Heroes of the Squared Circle 32: Tag Team
Title: Tag Team
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle, Huntress, Power Girl, Barbara Gordon, Jean-Paul Valley, Joker, Killer Croc
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3600
Summary: Billionaire Brucie and the Dark Knight have a tag team match, and three new female wrestlers are brought up to team up against the Sirens.
Although the wrestlers are playing pretend, wrestling itself does not pretend to be anything other than what it is-fantastically absurd. --Thomas Hackett
"No," snapped Bruce, rolling away on the mat in the practice ring. "That's not right. Do it again."
Clark rolled his eyes but didn't protest--not that it was ever any good protesting when Bruce got into a mood like this. Nothing would mollify him but getting it right, so Clark had better get it right.
"You think 'Mr. Sarcastic' is going to be the least bit fooled if you come up from the move like the Kryptonian does? Keep your knees looser."
"It's not like he's going to be fooled for long anyway," Clark pointed out as he and Bruce circled each other.
"He usually feints to the left, not the right," Jean-Paul Valley called from his chair outside the ring. He shrugged as Clark turned to glare at him. "My father made me study Wayne's early tapes for hours."
"Well, maybe you should be pretending to be the Dark Knight, then," snapped Clark.
Jean-Paul shrugged again. "He didn't ask me." He grinned and dropped his voice into the eerie gravelly register of the Dark Knight's. "I can even do the voice, though," he growled.
Clark blinked at him--the voice was one of the things he simply couldn't get right about the Dark Knight.
"You--" Bruce lunged forward, dodged, got behind Clark and put him in a reverse chinlock, his arm around his neck, "--aren't focusing."
Clark sighed and leaned into the embrace that looked like a throttlehold for a moment, feeling Bruce's sweat cool on his skin, taking just a breath to relax against him. Then he twisted out of the hold and grabbed Bruce's neck. He heard Bruce chuckle as Clark hoisted him into a fireman's carry, held him there the exact 2.5 seconds that the Dark Knight would, and then fall backwards, slamming Bruce to the mat in a perfectly-executed Dark Knight of the Soul.
There was a smattering of applause from other wrestlers working out around the ring. "That was quite good," said Jean-Paul.
"I've studied him for hours too," said Clark, at which point Bruce grabbed his foot and pulled him down to the mat, where they ended up tussling for a while. "Uncle, uncle!" yelled Clark when Bruce got him in a leglock, pounding the mat.
"I think you're ready," said Bruce.
It wasn't a match for the tag team championship--Captain Cold and Heatwave currently held that, and their particular brand of Odd Couple bickering was working so well Luthor had no inclination to dethrone them. Joker and Killer Croc had been put together recently as a tag team, but the brain/muscle dichotomy wasn't getting over with the audience as well as had been hoped. The fact that Joker--well, Napier, technically, but more and more he was going by "Joker" backstage as well as in the ring--had only the most barely-concealed contempt for Waylon Jones in reality meant that their working relationship was fragile at best.
"Try to keep up tonight, Croc," sneered Joker as they got ready to head out.
Jones rolled his eyes. "You're the one that botched that finish," he said. "Don't take it out on me."
Joker swelled with indignation. "I botched the finish? If Heatwave had been where he was supposed to be--"
To everyone's relief, his music--with its distinctive gleeful chuckle at the beginning--started up before he could work himself further into his tirade. At the sound, his fury vanished to be replaced by the Joker's rictus grin. Straightening his purple garb, he bolted out of the gorilla position and down the ramp, grinning wildly at the children on the sidelines as they shrank away from him.
Clark adjusted the cowl as Killer Croc took his turn on the ramp, feeling self-conscious. Beside him, Billionaire Brucie was bouncing on the balls of his feet, dressed to the nines in an impeccable suit. "Stop fidgeting," he murmured. He reached up and grabbed one of the ears of the cowl, pulling Clark's head closer to him. "You look great. We're going to be great."
Billionaire Brucie's music hit, and he bumped fists with Clark without looking, his face radiant as he heard his old familiar theme music. He walked out onto the ramp, and Clark could hear the welcoming boos as the audience reacted to seeing him for the first time in so long. He wiped his hands on his tights and twitched the cape to make sure it wasn't caught on anything.
"You'll be fine," said a low voice beside him, and Clark almost yelped before he realized it was Jean-Paul Valley. "You are able to channel his essence. Let the power of the bat flow through you."
"O--Okay," said Clark, somewhat unnerved. Valley's tendency to lapse into mystical language continued to rattle him, and he wasn't sure thinking about feeling Bruce's essence flowing through him was a good idea just before a match.
