DCEU Prompt Post #1

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Welcome to Round One of the DCEU Kink Meme!

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FILL: Man of the Hour (1/4ish) -- Clark Kent/Matches Malone, undercover as a stripper

[(Anonymous)]

Hey nonnies, this is kind of a sequel to one of my other fics, but the referenced events are pretty easy to grasp. Batman's all like 'what up?' when Superman returns from the dead, and then he totally hides from him like the very mature Bat-vigilante he is. That's about all you need to know. Enjoy this... thing. (Plz don't kill me.)

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* (M) *

The relationship between Matches Malone and organized crime in Gotham city was a long and complex one, owing to the sheer good will that Matches Malone was the only mobster left in Gotham who remembered the days before the Gotham PD built the bat signal.

Matches Malone had never been a terribly ambitious man. Ask anyone who had worked the southside during the worst of Gotham's mob rule. Hell, ask any of the dancers at the Red Room. He was a gangster sure enough, but he never got his hands dirty with the gun-smuggling or the extortion rackets. He'd done time fifteen years back, but he'd come out of prison a changed man. His infamous temper had mellowed, and he eschewed his old enforcement gig on the docks for a cozier position with Sal Maroni. The cops had their hands full with violent offenders. One measly nonviolent felon never rated more than his scheduled parole visits. And the Bat? Well, word on the streets was Matches had luck to beat the Devil.

All and all, the generous turn-the-other-cheek attitude of the world had given Matches Malone the demeanor of a man who knew he was untouchable. Easy and affable.

It didn’t do Matches’ business no harm, either. On the third Friday of every month, he commandeered one of the Red Room’s knee-high table and velvet corner chairs and hooked eager up-and-comers into the machinery of Gotham’s underworld. Everyone remembered where they started, and a lot of people owed Matches a lot of favors.

If Matches looked like his hackles were always up, that was just his years on the street talking. Why Matches never spent more than one night a month in the Red Room, that was just Matches’ way.

This month’s run coincided with a pole dancing competition. The Red Room had begun hosting it to lure patrons more interested in the floor show than the lap dances. Normally competition nights were held on Saturdays, but a scheduling conflict had arisen with the Metropolis half of the (league?) troupe, the stars had aligned, or whatever. The competition bumped itself up to Matches’ usual evening, and Matches didn’t like to speculate on civilian business.

Matches wiped his hand across his steamed-up mirror. He combed a clean part through his slicked-back hair, and doused himself with enough Brut to choke a man. Flicking open a matchbook, he tore one out and shoved it between his lips. An appreciative sigh bubbled up, as his teeth bit into the cheap wood.

Yeah. That was what he was missing.

He tipped the doorman on to not remember that he had left.

Pole dancing wasn’t his idea of fun, but one evening’s entertainment could hardly derail the well-oiled machinery of Matches’ routine.

* (C) *

Clark Kent tapped his pen against his desk as he ran his eyes over the small reporter’s notebook next to his screen. He surreptitiously checked his watch. Just another half-hour before he could reasonably call it a day at the Planet, and get started on the evening’s work.

The story he had pitched to Perry had been aggressive in its scope. Corruption, laundering, rackets, the works: how the crime families in Metropolis relied on Gotham brokers to maintain a stranglehold in the poorer neighborhoods in both cities. People lived in fear on both sides of the bay. Good citizens who were suffering under the heel of this regime were counting on this article series to bust the inter-city crime ring wide open. Perry had agreed, on a probationary basis, and assigned the piece to him and Lois.

(He’d even coined a snappy title for the confluence of Metropolis and Gotham connections. “The Rise of Motham,” Lois had gasped, barely holding in tears of laughter. Traitor. “Smallville, for the love of God, we’ll call it The Rise of Intergang, and enjoy our Pulitzer.”)

They'd worked the gang piece together for two months, gathering information and interviewing sources. So why was the article still so light on tangible details?

Clark jotted down a few more sentences and read over what he’d added.

The strength of Gotham’s citizens against a gothic backdrop onto which the canvas of crime is painted...

