AN: A WARNING: This chapter contains mention of pointless violence and alcohol. I feel the need to warn since the previous chapters have been pretty tame compared to this one and I don't want anyone getting offended or troubled. If this bothers you, that's cool. Please go and read 'Layla'. It's a nice kissy piece, you'll like it : )

Also, I feel the need to stand up for OC and Mary Sue writers. We've gotten a mad wrap over the years as far as the fan fiction world is concerned. I understand when badly written pieces are looked down on, but just because a writer adds characters to a particular 'verse' doesn't mean it's automatically crap. So those who write OC pieces, like me, keep on doing what you're doing. And all those who bitch and complain that we're childish, imbeciles and unimaginative… get bent.

Thank you.

Voices Carry

The crowd outside Al's was large and thick. The scent of cigars and beer was thick and Margaret almost choked on it as she pushed her way to the mountain of a bouncer that stood guard at the door. She felt so small compared to the shadowed figures surrounding her, and with Warren's dinner clutched in her shaking hands she couldn't help but feel like Red Riding Hood going straight into the wolf's belly.

"Go home." The bouncer threatened as she drew near. His voice made her shudder and she almost lost her resolve. After all, what was it to her if Warren ate or not? He was a grown man, he could fend for himself. But his mother had sent her, a small, sweet lady who just wanted her son to get fed. Well, she was a hero….

"I'm here to see Warren." She was ashamed at how small her voice sounded. She held up the sack as though it were her police badge and the bouncer looked her over. Eventually he nodded and pushed the door open.

"Don't you want to see my ID?" She asked. The bouncer gave a gargled laugh then turned his stony attention to the large crowd still swarming outside the bar. Really, she thought, What's the point in having a fake ID if no one cards you?

She felt the music before she heard it. It was something loud with a dull, pounding bass that she could feel in her teeth. The bar itself was dimly lit and crowded, a few hanging light bulbs shedding pools of yellowed light that illuminated the clientele- toothless men nursing long necks, bleached-blonde women in spandex downing shots of brownish liquid. She could hear spurts of hoarse laughter and coarse language over the boom of the music.

Instinctively she pulled the bag into her chest and wrapped her arms around it as though it were a kitten or something far more valuable than an egg roll and some noodles. She felt terribly out of place and every once in a while would receive a stare from one of the regulars that only encouraged that fact.

She found herself wandering through the crowd. There was no one behind the bar and she couldn't find anyone who looked like they might be willing and able to give her a point in the right direction. She kept her wide eyes alert to anyone that might be Warren, but lean boys in black with long, oily looking hair were a staple in places like Al's and Margaret soon found herself far from the front door, being sucked towards the back as though she were caught in an undertow.

The pounding music was replaced by the sounds of men cheering grunting. The faces around her changed from drunk and pacified to loud, angry and red. The room was light by a string of harsh fluorescent lights that beamed down in sickeningly yellowed slants. Margaret was tossed between beer bellies and heavily tattooed arm feeling like a cat toy being batted at between large, smelly paws.

Eventually she was knocked to the center of the room and the smallish boxing ring that stood there. The white of the canvas had long ago been stained with sweat and blood and beer and the ropes were fraying and flaking, dusting the edge of the mat with tawny colored twine.

The men surrounding the tattered looking ring were all large and most of them balding. Their skins were covered in ink and hoops that stuck out from their rigidly muscular forms like Christmas tree decorations. They were all yelling at the ring, rather at the two men in the ring. They were both shirtless and wearing worn, torn jeans. One of them was lying on the mat, his torso covered in sweat and a thin sheen of blood that was flowing from his nose and lower lip. His face was drawn and tired looking and his bare hands were bleeding all over the canvas as he tried desperately to get up.

The man who was standing was hovering over the prone bleeder like a vulture waiting to swoop in for the kill. His black hair was pulled back in a messy ponytail, wisps of which were plastered against his sweaty neck. Margaret could see the well-defined muscles in his back heaving with his labored breathing. His own arms were down by his sides, a small amount of blood caking around his bare fists and tattooed wrists.

Flame tattooed wrists.

Margaret's eyes widened. She'd seen those tattoos before. She'd seen them everyday at school since she was a freshman. They were usually hidden under thick leather cuffs and a pair of fingerless gloves, but she'd seen them. She almost dropped the bag.

"Warren?" She asked allowed, though she knew no one around her could hear over the bellowing. Warren Peace was a bare-knuckle boxer at Al's? The day just kept getting stranger and stranger…

As soon as she'd spoken his name, she saw his back tense up, the taut muscles pulling to attention. He turned in her direction and looked over his shoulder at the crowd. His face was covered in odd shadows in the strange lighting of the bar. She saw his eyes narrow slightly as he realized she was there and she saw him mouth, 'Meg?' though she never heard him over the din.

That's when his opponent managed to his feet and slammed his bruised fist into Warren's side. Peace winced at the unexpected hit and doubled over giving the other man a clear shot for Warren's nose- which he took.

The crowd groaned as the crisp sound of Warren's nose shattering hit the air. Another punch sent him to his knees and he hit the canvas with a dull thud. Margaret thought she was going to vomit. Their positions were now reversed with Warren hurt and limp on the ground with the larger man towered above him, starting to dance a bit in smug satisfaction. The taller man kicked at the side of Warren's head, sending him flying into the prickly ropes, which all but snapped under Warren's weight.

