I went over to Angela's house today. Just to hang out. Do stuff. Listen to music. Whatever.

We decided to go on youtube and see if there was anything interesting.

We came across a featured video, simply titled. "He's Back!"

It starts with some guys on the street in front of an apartment building. They're doing tricks on skateboards.

Then one of them points down the street and says, "Hey guys, check it out!"

The camera turns to focus on two people walking down the street. One if a black guy in a purple suit. I recognized him from The Registry and Dr. Gravity.

The other one is Kick-Ass.

They're talking, and then a couple guys come up asking for help. Dr. Gravity seems kinda nervous, but Kick-Ass goes ahead and listens to them. In the middle of talking, one of them takes a swing at Kick-Ass with a pipe.

Dr. Gravity jumps back and out of the way. Kick-Ass brings his batons up while ducking away and blocks the strike, but just barely. He then goes ahead and beats the two down, not even pausing when he answers Dr. Gravities, "Uh, you need any help?" with "No, I'm actually getting pretty good at this." before ending it by smashing both of them in the face with his batons at the same time.

A gang across the street sees this and stands up, one of them yelling "Hey! That's my brother!" or cousin. I don't really care which. Almost a dozen guys start across the street and Kick-Ass says, "This we should run from." and the two of them take off.

Kick-Ass yells to split up and that he'll meet him somewhere.

It ends with a sign saying "Kick Ass is Back!" and it plays the fight again in slow motion.

I guess now I can be a little proud of how he handled himself, but when I was watching it all I could feel was pissed off. I'm still pissed off. Only now I have all sorts of reasons to be pissed.

I kind of shut down to avoid flying into a fit when I saw that video. Angela didn't know what was wrong, she still doesn't (And she's not going to find out if I have anything to say about it) and I couldn't respond so her Mom came and when she couldn't get a reaction she called Marcus and brought me home.

When I got home... the anger went away. For a brief, brief moment it was replaced by shock and... fear. I guess.

The living room looked like a gun show. All the guns Dave and I had hidden in the house were spread out across the room, and Marcus was sitting on the couch looking over it all. His expression was as much anger as it was disappointment and I had no idea what he was going to do or what I could do.

He didn't even look at me. He just seemed to be staring through the wall. And then he said, "You're grounded. Just so we're clear."

I tried to stammer out some sort of excuse, or defense, but I couldn't think clearly. I think I managed to get a "how" out because he said, "I'm a cop Mindy. This is what I do. After seeing your friend out on the streets again it wasn't hard to find them." he paused then said, "I'll give you props for getting the AK-47 in the teddy bear, but you're still grounded."

I was pissed again, and my fists clenched so hard my fingernails started to cut into my palms, "How long?"

"Two weeks, you go to school, you come home, that's it. No friends. Two months, you go to school, you come home, but you can talk to your friends."

I, somehow, managed to keep my tone leve, when I said, "Two months? But, I need to help Dave-"

He cut me off with, "And you're not seeing Dave anymore. Ever."

And that's when I flipped the fuck out. I screamed, I yelled, I threw stuff. I don't even remember what I yelled. As mad as I was, as mad as I am at him... I still need him.

Marcus grabbed my hand to stop me from throwing things, and I punched him. He tried to restrain me, and he probably could have if he hadn't been worried about hurting me. I wasn't worried about hurting him. He might have been able to hold me if he'd treated me like some crazed junkie... cause that's kind of what I was.

It ended when I threw a backwards headbutt and smashed his nose.

He let go and I bolted for the garage. I grabbed my bike and rode to Dave's as fast as I could.

I didn't bother knocking. I just climbed onto the garage and up to his window like I did the first night we met.

Dave was sitting on his bed. He looked like he had a rough day, and I'm sorry to say that I was there to make it worse.

He looked up as I opened his window, he started to say something but I shut him up by smashing my fist into his lying mouth.

Dave hits the floor and I stood over him and screamed, "You bastard! How could you do this to me!"

