Ficlet: String Theory Lullaby
Title: String Theory Lullaby
Pairing/Characters: Superman, Batman
Rating: G
Warnings: None needed.
Continuity: None
Summary: Bruce can't sleep, and Clark finds that it's a challenge to bore the World's Greatest Detective.
Word Count: 700
Notes: For a prompt on the worlds_finest birthday thread: "Insomnia."
Superman pushed his glasses up on his nose and turned another page. He didn't need the glasses, of course. But he was safe in the privacy of the Fortress, and somehow he liked wearing them when reading.
His communicator beeped, and he tapped his ear to activate it. "Yes?"
"Kal? I've got a problem."
Superman sat up straight at the sound of Batman's hoarse voice. "What is it?"
"Well..." There was a long enough pause that Superman had time to put the book down and take his glasses off. "The truth is, I can't sleep."
Superman frowned. "Don't you have some kind of--you know--Tibetan meditation technique for that? You've got one for everything else."
"Well, it's not working tonight, apparently," Batman said tartly. "And I don't need much sleep, but it's been a few days--"
"--A few days?"
"--And I have an important stakeout tonight, and if I don't get a little rest before, I know I won't have the edge I need."
"Well, what am I supposed to do about it? You want me to warm up some milk with my heat vision?"
"Alfred is perfectly capable of warming my milk," Bruce said, leaving Clark with the tempting image of Alfred handing a glass of milk on a silver salver to a Bruce clad in flannel pajamas. "I was wondering if you might...read to me."
"Read to you?"
"You have a soothing voice," Bruce said as if he was admitting to some humiliating weakness. "If you read me something really dull, I'm hoping it will put me to sleep."
Clark picked up his discarded book. "How do you feel about 'Topological Strings and Special Holonomy Manifolds,' by Jan de Boer, Asad Naqvi, and Assaf Shomer?"
"Sounds stultifying," Bruce said with relish. Clark heard a sound of rustling cloth, a pillow being punched. "Hit me."
Shrugging, Clark put his glasses back on and sat down, clearing his throat. "Since G2 manifolds are Ricci-flat, we can consider compactifying the type II superstring on R1,2 x N7 where N7 is a 7 dimensional manifold of G2 holonomy." It was difficult to read slowly, but he set up a deliberate pace, steady and sonorous. "This reduces the supersymmetry down to two real supercharges in 3 dimensions from each worldsheet chirality so we end up with a low energy field theory in 3 dimensions with N=2 supergravity." He settled into a rhythm, letting the syllables roll like a hymn or a lullaby, a wash of pure knowledge like balm for the soul.
Bruce found his voice soothing. The thought intruded into his reading and he skipped an important equation and had to backtrack.
"In four-dimensions, the possibility to look at (anti)-self dual gravitons allows one to essentially restrict attention to a single conformal block, but a similar mechanism is not available in three dimensions."
"That's silly," said a slow, sleepy voice in his ear. "All you need to do is apply the fusion rules of the tri-critical Ising model."
Clark stopped reading. "Bruce, is this discussion of mathematical physics too exciting for you as an insomnia cure?"
A low, blurred chuckle. "Sounds interesting."
Clark made an exasperated sound. "You would find a recitation of pi fascinating."
"Mm. It really jumps the shark after the first hundred digits, to be honest."
"Well," Clark said. "Then I'll start there." He cleared his throat again. "Eight. Two. One. Four. Eight. Zero. Eight. Six."
He dropped the numbers into the silence on the line like dropping gemstones into dark water, listening to Bruce's breathing even out, his heartbeat slow. When he heard a soft snoring in his ear he said, "Six. Four. Four. Two. Eight. Eight. Are you finally asleep, you tenacious, brilliant, beautiful man?"
The fact that there was no sarcastic rejoinder seemed proof enough that he was.
Clark picked up his book again and started to read where he left off. The communicator line stayed open, Bruce's slightly whistling breaths a sweetly human counterpoint to the discussion of non-relativistic fermions.
-----
Note: The essay quoted above is a real one that you can find in Google Books; I was struck by how much like superhero physics it sounds! Also, I was very much inspired by Kate Bush's beautiful song "Pi" (listen to it here!)
