100YoP Chapter Twenty "So someone else remembers." (Patreon)

The body crashed into the wall with a dull thud, followed shortly by the sound of a nose breaking under my fist.

I grabbed the soldier by the hair and threw him to the floor before kicking him in the gut, then turned to analyze the situation as he emptied his stomach. The fight was mostly through, with most of the hired henchmen and soldiers of my gang (name still pending) managing to beat down the Cypher soldiers occupying the vacant building.

I kicked the soldier I’d been fighting down the stairs and made my way up, letting the fights go on beside me with the ocassional offhand punch to tilt things in my side’s favor.

Part of mantaining the impression that I still had my powers was in acting how people thought supervillains act. People see what they wanna see, I was working with lots of different people for short periods of time and I was fairly new, so as long as I didn’t take any big losses or found myself in a situation that could only be explained by me having lost my powers, I could keep up the show.

Billy had put in more than a few appearences in my costume at a few locations while I was in another, and I’d made a show of Sam Reyes not having super strength (partly on accident when I tried to lift stuff with powers I didn’t have any more). Still, it wasn’t perfect, and more than a few people were gossiping about who Spider really was.

Exposing the origin of the gossip as being Namond trying to point the cops my way helped a little, but the cops had the suspicion for longer than his army had been around, so that was also a limited help.

Still, these things built up over time. I just had to make the pile of excuses taller than the pile of evidence by adding a little to it every day.

I got to the top of the stairs, ducked under a bottle thrown by a soldier one of my henchmen tackled to the floor—Note to self: give Parker a bonus—and walked down a hallway that was mostly occupied by people choking each other out.

... not as kinky as it sounds.

I’d given the order to avoid fatalities, and after the initial breach—during which my side had carried riot shields to defend against the inevitable gunfire—they’d gone out to fight wielding knives, chains, shovels, crowbars, pipes both plastic and lead, wood beams, wood planks, wood figurines, assorted cutlery, frying pans, plush toys and, in one case, a Ming vase.

(Say what you will, henchmen are resourceful.)

Still, my soldiers had been smart about it and had disarmed their opponents as quickly as possible, so the whole thing had kinda devolved into a chaotic brawl with weapons being stolen, improvised and discarded in favour of biting. As it stood, my people were pulling a win, and it was visible.

I made my way through the hallway, trying to seem above the whole thing like a proper supervillain. I stepped over someone’s broken leg, leaned away from where one henchman was kneeing a soldier in the balls over and over, ducked under a pot holding a houseplant of some kind that someone tossed, et cetera.

My head snapped to the side when someone punched me in the face, but I managed to keep my surprise hidden as I slowly turned to look at my assailant.

“... uh,” said the enemy soldier.

I glared at him. Hard.

“I... uh, I’ll just, um, go,” he said, slowly walking towards one of my henchmen. “Yeah, I’ll go get punched over there.”

“You do that.”

I turned back forward and kept walking, trying not to groan.

That punch had really hurt.

I got to the end and found a metal door, reinforced if I wasn’t off about the model. A henchman was beating someone’s face into it over and over, but he moved over to the wall when I cleared my throat.

“Thanks,” I said.

“Don’t mention it, boss,” Walker cheerfully said before putting the soldier’s head through the drywall surface next to the door.

Ooh, maybe...

“Actually,” I said, seeing a way out of showing my lack of super strength by not kicking down the door. “Would you spare me some effort and do that again on the other side of the door at about the same height?”

Walker pulled the soldier out of the wall and held him in place by the hair as he inspected the space between the side of the door with the doorknob and the wall. “It’ll be kind of a tight fit, but...”

He pushed the soldier through again, in the process pushing the latch back into the door, making it easy for me to pull the door open.

“Thanks, Walker.”

“No problem, boss!” he cheerfully said as he pulled out the soldier and threw him to the floor, starting to kick him.

Inside the room was a man that had been caught with his pants around his ankles, metaphorically speaking.

Although maybe ‘hand in the cookie jar’ would be more appropiate, since he was in the process of filling a dufflebag with the contents of a rather large safe. Behind him, the window to the fire escape was wide open.

He was staring at me with wide, panicked eyes.

With some amusement, I asked him, “You didn’t notice the soldiers I’ve got waiting at the bottom of the fire escape?”

He blinked twice. His mouth worked a little, but produce no sound audible over the pandemonium going on behind me.

“Hm,” I said. “Would you like to make this easy on yourself, finish filling that bag and hand it over, or will we be having a lenghtier conversation?”

He blinked again, then very slowly turned and went back to filling the bag.

“Good man.”

{[X]}

“If you had to punch a baby, would you?” Farah asked me.

I blinked. “What? Why would I—? Just what is my motivation here?”

She shrugged. “Doesn’t matter, you just gotta.”

I thought about it. “... I feel like there’s a clear wrong answer here... but I’mma still say yes.”

She shook her head and looked at me with wide eyes, “Bro, what the fuck?!”

“What?!” I shouted, “You said I had to hit the baby!”

“There was still a choice,” she said, scandalized. “How could you punch a baby?!”

“Oh, I’m sorry, is there a part of ‘these hands are rated E for Everyone’ that you missed?!” Farah started laughing and I carried on, “If someone needs their ass beat, I’ll beat their ass! I don’t care if it’s a baby, I don’t care if it’s somebody’s grandma, hell, I don’t care if it’s my grandma! Where ass-whoopings need to be delivered, I’m fuckin’ there!”

Farah’s laughter wound down, then she gave me a calculative look.

“... what if you had to punch your own mother?”

“Oh, hell no,” I immediately said. “Do I look insane to you? Fuck no I wouldn’t punch my mom, she’d whoop my ass.”

“Oh, but you would punch someone’s baby,” she said, looking at me disapprovingly.

“Well, yeah.”

“Someone’s defenseless child,” she emphasized. “There go Mr. and Mrs. Smith, just out walkin’ Junior in the little stroller, and you come along and punch the shit outta their little ten-month-old baby.”

