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Bruce felt the character of Matches pull around him like a coat of armor. The cheap trousers, even cheaper cologne, the wide, out-of-date tie, and last but never least, the dubious plaid jacket were a second strange skin. It was never as natural as Batman or his more social affectations for parties. Becoming Matches Malone took a little time, a few small rituals. He rubbed pomade between his hands, staring into the mirror of the gas-station bathroom, and smoothed his hair into a different parting. No one, he was absolutely sure, had seen a nondescript figure slip into this bathroom, and no one would see Matches strut out. He pulled a match from the little box in his breast pocket, placed it jauntily between his teeth, winked into the mirror, invisible behind his mirrored sunglasses, and left.
There were aspects of Gotham that were normally unavailable to Bruce, and many more unavailable to Batman. Bruce couldn’t be seen wandering the midnight streets, and Batman was unwelcome at glittering galas, unless of course he was saving them. Infiltrating the criminal underworld was just one of the uses of Matches. Bruce swaggered through crumbling infrastructure, raising neither alarm or curiosity.
A working girl smiled at him. He recognized her, although Matches did not. When she’d been younger, maybe twenty-two or twenty-three, and he’d been only a few years older than her, he’d stopped a man trying to steal from her. Then he’d stopped her from kicking him to death with her heels. It didn’t seem like a decade had passed.
“Anything I can get you, baby?” She called.
Matches paused, taking his match from his teeth to sit in his fingertips like a cigarette. “What’s on offer, doll?” The Jersey accent wasn’t far from a Gotham one, and Bruce let it curl around his tongue.
“I’ll do most things,” the woman, Chastity, he’d finally remembered her amusing assumed name, said with a grin.
“How about a chat?”
“Chatting gets girls killed.”
“I’ve heard girls are getting roughed-up around here anyway.”
Chastity looked him over. “I want money up front, and a lot.”
“Sweetheart I’m good for it.”
She glanced at him again, wrinkling her nose very slightly as his alarmingly purple snakeskin shoes. It was a bit fun, sometimes, allowing himself to be so tacky. “Sure. And I want dinner, wine and dine me.”
“Batburger is still open.”
“Nah, I want the diner on Crock street.”
Matches offered her his arm and she snuggled up to him. He placed a wad of cash into her hand that was trying to slip inside his jacket. She pulled back, counted it, held it up to the light, and used a one manicured nail to test the edge of a bill to see if it was glued together. Then she counted it again and raised an eyebrow.
“That enough?” He asked, knowing it was a solid two months rent in these parts.
“It’ll do,” she said, smirking, and making a show of putting the bills in her low-cut top. “I was promised dinner.”
On the way to the Crock Street diner, whose neon sign they could see from here, flickering ominously in the rain, she whispered in his ear. Anyone else might think it was sweet nothings, the sort of empty promises that made less shrewd customers believe a working lady was in love with them. The words were definitely something, and information was always sweet to Bruce.
Four of the women that Chastity described as “the girls” had been roughed up, badly, by a nondescript man. It was enough of a pattern that they recognized it amongst themselves, but cops hadn’t started sniffing around until a fifth woman was found badly injured. She wasn’t actually a sex worker, she was the mistress of a politician, hoping to get her drug-of-the-week cheaply. Inwardly, Bruce scowled. The GCPD had taken her report, but had dismissed the other victims. He would have a word with Gordon, who he was sure would have words with everyone else. Of course, increased police presence was never good for the business of the working girls, who preferred to dole out justice on the sharper end. He knew that these days Chastity carried a stiletto that wasn’t her shoes.
“So what,” she asked, sparkling in the grimy diner booth as she smeared lip gloss around the straw of a milkshake. “You’re a do-gooder? You’ve got a reputation, Mister Malone.”
“Nah, no good deeds here, sweetheart. It’s bad for business, can’t have people afraid to go out at night, they don’t buy, they don’t visit, it’s a damn shame.”
Chastity nodded, appearing to take this in stride. She’d polished off the burger and fries, and had a to-go bag with another two burgers. Bruce hadn’t protested her order and neither had Matches. Chastity had a reputation in the red-light district that had earned her a different name with the younger workers. Charity. Someone would be eating who otherwise might not be.
