Heroes of the Squared Circle 16: Dirt Sheets
Title: Dirt Sheets
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, Dick Grayson, Jimmy Olsen, Diana Prince, Selina Kyle, Barda Free, Scott Free, Harvey Dent, Mercy Graves
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3400
Summary: On the road once more, the former members of the JLI get new costumes and theme music and meet a wrestler with a problem.
Everyone fights for The Observer just to see if they’re in it. Sometimes you’re in it and sometimes you’re not. Sometimes you like what he writes and sometimes you don’t. But I think wrestlers realize it’s good to have someone speaking for you. --Bret Hart on "The Wrestling Observer," wrestling's pre-eminent dirt sheet
Clark stared as the tour bus door swung open and Selina peeked out of it and announced "Come on in, boys!"
"We get our own bus?" Clark went up the steps and peered in at the plush seats. Harvey Dent was already asleep in the back, while Scott and Barda Free were lost in conversation; they waved briefly to him and then went back to discussing suplex techniques.
"We can't travel on one of the official DCW buses yet," Bruce said from behind him. "So we get our own."
"Pretty posh," said Clark.
"Posh?" Selina made a scoffing sound. "Jordan flies first class to every venue. Now that's posh." She bounced on one of the cushioned seats. "I'm not complaining, though," she grinned.
Clark wasn't either, after the long days spent criss-crossing the Eastern seaboard in a beat-up car. He sat down, and Bruce took the seat across the aisle from him. The doors swung shut.
"Richmond, here we come," said Selina.
: : :
Clark woke from a light doze to the sound of Bruce and Harvey arguing vehemently about some esoteric point of ring psychology as they pulled into the back lot of the Richmond Convention Center. "Geez, give it a rest," grumbled Barda, pushing between them.
Inside, everything was a hum and bustle of activity. Mercy Graves met them at the door, a sheaf of papers in her hand. "Your schedule," she said without preamble, handing a piece of paper to each of them.
"Schedule?" Clark blinked down at the piece of paper, which had a precise timetable on it.
"Your first appointment is with music in ten minutes," she said. "Down the hall, left, right, third door on the right." She made a shooing motion with her free hand. "Go."
"Bit different from the JLI," Scott said, his eyebrows raised.
"Music?" said Clark.
"We each need a theme song," Selina said as they headed down the corridors. "They've got a contracted composer for that."
"You're kidding," Clark said, and Selina shrugged.
"Welcome to the big times."
The door opened to reveal a lanky young man with long strawberry-blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing an improbable bottle-green suit and chewing on a pen as he stared down at a piece of sheet music. "You must be the new kids," he said, standing up and holding out his hand. There was a smudge of ink on his bottom lip. "Rathaway. Hartley Rathaway. Pleasure to meet you. Let's get to work." He flipped open his laptop and cracked his knuckles with a flourish. "New theme songs coming up." A quick glance at his notes and he looked at Clark. "So you're a hayseed face type?"
Clark winced. "Can we not use banjos?"
"Hayseed with no banjos, I dunno," Rathaway mused. "Doesn't seem natural. Can we compromise with fiddles and a jug band?" He tapped his keyboard and a cascade of wheeling strings and low-pitched tooting noises tumbled out. "Something loosely based on 'Turkey in the Straw'?"
Clark sighed and bowed to the inevitable. "I suppose electric guitars don't exactly fit."
Rathaway waved a hand in the air as he clicked around, and the sounds coalesced into something close to music. "Not a final version, of course. That'll take a week or two. Who's next, the billionaire?"
Bruce lifted his chin. "Yes?"
"Old money or new?"
"Old," said Bruce. "Quite, quite old."
Rathaway whistled under his breath, staring at his screen. "So you want something that sounds like you could play polo to it. Filthy rich and unashamed. Harpsichord?"
"Sounds divine," drawled Bruce, and Rathaway grinned.
"Easy peasy, I'll rip off some Scarlatti, maybe add just a bit of a techno beat in the middle to give it edge, and there you go!"
Everyone ended up happy with (or in Clark's case, resigned to) their new music: slinky saxophones and a go-go beat for Selina; straight-ahead power metal in complementary keys for Barda and Scott; and a weird battle between two electronic voices (demonic and angelic) for Harvey.
Rathaway glanced at their schedule as he worked on "Two-Face's Theme." "Costuming is next," he said, pointing toward the door. "Left, right, left, left."
"Everyone seems to know where everything is around here," Clark grumbled as they were shooed down the hall once more, dodging a cart full of lighting equipment. "I'm definitely going to run into something."