And then the opening chords of the Dark Knight theme's music rang out; Clark gathered his cape around him and swept out into the arena.
He made it halfway down the ramp before realizing that he had half-consciously been expecting someone to yell out "Imposter!" But the crowd was cheering, and in the ring Brucie was beaming at him, and Clark made it to the ring and vaulted into it as the Dark Knight.
The pre-match banter was all between Joker and Billionaire Brucie, as Killer Croc and the Dark Knight stood on the apron at the turnbuckles--Clark didn't feel confident speaking as the Dark Knight, and Croc's strengths did not lie in his mic work. Joker and Brucie sparred and smiled and preened and flounced, and Clark felt a baffled jealousy churn in him that Joker could trade barbs with Bruce, while the Kryptonian was trapped in silence. Finally, though, the bell rang, and Joker immediately threw Brucie into the turnbuckle with an Irish whip, running at him to dropkick his chest, laughing maniacally. Brucie ducked a left hook, then came up right into another that left him reeling.
"Thought you could fight me, did you?" cackled the Joker. "When will you peons ever learn?"
Brucie staggered and fell to his knees, clearly dazed. On the apron just outside the ring, Clark as the Dark Knight reached out in vain to him, trying to touch hands and make the tag so that he could get into the ring and take his place. But it was hopeless, the stunned Brucie couldn't make the tag. Chortling in glee, Joker wandered over to the corner where Killer Croc waited and tapped his hand. "Finish him, Crocky," he sneered. "I don't feel like breaking a sweat today."
Cracking his knuckles, Croc climbed into the ring and began to beat Brucie up.
After minutes of torturous punishment, Brucie finally managed to lunge to the corner and touch his hand to the Dark Knight's, at which point Clark vaulted over the ropes, fresh and uninjured, and began to pummel Croc as the crowd surged in excitement.
The rhythm of a tag team match was different than a singles match, Clark thought as he and Croc traded blows and throws around the ring. The rising and falling of action was punctuated by the switching of partners, the dance even more intricate, the audience's reactions rising and falling with the fortunes of the people in the ring. On the apron, Brucie and Joker cheered on their tag team partner, exhorting or threatening the crowd respectively.
"Rib breaker," Clark murmured to Waylon as they locked up in the middle of the ring. Waylon responded by grabbing his hand, throwing him against the ropes, catching him up on the rebound and bringing him down hard on his bent knee.
Usually the impact was absorbed by the "attacker's" arms, but this time Croc was just a tiny bit off, and the knee slammed into Clark's ribs. He felt the air leave his lungs in a painful whoosh, and his flop to the mat was an unfeigned struggle for air.
Someone was leaning over him--not Croc, but the ref. "You okay?" asked the ref under his breath.
"Give me a sec," Clark managed to wheeze around his spasming lungs, and the ref moved away again, ostensibly to chide Croc for some trumped-up illegality, but in reality to relay the information that his "opponent" needed a couple of minutes to catch his breath. Waylon decided to take a few moments to taunt Brucie, standing helpless in the corner, which gave Clark time enough to run a quick self-diagnostic: no broken bones, no torn muscles, just the wind knocked out of him. As the crowd booed Killer Croc, the referee unobtrusively bent over Clark once more and Clark nodded that he was ready to go.
Just a flash of improvisation that the audience would likely never notice, all five people around the ring working as a team to create the illusion of a pitched battle between two opposing sides. There was a strange beauty to it, Clark thought as he rose to loom up behind Croc, all cowled menace, and saw Bruce's eyes widen in appreciation of his Dark Knight impression.
From the far corner, Joker was screaming, trying to get the oblivious Croc's attention. The audience was shrieking in delight as the Dark Knight readied the Hammer of Justice, his K.O. punch, and for just an instant--as Croc turned around and his jaw dropped in dumbfounded amazement--Clark felt the power of the bat indeed, a dark and luminous energy.
Croc kicked out of the pin, the Joker cheated to get them the win, and the Dark Knight and Billionaire Brucie lost the match, but it didn't matter that much after that transcendent moment.
"How do you get this damn cowl off?" Clark complained, tugging at the latex. "Does it have to be so tight?"
"Can't risk having it come off in a match," said Bruce. "Let me help."
"I'm not sure I could wrestle in that regularly," Clark said as Bruce came over and ran his hands lightly over the black latex.
"You won't have to. I figure one more match, maybe two, and that'll confuse enough people." Bruce let his fingers trail down Clark's covered face as if he were reading it by touch. "So strange to see it from the outside," he murmured.
