100YoP Chapter Twenty-six "Well... Shit." (Patreon)

The windows were fogged up, the driver’s seat was inclined all the way back, a song was playing through the speaker, and the lights of the city could be seen through the windshield, as the car was parked just outside of Gotham, overlooking it from a popular spot for couples.

All of these factors were ignored by Cass and I in favor of each other’s company.

Hands roaming under clothes, mouths pressed tight together, legs rubbing, low moans of pleasure filling the car. My shirt had been tossed away before we started, using the oppresive summer heat as an excuse, and under my attention Cass’ soon followed suit.

She leaned back as soon as I tossed it over my shoulder, sitting on my lap, legs folded at both sides of my hip. She grinned down at me like the cat that caught the canary as she reached back and undid the clasp, tossing away the bra and revealing herself to me.

I would’ve made my approval known, but that’s when her phone started to ring.

We both sighed, and she leaned over to search her purse. Pulling out her phone, she barely bothered to look at the picture on her phone before answering and saying, “Busy. Send Robin. Not taking requests.”

She hung up, tossed her phone into the back seat over my head and went back to grinning at me.

I smiled back and said, “Well... where were we?”

She leaned in, arms landing at the sides of my head as she leaned down and pressed her lips to mine. I ran my fingers across and down her back, making her spine curve slightly.

Cass was a pretty physical person, I’d found. Whenever she got affectionate, she sought to reduce the distance between us as close to zero as possible. Teasing her with light touches and soft caresses was a beloved part of our relationship by then.

Her phone started to ring again. Her jaw twitched under my lips, but we tried to ignore it as we kept making out.

Her phone stopped, then started to ring again. Growling, Cass picked up and snarled, “What?!”

She listened for a moment, before rubbing her face with one hand, “How bad?”

She kept listening for a while, before sighing. She gave me an apologetic look before saying, “Alright. On my way, dad.”

She hung up and pressed one last kiss to by forehead before she grabbed her t-shirt and started putting it back on.

“I’ll drive you closer,” I said, trying not to be too disappointed as I fixed the driver’s seat.

Straightening up her shirt, she gave me a sad smile and hugged me, whispering, “Another time.”

“Soon?”

“Soon.”

“... I’ll hold you to that, miss Wayne,” I joked, kissing her cheek before pushing her over to the passenger seat. “C’mon, let me see the road.”

She moved her purse onto her lap and adjusted her clothes, checking herself on the visor mirror while I grabbed my own t-shirt and put it on after using it to defog the windshield.

I put on my seatbelt, backed up the car and started driving down the road, not particularly slow but not rushing either. If Cass was called in, it was probably an emergency, but I wasn’t running for Jesus and I had no problem stretching the time we had together.

Of course, Cass being Cass, I wasn’t allowed to get away with it for long.

“Sam.”

“Mm? ¿Que pasa, mi amor?”

She gave me an unamused look, then pointed forward and said, “Drive.”

I pouted.

She smirked and said, “We have more time later.”

I sighed, but put some more pedal to the metal.

“... so...” I started, “Just saying, but... you wouldn’t have to leave if you worked with me.”

Cass gave me a flat look.

“I’m just saying!” I defended.

“Sammy,” she chided, like you would a dog that kept chewing your furniture. “Wouldn’t work.”

I sighed, “Yeah, I know.”

There was a moment of silence, before she tilted her head towards me and casually said, “You working for me, though...”

“Ah, there you are, you fucking hypocrite,” I said, faux-offended as she laughed. “And what the fuck do you mean ‘work for you’? I’m offering a partnership but I gotta be your sidekick?”

“No,” she grinned. “My bitch.”

“Oh, well in that case,” I rolled my eyes, making her laugh.

The track playing changed, and I rolled down the window to let in some cool air. My shirt clung to my sweaty body and the wind chilled it pleasantly. Cass similarly expressed her approval by practically purring as he back curved again, straining her chest against the seatbelt.

One hand on the steering wheel, I rested the other on her thigh and started rubbing, making her grin coquettishly.

Streetlights blurred above us, and as we passed next to Slaughter Swamp we saw a few fireflies flying relaxedly in the humid summer air.

I reached forward and grabbed a pack of smokes on top of my board, letting go of the wheel for a moment. As Cass kindly took hold of the wheel, I flicked out the end of a cigarette with a snap of my wrist and pulled it all the way out with my lips.

