Steampunk Part X

[icarus_chained]

I've caught myself up. I'm too dead to write the next chapter, so I'm just posting this one anyway. But the end is in sight. Two to three more, I think, and this baby crosses the finish line. And this is me, crossing my fingers ;)
 

Title: The Wind At Midnight
Rating: PG-13 overall, I think.
Characters/Pairings: Bruce/Clark. Bruce, Clark, John Corben this chapter.
Summary: Almost a quarter of a century ago, the cities of Earth were torn from the earth by some mystic upheaval and set flying, before threatening to fall back. To prevent the incredible loss of life if they fell, structures known as Ramparts were rapidly constructed, containing the material apparently most susceptible to the new mystical gravities of earth: silver. A new world order was built, as the deserts created on the surface during the Upheaval denied cultivation, based on Cities and flightpaths and park-grown food, a world in tentative political and physical balance. And now that balance is threatened.
Chapter summary: Gotham's past, and you didn't really think he was dead, didya?
Disclaimer: Characters are not mine. Conceit inspired by James Blish's 'Cities in Flight'. Rest is mine.

 

The Wind At Midnight

Part X

The stars, Clark. Welcome home.

Clark stared at him, unable to speak. There ... there was too much to say, too many questions, too much ... The thought of it spiralled through him, like the galaxies wheeling above them. The stars. The City of the Stars. To fly that high, to see that much, to see all the world at once ... Something deep inside him sang at the thought, some remembered yearning climbing through him. The stars. The stars ...

Bruce was smiling at him, so clear, so deep. There was such pride in his face, such powerful love. Welcome, Commander mine. He knew. Somehow, though they had only met a day ago, hours, the man saw inside him. Saw the need, the unformed longing. Because it echoed in them both. Because this man, this fragile creature he held, had taken his City to the stars, and made them his. He couldn't not understand.

The Nightlord stood, then, pulling gently back from Clark to perch himself on the control board, careful not to disrupt the instruments. Unconsciously precise. He smiled, and looked out at the night sky unfurled above them, his home.

"It was the Upheaval, of course," he started, almost absently, still looking out at the stars. Clark leant forward, arms resting on knees suddenly chilled by Bruce's absence. He listened, watched the man's face. The stern pride of it, the faint bitterness that came. "When the Cities were flung into the skies, Gotham was thrown highest of all." He chuckled lightly, but it was not a happy sound. "Either some celestial force really wanted us, or some terrestrial one really didn't. I can guess the popular opinion on that one."

"They don't know," Clark cut in, gently. There should be no place for bitterness in this man. Bruce had stood up for too long, made something of nothing too many times. As far as Clark was concerned, no ill opinion of him could be anything other than ignorance. Bruce smiled at him for a second, something rueful and warning in his eyes, as if he didn't quite believe that, but he continued anyway.

"Like the other Cities, the ... the magic, whatever it was, held Gotham in stasis for a while. On Earth, that time was used to build the Ramparts, yes? But we had a different problem. We were stable, orbiting the world. We had no fear of falling. Our fear ... was the void." He turned back to look at Clark, and there was darkness in his eyes, a remembered terror, a remembered pain. "Humans don't do well in space, Commander mine. We knew it was coming, but nothing we had ... we had air while the magic lasted, but nothing more. Nothing to hold us past its fading. We were doomed, and we knew it. We lost ... so many. Before the magic ever failed. Killed themselves. Killed each other. The blood drifted through our streets, the madness ... they are not far wrong when they say Gotham went to hell, Clark. But it was no mystical realm. It was a hell entirely of our own making, and we paid for it."

Clark stood, his face white. He could hear it, could feel it as Bruce described it, a dull terror pulsing through him. Bruce stared at him, eyes burning in a pale face, and Clark remembered how young Bruce must have been at the time. No more than a child ... He reached out, wrapped his arms around Bruce, pulled him close against the remembered cold of a dark time. Bruce was still and stiff in his arms, his hands hesitant as they came up to fist themselves in Clark's cloak. "I'm sorry," Clark whispered, hoarse with emotion. "I'm so sorry."