His fingers reached the bare skin of Clark's upper lip, and the sudden contact of skin on skin after the duller sensation on the latex seemed to hit Clark like an electric jolt. He sucked in a breath. Bruce's eyes darkened as he smiled slightly and slid the tips of his fingers under the latex, probing and prying.
Clark cast a nervous look around the busy locker room, but no one seemed to think it amiss--totally natural that Bruce would be helping Clark get out of that unwieldy cowl, after all. Bruce was gazing at him as he pulled back the black latex and exposed more and more of Clark's skin, and Clark felt surreally exposed, laid bare.
"So," Bruce said conversationally, his voice pitched under the hubbub of the locker room, "Do I look so daunting in this? So predatory? So...commanding?"
Clark coughed uneasily and moved out of the way as Darkseid and Mongol wandered by with towels around their waists, heading for the showers. "You know you do," he muttered.
"But I like to hear you say it," said Bruce with a flash of a smile.
By the time Bruce had finished gently but inexorably tugging off the cowl, Clark was flustered in the extreme. "Thank you," he stammered, handing it to Bruce and snatching up a towel to hold in front of his skin-tight trunks.
"You going to take a shower before you head out?" Bruce asked.
Clark glared at him. "I think I'll shower in the hotel room," he said, sliding into his jeans as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.
"Sounds like a plan," said Bruce innocently, and Clark chucked the towel at him.
"No," Clark heard Bruce saying as he walked into the common room days later. "Absolutely not. I am vetoing that idea."
He was facing down two of the bookers: Clark recognized them as Paul and Greg. Flanking the bookers were three young women Clark didn't know: one with red hair pulled back in a ponytail, one with a blond bob, and one with a cascade of dark locks. All three looked annoyed, though in different ways: the blond had her arms crossed and was looking murderous, the dark-haired woman was rolling her eyes, and the redhead had a coolly calculating expression on her face.
"See, Bruce, I agree with you," Greg was saying placatingly. "But Paul has other ideas."
"They are stupid ideas," Bruce snapped. "Look at her. Does she look young enough to be my daughter?" He gestured at the dark-haired woman, who blew her bangs out of her eyes with an exasperated huff of air. "I'll look like a geezer."
"We were thinking daughter from an alternate dimension," Paul said.
"No," said Bruce. "I agreed to have the DCW link two new wrestlers to the Dark Knight gimmick, but I did not agree to have one of them be my daughter."
"I don't want to be your daughter anyway!" the woman in question burst out. "Barbara's the one who wants to be tied to your angle. I've already got my gimmick planned out, Greg helped me write it up and everything." She beamed at Greg, who ran a hand over his bald head and looked pleased.
"A Mafia princess, who's going to believe that?" scoffed Paul.
"For crying out loud, you're debating whether Karen is going to be the Kryptonian's alien cousin or an Atlantean princess," she yelled, gesturing at the blond woman at her side. "And you think the Mafia is too unrealistic?"
"Helena is right," said the redheaded woman. Her voice was crisp and precise. "The problem is you can't be bothered to come up with a consistent gimmick for most of the female wrestlers, because most of the writers don't care about their storylines. I'll bet you anything the DCW has spent more time debating how much of Helena's belly to show or how big Karen's ridiculous boob window should be than planning their gimmicks. I know you're trying," she added to Greg, who looked quietly upset, "But it's a systemic problem."
"You're Jim Gordon's daughter," Bruce said suddenly, looking at her.
"That's right," she said, lifting her chin just a bit defiantly. "Barbara Gordon. Pleased to meet you." She put out her hand for him to shake while Karen muttered something about rather liking her costume. "I've been a fan of yours for a while now, and when I saw there was an opportunity to develop a related character, I jumped at it. I don't want to be your valet or even your protegee, I want to be someone who was inspired by you to fight under the auspices of the bat."
"And she's really good," Karen put in, "So don't think you can patronize her."
"If you ever catch me doing that, please suplex me until my head rings," Bruce said solemnly.
"For the record, there is no way I'm putting a bat-insignia anywhere on my outfit," Helena said, glaring at Paul. "So you're just going to have to find another wrestler to connect to him."
"Mafia princess it is, then," said Paul. He looked innocent, but Clark suspected that there would be a storyline someday in which the rumors surfaced anyway.
"So...cousin?" Clark said to Karen. She grinned and shook his hand.
"Maybe. Personally, I don't care half as much as Barbara and Helena do about my backstory. I just like to get into the ring and beat people up."
"Oh good grief, she's gone," said Helena. Clark looked over to see Barbara deep in conversation with Bruce about motivations. "Talking about her 'Bat-Girl'--" She made air quotes, "--ideas. C'mon, Karen, let's go hit a club somewhere." She grabbed Karen's arm and dragged her off, and Paul and Greg walked away bickering, leaving Clark alone.
