Chapter 24: The Arkham Quagmire
Max had hooked up with Rose. Legitimately. As in, they had gotten to know one another in the biblical sense. For a teenage boy, this was a thought that permeated his brain every five minutes after they had done the deed.
After they had separated from Rose's bed later that evening, they didn't cross paths with one another for a full 24 hours. A full day of thinking about sleeping with Rose, and no one around to temper his thoughts in any way, so his mind roamed.
Needless to say, the thing with Supergirl in Metropolis had never come up, because even if the opportunity had presented itself, why would it have? Aside from that, Max was smart enough to recognize that talking about it for no reason likely wouldn't end well for him. So he didn't. It wasn't an issue, so there wasn't any need to make it one. They were friends, and both benefited mutually off of what they were doing. Rose had warned him not to catch feelings, and even though it was hard sometimes, he didn't have to be told twice.
Of course, making it appear that he was following that demand and actually following that demand in full were two different things.
Fortunately, whenever Max was at a loss, he knew there was always a place he could go to air his grievances and be heard by someone who cared and could advise him. Granted, they would also chew him out for being an idiot, but that just came with the territory.
"-And yeah," Max said, finishing his tale of his most recent events, "...So, that's what I've been into."
Selina stood by behind the bar as she heard her protege out, "Watch your phrasing," She sorely desired to pour herself a drink to deal with having to mentally sort out this particular mistake, "I knew you were going to do this! You're so smart, but sometimes you do things that are so... ugh! You know what you did! You slept with Ravager!"
Max lounged around on a stool nearby, soaking in Selina's reaction to what he'd told her. He didn't even know why he had told her to begin with, "I know that. You see, things like this are why I need an adult," He rationalized.
Selina wadded up a napkin and pitched it at Max's head, "You basically are an adult."
Max let it bounce off of the side of his head. It was the least he could do, seeing as how he knew he had screwed up, "Okay, I need an adult who's better at being an adult than I am… and that would be you."
Selina seemed caught off-guard for a moment, "Am I really the most responsible adult you have in your life?" She asked, taking his statement to heart. Max nodded to confirm, "Wow. That's very flattering. And really frightening. How are you as good of a good kid as you are?"
Clearly not that good, seeing as what he did for a living, "Well, I am a thief."
Selina scoffed and rolled her eyes, "Don't be silly. You could be much worse. I mean sure, there are more honest ways to make a dishonest living, but I like my style the best," She said with a smile that became more subdued as she noticed how distracted Max was, "Is something else bothering you? I mean, you should feel bad about giving into temptation the way you did, but you still got to rut. I don't think any boy in your position would have his head down after that."
Max spared a chuckle at that, "I don't know. Just thinking about some stuff, I guess," He noticed her waiting on him to go into more detail, which he waved off, "Don't worry about it. Just some Max stuff."
"God, I forgot how into their own drama teenagers are," Selina commented, walking out from behind the bar, ruffling Max's hair as she moved past him, "Alright, finish opening up. Let's hope for a quiet night."
Max smiled at Selina before doing as she asked, "Yeah... at the bar and beyond," He said. Given what he had planned for after his shift, he could only hope.
XxX
Ravager was armed and dangerous, not that this was any kind of change from the norm for her. But instead of being prepared for major combat, she was equipped for speed and efficiency - kill or maim what she needs to get rid of quickly, then move along to her true objective.
In the shadow of Arkham Asylum, the deadly mercenary girl prepared for her mission under the watchful eye of her even deadlier father, Deathstroke.
"It's getting very late," Deathstroke observed, wondering just when he was going to see Ravager in action, "Are you waiting for the dawn shift change? I wasn't aware that was part of any of your plans."
Ravager spared a glance Deathstroke's way. Of course. He had gotten a good look at all of her aborted plans, "Right now, I'm just waiting for the signal. I've got a guy on the inside," She assured him, "Well... not on the inside yet. He'll get inside, and then I'll have a guy on the inside. He's not staying though. He's coming out right after."
Deathstroke only had to consider who Ravager was possibly talking about for half a second, "I would have figured you hired Null."
'Fuck,' Ravager cursed inside of her head before shoring up her backbone. She hadn't done anything wrong. Null knew how to break into places better than she did, "He's an infiltration specialist, and he's mostly harmless. He won't screw us over," Deathstroke's body language screamed skepticism, "Well, he won't screw me over, but then again, I didn't shoot him after he finished a job."
Behind his mask, Deathstroke rolled his one existing eye at his daughter bringing up ancient history, "It was a flesh wound. It wasn't like I kneecapped him," He said as Ravager blew him off in exchange for finishing up her preparations, "Very well. This is your job. You can handle it as you see fit. Where is he?"
Ravager scoffed amusedly, "Oh, daddy, you really think he's going to get anywhere within a mile of you? He's going to wreck security and make himself scarce. Once he's done, I'll be able to basically walk on in."
"He can make it that easy for you?" Deathstroke asked, getting a nod from Ravager, "You must be disappointed, dear. You came up with all of those plans to get yourself in," He said, poking fun at the half-finished plans he found when he visited the apartment.
Ravager felt a touch of embarrassment at the reminder, "And all of them fucking sucked. I don't do stealth," Her ability to strategize was set up more along the lines of quick shock-and-awe tactics, not sneaky, clandestine activities. Outsourcing was the smart move, "Fast and loud. That's how I like it, and I can do that once Sparks does his thing."
So it was to be Null doing the grunt work, but Ravager doing the heavy lifting. Deathstroke deemed things acceptable under those circumstances only, "Fair enough. I'm looking forward to seeing how this goes."
Ravager knew she'd been walking a thin line between using someone's abilities and relying on them, but so long as she could toe it, everything would work out, "Apologies in advance if it's a little boring. But hey, that's what happens when you've got a well thought out plan," She boasted.
