Interlude 5/5: A Few Good Men (And Junior)
Title: Interlude 5/5: A Few Good Men (And Junior)
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Notes: Interludes 1-5 are set right after "Music of the Spheres," and are loosely connected short stories showing different relationships between Clark and Bruce and other characters. Other stories and notes on the series here.
Rating: PG
Summary: Bruce and Clark establish relations with various members of the Gotham contingent.
Word Count: 2056
"Gosh, Bruce, is all of this really yours? I mean, it's...very impressive." Clark Kent looked admiringly around the marble and mahogany office overlooking the Gotham skyline. The secretary bringing them coffee stifled a giggle at the awe in his voice.
Bruce Wayne shrugged. "I suppose, technically. The office belongs to Mr. Fox, though, really." He smiled at the secretary. "Thanks, Linda."
Linda smiled back. "Mr. Fox will be with you shortly, sir." She cast Clark a conspiratorial, "you and I are just plain folks" grin as she left.
Bruce ambled over to the window to stand beside Clark. "A little heavy on the 'golly gee' routine, don't you think? Mind you, I find it adorable, but..."
Clark raised his eyebrows. "Maybe you take opulence like this for granted, but the 'farm boy' isn't entirely feigned, you know. I'm...not used to this." He gazed out the window to the horizon. "You come from a different world than I do in more ways than one, Bruce."
Bruce didn't have a chance to respond, as the the door opened and Lucius Fox entered. As Clark shook his hand, he noted the wry smile and the slightly knowing glint in the man's eyes, the underlying and understated warmth in his manner toward Bruce.
"This is Clark Kent, my...partner," said Bruce. "Clark, this is Lucius Fox, the CEO of WayneCorp. He takes care of all the difficult things for me."
The glint in the dark eyes turned into a flash of good humor as the three of them sat down. "Mr. Wayne is the best kind of majority shareholder. He mostly stays out of my way."
Bruce smiled winningly. "I've got no head for business." He leaned forward, picked up his coffee, and sipped. "Oh," he said as if it were suddenly occurring to him, "I wanted to tell you that those new grapple lines work really well."
Lucius paused with his coffee cup at his mouth, flicking a quick glance from Bruce to Clark, sitting meekly next to him, his clothes rumpled. "And is Mr. Kent also a...spelunking devotee?"
"His interests lie more in the base jumping area, but he has been known to do a little cave crawling."
Lucius nodded slowly, his eyebrows raised, eyeing Clark more carefully. "So, do those new communicators I sent your way work well also?"
Bruce beamed. "Like a charm."
Lucius continued to nod thoughtfully to himself. After a while, he said, "So. Partners."
"In every sense of the word," Bruce said levelly. "If there's ever anything I need to know, and you can't reach me for some reason, you can talk to him."
Lucius stared at Clark. "Has Mr. Kent got anything he'd like to say, or does he let you do all the talking?"
Clark flashed a quick smile. "When he's on an roll with the double meanings, I generally let him run with it. I prefer not to interfere with great art."
The older man snorted a laugh. "Oh, I think you'll fit in just fine around here, Mr. Kent."
: : :
"--so I guess you're 'not in Kansas any more,' huh?" The skinny man shared a knowing glance around the circle of people, who all giggled at his bon mot.
Clark rolled his eyes. "Oh, wow, I've never heard that one before," he muttered as a larger man thumped him on the back.
The tuxedo wasn't physically uncomfortable--Bruce Wayne would never allow his consort to wear an ill-fitting tuxedo--but Clark felt awkward and stifled anyway. He could see Bruce in another corner of the room, surrounded by admiring men and women. He didn't really want to be seen as hanging on Bruce's arm all evening, but without the other man there to wink at, the "shy Kansas farmboy" routine got old fairly quickly. And the dislike of random crowds and shallow chatter was no act.
Clark extracted himself from the group and drifted toward the fringes of the party. It was the annual Policeman's Ball, but most of the actual policemen there--as opposed to their highly visible supporters--largely seemed to be avoiding the center of the room as well. Clark eventually found himself in a fairly quiet corner with a man and his family. They had clearly come here to get out of the way while they calmed the fussing toddler down. Next to the woman with the baby on her lap sat a small girl, deeply absorbed in a book. The father stood up as Clark approached, offering him a chair. Clark declined and the two stood for a while in companionable silence, looking out at the rest of the party. After a while the man turned to Clark.
