~[K]nightfall~
Chapter 4 – "Known Facts." ~.~.~
Author's Notes:
This is part of my
Clark Kent is Batman... NOT! series. Click the link for the TOC, but you really don't have to read the whole series to understand this. Chapters 1 through 3 of this story might help, though. hehe!
~.~.~
Gotham – Shortly after midnight, day four after Nightfall He had saved lives tonight and had gone back to the cave with the feeling of a job well done. He was now absolutely convinced that this – helping people – was an important part of what he did every day. He could just feel it, deep down inside him. And now that he knew the way in and out of the cave, he wouldn't have to ignore the calls for help he heard all the time.
It had bothered him, however, that both times he'd shown up on the scene of a crime, the criminals and their victims had seemed to be afraid of him. More like scared out of their wits, actually. Granted, what he'd read about his alter ego in all the newspaper clippings he'd found hinted to the fact that he wasn't exactly the world's most lovable figure, but something about the expression on their faces still felt very wrong.
If this was how everyone was going to react all the time, he'd have to change their perception of Batman, he told himself. Maybe there was a reason why he hid in the shadows, but right now, he didn't know what it was. And he honestly didn't like that people were afraid of him!
Besides, he had this very strong impression that, once upon a time, people had been happy to see him show up when they needed assistance. And he liked to make people happy. Or at least, something inside him told him that he did.
~.~
Ever since he'd broken the bat, Bane was the new, self-appointed ruler of Gotham's underworld. And he was enjoying every single second of it, just as he had when he had reigned over the penal colony of Peña Duro, back in Santa Prisca.
He was the greatest and most powerful of them all. He was unbeatable. He was indestructible! At least, as long as he could get enough Venom flowing through his veins...
There was no one left with the power to stop him. No one. They feared him too much to even want to confront him. He'd defeated the one person whom everyone thought could not, and would not, be defeated: Batman.
When Trogg had told him what he'd witnessed – the Caped Crusader, darting out of a dark alley – Bane's first reaction had been roaring laughter. But Trogg had insisted that he was right. And Bane had eventually stopped laughing.
White rage – and a good dose of Venom – surging through him, he had stormed out of their hideout, literally breaking through the door as he left. He'd spent hours scouring the streets of Gotham, hoping to catch his prey. This time, he told himself, he would not simply leave him for dead. He would make sure he was just exactly that. Stone cold dead.
But as the sun came back up, Bane had not come across even the shadow of a bat, let alone the man himself. So he'd gone back to his lair, tired and as angry as hell.
It would take a long time before Trogg was able to open his jaw widely enough to make up such lies again.
~.~.~
Metropolis - Search for Superman, day four Lois woke up with a start. The alarm clock by the side of her bed told her it was almost six. It wasn't the first time she had woken up this way since she'd gone to bed the night before. She kept having this awful dream of Superman being mortally wounded by the impact with Nightfall and crashing back to earth in a bloody heap of flesh and broken bones.
"No!" she choked out, just as she had the last time she'd woken up after this particular dream.
She shook her head, realizing it had just been a nightmare. Again. But she couldn't help the feeling that perhaps it was more than a dream - perhaps it was real. Perhaps those were the last moments of his life that she was somehow witnessing. Perhaps he really was dead.
"No! No! No! No! No! No! No!" she cried, pounding the pillow that lay by her side on the bed.
Most of her life, Lois Lane been convinced that she was better off on her own - that she was strong enough and independent enough - and that she didn't need a man in her life to be happy or feel complete. That was before she'd met Clark Kent. Or rather, before she'd started giving him the time of day; when she'd finally recognized him for who he really was. Before she had allowed herself to open her heart to this one man who would forever change her. She couldn't imagine there was any way she'd be able to go on without him, now. If her previous heartbreaks had taken a while to heal, this was one she knew she'd never fully recover from.
Tears streaming down her cheeks, she looked up at the ceiling and begged whatever power would listen to bring him back safely. For several long minutes she just sat there in bed, crying and pleading. Until finally, gathering all the inner strength she had left, she got up and stumbled to the bathroom.
