The Man Who Falls (9/10)
Title: The Man Who Falls (9/10)
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Jack Ryder, Alfred Pennyworth, Harleen Quinzel, Barbara Gordon, Jim Gordon
Rating: R for violence
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: The Dark Knight/Superman Returns crossover; a continuation of Leap of Faith.
Word Count: 5000Summary: Clark Kent arrives in Gotham after the events of The Dark Knight and adds up the facts surrounding Bruce Wayne and Batman. Unfortunately, he reaches all the wrong conclusions.
Notes: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, Prompt F8: Superman strongly disapproves of Batman's methods. Clark Kent, on the other hand, has a very obvious (and not quite so secret) crush on Bruce Wayne. What happens when Clark suddenly finds out that Bruce is also Batman?
Extra Note: Sometimes damos moves from beta to co-writer, and this is definitely one of those times. I owe him forever for helping me with choreography, Harleen's voice, tightening everything up, and panic attacks during DDoS outages. :P
"I'm Jack Ryder, and you are wrong." Jack Ryder turned from the camera, tapped his index cards on the desk, and fixed a gimlet stare on Clark Kent. "And we're here today with Mr. Clark Kent, reporter from the Metropolis Daily Planet. You're writing an expose of the Batman, are you not?"
"Well, Mr. Ryder, I've come to understand there are a lot of things in Gotham more interesting than Batman."
"More interesting than Batman?" Ryder barked a disbelieving laugh. "Mr. Kent, don't fall for the PR bull that Mayor Garcia tries to shove down our throats. This is a city at war with a murderous masked menace, and--"
He broke off and put a hand to his earpiece, listening. "What? Where? Well, what are you waiting for? Get a feed!" He turned back to the camera, his eyes shining with morbid glee. "Breaking news, folks. We've got a hostage situation on the New Trigate Bridge. The police are at the scene, but the kidnapper is demanding we broadcast her demands on this very show--" he tapped his index cards on the desk for emphasis, "--the only show that gives you the inside story!"
"Should you really be showing this?" Clark cut in. "I mean, a hostage situation, it's volatile, and it's giving the kidnapper what they want--"
"--Hey, maybe you've got the luxury of sober reflection, Mr. Print Media." Ryder pointed the index cards at him. "But here in Gotham we don't shy away from showing the truth in all its messy reality!" He tilted his head, addressed the cameras once more: "Okay, my engineers are telling me we've got a feed established. This is live, ladies and gentlemen, live and breaking news right here on Gotham Insider!"
The monitors flickered to life and the crowd gasped at the face that filled the screen: smeared hastily with streaky chalk-white makeup, the eyes ringed with black greasepaint and the lips a scarlet ruin. Clark recognized the face beneath the grotesque paint: Harleen Quinzel.
"Hel-looo Gotham," Quinzel sang out into the camera. "This is Harley Quinn, coming to you live and kicking from the New Trigate Bridge, where I'm conducting a little psychological theory-testing." She held up a thin steel cable, her white-gloved fist clenched around one end. "Now, I don't want any outside--one might say alien--factors interfering with this test, so I have to mention that I'm holding a dead-man's switch that triggers a few carefully-placed bombs. If that flying straight man from Metropolis interferes, I let go and--" She grinned, "--KABLOOIE! The Joker's work is completed. Oh, and the same goes for anyone setting foot on this bridge who isn't Batman," she said. "This is between the Bat and me, mano a womano."
Still smiling, she backed away from the camera to reveal two children, tied back-to-back and dangling by a rope from a girder. She pushed them and they revolved slowly, revealing two tear-streaked faces: Jim Gordon's children.
The studio audience groaned aloud, an involuntary ripple of anguish, but Clark tore his eyes from the children's faces to scan what the camera was revealing of the area. At Quinzel's feet was a large duffel bag with "Bag of Tricks" scrawled on it in magic marker. Behind her was a car with a yellow smiley-face spray-painted on the hood.
"Get me a helicopter shot," Ryder said, and a new video appeared on the monitor, an unsteady image from above the bridge, circling in the falling dusk. The upper level of the bridge was empty except for Quinzel, dressed in a bizarre red and black outfit, standing near the children dangling over the edge. On the lower level people were pouring out of a train stopped on the tracks, gathering at the edge and trying to peer upward. There were police officers as well, and Clark could see Jim Gordon among them, gesturing and barking orders.
"You see," Quinzel was explaining earnestly as the feed cut back to her, "I spent a lot of time analyzing the Joker, and I realized he's discovered a basic psychological truth: everyone has to choose. And it's the choosing that reveals who we really are. I don't mean the stupid mundane choices like what to wear." She did a quick pirouette. "Although I do think red and black suit me, of course. I mean the real choices. The ones that matter. It's a dog eat dog world, my little puppies. There are no exceptions." For a second her eyes beneath the black paint gleamed with fanatic zeal, the scientific facade stripped away. "There can't be. And he knows humanity is just a polite lie we tell."
"You're wrong," said a voice from the shadows, low and grating. A rustle, and a cloaked shape dropped from the girders into camera range.
"Batman!" cried Jim Gordon's son, his face lighting up in desperate hope. "Batman!" The little girl didn't speak, her teeth fastened in her lower lip as though to bite back her own cry.
But her eyes said more than her brother's voice.
Beside Clark, Ryder muttered, "Huh. Talk about Stockholm Syndrome. Sad, really."
Quinzel arched paint-smeared eyebrows coyly. "Why, Batman," she cooed in breathy mimicry, "Who could possibly have predicted that you'd show up to save Gordon's kiddies? And after you supposedly kidnapped them and threatened to kill them and all." The children's imploring eyes never left Batman's face. "One might almost think that was a lie." She pushed the swinging children hard on the last word and they swung further out over the river, their thin shrieks echoing through the studio.
Batman started forward, but Harley held up the dead man's switch. "Uh uh uh," she said warningly, "We must respect the scientific process, or I'm afraid a lot of so-called 'innocent' Gothamites will die. And you don't want that, do you?" She smiled at Batman, sweetly. "You're all alone, Batman. And you just volunteered to be test subject number one! It will be his crowning achievement, the capstone of his philosophy. And I'll be the one to prove it!"
