Gotham Noir, chpt 7!!!

[icarus_chained]

I know it's been a helluva long wait. My apologies! 

Gotham Noir: The Man With the Lonely Eyes
Rating: PG-13 for this one.
Chpt summary: betrayal always hurts

Chapter 7: Shattering

It must have been something close to midnight when I woke, the darkness having piled itself in and around the room to leave only the damned blinking of the red light across the street. The room was colder, then, and painted in the dirty red shadows where the light fought with the grime on the panes.

It was cold, and dark, and I was alone. Wayne had gone.

For a minute or six, I just lay there with my arm thrown over my face, a dull ache in my chest and the sticky bunching of the sheets pressing into my back. I don't know why it surprised me. I don't know why I expected him to stay. The real world doesn't work that way, not in back alley rent-a-rooms, paid for with cash in small bills and silence bought with the right name and the flash of a diamond smile. They never stay with you, in that world. It was only ... I thought he might have been different.

But there was no sense dwelling on it. I pulled myself up out of the bed, wincing as the sheets tried to cling to my back, dropping away in stiff and shiny folds as I stumbled clear. I shuddered in revulsion, wondering how the hell I'd managed to fall asleep there to start with, but a fever-flash of burning blue eyes blew that question away before it was even finished. I shook my head to clear it, and fumbled my way through the darkness to the tiny door to one side. The shower was basic, so cramped I barely made it all the way in, and as cold as a Gotham winter, but at least the place had one, and it got rid of the itch crawling up my spine.

It took me a couple of minutes, once I got back into the room, to find my clothes. They weren't scattered around the floor, like I expected. Instead, they were folded neatly on the nightstand, all together. As neatly as if a maid had done it, or a man obsessed with order, and it struck me as a sterile and vaguely futile gesture. Every trace of Wayne had been removed, every sign he'd ever been there, except one thing.

A small card rested on top of my coat, pale and lonely in the shadows.

I held it between my teeth as I hurriedly shrugged myself into my pants, patting the wallet as I did, and pausing in surprise to find it still full. To have let me sleep, Wayne must have paid for the room for a night. But around here, that don't mean much. For me to still have all my belongings, he must have thrown around some serious weight to stop the management slipping in for a quiet rummage around.

I smiled a little, at that. Maybe I wasn't quite so abandoned as I had believed.

I padded over to the window to try and see what was written on the little scrap he'd left me. It wasn't easy. The light from the street was nearly nonexistant, and Wayne had that particularly high-class curved writing that's nearly impossible to read even in broad daylight. But I'd read Lois' scrawled memos after she'd flown out the door on some poor sap's tail, and once you can do that, not even doctors' handwriting is beyond you. I had to squint, but I managed. The message wasn't long.

I would have left you some cash for a cab fare, but I didn't want to give you the wrong impression. I'm sorry. BW.

I blinked down at the little scrap of paper. I could almost see his sad, wry smile as he wrote it, the quiet precision with which he would have placed it against the lapel of my coat, one finger instinctively squaring it to the line of the fabric where I'd found it, and I wondered what kind of man would apologise for having allowed himself to be seduced as if he had been the one doing the seducing.

I moved automatically to tear the thing up, obscure the initials for security's sake, and toss it in the dented basket among the used remains of past pleasures. And stopped. Because that wasn't right. However easily he played the part, Bruce Wayne didn't belong there. No part of him, no thing of his, belonged there. He was not a man you threw casually away.

After a moment's pause, I opened my wallet, and slipped the card into it.

I got on with putting on my coat and shoes, pausing when I felt a small metal lump beneath the sole of one. The room key. I looked at it for a second, then stepped cautiously up to the door, and tried the handle. Locked. Wayne had left, locking the door, and left the key inside, in my shoe? Well. There was ever more to my millionaire than I thought to expect. I grinned, wondering where in that classy suit he stowed the picks, and smiling at the image of him crouched casually outside the door in his thousand-dollar shirtsleeves to fiddle the lock. No. Mr Wayne was not your average millionaire. He wasn't average at all.