Tossing the pack back on top of the board, I reached into my pocket, pulled out a lighter and briefly let go of Cass’ generous thigh to shield the flame from the wind. That done, the lighter joined the cigarettes atop the deck and I went back to driving and rubbing her leg.

A cloud of smoke left my lips and got sucked out of the window. The streetlights blurred above us, illuminating us intermittently.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Cass looking out the window, smiling slightly. The second stretched slowly, and for a dreamlike moment, I was allowed total peace and calm as I watched her, framed in orange light.

I focused back on the road, let the moment die, and let go of her leg to put the hand on the steering wheel and pull the smoke out of my lips, flicking the ash out the window. I felt a hand rest on my own leg, rubbing warmth into it, and I smiled a bit.

There was a pleasure in driving. A meditative charm in moving forward a few kilometers per hour, cutting through the air in the comfort of my seat. Especially if the company was good.

But eventually, the city called us back and caught us, and we had to separate a few streets deeper inside.

When I pointed out she’d left her bra on my back seat, she just winked at me and ran off.

Could’ve been a worse end to date night.

{[X]}

“Yeah, it’s rough,” said Steph, grabbing the boxes I handed to her. “Can’t start to count the amount of dates that got interrupted ‘cause one or both of us had to leave do... stuff.”

In the three years since I’d started to train her, Steph had put on some respectable muscle and she was putting it to good use hauling boxes full of cooking utensils, ingredients, pots and old recipe books.

We were currently in the back of an empty building, but neither of us was willing to talk as if people weren’t listening.

“Hrm,” I muttered, “Still, can’t help but feel that with a whole family dedicated to it, they should be better equiped to deal with a single member taking a night off. Worst thing is that I can’t figure out who made a mess last night. At least then I’d be able to get even.”

“Wait, last night?” Steph asked, frowning. “This happened last night?”

“Um, yeah?”

“... Sam, the only supervillain to pull anything last night was Condiment King.”

I froze in my position, about to grab a box and standing on my tiptoes on top of a stepladder. Slowly, I turned around.

“Are you telling me,” I said, “That the first date night in three weeks got interrupted for fucking Condiment King?”

Steph blinked, before slowly grinning, “Who called her in?”

I tried to remember, before groaning and putting a hand over my face, “Fuckin’... shitty suegro de la puta madre que lo parió.”

Steph laughed, “Oh, wow. This is low. B really sunk with this one.”

I grumbled something unkind under my breath and reached for the box I’d been about to grab.

It’s not like Bruce tried to sabotage us all that often. But if he had an excuse to separate us, he tended to take it. The rest of the family counteracted it, but the relationship between Bruce and I hadn’t really improved all that much since the whole ordeal with Namond.

We’d worked together on occasion, and in fact I was actively helping out at that time with an ongoing investigation into Roman Sionis, but those did very little to improve Bruce’s opinion.

It’s not like the relationship was totally adversarial. Bruce had told me once that it wasn’t like he disliked me as much as it was that he thought I was totally wasting my talent and my time. He’d confessed to something like respect, though in a typical manner for him, he said it in the most ambiguous, disconnected and awkward way possible.

My relationship with Bruce was... complicated. While on one hand, we came to an unspoken agreement to mantain a distance and avoid conflict outside work, I actually thought I came to understand him pretty well.

There was a duality to Bruce Wayne, or however you call a duality with three sides. While I’d thought that his playboy persona was just a façade, I’d found that he put a lot more of himself into it than I expected. At heart, Bruce really was just a bit of a himbo.

And I’d actually found a strange grey area in-between, peeked at in private peaceful moments with people he trusted.

Moments like Dick’s birthday, and how he’d smiled with pride at his son.

Moments like when everyone joked around in the middle of that Clayface case I got involved with, and he’d smirked as he’d thrown a pointed barb at Oracle and I over how we took our coffee.

Moments like when Tim had gotten sick from patroling in the rain, and when I visited with a thermos full of soup I saw him sitting at his son’s bedside, worriedly stroking his hand with his thumb, brow furrowed.

And the fact that he’d grown used to me enough that those moments happened even when I was around to witness them meant a lot. I myself had found a rather surprising amount of fondness growing next to the respect I’d already had for him.

