Heroes of the Squared Circle 38: A Lonely Place
Title: A Lonely Place
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Joker, Lex Luthor, Dick Grayson, Wonder Woman, Waylon Jones, Harvey Dent, Selina Kyle
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 4800
Summary: Bruce Wayne has lost his smile, and his friends aren't sure how to help him.Title: A Lonely Place
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Joker, Lex Luthor, Dick Grayson, Wonder Woman, Waylon Jones, Harvey Dent, Selina Kyle
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion (click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 4800
Summary: Bruce Wayne has lost his smile, and his friends aren't sure how to help him.
You push your body every night. It hurts--it hurts beyond words. But the mind wants to soar, and the body must follow. --Rey Mysterio
“He does not seem so changed to me,” Diana said, but she was frowning. She took a sip of her coffee and looked out the window at the sidewalk for a moment, the people passing by. “You say it started when Jason left?”
“It really bothered him,” Clark said. “You know how he is about stories.”
“But it was a good story,” Diana said. “Deeply moving, tragic as Aeschylus.”
“But the audience didn’t seem to see it that way. They cheered for the villain, and--” Clark remembered once more the look in Bruce’s eyes as he stared out at the cheering fans, waving homemade signs: bird silhouettes in a crosshairs, slogans calling for Jason’s death. “--I don’t know, Diana, he takes the face and heel stuff very seriously. There’s something almost childlike about it, in a way. He doesn’t understand a crowd that wants to see the bad guy win.” He sighed. “It’s like a light has gone out inside him since that night.”
Diana tapped her mouth thoughtfully with one perfectly-manicured finger. “He doesn’t miss shows. He doesn’t make mistakes in the ring.”
“But there’s no joy in it. He does what’s necessary, he does what the bookers tell him to do, but he doesn’t embellish, he doesn’t throw himself into like he used to. No storyline ideas, no trying new moves. He doesn’t seem to have much appetite--he eats fine, but without any relish.” Bruce had always had a favorite Chinese takeout in every city, beloved pizza places where he would tempt Clark out for a splurge. Now he ate whatever was cheap and nearby, without really looking at it. “The only thing he seems to do with energy is work out until he’s exhausted.”
“I see. And his sexual energies?”
Clark choked on his mouthful of coffee and had to take a moment to compose himself. “His--I’m sorry, what?”
That was the wrong question. “Has his libido decreased? Does he show less interest in sex?” Diana took in Clark’s expression and her matter-of-fact concern gave way to an eyeroll. “Come now, Clark, not everyone in the DCW finds it necessary to pretend to be oblivious.”
Clark looked away from the amused friendliness in her eyes, watched the couples strolling by for a moment. “He hasn’t been very interested in that either,” he finally said in a small voice. It was, he realized, the first time he had told anyone he and Bruce were more than friends. It felt momentous, and yet like the most ordinary thing in the world. It felt--
He felt Diana’s hand on his arm, looked into her smiling face. “We’ll find a way to help him,” she said.
It felt good.
Unfortunately, helping Bruce was not as simple as the desire to do so. Dick tried to tempt him into a debate about a new costume for Nightwing, Selina picked affectionate fights with him backstage, Diana challenged him to a lifting competition, but none of them sparked any interest. He smiled politely--Bruce’s idea of a polite smile was more chilling than any snarl--and answered cordially, but there was no passion in any of it.
“I’m not ashamed to admit I even tried to track down his family,” said Harvey one night as the loose group of people who’d decided to appoint themselves Bruce’s informal support group gathered in a hotel lobby. “But good luck sorting out any info about our Bruce from all the junk out there about the real Bruce Wayne. As a ring name designed to make it hard to track you down, it’s brilliant.”
“Do we even know his real name?” asked Selina.
“He claims it really happens to be Bruce Wayne,” said Clark. “That’s how he got the idea, sheer coincidence. All his legal stuff is in that name, so either it’s true or he’s actually changed it.”
Everyone looked discouraged.
“I never realized how much fun he was having until he wasn’t having it anymore,” sighed Waylon.
“Jason’s doing fine back in MMA,” said Diana. “The extra cachet from being fired from DCW for being ‘too hardcore’ has really lifted his career. Maybe if he came by to talk to Bruce…?”
“They’ve been in touch. Jason’s worried about him too,” said Clark. “But it hasn’t helped. It’s not Jason’s story that bothered him, it’s the audience’s reaction. He’s...lost faith.”
A glum silence fell.
“Here’s a funny thing,” said Dick after a moment. “Some kid accosted me after the show the other day, demanding I go back to being Robin. He used the same words Clark did just now, that the Dark Knight had lost faith in the magic of wrestling, and that he needed to have a Robin. At the time I kind of laughed it off, but...I don’t know, maybe he had something there.”
“Kid, you can’t go back to being Robin,” said Waylon. “You’ve outgrown that gimmick.”
All the wrestlers nodded.
“Bruce would hate it,” said Clark. “He’d say it was a bad story.”
“Stories should progress, not regress,” Waylon said with such a pitch-perfect mimicry of Bruce that everyone stared at him for a moment, astonished, making him shrug and grin.
“I know,” grumbled Dick. “But we have to do something.”
“I guess for now we just keep trying,” said Diana. “Maybe something will work.”
Nothing worked.
“Please cut it out,” Bruce said a few weeks later, in between pushups on the hotel floor.
“Cut what out? I was just talking about our next match, and how we could--”
Bruce shoved himself to his feet, turned his back on Clark, and dropped into the chair, staring out over Philadelphia. Clark could see his face reflected in the windows, the city lights spangling it. “After all this time, I think we can manage a match without going over every little detail. They’re all the same anyway: Brainiac gives some big gloating speech, you stand there like a lunk and glare in silence, and then I show up. Big pop for the Dark Knight--” He threw a hand in the air dismissively, “We fight and one of us wins or loses. Rinse and repeat next show.”
“Bruce--”
“--Are you seriously going to tell me that you get any joy from being a monster heel who never gets to talk? I know you hate it. It doesn’t matter. Hell, if Luthor would let you talk I’m sure the audience would eat it up. The Kryptonian would become the coolest thing ever, beating up weaklings and tormenting the helpless. They’d cheer like mad. As long as you’re charming.” Bruce shook his head. “Look, I know you’re worried about me. I know you’ve all been talking about how to ‘cheer me up.’ Waylon doesn’t have much of a poker face, after all. But I’m not sad. I’m not going to go throw myself off a bridge or something, I’ll keep doing my job. It’s just as useful as anything else.”
