Author's Notes: I'm worried this is getting into Villain Stu territory. But he's not going to win, and he's not intended to be sympathetic, so maybe it's okay? If he gets too Stuish somebody tell me right away so I can keep this from going off the rails.
Shout out to my loyal reviewer and BFF, Soap Lady. Everyone go read her awesome stories. Especially the one with Captain America. :D
I could be home rewatching RENT right now with my wife before she goes to work, making breakfast for Alessa, Augusto and Marisolla. Asking Alessa if there's anything else she wants for her party. Picking up my payment. Getting groceries.
Instead I was huddled with Galochio and Zanotto, sipping black coffee from one shared thermos, planning out the murder of a superhero.
We'd thought that with the Tong leaderless and stagnant, we'd be able to move in. The organization all new it. We were in the gold now that the competition had been partially disabled, even for a moment. Morale was running high, our ranks had grown and we were no small force to be reckoned with, even if the general public was mostly unaware of us. We went by many names. We lied and pointed fingers at the wrong people, we played games and ran circles around people. And the confidence of the group bled onto its members, filling me with pride and ease in the face of possible disaster.
Another thing keeping me warm in the frigid night was the fact that my best friends were beside me in this. My wife was nice, but she didn't know me. She didn't know my sins, my hopes, my lies from my truths. These two did. Ricky Galochio, my best friend since childhood. His family took mine in when my father died, helped get us back on our feet. He had shared beds, baths and meals with me since I could form memories. We were in kindergarten together, we graduated high school together, and we were best men at each other's weddings. He was smarter than anyone else I'd ever known, smart enough to double major in chemical engineering and computer programming. Any time I needed my ego checked, I could always count on him to do it and then show me his latest invention. The way his smile reached his light brown eyes was as familiar as the unruliness of his bleached blonde hair.
And Carla. Beloved Carla Maria Zanotto, my sister in life. She loved the world and all the things in it, able to take joy from something as simple as a daiquiri or at dark as a murder. Nothing would ever get her down or drive her from you. Her loyalty was hard won over the course of our years in the organization together, but eventually she had become as close to me as Ricky was. She was a good person to confide in and a terror to cross. She reminded me a lot of my mother, actually. Her blue eyes were bright, her cheeks rosy in the cold, her wavy chocolate hair pulled into a loose ponytail. I had the urge to kiss her, but our affair could wait until after work. Usually, anyway. Besides, unlike me, crime was her only job. I'd hate to mess it up for her.
"So it's just us. No one else had the guts to get involved, huh?" I wasn't surprised. "Well, quality over quantity. So long as any given group has Ricky, they'll win."
"If you love him so much, why don't you marry him?" Carla asked, immature as always.
"Because that's not legal in the state of New York. In any case, I think my wife might object just a little. Although the kids would love having another dad to mooch off of." I smiled briefly before turning serious. "Now, down to business. How or why Iron Man is tracking the black boy I passed off to the HRs, I don't know. What I do know is that he's hot on their trail. It may take him a while, but if he can trace DNA like a trail, then he'll turn up eventually. Plans?"
"I can call in a favor with Avifort, get the body pulled. This kid is our ace in the hole," Carla noted darkly. "So long as we have him we have leverage. He gets killed, we have a rampage on our hands. But after we get Iron Man, the kid's gotta go."
"Agreed." Ricky shoved his hands in his pockets. "I can handle the technological aspect of this. All I need is to get him in the right spot..." He looked at me and smiled. "And I think I know exactly how we can pull that off."
I learned my acting from my mother.
I learned everything from her. My sister, she took after our dad, all self righteous and prissy, but I was a momma's boy. My mother taught me how to make people believe I was innocent. She was the one who I inherited my innocent wide eyes from, the one who made me commit the Lord's Prayer to memory, the mentor who made me learn how to summon up tears. She was the one who'd pushed me towards the police force, something that had come in handy more times than I could count. She was why I was alive and successful. Her lessons I had learned well.
More than that, though, I knew how to read people. Even through that suit of armor, I had been able to tell how to get Iron Man off my case. He was a good kid - and probably just that, a kid. Young, and easily manipulated. Why else would he be so gung ho about not killing people and working so hard? He wasn't my age. He couldn't be. And one thing I knew from having kids was that they wanted to believe the best of people, even when given reasons not to. He had looked at my cross and my uniform and seen who he had wanted to see, an innocent police officer, a family man with faith, and he had let me go. It was a mistake I planned to make him regret eventually.
