Archive of Our Own ^beta

Knights of Shadows and Shadows

Gotham City, sometime in the future

"Fuliginous," Chloe said triumphantly.

"What?" Clark looked at her, eyebrows raised, tempted to laugh.

"Fuliginous. Sooty, shadowy, eerie. That's what Gotham's like at night. You wait. You won't really know what the city's like until you've been out at night here."

"I know what cities are like," he said mildly. Chloe in one of her giddy moods might have been seltzer spraying from a shaken bottle. "I live in Metropolis, after all." He glanced up at the gleaming skyscrapers around them, glass and metal, glass and stone, glass and glass. The building at the northwest corner here stood out as one that ought to belong in his home city—an eco-friendly office and residential building of curved glass designed, financed, and run by Wayne Enterprises. It had been profiled throughout the country and in foreign as well as US architectural magazines and television shows.

But the metal-and-glass modern structures seemed out of place in the Colonial, Victorian Gothic, and Art Deco buildings of Gotham City. Certainly the city during the day looked nothing like planned, futuristic, polished Metropolis, and the Gotham City Herald Tribune occupied a nineteenth-century Beaux-Arts stone edifice nothing like the new green-glass-and-steel sculpture the Daily Planet occupied. It still seemed ironic that the Daily Planet's home had been built by LuthorCorp before Lionel Luthor's unexpected death and after Chloe's unexplained move to Gotham City.

Around them, the streets echoed with the rumble of tires on the pavement, the heavier thumping of trucks, the yammer of people leaving the offices at the end of the day, the echo of hip-hip and rock bouncing out of open car windows and spreading discordant noise over the ambient sound.

Chloe sniffed. "Yes, in a middle-income apartment subsidized by Metropolis City Government under some Federal Rehabilitation Act. Our City Council's still fighting over the strings attached to the program. Probably someone's not getting offered a big enough kickback. If you lived here, you'd be living where I am."

A coffee shop occupied the corner to the northwest, their next landmark. Above the shop rose the brick-and-mortar structure of a post-war apartment building jacked into existence under the demand for new cheap housing. A janitor hauled the afternoon trash to the curb. Chloe wrinkled her nose.

The stench of coffee grounds, half-eaten sandwiches, and spoiled milk  lent nothing to the brilliantly sunny July afternoon, but was not as bad as cowpats on the farm. Oddly enough, he missed the farm; he'd never have believed he could miss the farm before Metropolis. He missed Mom; he missed Chloe. The Daily Planet, even with Jimmy, and now Lois, felt empty without Chloe, and frequent emails didn't compensate for talking to her in person. He'd written snail-mail letters to her as well as e-mail, and received both in return, but phone calls were a little too pricey, and he missed her voice, her laughter. He jerked his concentration back to the discussion. No, no middle-income special apartment complexes in Gotham. On the other hand, New Town wasn't Crest Hill or Gotham Heights, but it wasn't The Bowery either. Unless things have changed from what Ollie and Hal have told me... He put his hands in his pockets. "Which reminds me I haven't seen your place yet."

"It's a mess," she said. Too quickly.

Clark stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and waited for her to notice.

She got ten steps away before turning around and coming back. "Why are you just standing here? We've got thirty minutes to get to the Romanoff, and it's going to take us fifteen minutes to get through security even with the press passes."

"If we're going to be late, I can carry you." He folded his arms, prepared to wait.

"No, God, don't do that here."

"No one's even going to notice." He spread out his arms, showing off his best suit. "It's not as if I'm in red and winged shoes, you know."

"Right, Flash. And Barry is occupied elsewhere at present, I understand." She grinned, starting to relax a little, and he 'hit' her with the other shoe.

"So what's happened to your apartment and why don't you want me to see it?"

Chloe sighed. She ran both hands through her hair, then smoothed it down. "Because right now I'm staying at the Riverside Inn."

"Why?"

"There was a fire in my apartment building."

His brain started ticking. A fire in her apartment building. Fires weren't unusual. A fire shouldn't make her so reticent. "You started a fire while cooking?"

"I—what? Don't be ridiculous! I didn't start the fire—I wasn't even home—" She stopped for a second, then said, "Damn it."

"Who set a fire in your apartment, Chloe?" Now he started walking, and heard her heels clicking into a run to catch up with him.

"I wasn't there, remember? I don't know."

"Who do you think set it?"

She looked at him wide-eyed. "Wow, you sound like a real journalist, Clark! I mean, the attitude and the questions and all—"

"And if you don't tell me, we're both gonna be late."

Diversions having failed along with snide comments, Chloe sighed and clasped her hands across her chest. Heat rose up around them from the concrete pavement. "Someone threw a Molotov cocktail through my kitchen window. "

"Chloe, you live on the twenty-fifth floor of the Wyoming! And, as I recall, the kitchen window is the only window you have! Kara would have to have thrown it through your window."

"And she didn't do that. I know." Chloe sped up a little. "Look, I'm working on this story. Series of stories. There's always been a thread of corruption running through the GCPD. Sometimes it goes away. Sometimes it comes back. And it's usually got connectors running through most of the city and the city government. We have a new Police Commissioner, came to us out of DC, except no one really seems to know all that much about him. So Ms. Lance assigned me to do a series on the Gotham City Council and the Mayor's office. I'm on my third. This one is about the collection of parking meter monies. My investigations suggest that bribes are being paid to allow one company to collect those monies, and funds are being siphoned off. Parking meter accounts are supposed to be used to augment taxes for street maintenance and improvement..."

"Whoa. Whoa. You're getting carried away here."

"Yeah." Chloe's face darkened; her mouth drooped. "I'm not sure whether Ms. Lance expected me to fail or expected I was young enough and enthusiastic enough to barrel on through in spite of anonymous warnings and Molotov cocktails that couldn't have been thrown through my window. Like you said."

"And all your belongings, it was all—burned?" He looked over her head at the street traffic.

"I had my laptop. And my cell. And the rest of it—At first the insurance company wouldn't acknowledge my claim, but I got a lawyer, and they capitulated. So the money's sitting in my ING account while the Wyoming is being renovated."

Clark blinked. "Wow, that was sudden, wasn't it?"

Rosy embarrassment bled up her face. "Yeah, well, it seems I have a couple of friends in this town. Although Lex isn't one of them."

"Lex is in Gotham City?" He wondered at the silence in his own heart, but shrugged it away. Only Lex's name was familiar, now.

"Occasionally. LuthorCorp's bought several properties in the city, and demolished most for new construction. There were some outrage from the Historical Society, but the ones LCorp picked were so dilapidated that even the foundations couldn't be salvaged. That nor'easter that hit two years ago, and the one last winter didn't help at all. So most of our newest luxury skyscrapers are LuthorCorp futuristic."

Chloe had the impossible habit of wandering off onto tangents when she didn't want to discuss things. "Meanwhile, someone you're investigating is gunning for you."

"More like trying to scare me off. The last couple of times a reporter turned up dead, it's hit the national news." She paused. "That might have something to do with Commissioner Bristol coming to us from DC. The fire in the Wyoming was just determined to be arson this morning by a grand jury. The verdict went up on the website at noon and a detailed story is on the front page of the evening edition. It's not my byline."

"Why not?"

Chloe punched him affectionately. "Idiot. We have to report on it, but we don't want to come off as biased."

"But you're staying in a safe place?"

She shrugged. "Well, I'm staying in an inexpensive hotel, since the insurance company made the reservations. But the doors lock, you need a cardkey to get in after 7 p.m. and there's night security."

"What if someone comes after you with more than a Molotov cocktail for a calling card?" Night security in Gotham City probably meant a retired cop with a gut the size of the Narrows Sound and armed with a baton.

She flung her hands out widely, nearly smacking him in the nose. "Well, if they'd meant to do that, then they wouldn't have made a point of tossing it through my window while I was out at my karate class."

Clark ran a hand through his hair. "Not every criminal is a mastermind. A lot of them are just missed-their-minds."

"Oh, that's worse than your usual attempts at humor, Clark."

"It's better than most of yours," he retorted.

She sniffed.

Behind them, the sound of a car engine slowing could be heard under the racket of the cars moving past.

Chloe stiffened. She said nothing, but her eyes slewed sideways, trying to see as far as peripheral vision allowed.

"Chloe?"

Her jaw clenched. She swung around. Except for not anticipating her, he was faster. Then she exhaled.