"You have to float like a butterfly," Bruce said, demonstrating by skipping sideways a step. "And sting like a--"
As they came around the corner, he collided with someone coming the other way.
"Ow," said Bruce, "Sorry."
The collidee, a skinny man with a tousled mop of dark curls perched upon a long, narrow face, stared at Bruce and then groaned. "It would have to be you," he muttered. "Of all the people to smack into, I'd choose the one who's costing me my gimmick. Just my luck."
"I'm--sorry?" Bruce looked taken aback at the man's vehemence. "Have we even met?" Barda gave him an impatient look, and he waved her on. "Go on without me, I'll catch up," he said.
Selina, Scott, Barda and Harvey moved down the hall, but Clark didn't leave Bruce's side. "Have you got a problem with Mr. Wayne?" he asked, crossing his arms, and Bruce shot him an exasperated look: I can take care of myself.
"It's nothing personal," said the man, running a hand through his curls and deranging them even further. "It's just Luthor's told me that with Billionaire Brucie on board, they don't need two comedy vanity heels. I told him that my gimmick's totally different--I'm a gangster, not a blueblood, it's a totally different style!"
Privately, Clark thought he'd met few people who made a less convincing gangster than the lanky, twitchy man, but he kept his mouth shut.
"I could change my gimmick," Bruce said. "I've been thinking about one based on something a little unusual, a theme of--"
"--No, no." The man looked uneasy. "I don't want Luthor hearing I'd complained to you. I can't--I'm just lucky to have work at all, really. I mean, my wife's going to have a baby soon, I can't afford to rock the boat. It's just..." He sighed. "Luthor doesn't really like comedy acts very much, he prefers his wrestlers--you know--buff and shiny, not--" He gestured down at his long, lean frame. "But I really think I have what it takes as a comedy heel if he'd just give me a push," he said. "Gentleman Jack's just starting to get over!"
"You're Gentleman Jack Napier?" Bruce narrowed his eyes and stared at him.
The man threw out his narrow chest. "Slap a fedora on me and I'm the smoothest--and funniest--criminal on the DCW roster!" He grinned slyly at Bruce. "You didn't recognize me, did you?"
Bruce shook his head slowly, then stuck out his hand. "Bruce Wayne. This is Clark Kent." Napier shook his hand as well, his long fingers wrapping around Clark's hand. "Good to meet you. You're a good actor."
Napier released Clark's hand and bowed deeply, his curly hair brushing the floor. "My thanks, kind usurper! But I jest," he said cheerfully as he straightened up again. "Don't take me seriously. I'm sure I'll land on my feet no matter what Luthor does with me from now. Fare thee well, my friends!" he announced, and wandered off whistling.
"If he's such a good actor, why is Luthor changing his gimmick?" Clark asked as they continued down the hall.
"Oh, he's a very good actor," said Bruce slowly. "And as a wrestler he's very innovative--he comes up with all kinds of crazy moves and makes them work. But--" He broke off, grimacing. "I've seen him perform, and he's not the least bit funny at all."
: : :
Clark had expected someone a little more dramatic as the DCW costume designer, but Paul Gambi was a stolid, heavyset man with graying temples and squinting eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. "You're late," he said as Clark and Bruce came through the door. "We started without you."
"They're not going to change our costumes much," Scott said. "He suggested something with more skin for Barda, but..."
"...I convinced him otherwise," Barda said, smacking her fist into the palm of her other hand with some relish.
"Barda honey, someday you're going to learn that threatening to punch things doesn't solve every problem," said Selina.
"Only the problems worth solving," Barda said with a grin.
Gambi tapped the paper with a sketch of Selina in a purple dress and a green cape. "Back to business. So this one's no good?"
Selina grimaced. "It looks like what I started out in. No skirts, please." The next one had more leather, and she made a happy purring sound. "I was thinking about stealing a page from Harvey's book and playing a meek little secretary who has a second personality as a cat-themed dominatrix. What, it worked fine for you!" she snapped at Harvey's eyeroll. She turned back to Gambi. "Can you make it look more like something I pieced together from scraps of leather, something makeshift?"
Gambi looked thoughtful. "I can do that." He looked at her. "I'd go blond for that gimmick," he said. "Your natural hair looks too dangerous, too femme fatale."
Selina tossed her dark locks and smirked. "Flattery will get you everywhere."
After brainstorming more ideas for Selina, Gambi turned to Harvey. Unfortunately, Harvey turned out to have very particular ideas about costuming, and it began to seem likely his wrangling with Gambi was going to go on for some time. Bored, Clark found himself wandering among the racks of costumes like a maze, running his hands across the leather and lamé, admiring the jewel-bright tones and lush textures.
