Gotham Noir part 6

[icarus_chained]

 Alrighty then. Next week I go where internet may not follow (or so my sources inform me), so I'm getting this chapter up before I leave, and warn ye all not to expect me back online for about a week and a half, after Sunday. My apologies.

Gotham Noir: The Man with the Lonely Eyes

Rating: teetering between PG-13 and R, by my reckoning, so rounding up to R to be safe.
Chapt summary: They didn't end up in a seedy rent-a-room for nothing.

Chapter 6: Fatal Attraction

Wayne was silent for a long moment, simply looking at me with a vaguely puzzled expression, as if surprised I'd actually gone ahead and asked, and wondering what had motivated me to it. Then he dipped his head to stare at the floor, gathering himself, I hoped, for an answer. But when he looked back up, it was only to disappoint me.

"Why me?" he asked softly. I shook my head, confused and growing angry again. "Why did you think to follow me, Mr Kent?"

"Surely you don't need to know that to answer the question," I responded testily. He smiled darkly.

"Indulge me."

I stared at him, at the simple arrogance of that statement that said he was a man to whom it never occured that someone might actually say no to him. He gazed back steadily, calm and patient, and I wanted to hit him. What momentary sympathy I might have had for him fled.

"If you're a murderer," I answered, low and angry, "then you don't deserve any 'indulgance'. And if you aren't, just say so and be done! I won't answer until you do."

He blinked. "All I want is to know why I am being accused, Mr Kent. Is that so unreasonable?"

"So you know what lies you have to make up to refute it?" I snarled. He shook his head sadly at me, and sighed.

"I need refute nothing, Mr Kent. I didn't murder anyone, let alone ... let alone Selina." His face darkened for a moment, something that might have been pain passing over it. Then it was gone again, and calm disinterest replaced it once more. "Or Weiss, though believe me there would be no particularly strong motivation to stop me killing him, aside from a general aversion to the concept of murder. The man was hardly a shining example of humanity. But that is besides the point. I want to know what reason I could have given you for thinking me capable of killing."

He leveled a serious gaze at me, arms folded as if preparing to tolerate unknown idiocies, and I bristled despite his assurances of innocence. Or maybe because of them. A man shouldn't shrug off accusations of murder like they happened to him every day. Unless they did, in which case I wasn't going to like him anyway.

"The night Weiss was murdered," I began softly, meeting that blue gaze coolly. "You had an argument with Selina in the downstairs lobby. I saw you as I was leaving. She spat on you." Wayne didn't react. Not a twitch disturbed the steady calm of his features. "Then yesterday evening, I followed you into the old town. You were very familiar with the place. Familiar enough that you lost me in under twenty minutes, leaving you free to go where you pleased, and not half an hour distant from where she was killed. And not three hours ago, Gordon tells me that you gave Selina the diamond used in her murder!"

He watched me carefully, waiting for me to go on. When he realised that I wasn't going to, or not yet anyway, he raised an eyebrow in askance. "And this leads you to conclude ...?" he inquired, cool patience coating the words, as if nothing I said meant a damn to him. For a second, I saw red.

"I don't know," I said frostily. "What would you conclude, in my position, Mr Wayne?" He finally moved at that, tilting his head back to bark out a laugh, his eyes bright with humour. Too bright. Winter-bright, and vicious.

"Well now," he murmured, looking back at me in mocking consideration. "That's a question. Let's see. What would I think of me, if I were in your position? Well, how simple! I'd think I was a spoiled rich boy, who'd thrown aside a beautiful woman's affections, tossing her a diamond as a sop to her pride. And then ..." He eyed me derisively. "Oh, of course. And then I realised that said beautiful woman had found a new consort. Shall we say ... Weiss? An older man, rich, who'll leave her plenty to live off when he croaks, including a far more impressive jewel than I might have offered? A perfect mark, and fitting. Yes, that should do it. And then, in a fit of jealousy, I decide ... what? Mr Kent?"

Stung, I folded my arms and said nothing. He smiled at me bitterly, shoulders thrown back and spine stiff in the dank closeness of the room, and waved one hand in a short stabbing motion of frustration before continuing.

"I decide to blackmail Weiss into putting the Sehri-At up for auction. There's plenty in his past to warrant his caution. But why do I kill him? Because ... Ah, yes. Because Selina is a decent woman, and decides to be true to him despite his upcoming financial crisis, for reasons beyond my comprehension. So I kill him, and Selina and I fight because ... because she refuses to come back to me! And then, enraged, I wait for her in Old Gotham the next evening. And I kill her, and leave the diamond I gave her there to announce to the world why I did it. There we go." He smiled again, and it looked like the glitter of shattered glass. His eyes were hollow and desolate beneath the wild humour as he stared at me. "How am I doing so far, Mr Kent? Does that fit your view of things? Of me, and her? Of Gotham?"

