FIC: The Man Who Falls (1/6)
Title: The Man Who Falls (1/6)
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Alfred Pennyworth
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: The Dark Knight/Superman Returns crossover; a continuation of Leap of Faith.
Word Count: 2900Summary: Clark Kent arrives in Gotham after the events of The Dark Knight and adds up the facts surrounding Bruce Wayne and Batman. Unfortunately, he reaches all the wrong conclusions.
Notes: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, Prompt F8: Superman strongly disapproves of Batman's methods. Clark Kent, on the other hand, has a very obvious (and not quite so secret) crush on Bruce Wayne. What happens when Clark suddenly finds out that Bruce is also Batman?
Clark Kent glared out at the sullen skyline as he stripped his soot-stained and smoke-filled clothes off and threw them on the narrow hotel bed. Gotham. The name was almost a curse in his mind.
He'd come here to write a story about the city rebuilding, six months after the Joker's final vicious rampage. He suspected he had been sent here by Perry White as punishment for taking five years off, supposedly to write a novel--which had never materialized, of course.
Gotham was penance enough for anyone.
He'd taken the opportunity to try and track down the elusive, murderous vigilante Batman, but at every turn he had been thwarted. Some argued Batman was a rogue Kryptonian, and despite seeing his broken and empty homeworld in person recently, Clark could almost believe it. Not a glimpse, not a whisper. Until tonight.
Clark turned the shower as hot as it could go and stepped in, lavishing great gouts of soap on himself in an attempt to clean the acrid stink from his skin. The water was a silken rush around him, and he remembered the whisper of Batman's dark cape as he'd sailed through the inferno the Mob had created of the Gotham Public Library. Carrying a tiny bundle to safety: Clark heard again the thin wail of a baby under the roar of the flames. There and gone like a shadow before Clark could do a thing.
Of course, the irony was that Clark no longer felt any need to confront Batman about his "crimes." The rest of the world was convinced that Batman was responsible for the kidnapping of Commissioner Gordon's family, the deaths of Sal Maroni, Harvey Dent, and two police officers, and numberless crimes of vengeance since that terrible night.
But Clark Kent, alone in the world, was both a well-trained investigative reporter and a Kryptonian.
He'd put enough evidence together to convince himself that Batman was innocent of the crimes with which he was charged. He'd been ready to write his scoop for the Planet, the story that would break the case wide open.
Clark plunged his head under the hot water, shaking it angrily. He'd been ready.
And then Bruce Wayne had happened.
: : :
Clark Kent and Superman had met Bruce Wayne within minutes of each other.
Superman was supposed to be at a charity party, presenting a check from the Metropolis Business Association to Gotham to help with the rebuilding of Gotham Memorial Hospital. He was running late, however, because Clark Kent wanted to watch the prominent citizens of Gotham in action without standing out like cockatoo in a flock of doves. Standing in a corner, he had held his untouched martini and kept on eye on everyone unaccosted.
Until, that was, Martin Mayne caught sight of him.
"Kent!" the editor of the Gotham Gazette cried, dragging a man in an impeccable suit and perfect hair toward him. "You simply must talk to Mr. Wayne. Clark Kent is writing a story about Gotham for the Daily Planet," he explained to the man on his arm, who seemed to be trying to extricate himself politely. At Mayne's words, though, he stopped and raised an eyebrow that implied faint interest. "Bruce Wayne, meet Clark Kent."
Clark's first impression of Bruce Wayne was that of exhaustion. There were dark circles under his eyes and an unhealthy look to his skin that told of long nights indulging in unwise behavior. Then Wayne smiled, and Clark could see why the man would be popular at parties or, well, anywhere. It was a startlingly sweet smile, almost shy, slightly ingratiating. You and I, we're different from the others, the smile seemed to say.
Clark was immediately even more on his guard. Almost nothing good ever came of people who smiled like that, in his experience. "It's a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Wayne. I've read a great deal about you."
"It isn't all true, you know," said Wayne with a gleam.
"Then you know Brucie's family goes back hundreds of years in Gotham," Mayne said. "I'm sure if you have any questions about the city, he can help you." There was a sly edge to his smile as he sidled away; based on what Clark had read about Bruce Wayne he strongly suspected that Mayne was attempting to torment him by saddling him with a glib society bore.