Oh god. He backspaced through the entire paragraph. The problem was, he simply didn’t have enough story. Rumor was all of the Metropolis-Gotham connections were handled by one middleman, but none of their informants had any proof.

He checked his watch again. Ten minutes.

Lois pushed her chair over into Clark’s space. “Clark, you okay?”

“Hmm?”

“I haven’t seen you this nervous since--” Lois pursed her lips. “Actually, ever. Smallville?”

“I have a--” he didn’t want to say lead. That would perk Lois’ interest, and then she’d insist on accompanying him tonight. And after all of his boots-on-the-ground investigating on this side of the bay, and all of Lois’ footwork on the Gotham side, the name Matches Malone had slipped from one of his Metropolis informants a month ago. Three weeks ago, he’d tracked him to the Red Room, a strip joint-turned upscale whisky (and pole dance) bar. The clientele of the were convinced that Matches glad-handed all across the Southside. A competent middleman would need to, to maintain his impressive array of criminal contacts. But Matches was a ghost. None of the other bars knew Matches except by reputation. He certainly didn't drink in any of them. And he didn’t talk to anyone without references, unless they were a--a professional. Clark felt giddy. Matches could very well be Intergang’s middle man.

“Want me to tag along?” Lois offered, when Clark didn’t seem to be able to finish his sentence.

A small twinge rose in Clark’s throat. No. Lois on tonight’s undercover beat was the last thing he needed. He settled on--“I have a date.”

It wasn’t a lie, exactly. But his voice came out high, almost panicked, like it did when he was ten, and told Ma that Pete must have eaten the entire batch of picellati. Damnit.

Lois smacked him in the shoulder with a handful of envelopes from Clark’s mailbasket. “Why didn’t you just say?”

Clark muttered his reply. He didn’t like lying to Lois any more than he had to.

“Clark, I’m not mad. We agreed, remember? Give ourselves a little bit of time to stretch our legs.”

Genuine concern shone from Lois’ face, a small smile turning up the corner of her mouth. She tossed the mail back into the box, and placed her hands on his shoulder. “You’ll be okay, Smallville. She’ll love you.”

She punctuated her statement with a gentle shake. Clark relented, and allowed himself to sway with the motion.

“So what’s the problem?”

Clark laughed mirthlessly. He decided a little truth couldn’t hurt right now. “It’s in Gotham.” (They say admitting it is the first step. It doesn’t feel like a step towards anything, right now.) “And not a she,” he added, and quashed the voice that wanted to say, and also not a date.

Lois chewed her lip thoughtfully, and gave him a good once-over, as though pieces were slotted into place. “You can’t avoid a whole city forever, Clark. Want to talk about him?” Her voice dropped into barely a whisper, weighted by anger and fury on Clark’s behalf. They both knew him didn’t refer to his not-a-date.

“He’s not actively trying to kill me anymore, Lo.” Clark pinched the bridge of his nose, easing the glasses away from his face for a minute, before resettling them. “I think that’s the best we can hope for.”

“Have you two...talked?” Lois ventured.

“Does being ordered out of his city count?” Clark joked, his second lie for the evening. Well, good to get a head-start on half-truths--his work tonight depended on a little bit of subtlety, a little bit of tact, and a hell of a lot of quick thinking. To quell the kernel of guilt that was threatening to blossom into good ole fashioned remorse, he promised himself that he’d confess the plan to Lois afterward--when there was no chance of her actually showing up to the Red Room’s Friday-Night pole dance competition.

His watch beeped. It was time to pick up his outfit from a very discreet costumier on Washington. “Gotta go, or I’ll miss the ferry!” He said brightly, sliding the notebook with all of his research on Matches into his pocket.

“Ferry, Smallville?” Lois said, a bit too sharply for Clark’s peace-of-mind.

“Yeah, Lo. I’m trying to get back into the swing of things. You know, doing things slow. Um… regular.” Lie number three! “Can’t always zip off just because I have a hot date,” he tried.