And neither was the gentleman waiting for me on the other side of the grubby door.

I stepped back from the sudden light from the dim bulbs, which after the darkness of the room came close to blinding me, and sensed at the last minute a hand reaching out to close around my elbow. I went still, stiffening to jerk away and pull whoever it was after me, when the restraining hand released my arm and a quietly reproachful voice, one I knew, murmured in my ear.

"You should be more careful, Mr Kent." And I turned to see John looking at me in mild concern, as calm as if he stood behind his bar.

"What ... What are you doing here?" I asked, surprised. He raised an eyebrow.

"Bruce called me. He wanted someone to keep an eye on you. I couldn't spare anyone, so I came myself."

I blinked. "I didn't know this place had a phone," I muttered, still confused, and for some reason this made him smile slightly, a knowing glint in his eye. He didn't answer, though, and as what he said caught up with me, I didn't care.

"How do you know Mr ... Bruce?" I asked suspiciously, trying to guard against eavesdroppers as well as get my meaning across. He shrugged easily.

"You were talking to him yourself last night," he smiled, letting me know he understood the question. "I would have thought that he was not an easy man to forget?" No matter what he looked like when you met him. No. You would not forget Bruce. I nodded, and he smiled, reaching out to put a hand on my shoulder. I blinked at him.

"Why do I keep getting the feeling that everyone around here knows more than I do?" I muttered.

"Because we do," he answered, matter-of-factly, turning to lead me down the hall. And what are you supposed to say to that?

We headed down to what you might call the lobby, for lack of a more appropriate word, in silence. I tried not to listen to the muffled sounds behind cheap, closed doors, and wondered what we had sounded like, earlier. Bruce and I, I mean. Though he'd been quiet, mostly. Except for the occasional snarls. And the soft murmur of words that I don't think meant anything, only that he had to say something to me, only that he had to remind himself that it was real. And I whispered them back, to reassure him that I was real too. But I don't know that I succeeded.

As we walked out into the street, it's whole character changed with the fall of true night, I stopped walking, and John paused to wait, patient as the moon. I looked around, at the sidling shadows slipping in and out of doors, at the white painted faces leering tiredly at them, at the lurid flashing of red lights, and back at my patient guide.

"Mind if I ask where we're going? This time?" I asked, a bit sharply, and he frowned. But I was tired, so very tired, of being led around by the nose, and falling time and again into situations I knew nothing about but couldn't help but feel involved in. Gotham, and her prince, had swept me up like a tide, and I had to find my feet before they pulled me down for good. And while getting John to tell me where we were going wasn't exactly a huge step in that direction, it was a step, and that was what counted.

He looked at me, something sad and gently smiling about his eyes, and nodded suddenly. And smiled. I blinked at him.

"Are you hungry, Mr Kent?" he asked, humour hiding in his courteous tones, the very image of your everyday, helpful barman. I stared at him in amazement, and then ... I laughed. A low chuckle, nothing special, but I couldn't help it. There was something about the people here, something that made you love them even as they stabbed you in the back, something in the desperate humour of their lives that made me want to forgive them anything. John's lips curved into a wry smile as he watched me laugh, and when he held out a guiding hand, I took it easily.

It wasn't long before I was safely ensconced back on a corner stool in his bar, another plate of something hot and of doubtful providence in front of me. The trip through the streets of the old town, alive with the night-life of Gotham, had been educational. People had steered clear of us the whole way, much as they had with Matches, but with John the air of it had been different. With Matches, the avoidance had been out of wary caution, and more than a little fear, and since I had come to know the man behind the slime-ball, I didn't blame them. But with John, they had stood aside out of respect, and that was telling. I felt a little easier about my instinctive trust in him.

He watched me eat, unobtrusively, as he served the other customers and exchanged quiet murmurs that seemed to contain more information than actual words. It looked regular, practised, a code of behaviour that moved everything in his circle, with him silent and warm at its center. It was easy to understand why Bruce, and Dinah, and the others all gravitated to him. There was something welcoming in his silence.