“Hey, I’ll dropkick the fucker if I gotta,” I said. “Emphasis on the ‘if I gotta’. I’m not saying I’ll go around beating defenseless children, but if I’m given justification...”

“What could possibly justify beating up a toddler?”

“... if I ran outta coffee?”

Farah looked at me.

I looked at her.

“Okay, I’ll give you that one,” she relented. “But outside of that.”

“I dunno, baby Hitler?”

“We don’t time travel and Hitler’s dead.”

“Okay, Captain Pedantic,” I rolled my eyes. “Then a baby Future-Genocidal-Maniac, I guess. Not like there’s a shortage of those.”

Farah thought about it, pursing her lips. She tilted her head to one side, then the other.

“... well damn,” she said, raising her eyebrows in shock as she looked forward. “I guess you should beat up babies every so often. You’ve talked me into it.”

I frowned. “I know you’re saying I won the argument, but I get the impression that I lost some greater moral conflict.”

Farah shrugged. “Yeah, probably.”

There was a moment of silence.

She looked at me, “Okay, but would you fuck up a dog?”

“Ooh, now that’s a moral quandry,” I said, pointing at her as much as the handcuff allowed me to. “‘Cause like, what if the dog has rabies, right?”

She pointed back at me, also limited by her handcuffs. “Exactly—”

The door to the interrogation room burst open and Detective Renee Montoya entered the room, asking, “What the fuck are you two talking about?!”

“Dammit, Montoya!” said Bullock, walking in behind her. “I was getting invested!”

Montoya ignored him, walking over and putting both hands down on the table. “Reyes, Kane, explain where you were at 4:00pm last Tuesday.”

“Detective, respectfully, I don’t remember what the fuck I was doing two hours ago,” I said. “The fuck am I supposed to answer? Am I gonna say ‘yeah, I was looking out the window and three birds flew past under a cloud shaped like Larry Bird’? I ain’t got no goddamn photographic memory.”

“He really doesn’t,” Farah said. “Like eighty percent of my job is to remember stuff for him.”

On paper, Farah was listed as working as my secretary. And unofficially, she also worked as my secretary because she was really good at handling meetings and I was having a lot of those lately.

“Fine, then what were you doing?”

“I was waiting for you to call my fucking lawyer,” she said. “Some say I still am, even to this day.”

I snorted.

Montoya tried again and again over a few minutes to break us, but all our answers were variations of demanding to see the lawyer they delayed calling for as long as possible. After the minutes went past, Montoya finally gave up with a cry of frustration and left to get a glass of water.

Farah, Bullock and I watched her go with some shared amusement, then turned to each other.

“Let me guess,” I said. “She was getting frustrated at the raising violence and lack of progress in getting me or Big Man, so you decided to bring us in for the sake of showing her that slow and methodical is better than rushed and stupid?”

Bullock shrugged, “I’m not saying anything without my lawyer.”

Farah cracked a smile. I snorted.

“Well, such is life,” I said, before I grabbed his attention by wiggling my fingers as I spoke. “Was the idea to lock us together so we’d get nervous and talk about whatever you assume we did?”

Harvey looked down at my fingers, but played along. “Uh-huh.”

“Yeah, that only works with certain types of soldiers,” I said, pretending to write on the table. “I’m guessing Billy started singing the Duck Song?”

“The Song That Never Ends, actually,” Bullock corrected as he pulled a notepad and a pen from his pocket and put them in my hands.

“Ugh, even he hates that song,” Farah groaned, failing not to eye my hands as I write.

“Poor Yua,” I sighed, even as I quickly wrote down a name at the top of the page, then four numbers under that, then eleven digits under that. “How’s she holding up?”

“She joined in after the second go-around,” Bullock grumbled. “Her singing is even worse.”

“Holy shit, I didn’t think that was possible,” I said as I tore out the page, folded it in half then stuck it inside the closed notebook as I slid it back over. “Hey, remember what happened with Deegan? That was unfortunate, huh?”

Bullock’s posture straightened slightly as he took back the notebook and Farah looked at me weird, but they both kept up the act.

“Yeah, sure was,” Bullock said. “You want anything from BatBurger?”

“Just my usual and whatever Farah wants.”

“I-I’m good, thanks.”

Bullock nodded and walked to the door, but paused before opening it.

“Don’t... don’t hold today against Montoya, okay?” he said, looking at us. “She’s under a lot of pressure and she just wanted to get results fast.”

“Hey, far from the worst way a cop has treated me,” I shrugged. “No grudges here.”

“Same,” said Farah.

Bullock nodded, then walked out of the room.

We waited for a moment, then she turned to look at me. “What do you think the odds are that he’s still listening in?”

I looked around the room. It didn’t have one of those two-way mirrors, on account of the precinct being old and chronically underfunded despite Bruce Wayne’s desperate attempts to throw money around the many, manyembezzlers in the system, but I couldn’t dismiss the chance that there was some hidden microphones.

“Pretty high,” I shrugged.

She signed back, only knowing the alphabet. [T-H-E-N I H-A-V-E T-O K-N-O-W. A-R-E Y-O-U A S-N-I-T-C-H?]

I shook my head. [W-A-S-N-T S-N-I-T-C-H-I-N-G]

[T-H-E-N W-H-A-T?]

[M-E-N-T-I-O-N-E-D S-O-M-E-O-N-E T-H-A-T I-S A S-N-I-T-C-H.]

[A-N-D T-H-A-T-S B-E-T-T-E-R?]

I shrugged. [T-O M-E I-T I-S]

She frowned, then signed, [T-O B-E C-O-N-T-I-N-U-E-D]

I nodded.

A few minutes later, our paid lawyer—one Donovan Jacobs—opened the door to the interrogation room, Billy and Yua behind him.

Good, I thought. I’d asked him to always prioritize the other members of my crew, and I liked seeing my instructions being followed.

“Hey, Donnie,” I said, “How’s life treatin’ you?”

“Like it caught me in bed with its wife,” Don sighed, “Did you say anything?”

“A couple sarcastic comments, but nothing incriminating.”

“Hm. Well, next time how about you just stay quiet?”

