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mithenTitle: Foreshadowing
Relationship: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion.
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 2000
Summary: The Dark Knight's paranoia starts to be a factor, though his tag team partner suspects nothing.
I want to thank you people. Thank you very much for hating me. I love you all. --Bobby Heenan
“Take care of yourself,” said Clark, shaking Pop Haly’s hand.
Haly looked down at Clark’s hand clasping his, and his shoulders slumped. “You’re the only person who’ll see me off,” he said, caught between a question and a statement. He hadn’t refereed a match since the Screwjob, but today was truly his last official day with the DCW.
“I’m sorry,” said Clark.
“I’ve got a family, Clark,” Haly said. “Three kids. Almost college age.”
“I know,” said Clark, and he liked to think he was a good person, but he couldn’t resist adding: “And I’m sure they’ll be taken care of from now on.”
Haly met his eyes and there was both shame and defiance in them. “They will, as a matter of fact. I made my deal with the devil, and I’ll just have to learn to live with that.”
“Good luck,” said Clark, but only after he was sure that he could deliver it sincerely, without sarcasm.
“So,” said Batman to Flash, watching him scarf down a sandwich in catering. “What’s it like to have such a fast metabolism?”
By now the DCW audiences were inured to the strangeness of seeing a man in a cape and cowl sitting down to eat a meal--and to the fact that none of the characters seemed to notice there was a camera trained on them.
“Oh, it’s pretty cool,” said Flash, swallowing the last bite. “I can eat a lot and not gain weight. Being so fast can be a problem sometimes in the ring, though.”
“Oh?” Batman looked curious. “I wouldn’t have thought your speed would ever be a disadvantage.”
“Yeah, sometimes I get thinking too fast, and it’s easy to get distracted. Sudden loud noises can really throw me off, knock me completely out of my game. I’ve gotten pretty good at compensating, though.” Flash smiled and grabbed the sandwich in front of Batman. “If you’re not going to eat this, bro…”
“Go ahead,” said Batman, clearly lost in thought. “I’m not hungry.”
“I’ve noticed you always work out on this side of the gym,” Batman said as he watched Green Lantern doing his bench press. As before, the apparently-hidden camera went unremarked-on by either of them. “Would it be prying to ask why?”
“It’s a stupid reason,” said Green Lantern, grimacing as he lifted his set of weights.
“Being able to admit your weakness is the beginning of strength,” Batman said.
“Well, it’s that the walls on the other side of the gym are yellow,” Green Lantern said. He cleared his throat “look, I’ve got...really bad associations with the color yellow. Childhood trauma. I’d rather not go into it.”
Batman nodded. “I understand.”
“It always makes fighting Sinestro a problem, what with that damn yellow costume he always wears. But I’ve fought through it before, and I’ll do it again.” Green Lantern let the weights drop and stood up, wiping his brow above the mask. “Told you it was stupid.”
“It’s not,” Batman said.
Green Lantern smiled. “Thanks for spotting for me, Bats. It’s good to have someone I can trust helping me out.” He strolled out of the gym, whistling, and the camera watched him go before turning back to Batman and lingering on his thoughtful gaze.
“Why do I always wear these bracelets?” Wonder Woman lifted her arms, and the camera closed in on the heavy gleaming silver bands around her wrists. “They were a gift from my mother, before I left Paradise Island to come wrestle.” She smiled wistfully down at them. “They’re a symbol of her love and support. I always feel like they give me an edge in combat, and I’ve never once wrestled without them.”
The camera pulled back, and the crowd noise swelled into a sullen, angry muttering as her questioner was revealed: not The Dark Knight, but Billionaire Brucie.
“I didn’t know you were so interested in jewelry, Mr. Wayne,” Diana said with a smile.
“Oh, I find it fascinating,” said Billionaire Brucie. “Sparkly things always are.”
“Introducing the World’s Finest Tag team of Superman--”
Superman came around the corner to thunderous applause and whistling.
“--and the Dark Knight!”
The crowd’s enthusiasm dissipated like a drop of ink in a gallon of water, replaced by hissing murmurs of discontent. Superman stopped on the ramp and tilted his head, frowning. Then he turned to the Dark Knight and lifted his hands in a puzzled gesture: What’s going on here?
The Dark Knight shrugged and continued his way to the ring, leaving Superman to trail behind, still looking baffled.