Bruce swallowed hard, turning his face away to rest it against Clark's shoulder. "Don't be," he said, quietly. "We survived. That's all that matters."

"Yes," Clark murmured back, holding him close, trying to imagine having never met him, trying to imagine a world that had never known this man. The thought actually hurt. "Yes. You're alive."

"And aiming to stay that way," Bruce managed, with a strange attempt at humour. "But it's alright, Clark. Gotham made it through. I made it through. Don't let yourself be hurt for things that never happened."

Clark pulled back, looking down at him, his eyes clear and grave. "It happened to you," he said softly. "You were hurt. That matters to me. That hurts me." And for a moment, he could swear Bruce blushed. The sight brought an involuntary twitch of a smile, and Bruce shook his head, awe and humour. The pain of the moment broke, and the Nightlord pulled back a little to finish his explanation. Clark let him go, sitting back down to watch him, smiling gently.

"It was one like you who saved us," Bruce went on, gruffly, and grinned a little when Clark straightened, shock and half-yearning flitting across his features. He didn't know why. Up until a few hours ago, he'd always thought he'd been human. He didn't know why it should suddenly excite him that not only was he not, but there were others as different as he.

Then again, maybe that did make sense. It was a lonely feeling, being alone in your difference.

"His name was J'onn," Bruce continued, his eyes warm and gentle. "He was from Mars, as it happened." Clark jumped a little, surprised. So strange, to think of someone from so far away, someone who knew where they were from. "He'd been trapped in Gotham years before, thrown there by someone. He never said who. But he'd been hiding, and when we were lost, he came forward. He knew things we didn't, you see. How to build things, how to create the Dome. Between him and Lucius, and what was left of the Wayne legacy ... we managed to save ourselves. We saved Gotham. Almost ... almost too late, but we did. And then ... all we had to do was rebuild, those of us that were left. Rebuild, and find a way to live out there."

He shrugged, as if that were all there was to it, as if it had been that simple. Clark looked at him, thinking of the skills the man had shown. The readiness for pain, the ability to fight. The scars he had seen, beneath the fresh wounds of captivity. The eyes constantly watching, ready for danger. He didn't think it had been easy at all. In fact, he was in awe of the struggle he sensed inside the man, the strength of what they had accomplished. Gotham. City of the Night. So very nearly the City of the Dead.

"And you?" he asked, suddenly curious how this man, who must have been no more than a boy, had come to stand so proudly as Gotham's ruler. Bruce winced a little, and looked away.

"Those left needed a symbol, to pull them together. Gotham was shattered, and she needed ... continuity. Tradition. Strength. The Waynes were an old family, long regarded as the first family of Gotham, and between Lucius and Alfred we'd helped the City survive to start with. It was decided that a Wayne should stand as ruler, be the symbol the City needed. That's all."

Clark frowned, sensing something deeper, sensing an old pain. "Why you?" he asked, not because he believed even the youth Bruce had been couldn't have done it, but because he could sense ... something. Something about Bruce's ascension, that hurt him deeply.

Bruce looked at him, and his eyes were suddenly old. He smiled a little, a sharp thing that held no joy. "By that time," he said, very quietly. "I was the only Wayne left. Gotham had to make do, I'm afraid."

For the second time, Clark was striken by sympathy and a chord of shared pain. Bruce faced him, proud and stark in his pain, his eyes defiantly bright. Without words, Clark reached out, gathered Bruce's hand in his, pulled it close so he could press a kiss to strong, scarred fingers.

"She could not have done better, my Lord," he whispered, and his voice throbbed with sincerity. No City could ask for better than this man as her Lord, ask for more than he gave for her sake. Gotham had better realise that, he thought fiercely, suddenly angry at her. She had better know what loyalty and strength she had found, whether or not she deserved it. She had better deserve it. Clark couldn't bear to think that Bruce's struggle might be in vain. The Black Lady had to be worth it.

Bruce smiled down at him strangely, reaching out to rest a shaking hand against Clark's cheek, brushing gently at tears Clark hadn't realised he'd shed. "As you say, Commander mine," he said, voice rough. "I hope you are right."

