Beat and Greet 02
Browbeat paced within his lair. Heroes had bases and he wasn't a hero. He hadn't saved anyone, Weaver had.
And until he told Weaver - until he told Taylor - who his alter ego was… he was more of a villain than even Sophia.
His lives were all built on lies. All of them. No matter how hard he tried to pull back from them, no matter who he became, no matter how much he changed his body or his features or his name, he couldn't escape from his lies.
Maybe this was karma.
Or maybe he was just a goddamn fool.
"Are you okay? I can come back if…"
Browbeat jumped nearly a foot into air as Weaver's voice cut into the silence right behind him. Clutching a hand over his heart and breathing hard, he turned. "Christ, how do you sneak up on people like that?!"
"Practice."
Her tone was deadpan and could easily be mistaken for joking. But knowing what he did, Browbeat saw the signs. The locked posture, the clenched fists, the buzzing flies above. Any doubts he'd had before were blown to dust.
"I got a phone by the way. Here's my number, it should be easier than trying to set up a meeting online; my computer sucks and is barely usable. Though don't text me just to chat for at least a few days. I couldn't afford to put much onto this thing yet."
Of course her computer was bad. Madison had been helping the others destroy all of her school things for months. Any spare money she had was probably going into basic replacements. Luxury items weren't something she'd be able to afford.
What are you even worried about? My dad is a lawyer and Taylor is poor. Stop making a fuss, she can't do anything to us, Madison.
Browbeat used his power to get rid of the blockage in his throat and forced a nod in response to Weaver's words. "My allowance got a little thin sometimes too when I was trying to get things together. We can aim to hit one of the Merchants' drug dens instead of the ABB spots if you want? They may not be a big gang, but the Merchants always have cash on hand and the PRT looks the other way if we take it - as long as we call in the raid."
Weaver shook her head. "The ABB doesn't have cash in their hideouts?"
"I think it's hit and miss. At least that's what New Wave said. I ran into Laserdream and Shielder a few nights ago."
"Oh. I guess they would know better," she shrugged, sighing. "I don't really have any better ideas. I wasn't even able to find anyone before I ran across you and that woman last night and that was after almost three hours of wandering around. Do you think we should get a police scanner or something too?"
That would be a great idea. God he was such an idiot! "Do you know how to get one?"
"Let's just go hit one of those Merchant spots," Weaver grunted. She turned and started to walk back towards the door.
Browbeat held up a hand, shouting, "Wait! Don't you want to, uh, exchange identities… first?"
Weaver turned back around, cocking her head to the side as she stared at him. Those giant yellow eyes in her mask seared his soul. It was all he could do to stay on his feet as the walls shook around him with a thousand, thousand legs. "How about after. Let's make sure we can actually work together first. Last night wasn't exactly something I would call a trial run."
"Sure. Okay. After works fine."
Weaver turned around and walked forward again. Browbeat closed his eyes and let his chin drop to his chest. His execution was postponed.
He didn't deserve the extra time.
\/\/\/\/
"Found it. You were one building off, but you got pretty close. That was good intel, where did you get it?" Weaver said, pointing towards a building nearly a block away.
"I overhead some dealers at school," Browbeat replied. It was a wonder what you could hear when people thought you were too tiny to matter. Most people. Most people… weren't your targets.
Most people were able to overlook pathetic pipsqueaks.
Maybe that was why Browbeat was so big compared to Madison. Not that it had ended up mattering.
Weaver stared at him for a moment, silent and unmoving. "Winslow is a hellhole. At least something good came out of it."
"It was still wrong though." He was still messing things up. "If I had busted in that door I would have let them all know someone was there and they would have scattered before I even realized I had missed anyone."
The bugs around them grew louder. Weaver stayed perfectly silent. Browbeat was well aware that he was a dumb brute. He didn't need her judging stare to tell him that.
There was nothing else he could do right except hit things.
"You would have been close enough to see and hear them trying to run," she said slowly. "I think you would have gotten at least one or two. But it doesn't matter now; maybe we do make a good team after all."
"Yeah, looks like it; you can be the brains and I can be the muscle." It was worse that they complemented each other. They'd partner up for real after this and he'd have no excuse to fall back on - he'd have to come clean. Browbeat and Madison intersecting again. What even was the point in being able to change if you couldn't stay separate?
It was because he was a fool, and because he deserved this, and because karma was catching up to him.
It was only fair - as much as it sucked.
"I have some trip wires set for them to stumble over near the doors. Don't worry about falling over them yourself, I'll pull them taut as soon as we're inside. I'll also grab the money and make sure they can't get away with it if we miss some of the guys." Weaver cut through his introspection, causing him to shake his head to clear his thoughts.
"Yeah, got it. How many people are we looking at?"