I could safely say I liked hanging out with Bruce.

Not that that made it easier to bear him actively sabotaging date night. The dick.

Whatever. However mad I felt at Bruce, it was nothing compared to Cassie’s inevitable reaction. He was probably going to get the cold shoulder for a week at least.

I hauled the last two boxes down myself, and then I helped Steph place them around on a table. I handed her a knife and took my own to start cutting through the tape sealing the boxes closed.

As she opened one, she said, “So... I can’t help but notice this is a lot of stuff for being ‘extra supplies from Butchie’s place’.”

“Mm,” I said. “Well... at the start it wasn’t.”

“So what was it?”

“Stuff for F.E.A.S.T.”

Steph blinked. “How long have you been planning this for?”

“Eh... I’ve been working on it on-and-off since I was around nine, but I kinda treated it like a pipe dream since I figured out just how much shit you need to open your own charity non-profit. Got most of the stuff before that, and then it all ended in boxes in Butchie’s place,” said Sam, before blowing to remove the dust from the cover of one of the cookbooks. He looked at Steph and continued, “It actually took me a while to realize I had the means to do it after becoming a billionare.”

“Huh,” said Steph, thinking it over as she opened another box and started sorting out some cooking instruments. She inspected a knife, and she casually said, “So it’s totally a money laundering scheme, right?”

Sam chuckled, “Why, Officer Brown! I’m shocked at the insinuation!”

“Shut up, I’m not wearing a wire,” said Steph.

“Sounds like something someone with a wire would say.”

“What, you want me to lift my shirt and prove it?”

“No, that’s okay, I’ll take your word,” I immediately said, dropping out of the joking as fast as I could.

Steph’s expression turned a bit awkward and she looked away.

It was nothing serious. She just had a flirty personality and I tended to overcorrect. The mere idea of cheating was pretty awful, considering how my sperm donor had treated mom.

Choosing to change the subject after an elongated silence, I said, “I’ll plead the fifth on whether or not I have other means of laundering money, but I promise that F.E.A.S.T. isn’t one of them.”

Steph frowned, then said, “Why wouldn’t it be?”

“Well, in a hypothetical world in which I commit crimes, I wouldn’t want anyone to have any excused to shut it down if I got caught, would I?” I asked. “Besides, the other businesses do enough for my purposes. In this hypothetical world, I mean.”

“Of course,” Steph snorted, smirking.

Once all the items were out the boxes and placed into distinctive piles, Steph started putting the boxes away to be reused later while I started sorting out the items and leaving one of each time across the tables for different students to work with.

“... you know, it kinda makes sense that Bruce is screwing up your dates,” Steph mentioned. “Y’know, with what happened last Christmas.”

“Okay, one: he said I could invite as many people as I wanted as long as they donated something to the charity,” I said, frustrated. “Second: they totally livened up the party and helped his playboy reputation, and three: that was like six fuckin’ months ago!”

“I meant more like how he caught you with Cass in Tim’s bedroom.”

“We were only there ‘cause you and Tim took Cass’ room!”

“Again, I meant more because he caught you with Cass in the first place.”

“Ah...” I hesitated, then nodded, “Okay, yeah, that probably put me in his list.”

“Mm,” said Steph.

After a while, everything was sorted and we headed over to the coffee pot. I poured generously into the two mugs we’d brought.

She drank from her Official Batgirl Plastic Mug, and I drank from a ceramic mug that Farah had made and painted to look like a calavera dulce.

She’d been a bit embarrassed when I told her that was a Mexican thing, not an Argentinean one, but it was still a fucking sweet birthday present.

“... Hey Steph?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think this can work?”

She blinked, then smiled softly and bumped my shoulder with hers. “Of course.”

I kept staring at the middle distance, sipped my cup, then nodded. “A’ight then.”

A few minutes later, the doors were open and people were coming in.

The whole building of the first F.E.A.S.T. center was a large community center that had been abandoned a few years back on account of some super villain nonsense.

After thoroughly checking the place for bombs, living plants or any other sort of surprise over the course of a couple months, my people had gotten to work renovating it to serve as a homeless shelter, training area, emergency aid station, and more.

