100YoP Chapter Nineteen "Need a scorecard to keep up with your lethal ass." (Patreon)

The plates were set, the curry was simmering, the white rice was done, and I’d bought an unreasonably expensive bottle of red wine and some wine  glasses that I’d been assured would go great with the main dish.

The floor was swept and mopped, the walls had been cleaned and every horizontal surface had been dusted. I’d done my best to erase all specks of dirt with a fervor I usually reserved for when mom came over for the holidays.

Now all that was left was to stop tapping my foot nervously before my downstairs neighbor came over and asked what my fucking problem was.

Checking my phone for the fifteenth time, I found there were only minutes before my guests arrived, so I put on some music and checked the curry, tasting to make sure it was okay.

A little spicy, but only one of ‘em’s fully white, I reasoned, putting the lid back on. Worst comes to happen, I’ll just give him some bread or—

Three sharp knocks interrupted my musings on the proper caretaking of crackers (learned ardously through years of friendship with Billy). I checked that my apron was mostly clean, then rushed over to the door.

After checking through the peephole, I opened the door and smiled nervously. “Hey guys. Nice to see you.”

Before me stood Cassandra Cain-Wayne, Dick Grayson and Tim Drake, all bundled up in thick long coats and scarves, slightly dusted from the falling snow outside. Cass was wearing a backpack, Dick was holding a tupperware in one gloved hand, while Tim was carrying a bottle of wine while wearing a slightly awkward expression.

Cass was the first to come in, giving me a quick peck on the cheek before starting to take off her coat and hang it with her backpack on the hooks next to the door.

Dick stretched his hand forward and said, “Nice to finally meet, Sam. You can call me Dick.”

Don’t make a joke about it, I thought while shaking his hand. Don’t you dare make a joke about his stupid fucking nickname.

“Right,” I said, “You... already call me Sam, but you can keep doing that. What’s in the tupper?”

“Alfie made brownies,” he said, stepping past me and taking off his coat, hanging it next to Cass’, who was already sitting on top of my fridge. When he saw this, Dick rushed over. “Cass, get down from there! Wh- I don’t care if he doesn’t mind, you can’t go around sitting on people’s fridges!”

Tim and I watched, before turning back to each other.

“Does she do that often?” he asked me.

“Yeah,” I shrugged. “I think it’s like a cat thing, you know? Like, the more comfortable she gets at my place, the more she likes me?”

“Makes as much sense as any theory I’ve had,” said Tim, putting a fist out for me to bump. “In any case it’s nice to meet you. Um, casually, that is.”

“Likewise,” I said, bumping his fist. “Well, come on in. Dinner’s just about ready, so you can just take a seat.”

I took the bottle from him and stepped aside, then closed the door behind him. Then I took a deep, steadying myself before I followed after.

Batman was almost certainly planning to stand against me. My best bet to tilt the odds in my favour was to sway his family, and that wasn’t going to be an easy task. While I seemed to remember them being slightly more morally flexible than their father, Dick and Tim were still paragons through and through.

Plus, my reasons for being nervous weren’t wholly cynical. I really did want to make a good impression on Cass’ family, just for the sake of making her happy. I knew they were important to her the way what little family I had was important to me, and I couldn’t stand to fuck that up for her.

Still, I wasn’t going to waste the opportunity that cropped up when Cass asked me if I wanted to have dinner with them. Or rather, the opportunities.

It felt uncomfortably fake, but I couldn’t just think of myself. Me falling meant the gang falling. It meant Billy, Farah and Yua going down. I couldn’t stand for that.

I walked into the kitchen, left the large tupper and bottle aside and grabbed my phone. I opened an app that Farah had designed for a singular purpose, then changed the song as an excuse. As the music rang out, I checked the curry and nodded to myself.

“Just done,” I declared, turning off the heat and grabbing a plastic spoon. “Mi vida, can you hand me the plates?”

She stacked them up and handed them over, and I started serving. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tim and Dick trade a look behind her back, though they hurried to look casual when they spotted me looking.

