Chapter 13: Shopping Around
Working in a bar required much less physical labor than an afterhours stock boy at a seedy convenience store, which had been what one of Max's last regular jobs had been. Of course, last time, he hadn't been working for his mentor either. He'd been working for some big, angry guy whose name he couldn't remember. To be fair, he had also been pretty angry that he had to work in a convenience store in Gotham City after midnight.
Those places got robbed. A lot.
Seedy bars where armed criminals hung out? Not so much. So really, Selina's Tin Roof Club was technically safer than a run-of-the-mill quick-stop shop. All Max had to do was keep his head down, and avoid attention. Easy enough.
A soft hand landing on his shoulder as he wiped down glasses behind the bar, "How's it going, Maxie?"
The owner of the respectable establishment that 'employed' him. His boss… mentor… friend? Maybe.
"It's going," Max said with a shrug. He didn't know how to explain what he was feeling tonight, or many of the other nights he'd been there, "It's just weird. I mean, I told myself I wasn't ever going to try and get a normal job, but then you gave me a normal job."
Oh he was so adorable sometimes, Selina just wanted to pinch his cheeks, "This is not a normal job," She told him, leaning over to pull Max in close so that they weren't overheard, "You run a drink every fifteen minutes or so when someone asks, and then you just listen. When you wander between tables, you keep your ears open for anything interesting, and then you focus in on it until you hear everything you need to."
Not up close, of course. The reason people were comfortable talking in front of the help was because the help made themselves scarce after doing their jobs. For someone trained to do so, you could keep track of a conversation in a crowd that you were moving away from if you could distinguish the voices you wanted to hear from the rest of the rabble.
Max was trained to do this. It was one of the easiest things he'd learned from Selina back when he'd gotten his original training from her in the first place. It was one of her lessons that relied on his brain and his sense of focus. It also didn't put him at physical risk like a lot of her other lessons.
Even with the music constantly playing, it wasn't kept so loud that he couldn't make things out from across the room. It was just high enough in volume to give people discussing sensitive topics a false sense of security. Selina knew her trade well.
Well, if she wanted him to keep his ears open, that was what he would do. If he stayed diligent, maybe something would come down the pike that Null could head out to take advantage of? That was the idea, anyway.
XxX
(Some Time Later – Max's Apartment)
It would have had to happen eventually. Max had been getting into too many fights with people tougher and more dangerous than him to avoid it forever. He just hoped that by the time the issue had been forced upon him, he would have had a solution for it.
Max sighed as he ran his fingers over the damaged area on his supersuit. After getting hit with Felix Faust's fire, it burned through the cushiony, protective material down to his skin, leaving only the bare interface of the suit that interacted with his body directly to stimulate the physical enhancements that came with wearing it. It was like a mesh grid woven between the actual fibers of the garment.
That part was absolutely fine though. Null wasn't sure that there was anything conventional that could actually damage that portion of the suit.
The exo-interface interacted by stabbing into his flesh and muscles, which really should have hurt more than it did. But because that was how it worked, modest-sized holes and thin rips and tears didn't do any damage to the suit. That was why he didn't need to repair anything after fighting KGBeast, or after he was shot by Deathstroke, because for small things it would fix itself.
This wasn't a small thing. It was a gaping hole from the left forearm to the left side of the chest. The left sleeve barely even existed anymore, 'Looks like I've got to go digging through mom and dad's old notes again to figure out how this thing is made.'
The only thing his parents bothered to leave him aside from dangerous debt, and he'd nearly burned the arm off of it. Fantastic.
In the best case scenario available to him, he could fix it himself and only have to spend a little money to do it. Of course, his parents pumped years of research and funding into it, so it probably wasn't made from something easy to get his hands on. Joy.
He apparently wasn't the only one having issues with his equipment either. After leaving his room and walking a short ways down the hall, he caught sight of Rose sitting on the bed in his tiny former bedroom, all of the assorted weapons she had on her person were spread out on top.
As he poked his head in through the doorway to get a better look, the frustrated expression on the mercenary girl's face was clearly evident. She had been like that since the last time he'd seen her, and apparently hadn't even moved since then, "Hey," He said, abruptly getting her attention, "Rose, what's the matter with you? You've been staring at your gear for an hour."
Rose let out a sigh that was oddly reminiscent to the one that he had let out a few minutes prior. Her problem was that the gear she had with her wasn't her gear. It was… borrowed from several of her victims during her bounty-induced rampage. Most of her stuff had been exhausted or destroyed during that clusterfuck.
"I need goodies, Sparks," Rose said, laying out her situation, "Weapons. Guns. Knives. New swords. Something that goes boom. I've got next to nothing here."
Max let out a snort and leaned farther into the room, "Sure, I'll just hop on down to the pawn shop and pick you up a few nifty toys. That is, if you don't mind the waiting period for the guns."
Rose stuck her tongue out at the thought of using someone else's second-hand, low value legal civilian crap. Not a chance, "Ha-ha, funny. You do realize we're in the crime capital of the United States, don't you? If I want to go buy guns, I could throw a rock off of this roof and probably hit someone who knows a guy."
Right. Ever since he stopped being afraid of running into the seedier elements of his hometown in some shadowy back alley, Max had seemingly forgotten that he still lived in America's cesspool. Rose was likely exactly right in that she could probably walk outside with a handful of cash and come back in five minutes with an unregistered automatic weapon, "Well, just keep all of it away from me. You know how me and firearms mix."
Being reminded of Max's more hilarious difficulties with carrying guns put a mean-spirited smile on the daughter of Deathstroke's face, "Still got that problem with you and gunpowder, eh?"
Max answered by touching the doorknob, creating an audible snap of electricity in the air, "The Atom says there's always some kind of current running through me. Either the gun'll just go off in my hand without pulling the trigger, or if too much juice is pumping the whole thing'll blow up."
