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WFGE fic: Cold Iron
Title: Cold Iron
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3900
Summary: On a Solstice night, under a full moon, Batman is drawn into a world of beauty and danger.
Notes: Written for the World's Finest Gift Exchange! Prompt F8, "Clark/Kal is one of the Fey and Bruce is only human, how could it possibly work out?"
It was the night of the winter solstice, although Batman wasn't thinking of it that way as he chased Mr. Freeze through Robinson Park. His breath steamed around him, his footing precarious as he raced over ice and through brambles in search of his quarry. He spotted Freeze on the far side of Robinson Pond, and without hesitation charged out across the ice-covered water. With Gotham locked in deep winter the pond should be frozen solid, he thought.
So it was a vast surprise to him when he felt the ice give way under his feet with a sharp crack, and he was falling. There was a sudden tingling shock, a dislocation as if he were plummeting from a great height, and then he felt the waters closing over his head.
The warm, sun-dappled water, he realized as he fought his way back to the surface.
His head broke the surface of the pond and he took a gasp of air, staring around him. Sunlight danced off the surface of the water, a million fragments of golden light. The nearby banks were heaped with flowers and lush grass in colors richer and denser than any he had seen. He swam to shore, pulling his water-logged cape from the water, and looked around.
It was Robinson Park--at least in basic form, in geography. But beyond the trees there were no steel skyscrapers; the Gotham skyline was gone entirely. And it was more than that. The water was an azure purer than any sky, and the sunlight was a heavy gold that seemed to illuminate everything from within. And no flowers ever grew in Robinson Park like the ones tangling the shore: vermilion and fuchsia and colors Batman had no words for, all seeming to tremble with an eerie energy. Their scent was a rich golden presence that seemed to caress Bruce's brain, tantalizing and tempting. It seemed to be a late summer day, one of the perfect ones in which autumn is held at bay just a little while more. And yet...
Underneath the vertiginous lushness there was something missing, some essential hollowness. A sorrow under the surface, Bruce thought, then chastised himself for the sentimental vagueness. He waded to a shore covered with silken-red poppies that swayed in a breeze he could not feel, and tried to get his bearings. If this was still Robinson Park in some form, then Wayne Manor would be to the north--
Between the pale trunks of the yellow beech trees he saw them coming, a retinue of white horses carrying figures in full plate armor that glimmered like moonlight on water. Most were silver, but a few were a pale steel-blue, and they were led by a knight wearing armor that seemed to be carved from pure sapphire. Batman waited, resisting the urge to wring the water from his bedraggled cape, beginning to realize that he was much further from Gotham than he had thought, and the white horses (their eyes were a starry blue as no mortal horse's eyes had ever been) circled around him. The knight's faces were hidden by their visors, but Batman could catch a gleam of eyes from within them as they looked at him. Their lifted lances were shafts of diamond, of starlight.
"Mortal man, be welcome in the lands of the Fae." Behind the visor, the leader's voice was a silver spear that pierced the heart; it took Bruce a moment to process the words.
He blinked at the figure in its glittering sapphire armor, carrying a shield that seemed to be hewn from a single ruby, a gleaming golden glyph set in filigree into the scarlet. "I need to get back to Gotham," he said, trying to get his bearings. "I was pursuing a criminal."
One of the knights behind him laughed, a trill of bells; the leader raised his hand and the sound cut off abruptly. "We are here to take you to the court, to be brought before the King and Queen of the Fae." A gauntleted hand was extended to him. "Ride behind me, mortal man."
This time the murmur that went around the circle of knights seemed distinctly disapproving. Bruce ignored it and took the outstretched hand without considering how exactly he was going to get up--but he found himself lifted like a feather onto the horse, which whinnied and pranced slightly, but seemed undaunted by the extra weight.
They rode through the strangely still woods--no birds sang out, no small creatures moved in the underbrush. "How did I get here?" Bruce asked after a time.
The glimmering visor did not turn to look at him. "Sometimes there are places where the walls between our worlds are thinner," the radiant voice said. "It is not unheard of, for mortals to fall into our realm."
"I'm willing to return if you will release me," Bruce said.
There was a sound like wind through crystal chimes, alien laughter. A strangely sad laughter. "After tonight, it will be a moot point," said the knight. "But for tonight, consider yourself our guest, Bruce Wayne."
The sound of his name in those inhumanly beautiful tones sent a chill running through Batman's body, one he tried to hide. "You have the advantage of me," he said. "What may I call you?"
The leader said something that sounded like birdsong, complex and lilting. It went on for some time.
"Well, I caught the first syllable or so of that," said Bruce, "So I guess I'll call you Kal, if I may."
The sweet, sad laughter again. "I would be honored, Bruce."
