A/N: I'm really unsure about this one. I tried to fill the prompt, and then it just turned into this. You can't really blame me. This is the product of XX. (Please do not argue in the reviews - pm me on tumblr if you want to talk or rant.) For max reading peasure, read to Discoloration by Dawn Golden and Renegades by the X Ambassadors. Tempted to do a Rick POV.
She lowered her head. The bucket, filled halfway with water and detergent - she didn't quite know what to use, but she knew soap wouldn't cut it - was just out of her reach from where she had placed it a few seconds ago. The light glinted off the bubbles in the water and showed an array of colors, but she didn't notice. Using her foot to carefully drag the bucket closer to herself, she dropped the sponge in and squatted down.
Right as she was about to put her hands into the water, a few stray stands of hair fell into her face, and she quickly tied the rest of it up before soaking the sponge and wringing it out.
She stood, placing it against the wall and began scrubbing. She was freezing, and the water had become cold because of the twenty minute walk she had taken to get here.
The alley was still littered with trash, probably the same as when she died only a few days ago. Her father had come home drunk a few hours ago for the first time. She tried to convince herself that the father she knew would be there for her. Not the other way around.
It was dark now, the sun already dipped behind the skyscrapers of New York, but people still passed the alley every few seconds. In an hour or two, no one would be wandering the streets.
She began to scrub more roughly on the bricks of the wall, but all it did was rip up her sponge and frustrate her further. Taking a calmer approach, she held both ends and rubbed slowly.
The blood was splattered in such a way that she neither had to bend or stand on her tip toes to reach it. A line of red dribbled down the wall and she stopped. This is your mother.
She shut her eyes and continued, but now she had to squint to see the outline of the red against the brown. The moon was bright, and she could see it all washing away.
She heard a rustle. She wanted to pray. Not for saving, but for irony. The same sound bellowed through the alley, and a figure became visible. He was headed towards her, a large man with slumped shoulders, stumbling. He was holding his stomach. Did her mother do the same?
As he approached her, she turned towards him fully and reached into her pocket for her phone. It was instinctual, not a choice.
As he came ever closer, she was suddenly thrown back a few hours, and no less disgusted. Why did people do this to themselves? But that wasn't really her main thought. Moreso, why would people do this to others? Why did he do this to her?
She tried not to breathe as he passed, moving out of his way. He smelled just like her father. Suddenly he turned around and she felt her hair stand on end. She didn't want the irony so much anymore.
And then he spoke.
He only asked for directions. (He didn't know where his building was; both their hands were on it.)
"Just walk straight and turn left twice. It's this building right here," she says, bumping her fist lightly into the wall a few times.
He doesn't even say thank you, just stumbles away laughing.
She finishes the building off when the water turns freezing, her hands shivering in the cold alley.
When she returns, it's almost five years later. She's a new detective. And she's just put it all behind her. Well, as far behind her as she could put her mother's murder.
She's gone a few days without even thinking about it. Not in succession. When her therapist learned of her late night cleaning, he suggested she go back.
So she'd brought another bucket (she'd broken the last to bits when she found some of the blood remaining inside) and made sure the water was boiling hot so that when she got there it might still be warm. Cabs weren't always welcome to buckets of hot water.
She brought the bucket down right in front of where her mother once was, and looked up. The area where she had once scrubbed away at was a diluted red-brown. Except someone had drawn over it. The diluted sploch never met the normal brick colour - someone had painted over it.
The area was now a cloud. A cloud with gang signs painted in the top corner and a somewhat vulgar message in the middle. Salt in the wound. She knew it wasn't gang violence.
Wetting her sponge anyway, she began to scrub at the wall. After two minutes, she gave up. Though she could tell it wasn't spray paint, it was on brick. And it had been there for a while.
She left, the sponge only being able to scrub away more of the area she had already scrubbed away once before.
She came back two days later, with a bucket of paint. It wasn't the exact shade of the bricks but it was close enough.
She popped open the lid and took out her paint brush. At first, she splattered the paint on randomly, but it quickly became clumpy and uneven. If she didn't smooth it out, it would chip off.
When she began to run her brush over the long mounds, she heard footsteps approaching her. She could hear not much else, for it was a typical busy New York morning. It was the same man that she had seen her first night.
Her breathing stilled and then her heart began to race.
"Do I known you?" He asked gently.
"Do I look familiar?"