“Donnie, you wound me!” I gasped. “How could you just assume I’d be in a situation like this again?”

“I am your paid lawyer, Sam.”

“... fair.”

A cop came in and undid the handcuffs on me and Farah, and soon enough we were walking out.

Detective Montoya caught my eye on the way out, glaring at my people and I as we walked out of the station.

I tried to give her a sympathetic grin.

She glared harder.

Yeah, that was a lost cause anyways.

{[X]}

“Alright, talk,” said Farah, putting her hand down on my desk and leaning forward. “Who the hell is Deegan and what did you do to him?”

I looked up from where I was pouring myself a glass of apple juice, raising an eyebrow. I gave her hand a pointed look, then I turned my eyes back to her face.

“Talk to me like that again,” I said, slowly.

A little awkwardly, she pulled her hand back and leaned away from me, saying, “Can you tell me about the whole deal, please?”

“Better,” I said, pouring myself the glass. “It’s not really a complicated story. Deegan was... a wild dog, at best. He got sent to kill one guy, he set the house on fire after locking the doors with everyone inside. Helluva fighter, but not really someone with a taste for subtlety.”

“Okay...” Farah nodded, “So what, he was a danger to someone you cared about?”

“Not really...” I shrugged, awkward. “He was just... a danger to the community. I mean, we all are, in a way. But he was uncontained. Without code, without reason, without... anything. I think he just liked hurting people.”

“So you got rid of him,” said Farah, not making it a question.

“I did,” I said. “I couldn’t just kill him, because things were getting tense with the Hellions at the moment and I didn’t want to help spring that into all-out war—not that that didn’t happen eventually, ‘cause fuck me I guess—so I just waited until I got pinched on the way back from a job and I pointed Bullock in the right direction.”

“... I gotta tell you, this doesn’t sit right with me,” Farah said. “I mean, we’ve all done some shit, but snitching? That’s...”

“Personally, it doesn’t seem like that big of a deal to me,” Billy opinated from the couch in the corner of my office, perusing my issue of Big Booty Bitches of Boston. “Deegan got a fair deal. He took the fall for some stuff, so Russ looked after him.”

Yua, sitting next to him and reading over his shoulder, nodded. “Boss can do what he wants.”

“Right, except I’m the appointed Jiminy fucking Cricket and I can’t let him do what he wants,” she deadpanned before turning back to me. “What was the note you passed to the detective?”

“A name, a number and a time. More specifically, Commissioner Gordon’s name, the number of my business phone—which I’ll be changing after this next talk—and the time about an hour from now.”

“You want him to call you,” she said. “You’re selling someone else down the river.”

I shrugged. “Can’t fight the weather, but I can hold someone else’s head under water when the flood comes.”

Farah frowned at me, so I sighed and poured another glass.

As I did, I spoke. “I know this doesn’t sit right with you, and I’m not exactly keen on snitching myself. But every advantage I can grab, I’m grabbing.”

“You’re really gonna tell me you’re doing this for us?” she sneered, skeptical even as she took the glass.

“Yes,” I said. “Every move I make, every move I’ve made since meeting you and Yua and putting the gang together, has been for the sake of carrying us all forward for as long as I can possibly manage.”

Farah frowned, but words seemed to fail her.

“This is what being a leader means, Farah,” I said, holding the glass by my fingertips as I looked her dead in the eye. “You do everything you can for the sake of seeing tomorrow in freedom and success.

“I passed the name along and got Deegan caught because I had to look after my neighborhood. I’m going to pass along some names and addresses because I have to look after my people. I try to observe the moral codes we live by as necessary, whether it’s murder or snitching, and if there’s an option I try to take it. But you gotta understand that my capacity to give a fuck ends where the danger to y’all starts.

“Do you understand me?”

She didn’t say anything for a moment. She pressed her lips tight and she looked at me for a second, almost like she was trying to see through me. After a while, she downed her glass in one go and set it down on my desk before walking out of my office without another word.

I watched her go with some disappointment, then turned my eyes to Billy.

He nodded, set down the magazine, and lead Yua out of the room. I watched them go too and heard Billy call after her before Yua shut the door, leaving me alone in my office with nothing for company but a half-empty whiskey tumbler full of apple juice, a stack of papers, a burner phone and a whole lot of furniture I’d bought second hand.

I barely moved as the time passed. I wanted to check my phone or something, anything, but all I found myself doing was sipping the glass and looking at the phone, wondering if I was gonna lose who had become one of my closest friends over some shit I did when I was thirteen.

Snitching is serious goddamn business. I hadn’t done it blindly, ignorant of what it’d meant. A week before I did it I had tied a man I tortured to death to the front of a car like a piece of fucking venison because the cops tricked a few facts out of him, so I’d been intimately familiar with the risk.

And even if I did survive other people finding out about it, I’d be branded for life. I’d never be accepted by anyone besides Billy, Butcher and my mom for the rest of my natural fucking existance.

But I had seen Deegan laugh as he shot a target’s pregnant wife. And there was a certain point where inaction bore the same weight on the conscience as action.

When the phone finally lit up and started vibrating, it almost startled me.

I let it rang as I pulled one of my masks from one of the desk’s drawers and put on the bottom of it before turning my chair so my back was to the door, grabbing the phone in the turn and answering it in one movement.

“Good evening,” I said. “I assume I’m talking to Commissioner Gordon?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” he said. “And I’m guessing by the weird voice that I’m talking to Spider?”

“You guess right. I’m glad Mr. Reyes was able to pass along my message.”

“Yeah, sure,” he said, not wasting patience on the charade. “What do you want?”

“To cut a deal,” I said. “Now, I’m sure this is the part where you talk about how you would never deal with me and all that, but we both know half of police work is looking around for someone willing to solve crimes for you by knowing something convenient, so I’ll just answer your prayers right now.”

I grabbed the stack of papers from my desk as I spoke. “I’m sure you’re recording this, so I won’t bother waiting for you to write this down. Namond Little is Big Man’s real name, he used to be with the Blackgater and he faked his death a while ago. The following locations are stash houses for Namond Little’s army: Fourth Street and Harkness Row, Tenth and Williams Avenue, One-oh-eight and Watterson Avenue...”

