25. Bad Publicity part 3 final
She stood with her shadow facing the bamboo forest. Her tiny wisps of bangs blown in a downdraft of wind.
She said to me:
"I can't help but think about it, Jordan. One day…all of our training…all of our work…all the power we've gained…it will all be seen. Someway. Somehow. It will manifest itself. And all three of us…we will somehow have to deal with a world that sees us for what we truly are. There can be so much glory in that……yet at the same time, so much hate. It……………I-It kinda sorta keeps me up at night. I can't stop thinking about what I'll have to do…what we'll all have to do…when the world learns of us three. Master's protection can't last forever. And as much as he wants us living in secret……well…eternity may argue differently."
There was a period of silence. And then she looked at me. Her bright blue eyes thinned as she suddenly giggled and ran a hand through her short blonde hair.
"Jordan?? Are you l-listening to a single word I'm saying? Hehehehehehe."
------
"How's the wound feeling, Noir?"
I snapped awake and looked up at Cyborg. I looked at my bandaged shoulder, managed a weak smile, and lifted a thumb's up.
"Good thing it didn't strike anything too important," Cyborg said. "The bullet, that is."
I nodded.
He walked back across the Main Room. "I suggest not using it much. Which means…you'll be backup on the next mission we have. Nothing more."
I sighed, leaned my chin on my good hand, and stared out the window.
"If it helps relieve the pain it all…," Cyborg rambled from the other side of the room, "…you've been a good sport about it."
I glanced back at him…then looked over towards the kitchen area.
Raven sat on a stool with a mug of tea on the counter. She was absolutely still…as if staring off into the wall.
After a beat or two, I got up—wincing—and stepped over to where she was. I stood behind her. Silently.
I sensed her blinking once. She spoke without a rise or fall of her shoulders: "It's healing too quickly. It's too good to be true."
I smirked.
Hi, Raven.
"I suggest you join us in counting our lucky stars," Cyborg said. "Lord knows we got out of there without a media-brainwashed mob wringing our necks."
Raven swiveled about in her stool and faced him. "There shall be repercussions yet," Raven said. "Just you wait and see."
"Heheh….love you too, Raven."
She frowned at Cyborg, sighed, then glanced up at me.
I glanced down at her.
She glanced back.
"……," she stared. "What, want me to do a cheer or something?"
I shook my head. Smiling.
"Stop smiling."
I shrugged.
She sighed. "I never thought I'd hear me say this…but I miss having another girl in the Tower."
"You mean Beast Boy?" Cyborg chuckled.
"I am so out of here…," Raven stood up, took her mug, and headed for the elevator. "Cyborg, I still need to go over the report from our last battle with the gunmen."
"You going to do that now?"
"I was thinking so."
Cyborg stopped what he was doing and headed for the elevator too. "I'll join you."
"Fine by me," Raven sighed from where she sat and watched Cyborg approach. "As long as I'm only with one of you morons at a time."
"Awwwww…come on, Raven! You love us!"
"Pfft…fat chance," Raven said…then glanced at the floor for some reason.
I watched. I looked up at Cyborg.
"Take it easy, Noir," he smiled. "Real easy—"
The doors closed and they descended.
I was alone.
I sighed and looked around the empty Meeting Room.
My shaded eyes caught sight of a blinking light far away on a single computer console.
I shuffled slowly over to it and pressed a keyboard.
A screen blipped to life with an alert in a browser window.
I maximized it and read a message from the local authorities: 'Suspect Shawn Clydeston on the loose after local sighting at a robbed gun store. History of domestic violence and drug use. Considered highly dangerous. Conducting search in Western District of the City.'
I scratched my chin with my good hand.
I glanced back at the elevator.
A beat.
I glanced back at the monitor.
Silence.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
"What is your final assessment of the Teen Titans, Mr. Glover?"
"The same as it was to begin with! The bloody confrontation that happened today only proves everything I've ever said about them to begin with! Everywhere the Teen Titans raise their fists, a massacre of justice is bound to happen! They say that they keep our streets clean…they make them red to begin with! At least they will if we let them keep getting out of hand like they have! It is an atrocity, and we citizens of the City are fooling ourselves and throwing away our future if we let things stay as they are!"
