Up and Away(SI MCU)

[Proman]

It was the rain that woke me up, it felt like I had been shoved into a heavy shower while still being in my regular clothes. On top of that, I was lying face down in a rather dirty puddle, my mouth wide open and my tongue tasting the muck.

"Fuck!" I shot up, my dripping wet hair slapping me in the face. Surprised, I tried to blink out the water from my vision, throwing out an arm to hold onto a nearby wall when black spots started to fill my sight and the world started to spin around me, causing me to lose my footing.

Because of the spots that filled my vision, the only thing that I could use to tell where I am was the sound of cars roaring past me at a subdued speed I'd expect from a busy street. There were also some yells coming from people, basically, should people be speaking to each other loudly.

"God," I groaned as my sight returned. A searing ache hit my head like a bullet was going through it. "What did I drink last night to cause this?"

It looked like I was in some alley, in someplace that I didn't recognize at all.

I closed my eyes as the light from the street suddenly hit, telling me that it was some point during the day rather than night. With another groan, I spat out the muck from my little time with that puddle I was surely standing in by now.

It wasn't long until my balance was righted and I could stand on my own without the world feeling like it was falling down around me. It was then that I had a sudden thought, why is it sunny… when it was raining just seconds ago.

It was then the showering started once more, the sun getting blocked by the dark clouds that were no doubt above me at this very moment. For the first time, I looked up, seeing the tall buildings that surrounded me being basked in beams of light coming from behind the gaps between the rain clouds.

"I've no idea where I am," I spoke suddenly, my head peeking out of the alley to see the people that we're walking on past me. "Which city is this? Ain't Dublin."

The Irish Capital had buildings with a different sort of architecture, the streets were designed with a different sort of pavement that was flatter, that was greyer. The number of tall buildings as well was a sign that really highlighted that this was some other country, Irish cities didn't have many buildings of this size.

I glanced up the street finding that while crowded, it wasn't overly busy for such a wide place. At the corner of the street, I spotted a newspaper stand, I got an idea.

It only took a few seconds for me to get over there, a loud jangle in my pocket telling me that I had plenty of change to buy a paper. I put a smile on my face, trying to keep it natural as I strode up to the man at the stand.

My heart started to race, I didn't like the stare this man was giving me, it even caused me to shiver a little bit. Though that could've been just how wet my clothes were from the rain.

"Sup," Speaking absentmindedly, the man at the stall repeated the phrase back to me. I threw my eyes to the papers down below, finding the New York Bulletin staring at me with its' bold title page. I didn't even look to the main image or the head title, just the dates that were listed on top of the title.

May 2nd, 2008.

"This the latest paper?" I asked the man, for the first time letting my eyes meet his.

"Yeah, what of it?" he responded, only briefly looking down at the papers, though I'd imagine that he'd be seeing it all upside down.

"2008?" I raised a single eyebrow, twisting my head to the side so I could give the man a side glance.

"Yeah 2008," Now it was the Newspaper Stand Man's turn to glance at me funny, something that caused me to feel more than a little self conscious. "You feeling okay man?"

Licking my lips while scratching the back of my head, I could feel my heart start to race at the sudden thought that entered my head. Had I gone mental?

"Yeah, just gone on a bit of a binge last night, just woke up with a headache. So I'm just washy…"

Which was when I finally looked at the image on the front of the New York Bulletin… with the words written across it…

"Iron Man is Tony Stark, the CEO moonlighting as an international vigilante, is he a hero or a danger?"

I couldn't believe what I was reading, it was like someone had been playing a joke on me. Had Disney buying out Marvel lead to some bizarre New York theme part of Disney land where everyone stays in character?"

"Insane ain't it?" his voice brought me back out of my thoughts, causing me to sharply glance at the people walking around me, searching for some end to the streets that didn't look like a real city. "Stark thinks just because he has money and some fancy armor that he can take the law into his own hands, it's ridiculous."

"Yeah," Was all I could muster up, picking up the paper and throwing the man a few coins that I had on me, only letting the size of them tell me what they were, no doubt overpaying the man. I walked away, ignoring the man's call for me to return for my change.

My attention was too caught up in the article in front of me, talking about what the CEO of Stark Industries had gone through in the last few months, about how he was kidnapped, about how he escaped the adductors. It went into further details, but basically it repeated a lot of the Iron Man movie, barring the personal interactions.

Including how the "I am Iron Man" scene only happened yesterday.

If this was a prank, then I've pissed off someone with a lot of money. But I don't know what I could have done to Elon Musk?

There was a splash from a car hitting a nearby puddle that hit the lower half of my left leg, causing me to moan out loud quietly. Only the sudden growl from my stomach and a rather severe cramp stopped me from cursing out my life at the moment.

Before I could even think about what to eat my eyes caught a glimpse of a rather large sign saying all you can eat… 7.50 Dollar.

The windows of the place were red-rimmed, the door a blue shade that clashed with that red horribly. Something that I hadn't thought possible before now, at least to my understanding of color-coding.

The place was called Joey's or something like that, I honestly couldn't be bothered to read it properly, I was just so hungry.

"Stomach, you're about to become full." I grinned while walking forward through the doors of place, some family-owned place from the appearance of it. The inside seemed to say the same to me as well, so I walked forwards towards the buffet table… when an arm came out, stopping me only barely in my tracks.

"For such a skinny guy you sure are train-like," This man told me, his face having on it a slight smile that masked the grimace I could see form in his eyes along with the slight scrunching of his nose. It looked like I smelled bad. "It's the fee upfront, sir?"

I took a breath, letting my eyes take in the man before. He was just a normal slightly overweight guy in a shirt and pants.

"Right," As I reached through my pocket's looking for the jingling of spare change to help me find where exactly I'd put the money in coat pockets. From, the by now rather peeved expression that seemed to take over the other man's face, I knew that he wouldn't like me standing up looking for the money for much longer. "Found it!"

In a rush a nearly threw the tenner onto the man's waiting hand. A sigh of relief leaving my body as I came to realize that I hadn't even checked what I had on me before this. I was super lucky that It was an American Dollar and not… like a Pound or even a Euro note.

My eye was drawn onto the plates of pasta, some kind of cheese mix, so I grabbed a large bowl and filled it to the brim. Letting the smell of the freshly cooked Italian food enter my nostrils. Usually, I wasn't the kind of person to eat food like this, but as it's been said… hungry is the best sauce.

I found a free table and started to down my meal as if I hadn't been eating right for the past few months. I was actually eating too fast as it turns out, the food got stuck in my throat, causing me to cough and punch at my chest.

Eventually, I noticed the water jug on the table and so filled the nearby glass.

A good gulp was all I needed.

"You okay?" Glancing up, I found it was the man from before that had spoken, actual concern was etched on his face.

"Yeah, " Replying sheepishly, I rubbed the back of my head. "Just ate my meal too fast, I'll be careful from now on."

It was only when the man gave me a slow nod, turned and walked away from me that I dropped my hand from the back of my head. That was when I noticed something odd, my hair was far longer than I'd ever remembered having it; like it hadn't been cut in about a year.

Which was concerning only because I've never let my hair grow past my ears before.

"What the fuck?" I whispered, bringing my hand over to cover my mouth. Taking another bite of my meal, hoping that it would stop me from doing that thing when I start to talk out loud when I was, in fact, trying to just think.

I let my heart race, let my right leg start to bounce under the table. I was sure that this was a dream, it made no sense to be stuck in New York, with the right currency, while both somehow being in the past and having grown out my hair.

Suddenly my arm brushed up against a chest pocket as it made way towards my face to pinch my nose. When I felt what was there, my leg stopped bouncing, my heart froze. Chuckling lowly, I crept my hand into the pocket grabbing the newly revealed phone and wallet that I had somehow not noticed in my blind panic.

I looked at the phone first, it was the model that I had in secondary school. A Samsung C3050, an old sliding phone from before Android took over, which annoyed me, mostly because if I really was in the past then even this phone might be too new for me to use with the current phone operators.

Still, I slide the phone up to enter in my home number, making sure to add the digits needed to call it when out of Ireland. That was when I got the dreaded reply from the phone.

"We're sorry; we are unable to complete your call as dialed. Please check the number and dial again, or call your operator to help you."

With my anxiety acting up more every second, I slid the phone back to disengage the call. My hands coming up to my eyes as I rested my head against my palms and my elbows against the table.

I let out a low breath, trying to calm my racing heart while my mind told me that there was a chance that my phone just wasn't covered in this country. Though the chances of that were low when I'd already been carrying US Dollars.

"What'll I do now?" I whispered, pulling lightly on a small section of my long hair at my fringe. To keep my anxiety from acting up once more, I started to think about the situation in hand from a detached point of view, like I was playing an RPG.

First, it was obvious that no matter what the Paper said earlier, that at least six months had passed since I could last recall, my hair told me that. But the more worrying thing was that I couldn't place the date I was taken at, not what time it was in the school year even. The only concrete thing I could say was that it was Leaving Cert year. Meaning that it should be 2012.

Was I even at school still when I was taken?

I looked at my reflection on the handle of the fork I'd been eating with and found that I'd gained some stumble along my jaw, that I'd grown as far as to grow a small mustache even, something that I hadn't managed while going to school.

"Maybe it's been more than six months?"

"What's been?" The voice spooked me, causing me to jump in my seat just a tiny bit. "Sorry," I turned to face the speaker, their apology for scaring me seemingly sincere sounding enough for me to take it at face value.

"It's fine, I was in my own world," Taking in this new person in front of me, I didn't think much of her other than she was around that age I'd been thinking I was, 18 and that she was huge. Not in a fat way, but that way I'd expect out of soldier, like she was ready to wreck some shit up. She was wearing something of a jumpsuit and looking like they'd just come from a run, and given that it was raining, that meant she was soaked.

"Pat," I held out a hand to shake.

"Louise," She sat down on the chair across from me, not shaking my hand. Which given my state of dress… and how I woke up in a puddle, I don't blame her, I wouldn't shake me hand either.. "Hope you don't mind me sitting here, all the other tables are full."

I took a quick look around the room, finding that I'd somehow not noticed earlier the other tables being full.

"I'm told that it's a free country," I moved my eyes back to my food, seeing that the plate was nearly empty. "Can hardly stop you. You've already sat down and look like you could defenestrate me with one hand."

I tried to keep my tone light as if the day hadn't bothered me but I was sure that some of my shakiness got through. The only thing that I could hope for was that the girl put it down to me looking homeless.

Homeless could mean that I'm coming off drugs… not sure why I wanted that.

"Always wanted to try it," she shrugged, a slight grin on her face. "Just never found a reason to."

"Sorry, but I don't plan on giving any reason," I took a few more bites from the pasta in front of me. Watching as Louise took a comic out of her bag, I found that I couldn't recognize it, but that's not saying much given that I only really read a handful of DC titles. "Whacha reading? If you don't mind?"

"Hyperion: Judgement Day," She raised a single eyebrow in disbelief if I was reading her face right. "You're not a comic fan?"

"Sure… just more into the Irish comic scene," I lied back, trying to think of a reason why I didn't know the comic. Though, really I hadn't needed to and that was more likely to lead to more issues than solutions.

"There isn't an Irish scene for comics," Louise responded, her expressionless amused than it had been before. "I should know, been to Ireland before."

"Exactly, hence my lack of comic knowledge," I recovered instantly, giving her a hammy wink from my left eye. Something that did cause her to let out a small giggle, something that seemed to ease the tension that I'd caused earlier. "Tell me about Hyperion?"

"You don't know about Hyperion?"

"Just general stuff, last of his race, sent off to Earth by birth parents," I shrugged, watching as Louise actually twisted her ponytail, squeezing the water out of it and letting it hit the ground. "Raised to be a good little American, but that's about it."

"You've got the right of it," She told me, her eyes reaching towards mine as I leaned back into my chair. "Except for the odd issue that modern-day comics have where it just can't stop making evil alternate timeline versions of him."

"Gets boring?"

"Gets boring," Louise nodded, her eyes coming back to read the pages down below. "And makes being a fan really hard at times."

"I've got a question?" I asked while reaching for the last few forks of my meal.

"Good, because mine's what's the question?"

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at that one, using my left hand I forced my fringe out of eyes. Honestly, I hadn't expected that I'd be laughing like that so soon but it could've been due to mania setting in. I'm told that people eventually fall into that when they go mental.

"You know where the nearest phone booth is?"

"Yeah, it's around just down the block," Louise pointed out the door and to the left. I could tell that she was kind of confused by this response. "Why, is your phone not working?"

"Must have broken it," I shrugged, standing up and hearing the squeak of my shoes on the floor below. "Got some calls to make, maybe I'll see you around sometime?"

"Maybe."

---

The phonebooth I found was old, it was rusted in some places. The glass that made the walls were broken in the sides, the shards had been gathered up and gotten rid of a long time ago from the lack of any surrounding the booth. The phone itself though?

That was glistening clean, with glowing blue buttons and two green neon swirls for both the mic and the speaker. It was like someone had put a brand new phone in but for some reason didn't bother with replacing or even just fixing the rest of the booth.

I think that I spent over ten minutes going over the phone booth, trying to figure out several things. First, how to use a payphone, since I've never actually used one before in my life. The second, was it broken or did I just not know how to call people internationally with it?

I checked the device over, finding no fault in any part of the slick machine before me. Couldn't even understand the damn blasted thing.

"What's wrong with it?" Growling, I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. "This shouldn't be so hard, it's a fucking phone!"

Stamping my foot down hard the phone booth's floor… I heard a rather loud crack spread from my feet. I flinched, closing my eyes hard enough that I would be surprised if they disappeared into the recess of my sockets.

"Just what I need." I opened my eyes and stared at the ground that had dared to break because I put my foot down on it too roughly. "To be arrested for destruction of public property."

That was when I noticed the sign I was standing on, a crack running through the form of what looked like a steel sign saying: "Out of Order."

Taking a deep breath, I was about to turn around and leave the booth… till it started to ring, the chime an alien sound to my ears, like something I'd expect a xenomorph to make before leaping at their prey.

"It's ringing?" I glanced left, I glanced right, hoping that someone would run up and reveal that it was for them, because the only other option was that someone was watching me at this very moment. That was when… the numbers on the phone changed into letters, going from a soft blue to a sinister green.

ANSWER THE PHONE

My heart skipped a beat, my mouth dropping in surprise. So I picked it up, letting the speaker touch my ear slowly while letting the mic come to be about a cm away from my mouth.

"Hello?"

There was no response, not even the sound of heavy breathing to signal that someone really was on the other side of the call. But there was an odd electronic whine on the other end, something that was sending a chill that crept up my spine.

"Listen carefully," The voice was distorted, making the voice unrecognizable barring that upper-class style accent. "There's an alley to your left, go down it. If you do not, people will die."

"Wai-" I was interrupted by a click and then another electronic whine that told me that they'd hung up on me. I glanced back to the number pad, the symbols once more becoming normal lettering. It was only then that I finally looked down the alley, watching as a very suspicious-looking man walked down, looking like some mix of a terminator or Kyle Reese with the large coat that could hide weapons.

I knew that it was a bad idea to walk down there, especially in a city like New York, and having already been told that there was trouble about to go down there. It was just I couldn't help but wonder what exactly was going to happen down there? Would it answer how I got here? Why I was here?

But there is just as likely that it was some sort of trap, laid by the people that had put me here. I don't know why they'd let me go and then set up a situation to recapture me. It could be to let me panic, see how I'd react.

This all could be some kind of sick experiment.

Deciding to take a chance on it, I walked down the alley with a keen eye for any funny business. It was a massive alley, at least to my small-town sensibilities, so much so that I could probably have a game of soccer comfortably here with two full teams. At the center of the alley, two guys were standing all their lonesome.

One was a black man, at least close to middle-aged, with a close beard, wearing a black coat with his hands stuffed into the pockets while a plaid shirt was barely peeking out from beneath. Also on his face, I could see the thick black rims of his glasses.

The other man was in a large beige coat with a tall collar covering the bottom of his face. While the other man had dark hair this one's hair was red, with the grey creeping up from the roots, giving him a far older appearance dispite the fact that his face had fewer wrinkles than the other man.

They hadn't noticed me, or at least I was far enough away that they didn't take any heed that I was here. It was odd looking at them though, as if I could see them better than I would normally from this distance, even making out the lip movements that the black man was using as he talked to his friend.

But I didn't know how to read lips, so that was useless to me.

That was when I heard the screeching of a pair of tires, causing me to snap my head away from the two men. It was another pair of men, one riding on the back of a motorbike while the other one drove it, this time wearing all black and with helmets that obscured their faces from view.

My heart metaphorically exploded in my chest as the one with their hands free raised up a gun, some sort of automatic weapon from what I could tell. Without thought, I screamed, my left arm reaching out as if it would warn the pair better.

"LOOK OUT!"

But the first two men were turning to face me rather than the oncoming threat aiming at them with each passing second. Adrenaline must have started to rush through my veins as the world slowed down and even though I knew it wouldn't make a difference, I ran towards the duo as fast as I could.

My feet slammed into the pavement with loud clacks as the world blurred around me, the muzzle from the gun flared.

But the sound of the gunfire didn't come yet, instead, it slowly moved in the air. It was like a miracle from the Lord himself, letting me slam into the two non-motorbike riding men though letting the bullet hit my body.

"Shit," I swore rolling on to me side as the world sped back up and the motorbike ran off into the distance. My hand went to the newly made hole in my jacket, trying to keep the blood that would no doubt be pouring out of the bullet wound. "Fuck."

"Jesus Christ!" The white man of the two men I'd saved swore as well. His hands came down to hold mine, the one already covering the hole. "You going to be okay kid?"

His words broke me out of a haze, letting me realize something important.

"I feel fine?" I replied, confused by my own statement, my hand pulling away from my jacket, much to both men's horror, to reveal that there was no blood. "Did they miss?"

"No," The greying-red-head answered, his now free hands coming up from the ground to showcase something trapped between the sleeves of his coat. "The bullet flattened against your skin."

None of us spoke for a while after that, not sure if it was because they were as gobsmacked by this as I was or if they were just waiting for me to speak up about how such a thing was possible.

"Holy shit? Am I bulletproof?"

I must have worn an expression that was far too expressive for the two men not to take the connotation that my words gave. The black man took his friend to the side.

"Hey," he said in a low voice, keeping his mouth close to the other man's ear. "The kid is okay, but we need to get out of here," his eyes glancing over to me. "And with what this kid just did… he needs to get out of here, before someone calls the cops about the gunfire."

The white man sighed, his eyes briefly looking at me.

"Fine, but I can't take him, Ben," he said, revealing the black man's name as Ben as he started to walk away. "Ain't got anywhere to put the guy and I've got my own family to take care of. "

I'd noticed that the redhead looked almost regretful as he left like it was painful for him to turn down trying to help the man that saved his life. At least that was what impression I got off the man, I could've easily been wrong.

"Right," Ben smacked his lips together, grabbing my attention as he did so. His left hand came down to lift me to my feet, then nearly pushing me forward as a loud set of sirens started blaring "We need to get out of here."

I followed along with the man, not making a single noise as I did so. Too shocked at what was happening to question this man dragging me out of the alley with a grimace on his face.

"You know," he grunted, his eyes glaring. "You could start moving, I'm not the best guy around to be lifting a fully grown man."

"Sorry," I muttered, making sure that I was actually following along with the man rather than being carried by him. Glancing at his face I couldn't help but think that the man was oddly familiar to me like I'd seen him somewhere… I just couldn't place where?

"What's your name kid?" Ben asked me, his tone light as we changed from walking at a fast to a slow pace away from the scene. I pondered the man's question carefully, thinking about the answer with all that I currently knew in mind.

"Pat," I said, continuing the lie I'd told the young girl earlier. " Pat Doyle, and you?"

He paused mid-step, his eyes glancing at mine like he was surprised that I hadn't recognized him. Meaning that my familiarity with the man would have easily been placed on him being some kind of famous person, which would at least explain that drive-by earlier.

"Suppose your not a big print man?" Ben asked me, resuming his strut alongside me with a small confident grin. "I'm Ben Urich, a reporter for the New York Bulletin."

"Thought you looked familiar, must have glanced over your paper at one stage or another," Saying this I noticed that Ben was now fully taking in my appearance, I think for the first time. Looking at my disheveled clothes, my dirty face and even the unkempt hair Ben seemed to have decided something.

"You homeless?" There was a light air to his tone, like what he had asked me wasn't a big deal. I couldn't disagree, part of me was deeply ashamed that I was in such a state that someone could even make such an assumption… but then… it did seem to be true.

"Yeah, woke up homeless a while ago," I replied, letting my eyes drop to my dirty shoes. Looking at the dirty stains that littered the surface, stains that I wasn't used to seeing. My mind still questioning how I'd gotten into this state. "Don't actually remember when I got to this state though."

Ben cast a glance towards me again, one that started out amused and slowly shifted into one of concern and sympathy. Eventually, he patted me on the shoulder, trying to give some small measure of comfort.

"It's been a tough year for a lot of folks," he said, his tone serious, from what I could recall, mostly because the Financial Crash would've happened recently, and even years after it, it was still affecting my family. "You ain't got any family that could help out?"

"No," I shook my head, thinking of the people that I hadn't tried calling yet but realizing that I didn't actually know any of their numbers. I'd never really needed to call other people and given that lack of any real response from the numbers that I had, thought that it might be better not trying. "I've been by myself for the last four years."