So all that bravado was just—Chloe.

The long black car slowed further, then stopped beside them. It seemed to have driven right out of the last century. Another flick of his mental encyclopedia:  he recognized the car as a Rolls-Royce Phantom IV— straight out of the nineteen-forties. Beautifully restored, although the black paint job had a futuristic opalescent sheen under the streetlights. The rear window near the curb slid down, and in the darkened interior, a shadow appeared. A black-gloved hand reached out the window.

For a moment, he couldn't feel his heart beat. Then, his pulse hammered in his ears. Then, he realized that the black sweep of what seemed to be hair was instead a picture hat, covered in black feathers, blending into the shadows along with a dark outfit.

"Chloe! Are you and your friend on the way to the Romanoff?" And the voice was definitely not Lana's, although an attractive musical soprano.

Chloe stooped to peer through the window. "Naturally! Where would two intrepid reporters be headed on this day of all days?"

"Then let me offer you a lift so you get there in plenty of time and don't have to run the gauntlet." The gloved hand started to move, but a voice from the front interrupted the motion.

"Madam, if you don't mind..."

A deep sigh answered. The black glove pulled back from the window. "Alfred despairs of me."

The driver's door opened. A silver-haired man in a chauffeur's cap, tall and solid, formal in manner and dress, stepped out. He made his way around the car, then opened the rear door with courtliness suited to a much older era. "Miss Chloe. Sir, if you would be so kind..."

Clark noted two back seats facing each other and chose to sit on the one facing his hostess. 'Miss Chloe' seemed to confirm that his friend knew the other woman fairly well.

The woman in the black hat eased over to the street-side window and tucked her skirt around her. The fabric rustled, something that made him think of the single party dress his mother had owned when he was a toddler. Chloe slid in beside her and leaned over to kiss her.

Not on the cheek, but directly on the lips. And the stranger responded.

Something else to think about. That wasn't a simple friendly kiss.

"Bruce, this is a friend of mine, Clark Kent. He's from Metropolis now, but we grew up together in Smallville."

"Really!" Bruce's husky alto sang out surprise and interest. She held out a hand. "Mr. Kent, what a pleasure. Any friend of Chloe's is a friend of mine."

Chloe smiled. He could hear that in her voice, too. "Clark, I'd like you to meet Bruce Wayne."

Bruce Wayne the billionaire? Well, Chloe as a reporter meeting Bruce Wayne is no odd thing. Chloe on first name and kissing terms with Bruce Wayne of Wayne Enterprises and the Wayne Foundation was more peculiar. He shook hands; Wayne's grip showed firmness but not aggressiveness.

Bruce lifted off her hat and laid it on her lap. The tips of her tousled black hair had been bleached to platinum and the unruly mass haloed her head. Brilliant blue eyes studied him with interest and warmth, not quite the stern demeanor mentioned in so many articles. Beautiful—the articles always mentioned three things as modifiers: the beautiful, brilliant and aloof Bruce Wayne.

He noticed that her pumps matched hat and gloves. Something in one of the Planet's society pages had burbled about Bruce Wayne 'single-handedly restoring romantic fifties-style dressing to fashion'. He wouldn't have called tonight's dress romantic, exactly... It was a tailored black dress with a straight skirt, a deep neckline, and a short-sleeved bolero jacket. Probably way beyond the cost of his Men's Store suit and Chloe's pantsuit. He wasn't certain what the stones in Bruce's choker were; he suspected from the color that they were black opals. One of the early 1900s Wayne women had owned quantities of black opal jewelry, which had started a notable trend among the families of Mrs. Astor's 400.

She leaned forward, and he caught a breath of some exotic perfume. "And are you here just to escort Chloe in her progress upwards through the ranks of investigative journalism, Mr. Kent?"

"Bruce!" Chloe elbowed her.

Bruce's white teeth showed when she laughed. Clark noticed that her bicuspids were slightly longer than most people's and pointed.

"I'm a reporter for the Daily Planet."

"Interesting!" Again, the response sounded sincere. Then she topped it. "Clark Kent—I think I've seen your bylines. You did some very effective and succinct pieces on the Metropolis Fire Department and that set of fires which turned out to be arson."

Embarrassment set his face on fire. He'd never admitted how proud of those pieces he was; Lois had wriggled out of the assignment for something she considered more newsworthy and more likely to gross her a bigger byline. "Thank you. I'm surprised you should notice such minor pieces." He'd hit the front page when he made the arson connections to a Metropolis construction company. In fact, his exposé had punted Lois' piece on bootlegged eShells off the front page onto the Business section. She hadn't spoken to him except on job-related matters for three weeks after.

"On the contrary. I'm very interested in the problems businesses have with unexpected fires." One corner of her lip curled up. "I've noticed a few unexplained fires here in Gotham City recently."

Chloe sat up. So did he.

"What have you seen?" was Chloe's question. His was, a second later, "Who were the victims?"

"It's going to take more time than you and I have at present to sort that out," Bruce said. "Kent, are you in town for a day or so?"

"Yes, actually." He blinked, and wondered suddenly if Bruce Wayne had already known that. You're paranoid. Why should she know anything about a struggling Metropolis reporter? "I'm spending the week—my mother's here for the week and it's the first chance we've had to spend time together since she was re-elected."

"Your mother's a remarkable woman," Bruce said, very softly, with a ragged sadness edging her voice.

"Thank you." Four years in Metropolis had at least sanded off the last of his country-boy roughness. He could converse with almost anyone. Then he remembered the last of his skimmed info about the players in Gotham City—Bruce Wayne's parents had been murdered when she was six, during a street mugging after leaving an opera early. She'd witnessed it. And the once-prolific Wayne family, dwindled then to an elderly great-aunt and a few faraway cousins, now left only one member—Bruce herself. "I'd be more than happy to talk with you about these unexplained fires while I'm here. And with Chloe," he added, hoping to avoid foot-in-mouth disease. "She's the real detective. Me, I'm more of the character story type."

"Good. I don't want to interrupt too much of your time with your mother. I'll give you my private number—Actually, Chloe, you can give it to him."

Chloe nodded. "You've got it. When do you want to meet?"

The car slowed. "Ah. We're here already." Bruce tapped her fingers on the crown of the hat. "I know. I'll drive you both back to your hotels later, if you don't mind. You contact me when you're both available. I can always carve out a little time here and there."

"Bruce isn't a micro-manager." Chloe grinned at her. "At least, not any longer."

A whoop of laughter answered. Bruce laid one gloved hand on Clark's forearm, then pulled it away. "If I hire good people, they don't need me to stand over them. When they need me to kibitz, or to offer support, then I need to be there. But if they've got what I need, then they don't want me hovering."

"And more time for playing?" Clark could have bit his tongue. That was closer to rude than to flirting.

Her mouth curved. "All work and no play makes Jill a dull girl. Isn't that the cliché?" She settled the feather-trimmed hat firmly on her hair, shielding her face and eyes. "They've done up the Plaza beautifully for the event, don't you think?"

The Robinson Plaza lay in a half-circle in front of and partially surrounding the Hotel Romanoff. Impeccable Art Nouveau columns spiraled up and swept out into carved stone flowers, with carved ivy swirling down the side. The street curved around it and swept up in front of the Romanoff's lily-and-spiral mosaic entrance.

The Rolls-Royce stopped at the entrance. A majordomo in scarlet livery opened the door. Chloe blinked at the assault of flashguns. Clark set his jaw, got out of the car without much of a struggle, and handed her out, then offered his hand to Bruce. She accepted the help; he blinked at the strength of her grip. She paused, after getting her feet under her, to smile blindingly at him and pause for a few seconds, while the cameras, camera phones, camcorders, and the rest of the recorders clicked and whirred along the gauntlet of the red carpet leading into the Plaza Hotel.

Clark glanced for the nearest spot to slide into, back among the reporters, where he belonged. He could see the same reactions in Chloe's eyes.

Bruce said, without ruining her smile, "Don't the two of you dare desert me. That'll get more pages in the paper than anything else tonight."

"You forgot to remind me you were a celebrity," Chloe muttered.

"I've been working pretty damn hard to forget it myself." With the perfect smile still in place, Bruce lengthened her stride to the extent that skirt and high heels allowed and kept moving while the cameras clicked.

