Dirty Little Secret: Part 5 (Patreon)

All this time held in place by ropes was starting to take its toll on Ethan. His arms were killing him. His back hurt from the angle. He was worried the circulation to his hands was being properly impeded with possible long term consequences.

Oh, and he had to pee.

He really hoped the rescue plan was forming, because his attempts to ask to be untied, even for a bit, had ended in verbal abuse from the Gremlin and their hired thugs.

“Why does every bank just give you the money?” the Gremlin hissed, having set up a stand for their phone.

“I am polite and they know I’ll return it once I find a way to fix the current situation,” Captain Wrecking Ball replied on the speaker.

“It’s obnoxious! It’s a double standard! It’s… boring!” the Gremlin shouted, bouncing about angrily. “Next time, smash something!”

There was a moment of quiet before the Captain replied. “I would prefer not to.”

“Who cares what you prefer,” the Gremlin said, voice cold and sharp. “I want to see you cause some mayhem. Otherwise, maybe the boytoy loses a toe.”

“D-destroying things sounds fun to me!” Ethan yelped, fear running down his spine.

“Alright. Alright…” came Captain Wrecking Ball’s tired reply. “Which bank?”

“Mmmm… nah. The Natural History Museum,” the Gremlin said. “I want a dinosaur skull.”

There was another moment of silence, before a quiet reply of acceptance came in. The Gremlin nodded to themself, seeming smug through their body language, since the unchanging smile of the mask didn’t convey much.

The confidence and smugness vanished quickly, however, when something seemed to occur to the Gremlin. “You’re not flying.”

“Uh, no?” came the reply from Captain Wrecking Ball.

“You haven’t actually flown at all…” the Gremlin said.

“All the banks you’ve said have been within walking distance?”

The Gremlin leaned over, clearly meant to be glaring at the phone.

“There’s… there’s lots of tall buildings downtown. And… you know… the—the thermals coming off of them and all the concrete… it’s annoying?” Captain Wrecking Ball offered.

“Either start flying or—or smash a car or something! But show me your powers now!” the Gremlin hissed, before pointing a knife Ethan’s way. “If you don't, I'm stabbing pretty boy over there.”

The descriptor sent a new wave of fear into Ethan’s very essence. “P-pretty? I’m not… that’s… please use another term.”

“Oh, shut it,” the Gremlin replied, before turning back to the phone. “Powers. Now. Prove you’re not Shifter.”

There was a slight pause on the other end. “Very well, if you want to see my powers then I’ll show you.”

“G—“

Before the Gremlin could finish their reply, a door marked ‘staff only’ burst open, the large and solid frame of Captain Wrecking Ball flying into the room.

“Shi—fter! It was Shifter,” the Gremlin shrieked, glancing at the phone screen for a moment before realising their goons were scrambling to get away from the new arrival. “Stop that and start shooting! Earn your pay!”

The various henchmen took a moment to process that before a few nodded and then began opening fire with their sidearms.

“Can you—ow—can you stop that?” Captain Wrecking Ball asked, responding more as if he’d encountered a cloud of small bugs rather than a hail of bullet fire.

Ethan tried to ignore that, at this distance and with Captain Wrecking Ball flying to throw off any sense of scale, the body language made him seem almost… cute. That was not a train of thought he wanted to go down.

When the barrage of fire did not end at the Cap’s polite request he gave a quiet sigh. Then the two hundred and four centimetre and a hundred and twenty five kilogram hero launched himself into the crowd of thugs at an unnerving speed. It was like watching a tiger or lion charge at prey, the combination of speed and power on display.

The goons didn’t stand a chance as the Captain tossed them about. What was even more impressive was the way Ethan could tell the man was being gentle with them from his side, yet it saw the henchmen tossed three or four metres into the air or crashing against walls. He could only imagine what watching Captain Wrecking Ball going all in was like this close.

And it left him very intimidated.

