Heroes of the Squared Circle 27: All it Takes is One Bad Match
Title: All it Takes is One Bad Match
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Brainiac, Jean-Paul Valley, Lex Luthor, Joker, El Dragon
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 2300
Summary: Clark works on perfecting the Kryptonian gimmick, El Murciélago gets over big in Japan, and Jack Napier has a very bad match.
You have to establish a heel character the second you walk through the curtain. You have to want people to hate you. They should be throwing shit at you. Then when you step in the ring and the good guy across from you hits you and knocks you on your ass, the roof blows off. And that good guy, that babyface, is truly a good guy. And they buy his merchandise. The audience is living vicariously through him. --Eric Bischoff
"I will defeat you, Kryptonian!" announced El Dragón, pointing dramatically. "I will beat you in a fight!"
The Kryptonian narrowed his eyes, moving forward. From his spotlit position on the ramp, Brainiac threw up his hands and spoke: "The Kryptonian informs me that you are beneath his notice! He will crush you without a second glance!"
"You are a cruel man," said El Dragón. "You are a bad person who likes to hurt other people. I hope I will stop you. I wish and believe that I will stop you."
"The Kryptonian is your superior!" yelled Brainiac. "The Kryptonian is a person who is better than--arrrgh, now you've got me doing it too."
Laughter rippled around the arena as the bell rang and El Dragón dodged a vicious punch from the Kryptonian, ducking underneath him. He lost eventually, but he put up a good fight, and by the end of it the crowd was roaring its approval of the luchador in gold and blue.
"My own shirt!" Backstage, Miguel waved his brand new t-shirt at Clark. "And I've got an offer to help make an educational kid's book! I never thought my gimmick would take off." He clapped Clark on the back. "And I've got the Kryptonian to thank."
Clark made a dismissive noise. "With your moves? You'd have made it anyway. But if I made it happen a little faster, I'm happy." He grinned at Miguel. "I'm feeling a positive emotion."
Miguel rolled his eyes. "Don't steal my gimmick, man."
El Dragón was over big--the lovable didactic loser who never gave up against the alien menace--and the Kryptonian was moved into a feud with Hawkman. Their in-ring chemistry was good, although he and Carter Hall would certainly never be friends outside the ring, and soon the two of them were wrestling in main-event matches. The Kryptonian's heat grew, until at the moment when all the lights went out before his appearance arenas would erupt in boos that nearly drowned out his entrance music.
All it took to get a crowd behind a babyface was to put him up against the Kryptonian--not many were booked to win against him, but even putting in a good fight was enough to make the audience love him. Milton Fine as Brainiac continued to goad the crowd with pronouncements "beamed into his mind" from the Kryptonian, and Clark learned that having speaking lines wasn't the only way to get your character across. He mastered the disdainful eyebrow, the lofty sneer, the remote glare. He stalked, he prowled, he loomed.
It wasn't fun, but it was satisfying, and he was helping a lot of wrestlers get over with the fans.
Meanwhile, El Murciélago and Robin were becoming a sensation in Japan, where their innovative moves and agility made technical purists swoon. One day, a grinning Selina showed him a pro wrestling column: "The Kryptonian Versus El Murciélago: Who Would Win?"
"The comments are running four to one in favor of El Murciélago," she informed him when he gave her an incredulous look.
"They are aware that this is all scripted, right? That who wins has nothing to do with strength or skill and everything to do with what the booker needs for the storyline?"
"They appear to enjoy arguing about it anyway," Selina smirked.
"Everyone here seems to know that El Murciélago is really Billionaire Brucie," he said, scrolling.
"Yep, and they know he'll be back in the DCW eventually. There's a lot of enthusiasm for an angle between the two of you."
"Interesting," said Clark, skimming past some photos of El Murciélago posing with Zatanna on his arm.
"I hope he'll be back soon," Selina said wistfully. "I miss teasing him--the cute little way he stares expressionlessly at you when you make a joke--you remember that one?"
"Oh yes," said Clark, remembering that look. Remembering the rare times he did laugh. "I remember it well."