“Bruce, I--”
“--Please,” Bruce said, meeting Clark’s eyes in the window reflection without turning. His voice was flat. “Just stop it.”
“I can’t,” said Clark. “We can’t.”
Bruce looked away again, staring out over the city. “Then I’ll just have to put up with it, I guess.” There was no twinkle of humor in his voice, just a resigned statement of fact.
“Hey.” Dick elbowed Clark suddenly. “Look over there.”
He nodded toward the corridor of the Miami arena, where people were unpacking t-shirts and putting them on display before the show.
“What am I looking at?”
“You’re looking at the kid in the red shirt and jeans.”
Clark watched as the young man Dick had indicated opened up a box of Green Lantern t-shirts and started stacking them neatly on the display. “Okay, I guess I’m not seeing the point.”
“That’s the kid,” Dick said. “The kid who was telling me I had to go back to being Robin. Back in Richmond.”
“Him? I’ve seen him around here and there,” said Clark. “He's with the road crew?”
“Hey, Jimmy.” Dick flagged down Jimmy Olsen as he bustled by on his way to oversee a camera crew. “How long has the kid in the red shirt worked for us?”
“Tim? He doesn’t actually work work for us. He just started...showing up before shows and doing errands for people without pay. You know, gofer work and stuff, fetching coffee, making photocopies. Seems like a good kid.” Jimmy shrugged and moved on.
The object of their discussion finished stacking the shirts and picked up another box of merchandise. He suddenly seemed to realize he was being watched, and gave Dick and Clark an uneasy smile.
“Tim,” muttered Dick. “Huh.”
After that, Clark was much more aware of the young man with the floppy dark hair who seemed to always be around, unobtrusively running errands and helping out. Soon enough he was working with the lighting and sound crews--he seemed to have a gift for technical work. But he still did a lot of coffee-fetching and sandwich-delivering.
It was food delivery he was doing right now, as a matter of fact, handing out drink and snacks to bored and hungry wrestlers backstage.
“Here you go, Mr. Wayne,” Tim said, handing him a cup of coffee.
“Thank you, Mr. Sarcastic,” said Bruce.
“You’re welc--uh.” Tim’s voice broke off into a stammer.
“Did you think I wouldn’t make the connection?” Bruce said. He didn’t seem angry, just mildly curious. “I suspect you’re the same person who sent Dick and Clark those pictures of me after Jason’s last match, for that matter. Thanks for not sharing those on the Internet,” he added, taking a sip of coffee.
“You’re--uh--you’re welcome,” Tim said.
“So what’s the deal, Drake? Why the obsession with Dick Grayson and, by extension, myself?”
“Obsession is--it’s a little strong, don’t you think?”
Bruce almost smiled. “You’ve analyzed every one of his matches. You followed him all over Europe.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve become an unpaid roadie for a wrestling promotion to be close to him. I’m not sure what the right word is, exactly.”
”Inspired,” Tim burst out. “You don’t know--I was there in the crowd that night his parents--I couldn’t believe it. But he didn’t quit. He didn’t give up. He became Robin, and then Nightwing, and I wanted to be like him so much. And you--you were always the cool one, the distant one, but I could tell, I could tell how much you cared, how passionate you were about it all. And then lately--” He shrugged. “I hoped Dick would go back to being Robin, but I guess that’s no good.”
Bruce shook his head.
“Mr. Wayne--” Tim leaned close, his eyes intense. “Will you come with me tonight? I want to show you something.” He glanced at Clark, who was trying to look like he wasn’t hovering. “You can come too.”
Clark sighed, wishing in some ways that he wasn’t so transparent. “How about it, Bruce?”
After a moment, Bruce shrugged. “Why not?”
It wasn’t enthusiasm, but for now it would do.
It was a high school gymnasium, the ring surrounded by three rows of folding chairs. A corner in the back was screened off to serve as an impromptu changing area, with a curtain emblazoned with the Japanese character for “sky” on it. ”’Sora’--it’s Japanese for ‘sky’ and it sounds kind of like ‘soar,’ get it?” Tim explained.
Bruce looked dubious.
The ring announcer was calling out the next two combatants: Chlorophyll Kid versus the Condiment King. The costumes were makeshift, clearly cobbled together from whatever the wrestlers could manage; the entrance music played on someone’s iPod. As Chlorophyll Kid emerged from the staging area in the back, one of his thorny arms got caught on the curtain and the entire set of screens wobbled, sagging, and had to be hastily put back up by the cast. The crowd laughed and cheered as the crew managed to get it back up, the two wrestlers emoting surprise from the ring.
The bell rang and the match started.
Both wrestlers were athletic but too small to ever make it as full-time professionals. They had technical skill but were simply too weedy and short. What they did have, Clark realized as he watched, were a nearly vaudevillian sense of comedic timing and a skill for playing off the audience. They bounced off the ropes, caromed off each other, stopped to do slapstick routines in the middle of moves--with such a small crowd, their voices could carry easily, and so everyone could hear their quips, which seemed to consist largely of a stream of puns about Condiment King “relishing his victory” or Chlorophyll Kid being “green with envy.” The audience groaned and cheered, and when the wrestlers hit a legitimately dangerous spot they stamped their feet and came up with impromptu chants.
“So what’s the moral lesson here?” Bruce said to Tim as the Kid pinned the King for the three-count and did a quick victory dance in the middle of the ring to the thunderous applause of a full fifty or so people. “I should be working someplace like this instead of DCW? This is where the ‘real fans’ are?”
“Oh, come on,” snapped Tim. He pointed at one kid in the front row, no more than ten, beaming at Night Girl as she stopped to shake hands on her way to the ring. “She’s wearing a Poison Ivy shirt.” He turned to two kids sitting nearby: “Who’s your favorite DCW wrestler?”
They didn’t hesitate: “Green Lantern!” they both chorused.
“But he likes John Stewart and I like Hal Jordan,” one of them announced, causing a spirited disagreement to break out.
“They’re the same fans, Bruce,” said Tim. “The ones who like fun gimmicks and root for the good guys to win--they’re still there in the audience too. They’re not all cheering for the villains.”
