Heroes of the Squared Circle 31: Operation: Double Identity
Title: Operation: Double Identity
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Joker, Selina Kyle, Harley Quinn, Pamela Isley, Wonder Woman
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 1900
Summary: The Kryptonian and the Dark Knight are having the feud of their careers, but Bruce fears the fans are getting complacent.
It’s the ability to masturbate people’s emotions, to take them on a ride they can’t get anywhere else. When you can put one or a hundred or a thousand people in the palm of your hand, and make them either love you or hate you, want to put you on their shoulders and carry you out and take you home with them, or kill you in a matter of moments ― my friend, that’s an unbelievable thrill. And when you can look at a child and he’s happy and smiling and you see a sparkle in his eye, that’s great. When you look at the grandmother ready to stab you with a damn pen knife ‘cause she’s pissed at you, you got to love it --Jake "The Snake" Roberts
A well-timed breeze ruffled Dick Grayson's hair dramatically as he gazed out across the jungles of Mexico. "I came here to find myself," he said in voiceover, "But all I find is more questions. So much more I need to learn before I can return home."
The camera pulled back to reveal him standing at the top of Chichen-Itza. Slowly he turned and began to jog down the steps once more, as if a heavy weight were on his shoulders.
"Kid does good promos," said Oliver Queen as the screen on the locker-room wall switched back to the arena and the next match.
"Don't call him kid," snapped Bruce, turning over the postcard in his hand.
"Is that from Mexico?" Clark asked as Ollie rolled his eyes and muttered something about overprotective mentors under his breath.
Bruce held it up to show the bustling cityscape with "Ciudad de Mexico" written across it. "He writes that he loves Mexico--just like he loved Germany, and Denmark, and Poland. He had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends."
"Just like everywhere else," said Clark, and Bruce flashed him a quick smile.
"Just like everywhere else," he agreed. "And he says he misses us all."
A general chorus of "awwwww"s echoed through the locker room: a few sarcastic, most not. Bruce was about to add something when the door burst open and Selina, Ivy, and Harley charged into the locker room, giggling and carrying aloft Wonder Woman's glittering golden lasso like a trophy.
"Hey!" yelled Joker, scrambling for a towel along with a few of the other men. "A little privacy here?"
Harley stopped and kissed him on the cheek. "You're so cute when you think we care about your pale dangly bits," she cooed. "I love you for your twisted mind, Pudding!" She and Ivy collapsed laughing into each others' arms; meanwhile, Selina was looking for somewhere to hide the lasso as sounds from the hall made clear someone very angry was making their way toward the locker room. At the last second she looped it around Clark's neck, just as the door burst open and Wonder Woman descended like a valkyrie into the men's locker room, causing further fluttering scrambling among the male wrestlers.
Selina, Ivy, and Harley all pointed at Clark with elaborately innocent looks on their faces. Diana held out her hand, tapping her foot.
"I cannot tell a lie," said Clark, unwinding the lasso from around his neck. "It was them."
"Traitor!" yelled Selina, and they bolted from the room, shrieking with laughter.
Diana sighed and sat down next to Clark and Bruce--the shyer male wrestlers having long retreated to the showers, the rest shrugging and going about their business. "I've never known anyone to be so addicted to pranks and ribs as those three," she said.
"They've got good chemistry," said Bruce absently, frowning at his screen. "I hear Luthor is looking to bring a few new wrestlers up from development to put in an angle against them, since you and Barda are already in that angle against the Furies."
"Well, it better be someone with a very good sense of humor," said Diana, rolling her eyes. "Did you hear they convinced a female fan to flirt with the Prankster and take him home 'for a good time,' and then she pretended her husband had come home with a shotgun?"
"Did I hear about it?" said Clark. "I'm unlikely to forgot the email titled 'The Prankster Pranked!' with pictures of him jumping out the window in his underwear."
