Music of the Spheres 1: Visitations
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Notes: "Music of the Spheres" is a series set in the combined universes of "Batman Begins" and "Superman Returns." Other stories and notes on the series here.
Rating: G
Summary: Batman stops by the Fortress of Solitude; Clark Kent visits Wayne Manor. Alpha-male territoriality ensues.
Word Count: 3245
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,
An intolerable radiance of wings. . . .
--Rupert Brooke
Bruce Wayne tried to focus on Lex Luthor's latest tirade. The topic was the same as his last tirade; indeed, the same as all his tirades: The greatness of Lex Luthor and the hypocrisy and inhumanity of Superman. Luthor flung his hands out to indicate the Metropolis skyline. How the people of this city and the world could be cozened into trusting that faithless, manipulating, scheming alien was a mystery to Luthor. Humanity needed a safeguard against him and only Luthor--and his pal Bruce Wayne, of course--were wise enough to have contingency plans.
Bruce smiled until his head ached. Next to him Kitty Kowalski filed her nails and sighed. Luthor paused dramatically in front of a bust of his own head. "Humanity deserves better than to be violated and betrayed yet again by this inhuman force!"
Luthor was a fool and a buffoon, although Bruce was beginning to suspect he was a very intelligent--and thus incredibly dangerous--buffoon. The businessman continued to deny any involvement in the recent creation of a new continent, but Bruce was more and more sure it had been his doing. But one of the most annoying things about Luthor was the way perfectly valid and reasonable opinions sounded like mad, paranoid ravings when said in Luthor's bombastic fashion.
"Gosh, Mr. Luthor," Bruce drawled--he had learned that Luthor relaxed and condescended a bit more if you said "gosh" and "golly" a lot. "You really are a genius, to see all this. I'm just glad we can work together to make humanity safer." Luthor grinned benignly at his handsome protégé and business partner and rumpled his hair.
Bruce Wayne added that and the last fourteen hair-rumplings to his mental "Crimes of Lex Luthor" list. If Bruce ever managed to get his hands on some of that green crystal--and so far the mining rig had turned up nothing--Luthor was never going to know about it.
Someone really did have to safeguard humanity, but Lex Luthor was certainly not the man to do it.
: : :
Kitty sipped her CelestialDollars coffee carefully. It was really nice of Mr. Wayne to take her out for coffee after that meeting. She had a high tolerance for Lex being fond of himself, but today even she had found it boring.
The playboy smiled at her across the table. Kitty reassured herself--this wasn't a date, it was just going out for some coffee. Nothing unreasonable there．So Lex would never need to be told about it.
"Mr. Luthor certainly seems to have a long history with that Superman character," said Mr. Wayne. Kitty stifled a sigh. Lex was clearly the winner in the obsessed-with-Superman contest, but Bruce Wayne was running a close second.
"Yeah, they go back a long way. It was Superman who got him sent to prison that first time, and even though he helped Superman against General Zod, Superman still turned on him." She knew the list of grievances by heart now.
The billionaire looked interested. "How did Luthor help him against Zod?"
"Oh, he says he helped Superman get his powers back to fight Zod." A sudden thought crossed Kitty's mind and she spoke without speaking. "Oh, I bet that's when he'd been there before!"
Bruce Wayne leaned forward. "Been where before?"
"That makes perfect sense," Kitty continued enthusiastically, half to herself. "I mean, he really looked like he'd been there before, he seemed to know the place, and then when I asked him he--"
"Ms. Kowalski. Kitty." Bruce Wayne smiled warmly and she felt herself blush. "Been where before?"
"Up at Superman's fortress, in the Arctic. The big crystal place." Kitty clapped her hand over her mouth. She had said too much, she knew it from the sudden leap of interest in the playboy's eyes. "Oh dear, oh dear, please forget I said that." For a moment Kitty felt oddly afraid.
Bruce Wayne smiled at her again. "Forget you said what, Kitty? Anyway, whatever it is I've forgotten you said, I'm sure it wasn't important."
She sighed and sipped her double mocha frappachino. "I just don't want him to get hurt again," she said softly, looking off at the Metropolis skyline.
