Author's Note: Apologies for the long period of time between this and the previous chapter. The Holidays and the semester conspired against me. Regardless, I hope you enjoy this chapter. Thank you to everyone that has reviewed or tossed this story in their favorites or alerts. Reviews are appreciated as it gives me some idea of whether or not folks are picking up what I am throwing down, as it were. The bracelet mentioned in the chapter is actually for breast cancer awareness; Windscryer mentioned it in her prompt and, well, I just couldn't resist.
Donna figures it out in quite possibly the most ridiculous way imaginable. He isn't even out on patrol when she gets her first clue; it's early on a Saturday evening, the sun just starting to set behind the glass and concrete buildings, outlining everything in red and orange. Mike is balancing a pizza box in one hand, three bags of groceries in the other while he walks back to his apartment. His evening is rolling out before him pleasantly: devour pizza, toss back a couple of beers—not too much, gotta be sober for later, watch terrible cheesy comic book movie ordered from Netflix on his computer (he doesn't care if he is actually living the life of a superhero—the movies still amuse him), and then off for a couple of hours of kicking the ass of every criminal he comes across. It's basically the makings of the best Saturday ever. And he doesn't even have any work to worry about for once which makes everything all the sweeter because he totally handed Mercier his ass, outlining all the ways Pearson Hardman can and will destroy his career before the man finally caved and agreed to a hefty settlement.
Just as he passes a club, he hears from the alleyway a very pissed off and familiar voice. He backpedals and peers in between the buildings, finally spotting Donna next to the back door of the club. She's mythology made real, Valkyrie, Fury and avenging angel combined into one terrifying creature, as she stands defiantly in front of a man, placing herself between him and an obviously tipsy woman. One delicate hand is flung out to the side, keeping the woman behind her; the other is jabbing a sharply pointed finger into the man's chest, backing him away with each thrust. Her hair looks like a fiery halo around her face and Mike wonders how this frat boy hasn't been reduced to a pile of ash just from the righteous anger painted across Donna's face.
"So what was your plan here, jackass? Convince her to go back to your place? Or maybe you were just going slip her something and take care of business right here?"
"Bitch, this isn't any of your concern. She definitely wasn't complaining when I asked her if she wanted to go someplace else. So, go on back inside."
"She is my best friend, so you better believe it is my concern. And of course she didn't complain—she can barely stand. So, why don't you worm your way back into whatever slimy hole you crawled out of and leave us the hell alone before I shove my ridiculously expensive stiletto right up your ass?" He has seen her calm, sarcastic, and playful, but he has never before witnessed a truly furious Donna. Mike is suddenly very thankful that he has never been on the receiving end of Donna's full wrath.
Mike sets his groceries and pizza box at the mouth of the alley and fumbles in his back pocket for his mask. He doesn't do the whole Superman, shirt ripping thing (because seriously, Clark Kent is supposed to be reporter and there is no way he can afford to replace all those shirts), but after the drugstore incident, he has pretty much learned to never go anywhere without something to cover his face. Just as he finishes tugging his mask into place, Mike sees the lowlife give a resounding backhand to Donna's face, knocking her to the ground. He steps out of the quickly lengthening shadows and, voice as gravelly and dangerous as he can manage, growls: "I think you should listen to the lady."
The frat boy turns and looks at Mike, sneer firmly in place. Apparently, that is all the opening Donna was looking for; before Mike can take another step to bodily remove the drunken idiot from out of the alley, Donna snatches her shoe off her foot and, with a practiced ease that leaves Mike blinking in terror, slams the high heel first into the guy's crotch and then brings it down on his foot. He crumples to the ground with a groan.
Mike stares at her, stunned. "Oh. Um. Okay."
Donna slips the shoe back on and brushes her hair out of her face, a red mark already starting to turn purple on her cheek. "Thanks for that." She holds a hand out, obviously waiting to be pulled to her feet.
"Oh, right. Sure, no problem." He carefully pulls her up, hand gently ghosting over her arm, inspecting her for injuries. "You okay?"
"Of course." There is a slight tremor to hands that she quickly covers by dusting her skirt off. "So, you're The Ghost?"
"Specter," he sighs.
"Ah, right. Of course. Specter." She looks him up and down, taking in the beaten up Chucks held together with bits of duct tape, the ripped and faded jeans, the worn band t-shirt; her eyes finally come to a rest on the black and pink rubber bracelet decorating his wrist that proudly claims that he does, in fact, love boobies. Her eyebrows shoot up at this and then she smirks. "I would have thought you'd be wearing tights."