He was trying to stand, he'd only gotten onto his hands and knees, one hand was covering his mouth and I could see blood. I kicked him onto his back and kept going, "How could you leave me out! How could you lie to me? I thought we closer than that you FUCKING ASSHOLE!" I started to pace around his room, and when I saw him starting to get back up I kicked him again.

I wanted him on the floor. Where I could look down on him.

"Marcus is going to keep us apart now! He's not going to let me see you!" And I wiped at my eyes before I realized what I was doing, but I needed it. There were tears streaming down my face.

"You told me to try and be normal. To let the hero life go. And here you are. Going out as Kick-Ass." My voice started cracking then, "Why? Why did you have to go and ruin it? I thought we had a good thing going? Didn't you?" I really could not stop crying. I didn't really care though.

Dave started to sit up slowly, like he was testing to see if I was going to hit him again. He didn't try to stand, and just sat on the floor. He wiped away some blood from his mouth looked at it, and then spit some more out onto the floor.

"Because my life sucked, and being Kick-Ass was the only thing that made it better. Everything I have that's good in my life came from that. You, Katie, passing gym, hell, even my job. You didn't have a choice in this. I did. I told you you deserved a chance at a normal life and I meant it. I had my normal life. I hated it. I wanted to do something more with my pathetic existence. So I did. And it was great," he smiled then, " Well, it was when I wasn't in danger of losing my life. And then, on Halloween... I realized that I couldn't walk away from shit like that anymore. I couldn't watch bad things happen to people without trying to help. So I started being Kick-Ass again. I didn't tell you because I didn't want to encourage you. Your new life seemed to be working out for you. I didn't want you to ruin it."

I slumped onto the floor next to his bed, "My life was only working because I had you. I could talk to you. I could hang out with you. You, somehow, understand me. Now I can't see or talk to you anymore."

"I'm sorry."

"You should be, Ass"

Then what he'd said finally hit me, "Wait, you've been going out since Halloween? How did nobody notice?"

He nodded to his closest and I got up to look. Inside, laying on top of his folded up costume in a box in the back... was a trench coat and a fedora.

I starred at it for a full minute before it sank in, "YOU'RE The Samaritan!"

He kinda half smirked for a split second and shrugged, "I put it on to hide the costume, and then when I realized I could be caught on camera I kept it on all the time."

I started laughing then. It was too funny and I was too messed up to not. Kick-Ass was finally the real deal and nobody knew it.

"So what made you go out without it?"

"Dr. Gravity wanted to team up. I thought, 'hey, one time out as kick-ass, what could it hurt?'" he rubbed at his jaw, "Turns out it hurt a lot."

I kinda looked off into the corner and said, "Sorry."

He said, "Don't be. I deserved it. I should have at least told you."

I was surprised by that so I asked, "Katie didn't know?"

"No. I didn't tell anyone."

"Does she know now?"

He nodded, "I just got off the phone with her before you came in. She's probably as pissed as you were... are?" he asked with a questioning eyebrow.

"Oh, I'm still mad at you. I'm done hitting you though."

"Good to know."

I walked over and sat down on his lap and said, "Hug me. I'm not going to see you for a long time."

He put his arms around me, and I tried my best to just drink it all in. To get as much of my fix of him as I could before I had to leave. We started talking about other stuff after awhile, but we stayed like that on the floor until Marcus knocked on the door to bring me back home.

I apologized to him for everything, he accepted my apology but noted that I was still grounded.

When we got home I went straight to my room.

I'm still pissed. But... I think I'll get over it. Eventually.


Mako's Message: So there it is. A bunch of things I'd set up finally came to fruition. Wham episode? Maybe. You tell me.

I set up a forum to discuss not just Precocious Crush but all my Kick-Ass fics. There's nothing there yet, but I'll get something up soon. Feel free to start your own threads if you wish.

On an added note, I enjoyed writing Mindy beating Dave more than I should have.