Fic: Sparked; Bruce/Clark; PG-13, Part 1/3
Title: Sparked
Series: Sparked Part 1/3
Author: Aravis Tarkheena
Pairing: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent
Rating: PG-13. Yes, I SERIOUSLY just wrote Bruce/Clark without ANYONE getting naked.
Warnings: None, really? There's a good deal of angst inherent in the thematic elements of this fic. Oh and fire. If you're scared of fire give this a skip.
Disclaimer: Not mine, everyone's legal
Word Count: 5,000/16,000ish? Around there.
Author's Note: Written for the World Finest Gift Exchange prompt F 24: Get to know each other fic: Batman and Superman are unawares of other civilian's identity. Clark is sent to Gotham to try and find some information about the so-called dark knight. Bruce Wayne is annoyed. (DCAU) In retrospect, it seems I took it in a slightly different direction. Hope you like it anyway.
ALSO for the dcu_freeforall Winter Challenge, Prompt 8. Family/Home
Beta: kirax2 She is awesome, and I owe her big for editing this monstrosity.
Part One
Clark Kent pulled the Knights baseball cap he was wearing down further on his head, and wished, not for the first time today, that he didn't have a heightened sense of smell. He wished for it deeply, sincerely, and fervently as he tried to block out of the scents that were thick in the air around him.
The deep, pervading stench of a polluted waterfront mixed with the sour smell of damp gutter trash and filth. Behind it all was an acrid, smoky smell, that seemed to hang heavy in the air, and stick to the back of Clark's throat.
At least he knew he was close now.
Clark eyed the mostly gutted buildings around him speculatively. The dark red of their faux brick facades were stained and smeared with a substance that looked a good deal like black tar, but probably wasn't. Faded graffiti littering various surfaces spoke of an area forgotten, even by vandals.
The windows and door frames that hung empty seemed black and forbidding in the fading daylight. The wind off the harbor whistled eerily as it blew through them, chilling only stray cats and forgotten ghosts.
The windows in the buildings that were lit were only in slightly better repair than their abandoned neighbors. The light didn't seem warm, or welcoming. It looked cold, and it looked harsh, and it made Clark shiver.
Part of Clark would always be the country boy. To Clark, home smelled of grass and trees and damp, fertile earth. There was always noise, even in the silence of the night, as the crickets sang and the night birds called to one another. The scents and sounds of the city were always alien to Clark.
Silence in a city always seemed pregnant. As if all the people hiding behind those curtain-less windows and filthy walls were just waiting for something to happen.
It was the wrong kind of silence. The worst kind. The type that was just waiting for a scream or an emergency siren to break it.
Clark had only lived in the city for a few months. He wasn't sure he would ever get used to it. Metropolis was a heck of a lot more welcoming than Gotham City ever seemed to be.
This was Clark's first visit to Gotham City, and so far the experience had been less than pleasant. He hadn't been on the East Coast long enough to explore at any great length.
Clark had planned on getting all his copy for the Planet done early and heading back to Kansas as soon as possible. Christmas was just a few days away, and Clark had been missing his parents and Krypto pretty badly, lately. More than he had anticipated. More than he probably should be at this stage in his life.
Clark couldn't say why, exactly. Perhaps he was lonely. More so than usual. Clark was used to not quite belonging in large groups, especially groups of his peers. His parents, however, had done a wonderful job of counteracting those feelings.
Clark just hadn't anticipated the toll constantly lying to everyone in his life would take on him emotionally. At least he hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be without his parents constant support. It was draining, and his coworkers seemed to sense that disconnect Clark couldn't help but feel between himself and everyone else in the world.
In the end, Clark was almost certain it was that distance between himself and the other new reporters at the Planet that had lead to this. Clark had been railroaded by Lois and the other reporters into coming here.
The worst part was that Clark resented them for volunteering him for the story. That wasn't right, but Clark couldn't help but feel that way.
“You need to broaden your horizons, Smallville,” Lois had informed him with a superior smirk, as the low chuckles from the rest of the bullpen rumbled in the background.
Clark had made himself give a sunny smile. He spouted some chirpy agreement to the job, all the while willing down his temper and praying to God his eyes didn't turn red.
He had called his mother the minute he got away from them all. He knew it was stupid and childish to go running to his mother every time something went bad in his adult life.
However, hearing his mother's voice always seemed to calm his temper. Moreso, even, than a dip in the ocean or a trip to the stratosphere. She was always so reasonable.
Also, Clark had learned long ago that his mother was always right.
No exceptions.
“All you can do is make the best of it, dear,” she had told him absently. Clark could hear her puttering around in the kitchen. It sounded like she was kneading cookie dough. “Go out there, and write the best story you can. Impress your boss, and soon enough they'll be sending Lois Lane to Gotham City four days before Christmas, not you.”
Clark had sighed, and slid his fingers under his glasses to rub tiredly at his eyes. “Ma, the story is about a new sewage treatment process. You don't win a Pulitzer for that.”
“Now, don't you complain, Clark Joseph Kent. You're lucky to have a job. Lots of folks don't, these days,” his mother scolded fiercely as she cracked open an egg. “Not everything in the world is glamor and pomp. You need to prove you can do the dirty jobs, before your boss will give you the clean ones. If you can't wow them with your writing, at least show them you're dependable.”
She was right, of course.
She was always right.
When Clark arrived at the Gotham field office, he discovered the main reason they needed to call a reporter in from Metropolis to cover the story. All the reporters on the very sparce Gotham City desk were wrapped up in a series of fires taking place in a neighborhood located near the waterfront.
From what Clark had learned, with a combination of eavesdropping and wide eyed farm boy curiosity, arson was suspected. Unfortunately, so far, no one had been able to figure out who the culprit was.
That was when Clark found the silver lining in his black, smoggy cloud.
