FIC: Gotham Nocturne (4/9)
Title: Gotham Nocturne: Chapter Four
Pairing: Clark/Bruce, Pamela Isley, Jonathan Crane
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Gotham Nocturne is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: Hard R
Summary: While trouble brews, it's Bruce's birthday, and Clark takes his turn at forgetting important days.
Word Count: 2100
Pamela Isley whirled as a beaker shattered against the wall of her lab. "Control yourself, Crane!" she seethed. "Damn it, that enzyme wasn't cheap and that was the last we had. You idiot!"
Jonathan Crane was transported by ice-cold fury. "Don't you dare call me an idiot! I'm a genius! It's that doctor! That cursed, imbecilic doctor couldn't have resisted my toxin enough to save that patient's life! It's impossible! The sample must have been weak--must have gotten diluted somehow." He glared at his notebook as if debating whether to send it flying after the beaker. "There's no other explanation for it."
Isley shrugged; Crane's numbers had been perfect, as far as she could tell. There had been no flaw in the formula she could see. She couldn't come up with any rational reason the doctor had been able to resist its effects as long as he had either. "Look on the bright side--it did snap his mind to do it," she said placatingly.
Crane flung his arms wide in exasperation. "A fear toxin that can be resisted is hardly worthy of the name. I must find the weakness, weed it out. When I meet him again, I have to be ready. One doesn't merely experiment on him, no. He's the fulcrum, the alpha of fear." He scowled blackly at the crumpled newspaper in his hand. "He's out there, laughing at me, knowing my toxins are flawed. But I shall exceed him. Transcend him." He smoothed out the newspaper and started leafing through it. "It's time to do something big. Something dramatic. Something to prove that the Scarecrow is not to be forgotten, that terror shall walk the streets of Gotham once more."
His laugh was like something from an old horror film; Isley hid her shudder as much as possible and went back to her work.
: : :
Batman was poring over the personnel records for all the major pharmaceutical companies in Gotham, looking for discrepancies, hints, anything that might lead him to Crane. The man was brilliant, and some of the moguls of Gotham might be willing to overlook his criminal record to try and profit from his genius.
"Any luck?" Clark's voice was right behind him rather than in his ear.
"Nothing so far, but I do believe I'll be keeping a close eye on some of the major chemical manufacturers during patrol from now on." He turned to see Clark standing in his rumpled business suit, blinking behind his glasses, and frowned. "The cave is secure, you know. You can wear the uniform here, you don't have to be Clark." They had agreed that publicly Superman was forbidden to be in Gotham, but Clark had come to extend that to private as well; the red and blue costume almost never appeared in Batman's city, or his cave, or his home.
Clark grimaced slightly. "I feel better as Clark here."
Batman stood to slip a gauntleted hand under the suit coat and dress shirt, running it over taut muscle. "It just feels odd, being in full Grim Stalker of the Night mode while you're hanging out in a regular old suit."
Clark sighed and leaned into the touch. "I like it. I like being normal old Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter and boyfriend of the Dark Knight of Gotham."
"Normal," Bruce snorted, brushing his fingers over Clark's nipples until the other man crooned like a choir of nightingales. "Yes, that's you, all right."
Clark's smile was wide and almost lazy. "Just a farm boy from Kansas, that's me, who happened to somehow catch the eye of the Caped Avenger."
Batman slipped his other hand around to the back to Clark's neck, pulling him close for a kiss. "Is my farmboy lover ready to go out to dinner? I've got reservations at the Apex."
Clark looked surprised, his eyes wide and guileless. "Sure, what's the occasion?"
Bruce didn't bother to hide his smirk. This was going to be fun. "Oh, I'll tell you when we get there."
: : :
The lights of Gotham spread out beneath Clark from his vantage point at the highest restaurant in Gotham. The food at the Apex wasn't the best, but Bruce liked the restaurant because it was a convenient place to see and be seen. Clark suspected he also liked the chance to look out over his whole city.
Clark liked it because here, high above the city, the low bass rhythm was soft enough to become soothing again.
Bruce sat across the table from Clark, white linen and crystal between them, his dark eyes watching the clientele with sharp interest. He might be noting what the latest fashions in Gotham were, or keeping an eye on who seemed to be dating whom. Perfectly innocuous playboy habits which Bruce tended to put to other uses. “Detective work among the upper crust is largely a matter of following fashion and gossip,” he said once with a grin when Clark called him on it. “Who's dressing beyond their means, who is snubbing whom-these are all important clues.”