“So, how’s business?” Dick asked, making my back tense up.

Right, there was a slight chance that they were all wired. I had to keep that in mind.

“Can’t complain,” I said, handing Cass a single plate with an even split of curry and rice that she served herself. “Opening went well, I’m already starting to get some regulars. A few people tried to start problems, but they none of ‘em got far so far.”

By ‘start problems’, I meant that a few soldiers of Namond’s had tried to shoot up my business, set it on fire, cut the wires, and all sorts of nasty shit. And by ‘none of ‘em got far’, I had meant that all of them had wound up locked in various dumpsters with shattered bones all over their bodies.

“That’s nice,” said Dick. “Bruce’s been keeping us busy with Bat stuff, but it’s far from the worse I’ve had it. I don’t know if you remember this one time that Scarecrow held the city hostage?”

Oh, I thought. He was trying to reassure me that he wasn’t wired by talking about Bat stuff openly.

It was a nice gesture, but it could be a manufactured one. Recordings could be doctored, or he could be bugged without his knowledge...

But then again, that way lay endless paranoia. One of my goals for this evening was to gain their trust, and the first step was to give trust. Besides, I was planning for that.

I handed out a second plate, saying, “Which time? I’ve been in Gotham for like five of those attempts. He forced me to help with one, actually.”

A small smile pulled at his lips while he grabbed the plate Cass handed him, and I tried not to let it get me nervous. “The one that riddler helped with, with the hidden bombs full of fear gas?”

“Oh, yeah,” I nodded. “You know he actually hid one in my school?”

“Huh, small world,” he hummed. “Anyways, I had to stay up like two days straight, just solving puzzle after puzzle to figure out where the bombs were.”

“That’s nothing,” Tim said. “Remember when Bane showed up for the first time and he broke everyone out of Arkham?”

“Jesus, that was him?” I asked, having forgotten about that. I served a third plate while I thought, “Wait... is that how he ‘broke’ Batman?”

“Yup,” Tim said, taking the plate Cassandra gave him. “Kept him awake for like a week then beat him up in the Batcave.”

“What a douchebag!” I complained. “He’s always bragging about beating Batman, and this whole time it was because he had everyone else have a go at his ass first?! That barely counts!”

“It’s a solid strategy,” Cass defended. “Have everyone fight, then step in.”

“Maximum results for minimal effort,” Tim said. “You have to be careful with how you use it, though.”

I paused in serving my plate, then took it and sat down next to Cass, opposite to Dick and Tim. “I wouldn’t know. It seems I always end up ass-first in trouble with little to no time for planning.”

Tim snorted, “I get the feeling. This one time, I was with the Titans...”

The evening continued in a similar vein, with us trading stories about our chaotic lives. Cass mostly stayed quiet, ocassionally chiming in to tease her siblings or me. Though the hand that wasn’t holding her fork usually found its way to my leg, which made it kinda hard to hold my composure.

At one point during dinner, my phone chimed two times in quick succession. I noted it with satisfaction, but did nothing to check. Cass looked at me askance, but I distracted her by refilling her glass and running my hand down her thigh under the bar.

Once dinner was over—I was complimented on my cooking, which was good for my pride as a chef—I put the plates away and started the coffee maker for Dick and I, since Cass and Tim decided to make do with a bottle of apple juice I had in my fridge instead.

Once I served two cups, I asked the Waynes if they minded if I lit up, and they said they were cool with it though they wouldn’t be partaking.

With smoke drifting upwards, dinner settled and varied beverages being enjoyed, we opened the tupper and divided some of the best brownies I had ever had, still sharing stories of times past.

Mine weren’t the most chaotic, but they were close.

“... so I’m in the driver’s seat, Killer Moth’s at the passenger seat, and Billy and the gringa the cult was gonna sacrifice are at the back, right?” I said.

“Right,” Dick said, totally absorbed in the story.

