Title: The Master Class
Summary: This and here and that place is where The Music of the Night resounds every night; where Clark Kent wished he needn't go. Requested AU, parody one-shot of Leroux's Phantom of the Opera.
Disclaimer: I do not own the Batman franchise, the characters, the profits to anything associated with it, etc.
Warning: This is AU and this is Gothic, and therefore very dark and with a whole lot of references to Leroux's work. There will be quotes from the book, but not too many.
Dedication: Ah, this goes out to Rose Midnight Moonlight Black. Why? Well, it's our anniversary of being Betas and writing compatriots for a whole year. A whole year! That's like being drafted into the army during a world war and sticking it out in uncharted territory. Oh God, I'm gushing… But who cares, because it's our anniversary!
-:-
Must it be? It must be.
-Beethoven.
The building, just the building in and of itself with the thirty stories and its great, dark architecture that is decorated with nothing but clotted red brick that reminded one of thickened blood on their hands, and every single terrace and ledge that one could grip had a gargoyle sitting there to take one up in its jaws, each marble eye glaring, staring, with teeth hissing and tongue waggled out in grand mockery of everyone and everything below their vision. But, who was inside were the most terrifying beings in the country; which was what caused Clark Kent to pause at the king sized doors with the two gold and silver knockers adorning them.
His friend of years, years and years was inside waiting for him, waiting for the appointment he'd scheduled to begin. The dark brunette in his Greco Aquarium blue cloak jacket dragged his feet up to the last step by the door, mottling the fine dusted white powder that continued to fall from the sky on the stone steps behind him, but raised his hand to the grasshopper knocker; its silver color very pronounced along the back of its curved legs that tapped the door absently, waiting for him to touch it.
But, before Clark actually touched it, he remembered something Bruce had told him—"The grasshopper! Be careful of the grasshopper! A grasshopper…it hops! It hops! It hops jolly high!"—and he pulled back to bring his hand to the golden scorpion that had stared at him since he'd come along to the building, tail lowering down and not at all a threat as he carefully held out his hand where it wiggled forward onto his palm and in doing so, chirred internally. Clark let it go and it went back to napping on the golden ring its tail was attached to.
The doors opened wide with inward bound, the cold air behind him being sucked inside and into the face and nostrils of Bruce Wayne, who stood before his friend in Ebony Bat colors or black, blue and grey, his own housecoat not touching the floor. The cane he used to walk around—for he had a mildly irritating limp because of his right leg that had been shattered when he was but in his twenties; the reason never fully disclosed to Clark—was ruby red, and caught Clark's eye even before the man himself. That cane had many a time been used to herd him out of his work so they could have lunch or dinner in one of the many terrifying places Bruce chose to spend time with him.
"Ah, I've been wondering whether or not you'd gotten lost again," Bruce muttered lightly, his voice not quite suitable for such things, so it came out more like a hissy whisper than anything else, "You're ten minutes late."
"Please, please don't give me one of your lectures again, when it was your son keeping me at the Opera House," Clark sighed, whisking himself inside and out of the cold, absently and vaguely sad for the grasshopper and scorpion still stuck to their knockers as the doors closed.
Bruce grinned at the mention of Dick, conductor of the best opera populare in the country and also his oldest son, running rough-shot over the owner of the house; a man twice his size. It was a nice image to dwell on as Clark hesitantly—even more than with the knockers—removed his coat to give to the coat rack, the tall praying mantis looking thing towering over them that gingerly grabbed the coat from the man and placed it on one of the hangers clinging from the mid-length of its left arm; it gave Clark and Bruce a polite bow as they walked further into the building, entering the elevator in the parlor with its black metal and no windows. A very modern convenience.
"You didn't tell me in your letter exactly what this meeting was about," Bruce nudged, dutifully leaning against the railing of the compartment just enough that his back wouldn't be raked by rebar and metal for every floor they passed on their way to his office at the seventeenth stop, eyes observing each pass of building inclusive; the kitchen, the meeting room, that one room that housed his pet bats, and so on, "And your wet-eared errand boy certainly wasn't helpful in spreading light on the situation."