XxX
Arkham Asylum was not a pretty place. A grim castle situated cliffside on its own island. If people called Gotham City a nightmare of steel and stone, this was its epicenter. All of the darkest, most frightening elements of humanity all gathered in one place – an island situated in the middle of Gotham. It was like a sort of zoo. A sick, twisted zoo.
It was one of the last places in the world Null wanted to go. Ever. But he was a professional. Even if it was a place he was afraid of, he would approach it as though he were infiltrating anywhere else he had time to prepare for. And that meant research.
With so many dangerous people in one place, state-of-the-art security measures were installed all over the asylum. Video recorders were installed in every room. Two armed guards were stationed on every corridor on all floors, twenty-four hours a day. Every staff member on the roster was required to present identification to get in and out of Arkham and access various levels of the building, no matter who they were.
All windows were installed with heat detectors and microwave motion detectors. Magnetic foils in the walls blocked radio waves from penetrating locked cells. The cells themselves were opened and closed with a key card only available to three members of the asylum staff at a given time, or from the main control hub of each block.
It seemed like an insurmountable task to make it in and out of this place without being discovered. But then again, all Null really had to do was get Ravager in. Anything else was extracurricular. It wasn't like he had to deal with the actual freeing of prisoners and patients. That was the thought Null kept in mind as he repeatedly perused the leaked blueprints of the updated asylum on the dark web.
'This can't be that hard,' Null thought to himself, sitting on the side of the highway bridge that overlooked Arkham Asylum. He'd altered his suit to a complete, featureless, solid black to disguise himself as much as humanly possible. He brought a tablet with him to use for quick research that he kept with his other things in his satchel, 'People break out of this godforsaken place all the time. My career is to actually break into places! This should be just another day on the job for me!'
And then it wasn't his problem anymore. From that point onward, whatever happened was up to Rose... and he dreaded just what that would be. But as long as none of it blew back on him in any way, he could deal with it.
With a look at the time, Null realized it was time to begin. He had to infiltrate Arkham Asylum. God help him. He did have a plan, though. That counted for something.
He would go through the gutter. While getting the up-to-date Arkham Asylum floor plan required illegal means, getting the sewer maps was not. They were public plans.
Rose had actually been really impressed with him. She'd been trying to come up with a plan for weeks. After getting Max in on the act, he'd come up with a serviceable method of approach within a few days. Everyone had their specialties, after all.
Granted, slogging through inmate excrement wasn't Null's idea of fun, but it got him onto the property without any fuss. And he could stick to any surface he wished, so he stayed far above the murky water along the bottom of the sewer. The smell was less than pleasant, but he only had to deal with it for a short time. Amazingly enough, there were no security measures down there.
Null emerged on the inside of the Asylum's outer walls, just as planned. He wasn't wet behind the ears when it came to infiltration any longer. He was damned good with the practice provided to him, and he had the means to exploit his knowledge and experience through his powers that most other thieves and burglars didn't have access to.
The building was locked down tight. But all of the state-of-the-art security didn't mean much without the electricity to power it. It was all a part of his plan. The place had its own power source, and a separate backup system. That was fine. He needed the electricity to be on, just not for a few moments. From feeling the flow of energy to the asylum building, he could tell where it was coming from and where the main power was active.
Preparing himself for what was to come, Null mentally pumped himself up and took a look at the blueprints for Arkham, "Okay, when I take this out, I've got a minute to get to the security room before the auxiliary power kicks in," He needed to have his direct path mapped out. No messing around, "No guts, no glory."
In a move that would have killed a regular person, Null forcefully damaged the transformer. When electricity rippled from the machinery, he took a quick intake of it to give himself a boost before taking off, counting backwards from sixty as he moved.
'Fifty. '
No one saw him force open a window, nor did the alarms go off when he did. Lowering it back down, he didn't spare it another glance as he took off down the halls, having memorized the proper route to take to reach his destination.
'Forty.'
Rounding a corner, an unfortunate guard caught sight of a solid black blur coming his way. He was hardly able to get his mouth open before Null was upon him, which did nothing for him but make it easier for Null to knock him out could with one punch to the jaw. Poor guy. Wrong place, wrong time.
'Thirty.'
The power was still out by the time Null reached the doors of the security room. Effortlessly forcing them open, the crew inside waiting for the aux power to kick in was taken by surprise. They hit the panic button, but with no active electricity in the building, it did nothing. Null made quick work of the two men who were still seated when he reached them. Within seconds, they were on the floor.
'Twenty.'
Hundreds of thousands of dollars of equipment was destroyed with complete abandon, electricity passing through all of it with reckless abandon. Null could leave nothing to chance, security-wise. Everything that looked important had to go. The only thing he avoided was the equipment to open cells. After all, getting to inmates and letting some of them out was the entire point of Ravager being there. It made the miser in Null weep that he was doing away with so much expensive stuff that at another time he could sell or re-purpose.
With a loud sound of the electricity kicking back on, Null winced and waited for everything to go sideways. When no alarm went off, he relaxed and took a moment to celebrate his achievement of making it inside Arkham Asylum without getting half of G.C.P.D. up his backside.
"I. Am. The. Shit," Null quietly boasted to himself, humping the air with every word out of his mouth, "Alright, time to tag in the person actually doing this job and get the fuck out of here."
He might have been more willing to get involved in dangerous situations compared to how he used to be, but he still didn't have a death wish. Security had been dealt with, the hard part at least. Ravager could handle the rest herself.
The power going out and coming back on was the agreed upon signal for her to move. If there was no klaxon accompanying the return of the power to the asylum, everything was a go.
He didn't stick around a second longer than he had to, exiting the same way he came in, but going over the wall instead of back through the sewer. He would head west to lay low on the New Trigate Bridge and wait for a liner or a trash barge to pass, so he could ride the Gotham River and start making his way to his base of operations. That was a safe place to wait things out. From there, he could change clothes for school and head to class from there.