Batman stood completely still for a long moment. Then his gaze went from Quinzel to the camera beyond her, looking out.
"I don't need help," he gritted, articulating each word. "I don't need...anyone's stinking help."
"Sit down," hissed Ryder, and Clark realized he was on his feet, staring at the dark figure on the screen. In an instant the world re-aligned, everything was clear, and there was no time to curse his own stupidity because Batman--Bruce--was speaking again.
"Give it up, Quinzel," he said. "I could beat you with nothing more than a Swiss Army knife. You'll make a mistake. One little trip is all it takes."
"Mr. Ryder, I protest airing this travesty," blurted Clark. "And I won't be a party to it a moment longer."
"The door's over there, you wuss," barked Ryder. "Get the hell out of my studio."
Clark bolted for the door before his sentence was done, his heart pounding. Bruce. My God, Bruce.
Moments later, Superman was in the air and soaring toward Bruce Wayne's penthouse.
: : :
Alfred Pennyworth inhaled sharply at Batman's words. One little trip. But how in the world--
"Never expected Batman to be so chatty," Quinzel sneered on the screen. "I mean really? Trash talk? Bo-ring."
There was a sudden thump against the plate-glass windows, and Alfred turned, startled, to see Superman banging urgently on the glass. He was drawing back his fist as though to shatter the glass, his face a mask of fury and fear, when Alfred threw open the patio door and hurried out.
"Swiss Army knife," Superman said as if it were an explanation. "What did he mean, a 'little trip?'"
"They're the names of the captains of the ferries on that night," Alfred said. "James Little and Peter Trippe. He's trying to tell us that she's put bombs on the ferries. 'The Joker's work completed,' she said."
"Got it," said Superman, all his muscles coiling for action.
"Mr. Kent--Superman, wait," Alfred said, putting out his hand.
"He needs me," Superman cried, anguish in his eyes.
"Search the hospital and police department too. It would fit the theme of finishing the Joker's work." Superman nodded and lifted upward. "--And the bridges and tunnels," Alfred added hastily. "Joker threatened to bomb them too. She might have--"
"--There must be a dozen bridges and tunnels!" Superman's gaze was locked on the television screen, on the dark shadow holding its ground alone.
"Seventeen, actually. Check them."
"Anything else?"
"Well, there was a warehouse down by the docks--but he just burned some money there, it wasn't anything personal for him. And there was the fund-raiser here."
Superman glanced around, his eyes narrowed. "There are no bombs here."
"Well, that's something," Alfred said. "You have to check them all. He's trusting you with his city. Trust him to handle Quinzel."
Superman hesitated just an instant, then nodded.
"And Superman--" The figure paused one more time, hands clenched. "--Do hurry, please."
The faintest shadow of a smile tugged at Superman's lips, and then he was gone.
On the screen, Quinzel shrugged. "Enough of the research questions. Let's get to the data-collection part of the experiment."
Then things began to happen very quickly.
Quinzel knelt and in a swift motion grabbed an axe from the bag at her feet.
Batman jumped forward and seized the hand that held the dead man's switch, holding the switch down.
With a crow of triumph, Quinzel pivoted to bring the axe down on the rope holding the children suspended.
Still clutching Quinzel's hand with the switch, Batman leaped to grab at the rope holding the Gordon children with his other hand. He caught it and held on as they fell, balanced on the guardrail at the edge of the bridge.
Pulling her hand out of her glove, Quinzel kicked him hard, sending Batman, the children, and the dead man's switch over the edge of the bridge.
"No!" Alfred's cry rang out in the empty penthouse, unheard. But he heard shrieks of horror from the lower level of the bridge, and over them he heard a sharp twang as the cable connected to the dead man's switch was stretched taut.
The feed cut back to the helicopter camera to reveal a terrifying tableau. Batman was suspended over the river, his arms stretched out to their full length, tense with agony. The children dangled below him. The people on the second level of the bridge were crying out, reaching futilely toward the children swaying out of reach, or hiding their eyes in horror.
Quinzel calmly adjusted her camera on the edge of the bridge so it could take in the scene below it. Then she pulled a gun out of her bag and perched on the edge of the bridge, crossing her legs almost primly. "It seems everything is in place," she explained to the slowly rotating Batman as the feed cut back to her. "And we're ready to begin the experiment. Choice. Everything comes down to choice. Which will you let go? The children or the city, Batman?"
"Oh God," whispered Alfred to the empty penthouse. "Please hurry, Clark."
: : :
The river wheeled far below Batman, dotted with ice floes. The skyline of Gotham turned around him, lights starting to come on in the dusk. Below, Jim Gordon's children looked up at him, their faces pale ovals in the darkness. On the lower level of the bridge, Batman could see people gathered, watching helplessly.
None of it mattered. All that mattered were the rope in one hand, the dead man's switch in the other. In one hand, the life of two children. In the other, the lives of countless Gotham citizens.
Bruce Wayne gritted his teeth and held on through the fiery agony in his shoulders.
"You have to let go of something," Quinzel said above him, her voice kind and detached, a psychologist's voice. "You have to choose. Choose or be torn apart." She dangled her feet over the edge, peering down at him. "Just let something go, Batman. It's easy. Trust me, I know." Her laugh was a delighted trill of madness.
Were his fingers slipping? They were numb. He locked them more tightly. They hadn't slipped yet, he knew because he wasn't falling. Cautiously, carefully, Batman began to swing the children like a pendulum, the tiniest arc.
"Don't move," he heard Barbara say to her brother. "Hold still," and he bit back a fierce grin. Smart girl.
The muscles of his right arm shrieked in protest at even the slight movement, but if he could get momentum going... Below him on the bridge people were scrambling, yelling for ropes, for something to reach the children.
"Hold your horses there," snapped Quinzel. "No extraneous variables. This is my experiment." A scrabbling noise as she climbed down from the edge of the bridge, then the sound of a car engine starting. The dead man's switch was tied to the car, Batman realized, bracing himself. The cable connected to the switch jerked upward about a meter, yanking the children further from safety and shooting jolts of pain down Batman's arm.