"Be a little nicer to Jimmy, okay?" The man of the operatic arts didn't so much beg as expected, straightening tall in defense of the ginger that worked for his company and had a low enough opinion of himself as it was without his friend making it worse in all of his dark image and glory of shadow; being a magician, an architect and an artist in many thing, "And I'm here because the city is growing bored with the current opera."
"What, is Elektra still not gory enough for the immaculate public?" Bruce sneered, the lift at last stopping on the floor they required, his feelings for the general attendants of the opera—snobbish, arrogant curs unfit to enjoy and consider over anything but the acting rather than the music and soul of the institution of beauty and tragedy—showing through him like treacle in a well sprung up through treachery.
"Let us keep in mind that the public is what pays me and by proxy pays you when I come looking for your works."
"Oh, very well," Bruce waved a hand as if swatting away a fly, though heavens knew that was impossible as that was what he kept the bats for; pest control, "If you've come for fresh music, you've come to the right place. My sons have all been working lately; you can get your opera from them."
Clark shivered at the thought of being confronted by Bruce's sons, all stark and brunette with personalities that clashed with every single person they met. Damian had sent Clark in the way of one of his deadly booby traps the last time the man had visited and Jason… Just no.
All of his trips to Bruce's home and place of work always ended badly when Clark needed an opera, which was why he always held off until he was desperate and the crowds stopped coming to watch what he was already holding over. This last one, Elektra, had lasted a whole five months, but in another week he wouldn't even make enough to pay the actors because of lack of audience fees. He needed something now, quite specific in characteristics that his councilor Barry Allen had produced for him. Something light hearted, but serious in some respects, with only a mild bit of blood at the ending. Not like Elektra with the death of family and everyone else in the way, and nothing like Salome kissing the head of John the Baptist. Very specific.
From below them, by about three floors, or Clark wouldn't have heard and Bruce wouldn't have cared, a rousing percussion of drums thundered in orchestra with each other, deep enough to give the impression of thunder in the canyons to the south, causing vibrations under their feet and Clark to give a jump. It continued as the lighter, more subtle and pleasant male looked to the Persian rug on the floor, like he would have wished to look down to the apartment the noise was coming from, now calling up with symbols and a single trumpet.
It was maybe a high rousing Swan Song, but Clark chose not to speculate, instead blinking his eyes in a good sort of inquest. He looked back up to Bruce, pouring himself Chai tea.
"Is that Tim? It seems like him, I think. His way of playing with romance is to make it loud, is it not?"
Bruce drank from his cup—an old cup, yellow like bone that had been dug up from the ground—and swallowed all the liquid down in one fell swoop and chug, thin hands setting cup and plate down and then fiddled into one of his drawers in the large desk sitting in the middle of the room that had once been a grand piano, stringing somber notes through the air for all to listen to in Clark's very own opera house the writings and edits of Faust, Bach, Bellini, Verdi. Well, before…
"It is. I think he knows you're here," Bruce grinned, finding what he was looking for and pulling it out after a moment, "And so, he will give you an opera."
"Not Dick or the others?"
"It is Tim's turn."
As he said the words, Bruce closed the drawer that was made up of the white and black keys that had been set for the piano and now looked like three white, boney hands formed about the other to hold onto the treasures Bruce kept hidden in his own place of contemplation, writing and musical belief system. In his own hands, starting to fade from healthy tan to an ashen that made Clark sad, skin pulling into itself to cling to the macabre body of his friend, Bruce brought up a mask that he had to wear most of the day before Clark or anyone came to see him, least they see him how he actually looked before the magic wore off and ran off. The mask was plain eggshell white and covered his face from forehead to just around his cheekbones. Clark could only just make out Bruce's glowing blue eyes through the holes in the mask as Bruce put it to his skin and it stuck.
