Chapter 5: Runaway

"We just have to say it." Tech said, a determined expression in his caramel eyes. "We just have to invite them over and just blurt it out before they have a chance to cut us off. There's nothing more to it."

"So-you-mean-I-have-to-tell-them." Rev moaned. "Seeing-as-how-I'm-the-only-one-in-the-world-who-c an-talk-faster-than-them."

"Well, you'll give the initial blow but I'll be there to help explain." Tech comforted.

"Tech-they'll-really-skin-you-alive-after-the-sent ence-'I'm-dating-a-guy-who-is-by-the-way-a-coyote' -comes-out." Rev explained. "We-need-to-let-them-know-somewhere-there-are-witn esses."

"Well, they had us over for dinner last week, so why not return the invitation?"

"That's-a-great-idea!" Rev exclaimed. "See-this-is-why-you're-the-genius-Tech,-you-alway s-come-up-with-the-best-plans!" he giggled a little as Tech gave a proud smirk, his hands never pausing in their work with whatever latest invention he was working on. A second later there was a small explotion in the lab.

Duck was walking down the hall when Rev burst through the lab doors, a cloud of smoke following him. Tech wabbled out, his fur blackened and smoking, a look of shocked pain on his face. There was aflash of green light and he stood there, whole and new.

"What did you blow up this time?" Duck asked laughing.

"It was just a slip up, I can fix it." Tech assured him.

"Yeah, but try not to take us all to hell while you're doing so." Duck laughed. Tech growled as the mallard walked on."Oh!" he called over his shoulder. "Marina got into Acmy Tech! She just told me!"

"We-should-throw-her-a-congradulations-dinner." Said Rev before Duck turned the corner. "Friday-night-okay?"

"Yeah, great!"

Tech and Rev grinned at each other. Perfect!

"I'm fine, Ace." Lexi snapped as they walked into the living room. "He's going to do what he's going to do. There's nothing I can do to change that, so why get upset?"

"We can get 'im arreseted for 'arasment, Lex. Ya don't have ta put up wi't his shit." Ace shot back, arms crossed.

"I know that, but he really hasn't DONE anything to classify as harassment." She burst out, tears threatening to overflow for the unteenth time that week. She angrily rubbed them away. Ace walked over and took her into his arms.

"Lex, he grabbed ya arm when ya tried ta walk away from 'im. He was gonna try and drag ya back ta d'at hell whole of a life." Ace told her firmly. "If ya don't wanna involve da police, d'en ya gotta start fight'n back."

"What happened?" Duck asked as he, Tech and Rev walked in, Slam coming overfrom the kitchen.

"Dale." Was all Ace said, Lexi pressing her face into his chest.

"This is getting old. He's tried to approach her how many times this week, four?" Sighed Duck. "Can't we just go egg him or something?"

"He sure gave me more d'an enough reason ta blast 'im ta'day." Ace growled. "We was just walk'n down da street 'n he tried talk'n ta her. Have ta give her maxi, she told 'im ta go home and walked away but da bastard grabbed her. D'ats when I had ta step in. He gave me d'is little beauty." Ace pointed to his black eye. "Next time we sees 'im, he's a dead man."

Duck, Rev and Slam all looked at eachother. They were completely lost. None of them knew why the old guy kept coming after her, or why she was so afraid of him she turned to stone whenever he spoke to her and refused to move till they got her home. She had gotten so tense after the first real encounter with him she shot a brain blast right at Rev and Duck who had tried to help her into the elevator at the observatory. Duck was still sporting a few bruises and Rev still got slightly dizzy if he ran too fast. It hadn't been a kindly blast.

"Can I bring Stephon over?" Marina asked later that day when Duck called her up to tellherabout the dinner they were making for her.

"I'd say yes, but Rev's inviting his parents also. I doubt it would be a good idea to drag him to a dinner where there are three very annoying birds running their beaks." He told her.

"I wanted to introduce him to the guys." She said, a little whine in her voice. "I just know he and Ace would get along perfectly!"

Over the course of the last two weeks, she had been coming over to HQ as often as possible. After her initial anxiety ofmeeting famous, real life heroes, she once again became her open flower self. The others warmed up to her almost as quickly, especially Lexi who they all thought was just happy to finally have a girlfriend in her life to give her a break from all the boys. She and Marina were already making shopping and lunch dates. They've been on three so far, each time Ace or Tech and at least one other teammate observed them from a distance, hanging back in case Dale or one of the Evil Kenevil gang tried anything. Luckily nothing had happened, but as Tech pointed out after they got the news of Mastermind and them's resurface, "Better safe than sorry."