"Gosh, I'd never hurt Mr. Luthor. We're working together, after all."
Kitty Kowalski blinked at Bruce Wayne. "Huh?"
: : :
The seaplane landed, sending up plumes of ice-clear water on either side. The black suit was not well-insulated, and Batman was shivering a bit. Breaking into Luthor's office and finding maps to this place had been the easy part compared to finding efficient transportation to such an isolated place. He walked across a plain of snow, a black mote in a vast field of blank and dizzy whiteness.
When he walked into the massive crystal structure, he knew it had been worth all the effort. It was like walking into the heart of the Kryptonian--soaring, awe-inspiring, and empty. It had fallen into disrepair in the last five years, but Batman could see signs of rebuilding here and there. He knelt and picked up a clear, glittering fragment, and as he stood up the sun came out from behind a cloud and the structure burst into cold flame around him.
He stood in the middle of the structure, the crystals catching the low, late fall sunlight and magnifying the beams into a bewildering web of sunlight on crystal. Rainbow shards of light glowed around him in the vast silence. He suddenly felt trapped, like a fly in amber. Would he go back to find that years had passed in Gotham while he stood here, dazzled with the light? Why had he even come here? To find something to help him understand...but what could a human understand of a place like this?
"What are you doing here?" A voice like a clarion, clouded with cold fury, snapped him out of his reverie. Superman darted down from the roof like a bird to land in front of Batman. Beams of light bent around him dizzyingly. "Get out. Get out of my home."
"It's...it's beautiful," he heard himself say, his voice a little too high.
Superman turned his back on him, floated over to what looked like a computer console made entirely of crystals. "It used to be more beautiful. This is what you and your kind have left to me."
Batman struggled to pitch his voice to the proper register again. "Is this where you grew up? All alone here?"
Superman didn't answer him. The Kryptonian shot him a laser-bright look. "Your heartbeat. It's different than the last time we talked."
Batman felt on surer ground now and he laughed softly. "Biofeedback is a wonderful thing, Superman."
A blurring motion and the alien was right in front of him. "It's Kal-el. My name is Kal-el. Kal, of the House of El." He motioned back at the console, the crystal sheets hanging in the air. "My mother and my father--they talked to me here. They taught me. They died before I ever knew them, and the voices and images these crystals gave me were all I had left of them. And now they're gone, dead and lost twice over, thanks to people like you, breaking in to see what you can scavenge for your own ends." Batman started to interrupt, to defend himself somehow, but Superman--Kal--continued, his voice rising. "I'll never hear my parents' voices again!" All the commanding resonance was stripped from the alien voice, leaving only a raw anguish that struck Batman mute. He stood there still gripping the crystal he had picked up, a broken fragment of lost memory.
There was a long silence. Kal struggled to maintain his composure. He didn't want to look weak in front of the man who was clearly setting himself up as Superman's enemy. Yet another enemy.
When Batman finally spoke his voice was low and rough, but softer than before. "I'm sorry for your loss."
Kal laughed as harshly as he could manage with that sudden surge of grief still choking him. "Did you come all the way here just to give me your condolences?"
"I wanted to understand you better."
It was galling, how much he wanted to believe the dark figure in front of him. "Do you even think that's possible?" He tried to make it a sneer and not an honest question.
Not an important question.
Batman knelt and very gently put the crystal back on the icy ground. "I didn't." Then he turned and made his way out of the Fortress, his black figure standing out against the piercing alien light around him.
Some time later, Superman heard the seaplane's motors start up. He was alone again at the top of the world. The broken, darkened crystals sang quietly to him, but it wasn't enough.
: : :
Bruce Wayne woke up from a groggy, jetlagged sleep full of crystalline light to the mundane sunlight of a fall morning in Gotham. He groaned and pulled the blankets over his face as Alfred put a breakfast tray in front of him. "The construction workers won't be here until one o'clock today, sir. Might I suggest that this would be a good time to finally get around to filling in that old well? Wouldn't do to have people falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland on top of the Dark Knight, after all."
