark's lips. He turned to lean close to Clark. "He's almost certainly in the boat. Same reason they didn't kill us--they didn't want bodies or other evidence around. Wait until the open sea can take him."
The deep thrum of the tanker engines was starting to fill the air as it came closer. Bruce took the opportunity to nudge the little boat slightly closer to Cobblepot's, under cover of the engine noise. He cut the engine again and let the boat edge closer slowly.
Clark strained to make out the voices on the speedboat. At first they were just jumbled noises, but then suddenly it was like they sprang into focus, and he could make them out with startling clarity. "There, they've dropped the goods. All right, Clarence," said Cobblepot. "Better get the deed done before we pick up our prize. No, don't shoot him, you idiot," he added irritably. "We didn't come all this way out to get blood all over my boat. Toss him in the water and let him sink."
A frisson of terror went over Clark, and he whirled to look at Bruce--only to find that Bruce was still squinting at the speedboat, no alarm on his face. Apparently he hadn't heard Cobblepot's voice.
No time to explain. "Now," Clark hissed, grabbing the wheel and pushing Bruce aside to slam on the gas. The boat leaped forward, its motor roaring, and Clark whacked the headlights into life.
They blazed out and caught Cobblepot staring, his henchmen in the process of lifting a burlap sack. They blinked and raised their arms against the light. "The cops!" yelled George. "We're screwed!"
"No, damn it! It's just one boat! Hold steady!" roared Cobblepot, and he raised his gun and fired at the oncoming boat.
There was a sharp ping and the windshield in front of Clark burst into a crazed web of plastic. Beside him, Clark heard Bruce make a strangled noise, a choking groan. Another crack and something ricocheted off the side of the boat. There was a sudden pain in Clark's arm, and for a panicky moment he thought--but then he realized it was Bruce, grabbing his arm so tightly it hurt, fingers gripping through cloth to bruise flesh.
"Keep going!" Bruce yelled over the noise of the motor. "Go right by them!"
"What are you going to do?" Clark yelled back.
"Just keep going!"
Clark kept the engine gunned. Another sharp whining noise whizzed nearby. Just twenty more yards...then ten...
Bruce let go of his arm. As they sailed by the speedboat, Clark looked over to see Bruce jump from the side of the boat, springing directly at George, who was still aiming his gun.
All of the breath left Clark at once and for a moment, time seemed to stand still: Bruce's silhouette against the lights, a dark form leaping into the unknown, straight at danger. The man's face fixed in fury and a growing fear. Bruce suspended over the abyss, staring death in the face.
And then the moment was gone and the boat's momentum carried Clark well past the speedboat. He heard the crackle of gunfire and brought the boat around so sharply it almost foundered, terror making his gorge rise, filled with an sudden wild certainty that if Bruce were hurt, he was going to ram the boat and send them all under--
George was empty-handed, his gun nowhere to be seen. A sharp punch from Bruce and the bigger man collapsed. Clarence wasn't even on the boat anymore: Clark could see a head bobbing in the water. But Cobblepot was still standing, his gun pointed at Bruce, who was moving forward, his face oddly calm in the harsh spotlights. Clark yelled something--
And the burlap sack suddenly lashed out, kicking, and caught Cobblepot squarely in the knees. He went down in a heap, the gun firing wildly in the air, and Bruce jumped forward to tackle him.
In moments, Cobblepot joined George in unconsciousness, and Bruce quickly untied Jim Gordon while Clarence floundered in the water, hollering that he couldn't swim. Clark eventually took pity on him and threw him a life preserver to quiet him down.
Untied, Jim Gordon blinked owlishly at the scene, and then at his rescuers. "But...you're just a couple of kids," he said, frowning.
Bruce met Clark's eyes. His face was transfigured with triumph and adrenaline, flushed, the eyes brilliant. He grinned wolfishly, and Clark caught his breath, feeling something shift somewhere inside him.
"Yep, just us," said Bruce.
Gordon looked at Bruce sharply, with a sudden gleam of recognition in his eyes, and opened his mouth as if to say something. Then he closed it again. "Can you tie these two up while I use the radio?" He indicated his blood-stained sleeve. "Not sure I'm up to knots right now."
Bruce nodded and rummaged in the dashboard until he found some twine and began trussing up Cobblepot and George. Clark kept an eye on the sputtering Clarence while Gordon found the police band frequency. Within ten minutes, a police boat came churning over the water to retrieve the floating smuggled goods and the smugglers themselves. Cobblepot was conscious by then, glaring haughtily at Gordon while he read him his rights. "I can buy all of you when I finally get what's mine!" he blustered.
"Not everyone can be bought," said Gordon as Cobblepot was hustled into the police boat. He turned to the boys. "I haven't thanked you," he said.
"No need," said Bruce hastily as he climbed back into his own boat.