A car door slammed and Quinzel's white-smeared face appeared over the edge again, much closer now. The black around her eyes was smudged like mascara after weeping, but her smile was brilliant. "Still holding on? I'm impressed. But it can't last. Something has to give, Batman. You could save the city if you let the children fall. Or you could probably save the children if you let go of that switch. You're resourceful, I'm sure you'd think of something. But you can't save them all."
Batman locked his hands more tightly and glared up at her.
She kept smiling, but a sharp line appeared between her brows. "You have to choose," she said with emphasis. "You have to. You're just delaying the inevitable. Can't you see how simple it is?" Silence except for the wind in the girders, the roar of the river, the distant sobs. Quinzel banged the bridge with her fist. "Okay then, I'll make it easier for you."
She disappeared for a second, then reappeared, hoisting her bag with some effort. Reaching in, she pulled out a rubber chicken, when she threw at him. It bounced off his face and dwindled to the river below. A whoopie cushion, a chattering pair of fake teeth, and a banana peel followed. "Ah, there we go," she said with relish, pulling out a bowling ball. She raised it above her head. "Bombs away!"
Just before she released it, Batman realized she wasn't aiming at him.
She was aiming at the Gordon children.
He swiveled his body to intercept it, hearing the solid crack as it hit his hip, dull pain radiating from the impact. He heard a scream from below him, but the rope didn't jerk, so he had managed to deflect it.
"Sheez, drop the nobility schtick," said Quinzel. "You're gonna make me barf." She rummaged in the bag some more and came up with a spray can. Bruce recognized the label and closed his eyes, clamping his mouth shut as raw, harsh fluid hit his face. Pepper spray: even closed, his eyes watered and burned, and the skin of his face felt flayed. He ignored the sensation, the searing in his nose and lungs, and focused on his hands, on each finger, on keeping them in place. The children. The bombs. Gotham. Jim. Clark's hands. Superman's hands. Batman's hands--his hands--were on the rope, on the switch. Still there.
"I don't think you're getting the punchline here." Quinzel's voice was too high, strained and anxious. "See, it's funny that you try to do it all, but you can't. You can't!" Bruce blinked hard, trying to clear his streaming eyes, and saw her rearing above him with a baseball bat.
It connected with his head, a dull reverberating thud. The cowl absorbed some of the impact, but the world went gray and distant for a moment, the lights of Gotham swimming around him. He held on. The impact from the bat made him start to swing, and he leaned into the momentum, trying once more to move the children into an arc. "Let go, damn you!" Quinzel's voice was rapidly leaving any sort of sanity behind, crackling into madness. "You have to choose!" she cried, punctuating her words with blows from the bat raining on his head and shoulders. "I mean, how stupid are you? You can't hold on forever!"
But he didn't need to hold on forever, he thought. Clark was out there. Clark and Alfred had heard him. So he didn't need to hold on forever. He just needed to last
a little
longer.
The pain was an abstract thing, nowhere near as real as the angle of the arc described by the bound children, the gap between them and the lower level of the bridge, the slack remaining in the rope. Calculations. Blood in his mouth. He let the children slip a few more inches. Angles. Velocity. Almost there.
With a final push that tore a grunt of effort from his lungs, he swung the children toward the lower level of the bridge.
The children seemed frozen above the river, unmoving in the air forever. Bruce had a glimpse of Barbara's face, looking up at him.
Then Jim Gordon had his son's foot in his hand, just the foot, the barest connection. He was trying to pull the kids in, teetering on the edge, and Batman let the rope slide a few more precious inches through his glove, a little more slack, just a little more.
Above him, a shriek of pure rage. "To hell with it!" Quinzel's voice was choked with tears of fury. "It doesn't matter! I have a back-up plan! You've tampered with my data, so we're just going to have to throw the results out. But--" She pulled out a box with a comically large red button, "--At least I'm gonna enjoy my Gotham-shattering KABOOM!"
She pressed the button, her face alight with an almost childish anticipation.
Silence. Just the wind through the girders.
"No," Quinzel keened, hitting the button again and again. "No! I checked the batteries, I tested it, it has to work! It's not fair, it's not right, now he'll never realize how much I understand him!" She hurled the detonator at Batman and whirled away. "Fine," he heard her yell.
The car started up again and Batman heard the engine rev wildly. A squeal of tires, and the cable suddenly went slack. A crashing crunch, steel against concrete, and debris rained down around him, battering his body as people cried out. Batman dropped about a meter and saw Jim Gordon's face frozen in horror, an empty shoe in his hand; the kids falling lower, sweeping in an arc back out over the river.
Another quick calculation: Batman pulled his arm in, joints screaming anguish, and swung the children back up onto the bridge. The rope was cut, they were in Jim Gordon's arms. Faces were peering and pointing at him, metal was shrieking above him as Quinzel battered the guardrail, but it didn't matter.
The children were safe.
He still held the dead man's switch down.
The cable jerked upwards a few feet, shaking Batman like a marionette. A new crash, a metallic, grating shriek: looking up, Batman saw the undercarriage sail overhead as the car hurtled off the bridge. Saw the thin metal strand still connecting him to the car.
He still held the dead man's switch down.
For a brief moment, he was flying.
It was the death he would have chosen, he had time to think in that silent moment, with Gotham in his gaze, shining and safe. It was a good death.
The battered and abused steel of the car gave way in a rain of metal and debris. There was another agonizing wrench, Batman felt muscles in his arm tear and rip, and he was falling again. Gotham whirled around him, beautiful and pitiless, watching him fall.
A fresh jolt of agony and he was dangling once more, much lower. He blinked up at his right hand, distantly surprised to find he had never let go of the rope. He was dangling beneath the lower level now, the river still tossing far below. The cable in his left hand was still attached to an axle, swinging wildly between him and the water.
The car with Quinzel was gone, swallowed up by the river.
People were shouting above him. The children were safe. He was still holding the dead man's switch, connected to part of a car. Holding the switch down. Obviously the rope had gotten wedged into something. He would have chuckled if his throat could have managed it, because now the choice was an easy one. He locked his hand more tightly around the dead man's switch, willing it to stay closed through the inevitable fall, the impact with the water.