No muss, no fuss. He would have helped Rose, and he wouldn't have to deal with the fallout. He never even had to get near an inmate's cell. Not a lot of heavy lifting to deal with. Even without getting paid to take part, there were much worse ways to spend a night.
XxX
(Moments Later – With Rose)
Rose more or less sauntered right in through the front door of the asylum. There was next to no resistance whatsoever once she made it inside, "Sparks must have cleared the first floor," She observed. But what she was after wasn't on the first floor.
Arkham housed the criminally insane, but there were levels to that sort of thing. Inmates were separated according to the severity of their conditions and the amount of danger they posed. Anyone on the first floor was a small fry. She might let a few of them out to push up the numbers freed for the boys in blue to handle, but she needed to release heavy-hitters that would cause some chaos once they were freed. That meant a trip upstairs where security was stiffer.
At least, it would have been, had Null not fried absolutely everything before departing. All she had to do was deal with the guards posted to handle any trouble, and it wasn't like they would be numerous. And he'd already done some of that, from the looks of things as she entered.
The second floor of Arkham Asylum was starkly different from the first. Where the first floor almost seemed like a real health facility, there was a dark atmosphere to the second floor that didn't allow you to fool yourself into misreading just what kind of place this was.
It was a building with the most dangerous mortal entities gathered in one place on Earth. A handful of clock-punching guards weren't going to be enough to do anything if any of them decided to go off. They were even more vulnerable to a troublemaker from the outside who wanted to waltz in and mess things up.
Rose was that person. She caught the few guards stationed to keep watch. They were not prepared to deal with someone like her, "Hey, boys," She greeted cheekily as she entered the first corridor of cells.
Not expecting anyone to break into Arkham Asylum, the guards at first didn't register the unfamiliar voice as a threat. By the time they did, Rose was close enough to lash out with her sword, cutting through the body armor of both men with two strokes, one for each.
They went down with deep, gaping wounds in their torsos. One man gasped, clutching at his severe injury. He went to lift his sub-machine gun, but had his hand cut off at the wrist when he did so. A grievous yell of harm ripped from his mouth when he did, clutching at the bloody stump.
She ignored the dying man and looked at the defenders with a measure of disgust, "Three armed guards. That's all you have watching this floor at night? Three suck-ass rent-a-cops," Where were the police? Arkham Asylum was a private facility, yes, but it was of great public importance, "This is Gotham City. All of the bad shit happens at night. Case in point."
More guards were coming. She could hear their bootfalls heading her way. Before they rounded the corner, she already had a silenced pistol up and pointed that way. The moment one poked their head around the corner, she got him in the head. It was a glancing shot though, and she quickly stormed forward to press her advantage of surprise.
Ravager jumped past the corner and off of the opposite wall, kicking off of it to attack the next guard with her sword. She cut him down quickly before he could even tell how she was coming at him. The first guard crawled away toward his gun that he'd dropped when Ravager's bullet had winged him. She stalked her way over to the bewildered guard and jumped in the air, coming down with her foot on his head, driving him into the hard floor.
Pleased with herself, she was almost caught off-guard by one last guard that had watched her violent assault and picked his opportunity to ambush her. He sprayed bullets down the hall from another corridor. Ravager had to dive to avoid gunfire and take cover.
By now, inmates had been woken up by the commotion and the sounds of combat in the halls had them causing a ruckus out of excitement. Ravager had to ignore them. There were more important things afoot.
Every time she tried to peek and get a bead on the guard, he would fire the moment he saw any sign of her. He was disciplined in his movement, slowly moving down the hall, taking cover in the crannies provided by doorways for cells. Shooting back at him did nothing. He kept himself well protected.
It was during this time that she had an idea. Her sword was made of very powerful material; the same as her father's. Exposing herself for just a moment to gunfire, Ravager threw her sword down the corridor, the metal of the weapon stabbing into the side of the cell doorway where the guard took refuge, missing his neck by inches.
She rushed out and ripped the gun from the guard's hands, smashing him back into the cell and then pulling him forward, into the sharp side of her katana as it stuck out of the wall. The blade dug into his neck. Ravager saw the man's eyes grow wide at the sudden trauma. With a vicious gnashing of her teeth, she dragged his throat along the end of the sword until he hit the wall, blood running freely from the lethal injury.
The man stood, choking and bleeding out, held up by nothing but Ravager as she checked him over, eventually finding a key card. She shoved him back, off of her sword. His body slumped to the floor against the cell door.
Ravager looked down at her blood-stained attire and grunted in annoyance. That had been harder than it should have been, "That's what you get for getting fucking cocky," She said to herself, chiding her own performance, "That guy deserved to blow your brains out for that crap, idiot."
Kicking herself for silly mistakes, Rose took the key card she had pilfered and began checking the cells to find people on her hit list that she had marked down to take out for Bruno Mannheim. She could handle that before she saw to the Penguin's request for a breakout.
Each cell was personalized for the inmate inside. How nice for them. At least a few of them could die in a place that was kind of comfortable for them. She was angry, but her targets could now be her outlets, and she had plenty. She just had to find them.
She had to look into cells one-by-one at all of the aggressive, dangerous individuals within, ignoring their vulgar hoots and calls. Many of the inmates had been woken up from the fight, so she could identify them easily enough with a glance. Eventually she stopped when spotting one person through the bar-covered slot of his door.
"Firefly?" She asked, taking in the form of a man littered with burn scars.
The burned man stood up from where he'd been lounging in his bed, "Yeah? And who the hell are you?" He demanded to know.
Without saying another word, Rose lifted her silenced pistol and fired into the cell, striking Firefly five times and wounding him fatally. That was one name she could mark off the list. With that, she moved on, taking note of the next name on the list.
After a short time, she looked into a cell and saw a bald man with the abbreviations of months tattooed around his head.