On and on I went, rattling off addresses as fast as possible. Every so often Gordon tried to stop and ask something, but I ignored him as I talked as fast as possible.

To be clear, I wasn’t talking fast to avoid the cops tracking down my call. I was talking fast to give the impression that I was trying to avoid having the cops track down my call.

Farah had installed a handy app she’d made for herself to keep people from tracking her calls on the burner. They could still contact the phone company and use the number to listen in on future calls, but I wasn’t planning on making future calls with the number so it didn’t matter.

But they wouldn’t believe me to be dumb enough not to worry about tracking, so the charade had to be enforced.

“... and then there’s one over at the Poe Heights, apartment 303.” I finished, putting the phone away so they wouldn’t hear me pulling the mask away from my face and taking a deep breath after all that talking. I fixed it back in place and started speaking into the phone. “I do hope you didn’t miss anything.”

“... what are you playing, Spider?” Gordon asked. “You said you wanted to cut a deal, so what are you getting out of this?”

“Simple! With all this information dropped on your lap, can you afford not to press the advantage?” I asked, grinning under my mask. “Sure, you’ll take measures and check that the information is true, but we both know that the locations could change any minute, so it’s not like you can take your time. And to focus on that would require a large-scale movement of resources and manpower...”

“... that would delay investigating your organization,” sheesh, I could hear the scowl on him. I think I hit a nerve. “You’re trying to play us against each other.”

“You’re making it sound worse than it is,” I assured him. “After all, with all the work that my allies and I have made, I’m certain you will rake in a great deal of collars, drugs and money. And I bet only most of it will disappear into your officer’s pockets, too!”

“Don’t push me,” he grumbled. I heard him take a deep breath, before sighing. “I’ll have your claims investigated.”

“Sure, just don’t rely on Walter O’Hara from narcotics, he’s on the take from Namond.”

He was also on the take from me, but I could throw him under the bus. I already had a nice collection of police in my pocket.

Honestly, I hadn’t even looked for them. It’s like if you reach a certain amount of illegal wealth in Gotham, corrupt cops flock to you and beg for the chance to be dirty for you.

That sounded more suggestive than I intended.

Gordon grumbled over the phone and made to say something, but I hung up on him and started taking out the card, setting it aside to put it in a microwave later.

And with that, I’d set the end of this conflict in motion. I’d be using Farah’s backdoor to the police network (or crooked cops, if she chose to bow out of the organization) to find out when they planned to raid the locations, and then the Blackgaters would have the opportunity to reclaim all the important corners that I didn’t tip Gordon off on.

With every day, the risk of civilian casualties went further and further up. It was time to take advantage of all the sides of this conflict and have my lesser opponents focus on the biggest problem at the moment.

That way, I’d have the way cleared to Namond. We’d fight, and then I would win because there was no acceptable alternative.

No, that was a lie. I wasn’t just going to beat Namond. I was going to break him.

And through breaking Namond, I’d break his army.

I looked at the burner phone for a moment, then at my door.

I walked around my desk and opened the door the slightest bit, letting me see Farah talking animatedly with Billy and Yua in a corner of the club, though I couldn’t quite hear what they were saying.

I closed the door, pulled my phone and opened the chat with Cassie.

If things were going to ramp up, I figured I might as well partake in simple fun while I could.

{[X]}

Cassie’s nervous smile was the first thing I saw as I opened the door.

She was wearing a black turtleneck under her long grey coat, with a blue scarf wrapped around her lower face and her ears bright red from the cold outside.

She pulled her scarf down as I leaned closer and pressed a long, sweet kiss to my lips before walking inside, standing on her tiptoes to press her cold red nose to my cheek. I leaned away with faux annoyance and closed the door, making her grin as she took off her coat and hung it.

Despite her smile, I could see that her shoulders were tense and her smile was a little strained, even if I didn’t have her talent for reading people. Raising an eyebrow, I signed, [Are you O-K?]

She blinked, and her smile turned a little more genuine as she nodded. She didn’t sign anything, however. Instead, she walked over and jumped onto her usual spot on my fridge.

I raised an eyebrow, but let it pass. I trusted her to tell me if something was bothering her.

“I only made spaghetti today, hope you don’t mind,” I said as I stirred the sauce, making sure nothing stuck to the bottom.

“M-Mm,” said Cass. I looked at her out of the corner of my eye, and she was shifting in place a little. “Smells nice.”

“Thanks,” I said. I grabbed a baguette and tore off a chunk, dipping it in the sauce and extending my hand out towards Cass. “Here, try some.”

I tossed her the bread and she caught it effortlessly. She hummed as she chewed, and through a mouthful said, “Needsh puh-pper.”

I added puh-pper and dipped another bit, tossing it again. She gave me a thumbs up as she ate, and with that note of approval I poured the sauce over the pasta. After some mixing, I served two plates and carried them to the counter. Cass watched me as I set the table, for once not helping me as I did so.

It was only as I was serving myself some wine and made to pour her a glass of juice that she came down and stopped me, instead filling her glass to the brim with wine.

“Uh...” I said.

She looked me dead in the eye, grabbed the glass and downed it in one go. Then the taste hit her and her face screwed up as she shivvered and stuck out her tongue.

“... okay, seriously,” I said, pouring her a bit of juice so she could wash away the taste. “Is there something you wanna tell me?”

She downed the juice, looked at me, and signed, [I have a surprise for you.]

I blinked. “Oh. Are you worried I won’t like it?”

A corner of her mouth pitched upwards for a second, [That’s what worries me the least, honestly.]

“Huh. Well, just...” I put down the pitcher and signed, [Relax. You’re the strongest person I know, whatever worries you will probably be nothing for you.]

She smiled a little, pressed a kiss against my cheek, then walked around the counter. We made small talk as we ate. Or rather, I did and she ocassionally laughed and chimed in. Still, little by little I managed to get her to untense a bit and laugh as I shared dumb stories of stupid crap Billy and I had gotten up to over the years.