A half hour later Bruce appeared at his elbow as he talked with Selina. "Sorry," he said, "But she had some interesting ideas."
"Those are the three that are going to be put against Ivy, Harley and me?" said Selina. She blew on her fingernails and buffed them on her shirt. "I doubt they'll be able to keep up."
"I wouldn't underestimate them," Bruce cautioned. "I've seen them all wrestle in the indies, they've got stamina and strength. Barbara especially--she had a back injury a while ago, people thought it would end her career, but she fought through it." He nodded. "I think they'll bring out the best in the Sirens." He looked at Clark. "And her Batgirl gimmick is half of the price I paid for our identity shenanigans, so you'd better make the most of your opportunity."
"Oh no, you paid the price of helping out a promising young wrestler by expanding your gimmick," said Clark in mock-sympathy. "The sacrifices you make for me."
Bruce smirked. "It's all because I love this sport so much and want what's best for it," he said.
"The sport, right," said Selina, and was out the door before either of them could respond.
"Don't I...know you?" Oliver Queen narrowed his eyes at the interviewer wearing a cheap, well-pressed suit and a blinding smile. "Weren't you…"
"Clark Kent, yes!"
"Weren't you wearing overalls the blast time I saw you?"
Kent beamed. "Well, after my vicious beating at the hands of the Dumas brothers apparently wrecked my coordination for life, I realized I was going to need a new career. So I decided to go to journalism school and become a reporter." He spread his hands wide and almost dropped the mic, bobbling it wildly for a few seconds as Queen looked on, bemused. "And here I am!"
"And here you are," said Queen.
"So tell me," said Kent earnestly, "How do you feel about your match against Merlyn tonight?"
Queen cut a good solid promo about his former mentor while Kent nodded, and when Merlyn (predictably) showed up to threaten Queen, Kent shrieked in terror, tripped over his feet trying to get away, and ended up sprawled on the floor, flailing wildly.
"Nice work," said Queen backstage later as Clark changed from his ill-fitting suit to the skintight Kryptonian outfit. "I'd forgotten how good your comedic timing is."
"I hadn't," said Bruce from behind him in full Dark Knight regalia, making him jump.
"Good grief, Wayne, don't sneak up on a guy like that," Queen griped.
Bruce watched him head for the showers, his face expressionless, and then turned to give Clark a wink from under the cowl.
"It's working," gloated Bruce, rubbing his hands together in glee as he trawled through an online message board. On the common room screen, John Stewart was defending the title against Copperhead, and Clark took a moment to appreciate a particularly complex move: Stewart could make even a mediocre wrestler look good.
"Have you baffled Mr. Sarcastic?" Clark asked, passing behind Bruce and tapping the back of his neck twice with his finger: their code for a kiss while in public.
Bruce made a disgusted noise. "Him? There is no baffling that kid. But he's given up arguing with the 'hopeless marks'--his term--who think Brucie and the Dark Knight are two different people, and has moved on to his preferred topic of analyzing Dick Grayson's career. He's managed to get footage of even the extremely obscure matches in Poland and is dissecting them to explain how Grayson's style is evolving. He's quite passionate on the topic," he added with a frown. "On the plus side, very few people have twigged to the fact that the Kryptonian and The Interviewer Formerly Known as Country Clark are one and the same," he went on.
"Really?"
"Are you surprised?" Bruce looked up at him. "You're surprised," he said, raising his eyebrows. "The difference between the two is quite striking, actually. You slump as Kent, you're ramrod-straight as the Kryptonian. You're all adorably schlubby as Kent, you're totally controlled and distant as the Kryptonian. It's not just the outfits and the contact lens, it's the way you hold yourself, the way you walk, everything. You're really good at it," he said.
"Oh," said Clark, feeling himself start to grin.
"You'd never be able to pull off the Dark Knight for more than a match here or there, though, so don't get too cocky," Bruce added. Then his eyes flicked to the doorway. "Boss incoming," he muttered, closing the browser with the gossip site.
Clark moved a few inches further away from Bruce--Bruce had an uncanny instinct for knowing with Luthor was going to show up. "He has very distinctive footsteps," he always said, but no one else could ever make them out.
Yet here he was, striding through the doors and surveying his crew with satisfaction. "Good news!" he called. "How does everyone feel about a little tropical island vacation?"
Murmurs of approval rippled through the locker room. "Bahamas?" asked Croc.
"Bermuda?" chimed in Mr. Miracle.
"Better." Luthor grinned and clapped his hands together. "I've just wrapped up negotiations for a tour of the paradise of Santa Prisca!"
