FIC: Gotham Nocturne (9/10)
Title: Gotham Nocturne: Chapter Nine
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Gotham Nocturne is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Superman, Batman, Crane and Waller clash in the Hall of Mirrors.
Word Count: 2000
“You're late,” Amanda Waller snarled as Superman descended from the sky to touch down lightly in front of her and the rest of her squad. The wood of the boardwalk gave a hollow echo as he landed. Beyond that, the only sound was the gentle lapping of the sea under the docks.
The only sound the humans could hear, at least.
Superman decided not to remind Waller that her demand for his presence had been issued less than two minutes ago. “What's the situation?”
The woman's face was streaked with blood, fresh streams trickling downward; she seemed oblivious to her wounds. Beside her, a blonde woman was bandaging a man's throat, his breath wheezing faintly. “Batman and Crane are in there,” she said, pointing toward the tangle of rollercoasters and Ferris Wheels looming in the dark. “I want Crane alive. Batman if possible.” She paused. When Superman said nothing, she sneered, “That's right, you claim you don't kill.” The faint red light that kindled in his eyes fazed her not at all. “We'll be right behind you, alien."
“I won't need backup.”
“I didn't say we'd be backing you up.” Waller's smile was as sweet as a shark's. “Go.”
The full moon slanted light through the latticed supports of the roller coasters, casting chaotic patterns of silver and black across the boardwalk. The chains of the swing ride creaked in the stillness, but there was nothing there. When Superman tried to listen for Crane's heartbeat, the trembling pulse of innumerable rats drowned out any possibility; Kal resisted the impulse to put his hands over his ears. It wouldn't help. There was only silence on the receiver and Kal didn't dare try to contact Bruce.
A ratlike skitter of movement caught Kal's attention. He moved carefully after it, into the ground below a roller coaster, wrappers and dust beneath his feet. Another scurrying noise, followed by a spash of liquid on the back of his neck. Kal snapped his gaze up in time to see Crane finish emptying the contents of a violet vial; the last drops spattered his face and in his eyes, blinding him. As he wiped at his face and burned the liquid off his hands, causing wisps of lilac-scented smoke to curl around his face, Crane unfolded from the beams and landed with a thump on the ground, taking off at a dead run.
Fear toxin. Full-strength. Kal felt his stomach turn over at the memory of the last time, the roiling fear, the thousand laughing eyes of Gotham. What phobia was this, and what would it do to him?
No time to worry about it, only time to follow Crane.
Shouts from Waller's people, hammering footsteps on planks--Kal spotted Batman unfolding like a shadow from a booth and all three converged on Crane, who ducked into a building. The soldiers and the Dark Knight followed him in. As Superman approached, still shaking off clinging toxin, he saw the sign over the door: Hall of Mirrors.
A tremor of uncertainty; Kal paused outside for just a moment, fist clenching in something like trepidation. Then a shot rang out inside and he grimaced and went in.
When Gotham did a hall of mirrors, it didn't cut corners. Before Kal loomed a maze of glass and silver, twisting out of sight. A switch snapped somewhere and the maze blazed with fluorescent light, reflected in every mirror. Images flickered briefly in mirrors at the corners of his vision and were gone again: a black cape, Waller's stocky figure, the spider-like limbs of Crane. It was oddly silent inside, only furtive shuffling breaking the stillness as people maneuvered through the maze in search of their prey.
Kal stepped into the maze.
Immediately a dozen dozen images of him sprang into being around him, their faces pale and drawn. Kal looked at the rows and rows of his image and saw tension start to stain each of them, unease bleeding from reflection to reflection. He moved forward, trying to ignore the identical Kals receding into the distance. His hair was still damp with the unidentified toxin--it would probably be affecting him any moment now.
He hoped it was fear of letting criminals escape justice, but somehow he doubted it.
A hoarse cry somewhere in the maze, a thump. Kal resisted the impulse to start shattering mirrors with his heat vision, his fists...too dangerous to the humans inside with him. He walked into a clear glass pane and grunted surprise; when he put his hands up to feel ahead of him all the reflections around him mirrored his move, identical, lost, groping in the light.
There was a high-pitched sound keening in his ears, drowning out even the beat of Gotham: a crystalline resonance that he knew he couldn't listen to. It went on and on, intolerably high and sweet, treacherously beautiful, spinning towards infinity, unending. Unending.
