The unmarked car pulled up in front of the modest hotel on the edge industrial district in National City. Not too expensive but also very modern, Jake climbed out of the car and looked up at the fifteen floors of the Empire Hotel. His suitcase and bag was returned to him from the boot, which he'd forgotten had been confiscated during his arrest, the man unloading him giving him a silent nod before getting back behind the wheel and driving away. The officer hadn't been very talkative during their ride as Jake gave him the hotel's address, but then he wasn't in a talkative mood either.
A young man came out to greet him, dressed in a red and gold uniform. "Welcome to the Empire Hotel sir" he said with a big welcoming smile. "Can I help you?"
"I have a reservation under the name White" he said, gathering up his bags.
The man identified himself as the concierge and gestured for him to follow. "Reception will have your details and your key. May I help with your bags?" he queried, noticing Jake wince in discomfort as he tried to lift his heavy suitcase. He volunteered to assist, which Jake reluctantly allowed. He supposed he could suffer a twenty dollar tip. The way the man looked at him and didn't ask what might be wrong indicated he might already know who Jake was. Walking through the lobby and finding the radio repeating his story confirmed it. Fortunately the staff were polite enough not to mention it as he checked in and was directed to his room on the twelve floor. The concierge lead him to his hotel room and carried his suitcase into the bedroom, giving Jake a moment to survey the clean and modest space before holding his hand out. Jake smiled and gave him his tip, thanking him as the man left the room so Jake could get settled. Jake followed him to the door and closed it, locking it in place.
The moment he was alone Jake's smile vanished and he muttered a curse under his breath. He leant against the door and rubbed his shoulder, reaching under the shirt to check the bandage. The tape had peeled off but he easily fixed it. What concerned him was the blood on his fingers when he examined them. Shit he thought, walking through the living room and through the bedroom to enter the bathroom, flicking the light on with the pull of the cord. He approached the sink and removed his leather jacket and shirt. He barely examined the bruising on his ribs or the cuts on his face, the plaster across his nose or the black eye, focusing on the bandage taped to his left shoulder carefully removing it.
It was as he thought, one of the stitches across the bullet wound had snapped. He reached over and checked the first aid kit, dapping the cotton wool with antiseptic before pressing it against the wound. He grimaced at his reflection, holding onto the sink as he relived the fight that brought this wound to reality.
He recalled returning home a couple days ago late in the evening and carelessly tossing his keys into the drawer. When he went to switch on the light he heard a faint creak, hesitating at the switch. He saw the shadow of movement in the reflection of his motorcycle helmet before the first gunshot whizzed past his head, the silencer muting the sound leaving onto a faint thud of the bullet hitting plaster. Jake dived across the floor and circled around to hide in the darkness, waiting for the intruder to follow him before springing up to attack. The fight was brutal and quick. The man was well trained. Jake was trained better. The assassin got a lucky shot into his shoulder, but Jake managed to disarm him and beat him to the floor with a swift kick and a series of bludgeoning strikes from a wrench he left out nearby. By the time the assailant managed to break his daze and struggle to his feet Jake had his silenced gun in hand and had shot him twice in the chest.
Stupid rookie mistake he thought. He should've kept him alive to get answers. He was lucky the bullet went clean through his shoulder. Very little blood to clean up. Getting the body out into the alley was difficult, even harder to lug into the skip set to be taken away in three days. Once the house was cleaned up Jake paid a visit to a "no questions" doctor he knew. While he was being patched up he looked through everything the man had on him, including his phone. It was easy to hack in. even easier to find the contact he was meant to call upon completion of the assignment. It took Jake a day to trace the number and confirm the person who hired the hitman. Much to his amusement, he called the number to politely inform the client that their assassin had failed, just to satisfy his own annoyance. The assassination attempt might've been expected, but it still rattled him enough to move up his timetable a little bit. He was pretty much done in London anyway. Everything else he could organise from here.
Once he'd done his best to clean up the wound he swallowed a few painkillers and replaced the bandage. Nothing too clean, he'd need to get it looked at. Fortunately he had chosen this hotel for a specific reason.