"Sorry about that," said Jean-Paul Valley as they undressed in the locker room after their first match together.
Clark winced as he peeled his bodysuit back, looking down at the purpling skin. "You sure don't pull your punches, do you?" He'd heard wrestlers complaining about Valley's stiff fighting style, but he'd never encountered it in the flesh--so to speak.
Jean-Paul pulled off his face mask and flung it into his locker, almost angrily. "I said I was sorry," he snapped. Then he grimaced at Clark, a chagrined rictus. "My father--he trained all of us to fight like that. To hurt others in the ring." His voice had dropped, and he sounded very young. "I've spent years trying to be better, but sometimes when I put on this damned costume, it's as if I can hear his voice in my ear, telling me that I'm worthless, that I must prove myself, be more than a man--"
"--Hey. It's all right," said Clark. Jean-Paul's hands were shaking. "You do great, you're fantastic. It's just a bruise, see?" He poked at his darkening flesh. "It's not a mortal wound or anything."
Jean-Paul nodded stiffly. "Thank you," he said, and disappeared into the shower, leaving Clark to remember how grateful he was that he didn't grow up in a wrestling family.
"Come on, Lex, you're killing me," whined Jack Napier, running his hands through his unruly curls. "Let me crack one joke--just one!"
"Red Hood is a non-speaking monster," Luthor said. "He's been in the promotion for decades, and that only works if he doesn't speak." He pointed at Clark. "Kent here hasn't said a word on the mic since he became a heel, and he's one of our biggest draws."
Clark shrugged as Napier glared at him.
"He's not funny," said Napier. "He's just a big slab of beef in a black leotard! I'm a comedian, telling jokes is who I am. I can't be funny stuck under a helmet and not talking!"
Luthor gave him one of his best icy looks. "Then maybe you're not as much of a comedian as you think you are." He picked up the red helmet and tossed it to Napier. "You've got a promo with Azrael. Get ready."
Napier waited until the door closed behind Luthor. Then he hurled the helmet against the bank of lockers, making everyone jump.
"I don't like this promo either," Jean-Paul said.
"Are you kidding?" Oliver Queen was all smiles. "Any promo that ends with the heel getting chocolate pudding dumped all over them is a good promo in my book. I should think you'd be thrilled, Napier--that's comedy for you."
"That's not comedy, that's just vaudeville," complained Napier. "Crass slapstick, juvenile humor! There's nothing funny about that at all. Also, I hate chocolate pudding."
"Red Hood has terrorized various wrestlers for months now. The storyline calls for the defeat and humiliation of the heel," Azrael said. "I would have preferred a different approach, but the decision is not ours, Napier." He pulled on his mask. "Let us go out and face the crowds."
Napier picked up the helmet. He flashed the locker room a smile, but it was closer to a rictus grin, miserable and stiff. "I don't know how much longer I can take this," he said.
But he put on the helmet and headed out.
The promo between Red Hood and Azrael became legendary, known as one of the greatest breakings of kayfabe ever (at least until the Gotham Screwjob). It started smoothly enough, with Azrael facing down Red Hood and making pronouncements about how the Wicked Would be Punished, how Vengeance Would Fall From the Heavens. Meanwhile, a giggling Catwoman and Poison Ivy were shown setting up the prank--and when Azrael reached the height of his oratory, about ten gallons of sticky, viscous brown material plopped down on Red Hood.
It was pudding, but it resembled other gloppy brown fluids enough to send the audience into spasms of delight as it slopped over Red Hood and ran down his helmet. Wild ripples of laughter ran through the arena. When Red Hood tried to strike a dramatic pose, pointing at Azrael, and a belated blorp of pudding landed squarely on his head, the laughter rose to drown out everything.
Clark could see Red Hood's hands shaking. "Hey," he said, worried. "I think Napier's having some trouble out there."
"But everyone's finally laughing," said Green Lantern.
"Not the way he wants," Clark said, grimacing.
Red Hood took a step forward--and his feet slipped out from under him, sending him crashing to the mat. For a long while the announcers couldn't even be heard over the shrieks of hilarity.