The horse's gait was so smooth it felt like it was gliding between the silver-gold trees. It was a soothing rhythm, nearly hypnotic, and after a while Bruce realized he wasn't sure how long they'd been riding. He cleared his throat. "You've called yourself the Fae," he said. "What is this place? A different planet, a different dimension?"
"It is the realm of Faerie," said Kal. "Which lies nestled against your world, as close as a lover, but forever apart."
"Faeries? Like...Tinkerbell?" Batman did a quick mental inventory of who must have been working with Freeze. Scarecrow? He knew what fear toxin felt like, and wasn't this. Mad Hatter? No, this felt more real than Jervis's usual technique. "Regardless," he said, more to himself than the possible figments around him, "I don't believe in faeries."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a strange shudder seemed to run through the company. For a moment, the color seemed to fade from the world, the rich golds losing their vibrancy, the azure sky dimming to slate. On the edge of hearing, Bruce could hear a faint sound like shattering glass, unutterably lorn.
Then it was all gone as if it never had been: the strange world was once again its riot of tumultuous colors, the sunlight a warm weight on his shoulders.
The riders had stopped and were looking at him, still as stone. "I mean," said Bruce into the silence, struggling to keep a stammer out of his voice, "I don't doubt that you think of yourselves as Fae. But in my experience, such seemingly supernatural events can be explained. As Clarke's Theorem says--"
Kal held up a hand as if in warning. "Mortal man, you will not speak of such things while in our realm. If you persist in doing so, I shall bind your tongue." He looked forward once more. "Or rip it out entirely," he added.
He kicked the horse into a trot, and the rest of the company followed suit as they left the forest and entered a plain of deep emerald grass starred with tiny white flowers. As they rode, one of the knights lifted her voice in a song; one by one the others joined in, until they were all singing as they rode, even Kal. The language sounded vaguely like Gaelic, but the words were alien. However, the emotions were clear: fierce and beautiful together, with a defiant edge that rang over the drumbeat of the horses' hooves.
And underneath that, the same hollow melancholy that haunted the beauty all around him.
As the sky darkened toward purple (and yet, with all the sunlight around, there was no sun in the sky) Bruce could see on the horizon a circle of vast monoliths, hewn from black granite. They were reminiscent of Stonehenge, but strangely shadowed.
The horses drew to a halt just outside the ring and the knights dismounted; Batman joined them. Together they walked into the circle of stones. Fireflies wavered through the air, their fitful light illuminating the stones with gold and silver gleams.
"Father. Mother," said Kal. "I bring you Bruce Wayne, mortal man of Gotham."
The fireflies swirled as if caught in a sudden wind; when they dissipated a man and woman stood before them.
They were noble and beautiful, tall and fair almost beyond bearing, their faces inhumanly wise and remote. Jewels and lights glimmered in their hair.
As one, the company of knights dropped to one knee with a sweet clash of silvery armor. Beside him, Kal also knelt, bowing his helmeted head. "Kneel," he whispered to Bruce.
Bruce lifted his chin, though the glory of the King and Queen made his eyes ache as if with unshed tears. "I bow to no one," he said, his voice mostly steady.
For a long moment the King and Queen looked at him. Beside him, Kal seemed to be holding his breath. Then the King smiled. It was not a particularly reassuring smile. "Very well, mortal man," he said. He clapped his hands together. "Bring food and wine for the celebration, bring music and lights and dancing!"
At his words, the center of the stone circle blazed into light, and Bruce could see a host of tall, fair people gathering. A table heaped high with fruit and sugared confections seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and the sounds of laughter and merry-making began to ring. Some of the folk cast curious glances at Batman, but most ignored him entirely as they walked arm in arm, radiant and unearthly.
The King was deep in whispered conversation with Kal; as Bruce watched, Kal took his helmet off, shaking out his long dark hair. His face made the breath freeze in Bruce's throat: pale as if carved from ivory, with eyes the deep blue of an endless summer sky set into chiseled features.
But more than its beauty, what caught at Bruce's heart was its sorrow.
Kal nodded as his father said something, and for a moment his eyes went to Bruce on the far side of the circle. Then he straightened and crossed to him. "Mortal ma--I mean, Bruce," he said. "Be welcome in the realm of Faerie. Will you not sup with us?"
Bruce decided that based on what had happened last time, now was not the time to point out that Faerie wasn't real. On the other hand...
"Fair Prince Kal," he said with a bow of his head, "I hate to turn down your hospitality, but I have heard that eating your food and drinking your wine might not be the wisest actions."
If he had thought that Kal's beauty was unbearable before, seeing him smile forced Bruce to revise his opinions. "You are a wise and cautious man, Bruce Wayne."
