Title: Before a Live Studio Audience (Transcripts from an un-aired episode of 'US Cops')
Summary: Sometimes, Lois Lane is a terrible boss. Network lackey Clark Kent's on a mission to make a TV show on schedule. Unfortunately, he's stuck filming in Gotham with Matches Malone. The worst. Detective. Ever. Matches is hiding something, a murderer's on the loose, and Clark keeps dreaming about flying. Throw in Matches' sexy partner and this looks like a job for Superman. Only the big, blue Boy Scout is missing...
Words: A little over 3000
Pairings: Matches/Clark, Bruce/Clark, Sir Hemingford Gray/Clark, Dick/Bruce (sorta…). Other characters: Lois Lane, Robbie Malone, Tim Drake, Jim Gordon, Montoya, Bullock.
Warnings: AU. Language, violence, identity nuttiness. I don't even have a beta so read at your own risk. Smut on the way.
Spoilers: Nothing really, but some of the ideas from 52 are in play here. Welcome to one of many Earths.
Rating: R
Author's Note: I started thinking about how AMAZING Bruce and Clark's acting skills must be. Then I started to wonder: HOW good are they, really? This fic is the result of that big, long think. I'm back to comedy, which means the romance suffers for the one-liners. Bada-bing! As far as updating goes, I found this on my computer and don't actually remember writing it! There's got to be a sequel on my hard drive somewhere…Wish me luck! It was fun reading it and making changes, but...hell, you know I never finish anything.
Before a Live Studio Audience
The tagline from the movie "Killer Clowns from Outer Space" was "In space, no one eats ice cream."
Back in college, he had thought it was funny. Now he thought it should have been something like, "In space, you can drift for a really, really long time so long as nothing's there to stop you from going the direction you're heading."
Which wasn't as funny, but more fitting.
There was a green flash that turned into a green pulse and then just overwhelming green-ness in general.
And he was tumbling.
Stars flipped over him and behind him, acrobatic and speedy. Technically, he was the one flipping, but what difference did it really make?
At least he had a final destination, if what looped in front of him at intervals was any guide. And what was it, exactly?
Well…
If space could have something that looked vaguely like a doorway and the end of the world at the same time, that was what he was tumbling towards.
The welcome mat was green. It all made him feel weak and sick. Queasy.
And now that he thought about it, because he had nothing else to think about, really, the whole darn end of the world was green and, well, tumbling wasn't much fun.
Some of it was that he'd had a lifetime to get used to the fact that everything with him was an extreme.
Faster than a speeding bullet.
More powerful than a locomotive.
And now he just fell really fast.
Faster than—
He plunged through the doorway—static along his nerves, blood boiling, lungs stretching then shrinking, brain screaming— just as he remembered he'd already thought the part about the speeding bullet.
And the green faded to white the exact color as the ringing in his head.
Wavering lines. Fade to black.
The unsubstantial but unavoidable idea that time has passed; seconds, minutes, hours, days, months, years, were wedged in between scenes one and two.
He felt his eyelids flutter.
Knew everything was wrong.
And then, quite simply…
He forgot.
The ringing was just his alarm clock.
The sunrise over Metropolis was always so sudden. As if the sun loved the city so much that it rushed up high and beamed down at everyone, a smile in the sky.
Clark Kent awoke—
It had been that dream again. The wind against his face like heaven. Clouds beneath his feet.
—he put on a suit and tie, didn't worry that neither one was very good, and then stood in the full-length mirror. He'd heard himself described as 'Bland' by the women who whispered. Somehow, he always heard them.
Always.
His fingers were very steady as he straightened himself out. The tie was red and blue and it gave him pause. When he closed his eyes, there was a sea reflecting sky, or a sky littered with stars. A sickening green.
So he opened them again.
Then he just smiled a bland smile in the mirror, fixed his hair so it stayed off his face, grabbed his hat and headed to work.
And people looked up to him. Literally.
He was built like a tank and always wondered what God had been thinking because he got along with sports the way one-legged dogs get along with playing catch. Lana always said it was a shame he didn't play football and not because of his size. "Nobody ever sneaks up on you," she marveled with a shake of her pretty head. "It's like you know they're coming."
He rode the elevator and took up a fourth of it by himself. A tall girl to his left was determinedly reading the paper, arms spread wide. A headline he could only see part of read, "DERER TERRORI."
And it gave him a heated, indignant flash. Made his fists ball at his sides. Strange.
Morning routine at his desk, spilling things, knocking into things. Picture frame dented from all the times he'd dropped it.