“... so then I wake up,” I said, gesturing around with fork in hand as I explained. “I’m still duct taped to the ceiling, the oppossum is still hanging from my hand, my mouth tastes like coins for some reason and from my vantage point I can see that Billy got ‘President of the Pretty Pink Princess Club’ tattooed on his left ass-cheek because he’s butt-ass naked. And since I couldn’t get down, I started spitting on him to wake him up.

“Obviously he gets all pissed because he’s waking up covered in spit, with his ass in pain and his dick still caught in the bottle, but eventually he pulls on the cable and gets me down. Which still left us with the vandalized car outside that we needed to get rid of so they couldn’t connect us to the zoo incident, so we decided to drive it into the harbor. And that’s when the fucking ginger cat showed up again.”

Cass covered her mouth as her shoulders shook with laughter, and she raised a hand to sign for me to stop as she doubled over in her seat and chortled. Eventually she got herself under control again, and she rested her chin on her hand to look at me with lidded eyes, smiling softly.

I blinked, then signed, [What’s up?]

She stared for a moment, then sat straighter and signed, [There are going to be problems and sadness in the future. We know this.]

I shrugged and nodded.

[Despite that, I am very happy I met you,] she signed. [You make me happy.]

A big, dumb grin appeared on my face. I grabbed her hand and pressed a kiss to her knuckles, and she cupped my face with her hand.

In truth, I didn’t see a future for us. Sooner or later, I knew that her implacable moral code and my lack of one would clash, and we would have to split off.

No, there wasn’t a future. But we had a present together, and I was enjoying the hell out of it.

She must have read my feelings, because she leaned over the counter and the plates and pressed her forehead against mine.

“... wash the dishes,” she whispered. “I’ll prepare your surprise.”

I smiled, kissed her and picked up the plates while she rushed over to grab her coat and ran into my bedroom. When I saw her close the door behind her I stared for a moment, before shaking my head and getting back to the task.

Okay, I thought as I carried the plates, cutlery and glasses to the kitchen sink. So she went into my bedroom to ‘prepare my surprise’... is she going to sleep with me?

She might, I considered, rinsing off the excess sauce and soaking the sponge. But then again, maybe I’m getting my hopes up for nothing and she just wants to give me like a batcommunicator for batemergencies. And if that’s the case, I really shouldn’t get my hopes up because she’ll read it and then she might feel pressured.

Then again, we have been getting pretty close lately... a little frisky, too... I paused, soapy glass in hand as I considered that, before shaking my head. Whatever. Lo qué será, será. I just try not to form expectations, go in and smile even if she hands me a steaming bowl of shit because mama raised a fucking gentleman.

At that point I realized I’d been washing the same glass for a while, so I rinsed it off and moved on.

Once I was done, I dried my hands with a worn kitchen towel and turned around to look at my bedroom door. Closed, and no sign of life from the other side. I walked over and knocked twice.

“Come back later!” was Cass’ loud reply.

“... uh...” I said.

“Later!”

“... Okay then,” I said, turning back around and starting to dry the dishes with the towel. Okay, now I’m thinking it’s actually something she has to set up. Or she’s nervous.

Once the plates were dry and racked, the glasses were stored in the cupboard and the pots and pans had been shoved in the oven, I knocked on the door again.

“Later!” she repeated.

“Yup, figured as much,” I said, already turning around.

I paced in my living room for a moment, then went into the bathroom to grab one of the books I kept taking there and kept reading for a couple minutes, before I heard my door open.

I looked over and found Cass’ arm poke out, dressed in her coat’s sleeve. It stretched out and extended a fist, from which her index finger extended and curled twice, calling me over before she closed again in a hurry.

... so now she’s wearing moreclothes, I thought, flat faced. ... yeah, it’s probably just a present of some kind.

I walked over and opened the door, finding Cass standing there with her hands gripping the front of her coat closed. The curtains on my window were closed and the only light was from the lamp on my nightstand, framing my girlfriend’s body in soft yellow light. My bed, which had been unmade all day, had been quickly tidied.

I stepped in slowly and closed the door behind me, and then, as if she’d waited out of fear that someone would see her inside my apartment, she pulled her hands apart, revealing a lack of clothing under the coat. Instead, she wore only a lacy set of black lingerie that hugged her svelte frame tightly: stockings, frilly nigh-transparent panties and a bra of similar fabric.

Cassie didn’t have a lot stacked in her chest, but that didn’t really attract my sight as much as her incredibly toned musculature and the scars that adorned almost every square inch of skin. I swallowed thickly as her arms drew back and allowed the coat to slip off until it reached her fingertips, from where she tossed it to join a pile of her clothing I’d missed.

She walked towards me, making no noise with each step before she stopped in front of me, leaning right up to me and resting a hand on my chest.

“I want... you,” she said, trying to shove as much meaning to that last word as possible. “For tonight. All of tonight, all of me, all of you.”

“... you’re sure?” I asked. With her history, I had half-expected her to never want to have sex with me.

“I’m sure,” she nodded, “Future’s complicated. I want to make the most of us.”

“... ok,” I said, then I leaned closer and caught her lips in mine.

She threw her arms around my neck and pressed her body tight against mine as we kissed. My hands went down to her legs, starting from her back and unlocking her bra on the way, and I helped her wrap them around my waist while trying to break contact as little as possible. Struggling a little more than I would’ve with my powers, I carried her to the bed and tossed her there, taking a moment at the foot of it to look at her as she tossed away her bra.

She pressed her thighs together, looking back at me with a flush and a smile as I started crawling on all fours over her, pausing with my head at level with her neck. I went down and started biting it, making her release a small moan as her fingers tangled on my hair and pressed me closer.

My hands travelled up and down her body, caressing her sides and going up to pinch her nipple as I left red marks down the side of her neck. She gasped as I rolled the pink bud between my fingers, then made a sound very similar to a purr as my hand started wandering down her body to caress her abs, then further down.

