Chapter Text
You worked at ARGUS for five years.
Your departure from them had been… less than amicable. A Belle Reve cell had your name on it after you’d been exposed as a threat-level unregistered metahuman. Even after dedicating years of your life to Amanda Waller and her questionable causes, there was no sympathy to eke out. You’d been made a criminal— a pariah overnight.
And all for the unclaimed glory of saving a life.
So, you’ve been run out of the city and into hiding by one of the most powerful women in the world. You flee from Washington DC.
On your way out, you expect the following to be endless. You expect Amanda Waller’s surveyors and lackeys and employed guns to already be wherever you’re going.
And to a certain extent, it’s true. You’re on the road for three weeks; swapping stolen car for stolen car when need be. You’re stopped and almost apprehended countless times; at gas stations, at motels, at tollways, where ARGUS agents have been planted to watch for you. Their first order is to subdue, restrain, and subsequently arrest you. If that fails, order 1b is to put a fucking bullet in your forehead.
A clerk at a by-the-hour motel slides you a key card from across the counter, and the bell on the door behind you chimes, announcing an arrival. You recall your hair standing up on the back of your neck.
‘Y/N L/N, you’re under arrest for—…‘
Yes, yes. Alphabetically,
Aggravated assault, concealment of assets, contempt, domestic terrorism, eluding and fleeing, false pretenses, fraud, homicide– a lot of fucking homicide, motor vehicle theft, resisting police, trespassing, voluntary manslaughter, use of weapons of mass destruction.
It all ends the fucking same. Everytime.
A trail of blood surrounds you, a red circle, a cycle; suddenly there are such sins at your back, it would kill you to turn around.
And then it changes. Maybe you took a turn on a road they didn’t foresee, maybe they never knew where you were going in the first place. Maybe Amanda Waller is tired of wasting resources on a lost cause. Because slowly, and then all at once, you stop having to kill ARGUS officers.
You pass a sign that says Entering: Metropolis.
It’s a big city. You hear the word Metropolis on national news always in conjunction with some close-call ET bullshit. Always busy with actual malignant super-beings and their respective felonious plans. They wouldn’t be worried about you there, you deduct. There’s a life here, maybe, without killing and being killed.
If you’re lucky.
The trajectory of your time on Earth takes a dramatic shift; falls fast and hard into an uncharted territory for you. You’re so scared. And then… the sun wakes up from behind the skyline, floods your car with orange light. It hits your skin, and it shocks. It feels like you've been living in Plato’s cave for weeks.
You take it as a sign. Drive towards it.
You get a job as a lab phlebotomist at Metropolis General Hospital and you keep your head down.
Undoubtedly strange, you are. You have a deep, dark, static cloud that hangs above you like a baby’s mobile, and people take notice. They tend to shy away from you; something is deep seatedly wrong. You press a hollow needle into someone’s blue-green vein a hundred times a day, and you don’t bother to make small talk with the patients anymore. They leave as fast as they can.
Some days, you barely utter a word to a soul. You learn to go on without anyone's help, or attention, for that matter.
You take to wearing dark clothing and folding into yourself, trying to make as little ripples in the world as possible. Since leaving yourself behind at ARGUS, you have little contact with the things you loved before, and all contact with the nature you deal in.
Blood.
You can smell it, you can hear it sliding along the common person’s veins like it’s nothing. And it almost is nothing. It’s so glaring sometimes, but the very thing that bars you from your past life at ARGUS is what cradles you now.
It’s all you can count on being there when you wake up.
Nobody recognizes you from before, not with your new name and identity, and no agents have come knocking down your door with a warrant. You think that maybe one day, someone will come to know you and you won’t thrash against it like you’re being burned. And it’ll all be okay then. It’s just not safe right now.
But at least you’re fucking alive.
It’s been comparably quiet these last two years.
Comparably quiet, that is— until your phone rings.
Unknown Number calling…
The only person with the number to your burner phone was one Emilia Harcourt. Not that she would ever admit it willingly to the masses, but you’d made a friend out of her at ARGUS. Steadfastly cold-blooded as she tries to be, she can’t deny your leaving had left her already shoddy personal life wanting.