It was really just a guess based on the length of my hair and counting backward from the last year that I could remember with any real detail.

"You don't have anywhere to stay then," Ben continued, this time muttering to himself rather than asking me a question. We continued walking towards some destination, Ben eventually hailing a cab that the two of us stepped into. It was only then that he spoke once more. "You can stay with me, I've got a guest room in my apartment."

I wasn't sure how to take that, I could tell that he hadn't made that offer all that lightly, he'd tried finding somewhere else for me… not sure why he didn't offer to take me to some sort of shelter though.

"You offer hobos a place to stay often?"

"Just the ones that save my life."

It didn't take long for us to arrive at the apartment building, just twenty or so minutes which was a surprise to me, given that it was such a busy city. It wasn't a bad apartment either. It was clean, lacking any graffiti or any other kind of markings that would tell me we were in gang territory.

It was as we entered the door to his apartment, on the second floor, that Ben broke the silence that had enveloped us since that brief conversation in the cab's backseat.

"Doris!" Ben called out, his voice loud but soft. "I'm home… and I've got a guest."

There was a rather loud sigh from a room nearby, a small black woman walking out from behind a wall. Her face had a rather annoyed expression on it as if Ben had angered her.

"Ben," Doris moaned, throwing her hands down. "What have I told you? If someone's coming over, I need to know in advance or I won't be able to cook enough food for dinner."

"I'm sorry, it was rather sudden," he responded sheepishly, his shoulders making a shrugging motion. "Guy's helping me with a little something, nothing that'll cause any trouble but… as you can see," Ben pointed over at me, his arm waving up and down my frame showcasing the rather dirty state I was in. "Kid needs a place to stay… you ok with that?"

Doris gave me a look, her eyes staring into mine with such an intensity that I couldn't help but look away from her. I was now only looking at the woman from the side of my vision, glancing as her expression softened even as her eyes stayed piercing.

"First… he takes washes and you lay out some clothes for him."

With those words, Doris turned around and left the hall. Ben moved to face me again, a slight apologetic grin on his face as he ushered further into the apartment and stopped at a brown door.

"Showers in there," he said, his other hand pointing at a radiator to the side. "I'll leave clean clothes that should fit outside."

That was when I was left alone, truly alone for the first time since waking up in that alley this morning. Alone and with a real mirror, looking at my face, I noticed that my face had aged by years since the last time I had a good look at it.

The hair that I used to guess my age previously seemed to be the least noticeable signifier. My face, while clean of spots, was now covered in dirt from the street, in some of the cheese and pasta sauce that I'd eaten earlier. I'd lost all the baby fat that I was known for during secondary school, my cheeks looking like I'd lost a full stone.

Even though I could tell by the sound of my footsteps that I'd gained about two stone.

I could make out the back of my hair, peeking out from the sides. I'd somehow lost my infamous cow's lick that I had holding up my fringe for most of my life. If I didn't know better, I'd wouldn't be able to tell that I was the same person anymore.

It was only the shape of my nose, the shape of my eyes, and the small scar that I had above my left eyebrow from picking at a chicken spot that came together to form my unique face. Suddenly, a knock at the door shook me out of my thoughts.

"Hey," Ben's voice came through the brown door, light and full of cheer. Something that did a great deal to put me at ease, which only meant that I felt numb… rather than shocked. "I've left some clean clothes out for you, they might be a bit short on you, but they're at least clean."

"Thanks," I replied, robotically, while I turned on the electronic shower. "I really appreciate you doing this for me," Speaking louder to overcome the sound of the shower. "Not many people would."

"Hey, you did me a massive favor, the least I could do is help you get back on your feet."

And so I was once more left alone, this time I didn't dwell on my thoughts but instead focused on washing the dirt of New York off.

---

I got dressed in a plaid shirt, the sleeves of which were barely enough to reach my wrist, and a pair of jeans that were somehow too tight but just about long enough for my legs. The only real issue I had now was just how long my hair had become, with it cleaned the damn thing straightened out and was over my eyes now.

Blocking me from seeing anything if I didn't swipe it the side.

"Mr. Urich!" I spoke, only slightly loud. "I'm out now. Where should I put my dirty clothes?"

"There's a basket by the bathroom door!" Ben yelled back, his voice coming from a room down the hall. I put the clothes where he mentioned and went off towards where his voice was coming from.

"Hey," I said as I approached the frame of the door, a jaunt in my step that felt like it hadn't been there in a long time. "Thanks again for doing this for me, I've been in a bit of a spot of late and really needed the help."

After my eyes caught Ben, I took in the rest of the room. What I found was like a conspiracy theorist's wet dream, there were playing cards set up on several wooden boards attached to the furthest wall. Each one had a name, with a red string poked into the center of one and into another.

"That's what I wanted to talk to you about," Ben told me, sitting on a chair with his left foot resting on his knee. "Tell me, what is someone like you doing living on the streets?"

"Someone like me?" Was my response, feeling confused by the statement.

"You're young, powerful," he pointed at me, his index finger pointing at me as if it would prove his point. "You're also obviously an Irish National based on your accent. So I don't know why you're living on the streets of New York."

I explosively sighed, my whole body seemed to sag as my earlier thoughts came to mind once more. Spotting a free seat across from Ben I took it before shitting my eyes and rubbing my forehead to get the hair out of my eyes once more.

"You'd have a much better idea of that than I would at this point. One day, I was just studying for my leaving cert and then…" I clapped my hands together, causing the man to jump. "Bamm, I woke up in an alley with my face in a puddle and about four years added to me face."

"You have amnesia?"

"And I'm bulletproof now," I sighed once again, something that I was doing a lot lately. "That's a recent thing."

"They could be linked," Ben scratched his chin, turning his chair around to face his desk and grab his notes. "Some sort of super-soldier experiment, like with the Hulk."

I let the name drop of another Marvel superhero go, not wanting to draw any attention to the fact that it was a surprise that he was treating a fictional character like they were real. Because I had my own bombshell to drop.

"The last time I checked, it was 2012," That caused Ben to spin around in his chair, facing with this expression that fused disbelief and confusion into one perfect blend. "Now, it's 2008."

Ben suddenly licked his lips, taking his glasses off his face with his left hand while he once more scratched at his chin. It was only after a few seconds had passed that Ben spoke again, it was after his black-framed glasses touched the table that he said something.

"If you weren't bulletproof I'd think you were just crazy," he gave me another small smile while reaching over to pat me on the shoulder. "I'll help you get to the bottom of this Pat."

And with those words, relief filled my heart. It felt like the first time for hours… I could breathe again.

"Thanks."

"Hey, don't thank me, you saved my life," he responded, putting his glasses back on his face and removing his tie from around his neck. "And there's a story here, one that needs to be discovered. That's interesting…."

---

Author's Note: This isn't a new story of mine. Just thought that I'd be posting it here with its real title since I don't need to worry about people not recognizing it as the Blueman reboot. Just continuing to post my work in more places. Thought that this would be the one to focus on uploading here since I'm working on an update and the story isn't as big as Different Dish.

Different Dish is so big that it's a bit intimidating to post elsewhere, just wouldn't be sure how to work that out.

 

[Kryptonian Steel]

"What's been?" The voice spooked me, causing me to jump in my seat just a tiny bit. "Sorry," I turned to face the speaker, their apology for scaring me seemingly sincere sounding enough for me to take it at face value.

Click to shrink...

People on this fic really do not mind their own business, do they?

 

[Proman]

It was the smell that woke me up this time, the smell of bacon being fried on a pan. It was a homely smell, reminding me of when me Dad would get lazy and cook us all the same meal. Which was still cooking for six people, me, my sisters, and him but it was him that called it lazy.

"I'm up," I grumbled, rising from the bed as the door swung open.

"Wow," Doris went, her brows raising up as I started to rub the sleep from my eyes. "That's lucky timing, didn't think anyone could be such a light sleeper."

Stretching I threw the blanket up in the air, rolling off the bed before it could fall back on me. When it the bed again, it landed in a neat manner with only the lightest of creases on the quilt would let anyone know that I hadn't remade it properly.

"Mighty feat," she remarked, still standing at the doorframe with a rather amused expression. "But don't show off," her expression morphed into a shaper one, "Make your bed like a normal person. All it takes is one drunken night and you'll slip on a shoe you didn't know was there, break your back and then what will you do?"

"Change me name to Igor, I suppose," I replied, grinning slightly at the woman as she made her way out of the room to let me get dressed but not before letting out a yell before the door closed behind her with a soft click.

"Breakfast is ready on the table, so help yourself!"

I took a moment to take a real look around my current lodges. It was a small room, with a single wardrobe and a long mirror that stood beside that. Next to a singles' bed was a bedside locker, the red color of which contrasted against the blue sheets of the bed like flame sitting on top of the water.
I put on a green plaid shirt, something I wouldn't have even glanced at years ago as something that I'd wear. But I found that it suited me well enough now, at least with the broader shoulders that I'd gained since last trying one out in my early teen years.

On a small lad it was the type of outfit that led to bullying.

I was walking towards the room door with a small jitter to my steps when suddenly there was a flash in my eyes, somehow the world became nothing a series of blues, reds, yellows oranges, and even a few purples. Quickly losing any sense of balance, I could feel my body twist sideways as it fell down, I only barely managing to grab hold of the door in time to stop from smashing into the floor.

Closing my eyes in an attempt to stop the sights before me but it did nothing. Instead, I was forced to take in all the colors, finally giving me enough time to really grasp what I was seeing, that the colors were mostly people shaped, moving in the ways people would.

I could make out the shapes of two people on the same floor as me. The first was a man standing by a really red surface, frying something I think. The other was a woman, bending down to pick up something off the floor from another room nearby.

I think it was Mr. and Mrs. Urich?

Blinking hard again, the world shifted back to normal, like what I'd just experienced was a fever dream of a stressed mind. But I knew it was something else, I knew that it was another power. First I'm bulletproof and then I can see using thermal imaging?

Did I get the brick package?

It seemed likely, especially given I think I'd used some form of super speed or enhanced temporal perception yesterday.

"Freaky," I pulled open the door, walking towards where I had seen the two. "Wonder how many more powers I'll get," I wonder if I could leap tall buildings as well?

My ears twitched, picking up a greeting shared between the two.

"Hello, handsome," Ben said, the contentment clear in the pitch of his voice.

"Hello, gorgeous," Was her response, her voice telling me that this was a tradition between the two. Something that they just did. I wondered what the story behind it was, but I don't think I know them enough to ask them that yet.

Pulling around the corner I entered the kitchen, with both of my hosts having by now sat down at the table. There was a third spot, one set on the other side for me, already full of rashers and other fried food that I wouldn't usually touch… but I was hungry enough that it didn't matter.

"Morning," I spoke, nearly a whisper as I gingerly sat down on the chair as if it would suddenly teeth and go to bite me. I waited for the automatic response of morning from the two before asking the question on my mind. "This… mine?"

I asked while pointing down on the plate in front of me, failing at keeping a certain level of meekness out of voice.

"Of course, it is," Doris spoke, smiling at me like I was a fool to think otherwise. "I'd hardly let you use our shower, sleep in our guest room and then… not let you our food."

I chuckled lightly, grabbing at the fork and knife, then chowing down on the food like I was a hippo that hadn't seen food in a decade. As I shoveled the food into my mouth, I could hear an odd sound, like the kind that came from machines smashing into the ground.

But when I stopped eating in an attempt to figure out where the sounds were coming from, the sounds quietened. Like they were never there to begin with… that was when I noticed both Ben and Doris looking at me with wide eyes.

"What?"

"Nothing," Ben leaned onto his hand, rolling his eyes as he did so. "Just hadn't thought that there was such a thing as a human trash compactor, seems I was wrong about that."

That was when it hit me, I was the one making those noises… as I was eating.

"Sorry about that," I replied, feeling the heat rise to my cheeks even while my eyes fell to my now empty plate. Looks like finished it without noticing. "I don't know what came over me."

Ben just nodded at me, dropping his own fork onto his empty plate, picking it up, and placing it into the sink that was behind him before holding out his hand for me to pass over my own plate. It was with a small smile that Doris stood up, walking toward the sink, something that meant Ben had to lean his chair forward to allow.

Suddenly I was taken in by the odd calmness to the room, by this homey feeling that I… I'm not sure that I'd felt in years. My heart skipped a beat as the two slowly smiled at each other with just the tiniest twists to their lips that reminded me of home.

So in engrossed with the idea of their interaction I failed to notice Ben stand up and tap me on the shoulder.

"Yeah," I blinked, coming out of my own world with the same kind of energy that a sloth would use to speak. "Sorry I was in my own little world."

Ben just gave me a look, nodding his head just a little while his hands came up to take his glasses off and wipe them off with a piece of cloth that he had in his left pocket. Once he was done, he motioned for me to follow him with a wave of his arm.

We left the apartment by the time he spoke again.

"You feeling okay?" Mr. Urich asked me, his voice soft and quiet in contrast with the harsh buzzes of the New York street that we were walking along.

I wasn't used to the busy city streets yet, the constantly yelling, the never-ending series of cars, of buses, and all assortment of vehicles that rushed past us with their horns blaring. It all still took me by surprise is all.

It felt like a dream at times, one of those dreams where all the information I could glean from the area around me became too much focused on anything for longer than a second. Not without being in danger of walking into someone.

"Yeah… just still a little bit shellshocked is all," I responded, kicking up a can lift on the path, managing to hit it into a nearby garbage bin. "Not used to this level of weirdness is all."

"Yeah, I don't know if there's anyone that would be," Ben replied as he stopped in front of a black car, it wasn't a model that I recognized but it looked to be at least three years old. "Get in, I've got something to show you."

"You've got a car?" I asked, shocked but still going inside the vehicle. "Why did we have to use a cab yesterday?"

"Doris needed to borrow it."

"Huh," I let any conversations topics I had lull into the back of my mind, just decided to enjoy the drive to wherever we were going. It was only after what felt like half an hour at least that the conversation actually picked up again, this time Ben starting with a statement that I hadn't expected him to.

"I've been looking over some of the things you've said," he said, his hands shifting around the steering wheel so he could make a right turn. "And I can't help but wonder if you've made a mistake."

"Mistake?"

"Yeah," his eyes briefly swept over to me before going back to the road. "We're assuming that your powers are something that you got when you were abducted, from the abducted. I'm just pointing out that… could be wrong."

"Think I'd noticed being super tough," My reply with far more emotion than I intended to, sounding rough when I really didn't feel all that angry. I was more depressed than anything else, more drained. It felt like I needed something to pick me up.

Some excitement.

Suddenly Ben pulled into a parking lot, stopping the car in a spot so it was alone on a row of empty parking spots. As he got out, I went to follow him, closing the door much harsher than I ever intended to but thankfully not so hard that I'd worry about breaking it.

"Maybe they got you," Ben spoke again, continuing his line of questioning that I'd almost thought dropped seconds ago. "Maybe you panicked, maybe you'd always had these powers and only needed to be stressed to unlock them? All I'm saying is that we don't know that the people that took you, also were the ones that gave you powers."

"That it could have happened afterward," Nodding I let my eyes peer at the tar-black ground. "Given that I've seemed to have lost years of my life. That's sensible enough."

"Exactly, the combined trauma robbing you of your memories. But there are still some leads that we can follow, ones that… " Ben trailed off as he spotted another car coming into the park, his eyes narrowing as he tried to make out who exactly had arrived. "... are connected to a story that I'm already working on."

Ben's frown turned into a smile as the older redhead from yesterday stepped out of the newly arrived car. A hard grimace on his face as he walked towards us with his hands in his coat's pockets.

"O'Reilly," Ben said, his tone low while his eyes roamed at the pockets with only a small amount of concern. "It's good to see that you could make it," With a hand extended and a serious expression over their faces, the two shook.

"Well… we need to move quickly," O'Reilly replied, his eyes only looking to me for a single moment before coming back to Urich. "Is the kid trustworthy?"

As they stopped shaking hands, I was going to respond to O'Reilly with a snipe at his age, maybe something about his greying hair but Ben beat me to making any sort of noise by making a loud chuckle.

"That any way to thank someone that saved our lives yesterday?"

"That's how I keep that life," Was the redhead's response, dry but somehow with plenty of heat to spare. "Constantly vigilant, for all I know, the kids' a plant that's here to find what I told you."

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

"It's nice to meet you again, Mr. O'Reilly," The young man held his hand, something that caused Jim to roll his eyes. "I'm Pat, Pat Doyle."

The older man could hear the accent, could tell just by the way the younger man's tongue rolled that he was dealing with some direct from Ireland.

But that didn't give Jim anything else to work off, so he just stood there and stared at the outstretched hand, letting awkwardness sink into the air as the seconds passed by. Eventually, the redhead decided to throw a bone to the young man, but with an old Irish spin. His hand grasped around the boy's and he shook it none too gently, rolling fingers around his knuckles… or at least attempting to.

"Jesus, you've got a strong hand," The older man let out with a pain-filled grunt, his hand hurting on the immovable object that was Pat's hand.

"Have you forgotten that I'm… like super durable?" Pat stared at Jim, his eyes blinking a sort of innocence that the older man would expect out of a young child. Something about the way he stared at him, his eyes piercing but lacking any real sting.

"Nope," Jim wheezed, trying to play off his actions. Letting go of Doyle's hand with only a small grimace to show that he was harmed at all. "Just showing you a real Irish handshake."

"Reminds me of home," Pat winked, something that Jim hadn't expected, with a small grin on his face. It caused the older man to take in the lad's features once more, especially now that Doyle was both clean and wearing clothes that didn't look like they'd been found in a swamp. "Everybody failing to intimidateme, next thing will need to do is have a few blokes ask me if I think I could beat them in a fight."

"That happen a lot in Ireland?" Urich asked, his face too amused for what should've been a serious meeting for Jim's taste.

"More than you'd think," The youngest among them shrugged, brushing some of his overly long hair out of his eyes. "But less than you'd fear. So… what's the situation?"

Jim glared at the lad now, his blue eyes staring dead into the brown ones that Pat had. He waited for some response, for the younger man to shift his eyes away, to show some kind of weakness. But Doyle gave away nothing at all.

"Pat," Urich sighed out, causing the lad to turn and face the man, saving Jim from losing a staring contest. "A bit more decorum, please."

"Right," The newcomer said in such a polite tone that Jim almost didn't notice the almost inhuman way the man didn't blink. Something that Doyle had been doing fine for the last few seconds, but it seemed to have caught up with him since then. "Sorry about that Mr. O'Reilly."

"It's fine," he ground out, his teeth grinding together from the stress. "You're right to rush anyway, never know if someone we won't like will arrive. So… has Urich told you the situation?"

"Nope."

"Well," Jim reached into his pocket, grabbing at a loose cigarette that he then brought to his lips. "See… I'm a man that works for a certain group, one that has its business in the seedy side of the world-"

"Irish Mafia," Doyle interrupted him, causing Jim to freeze while the younger just kept nodding his head rapidly. "Got it."

"Right then," he sighed out once more, something that Jim noticed Urich found amusing. "Well, my bosses have paid off certain people, I don't have any names, but they're high off in the police, in the mayor's office, the D.A and they've even hinted at having a man on the inside of the FBI."

"Must be have something big in mind if they're doing all that?" Doyle questioned, his eyes lifting up to the sky suddenly, a motion that was too much of a jerk to have been a normal reaction to anything going on.

"It's human trafficking, selling young girls to the highest bidder, sometimes even young boys," Jim explained, taking in a deep puff from his cigarette before blowing out a science fair volcano's worth of smoke into the sky. "Not something that I thought we'd be involved in when I was a young boy."

"That why you came forward to Mr. Urich?"

"Yeah, Jim's conscience is a bit too big for the life he lives," Urich spoke up, though his voice was light in tone, his face was as serious as the subject truly demanded of him.

"I've got my own girl, I can't stand the thought of someone taking her from me," Jim felt the need to explain. "And so I can't condone doing it to other people."

"See… I'm guessing that there's a problem here?" Doyle questioned, letting the heel of his left foot grind into the ground in a swirling motion. "Otherwise Mr. Urich would've just released all this to the papers."

"Right in one," Urich responded, snapping his fingers together as he did so. "See I can't print any of this without proof, something to corroborate Jim's story. Sadly, he can't come forward with his name or anyone's name and while he could give the location the girls are coming through…"

"Still have only the word of an anonymous source?" The youngest amongst them scratched at his nose, not enough to break skin but only enough that the nose moved back and forth slightly. "What about pics?"

"Tried to get them past my editor but he ain't going to bite on them without a source that can name themselves."

"Video evidence?"

"Hey," Jim erupted out, his voice showcasing how annoyed he was by the idea of it. "You know how much trouble it was to get some pictures of the place, I've made no secret that I'm against it. It would be far too suspicious for me to carry a camcorder."

"How about the old fire trick?" Jim's respect for the idiot went up a few notches with such a ballsy suggestion. "Start a fire, say you heard gunfire, some girls screaming, would get both firefighters and some cops down there to look at things."

"Too risky to the girls in there," Urich came to shut down that idea with the reason they'd decided against it. "And especially when the fire would need to be somewhere that the gang left guarding wouldn't able to deal with themselves before the fire brigade gets there."

"So… what about a different kind of disturbance?" The younger man started to pace before them. "I could go in there, make a lot of noise when they start shooting me… you can call in the cops."