I moved a little to put my head next to hers so I could look her in the eye while my hand finally started wandering down to her crotch, pausing at the edge of her lacy panties. She looked me in the eye and nodded, so my fingers went over the tight piece of fabric and started rubbing at the edges of the mound I felt.

Cass’ hand went on my shoulder, gripping tight in what must’ve been nerves before it slowly relaxed while I continued my ministrations, teasing at the edge of her pussy and passing over it in slow brushes, making the fabric grow more and more wet while I pressed kisses to her cheek and bit at her earlobe.

After a while of that, she made a little growling noise and turned her head to catch my lips in a kiss, before her hand grabbed the scruff of my shirt and pulled me back.

“Take them off. Now,” she growled.

My lips twitched in amusement, but for once I saved the smartass commentary and just started pulling down her panties while I slid down her body, pressing kisses and sucking on her nipple on the way down. When I face finally level with her pussy, her panties were down by her knees and she was working on kicking them off.

She had obviously shaved in preparation, which I showed appreciation for in pressing a kiss above her mound. Then another on her inner thigh, right over a scar. Another in the space where her leg met her crotch. Another in the opposite thigh.

I was going to keep teasing her, but she grabbed me by the hair and pressed me to her pussy as she growled, “Sam. No tease.”

I made a sound of disappointment, but dutifully focused on the task at hand. My tongue slid out and pressed flat against her entrance, giving a slow upwards lick that flicked her clit, making her grip on my hair tighten as she inhaled sharply.

I started sucking at her clit while I put a finger inside her, entering slowly and curling it upwards slightly, trying to find her G-spot. I knew I did when she made a muffled sound. Looking up, I saw that she was biting down on two fingers and looking down at me with wide eyes.

I winked at her. Her flushed face went deeper red and her hand pressed against her eyes, but I saw a smile appear.

I kept looking at her as I worker at her, taking joy in every shiver that ran through her body and made her sensitive body tremble in my grip. Said shivers increased in intensity the more time passed, until finally she pressed me tighter against her body with both hands while her eyes closed and her body shook intensely. A strangled gasp escaped her, then a satisfied sigh as she relaxed and released me.

My mouth was filled and my chin was splattered with her juices, and I had the sudden realization that I was never going to be able to look at Batman without thinking about the time I made his daughter squirt on my face.

“What’s... funny?” she asked, looking at me.

“Nothing,” I said, wiping my face with my sleeve.

Still breathing heavily, she frowned a little and pointed at me. “Wearing too much. Lose.”

“Lose what?” I asked, raising an eyebrow.

She pointed harder at me and said, “Lose.”

“Yeah, okay,” I shrugged, grabbing the bottom of my shirt and raising it over my head. “Hey, why did you put your coat back on?”

“Internet. Seduction tips,” she said.

“Of course,” I chuckled, tossing my shirt in the vague direction of the pile she’d left her clothes on before starting to work on my belt. “Can’t say it didn’t work.”

“Less talk, more naked,” she commanded imperiously.

“Yes ma’am,” I said, unzipping my fly and standing beside the bed to take off my pants, leaving me only in my boxers.

I made to get them off, but a movement from the corner of my eye stopped me.

Cassie was there, sitting cross legged and leaning forward, watching with great interest. She looked up, down, realized I’d been watching her and looked back up, her face flushing again. Then, after a moment of hesitation, she went back to watching unapologetically.

I chuckled, then slowly slid off my boxers, kicking them in the direction of the clothing pile. My length was upright and hard, and very clearly the center of Cass’ attention as she watched with almost alarming concentration.

Seriously, last time she’d been paying that close attention to me she was kicking my ass up, down and through an office.

“Uh... Cass?” she blinked, then looked up at me. I raised an eyebrow.

She flushed again, then slid off of the bed and closer to me, fingers wrapping around my length and pressing down softly as her eyes looked up at me. I smiled down, and she returned the gesture as her grip shifted and tightened onto the tip, making me twitch at the burst of pleasure.

She turned us around and made me sit on the edge of the bed, kneeling in front of me. She stroked my dick with instant expertise, which must’ve been the last thing in her father’s mind when he trained her body reading skills into her.

She looked up at me, then pressed a kiss to the tip of my dick as she stroked. I saw nothing but fondness in her eyes.

A little uncomfortable, I said, “You know, you don’t need to do all this. I’m fine just makin’ you feel good.”

She stopped dead in her tracks, gave me a flat look and said, “Dumb. I wanna.”

“But—”

“Wanna.”

“... okay,” I sighed. “Thanks for puttin’ up with me, Cassie.”

“Not putting up,” she said, going back to stroking my length. “Taking care of you.”

Heat flooded my face, a knot formed in my throat, my dick twitched and a very strangled “Oh,” left me.

Okay, learning new things about myself, I thought, looking away from Cass and rubbing my face as I felt her continue her ministrations.

Looking out of the corner of my eye, I barely got a warning from Cass’ intensely smug face before she slowly murmured, “My Sam... I’ll take care. I’ll keep you safe, baby.”

Face burning, I flicked her forehead, “Alright, I’m not a fuckin’ damsel in distress.”

She snorted, I chuckled. The thought that we were sitting in my room, naked, my dick in her hand and chuckling at the kink I just discovered ocurred to me, and I broke down chuckling, which set her off as she silently shook with laughter.

For a moment, there was a huge distance between my troubles and me.

Then a mischievous glint entered her eyes and, just as I was distracted, she gave the tip of my dick a quick lick, before drawing it into her mouth and sucking slightly.

I inhaled sharply, then rested a hand on her head and pulled her hair out of the way as she went back in, a little deeper. Until, inch by inch, my tip touched the back of her throat.

And then she looked at me, smirked, and completely turned off her gag reflex as she took me all the way in.

“Dios!” I hissed as she started to quickly go back and forth on my cock, not even gagging as I repeatedly hit the back of her throat.

I felt her tongue caress the underside of my dick as she went, then she pulled back and kept just the tip between her lips, her tongue sliding around it before she went back in.

My grip on her hair tightened, then I pulled her back. She looked at me with a pout and a bit of saliva coating her chin, which was... a look, to say the least.