Currently, she’s building a team against inter-dimensional bugs, whilst fighting along side one of them in a Murn shaped body. Murn and Harcourt have a shocking and disturbing lack of resources and allies. But fuck it, they could make do.
Though, a name burned consistently into the back of Emilia’s mind over the course of a few nights. Maybe they didn’t have to just make do. She feels pathetic for having to call, and especially behind Waller’s back, but to make it simple and wholly emotionally detached, they could really fucking use someone like you on their side.
She’s not even really sure if you’re alive.
Her knee bounces as the phone rings in her ear. And then, there’s a lack of ringing, and she thinks you’ve sent her to voicemail. She’s about to pull away when an unsure breath sounds through her phone’s speaker— a life on the other end.
You’re brought back to the land of the living by way of that long-dormant phone lighting up and buzzing on the nightstand of your cold and pallid apartment in one of the rougher neighborhoods of the city. You don’t know it yet, but as soon as you hang up the call, you’ll move like lightning, packing a bag and leaving this apartment cold and pallid and empty for the foreseeable future.
‘Hello?’ You breathe out, voice cracking from unuse.
-
A location ping is sent to your phone, and you drive to Washington, and back into where you are wanted most— into the company which Amanda Waller keeps.
It takes you three days to make the drive from the east coast to the west.
Emilia Harcourt rushes out the door at the sound of a car pulling up to their motel, Murn following closely behind her. Headlights flash them in the eyes, and they hold their hands up as a visor.
You turn the car off, headlights going with it. Their eyes focus in on your figure, and you step out. It’s all still for a moment, except for a light rain hitting the parking lot. She’s just how you remember her; all hard facial expressions and strong eye contact, just with shorter hair. You don’t know the man behind her, but she trusts him, even knowing what he is beneath the handsome face.
‘You came.’ Emilia sighs, and there’s an upturn to her lips. Murn watches curiously. He silently takes stock of you.
For the first time in a long time, you smile.
‘You called.’
You’re pulled into what you assume to be Harcourt’s personal quarters, and just like that, you’re back in the proverbial game. It’s a familiar feeling. Unkempt and startling, but familiar.
Murn throws two dossiers on the couch next to you. You open them as he speaks at you, one for a politician named Goff, and one for a Christopher Smith, alias Peacemaker. You recognize this Peacemaker, and you ask Harcourt if this is the very same Christopher Smith who’d been shot and killed in Corto Maltese. She replies in the affirmative.
‘For your eyes only. Study them. We’ll lay low here for a couple days. Waller is sending someone she trusts for reinforcement.’ Murn speaks with authority. You’re inclined to trust it.
Harcourt shows you to your own room, two rooms away from hers. Close enough for comfort but not so much that it draws suspicion. The door clicks shut behind you, locking automatically, and you let your duffel drop out of your hand next to your feet.
You’ll sleep soundly here, you think.
-
You’re bound by obligation to come along when everyone ambushes the Peacemaker at his weird home.
The first time you meet Chris Smith is also the first time you meet Leota Adebayo. You’re holding the fridge door open for Economos, whom you’d been acquainted with in your past work— while he bends forward to rummage through for food.
Clemson Murn sits in a chair opposite Chris as the rest of you watch on and make your own personal conclusions about the Peacemaker. He introduces you one by one, glazing over your actual job as hostility management.
‘And this is our new recruit, Leota Adebayo, which means she’ll be doing most everything else.’
Leota takes this as an opportunity to make herself transparent with a speech.
‘Glad to be here. Ready to kick some ass, sir. And really lookin’ forward to gettin’ to know all of you. Even you, Peacemaker. Even though you’re not the best guy in the world.’
‘And Economos, you seem like you’re very easy to talk to, so I look forward to working with you. Harcourt, L/N, I feel like because we’re the only women here, we have to have each other’s back. Anything you need, I got you.’
You stand leaning your hip against the counter Harcourt sits on now. You mean to nod your acknowledgement to Adebayo, you really do, but you’re struck– mouth open at how long and drawn out she’s able to make this. It’s thoroughly sweet, though. You like her, as if there was any chance you wouldn’t.