Bruce looked at the ring, where Night Girl and Infectious Lass were trading barbs and suplexes. “They’re ridiculous,” he said. But he didn’t sound disdainful. He sounded almost--wistful.
“It’s fun,” said Tim. “Wrestling is ridiculous, and it’s fun.” He gestured at Chlorophyll Kid, emerging from the back in civilian clothes. “Ralph, c’mere.”
Ralph wandered over. “Hey, Tim. What are you--” He broke off as he took in Bruce and Clark, his jaw dropping slowly open. “Wha…”
“Can you put these two on the bill?” said Tim.
“Can I--damn straight I can!”
“Gosh,” said Clark as Tim hustled them toward the ramshackle changing area, “We’re under contract to the DCW, I don’t think Luthor would--”
“--if we don’t get paid, and we don’t use the gimmicks he has a trademark on, he can’t do much,” said Bruce. There was a calculating gleam in his eye as he looked at Tim. “Why do I suspect you’ve got some costumes we can use here?”
Tim looked innocent.
“You’re a schemer after my own heart,” Bruce said with grudging respect.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages!” Tim was in the center of the ring, gesturing to the crowd. “We have one more match for you tonight, not previously on the card--one I think you’re going to like!” Rubber-tipped chair legs squeaked on parquet flooring as the audience, which had been rising to go, sat back down. Tim gestured broadly. “Hailing from Smallville, Kansas, he is...The Hayseed!”
Clark didn’t have time to even roll his eyes before he had to hurry out from behind the curtain and down to the ring. He was fighting barefooted, in the overalls he had once scorned. Even the battered straw hat on his head felt pleasantly familiar.
The crowd laughed appreciatively and applauded as he made his way to the ring, stopping to shake hands with some of the children on the way. They beamed at him, and he smiled back, reveling in being able to. A couple of the parents in the crowd gave him rather wide-eyed looks, but he wasn’t sure if they recognized the Kryptonian back in his country clothes.
He vaulted into the ring, almost tripping, and took the mic from Tim. “Aw shucks,” he said, “It’s a pleasure to be here tonight. Thanks for having me!”
Tim grinned at him as he took back the mic, then addressed the audience once more: “And his opponent, hailing from parts unknown, the--uh--the Rich and Handsome Stranger!”
The crowd booed and hissed as Bruce made his way to the ring, nose in the air, clad in a preposterous green velvet smoking gown. ”Obviously I have better places to be than here tonight,” Bruce announced with a languid wave. “I’m only here because young Mr. Drake pleaded with me to come along and show you what real wrestling looked like.”
Clark gestured, and a crew member handed him another mic. “Say now, Rich and Handsome Stranger,” he said, smiling at Bruce as the audience booed. “Don’t you think that’s just a little unsporting?”
“Unsport--as if this is a sport!” Bruce glared out at the people who were stamping their feet and giving him vehement thumbs down gestures. “This isn’t a sport--” For a second, Clark felt a stab of panic that Bruce was going to break kayfabe and talk about how it was all rigged and fake, but he rallied and went on: “This is just two guys pummeling each other in a ring. You just want to see me make a fool out of this guy, or see him beating me to a pulp. Is that what you want, you losers?” he called to the crowd, “You want to see me get beaten up by the Hayseed?”
The crowd, it seemed, very much wanted to see the Hayseed beat the Rich and Handsome Stranger.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Stranger,” said Clark, “But I cannot allow you to impuggin the noble art of wrestling.”
“Impuggin--” For a second, Bruce almost smiled, then he actually slapped his forehead. “It’s impugn, you cretin.”
“Let’s have a good clean fight,” Tim said with an uneasy look at the Rich and Handsome Stranger.
“Let’s,” agreed the Hayseed, holding out his hand.
The Rich and Handsome Stranger looked at the outstretched hand. Then he looked around the gymnasium at the fans. Then back at the hand.
Then he stepped forward to treacherously throw the Hayseed into a hip toss, Tim waved frantically to have the bell rung, and the match was on.
Five minutes into the match, Clark knew something wasn’t going right. Oh, everything was physically great: he and Bruce were doing some intricate moves, some excellent high-flying spots. But Bruce would finish a spot and then move directly into the next one, like he was checking off a list of required moves. An Irish whip, and then straight to the turnbuckle for a diving elbow drop. It was an impressive encyclopedia of moves, and the audience was duly impressed.
But there was no heart in it.
The crowd’s appreciation was purely cerebral, entirely intellectual. Like watching Picasso skillfully execute a paint-by-numbers set. It was polite, abstract. Unsatisfying.
He could tell Bruce felt it too: there was an increasing frustration to his motions, a tension beyond that of the moves, like he was hitting a mental wall and couldn’t get past it.
“What’s the matter, Stranger?” Clark yelled in his best Hayseed voice. “Stop playing around and really fight me!” He delivered a flying clothesline that left Bruce flat on his back on the mat and pinned him.
The referee started counting.
Clark heard Bruce murmur “I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t going to bother to break the pin.
Just before the ref could say “three,” Clark pushed himself away from Bruce and lurched to his feet. “Get up!” His voice was shaking. ”Get up and fight!”
He saw in Bruce’s face that he heard the unspoken words: Don’t give up. Don’t let it end. Stay with me.
Bruce staggered to his feet. “What do you want from me?” he said, his voice hoarse. The audience was very quiet.
“I don’t--” Clark’s throat closed up for a moment. “I don’t want anything from you. This is what we are: a hayseed and a rich and handsome stranger. I’m just a simple country boy who believes in the goodness of people and the value of an honest day’s work. That’s what I’m fighting for,” he said, thumping his chest. “What do you believe in, god da--I mean, gosh darnit? What are you fighting for?”
Bruce stared at him.
A voice called from the audience, bouncing off the cinderblock gymnasium walls: ”Kick his ass, Hayseed!”
Laughter, applause, good-natured hoots rang out.
Bruce shook his head, his mouth twisted in something between a smile and a sob. “You have only the loosest grip on reality, you know that?” he yelled at the audience.
”Yeah!” they yelled back at him, all sixty strong of them. A little girl started giggling, and the sound skittered around the gymnasium, impossible to stifle or resist.