And then Red Hood reached up and wrenched the helmet from his head.
"That's what's funny?" he screamed, his voice barely intelligible over the crowd. He threw down the helmet and it bounced off the mat, ricocheting into the audience. "Cretins! Imbiciles! Philistines!"
"Holy crap," breathed Billy Batson, staring at the screen. "He's destroyed the Red Hood gimmick. Luthor's gonna kill him."
Napier was raving at the crowd, which was dying down into confused murmurs. "I will no longer cater to you stunted mouth-breathers! I am greater than you can possibly imagine in your petty, gray, mundane dreams!" He was very pale and his eyes were blazing, his mouth working with fury. The audience started to fall into an uneasy silence. People in the audience were looking at each other, uncertain. Spittle sprayed from Napier's mouth as his transcendent tirade continued: "You ignore the brilliance of the true artist while laughing at this pathetic, coarse, lowest-denominator--"
A final delayed torrent of brown pudding splatted into his curls and the audience was gone again, exploding into laughter.
Napier's face contorted in incandescent rage. "Ingrates!" he howled. "Wretches! Poltroons!" He bent down and started flinging handfuls of pudding at the audience, which only increased the chaos.
Azrael was still standing, clearly unsure what to do. The referee scrambled close to Azrael and whispered something to him. Azrael nodded, then moved forward and grabbed Napier in an arm wrench, leaning close to mutter in his ear as well.
Napier went limp as Azrael lifted him into a fireman's carry and slammed him to the pudding-stained mat.
"My God," said Oliver Queen as the medical staff hustled Napier off on a stretcher and the announcers hastily discussed what it might mean that Red Hood had snapped so dramatically, "I've never seen anything like that."
The common room buzzed with speculation at what this might mean for Napier: breaking kayfabe to this extent was unheard of. Wrestlers had lost their jobs for less. The Red Hood gimmick might be saved, but it was going to take a huge amount of work. Did this mean that--
The conversations fell silent as Napier stormed into the common room, his hair still sticky with pudding, fury charging his every movement. "That lout might have killed me, slamming me like that with practically no warning!" he raved.
"I told him to do it," Lex Luthor's cold voice cut him off. Everyone turned to see Luthor standing in the doorway, his arms folded. "I sent the message to the ref, who handed it on to Valley. Your ridiculous, self-indulgent little tirade needed to be stopped."
"Ridic--Self-in--" Napier gasped and choked on his outrage. "Did you hear them?"
"I did indeed," said Luthor. "And I know that in all your time here at the DCW, you have never been able to evoke that kind of reaction. You're a pathetic excuse for a wrestler, Napier. You're not a comedian--you're a clown."
As Napier gaped at him, Luthor smiled. The wrestlers standing closest to him edged away from him.
"That's right. A clown. And since the Red Hood gimmick is clearly over, I think we'll make you a clown indeed. That will be your next gimmick, Napier--green hair, greasepaint, a big red smiling mouth. Something to make the kiddies laugh."
He turned and left the common room, leaving Napier standing in sticky, chocolate-covered shock. His hands were shaking again, his mouth working. Everyone stared in nervous silence.
And then a voice came from the back door.
"Actually, I think you're on to something." Bruce Wayne strolled into the room, ignoring everyone swiveling to stare at him in turn as he spoke to Napier. "There was a real core of darkness there, a really authentic, scary thing. Did you see the audience? They were seriously unnerved. You freaked them out, Napier." He was nodding. "I think you've got something great there."
"I--I have?" Napier sounded uncertain. "Maybe I do," he said slowly. "You know--yes, maybe I do!" He nodded a few times, very quickly. "That's a whole different kind of funny, isn't it? Like, the whole thing is a huge joke--on everyone! Yes, yes, I'll have to think about this…" His voice trailed off as he wandered out of the room, muttering to himself and leaving a trail of squishy brown footprints behind him.
People crowded around Bruce, clapping him on the back and asking questions, but he shook them off and and went over to where Clark was sitting, staring at him.
"Hi. I'm back," he said, and held out his hand.