If he'd been one of them,  Clark knew his camera would have been busy. But it would have been more than a simple faux pas to start snapping images of his host from the rear. Although, his hindbrain pointed out, the rear is every bit as nice to look at.

It seemed more than one of the photojournalists agreed: a lot of the flashes went off after Ms. Wayne had passed.

Clark was prepared—he thought—for security. As they walked through the elaborate iron and glass doors into the hotel lobby, he pulled out the lanyard with all his press information and his driver's license from his pocket and dropped it around his neck. In his periphery, Chloe did the same. Bruce turned to the left and started up the sweeping staircase to the main room. Scarlet ropes cordoned off the entrance to the Grand Ballroom, where a carefully arranged phalanx of men in black suits checked ids and verified that no contraband was present before allowing the subject through.

And then Bruce Wayne approached the gauntlet. The first man glanced at her, murmured something into his mike, and a second suit—a man taller even than Clark himself—pressed his earphone into his ear, swung around, crossed the intervening space in a couple of long-legged strides, and held out a hand.

"Ms. Wayne. How good to see you again. Any problems with your drive?"

She shook his hand and the expression in his eyes said she must have turned her smile on full-wattage. "Not at all. It's sweet of you to ask, Mr. Wolfe."

He dropped her hand, then looked over her shoulder at Clark, and Chloe, and put the hand out as a barrier, but Bruce put her hand on his arm. "It's all right, darling. They're with me."

"Don't call me darling, darling. Hanging around with reporters?" the suit said. "Not your usual company."

"But I learn so much more when I get out of the limo, Wolfe."

His mouth twitched; his eyes gleamed with an amusement Clark didn't expect. Then Wolfe of no-first-name motioned the three of them along the rope line into the grand ballroom. Clark's hearing picked up the guard's words, although they were sub-vocalized into the link worn against Wolfe's throat. "Three cleared to proceed. Keep track of Ms. Wayne and Ms. Sullivan—you've been briefed on the threats."

Threats. Not just again Chloe? Against Bruce as well? Clark tried to remember anything that might have to do with threats against Bruce Wayne. Nothing of that seemed to have reached Metropolis. They might be sitting on it. Gotham has enough bad publicity these days... half the GCPD under indictment for corruption, the mayor impeached and replaced in a Federally-supervised election, the new Police Commissioner rumored to have intelligence ties, the new District Commissioner a cop jumped from Lieutenant to the second slot, and a caped vigilante on the prowl. Where the hell would there be any interest in something so blasé as threats on a billionaire's life?

Bruce stopped just inside the ballroom, and rested a hand on Chloe's waist for a moment. "Go ahead; I know you have to work. Alfred will pick us up outside ten minutes after the ceremonies end. Try to be as quick as you can, please? Alfred worries if we have to sit too long, and I'm not leaving without the two of you."

Words jumped out of his throat, even as he reached for his PDA and recorder. "Have there been threats made against your life, Ms. Wayne?"

Her blue eyes glinted at him. A gentle flame of mockery licked her words. "Is that on or off the record, Kent?"

He stopped short, with the PDA half-out of his pocket.

"Bruce!" A familiar voice startled him. A voice he did not expect to hear in this place.

As Bruce turned, irritation flickered in her eyes and vanished. "Mr. Luthor. What a delightful surprise. I hardly thought this little thing would tempt you to appear."

Lex, groomed and tailored, smiled as he bent over her hand. "I'm always interesting in seeing the latest trends in Gotham. I haven't even had a glimpse of the plans for the Renaissance Project, or read any solid speculation on the commission members. And I hate waiting for the papers to get the details wrong." He didn't look at either Clark or Chloe, but Clark knew Chloe registered the barb. "Are you on your way to your seat? Could I escort you?"

"Thank you, Mr. Luthor, but Clark's already promised to introduce me to his mother." She slid an arm through Clark's and smiled up at him. Her eyes said, 'Play along with me.' "After all, both of our mothers were named Martha. It gives us a sort of—spiritual bond, you see?"

For the first time, Lex looked at Clark. Clark managed a blank smile, and Lex did the same. "Well, I suppose no one better to introduce you to the Senator." He turned his attention back to Bruce. "No hard feelings about the Islington, I hope?"

"Not at all. Life is much too short to worry about that sort of thing." Bruce's smile must have been as firmly painted on as the Mona Lisa's. It was every bit as intriguing and mysterious. "Chloe, am I keeping you? Let's hurry before they start the speeches."

They were out of earshot before Chloe muttered, "I can't believe you just snubbed Lex Luthor."

Bruce shrugged. "He snubbed you, didn't he? Luthor underbid me on the Islington—wants to put up more luxury condos, so he doesn't care about the demolition cost—but that's business. He doesn't know yet, I think, that I pulled the rug out from under him on 34th Street. Wish I could be a fly on the wall to see his true reaction when he finds out that's the center of the Renaissance Project instead of the hub for his Paris Galleries knockoff." She grinned.

34th Street was the Renaissance Project? Clark noted it and tucked it away for further thought later. "Your mother's name was Martha?" It was the only noncommittal thing he could think of to say while threading his brain through the politics of Gotham City business.

"Yes. Her middle name. In the papers, they always referred to her as Helena, but my father always called her Martha. Your mother's a remarkable Senator, Mr. Kent—"

"Clark," he interrupted.

The blue eyes flicked a question at him.

"If you can call me Clark to Lex Luthor and you can call Chloe, Chloe, then I'm Clark."

She laughed. It was a laugh he already recognized as genuine amusement. "Very well, Clark. Introduce me to your mother, and then I swear I will let you go to work."

Of course, he'd had contact with his mother. Of course, he'd seen photos of her, videos of her in Congress, heard and watched and read of her in all types of media. She'd acquitted herself well against Buzz O'Murray on one side of the political divide and DiDi Nyes on the other. Sometimes he didn't recognize her, this woman with the professional hair-cut and the Lord and Taylor's business suit.

And then, Martha Kent's head lifted, and she met his eyes over the heads of all the intervening crowd, and the smile that lit her face was his alone. His mother's smile.

He could have flown right then, burst through the roof.

He didn't. He did work his way through the crowd, uncaring of any muttering, straight into his mom's arms.

"You look good, honey," she said, hugging him. "That suit's a good color for you. And fits just right."

Flashes went off all over the place. Human interest shot, make all the papers happy to have one feel-good thing they could show off to the censors.

"You look terrific yourself," he said in return. She felt just the same. Everything that had happened in these last twenty-seven years of his life, and Martha Kent was still the same. Still his mother.

He managed to step back, and to remember where he was. "Mom, I'd like you to meet Bruce Wayne. She's been eager to make your acquaintance."

For once, his mother looked startled. Then she turned into Senator Kent again, as she held out her hand.

"Senator Kent," Bruce said, with a smile that didn't blind:  it shyly asked for a response. "It's such an honor to meet you. I've been following your career since I came back to the States and I am—one of your greatest admirers. It's fantastic to have a woman in Congress who knows her own mind and is as well-respected as you are."

And she was intriguing Mom. Not winning her over yet, but interesting her. "That's very kind of you, Ms. Wayne."

"Not at all. I'm a businesswoman, ma'am." Bruce didn't hold the handshake any longer than she should have. She had the timing down perfectly. "I'm polite, but I'm never kind, I assure you."

His mother smiled. A real smile also. "I think I know of some people who would disagree with you."

Bruce chuckled. "Some day you will have to introduce them to me. Let me not hold you up; I can see your assistant heading this way." She swung back to him, and—to his surprise—stood briefly on tiptoe to kiss his cheek. "Call me." The feathers on the hat brushed his face, and she headed away to the table where Oliver Queen already held court.

Martha Kent's mouth twitched. "You are going to have to tell me what else you've been up to, Clark."

"Nothing, Mom, honestly," he protested.

Martha's eyes slipped past him. "And Chloe! It's good to see you here."

"Great to see you, Senator Kent." Chloe tugged at his arm. "Clark, come on, the press gallery's back this way. We'll miss the first speeches."

He didn't remember the name of his mother's new COS. He knew her face, the short blond cap of hair, the great legs, but nothing else. In a few more minutes, though, he and Chloe had elbowed their way into the press circle and were waiting as the Mayor made his way to the podium.