“So at this point the girl starts going like ‘oh my god, you saved me’, ‘cause I guess she hadn’t realized it was a total accident. And I guess Billy’s magnetic dick or something kicks in, ‘cause soon enough they’re making out in the back, and clothes are flying off,” I took a puff from my blunt, “Literally flying off, mostly onto us because God hates Killer Moth and I was in the splash zone.”

“So what did you two do?” asked Tim.

“Well, as much as I wanted to get away from everyone involved in the scene, we were still fleeing an active crime scene, so I couldn't pull over and walk the rest of the way home. Like, the smoke was still coming off the fuckin’ deli and we were only like five blocks away,” I sighed, “So I just gave Moth a look like ‘these motherfuckers’. And Moth, fucking legend that he is, took this as a request to make the trip more tolerable, so he pulled out the biggest fucking bong I ever saw out from under the seat. Plus a jar of pot that I’d later learn was laced with LSD.”

“And you smoked it?” Tim asked, incredulous.

“I wasn’t going to!” I defended myself. “But then Billy’s boxers fell on my head and I decided life was too painful to face sober.”

Tim facepalmed, Dick laughed and Cass inhaled another brownie.

“So Moth lit up, took a rip the size of God’s asscrack, and handed over the bong. I some-fucking-how managed to take a rip without even slowing down or crashing into anything despite driving with my knees, and we started hotboxing the car while the two assholes fucked in the back seat.”

I took a sip of coffee to relax my vocal chords while Dick and Tim pondered the defiance of natural selection that was my life.

“This’d be when we passed by the cop car.” I continued.

“No!” Dick said, delighted.

“Si,” I said. “Sometimes I still wonder what the fuck he saw. I mean, a teenage Argentinean still covered in everything from tripping over the blood orgy, a D-List supervillain in full fucking costume taking enormous rips out of a moth-shaped bong, and two people fucking in the back. And that’s what was clearly visible through all the smoke, he probably missed the fucking fairy lights.

“All I know is that he was like two blocks away before he made the U-turn and turned on the lights.”

“You’re making this up,” Tim accused.

“I think Killer Moth still has the pictures he took with his hipster fucking polaroid camera,” I mused. “Summer of XX, y’know? Anyhow, the cop turned on the lights and I, being higher than a fucking space station, pulled into a Batburger drive-thru.”

Dick laughed harder.

“I ordered my usual, got something for everyone—the two in the back were still going at it, but I know what Billy likes and the girl could go hungry for all I gave a shit—and stopped at the parking lot, where the cop stopped by to talk.”

I bit into my brownie and kept talking through a mouthful. “The cop asked what we were doing, I said ‘eating’. He asked what that weed smell was, I said my buddy was smoking a huge bowl for his back pains but that it’s cool because he’s got ‘one of those, uuuhhhh, medical liscenceses and shit’. He said that, speaking of, why the fuck was there a supervillain in the car. I asked what supervillain.

“So at that point he asked me to step out of the car, I did, then I clocked him, looked at the others and asked them if they ever wanted to joyride on a cop car. Can’t remember shit after that, but I woke up with a tramp stamp of a flame above my ass.”

Dick fell out of his chair while Cass’ head shot up and she asked me. “Do you still have it?”

“Nah, got laser removal the month after,” I shrugged. “I think Billy still has a photo of it somewhere.”

“Aw,” she pouted. Then she tilted her head and asked me, “What happened with the girl?”

“I dunno, I think Billy dated her for a while. We don’t talk much about our love lives,” I explained, a little awkward.

“Really?” Tim seemed surprised. “I thought you guys were super close.”

“As deducted from your creepy, invasive investigation of my life?” I teased, making him wince a little. “We are close, but we just... don’t talk much about that topic. We’re more likely to talk about whether we had a good shit than that, in fact.”

Cass wrinkled her nose, but didn’t say anything.

“Can you blame us?” Dick asked, getting back on his chair. At my raising an eyebrow, he explained, “For looking into your life. Can you blame us for taking precautions?”

“... not really,” I granted, giving him a nod. “But the thing about basic human rights is that even sacks of shit like myself deserve them, and last time I checked privacy was one of those.”

