Method Madness

For a full ten seconds, the world held its breath. The noise didn't die so much as collapse—a total negative, the kind of hush that followed a gunshot in a sealed room.

Even the helicopters seemed to pause, their rotor wash fading just enough for the human ear to register nothing but the tick of its own heart.

He stepped into the light.

No announcement, no publicist advance, no stage-managed "walkdown" from the far end of the carpet. Marcus Vale just appeared, as if conjured by the waiting dark, outlined in the blue spill of a single spotlight. For a moment he did not move, just stood with his hands folded at his waist, the suit so black-purple it looked wet, the shirt crisp and funereal, the tie a deep arterial red.

The cuffs of the jacket were cut to fit, the pants hemmed just so above the bone-polished Oxfords, and the entire ensemble was so sharply tailored it almost didn't look real.

Marco caught the first frame, heart jacking high in his throat. The Nikon's shutter thudded, a full ten frames before the rest of the press woke up to what was happening.

There was no makeup on Vale's face—none that Marco could see, anyway. The hair was slicked back, longer than in the promo stills, dark and heavy with just the hint of green at the tips, the color deepening at the roots when the light hit just right.

The face itself was not beautiful. Not in the way the rest of Hollywood demanded.

But it was a face designed for myth: cheekbones like a threat, jaw set and static, lips wide and flat in a line that suggested neither smile nor frown but a perpetual, insatiable hunger.

The eyes—fuck, the eyes—were wide and clear and rimmed in black, the irises green but almost iridescent, not quite human.

He waited, letting the crowd see him, before putting one foot forward onto the edge of the carpet.

Somewhere behind Marco, a girl shrieked, then started crying. The noise carried, picked up and multiplied as others realized what they were seeing.

Phones went up.

The flash from the press line turned the air stroboscopic.

Vale didn't flinch.

He walked with a pace that was too slow for drama, too fast for dignity. He made it halfway down the carpet before stopping, letting the entire press line align their sights, then dropped his chin just a fraction and gave them the look.

The one from the teaser, the one from the leaked audition. The one that had, in thirty seconds, ruined a hundred million circadian rhythms and launched a thousand meme accounts.

Lena Chen was the first to recover.

She raised her mic, voice low and live:

"Marcus, over here—just a word for the network?"

He turned, eyes finding her with the precision of a drone strike, but didn't speak. He just looked, held the stare, then moved on.

Other reporters tried.

He ignored them all.

A pair of Warner handlers, both in identical suits and matching plastic smiles, drifted in from either side, ready to usher him down the step-and-repeat, but he waved them off without touching.

Instead, he paused at the exact midpoint, where the light was brightest, and folded his hands again, body held in a deliberate, almost predatory stillness.

For a heartbeat, Marco thought he saw the entire city reflected in the slick of Vale's hair, the skyline burning out behind the lens.

It was then that the first comment hit the feed:

@obsessedcinema: "Is he still in character or is this just who he is now?"

@valesmilefan: "He's not acting. He IS."

@filmthirst: "I want him to look at me like that and then destroy me. Sorry."

A ripple ran down the press line, and Marco felt it, too: the sense that everyone was waiting for Vale to do something—to break, to laugh, to wink, to drop a single quotable for the morning's news. He didn't. He just stood, letting the attention soak in, letting it saturate every pore.

Then, he smiled.

Not a big, Joker-wide thing.

Just the barest curl of one corner of the mouth. It didn't reach the eyes, but it didn't need to.

The effect was instant.

Flashbulbs exploded in a wall of light. The sound came back, hard and thick, the crowd behind the barricades detonating into a chorus of screams. Marco snapped the sequence: the stillness, the smile, the flash. It would run on every front page in the city tomorrow.

Vale dropped the smile, then turned and walked the rest of the carpet, unhurried, as if the rest of the world had already lost its meaning. Security kept a respectful two steps back, as if afraid of being caught in the blast radius.

Marco watched as Zoe Matthews, phone in both hands, nearly collapsed behind the barricade, screaming his name.

"MARCUS! JOKER! YOU'RE SO HOT! DESTROY ME!"

Others joined in, a weird chant, part adulation, part threat.

By the time he reached the theater doors, the chant had become a low, guttural thrum, almost like a war song. Someone had started a slow clap. Others followed.

Vale never looked back.

He paused at the threshold, caught the reflection of his own face in the glass, then vanished into the dark.

The doors closed behind him, sucking the light away. The crowd kept chanting, then the noise died, then the phones went up again, everyone desperate to see if he'd reappear.

He didn't.

Marco caught his breath, felt the sweat running down his spine, and realized he'd shot an entire card in three minutes flat. He checked the LCD—every frame perfect.

He thought, for a moment, about what it would be like to be the man on the other side of that glass. To walk into a room and know you owned it, not by force or money or even talent, but by sheer gravitational certainty.

He didn't envy it.

He just watched, and waited, and wondered what would happen when the rest of the cast had to walk through that same door.

The crowd outside never stopped chanting.

They knew what they wanted.

And tonight, for the first time, Marco wondered if Vale wanted it too.

.....

Anne Hathaway arrived not in a limo but a gunmetal SUV, the door opened by a handler so smooth he might have been invisible in the right light. She stepped onto the curb and, for a second, the entire crowd didn't register her—Vale's presence still hung in the air, an afterimage burned into every retina.

But then the camera flashes swung her direction and the hush cracked, splintered by the surge of professional admiration and whatever deeper impulse it was that made even strangers want to see Anne Hathaway in pain, in love, or in black silk.