Gordon raised an eyebrow at Clark, still at the wheel. "You're a little young to have a license to drive that, aren't you?" His quizzical look dissolved into a chuckle as Clark stammered something. "I'll overlook it this time, kid. Just follow me in and no joyrides in the future." He shook his head. "Rescued by a couple of kids. I'll never live this down, you know."
He turned to the wheel of Cobblepot's speedboat and led the boys toward shore.
Clark handed the wheel over to Bruce, who started up the engine. He gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white, and Clark realized his fingers were shaking. Without thinking, Clark reached out and covered Bruce's cold fingers with his own for just a second. Bruce looked at him and smiled. The wild berserker triumph was fading from his eyes, leaving him looking tired and satisfied. "We did it," he said, his voice barely carrying over the thrum of the engines.
"You're crazy, you know that?" Bruce's smile didn't waver. "You could have gotten yourself killed, jumping at an armed guy like that."
Bruce shook his head. "I needed to know I could do it. I needed to know I could face down a man with a gun and still act. And I can."
"That doesn't mean you should," Clark said. Images of Bruce going down in a welter of blood flashed before his eyes and made his voice sharper than he intended.
Bruce shook his head again, his eyes distant, as if he were looking toward a horizon farther than the star-filled sky. "You know, I think I might like the Silver Shade as a super-spy name."
"That is totally a rip-off of Gray Ghost!" Clark grumbled.
Bruce laughed out loud, and Clark decided he liked the sound enough to keep complaining all the way back to shore, to Bruce's vast amusement.
But secretly he had to admit "The Silver Shade" had a nice ring to it.
"Silver Shade, Man of Mystery, Stops Assassination Attempt," by Clark Kent.
He liked the sound of it.
( Chapter Fifteen)
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Oswald Cobblepot, Jim Gordon
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: The Gardens of Wayne Manor is an AU series in which Clark Kent and Bruce Wayne's lives intertwine at an early age. Click here for the complete series and series notes.
Word Count: 2400Summary: Bruce and Clark must save themselves and then Jim Gordon from the clutches of the smugglers.
There was a gun pointing at Clark Kent's head.
There was a man behind Clark, and a hand holding him motionless, and a gun pointing at his head.
Bruce Wayne knew three judo throws that would leave the man flat on the floor. He knew six karate techniques that would break his wrist, or his nose, or leave him doubled-up in pain. He knew all of them, but the information was abstract, distanced. It didn't seem connected to his body at all. He had no way to use it.
"Just what do you think you're doing here?"
At that distance, the bullet would take off the side of Clark's head. Clark's eyes were huge, his face white. He had come along to try and keep Bruce safe and now there was a gun pointing at his head.
Bruce raised his hands very slowly. They were shaking. "Please. Let him go."
The man glanced from one boy to the other. "It's you kids," he said. "What the hell are you--"
"George, George, George." A squawking voice came from the shadows, and Oswald Cobblepot strolled into the dim light. His eyes were flicking around the cave, from the speedboat to the boys to his henchman, but his smile was ingratiating. "There's no need to be so bellicose."
"Uh...sure. I guess." George didn't seem certain what "bellicose" meant, but he could read his boss's tone. The gun moved away from Clark's head slightly, and Bruce's breath came just a bit easier.
"Now, what are you charming lads doing here? Apparently saving a soul from the cruel surf yesterday only whetted your appetite for adventure." Cobblepot waved a hand around the cave's dank walls. "And you have discovered this chateau del mar, as did we. I'm certain that, like us, you were investigating yesterday's unfortunate incident and came across this hidey-hole. Have you...explored much of it? Seen the sights?" His eyes glittered in the darkness. George's fingers were still tense on the gun pointing at Clark.
Bruce opened his mouth, but no words came out. His thoughts felt congealed. He couldn't think. He couldn't act. Not with Clark still--
"Are there sights?" Clark's voice was full of innocent curiosity. "This is as far as we'd gotten. Is it an old pirate hideout? Is it totally cool?"
Cobblepot smiled at him indulgently and gestured to George. George put away the gun, glowering. "It's nothing terribly noteworthy, I fear. Some old bottles and trash, but mainly rather dull. You boys really shouldn't be here." His voice was touched with frost and his smile had too many teeth. "George almost mistook you for a troublemaker of some sort. That would have been so unfortunate."
"You're absolutely right, sir," said Clark, starting to back slowly toward the cave entrance. He grabbed Bruce's sleeve and tugged, and Bruce let himself be led out of the cave. "We're so sorry," Clark called from a safe distance.
George and Cobblepot watched them scramble back out of the cave.
Clark's hand was warm on his arm, his breath coming fast. "Bruce," he hissed urgently as they made their way over the slippery rocks, "Gordon was back there!"
"What?" Bruce's attention snapped back into place.