It would take a lot more than just a little bit of mascara to make her presentable this morning, Lois realized when she saw her reflection in the mirror. Thankfully everyone at the Planet knew better by now than to comment on the fact that she looked like she'd been crying. Well... almost everyone. Lois rolled her eyes. Cat Grant had better keep her snarky remarks to herself today unless she planned on coordinating her clothes with a black eye for the rest of the week.
~.~
"And you're telling me that Clark wrote this?" Perry asked Lois, waving a few sheets of paper at her face. "
Clark? Really?"
"Well, OK, so I had to tweak it a little bit," Lois admitted, blushing suddenly as she grabbed the article from his hand. "I... he gave me most of it over the phone. And... and the reception wasn't very good. I had to ask that he repeat everything twice. The facts are all there, I made sure. Just maybe some of the words are mine and not his." She gave a shrug that she hoped wasn't screaming I-hope-you-believe-this.
What could possibly have possessed her to turn in a piece with only her partner's name on the byline, she wondered? She should have known that this was a bad idea. A very bad idea. But Perry had been growing more and more weary of the explanations she kept feeding him as to why Clark hadn't been around the newsroom in days. So, she'd somehow persuaded herself that this was the only way she'd be able to convince him of anything today. It was plainly obvious now that she'd achieved the opposite of what she'd been trying to do. Perry was even more suspicious now.
"Right. Lois, why are you doing this?"
"Wha..." She swallowed hard, summoning the inspiration she needed to answer the editor's question as smartly as she could. "What do you mean,
why? I'm his partner. I'm not doing anything he wouldn't do if the roles were reversed."
"Well,
that, I believe," Perry said with a sigh. "Do me a favor and at least fix the byline on this, Lois..."
"I will, Chief," she said as she turned to exit his office.
"And stop lying to me, for goodness' sake," he added, as an afterthought.
Lois froze, mid-stride. She spun on her heel and stared at him, eyes wide.
"What?" he asked innocently. "Hey, I didn't become editor of a major newspaper because I can yodel."
The phone rang and he picked up immediately, leaving Lois to wonder if Perry knew exactly
what she was lying about.
~.~.~
Gotham, Wayne Manor - Day four after Nightfall "Debris definitely hit the property," Tim Drake told his mentor over the secured phone line. "I looked at all the tapes from the manor's security cameras last night and you can clearly see a fireball of some sort smashing through the ground."
"A
big fireball?" Bruce asked, on a hunch.
"Oh yeah. Huge."
"Where?"
"Just near the old well. Looks like it went straight into the cave."
"And...?" Bruce said, impatiently. He had expected to get a lot more information from Tim than this.
"And that's it."
"What do you mean, that's it? Was it a rock? Did you find it? How much damage is there? Come on!"
"How would I know?" Tim asked, sighing. He'd been denied access to the Batcave when Bruce had decided that Batman was no more. There was no need for Robin without Batman, and therefore, his young apprentice would be better off concentrating on his studies and taking care of his ailing father. "I'm not allowed in the cave, remember?"
"Since when has that stopped you?" Bruce asked, rolling his eyes. Tim had broken into the Batcave more times than he could count. If he hadn't, he would never have become Robin in the first place.
"Since I thought you were serious, this time, Bruce."
"I was. But this is different, Tim. There's a lot more at stake here than just some debris from an asteroid. If anyone was to find the cave..." There was a long pause before Bruce spoke again. "And I'm not just thinking about myself, here, Tim. I'm thinking about you, too. And Alfred, and Dick, and Barbara..."
"I know, I know. I've got a tutoring session after school, but I'll have a look tonight. How's that?"
"Thank you. Oh, and Tim? Be careful when you go down there. If that fireball is what I think it is, he's probably not himself right now."
Tim's jaw dropped as the information suddenly registered in his mind. Could it be that
Superman had landed in the cave? They'd been looking for him for days and all the while he'd been there, right under their noses?
~.~
"You were right," Tim told Bruce later that evening. "Something crashed on the floor of the cave but it wasn't a rock. He's been there. No doubt about it. Only... he's gone now. There's nothing down there anymore, not even a spec of dust."
"Dammit! We have to find him, Tim," Bruce said, making an attempt to swing his legs over the side of the mattress so he might haul himself in the wheelchair he kept close to his bed.
