Action and Re-Action 1: Apogee
Title: Apogee
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Continuity: Comics, pre-Action Comics #1
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed.
Summary: When Batman told Green Lantern he'd never met Superman before, he meant Batman hadn't. Bruce Wayne, on the other hand...
Word Count: 2200
Notes: For ilovetobefree's birthday! I hope your day is wonderful and the year is full of everything good!
Bruce Wayne had been trying for some time to find an acceptable excuse to leave the opening night party for the Metropolis Philharmonic, but he hadn't counted on a madman in jeans and a cape crashing through the French doors, grabbing him, and bounding into the night sky.
As ways to ditch a party went, this was one of the more unique, he reflected as Metropolis reeled below him.
Bruce squirmed in the implacable iron grip on his suit, trying to get a good look at his assailant's face--after all, he had come to Metropolis in the hopes of catching even a blurry glimpse of the "inhuman menace terrorizing the city" (in the words of the esteemed Daily Planet). To be abducted was more than he had hoped for, an opportunity not to be missed.
The leap reached its apogee; for a moment Bruce and the caped nutcase hung together in the night sky and Bruce was able to get a clear look at his face.
To his surprise, it was young--as young as his own, in fact. He had expected a stern and angry scowl, but instead his kidnapper was grinning, savoring the moment where gravity reasserted itself and a leap shifted into a fall.
Then Superman's eyes turned to Bruce's face. The grin slipped away and Bruce realized he had made a rookie mistake: in his eagerness to get a look at this leaping lunatic, he had forgotten to look afraid.
The city rushed up to meet them and Bruce's stomach lurched uncomfortably. This time his clutch at Superman's t-shirt was unfeigned; so far this super-powered anomaly hadn't killed anyone, but Bruce wasn't exactly sure if that was deliberate or just luck.
Booted feet struck the pavement with a sharp crack and chips of concrete scattered; Bruce felt a tiny line of fire sear across his cheek. Then they were back in the air again, the breath jerked out of his lungs once more as the city dwindled below them.
This time they alighted on the tower of a suspension bridge. Superman held his arms in an unbreakable grip and the river wavered far below them. There were three or four ways out of this if the man decided to drop him, but none of them were very enjoyable.
Superman was staring at him, eyes narrowed. "You aren't afraid."
Bruce felt warmth on his face and realized his cheek had been cut in their insane plunge and was dripping blood onto his flannel suit. He shrugged as well as was possible with feet dangling over nothing but air and water. "What can I say? This isn't the first time I've been swept off my feet by a handsome stranger."
Superman's mouth twitched very slightly, then hardened once more. "You're a very funny man. Does that make it easier for you to live with yourself?"
"My dear Superman, my butler will vouch for the fact that no one can bear to live with me."
This time his kidnapper almost rolled his eyes, although he stopped himself in time. Bruce couldn't help but be fascinated by the man's mobile face, which seemed able to go in a heartbeat from a careless grin to a scowl. He wears his heart on his sleeve. "I'm giving you one chance to explain about the Riverside Clinic."
"What about it?"
Superman's face darkened in an instant. "Don't play innocent, Wayne. Your company bought it out in order to turn it into gentrified brownstones for the wealthy." He was really quite magnificent when angry, Bruce couldn't help but notice. "That clinic is the only free clinic in that area of town. Do you know how many people it helps a week? How many children are vaccinated against polio and measles only because of their work? How many HIV tests are done there? Do you even care how many people you're hurting by shutting it down?" He shook Bruce slightly and Bruce's feet waggled back and forth like a demented puppet's. "You'll get on your fancy little cell phone right now and you'll call the project off. Or else--!"
Bruce raised an eyebrow, and the glorious fury on the face in front of him wavered ever so slightly for an instant. He's never had to deal with a person who doesn't crack immediately, Bruce realized. And he doesn't know what he'll do if I refuse. He lifted a hand to his breast pocket and got his cell phone out with some difficulty
"I can hear everything the person on the other end says," Superman said, his eyes narrowed. "So don't think of bluffing your way out of this."
"I wouldn't dream of it. Just a second, please," Bruce said as the phone rang. "Hello, Leslie?"
Leslie's voice was small over the phone, but with no sound but the wind around them Bruce could hear her clearly. "Bruce! How nice to hear from you. Why are you calling?"