The sewage story was a dud, but if Clark could break the arson case before the other, more senior members of the Gotham desk, then he might make enough of an impression to get some real stories.
Now that Clark was here, at the scene of the crimes so to speak, that master plan seemed a little unrealistic. Everything looked bleak, quiet and inscrutable. Aside from a few classes in college, Clark wasn't particularly familiar with investigative journalism.
He had absolutely no practical experience.
Clark had thought it couldn't be that difficult. Lois did it all the time, after all, and she didn't have any of Clark's special talents.
Unfortunately, there was no one around the neighborhood to talk to. Which should have been obvious considering it was Gotham City in December. It was about seventeen degrees with the windchill, and everyone was huddled up in their houses.
Without people to talk to, Clark wasn't sure what he should be looking for. Or really, what to do if he found anything at all.
Clark stopped on the sidewalk, and looked down the street. The light had gotten so dim, that he needed to use his enhanced vision to make out the charred edges of the building that had burnt out.
Clark pursed his lips, and stared hard at the remains of the burnt out building. He focused his vision to look inward, looking past the charred walls, the specious structural supports, and into the apartments themselves. He saw the scorched remains of shattered lives within the flimsy walls.
Clark made himself blink the image out of focus. He swallowed hard, and shook his head. He didn't want to see the destruction. He didn't want to smell the smoke. He didn't want hear the silence that always came after death and ruin fell upon a community.
He took a deep breath to steady himself.
There was one thing Clark could deduce, despite his lack of experience in the field of detection. The arsonist who was terrorizing this neighborhood wasn't just interested in watching things burn. He was interested in watching lives go up in flames with the buildings.
There were dozens of abandoned buildings on this block. There were more of them than inhabited ones, even. However, the arsonist was only targeting the buildings that still had residents. So far, out of the four fires, two small children and an elderly woman had died. Two people were in the hospital for severe burns, and many more had been treated for smoke inhalation.
It all spoke to Clark of a very specific type of cruelty that he wasn't sure he could ever understand. No matter how much time he spent studying crime.
Clark was trying hard not to think of the half melted pink plastic tea set stuck to a charred table, when he caught a very particular scent on the wind.
It was sharp, and it was acrid. The sting of it on the inside of Clark's nose made something prick along Clark's skin with fear.
He was in motion before he even had time to think. Clark moved with pure instinct.
Clark moved faster than any human eye could track. He forced himself to move slowly enough that he didn't cause any damage, but it was very difficult. Clark's charcoal grey suit blended with the darkness of the deserted street, and suddenly Clark was little more than a shadow as he sped towards the source of the smell.
Clark's heart pounded, and he hoped against hope that he was wrong. Clark hoped his senses, far too sharp for their own good, were confusing the smells of old fire with new. Or that the scent he caught in the air was just a shorted toaster oven, and not the ignition of another building on the block.
Something cold and terrible burst through Clark's chest when he finally did make out the bright flame of the fire inside a building a half mile down the street. It flared and grew, even as Clark ran faster than was probably safe around all the poorly built buildings on the block.
In that minute, Clark was fifteen again. There was a burning camper, and crying children, and the concept of 'too fast' just didn't exist anymore. There was nothing inside Clark but stark terror, and the uncontrollable impulse, the undeniable need, to protect the people who screamed for a savior.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Bruce was kneeling in front of a chest plate prototype. It that was laid out on a large expanse of corrugated metal sheeting as Bruce examined it. Bruce pulled a face protector into place, and was about to take a strike plate to the tip of an acetylene torch, when Alfred walked into the garage.
A silver tray was balanced elegantly on the tips of Alfred's fingers. On it, Bruce's lightly buzzing PDA was nestled atop a doily that was probably crocheted by Bruce's great, great grandmother.
Bruce cut the fuel line to the torch, before he set it back down on the metal sheeting. He flipped the face protector back, and looked up at Alfred questioningly.
Alfred's face was its usual mask of decorum. However, amusement was clear in his eyes, and there was more than a touch of irony in his voice when he spoke.
“Your email, sir,” he intoned with the same dignity his ancestors probably used to announce visiting royalty.
Alfred lowered the tray so it was at Bruce's eye level, and lifted a pointed eyebrow.
Bruce gave Alfred a wry look, and grabbed the device from the tray. He stood as he flicked off the buzz. Alfred gave Bruce what was, for Alfred, an exaggeratedly grateful look.
Ever since Bruce had decided to stop training, and start working, Alfred had regarded his activities with either indulgent amusement or utter consternation. Occasionally, it was a rather unique mixture of the two. Bruce was absolutely certain that it was only an attitude that Alfred could reasonably pull off.
When Bruce hit the key on the front of the PDA that illuminated the screen, all thoughts of Alfred flew from his mind. His eyes moved rapidly over the information on the screen. After he read through the fourth file on his screen, his mouth went dry.
Bruce punched out of the info screen, and brought up the dialer for his phone. He quickly put in a call to nine one one. He waited, nervous sweat starting to prick out on his forehead, as it rang.
After the second fire on Tenth Street, near the Harbor, Bruce had decided it was a situation he should be keeping an eye on. He had looked into monitoring the alarm systems in the buildings themselves. He wanted to set up a way to send an alert to his PDA whenever any more fires started in that area.
Bruce figured he could tap into the signal that the fire alarms on the buildings sent out to the fire department, as they were set off. When he started in on that particular undertaking, he soon discovered the critical flaw in his plan.
Only two of the buildings, out of the sixteen total inhabited buildings on that street, had a working fire alarm. Neither of those two fire alarms was anything more than a bell on a wall on every other floor.
Bruce had made a mental note to look into the building inspectors that were assigned to this area of Gotham. He hadn't gotten quite that far in his investigation of the fires yet. Bruce had to spend an extensive amount of time setting up his own system of fire detection.
In all sixteen buildings.