Bruce emerged from the blankets to take a bite of toast. "More like Through the Looking Glass, I suppose." He sighed.
"Well, at least you're used to believing six impossible things before breakfast by now, sir."
A few hours later, Clark Kent paused a moment before the massive stone gates of Wayne Manor. "Hello?" he called, a bit hesitantly. No answer. He paused a moment longer, then ventured onto the grounds. He didn't feel exactly comfortable walking in like this, but then he remembered Luthor's arm around Bruce Wayne's shoulders, grimaced, and kept going.
The burned-out hulk of Wayne Manor loomed on the hill ahead of him. Even gutted, the building had a solidity, a sense of presence, that was impossible to ignore. Clark paused to take in the creamy beige walls streaked with soot and bathed in sunlight. There were places he had seen on Earth that somehow felt morereal, more alive than others. Even in ruins, Wayne Manor was one of those places.
What a shame its heir wasn't more worthy of it.
He heard hammering noises and made his way in that direction. He rounded a corner to find playboy Bruce Wayne pulling apart the stone wall of an old well. He was wearing a black sweatshirt and heavy pants stained with dust and paint. His soft hands were clad in work gloves as he wrenched at a recalcitrant rock. Clark cleared his throat.
Wayne turned around and glared at him. "You." Dark blue eyes like a blow, under a shock of black hair. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"The gate was open."
"That doesn't mean it's all right to just go tramping onto private property! I ought to call the police and have you arrested." He turned his attention back to the well as though the reporter was beneath his notice.
"You're a pretty territorial man. You wouldn't let investigators onto the property after the fire, either."
Wayne got the stubborn rock clear, put it on the ground, and stalked over to Clark, dusting his hands off so powdered rock flew everywhere. He stood close enough that even merely human senses could have caught the scent of his sweat, eyes narrowed in his handsome face. "There was nothing to investigate."
"Oh, really? How convenient." And there it was, hanging in the air between them, the accusation all Gotham whispered about: had the spoiled Wayne scion burned his house down by accident, or had it been deliberate?
Bruce Wayne's face tightened in pain or a convincing imitation of it. "I did not burn down my parents house! You've done your research on me, you know this house was all I had left of my parents--" The warm, sophisticated voice cracked, "Destroy it? I'd rather have cut off my own hands!" He spread his hands in the heavy gloves out before him as if in appeal.
Clark felt a sudden desire to leave the man in peace, but he fought the impulse. "If your parents' memory means so much to you, then why are you working with Luthor? Don't tell me you don't know what kind of man he is!" That level of naivete and blindness had seemed possible in the vapid Bruce Wayne he had met at the party, but this man with dirt smudging his high cheekbones and sweat dampening his hair was a very different thing. This man either knew precisely what Luthor was and admired that, or-- "You can't imagine your parents have approved of your connecting their name with Luthor's."
Bruce glared at the reporter, standing there with his notebook and that prim look on his face. Glaring was easier than showing how close Kent's words had hit to the mark. He gestured peremptorily to Alfred, who had managed to materialize at some point in the conversation. "Alfred, please see Mr. Kent out. He seems to have overstayed his non-existent welcome."
If looks could kill, Bruce had no doubt he'd be in pieces on the ground from the glower the reporter shot at him. But the other man allowed Alfred to gently steer him away.
Bruce attacked the low stone wall with a vengeance. Why had he shown so much of himself to that damned reporter? He was tired, but that wasn't reason enough. He had no reason to trust the man, and many reasons not to. He and Luthor were both from Metropolis, after all. Kent said he was distrustful of Luthor, so why was he spending so much time focusing on Bruce Wayne? If Luthor were starting to be suspicious of his business partner, is would make sense to have someone investigate him further, poke around the Manor, see if he could dig up some dirt. Bruce felt cold. It seemed all too plausible.
And yet--Kent's tone when he spoke Luthor's name--his disgust and repulsion had been almost palpable. Something had rung, resonant as a bell, in his voice. Something that struck an answering resonance in Bruce Wayne. He snarled at the stones of the well in front of him which refused to give way.
Alfred's footsteps came up behind him, quicker than his usual pace. "Is he gone?"