He knew eventually he would have to release the rope, but he found himself unwilling to let go just yet. Not just yet.
And then he was being hauled upward, slowly. He looked up to see people reaching down, grabbing the rope, trying to pull. He inched upward, slowly, until he was almost at the edge. Jim Gordon was there, holding the rope, other officers behind him, pulling. Batman's feet scraped the bridge and he tried to get purchase, to shift the weight to his feet and push himself up.
A burly man in a baseball cap was reaching down to him. "Give me your hand!" he shouted. "Let go of the car, man! Give me your hand!"
People were shouting, a confused multitude of voices. Angry voices, screaming at him. "Drop it!" they were yelling. "Batman, drop it! Give him your hand! Let go and we'll pull you up! Let go!" He looked down at the dead man's switch in his left hand, the mass of metal hanging from it. "Let go!"
He glared at them through the swirls of random light obscuring his vision. He couldn't let go. Quinzel might have been bluffing, or wrong. He couldn't be sure. It was still the same choice. He clutched the switch tighter with unfeeling fingers.
"He won't let go." Gordon's voice above him, rougher than usual. "He can't." Bruce closed his eyes. Of course Jim would understand. He always had. "Damn his stubborn soul," Gordon rasped. "Keep pulling." A woman was weeping somewhere, a strange high sound. Weeping for whom?
There was a gasp from the crowd. He forced open his burned and watering eyes to see a smudge of red and blue in front of him. He tried to focus, straining to see it better.
"Batman," said Superman. Clark was hovering in the air in front of him. "Batman. It's safe. You can let go."
Bruce blinked at him, then slowly began to open his fingers. They unbent slowly, cramped and locked in place, each joint screaming protest.
The dead man's switch and the remains of the car fell silently to the river below, vanishing into the waves. Batman reached up, and the crowd lifted him over the railing to safety.
"Thank you for saving my children," Jim Gordon said, leaning close, helping him sit up.
"I told you you'd never have to say that," Batman answered. Or he intended to, but his voice was a shattered rasp, broken as if he'd been screaming for an hour. "...told...never...say," was all that came out, but Jim Gordon smiled as if he understood.
Then he straightened, looking around at the crowd. "We need to clear the bridge before it gets too dark," he announced to his officers, his voice brisk. "Clear the bridge and check for any more bombs." He looked out at the Gotham skyline and spoke as if musing to himself: "Getting dark. This will probably take about half an hour."
He bent and embraced his children, who hugged him back. Then Barbara Gordon tore herself from her father's side and threw her arms around Batman. The embrace sent agony slicing through his body again, and he bit back a groan. "Gently," said Jim Gordon's voice. "Treat him gently."
She kissed his cowl and backed away. Jimmy Gordon followed her, touching him on the shoulder before taking his father's hand once more.
There were people crowding around him silently, touching him tentatively, as if to be sure he was real. That what they had witnessed--what they had done--was real.
Jim Gordon broke the silence. "Okay," he said. His voice was soft, but it carried. "Show's over. Everyone get home."
People began to stumble off the bridge, some of them with their arms around each other, some looking back over their shoulders. Together they walked away from Batman and back into Gotham, leaving him alone.
Not quite alone. "Help me," he whispered to the figure beside him. "Help me stand."
Superman helped him to his feet. He hissed with pain as he moved upright, but he stood on his own, watching over the citizens of Gotham as they faded into the gloom.
Superman was standing very close to him, not looking at him. "Not exactly how I meant to tell you," Bruce murmured.
A chuckle, soft in the darkness. "Not much about this has gone as we planned."
"You sound different." The voice was still Clark's, but lower, stronger.
"So do you."
"Too many secrets." He didn't really know the man standing next to him. The thought was surprisingly painful; he swallowed blood and tried to stay standing straight.
"You really think so?" Superman said, his voice curious. He seemed to know what Bruce had meant. "I think we know each other better than we thought we did."
Bruce tried to think of an answer, but his head was starting to ring oddly. He coughed, then wished he hadn't as pain shot through his chest. He tried to take a step forward and his knees buckled, pitching him downward through a red haze.
And then he was in Superman's arms, in Clark's arms, lifted into a sky full of stars that fell away into darkness.
: : :
Motion. Voices. Light. Pain. More pain.
Darkness again.
: : :
Hands trying to remove his cowl. He cried out in protest, a hoarse raven's croak, and struggled against them.
"Master Wayne. It's all right, you're safe."
He stopped struggling, let the hands peel back the leather. He heard a long, shuddering sigh, then Clark's voice: "Bruce." A pinpoint of vanity touched him: he must look a mess, all bloody burns and bruises. Hands touched his face, impossibly gentle, cool against blistered skin, the only thing that didn't hurt at the moment. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I took so long."
Clark's voice was filled with grief, but his words were meaningless, they made no sense. "Thank you," Bruce managed with his torn voice. Full sentences seemed beyond him. "My city."
"Your city," Clark agreed.
"We have to get the suit off him," Alfred said.
"It will hurt him," Clark said sharply.
"He can take it," Alfred said. Sorrow, pride, and exasperation warred in his voice.
Bruce made a grunt of assent, and Clark's hand touched his mouth for a moment, tenderly.
"See, I was right all along," Clark said. "You're crazy, and self-destructive, and I think I love you."
And what does that make you? Bruce wanted to retort, but his voice wasn't up to it, and soon the pain returned, obliterating him, and all he had to hold on to were Clark's three last words.
He held on to them until the world was blotted out again.
: : :
There were cool sheets against his body. There was still pain, but it was more distant.
He could hear Clark and Alfred talking nearby. He let their voices wash over him without comprehension, long slow waves of sound. He heard instead the memory of his angry question to Alfred, so long ago:
"What would you have me do?"
He sighed, a long exhalation, and the nearby jumble of voices stopped suddenly. A hand rested on his forehead, cool and soothing. Clark's voice. The words didn't matter. He could rest for a moment, he knew that.
He had made his choice, and Gotham had saved him.