"I am," Clark answered, fiercely. He had never been more sure of anything that he was of this. "I'm right, and you're going to prove it for me!" He stood, his eyes blazing as they met Bruce's stunned ones. "When we save Gotham and Metropolis both. When we beat Luthor. Then, my Lord, you had better believe me when I say there could have no better ruler for your City!" Bruce blinked at him, more than a little surprised at the ferocity in Clark's voice, stunned by the depth of sincerity he found there. Clark met his eyes, refusing to look away, daring Bruce to disagree.

"Well," Bruce murmured at last, rather faintly. "As you say, Commander mine." Then he smiled a little, a teasing glint appearing in those stunned blue eyes. "I don't think I dare fail, now. I'd hate to disappoint you." And though it was said jokingly, there was something in his face that said he meant every word.

And then, as if to ask him to prove how much, the radioGlass on the control board crackled into life, and mocking tones that were damnably familiar wound their way through the static into the safety of the cockpit.

"Howdee, boys," John Corben cackled. "Look sharp ahead, flyboy. I wanted you to see it before you went." Bruce was already at the radioGlass, his bearing fierce and almost hawklike as he bent over it, but at those words they both instinctively looked ahead.

Rushing towards them, a glimmer on the horizon, growing larger and brighter every second, came the dawn. The light poured across the desert as it came for them, and as they broke through it, out beyond the coast, they saw something else. A familiar sight, both anticipated and feared. Distant yet, the tall, slender height of the Atlantis Tower, a dark shape on the horizon, and to the south of it, drifting in the morning light ... the Black Lady herself. Gotham, waiting for her Lord to return. The grim City stared out at them, almost reaching for them, the connection humming between them, and behind ... Corben laughed, a vicious, ugly sound, full of triumph. On the radar, the blip of Luthor's remaining ship suddenly leapt forward, coming for them at last.

Clark was already at the controls, disengaging the guidance systems, ignoring the scream of the ship around him as she protested the sudden jump. Bruce was back in his seat, his eyes sharp and cold as they ran over the instruments, the weapon's controls open beneath his hand in readiness. His expression was grim as he tilted his head to listen as Corben continued his little rant.

"Didn't think I'd be that easy to get rid of, didya, Kent?" the Brass Man spat. "Go on. Take a good look at her. Almost made it, you did. Made it right through the night, clean away from Luthor. Man's a superstitious bastard. But me ... I ain't Luthor, boys. I ain't Luthor, and you ain't making it!"

"He's banking high," Bruce observed clinically, watching the radarbank. Clark nodded wordlessly, the wheel vibrating beneath his hands. Their boat tipped to the side, manouvering as he knew she could. He took her down again, diving for the dunes, towards the crash of the angry Atlantic. Corben was slower at the wheel than he was, his turns less intuitive, and they gained back a second of a lead. But Corben had a faster ship than they had, the lean lines of her deliberately designed for ruthless speed. In a straight line, Corben had the advantage.

Too bad Clark didn't mean to let him keep it. His boat didn't like the tight turn he took her through, not at all, but she gamely went through with it, racing back on a collision course with the enemy vessel. The Nightlord took rapid advantage, the hissing line of their beam tearing a deep scar along the spine of the other ship. Corben's bark of a laugh came through the radio as he veered away, a sharp hiss of challenge, and Clark scrambled to swing them clear of the return volley, almost ploughing them into a dune in the process. Bruce grunted beside him, eyes fixed to the radar.

"Where are they?" the Nightlord muttered, frustration clear beneath the almost clinical detachment of his voice. His eyes had taken back that cold, professional cast, his bearing hard and ready.

"Where are who?" Clark barked back, wrenching them up twenty feet, the hiss of Corben's beam singing the underside of the hull.

"Our escort," Bruce snapped, fingers twitching towards the radar as if he wanted to adjust it, but with Corben so hot on their backs he didn't dare. Clark blinked for a second, then remembered. The Spider, fingers flying over keys. Promising to send someone called Tim out to meet them, bring them home. Now that he thought about it, he should have expected that relief an hour ago. Bruce was right. Where were they?