If nothing else, Nathan St. John embodied the new image Gotham wanted to project. The youngest Senator from the Empire State, impeccable credentials as a boy from a blue-collar family who'd won his place in Princeton through scholarships and hard work, and now mayor of one of the most difficult cities to govern in the nation. When he took his place at the podium, the applause burst out, swelled, intensified, and went on while he lifted both arms and grinned at the crowd of Gotham City's elite. The applause finally pattered to a halt, and St. John coughed, the grin still sheepish, still boyish.

"Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. It's a honor to stand here tonight before you and introduce the project that is going to mark a new era in Gotham City. Twenty years ago, we lost a good friend to the deterioration of our downtown, a man with forethought and a belief in a better city and a better world. But Thomas Wayne's ideas didn't die with him. They went into storage. They waited for a day like this. For a long time, the City Council, along with prominent citizens such as yourselves, have been arguing for the restoration of the crumbling districts around Gotham Square. At the same time, activists urged for the inclusion of all strata of our society, because Gotham City is not only the city of the nation's elite, but the city of the foundation of society, those who populate the necessary jobs, the hard jobs, the jobs that are ignored until a tragedy reminds us of them. Thirty years ago, I remember seeing the lights of Grand Boulevard stretching from Thirty-Fourth to Fifty-Second  Streets; from Washington to Seventh Avenues. We need that back. We need to walk the streets of Gotham fearlessly. We need it all, ladies and gentleman: businesses for our citizens to work in, apartments and houses for them to live in, shops and stores to supply their needs."

He held out a hand. "Ms. Wayne, Mr. Queen, if you'd be so kind to join me here—Senator Kent, if you and Senator MacAllister would come up as well—" Another pair of names, which Clark noted in his KiWi., and then another, for a total of twelve well-connected business men and women.

Next to him, Clark felt Chloe's arm move as she jotted shorthand. Jimmy Olsen had been waiting for them—Perry must have felt this was worth a reporter and a photographer, proof that it was bigger than a Gotham City story—and was getting picture after picture after picture as the members of the Renaissance Project Committee came up on stage. Chloe leaned over and whispered in his ear, "Wayne Enterprises voted to stay private last night. Couldn't tell you till now. It's in the evening edition they're hawking on the street now."

"How the hell did they manage that?"

"Outbid LuthorCorp in its attempt to get some of the minority shareholders to sell." She motioned to the short, attractive black woman standing next to Bruce Wayne. "That's Lucia Fox. She's the new CEO of Wayne Enterprises. William Earle's not here, and I for one am not surprised—it was an ugly fight over who was going to retain control of the company. Wayne Foundation was never in danger of going public, and that's all Bruce."

"And the tall white-haired man next to the mayor?"

"That's Victor Bristol, the new Police Commissioner. Some of the security personnel are police. The others are private firms who operate under police aegis at city functions. The suit who stopped us was Dominic Wolfe; he's the second in command of Open Source Security. The redhead next to Bristol is Assistant Commissioner Jaime Gordon. The younger woman next to her? The one who looks like her? That's Barbara Gordon--her sister--the District Commissioner for the Third Ward, the Midtown West area. Thirty-fourth to Fifty-second Street, Washington Boulevard to Seventh Avenue, including Gotham Square, as Mr. St. John said. It's been deteriorating for the last twenty years."

"Jaime Gordon--" Clark frowned, recalling his research. "She's--what? Thirty? A little young to make Commissioner, isn't she?"

"Well, she's done a lot for any police officer her age. Picked up on every clue and information she could get, and brought down a lot of the bigger fish in Gotham City crime, and passed on a lot of the guppies—pimps, brothels, chop shops, small gangs—to lower-rank cops and beat cops she could trust, which got them up the ladder too. She's got quite a few admirers in the Department, and the City Council, and a lot of enemies too."

Each of the committee members took a tassel connected to the sheet covering the giant model of the Project. On the count of three, they pulled, and the model came into view. A mixture of modern and art deco, classical and futuristic, somehow it all melded into a city center that looked like an eternal Gotham. Robinson Square Gardens redesigned; a new Galleria that didn't copy Paris; streets planned out to reduce traffic congestion but make public transit efficient, effective, and attractive. A list of businesses already eager to fill both new buildings and renovated was projected onto the scrim. Along with that, a list of Federal and State and City programs listed the range of affordable housing for those working and living in the city, with the right incentives for landlords. The Mayor's PR staff walked among the press, handing out packets of information.

Clark caught a glimpse of Lex's face. It was utterly blank. Lex Luthor was furious, in spite of his polite applause and his occasional smile. Heads would roll at LuthorCorp tonight.

He felt no compunction in using all of his hearing to pick up the comments while hovering to make more notes for his morning story. He already had summarized the PR content and kept it down to a column. He sent it out from his Blackberry in plain text so the Planet's computer setters could turn it into whatever Perry wanted. Now he needed the crowd's reactions.

The Committee members moved down from the podium as the presentation broke up. Bruce Wayne was stopped twenty or thirty times as she walked across the ballroom towards them.

Then Lex stepped in front of Bruce, and she paused. Lex got the professional smile, the aloof manner that edged smile and eyes with frost. Clark honed in on the pair. Chloe stopped beside him, watching them as intently, but not yet asking any questions.

"So those were the 34th Street buyers," Lex said. "Quite a coup on your part, Bruce."

"Thank you, Mr. Luthor.  My father always thought that the square from 34th Street to 42nd had been Gotham's crown jewel before the Second World War. This was really just a development of his plan. But—in the end, it's just business, isn't it?"

"Wayne Enterprises could do great things with LuthorCorp's assistance."

"I'm sure we could, but we're doing good things now."

"Like staying private?"

"Going public would have been a great mistake. Mr. Earle meant well. But I don't think he understood the philosophy behind Wayne Enterprises."

Lex raised an eyebrow. "Philosophy?"

"Philosophy." She shrugged. "A walk on the slippery rocks, as the song goes. You know, the new buzzword. All the eco-friendly, take care of the planet, living locally and thinking globally—what did he call it? Mumbo-jumbo. Wayne Enterprises is about good business, and it was good business to go private." She offered him her hand. "I have to pick up a couple of friends. You'll excuse me?"

Lex's fingers tightened on her hand. He said, softly, silkily, "You spent some time in the East before you came back to Gotham last year, didn't you?"

Bruce smiled. "I certainly did. I learned a great deal from my time there." Something happened, and Lex wasn't holding her hand any longer. Pain twisted his mouth a second longer, but Bruce's smile did not change. "It's always a pleasure talking with you, Mr. Luthor. Good evening."

Chloe said, "What did they say?"

Clark gave her a précis. "What's that about the east?"

"East with a capital E. As in Asia. Bruce went abroad after she finished her degree at Harvard."

"Magna cum laude, as I recall. And wasn't it two degrees?"

Chloe punched him in the shoulder. "Show-off."

"So why the East?"

"That I do not know. I do know that the man who'd killed her parents was shot and killed leaving a parole board hearing, by another woman whose husband had been killed by the same man. Went to Singapore, and then Macao, I think, and then somewhere in there, she disappeared from sight until she came back to Gotham City a year ago, three months before the seven years needed to declare her dead, and yanked the rug out from under Wayne Enterprises' Board of Directors and Earle. I've got a file on her I'll give you."

"You keep a file on your friends?"

"On Bruce I keep a file. And I trust you with it."

"And everything about her is in it?"

Chloe glanced at him. That wonderful grin tilted her mouth. "No more than everything about you is in the file I keep on you, Clark Kent."

"You have a file on me?" Of course, if there was any one he would trust with a file, it would be Chloe.

Chloe's smile turned smug. Before he could attack the question further, Bruce's voice interrupted.

"Come on, then—Alfred's waiting. Any longer and Jael's  likely to come in searching for me."

"Yale?" Clark let himself be distracted before he realized the collusion between the women.

"Jael is Bruce's bodyguard." Chloe snickered.

Bruce rolled her eyes. "Jael is my assistant. She's a little over-protective sometimes. Doesn't like me to take the elevated. Doesn't like it when I'm late. Keeps me on target."

The Phantom was in fact idling at the curb, and a tall suntanned woman in a black pantsuit stood next to it, her dark eyes scanning the crowds. She saw the three of them; her spine relaxed, and she stooped to speak through the front window before she opened the passenger door.

"We were beginning to be a little anxious, ma'am," Jael said. Her voice was deeper than Bruce's, with an odd lilting rhythm. Clark noticed faint lines around mouth and eyes. Either too much sun, or just older than Bruce. Both, even.