Across the circle, a pipe began to skirl; a harp joined in seconds later and the sound coalesced into music of such complexity and irresistible rhythm that Bruce felt his feet shifting in time to it.
Kal held out an arm. "Would you dance with me?"
"Batman doesn't dance," Bruce growled, but Kal's eyes were solemnly merry, and he felt his heart yearning toward him unbidden.
"Please?" Kal said, and Bruce found himself nodding, found himself lifted into the dance, into Kal's arms, into something he could neither explain nor deny.
It was a dance both mirthful and melancholy, somehow, and Bruce never took his eyes off Kal's face. The music turned them around and around until, dizzy and laughing, they found themselves in the shadow of one of the great standing stones, outside the circle of light and sound.
Bruce leaned against the stone, trying to catch his breath, and Kal drew close and kissed him, and it seemed as if the whole evening had led to this inevitable and perfect moment. He could taste wine on Kal's lips, wondered fleetingly if this meant he would be trapped there forever, then cast aside all fears to return the kiss with all the pent-up fervor of his soul.
The kiss broke and Kal put his lips to Bruce's ear. "You are more beautiful than I ever dreamed, Bruce Wayne. Be strong tonight, and brave of soul, and know that I chose you of all mortals to bring to this world."
Bruce opened his mouth to ask any of a dozen questions suddenly crowding into his head, but Kal put an inhumanly long finger to his lips and smiled. Then he seized Bruce's hands and drew him back into the enchanted circle, back into the music and the merrymaking of the crowd, with no hint of his grave words remaining in his smiling face. But Bruce was on his guard now, and as he listened, he began to hear an ugly edge to the celebration, a faint ominous buzzing like a swarm of silver bees.
When the full moon was almost directly above the circle of stones, the King clapped his hands once more and all of the host immediately fell silent, the music extinguished like a candle. "Lords and ladies of the Fae," he said, "Tonight is a night of triumph!"
A murmur of hungry anticipation went through the crowd. Bruce saw Kal standing by his father's right hand, gazing at him with solemn eyes.
From the spaces between the stones, six knights stepped forward, each clad in shining armor and holding a naked blade that seemed to drip malign light.
"All of you assembled know of the plight we face," the King went on. "How day by day the mortal realm wears us away with its doubt and its skepticism, threatening the very fabric of our world."
A louder, angrier mutter. "Without their belief, we fade!" cried an eldritch voice. "We die!" wailed another.
The King held up his hand for silence. "No longer! Tonight, the solstice of the full moon, we shall tear asunder the veil between our worlds to send our chosen knights through time and space and right this wrong! We have chosen the key mortals to die when babes in their cradles: Galileo, Descartes, Lovelace, Darwin, Goodall and Sagan shall all fall this eve. Their deaths shall be the fulcrum upon which we turn our worlds back into their proper balance. We shall wax mighty in power once more, and the mortals shall once more be our slaves, and will know no other reality."
The crowd roared approval.
"But in order to fulfill our destiny--" Without warning, Bruce's arms were grabbed by powerful hands and pulled behind his back, "--We must consecrate our portal with the blood of a mortal."
Bruce looked around the circle of beautiful faces, gone suddenly cold and merciless, and kept his breathing even. "I don't believe in you," he said, raising his voice. "The First Law of Thermodynamics states that matter and energy--"
Howls of rage met his words, and once again the color seemed to drain from the world around him, leaving the unworldly host pale and brittle. Then something gossamer-light but strong as steel slapped across his mouth and cut his words off. "Silence!" roared the King.
The Queen was looking up at the sky, where the moon's light was becoming a sickly green. There was a faint wailing, as if of a gathering storm. "We must hurry," she said, raising her pale arms. "The mortals' lack of belief has reached critical levels. It is the last night of this world, if we do not move quickly to take back what is rightly ours."
The two Fae holding Bruce's arms wrestled him to a stone table, where he was held down, spread-eagled. Bruce watched as the King handed Kal a knife of black stone. "It was your spell that brought this mortal to us, my son. Strike him down now and anoint our Gate with his blood, so that you can take your rightful place as heir of two worlds."
The Queen was chanting, a high sound that tore at Bruce's sanity, and something that looked like a black hole was opening up in the air at the center of the circle of stones. An icy wind whipped at the shining garments of the court of the Fae, and the assassin Knights gathered below the Gate, waiting.
Kal stepped forward to Bruce, the obsidian blade glinting in his hand, his face remote and lovely. He stood for a moment, the knife lifted above Bruce's heart.
Then the Fae holding Bruce down staggered back as Kal struck out at them, his movements fluid and as unavoidable as lightning.
Bruce sprang up from the table and put his back to Kal's. There was screaming all around them, and the wind was beginning to make standing difficult.