"Oh, no, no," Tim protested, pushing the chair out of Bruce's reach. "I'll look for him. You're not going anywhere."
Bruce shot him an angry look. "Tim, he's my
friend. And if there's anything I know for sure about him it's that he wouldn't let the world worry about him like this. Something's wrong. Very wrong. He needs help!"
"I know, Bruce. But you're
my friend – and you're injured. Now, we can stay here and argue about this all night, or you can be smart about it and let me go look for him."
"I see Alfred's been giving you lessons," Bruce complained as he let his head drop back on the pillows behind him.
"You bet your pointy little bat ears!" Tim exclaimed and with that, he was gone, leaving Bruce to shake his head and roll his eyes at no one.
~.~.~
Gotham, the Batcave - Day four after Nightfall Someone had been in the cave, Batman realized, when he returned. He looked around, hoping that whoever it was might still be there, but found that he was alone. Just his luck, he thought. The one time he might have been in contact with someone who actually, really
knew him and he'd been away. It seemed logical that this person, whoever they were, was an ally – it was pretty obvious that this cave was a secret hideout, after all. At least he hoped that the only people aware of the cave's existence were friendly.
Dejectedly, he walked back to the main room and sat down in front of one of the computers, pulling the cowl off his head and letting it drop unceremoniously to the side of the monitor. He'd been trying to gain access to the system since the day before, but every single attempt so far had been denied. He removed his gloves, cracked his knuckles and tried a few million more combinations. But none of them worked. Whoever had designed this had to have been a genius!
He reclined in his chair for a second and scratched his head. Suddenly, he was hit by a powerful sense of dejà-vu and right then, for the briefest of seconds, he got a glimpse of what he could only hope was his life.
Dozens of people bustling around, looking like they were in a rush. An older man – a commanding officer? – shouting instructions at all of them. And a woman. A
beautiful woman.
Who were all these people? Who was
she? He closed his eyes tightly, but as hard as he tried, he could not hold on to the fleeting images. Her face faded from memory just as quickly as it had surfaced. She was important to him, he could feel it in is gut, but he'd forgotten everything about her.
Frustrated, he went back about his task of gaining access to the computer system. Perhaps he'd have better luck trying to crack that than he was having trying to unlock the memories that his brain refused to surrender to him.
~.~.~
Metropolis - Search for Superman, day five Lois had spent a good part of the day going through the data she had finally managed to obtain from EPRAD and the Department of Defense.
The first set of files she'd gotten had come straight from EPRAD. It contained all reported or presumed impact sites, listed by global coordinates – longitude and latitude. The information in that file was about as easy to understand as Einstein's theory of relativity would be to a beauty pageant contestant.
The entries only had codes next to them, half of which Lois had no idea what for. The only codes she could make out indicated what team had been assigned to investigate the site; the ones that didn't have such information, as she'd understood after quite a bit of research, were simply located in parts of the world where it was impossible to send anyone. She had given up trying to figure the rest of it out, after a while. She now merely kept the listing around so she could cross out the entries as she checked out the rest of the data – this was the only way she had of knowing how many of the sites had yet to be investigated.
The second pile of documents she'd gotten from the DoD. It was as thick as the Metropolis Yellow Pages. It contained notes and comments from the people on the field as they had gone to investigate the sites. The information was ordered by team and the sites were listed by geographic name and location, instead of coordinates, which made cross-referencing the information that much more complicated.
By the time six o'clock rolled around, Lois had gone through pretty much all the data, earning herself a monster of a headache. She had narrowed the list down to eight sites that had yet to be surveyed. Three of them were in parts of the world where it was much too late to call anyone now. One was in Canada, on one of the many small islands somewhere above the Arctic Circle and Lois couldn't help but wonder why they hadn't marked this as being a site they couldn't possibly send a team to investigate.
The other four reported impact sites were in the US. And from what she was able to gather, the only reason why the sites hadn't been visited yet was because the teams simply hadn't gotten around to it. At least, they hadn't at the time the information she'd gotten had been compiled. A few phone calls, she guessed, and she could probably find out all she needed to know about these on her own.