"Actually, sir, he has asked me to convey his apologies. He feels his words were... unduly accusatory and confrontational."
Bruce raised his eyebrows. "Alfred. What did you say to him?"
The butler met his gaze squarely. "Nothing that you shouldn't have said youself, sir." The butler eyed him. "He seemed sincere."
People who could sincerely apologize were...rare. "Alfred, could you go back and tell him that I accept his apology and--" He broke off as the butler bent over and rested his hands on his knees in probably-unfeigned exhaustion.
"With all due respect, Master Wayne, I'm not a bloody carrier pigeon. If you want to accept his apology, I suggest you go do it in person. You'll have to run if you want to catch him before he leaves the grounds. Besides, it'll do you good. The exercise, I mean."
Bruce Wayne flashed Alfred a quick grin and broke into a run.
He caught up with the reporter at the gates to the Manor. Kent turned as Bruce approached him, his face still serious. "Mr. Wayne, I did want to apologize. Mr. Pennyworth...he..." The reporter's clear skin turned rather pink. "He gave me rather a dressing-down."
Bruce couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head. "Alfred can be very vociferous in my defense. He practically raised me all by himself and he takes slights to the family honor very seriously."
Kent nodded solemnly. "As well he should."
There was a pause that should have been awkward, but felt more...appraising. Bruce broke it almost reluctantly. "What do you have on Luthor?"
"What?"
"You wouldn't dislike him so much if you didn't have extra information on him. I'd...like to know what it is." He watched the reporter chew on his lower lip a moment, clearly tempted. "I...could potentially get some information about him you would find useful as well. A trade, of sorts." If Kent was working for Luthor Bruce was in trouble now, but he had some ideas for how he could get around that too.
Clark Kent pushed his glasses up on his nose, squinting. "I'd need a little time to get my information in order. Maybe we could discuss this tomorrow on more neutral ground...over dinner, maybe?"
Bruce arched an eyebrow coyly. "Why, Mr. Kent, are you inviting me on a date?"
The reporter's clear skin flushed dark red. "What? I mean, no! Not that--no, no, I'm sorry--"
"I'm just kidding, Kent, relax." Memo to self: skip the teasing flirtation with humorless reporters. "I know just the place."
Kent left, still blushing, and Bruce headed back to his work.
He caught himself whistling absent-mindedly a few times as he broke down the wall, and had to sternly remind himself that this was serious work.
: : :
Late that evening, Superman landed in a Gotham alley and Clark Kent walked out of it, returning to the rather seedy hotel Perry White had put him up in while he investigated WayneCorp's latest project. He took the elevator to the fifth floor and entered his room, feeling tired. Flying back and forth from Gotham to Metropolis every night wasn't exactly physically wearying, but it was an extra strain.
He sorted his notes, frowning over the ones he had taken at Wayne Manor earlier. He typed a few paragraphs on his laptop, then deleted them. Typed almost exactly the same paragraphs again. It was tempting to try and speed-type, but since he had come back he had been trying to live, when he was Clark Kent, as humanly as possible, even in private. No heating up his coffee with heat vision, no chores at superspeed. If he was ever going to make human connections, he had to remember what it was like to live as one.
He stared at the two paragraphs on his screen about playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne. Human connections. Closed the window in irritation and read a book for a while instead, a recap of Middle Eastern politics over the last five years. He forced himself to read at a normal human pace, carefully, slowly, until he caught himself nodding off. Time for bed, Clark. He changed into pyjamas in the bathroom--always change in the room without windows if you have the costume on--snapped off the light, and made his way to the bed, trying to focus on the usual sounds of traffic and city life outside his window. Go to sleep, Clark.
If Clark Kent had known what he was listening for over the white noise hum of Gotham, he might have been able to pick out the steady, nearly-silent whir of a camera nestled in the smoke detector. But he didn't know what to listen for, so the camera remained where it had been put a few hours ago, its electronic eye watching over the nosy, intriguing reporter through the night, like a guardian angel.