“All right,” said Bruce, looking out at them. He looked at Clark. “All right,” he said again. “I believe…” He stopped, looked down at the ring. “I believe in my right to make this mean whatever I want it to mean,” he said, almost to himself.
Then he raised his head and swung away from Clark, sweeping a hand out in an extravagant gesture to take in the whole audience. “I believe this is about me!” he cried. “They say I’m selfish, that I’m self-destructive, that I should give it up and go home and eat caviar, but I say no! They say I’m a narcissist, and I say--hell yeah!” The crowd was responding to the fervor in his voice, forgetting he was a heel, cheering his “hell yeah” as if they couldn’t help themselves. “And I don’t care what any of you think about whether I’m right or wrong, crazy or sane--I’m going to do what I’ve chosen to do with my life, and that’s drive fast cars, date beautiful people, and kick ass!”
There has never been a wrestling audience alive that didn’t cheer the idea of kicking ass, and this one was no exception, but he ignored their applause to swivel and point directly at Clark.
Bruce winked.
“Prepare yourself for the Revenge of the One Percent!” the Rich and Handsome Stranger cried, and launched himself at the Hayseed.
It was different right away. Bruce stopped, took the time to mug for the crowd, to play up the mannerisms, to have some fun. “Hey! Your shoelaces are untied!” he called to the Hayseed. When the Hayseed, looked down at his bare feet, he punched him as the audience booed and laughed. The big moves were still big and audience loved them, but he wasn’t just moving from one to the next. He was living in the moments between the moves as well, playing off Clark, building the rhythm of the match. Clark caught a glimpse of Tim’s delighted face as he was slingshotted off the ropes, ducking under the Stranger’s fist and bouncing off the far ropes.
He stopped dead before he could reach the Stranger’s outstretched arm for the clothesline. “Hey, Rich and Handsome Stranger, your shoes are untied!”
The Stranger snorted. “As if I’m going to fall for that one, you--” He took a step forward and tripped over his shoelaces, falling flat on his face.
Clark hooked his leg. “Take it home?” he said under his breath as the crowd crowed in delight at the villain’s comeuppance.
“One more hurricanrana,” murmured Bruce. He threw Clark off and staggered upright, clearly still dazed as Clark climbed the turnbuckle and jumped forward into a perfect hurricanrana. Bruce caught him lightly out of the air as he locked his legs around Bruce’s neck, pivoting him around so he pulled the Stranger down into a thunderous throw.
There was no getting up from that: Clark covered him as the referee counted, but the Rich and Handsome Stranger lay spread-eagled in the mat, unmoving. The crowd cheered and stamped, and Clark saw a smile on Bruce’s “unconscious” face as the referee raised the Hayseed’s hand in triumph.
Tim shifted uneasily in the back seat, headlights and streetlights washing over him as Bruce drove in silence. He started to say something, then stopped as Clark gave him a warning look into the rearview mirror.
They drove on, the only sounds the whine of the car’s gears and the nearly-audible whir of Bruce’s thoughts.
“They love love,” Bruce said suddenly out of nowhere, more to himself than to Tim or Clark. “The audience. They can tell who loves their gimmick, and they respond to that. Jason loved fighting, but he didn’t love being Robin. Joker loves his gimmick.” A long silence. “Jason could never just enjoy himself, he was always so aware of whether he was copying Dick, whether he was breaking the mold. He could never be himself. He could never...love it.”
He sighed then, a long, slow exhalation, as if he were letting something go.
“I think I understand,” he whispered.
He didn’t say much after that; he drove them back to the hotel and thanked Tim absently, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Is he...okay?” Tim asked Clark under his breath.
“I think he might be,” Clark said.
And it got better--not immediately, and not without setbacks. There were days when Bruce was sunk in gloom, matches when despair seemed more the enemy than the Kryptonian. But there were also matches full of joy, times when the Dark Knight seemed more full of life than ever before as he fought his enemies to a standstill. And the audience responded: more and more ecstatic reaction when he emerged from the shadows, more rafter-rattling approval for his gruff promos and dramatic finishing moves. Joy feeding on joy, love feeding on love. Bruce seemed almost unaware that he had become the most popular wrestler in the promotion, focused with laser intensity on improving his mic skills, on designing the best possible matches. He was more demanding and difficult to work with than ever, but everyone admitted it was better than before.
“Besides,” said Waylon, “Most of his matches are with Kent anyway, so the rest of us don’t have to put up with him often.”
And everyone--including Clark--agreed this was an ideal situation.
Bruce got Tim a regular job with the lighting crew and started training him in some basic wrestling moves. “I don’t know,” Tim said to Clark when asked if he’d ever want to be a wrestler. “It’s not an easy life, out there in the spotlight. But who knows. I...I might have some costume ideas,” he said, and blushed slightly.
“Love,” Bruce had said that night after his match as the Rich and Handsome Stranger, his body twined with Clark’s, comfortable and heavy, slicked with sweat. “If someone had told me fifteen years ago that love was the answer, I would have laughed at them. Or punched them. Ludicrous answer. Ridiculous answer.”
Clark kissed his neck, feeling the pulse still thrumming there, the echoes of orgasm still resonating. “If love is the answer, what’s the question?”
A silence so long Clark thought he had fallen asleep.
“Why bother?” whispered Bruce, and it took Clark a moment to realize that was his response.
They were good days, low on pressure and high on fun. The Kryptonian gimmick was still annoying, but it was selling merchandise and Luthor refused to change it. At least Milton Fine was having fun as Brainiac, Clark consoled himself.
And then things changed.
“Hey,” said Clark, then did a double-take at the expression on Bruce’s face as he dropped onto the common room couch. “Jeez, what’s wrong, what did Luthor say to you?” Clark hadn’t gotten nervous about Bruce being called in to talk with Luthor--after all, what could Luthor have to fault him with? The Dark Knight was hot, Bruce was burning down the ring every night, even the most jaded Internet trolls had to admit their matches were “predictably competent” (Bruce had laughed for a solid hour after reading that comment and announced he was putting “predictably competent “ on his Jumbotron display from now on). So why did Bruce look like he’d been punched in the solar plexus?
“Clark,” said Bruce, then stopped, swallowed, and tried again.
“Clark, he’s decided to make the Dark Knight the heavyweight champion.”