What used to be a gym had had the bleachers removed and almost the whole space was fitted with shelter beds, all separated from each other with curtains or room dividers. Plus a small area in the corner where medical attention could be given.

I’d also made sure to pick out a place with a large kitchen to host cooking classes, and there were a few places where other trades would be taught once I secured some teachers. I already had someone listed for electrician work, and I was looking into plumbing.

The living area wasn’t the most dignified thing, but I could proudly say that it was better than the streets and more than a few of Gotham’s homeless shelters. It was still pretty empty, but I had high hopes of filling it by next winter, and saving as many lives as it could.

When people came in for training, they had to pass through the living area, and I saw more than a few give considering looks to the beds.

Eventually, the kitchen was full by around a dozen teams of three, and I clapped my hands to bring attention to me.

“Alright people, welcome to the first class and the not-so-grand opening of the first F.E.A.S.T. shelter!” I said, forcing a cheerful smile. “Now, you probably read the sign, but in case you didn’t, F.E.A.S.T. stands for ‘Food, Emergency, Aid, Shelter and Training’, and it’s that last part that we’re going to focus on right now. Through this class and the next few, we’re gonna try to teach you the basics of cooking and working in a kitchen.

“The general idea is that you learn this to work somewhere, but even if you don’t, cooking is an useful skill in any circumstance. Just a few tricks here and there can make life a lot more bearable, and a good foundation can help improve your improvisation.

“Now, I see everyone’s partnered up, and you’ve all got the cookbooks, so I’mma ask you to turn to page 008.” Once the turning of pages was mostly done, I continued, “We’ll be making some spaghetti from scratch to get you used to making sauces and pastries, and besides, my Italian blood would jump out of my veins and strangle me if this wasn’t the first thing we did.”

The joke was met with some chuckles, though it was a bit awkward. Almost everyone here knew me as the leader of the Sixth Street Stringers, and I imagined it would feel a tad dangerous not to laugh when the Godfather made a joke in front of you.

Oh Christ, I’d just made a joke about being part Italian, on top of that.

Whatever, moving on!

“In any case, I’m going to ask that you all line up and wash your hands,” I said, still keeping up a bit of an awkward smile. “Please use a lot of soap.”

{[X]}

“I didn’t know you were part Italian,” Steph mentioned a bit after the class.

The cooking had gone well, for the most part, and now everyone was enjoying plates of their own labor around a couple long tables in the dining area. From what I could hear, they were happy and surprised with the quality of their work, which was nice.

Steph and I were sitting apart from the majority, in the corner of one of the tables, eating what had been leftover from the other pots. Steph gathered some odd looks from people there that weren’t sure what her place in my organization was, though I had a feeling Dog had his suspicions.

“Yeah, I mean, probably,” I said. “It’s not like I can track down any family members from Italy, but I am Argentinean. It’d be harder for me not to be at least slightly Italian.”

“There’s a lot of italians in Argentina?” Steph asked.

“... okay, so there’s this joke about this, if you wanna hear it?”

“Sure.”

“A Chinese person, an Italian and an Argentinean are all sitting around a balcony, drinking wine and talking shit. A few drinks in, the Chinese guy decides to grandstand a bit, so he takes out his Iphone, tosses it over the balcony and says ‘I get rid of this, because in my country we have plenty’. The Italian, not to be outdone, grabs the bottle of wine and tosses it over the balcony, saying ‘I get rid of this, because in my country we have plenty.”

Steph raised an eyebrow.

“The Argentinean, pissed that the wine is gone, grabs the Italian, tosses them over the balcony and says ‘I get rid of this, because in my country we have plenty’.”

Steph snorted, covering her face with her hand, “Oh, that’s awful.”

“You laughed, tho.”

“Shut up.”

We chuckled for a bit, before someone came up. Blue and purple hair, lots of piercings, and a confident stride.

Looking up, I smiled slightly and said, “Harper, hey!”

“Hey, Reyes,” she said, scratching the back of her neck. “Gotta talk to you.”

“I told you, it’s Sam,” I said, gesturing for her to sit down with us. “Did you want to talk about business, or is this just social?”

“Business,” she nodded, “But... I also wanted to thank you for the job and class and stuff.”

“Don’t mention it,” I waved her off. “Really, you’re doing me a solid here.”

Harper smiled a bit.