He rounded a corner and came to what had to be the heart of the maze--perfectly symmetrical, casting row upon row of identical Kal-Els into the distance. He was surrounded by nothing but himself, continuing forever, unchanged, untouched. To eternity.
He may have whimpered then. He couldn't be sure, because he couldn't hear anything over the eternal note that rose and fell without a rhythm, cold and pure, matching the reflections that stretched soullessly on forever. He was lost. He saw the reflected Kal-Els drop to their knees, shuddering, and wondered dimly if they dropped in response to him or if he was kneeling because they were. Cause and effect were shattered like a mirror and nothing proceeded from anything, it was all now, unchanging, perpetual, static. Red and blue, shivering, alone, receding into the light, alone, drowning in music and time without end, world without end.
Without end.
A hoarse cry in his ear, a voice he should know: "Kal." Meaningless sound. Meaningless. But somehow the empty syllable, the bit of breath, was a tiny scratch in the eternal mirror that trapped him. He groped for something to break through the hard, cold reflective surface of infinity, to break the impossible echo of the unchanging silver note that wrapped him in immutability.
A beat.
A rhythm.
Underneath him, around him, under the intolerable ringing chime.
The beat of Gotham.
Help me, he whispered to the song he could hear on the edges of his hearing, a black threnody that negated the eternal silver. I want to help him. We both love him. Help me!
The song surged to meet his entreaty, dark and demanding. He felt the entropy in its beats, the footfalls of time, and welcomed it, embraced it. The infinite loop of annihilation buckled and shattered before the cadence of blood and decay. Briefly, every mirror around him flickered with Batman's grim visage, Bruce's lazy smile, one and the same--a myriad images that flickered and vanished.
Gotham found Kal's heart and matched its beat to hers for one dark and glorious moment, and the fear fell away from him.
He surged up, the terror gone, his reflections only tricks of light once more. Gunshots rang out somewhere, followed by the sound of glass shattering to powder, and Kal made his way toward the sound as quickly as he could to where Batman was fighting Crane, the scientist animated by a frenzy of fear, as Waller's agents fired wildly at the men and their reflections.
Superman wasn't fooled: only two of the choices had heartbeats. He plucked bullets out of the air like musical notes, snatching one mere inches from Bruce's throat, and collared Crane. Batman slipped between two mirrors and vanished like a magician. "You can't hide forever, Bat," Superman announced grimly for the benefit of the listening agents, and heard Bruce's quiet snicker in his ear as Waller gnashed her teeth and dispatched her squad to find him.
"What are you waiting for, alien?" she barked as she cuffed Crane. "Get that vigilante!"
Superman crossed his arms and glowered. "The deal was to get you Crane and keep your agents safe. If Batman gives me an excuse, I'll stop him. Until then, I consider my work here in Gotham done."
Waller kicked in a series of mirrors, making her way unerringly toward the exit and dragging the reluctant Crane behind her. They emerged into the cool night air, rent now with wailing sirens and flashing lights as five police cars pulled up. Jim Gordon strode toward Waller, and her grip tightened on Scarecrow until he whimpered.
Gordon brandished a piece of paper. "We have a warrant for the arrest of Jonathan Crane. We'll be taking him under Gotham City custody." He showed his teeth. "Do you have a warrant?"
As Waller lowered her head like a cornered mastiff, another car squealed up, the doors opening to reveal Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson. Lois shoved a microphone in Gordon's face, smiling cheerfully. "How does it feel to have the notorious Scarecrow under arrest again, Lieutenant?"
Gordon's gaze hadn't left Waller's yet. "My men didn't make this arrest. I believe Agent Waller here is responsible for the capture."
"Oh!" Lois transferred her attention to Waller as Jimmy's flash turned the air incandescent. "Will you be handing the Scarecrow over to Gotham City authorities, Ms. Waller? After all, he committed his crimes in Gotham. Or do you have other plans for him? I was just talking to some folks at the Pentagon about the possibility today..."
Superman could see the wheels turning in Waller's head. Lois was bluffing, and Waller had to suspect it. But would she be willing to risk the public finding out and the firestorm that would certainly follow?
After a long, pained moment, Waller smiled. "Of course we'll be turning over Dr. Crane to the Gotham City authorities," she said through her teeth. "My agents and I are happy to help bring such a heinous criminal to justice at last."
