Post by The Wonderful Wachter on Feb 5, 2012 21:40:09 GMT -5
Ultimate Spoilers #7
Boys and Toys Pt 1
Run For the Night
Running across the roofs of Blüdhaven. It’s exhilarating. It seriously lifts your spirits. Almost enough to make you forget that down below there’s at least one woman being raped, ten homes getting broken into, countless acts of vandalism, and all other kinds of crimes the police sirens ignore. So different than Paris. Sure, Paris had its own problems, more so every day according to my cousin, but corruption wasn’t buried deep into the foundation. The city wasn’t built on blood.
Here, though, here I could leap across a building, tuck and roll then start anew. No reason. No worry. Just plain freedom.
And hell, if I got caught. If the police thought my acts of trespassing or disrupting the peace were enough to merit an arrest… Well, my Dad has a big wallet. And he’s paid his dues to the bosses of the Haven.
A commotion down below stopped Gavin in his tracks. He had been about to swing down a fire escape to clamber up the old church down the street when he recognized the colors of the guys below. Hill Street Gang. His father’s men. Or that was the popular rumor. When you’re a platinum record rapper, producer, and label owner… people look the other way at your less than noble origins and turn a blind eye to continued attachment.
He knew what they were doing. This was Latin Unified territory. Initiation rites. They’d tag a few buildings and hopefully run away before they were noticed. Except they didn’t run away in time. An old lady, occupant of the building they were tagging coming home from the corner store noticed them. The older generation was different. They didn’t recognize the modern gang rules. To them, all kids, no matter what color their skin or what they represented, were trouble.
Gavin was torn as they ripped the grocery bags from her hands. She really was a little old lady. Knees bent. Bad back made her double over. But she put up a fight. He wanted to help… Morally, he knew he should help. There wasn’t even a need to fight them. At least one in their ranks would be bound to recognize him and recognizing him, they’d recognized his father.
Bringing his father into things would lead to a bigger mess, he knew but…
“Hey!”
The decision was taken out of Gavin’s hands momentarily. Military uniform, crew cut, duffle bag filled to the brim, ramrod straight posture and muscles galore.
A soldier comes home to the Haven.
The Hill Street Gang members left the old lady alone but not before pushing her roughly to the ground and stepping over her.
“What the fuck you want, soldier boy?” said the boldest of the bunch.
The Soldier, an army something by the looks of his uniform, sat down his duffle bag and held up his hands in a nonthreatening manner. “I don’t want anything other than to see you go on your way.” He took a step closer. “You’ve left your mark. Everyone knows how brave you are. Just… leave.”
A few among the ranks seemed to consider the words. They didn’t want to pick a fight with a soldier, especially one that looked combat hardened. But the bold one, he didn’t know when to back down. He yanked a gun from the waistband of his pants and pointed it at the big man.
“Brave, huh?” He held it sideways like he had no doubt seen in the movies. “I bet you just a bus boy. That uniform of yours ain’t nothing to be scared of.”
“Please,” another step closer, “I’ve been shot at more times than you’ve fired that gun. Leave now and no one needs to get hurt.”
“Hurt—“
“Parker, maybe we should listen to him…” one of the others put a hand on their leader’s shoulder to try to restrain him. “We don’t have to do this.”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Parker took his eyes off the Soldier for just a moment but it was enough. The soldier was on him, snapping his wrist so that when the gun went off, it shot into the ground. He confiscated the weapon a second later and slammed the flat of his palm up the against the gangbanger’s jaw to clack teeth and draw blood as it looked like he bit off his own tongue.
The first volley had been fired… literally. The others would be honor bound to defend their injured fellow. Gavin watched as the old lady crawled away to safety. The soldier didn’t stand there to wait for them to draw their own weapons. He took the closest down with a shot to the gut then a knee to the head. Parker seemed to try to stand only for an elbow to smash against the back of his head. Gavin missed the next bit by blinking at the wrong time. One second there was two men standing. Then it was down to one.
Gavin had made up his mind. If this guy could do what he did for no reason other than it being the right thing to do then so could he. He slid down the fire escape and landed amongst them. Quickly he held up his hands to stop from getting hit himself.
“They’re going,” he glared at the last man who recognized his tall stature, dark skin, and piercing eyes. “Understand?”
“Yeah…we got ya,” the final gangbanger helped the others up, Parker needing more than the rest combined. “We’re going.”
The old lady was nowhere in sight now. It was just Gavin and big soldier watching the initiates brush themselves off. Then they heard the squeal of speeding tires. Heads twisted to see the screeching vehicle roaring down the street. In the back of their heads, they knew to the last man what it meant, but they were too slow to react or too injured. All but one.
Gavin felt a strong grip yank him down and physically toss him out of harm’s way to roll behind a parked sedan.
Baratatatatatatatata!!!
The gunfire vibrated Gavin to the bones. It was a volcano in his head. The Latin Unified’s retaliation was swift and it was deadly. The bullets tore through the soldier, the limping Hill Street Gang Members, and even the car saving the young man’s life. He huddled with his arms over his head and eyes squeezed shut but that couldn’t stop the sound of the slugs meeting flesh, of the man who could have been a hero slumping to the ground with labored breathing.
A peel of tires again and they were off. Or Gavin thought they were. Unbeknownst to him, a purple figure landed atop the vehicle, forcing it to stop early, accounting for the crash he heard an instant later. At the moment, he didn’t care. He crawled towards the dying soldier, knowing that the man had given his life to spare Gavin’s.
“Why?” begged the young man, his pants and hands covered in the man’s blood.
“Didn’t… Didn’t need a reason.” He coughed in his last breaths.
Gavin tried to staunch the bleeding. He tried to do what he could. But it was futile. Too much blood loss. Too many holes. This man had helped the old lady when Gavin should have. Had stopped the Hill Street Gang when that should have been Gavin’s duty… And now he died instead of lived.
One of his hands covered up the man’s name patch so that he could only read the letters T-I-N.
A figure cloaked in purple stepped out of the shadows from the direction the Latin Unified had gone. It waited as a silent sentinel. Gavin felt last bit life leave the soldier. Blood soaked his pants as he remained crouching… wishing things had gone differently… wishing it would have been him who tried to be the hero… wishing this brave fool was still alive.
“You should go before the police arrive,” the purple figure spoke in a modulated voice, masking the gender. Short and slender, Gavin thought he should recognize him. “It’ll be trouble.”
“I’m not going to leave him.” Gavin’s tone was rather forceful. He didn’t know where that resolution came from. “Someone needs to tell his story.”
“Your choice.”
“Who are you?”
The figure paused as it was pulling something from its belt to look up with ghost eyes. “They’ve been calling me Spoiler.” The object appeared to be a grappling hook. “BPD has been alerted but I’ll stay near in case the Latin Unified feels the need to send more men.”
Spoiler shot off its grappling line and vanished over the edge of the roof. Gavin remained as he said he would. He waited for the police. They considered arresting him based on profiling and the situation but the Latin Unified tied upside down to a lamppost down the street and the old lady’s testimony allowed him to sit in the car uncuffed. They took his statement.