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Selina Kyle, Huntress, Power Girl, Barbara Gordon, Jean-Paul Valley, Joker, Killer Croc
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 3600
Summary: Billionaire Brucie and the Dark Knight have a tag team match, and three new female wrestlers are brought up to team up against the Sirens.
Although the wrestlers are playing pretend, wrestling itself does not pretend to be anything other than what it is-fantastically absurd. --Thomas Hackett
"No," snapped Bruce, rolling away on the mat in the practice ring. "That's not right. Do it again."
Clark rolled his eyes but didn't protest--not that it was ever any good protesting when Bruce got into a mood like this. Nothing would mollify him but getting it right, so Clark had better get it right.
"You think 'Mr. Sarcastic' is going to be the least bit fooled if you come up from the move like the Kryptonian does? Keep your knees looser."
"It's not like he's going to be fooled for long anyway," Clark pointed out as he and Bruce circled each other.
"He usually feints to the left, not the right," Jean-Paul Valley called from his chair outside the ring. He shrugged as Clark turned to glare at him. "My father made me study Wayne's early tapes for hours."
"Well, maybe you should be pretending to be the Dark Knight, then," snapped Clark.
Jean-Paul shrugged again. "He didn't ask me." He grinned and dropped his voice into the eerie gravelly register of the Dark Knight's. "I can even do the voice, though," he growled.
Clark blinked at him--the voice was one of the things he simply couldn't get right about the Dark Knight.
"You--" Bruce lunged forward, dodged, got behind Clark and put him in a reverse chinlock, his arm around his neck, "--aren't focusing."
Clark sighed and leaned into the embrace that looked like a throttlehold for a moment, feeling Bruce's sweat cool on his skin, taking just a breath to relax against him. Then he twisted out of the hold and grabbed Bruce's neck. He heard Bruce chuckle as Clark hoisted him into a fireman's carry, held him there the exact 2.5 seconds that the Dark Knight would, and then fall backwards, slamming Bruce to the mat in a perfectly-executed Dark Knight of the Soul.
There was a smattering of applause from other wrestlers working out around the ring. "That was quite good," said Jean-Paul.
"I've studied him for hours too," said Clark, at which point Bruce grabbed his foot and pulled him down to the mat, where they ended up tussling for a while. "Uncle, uncle!" yelled Clark when Bruce got him in a leglock, pounding the mat.
"I think you're ready," said Bruce.
It wasn't a match for the tag team championship--Captain Cold and Heatwave currently held that, and their particular brand of Odd Couple bickering was working so well Luthor had no inclination to dethrone them. Joker and Killer Croc had been put together recently as a tag team, but the brain/muscle dichotomy wasn't getting over with the audience as well as had been hoped. The fact that Joker--well, Napier, technically, but more and more he was going by "Joker" backstage as well as in the ring--had only the most barely-concealed contempt for Waylon Jones in reality meant that their working relationship was fragile at best.
"Try to keep up tonight, Croc," sneered Joker as they got ready to head out.
Jones rolled his eyes. "You're the one that botched that finish," he said. "Don't take it out on me."
Joker swelled with indignation. "I botched the finish? If Heatwave had been where he was supposed to be--"
To everyone's relief, his music--with its distinctive gleeful chuckle at the beginning--started up before he could work himself further into his tirade. At the sound, his fury vanished to be replaced by the Joker's rictus grin. Straightening his purple garb, he bolted out of the gorilla position and down the ramp, grinning wildly at the children on the sidelines as they shrank away from him.
Clark adjusted the cowl as Killer Croc took his turn on the ramp, feeling self-conscious. Beside him, Billionaire Brucie was bouncing on the balls of his feet, dressed to the nines in an impeccable suit. "Stop fidgeting," he murmured. He reached up and grabbed one of the ears of the cowl, pulling Clark's head closer to him. "You look great. We're going to be great."
Billionaire Brucie's music hit, and he bumped fists with Clark without looking, his face radiant as he heard his old familiar theme music. He walked out onto the ramp, and Clark could hear the welcoming boos as the audience reacted to seeing him for the first time in so long. He wiped his hands on his tights and twitched the cape to make sure it wasn't caught on anything.
"You'll be fine," said a low voice beside him, and Clark almost yelped before he realized it was Jean-Paul Valley. "You are able to channel his essence. Let the power of the bat flow through you."
"O--Okay," said Clark, somewhat unnerved. Valley's tendency to lapse into mystical language continued to rattle him, and he wasn't sure thinking about feeling Bruce's essence flowing through him was a good idea just before a match.
And then the opening chords of the Dark Knight theme's music rang out; Clark gathered his cape around him and swept out into the arena.