Of course, it could also be that he was attempting to punish Wayne by roping him into a conversation with a dull-as-dirt farm boy turned reporter.
"You're writing a story about Gotham?" Wayne asked politely, his eyes scanning the room behind Clark for more interesting conversational possibilities.
"Yes, about the city's latest reconstruction efforts."
"I see, I see." Wayne looked like he was stifling a yawn. "I do hope it won't be another one of those tedious Metropolis stories about how Gotham welters in hopelessness and suffering. You could try a new, daring angle and focus on how the people of Gotham refuse to cower under the shadow of the big bad Bat. But that might be too much to ask for from our shiny sister city."
Clark felt his eyes narrow slightly in annoyance--the more so because the man had a point, and the Planet was by no means immune to the lure of such stories. "Actually, I was focusing on the delays in rebuilding Gotham memorial." And then for some reason--maybe only to see if the man were actually listening--he added, "Besides which, I'm not sure Batman actually committed those murders."
Bruce Wayne's gaze sharpened suddenly, snapping to focus on Clark's face. "What?" For an instant, Clark felt like a butterfly on a collector's pin, analyzed and dissected. Then the gimlet look softened somewhat, and Wayne smiled, though not as pleasantly as before. "What an odd idea." There was strain behind those eyes, carefully covered. "Do tell me more."
Some intuition prompted Clark to back off, some sense of a crevasse opening up beneath them. "Oh, it's just a hunch. Probably nothing will come of it. I'm much more interested in the hospital rebuilding efforts."
Wayne's shoulders relaxed a fraction. "What would you like to know about it? The Wayne Foundation is heavily involved--though of course, I don't know any of the mundane details, I have people to handle those." His smile this time was back to its previous dazzling glory, empty as a winter sky. Clark asked him a few simple questions and Wayne chattered about funding and civic responsibility, rote phrases with no meaning. "I'd give the last drop of my heart's blood for my city" and so on. His superficiality was so complete that Clark could almost believe he'd imagined that one piercing look.
Clark listened to him rattle on about responsibility and devotion to one's home town for a while, telling stories about the good common folk of Gotham and their heroic stories, how they still can find hope in the midst of the pall of fear the Batman spread. "Just the other day I was talking with my grocer--" Clark didn't believe for a moment Bruce Wayne had ever stepped into an actual supermarket, "--and he was saying how the memory of Harvey Dent keeps him going in these dark times. You put that in your story, Mr. Metropolis," he said, leaning forward. "You write about heroism instead of fear, and I'll believe your paper is worth more than the stuff it's printed on."
A gaggle of young women sighed appreciatively from nearby. "Oh Brucie," one cooed, "You're so sexy when you're civic-minded."
Grinning, Wayne seized her by a lily-white hand, presenting her to Clark. "Like this jewel of Gotham," he announced. "This heroic, brave young woman refuses to let fear rule her life. Right, my dear?" he said, kissing her hand.
Clark extricated himself from what was quickly becoming a flirtatious situation, wondering if Bruce Wayne used civic duty for all his pick-up lines. Wayne ignored his departure, which was well-timed as Superman was due to appear at the gathering in just a few minutes.
A quick costume change and Superman was back at the party, handing a huge rectangle of a check to Lucius Fox. "The people of Metropolis recognize the great achievements of their sister-city of Gotham," he intoned, then had to stifle a wincing laugh as he realized the platitudes were extremely similar to those he had just heard Bruce Wayne spouting. He saw Wayne in the audience, applauding politely, his eyes on Fox rather than Superman.
The rest of the evening was the usual grind of small talk and fending off flirtatious advances from various people. Apparently there was something deeply appealing about the possibility of "corrupting" a supposed stainless paragon like Superman.
It had been a long five years in space, and Superman wasn't a saint, but the avaricious glint in the eyes of the men and women at the party tended to dampen any potential ardor.
Superman expected that Bruce Wayne would surely be one of the people who decided to hang on the Man of Steel's every word, but instead Wayne was always on the opposite side of the room, somehow. It wasn't that he was ignoring Superman, he was just...never quite there.