It wasn’t until a Detective Soames went over the report for a second time that Gavin realized he never checked the man’s ID. For now, he’d remain a nameless soldier.
---
“You don’t have to be here, Bart,” Barbara growled through clenched teeth, fingers typing away at her keyboard. “Watchtower is a veritable fortress and I am more than capable of defending myself.”
Bart Allen, otherwise known as Impulse, chowed down on a sandwich over her shoulder, nearly dripping mustard all over her. He was a tall young man who looked eerily familiar for a boy who was supposed to be Barry Allen’s grandson. Truly, only real difference she could find between Bart and Barry at the same age was the former was a red head with more muscle mass. The resemblance was far too much.
Yet if they looked the same, their personalities were by far something else entirely. Bart was… well, he was impulsive by nature. Never could stand being still. If he wasn’t staring, or leering at you, with a look of intense focus then his eyes flitted back and forth like a paranoid lizard. None of this prevented him from being responsible. It simply made it impossible to tolerate prolonged exposure to him.
“Jack asked Jay. Jay asked Iye. Iye asked me. Here I am.” Another chomp of his disgustingly loaded sandwich. “Certainly can’t complain about the company.”
Bart gave her one of those stares… a stare that made her feel like he was trying to freeze time for an eternity. It disturbed her like he could see things that she couldn’t, that he could see things that other speedsters couldn’t. Felt as if there was nothing more he’d rather do this moment than to keep it alive.
“Why not go out on patrol then? Spoiler could use your help. Halted a drive by in progress, planted bugs in a corrupt official’s office, and is gathering evidence on the McDevlins and the night’s not even half over.”
“Which Spoiler?”
“What do you mean,” Barbara replied offhandedly.
“Well, Charlie’s strangely not here and there is a Spoiler off with the JSA yet oddly enough I’m seeing through the eyes of one right here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Charlie’s at a sleepover.”
“Yeah… At Jack’s.” Bart shrugged. “Either way, no can do. Iris asked me to keep you safe so keep you safe I will. Never turn her down.”
The way he said it left an awkward silence in the air.
“Why don’t you go take apart the submarine and reassemble it then? Just, please, stop hovering.”
His eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “After I put it together, how bout you get in a bikini and scrub it down for—“ her glare stopped him in mid-sentence. “Right… I’ll do it. Can I get a kiss if I manage to make it go faster?”
Impulse was off before she could start to throttle him. Barbara spared a glance at his zipping about JSA’s old submarine before opening up the feed to Charlie’s mask. She reassured herself that all was okay on that end, that Jack and all the Vets would keep her safe. But… Charlie was practically her daughter; she worried about her more than Stephanie even if it was the blond who seemed to get the short end of the stick when being brave.
It had been some time since they had locked Arthur Brown behind bars and they had come no closer to recovering anything he had stolen before Stephanie involved herself or the proto-gravity rod he had taken from beneath Jessie’s nose. He had refused to speak up and then… well, she wasn’t sure what happened. One day Arthur Brown was in prison awaiting trial then the next… he was gone. His cell destroyed by an improvised implosion device that she wouldn’t put past him to have somehow managed to build himself to leave no signs of his existence.
Arthur had been their only lead. His computer and phone records had revealed little else other than numerous correspondences with Mark Desmond. Barbara had long suspected the Desmond family being involved in shady things but when it came to the public and even the behind-closed-doors dealings in Blüdhaven, they came out unusually clean. Especially when there were mentions of the Blockbuster crew. Mark always seemed to be the nice brother who was at home at home or in a lab. Roland seemed to be the one to watch…
Yet Jay’s shoes flashed in Barbara’s mind. Cluemaster had been operating outside of a Pharmaceutical Warehouse belonging to a company Mark owned… That was too much for mere coincidence and she had her people looking into it. Well, had her people looking into it. Now they were scouring the globe for the legacies of the JSA.
“Oracle,” a call opened up as if summoned by her thoughts. A simian face appeared on the monitor, flanked by two other figures, both covered in hair like him but of a distinctly younger generation. “I have some news for you.”
They wouldn’t see her as Barbara Gordon. She knew that. Her green headed avatar would serve as a proxy but usually there was some warning as to others being present. “So I see.”
“Found a lost kitten belonging to Wildcat,” Chimp began. “Or… rather, the kitten found me.”
“I’m not a kitten, I’m a boy!”
“They’re talking in code, dummy!”
“Oh.”
“You have proof?” asked Barbara after the boys finished their outburst.
“Call it detective’s intuition,” Chimp responded dryly.
She smiled despite herself. “That’s two out of the litter found. Wildcat thinks there are at least three more. Give or take.”
“I’d say it’s likely on the give side knowing him,” Chimp sighed one whose search went ever on. “I shan’t be able to help at the moment but fear not, if your network cannot find them then I doubt anyone else can.”
Barbara wished she could have that sort of faith in herself. But she’d failed already. She should have known their families were being targeted before Jack had ever been warned.
---
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] I’m so jealous.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] Why?
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] You get to go to the OLYMPICS! OLYMPICS! Do you know who I’d kill for to have that sort of global attention?
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] You’re good enough to go
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] I don’t see why your mom wont let you.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Because she’s a bitch.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] Harsh much?
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Seriously. I was barely allowed into nationals last year. She wants me here for the cameras. Absolutely forbids any and all attempts to get in on some singles or pairs action.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] I’m good for the ratings. I almost think she’d approve of me acting out just so she could get her own spinoff.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] I’m sure your dd would have let you.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] dad*… sorry. Stupid keys.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Dad would have paid for my way on the US Team. That’s not how I want to get there.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] There’s always 2016 or you could try for the winter Olympics. You could totally be on the bobsled team.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] Or how about curling?
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Fuck you.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] AFK… Phone.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] K
Beth slid down her desk to reach for her phone. Her eyes read the name displayed across the screen. A flutter moved her heart. Tom. From home. For a moment, she felt anger at the fact he stayed at home instead of coming to see her but that was plain churlish. Hard to feel jealous when he actually had a mother and father who loved him and were happy to see their little soldier return home.
Out of tradition, she let it ring longer than required. Payback for him not seeing her right away and probably being too goodytooshoes to come to her room at this hour of night. Long enough. She touched answer.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t hang up on you, Private.”
“Beth?”
“Oh,” it wasn’t Tom. “Sorry, Mrs. Tinker. I was expecting… Well, you know who I was expecting.”
“Beth, sweetie, are the cam-cameras on… you?” Mrs. Tinker’s voice shook as if every breath required a heaving of her chest. It was like she could hear tears.
“No. We’re done filming until a holiday special I think… why?” Beth had gone cold in side. This was not a woman who wavered easily. She had raised Tom with two jobs while her husband finished graduating college then they managed a meager life in one of the less well off neighborhoods of Haven. She was strong. “What’s wrong? Tom messaged me that he was stateside a few hours ago. He said he was okay.”