"Yes, but I don't think we've met. I was just going to bring the trash out. My maid quit a week ago and I haven't found a replacement yet." He was rambling, obviously having made the wrong choice by talking to her at all.
She could tell him her name, or she could flash her badge.
She simply nodded and turned back to the wall, smoothing out the excess paint and spreading it to the rest of the bricks. Yet he still hadn't left.
"It's nice to see someone finally cleaning that up. That splotch just appeared and someone got creative. Well, as creative as a cloud can get, I guess. Is Mr. Stint paying you for this?"
He wouldn't leave, and she didn't know what he really wanted. She wished she had showed him her badge. It seemed to send all men away.
"Look, I don't know who that is, but I'd like to do this in peace. Thanks, " she said, turning back to the wall but unmoving; waiting for him to leave.
"Sorry to bother you," he said after a minute. "Just nice to see someone doing what you are.
He smiled lightly at her, then turned and started to walk away.
"Want to help?"
"That isn't a paint brush, Rick."
"I think the real question that needs to be answered is: why would you paint a brick wall in the first place? Don't worry though, I may be able to let it slide."
He didn't want the real answer, but her heart hammered all the same. She was no volunteer worker, cleaning up graffiti. Before her mother died, she was making her own.
He smiled after her invitation, and quickly ran up to his apartment for a paint brush only to bring something equivalent to something one might use for a school painting project.
"I don't have an extra paint brush and I'm almost done for the day. Have a good one for the same time tomorrow so we can go over it one more time."
He smiled at her again. "If you insist. I'll see you tomorrow."
And he walked away again.
"You're lucky I brought an extra brush," she said, rolling her eyes and popping open the paint can.
"What's wrong with this one?" He asked, spinning the brush.
"It's a roller, Rodgers. You'll get paint in between the bricks if you use it."
"So then what was wrong with the other one?"
She rolled her eyes again and threw the extra paint brush at him. In almost no time at all, they had finished. She was careful with every stroke of her brush, but if she hadn't there wouldn't be any need for his help.
She wiped the brush on the edge of the can and he followed suit before she closed it. "Thanks for your help today," she said, picking up the can.
"No thank you needed, just helping out. You know, you never told me whether we've met before."
She smiled, but he couldn't see. "I think it's best for me to go."
She came back the next day - at the same time, just in case. She put down her supplies, and took out her brushes, similar to the one Rick had brought on his first day with her.
Years ago, she had done similar artworks. She would bring the spray paint, and her friends would help. She was never much of an artist, but she could handle writing.
So she began, spraying the letters onto the place where the splotch once was - it was completely covered, but the paint wasn't the same color as the bricks and so it stood out.
The next day, she came back at the same time and finished off the letters. The discoloration was barely evident, covered by her art.
Well, as creative as Veritas Omnia vincit could get.
Years later, she came back, a fresh wound on her body. Her mothers case had been reopened. Dick Coonan had also shot her in the stomach.
The wall looked the same for the most part, but some of her letters had faded, and a new artwork had appeared alongside hers.
Now, Veni Vidi Vici was to the left of her large cursive. For a second she wondered whether Rick had placed it there, but that wouldn't make much sense. He had helped her clean the wall. He didn't know an art brush from a wall brush, right?
Though a small part of her wished the three new words had meant something to the creator.
The next day, she set down her supplies again, and got to work. She made this quote smaller, because the wall wasn't large and she wanted space. Just in case.
aut viam inveniam aut faciam was now written in a long line alone the bottom, stopping just before the first sentence she had ever written on the wall.
When she came back three years later, she was stuck. Her captain was dead. She had another wound marring her skin. The case was reopened, and she had no leads.
To the far left of her second writing, new words appeared. dolor hic tibi proderit olim was written there.
She decided that day would be tomorrow.
The next day, she was thrown off a roof. So much for good advice. The deep, bloody gash on her stomach from where she had bumped into the facade of the building made itself known through her clothes, but she didn't get many stares.
It was almost as if they all knew what she had been going through. (But there was no 'going through,' she was as stuck as ever.)
She brought only black spray paint, quickly writing out victis honor there in plain printing. It was the last message she left on the wall.
When she caught her mother's killer, she came back without paint. She was only there to observe. One more spot on the wall was taken up, but it was not taken up by latin, or any other native language.
Instead, a piece of paper at eye level was there, completely covered in tape so no one would rip it off. Written there was: I like the words. Can we do numbers?
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