"I thought you might be," Bruce said. She motioned for the two of them to get in.

Clark said, "You should—"

"Humor me," she said. Her eyes swept the area; although she seemed to be looking at them, her attention was elsewhere.

Clark got in next to Chloë this time.

Bruce slid in and Jael shut the door.

"So, Ms. Wayne," Clark said, "about those threats on your life?"

The blue eyes snapped to him. Bruce's lips thinned.

"Wait," Chloë said. "Wait—you mean there have been threats made on your life and you never said anything?"

Bruce leaned back against the seat, took her hat off, and laid it on her knees. "I'm a celebrity, I'm wealthy, and I'm visible. There are always nuts out there, Chloë, you know that."

"Your Mr. Wolfe seemed to think it was more than a few loonies," Clark said.

Her dark eyebrows drew together, and Bruce Wayne looked into his eyes.  She looked into him; he felt for a second as if she walked through his brains and his hidden thoughts, taking notes and analysing. Then she turned it off; her lashes dropped over her eyes. After a moment, Bruce drew a long breath, then said, "Yes. I have been getting some specific things that concern me and—" She hesitated.

Jael said, "Her people."

"My people." Bruce shrugged. "We're taking precautions."

Chloë's voice arced into outrage. "You didn't say a word!"

"Because you have enough on you at that moment. You don't need to be worrying about me." Bruce's voice turned sardonic. "Believe me, I have more than enough people worrying about me." She smoothed the feathers on her hat. "Anyway, let's talk about something more interesting. I need you both to go to this party with me tonight."

"A party—" Chloë looked as startled as Clark felt.

"It's Ollie Queen's Gotham City penthouse. Now, he says he knows both of you, and he'd love to have you there—" Bruce pursed her lips, then said, "Well, he didn't put it in quite that way. But he definitely wants you to attend. And you won't have to meet Mr. Luthor there, because Ollie would sell short sooner than invite him to a party."

"You can't expect us to believe that Ollie Queen asked you to bring us. How would he have known we were there?"

"Saw you come in with me. And just to point out, Chloë, you could wear a sack into a press conference and they'd notice you and not the sack."

Chloë turned pink. "Bruce, stop."

"I noticed," Bruce said, and grinned. "Anyway, we'll stop at the house and change clothes."

Clark blinked. "Ah, Bruce..."

"Alfred, don't you think my father's dinner jacket will fit Clark?"

"I think Mr. Kent would look quite well in Mr. Wayne's suit, Miss Wayne."

"There! You see? And I have a dynamite dress for you, Chloë. Believe me, you'll stop traffic." Bruce's grin widened, and she added, "And Ollie Queen."

"Oh, geez." Chloë covered her face with her hands. "You will get me killed by my boss, if not fired. Dinah Lance owns Ollie."

"Then she won't be jealous. If she's not confident, she doesn't own him."

Without even thinking over his words, Clark said, "Have you been that confident, Bruce?"

Her head jerked, her eyes widened, and the hat fell into the seat well. He stooped and grabbed it, at the same moment that her gloved hand closed on it. The hat quivered; her fingers were trembling. She laid the hat on her thighs again and smoothed out the feathers.

In his periphery, he saw Chloë's lips turn down, and her eyes tighten with concern.

Bruce's voice gave away nothing, unlike her hands. "I never wanted to own anyone. I wanted an equal. Someone I believed in." She said nothing else at all for a few seconds, and then, much more softly, she added, "Someone I trusted."

"And you couldn't find that?" He winced when Chloë kicked him.

But Bruce seemed to be in a confessional mood. "I found him. Then I lost him."

"Lost him?" Chloë said. "I thought—"

Bruce shook her head. "Rachel and I—it was over when I came back from Tibet. She didn't approve of my lifestyle. She expected me to do something more than fight to get my company back and party when I needed a break. I was running 22-hour days at some points. And when I could have shown her what I meant to accomplish—" She shrugged.

Clark frowned, trying to fill in pieces missing.

"Appendicitis," Bruce said to him. "Death. The one opponent you can't anticipate with, bargain with, bribe, cheat, or run from."

Memories battered their way to the front of his mind: Pete Ross, Lana Lang, his foster-father... And Chloë. Chloë who had so nearly joined that roster.

"I do know what you mean," he said.

She smiled at him, but spoke to Chloë. "He is so sympathetic. Now I know how he gets his interviews."

"And I'm not sympathetic?"

"Of course you are, sweetheart. But for a woman, you have to admit a man hanging on your every word is so unusual it stands out."

Clark flushed. Chloë laughed.

And Bruce grinned.

Alfred's strong London accent interrupted. "We'll be at the house in ten minutes, Miss Bruce. Shall I ask Mrs. Hudson to make sure that the clothing is laid out?"

"Yes, thank you, Alfred."

Bruce meets an old friend and Clark finds out something unexpected

*** *** ***

Someone else was following her quarry. Bruce knew that. The fact that she knew someone else was in pursuit made her more wary—letting her know could be a trap in and of itself. She eyed her surroundings. No point in using the grapple. She scaled the wall to the spot she'd marked as having the best coverage, pulled herself into a crouch, and waited. Full Bat kit did give her concealment and protection.

Clark Kent? How the hell did he get this far? Following me? Or working it out from something I don't have?

His black jacket and pants didn't give him the cover her kit did. But he wasn't looking overhead. He was looking around himself, as if he had been following someone and had lost them.

A fraction of a second and a shadow's shifting alerted her. She focused and waited for her eyes to adjust. At least six. The one who'd let a finger move must be young—or new. And you were both once. She watched the neophyte Shadow and saw another finger quiver. Whoever's training you won't be any kinder to you for the slip than Ducard was to me. She shivered at the memory of frigid water soaking through her clothes and a strong arm dragging her onto the ice and out of the frigid lake.

Shadows at the warehouse.  It certainly suggested she was on the right track. She studied what she could see through the cracks in the roof and the chinks in the mortar. Boxes. Naturally enough not with Tibetan or Chinese characters. It looked more Cyrillic, but from this distance and angle, she didn't trust her interpretation.

The shadows moved. Clark stopped. His head moved back and forth.

A creak—

She saw a door at the far end of the room shift.

Clark headed that way. 

If that were a trap, they had him. Even someone starting training could have heard him.

Bruce wavered a second. They weren't likely to kill him. The League of Shadows didn't assassinate innocents, even ones in the way. Even my mother and father. That was all Joe Chill, as Ducard said. She gritted her teeth. No good waffling. She couldn't hang Clark out to dry. She folded herself into the shadows, gliding across the room, feeling for bodies in front of her, to either side of her. The door was closed now, of course, with Clark inside. She hesitated, weighing the next step, struggling to pick up through the wood how much trouble Clark was in. Insulated. She couldn't hear at all.

Then a hiss of steel drawn hit her ear, and a flicker of silver caught the corner of her eye—A blade was at her throat and a body at her back, pinning her between the two before she could react.

"You never will learn to mind your surroundings."

Ah, shit. Well, I found the League. And Henri Ducard, which was unfortunate. Henri would be in charge of any League taskforce he was on, and it meant that whatever was going on was more urgent than she'd realized. And he knew her too well.

The hand on her shoulder moved, reached under her mask, and pulled it over her head and off. "I see you took my instructions about theatricality literally."

"You have to impress your audience—you also said that."

"I did." The katana dropped. He pulled on her shoulder—luckily not the injured one—and she turned to face him. He looked the same. Two years—and he looked the same.

His face belonged on Mount Rushmore; she'd expected that. She didn't expect the sudden tug on her heart at seeing him.

Bruce, have you ever been in love?
I thought I was once, but—No. I look back now and I wasn't in love.
I have been—
Your wife. Your great love.
Love will either save you or destroy you. Just like fear. Just like guilt.

"And why are you here?" Henri said. "We're flattered by the personal attention, but our business here doesn't require your assistance. Or interference." The katana's hilt remained in his left hand, ready if needed.

You expected him to greet you with open arms? Idiot. "You're wrong."

Both eyebrows lifted. "Indeed. Enlighten me."

Bruce took another deep breath. "First, the man in the back room."

A brief nod answered that. His face turned to stone once again. "You mean your reporter friend from Metropolis?"

