Heroes of the Squared Circle 68: Heel Pay-per-View
Title: Heel Pay-Per-View
Relationship: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Joker, Justice League
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion.
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 2800
Summary: Batman's notebook of secrets results in a disastrous pay-per-view for the Justice League.
You'll be maybe lunging for the bad guy’s hip
No one anticipates the sunset flip
The referee and your opponent will hold you there
And we’re going to bring in a folding chair. --The Mountain Goats
Superman was striding down the backstage corridors of the auditorium. The camera following him and broadcasting his wanderings out to the audience was a shakycam for “added authenticity.” He came into the locker room and saw a figure in a cowl jotting in a notebook, tongue stuck out very slightly in intense concentration.
“Hey, Batman,” Superman said.
“Don’t call me that.” The Dark Knight’s response lacked snap and was clearly done by rote; he closed the notebook hastily.
“What are you working on?” Superman slung a friendly arm around the Dark Knight’s shoulders, not seeming to notice his discomfort. “Clever plans? Cunning strategies?”
“Uh...yeah,” said Batman.
“Well, it’s time to get out there and show that Tokyo crowd what the World’s Finest Tag Team is all about, buddy!”
“Right,” said Batman. He put the notebook in his locker and started to fiddle with the lock, but Superman grabbed him by the arm. “Wait!” Batman said, trying to get back to the locker.
“We’re late, bro!” Superman dragged him off over his protests.
The camera lingered on the locker after they were gone--just long enough to show a gloved hand opening the door and catch a whisper of mocking laughter.
The Kabuki-cho bar was crowded and noisy, and the three foreigners--huger than even the usual foreigners in the Tokyo red-light district--loomed above the servers and drew eyes to them.
“This ain’t the most inconspicuous meeting,” Guy Gardner said, slamming his beer mug down on the counter and wiping his mouth.
“This isn’t a ‘meeting,’” said Bruce. “It’s just a conversation. We’re old friends, right? Old friends can hang out and have a beer when their promotion happens to be touring nearby.”
“How are things with that slimeball Luthor, anyway?” Guy said. “I hear morale’s pretty low over there.”
“It’s been better,” Clark said.
“I hear he’s taking his frustration with Dick and you guys out on the young talent. I hear some people there are pretty frustrated.”
“And I hear that your contract with New Nippon is up at the end of the year,” Bruce said.
Guy guffawed loudly enough that several businessmen turned to look at him. “So what if it is? I’ve got a good deal here. And I swore I’d never work for Luthor after he killed the JLI, and I meant it. I loved the JLI, man. Ain’t no way I’m ever working for the scum that ran it into the ground.”
Bruce flicked the barest look at Clark, but Clark didn’t even need the cue: he knew when the audience was getting too hot, when to cool the pace down a bit. He chuckled and said: “Oh man, JLI days. I feel like maybe I shouldn’t miss them, but… Remember the night in Philly where the humidity was too much and the sound system shorted out?”
Guy snorted. “And I sang Bruce’s theme song to get him to the ring and added all those obscene lyrics?” He snickered into his beer. “The boys were singing those for months.”
Clark let the conversation unreel from there, easily slipping into stories of life on the road, of scraping by, of wrestling with barbed wire bats for pocket change--if they were lucky and Max paid them at all.
Eventually, into a lull in the conversation as Guy stared into his beer, Clark said quietly, “And if Luthor were no longer running the DCW?”
Guy Gardner’s head snapped up like Clark had punched him.
Then he smiled as if he were tasting blood.
The card for the big DCW pay-per-view had everyone buzzing, because it featured some of the greatest feuds of promotion, some of the biggest names of the Justice League and the Injustice League going head to head: Wonder Woman and Cheetah, Green Lantern and Sinestro, Flash and Captain Cold, Superman and Metallo, Batman and Joker. All of their angles had been red-hot recently and the crowd was desperate to see the heels get their comeuppance.
Instead, the night was an unmitigated disaster for the babyfaces.
“Dark Knight.” Lex Luthor’s suave voice interrupted Batman as he was taping his hands. “I have some important financial figures I need to go over with you.”
“Now?” Batman’s gravelly voice was incredulous. “I’m in the main event against Joker and you want to discuss finances?”