"He was in the back of the speedboat, in one of the sacks. I saw it moving. What else could it be?"
Bruce's feet slipped on the seaweed-covered rocks. "I didn't see that."
Something must have been odd about his voice, because Clark's hand on his arm tightened. "Are you okay?"
Bruce wanted to shrug his hand and the question off, but he heard himself say in a strange, remote voice, "I froze up. He had a gun on you and I couldn't...I couldn't..."
"Hey." Clark put his other hand on Bruce's shoulder. "It's natural. It's instinct."
"I have to be better than my instincts. I can't afford to freeze up every time someone has a gun."
"Are you planning to make this a regular occurrence?" Clark's voice was jesting, and this time Bruce did shrug off his hands and begin picking his way back toward their boat. "Hey! What'd I say?" He struggled to catch up with Bruce, splashing when his feet slipped and he stepped into tidal pools. He caught up with Bruce as they were at the boat. "You are, aren't you?" he said. "Bruce, what are you planning? Are you going to be a policeman?"
Bruce looked away over the water, heaving dark under the inky sky. "Maybe," he said at last. "I don't know. Maybe something...bigger. The CIA, FBI. Interpol. I want to do something...big. That'll keep people safe." The sea air was cool but he felt his face heating up. "I know it sounds stupid."
"Are you kidding?" Clark's teeth gleamed in the darkness. "It sounds awesome." He reached down and untied the boat, jumping lightly into it. "You're going to do great things, Bruce Wayne. I know it."
His voice was so certain that Bruce slipped on the rocks again, feeling suddenly almost ungainly in the face of such confidence. He scrambled into the boat. "Okay," he said, trying to sound like the kind of person who did awesome things, "Let's go to where they're going to rendezvous with the Eastern Star and save Gordon."
"But..." Clark's voice had turned uncertain. "Okay, we have that rendezvous time you found, but the ship could be anywhere. Wait..." He narrowed his eyes at Bruce. "Don't tell me you memorized the coordinates on that map so fast." Bruce was already scribbling on the boat's map. "Gosh," Clark said with a world of admiration in his tone, "You really are great."
Bruce snorted as he started up the boat's engine.
"You're going to need a super-spy code name," Clark continued as the boat sped out toward the open sea. "One that I can call you when I write news stories about you. Like...the Dark Shadow." Bruce snorted again. "The Demon? The Eagle's Talon? The Scarlet Shark?" Bruce rolled his eyes and didn't deign to answer. A long pause. "How about the Silent Jackass?" Clark suggested cheerfully, and Bruce kicked him.
: : :
Bruce cut the engine as they reached the rendezvous point and they drifted in darkness, some distance away from the actual coordinates. After a time, two sets of lights began to converge near the spot: one a massive tanker, cutting through the water, and the other a smaller boat. Clark could hear voices drifting across the water: the squawking tones of Oswald Cobblepot, along with Clarence and George's lower voices.
Clark put his mouth close to Bruce's ear. "Do you think--Do you think they've already..."
He couldn't bring himself to finish the sentence, but Bruce shook his head. Locks of hair tickled Clark's lips. He turned to lean close to Clark. "He's almost certainly in the boat. Same reason they didn't kill us--they didn't want bodies or other evidence around. Wait until the open sea can take him."
The deep thrum of the tanker engines was starting to fill the air as it came closer. Bruce took the opportunity to nudge the little boat slightly closer to Cobblepot's, under cover of the engine noise. He cut the engine again and let the boat edge closer slowly.
Clark strained to make out the voices on the speedboat. At first they were just jumbled noises, but then suddenly it was like they sprang into focus, and he could make them out with startling clarity. "There, they've dropped the goods. All right, Clarence," said Cobblepot. "Better get the deed done before we pick up our prize. No, don't shoot him, you idiot," he added irritably. "We didn't come all this way out to get blood all over my boat. Toss him in the water and let him sink."
A frisson of terror went over Clark, and he whirled to look at Bruce--only to find that Bruce was still squinting at the speedboat, no alarm on his face. Apparently he hadn't heard Cobblepot's voice.
No time to explain. "Now," Clark hissed, grabbing the wheel and pushing Bruce aside to slam on the gas. The boat leaped forward, its motor roaring, and Clark whacked the headlights into life.
They blazed out and caught Cobblepot staring, his henchmen in the process of lifting a burlap sack. They blinked and raised their arms against the light. "The cops!" yelled George. "We're screwed!"
"No, damn it! It's just one boat! Hold steady!" roared Cobblepot, and he raised his gun and fired at the oncoming boat.
There was a sharp ping and the windshield in front of Clark burst into a crazed web of plastic. Beside him, Clark heard Bruce make a strangled noise, a choking groan. Another crack and something ricocheted off the side of the boat. There was a sudden pain in Clark's arm, and for a panicky moment he thought--but then he realized it was Bruce, grabbing his arm so tightly it hurt, fingers gripping through cloth to bruise flesh.