I unfolded my arms, slowly and carefully, and balanced myself warily on the balls of my feet. There was a wildness to him, in that instant, a manic bitterness that flooded the tight confines of that little room and bled dangerously towards violence. My voice, when I answered, was soft and somewhat gentle in the face of it.

"No. It doesn't, Mr Wayne. Is that ... Is that what happened, though?"

As suddenly as it had come, the angry grief disappeared, and weariness rolled back in, making him suddenly smaller again. His shoulders slumped a little, and he raised a hand to scrub through his hair, once, in tired frustration. He looked away. "If only it were that simple," he answered quietly. "At least then justice might be easily found. All that would need to be done woud be to kill me, and Selina might rest easy. Not that high a price to pay, really."

I stepped towards him convulsively at that, and his head snapped up. I stopped, but shook my head in vehement refusal. The notion of so meaningless a death for him was repugnant to me. A man should answer for what he'd done, and for what he'd failed to do, yes, but only if the responsibility was actually his. And I wasn't sure anymore that the blame for Selina's death rested with him. It might, but until I knew for sure, I couldn't stomach so casual a condemnation.

He watched my face carefully, and something he found there brought a quiet smile to his features. A real one. "Don't like that idea, do you?" he asked softly. "Why not?"

I shrugged uneasily, and didn't answer, turning my attention back to the more important issue. "Doesn't matter. What matters is Selina, and what happened to her. If that isn't what happened, then what did, Wayne? You say you didn't kill her. Them. How do I know that?"

He tilted one shoulder bitterly. "How do you know anything for sure, Mr Kent? Lies are a way of life nowadays, from the meanest back alley to the most luxurious estate. I could tell you anything you wanted to hear, and you might never believe a word. And you may even be right not to."

"I want to know," I answered steadily, and it silenced him for a moment. He gave me a measuring look, careful and weighty. Then he nodded abruptly.

"Alright then," he said, and grinned in sudden humour. "You've maybe earned it, after all. There's not many with the nerve to question Bruce Wayne in Gotham. Ask away, Mr Kent."

I blinked, but there was nothing to lose that hadn't already been lost. "What were you fighting about, that night in the lobby?"

He smiled sadly. "Selina used to work for one of Weiss' ... enterprises, in the old town. With him dead, I needed to be sure that there wasn't still something tying her to him. Something that might make her a target."

"Was there?"

He looked up at me, a frown appearing. "I thought you were listening?" I shrugged sheepishly.

"I only caught the very end of it. But I thought she said it was over. At the time, I didn't know what 'it' was, and I may have assumed ..." He smirked, and I reddened. "Well, I may have been wrong. But if she meant her connections with Weiss were gone, even if she believed it ..."

He nodded. "She was wrong. Someone killed her, same as Weiss, and barely twenty four hours later."

I nodded slowly, weighing my next words carefully. "Yes. Hours in which you were missing, wandering around in the old town near where she was killed." He only looked at me steadily. "Hours you have yet to account for," I finished softly.

Wayne looked at me in silence for a long minute, as if weighing something in his mind, and not liking the answer he came up with. He turned away, walking the two steps to the filthy window so he could pretend to stare out into the dimness, the dull red flashing lining his profile in a dark light.

"You realise," he said softly, not looking at me, "that in this town I could say anything I pleased, and in two hours have as many witnesses as took my fancy to back it up?"

"The thought had occured," I answered, calmly. He lifted one shoulder in wry acknowledgment. "I suppose I'll simply have to check myself, once you decide to tell me."

"And if I decide not to? If I decide that it's none of your business?"

I stepped up a pace or so behind him, staring directly at the back of his head. He must have felt my presence, the potential threat of it, but he didn't move. Didn't even tense. Just went on staring blindly out into the perpetual half-light of the Old Gotham afternoon, giving nothing away. I decided to take a chance.

"I'd rather you didn't do that, Mr Wayne," I murmured. "I don't want to wonder if I've spent the past two hours in the company of a murderer." He half turned his head back towards me, listening in wary silence. "I don't want to believe you could kill like that, Mr Wayne."

"Why not?" It was asked so softly I doubt anyone else could have heard it, even that close.

"Because I thought there was something good about you, when I first saw you. I want to believe that first instinct."

He looked ahead again, considering, and when he answered I thought I heard a tired smile in his voice. "Well, there is one witness I could call, that you might believe," he said, to the air outside more than me. I tilted my head in readiness.

"Yeah?"

He turned to me fully then, reaching into his waistcoat pocket with one hand held up to stop me from jumping to the wrong conclusion. He had an odd smile on his face as he pulled out something small and rectangular. A book of matches. His eyes never left mine as he painstakingly pulled one clear, and placed it carefully between the teeth at one side of his mouth, so that it bobbed gently up and down as he spoke.