"I still want to see that by the way," Rose commented after Max's explanation.
"I've got enough of my suit that I need to get fixed already without needing to do the fingers too," Max quipped in return, "So is that the adventure for tonight? Buying every little lethal thing your heart desires? Sounds fun. Show me what you get later."
Before he could leave, he found Rose's iron grip wrapped around his wrist. Not for the first time was he reminded how much stronger Deathstroke's superhuman serum made her compared to any other human girl he'd met thus far.
She was likely capable of ripping that arm off, and messily.
"…Can I help you with something?" Max asked, trying to keep an even tone to his voice. He was sans supersuit, so when it came to physical abilities he couldn't match her, and that had been the only thing he'd ever really had to compete with her in the first place.
Fortunately, it wasn't a hostile gesture, it was an 'I-don't-want-you-to-leave-before-I-figure-out-how-to-ask-for-help' gesture.
"I need you to buy the weapons for me," She eventually spat out, almost too fast for Max to understand.
It was a good joke. Max actually let loose with a small laugh before realizing that his temporary roommate had been dead serious, "Ha, no," He told her, "You've got perfectly good legs to march your ass there and back with, arms to carry them with, and a mouth to make the orders with. You do it."
Rose rolled her single eye in response, "Are you forgetting the fact that every scumbag on the eastern seaboard wants to riddle my four million dollar carcass with bullets? Because that never stopped. I still have to deal with that almost every time I go out at night."
"So if you go to an arms dealer, you're gonna get popped. Fair enough," Max reasoned, regarding Rose's logic, "But I can't even carry loaded guns. We literally just talked about that. I might be able to get the guns themselves, but how am I going to get any ammunition to you?"
"Fuck," He had a point. Rose hated it when he had a point, "Fine. I'll do it myself. But I want you along as backup. And we're not buying in Gotham," There was less of a chance of someone trying to kill her on-sight if they went somewhere else that she hadn't recently torn a chunk out of to buy.
So picky. As if they couldn't beat down whomever it was that tried to turn on them during the purchase. But then again, that was a trait they both shared, rampant paranoia. Maybe it was why they seemed to get along? "Well, where are we going then, Little Miss Globetrotter?" Max asked, "I've still got school, so it's not like we can go too far."
That caveat to the situation didn't seem to deter Rose in the slightest, "Think about it. Where do you think they sell the best weapons?" She asked rhetorically, getting nothing but a blank look in return, "In a place where they have to deal with the toughest heroes. And fortunately, we can get there in a matter of hours."
It clicked faster than it probably should have. With his luck, he was definitely talking about the number one place that he had no business being in. Metropolis. He didn't even need to hear it come out of her mouth.
"No. Nope," He said, before he even let her mouth finish the motion for the city's first syllable, "You can't make me. I made a promise to myself, and Catwoman that I wouldn't ever go there. It's too stupid. My suit isn't even in good condition," Not that there was any condition it could be in that would let him compete with any of Metropolis' Kryptonian protectors.
"We're not trying to clobber Superman over the head with a brick of Kryptonite. We're grabbing a mess of guns and getting out of dodge," Rose reasoned smoothly. Criminals bought weapons in Metropolis all the time. As long as the two of them weren't doing anything loud and violent they had a pretty good chance of making it out without any problems, "If we leave tonight, we can be back by Sunday evening. No fuss for you. You can be back in school on Monday."
Max rolled his eyes and complained as he once again tried to leave the room, "Geez… might as well go to Blüdhaven…"
Rose considered that cesspool the equivalent of slumming it. She wouldn't be caught dead there. Which was convenient, "Arms dealers in Blüdhaven have terrible quality goods in comparison. Plus, Blüdhaven is worse than Gotham. I'm ten times more likely to get jumped there than in Metropolis."
"Now you're just pulling statistics out of your ass."
"That's how you win arguments, Sparks."
XxX
(New York City – Battery Park)
A smile pulled at Zatanna's lips as she walked down the street of the old city neighborhood. A friend of her father's from decades past lived there. A resident from before World War II as a matter of fact.
As she walked into the dusty old gym that had been run by heavyweight boxing legend Ted Grant since the 1940s, she quickly picked him out from the dozens of other aspiring athletes training for an opportunity at contendership.
Grant stood hitting a heavy bag that needed to be held in place by three of the gym's younger members. With every punch he threw, the bag buckled and the feet of the ones holding it slid backwards. The poor fools. It was good practice for them though, to learn how to stand their ground against weathering blows.
She was sure it was the excuse that Ted used on a lot of the newbies to get someone to assist him with his training.
Eventually, he finished with his practice and made his way through the building to his office. Zatanna followed him, smoothly weaving her way through the hustle and bustle of the gym, through the open door to the office where it closed behind her, Ted leaning against the shut access point.
Zatanna turned around with a grin plastered to her face, "Hi there."
Ted let out a gruff chuckle at the sight of his dearly departed friend's daughter, "Little Z. I shoulda known. Somethin' did feel a little weird around here. So what're ya here for? Anytime yer dad showed up, it meant some magical shit was goin' down."
"No. No shit, magical or otherwise," Zatanna told him, waving her hands disarmingly, "…Not here at least. Just something that happened in Gotham… then in Vegas."
Ted laughed and walked away from the door before sitting down behind his desk, setting his feet up on the paperwork that sat on top of it, "Don'tcha just hate it when trouble roams? So what made ya swing by my neck 'a da woods?"
"Well, I had some help with my little incident," 'Help' didn't sound right on Zatanna's tongue in regards to what her little assistant had helped her do, because while he had been a help in the end, getting to that point had been a handful of trouble, "I saw him move when he fought, and a bit of it reminded me of something."
"What?"