---
(Chapter 28: Submission Holds)
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Brainiac, Jean-Paul Valley, Lex Luthor, Joker, El Dragon
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 2300
Summary: Clark works on perfecting the Kryptonian gimmick, El Murciélago gets over big in Japan, and Jack Napier has a very bad match.
You have to establish a heel character the second you walk through the curtain. You have to want people to hate you. They should be throwing shit at you. Then when you step in the ring and the good guy across from you hits you and knocks you on your ass, the roof blows off. And that good guy, that babyface, is truly a good guy. And they buy his merchandise. The audience is living vicariously through him. --Eric Bischoff
"I will defeat you, Kryptonian!" announced El Dragón, pointing dramatically. "I will beat you in a fight!"
The Kryptonian narrowed his eyes, moving forward. From his spotlit position on the ramp, Brainiac threw up his hands and spoke: "The Kryptonian informs me that you are beneath his notice! He will crush you without a second glance!"
"You are a cruel man," said El Dragón. "You are a bad person who likes to hurt other people. I hope I will stop you. I wish and believe that I will stop you."
"The Kryptonian is your superior!" yelled Brainiac. "The Kryptonian is a person who is better than--arrrgh, now you've got me doing it too."
Laughter rippled around the arena as the bell rang and El Dragón dodged a vicious punch from the Kryptonian, ducking underneath him. He lost eventually, but he put up a good fight, and by the end of it the crowd was roaring its approval of the luchador in gold and blue.
"My own shirt!" Backstage, Miguel waved his brand new t-shirt at Clark. "And I've got an offer to help make an educational kid's book! I never thought my gimmick would take off." He clapped Clark on the back. "And I've got the Kryptonian to thank."
Clark made a dismissive noise. "With your moves? You'd have made it anyway. But if I made it happen a little faster, I'm happy." He grinned at Miguel. "I'm feeling a positive emotion."
Miguel rolled his eyes. "Don't steal my gimmick, man."
El Dragón was over big--the lovable didactic loser who never gave up against the alien menace--and the Kryptonian was moved into a feud with Hawkman. Their in-ring chemistry was good, although he and Carter Hall would certainly never be friends outside the ring, and soon the two of them were wrestling in main-event matches. The Kryptonian's heat grew, until at the moment when all the lights went out before his appearance arenas would erupt in boos that nearly drowned out his entrance music.
All it took to get a crowd behind a babyface was to put him up against the Kryptonian--not many were booked to win against him, but even putting in a good fight was enough to make the audience love him. Milton Fine as Brainiac continued to goad the crowd with pronouncements "beamed into his mind" from the Kryptonian, and Clark learned that having speaking lines wasn't the only way to get your character across. He mastered the disdainful eyebrow, the lofty sneer, the remote glare. He stalked, he prowled, he loomed.
It wasn't fun, but it was satisfying, and he was helping a lot of wrestlers get over with the fans.
Meanwhile, El Murciélago and Robin were becoming a sensation in Japan, where their innovative moves and agility made technical purists swoon. One day, a grinning Selina showed him a pro wrestling column: "The Kryptonian Versus El Murciélago: Who Would Win?"
"The comments are running four to one in favor of El Murciélago," she informed him when he gave her an incredulous look.
"They are aware that this is all scripted, right? That who wins has nothing to do with strength or skill and everything to do with what the booker needs for the storyline?"
"They appear to enjoy arguing about it anyway," Selina smirked.
"Everyone here seems to know that El Murciélago is really Billionaire Brucie," he said, scrolling.
"Yep, and they know he'll be back in the DCW eventually. There's a lot of enthusiasm for an angle between the two of you."
"Interesting," said Clark, skimming past some photos of El Murciélago posing with Zatanna on his arm.
"I hope he'll be back soon," Selina said wistfully. "I miss teasing him--the cute little way he stares expressionlessly at you when you make a joke--you remember that one?"
"Oh yes," said Clark, remembering that look. Remembering the rare times he did laugh. "I remember it well."
"Sorry about that," said Jean-Paul Valley as they undressed in the locker room after their first match together.