There was a pause. No doubt about the crying now. A sound came like the dropping of the phone. She heard of scream of grief. Of loss.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” it was Mr. Tinker now. His was a furious tone. “Tommy was shot in a driveby earlier this evening. H-he got caught in the crossfire between two gangs. He was on his way home…”
Beth could say nothing. Tom was Ranger material. Just like Kate. He had survived the war. Survived combat. Never wounded… And he came home only to die? Where was the justice in that? What was right about it? In what world would God allow such… She couldn’t finish the thought. The cold feeling in her gut had turned to a red hot fury.
Cass was supposed to be on patrol.
“Honey? Beth?” Mr. Tinker wasn’t used to trying to sound comforting. He had to deal with his grieving wife and now his son’s girlfriend of four years. “Do you need us to drive over and stay with you? To talk with you. You really shouldn’t be al—“
She couldn’t allow him to finish saying alone. “It’s okay, Mr. Tinker. My mom’s here,” a lie. “I’ll be okay… I’ll come by tomorrow. We can… we can… you… Well yeah.”
“Yes. That’d be good.” He didn’t see through her. “It’ll really help Karen.”
“Goodbye. See you later.”
Beth took a deep breath then smashed her hand through her wall. In her mind that was Cass’s face. But she’d have to play it smart. Cass was a skilled fighter and Babs would prevent any sort of confrontation. It’d be a waiting game until they could be alone and based on what she heard about what was going on in Opal City, it wouldn’t be long.
But she could wait. In the meantime, she had a purple cloak to don. She had to appear normal. Calm, in control. Relieve Cass of her duty like planned. Then it would be time to bash some heads in. Fuck investigation. Tonight she would be crime fighting.
---
Hood down, mask off; Cassandra temporarily manned Watchtower in Barbara’s absence. It was a refreshing change of pace to the nonstop patrol and undermining of Blüdhaven criminal infrastructure that she and Beth had been carrying out since the other two left town to help the reforming Justice Society of America. She was beat, dead on her feet practically all day. Her exhaustion had become so bad as to attract the attention of her father. Attention she did not want.
She passed the time drawing in her sketchbook. The other three girls had wanted additions to the Spoiler armament; vehicles and such. So far, Cass had come up with designs for a glider that would give them wings, making it quicker to get about the city whenever Charlie was unavailable, and a motorcycle. She had considered a car, even did a rough etch of it, but tossed it in the bin in the end. A car just wasn’t what the Spoilers were about and it’d be a mess to get through the streets of the Haven.
Every so often she’d look up at the monitors depicting the locations of the various Oracle and Watchtower Network members. An alarm would ring, theoretically, if something went wrong in the field. Then she’d glance over at the countless bugs and cameras the Spoilers had been setting up across Blüdhaven. The Watchtower mainframe had been programmed to pick up key phrases and people. When those were seen or overheard, another alert would sound.
That was the basis of their desk duty whenever there was not an active Spoiler out and about. Easy work. Menial work. But even the hardest worker needed a break now and again.
The only thing going on tonight were McDevlins moving about, going on with their daily business, which Cass could do without watching or hearing. As part of their training, Babs had them picking off the small fry in the Haven underworld. They were going up against the likes of the McDevlins, Hill Street Gang, and the Deevers in hopes of drawing out whatever or whoever Blockbuster was.
A chime sounded both in front and behind her. Oracle’s distorted voice followed it.
“S 03.”
Ah, Beth. She’d be walking out of the elevator any second now. Beth had been… strange the past few days. More into the crime-fighting aspect that usually only Cass dealt with to the point Oracle had to restrain her. Barbara said that the elder girl had her reasons and that Cassandra should respect her grieving process. Unaccustomed to most social graces, Cass followed as directed but secretly wished Stephanie was back. Steph had a way of dealing with people that put them at ease. Cassandra usually just hit them.
“Cass,” Beth’s voice radiated anger as it echoed about Watchtower.
Alarm bells went off inside Cass’s head. She spun slowly in her chair to watch the approaching blond warily. There was threat in her voice. She registered that. But what she couldn’t register was what Beth’s movements meant. That shouldn’t have been possible. Cassandra had known how to read body language since before she had learned how to write and speak. It put her on guard. It made the arm hairs beneath her uniform stand up on end.
Beth wore her regular street clothes instead of her own Spoiler costume; designer jeans and a jacket to stave off the cold Haven night. Even had on fur boots. She wove an irregular pattern towards Cass, stopping to check on displays as if it was the first time she’d ever seen them. Relaxed one moment. Tensed the next.
“Hello,” Cass finally greeted as was proper.
Beth smiled back and it seemed sincere. “How’s desk duty treating you?” Her voice was happy, gleeful, confusing Cass more. “I treated myself to a soak in a hottub.” She laughed, finally coming closer to the mainframe and the assassin. “I bet if we explored some more, we’d find one here for you to relax in too.”
“Uneventful,” responded Cass to the first question, “And no thank you.”
“What a shame,” Beth’s tone was sad now, morose. Not exaggerated for comedic value but genuinely distraught.
A furrow crossed Cassandra’s brow. This was… not normal. People did not change their tones of voice like that from one statement to the next. They did not change their posture randomly unless…
It was a sucker punch. There was no other way to describe it. Beth had appropriately predicted Cass’s reactions to her erratic behavior. Certainly helped matters that she didn’t know if she’d succeed so some of it had been real and not award winning acting. But when Cassandra stumbled against the mainframe there was no more acting. She felt bitter satisfaction in finally hitting the source of her fury.
There was no way she’d be able to win the coming brawl. Beth had counted on that so she convinced herself all she needed was one good hit. One good hit and she’d be able to get across that Cassandra was a failure for not saving Tom. That she was too slow, useless, every other dehumanizing insult that David Cain had called her. Beth had seen the footage recorded from Cass’s mask before Gordon could hide it from her. There was no other way to interpret what had happened other than to place Cass at fault for not stopping the Latin Unified sooner.
Beth slammed her knee up in a quick follow through only for Cassandra to spin out of the way. A blow to the back of the head made the blonde’s face smash into a monitor. Luckily she remained uninjured. She slouched to the ground to catch the other girl’s legs in her own, bringing her down under the desk too.
Beth was on her like a wild animal. She pounded and punched and scratched every meaty surface she could find. Mostly to no avail because of the Spoiler impact padding. Cass blocked her then broke through. Fingers stabbed into Beth’s skin and her body numbed almost instantly. She was kicked aside like a ragdoll.
“Why?” Cass asked with a busted lip.
Huffing and puffing. “Cause… Because you didn’t save him.”
“Who?” the Asian started then corrected herself a second later. “Who was he to you?”
“My…boy…friend.”
For the second time that night, Cassandra wished Stephanie was there. She was having a hard time restraining herself from doing further damage to Beth. It went against everything she had been trained to do. And she just had no idea had to deal with an emotional Beth who had lost the one constant in her life.
Dimly, in the back of her mind, she realized she had brought this on herself. She had made no effort to socialize with Beth who in turn had done the same to her. She knew next to nothing about the girl. Hadn’t known she had a boyfriend serving overseas. Barbara probably did. Steph probably had the courtesy to ask. Cass just didn’t care.
It didn’t help matters that their public socializing had to be kept to a minimum to avoid suspicion.
“DC 07,” the Oracle voice recited, “Bard, Jason.”