"Not really my thing. You kind of caught me on my down time." Frat Boy groans and starts to stand; Mike flings a hand out, forcing the man back down none too gently. Donna kicks the downed man for good measure. "Think you and your friend should maybe go to another club."
"I'm not too worried about him." Donna pulls her friend to her feet, looping an arm around her waist.
"Yeah, you seemed to have that handled. Remind me never to cross you—those shoes look like they would hurt." He grins under his mask, briefly imagining Donna as a spunky sidekick and then quickly revises the thought because Donna would never be anyone's sidekick. She's more Wonder Woman than Batgirl. "Be careful getting home, Donna." He winces as the name slips out without him even thinking. She frowns but before she can ask, he teleports away, fleeing to the shadows on the rooftop of the adjoining building. She stares off into the shadows and then finally tugs her friend forward, muttering about ungrateful friends who only call when they are in trouble and weird, nerd boy superheroes. Watching from a distance, he makes sure she finds a cab and then collects his things before heading home.
He spends the entire weekend freaking out, absolutely sure that Donna recognized him in the alley. On Monday, he chances a quick glance at her, noting that she is wearing a little bit more makeup than usual to cover the bruise on her face, before he ducks away to his cubicle. She seems fine. Everything is fine. He didn't just expose his secret identity to a (very terrifying) co-worker. Mike allows himself to relax when he doesn't hear the office rumor floating about that he likes to dress up in tights in his spare time. After lunch, he finally risks swinging by her desk to pick up some paperwork.
"I'm sorry, but what is that on your wrist?" Donna is steadfastly staring at the arm he has stretched out to grab a file from off her desk.
"Um. . . it's a bracelet." Mike tugs down on his shirt sleeve, trying to act nonchalant but failing utterly.
"That says 'I love boobies.'" Donna's voice is low, flat, and emotionless. She studies him and in that moment, he sees the little light bulb come on over her head. Shit.
He swallows hard and starts walking backwards away from her desk, mouth on autopilot. "Technically, it says 'I heart boobies', but yeah, Jenny gave it to me. She's doing this fundraiser for—"
Harvey walks out of his office and glances up from the file in his hand. "Mike, aren't you supposed to be buried under some paperwork?"
Donna spins around in her chair, eyes wide. "Oh, Mike here was just telling me all about how he is a breast man." She's grinning like the Cheshire cat; to Mike it looks distinctly apocalyptic. That toothy grin is the face of doom.
Harvey nods. "Understandable. I'll just make sure that HR is ready for the sexual harassment case."
"That's not what it's—"
"Don't care." Harvey walks past him on the way to Jessica's office, head back in the file once more.
Mike can feel the tips of his ears turning a bright, burning red. "I swear, Donna, that's not why I am wearing it. I would never, ever, say something like that to you, because I respect you and you are a goddess and please do not smite me." He tries to figure out how to slip into his ramble something along the lines of Please do not tell the media who I am and especially don't tell Harvey because I really like working here but I will retire to the mountains to live as a hermit in order to avoid that level of embarrassment.
"Puppy, hush. Your little secret is safe with me." She winks at him. "Just tell Jenny that I want one of those bracelets, too. Oh, and you should definitely consider wearing tights."
By this point, he can feel his entire body blushing, from toe tips to hairline, which is just ridiculous, he thinks, because he is a damn superhero that can run into a burning building without breaking a sweat, but an encounter with Donna leaves him stuttering and stammering like a moron. She's like kryptonite. He nods rapidly, promising her one before taking off down the hall to hide his red face in a pile of papers that Louis dumped on his desk this morning in retaliation for his "sass."
Somewhere around hour three, Mike's embarrassment firmly buried under the quagmire of property law, Harvey strides up to his desk and slaps a folder down.
"New pro bono case. Read over it and get back to me."
Stephen Hardwick is a bad man and dirty as they come. It's so obvious to Mike, so black and white, that this man has made a living off of destroying other people that he finds himself wondering how no one else has noticed; he can't understand how Hardwick still walks around free. Drug trafficking, gun running, money laundering—it's just the tip of the iceberg but nothing seems to stick to this guy. The charges just roll right off of him. As Mike digs through the files, he begins to get a clearer picture; Hardwick has a lot of money built up from slum housing and backroom dirty deals and has more than a few government officials in his back pocket from the sound of it, which just pisses off Mike even more because these people are supposed to be putting scum like Hardwick away, not protecting him.