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Notes: "Music of the Spheres" is a series set in the combined universes of "Batman Begins" and "Superman Returns." Other stories and notes on the series here.
Rating: G
Summary: Batman stops by the Fortress of Solitude; Clark Kent visits Wayne Manor. Alpha-male territoriality ensues.
Word Count: 3245
There is a rumour and a radiance of wings above my head,
An intolerable radiance of wings. . . .
--Rupert Brooke
Bruce Wayne tried to focus on Lex Luthor's latest tirade. The topic was the same as his last tirade; indeed, the same as all his tirades: The greatness of Lex Luthor and the hypocrisy and inhumanity of Superman. Luthor flung his hands out to indicate the Metropolis skyline. How the people of this city and the world could be cozened into trusting that faithless, manipulating, scheming alien was a mystery to Luthor. Humanity needed a safeguard against him and only Luthor--and his pal Bruce Wayne, of course--were wise enough to have contingency plans.
Bruce smiled until his head ached. Next to him Kitty Kowalski filed her nails and sighed. Luthor paused dramatically in front of a bust of his own head. "Humanity deserves better than to be violated and betrayed yet again by this inhuman force!"
Luthor was a fool and a buffoon, although Bruce was beginning to suspect he was a very intelligent--and thus incredibly dangerous--buffoon. The businessman continued to deny any involvement in the recent creation of a new continent, but Bruce was more and more sure it had been his doing. But one of the most annoying things about Luthor was the way perfectly valid and reasonable opinions sounded like mad, paranoid ravings when said in Luthor's bombastic fashion.
"Gosh, Mr. Luthor," Bruce drawled--he had learned that Luthor relaxed and condescended a bit more if you said "gosh" and "golly" a lot. "You really are a genius, to see all this. I'm just glad we can work together to make humanity safer." Luthor grinned benignly at his handsome protégé and business partner and rumpled his hair.
Bruce Wayne added that and the last fourteen hair-rumplings to his mental "Crimes of Lex Luthor" list. If Bruce ever managed to get his hands on some of that green crystal--and so far the mining rig had turned up nothing--Luthor was never going to know about it.
Someone really did have to safeguard humanity, but Lex Luthor was certainly not the man to do it.
: : :
Kitty sipped her CelestialDollars coffee carefully. It was really nice of Mr. Wayne to take her out for coffee after that meeting. She had a high tolerance for Lex being fond of himself, but today even she had found it boring.
The playboy smiled at her across the table. Kitty reassured herself--this wasn't a date, it was just going out for some coffee. Nothing unreasonable there．So Lex would never need to be told about it.
"Mr. Luthor certainly seems to have a long history with that Superman character," said Mr. Wayne. Kitty stifled a sigh. Lex was clearly the winner in the obsessed-with-Superman contest, but Bruce Wayne was running a close second.
"Yeah, they go back a long way. It was Superman who got him sent to prison that first time, and even though he helped Superman against General Zod, Superman still turned on him." She knew the list of grievances by heart now.
The billionaire looked interested. "How did Luthor help him against Zod?"
"Oh, he says he helped Superman get his powers back to fight Zod." A sudden thought crossed Kitty's mind and she spoke without speaking. "Oh, I bet that's when he'd been there before!"
Bruce Wayne leaned forward. "Been where before?"
"That makes perfect sense," Kitty continued enthusiastically, half to herself. "I mean, he really looked like he'd been there before, he seemed to know the place, and then when I asked him he--"
"Ms. Kowalski. Kitty." Bruce Wayne smiled warmly and she felt herself blush. "Been where before?"
"Up at Superman's fortress, in the Arctic. The big crystal place." Kitty clapped her hand over her mouth. She had said too much, she knew it from the sudden leap of interest in the playboy's eyes. "Oh dear, oh dear, please forget I said that." For a moment Kitty felt oddly afraid.
Bruce Wayne smiled at her again. "Forget you said what, Kitty? Anyway, whatever it is I've forgotten you said, I'm sure it wasn't important."
She sighed and sipped her double mocha frappachino. "I just don't want him to get hurt again," she said softly, looking off at the Metropolis skyline.