"What of the two drivers of the armored care they saved? What of the gas station they kept from blowing up?"
"Didn't you hear what the police had to say?? The suspects were TAUNTING the Teen Titans! They wanted them to arrive and create havoc. It's one thing to have an underworld of crime, you see. But to have an underworld battling an overworld of vigilantes….well…it leaves us on the ground with much thunder and lightning to deal with, if you catch my drift."
"What is it you propose, sir? That is…with dealing with the 'menace' of the Teen Titans that you keep referring to."
"Oh, I intend to appeal to legislature. The Vigilante Protection Acts must be undone if we want a sane system to live under. Not to mention a safe and properly functioning one too."
"Sounds like it may be a rough battle in store for you."
"A battle worth fighting for, my good man. A battle worth fighting for…."
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
As Blake Glover stepped out of the t.v. studio, his assistant Avery was waiting for him.
"How'd it go?"
"Nominal," the balding man huffed. "I could feel the cast and crew of the show resisting me all the way to the finish. Even the freakin' camera men."
"Not your area of the neighborhood?" Avery smirked.
"It just means I have to try harder," Glover grunted. "In all my years of journalism, Avery. I've not lost an argument. Not lost ONE!"
"What about that candidate running for mayor in '98?" Avery asked. "You were wrong in predicting his outcome."
"He doesn't count," Glover frowned. "He shot himself in the neck with a crossbow."
"Twenty years on the landscaping committee will do that to you, I suppose."
"Anyways, that's history," Glover said, heading for his car parked across the lot in the sunset. "The future will be here soon…and I expect it to be a smart one."
"When you say 'smart', you mean Teen Titanless, sir……right?"
Glover glared at Avery. "Were you born yesterday?"
The man smiled, saluted, and said: "Sometimes, sir, I wish I was."
"I'll talk to you tomorrow. I'd love a copy of the police interviews in the morning."
"Understood. Have a safe trip, sir."
"Thank, you, Avery."
The men parted ways.
Avery to his car.
Glover to his.
When the balding man reached his automobile, he fumbled for his keys, muttering light cussings of frustration as he attempted to remind himself where they were located. After a thorough search of….himself, he struck gold. He was about to fit the key into the ignition when he caught sight of a figure in a soiled turtleneck walking hurriedly—anxiously—towards the far side of the street adjacent to the t.v. studio's lot. He looked around—as if certain of being watched (and somehow avoiding Glover's gaze)—and hobbled down the steps leading into the City's Subway station.
Glover shrugged it off.
He unlocked his car.
Got in.
Took a deep sigh.
And put his keys into the ignition.
He turned around to back out…and froze.
A familiarly tall, thin figure was walking in the identical direction as the suspicious man. But this man was even more suspicious…for he certainly had to have been in pursuit of the former.
Glover squinted his aging eyes for focus.
The figure was draped in a long, brown cloak of sorts. It was as if he was hiding something in his arms.
Or an arm entirely.
As the person swiftly, gracefully twirled about to march down the stairs…Glover caught a thin sliver of the man's arm from under the cloak.
A sliver of white bandage.
"Well I'll be….," Glover smirked to himself. He looked around the parking lot. No one was watching him. He turned around again…smiled. "This is too good," he mumbled to himself and jumped out of the car in a flash.
Checking once more to make sure no one was observing him, he quickly made his way out of the parking lot, across the street, and down into the depths of the subway.
Cautiously…
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Glover rounded a corner and stared down into the ticket gates.
He saw the cloaked figure paying his way through, then angling around to wait at the tracks.
There were a few more people down there than above ground. The late afternoon commutes were taking people homeward. To keep from looking conspicuous, Glover slowly walked his way into the center of the hallway, patiently made his way through the ticket gates, bought a ticket to….somewhere…and followed the figure onward down the platform besides the tracks.
He squinted eyes to see beyond the crowd of patient commuters waiting for the subway train. Against a wall, casually leaning, was the figure in the brown cloak.
Glover's heart jumped.
He's wearing dark shades!
He immediately reached for his cell phone. He pressed a speed dial and put the instrument to his ear.