He pushed aside two sparkling costumes and found himself face to face with Dick Grayson.
"Oh!" Dick looked startled, then composed himself. "I was just, um, thinking about a possible new costume for my wrestling debut. Luthor said I could adapt my Flying Graysons costume to be a little more individual." He held up a piece of sequined green fabric. "What do you think?"
"Striking," said Clark, keeping his voice neutral.
"I know, right?" Dick beamed at the piece of fabric before putting it back with a sigh. "I'll always be a Grayson, but I want to be my own person, too. It's kind of tough, coming from a wrestling family, you know?"
"I can imagine, at least."
"I know it's a weird life for a kid, always traveling around, never staying in one place. But it's an amazing life, too." Dick ran his hand across the hangers of cloth, a dreamy look in his eyes.
"Your turn, Clark."
Dick jumped as Bruce came around the corner of a rack of clothes. "Mr. Wayne! Can--can I get your opinion about costumes?"
Clark could hear Dick describing his ideal costume to Bruce as he went back to talk to Gambi. It turned out to be an easy process: no overalls (thank God), and his singlet was replaced with jeans and a flannel shirt.
"Can the shirt be red and blue?" Clark asked, remembering various crude sketches done years ago by a boy in Kansas.
Gambi looked nearly depressed that so little was being asked of him. "I suppose," he sighed.
"--But Mr. Wayne!" Dick Grayson's querulous voice preceded him, "I don't see how just a few feathers would hurt. I mean, I've seen you come out in a huge feathered cape!"
"I'm a vanity heel, kid," said Bruce. "The sparkles and spangles and frippery are part of the act. You're a babyface, you can't go overboard."
"Watch me," muttered Dick, dropping a roll of scarlet cloth on Gambi's table. Gambi perked up visibly and began peppering him with questions.
"What a kid," sighed Bruce as they left the room. "Great ring instincts, more natural skill than most wrestlers could ever dream of having, but terrible fashion sense. You can bet if I didn't have this billionaire gimmick I'd be dressing in nothing but black."
"That would be a shame," Clark said. "Feathers suit you so well."
Bruce stopped in the middle of opening the common room door and gave him a glare that would probably have stopped other men in their tracks, but Clark just snickered as he pulled out his laptop and settled down on a ratty chair. He had barely opened his browser, however, when Lex Luthor swept into the room, followed by Mercy Graves and Jimmy Olsen, who was carrying three boxes so large only a shock of red hair appeared above them as he staggered along.
"New shirts!" crowed Oliver Queen, rubbing his hands together and joining the crowd gathering around the boxes.
Wielding a boxcutter with terrifying efficiency, Mercy opened the boxes to reveal heaps of brightly-colored cloth. Luthor tossed a bright green shirt to Queen, who spread it across his chest to reveal Green Arrow and Green Lantern posed dramatically, brandishing their fists. "Looking forward to seeing lots of green in the audience," he said with a smirk.
"We've also got the new 'Theory of Fear' shirts for Crane, and Wonder Woman's new shirt," Luthor said, extracting them.
Diana Prince caught the shirt out of the air with a finger and thumb and gazed upon it as if looking at a venomous insect. "Pink," she said. "Of course." She opened it up, her lip curled. "I still do not like this sparkly tiara logo."
"But you're an Amazon princess," said Luthor. "Come on, you don't want to reach out to girl fans?"
"I think there are ways that do not involve making them look like frosted cupcakes," Diana said.
"And I will make sure to test your ideas with focus groups," Luthor said cheerfully. "As I always do. And then we have the new JLI shirt," he said as Diana deposited her hot-pink shirt back in the box. He pulled out a black shirt with what looked like a spray-painted red "JLI" scrawled across it. "These'll go on sale tonight--right alongside the Wonder Woman shirts in the merchandise booths." He raised his eyebrows at the JLI wrestlers. "What do you think?"
Scott Free was nodding appreciatively, and Clark had to admit the logo looked great, but Bruce shook his head. "That's stupid."
Luthor's grin switched to a glower with no transition. "What?"
"Luthor, the storyline is we don't work for you," Bruce said. "We're rebel upstarts invading your promotion. How are we going to maintain that suspension of disbelief if you're selling our merch right alongside these pink monstrosities?"
"Fine," snarled Luthor. "You'd like me to box these up and not sell them until you officially sign with my promotion, at which point your angle will be over and they'll be out of date?"