"Gosh, I'd never hurt Mr. Luthor. We're working together, after all."
Kitty Kowalski blinked at Bruce Wayne. "Huh?"
: : :
The seaplane landed, sending up plumes of ice-clear water on either side. The black suit was not well-insulated, and Batman was shivering a bit. Breaking into Luthor's office and finding maps to this place had been the easy part compared to finding efficient transportation to such an isolated place. He walked across a plain of snow, a black mote in a vast field of blank and dizzy whiteness.
When he walked into the massive crystal structure, he knew it had been worth all the effort. It was like walking into the heart of the Kryptonian--soaring, awe-inspiring, and empty. It had fallen into disrepair in the last five years, but Batman could see signs of rebuilding here and there. He knelt and picked up a clear, glittering fragment, and as he stood up the sun came out from behind a cloud and the structure burst into cold flame around him.
He stood in the middle of the structure, the crystals catching the low, late fall sunlight and magnifying the beams into a bewildering web of sunlight on crystal. Rainbow shards of light glowed around him in the vast silence. He suddenly felt trapped, like a fly in amber. Would he go back to find that years had passed in Gotham while he stood here, dazzled with the light? Why had he even come here? To find something to help him understand...but what could a human understand of a place like this?
"What are you doing here?" A voice like a clarion, clouded with cold fury, snapped him out of his reverie. Superman darted down from the roof like a bird to land in front of Batman. Beams of light bent around him dizzyingly. "Get out. Get out of my home."
"It's...it's beautiful," he heard himself say, his voice a little too high.
Superman turned his back on him, floated over to what looked like a computer console made entirely of crystals. "It used to be more beautiful. This is what you and your kind have left to me."
Batman struggled to pitch his voice to the proper register again. "Is this where you grew up? All alone here?"
Superman didn't answer him. The Kryptonian shot him a laser-bright look. "Your heartbeat. It's different than the last time we talked."
Batman felt on surer ground now and he laughed softly. "Biofeedback is a wonderful thing, Superman."
A blurring motion and the alien was right in front of him. "It's Kal-el. My name is Kal-el. Kal, of the House of El." He motioned back at the console, the crystal sheets hanging in the air. "My mother and my father--they talked to me here. They taught me. They died before I ever knew them, and the voices and images these crystals gave me were all I had left of them. And now they're gone, dead and lost twice over, thanks to people like you, breaking in to see what you can scavenge for your own ends." Batman started to interrupt, to defend himself somehow, but Superman--Kal--continued, his voice rising. "I'll never hear my parents' voices again!" All the commanding resonance was stripped from the alien voice, leaving only a raw anguish that struck Batman mute. He stood there still gripping the crystal he had picked up, a broken fragment of lost memory.
There was a long silence. Kal struggled to maintain his composure. He didn't want to look weak in front of the man who was clearly setting himself up as Superman's enemy. Yet another enemy.
When Batman finally spoke his voice was low and rough, but softer than before. "I'm sorry for your loss."
Kal laughed as harshly as he could manage with that sudden surge of grief still choking him. "Did you come all the way here just to give me your condolences?"
"I wanted to understand you better."
It was galling, how much he wanted to believe the dark figure in front of him. "Do you even think that's possible?" He tried to make it a sneer and not an honest question.
Not an important question.
Batman knelt and very gently put the crystal back on the icy ground. "I didn't." Then he turned and made his way out of the Fortress, his black figure standing out against the piercing alien light around him.
Some time later, Superman heard the seaplane's motors start up. He was alone again at the top of the world. The broken, darkened crystals sang quietly to him, but it wasn't enough.
: : :
Bruce Wayne woke up from a groggy, jetlagged sleep full of crystalline light to the mundane sunlight of a fall morning in Gotham. He groaned and pulled the blankets over his face as Alfred put a breakfast tray in front of him. "The construction workers won't be here until one o'clock today, sir. Might I suggest that this would be a good time to finally get around to filling in that old well? Wouldn't do to have people falling down the rabbit hole into Wonderland on top of the Dark Knight, after all."
Bruce emerged from the blankets to take a bite of toast. "More like Through the Looking Glass, I suppose." He sighed.