And then the summons that made his job worthwhile. He didn't bother to fix his tie or smooth his hair: He knew it was a lost cause. But a part of him wanted to be dashing and brave. Just this once.
Lois looked lovely in the way certain poisonous flowers look lovely. His first impression of her all those years ago upon starting to work at the number one network in the whole US was that she was…
Well…
She was short.
Very, very short.
The next thing he noticed was that he was probably already in love with her from the moment she looked him up and down, asked him what tractor dragged him in, and then put him on the film crew for a reality television show.
He considered himself lucky that her presence only made him uncomfortable in a squishy kind of way these days.
"Yes, Doctor, my heart feels squishy today. I am squish."
Lois blinked slowly. "Did you say something, Smallville?"
"I said, 'Is that my new assignment?'"
Looking uncertain, Lois uncrossed her arms and slid a folder across the desk. Her fingernails were like red talons.
Which made him remember the third thing he had ever noticed about Lois:
She was ruthless. Someone once said that she had pried the keys to Perry White's office from his old, frail fingers.
As it was Perry who had said it, Clark believed the story.
"I've still got years left on me, too, Kent," he had rasped. "Years!"
"Sir, you're going to pull a tube out if you don't hold still."
"Kent, you're a stick in the mud."
"I've been told, Chief."
"Don't call me Chief! Oh, and Kent?"
"Yes…sir?"
"Take care of her, she's one of a kind."
"I'll…try."
And he had been trying. But she had this way of taking care of herself.
The power suit was flattering. Clark didn't know how she did that. Flattering and power suit weren't words that went together all the time. He wondered if Lois knew that austere black made her look like a sex kitten. She probably did.
"You're going to Gotham," she said.
Clark didn't school his features in time. He tried to cover it with a cough, knew she wasn't fooled, and just gave in. Yes, he sounded five. No, he didn't care.
"Do I have to?"
"Yes."
"But Gotham is so, so…"
The first thing he thought was, "Dark. NOT Metropolis." But that wasn't all of it.
So, what was that city, exactly? Well, a la Seuss, sometimes the best way to describe what something was, was to describe what it wasn't.
And Gotham wasn't safe or even pretty (unless you thought grim and crumbling architecture was pretty). The streets weren't orderly. They wound around themselves like those of a medieval town, as if enemies would attack at any time and the goal was to keep them away from the castle at its center by confusing the hell out of them. Gotham wasn't classy. It certainly wasn't state of the art. Its politicians weren't on the straight and narrow (so crooked they all walked with limps). Its celebrities weren't shining beacons of good behavior (drugs and prostitutes every couple of weeks and sometimes both).
What this left was…
Well.
There was a feeling about that city, like a badly tuned radio: It sent out messages and signals that were uncomfortable and ugly, but that could—maybe, just maybe—be beautiful if only someone would turn the dial. Sadly, no one had ever bothered.
Gotham was unique, but no one was sure if this was a good thing.
"Gotham," Clark tried again, staring at the filming schedule, "is the last place I want to be for this long."
Lois almost snorted a laugh. She stifled it like communist Russia stifled modern dance. Instead, she smiled her killer smile (squish, squish went his heart) and told him to get the hell out of her office and pack for his extended stay in Gotham.
Which is how (all of it, really: The tie, the dreams with the clouds and the flashes of green, Perry's dying wish, sharply dressed and short Lois Lane) he ended up hanging around with Matches Malone.
Now, how he ended up in that alley, panting and confused and so very horny—
How he got on the spaceship.
How he met the terrifying man in black with his hard, flat white eyes.
—all that on the other hand…
Well, yes.
That all started with Matches Malone.
The Gotham Major Crimes Unit had the unfortunate problem of looking like a police station.
Just like the police stations on TV. The ones in the movies. So common it was remarkable.
There was even a chubby, slovenly cop nursing a donut and coffee by the coffee maker. Criminals like something out of the circus paraded through—orange, spiked hair; nose rings, gold chains; tattoos.
Eyes that ghosted over Clark and seemed to say, "Wanna know what I did to get here, big boy? Come a little closer and I'll show you."
It gave Clark an unparalleled feeling of faith in the law, that these guilty men and women were being locked away. Maybe a little part of him wished he could be a part of the whole process. Not possible, of course, so he just watched. He didn't quite understand the system. Not the Gotham version, anyway.