“I think...” I panted, “I think I’m ready for the main event, huh?”

She blinked, then looked at me very seriously and nodded.

I leaned over to open the drawer on my nightstand, moved the gun to the side and grabbed the box of condoms. After I grabbed one, I found Cass giving me a flat look.

“... what?” I asked.

“Gun on box?” she deadpanned.

“Hey, that’s my safety drawer,” I said, opening the little wrapper with my teeth. “Don’t knock the safety drawer, it’s saved my life before.”

She rolled her eyes, grinning as she said, “Good thing you’re cute.”

I scoffed and made to put it on, but Cass snatched it out of my hand, put it on her lips and went down on my dick again, using her teeth just enough to unroll the condom down my dick, then pulling back to reveal my length wrapped in blue latex.

She pressed a kiss on the tip, then stood up, putting both hands on my shoulders and her knees on either side of my legs as I lined up my dick with her pussy. She stopped just before penetration, and I looked up to find her staring into my eyes.

Before I even asked, she took a deep breath and nodded.

I made sure my dick was in position—phrases that Batman must’ve thought at least twice (don’t think about her dad NOW!)—and grabbed onto her hips, slowly lowering her in as she drew a deep breath with every inch and curled her fingers into fists, scratching my shoulder in the process.

I let her rest as soon as I was fully buried inside her, and she took a few breaths before nodding again.

Grabbing onto her legs, I carried her onto the bed and settled myself on top of her, leaning down to give her a deep kiss before drawing back my hips, making her gasp into my lips, then thrusting back forward, making the arm around my back scratch again.

I repeated the motion a few more times, slowly moving faster and faster as I kissed her before she grabbed the back of my hair, pulled me back a little and said, “Faster.”

“Yes ma’am,” I said, leaning back so I could grab her hips with both hands and thrust as hard and fast as I could, shaking the bedframe and making it smack against the wall repeatedly.

“Mm! Mm! Mm!” Cass started making noises of pleasure as my rythmn picked up, and when one hand left her hip to start playing with her clit, her mouth parted in shock and she started gasping louder, “Aah! Aaah! S-Sam! Saam!”

Then she started rolling her hips.

Well, that’s understating it a little. Cassandra, with her nearly perfect body control and reading abilities, started moving her body in all the right ways to pleasure me, creating just the right amount of pressure in all the right places, her warmth clamped tight against my length in perfect timing with my thrusting.

In a burst of movement, she shot up and wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me into a deep kiss. Our tongues intertwined, and one of her hands went down my back only to curl back up in another pleasant scratch as the fingers at her clit sped up, making her release needy noises against my lips again.

“Aah! Aah! Ah! Ah! Ah! Sa-a-am!” her cries picked up speed, then she pressed her body tight against mine. “Sa-a-a-am!”

She shuddered as she climaxed, and after a bit more thrusting, I grunted as I reached my tipping point inside her.

We stayed there for a moment, breathing heavily, before I slowly tipped forward and fell over her, letting us rest side-by-side on the bed.

“Well...” I sighed, the biggest, dumbest grin I’d made in a while on my face. “That was nice.”

Cass snorted, and gave my head a little shove from her position under me. “Dummy.”

She made to wrap an arm around me, but I hissed in pain, making her freeze with wide eyes.

“Sam?” she asked.

“‘s nothing,” I waved her off. “You just happened to touch one of the—”

She wasn’t listening. At some point, her own hand had called her attention. Or rather, the red spots under her nails.

Shooting up, she pulled on my arm to make me show her my back, and out of the corner of my eye I saw her wide eyes tracking the red lines on my back.

“Cassie?” I asked. “Cass, what’s wrong?”

“H-Hurt you,” she whispered. Then she blinked and looked at me, eyes wide and shocked. “I hurt you.”

“Wh—barely,” I scoffed, forcing a little smile. “Linda, c’mon, it’s no big—”

She stumbled backwards, almost falling out of the bed before she caught herself, then she ran out of my bedroom.

“... shit,” I said, getting up and running after her.

I walked over and found her in my bathroom, desperately running a bar of soap over her nails and breathing hard and fast as she did. She ignored me as I got watched from the doorway, but when I took a step into the bathroom she flinched back, dropping the soap on the sink and holding her arms to her chest and watching me with wide eyes like she was scared of me.

Or rather, scared for me.

I looked at her for a moment as she stood there. Then I reached over, closed the tap and walked back to my bedroom.

I heard the tap open again behind me, so I rushed to pull out the cover off of my bed then walked back over to the bathroom.

She took her distance again when I entered the room, letting me close the tap again, before I reached out and offered the blanket.

She looked at it, then at me.

“Bathroom’s cold,” I said, giving the bed cover a little shake.

Hesitantly, she reached out and grabbed it. She wrapped it around herself while I closed the door behind it and sat against it, and once she was done she slid down and sat opposite to me, eyes glued to the floor while a silence formed between us.

“... I wish I could say this is the worst time I’ve been naked in a bathroom with a girl,” I muttered. “Honestly it doesn’t even hit the top ten.”

Rather than a smile, that actually made Cass frown at me. But, since it was a reaction other than her previous horrified silence, I called it a win and moved on.

“I know that you know I’m not upset,” I slowly said, looking at her. “So I’m guessing that’s not the problem here.”

There was a moment of further silence, then she gave a slow nod.

“Is the problem that you hurt me in the first place?”

... another nod.

“But you know this isn’t anything serious—”

“It is!” she burst out. At my surprised blinking, she curled back into herself, and her mouth worked for a minute, trying to formulate a sentence but only managing, “I... We were...”

She frowned, angry at herself and at the situation as far as I could tell, before her arms slid out of the blanket coccoon and she signed, [What we were doing was supposed to be good. It was important. And I ruined it.]

“Cassie,” I sighed. “Sweetie, I know you’re upset but you didn’t ruin anything—!”

[I did!] she interrupted. [We were—] she paused, started over, [It was you and me together. And I hurt you. I wanted to give me and you came out hurt.]

