Through the Open Door
I've gone recursive! It's fanfic of a fanfic, set with her permission in mithen 's awe-inspiring Music of the Spheres 'verse, where Superman and Batman meet, clash, and eventually fall in love after the events of Superman Returns and Batman Begins.
Title: Through the Open Door
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Bruce/Clark, Alfred
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: some non-graphic violence, including violence against children
Continuity: mithen 's Music of the Spheres 'verse, set shortly after the first arc. It contains spoilers for and won't make much sense without the first arc of Music of the Spheres.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my computer and my mind. Please don't take my computer away; the mind's been lost for ages.
Word Count: 3,784
Summary: It seemed somehow unfair that an alien and a man of science had to deal with sorcery, of all things
Author's Note: Updated and expanded based on Liz's betaing
Part I:
It wasn’t easy to convince Bruce to stay home for the night. Second-degree burns, a voice naturally raspy from smoke inhalation and a broken arm weren’t reason enough, but even Bruce had to admit that he had no leads on the missing persons cases, and Superman could do a better job sweeping the city. So while Bruce Wayne recovered from a “skiing accident in the Alps” and Batman recovered from a night rescuing people from a one of the largest tenement fires in the city’s history, Superman patrolled Gotham.
It was three weeks after the Halloween night when the Queen of Stories had snatched Kal away into the Tam Lin story and Bruce had nearly gotten himself killed rescuing his lover, but orange and black streamers still decorated most of the street lamps. Gotham embraced Halloween as it did no other holiday, with glittering masquerade balls for the wealthy and pumpkin-flavored donuts for the rest. The Jack-o-Lanterns displayed on every fire escape were sagging in on themselves, their snaggletoothed smiles rotted into sneers.
Superman did his best to watch over his lover’s city, flying through fog-strewn allies and using his infrared vision to penetrate the gloom. It was harder than it should have been: flying in Gotham gave him vertigo, and his vision would slide uncontrolled from infrared to x-ray and back again. It was barely the witching hour, and already the Man of Steel had dented a car and broken a mugger’s arm through sheer clumsiness; he hadn’t had so much trouble controlling his strength since he was a teenager. It was as if, although Superman had worked out his differences with her guardian, Gotham herself still resented him. What was even odder was that Gotham welcomed Clark; when not in uniform, the manor was more of a home to Superman than was his Metropolis apartment.
The sounds filtering through Bruce’s communicator was what made it bearable. He listened to his lover grumbling that he was fine, just fine and didn’t need anything. Bruce refused cough drops, soothing teas, painkillers and Alfred’s signature caramel-apple crisp. Of course, minutes after Alfred’s footsteps faded away Clark could hear his lover slurping the tea and eating the apple crisp with little noises of pleasure. Superman did his best not to snicker.
Flying back from the docks, he stopped in midair when he felt a tingling along his nerves like static electricity. He tapped his communicator to make sure Bruce was listening. “B?” He waited for the other man’s impatient grunt before continuing, “I just felt something... odd. I think it might be magic again.”
Bruce inhaled sharply. “Do you know where it’s coming from?”
“I’m not sure but it seems...” Clark trailed off as he rose higher to get a better viewpoint. There seemed to be something happening in one of the nearby parks; a mysterious, steady glow illuminated a circle of robed figures. “It’s in St. Matthew’s Park, near the statue. I’m going to check it out.”
“Be damn careful,” Bruce snapped. “Tell me before you do anything.” Superman knew it must be killing his lover to be unable to protect the Man of Steel from one of the few things that could harm him.
The figure robed in scarlet stepped forward and rapped its staff on the ground three times; on the third strike, there was a high-pitched tearing noise and a portal opened. It was like a seven-foot tall tear in reality, its surface rippling like water in a light wind. The one with the staff ordered, “Prepare him,” and two of the others came forward, carrying a bundle between them.
“Oh god,” he whispered.
“Clark? Clark!”
“They have a child. He’s bound and covered with blood.” The five-year-old’s blond hair, face and clothing were crusted with dried blood, black in the moonlight.
For one moment Clark could hear only grinding teeth, then the curt order, “Go.” He didn’t hesitate a moment longer, shooting down to land between the boy and the portal, then crumpling as agony slammed through his body. Every breath ached in his chest and he flinched from the fireworks going off behind his eyelids. The magicians’ apparent leader, the one in the red cloak, was shouting orders and waving his staff. Superman lunged for him before he could launch an even more debilitating attack; they went down in a heap wrestling for the staff. Even disoriented and in pain, Clark easily overpowered him and slammed the staff into the man’s chin. The hood fell back to reveal the severe face of an elderly woman with steel-gray hair and a rapidly purpling jaw.
“Samantha, how the hell did he find us?” the old woman gasped, releasing the staff and attempting to crab walk backward.
“I don’t know!” one of the other magicians cried, panic in her voice. “The barrier’s still in place. It shouldn’t have-- Magda, the portal!”
“I would appreciate a freeze spell, Lee,” the leader continued, scrambling to her feet. As she leaned forward a heavy jeweled amulet swung free of her robes. Superman might be inexperienced with magic, but even he could recognize that it was an object of power. He grabbed it; the woman cursed and rained ineffective blows on his head and shoulders. “You complete idiot! Let go of that; you don’t know what you’re doing.”
She was wrong; Superman knew exactly what he was doing. He crushed the artifact, wincing at the flash and crackle it made as it shattered. The old woman collapsed and flopped about like a fish out of water, harmless without her magic amulet. He turned back to the boy, who was being staked out on the manicured lawn, and made his way over there, his movements painfully slow and confused. One of the magicians who had been kneeling beside the child, securing its ropes, seized Superman’s arm and spoke two words that sounded like a cracking glacier. A cold so intense it burned raced through the hero, followed by a wave of numbness that robbed him of movement. He crashed to the ground and lay beside the blood-covered child, struggling just to breathe.
“Tabitha, give me your amulet,” the old woman demanded. “Stop staring and hand me my staff, Jose, unless you want to see what else comes through unguarded portals.”
“What about Superman?”
“Leave him; if we lose control of the demon now, it’ll kill all of us.” The last thing Clark could make out before he dropped away into the fog was her cold voice saying, “If he’s still alive by the end, I’ll personally take care of him.”
-----
“Clark? Clark!” Bruce shouted into the transmitter while pulling on pieces of his armor, but all he could hear was static. Ridiculous. The communicator was satellite-based, powerful enough for perfect transmissions from China or the Mariana Trench; what could have blocked the signal within Gotham?
Magic, apparently. It seemed somehow unfair that an alien and a man of science had to deal with sorcery, of all things, Bruce mused as he scrambled into the tumbler, trying to keep himself distracted from the continued static on the communicator. Despite the evidence to the contrary, even the evidence that had been carved into his chest, in his heart of hearts Bruce still didn’t believe in magic. He cursed viciously when he had to reach across with his left hand to reach the tumbler’s gearshift; as if a broken arm wasn’t bad enough, he’d torn enough muscles in his right shoulder that there was no point in taking it out of its sling. As he raced through Gotham to St. Matthew’s Park, he made a mental note to tweak the design of the next tumbler to accommodate injuries; as it was, he could barely exceed eighty miles per hour on the city streets and still maintain control while shifting. The hour and a half’s drive across Gotham took nearly twenty-eight minutes instead of the usual thirteen. He leapt from the tumbler almost before it had stopped and raced to the angel statue, its arms spread in blessing.