"My son!" The King's enraged voice was laced with despair. "How could you betray us--betray your people--"
Kal caught a crystal arrow out of the air before it could reach Bruce's head. "Not this way, Father!" he cried. "I love you, and I love our people--but I have told you, I will not have us survive at the cost of another world's freedom!"
Bruce looked around the circle of hostile faces, searching for an answer. It was the two of them against the entire Host of Faery, and the Gate was writhing like a living entity, a doorway that would deliver his world to death and slavery. There had to be some way--
Like an echo, cool and clear in his mind, he remembered his mother's voice, reading him a bedtime story: For the Fae cannot abide the touch of cold iron, and it shatters all their spells."
Sending a brief prayer to any gods of Science that might exist that a steel-molybdenum superalloy would do the trick, he sent every batarang in his belt toward the Gate as quickly as he could throw them.
As the first batarang touched the Gate, all sound seemed to be sucked up into vacuum as a silent explosion of harsh white light blossomed outward. For an instant, everything seemed to hold still, the pale panicked faces of the Fae frozen in mid-shout.
Then the concussion rippled backward and scattered everything--Fae, stones, the sky itself--like petals in the wind.
Batman found himself flat on the ground, his ears ringing. The world was falling apart, the unearthly stars streaming down the sky like tears. He pushed his way through the milling, weeping crowd, searching for sapphire armor and dark hair as the wind rose to a scream, pulling at reality itself.
He found Kal lying on the ground, his eyes closed, with his parents bending over him. The King was whispering something, webs of light drifting from his hand onto his unconscious son. They looked up as Bruce staggered toward them, their faces beyond anger, beyond hope.
"Mortal man," said the Queen. "In our desperate need, we sought to destroy you, but now you are our last and only hope. Please. We beg you--save our son. You are the only one who can."
"I am casting protective spells around him," said the King. "There is a chance he can survive the destruction of our Realm--with your help."
The howling of the wind should have drowned their voices out, but they reached Bruce's ears clear and undiminished. He nodded, and the Queen's inhuman face softened with a very human relief. She bent and kissed Kal on his pale brow, then beckoned for Bruce to sit by him and take his limp form in his arms. Magic sifted around them both, threads of light binding them gently together.
"If you survive this, mortal man, we beg you to teach our son your ways, and to befriend him." The King's voice was fainter now, as if torn by the winds.
"Tell him he has our love always," said the Queen's voice from far away.
"Wait!" Bruce called. "What do I have to do? How do I save him?" But his voice was whipped away into nothingness, and the stars had fallen out of the sky, and there was nothing left around them but emptiness and negation. Terror knifed through him as he felt the Void unraveling the threads of light protecting them, plucking like greedy fingers. What ability did he have to counter the unmaking of a world? What ability did any mortal being?
And then he knew.
He wrapped his arms around Kal, bending over him, and whispered, "I believe in you, Kal. I believe in you." He held the prince of Faerie close and believed with all his heart in his goodness, and his beauty, and his bravery.
As he whispered, he felt the claws of the Void slowly release them, felt unreality slinking away. There was air around them, and it was bitterly cold, and he was kneeling in snow with a naked man heavy and real in his arms.
After that events became somewhat blurred. There was a call to the Manor, and a ride in the Batmobile while he attempted to explain the night's adventures to a pale and tightly-composed Alfred. When Alfred informed him that he had been missing for a month, Bruce found himself without words the rest of the ride home. Together they managed to get their new guest into the Manor, a pair of blue silk pajamas, and bed.
Not once did Kal regain consciousness, although he moaned in his sleep now and then, and once he cried out for his parents--his voice no longer edged with inhuman silver, but rough with pain. Bruce found if he held Kal's hand he slept better, so he sat by the bed in his armchair and held on to him, keeping him anchored to this world.
And so it was that Bruce Wayne woke on a bright January morning to sunlight--pale, mundane, beautiful sunlight--streaming through the window and touching the face of the man sleeping in his bed: the Last Son of Faerie.
His face was pale, but no longer the pallor of alabaster; merely tired and wan with grief. The unearthly, unbearable beauty of the Fae was gone, and he was merely a handsome man.
The strong fingers tightened unconsciously on Bruce's own, and Bruce leaned forward, waiting for the moment Kal's eyes would open, wanting his face to be the first thing the foundling saw.
It would be hard, but Bruce believed that Kal would find his place in the mortal world. He believed that Kal was the kind of person who could make the world a better place. And he believed--irrationally, without proof, but with a complete certainty--that they would be together from now on, hand in hand and back to back.
He found, in short, that he was able to believe in almost anything with Kal's hand in his.