“Adding Billionaire Brucie to the mix was genius,” Lex Luthor said without looking up from his phone as people buzzed around them, preparing for the next match. “Everyone sort of knows that Brucie and the Dark Knight are the same person, they feel like they’re privy to a secret, they’re putting the pieces together and realizing he’s up to no good in either of his forms. They know what’s coming and they’re furious about it.” He glanced up and winked cheerfully at Bruce and Clark. “This feud had better deliver.”
“Oh, it will,” said Bruce. “Believe me.”
“He sure knows how to make a story tick,” Bruce said later, when they were back in their hotel room and well away from Luthor. “And he knows how to get the crowd into it. He’s almost as brilliant as I am.”
Clark almost snorted, then realized Bruce wasn’t joking--of course he wasn’t, Bruce never bothered with false modesty. “He’s great with the stories, but not so much with the talent. How someone so bright can be so blind to how to promote young stars--”
“Promoters are all scum,” Bruce said, tossing his gym bag onto the bed with relish.
Clark followed suit. “And here you are, aspiring to be one.”
“But I’ll be the best and most brilliant scum on the planet,” Bruce said. “And I’ll have you to deal with the talent; you’re better at that than I am.”
“Hm,” Clark said thoughtfully. “That might be a problem down the road, if we disagree on things. I’ll take the wrestlers’ side if they’re right, you know.”
“I’m counting on it,” Bruce said. He finished making the meticulous adjustments to the room that he always did--the chairs had to be at the right angles, his phone had to be plugged in, the curtains closed so tightly no light would get in--and took Clark’s shoulders in his hands. “Because when we get along we’re good, but when we’re in conflict--well, then we’re great.”
Clark kissed him lightly. “I just wish you didn’t have to turn heel to get in an angle with me.”
Bruce laughed. “Only you would think turning heel is a fate worse than death, Clark. You do know most of us love it?”
“I know, I know--the freedom to speak your mind, to relax and not be a paragon of virtue, blah blah blah, I know the spiel,” Clark said.
Bruce scowled, though not at Clark. “I don’t think the audience will even let me turn heel at this point. I’ll end up some kind of tweener.” He lifted his lip, his disdain for fuzzy gray morality clear, then shrugged. “I’m still a little surprised you’re willing to start up a feud with me,” he said.
“Bruce.” Clark took Bruce’s hands in his and kissed them. “It’s been wonderful being tag champion with you. But to be in the ring again with you, that’s--” His words dried up and he waved his hands aimlessly, his fingers still entwined with Bruce’s so they moved together. “That’s...something else.” Something intimate. Something I share with only you.
Bruce interlocked his fingers more tightly with Clark’s and stepped back to push against him as if starting a match, feeling out the opponent in the traditional test of strength. Push-pull, tug-retreat-advance. Clark braced his knees and swayed against him: almost a fight, almost a dance. Entirely their own. “That’s good,” Bruce said with relish. “That’s what I want, the give and take, the rise and fall. The story we weave. You have no idea how much I’ve missed actually being up against you, touching you in the ring and feeling your body against mine as we make the crowd scream--”
Clark cleared his throat. “You’re going to make it hard to concentrate when we finally do get to fight.”
“I’ll take that risk,” Bruce chuckled, giving way before Clark so they danced backwards across the hotel room. “It’s been too long since it’s been just the two of us in the ring together,” he went on. “I’ve gotten tired of sharing you. If you knew how I suffered every time Snart did that gorgeous sunset flip and ended up with his head between your thighs and you pinned and helpless in his grasp… I just stand there on the turnbuckle and think ‘That should be me. That should be me he’s pretending to suffer for.’”
Clark was ferociously glad that years in the ring had made him mostly immune to blushing. Mostly. “How do you think I feel when Rory gets you in that rear naked choke, huh?”
“Oh come on,” Bruce scoffed. “It’s not even that sexy a move. You just wanted to say ‘rear naked,’ admit it.”
Clark shifted his weight and yanked Bruce toward him, spinning out of the way at the last second so Bruce landed on the bed, sending their luggage spilling everywhere. He sprawled dramatically, throwing his arms out: “You have undone me, O most pure of heart babyface! Take your terrible and long-anticipated vengeance upon me now!”
It may have been long-anticipated, but Clark did get Bruce to admit later (as they lay limp and sweating among scattered tube socks and t-shirts) that it may not have been utterly terrible.