“And of course it's not that you like dressing well or knowing the dirt on people for its own sake,” Clark had responded teasingly, which had earned him an exaggeratedly frosty bat-glare.
“You're smiling,” Bruce said now, breaking into Clark's reverie. “Be careful or I might start assuming you're enjoying yourself in my city.”
Clark smiled back easily. “I am enjoying myself, as a matter of fact. Gotham's a great city. It's just...hard for me to, you know, wear my work clothes here.”
Bruce frowned, reaching out to take his hand. “You've mentioned that before. I mean, in public is one thing, but...I don't understand the reluctance otherwise.”
Clark sighed. He had tried to explain this in the past and the words always seemed to get muddled. “It's the rhythm of the city, Bruce. When I'm like this--” he indicated the suit, the glasses, “--Gotham lets me be part of the rhythm. When I'm working, though...I'm out of sync. Nothing comes together right. If I try to help a kitten out of a tree in Gotham, it's likely to fall and break a leg. I can't...find the right harmony. It's all...dissonant.”
Bruce's hand was warm around his, his smile affectionate. “We'll strike the right chord together someday, I promise.”
One of the things Clark loved about Bruce Wayne was his empirical mind, his logic and common sense. But when it came to certain topics, he could never seem to make Bruce see that there was more than could be measured, more than could be gauged by modern science.
For Kal, the stars were always more than balls of ignited gases. And Gotham was more than a city.
But each time he tried to explain, the words were clumsy and awkward, and Bruce assumed he was talking in pretty metaphors. He always gave up trying to explain with a vague sense of guilty relief, the inevitable postponed just a bit longer. Just a bit.
Bruce's fond smile went just the tiniest bit predatory as he finished his wine. "Clark," he said in a voice like velvet, "You know what today is, right?"
Thoughts of stars and cities vanished in the prickling thrill of tension that went through Clark's body, but he managed to smile blandly. "It's...Tuesday, right? Is there something special about it? I've been trying to figure out why you brought me here."
A flicker of mockery in Bruce's eyes; Clark just wasn't as good at this side of the game as Bruce. "Clark, you thoughtless boy," purred Bruce. "It's my birthday."
Clark opened his eyes wide. "Golly, Bruce, is it really? I've been so busy at work, and I just--" He cut off as Bruce's hand came to rest on his knee under the table and swallowed hard. "I, uh...I'm sorry?"
Bruce's hand tightened on his knee, very slightly. "I can't believe you forgot my birthday, Clark. I'm hurt. I really am."
Clark resisted the impulse to flutter his eyelashes at Bruce and simper. "I'll have to find some way to make it up to you somehow, uh, later."
"Later?" Bruce's smile went very dangerous for a moment. He dropped his voice so low no one but Clark could possibly hear it it, let it rasp against Clark's eardrums like the very finest of sandpaper. "Why not now?" As Clark gaped at him, Bruce went on, "Maybe I should tell my careless lover to suck me off right here, hmmm?"
The croon in Bruce's voice made Clark go hot all over, the weight of his arousal heavy and solid. Suddenly he didn't need to feign being flustered and uncomfortable. "Bruce, I...you wouldn't...right here..."
"I happen to own this restaurant, you know." Smug satisfaction in the low voice. "I'm the Prince of Gotham. They wouldn't dare say a thing if I got you down on your knees right now, if I put my cock in your beautiful mouth right in front of them all."
They might not, at that. Dizzy lust stormed across Clark like a hurricane. Bruce's whisper continued in his ear like a serenade. "But that might be a bit much, I'll admit. On the other hand, I'm sure not a soul here would interfere if I gave you a hand job right now." Bruce's hand twitched on Clark's knee a bare fraction and Clark's erection yearned toward it. "I could just slide my hand up and undo your fly, have you out and stroking you under the table right now. Teach you not to forget important days by jacking you off in front of all Gotham."
Clark tried to say something but seemed only able to gasp as Bruce's hand tightened, caressing and squeezing his knee as if it were Clark's cock under his hand. "Like this," Bruce murmured. "I'd rub you like this." Bruce's eyes were half-veiled by long lashes, consuming the look on Clark's face avidly. "And you'd blush just like you're doing right now, and then your eyes would go all sultry and aroused...yes, just like that. Oh, you'd look gorgeous and feel so good, all hot and silky in my hand, getting harder..."
