Disclaimer: Yeah, I don't own this. I don't own Gotham. I don't own any of the characters who normally reside within the city. I do own a city just north of Gotham, and I've been using the immigrants as slave labor for decades, but don't tell anyone about that.
This is a CATfic (www. freewebs. com/ catverse) set in March, 2016, Arc Six, after BiteMeTechie's "I Get a Kick Out of You" and before my "Free Ride."
This one's...kinda random.
Catching Up
"I'm pregnant," she had said. "I'm not broken. I can stand in the back and hold a tommy gun."
And so, in spite of the fact that the only guns they had handy were a couple of magnums and an antique musket, the Captain accompanied the Scarecrow, Al, and Techie to their late-night raid on STAR Labs, a target that had escaped their attention for far too long.
Everything went smoothly. They incapacitated the guards, disabled the security system, and made hostages of the few scientists still burning the midnight oil.
And then, for no discernible reason, the Captain dropped a jar of what was fortunately not sulfuric acid and bellowed, "WAKE UP, SARASOTA!"
Her fellow henchgirls and the Scarecrow turned to stare at her, which was fortunate, because it got their weapons pointed away from the group of scientists huddled in the corner.
One of them, a petite, dark-haired young woman with a very chic suit under her lab coat, leaped to her feet, screaming, "Danni!"
"Becka!" the Captain cheered, and she and the scientist ran into each other's arms.
The others shared an uncomfortable moment of silence.
"Do you ever get the feeling you're like an actor who's not really needed in a scene?" asked Al. The Captain found this hysterically funny.
"Sorry, guys. This is my cousin! Can you believe that? I mean, what are the odds?" She turned back to giggle at the scientist.
"Is that true, Dr. Rox?" asked one of the men in the corner. The Captain turned to glare at him.
"Please hold all questions until the end of the robbery, thank you."
"But—"
"I'm a pregnant chick with a musket! Don't fuckin' argue with me!" She turned back to her cousin. "Hey, Beck, how'd you like to be a traveling hostage?"
"Do I have a choice?"
"Not really," she said brightly.
"All right, then. What do I have to do?"
"Just follow me." She led her cousin out into the hall and shut the door, leaving the Scarecrow to gas the remaining scientists in peace.
Which he did, after explaining that he didn't usually let his minions take this much control over a job, but he was humoring her in light of her delicate condition.
"So, what are you doing in Gotham?" asked the delicate one.
"Me? I'm just a regular working stiff. The hurricane hit us pretty hard—Maw-Maw's old house is still under six feet of water, and pretty much everyone has moved on. You know the Big Easy, they always rebuild. But for now, it's just not worth staying."
The door opened. By the sound of the screaming, the Captain could only assume that the application of the fear toxin had gone according to schedule.
They headed for the storeroom, for which Cousin Beck had the necessary security codes.
"So, how's your brother?" the Captain asked, holding the gun on her cousin for form's sake.
"Married. Three kids. You?" No one could avoid noticing the way her eyes went to the Captain's slightly rounded stomach, to her only obvious male companion, and back again.
"Well, if anyone in the family asks, you never saw me. But…I'm fine. This is a much better life than you probably think. And stop trying to get a look at my left hand. I'm not married, and I'm not going to be."
Dr. Rox's face went red, and her body language went from friendly to subdued in less time than it took to blink.
"Have you told Aunt Renee?"
"Yeah, right. Like I'm really going to tell my mother about this. I meant what I said, Beck. As far as the family's concerned, I no longer exist."
"They'll be sorry to hear that." At her cousin's sharp look, Dr. Rox put her hands up in surrender. The door swung open, and she stepped back, giving the Scarecrow a distinctly hostile look as she did so. He ignored her.
"I'll just keep an eye on the hostage," the Captain said brightly as the boss and her two friends ducked inside the—oh, why bother giving it a fancy name—the walk-in refrigerator.
"You do that," Al said, and then the cousins were alone together. The Captain lowered her gun.
"Quit looking at him like that, Beck. He'll gas you if you piss him off."
"And that's the kind of man you want to be with?"
The Captain laughed.
"Between you and me, cousin, the man wants no part of me, and I have no urge to 'be with him.' I know how it looks, but he's not the one. I've known that for years. Don't tell him; I'd hate to lose the chance to mess with his head. But he's not my boyfriend, and he's no one's father. 'Kay?"
Her cousin laughed.