The worst part is the reason why his name is on a file sitting on Mike's desk right now is because of a case involving rental extortion. Not even a slap on the wrist for Hardwick; it'll probably be settled, quietly, out of court, without so much as a small blurb in the papers or a flash of a camera. But you can't crawl through mud without getting filthy; this poor excuse for a human being has messed up somewhere and Mike is going to find out where.
During the day, he interviews people or tries to anyway. He knocks on a lot of doors and gets blank looks and convenient gaps in memories. The best he manages to get is from their client, Isaiah Worth, who paints an ugly picture of sudden rent hikes and basic maintenance being withheld followed by threats of eviction.
"He knows he is in the wrong. This neighborhood used to be a nice place before he bought up all the property. Everyone in this building knows what he is up to, but none of them will stand up to him. And maybe they keep telling me I am stupid to do this, that I should think of my kids, but I am thinking about them. They deserve to live in an apartment that doesn't have rats in the walls and leaks in the ceiling. And they sure as hell deserve to live in a neighborhood that doesn't have his kind of filth in it."
Mike nods and watches Isaiah's youngest, a toddler no more than three, playing in the next room. "I have to ask, but have you thought about moving?"
He gets a hard glare from the other man. "I know you are smarter than that. Moving isn't so simple; apartments don't just grow on trees in New York. And I need to be close to my job. Plus my wife is already working two jobs to help us make ends meet." He shakes his head. "It takes more money than we have to pull up stakes and move to some place new. The hikes in rent that Hardwick keeps pulling are bad enough on our bank account."
Mike does know all this; he clearly remembers the crappy little apartment that he and his Gram lived in when he was a child with its mildew and old, rusted pipes. It wasn't until his parents' estate was settled and they received the meager life insurance policies from their deaths that they were able to afford a move to a small house in the suburbs. "You said Hardwick is up to something. Do you have any proof? Anything that we can use in court?"
"Other than what I've seen with my own two eyes?" The older man shakes his head. "He's smart. He always has his men do the heavy lifting, so he can deny anything that might get back to him. They are careful, too. It's never outright threats, all subtle stuff. Maybe they happen to run into you while you're running errands and casually mention your family. It all sounds perfectly friendly as long as you don't listen too hard. The only thing I can show is the papers I've kept. I keep records of every call to get a repair done, every bit of money I have given him, every run in with one of his hoods."
"Yeah, I was looking over that. It definitely establishes a timeline and proves that you have consistently paid rent and been a model tenant." Mike riffles through the papers splayed on the kitchen table. "Your wife mentioned on the phone that you called the police about a week ago."
"Didn't have anything to do with us, but yeah, I did. I saw a couple of those men roughing up someone out back in the alley behind the building. Didn't get a good look at the guy, but they sounded angry, like maybe he had something they wanted. The guy was scared, so I called the cops." He shrugs. "Whole lot a good it did. By the time they got here, no one was around." Frowning, he sighs and hangs his head, fingers running through his close-cropped hair; he is a picture of defeat. "You think we got even a chance at stopping this?"
"Mr. Worth, I think we have a very good chance of dealing with this rent issue. As for the rest, let me handle it. Keep your head down, keep your family safe." He gathers his papers and shakes his hand. Just as he moves to leave, Isaiah grabs him by the elbow and stops him.
"I don't want to see you getting hurt. Hardwick isn't afraid to go after people. You follow your own advice, you hear? Don't go getting yourself into any trouble you can't get out of."
"I'm just going to do what I've been taught to do, sir: press until it hurts."
Outside, he fishes his cellphone out of his pocket and dials Trevor's number. "I want to know about this job you were talking about."
"Ha! I knew you couldn't resist." Trevor pauses; Mike can hear him moving from a loud room into somewhere quiet. He thinks he can faintly hear Jenny's voice in the background. "Okay, so I don't know all the details. They wouldn't go spilling it to someone unless they were sure they could deliver."
Mike rubs the bridge of his nose, debating his next move. This may very well be the dumbest thing he has ever done. "Tell them you'll do it. Don't mention me, just convince them you can handle it, and then call me with the details."
"Fine. Give me a couple of days to get in touch with them."
Mike hangs up before he can change his mind. He doesn't bother telling Trevor he has no intention of giving Hardwick what he wants.