He put his clothes back on and unlocked the hotel room, tilting his head out to make sure he wasn't being observed. He left the room, locked it and walked quietly down the hall to the stairwell. He descended the stairs down to the bottom, passing the ground floor and reaching the basement. A sign read STAFF ONLY but he ignored it, passing through the door and slipping through the concrete corridors to the boiler room. He ducked out of sight when a pair of maids strolled past, chatting in a foreign language carrying a basket and towels. He waited for them to disappear before walking up to a door plastered with warning signs. There was no handle on the door, but there was an electrical outlet. Opening this outlet revealed it to be fake however, a lever hidden within to unlock the door. He pushed it open, slipped through and closed it behind him.
He followed the dark tunnels with his right hand on the wall, following it deeper until he came to a junction lit by a lamp. He followed the yellow cable to a second lamp, then a third, the lights leading him to a gate barring his path into a large underground space. A keypad sat attached to an electronic lock, which he inputted a twelve digit code into before pushing the gate open.
The workshop was built inside an abandoned wine cellar that used to be a part of a hotel in the seventies. The hotel above was demolished and the basement blocked off. Apart from the gate Jake entered through there was only one other exit that lead to the street, a tunnel that links to a speakeasy residing beneath a bar seven blocks away. The cellar didn't appear on any modern map in city hall. As far as National City as concerned this place didn't exist. The man currently repurposing it into his workshop heard Jake come in over the roar of his blowtorch as he fused some very volatile materials together for a commission. Weapons and armour was scattered everywhere, covering tables and racks between saws and forges and melting pots, smoke billowing into a vent he had to dig out himself so not to kill himself on fumes, the vent leading up to the street in a deserted alley. Occasionally vagrants were admitted with breathing problems, but so far nothing that warranted an investigation. The Blacksmith turned his head and peered through the smeared visor to see his visitor approaching him through the dim light. "I wasn't expecting you for a few days" he remarked, turning back to his blow torch to finish what he started.
Jake kept a safe distance as he circled the workshop, casting his eye over the materials and devices, metals and minerals and alien technology scattered amongst each other. He didn't touch anything as he perused them, casting his eye over a suit with twin flamethrowers attached to the gauntlets, hosepipes linked to two big fuel tanks. "Thought's I'd check in, make sure the key code still works" he replied, hearing the blowtorch fizzle out indicated the black man was done.
The Blacksmith lifted the visor and put his glasses on to examine his work, satisfied the welding would hold. He spun around in his seat to look at the young man circling the workshop, wiping his hands as he cocked an eyebrow. "I saw your little interview on the news" he said. "I didn't think you were interested in putting on a show."
"It wasn't planned" he explained.
He shrugged, rolling across the workstation to tinker with a small device using a screwdriver. "Most people in your position would've been screaming injustice from the rooftops and launching a lawsuit by now."
"I'm not most people" he scoffed. "Besides, humility does wonders for getting sympathy" he added.
The man nodded, finishing his tweak and seeing his visitor pause to roll his shoulder for the third time during this conversation. "Let me guess, you've popped your stitches" he assumed. He'd already been caught up to speed on the assassination attempt.
"It's fine" he said.
The Blacksmith sighed, putting his tools down to walk across the room telling him "take a seat and I'll get the first aid kit."
"I said I'm fine" he insisted.
"And I said take a seat" he repeated. Jake rolled his eyes and sat on the nearest pile of crates and cases, reluctantly waiting for the black man to return before pulling his collar to the side so he could look at the bullet wound. The man pulled a stool over and took his seat, examining the wound surprised to see it hadn't been infected. "I'm surprised the doctors at the DEO didn't notice this when they fixed your face" he said.
"They never went below the neck or above the ribs" he retorted.
"Out of curiosity" he asked while he was patching the young man up, his hands just as adept at repairing flesh as it was fixing machines, "what was the plan if the formidable Miss Danvers hadn't lost her temper?"
"The camera was just insurance" he reminded him, wincing when he stabbed the needle through his skin.
"Maybe, but it proved fortunate considering Miss Luthor's discovery into your previous employment" he noted.
Jake nodded, still kicking himself about that. He had expected her to have overlooked the printer and had it replaced by now. It had been the perfect plan, everything gone unnoticed. He didn't know what helped her figure it out but when Brainy detailed everything they believed they knew he had to sit there and pretend everything was fine when in reality he was, for a moment, actually worried. "Guess we got lucky" he muttered. It was lucky Alex came in to try and beat a confession out of him, derailing any investigation they could've hoped to throw at him.