"Two guards, four workers." She paused and her shoulders slumped. "I think. I don't really know how to tell what a drug pusher or a drug maker looks like."
"Are those… the right terms?" Browbeat asked.
"How the hell am I supposed to know?"
He winced. "We really need to learn the lingo."
"How about we call them all assholes and get them arrested instead." She could not have sounded more annoyed if she had tried.
"I like that plan." He stood from his crouch and started lumbering towards the door. Weaver had helpfully laid out a small buggy arrow on the street pointing right towards it for him.
With her following in his wake, he crashed through the door of the… auto repair shop? Really? Had they cannibalized one of Squealer's workshops to make it into a meth lab? Really? What fucking idiots! A tinker's things had to be worth so much more than just drugs.
Ugh, he may be stupid, but at least he could take comfort in knowing that he was smarter than the Merchants. Fucking idiots.
"Hands down and back away from the shady stuff and nobody gets hurt!" Browbeat shouted.
He could hear Weaver groan behind him. She tackled him a moment later, knocking him to the ground a second before bullets tore up the air where he'd been standing. He could only blink up in dumb shock at the new holes in the wall.
"Sorry, forgot to muck with the guns." Weaver murmured, rolling off of him even as the gunfire sputtered to a stop, replaced by a stream of curses. "Safe now."
"Who are you?" Browbeat whispered. Where was this Taylor in school? Why did she hide this creature of backbone and wisdom and omniscience and nerves and steel?!
"Fight us like men cocksuckers!"
Browbeat pushed off of the floor with a grunt, resolving to deal with his companion's utter badassness later. "Considering you literally just shot at us with automatic weapons, I don't think you're following your own rules." He lunged forward and swung for the closest guard. The guy tried to swing his gun like a club, but that wasn't going to do much for him at all. Browbeat grabbed the gun in his free hand, clenching his fist and snapping the barrel in one smooth motion - so cool - while his other arm completed his hook, slamming into the guard's stomach.
The grunt sailed through the air, knocking over several beakers and burners and making a squelch as he hit the wall of the room behind the table.
"I would say sorry, but you did try to kill me and I did warn you." He needed to think of better one-liners. That didn't even count. That was just sad.
"You fuck mongering piece of -" The second guard never got to complete his insult. He was running towards Browbeat, rifle raised - also as a club, the fucking idiot - as Weaver stepped out of a cloud of bugs behind him and beaned him over the head with a baton. He went down like a sack of bricks.
Browbeat stared at the groaning guard for a second, looked up to meet Weaver's yellow-eyed gaze, before they both shrugged, and turned to look at four women standing against the farthest wall in bikinis with their hands in the air.
"Well, huh, that was… easier than I had expected," Browbeat said.
"Careful, you'll jinx it. I'm calling the BBPD to pick these guys up."
One of the girls jutted her chin forward. "Can we leave?"
"Seriously?" Browbeat asked. He rubbed his temples. "No. No you can't leave. You're getting arrested too."
"We just make the drugs, look at us, we can't steal shit, those assholes are there to watch us as much as to watch for trouble."
"Tell it to the police," Weaver said. "They'll be here in three minutes."
The girl snorted. "That's fast. Must be a busy night. You two are wasting your time here on small fry like us."
Browbeat took a step closer to the woman, ensuring that he loomed - just like all the people did in the best cape stories. The drug lady gulped as his shadow engulfed her and she fell silent. He nodded once. "Yeah. That's what I thought."
They all stood together in silence as they waited for the BBPD to arrive. They didn't have to wait long, but it was definitely more than the three minutes that Weaver had claimed. He had been about to go look for a deck of cards when the patrol cars finally pulled up outside.
A PRT van had come with the group as well apparently. As the group of officers filed out, one of them and the cape from the van - oh! That was Battery! - came to speak with Browbeat and Weaver. The rest moved to begin properly restraining the other people in the building.
"H-hi!" Browbeat said, starting to raise his hand in a wave but aborting it halfway through. He was able to keep his voice level at least, for which he was eternally grateful.
"Hello," Battery said, replying with her own –completed– wave. "Sorry about the delay, stretched a bit thin at the moment, the Docks are melting down now that Lung is apparently perfectly fine with actively murdering people. Do yourselves a favor, stay away from the Docks for a few days until things calm down."
"Wait, what?" Browbeat blurted.
"Later, first things first. Since there are capes involved, you guys should really call the PRT the next time you bust anyone. Even if you're not fighting any other capes, you are capes, so it really does count as our jurisdiction."
"We on the other hand," the cop said, "don't generally care if everything is already over. The problem is that it makes more work for our lieutenant if you don't go through the proper channels. So do it too often, and he'll get pissed and you suddenly lose a friend on the Force."