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Joker, Lex Luthor, Dick Grayson, Wonder Woman, Waylon Jones, Harvey Dent, Selina Kyle
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion ( click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 4800
Summary: Bruce Wayne has lost his smile, and his friends aren't sure how to help him.Title: A Lonely Place
Relationship: Clark/Bruce
Characters: Clark Kent, Bruce Wayne, Joker, Lex Luthor, Dick Grayson, Wonder Woman, Waylon Jones, Harvey Dent, Selina Kyle
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion (click for notes and all chapters).
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 4800
Summary: Bruce Wayne has lost his smile, and his friends aren't sure how to help him.
You push your body every night. It hurts--it hurts beyond words. But the mind wants to soar, and the body must follow. --Rey Mysterio
“He does not seem so changed to me,” Diana said, but she was frowning. She took a sip of her coffee and looked out the window at the sidewalk for a moment, the people passing by. “You say it started when Jason left?”
“It really bothered him,” Clark said. “You know how he is about stories.”
“But it was a good story,” Diana said. “Deeply moving, tragic as Aeschylus.”
“But the audience didn’t seem to see it that way. They cheered for the villain, and--” Clark remembered once more the look in Bruce’s eyes as he stared out at the cheering fans, waving homemade signs: bird silhouettes in a crosshairs, slogans calling for Jason’s death. “--I don’t know, Diana, he takes the face and heel stuff very seriously. There’s something almost childlike about it, in a way. He doesn’t understand a crowd that wants to see the bad guy win.” He sighed. “It’s like a light has gone out inside him since that night.”
Diana tapped her mouth thoughtfully with one perfectly-manicured finger. “He doesn’t miss shows. He doesn’t make mistakes in the ring.”
“But there’s no joy in it. He does what’s necessary, he does what the bookers tell him to do, but he doesn’t embellish, he doesn’t throw himself into like he used to. No storyline ideas, no trying new moves. He doesn’t seem to have much appetite--he eats fine, but without any relish.” Bruce had always had a favorite Chinese takeout in every city, beloved pizza places where he would tempt Clark out for a splurge. Now he ate whatever was cheap and nearby, without really looking at it. “The only thing he seems to do with energy is work out until he’s exhausted.”
“I see. And his sexual energies?”
Clark choked on his mouthful of coffee and had to take a moment to compose himself. “His--I’m sorry, what?”
That was the wrong question. “Has his libido decreased? Does he show less interest in sex?” Diana took in Clark’s expression and her matter-of-fact concern gave way to an eyeroll. “Come now, Clark, not everyone in the DCW finds it necessary to pretend to be oblivious.”
Clark looked away from the amused friendliness in her eyes, watched the couples strolling by for a moment. “He hasn’t been very interested in that either,” he finally said in a small voice. It was, he realized, the first time he had told anyone he and Bruce were more than friends. It felt momentous, and yet like the most ordinary thing in the world. It felt--
He felt Diana’s hand on his arm, looked into her smiling face. “We’ll find a way to help him,” she said.
It felt good.
Unfortunately, helping Bruce was not as simple as the desire to do so. Dick tried to tempt him into a debate about a new costume for Nightwing, Selina picked affectionate fights with him backstage, Diana challenged him to a lifting competition, but none of them sparked any interest. He smiled politely--Bruce’s idea of a polite smile was more chilling than any snarl--and answered cordially, but there was no passion in any of it.
“I’m not ashamed to admit I even tried to track down his family,” said Harvey one night as the loose group of people who’d decided to appoint themselves Bruce’s informal support group gathered in a hotel lobby. “But good luck sorting out any info about our Bruce from all the junk out there about the real Bruce Wayne. As a ring name designed to make it hard to track you down, it’s brilliant.”
“Do we even know his real name?” asked Selina.
“He claims it really happens to be Bruce Wayne,” said Clark. “That’s how he got the idea, sheer coincidence. All his legal stuff is in that name, so either it’s true or he’s actually changed it.”
Everyone looked discouraged.
“I never realized how much fun he was having until he wasn’t having it anymore,” sighed Waylon.
“Jason’s doing fine back in MMA,” said Diana. “The extra cachet from being fired from DCW for being ‘too hardcore’ has really lifted his career. Maybe if he came by to talk to Bruce…?”
“They’ve been in touch. Jason’s worried about him too,” said Clark. “But it hasn’t helped. It’s not Jason’s story that bothered him, it’s the audience’s reaction. He’s...lost faith.”
A glum silence fell.
“Here’s a funny thing,” said Dick after a moment. “Some kid accosted me after the show the other day, demanding I go back to being Robin. He used the same words Clark did just now, that the Dark Knight had lost faith in the magic of wrestling, and that he needed to have a Robin. At the time I kind of laughed it off, but...I don’t know, maybe he had something there.”
“Kid, you can’t go back to being Robin,” said Waylon. “You’ve outgrown that gimmick.”
All the wrestlers nodded.
“Bruce would hate it,” said Clark. “He’d say it was a bad story.”
“Stories should progress, not regress,” Waylon said with such a pitch-perfect mimicry of Bruce that everyone stared at him for a moment, astonished, making him shrug and grin.
“I know,” grumbled Dick. “But we have to do something.”
“I guess for now we just keep trying,” said Diana. “Maybe something will work.”
Nothing worked.
“Please cut it out,” Bruce said a few weeks later, in between pushups on the hotel floor.
“Cut what out? I was just talking about our next match, and how we could--”
Bruce shoved himself to his feet, turned his back on Clark, and dropped into the chair, staring out over Philadelphia. Clark could see his face reflected in the windows, the city lights spangling it. “After all this time, I think we can manage a match without going over every little detail. They’re all the same anyway: Brainiac gives some big gloating speech, you stand there like a lunk and glare in silence, and then I show up. Big pop for the Dark Knight--” He threw a hand in the air dismissively, “We fight and one of us wins or loses. Rinse and repeat next show.”
“Bruce--”
“--Are you seriously going to tell me that you get any joy from being a monster heel who never gets to talk? I know you hate it. It doesn’t matter. Hell, if Luthor would let you talk I’m sure the audience would eat it up. The Kryptonian would become the coolest thing ever, beating up weaklings and tormenting the helpless. They’d cheer like mad. As long as you’re charming.” Bruce shook his head. “Look, I know you’re worried about me. I know you’ve all been talking about how to ‘cheer me up.’ Waylon doesn’t have much of a poker face, after all. But I’m not sad. I’m not going to go throw myself off a bridge or something, I’ll keep doing my job. It’s just as useful as anything else.”