"You. So let me ask you, have you ever trained a kid that goes by the name of Null?"
Null. Ted remembered that brat. He thought he'd been helping a down-on-his-luck vigilante or something, "I owe dat kid a punch in da mouth," He groused, remembering when he'd heard through the grapevine that the boy just so happened to be a thief, "He took me for a ride."
Zatanna could only imagine the kind of hell Wildcat wanted to give the would-be thief for squeezing some effective martial arts training out of him, "He's Selina's kid if that makes you feel any better."
"As in Selina Kyle?" Ted asked with a start, before falling into a state of slight reminiscing. That was quite a woman. She'd left a very good impression on him, her later cat burgling tendencies aside. He couldn't stay mad at her for anything, "Hmm. It does actually. Thanks. So what do ya think of him if ya had a run-in like ya said?"
Zatanna raised an eyebrow at the question. From one meeting? "What do I think of him?" She parroted before shrugging, "I think he's an asshole," Her answer elicited a bark of laughter from the old-school boxer.
He was selfish, but he was young. Most young men and women weren't like the sort that she interacted with through the way of heroics. Those types were few and far between, which was what made them incredible people to begin with. There was a sense of decency in Null, enough that he found the idea of using the Miracle Slate disgusting once he learned what it took to make it work. It was merely clouded over by a sense of self-indulgence that made him clamor to satisfy his own needs first and foremost, even if it required extraordinary measures.
If he didn't get what he felt like he needed, he could be extremely single-minded in finding a way to get his somehow. Someone like that could cause headaches for people trying to keep order around him.
However, if he felt he was getting what he deserved in the first place, he was much more receptive towards doing the right thing, even at great personal risk or possible material loss. He wasn't as much of a coward as he seemed to be on the surface. He just didn't fight without a concrete purpose for it.
"Most teenagers are assholes, though," Zatanna said after a moment of thought, "No, he's a decent enough kid, and he didn't do anything illegal. He just has a really strong survival instinct."
"Survival instinct? Yeah, right. Kid's got a nose for gettin' his ass kicked."
"That's a really pedestrian way of putting it, Ted," Zatanna said, blocking a wince. Faust did a lot more than just kick Null's ass. If she hadn't been able to magically heal his arm, he might not have been able to ever use it the same way again.
The man known to some as Wildcat analyzed the magician closely before trying to surmise what she was getting at, "…Ya wanna put in a good word for him wit' da league, don'tcha?"
He was still in the loop to a degree, but he was still retired as a hero. Certain things still didn't reach his ears, thankfully in Zatanna's opinion. She didn't know where Wildcat would have stood on the whole memory-erasing topic, "No. I'm not sure how far my word would go with them," She told him, to his slight confusion, "Besides, he wouldn't do it anyway. It doesn't pay."
XxX
(Some Time Later – Metropolis – Early Evening)
It was a wonder why anyone without serious resources or a foolproof method of attack would even try anything large-scale in Metropolis anymore. Not only was there Superman, but the city also had a cadre of other heroes willing and able to step in and pick up the slack when the Man of Steel was unable to do so himself for whatever reason.
Some of those powerful figures were also Kryptonian.
Supergirl waved to the police and other emergency responders that had been on the scene of the latest attempted bank robbery in town before flying away. Law enforcement squared away the crooks that she had handled into squad cars as the crime scene was being put under control. The smile on her face faded with a sigh as she headed off on her own.
Just fighting crime and saving the world all the time wasn't really much of a fulfilling existence outside of the actual action of performing the job and the temporary satisfaction that came with actually seeing that what you did made a difference and helped someone's life.
The thing was, if Supergirl wasn't out thwarting crimes, she didn't really have many people to spend time with. When Kal-El wasn't as busy as creation doing his Superman thing, he was doing his day job as Clark Kent, and she couldn't really interact with him that way without blowing his cover in some way, as she didn't have a casual identity.
She was Supergirl. Whenever she was out, she went around as Supergirl. If she put on regular clothes instead of her uniform, she would just be Supergirl in street-wear. She felt out of place.
Sure, she had a few other people that she had met, in the Teen Titans and elsewhere. She had a few friends that she could count as real ones. Others were generally cordial to her, pleasant for the most part, but they weren't really her friends. Anyone that she met, she was introduced to, and they knew her either as Superman's younger cousin, or as Superboy's somewhat-cousin.
There wasn't a single person that she'd made her own impression on since crash-landing on Earth. Since they knew Superman and Superboy, they figured they knew enough to know her too. That was a rather depressing way to think about it.
Well, there was one. But he wasn't exactly the kind of person a nice, upstanding girl of the law like her should have been fraternizing with.
She wondered what he did all day, since there was never anyone out doing misdeeds in daylight in Gotham City. She realized that her mind tended to drift to him quite a lot. Far more than it should have for someone that was small-time and wound up getting mixed up in something heavier out of sheer misfortune.
Supergirl perked herself back up as she saw a figure coming her way. A strong looking young man with short black hair and a confident smile. He wore blue jeans and a black t-shirt with a red, shielded 'S' right on the chest.
Superboy, or as his closer affiliates referred to him as, Conner. As she saw him coming her way from far off she placed a smile back on her own face. It wouldn't do to have anyone see her mope.
Speeding through the air, Superboy came to a stop right in front of the blonde girl who was hovering in place and waiting for him, "Alright, I guess you had it handled then," He said, referring to the robbery, "It's been a slow day so far."
Supergirl nodded in agreement. So far she herself had only come across twenty-one separate crimes, and only ten of them had been outwardly violent, "I'm really, really bored, Conner."
"Yeah, I hear you," Superboy responded, looking down underneath the two of them at the city below, trying to find some action with his telescopic vision. He spared a glance and found nothing, only to turn his head back up and see Supergirl giving him a look, "What?"