The line on Bruce's phone clicked live, and the operator's cool voice came in clear.
“Nine one one. Please state the nature of your emergency.”
Bruce did his best to disguise his voice as he reported the fire and asked for immediate assistance. He cut the line when the operator began asking for his personal details.
Bruce could feel Alfred's concerned, and slightly disapproving, gaze on the back of his head. Bruce couldn't bring himself to turn and face Alfred.
He didn't know what he would say, what he could say, to make any of this alright. Or even some level of acceptable.
Bruce just took a deep breath, and walked over to his work bench. He pulled on a heavy, canvas winter coat with a thick wool lining. The coat was cheap, but effective against the December chill of Gotham City. Then Bruce grabbed a black knit cap, and pulled down low over his forehead. He traded the work gloves he had tucked into the waist band of his sweats for a pair of leather driving gloves.
Bruce ran his eyes over the rack that held the key rings for all of the cars in this garage. He grabbed the set for the late model, dark blue, Honda Civic Bruce had bought the week before. He had needed something small and anonymous to drive while he installed his equipment in the buildings on Tenth.
Bruce made his way quickly towards the car, the work boots he wore tapping on the cold cement of the garage floor. The sound they made seem to echo loudly in the pointed silence that hung thick in the air between Bruce and Alfred.
Bruce felt his throat get tight. He barely had his gloved fingers wrapped around the door handle of the Honda, when Alfred broke the silence.
“I trust you will be home by dinner, sir,” Alfred said in a thin, cold voice.
It was far more of a command than a suggestion.
Bruce closed his eyes, and wished, briefly, that things between the two of them hadn't become so tense of late.
Alfred was one of the only things Bruce had left in his life right now. Unfortunately, Bruce could all but feel him slipping through his fingers. It was terrifying and frustrating, but Bruce couldn't think of anything to do, or say, that would fix things between them.
Except, perhaps, to stop going down this particular road, of which Alfred clearly disapproved.
Unfortunately, even if he tried, Bruce wasn't absolutely certain he could stop. Even if it meant losing one of the last people on Earth that Bruce felt he truly loved.
It was like a compulsion. Every single piece of what Bruce decided he needed to learn felt so essential to him, that the amount of time he spent not knowing bits of it almost physically hurt. Bruce learned each and every piece with a feverish desperation he could never really explain to anyone with any sort of reasonable expectation of understanding or empathy.
Not even from Alfred.
He had tried.
Once.
The look of sadness and pity that Alfred couldn't quite keep out of his eyes had made Bruce feel sick to his stomach.
So he stopped midway through the discourse, and never tried again.
There were bits of the training that Alfred had understood. There were parts of it Alfred had even encouraged. He had understood Bruce's desire to learn martial arts. He had taken it as Bruce wanting to learn to protect himself, so he would never again be a victim.
Alfred had never even guessed at Bruce's true intentions.
Alfred tended to consider the other things Bruce had insisted on learning as rather eccentric hobbies.
Escape artistry, acrobatics, diving, flying, boating, the list went on and on. Alfred was pleased at the advent of each. He believed anything that occupied Bruce's mind, that diverted him from his grief, was a positive thing. Alfred coaxed Bruce to form connections with his teachers, with other students, with like-minded individuals.
Sometimes Bruce did.
Sometimes he didn't have a choice.
His teachers wouldn't teach him well, no matter how much he paid them, if they didn't like him. So Bruce worked hard to be just likeable enough for them to want to help him, but not so likeable that they wouldn't want to let him go when it was time for him to leave.
As for the other students, there was always someone better than him at everything he learned. Someone willing to devote more time to the subject material than Bruce could reasonably afford to give himself. Those were people who were worth cultivating relationships with, because one day he might need them, too.
Then there was Zatanna Zatara who didn't give Bruce a choice beyond friendship. She had forged a relationship, a friendship, between the two of them through sheer force of will. Bruce had admired her for it. It would have made him reluctant to let that friendship slip away as he had let so many others, even if Zatanna would have allowed it.
Alfred supported his 'hobbies'. He was amused by the gadgets, and the computers, and the fast vehicles.
Alfred hadn't liked it when Bruce traveled. He clearly thought Bruce shouldn't spend much time away from Wayne Enterprises, or his more usual schooling. He hadn't even objected too strenuously. He also worked very hard, while they were traveling, to be sure that Bruce did the usual sort of tourist things. Bruce had done them all, mostly to placate Alfred, but some of those little side trips had proven rather valuable. They had helped Bruce form new connections that had helped him in his training.
Alfred was always relieved when Bruce came home, however. When Bruce went back to Hudson, and his position at WE, and the Gotham social scene, Alfred seem to settle back into himself.
Then Bruce had started going out on his own, in anonymous cars with even more anonymous clothes. He had come home with cuts, and bruises, and fear in his eyes. That was when things started to change between the two them. Worry suffused Alfred's face, and lined his mouth.
The first night Bruce came home bleeding, Alfred's indulgent amusement morphed into concerned, silent disapproval. That was weeks ago, and Bruce was starting to wonder how much longer Alfred would keep his tongue. Or how much longer after that, Alfred would leave Bruce altogether.
“I'll do what I can,” Bruce said in a quiet voice, and keyed open the lock on the Honda's door.
If there was one thing at which Bruce had always excelled, it was compartmentalization. He pushed all thoughts of Alfred from his head, and turned his attention to driving. He made to Tenth Street, just a bit before the fire trucks. He pulled into an alley way, and put the Honda in park.
He slipped quickly from the car, after sparing a quick glance in the rear view mirror to be sure his cap was pulled low enough over his brow to hide his features.
The smell of smoke was strong, when he pushed the door shut behind him. Bruce hit the lock button on the key fob as he walked purposefully from the alley’s mouth.
The smoke was thick in the air when he turned the corner out of the alley. Bruce pulled the collar of his shirt up over his mouth and nose. He jut out his chin to keep it in place as he moved.
