"Come to say goodbye?" he asked with just a hint of humor.
"I thought you got out of jail."
"I punched Granny Goodness. In the face. You're smiling."
"I'm glad."
"I'm glad you're glad." Scott rested his face between the bars. "So, how are your classes?"
"Boring. Mostly just knowing when to fight back and when to submit, treating wounds, covering up bruises with make-up. You'd think if they liked inflicting pain so much, they could bear to look at the aftermath." She stopped and bit the inside of her cheek, so hard Scott was afraid she'd draw blood. "We've never going to see each other again. I hate that we're never going to see each other again."
Scott reached through the bars, coming up just short of her body. He kept his hand out as if he could push his life into hers. "We'll see each other again. I'll find you. There's not the prison built that could keep me from you."
"Or the war that could keep us apart." Barda took his hand, squeezed it, surprisingly gentle. "But it's not just… it's not just being apart. You were right about Darkseid. You were right about everything. Even me."
"If I was right about you, it's because you made yourself that way."
Her thumb traced the broken lines of his finger bones, feeling out the old fractures. "You think you can protect me, but I know they're going to execute you."
Scott sighed. "You've got enough to worry about without me. I'll be fine. I always am."
Barda pressed a button on her belt and her full armor sprung into existence over her.
"They're really going to execute you?"
"Yeah."
"No. They're not."
Her hands bit into the bars and molybdenum steel instantly buckled. Scott took a step back. Barda rattled the bars, rocking them back and forth. Plaster chipped and rained from the ceiling. Scott took another step back. The bars screamed as they were ripped from their place. Scott would never forget the sound they made as Barda dropped them to the floor.
"We're leaving," Barda said.
She led him by the hand through a half-dozen staircases, always going down, at one point clotheslining a Parademon they passed. Scott had to look back to see if its head was still attached.
Barely.
"Barda, not that I don't trust you, but—"
"Left!"
"You sure you know where you're going?"
"Want me to stop and ask for directions?" Barda asked him. She led him down another corridor. "I looked up the blueprints to this place before I came here."
"How'd you swing that?"
"No one wants to say no to Darkseid's newest paramour."
Scott swallowed.
"He hasn't touched me," Barda said resolutely. "And he never will."
Thank the Source.
They reached the lowest sub-level and Scott instantly started scanning for a secret passage, a tell-tale scent of fresh air from nowhere or a cobweb startling in the breeze. Above, Scott could hear the dog cavalry closing in. He had no preparation for Barda picking him up. One arm went under his shoulder blades, the other supported his knees.
"Uhh, Barda?"
"Hang on," Barda said, and Scott diligently wrapped his arms around her neck.
She stomped on the floor. It gave way. They dropped. Ten feet, twenty feet, a hundred.
Landed, Barda on her splayed feet like a cat. Scott felt the thump right through her body. She straightened, then set him down on his feet. Scott wobbled for a moment, holding onto a wall for support. It was grimy under his hand.
"You okay?" Barda asked.
Scott nodded briskly.
They ran. Barda snapped some support pillars with her Mega-Rod, causing the room to cave in behind them. That would slow down any pursuit.
"You thought this up all by yourself?" Scott said.
"I got an A in Tactics."
"Oh yeah," Scott remembered.
Curiously, Scott felt no exhaustion as he ran. Barda easily outpaced him, but hung back so he could keep up, her cape waving at him like a red flag to a bull. His lungs billowed, his legs pistoned, but the energy of escape stayed with him. Maybe it was having something to run to, even if he didn't know quite what it was.
The pent-up exertion hit him like a jackhammer. It felt as if his heart had exploded. His legs cramped and he actually sank to his side, gasping for air. Instantly Barda was next to him, shoving the neck of a bottle into his mouth. He drank greedily. Clean water, the prerogative of the Furies. It was the sweetest thing he'd ever tasted. She tried to help him up to his feet, but his legs wouldn't comply. Her face was unreadable in the faint light that penetrated down to this depth through mirror-lichen and Fire-Pit bursts, but Scott had an impression of it softening. Gathering up her long legs, she sat down next to him.
"We'll rest here," Barda said.
Scott nodded and felt like vomiting. He drank some more.
"What is this place?" he said, drops of water running down his chin.
"The catacombs. They used to bury the dead down here, to wait for the Source to claim them. That stopped with Steppenwolf's death. Darkseid said wasting bodies was inefficient. That was right after he started the corpse reclamation program."