It was almost a relief when Superman heard an explosion in Metropolis and had an excuse to shake off the vapid conversation for a moment. After twenty minutes spent getting everyone in the building to safety and putting out the fire, he was flying back to Gotham, ready to return to a pleasantly boring evening.
As he descended from the clouds, he looked down toward Wayne Tower, looking for an unobtrusive veranda to land on. All of them seemed to have groups giggling or couples embracing--until he spotted one with a lone figure on it.
Superman was just about to drift downward when he realized it was Bruce Wayne.
Wayne was holding his champagne glass in one hand, the other one in his pocket. He was looking down at Gotham, the wind stirring his hair. Clark could see his face: the empty smile was gone, replaced by a kind of...grim satisfaction. A yearning.
As Superman watched, Bruce Wayne raised his glass and toasted the fitful lights of Gotham.
Clark felt suddenly like he was spying on something more intimate than the couples making out in the shadows. Chagrined, he descended quickly from the sky and landed lightly on the veranda in front of Wayne. Wayne took a step back, his eyebrows rising. "Superman," he said, his voice flatter than Clark had heard it before.
"Forgive the intrusion," Superman said, nodding in the friendly but abstracted way he had cultivated so carefully.
"You're not intruding." The cheerful smile was back again; Wayne took a sip from his glass. "Is everything okay?"
"A gas explosion in Metropolis. No lives were lost."
"Metropolis is lucky to have you back again. If only we had a hero like you in Gotham," Wayne said. His words were light, complimentary, careless--but he was looking out over the city once more, and Superman suddenly found himself taking a step forward, putting a hand out as if to prevent, to protect. He stopped, feeling foolish. Bruce Wayne was nowhere near the edge. He wasn't at any risk.
So why had Superman felt like he was in danger of falling?
The shower sputtered and ran cold for a second, and Clark realized he was still standing in the shower, his fists resting against the tile as if bracing himself against it. He grimaced angrily at himself, at his total failure in Gotham. He'd put together the pieces and figured out Batman was innocent--only to have Perry inform him that the new owner of the Daily Planet had axed it.
When Clark had found out that new owner was Bruce Wayne, he had come back to Gotham in a seething mix of rage and bewilderment, only to find that the playboy billionaire was not returning any of his calls. And then, of all the careless moves--!
Clark would have pounded his fists against the tile except he was afraid of breaking through the wall. Tonight he'd cornered Wayne's butler to try and get some answers, but instead had ended up revealing he was Superman. The secret only his mother knew, the knowledge he had torn away from Lois--given away to Bruce Wayne's butler.
Feeling vaguely guilty about the wasted water, Clark finally turned off the rushing shower and toweled off, going back over the night's events. Somehow he believed Alfred Pennyworth when he said he wouldn't tell his employer about Clark's secret, but he didn't know why. Clark had rarely met someone who inspired such quick trust. Pennyworth simply felt like a man with whom a secret was safe.
Clark found himself wondering what secrets Bruce Wayne trusted him with.
: : :
"I saw him tonight. In the library."
Alfred Pennyworth paused in his mending of a black cape at the grated statement. It had sounded accusatory--but then, anything uttered in Batman's flat, grinding voice sounded like an accusation. Alfred had given up asking Bruce to speak in a normal voice when it was just the two of them; as long as the cowl was on the voice was Batman's. Alfred wasn't even sure Bruce was aware of it anymore.
He put two more stitches into the seam before replying. "The Kryptonian? I believe I saw him too."
"More importantly, he saw me." The accusation was turned inward, Alfred realized. "All the infrared-cloaking technology, all the sonic scramblers to keep my heartbeat masked--and I just swoop right by him."
"Clark Kent cornered me at the library before the explosion," said Alfred with the air of someone changing the subject. Which he wasn't, exactly. "He was quite adamant about wanting to talk with you."
Batman lifted the cowl off to reveal Bruce Wayne's face, sooty and sweaty and heartbreakingly drawn. "Kent. My god, what a gadfly." He sat down heavily at the computer, calling up a picture of the reporter. "You know, I almost just gave up and returned his call tonight?"
Alfred startled and stabbed his own finger with the needle. "You did?" He blotted the drop of blood with a tissue, resisting the undignified impulse to stick it in his mouth.