With that, Bruce's magic faded and Clark could see that he was actually less healthy than he had been the last time he had come to seek his services; muscles were lacking but still there, skin was pallid and just barely holding fast to be the widest expanding organ of Bruce's slightly less-than-human body, and Bruce's cloak slithered over his shoulders to keep him covered and out of sight as he lead the opera owner, not to the lift, but to the staircase behind a curtain tapestry nailed to the wall that Bruce pulled back with a pull of a chord that was hidden behind a vase filled with feathery looking grain stalks that loaned their scent to the room so it was beautifully like stepping into a floral shop.
Suddenly Clark remembered why the man—a genius and a billionaire—was a recluse and reminded himself to drop by Kyle Rayner's herbal remedy/art shop before the evening was out to get some special concoction for his friend. He'd come up with an excuse that Bruce probably wouldn't believe, but that was not the point. He wanted his friend to get better, despite any reasons the other man might have to rebuke his attempts to do such.
Clark followed after the spectral figure down the spiral staircase.
Now, whereas Bruce's office was prompt and to the point, like the man himself—all black, save for the colors only added by the occasional things that decorated it like rugs and china and the like—it could not be the same to be said for his middle child.
Tim's apartment in the building, which was quite spacious and wide to allow the boy to wander around at his fancy and add on as he wished with paintings and carpets and about ten different statues that came with places to hold flowers or incense or spices—like the mimic of the statue of David that held pink and orange roses that stood and was strategically there to give ideas next to Tim's own working piano—was filled to the brim with loud music of drums as Clark and Bruce walked in. Clark liked it, because the music was almost exactly what he was looking for, and the room was painted a cheery green and yellow; Bruce wouldn't give his opinion.
It was sad really, that Clark's son Conner enjoyed Tim's company when Tim was about as unromantic as they came. Literally, he had no foundation for romantic attachments, but that could simply be given to the fact that Bruce had found him on his own and when one is alone for so long—and a child, as well—they see no reason to advance their emotions past what they might need to survive. Though, this can hardly make much sense, since most of Tim's operas were not without quite a few romantic duets beforethe lovers died in some horrible ways. The last opera Tim had supplied the opera house with—a sort of present to Conner for the boy's eighteenth birthday, how "sweet"—involved three couples, one dying together in a fire, one couple killing each other, and the other unknown save for a quiet mention of one of the pages announcing that the two were missing from their rooms before the finale.
It took about five minutes to find Tim, sitting beside the coffin he had built to serve as an ice-box for all of his fizzy drinks, and waving about his conductor's wand towards the seven black things that had once been dead cats found in gutters and on the sides of crossroads that now served as his familiars and musicians; a flute of red liquid was in his other hand and, once he acknowledged Clark and Bruce—his right, starlight filled right eye socket still possibly focused solely on his practice—he took a sip and waved his wand twice, signaling the creatures to cease. The instruments fell perfectly into a line, drums to the walls on their sides, trumpets on the shut piano, piano keys tucking into their silence and private clacker of keys, and the black spectral figures whirled like a twister each before slithering to the fireplace, using the chimney to leave the place entirely.
Tim got up from beside his coffin, shutting its lid as an afterthought and dusted off his green sweater vest and black pants, bare feet making just enough sound on the floor as he grinned and walked over to the two adults. His flute of liquid stood suspended in the air just where his head had been.
"Mr. Kent, father! How nice to see you today," he greeted, giving Clark's much larger hand a light shake and his father a glad bow, his bangs tracing over his starlight eye as he stood back up, left and only remaining blue eye happy as his smile and focused, "What can I do you for?"
Clark dug into his pant pocket a moment and finally pulled out the crinkled parchment Barry had instructed him on, the writing itself in a cursive really only better than Clark's cousin Kara, which meant you really had to know calligraphy. He handed it to Tim and noted, only just and only because his head tilted right when he was looking at the paper, that Bruce had left them for now, probably hearing one of his bats caught in the stairwell again.
"This is the instructions for what opera the people will enjoy at my establishment," Clark stated, Tim looking over the words and figuring it out much more quickly than Clark had, "Bruce says to ask you as it's to be light-hearted and your brothers have had their turns. What was that you were playing? I think that would be perfect."