But there was no time to think about it. As the two boat circled higher and higher, darting around each other, Clark was rapidly realising that Corben had another advantage over them, besides the superior ship and weaponry. They'd beaten those two before, handily enough. Superior skill topped superior equipment, any day of the week. But Corben had something Clark didn't know how to beat.

The man was clearly insane.

The Brass Man obviously had no care at all for his own life. He'd been dead once before, Clark supposed. Maybe it wasn't such a big deal to him. And since he'd survived both Bruce's concussion blast and the fall on the damaged sail ... maybe he was justified in his recklessness. Either way, he was flying that vicious boat of his as if he wanted to crash her, couldn't care less, as long as he took Clark down with him.

That wasn't something Clark was going to let him do. But when the Nightlord recoiled from the suddenly sparking controls as Corben successfully destroyed their only weapon, he wondered if he'd have a choice in the matter.

Bruce wheeled clear of the smouldering controls, reaching behind him for a fire suppressant and angrily snapping it open. The board spat fitfully at him as it cooled, but there was no doubt it was unusable. The cannon on their spine was probably slagged, and the conducted heat through the switch looked to have taken one of the controls for the sail motors with it, a suspicion rapidly confirmed by the ragged roar of their next turn. Clark cursed roundly under his breath, the Winds probably blushing, but he wasn't exactly concerned about that. He took her down, fast, sweeping the sails out to catch her a little earlier than he would have, to compensate.

Bruce looked at him steadily as they swept forward, the dawn now fully upon them, facing towards the Atlantic. Clark didn't look back, his shoulders stiff as he wrenched the boat from side to side, gritting his teeth against the Brass Man's laugh through the radio. If this kept up ... they were going to have to do something drastic. He knew it. The Nightlord knew it.

Didn't mean either of them had to like it.

"Commander," Bruce said softly, heavily. A gentle prompt.

"I know," Clark snapped, unaccountably angry. He didn't like being hunted, he'd discovered. And he liked it even less when someone he cared about stood to be hurt for his mistakes, should he make them. He didn't like that Bruce stood to die if he didn't get this right. And for some reason, the absolute trust in the man's gaze only made it worse.

How was he supposed to bear failing someone who believed in him that much?

"Alright!" he said, suddenly, turning his head to look at Bruce. The Nightlord met his eyes calmly, smiling slightly, that fierce look about him that constantly awed Clark. To hell and back, that look said. Take me to hell and back, and I'll be standing at the end. "Alright," Clark said again, quietly. "Get ready, my Lord."

Bruce grinned at him, vicious and proud. "As you wish, Commander mine!" He reached out, standing behind Clark's chair, to rest his hand on Clark's shoulder, his grip strong and reassuring. Clark shook his head, feeling a fierce grin stretch his own lips, lightheaded with adrenalin. For some reason, with this man at his side, he felt as if he could do anything. Even wheel the boat around, lock his hands firmly around the wheel, and send them both careening straight at Corben. It took the Brass Man a second to realise what they were doing. He obviously wasn't used to someone else being suicidal for a change. But Clark had no intention of committing suicide.

Just something really, really close to it.

The Brass Man whooped into the radio, laughing at them as they raced for him, coming up out of the dunes at a steep angle direct for his underbelly. He dipped his boat, diving for them, and Clark held tight as the ship screamed, a sail spinning away into the dust as Corben's cannon lanced out at them. He dropped the other one, the engine whining beneath them. A straight line it was, then. Where Corben had the advantage. Unless, of course, you weren't planning to be dependant on a boat.

The enemy ship plunged for them, Corben not realising what Clark planned to do. But Clark couldn't blame him for that, because no-one knew he could do it, except for Lois and the man who stood ready at his side. Corben wasn't using his cannon. He liked this game, apparently. A game of chicken, where he thought he couldn't lose.

"Overconfident," Bruce murmured. "They're always so overconfident."

"Where as you're fully justified in your confidence," Clark muttered back wryly, and smiled as Bruce chuckled. The wheel juddered under his hands, the boat roaring valiantly as he locked it, pointed straight for hell. Corben was so close they could nearly see his leering face through the glass of the cabin.

That was about as close as Clark planned on getting.