Bruce's eyes were watering from the sting of the smoke, and his vision wasn't completely clear. It was clear enough, however, to see the fire had already consumed most of the building. This one had gone up much more quickly than the others.
A thrill of dread, followed by a shot of fear, and a healthy dose of guilt, hit Bruce all at once.
He hadn't been made aware fast enough. He hadn't called in the fire soon enough. He hadn't alerted the people in the building at all, relying on the quick response of the GCFD to get the residents out in time.
While Bruce could hear sirens in the distance, no more than a half a mile away, he knew that there was no way all of the people had gotten out in time.
It would have taken a miracle to save everyone in that building. Miracles were few and far between in Gotham City.
Bruce broke into a sprint. He fought back a coughing fit, as he neared the billowing smoke. He blinked back tears as, over the roar of the fire, he heard human voices. They shouted, and called to one another, hoarse with smoke, and shrill with terror. Children cried, and sirens blared, and Bruce followed the sounds.
He found a group of twenty or so people. They formed a semi circle around one prone, and one crouching figure. The crouched man looked up, as Bruce sprinted over to the group.
The man's eyes were frantic, and a searing, vivid blue. Even in the orange glow of the blazing firelight, they shone clear and bright. It seemed almost inhuman, as if they generated a light of their own the fire couldn't even begin to touch.
Bruce was startled back into the moment by the sound of the man's voice. It was heavy with fear and worry, but clear, despite the heavy, acrid smoke.
“Please help!” he called to Bruce. At the sound of his voice, the other men and women huddled around the pair on the ground parted to make room for Bruce. “I don't know CPR and she's not breathing.”
That was when Bruce stopped thinking about anything at all. He moved on instinct. He slipped into a state his martial arts instructors called mukso. It was a battle meditation that was more about moving the way your subconscious mind instructed, drawing on instinct and painstakingly learned behavior, rather than any sort of logic.
Bruce pushed past the people. The man with the blue eyes moved aside to make space for Bruce. Bruce ignored them all, and knelt down on the cold sidewalk. He reached, almost without thinking, to take the elderly woman's pulse. It was thready and faint, and she wasn't breathing.
Bruce moved, almost automatically, into the steps of CPR. He didn't let himself think. He didn't let himself feel. He just worked steadily on the woman, as the sounds of the sirens grew closer and closer. He didn't realize the paramedics had arrived until one of them thanked him, and pushed him away to take over.
Bruce looked up then, and saw exactly what he expected to see.
He saw the shell shocked expressions of the building's residents watching the paramedics try to save the dying old woman. He saw the focused expressions on the faces of the paramedics as they checked over the people who had escaped the building. He saw the exhilarated expressions on the faces of the fire fighters who worked on the blaze. He saw the grim expressions on the faces of the cops who put up barricades, and ushered people into places of safety.
Bruce stumbled away from the fire, in the direction the police indicated. He tripped on the edge of the sidewalk, and a firm hand steadied him.
When Bruce looked up to see who had helped him, he took in another facial expression, one he didn't expect to see at all in this place of tragic destruction.
It was the man who had helped the woman before he arrived. Gratitude shone in those bright blue eyes. Gratitude and relief.
“Thank you,” he said to Bruce, voice warm and full, not even touched by the harsh rasp of the smoke. “I couldn't have saved her myself.”
Emotion glinted in those brilliant eyes, and Bruce had to blink and look away.
“Don't thank me, yet. She might not pull through, after all,” Bruce said gruffly. His own voice was several octaves lower.
The man smiled, and watched as they loaded a gurney that held the old woman into an ambulance. Bruce studied the man's face out of the corner of his eye. There was no fear there. No grief.
All Bruce could find in those clear cut features was that palpable relief.
“Oh, I have a feeling she'll pull through,” the man said enigmatically, as if he knew something Bruce didn't.
Bruce cleared his throat, and jutted his chin towards the gutted building.
“Yeah, well she's the lucky one. Who knows how many were still left inside...”
The other man shook his head, and smiled softly.
“There was no one else. Everyone got out in time,” he said in a quiet, but sure voice.
“How can you be certain?” Bruce asked suspiciously.
The man turned his gentle smile on Bruce.
The other man was wearing half a cheap charcoal suit. His jacket was clearly lost somewhere in his struggles. His white shirt front was strained with soot, and spit, and blood. His tie was charred at the edges, and his ID and pocket protector were half melted.
He looked like he had taken a walk through hell, but his face was beatific.
“Oh, I just know,” the other man replied.
Bruce was about to question him further, when the loud woop of the ambulance’s siren broke through the air. He started, and looked up to see it pulling away from the sidewalk. It took off smoothly down the street, carrying the old woman to safety.
When Bruce looked back to gauge the other man's reaction to the departing ambulance, he was surprised to find himself alone. The fire was loud, still blazing strong, and sirens were shrill in the air, but Bruce's hearing was excellent. He hadn't heard a sound when the man left.
Bruce pursed his lips, and looked around for a few long moments, before deciding that the man had the right idea. Bruce took off himself, before the police got themselves together enough to question him. He made his way back to the Honda as swiftly and unobtrusively as he could manage with a cough.
He keyed open the lock, and started the car. Before he put it in gear, he pulled open the glove box, and extracted his PDA. He pulled up the screen to take notes, and typed in the words 'Daily Planet'.
The ID badge had been badly melted, but Bruce had recognized the Daily Planet's logo. Well, he had recognized the half of it that had been left, at any rate.
Five buildings destroyed, three people dead, countless left homeless, and finally Bruce had a suspect.
Better late than never, according to proverbial wisdom. Bruce wasn't entirely sure he agreed.
At least now Bruce had a face. A very memorable face.
Now all he needed was a name.
Part 2 <--- In which Clark drinks some coffee and Bruce FIXATES.