Scott nodded. "There must be thousands of side-passages. It'll take months for them to check them all. And the sewage will make our scents impossible to track."
"I did my homework," Barda said. "I can get you as far as the spaceport, from there on you're…"
"On my own?" Scott asked, his voice fragile.
Barda nodded, up and down, two motions.
"You could come with me."
Barda said nothing except "Yes, I could," which was a form of nothing.
Scott ruffled around in his pockets, finally coming up with a small scalpel-like instrument matted in lint. He wiped it off on his knee. "Here," he said, offering it to her. "I want you to have this. It's my lucky lockpick."
"Your lucky lockpick," Barda said tonelessly.
He pressed it into her hand, wrapped her fingers around it. "So you have something to remember me when I'm…"
Barda stared at him. "You're not… I mean…"
"It can unlock anything," Scott said quickly. "You barely have to wiggle it. It's like the thing's got a mind of its own."
Barda looked down. "I have nothing to give you…"
"Nothing is required."
She unholstered her Mega-Rod and held it out to him. "Here."
"I can't take this."
"I'm not giving it to you. You wouldn't know what to do with it. I'm pledging it to you. It's yours. So am I. I give you myself. Everything that is left of me, everything promised to Darkseid, everything I am, everything I ever will be, anything I become… I'm yours."
Scott was frozen for a moment. "…Thanks."
He had long since caught his breath. Barda sat up.
"Ready to move out?"
"Not yet."
His fingers were wrapped around her arms and she glanced at them, then down into his eyes. Waiting for him to make the next move. He pulled her to him, more insistently when she didn't resist. They laid down next to each other, on their sides. He breathed in, breathed out, keeping his eyes on her as his chest hollowed. With nothing left to do, he kissed her.
Scott felt her arms tightening around him, a gloved hand brushing over his shorn scalp. He broke away and grabbed Barda's hand at the wrist, stripping off the glove and kissing her scarred knuckles. Her nails were cut short, her palm a web of lines. He kissed them, moved down to the pulse of her wrist and kissed it as he loosened her bracer. It unclasped like a lock and he put it aside, easily finding the loose on her sleeve. It unzipped up to her shoulder and he saw the rigid musculature of her arm revealed under her chainmail. With a little probing through the armhole of her tunic, he found the shoulder strap of the vest underneath and pulled it down to her bare bicep.
She rolled over, pinning him to the ground for a moment, kneeling on either side of his waist. The shoulder strap she undid with a small gesture, letting its broken halves sag under her armpit.
"Here," she said, showing him where the chin-strap of her helmet met the collar of her uniform.
His nimble fingers easily unhooked it and she tugged the helmet off, letting her hair dangle down towards him. The helmet cratered to the floor next to them, instantly forgotten. Beneath the headdress, her hair was done up in a single warrior braid. Barda kissed him so hard he thought the back of his head would be ground through the floor. He felt through her hair, ripping out each hair tie he found until he felt the back of her neck and tried to cradle it. The hard, cold metal of her collar stopped him. Barda reached back and guided his fingers to the lock.
"Free me," Barda said softly, practically a purr.
Her loosened hair, thick and lustrous, fell over the back of his hands as he worked the lock. It was extremely simple, requiring no more than bare thumb and forefinger before it clicked open. Gently, Scott took off the collar and set it aside. The nape of her neck was paler than the surrounding skin, the jugular vein and throat protected from decapitating attacks. He grabbed her by the shoulders, one supple skin and one chafing armor, and buried himself in the valley of her neck. Thoughtlessly, he rolled on top of her, his knee parting her legs.
His hands brushed over the lapel of her armor and tried to rip through it, but Barda didn't even notice his efforts until she heard a strained grunt of effort. With a small smile, she joined her hands over his and ripped the outer layer of clothing open. The tight tanktop underneath, half-undone, did little to contain her heaving breasts, or to conceal the definition of her abs. Scott's lips ran over her clavicle, finding a small bruise that he stimulated with his tongue. Her groan was music.
Wait. Scott had always heard Barda was too good for anything to even touch her. "Who…?"
"Darkseid."
Barda demonstrated, pointing a finger in Scott's chest. Such a small gesture to leave such a mark. Scott shuddered at the thought of Barda in such power… then shuddered again as her finger moved lower, scraping over his stomach and tugging at the waistband of his pants.