"...Obviously Calendar Man," Ravager muttered to herself. With that conclusion reached, she fired three times into the room and killed him as well, "Probably. Eh, it doesn't matter," Her parting remark as she walked away stopped her in her tracks for a second at how callous they were, "...It's a good thing you left, Sparks. You don't need to see this."
He didn't understand. He tried to. He thought he got gist of things when it came to her, but he didn't really. He probably never would. He had never seen just how ugly she could be. Was it because she actually acted better when she was around him? She was... significantly less bloodthirsty when he was around, to say the least.
'He's a good guy, for a crook,' Ravager thought to herself, keeping in mind the number of rounds left in her gun's magazine, 'Way better than he has any reason to be. Better than me.'
That wasn't saying much when she referred to herself though. If there was one word to describe her, it was probably 'wrath'. And she wanted to see part of herself in Null. Ravager remembered just how into it she was when she caught a glimpse of his vengeful side against Anarky. It paled in comparison to hers, but it existed. It was there, and she liked it.
She wasn't going to change though. She liked who she was, "Next," She said, getting to the next name on her hit list, "Huh. Well, nobody's gonna miss this guy."
Victor Zsasz. A bonafide psycho in the purest sense of the term. No powers. Just a guy with a knife, or whatever he could get his hands on. The textbook definition of a serial killer, and he was good at it. At last check, there were well over 170 victims to his name. In a building full of dangerous freaks, he was legitimately one of the worst.
Arkham Asylum's cell blocks were deep. It was hard to locate people there, so sometimes Ravager had to resort to asking directions, "Zsasz," She said to a gawking inmate. When he didn't answer and instead stared through the slit of his door at her, she banged on his bars with her sword, "Hey! Which fucking cell belongs to Victor Zsasz?"
She did not have the patience for anyone's crazy bullshit. There were plenty of people sane enough to point her in the right direction, and eventually she reached her destination.
She held up the key card in one hand, her gun in the other in preparation for an ambush, "Here, mister psycho," She said, whistling like she was calling a dog, "Come here, boy. Come to Ravager."
She opened the door, prepared to fill the first living thing she found inside with lead, only to see nothing. No one was inside. The cell was desolate. There was nothing inside except some blood on the walls, and a bed with filthy sheets. But it felt lived in, like someone had been there not too long ago, but she had just missed them.
That didn't make any sense. No one else was staging any breakouts. It couldn't have been that easy to break out of Arkham, could it have been? Even she needed Null to help get her in.
Suspicious of her surroundings, Ravager went to exit the cell. When she exited out on the block, a bed sheet was thrown at her face. She took a handful of shots in the direction it came from and yanked the sheet off of her face. There she saw a shirtless man lunging at her with a butcher knife.
Stepping back, she grabbed the attacking man's wrist, preventing him from driving the tip of the blade through the front of her neck. She held him at bay long enough to step to the side, driving the knife into the wall, opening up her attacker for a receipt in the form of an uppercut to the ribs. The punch was hard enough to knock him back where Ravager could see just who she was dealing with.
The man was tall and skinny with ratty blonde hair and most notably covered all over his body with scars in the form of tally marks. Here her target was after all, Victor Zsasz, in the flesh, "Not today, girl," The man said, gripping his knife tightly, "Did you really think it would be that easy to kill me?"
"How the fuck did you get out? I didn't let you out," Ravager said. For all the problems that Arkham Asylum notoriously had with security, the cells themselves were never the issue.
Zsasz grinned maniacally. There was nothing behind his eyes but malicious lunacy, "We all have our ways to make do."
Ravager, instead of being upset, felt encouraged at the thought of one of her targets getting to struggle against her, "You know what? It's fine. I'm actually kind of glad one of you pieces of shit can fight me back!"
She was eager to fight, and it seemed like Zsasz was too, until he outright turned and ran from her. He jumped down to the first level and took off through the cell block before she could draw her sword. As she chased after him, Ravager reloaded her pistol. She wasn't against shooting a man in the back.
Zsasz wasn't retreating though. Instead, the man had been like a shark that smelled blood. A guard on the first floor. It had to have been one of the ones Null had had dealt with earlier when he knocked out the alarms and other security. There was a phone in his hand, and then there was a Zsasz on his back, hacking away at him with a butcher knife.
The vicious murder seemed therapeutic to the psychopath, as he let out a relieved sigh, "That feels better," He said, covered in blood, "You're not as good a killer as you thought you were. You left one alive."
Ravager sneered at Zsasz, specifically because of his insult, not because of how he had brutally murdered a man. She hadn't even interacted with that one, "I wasn't trying to kill them. There's no money in it. There's money in killing you."
Zsasz chuckled and stood off of the now dead guard, "Money isn't the key. As killers, we have a sacred responsibility to free these zombies of mortality from their useless mortal existence. But I don't expect anyone to join me in my duty. I don't necessarily want to either."
"Keep your crackpot bullshit to yourself I'm just here to thin the herd. A new player is coming to Gotham City, and he doesn't like competition," Ravager said, lifting her firearm up to do away with her quarry, "Too bad for you."
"I'm no businessman, I'm just a killer.!" Zsasz said with a cackle, "I know what I am, and I must admit, there is a measure of calming clarity that comes with the realization of what you truly are."
Ravager had enough of a serial killer trying to wax philosophical to her and put her finger on the trigger to fire when Zsasz threw a bloody cell phone at her, "What is this?" She noted that it was fresh off of a call to 911, "Oh shit."
"This brave, brave man was in the middle of something when we disturbed him," Zsasz said before hitting a switch on the control panel while Ravager was distracted. A loud alert echoed out through the asylum as red lights began to flash, "You're not going to kill me here. I have important work that needs to be continued."
"Goddamn it," Rose cursed, taking her attention off of a fleeing Zsasz in exchange for the slew of cell doors opening to free the inhabitants inside.