Clark winced as he peeled his bodysuit back, looking down at the purpling skin. "You sure don't pull your punches, do you?" He'd heard wrestlers complaining about Valley's stiff fighting style, but he'd never encountered it in the flesh--so to speak.
Jean-Paul pulled off his face mask and flung it into his locker, almost angrily. "I said I was sorry," he snapped. Then he grimaced at Clark, a chagrined rictus. "My father--he trained all of us to fight like that. To hurt others in the ring." His voice had dropped, and he sounded very young. "I've spent years trying to be better, but sometimes when I put on this damned costume, it's as if I can hear his voice in my ear, telling me that I'm worthless, that I must prove myself, be more than a man--"
"--Hey. It's all right," said Clark. Jean-Paul's hands were shaking. "You do great, you're fantastic. It's just a bruise, see?" He poked at his darkening flesh. "It's not a mortal wound or anything."
Jean-Paul nodded stiffly. "Thank you," he said, and disappeared into the shower, leaving Clark to remember how grateful he was that he didn't grow up in a wrestling family.
"Come on, Lex, you're killing me," whined Jack Napier, running his hands through his unruly curls. "Let me crack one joke--just one!"
"Red Hood is a non-speaking monster," Luthor said. "He's been in the promotion for decades, and that only works if he doesn't speak." He pointed at Clark. "Kent here hasn't said a word on the mic since he became a heel, and he's one of our biggest draws."
Clark shrugged as Napier glared at him.
"He's not funny," said Napier. "He's just a big slab of beef in a black leotard! I'm a comedian, telling jokes is who I am. I can't be funny stuck under a helmet and not talking!"
Luthor gave him one of his best icy looks. "Then maybe you're not as much of a comedian as you think you are." He picked up the red helmet and tossed it to Napier. "You've got a promo with Azrael. Get ready."
Napier waited until the door closed behind Luthor. Then he hurled the helmet against the bank of lockers, making everyone jump.
"I don't like this promo either," Jean-Paul said.
"Are you kidding?" Oliver Queen was all smiles. "Any promo that ends with the heel getting chocolate pudding dumped all over them is a good promo in my book. I should think you'd be thrilled, Napier--that's comedy for you."
"That's not comedy, that's just vaudeville," complained Napier. "Crass slapstick, juvenile humor! There's nothing funny about that at all. Also, I hate chocolate pudding."
"Red Hood has terrorized various wrestlers for months now. The storyline calls for the defeat and humiliation of the heel," Azrael said. "I would have preferred a different approach, but the decision is not ours, Napier." He pulled on his mask. "Let us go out and face the crowds."
Napier picked up the helmet. He flashed the locker room a smile, but it was closer to a rictus grin, miserable and stiff. "I don't know how much longer I can take this," he said.
But he put on the helmet and headed out.
The promo between Red Hood and Azrael became legendary, known as one of the greatest breakings of kayfabe ever (at least until the Gotham Screwjob). It started smoothly enough, with Azrael facing down Red Hood and making pronouncements about how the Wicked Would be Punished, how Vengeance Would Fall From the Heavens. Meanwhile, a giggling Catwoman and Poison Ivy were shown setting up the prank--and when Azrael reached the height of his oratory, about ten gallons of sticky, viscous brown material plopped down on Red Hood.
It was pudding, but it resembled other gloppy brown fluids enough to send the audience into spasms of delight as it slopped over Red Hood and ran down his helmet. Wild ripples of laughter ran through the arena. When Red Hood tried to strike a dramatic pose, pointing at Azrael, and a belated blorp of pudding landed squarely on his head, the laughter rose to drown out everything.
Clark could see Red Hood's hands shaking. "Hey," he said, worried. "I think Napier's having some trouble out there."
"But everyone's finally laughing," said Green Lantern.
"Not the way he wants," Clark said, grimacing.
Red Hood took a step forward--and his feet slipped out from under him, sending him crashing to the mat. For a long while the announcers couldn't even be heard over the shrieks of hilarity.