"No, you don't Conner," Supergirl insisted, "If there's nothing here for you to do, you can go to Titans Tower. Even if there's no crime going on to fight, you've still got the Titans to hang out with. And if you want to go and be with regular people, you can go be Conner Kent. I can't really do that."
That wasn't a good attitude to have about anything, especially about her relationship with others. It made Superboy feel uneasy to think that she felt that way, "My friends are all your friends too, Kara."
He meant that. He knew full well that she was still adjusting to being away from Kandor, and he'd wanted to do what he could to make the transition easier for her. She seemed to be doing great! To think that she was feeling lonely was a cold reminder that she did still have trouble with fitting in and finding her place.
Supergirl let out a sigh knowing how her words must have sounded, "I like all of them, but you know I've got a point. I'm friends with your friends by association," She shrugged as her cape billowed in the wind, "I've only met one person on my own that's still my friend… maybe," She said, frowning as she took a moment to think about it more, "I don't know, actually. We've only ever spent any time together once."
Conner tried to stop and think about who it was and failed. As far as he knew, he had introduced Kara to anyone that was their age, and Superman had done the same to anyone who was older than her, "I don't know who you're talking about."
"I know you know him, or at least you know about him," Kara tried to let on without saying the name. She knew that when she did, there was a good chance Conner would get on her case about it somehow, "…It's Null," She barely muttered.
Superboy's altitude dropped a few feet out of surprise. Yes, he knew of Null, vaguely. Namely that he somehow got away from a combination of the Titans and had knocked Robin out cold one time. Also the fact that he'd stolen a jack-ton of Kryptonite to give to the world's deadliest assassin, "The thief from Gotham City? That's the guy who you're friends with?"
Supergirl was well aware of Null's… moral deficiencies, and didn't feel like reasoning them to Superboy. She wasn't alright with them, but accepted the fact that as far as criminals went, he could have been far worse.
"I know, I know. Tim's your best friend, and he doesn't like Null at all, but he's not all bad, you know?" Kara tried to reason, only to get a skeptical look from the clone of Superman, "Seriously, I mean it! Don't give me that look, Conner. Compared to maybe 90% of what we've run into, he might as well be a saint."
Instead of being irritated at Supergirl's lack of people scouting, Superboy found the whole thing charming, "A saint?"
"Comparatively!" She shouted, "Compared to a bunch of other criminals! Worse criminals!"
"I can't believe you have a crush on the guy when you've never even seen his face before," Superboy laughed, "What if he's gross under that hood? You never know. You might be going in for a kiss, you pull that thing back and BOOM! Quasimodo."
Offended, both for herself and for Null, Supergirl crossed her arms and turned her back, "You can see enough of his face to know he's not ugly," She mumbled, even though she wasn't totally sure what he looked like, "Besides, it's not like that. I don't even know him that well."
Superboy easily heard her, but let it go for the sake of continuing the conversation, "Why didn't you ever x-ray vision him though? Just one quick peek, and it probably wouldn't have taken much more to figure out who he was from that."
Honestly, she'd thought about it back when they'd met, but she couldn't for a few reasons. Now she just flat out wouldn't at all.
"When Catwoman made her deal with the League, she made it really clear that if anyone tried to find out who Null was, she wasn't going to help at all with finding out where Deathstroke was," Kara wasn't really keen on breaking deals and promises just because she could, "He's clean now though, so it doesn't matter who he is. There's no need to go looking for him anymore."
"-Unless someone really, really wants to," Superboy suggested, floating closer to his sort-of relative with a grin, "…So how about it. Do you wanna go find this guy again?"
Yes, she did. But not enough to aggravate Superman. He was on-guard due to the Kryptonite out floating around that Deathstroke had sold away to some mystery buyer. For all they knew, anything could happen at any time, and staying vigilant was key, "Kal-El really doesn't like us going to Gotham City."
Superboy rolled his eyes at Supergirl's reasoning, "He doesn't like going to Gotham City himself. I say, to hell with it. Anyone who rips Metallo a new asshole is someone I've got to get a look at," His words hadn't exactly swayed Kara into seeing things his way and coming with him, "…He's not in Gotham City anyway," He tacked on at the end.
Supergirl grabbed Superboy's arm and started tugging, "What? Why would he be here?" She asked before realizing part of what Superboy had said, "Wait, no. Conner, leave him alone," In addition to possibly getting into trouble, she really didn't want Conner making a mess of things with Null. She'd picked up quite easily from their past interactions that he spooked like a deer when it came to Kryptonians, not that she could blame him, given that he was a squishy human criminal, "Please?"
Superboy was enjoying this far too much. He wanted to feel bad about picking, but he really couldn't. It was just too good, "No, I can't do that. As the older family member, it's my job to make sure that the person you've got your eyes on isn't some kind of creep."
Conner wanted to play around with Null, and Kara was not amused. Her expression said as much. She knew he was trying to get to her, and it was working, "Okay, first of all, realistically I'm way older than you. Second, I keep telling you, Null isn't a creep. Third, we hung out one time and wound up getting along. It's not like sparks flew or anything," She was tempted to link that to a joke about the building that Firefly burned, but that was in bad taste.
Letting something that could be so entertaining go just wasn't in Superboy's plans, "Well, all the more reason to find him again," Of course, it wasn't entirely about that. His smile dropped a bit as he thought about his more altruistic reasons for wanting her to see this through, "You don't want things to end like that, trust me."
He had lost people for reasons entirely out of his control, but he wouldn't have traded those connections for anything. Kara needed something like that with someone she wasn't forced to interact with for whatever reason. She seemed to like Null, so why not start there?
...Other than the whole criminal thing. But he was cleared now, and it wasn't as if he had a reputation as a dangerous crook.