"And you'll get away how?" Jim found himself asking before Doyle let out a wide smile, bent his legs, and then… leaped up. At first, the Irish Mafia member wanted to scoff at the other man but that was before he the magnitude of the leap truly entered into his mind as Doyle sailed more than a full story high only to land without making more noise that one would usually make hopping from one leg to another one.

"How about like that?" Doyle grinned at the now gapping duo.

"You're some kind of freak aren't you?" The redhead moaned, scratching the bottom of his chin with his left hand.

"Probably," The younger man shrugged. "Thought that with a super tough body, I'd get the strength to match."

"As you see, Jim," Urich started to speak, using familiar tones and terms of address in order to seem like he was more Jim's friend than he actually was. A kind of manipulation that O'Reilly could more than respect. "Our young friend here has the capabilities to get this done."

"But not the outfit," Doyle drawled out, his grin widening just ever so lightly. "Don't want them to be able to pick my face out in the future, makes doing things a normal guy would do a bit of trouble if I got to deal with the Irish Mafia out for my blood."

"Right… that's not actually bad thinking," Jim said, his own face stretching into a smile. "I've got a few things that I think you could use."

---

("Patrick Doyle")

I'd gotten into the back of O'Reilly's car, driving me towards the docks. This was when I saw exactly what he thought I could use.

"This isn't as cool as I thought it would be," I sighed out, looking at just what Mr. O'Reilly thought I could use. It was a simple blue hoodie, the strings that should've been on the side were cut off, roughly if the strands on the side were to be believed, there was also a black ski mask. "I was thinking of something… more inspiring?"

"What were you thinking that I'd have some Stark shit?" O'Reilly laughed at me, the noise familiar to me in the accent at least when compared to the ones that I'd been hearing recently. I found American laughter foreign to my ears, which it was. "Ain't getting any of that as poor as I am."

"No, but like where's the cape?"

O'Reilly looked me like I was some oddball for wanting something so fundamentally essential in the Super Hero business. The greatest of heroes wore them, except WonderWoman but she'd got the boobs that I never have… hopefully, that is.

I do exist in a comic verse now, Gender Bending could happen to me.

"You've read too many comics, kid," Jim scoffed, his voice nearly breaking out into a laugh on top of that. "A Cape will just get in the way of what you'll be doing."

Ah, another one of those 'no cape' freaks, it is a shame that so many people don't understand the purpose of the cape. The ever-lasting symbol of power, of hope and many other details. Why a good cape can make you appear much bigger than you are, lets people either be fearful of your presence or hopeful from your silhouette.

"This will just have to do," I replied, pulling the jumper over my shirt while adjusting to make sure that the plaid would be unnoticed underneath. "I never thought I'd be the mask sort-" It was at that point that I felt a pair of gloves slap into my face. "You could have thrown them to me, rather than at me."

"It's more fun this way."

He wasn't the only one to chuckle from that, the car filling up with the sound of my own oddly deep ones. It wasn't until we were about ten minutes away from the docks when I'd finally decided to put the mask on my head.

It felt pretty weird, scratchy like it was made from some sort of cotton. Though I would've expected it to block some of my ability to breathe, it didn't really. This was a good way to keep my identity secret...

...but it wasn't for me.

How can I give someone a reassuring smile if they can't see me mouth?

"Why would that matter?"

"Was I speaking out loud?" I responded to O'Reilly's question with my own and a frown to go with it. It wasn't like I needed the man to tell that he'd heard me, just his reactions seconds ago told me that he had. "Sorry about that, just anxious about the whole thing."

"You run your mouth off when stressed?" he replied, barely turning his head to the side so he could see me better. "Not the best sort of quirk to have in this line of work."

"Keep your eyes on the road," I blurted out, tucking in the collar of the shirt while glancing around the car. It was only then that I really thought about what O'Reilly had said. "Line of work?"

"Yeah, you're basically going all vigilante," I could see O'Reilly's grin from the reflection of the rearview mirror. It was this cold, proud but amused expression on his face that kinda made me want to punch him right in the gob. "Running your mouth will only get you killed."

That was a good point, especially in this world that has Iron Man and the Hulk in it. That means people like General Ross, it means organizations like SHIELD and… evil spy organizations… like that one with the Nazi's in it. I was particularly interested in not having their attention on me as long as possible.

"I'll take that in mind," Eventually I replied, leaning back on my seat and shutting my eyes for a little bit, letting the darkness of the evening fill my sight. Somehow the day had passed without me noticing it, which was a good thing since I needed to strike at night to get those girls free.

But I couldn't help but feel that I was wasting the day away staying inside this rather slow-moving car. Well, the slowness was more due to the traffic than anything else.

"I feel like such a stereotype in this getup," I leaned forward once more, letting my arms hit the back of the shotgun seat. "Look at the Irish lad in the ski mask and then… I walk in there'll be gunfire."

"Figuring that the Irish Mafia will think that we're being attacked by the IRA," O'Reilly rolled his eyes, another action that I saw due to the rearview mirror. "That's a funny image, but not going to happen. We're more likely to supply them, and that would mean it would more likely be UVF but that isn't likely given your accent."

The UVF is otherwise known as the Ulster Volunteer Force. They're basically the inverse of the IRA, even as far as wanting the inverse goal of keeping Northern Ireland in the UK… but that's not something that I want to go into much detail on, since I don't want to think about two terrorist organizations all that much. And much of their actions had calmed down by the time I was four.

Anyway, given the conflict was mainly in Northern Ireland, my pure Western Ireland accent was a sign I wasn't in either of the group. Though the accent and region of origin isn't really a guarantee, just a slight indicator.

"Right," I eventually replied to O'Reilly, nodding at the man while closing my eyes once more. It might have been that I didn't notice the car coming to a stop, or at least didn't think it meant that we'd come to my destination.

"This is your stop," O'Reilly told me, causing me to glance around the area. "I can't be seen dropping you off so close to the Docks. Would get me into a spot of trouble."

I didn't verbally answer, just opened the car door and stepped out onto the path before me, a crane near the docks in clear sight up ahead. Before I could make a single step forward, I felt a hand come out and tap me on the shoulder.

"Kid," Turns out it was O'Reilly from the sound of his voice. "When you're getting out of there, don't go back to Urich's. Instead, I've set up a place over a block west from his place, just tell the lady on the front desk that Jimbo sent ya."

With those words, I waited for the car to drive off, before I started to walk towards the docks with my hood up and my eyes staring straight ahead. Every step that I took caused my heart to race faster, every breath I took caused my mind to conjure up some issues with my plan.

What if I'd only been lucky and I'm not bulletproof? What if my big leap was a magic gust of wind shooting me up into the air?

All these issues, all of them unlikely in a world of superheroes. No, it was far more likely that I had at least 90's Superboy level durability. Something that I was about to be to the test as I come up to the thick metal-plated gates that separated the docks from the streets.

"I wonder if that's normal?" I asked, rapping on the gate with the knuckles of my right fist. Something that I found odd was how even though I knew I was super-durable, I could still feel how cold the metal was. Would've thought that being this tough would make me immune to that sort of thing.

"Hey!" A voice yelled from the other side, causing me to hop in fright. "I swear if you fucking kids don't stop banging on that gate, I'll come out and not even your own Ma would be able to recognize ya!"

"OI!" I yelled back, deciding to mess with the man. "This is the Police, Detective Stabler," There was a gasp from the other man, something that put a smile on my face. "Open up, we've gotten reports of gunfire coming from the docks, we need to check it out."

"This is private property," He said back, his voice trembling slightly but not giving away much else. "We're just practicing."

Oh, that is a poor lie.

"Going to need to see some papers about that," I leaned my back against the gate, hoping that the man wouldn't check with any cameras that could see me. "Can't just take your word on it, even on private property, ya need a permit to place shooting in an open area."

There was a period of silence, but then the man started yelling once more.

"Ya don't look like any pig? In that hoodie I doubt it's standard-issue," he asked, his voice tinged with so much suspension. "And ya the same name that the detective from SVU has? Don't tell me that you're Catholic as a well?"

"And I bet you've never met anyone named Rodgers? Who worked in the army? I replied back, getting bored with the game already, it made me wonder how much I could scare them by breaking the door down. "And clothes… that's just what's called plain clothes, used so suspects don't know they're being tailed."

There was a scratch of metal, the sound of the gate unlocking through what sounded like a series of electronically controlled locks. Something that I took advantage of as I squeezed my eyes together, thankfully activating my thermal vision and letting me see the trio of men holding up a few meters behind the gate, hands clearly holding up some automatic weapons.

I just smiled and leaped over the gate before it could fully open. There were some exclamations of what the hell before I fell beside them…

"Hello, boys," I said, wiping my arm across their rifles so fast that none of them actually managed to pull the trigger before the guns were smashed against the wall, the resulting gunfire hitting harmlessly into the ground. "The man in blue is here."

I let the three guys jump back in fright before I decided to lightly, for me, smack them away by the shoulder. The gasped in my pain, something that did nothing to mask the sound of more guns cocking behind me.

"Take the fucker out!" Another man yelled out, this time I didn't manage to turn around before they opened fire on me, the bullets hitting into my back feeling like hail hitting my skin. While I could feel my clothes start to gain holes, start to rip, I couldn't find it in myself to care, not since none of them were even bothering to aim for my head.

That meant I didn't have to worry about my face being identified.

"Guys!" I yelled out, trying to be heard over all the gunfire I was still soaking up. "You do realize that I'm bulletproof!" Making my way towards them slowly, it was only as I was within a few meters of the men when they stopped firing.

"He must be wearing one fancy vest!" One of them yelled, taking the butt of the gun and then whacking me across the face with the barrel. It was an interesting sensation as it hit my jaw like I'd been to the dentist and was numbed.

There was a loud crack, then the rifle fell to pieces.

"So…" I cracked my neck slightly. Letting them hear the bone pop and watching as their faces went white. "What's in the back?"

I didn't even bother to wait for a response, instead, I just blew through the crowd of mafia goons in front of me like they were nothing but a bunch of bowling pins. Their groans echoed out throughout the docks even as I made my way towards some cargo containers.

There were about fifty of them on the docks themselves, it looks like they were still working on unloading the containers from the ship nearby, the crane still had a hook on to another one at the moment, but it looked like due to all the commotion that I'd made, the operator had thrown themselves out of it.

Once more I concentrated and let my vision turn thermal once again. I looked around the area, searching for the heat sources that should've been there if the girls were in one of them.

It didn't take long before my eyes had taken note of all the containers on land, finding them empty… except for the one that mooed… but I doubt that the cow shapes inside that one were fakes. Though they were females. If there weren't any girls on the docks, that meant that they could still be on the ship.

"This night just gets longer," I mumbled, my eyes having spotted the next ship over before I could even bend my knees. "Is it odd that I can't see any more ships nearby? Isn't this meant to be a docking area? How isn't this as suspicious as hell."

Suddenly my ears started to ring, a loud kaboom going off beside me. It was the first time that I'd felt pain since I got here, taking me off my feet and splattering my blood over the concrete ground as if I was nothing but a normal person.

"Proper paperwork punk!" I heard a strong Irish bogue yell down at me, their voice coming in and out of focus as the world above me swirled. It didn't last for long, just long enough for the man to come into my view,n their big brown beard thick with grey strands. "Did you think that you could just walk in here and take what was ours?"

He shoved the barrel of a shotgun into my face, one of those expensive shots guns that I've only seen in video games.

"Now, you're going to squeal about who told you about our cargo," It was then the man slapped me in the face with the barrel, something that didn't go as planned for the man. The metal bent in the shape of my jaw rather than smashing it in.

Suddenly the pain in my side was muted, I could even feel the strength in my body return to a state where it was like I'd only been scratched.

"Wha-" Before I got a chance to flip back to my feet, I could only watch as the butt of a clearly empty pistol snapped into my only successful attacker's nose, crushing it in a splatter of blood that rivaled my own from moments earlier.

I rolled back as a man dressed in black dropped down from one of the cargo containers. His clothes were simple, looking close enough to sports gear that I wouldn't be surprised if it was true but they were painted black to mask the white lines that would usually be there. His face had some sort of self-made half mask, covering his eyes from view and looking like it was made of two parts, a white layer of cloth with a black one on top of it.

"You make too much noise, too many risks," The Man In Black told me, his voice low and breathy like he was trying to do a poor job to make it. "You could've gotten both yourself and those girls killed."

I ignored him, not out of any inherent lack of respect for the man, it was obvious that he was here for the same reason I was and meant that I had to give the man some respect. No, it was instead out of how my attention was completely taken by the popping noises that I could hear coming out of my back.

It was the shotgun pellets being pushed out by the regeneration that my back was currently undergoing.

There was a twitch from the man's eyes, another from his nose and that told me all that I needed to that he'd noticed what just happened. That was only a little suspicious, it's possible that he'd seen the pellets hit the ground but from the way his mouth gaping in surprise, I think he could actually hear the same thing that I did.

"As you can see-" The Man in Black scoffed openly as I said this for some reason. "-ain't nothing that can hurt me. How did you learn about all this?"

My rapid change of tone and no doubt I deflected his insult towards me, seemed to take him off guard. That was If his body tensing was other to be believed.

"I overheard some goons talking about some merchandise," I could sense the air quotes in that sentence even if the man hadn't made any. "Taking about how they might be allowed to take some of the juicy desserts home to bake with… yeah, they mixed their metaphors."

"Eugh," It didn't matter, I got what the man was saying, and while disgusted with it, I couldn't be any more glad that O'Reilly thought that this was the one criminal enterprise that he wouldn't allow his group to engage in. "Well… that is an image that I will never get out of my head. Thanks for that."

"You're welcome," The Man In Black smiled, cheerfully at that. "I try and please."

"As nice as this conversation is, we do get some girls to find don't we?" I wasn't an egotist, I didn't care about doing this solo in any way, so if this guy can help me find the poor girls then it was always going to be something that I'd welcome. "Any idea if they're on those ships?"

The Man In Black simply nodded, waving his arm for me to follow him as he turned his back to me and started to walk towards the larger of the two ships. It was the one without the crane connected to one of its cargo containers. It also wasn't the most impressive ship that I'd ever seen in my life, it was rusty in places and the paint on the edges was peeling off but it was large enough to hold over a hundred cargo containers.

Definitely, the first place that I'd have looked for the girls after the docks themselves.

"Found them.," We both suddenly spoke at the same time as our feet hit the ramp leading to the ship. My head turned to face his, while he seemed to turn his ear to hear my next response better.

"Seems like I'm not the only one that is special," I sniped, grinning at the rather unamused stare I could sense the other man was giving me from underneath his mask. "Come on, I-" I stopped, my thermal vision spotting a man around the corner, with a rather oddly shaped object on his back.

"What-" My fellow vigilante was interrupted, but rather me or even himself stopping mid-sentence, no it was instead the man from around the corner, jumping around his hiding spot and letting loose a spray of flame from a flamethrower he'd been carrying.

There wasn't any thought for my own safety, instead, I just threw myself in front of the flame, shielding the Man In Black's body with my own. I could feel the heat of the flames, but not like they were a roaring flame, instead, it felt like a radiator that was just starting to warm up. Hot but not enough to burn me.

With lighting fast reflexes the Man in Black threw something from his left hand, smacking the man on the nose and causing him to point the nozzle of the flamethrower upwards. Acting fast, I went in the flames dispelling from my back as I crushed the shaft and ripped the weapon off the man before throwing it into the water.

A single kick to the downed man's head, not from me if that was the case there would be no head and the man was out cold.

"Flameproof as well? What are you just invincible?" My fellow vigilante asked, resuming the walk towards the cargo container that the girls were no doubt being held in. I could feel my ego being enlarged by the rather astounded tone the man now had. But at the same time, there was this tone of... hesitancy from the man.

As if he didn't entirely believe what I'd bounced.

"Only when the weather allows," I joked, no doubt confusing him with my little in-joke. I followed along with the man then, waiting till we got to the container before shoving myself in front. "If I may?" I asked, putting my hand around the lock of the cargo doors.

The Man In Black nodded, which was when sirens started to blare out, something that seemed to spook him but that I'd been expecting for some time now.

"You go, I've got my own way out of here," I told him, ripping off the lock and swinging the doors open, much to the shocked gasps of the people inside the room. "Come on now, everything's going to be fine," I said, keeping calm soothing tones even as the young girls started to shiver in fear. "Some men are going to come by… just tell them the truth about how you got here and everything will be okay."

They didn't move, just stayed huddling in the corner of the container, filthy and pale. My heart went out to the young women that were shoved into this container for weeks, I'd be as scared by some stranger with a mask in their position.

It was also possible that they didn't speak English, but I'd hope O'Reilly would've told me that.

Turning around, not finding the Man in the Mask, much to my relief, and walked till I was visible at the edge of the ship. Standing on top of the railing and spotting the cop cars gathering just outside the gates. I took in a deep breath, waited for them to make their way inside the docks… and then;

"HEY ASSHOLES! THERE'S A BUNCH OF GIRLS HELD INSIDE ONE OF THESE CARGO CONTAINERS!"

I could spot them all shifting their lines of sight, all aiming their pistols right at me, could even hear them yell at me to drop to the ground and freeze. But I ignored them, and the rounds that they shot at me, instead I ran to the other side of the ship, the side facing the water.

And leaped over the side of it after taking another deep breath.

---

(Louise)

"Becca, how about that favor you owe me?" Louise wandered up to the other girl, her much larger stature letting her tower over the girl. Louise wasn't wearing the standard school uniform for a girl, which was a pinafore instead she was wearing the male uniform. preferring the pants to the skirt.

"Louise," The much smaller Becca, who was dressed in the normal uniform for girls, greeted. "No, hello, how are you?"

"Come on," The taller of the two griped, her eyes rolling in her head as she loosened the tie around her neck and popped open the top button of her shirt. "I got ya in with Rick didn't I!"

"Shh," Her classmate went, her face going red and her eyes looking up and down the street. "You know that I'm not meant to be dating boys, Dad would kill me."

"And probably him, too," Louise laughed, letting her eyes close as she leaned her head back. "It would be a shame if your dad found out."

There was a sort of awkward silence that descended between the two, something that wasn't helped as Becca started to glare up at her friend before scoffing and attempting to walk ahead of her.

"I can't believe that you're blackmailing me."

"Don't think of it as blackmail," The Redhead interceded, her smirk lightly spread across her face as she easily strides to the other girl's side, walking along with her. "Think of it as fun insurance. You… cover for me, I'll cover for you."

"You know you used to be such a cute kid," Becca sniped, her brow furrowing while her eyes glared at the very steps that the other girl was taking. "Then you hit your growth spurt and started to hit the gym. Now you're shaking me down like our dads would be."

"Hey now," Louise was taken back, her mouth widening for what was obviously a mock shock expression. "I've yet to hold anyone upside down off a building and shake them for their money."

"It's only a matter of time," Becca now stopped in the middle of the path, turning around and standing on her tippy toes. "I've gotta eye on you."

The two stood their ground, glaring at each other for several seconds… till the two broke out into giggles. Louise threw her arm over her smaller friend's shoulder, bringing the girl in for a side-hug.

"Fine, fine," Becca sighed, breaking out of the hug and walking into a bus that stopped nearby. "Mom's going get a dig out of making a fool out of yours anyway."

Louise smiled and waved goodbye to her friend as they parted ways. It wasn't long till she'd crossed several roads, made past another two bus stops, and then finally called in a taxi.

She didn't bother to talk to the taxi driver, just handed him a card with an address written on it and the word, mute. The driver simply nodded and drove her to the address, not a single question asked, though he did play so rather horrid music… country music. Not something Louise enjoyed when it was half-distorted by a wonky antenna. When Louise finally arrived at the destination, she felt her heart, churn in the pit of her stomach. she wasn't meant to come here and felt guilty about it.

See her Pop had set up a lot of prepaid motel rooms throughout the city, mostly within the same area. There were some tensions going at home that meant he wasn't always coming back at night, or even during some of the days. It didn't actually bother all that much since her parents had been doing this sort of thing since before she was born. They'd been separated six times, but it never lasted more than a month. It was never even that heated.

But Louise did miss her Pop, the man just wasn't around as much as she liked. So she'd make sure to wander in at times to the motels that he'd rented out, telling her Mom that she was spending the night with one of her school friends. None of them would tell her Mom that it was a lie, and her Mom didn't get with any of their mothers. They'd lie to her just for the glee that they'd feel whenever Louise's Mom was fooled.

A little white lie that Pop never turned her in for, but one that he told her to stop doing. Something about it wasn't always safe thanks to is business friends… which was absurd… because those creep bags could harm her if they tried.

The part about being mean and disrespectful towards Mom was more impactful, something that she'd agree with but Louise just wanted to visit her Pop.

She walked through the motel doors, heading to the desk jockey with a bored expression on her face. Trying to act all casual like and said;

"Jimbo sent me," She blew a wad of gum into a bubble, letting it pop before bringing it back into her mouth. "What's the room number?"

The desk clerk, someone of gender that Lousie wasn't actually sure, just looked up to her in surprise. There was a moment that they looked down at their books, puzzled and that gave Lousie more than a little concern.

Did she pick the wrong time? Was Pop at a different motel? This was the one that the online banking site claimed that he'd paid with one of his aliases.

"Room thirteen," The Clerk told her eventually, causing Louise to breathe a sigh of relief as one of their eyebrows lifted up slightly as if she was accessing the Senior Highschool student and comparing her to someone else… and maybe checking her out, Louise wasn't sure. "Here!"

