Warning, there be slash here. Very one-sided, PG-rated, mild slash. Really, if you blink you'll almost miss it.

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Throwing the door open ahead of her, Hit Girl took one last precautionary glance around before stepping inside. The apartment had been chosen for its secluded nature, and the fact that no one asked questions or second-guessed strange activity in its hallways. But one could never be too careful.

The light was still on, an afterthought previously forgotten in the mess of the night's earlier events. When the two of them had left earlier in the night, they had had more important things on their minds. It's warm glow contrasted the barrage of weapons lining the walls. Crossing the threshold into the apartment, she turned and waited impatiently for Dave to drag the unwelcome visitor in behind her. She stood in almost the same spot on the floor where said unwelcome visitor had previously shot her point-blank. Aggravated, she crossed her arms tightly against her chest. He really better have some fucking good information for us after all this.

Dave - ever the good Samaritan - she couldn't help but think, had an arm strewn around Red Mist's back and cradled under an armpit, supporting the shorter boy as he walked. Well, walking wasn't the best word. Stumbled was a better expression. Tripping over his own boots as he leaned on his escort, he staggered in, barely even looking up.

"Ok," she muttered, walking briskly back to the door to shut it. "He can't stay in this room. I don't really trust him around guns." Dave lifted an eyebrow, wondering what she actually expected him to do in this state, but kept quiet. Snapping several locks on the door, she motioned to the hallway. "We'll put him in the back, for now."

"The back?"

"It's not a torture chamber or anything if that's what you're thinking. We actually used to live here sometimes, me and my..." her voice stopped short, and for a brief second her eyes began to tear up. As soon as it appeared, however, it disappeared again. Shoved back into whatever room she stored painful emotions, only to be accessed at moments when she was alone. With only a small sniff as evidence of her short emotional setback, she shook her head and marched onward. Not looking back to see if the other two were following - she knew they were -, she led them into a short hallway and finally a small converted bedroom. The furniture was sparse, just an overstuffed brown couch, a tiny television mounted to one wall, and a desk containing several computers. The tv was still on, set at low volume to CNN. She switched it off and spun around, eying with annoyance the way that Dave was gently setting Red Mist onto the couch. Sinking into the large cushions, her adversary leaned to the side and folded himself onto the same spot that she herself used to relax after a long day of sparring. God, this is so irritating!

Telling herself to let it go, she instead issued a warning. "If, by any chance, you feel the need to throw up, it had better not be anywhere near this couch. I may just forget that I wasn't going to kill you."

.

It was about nine minutes - no, closer to nine and a half - until she had finally left the room. Dave felt a sense of guilt in his gut, knowing that he had been counting down the minutes while waiting for her to leave. The sinister gleam that would flash in her eyes whenever she had cast a sideward glance at Red Mist had been a little too intense. At one point she had demanded the information from him, the volume of her voice kept cool but the tone had been enough to give even Dave goosebumps. Red Mist had slurred something about a hidden safe that contained contact information of several high profile gangsters, but the sentences had been exceptionally short, interrupted by long pauses in between. When she had asked about the combination to the safe, he had briefly passed out - an action that Hit Girl had taken as an excuse until attempts to prove he was lying failed. A punch to the jaw didn't wake him, nor did another blow help to jar his memory after he came to and claimed he couldn't remember the code. Either he was really good, or he wasn't faking. She bet on the latter.

"Keep him awake until I get back. Or at least get the combination." Those were the last words Hit Girl had spoken before she had walked out the door, intent on grabbing the safe from the destination Red Mist had spilled minutes before. Dave wasn't sure she had believed in the existence of the safe or not, but he was certain that if it wasn't where he had insisted it was, she was coming back with a barrage of weapons to discharge into her rival.

Dave looked at the shut door, his mind somehow drawn to various small patches in the corners where the cracked paint had chipped off. Dark, furrowed wood underneath peeked out unapologetically. The door, like the room, seemed like a costume placed over the real meaning. It was a home, yes - but it was first and foremost a base. A place where business came first and then everything else second.

There was that guilt again. Felt like he was betraying his partner just because he wanted to help Red Mist instead of kill him or stretch out his misery in order to grab a combination lock code from his mind. He had gotten into this in the first place because he wanted to help people. Well...ok. Making a name for himself as a superhero didn't hurt, but in the end he really did feel a sense of obligation. There was an honor code you take on once you adorn a costume. A long line of responsibility passed down from comic book hero to comic book hero. Whether or not it always translated in real life, he wanted to do the right thing. He'd murdered enough people tonight, this one...this boy that he had at one time shared a connection with...this one he couldn't bear to kill as well.

You don't just massacre everyone who has any affiliation whatsoever to the dark side. Red Mist isn't bad, he's just... "Confused, maybe. Something like that." It took him a second to realize he spoke this last part out loud. Biting his lip nervously, he glanced back at the door. Still closed. Of course it was. Somewhere in the back of his mind, tugging at the vestiges of reason, contradictory thoughts nagged. Am I just making excuses? The truth was, whether he wanted to face it or not, he didn't want to believe that everything he previously understood was falling apart. That not only did evil exist, but it was likely often standing right in front of you, flashing you a devilish grin. That people did bad things sometimes for no reason. He just couldn't dwell on it tonight. There was too much dried blood clinging to the bottoms of his beige Timberland boots to add to it even further.