“Bruce, I--”
“--Please,” Bruce said, meeting Clark’s eyes in the window reflection without turning. His voice was flat. “Just stop it.”
“I can’t,” said Clark. “We can’t.”
Bruce looked away again, staring out over the city. “Then I’ll just have to put up with it, I guess.” There was no twinkle of humor in his voice, just a resigned statement of fact.
“Hey.” Dick elbowed Clark suddenly. “Look over there.”
He nodded toward the corridor of the Miami arena, where people were unpacking t-shirts and putting them on display before the show.
“What am I looking at?”
“You’re looking at the kid in the red shirt and jeans.”
Clark watched as the young man Dick had indicated opened up a box of Green Lantern t-shirts and started stacking them neatly on the display. “Okay, I guess I’m not seeing the point.”
“That’s the kid,” Dick said. “The kid who was telling me I had to go back to being Robin. Back in Richmond.”
“Him? I’ve seen him around here and there,” said Clark. “He's with the road crew?”
“Hey, Jimmy.” Dick flagged down Jimmy Olsen as he bustled by on his way to oversee a camera crew. “How long has the kid in the red shirt worked for us?”
“Tim? He doesn’t actually work work for us. He just started...showing up before shows and doing errands for people without pay. You know, gofer work and stuff, fetching coffee, making photocopies. Seems like a good kid.” Jimmy shrugged and moved on.
The object of their discussion finished stacking the shirts and picked up another box of merchandise. He suddenly seemed to realize he was being watched, and gave Dick and Clark an uneasy smile.
“Tim,” muttered Dick. “Huh.”
After that, Clark was much more aware of the young man with the floppy dark hair who seemed to always be around, unobtrusively running errands and helping out. Soon enough he was working with the lighting and sound crews--he seemed to have a gift for technical work. But he still did a lot of coffee-fetching and sandwich-delivering.
It was food delivery he was doing right now, as a matter of fact, handing out drink and snacks to bored and hungry wrestlers backstage.
“Here you go, Mr. Wayne,” Tim said, handing him a cup of coffee.
“Thank you, Mr. Sarcastic,” said Bruce.
“You’re welc--uh.” Tim’s voice broke off into a stammer.
“Did you think I wouldn’t make the connection?” Bruce said. He didn’t seem angry, just mildly curious. “I suspect you’re the same person who sent Dick and Clark those pictures of me after Jason’s last match, for that matter. Thanks for not sharing those on the Internet,” he added, taking a sip of coffee.
“You’re--uh--you’re welcome,” Tim said.
“So what’s the deal, Drake? Why the obsession with Dick Grayson and, by extension, myself?”
“Obsession is--it’s a little strong, don’t you think?”
Bruce almost smiled. “You’ve analyzed every one of his matches. You followed him all over Europe.” He raised an eyebrow. “You’ve become an unpaid roadie for a wrestling promotion to be close to him. I’m not sure what the right word is, exactly.”
”Inspired,” Tim burst out. “You don’t know--I was there in the crowd that night his parents--I couldn’t believe it. But he didn’t quit. He didn’t give up. He became Robin, and then Nightwing, and I wanted to be like him so much. And you--you were always the cool one, the distant one, but I could tell, I could tell how much you cared, how passionate you were about it all. And then lately--” He shrugged. “I hoped Dick would go back to being Robin, but I guess that’s no good.”
Bruce shook his head.
“Mr. Wayne--” Tim leaned close, his eyes intense. “Will you come with me tonight? I want to show you something.” He glanced at Clark, who was trying to look like he wasn’t hovering. “You can come too.”
Clark sighed, wishing in some ways that he wasn’t so transparent. “How about it, Bruce?”
After a moment, Bruce shrugged. “Why not?”
It wasn’t enthusiasm, but for now it would do.
It was a high school gymnasium, the ring surrounded by three rows of folding chairs. A corner in the back was screened off to serve as an impromptu changing area, with a curtain emblazoned with the Japanese character for “sky” on it. ”’Sora’--it’s Japanese for ‘sky’ and it sounds kind of like ‘soar,’ get it?” Tim explained.
Bruce looked dubious.
The ring announcer was calling out the next two combatants: Chlorophyll Kid versus the Condiment King. The costumes were makeshift, clearly cobbled together from whatever the wrestlers could manage; the entrance music played on someone’s iPod. As Chlorophyll Kid emerged from the staging area in the back, one of his thorny arms got caught on the curtain and the entire set of screens wobbled, sagging, and had to be hastily put back up by the cast. The crowd laughed and cheered as the crew managed to get it back up, the two wrestlers emoting surprise from the ring.
The bell rang and the match started.
Both wrestlers were athletic but too small to ever make it as full-time professionals. They had technical skill but were simply too weedy and short. What they did have, Clark realized as he watched, were a nearly vaudevillian sense of comedic timing and a skill for playing off the audience. They bounced off the ropes, caromed off each other, stopped to do slapstick routines in the middle of moves--with such a small crowd, their voices could carry easily, and so everyone could hear their quips, which seemed to consist largely of a stream of puns about Condiment King “relishing his victory” or Chlorophyll Kid being “green with envy.” The audience groaned and cheered, and when the wrestlers hit a legitimately dangerous spot they stamped their feet and came up with impromptu chants.
“So what’s the moral lesson here?” Bruce said to Tim as the Kid pinned the King for the three-count and did a quick victory dance in the middle of the ring to the thunderous applause of a full fifty or so people. “I should be working someplace like this instead of DCW? This is where the ‘real fans’ are?”
“Oh, come on,” snapped Tim. He pointed at one kid in the front row, no more than ten, beaming at Night Girl as she stopped to shake hands on her way to the ring. “She’s wearing a Poison Ivy shirt.” He turned to two kids sitting nearby: “Who’s your favorite DCW wrestler?”
They didn’t hesitate: “Green Lantern!” they both chorused.
“But he likes John Stewart and I like Hal Jordan,” one of them announced, causing a spirited disagreement to break out.
“They’re the same fans, Bruce,” said Tim. “The ones who like fun gimmicks and root for the good guys to win--they’re still there in the audience too. They’re not all cheering for the villains.”
