Title: Webster's or Infliction of Punishment In Return for a Wrong Committed.
Author: mirage_delgado.
Fandom: DC Universe.
Characters: Renee Montoya, Black Adam.
Word Count: 3,360 words.
Rating: PG-13 for language.
Disclaimer: Not mine. DC Comics owns all. (Except for Superboy. Maybe.)
Summary: On a chance encounter, Renee Montoya bumps into a de-powered Black Adam.
Author's Notes: (1) Inspired by a series of comments posted at scans_daily back in the day. (2) Bits of dialogue taken from 52 Week 45. (3) Technically this fic is post-52, pre-Countdown and mid-Black Adam mini, but honestly? This story takes place on absolutely none of the 52 Earths of the Multiverse. AU, baby!
Traffic in downtown Gotham City was never more congested than during the late afternoon, when commuters crowded the city's highways as soon as work shifts ended. Thousands waited impatiently in the stop-and-go traffic of rush hour, anxious to get out of downtown and back to the safety of their homes in the suburbs before darkness (in all its' forms) fell across the city.
Having spent most of the last year abroad, Renee Montoya had forgotten the pitfalls of driving in Gotham City. A spur of the moment whim had her intent on surprising Kate, whom was still recovering from her injuries at her "summer home" in Crest Hill. Renee had decided to drive out there, sweep Ms. Kane off of her feet and take her away on a weekend trip along the coastline. Instead, she hadn't got more than a couple of miles away from her downtown apartment before being trapped in a classic Gotham traffic jam. Renee looked at her watch. 3:30. An two hour wait for a twenty minute drive out of town. "Typical," she sighed.
Bored, Renee's attention started to wander. She looked out the driver-side window, glancing idly around at her surroundings. Her focus landed on the building across the street, the Gotham City Public Library. She spent much of her free time there as a teenager, as much as she could spare between school and working at her parents' grocery store. She would grab one of the old detective novels, perch herself on the stairs and read until a librarian (usually some cranky old maid) came to scold her for obstructing the way.
Lost reminiscing, Renee almost missed the stranger walking in front of her car; a tall, muscular man of Arabic descent, dressed in blue jeans and a grey hooded sweatshirt. The full-grown beard did a surprisingly remarkable job of disguising his features, so much so that Renee wasn't certain that it was him at first blush. It was the eyes that gave it away; they burned with a pure hatred that wanted to rage at the world, the unfairness of life and all who ever stood in his way.
Car horns blared as the stranger jaywalked across the street. He didn't acknowledge their existence. With a palatable sense of determination, he continued on and entered the library.
Renee sat back in her seat. She was startled by how nondescript -how normal- he appeared to be. He seemed far less of an imposing figure than the last time she had seen him. The stranger had changed so much that, if she hadn't happened to be glancing that way at that particular moment, she never would have noticed Black Adam.
********
Renee Montoya had been one of Gotham City's finest, serving as a detective in the Major Crimes Unit of the police force. The M.C.U. was tasked with investigating cases that involved so-called supervillains, the costumed criminals that terrorized Gotham on a frequent basis.
One of those criminals became obsessed with Renee, dragging her kicking and screaming out of the closet. Her life fell apart quickly thereafter. Disownment by her family and a dead partner left her spiraling into a violent and drunken descent, a personal hell of her own making.
That's when Charlie had found her. Charlie Victor Szasz was also part of the costumed community, as the faceless vigilante known as the Question. In need of help in stopping the international crime cartel Intergang from destroying Gotham, he hired Renee as a private detective to help with his investigation. At the time, Renee couldn't stand the man, but she agreed anyway. She needed the money.
The investigation led the pair to the nation of Kahndaq. Intergang had been trying to make headway into the Middle East, something that wasn't going to fly under Black Adam's watch. Adam wasn't the "world's most dangerous mortal" yet. He was merely a metahuman with enough personal power to rival Superman and a cold hearted but steady dictator driven with a need to protect his nation and its peoples by any means necessary.