"No," said Bruce, "I'd like you to give us the boxes and we'll sell them outside after the match from the back of a truck, as if we were trying to undermine your merchandising tables."
"That's--" Luthor closed his mouth. "You're right," he said ungraciously. "Jimmy, make sure they get their boxes of shirts right after the show."
"Yes sir," said Jimmy.
"And find them a beat-up truck they can use."
"Yes sir."
"And find the camera crew to shoot their fake security footage," Luthor said, turning his back on the wrestlers and walking off.
"Yes sir," repeated Jimmy, looking rather harassed.
Clark sat down again and opened up his computer. "Is he right about the pink shirts?" he asked Bruce, who had dropped and started doing push ups. "It seems limiting."
Bruce's face appeared in his field of vision, looking thoughtful, then disappeared again. "He's right in the short run," he said. "I'm sure merch for the female wrestlers sells better when it's all pink and sparkly. Focus groups of consumers will probably confirm that. Practical decision."
"But?" Clark prompted him, hearing the sentence's open ending.
"But," agreed Bruce, and Clark caught a glimpse of his scowling face. "But I think it would be wisest to look at the long run and start targeting female fans as fans, not as female. Women like Wonder Woman not just because she has a tiara and is a princess, it's because she can kick a guy's ass while wearing a tiara and being a princess." He started clapping his hands between each push-up, his biceps straining against the cotton shirt. "But Luthor didn't get where he is by ignoring short-term profits for the long view, I guess."
"Well, when we have our own promotion we'll do everything right," Clark said, laughing.
Bruce collapsed to the floor and rolled over on his back, looking up at Clark. "We will," he said. Then he sat up as Clark looked at a web page and groaned. "What is it?"
Clark swiveled the computer so he could see the web page. Clark Kent spotted in Metropolis, the headline across the top of the Wrestling Planet page ran. Several wrestlers from the now-defunct JLI promotion were seen in Metropolis last week, including Selina Kyle and Clark Kent, fueling rumors that Luthor's "shutdown" of the rival JLI may have led to the acquisition of several of its top wrestlers. Will the new wrestlers be renamed and repackaged? Billionaire Brucie still seems to have a lot of untapped possibilities, and no one ever went broke underestimating the appetite of a wrestling audience for women in leather, so I'd expect the Catwoman gimmick is here to stay. However, Kent is wasted as a bumpkin babyface. He's got a lot more potential than that, as recent Youtube videos of him (links below) have shown.
Intriguingly, Kent was picked up at the airport by "Billionaire" Bruce Wayne, slumming it in a baseball cap and sweatshirt. Do they get along backstage, or is this part of an upcoming angle?
"Oh God, she recognized you." Clark stared at his laptop as the other wrestlers milled around them.
"Good," said Bruce. "What?" he added at Clark's expression. "Having you show up at the airport was too obvious to even be news. Give her someone in disguise that she can ferret out and that's a scoop. The smarks will eat this up."
"Excuse me?" Jimmy Olsen cleared his throat, hesitant to interrupt. "We need to shoot that security camera footage for tonight, if you're ready." He glanced over at Clark's laptop and frowned. "Don't let Luthor catch you reading the Planet. He hates dirt sheets, and that one's the worst."
"It's true," Bruce said as Jimmy hurried away. He reached over and tapped the screen, pointing to a link on the sidebar: Sinestro demands better contract from Luthor. "That was a closed-door meeting, no one should have known about that. Luthor's sure there are leaks inside the DCW."
"Are there?"
Bruce raised an eyebrow at his expression. "Don't overestimate my guile, Clark. I've only been working here a couple of weeks, I don't have access to that kind of information." He gave the browser a speculative look. "I'd like to know who the leak was, though."
"And you think you can find out?"
Bruce reached over, brushed Clark's hand away from the mouse, and closed the browser. "Don't underestimate my guile either." He pulled the laptop cover down. "Now we'd better get ready to shoot our 'security camera footage,'" he said, making air quotes around the words. "Are you ready to be a shady character, skulking in the shadows and planning mayhem?" He looked at Clark's face. "It might be a bit of a stretch for you, Clark."
Clark punched him in the shoulder. "I can skulk," he said indignantly.
"I bet you a pizza that you're the worst skulker in our little JLI gang."
"You're on."
Two hours later, Clark owed everyone a pizza--upon review of the video, he had been forced to admit that when Big Barda skulked better than you did, you were a pathetic skulker indeed--but the footage was ready to go for the night's program.
The next stage of the counter-invasion was about to begin.