‘And Mr. Murn, I have to say your outfits are really dapper. I’m really excited to be here, and I promise you’re not gonna regret this. I know inside my mind I’m not supposed to be giving a speech, but sometimes my mouth just does what it wants, so…’
‘Close mouth. I’m bitin’ my tongue right now. Not gonna talk again. I’m done talkin’.’
Murn shifts topics and descends into a long lecture about the operation and Chris’s supposed role in it, and by the end of the whole uncomfortable event, you’re sure they could’ve done this without you and John. And probably Leota.
Though, you’re endeared to her now, after hearing her speech. You tell her to call you by your first name instead.
Adebayo extends her arms out wide and gives you a look and a smile, silently pleading for a hug. You wonder if maybe she’s so cautious because she’d tried to do the same to Harcourt upon meeting her and been shaken off violently and loudly.
The last time you were hugged isn’t even a viable memory anymore. It’s so far away that it evades you. Racing thoughts make you hesitate, and you ask yourself if this could be a step in the right direction, and away from the isolation you’d felt before. It’s so cold. You long to feel warmth at your fingertips again, even though you’re supposed to be a fugitive willing to do anything to survive, turned to stone in the process.
You shuffle awkwardly into Adebayo’s arms; she gasps and she wraps around you, her coat rustling when you hug her back. You're flooded with emotion in the embrace because she’s smiling so big her cheek meets yours. At the touch, your brain notices her heartbeat and its exact rhythm, how her veins dilate and contract. Your eyes flutter shut, and the sensation is filed away in your mind under Leota Adebayo, and now she has a trademark that you’ll be able to recognize next time she touches you. She’s rocking you lightly with excitement.
Emilia observes the moment of interpersonal warmth with mild distaste. You meet her eyes over Leota’s shoulder. Her face changes when she sees your expression of solace and relief. She watches you receive something you needed. Her grimace fades a little, just for you.
-
It’s nine pm, and the secure phone Economos has given you is in your hand and scrolling idly. You rest easily in the pseudo living room, all your limbs at different angles and strewn about the couch.
If there’s any surefire way to disrupt someone’s rare moment of ease, it’s by knocking on their door the way Emilia Harcourt does.
BANG. BANGBANGBANGBANGBANG. Seriously.
Not that you need to, but you look through the peephole because it’s a habit you’re not sure you’ll ever be rid of. You see her through the warped fish-eye glass of the hole, and she looks how she does everyday. You think she has something Project Butterfly related to send you to.
‘Hey.’ You open the door for her and walk away from it, not needing to invite her in. You make your way back to the couch and sit upright this time like a normal person.
‘Hey.’ She sounds… unsure, the word dragging out a bit. She shuts the door behind her and follows you inside, but heads towards your tiny motel fridge instead of you.
‘Couldn’t sleep?’ You inquire. She takes her time scouting the entirety of your fridge and it’s contents.
‘I sleep just fine, thank you.’
‘Oh, right,’ You muse, ‘It’s not like you’re a tortured soul or anything.’
‘Don’t you have any beer in here?’
‘I did. An hour ago.’ You nod to the trash can that is full to the brim, three or four empty Heinekens resting on top. ‘Sit.’
She doesn’t, but she huffs and deigns to stand before you in the living room, leaning her full weight against the wall opposite you, arms crossed over her chest and clearly not wanting to sit down as it’d imply that she’s staying for any memorable amount of time. You angle your neck up to look at her. She’s small, but her presence is huge.
You sigh at the tension, ‘What’s going on?’
‘Nothing.’
Sure.
‘Oh? Emilia Harcourt wants to hang out? Outside of work? Color me surprised.’
Her face doesn’t change one bit, her resolve unbroken. She’s holding onto something, and hard. She probably doesn’t even know why she’s here herself. Usually she lets unspoken things fester forever and perish unseen.
Live by the sword, die by the sword.
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake.’ You run your hands down your face and breathe restlessly, becoming more anxious by the second that she’s got something horrible to tell you, ‘Just say it.’
‘About before…’ She tucks her hair behind her ears, ‘I… never said thank you.’
You think you know what she’s hinting at, but you’re not confident enough to embarrass yourself by assuming. ‘For what?’
She scoffs, rolls her eyes, ‘Oh, please. Don’t play dumb, it doesn’t suit you.’