Series: Sparked Part 1/3
Author: Aravis Tarkheena
Pairing: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent
Rating: PG-13. Yes, I SERIOUSLY just wrote Bruce/Clark without ANYONE getting naked.
Warnings: None, really? There's a good deal of angst inherent in the thematic elements of this fic. Oh and fire. If you're scared of fire give this a skip.
Disclaimer: Not mine, everyone's legal
Word Count: 5,000/16,000ish? Around there.
Author's Note: Written for the World Finest Gift Exchange prompt F 24: Get to know each other fic: Batman and Superman are unawares of other civilian's identity. Clark is sent to Gotham to try and find some information about the so-called dark knight. Bruce Wayne is annoyed. (DCAU) In retrospect, it seems I took it in a slightly different direction. Hope you like it anyway.
ALSO for the dcu_freeforall Winter Challenge, Prompt 8. Family/Home
Beta: kirax2 She is awesome, and I owe her big for editing this monstrosity.
Part One
Clark Kent pulled the Knights baseball cap he was wearing down further on his head, and wished, not for the first time today, that he didn't have a heightened sense of smell. He wished for it deeply, sincerely, and fervently as he tried to block out of the scents that were thick in the air around him.
The deep, pervading stench of a polluted waterfront mixed with the sour smell of damp gutter trash and filth. Behind it all was an acrid, smoky smell, that seemed to hang heavy in the air, and stick to the back of Clark's throat.
At least he knew he was close now.
Clark eyed the mostly gutted buildings around him speculatively. The dark red of their faux brick facades were stained and smeared with a substance that looked a good deal like black tar, but probably wasn't. Faded graffiti littering various surfaces spoke of an area forgotten, even by vandals.
The windows and door frames that hung empty seemed black and forbidding in the fading daylight. The wind off the harbor whistled eerily as it blew through them, chilling only stray cats and forgotten ghosts.
The windows in the buildings that were lit were only in slightly better repair than their abandoned neighbors. The light didn't seem warm, or welcoming. It looked cold, and it looked harsh, and it made Clark shiver.
Part of Clark would always be the country boy. To Clark, home smelled of grass and trees and damp, fertile earth. There was always noise, even in the silence of the night, as the crickets sang and the night birds called to one another. The scents and sounds of the city were always alien to Clark.
Silence in a city always seemed pregnant. As if all the people hiding behind those curtain-less windows and filthy walls were just waiting for something to happen.
It was the wrong kind of silence. The worst kind. The type that was just waiting for a scream or an emergency siren to break it.
Clark had only lived in the city for a few months. He wasn't sure he would ever get used to it. Metropolis was a heck of a lot more welcoming than Gotham City ever seemed to be.
This was Clark's first visit to Gotham City, and so far the experience had been less than pleasant. He hadn't been on the East Coast long enough to explore at any great length.
Clark had planned on getting all his copy for the Planet done early and heading back to Kansas as soon as possible. Christmas was just a few days away, and Clark had been missing his parents and Krypto pretty badly, lately. More than he had anticipated. More than he probably should be at this stage in his life.
Clark couldn't say why, exactly. Perhaps he was lonely. More so than usual. Clark was used to not quite belonging in large groups, especially groups of his peers. His parents, however, had done a wonderful job of counteracting those feelings.
Clark just hadn't anticipated the toll constantly lying to everyone in his life would take on him emotionally. At least he hadn’t anticipated how hard it would be without his parents constant support. It was draining, and his coworkers seemed to sense that disconnect Clark couldn't help but feel between himself and everyone else in the world.
In the end, Clark was almost certain it was that distance between himself and the other new reporters at the Planet that had lead to this. Clark had been railroaded by Lois and the other reporters into coming here.
The worst part was that Clark resented them for volunteering him for the story. That wasn't right, but Clark couldn't help but feel that way.
“You need to broaden your horizons, Smallville,” Lois had informed him with a superior smirk, as the low chuckles from the rest of the bullpen rumbled in the background.
Clark had made himself give a sunny smile. He spouted some chirpy agreement to the job, all the while willing down his temper and praying to God his eyes didn't turn red.
He had called his mother the minute he got away from them all. He knew it was stupid and childish to go running to his mother every time something went bad in his adult life.
However, hearing his mother's voice always seemed to calm his temper. Moreso, even, than a dip in the ocean or a trip to the stratosphere. She was always so reasonable.
Also, Clark had learned long ago that his mother was always right.
No exceptions.
“All you can do is make the best of it, dear,” she had told him absently. Clark could hear her puttering around in the kitchen. It sounded like she was kneading cookie dough. “Go out there, and write the best story you can. Impress your boss, and soon enough they'll be sending Lois Lane to Gotham City four days before Christmas, not you.”
Clark had sighed, and slid his fingers under his glasses to rub tiredly at his eyes. “Ma, the story is about a new sewage treatment process. You don't win a Pulitzer for that.”
“Now, don't you complain, Clark Joseph Kent. You're lucky to have a job. Lots of folks don't, these days,” his mother scolded fiercely as she cracked open an egg. “Not everything in the world is glamor and pomp. You need to prove you can do the dirty jobs, before your boss will give you the clean ones. If you can't wow them with your writing, at least show them you're dependable.”
She was right, of course.
She was always right.
When Clark arrived at the Gotham field office, he discovered the main reason they needed to call a reporter in from Metropolis to cover the story. All the reporters on the very sparce Gotham City desk were wrapped up in a series of fires taking place in a neighborhood located near the waterfront.
From what Clark had learned, with a combination of eavesdropping and wide eyed farm boy curiosity, arson was suspected. Unfortunately, so far, no one had been able to figure out who the culprit was.
That was when Clark found the silver lining in his black, smoggy cloud.
The sewage story was a dud, but if Clark could break the arson case before the other, more senior members of the Gotham desk, then he might make enough of an impression to get some real stories.