"Well, at least you're used to believing six impossible things before breakfast by now, sir."
A few hours later, Clark Kent paused a moment before the massive stone gates of Wayne Manor. "Hello?" he called, a bit hesitantly. No answer. He paused a moment longer, then ventured onto the grounds. He didn't feel exactly comfortable walking in like this, but then he remembered Luthor's arm around Bruce Wayne's shoulders, grimaced, and kept going.
The burned-out hulk of Wayne Manor loomed on the hill ahead of him. Even gutted, the building had a solidity, a sense of presence, that was impossible to ignore. Clark paused to take in the creamy beige walls streaked with soot and bathed in sunlight. There were places he had seen on Earth that somehow felt morereal, more alive than others. Even in ruins, Wayne Manor was one of those places.
What a shame its heir wasn't more worthy of it.
He heard hammering noises and made his way in that direction. He rounded a corner to find playboy Bruce Wayne pulling apart the stone wall of an old well. He was wearing a black sweatshirt and heavy pants stained with dust and paint. His soft hands were clad in work gloves as he wrenched at a recalcitrant rock. Clark cleared his throat.
Wayne turned around and glared at him. "You." Dark blue eyes like a blow, under a shock of black hair. "What the hell are you doing here?"
"The gate was open."
"That doesn't mean it's all right to just go tramping onto private property! I ought to call the police and have you arrested." He turned his attention back to the well as though the reporter was beneath his notice.
"You're a pretty territorial man. You wouldn't let investigators onto the property after the fire, either."
Wayne got the stubborn rock clear, put it on the ground, and stalked over to Clark, dusting his hands off so powdered rock flew everywhere. He stood close enough that even merely human senses could have caught the scent of his sweat, eyes narrowed in his handsome face. "There was nothing to investigate."
"Oh, really? How convenient." And there it was, hanging in the air between them, the accusation all Gotham whispered about: had the spoiled Wayne scion burned his house down by accident, or had it been deliberate?
Bruce Wayne's face tightened in pain or a convincing imitation of it. "I did not burn down my parents house! You've done your research on me, you know this house was all I had left of my parents--" The warm, sophisticated voice cracked, "Destroy it? I'd rather have cut off my own hands!" He spread his hands in the heavy gloves out before him as if in appeal.
Clark felt a sudden desire to leave the man in peace, but he fought the impulse. "If your parents' memory means so much to you, then why are you working with Luthor? Don't tell me you don't know what kind of man he is!" That level of naivete and blindness had seemed possible in the vapid Bruce Wayne he had met at the party, but this man with dirt smudging his high cheekbones and sweat dampening his hair was a very different thing. This man either knew precisely what Luthor was and admired that, or-- "You can't imagine your parents have approved of your connecting their name with Luthor's."
Bruce glared at the reporter, standing there with his notebook and that prim look on his face. Glaring was easier than showing how close Kent's words had hit to the mark. He gestured peremptorily to Alfred, who had managed to materialize at some point in the conversation. "Alfred, please see Mr. Kent out. He seems to have overstayed his non-existent welcome."
If looks could kill, Bruce had no doubt he'd be in pieces on the ground from the glower the reporter shot at him. But the other man allowed Alfred to gently steer him away.
Bruce attacked the low stone wall with a vengeance. Why had he shown so much of himself to that damned reporter? He was tired, but that wasn't reason enough. He had no reason to trust the man, and many reasons not to. He and Luthor were both from Metropolis, after all. Kent said he was distrustful of Luthor, so why was he spending so much time focusing on Bruce Wayne? If Luthor were starting to be suspicious of his business partner, is would make sense to have someone investigate him further, poke around the Manor, see if he could dig up some dirt. Bruce felt cold. It seemed all too plausible.
And yet--Kent's tone when he spoke Luthor's name--his disgust and repulsion had been almost palpable. Something had rung, resonant as a bell, in his voice. Something that struck an answering resonance in Bruce Wayne. He snarled at the stones of the well in front of him which refused to give way.
Alfred's footsteps came up behind him, quicker than his usual pace. "Is he gone?"