"Pleased to meet you. Jim Gordon."
Clark took the hand extended to him. "Clark Kent."
"Oh, I know you." Gordon's tone left no doubt he knew Clark's relationship to Bruce Wayne.
Clark felt himself blushing a bit. He knew Jim Gordon as well: one of the few Gotham cops Bruce trusted. Even in this short time, he could see why. The man was unassuming, quiet, yet seemed to have a self-possession at his core that Clark found appealing.
The policeman was continuing. "So how'd a nice Metropolis boy like you end up in Gotham?"
"Gotham has its charms." Clark tried to add the lascivious twist to his words that Bruce would put in them, but failed.
Gordon laughed. "It does?" The touch of bitterness stung Clark to respond sincerely.
"Actually, yes, it does. It's a good city, with good people in it."
Gordon looked down into his mostly-untouched drink. "If you find any, be sure to let me know," he mumbled.
At that moment, Bruce Wayne separated himself from the rest of the crowd and appeared at Clark's side. "Clark!" he said cheerfully, ignoring Jim Gordon. "I was just talking with the mayor about my plan to bring in a team of psychics of help with unsolved crimes." He turned to face Gordon. "You know, like Miss Cleo. They could help them track down evildoers--a sort of magic detective squad."
There was a small, contemptuous snort. Clark looked over to see the girl glaring at Bruce over the top of her book. Behind her thick glasses, her eyes snapped emerald sparks. "That's stupid. Magic isn't real."
"Honey!" Gordon's voice was aghast. "Um, Mr. Wayne," he continued hastily, gesturing to the woman with the squirming toddler. "This is my wife, Barbara, and my son, Tony. And you've met my daughter, Barbie." A horrified look from the child caused him to backtrack. "--I mean Junior. She wants to go by Junior now."
The girl shook her head, her coppery ponytail swishing, and continued to lecture Bruce. "Magic isn't real." When Bruce looked dubious, she went on, "It would be smarter for the city to update the file system, you could have a really good computer database and keep track of everyone--even link it with the one in New York or Metropolis."
Bruce grinned. "A budding computer whiz at six, huh?"
"Seven," hissed the girl.
"So what are you reading there? Fluffy Bunny Gets a Computer?"
Junior held up her book so Bruce and Clark could easily see the title. Bruce stared for a moment, then made a "tsk" noise between his teeth. "C Plus Plus? Sweetie, you seem pretty bright, you should be aiming for an A."
A look of withering scorn from Junior. Bruce continued, "So you do a lot of, uh, webbing and stuff at home?"
The redhead looked downcast for a moment. "We don't have a computer at home. I use the school computer. It's a 486."
Clark could see Bruce wince beneath the smile. "Well, 486 is a nice big number, my new computer is only a two or duo or something. Yours sure sounds nifty." Junior sighed to herself. Bruce turned to Jim Gordon and pulled out a checkbook. "How much does a new computer run nowadays, Clark? I have Alfred do all my buying for me. Would ten thousand be enough? Let's make it fifteen. He can get the girl something nice."
Gordon's eyes narrowed. "Do I look like the kind of cop who can be bought?" His voice was very mild, and very dangerous.
Bruce chewed his lower lip. "No, you do not. Favoritism must be avoided, I agree." He whirled and went to the stage, grabbing a microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen," he announced, sounding maybe just the slightest bit tipsy. A bright smile, teeth shining. "...members of the press. I believe the children are our future, and I know how hard it is to make ends meet on a cop's salary. So I just wanted you to know that as of tomorrow, every policeman in Gotham with a child under ten will will have a new computer delivered to them--courtesy of the Wayne Foundation." A murmur of approval mixed with laughter at the latest Wayne folly went about the room.
Bruce came back to where Clark was standing with the Gordons. "Now you owe me nothing," he said quietly to Jim Gordon.
Junior was obviously thrilled and just as obviously trying not to show it. "Thank you, Mr. Wayne," she said primly. She blinked up at him through her glasses with a hesitant smile.