“Fair point,” he chuckled. His smile turned a little sad as he sighed, and he looked at me. “Y’know, I can really sympathize with you.”

I raised an eyebrow.

“I’ve been at this since I was nine. I’ve been doing this for twelve years, and it only ever seems to get harder,” he scratched his chin. “Being Robin... kinda fucked with my ability to be a normal person, to tell you the truth.”

I snorted. “... it’s the little things that fuck you up, no?”

“I never had a real girlfriend that didn’t have a secret identity,” he said.

“I never learned to ride a bike,” I said.

“... I get bored talking to civilians,” Tim chimed in, looking almost ashamed as he said it. “Like, I feel bad about it, but they just seem so...”

“Small? Dull?” I tried.

“Right! Like, I’ve been to space, and fuckin’ Jeremy from math class is complaining that his dad won’t let him drink booze,” he threw his hands in the air.

“God, I knew so many fuckin’ Jeremies,” I muttered. “You know how many times I wanted to strangle someone because they were complaining about math homework when I was going to have to do the same thing, run a corner andperform the ocassional hit?”

“Tell me about it,” Dick sighed, distracting me from Tim and Cass’ small wince at my mentioning the hits. “Thank God that Poison Ivy, Harley and Mister Freeze were all cool with helping me with my homework while they held me hostage, because I would have probably flunked out.”

“Hah, I can totally see them helping you with that,” I said, before turning to look at Cass. “How ‘bout you...?”

I trailed off. She raised an eyebrow at me.

“Yeah, fair,” I nodded, “Dumb question.”

She patted me on the cheek and stole one of my brownies.

There was a moment of companionable silence, before a serious expression overtook Dick’s face and he said to me, “You looked into our lives yourself. Do you know how I became Robin?”

“... the basics,” I said, nodding, “I don’t know who did it, or why they did it, but I know what happened.”

“Right,” he said, looking down. “Well, I don’t wanna get into detail, but... back then, when Bruce took me in, I was incrediblyangry, to put it lightly. I wanted nothingmore than to take revenge through my own bloody, violent means. And not to brag or anything, but I actually got pretty far with it, before...”

“The Batman Interrupt?” I asked.

“The very same,” he smiled, though it fell quickly. “He saw that I had some talent and plenty of drive, and he decided to hone it since he knew it wasn’t something that just went away with time. He chose to give it purpose beyond mindless violence and a stupid vendetta that was going to get me killed sooner rather than later.

“Being Robin, this whole lifestyle... I couldn’t tell you whether it took or gave me more, but... I don’t think I could ever really regret it. Even if I had the choice of bringing my birth parents back, I don’t know if I’d be able to sacrifice the family I have now for it,” he confessed. “It hurts to admit, but it’s true. And that’s why I get that, even given the possibility, you can’t just walk away from it. From the people you know now, that depend on you.

“Since becoming Robin, I lead the Teen Titans, joined the Justice League and saved so many people I’m pretty sure I’ve positively influenced the overall world population. I don’t say this as a brag so much as to explain the sheer weight of what being Nightwing has become. A weight that I’m thinking you’re starting to feel yourself.”

I shook my head, confused, “What are you trying to say here, Dick?”

“I’m trying to tell you that I get why you’re not going to just walk away from this life like Bruce insists you should,” he said. “I know that you can’t just dip in and out of it, not without hurting the people you care about.”

“... so what, you’re gonna argue in my favour against Batman?”

“Oh, no, not at all,” he said, making me frown. “I’m sorry, but what you’re doing... becoming the backbone of your community like you want would just make the corruption in Gotham so much worse.”

“Then why are you talking to me about this?”

“I just... wanted to say that I’m open to keeping things civil between us,” Dick said. “Both of us are. We’re still gonna clash, but I don’t see why we can’t have more dinners like this.”

Wow, I thought, genuinely impressed. The balls on this little shit.

I glared at him for a moment, then I dropped it with a sigh.