"I don't know," Bruce said, staring at the earnest, bespectacled face on the screen. "I've been looking into his background. Reading his stories. He cares, Alfred. He's passionate about the truth--you heard the messages he left. He's furious at my 'travesty of justice.'" Bruce's voice echoed the tightly-leashed denunciation in Kent's message. "He's threatening to go to the police with the information--that won't get him anywhere. But he's also threatening to publish it on the Internet. I can't allow that. So it might make sense to talk with him, try to divert him. But it's more than that. Maybe I just want to spend some time around someone who believes that strongly about something. Maybe I just--"
He broke off, but Alfred could hear his words as clearly as if he had spoken them: "Maybe I just want to be around someone who believes that strongly in my innocence."
Bruce rubbed his eyes as if they were filled with ashes, sighed from a smoke-hoarse throat. "Idealists. I can't afford to be friends with another damn idealist." His voice was distant, as if he had forgotten Alfred was there. "They die too easily."
Alfred had given his word that evening to not reveal Clark Kent's secret, but if he thought it would have helped Batman--no, if he thought it would have helped Bruce Wayne--he would have broken that word in an instant. And if he thought the man he had met in such dramatic fashion tonight had any intention of harming Bruce, Alfred would be stealing Kryptonite from the infamous Lex Luthor at this very moment. But if Bruce knew that the person he felt such an inexplicable pull toward was the Metropolis scion of truth and justice...Alfred knew that would be the end of it. He would retreat into the shadows, into the darkness of his own mind once more.
Alfred Pennyworth turned his eyes back to his sewing. He made ten neat, meticulous stitches in silence, counting each one before saying, "Mr. Kent seems committed to asking uncomfortable questions. Perhaps if you were to meet him again in person you could...channel his attention toward safer areas?"
There was a long silence, and Alfred wasn't sure he had been heard at all. But Bruce didn't close the image of Clark Kent on the monitor, and after a while he murmured, "I suppose it couldn't hurt."
His voice was leaden and lifeless, as it so often was recently, but somehow Alfred felt a lifting in his own heart, like the moment when Clark Kent had lifted and carried him to safety: wild and improbable, as hope always was.
( Part Two)
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Alfred Pennyworth
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed
Continuity: The Dark Knight/Superman Returns crossover; a continuation of Leap of Faith.
Word Count: 2900Summary: Clark Kent arrives in Gotham after the events of The Dark Knight and adds up the facts surrounding Bruce Wayne and Batman. Unfortunately, he reaches all the wrong conclusions.
Notes: For the World's Finest Gift Exchange, Prompt F8: Superman strongly disapproves of Batman's methods. Clark Kent, on the other hand, has a very obvious (and not quite so secret) crush on Bruce Wayne. What happens when Clark suddenly finds out that Bruce is also Batman?
Clark Kent glared out at the sullen skyline as he stripped his soot-stained and smoke-filled clothes off and threw them on the narrow hotel bed. Gotham. The name was almost a curse in his mind.
He'd come here to write a story about the city rebuilding, six months after the Joker's final vicious rampage. He suspected he had been sent here by Perry White as punishment for taking five years off, supposedly to write a novel--which had never materialized, of course.
Gotham was penance enough for anyone.
He'd taken the opportunity to try and track down the elusive, murderous vigilante Batman, but at every turn he had been thwarted. Some argued Batman was a rogue Kryptonian, and despite seeing his broken and empty homeworld in person recently, Clark could almost believe it. Not a glimpse, not a whisper. Until tonight.
Clark turned the shower as hot as it could go and stepped in, lavishing great gouts of soap on himself in an attempt to clean the acrid stink from his skin. The water was a silken rush around him, and he remembered the whisper of Batman's dark cape as he'd sailed through the inferno the Mob had created of the Gotham Public Library. Carrying a tiny bundle to safety: Clark heard again the thin wail of a baby under the roar of the flames. There and gone like a shadow before Clark could do a thing.
Of course, the irony was that Clark no longer felt any need to confront Batman about his "crimes." The rest of the world was convinced that Batman was responsible for the kidnapping of Commissioner Gordon's family, the deaths of Sal Maroni, Harvey Dent, and two police officers, and numberless crimes of vengeance since that terrible night.
But Clark Kent, alone in the world, was both a well-trained investigative reporter and a Kryptonian.