He made it halfway down the ramp before realizing that he had half-consciously been expecting someone to yell out "Imposter!" But the crowd was cheering, and in the ring Brucie was beaming at him, and Clark made it to the ring and vaulted into it as the Dark Knight.
The pre-match banter was all between Joker and Billionaire Brucie, as Killer Croc and the Dark Knight stood on the apron at the turnbuckles--Clark didn't feel confident speaking as the Dark Knight, and Croc's strengths did not lie in his mic work. Joker and Brucie sparred and smiled and preened and flounced, and Clark felt a baffled jealousy churn in him that Joker could trade barbs with Bruce, while the Kryptonian was trapped in silence. Finally, though, the bell rang, and Joker immediately threw Brucie into the turnbuckle with an Irish whip, running at him to dropkick his chest, laughing maniacally. Brucie ducked a left hook, then came up right into another that left him reeling.
"Thought you could fight me, did you?" cackled the Joker. "When will you peons ever learn?"
Brucie staggered and fell to his knees, clearly dazed. On the apron just outside the ring, Clark as the Dark Knight reached out in vain to him, trying to touch hands and make the tag so that he could get into the ring and take his place. But it was hopeless, the stunned Brucie couldn't make the tag. Chortling in glee, Joker wandered over to the corner where Killer Croc waited and tapped his hand. "Finish him, Crocky," he sneered. "I don't feel like breaking a sweat today."
Cracking his knuckles, Croc climbed into the ring and began to beat Brucie up.
After minutes of torturous punishment, Brucie finally managed to lunge to the corner and touch his hand to the Dark Knight's, at which point Clark vaulted over the ropes, fresh and uninjured, and began to pummel Croc as the crowd surged in excitement.
The rhythm of a tag team match was different than a singles match, Clark thought as he and Croc traded blows and throws around the ring. The rising and falling of action was punctuated by the switching of partners, the dance even more intricate, the audience's reactions rising and falling with the fortunes of the people in the ring. On the apron, Brucie and Joker cheered on their tag team partner, exhorting or threatening the crowd respectively.
"Rib breaker," Clark murmured to Waylon as they locked up in the middle of the ring. Waylon responded by grabbing his hand, throwing him against the ropes, catching him up on the rebound and bringing him down hard on his bent knee.
Usually the impact was absorbed by the "attacker's" arms, but this time Croc was just a tiny bit off, and the knee slammed into Clark's ribs. He felt the air leave his lungs in a painful whoosh, and his flop to the mat was an unfeigned struggle for air.
Someone was leaning over him--not Croc, but the ref. "You okay?" asked the ref under his breath.
"Give me a sec," Clark managed to wheeze around his spasming lungs, and the ref moved away again, ostensibly to chide Croc for some trumped-up illegality, but in reality to relay the information that his "opponent" needed a couple of minutes to catch his breath. Waylon decided to take a few moments to taunt Brucie, standing helpless in the corner, which gave Clark time enough to run a quick self-diagnostic: no broken bones, no torn muscles, just the wind knocked out of him. As the crowd booed Killer Croc, the referee unobtrusively bent over Clark once more and Clark nodded that he was ready to go.
Just a flash of improvisation that the audience would likely never notice, all five people around the ring working as a team to create the illusion of a pitched battle between two opposing sides. There was a strange beauty to it, Clark thought as he rose to loom up behind Croc, all cowled menace, and saw Bruce's eyes widen in appreciation of his Dark Knight impression.
From the far corner, Joker was screaming, trying to get the oblivious Croc's attention. The audience was shrieking in delight as the Dark Knight readied the Hammer of Justice, his K.O. punch, and for just an instant--as Croc turned around and his jaw dropped in dumbfounded amazement--Clark felt the power of the bat indeed, a dark and luminous energy.
Croc kicked out of the pin, the Joker cheated to get them the win, and the Dark Knight and Billionaire Brucie lost the match, but it didn't matter that much after that transcendent moment.
"How do you get this damn cowl off?" Clark complained, tugging at the latex. "Does it have to be so tight?"
"Can't risk having it come off in a match," said Bruce. "Let me help."
"I'm not sure I could wrestle in that regularly," Clark said as Bruce came over and ran his hands lightly over the black latex.
"You won't have to. I figure one more match, maybe two, and that'll confuse enough people." Bruce let his fingers trail down Clark's covered face as if he were reading it by touch. "So strange to see it from the outside," he murmured.
His fingers reached the bare skin of Clark's upper lip, and the sudden contact of skin on skin after the duller sensation on the latex seemed to hit Clark like an electric jolt. He sucked in a breath. Bruce's eyes darkened as he smiled slightly and slid the tips of his fingers under the latex, probing and prying.