It rang.
The young man in shades and cloak ran a hand through his long, black hair.
It rang.
Glover walked besides a pillar, 'hiding'.
It rang.
His eye caught sight of the arm of a soiled turtle-neck several feet away.
It rang---a voice picked up.
"Hello?"
"Avery! It's me!"
"Lemme guess. Car trouble?"
"Just listen to me. I've spotted the sword-swinging Titan."
"You have?"
"He's in the subway right now. Undercover. I think he's chasing someone. I'm paying him the same respect right now and he couldn't possibly know it."
"Sir…are you sure that's safe?"
"I don't care what it is!" Glover peered around from behind the pillar. The figure was gone. He looked to the left. The figure was standing in front of the edge of the platform. His hands in his cloak's pocket. The lights and sounds of the subway train were approaching. "Just do me a favor and assemble the usual guys promptly! Tell them I'll pay them time and a half if they just assemble at the northernmost station. We're headed that way now, I think."
"Okay. I'll do what I can. Just be careful, sir."
"This might be the chance of a lifetime, Avery," Glover proudly smirked. The subway car rolled in. Urban wind blew at his balding hair. "Who knows what pathetic thing this 'Noir' is planning to do undercover. Drugs? Ties to the mafia? Go figure."
"Don't try to get too sensational."
"I'll let the real world do the work for me, Avery. Over and out."
He hung the phone up, dropped it in his pocket, and readjusted his suit as the train car came to a close.
People filed in and out. The shaded figure in the brown cloak entered a few cars ahead of Glover.
Glover chose the car closest to him and leaned on a pole in the middle. A few minutes later, the doors closed and the subway went into motion. He was heading northward.
They were…
After a minute, Glover felt it was safe. He squinted through the windows of the shaking subway doors leading towards the front of the train. He stepped forward, reaching from pole to pole to steady him. He reached the door, shook the handle, and slid it open. He emerged in the next car. A person or two looked at him. He simpered, cleared his throat, and advanced forward while trying to make it look not so obvious.
The train car shook its way along the tracks. Every now and then, a juncture of sorts would be reached. The lights would blink out. Passing lights from outside the car would strobe the insides. Then everything would return to normal. The whole while, the grinding of the tracks and zooming-by of the exterior structures echoed against the rusted innards of the old transit system turning everything into an ambiance of industrial madness.
Glover smirked.
He made it to the next car door and looked in.
The lights strobed, but he managed to see a cloaked figure at the far end—at the door in the other car—exit and approach the interior of the first car in the train.
Ah HA!
Glover stumbled into the next car—too abruptly for his own taste. He cursed himself mentally and crept forward through the car. Only a sleeping bum could have paid him any attention. He was past him in a second and leaning against the glass of the last door. He peered through. There were quite a few people sitting down in that car. He couldn't seem to spot the figure in brown for some reason.
For a minute there, Glover thought about staying back. If he walked in, surely he would stir attention. He hadn't given into the thought that someone inside the subway might actually recognize him from the t.v. But then again, nobody was shrieking or making a reaction of any sort at the Titan's presence. So Glover felt the urge he needed to prompt his hand towards the door and---
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
I heard the door rustle to my left side.
I stayed absolutely still.
Only when the figure was a few feet ahead of me did I look up. But he was not the person I was looking for. In fact…
My whole body froze and my heart skipped a beat. I tried not to show it. When one's eyes are so camouflaged by a dark pair of shades, it gets to be a little bit easier—in theory—to avoid the display of shock or sudden emotion. But inside of me it was a struggle not to either jump out the window or stand up and punch the man.
It took Glover a few seconds to turn around. His eyes made contact with mine. Quite stupidly, he passed off as if there was no contact at all between us. He abruptly made for the far end of the car, sat down, and faced me.
I faced him.
He faced me back.
Bodies rocked and swayed with the jolts of the train between us.
But our eyesights never broke.
And yet, at the same time, I wasn't focused on his face. I was watching the things around me.
Waiting….
Waiting for….
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
…the door slid open.
Glover looked up. He was sitting besides a young woman and her six year old daughter.
A thin figure stood in the door, wearing a grimy turtle-neck.