My first instinct was to say that if getting hurt was the price of spending a night with Cassandra fucking Cain, I’d gladly end up in a wheelchair, but even I could tell that was a bit insensitive.

Instead, I paused, thought the situation over, and slowly started signing, [Getting hurt is natural. It’s not a good thing, but everyone gets hurt sooner or later when they mix with another.]

She scoffed, and said, “Billy?”

“I’ve hurt Billy before,” I confessed, wincing at the memory. “He’s never hurt me, I’ll admit it, but I’ve hurt him before.”

She blinked, surprised. There was a moment as she looked down again and lost herself in thought, then signed, [It’s not simple.]

[How so?]

[Fighting is my first language,] she started signing, [My first dad, he raised me with no writing, no talking. Only hurting. So I could read bodies. Kill better.]

Honestly, I felt like a huge sack of shit. Here she was, bearing her soul to me, and to me it was like a book I’d read years ago. Hell, it actually was that to me.

Least I could do was pay attention and actually listen to her as she talked.

[I can kill anyone,] she signed. [If I can fight it and it can die, I can kill it. I was made to be another tool in my dad’s arsenal, but I... I wasn’t strong enough. I broke after my first kill, I failed at my objective. Dad says I rose above it, but...]

“... you did rise above it, Cass,” I said. “You had the strength to do what I couldn’t.”

She ignored my comment completely, moving on. [I failed what I was made to do, but I still have the skills. I can still kill as easy as I can breathe. I thought we could be a rest from being that. You made me feel normal. But I hurt you. Because I’m made to hurt.]

I winced, sighed, leaned back, fidgeted a little and realized I had no fucking clue what to do or say.

Seriously, what could I say to that?

... the truth. That’s what mom would tell me to say.

A bared soul deserves another.

“I...” I started, then with another sigh, started signing. [I never thought I could manage normal. Maybe because I had a taste of it before... everything. I knew that being normal was so far behind me that I couldn’t see it anymore. So I just settled for being happy around you.]

[... I don’t know if that’s enough,] Cass confessed. [I don’t know if I can live every day with being a weapon.]

[... do you have a choice?]

Cassandra closed her eyes for a moment, inhaling and holding the breath for a moment, before slowly letting it out and leaning back. I saw something glimmer in her eye before she rubbed it out and looked away.

“... no,” she said. “Not really.”

I looked at her for a moment, then a chuckle escaped me. “Look at us. Veteran child soldiers.” A chuckle escaped me. “Feels dumb when I say it like that.”

She looked at the wall dispassionately for a moment, then her hands slowly rose up and letargically formed the signs, [Do you think anyone our age feels as old as us?]

“Other soldiers, maybe,” I sniffed. “Some people I know.”

She didn’t respond, dropping her arms on her lap. I let the silence stretch for a second, then tapped her foot with mine, drawing her eyes towards me.

“First kill?” I asked. “Talk about mine if you like, but you ain’t gotta tell me yours if you don’t wanna.”

“... why?” she asked, sounding genuinely puzzled.

“So someone else remembers.”

She blinked, thought that over, then her hands rose up again. Slowly once more, her hands moved and formed the signs.

[... government official somewhere far from here. First dad didn’t care who it was. Just that it was hard. It wasn’t.] She paused for a moment, eyes caught somewhere a milliion miles away before she continued. [I saw... I was every second of agony as he choked on his own blood. Drowned on dry land, behind miles of security, at the strike of my hand.]

[I was so scared that I just... ran. I ran, and I ran, and I used everything I knew just to put as much distance between me and then as I could, without interruptions. And I kept going until my family found me.]

I nodded, resting my foot against her for a moment, before I asked, “D’you mind if I just talk this one?”

She shook her head.

“... mine was a... well, I don’t know what the fuck he’d done or said, but some higher-up put a hit on ‘im.”

“Who?”

“The higher-up? Shit, no one I knew. The man wasn’t important, but he had to get got. So the word came around and my old boss, Namond, told me to go. Prove myself. Act like a man.”

“... was it hard?” she asked, though her tone let me know she knew the answer.

“I don’t think he knew he’d done anything wrong, if he did. He was just standing there on a corner, laughing with friends, and I walked past behind him and shot him point blank on the back of the head. Only was I wouldn’t miss.” I swallowed. “His friends ran before he hit the floor. I jus’ walked around the block. Managed not to throw up. Got back in the car, got dropped off at home, snuck past mom and I just slept.”

I rubbed a hand over my mouth. It’d been a long, long time since I thought about this. A detail sprung to mind.

“You know...” I said, “Funny thing is, I thought on the way to do it that I’d never sleep again. But I slept like always. Ate like always. Talked like always. Not even my own mother could tell something was wrong. But for a while it was all I could think about.”

I scratched at my neck as I talked, “I felt emptied out, like all I was was an utility. I walked around just doin’ what I had to be doin’, going to school, sellin’, cleanin’ the house. And if there was nothin’ to do, I went and found somethin’. All while thinking about the thud the body made when it hit the floor and wished that I’d let myself watch the stupid thing fall so I would at least know what face he’d been making.”

I stopped when I felt my neck was starting to hurt, breathed deep, and started wringing my hands instead. “And later I just... I realized I’d gone days without thinkin’ about it. I was still empty, but I wasn’t thinkin’ about it. Little troubles forced me to think about what I was doin’ so I could keep workin’. The more I thought, the more I lived in the moment. Until I was back. And I lived my life, and laughed with friends and I moved on.

“And the next time someone had to get got, they sent me. Said I was cold-blooded. Didn’t blink an eye after my first kill.”

The silence after my rant filled the room, inflating and straining against the walls like a balloon. Slowly, with the bed cover still draped over her, Cass crossed the distance between us and she rested her body against mine, head on my shoulder.

“... are we bad?” she asked me.

“No,” I replied. “Well, I probably am, but you’re not. And I think there’s a way I can live my life like a good person, even if I’m not.”

She didn’t reply, just letting the warmth of her body mix with mine.

“... let’s go to bed.”

“... okay.”