The corners of Diana's mouth twitched, very slightly. "I admit it has cooled his ardor for propositioning young fans," she said.
Bruce made a growling noise, still glaring at the laptop. "Unacceptable," he snapped, clearly distracted. "We have to do something about these smarks. Look at this."
"You shouldn't even pay attention to these people," said Diana as he swiveled the computer so they could see the screen.
"They're my audience, I have to keep them on their toes," said Bruce. "See? They think they've got everything figured out, they know the Dark Knight used to be Billionaire Brucie, they know the Kryptonian is Clark Kent. We have to shake it up."
"It's not like it's that hard to figure out," Clark said.
"It's the attitude. They're so smug about it," muttered Bruce. "Look at this one--he calls himself Mr. Sarcastic, what a ridiculous name--this kid thinks he knows everything, posts these crazy in-depth videos analyzing all of our matches to death, picking every move apart."
"Dangerously obsessive behavior," Diana agreed solemnly, her eyes dancing.
"Doesn't sound like anyone we know at all," Clark added.
Bruce rolled his eyes. "That's my job. I have to understand everything, so I can help the audience suspend disbelief. This kid doesn't have any disbelief to suspend," he said, glaring at Mr. Sarcastic's profile as if personally aggrieved. "Wise guy."
"So what's your plan?" said Diana.
Bruce's smile was a small thing compared to Harley and Ivy's whoops of laughter, but no less mischievous. "I still need to run it by Luthor and the bookers, but here it is," he said.
Three dark heads leaned close together and soon Diana's pleased gurgles of laughter were causing more than one wrestler to look over at them curiously.
"Mr. Knight! Mr. Knight! Uh, can I call you 'Dark'? No?" Jimmy looked nervous as the Dark Knight turned slowly away from the retreating Kryptonian (an inconclusive staredown having just finished) to face him, his eyes gleaming behind the dark cowl, his form wrapped once more in his vast black cape. "First off, thank you so much for taking time off from your, uh, busy schedule to talk with us."
The Dark Knight inclined his head.
"I know you're, uh, a man of few words. But what are your thoughts on your recent set of clashes with the Kryptonian?"
Backstage, Clark removed his red contacts with the unconscious ease of long practice and listened as the Dark Knight spoke his first words in the DCW since his cruel dismissal of Robin. The Dark Knight looked around the darkened Gotham arena for a long time before speaking, and when he did his voice was a low growl that still managed to reach everyone in the audience clearly:
"I am here for justice."
A long beat, in which the Gotham audience went even stiller to listen.
"I am here to right wrongs, to fight for the helpless. These bright lights--" He gestured up at the spotlights on them, "--Only serve to make the shadowed souls of the guilty clearer to my eyes. You can love me for that, or you can hate me. It's all the same to me. I live for the battle, I live for the Mission, and nothing else."
Clark smiled slightly, savoring the words. Bruce had run the speech by him a few times, of course, but it was always a little different each time.
"As for the Kryptonian, as long as he tyrannizes the weak and preys on the vulnerable, I shall stand in his way, I shall never cease to oppose him. Yet I suspect…" The Dark Knight paused for just an instant, "I suspect that there is more going on than we have yet seen."
Now Clark blinked. This hadn't been in any of the versions Bruce had let him hear.
"I believe there are forces at work that we do not fully understand," said the Dark Knight to a bewildered Jimmy. "And I will not rest until I have drawn the truth from the shadows in which it lurks." Jimmy tried to ask something else, but he shook his head. "That is all I shall say on the subject," he said, crossing his arms and gazing stonily at the hapless reporter.
"All...all right," stammered Jimmy. Usually his flustered demeanor was kayfabe, but at the moment it seemed more sincere than usual. "Next question: Joker and Killer Croc have challenged you to a tag team match, but with Robin gone--" The Dark Knight gave him a level look and Jimmy loosened his bow tie, swallowed hard, and went on: "Now that Robin's gone, you'll need a tag-team partner to face them. Do you have anyone in mind?"