"Yes, lucky" the Blacksmith agreed, replacing a clean bandage onto his shoulder and sitting back. "So let's not punch our luck any further, shall we?" he advised.
"Yes dad" he said in a mock tone, to which the black man grumbled and stood up. "By the way, did you get the email about the items I requested?" he asked as he straightened his jacket.
"You're sitting on it" he replied curtly. Jake stood up and turned around to look at the case he was indeed sitting on, kneeling down to examine it before popping the lid and examining the contents. "It as a bit of a rush job" the Blacksmith explained without looking back, "but it should serve you needs."
Jake pulled out the smooth faceplate, his reflection distorted as he gazed into the red metal, turning it in his hands to peer through the visor installed behind it, the rest of the helmet and the adjoining red and black suit sitting comfortably in the large case.
The Blacksmith sat down at his desk and glanced over his shoulder. "If you don't mind me saying, I do hope it won't come to that?"
"It's just a precaution" he promised, closing the case and locking the suit of armour within. It all looked perfect and exactly as he asked for.
"All the same, with all the attention you've garnered over the last twenty-four hours maybe it'd be prudent to keep a low profile for a few weeks. Let the Reckoning rest until there aren't as many eyes watching."
"I can handle the DEO" he said quietly. He turned around and addressed him now, warning him "the DEO and FBI have been gunning for you too. Especially now our friend Miranda Oakridge has been arrested."
He chuckled. "I appreciate your concern for my wellbeing kid, but I'll have you know I have everything under control."
Jake didn't share his confidence. He'd been monitoring the chaos across the Atlantic. "I still think working with the Children of Liberty was a bad idea" he grumbled, regretting being persuaded into introducing Miranda to the Blacksmith.
"They were a reliable customer" he told him. "And despite all her boasting there's very little Ms Oakridge can tell them about us." he paused going through the paperwork, notes and records, to rub his chin in thought. "But I will take your concern into account. This attention is getting tiresome. I have a few more orders to fill but then I suppose I could take some of that leave I've been saving and make a business trip of it. Visit some clients in person."
"Or you could've taken my advice from the start and sold them Lena Luthor's formula for a fortune and just retire" Jake remarked once again.
The Blacksmith sighed. He knew the boy's thoughts about keeping the formula to himself and ensuring he alone could make kryptonite on demand. It was far more profitable to make himself the only supplier. Plus, he wasn't ready to retire just yet. "I thought you'd be pleased" he said. "You are getting what you wanted; more kryptonite in the streets to overwhelm your young paramour."
"she's not my…" he said, groaning with irritation, turning away before the old man could see the colour rising in his cheeks. He shook his head and cast an eye around the room. His gaze fell onto a familiar katana hooked onto a rack across the workshop. He walked over and brought it down, pulling a few inches of the green blade from its scabbard to examine it. "It couldn't hurt to keep some close at hand though" he muttered, slinging it over his back.
"I'll want that back" the blacksmith said, seeing the young man pick up some of his equipment from the bench out of the corner of his eye. He turned his head, looking at the young man thoughtfully. "Since you brought up retirement, I have to ask…do you have a plan. For when this is all over?"
Jake fell silent as he collected everything he believed he'd need. He didn't answer the man's question in a hurry. He hadn't expected the question, and thus didn't have an answer prepared. He'd thought a lot about how this all ends, but he hadn't let himself consider what came after. He looked down at the ring on his finger, rubbing it with his other hand. He knew how this was going to end, and that time would soon be approaching, so maybe he should start thinking about what came after. "I know what I'm doing" he whispered, picking up the case with the suit taking the sword and some other trinkets, leaving the blacksmith to continue his work.
The man watched the boy leave silently. Not for the first time he was concerned for him. He'd grown fond of the young man. He'd also seen him change over these last few months. Jake would say it's because what he'd been building towards was coming to pass. But the Blacksmith wondered if there was more too it. He'd yet to talk to him about it, his plans, his goals, instead focusing on helping him when he asked. "Try to stay out of trouble kid" he called out as he left through the way he came in.
Jake paused at the gate and looked back, nodding curtly before disappearing back into the tunnels to return unseen to his hotel room.