“Alright Mister,” she said. “Now there’s plenty of people asking the same sorts of questions. Some of ‘em are police. Half of them say they aren’t but they’ve all got that,” a wave of a manicured hand. “Cop feeling. The haircut and the stance and a general disdain for us girls.”
Matches nodded, stretching his arms out on the back of the booth, one snaking above Chastity’s shoulders. He telegraphed the movement so she knew it was coming. She just curled in close to whisper.
“Alright, those aren’t that bad, although some of them deserve a kick in the teeth. Then there’s others. Morbid tourism maybe. Wanna see some blood, that sort of thing. But now we’re worrying there’s people who wanna try cutting someone up themselves. Can’t go out at night with that around.” She took another drink of the milkshake, a rattling sound coming as the last was sucked up through the straw. “And then there’s the fuckin’ journalists. Couple of ‘em ain’t too bad, real tough and not condescending. One or two of ‘em are moralising fuckwads. And then there’s this one nerd that the cops are gonna fish out of the river any day now.”
“Real asshole?”
“Nah, he’s a sweetheart, called me ma’am and helped me over a damn puddle like he’s fuckin’ Captain America. He’s from Metropolis, got that squeaky-clean look to ‘im, and he’s asking all the questions that will get him disappeared .”
Damn it all. Clark . He just couldn’t ignore a story that had underprivileged groups being ignored by the rich and powerful. It was as endearing as it was annoying.
“Huh,” Matches said simply.
“Yeah, you’ll probably see him around if he ain’t dead already. I’d just follow him and the trouble will come along.”
“Thanks doll, that’s a big tip.”
“Yeah, well you gave me a pretty big tip. Ya sure you aren’t wanting to put another tip…other places?” The line was cheesy but Chastity was well-practiced and pulled it off well.
“Nah, blew my wad already, didn’t I?” Matches smirked.
Chastity patted her money-padded bustier smugly. “Yes you did, Tiger. Now if you follow me out of this diner I’ll shank you somewhere you won’t want to show a doctor.” And she left with her to-go bag, heels clicking on the linoleum. Bruce waited a few minutes, conscious of the fact that Chastity’s threats were promises, and began scouring for Clark. It didn’t take him long.
“Alright fellas, we can just have a chat.”
Fuck. There was that mild-as-milk Kansas accent. Bruce turned a corner and saw four men pressing one nerdy reporter against the wall. He was in an honest-to-god sweater vest and neatly pressed khaki pants. He looked like he got beat up for lunch money in spite of being two-hundred some pounds of pure muscle and a superpowered alien.
Bruce sighed. He couldn’t have this. If those thugs punched Clark they’d break their fists on his face and his secret would be out.
“Problem, boys?” He drawled, lighting his match on a wall beside him.
“Move along, Jersey,” one of the little cluster sneered.
“Really I think this is all a misunderstanding,” Clark wheedled.
Bruce grabbed one goon by his collar and slammed him into the alley wall, grabbing the other that was pulling a gun and twisting his wrist behind his back so hard and fast that the gun went skittering across the uneven pavement. Out of the corner of his eye he spotted Clark subtly kicking the gun out of reach.
“Fuckin’ fine,” shouted the man who’s arm Bruce was twisting. “He’s all yours, he dun’t even have money on ‘im.”
“Somebody sent you to kill him?”
“No, Jesus. Don’t break my fucking arm off we were just after some cash!”
“Then beat it. I want to have a talk with the man who’s been asking all those questions.”
The word questions was like magic. The men scrambled like rats out of the alley, fleeing anyone who’d been stupid enough to ask for information in these parts.
“Now wait,” Clark said, backing against the wall a little more in a pretty good imitation of fear. “I didn’t mean anything by it, really.”
Huh. Bruce had felt pretty sure that Clark would know him immediately. He knew Bruce and Batman were one in the same, so he assumed he’d recognize Bruce’s…heartbeat or something. A sliver of Bruce felt relief that Clark apparently didn’t listen to everyone’s bodily functions all the time, and especially gave people the courtesy of staying out of their hearts.
Bruce smirked inwardly. It was too good a chance to tease the alien. He never had the upper hand like this.