... fuck it. I knew that was as good as I was gonna get. Not like I wasn’t planning for it...

But it still felt like I couldn’t win. No matter how ethical I tried to make my business, it just wasn’t enough.

“Sure,” I said, a little unenthusiastically. “I appreciate it.”

He gave me a smile, slightly awkward.

Once the brownies were through and everyone finished their drinks, I picked up the tupper and glasses and got washing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tim step beside me and grab a plate as I finished with it, taking a rag to it.

“Wow, doing a whole manual labor,” I said, smirking. “Didn’t know you had it in you, duckboy.”

“Right, because parkouring around the city and practicing martial arts on Gotham’s criminals isn’t manual labor in the slightest,” he deadpanned, making me snort. “I wanted to talk with you.”

I looked over my shoulder and found Dick and Cass frantically signing at each other, hands flapping about quickly. I couldn’t catch what they were saying from the angle I was looking at them, but they seemed busy, so I turned back to the dishes. “What’s up?”

“... why do you like Cass?” he asked me. “Also, where do I put this?”

I pointed him to the cupboard above his head as I thought it over.

“Well... on a physical level alone, she’s incredibly attractive. Between the cute face, the muscles, the scars, the everything...” I gave a faux shiver. “Y’know?”

Tim grimaced. “... dude. That’s my sister.”

“I know, I’m just fuckin’ with you,” I chuckled as I handed him another plate. “Really, I guess what I like about her... the first time we met, I was just Random Henchman #429 to her, but she still shielded me from an explosion. I know most if not every member of your clan would do the same, but Cass... I don’t think I’ve ever met someone that sticks to their ideals as much as she does. I just find it admirable.”

“Yeah...” he nodded. “Out of all of us, I think she’s the most dedicated to Bruce’s code. Even more than him.”

“Mm.”

“So that raises the question,” he said, putting the plate away. “What does it mean when she’s putting the code away to spend time with you?”

My hands stilled for a second, foam running between fingers and getting washed away by a stream of hot water. Then I ran the sponge down the plate, washed it away with water and handed it to Tim before grabbing the last plate to clean.

“I guess...” I started, then paused and said, “I dunno. I’m not the same person today that I was last year, and I doubt she’s the same as she was last year. Any time two people spend time together, they change each other.”

“And you think this change is good for her?” he asked me.

“I think that’s something she can decide for herself,” I said. “My mom once told me that in the end, everyone is who they choose to be, even if they don’t think so. That we pick and choose what we get from contact with others.”

I paused, grimaced, and said, “Granted, she was talking about all the bad habits her mother had that I should be thankful she didn’t pass on to me, but the point applies.”

Tim chuckled as he put away the plate away and grabbed the last one from me.

“Cass knows herself well enough, and she’s got all of you,” I shrugged, grabbing a glass and starting to clean it. “I think she’ll be fine.”

“Hm. And you?” he asked. “What are you getting out of this?”

“Oh, isn’t it obvious?” I asked with a smile. When he frowned, I flicked soapy water at him and said, “I get to feel up a cute girl.”

“Ugh, dude!”

I laughed.

After a while, all the dishes were cleaned, dried and put away. Not without some issues (“Why would you put the pot in the oven?” “Because callate, that’s why.”) but the conversation was friendly from there on.

With that done, Tim and I walked away to where Dick and Cass were staring each other down.

“So, are we going?” he asked, looking between the two.

“No,” said Cassandra, refusing to break eye contact with Dick. “You are.”

“Pardon?” we said at the same time.

“Apparently, Cassie here is a mature adult who can make her own choices,” Dick said, also keeping eye contact. “She has thus declared that she is going to stay the night and deal with the fallout when she returns.”

“What?!” Tim shouted. “Cass, Bruce is going to kill us!”

She raised an eyebrow at him.

“Okay, fine, he’s not gonna kill us. He and Alfred are gonna team up to nag us within an inch of our lives.”

She huffed, crossed her arms and said, “Choice made. Deal.”

“No! No deal!” Tim shouted.