Bruce looked at the ring, where Night Girl and Infectious Lass were trading barbs and suplexes. “They’re ridiculous,” he said. But he didn’t sound disdainful. He sounded almost--wistful.
“It’s fun,” said Tim. “Wrestling is ridiculous, and it’s fun.” He gestured at Chlorophyll Kid, emerging from the back in civilian clothes. “Ralph, c’mere.”
Ralph wandered over. “Hey, Tim. What are you--” He broke off as he took in Bruce and Clark, his jaw dropping slowly open. “Wha…”
“Can you put these two on the bill?” said Tim.
“Can I--damn straight I can!”
“Gosh,” said Clark as Tim hustled them toward the ramshackle changing area, “We’re under contract to the DCW, I don’t think Luthor would--”
“--if we don’t get paid, and we don’t use the gimmicks he has a trademark on, he can’t do much,” said Bruce. There was a calculating gleam in his eye as he looked at Tim. “Why do I suspect you’ve got some costumes we can use here?”
Tim looked innocent.
“You’re a schemer after my own heart,” Bruce said with grudging respect.
“Ladies and Gentlemen, children of all ages!” Tim was in the center of the ring, gesturing to the crowd. “We have one more match for you tonight, not previously on the card--one I think you’re going to like!” Rubber-tipped chair legs squeaked on parquet flooring as the audience, which had been rising to go, sat back down. Tim gestured broadly. “Hailing from Smallville, Kansas, he is...The Hayseed!”
Clark didn’t have time to even roll his eyes before he had to hurry out from behind the curtain and down to the ring. He was fighting barefooted, in the overalls he had once scorned. Even the battered straw hat on his head felt pleasantly familiar.
The crowd laughed appreciatively and applauded as he made his way to the ring, stopping to shake hands with some of the children on the way. They beamed at him, and he smiled back, reveling in being able to. A couple of the parents in the crowd gave him rather wide-eyed looks, but he wasn’t sure if they recognized the Kryptonian back in his country clothes.
He vaulted into the ring, almost tripping, and took the mic from Tim. “Aw shucks,” he said, “It’s a pleasure to be here tonight. Thanks for having me!”
Tim grinned at him as he took back the mic, then addressed the audience once more: “And his opponent, hailing from parts unknown, the--uh--the Rich and Handsome Stranger!”
The crowd booed and hissed as Bruce made his way to the ring, nose in the air, clad in a preposterous green velvet smoking gown. ”Obviously I have better places to be than here tonight,” Bruce announced with a languid wave. “I’m only here because young Mr. Drake pleaded with me to come along and show you what real wrestling looked like.”
Clark gestured, and a crew member handed him another mic. “Say now, Rich and Handsome Stranger,” he said, smiling at Bruce as the audience booed. “Don’t you think that’s just a little unsporting?”
“Unsport--as if this is a sport!” Bruce glared out at the people who were stamping their feet and giving him vehement thumbs down gestures. “This isn’t a sport--” For a second, Clark felt a stab of panic that Bruce was going to break kayfabe and talk about how it was all rigged and fake, but he rallied and went on: “This is just two guys pummeling each other in a ring. You just want to see me make a fool out of this guy, or see him beating me to a pulp. Is that what you want, you losers?” he called to the crowd, “You want to see me get beaten up by the Hayseed?”
The crowd, it seemed, very much wanted to see the Hayseed beat the Rich and Handsome Stranger.
“I’m very sorry, Mr. Stranger,” said Clark, “But I cannot allow you to impuggin the noble art of wrestling.”
“Impuggin--” For a second, Bruce almost smiled, then he actually slapped his forehead. “It’s impugn, you cretin.”
“Let’s have a good clean fight,” Tim said with an uneasy look at the Rich and Handsome Stranger.
“Let’s,” agreed the Hayseed, holding out his hand.
The Rich and Handsome Stranger looked at the outstretched hand. Then he looked around the gymnasium at the fans. Then back at the hand.
Then he stepped forward to treacherously throw the Hayseed into a hip toss, Tim waved frantically to have the bell rung, and the match was on.
Five minutes into the match, Clark knew something wasn’t going right. Oh, everything was physically great: he and Bruce were doing some intricate moves, some excellent high-flying spots. But Bruce would finish a spot and then move directly into the next one, like he was checking off a list of required moves. An Irish whip, and then straight to the turnbuckle for a diving elbow drop. It was an impressive encyclopedia of moves, and the audience was duly impressed.
But there was no heart in it.
The crowd’s appreciation was purely cerebral, entirely intellectual. Like watching Picasso skillfully execute a paint-by-numbers set. It was polite, abstract. Unsatisfying.
He could tell Bruce felt it too: there was an increasing frustration to his motions, a tension beyond that of the moves, like he was hitting a mental wall and couldn’t get past it.
“What’s the matter, Stranger?” Clark yelled in his best Hayseed voice. “Stop playing around and really fight me!” He delivered a flying clothesline that left Bruce flat on his back on the mat and pinned him.
The referee started counting.
Clark heard Bruce murmur “I’m sorry.”
He wasn’t going to bother to break the pin.
Just before the ref could say “three,” Clark pushed himself away from Bruce and lurched to his feet. “Get up!” His voice was shaking. ”Get up and fight!”
He saw in Bruce’s face that he heard the unspoken words: Don’t give up. Don’t let it end. Stay with me.
Bruce staggered to his feet. “What do you want from me?” he said, his voice hoarse. The audience was very quiet.
“I don’t--” Clark’s throat closed up for a moment. “I don’t want anything from you. This is what we are: a hayseed and a rich and handsome stranger. I’m just a simple country boy who believes in the goodness of people and the value of an honest day’s work. That’s what I’m fighting for,” he said, thumping his chest. “What do you believe in, god da--I mean, gosh darnit? What are you fighting for?”
Bruce stared at him.
A voice called from the audience, bouncing off the cinderblock gymnasium walls: ”Kick his ass, Hayseed!”
Laughter, applause, good-natured hoots rang out.
Bruce shook his head, his mouth twisted in something between a smile and a sob. “You have only the loosest grip on reality, you know that?” he yelled at the audience.
”Yeah!” they yelled back at him, all sixty strong of them. A little girl started giggling, and the sound skittered around the gymnasium, impossible to stifle or resist.