‘Thank me for—‘ You stand now, hands running over your lap as it disappears and coming to rest on your hips, ‘—for coming here? Or for the other thing? Because you know I never needed you to thank me for that.’
Shaking your head as you speak, you take a step forward.
‘True, you didn’t. But… honestly,’ She shrugs and throws her hands up in the air, ‘…maybe you should’ve. It was fucked up. It was unfair. And I owe you an apology. For you being put in the position you were. It was unfair.’
‘Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say the word apology in my fuckin’ life.’ It’s not an insult. It’s an observation. You love her for her inability to admit contrition. It doesn’t mean she doesn’t feel it. It comes with the childhood she had. You grew up poor with a less than peaceful home life just like everybody else within arms reach of you right now, and you learn that people with fucked-up developmental stages will have… eccentricities.
‘I’m serious! You were my f—‘ Emilia cries out, frustrated and sentence cut short by a lump in her throat. She grunts and resets, trying to push the burn in her eyes back, ‘You’re my friend. I never wanted that to happen to you. Especially…’ She laughs dryly, brokenly—
‘Especially not for me.’
Two years ago, you and Harcourt and many other agents, all nameless and faceless to your memory now, were sent on a recon mission to gather intel on a new, violent organization that had risen in ARGUS’s list of highest priority dangers.
They’re demanding money now, millions in exchange for civilians. The name and nature of the organization… none of it you can remember now. Only that they’d up and left their base and taken hostages to a second location, and the two of you were leading a group to scope out the first location.
A slightly younger Emilia Harcourt stands beside you in a dark, dingy room abandoned of life. It’s all empty cots and obsolete equipment left behind, except for two surveillance cameras that sit high in two corners of the space, red light indicating it’s recording.
Harcourt presses her finger to her earpiece, giving the rest of the team an all clear for this wing of the base.
And then, there’s movement behind her. You eyes flit fast to where your brain alerted you, and a wall obscures the majority of a shadowed figure you can barely make out. The world slows down, and the figure peeks out just enough to aim a gun with a laser sight directly at the back of Emilia's head.
A man in a black baseball cap and gaiter mask, seemingly given orders to keep watch of this property. You don’t know if he’s on his own here, or if there’s a matching red dot on your skull right now too.
You can smell him now, his heart is racing. He takes a breath in and out to steady himself for the shot. Your hand shoots out instinctively towards him and over her shoulder, fingers spread to their fullest extent.
When you think back on this moment, you don’t know what your fingers aimed to do. Maybe to attempt to cover her, or to persuade the assailant to please, stop.
‘No!’ A scream is wretched from you and echoes out into the room. The man’s finger starts to press in on the trigger.
Your mind reaches out, grabs a hold of something, and pulls. Hard.
Harcourt turns just enough for her face to be splattered in viscera. The man’s head explodes into red matter and chunks, flying onto every surface surrounding. His body collapses to the floor, his black hat following suit. Harcourt’s hand falls from her earpiece.
You think you hear her utter a What the fuck? under her breath. It’s a fast, low resolution blur after that, and Harcourt is shaking your shoulders and saying something obviously important, given her intonation and expression. Your ears ring, and your face is wet. Blood, sweat, tears.
You make out the word run.
And then you can only remember doing just that— running far, far away.
In the midst of the recollection, you feel yourself walking to her habitually. To console. To hammer in your words with closeness. You’re sure she’ll slough you off, but she needs to know that you’ll try for her
‘Emilia…’ You sigh, ‘It was always going to happen.’
‘I know. It doesn’t make it suck shit any less.’
‘Listen.’ You grab her shoulders softly in your hands briefly, only to center her. Her body is tense, lactic acid and blood filling and pooling the muscle there, ‘It kept you alive. I’d do it again.’
Harcourt can’t think of anything to rebut with that would hold any water. Her eyes flit between yours. She finds no resentment there. So, you continue.
‘We’re good. And maybe it was for the best. Y’know, so we could both be here to save the planet from bugs.’
‘Bugs.’ She laughs, and she wipes a lone escaped tear away with her sleeve like she hates this one tear in specific, ‘Fuck, I’m tired.’
‘Go to bed.’