He had endured.
( Chapter 10)
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Jack Ryder, Alfred Pennyworth, Harleen Quinzel, Barbara Gordon, Jim Gordon
Rating: R for violence
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: The Dark Knight/Superman Returns crossover; a continuation of Leap of Faith.
Word Count: 5000Summary: Clark Kent arrives in Gotham after the events of The Dark Knight and adds up the facts surrounding Bruce Wayne and Batman. Unfortunately, he reaches all the wrong conclusions.
Notes: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, Prompt F8: Superman strongly disapproves of Batman's methods. Clark Kent, on the other hand, has a very obvious (and not quite so secret) crush on Bruce Wayne. What happens when Clark suddenly finds out that Bruce is also Batman?
Extra Note: Sometimes damos moves from beta to co-writer, and this is definitely one of those times. I owe him forever for helping me with choreography, Harleen's voice, tightening everything up, and panic attacks during DDoS outages. :P
"I'm Jack Ryder, and you are wrong." Jack Ryder turned from the camera, tapped his index cards on the desk, and fixed a gimlet stare on Clark Kent. "And we're here today with Mr. Clark Kent, reporter from the Metropolis Daily Planet. You're writing an expose of the Batman, are you not?"
"Well, Mr. Ryder, I've come to understand there are a lot of things in Gotham more interesting than Batman."
"More interesting than Batman?" Ryder barked a disbelieving laugh. "Mr. Kent, don't fall for the PR bull that Mayor Garcia tries to shove down our throats. This is a city at war with a murderous masked menace, and--"
He broke off and put a hand to his earpiece, listening. "What? Where? Well, what are you waiting for? Get a feed!" He turned back to the camera, his eyes shining with morbid glee. "Breaking news, folks. We've got a hostage situation on the New Trigate Bridge. The police are at the scene, but the kidnapper is demanding we broadcast her demands on this very show--" he tapped his index cards on the desk for emphasis, "--the only show that gives you the inside story!"
"Should you really be showing this?" Clark cut in. "I mean, a hostage situation, it's volatile, and it's giving the kidnapper what they want--"
"--Hey, maybe you've got the luxury of sober reflection, Mr. Print Media." Ryder pointed the index cards at him. "But here in Gotham we don't shy away from showing the truth in all its messy reality!" He tilted his head, addressed the cameras once more: "Okay, my engineers are telling me we've got a feed established. This is live, ladies and gentlemen, live and breaking news right here on Gotham Insider!"
The monitors flickered to life and the crowd gasped at the face that filled the screen: smeared hastily with streaky chalk-white makeup, the eyes ringed with black greasepaint and the lips a scarlet ruin. Clark recognized the face beneath the grotesque paint: Harleen Quinzel.
"Hel-looo Gotham," Quinzel sang out into the camera. "This is Harley Quinn, coming to you live and kicking from the New Trigate Bridge, where I'm conducting a little psychological theory-testing." She held up a thin steel cable, her white-gloved fist clenched around one end. "Now, I don't want any outside--one might say alien--factors interfering with this test, so I have to mention that I'm holding a dead-man's switch that triggers a few carefully-placed bombs. If that flying straight man from Metropolis interferes, I let go and--" She grinned, "--KABLOOIE! The Joker's work is completed. Oh, and the same goes for anyone setting foot on this bridge who isn't Batman," she said. "This is between the Bat and me, mano a womano."
Still smiling, she backed away from the camera to reveal two children, tied back-to-back and dangling by a rope from a girder. She pushed them and they revolved slowly, revealing two tear-streaked faces: Jim Gordon's children.
The studio audience groaned aloud, an involuntary ripple of anguish, but Clark tore his eyes from the children's faces to scan what the camera was revealing of the area. At Quinzel's feet was a large duffel bag with "Bag of Tricks" scrawled on it in magic marker. Behind her was a car with a yellow smiley-face spray-painted on the hood.
"Get me a helicopter shot," Ryder said, and a new video appeared on the monitor, an unsteady image from above the bridge, circling in the falling dusk. The upper level of the bridge was empty except for Quinzel, dressed in a bizarre red and black outfit, standing near the children dangling over the edge. On the lower level people were pouring out of a train stopped on the tracks, gathering at the edge and trying to peer upward. There were police officers as well, and Clark could see Jim Gordon among them, gesturing and barking orders.
"You see," Quinzel was explaining earnestly as the feed cut back to her, "I spent a lot of time analyzing the Joker, and I realized he's discovered a basic psychological truth: everyone has to choose. And it's the choosing that reveals who we really are. I don't mean the stupid mundane choices like what to wear." She did a quick pirouette. "Although I do think red and black suit me, of course. I mean the real choices. The ones that matter. It's a dog eat dog world, my little puppies. There are no exceptions." For a second her eyes beneath the black paint gleamed with fanatic zeal, the scientific facade stripped away. "There can't be. And he knows humanity is just a polite lie we tell."
"You're wrong," said a voice from the shadows, low and grating. A rustle, and a cloaked shape dropped from the girders into camera range.
"Batman!" cried Jim Gordon's son, his face lighting up in desperate hope. "Batman!" The little girl didn't speak, her teeth fastened in her lower lip as though to bite back her own cry.
But her eyes said more than her brother's voice.
Beside Clark, Ryder muttered, "Huh. Talk about Stockholm Syndrome. Sad, really."
Quinzel arched paint-smeared eyebrows coyly. "Why, Batman," she cooed in breathy mimicry, "Who could possibly have predicted that you'd show up to save Gordon's kiddies? And after you supposedly kidnapped them and threatened to kill them and all." The children's imploring eyes never left Batman's face. "One might almost think that was a lie." She pushed the swinging children hard on the last word and they swung further out over the river, their thin shrieks echoing through the studio.
Batman started forward, but Harley held up the dead man's switch. "Uh uh uh," she said warningly, "We must respect the scientific process, or I'm afraid a lot of so-called 'innocent' Gothamites will die. And you don't want that, do you?" She smiled at Batman, sweetly. "You're all alone, Batman. And you just volunteered to be test subject number one! It will be his crowning achievement, the capstone of his philosophy. And I'll be the one to prove it!"
