They had first met when he had walked into the Daily Planet with a few questions about a man who had skipped parole. Clark had been picking up a stack of Jimmy's papers which had fallen victim to a leaking cup of coffee when he had heard a set of footsteps pause behind him, on the other side of his desk.
Shifting around awkwardly and pushing his glasses up his nose, Clark had expected the wanderer to have realized his mistaken destination. Nobody really came to Clark's desk to talk at this time of the day unless it was Perry yelling, or Jimmy. Lois never hung around the office in the afternoon. Clark could always hear them coming in advance; he was getting good with noting the individual strides of his coworkers.
The stranger looked slightly disheveled. An outline of a beard was starting to dominate the man's face, and the clothes he wore looked in desperate need of an ironing. But it was the eyes that surprised Clark, putting his assessment out of focus. A control existed there that lent the man a dignity that Clark rarely recognized.
He had found himself staring.
The man had immediately given Clark's desk a quiet scan; the clutter of pages and Lois' never-ending wealth of post-it notes. If she left her things on his desk, she seemed to remember them better. Immediately, Clark had felt himself embarrassed at the state of his station. He knew right away that he was being judged.
"I'm looking for someone who can help me with the Darren Trescott story. A receptionist told me to look for Lois Lane, but when I finally found her she directed me to you."
"Are you lost?" Clark had asked, not really hearing the initial inquiry. His mind was still folded around his lack in the other's first impression. He rescued himself quickly, and shook his head. "Sorry, wait. Yes. Yes, I'm Clark Kent."
It had been a battle to keep his face straight, but one Clark felt that he had won.
The stranger accepted the reply, making Clark think that he had chosen to. The grace in this tousled man was prominent.
"I'm Mark Malone," he introduced himself. "I'm hoping to learn a little bit about Mr. Trescott. Ms. Lane said that you've been keeping tabs better than anyone."
Curious, Clark could only nod his head. He had sensed a change when the man had named himself. He had thought that this had meant a lie was present, though at the time Clark had not been entirely sure. Either the man was a really good liar, or Clark had been taking his appreciation for his abilities for granted.
"I'm looking for some answers."
He caught on to it much later. It had never occurred to him how "Malone" had known his name was Clark. Or had he given that up on his own?
They had met for coffee, a commodity that Clark never had trouble spilling on himself. But while he bumbled about with a loss of grace, the other man shied away from obvious reactions and kept time with Clark through subtle hints.
At first, Clark had told himself to stop imagining moments, seeking them out and second-guessing every instant he caught them happening. He felt nothing dangerous from this person, but every other word was a lie. Every movement was a feint.
Clark started to wonder if he noticed it best because he performed the same way. The same...but different.
The reporter was forcing himself to bump into things, while "Mr. Malone" possessed a stunning grace that attempted to remain mundane and unspectacular.
After their third meeting, Clark had startled himself with the realization that perhaps the man could see through him as much as Clark thought he saw through the man. The revelation had brought to reporter to a sudden halt at the start of an intersection, inviting someone to crash into him with "Kent-like" style.
"Way to go, Smallville," Lois chided, passing by in the opposite direction. This would have been normal if Clark had meant it to be.
He stayed late at his desk typing that night. Each thought circled around Mark's story. The man said he was an amateur detective hoping to look into the courtly absence of Trescott, on request of a client who wished to remain anonymous. No, this wasn't right.
"There's nothing amateur about you," Clark then murmured, his voice hollow in the empty office space.
"Did you learn anything new?"
Mark Malone stopped in the doorway, his attention directed to the familiar voice. Identifying Clark, Malone raised an arm in greeting and then used it to stifle a yawn.
The yawn revealed a perfect set of teeth as the man moved to where Clark sat folding his morning copy of the Daily Planet. A leg dragged out the only other chair at the table and Mark unceremoniously sat down.
Clark read him, noting how Malone had seemed vaguely surprised at Clark's presence. Clark, though, firmly believed that the other had been prepared for this meeting long before entering the café.
Mark scratched at his beard, still messy. The man had always been slipshod, yet never sordid. "When you looked up Trescott in records or databases, did you ever suspect that he ever used another name?"
Clark raised a brow. "I never checked since his records were intact. There's no gaps to warrant that kind of suspicion."
All morning Clark had prepared for this, putting out the question and planning to take initiative. It would only be fair to ask this "detective" for new information, seeing that Mark had relied on Clark's intelligence to start him off.
"You never checked…"
Already, Clark felt himself losing momentum. Mark's question seemed to deride Clark's certainty, telling the reporter that the other had definitely uncovered something about their shared interest. The urge to justify himself is found.
"There's no gaps," he repeated, keeping himself from saying more. He had checked, after all. A search for Trescott, showing the usual, which is the foundation for all of his articles on the notorious man. Where Clark had found gaps, those were from a search of a wholly different individual.