The Clerk threw keys, letting the O'Reilly girl catch

"Right," Louise moved forward, untying her school tie while shoving it into her bag afterward. She was going to a Catholic School, one of the best in the state, Pop wanted her to feel at one with their religion. That meant terrible school uniforms were the standard there.

Something that annoyed her, long skirts and dress shirts weren't something that Louise found to be appealing.

It wasn't long before she was standing at the thirteenth door, listening to the sound of somebody moving about in there. Louise placed a key into the lock, hearing the click and the startled what coming from the other side that brought a smile to her face.

"Hey, Pop," She walked in, spitting out the wad of gum into the trashcan by the door. "Do you think...that… " Louise trailed off at the sight before. Instead of her aging father she saw was a rather unusual sight.

The rather upper body of a man that was soaked to the bone otherwise, his ripped and torn up jumper drenching the carpet enough that she noticed that massive wet stain spreading through the area.

"You ain't Pop."

"I fucking hope not."

---

Author's Note: This needed heavy revising, much more attention than I had thought it needed. Now, I need to revise the other sites versions of this chapter too. If you think this is bad now, it was much worse before I got around to this pass of it. I'm decently ashamed of this, so if you spot any more mistakes I've left in make sure to point them out to me.

Anyway, I'll be posting daily, or as close to it as I can personally manage while also writing the latest chapter for this story.

 

[CornFlake]

Is it not the 2nd or 3rd time this story was rewarmed in a microwave?

 

[Proman]

Is it not the 2nd or 3rd time this story was rewarmed in a microwave?

Click to shrink...

It's still only the 2nd. The story is the same as the one on both Spacebattles and Fanfic.net. I'm just cross-posting and doing some clean-up editing with a lot of odd mistakes I'd somehow not noticed. If you were to look at the chapter 2 and compare it to the spacebattles one, you'll notice some improvement.

Though to be honest, the original story and this aren't really the same thing outside of a core concept.

 

[TheSystemFan]

So are you going to complete this or drop it halfway... I read the original version and was disappointed when it was dropped...

 

[Bruhmoment]

Mhhh is pretty interting the premice, probable i seach for the anterior version

 

[Proman]

(Ben Urich: A Few Minutes Ago)

Ben waited inside his car, taking a drag from his cigarette before blowing it out the window like one of the old detective films that he'd grown up watching as a child. He didn't smoke often, not since he was a young twenty-something kid, trying to take on the world.

But every now and again, he decided that he needed just one… which usually became two, which became three and so on and so forth. It usually stopped after the first day, as Doris never liked him smoking and when she found out that he'd been smoking again, she gave him a look. Then he'd give up smoking again. Ben was just waiting for the right moment to strike, the right moment to silently call in the other reports, them and the news networks that could get here the fastest. All to make sure that they couldn't cover up the trafficking of young girls going through this dock.

The idea was when Ben heard the sirens of the cops, he'd call them in. Simple enough idea.

"I just hope the kid doesn't get a big head," Ben murmured, squashing the cigarette into the car's ashtray. "There are more ways to kill a man than just shooting," It wouldn't be something that the reporter would like to be responsible for. "Just what I need, the kid to be drowned."

It was taking longer than it should've. Ben could already hear the gunshots ringing out from the docks. Someone should've called the cops already. It put Ben on edge, made him feel jumpy, and caused him to keep an eye around for signs of trouble.

But then it happened, the sirens rang out, police cars zooming on past him in blurs of red, white, and blue.

"Showtime," Ben hit the send button on his burner phone, sending a mass message that would start the media frenzy. Then he put his foot down, following after the cars as they made their way towards the docks. Though, keeping himself from getting too close to the cars, getting ready when they went to form a perimeter around the dock entrance. Something that they did with expert precision just mere moments later with barely a screech from their tires.

"Hello," Urich erupted from his car with a smile on his face. "Officers, mind giving me a statement?"

"Oh god," A detective groaned, one hand holding his head as if it was in pain while the other smoothed out the creases in his suit jacket. "Who tipped off Urich?

That question only brought a series of shrugs from the other officers around him.

"Detective Blake," Ben grinned, waggling a finger in a playful manner as he walked up to a barrier that the officers had just placed on the ground, having taken it from the trunk of their cars. The Reporter didn't bother to try and get around it, he wasn't stupid, he knew the rules. "We both know that I don't need to be tipped off to follow the sound of gunfire."

"Well stay back, just-" Blake's rebuke was interrupted by the sound of what amounted to a parade of news crews, reporters, cameramen and the rest of those folk arrived. It was sidling van doors that created the majority of the noise. "Oh fuck's sake."

"Listen folks!" Blake's partner, a black man by the name of Hoffman, yelled out, grabbing the non-police officers' attention. "Stay back, far behind the barrier or we can't protect you. We won't be taking any questions, we're still just accessing the situation."

Sadly for Hoffman, his exclamation didn't stop the entirety of the reporters on hand, barring Urich himself who just leaned back and smiled at the situation, from screaming a barrage of questions that only grew into in odder questions. Some of which caused even Ben to raise a brow.

"Is it true that you Detective once shoved a banana up you-" That question was halted by the sounds of gunfire restarting once more, as well as a deafening explosive that went off.

"And so it starts," Urich murmured to himself, his eyes staring as the police broke down the front gate of the docks, allowing him to catch a glimpse of a shadowy figure near the back of the docks, standing on the edge of one for the two boats were docked. The seasoned reporter only took out a single notepad, jutting down a few notes about the night before walking back to his car with a large smile on his face.

---

("Patrick Doyle": Moments Ago)

The water hit my skin with a refreshingly cool sensation, but nowhere near as cold as it should've been for this time of night. But it was cold enough that I wasn't surprised that it brought a small amount of shock to my system, sending shivers up my spine as I drove deeper into the water, hopefully letting me go unseen by anyone looking into the water from the docks. I was swimming much faster than I'd ever managed before, probably faster than any regular human could've without some enhancement of the mystic source or being some sort of alien from beyond this realm.

It wasn't even ten minutes before I'd managed to swim out far enough that I couldn't hear the sounds of the police anymore, so I slowed down and made my way towards a public peer, the darkness of the night masking my figure as I crept out of the water. When I was proper out of the water, I attempted to shake off as much water as I could from my body. Sadly, I could feel that I was so tired that I wasn't really able to shake off much water before I decide that I should just cut off my losses.

I had expected to pull a dog and shake out of the moisture from my clothes given how fast I was.

"Fucking water," I groaned, my fingers pinching the ruined fabric that made up what used to be a hoodie. The water seeped out, not a lot of water but at least enough to let me know that I needed to change clothes as fast as possible, otherwise, I couldn't help but hope that the motel that O'Reilly picked out had a change of clothes. I ripped the mask off my face before throwing it behind me, not even waiting for the sound of it splashing before I started to jog off. it didn't take long for me to get to the motel that O'Reilly had told me about.

But it was as I made my way there that I noticed that some people were looking at me oddly, I looked down towards my feet, the attention causing me no small amount of anxiety… which was when I noticed what I thought they were staring at. My clothes had a series of burns and holes that made me appear more like a stripper than some jogger. In fact, the hoodie was barely holding together, strings of burnt blue were the only thing that held the top of the hoodie to the bottom of it.

The anxiety must have given me a sudden boost of adrenaline as I'd reached the motel much faster than I'd thought I could. It lead to me to the obvious realization that at least some of the people who were giving me looks weren't really giving me odd looks, so much as they were peering at a blur that was running by. It was especially evident when I turned around and saw how run down the new pair of runners I'd been given had gotten, their soles were nubs.

"Hope that no one noticed me," I groaned, grabbing at my shoulders and hearing the squash of the wet fabric. How odd it was that my clothes were still wet when I was supposedly running as fast as some cars? "The last thing that I need is someone managing to take a pic of me running around in speed mode."

Deciding that it wasn't worth the time that it would take up, and feeling exhausted as well, I went into the motel, finding the lady sitting at the front desk within seconds. I tapped at the bell, drawing attention from her in the form of an unamused eyebrow raise.

"Sorry," I shrugged, rolling my shoulders and giving her a slight grin. "I just couldn't resist ringing the bell, ain't done it before."

"Riiiiight," The woman enunciated the word oddly, lengthening it till it became a parody of itself. "Do you have a reservation?"

"Jimbosentme," I replied, in a manner that I thought was smooth but was, in fact, just me saying the words so fast that anyone that could hear it just ended up confused. "I said. Jim-Bo Sent-Me!"

"Oh," She nodded, her eyes fell to the book in front of her, then she took her left hand and opened it. I let my eyes drag over to the clock, hoping that it would tell me the time. Sadly, the damn thing was frozen. "Room thirteen," The lady said, interrupting my thoughts and my eyes fell back to the woman. "That's down the hall."

I sighed, closing my eyes for just a second as I let my legs drag me towards the thirteenth door. Opening the door with a single hand, I heard the carpet smush under my feet, the water from my soaked pants having slid down onto my shoes.

"Fuck," Mummering I kicked the sneakers, letting them hit the floor next to the bed with a moist slap. I flinched, finding the noise gross and very off-putting. Then I carefully started to peel off the soaked hoodie.

Which was when something rather unexpected happened.

"You're not Pop?" A young woman's voice caused me to spin around, my eyes wide as we both took in each other's bodies. I recognized her as the girl that I'd met yesterday, Louise. A girl that was much too old for me to be her dad… I hope?

"I fucking hope not!"

"Wait… Pat?" Lousie asked, leaning forward without actually getting any closer to me. "What are you doing here?"

"What am I doing here?" I replied, confused by the rather bizarre question for someone that barged into my room. Took some balls, let me tell ya, "What are you doing here?"

Louise's face went through several expressions that I wasn't even sure of, one of them looked close to surprise, another one looked like anger before finally shifting to something that I thought was an embarrassment

"I thought this was Pop's room," She said, not bothering to shuffle her eyes away from the half-naked body. There was an odd quirk from one of her brows, almost like something that I'd expect from the Rock. "Clerk must have given me the wrong room, thought it would be funny or something."

While she checked me out, I noticed something about her that I hadn't before. She was pretty tall, like I wasn't a small man, standing at 6'2" but she was at least two to three inches taller than me. Impressive I suppose, but not at all indicative of any accomplishment on her part. Just good genetics.

"What's his name?" I asked, curious about the subject but I also had this tiny bit of suspicion that if the clerk had pointed her this way, that her dad was someone that I knew.

She didn't talk for a bit, instead just closing the door and walking around to the other side of the room.

"It would be O'Reilly, Jim."

"So you told the clerk that Jimbo sent you?"

Louise let out a noise from her nose, I think it would be called a snort. Something that I'm pretty sure meant that she was suppressing a chuckle or a giggle. Something that may have been against her image but I didn't know her all that much, I'd need to spend more time around her to be sure of that.

"Oh, so you're a friend of Pop," she sighed as if disappointed with me. "So you some sort of junior member? Certainly, sound like one."

I've never been asked before if I was part of the Irish Mafia, or the Kitchen Irish as I would soon learn, which made this a unique experience, in a day of other unique experiences this somehow felt like it was something more interesting. Probably because I could be lit on fire and shot at any other day. And I hoped that I wouldn't be asked if I was part of the mafia often.

"Nah, O'Reilly's just helping me out," I replied, making my way towards the bathroom. "He found me just after I left that place we met at," I grabbed a towel, rubbing off the excess water fast enough that I wouldn't have to be put under the stare of a young girl while soaked to the bone. "Some moron nearly ran him over, I shoved him out of the way. O'Reilly offered me this place to stay."

"Thank god," I heard her groan, jumping on the bed with a loud thump. "Pop would kill me if he found out that I'd managed to interfere with his boss's business." I loudly chuckled something that Louise seemed to hear right away if her response was anything to go by.

"What's so funny?"

"What… not going to kill ya if you reveal to strangers that he works for the Irish Mafia?"

"Nah, Pop just works for the Kitchen Irish," Louise said, from the sound of her voice, she was speaking into the pillow. "They're a loose series of mobsters, connected to but not really part of the Irish Mafia families."

"Is there really a difference?" I found a dry set of clothes sitting on the cardboard under the sink. "Irish descended mobsters are mobsters of Irish descent, no matter how they arranged the organization."

"Gotta say, a potato is a potato."

"That's just ancient Irish know-how there."

When I came back into the other room, dressed in a simple black tracksuit that I'd been left. My hair having been completely dried by the towel seconds beforehand as I took in how my bed was completely overtaken by the teenage girl.

"So what made you think your Pops would be here?" I asked her, taking the chair by the door, sitting with my right foot on top of my left knee. Jitters took over the limb beneath, shaking the one above all the while.

This wasn't just a nervous tic, it was something called stimming. It was an instinctual action that I couldn't control.

"Look, it's none of my business," I course-corrected my approach with the girl, obviously there's something with her dad that I shouldn't be asking about. "Forget I said anything, though I imagine that you should be getting-" Once more the door clicked open, this time with male O'Reilly entering the room with a rather alarmed expression.

"What the hell is going on here?" he asked, his teeth grinding with such force that I could hear how they were losing calcium by the second. The thing that actually worried me was the way his face flushed a furious red; furious being the operative word. "Louise!"

"Yo, Pop!" Louise lazily raised a hand but still laying down on the bed. There wasn't a single inch of her body that seemed to be concerned with the fact that her dad was enraged at the sight of her being here. Which in fairness…

… if I found my daughter alone, sitting on the only bed, with a man who'd been homeless the day before. I would be pissed too!

Suddenly the elder O'Reilly sighed, the timbre heavy in the air as he looked to me. I couldn't decipher what the look on his face meant, but I would assume it was something to do with how spent he felt dealing with a teenage daughter.

"Louise… what have I told you about doing this?"

"Don't get caught and shakedown some gobshites along the way?"

"Louise."

"Right… right," Louise rolled off the bed, sending me a wink along the way. Very slowly the young girl walked over towards her dad, something that highlighted once more that she was pretty tall compared to most people that I've met in life, which included her father, who seemed to stand under six feet himself. "See you later Pat! We've gotta chat some time!"

In all her rush to leave, or rather lack of rush, I don't think Jimbo noticed the rather odd bit of paper that she left on the bed. The one with her mobile number written on it.

"So… " I trailed off when the O'Reilly Patriarch turned to glare at me. "How're those local sports teams?"

---

(The Man In Black)

He took a deep breath, letting the sound bounce off the room, letting him head right to the sink without any issue from running into something. The world had been on fire since he was a child, ever since the accident, it only took a while to notice it.To take advantage of it.

Stick had told him that he had gifts.

But Matt had never met anyone else besides Stick that had gifts of a similar nature. For years, he thought the two of them were alone in the world of girt, of pain. Today showed him that there were more people with gifts; gifts that made his own seem mundane. The gifts this man had made Matt Murdock feel small.

"Matt, you're back!" He heard his friend and current roommate's voice from the other room, but he had smelled the liquor from his breath, the cheap cologne that the fellow law student liked to use to mask the smell of his clothes when he didn't have the time to properly wash them "I thought that you were going to be gone for the weekend?"

"I got back early, Foggy," Matt replied, keeping his voice soft, even as his friend neared the bathroom door. "Got some unexpected help and got everything done early."

"I tolda that I would've helped you," Foggy whined drunkenly, slurring his words and suddenly turning towards his bed. Matt could hear the carpet decompress from his friend's weight lifting off it before Foggy even landed on the bed. "Now couldn't I have helped instead of some stranger?"

Matt was sure that Foggy meant how and not now, but he didn't feel the need to correct his friend.

"Oh, they didn't offer," The blind man between the two started to explain. "In fact, the guy was already doing the deed for me, and I forced my help on him."

"That's nice," Foggy mumbled into his pillow, his voice breaking against the soft fabric. "But next time I'm going to help ya… whether or not you want it or not… "

Matt smirked, grabbing his toothbrush so he could start to clean his teeth. It was only when he had finished, changed into his pajamas and sat on his own bed, that he spoke once more.

"You're a good friend."

"Good? I'm the greatest friend," Foggy wasn't above correcting Matt. "Not just good. THE BEST!"

"You're the best."

---

(????? ?????)

A clean suit, well-kept hair, glasses and a face clean of any sign of facial hair marked the beginning of what was a rather nondescript if well-dressed, man. He was one of the Boss's most trusted men, the man that got things done or at least arranged tasks to be completed.

Quietly.

Sometimes… even deadly.

He was sitting in a limo, watching a flat-screen showcasing the news of the evening. The breaking news at that, a bunch of girls, blind ones that were found at the docks, shoved into cargo containers like they were animals.

But that wasn't the only thing of interest, it seems that some of the docks were being run by the Irish Mobsters that currently were in power of the criminal element of Hell's Kitchen. Obviously, the two were connected.

And the final thing, a man in blue was rumored to have been seen taking gunfire like he was a tank; even being lit on fire at one stage. A ridiculous rumor no one seemed to take seriously, except for the fact that there was a vigilante wearing blue that beat them up.

Currently, he was just being called the Blueman.

"Yes, sir," He spoke into a phone, one that looked like something that would only see the mass market within the next ten years, perhaps something that only high-ranking government officials would be using. "It's been taken care of, the relationship between the Kitchen Irish and Madame Gao's group will be strained by this loss. It should leave her open for you to negotiate for the Russians to take over the trade."

The Boss said something in return.

"O'Reilly?" The metaphorical right hand of the Boss said, not so much in question to the man on the other end of the call but as a question to himself. "He's trustworthy enough, the man has his morals but… put some pressure on his family and he'll fold."

More words were said by the Boss, something that would vaguely sound like a threat to anyone else hearing it, but the man wearing the glasses knew it was just the tone of voice that the other always used. He was polite but had trouble speaking in a manner that didn't come off as threatening when certain topics were being discussed.

After all… Wilson Fisk didn't need to threaten anyone.

He just ended any threat to his goals. No warnings were needed.

"No, I don't know who Mr. O'Reilly sent in there but I can find out if you want?"

"That… won't be necessary," Fisk replied, for the first time the driver of the limo could hear his voice. "I'm sure that once we've brought him into the fold, O'Reilly will eventually hire the man again."

"Mr. Wesley," The Driver spoke up for the first time, interrupting the man's rather important conversation. "We've arrived."

"Ah, thank you," James Welsey replied, before returning to his conversation on the phone. "I'm afraid that I've arrived sir and will have to cut this call short. Once I've finished things up here, I'll call in."

"Remember, we take this slow," Fisk warned his right-hand man. "No need to make too many waves yet."

---

(Patrick Doyle: The Next Day)

The night before had ended with a rather quiet talk with Jim O'Reilly about how exactly I knew his daughter. Now thankfully the man didn't become that stereotypical angry dad that wanted to kill all males that came into contact with his daughter, at least the ones that were not family, so he did let me explain the full story of that to him.

And so he left me with a note telling me where to meet up with Urich again. Some cafe down the road, think it was called Brennans or something.

"You did good work, kid," Ben told me, sitting across from me in a booth near the corner of the room. "Real good, not a single person died, though some of them may not walk again… " he trailed off, his hand coming to rest under his chin as if a thought had struck him. "Maybe try and work on that, it wouldn't be good if you get mugged by some fool and you accidentally break him in half."

There was an image for you, accidentally doing Superboy-Prime, as in what he did to the Teen Titans that time they as a group decided to just throw themselves at the Superman-level being… and most of them didn't have durability as a power.

"On that," I said, agreeing with him. "So… what do I do now?"

Ben took a long gulp from his drink, while I dug into a toasted ham and cheese sandwich waiting for him to respond. I could feel my heart start to race as my ears started to pick up the sounds of the city going around me, the noises were far louder, far clearer than anything else. For a few seconds, I tried to down it all out.

"Pat," Ben's voice suddenly overpowered the rest of the noises, letting me return to normal. "You okay?"

"Yeah, suddenly gained super hearing," I said, nonchalantly finishing off the sandwich with a single large bite and then swallowing it in that same motion. "This is rather terrifying, wonder what new power I'll get next. I kinda hope it isn't flight… I've got a phobia of heights."

"But you were leaping small buildings yesterday," he replied, his tone a mix of amusement and confusion with his index finger pointing directly at me. "What… now that you're fireproof, do you have a phobia of fire as well."

"Nah, I've a phobia of water, though," I grinned at him, something that he mirrored with one of his own. "So swimming is out of the question."

"You'll never make a good reporter if you don't get over those sort of fears," Urich's grin was a small proud thing, especially as he reached inside his jacket pocket. A folder of papers slapped onto the tale with enough force that they slid over to me. "And you'll need these."

I slowly peeled over the folder, revealing a mix of I.D cards, birth certificates and a lot of other sorts of papers that meant that I was who I said I was. Utter proof that I was both an American and an Irish citizen.

"This is a lot," I closed the folder, sliding it back to Ben, who was the only one between the two of us that had a jacket big enough to even carry the damn thing. "Why?"

He didn't speak for a few seconds, instead, his eyes just roamed about the room, as if he was collecting pieces to a puzzle that I couldn't hope to understand. I continued to watch as he took off his glasses and wiped them with the fabric of his shirt till they were sportless to my eyes, it was only when the glasses returned to the ridge of his nose that he spoke once more.

