The light of a lazy Sunday poked through the open window of the penthouse, bathing the luxurious bedroom in golden rays of warmth, lingering in faint disks of mostly evaporated sweat that were the remainder of a late night. A very late night. Soaked in perspiration and glad that her hair was too short in the back to stick to her neck, Emily sat up in bed, eyes taking a moment to take the scene in.

Strewn everywhere on the floor were various garments, but most notable amongst them was a suit made of green spandex. Shit! Shit, shit, shit! The only reason she had called Dave over was to end it with him, but he had to show up fresh from the job, all sweaty and wounded... Dammit, she was done doing this to Chris!

Screaming at the top of her lungs as if she were overhearing a group of guys plotting to rape her, Emily startled her slumbering companion awake. "Get out!" She swatted at him with all her hormonal might, causing him to roll off the mattress and onto the floor. Sheets kicked all around, there really wasn't a whole lot to take with him.

"What the fuck, woman?" Bleary-eyed and partially refusing to get up from a previously deep and restorative sleep, voice muffled from the crumpled shirt his head landed on, it was not Dave that had propped himself up against the side of the bed, looking crossly back at Emily. It was Chris. "I'm back only one night, and you're screaming in my ear! Almost makes me miss prison..." Clearly he was still half asleep, or else he probably wouldn't have brought it up so easily...

Shaking herself both mentally and physically, Emily realized that it had only been a dream seeing Dave collapsed at her feet, body too weak to stand and cock too stiff to ignore. In her head, she envisioned many a stuttered, half-hearted argument back and forth, judgment clouded by the irresistible lure of forbidding and danger. Half-dead, he had used his remaining strength to force her back on the bed, body collapsing on top of her own. Yet instead of keeling over, the young brunette simply tore of his mask so she could see the full extent of the damage, the oozing wounds dripping damp splotches over her face and the pillow, staining the light, cottony fabric a shining, unforgiving scarlet. As the blood dribbled down from his busted lip, spilling over skin barely contained in a skimpy negligee Chris had gotten her last year for her birthday, Emily's fingers found their way into Dave's battered curls, forcing his head down, crushing their lips together in that marvelous salty taste of bloody euphoria... God, she could still taste the mixture of saliva and gore... Jesus fuck, why did it have to feel so real, so incredibly good...?!

Pulling himself back into the bed, rolling over so that he was staring at the ceiling (painted by some cheating whore), he took a brief moment to admire the detail work put into life-size portrait of a certain villain and his right-hand woman. "You know, I never noticed this before. Did you do it all by yourself?"

Still trying to register that this was real and not the phantom of a memory reeling in the cesspool that was her mind, that Chris had actually come back late last night and surprised her for a change, the very impregnated girl was very slow when she nodded. "Yeah, the only help I had was bringing the paint in from the store. I was actually working on it before..." Automatically (just like any time she spoke of the time surrounding the conception of their child), her hand absently skimmed the top of her stomach, gently caressing the baby. "I almost didn't finish it, but with all the paint I still had, I didn't think that that shade of red would be good for a baby's room." That and Dave had convinced her that she would be better off if she kept herself busy during the day, but Chris didn't really need to hear that part.

He thought back to before everything had fallen apart in his life. It had seemed so long ago now... Lifetimes, even. "So that's why the room smelled like shit. I thought it was just you." Made sense - Emily had been in too much of a stupor after her suicide attempt to maintain proper hygiene. "My bad."

Thinking of how - given Chris' incarceration - the homage might upset him, the person largely responsible for decorating their place was quick to please her employer. "If you don't like it, we can always fix-"

"Not while your pregnant we can't." He sat up, looking over at his girlfriend as if she had suddenly lost her mind - although in their case, found probably would have been the correct word for it. "You really want to fuck up our kid before we even have the chance to scar her for life?" He poked her stomach uncertainly, trying his best at what he thought was affection. "I want better than what we had."

His voice echoed something that Dave had been saying, only the strange thing was that it even sounded like the superhero, but that was impossible, because she hadn't seen him once since she had resolved to end the affair. What she didn't know was the fact that Dave himself had come up with his own silent promise to squash this thing once and for all. They tried to avoid the subject as much as they could, but only an idiot could miss what a strain it had been...

Emily shook her head, "Of course not." With all the damage they shared between them, Emily shuddered to think just how much was the case of their parents, especially while they had still been in the womb. "We will be better parents." She flashed a smile she was positive he could see through.

Really, that was her best attempt at trying to be reassuring? Chris knew Emily, and he knew that any given day of the week she would have had more confidence in that statement, so something was obviously bothering her. Whatever it was, it had been for quite some time too...

Disappointed that Chris wasn't fooled, she shot a strange look over his shoulder as he did a genuinely surprising thing and took her into his arms. Locked in the warm embrace, it was with more than a twinge of guilt that Emily looked down at the outfit she had thought belonged to Kick-Ass - it was only an old sweater she had been trying on when Chris had surprised her and walked through the door on his own two legs. The pullover wasn't even remotely close to being any shade of green.

Breaking just enough to look at his long-time girlfriend clearly, something like worry flickering across his otherwise stoically cross features, the billionaire voiced a question that had been plaguing his mind ever since he she got that new friend. He didn't know alot about that friend, but he was aware that they had been spending a rather questionable amount of time together. "Missing him that much?"

If she been holding anything in her hands at that moment, it would have just crashed to the floor...

Because Chris is super rich and super lime-green jello.

Special shout-out to a certain someone, you know who you are, Mr. R, one that will get the rape comment, and hopefully the lime-green jello. I couldn't resist. Anyways, yeah, really appreciating the love this story is getting, and despite my slow updates, I hope it continues to be an interesting read!

Kick-Ass is the property of Mark Millar and John Romita Jr. Emily Vela is mine. Knight, and all minor characters too.