Batman stood completely still for a long moment. Then his gaze went from Quinzel to the camera beyond her, looking out.
"I don't need help," he gritted, articulating each word. "I don't need...anyone's stinking help."
"Sit down," hissed Ryder, and Clark realized he was on his feet, staring at the dark figure on the screen. In an instant the world re-aligned, everything was clear, and there was no time to curse his own stupidity because Batman--Bruce--was speaking again.
"Give it up, Quinzel," he said. "I could beat you with nothing more than a Swiss Army knife. You'll make a mistake. One little trip is all it takes."
"Mr. Ryder, I protest airing this travesty," blurted Clark. "And I won't be a party to it a moment longer."
"The door's over there, you wuss," barked Ryder. "Get the hell out of my studio."
Clark bolted for the door before his sentence was done, his heart pounding. Bruce. My God, Bruce.
Moments later, Superman was in the air and soaring toward Bruce Wayne's penthouse.
: : :
Alfred Pennyworth inhaled sharply at Batman's words. One little trip. But how in the world--
"Never expected Batman to be so chatty," Quinzel sneered on the screen. "I mean really? Trash talk? Bo-ring."
There was a sudden thump against the plate-glass windows, and Alfred turned, startled, to see Superman banging urgently on the glass. He was drawing back his fist as though to shatter the glass, his face a mask of fury and fear, when Alfred threw open the patio door and hurried out.
"Swiss Army knife," Superman said as if it were an explanation. "What did he mean, a 'little trip?'"
"They're the names of the captains of the ferries on that night," Alfred said. "James Little and Peter Trippe. He's trying to tell us that she's put bombs on the ferries. 'The Joker's work completed,' she said."
"Got it," said Superman, all his muscles coiling for action.
"Mr. Kent--Superman, wait," Alfred said, putting out his hand.
"He needs me," Superman cried, anguish in his eyes.
"Search the hospital and police department too. It would fit the theme of finishing the Joker's work." Superman nodded and lifted upward. "--And the bridges and tunnels," Alfred added hastily. "Joker threatened to bomb them too. She might have--"
"--There must be a dozen bridges and tunnels!" Superman's gaze was locked on the television screen, on the dark shadow holding its ground alone.
"Seventeen, actually. Check them."
"Anything else?"
"Well, there was a warehouse down by the docks--but he just burned some money there, it wasn't anything personal for him. And there was the fund-raiser here."
Superman glanced around, his eyes narrowed. "There are no bombs here."
"Well, that's something," Alfred said. "You have to check them all. He's trusting you with his city. Trust him to handle Quinzel."
Superman hesitated just an instant, then nodded.
"And Superman--" The figure paused one more time, hands clenched. "--Do hurry, please."
The faintest shadow of a smile tugged at Superman's lips, and then he was gone.
On the screen, Quinzel shrugged. "Enough of the research questions. Let's get to the data-collection part of the experiment."
Then things began to happen very quickly.
Quinzel knelt and in a swift motion grabbed an axe from the bag at her feet.
Batman jumped forward and seized the hand that held the dead man's switch, holding the switch down.
With a crow of triumph, Quinzel pivoted to bring the axe down on the rope holding the children suspended.
Still clutching Quinzel's hand with the switch, Batman leaped to grab at the rope holding the Gordon children with his other hand. He caught it and held on as they fell, balanced on the guardrail at the edge of the bridge.
Pulling her hand out of her glove, Quinzel kicked him hard, sending Batman, the children, and the dead man's switch over the edge of the bridge.
"No!" Alfred's cry rang out in the empty penthouse, unheard. But he heard shrieks of horror from the lower level of the bridge, and over them he heard a sharp twang as the cable connected to the dead man's switch was stretched taut.
The feed cut back to the helicopter camera to reveal a terrifying tableau. Batman was suspended over the river, his arms stretched out to their full length, tense with agony. The children dangled below him. The people on the second level of the bridge were crying out, reaching futilely toward the children swaying out of reach, or hiding their eyes in horror.
Quinzel calmly adjusted her camera on the edge of the bridge so it could take in the scene below it. Then she pulled a gun out of her bag and perched on the edge of the bridge, crossing her legs almost primly. "It seems everything is in place," she explained to the slowly rotating Batman as the feed cut back to her. "And we're ready to begin the experiment. Choice. Everything comes down to choice. Which will you let go? The children or the city, Batman?"
"Oh God," whispered Alfred to the empty penthouse. "Please hurry, Clark."
: : :
The river wheeled far below Batman, dotted with ice floes. The skyline of Gotham turned around him, lights starting to come on in the dusk. Below, Jim Gordon's children looked up at him, their faces pale ovals in the darkness. On the lower level of the bridge, Batman could see people gathered, watching helplessly.
None of it mattered. All that mattered were the rope in one hand, the dead man's switch in the other. In one hand, the life of two children. In the other, the lives of countless Gotham citizens.
Bruce Wayne gritted his teeth and held on through the fiery agony in his shoulders.
"You have to let go of something," Quinzel said above him, her voice kind and detached, a psychologist's voice. "You have to choose. Choose or be torn apart." She dangled her feet over the edge, peering down at him. "Just let something go, Batman. It's easy. Trust me, I know." Her laugh was a delighted trill of madness.
Were his fingers slipping? They were numb. He locked them more tightly. They hadn't slipped yet, he knew because he wasn't falling. Cautiously, carefully, Batman began to swing the children like a pendulum, the tiniest arc.
"Don't move," he heard Barbara say to her brother. "Hold still," and he bit back a fierce grin. Smart girl.
The muscles of his right arm shrieked in protest at even the slight movement, but if he could get momentum going... Below him on the bridge people were scrambling, yelling for ropes, for something to reach the children.
"Hold your horses there," snapped Quinzel. "No extraneous variables. This is my experiment." A scrabbling noise as she climbed down from the edge of the bridge, then the sound of a car engine starting. The dead man's switch was tied to the car, Batman realized, bracing himself. The cable connected to the switch jerked upward about a meter, yanking the children further from safety and shooting jolts of pain down Batman's arm.