"You saved lives," Urich said lowly. "You've been given power like no one else in the world. First thing you do with it?" he asked, but I couldn't bring myself to answer, sensing that it was rhetorical. "You've decided that you'll use it to help people. I'm doing this because your sort of power worries me and maybe now that you've seen that you can work outside the law without consequences… maybe that will be how you think things should go."

I couldn't deny the rush that went through my body last night, the raw emotion that churned through me like a drug. It could be addictive to me, nothing could stop me from going after every gang, every criminal enterprise, and every mugger… nothing could hurt me.

"I think it's time that you learn how to use people, the public's opinion, and a journalist's ability to expose corruption to stop the big guys, to help people, " Ben continued, standing now to deliver the documents right back into my hands. "or this is where we end this, you go on your ways and I go my ways but no matter what, I'll help you find out what happened to you… It's up to you."

Our eyes meet and I watched as he held out his left hand for me to shake.

"What do you say?"

I smiled.

"When do I start," Grabbing his hand, we shook and I could tell that this was the start of a beautiful friendship.

 

[Baam_35th]

So are you going to complete this or drop it halfway... I read the original version and was disappointed when it was dropped...

Click to shrink...

So, you know about that thing called tact… and how it can be used to ask questions without sounding like a jerk? Because from this comment it doesn't seem like it.

anyway, liked these chapters and I'm actually curious about which powers he'll get because I know nothing about the source.

 

[Proman]

So are you going to complete this or drop it halfway... I read the original version and was disappointed when it was dropped...

Click to shrink...

The original version of this concept was written with a ending in mind but not in the important details between the beginning and the end. So it ran into a hard wall created by pantzing badly.

I've every arc of this story planned out. Not in minute detail, but in enough that this problem won't repeat for this version of the story. There may be hiatus's but it would be left.

also:... ... ...

anyway, liked these chapters and I'm actually curious about which powers he'll get because I know nothing about the source.

Click to shrink...

It's not that unique, so don't hype it up too much. That'll only backfire.

 

[poit123]

Looks interesting so far. Pat definitely gives the vibe of a kryptonian who hasn't been getting enough sun, as his powers slowly creep in. Probably for the best, if he went out sunbathing on a bright cloudless day, they might come in too fast to adjust to.

As asked for in the end-note of chapter two, here's a bit of an editorial roundup, tucked into spoiler tags to keep it from making the uninterested scroll forever to get past it. A lot of it looks almost like auto-incorrect substituted weird replacements for words on you.

First, chapter one:

Spoiler

caused me to feel more than a little subconscious.

Click to shrink...

self conscious

what I could have done to Elon Musk?

Click to shrink...

From what he's shown on the internet, Musk is a very petty man, you may have just been wearing the wrong colour shirt.

so I grabbed a large bowel and filled it

Click to shrink...

bowl - I think the health inspectors would shut down any restaurant serving food out of bowels.

letting me slam into the two none-motorbike riding men

Click to shrink...

non-

Chapter Two:

Spoiler

drive to wherever we were going. jIt was only after

Click to shrink...

It

Everybody failing to intermediate me

Click to shrink...

intimidate

even young boys," Jime explained, taking

Click to shrink...

Jim

something to collaborate Jim's story

Click to shrink...

corroborate

far too supercilious for me

Click to shrink...

suspicious

before the fire brigand gets there

Click to shrink...

brigade (Though the Fire Brigand sounds like an interesting villain... relieving you of that money burning a hole in your pocket)

Your some kind of

Click to shrink...

You're

sound of my one oddly deep

Click to shrink...

own

must be wearing from fancy vest

Click to shrink...

some

places and the pain on the edges

Click to shrink...

paint

same time as her feet hit

Click to shrink...

his/our

ripping off the lack and swinging

Click to shrink...

lock

Chapter Three:

Spoiler

those creep bags could harm her if they tried

Click to shrink...

from the context: couldn't

Louise moved forward, untying her school tie while shoving it into her bag afterward

Click to shrink...

How many ties does this uniform have? She's already taken one off and put it in her bag back with her friend.

dressed in a smile black tracksuit

Click to shrink...

small? simple?

This is a rather terrifying

Click to shrink...

omit the 'a'

and every mugger… nothing could me

Click to shrink...

could hurt me

 

[Proman]

Looks interesting so far. Pat definitely gives the vibe of a kryptonian who hasn't been getting enough sun, as his powers slowly creep in. Probably for the best, if he went out sunbathing on a bright cloudless day, they might come in too fast to adjust to.

As asked for in the end-note of chapter two, here's a bit of an editorial roundup, tucked into spoiler tags to keep it from making the uninterested scroll forever to get past it. A lot of it looks almost like auto-incorrect substituted weird replacements for words on you.

First, chapter one:

Spoiler

self conscious



From what he's shown on the internet, Musk is a very petty man, you may have just been wearing the wrong colour shirt.



bowl - I think the health inspectors would shut down any restaurant serving food out of bowels.



non-

Chapter Two:

Spoiler

It



intimidate



Jim



corroborate



suspicious



brigade (Though the Fire Brigand sounds like an interesting villain... relieving you of that money burning a hole in your pocket)



You're



own



some



paint



his/our



lock

Chapter Three:

Spoiler

from the context: couldn't



How many ties does this uniform have? She's already taken one off and put it in her bag back with her friend.



small? simple?



omit the 'a'



could hurt me

Click to shrink...

Thanks for the corrections, I appreciate it.
The tie one I think you're the one confused about. See she only loosened the tie earlier, then later put it into her bag... I didn't miss something there did I?

On the other parts, yeah, one thing that I suffered from is the 'n't' being left out constantly. Really changes my sentences at times. It changes "I wouldn't ever commit murder." to "I would commit murder."

Jime was from the spellcheck noticing that the e wasn't on the next word but not that there's a extra e on Jim. Which has none... lol.

 

[poit123]

Thanks for the corrections, I appreciate it.
The tie one I think you're the one confused about. See she only loosened the tie earlier, then later put it into her bag... I didn't miss something there did I?

Click to shrink...

Yup:

Louise smiled, throwing her loosened tie into her backpack and walking the opposite way from the bus

Click to shrink...

She's definitely wearing more than the usual number of ties. Teenager fashion is weird.

 

[Proman]

Yup:



She's definitely wearing more than the usual number of ties. Teenager fashion is weird.

Click to shrink...

Nah, Catholic school uniforms are just that bad. Three ties and six different shoes. Thankfully, we only have to wear the ties all at once and not the shoes.

... I'm not joking about the shoes. I had to have two pairs for a normal school day, another for PE day. I don't know why, they explained in Irish, and in spite of being the most Irish-Irish-man, I don't actually understand my own language.

My ancestors would be rolling their graves... but probably more because I don't read Latin. At one point, that was the most read language in the country.

 

[TheSystemFan]

The original version of this concept was written with a ending in mind but not in the important details between the beginning and the end. So it ran into a hard wall created by pantzing badly.

I've every arc of this story planned out. Not in minute detail, but in enough that this problem won't repeat for this version of the story. There may be hiatus's but it would be left.

also:... ... ...


It's not that unique, so don't hype it up too much. That'll only backfire.

Click to shrink...

So is it superman or superboy... Superboy is probable cause he's not gettingg stronger daily absorbing sun's radiation...

 

[Proman]

(Ben Urich: November 3rd 2008)

"Ben!" A short white man, with a balding head and a large brown beard, and a set of black glasses sitting low on his nose, walked into the reporter's office, his face apologetic as he did so while his hand held a folder. "I have something that could be right up your alley."

"Oh," Ben replied to his boss with a raised brow, suspicion doing so along with it. "I'd love to see what you think would be up my alley, Ellison."

It was kind of a game that his Editor liked to play with him at times, trying to force soft assignments down his throat. Ben couldn't really tell if he was trying to keep him safe by stopping him from making too many enemies or if Ellison was just trying to protect the paper from lawsuits resulting from his rather intrusive investigations.

"Well, I remember that you've been in a stint of looking into… the more weird occurrences as of late," Ellison sat down on Urich's desk, close enough to support his weight but far enough from anything that he could rudely be sitting on. "And well, some of our contracts have managed to leak a rather odd series of electrical blackouts near Lower Manhattan. Now normally, this wouldn't be news worthy, to easy boring explanations for it… but it seems that the suits are keeping it suppressed. Anything being hid isn't worth hiding"

Urich leaned back, his eyes jumping to the computer monitor where his latest story about how someone was poisoning the water supply. It was an important story, one that he'd feel guilty about just shelving to check out some leads that mightn't pan out.

But he did owe it to the kid to keep checking up on it.

"I'm interested but not super interested," he found himself sighing, slapping his hand against his forehead and rubbing it. "It sounds like there's a story there… but I can't devote any time to it. Anyone free to look into it?"

"Nope, that's why I brought it to you," The other man apologized, shrugging his shoulders. "I just can't spare anyone, they all got their assignments," Ellison stood up, turning his back and making his way out of the room. But before he managed to open the door once more, Ben's voice interrupted.

"You know, Doyle could go down there and look around," Ben offered, raising his hand from his voice to point out of the window, right at the man pushing around a cart of office supplies. "After all, we both know that these sort of cases usually end up being nothing."

"It would be an easy assignment to cut his teeth on," The Editor mused, scratching at his chin. The man had been meaning to give the kid a bigger role at the paper, especially given how much the young man's writing has improved over the last few months. "You think he's up for getting into people's faces? He's pretty shy."

Ben scoffed, his face breaking out into a wide smile.

"You and I both know that it takes all kinds out there," It was a gentle correction, something that was only possible because of how the two respected each other. "Sometimes the polite guy gets more out of people than the one that is all up in their faces."

"It's not just being polite… the guy's very passive."

"Well, good thing then that he'll call in if he feels like he's in over his head."

Ellison chuckled, opening the door just a crack and then leaning outside of the room.

"Hey, Doyle!" he yelled, grabbing the young man's attention in a way that caused Doyle to hop slightly from fright. "Get your butt in here, I've got something to ask."

Doyle walked into the room, leaving the equipment he was carrying down on a nearby empty table. He was neater than he'd been when Ellison had first met him, where before he had long unkempt hair on his head, so long that in fact, it had reached his shoulders. Now his hair was short, a neatly brushed side style that was nothing if not completely average.

"Yes, sir," Doyle said, closing the door behind him as he stood before both his mentor and his boss. "Did you have something that you needed me to do?"

"Yeah, Ben's just convinced me to hand you an assignment," Ellison watched as Doyle tragically vibrated on the spot, his mouth spreading into a large smile as he heard the news. Something that both the Editor and Urich knew would happen, the kid had been chomping on the bit to get such a thing. "So there are some blackouts going on in Lower Manhattan, I need you to check them out."

"Lower Manhattan?" Doyle responded, tapping his foot and rubbing his chin with his thumb and finger. "That's a rather large area for blackouts, it's surprising that I've not heard of it before?"

"Some suits are suppressing the information," Ben supplied, his hands tapping at his keyboard as he returned to writing his story. "Not sure why, we're not even sure whether they work for a company or the government."

"So it could be nothing but an electrical company trying to cover their asses?"

"Yup," Ellison grinned, popping his lips. "Just the kind of story to cut your teeth on."

"I'm on it!" Doyle ran out of the room, nearly running into the closed door as he did so. It wasn't long till the young man was out of the two older men's sight, much to the amusement of the reporter of the two… and the worry of the Editor.

"I hope the kid knows what he's doing," Elisson sighed, having second thoughts about what he'd just allowed to happen.

"Don't worry about it," Ben spoke up once more grabbing his boss's attention before he could leave. "I've taught the kid everything that he knows."

"That's what I'm worried about," Ellison rolled his eyes, leaving the room finally. Something that brought a smile to Urich's face as the man started to work on the Water story once more because he knew that the kid was going to be just fine.

After all, it wasn't like there was much in the world that could take him out.

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

"Where is that girl?" Jim sipped from his coffee, letting the pleasant sensation that it brought to bear ooze through his body. The man had called off smoking a few months ago, something that his wife and little girl were rather happy for, not to mention his wallet was much heavier for it.

The man had only gotten greyer over the last while, his daughter had graduated from high school and had very little interest in heading off to college to at least a year. instead, she was looking for a job, which only bothered the older man given the increase of violent crimes in the area as the Kitchen Irish began to struggle against the Russians for control over certain aspects.

"Pop!" Louise's voice broke through over a crowd coming out of an office building. Dressed in what could only be described as business casual, with pants rather than any sort of skirt, the girl didn't like the idea of a perv managing to sneak a look up there when the opportunity arose. "It looks like I didn't get it."

"Why not?" he responded, the guff in his voice coming from holding back the rage that he could feel building in his heart. Not that Jim let his temper get the best of him with his daughter, but the feeling never went away. "What did you do this time?"

"Me!" she let her pitch go higher and her hands to her mouth in mock outrage. "I think that you'd find that it was him… the world's biggest asshole interviewer… that caused the issue. Wanted me to wear a really short skirt, started to ogle me," With her eyes close, Louise shrugged her shoulders. "I think I'm the victim here."

"Right," The older O'Reilly rolled his eyes. "See, I'd believe you if it wasn't for one rather big issue with this whole story."

"Yeah, and what's that?"

"This is apparently the fourth time that this has happened… today alone."

Louise paused in her steps, waiting for her Pop to catch up to her a few meters from the car that they had arrived in. The sounds of the busy streets, with the speeding cars and the passing people, just added to the embarrassment that she was feeling at the moment.

"Well, I ain't got the best track record is all," At the rather unamused stare that Pop was sending her way caused her to sink in on herself, though that didn't mean Louise wasn't still towering over her father like a basketball player would against a jockey. "Look… Pop, these office jobs just ain't… me."

"And what would be you?" Jim's unamused stare morphed into one that showcased intrigue. "Just as an example, it would make finding a job easier."

"I want to be out there!" Louise waved her arms, spreading out and nearly hitting the people that were walking by, something that went unnoticed by the redhead. "With people watching and the-"

"No… You ain't going for either wrestling or boxing," Her father told the young girl flatly, his unamused stare returning once more.

"Why not?" Louise said, walking the last few meters from the car, sitting on the hood with all the petulance of a small child.

"Because you got banned from both for drop-kicking people at the regionals. You're banned from competing."

Louise opened her mouth, a retort ready on her lips but then froze, thinking about it.

"Fair enough," she said, shrugging once more. "But I still say that all it takes one plastic surgeon and a few of the right people paid off, then I'd make it through all right."

While usually, such a sentence would send any responsible father exploding with outrage at the thought of his little girl engaging in such dangerous practices. Jim knew that she was just trying to rile him up, it was something that the O'Reilly girl liked to do since he left the Kitchen Irish peacefully about two months ago.

Mr. O'Reilly opened the driver's side door, signaling to Louise to get inside herself with an absentminded hand wave. Eventually, the young girl rolled her eyes hopped off the car, made her way towards the passenger seat… till a hand tapped her on the shoulder.

"Sorry, Miss," Came the smooth voice of a rather well-kept businessman. The glasses on his face glinting in the sunlight, while Jim got out of the car once more, his face slightly pale from the very sight of him. "But I need a word with your father?"

The girl didn't even get the chance to respond before Pop stepped in.

"Louise, get in the car, I'll be there in just a second," Louise didn't even bother to argue, just slowly nodded at her Pop and got into the car. When she was inside. Jim and the glasses-wearing man walked a few steps away from the car, out of earshot. "Mr. Wesley, I didn't expect to see you so early in the morning."

"I know that you like to keep our meetings private and the Boss understands that," Wesley pushed his glasses up closer to his eyes, keeping a small polite smile on his face even well his eyes hardened. "But this couldn't wait, by meeting you like this, it leaves no phone calls and no trace other than visual that we met."

"It's fine, just unexpected." Jim knew the deal, small fry like him couldn't complain, would make him unfavorable to the type of boss he now worked for. "What can I do, sir?"

"We need to get a hit… on a rather hard target," Wesley took a glance around, seeing that there wasn't anyone that could overhear. "Sean Leary."

Jim took in a deep breath, his eyes widening while dropping to the ground, there was a measure of absolute dread that exploded over his face. He was familiar with the man, he'd known him since he was young, since before Louise was born, the man had even saved his life at one point.

"Is there a problem?" The Right Hand to the most powerful man in New York at the moment asked him, it was like a shark smelling blood in the water, the danger was clear in the air.

"No, just surprised that he'd piss off the boss," Jim explained, scratching his neck in wariness. "Sean would usually be what I'd call, risk-averse."

"Sadly… he's looking to talk," Wesley explained, something that alarmed Jim. "About the Boss, it seems that he's found out about his identity."

"And how did we find out about this?"

"He went to the wrong detective, thought the man was clean, but he was one of ours," There was a tired sigh from the man like he had to deal with this mess and was just sick of it. "Man's gone to the winds, we're sure he's still in the city but… well, we're sure that with your prior knowledge of the man, you'd find him easier than any hitman we could hire."

"Pop!" Louise poked her head out the side of the car, her arm high in the air. "Come on, we're going to be late."

The two men shared a stare before nodding and going on their own ways, one to make more deals, to deal with more problems, and the other to get his girl home… and then to handle a problem that he'd never hoped to have.

---

(Patrick Doyle)

The months had been kind to me, I had a decent job as a would-be reporter in the Bulletin, I had a new apartment, and I even moonlighted as something of an anti-mugger at times. I wasn't really looking for crimes to stop, just out and about testing my ever-increasing speed and my ever-increasing strength. I wasn't the Flash or anything but I've managed to catch a few bullets in some of the more deadly situations I'd found myself in.
Though not without flattening most against my palm, mostly because I didn't manage to actually match the trajectory in the right way to grab it perfectly.

I was now faster than the majority of cars now, so that was neat. And I think that I was strong enough now to pick up and throw a tank at people. Though thankfully I haven't needed to test that little factoid yet.

I didn't just get an increase in those powers but also gained the ability to see more of the visual spectrum. I now had X-Ray-like sight, something closer to old comics idea of X-Ray vision rather than what the name implies, and it also I've got a telescopic vision that I could switch into a microscopic vision. Now, at this very moment, I was trying to figure out where to start with this assignment. Like obviously I was sure that I should start in Lower Manhattan but that was a rather large area to search. The first place that I thought to look in was the local power plant.

That got me nearly nowhere at all since there was nothing wrong with anything in the building, no faulty wires, no dead bodies, animal or otherwise, in any of the conductors. But it wasn't all a bust, with a little hemming and a little babbling, I managed to get one of the workers to give me an address. This address should've been where the blackout to started from.

It was a rather large apartment building, littered with a slew of people coming in and out like there was some kind of sale going. I watched from outside, just checking to mark all the entrances and exits mentally. I found an older lady, a kindly-looking one that was out walking her dog. Since she came out the front door of the place, I assumed that she was living there.

"Miss," I called out, grabbing her attention while adjusting my collar. "If I may have just a moment of your time."

The woman didn't look happy, in fact, she seemed downright annoyed at me. I would have to use all my small-town charm to get what I needed out of the lady. Which wasn't a lot of charm, just the smudge that I hold in reserve.

"Wha you want?" She asked me, her eyes glaring at me through a pair of thick-rimmed glasses.

"Oh… I'm s-sorry if I bothered you, my name's Pat Doyle," I pulled at my collar, drawing in on myself as if her harsh tone had bothered me, a calculated act but not one that I didn't feel. "See, I just got my first assignment at the Bulletin and… "

I trailed off, keeping my eyes low but my head high enough so tI could still keep her in the corner of my vision. There were a few seconds that the lady looked taken back by my rather meek display, then her expression turned to one of guilt.

"The Bulletin?" She eventually asked, seemingly having changed her mind about how she wanted to interact with me. "That's a rather big name paper, what sort of assignment?"

"Oh, I'm just looking into," I opened a folder I had resting in my left hand, fumbling with a sheet that I brought up with my right before handing it to the lady with deliberate slowness. "The blackouts that happened about a week ago in this building. I was just wondering if you knew anything?"

"Anything?"

"Y-yeah," I stammered. "You know odd noises at night, people that shouldn't be around…. Or just look weird around the place."

"There have been some people in suits the other day," The old lady started, puffing up her lips in thought. Eventually, she frowned, her eyes looking up and to the right, something that, if I remember right, meant that she was recalling something rather than making something up. "From what Betty told me-"

"Betty?" The sound of that name, was something that I knew from childhood, though I heavily doubted that she was Betty Ross. A woman that smart, that connected, wouldn't be living in a joint like that.

"The young girl who lives in 5B, poor girl, she only moved in about a month ago," The lady, who I realized I'd yet to get the name of. "Always getting into arguments with her fiancé, but that's not important. These suits, I'm not sure who they work for, but I've been told that they were around for the blackout."

"T-That's good to know," I reached into my pocket, drawing out a notepad and pen, missing me expensive android phone, scratching in some names and a time period. "And i-if I may be so bold, Miss… what's your name?"

It was important that I get her name, if only for collaboration later on.

"Lenard, Regina Lenard," She told me as she crouched and rubbed the top of her dog's head. The animal barking happily and wagging its tail, it wasn't a small dog so I wasn't sure if the woman needed to bend down to do this. "I live in 5C, just next door to Betty, sometimes I even take the girl in when her fiancé starts taking out some things on the poor girl."

That ran plenty of alarm bells in my head and solidified that this wasn't Betty Ross. No way that she'd be in an abusive relationship, not with General Ross as her dad. That man wouldn't stand for that sort of thing happening to his little girl. Her boyfriend/husband would've found himself at the end of a firing squad.