He'd put enough evidence together to convince himself that Batman was innocent of the crimes with which he was charged. He'd been ready to write his scoop for the Planet, the story that would break the case wide open.
Clark plunged his head under the hot water, shaking it angrily. He'd been ready.
And then Bruce Wayne had happened.
: : :
Clark Kent and Superman had met Bruce Wayne within minutes of each other.
Superman was supposed to be at a charity party, presenting a check from the Metropolis Business Association to Gotham to help with the rebuilding of Gotham Memorial Hospital. He was running late, however, because Clark Kent wanted to watch the prominent citizens of Gotham in action without standing out like cockatoo in a flock of doves. Standing in a corner, he had held his untouched martini and kept on eye on everyone unaccosted.
Until, that was, Martin Mayne caught sight of him.
"Kent!" the editor of the Gotham Gazette cried, dragging a man in an impeccable suit and perfect hair toward him. "You simply must talk to Mr. Wayne. Clark Kent is writing a story about Gotham for the Daily Planet," he explained to the man on his arm, who seemed to be trying to extricate himself politely. At Mayne's words, though, he stopped and raised an eyebrow that implied faint interest. "Bruce Wayne, meet Clark Kent."
Clark's first impression of Bruce Wayne was that of exhaustion. There were dark circles under his eyes and an unhealthy look to his skin that told of long nights indulging in unwise behavior. Then Wayne smiled, and Clark could see why the man would be popular at parties or, well, anywhere. It was a startlingly sweet smile, almost shy, slightly ingratiating. You and I, we're different from the others, the smile seemed to say.
Clark was immediately even more on his guard. Almost nothing good ever came of people who smiled like that, in his experience. "It's a pleasure to meet you in person, Mr. Wayne. I've read a great deal about you."
"It isn't all true, you know," said Wayne with a gleam.
"Then you know Brucie's family goes back hundreds of years in Gotham," Mayne said. "I'm sure if you have any questions about the city, he can help you." There was a sly edge to his smile as he sidled away; based on what Clark had read about Bruce Wayne he strongly suspected that Mayne was attempting to torment him by saddling him with a glib society bore.
Of course, it could also be that he was attempting to punish Wayne by roping him into a conversation with a dull-as-dirt farm boy turned reporter.
"You're writing a story about Gotham?" Wayne asked politely, his eyes scanning the room behind Clark for more interesting conversational possibilities.
"Yes, about the city's latest reconstruction efforts."
"I see, I see." Wayne looked like he was stifling a yawn. "I do hope it won't be another one of those tedious Metropolis stories about how Gotham welters in hopelessness and suffering. You could try a new, daring angle and focus on how the people of Gotham refuse to cower under the shadow of the big bad Bat. But that might be too much to ask for from our shiny sister city."
Clark felt his eyes narrow slightly in annoyance--the more so because the man had a point, and the Planet was by no means immune to the lure of such stories. "Actually, I was focusing on the delays in rebuilding Gotham memorial." And then for some reason--maybe only to see if the man were actually listening--he added, "Besides which, I'm not sure Batman actually committed those murders."
Bruce Wayne's gaze sharpened suddenly, snapping to focus on Clark's face. "What?" For an instant, Clark felt like a butterfly on a collector's pin, analyzed and dissected. Then the gimlet look softened somewhat, and Wayne smiled, though not as pleasantly as before. "What an odd idea." There was strain behind those eyes, carefully covered. "Do tell me more."
Some intuition prompted Clark to back off, some sense of a crevasse opening up beneath them. "Oh, it's just a hunch. Probably nothing will come of it. I'm much more interested in the hospital rebuilding efforts."
Wayne's shoulders relaxed a fraction. "What would you like to know about it? The Wayne Foundation is heavily involved--though of course, I don't know any of the mundane details, I have people to handle those." His smile this time was back to its previous dazzling glory, empty as a winter sky. Clark asked him a few simple questions and Wayne chattered about funding and civic responsibility, rote phrases with no meaning. "I'd give the last drop of my heart's blood for my city" and so on. His superficiality was so complete that Clark could almost believe he'd imagined that one piercing look.