Granted, she wanted to stage a breakout, but not of everyone. She wanted to cherry pick, after taking her pick of killing off certain names. She didn't have any automatic weapons on her, so if she wanted to start taking people out, she had to jump into the fray with Gotham's worst criminals with a sword and a silenced pistol. And then she'd wind up fighting the entire asylum. That wasn't strategic thinking.
Whatever. She'd done the job the Penguin had hired her for, and she'd killed enough geeks on the street previously to fill Mannheim's quota with the bodies she'd piled up inside of Arkham. As far as she was concerned, they were even. There was no reason to stay there any longer.
She had to get out of there before things really got chaotic.
XxX
(With Null – Gotham River)
The sooner Null could catch a ride away from Arkham Asylum, the better. He didn't want to be anywhere near it when Rose started letting out inmates and picking off individual ones. His desires were answered by a higher power, as not long after reaching his exfiltration point of the bridge, he found a suitable vessel floating down the river that he could use. Waiting for it to pass underneath him, he dropped down and landed safely on the deck.
A wave of relief passed through him, "That went way smoother than I thought it would have," Perhaps he was finally due some good fortune? He had helped Supergirl not too long ago. That had to count for something, "Is karma a thing? I think karma might be a thing."
If it was a thing, he had likely done something bad in between his class' sojourn to Metropolis and assisting Rose. His night wasn't over so easily.
Just as the thief had started getting comfortable, a weight dropped down on the deck of the ship with a solid thud. Null turned his head and nearly had a heart attack at the sight of what he at first believed to be Deathstroke the Terminator. Of course, a closer look showed that the colors of the outfit were a black and silver palette swap. Also, he had two eyes in his mask, where Deathstroke only had one.
Null calmed significantly, but still kept on his toes. Anyone dressed like that had to be dangerous. The last two people he met like that definitely were.
"You leaving the party so soon, buddy?" The new arrival said, a cocky grin on his face, "You helped put the whole thing together. Don't you want to stick around to see it really kick off?"
Null stood up from where he had been relaxing, waiting on his stop along the river, "Nope. Arkham Asylum is just about the last place I want to be. Good luck with that though," He said.
The man laughed, shaking his head at the idea that he was a part of the Arkham Asylum breakout job, "I'm not part of this. I just came to see my little sister. But that can wait until she's done. Until then, I'm bored."
Null's eyebrows rose in intrigue. Rose's brother? She'd told him that she only had half-brothers... and that one was dead and the other disembodied, "Oh really? Well that sounds awful, mister..." He trailed off, fishing for a name.
"You can call me Ravager."
"I already know one of those."
"I know her too. Like I said – little sister. But I had the name first. It's mine."
Null didn't know what to make of this guy, but he wasn't about to call him by the alias of the same girl he'd recently slept with. That was weird to him, "If you're first, how about I just call you 'O.G.'" He offered, "You know, for O.G. Ravager? Original Ravager? Or R.C. for Ravager Classic. Something like that."
"You talk a lot," O.G. Ravager pointed out.
"I've... been told that," Null admitted.
"I feel like I have to thank you though," O.G. Ravager continued, "I mean, I wouldn't be alive right now if it weren't partially for you, or so I'm told."
"-Stop," Null requested, holding up his hand before the O.G. Ravager could go any further, "I don't even want to know how or why. I'm pretty sure it would just piss me off."
O.G. Ravager figured Null was one of those 'see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil' types, "Well anyway, you've been doing a lot for my family, haven't you? Or specifically, my little sister. You got a thing for her?" He asked accusingly.
'Yes,' Null thought loud and upfront. But as far as he knew, he wasn't having a conversation with a telepath, so he was fine to think it, just as long as it didn't come out of his mouth, "If I had a thing for her, your dad would murder me. You would probably murder me," He said before backtracking a bit, "Well... you'd try, at least."
"Oh, there wouldn't be any trying about it," O.G. Ravager said, and at that, Null stood as if to ask him if he'd like to try it. That only made the man happy to see, "You know, a dick-swinging contest sounds like fun right now. Like I said, I'm bored. You gonna entertain me?"
"Sure. You like swimming?" Null quickly grabbed O.G. Ravager with his magnetic powers and with a flick of his wrist, hurled him to the side, intending to send him overboard.
O.G. Ravager drew his sword and stabbed it into the deck, pressing his feet against the ship's railing to stop himself. With a deep bend of his knees, he jumped off, diving back at Null before he could properly refocus to put up a respectable defense with his powers. The man rolled to his feet and swung his sword. Null was able to magnetically offset it to keep the crown of his head from being lopped off. He landed a spinning back kick, driving the heel of his foot into O.G. Ravager's sternum.
Having knocked his opponent back and regaining his full magnetic control, Null reached out and grabbed O.G. Ravager by his armor with his powers. Null was grateful that so many people came wrapped in their own weapons for him to use against them.
Before Null could throw him into the drink, O.G. Ravager dropped his sword from his hand and used a leg to kick it in Null's direction. It was shockingly accurate. Null had to use his other hand to stop the sword just short of impaling him through the belly.
Still struggling for any kind of movement, O.G. Ravager was able to move his arm enough to reach a grenade in his supplies. Pulling the pin, he again dropped the weapon down to his feet where he could kick it at Null, again with startling accuracy.
Null saw it coming and with a swipe of his hand magnetically holding the sword, he was able to knock the grenade away. The impromptu baseball at-bat was enough to keep the explosive from going off at a fatal range, and Null was able to put up a magnetic field to avoid injuries from shrapnel.
The shockwave from the grenade left Null a tad loopy, and he momentarily lost sight of O.G. Ravager for long enough to allow the man to slip behind him and wrap his arms around his neck in a choke, "There we go," O.G. Ravager said as Null fought against the powerful grip on his throat, "Hah. I needed a fight like this to work some of the kinks out."