The crowd cheered and the large man raised his arms in premature triumph, conducting as they chanted his name. Warren winced and managed to pull himself up, spitting out a mouthful of blood as his did, shaking his hair back from his face. Margaret was standing right before him, thunderstruck.

He caught her eyes for just a second and he could see a thin rim of tears threatening to spill. Warren was hurt. She didn't care if he was an Indestructible or not, he was in pain. He looked so small, struggling to sit up on the bloodied mat. She remembered the pictures on the wall of tiny Warren; she remembered his mother and the warm bag she was still protecting in her arms.

She felt angry, angry with the idiot covered in Warren's blood standing on the other side of the ring. She shifted her gaze from Warren to the man and her eyes narrowed. She had to stop him, had to make him leave her friend alone, had to make him pay for what he'd already done…

She started to open her mouth, not exactly sure what she was going to say but knowing it was going to be something good, when she felt wet, warm fingers on her lips, forcing them closed. She returned her attention to Warren whose arm was now stretched past the ropes and over her mouth. His eyes were wide with something that she would've pegged as concern on anyone else but as foreign on him, and he shook his head slowly.

Margaret's eyes widened and she pulled away just as the other man's foot slammed down on the back of Warren's knee. The young man let out a hard cry and panted heavily through the pain. Margaret saw it in his eyes, the same thing she'd seen that afternoon with Kamaya-Mayhem. Warren was pissed and someone was about to get hurt.

Warren quickly pulled himself up to his good knee and let a solid punch fly into the other man's stomach, who doubled over and bellowed, his eyes bugging out of his head. Peace stood and hovered over the man for the slightest of moments before slamming his fist down through the man's jaw, sending him to his knees. The dark young man kicked at the once-again-prone man's side and he went rolling into the ropes, starting to gurgle on a mouthful of his own blood.

Warren started for him again but a small, stout man wearing a bright blue bowling shirt stopped him, pulling his bloodied, sweaty arm high into the air and crying, "WINNER!" The crowd went wild.

Warren stood there for a moment, panting and spit out another mouthful of blood as his injured opponent was dragged from the ring. The lean boy grabbed his black, button down shirt from it's perch over the ropes and ducked out of the ring, dropping into the crowd who was now too drunk and disorderly to know who was wandering through them to get to the girl by the mat.

She felt his fingers pull at the crook of her arm and, like clockwork, she followed, keeping a tight hold on the bag. She followed the dark boy through the crowd around the mat which was being refilled with two new fighters, and back towards the bar, the music having slowed into something mellow and country.

He slipped underneath the bar and grabbed a glass for himself, pouring the dark-glass bottle's contents into the quickly foaming mug. Margaret sat shyly on one of the bar stools and looked around. The blonde-haired women were all on the floor, slow dancing with burly men whose hands were firmly planted places a lady would never allow to be grabbed.

Warren took a long swig from the glass then slammed it down, staring at Margaret. He was still panting a bit, and even though he was starting to heal, she could see a thin sliver of a cut grazing across his bottom lip.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, sounding none too pleased to see her.

"I… uh…" Margaret quickly placed the grease-bottomed bag on the counter before him, like a boyar presenting Vlad the Impaler with a peace offering. Warren looked at the sack and his face shifted slightly. Margaret even saw the corner of his mouth lift, though she wasn't about to call it a smile.

"Mom sent you." He answered himself with a slight shake of his head. He lifted the glass and took another swig, the darkened foam fizzing as he swallowed.

"You want something to drink?"

"Oh no, I don't drink." She stammered quickly. Actually she didn't drink in bars filled with crazy bikers and failed mobsters. She'd had some champagne at her Aunt's wedding last summer-

"Me neither." He said simply. She looked confusedly from him to his darkened glass and he gently placed an emptied glass Coca-cola bottle on the bar, offering her a small, smug smirk as he finished his coke in a final swig.

"Ha." She sneered playfully.

"So, dinner not work out?" He asked, tossing his used glass into a plastic box near the taps.

"No, it did. I just got roped into delivery work."

"Gotta love Mom." He joked. Margaret grinned.

"So," She started tentatively, "What was that?" She pointed over her shoulder towards the bloody, sweaty canvas in the back. Warren almost sighed.

"That is a few extra bucks every week. And a great way to work of some… tension." He finished carefully. Margaret wasn't exactly sure what he meant but she nodded in a knowing way.

"Oh. How very Wolverine of you."

He leaned in and whispered conspiratorially, "Where do you think I got the idea?" Margaret laughed, a loud bark of sound that made her whole body feel lighter. Warren chuckled slightly too, his still bare shoulders shaking a bit as he shook his head.

"Come on, I'll drive you home."

"No, it's alright. I've got a ride with Layla."

"Alright, then I'll walk you back to the Lantern." He shrugged his shirt back on and buttoned it. Margaret caught a quick glimpse of his surprisingly well-defined torso as the shirt covered it up. Strange, he didn't look like he's be so… built. She wondered what else his clothes might be hiding then forced herself to look away as she felt her cheeks flush.

Warren grabbed his dinner and ducked out from behind the bar. Margaret hopped off her stool and followed, ducking as drunkards almost smashed into her and each other.

"'Night Jack." Warren called to the bouncer as they slipped outside, the crowd still as large and throbbing as before.

"See ya kid. Back tomorrow?"

Warren shrugged and stuffed his hand in his pocket, the other fist clutching the bag, and elbowed out of the crowd, cutting an easy path for Margaret to follow.