"Just wanted to make sure that we're still on schedule for the Riverside Clinic project. I have a...let's say an interested party who'd like an update." He winked at Superman, who scowled back at him.
"Everything's going just fine, Bruce," laughed Leslie. "Stop hovering, dear!"
Bruce glanced down, then back up at the man holding him over the edge. "I'm sorry, I just can't seem to help it right now."
Leslie continued: "I talked with Dr. Nam today and he says the densitometer arrived in perfect condition. He's not sure how he feels about those renovations, though. He says he hates to shut his doors for even a couple of weeks."
"Remind him they're not cosmetic renovations," Bruce said. "The asbestos in those old walls can't be good for the patients' health. If he likes, I'll let him work out of an empty office I have in Metropolis for the month. Actually, I'll call him and tell him myself."
"Thank you, Bruce. You're an angel, do you know that? What you've done for--"
"--Yes, yes, it's no problem," said Bruce hastily, cutting off her compliments. They made him uncomfortable, especially when he was fairly sure she wouldn't approve of him spending his nights prowling around and beating up people trying to break into her clinic, among other places. He looked at Superman. "Shall I call Dr. Nam now, or do you have other places to be, other millionaires to threaten?"
Superman's expression was both puzzled and chagrined--really, the man had no poker face at all. "You're not shutting down the clinic?"
"I am not. It appears some inaccurate rumors have started to circulate about my plans for the clinic." And I suspect I know the source, Bruce reflected, remembering Lex Luthor's annoyance when he had been outbid for the crumbling old building.
"Why should I trust you?"
Bruce looked aggrieved. "Superman, I may have a reputation as a cad. I may even be a bit of a lush. But I have no intention of turning wide-eyed moppets out onto the streets without their measles vaccines. I do have some standards."
The handsome face creased in a frown, and then Bruce felt himself lifted almost gently to the metal platform of the tower. The long steel cables of the suspension bridge stretched out below them, singing faintly in the wind, but Bruce was glad to at least have his feet back on something relatively solid. He leaned on the support at the center of the platform. "Are you always so...impulsive?"
Superman was staring at him. The mad exhilaration that had fuelled him seemed to have drained away, leaving him looking tired and a little sad. "You mean angry?"
"Well, maybe." Bruce slid to a sitting position, letting his feet dangle over the edge of the platform into the open air. After a moment, his caped kidnapper did the same. They sat, looking out over Metropolis and listening to the wind. "I've always lived by the saying 'Don't get mad, get even,' myself."
A gusty sigh. "I can't help it, I just get so...I can't just sit back and let innocent people suffer! Someone has to get angry on behalf of the powerless, the helpless. If I can't use these powers to stand up for them, to see the arrogant and mighty laid low, what good am I?"
"You're quite eloquent for an 'anarchistic thug,'" Bruce said, and the man laughed, throwing back his head.
"I liked that one. I like a lot of the ways the papers describe me. 'The Marxist Marauder' was one of my favorites--your own Gotham Gazette, I do believe." He slapped one jeans-covered knee and grinned at Bruce.
Bruce shook his head, looking at the city sprawling beyond Superman's crinkled eyes. "We could do a lot of good together," he said.
He'd expected another laugh. Instead, what he got was a quick flare of anger that wiped the smile from Superman's face and made his eyes glint an odd crimson. "Do you think you can just buy me, Wayne?" he snarled. "I bet you like that, just waving money around and having everyone jump through your hoops like dogs. Well, I'm not for sale."
Bruce raised his eyebrows at the fist brandished in front of his face. He could feel his heart pounding, a natural side effect of the fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. But there was nowhere to fly, and fight certainly wasn't an option against this crusading Hercules, so there was nothing for it but to remain calm.
If this "Superman" was the kind of person who'd kill an unarmed man in a fit of anger, the world was probably doomed anyway.
So he just said in as arch a tone as possible, "I have no intention of purchasing your...services, as tempting as you may be."
There was a long pause, and Bruce felt once again like they were at an apogee, a turning point, hanging together breathlessly. Then the scarlet faded from those angry eyes--and a different scarlet, Bruce was surprised to notice, rose in his cheeks. Superman shook his head, a lopsided smile torn between annoyance and amusement on his face. "I don't understand you," he said. "You're sitting next to a socialist terrorist with nothing but six hundred feet of air between you and the water, and...are you flirting with me, Mr Wayne? Aren't you afraid?"