The dress was a marvel of negative space: midnight black, cut close at the shoulder, liquid at the hem, with a slit so high it dared the wind to try something. The fabric drank the light, then sent it back in tiny pulses with every movement.

Anne's hair was coiled in a high chignon, loose enough to look accidental but pinned so tight that not a single strand fell. The effect was both severe and radiant, a priestess arriving to officiate at her own funeral.

The handlers closed in around her, but Anne moved through them like water, gliding the final yards to the carpet with hands folded at her stomach and chin tilted half a degree above the horizontal.

Her walk was slow, deliberate, and absolutely devoid of the practiced "spontaneity" that most actresses were trained to fake for the cameras. She did not smile. She did not wave. She just walked, every line of her body speaking the same word: unapproachable.

The crowd—press and fans alike—felt it. Marco felt it, too. Even after years of covering her, he'd never seen this version: a Hathaway with all the sweetness sanded off, nothing left but the raw bone of professionalism and a tension that made the hair on his arms stand up. If Vale had come as the wolf, Anne was the only thing that wolves respected.

She paused at the edge of the carpet, just long enough for the press to fumble with their settings, then swept the full length with a single, clinical gaze. Every camera caught the look. Most people would have used the moment to adjust a hem or check their hair in a compact. Anne simply waited.

The doors at the far end of the carpet opened again. This time, Marcus Vale did not appear alone.

He came out flanked by two Warner execs, one on each shoulder, both visibly nervous. He walked with the same predatory grace as before, but as soon as he spotted Anne, the entire quality of his movement shifted. He slowed, almost imperceptibly, and for the first time, the barest hint of a smile crept into the lines of his face.

They met at the midpoint of the carpet. Neither said anything. They just stood, a half meter apart, the air between them thick with unspoken dare.

For a moment, the press line forgot its job. Then every camera in the lane went off at once.

Anne turned, ever so slightly, to face the lens cluster. Her profile, sharp and illuminated, was set in a mask of perfect self-control. To any casual observer, she was the model of composure.

But Marco, shooting at four frames a second, caught the tremor in her left hand as it brushed against the fabric of her gown. He caught the way her eyes darted—not toward the camera, but to the face of the man next to her, then away, then back again, as if confirming something only she could see.

Vale did not move. Not even to acknowledge the noise. But as Anne's hand hovered just above his wrist, the corner of his mouth ticked up a fraction, enough for only the most attentive to notice.

The press started shouting.

"Anne, what's it like working with a Joker this intense?"

"Marcus, are you ever not in character?"

"Anne, did you feel safe on set? Did you—"

The questions tumbled over each other, desperate for a quote. Anne fielded the first volley with a gentle nod.

"It was an honor to work with such a talented cast and crew. I think audiences will see something truly new."

Her voice was steady, the vowels perfectly measured. She'd practiced every answer a hundred times. No one could have guessed her hands were shaking.

Vale, for his part, let the silence work. He didn't speak, but let his gaze travel the length of the press line, pausing on each individual as if mapping them for later. When the second round of questions started—darker, less polite, closer to the bone—he simply smiled, baring his teeth, and waited for Anne to answer.

The chemistry was obvious to everyone, but the insiders saw more. Marco watched as two veteran reporters whispered in the shadow of a light rig.

"Look at them," said the first, eyes narrowed.

"No way this is just PR."

The other replied,

"You see how close she stands to him? If he so much as moves, they'll be touching. But neither of them does."

"Like two magnets," the first said.

The second replied:

"Like a fuse and a match."

The buzz in the crowd built and built. Zoe Matthews, now standing on a friend's shoulders, chanted,

"Joker! Catwoman! Joker! Catwoman!"

until the press corps picked it up, the two names rising and falling in tandem, a chorus hungry for a headline.

Anne didn't flinch. When Vale's arm finally, finally brushed against her own, she let her hand drift a centimeter closer, then withdrew, fingers curling into her palm. The whole thing took a second and a half, but the impact ran through the crowd like a live current.

The photographers got what they wanted. In less than five minutes, the image of Anne and Marcus standing together—too close to be polite, too distant to be lovers—was already trending. The hashtags split down the middle: #JokerCatwoman #DarkDuo #HathawayVale.

In the press tent, a junior publicist pressed her phone to her chest and hissed,

"This is going to be something. I can feel it."

Back on the carpet, Anne answered another volley of questions with a smile that was almost kind.

"Marcus brings out the best in everyone he works with. He's…inspiring."

Vale nodded, just once, then met her gaze with a look that Marco couldn't read—equal parts affection and challenge. It was the kind of look that said: I know what you're doing, and I dare you to do more.

As the handlers ushered them toward the theater doors, Anne's foot caught on the edge of the carpet. She recovered instantly, but in the moment of imbalance, Vale reached out—not to steady her, but to hover his hand over her elbow, never quite touching. The gesture was intimate, almost protective, and lasted exactly as long as it took for Anne to regain her footing.

Then the spell was broken. They walked the final stretch together, side by side, eyes straight ahead, the entire press line tracking every micro-movement.

They reached the doors. Anne paused, turned to Vale, and said something under her breath. He listened, smiled—an actual, full smile this time—and nodded.

Then, together, they vanished into the theater, the doors swinging closed behind them.

Marco watched as the crowd dissolved into debate, every phone in the place buzzing with the images, the theories, the hope that maybe, just maybe, the real drama would unfold not onscreen, but in the space between these two.

He lowered his camera, thumbed the back of his neck, and felt the hair still standing up.

"Yeah," he muttered, mostly to himself, "this is going to be something."

And, somehow, he knew he was right.

........

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