“I think she meant ‘deal’ like ‘deal with it’,” I said, making her nod and smile with satisfaction. With their attention on me, I said, “And is anyone gonna ask me my opinion on her staying the night?”

Everyone gave me a flat look.

“Well, yeah, obviously I’m gonna say yes, but it’d be the polite thing to do!”

They went back to glaring at each other, before Cass signed, [You can each take a bucket from my stash.]

“... see you tomorrow,” Dick grumbled. “C’mon, Tim. Bye Sam.”

“Oh my God, I’m going to be grounded forever,” he muttered. He walked away and grabbed his coat, waving at us over his shoulder. “Bye guys.”

I waved at them, then looked at Cass once the door closed behind them, “I’ve been meaning to ask, how did you guys get in without me buzzing you in?”

“Window.”

Ah, right. Ninjas.

“Well... d’you wanna watch a movie, or...?”

She tapped me in the chest, smiled, then walked into my bedroom with her backpack.

“... okay.”

A few moments later, she came out wearing a loose black tanktop and pajama pants with batsignal prints. She tilted her head back before going back in and I followed after.

I found her in my bed, smiling at me with the covers pulled up to her chin. I took off my shoes and pants, and got into the bed next to her, wrapping my arms around her as she cuddled up to me.

I laid there for a moment, listening to her soft breathing as she pressed her forehead to my chest.

The conversation with Tim played back in my head. I knew why I liked Cass, but...

“Hey, Cassie?” I said, making her tilt her head to look up at me. “Why... why are you with me?”

She blinked slowly, then sat up so she was straddling my waist. In the low light of my bedroom, with only a streetlight coming in, I could only see the sillhouette of her, but I still caught her signing.

[Funny. Nice. Stubborn.] she paused, and more slowly, she signed, [You’re good about it.]

I frowned, “About what?”

[I’m weird. Violence is my first language.] She explained. [I need attention to some things, don’t understand others. People say I’m weird. I see it even when they don’t say it. You just roll with it.]

Well yeah, between knowing her backstory and working for supervillains, it was barely a ping in my ‘what the fuck’ radar.

[I know it’s nothing to you,] she signed, before she leaned in and cupped my face with her hand. “But it’s a lot to me.”

“... I wanna make this work,” I told her. “I can’t give up on my people, but... what can I do for you, Cassie?”

“Be good, Sam,” she said, pressing a kiss to my chin. “More than enough.”

“Okay. I’ll try.”

“Good,” she said, and smiled at me.

{[X]}

“You look like ass,” Russ told me as soon as he sat down.

“Mm,” I replied, barely awake as I struggled to read a report that Sonya had cobbled together from what the workin’ girls had told her.

As it turned out, Cass snored. A lot. Like a chainsaw inside a laundry machine inside of an airplane engine.

“Long night?” he asked sympathetically.

“Yeah,” I yawned, then shook my head. “Lot of that goin’ around lately, though, so I’ll keep my bitchin’ to myself.”

“Good, because I ain’t really interested,” he deadpanned. “What’chu got for me, Reyes?”

I handed the report over. “The latest word on supply chains, passwords for stash houses and troop movements. It seems we’ve managed to stall their forward momentum for now, but they’re gearing up to hit back.”

“Been getting that same feelin’,” Russ nodded, looking over the report. He whistled, impressed, “Damn, how’d you get all this? I know this can’t be all snitches.”

“I’ve got my means,” I said. Between Sonya’s girls, Steph’s growing network, a few snitches and Farah’s hacking phones and recording conversations, there was very little going on in Namond’s organization that I was unaware of. Except for one thing, “Still, I have a question I’d like you to consider.”

“Shoot.”

“How’d Namond fake his death?” I asked him, making his eyes snap to mine. “We were both at the funeral, and I think you knew from that far back that he wasn’t dead.”

“I did,” he admitted. “Mainly from getting an invitation to one of the first meetings shortly after his supposed death. Did you touch the corpse at the funeral?”