Supergirl let go of the clone, still not trusting his intention for mischief, "You just want me to go so I can look stupid," She accused.
Conner found himself hurt by such a stark accusation. Yes, he would pick on her for it, as was his right, but he wouldn't sabotage her. He had been sincere, "Kara... no way. Look, I'm being serious now. And what else are you doing right now?" He offered, getting no answer from the Kryptonian girl. That was what he thought. They were both extremely bored, hence her daydreaming in the first place.
Kara felt that Conner was still ignoring the obvious fact that Null had a bit of a logical concern of anyone who was clearly far more powerful than he was, but he didn't necessarily know that about him, in fairness, "What am I gonna do, hang out while you're hovering over my shoulder?"
"Nah," Conner took the dig in stride, and turned to head off in the direction that he had last gotten sight of a person fitting Null's description, "But he'll probably be happier to see you after he meets me."
XxX
(With Null – Suicide Slum)
Null's suit was still a bit ruined, but it was just the arm. He was able to do a temporary patch-up job by wrapping the damaged parts up in the same kind of cloth that comprised his hood wrapping. It wasn't state-of-the-art, but it covered the inner workings of the suit and would get him from point A to point B.
The ragged look was also more intimidating in his opinion.
Not that he needed it. The entire point of what he was about to do was not to be seen at all.
It was just around sunset, but even though it wasn't his town, that didn't mean he still couldn't lurk around. From what he'd seen, a lot of Metropolis' more extraordinary b.s. happened during the daytime for whatever reason.
Max already knew where several stash locations were for drugs, weapons, and money that belonged to the local criminal elements in the area. He didn't need x-ray vision to see a lot of it.
"Alright, let's start easy," Max said to himself with a smile as he casually cased a location that he would be trying to rip off, "Man, these guys are too used to only dealing with the powerhouses."
He could see people trying to subtly move money and product in and out and took note of other things, such as ways in, how many guards were around the soft points, how they communicated, and things of that nature. He probably wouldn't even need to go and get Rose for this one. She wasn't particularly jazzed about stooping to stealing for her money in the first place, and this looked easy enough that he could just get it over with and done.
She was off looking for a reputable seller of weapons in the city. One that hadn't been put away by Superman yet.
As he continued to watch and pick out simple things that he could take advantage of once night fell, his smile eventually faded away.
The more he thought about it, the less he figured that ripping off drug handlers and safehouses would work out. This wouldn't do. Small-time stuff wouldn't work out. Not for what he needed the money for this time around, much to his chagrin.
He'd managed to strike it big with the entire Miracle Slate saga, but that still left them quite short of what was needed, especially if Rose had to spend some of it just to re-outfit herself.
Things weren't going to work this way. He could rob guys like these and take a few tens of thousands of dollars, maybe? Then what?
That would have been fine if Null were doing it just for him. A few tens of thousands of dollars, maybe even reaching as much as over a hundred-thousand or so, was ample for his needs. More so, actually. But not if he were doing it to try and obtain millions within a reasonably small timeframe.
Even if it was possible for them to rob criminal elements like two times a week for a year, they still probably wouldn't get what they wanted out of it.
Wait.
What they wanted? Since when did he start caring about what anyone else wanted?
'What am I thinking? I'm stealing for somebody else,' Null thought to himself before rationalizing it in his own head. This wasn't quite for someone else, for Rose. That would imply that he didn't want to do it otherwise, or that he wasn't getting anything out of it. He was getting plenty. Part of whatever they wound up taking along the way, and a cool $500,000 minimum whenever all of this came to an end, 'No, I'm still doing this for myself. Helping Rose is nice and everything, but it's still all about me.'
The sound of gunfire caused Null to suddenly duck his head behind the coping at the edge of the roof he was on. It took a moment for him to realize that no one was shooting at him.
"...What the hell?"
He'd seen those blue clothes and red cape before. He'd seen that blonde hair as well. Supergirl was there? And she was doing a number on the guards of that drug drop location. He found himself caught up, stuck staring. They didn't have a chance.
She was basically bulletproof. She could melt their guns with her eyes. She was faster than anything they could keep up with, or even react to. When she hit things, they didn't get back up again. After the asskickings he'd taken, Null was a connoisseur of beatdowns, and for once not having to take this particular one, it was just beautiful to watch.
Instead of being afraid of incurring the wrath of a Kryptonian (because he hadn't done anything wrong… yet), he stopped and took the time to recognize something important about how she was dealing with them. The most important thing.
She wasn't even hurting them that badly, given what she was capable of.
'How can somebody that can lift a battleship out of the water punch someone in the face and not kill them?' Null thought to himself, cringing as he watched Supergirl grab onto a firing gun, bend the barrel, and then knock the shooter unconscious with her closed fist, 'Like that! That didn't make a lick of sense just now.'
It was actually impressive how much care she took in making sure that she didn't permanently injure who she was fighting. Sure, there were plenty of enemies that she didn't have to hold back so much against, but for the vast majority of the crime she dealt with, she had to be using a pinky's worth of force to hit these people.
They really weren't out to hurt others, even if they were dealing with crooks and killers, even though there wouldn't have been much that could stop them if they chose to.
Null was so engrossed with watching, he didn't realize that another person had floated down behind him, watching the bust happening below over his shoulder. He didn't notice anything until a powerful hand rested on his shoulder. Out of sheer surprise, Null tensed his body up and let loose with 50,000 volts of electricity defensively.
"Yow!" Superboy pulled his hand back off of Null, unprepared for the electric outburst, "Whoa, calm down, man."
Null jumped away and wheeled around, hand on his chest as he calmed his breathing down, "Calm down? How did you think I'd react?" He asked, realizing that he was staring at someone with an 'S' on their chest, floating in the air in front of him, "…I didn't do anything," He said automatically.