Now that Clark was here, at the scene of the crimes so to speak, that master plan seemed a little unrealistic. Everything looked bleak, quiet and inscrutable. Aside from a few classes in college, Clark wasn't particularly familiar with investigative journalism.
He had absolutely no practical experience.
Clark had thought it couldn't be that difficult. Lois did it all the time, after all, and she didn't have any of Clark's special talents.
Unfortunately, there was no one around the neighborhood to talk to. Which should have been obvious considering it was Gotham City in December. It was about seventeen degrees with the windchill, and everyone was huddled up in their houses.
Without people to talk to, Clark wasn't sure what he should be looking for. Or really, what to do if he found anything at all.
Clark stopped on the sidewalk, and looked down the street. The light had gotten so dim, that he needed to use his enhanced vision to make out the charred edges of the building that had burnt out.
Clark pursed his lips, and stared hard at the remains of the burnt out building. He focused his vision to look inward, looking past the charred walls, the specious structural supports, and into the apartments themselves. He saw the scorched remains of shattered lives within the flimsy walls.
Clark made himself blink the image out of focus. He swallowed hard, and shook his head. He didn't want to see the destruction. He didn't want to smell the smoke. He didn't want hear the silence that always came after death and ruin fell upon a community.
He took a deep breath to steady himself.
There was one thing Clark could deduce, despite his lack of experience in the field of detection. The arsonist who was terrorizing this neighborhood wasn't just interested in watching things burn. He was interested in watching lives go up in flames with the buildings.
There were dozens of abandoned buildings on this block. There were more of them than inhabited ones, even. However, the arsonist was only targeting the buildings that still had residents. So far, out of the four fires, two small children and an elderly woman had died. Two people were in the hospital for severe burns, and many more had been treated for smoke inhalation.
It all spoke to Clark of a very specific type of cruelty that he wasn't sure he could ever understand. No matter how much time he spent studying crime.
Clark was trying hard not to think of the half melted pink plastic tea set stuck to a charred table, when he caught a very particular scent on the wind.
It was sharp, and it was acrid. The sting of it on the inside of Clark's nose made something prick along Clark's skin with fear.
He was in motion before he even had time to think. Clark moved with pure instinct.
Clark moved faster than any human eye could track. He forced himself to move slowly enough that he didn't cause any damage, but it was very difficult. Clark's charcoal grey suit blended with the darkness of the deserted street, and suddenly Clark was little more than a shadow as he sped towards the source of the smell.
Clark's heart pounded, and he hoped against hope that he was wrong. Clark hoped his senses, far too sharp for their own good, were confusing the smells of old fire with new. Or that the scent he caught in the air was just a shorted toaster oven, and not the ignition of another building on the block.
Something cold and terrible burst through Clark's chest when he finally did make out the bright flame of the fire inside a building a half mile down the street. It flared and grew, even as Clark ran faster than was probably safe around all the poorly built buildings on the block.
In that minute, Clark was fifteen again. There was a burning camper, and crying children, and the concept of 'too fast' just didn't exist anymore. There was nothing inside Clark but stark terror, and the uncontrollable impulse, the undeniable need, to protect the people who screamed for a savior.
^*^*^*^*^*^*^
Bruce was kneeling in front of a chest plate prototype. It that was laid out on a large expanse of corrugated metal sheeting as Bruce examined it. Bruce pulled a face protector into place, and was about to take a strike plate to the tip of an acetylene torch, when Alfred walked into the garage.
A silver tray was balanced elegantly on the tips of Alfred's fingers. On it, Bruce's lightly buzzing PDA was nestled atop a doily that was probably crocheted by Bruce's great, great grandmother.
Bruce cut the fuel line to the torch, before he set it back down on the metal sheeting. He flipped the face protector back, and looked up at Alfred questioningly.
Alfred's face was its usual mask of decorum. However, amusement was clear in his eyes, and there was more than a touch of irony in his voice when he spoke.
“Your email, sir,” he intoned with the same dignity his ancestors probably used to announce visiting royalty.
Alfred lowered the tray so it was at Bruce's eye level, and lifted a pointed eyebrow.
Bruce gave Alfred a wry look, and grabbed the device from the tray. He stood as he flicked off the buzz. Alfred gave Bruce what was, for Alfred, an exaggeratedly grateful look.
Ever since Bruce had decided to stop training, and start working, Alfred had regarded his activities with either indulgent amusement or utter consternation. Occasionally, it was a rather unique mixture of the two. Bruce was absolutely certain that it was only an attitude that Alfred could reasonably pull off.
When Bruce hit the key on the front of the PDA that illuminated the screen, all thoughts of Alfred flew from his mind. His eyes moved rapidly over the information on the screen. After he read through the fourth file on his screen, his mouth went dry.
Bruce punched out of the info screen, and brought up the dialer for his phone. He quickly put in a call to nine one one. He waited, nervous sweat starting to prick out on his forehead, as it rang.
After the second fire on Tenth Street, near the Harbor, Bruce had decided it was a situation he should be keeping an eye on. He had looked into monitoring the alarm systems in the buildings themselves. He wanted to set up a way to send an alert to his PDA whenever any more fires started in that area.
Bruce figured he could tap into the signal that the fire alarms on the buildings sent out to the fire department, as they were set off. When he started in on that particular undertaking, he soon discovered the critical flaw in his plan.
Only two of the buildings, out of the sixteen total inhabited buildings on that street, had a working fire alarm. Neither of those two fire alarms was anything more than a bell on a wall on every other floor.
Bruce had made a mental note to look into the building inspectors that were assigned to this area of Gotham. He hadn't gotten quite that far in his investigation of the fires yet. Bruce had to spend an extensive amount of time setting up his own system of fire detection.
In all sixteen buildings.
The line on Bruce's phone clicked live, and the operator's cool voice came in clear.