‘Yeah.’
‘Want me to tuck you in?’
‘Don’t push it.’
She makes way to leave now, and it’s your turn to follow her. She’s halfway out the door when she stops and pivots, eyes to the ground. She calls you again, but this time in a different way, ‘L/N?’
You answer, like you always do, ‘Yeah?’
‘Did I do a shitty thing? Calling you?’
‘Not at all.’ You open the door again a little bit from the crack she was speaking through, and you peck her cheek almost where it meets her mouth before she can comprehend what’s happening. You pull away with an exaggerated Mwah! It's different, touching Harcourt. Easier. More instinctive, and you know she'll put up with you. ‘It’s past your bedtime, lady.’
Her face gets the tiniest bit warmer. ‘Oh, fuck off.’
And she leaves. All’s well that ends well.
-
Emilia will try to keep you away from prying eyes as much as she can, and you rarely have to get your hands dirty. You are, after all— still a wanted woman. You are also, unfortunately, a liability. The less known about you, the better.
But–
On the other side of the coin, you’re a blank slate. No one knows you in Evergreen, and that makes you hard to locate, and a great candidate for participating in black ops. Additionally, you were thoroughly trained in combat as a prerequisite to your job at ARGUS. An extra set of hands to hold a glock is a huge plus, and you know how to do a lot more than just hold a glock.
So later that night, hours after Emilia leaves you and all is quiet, another characteristically violent knock on the window of your room shakes you wide-eyed.
You and Harcourt, half awake, rush into Leota’s car and make way for where the chip in Chris’s head says he is, Wild Estates Apartment Complex.
In assisting with his escape from the apartment and the fleet of cops, you’re used in the field for the first time aside from occupational level sneaking around and unloading a magazine into someone. There are a lot more moving bodies here, so you decide to drop the blood pressure of multiple officers until they faint and fall into the grass below them, which buys Chris more time to do… whatever Chris does.
And now the floodgates are open, and you’ll be using the blood hungry part of your brain to eat away at Project Butterfly’s opponents going forward. You try to settle into it.
Some time later, John is stitching up a particularly nasty gash on Chris’s shoulder after going toe to toe with— and eventually blowing to pink mist— Annie Sturphausen.
You sit next to Economos, assisting him by handing him medical supplies when need be. The two men bicker like children, but you are not mature enough yourself to not find it entertaining.
By God, you’ve missed people.
You listen quietly and smile to yourself when John uses the term stan.
‘I’d rather be with fuckin’ Bat-Mite than you!’
‘Who’s Bat-Mite?’
‘He’s a two foot tall interdimensional imp who stans Batman. I’d rather be with him.’
‘Is that a real guy?’
‘Yeah.’
Chris’s eyes flit over to you for a second opinion. You nod twice slightly, your mouth bending into a downwards purse that communicates your confidence in Bat-Mites existence.
-
The first time you see Vigilante, he’s peeking from behind a bush at the Goff stakeout. He ends up staying, but you don’t say anything to each other directly.
The first time you meet Vigilante, it’s straight after the would-be assassination turned into a torture scene for he and Chris, a one on one with Judomaster with Economos, and an experimental explosive try-out for the rest of you.
You’re the last to get in, shutting the door behind you and planting yourself in the only left available seat, which is next to the guy clad in teal and black; who hadn’t been invited, but has now been sucked into your group for security reasons.
The van rocks you all back and forth, and Vigilante cradles his leg in his hand, one foot bloody and bare. When he’d gotten into the car, you smelled him before you saw him. Red drips from his pinky toe onto the metal plated flooring, resonating in your ears even through the chatter.
Vigilante groans and whines. ‘I’m not sure I’m ever gonna walk again.’
‘Why?’ Says Economos disbelievingly from the front.
‘Motherfucker cut half my pinky toe off. S’the most important toe there is.’
A myriad of disagreements sound off.
From Adebayo,
‘Yeah, that’s not true.’
From you,
‘No.’
And from Harcourt,
‘I don’t think so.’
‘Yeah, it is! You can’t walk without it!’
Adebayo tries to take the reins, ‘You can walk just fine without a pinky toe.’
‘You’ll fall over and look stupid all the time and everyone will laugh at you.’