There was no one there. No circle of sorcerers, no blood-covered boy. No Clark. Bruce clinically noted his elevated heart rate and trouble breathing. Shock or panic, and he had time for neither. Biofeedback would ensure that he didn’t deprive his brain of the oxygen it needed to think beyond gone gone gone gone.
The detective knelt in the dew-damp grass with his Mag-lite between his teeth, reading the story laid out in the bent blades of grass. Here’s where the circle had stood. One had worn hiking boots, and another wore sensible flats, but the majority wore... sneakers? Nikes, Sketchers, Adidas, another pair of Nikes, and Reeboks. Not what he had expected from a group of sorcerers. Here was the rounded imprint of some sort of walking stick. Two uneven boot prints where Clark had landed, heavily and off balance. Signs of a scuffle, of Superman on his knees. Fragments of a stone: red jasper. Four stake holes and flakes of dried blood marked where the boy had been tied in place; there were enough rope fibers to suggest the bonds had been cut, but nothing to indicate if the child was alive or dead. Nothing to indicate if Clark-- no. Batman collected a few of the blood flakes and examined the scorch mark but was unable to make anything of it, apart from the fact that it wasn’t caused by Superman’s heat vision.
Rising from his crouch, Bruce heard his knee creak and suddenly felt very, very old. There were no familiar booted footprints leading away, but there was the indication of something heavy being half-carried, half-dragged to the curb. There were tire marks where the cars had taken off in a hurry. Ford hatchback and a Chevy sedan, judging by the tire spacing and acceleration profile, but no paint flakes or custom tires. That was the end of the trail.
The tumbler pulled into the cave just as dawn was breaking. Alfred was waiting calmly with a pot of coffee and a disapproving expression on his face. “Master Bruce,” he began severely, “I thought we had agreed to leave patrol to Superman, at least until that terrible cough of yours-- Good lord. What has happened?”
“Clark’s gone.”
That gave even Alfred pause. “How?”
“Magic.” Alfred waited for him to continue, then turned to go. As he turned, Bruce said in a rush, “It’s my fault, I told him to save the child.”
“I very much doubt you could have stopped him, Master Bruce. Not if a child’s life was at stake.”
It was true, of course. But that didn’t change the fact that the only voice in Bruce’s ear was static.
Part II:
Even with all his studies of the criminal mind, the banality of evil still shocked Bruce sometimes. He was wandering the campus of Gotham U, anonymous in a cheap skiing jacket with a scarf wrapped around his neck and the lower half of his face. The temperature had plunged the last few days; it was nearing dusk, and the thermometer read a couple of degrees below zero. The suit he was wearing under the jacket and jeans had some extra padding that should prevent his shoulder from popping out of its socket, and he’d widened the sleeve to accommodate his cast.
It had taken Batman sixty-three hours of research to locate the coven that had most likely been in the park the night Superman disappeared. Even his experimental supercomputer hadn’t been able to narrow down suspects based on the few clues as he'd been able to collect from the crime scene, and there were no traffic cameras or even street-facing security cameras in the area. Instead he’d followed the supply trail. Bruce had done some cursory research on magic in the week following the Faerie Queen’s attack; all he’d had to do was modify the program he used to track methamphetamine ingredients to track magical supplies such as henbane and focus crystals instead. The real challenge had been collecting customer data: three-fifths of the magic shops in Gotham didn’t keep their sales records on an internet-enabled computer. Batman had been forced to make after hours visits to those seventeen stores to steal paper ledgers and credit card receipts. Bruce blessed the fact that apparently evil, child-sacrificing covens used plastic. After manual data entry and hours of staring dully at blank screen while the data collated, the computer had chimed and outputted a list of two hundred eighty-eight suspects who had purchased large volumes of some supposedly powerful herbs or charms. Eliminating professional chefs and food suppliers brought the list to a more manageable ninety-two. Out of those, twenty-one had purchased Red Jasper. Cross referencing against the DMV left him with a single suspect who drove a Chevy sedan or Ford hatchback: Magda Roberts, Professor of Comparative Religion at Gotham University.
A little bit of digging had revealed that Professor Roberts, who had transferred to Gotham from the University of Arizona five years earlier, had been funded exceptionally well through University support, grants and sizable personal contributions. All this despite the fact that she and her eight graduate students had only produced four papers during that time. It didn’t take much of an analytical mind to detect that something was rotten at Gotham U.
Bruce had taken the precaution of checking Magda’s Chevy in faculty parking and had found a few dark hairs, but nothing conclusive: no blood or rope fibers. Which left the direct approach; it was convenient that the good professor had decided to work late that evening. Bruce shed his outer layers and locked his cowl in place in a shadowed alcove between two sociology buildings, and Batman scrambled the key card scanner long enough to enter Keller Hall. His research had turned up a two-hundred square foot discrepancy between the university maps of the basement level and the original building plans; Batman headed straight to an apparent broom closet, bumped the lock and entered the hidden lab.
Superman was laid out unconscious on one of the tables, and Professor Roberts--a petite, gray-haired woman with a greenish bruise on her jaw--was pouring a gelatinous orange substance into his mouth.
“That was fast. Were you able to find the powdered black haw?” she asked, then looked up and straight into Batman’s eyes. “Oh hell. Not again.” She grabbed a tangled loop of string from the table.
Batman launched himself into the room, his only aim to reach and protect Superman. He’d deal with the sorcerers afterwards. Roberts whispered something over the string while her fingers wove about each other, and Batman lost all sense of balance. He crashed to the ground, trying unsuccessfully to brush away the spider-silk restraints binding his senses.
Part III:
“Goddamn it, Samantha,” the witch bellowed, “I told you to renew the barriers on this place!”
One of the doors down the hall banged open and someone else entered the room, doubtless twenty-six year old Ph.D. student Samantha Gray. “I did it two days ago, Prof.”
“Care to explain how the hell a mundane got in, then?”
“Oh my God, it’s Batman! He’s really real!” Batman could hear someone approach, sense someone lean over him, and tried to kick her. He didn’t connect with anything, but the young woman gave a little shriek.
“A bit of focus, my dear?” Magda growled. “That spell won’t last long; we’ve got to make sure he doesn’t get to Superman.”
“Lee’s in the office; he could use his freeze spell . . .”
“By all means, if you want to dispose of yet another body. Superman only survived because he’s bloody Superman! Just put up another barrier, you silly girl, and get it right this time.”
Batman stopped flailing and carefully picked off each thread, one by one, until he could see clearly. The girl Samantha was holding a ball of blue energy in her hands. It expanded suddenly, brushing through him like a cold gust of wind.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Magda observed wryly.