He could feel Lois’ considering eyes on his retreating back. He could practically hear her scenting the air for the story behind his awkward enthusiasm. She knew him too well. Clark stuck to mass transit with traceable receipts when he was on Planet business, in case anyone ever dug into his investigation. There was no reason for Clark to follow those rules for something a simple as a date, unless…

Clark may have super-sped out of the Daily Planet to make sure he didn’t have a tail.

* (C) *

The ferry ride did him no favors. The extra forty minutes gave him time to brood. He walked up the stairs, and leaned against the railing as the sea-salt breeze ruffled his hair. The bite of the air stirred memories older than Superman into the froth of the weeks leading up to Doomsday. And then there was the after.

The world’s attention had fallen disproportionately on the Superman’s return, and no one had commented on Clark Kent slipping back into his old life like a thief. Lois had been affectionate but distant, Perry had that knowing look in his eyes, everyone else who had viewed Clark Kent’s body at his family home had been reassigned to foreign desks. Writing under the pen name Richard White hadn’t been the end of the world, either, as Perry and Lois worked out a good cover story for Clark to officially come back from the dead.

In the distance, the Gotham skyline loomed.

He’d lied to Lois when he said he’d been ordered out. In fact, Batman’s exact words were don’t break my city. Two months, and they hadn’t talked again. Clark’s resurrection hung over them like a pall. Clark hadn’t known how to start that conversation, so I’ve come back from the dead more than Jesus, or why he felt like calling and personally apologizing to Bruce when Superman’s one and only public appearance since his state funeral had involved weeping, a spontaneous prayer circle and the reporting of miraculously healed burns and leprosy in a three mile radius.

Clark Kent hadn’t even known that leprosy was still a thing.

Clark hadn’t expected them to be friends, or to fight crime in matching leotards, but he had expected--

(On the night Clark had suited up to visit the Bat in Gotham, for a moment, Clark had heard sirens piercing the night, heard the squeal of the elevated train, the whooping call of owls, but all of those noises had fallen away. In the stillness of that focus, all Clark heard were the arteries in Bruce’s chest expanding. Blood rushed through every part of his chest, out to his capillaries, and back to his heart in a few dizzying beats. He had... blossomed.

Clark had felt a little drunk on the richness of the sound. He may have let his enthusiasm show a little in his face.)

--more than a brush-off.

The ferry announced their arrival at the Gotham port. Clark clutched his messenger bag as he scrambled off the boat.

The city curved around him. Gotham always looked different from the street. Her gothic spirals collided with clean glass modernism, a city half in the dark, half in the light. The whisper of her alleyways enfolded him with a kind of reckless abandon that he didn’t feel in Metropolis. His heart-rate picked up as Clark hailed a taxi, and directed the cabbie to take him to the Bowery.

The club’s VIP manager had emphasized that Matches was rarely seen in the Red Room. Once a month, no more than that. And he almost never accepted company that wasn’t pre-arranged. Someone had to catch his eye.

He had spent the last three weeks carefully preparing his cover in the Red Room, calling in favors with his contacts, until he’d found the right person--someone who Clark had helped after one of his articles had busted a rigged green card lottery. She had worked magic with a telephone, and managed to bump the Pole Dance competition to the appropriate Friday. It was up to Clark to sell the other half. The exercise annex across from his apartment hosted pole dance classes, and Clark watched them while he practiced on a pole he’d procured from a surplus warehouse. It felt seedy to do it that way, but secrecy was key to his plan.

His fingers danced over the messenger bag. Inside was a tightly wrapped white garment box, an untraceable smartphone, his notebook, and a picture of his target. No identifying traces to tie Clark Kent to this operation.

The taxi pulled up to the curb. Clark knew what was coming next. His body practically sang with it.

He paid the cabbie, and hiked the bag over his shoulder as he surveyed the Red Room. It seemed like any other bar in the strip-mall spread of Gotham's southside: a little cracked around its edges, a little nondescript. A paper flyer for the competition pointed around back.

Three weeks of preparation, and he was not prepared. But all things considered, if it only took him a night to get what he needed, Clark would share the byline with Lois on the story of the year, and the Bat would never, ever need to know what Clark planned to do in his city.

* * *