mithen | The Wonder That's Keeping the Stars Apart (3/7)

Title: The Wonder That's Keeping the Stars Apart, Chapter Three
Pairing/Characters: Clark/Bruce, Lois Lane, Ra's al Ghul, Alfred Pennyworth
Notes: "Music of the Spheres" is a series set in the combined universes of "Batman Begins" and "Superman Returns." Other stories and notes on the series here.
Rating: PG
Summary: Bruce meets his captor, and Clark struggles to keep things together in Batman's absence.
Word Count: 1900

i fear
no fate(for you are my fate,my sweet)

Darkness and light flickered around Bruce for some time, meaningless. The world shifted, there was cold and then heat and then cold again. Darkness and light.

When he was able to drag himself out of his drugged stupor, his eyes focused very slowly on a rough-hewn rock wall. He was on a stone slab in a small cell that seemed to be carved out of solid granite. He started to sit up and the room spun dizzily, pain lancing through his head. Skull fracture, hopefully minor. It didn't look like he'd be getting much medical attention here.

Bruce took stock of the room by the dim glimmer of light from a recessed bulb far above him, just barely enough to see by. There was little to take stock of: gray walls and high ceiling, windowless. A stone slab hewn from the rock covered with a woven mat, a wooden bucket, nothing else. The walls and ceiling were rough but free of handholds. He was in a loose linen robe. He touched his temple, wincing. No connection, of course. Because there was nothing else to do, he pulled his cramped legs into the lotus position and waited, trying to still his mind.

There was no way to mark the time beyond his increasing hunger, but eventually an almost seamless section of the wall swung open and a man stepped through: Ra's al-Ghul, Henri Ducard, Bruce's mentor and betrayer. The man Bruce had left to die. Alive.

There was a small smile on his narrow face as he eyed Bruce, who continued to sit impassively. He was wearing the same simple clothes he had always preferred, his boots scuffed from long use, and carrying a plate of bread and dried figs. "You're looking well, old friend," said Ra's, putting the plate on the floor.

Bruce took a moment to sort through his emotions, to clarify and identify them before he answered: he was in pain, he was angry, he was worried. Beneath that he was curious about how--if--Ra's had survived. Beneath that, much as he was reluctant to admit it, he was relieved that the man who had taught him so much might be alive, that Batman was not responsible for his death.

"You're looking well too," he said.

Ra's smiled as if he knew what Bruce was thinking. "You're wondering if it's really me, if I'm an impostor or a twin or something absurd like that. No, I am very much myself," he went on, tapping himself on the chest. "And if you doubt me, I would remind you that the last words I ever heard from you were 'I won't kill you, but I don't have to save you.'"

"You got out of the train in time."

Ra's smile took on a smug edge. "Perhaps." He paced the room once. "You're wondering why I brought you here."

"Sort of. Though more why you didn't just kill me on the spot."

Ra's frowned, seeming hurt. "Bruce, you were--are--the greatest of my proteges. I've been monitoring you since my...return...and I have to admit I've been impressed." Another pace across the room and back. "You thwarted my plan. Forced me to...step back and reflect on my means and my ends." He sighed and turned to face Bruce squarely, the familiar eyes steady. "I was hasty, Bruce. I see that now. I've lived so long, seen so much lost to time...ironic, maybe, that one so young would teach me patience once more."

He extended a hand: the worn, calloused hand that had taught Bruce so much, had both bruised him and bandaged his wounds.

The hand that had destroyed his home, tried to destroy his city.

Bruce simply sat and waited, not breaking his former mentor's gaze, until Ra's lowered his hand again, his expression regretful.

"I'm not giving up on you, Bruce. I can wait." For the first time, a glint of the steel in those leaf-green eyes. "I can wait a very long time indeed."

The door swung seamlessly shut behind him, leaving only the dim glow of the bulb.

Bruce sat in the lotus position until his legs started to cramp, trying to keep his mind clear. But eventually, thoughts of Clark and Alfred began to leak into his enforced calm. How long had it been now? Days? They must be worried. Clark must be searching for him.

He uncurled his legs and stretched them, then picked up the plate of bread and figs. Drugged? In some ways it hardly mattered; he was unlikely to find another source of food and he couldn't risk being weak with hunger when Clark got here.

He ate slowly, trying to get the most from the food. Then he examined the plate: light wood, not ideal for lockpicks. He broke it anyway, hoping to salvage a usable splinter from it, although he hadn't seen a lock of any sort on the door. He hid the best fragment he could find beneath his mat on the off chance he wasn't being monitored.

Then he sat down again and started mental drills of Kryptonian vocabulary.

: : :

"Kent!" Perry White's bellow nearly rattled the windows. Lois tried not to jump and mostly succeeded. As Clark Kent rose from his desk and shambled into White's office, Lois bit her lip in concern. intercepting a similar worried glance from her husband.

Ever since Bruce Wayne had suddenly left on his sailing jaunt, Clark had become unreliable at work. He showed up late, left early, disappeared before meetings, went to the bathroom and didn't return for an hour. Even when he was sitting at his desk, his hands were usually motionless on the keyboard, his eyes glazed and blank. Watching him stand in Perry's office, his shoulders slumped and hangdog as the editor harangued him, Lois felt worry and anger mingle in her.

