A/N: This was written at one in the morning, and fuelled by three cigarettes. Shout out to ForeverACharmedOne. Thanks for the reviews.

Darkmatter was indeed between a rock and a hard place. Actually, it was more like a renegade and a rooftop. He quickly reviewed his options and picked the best one: get Howl off of him, fight dirty, and kill the crazy bitch before he got shot or struck by lightning. Or possibly both.

"Are you going to talk to me or not?" Howl asked, digging her nails into Darkmatter's arm. Perhaps she'd noticed how taut Darkmatter's muscles were beneath her, or how handsome his face was, but for some reason her voice had lost a bit of its coldness. Now it was low and sultry, with an accent that Darkmatter couldn't place. He grinned in spite of the blaster at his throat.

"What do you wanna talk about, sugarpie?" he drawled, trying to switch his flamethrower out for his blaster without Howl noticing. Howl laughed. Her laugh was melodic and strangely genuine.

"Well, for starters…" she paused and dug her nails in a little deeper. "What the hell do you want? Oh." She knelt on Darkmatter's arm so that she could trace the Z on his armor with the tip of her finger. "You work for that nutter."

"Sure do." Darkmatter tightened his arm as slowly as he could.

"Well, you'd best leave here before the storm gets worse," Howl said casually. "There's gonna be a blackout tonight." Several buildings lost power as she spoke. "I don't want to fight you."

"I wouldn't want to fight me either." Darkmatter very deliberately clicked the blaster into place. He felt Howl tense against him. "Now why don't you hand me that gun?" Howl laughed again.

"If you shoot, I shoot." She sat back a little, looking him over. "So I suppose we're both in trouble now."

"Actually, it's just you," Darkmatter corrected. He summoned all of his strength, which admittedly wasn't much, and threw his body to the side. Howl tried to leap away, but Darkmatter caught her ankle beneath his knee, pulled her down, and pinned her. "How's it feel?" Darkmatter asked, but he didn't sound as confident as he wanted to. Sure, he'd managed to restrain Howl, but it had been mostly luck on his part. She was pretty damned fast. And now Darkmatter noticed that she was also just…pretty. Even as Howl stared down the barrel of his blaster, she glared at him defiantly. He saw no fear in her eyes, which were pale yellow and strangely catlike. Her wild dark hair fell below her shoulders and seemed to grow in every direction.

"So kill me," she snarled. "That's why you're here, isn't it?"

"Right again," Darkmatter said. He pulled the internal trigger in his arm and heard the satisfying sounds of a gun warming up. In three seconds, the job would be done, and he could go home. The thunderstorm raged above them. But why was Howl still smiling like that? Darkmatter got his answer by way of a sharp, agonizing pain entering his thigh.

"Christ!" He fired the shot, but it was too late. Howl wrenched herself out from under him and scrambled behind a pile of scrap metal. Darkmatter pressed his hand to the injury, but the pain did not abate. It felt as if something had stuck a piece of broken glass into him. "Okay, now I'm gonna fucking kill you!" He could not stand, so he pressed his leg against the roof edge and began firing at the scrap metal. Howl returned fire with frightening accuracy.

"I thought Zurg's agents knew what they were doing!" she taunted. "Thanks for proving me wrong." Darkmatter decided that he'd had enough and switched his metal hand for his blaster. He took his time aiming in spite of the shots flying past him, but at last he curled his hand into a fist and launched it into the temporary shelter, praying that it would find its target. It did.

Darkmatter switched on his jet pack and flew around the roof to the other side of Howl's now-collapsed refuge. He couldn't tell if Howl was being clever or if he'd knocked her out, but he got his answer soon enough.

Howl was barely visible beneath pieces of steel and rubble. Her arm was flung out, her gun still in hand. A steady stream of blood dripped from a wound on her forehead. Darkmatter knelt beside her in spite of the pain in his leg.

"Got you, bitch," he murmured. At first he thought she wasn't breathing, but then he saw that her armor obscured the faint rising and falling of her chest. Darkmatter pulled out his smaller blaster and pointed it at her head. He almost wished he could take some time to figure out what Howl really looked like, but he couldn't take a chance with the lightning. He did have three-and-a-half feet of metal attached to him, after all.

Darkmatter fired one shot in Howl's throat and one through her right eye. A fine mist of blood splattered the surrounding concrete.

He bent over Howl and checked her vitals, just in case the shot in her brain and the massive hemorrhaging from her jugular hadn't killed her. She was flat lining, all right. He couldn't help but smirk as he wiped the blood from his boots straightened up.

"You're good, but I'm better," he said softly. God, if he had a nickel for every time he said that…

Darkmatter jumped over the edge of the roof, switched on his jetpack, and flew as low as he could to avoid the storm. The lightning really was beautiful.

A/N: Dropkick Murphys reference. Yep.