The goons who were either still standing or able to get back on their feet scattered after seeing the display, leaving only a few groaning on the ground and the Gremlin sitting cross legged on the admissions’ counter.

“Are you going to come peacefully, Gremlin?” Cap asked, turning to the much smaller figure.

“Obviously not,” the Gremlin replied, standing up and doing a stretch.

Captain Wrecking Ball let out a tired sigh. “Chasing you around is so tiring, do we really have to do this?”

“Oh, I’m planning something more engaging than just dodging this time,” the Gremlin replied, pulling a large knife from one of their many pockets.

“A knife? Guns don’t work, but you’re trying a kni—” the Captain was interrupted by the Gremlin zipping forward in a streak of orange and green.

One rarely actually saw the Gremlin on the news, so Ethan had fully forgotten they had super powers. Something between teleportation and superspeed, they could launch themself at bullet-like speed towards a specific point. Of course, the bullets being fired earlier, by definition, moved at bullet-like speeds, so Ethan at first didn’t think it would make much of a difference.

Until he realised Captain Wrecking Ball had let out a weak gasp and was clutching his arm.

The Gremlin turned around from where they’d launched themself, twirling the now bloodied knife in their hand. “If this were a normal knife it wouldn’t do anything, even with my speed… but lucky me, it isn’t a normal knife.”

“That sting…” Captain Wrecking Ball hissed.

“That’s ri~ight. Spacium,” the Gremlin said, Ethan swearing their mask’s smile had somehow grown larger.

Ethan had heard of that. An interstellar asteroid had passed into the solar system a few years back. A few supers had been sent over to pull it into Earth orbit for study and it had turned out to have a stable ultra-heavy element on it. While it was apparently nearly impossible to work with and almost as hard just to get your hands on, the element was also absurdly dense and exceptionally strong by volume (if not by weight due to the density).

“So, shall we dance?” the Gremlin asked, before launching forward again.

This time Captain Wrecking Ball dodged, if only barely. It was clear he was on the back foot, however. The Gremlin launched themself again and again, striking from various angles, only the speed of his flying and the distance gave the Captain the ability to dodge. Even then he was now covered in several cuts, one along his side looking particularly painful.

“Now isn’t this fun?” the Gremlin said, hanging off a ceiling lamp as Captain Wrecking Ball panted. “You get to be on the run from me for once. A nice change of pace, don’t you think?”

The comment seemed to cause Cap to realise something, the large man shifting the way he held himself in the air slightly. Ethan wasn’t sure, but the new position seemed more solid.

“We’ll just have to see who gets tired first, I suppose,” the Captain said, but there seemed to be a little more confidence in his voice.

“Ugh. Stop being so stalwart and noble, you obnoxious jerk!” the Gremlin hissed, launching themself once again.

Only this time there was a shriek from the Gremlin’s artificially distorted voice, their small figure rolling and bouncing along the ground when they left streak mode. Ethan blinked, before realising that Captain Wrecking Ball had, instead of dodging, held his ground and clotheslined the Gremlin.

He’d ended up with the knife in his shoulder because of it, but the fact he was holding firm and clearly bearing the pain while the Gremlin was writhing and complaining on the ground told Ethan it had probably been worth it.

Gritting his teeth and placing his other hand on the shoulder to apply pressure, Captain Wrecking Ball turned around to glare at the Gremlin. “Are we done now?”

“Ha!” the Gremlin hissed, pulling themself into a sitting position with what seemed like significant effort. “I’ve still got another trick up my sleeve.”

Before he could process what had happened, Ethan found the Gremlin sitting half on his shoulders half on the statue he was tied to, something he couldn’t see pressed against his neck. Based on how sharp it was he figured it was another knife. Probably a more normal one.

This was why he’d always tried to avoid anything to do with supers. Villains were always trying to kill nobodies like him to make a point. Now here he was facing death for the second time in as many weeks. It was miserable.

“Maybe I can’t win this fight, but I can certainly make sure you lose it more than me,” the Gremlin shouted in a raspy voice, pushing the point of the knife harder into Ethan’s neck.