Mark Malone didn't exist, though Clark had known as much after their first meeting.
Yes, he trusted that now. The change in heart-rate, almost subtle. It's the elusiveness that Clark expected from the man always, but which he never found. The lie should be perfected, and Clark wants to believe in it.
Clark wasn't fooled, and it bothered him.
Mark tapped at the table, staring into the shining glass that reflected the morning-world outside of their refuge. He appeared to be thinking, as if forming the next words carefully.
Then he glanced up, and Clark looked away.
He wanted to say it then. To point out or accuse.
But to do that, would Mark Malone disappear? Would Clark break down the attempted illusion, or would he come to understand? He almost doesn't want to know the truth.
No, he's not allowed to know it.
Something strikes him, as if an invisible wall were slamming through Clark with the power of a thousand realizations. It's a ridiculous feeling, since nothing had ever hurt Clark before. On his feet suddenly, he stammers about needing the restroom.
Mark shrugs.
Everything becomes now, and when Clark reaches the back room he hears the screams of panicked people and presses himself against the wall. He thinks he'll never get used to this, his skills not so trained that he can pick out the individual wants and needs of all the people in Metropolis.
This is new, and yet familiar. If there's something truly close by, he'll hear it. In the thin space he glances around to make sure there are no witnesses. It's still so strange, making the decision to get involved. It's frightening having to plan, deciding the safest, most efficient and less public way of saving someone.
Small pieces are picked out from the needle-like voices flooding and fleeing from Clark's ear. A fallen crane, an office building. Terrified people, a news chopper. And then, as he takes to the air—always awkward in the city, he needs a disguise or something—a completely unrelated voice makes itself known.
"Come on," is a harsh whisper, as if spent on talking to itself. It's Mark, but it's not Mark. "You can do better than this."
Annoyed. Self-loathing to a degree. Held back by weaknesses, and lack of experience.
Clark understands.
Bruce looks at him and tells him to get over it.
Yeah, that's pretty much the best advice.
Clark doesn't know what kind of excuse to make. When the elevator opens, the reporter recognizes the man stepping out. After returning from the accident, the table at the café had been vacant. Upon reaching the Planet, Perry had given Clark an unreasonable amount of work to do based on the mysterious appearance of the one who saved dozens of lives.
The reporter had been close to correcting his boss. There had only been ten men and women in immediate danger. But he shouldn't know that…
Fortunately, Lois had taken most of Clark's assignments. She seemed to take up the workload when the strange, flying man appeared. His regular pondering can wait, since Mark is coming towards him.
"Think," Clark murmurs to himself. Maybe he got sick, and came out to find the other gone. But how long had Mark waited for him?
"Sorry," the man states before Clark is able to say anything. "I got a call and couldn't stay. Client."
Clark nods, aware that there is no client but not willing to challenge his luck. "It's for the best. We've been…busy."
A motion around the office indicates as much.
"Yeah," nods the other. "Well, if you have a moment you might want to take a look at this."
A piece of paper is produced, coming creased from Mark's pocket. It's through this action that Clark notices the swollen knuckles on the man's left arm.
Eyes are picking him apart, and Clark meets them. He's sure that the grey stare is burning holes through his glasses, but suddenly the other man changes. Drops his weight back as the paper transfers hands, and Mark cranes his neck to the side as if fleetingly distracted by a colour there, or a noise.
Clark's drawn. For a second he finds himself questioning his train of thought, before understanding the tactic. Okay, that…wow.
The folded slip is warm.
"That covers," Mark starts, speaking distantly. He pretends to come back to himself now, hooking his thumbs back into his jeans. They're stained, but only slightly. "Covers, uh, the records you missed on Trescott. He's not a poster-child from west-Metropolis who fell into the allure of gang crime, and then failed to escape it without repercussion. He's a serial rapist and killer whose undetected since he avoids using the patterns that society uses to identify serial crimes."
Clark frowns, not capable of believing such a stretch. "I beg your pardon? There's no way…"
"You didn't find any gaps or holes in his story, since the Trescott that you know and have met is actually an actor pretending to be Trescott. The story you're writing is an elaborate game or alibi to underline the more vicious crimes."
Mark speaks so casually, but Clark believes him. The pieces are still out of the reporter's grasp, but he trusts in a logic that binds them all together. Maybe this is the real person Clark's talking with now…
He lets himself be guided along. "I don't recall any run of missing persons, or bodies found."
"They've happened in Gotham."
A change in heart-rate, only…
Clark feels something drop, hating the doubt that returns. If this is a ploy to lure him in a direction, he wants it to be seamless.
"Why are you here?"