"How ya doin', kid?" he asked, a wary grin lighting his features. "Think ya'd believe your own eyes, if I called 'em up?"

I stared at him, stunned. There was no mistaking that seedy Gotham drawl, or the casual leer that looked so out of place with perfect, shining teeth. I nearly sat down in shock, then and there, with only the thought of what might be waiting for me on that floor to keep me on my feet. And Matches Malone sneered gently at me from out of Bruce Wayne's features, and held out a perfectly manicured hand to clasp my own shaking one in a re-introductary shake.

"Kid?" he prompted again, but I didn't answer. He frowned. Reaching up to remove the match, he stepped in towards me, Bruce Wayne once more, brows knitted in faint concern. "Mr Kent?" I shook myself, and took a little step back, needing to breathe. He watched me as a man watches an animal he ain't certain of, waiting for me to say something, do something. Anything at all.

Finally, I pulled myself together. I don't take kindly to shocks like that, and it had hit me suddenly, calling into doubt everything I'd thought knew about Gotham. And everything that had happened to me since following Wayne last night.

"I thought your hand felt familiar," I murmured, it being the first thing that sprang to mind. He gave me a tentative smile, and stepped back to give me a little room, almost brushing the encrusted glass of the little window and ruining his suit. I tilted my head to follow his motion, uncertain. "What ... who are you?"

He smiled sadly. "Bruce Wayne. Millionaire. Surely you remember that?"

I shook my head in angry confusion. "Then who's Matches?" And then something in me snapped a little, and I strode forward to catch hold of his neat and perfect collar. "Damn it, who did I spend all those hours with last night? Does he even exist?"

He raised a hand to lay it warningly on my arm, but there was no anger in his eyes. Instead, that aching loneliness that seemed to haunt him leapt viciously to the fore, and struck me silent.

"I hope so," he said quietly, staring sadly down at the rich gold of his cuff-link. "He seems so much more real than I am, sometimes. If he doesn't exist ..." He looked back up at me, and I suddenly felt like I was threatening him, in a way I didn't fully understand. "If he didn't exist," he continued softly, "I wonder how much of me would be left?"

I let him go, backing away from the quiet desolation in his eyes. He watched me retreat, with a knowing sadness that said there had been others who'd backed away from him, others who'd left rather than face who he was. I froze, but that knowledge didn't fade from his eyes.

He came forward then, maneuvering past me in the tight quarters to sit gingerly on the edge of the bed, seemingly uncaring of the layers of old filth that permeated it. He didn't look at me, head dipping wearily for a minute, before he straightened himself, resting one hand casually on his knee and raising his chin in an image of such proud and false confidence that it broke my heart. He looked back at me, the calm mask descending once more.

"So there you have it, Mr Kent. Clark." He gave me that bitter smile. "An alibi for Selina's murder. And a more perfect opportunity for blackmail than you'll ever come across. Think of the headlines. 'Millionaire Bruce Wayne masquerades as small-time hood in Gotham's underworld.' Or better again, 'Disguised millionaire elicits false confidences among the communities of Old Gotham.' Pick your choice of target. Either way, you could shatter both my lives with nothing but a word in the right ear."

I swallowed. "Then why ... Why tell me? Why say anything at all?"

He sighed. "Because I'm not a murderer. I may have lied to and betrayed almost everyone I've ever met, but I've never killed. Never. No matter what. You may think whatever you like about me now, Mr Kent. But not that. I could never have killed Selina. I want you to know that much, at least."

I nodded, silently. There wasn't much I could say. He looked down, tracing the line of his own knee in silent fascination, forehead wrinkling as his eyes slid from the crisp black of his suit to the ancient, off-colour bed linen. Then a thought seemed to occur to him, and he tilted his head back as something that might loosely be called a laugh escaped. I started.

"What's wrong?" He looked at me wryly.

"I just realised," he answered. "Whether or not you take it into your head to reveal me, I'll have to reveal myself anyway. If I was seen in the vicinity of the murder last night, Gordon won't let it lie. I'll have to explain to him what I was doing, and he won't take anything but the truth." He laughed again, and it cracked a little. "I'm sunk either way. Even if he decided not to question me today, he'll get around to it when he's good and ready."

I sighed in relief. That, I could deal with.

"Not unless he's psychic, he won't," I murmured, and he looked up at me sharply. "I never told him about you. I wanted to ask you myself first."

Wayne stared at me, with that same look of wary bafflement that Matches had worn when John touched his shoulder, or when Dinah called him her friend, as if amazed that someone might want to help him, and wondering what that help was going to cost. "Why?" he whispered. "You didn't know, then. I must have been nothing but a murderer to you. Why would you take that risk?"