Gordon stepped forward and Waller hissed exasperation through her smile, but allowed him to take Crane away from her. He pushed Crane into the back of a patrol car, Crane still peering at the sky in terror and muttering about the avenging God of fear and his wings of black silk.
"Wow, what a great moment," Lois announced as Waller stared after her lost prize. "Superman, what's it been like working so closely with the government?"
Superman cleared his throat. "I'm always proud to help stop those depraved souls who plan to spread terror, Ms. Lane."
"Ms. Waller, what's it been like working with Superman?"
Waller turned her attention to Lois. "On the record, Ms. Lane? It's been an edifying experience, working with such a pillar of rectitude." She managed to make it sound obscene. "Off the record?" She stepped closer to to Lois. "If you print anything less than a glowing story about this, I will personally pay to have you undergo a sex change operation so I can have the pleasure of ripping your balls off and stuffing them down your throat." Jimmy swallowed audibly, and Waller shot him a look. "That goes for you, too."
"Well, I believe my work here is done, and I'd better be heading back to Metropolis," Superman announced.
"I haven't given you leave to go," Waller snarled as Superman poised himself for flight.
Kal looked back, his gaze unfathomable. "True," he noted. And left.
Her growl and Crane's whimpering followed him into the sky as Jimmy's flash lit the way.
He hovered above Gotham, listening for any sounds of battle in Batman's vicinity. "Lost them?" he whispered.
"Of course," came Bruce's smug voice.
"Crane's in Gordon's custody and Waller's going home empty-handed."
"Remind me to send some roses to Lois tomorrow." There was a slight hesitation, and when he spoke next Bruce's voice was cautious. "I'm heading back to the Manor to get patched up. Shall I meet you in Metropolis tomorrow?"
Bruce couldn't see his smile, but would be able to to hear it in his voice. "I was hoping to spend the night here in Gotham, actually."
"Ah." So much emotion in such a small syllable. "With me, I hope."
The lights of Gotham burned steadfast below him, the song a lullaby now, drowsy and content. "Always."
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Series Notes: Gotham Nocturne is part of The Music of the Spheres, a combined Superman Returns/Batman Begins series. The whole series can be found here.
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Superman, Batman, Crane and Waller clash in the Hall of Mirrors.
Word Count: 2000
“You're late,” Amanda Waller snarled as Superman descended from the sky to touch down lightly in front of her and the rest of her squad. The wood of the boardwalk gave a hollow echo as he landed. Beyond that, the only sound was the gentle lapping of the sea under the docks.
The only sound the humans could hear, at least.
Superman decided not to remind Waller that her demand for his presence had been issued less than two minutes ago. “What's the situation?”
The woman's face was streaked with blood, fresh streams trickling downward; she seemed oblivious to her wounds. Beside her, a blonde woman was bandaging a man's throat, his breath wheezing faintly. “Batman and Crane are in there,” she said, pointing toward the tangle of rollercoasters and Ferris Wheels looming in the dark. “I want Crane alive. Batman if possible.” She paused. When Superman said nothing, she sneered, “That's right, you claim you don't kill.” The faint red light that kindled in his eyes fazed her not at all. “We'll be right behind you, alien."
“I won't need backup.”
“I didn't say we'd be backing you up.” Waller's smile was as sweet as a shark's. “Go.”
The full moon slanted light through the latticed supports of the roller coasters, casting chaotic patterns of silver and black across the boardwalk. The chains of the swing ride creaked in the stillness, but there was nothing there. When Superman tried to listen for Crane's heartbeat, the trembling pulse of innumerable rats drowned out any possibility; Kal resisted the impulse to put his hands over his ears. It wouldn't help. There was only silence on the receiver and Kal didn't dare try to contact Bruce.
A ratlike skitter of movement caught Kal's attention. He moved carefully after it, into the ground below a roller coaster, wrappers and dust beneath his feet. Another scurrying noise, followed by a spash of liquid on the back of his neck. Kal snapped his gaze up in time to see Crane finish emptying the contents of a violet vial; the last drops spattered his face and in his eyes, blinding him. As he wiped at his face and burned the liquid off his hands, causing wisps of lilac-scented smoke to curl around his face, Crane unfolded from the beams and landed with a thump on the ground, taking off at a dead run.