“He’s not a mundane,” Samantha insisted, angry and a little scared.
“We know all the sensitives in Gotham, and Jack would have felt any new ones entering.”
“Jack’s a druggie.”
“Which is part of the reason why he’s the best damn psychic in the state. Go on, then; we’ll need Jose to teleport Superman to a secure location until we can deal with this interruption.”
“Fine, but he’s not a mundane. I mean, he’s just passing through everything I throw at him, just like Superman did.” Samantha left in a huff, slamming the door behind her.
“Not mundane, hmm?” Magda examined him for a moment, then started shuffling around some of the hundreds of jars on the metal shelving lining the room. While her back was turned, Batman carefully picked away the last threads and rose to a crouch. The older woman turned back with an open jar in one hand, some sort of dark dust in the other. Batman rushed her; she panicked and threw the dust at his face. Trained reflexes took over: he shut his eyes against the dust, held his breath, and threw her across the floor. The glass jar shattered somewhere.
When he opened his eyes again, his eyes were dazzled by sparks like static electricity in a dark room. He was sweating heavily and felt suddenly weak. Batman truly hated magic. Blind again, he could only listen to the groaning of an old woman across the room, the door banging open and two pairs of footsteps running in. One he recognized as Samantha’s; the other were heavier, but with an evenness and balance he associated with long practice in the martial arts. It was likely Jose Principe, second-year masters student and black belt in Judo. Batman pulled himself into a defensive crouch, keeping his eyes tightly closed, but was forced to lean against the shelving just to remain upright.
“Magda, are you all right?” the young woman asked, almost frantic.
“Thank God for Actonel; I nearly fractured a hip.”
“What did you hit him with?” Jose asked with a slight Spanish accent; he was stealthy, but his voice revealed that he had moved much closer. Batman growled in warning.
“Filings from an ancient iron cross.”
“You took him out with blessed iron. Oh my god, Batman’s a fairy!” Samantha sounded delighted. While Bruce had imagined that there might come a time when Batman and Superman were outed, he hadn’t expected to deal with that comment before then. And certainly not someone accusing him of being an actual, literal fairy.
“Do you ever think before you speak?” Magda asked in a tone that didn’t quite hide her pride in her student’s deduction. “Do you really think we wouldn’t have detected one of the Fair Folk in our city? The one a month ago had Jack babbling nonstop for a week, and she only stayed for ten minutes. Or do you somehow imagine that I could have trapped one in a cat’s cradle?”
“Oh. Right. Fey-touched, then.” Batman could almost hear the blush in her voice. What he couldn’t hear was Jose; he wished the boy would join the discussion so he could locate him for certain. “So he, um, encountered a fairy?”
“Too strong a reaction. He’s actually visited their realm, and recently. I need you to find all portals that opened to any of the faerie lands within the last six months.”
“Gotcha, prof!”
The footsteps left the room and the door closed behind them. Batman waited. For Clark, he would be as patient as he had to be. There: a squeak of sneakers on tile to his left. Batman lashed out with a side thrust and hit his opponent; judging from the resistance, he’d probably kicked the boy just below the last rib on the left side. Jose was well-trained: by exhaling fast and firming his abdominal muscled just in time, he had avoided serious injury. Furthermore, instead of backing away as instinct would dictate, he grabbed Batman’s food and stepped closer, effectively halving the power of any of Batman’s strikes. Not that those strikes were particularly powerful; whatever was actually in the “iron filings” he had been exposed to had weakened him considerably. He was unable to pull his leg from Jose’s grasp, or to maintain balance when the boy tackled him. Even though he tucked his chin, his head banged into one of the metal shelving supports; if it weren’t for the reinforced cowl, he’d have been stunned.
“He’s out,” Jose said confidently.
“Then teleport Superman to the secure lab. We can’t let Batman get his hands on him.”
Batman reached out and viciously jerked Jose’s legs out from under him. The graduate student cursed, “Mierda,” and kicked out to free himself. Batman had managed to drag Jose back, away from Superman, when he heard Magda whispering something and felt a sudden wind in the lab.
The wind brushed his face with grit and Batman felt as if he were on fire. His limbs were leaden and unresponsive. More sparks flashed in his retina, though his eyes were squeezed shut.
“Me cago en la leche! You got that in my eyes, Magda.”
“Callate el osico, idioto” Magda retorted in barely passable Spanish, “and get Superman to the other lab. You can thank me later.”
“Uh, Magda? What’s wrong with Superman?” Jose sounded nervous.
“What are you talking about? You know he’s been unconscious since--” There was a metallic thud and the sound of something rattling.
“He’s burning up with fever.”
“Get away from him! Even normal people can be dangerous when their seizing.” Batman was horrified, all the more so because he could barely even turn his head towards his lover. “The iron. Some of it must have gotten on him when I blew it around the room, and he’s reacting even stronger than Batman.”
“Is it an alien thing?”
“If it were, I doubt he’d be bulletproof. Where are the iron shackles?” In response to the crisis, Magda’s voice had become even colder, crisper and authoritative.
“The weapons closet?”
“Get them!” Magda approached Batman’s immobile form. A cabinet door swung open, there was some clanging, and Jose ran over. “What the hell?” Magda asked in outrage.
“Um, about the velvet linings. I can explain.” There was a moment of awkward silence. “Actually, I can’t. But Maria, she really really likes to--”
“Please, by the love of all that’s holy, don’t finish that sentence.” Magda moved Batman’s arms to lock heavy padded manacles around his wrists. Batman’s fever increased, and he labored to just breathe. Magda spoke so softly Batman had to strain to hear her. It was not some mystic cant. Rather, she said something unrepeatable in public, and she said it in perfect Latin.
The sparks in his retina disappeared, and when he cautiously opened his eyes he discovered he could once again see. His lingering weakness didn’t stop him from propping himself up against the shelves. He stared at Magda, who had taken several prudent steps away from him and was standing between him and the still figure lying on the table. She had the piece of string she had used to bind him looped around her fingers. “Superman?” he asked. Magda just glared. “What did you do to him?”
Magda ground her teeth. “It would appear your rival is also fey-touched, and the iron dust I blew on him was killing him. That’s why I cursed the blessed iron. Unfortunately, since the filings all came from the same cross, that nullified their effects on you as well.”
“Necessitating the handcuffs.” Magda nodded. “So all I have to do to render these inert is to curse at them in Latin?”
Magda snorted. “A true mortal’s blasphemy often unravels faith magic. But you’re not a true mortal; the two of you are fey-touched. Thus, there is--”
Jose interrupted, “Prof, should I . . .?”
“Wait just a minute, would you?”
“Listen, Professor, Superman may be part fey,” the images of Clark dancing in that transgender bar, of Superman submitting to the Queen of Stories’ kiss, passed through his mind, “but I am not and never will be ‘fey-touched’, okay? I’m human.”
“Right. Of course. And how do you explain being blinded and weakened by blessed iron?”