“Uh...” a voice interrupted, and I turned to find Steph raising an eyebrow. “Hi. Who’s this?”

“Oh, right, you guys haven’t met,” I said. “Steph, this is Harper Row. She’ll be teaching the class on electrician stuff soon, and she also does some repair work for me on ocassion. Harper, this is Stephanie Brown, a good friend of mine.”

“Um, hi, nice to meet you?” said Harper. Weird, why did she seem so nervous now?

“... nice to meet you to,” said Steph, with surprising coldness. She turned to look at me and said, “How’s your girlfriend, by the way?”

I blinked, “Uh, fine? We just talked about this, she’s a bit annoyed at her dad, but fine.”

“Good, good,” Steph nodded. “You should probably avoid making my best friend more annoyed.”

“I... try to?” I blinked again. “Okay, I know I’m missing something.”

“You’re not missing anything,” Harper assured me, before turning to look at Steph. “Because there’s nothing.”

“You’re sure?” asked Steph.

“Completely. Reyes is a nice enough guy, but... no. Just no.”

Steph looked at her for a moment while I looked from one to the other, totally lost.

“... good!” she said, smiling. “In that case, it really is nice to meet you!”

“Um, thanks, you too,” said Harper, immediately losing some of that confidence she’d just shown.

I was so confused.

“I... whatever,” I sighed, looking at Harper. “You wanted to talk?”

“Yeah,” she said. “I wanted to know if you got that stuff I needed for the first lesson?”

“Yup,” I said. “I’ll bring the boxes over tomorrow, and you can come in early next Tuesday to set everything up.”

Harper nodded, “Good, and you got everything?”

“Mm. Gotta say, it seemed a bit much for a first lesson,” I casually said.

“Yeah, but, y’know, I figured it was better to have and not need than to need and not have.”

“Makes sense,” I said, poker face on as I ignored the load of bullshit she dropped on top of my spaghetti. “You already have the first lesson prepared?”

“Yeah, gonna go over some theory, talk about safety.”

Oh come one. “So nothing you’d really need the parts for, right?”

“Um...”

“Good thinking,” I said, nodding, “It’s good to get a head start on things.”

“Y-Yeah, right,” Harper cleared her throat. “I’m... gonna go. Nice to meet you, Steph.”

“You too,” she said, smiling.

We watched Harper walk back over to where her brother was waiting, then Steph turned to me.

“I bet you a million bucks she’s gonna make a bomb,” she said.

“No bet,” I said. “Ignoring that you don’t have a million dollars, you don’t have all the facts.”

“What’s that?”

“Well, she’s a highly-intelligent young woman from an abusive household, She takes care of her brother, and she’s been saved by Batman a couple of times from what I hear,” I said, spinning my fork to gather more pasta.

“... Sam, are you helping another vigilante start out?”

“Mmm,” I hummed through a mouthfull of sauce and spaghetti.

Steph shook her head and laughed, saying, “You’ve got to be the worst crime lord ever.”

“I’m not a crime lord,” I deadpanned. “That is an outrageous accusation, officer.”

“Uh-huh,” she drawled. “Does she know you’re helping her?”

“Nah, I’m pretty sure she thinks she’s tricking the big bad crime lord into helping her start out,” I said. “Which is ridiculous, since I’m not—”

“Not a crime lord, of course.”

“Hey, now you’re getting it.”

She hummed, resting her chin on her hand and watching her as she ate with her brother, Cullen. “How’d you guys meet?”

“She was seventeen and wanted to sue for emancipation. But lawyers are expensive and stuff, so she was kinda out of luck,” I said, finishing the last of my pasta and grabbing the garlic bread to scoop up the leftover sauce. “This was about two years ago, so she catches word of all the people I was doing solids for and decides to get in on the action.”

“Ah,” Stephanie said. “She’s part of the Sam-Reyes-is-Totally-Innocent Charity Tour?”

“I resent that,” I said, shoving a piece of bread into my mouth. Once I was done chewing and swallowed, I said, “I don’t do charity. Everyone involved paid me back.”

“Sure,” Steph smiled, grabbing a piece of my garlick bread and scooping up some sauce despite not being done with her pasta. “So what, you got her a lawyer?”

“Among other things,” I said.