"Mommy…I miss ballet lessons…"
"Awww…I know, Sweetie. Mommy's gonna get you back into ballet. Just…Mommy's really busy lately. All I ask is that you wait patiently and know I care. I love you very much."
"Will you come to one of my shows?"
"Most certainly!" the mother smiled.
"Hehehehehe!"
The door closed behind the thin figure. He wandered over to a pole and leaned against it. His eyes….were on Glover.
Or so he could swear. Glover started to sweat. He looked over at the Titan.
The Titan looked back.
"The train is too bumppppppy…."
"It's okay, darling. We'll be home soon."
"Do you have to be at the restaurant again, Mommy?"
"Not until tomorrow afternoon."
"You mean, we can watch cartoons together tonight?"
"Hehehehe…sure, why not?"
The man kept staring.
Glover looked up.
Suddenly, the man walked over. Glaring. He stopped in front of the seat.
Glover gulped.
Just then, the child looked up. She blinked. "Daddy?"
The mother was quick to look. She half stood. "Shawn….what are you—"
"You're traveling about quite often these days, Bernice," said the man in the soiled turtleneck. His face was halfway between a grin and the gutter. "Life got you fleeing underground?"
The girl suddenly clung to the mother.
'Bernice' put a hand on her daughter's shoulder, swallowed, and murmured: "Shawn….th-the restraining order—"
"Hide behind what you want," the man sneered. "You think you can take my own child away from me?"
The mother frowned.
"Wh-Who're you talking about, Daddy?" the little girl quivered.
He bent over, smiled, and said: "Why, you, precious—"
"STOP IT, SHAWN!!" the woman suddenly shrieked and clutched her child close to her. Everyone in the subway car looked over. "You have the guts to break every law in the book to come here and torment our little girl!! Do you ever learn?! After all you've done, do you ever le—"
"Shut your mouth or I'll rip open a new one in the back of your neck…," the man shook.
The mother's eyes twitched. The girl started sobbing.
Glover trembled. He looked at the couple. He looked at the Titan.
He was stock still. But his shoulders were up higher by his neck. His legs were locked straight.
"Now…do we have to argue again?" Shawn said menacingly. "You know how the little one hates that….'honey'…"
A random man stood up from the opposite side of the car, bravely walked over, and put a hand on Shawn's shoulder. "Look….sir…I don't think you're doing that woman any good—"
Shawn spun around, reached inside his shirt, and whipped out a pistol.
BLAM!!!!!
Blood sprayed across Glover's knee and the subway train's floor. The balding man gasped.
The wounded fellow clutched his forearm and started screaming. He keeled over in pain as a panicked pair of occupants knelt over him and tended to the bleeding.
"SHUT THE HELL UP!! ALL OF YOU!!!" Shawn shouted.
The Titan stood still. Glaring from beneath his shades.
Glover trembled.
The man spun around, teeth gritting. He struck his ex-wife across the cheek with the handle of his gun. She fell to the floor with a grunt.
"Mommy!" the girl dashed to her, but not without being grabbed roughly by the arm and hoisted up by her 'Daddy'.
"She's coming home with me!!" Shawn screeched, waving the pistol. "You have them all on your side, you bitch!!" he shouted down at the shocked woman. "The judge…the doctors…the police. They had no reason to lock me up. NO REASON!!"
"Shawn! Let her go! Please!" the woman sobbed.
"NO!!!!" the man forced the barrel of the gun into his shivering daughter's cheek. Everyone on the train shrieked. "NOOOO!!! She's my daughter!! She wouldn't be here without me! You wouldn't be here without me! Nobody…N-Nobody understands! You're all trying to ruin my damn life so maybe I'll just—STOP CRYING!!!"
"Mommmmmmyyyyy!!" the little girl sobbed.
"Hang on, Jessica, it'll be o-okay—" the mother helplessly sobbed from the floor.
"SHUT UP!!! SHE'S NOT YOURS ANYMORE!! YOU LOST YOUR CHANCE!!"
Glover's lips quivered. He looked at the situation. He stammered shortly: "I…I-I think—"
"What?!?!" Shawn aimed his gun at his face. "You want to go first, old fart?!?!"