“Obviously, it’s a magic powder, not iron.”
“Being able to pass through our barriers?”
“They aren’t real.”
“The fact that your blasphemy can’t curse the blessed iron in your shackles?”
Focusing, Batman repeated Magda’s curses over the shackles, but they remained so heavy he couldn’t stand. With a growl of frustration, Batman accused, “You’ve done something to protect them.”
Magda was somewhere between shocked and guilty. “Well. Yes. It’s true the runes will protect it. But you couldn’t have broken the faith magic anyway.” She frowned, seeming to sense she’d lost that round. “Why are you so concerned about Superman, anyway? I thought you two hated each other.”
Before he could answer, the door banged open. “I’ve got it!” Samantha shouted. “I’ve got it.”
Magda asked dryly, “And what is it you’ve got?”
“I’ve figured out which portal Batman must have used. You see, I looked up the portals to the Fairy Realms and cross-referenced against summonings, since of course summonings are one-way from there to here and also discarded the ones caused by banishments, ‘cause banishments can only transport a being to its home dimension--”
“Cut to the point, Samantha,” Jose begged.
“There’s only one left! In the whole world--heck, our whole universe--there’s only one portal that would have allowed someone from our universe to cross into theirs in the past four months.”
“Right here in Gotham. The Halloween portal.” Batman finished picking the lock and almost sighed in relief when he set the manacles down. He rolled to his feet and tried to reach Superman. Magda tugged at the string game and Batman crashed to the ground, his legs bound together and his arms bound to his side. She turned her attention back to her student and asked, “To which realm did the portal lead?”
“To the Queen of Stories. You know, the Tam Lin story.”
“Tam Lin?” Jose asked.
“It’s a story where a lady named Janet frees her true love, Tam Lin, from the Fairie Queen by holding on and never letting go, even when he turns into a snake and a dog and such. Isn’t it romantic? Batman must have gone to rescue his lady love!”
“Bullshit.” Magda said succinctly. “No human could have survived that without serious magical shielding. Batman wasn’t the one doing the rescuing.”
“But how did Janet--”
“Her name was actually Margaret. She survived because she was a seriously powerful witch in her own right.” Magda’s eyes wandered to Superman’s still figure on the table, then to the bound Batman still trying to reach him. “You sneaky, sneaky boys. You have the whole world fooled, don’t you?” she mused to herself. “There was only the one portal? You’re sure of it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then it seems there are going to have to be apologies all around. I fear we’ve made fools of ourselves.” She allowed the string to go slack, and Batman rushed to Superman’s side. Jose tried to stop him and was thrown over his shoulder.
“It’s all right, Jose. The Dark Knight isn’t going to hurt his lady love.”
“Of course I’m not going to hurt him. Why would you--” Batman cut off suddenly and banged his head against the table. If not for the cowl’s protection he might have given himself a concussion. Of all the possible drawbacks of seeming to be enemies in public, he had never considered that anyone would try to protect Superman from him. Particularly the group that had attacked him in the first place. “You know that we’re actually lovers, now?”
“And you came to rescue your true love from the clutches of evil sorcerers. After all, the only portal you two could have crossed went straight into a love story. I suppose you’re destined for each other or some such faerie crap.”
“Wait, wait, Batman and Superman are gay for each other?” Samantha squealed. When subjected to the full strength of Batman’s glare, she tried to backtrack. “I mean, uh, congratulations. You two are perfect for each other, really.” Her eyes went unfocused for a moment and she muttered, “So hot.”
Magda rolled her eyes. “I hope you know how to help Superman better than we do. Three nights ago he passed through the protective barrier and absorbed a dangerous amount of magical radiation from one of the Hell dimensions while we were trying to banish a Chk’lr demon.”
“You what?”
Magda seemed to take this as a challenge to her group’s skill. “It’s never happened before. Sensitives generally know to stay the hell away from an open portal unless they’re wearing red jasper for protection, and we were well-shielded against mundanes. But apparently not the fey-touched.”
“No, back up, you were trying to banish a demon? Clark said you had a bound, bleeding child.”
Samantha piped up, “The Chk’lr had possessed Timothy, the poor boy. So of course we had to tie him up. As for the blood--that was the Chk’lr’s last meal.” She made a face. “They eat humans when the have the chance, and they’re not the neatest eaters. I threw up when we were cleaning up the first victim.”
“The missing persons. You’ve been hiding what’s been happening to them.”
“Well duh. We didn’t want the police--or you--sticking your noses in and asking stupid questions and arresting us or the kid before we could get rid of the demon.”
“You have no proof. I’m just supposed to take your word for it? After you kidnapped Superman and attacked me?”
“We did let you go,” Jose pointed out, annoyed.
“You want proof? Fine. Go talk to the parents of Timothy Wells; they live on Washington Street. But don’t discuss it in front of Timothy; we’ve given him a mental block to keep the memories away for a few more years. And remember that those parents have been through a lot. Don’t you dare use that whole ‘terror of the night’ routine on them.”
“Fine. I’ll trust you until I find a reason not to. But I won’t tolerate you hiding the bodies of the missing persons. Their families need to learn what happened to their loved ones in order to achieve closure.”
“Of course.” Magda’s voice was dry. “Let’s go tell the families that their loved one got eaten by a five-year-old possessed by a demon. Is that the kind of closure you meant?” She returned Batman’s glare.
“Just tell me where you buried the remains. I’ll figure out a story. Nothing too gruesome or upsetting, I hope.”
“As you wish. Focusing on immediate concerns, do you know how to get your boyfriend back on his feet? We kept trying healing potions, but he had some sort of allergic reaction to most of them.”
“What’s that?” Batman asked, pointing at the gelatinous substance she had been pouring down his throat.
“Orange jello,” she answered. “Hey, we didn’t know what superpowered aliens ate. It’s high in calories and easy to eat.”
Batman ground his teeth and gestured around the windowless room. “Did you ever try exposing him to direct sunlight?”
The sorcerers blinked at him. Jose asked, “What, he’s solar powered?”
“I suppose we could have laid him out in the middle of the quad in full uniform,” Samantha offered. “We could have told everyone he was a frat sleeping off a rowdy costume party.”
Magda made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on then, take care of your one true love. Get him home and give him a sun bath. And next time you run into a magical portal,” she made a business card appear in her hand like magic, “call the experts.” On the back was written Timothy’s address and a latitude and longitude; he presumed that’s where the bodies were buried.
Batman growled and took the card. “Don’t count on it.” He hoisted Superman into a fireman’s carry; his anger at the wasted time and worry was mitigated by the warmth of the Man of Steel’s torso pressing against his back. Once he left the building the static faded from his communicator and he could hear as well as feel Superman breathing. The tumbler’s autopilot drove the tank to meet him. He buckled Superman in; the man looked ridiculously large and colorful in the black interior. Before starting for home and the cave’s sun bed, Batman reached over to touch his lover’s cheek.
“You idiot,” he growled to his unconscious companion, “don’t you know I’m the only one who’s supposed to get hurt?”