The first was in Oregon, somewhere in Crater Lake National Park. Another was in South Dakota, a few miles away from the small town of Vermillion. The third was just outside of Muncie, Indiana.
But the last one on her list was the one that really caught Lois's eye. The fourth US site that had – as of yet – been neglected, was just a few hours away, on the other side of the bay, in Gotham City. In fact, if she'd calculated the position of the impact properly, the location of the impact was a few yards away from the home of one Bruce Wayne.
She picked up the phone, made travel arrangements for the next morning to go pay Mr. Wayne a visit and, that done, she left the Planet and went home.
~.~
After a short nap and a quick, refreshing shower, Lois was ready to head out the door. She'd spent all her evenings this week at Clark's with his parents and tonight would be no exception.
She'd just turned the first of the many locks on her door, when the phone rang. She turned and ran to answer the call, her heart beating madly in her chest. What if it was Clark? Granted, she thought the same thing every time the phone rang and she was always crushed to realize that it wasn't him every single time she had picked up, but what if it really
was him, this time?
"Hello?" she answered, slightly out of breath.
"Lois, it's Martha," came the voice on the other end of the line. "Have you seen the news? There's a press conference starting just now, they're going to announce something."
"Press conference? No... Let me turn on the TV." She sprinted to the TV and switched it on to LNN before sitting down on one of her loveseats. "Do you think they've found him?"
There was a choking sound on the other side. "I'm not sure.... They... they haven't said, yet. We hope so."
Both stopped talking and held their breath when they saw the first images of the Mayor of Metropolis walking up to the podium.
"Ladies and gentlemen, citizens of Metropolis and of the world." There was a long pause, during which he appeared to be weighing his words. "For the past five days, as I'm sure you are well aware of, EPRAD scientists, with the help of the Department of Defense have been investigating various sites where debris of the Nightfall asteroid have been reported. Every time the teams arrived on the site of a crash, there was hope that perhaps, this time, instead of a piece of asteroid, they would find evidence that Superman had landed there. As of right now, all sites have been examined. However no sign of Superman has been found at any of them."
There was a loud clamor coming from the crowd assembled in Centennial Park.
"It is with great regret," the Mayor continued, "that we must now inform you of our decision to call off the search for Superman."
"Oh, god, no!" Lois cried, the phone slipping out of her hand and dropping to the floor with a thud.
~.~.~
Gotham – day five after Nightfall Bane could barely believe his eyes when he saw him. There he was, in all his spandex glory: Batman! For a moment he wondered if it was a Venom-induced hallucination. It wasn't. Trogg had been telling the truth. How could the bat have healed so fast that he was already back in action? It wasn't possible!
Blinded by rage, he ran more than walked up to the hooded figure who stood a few yards away from him.
"I broke you!" he roared. "You should not stand!"
Batman turned towards Bane and looked at him, confused. "You're mistaken. I cannot be broken," he told the newcomer. For all intents and purposes, he was as invulnerable as he was immune to pain. He'd verified this fact several times since he'd first realized that he couldn't be hurt.
"Imposter!" Bane screamed at him. The voice was completely wrong; he could tell immediately. Batman's voice was low and menacing. This man's was soft and sounded almost kind. "Not the bat!"
"Not...?" he asked, completely puzzled. Of course he was Batman. How could he not be?
"I broke the other. I shall break you, too!"
Still lost in perplexed thoughts and questions, he didn't have time to react when Bane's enormous fist collided with his midsection. He didn't feel a thing, but the same could not be said of the colossus who had chosen him as a target for boxing practice.
"Aaaaaargh!" Bane yelled, clutching his now broken fist to his abdomen.
With his other fist, Bane took a jab at the hooded vigilante who stood stoically before him. But even though his fist collided heavily with the other man's jaw, his head did not budge even a little bit. Pain shot like lightning through Bane's hand, the impact resonating all the way to his shoulder. He dropped to his knees in complete and utter agony.
"Not... the.... one..." Bane repeated over and over again, as waves of pain soared through his entire body.
"If you say so." He shrugged.
For a moment he wondered what he should do with the man who lay at his feet. Finally, deciding that it would be wrong to just leave him there, he grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to the nearest police station. He should probably have taken him to a hospital, he knew, but something told him that this wasn't exactly one of the good guys. If he'd fought against Batman, that meant he was on the other side of the law. The wrong side. The GCPD would know what to do with him.