Clark didn't think that was possible anymore. Bruce's thumb slid up his inseam maybe a half-inch and Clark felt his whole body cramping with arousal, as fierce and hot as if Bruce were really doing what he was describing in that low and smokey voice. "Bruce," he said, his voice breaking almost to a whimper, unsure for a second if he was still play-acting or not, "I'm sorry I forgot your birthday, just don't..."
"Don't?" Bruce's smile was lazy and pleased. "Don't make you feel good, don't show off your beautiful cock to the envious hordes of Gotham?" Bruce's hand squeezed again and there was nothing outwardly lascivious about any of it, but Clark was hot and dizzy as dexterous fingers caressed his knee knowingly. "But I'd want everyone to see how I can reduce you to speechlessness, how I can make you so hot and hard that you can barely think. I'd want everyone here to have a chance to see you trying not to come at my touch, see you struggling to keep your composure--like you are now, Clark--see you failing and grabbing at the table, maybe finally shoving hard into my hand, so hard as you came right here in front of everyone..."
All the china on the table rattled as Clark's hands tightened on it. "Bruce," he muttered indistinctly, "You don't know--you're going to--to--" His voice broke off into a grunt as Bruce's hand did something to his knee that seemed to go straight to his groin. His balls tightened painfully, almost on the brink, and he thought incoherently that it didn't seem possible that a hand on his knee and a voice in his ear would make him come, but--
"Might I tempt the gentlemen with some dessert?" The genteel voice of the waiter broke into Clark's daze.
Bruce smiled at the waiter, friendly and innocent, the hand on Clark's knee like steel. "It sounds tempting indeed, but I believe I'll be having dessert at home tonight. What do you say, Clark honey, shall we head home for some?"
Clark almost knocked the table over in his haste to get up. "Yes, that sounds wonderful...dear."
The look he flashed Bruce would probably have incinerated a lesser man, but Bruce merely grinned like a schoolboy. "Yummy," he said cheerfully as he led the way out of the restaurant, Clark trailing after, filled with aching anticipation.
He was looking forward very much to being consumed.
Pairing: Clark/Bruce, Pamela Isley, Jonathan Crane
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Gotham Nocturne is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: Hard R
Summary: While trouble brews, it's Bruce's birthday, and Clark takes his turn at forgetting important days.
Word Count: 2100
Pamela Isley whirled as a beaker shattered against the wall of her lab. "Control yourself, Crane!" she seethed. "Damn it, that enzyme wasn't cheap and that was the last we had. You idiot!"
Jonathan Crane was transported by ice-cold fury. "Don't you dare call me an idiot! I'm a genius! It's that doctor! That cursed, imbecilic doctor couldn't have resisted my toxin enough to save that patient's life! It's impossible! The sample must have been weak--must have gotten diluted somehow." He glared at his notebook as if debating whether to send it flying after the beaker. "There's no other explanation for it."
Isley shrugged; Crane's numbers had been perfect, as far as she could tell. There had been no flaw in the formula she could see. She couldn't come up with any rational reason the doctor had been able to resist its effects as long as he had either. "Look on the bright side--it did snap his mind to do it," she said placatingly.
Crane flung his arms wide in exasperation. "A fear toxin that can be resisted is hardly worthy of the name. I must find the weakness, weed it out. When I meet him again, I have to be ready. One doesn't merely experiment on him, no. He's the fulcrum, the alpha of fear." He scowled blackly at the crumpled newspaper in his hand. "He's out there, laughing at me, knowing my toxins are flawed. But I shall exceed him. Transcend him." He smoothed out the newspaper and started leafing through it. "It's time to do something big. Something dramatic. Something to prove that the Scarecrow is not to be forgotten, that terror shall walk the streets of Gotham once more."
His laugh was like something from an old horror film; Isley hid her shudder as much as possible and went back to her work.
: : :
Batman was poring over the personnel records for all the major pharmaceutical companies in Gotham, looking for discrepancies, hints, anything that might lead him to Crane. The man was brilliant, and some of the moguls of Gotham might be willing to overlook his criminal record to try and profit from his genius.
"Any luck?" Clark's voice was right behind him rather than in his ear.