"You should be careful," he said, abruptly, and I paused with my hand in the air. An electric thrill went through me, at the concern in his expression, though I still wasn't completely sure who that concern was for. And I wanted him to tell me.

"About what?" I asked. There had been a lot of things in the past few days that wisdom demanded I should be wary of. The question was which ones he knew, and which ones he cared enough about to warn me.

He looked down at his hands, at the glass he polished with the ease of long practice, and considered what to say. John struck me as a man who always gave considerable thought to everything before he opened his mouth. Not because he was considering how much of the truth to tell, although that may have been part of it, but because he wanted to phrase it to hurt as few feelings as possible. It was a good enough reason for me to be patient with him.

"You have to be careful of him," he said finally, and I had no doubt who he meant. "He is ... not as strong as he appears, and he can be dangerous when he is hurting. And what has happened this week has hurt him."

I blinked. "You think he's a threat to me?" I asked, just a little incredulous. Bruce ... somehow, I didn't believe he could ever deliberately hurt me. Not maliciously. Not then. I didn't know the way of things then. But even if I had ... I don't think it's ever been in me to fear him.

John looked at me carefully. "No," he answered, slowly. "Not the way you mean. But you may be a threat to him. And he has a ... unique way of dealing with threats."

I shook my head vehemently. "I wouldn't hurt him!" And I meant it. But I didn't understand just how hard it was to love him and not hurt him. And the sadness in John's eyes said that he did know. All too well.

"You always hurt the ones you love," the barman quoted softly, and there were layers of old meanings to it, old griefs, but I didn't really notice, because those were his words. Bruce's words. And to hear them again, when he'd slipped away with only a note to tell me he'd ever been there, was like a kick in the gut. John watched me, and all the sad knowing in the world was in his eyes.

"If it means anything to you," he said suddenly, "he really does care about you. He admired you before he ever knew your name, for having the courage to follow him. And for standing at his side when you thought he was threatened. He doesn't expect that kind of thing. He never expects people to help him. That's why you're such a threat. He would risk too much to protect you."

"I don't need protection!" I said hotly, even though I was more than a little touched by what he said, and a little saddened too. But it was true. Gotham underestimated me. Most people did. I didn't break as easily as they thought I would, and I had more up my sleeve than anyone ever thought to expect.

"Do not be too sure of that!" he snapped, and there was a glimmer of real anger, and real fear, in his tone. "Believe me, Mr Kent, I know more about you than you think. And Gotham has ways of dealing with even the likes of us. Strength doesn't count for half as much as it should, here. For example," he added, with a wry look at me, "you get drunk as easily as any man. If Matches hadn't brought you home before midnight last night, do you want to think about where you'd be?"

I rose to argue, but stopped half way as a blade of ice slid into my gut. I froze, as something he said wormed it's way inside me and turned everything I'd thought resolved on its head. "What did you say?" I whispered. He frowned in sudden concern.

"That you get drunk like any man ..." he started, and I shook my head.

"No. About him taking me home. What ... What time did you say?"

He frowned in earnest now, but I didn't care. "Before midnight. About twenty to twelve, by my reckoning. Why?"

I shook my head helplessly. I couldn't answer. Every guarantee ... but no. He hadn't ever actually given me any guarantees. I'd assumed. I'd been so caught up in his change of identity, that I'd never thought to question that it might not be an alibi at all. And then ... well, hadn't I just given him the perfect out? The perfect distraction, the perfect excuse not to have to elaborate, not to have to construct complex lies?

Twenty to twelve, Matches had brought me home. And twenty to one when Selina was killed. And Wayne knew Old Gotham inside out, and he had a car, and it was nothing, absolutely nothing, for him to have tucked me safely into bed, and turned around and shot her. And the one alibi, the one pair of eyes I would have trusted to tell me it wasn't him, had been fooled. And it wasn't the coincidence of times that sent the black ribbon of betrayal running through me. It was that he had to have known that his story wouldn't have held, that his presence at the bar was no alibi at all, and he still fed it to me. Everything that had led to me to suspect him in the first place was still true, and the one thing that had stood against it, the fact that I'd been with him when she was killed, was a lie. And I'd goddamn believed it. Believed him.