Pairing: Clark/Bruce
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3900
Summary: On a Solstice night, under a full moon, Batman is drawn into a world of beauty and danger.
Notes: Written for the World's Finest Gift Exchange! Prompt F8, "Clark/Kal is one of the Fey and Bruce is only human, how could it possibly work out?"
It was the night of the winter solstice, although Batman wasn't thinking of it that way as he chased Mr. Freeze through Robinson Park. His breath steamed around him, his footing precarious as he raced over ice and through brambles in search of his quarry. He spotted Freeze on the far side of Robinson Pond, and without hesitation charged out across the ice-covered water. With Gotham locked in deep winter the pond should be frozen solid, he thought.
So it was a vast surprise to him when he felt the ice give way under his feet with a sharp crack, and he was falling. There was a sudden tingling shock, a dislocation as if he were plummeting from a great height, and then he felt the waters closing over his head.
The warm, sun-dappled water, he realized as he fought his way back to the surface.
His head broke the surface of the pond and he took a gasp of air, staring around him. Sunlight danced off the surface of the water, a million fragments of golden light. The nearby banks were heaped with flowers and lush grass in colors richer and denser than any he had seen. He swam to shore, pulling his water-logged cape from the water, and looked around.
It was Robinson Park--at least in basic form, in geography. But beyond the trees there were no steel skyscrapers; the Gotham skyline was gone entirely. And it was more than that. The water was an azure purer than any sky, and the sunlight was a heavy gold that seemed to illuminate everything from within. And no flowers ever grew in Robinson Park like the ones tangling the shore: vermilion and fuchsia and colors Batman had no words for, all seeming to tremble with an eerie energy. Their scent was a rich golden presence that seemed to caress Bruce's brain, tantalizing and tempting. It seemed to be a late summer day, one of the perfect ones in which autumn is held at bay just a little while more. And yet...
Underneath the vertiginous lushness there was something missing, some essential hollowness. A sorrow under the surface, Bruce thought, then chastised himself for the sentimental vagueness. He waded to a shore covered with silken-red poppies that swayed in a breeze he could not feel, and tried to get his bearings. If this was still Robinson Park in some form, then Wayne Manor would be to the north--
Between the pale trunks of the yellow beech trees he saw them coming, a retinue of white horses carrying figures in full plate armor that glimmered like moonlight on water. Most were silver, but a few were a pale steel-blue, and they were led by a knight wearing armor that seemed to be carved from pure sapphire. Batman waited, resisting the urge to wring the water from his bedraggled cape, beginning to realize that he was much further from Gotham than he had thought, and the white horses (their eyes were a starry blue as no mortal horse's eyes had ever been) circled around him. The knight's faces were hidden by their visors, but Batman could catch a gleam of eyes from within them as they looked at him. Their lifted lances were shafts of diamond, of starlight.
"Mortal man, be welcome in the lands of the Fae." Behind the visor, the leader's voice was a silver spear that pierced the heart; it took Bruce a moment to process the words.
He blinked at the figure in its glittering sapphire armor, carrying a shield that seemed to be hewn from a single ruby, a gleaming golden glyph set in filigree into the scarlet. "I need to get back to Gotham," he said, trying to get his bearings. "I was pursuing a criminal."
One of the knights behind him laughed, a trill of bells; the leader raised his hand and the sound cut off abruptly. "We are here to take you to the court, to be brought before the King and Queen of the Fae." A gauntleted hand was extended to him. "Ride behind me, mortal man."
This time the murmur that went around the circle of knights seemed distinctly disapproving. Bruce ignored it and took the outstretched hand without considering how exactly he was going to get up--but he found himself lifted like a feather onto the horse, which whinnied and pranced slightly, but seemed undaunted by the extra weight.
They rode through the strangely still woods--no birds sang out, no small creatures moved in the underbrush. "How did I get here?" Bruce asked after a time.
The glimmering visor did not turn to look at him. "Sometimes there are places where the walls between our worlds are thinner," the radiant voice said. "It is not unheard of, for mortals to fall into our realm."
"I'm willing to return if you will release me," Bruce said.
There was a sound like wind through crystal chimes, alien laughter. A strangely sad laughter. "After tonight, it will be a moot point," said the knight. "But for tonight, consider yourself our guest, Bruce Wayne."
The sound of his name in those inhumanly beautiful tones sent a chill running through Batman's body, one he tried to hide. "You have the advantage of me," he said. "What may I call you?"
The leader said something that sounded like birdsong, complex and lilting. It went on for some time.
"Well, I caught the first syllable or so of that," said Bruce, "So I guess I'll call you Kal, if I may."
The sweet, sad laughter again. "I would be honored, Bruce."