And then Red Hood reached up and wrenched the helmet from his head.
"That's what's funny?" he screamed, his voice barely intelligible over the crowd. He threw down the helmet and it bounced off the mat, ricocheting into the audience. "Cretins! Imbiciles! Philistines!"
"Holy crap," breathed Billy Batson, staring at the screen. "He's destroyed the Red Hood gimmick. Luthor's gonna kill him."
Napier was raving at the crowd, which was dying down into confused murmurs. "I will no longer cater to you stunted mouth-breathers! I am greater than you can possibly imagine in your petty, gray, mundane dreams!" He was very pale and his eyes were blazing, his mouth working with fury. The audience started to fall into an uneasy silence. People in the audience were looking at each other, uncertain. Spittle sprayed from Napier's mouth as his transcendent tirade continued: "You ignore the brilliance of the true artist while laughing at this pathetic, coarse, lowest-denominator--"
A final delayed torrent of brown pudding splatted into his curls and the audience was gone again, exploding into laughter.
Napier's face contorted in incandescent rage. "Ingrates!" he howled. "Wretches! Poltroons!" He bent down and started flinging handfuls of pudding at the audience, which only increased the chaos.
Azrael was still standing, clearly unsure what to do. The referee scrambled close to Azrael and whispered something to him. Azrael nodded, then moved forward and grabbed Napier in an arm wrench, leaning close to mutter in his ear as well.
Napier went limp as Azrael lifted him into a fireman's carry and slammed him to the pudding-stained mat.
"My God," said Oliver Queen as the medical staff hustled Napier off on a stretcher and the announcers hastily discussed what it might mean that Red Hood had snapped so dramatically, "I've never seen anything like that."
The common room buzzed with speculation at what this might mean for Napier: breaking kayfabe to this extent was unheard of. Wrestlers had lost their jobs for less. The Red Hood gimmick might be saved, but it was going to take a huge amount of work. Did this mean that--
The conversations fell silent as Napier stormed into the common room, his hair still sticky with pudding, fury charging his every movement. "That lout might have killed me, slamming me like that with practically no warning!" he raved.
"I told him to do it," Lex Luthor's cold voice cut him off. Everyone turned to see Luthor standing in the doorway, his arms folded. "I sent the message to the ref, who handed it on to Valley. Your ridiculous, self-indulgent little tirade needed to be stopped."
"Ridic--Self-in--" Napier gasped and choked on his outrage. "Did you hear them?"
"I did indeed," said Luthor. "And I know that in all your time here at the DCW, you have never been able to evoke that kind of reaction. You're a pathetic excuse for a wrestler, Napier. You're not a comedian--you're a clown."
As Napier gaped at him, Luthor smiled. The wrestlers standing closest to him edged away from him.
"That's right. A clown. And since the Red Hood gimmick is clearly over, I think we'll make you a clown indeed. That will be your next gimmick, Napier--green hair, greasepaint, a big red smiling mouth. Something to make the kiddies laugh."
He turned and left the common room, leaving Napier standing in sticky, chocolate-covered shock. His hands were shaking again, his mouth working. Everyone stared in nervous silence.
And then a voice came from the back door.
"Actually, I think you're on to something." Bruce Wayne strolled into the room, ignoring everyone swiveling to stare at him in turn as he spoke to Napier. "There was a real core of darkness there, a really authentic, scary thing. Did you see the audience? They were seriously unnerved. You freaked them out, Napier." He was nodding. "I think you've got something great there."
"I--I have?" Napier sounded uncertain. "Maybe I do," he said slowly. "You know--yes, maybe I do!" He nodded a few times, very quickly. "That's a whole different kind of funny, isn't it? Like, the whole thing is a huge joke--on everyone! Yes, yes, I'll have to think about this…" His voice trailed off as he wandered out of the room, muttering to himself and leaving a trail of squishy brown footprints behind him.
People crowded around Bruce, clapping him on the back and asking questions, but he shook them off and and went over to where Clark was sitting, staring at him.
"Hi. I'm back," he said, and held out his hand.
---
(Chapter 28: Submission Holds)