"Yeah, I can see that." He agreed with her, feeling uneasy as he did so. He still got the same pang of paranoia that he had when he first met Stephon whenever he was mentioned. He didn't understand it, but he knew he didn't really want to introduce his teammates to the guy.

"Duck, Zedavia's online." Ace's voice rang over the intercom.

"Gotta run." He told his sister. "Remember, this Friday at 6pm."

"I know, go talk ta your boss." She said before blowing a kiss into the phone and hanging up.

"Leghorn is dead." Zedavia said as soon as Duck entered the room.

"The rich guy who gave us all that sludge he calls food for saving his sports arena?" Tech asked. Zedavia nodded.

"(Aww, no more life supply of chillie.)" Slam graoned, a look of pure loss in his gentle devil eyes.

"Who killed him?" Duck asked.

"They don't know. They want you all to help look over the body and assist them in figuring that out." She said calmly. Duck paled. He had never been good around blood and guts…or death. He looked around.

"Hey, where's Lexi?"

"Sleep'n." wa all Ace said. He turned back to Zedavia. "Tech, Rev and I'll go down 'n see what we can do."

"Great, and Slam and I can stay here and watch Lexi." Duck added hastily.

"What's wrong with her?" Zedavia asked, concern in her gentle voice.

"Mason Dale." Growled Ace, knowing that was all he needed to say.

"He's stocking her, now?"

Ace and Tech nodded, locked jawed.

"Wait, you know about Lexi's step father too?" Duck asked incredulously.

"She told me when I first put you all together." Zedavia explained. "She said she had a feelinghe that he would one day try and find her and she wanted me to help keep an eye out for him. I've been keeping a satellite on him, butI haven't checked it in a while."

"Well, he found her 'n now she's petrified a leav'n HQ 'less it's fer a battle." Ace snarled, feeling a pang of frustration towards his boss. If she had kept a closer eye on Dale, Lexi wouldn't of been caught so off guard. She would still be scared, but maybe, just maybe she could've prepared herself a little better and been able to handle this all mess more successfully.

"Wait, how come all of you guys get to know what's going on but we," Duck indicated Slam, Rev and himself,"don't?"

"It's her story, Duck. If she want's your big bill poking around it she'll tell you." Tech said sternly.

Duck glared and poked his tongue out at him.

"Hey, Duck where's Ace?" Lexi asked as she walked out into the lounge area, rubbing sleep from her eyes. These last couple of days had really took their toll on her emotional stress level.

"Went to confirm that the big rich guy was really flattened by Massive and not a bus." He said dryly as he and Slam flipped through channels. She quirked an eye brow.

"Excuse me?"

"That Leghorn guy. He's dead."

"Why would Massive kill him?" she asked. Duck shrugged.

"What do I look like? One of those psychic people who knows everything?" he asked in a board tone.

"You mean a clairvoyant?" she asked.

"A what?"

She shook her head as she walked into the kitchen. After eating a power snack of yogurt with granola bites, she grabbed a bottle of Marshan Ice Tea (the best old fashion tea found in the galaxy) and headed back to her room.

"I'm gonna try to get more shut eye before they come back. Wake me when they do." She called over her shoulder at the two boys engrossed in the TV.

"Yeah." Was the only reply she got.

As she sat down on her bed, preparing to fall back asleep, she raised the tea to her lips and her eyes fell on the bruise covering her wrist. She sat the drinkdown on her desk and drew back the sleeve of her uniform a little more. The tan fur was slowly starting to turn a soft shade of purplish black. She felt tears start to come to her eyes as she remembered how Dale had twisted her wrist as she tried to walk past him. He had whispered in her face that she had no right to leave him; he had raised her and she owed him for all the money that had gone into sending her to college.

"You sure as hell didn't repay me by stay'n!" he had snarled. "You thought instead you'd get some fancy powers and fight crime! Does that get me my money back?"

Truth be told, it had been the money in her mother's trust fund that had been set up when Lexi was born that had paied for her two year education, but seeing as how her step father believed full heartedly that he owened everything that her mother did, including herself and daughter, the money was rightfully his. Bull shit.

"You go around fighting monsters when you can't even fight the one that counts." He had whispered in her face, the smell of buse hitting her so hard she thought she was going to wretch all over him. "You call me a monster yet you never fight me. You call yourself a hero? Of course, I know that Daddy's little girl won't do anything to me, but if one followed your line of logic, they wouldn't understand you at all. I wonder if your mother would've been proud of you."

Bringing up her mother was low, even for him. Tears were now free falling as she slipped on her boots and gloves. She tied on her mask, drying her face as best she could, before quietly slipping out of her room and walking down to the hanger. She needed to talk to her mom. She needed to get her step father's voice out of her head.