Around them, Watchtower began to shift as the security level changed. A man-sized hole opened ten feet away, leading to a hiding hole and secret path for the Spoilers to use if need be. And that need was now.
“Shit…” cursed Beth. “You’re going to have to help me.”
Cassandra wasn’t so quick to trust but they only had seconds before Bard would arrive and a few more after that before he’d become suspicious of being made to wait. Heaving Beth to her feet, she half dragged, half carried her to the hiding hole. She none-too-gently tossed the blond inside as the hole closed above her.
A mad dash to the mainframe and Cass did three things at once; she slipped her mask back on, pulled her hood back up, and hit the button to allow Bard to enter from one of the many secret entrances into Watchtower.
Bard walked with a cane and a limp to his step though Cass had known from the first second she met him that the cane was unneeded. It was for show and a weapon. The injury was recent. As was his moving to New Jersey and finding a career as a private investigator. A light drizzle of rain or snow dripped off his tan trench coat. His was a face that once had an easy smile but had over the years turned to a scowl. Unshaven, hair relatively unkempt, he could either be mistaken for a bum or someone who thought scruffy was a style choice. Based on the condition of his clothing, it was probably both.
“Where’s Babs?” his voice was as harsh as he looked.
“North. To pick Charlie up.”
Bard arched a brow. “Charlie? I assumed you…”
“I’m not.”
“North, huh?” his tone was bitter. Well, more bitter. “Bet she’s going to stay a day longer than she intended. That’ll make Knight happy.”
“What do you have for her, Bard?”
“Business, I see how it is.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out two things. One looked like a patch, the other looked like a small pill capsule. He put them on an open tray near the mainframe. He didn’t question the smashed screen. “No luck on the legacies front not that I expected much given that I’m not trusted with most of the secret IDs but I have found these. Just hit the black market. Freddy Minh’s men are dealing it here with looks to expand nationally and globally. Calls ‘em Busters and Slappers.”
“Busters…?”
“The capsule you crush and inhale. The patch you slap to your skin. Both lead to the same results. You get yourself one thug or high school jock with above normal human stats. One helluva of a come down though. Lasts around an hour. Got to keep taking it or you crash and you crash hard…”
“Sounds like Miral—“
“My thoughts exactly.” Bard waved a lazy hand in salute and tapped away with his cane on the way out. “I’ll keep looking. If Babs is right, and I feel she is, this has Mark Desmond’s crummy prints all over it.”
The door slid shut behind him as the hide hole released Beth. “What’s his problem?”
“He was engaged to Barbara before she was paralyzed.”
“And he moved here to reconnect,” once more Beth was all normal but Cass refused to trust her. “Bet it riles him that Starman is probably giving her his Cosmic Rod right about now.”
Cass nodded noncommittally. Things wouldn’t be the same between the two girls. She didn’t know yet how their relationship would change but Beth had proven to her she wasn’t good enough. Nowhere near good enough if she could still be surprised.
---
Roland Desmond did not have the look of a gangster. He didn’t scream mob boss or don like the heads of the Falcone or Aquista Families. Nor did he look like any business man with a rich heritage such as the Kanes or the Elliots. Roland was normal. Bland really. Average stature, not so decent in the way of looks. By all outward appearances, he was the caretaker for his mother and brother and had been ever since his father died. Not threatening in the least.
Inspector Arnot knew such an assumption to be a mistake. He’d known Roland enough to be frightened of him. You didn’t need muscles or a brain to take over the Haven. You needed to be ruthless. And Roland was certainly ruthless. Using his own brother to… If he could do that then it wasn’t much a stretch to think he’d murder anyone who would get in his way.
He’d been doing a lot of murdering lately. Arthur Brown was just the latest. All these failures, all these ventures starting to get spoiled by an urban legend. Made a man want to lash out… bust down a few blocks to get his way.
“I need a body,” Blockbuster said as if he was placing an order at a restaurant. “A dead one.”
“I wouldn’t think someone like you would have trouble finding bodies. Especially the dead ones,” Arnot replied.
Roland sat a tea tray gently into his mother’s lap. This was yet another peculiarity that the Inspector had grown accustomed to. The senile old woman always seemed present whenever they met. Sometimes she drooled, sometimes she slept… Sometimes she did both. Hard to believe the most powerful man in the Haven was such a Momma’s Boy.
“I need a special one for what I have planned. That hero. The returning soldier the Latin Unified gunned down. Thomas Tinker. He’s the one I need. He has the skills, the talent, and the memory my people need.”
Arnot tried not to laugh. “What are you going to do, reanimate the dead?”
Blockbuster met him straight in the eye. “Yes, I am.”
---
Not the way I planned on returning to the Haven. It’s not like I expected rest or anything. It was my own fault for getting injured. If I couldn’t move then Babs would have had me do other things… most likely homework to make up for the missed days of school. I did not see having to make a stop by the Kane mansion in my immediate future. Did not see Beth losing her boyfriend.
When I found out Oracle left her alone with Cassie, I called her an idiot. How was it that I knew what would happen but she didn’t? Beth was cold and calculating. A consummate actress and user. Of course she’d find a way to blame Cass then get revenge.
Honestly, I expected more carnage.
Stephanie sat in silence on the edge of Beth’s bed. Oracle had taken her off duty until such a time as she could be trusted again. Steph had come here to… she didn’t know yet. Just was the right thing to do. Beth likely wouldn’t talk to her usual friends about it. Her family was strictly off limits when it came to hugging it out. Like the other Spoilers, she didn’t have anyone.
There was the scratch of a pencil on paper. That was the only sound that reached Steph’s ear. Beth went on doing her homework, ignoring her. Steph knew better than to say the usual platitudes: I know what you’re going through, it’s get better, c’mon you can cry, etc… She didn’t know what Beth was going through. And she doubted Beth knew.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Erase.
A sniffle and then Beth was back to her homework.
“I hear the Mayor is doing a ceremony in his honor.”
No reply other than a snapping of lead off the end of her mechanical pencil. Click. Click. Homework. AP stuff likely.
“Want to talk?”
“No.”
“Want me to go?”
“… No.”
“Okay then.” Stephanie reclined backwards onto the bed to relax. For some reason, she was seen as the leader of the Spoilers. She honestly had no reason to be with them. No reason to be part of the team. Didn’t seek the thrill like Beth. Wasn’t an assassin trying to atone like Cass. Charlie was in it for the legacy aspect. Stephanie had no reason but to help the girls.
Right now, helping was being there for Beth when she had no one else.
---
A lone figure crouched atop Blüdhaven rooftops beneath moonless night. Strands of his mask trailed behind him, blowing in the cold wind. His heart raced as he stared over the edge at the drug buy going down. He was a changed man. A new man.
He had reinvented himself.
Forever would he run from the memory of that night. He wouldn’t be that weak, never be that indecisive, again. Bludhaven had seen too much blood. It would see more so long as good men and women stood by and did nothing. He’d no longer be one of them.