The whole list was that I’d actually helped her and Cullen find an apartment that wasn’t too expensive or in a bad neighborhood, helped Harper get a job as an electrician for the city, ocassionally hired her for odd jobs fixing stuff in my businesses, helped emancipate them from their asshole of a sperm donor, and I’d given Harper a flyer for a kickboxing class and Cullen a flyer for an art class.

I could tell that Harper chaffed under how much I’d done for them, but as far as I was concerned it was just investing in one of the vigilantes that Gotham so desperately needed.

“You know,” she said. “If you switched to the other side of the game, you could be this nice full time.”

I smiled, “Being nice doesn’t keep my people employed, I’m afraid.”

{[X]}

I leaned back against the statue of Captain Jon Logerquist, the Norwegian mercenary that founded Gotham in 1635. The summer heat had wound down with the sun, and it was now just cool enough that I could comfortably wear a hoodie as I sat around Robinson Park with Farah, passing around a bottle of Guarana Antartica.

Was it wasteful to have a South American soda that only Farah and I seemed to like just because I realized I hadn’t drunk one since I was four? Maybe.

But fuck it, I was doing plenty of philantropy and I was a goddamned billionaire. I could afford to waste a bit of cash.

“So what’s this guy’s name again?” I asked, handing over the bottle.

“Richard Meyer,” she said.

“Right, right, the gambler,” I nodded. “You put everything in motion?”

“Yup, and I was thinking we could do a bit more.”

“How come?”

“He was talking shit about how you were too soft to ever collect.”

“Ah,” I nodded. “He married?”

“Yup, five years now. Pretty stable marriage, all things considered.”

“Alright... We’ll see how this meeting goes. He pisses me off, you fill his phone and his computer with child pornography and give his wife a tip,” I said. “Wait until they separate before spreading the word that I’m responsible.”

Farah nodded. Over the years, she’d gotten quite a bit used to what was required to mantain a reputation in this city.

“I’ll set a reminder,” she promised, pulling out her phone. “Should I make sure she doesn’t find out it was us?”

“... nah,” I decided. “In fact, make a note to make sure to leave some clues for her after the separation. We’re hoping a lesson is learnt here, after all. Better if they both learn it.”

Besides, no reason to salt the earth behind us. The whole experience should be enough to make sure Mr. Meyer never fucks with me or mine ever again.

Speaking of which, I saw a pencil-thin man walking towards The Pit, followed by Billy and Yua.

The Pit was a circular bit of lowered ground near the middle of Robinson Park, surrounded on all sides by concrete benches. Said benches were currently occupied by a half dozen soldiers from my organization, all watching the man carefully approach.

The expression on Richard Meyer’s face was not dissimilar to that of a person in death row. Which was an exaggeration, really.

At worse, he’d lose a finger.

“Ah, Richard,” I said, smiling. “Nice of you to join us.”

“... yeah,” he said, in a low, pathetic voice.

“Now, Dick—do you mind if I call you Dick?” I asked.

He shook his head.

“Great. Listen, Dick, I’m afraid you and I have had a bit of a misunderstanding as of late,” I said, reaching into my hoodie pocket to pull out a cheap plastic lighter and a box of cigarettes. “Which seems a bit absurd, doesn’t it? I mean, we’ve only just met. It’s kinda funny, isn’t it?”

“... yes sir.”

“Now, here’s the facts as I understand them. And please, stop me if I’m wrong,” I said. I put the cigarette in my lips, lit it, and said, “You came to my good friend Manny and, having found yourself at the tail end of a rather nasty losing streak, asked for just a bit of cash.”

I chuckled, “That is, if eighteen thousand dollars can be called ‘just a bit of cash’.”

Dick tried for a smile. It didn’t really translate well to his gaunt face.

I took a drag from my cigarette, mantaining eye contact the entire time. His smile faltered.

“Eighteen thousand dollars,” I repeated, letting out a cloud of smoke. I chuckled and smiled again, “Doesn’t that sound like a generous loan, Dick?”

“Y-Yes, sir.”

“Well, it’s not. It’s a fuckin’ stupid loan,” I said, dropping my smile and making him pale. “Now, the way Manny explained this to me is that he gave you that amount of money because you got a well-paying job, and you just needed the help to pass a bad moment. Was that true? You got a well-paying job?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And the bad moment, it’s over?”