The End
Title: Through the Open Door
Pairing(s)/Character(s): Bruce/Clark, Alfred
Rating: PG-13
Warnings: some non-graphic violence, including violence against children
Continuity: mithen 's Music of the Spheres 'verse, set shortly after the first arc. It contains spoilers for and won't make much sense without the first arc of Music of the Spheres.
Disclaimer: I don't own anything but my computer and my mind. Please don't take my computer away; the mind's been lost for ages.
Word Count: 3,784
Summary: It seemed somehow unfair that an alien and a man of science had to deal with sorcery, of all things
Author's Note: Updated and expanded based on Liz's betaing
Part I:
It wasn’t easy to convince Bruce to stay home for the night. Second-degree burns, a voice naturally raspy from smoke inhalation and a broken arm weren’t reason enough, but even Bruce had to admit that he had no leads on the missing persons cases, and Superman could do a better job sweeping the city. So while Bruce Wayne recovered from a “skiing accident in the Alps” and Batman recovered from a night rescuing people from a one of the largest tenement fires in the city’s history, Superman patrolled Gotham.
It was three weeks after the Halloween night when the Queen of Stories had snatched Kal away into the Tam Lin story and Bruce had nearly gotten himself killed rescuing his lover, but orange and black streamers still decorated most of the street lamps. Gotham embraced Halloween as it did no other holiday, with glittering masquerade balls for the wealthy and pumpkin-flavored donuts for the rest. The Jack-o-Lanterns displayed on every fire escape were sagging in on themselves, their snaggletoothed smiles rotted into sneers.
Superman did his best to watch over his lover’s city, flying through fog-strewn allies and using his infrared vision to penetrate the gloom. It was harder than it should have been: flying in Gotham gave him vertigo, and his vision would slide uncontrolled from infrared to x-ray and back again. It was barely the witching hour, and already the Man of Steel had dented a car and broken a mugger’s arm through sheer clumsiness; he hadn’t had so much trouble controlling his strength since he was a teenager. It was as if, although Superman had worked out his differences with her guardian, Gotham herself still resented him. What was even odder was that Gotham welcomed Clark; when not in uniform, the manor was more of a home to Superman than was his Metropolis apartment.
The sounds filtering through Bruce’s communicator was what made it bearable. He listened to his lover grumbling that he was fine, just fine and didn’t need anything. Bruce refused cough drops, soothing teas, painkillers and Alfred’s signature caramel-apple crisp. Of course, minutes after Alfred’s footsteps faded away Clark could hear his lover slurping the tea and eating the apple crisp with little noises of pleasure. Superman did his best not to snicker.
Flying back from the docks, he stopped in midair when he felt a tingling along his nerves like static electricity. He tapped his communicator to make sure Bruce was listening. “B?” He waited for the other man’s impatient grunt before continuing, “I just felt something... odd. I think it might be magic again.”
Bruce inhaled sharply. “Do you know where it’s coming from?”
“I’m not sure but it seems...” Clark trailed off as he rose higher to get a better viewpoint. There seemed to be something happening in one of the nearby parks; a mysterious, steady glow illuminated a circle of robed figures. “It’s in St. Matthew’s Park, near the statue. I’m going to check it out.”
“Be damn careful,” Bruce snapped. “Tell me before you do anything.” Superman knew it must be killing his lover to be unable to protect the Man of Steel from one of the few things that could harm him.
The figure robed in scarlet stepped forward and rapped its staff on the ground three times; on the third strike, there was a high-pitched tearing noise and a portal opened. It was like a seven-foot tall tear in reality, its surface rippling like water in a light wind. The one with the staff ordered, “Prepare him,” and two of the others came forward, carrying a bundle between them.
“Oh god,” he whispered.
“Clark? Clark!”
“They have a child. He’s bound and covered with blood.” The five-year-old’s blond hair, face and clothing were crusted with dried blood, black in the moonlight.
For one moment Clark could hear only grinding teeth, then the curt order, “Go.” He didn’t hesitate a moment longer, shooting down to land between the boy and the portal, then crumpling as agony slammed through his body. Every breath ached in his chest and he flinched from the fireworks going off behind his eyelids. The magicians’ apparent leader, the one in the red cloak, was shouting orders and waving his staff. Superman lunged for him before he could launch an even more debilitating attack; they went down in a heap wrestling for the staff. Even disoriented and in pain, Clark easily overpowered him and slammed the staff into the man’s chin. The hood fell back to reveal the severe face of an elderly woman with steel-gray hair and a rapidly purpling jaw.
“Samantha, how the hell did he find us?” the old woman gasped, releasing the staff and attempting to crab walk backward.
“I don’t know!” one of the other magicians cried, panic in her voice. “The barrier’s still in place. It shouldn’t have-- Magda, the portal!”
“I would appreciate a freeze spell, Lee,” the leader continued, scrambling to her feet. As she leaned forward a heavy jeweled amulet swung free of her robes. Superman might be inexperienced with magic, but even he could recognize that it was an object of power. He grabbed it; the woman cursed and rained ineffective blows on his head and shoulders. “You complete idiot! Let go of that; you don’t know what you’re doing.”
She was wrong; Superman knew exactly what he was doing. He crushed the artifact, wincing at the flash and crackle it made as it shattered. The old woman collapsed and flopped about like a fish out of water, harmless without her magic amulet. He turned back to the boy, who was being staked out on the manicured lawn, and made his way over there, his movements painfully slow and confused. One of the magicians who had been kneeling beside the child, securing its ropes, seized Superman’s arm and spoke two words that sounded like a cracking glacier. A cold so intense it burned raced through the hero, followed by a wave of numbness that robbed him of movement. He crashed to the ground and lay beside the blood-covered child, struggling just to breathe.
“Tabitha, give me your amulet,” the old woman demanded. “Stop staring and hand me my staff, Jose, unless you want to see what else comes through unguarded portals.”
“What about Superman?”
“Leave him; if we lose control of the demon now, it’ll kill all of us.” The last thing Clark could make out before he dropped away into the fog was her cold voice saying, “If he’s still alive by the end, I’ll personally take care of him.”
-----
“Clark? Clark!” Bruce shouted into the transmitter while pulling on pieces of his armor, but all he could hear was static. Ridiculous. The communicator was satellite-based, powerful enough for perfect transmissions from China or the Mariana Trench; what could have blocked the signal within Gotham?
Magic, apparently. It seemed somehow unfair that an alien and a man of science had to deal with sorcery, of all things, Bruce mused as he scrambled into the tumbler, trying to keep himself distracted from the continued static on the communicator. Despite the evidence to the contrary, even the evidence that had been carved into his chest, in his heart of hearts Bruce still didn’t believe in magic. He cursed viciously when he had to reach across with his left hand to reach the tumbler’s gearshift; as if a broken arm wasn’t bad enough, he’d torn enough muscles in his right shoulder that there was no point in taking it out of its sling. As he raced through Gotham to St. Matthew’s Park, he made a mental note to tweak the design of the next tumbler to accommodate injuries; as it was, he could barely exceed eighty miles per hour on the city streets and still maintain control while shifting. The hour and a half’s drive across Gotham took nearly twenty-eight minutes instead of the usual thirteen. He leapt from the tumbler almost before it had stopped and raced to the angel statue, its arms spread in blessing.