Luthor crossed his arms. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Dark Knight, DCW is a business. Now, I’m aware that you don’t know much about running a business, but discussions like these can’t always wait. Be in my office in ten.”
He left, and the camera zoomed in on Batman’s puzzled face before he shrugged and left the frame as well.
“Where are my bracelets?” Wonder Woman’s agitated voice reached the camera before she came bursting out of the locker room. ”Where are they?”
“Hey, slow up there, Princess,” said Catwoman, putting out her hands to stop the distraught Amazon. “What’s the problem?”
“My match with Cheetah is next,” Wonder Woman said, “And I can’t find my bracelets. They’re...they’re important to me, okay? I’ve never wrestled without them, and I--” She broke off and ran her hands through her hair distractedly. In the distance Cheetah’s music hit, and Wonder Woman gasped. “Great Hera, there’s no time. I have to go!”
She ran off, leaving Catwoman looking after her with her brow furrowed. Then her eyes narrowed and the camera panned to follow her gaze, to where Poison Ivy peeked, smirking, around a corner, a glint of silver in her hand.
Catwoman shrugged, her facial expression shifting to a distinct not my problem look as Wonder Woman’s music hit and the camera cut back to where the Amazon was coming down the ring, worry etched on her face and her eyes distracted, to where a gloating Cheetah was waited to defeat her.
“You didn’t have to turn off the monitor,” the Dark Knight said, clearly annoyed.
“I don’t want you to be distracted,” said Luthor. “Besides, we have to look at some very important graphs.” He fiddled with his phone and a graphic appeared on the screen: T-Shirt Sales by Quarter. “As you can see,” Luthor said, “Sales for the World’s Finest shirts are way up, but Green Lantern shirt sales are rather stagnant…”
When Green Lantern came to the ring, he stared down at the canvas in shock: the brilliant, eye-searing, neon yellow canvas.
“Luthor decided to try something new for this match!” Sinestro called mockingly from across the ring, and the camera zoomed in on Hal Jordan’s face as he struggled to look stoic and only looked traumatized instead.
He did his best, but after Sinestro pounding his face into the yellow mat for a few minutes the fight seemed to go out of him and he tapped out to Sinestro’s submission hold.
The crowd booed their disappointed hearts out.
The Jumbotron showed the Dark Knight frowning as the boos permeated even to Luthor’s office. “I think maybe I should go out there and check--”
Luthor stopped pacing and put a hand on his shoulder as he started to stand up. “But we’ve just reached the crux of this discussion, Dark Knight,” he said. “Let’s go over the ratings of last week’s show hour by hour, and I think you’ll see what I’m talking about…”
Flash’s match against Captain Cold lasted longer, but the results were the same. Someone in the audience (a very muscular someone, who looked distinctly like Heat Wave without his goggles) had brought an airhorn and kept setting it off at random intervals. They were banned, but security seemed in no hurry to throw the man out. Flash would flinch each time and look around in confusion, as if his train of thought had been violently interrupted. Each time, Captain Cold would get the upper hand. Eventually the distraction proved too much, and Snart got off his finishing move, leaving Flash helpless against his pin.
This time when the camera cut to Luthor’s office between matches, the audience knew what was coming and were ready. The desperate screams of the crowd, trying to alert Batman, to get him to leave, to do something, shook the arena; backstage Barry looked at Clark and whistled under his breath. The people in the audience were desperate and furious and they knew that Superman’s match was next and Batman had to do something, this was all his fault.
“Ready?” Barry said.
“I guess,” said Clark. Bruce was wrapping up the interim promo in Luthor’s office; it felt weird to be going out there without Bruce’s final fist-bump. Superman’s last minutes as Batman’s friend. He swallowed hard, feeling ridiculous. If anything, this meant he and Bruce would be more intimate than before, work closer than ever together. The friendship they were breaking wasn’t real.
But…
“Hey!” Clark turned just as his music hit to see Bruce jumping over a dolly, almost tripping in his attempt to get to Clark and tap fists.
Superman entered the arena a few minutes late, but he seemed in a particularly fine mood, beaming and kissing kids, waving to the crowd. The audience was agitated: more than once Clark heard someone calling out to him in desperation, trying to explain that Batman had betrayed them all. He smiled and cupped a hand to his ear, miming confusion, and headed to the ring.