The couch cushions shifted underneath him, bringing his distracted gaze back to the enemy in question. The pale boy next to him was flopping awkwardly, looking not unlike a dying fish, out of water and struggling for movement. He didn't look like a villain, he looked like a helpless kid who had spent his life trying to gain acceptance and being denied it at every turn. Perhaps it was because something in Red Mist reminded him of himself - 'it kind of seems like he just got in over his head with all this' - perhaps he just felt sorry for him, but he felt a strong urge to make sure that the other boy got through the night alive.

Back on the other side of the couch, Red Mist was exerting an oddly large amount of movement in an abnormally slow-motion speed as he attempted to change his position from one side to the other. Finally successful in flipping around, he now faced the back of the couch. Pulling his legs into his body, he proceeded to bury his head into one of the cushions.

"Hold up, don't do that!" Dave reached over and pulled the other boy free from the couch padding. Groggy, listless brown eyes peered up at him through the black mask, not fully understanding. "It's better if you can breathe easier," he explained simply, his hands still holding onto costumed shoulders.

One side of his mouth pulling up into a smirk, Red Mist nodded his head. The movements were short and sharp in an unnervingly disjointed fashion. In an attempt to put him into a better, more respiratory-friendly position, Dave leaned forward into him, pushing the other boy back. Red Mist collapsed backward, his spine against the soft cushions below, his legs spread open around Dave's form hovering above, Dave's arms still placed precariously on his shoulders. A short giggle erupted from Red Mist's lips, too chemically overcome to hold it back.

Had he been fully aware of his actions, he would have been mortified by the escape of the laughter from his lungs. As it was, everything was just happening as it happened, blurring together and meaning everything and yet nothing at the same time. Segments of time seemed to disappear altogether, which had at first been alarming but he had more recently begun to accept. The fear and anger that had grasped hold of his mind when he had first consumed the poison had at some point began to morph into a general fuzzy blur of events and experiences rather than meaning and consequence. And at the moment, the only experience he cared about was the feeling of Kick Ass between his inebriated laughter fading, he opened his mouth once more and uttered a request. "Kiss me."

The sentence hung in the air as if it were painted in neon on a billboard marquee. He hadn't even slurred the words, for once. Dave was frozen in place, muscles tense, fully aware of the risqué position that he had accidentally put the both of them in. Not knowing how to react, he stayed stock still for several seconds, frozen by uncertainty. So, that settles that previous question then. "I, uh...I don't really roll that way." Flinching, Dave immediately regretted his choice in words. God, that sounded dumb.

"Oh." Either Red Mist was either acting melodramatic or he was having another bad reaction to the poison, but his eyes suddenly rolled back into his head and shuttered half closed. Pulling himself upward and into a sitting position, Dave watched as the other boy's head dropped backwards completely into the couch.

"I mean, you're cute and all...for a boy, I mean," his words falling awkwardly into the air, Dave searched his head for better sentences to repair the situation. "Cause you're sort of like a girl, which is nice. You have that skinny, kind of frail thing going on, which is...you know...kind of attractive and stuff. " Stop talking! Stop talking! Oh, shit, you're making it worse! "Which is normally my type, except for the...you know... possession of a penis, but...shit, man are you ok?"

Suddenly aware of the lack of any movement in his companion, Dave leapt off to the side of the couch and began to shake the other boy. His body shifting lifelessly side to side with each shake, there was no response. For a brief second, Dave felt a surge of panic and uncertainty before he remembered the Red Cross first aid class his dad had forced him to take several years ago. At the time it had seemed like such a horrific waste of summer vacation days; he had even stashed several issues of X-Men into his backpack for perusing whenever he got the chance. Somehow, however, he had passed the class. Whether he deserved the certificate declaring him accomplished in the course of first aid would soon be known.

Hurriedly, Dave shucked off one of the extended leather gloves from Red Mists' hand. Unlike others in his class, he had always been better finding a pulse on an arm than the neck. Digging two fingers into pale skin, a very slight throb resonated within. The relief Dave felt quickly turned back into nervousness, however, when he realized that the pulse was coming very slowly, at least less than one beat a second. From what he recalled from the first aid class, he was pretty sure that was bad. Moving his fingers from Red Mist's wrist to his own, he compared the speed. Yep, it was bad.

"Shit." Feeling helpless, Dave resorted to his previous action of shaking the unconscious body. Fervent movements became more and more zealous as his efforts to wake his drugged companion went on without any result. Red Mist's head lolled from side to side, limp. Just as Dave prepared to dash to the nearest computer in the room in search of Google-related assistance he heard a sharp intake of breath and just like that, Red Mist was, once again, stirring on his own. Slowly.

"Are you alright, man?" Dave questioned, gazing into half-closed eyes. "I think you just passed out again."

A period of several seconds went by where no response was uttered, that dazed expression glued to Red Mist's face. Finally, as if the words he had spoken took an extended vacation before deciding to do their job and put themselves together in his brain, he uttered a small "yeeaahh." And like some electronic toy running dangerously low on batteries, his eyes dropped shut again suddenly and his head lurched forward for a brief moment before pulling back once again.

"Yeah..I don't think so, actually," Dave spoke hesitantly. "Can you sit up?" A complaining grumble emitted from Red Mist's lips, his eyes still shut. He gave no indication that he planned on moving. Dave eyed him cautiously, brow furrowed. Grabbing the listless wrist once again, he shoved his fingers back into the leather sleeve and felt the delicate throb. It was still progressing at that impossibly slow pace.

Dave was just about to suggest that Red Mist should sit up, maybe try walking around or something - he really had no idea what to do - when the labored breaths from the boy on the couch abruptly stopped. "Red Mist? Fuck."