Matches Malone was one of the things he didn't quite understand because…
Okay, the guy was an idiot. Clark knew he was an idiot. A sly idiot, yes, but an idiot. As criminal as the criminals with their endless tattoos leading to places hidden beneath their, doubtless, stolen clothes.
And yet…
Around the station, there was a saying:
"If Matches said he did it, well he did it, didn't he?"
Everyone said it (he could hear them when they said it), heads bowed, respectfully confused expressions on their faces. Even if they hated him, they congratulated Malone on his arrests. Shook his hand. Backed away from him when he walked through the precinct.
And the Commissioner adored him. Seemed to be waiting for him to turn water into wine.
Or maybe just Pabst Blue Ribbon into champagne.
Which had been causing Clark trouble since day one.
Oh, right.
Day one.
He remembered that first day in the Gotham Major Crimes Unit in vivid, vivid detail.
He thought about it. Wavering lines. Fade to black.
The thought made his breath hitch, déjà vu. He let it pass and remembered.
Day one.
Clark arranged his camera in the corner and trained it on the squinting older man. Even with glasses, his eyes were slits of questionable color. Nothing made him look awake. James Gordon was a man destined to look three cups of coffee shy no matter how he guzzled it.
That first day, his coffee cup read "World's Greatest Dad."
He took a sip, set it on his desk and then leaned back in the leather seat, looking comfortable and relaxed.
He smiled.
No, he smiled expansively.
"I hate that I'm being forced to tolerate you, Mr. Kent," he said, still grinning. "Can't fucking stand it."
Clark opened his mouth, closed it, and then settled on looking uncertain. When in doubt, look uncertain. It was the first thing he had learned about making a TV show from Jimmy Olsen. The first thing Lois Lane had told him was, when in doubt, make a broad, sweeping statement that can be interpreted numerous ways so that you can backpedal like a politician when it all turns out wrong.
"Well. Commissioner," he tried. "Me and the crew. And. Um. The program manager. We're just so happy you allowed us to come. So happy. So, so happy."
"I just bet you are." Now Gordon sat forward, a bit like an animal on the hunt. His teeth looked sharp. "And the mayor's pleased as punch that I'm kowtowing to your little publicity machine. He thinks it will be good for the city's image and so I've been ordered to put up with this malarkey."
Clark swallowed, tried to look even more uncertain, hoping in vain that it might help. Gordon just kept speaking in his gruff, unfriendly way.
"You see, I've seen your little show, Kent. I've seen it and I don't like it. You have a bad habit of making cops look like bullies, or idiots. Or martyrs. None of these things apply to Gotham. We're not like that show you did in Star City with the cop on the take. We're not like that show you did in New York with the fat cop who sat and did nothing during a robbery."
There was a machine gun sound of knuckles cracking together. Gordon's.
"We're like nothing you've ever seen before. And to prove it to you, I'm putting you with my best cop."
He gestured to the door. Somehow, someone had entered during the exchange and Clark hadn't noticed.
That was…rare.
Turning to face the new arrival was a surprise.
He was tall, but had droopy shoulders like he was the reason shoulder pads had been invented but didn't much care. His hair looked like it had been shellacked into place. There was a high gloss, exterior grade paint-ness about the black of it. His mustache was nothing if not vaguely like a fuzzy invading army that enjoyed it so much underneath his nose that it just dug a trench and settled in for the long haul, no matter what kind of trouble it caused this man when drinking and eating. It had its own time zone.
Overall, this was the kind of man you were instinctively afraid was going to sell you a lemon. He was weak-tire-kicking, you-don't-need-a-test-drive, only-guaranteed-for-the-first-30-miles-o
r-for-30-days-whichever-comes-first, kind of scum.
But behind the glasses that had never been fashionable were eyes the color of water in vacation photos.
"Clark Kent from the Metropolis Broadcasting Station, meet Detective Matches Malone."
Malone eyed him with those Hawaii eyes for two seconds too long. Then he pulled out a long, thin cigarette and adhered it magically to his bottom lip.
"Charmed and all that," he said. And just as if someone had hit him with a bat with the word scrawled across it, Clark got a full dose of it.
JERSEY, the bat read. And it hurt. Oh, how it hurt.
The chain tangled with the hair on his chest should have been the first clue before he ever opened his mouth. The pinky ring. Clark felt like backing as far away from the man as he could, but the detective kept speaking and the horror filled the room.
"So you'll be following us around?" Malone asked.
JERSEY!
JERSEY!
JERSEY!
Clark winced.
"Yes," he said with the breath that hadn't been beaten out of his body by the worst accent in the Continental US.