Glover's hands went up. "N-N-No sir!! P-Please…just….no…."
"Everybody listen!!" Shawn suddenly, crazily announced to the train. He spoke above the family's sobbing and the wounded man's screams as he cackled: "I want this all to end now!! I told the judge to give me one more chance!! But the stupid ass is on her damn side!! Everybody's on her side!! And I know it!! She's trying to ruin my life. Nobody believes me!! They tell me I'm thinking things that I shouldn't be!! She's got every doctor in town on her side!! It's about time I make myself clear!! Either I get what I want, or I put a bullet into my own daughter's neck!! You'd like that, wouldn't you?! A grown man, shooting his own daughter?! You're all on her side!! Damn you all! Damn you all if I don't just do it!! If I don't just freakin' do it!!"
Glover hyperventilated.
The train rocked.
The bleeding man on the floor screamed.
The passengers scurried against the seats and walls and the mother and daughter kept sobbing.
"I SAID SHUT UP!!!" Shawn shouted, sweating bullets. Psychotic.
The Titan poised.
Glover's eyes twitched as he watched.
"FOR THE LAST TIME!"
In slow motion, Shawn pointed the gun down….and outward…at the mother.
The train momentarily turned dark and strobed against his soiled, long-sleeve.
And that's when….
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
…I took a breath, sprung forward, and exploded out from my cloak.
Myrkblade emerged from hiding, shredding the outward article of clothing into a hundred, blown shards.
I streaked towards Shawn's back.
Glover's eyes went wide.
At the last second, I charged up murk. My body turned into the shifting form of smoke as I teleported with a swing of my sword directly through Shawn's body and the body of his child. When I remerged through their chests, I solidified my blade first.
And it struck dead-center in the pistol.
CRAAAAAAAAACK!!!!
The gun flew apart in slow motion. Bullets rained towards the floor.
Shawn dropped his grip of his daughter.
Slowly his eyes went wide.
A drop of saliva dangled out of the corner of his psychotically taunt lips.
I exhaled.
SWOOOOSH-WHUMP!!
Time resumed as the rest of my body solidified. I elbowed him in the chest, forcing him to bend over. I then uppercutted his chin with the hilt of my sword, spun around, and struck him broad-side across the chest. He flew back against a window of the subway train and had only half a second to moan before I swiftly spun about and high-kicked him directly in the face.
SMACK!!!
Cracks formed in the glass behind his skull before he eventually fainted and dropped down with a slump to the subway train's floor.
I stood still. Panting. Panting. Panting. Panting.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
Panting. Panting. Panting.
Glover wiped the sweat from his brow.
He couldn't stop hyperventilating.
His head was dizzy.
He took notice of the Titan looking down at the people tending to the wounded. He knelt down, removed a bandana from his pocket, and reached in…tying it around the man's shoulder above the wound to halt the bleeding.
"I-I'm a registered nurse," said a nervous occupant to the Titan. "He should be okay. Good thing j-just his arm was hit and not his chest. He'll be okay if we get him to medics quickly."
The Titan nodded. He pointed to the other passenger and then towards the front of the train.
A woman nodded: "I-I'll go tell the authorities." She hurried off through a nearby door.
The man on the floor gripped his pained limb and moaned dramatically. "It hurts….it hurts…"
"I know…," said the offtime nurse. "It's okay. You're going to be allright. We just need to get that looked at."
"Pleeeeeease….make it stop," he moaned, shedding adult tears.
There was a set of sobs from the other end of the train.
The Titan looked over.
The mother was huddled in a fetal position on the floor. Looking into the nothingness beyond the unconscious body of her ex husband.
At the same time, her young daughter called out for her. "Mommy," she sobbed, rubbing her eyes. "Mommy…say something. Mommy!"
Glover looked at the two…then nervously up at the Titan.
The Titan looked at the mother…then at the child…then at the mother again.
The child beckoned. But the mother was frozen still in shock.
Slowly, the Titan knelt down, and scooped the child up in his arms. Desperate, she clutched ahold of him in his embrace and sobbed over his shoulder. He gently breathed a gentle shush and rocked her body to drown out the sobs and moans.