Bruce swung his feet, looking down. "Maybe I'm an acrophile," he said. "Perhaps I find heights...exhilarating, rather than terrifying. And maybe I am, a little."
"Maybe you're what?"
"Flirting with you," said Bruce.
Superman laughed again, a surprised snort that didn't sound terrifying at all.
"I meant it, by the way, about working with you. Not hiring you. Working with you."
Superman stood up. "Mr. Wayne, you are without a doubt the coolest customer I've ever dealt with. I don't know if that makes you admirable--or the most heartless person I've ever met." He looked narrowly at Bruce, who looked back expressionlessly, startled at the sting of that last jab. Since when could a hot-headed idealist in jeans get under his skin? "I don't need to work with anyone. How about you just keep up your good work of throwing money at problems, and I keep up my good work of punching people who need sense knocked into them? I'm not made of money, and you don't look like the sort of guy who's used to getting his hands dirty."
Bruce felt a smile that was quite unlike the usual friendly playboy smile stretch his mouth. "Do you mean that metaphorically or literally?"
Superman looked startled. "You're a very strange person," he mused. Then he tilted his head. "The police have spotted us, they're almost here."
"Don't I get an apology for your ruthless abduction of me?"
Superman snorted again. "I'll drop you off--"
"--Oh, don't worry about it," said Bruce. "The party was boring and the view is nice. Plus it'll be good for your vigilante credentials to leave me stranded here." In the distance he could hear faint sirens.
Superman shot him a last, bemused look, then jabbed a finger at him, frowning. "I'll be keeping an eye on you, Wayne." He gathered himself up--now that he wasn't being lugged around, Bruce selfishly enjoyed the spectacle of so many impressive muscles coiling--and sprang into the air, dwindling quickly into a dot on the horizon.
"Oh, and I'll certainly be keeping an eye on you," Bruce responded when even the dot was gone.
He swung his feet idly in the air, half of his mind making plans for how frightened and cowed to be when the police showed up, the other half of his mind making plans of an extremely different type.
The world had just gotten exponentially more interesting, in more than one way.
----
(Part 2: Attraction)
Pairing/Characters: Clark Kent/Bruce Wayne
Continuity: Comics, pre-Action Comics #1
Rating: PG
Warnings: None needed.
Summary: When Batman told Green Lantern he'd never met Superman before, he meant Batman hadn't. Bruce Wayne, on the other hand...
Word Count: 2200
Notes: For ilovetobefree's birthday! I hope your day is wonderful and the year is full of everything good!
Bruce Wayne had been trying for some time to find an acceptable excuse to leave the opening night party for the Metropolis Philharmonic, but he hadn't counted on a madman in jeans and a cape crashing through the French doors, grabbing him, and bounding into the night sky.
As ways to ditch a party went, this was one of the more unique, he reflected as Metropolis reeled below him.
Bruce squirmed in the implacable iron grip on his suit, trying to get a good look at his assailant's face--after all, he had come to Metropolis in the hopes of catching even a blurry glimpse of the "inhuman menace terrorizing the city" (in the words of the esteemed Daily Planet). To be abducted was more than he had hoped for, an opportunity not to be missed.
The leap reached its apogee; for a moment Bruce and the caped nutcase hung together in the night sky and Bruce was able to get a clear look at his face.
To his surprise, it was young--as young as his own, in fact. He had expected a stern and angry scowl, but instead his kidnapper was grinning, savoring the moment where gravity reasserted itself and a leap shifted into a fall.
Then Superman's eyes turned to Bruce's face. The grin slipped away and Bruce realized he had made a rookie mistake: in his eagerness to get a look at this leaping lunatic, he had forgotten to look afraid.
The city rushed up to meet them and Bruce's stomach lurched uncomfortably. This time his clutch at Superman's t-shirt was unfeigned; so far this super-powered anomaly hadn't killed anyone, but Bruce wasn't exactly sure if that was deliberate or just luck.
Booted feet struck the pavement with a sharp crack and chips of concrete scattered; Bruce felt a tiny line of fire sear across his cheek. Then they were back in the air again, the breath jerked out of his lungs once more as the city dwindled below them.
This time they alighted on the tower of a suspension bridge. Superman held his arms in an unbreakable grip and the river wavered far below them. There were three or four ways out of this if the man decided to drop him, but none of them were very enjoyable.