Bruce was ready as Clark leapt to his feet and caught him around the shoulders, pulling them both towards the hatch, laughing as they dashed for it. A second before he swung it open, Clark looked into Bruce's eyes, amazed at what he was going to do, amazed at the man who had taught him to do it, amazed that all he felt in this moment wasn't fear or confusion, only triumph. Bruce looked back, fierce and proud, locking his arms around Clark's shoulder, ready for anything the Commander could do. Clark had to smile.

"Ready, my Lord?" he asked, his quiet voice somehow audible over the scream of the tortured ship around them.

"Always, Commander mine."

They jumped.

The wind howled around them, the morning heat drowned by it. Clark held Bruce close, wrapped his arms as tight around him as he could, trying not to hurt him, desperate not to drop him. Bruce held him back, his arms tight around Clark's shoulders, his face buried in Clark's neck. His cloak wrapped around them as they plummeted, flapping around Clark's ears, disorienting him, and for a second Clark was terrified that he was falling the wrong way, that his new gift would send them spiraling out into the skies, and he'd kill Bruce.

Then the boat slammed into Corben's above them, a scream of tortured metal, a dull roar of explosion. The shockwave hit them with a dull whump, driving them towards the dunes, and Clark's world righted itself. He knew which way was up again. More importantly, he knew which way was down.

He pulled them up five feet above the desert, the sand swirling around them in the wind from the explosion, stinging Clark's eyes. He dipped his head instinctively as he darted higher, and found himself staring into Bruce's eyes. The Nightlord stared up at him, battered and bruised, and grinning from ear to ear, his smile all for Clark. The adrenalin was singing through their veins, the winds wrapping them in a cocoon of cloak, heat and metal raining in strange silence around them. For a second, flying free for the first ever time in his life, through the wild skies, Clark felt a moment that was just for him, just for them. It was too much, too strong, too rich a feeling. He didn't know how to deal with it.

So he kissed Bruce instead, figuring that that way, at least one of them would know what they were doing.

Bruce did.

Clark pulled back after a moment, the blood roaring in his ears. Or maybe that was just sound coming back after the explosion. Clark didn't particularly care. He felt alive, powerful, ready for anything, and Bruce was right there, smiling in his arms. There was no more perfect moment, Clark thought dizzily. Nothing better than this, nothing more right.

Which was exactly why it couldn't last.

Bruce turned his head first, ever alert. Clark followed his gaze, catching the sound and understanding what it meant a second behind the Nightlord. Bruce turned himself in Clark's arms, unwrapping himself slightly so he could see better, his hand reaching down instinctively to rest on another surprise concealed in his cloak. Clark didn't have a weapon, except for the mostly ceremonial knife on his belt. It occurred to him that he probably should have gotten something before leaving Metropolis. But it was too late now, and besides. He trusted Bruce to have something up his sleeve.

The sound was laughter. Wracked, maddened laughter, and for a second Clark couldn't tell where it was coming from. He couldn't see anything ... But there. In the wreckage. A piece of the boat's hull slid aside with a clang, a flash of gold as untouched sand shone through the blackened detritus. And inside it, a flash of brass.

Clark stared down, his arm wrapped protectively around Bruce, and watched John Corben stand up. His uniform was gone, sloughed off like snakeskin, and after it, his skin itself. Or whatever it had been. And the true John Corben shone through in its stead, the Brass Man. He was an incredible machine, Clark thought absently, watching the lazy shimmers of lightning inside the gleaming metal skin, the glitter and clank of thousands of tiny gears. The Brass Man was an incredible machine. Inhabited by a complete madman.

John laughed at them, throwing his metallic head back and roaring with tinny laughter, his brass arms pressed to a chest that couldn't possibly be suffering from the vibrations. But the habits of humanity died hard. And then he turned, facing out towards the Atlantic, not two miles away, and the twin monoliths beyond its boundary. He raised one arm to point, laughing all the while, and both Clark and Bruce turned to follow that molten, gleaming signpost.

They looked out across the sea to the City, to Gotham as she flew.

To the flashes and roars of the battle that raged beyond her, the black flecks of boats filling the skies around her.

Luthor had taken a shortcut, it appeared.


Part XI: http://icarus-chained.livejournal.com/41636.html#cutid1