"Actually, sir, he has asked me to convey his apologies. He feels his words were... unduly accusatory and confrontational."
Bruce raised his eyebrows. "Alfred. What did you say to him?"
The butler met his gaze squarely. "Nothing that you shouldn't have said youself, sir." The butler eyed him. "He seemed sincere."
People who could sincerely apologize were...rare. "Alfred, could you go back and tell him that I accept his apology and--" He broke off as the butler bent over and rested his hands on his knees in probably-unfeigned exhaustion.
"With all due respect, Master Wayne, I'm not a bloody carrier pigeon. If you want to accept his apology, I suggest you go do it in person. You'll have to run if you want to catch him before he leaves the grounds. Besides, it'll do you good. The exercise, I mean."
Bruce Wayne flashed Alfred a quick grin and broke into a run.
He caught up with the reporter at the gates to the Manor. Kent turned as Bruce approached him, his face still serious. "Mr. Wayne, I did want to apologize. Mr. Pennyworth...he..." The reporter's clear skin turned rather pink. "He gave me rather a dressing-down."
Bruce couldn't help but laugh. "I'm sorry," he said, shaking his head. "Alfred can be very vociferous in my defense. He practically raised me all by himself and he takes slights to the family honor very seriously."
Kent nodded solemnly. "As well he should."
There was a pause that should have been awkward, but felt more...appraising. Bruce broke it almost reluctantly. "What do you have on Luthor?"
"What?"
"You wouldn't dislike him so much if you didn't have extra information on him. I'd...like to know what it is." He watched the reporter chew on his lower lip a moment, clearly tempted. "I...could potentially get some information about him you would find useful as well. A trade, of sorts." If Kent was working for Luthor Bruce was in trouble now, but he had some ideas for how he could get around that too.
Clark Kent pushed his glasses up on his nose, squinting. "I'd need a little time to get my information in order. Maybe we could discuss this tomorrow on more neutral ground...over dinner, maybe?"
Bruce arched an eyebrow coyly. "Why, Mr. Kent, are you inviting me on a date?"
The reporter's clear skin flushed dark red. "What? I mean, no! Not that--no, no, I'm sorry--"
"I'm just kidding, Kent, relax." Memo to self: skip the teasing flirtation with humorless reporters. "I know just the place."
Kent left, still blushing, and Bruce headed back to his work.
He caught himself whistling absent-mindedly a few times as he broke down the wall, and had to sternly remind himself that this was serious work.
: : :
Late that evening, Superman landed in a Gotham alley and Clark Kent walked out of it, returning to the rather seedy hotel Perry White had put him up in while he investigated WayneCorp's latest project. He took the elevator to the fifth floor and entered his room, feeling tired. Flying back and forth from Gotham to Metropolis every night wasn't exactly physically wearying, but it was an extra strain.
He sorted his notes, frowning over the ones he had taken at Wayne Manor earlier. He typed a few paragraphs on his laptop, then deleted them. Typed almost exactly the same paragraphs again. It was tempting to try and speed-type, but since he had come back he had been trying to live, when he was Clark Kent, as humanly as possible, even in private. No heating up his coffee with heat vision, no chores at superspeed. If he was ever going to make human connections, he had to remember what it was like to live as one.
He stared at the two paragraphs on his screen about playboy billionaire Bruce Wayne. Human connections. Closed the window in irritation and read a book for a while instead, a recap of Middle Eastern politics over the last five years. He forced himself to read at a normal human pace, carefully, slowly, until he caught himself nodding off. Time for bed, Clark. He changed into pyjamas in the bathroom--always change in the room without windows if you have the costume on--snapped off the light, and made his way to the bed, trying to focus on the usual sounds of traffic and city life outside his window. Go to sleep, Clark.
If Clark Kent had known what he was listening for over the white noise hum of Gotham, he might have been able to pick out the steady, nearly-silent whir of a camera nestled in the smoke detector. But he didn't know what to listen for, so the camera remained where it had been put a few hours ago, its electronic eye watching over the nosy, intriguing reporter through the night, like a guardian angel.