Right. So you've been watching me. No great surprise there. "He's a friend of a friend, so he's a friend of mine. And we're comparing notes on a series of arsons that seem similar to ones in Metropolis." She left out mention of the toxin. Keep one thing back for leverage.

"And what is he doing here? Is there some connection between your arsons and this warehouse?"

Another breath:  she gritted her teeth a second before admitting, "I don't know. I have to make an educated guess, and my guess is that he was following one of your Shadows who were less than discreet."

That got her both eyebrows a second time.

She did not smack herself in the forehead. She did add the information to her database. "Which is—naturally—an excellent technique for getting a hunter somewhere where you can ask him questions."

Another, slower, nod made it clear that he wasn't offering any further free information.

"However, he is probably here for the same reason I am."

Henri held out his right hand, palm up. "And that would be—"

The shadows flickered; she was sure of watchers now. "I was hoping for a little privacy during our discussion."

His right hand lifted further; he gave the command. The shadows lightened, his soldiers sliding away to cover other vulnerable areas. His head tilted and his eyelids half-closed, waiting for her answer.

"Chloë Sullivan."

His head came forward a little, as if absorbing the words. "And who is Chloë Sullivan?"

Keeping her voice down was a struggle. "Henri, I am not in the mood for riddles!"

"And yet," he sheathed the katana at his back, then crossed his arms in front of him, "you are the one who poses them."

"Chloë Sullivan is a reporter for the Gotham Herald-Tribune."

No change. He continued to stare at her as if she were speaking Greek. No, he probably does speak Greek. Along with Tibetan—and every other language I wouldn't expect him to know. "A reporter whom one of your Shadow assassins tried to eliminate three nights ago."

"It took you three days to find me?" He shook his head. "Bruce, I am disappointed in you."

God, I'm going to smack that damn arrogance out of him! "Will you stop wandering off on tangents? Henri, this is not complicated. I want Chloë off whatever list she's on. Call off the hounds."

"Call off the hounds?" Henri lifted both eyebrows and folded his arms across his chest, looking both more massive and younger than she remembered, though no less forbidding. "That is, assuming I ever set any hounds on your young reporter friend, and assuming there is some compelling reason that I should assist in her continued survival."

Bruce clenched her teeth. How many times had she been shot down by nothing more than that look? "If you don't have the authority, then let me speak to Rā's al-Ghūl—"

Henri's head lowered. His shoulders—heaved. Ducard was laughing at her? Why—  She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. I deserve to be laughed at. "Oh, God. I am so stupid..." Why the hell didn't I  figure that out during the League's previous attack on Gotham? "Of course you're Rā's al-Ghūl. No wonder I had to have your permission to leave..."  She clenched both hands, and then slammed a fist against her armor-clad thigh. Blow and glove snapped the wing-cloth into an arc. "You lied to me!"

"No. I told you what you needed to know. And all you were entitled to know."

She stared at him, mouth gaping, and then shook her head. "A lie of omission is still a lie. You let me think you were just one of the seniors. You didn't even tell me when I left the League." You didn't even tell me when we became lovers.

"You didn't leave the League. You asked to leave Kulan-Di. I gave you permission."

"You absolved me of my vow."

One slow shake of his head answered. "I released you from your vow to me."

"I refused your order to execute a man. If I had obeyed, would you have told me then who you really were?"

"I have been many men. When you reach my age, you may find yourself having been many women. A name is nothing but a label we apply to ourselves, or to others. The person underneath that label is what is real. I was never anything else to you but your teacher—" He paused, considering, then added, "—and your friend."

"Can one have friends in the League? Doesn't that come too near compassion and sentiment?"

His eyes narrowed. "Sophistry does not become you. I know your tongue of old--you used it well enough to the League. I am not so susceptible to your oratory."

"It's not—" She clenched her fist again, and then took a deep breath, stepping away from anger. Whenever he reduced her to anger, she lost the argument. "I know Justice is blind, but is it also deaf?"

He folded his arms once more, his eyes still narrowed with anger. "Go on."

"You were right. In the brothel. I had lost my way. You gave me that back.  I never wanted to make an enemy of you."

"You made your choice."

"I could not be judge, jury, and executioner. Not and not become what I fight. I still can't. But it seems that you can."

"And so we come back to the subject of yet another reporter. Aside from young Mr. Kent. I ask you again, what concern of mine is Chloë Sullivan?"

After a moment, she said, "Chloë is a good friend—"

He sighed, then waved aside her words. "Please, without sentiment. How many times have I told you that sentiment will be your downfall?"

Anger burst its bonds. "I've lost count. How many times have you repeated yourself to me?"

Her back hit the wall much harder than she expected, harder than the armor could protect her against. Something to keep in mind for future armor. Her skull connected a second after; that, too, with more force than she'd thought he might use. A flare of light and pain dizzied her. Her shoulder hit next. It struck her blind and deaf. At least it kicked all the breath out of her. She couldn't scream if she wanted. What's wrong with me? I'm better than this.

Fingers dug into her throat, belong her jaw: the only vulnerable spot of her armor. Now Bruce yelped. Henri cut off her breath. She clawed at the unforgiving hand, remembering too late it would only earn her... His fingers tightened. Her head spun. She shut her eyes, forcing herself to pull her fingers away from his. Every muscle in her body ached to fight. The more she fought him, the more painful the losing.

"Look at me." The growl was no request; Ducard—Rā's al-Ghūl, remember that—at his most implacable.

Bruce forced her eyes open, made the further effort necessary to meet, without flinching, eyes colder than the glaciers surrounding Kulan-Di.

"I see your tongue is as unruly as ever." His voice dropped a half-octave, the blade of it whetting as he spoke.  "That I can remedy if you find yourself incapable of the task." He held her throat still, pinning her to the wall with nothing but the strength in his left arm.

"Once you valued my unruly tongue." She drew in air, then added, deliberately, "Master."

For a period of some uncertain length, he stared down at her. The grip on her throat vanished. He swung away from her. Bruce slumped against the wall, dragging in gulps of air. So much for the fearless invincible Bat. Batman. BatWoman, she said to herself, remembering how Clark had said, 'Well, if it were a woman, it would be Batwoman. What's so odd about that?' It had sounded—right—on his lips. Maybe Batwoman wasn't such a bad name after all. No, better to be Batman. How could a woman be Batman, after all?

As suddenly, Rā's was back, close enough to touch but refraining, still her ice and steel teacher. No deeper intimacy; just her teacher.

She straightened. This time she met his eyes without needing to be told. Rule One: Act as if you feel no fear.

"You will not call me that," he said.

"What should I call you?"

Something in her words thawed his glacial front. He shifted a fraction of an inch, so close now she could smell rage fading on his skin, so close he could have touched her once more if he wanted. His voice dropped into a whisper that rasped along her nerves as if his words stroked her skin with phantom fingers. "What did you call me when we were in bed?"

"And Henri is one of your names?"

For the first time, an edge of a smile cut through his face. The scent of rage dissipated, replaced with something else to which she refused to put a name. "One of them."  Now his gloved hand moved, and his fingers slid into her hair. "As one of yours was Elegant Orchid."

Her knees went weak, her mouth dry. She dug her fingers into her palms and locked her knees. Get back to the point before he leads you totally off in his own direction. "Are you saying that Shadows aren't hunting Chloë on your orders?"

His fingers tightened in her hair, pulling her head back and tilting her face up to his. "I have as yet heard no reason why I should answer impudent questions." He studied her face. "Because she has been your lover? Sentiment again?"

Every time she questioned him, he accused her of sentiment. Bruce tried to jerk her head away from his fingers. "Because she is one of us."

"A reporter?" The question itself laughed at her. He let her head bang against the wall a second time. "A scandalmonger? A Doña Quixote tilting at imaginary windmills for the pennies it brings and the applause of the circus?"

"Chloë writes the truth."

"And someone actually pays her to write the truth?" He shook his head; pity showed in his face.

Bruce ground her teeth. He had her there. "Most of the time. Under Dinah Lance, all of the time."

"And she fulfills this commission?"

"To the best of her ability. Justice is her passion." She considered the words, and then added,  "As is mine."

"So I have seen," he said, dryly. "You said she is what you and I are..." He let the words trail into silence, lifting only one eyebrow this time.