The horse's gait was so smooth it felt like it was gliding between the silver-gold trees. It was a soothing rhythm, nearly hypnotic, and after a while Bruce realized he wasn't sure how long they'd been riding. He cleared his throat. "You've called yourself the Fae," he said. "What is this place? A different planet, a different dimension?"
"It is the realm of Faerie," said Kal. "Which lies nestled against your world, as close as a lover, but forever apart."
"Faeries? Like...Tinkerbell?" Batman did a quick mental inventory of who must have been working with Freeze. Scarecrow? He knew what fear toxin felt like, and wasn't this. Mad Hatter? No, this felt more real than Jervis's usual technique. "Regardless," he said, more to himself than the possible figments around him, "I don't believe in faeries."
No sooner had the words left his mouth than a strange shudder seemed to run through the company. For a moment, the color seemed to fade from the world, the rich golds losing their vibrancy, the azure sky dimming to slate. On the edge of hearing, Bruce could hear a faint sound like shattering glass, unutterably lorn.
Then it was all gone as if it never had been: the strange world was once again its riot of tumultuous colors, the sunlight a warm weight on his shoulders.
The riders had stopped and were looking at him, still as stone. "I mean," said Bruce into the silence, struggling to keep a stammer out of his voice, "I don't doubt that you think of yourselves as Fae. But in my experience, such seemingly supernatural events can be explained. As Clarke's Theorem says--"
Kal held up a hand as if in warning. "Mortal man, you will not speak of such things while in our realm. If you persist in doing so, I shall bind your tongue." He looked forward once more. "Or rip it out entirely," he added.
He kicked the horse into a trot, and the rest of the company followed suit as they left the forest and entered a plain of deep emerald grass starred with tiny white flowers. As they rode, one of the knights lifted her voice in a song; one by one the others joined in, until they were all singing as they rode, even Kal. The language sounded vaguely like Gaelic, but the words were alien. However, the emotions were clear: fierce and beautiful together, with a defiant edge that rang over the drumbeat of the horses' hooves.
And underneath that, the same hollow melancholy that haunted the beauty all around him.
As the sky darkened toward purple (and yet, with all the sunlight around, there was no sun in the sky) Bruce could see on the horizon a circle of vast monoliths, hewn from black granite. They were reminiscent of Stonehenge, but strangely shadowed.
The horses drew to a halt just outside the ring and the knights dismounted; Batman joined them. Together they walked into the circle of stones. Fireflies wavered through the air, their fitful light illuminating the stones with gold and silver gleams.
"Father. Mother," said Kal. "I bring you Bruce Wayne, mortal man of Gotham."
The fireflies swirled as if caught in a sudden wind; when they dissipated a man and woman stood before them.
They were noble and beautiful, tall and fair almost beyond bearing, their faces inhumanly wise and remote. Jewels and lights glimmered in their hair.
As one, the company of knights dropped to one knee with a sweet clash of silvery armor. Beside him, Kal also knelt, bowing his helmeted head. "Kneel," he whispered to Bruce.
Bruce lifted his chin, though the glory of the King and Queen made his eyes ache as if with unshed tears. "I bow to no one," he said, his voice mostly steady.
For a long moment the King and Queen looked at him. Beside him, Kal seemed to be holding his breath. Then the King smiled. It was not a particularly reassuring smile. "Very well, mortal man," he said. He clapped his hands together. "Bring food and wine for the celebration, bring music and lights and dancing!"
At his words, the center of the stone circle blazed into light, and Bruce could see a host of tall, fair people gathering. A table heaped high with fruit and sugared confections seemed to materialize out of nowhere, and the sounds of laughter and merry-making began to ring. Some of the folk cast curious glances at Batman, but most ignored him entirely as they walked arm in arm, radiant and unearthly.
The King was deep in whispered conversation with Kal; as Bruce watched, Kal took his helmet off, shaking out his long dark hair. His face made the breath freeze in Bruce's throat: pale as if carved from ivory, with eyes the deep blue of an endless summer sky set into chiseled features.
But more than its beauty, what caught at Bruce's heart was its sorrow.
Kal nodded as his father said something, and for a moment his eyes went to Bruce on the far side of the circle. Then he straightened and crossed to him. "Mortal ma--I mean, Bruce," he said. "Be welcome in the realm of Faerie. Will you not sup with us?"
Bruce decided that based on what had happened last time, now was not the time to point out that Faerie wasn't real. On the other hand...
"Fair Prince Kal," he said with a bow of his head, "I hate to turn down your hospitality, but I have heard that eating your food and drinking your wine might not be the wisest actions."
If he had thought that Kal's beauty was unbearable before, seeing him smile forced Bruce to revise his opinions. "You are a wise and cautious man, Bruce Wayne."