I sat back down, hard, and put my head in my hands over the bar. I had to. My hands were shaking so badly, they were hardly any support at all, but that wasn't why I shielded myself behind them. I felt the burning in my eyes, the heat of rage pouring through them, and long habit had taught me to hide it away. But I don't think I'd ever felt so ... so enraged, so used.

He cared for me. Oh, he did. I'd seen that. I'd seen the raw pain in his eyes, the sadness as he'd done exactly as he felt he had to, to shield me, to distance me from the murders. To sooth my conscience and send me on my way. That was true enough. He couldn't have faked the desolation and concern I'd seen in him.

And none of that meant a damn thing to me if he was a murderer. If he'd killed Selina, no amount of pained tenderness in the world could make me forgive him.

And damn it, but he'd known that too, hadn't he? A man who'd been seduced, apologising like he'd been the seducer. I'm sorry. B.W. Of course he'd been. He'd been sorry. But not for what I'd thought. Not for the thing I might have forgiven. Hell, that I had forgiven. He had been apologising for the one thing he'd done that no-one could have forgiven him for, and he'd done it knowing that full well. And meant it.

A murderer, apologising for having lied to me. It was almost laughable.

Then a hand clamped around my arm, and I jerked away with a snarl. But the grip didn't falter a bit, and I looked up into John's fierce stare. There was concern in those patient eyes, and anger, and raw fear. The barman glared into my eyes, as if divining every thought I'd ever had, and there was desperation in it.

"No," he said, low and commanding. "It is not what you think. It is not."

"And how can you tell what I think?" I snapped back, angry and sick. He shook his head in frustration, as if to ask how could that possibly matter. And my anger rose all over again. Because how did it matter how anyone knew anything in this bloody city. Because everyone knew everything, didn't they? They all knew every secret and every act, who did what and where and why. And who cared if the stranger, if the foreigner, didn't? It's not his business. Even if he gets torn to shreds by it, it's not his bloody business!

"Stop." His voice was calm, calming, a clear note in the storm of my thoughts that demanded I listen. His eyes cut through me, defied me not to listen, not to heed. And I had to. "Stop this, Mr Kent. You are panicking, and it is making you paranoid. Stop. Think. Listen to me."

"Listen to another set of lies?" I asked bitterly, but I was calmer. You had to be, in the wake of that voice. Of those eyes. He sighed heavily.

"No-one has willingly lied to you, Mr Kent. That I promise you. And I have never lied to you at all, though I can see you won't believe that. Not now."

"Can you blame me?" I asked. He shook his head.

"No. No, I don't blame you, Mr Kent." The sadness in his eyes weighed heavily on me. "You have accidentally embroiled yourself in something very dangerous, very shady, and very hurtful. You are entitled to your suspicions, and your anger. But entitled or not, you are not correct in what you suppose. Bruce Wayne is not a murderer. His involvement in this business is ... complex, and far from above reproach, but he did not kill that woman."

"How do you know?" I asked. How can you trust him? He stared at me for a long moment, weighing his answer carefully. But not to lie. Somehow, I didn't believe he would lie to me. But I'd believed that of Bruce, too.

"I know," he said at last, slowly and deliberately. "I know he is no killer. Because if he were, if it was in him at all to kill someone ... I would have been dead a long time ago."

I stared, my anger stopped in its tracks. "What?" I asked, stupidly. He smiled.

"Mr Kent," he smiled. "Exactly how many men could have held onto your wrist, just then? How many normal humans could have maintained a grip on you, in that temper?" I flushed, realising that I had, in fact, used my full strength. I could have seriously hurt ... oh.