"I don't want to diiiiiiiiie. Oh goddddd, it hurts so bad…..so bad…..so bad…."
Glover stared at the scene.
Eventually, the Titan stared back. And they were tired eyes.
The balding man's throat became sore.
-T-T-T-T-T-T-
The sun was just over the horizon.
Before nighttime fell, the strobes of an ambulance lit the path for paramedics to carry a recovering gunshot victim into the vehicle and off to the local hospital.
A few feet away, the mother and daughter stood together, listening to the words of a police officer. The mother nodded her head and barely glanced at two enforcers carrying a limping Shawn away into the back of a squad car, handcuffed. The man was mumbling something incoherent and sobbing.
I didn't want to look.
I sat on a curb, staring off into space. My good arm played with a deck of cards in its palm.
I took a deep breath.
Silence.
And then….
"You know….I always thought what the 'real deal' was…"
I slowly glanced over my bandaged shoulder.
Glover stood, hands shaking, as he lit a cigarette. He mumbled. "Don't mind me. Haven't smoked in….years…"
He took a puff, coughed. His eyes watered…perhaps from the smoke. Perhaps not. His balding head suddenly looked as hollow as his eyes.
"But….the real deal is something else entirely," he mumbled, slowly facing me with a trembling expression. "I've….kept trying to see life through video cameras and interviews and penstrokes. But…..But…."
A pause.
He pointed a shaking finger down the subway…down into the Earth.
"THAT'S real….," he gulped. "And I don't like it one bit."
I shrugged. I looked away.
He must have felt that.
He walked over and shuffled to a standing position besides me. "You…..you deal with stuff like that all the time, don't you?" he asked.
I glanced up at him. I said nothing.
"And yet….you don't shake. You don't tremble. You just……breeze right through it. Do you know where I'm coming from?"
I stared down at the asphalt. I sighed.
And then he said: "How can anyone….anyone….anyone….who goes through that be blamed for what they do?"
That made me look up at him.
He wasn't fishing for a response. He was similarly dazed. Exhausted.
"You go through hell like that all the time…," he muttered under his breath. "You must….so others won't have to anymore."
I blinked underneath my shades. I looked for the first time directly at the mother and daughter. The police officer was elsewhere as the two hugged desperately on a sidewalk. The girl was shaking and the mother was crying.
A weak smile on her face.
I bit my lip.
"…I think….I think it is I who…wh-who needs to consider a reform," Blake Glover said. He dropped his cigarette. Stomped on it. And readjusted his suit with trembling fingers. "I…I-I think I need to…..cut back. Relax. Enjoy life….wh-what's left of it."
I stared at him.
He saw something in the distance, cleared his throat, and walked off. When he was in the middle of the street, he turned around and looked at me. He struggled for something to say. His face meandered between pain, fear, and remorse.
I cut him short with a smile.
He exhaled. Nodded his head, and smirked ever so slightly. Then, in awkward fashion, he swiveled around and shuffled over to a limousine where Avery and three cameramen stood, awaiting his footsteps with curious expressions on their faces.
A few minutes after, they drove off…and in drove another car.
A blue and white car.
It came to a stop, hummed, and then cut the engine.
The window rolled down automatically and Cyborg leaned his head out.
"You know….you had Raven and I worried sick," he said.
I nodded with a sigh.
"We could just about kill you right now."
I scratched my neck.
And then, Cyborg smiled. "But at the same time…I think you saved us all a headache from that bozo for eternity to come."
I looked up at him and smiled slightly back.
He motioned with his cranium. "Hop on, hero. We're going home."
I quickly obliged. I shuffled the cards away into the deck and into my pocket. I got up, walked into the passenger's seat, and buckled up.
"Lemme ask just one thing…," he said as he turned the key in the ignition again. "Did you plan all that just now?"
I looked at him. I exhaustedly gestured.
'I never plan pain.'
Cyborg nodded. "Of course not. Like the rest of us, you just answer to it."
I didn't even have to answer that.
"Whatever you do, no spitting on the dashboard," Cyborg winked.
That was enough to make me smile then. But after the drive home, when I was in my bed and in my room where nobody could see me, I quietly cried myself to sleep.