There was no one there. No circle of sorcerers, no blood-covered boy. No Clark. Bruce clinically noted his elevated heart rate and trouble breathing. Shock or panic, and he had time for neither. Biofeedback would ensure that he didn’t deprive his brain of the oxygen it needed to think beyond gone gone gone gone.
The detective knelt in the dew-damp grass with his Mag-lite between his teeth, reading the story laid out in the bent blades of grass. Here’s where the circle had stood. One had worn hiking boots, and another wore sensible flats, but the majority wore... sneakers? Nikes, Sketchers, Adidas, another pair of Nikes, and Reeboks. Not what he had expected from a group of sorcerers. Here was the rounded imprint of some sort of walking stick. Two uneven boot prints where Clark had landed, heavily and off balance. Signs of a scuffle, of Superman on his knees. Fragments of a stone: red jasper. Four stake holes and flakes of dried blood marked where the boy had been tied in place; there were enough rope fibers to suggest the bonds had been cut, but nothing to indicate if the child was alive or dead. Nothing to indicate if Clark-- no. Batman collected a few of the blood flakes and examined the scorch mark but was unable to make anything of it, apart from the fact that it wasn’t caused by Superman’s heat vision.
Rising from his crouch, Bruce heard his knee creak and suddenly felt very, very old. There were no familiar booted footprints leading away, but there was the indication of something heavy being half-carried, half-dragged to the curb. There were tire marks where the cars had taken off in a hurry. Ford hatchback and a Chevy sedan, judging by the tire spacing and acceleration profile, but no paint flakes or custom tires. That was the end of the trail.
The tumbler pulled into the cave just as dawn was breaking. Alfred was waiting calmly with a pot of coffee and a disapproving expression on his face. “Master Bruce,” he began severely, “I thought we had agreed to leave patrol to Superman, at least until that terrible cough of yours-- Good lord. What has happened?”
“Clark’s gone.”
That gave even Alfred pause. “How?”
“Magic.” Alfred waited for him to continue, then turned to go. As he turned, Bruce said in a rush, “It’s my fault, I told him to save the child.”
“I very much doubt you could have stopped him, Master Bruce. Not if a child’s life was at stake.”
It was true, of course. But that didn’t change the fact that the only voice in Bruce’s ear was static.
Part II:
Even with all his studies of the criminal mind, the banality of evil still shocked Bruce sometimes. He was wandering the campus of Gotham U, anonymous in a cheap skiing jacket with a scarf wrapped around his neck and the lower half of his face. The temperature had plunged the last few days; it was nearing dusk, and the thermometer read a couple of degrees below zero. The suit he was wearing under the jacket and jeans had some extra padding that should prevent his shoulder from popping out of its socket, and he’d widened the sleeve to accommodate his cast.
It had taken Batman sixty-three hours of research to locate the coven that had most likely been in the park the night Superman disappeared. Even his experimental supercomputer hadn’t been able to narrow down suspects based on the few clues as he'd been able to collect from the crime scene, and there were no traffic cameras or even street-facing security cameras in the area. Instead he’d followed the supply trail. Bruce had done some cursory research on magic in the week following the Faerie Queen’s attack; all he’d had to do was modify the program he used to track methamphetamine ingredients to track magical supplies such as henbane and focus crystals instead. The real challenge had been collecting customer data: three-fifths of the magic shops in Gotham didn’t keep their sales records on an internet-enabled computer. Batman had been forced to make after hours visits to those seventeen stores to steal paper ledgers and credit card receipts. Bruce blessed the fact that apparently evil, child-sacrificing covens used plastic. After manual data entry and hours of staring dully at blank screen while the data collated, the computer had chimed and outputted a list of two hundred eighty-eight suspects who had purchased large volumes of some supposedly powerful herbs or charms. Eliminating professional chefs and food suppliers brought the list to a more manageable ninety-two. Out of those, twenty-one had purchased Red Jasper. Cross referencing against the DMV left him with a single suspect who drove a Chevy sedan or Ford hatchback: Magda Roberts, Professor of Comparative Religion at Gotham University.
A little bit of digging had revealed that Professor Roberts, who had transferred to Gotham from the University of Arizona five years earlier, had been funded exceptionally well through University support, grants and sizable personal contributions. All this despite the fact that she and her eight graduate students had only produced four papers during that time. It didn’t take much of an analytical mind to detect that something was rotten at Gotham U.
Bruce had taken the precaution of checking Magda’s Chevy in faculty parking and had found a few dark hairs, but nothing conclusive: no blood or rope fibers. Which left the direct approach; it was convenient that the good professor had decided to work late that evening. Bruce shed his outer layers and locked his cowl in place in a shadowed alcove between two sociology buildings, and Batman scrambled the key card scanner long enough to enter Keller Hall. His research had turned up a two-hundred square foot discrepancy between the university maps of the basement level and the original building plans; Batman headed straight to an apparent broom closet, bumped the lock and entered the hidden lab.
Superman was laid out unconscious on one of the tables, and Professor Roberts--a petite, gray-haired woman with a greenish bruise on her jaw--was pouring a gelatinous orange substance into his mouth.
“That was fast. Were you able to find the powdered black haw?” she asked, then looked up and straight into Batman’s eyes. “Oh hell. Not again.” She grabbed a tangled loop of string from the table.
Batman launched himself into the room, his only aim to reach and protect Superman. He’d deal with the sorcerers afterwards. Roberts whispered something over the string while her fingers wove about each other, and Batman lost all sense of balance. He crashed to the ground, trying unsuccessfully to brush away the spider-silk restraints binding his senses.
Part III:
“Goddamn it, Samantha,” the witch bellowed, “I told you to renew the barriers on this place!”
One of the doors down the hall banged open and someone else entered the room, doubtless twenty-six year old Ph.D. student Samantha Gray. “I did it two days ago, Prof.”
“Care to explain how the hell a mundane got in, then?”
“Oh my God, it’s Batman! He’s really real!” Batman could hear someone approach, sense someone lean over him, and tried to kick her. He didn’t connect with anything, but the young woman gave a little shriek.
“A bit of focus, my dear?” Magda growled. “That spell won’t last long; we’ve got to make sure he doesn’t get to Superman.”
“Lee’s in the office; he could use his freeze spell . . .”
“By all means, if you want to dispose of yet another body. Superman only survived because he’s bloody Superman! Just put up another barrier, you silly girl, and get it right this time.”
Batman stopped flailing and carefully picked off each thread, one by one, until he could see clearly. The girl Samantha was holding a ball of blue energy in her hands. It expanded suddenly, brushing through him like a cold gust of wind.
“Well, that didn’t work,” Magda observed wryly.