Bruce reached out and ruffled her hair. "There's a good girl," he said carelessly. "Someday you can teach me to play that Doom game I hear everyone talking about." The smile on Junior's face disappeared as Bruce turned back to Gordon. "She's a charming thing...smart, too. I can easily see her rising above her station into Gotham society."
"Thank you, Mr. Wayne," said Gordon. Not if I have anything to say about it, said his eyes.
"It was nice to meet you," said Clark hastily, holding out his hand. Gordon shook it politely and then gathered up his family and left.
"I don't like that," said Clark quietly to Bruce.
"What, buying computers for precocious redheads? I found it rather gratifying. And she has more motivation now--to show up that arrogant windbag who didn't understand a thing about her world or her skills. Oh, and I need to look into the school computer situation too. 486s! That's barbaric." Bruce shuddered.
"No, you know what I mean. It's one thing to play it up for Luthor, or for strangers, but I don't like to deceive good people."
Bruce looked at him, his eyes troubled for a moment. "I know, Clark. I do. But it's for his safety and the safety of his quite charming family. What he doesn't know very literally can't hurt him--can't be beaten or threatened out of him. Isn't it worth sacrificing our dignity for their security?"
There wasn't much Clark could say to that beyond getting him to a darker corner and kissing him thoroughly.
*****
A few weeks later. Clark was digging into a stack of waffles in the kitchen of Bruce's temporary apartments after one of his rare nights over, when Bruce burst into the dining room. "This is great news," he announced, waving a newspaper, then placing it triumphantly on the table in front of Clark.
Clark read the headline and looked at the picture below, swallowing his bite of waffle. "He looks pretty young. And pretty...pretty," he said dubiously.
Bruce snorted. "When will you learn not to take us pretty boys for granted?" He grinned impishly at Clark. "I'm telling you, Clark, he's one of us. We were at Princeton together. He gets it. There's a lot more to him than the handsome face," he tapped the paper enthusiastically, "way more than meets the eye. He's brilliant and driven." He reached over and grabbed a bite of waffle over Clark's laughing protest. "This is going to make a huge difference, you'll see."
Bruce rapped the headline again with his knuckles: Dent Wins D.A. Election. He smiled. "I've got a really good feeling about this, Clark."
[To be continued in Syncopation]
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Disclaimer: The boys belong to DC and to each other, but not to me.
Notes: Interludes 1-5 are set right after "Music of the Spheres," and are loosely connected short stories showing different relationships between Clark and Bruce and other characters. Other stories and notes on the series here.
Rating: PG
Summary: Bruce and Clark establish relations with various members of the Gotham contingent.
Word Count: 2056
"Gosh, Bruce, is all of this really yours? I mean, it's...very impressive." Clark Kent looked admiringly around the marble and mahogany office overlooking the Gotham skyline. The secretary bringing them coffee stifled a giggle at the awe in his voice.
Bruce Wayne shrugged. "I suppose, technically. The office belongs to Mr. Fox, though, really." He smiled at the secretary. "Thanks, Linda."
Linda smiled back. "Mr. Fox will be with you shortly, sir." She cast Clark a conspiratorial, "you and I are just plain folks" grin as she left.
Bruce ambled over to the window to stand beside Clark. "A little heavy on the 'golly gee' routine, don't you think? Mind you, I find it adorable, but..."
Clark raised his eyebrows. "Maybe you take opulence like this for granted, but the 'farm boy' isn't entirely feigned, you know. I'm...not used to this." He gazed out the window to the horizon. "You come from a different world than I do in more ways than one, Bruce."
Bruce didn't have a chance to respond, as the the door opened and Lucius Fox entered. As Clark shook his hand, he noted the wry smile and the slightly knowing glint in the man's eyes, the underlying and understated warmth in his manner toward Bruce.
"This is Clark Kent, my...partner," said Bruce. "Clark, this is Lucius Fox, the CEO of WayneCorp. He takes care of all the difficult things for me."
The glint in the dark eyes turned into a flash of good humor as the three of them sat down. "Mr. Wayne is the best kind of majority shareholder. He mostly stays out of my way."
Bruce smiled winningly. "I've got no head for business." He leaned forward, picked up his coffee, and sipped. "Oh," he said as if it were suddenly occurring to him, "I wanted to tell you that those new grapple lines work really well."