Having left the man on the steps of the precinct, and making sure no one saw him do it in the first place, he sprinted away from the scene. A few moments later, he'd made it to his favorite vantage point, on the ledge of a building, high above the city, where he could see everything and everyone in just one glance.
The man's words, however, kept coming back to him, over and over again.
Not the one. How was that possible? Why else would he have found himself in the cave? And if he wasn't Batman, why would he have been wearing his belt? It made absolutely no sense. Besides, this suit – and the work, too – made so much sense to him. Those were the only things that really felt right so far.
Yet, he couldn't help but ask himself if perhaps he'd been wrong in assuming this identity. If only he could unlock the mysteries that his brain was keeping from him!
~.~.~
Gotham - Day six after Nightfall As the sun rose, Bruce Wayne turned on the TV sets that sat on the desk at the foot of his bed. He expected to see reactions from the four corners of the world this morning, to the fact that the search for Superman had been called off.
He let out a curse, angry at himself. His friend had landed right in his garden and it had taken him this long to figure it out. Was he really the man they said was the World's Greatest Detective? He rolled his eyes. No. He hadn't been anything but Bruce Wayne since the night Bane had broken his spine. A bitter and invalid Bruce Wayne, and as such, he was completely useless.
It annoyed him greatly that, while he was certain beyond the shadow of a doubt now that Superman had made it back to earth, he couldn't tell anyone of this discovery. For one thing, what would he tell them? He didn't know where the Man of Steel had gone after he'd left the Batcave. And for another, the last thing in the world he wanted was to draw attention to where Superman had landed. It was too dangerous. It would be harmful to too many people. The only possible solution was to find the man and together they could work out a story that would keep everyone's secrets well protected.
But for that, he needed to find him! And even though Bruce knew that Tim was on the case, there was no telling where Superman might be. For heaven's sake, the man could fly around the earth several times faster than the world's most powerful jet planes. He could be anywhere and they'd be lucky if they managed to locate him any time soon.
That's when he saw something on one of the TV screens that took him completely by surprise.
Captured the night before by an amateur cameraman were images of a shady figure holding a silent vigil atop one of the tallest buildings of the city. It stood for some time, unmoving, before suddenly dropping off from the ledge of the structure in one swift move and disappearing into the night in a familiar rustling of fabric.
The Batman. For a second, Bruce wondered if his eyes were playing tricks on him. But as the images were shown again on another network, he knew exactly what this meant. He didn't like it one bit, but at least, this was going to make things a lot easier.
He picked up the phone and called Tim.
"Have you seen what I've seen?" he asked the young man.
"Um? You mean... Batman on TV?"
"And are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Oh yeah." Tim chuckled. "He's totally going to ruin your reputation!"
"Get your smart a** over here, kid," Bruce said, though he couldn't keep the smile out of his voice. "We're going down to the cave together."
~.~.~
~ End – Chapter 4 ~~.~.~
Bottom Dweller's Notes:
I know you guys probably don't know much about Bane and I'm sorry for not explaining about him in much detail. Suffice it to say, he's a criminal and the Venom he absorbs is what gives him his strength. Without it, he's not that big a threat.
If anyone had any doubts about just how geeky I am, this should most certainly confirm it... Here's a little bit of trivia about Vermillion, South Dakota: it is located about 8 miles away from Spirit Mound, which is one of the many highlights on the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail. Think about it. Oh... and, here's another bit of trivia for 'ya: Lewis's first name was Meriwether. This about that, too... *lol*
Ooooh. Before anyone questions this: "Having left the man on the steps of the precinct, and making sure no one saw him do it in the first place, he sprinted away from the scene." -- he's read articles about Batman; he knows that the GCPD isn't exactly in love with the guy. He wouldn't walk into a precinct the way Superman would for sure.
Last thing, because it made me laugh so much that I absolutely had to share... In her beta notes, Jojo mentioned that "
Someone should really do a fic where he [Perry] has to prove he can yodel… haha. " – 'ya know... I think it's a *great* idea! Anyone up for that challenge?