Clark cast a nervous look around the busy locker room, but no one seemed to think it amiss--totally natural that Bruce would be helping Clark get out of that unwieldy cowl, after all. Bruce was gazing at him as he pulled back the black latex and exposed more and more of Clark's skin, and Clark felt surreally exposed, laid bare.
"So," Bruce said conversationally, his voice pitched under the hubbub of the locker room, "Do I look so daunting in this? So predatory? So...commanding?"
Clark coughed uneasily and moved out of the way as Darkseid and Mongol wandered by with towels around their waists, heading for the showers. "You know you do," he muttered.
"But I like to hear you say it," said Bruce with a flash of a smile.
By the time Bruce had finished gently but inexorably tugging off the cowl, Clark was flustered in the extreme. "Thank you," he stammered, handing it to Bruce and snatching up a towel to hold in front of his skin-tight trunks.
"You going to take a shower before you head out?" Bruce asked.
Clark glared at him. "I think I'll shower in the hotel room," he said, sliding into his jeans as quickly and unobtrusively as possible.
"Sounds like a plan," said Bruce innocently, and Clark chucked the towel at him.
"No," Clark heard Bruce saying as he walked into the common room days later. "Absolutely not. I am vetoing that idea."
He was facing down two of the bookers: Clark recognized them as Paul and Greg. Flanking the bookers were three young women Clark didn't know: one with red hair pulled back in a ponytail, one with a blond bob, and one with a cascade of dark locks. All three looked annoyed, though in different ways: the blond had her arms crossed and was looking murderous, the dark-haired woman was rolling her eyes, and the redhead had a coolly calculating expression on her face.
"See, Bruce, I agree with you," Greg was saying placatingly. "But Paul has other ideas."
"They are stupid ideas," Bruce snapped. "Look at her. Does she look young enough to be my daughter?" He gestured at the dark-haired woman, who blew her bangs out of her eyes with an exasperated huff of air. "I'll look like a geezer."
"We were thinking daughter from an alternate dimension," Paul said.
"No," said Bruce. "I agreed to have the DCW link two new wrestlers to the Dark Knight gimmick, but I did not agree to have one of them be my daughter."
"I don't want to be your daughter anyway!" the woman in question burst out. "Barbara's the one who wants to be tied to your angle. I've already got my gimmick planned out, Greg helped me write it up and everything." She beamed at Greg, who ran a hand over his bald head and looked pleased.
"A Mafia princess, who's going to believe that?" scoffed Paul.
"For crying out loud, you're debating whether Karen is going to be the Kryptonian's alien cousin or an Atlantean princess," she yelled, gesturing at the blond woman at her side. "And you think the Mafia is too unrealistic?"
"Helena is right," said the redheaded woman. Her voice was crisp and precise. "The problem is you can't be bothered to come up with a consistent gimmick for most of the female wrestlers, because most of the writers don't care about their storylines. I'll bet you anything the DCW has spent more time debating how much of Helena's belly to show or how big Karen's ridiculous boob window should be than planning their gimmicks. I know you're trying," she added to Greg, who looked quietly upset, "But it's a systemic problem."
"You're Jim Gordon's daughter," Bruce said suddenly, looking at her.
"That's right," she said, lifting her chin just a bit defiantly. "Barbara Gordon. Pleased to meet you." She put out her hand for him to shake while Karen muttered something about rather liking her costume. "I've been a fan of yours for a while now, and when I saw there was an opportunity to develop a related character, I jumped at it. I don't want to be your valet or even your protegee, I want to be someone who was inspired by you to fight under the auspices of the bat."
"And she's really good," Karen put in, "So don't think you can patronize her."
"If you ever catch me doing that, please suplex me until my head rings," Bruce said solemnly.
"For the record, there is no way I'm putting a bat-insignia anywhere on my outfit," Helena said, glaring at Paul. "So you're just going to have to find another wrestler to connect to him."
"Mafia princess it is, then," said Paul. He looked innocent, but Clark suspected that there would be a storyline someday in which the rumors surfaced anyway.
"So...cousin?" Clark said to Karen. She grinned and shook his hand.
"Maybe. Personally, I don't care half as much as Barbara and Helena do about my backstory. I just like to get into the ring and beat people up."
"Oh good grief, she's gone," said Helena. Clark looked over to see Barbara deep in conversation with Bruce about motivations. "Talking about her 'Bat-Girl'--" She made air quotes, "--ideas. C'mon, Karen, let's go hit a club somewhere." She grabbed Karen's arm and dragged her off, and Paul and Greg walked away bickering, leaving Clark alone.