Superboy grinned at him in return, crossing his arms over his broad chest as he touched down on the rooftop, "Never said you did. Can't I just want to go out of my way to meet the guy that trashed at least two of my friends and saved another?"
Null frowned underneath his identity-concealing hood wrapping, "How'd you even find me?"
"You're the only person on a roof around here," Superboy explained. For them, when they were high up, locating Null outdoors while it was still light out was like spotting a speck of red on a white sheet of paper. In his defense, not many people he'd heard of in Gotham City could fly, "Were you about to deal with those guys?"
Null looked back at the absolutely wrecked alley parking lot full of drug pushers and transporters that he'd been scoping out previously, "...I was thinking about it. Not like that though."
No, his way of dealing with them would have just been to rob them blind of all of their money, and maybe a few guns (emptied of course) to take back to Rose to see if she wanted to use them. She needed the weaponry. Punching anyone wouldn't have been a part of that method.
"So what are you, my League-appointed probation officer now?" Null joked in regards to Superboy's presence, "Kind of overkill, isn't it?"
Superboy chuckled at Null's self-depreciating sense of humor. At least the guy had that going for him. People who took themselves too seriously could be extremely grating, "Nah, I'm not with the League. Besides, if you were going to get one of those, it'd probably be Robin. He's local, and he really wants to kick your ass."
For the first time since the Kryptonian-folk had arrived that evening, Null grinned widely. This Superboy wasn't bad in his book. He hadn't tried to put him on the spot for trying to scope out a theft, as he doubted that Superboy didn't recognize what he had really been doing when he'd arrived. He wasn't holding a grudge for the whole Teen Titans thing. He wasn't even pissed about the Kryptonite theft.
This was great! Yes, live and let live! Null loved that sentiment when it was used for his benefit!
"I guess I just have that kind of effect on people," Null remarked, taking it all in stride, "Even my friends want to stomp me out," Though admittedly, Rose wanted to hit everything, all of the time. That included him, whether he was egging her on or not.
Conner really liked this guy. He was entertaining without being a clown. Of course, he still wasn't as fun as Bart, not even close, but he could see how Kara would find him interesting.
Speaking of whom...
Knowing that Kara had long since finished up with the bad guys and was waiting out of sight for... something - she couldn't have been shy, could she? - Conner nodded and gave Null a pat on the shoulder, trying to bring their little talk to an end, "Well I don't see any reason to look over your shoulder all of the time. You don't seem that dangerous to me."
"I'm a danger to myself, if that's what you mean," Null drawled with a chuckle, "But whatever. It's nice to meet someone that doesn't want to clean my clock for once. I really don't know enough people that don't."
Superboy let out a hum of understanding, "That sounds rough," Was all he said before going silent for several awkward seconds. Without any fanfare whatsoever, he then lifted off and floated away, back in the direction of Metropolis, "Later!"
Thus ended one of the odder, but also one of the most pleasant first meetings that Null had ever experienced with anyone. With all of the Bat-people, all you ever got was cold tough talk and intimidation. Products of their environments perhaps? This was much more refreshing.
Null just watched him go before turning his attention to the second Super-person in the vicinity. He couldn't see her, but he could tell where she was without really needing to see her.
His static field of awareness that let him know when someone was moving around him had seemed to get larger and covered more space. His best guess after checking on it was that he could tell when someone entered from roughly a city block's distance away if he were actively focusing on it.
After Superboy had frightened the electricity out of him, he'd kept it on from that point forward and noticed when Supergirl had moved out of the way so that she didn't interfere with his talk. That was considerate of her.
Still, she was watching him, and Null greatly disliked being watched.
"I know you're around, somewhere," Null groused, "Stop watching me and come out."
It was almost funny to see Supergirl almost bashfully float from where she'd been hiding to slowly land in front of the teenage ne'er do well. He waited patiently for her to touch down and look up to meet her blue eyes to his brown.
"…Hi," She eventually greeted.
Null made an over-exaggerated wave in return, "Hi," There was nothing wrong with saying 'what's up' to someone he didn't have any issues with. He had no idea what else to say other than the generic 'how are you doing' crap, so that would take some thinking. Fortunately, Supergirl blurted something out before an awkward silence could set in.
"Superboy didn't make you uncomfortable, did he?" Supergirl suddenly asked, looking uncertain of how to approach a conversation with Null, "I know you don't like us," She said, noticing a look of confusion on his face that caused her to specify, "...Kryptonians, I mean."
Wow. She didn't think he was bigoted against them because they were aliens or anything, did she? That was no good. It wasn't that he disliked the Superfolk, it was that the idea of fighting them scared him out of his wits. Since he apparently didn't have a superhero bullseye on his back any longer, he didn't have a single problem with being around them. Supergirl and Superboy at least.
To be clear, Superman still intimidated him, and they'd never even met.
"No, it's not that," Null said, trying to clear things up before he wound up offending someone that he didn't want to, "It's not like I hate heroes, or really dislike you guys because you're super-strong and could turn me into paste if you wanted to. I just have to keep from pissing you off that badly."
"Oh," Supergirl replied, "I just figured, well, I heard you run like a bat out of hell from most things that go after you, and it's not exactly a secret as to what Kal-El can do, so…"
She thought he was terrified of Kryptonians. Terrified of her. It was a fair point. After all, not wanting any beef with Superman and his ultra-powerful family was the primary reason that he had a phobia of Metropolis. One that he was braving at that very moment. But as with most other things in his life, if something didn't have a problem with him, he didn't have a problem with it.
"I actually like the fact that you guys are around, for the most part," Null told the Girl of Steel, "I mean, who else is going to deal with all of scary shit that attacks the planet? Me? Just think about how that would work out for a second."
It would likely start with a girlish scream and end with some form of a *squish*. Not pretty for anyone involved. Especially him.