"I want to touch you too," Barda said in a low voice.
Her hand disappeared into the crotch of his hands, Scott groaning as she gripped him like a weapon. In pain, too hard, then softer, moving up and down with gentle, flowing strokes.
With her other hand, she ripped his shirt clean off. Lockpicks, homemade explosives, and a few other tricks rained down from the garment, tinkling off Scott's back. He kissed her again, forcing his body to stay loose and limber despite the handjob she was giving him and the skill she was gaining with each second. Her lips were ruby-red, dry until she wetted them with her tongue. Scott fought his growing arousal down, brushed her chainmail off her armored shoulder. The shoulder strap of her vest followed.
Scott's hands lingered on her shoulders, drawing strength from her just go keep from falling flat on his face. He could feel a bullet of precum working its way over his purpling cockhead. Barda obligingly rolled him over and he grunted a little as she forced him down on his back. Her breasts swayed over his way and he nipped at them before she pressed him down again, smiling, a firm hand over his heart. Her other hand slipped over his cock, spreading his precum on her palm like warm butter. The slick fist twisted around his cock.
"You're…" Scott gulped. "Pretty good at this."
"It's very intuitive," Barda said, still smiling (smiling!). "I'm trained to read my opponents." She sent her jacking hand down all the way to his balls. "And my allies."
Scott wrapped his hands around the muscular arm that was holding him down, massaging up and down the smooth forearm. "You do this for all your allies?"
"I don't have any other allies."
She continued milking his nine inches with short and brisk pumps, every drop of precum another victory. Scott strained, every muscle tensing and relaxing in a eroticized sequence, his back actually arching off the ground and into her touch. She let up the pressure on the hand that was over his heart, keeping it just light enough to feel the thumping heartbeat rocking against his rib cage. Then his back straightened, relaxed, and his hips rose into a slower, more languid stroking. Barda moved lower, the hand on his chest a forgotten memory, and Scott felt something velvety and warm encompass his dick.
"Don't—" Scott said half-heartedly. He dragged at her hair until she pulled away from his manhood, lips glazed.
Her swallow seemed to echo through the chamber. "Did I do something wrong?" It was a cadet asking for correction and a girl, a hurt girl.
"No. It's just…" He took her hands and pulled her up to him, relaxing now that the throbbing in his testicles was stopped. "I don't want to go before you. Or without you."
"I pledged myself to you. I want to please you."
He hugged her, whispering in her ear "And do you think I don't want to do the same for you?"
The last few traces of his uncertainty evaporated as Scott stripped her armor with careful ministrations, setting it down all around them in a rough circle. She was naked from the waist down, reclining on her back in artful repose. Her cape shielded her from the hard, cold floor. Scott kissed over her ribs, biting his fingers into her belt. He tugged downward, exposing the powerful contour of her hipbone, then her broad hips, and finally her soft thighs. The flesh goosepimpled at his touch.
"I'm trembling," Barda said, shocked at her own vulnerability. Shocked more at admitting it instead of controlling it.
"Me too," Scott said, rubbing her thigh comfortingly. She smiled at him. He smiled back.
He looked down. Eyes widened in surprise. Barda had a small belly button. It was practically cute. He bent down to kiss it and Barda cooed delightfully. Her hands cupped his head, scissoring around his ears. Palms gently pressed downward and he followed. Scott ran his lips over the small layer of fat that blunted the hardened definition of her abs. He liked it. It softened her, made her voluptuous instead of a pure blunt instrument. His tasting moved lower until his chin brushed her close-cut pubic hair. The gentle pressure she was exerting on him stopped and he looked up to see she was squeezing her own breasts, almost unconsciously. Certainly un-self-consciously.
"Good idea," Scott said, moving upward.
"A in tactics," Barda said.
Her breasts were high and jutting, as proud as the rest of her, and as firm. He hadn't known why he'd expected them to be… gelatinous. They were soft, true, but the more he felt it, the more they seemed to swell. He kissed them, lips brushing over her areoles until her nipples bristled to hardness. Barda moaned a little, one hand clawing deep gouges into the stone floor, the other touching Scott's back. Not rubbing or massaging or pressing, but peppering each into her touch as the mood suited her. The smooth, gentle feel of his kisses was turning harsher as he became more passionate. He was suckling at her breast now, tongue whipping at her nipple. She petted his hair, eyes screwing inexorably closed.