Taking a deep breath and then another, Gavin watched the drug buy. He steeled himself and then he leaped over the edge. The Nightrunner landed among them…
Boys and Toys Pt 1
Run For the Night
Running across the roofs of Blüdhaven. It’s exhilarating. It seriously lifts your spirits. Almost enough to make you forget that down below there’s at least one woman being raped, ten homes getting broken into, countless acts of vandalism, and all other kinds of crimes the police sirens ignore. So different than Paris. Sure, Paris had its own problems, more so every day according to my cousin, but corruption wasn’t buried deep into the foundation. The city wasn’t built on blood.
Here, though, here I could leap across a building, tuck and roll then start anew. No reason. No worry. Just plain freedom.
And hell, if I got caught. If the police thought my acts of trespassing or disrupting the peace were enough to merit an arrest… Well, my Dad has a big wallet. And he’s paid his dues to the bosses of the Haven.
A commotion down below stopped Gavin in his tracks. He had been about to swing down a fire escape to clamber up the old church down the street when he recognized the colors of the guys below. Hill Street Gang. His father’s men. Or that was the popular rumor. When you’re a platinum record rapper, producer, and label owner… people look the other way at your less than noble origins and turn a blind eye to continued attachment.
He knew what they were doing. This was Latin Unified territory. Initiation rites. They’d tag a few buildings and hopefully run away before they were noticed. Except they didn’t run away in time. An old lady, occupant of the building they were tagging coming home from the corner store noticed them. The older generation was different. They didn’t recognize the modern gang rules. To them, all kids, no matter what color their skin or what they represented, were trouble.
Gavin was torn as they ripped the grocery bags from her hands. She really was a little old lady. Knees bent. Bad back made her double over. But she put up a fight. He wanted to help… Morally, he knew he should help. There wasn’t even a need to fight them. At least one in their ranks would be bound to recognize him and recognizing him, they’d recognized his father.
Bringing his father into things would lead to a bigger mess, he knew but…
“Hey!”
The decision was taken out of Gavin’s hands momentarily. Military uniform, crew cut, duffle bag filled to the brim, ramrod straight posture and muscles galore.
A soldier comes home to the Haven.
The Hill Street Gang members left the old lady alone but not before pushing her roughly to the ground and stepping over her.
“What the fuck you want, soldier boy?” said the boldest of the bunch.
The Soldier, an army something by the looks of his uniform, sat down his duffle bag and held up his hands in a nonthreatening manner. “I don’t want anything other than to see you go on your way.” He took a step closer. “You’ve left your mark. Everyone knows how brave you are. Just… leave.”
A few among the ranks seemed to consider the words. They didn’t want to pick a fight with a soldier, especially one that looked combat hardened. But the bold one, he didn’t know when to back down. He yanked a gun from the waistband of his pants and pointed it at the big man.
“Brave, huh?” He held it sideways like he had no doubt seen in the movies. “I bet you just a bus boy. That uniform of yours ain’t nothing to be scared of.”
“Please,” another step closer, “I’ve been shot at more times than you’ve fired that gun. Leave now and no one needs to get hurt.”
“Hurt—“
“Parker, maybe we should listen to him…” one of the others put a hand on their leader’s shoulder to try to restrain him. “We don’t have to do this.”
“SHUT THE FUCK UP!” Parker took his eyes off the Soldier for just a moment but it was enough. The soldier was on him, snapping his wrist so that when the gun went off, it shot into the ground. He confiscated the weapon a second later and slammed the flat of his palm up the against the gangbanger’s jaw to clack teeth and draw blood as it looked like he bit off his own tongue.
The first volley had been fired… literally. The others would be honor bound to defend their injured fellow. Gavin watched as the old lady crawled away to safety. The soldier didn’t stand there to wait for them to draw their own weapons. He took the closest down with a shot to the gut then a knee to the head. Parker seemed to try to stand only for an elbow to smash against the back of his head. Gavin missed the next bit by blinking at the wrong time. One second there was two men standing. Then it was down to one.
Gavin had made up his mind. If this guy could do what he did for no reason other than it being the right thing to do then so could he. He slid down the fire escape and landed amongst them. Quickly he held up his hands to stop from getting hit himself.
“They’re going,” he glared at the last man who recognized his tall stature, dark skin, and piercing eyes. “Understand?”
“Yeah…we got ya,” the final gangbanger helped the others up, Parker needing more than the rest combined. “We’re going.”
The old lady was nowhere in sight now. It was just Gavin and big soldier watching the initiates brush themselves off. Then they heard the squeal of speeding tires. Heads twisted to see the screeching vehicle roaring down the street. In the back of their heads, they knew to the last man what it meant, but they were too slow to react or too injured. All but one.
Gavin felt a strong grip yank him down and physically toss him out of harm’s way to roll behind a parked sedan.
Baratatatatatatatata!!!
The gunfire vibrated Gavin to the bones. It was a volcano in his head. The Latin Unified’s retaliation was swift and it was deadly. The bullets tore through the soldier, the limping Hill Street Gang Members, and even the car saving the young man’s life. He huddled with his arms over his head and eyes squeezed shut but that couldn’t stop the sound of the slugs meeting flesh, of the man who could have been a hero slumping to the ground with labored breathing.
A peel of tires again and they were off. Or Gavin thought they were. Unbeknownst to him, a purple figure landed atop the vehicle, forcing it to stop early, accounting for the crash he heard an instant later. At the moment, he didn’t care. He crawled towards the dying soldier, knowing that the man had given his life to spare Gavin’s.
“Why?” begged the young man, his pants and hands covered in the man’s blood.
“Didn’t… Didn’t need a reason.” He coughed in his last breaths.
Gavin tried to staunch the bleeding. He tried to do what he could. But it was futile. Too much blood loss. Too many holes. This man had helped the old lady when Gavin should have. Had stopped the Hill Street Gang when that should have been Gavin’s duty… And now he died instead of lived.
One of his hands covered up the man’s name patch so that he could only read the letters T-I-N.
A figure cloaked in purple stepped out of the shadows from the direction the Latin Unified had gone. It waited as a silent sentinel. Gavin felt last bit life leave the soldier. Blood soaked his pants as he remained crouching… wishing things had gone differently… wishing it would have been him who tried to be the hero… wishing this brave fool was still alive.
“You should go before the police arrive,” the purple figure spoke in a modulated voice, masking the gender. Short and slender, Gavin thought he should recognize him. “It’ll be trouble.”
“I’m not going to leave him.” Gavin’s tone was rather forceful. He didn’t know where that resolution came from. “Someone needs to tell his story.”
“Your choice.”
“Who are you?”
The figure paused as it was pulling something from its belt to look up with ghost eyes. “They’ve been calling me Spoiler.” The object appeared to be a grappling hook. “BPD has been alerted but I’ll stay near in case the Latin Unified feels the need to send more men.”
Spoiler shot off its grappling line and vanished over the edge of the roof. Gavin remained as he said he would. He waited for the police. They considered arresting him based on profiling and the situation but the Latin Unified tied upside down to a lamppost down the street and the old lady’s testimony allowed him to sit in the car uncuffed. They took his statement.
It wasn’t until a Detective Soames went over the report for a second time that Gavin realized he never checked the man’s ID. For now, he’d remain a nameless soldier.