"That piece is still in the editing process," Tim said, still grinning, starlit eye blinking thirteen times in less than four seconds with amusement, "But I think I have what you're looking for. One moment."
Tim reached for his drink and finished it off. He threw it into the fireplace and the impact led to a fire setting within the confines, flames as blue as Tim's eyes and white as Bruce's skin; the glass now a medium set log that, in burning, gave off the odor of Elm and Spruce and Pine all at once as Tim walked over to one of the statues nearest his window with the spider webs that served as drapes, spiders still attached.
The middle child under Wayne's protection stood with his bare feet on the open stone hands of what was carved from granite a sort of Faun with a wolf's head and goat legs, bracing himself on its shoulders as he carefully, carefully pushed hard on its jaw. Clark had to swallow a gag as the stone mouth opened and a rush of murky, swamp smelling water burbled out and down its chest in three spurts before stopping. Tim reached down its throat, far enough that his elbow fit between the marble jaws before triumph shown the boy's face and he pulled the arm back out, an olive colored bottle with a cork at the end the prize for his trouble.
Stepping down from the statue, Tim shut the marble jaw again and there was an inward sucking noise from the statue that Clark wouldn't guess at or think about as the water on its chest still made his nose wrinkle to blot it out as Tim presented the man the bottle. With that motion, the smell was gone and Spruce invaded Clark's senses again; a welcome change.
"Break this open where the ballerinas practice when you get back to your opera house and you will have what you came here for," Tim explained, opening up his coffin ice-box once more to pull out a small bottle of ginger ale, popping the top and taking a sip as he waved his hand and the door Clark had come through opened, revealing Bruce waiting in the archway for him, cane in hand and a little, fuzzy white bat flitting impatiently on his shoulder, "Father will tell you my fee on your way out. Give Conner my helloes."
"I will," Clark nodded, taking the option to leave, the door shutting heavily as he took the last step out the door, wood against his back and music arousing his hearing again.
The price of brilliance, Clark often found when walking back to the opera house as he did, practically trotting away from the terrifying building his friend owned as if it was an effigy to all evil and confusing in the universe, was always a strange thing to stomach.
Clark held no doubt that Bruce was with him even as the brunette in blue walked up the steps of his music house, a shadow on a wall, a crow in the distance, anything black, really. Stalking was one of the many things that lark frowned on about his friend, but one of the lesser of the evils Bruce was capable of. And after all, the dark phantom of a man was only stalking him like a fox does a rabbit to be sure that his middle child's payment was made properly. After that, gratefully, Clark would no longer suffer the chills he always and would forever have to feel when he knew Bruce was somewhere nearby scrutinizing him and mocking him—which he knew he did more often than not, for why shouldn't he? Everyone else did the exact same thing to him.
Keeping the seemingly empty bottle under his arm, safe and secure before he had to go to the ballerina rehearsal room and made a strange request to smash the thing there—Dinah Lance, ballerina trainer and former dancer was going to lovethat—Clark turned down one of the halls, winding and brilliantly decorated with paintings of former plays held in the house like Hannibal and Pagliacci, and found the room Conner resided in before he had to play his violin that night. He was no doubt tuning the damned string instrument for the millionth time, but he was at least not chasing Donna or Cassie (two pretty girls who played either Elektra or one of the other tragic sisters, respectively) or Clark would have found that evening's completion of Tim's bargain even more difficult to procure.
He wrapped on the door twice, three times, once and was allowed in with a call from inside, a transition and percussion of high, surprisingly tight notes following the invitation in.
Walking into the room, looking both ways down the halls to be sure nobody was coming to speak to his son, Clark shut and locked the door; the lock making a little click out in the hall.
Outside the door, patient and amused, and up in the rafters where the scene-changers dwelled to smoke and drink before performances, Bruce in his mask grinned, his black cloak like a pair of bat wings casting a shadow on the wall that nobody could see; like a real phantom.