Harcourt asks the important questions, ‘Who’s gonna laugh at you for falling over because you don’t have a toe?’
Chris answers it for her, laughs and tries to silence himself when he receives stares, ‘I was just imagining it. I’m s— I’m sorry.’
‘You can’t walk if you lose your metatarsal. That’s like the knuckle of the pinky toe, but if you just lose your pinky, it’s fine!’
‘Pinky actually contributes, like, the least.’ You agree with Adebayo, trying to offer some comfort.
‘Well, it fucking hurts! Look!’ His knee is up to his chest now, trying to give you in particular a better view. He barely knows who you are, just that you’re an ally, and you seem to maybe, possibly— care about his plight. And he really wants some sympathy right now.
Your thighs touch in the bumping of the traffic. He looks to you for your opinion. You give it to him.
‘It’ll heal. There’ll just be a scar.’
‘Mmph.’ He pouts.
You lean forward to make eye contact with Harcourt, ‘Should I stop the bleeding?’
‘No.’ Her back falls against the wall of the van, annoyed and worn thin, ‘Let him fuckin’ hemorrhage.’
You’re alone in the van now. The back door is open to the parking lot, morning light submerging the space so you can see well. The back of the vehicle is usually a mess after a mission of any sort, and you guys just keep picking up strays to add to the invite list.
Random knives lay unholstered on the ground, along with an empty bag of Hot Cheetos and rags used to wipe dirty faces and hands easily in the process of driving back to headquarters. Economos sometimes leaves unassuming cords lying around too, waiting to be tripped over. You put things back where they belong. It gives you something to do while you wait for the adrenal crash and following exhaustion.
So now, you’re kneeled before Vigilante's small pool of amputation blood. You look at it for a moment, and then you will it off the floor and into the air. Red droplets hover before you in orbs, wavering and swishing until they come together to form one bigger, collective orb. You usher it into an already dirty rag in your hand. It obeys, sinks into the fabric easily like it’s being swaddled.
‘Hi.’
Head shooting up from the rag, you look, and it’s Vigilante. Quickly, you stand from your crouch, ‘Hello…?’
‘I don’t usually get body parts cut off. I’m very on top of my game, y’know— with killing people… before they can do that. This was just a one off. Thought you should know.’ You don’t really know why he’s telling you this, but he’s definitely awkward about it.
‘Ah.’ You offer him a nod, ‘Happens to the best of us.’
‘What are you doing?’
‘Uh—‘ You look to the floor where his blood was, now completely clean and without a trace of viscera ever being there before. Letting the rag in your hand fall open, you gesture to the red. ‘Cleaning your blood up.’
‘Oh, yeah. Sorry about that. Bye.’
He waves and limps away. You think you’ll probably never see him again.
-
You find out that the man behind the Vigilante mask is called Adrian.
The first time you saw Adrian, he was your busboy at Fennel Fields at dinner with the whole operation days earlier.
The first time you meet Adrian, you’re being debriefed by Economos’ powerpoint days later.
Everyone already there is sitting around one side of the desk when Adrian and Peacemaker walk in together. Adebayo is just ahead of them in terms of punctuality, setting her bag down, and Adrian watches her bend down to you in your seat to give you a brief good morning hug. She’s uttering some apology and reason for why she’s late. His focus attaches to you now, almost magnetically.
Dark, round shades sit high on your nose. You wear a hoodie with the hood up, wisps of hair peeking out behind the fabric.
You accept her embrace immediately, using one hand to pat her back and the other to hold a mug. Your face stays perpetually unmoved, but it's clear from your disposition that if you found the touch you’re receiving to be undesirable, you’d make it known.
Adrian’s never seen this exchange between the two of you— actually, he’s never seen anybody in this entire group touch one another gently or compassionately, at least not that he can tell. So, Adebayo’s a hugger, and you make space for her, for some reason. It’s natural, and he takes notice.
Behind his thick wall of blind confidence in himself, he wishes he could be so natural. Peacemaker never hugs him. Adrian frowns.
The powerpoint presentation turns into an all out shit-show. An anticipated shit-show, if you’re wise.