“Y-Yes, sir. Well, a-almost, sir.”

“Almost?”

“I-I’ve still g-got a couple payments left on a couple things, a-and—”

“Right, but you got food on your table? The lights are on at your home?”

“Y-Yes?”

“Then where the fuck’s my money, Dick?” I asked, leaning forward.

“I-I-I just need a little time! I promise!”

“Oh, you promise?”

“Yes!”

“You think your word means shit to me, Dick?” I asked. “You think I’m in the habit of taking promises from gabling addicts with a bad record of talking shit behind my back?”

“I would never—!”

“Two nights ago, at Batburger with your wife,” Farah interrupted in a bored tone, looking at her phone. “You said, verbatim, ‘that spic kid’s too much of a softie to ask for his money back, the kid’s got no heart’.”

“Th-That’s a lie!”

“You’re calling my friend a liar?” I asked, tone completely cold and serious.

Dick looked ready to shit himself on the spot.

“So... no heart, huh?” I asked, and he swallowed. “Harsh words to say about someone that’s been so goddamn generous.”

“I-I-I’m s-sorry—”

“Shh,” I said, putting a finger to my lips. “Now’s not the time for sorries, Dicky-boy. Now’s the time for you to make things up to me. Don’t you wanna make things up to me, Dicky?”

“Y-Yes?”

“Good!” I said. I took another puff from my smoke, then pulled it from my lips with my left hand as I hopped off the statue’s pedastal and walked closer.

He tried to back off, and quickly found his shoulder in Billy’s grip as I got right in front of him.

“Now, here’s the deal, Dicky,” I said, taking one last puff from my smoke. When I next spoke, smoke left my lips. “As I understand it, you’re one of Sionis’ accountants, no?”

“I-I only handle the smaller businesses—”

“I know, Dicky,” I assured him. “Trust me. I know where you live, I know your name, I know your wife’s name, I know that you’re trying for a kid, and I know what you had for dinner last night. I am aware of what businesses you work.”

He swallowed.

“Now, over the coming weeks, you’re going to get messages asking for certain information, and you’re going to give it. Bit by bit, you’re going to pay off your debt doing this. The eighteen thousand dollars, plus the extra tax for picking an attitude where you shouldn’t have,” I smiled, “Sounds more than fair, no?”

He slowly nodded.

“You might be asked to put in some extra effort here and there...” I said, “Maybe carry something to and from places. But nothing terrible.”

“Wh-Why?”

“... Dicky. Dick. Richard,” I said in a dissapointed tone. “C’mon, man. You really think you’re in a position to ask questions?”

“N-No sir.”

“Right. So?”

“... I-I’ll do it,” he decided.

“Great!” I smiled, stretching my right hand for him to shake.

As soon as he took it, I squeezed hard enough his bones creaked. While he gasped in pain, I turned his hand so his body bent to the side in reaction, and then I put out the cigarette on the side of his neck..

He screamed, until I raised my knee and hit him in the windpipe, making him cough.

I let go, making him drop to the floor, and I put a foot on his chest.

“I you fuck me—if the idea of fucking me even begins to spark in your mind—I will break everything you know,” I promised. “I will make your wife divorce you, I will put you into poverty, and I will hurt you so bad you will eat through a tube until you die alone and unloved in the shittiest hospital I can find. Am I clear?”

Still coughing, he nodded.

“Good,” I said, turning around and walking back to the statue. “Get the fuck out of my sight.”

I heard him scamper off, and by the time I was sitting back on the pedastal, he was already halfway out my vision.

I sniffed, then turned to look at Billy and Yua as they sat to my side, opposite of Farah. “Sorry you had to get him, guys.”

“It’s fine,” said Billy. “Wanted to stretch my legs, anyhow.”

Yua nodded.

I smiled at them.

“Are you sure about this?” Farah asked, bringing my attention to her. “Good chance he’ll blab and Sionis’ll know.”

“Sionis already knows Spider’s after him,” I shrugged. “If Meyer fucks up, he’ll serve as a distraction if nothing else.”

“Mm,” Farah hummed. “Still... Sionis is on high alert. Weird stuff’s being going on downtown.”

I clicked my tongue, “Yeah. Have the preparations been done?”

“Yeah,” Billy said, “We’re ready for anything that crawls up to the Alley.”