“All right,” said Bruce, looking out at them. He looked at Clark. “All right,” he said again. “I believe…” He stopped, looked down at the ring. “I believe in my right to make this mean whatever I want it to mean,” he said, almost to himself.
Then he raised his head and swung away from Clark, sweeping a hand out in an extravagant gesture to take in the whole audience. “I believe this is about me!” he cried. “They say I’m selfish, that I’m self-destructive, that I should give it up and go home and eat caviar, but I say no! They say I’m a narcissist, and I say--hell yeah!” The crowd was responding to the fervor in his voice, forgetting he was a heel, cheering his “hell yeah” as if they couldn’t help themselves. “And I don’t care what any of you think about whether I’m right or wrong, crazy or sane--I’m going to do what I’ve chosen to do with my life, and that’s drive fast cars, date beautiful people, and kick ass!”
There has never been a wrestling audience alive that didn’t cheer the idea of kicking ass, and this one was no exception, but he ignored their applause to swivel and point directly at Clark.
Bruce winked.
“Prepare yourself for the Revenge of the One Percent!” the Rich and Handsome Stranger cried, and launched himself at the Hayseed.
It was different right away. Bruce stopped, took the time to mug for the crowd, to play up the mannerisms, to have some fun. “Hey! Your shoelaces are untied!” he called to the Hayseed. When the Hayseed, looked down at his bare feet, he punched him as the audience booed and laughed. The big moves were still big and audience loved them, but he wasn’t just moving from one to the next. He was living in the moments between the moves as well, playing off Clark, building the rhythm of the match. Clark caught a glimpse of Tim’s delighted face as he was slingshotted off the ropes, ducking under the Stranger’s fist and bouncing off the far ropes.
He stopped dead before he could reach the Stranger’s outstretched arm for the clothesline. “Hey, Rich and Handsome Stranger, your shoes are untied!”
The Stranger snorted. “As if I’m going to fall for that one, you--” He took a step forward and tripped over his shoelaces, falling flat on his face.
Clark hooked his leg. “Take it home?” he said under his breath as the crowd crowed in delight at the villain’s comeuppance.
“One more hurricanrana,” murmured Bruce. He threw Clark off and staggered upright, clearly still dazed as Clark climbed the turnbuckle and jumped forward into a perfect hurricanrana. Bruce caught him lightly out of the air as he locked his legs around Bruce’s neck, pivoting him around so he pulled the Stranger down into a thunderous throw.
There was no getting up from that: Clark covered him as the referee counted, but the Rich and Handsome Stranger lay spread-eagled in the mat, unmoving. The crowd cheered and stamped, and Clark saw a smile on Bruce’s “unconscious” face as the referee raised the Hayseed’s hand in triumph.
Tim shifted uneasily in the back seat, headlights and streetlights washing over him as Bruce drove in silence. He started to say something, then stopped as Clark gave him a warning look into the rearview mirror.
They drove on, the only sounds the whine of the car’s gears and the nearly-audible whir of Bruce’s thoughts.
“They love love,” Bruce said suddenly out of nowhere, more to himself than to Tim or Clark. “The audience. They can tell who loves their gimmick, and they respond to that. Jason loved fighting, but he didn’t love being Robin. Joker loves his gimmick.” A long silence. “Jason could never just enjoy himself, he was always so aware of whether he was copying Dick, whether he was breaking the mold. He could never be himself. He could never...love it.”
He sighed then, a long, slow exhalation, as if he were letting something go.
“I think I understand,” he whispered.
He didn’t say much after that; he drove them back to the hotel and thanked Tim absently, his mind clearly elsewhere. “Is he...okay?” Tim asked Clark under his breath.
“I think he might be,” Clark said.
And it got better--not immediately, and not without setbacks. There were days when Bruce was sunk in gloom, matches when despair seemed more the enemy than the Kryptonian. But there were also matches full of joy, times when the Dark Knight seemed more full of life than ever before as he fought his enemies to a standstill. And the audience responded: more and more ecstatic reaction when he emerged from the shadows, more rafter-rattling approval for his gruff promos and dramatic finishing moves. Joy feeding on joy, love feeding on love. Bruce seemed almost unaware that he had become the most popular wrestler in the promotion, focused with laser intensity on improving his mic skills, on designing the best possible matches. He was more demanding and difficult to work with than ever, but everyone admitted it was better than before.
“Besides,” said Waylon, “Most of his matches are with Kent anyway, so the rest of us don’t have to put up with him often.”
And everyone--including Clark--agreed this was an ideal situation.
Bruce got Tim a regular job with the lighting crew and started training him in some basic wrestling moves. “I don’t know,” Tim said to Clark when asked if he’d ever want to be a wrestler. “It’s not an easy life, out there in the spotlight. But who knows. I...I might have some costume ideas,” he said, and blushed slightly.
“Love,” Bruce had said that night after his match as the Rich and Handsome Stranger, his body twined with Clark’s, comfortable and heavy, slicked with sweat. “If someone had told me fifteen years ago that love was the answer, I would have laughed at them. Or punched them. Ludicrous answer. Ridiculous answer.”
Clark kissed his neck, feeling the pulse still thrumming there, the echoes of orgasm still resonating. “If love is the answer, what’s the question?”
A silence so long Clark thought he had fallen asleep.
“Why bother?” whispered Bruce, and it took Clark a moment to realize that was his response.
They were good days, low on pressure and high on fun. The Kryptonian gimmick was still annoying, but it was selling merchandise and Luthor refused to change it. At least Milton Fine was having fun as Brainiac, Clark consoled himself.
And then things changed.
“Hey,” said Clark, then did a double-take at the expression on Bruce’s face as he dropped onto the common room couch. “Jeez, what’s wrong, what did Luthor say to you?” Clark hadn’t gotten nervous about Bruce being called in to talk with Luthor--after all, what could Luthor have to fault him with? The Dark Knight was hot, Bruce was burning down the ring every night, even the most jaded Internet trolls had to admit their matches were “predictably competent” (Bruce had laughed for a solid hour after reading that comment and announced he was putting “predictably competent “ on his Jumbotron display from now on). So why did Bruce look like he’d been punched in the solar plexus?
“Clark,” said Bruce, then stopped, swallowed, and tried again.
“Clark, he’s decided to make the Dark Knight the heavyweight champion.”