Kal-El could hear the city singing.

He and Bruce Wayne were walking through Gotham, his lover's eyes lost in thought, pondering a case.  Bruce liked to take long walks through the city as he first started an investigation, liked having Clark at his side.  He said the rhythm of the city helped his subconscious mind start fitting the pieces together.

The rhythm of the city.

As they walked, Kal could hear it, the low bass beat under it all, steady as a heartbeat but immense beyond human perception.  A beat like the steady sound of dripping blood.

Sirens and screeching brakes like violins, punctuating the beat like a stab wound.  Conversation like a low and muttering choir, moving to the rhythm unawares.  It was under everything, an inexorable sound of blood and fate, each beat another step toward mortality.  Gotham's song, a nocturne of entropy.

Clark hunched his shoulders and met Bruce's smile with one of his own, focusing on the sights, on the happy faces in the crowd, the ornate architecture.  Bruce loved Gotham, and Gotham was worthy of love, Clark knew this.  He tried not to resent how Bruce's steps fell naturally into the song's tempo, tried to match Bruce's stride, to fit himself into the measure.  As Clark, he had learned how to do this.

(But Kal still heard the city singing).

: : :

Bruce Wayne touched the wrought-iron gates lightly as they turned into Robinson Park, its trees and hills frosted with new snow.  Joggers ran by, their breath pouring from them in white streamers.  Bruce glanced at Clark, walking next to him:  the puffy ski jacket, red wool mittens, a matching knitted red cap with a large pompom.  He looked entirely ridiculous, and as usual the knowledge of what was walking next to him, wrapped in eiderdown and gore-tex, warmed Bruce with possessive delight.

He hadn't mentioned the case he was pondering at all yet, and Clark didn't push him.  These long walks through the city were usually silent as Bruce soaked up the city and let his subconscious work on the case, the first delicate fitting-together of facts. 

Bruce took a moment to sit down on a bench, brushing off a layer of newly-fallen snow.  Clark sat next to him, not cuddling but close enough to touch, as Bruce stared out over the park.  Skaters twirled on the ice in patterns and Bruce's eyes followed them but were far away.

Eventually he sighed slightly, his shoulders relaxing.  This was Clark's cue that it was okay to break into his thoughts for a time.  "So what is it?"

"An incident today at the Gotham Airport.  A student pilot and his instructor crashed their Cessna.  Neither of them made it."

His partner reached out and slipped his mittened hands between Bruce's gloved fingers, tense on his knees.  "I'm sorry," Clark said, as he always did when something bad happened that he hadn't stopped.

Bruce shook his head absently, as he always did at the apology, staring out at the skaters.  After a moment, Clark said, "There's more, isn't there?"

"Wouldn't be much need of a detective otherwise, would there?"  Bruce said wryly.  His face clouded again.  "The plane had just passed inspection, and there didn't seem to be any mechanical problems.  The instructor had years of experience.  The air traffic tower could hear both of them screaming just before they crashed.  They appeared to be...fighting over the controls."

"Why?"

Bruce's frown was distant and worried.  "The tower says they just heard a lot of incoherent screaming."  Clark shuddered slightly and Bruce stood up, pulling his partner with him.  "Let's walk some more.  I think better when I'm walking."

The stroll took them down to Amusement Mile.  The boardwalk clicked underneath their feet as they made their way through the stretch of mostly-abandoned booths and attractions.  The sun was low on the horizon now, the shadows stretching long all around them from the Ferris wheel and the old wooden roller coaster.  Bits of paper--old tickets, flyers, newspaper--scudded by their feet.  It was quiet except for the low creaking of the wind through the old rides.

Bruce stopped walking for a second and just let the feeling of the area surround him.  He remembered coming here as a child--the taste of cotton candy, the music from the carousel, the way his father had pitched baseballs to win him a Gotham Knights jersey.  Everything around them was still, steeped with memories of laughter and warmth, like leaves in amber.  He smiled slightly, feeling his city hovering near them, an angel with dusty wings.

"How--how can you stand it?" Clark asked suddenly.  Startled, Bruce looked over at him.  His partner was standing with his arms wrapped tightly around himself, as if to keep himself from shivering, his eyes wary.  "I mean, what kind of city leaves an abandoned amusement park like this?  Who owns this, Bruce?  Why leave something so disturbing around?"