"Thanks for the information miss," I handed her a piece of paper with a number on the paper. "If you see anything else, do you mind giving this number a ring?" at her rather disbelieving expression; "I just mean if you remember anything else or if you see anything that 's odd."

"Shouldn't I call the cops?"

"O-o-of course," I stammered out, this time it was genuine. "I just mean that you could give me a heads up for stories that you might think needs to be told, just the odd things. You know?"

The woman nodded, eventually turning with the lead in her hand and I let the dog and their owner work off.

It didn't take me long to decide that I needed to meet this Betty as well. Maybe she'd seen something that Regina wasn't told about. After all, such a kind old lady didn't need to know anything dangerous, if I was this Betty, I certainly wouldn't tell her anything about that. The door to get into the apartment complex was empty, not a single person passing through the door, so that meant I needed to be buzzed in.

"Hope I can find more of that small-town charm," I grumbled, looking at the list of apartment numbers, finding the button for the 5B apartment. "Hello, Miss, I'm with the New York Bulletin, just looking to do a piece on what's it's like to live in the area. One of those odd things that the editor loves doing at times, may I come in?"

I said it with such a rushy voice like I was suddenly terrified that the woman would attack me on the other side of the buzzer.

"Ok," The voice that I could only assume that it was this Betty woman. "I'll buzz you in."

I went through the door and up the stairs slowly, not wanting to spook the woman by getting up there as supernaturally fast as I could. Most of the time, I'd stay away from using any such a speed in an open place but in an old building like this, I could afford to blitz past the hallways.

It took only two minutes to reach the fifth floor, something that I'm sure was a fast time but the layout of the stairs meant I could just leap over several sets of stairs without issue, cutting the time it would take by around half.

I came to Betty's door, a grin on my face, and ruffling my shirt to make myself seem more like I was one of those people that were just exhausted by life. Knocking on the door, I waited for her to answer patiently, faking needing to huff and puff.

When she opened the door, I wasn't so much taken back as I was confused. From the words of that old lady with the dog, I woulda thought that poor Betty was nothing if not meek housewife… but this woman was a tall blond, not as tall as Louise or even me but she looked to be as built as her.

Just leaner.


"How can I help you?" The woman pushed up some glasses, some oddly shaped glasses. From my own experiences with lenses the one on her face looked to be fake, since they didn't actually have a curved surface, at least not enough that it would help you with seeing better. They were good fakes though, mind from a type of glass I wasn't familiar with... not that I was super familiar with glass types.

Curious and curiouser.

This woman was too good to fall for any acts.

"Hello, I was the guy at the door buzzing, with the New York Bulletin?"

"Right that was you," Betty shook her head, her long blond hair casting shadows over her eyes. "Sorry, you just got up here a lot faster than I thought possible."

"I've been told that I'm a guy that's always in a hurry," I joked, deciding that honesty would get me through the door better than the 'all-shucks' act would. "Means that I'm at least early to everything that I need to be at. Anyway, if I'm allowed to get straight onto business, I'm looking into the recent blackout, that started in this building."

Betty blinked, her face scrunching up suddenly in that way I'm sure said that she was taken back by what I'd just said.

"Thought that you said it was about how life in the area is like?" she responded, opening the door and waving me into the apartment.

"It's the same thing," I shrugged, letting the shoulders roll as I entered the main living room of the apartment. My eyes glazed over at the sight of pictures, most of them of what I could only assume was her fiancé and the woman herself. They were such obviously overly sweet pictures that I'm not sure a couple decades in would be able to get naturally, never mind newlyweds. "The two tie into each other perfectly, miss."

"Please sit down," She motioned to a chair, a soft-looking green thing with yellow crowns. "What do you want to ask exactly?"

"Just the usual stuff, did you see anything odd, where you home for the blackout?" I smiled, letting my teeth shine through it as I thought it would do well for getting the girl to take my questions. "Those sort of things. The standard mix of nonsense and average questions."

"Right," she took a deep breath. "Well, in order, I didn't see anything, I was home for the blackout but my fiancé wasn't."

"Good," I took a look around the room, my vision shifting through all the available avenues to showcase what this very suspicious person had to hide from me. To hide this action, of me staring around the room oddly, I took out my notepad, scratching down what the woman had told me as I had with the old dog lady outside. "And how long have you lived in the area?"

"Been here for about a year," she told me, and oddly if I hadn't been told that she'd been here for only a month, I wouldn't have been able to tell she lied. Betty's heart rate was normal and I couldn't figure out if the sweat on her brow was normal or a sign of deceit. "The only issue seems to be the electrical power seems to go out, but that's not a massive issue this time of year. The building has a gas boiler for heat, so I don't have to worry about the winter cold."

"Right, makes sense," I nodded seeing past the woman and into the room on the other side. I could see three people, surrounding computer monitors, One was a tall man with a dark skin tone and black hair, another one was a plain white male, clean-shaven and his hair brushed back. "And where is your fiancé? I wouldn't mind hearing his opinion about things?"

"Oh," Betty let out, fake surprise on her face, something that I probably wouldn't be able to tell if I hadn't been told. "I'm afraid that he's out, off to his job."

"And where's that… if you don't mind me asking? I leaned forward, tapping the notepad to one knee while doing the same with my pen, letting the ink from it stain my knee.

"He's an office clerk for Hammer Industries customer services," the lady explained, plastering on a smile on her face that told me that Betty was going for the whole butter wouldn't melt in her mouth approach. "He works late hours but a few days a week."

"I see," I wrote down some nonsense on the paper, trying to make sure that I looked like I was finishing up. "Well, I won't take up any more of your time, if you think of anything just give a ring to the Bulletin offices and ask for Doyle, I'm the only Doyle in the building."

I left the room, trying to seem like I was being casual when I was sure that it really just seemed like I was running away from her. It was odd then if you were to learn that this was just how I naturally was, even if I was really calm on the inside, I seemed to be a panicked mess at times. I needed to force meself to act any other way. Unless I was in disguise, that seemed to draw my confidence out.

But I slowed down once I left the apartment, focusing on listening to the room that I just left with only the vaguest hint of trouble doing so.

"What do you think?"Betty asked another person, her accent shifting ever so slightly. Sadly I wasn't familiar with American accents yet, so I only could tell it was different but not exactly where it had come from but I could tell it was still an American one. "Guy on the up and up??"

"Not sure," A male voice spoke up, his voice was distorted, I could make out every word he was saying but I could tell the gist of it. It was only his last few words that were truly clear to me. "... looks like there's no sign of him before six months ago."

My heart leaped deep into my chest, it was more than a little suspicious that they could pull up this much info about me in such short notice, hell it was downright magical. Who could they be to get that much info?

I decided to create some distance between me and those guys.

But I couldn't leave the apartment just yet. If those guys had the ability to monitor the rest of the building like I'm assuming they can, then that means that me leaving the place before talking to anyone else would just make me look more suspicious. And it would add a few more povs, which would be good to have.

So I made sure to talk to a random swath of people in the building. Making it seem that openly talking to Betty was just due to happenstance, rather than picking her out from everyone else in the building. Otherwise, they might find out about me before I can find out about them.

I'd just gotten through several doors, talked to about three people, gotten some of the worst responses to my questions that I'd ever had, one guy started to talk about his pooh... yeah let's move on from that. Then my knocks went unanswered for three more doors. I'd decided that this door here, 4D, would be the final one. Whoever lived here would be the last person that I'd interview today.

Gently I knocked on the door, right on the metallic 4D symbols.

"Just a second," A woman inside yelled, her voice making her sound older than I was but not so old that she could be my grandmother. Maybe my mother if she had a real early teen pregnancy and… this is an odd comparison so I'll stop here.

I tapped my foot, absentmindedly, as I waited for her to answer the door.

When the door did open I was surprised by the length and the sheer frizziness of the lady's black hair. It reached the midpoint of her back while also framing her face. She was also wearing a large set of black goggles that hung around the neck like some sort of accessory.

"Hello, Mrs.?" I let the question hang in the air.

"Oh no, it's just Miss," She bashfully replied, batting her eyes at me. They were squinty like she needed glasses but couldn't wear her goggles at the same time. It was a odd mix when speciality googles existed, it could've meant that she needed a new prescription lense for them though. "Miss Octavius, Olivia Octavius but my friends call me Liv."

Octavius? Related to Dok Ock or just a coincidence? I think that I could've found another lead for who caused their blackouts.

The thought went through my mind for a second… and I didn't like it, but it seemed that I'd found a cradle robber… eww.

"Liv then?" I smiled from just one side of my mouth, not showing off my teeth. I even went as far as to angle my head and lean onto a wall, an act that brought no small amount of disgust bubbling up inside of me.

"Yes, call me Liv," Liv smiled at me, her eyes continuing to roam up and down my form. I wasn't really sure if this was because she needed glasses or if she just found me so irresistible she couldn't stop them from taking my body in. "I'm not good with formality I'm afraid."

Holding out a hand the two of us shook, then I got down to business.

"Neither am I, call me Pat."

"Oh, I will," Her eyes ran up and down my frame, something that I found odd.

"So I'm working for the New York Bulletin," I said, repeating the line for what felt like the millionth time. "Just a simple piece," I leaned my neck over the corner, my eyes barely peeking over her body so I could see inside her room, my eyes shifting in the visual spectrum so I could find what I wanted. "On what it's like living in this area and… if anything strange has happened recently?"

"You're talking about those folks in the suits and sunglasses at night," Liv said to me, her hand going into her pocket and pulling out a pair of glasses that she wiped off her shirt. There was this shift in her tone, in her body language, where before she was casual, almost flirty. Now, Liv was subdued, nearly whispering. "Yeah, I've noticed them snooping around."

That was the first person that didn't just hear about these guys from that old dog lady or didn't mention them like Betty.

"Any idea who they are? What they're here for?" I asked, taking out a notepad, ready to write down her answers.

"Oh, some secret government agents," she shrugged, with a level of nonchalance that I found super impressive. Especially given the topic on hand. "I've seen the type before, though I can't recognize what branch these spooks belong to."

There was a gleam in her eye, something that told despite her rather pleasant demeanor that this woman wasn't really to be trusted.

"And in less conspiracy theory territory, what is it that you do-" I stopped, my ear twitched telling me that there was a person coming down. I spun around, letting me see Betty turning around the corner.

How interesting.

"Miss Betty." I smiled, keeping my arms wide and what I thought looked to be inviting. Betty was looking much like I'd expect from someone that had eaten something really sour, with her lips scrunched up into a small circle. "What can I do for you?"

She glanced at her feet, an action that I could tell was a ruse, just from her heartbeat alone. It was far to steady for someone to be that nervous. But it was a good act, one that would've fooled me if it wasn't for my powers.

"No," Betty eventually stuttered out, rubbing her arm near the elbow, looking as meek as I'd ever seen anyone has been. "It's just that I just remembered that I…. did see some guys in suits the another day, they were asking about the break-in on the… fourth floor?"

"Yes, I recall the same," Olivia chimed in her finger nearly up to her nose in terms of positioning. "They were very rude, wanted to check my apartment out without any probable cause."

"That's not too odd," I said, scratching my shoulder while keeping my eyes firmly on the Doctor of the three of us in the hall. "There are some pretty rude cops around, not saying crooked or anything… because I can't legally say that… but I can say rude."

Liv giggled something that seemed to shock Betty if her face was anything to go by. I couldn't help the grin that overcame my face, enjoying confusing this badly hidden plant by any means necessary.

The fizzy-haired woman turned around, about to return to her apartment.

"Olivia!" Betty suddenly yelled out, something that actually managed to take me off guard. "Wait up, I've been meaning to ask you about a thing."

There was an odd break where neither one of them spoke, Liv seemed to just want the woman to ask her whatever the subject was. But I could tell that the silence on Betty's end was due to her just thinking up something on the spot rather than having something to ask the Doctor.

"Fine," Liv responded, her eyes rolling while she leaned on the frame of her door. "Just make it quick, I don't want to waste too much time, I've got experiments that need finishing."

It was said with such a harsh tone that I nearly felt sorry for the taller woman of the two, but then I remembered that she was a plant, maybe even here to spy on this Doctor here and her experiments.

It was hard to tell but I could feel that I was getting closer to the reason that the blackouts were happening.

"What's your field if you don't mind me asking?" I decided to pipe in, it was time ti ay on some charm. Maybe that would get me inside her apartment. Get a better look around than just peering through more than two layers of walls. "I've always had an interest in scientific studies. It's an area I hope to report on for the Bulletin in a year or so."

"Oh, really?" Liv smiled, one that reminded me of that time that I saw a tiger eating in a zoo. "In that case, it's fields, several doctorates and PhDs in multiple scientific fields, but currently my research deals with spatial events, manipulations, and transportation. It's all theoretical at this stage, so I ain't got anything practical in regards to projects but that's most of the work in science right now."

"Oh, man that sounds so exciting," I vibrated, my body-hopping up and down with genuine joy. What a suspicious person to be in New York… when I've been transported from one universe to another. "I'm assuming that you're in the design process for some sort of low voltage but powerful magnetic field generator?"

"Yes, actually I am," Her smile tightened. An act that could mean she either finds me cute in trying to talk about the subject or she's getting annoyed with me. "But finding the current materials is a hard thing."

"And the price is no doubt an issue if you weren't Stark and his unlimited bank account, since he could just pour money into an upscaled model first and then downsize it," I shrugged, keeping my eyes up in thought about this situation. "That way you could generate a stronger field without needing to miniaturize the design first."

"You certainly know a bit about it," her smile was wide and full of joy as if she was excited that I was at least somewhat knowledgeable about the subject. It was only then that I saw her cringe like she'd left a sour-sweet in her mouth and it only now came back up on her. "Oh, I'm sorry, Betty what was it that you wanted to ask?"

The sudden turn around caused the other woman, who'd turned silent, to jump up silently in fright Another act, as I could hear that her heart rate once more stayed steady and calm. I wondered briefly if this woman could be shaken at all.

"Grant wanted to know if you wanted to meet up for a coffee or a drink sometime," Betty smiled, something that would charm other people but Liv just seemed to be annoyed by the woman's existence. Perhaps the Doctor could tell the same thing that I could? "We just thought it was time to get to know all our neighbors."

"No, thanks," The black-haired woman shook her head, her googles jangling from side to side. "I'm far too busy to leave my work for too long."

The two stared at each other like they were silently daring the other one to break character and reveal their true nature before they broke out into a fight that would end all life in the world as we knew it.



"So… young, beautiful, and smart," I interceded, grabbing the attention of the two in hopes that I could charm my way inside the apartment. "You impress me more with each passing second.

While Betty looked like she was about to gag, and rightfully so that line was terrible. Liv giggled, her hand coming up to her mouth to disguising the action poorly, briefly reminding me of some sort of Saturday morning cartoons where they had an episode focusing on crushes.


"Now, flirting won't get you anywhere," There was a sly smile, one that invited me for something that… that I'm not sure I wanted.

That was when I heard a quiet buzzing in the air, something that Liv didn't seem to notice but from the way that Betty's face twitched, I could tell that she could hear it. Meaning that it was a signal for her.

"I think I'll just leave the two of you… alone… so you can… get to know each other better."

It was with that the woman left, finally leaving me alone with the Doctor once more, something that she seemed to be really happy with. Like creepily happy about if her rather Joker-like smile was anything to go by.

"Would you like to come in for a drink?"

She asked, her eyes inviting me inside for something much more than a drink. And while super uncomfortable with the idea of doing certain actions… with this woman, I also needed to get inside her apartment.

I needed to see what the Doctor was doing.

So I followed her inside and sat down on her couch when I came to a realization.

This was never a situation that I'd thought I'd be in. Sitting on a couch with an older woman, her smiling at me seductively while twirling a piece of her hair around her finger. We were facing each other, my smile had become rather shy,

"So you've heard about me," She whispered, her eyes peering at from her glasses. "But what can you tell me about yourself?"

"I'm an open book," I held my arms out wide, with one of them going over the back of the couch. "Ask me anything you want?"

"You from Ireland or just have the heritage?"

"Yup, I grew up in the Irish countryside," I told her, trying to be as truthful as possible. Since from what I can tell, my actual home didn't seem to exist, in its place was just a series of fields. So what I said was true from a certain point of view. "Out in the fields, went to school in a nearby town. Learned what I could, I had a massive issue in trying to find myself in my late teens. Got very lost, ended up in New York."

"Metaphorically lost, you mean?" Liv asked, me, a single brow raised paired with a smile that would melt butter.

"Yeah," I nodded, placing my head against the back of the couch. "At first, I was looking to become a programmer, then I went for a lawyer, then it was business. But none of those were for me."

"You dabbled a lot then?" At my rather questioning expression sent her way, the Dok continued. "From what you were saying outside, you seem to have a great understanding of physics for someone that didn't study it."

Between all this, Liv had stood up walking to the fridge and pouring out some sort of drink into two glass, wine glasses but the drink wasn't wine. It was pretty early in the afternoon for a stiff drink, but it didn't matter to me anymore.

I couldn't get drunk anymore.

"Oh, I took the subject for my Leaving Cert, which is close to what someone would study in their first year of college-level," I shrugged smiling at Liv while the woman handed me one of the glasses in her hand. The Doctor then sat down taking a sip out of her own drink before going back to smile at me. "So while I ain't an expert, I can nod along and get the gist of what your experiments are about."

And I did, but it was mostly since I was comic book nerd as well, so a lot of the odd technobabble that wouldn't make much sense to actual well-learned men, I could sieve through it all and use my limited knowledge of science to understand what was going on.

"I'm impressed with the Irish Education system," She wiggled her eyebrows, trying to be charming but only ending up with me holding back a rather large laugh.

"Don't be," I chuckled, taking a large gulp of the beverage in front of me, Tasted weird, but not alcohol weird… in fact, I couldn't put my finger on it. I'd never had anything like it. "I'm self-taught, the system's good but the resources were crap."

"Well then," She leaned in close to me, her breath smelling like what I would imagine the scent of science would. "You impress me more with every second."

Suddenly, I could feel the liquid start to shift through my body, like it was some sort of foreign invader entering my body so it could take over. My super immune system quashed the foreign-ness from my body before it could do any damage.

Or at least before it could affect my behavior.

That was when I started to notice just how leery the woman had become. Her stare made me feel like I was some sort of meat. It also told me something that I should have known, don't go into some stranger's apartment and drink whatever they hand you.

I needed to make up for lost time now, so once more concentrated hard, letting my sight cycle through all the visual spectrums that were available to me. What I saw in the next room over blew my mind.

It was like something out of Stargate, a large circle that seemed to be made from some sort of metal, one that I didn't recognize it but that wasn't saying much. I've not had much chance to study the chemical make-up of various metals.


The rather severe study of the next room was broken when the Doc placed her hand near my chest. I knew that I needed to make a choice, make a decision on what I would do… but I really didn't want to. It was like butterflies had started to swarm around in my chest while a black hole was eating at my stomach.


Then my ringtone started, something that actually brought me an incredible amount of joy.


"Sorry," I said sheepishly at the rather peeved expression she threw my way, but that was only on the outside, on the inside, the butterflies that had been building up in my stomach stopped dead. "It's the boss, I've gotta take this."

I stood up, pushing her hand away from me, before walking to the other side of the room and placing the phone at my ear before pressing the answer button.

"Hello Motto," I said, referencing something that was far too old even in 2008.

"Pat..." Lousie's voice broke through the speaker, sounding rather relieved. The two of us had kept in touch, much to her father's annoyance. Though we were just friends and she hadn't seemed to have cottoned on to the fact that I was moonlighting as a vigilante yet. "You're such a nerd."

The sentence was said in a fau-Valley Girl accent, one that Louise knew caused me to cringe each time I heard it. I swear that the only reason that the girl used that accent was to bother me in life. But I was happy that this cougar time was interrupted that I could ignore it.

"What?" I said, faking a confused tone while on the phone, something to mislead Fem-Dok into thinking that I was questioning someone on the other end. "Down to the office now? Well, if it's the way it's gotta be Mr. Elission."

"Am I saving you from someone that you don't want to talk to?" My younger friend giggled, while her father started to yell in the background, something about some parking tickets he had? "Should really get pagers so you can panic button me."

"Not really something that I've considered," I said, not when even the current model phones can already use email that was. Also considering that I'd only need that when I was panicking, not something that I would even think to use in that state. "But I understand, what was the address of the contract?"

"Just come back to my house," She replied, sounding like it wouldn't bother her to meet with an older guy back in her home. Hell, I'm not sure Louise could be bothered. "Mom likes you, thinks that you're cute."

And now I wondered if Louise's mom, not currently separated from dear old dad, had also been flirting with me. I would hope that Lou would tell me if she was… though knowing her she might find it funny or disgusting.

With her, it was a flip of the coin.

"Fine," I waved my concerns away, it didn't matter. Not if it could get me out of here. "I'll meet you there." Hanging up, I turned my face into a frown, an attempt at seeming disappointed at being called away.

"I'm sorry the boss is calling me in, what's me to go over research with some of the other reporters,"

"That's your job?"

"I've only been on the job for about six months," I shrugged closing my eyes while walking towards the door. "So any assignments are secondary to my other role as an assistant."

"That… is a shame," She licked her lips, another action that creeped me out. Especially as her tongue peeked out and touched her chin. There was just something wrong about this woman, I just couldn't put my finger on it. "Maybe… when my experiments reach the next stage. You'll want to interview me?"