Clark came back out and sat down at his desk, staring at the computer screen blankly. Lois went over to him and put a hand on his shoulder, aiming for a reassuring pat. "He's worried about you, Clark. We all are."

"You are?" Clark's voice was dull and lusterless.

Lois swung his chair to make him face her. "Yes, we all are. Us. Your friends. We're here for you."

Clark scrubbed at his face. "I can't do this," he said indistinctly. "I can't--"

He stood up abruptly and walked back into Perry's office. Lois saw Perry's eyes widen as Clark spoke to him, saw him arguing vociferously, but Clark just stood there, shaking his head dumbly. After a while, he turned and left Perry in what seemed to be mid-sentence, coming back into the bullpen.

He stood in front of his desk for a moment, then pulled out his briefcase and opened it. He picked up the picture of him with Bruce and looked at it for a long moment, then put it in the briefcase. The photo of him with Jason followed. Then he put his Smallville mug in the case, his movements almost robotic.

"Clark, what are you doing?" said Lois.

"I quit," said Clark. "I can't do this. Something has to go, and this is the least important thing."

"The least important--" Lois looked back at Perry's office, where Perry was standing in the door, managing to look both belligerent and forlorn. "Clark, I know you're upset about Bruce, but you can't be that surprised that he--" She broke off as Clark swung his gaze to her.

"That Bruce what?" Clark's voice was very level, but Lois suddenly felt an uncomfortable prickling along her spine. She would have called it "frightened" if it had been anyone but meek, sweet Clark Kent looking at her that way.

"That he...might need some space. Some time...away."

"You think he's dumped me." Clark looked away from her and continued to pack his briefcase. "He hasn't. I'm going to Gotham to wait for him. He'll be back soon." He clicked the case shut. "He has to be."

He looked at Lois, his gaze oddly remote, as if looking at her from very far away in space. "I don't think I'll be able to go to Jason's Derby. Please tell him I'm sorry."

"I--" Clark picked up the briefcase and turned away before she could finish the sentence, striding toward the elevators.

He didn't look back.

: : :

There wasn't enough time to look for Bruce. Whenever he tried, there was an emergency somewhere. He'd be scanning the islands on the northern coast of Norway when he'd hear cries from a capsized ship. The temptation to ignore it would flash through his head, but then he would imagine Bruce's reaction to finding out he had let people die while searching for him. Other people had to come first.

Other people had to come first.

Gotham remained opaque and slippery as basalt, yielding nothing to him. People got hurt, things went wrong no matter what he did. Zsasz had killed again, was cutting another scar into his skin, a notch full of blood. Clark was failing Bruce's city. He was failing the world. He was failing Bruce.

He tried harder.

He had to try harder.

: : :

Alfred heard Bruce's voice as the lift descended: "An infrared spectroscopy of the footprint revealed trace amounts of phyllosilicate minerals, specifically a dioctahedral smectite. I believe it to be montmorillonite, which would indicate the suspect works in the oil drilling industry. A quick rundown of the major oil companies near the crime scene reveals that..."

The lift opened to reveal Clark floating in the air in the Batsuit, his eyes half-closed, drowsing as if wrapped in the sound of Bruce's voice issuing from the computer speakers. Alfred hesitated. He hated to wake the other man, but he needed to eat, too.

"Mister Kent."

Clark's eyes snapped open and his body dropped into a combat stance in mid-air. "What?"

Alfred held out the tray. "I've brought you a sandwich."

It was gone before he finished the sentence.

"I slept too long," Clark said. "You should have woken me earlier."

"You've been asleep for thirty minutes, Mister Kent."

"I don't need much. I'm going to patrol Gotham for two hours, then continue my search in the Austrian Alps."

"Mister Kent--" Alfred stopped as Clark looked at him, took a deep breath, and continued. "Mister Kent, it's been two weeks. I think we need to consider the possibility that Master Bruce is--that Master Bruce is--"

"He isn't." Clark's voice was inflexible, absolute.

"But--"

"He is not dead," Clark said. "I know it."

"You hope--"

"I know." Clark shook his head slowly, his eyes closed as if he were listening to something. "If he were dead, I'd know it. I'd hear--" He broke off as a cold chill slowly crawled up Alfred's spine. "He's alive." He opened his eyes and smiled at Alfred, but it was strained. "Trust me."

"You should ask your mother to come stay, to be here with you--"

"--No." Clark's headshake was emphatic. "I don't want her to...to see me like this. Please, Alfred."

Alfred started to say something, but the police scanner in the computer suddenly burst into life, announcing a bank robbery in Downtown Gotham.

"Gotham needs Batman," whispered Kal, touching the black emblem over his heart. "And I won't let Bruce down."

He was gone.

Alfred slowly made his way to the lift to go upstairs to the empty Manor, worrying his lip with unease.

: : :

The bulb glowed steadily, with no change to mark the passing of time.

Bruce practiced Kryptonian.

Zakh. Stone.

Wiro. Silence.

Vadh. Alone.

Zhao. Love.

Zhao.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only | Expand All

From:

dizmo

Oh, God, this chapter killed me. In many many beautiful ways. If that made sense at all.

Clark, just... Clark. *hugs*

*and Bruce, too, for that matter*

*starts picking up pieces of herself*

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