A car door slammed and Quinzel's white-smeared face appeared over the edge again, much closer now. The black around her eyes was smudged like mascara after weeping, but her smile was brilliant. "Still holding on? I'm impressed. But it can't last. Something has to give, Batman. You could save the city if you let the children fall. Or you could probably save the children if you let go of that switch. You're resourceful, I'm sure you'd think of something. But you can't save them all."
Batman locked his hands more tightly and glared up at her.
She kept smiling, but a sharp line appeared between her brows. "You have to choose," she said with emphasis. "You have to. You're just delaying the inevitable. Can't you see how simple it is?" Silence except for the wind in the girders, the roar of the river, the distant sobs. Quinzel banged the bridge with her fist. "Okay then, I'll make it easier for you."
She disappeared for a second, then reappeared, hoisting her bag with some effort. Reaching in, she pulled out a rubber chicken, when she threw at him. It bounced off his face and dwindled to the river below. A whoopie cushion, a chattering pair of fake teeth, and a banana peel followed. "Ah, there we go," she said with relish, pulling out a bowling ball. She raised it above her head. "Bombs away!"
Just before she released it, Batman realized she wasn't aiming at him.
She was aiming at the Gordon children.
He swiveled his body to intercept it, hearing the solid crack as it hit his hip, dull pain radiating from the impact. He heard a scream from below him, but the rope didn't jerk, so he had managed to deflect it.
"Sheez, drop the nobility schtick," said Quinzel. "You're gonna make me barf." She rummaged in the bag some more and came up with a spray can. Bruce recognized the label and closed his eyes, clamping his mouth shut as raw, harsh fluid hit his face. Pepper spray: even closed, his eyes watered and burned, and the skin of his face felt flayed. He ignored the sensation, the searing in his nose and lungs, and focused on his hands, on each finger, on keeping them in place. The children. The bombs. Gotham. Jim. Clark's hands. Superman's hands. Batman's hands--his hands--were on the rope, on the switch. Still there.
"I don't think you're getting the punchline here." Quinzel's voice was too high, strained and anxious. "See, it's funny that you try to do it all, but you can't. You can't!" Bruce blinked hard, trying to clear his streaming eyes, and saw her rearing above him with a baseball bat.
It connected with his head, a dull reverberating thud. The cowl absorbed some of the impact, but the world went gray and distant for a moment, the lights of Gotham swimming around him. He held on. The impact from the bat made him start to swing, and he leaned into the momentum, trying once more to move the children into an arc. "Let go, damn you!" Quinzel's voice was rapidly leaving any sort of sanity behind, crackling into madness. "You have to choose!" she cried, punctuating her words with blows from the bat raining on his head and shoulders. "I mean, how stupid are you? You can't hold on forever!"
But he didn't need to hold on forever, he thought. Clark was out there. Clark and Alfred had heard him. So he didn't need to hold on forever. He just needed to last
a little
longer.
The pain was an abstract thing, nowhere near as real as the angle of the arc described by the bound children, the gap between them and the lower level of the bridge, the slack remaining in the rope. Calculations. Blood in his mouth. He let the children slip a few more inches. Angles. Velocity. Almost there.
With a final push that tore a grunt of effort from his lungs, he swung the children toward the lower level of the bridge.
The children seemed frozen above the river, unmoving in the air forever. Bruce had a glimpse of Barbara's face, looking up at him.
Then Jim Gordon had his son's foot in his hand, just the foot, the barest connection. He was trying to pull the kids in, teetering on the edge, and Batman let the rope slide a few more precious inches through his glove, a little more slack, just a little more.
Above him, a shriek of pure rage. "To hell with it!" Quinzel's voice was choked with tears of fury. "It doesn't matter! I have a back-up plan! You've tampered with my data, so we're just going to have to throw the results out. But--" She pulled out a box with a comically large red button, "--At least I'm gonna enjoy my Gotham-shattering KABOOM!"
She pressed the button, her face alight with an almost childish anticipation.
Silence. Just the wind through the girders.
"No," Quinzel keened, hitting the button again and again. "No! I checked the batteries, I tested it, it has to work! It's not fair, it's not right, now he'll never realize how much I understand him!" She hurled the detonator at Batman and whirled away. "Fine," he heard her yell.
The car started up again and Batman heard the engine rev wildly. A squeal of tires, and the cable suddenly went slack. A crashing crunch, steel against concrete, and debris rained down around him, battering his body as people cried out. Batman dropped about a meter and saw Jim Gordon's face frozen in horror, an empty shoe in his hand; the kids falling lower, sweeping in an arc back out over the river.
Another quick calculation: Batman pulled his arm in, joints screaming anguish, and swung the children back up onto the bridge. The rope was cut, they were in Jim Gordon's arms. Faces were peering and pointing at him, metal was shrieking above him as Quinzel battered the guardrail, but it didn't matter.
The children were safe.
He still held the dead man's switch down.
The cable jerked upwards a few feet, shaking Batman like a marionette. A new crash, a metallic, grating shriek: looking up, Batman saw the undercarriage sail overhead as the car hurtled off the bridge. Saw the thin metal strand still connecting him to the car.
He still held the dead man's switch down.
For a brief moment, he was flying.
It was the death he would have chosen, he had time to think in that silent moment, with Gotham in his gaze, shining and safe. It was a good death.
The battered and abused steel of the car gave way in a rain of metal and debris. There was another agonizing wrench, Batman felt muscles in his arm tear and rip, and he was falling again. Gotham whirled around him, beautiful and pitiless, watching him fall.
A fresh jolt of agony and he was dangling once more, much lower. He blinked up at his right hand, distantly surprised to find he had never let go of the rope. He was dangling beneath the lower level now, the river still tossing far below. The cable in his left hand was still attached to an axle, swinging wildly between him and the water.
The car with Quinzel was gone, swallowed up by the river.
People were shouting above him. The children were safe. He was still holding the dead man's switch, connected to part of a car. Holding the switch down. Obviously the rope had gotten wedged into something. He would have chuckled if his throat could have managed it, because now the choice was an easy one. He locked his hand more tightly around the dead man's switch, willing it to stay closed through the inevitable fall, the impact with the water.