Black Adam was also a man in love. He was engaged to a woman whom he had rescued from Intergang's clutches and to whom he had bestowed a portion of his own powers. Isis was everything Adam was not: trusting, kind, and optimistic. Her love and guidance, along with the prodding of her brother Osiris, made Adam into a better man. The duo worked worked with the "Black Marvel Family" to bring down Intergang's operations in Kahndaq's borders. Soon after Renee and Charlie continued their journeys.
Several months later, Charlie died. Terminal cancer. He'd been dying since before they met. Sacrificing his own life, Charlie had pulled Renee out of a drunken stupor, helped her to discover who she really was and taught her to always ask the right questions. And in honor of his memory, as well as for herself, she always will. She continued her struggles against self and Intergang alone.
Renee was in the Far East when she heard the news of Isis' death. Intergang had found a way to strike back at Kahndaq; a double agent in the Chinese government had assembled a team of mad scientists to find a way to take out Black Adam. Their answer was the physical embodiment of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. They had brought plague and ruin to his people and death to his beloved family.
By the time Renee arrived for the funeral, Adam was already a man on edge. Too angry to mourn, too proud to admit he needed to grieve, Adam went on a genocidal quest for revenge. By the time it was over, he had single handedly slaughtered millions and brought the world to the brink of a third world war, averted only by the intervention of nearly every superhero on the planet. Defeated, Adam disappeared during that final battle, his whereabouts unknown. Until now.
The honking of car horns shook Renee out of her state of bewilderment. Traffic had finally got flowing again and the drivers in line behind her were impatient to go. Let 'em bitch. Renee leapt out of her car and ran across the street, towards the library. She'd get her vehicle out of impound later. Right now curiosity demanded that she find out why Black Adam had come to Gotham City.
********
Inside, Renee made inquiries with the librarians at the front desk. One said she had helped him find a dictionary while the other had provided some writing supplies. Both were kind enough to show Renee where he was seated.
She found Black Adam sitting towards the back of the library, near the end of a long series of tables crowded with college students researching papers for class. All of them gave him a wide berth.
"Holy shit! It is you," Renee blurted out, earning scathing looks and giggles from the students.
After a long pause, Adam finally spoke. "Do try to behave, Montoya. You're angering the peasants." Satisfied, he poured his concentration into the dictionary. "Actean." As he said the word, he crossed it out on the page with a yellow highlighter. "Acte." Again, he crossed out the spoken word. "ACTH, actin..."
"Adam, what the hell are you doing?"
"I am reading."
"Reading?"
"Yes, reading. Actinal. Acting. Actina..."
Renee watched him resume his scribbling "I figured that out. I meant why."
"We are in a library, Renee Montoya."
Renee sat down across from him. "Don't bullshit me! The most wanted man on the planet doesn't just drop by to do some light reading!"
A loud 'ahem' voiced by a wizened old crone interrupted. "Excuse me, but is there a problem?"
"Er, no. No, there isn't." Time hasn't changed a thing, Renee noted. The librarians are still cranky, patronizing scolds.
"My most sincere apologies, madam," Adam smiled warmly. "Ms. Montoya is an acquaintance of mine, of whom I haven't seen in some time and who was obviously surprised to see me here in Gotham. "
"Yeah, surprised..."
"Very well," the librarian's tone softened, slightly. "But I must insist that any more outbursts, from either of you, will not be tolerated."
"Of course, madam." Satisfied, the librarian left. Adam's smile quickly dissolved into a cold expression. "You wish to speak, Montoya? I suggest we find somewhere more private."
"Private. Right. Follow me." Renee led the way towards a short walk up a flight of stairs to the third floor, into an area of sectioned-off private tables. Even twenty years ago, this wing of the library was seldom full of people. (Renee would come up here when the librarians chased her off of the stairs.) Today no one was upstairs.
Renee sat down at an old mahogany table near a railing that looked down on the lower floors. Adam sat directly across from her, opened the dictionary and retrieved the yellow highlighter from his shirt pocket. "I see you are familiar with the building, Montoya."
"I used to hang out here as a kid."
"Indeed. Actinic, actinic rays..."
"Adam, why are you in Gotham? Hell, how did you get to America without being lynched? I mean, I understand the how. I almost didn't recognize you, but still! Between Checkmate actively hunting for you in China and U.N. peacekeepers patrolling Kahndaq's borders..."
"Montoya?"