"Keep going!" Bruce yelled over the noise of the motor. "Go right by them!"
"What are you going to do?" Clark yelled back.
"Just keep going!"
Clark kept the engine gunned. Another sharp whining noise whizzed nearby. Just twenty more yards...then ten...
Bruce let go of his arm. As they sailed by the speedboat, Clark looked over to see Bruce jump from the side of the boat, springing directly at George, who was still aiming his gun.
All of the breath left Clark at once and for a moment, time seemed to stand still: Bruce's silhouette against the lights, a dark form leaping into the unknown, straight at danger. The man's face fixed in fury and a growing fear. Bruce suspended over the abyss, staring death in the face.
And then the moment was gone and the boat's momentum carried Clark well past the speedboat. He heard the crackle of gunfire and brought the boat around so sharply it almost foundered, terror making his gorge rise, filled with an sudden wild certainty that if Bruce were hurt, he was going to ram the boat and send them all under--
George was empty-handed, his gun nowhere to be seen. A sharp punch from Bruce and the bigger man collapsed. Clarence wasn't even on the boat anymore: Clark could see a head bobbing in the water. But Cobblepot was still standing, his gun pointed at Bruce, who was moving forward, his face oddly calm in the harsh spotlights. Clark yelled something--
And the burlap sack suddenly lashed out, kicking, and caught Cobblepot squarely in the knees. He went down in a heap, the gun firing wildly in the air, and Bruce jumped forward to tackle him.
In moments, Cobblepot joined George in unconsciousness, and Bruce quickly untied Jim Gordon while Clarence floundered in the water, hollering that he couldn't swim. Clark eventually took pity on him and threw him a life preserver to quiet him down.
Untied, Jim Gordon blinked owlishly at the scene, and then at his rescuers. "But...you're just a couple of kids," he said, frowning.
Bruce met Clark's eyes. His face was transfigured with triumph and adrenaline, flushed, the eyes brilliant. He grinned wolfishly, and Clark caught his breath, feeling something shift somewhere inside him.
"Yep, just us," said Bruce.
Gordon looked at Bruce sharply, with a sudden gleam of recognition in his eyes, and opened his mouth as if to say something. Then he closed it again. "Can you tie these two up while I use the radio?" He indicated his blood-stained sleeve. "Not sure I'm up to knots right now."
Bruce nodded and rummaged in the dashboard until he found some twine and began trussing up Cobblepot and George. Clark kept an eye on the sputtering Clarence while Gordon found the police band frequency. Within ten minutes, a police boat came churning over the water to retrieve the floating smuggled goods and the smugglers themselves. Cobblepot was conscious by then, glaring haughtily at Gordon while he read him his rights. "I can buy all of you when I finally get what's mine!" he blustered.
"Not everyone can be bought," said Gordon as Cobblepot was hustled into the police boat. He turned to the boys. "I haven't thanked you," he said.
"No need," said Bruce hastily as he climbed back into his own boat.
Gordon raised an eyebrow at Clark, still at the wheel. "You're a little young to have a license to drive that, aren't you?" His quizzical look dissolved into a chuckle as Clark stammered something. "I'll overlook it this time, kid. Just follow me in and no joyrides in the future." He shook his head. "Rescued by a couple of kids. I'll never live this down, you know."
He turned to the wheel of Cobblepot's speedboat and led the boys toward shore.
Clark handed the wheel over to Bruce, who started up the engine. He gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white, and Clark realized his fingers were shaking. Without thinking, Clark reached out and covered Bruce's cold fingers with his own for just a second. Bruce looked at him and smiled. The wild berserker triumph was fading from his eyes, leaving him looking tired and satisfied. "We did it," he said, his voice barely carrying over the thrum of the engines.
"You're crazy, you know that?" Bruce's smile didn't waver. "You could have gotten yourself killed, jumping at an armed guy like that."
Bruce shook his head. "I needed to know I could do it. I needed to know I could face down a man with a gun and still act. And I can."
"That doesn't mean you should," Clark said. Images of Bruce going down in a welter of blood flashed before his eyes and made his voice sharper than he intended.
Bruce shook his head again, his eyes distant, as if he were looking toward a horizon farther than the star-filled sky. "You know, I think I might like the Silver Shade as a super-spy name."
"That is totally a rip-off of Gray Ghost!" Clark grumbled.
Bruce laughed out loud, and Clark decided he liked the sound enough to keep complaining all the way back to shore, to Bruce's vast amusement.
But secretly he had to admit "The Silver Shade" had a nice ring to it.
"Silver Shade, Man of Mystery, Stops Assassination Attempt," by Clark Kent.
He liked the sound of it.
( Chapter Fifteen)