A little self-deprecation always went a long way in making things more cordial, and the sentiment was much appreciated by Supergirl, "It's nice to hear that, especially from a criminal," She said in jest, having loosened up a bit, "So why are you even in Metropolis? You're not stealing are you?"
Null was an awful liar. It was an odd thing to be bad at when one was a thief by trade, "From criminals. That doesn't count, does it?"
"Null," Supergirl chided, "You're still taking money that's ill-gotten in the first place."
"I'm putting it back into circulation legally!" Null argued, "It's not like I'm buying unregistered guns or crystal meth with what I take. It all goes back into the community. Not like if the cops took it. Then it'd just go to buying government stuff. I know how the system works."
Supergirl just gave him a stern look, "…"
Null tried to return it to her for as long as he could before he backed down a smidge, "…I'm still gonna do it in Gotham," He eventually conceded, "I just won't do it here because I like you. And because your big, blue cousin scares the shit out of me. Seriously. I have nightmares of fighting that guy."
Supergirl's serious look faded in exchange for a sly smile, "Wouldn't be much of a fight," She needled.
"Hey!"
Maybe she wasn't so bad at this whole making her own friends thing?
XxX
(Meanwhile – Elsewhere in Metropolis – Hob's Bay)
"I'm doing this way too much lately," Ravager muttered to herself as she wandered through the trashed remnants of a gang hideout. She had asked around earlier in the day, and people in Metropolis were more than willing to talk about things going on in the city than they were in Gotham. She was able to learn about a group of troublemakers. The most well-armed ones in the area.
Correction. They used to be just troublemakers, until they were outfitted with weaponry that had the police force wary to look their way. For now they were just happy with the fear they were getting running amok, but eventually there was no doubt in any nearby resident's mind that they would wind up hurting a lot of people.
After studying the members she'd come across a bit and seeing their armaments she realized that they were equipped with tools that were beyond their means.
Street-sweeping was absolutely beneath her, but to find out where to order her own top-of-the-line weapons, she could crash a den of gangbangers or two. It was a good thing that she'd split off from Null for the time being until one of them had come up with something good. Not that she figured he would slow her down, but fighting was just one part of the equation. She still needed to get the necessary information, and she didn't think he would have been willing to do that.
Eventually after backtracking through the scene of devastation that she had left behind, she found someone still moving around that wasn't unconscious or dead. Goody.
"Well now that all of that nasty shooting business is over with…" Ravager said, kicking the man to roll him onto his belly. She dropped a knee down into the small of his back and grabbed his right wrist. She slid a cinder block over and forced his hand down on the flat top surface of it, "Your weapons are too high-brow for you. I'm going to make this simple. If you don't tell me where you got them, I'm going to start cutting things off."
"Y-You don't even have a-," He stopped talking when he saw his tormentor pick up a rusty pipe with a jagged end, "Ahhh…" He stopped with a fearful titter to his voice.
"Don't have a what?" Ravager asked, putting the sharp end at the joint of his index fingers. He tried to pull his hand away, to move out from underneath the girl, but she was far too strong for him, "Be quick, or you'll have to learn how to shoot with a new trigger finger."
"Please don't!"
"I don't want pleas, I want answer. Now who sold you the goddamn weapons!"
"Just take these!"
Ravager had enough of the man trying to sidetrack her and jammed the pipe edge down, breaking the finger at the joint and grinding the pipe down until it touched cinder block. A severed finger sat beneath a pool of blood from the hand that used to be attached to. As the thug screamed and writhed worthlessly underneath her, Ravager held his hand still and placed the blood-tipped pipe at another finger.
"I can do that nine more times, or until I get bored," Ravager warned gruffly, "If I get bored I'll cut off something more important."
She left the threat vague enough for it to be up to his imagination.
"I can't tell you! We just got in with them! They'll kill us all!"
"I'll kill you right now. I'll probably just enjoy it better," The mercenary girl snapped before her mood calmed eerily, "…Fine. You don't look like the marrying type, and I guess you'd like to keep your middle finger so you can flip people off, so ring finger it is-!"
"NO! It's Intergang! Intergang, okay!"
It was surprising to hear at first, but after a short while, not so much. What was now more important than the information was how it could be used to benefit her, "And why would they want to deal with losers like you?"
The Intergang was aided by heavy-hitters from Apokolips, at least as far as the technology that went into their weapons. Sometimes more so. Yes, Ravager definitely made the right choice keeping Null away from this particular party. He would be extremely anxious if he heard this and knew beforehand what the Intergang was.
The target of Ravager's interrogation continued to spew info, driven by the lack of further injury being dished out to him, "They came to us! We thought we finally got an in with the 1000! The big time! Real money! Real respect! They said all they wanted us to do was make the people scared of us!"
"So they just gave you this stuff because you told them you would wreck shit if you had it?"
"YES!"
This group was young and dumb. Intergang gave them big guns because they wouldn't be afraid to pull them out and use them. The more idiots out and about causing trouble with confidence because of their shiny new toys, the less time the heroes of Metropolis would have to look into the real criminal powerhouses if they slipped up in covering their tracks.
Ravager smiled down at the young man, though it did nothing to calm his nerves, "Good news, I'm not going to hurt you anymore as long as you play ball. Bad news, you're not going free just yet."
XxX
(Later That Night – Temporary Hideout)
Null had a good feeling about his evening when he eventually made his way back to the safehouse he and Ravager were using during their time in Metropolis. He hadn't gotten into a fight. He'd even had a pretty nice time hanging out with Supergirl and talking for a bit.
Sure, it had been a bit disconcerting when she'd insisted on taking him up and flying him to a much higher building for privacy's sake, but he was fairly sure he'd played it off well enough. He normally didn't go that high up unless he was hurtling through the air for some particular reason.