Lucius paused with his coffee cup at his mouth, flicking a quick glance from Bruce to Clark, sitting meekly next to him, his clothes rumpled. "And is Mr. Kent also a...spelunking devotee?"
"His interests lie more in the base jumping area, but he has been known to do a little cave crawling."
Lucius nodded slowly, his eyebrows raised, eyeing Clark more carefully. "So, do those new communicators I sent your way work well also?"
Bruce beamed. "Like a charm."
Lucius continued to nod thoughtfully to himself. After a while, he said, "So. Partners."
"In every sense of the word," Bruce said levelly. "If there's ever anything I need to know, and you can't reach me for some reason, you can talk to him."
Lucius stared at Clark. "Has Mr. Kent got anything he'd like to say, or does he let you do all the talking?"
Clark flashed a quick smile. "When he's on an roll with the double meanings, I generally let him run with it. I prefer not to interfere with great art."
The older man snorted a laugh. "Oh, I think you'll fit in just fine around here, Mr. Kent."
: : :
"--so I guess you're 'not in Kansas any more,' huh?" The skinny man shared a knowing glance around the circle of people, who all giggled at his bon mot.
Clark rolled his eyes. "Oh, wow, I've never heard that one before," he muttered as a larger man thumped him on the back.
The tuxedo wasn't physically uncomfortable--Bruce Wayne would never allow his consort to wear an ill-fitting tuxedo--but Clark felt awkward and stifled anyway. He could see Bruce in another corner of the room, surrounded by admiring men and women. He didn't really want to be seen as hanging on Bruce's arm all evening, but without the other man there to wink at, the "shy Kansas farmboy" routine got old fairly quickly. And the dislike of random crowds and shallow chatter was no act.
Clark extracted himself from the group and drifted toward the fringes of the party. It was the annual Policeman's Ball, but most of the actual policemen there--as opposed to their highly visible supporters--largely seemed to be avoiding the center of the room as well. Clark eventually found himself in a fairly quiet corner with a man and his family. They had clearly come here to get out of the way while they calmed the fussing toddler down. Next to the woman with the baby on her lap sat a small girl, deeply absorbed in a book. The father stood up as Clark approached, offering him a chair. Clark declined and the two stood for a while in companionable silence, looking out at the rest of the party. After a while the man turned to Clark.
"Pleased to meet you. Jim Gordon."
Clark took the hand extended to him. "Clark Kent."
"Oh, I know you." Gordon's tone left no doubt he knew Clark's relationship to Bruce Wayne.
Clark felt himself blushing a bit. He knew Jim Gordon as well: one of the few Gotham cops Bruce trusted. Even in this short time, he could see why. The man was unassuming, quiet, yet seemed to have a self-possession at his core that Clark found appealing.
The policeman was continuing. "So how'd a nice Metropolis boy like you end up in Gotham?"
"Gotham has its charms." Clark tried to add the lascivious twist to his words that Bruce would put in them, but failed.
Gordon laughed. "It does?" The touch of bitterness stung Clark to respond sincerely.
"Actually, yes, it does. It's a good city, with good people in it."
Gordon looked down into his mostly-untouched drink. "If you find any, be sure to let me know," he mumbled.
At that moment, Bruce Wayne separated himself from the rest of the crowd and appeared at Clark's side. "Clark!" he said cheerfully, ignoring Jim Gordon. "I was just talking with the mayor about my plan to bring in a team of psychics of help with unsolved crimes." He turned to face Gordon. "You know, like Miss Cleo. They could help them track down evildoers--a sort of magic detective squad."
There was a small, contemptuous snort. Clark looked over to see the girl glaring at Bruce over the top of her book. Behind her thick glasses, her eyes snapped emerald sparks. "That's stupid. Magic isn't real."
"Honey!" Gordon's voice was aghast. "Um, Mr. Wayne," he continued hastily, gesturing to the woman with the squirming toddler. "This is my wife, Barbara, and my son, Tony. And you've met my daughter, Barbie." A horrified look from the child caused him to backtrack. "--I mean Junior. She wants to go by Junior now."
The girl shook her head, her coppery ponytail swishing, and continued to lecture Bruce. "Magic isn't real." When Bruce looked dubious, she went on, "It would be smarter for the city to update the file system, you could have a really good computer database and keep track of everyone--even link it with the one in New York or Metropolis."