Chris exclaims that Superman uber liebes the old schiesse, Harcourt yells at Chris for spreading misinformation to a group of individuals actually trained and relied on to have the correct information, Chris yells at John for putting his father in prison, and finally— Murn yells at everyone.
‘Do y’all want to be here til tomorrow?’
You’re sat in between Leota and Harcourt. Your arms are crossed over your chest and your head hangs low, not having been paying attention to the powerpoint at all. It wasn’t really for you, as you’d done your research and read all the files Murn had to offer. A headache pounds behind your sunglasses. The yelling is not making it any better.
The room goes silent, and Adrian slowly raises his hand,
‘Do you have cable? Cuz, I don’t want to be here overnight if there’s no cable. Fargo’s on tonight.’
You lean forward in your chair until your elbows rest on the desk in front of you, recognizing his voice and demeanor after not paying much mind to him. The chair creaks under your movement, and your eyebrow furrows in discernment.
He got his pinky toe half cut off, amongst other things that befell him, and he’s worried about… Fargo? ‘… Didn’t you get your balls electrocuted last night?’
You speak for the first time today since muttering a greeting to no one in particular when you’d entered. Adrian turns to the sound of your clear, low voice that disarms him, rings his head like a bell. He stammers visibly for a second before scoffing a breathless laugh.
‘…No.’ He says it with almost too much incredulity. He doth protest too much.
You shoot a look at Emilia, face shifting into an amused closed lip smile, and a moment passes between you two that Adrian can’t read. She doesn’t break a smile herself, but her brow lifts up like she’s heavily tuned in to the conversation, which is reaction enough to satisfy you.
Adrian is thoroughly embarrassed to be so exposed in front of the weird girl. Not to mention that you and Harcourt are obviously having a telepathic girl-conversation about him right now. He whips his head around to Chris, ‘Why the fuck would you tell her that?’
Peacemaker shrugs, ‘Told everyone.’
‘Wha—‘ Adrian flusters for a moment, and comes back full force, ‘Okay, separate question, you have the scary boss, the underboss, the computer nerd guy, the rookie, the ass-kicking people, and…’
He points to Murn, Harcourt, Economos, and Adebayo respectively, ending with gesturing between himself and Chris, even though he himself isn’t even officially on the team.
‘What’s your job?’ He points a gloved hand squarely at your face. It’s quite clear that he’s trying to shift the focus off his electrocuted crotch.
Chris sighs, ‘She’s been here the whole fuckin’ time, and you don’t know what her job is?’
‘It never, like— came up! ‘Scuse me for being curious. God.’
Murn pipes up after rubbing at his temples silently for the span of this conversation, ‘That’s on a need-to-know basis.’
‘I don’t qualify?’
‘No.’
‘But I was totally cool and helpful last night!’ Adrian’s attention keeps revolving back to you each time after being scolded. ‘Why are you wearing sunglasses? Are you blind?’
Finally, a question you can answer yourself comfortably. ‘I’m hungover.’
‘Oh.’
Angry blonde woman to your side shoots you a disapproving glare and sighs heavily, ‘Of course you are.’
You suck your teeth in fake surprise at her callousness, ‘Tchk. So judgy.’
‘Aside from being hungover,’ Harcourt starts, ‘She’s also field trained and highly valuable. We need her, so try not to creep her out. If that’s fucking possible.’
Adrian’s eyes skip around the desk in front of him for a moment, debating whether or not to ask the question that could make or break his day. As if he could stop the runaway train that is his voicebox. Chris had told him previously that you’re an import from Metropolis, and also told him that you’re a babe with superpowers or some shit.
He went home that night and typed your name— misspelled at first— into his search engine and pored over a lot of fucking articles and looked at a lot of fucking images.
For the articles, the public information on you is pretty meager, probably due to the nature of your line of work. But from what he can find, there’s an open case for unexplained bodies with a unique calling card that popped up across the span of the US. They don’t mention what the calling card is, but ARGUS attributes these murders to you, and they conveniently leave out the fact that they’d previously employed you.
Adrian finds that a couple years ago the CIA put out an APB on you and in it, released your age, height, approximate weight, identifying marks, and aliases you may answer to, including but not limited to: the Hound.