"Yeah?"
"Do you realize you babble endlessly while afraid?"
"N-no I don't. And who said I'm afraid?"
"It's obvious, Montoya. I know fear." The tone of Adam's voice as he spoke made Renee regret she had left the pseudoderm mask at home. "You have many questions. I will gladly answer them, if only to silence your babbling."
Renee exhaled nervously. Took a moment to collect herself. She really didn't want to piss off the man who literally destroyed a nation with his bare hands. And she didn't babble, dammit. "All right, let's start with the War. Obviously, you survived. Care to explain how?"
"No. Nor will I explain how I returned to Kahndaq."
"Fair enough, but why did you leave in the first place?"
"I had no choice. My presence within the Middle East was destabilizing the region. The safety of my nation and my people was jeopardized by the threat of war with vengeful neighbors..."
"And so you fled under disguise. I almost didn't recognize you at first. How did you pull that off?"
"Before leaving, I ordered the most loyal of my personal guards to bludgeon my face to the point of disfigurement. Once healed, my facial features were unrecognizable, allowing me the freedom of movement to escape from my would-be captors. As for the rest, what I have done to survive in the interim between then and now is absolutely none of your concern."
"So...why go through all that? If you wanted to get to America that badly, you couldn't just fly over like the rest of the spandex set?"
"Not at present."
"Meaning?"
"Must you constantly barrage me with a never ending salvo of questions, Montoya?"
"You gave me permission, remember? Define 'not at present.'"
"..."
"I've got all day, Adam."
"Captain Marvel took it upon himself to strip me of my birthright."
Renee knew what he meant. A wizard's spell granted Teth-Adam the powers of seven Egyptian gods merely by speaking the wizard's name. "So saying 'Shazam' no longer transforms you into Black Adam?"
"Perceptive as always, Montoya."
"He pulled an admin mod on you? Are you shitting me?"
"A what?"
"You're not!" Renee howled with laughter. "He changed the magic word to God only knows what, didn't he? And you're gonna sit here and read every word in that Webster's until you find the new one? Seriously?"
Adam's face turned blight red, though whether it was from anger or embarrassment Renee couldn't tell. "Yes. Yes I am. Actiniform, actinism, actinium..."
********
Renee glanced at her watch. It was nearing five. Adam had been actively ignoring her since 4:30. With nothing else better to do, she sat there and waited, remembering the last time they met...Renee wasn't sure why she had returned to Kahndaq. No, that was a lie. The answer was that she was there because she had questions, about herself and others. While the former was still a work in progress, the latter she could uncover on her own. She wanted to know how Isis had died and what she could do to comfort a Godling. And so she found herself at the royal palace, fortunate to be granted a private audience with Black Adam.
It was nine days after Isis' funeral. The nation of Kahndaq was in the middle of a blessed week long deluge, nature's way of washing the last traces of the Biblical plagues that had nearly destroyed it. The ruler of Kahndaq faced away from Renee as he addressed her, his attention focused on the storm raging outside. "It started raining the day she died, and it has not stopped since. The people say these are her tears. They say the queen weeps not for herself nor her brother nor even for me, but rather for Kahndaq and her people. She weeps because she can no longer walk among them." Adam turned his head. "Sage is not with you."
"He died."
"She said he would." He turned back towards the window. "Why are you here, Renee Montoya?."
Renee nervously crumpled Charlie's beaten-up old hat. She had to remind herself not to. "I wanted to see if there was anything I could do."
"You?"
"I know that it's like to lose people you love. To have the world turn on you for no reason."
"You know nothing."
"Almost nothing, sure. But I know about the guilt and self-loathing at being the one who survived. I know the rage at not having been able to prevent what happened. And I know the shame that comes from believing you've failed those most important to you..."
Before she realized it, Adam had his left hand around her shirt collar, and lifted up and over his head. "You have always presumed too much," he raged. "Now you presume a friendship that does not exist!"
"Isis was my friend!"
"And it is in her memory that I will allow you to leave here alive." He unceremoniously dropped her to the floor. "I do not require your help, and I do not want your pity. Look to your own affairs, and leave me to attend to mine." And with that, he flew out into the rain, towards his destiny...