Weaver nodded. "Got it. Do we ever call you first?"
The officer shrugged. "Probably not. Just default to the PRT hotline and they'll connect you over to us if it's something we can handle. Anything we need to worry about here?"
"He has a folding machete in his pant leg, she's hiding a packet of meth inside her panties, that woman has one inside her bra, and I would not recommend going anywhere near that table as those drugs are not meth, but whatever they are they are killing any bug that goes near them."
"Fantastic, a new deadly mystery drug. Just what I wanted to have hitting the streets. Thanks for the heads-up."
One of the cops cuffing the moaning guard poked his head up, asking, "Hey, Miss Cape?"
"Weaver."
"Weaver, what is this stuff that's tying this guy down?"
"Just spider silk," she said. If Browbeat didn't know to look for it, he would never have heard Taylor under Weaver's voice. She was just so… cold and detached. "If you have a good knife it should come off pretty easy; I didn't have time to tie them up very well."
Battery nodded. "Alright, well if you gentlemen don't need these two for anything else?" The police shook their heads and she flashed them a thumbs up, then led the two new capes outside. As soon as they were across the street, Battery turned back to them, and Browbeat couldn't help but be struck by how short she was. She was barely taller than Madison.
"So, you both are new?"
"More or less," Browbeat confirmed. "This is Weaver, I'm Browbeat."
Battery nodded slowly, scratching her chin. "I remember reading a report about that name this morning… You called in a mugging last night? Around 2am?"
Browbeat couldn't hide his wince as he saw how tired the woman appeared. He'd recognize that ever-so-hunched gait, the slight slurring of words, the way that her head kept subtly turning to follow distractions before settling back to center in on the conversation.
Madison was an expert in those sorts of tells unfortunately.
"Yeah, that was us," Weaver said.
"Damn. You both got really lucky. You were right near where Lung went crazy. Have you heard of the Undersiders?"
Browbeat frowned. "The thief gang. There's not much known about them except that Hellhound is the biggest name in the group. Some people are saying that Regent is Hijack but I don't see the timeline matching up for that at all. Grue does some sort of dark cloud thing, but that just reinforces their hit and run theme. Best guess anyone has for Tattletale is that she's some kind of thinker, but good luck figuring out what kind."
Battery stared at him. Weaver stared at him. Browbeat blushed. He'd let Madison bleed through. Damn.
"That was a really good summary. But yeah, uh, so, as far as we've been able to tell, Lung killed them all last night, about a mile away from where you guys were. We've been able to recover a few bodies, but there's still some missing and he burned a few others badly enough we'll be lucky to identify them."
Browbeat's blood ran cold and he sucked in a breath. "But-but capes aren't supposed to kill each other like that!"
"Yeah. Exactly. Lung has gone off the rails and we don't know why he thinks he's strong enough to wave the red flag in everyone's faces like this. This is extreme even for him. He has another player for his team on the board that we haven't seen, mark my words. Those were kids. Stupid kids, but kids. He's already got a Birdcage order because of this, and he's likely to get a Kill Order if he goes any further. I've seen this before: he'll keep going now, he has to." Battery crossed her arms and shook her head, scowling.
Weaver stepped in front of Browbeat, the bugs in the air flying in erratic circles. "Why are you telling us this? This can't be standard practice."
Battery scoffed. "Protocol can kiss my ass. Lung recruited someone who makes him feel invincible and we should all be terrified. I should be spinning this into a Ward pitch. Here's my token effort: you would be legitimately safer with a team at your back; especially with whatever fresh hell is about to rain down on this city. There, pitch is done. If you both want to keep going as you are, feel free. No one is dead or seriously hurt, neither of you are banged up, and there's no screaming or shouting in the aftermath - you seem to be working perfectly fine together. Just keep playing it safe and stay away from the Docks. Here's my card. Here's Panacea's number; you didn't get this from me. Understand? I will lie and deny until I'm blue in the face."
Weaver and Browbeat both nodded as they took two cards each from the older hero. She stepped back, giving them a thin-lipped smile. "It's okay guys. Villains lose it sometimes. That's why we heroes are here: to protect people from the bad guys. Call for help if you need it, keep looking out for people, and if you decide you want the team at your back more permanently, give the Wards a try."
She had gone back to her van before Browbeat had a chance to think of any sort of acceptable response.
At least Weaver had her priorities straight. She barely stared after the Hero for more than a second before turning to Browbeat and meeting his gaze with her piercing yellow stare.
"Let's go back to the base. You and I need to talk."
Yeah. Yeah, Browbeat needed to let Madison talk to Taylor.
His shoulders slumped as he trudged along in Weaver's wake.
Madison needed to face what she had done.