“Pretty boy, all alone at night in Gotham…” Matches mused, stalking closer to the reporter. Clark’s eyes were so blue and his lips were parted like a man terrified. “And asking questions, too.” Matches tutted. “Naughty. You’re just asking for trouble.” He hadn’t really meant to be so close to Clark, but he found himself with a hand in his sweater vest’s collar, pressing him against the wall. His heartbeat was too steady for real fear. They were basically sharing breath, it would be so easy to lean forward and taste the soft lips, grab a handful of the wild curls, press him into the wall with his full body.
“Hmm, doll? You been bad?” Matches said before Bruce could think better of it. “You’ve been asking questions and some people would like you to stop.”
“Have you been hurting the sex workers?” Clark asked, brow furrowed, his blunt question ignoring the fact that, if they were regular men, Bruce had the advantage.
“Never. I want answers too, but I ain’t fool enough to go around askin’”
“So leave a fool to his folly,” Clark said. Begged, really. “Just let me go.”
He was a pretty good actor, and the part of Bruce that he tamped down, the part that knew that, beyond being probably his best friend, Clark was also incredibly beautiful, sat up and purred when he begged like that.
Bruce let go fast, stepping back, pulling himself away from crossing too many boundaries.
“Sure thing, doll,” he said, watching a blush creep along Clark’s cheeks. “You do your thing, I like to watch.”
Clark choked. His good, midwestern manners apparently flummoxed by just a little bit of Matches Malone. Bruce grinned wickedly. This was too fun. He’d tossed his lit match away sometime earlier but he pulled out a fresh one, sliding it sensually between his teeth.
“I…” Clark said, hesitating.
“What’s wrong, baby, you shy?”
“I don’t trust you,” Clark huffed, for all the world like a librarian telling someone off for being noisy. “Why on earth would I let you…let you watch me? Follow me, I mean.”
He looked so sweet, so clean and buttoned up still, brow furrowed and lips pressed into what was nearly a pout.
“Somebody wants you dead, sweetheart,” Bruce said, relishing the chance to make Clark blush with pet names, loving the way it made him squirm. “And it ain’t me. I want to see who, which means I need you alive.”
Clark opened his mouth to protest, but Bruce interrupted. “Go on then, pretty boy, walk away. Stumble on out of this alley like a good boy and I’ll follow like the good man we know I ain’t.”
And Clark did. And oh the way it looked, one previously squeaky-clean reporter with his clothes all rumpled and Matches swaggering out behind like the cat that got the cream.
The view wasn’t bad either. Bruce rarely got to see Clark without a cape on, and the khaki pants, terrible though they were, fit his ass beautifully. On the next street corner, a woman in fishnets and red lipstick wolf-whistled at Clark, who was trying to neaten his sweater. Clearly, Bruce wasn’t the only one who noticed.
Matches faded into the background as well as anyone in such a terrible jacket could. Bruce hid in alleyways and side streets, appearing to be merely wandering in the same direction as Clark, as opposed to stalking the nerdy reporter through the streets.
And he was nerdy.
For possibly the most powerful being on the planet, Clark could really make himself look like a walking target. Of course, part of that was simply wearing a sweater, khakis, and a button-up in this part of Gotham, but still. He walked like he had a kick-me sign tattooed on his soul. Every so often he pushed his glasses up with one finger. He tried to help an elderly lady cross the street with a shy, dimpled smile and she beat him around the head with her handbag. Bruce was just glad she didn’t take his wallet too.
Sure enough, shadowy figures materialized from various shadows along their rambling route. They attached themselves to Clark’s trail and Bruce fell back even further so that he could follow the followers. This whole thing stunk of corruption, and he recognized a few of the hangers-on as people who could be bought and sold.
Then he watched in amusement as Clark pulled out an honest-to-God paper map and pretended to be lost. He was good at it. The stage had missed a major talent. He was especially good at pretending to fall unconscious when a man hit him over the back of the head. It hadn’t been a good hit, even a regular man might have seen it coming from the corner of his eye, but Clark folded like a ragdoll. Bruce leaned against an alley wall as it took all three men to lift the apparently unconscious man.
“God damn he’s built like a brick shithouse,” one complained.
“It’s like he’s made of fuckin’ lead,” a co-conspirator agreed.