Anyway, Kara Zor-El was a nice girl, and talking to her had done a lot to tone down his completely justifiable fear of evoking some sort of guttural rage from any of the Kryptonians capable of delivering the mother of all beatdowns on him at any given time.
Unfortunately, that couldn't last.
The moment he saw Rose sitting around in the main room of the hideout, he immediately went on guard. She seemed happy, and she seemed like she had been waiting on him.
There was also a significant amount of blood on her outfit.
This was unnerving for obvious reasons.
"…Whose blood is that?" Null asked, carefully inching his way closer as though Rose were a dangerous animal.
"Not mine," Rose said with a shrug, never losing her smile. She was downright giddy about something or another, and Null couldn't tell if that were a bad thing or not. She must have gotten what she was after one way or another, "Have fun while you were out, Sparks?"
Fun. Kind of. He didn't have a miserable time while he was out in the slightest.
"You know, you should be thanking me for sidetracking the Super-folk while you were doing… whatever it is that you were doing tonight," However inadvertent Null's interference was, it was clear from looking at the lady Ravager that she'd made a mess, "So did you get your goodies, or what?"
"About that."
"Uh-oh…"
Rolling her eye at Null's reluctance, she jumped up from where she'd been sitting and motioned for him to follow her, "Okay, come with me, and keep that hood on," It was then that Null noticed that she was still wearing her mask as well.
Again, this was unnerving for obvious reasons. They were safe and alone at the hideout. Why exactly did she keep her mask on while waiting for him?
"What did you do?" He asked another question, wanting it answered before she revealed whatever she was taking him to go see. He had no luck.
"Just come on!"
Ravager led Null to a small side closet and opened it up to reveal some scared guy inside, sitting in the corner with bloody rags wrapped around one of his hands that just so happened to be missing a finger. Null just stared at the petrified man for several seconds, his face expressionless, before slowly shutting the door again.
Null turned to Ravager, who still seemed to be positively beaming, "…That's not weapons. That's a dude. A dude I'm pretty sure you maimed before or after you brought him here. Why is he here, by the way?" He did his best to keep calm. Losing his cool would only make Ravager pick on him later.
He had a good poker face, but Ravager had by now picked up on Null's tells whenever he was uncomfortable with something. She couldn't imagine why. By now he had proven to mostly be used to her rather violent way of dealing with obstacles. He hadn't commented on her methods in quite some time, despite the fact that their respective operating procedures differed greatly.
"I snatched him," Ravager said vaguely, grinning at the sound of Null's palm smacking off of his forehead.
"I figured that much out on my own, thanks," Null replied with a significant level of sarcasm, "Why did you snatch him?"
"He's going to get me to Intergang," Ravager told him, getting to the bottom line. Under the hood, she saw his eyebrows rise up in surprise and cut off whatever he was about to say next, "Before you even say anything, they're going to be able to get their hands on the best gear I can get from someone that won't outright try to kill me first! They've probably got guys who could fix your suit too."
"I'll stick it out for now. I'm not letting them touch this goddamn suit," Null said, hugging himself protectively. Like hell he was going to let those crazies get their hands on his parents' hard work. That was for him to exploit for his own personal gain, and him only, "You know who Intergang is, right?"
He hoped she did. He barely knew. All that he was loosely aware of was that they had beef with several significant heroes, and that after years of fighting against them the good guys had not yet taken them apart. That counted for something in his book. Something that he didn't want to try and go out of his way to tangle with.
Rose's expression grew deadly serious at Null's prodding, "Oh, I know better than you do, trust me," There was much more to them than Null was saying, and she knew the truly intimidating parts of it, but it wouldn't do to shake her partner up just because she could. He had been doing so much better lately at standing up and dealing with whatever freaky hand was dealt to him in his line of work. She didn't want him regressing back into his criminal shell now, "That's why I know what I'm doing here. If it really makes you feel better, you can go back to Gotham."
"What? No. I'm supposed to be watching your back," It wasn't an option to leave even before the very first sign of trouble. Nothing had even happened yet. It was far too early to be abandoning ship and thinking of leaving an ally behind, "I'm not leaving you alone. I'm not going anywhere until Sunday or we get what you came for. Whatever comes first."
So he was uncomfortable. He could deal with that. He'd have been way more miserable sitting at home, waiting for Ravager to come back in one piece.
Not for the first time, Ravager was reminded that apparently her well-being meant something to Null, and not for monetary reasons. Not only that, but he wasn't as willing to cut bait and run for his life without at least testing the waters first. That was what she wanted. This was how progress was made. She wanted that peacock to strut.
God, did she owe him one though. She knew it, and she didn't like it. The first order of business after all of this was settled was to find a way to settle up with him, otherwise it would drive her mad.
Well, madder. She hadn't exactly been the picture of sanity to begin with. Thanks dad.
"I appreciate the loyalty, Sparky. Really," She said to him, "How about a promise? If I can't just outright make this thing happen, we'll go back to Gotham City together. Find some other way to get armed," Before getting too sappy, she added a comment on to keep up a tough appearance, "…I'm only saying this by the way, because I'm sure I can make something work."
"I'm sure you can," Null admitted, leaning his back against the nearest wall as he thought of how to word what he was feeling at the moment, "Look, I'm just being paranoid-."
"-Because you're not used to good things happening to you without a price tag attached?" She interjected with a rueful, knowing chuckle.
Null snorted back a laugh. He wasn't surprised that she was mostly right on track. Sometimes he forgot that the girl Rose Wilson had been dealt an extremely raw hand in life. Much more than his own, "Yeah, close enough. But you were the one trained by the guy who made a living doing business with powerful, dangerous groups, not me."
"Killer. So let's get ready."
"What about the guy in there?"
"He's fine. I fed him like an hour ago."
"Not what I meant, but whatever."