“Nine one one. Please state the nature of your emergency.”
Bruce did his best to disguise his voice as he reported the fire and asked for immediate assistance. He cut the line when the operator began asking for his personal details.
Bruce could feel Alfred's concerned, and slightly disapproving, gaze on the back of his head. Bruce couldn't bring himself to turn and face Alfred.
He didn't know what he would say, what he could say, to make any of this alright. Or even some level of acceptable.
Bruce just took a deep breath, and walked over to his work bench. He pulled on a heavy, canvas winter coat with a thick wool lining. The coat was cheap, but effective against the December chill of Gotham City. Then Bruce grabbed a black knit cap, and pulled down low over his forehead. He traded the work gloves he had tucked into the waist band of his sweats for a pair of leather driving gloves.
Bruce ran his eyes over the rack that held the key rings for all of the cars in this garage. He grabbed the set for the late model, dark blue, Honda Civic Bruce had bought the week before. He had needed something small and anonymous to drive while he installed his equipment in the buildings on Tenth.
Bruce made his way quickly towards the car, the work boots he wore tapping on the cold cement of the garage floor. The sound they made seem to echo loudly in the pointed silence that hung thick in the air between Bruce and Alfred.
Bruce felt his throat get tight. He barely had his gloved fingers wrapped around the door handle of the Honda, when Alfred broke the silence.
“I trust you will be home by dinner, sir,” Alfred said in a thin, cold voice.
It was far more of a command than a suggestion.
Bruce closed his eyes, and wished, briefly, that things between the two of them hadn't become so tense of late.
Alfred was one of the only things Bruce had left in his life right now. Unfortunately, Bruce could all but feel him slipping through his fingers. It was terrifying and frustrating, but Bruce couldn't think of anything to do, or say, that would fix things between them.
Except, perhaps, to stop going down this particular road, of which Alfred clearly disapproved.
Unfortunately, even if he tried, Bruce wasn't absolutely certain he could stop. Even if it meant losing one of the last people on Earth that Bruce felt he truly loved.
It was like a compulsion. Every single piece of what Bruce decided he needed to learn felt so essential to him, that the amount of time he spent not knowing bits of it almost physically hurt. Bruce learned each and every piece with a feverish desperation he could never really explain to anyone with any sort of reasonable expectation of understanding or empathy.
Not even from Alfred.
He had tried.
Once.
The look of sadness and pity that Alfred couldn't quite keep out of his eyes had made Bruce feel sick to his stomach.
So he stopped midway through the discourse, and never tried again.
There were bits of the training that Alfred had understood. There were parts of it Alfred had even encouraged. He had understood Bruce's desire to learn martial arts. He had taken it as Bruce wanting to learn to protect himself, so he would never again be a victim.
Alfred had never even guessed at Bruce's true intentions.
Alfred tended to consider the other things Bruce had insisted on learning as rather eccentric hobbies.
Escape artistry, acrobatics, diving, flying, boating, the list went on and on. Alfred was pleased at the advent of each. He believed anything that occupied Bruce's mind, that diverted him from his grief, was a positive thing. Alfred coaxed Bruce to form connections with his teachers, with other students, with like-minded individuals.
Sometimes Bruce did.
Sometimes he didn't have a choice.
His teachers wouldn't teach him well, no matter how much he paid them, if they didn't like him. So Bruce worked hard to be just likeable enough for them to want to help him, but not so likeable that they wouldn't want to let him go when it was time for him to leave.
As for the other students, there was always someone better than him at everything he learned. Someone willing to devote more time to the subject material than Bruce could reasonably afford to give himself. Those were people who were worth cultivating relationships with, because one day he might need them, too.
Then there was Zatanna Zatara who didn't give Bruce a choice beyond friendship. She had forged a relationship, a friendship, between the two of them through sheer force of will. Bruce had admired her for it. It would have made him reluctant to let that friendship slip away as he had let so many others, even if Zatanna would have allowed it.
Alfred supported his 'hobbies'. He was amused by the gadgets, and the computers, and the fast vehicles.
Alfred hadn't liked it when Bruce traveled. He clearly thought Bruce shouldn't spend much time away from Wayne Enterprises, or his more usual schooling. He hadn't even objected too strenuously. He also worked very hard, while they were traveling, to be sure that Bruce did the usual sort of tourist things. Bruce had done them all, mostly to placate Alfred, but some of those little side trips had proven rather valuable. They had helped Bruce form new connections that had helped him in his training.
Alfred was always relieved when Bruce came home, however. When Bruce went back to Hudson, and his position at WE, and the Gotham social scene, Alfred seem to settle back into himself.
Then Bruce had started going out on his own, in anonymous cars with even more anonymous clothes. He had come home with cuts, and bruises, and fear in his eyes. That was when things started to change between the two them. Worry suffused Alfred's face, and lined his mouth.
The first night Bruce came home bleeding, Alfred's indulgent amusement morphed into concerned, silent disapproval. That was weeks ago, and Bruce was starting to wonder how much longer Alfred would keep his tongue. Or how much longer after that, Alfred would leave Bruce altogether.
“I'll do what I can,” Bruce said in a quiet voice, and keyed open the lock on the Honda's door.
If there was one thing at which Bruce had always excelled, it was compartmentalization. He pushed all thoughts of Alfred from his head, and turned his attention to driving. He made to Tenth Street, just a bit before the fire trucks. He pulled into an alley way, and put the Honda in park.
He slipped quickly from the car, after sparing a quick glance in the rear view mirror to be sure his cap was pulled low enough over his brow to hide his features.
The smell of smoke was strong, when he pushed the door shut behind him. Bruce hit the lock button on the key fob as he walked purposefully from the alley’s mouth.
The smoke was thick in the air when he turned the corner out of the alley. Bruce pulled the collar of his shirt up over his mouth and nose. He jut out his chin to keep it in place as he moved.