The next couple of city blocks were made by winding in cross-streets and alleys. Clark stayed conveniently unconscious the entire time, even when one of the hapless goons dropped him. Bruce followed them to some train tracks, watching with a smirk as Clark was tied to the tracks like the ingénue in a silent film. It was a poorly selected method on the part of the would-be murderers, given that the next train wasn’t for almost forty minutes.
Clark did a pretty good rendition of recently-concussed-regular-man-awakens . “Please, no, let me go, I won’t say anything I promise.” Bruce heard as he slipped around the corner, waiting. He didn’t have to wait long. This was no criminal mastermind, and as what Bruce had been waiting for rounded the corner, he felt the curl of disgust as his suspicions were proven correct.
“Beat it,” a voice said. Bruce pressed the record button on a handheld recorder. Thank God New Jersey was a one-party consent state. The three goons fled and Bruce let them, they were small fry and they’d be caught again, but this he couldn’t afford to miss.
“You know I’ve read your column? Terrible stuff,” said the voice, smooth and tempered. A practiced orator. Bruce rolled his eyes, men like this could never resist the urge to monologue.
“You’re all about truth, justice, the American way,” the voice continued. “Kid stuff, really. But I thought you were harmless, since you mostly sniff around Metropolis. Then you come here.”
“Please sir, I don’t know anything, nobody would talk to me, just let me go ,” Clark begged pretty convincingly.
“I can’t, Mister Kent. You’re asking too many little questions, and that makes more and more people hear about it. I’m just going to sit here until the train comes in, oh, about thirty-five minutes now, and when I pull those chains away from what’s left of you, it’ll just be another tragic suicide.”
Bruce rolled his eyes again. Sloppy. Even a beat-cop would be able to tell something was wrong. But no, these would-be villains always thought they were so smart.
“Just tell me why, then, why do it?”
Good boy , Bruce thought. Keep him talking.
“Oh it’s simple really. All this mess over something so little, but it was unavoidable I’m afraid. Sheila was going to tell my wife about the baby.” Sheila was up-and-coming Harper Slane’s mistress.
“Surely she knows already?” That was Clark, faking a tremble in his voice. “Would that have been so terrible.”
“It’s about this little prenup. You know lawyers advise against an infidelity clause? They’re too difficult to litigate. But Aileen wanted one, and knowing they were hard to litigate I thought, where’s the harm?”
“But a baby is evidence, dna proof.”
“Very good, Mister Kent, top marks. Sheila was going to join up with Aileen and ruin me. She’d get half of everything, and where would I be then?”
“With millions of dollars,” Clark deadpanned. Bruce heard the unmistakable sound of a shoe connecting with Clark’s face. He let out a whimper, although Bruce was certain that Slane was hurt more by the kick than Clark could ever be.
“I couldn’t have it, and it’s an election year, couldn’t have the Slane campaign brought down by something so petty , but you know how the press can be. Hell, you are the press. I knew about Sheila’s…habits. I knew where she’d go. Maybe I was doing her a favor, God knows what that stuff would do to the baby, but I had to make it something else, a string of incidents rather than just one. So I stabbed a few girls. None of them died.”
“You’re despicable.”
“It’s a dog-eat-dog world, Mister Kent. And I’m the top dog.”
Bruce clicked off the recording and Matches Malone stepped out of the alleyway. He had what he needed.
“Really, Slane? Ya look like a little bitch to me.” Slane turned directly into Matches’ right hook, which took him to the ground in one go. A zip tie pulled just a little bit tight around his wrists hooked him to a nearby bit of exposed piping and Harper Slane was as good as imprisoned.
“You son of a bitch,” Slane spat. “Who the fuck are you?”
Bruce lit his match on a thumbnail, watching it flare to life like a supernova in the darkness. Then he dropped it on the damp pavement, inches from Slane’s bruised face. “No one ya’ know.”
He stepped over Slane, wiping his fingerprints carefully from the recording device and sealing it into a plastic bag, then he taped it to the pipe, well out of Slane’s reach.
“Excuse me,” Clark said, for all the world like a good Midwestern boy who needed to be rescued. His glasses were askew and his face was dirty. “Please sir, don’t leave me tied here.”
“I dunno doll, what do I get if I help you out?” Of course he’d help Clark out regardless, but he’d rather not give away that fact to Slane.
“I can…name you in the article?”