Metallo waited for him in the middle of the ring, and a close-up revealed the sinister smile on his face. He patted a chain around his neck which disappeared out of sight into his steel-gray singlet. He seemed very confident that he could beat the Man of Steel, and the audience’s horrified suspicion lapped around Clark like an ocean as he smiled his way into the ring.
They put on a good match first, of course: the audience still deserved their money’s worth, after all. But ten minutes in, Metallo laughed, stepping away from Superman.
Superman’s eyes narrowed, looking at his opponent.
And on the Jumbotron, Batman’s frantic face appeared.
“Superman!” he yelled, “It’s a trap! He’s got--”
“Yes!” finished Metallo triumphantly, pulling down the straps of his singlet to reveal a green-stoned pendant on the end of the chain, one that seemed to glow with a baleful inner light. “Your greatest weakness! Kryptonite!”
Superman collapsed to his knees, holding his hands out in a pathetic attempt to shield himself. Laughing, Metallo unlooped the chain from around his neck and draped it around Superman’s. Then he grabbed Superman’s hair and started punching him, cruel blows that rocked the Man of Steel backwards. Clark tasted blood in his mouth at one glancing blow and let it trickle down his chin, hearing the crowd noise peak and crest at the sight. Later Clark would hear that security had to hold people back from jumping the barricade and charging in to save him as Metallo stood above him, laughing mockingly.
Then the audience’s screams of horror changed to shrieks of delight mixed with rage as Batman charged the ring, throwing himself at Metallo with all the fury of an avenging angel. The bell rang; Metallo had won by disqualification, outside interference. Metallo fell back before his onslaught, then retreated. From the top of the ramp, he turned back to sneer one last time, then disappeared.
A strange, hushed silence fell across the arena as Batman knelt by Superman’s side. Superman was lying with his face to the mat, occasional spasms still shaking his body. Batman ripped the pendant from his neck and hurled it across the ring, not even looking to see where it fell, his eyes fixed on his suffering teammate. Batman put a hand on his shoulder. “Kal-El,” he said, and the ring mic caught the break in his voice. “Oh, Kal-El. This is all my fault.”
A delighted cackle burst like static and Joker sauntered out onto the ramp. “Indeed it is, Batsy!” he crowed, holding up a small notebook.
”How dare you!” howled Batman, jumping to his feet.
“How dare moi?” Joker put an elegant hand to his heart as if wounded. “It wasn’t moi who was keeping detailed notes on how to defeat my very own teammates! My friends! It wasn’t moi who was, under cover of friendly conversation, collecting information about their most intimate weaknesses!” He shook his finger, making a tsking noise. “I don’t think you’re a very super friend at all, Batman. And I think there are some people who agree with me.”
Based on their muttering boos, a fair amount of the audience did. “Not enough. Suffer a little more,” Bruce whispered between his gritted teeth, and Superman attempted to rise to his feet, then fell back to the mat in agony.
The boos increased in volume.
“Come here and fight me!” Batman yelled as Superman managed to get to the edge of the ring and slip to the floor with a horrible thud.
“Oh, I don’t think I need to,” jeered Joker. “I think I’ve already beaten you. I think I’ve already destroyed you and your precious League. I think I--”
“--Joker.” Luthor’s face appealed on the Jumbotron above him, looking down its nose at him. “Don’t you think you’re taking a little too much credit?”
“I stole the notebook!” Joker yelled, dancing in irritation.
“On my orders,” Luthor noted.
“I don’t do anything on anyone’s orders,” snarled Joker.
“Oh?” Luthor smiled. “Well, I still cut your paychecks, Joker, and if you want to continue receiving them, I suggest you get down to the ring and fight the Dark Knight.”
“Well!” Joker tossed his head angrily. “I was just about to; there’s no need to get bossy. Boss-man.”
He pranced to the ring, stopping where Superman lay helpless and groaning on the floor outside it. Grinning up at Batman, he stopped to kick the Man of Steel, who curled up around the blow as if unable to ward it off.
Batman climbed to the turnbuckle and hurled himself out onto Joker, and the fight began.