----
( Chapter 17: The Natural))
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Lex Luthor, Dick Grayson, Jimmy Olsen, Diana Prince, Selina Kyle, Barda Free, Scott Free, Harvey Dent, Mercy Graves
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3400
Summary: On the road once more, the former members of the JLI get new costumes and theme music and meet a wrestler with a problem.
Everyone fights for The Observer just to see if they’re in it. Sometimes you’re in it and sometimes you’re not. Sometimes you like what he writes and sometimes you don’t. But I think wrestlers realize it’s good to have someone speaking for you. --Bret Hart on "The Wrestling Observer," wrestling's pre-eminent dirt sheet
Clark stared as the tour bus door swung open and Selina peeked out of it and announced "Come on in, boys!"
"We get our own bus?" Clark went up the steps and peered in at the plush seats. Harvey Dent was already asleep in the back, while Scott and Barda Free were lost in conversation; they waved briefly to him and then went back to discussing suplex techniques.
"We can't travel on one of the official DCW buses yet," Bruce said from behind him. "So we get our own."
"Pretty posh," said Clark.
"Posh?" Selina made a scoffing sound. "Jordan flies first class to every venue. Now that's posh." She bounced on one of the cushioned seats. "I'm not complaining, though," she grinned.
Clark wasn't either, after the long days spent criss-crossing the Eastern seaboard in a beat-up car. He sat down, and Bruce took the seat across the aisle from him. The doors swung shut.
"Richmond, here we come," said Selina.
: : :
Clark woke from a light doze to the sound of Bruce and Harvey arguing vehemently about some esoteric point of ring psychology as they pulled into the back lot of the Richmond Convention Center. "Geez, give it a rest," grumbled Barda, pushing between them.
Inside, everything was a hum and bustle of activity. Mercy Graves met them at the door, a sheaf of papers in her hand. "Your schedule," she said without preamble, handing a piece of paper to each of them.
"Schedule?" Clark blinked down at the piece of paper, which had a precise timetable on it.
"Your first appointment is with music in ten minutes," she said. "Down the hall, left, right, third door on the right." She made a shooing motion with her free hand. "Go."
"Bit different from the JLI," Scott said, his eyebrows raised.
"Music?" said Clark.
"We each need a theme song," Selina said as they headed down the corridors. "They've got a contracted composer for that."
"You're kidding," Clark said, and Selina shrugged.
"Welcome to the big times."
The door opened to reveal a lanky young man with long strawberry-blond hair pulled back into a ponytail, wearing an improbable bottle-green suit and chewing on a pen as he stared down at a piece of sheet music. "You must be the new kids," he said, standing up and holding out his hand. There was a smudge of ink on his bottom lip. "Rathaway. Hartley Rathaway. Pleasure to meet you. Let's get to work." He flipped open his laptop and cracked his knuckles with a flourish. "New theme songs coming up." A quick glance at his notes and he looked at Clark. "So you're a hayseed face type?"
Clark winced. "Can we not use banjos?"
"Hayseed with no banjos, I dunno," Rathaway mused. "Doesn't seem natural. Can we compromise with fiddles and a jug band?" He tapped his keyboard and a cascade of wheeling strings and low-pitched tooting noises tumbled out. "Something loosely based on 'Turkey in the Straw'?"
Clark sighed and bowed to the inevitable. "I suppose electric guitars don't exactly fit."
Rathaway waved a hand in the air as he clicked around, and the sounds coalesced into something close to music. "Not a final version, of course. That'll take a week or two. Who's next, the billionaire?"
Bruce lifted his chin. "Yes?"
"Old money or new?"
"Old," said Bruce. "Quite, quite old."
Rathaway whistled under his breath, staring at his screen. "So you want something that sounds like you could play polo to it. Filthy rich and unashamed. Harpsichord?"
"Sounds divine," drawled Bruce, and Rathaway grinned.
"Easy peasy, I'll rip off some Scarlatti, maybe add just a bit of a techno beat in the middle to give it edge, and there you go!"
Everyone ended up happy with (or in Clark's case, resigned to) their new music: slinky saxophones and a go-go beat for Selina; straight-ahead power metal in complementary keys for Barda and Scott; and a weird battle between two electronic voices (demonic and angelic) for Harvey.
Rathaway glanced at their schedule as he worked on "Two-Face's Theme." "Costuming is next," he said, pointing toward the door. "Left, right, left, left."
"Everyone seems to know where everything is around here," Clark grumbled as they were shooed down the hall once more, dodging a cart full of lighting equipment. "I'm definitely going to run into something."