“You know, on second thought I think you’re best where you are, pretty boy. Can’t get in trouble again if you’re all tied up.”
“A train is coming!”
“Not for half an hour. You’ve lived a good life, right?”
“Fine, I wont name you, I…I don’t have any money.”
“Really?” Matches said, sarcasm dripping from his lips. “With that fancy get up?”
“You’re one to talk,” Clark sniped, some of his less mild-mannered character coming through.
“Hey, it takes money to look this cheap, doll.”
“Buy some new pet names then. The fifties called, it want’s its sexism back.”
Bruce tutted. “Now I think doll is gender neutral, don’t you, doll ? Besides, you sure ain’t talkin’ like a guy who wants untied.”
“I’m sorry,” Clark huffed. “Untie me please.”
Bruce tutted again, enjoying this just a little too much. “C’mon then. A good boy like you should have some manners, right? That’s what got you into this mess, some little Metropolis goody-two-shoes slumming it with us Gothamites. Show me those manners and beg.”
“No.”
“Is that a train whistle I hear?” Bruce hadn’t heard a thing, and he new Clark could, and could hear that they still had plenty of time.
“Please, let me go, I want to be let go,” Clark said.
“Now earlier I think you called me sir, I could do with more of that.”
“Let me go sir, I won’t put it in my article I swear, I don’t even know your name.”
Bruce smirked. “Name’s Matches, sweetheart.” The persona slipped words from his mouth before he could think better of it. “Scream it all you want, ya won’t wear it out.”
“I won’t –”
Bruce cut Clark off with a hand on his chest, the other dragging the chains away from him as he knelt between the railroad tracks.
“Yain’t bein’ very nice to me, baby. I’m your hero, rescuing you like this.”
“What do you want, a medal?”
“How ‘bout a kiss, that’s what heroes get, right?”
“Oh for fucks sake would you two–” Bruce cut off Harper Slade’s impending homophobic tirade with a kick.
Clark stood, brushing himself off. He was blushing and tugged the sleeve of his dress shirt down to his wrist in a way that was shy, and more authentic than some of the mannerisms Bruce had seen that night.
“C’mon, princess,” he said roughly. “Cops are gunna find this asshole and I won’t be around when they do.” He tugged Clark away, ready to reveal his identity when they were safely alone. He’d probably apologize to Clark for the way Matches acted, although he couldn’t find it in himself to regret it.
They turned onto a new block and he pulled Clark into yet another grimey alleyway.
“Listen–”
He was cut off by lips, soft, pink lips pressing against his own chastely, and then pulling away.
“You said you wanted a kiss,” Clark said, shyly.
“Didn’t think you were interested in giving me one,” Bruce said. It was still Matches’ voice, but sliding a little closer in accent to his own.
Clark was blushing, looking away, curls falling over his eyes so his expression was hard to read. “Doesn’t everyone like a bad boy?”
Something in Bruce’s chest began to purr again. “Oh baby, is that it? You want to take a turn on the wild side?”
Clark pushed his glasses up his face. “Maybe I shouldn’t…”
Bruce let go of his iron control, grabbing the bigger man’s face with both hands and dragging him into a filthy kiss. Clark tasted like toothpaste and coffee and it was perfect anyway. Bruce licked into his mouth, dragging his teeth over that tempting bottom lip as Clark’s hands held tight to him, kissing him back with just as much fervor.
Clark didn’t need air, but Bruce eventually did, pulling away with a gasp and hauling Clark even closer.
“You should take off the mustache and kiss me again,” Clark said.
“What?”
Clark blushed even harder. “I mean, if you still want to, B, of course you don’t have to.”
“How did you–”
“You’re the only man I know who always carries zip ties, and once I saw it…”
“So you knew, when you kissed me?”
“Yes.”
“Would you have kissed me if you didn’t?”
Clark ran a hand over the terrible plaid jacket. “Well you did rescue me. What sort of damsel leaves their hero unkissed?”
“I thought I was a bad boy.”
Clark shrugged. “Both works for me. You saved me twice tonight actually, and I only kissed you once.”
“We just–”
“You kissed me once. But I need to initiate one more, or else I’ll owe you.”
Whatever Bruce expected, it hadn’t been Clark hauling him closer by the belt buckle, but as he felt him smile into the kiss he let the expectations fall away.