"Nothing so far, but I do believe I'll be keeping a close eye on some of the major chemical manufacturers during patrol from now on." He turned to see Clark standing in his rumpled business suit, blinking behind his glasses, and frowned. "The cave is secure, you know. You can wear the uniform here, you don't have to be Clark." They had agreed that publicly Superman was forbidden to be in Gotham, but Clark had come to extend that to private as well; the red and blue costume almost never appeared in Batman's city, or his cave, or his home.
Clark grimaced slightly. "I feel better as Clark here."
Batman stood to slip a gauntleted hand under the suit coat and dress shirt, running it over taut muscle. "It just feels odd, being in full Grim Stalker of the Night mode while you're hanging out in a regular old suit."
Clark sighed and leaned into the touch. "I like it. I like being normal old Clark Kent, mild-mannered reporter and boyfriend of the Dark Knight of Gotham."
"Normal," Bruce snorted, brushing his fingers over Clark's nipples until the other man crooned like a choir of nightingales. "Yes, that's you, all right."
Clark's smile was wide and almost lazy. "Just a farm boy from Kansas, that's me, who happened to somehow catch the eye of the Caped Avenger."
Batman slipped his other hand around to the back to Clark's neck, pulling him close for a kiss. "Is my farmboy lover ready to go out to dinner? I've got reservations at the Apex."
Clark looked surprised, his eyes wide and guileless. "Sure, what's the occasion?"
Bruce didn't bother to hide his smirk. This was going to be fun. "Oh, I'll tell you when we get there."
: : :
The lights of Gotham spread out beneath Clark from his vantage point at the highest restaurant in Gotham. The food at the Apex wasn't the best, but Bruce liked the restaurant because it was a convenient place to see and be seen. Clark suspected he also liked the chance to look out over his whole city.
Clark liked it because here, high above the city, the low bass rhythm was soft enough to become soothing again.
Bruce sat across the table from Clark, white linen and crystal between them, his dark eyes watching the clientele with sharp interest. He might be noting what the latest fashions in Gotham were, or keeping an eye on who seemed to be dating whom. Perfectly innocuous playboy habits which Bruce tended to put to other uses. “Detective work among the upper crust is largely a matter of following fashion and gossip,” he said once with a grin when Clark called him on it. “Who's dressing beyond their means, who is snubbing whom-these are all important clues.”
“And of course it's not that you like dressing well or knowing the dirt on people for its own sake,” Clark had responded teasingly, which had earned him an exaggeratedly frosty bat-glare.
“You're smiling,” Bruce said now, breaking into Clark's reverie. “Be careful or I might start assuming you're enjoying yourself in my city.”
Clark smiled back easily. “I am enjoying myself, as a matter of fact. Gotham's a great city. It's just...hard for me to, you know, wear my work clothes here.”
Bruce frowned, reaching out to take his hand. “You've mentioned that before. I mean, in public is one thing, but...I don't understand the reluctance otherwise.”
Clark sighed. He had tried to explain this in the past and the words always seemed to get muddled. “It's the rhythm of the city, Bruce. When I'm like this--” he indicated the suit, the glasses, “--Gotham lets me be part of the rhythm. When I'm working, though...I'm out of sync. Nothing comes together right. If I try to help a kitten out of a tree in Gotham, it's likely to fall and break a leg. I can't...find the right harmony. It's all...dissonant.”
Bruce's hand was warm around his, his smile affectionate. “We'll strike the right chord together someday, I promise.”
One of the things Clark loved about Bruce Wayne was his empirical mind, his logic and common sense. But when it came to certain topics, he could never seem to make Bruce see that there was more than could be measured, more than could be gauged by modern science.
For Kal, the stars were always more than balls of ignited gases. And Gotham was more than a city.
But each time he tried to explain, the words were clumsy and awkward, and Bruce assumed he was talking in pretty metaphors. He always gave up trying to explain with a vague sense of guilty relief, the inevitable postponed just a bit longer. Just a bit.
Bruce's fond smile went just the tiniest bit predatory as he finished his wine. "Clark," he said in a voice like velvet, "You know what today is, right?"
Thoughts of stars and cities vanished in the prickling thrill of tension that went through Clark's body, but he managed to smile blandly. "It's...Tuesday, right? Is there something special about it? I've been trying to figure out why you brought me here."