"Cher, you haven't changed a bit." Her face went somber. "I don't know what you've been up to all this time, but you best take care of yourself." The Captain smirked.
"What, did you forget who you're talking to? I'm happy. I have a warm gun."
Her cousin didn't laugh.
"A warm gun? You're pregnant, doofus. What do you think will happen if you get shot? Your happiness can't be a warm gun, Dan, not anymore."
"Oh, hell, you're right." She fingered the barrel of the gun thoughtfully. "Maybe I should find a safer way to occupy my time. Thanks, Beck. I'll remember this. Oh, and by the way, we're going to have to lock you in the chemical freezer." She smiled at her companions as they emerged from the storage room, though of course they couldn't see it through the mask. "Nothing personal."
Her cousin glared at her, but allowed herself to be pushed inside.
"Ready?" the Scarecrow asked with just a hint of sarcasm. She nodded sheepishly.
"Yes, boss. And thanks for putting up with me and leaving my cousin intact." He shut the door.
"Who said anything about leaving her intact?"
Her face fell.
"Oh, Squishy."
On the other side of the door, the timer ran out on the gift he had left for the final hostage, and the screaming began.
"No special treatment just because you've played dress-up together." He walked away. They followed. The Captain accepted her share of the burden of loot from Techie.
"We never played dress-up," she muttered. "We played breaking-and-entering. Forced the lock on every door in my grandmother's house, and made off with her jewelry box. We even recruited Beck's brother as our fence, but he took the job too seriously and found a real buyer for her favorite earrings. I was grounded for a month."
By this time, they had reached the street, and Al was laughing almost too hard to walk straight.
"Save the stories about your felonious adolescence for another time," the Scarecrow suggested.
"Adolescence, nothing. I was seven." But she fell silent.
In the silence, the sound of a distant explosion was clear. The Captain whirled around to stare at the recently vacated (by them, anyway) building.
Multicolored smoke was pouring from a window in approximately the same location as the storage locker where they had left the Captain's cousin.
"Uh-oh," said Al.
The Captain turned to Jonathan.
"You—you finally really did it. You maniac! You blew it up! Ah, damn you! Damn you all to hell!"
"Oops," he said dryly, and kept walking.
"But don't you realize what this means?" she wailed, clinging to him.
"It means that Batman is going to get here that much sooner and we need to leave, so let go of my arm." He shook her off.
"Show some humanity, Master Squish," Al admonished.
"You did blow up her cousin," added Techie.
"Not that," the Captain said with an energetic flail. "Her last name is Rox! Rox! As in, the secret is to bang them together! And she's just been exposed to who knows what kind of chemicals—she's not dead. She's going to get superpowers out of this. And she's from the Italian side of the family."
"So?" asked Al. Exasperated, the Captain turned to Techie for understanding.
"Revenge," they said together.
Revenge was a dish best served…with some fava beans and a nice chianti.
And Gotham's newest supervillain was sure to agree.
LE SIGH.
--
Some time later…
Michelle Rox (of course Beck wasn't her real name) ventured uncertainly into the Iceberg Lounge—uncertain not because she didn't feel she belonged there, but because she was still getting used to the way her body moved. She made it past the doorman on looks alone, and not just because she was now able to change her appearance at will. There had always been something about the dark-eyed Cajun/Italian spitfire that set her apart from ordinary women.
Now, of course, she was considerably less ordinary than before.
She made her way to the bar and sat down next to a handsome man who looked vaguely familiar. She didn't have time to ponder how she might have known him, though; she hadn't quite gotten the hang of sitting. Her body made an embarrassingly loud glorping sound and failed to hold its shape from the waist down.
The man looked at her with a not unfriendly smirk.
"You, too?"
"I beg your pardon?" she said frostily. In answer, he let his face soften and blur into a more familiar form before resuming Matt Hagen's chiseled countenance.
"New?" he asked.
"Yeah."
"Need someone to show you the ropes?"
"No." He accepted that without a tremor.
"Buy you a drink?"
"Sure," she said. "Mudslide."
It could have been an insult, or it could have been a joke. No doubt assuming her abilities followed basically the same lines as his own, he chose to see the humor in her request. She followed his lead.
"Thought of a name yet, beautiful?" She shrugged.
"Still working on it."
She was dismissive. She was cold. She seemed to have a heart of stone.
But, as she would soon find out, given half a chance they were very, very good together.
Gotham nightlife would never be the same.