The crowd muttered uneasily as the Jumbotron cut to Superman, sitting outside the arena on a fire escape, gazing up at the stars. By now they knew how these backstage vignettes were going, but they had been hoping that maybe…
As Batman dropped from the shadows to sit down next to Superman, the audience took a growling breath, almost as one. He wouldn’t--
“What are you thinking about?” Batman asked, his voice just loud enough to get picked up by the microphones.
Superman chuckled weakly. “It’s nothing.”
Batman waited.
Superman sighed. “You remember all that time I spent under Brainiac’s control?”
Batman nodded.
“He made me do terrible things. He made me attack you, even. I could tell what was happening, but it was all like a hideous dream that I couldn’t wake up from.” Superman shook his head, shuddering. “I still have nightmares about it sometimes, where I can’t stop myself from hurting people, I’m trapped in my body and I can only watch as--” He broke off and swallowed hard. “You used that green dust, that Kryptonite stuff, from my home planet to stop me.”
Batman was looking at him with his head tilted, his expression unreadable.
“You said you used it all up in that last match,” said Superman. “But I wish you hadn’t. I wish you still had some way you could make sure I never… I never did anything bad again.”
Batman sat very still for a moment. The crowd had gone equally quiet. Then he put his hand on Superman’s shoulder.
“Kal-El,” he said, “I swear to you that I will make sure no one else forces you to do anything bad again.”
Superman sighed and reached up to clasp Batman’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
Bruce’s other hand, where Superman couldn’t see it, briefly touched a pocket at his belt, as if to reassure himself of something.
But the camera caught the motion, and the audience did too.
Relationship: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Lex Luthor, Wonder Woman, Green Lantern, Flash
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion.
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG-13
Word Count 2000
Summary: The Dark Knight's paranoia starts to be a factor, though his tag team partner suspects nothing.
I want to thank you people. Thank you very much for hating me. I love you all. --Bobby Heenan
“Take care of yourself,” said Clark, shaking Pop Haly’s hand.
Haly looked down at Clark’s hand clasping his, and his shoulders slumped. “You’re the only person who’ll see me off,” he said, caught between a question and a statement. He hadn’t refereed a match since the Screwjob, but today was truly his last official day with the DCW.
“I’m sorry,” said Clark.
“I’ve got a family, Clark,” Haly said. “Three kids. Almost college age.”
“I know,” said Clark, and he liked to think he was a good person, but he couldn’t resist adding: “And I’m sure they’ll be taken care of from now on.”
Haly met his eyes and there was both shame and defiance in them. “They will, as a matter of fact. I made my deal with the devil, and I’ll just have to learn to live with that.”
“Good luck,” said Clark, but only after he was sure that he could deliver it sincerely, without sarcasm.
“So,” said Batman to Flash, watching him scarf down a sandwich in catering. “What’s it like to have such a fast metabolism?”
By now the DCW audiences were inured to the strangeness of seeing a man in a cape and cowl sitting down to eat a meal--and to the fact that none of the characters seemed to notice there was a camera trained on them.
“Oh, it’s pretty cool,” said Flash, swallowing the last bite. “I can eat a lot and not gain weight. Being so fast can be a problem sometimes in the ring, though.”
“Oh?” Batman looked curious. “I wouldn’t have thought your speed would ever be a disadvantage.”
“Yeah, sometimes I get thinking too fast, and it’s easy to get distracted. Sudden loud noises can really throw me off, knock me completely out of my game. I’ve gotten pretty good at compensating, though.” Flash smiled and grabbed the sandwich in front of Batman. “If you’re not going to eat this, bro…”
“Go ahead,” said Batman, clearly lost in thought. “I’m not hungry.”
“I’ve noticed you always work out on this side of the gym,” Batman said as he watched Green Lantern doing his bench press. As before, the apparently-hidden camera went unremarked-on by either of them. “Would it be prying to ask why?”
“It’s a stupid reason,” said Green Lantern, grimacing as he lifted his set of weights.
“Being able to admit your weakness is the beginning of strength,” Batman said.
“Well, it’s that the walls on the other side of the gym are yellow,” Green Lantern said. He cleared his throat “look, I’ve got...really bad associations with the color yellow. Childhood trauma. I’d rather not go into it.”
Batman nodded. “I understand.”