It was a sloppy fight--a deliberate aesthetic choice by Napier and Bruce. “After all,” Bruce had said with a wink at Clark, “The Dark Knight’s going to be overwhelmed with guilt and remorse, he isn’t going to be able to pull off any technical moves.” All intellect was thrown aside in favor of a wild attack on the Joker, a flurry of kicks and blows that the Joker dodged and returned.
The audience murmured and muttered, unable to get into the match fully as they were uncertain exactly who they wanted to see suffer more, the villain or the betrayer. But that was the exact effect they’d been aiming for, Clark reminded himself as he dragged himself to his knees to lean heavily against the barricade, clearly too ill to continue. He felt small hands touching his shoulders, heard voices of concern. In the ring the tide was turning in favor of Joker. The Dark Knight dodged wrong and Joker lifted him up into a powerbomb--Clark could hear Bruce’s cry of anguish at the apex from outside the ring--and slammed him down, pinning him for the victory. The final heel win to cap off a heel sweep of the night.
“A risky choice,” Lex had said when Bruce pitched the idea to him. “It might be better to have at least Batman win.”
Bruce had frowned. “The Dark Knight needs to suffer for his perfidy,” he said. “But you know how to end things so everyone goes home at least satisfied.”
And indeed Luthor did. The triumphant Joker stood astride Batman’s body, brandishing his notebook. “The Justice League is finished!” he yelled. Heat Wave, goggles back in place, shoved Superman’s limp body into the ring, and Joker put one foot on his chest. “I’m the superman of this promotion now, you fools! Now, to finish the job!”
He lifted Superman up to deliver his finishing face-plant, the Last Laugh, but stopped as the Justice League, still limping or wincing but full of fury and fight, descended upon the ring to send the Joker scurrying, cowed and beaten, back up the ramp and away.
Wonder Woman helped Superman rise to his feet and he stood with them, supported by his faithful friends, as the crowd cheered and the camera panned over their weary but determined faces.
In the corner, the Dark Knight lay slumped and defeated, his shoulders shaking, ignored by his comrades as the camera cut to black.
Relationship: Bruce Wayne/Clark Kent
Characters: Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Joker, Justice League
Continuity: Heroes of the Squared Circle, a DC/pro wrestling fusion.
Warnings/Spoilers: None
Rating: PG
Word Count 2800
Summary: Batman's notebook of secrets results in a disastrous pay-per-view for the Justice League.
You'll be maybe lunging for the bad guy’s hip
No one anticipates the sunset flip
The referee and your opponent will hold you there
And we’re going to bring in a folding chair. --The Mountain Goats
Superman was striding down the backstage corridors of the auditorium. The camera following him and broadcasting his wanderings out to the audience was a shakycam for “added authenticity.” He came into the locker room and saw a figure in a cowl jotting in a notebook, tongue stuck out very slightly in intense concentration.
“Hey, Batman,” Superman said.
“Don’t call me that.” The Dark Knight’s response lacked snap and was clearly done by rote; he closed the notebook hastily.
“What are you working on?” Superman slung a friendly arm around the Dark Knight’s shoulders, not seeming to notice his discomfort. “Clever plans? Cunning strategies?”
“Uh...yeah,” said Batman.
“Well, it’s time to get out there and show that Tokyo crowd what the World’s Finest Tag Team is all about, buddy!”
“Right,” said Batman. He put the notebook in his locker and started to fiddle with the lock, but Superman grabbed him by the arm. “Wait!” Batman said, trying to get back to the locker.
“We’re late, bro!” Superman dragged him off over his protests.
The camera lingered on the locker after they were gone--just long enough to show a gloved hand opening the door and catch a whisper of mocking laughter.
The Kabuki-cho bar was crowded and noisy, and the three foreigners--huger than even the usual foreigners in the Tokyo red-light district--loomed above the servers and drew eyes to them.
“This ain’t the most inconspicuous meeting,” Guy Gardner said, slamming his beer mug down on the counter and wiping his mouth.
“This isn’t a ‘meeting,’” said Bruce. “It’s just a conversation. We’re old friends, right? Old friends can hang out and have a beer when their promotion happens to be touring nearby.”
“How are things with that slimeball Luthor, anyway?” Guy said. “I hear morale’s pretty low over there.”