Across the circle, a pipe began to skirl; a harp joined in seconds later and the sound coalesced into music of such complexity and irresistible rhythm that Bruce felt his feet shifting in time to it.
Kal held out an arm. "Would you dance with me?"
"Batman doesn't dance," Bruce growled, but Kal's eyes were solemnly merry, and he felt his heart yearning toward him unbidden.
"Please?" Kal said, and Bruce found himself nodding, found himself lifted into the dance, into Kal's arms, into something he could neither explain nor deny.
It was a dance both mirthful and melancholy, somehow, and Bruce never took his eyes off Kal's face. The music turned them around and around until, dizzy and laughing, they found themselves in the shadow of one of the great standing stones, outside the circle of light and sound.
Bruce leaned against the stone, trying to catch his breath, and Kal drew close and kissed him, and it seemed as if the whole evening had led to this inevitable and perfect moment. He could taste wine on Kal's lips, wondered fleetingly if this meant he would be trapped there forever, then cast aside all fears to return the kiss with all the pent-up fervor of his soul.
The kiss broke and Kal put his lips to Bruce's ear. "You are more beautiful than I ever dreamed, Bruce Wayne. Be strong tonight, and brave of soul, and know that I chose you of all mortals to bring to this world."
Bruce opened his mouth to ask any of a dozen questions suddenly crowding into his head, but Kal put an inhumanly long finger to his lips and smiled. Then he seized Bruce's hands and drew him back into the enchanted circle, back into the music and the merrymaking of the crowd, with no hint of his grave words remaining in his smiling face. But Bruce was on his guard now, and as he listened, he began to hear an ugly edge to the celebration, a faint ominous buzzing like a swarm of silver bees.
When the full moon was almost directly above the circle of stones, the King clapped his hands once more and all of the host immediately fell silent, the music extinguished like a candle. "Lords and ladies of the Fae," he said, "Tonight is a night of triumph!"
A murmur of hungry anticipation went through the crowd. Bruce saw Kal standing by his father's right hand, gazing at him with solemn eyes.
From the spaces between the stones, six knights stepped forward, each clad in shining armor and holding a naked blade that seemed to drip malign light.
"All of you assembled know of the plight we face," the King went on. "How day by day the mortal realm wears us away with its doubt and its skepticism, threatening the very fabric of our world."
A louder, angrier mutter. "Without their belief, we fade!" cried an eldritch voice. "We die!" wailed another.
The King held up his hand for silence. "No longer! Tonight, the solstice of the full moon, we shall tear asunder the veil between our worlds to send our chosen knights through time and space and right this wrong! We have chosen the key mortals to die when babes in their cradles: Galileo, Descartes, Lovelace, Darwin, Goodall and Sagan shall all fall this eve. Their deaths shall be the fulcrum upon which we turn our worlds back into their proper balance. We shall wax mighty in power once more, and the mortals shall once more be our slaves, and will know no other reality."
The crowd roared approval.
"But in order to fulfill our destiny--" Without warning, Bruce's arms were grabbed by powerful hands and pulled behind his back, "--We must consecrate our portal with the blood of a mortal."
Bruce looked around the circle of beautiful faces, gone suddenly cold and merciless, and kept his breathing even. "I don't believe in you," he said, raising his voice. "The First Law of Thermodynamics states that matter and energy--"
Howls of rage met his words, and once again the color seemed to drain from the world around him, leaving the unworldly host pale and brittle. Then something gossamer-light but strong as steel slapped across his mouth and cut his words off. "Silence!" roared the King.
The Queen was looking up at the sky, where the moon's light was becoming a sickly green. There was a faint wailing, as if of a gathering storm. "We must hurry," she said, raising her pale arms. "The mortals' lack of belief has reached critical levels. It is the last night of this world, if we do not move quickly to take back what is rightly ours."
The two Fae holding Bruce's arms wrestled him to a stone table, where he was held down, spread-eagled. Bruce watched as the King handed Kal a knife of black stone. "It was your spell that brought this mortal to us, my son. Strike him down now and anoint our Gate with his blood, so that you can take your rightful place as heir of two worlds."
The Queen was chanting, a high sound that tore at Bruce's sanity, and something that looked like a black hole was opening up in the air at the center of the circle of stones. An icy wind whipped at the shining garments of the court of the Fae, and the assassin Knights gathered below the Gate, waiting.
Kal stepped forward to Bruce, the obsidian blade glinting in his hand, his face remote and lovely. He stood for a moment, the knife lifted above Bruce's heart.
Then the Fae holding Bruce down staggered back as Kal struck out at them, his movements fluid and as unavoidable as lightning.