Grey eyes. Jimmy promising to get pictures. Lois five blocks off, screaming for assistance. A shift in the stranger's weight, refusing to share more but privy to Clark's suspicions…
Lois.
"I'm here because my client wants justice."
There is no client.
"I'm here because it's also your story."
And somehow, this seems like a bigger story than the reappearance of a "superman." Whether it's the enigma of this weird and wonderful person who both is and who isn't, or, if it's the way that "Malone" coincides with the evolution of Clark's relationship with his world—his job and his city—something more needs to be known.
A better lie to believe in, like Clark being able to maintain the safety of others. He can't afford failure, but the weight of it makes him anxious to test his strength under it. It's much easier to write articles and trust in the obvious.
Boys who are petty criminals, not in elaborate ploys. Hardened men turning to self-employment, rather than breaking skin and forming bruises doing…
Grey eyes.
"I've got work to do," Clark excuses himself.
With a grace that offers no resistance, Mark lets him pass.
It's easier to escape the tower, Clark slowly learning how to identify sheltered corners and unnoticed windows. Jimmy's camera drops and the boy curses, still swearing to be present at the next rescue in vain. And somehow Clark has to figure out how to get to Lois without her seeing him. An elevator chimes and in the enclosed box Mark sighs, as if giving up.
Something tells Clark that he'll never see the other again. The note is still bunched tightly in his palm, and he looks down, trying to measure how hard to stare before he can see through it.
Words bleed through his skeletal structure. An untidy series of lines, unfocused and then blurring. It's hard to multitask as he works to pinpoint his coworker. Part of him is still straining to hear the rumble of the elevator.
He's held back, incapable of doing everything at once. He has to choose, and the answer is obvious. Maybe in the future, he'll catch on.
Darren Trescott will turn himself in the next day, terrified. Though he fails to confess to everything, there's enough evidence in the letter for Clark to help the police put him away for life. The untidy words Mark had left are useful, but far from complete.
Lois, Perry and several constables had tried to decipher the meaning that Clark had found on the page, but all had declared it confusing.
Perhaps Mark had been reading Clark, too.
The thought of using his reporting in this way hadn't crossed Clark's mind until now.
He's only now exploring ways to do the same with his other talents. Acting, rather than reacting.
Clark pulls back from the keyboard and feels the plastic tick of the cup. While he's capable of whirling about and preventing the ensuing disaster, an intern is passing his cubicle. Clark can hear her.
His chair swivels as he sighs and reaches out mindlessly to clean up. It's almost like the first time.
He can hear a million sounds.
There's no Bruce.
With what he has on hand, Clark tries to pitifully clean up with the tissues from his desk. Bits break off as he wipes at the mess. Seeing that some of the coffee may have slipped into one of the drawers, he scans through and finds it dry.
And the note.
Impulsively, Clark rolls open the metal filing drawer, and pulls out the slip of paper that is worn slightly more now than it used to be.
It had always puzzled him, why Mark had signed his letter with a B. Clark had first wondered if the unkempt stranger had just recycled an old note. The small message on the back had been written perpendicular to the rest of the informative note. The penmanship had been different, too.
Brisk. Neat. Dark.
It had taken a JLA meeting before he had ever made the connection. Bruce's handwritten agenda, so familiar to Clark in an elusive way. He hadn't grasped it immediately. The correlation arrived on it's own hours later.
He had been Superman then. The time it took to reach that point seemed long and tedious. Impossible, even. He's sure the doubts are still there, but now he's deaf to them. Pressing forward and acting, without all the questions.
Those words. They fit the stranger perfectly. Not in appearance, but in their lack of.
'Stop looking for it.'
Or perhaps it had never been meant for Clark at all.
Bruce hadn't been Batman in those few days. Clark's sure of it. Hindsight is perfect like that, though.
The note is cold in his hand.
He'd have asked about it, and even thought of it more if he had had the benefit of hindsight.
"Bruce, who are you now?"
On the last day, Batman waited for Clark to say something. Sirens, lower hemisphere. Seventy-three immigrants, trapped on a failing raft not far from a coastline. Car accident in Baghdad. Bruce's pulse is steady, but it took time to perfect that.
Clark can be in all of these places and back in time to know what he wants to ask. He's also aware that Batman may not be waiting.
Even if he searched after the other, he knows he'll never find Bruce. Clark stopped looking a long time ago.
And now, he can't look anymore. Or listen.
The Dark Knight is gone. In a way, it's almost fitting that Clark be separated like this. Neither had ever been capable of failing the other, even if they didn't quite fit.
Bruce's absence exists just as strongly as it had before they had first crossed paths. And in that way, too, Clark sees the lack of presence as a very convincing lie. It's real, to a fault.
The note, and now, and so similar to before, Clark finds himself caught up in believing otherwise.
But as always, he gets over it.