Null could feel his vision begin to go dark as the circulation of blood to his brain was cut off. This guy was physically strong; stronger than Rose was, and that was saying quite something. In a last ditch effort, Null used his magnetic powers, focusing solely on helping him ply O.G. Ravager's arms from squeezing his carotid arteries. Nearly unconscious, this was a considerable effort for him, but eventually he managed to pry O.G. Ravager's arms wide apart.
O.G. Ravager tried to fight back with his brute strength, but the more space Null gave his neck from his arms, the stronger he got. That was what being able to breathe and process blood flow properly would do for you. In a last-ditch effort to retain control, he headbutted Null in the back of the head. Null stumbled forward and fell onto the deck. As O.G. Ravager walked forward to subjugate Null again, Null pushed up on all fours and in a show of great flexibility lashed out with a kick that flew high and smashed O.G. Ravager directly in the face.
Null rolled forward and turned his body, pressing his back against a wall as he prepared to push himself up and continue fighting. O.G. Ravager stumbled back and took a knee where his sword had fallen, allowing him to rearm. He had guns hidden on his person, but after having his own sword used against him before, he didn't dare expose his firearms to Null, lest he find himself facing down the barrels of his own weapons.
The standoff held as the two thought of the next move to make. Null tensed when O.G. Ravager stood up, a sneer on his face. The man thought he couldn't tell he had two handguns hidden on his outfit. Once the fighting started back up, Null planned to yank the guns free and blast him. He would wait though. He already had a magnetic grip on them. The advantage and the initiative was his.
"You aren't as much of a pussy as you look," O.G. Ravager said, "Either that, or I'm really rusty."
Null's ears still rang badly from the grenade going off so close to him. "I don't care. Go measure up somewhere else," He demanded, "I don't want anything to do with your family."
O.G. Ravager could easily point out the hypocrisy of that statement, "Yet you're working with my sister."
Null didn't think he had to state the obvious difference between working with someone and being attacked on the river by someone, "Rav is different. She gets a bad rap, but she isn't even that bad compared to some of the monsters in this town."
'Not that bad? Is he serious?' The eldest son of Deathstroke thought to himself, taken aback by Null's reply. It was then that an earlier point of conversation was revealed to be wholly untrue "Oh my God... you do want to fuck my sister. Either that, or you already have. What kind of rose-tinted shit is that?" He asked, no pun intended.
"What are you on about?" Null shot back defensively, not that the man was wrong, "I know what kind of stuff she's into."
O.G. Ravager was stunned. This kid broke into Arkham Asylum. He wasn't dumb. He had been on the defensive from the moment he'd shown up, so he wasn't trusting or naive."What have you seen exactly? You know she kills people, right?" Null opened his mouth to say something in rebuttal, but when it was clear that it wasn't going to be a straight up 'yes' or 'no', O.G. Ravager cut him off, "No, no, no. Shut up, kid. Not just one or two when she has to. She has a real body count. And not just lowlife scum."
Null had seen Ravager dole out her share of violent outbursts, "I know that."
He'd seen her attempt murder. He'd seen her victims in the aftermath as well. But he never saw anything he couldn't reconcile.
"Do you really? You're all about the plausible deniability, aren't you? If you don't see it and it doesn't affect you, it doesn't matter. That's fine," "But Baby Ravager is just like our old man. Just like me. We ain't nice people, snowflake."
Null scoffed, "Big deal. I'm not good either, asshole," Granted, the comparisons could be seen as negligible, but he strayed toward the darker size of the force, "We're criminals. That's how this works."
O.G. Ravager wagged his finger, "No, compared to us, you're just some touchy teenager in a phase, lashing out. You've just got some more power behind you than most," He told Null, "Nah, snowflake. You ain't like us. And we ain't even the worst."
Null and O.G. Ravager stared each other down with the sound of the city as a backdrop for what seemed like an eternity before Null noticed that his intended stop had come up, "Enjoy your stay in Gotham City. Look out for bats, birds, and everything else," He said before reaching out a hand and magnetically pulling himself off of the boat to a building off on land.
The electric thief landed on a rooftop and got some distance from the river before looking back at the boat, making sure he wasn't somehow being followed. With a snort of annoyance, he turned and went his own way, in a worse mood than he had been before.
Did everyone related to Rose have to be a dick?
XxX
(With Ravager)
'That could have gone better,' Ravager thought to herself, arriving to the safehouse location provided to her by Deathstroke. She was tired and a bit sore, but alive and with a successful mission under her belt, 'Could have gone worse too, I guess.'
Whatever had occurred, the end results would be satisfactory to the Penguin. Her deal with Bruno Mannheim had been more than fulfilled as well.
When Rose reached Deathstroke's office, she found her father checking police scanners, listening to the chaos that officers were reporting back in regards to the litany of escapes. He sat with his mask off, multitasking by looking over potential contracts offered to him.
She didn't say anything to him when she found a seat and plopped down, taking a moment to rest as she started taking off her mask and gear. Deathstroke ignored her for a spell, and she didn't speak to him either. It wasn't like she needed to. Arkham had been her own assignment that she had taken for herself. It wasn't anything that Deathstroke had told her to do. She didn't need to report her progress and results.
That was one thing being without him for so long gave to her. Having her father's approval was fine, but as long as she was content with what she had accomplished, that should have been enough. And in this case it was. It was her deal that had been set up. She'd put it together, and she'd pulled it off (with some help). There had been no intervention from Deathstroke at all. That was something to hang her hat on.
About an hour later, Rose was startled by the arrival of a large man dressed in armor that vaguely bore a resemblance of hers or Deathstroke's. Still, she didn't know this man and stood to deal with the interloper.
"Who the fuck is this?" Rose snapped, stomping up to the much larger armed individual, her own sword in hand, "You lost, buddy?"
Grant looked between Rose and Slade before chuckling to himself, "Is that any way to speak to your big brother, Rose?" He said, taking off his mask to show her his face.
Brother? If anything, the confusion just made Rose grip her sword even tighter, "What the fuck are you talking about?"