Bruce sprang up from the table and put his back to Kal's. There was screaming all around them, and the wind was beginning to make standing difficult.
"My son!" The King's enraged voice was laced with despair. "How could you betray us--betray your people--"
Kal caught a crystal arrow out of the air before it could reach Bruce's head. "Not this way, Father!" he cried. "I love you, and I love our people--but I have told you, I will not have us survive at the cost of another world's freedom!"
Bruce looked around the circle of hostile faces, searching for an answer. It was the two of them against the entire Host of Faery, and the Gate was writhing like a living entity, a doorway that would deliver his world to death and slavery. There had to be some way--
Like an echo, cool and clear in his mind, he remembered his mother's voice, reading him a bedtime story: For the Fae cannot abide the touch of cold iron, and it shatters all their spells."
Sending a brief prayer to any gods of Science that might exist that a steel-molybdenum superalloy would do the trick, he sent every batarang in his belt toward the Gate as quickly as he could throw them.
As the first batarang touched the Gate, all sound seemed to be sucked up into vacuum as a silent explosion of harsh white light blossomed outward. For an instant, everything seemed to hold still, the pale panicked faces of the Fae frozen in mid-shout.
Then the concussion rippled backward and scattered everything--Fae, stones, the sky itself--like petals in the wind.
Batman found himself flat on the ground, his ears ringing. The world was falling apart, the unearthly stars streaming down the sky like tears. He pushed his way through the milling, weeping crowd, searching for sapphire armor and dark hair as the wind rose to a scream, pulling at reality itself.
He found Kal lying on the ground, his eyes closed, with his parents bending over him. The King was whispering something, webs of light drifting from his hand onto his unconscious son. They looked up as Bruce staggered toward them, their faces beyond anger, beyond hope.
"Mortal man," said the Queen. "In our desperate need, we sought to destroy you, but now you are our last and only hope. Please. We beg you--save our son. You are the only one who can."
"I am casting protective spells around him," said the King. "There is a chance he can survive the destruction of our Realm--with your help."
The howling of the wind should have drowned their voices out, but they reached Bruce's ears clear and undiminished. He nodded, and the Queen's inhuman face softened with a very human relief. She bent and kissed Kal on his pale brow, then beckoned for Bruce to sit by him and take his limp form in his arms. Magic sifted around them both, threads of light binding them gently together.
"If you survive this, mortal man, we beg you to teach our son your ways, and to befriend him." The King's voice was fainter now, as if torn by the winds.
"Tell him he has our love always," said the Queen's voice from far away.
"Wait!" Bruce called. "What do I have to do? How do I save him?" But his voice was whipped away into nothingness, and the stars had fallen out of the sky, and there was nothing left around them but emptiness and negation. Terror knifed through him as he felt the Void unraveling the threads of light protecting them, plucking like greedy fingers. What ability did he have to counter the unmaking of a world? What ability did any mortal being?
And then he knew.
He wrapped his arms around Kal, bending over him, and whispered, "I believe in you, Kal. I believe in you." He held the prince of Faerie close and believed with all his heart in his goodness, and his beauty, and his bravery.
As he whispered, he felt the claws of the Void slowly release them, felt unreality slinking away. There was air around them, and it was bitterly cold, and he was kneeling in snow with a naked man heavy and real in his arms.
After that events became somewhat blurred. There was a call to the Manor, and a ride in the Batmobile while he attempted to explain the night's adventures to a pale and tightly-composed Alfred. When Alfred informed him that he had been missing for a month, Bruce found himself without words the rest of the ride home. Together they managed to get their new guest into the Manor, a pair of blue silk pajamas, and bed.
Not once did Kal regain consciousness, although he moaned in his sleep now and then, and once he cried out for his parents--his voice no longer edged with inhuman silver, but rough with pain. Bruce found if he held Kal's hand he slept better, so he sat by the bed in his armchair and held on to him, keeping him anchored to this world.
And so it was that Bruce Wayne woke on a bright January morning to sunlight--pale, mundane, beautiful sunlight--streaming through the window and touching the face of the man sleeping in his bed: the Last Son of Faerie.
His face was pale, but no longer the pallor of alabaster; merely tired and wan with grief. The unearthly, unbearable beauty of the Fae was gone, and he was merely a handsome man.
The strong fingers tightened unconsciously on Bruce's own, and Bruce leaned forward, waiting for the moment Kal's eyes would open, wanting his face to be the first thing the foundling saw.
It would be hard, but Bruce believed that Kal would find his place in the mortal world. He believed that Kal was the kind of person who could make the world a better place. And he believed--irrationally, without proof, but with a complete certainty--that they would be together from now on, hand in hand and back to back.
He found, in short, that he was able to believe in almost anything with Kal's hand in his.
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