"You have to float like a butterfly," Bruce said, demonstrating by skipping sideways a step. "And sting like a--"
As they came around the corner, he collided with someone coming the other way.
"Ow," said Bruce, "Sorry."
The collidee, a skinny man with a tousled mop of dark curls perched upon a long, narrow face, stared at Bruce and then groaned. "It would have to be you," he muttered. "Of all the people to smack into, I'd choose the one who's costing me my gimmick. Just my luck."
"I'm--sorry?" Bruce looked taken aback at the man's vehemence. "Have we even met?" Barda gave him an impatient look, and he waved her on. "Go on without me, I'll catch up," he said.
Selina, Scott, Barda and Harvey moved down the hall, but Clark didn't leave Bruce's side. "Have you got a problem with Mr. Wayne?" he asked, crossing his arms, and Bruce shot him an exasperated look: I can take care of myself.
"It's nothing personal," said the man, running a hand through his curls and deranging them even further. "It's just Luthor's told me that with Billionaire Brucie on board, they don't need two comedy vanity heels. I told him that my gimmick's totally different--I'm a gangster, not a blueblood, it's a totally different style!"
Privately, Clark thought he'd met few people who made a less convincing gangster than the lanky, twitchy man, but he kept his mouth shut.
"I could change my gimmick," Bruce said. "I've been thinking about one based on something a little unusual, a theme of--"
"--No, no." The man looked uneasy. "I don't want Luthor hearing I'd complained to you. I can't--I'm just lucky to have work at all, really. I mean, my wife's going to have a baby soon, I can't afford to rock the boat. It's just..." He sighed. "Luthor doesn't really like comedy acts very much, he prefers his wrestlers--you know--buff and shiny, not--" He gestured down at his long, lean frame. "But I really think I have what it takes as a comedy heel if he'd just give me a push," he said. "Gentleman Jack's just starting to get over!"
"You're Gentleman Jack Napier?" Bruce narrowed his eyes and stared at him.
The man threw out his narrow chest. "Slap a fedora on me and I'm the smoothest--and funniest--criminal on the DCW roster!" He grinned slyly at Bruce. "You didn't recognize me, did you?"
Bruce shook his head slowly, then stuck out his hand. "Bruce Wayne. This is Clark Kent." Napier shook his hand as well, his long fingers wrapping around Clark's hand. "Good to meet you. You're a good actor."
Napier released Clark's hand and bowed deeply, his curly hair brushing the floor. "My thanks, kind usurper! But I jest," he said cheerfully as he straightened up again. "Don't take me seriously. I'm sure I'll land on my feet no matter what Luthor does with me from now. Fare thee well, my friends!" he announced, and wandered off whistling.
"If he's such a good actor, why is Luthor changing his gimmick?" Clark asked as they continued down the hall.
"Oh, he's a very good actor," said Bruce slowly. "And as a wrestler he's very innovative--he comes up with all kinds of crazy moves and makes them work. But--" He broke off, grimacing. "I've seen him perform, and he's not the least bit funny at all."
: : :
Clark had expected someone a little more dramatic as the DCW costume designer, but Paul Gambi was a stolid, heavyset man with graying temples and squinting eyes behind horn-rimmed glasses. "You're late," he said as Clark and Bruce came through the door. "We started without you."
"They're not going to change our costumes much," Scott said. "He suggested something with more skin for Barda, but..."
"...I convinced him otherwise," Barda said, smacking her fist into the palm of her other hand with some relish.
"Barda honey, someday you're going to learn that threatening to punch things doesn't solve every problem," said Selina.
"Only the problems worth solving," Barda said with a grin.
Gambi tapped the paper with a sketch of Selina in a purple dress and a green cape. "Back to business. So this one's no good?"
Selina grimaced. "It looks like what I started out in. No skirts, please." The next one had more leather, and she made a happy purring sound. "I was thinking about stealing a page from Harvey's book and playing a meek little secretary who has a second personality as a cat-themed dominatrix. What, it worked fine for you!" she snapped at Harvey's eyeroll. She turned back to Gambi. "Can you make it look more like something I pieced together from scraps of leather, something makeshift?"
Gambi looked thoughtful. "I can do that." He looked at her. "I'd go blond for that gimmick," he said. "Your natural hair looks too dangerous, too femme fatale."
Selina tossed her dark locks and smirked. "Flattery will get you everywhere."
After brainstorming more ideas for Selina, Gambi turned to Harvey. Unfortunately, Harvey turned out to have very particular ideas about costuming, and it began to seem likely his wrangling with Gambi was going to go on for some time. Bored, Clark found himself wandering among the racks of costumes like a maze, running his hands across the leather and lamé, admiring the jewel-bright tones and lush textures.