"Swell," Malone said and then exchanged a mysterious single nod with the Commissioner. It was something so brief and subtle that Clark began to doubt it meant anything at all.
Yeah, day one had left him with a distinct first impression of Gotham.
A bad one, overall.
And first impressions…
Those are some lasting bitches, just like Lois always said.
Clark wasn't sure if he knew more about Gotham now.
He was really unsure if he knew more about police work or not.
But he knew a lot about Matches Malone.
He kept a running list of the oddities in his head.
On top of the list:
Matches Malone was probably jinxed. After a week filming the brash, Gotham detective, that was the only explanation that Clark could find for all the things that happened around him (and to him).
It wasn't just the fact that he never seemed to be around when a crime was happening; always showing up after the action was over ("Sorry, tripped in the stairwell"). And it wasn't just that his caseload was astronomically larger than any other detective's on the force ("Well, all these other bums have families, eh?").
It was that he never ever had a match for the cigarettes he kept in his teeth or sometimes had stuck to his lip as if with Elmer's Glue. Clark thought this was bizarre. Getting a nickname over something you never had…somehow it was like nicknaming a linebacker "Tiny."
It was also the fact that Malone was popular in the station the same way a cow dipped in manure would be if it were left to stand by the coffee machine. Chewing grass. Eight stomachs grumbling through cud.
Clark didn't quite get it. Because, well, yes, he could be a difficult bastard, but…
Malone was also good with people, in a loud, snide kind of way. He always had a good joke, never seemed to get angry, and knew every single criminal brought through the doors.
"Hey, Marty! Long time no see. What was it this time? Armed robbery?"
"Ah, hey, Matches, you old snake. Nah, they got me on a parking ticket."
"That blows."
"Tell me about it."
"Well, keep your head up. I'll look after your wife for you. Just 'till you're out."
"Aww, thanks man. You're a real…wait a minute. WHAT did you just say?"
"I just said I'll take real good care…of your wife."
"You son of a bitch! If ya put one greasy finger on my Mary I'll rip yur nuts off and…!"
What made him so unpopular with his co-workers, Clark learned, was that (despite the fact that the man seemed to do nothing all day long) Matches Malone had the highest arrest record in the city. He ran circles around the other guys. Yeah, he completed his paperwork in an incomprehensible scrawl he never bothered to fix, but he got it done and his cases were airtight.
And without effort, water to wine.
One day, emboldened by one too many cups of coffee (he had to drink them like water to stay awake, to stop the violent, green dreams with the stars and the doorway that were overtaking the ones about clouds and palaces made of ice), Clark asked the gorilla of a detective, Bullock, what Malone's secret was.
"Off the record?" the man had breathed, onions and garlic hitting Clark like a punch in the face.
"Off the record," Clark answered and pressed the button on his camcorder, replaced the lens cap.
"Well, I'll tell you what some of the boys say. They say Malone really is the fuckwit he looks like. Doesn't do a lick of work just like it seems. Doesn't have a thought in that lacquered head of his."
"Then how does he solve all those cases?" Clark leaned closer, didn't mind the breath so much now because there was a secret here and he loved secrets, loved uncovering them like a dusty garage sale find, Giant Sized X-Men Number One in a box underneath chipped dishes.
"They say," and here Bullock paused, piggy eyes shifting from side to side, piggy face splitting into the closest approximation of caution that it could manage. "They say it's really his partner does all the works. Knows all the shit."
"Malone has a partner?"
Bullock shuddered, once. It made Clark think of the old wives tales about someone walking across your grave. It would be a pretty big grave for Bullock. A marching band must have just stomped across it.
"You haven't met him? Haven't heard the stories?" He was a spooked man, shoulders hunched voice quiet.
Clark shook his head, felt lost. Somewhere in this jungle of subterfuge was the answer and he needed it. Because...
Because Malone got under his skin and made him grind his teeth; pull his hair out in frustration. Was single-handedly responsible for the fact that Clark and his team didn't have even ten minutes of usable footage.
And, were he being honest, Clark would have to admit the real reason he needed to turn the page, to have the Parlor Scene: Malone was a mystery. A good one. "Red Headed League" material with a dose of "The Final Problem" thrown in for taste.
"No," he said and the excitement was in the air, the thrill of the chase. It was the feeling that had almost made him go into investigative journalism instead of television. "Who is this guy?"
Bullock's voice dropped even lower and there was a tremor of fear to it. "His name is Bruce Wayne and he's one scary son of a bitch."
To be continued…