Pairing/Characters: Superman, Batman
Rating: G
Warnings: None needed.
Continuity: None
Summary: Bruce can't sleep, and Clark finds that it's a challenge to bore the World's Greatest Detective.
Word Count: 700
Notes: For a prompt on the worlds_finest birthday thread: "Insomnia."
Superman pushed his glasses up on his nose and turned another page. He didn't need the glasses, of course. But he was safe in the privacy of the Fortress, and somehow he liked wearing them when reading.
His communicator beeped, and he tapped his ear to activate it. "Yes?"
"Kal? I've got a problem."
Superman sat up straight at the sound of Batman's hoarse voice. "What is it?"
"Well..." There was a long enough pause that Superman had time to put the book down and take his glasses off. "The truth is, I can't sleep."
Superman frowned. "Don't you have some kind of--you know--Tibetan meditation technique for that? You've got one for everything else."
"Well, it's not working tonight, apparently," Batman said tartly. "And I don't need much sleep, but it's been a few days--"
"--A few days?"
"--And I have an important stakeout tonight, and if I don't get a little rest before, I know I won't have the edge I need."
"Well, what am I supposed to do about it? You want me to warm up some milk with my heat vision?"
"Alfred is perfectly capable of warming my milk," Bruce said, leaving Clark with the tempting image of Alfred handing a glass of milk on a silver salver to a Bruce clad in flannel pajamas. "I was wondering if you might...read to me."
"Read to you?"
"You have a soothing voice," Bruce said as if he was admitting to some humiliating weakness. "If you read me something really dull, I'm hoping it will put me to sleep."
Clark picked up his discarded book. "How do you feel about 'Topological Strings and Special Holonomy Manifolds,' by Jan de Boer, Asad Naqvi, and Assaf Shomer?"
"Sounds stultifying," Bruce said with relish. Clark heard a sound of rustling cloth, a pillow being punched. "Hit me."
Shrugging, Clark put his glasses back on and sat down, clearing his throat. "Since G2 manifolds are Ricci-flat, we can consider compactifying the type II superstring on R1,2 x N7 where N7 is a 7 dimensional manifold of G2 holonomy." It was difficult to read slowly, but he set up a deliberate pace, steady and sonorous. "This reduces the supersymmetry down to two real supercharges in 3 dimensions from each worldsheet chirality so we end up with a low energy field theory in 3 dimensions with N=2 supergravity." He settled into a rhythm, letting the syllables roll like a hymn or a lullaby, a wash of pure knowledge like balm for the soul.
Bruce found his voice soothing. The thought intruded into his reading and he skipped an important equation and had to backtrack.
"In four-dimensions, the possibility to look at (anti)-self dual gravitons allows one to essentially restrict attention to a single conformal block, but a similar mechanism is not available in three dimensions."
"That's silly," said a slow, sleepy voice in his ear. "All you need to do is apply the fusion rules of the tri-critical Ising model."
Clark stopped reading. "Bruce, is this discussion of mathematical physics too exciting for you as an insomnia cure?"
A low, blurred chuckle. "Sounds interesting."
Clark made an exasperated sound. "You would find a recitation of pi fascinating."
"Mm. It really jumps the shark after the first hundred digits, to be honest."
"Well," Clark said. "Then I'll start there." He cleared his throat again. "Eight. Two. One. Four. Eight. Zero. Eight. Six."
He dropped the numbers into the silence on the line like dropping gemstones into dark water, listening to Bruce's breathing even out, his heartbeat slow. When he heard a soft snoring in his ear he said, "Six. Four. Four. Two. Eight. Eight. Are you finally asleep, you tenacious, brilliant, beautiful man?"
The fact that there was no sarcastic rejoinder seemed proof enough that he was.
Clark picked up his book again and started to read where he left off. The communicator line stayed open, Bruce's slightly whistling breaths a sweetly human counterpoint to the discussion of non-relativistic fermions.
-----
Note: The essay quoted above is a real one that you can find in Google Books; I was struck by how much like superhero physics it sounds! Also, I was very much inspired by Kate Bush's beautiful song "Pi" (listen to it here!)