Any more time without explanation would lead to blood being spilled, and Slade knew this. He stood up and got between the two of them, preventing Rose's volatile temper from starting a fight before explaining things to his daughter, "Rose, do you remember what I told you about my other family. My wife. My children. This is Grant," "You've never met, but I think you should begin getting acquainted with each other."
Rose took a step back and her sword arm went slack from surprise, "I... thought Grant was dead."
That was what she had been told about Slade's original family. Grant, the eldest, was dead. Joseph, the second child, was disembodied with a vendetta against Slade and the rest of his family. Adeline, Slade's wife, was dead.
"I was. I got better," Grant said, stepping forward to look down into Rose's face. The two half-siblings went eye-to-eye for several seconds while Grant sized her up, "This is bullshit. Without the eye patch, I look more like dad than you do. Why do you get the cool white hair?"
A brother. Rose had a brother. She was looking right at him. She could reach out and touch him if she wanted to. She tried to play it cool, but it showed in her voice that she was rattled, "Don't hate me for what nature gave me. You can always dye yours if you want it that bad, you big jabroni."
"I like her. Can I keep her?"
"Fuck off, Gigantor."
Slade broke up the greeting between his two children in order to grill Grant on his whereabouts, "Where were you? I doubt you had enough interest in where we are to do any exploring in Gotham."
Grant scoffed and crossed his arms, remembering the kid that he'd tried to bully around previously, "You said I couldn't do anything in Rose's mission, so I went and found my own fun for the evening. That fun hits back harder than you said it would, by the way."
Slade raised an eyebrow questioningly, "So, you met Null?" Rose perked up at his questioning tone.
'Null,' Grant thought venomously, memorizing the skinny rat's name, "Yeah, I met him. Little punk."
Rose felt a bit of defensiveness for Null, "Wait, you went and started shit with him? He's the one who got me into Arkham and turned all the security off!" She said, her protective fury mounting.
Slade rounded on his oldest son, "No one told you to pick a fight with the boy," He said, chiding the man, "Grant, I already told you that he was working for Rose tonight."
"And he was finished. He was a loose end!" Grant said, defending himself, "Who would have missed him? You said you shot him before!"
Rose quickly set that line of thinking aside. Down that path lay danger for her roommate, "Whoa-whoa-whoa! Loose end? I was gonna work with him for as long as I was here," She explained, "Daddy, he's a reliable asset for certain jobs. I couldn't have found anyone else to do what he did as well and as fast as he did."
No one needed to get it into their head that Null was a loose end. Slade did not appreciate those, and if he figured or was persuaded that Null was one, he would try to shoot him again – this time, fatally. Hell, he'd probably try and get her to do it.
Slade rested a hand on Rose's shoulder and spared her a smile, "You don't have to be here any longer," He said, chuckling lowly when he saw Rose's mouth slowly fall open, "Have you forgotten? Our separation was always meant to be temporary. You've finished the task I've set for you, and then some."
And then some was an understatement. She had amassed more than what she had been told to make by hundreds of thousands of dollars. Even Grant could concede as much, "Yeah, pulling a cool $4 million in a few months? That's good stuff. Speaking of which, can I have a loan? I haven't really worked in a few years."
Slade gently touched at Rose's chin, tilting her face up to his, "When we leave, you're coming with us. This business is a family one. From now on, you'll both work alongside me. That's how it always should have been."
Grant moved over and gave a supportive thump to Rose's arm, "Damn straight."
In a rare moment, Rose was at a loss for words.
XxX
(Two Days Later – Tricomber Island – Max's Townhouse)
Rose didn't come home the day after the Arkham Asylum job, but she'd sent a text to Max's burner phone letting him know that she was alright. That was how they'd interacted in the past when either of them stayed out longer than normal for their illicit nighttime activities
Either way, there wasn't too much for Max to think about. The breakout from Arkham and murder of several inmates was on the news, but the full extent of the escape wasn't publicized. It was probably for the best. When name criminals broke out from Arkham, it induced varying measures of worry from the populace. Besides, Max doubted it would affect him in any way. It wasn't like there was anyone out on the street that he had to worry about other than himself.
It took another day before Max came across Rose again at his home. He'd made it back after school and made it to the kitchen when he heard movement upstairs, "Rose?"
"Yeah. Hold up," He heard her respond. It took a moment before she started descending the stairs.
That was fine. As long as she could hear him, they could talk, while he got a drink for himself, "So you're in one piece. I'm in one piece. Things went well for me. How was it on your end?"
"Eh. Things didn't go quite as planned, but the mission was a success. I'd be bitching if I tried to complain."
"That's great," Max said as he made his way into the parlor where he found Rose, as well as the bags she had originally come to him with, "...Why is all of your stuff down here?"
Rose set her bags down by the door and let out a sigh as she turned to face her roommate. She wasn't expecting this to be an easy, pleasant conversation, "It's time for me to get out of here, Sparks."
Max's heart fell into the pit of his gut, "You've got to be kidding," There was no mean-spirited smirk or laugh to let him know that she was messing with him, "No. You're serious."
"Afraid so," Rose said, trying to play things cool, "Thanks for the roof over my head, and warming each other's beds for a bit. It's been infuriating and fun."
Max opened and closed his mouth a few times, trying to think of something he could say that would change her mind or make her stay. He almost resorted to saying the vaunted 'L' word that would have undoubtedly gotten him stabbed.
He didn't want her to go. He liked having her around. Since his parents had died, he'd been lonely. Hell, even before that, he had been lonely. Rose crashing at his place had been one of the best things that had ever happened to him. Sure, she was volatile, and a little too fond of bladed instruments, but he'd gotten used to that. He'd gotten to know her. She'd gotten to know him. They confided in each other. They had been intimate.