As for the pictures, they’re mostly blurry CCTV frames and the headshot from your ARGUS ID.
Adrian tells himself it’s plain old detective work, doing his due diligence, but he stares at your picture for a long time.
‘Do you know Superman?’
‘No.’ There’s no simple inflection to your voice. You’re not annoyed by his question, or offended.
Adrian throws his head back and sighs like an angsty teenager, ‘God dammit!’
‘No more questions.’ Harcourt chastises him, harsher this time. But he’s already bouncing back from his Superman disappointment, and he doesn’t hear her over his river of questions, still flowing.
‘They call you the Hound? Like from Game of Thrones? Sandor Clegane’s face is all fucked up, but yours is, like, fine.’
It’s not fine. He thinks it’s better than fine.
A silent moment passes, and Adrian thinks he isn’t going to get an answer out of you. You chew at the inside skin of your cheek. Then, a wet tingling starts at the beginning of his nose and trails down to his upper lip. The taste of iron seeps into his mouth, and he touches at his cupid's bow. His gloved hand pulled away wet and glistening red. Adrian tries to meet his wide, confused eyes to yours through your sunglasses, but he can’t tell where you’re looking.
This is a small, controlled display of potential without having to say it. If he were a bad man with bad intentions and a gun pointed at you, you could pull all the blood out through his pores. You could make the cells vibrate until the skin bursts and human matter spews everywhere.
Once, you’d been surrounded by bad men with bad intentions in the alleys of Metropolis. You were scared. And where fear meets unchecked and unbalanced hemokinesis– violence is to be expected. You exsanguinated the lot of them on barely a conscious thought, leaving pale, tough bodies for some rookie cop to follow up on.
It was a sickly, gasping, drenched orchestra of sounds.
You find yourself having to use it for unsavory reasons. Turning people into red puddles. Turning yourself into a red puddle. When you turned twelve, you got your period. The first day was okay, mostly spotting. But the second and third days, from what you can remember— we’re just small moments between heavy cramps in the fetal position.
You’d gotten up to get painkillers when another cramp struck through you like a twisted knife to the gut, and you bent in on yourself, grabbing at your stomach. A wave of something crashed over you again, but unlike the pain from before. A collection of rapid heart beats and red flashes behind your eyelids consume you. Your eyes move back and forth like you’re in the middle of a dream.
You clench hard. Everywhere.
And then—
A blissful release.
When you’re sure the worst is over, sensation comes back to you. A warm wetness starts to cool off between your thighs and down your legs. Your eyelids part to find a giant pool of blood at your feet, still expanding over the hardwood floor and leveling out. The pool soaks your white socks— it’s origin plain to see at your underwear.
You’d had your first period all at once.
Your mind had bent your growing body to its own will. The ache and the sheer change of it had made your subconscious bubble to the surface, searching for relief and taking drastic measures to protect you. It flushes what it feels it needs from your system; it kills the pain the only way it can fathom.
Something's the matter with you. And you are your own first victim.
As teenagers often are.
Over the years, you grow and evolve. You change countless times over on the way you feel about your capabilities. In the end, or at least, where you find yourself now— it’s clear that this might that’s been thrust upon you is never going to be conventional. And nothing you’ll ever use it for will be something that can be understood.
You’ll never be able to find a throughline of where the power comes from, only that it comes naturally, and to ask it to be pretty would be against it’s own design. Divinely given or otherwise.
It’s useful for all sorts of things, though.
Phlebotomy, notably. Sometimes a good vein is hard to find.
And a small nosebleed to ensure understanding from an otherwise suspicious character you’ll be working with indefinitely. Adrian wipes the remaining red from his nostrils on the heel of his gloved hand, obviously unconcerned about the blood staining, and more focused on you.
‘Bloodhound, dipshit.’ Harcourt answers Adrian angrily, hoping it’ll be the last of it.
‘Wha—‘
‘No more questions, dude.’ Peacemaker shakes his head.
‘Just Y/N is… fine.’ You nod in Adrian’s direction reassuringly. He nods back, a smile creeping up on him when he looks away, fully overtaken by the effect one woman can have on the human body from four feet away.
He understands now. He thinks he does. It only draws him closer.
It also tightens a coil of arousal low in his chest.