“Not a habit I keep, though now I’m thinkin’ I should pick it up.”

“You should, because then you’d have been able to pull at the skin under his sleeve until it ripped and showed no meat inside,” he scoffed. “Namond met someone in Blackgate, someone better connected than him. Someone with the right names and favours to fake a death and get him out of the house...”

“... but still willing to put his weight behind him,” I finished, rubbing my chin. “Either a ‘man behind the man’ type, or someone with friends and little vision.”

“I’d bet on the former,” Russ said. “Namond’s a small dog with a big bark, goin’ around calling hisself Big Man and shit. That type draws a lot of attention to himself, frees a lot of space to work with, gets a lot of resources pushed their way that someone can use while hiding on his shadow.”

“Hm... I think I have an idea.” I gestured for him to hand me the report, and started paging through it until I got to the pages dealing with his lieutenants.

I skipped past Candy and an indian girl with a shaved head before handing back the report on a page dealing with an old, kinda squirrelly white man with a pot belly and grey on his head. The photo showed him wearing a flannel shirt and jaywalking across a street with sunglasses on, taking a bite out of a bagel.

“Lawrence Reed,” Russ read. He looked at me and raised an eyebrow. “You think this is the connection?”

“Maybe,” I shrugged. “He ran some high-level dealing for the Bertinelli Family before the Berinelli Massacre happened and he got caught in the after effect. Well-liked, from what I hear.”

“I can see that. Dealt with politicians, Commissioner O’Hara—now that’s a name I haven’t thought about in a while—a few military figures... damn,” Russ frowned. “So why do you think he’s with Namond?”

“Maybe things just aligned right for him?” I shrugged. “The superpower auction comes around the same time he gets this resentful little shit with lots to prove?”

“... not just that,” he said, frowning at the report. “Look, it says here his little brother ran with the Hellions. Maybe he has a grudge with my gang?”

I blinked slowly, braincells struggling to connect.

“The Hellions.”

“Yeah? You know...” Russ looked at me, saw I did not, in fact, know, and gave me a flat look. “Seriously? You killed like forty of them.”

“Yeah, that doesn’t narrow it down,” I rubbed my chin. “Were there any notorious jobs...?”

“Need a scorecard to keep up with your lethal ass,” he muttered. He tried again, “We had a war with them? You got shot in the head getting a corner back?”

I felt my scar itch a little and I snapped my fingers triumphantly. “Those fuckin’ guys! Man, I haven’t thought about them in forever! What happened after I left, anyways?”

“Eh, most got capped,” he said, gesturing at me vaguely. “A few fought to keep their own corners independently, but they either got absorbed or put in the ground by the other gangs.”

“Huh...” I frowned, remembering a young man tied to a chair in the basement of the Candy Cane Club. “Did... did we ever steal their connect?”

“No, nothing came of... that...” he looked at me.

I looked at him.

He looked at the report, “Does it say anywhere here who his little brother was?”

“No, but I’mma put the word out,” I said, grabbing my phone and sending a text to Farah and Sonya. “So, you think Reed helped the Hellions get the connect?”

“It makes sense,” Russ said. “But that raises the question of why his allies always fuck with us.”

“... Blackgaters have been on top of the game for a while now,” I noted. “In Crime Alley, at least. Good real estate, enough that even bad product always got sold. Good traffic on guns and ammo. Well organized.”

Russ faked a moan. “Suck my dick a little more, please. I’m so close.”

“Fuck you,” I flipped him off, making him chuckle. “Maybe... maybe Reed’s trying to get back the influence that he lost with the Bertinellis? Taking over or subverting your gang would be the best first step forward.”

“Maybe,” Russ sighed. “In any case, it’s useless to speculate.”

“Not totally,” I said. “Might give us a way to play him if we get his measure.”

“But it might fuck us if we just imagine a bunch of flaws that ain’t there.”

I nodded, granting the point. “So I’ll have my people look into it a bit more, see how much of our guesswork is on the money.”