Fear toxin. Full-strength. Kal felt his stomach turn over at the memory of the last time, the roiling fear, the thousand laughing eyes of Gotham. What phobia was this, and what would it do to him?
No time to worry about it, only time to follow Crane.
Shouts from Waller's people, hammering footsteps on planks--Kal spotted Batman unfolding like a shadow from a booth and all three converged on Crane, who ducked into a building. The soldiers and the Dark Knight followed him in. As Superman approached, still shaking off clinging toxin, he saw the sign over the door: Hall of Mirrors.
A tremor of uncertainty; Kal paused outside for just a moment, fist clenching in something like trepidation. Then a shot rang out inside and he grimaced and went in.
When Gotham did a hall of mirrors, it didn't cut corners. Before Kal loomed a maze of glass and silver, twisting out of sight. A switch snapped somewhere and the maze blazed with fluorescent light, reflected in every mirror. Images flickered briefly in mirrors at the corners of his vision and were gone again: a black cape, Waller's stocky figure, the spider-like limbs of Crane. It was oddly silent inside, only furtive shuffling breaking the stillness as people maneuvered through the maze in search of their prey.
Kal stepped into the maze.
Immediately a dozen dozen images of him sprang into being around him, their faces pale and drawn. Kal looked at the rows and rows of his image and saw tension start to stain each of them, unease bleeding from reflection to reflection. He moved forward, trying to ignore the identical Kals receding into the distance. His hair was still damp with the unidentified toxin--it would probably be affecting him any moment now.
He hoped it was fear of letting criminals escape justice, but somehow he doubted it.
A hoarse cry somewhere in the maze, a thump. Kal resisted the impulse to start shattering mirrors with his heat vision, his fists...too dangerous to the humans inside with him. He walked into a clear glass pane and grunted surprise; when he put his hands up to feel ahead of him all the reflections around him mirrored his move, identical, lost, groping in the light.
There was a high-pitched sound keening in his ears, drowning out even the beat of Gotham: a crystalline resonance that he knew he couldn't listen to. It went on and on, intolerably high and sweet, treacherously beautiful, spinning towards infinity, unending. Unending.
He rounded a corner and came to what had to be the heart of the maze--perfectly symmetrical, casting row upon row of identical Kal-Els into the distance. He was surrounded by nothing but himself, continuing forever, unchanged, untouched. To eternity.
He may have whimpered then. He couldn't be sure, because he couldn't hear anything over the eternal note that rose and fell without a rhythm, cold and pure, matching the reflections that stretched soullessly on forever. He was lost. He saw the reflected Kal-Els drop to their knees, shuddering, and wondered dimly if they dropped in response to him or if he was kneeling because they were. Cause and effect were shattered like a mirror and nothing proceeded from anything, it was all now, unchanging, perpetual, static. Red and blue, shivering, alone, receding into the light, alone, drowning in music and time without end, world without end.
Without end.
A hoarse cry in his ear, a voice he should know: "Kal." Meaningless sound. Meaningless. But somehow the empty syllable, the bit of breath, was a tiny scratch in the eternal mirror that trapped him. He groped for something to break through the hard, cold reflective surface of infinity, to break the impossible echo of the unchanging silver note that wrapped him in immutability.
A beat.
A rhythm.
Underneath him, around him, under the intolerable ringing chime.
The beat of Gotham.
Help me, he whispered to the song he could hear on the edges of his hearing, a black threnody that negated the eternal silver. I want to help him. We both love him. Help me!
The song surged to meet his entreaty, dark and demanding. He felt the entropy in its beats, the footfalls of time, and welcomed it, embraced it. The infinite loop of annihilation buckled and shattered before the cadence of blood and decay. Briefly, every mirror around him flickered with Batman's grim visage, Bruce's lazy smile, one and the same--a myriad images that flickered and vanished.
Gotham found Kal's heart and matched its beat to hers for one dark and glorious moment, and the fear fell away from him.
He surged up, the terror gone, his reflections only tricks of light once more. Gunshots rang out somewhere, followed by the sound of glass shattering to powder, and Kal made his way toward the sound as quickly as he could to where Batman was fighting Crane, the scientist animated by a frenzy of fear, as Waller's agents fired wildly at the men and their reflections.