It was as her finger popped the top button in her shirt that I decided that waiting any longer might be a dangerous idea... for certain parts of me.

"We'll have to see," With my hand on the door handle, I opened it and left as quick as a breeze. There was no way to hide my groans as I started to walk away, keeping my pace under control so I wouldn't accidentally blitz off in a blaze of super speed.It was only as I turned back to stare at someone stepping off the elevator that I noticed that there was something wrong with this building. Because I could no longer see that odd device in the Doctor's apartment.

 

[TheSystemFan]

So he is superman... Thanks for the chapter...

 

[Baran3]

Now, at this very moment, I was trying to figure out where to start with this assignment.

Click to shrink...

You don't have the Super-Intellect?

Normally, Kryptonians have everything amplified by solar energy. The physical side is the most visible, but their minds are also "super".

They were good fakes though, mind from a type of glass I wasn't familiar with... not that I was super familiar with glass types.

Click to shrink...

If this isn't a reference to Clark Kent...

Hammer Industries

Click to shrink...

Those idiots again..? Wait, this is before Hammer is arrested. Hum...

Oh great, Natasha and Clint.

Octavius? Related to Dok Ock or just a coincidence?

Click to shrink...

The guy has a daughter? Huh, plausible. And of course, driven to see Spiderman dead for her father, of course.

Or perhaps, continuing her father's work.

but currently my research deals with spatial events, manipulations, and transportation.

Click to shrink...

Liv: "I am the great GLADOS and here is my Portal Gun!"

Because I could no longer see that odd device in the Doctor's apartment.

Click to shrink...

Either old building with lead, or Alien technology.

 

[Proman]

Those idiots again..? Wait, this is before Hammer is arrested. Hum...

Click to shrink...

I set the date to the same as Fury's Big Week... so they won't be around for long. lol

You don't have the Super-Intellect?

Normally, Kryptonians have everything amplified by solar energy. The physical side is the most visible, but their minds are also "super".

Click to shrink...

When there is literally one that is non-verbal but also known for being dirt stupid. I'm never going to give them that power. Think Faster? Yup, totally makes sense. But "Super-intellect". Never. lol

 

[Isiri Pudireach]

The guy has a daughter? Huh, plausible.

Click to shrink...

I would put my money on a genderbend like Into the Spiderverse. Sides this is pretty early in the timeline from what I can tell, if the Daredevil bit tells me anything.

 

[poit123]

But "Super-intellect". Never. lol

Click to shrink...

Well, you may not want to give him Super-intellect, but you can still totally give him Super-Math, which from the old Superman comics is just regular math, but wrong.

 

[Proman]

(Pat Doyle)

I paced around the room, my feet hitting the floor as if they were as light as a feather. It was like I wasn't really on the floor but instead was hovering over by mere centimeters. Which I was, but that was both beside the point and because Mrs. O'Reilly didn't like to hear people bounce against the floor above her head.

"You know," Louise drawled, lazed out on her bed, I wasn't looking at her but I could imagine that she was rolling her eyes at my rather stressed-out state. "Most guys would be ecstatic about a mature lady coming onto them like that."

"Well… most mature women don't try and roofie you," I mumbled, trying to get it out there but not wanting the attention that such a statement would get. It didn't help that I wasn't really sure that was what the Doc had been trying to do, it might have just been a really strong drink that she'd given me. I'd never been drugged before, so it was possible that what I felt wasn't the date rape drug.

But sadly for my attempt at getting that statement out unnoticed, Louise's ears peeked and she jumped, grabbing me by the shoulder and bringing me down to the bed. Her eyes stared right into mine, searching for something that I couldn't be sure of.

"Lay that on me again," Louise, the low growl in her voice reminding me of a dog that had just been kicked. "This time louder."

There was a tension in the air, something that in the few months I'd spent around the girl wasn't normal. Usually, Louise went around with the same sort of attitude that I've only seen in surfer dudes in old 90's shows.

"I think she tried to drug me?" I eventually folded, though this time I made sure to phrase my statement as a question. Since it was more indicative of what I knew than what I had actually said.

"No... you said that the Doc had tried to roofie you," She corrected me, swinging around and away from me so she could take out her laptop. "That's different, that's a crime, we need to call the pigs on her ass and put her away."

You know it was odd how someone that grew up with a mafia-isk father would have such a hard moral line. It was like finding out that Santa ran a gambling den... just in inverse here.

"And say what?" I shrugged, watching as she started to type away at her laptop with a decent level of proficiency. "The drugs didn't work on me because of a fluke?"

Louise sighed while blowing her long red hair from her face. She'd not been for me keeping my abilities under wraps, saying that it's pointless since it wasn't like I was going out there and being an active vigilante.

I didn't correct her since I hadn't done any repeats of the docks incident, instead focusing on learning under Ben or hanging out with Louise, much to Jimbo's annoyance.

"No... but you could... " She trailed off, her hands coming back down to slam on her laptop's keys. "... fuck you and your secret superpowers."

This was one of the continuous topics between the two of us, that I was hiding my powers at all.

"I'm not sure that it matters," I told her, getting off her bed and sitting instead on a computer chair that Jimbo, as I've come to call Mr. O'Reilly, had gotten with her desktop. Because she really needed both a laptop and a desktop. "She's probably the reason for the blackouts that have been plaguing Lower Manhattan recently."

"Probably?"

"Yup," I nodded at her, bending down to turn the desktop on with a single press of a button. "In fact, I need to do some research on her, mind if I use your computer?"

"I'm pretty sure possible rapist is a bigger crime than being reckless with experiments."

Even though Louise said this, the redhead still nodded consent to my use of her computer.

In most other cases I'd agree with my younger friend, rapists are a kind of monster that needs to burn in a special kind of hell, they're kind are ones even Satan himself should find too evil to be let around the normal denizens of Hell. Even just discussing it made me sick to my guts.

"Sure, in most cases," I said, continuing the line of conversation. "But here we got multiple cases of endangerment, illegal experiments, and even then it's likely that if the Doc would roofie someone she just meets, then it's likely that she's-"

"-actually managed the deed with other people." Louise finished for me, her chin coming to rest on my shoulder as I brought up a list of Doctors with the name of Olivia Octavius from the American Association of Degrees. Not sure if that's an organization that existed on my Earth. "That's smart, a list of crimes that will put her away for the rest of our lives, never mind hers."

"Exactly," The names appeared on the screen as I said these words, a total number of thirteen people were registered by that name. Further limiting the scope of the search, I added the modifier of two or more degrees. "Found her, seems that she used to work for Stark Industries till recently."

Something that I found somewhat surprising, to be honest. It wasn't till six months ago that the company pulled away from weaponry to focus more in areas that Apple and Tesla had been the leaders in. It looks like Dr. Octavius had been an early hire to help with the new direction the company had taken... only to be let go in a month and a half working there.

"Doesn't appear to be a reason listed for it." I mused something that brought Louise out of whatever thought she'd been having since I started to take in the information. "I wonder how hard that will be to get from Stark Industries?"

"Depends on whatever agreements she had prior," My friend said, her hand going for her Blackberry phone before glancing at me with a sly smile. "If she was let go because the experiments weren't going the way she wanted or if it was something she did on the job... it could be covered under an NDA. Might make getting the info hard."

Slightly impressed, I leaned back into the computer chair, my eyes closing for a moment, and let meself think on the approach that I'd need to use to get the information if that was so. There was very little chance that I could sneak in, my skills in that arena were comparable to a bull in a china shop of nothing but red plates.

"Well, only one way to find out," Louise winked at me, handing me her phone, the device making that wonderful dialing tone that was made whenever calling someone. "Go get them."

"Wait, wha-" My exclamation of surprise was interrupted by the call being picked up, something only annoyed me because I knew that if I had called them myself I would've been forced to hold.

"Stark Industries, public relations desk, how may I help you?" The phrase was said with a mix of a dull dry tone that lacked any enthusiasm for life and the accent of a Southern Belle. The fusion of what I considered to be an upbeat accent with a depressing tone just went on to highlight how my day had been going. Mixed.

"Yes, m-my name is Patrick Doyle," I replied, in that sort of anxiety-filled manner that only someone that's been overworked by an office staff would notice. Something that I hoped the woman on the other end would pick up on. "I work for the New York Bulletin and was looking into a certain former employee of Stark Industries."

"I see," She murmured on the other side of the line, her lip audibly being chewed. "This for some sort of story?" It was oddly asked like the woman was fishing for something, maybe wanted to see if there was anything in this for her.

"Not directly, I was investigating a series of odd events and had a discussion with Doctor that was fired from your company in the last few months," I explained, hoping that being honest but loose with details would get better results than being coy. "Just checking in to see if this woman is even reliable as a source... or is someone I needed to look into."

I was being as subtle as a Brickhouse being dropped on a witch. But sometimes that is what is needed.

"Well... I'm going to need a name before I tell you what I can, even former employees are under NDAs."

It was like we had thought, but hopefully, this help desk lady will be able to... help me with some details at least. So I took a breath, for some reason looking both ways, much to Louise's amusement, and spoke;

"Doctor Olivia Octavius."

There was what I could only describe as a beat of silence on the other end of the line, stretching out the tension that I could feel gather in my arms and pushing it through my chest. I wasn't sure what it meant, but it was another thing to add to my list of things that caused me anxiety in life. Awkward silences over the phone, at least in person I would be able to gauge their expression but on a phone, I'm stuck with silence.

"From what I can see," The woman eventually said, the silence finally breaking as her voice was accompanied by the sounds of mechanical keyboard strokes. "The Doctor was let go because she got into an argument with Mr. Stark... where she said... and I'm quoting here... It would only kill like three people... Mr. Stark didn't like that."

I could certainly see why you wouldn't want her to have access to the resources that Stark Industries could grant her if that was her idea of safe.

"What about... allegations of a more... intimate nature?" I asked, my heart racing and my palms started to itch.

Another beat of silence from the other end of the phone, this time it was broken by a gasp of shock.

"There's nothing on file," She said, her hands typing out much faster, making me wish that I could see what the hell was on her screen. I could hear a conversation on the other side going now, all in harsh whispers and worried tones. "What brought this question on?"

"I met her."

My rather droll-sounding reply caused the lady to give out a sigh so full of relief that I'm sure that we could bottle it to reduce the need for helium.

"Well there doesn't seem to be any... but if you want I can kick this upstairs, just leave a number and I'll get back to you with anything we have off file."

With that, she hung up before I could leave her with a number, what an actual bitch. I turned to look at Louise, who'd been standing close to overhear the whole conversation. She was standing now, her form towering over me while having a single eyebrow raised in amusement.

"What do you think the good Doctor's Would only kill three people experiment was?" Louise asked, picking up a red jacket and throwing it on with the same care that I'd expect from someone that wanted to tear their clothes rather than wear it. "Let's find out."

I was left alone in her room for about twenty seconds, just sitting there silently waiting for the computer to turn off. It didn't really matter if the youngest O'Reilly got far from me unless Louise magically became the Flash. I doubt I was going to have many issues with catching up with her.

But still, there was something… wrong. I could feel myself being watched.

I'd tread carefully from this here on out.

---

(Betty)

She didn't have to wait for long till her partner stepped into the apartment, his body covered in sweat as if he had just run a marathon. Betty couldn't help but giggle at the state her companion was in, it was cute to think that the man felt so threatened by her that he needed to go out and prove himself superior.

A notion that he was soon going to find was… wrong.

"You know there are easier ways into a girl's bedroom than scaling the outside of the building," Betty snarked, her grin wide and cat-like. "And here I was thinking that Octavius was the perve."

He didn't speak, finding that as long as he never lowered himself to her level of snark he could complete his duties and retain his sanity. If the man knew he could get away with it he'd kill her himself and burn the body.

"You know the strong silent type doesn't really match your file," The woman remarked, walking around the man till she was standing on behind him. One of the things that her gaze found was the sidearm strapped to his leg, a standard nine-millimeter pistol, something that brought a frown to Betty's face. "Side-arms were meant to be left here."

For the first time since he returned, the man snapped to attention his own frown soon to follow as he turned around to face Betty.

"And I said that I wouldn't go into the Doctor's apartment without some protection," His reply lacked any true heat in tone but his eyes told Betty all she needed to know. Grant was mad that she dared to question any of his decisions.

"Listen to me," She said lowly, her teeth grinding into a snarl as she tore the gun from his side. "The idea was not to bring anything metallic, she might have set up an alarm system-"

"And I checked before going in, there was nothing there-"

"-That could've wiped her computer systems as you got close," Betty continued, ignoring the man's rather childish attempt at interrupting her. The older woman was far too professional to be taken aback by such actions. "Then where would we be?"

Grant just glared at her, even as she sat back down on a comfy chair, her left foot on the coffee table while her right was draped over it. She knew that this would cause him to crack up a bit, the level of nonchalance that she was showing around Grant obviously grated on his nerves.

Usually, she wouldn't engage in such behavior but this was a different time and there was something really wrong with the way that Grant carried himself, the way that his smiles never went to his eyes. The way that his voice never went under a certain octave.

This guy was wearing a mask, one that Betty wanted to tear off and shove down his throat.

"It doesn't matter, we've got the information that was on the drive," Grant eventually replied, his voice small but clear. "And the target is still unaware of our presence here."

"And the bugs? Did you plant those as well?"

Grant scoffed, something that the man had been doing a lot since he'd been assigned to work under Betty. The two just weren't compatible with working together on such long-term missions, which would've surprised their superiors given how similar they were. On paper, they were the perfect pair, maybe they could even be the next Barton and Romanov…

… reality just didn't want to follow through with that idea.

"Of course, I did," Eventually he spoke up, but only after Betty glared at him for around thirty seconds. "I'm a professional, I know how to get the job done. I don't need to be babied."

"Well," Betty replied, elongating the word so it came out as sarcastically as possible. "Our techies in the other room haven't gotten a signal from that apartment. So you must've screwed up somehow."

There was an icy chill in the air, something that seemed to be from the fact that the window was still open from Grant climbing in. What wasn't from the open window was the thick tension that filled that air, especially as the two started to get closer to each other, as they started to circle around each other as if they were about to engage in mortal combat.

"Hey, guys we've found... out… why… " One of the technicians entered the room, trailing off as their eyes saw how the two were looking for some brawling. "What's going on?"

Suddenly it was like someone had turned a valve, released all that built up the pressure into the outside world and the two agents were transformed. Instead of being near ravenous human beings, ready to tear each other from limb from limb, the two looked to be the best of friends.

"Nothing," they spoke together as if they were synced by some cosmic force, even continuing on to their next sentence. "What have you found?"

The tech just raised a brow, examining them like they were part of the puzzle they were here to solve.

"Turns out the good Doctor has somehow managed to shield her apartment," he said, laying a laptop down on the coffee table, a schematic of an apartment layout visible on its screen. "We're not sure how exactly, starts with just lead lining in the walls but then turns to high tech stuff, but-"

"And you're sure she's not just found the bugs and disposed of them?" Betty asked, bringing up the far more likely scenario with the air that one would use when asking if the other person had left the oven on.

"Oh no, see we're getting some signal from the bugs but they're muted," The smallest of the people here explained, his finger pointing at a series of red dots that littered around design plans. "So we're not going to be able to spy on her right now but if she opens the front door… then we're going to see some action."

She didn't even bother to look at Grant's face, knowing that he'd be wearing that smug grin of his. Something that would've meant she'd break the facade of professionalism that was put up and shove his teeth down his throat.

"Well, that just means we need to get her out of the building," Grant spoke, his arms crossed against his chest while his mouth stretched into that grin Betty so hated.

"Sounds like you've got an idea?"

"Arson."

---

(Patrick Doyle)

"Making my way downtown," Louise sang, much to the annoyance of those walking past her, which was to my own amusement. You wouldn't think that someone that was as physically built as Louise would be into randomly singing while walking down the street. "Walking fast," She continued a smile on her face, which grew as more confused people were passed. "Faces pass and I'm home-bound."

But at over six feet and with arms like tree trunks, I wouldn't like to be the asshole who thinks that it would be smart to make a comment.

"Why that song?" I asked, stopping the girl in the middle of the street, people now just walking around her as they continue their journeys. Louise didn't bring herself to answer right away, instead, she just stared at me with a dull but amused expression on her face.

"People just put on funnier faces when I pick songs like that," she shrugged. "No one looks at the sport star physique and goes… " Louise trailed off, obviously trying to remember the name of the person that sang that song, then she clicked her fingers together. "Vanessa Calton."

"I would've thought that they'd make faces simply because the over six-foot-tall red-head is singing in the middle of the street."

"Sure but there's a funnier look when it's something cringy."

Louise didn't seem to have that high of a threshold for cringe, especially if such a vanilla song was what she thought cringed was.

There wasn't any response after that, Louise just decided to return to our walking. Though this time it was without singing anything from Vanessa Calton. See we were heading towards a Stark Industries owned Laboratory, the only one currently active in the city.

The head man himself was on a bit of a spree currently, shutting down weapon research facilities but only replacing them with labs researching other things when they'd finally gotten another project off the ground. The biggest reason this wasn't a massive PR disaster for Stark was that there weren't any layoffs because of it, the personnel were simply given extended holidays or transferred to other departments.

Not that there wasn't a big scandal going at the moment. Some guy with energy whips had attacked a formula one race that Tony Stark had gotten himself into, the CEO had nearly been assassinated… but that only seemed to increase Stark Industries' reputation.

All this meant that in New York there was but one Lab that could've had Doctor Octavius on staff.

"We're here," Louise said, zipping her jacket up and stepping behind me. The lab was in an odd place, the building used to be an apartment complex, something that I would've thought meant that there couldn't be much in the way of dangerous experiments, something about public safety.

But if the Doc had been working here when she claimed that her experiments would kill at most three people? Then I'm going to say that some shit might be here.

"What's the plan?" I asked her as we stared at the doors to the building, the Stark Logo acting as a beacon to our eyes.

"Go in the front, tell whoever's manning the desk something… and just make a lot of noise," She told me, her voice low and her mouth now close to my ear. "I'll sneak in and get a look into their project files, see if we can't find what we're dealing with."

With those words, Louise walked away from me, a grin on her face telling me how much she was looking forward to this.

"Am I sure I'm the reporter?" I asked, feeling confused at the events happening. Making my way through the front door, the thing slid open for me before I even get within arms' reach of it as my mind continued to churn out ideas.

How could I distract them? Fake a heart attack?

No, that would only lead the guys to call an ambulance and I would hate to be the reason why someone else didn't get theirs in time.

Act crazy? Start throwing chairs around? Maybe speak gibberish at the same time?

No, while it could work out to get them to call security, it's also something that could get their guard up and get in the way of Louise sneaking in. This would need a gentler hand than such direct methods.

My plan set, I walked towards the man sitting at the front desk, his smile clearly painted on while his eyes were staring out blankly towards the wall nearby. The glow of their computer screen was hitting their face in such a way that I could tell it had gone to screensaver from the light shine.

"He-he-hello," I stuttered out, twisting my foot on the surface of the floor as if I was a character out of Oliver Twist and letting my eyes fill with tears. It was time for a performance. "M-mister, I s-seem to be l-lost."

"Oh," the man raised one of his rather grey eyebrows up, his eyes shifting over to look at me in better detail. But I didn't let our eyes meet, deciding instead to let mine drop to the ground. He didn't say anything for a few seconds, instead of humming, and underneath that I could hear the sound of a button depressing under his desk. For some reason, this guy found me very suspicious and was calling security.

"Where do you want to be?"

My mind froze, having not really considered the answer before now but I could use this to my advantage.

"Ah… hum," I went, letting my tongue rise to the roof of my mouth to create a lot of gibbering noises. Adding to my guise I started to scratch the back of my head, rubbing the skin beneath my hair with just enough force to be believable. "Yeah, I know that I wanted to be… in a residential neighborhood a-and p-people pointed towards this d-direction but now I'm worried that I'm in the wrong place…"

Letting the sentence trail off, I continued to nervously grind the heel of my foot onto the ground. Not with all that much force, only enough to make it look convincing to this man's eye.

"What seems to be the problem?" A Newly arrived man piped in, a Stark Industries security uniform on his body, as he adjusted a baton that was fixed to his waist and gave me a passing glare before his eyes fell to his fellow employee.

"Nothing Frank," The sitting man of the two waved his security guard friend off. "Just a false alarm, the kid was afraid that he'd gotten lost. But I wouldn't worry about it, the building was an apartment complex a few years ago, but Stark bought it out, the idea being you could work and live in the building. It only took a year's worth of renovations. "

"S-so. I'm in the right place," I heard my phone beep, signaling that I've just received a text. Didn't need to check it to know that it was Louise, telling me that it was safe for me to back off. "And by which I mean that as in the area… not this building."

The rest of my sentence was said in a rush like I was trying to win a contest for who can speak the fastest. It only added to my performance of being a meek, nervous foreigner not sure of where things were in the big American City… something that was only mildly true.

I wasn't sure where things were in the big American City. Somehow even a grid-based city like this was hard on my mind. Thank god for Super Speed.

"That's right," he nodded to me, his hand turning to the security guard, the guy the man had called Frank. "Why don't you show him out?"

The two of us, as in Frank and me, shared a brief glance, a period of time where I had dropped my meek act but only for a second. Something that the guard hadn't noticed, as far as I was aware.