“Good,” I said, taking the bottle back as Farah offered it. “Then we’ll keep as usual, and deal with problems as they come.”

The decision was met with nods, and I took a swig from the bottle.

After a while, I asked, “Anything else on the schedule?”

She shrugged, “Couple meetings. Some people have been talking about coming to meet you.”

I sighed, “A’ight. We’ll keep holdin’ court for a while, then.”

The sun got lower, closer to the horizon, and the sky dyed yellow, orange and purple.

{[X]}

Later, with the sun truly down and light pollution hiding the stars, I was in my kitchen playing music and getting dinner ready.

I was going to make some peposo with papas al horno done with cajun seasoning. Cass had guilted Bruce into giving her the night off after screwing up date night, and we’d decided to forgo the whole date thing in favor of diner, movies and heavy petting.

Peposo is a meat dish cooked in wine that involves heavy use of spices. You take meat—preferably with bone—and you cut it into chunks, about 3cm by 3cm. You then take garlic crushed in a mortar, mix it up with tomato extract and cover the meat with it.

Then you get a lot of crushed pepper, both finely crushed and in small chunks, and you put it in whatever you’re cooking it.

(Since I was only cooking for two and I took any excuse I could to use it, I was using the cast iron skillet that Tim had gotten me for my birthday, but usually you do it in a pot of some kind.)

You put in the meat, the pepper, two or three sage leaves, and you cover it all with red wine. Cook it on a strong flame until the wine’s boiling, lower the flame and cover it with a lid and cook for four hours, checking in every half hour to mix it up, make sure nothing sticks to the bottom.

I was three and a half hours in, the meat was looking fine as fuck and I could not wait for Cass to try it.

Then my Spidey Sense started ringing, and my smile dropped as I got the feeling that my night was about to go to shit.

Casual-like, I changed my stance minutely, leaning my head back slightly to feel the unmistakable sensation of the barrel of a gun brushing the back of my head.

“... so,” I said, speaking slowly. “I’m going to assume that you know exactly whom you’re fucking with?”

“That’d be a nice change of pace,” a voice, warped through some means, called back. “Nice intuition. You’re the first one all night to see me coming.”

“Been at this for a while,” I said. “But... I’m guessing so were the others?”

“You guess right.”

“Huh,” I said. “So... it’s a takeover.”

“Nah. Just getting rid of the competition. I’ve seen your people, I doubt I could talk them into following me.”

Well, wasn’t that heartwarming?

I grabbed a fork and poked the meat as it simmered at a low heat. After a moment of looking it over, I sighed.

“Y’know something?” I said, “This is—OH SHIT!”

I felt the gun move slightly against my head as the intruder flinched, “Gah! What?!”

“I just realized! Steph thought Harper has a crush on me!” I said, slapping a hand against my forehead. “Oh man, that took me way too long to figure out. I’m an idiot.”

“... okay, I don’t wanna come across as needy or something, but don’t you think you should focus on the gun I’ve got to your head?”

“Yeah, yeah, sorry. It’s just that that’s been bothering me all day, y’know?”

The gun pressed harder against my head.

“Alright! Jeez,” I sighed. “I had some badass last words... what was I saying?”

“I... something like ‘this is’?”

“Uh... oh yeah!” I cleared my throat and said, “This is a waste of a perfectly good cut of meat.”

“That’s your ‘badass last—’”

Before the smartass response could finish, I leaned my body to the side. Just fast enough that the intruder couldn’t shoot me in reaction, and just slowly enough that it wasn’t totally superhuman.

With the gun not aiming at my head, I threw the contents of the skillet over my shoulder, covering the intruder’s face with wine, condiments and meat.

Before the splashing was done, I turned the movement of leaning into a turn of my whole body. I put the momentum and my weight into smacking him with the flat of the skillet, sending the intruder sprawling to the floor and finally letting me see him.

A large figure, just slightly shorter than me and considerably thicker than me, covered in modern armor and wearing a red helmet, fell to the floor, gun dropping out of his grip.

I looked down at Red Hood, Batman’s deceased son, and only managed to say one thing.

“Well... shit.”

Author’s Note: And we’re off to the next story arc!

I tried to give this chapter a ‘first episode of season two’ feel. I hope it came across.