"I do," said the Dark Knight. "Tonight, here in Gotham, I call upon her lost son to help defeat this menace."
The crowd's hush sharpened to a buzz as he went on:
"I call upon Billionaire Brucie to join me in this fight!"
"Did you hear that roar?"
"I did," said Clark, as patiently as if Bruce hadn't already asked him that five times now. Gotham shows were always like this: if it were a good performance, Bruce would be flying high for hours.
"It's just too bad Brucie won't actually appear until the Metropolis show."
"Metropolis is a good crowd too," Clark murmured, kissing a bruise starting to blossom on his ribcage, just below his heart. Not every punch could be perfectly pulled, and there was a tender terror in knowing he had put it there.
"It's not Gotham."
"By definition, O grappler of my heart."
Bruce's chest jolted with his snorting laugh, then stilled. "You know, when I'm in Gotham, I usually go home for breakfast after a match. Maybe tomorrow--"
"--I understand," said Clark quickly. "I'll just grab the continental breakfast downstairs and work out until you get back. No problem."
Bruce was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Well," he said with the air of putting a topic of conversation aside, "Stage One of Operation: Double Identity has begun. Now to start planning for Part Two."
"I don't know how you convinced Luthor to run with this," Clark said.
"Clark," said Bruce with a fond look. "Have you seen the figures on Dark Knight merchandise? I've got some leverage. Also…" He looked slightly uncomfortable for a second. "There might have been something of a tradeoff involved," he muttered, but refused to elaborate.
Clark propped himself up on his elbow to look directly at Bruce. "By the way, what was all that about the Kryptonian in your speech? Forces at work we don't understand? You never mentioned any of that to me."
"Oh, just...laying groundwork. Maybe nothing will come of it. Can't hurt to get some extra mystery out there. Keeps everyone on their toes."
"Including Luthor and the bookers."
Bruce laughed. "Especially Luthor and the bookers."
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Dick Grayson, Joker, Selina Kyle, Harley Quinn, Pamela Isley, Wonder Woman
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 1900
Summary: The Kryptonian and the Dark Knight are having the feud of their careers, but Bruce fears the fans are getting complacent.
It’s the ability to masturbate people’s emotions, to take them on a ride they can’t get anywhere else. When you can put one or a hundred or a thousand people in the palm of your hand, and make them either love you or hate you, want to put you on their shoulders and carry you out and take you home with them, or kill you in a matter of moments ― my friend, that’s an unbelievable thrill. And when you can look at a child and he’s happy and smiling and you see a sparkle in his eye, that’s great. When you look at the grandmother ready to stab you with a damn pen knife ‘cause she’s pissed at you, you got to love it --Jake "The Snake" Roberts
A well-timed breeze ruffled Dick Grayson's hair dramatically as he gazed out across the jungles of Mexico. "I came here to find myself," he said in voiceover, "But all I find is more questions. So much more I need to learn before I can return home."
The camera pulled back to reveal him standing at the top of Chichen-Itza. Slowly he turned and began to jog down the steps once more, as if a heavy weight were on his shoulders.
"Kid does good promos," said Oliver Queen as the screen on the locker-room wall switched back to the arena and the next match.
"Don't call him kid," snapped Bruce, turning over the postcard in his hand.
"Is that from Mexico?" Clark asked as Ollie rolled his eyes and muttered something about overprotective mentors under his breath.
Bruce held it up to show the bustling cityscape with "Ciudad de Mexico" written across it. "He writes that he loves Mexico--just like he loved Germany, and Denmark, and Poland. He had a lot of fun and made a lot of friends."
"Just like everywhere else," said Clark, and Bruce flashed him a quick smile.
"Just like everywhere else," he agreed. "And he says he misses us all."