Oh, God. He caught me out again.  One wrong word, one slip of the tongue. And she had struggled so hard to think before speaking. And he can still manipulate me like putty.  She could keep her face under control. She could, with care, adjust her breathing.

His free hand lifted and settled onto her armor, over her heart. "A bird," he said, softly, his voice deep and sweet and alluring, "in a cage of her own making. What is it about Chloë Sullivan which makes you so eager to save her life? Surely it's not merely love—"

Bruce looked away. She couldn't meet his eyes. "Isn't love enough?"

"Not when it is not the only factor. What else?"

"I can't tell you that."

The arrogant tilt of his head returned, along with his hauteur. The gentleness vanished. "If you truly want my assistance, you will tell me everything, Bruce. Everything." His hand dropped onto her shoulder. The shoulder where the Shadow knife had gone in; the one she'd stopped Chloë from completely healing. I couldn't let her be found out…

Instinctively, she twisted to protect the injury. Rule Two: Never react on instinct with him...

Too late.

His powerful fingers dug into the armor, pressing it into the half-healed wound, holding her in place.

The world exploded. Her body combusted, immolated with stabbing pain. She heard a voice, in a distant room, screaming. She heard, more shockingly, Clark Kent's angry voice, and even though she tried to shout, nothing came out of her throat.

Clark? He doesn't know what Rā's is—he doesn't have any defenses....  She tried again, and managed to force out, "Don't hurt him—Clark, stay out of this—"

*** *** ***

Shiulan. Clark tucked the name away; it sounded Chinese. It fit with Chloe's information regarding time spent in China and Tibet.

As did the conversation. Bruce had spent time in—what? What sort of vow had this man forced from her?

And then she shrieked, anguished, reaching up into an ear-ripping soprano which died as if choked off.

Clark moved before he thought. He burst from the bonds holding him, knocked down the guards with nothing held back, not really caring if he injured them. The door was wood on the outside, steel facing him. The lock was electronic. He focused his vision on it; the metal steamed, smoldered, turned first red, then white, then blue, melting away. He put all his inhuman strength into the punch. The door flew out into a stack of boxes, toppling the whole thing in a crashing, splintering cascade of wood and metal.

A tall, broad-shouldered man held—Batman? The armor and the cape were unforgettable. Where was Bruce?

The man she'd called both Henri and Rā's al-Ghūl swung. Batman's limp body swung with him, the head tilting towards Clark.

Bruce Wayne.

Bruce Wayne the billionaire businesswoman and playgirl—Batman.

He swung his gaze up to the man, feeling rage build up in him, about to break free. He only needed one step, and one punch. At the last second, he pulled the punch. He wouldn't become a murderer, either.

The stranger staggered back. Clark grabbed for Bruce.

A gloved hand, fingers spread, reached out at him. He saw a blur, felt a sudden vibration over his entire body, and sank onto the floor as if gravity dragged him down.

"That is a much better place for you, young man." The voice was harsh, deep, a cold voice for a cold man. Rā's looked down at Bruce's face. After a moment, he smoothed her hair away from her face . "Here, you can be useful." He laid her on the floor, with her head and shoulders across Clark's thighs. "Since you can punch through a steel door, you should have no difficulty in tearing this armor from her left shoulder down."

"What makes you think—"

Blue eyes stabbed through him. "I held her by the shoulder. She screamed and passed out. Do you know if she was injured recently?"

"She said it was a scratch." Clark found that his hands and arms worked. He dug his fingers into the material of the suit and pulled the shoulder apart, peeling it from her shoulder and her arm. An ugly red mark, puffy but not open to the air, showed him clearly why she'd screamed. "But Chloë—"

The gloved hands reached for her bare skin.

"Don't touch her!" He grabbed at al-Ghūl's wrist, and was suddenly hit by the blur and the buzz again. His hands snapped to the floor as if glued.

"Restrain yourself," the older man said. "I have no time to waste on you now. Bruce." He pulled something from his pocket and broke it under her nose. "Bruce, wake up. I need you conscious."

Clark wrinkled his nose at the stink of ammonia. Bruce coughed. Her eyes fluttered, and opened, and she blinked at the ceiling, as if she'd never seen it before.

Henri crouched beside her, his lean weathered face drawn in concentration. He could have been anywhere between forty-five and sixty, probably French from the name, although 'Rā's al-Ghūl' sounded Middle-Eastern. He looked as deadly as Kryptonite and just as alien, somehow.

"Bruce." Ducard's voice snapped like a whip. "Wake up. Now."

*** *** ***

She awoke on the floor of the warehouse, the concrete icy under her thighs, even through body armor. Her body seemed to be dipped in ice-water. Her head lay across someone's muscled thighs. She blinked and pulled Clark's face into focus, above her, his eyes shifting from looking down at her to looking up at someone else. His face was white—whiter than hers, probably. Drafts from the open windows of the warehouse blew across her collarbone. In her periphery, she saw the remnants of her black spandex undersleeve fluttering in the gust. The fitful wind brushed her bare shoulder with cold. Where the assassin's blade had lodged, and Chloë's tears had touched, a vivid red line showed, puffy along the edges. But I stopped her from crying before she'd completely healed me. Couldn't risk someone calling Chloë a meteor freak.  "Clark? Did you just break my armor?"

On her other side, another shadow crossed her face. She jerked her head towards it, then winced as new pain shot across her head. A massive familiar hand settled on her uninjured shoulder, holding her down. "Lie still, fool." Rā's al-Ghūl's voice rumbled like a smoldering forge. The hand transferred to her sweat-drenched forehead.

Clark's eyes narrowed, glaring at the older man. The muscles in his arms bulged, but Clark's hands were flat on the floor, as if nailed down.

"Clark, are you all right?" she said.

"Your young friend is enthusiastic and impetuous," Rā's said, voice still iron-hot. He dismissed Clark with the words and a glance. A bruise on his jaw had begun to turn purple. "I needed him to remain under control while I examined you." Now he looked down at her, his eyes as scorching as his voice. "This you should have told me at once. If I intended you harm, I would not have sent someone else to carry it out."

Bruce struggled to sit up. Clark's impotent fury darkened his face further. "Henri," she said. "Let him go. Please."

He looked over her head at Clark. "I warn you, Bruce. If he attempts to strike me again, I will not be so gentle."

"He won't." She twisted her head until she could see Clark's face, although the effort dizzied her with pain, and frowned at him. "You won't."

Clark's eyes agreed, reluctant but acquiescent.

Rā's made a brief gesture, and Clark blinked hard; the air blurred in front of Bruce, as the brief hot flare of magic scorched her mind.

"Bruce, are you all right?" Clark lifted her until she could lean against his shoulder.

"It's not healing as fast as it—" Bruce cut herself off.

"I see," Rā's said. "So that is what you meant."

"I didn't—"

Clark said, "You know about—" and cut himself off as well.

"Oh, God." Bruce banged her head against the leg beneath her in frustration, then winced again as she rubbed the back of her skull. "Ow!" Wonderful. Now Rā's knew that Chloë had metahuman healing powers. Apparently Clark already knew that, even if he hadn't known that Bruce knew. Until now. A perfect idiot circle.

"Even your head isn't that hard, girl," Rā's said. He looked at Clark. "A truce for the moment?"

Clark scowled, but muttered. "All right."

Rā's lifted his hand again.

Bruce said, "Wait!" but he gestured before she could close her eyes. The blur and burn of magic set her head pounding worse than what was probably a mild concussion. Rā's merely lifted one eyebrow. He knew magic acted on her like strobes on a migraine, and he was never reluctant to remind her of her weaknesses.

Clark shifted, moved his leg experimentally, then sighed and bent both knees. "What the hell was that?"

A lifted eyebrow said more than his amused words. "That, young man, was magic."

"I don't believe in magic," Clark said.

"Nor did I believe in young men who can knock down steel doors with one punch or burn through locks by looking at them." Rā's rested one arm across his bent knee, eyeing Kent steadily. "It seems as if there are always new worlds to experience, doesn't it?"

Bruce said, "What?" Clark could knock down a door—burn through a lock by looking at it? Okay, Chloë, what else haven't you told me? Chloë Sullivan, reporter who knows all, but doesn't tell...

Clark went crimson. "Never mind. What happened to your shoulder, Bruce?"

She looked at him. Maybe Henri threw some sort of amnesia spell? "Clark, you were there. What the hell do you mean what happened to my shoulder?"