“He’s not a mundane,” Samantha insisted, angry and a little scared.
“We know all the sensitives in Gotham, and Jack would have felt any new ones entering.”
“Jack’s a druggie.”
“Which is part of the reason why he’s the best damn psychic in the state. Go on, then; we’ll need Jose to teleport Superman to a secure location until we can deal with this interruption.”
“Fine, but he’s not a mundane. I mean, he’s just passing through everything I throw at him, just like Superman did.” Samantha left in a huff, slamming the door behind her.
“Not mundane, hmm?” Magda examined him for a moment, then started shuffling around some of the hundreds of jars on the metal shelving lining the room. While her back was turned, Batman carefully picked away the last threads and rose to a crouch. The older woman turned back with an open jar in one hand, some sort of dark dust in the other. Batman rushed her; she panicked and threw the dust at his face. Trained reflexes took over: he shut his eyes against the dust, held his breath, and threw her across the floor. The glass jar shattered somewhere.
When he opened his eyes again, his eyes were dazzled by sparks like static electricity in a dark room. He was sweating heavily and felt suddenly weak. Batman truly hated magic. Blind again, he could only listen to the groaning of an old woman across the room, the door banging open and two pairs of footsteps running in. One he recognized as Samantha’s; the other were heavier, but with an evenness and balance he associated with long practice in the martial arts. It was likely Jose Principe, second-year masters student and black belt in Judo. Batman pulled himself into a defensive crouch, keeping his eyes tightly closed, but was forced to lean against the shelving just to remain upright.
“Magda, are you all right?” the young woman asked, almost frantic.
“Thank God for Actonel; I nearly fractured a hip.”
“What did you hit him with?” Jose asked with a slight Spanish accent; he was stealthy, but his voice revealed that he had moved much closer. Batman growled in warning.
“Filings from an ancient iron cross.”
“You took him out with blessed iron. Oh my god, Batman’s a fairy!” Samantha sounded delighted. While Bruce had imagined that there might come a time when Batman and Superman were outed, he hadn’t expected to deal with that comment before then. And certainly not someone accusing him of being an actual, literal fairy.
“Do you ever think before you speak?” Magda asked in a tone that didn’t quite hide her pride in her student’s deduction. “Do you really think we wouldn’t have detected one of the Fair Folk in our city? The one a month ago had Jack babbling nonstop for a week, and she only stayed for ten minutes. Or do you somehow imagine that I could have trapped one in a cat’s cradle?”
“Oh. Right. Fey-touched, then.” Batman could almost hear the blush in her voice. What he couldn’t hear was Jose; he wished the boy would join the discussion so he could locate him for certain. “So he, um, encountered a fairy?”
“Too strong a reaction. He’s actually visited their realm, and recently. I need you to find all portals that opened to any of the faerie lands within the last six months.”
“Gotcha, prof!”
The footsteps left the room and the door closed behind them. Batman waited. For Clark, he would be as patient as he had to be. There: a squeak of sneakers on tile to his left. Batman lashed out with a side thrust and hit his opponent; judging from the resistance, he’d probably kicked the boy just below the last rib on the left side. Jose was well-trained: by exhaling fast and firming his abdominal muscled just in time, he had avoided serious injury. Furthermore, instead of backing away as instinct would dictate, he grabbed Batman’s food and stepped closer, effectively halving the power of any of Batman’s strikes. Not that those strikes were particularly powerful; whatever was actually in the “iron filings” he had been exposed to had weakened him considerably. He was unable to pull his leg from Jose’s grasp, or to maintain balance when the boy tackled him. Even though he tucked his chin, his head banged into one of the metal shelving supports; if it weren’t for the reinforced cowl, he’d have been stunned.
“He’s out,” Jose said confidently.
“Then teleport Superman to the secure lab. We can’t let Batman get his hands on him.”
Batman reached out and viciously jerked Jose’s legs out from under him. The graduate student cursed, “Mierda,” and kicked out to free himself. Batman had managed to drag Jose back, away from Superman, when he heard Magda whispering something and felt a sudden wind in the lab.
The wind brushed his face with grit and Batman felt as if he were on fire. His limbs were leaden and unresponsive. More sparks flashed in his retina, though his eyes were squeezed shut.
“Me cago en la leche! You got that in my eyes, Magda.”
“Callate el osico, idioto” Magda retorted in barely passable Spanish, “and get Superman to the other lab. You can thank me later.”
“Uh, Magda? What’s wrong with Superman?” Jose sounded nervous.
“What are you talking about? You know he’s been unconscious since--” There was a metallic thud and the sound of something rattling.
“He’s burning up with fever.”
“Get away from him! Even normal people can be dangerous when their seizing.” Batman was horrified, all the more so because he could barely even turn his head towards his lover. “The iron. Some of it must have gotten on him when I blew it around the room, and he’s reacting even stronger than Batman.”
“Is it an alien thing?”
“If it were, I doubt he’d be bulletproof. Where are the iron shackles?” In response to the crisis, Magda’s voice had become even colder, crisper and authoritative.
“The weapons closet?”
“Get them!” Magda approached Batman’s immobile form. A cabinet door swung open, there was some clanging, and Jose ran over. “What the hell?” Magda asked in outrage.
“Um, about the velvet linings. I can explain.” There was a moment of awkward silence. “Actually, I can’t. But Maria, she really really likes to--”
“Please, by the love of all that’s holy, don’t finish that sentence.” Magda moved Batman’s arms to lock heavy padded manacles around his wrists. Batman’s fever increased, and he labored to just breathe. Magda spoke so softly Batman had to strain to hear her. It was not some mystic cant. Rather, she said something unrepeatable in public, and she said it in perfect Latin.
The sparks in his retina disappeared, and when he cautiously opened his eyes he discovered he could once again see. His lingering weakness didn’t stop him from propping himself up against the shelves. He stared at Magda, who had taken several prudent steps away from him and was standing between him and the still figure lying on the table. She had the piece of string she had used to bind him looped around her fingers. “Superman?” he asked. Magda just glared. “What did you do to him?”
Magda ground her teeth. “It would appear your rival is also fey-touched, and the iron dust I blew on him was killing him. That’s why I cursed the blessed iron. Unfortunately, since the filings all came from the same cross, that nullified their effects on you as well.”
“Necessitating the handcuffs.” Magda nodded. “So all I have to do to render these inert is to curse at them in Latin?”
Magda snorted. “A true mortal’s blasphemy often unravels faith magic. But you’re not a true mortal; the two of you are fey-touched. Thus, there is--”
Jose interrupted, “Prof, should I . . .?”
“Wait just a minute, would you?”
“Listen, Professor, Superman may be part fey,” the images of Clark dancing in that transgender bar, of Superman submitting to the Queen of Stories’ kiss, passed through his mind, “but I am not and never will be ‘fey-touched’, okay? I’m human.”
“Right. Of course. And how do you explain being blinded and weakened by blessed iron?”
“Obviously, it’s a magic powder, not iron.”