“It’s been better,” Clark said.
“I hear he’s taking his frustration with Dick and you guys out on the young talent. I hear some people there are pretty frustrated.”
“And I hear that your contract with New Nippon is up at the end of the year,” Bruce said.
Guy guffawed loudly enough that several businessmen turned to look at him. “So what if it is? I’ve got a good deal here. And I swore I’d never work for Luthor after he killed the JLI, and I meant it. I loved the JLI, man. Ain’t no way I’m ever working for the scum that ran it into the ground.”
Bruce flicked the barest look at Clark, but Clark didn’t even need the cue: he knew when the audience was getting too hot, when to cool the pace down a bit. He chuckled and said: “Oh man, JLI days. I feel like maybe I shouldn’t miss them, but… Remember the night in Philly where the humidity was too much and the sound system shorted out?”
Guy snorted. “And I sang Bruce’s theme song to get him to the ring and added all those obscene lyrics?” He snickered into his beer. “The boys were singing those for months.”
Clark let the conversation unreel from there, easily slipping into stories of life on the road, of scraping by, of wrestling with barbed wire bats for pocket change--if they were lucky and Max paid them at all.
Eventually, into a lull in the conversation as Guy stared into his beer, Clark said quietly, “And if Luthor were no longer running the DCW?”
Guy Gardner’s head snapped up like Clark had punched him.
Then he smiled as if he were tasting blood.
The card for the big DCW pay-per-view had everyone buzzing, because it featured some of the greatest feuds of promotion, some of the biggest names of the Justice League and the Injustice League going head to head: Wonder Woman and Cheetah, Green Lantern and Sinestro, Flash and Captain Cold, Superman and Metallo, Batman and Joker. All of their angles had been red-hot recently and the crowd was desperate to see the heels get their comeuppance.
Instead, the night was an unmitigated disaster for the babyfaces.
“Dark Knight.” Lex Luthor’s suave voice interrupted Batman as he was taping his hands. “I have some important financial figures I need to go over with you.”
“Now?” Batman’s gravelly voice was incredulous. “I’m in the main event against Joker and you want to discuss finances?”
Luthor crossed his arms. “In case you hadn’t noticed, Dark Knight, DCW is a business. Now, I’m aware that you don’t know much about running a business, but discussions like these can’t always wait. Be in my office in ten.”
He left, and the camera zoomed in on Batman’s puzzled face before he shrugged and left the frame as well.
“Where are my bracelets?” Wonder Woman’s agitated voice reached the camera before she came bursting out of the locker room. ”Where are they?”
“Hey, slow up there, Princess,” said Catwoman, putting out her hands to stop the distraught Amazon. “What’s the problem?”
“My match with Cheetah is next,” Wonder Woman said, “And I can’t find my bracelets. They’re...they’re important to me, okay? I’ve never wrestled without them, and I--” She broke off and ran her hands through her hair distractedly. In the distance Cheetah’s music hit, and Wonder Woman gasped. “Great Hera, there’s no time. I have to go!”
She ran off, leaving Catwoman looking after her with her brow furrowed. Then her eyes narrowed and the camera panned to follow her gaze, to where Poison Ivy peeked, smirking, around a corner, a glint of silver in her hand.
Catwoman shrugged, her facial expression shifting to a distinct not my problem look as Wonder Woman’s music hit and the camera cut back to where the Amazon was coming down the ring, worry etched on her face and her eyes distracted, to where a gloating Cheetah was waited to defeat her.
“You didn’t have to turn off the monitor,” the Dark Knight said, clearly annoyed.
“I don’t want you to be distracted,” said Luthor. “Besides, we have to look at some very important graphs.” He fiddled with his phone and a graphic appeared on the screen: T-Shirt Sales by Quarter. “As you can see,” Luthor said, “Sales for the World’s Finest shirts are way up, but Green Lantern shirt sales are rather stagnant…”
When Green Lantern came to the ring, he stared down at the canvas in shock: the brilliant, eye-searing, neon yellow canvas.
“Luthor decided to try something new for this match!” Sinestro called mockingly from across the ring, and the camera zoomed in on Hal Jordan’s face as he struggled to look stoic and only looked traumatized instead.