Clark listened to him rattle on about responsibility and devotion to one's home town for a while, telling stories about the good common folk of Gotham and their heroic stories, how they still can find hope in the midst of the pall of fear the Batman spread. "Just the other day I was talking with my grocer--" Clark didn't believe for a moment Bruce Wayne had ever stepped into an actual supermarket, "--and he was saying how the memory of Harvey Dent keeps him going in these dark times. You put that in your story, Mr. Metropolis," he said, leaning forward. "You write about heroism instead of fear, and I'll believe your paper is worth more than the stuff it's printed on."
A gaggle of young women sighed appreciatively from nearby. "Oh Brucie," one cooed, "You're so sexy when you're civic-minded."
Grinning, Wayne seized her by a lily-white hand, presenting her to Clark. "Like this jewel of Gotham," he announced. "This heroic, brave young woman refuses to let fear rule her life. Right, my dear?" he said, kissing her hand.
Clark extricated himself from what was quickly becoming a flirtatious situation, wondering if Bruce Wayne used civic duty for all his pick-up lines. Wayne ignored his departure, which was well-timed as Superman was due to appear at the gathering in just a few minutes.
A quick costume change and Superman was back at the party, handing a huge rectangle of a check to Lucius Fox. "The people of Metropolis recognize the great achievements of their sister-city of Gotham," he intoned, then had to stifle a wincing laugh as he realized the platitudes were extremely similar to those he had just heard Bruce Wayne spouting. He saw Wayne in the audience, applauding politely, his eyes on Fox rather than Superman.
The rest of the evening was the usual grind of small talk and fending off flirtatious advances from various people. Apparently there was something deeply appealing about the possibility of "corrupting" a supposed stainless paragon like Superman.
It had been a long five years in space, and Superman wasn't a saint, but the avaricious glint in the eyes of the men and women at the party tended to dampen any potential ardor.
Superman expected that Bruce Wayne would surely be one of the people who decided to hang on the Man of Steel's every word, but instead Wayne was always on the opposite side of the room, somehow. It wasn't that he was ignoring Superman, he was just...never quite there.
It was almost a relief when Superman heard an explosion in Metropolis and had an excuse to shake off the vapid conversation for a moment. After twenty minutes spent getting everyone in the building to safety and putting out the fire, he was flying back to Gotham, ready to return to a pleasantly boring evening.
As he descended from the clouds, he looked down toward Wayne Tower, looking for an unobtrusive veranda to land on. All of them seemed to have groups giggling or couples embracing--until he spotted one with a lone figure on it.
Superman was just about to drift downward when he realized it was Bruce Wayne.
Wayne was holding his champagne glass in one hand, the other one in his pocket. He was looking down at Gotham, the wind stirring his hair. Clark could see his face: the empty smile was gone, replaced by a kind of...grim satisfaction. A yearning.
As Superman watched, Bruce Wayne raised his glass and toasted the fitful lights of Gotham.
Clark felt suddenly like he was spying on something more intimate than the couples making out in the shadows. Chagrined, he descended quickly from the sky and landed lightly on the veranda in front of Wayne. Wayne took a step back, his eyebrows rising. "Superman," he said, his voice flatter than Clark had heard it before.
"Forgive the intrusion," Superman said, nodding in the friendly but abstracted way he had cultivated so carefully.
"You're not intruding." The cheerful smile was back again; Wayne took a sip from his glass. "Is everything okay?"
"A gas explosion in Metropolis. No lives were lost."
"Metropolis is lucky to have you back again. If only we had a hero like you in Gotham," Wayne said. His words were light, complimentary, careless--but he was looking out over the city once more, and Superman suddenly found himself taking a step forward, putting a hand out as if to prevent, to protect. He stopped, feeling foolish. Bruce Wayne was nowhere near the edge. He wasn't at any risk.
So why had Superman felt like he was in danger of falling?
The shower sputtered and ran cold for a second, and Clark realized he was still standing in the shower, his fists resting against the tile as if bracing himself against it. He grimaced angrily at himself, at his total failure in Gotham. He'd put together the pieces and figured out Batman was innocent--only to have Perry inform him that the new owner of the Daily Planet had axed it.
When Clark had found out that new owner was Bruce Wayne, he had come back to Gotham in a seething mix of rage and bewilderment, only to find that the playboy billionaire was not returning any of his calls. And then, of all the careless moves--!