Only for the Gremlin to then slump forward, dropping the knife as they fell onto the ground below Ethan.

“I told you not to go in alone,” a female voice said in a harsh tone, causing Ethan to feel a new wave of dread.

“Gremlin was on to Shifter covering for me, I had to act to protect E—the hostage,” Captain Wrecking Ball replied.

“And now you’re going to need Dr Medic to patch you up,” the woman said, Ethan now placing her voice as the Queen of Swords.

Right, she must have hit the Gremlin with her kinetic-blade-thing. Ethan still didn’t quite understand how the energy blade worked, but it was something that translated slashing and stabbing into a lethal punch-like equivalent… which was somehow less lethal than hitting someone with a club or similar blunt object.

But, hey, supers broke the laws of physics all the time, what was breaking the laws of blunt trauma to one of them?

Ethan let out a sigh of relief as he heard the Queen of Swords jump down from behind him, walking over towards the front door to open it up. A man with warm brown skin, short black hair, and a white lab coat inspired outfit strolled in. Dr. Medic.

He attended to the Captain first, patching up his more serious wounds with some sort of healing gel. He gave the Gremlin a quick check before untying Ethan and examining him.

“Hmm, you seem in better condition than I’d worried, very good,” the man said, his voice gentle and kind.

Ethan gave a nod, glad the examination was short, so he could then scurry off to the nearest washroom. That out of the way, he then headed over to check in on how Captain Wrecking Ball was doing.

The large man was now covered in significant bandaging, Dr. Medic having had a chance to give him a proper clean up.

“It looks worse than it is,” the taller man said, so imposing up close. “It’s mostly about infusing ointments or… that sort of thing.”

“I saw all the cuts earlier,” Ethan replied.

“Oh. Right,” Captain Wrecking Ball said, seeming a bit embarrassed.

“Th-thank you for going through that for my sake,” Ethan said. “Though we’re going to have to clear things up before it happens again.”

“Clear things up?” the large man asked.

“About people thinking we’re dating and all that,” Ethan explained. “Should we make a public announcement that we aren’t, or will it take something more?”

The Captain looked mildly concerned for a moment, before something seemed to click in place. “Riiight. Right. Yes, we should do something about that.”

“Wait, you two aren’t dating?” the Queen of Swords asked as she was dragging some goons towards the front entrance. “The way Ilya responded to you being in danger I thought for sure…”

Captain Wrecking Ball blushed furiously at that. “I—well—that… he’s my type. So I did get a little frazzled realising I’d put him in danger, but… well, you know. Someone like me. I can’t really date… because, well, this would happen more.”

Ethan found himself feeling a strange bubble of emotions at the taller man’s confession. Sure, he knew he was in decent shape and they’d insisted they’d given him a good face when they’d put him in witness protection, but… he also didn’t think he could claim to feel very masculine in such a relationship. Which was a concern he didn’t like having to deal with.

“Well, ah—um… I’m flattered, but I actually—uh, I actually have someone I’m seeing so…” Ethan stammered.

“Haha, right. Of course,” the Captain replied as awkwardly as Ethan felt he’d been. “Also, wait, Q.O.S., you’re not supposed to use my real name when we’re out.”

“Sorry, sorry, but it’s not like you ever go out as not a super,” the woman replied.

Ethan used the distraction to slip away slightly, pulling out his phone. He’d need to let ‘Julie’ know he’d probably be a bit late to their date, since the police would no doubt have questions for him. Pressing ‘her’ contact number in his phone he… heard a ring from behind him just as he pressed it?

Taking a moment to process that, he turned around, only to find the Queen of Blades standing alone, staring at the ceiling.

Which had a hole in it, roughly the size of Captain Wrecking Ball.

Ethan also didn’t hear any more phone ringing… had he just imagined that?

And why had Captain Wrecking Ball left s—no. No. He wasn’t thinking about that option again. It was absurd.