He pushed aside two sparkling costumes and found himself face to face with Dick Grayson.
"Oh!" Dick looked startled, then composed himself. "I was just, um, thinking about a possible new costume for my wrestling debut. Luthor said I could adapt my Flying Graysons costume to be a little more individual." He held up a piece of sequined green fabric. "What do you think?"
"Striking," said Clark, keeping his voice neutral.
"I know, right?" Dick beamed at the piece of fabric before putting it back with a sigh. "I'll always be a Grayson, but I want to be my own person, too. It's kind of tough, coming from a wrestling family, you know?"
"I can imagine, at least."
"I know it's a weird life for a kid, always traveling around, never staying in one place. But it's an amazing life, too." Dick ran his hand across the hangers of cloth, a dreamy look in his eyes.
"Your turn, Clark."
Dick jumped as Bruce came around the corner of a rack of clothes. "Mr. Wayne! Can--can I get your opinion about costumes?"
Clark could hear Dick describing his ideal costume to Bruce as he went back to talk to Gambi. It turned out to be an easy process: no overalls (thank God), and his singlet was replaced with jeans and a flannel shirt.
"Can the shirt be red and blue?" Clark asked, remembering various crude sketches done years ago by a boy in Kansas.
Gambi looked nearly depressed that so little was being asked of him. "I suppose," he sighed.
"--But Mr. Wayne!" Dick Grayson's querulous voice preceded him, "I don't see how just a few feathers would hurt. I mean, I've seen you come out in a huge feathered cape!"
"I'm a vanity heel, kid," said Bruce. "The sparkles and spangles and frippery are part of the act. You're a babyface, you can't go overboard."
"Watch me," muttered Dick, dropping a roll of scarlet cloth on Gambi's table. Gambi perked up visibly and began peppering him with questions.
"What a kid," sighed Bruce as they left the room. "Great ring instincts, more natural skill than most wrestlers could ever dream of having, but terrible fashion sense. You can bet if I didn't have this billionaire gimmick I'd be dressing in nothing but black."
"That would be a shame," Clark said. "Feathers suit you so well."
Bruce stopped in the middle of opening the common room door and gave him a glare that would probably have stopped other men in their tracks, but Clark just snickered as he pulled out his laptop and settled down on a ratty chair. He had barely opened his browser, however, when Lex Luthor swept into the room, followed by Mercy Graves and Jimmy Olsen, who was carrying three boxes so large only a shock of red hair appeared above them as he staggered along.
"New shirts!" crowed Oliver Queen, rubbing his hands together and joining the crowd gathering around the boxes.
Wielding a boxcutter with terrifying efficiency, Mercy opened the boxes to reveal heaps of brightly-colored cloth. Luthor tossed a bright green shirt to Queen, who spread it across his chest to reveal Green Arrow and Green Lantern posed dramatically, brandishing their fists. "Looking forward to seeing lots of green in the audience," he said with a smirk.
"We've also got the new 'Theory of Fear' shirts for Crane, and Wonder Woman's new shirt," Luthor said, extracting them.
Diana Prince caught the shirt out of the air with a finger and thumb and gazed upon it as if looking at a venomous insect. "Pink," she said. "Of course." She opened it up, her lip curled. "I still do not like this sparkly tiara logo."
"But you're an Amazon princess," said Luthor. "Come on, you don't want to reach out to girl fans?"
"I think there are ways that do not involve making them look like frosted cupcakes," Diana said.
"And I will make sure to test your ideas with focus groups," Luthor said cheerfully. "As I always do. And then we have the new JLI shirt," he said as Diana deposited her hot-pink shirt back in the box. He pulled out a black shirt with what looked like a spray-painted red "JLI" scrawled across it. "These'll go on sale tonight--right alongside the Wonder Woman shirts in the merchandise booths." He raised his eyebrows at the JLI wrestlers. "What do you think?"
Scott Free was nodding appreciatively, and Clark had to admit the logo looked great, but Bruce shook his head. "That's stupid."
Luthor's grin switched to a glower with no transition. "What?"
"Luthor, the storyline is we don't work for you," Bruce said. "We're rebel upstarts invading your promotion. How are we going to maintain that suspension of disbelief if you're selling our merch right alongside these pink monstrosities?"
"Fine," snarled Luthor. "You'd like me to box these up and not sell them until you officially sign with my promotion, at which point your angle will be over and they'll be out of date?"