He did his best, but after Sinestro pounding his face into the yellow mat for a few minutes the fight seemed to go out of him and he tapped out to Sinestro’s submission hold.
The crowd booed their disappointed hearts out.
The Jumbotron showed the Dark Knight frowning as the boos permeated even to Luthor’s office. “I think maybe I should go out there and check--”
Luthor stopped pacing and put a hand on his shoulder as he started to stand up. “But we’ve just reached the crux of this discussion, Dark Knight,” he said. “Let’s go over the ratings of last week’s show hour by hour, and I think you’ll see what I’m talking about…”
Flash’s match against Captain Cold lasted longer, but the results were the same. Someone in the audience (a very muscular someone, who looked distinctly like Heat Wave without his goggles) had brought an airhorn and kept setting it off at random intervals. They were banned, but security seemed in no hurry to throw the man out. Flash would flinch each time and look around in confusion, as if his train of thought had been violently interrupted. Each time, Captain Cold would get the upper hand. Eventually the distraction proved too much, and Snart got off his finishing move, leaving Flash helpless against his pin.
This time when the camera cut to Luthor’s office between matches, the audience knew what was coming and were ready. The desperate screams of the crowd, trying to alert Batman, to get him to leave, to do something, shook the arena; backstage Barry looked at Clark and whistled under his breath. The people in the audience were desperate and furious and they knew that Superman’s match was next and Batman had to do something, this was all his fault.
“Ready?” Barry said.
“I guess,” said Clark. Bruce was wrapping up the interim promo in Luthor’s office; it felt weird to be going out there without Bruce’s final fist-bump. Superman’s last minutes as Batman’s friend. He swallowed hard, feeling ridiculous. If anything, this meant he and Bruce would be more intimate than before, work closer than ever together. The friendship they were breaking wasn’t real.
But…
“Hey!” Clark turned just as his music hit to see Bruce jumping over a dolly, almost tripping in his attempt to get to Clark and tap fists.
Superman entered the arena a few minutes late, but he seemed in a particularly fine mood, beaming and kissing kids, waving to the crowd. The audience was agitated: more than once Clark heard someone calling out to him in desperation, trying to explain that Batman had betrayed them all. He smiled and cupped a hand to his ear, miming confusion, and headed to the ring.
Metallo waited for him in the middle of the ring, and a close-up revealed the sinister smile on his face. He patted a chain around his neck which disappeared out of sight into his steel-gray singlet. He seemed very confident that he could beat the Man of Steel, and the audience’s horrified suspicion lapped around Clark like an ocean as he smiled his way into the ring.
They put on a good match first, of course: the audience still deserved their money’s worth, after all. But ten minutes in, Metallo laughed, stepping away from Superman.
Superman’s eyes narrowed, looking at his opponent.
And on the Jumbotron, Batman’s frantic face appeared.
“Superman!” he yelled, “It’s a trap! He’s got--”
“Yes!” finished Metallo triumphantly, pulling down the straps of his singlet to reveal a green-stoned pendant on the end of the chain, one that seemed to glow with a baleful inner light. “Your greatest weakness! Kryptonite!”
Superman collapsed to his knees, holding his hands out in a pathetic attempt to shield himself. Laughing, Metallo unlooped the chain from around his neck and draped it around Superman’s. Then he grabbed Superman’s hair and started punching him, cruel blows that rocked the Man of Steel backwards. Clark tasted blood in his mouth at one glancing blow and let it trickle down his chin, hearing the crowd noise peak and crest at the sight. Later Clark would hear that security had to hold people back from jumping the barricade and charging in to save him as Metallo stood above him, laughing mockingly.
Then the audience’s screams of horror changed to shrieks of delight mixed with rage as Batman charged the ring, throwing himself at Metallo with all the fury of an avenging angel. The bell rang; Metallo had won by disqualification, outside interference. Metallo fell back before his onslaught, then retreated. From the top of the ramp, he turned back to sneer one last time, then disappeared.
A strange, hushed silence fell across the arena as Batman knelt by Superman’s side. Superman was lying with his face to the mat, occasional spasms still shaking his body. Batman ripped the pendant from his neck and hurled it across the ring, not even looking to see where it fell, his eyes fixed on his suffering teammate. Batman put a hand on his shoulder. “Kal-El,” he said, and the ring mic caught the break in his voice. “Oh, Kal-El. This is all my fault.”