A general chorus of "awwwww"s echoed through the locker room: a few sarcastic, most not. Bruce was about to add something when the door burst open and Selina, Ivy, and Harley charged into the locker room, giggling and carrying aloft Wonder Woman's glittering golden lasso like a trophy.
"Hey!" yelled Joker, scrambling for a towel along with a few of the other men. "A little privacy here?"
Harley stopped and kissed him on the cheek. "You're so cute when you think we care about your pale dangly bits," she cooed. "I love you for your twisted mind, Pudding!" She and Ivy collapsed laughing into each others' arms; meanwhile, Selina was looking for somewhere to hide the lasso as sounds from the hall made clear someone very angry was making their way toward the locker room. At the last second she looped it around Clark's neck, just as the door burst open and Wonder Woman descended like a valkyrie into the men's locker room, causing further fluttering scrambling among the male wrestlers.
Selina, Ivy, and Harley all pointed at Clark with elaborately innocent looks on their faces. Diana held out her hand, tapping her foot.
"I cannot tell a lie," said Clark, unwinding the lasso from around his neck. "It was them."
"Traitor!" yelled Selina, and they bolted from the room, shrieking with laughter.
Diana sighed and sat down next to Clark and Bruce--the shyer male wrestlers having long retreated to the showers, the rest shrugging and going about their business. "I've never known anyone to be so addicted to pranks and ribs as those three," she said.
"They've got good chemistry," said Bruce absently, frowning at his screen. "I hear Luthor is looking to bring a few new wrestlers up from development to put in an angle against them, since you and Barda are already in that angle against the Furies."
"Well, it better be someone with a very good sense of humor," said Diana, rolling her eyes. "Did you hear they convinced a female fan to flirt with the Prankster and take him home 'for a good time,' and then she pretended her husband had come home with a shotgun?"
"Did I hear about it?" said Clark. "I'm unlikely to forgot the email titled 'The Prankster Pranked!' with pictures of him jumping out the window in his underwear."
The corners of Diana's mouth twitched, very slightly. "I admit it has cooled his ardor for propositioning young fans," she said.
Bruce made a growling noise, still glaring at the laptop. "Unacceptable," he snapped, clearly distracted. "We have to do something about these smarks. Look at this."
"You shouldn't even pay attention to these people," said Diana as he swiveled the computer so they could see the screen.
"They're my audience, I have to keep them on their toes," said Bruce. "See? They think they've got everything figured out, they know the Dark Knight used to be Billionaire Brucie, they know the Kryptonian is Clark Kent. We have to shake it up."
"It's not like it's that hard to figure out," Clark said.
"It's the attitude. They're so smug about it," muttered Bruce. "Look at this one--he calls himself Mr. Sarcastic, what a ridiculous name--this kid thinks he knows everything, posts these crazy in-depth videos analyzing all of our matches to death, picking every move apart."
"Dangerously obsessive behavior," Diana agreed solemnly, her eyes dancing.
"Doesn't sound like anyone we know at all," Clark added.
Bruce rolled his eyes. "That's my job. I have to understand everything, so I can help the audience suspend disbelief. This kid doesn't have any disbelief to suspend," he said, glaring at Mr. Sarcastic's profile as if personally aggrieved. "Wise guy."
"So what's your plan?" said Diana.
Bruce's smile was a small thing compared to Harley and Ivy's whoops of laughter, but no less mischievous. "I still need to run it by Luthor and the bookers, but here it is," he said.
Three dark heads leaned close together and soon Diana's pleased gurgles of laughter were causing more than one wrestler to look over at them curiously.
"Mr. Knight! Mr. Knight! Uh, can I call you 'Dark'? No?" Jimmy looked nervous as the Dark Knight turned slowly away from the retreating Kryptonian (an inconclusive staredown having just finished) to face him, his eyes gleaming behind the dark cowl, his form wrapped once more in his vast black cape. "First off, thank you so much for taking time off from your, uh, busy schedule to talk with us."
The Dark Knight inclined his head.