With a jolt as if a circuit were thrown in his brain, Bruce suddenly saw the area as Clark must see it:  the rides filled with ominous shadows, the silence and emptiness like the moment before a scream, everything desolate and abandoned.  Empty.  He put an arm around Clark and his lover leaned into him;  Bruce could feel an almost-imperceptible tremor beneath his hands.  "Stagg Industries owns most of these, I believe," he said lightly, trying not to show that he was shaken by the shift in perception.  "I guess Stagg just hasn't ever had a reason to tear them down." 

Clark's eyes remained almost glassy.  "This city," he muttered.  "It frightens me sometimes."

Bruce couldn't help but laugh just a little;  Clark twitched as the sound echoed around the boardwalk.  "Clark?"

"No," said his lover indistinctly, "Clark is okay with Gotham.  It's Kal that..."  His voice trailed off and he took a deep breath;  a gust of wind slammed the shutter of a booth loudly and they both jumped.  Clark laughed a bit shakily, and this time the sound broke the feeling of stasis for both of them.   

Bruce swung around to grab Clark's hands in his, pulling him down the boardwalk a little and then into his arms.  Clark's lips were cold but responsive;  Bruce's breath warmed them until Clark's breath was coming fast and his mittened hands were fumbling with Bruce's hair.  "So then, I gather you're not interested in exploring the Tunnel of Love?" Bruce asked.

Clark's eyes were mischievous.  "Not here, no."

: : :

On the other side of the city, Pamela Isley strolled through her greenhouse, stopping to check the lotuses for signs of blight.  The rhododendrons were close to flowering now;  she made a mental note to harvest a little of the pollen next week for the next sequence of tests. 

Being one of the top biochemists for Stagg Industries did have its perks, she mused as she brushed past some of her favorite ferns, her hands absent-mindedly caressing the delicate fronds.  They shivered at her touch and she smiled approvingly:  the genetic alterations for touch-sensitivity seemed to be coming along nicely.  Simon Stagg didn't care what she did in her spare time as long as she continued to create the cosmetics and perfumes he could make a profit from;  fortunately a mind as brilliant as hers could do in a few hours the work the rest of the staff had to slave over for weeks.  This left her a great deal of time for her...side projects.

She stopped at the door in the back of the greenhouse, waiting for the red light of the retinal scanner to grant her access.  Only Isley was able to access this room. 

At least until a year ago, when she had modified the scanner to allow in one other person.

Stepping into her personal lab, she frowned at the sight of her erstwhile lab partner washing beakers.  "What's with that prank you pulled at the airport?" she asked irritably.  "That didn't serve any purpose at all."

Jonathan Crane's glasses glinted light back at her, his ice-blue eyes, as usual, so transparent that they became opaque again.  "On the contrary, my dear Pamela.  My first true success with an induced phobia!  Fear of flying is a fairly easy one to trigger, it turns out, but one must start somewhere.  One small step for a phobia, one giant leap for fear, to coin a phrase.  Not something to be mocked, no, not at all."  He smiled beatifically.

Isley grimaced.  She hated the way Crane made her feel uncomfortable, with his creepy, almost mystical fervor.  "Well, next time find some way to make some money off your test runs.  Your rent is due next week."  If she hadn't needed the money so very badly...

Still, Isley had to admit that this last year working with Crane had been very...educational as well.  It was Crane who had taught her that perhaps she had been too limited in focusing on creating plants that could defend themselves physically, that it was time to look at more...psychological methods.  Their research complemented each others' well--Crane studying her plants to work on his toxins, Isley studying his toxins to learn more about how to protect the plants.

She eyed Crane with distaste as he began to mix up a new batch of something cloudy and scarlet, muttering to himself.  The man was motivated by only the coldest, most abstract of passions:  power, knowledge, control.  He had no love in his heart.

Isley ran a finger over the plump, shining leaf of one of her favorite jade plants.  "Who's the prettiest Crassula argentea in the lab?  You are!  Yes, you!" she crooned softly, apologizing as she broke off a bud for genetic analysis.  Love was in her heart like a blooming flower, like a twining vine.  She would use science not to glorify herself, not to gain power for its own sake, but to help the things she loved.  She would be a new Eve tending the Garden of Eden.

Jonathan Crane--like all the human race--was merely a means to that end.