A delighted cackle burst like static and Joker sauntered out onto the ramp. “Indeed it is, Batsy!” he crowed, holding up a small notebook.
”How dare you!” howled Batman, jumping to his feet.
“How dare moi?” Joker put an elegant hand to his heart as if wounded. “It wasn’t moi who was keeping detailed notes on how to defeat my very own teammates! My friends! It wasn’t moi who was, under cover of friendly conversation, collecting information about their most intimate weaknesses!” He shook his finger, making a tsking noise. “I don’t think you’re a very super friend at all, Batman. And I think there are some people who agree with me.”
Based on their muttering boos, a fair amount of the audience did. “Not enough. Suffer a little more,” Bruce whispered between his gritted teeth, and Superman attempted to rise to his feet, then fell back to the mat in agony.
The boos increased in volume.
“Come here and fight me!” Batman yelled as Superman managed to get to the edge of the ring and slip to the floor with a horrible thud.
“Oh, I don’t think I need to,” jeered Joker. “I think I’ve already beaten you. I think I’ve already destroyed you and your precious League. I think I--”
“--Joker.” Luthor’s face appealed on the Jumbotron above him, looking down its nose at him. “Don’t you think you’re taking a little too much credit?”
“I stole the notebook!” Joker yelled, dancing in irritation.
“On my orders,” Luthor noted.
“I don’t do anything on anyone’s orders,” snarled Joker.
“Oh?” Luthor smiled. “Well, I still cut your paychecks, Joker, and if you want to continue receiving them, I suggest you get down to the ring and fight the Dark Knight.”
“Well!” Joker tossed his head angrily. “I was just about to; there’s no need to get bossy. Boss-man.”
He pranced to the ring, stopping where Superman lay helpless and groaning on the floor outside it. Grinning up at Batman, he stopped to kick the Man of Steel, who curled up around the blow as if unable to ward it off.
Batman climbed to the turnbuckle and hurled himself out onto Joker, and the fight began.
It was a sloppy fight--a deliberate aesthetic choice by Napier and Bruce. “After all,” Bruce had said with a wink at Clark, “The Dark Knight’s going to be overwhelmed with guilt and remorse, he isn’t going to be able to pull off any technical moves.” All intellect was thrown aside in favor of a wild attack on the Joker, a flurry of kicks and blows that the Joker dodged and returned.
The audience murmured and muttered, unable to get into the match fully as they were uncertain exactly who they wanted to see suffer more, the villain or the betrayer. But that was the exact effect they’d been aiming for, Clark reminded himself as he dragged himself to his knees to lean heavily against the barricade, clearly too ill to continue. He felt small hands touching his shoulders, heard voices of concern. In the ring the tide was turning in favor of Joker. The Dark Knight dodged wrong and Joker lifted him up into a powerbomb--Clark could hear Bruce’s cry of anguish at the apex from outside the ring--and slammed him down, pinning him for the victory. The final heel win to cap off a heel sweep of the night.
“A risky choice,” Lex had said when Bruce pitched the idea to him. “It might be better to have at least Batman win.”
Bruce had frowned. “The Dark Knight needs to suffer for his perfidy,” he said. “But you know how to end things so everyone goes home at least satisfied.”
And indeed Luthor did. The triumphant Joker stood astride Batman’s body, brandishing his notebook. “The Justice League is finished!” he yelled. Heat Wave, goggles back in place, shoved Superman’s limp body into the ring, and Joker put one foot on his chest. “I’m the superman of this promotion now, you fools! Now, to finish the job!”
He lifted Superman up to deliver his finishing face-plant, the Last Laugh, but stopped as the Justice League, still limping or wincing but full of fury and fight, descended upon the ring to send the Joker scurrying, cowed and beaten, back up the ramp and away.
Wonder Woman helped Superman rise to his feet and he stood with them, supported by his faithful friends, as the crowd cheered and the camera panned over their weary but determined faces.
In the corner, the Dark Knight lay slumped and defeated, his shoulders shaking, ignored by his comrades as the camera cut to black.