---
“You don’t have to be here, Bart,” Barbara growled through clenched teeth, fingers typing away at her keyboard. “Watchtower is a veritable fortress and I am more than capable of defending myself.”
Bart Allen, otherwise known as Impulse, chowed down on a sandwich over her shoulder, nearly dripping mustard all over her. He was a tall young man who looked eerily familiar for a boy who was supposed to be Barry Allen’s grandson. Truly, only real difference she could find between Bart and Barry at the same age was the former was a red head with more muscle mass. The resemblance was far too much.
Yet if they looked the same, their personalities were by far something else entirely. Bart was… well, he was impulsive by nature. Never could stand being still. If he wasn’t staring, or leering at you, with a look of intense focus then his eyes flitted back and forth like a paranoid lizard. None of this prevented him from being responsible. It simply made it impossible to tolerate prolonged exposure to him.
“Jack asked Jay. Jay asked Iye. Iye asked me. Here I am.” Another chomp of his disgustingly loaded sandwich. “Certainly can’t complain about the company.”
Bart gave her one of those stares… a stare that made her feel like he was trying to freeze time for an eternity. It disturbed her like he could see things that she couldn’t, that he could see things that other speedsters couldn’t. Felt as if there was nothing more he’d rather do this moment than to keep it alive.
“Why not go out on patrol then? Spoiler could use your help. Halted a drive by in progress, planted bugs in a corrupt official’s office, and is gathering evidence on the McDevlins and the night’s not even half over.”
“Which Spoiler?”
“What do you mean,” Barbara replied offhandedly.
“Well, Charlie’s strangely not here and there is a Spoiler off with the JSA yet oddly enough I’m seeing through the eyes of one right here.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Charlie’s at a sleepover.”
“Yeah… At Jack’s.” Bart shrugged. “Either way, no can do. Iris asked me to keep you safe so keep you safe I will. Never turn her down.”
The way he said it left an awkward silence in the air.
“Why don’t you go take apart the submarine and reassemble it then? Just, please, stop hovering.”
His eyes lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning. “After I put it together, how bout you get in a bikini and scrub it down for—“ her glare stopped him in mid-sentence. “Right… I’ll do it. Can I get a kiss if I manage to make it go faster?”
Impulse was off before she could start to throttle him. Barbara spared a glance at his zipping about JSA’s old submarine before opening up the feed to Charlie’s mask. She reassured herself that all was okay on that end, that Jack and all the Vets would keep her safe. But… Charlie was practically her daughter; she worried about her more than Stephanie even if it was the blond who seemed to get the short end of the stick when being brave.
It had been some time since they had locked Arthur Brown behind bars and they had come no closer to recovering anything he had stolen before Stephanie involved herself or the proto-gravity rod he had taken from beneath Jessie’s nose. He had refused to speak up and then… well, she wasn’t sure what happened. One day Arthur Brown was in prison awaiting trial then the next… he was gone. His cell destroyed by an improvised implosion device that she wouldn’t put past him to have somehow managed to build himself to leave no signs of his existence.
Arthur had been their only lead. His computer and phone records had revealed little else other than numerous correspondences with Mark Desmond. Barbara had long suspected the Desmond family being involved in shady things but when it came to the public and even the behind-closed-doors dealings in Blüdhaven, they came out unusually clean. Especially when there were mentions of the Blockbuster crew. Mark always seemed to be the nice brother who was at home at home or in a lab. Roland seemed to be the one to watch…
Yet Jay’s shoes flashed in Barbara’s mind. Cluemaster had been operating outside of a Pharmaceutical Warehouse belonging to a company Mark owned… That was too much for mere coincidence and she had her people looking into it. Well, had her people looking into it. Now they were scouring the globe for the legacies of the JSA.
“Oracle,” a call opened up as if summoned by her thoughts. A simian face appeared on the monitor, flanked by two other figures, both covered in hair like him but of a distinctly younger generation. “I have some news for you.”
They wouldn’t see her as Barbara Gordon. She knew that. Her green headed avatar would serve as a proxy but usually there was some warning as to others being present. “So I see.”
“Found a lost kitten belonging to Wildcat,” Chimp began. “Or… rather, the kitten found me.”
“I’m not a kitten, I’m a boy!”
“They’re talking in code, dummy!”
“Oh.”
“You have proof?” asked Barbara after the boys finished their outburst.
“Call it detective’s intuition,” Chimp responded dryly.
She smiled despite herself. “That’s two out of the litter found. Wildcat thinks there are at least three more. Give or take.”
“I’d say it’s likely on the give side knowing him,” Chimp sighed one whose search went ever on. “I shan’t be able to help at the moment but fear not, if your network cannot find them then I doubt anyone else can.”
Barbara wished she could have that sort of faith in herself. But she’d failed already. She should have known their families were being targeted before Jack had ever been warned.
---
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] I’m so jealous.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] Why?
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] You get to go to the OLYMPICS! OLYMPICS! Do you know who I’d kill for to have that sort of global attention?
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] You’re good enough to go
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] I don’t see why your mom wont let you.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Because she’s a bitch.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] Harsh much?
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Seriously. I was barely allowed into nationals last year. She wants me here for the cameras. Absolutely forbids any and all attempts to get in on some singles or pairs action.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] I’m good for the ratings. I almost think she’d approve of me acting out just so she could get her own spinoff.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] I’m sure your dd would have let you.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] dad*… sorry. Stupid keys.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Dad would have paid for my way on the US Team. That’s not how I want to get there.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] There’s always 2016 or you could try for the winter Olympics. You could totally be on the bobsled team.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] Or how about curling?
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] Fuck you.
[highlight=red]Bludskye:[/highlight] AFK… Phone.
[highlight=green]Bullseye2012:[/highlight] K
Beth slid down her desk to reach for her phone. Her eyes read the name displayed across the screen. A flutter moved her heart. Tom. From home. For a moment, she felt anger at the fact he stayed at home instead of coming to see her but that was plain churlish. Hard to feel jealous when he actually had a mother and father who loved him and were happy to see their little soldier return home.
Out of tradition, she let it ring longer than required. Payback for him not seeing her right away and probably being too goodytooshoes to come to her room at this hour of night. Long enough. She touched answer.
“Give me one good reason I shouldn’t hang up on you, Private.”
“Beth?”
“Oh,” it wasn’t Tom. “Sorry, Mrs. Tinker. I was expecting… Well, you know who I was expecting.”
“Beth, sweetie, are the cam-cameras on… you?” Mrs. Tinker’s voice shook as if every breath required a heaving of her chest. It was like she could hear tears.
“No. We’re done filming until a holiday special I think… why?” Beth had gone cold in side. This was not a woman who wavered easily. She had raised Tom with two jobs while her husband finished graduating college then they managed a meager life in one of the less well off neighborhoods of Haven. She was strong. “What’s wrong? Tom messaged me that he was stateside a few hours ago. He said he was okay.”
There was a pause. No doubt about the crying now. A sound came like the dropping of the phone. She heard of scream of grief. Of loss.