I smiled, and did something then that should never, ever have occurred to me, but right then seemed utterly natural. I moved to stand over him, watching him as his eyes followed me warily, and in one quick motion leant over and pressed my lips to his forehead. I held there for a moment, resting one hand warmly on his shoulder, and stepped back. He stared up at me, stricken, and I smiled gently.

"You have lonely eyes," I said softly. He shook his head, and for a moment his features tried to harden into lines of wary affront, a brief flurry of desperate calculation, but some small and weary part of him wouldn't let them finish. He shook his head again, opening his mouth soundlessly to try and say something, but nothing came. I reached out cautiously to trace his jawline, a tiny and very petty part of me glad to have turned the tables back on him, but mostly I just wanted to erase the painful loneliness of him, even for just a second. Even for an hour. If he'd let me.

He pulled himself back, glancing at my face in almost fearful anger. "Blackmail," he managed, softly. "Didn't think you'd want this ..." The words died, but they were enough for me to step back a bit, to look down at him and promise.

"As much for you as for me," I pointed out. "This might ruin me as easily as you. More. Think of it as mutual insurance, if that helps." And I grinned slowly at him. "Besides, Mr Wayne. You were the one who brought us here, of all places. Or doesn't it suit your tastes, anymore?"

A flare of challenge rose in him then, something fierce and a little savage, and his blue eyes burned in the dim little room like tiny storm lanterns. Slowly, darkly, he reached up to unbutton his suit jacket, the black parting to reveal the dull gleam of red silk, and then that too slid open to bare the clean white of his shirt to the crowding filth of our little hole in the wall. He glared at me, angry and hollow and strangely powerful. I blinked in bewilderment, and couldn't help the flare of open admiration that I knew he couldn't possibly miss.

He smiled, then, and it wasn't tired or sad, though maybe a little bitter, but mostly it was the dark smile of a predator who'd found it's prey. He moved to lay back on the bed, the red silk of his waistcoat spilling out of the bounds of his jacket to lap like blood against the dirty linens, the richness of him stark against the soiled surroundings. The little diamond in his tie-pin moved with his every breath, winking like a bloody eye in the red flashing of the brothel across the street. Nestled in the crimson silk of his tie, resting against his chest, it reminded me suddenly of the diamond glittering between Selina's bloodied breasts, the mark of a victim. Furiously, I caught hold of the tie and tugged it viciously free, tossing the bloody little thing roughly away.

I looked up to meet his eyes then, and there was a world of sadness in them as he stared beyond me, head tilted back against the grey pillow as he looked out at the approach of some terrible thing I couldn't see. The top button of his shirt had opened when I ripped away the tie, and the pale line of his throat shone in the half-light like a sacrifice.

I knelt on the bed, leaning down to rest my hands carefully on the pillow to either side of his head and stared down at his face until he came back from whatever dark place he'd been, and refocused on me. I kissed him, gently, and he raised his head up to kiss me back, silent and fiercely burning. His hands came up to knot in my coat above my shoulders, trying to pull me down, but I resisted easily, taking my weight on my arms to pull back and look down at him. He glared back.

"I won't hurt you," I whispered, and meant it.

Those hollow eyes of his shuttered for a moment, going blank and blind as his hands slid helplessly down my shoulders until his elbows hit the mattress and he clutched convulsively at my arms. Something shattered inside him, and he blinked up at me like I'd broken off a piece of him for a keepsake.

"'You always hurt the ones you love'," he quoted hoarsely, and I started at the sound of it. He smiled again, or tried to, but it slid off his face like an accusation off a politician's back, and I wondered if maybe he was seeing Selina there, in the dimness. "You can't help it. No-one can. All you can do ..." He trailed off.

"All you can do ...?" I prompted him, as gently as I knew how, and he looked back up at me, and this time when he smiled, it stuck.

"All you can do," he continued, and reached up to brush his fingers over my cheek, "... is try to make the loving worth the hurt. Even if you can never succeed. You gotta try, or nothing means anything anymore."

I blinked at him, and smiled back through the ache in my chest. "Yeah," I agreed softly, and leant down to kiss him again, letting myself sink quietly into him as his hands curled around and started to slide my coat off my shoulders. I stayed silent as those hands became fierce again, and the hunter slipped back into his blue eyes, only moving my own in response over the silk and fine cloth that trapped him, in so many ways, and pulling him free as carefully and fiercely as I could.

It never occurred to me, as we sank into the decadent filth of that little bed and never cared, that when he talked about hurting the ones you love, he was talking about hurting me. Even after what Selina had said to me the first and only time we talked, even knowing that he lived a life of lies and did it well, I never thought that he might betray me. I guess it's like Gordon said, with the magic ones. Like Selina. Like Bruce. You know what they are before you fall for them.

And then you fall anyway.

Chapter 7: Shattering