But she wasn't his. Rose Wilson did not belong to Maximilian Gabriel. If she wanted to go, and didn't think there was anything there worth staying for, there was nothing he could do to make her do otherwise. And that was fine.
...It wasn't fine. But it was her choice to make, not his.
Max figured he had to be a man about things. As tough as it was to suck it up, he had to let her go, "Well, thank you for the cash, the near-death experiences, and the sex. Especially the first thing and the last thing," He finished with a cheeky grin.
Rose was more than up for the verbal back-and-forth. It had always been an integral aspect of their relationship, "Anytime. For the sex, I mean. I'm not giving you anymore money. You'll fuck me for free. Why would I pay you?"
There was a palpable air of camaraderie between the two. How could there not be? They had been together for months, day in, day out. And yet, there was a void to it. Max felt it, and he drew attention to it aloud, "These jokes are awful, and this is awkward because I really don't want you to leave."
It wasn't quite laying his cards on the table. He just wanted to make sure she knew where he stood.
Rose heard him. She really did. There was a part of her that wanted to stay. But there were too many factors pushing her the other way, "You're better off without me, Sparks. I'm not cut out for all of this peaceful, easy stuff. That's not what I'm built to live like."
She was a killer. She needed action. She would always find trouble, and she would always seek to meet it head-on. It was the exact opposite of what Max did. The two of them were oil and water, and the only thing they had in common was that they were criminals. The spectrum of what constituted a criminal was wide, and their connection didn't reach across it. Not enough to pull Rose toward him.
"Your brother said as much."
Max had spoken quietly, but Rose had heard him, "Half-brother. You met Grant?" She asked curiously.
Max nodded, "That's a big dude. He's just as big as Deathstroke. He isn't as good though. Not even close."
Being told that she might have been just as good or better than her brother who was almost ten years older than her left Rose with a feeling of glee, "I'll keep that in mind," Just in case he tried to throw any big brother weight around on her. Not a chance she would allow such a thing, "...What did he say? He was talking about me, right?"
A conversation had been had between the two men. There had been a lot to take from it on Max's end, "He said you were playing nice for me."
Rose winced. That had hit home for her, "I wasn't really. Not on purpose, but I put myself on a leash around you without thinking about it," It wasn't that she had neutered her violent tendencies. More that she reigned herself in, "I did some vicious shit before I met you. And you're so fucking earnest... I couldn't be severing heads and taking shotguns to people's guts with you watching me."
A smirk grew on Max's face as he came up with a way to needle the dangerous mercenary, "-Because you care what I think?"
"It's because you try to understand me," Rose corrected, being serious instead of biting on the bait to engage in more banter, "You know I'm not a good girl, but you never judged me. After you went to bat for me with the bounty thing, you made it clear that you care," She would never forget that for as long as she lived, "You spent the night saving me from headhunters, and then spent months helping me make millions of dollars to save my life. I... I wouldn't have done the same thing for you."
Maybe, Max could admit, but that had been then, "You would now," Rose shook her head silently, weakly denying this, "You said you aren't a good girl. That's fine. I don't need you to be. I don't care if you are or you aren't. I don't care if you care about other people. You care about me. That's all I could ever ask for from anyone."
"Fuck you," Rose shot back at the implication that she cared about him.
Max wagged a finger in her direction, "You still never said you don't care," He was able to pull it back safely before Rose could grab it and break it. Things quickly sobered after the quick moment of threatening frivolity, "You're going back to Deathstroke, aren't you?"
Even after all of this, she was going to go back. She hated him. She loved him. She hated that she loved him. She couldn't help herself. It was all summed up in a matter of three words.
"He's my dad," Rose said with a hapless gesture. There was nothing else she could say. Nothing she could think to say otherwise, "I have a brother. I don't know him, but he exists. He's alive. I have family. They're all I've got. I have to try."
'You could have me,' Max thought to himself, banishing the thought to the back of his mind. These thoughts were needy. Poisonous. He would not entertain them. If she didn't feel that way, he wasn't about to beg her to, "If that's what you want, you've got to go for it. You're right," He said, and there was a sparkle in her blue eye. A hopeful one. After seeing that, if he would have said anything to quash that, he would have felt like a heel, "Just remember, if you ever need me, you know where to find me."
"Don't look pathetic. God, it's like leaving a puppy behind. We'll see each other around," Rose moved in, resting her hand behind Max's head to softly bring him toward her for a kiss. It wasn't short. It was long and lingered. Even so, for Max, it ended far too soon. And he felt cold when it did, "...Take care of yourself, Sparks."
She stepped away and picked up her bags before stepping out the door, only sparing a glance back when she heard Max's voice one more time.
"Bye, Rav."
And then she was gone.
If this were a movie, he'd run out on the streets and proclaim his love for her, and tell her to stay with him. They would both kiss passionately, go back inside, and the credits would roll. But this was real life. Max was an uncertain, selfish teenage boy. He wanted things. When he wanted things, he went to get them, and did what he needed to in order to make it happen, as long as he knew what it took to do so. He had no idea how to go about that in this case. It would have been complex enough with a normal girl, let alone a girl with the Gordian knot of emotional issues that Rose had.
Max slowly walked over to a sofa in the living room and fell down on it, his face in the cushion. He didn't like losing things in his life. Things that he enjoyed. Things that he loved.
He didn't know if he loved Rose. But if he did, it was irrelevant. Maybe she would come back? Maybe she wouldn't. When she walked out of that door, she was beyond his reach, and he didn't know what to do to get her for himself.
'I thought I was done losing shit,' Max thought to himself, '...No. Rose isn't a thing. She's a person. She's her own person. This is what she wants.'
People lost people all of the time, for various reasons. People died. People drifted apart. People left other people. Sometimes there was nothing you could do. Sometimes you didn't know what to do until it was too late. Sometimes the answer never came, and you were just left wondering, 'why'?
Max didn't care about any of that. He just knew that his new townhouse felt a lot emptier now without Rose around.