"I know you're, uh, a man of few words. But what are your thoughts on your recent set of clashes with the Kryptonian?"
Backstage, Clark removed his red contacts with the unconscious ease of long practice and listened as the Dark Knight spoke his first words in the DCW since his cruel dismissal of Robin. The Dark Knight looked around the darkened Gotham arena for a long time before speaking, and when he did his voice was a low growl that still managed to reach everyone in the audience clearly:
"I am here for justice."
A long beat, in which the Gotham audience went even stiller to listen.
"I am here to right wrongs, to fight for the helpless. These bright lights--" He gestured up at the spotlights on them, "--Only serve to make the shadowed souls of the guilty clearer to my eyes. You can love me for that, or you can hate me. It's all the same to me. I live for the battle, I live for the Mission, and nothing else."
Clark smiled slightly, savoring the words. Bruce had run the speech by him a few times, of course, but it was always a little different each time.
"As for the Kryptonian, as long as he tyrannizes the weak and preys on the vulnerable, I shall stand in his way, I shall never cease to oppose him. Yet I suspect…" The Dark Knight paused for just an instant, "I suspect that there is more going on than we have yet seen."
Now Clark blinked. This hadn't been in any of the versions Bruce had let him hear.
"I believe there are forces at work that we do not fully understand," said the Dark Knight to a bewildered Jimmy. "And I will not rest until I have drawn the truth from the shadows in which it lurks." Jimmy tried to ask something else, but he shook his head. "That is all I shall say on the subject," he said, crossing his arms and gazing stonily at the hapless reporter.
"All...all right," stammered Jimmy. Usually his flustered demeanor was kayfabe, but at the moment it seemed more sincere than usual. "Next question: Joker and Killer Croc have challenged you to a tag team match, but with Robin gone--" The Dark Knight gave him a level look and Jimmy loosened his bow tie, swallowed hard, and went on: "Now that Robin's gone, you'll need a tag-team partner to face them. Do you have anyone in mind?"
"I do," said the Dark Knight. "Tonight, here in Gotham, I call upon her lost son to help defeat this menace."
The crowd's hush sharpened to a buzz as he went on:
"I call upon Billionaire Brucie to join me in this fight!"
"Did you hear that roar?"
"I did," said Clark, as patiently as if Bruce hadn't already asked him that five times now. Gotham shows were always like this: if it were a good performance, Bruce would be flying high for hours.
"It's just too bad Brucie won't actually appear until the Metropolis show."
"Metropolis is a good crowd too," Clark murmured, kissing a bruise starting to blossom on his ribcage, just below his heart. Not every punch could be perfectly pulled, and there was a tender terror in knowing he had put it there.
"It's not Gotham."
"By definition, O grappler of my heart."
Bruce's chest jolted with his snorting laugh, then stilled. "You know, when I'm in Gotham, I usually go home for breakfast after a match. Maybe tomorrow--"
"--I understand," said Clark quickly. "I'll just grab the continental breakfast downstairs and work out until you get back. No problem."
Bruce was silent for a moment, then nodded. "Well," he said with the air of putting a topic of conversation aside, "Stage One of Operation: Double Identity has begun. Now to start planning for Part Two."
"I don't know how you convinced Luthor to run with this," Clark said.
"Clark," said Bruce with a fond look. "Have you seen the figures on Dark Knight merchandise? I've got some leverage. Also…" He looked slightly uncomfortable for a second. "There might have been something of a tradeoff involved," he muttered, but refused to elaborate.
Clark propped himself up on his elbow to look directly at Bruce. "By the way, what was all that about the Kryptonian in your speech? Forces at work we don't understand? You never mentioned any of that to me."
"Oh, just...laying groundwork. Maybe nothing will come of it. Can't hurt to get some extra mystery out there. Keeps everyone on their toes."
"Including Luthor and the bookers."
Bruce laughed. "Especially Luthor and the bookers."