Superman was staring at him, eyes narrowed. "You aren't afraid."
Bruce felt warmth on his face and realized his cheek had been cut in their insane plunge and was dripping blood onto his flannel suit. He shrugged as well as was possible with feet dangling over nothing but air and water. "What can I say? This isn't the first time I've been swept off my feet by a handsome stranger."
Superman's mouth twitched very slightly, then hardened once more. "You're a very funny man. Does that make it easier for you to live with yourself?"
"My dear Superman, my butler will vouch for the fact that no one can bear to live with me."
This time his kidnapper almost rolled his eyes, although he stopped himself in time. Bruce couldn't help but be fascinated by the man's mobile face, which seemed able to go in a heartbeat from a careless grin to a scowl. He wears his heart on his sleeve. "I'm giving you one chance to explain about the Riverside Clinic."
"What about it?"
Superman's face darkened in an instant. "Don't play innocent, Wayne. Your company bought it out in order to turn it into gentrified brownstones for the wealthy." He was really quite magnificent when angry, Bruce couldn't help but notice. "That clinic is the only free clinic in that area of town. Do you know how many people it helps a week? How many children are vaccinated against polio and measles only because of their work? How many HIV tests are done there? Do you even care how many people you're hurting by shutting it down?" He shook Bruce slightly and Bruce's feet waggled back and forth like a demented puppet's. "You'll get on your fancy little cell phone right now and you'll call the project off. Or else--!"
Bruce raised an eyebrow, and the glorious fury on the face in front of him wavered ever so slightly for an instant. He's never had to deal with a person who doesn't crack immediately, Bruce realized. And he doesn't know what he'll do if I refuse. He lifted a hand to his breast pocket and got his cell phone out with some difficulty
"I can hear everything the person on the other end says," Superman said, his eyes narrowed. "So don't think of bluffing your way out of this."
"I wouldn't dream of it. Just a second, please," Bruce said as the phone rang. "Hello, Leslie?"
Leslie's voice was small over the phone, but with no sound but the wind around them Bruce could hear her clearly. "Bruce! How nice to hear from you. Why are you calling?"
"Just wanted to make sure that we're still on schedule for the Riverside Clinic project. I have a...let's say an interested party who'd like an update." He winked at Superman, who scowled back at him.
"Everything's going just fine, Bruce," laughed Leslie. "Stop hovering, dear!"
Bruce glanced down, then back up at the man holding him over the edge. "I'm sorry, I just can't seem to help it right now."
Leslie continued: "I talked with Dr. Nam today and he says the densitometer arrived in perfect condition. He's not sure how he feels about those renovations, though. He says he hates to shut his doors for even a couple of weeks."
"Remind him they're not cosmetic renovations," Bruce said. "The asbestos in those old walls can't be good for the patients' health. If he likes, I'll let him work out of an empty office I have in Metropolis for the month. Actually, I'll call him and tell him myself."
"Thank you, Bruce. You're an angel, do you know that? What you've done for--"
"--Yes, yes, it's no problem," said Bruce hastily, cutting off her compliments. They made him uncomfortable, especially when he was fairly sure she wouldn't approve of him spending his nights prowling around and beating up people trying to break into her clinic, among other places. He looked at Superman. "Shall I call Dr. Nam now, or do you have other places to be, other millionaires to threaten?"
Superman's expression was both puzzled and chagrined--really, the man had no poker face at all. "You're not shutting down the clinic?"
"I am not. It appears some inaccurate rumors have started to circulate about my plans for the clinic." And I suspect I know the source, Bruce reflected, remembering Lex Luthor's annoyance when he had been outbid for the crumbling old building.
"Why should I trust you?"
Bruce looked aggrieved. "Superman, I may have a reputation as a cad. I may even be a bit of a lush. But I have no intention of turning wide-eyed moppets out onto the streets without their measles vaccines. I do have some standards."
The handsome face creased in a frown, and then Bruce felt himself lifted almost gently to the metal platform of the tower. The long steel cables of the suspension bridge stretched out below them, singing faintly in the wind, but Bruce was glad to at least have his feet back on something relatively solid. He leaned on the support at the center of the platform. "Are you always so...impulsive?"
Superman was staring at him. The mad exhilaration that had fuelled him seemed to have drained away, leaving him looking tired and a little sad. "You mean angry?"