“Good,” Russ flipped through the report until he got to a list of occupied territory. “On to the next issue, then. How’d we push them further back?”

“Well, since I’ve managed to steal their supply and had Spider rob their stash houses with his crew, their product’s been reduced to dredges of good stuff and a bunch of weak, stepped-on shit from their new connect,” I said. “My people already got fiends coming in from across the neighborhood to buy from them, but most of the time fiends would rather get their hit sooner rather than later.

“I think the trick here is to chase them off the really good territory. Namond’s Army got their head start because all the gangs that makes it up had at least one good corner each. If we start hitting those and replacing them with our own, we can start hurting their first source of income.”

“Problem is, we can’t leave our people on a corner far from our territory,” Russ pointed out. “They’d get overrun in no time, and then we’d be down some people.”

“Well, I think this is a problem we each have half the solution for,” I said. “You’ve got the numbers my people simply lack, even with the hired muscle from the goonion. I have the muscle and the product you need to get the corners and the customers. The best way forward I can see is that my people clear off the best corners and the surrounding areas, and your people fill the vaccuum and sell there.”

“And what do you want in exchange?” he asked, showing the ingrained Gothamite knowledge that nothing is free.

And he was right. “We get a cut from your sells. How much and for how long can be talked about at a later date, when more of the people involved are present.”

“You want to make this a long term thing?” he asked.

And it was an important question. So far, the subtext underlining our every talk was that as soon as this was over, we’d be rivals like all the other Gotham gangs were.

“... maybe,” I said. “There’s some things I can’t be party to, but I’m pragmatic enough to put that aside for necessity.”

“... I can’t get a feel for you,” he confessed, “Half the time you talk and I think you’re the same cold motherfucker I’ve been knowin’. And then you come out with ‘there’s some things I can’t be party to’.”

I looked at him. He looked back.

“You really wanna know?” I asked him.

He blinked, surprised, then nodded.

“... alright, then I gotta be honest,” I sighed, giving a sad expression. “The truth is that I’ve been fuckin’ your mother and she asked me not to be as much of an amoral sack of shit as her son.”

“Oh, go fuck yourself,” he immediately said, leaning back and sucking his teeth.

I shook my head, “She’s just so consistently disappointed, she said that she’ll drop me if I act anything like her douchebag of a spawn, even if I’m the best sex she’s ever had.”

“Seriously, take your dick and shove it up your ass.”

“I could, since it hangs down to my ankle, but I can’t. After a piece of that ass, I just can’t hit anything else. Best lay I ever had.”

“Die in a fire.”

We stared at each other, both completely flat-faced.

I broke first, letting out a snort. He chuckled.

I let out a full belly laugh and he followed suit.

I don’t know whether it was the weirdness of talking to Russ like an equal, the relief of finally being able to call him a dick without fear of reprisal after all the close calls over the years, or because I genuinely found it that funny, but I laughed until my sides hurt, and Russ didn’t seem to be doing much better.

After a while we wound down, and I sighed, “Ah... shit, man. I-I needed that.”

“S-Same,” he chuckled.

We sat there in silence for a bit, before he looked at me. “I asked around, after we met at the funeral.”

I raised an eyebrow at him.

“I was busy when you quit and I never gave it much thought, but after seeing you I remembered I never found out,” he explained. “So I asked why and how you quit.”

I sat up a little straighter.

He carried on, “James... he was a smart guy. Real reliable, a good loyal soldier. But he had a bad habit of seeing people for what they could do for him instead of who they were, y’know? Like they’re the bald little bitches on the chessboard instead of people.

“And shit, it’s a helpful thing to have around every so often, when the going gets rough. You’re gonna need it sooner or later. But sometimes it hurts more than it helps.”

I looked down, and in a quiet voice said, “Why are you telling me this?”

“Because he shouldn’t have treated you like he did, working you that hard when you were that young,” Russ said. “And I’m sorry.”

I blinked a few times in quick succession. “Mm.”

There was a moment of silence.

“Well,” he cleared his throat. “Next issue?”

“Next issue.”