A half hour later Bruce appeared at his elbow as he talked with Selina. "Sorry," he said, "But she had some interesting ideas."
"Those are the three that are going to be put against Ivy, Harley and me?" said Selina. She blew on her fingernails and buffed them on her shirt. "I doubt they'll be able to keep up."
"I wouldn't underestimate them," Bruce cautioned. "I've seen them all wrestle in the indies, they've got stamina and strength. Barbara especially--she had a back injury a while ago, people thought it would end her career, but she fought through it." He nodded. "I think they'll bring out the best in the Sirens." He looked at Clark. "And her Batgirl gimmick is half of the price I paid for our identity shenanigans, so you'd better make the most of your opportunity."
"Oh no, you paid the price of helping out a promising young wrestler by expanding your gimmick," said Clark in mock-sympathy. "The sacrifices you make for me."
Bruce smirked. "It's all because I love this sport so much and want what's best for it," he said.
"The sport, right," said Selina, and was out the door before either of them could respond.
"Don't I...know you?" Oliver Queen narrowed his eyes at the interviewer wearing a cheap, well-pressed suit and a blinding smile. "Weren't you…"
"Clark Kent, yes!"
"Weren't you wearing overalls the blast time I saw you?"
Kent beamed. "Well, after my vicious beating at the hands of the Dumas brothers apparently wrecked my coordination for life, I realized I was going to need a new career. So I decided to go to journalism school and become a reporter." He spread his hands wide and almost dropped the mic, bobbling it wildly for a few seconds as Queen looked on, bemused. "And here I am!"
"And here you are," said Queen.
"So tell me," said Kent earnestly, "How do you feel about your match against Merlyn tonight?"
Queen cut a good solid promo about his former mentor while Kent nodded, and when Merlyn (predictably) showed up to threaten Queen, Kent shrieked in terror, tripped over his feet trying to get away, and ended up sprawled on the floor, flailing wildly.
"Nice work," said Queen backstage later as Clark changed from his ill-fitting suit to the skintight Kryptonian outfit. "I'd forgotten how good your comedic timing is."
"I hadn't," said Bruce from behind him in full Dark Knight regalia, making him jump.
"Good grief, Wayne, don't sneak up on a guy like that," Queen griped.
Bruce watched him head for the showers, his face expressionless, and then turned to give Clark a wink from under the cowl.
"It's working," gloated Bruce, rubbing his hands together in glee as he trawled through an online message board. On the common room screen, John Stewart was defending the title against Copperhead, and Clark took a moment to appreciate a particularly complex move: Stewart could make even a mediocre wrestler look good.
"Have you baffled Mr. Sarcastic?" Clark asked, passing behind Bruce and tapping the back of his neck twice with his finger: their code for a kiss while in public.
Bruce made a disgusted noise. "Him? There is no baffling that kid. But he's given up arguing with the 'hopeless marks'--his term--who think Brucie and the Dark Knight are two different people, and has moved on to his preferred topic of analyzing Dick Grayson's career. He's managed to get footage of even the extremely obscure matches in Poland and is dissecting them to explain how Grayson's style is evolving. He's quite passionate on the topic," he added with a frown. "On the plus side, very few people have twigged to the fact that the Kryptonian and The Interviewer Formerly Known as Country Clark are one and the same," he went on.
"Really?"
"Are you surprised?" Bruce looked up at him. "You're surprised," he said, raising his eyebrows. "The difference between the two is quite striking, actually. You slump as Kent, you're ramrod-straight as the Kryptonian. You're all adorably schlubby as Kent, you're totally controlled and distant as the Kryptonian. It's not just the outfits and the contact lens, it's the way you hold yourself, the way you walk, everything. You're really good at it," he said.
"Oh," said Clark, feeling himself start to grin.
"You'd never be able to pull off the Dark Knight for more than a match here or there, though, so don't get too cocky," Bruce added. Then his eyes flicked to the doorway. "Boss incoming," he muttered, closing the browser with the gossip site.
Clark moved a few inches further away from Bruce--Bruce had an uncanny instinct for knowing with Luthor was going to show up. "He has very distinctive footsteps," he always said, but no one else could ever make them out.
Yet here he was, striding through the doors and surveying his crew with satisfaction. "Good news!" he called. "How does everyone feel about a little tropical island vacation?"
Murmurs of approval rippled through the locker room. "Bahamas?" asked Croc.
"Bermuda?" chimed in Mr. Miracle.
"Better." Luthor grinned and clapped his hands together. "I've just wrapped up negotiations for a tour of the paradise of Santa Prisca!"