“There’s no easy way to say this,” it was Mr. Tinker now. His was a furious tone. “Tommy was shot in a driveby earlier this evening. H-he got caught in the crossfire between two gangs. He was on his way home…”
Beth could say nothing. Tom was Ranger material. Just like Kate. He had survived the war. Survived combat. Never wounded… And he came home only to die? Where was the justice in that? What was right about it? In what world would God allow such… She couldn’t finish the thought. The cold feeling in her gut had turned to a red hot fury.
Cass was supposed to be on patrol.
“Honey? Beth?” Mr. Tinker wasn’t used to trying to sound comforting. He had to deal with his grieving wife and now his son’s girlfriend of four years. “Do you need us to drive over and stay with you? To talk with you. You really shouldn’t be al—“
She couldn’t allow him to finish saying alone. “It’s okay, Mr. Tinker. My mom’s here,” a lie. “I’ll be okay… I’ll come by tomorrow. We can… we can… you… Well yeah.”
“Yes. That’d be good.” He didn’t see through her. “It’ll really help Karen.”
“Goodbye. See you later.”
Beth took a deep breath then smashed her hand through her wall. In her mind that was Cass’s face. But she’d have to play it smart. Cass was a skilled fighter and Babs would prevent any sort of confrontation. It’d be a waiting game until they could be alone and based on what she heard about what was going on in Opal City, it wouldn’t be long.
But she could wait. In the meantime, she had a purple cloak to don. She had to appear normal. Calm, in control. Relieve Cass of her duty like planned. Then it would be time to bash some heads in. Fuck investigation. Tonight she would be crime fighting.
---
Hood down, mask off; Cassandra temporarily manned Watchtower in Barbara’s absence. It was a refreshing change of pace to the nonstop patrol and undermining of Blüdhaven criminal infrastructure that she and Beth had been carrying out since the other two left town to help the reforming Justice Society of America. She was beat, dead on her feet practically all day. Her exhaustion had become so bad as to attract the attention of her father. Attention she did not want.
She passed the time drawing in her sketchbook. The other three girls had wanted additions to the Spoiler armament; vehicles and such. So far, Cass had come up with designs for a glider that would give them wings, making it quicker to get about the city whenever Charlie was unavailable, and a motorcycle. She had considered a car, even did a rough etch of it, but tossed it in the bin in the end. A car just wasn’t what the Spoilers were about and it’d be a mess to get through the streets of the Haven.
Every so often she’d look up at the monitors depicting the locations of the various Oracle and Watchtower Network members. An alarm would ring, theoretically, if something went wrong in the field. Then she’d glance over at the countless bugs and cameras the Spoilers had been setting up across Blüdhaven. The Watchtower mainframe had been programmed to pick up key phrases and people. When those were seen or overheard, another alert would sound.
That was the basis of their desk duty whenever there was not an active Spoiler out and about. Easy work. Menial work. But even the hardest worker needed a break now and again.
The only thing going on tonight were McDevlins moving about, going on with their daily business, which Cass could do without watching or hearing. As part of their training, Babs had them picking off the small fry in the Haven underworld. They were going up against the likes of the McDevlins, Hill Street Gang, and the Deevers in hopes of drawing out whatever or whoever Blockbuster was.
A chime sounded both in front and behind her. Oracle’s distorted voice followed it.
“S 03.”
Ah, Beth. She’d be walking out of the elevator any second now. Beth had been… strange the past few days. More into the crime-fighting aspect that usually only Cass dealt with to the point Oracle had to restrain her. Barbara said that the elder girl had her reasons and that Cassandra should respect her grieving process. Unaccustomed to most social graces, Cass followed as directed but secretly wished Stephanie was back. Steph had a way of dealing with people that put them at ease. Cassandra usually just hit them.
“Cass,” Beth’s voice radiated anger as it echoed about Watchtower.
Alarm bells went off inside Cass’s head. She spun slowly in her chair to watch the approaching blond warily. There was threat in her voice. She registered that. But what she couldn’t register was what Beth’s movements meant. That shouldn’t have been possible. Cassandra had known how to read body language since before she had learned how to write and speak. It put her on guard. It made the arm hairs beneath her uniform stand up on end.
Beth wore her regular street clothes instead of her own Spoiler costume; designer jeans and a jacket to stave off the cold Haven night. Even had on fur boots. She wove an irregular pattern towards Cass, stopping to check on displays as if it was the first time she’d ever seen them. Relaxed one moment. Tensed the next.
“Hello,” Cass finally greeted as was proper.
Beth smiled back and it seemed sincere. “How’s desk duty treating you?” Her voice was happy, gleeful, confusing Cass more. “I treated myself to a soak in a hottub.” She laughed, finally coming closer to the mainframe and the assassin. “I bet if we explored some more, we’d find one here for you to relax in too.”
“Uneventful,” responded Cass to the first question, “And no thank you.”
“What a shame,” Beth’s tone was sad now, morose. Not exaggerated for comedic value but genuinely distraught.
A furrow crossed Cassandra’s brow. This was… not normal. People did not change their tones of voice like that from one statement to the next. They did not change their posture randomly unless…
It was a sucker punch. There was no other way to describe it. Beth had appropriately predicted Cass’s reactions to her erratic behavior. Certainly helped matters that she didn’t know if she’d succeed so some of it had been real and not award winning acting. But when Cassandra stumbled against the mainframe there was no more acting. She felt bitter satisfaction in finally hitting the source of her fury.
There was no way she’d be able to win the coming brawl. Beth had counted on that so she convinced herself all she needed was one good hit. One good hit and she’d be able to get across that Cassandra was a failure for not saving Tom. That she was too slow, useless, every other dehumanizing insult that David Cain had called her. Beth had seen the footage recorded from Cass’s mask before Gordon could hide it from her. There was no other way to interpret what had happened other than to place Cass at fault for not stopping the Latin Unified sooner.
Beth slammed her knee up in a quick follow through only for Cassandra to spin out of the way. A blow to the back of the head made the blonde’s face smash into a monitor. Luckily she remained uninjured. She slouched to the ground to catch the other girl’s legs in her own, bringing her down under the desk too.
Beth was on her like a wild animal. She pounded and punched and scratched every meaty surface she could find. Mostly to no avail because of the Spoiler impact padding. Cass blocked her then broke through. Fingers stabbed into Beth’s skin and her body numbed almost instantly. She was kicked aside like a ragdoll.
“Why?” Cass asked with a busted lip.
Huffing and puffing. “Cause… Because you didn’t save him.”
“Who?” the Asian started then corrected herself a second later. “Who was he to you?”
“My…boy…friend.”
For the second time that night, Cassandra wished Stephanie was there. She was having a hard time restraining herself from doing further damage to Beth. It went against everything she had been trained to do. And she just had no idea had to deal with an emotional Beth who had lost the one constant in her life.
Dimly, in the back of her mind, she realized she had brought this on herself. She had made no effort to socialize with Beth who in turn had done the same to her. She knew next to nothing about the girl. Hadn’t known she had a boyfriend serving overseas. Barbara probably did. Steph probably had the courtesy to ask. Cass just didn’t care.
It didn’t help matters that their public socializing had to be kept to a minimum to avoid suspicion.
“DC 07,” the Oracle voice recited, “Bard, Jason.”