Bruce grinned. "A budding computer whiz at six, huh?"
"Seven," hissed the girl.
"So what are you reading there? Fluffy Bunny Gets a Computer?"
Junior held up her book so Bruce and Clark could easily see the title. Bruce stared for a moment, then made a "tsk" noise between his teeth. "C Plus Plus? Sweetie, you seem pretty bright, you should be aiming for an A."
A look of withering scorn from Junior. Bruce continued, "So you do a lot of, uh, webbing and stuff at home?"
The redhead looked downcast for a moment. "We don't have a computer at home. I use the school computer. It's a 486."
Clark could see Bruce wince beneath the smile. "Well, 486 is a nice big number, my new computer is only a two or duo or something. Yours sure sounds nifty." Junior sighed to herself. Bruce turned to Jim Gordon and pulled out a checkbook. "How much does a new computer run nowadays, Clark? I have Alfred do all my buying for me. Would ten thousand be enough? Let's make it fifteen. He can get the girl something nice."
Gordon's eyes narrowed. "Do I look like the kind of cop who can be bought?" His voice was very mild, and very dangerous.
Bruce chewed his lower lip. "No, you do not. Favoritism must be avoided, I agree." He whirled and went to the stage, grabbing a microphone. "Ladies and gentlemen," he announced, sounding maybe just the slightest bit tipsy. A bright smile, teeth shining. "...members of the press. I believe the children are our future, and I know how hard it is to make ends meet on a cop's salary. So I just wanted you to know that as of tomorrow, every policeman in Gotham with a child under ten will will have a new computer delivered to them--courtesy of the Wayne Foundation." A murmur of approval mixed with laughter at the latest Wayne folly went about the room.
Bruce came back to where Clark was standing with the Gordons. "Now you owe me nothing," he said quietly to Jim Gordon.
Junior was obviously thrilled and just as obviously trying not to show it. "Thank you, Mr. Wayne," she said primly. She blinked up at him through her glasses with a hesitant smile.
Bruce reached out and ruffled her hair. "There's a good girl," he said carelessly. "Someday you can teach me to play that Doom game I hear everyone talking about." The smile on Junior's face disappeared as Bruce turned back to Gordon. "She's a charming thing...smart, too. I can easily see her rising above her station into Gotham society."
"Thank you, Mr. Wayne," said Gordon. Not if I have anything to say about it, said his eyes.
"It was nice to meet you," said Clark hastily, holding out his hand. Gordon shook it politely and then gathered up his family and left.
"I don't like that," said Clark quietly to Bruce.
"What, buying computers for precocious redheads? I found it rather gratifying. And she has more motivation now--to show up that arrogant windbag who didn't understand a thing about her world or her skills. Oh, and I need to look into the school computer situation too. 486s! That's barbaric." Bruce shuddered.
"No, you know what I mean. It's one thing to play it up for Luthor, or for strangers, but I don't like to deceive good people."
Bruce looked at him, his eyes troubled for a moment. "I know, Clark. I do. But it's for his safety and the safety of his quite charming family. What he doesn't know very literally can't hurt him--can't be beaten or threatened out of him. Isn't it worth sacrificing our dignity for their security?"
There wasn't much Clark could say to that beyond getting him to a darker corner and kissing him thoroughly.
*****
A few weeks later. Clark was digging into a stack of waffles in the kitchen of Bruce's temporary apartments after one of his rare nights over, when Bruce burst into the dining room. "This is great news," he announced, waving a newspaper, then placing it triumphantly on the table in front of Clark.
Clark read the headline and looked at the picture below, swallowing his bite of waffle. "He looks pretty young. And pretty...pretty," he said dubiously.
Bruce snorted. "When will you learn not to take us pretty boys for granted?" He grinned impishly at Clark. "I'm telling you, Clark, he's one of us. We were at Princeton together. He gets it. There's a lot more to him than the handsome face," he tapped the paper enthusiastically, "way more than meets the eye. He's brilliant and driven." He reached over and grabbed a bite of waffle over Clark's laughing protest. "This is going to make a huge difference, you'll see."
Bruce rapped the headline again with his knuckles: Dent Wins D.A. Election. He smiled. "I've got a really good feeling about this, Clark."
[To be continued in Syncopation]