“Being able to pass through our barriers?”
“They aren’t real.”
“The fact that your blasphemy can’t curse the blessed iron in your shackles?”
Focusing, Batman repeated Magda’s curses over the shackles, but they remained so heavy he couldn’t stand. With a growl of frustration, Batman accused, “You’ve done something to protect them.”
Magda was somewhere between shocked and guilty. “Well. Yes. It’s true the runes will protect it. But you couldn’t have broken the faith magic anyway.” She frowned, seeming to sense she’d lost that round. “Why are you so concerned about Superman, anyway? I thought you two hated each other.”
Before he could answer, the door banged open. “I’ve got it!” Samantha shouted. “I’ve got it.”
Magda asked dryly, “And what is it you’ve got?”
“I’ve figured out which portal Batman must have used. You see, I looked up the portals to the Fairy Realms and cross-referenced against summonings, since of course summonings are one-way from there to here and also discarded the ones caused by banishments, ‘cause banishments can only transport a being to its home dimension--”
“Cut to the point, Samantha,” Jose begged.
“There’s only one left! In the whole world--heck, our whole universe--there’s only one portal that would have allowed someone from our universe to cross into theirs in the past four months.”
“Right here in Gotham. The Halloween portal.” Batman finished picking the lock and almost sighed in relief when he set the manacles down. He rolled to his feet and tried to reach Superman. Magda tugged at the string game and Batman crashed to the ground, his legs bound together and his arms bound to his side. She turned her attention back to her student and asked, “To which realm did the portal lead?”
“To the Queen of Stories. You know, the Tam Lin story.”
“Tam Lin?” Jose asked.
“It’s a story where a lady named Janet frees her true love, Tam Lin, from the Fairie Queen by holding on and never letting go, even when he turns into a snake and a dog and such. Isn’t it romantic? Batman must have gone to rescue his lady love!”
“Bullshit.” Magda said succinctly. “No human could have survived that without serious magical shielding. Batman wasn’t the one doing the rescuing.”
“But how did Janet--”
“Her name was actually Margaret. She survived because she was a seriously powerful witch in her own right.” Magda’s eyes wandered to Superman’s still figure on the table, then to the bound Batman still trying to reach him. “You sneaky, sneaky boys. You have the whole world fooled, don’t you?” she mused to herself. “There was only the one portal? You’re sure of it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Then it seems there are going to have to be apologies all around. I fear we’ve made fools of ourselves.” She allowed the string to go slack, and Batman rushed to Superman’s side. Jose tried to stop him and was thrown over his shoulder.
“It’s all right, Jose. The Dark Knight isn’t going to hurt his lady love.”
“Of course I’m not going to hurt him. Why would you--” Batman cut off suddenly and banged his head against the table. If not for the cowl’s protection he might have given himself a concussion. Of all the possible drawbacks of seeming to be enemies in public, he had never considered that anyone would try to protect Superman from him. Particularly the group that had attacked him in the first place. “You know that we’re actually lovers, now?”
“And you came to rescue your true love from the clutches of evil sorcerers. After all, the only portal you two could have crossed went straight into a love story. I suppose you’re destined for each other or some such faerie crap.”
“Wait, wait, Batman and Superman are gay for each other?” Samantha squealed. When subjected to the full strength of Batman’s glare, she tried to backtrack. “I mean, uh, congratulations. You two are perfect for each other, really.” Her eyes went unfocused for a moment and she muttered, “So hot.”
Magda rolled her eyes. “I hope you know how to help Superman better than we do. Three nights ago he passed through the protective barrier and absorbed a dangerous amount of magical radiation from one of the Hell dimensions while we were trying to banish a Chk’lr demon.”
“You what?”
Magda seemed to take this as a challenge to her group’s skill. “It’s never happened before. Sensitives generally know to stay the hell away from an open portal unless they’re wearing red jasper for protection, and we were well-shielded against mundanes. But apparently not the fey-touched.”
“No, back up, you were trying to banish a demon? Clark said you had a bound, bleeding child.”
Samantha piped up, “The Chk’lr had possessed Timothy, the poor boy. So of course we had to tie him up. As for the blood--that was the Chk’lr’s last meal.” She made a face. “They eat humans when the have the chance, and they’re not the neatest eaters. I threw up when we were cleaning up the first victim.”
“The missing persons. You’ve been hiding what’s been happening to them.”
“Well duh. We didn’t want the police--or you--sticking your noses in and asking stupid questions and arresting us or the kid before we could get rid of the demon.”
“You have no proof. I’m just supposed to take your word for it? After you kidnapped Superman and attacked me?”
“We did let you go,” Jose pointed out, annoyed.
“You want proof? Fine. Go talk to the parents of Timothy Wells; they live on Washington Street. But don’t discuss it in front of Timothy; we’ve given him a mental block to keep the memories away for a few more years. And remember that those parents have been through a lot. Don’t you dare use that whole ‘terror of the night’ routine on them.”
“Fine. I’ll trust you until I find a reason not to. But I won’t tolerate you hiding the bodies of the missing persons. Their families need to learn what happened to their loved ones in order to achieve closure.”
“Of course.” Magda’s voice was dry. “Let’s go tell the families that their loved one got eaten by a five-year-old possessed by a demon. Is that the kind of closure you meant?” She returned Batman’s glare.
“Just tell me where you buried the remains. I’ll figure out a story. Nothing too gruesome or upsetting, I hope.”
“As you wish. Focusing on immediate concerns, do you know how to get your boyfriend back on his feet? We kept trying healing potions, but he had some sort of allergic reaction to most of them.”
“What’s that?” Batman asked, pointing at the gelatinous substance she had been pouring down his throat.
“Orange jello,” she answered. “Hey, we didn’t know what superpowered aliens ate. It’s high in calories and easy to eat.”
Batman ground his teeth and gestured around the windowless room. “Did you ever try exposing him to direct sunlight?”
The sorcerers blinked at him. Jose asked, “What, he’s solar powered?”
“I suppose we could have laid him out in the middle of the quad in full uniform,” Samantha offered. “We could have told everyone he was a frat sleeping off a rowdy costume party.”
Magda made a shooing motion with her hands. “Go on then, take care of your one true love. Get him home and give him a sun bath. And next time you run into a magical portal,” she made a business card appear in her hand like magic, “call the experts.” On the back was written Timothy’s address and a latitude and longitude; he presumed that’s where the bodies were buried.
Batman growled and took the card. “Don’t count on it.” He hoisted Superman into a fireman’s carry; his anger at the wasted time and worry was mitigated by the warmth of the Man of Steel’s torso pressing against his back. Once he left the building the static faded from his communicator and he could hear as well as feel Superman breathing. The tumbler’s autopilot drove the tank to meet him. He buckled Superman in; the man looked ridiculously large and colorful in the black interior. Before starting for home and the cave’s sun bed, Batman reached over to touch his lover’s cheek.
“You idiot,” he growled to his unconscious companion, “don’t you know I’m the only one who’s supposed to get hurt?”
The End