Around them, Watchtower began to shift as the security level changed. A man-sized hole opened ten feet away, leading to a hiding hole and secret path for the Spoilers to use if need be. And that need was now.
“Shit…” cursed Beth. “You’re going to have to help me.”
Cassandra wasn’t so quick to trust but they only had seconds before Bard would arrive and a few more after that before he’d become suspicious of being made to wait. Heaving Beth to her feet, she half dragged, half carried her to the hiding hole. She none-too-gently tossed the blond inside as the hole closed above her.
A mad dash to the mainframe and Cass did three things at once; she slipped her mask back on, pulled her hood back up, and hit the button to allow Bard to enter from one of the many secret entrances into Watchtower.
Bard walked with a cane and a limp to his step though Cass had known from the first second she met him that the cane was unneeded. It was for show and a weapon. The injury was recent. As was his moving to New Jersey and finding a career as a private investigator. A light drizzle of rain or snow dripped off his tan trench coat. His was a face that once had an easy smile but had over the years turned to a scowl. Unshaven, hair relatively unkempt, he could either be mistaken for a bum or someone who thought scruffy was a style choice. Based on the condition of his clothing, it was probably both.
“Where’s Babs?” his voice was as harsh as he looked.
“North. To pick Charlie up.”
Bard arched a brow. “Charlie? I assumed you…”
“I’m not.”
“North, huh?” his tone was bitter. Well, more bitter. “Bet she’s going to stay a day longer than she intended. That’ll make Knight happy.”
“What do you have for her, Bard?”
“Business, I see how it is.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out two things. One looked like a patch, the other looked like a small pill capsule. He put them on an open tray near the mainframe. He didn’t question the smashed screen. “No luck on the legacies front not that I expected much given that I’m not trusted with most of the secret IDs but I have found these. Just hit the black market. Freddy Minh’s men are dealing it here with looks to expand nationally and globally. Calls ‘em Busters and Slappers.”
“Busters…?”
“The capsule you crush and inhale. The patch you slap to your skin. Both lead to the same results. You get yourself one thug or high school jock with above normal human stats. One helluva of a come down though. Lasts around an hour. Got to keep taking it or you crash and you crash hard…”
“Sounds like Miral—“
“My thoughts exactly.” Bard waved a lazy hand in salute and tapped away with his cane on the way out. “I’ll keep looking. If Babs is right, and I feel she is, this has Mark Desmond’s crummy prints all over it.”
The door slid shut behind him as the hide hole released Beth. “What’s his problem?”
“He was engaged to Barbara before she was paralyzed.”
“And he moved here to reconnect,” once more Beth was all normal but Cass refused to trust her. “Bet it riles him that Starman is probably giving her his Cosmic Rod right about now.”
Cass nodded noncommittally. Things wouldn’t be the same between the two girls. She didn’t know yet how their relationship would change but Beth had proven to her she wasn’t good enough. Nowhere near good enough if she could still be surprised.
---
Roland Desmond did not have the look of a gangster. He didn’t scream mob boss or don like the heads of the Falcone or Aquista Families. Nor did he look like any business man with a rich heritage such as the Kanes or the Elliots. Roland was normal. Bland really. Average stature, not so decent in the way of looks. By all outward appearances, he was the caretaker for his mother and brother and had been ever since his father died. Not threatening in the least.
Inspector Arnot knew such an assumption to be a mistake. He’d known Roland enough to be frightened of him. You didn’t need muscles or a brain to take over the Haven. You needed to be ruthless. And Roland was certainly ruthless. Using his own brother to… If he could do that then it wasn’t much a stretch to think he’d murder anyone who would get in his way.
He’d been doing a lot of murdering lately. Arthur Brown was just the latest. All these failures, all these ventures starting to get spoiled by an urban legend. Made a man want to lash out… bust down a few blocks to get his way.
“I need a body,” Blockbuster said as if he was placing an order at a restaurant. “A dead one.”
“I wouldn’t think someone like you would have trouble finding bodies. Especially the dead ones,” Arnot replied.
Roland sat a tea tray gently into his mother’s lap. This was yet another peculiarity that the Inspector had grown accustomed to. The senile old woman always seemed present whenever they met. Sometimes she drooled, sometimes she slept… Sometimes she did both. Hard to believe the most powerful man in the Haven was such a Momma’s Boy.
“I need a special one for what I have planned. That hero. The returning soldier the Latin Unified gunned down. Thomas Tinker. He’s the one I need. He has the skills, the talent, and the memory my people need.”
Arnot tried not to laugh. “What are you going to do, reanimate the dead?”
Blockbuster met him straight in the eye. “Yes, I am.”
---
Not the way I planned on returning to the Haven. It’s not like I expected rest or anything. It was my own fault for getting injured. If I couldn’t move then Babs would have had me do other things… most likely homework to make up for the missed days of school. I did not see having to make a stop by the Kane mansion in my immediate future. Did not see Beth losing her boyfriend.
When I found out Oracle left her alone with Cassie, I called her an idiot. How was it that I knew what would happen but she didn’t? Beth was cold and calculating. A consummate actress and user. Of course she’d find a way to blame Cass then get revenge.
Honestly, I expected more carnage.
Stephanie sat in silence on the edge of Beth’s bed. Oracle had taken her off duty until such a time as she could be trusted again. Steph had come here to… she didn’t know yet. Just was the right thing to do. Beth likely wouldn’t talk to her usual friends about it. Her family was strictly off limits when it came to hugging it out. Like the other Spoilers, she didn’t have anyone.
There was the scratch of a pencil on paper. That was the only sound that reached Steph’s ear. Beth went on doing her homework, ignoring her. Steph knew better than to say the usual platitudes: I know what you’re going through, it’s get better, c’mon you can cry, etc… She didn’t know what Beth was going through. And she doubted Beth knew.
Scratch. Scratch. Scratch. Erase.
A sniffle and then Beth was back to her homework.
“I hear the Mayor is doing a ceremony in his honor.”
No reply other than a snapping of lead off the end of her mechanical pencil. Click. Click. Homework. AP stuff likely.
“Want to talk?”
“No.”
“Want me to go?”
“… No.”
“Okay then.” Stephanie reclined backwards onto the bed to relax. For some reason, she was seen as the leader of the Spoilers. She honestly had no reason to be with them. No reason to be part of the team. Didn’t seek the thrill like Beth. Wasn’t an assassin trying to atone like Cass. Charlie was in it for the legacy aspect. Stephanie had no reason but to help the girls.
Right now, helping was being there for Beth when she had no one else.
---
A lone figure crouched atop Blüdhaven rooftops beneath moonless night. Strands of his mask trailed behind him, blowing in the cold wind. His heart raced as he stared over the edge at the drug buy going down. He was a changed man. A new man.
He had reinvented himself.
Forever would he run from the memory of that night. He wouldn’t be that weak, never be that indecisive, again. Bludhaven had seen too much blood. It would see more so long as good men and women stood by and did nothing. He’d no longer be one of them.
Taking a deep breath and then another, Gavin watched the drug buy. He steeled himself and then he leaped over the edge. The Nightrunner landed among them…