He knew eventually he would have to release the rope, but he found himself unwilling to let go just yet. Not just yet.
And then he was being hauled upward, slowly. He looked up to see people reaching down, grabbing the rope, trying to pull. He inched upward, slowly, until he was almost at the edge. Jim Gordon was there, holding the rope, other officers behind him, pulling. Batman's feet scraped the bridge and he tried to get purchase, to shift the weight to his feet and push himself up.
A burly man in a baseball cap was reaching down to him. "Give me your hand!" he shouted. "Let go of the car, man! Give me your hand!"
People were shouting, a confused multitude of voices. Angry voices, screaming at him. "Drop it!" they were yelling. "Batman, drop it! Give him your hand! Let go and we'll pull you up! Let go!" He looked down at the dead man's switch in his left hand, the mass of metal hanging from it. "Let go!"
He glared at them through the swirls of random light obscuring his vision. He couldn't let go. Quinzel might have been bluffing, or wrong. He couldn't be sure. It was still the same choice. He clutched the switch tighter with unfeeling fingers.
"He won't let go." Gordon's voice above him, rougher than usual. "He can't." Bruce closed his eyes. Of course Jim would understand. He always had. "Damn his stubborn soul," Gordon rasped. "Keep pulling." A woman was weeping somewhere, a strange high sound. Weeping for whom?
There was a gasp from the crowd. He forced open his burned and watering eyes to see a smudge of red and blue in front of him. He tried to focus, straining to see it better.
"Batman," said Superman. Clark was hovering in the air in front of him. "Batman. It's safe. You can let go."
Bruce blinked at him, then slowly began to open his fingers. They unbent slowly, cramped and locked in place, each joint screaming protest.
The dead man's switch and the remains of the car fell silently to the river below, vanishing into the waves. Batman reached up, and the crowd lifted him over the railing to safety.
"Thank you for saving my children," Jim Gordon said, leaning close, helping him sit up.
"I told you you'd never have to say that," Batman answered. Or he intended to, but his voice was a shattered rasp, broken as if he'd been screaming for an hour. "...told...never...say," was all that came out, but Jim Gordon smiled as if he understood.
Then he straightened, looking around at the crowd. "We need to clear the bridge before it gets too dark," he announced to his officers, his voice brisk. "Clear the bridge and check for any more bombs." He looked out at the Gotham skyline and spoke as if musing to himself: "Getting dark. This will probably take about half an hour."
He bent and embraced his children, who hugged him back. Then Barbara Gordon tore herself from her father's side and threw her arms around Batman. The embrace sent agony slicing through his body again, and he bit back a groan. "Gently," said Jim Gordon's voice. "Treat him gently."
She kissed his cowl and backed away. Jimmy Gordon followed her, touching him on the shoulder before taking his father's hand once more.
There were people crowding around him silently, touching him tentatively, as if to be sure he was real. That what they had witnessed--what they had done--was real.
Jim Gordon broke the silence. "Okay," he said. His voice was soft, but it carried. "Show's over. Everyone get home."
People began to stumble off the bridge, some of them with their arms around each other, some looking back over their shoulders. Together they walked away from Batman and back into Gotham, leaving him alone.
Not quite alone. "Help me," he whispered to the figure beside him. "Help me stand."
Superman helped him to his feet. He hissed with pain as he moved upright, but he stood on his own, watching over the citizens of Gotham as they faded into the gloom.
Superman was standing very close to him, not looking at him. "Not exactly how I meant to tell you," Bruce murmured.
A chuckle, soft in the darkness. "Not much about this has gone as we planned."
"You sound different." The voice was still Clark's, but lower, stronger.
"So do you."
"Too many secrets." He didn't really know the man standing next to him. The thought was surprisingly painful; he swallowed blood and tried to stay standing straight.
"You really think so?" Superman said, his voice curious. He seemed to know what Bruce had meant. "I think we know each other better than we thought we did."
Bruce tried to think of an answer, but his head was starting to ring oddly. He coughed, then wished he hadn't as pain shot through his chest. He tried to take a step forward and his knees buckled, pitching him downward through a red haze.
And then he was in Superman's arms, in Clark's arms, lifted into a sky full of stars that fell away into darkness.
: : :
Motion. Voices. Light. Pain. More pain.
Darkness again.
: : :
Hands trying to remove his cowl. He cried out in protest, a hoarse raven's croak, and struggled against them.
"Master Wayne. It's all right, you're safe."
He stopped struggling, let the hands peel back the leather. He heard a long, shuddering sigh, then Clark's voice: "Bruce." A pinpoint of vanity touched him: he must look a mess, all bloody burns and bruises. Hands touched his face, impossibly gentle, cool against blistered skin, the only thing that didn't hurt at the moment. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry I took so long."
Clark's voice was filled with grief, but his words were meaningless, they made no sense. "Thank you," Bruce managed with his torn voice. Full sentences seemed beyond him. "My city."
"Your city," Clark agreed.
"We have to get the suit off him," Alfred said.
"It will hurt him," Clark said sharply.
"He can take it," Alfred said. Sorrow, pride, and exasperation warred in his voice.
Bruce made a grunt of assent, and Clark's hand touched his mouth for a moment, tenderly.
"See, I was right all along," Clark said. "You're crazy, and self-destructive, and I think I love you."
And what does that make you? Bruce wanted to retort, but his voice wasn't up to it, and soon the pain returned, obliterating him, and all he had to hold on to were Clark's three last words.
He held on to them until the world was blotted out again.
: : :
There were cool sheets against his body. There was still pain, but it was more distant.
He could hear Clark and Alfred talking nearby. He let their voices wash over him without comprehension, long slow waves of sound. He heard instead the memory of his angry question to Alfred, so long ago:
"What would you have me do?"
He sighed, a long exhalation, and the nearby jumble of voices stopped suddenly. A hand rested on his forehead, cool and soothing. Clark's voice. The words didn't matter. He could rest for a moment, he knew that.
He had made his choice, and Gotham had saved him.
He had endured.
( Chapter 10)