"Sure, that would be nice," I replied, getting in there before the guard could either accept himself or deny the request. "And again, I'm sorry for bothering you guys."

"It's fine, sir," Frank replied, his thick New York accent nearly causing me to laugh out loud now that I'd noticed it. My mind almost brought up the phrase I'm walking here! because that was the kind of thing that I'd expect from that sort of tongue. "Just glad we could help."

---

(Jim O'Reilly)

The O'Reilly father hadn't wanted to get in involved with this sort of work. At least not when he started his criminal career two decades ago, as a young man looking to make a quick buck to help his ailing mother. Jim had stayed away from drugs, he'd stayed away from… the more mature enterprises and he never touched… whacking people.

But as he moved away from his prior connections, he moved away from belonging to the Kitchen Irish. Jim found that his morals were being tested in ways that not even the Mob had forced him. No one had said anything about prostitution yet… but now?

O'Reilly was about to engage in an act that almost hit the same cord inside him.

So with a heavy heart, he walked into a pub, one open even into the early hours of the morning. There weren't many people there, on the outside of the place, not yet but the Irish liked to operate from this place, so there were always at least some people there. Hiding in case some rival came in thinking that they could take on the Kitchen Irish.

But the former member knew that none of that mattered, it wouldn't make a difference for what he was about to do.

"Sean," Jim yelled out, his hands in his coat pocket as he approached his former boss or at least the man that he used to report to. O'Leary had been the guy that brought him into this life, not by threat but by a promise of a better life. "We need to talk."

There was dread in his voice, something that Jim couldn't hide no matter how much he tried.

Sean O'Leary was only a few years older than Jim but his hair had greyed much more thoroughly. Where O'Reily's red hair was freckled grey, the older man's was the inverse, with red flecking grey. On Sean's chin was a massive beard, oddly lacking any flecks of grey at all but Jim knew that his old friend liked to dye his beard.

The man only wore suits, the cheap kind that had patches at the elbows, the material that would never even bother to match the color of the rest of his jacket. The browns and blacks clashed in a way that made O'Leary one of the more recognizable figures in Hell's Kitchen's crime scene.

"If it isn't Clean Jim!" O'Leary grinned, his blindingly white teeth contrasting against his dirty attire. "What are you doing back in these parts, thought you wanted out of the game?" he continued, referring to the excuse O'Reilly had used to get out of doing any more jobs for the Irish groups. "Don't tell me, you missed the life?"

Jim scoffed, shaking his head, absentmindedly thinking about how it was impossible to miss what he never lost.

"Something's come up," Jim explained, his heart beating rapidly in his chest as Sean waved him to follow into the back of the bar that he'd been sitting in. Back into an area that they wouldn't be overheard in.

"What's the issue?" Sean asked him, his tone light and rather casual. Normal for their interactions of the past, but it wouldn't be after today. While Jim would've loved to get into some light banter with the man, but when it came to things of this nature anytime to beat around the bush. He just wasn't that sort of guy. It would leave a bad taste in his mouth.

"You've gotten a hit put on you," It was such a cold sentence, something that caused Sean's ever-present smile to falter on his face. "Seems a certain up-and-comer doesn't like how you've been talking, afraid that your loose lips will bring him some unwanted attention."

O'Leary wasn't the highest of Made-Men with the Kitchen Irish but he was someone that they relied on for a lot of information. Who to bribe, who to stay away from, and even who the players were

Sean didn't speak, he just turned his back to the younger man, his hands grabbing onto a set of glasses that were stacked next to two cans of beer. The only sound that was made was the crack of the cans as the elder mobster poured them into the glasses.

It was only after chugging down a full pint that Sean spoke once more, voice thick with a seething rage.

"Did he send you, laddie?" The glass cracked under the pressure of his hand, only enough for an audible creek to move through the air. "Send you to get rid of me? Before I can find out his name?"

"Why? You close?" Jim deflected, the hand in his pocket fingering the handle of a revolver. It wasn't like he wanted to use it, the father of one just needed to look out for his own. Sadly that meant doing jobs like this for beings like Wilson Fisk.

"You wouldn't be here if I wasn't, close," Over Sean's voice, Jim could hear the sound of the door creaking open behind him, telling the man that he had some company. But it didn't bother him, in fact, he'd been expecting it for some time. "You tell Fisk that we don't appreciate his like thinking that he can just walk in, take over our turf and make himself out to be some sort of boogie man."

O'Reilly should've been surprised that the other man had known he'd started to work for the new crime lord, but he couldn't really bring himself to be. O'Leary had ways of knowing things that you didn't want him to, no matter how hard you tried to keep it from him.

It was the sound of four footsteps that told O'Reilly just how many people were surrounding him at this very second. Without taking a second to think about it, Jim turned, angling himself so he could see both the two men who'd just arrived and Sean on the other side of him.

"Will I tell him that?" The former co-worker glared at the men to his side, causing all but Sean to flinch back in fear. "I'm here as a favor to you, Sean. Ain't no reason to be calling a bunch of no-name goons into our private talks."

"Why? Because Fisk won't like me spilling his name to everyone that wants to hear it!" O'Leary shoved his finger into Jim's chest, the sharp shape pressing against a bandage the man hid underneath his shirt. "Because you didn't think we'd find out that you spilled the beans on the dock job a few months ago!"

It started slowly, from deep inside his chest, something that Sean wouldn't have expected from the relatively younger man, not with how the man had been holding himself over the years. But over the next few seconds, Jim O'Reilly started to laugh, it was a deep and energetic laugh that sounded more like it came from a clown than a career criminal.

A slap rang out in the room as flesh hit flesh, O'Leary's hand smacking into the redhead's nose with enough force that crimson started to spill out like a leak from a water tower.

"Don't think because we let you out that you can come in and disrespect me, laddie," Sean warned him, wiping the red from his own hand with a cloth that had been on the nearby counter. "I was making deals, killing folks, and running things around here before you were a sparkle in your pop's eye and don't think that wife or girl of ours are off-limits to my wrath, Laddie."

Jim spat out a wad of blood onto the floor, coating the ground in a thick glop of red. The sounds of cocking guns came from the two men on his sides, neither of which had spoken yet, only aiming right for the father of one's head with flat expressions

"I came here to give you a warning, maybe help you fake your death," O'Reilly said, his hands shaking as fury started to raise throughout his body. "I ain't no killer but I can't accept someone that would threaten my famil-"

"I was your family!" Sean interrupted him, slamming a fist down on the wooden counter with enough force that the glasses left there crashed to the ground. "I brought you into the life, I made you the man ye've become, and now you've made me a fool-"

Jim didn't let his old friend finish the sentence, instead, he just ducked beneath the guns and rolled into the men's feet, causing them to trip onto the ground in a hard crash. Before they could even attempt to rise to their feet once more, O'Reilly took out his revolver and shot two bullets into the back of their heads.

Killing them instantly.

But O'Leary was not a passive man, instead of cowering in the corner of the room he threw himself into a tackle, ramming into Jim's stomach with enough force that the gun was flung from his hand and their heads snapped against the tile floor. Sean managed to get to his knees, launching a fist out towards Jim's head.

He barely managed to move his head just slightly to the right, causing the punch to hit into the floor instead. The fingers snapped, Sean's mouth flung shut barely holding back the scream of pain that the older man let out before Jim's boot smashed into his chest and walked him away with all the force of a truck.

Sean's head snapped against the edge of the counter, the loud crack signaling the state his neck was left in.

The doors to the room were practically broken as a barrage of people started to barrel in, causing Jim to let out a large sigh as he stood to his feet once more, letting the four new men surround him in a semi-circle. Each one of them held a weapon, some bats, and some of them were holding pipes.

"Guys… didn't Sean teach ya?" he muttered, stepping forward just enough that his left foot was beside the leg of a nearby stool. Another stool within reach of his right foot. "Ya don't use pipes, we're a classier sort of operation."

None of the men spoke, some seemed to be surprised at the still body of Sean, who could do nothing but gurgle at the world around him.

As the first of these new attackers came towards Jim, the man kicked up the stool, catching it in one hand and banging it against the man's skull. The wood exploded around the room, causing splinters to fly outward, forcing the rest of the men to cover their eyes with their forearms.

Leaving them wide open for O'Reilly to swipe out the leg of the second, nick their baseball bat, and ram that into the heads of the final two. Knocking them all out all in a single string of combat that belonged more in a video game than it did in reality.

"Sean," Jim's voice was much smaller now like he was suddenly feeling a great deal of pain. "This isn't what I wanted, but you've forced me down this path," Using a subdued pace, he picked up his revolver once more, making sure to pop a single cap into the foreheads of all the men here, leaving O'Leary for last. "I'm sorry that it's come to this."

"Such a waste."

---

(Louise)

You wouldn't be able to tell due to her size, but Louise was actually very good at sneaking around. It came from how much she liked to get out of the house to explore the neighborhood when she was young but her Pop had thought it was far too dangerous.

Which it would've been for any other girl, but the O'Reilly girl was far too much for any thug like that to handle. Even when she had been a small child.

The building was what she expected from an apartment complex turned science lab. It didn't have as many corridors as it would if it were designed as a lab complex first. The width of the halls though was obviously expanded at some point, to let lab equipment by without accidentally getting struck.

It was either a holiday season that plenty of the lab workers here shared… or it was because there were meant to be no active projects here at the moment. Something that the deserted state of the halls seemed to confirm to her.

A bit risky in security terms given the kind of information that would be on the computers but Louise was sure that anything dangerous would've been wiped from their drives ages ago. At least that would be how her Pop would handle it. Personnel files, on the other hand, would still be accessible through a network.

Louise managed to get inside one of the computer rooms, with no cameras in sight. while her eyes roamed the room the door behind her creaking as she found herself surrounded by a series of machines that were far more advanced than anything she'd ever seen before.

"Well isn't this… wizard," she muttered to keep her voice low, just in case there were any security sensors that get activated by sounds over a certain volume. Those sorts of things couldn't be too sensitive, if they were it would only pick up noise from the outside. It would've caused too many false alarms otherwise.

With a slow, deliberate set of steps, Louise sat down next to one of the many Stark computers. A grin on her face as she spotted the open USB ports that were on the device. Something that she expected and had come prepared for. It took one click of the power button to turn the device on, another hand coming out to plug in a USB stick, an LED on the back flashing green as the computer booted up. It went against many people's perception of her, but Louise wasn't some kind of jock, just because she was big and jacked up.

That was something that Pops had insisted on, wanted to know that she could protect herself from any thug.

But she wasn't a computer expert either, this little device that she was using came from a contact her Pop had made… well, the guy's fifteen-year-old son. Kid was a hardcore hacker, no doubt soon to be arrested for hacking the CIA or the NSA before he's twenty-two. All she usually had to do was to ask nicely. Miles was easy like that, only needed a smile and the guy folds like wet paper, though he wasn't to be trusted at all, He was a bit of a fleck. The device was a neat little thing for those without a genius-level intellect.

It would simply back through the password protection on the computer, giving her administrator access to all the functions, all the files that she'd need to figure what kind of person this Doctor was. As her eyes scanned through the display in front of her, Louise released something very quickly.

That for someone that told Pat she was studying dimensional fields and travel and other junk. The woman's actual main focus had been in robotics, mostly cybernetic interfaces but other areas were something that the Doc also excelled at. The spacial studies were but an afterthought, something she had read about but not researched directly…

… till the month of her leaving. Where she apparently wanted to force Stark to shift the nature of her research, away from cybernetic limbs for prosthetic purposes and toward technology that would be better suited towards dimensional and spatial manipulation.

"There's a shift that doesn't make sense?" Louise mused, twisting a lock of her red hair with her index finger. She copied over what little files she could, nothing that had any tech blueprints or even research notes but it did have her psych profile.

One from before she was hired and another from before she left. There wasn't any mention in the file that actually claimed Octavius had been fired, just that the Doc left their employ. But that was normal with big names like her, people didn't like to sully the reputation of such great people. No, it was the difference between the first psych profile and the second that worried Louise, to say the least.

"Pat's gotta read this."

It was only the jangle of the door's handle that let the girl know that she needed to duck down to the ground, getting under the desk she was sitting by and allowing Lousie to duck in her legs so anyone peeking along the ground wouldn't spot them.

"Someone must've forgotten to turn off their computer?" Some male voice said, causing Louise to grimace under the table. This was not something she'd actually planned for, the young girl had expected to get in and out of the room, hell even the building without nary a camera even spotting her. But a guard coming in while she was at the computer? That was something that could force her to use rather noticeable force.

"Damn lab rats," the man growled, his footsteps clattering in the otherwise quiet room. There was a level of frustration that Louise remembered her Pops using once or twice, whenever he'd been in a particularly messy job. "Think with such big IQ's they'd know to turn off da computers."

The guard seemed to have issues with the h's in his words, making think sound like tink.

The young girl could tell that the man was heavy, his steps echoed off the ground with so much force that the floor audibly creaked from his weight alone. It reminded Louise of that time she saw an albino step on a cat, something that killed the little thing with a wet crunch.

Louise was still very disturbed by that.

"Now, let see here," As his feet came into her view, the man spoke once more, acting casual enough that Louise knew for sure that he hadn't caught on to her hiding under the table. "Wha was the button-" His voice suddenly cut off, alerting her to his interest being raised by something.

Without waiting to see if he had sported a stray leg from under the table, Louise threw her body at the man's legs. Knocking him to the floor with enough force that it wasn't a surprise when he broke through the desk behind the one they were at. Wood shattered into the air, falling down onto Louise's hair before she managed to rise back to her feet. The guard suddenly groaned rolling to his stomach so he could push himself up, not knocked out as she'd hoped but mildly dazed would at least let the girl try a follow-up attack to end things.

"Sorry," Louise mumbled, bringing her hand down to a spot on between the man's neck and his shoulder and squeezing down. Instead of putting the man to sleep, it only caused him to scream out in pain. "Shit!"

"D-did you just try to-" before the guard could even finish his statement Louise brought her hand down hard on his head. A loud crack that rang out was followed by the man finally crumbling to the ground.

"Vulcan Nerve grip, yeah I did," Louise sheepishly grinned while shaking her right hand, the limb stinging from making contact with the now unconscious man's skull. "Thought it would work."

Now with a guard down, Louise knew that there wouldn't be much time till someone else came to check upon him. Deciding to hedge her bets, she grabbed the USB drive from the computer, nicked the man's security guard jacket, draped it around her head and hopped over his still body as one would garbage.

Sprinting forward, she went out the door, leaving the thing wide open as she made her way back to the window that had been her entrance point. The sounds of steps coming from around the corner caused her to stop dead in her tracks and throw herself into a nearby closet, letting the brush of a mop hit in the face.

Louise counted to ten, keeping her ear to the door so she could hear the sounds of the steps as they moved past her. When they stopped, slowly the girl opened the door, peeking out from behind the door, seeing that their backs were turned to her and slowly moving out.

Only to run into a man walking in the opposite direction from her, knocking the O'Reilly girl to the ground.

"Sorry about that miss," The man spoke, his large hands helping her back to her feet. "I should really be watching where I'm going… wait, you new-"

Louise kicked the man in the back of the leg, causing him to stumble, giving her time to snap her elbow right against the man's jaw, stopping him from shouting out in pain. opening the closet door and shoving him in so fast that by the time the man could even let out a groan the door was already shut.

It wasn't long before Louise was jumping out of the first story window, landing in full view of the camera the Stark building had pointed in that direction, something she had been careful enough to hide from the first time but now had caught her leaving. But even that she had accounted for, ducking her head down and throwing the security jacket over the lens.

It was only then that Louise made her way around the front of the building once more, peeking in and finding that was still talking to the guy manning the desk and a single security officer. His face was something that the O'Reilly girl found funny in particular because it looked as if Pat was surprised that he was able to keep making stuff up this fast and make it believable.

The guy should've been an actor rather than a reporter.

But Louise could tell that her friend wouldn't be able to keep that up for much longer, the red on his face was a sign that he was running on mental fumes.

"This looks like a job for me," she muttered, walking through the door with a smile on her face. It wasn't long before her hand was touching his elbow, causing him to jump in fright. "Bae, this is where you've been."

Louise had said this with a sweet, Texan accent that she learned from her brief summer spent there a few years ago. Pat's response was to turn to her, mouthing the words that she'd just said, focusing on the bae part of the sentence. She tried to send a message with her eyes or at least mentally to him, kind of hoping that telepathy would be a power that he'd randomly get, just like that time he sneezed and turned his drink into an ice cube.

Pat hadn't even noticed and had gotten his tongue stuck on it, one of many reasons she was friends with this super-powered Irishman. It was all the powers of Hyperion were given to one of the Three Stooges.

"Of course, you'd sniff out the only science Lab this side of Manhattan," Louise teases, pinching his right bicep with two fingers but only lightly. Pinch too hard and she'd break her fingers. "I swear."

"Linda!" Pat responded, his face regaining some of its natural colors. "How did you know that I'd be here?"

And once more, Louise was impressed by his acting chops.

"Could smell the scent of Irish charm from a mile away, honey." She smiled, turning to face the two Stark Employees, both of them seemed to have rather short smiles on their faces. They believed the act. "Sorry, if he bothered you. He's so easily lost when he finds something he hadn't expected."

"No, I'm not," he responded, huffing visibly and turning his face away with a frown. It was such a good performance that Louise almost brought it.

"Bae, you've got lost just two weeks ago buying milk in a small convenience store because you were confused that they were selling tapes, made you think it was the wrong store."

Pat rolled his eyes, making sure that they all caught the movement before he finally gave his rebuttal with a smug grin.

"Who sells cassettes anymore, I don't know anybody with a VHS player-"

"You do, in fact, you've got two. One in a TV and one standalone," Louise interrupted him, a large playful smile on her face. She just couldn't stop herself from enjoying this little game, mostly because parts of it were true.

Pat really did have two VHS Players.

"I told you that's for data transfer material that isn't in print anymore," Pat whined, stomping his feet down to the floor. "I can hardly find another copy of the Power Ranger Movie, it's a dead IP."

That news had oddly upset Doyle a few weeks ago when he learned that the show had been canceled after the Movie. Disney apparently brought them out and they hadn't been interested in making anymore, just sitting on the rights, rerunning the show and selling the toys.

"But not a good one."

Before Louise could continue this charade, the two security guards from before ran into the lobby. One with their nose running red with blood, the other with their head as the point from which the blood was coming from.

"It's you!" The one with the bloody nose yelled pointing his finger at the two of them.

She could feel her heart leap into her chest, her mind turning blank as they glared at her, stepping forward with daggers in their eyes.

"Who?" Pat spoke up, stepping forward himself, his expression something that she'd expect from an upset child rather than an adult. "Me? I've been here the whole time."

"Not you, her!" The smaller of the newly arrived guards growled. "She snuck in here and attacked us."

"Linda just got here," The Irishman said in the same way that a child would when they're first told the truth about Santa. "And she came through the door behind us, I think you've got your story confused."

"Kid's right," The worker from behind the desk piped in. "She's just walked through the door. Unless she'd gotta teleporter in her coat pocket then I don't see how she got around here that fast."

"You even see the girl's face?" Asked the one guard who'd already been here when Louise arrived, his hands going into his pocket.

The two bloody Stark employees looked to each other, before the taller of the two, the one that Louise had shoved into the closet stepped ever closer to them, a grin on his face and his finger now high in the air. While it was always good to see someone come out of there, the O'Reilly girl really wished he'd waited just a few more minutes.

"No, but she was wearing the same clothes as your little girlfriend!"

Pat scoffed, throwing one of his arms over one of her shoulders and bringing her in for a hug.

"I got those clothes off a rack of a dozen of the same," he lied, raising an eyebrow and glancing over towards the two men he had been talking to earlier as if he was asking for help. "Are you saying that if I had been wearing them, you'd excuse me?"

The guards who'd shouted the accusation seemed taken back by his rather heated tone, while the one closest to the front desk stepped between Pat and the other two.

"Look, guys how about we let these two go and we'll look over the security footage," He said, keeping his tone calm and his hands up. "I can vouch that these two had nothing to do with this."

"I'm tired." Pat suddenly spoke, leaning his head down onto her shoulder. Which was that far given how close in height the two were. "Can we go now?"

Before Louise could even utter a word, the calm security guard spoke up once more.

"Of course, have a nice day kid."

With that Louise practically dragged Pat out of the building, a massive grin overtaking her face as they left sight of the building. But it didn't last for long, because soon she remembered that she had something that Pat needed to see in her back pocket.

---

Author's Note: Bit late, but you know it goes at times. lol.

 

[Equalist]

Have read it before on SP, not sure if there is any improvements this is not a masterpiece to read more than once, also i don't think it was updated in a year or so (maybe mistaken) if you serious about your story maybe work on updates to keep your existing readers.

 

[Proman]

Have read it before on SP, not sure if there is any improvements this is not a masterpiece to read more than once, also i don't think it was updated in a year or so (maybe mistaken) if you serious about your story maybe work on updates to keep your existing readers.

Click to shrink...

I didn't upload it to a separate website for people to re-read. I did it because it's apparently good to post in more than a single site.

And it's been updated in less than a year. It's not even half a year yet.

In fact I've already updated it before posting this. Unless you think I actually am Superman, I didn't just write that in half a hour

 

[Doccer]

Liv: "I am the great GLADOS and here is my Portal Gun!"

Click to shrink...

GLaDOs being reincarnated into Liv makes so much sense about her character actually...