"No," said Bruce, "I'd like you to give us the boxes and we'll sell them outside after the match from the back of a truck, as if we were trying to undermine your merchandising tables."
"That's--" Luthor closed his mouth. "You're right," he said ungraciously. "Jimmy, make sure they get their boxes of shirts right after the show."
"Yes sir," said Jimmy.
"And find them a beat-up truck they can use."
"Yes sir."
"And find the camera crew to shoot their fake security footage," Luthor said, turning his back on the wrestlers and walking off.
"Yes sir," repeated Jimmy, looking rather harassed.
Clark sat down again and opened up his computer. "Is he right about the pink shirts?" he asked Bruce, who had dropped and started doing push ups. "It seems limiting."
Bruce's face appeared in his field of vision, looking thoughtful, then disappeared again. "He's right in the short run," he said. "I'm sure merch for the female wrestlers sells better when it's all pink and sparkly. Focus groups of consumers will probably confirm that. Practical decision."
"But?" Clark prompted him, hearing the sentence's open ending.
"But," agreed Bruce, and Clark caught a glimpse of his scowling face. "But I think it would be wisest to look at the long run and start targeting female fans as fans, not as female. Women like Wonder Woman not just because she has a tiara and is a princess, it's because she can kick a guy's ass while wearing a tiara and being a princess." He started clapping his hands between each push-up, his biceps straining against the cotton shirt. "But Luthor didn't get where he is by ignoring short-term profits for the long view, I guess."
"Well, when we have our own promotion we'll do everything right," Clark said, laughing.
Bruce collapsed to the floor and rolled over on his back, looking up at Clark. "We will," he said. Then he sat up as Clark looked at a web page and groaned. "What is it?"
Clark swiveled the computer so he could see the web page. Clark Kent spotted in Metropolis, the headline across the top of the Wrestling Planet page ran. Several wrestlers from the now-defunct JLI promotion were seen in Metropolis last week, including Selina Kyle and Clark Kent, fueling rumors that Luthor's "shutdown" of the rival JLI may have led to the acquisition of several of its top wrestlers. Will the new wrestlers be renamed and repackaged? Billionaire Brucie still seems to have a lot of untapped possibilities, and no one ever went broke underestimating the appetite of a wrestling audience for women in leather, so I'd expect the Catwoman gimmick is here to stay. However, Kent is wasted as a bumpkin babyface. He's got a lot more potential than that, as recent Youtube videos of him (links below) have shown.
Intriguingly, Kent was picked up at the airport by "Billionaire" Bruce Wayne, slumming it in a baseball cap and sweatshirt. Do they get along backstage, or is this part of an upcoming angle?
"Oh God, she recognized you." Clark stared at his laptop as the other wrestlers milled around them.
"Good," said Bruce. "What?" he added at Clark's expression. "Having you show up at the airport was too obvious to even be news. Give her someone in disguise that she can ferret out and that's a scoop. The smarks will eat this up."
"Excuse me?" Jimmy Olsen cleared his throat, hesitant to interrupt. "We need to shoot that security camera footage for tonight, if you're ready." He glanced over at Clark's laptop and frowned. "Don't let Luthor catch you reading the Planet. He hates dirt sheets, and that one's the worst."
"It's true," Bruce said as Jimmy hurried away. He reached over and tapped the screen, pointing to a link on the sidebar: Sinestro demands better contract from Luthor. "That was a closed-door meeting, no one should have known about that. Luthor's sure there are leaks inside the DCW."
"Are there?"
Bruce raised an eyebrow at his expression. "Don't overestimate my guile, Clark. I've only been working here a couple of weeks, I don't have access to that kind of information." He gave the browser a speculative look. "I'd like to know who the leak was, though."
"And you think you can find out?"
Bruce reached over, brushed Clark's hand away from the mouse, and closed the browser. "Don't underestimate my guile either." He pulled the laptop cover down. "Now we'd better get ready to shoot our 'security camera footage,'" he said, making air quotes around the words. "Are you ready to be a shady character, skulking in the shadows and planning mayhem?" He looked at Clark's face. "It might be a bit of a stretch for you, Clark."
Clark punched him in the shoulder. "I can skulk," he said indignantly.
"I bet you a pizza that you're the worst skulker in our little JLI gang."
"You're on."
Two hours later, Clark owed everyone a pizza--upon review of the video, he had been forced to admit that when Big Barda skulked better than you did, you were a pathetic skulker indeed--but the footage was ready to go for the night's program.
The next stage of the counter-invasion was about to begin.
----
( Chapter 17: The Natural))