“It always makes fighting Sinestro a problem, what with that damn yellow costume he always wears. But I’ve fought through it before, and I’ll do it again.” Green Lantern let the weights drop and stood up, wiping his brow above the mask. “Told you it was stupid.”
“It’s not,” Batman said.
Green Lantern smiled. “Thanks for spotting for me, Bats. It’s good to have someone I can trust helping me out.” He strolled out of the gym, whistling, and the camera watched him go before turning back to Batman and lingering on his thoughtful gaze.
“Why do I always wear these bracelets?” Wonder Woman lifted her arms, and the camera closed in on the heavy gleaming silver bands around her wrists. “They were a gift from my mother, before I left Paradise Island to come wrestle.” She smiled wistfully down at them. “They’re a symbol of her love and support. I always feel like they give me an edge in combat, and I’ve never once wrestled without them.”
The camera pulled back, and the crowd noise swelled into a sullen, angry muttering as her questioner was revealed: not The Dark Knight, but Billionaire Brucie.
“I didn’t know you were so interested in jewelry, Mr. Wayne,” Diana said with a smile.
“Oh, I find it fascinating,” said Billionaire Brucie. “Sparkly things always are.”
“Introducing the World’s Finest Tag team of Superman--”
Superman came around the corner to thunderous applause and whistling.
“--and the Dark Knight!”
The crowd’s enthusiasm dissipated like a drop of ink in a gallon of water, replaced by hissing murmurs of discontent. Superman stopped on the ramp and tilted his head, frowning. Then he turned to the Dark Knight and lifted his hands in a puzzled gesture: What’s going on here?
The Dark Knight shrugged and continued his way to the ring, leaving Superman to trail behind, still looking baffled.
“Adding Billionaire Brucie to the mix was genius,” Lex Luthor said without looking up from his phone as people buzzed around them, preparing for the next match. “Everyone sort of knows that Brucie and the Dark Knight are the same person, they feel like they’re privy to a secret, they’re putting the pieces together and realizing he’s up to no good in either of his forms. They know what’s coming and they’re furious about it.” He glanced up and winked cheerfully at Bruce and Clark. “This feud had better deliver.”
“Oh, it will,” said Bruce. “Believe me.”
“He sure knows how to make a story tick,” Bruce said later, when they were back in their hotel room and well away from Luthor. “And he knows how to get the crowd into it. He’s almost as brilliant as I am.”
Clark almost snorted, then realized Bruce wasn’t joking--of course he wasn’t, Bruce never bothered with false modesty. “He’s great with the stories, but not so much with the talent. How someone so bright can be so blind to how to promote young stars--”
“Promoters are all scum,” Bruce said, tossing his gym bag onto the bed with relish.
Clark followed suit. “And here you are, aspiring to be one.”
“But I’ll be the best and most brilliant scum on the planet,” Bruce said. “And I’ll have you to deal with the talent; you’re better at that than I am.”
“Hm,” Clark said thoughtfully. “That might be a problem down the road, if we disagree on things. I’ll take the wrestlers’ side if they’re right, you know.”
“I’m counting on it,” Bruce said. He finished making the meticulous adjustments to the room that he always did--the chairs had to be at the right angles, his phone had to be plugged in, the curtains closed so tightly no light would get in--and took Clark’s shoulders in his hands. “Because when we get along we’re good, but when we’re in conflict--well, then we’re great.”
Clark kissed him lightly. “I just wish you didn’t have to turn heel to get in an angle with me.”
Bruce laughed. “Only you would think turning heel is a fate worse than death, Clark. You do know most of us love it?”
“I know, I know--the freedom to speak your mind, to relax and not be a paragon of virtue, blah blah blah, I know the spiel,” Clark said.
Bruce scowled, though not at Clark. “I don’t think the audience will even let me turn heel at this point. I’ll end up some kind of tweener.” He lifted his lip, his disdain for fuzzy gray morality clear, then shrugged. “I’m still a little surprised you’re willing to start up a feud with me,” he said.
“Bruce.” Clark took Bruce’s hands in his and kissed them. “It’s been wonderful being tag champion with you. But to be in the ring again with you, that’s--” His words dried up and he waved his hands aimlessly, his fingers still entwined with Bruce’s so they moved together. “That’s...something else.” Something intimate. Something I share with only you.