A flicker of mockery in Bruce's eyes; Clark just wasn't as good at this side of the game as Bruce. "Clark, you thoughtless boy," purred Bruce. "It's my birthday."
Clark opened his eyes wide. "Golly, Bruce, is it really? I've been so busy at work, and I just--" He cut off as Bruce's hand came to rest on his knee under the table and swallowed hard. "I, uh...I'm sorry?"
Bruce's hand tightened on his knee, very slightly. "I can't believe you forgot my birthday, Clark. I'm hurt. I really am."
Clark resisted the impulse to flutter his eyelashes at Bruce and simper. "I'll have to find some way to make it up to you somehow, uh, later."
"Later?" Bruce's smile went very dangerous for a moment. He dropped his voice so low no one but Clark could possibly hear it it, let it rasp against Clark's eardrums like the very finest of sandpaper. "Why not now?" As Clark gaped at him, Bruce went on, "Maybe I should tell my careless lover to suck me off right here, hmmm?"
The croon in Bruce's voice made Clark go hot all over, the weight of his arousal heavy and solid. Suddenly he didn't need to feign being flustered and uncomfortable. "Bruce, I...you wouldn't...right here..."
"I happen to own this restaurant, you know." Smug satisfaction in the low voice. "I'm the Prince of Gotham. They wouldn't dare say a thing if I got you down on your knees right now, if I put my cock in your beautiful mouth right in front of them all."
They might not, at that. Dizzy lust stormed across Clark like a hurricane. Bruce's whisper continued in his ear like a serenade. "But that might be a bit much, I'll admit. On the other hand, I'm sure not a soul here would interfere if I gave you a hand job right now." Bruce's hand twitched on Clark's knee a bare fraction and Clark's erection yearned toward it. "I could just slide my hand up and undo your fly, have you out and stroking you under the table right now. Teach you not to forget important days by jacking you off in front of all Gotham."
Clark tried to say something but seemed only able to gasp as Bruce's hand tightened, caressing and squeezing his knee as if it were Clark's cock under his hand. "Like this," Bruce murmured. "I'd rub you like this." Bruce's eyes were half-veiled by long lashes, consuming the look on Clark's face avidly. "And you'd blush just like you're doing right now, and then your eyes would go all sultry and aroused...yes, just like that. Oh, you'd look gorgeous and feel so good, all hot and silky in my hand, getting harder..."
Clark didn't think that was possible anymore. Bruce's thumb slid up his inseam maybe a half-inch and Clark felt his whole body cramping with arousal, as fierce and hot as if Bruce were really doing what he was describing in that low and smokey voice. "Bruce," he said, his voice breaking almost to a whimper, unsure for a second if he was still play-acting or not, "I'm sorry I forgot your birthday, just don't..."
"Don't?" Bruce's smile was lazy and pleased. "Don't make you feel good, don't show off your beautiful cock to the envious hordes of Gotham?" Bruce's hand squeezed again and there was nothing outwardly lascivious about any of it, but Clark was hot and dizzy as dexterous fingers caressed his knee knowingly. "But I'd want everyone to see how I can reduce you to speechlessness, how I can make you so hot and hard that you can barely think. I'd want everyone here to have a chance to see you trying not to come at my touch, see you struggling to keep your composure--like you are now, Clark--see you failing and grabbing at the table, maybe finally shoving hard into my hand, so hard as you came right here in front of everyone..."
All the china on the table rattled as Clark's hands tightened on it. "Bruce," he muttered indistinctly, "You don't know--you're going to--to--" His voice broke off into a grunt as Bruce's hand did something to his knee that seemed to go straight to his groin. His balls tightened painfully, almost on the brink, and he thought incoherently that it didn't seem possible that a hand on his knee and a voice in his ear would make him come, but--
"Might I tempt the gentlemen with some dessert?" The genteel voice of the waiter broke into Clark's daze.
Bruce smiled at the waiter, friendly and innocent, the hand on Clark's knee like steel. "It sounds tempting indeed, but I believe I'll be having dessert at home tonight. What do you say, Clark honey, shall we head home for some?"
Clark almost knocked the table over in his haste to get up. "Yes, that sounds wonderful...dear."
The look he flashed Bruce would probably have incinerated a lesser man, but Bruce merely grinned like a schoolboy. "Yummy," he said cheerfully as he led the way out of the restaurant, Clark trailing after, filled with aching anticipation.
He was looking forward very much to being consumed.