Clark would have pounded his fists against the tile except he was afraid of breaking through the wall. Tonight he'd cornered Wayne's butler to try and get some answers, but instead had ended up revealing he was Superman. The secret only his mother knew, the knowledge he had torn away from Lois--given away to Bruce Wayne's butler.
Feeling vaguely guilty about the wasted water, Clark finally turned off the rushing shower and toweled off, going back over the night's events. Somehow he believed Alfred Pennyworth when he said he wouldn't tell his employer about Clark's secret, but he didn't know why. Clark had rarely met someone who inspired such quick trust. Pennyworth simply felt like a man with whom a secret was safe.
Clark found himself wondering what secrets Bruce Wayne trusted him with.
: : :
"I saw him tonight. In the library."
Alfred Pennyworth paused in his mending of a black cape at the grated statement. It had sounded accusatory--but then, anything uttered in Batman's flat, grinding voice sounded like an accusation. Alfred had given up asking Bruce to speak in a normal voice when it was just the two of them; as long as the cowl was on the voice was Batman's. Alfred wasn't even sure Bruce was aware of it anymore.
He put two more stitches into the seam before replying. "The Kryptonian? I believe I saw him too."
"More importantly, he saw me." The accusation was turned inward, Alfred realized. "All the infrared-cloaking technology, all the sonic scramblers to keep my heartbeat masked--and I just swoop right by him."
"Clark Kent cornered me at the library before the explosion," said Alfred with the air of someone changing the subject. Which he wasn't, exactly. "He was quite adamant about wanting to talk with you."
Batman lifted the cowl off to reveal Bruce Wayne's face, sooty and sweaty and heartbreakingly drawn. "Kent. My god, what a gadfly." He sat down heavily at the computer, calling up a picture of the reporter. "You know, I almost just gave up and returned his call tonight?"
Alfred startled and stabbed his own finger with the needle. "You did?" He blotted the drop of blood with a tissue, resisting the undignified impulse to stick it in his mouth.
"I don't know," Bruce said, staring at the earnest, bespectacled face on the screen. "I've been looking into his background. Reading his stories. He cares, Alfred. He's passionate about the truth--you heard the messages he left. He's furious at my 'travesty of justice.'" Bruce's voice echoed the tightly-leashed denunciation in Kent's message. "He's threatening to go to the police with the information--that won't get him anywhere. But he's also threatening to publish it on the Internet. I can't allow that. So it might make sense to talk with him, try to divert him. But it's more than that. Maybe I just want to spend some time around someone who believes that strongly about something. Maybe I just--"
He broke off, but Alfred could hear his words as clearly as if he had spoken them: "Maybe I just want to be around someone who believes that strongly in my innocence."
Bruce rubbed his eyes as if they were filled with ashes, sighed from a smoke-hoarse throat. "Idealists. I can't afford to be friends with another damn idealist." His voice was distant, as if he had forgotten Alfred was there. "They die too easily."
Alfred had given his word that evening to not reveal Clark Kent's secret, but if he thought it would have helped Batman--no, if he thought it would have helped Bruce Wayne--he would have broken that word in an instant. And if he thought the man he had met in such dramatic fashion tonight had any intention of harming Bruce, Alfred would be stealing Kryptonite from the infamous Lex Luthor at this very moment. But if Bruce knew that the person he felt such an inexplicable pull toward was the Metropolis scion of truth and justice...Alfred knew that would be the end of it. He would retreat into the shadows, into the darkness of his own mind once more.
Alfred Pennyworth turned his eyes back to his sewing. He made ten neat, meticulous stitches in silence, counting each one before saying, "Mr. Kent seems committed to asking uncomfortable questions. Perhaps if you were to meet him again in person you could...channel his attention toward safer areas?"
There was a long silence, and Alfred wasn't sure he had been heard at all. But Bruce didn't close the image of Clark Kent on the monitor, and after a while he murmured, "I suppose it couldn't hurt."
His voice was leaden and lifeless, as it so often was recently, but somehow Alfred felt a lifting in his own heart, like the moment when Clark Kent had lifted and carried him to safety: wild and improbable, as hope always was.
( Part Two)