Bruce interlocked his fingers more tightly with Clark’s and stepped back to push against him as if starting a match, feeling out the opponent in the traditional test of strength. Push-pull, tug-retreat-advance. Clark braced his knees and swayed against him: almost a fight, almost a dance. Entirely their own. “That’s good,” Bruce said with relish. “That’s what I want, the give and take, the rise and fall. The story we weave. You have no idea how much I’ve missed actually being up against you, touching you in the ring and feeling your body against mine as we make the crowd scream--”
Clark cleared his throat. “You’re going to make it hard to concentrate when we finally do get to fight.”
“I’ll take that risk,” Bruce chuckled, giving way before Clark so they danced backwards across the hotel room. “It’s been too long since it’s been just the two of us in the ring together,” he went on. “I’ve gotten tired of sharing you. If you knew how I suffered every time Snart did that gorgeous sunset flip and ended up with his head between your thighs and you pinned and helpless in his grasp… I just stand there on the turnbuckle and think ‘That should be me. That should be me he’s pretending to suffer for.’”
Clark was ferociously glad that years in the ring had made him mostly immune to blushing. Mostly. “How do you think I feel when Rory gets you in that rear naked choke, huh?”
“Oh come on,” Bruce scoffed. “It’s not even that sexy a move. You just wanted to say ‘rear naked,’ admit it.”
Clark shifted his weight and yanked Bruce toward him, spinning out of the way at the last second so Bruce landed on the bed, sending their luggage spilling everywhere. He sprawled dramatically, throwing his arms out: “You have undone me, O most pure of heart babyface! Take your terrible and long-anticipated vengeance upon me now!”
It may have been long-anticipated, but Clark did get Bruce to admit later (as they lay limp and sweating among scattered tube socks and t-shirts) that it may not have been utterly terrible.
The crowd muttered uneasily as the Jumbotron cut to Superman, sitting outside the arena on a fire escape, gazing up at the stars. By now they knew how these backstage vignettes were going, but they had been hoping that maybe…
As Batman dropped from the shadows to sit down next to Superman, the audience took a growling breath, almost as one. He wouldn’t--
“What are you thinking about?” Batman asked, his voice just loud enough to get picked up by the microphones.
Superman chuckled weakly. “It’s nothing.”
Batman waited.
Superman sighed. “You remember all that time I spent under Brainiac’s control?”
Batman nodded.
“He made me do terrible things. He made me attack you, even. I could tell what was happening, but it was all like a hideous dream that I couldn’t wake up from.” Superman shook his head, shuddering. “I still have nightmares about it sometimes, where I can’t stop myself from hurting people, I’m trapped in my body and I can only watch as--” He broke off and swallowed hard. “You used that green dust, that Kryptonite stuff, from my home planet to stop me.”
Batman was looking at him with his head tilted, his expression unreadable.
“You said you used it all up in that last match,” said Superman. “But I wish you hadn’t. I wish you still had some way you could make sure I never… I never did anything bad again.”
Batman sat very still for a moment. The crowd had gone equally quiet. Then he put his hand on Superman’s shoulder.
“Kal-El,” he said, “I swear to you that I will make sure no one else forces you to do anything bad again.”
Superman sighed and reached up to clasp Batman’s hand.
“Thank you,” he said.
Bruce’s other hand, where Superman couldn’t see it, briefly touched a pocket at his belt, as if to reassure himself of something.
But the camera caught the motion, and the audience did too.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-01-28 10:00 am (UTC)Haly's sendoff was touching. I'm glad at least someone was kind to him in the end, even though it pained Clark to do it.
“I don’t think the audience will even let me turn heel at this point. I’ll end up some kind of tweener.” He lifted his lip, his disdain for fuzzy gray morality clear
Oh Bruce. Oh Bruce don't say that! I can't help it, all my favorites down to the very last (Edge, Chris Jericho, Triple H, Shawn Michaels, etc) have thrived as tweeners.
(no subject)
Date: 2016-02-01 09:17 am (UTC)The best characters are always, ALWAYS the tweeners, IMHO. Not surprisingly, Bruce has taken on a lot of Kevin Owens's attitude toward wrestling over the last year, and although I think Owens is doomed to be a tweener, I suspect it annoys him, lol. Someone was just talking to me today about Chris Jericho specifically saying he hated people cheering for him when he was a heel: "You're messing up the story!" Sorry, Chris, we can't help it that you're awesome. :)