Scott pulled his head up a little, playing with her nipple between his first two fingers. "Ticklish and soft." He pinched her nipple, stretching it out a little ways before releasing her breast. "If this gets out, it'll ruin your reputation."
"I'm not ticklish."
"Oh yeah?"
His fingers itched at her flat stomach, but before she could crack a treacherous smile, she had flipped over once again, throwing him on his back.
"It's been too long since I touched you," she said as her hand closed around his cock.
"Far too long," Scott agreed.
She pumped him maddeningly slowly. He was just starting to get into it when she stopped, lying down on her back next to him at what could've been mistaken for military attention, had it only been vertical.
"Inside me. Now."
Scott rolled over so he was facing her, his hand laid flat over her belly. "Are you sure? We don't have to. We could just keep kissing, if you like… I can wait."
She pushed his hand down lower, mopping it over her soft pubic hair until he was between her legs. "No more waiting. Not one more minute."
His fingers felt wetness, furnace-warmth.
"I did that?" he asked, not sure.
She leaned up to kiss him, put her head back down. "Not a single instant more."
Barda thrilled as Scott moved over her, his shadow briefly crossing his face before he kissed her again. Must've been the hundredth time. She wouldn't care if it were the millionth. He could do that forever, long as he did more.
His arms were planted firmly to either side of her and her heightened senses, used to fear and blood and death, smelled something like the courage of her fellow Furies on him. He was sweating, had sweated, had it dried out, was sweating again. Her fingers slid over his back like fluid when she touched him, soaking up his musk. She was ready for him. She reached down for his cock, grabbed it in the darkness, helped him find and penetrate her. He sighed blissfully. She felt stronger than she ever had before. She had expected this would make her weak.
"Darkseid's eyes!"
"Don't say his name!" Scott said with surprising force. "Not here. Not now."
Scott's teeth were against her neck, cold and hard but not biting so much as raking against the tender pale skin. She wrapped her arms around him and held him close, knowing he enjoyed the way her breasts pressed against him from the jolt his cock gave. Inside her. There had been men she's fancied from a distance or who she'd stoutly rejected, from Darkseid on down, but Scott was real. Tactile. Barda smiled at the pun. Smiled at everything.
"What's so funny?" Scott asked. He was halfway inside her, obviously straining to keep himself under control. His magnificent body could contort into all manner of delightful shapes. It could stand up to a little battering before coming.
"You."
"Should I be offended?"
Her hands wandered over his clenched ass, forced him deeper inside her.
"That answer your question?"
"My funny little valentine," he said, so close to Barda that his breath mixed with hers.
Impossibly, Scott could feel her getting hotter and moister around his cock. It made fucking her easier; the intensely clenched muscle of her cunt was loosening with each second. Pity, it was overbearingly pleasurable, what little he could fit inside.
Scott groaned as Barda wrapped her legs around him, enjoying the reaction he made to the power of her legs. They squeezed him. Scott's eyes rolled up in his head with the effort of holding down his orgasm and Barda quite enjoying dangling him over it, keeping him uncomfortably close to the end. Did it count as torture if he liked it too?
Her arms flexed. Her grip on him tightened. She could feel his breath coming in shallow gulps, his heart pounding against his chest. Hers wasn't quite making a mile a minute, but the pace it did set was (for a Fury) out of control. Scott licked between her breasts, nibbled on her engorged nipples, kissed her. The kiss hard, forceful, good. She was tasting him. She needed more. Of him, of life… everything.
Scott wasn't surprised when Barda barreled over him, straddling him once more. By now they had rolled all the way across the room they were in. One more switch and they could be fucking against the wall.
Not a bad idea, although Scott much preferred the way he could study every curve of Barda's body in the light, erected above him like a temple to femininity.
"I'm beautiful," she said, sliding down lower over his shaft. Encompassing him. Devouring him. "I know. You taught me that."
She bent over him, hips mercilessly pounding herself against him, arms holding her over him in prolonged repose. "You showed me that."
She slid along, elongating over him, hips driving, pulsing, pumping. Scott felt acutely stimulated, on a level of existence that could only be reached by extremes of pain or pleasure. He had visited it before, whenever Desaad paid him a visit… then, he couldn't have imagined not wanting to leave. Her nipples, hard as the diamonds, hard as the rest of her, cut over his flesh.