Superman wasn't fooled: only two of the choices had heartbeats. He plucked bullets out of the air like musical notes, snatching one mere inches from Bruce's throat, and collared Crane. Batman slipped between two mirrors and vanished like a magician. "You can't hide forever, Bat," Superman announced grimly for the benefit of the listening agents, and heard Bruce's quiet snicker in his ear as Waller gnashed her teeth and dispatched her squad to find him.
"What are you waiting for, alien?" she barked as she cuffed Crane. "Get that vigilante!"
Superman crossed his arms and glowered. "The deal was to get you Crane and keep your agents safe. If Batman gives me an excuse, I'll stop him. Until then, I consider my work here in Gotham done."
Waller kicked in a series of mirrors, making her way unerringly toward the exit and dragging the reluctant Crane behind her. They emerged into the cool night air, rent now with wailing sirens and flashing lights as five police cars pulled up. Jim Gordon strode toward Waller, and her grip tightened on Scarecrow until he whimpered.
Gordon brandished a piece of paper. "We have a warrant for the arrest of Jonathan Crane. We'll be taking him under Gotham City custody." He showed his teeth. "Do you have a warrant?"
As Waller lowered her head like a cornered mastiff, another car squealed up, the doors opening to reveal Lois Lane and Jimmy Olson. Lois shoved a microphone in Gordon's face, smiling cheerfully. "How does it feel to have the notorious Scarecrow under arrest again, Lieutenant?"
Gordon's gaze hadn't left Waller's yet. "My men didn't make this arrest. I believe Agent Waller here is responsible for the capture."
"Oh!" Lois transferred her attention to Waller as Jimmy's flash turned the air incandescent. "Will you be handing the Scarecrow over to Gotham City authorities, Ms. Waller? After all, he committed his crimes in Gotham. Or do you have other plans for him? I was just talking to some folks at the Pentagon about the possibility today..."
Superman could see the wheels turning in Waller's head. Lois was bluffing, and Waller had to suspect it. But would she be willing to risk the public finding out and the firestorm that would certainly follow?
After a long, pained moment, Waller smiled. "Of course we'll be turning over Dr. Crane to the Gotham City authorities," she said through her teeth. "My agents and I are happy to help bring such a heinous criminal to justice at last."
Gordon stepped forward and Waller hissed exasperation through her smile, but allowed him to take Crane away from her. He pushed Crane into the back of a patrol car, Crane still peering at the sky in terror and muttering about the avenging God of fear and his wings of black silk.
"Wow, what a great moment," Lois announced as Waller stared after her lost prize. "Superman, what's it been like working so closely with the government?"
Superman cleared his throat. "I'm always proud to help stop those depraved souls who plan to spread terror, Ms. Lane."
"Ms. Waller, what's it been like working with Superman?"
Waller turned her attention to Lois. "On the record, Ms. Lane? It's been an edifying experience, working with such a pillar of rectitude." She managed to make it sound obscene. "Off the record?" She stepped closer to to Lois. "If you print anything less than a glowing story about this, I will personally pay to have you undergo a sex change operation so I can have the pleasure of ripping your balls off and stuffing them down your throat." Jimmy swallowed audibly, and Waller shot him a look. "That goes for you, too."
"Well, I believe my work here is done, and I'd better be heading back to Metropolis," Superman announced.
"I haven't given you leave to go," Waller snarled as Superman poised himself for flight.
Kal looked back, his gaze unfathomable. "True," he noted. And left.
Her growl and Crane's whimpering followed him into the sky as Jimmy's flash lit the way.
He hovered above Gotham, listening for any sounds of battle in Batman's vicinity. "Lost them?" he whispered.
"Of course," came Bruce's smug voice.
"Crane's in Gordon's custody and Waller's going home empty-handed."
"Remind me to send some roses to Lois tomorrow." There was a slight hesitation, and when he spoke next Bruce's voice was cautious. "I'm heading back to the Manor to get patched up. Shall I meet you in Metropolis tomorrow?"
Bruce couldn't see his smile, but would be able to to hear it in his voice. "I was hoping to spend the night here in Gotham, actually."
"Ah." So much emotion in such a small syllable. "With me, I hope."
The lights of Gotham burned steadfast below him, the song a lullaby now, drowsy and content. "Always."