Bruce's eyes were watering from the sting of the smoke, and his vision wasn't completely clear. It was clear enough, however, to see the fire had already consumed most of the building. This one had gone up much more quickly than the others.
A thrill of dread, followed by a shot of fear, and a healthy dose of guilt, hit Bruce all at once.
He hadn't been made aware fast enough. He hadn't called in the fire soon enough. He hadn't alerted the people in the building at all, relying on the quick response of the GCFD to get the residents out in time.
While Bruce could hear sirens in the distance, no more than a half a mile away, he knew that there was no way all of the people had gotten out in time.
It would have taken a miracle to save everyone in that building. Miracles were few and far between in Gotham City.
Bruce broke into a sprint. He fought back a coughing fit, as he neared the billowing smoke. He blinked back tears as, over the roar of the fire, he heard human voices. They shouted, and called to one another, hoarse with smoke, and shrill with terror. Children cried, and sirens blared, and Bruce followed the sounds.
He found a group of twenty or so people. They formed a semi circle around one prone, and one crouching figure. The crouched man looked up, as Bruce sprinted over to the group.
The man's eyes were frantic, and a searing, vivid blue. Even in the orange glow of the blazing firelight, they shone clear and bright. It seemed almost inhuman, as if they generated a light of their own the fire couldn't even begin to touch.
Bruce was startled back into the moment by the sound of the man's voice. It was heavy with fear and worry, but clear, despite the heavy, acrid smoke.
“Please help!” he called to Bruce. At the sound of his voice, the other men and women huddled around the pair on the ground parted to make room for Bruce. “I don't know CPR and she's not breathing.”
That was when Bruce stopped thinking about anything at all. He moved on instinct. He slipped into a state his martial arts instructors called mukso. It was a battle meditation that was more about moving the way your subconscious mind instructed, drawing on instinct and painstakingly learned behavior, rather than any sort of logic.
Bruce pushed past the people. The man with the blue eyes moved aside to make space for Bruce. Bruce ignored them all, and knelt down on the cold sidewalk. He reached, almost without thinking, to take the elderly woman's pulse. It was thready and faint, and she wasn't breathing.
Bruce moved, almost automatically, into the steps of CPR. He didn't let himself think. He didn't let himself feel. He just worked steadily on the woman, as the sounds of the sirens grew closer and closer. He didn't realize the paramedics had arrived until one of them thanked him, and pushed him away to take over.
Bruce looked up then, and saw exactly what he expected to see.
He saw the shell shocked expressions of the building's residents watching the paramedics try to save the dying old woman. He saw the focused expressions on the faces of the paramedics as they checked over the people who had escaped the building. He saw the exhilarated expressions on the faces of the fire fighters who worked on the blaze. He saw the grim expressions on the faces of the cops who put up barricades, and ushered people into places of safety.
Bruce stumbled away from the fire, in the direction the police indicated. He tripped on the edge of the sidewalk, and a firm hand steadied him.
When Bruce looked up to see who had helped him, he took in another facial expression, one he didn't expect to see at all in this place of tragic destruction.
It was the man who had helped the woman before he arrived. Gratitude shone in those bright blue eyes. Gratitude and relief.
“Thank you,” he said to Bruce, voice warm and full, not even touched by the harsh rasp of the smoke. “I couldn't have saved her myself.”
Emotion glinted in those brilliant eyes, and Bruce had to blink and look away.
“Don't thank me, yet. She might not pull through, after all,” Bruce said gruffly. His own voice was several octaves lower.
The man smiled, and watched as they loaded a gurney that held the old woman into an ambulance. Bruce studied the man's face out of the corner of his eye. There was no fear there. No grief.
All Bruce could find in those clear cut features was that palpable relief.
“Oh, I have a feeling she'll pull through,” the man said enigmatically, as if he knew something Bruce didn't.
Bruce cleared his throat, and jutted his chin towards the gutted building.
“Yeah, well she's the lucky one. Who knows how many were still left inside...”
The other man shook his head, and smiled softly.
“There was no one else. Everyone got out in time,” he said in a quiet, but sure voice.
“How can you be certain?” Bruce asked suspiciously.
The man turned his gentle smile on Bruce.
The other man was wearing half a cheap charcoal suit. His jacket was clearly lost somewhere in his struggles. His white shirt front was strained with soot, and spit, and blood. His tie was charred at the edges, and his ID and pocket protector were half melted.
He looked like he had taken a walk through hell, but his face was beatific.
“Oh, I just know,” the other man replied.
Bruce was about to question him further, when the loud woop of the ambulance’s siren broke through the air. He started, and looked up to see it pulling away from the sidewalk. It took off smoothly down the street, carrying the old woman to safety.
When Bruce looked back to gauge the other man's reaction to the departing ambulance, he was surprised to find himself alone. The fire was loud, still blazing strong, and sirens were shrill in the air, but Bruce's hearing was excellent. He hadn't heard a sound when the man left.
Bruce pursed his lips, and looked around for a few long moments, before deciding that the man had the right idea. Bruce took off himself, before the police got themselves together enough to question him. He made his way back to the Honda as swiftly and unobtrusively as he could manage with a cough.
He keyed open the lock, and started the car. Before he put it in gear, he pulled open the glove box, and extracted his PDA. He pulled up the screen to take notes, and typed in the words 'Daily Planet'.
The ID badge had been badly melted, but Bruce had recognized the Daily Planet's logo. Well, he had recognized the half of it that had been left, at any rate.
Five buildings destroyed, three people dead, countless left homeless, and finally Bruce had a suspect.
Better late than never, according to proverbial wisdom. Bruce wasn't entirely sure he agreed.
At least now Bruce had a face. A very memorable face.
Now all he needed was a name.
Part 2 <--- In which Clark drinks some coffee and Bruce FIXATES.