"I think he means why hasn't whatever abilities your friend Chloe carries completely healed your injury." Rā's prodded the swollen cut.

Bruce cried out, jerking back into Clark. As soon as she had enough breath, she swore in every language she'd picked up from her time in the brothel and in Kulan-Di.

"Your memory still seems active," Rā's said, but his mouth quirked. He looked at her from under his lashes. "A Shadow stabbed you."

"Threw a knife. I knocked Chloë down; I thought it was meant for her. Might have been a mistake; he might have been aiming for me."

"Many things are possible." Rā's frowned. "You retrieved the knife?"

"I pulled it out," she said, and grimaced. Hate admitting failure to him. "He got it away from me, then vanished when other people came out of the building. As we were taught."

The frown deepened; his face went dark. "I need to examine the wound. Can you restrain yourself?"

"Clark?" Bruce reached out.

Clark's hand found its way into hers. He interlaced his fingers with hers. "You can't hurt me," he said. "Squeeze as hard as you need to."

She looked at her teacher. "You're not going to hypnotize me?"

The blue eyes flicked away from hers; he scowled down at his gloved hands. Then he looked her in the eye and gave her his reasons. "If this is a Shadow blade, it's poisoned. I need your reactions to know how deeply the poison has penetrated and how badly you're infected."

"Oh, God." Bruce swallowed. "I always hated that scene in Lord of the Rings and here I get to be Frodo. I'll hold as still as I can."

"That may not be enough." Rā's eyes drilled into Clark's. Clark's chin lifted, and he met the other's eyes without flinching. "Can you hold her?"

"Yes."

A sharp nod. "Do so." He stripped off his gloves and tucked them into the pocket of his coat.

Clark adjusted the two of them, so that his arms wrapped around her upper body and one of his legs wrapped over hers. "Sorry about this. Think of me as a younger brother or something."

Despite the pain, she grinned. "Clark, there is no one less like a younger brother to me. And I've never objected to being held by a good-looking man."

"If you're both quite ready," Rā's al-Ghūl said. Over his shoulder, he added, "Knife!"

Clark jerked with surprise as one of the Shadows solidified from the shadows. "What the—"

Bruce closed her eyes against the abrupt jarring. "It's always a shock, even when you're prepared for it. Be a wraith, be invisible. Be darkness." She took another breath, then opened her eyes, the burst of pain under control.

The figure in black and grey camouflage might have been male, or female. Impossible to tell, even when Bruce knew how the uniform fit. She couldn't see the Shadow's eyes, which might have told her. The assassin handed over one of the almost invisible knives used for the most delicate assassination work.

"And you know how to do that?" Disbelief echoed in Clark's voice.

"She does," Rā's said, shortly and harshly. "Fire."

A black tube appeared in the Shadow's hand. A finger-flick lit it; a thin blue flame played over the knife-blade until it glowed white in Rā's al-Ghūl's hand.

Rā's turned back to her. Bruce dug her nails into Clark's palm and clenched her teeth, trying not to anticipate the inevitable.

The first touch of the knife rendered her speechless with agony. Fainting would have been a blessing, but the blade's touch seemed instead to heighten her senses, bring her to a terrible peak of alertness. She could feel something moving inside her shoulder, something that felt parasitic, felt as if it tried to avoid the blade searching for it.

Rā's laid his other hand on her forehead a moment. His eyes slit shut, his nostrils flared, and the ultrasonic keening of magic swept through her body, as if being flayed alive with sound only she could hear. He moved the hand to her throbbing shoulder. The hand holding the blade probed, twisting in the wound, searching for the thing that tried to hide in her flesh. Her vision flickered in and out, colors turning to sound, touch to color—white was the color of agony, no color and all colors at once.

The spike in her shoulder withdrew. She collapsed, muscles like snapped lines falling. Her hand slid from Clark's, but he grabbed onto it, wrapped an arm around her head, and rested his face against hers. "Easy, Bruce. Easy. Stay with—" a second's pause, and then he finished it with, "us."

Something silver and glowing dropped from the tip of the Shadow blade into his palm. He handed the knife back to his assistant, who melded back into the shadows. "Bruce is strong," Rā's said. She thought she heard pride in his voice, but that seemed so impossible... He examined the shard in his palm— "It seems a bit of the blade broke off in the wound."

"Deliberate?" she said.  Just like Frodo. She wasn't wrong about the glow. A sickly fluorescence pulsed from the metal.

He nodded. "Oh, I should think so."

"But now that it's out?" Clark said. He stared at the blade. "It has the same color as green Kryptonite."

"Yes. It does." Rā's snapped his fingers. The same Shadow—or perhaps a different one—held out a small dark bag, and the shard disappeared into it. "But it is of this Earth, not another. The poison is virulent. One few of my people know."

And after all this time, she finally got it. "It's a rogue. Some of the Shadows have gone rogue. That's why you kept avoiding my questions. Why you let me think you were behind the fear toxin."

"Rebellion is infectious."

A second time, she tried to sit up but flopped back against Clark. "This is my fault?!"

He shot a quelling glance at her. "I did not blame you. Dissension has happened before. It will happen again. It has happened now, however, and in a situation which must be corrected." He slid an arm under her shoulders. "Come on. This needs treatment I can't give you here."

"You took out the shard," Bruce protested. "All I need is another course of antibiotics—"

"Be quiet." Rā's lifted her easily, as if she weighed nothing. That was probably the worst embarrassment of all, that he could still bear her as if she weighed no more than a feather.

Clark got to his feet. "I can carry her."

"I have no doubt of that," was the dry answer. "But I have a better sense of how she's doing when I carry her. Come along, Mr. Kent. You're in this with us now."

"Couldn't have put it better myself," Clark muttered.

The pace jarred her, but obviously he had no intention of gliding along in stealth mode. The wound felt hot, burning as it hadn't since it first occurred. She wrapped an arm around his shoulders and tried to adjust her position.  The injured arm was still in the wrong position.

Clark lifted the arm and tucked it across her body so that her hand slid between her body and Henri's-- jacket. Rā's al-Ghūl, she reminded herself again. She had movement in her fingers still, without too much pain, and she curled her fingers into the tightly woven fabric.

"I presume you did hit the assassin with something," Rā's said.

"The steel rim of my hat and the throwing knife in my boot."

From her position, she saw his mouth twitch. "There may be some hope for you yet."

She pulled a mild insult in Tibetan out of her brain, and muttered it.

"Do not make it necessary for me to teach you another lesson," he said. A faint current of amusement undercut the threat.

"Certainly not," she said. After pneumonia, innumerable cuts and bruises, and a broken arm, the results of Henri's lessons had left her with no desire to go back to school. "What's wrong with me?"

He stopped in front of the warehouse wall, and stamped on the floor, twice. Part of the floor folded back; a black space showed. He stepped--onto it. Turning, he looked at Clark and raised an eyebrow.

Clark stepped onto the square as well.

The platform began descent.

"Henri?"

"You're dying."

"That's ridiculous. I'm sick, I have an infection, I'm not dying—"

Clark interrupted. "Bruce, shut up."

She opened her mouth, but couldn't think of anything to say. Muscle weakness. Poor coordination. Blurred vision. A knife in a wound acted as pressure. Could a knife smeared with poison act as pressure until the shard was removed? Could it hold off poisoning the rest of her body? I'm dying?

The platform stopped. Wood scraped against wood, and a soft blue glow lit up the elevator's interior. A strong odor of earth, like standing in a fresh-dug grave, assaulted her. Another scent reached in, a smell of metal and astringent, surgical and clean.

The temperature dropped. She shivered. Only Henri's body held any warmth. Sounds behind to fade in and out around her, the echo of shoes against stone first deafening, then distant.

Clark said, "What is that?"

"The few scientists who've studied it call it a Lazarus pit. In Kulan-Di, we called it a Phoenix's Nest."

Something sloshed beneath her. "Wait," she said. Her lungs and her throat ached, as if air and words had to claw their way through swollen tissue. "What are you doing?"

"Be quiet." Henri let her go.

She dropped into liquid, something that slowly rose around her, gelatinous. It scalded her with cold as it raked across her skin, as if she touched dry ice. Light burst on her, white and blinding. The universe opened its mouth and took her in. Bruce went mad. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't think… She heard stars singing to her and saw everything and nothing at the same time. Time. There was no time. Only one endless moment going on forever.