"Well, maybe." Bruce slid to a sitting position, letting his feet dangle over the edge of the platform into the open air. After a moment, his caped kidnapper did the same. They sat, looking out over Metropolis and listening to the wind. "I've always lived by the saying 'Don't get mad, get even,' myself."
A gusty sigh. "I can't help it, I just get so...I can't just sit back and let innocent people suffer! Someone has to get angry on behalf of the powerless, the helpless. If I can't use these powers to stand up for them, to see the arrogant and mighty laid low, what good am I?"
"You're quite eloquent for an 'anarchistic thug,'" Bruce said, and the man laughed, throwing back his head.
"I liked that one. I like a lot of the ways the papers describe me. 'The Marxist Marauder' was one of my favorites--your own Gotham Gazette, I do believe." He slapped one jeans-covered knee and grinned at Bruce.
Bruce shook his head, looking at the city sprawling beyond Superman's crinkled eyes. "We could do a lot of good together," he said.
He'd expected another laugh. Instead, what he got was a quick flare of anger that wiped the smile from Superman's face and made his eyes glint an odd crimson. "Do you think you can just buy me, Wayne?" he snarled. "I bet you like that, just waving money around and having everyone jump through your hoops like dogs. Well, I'm not for sale."
Bruce raised his eyebrows at the fist brandished in front of his face. He could feel his heart pounding, a natural side effect of the fight-or-flight instinct kicking in. But there was nowhere to fly, and fight certainly wasn't an option against this crusading Hercules, so there was nothing for it but to remain calm.
If this "Superman" was the kind of person who'd kill an unarmed man in a fit of anger, the world was probably doomed anyway.
So he just said in as arch a tone as possible, "I have no intention of purchasing your...services, as tempting as you may be."
There was a long pause, and Bruce felt once again like they were at an apogee, a turning point, hanging together breathlessly. Then the scarlet faded from those angry eyes--and a different scarlet, Bruce was surprised to notice, rose in his cheeks. Superman shook his head, a lopsided smile torn between annoyance and amusement on his face. "I don't understand you," he said. "You're sitting next to a socialist terrorist with nothing but six hundred feet of air between you and the water, and...are you flirting with me, Mr Wayne? Aren't you afraid?"
Bruce swung his feet, looking down. "Maybe I'm an acrophile," he said. "Perhaps I find heights...exhilarating, rather than terrifying. And maybe I am, a little."
"Maybe you're what?"
"Flirting with you," said Bruce.
Superman laughed again, a surprised snort that didn't sound terrifying at all.
"I meant it, by the way, about working with you. Not hiring you. Working with you."
Superman stood up. "Mr. Wayne, you are without a doubt the coolest customer I've ever dealt with. I don't know if that makes you admirable--or the most heartless person I've ever met." He looked narrowly at Bruce, who looked back expressionlessly, startled at the sting of that last jab. Since when could a hot-headed idealist in jeans get under his skin? "I don't need to work with anyone. How about you just keep up your good work of throwing money at problems, and I keep up my good work of punching people who need sense knocked into them? I'm not made of money, and you don't look like the sort of guy who's used to getting his hands dirty."
Bruce felt a smile that was quite unlike the usual friendly playboy smile stretch his mouth. "Do you mean that metaphorically or literally?"
Superman looked startled. "You're a very strange person," he mused. Then he tilted his head. "The police have spotted us, they're almost here."
"Don't I get an apology for your ruthless abduction of me?"
Superman snorted again. "I'll drop you off--"
"--Oh, don't worry about it," said Bruce. "The party was boring and the view is nice. Plus it'll be good for your vigilante credentials to leave me stranded here." In the distance he could hear faint sirens.
Superman shot him a last, bemused look, then jabbed a finger at him, frowning. "I'll be keeping an eye on you, Wayne." He gathered himself up--now that he wasn't being lugged around, Bruce selfishly enjoyed the spectacle of so many impressive muscles coiling--and sprang into the air, dwindling quickly into a dot on the horizon.
"Oh, and I'll certainly be keeping an eye on you," Bruce responded when even the dot was gone.
He swung his feet idly in the air, half of his mind making plans for how frightened and cowed to be when the police showed up, the other half of his mind making plans of an extremely different type.
The world had just gotten exponentially more interesting, in more than one way.
----
(Part 2: Attraction)