"You showed me how beautiful I was," she said, hips speeding up, sucking him in and expelling him back out. "And I love you for it."
His eyes, screwed shut with ecstasy, shot wide open to see Barda grinning down at him. Sincere. Not a dream or a hoax or his imagination. He smiled. It was a goofy smile.
"My funny little valentine," she said, riding him hard, pushing his body past its limits until finally, inevitably, together…
The undulation seemed to begin in Barda's body and flow down into Scott's. She sighed, tensed, relaxed, all at once. Her eyelids fluttered as something positively immense filtered through her body. She had to put a hand to the floor to support herself. She slid off Scott, hitting the floor next to him with a resounding thud. It was the only punctuation their release had.
"Yes," Barda breathed, her voice soft and quiet, not a harsh whisper but something small inside her coming to life.
Scott kissed her forehead as he rolled on top of her one last time. Her body was firm and hard and muscular, but it was the best mattress he could ask for.
With one outstretched hand he grabbed her cape and pulled it over, wrapping it over both of them like a bedsheet. Barda looked tired, soft, sated… and adorable. Scott instinctively recognized her torpor as stemming from the recent orgasm. It felt good to have made her feel like that. It made him feel… heroic, in a way.
He didn't know what to say, so he said the truth: "For the first time in my life, I don't want to escape."
Barda recognized the importance of that like no one else save Scott Free himself could. She acknowledged it with a smile that had nothing to do with bared teeth.
"Good. I wouldn't let you go."
"I noticed you weren't…" Scott began, with a bit of sadness, then faltered.
"A virgin?"
"Yeah." He winced. "Did someone… hurt you?"
"No." She held up her Mega-Rod. "If it's any consolation, I was thinking of you."
They laughed. Long and hard, the last droplets of tension evaporating from their exhausted bodies.
"Ah geez, we make jokes about that kind of thing," Scott said, resting his head on Barda's cleavage.
"Really? I've never heard one. Tell me a joke."
Scott reared up to look into her eyes. "Okay. Promise not to be offended."
"I'm a Female Fury of Apokolips with multiple battles to my name. I'm not going to get bent out of shape over a joke."
"Alright then. What do you call a Female Fury with two Mega-Rods?"
"Right behind you."
The voice was a dry rasp, something ancient dragged over anything that was ever good or decent. Scott turned, not fast enough, and a Mega-Rod slapped across his face. He went down, thrown off Barda. Blood already pouring down his scalp.
"You—!" Barda started, the rest dissolving into a roar of rage, but Parademons were piling on her. Naked, exhausted, unprepared, the sound of bones breaking came from the dogpile.
Not hers, though.
Scott rolled up to his feet, shaking his head to clear it of his double-vision. One Granny Goodness was enough. He was on his knees, looking at Granny. She leered at him.
"Have you naughty kiddies been playing doctor?"
The casual reference to their lovemaking enraged him almost as much as the assault on Barda. From the way she carried herself, she was expecting the blow to the head to take him out of play. Scott grinned for a half-second at her naiveté before throwing his punch. It dug into her gut, doubling her over into a fit of hacking coughs. That felt good. The whip that wrapped around his neck and jerked him down to his back didn't. Lashina gave it a crack, just in case he didn't get the message.
A Parademon flew overhead, body broken in two. Barda had found her Mega-Rod. It was probably the head wound, but Scott found that immensely funny. He laughed.
Stompa's heel pressed into his crotch, the cleats causing him no small amount of discomfort.
"Barda!" Stompa barked. "Stand down! Before I make your stead into a gelding."
Mad Harriet cackled at the wordplay. Scott realized they were watching, one of them, or heard, or something. Fucking perverts. Fucking Apokolips perverts. The blood rushed to his head. And out of it.
"Don't listen to her!" he shouted, ignoring the blood pooling behind his head and the boot pressing down into his groin. "You run! Hear me, Barda? Run!"
The Parademons hung back, licking their wound, watching as Barda surveyed the situation. She looked beautiful. Naked save for her Mega-Rod, skin reddened with her bloodlust. Scott could be content with that being the last time he ever saw her.
"What would I run to?" she asked him, sincere as the sunset.
The Mega-Rod cracked the floor where she dropped it. Barda's knees followed suit.