Renee's thoughts returned to the present. "You still haven't answered why you're here, Adam."
Adam turned his attention back to Renee. "I have already told you, Montoya. Kahndaq was endangered so long as I remained..."
"Yes, but why here, in America? The U.S. is superhero central. It's just about the least safest place on the planet for you. You have to be here for a reason. And don't go telling me it's none of my business!"
"It isn't any of your business." With a weary grunt, he buried his face in the dictionary only to slam it shut in frustration.
"Something wrong?"
"I've lost my place..."
"I believe you left off at 'antidisestablishmentarianism.'"
"I see you've inherited Sage's so-called wit along with his mantle."
"Nope. The witty banter is all my own. You know, maybe you're just trying too hard. May I?" Adam shoved the dictionary in front of her. Renee flipped through the pages. "Should be right...ah ha! Here's a promising word: mercy. 'Mercy, noun. Compassionate or kindly forbearance shown toward an offender, an enemy, or other person in one's power; compassion, pity, or benevolence.' Say it with me, Adam. 'Mercy.' Notice how it rolls off the tongue..."
"I grow weary of your harassment, Montoya. Tell me why are you here?"
"For the same reason as the last time we spoke. I want to see if there's anything I can do to help."
"I've told you before that I want neither your pity or help! Leave me alone!" Adam shouted, face flush with anger.
"Not gonna happen. We're finishing the conversation we started months ago, Adam!"
"I remember well our last conversation. It ended with my hands around your throat. Must I strangle you again?"
"You couldn't pull the trigger then and you won't do it now!"
"Then and now, you live only because I allow it, in her memory!"
"That's exactly why you won't kill me! You love Isis too much to betray everything she believed in!"
Adam rose to his feet. "Damn your arrogance, woman! Still you presume too much! Not only do you presume you know everything about me, but now you dare presume to know what Isis would want? You know nothing!"
Enraged beyond coherence, Adam's knuckles turned white as he gripped the mahogany table. With a grunt, he overturned the table with a mighty heave, nearly flipping it over the railing. Only the dumbest of luck kept it from going over the side. A loud thud echoed across the library, the sound of a dictionary slamming onto the ground floor. Surprised gasps could be heard from the patrons downstairs. Renee glanced over the railing. They were shaken but unharmed.
Renee wasn't sure the same could be said for Black Adam. He just...stood there, trembling, as a lone tear streamed down his face. How do you console a man who won't admit he is grieving? Renee hadn't a clue, but she had to try. "Talk to me, Adam. Don't shut me out."
"Silence." Black Adam wiped a hand over his eye. "You believe this is about 'survivor's guilt.' It is not. As I cradled my wife's dying body, she said she had been wrong. It was never I that needed redemption, she said. It was the rest of the world that had failed. With her last breath, she asked me to avenge our family. That is why I am here. Many of those responsible for her death were American. Most of those with the power to stop me are American. An American stripped me of the power of Shazam. None of this will stop me. I will honor her memory. I will destroy any who oppose me, just as she would've wanted. I will have vengeance."
"Even if it kills you?" A cold stare was Adam's only response. Renee frowned. "You have to answer your for your crimes someday."
"Are you going to arrest me, 'officer' Montoya?"
"Not my bag anymore, but I still have friends in the police department. One call and every police in Gotham will be on you like flies on shit."
"Eloquent as always."
Renee didn't have the inclination to argue anymore. She could hear the librarians storming up the stairs, probably ready to blame her for the table flip. She turned to leave. "You've got thirty minutes."
"Wait!" Adam demanded. "You would allow me the time to escape? Why?"
"Because, Adam. Because maybe we're more alike than you'll ever admit, and because I truly am sorry for what happened to your family and home. But mostly, I'm just sorry for you."
********
Thirty minutes later, the Metro Crimes Unit received a tip from an anonymous caller claiming to have spotted Black Adam. Within minutes of the call, S.W.A.T. teams stormed the third floor of the Gotham City Public Library, with orders to take him in dead or alive.
When they arrived, he was gone. The only trace of the world's most dangerous mortal was an open dictionary left behind on a mahogany table. Every word on the page had been highlighted with a yellow marker, save for one: Gratitude.