He saw the comprehension in my eyes, and smiled wryly. "You see, Mr Kent?" he murmured. "I know more than you think. I have always been alert to these things. For a very good reason."

I blinked, distracted for a moment as I considered the implications. I wasn't alone. There were others, like me. Like him. He was ... like me.

But then reality intruded once again. "What does that have to do with anything?" I asked, harshly. He raised an eyebrow.

"He watches too," he murmured. "He notices. And when we first met ... he had no reason at all to think me any more than a monster. And ... did you know that Matches, the original Matches, was an arsonist? I do not like fire, Mr Kent. I ... am vulnerable to it, as I am not to many things. I think you understand that. You are not wholly invulnerable either, though I believe it is difficult to wound you. I was a threat, a monster, and at his mercy. And I am here, Mr Kent. And can count him as a friend. I think that should tell you all you need to know."

I blinked. And blinked again, hard. But my eyes refused to clear. Because, yes, I had seen it in him. I had seen him here, among these people, accepting them for what they were. Part of them, an alien at home among aliens, and knew that he had in him an incredible capacity for good. I known that the first instant I saw him. But ... he was still human. And humans, people ... when hurt, when angry ...

He had still deceived me. And I couldn't be deceived again. This proved nothing.

John let go of my wrist as he saw my face close over again, suddenly looking so very, very tired. So utterly weary. He let his hand drop away to rest on the bar, and clenched his fist in a futile gesture of frustration. And then released it again, and looked back up at me with a tired smile.

"Well, as I said, Mr Kent. You are entitled to your suspicions."

He turned to walk away down the bar, the weight of years settling on his shoulders, when the door burst open behind me. I spun, sliding off my stool to face the door. I don't know what I expected. I don't know why I thought, for one wild instant, that it might have been him. But it wasn't.

It was Lois. And she looked desperate. Nearly afraid.

"Clark!" she burst out, seeing me, and was at my side in an instant, tugging on my arm. "We've got to go! Come on!"

I dug in my heels, still confused. "What are you talking about, Lois? What's happened?"

She turned on me, angry and frightened, but mostly angry. "No time, Clark! They're coming to arrest you! On suspicion of the murder of Selina Kyle!"

"What?!" I spluttered, but even as I said it, I knew what had happened.

If Bruce's alibi didn't hold, then neither did mine. Both of them were dependant on us having been here at the time of the murder. And Gordon had sent Montoya to verify with John. And John didn't lie, and probably wouldn't even have known he had to. And being drunk can be faked, so easily. And I was an outsider, and the GCPD was as crooked as they come, and with a high-profile set of murders like this, could even Gordon have prevented the blade from swinging my way, when that came to light? Of course not.

I stood there for a minute, and then, for no reason at all, I burst out laughing. It was just so ... so very funny, all of a sudden. So bitterly ironic. Lois stared at me, real fear slipping into her stalwart features for the first time, but I couldn't help it. After Bruce, after the night I'd had, it was too much. Gotham had finally stopped playing, and brought me down.

I heard them coming. Nobody sounds quite like the police, coming to kick your door down. And I couldn't budge, not for all of Lois' desperate pleading. And seeing that, she stopped bothering, stopped trying to move me, and turned to face the door, on the balls of her feet, pulling a cloak of righteous anger around her as she settled in like a tigress defending her cubs. At my side, as sassy and determined as I'd ever known her. Willing to fight, and get hurt, on my behalf.

That snapped me out of it. Whatever was happening, whatever I'd involved myself in, I had no right to let Lois get hurt because of it. I grabbed her upper arm, spun her around despite her protests, and shot a desperate look around me for John.

Who was standing at a door behind the bar, gesturing hurriedly for us to go through it, get out of sight. There was no time for questions. I was through it faster than most humans could have made it, pulling Lois along behind me. I probably bruised her arm doing it, and she hissed quiet and vehement protests in my ear for a moment, when the slam of the outer door cut through every other sound in the bar.

And in the silence in its wake, we waited.

Chapter 8: Old Wounds