When he found me passed out (ish) in the alley behind the warehouse, I'm sure I gained sympathy points. How he was tracking this kid, I didn't know, but this would be as far as the trail went. Once we realized he was valuable, we had him wrapped up tight and moved across town. The warehouse was only a temporary storage point anyway, a point to coordinate transports. It was easy enough to call ahead and get it cleared out. It was even easier to plant myself and a few random bodies in the vicinity. We needed Iron Man to panic, to stay out of his right mind.
I have to say, though, any plan that requires someone to make shallow slashes in my neck and leave me laying in the gutter is a raw deal.
"Officer?" he landed beside me, kneeling down as my eyes flickered open. "Donato?"
I blinked up at him. "Hey," I said with feigned slurriness. "Some night, huh?"
"What happened?" he asked, eyes glowing and pulsing briefly. "Your vitals are stablizing. You'll live. Now, tell me everything you remember."
"M'kay." I sat up with his help. "Got a call from dispatch. Some squatters in the building, they said. Needed to tell them the area was off limits. Typical for this time of year. But they weren't squatters." I rubbed at my head and shut my eyes, recalling the cover story from memory. "Murderers. No idea what they were doing, but they had numbers on me and got my gun. Then it goes fuzzy. The others... the bodies... are they...?"
"Dead," he confirmed solemnly. A note of desperation was in his voice, and that pleased me. "I know this is difficult for you, but I need details. Who were they? What did they look like?"
"Sort of like this," I heard Galochio say. I fought hard not to roll my eyes at his dramatics as Iron Man's head turned to see the suited up figure standing in the alley's entrance.
His armor wasn't flight capable, but it was a sound enough protection against phsyical blows and damage. It was something of a pet project of his for months, and it had a few choice weapons built in that kept him on equal footing with most heroes. He'd been dying for a chance to test it out again after that last cape he'd killed, some kid with ice powers that he'd burned down to a skeleton with his flames. He'd played with the range and extended the length of his firepower a bit. It wasn't a perfect suit, but it didn't need to be. He was more crafty and underhanded in combat than most people expected, and that was all it took.
He kept his hand and thus his flamethrower trained on me. I knew he wouldn't shoot, but I tensed up and looked between the two armored figures. "Get out of here, Iron Man," I said quietly. "He's just a distraction to stall for time."
"No, Officer, I'm not. I'm here to end this before it starts." He stepped closer, weapon still trained on me. "Okay, Iron Man, here's how this works. You're going to listen to me, or the NYPD will be down one more officer."
"I'm listening," he replied tersely.
"I represent an organization bigger and more complex than you can possibly imagine. What we're doing or why we're doing it is none of your concern. What is of relevance to you is that we have people everywhere. We have the whole city bugged." When Iron Man snorted, Galochio talked over him. "We know your little friend is missing. We have him. And we can do things to him no amount of therapy will ever cure." I could practically hear him smirking under the dull orange-gray armor. "The question now is, how much is he worth to you?"
"What have you done with him?" Iron Man demanded, stepping closer. "Who are you people?"
"We're an alliance of sorts, representing nine nations' worth of criminal minds. We have been at this for a very long time, Iron Man. We were there before the Fantastic Four, before the Human Torch, before do gooders wore masks. Trust me when I say you don't want to know the things we could be doing to him. He's alive albeit unconscious at the moment. If you play your cards right, you might even get him back that way." His voice was calm, smooth, steel wrapped in velvet. "Now, be a good boy and power down your lasers."
He complied; I saw the lights dim in his hands. "You have no idea who you've just pissed off, pal. For your sake, he better be alright."
"Spare me your dramatics. He's fine. For now, that is. I only wish I could say the same for you."
And that was when Zotello sprang the liquid nitrogen gun on him. His arms were encased in ice in moments, crawling up his shoulders and locking his limbs into place. She emptied the entire fuel pack on him, encasing him in ice so thick he didn't even have time to turn fully before he was rendered immobile. His eyes glowed underneath the cold, as did his chest, but his hands flickered once before going dim. He was trapped. She nodded to Galochio and he picked the block of ice up easily with his enhanced strength, and began hauling him into the building.
And weak, injured Officer Donato could only watch in horror, barely able to stumble to his feet.
I had to laugh when the door slammed, though I muffled it with my hands. A familiar warm feeling came over me, a kind of sadistic glee that I had enjoyed many times in my life. It was the satisfaction of having done something awful, the glee of having broken the law, the joy of hurting someone. I loved this feeling. I worshipped it. It was my God as much as money was, and I shifted from foot to foot giddily, barely able to contain myself in spite of the pain in my neck. I had just helped kill Iron Man. That felt wonderful. Disgustingly, sinfully, terribly wonderful.
Sucker, I thought as I walked away. What a dumbass. Kids should stay out of adult's affairs.
I didn't realize it at the time, but those words were going to come back to haunt me before dawn.