Of course Ace had tried that whole time to get the bastard off of her, but not even he could stop the words from hitting her like a bulldozer. She grabbed her jet pack and flew out of the hanger, racing towards the place she knew she could truly talk to her mother in peace.

Duck was asleep when Ace and the others got back.

"(Was it Massive?)" Slam asked as they walked in, Tech sinking wearily down on the sofa beside him. He nodded, his eyes closed.

"His-bones-were-completely-turned-to-dust." Rev said in his fast pacing tone. "Massive-is-the-only-one-who-could-apply-enough-gr avitational-force-on-a-person-for-that-to-happen."

"Ya don't want ta know what d'a outside a 'im looked like." Sighed Ace. He was exhausted. "Lexi ever wake up?"

"Yeah, but she said she wanted more sleep till you got back." Duck said, stretching and trying to get the mental image of a crushed red haired man out of his head. Ace nodded and walked back towards the bedrooms.

"Well," Tech yawned, "I'm off to bed."

"Night." Duck and Rev said in unison. Before Tech could walk out of the room however, Ace burst back in, a look of pure terror on his usually calm features.

"Where is she Duck!?"

"What!?" Duck asked, startled so much that he actually jumped five feet in the air. "I told you, in her room."

"She's gone."

They all stared before going into massive panic mode.

The wind felt good on her face as she stared out into the distance; the sound of seagulls flying over head filled her ears and took her back to nights years before, sitting here with her mother and fantisizing about getting on a boat and traveling the world. She closed her eyes, allowing her mind to fill with memories so vivid she swore she was actually back in those times.

"You really want to scare us to death, don't you."

She opened her eyes and spun around so fast she was in danger of falling off the dock. Duck grabbed her before she could fall and gave her a stern, very un-Duck like, glare.

"How did you know where I was?"

"I saw you as I was flying overhead." He said smugly. He sat down next to her. "Why did you want to come to this dump?" He gestured to the piles of wooden crates, molding rope connecting dead, splintered wood posts and all general shabbiness of the city docks.

"This 'dump' is an important spot for me." She shot at him. "My mom used to bring me here when ever Dale drank himself unconscious before he could knock her or me out. We used to dream of traveling the world together but…" here she broke off, tears once again falling down her face. "I needed to come here tonight, alone. I needed to talk to my mom."

Duck quirked an eye brow. "I don't see her. Is she hiding?" he made to look behind a stack of boxes but Lexi held him down.

"No, Duck." She said flatly, a look of annoyance on her face making her appear to be normal for just a moment. "She's dead." Her face fell, the last word coming out soft and so low Duck almost missed it. He stared at her. "Dale killed her…here…on this very dock two months before I graduated high school." Her hand that had grabbed his arm to prevent him from moving loosened and fell to her side. He didn't, for once, know what to say.

"I…I didn't…"

"I didn't want anyone to know." She whispered. "But since Dale's back…I might as well tell somebody…" she looked at the water, sill and black in the night.

Lexi looked up at her mother nervously.

"He's asleep." Her mother whispered, stroking her daughter's ears back lovingly. Daughter and mother crept out of the tiny apartment and made their way down the street to the docks. "You'll be graduating high school soon." Her mother said once they were settled on the ledge, feet cooling in the muggy waters. Lexi just nodded. She was looking at a bardge off in the distance, no doubt carrying cargo off to some distant and mysterious land. "What would you like to do after school?"

"Leave."

"Leave where?"

"Anywhere. To another land, another planet. Somewhere where he can't follow." Her mother looked thoughtfully at the water before looking once again at her.

"What if I can't go? Would you still want to leave?" Lexi stared at her mother.

"There's no reason why you can't come, so don't even say that."

"Hanna…your father…"

"he is NOT my father."

"Mason, then, needs me. He'd die without me."

"Mom, you'll die WITH him. You're doing it again!" she was getting pissed now, beyond frusterated. They had had this argument before and she was getting tired of it. "You're always coming up with some reason or another why you can't leave him when you CAN! You can leave the apartment more than once a month! You can kick his ass out and get your life back! I don't even have to finish school, we could leave now, tonight." She had taken her feet out of the water and was kneeling infront of her mother, looking pleadingly at her.

"You need to finish school, Hanna, you have to get your education."

"I can't keep living with him, mom. Do you know what he does to me? Do you know what happens when you get knocked out?" her mother wouldn't look at her. She slowly nodded her head.

"Yes, baby, I do. God, I know what he's done to you and for the life of me I wish I had never invited him into our lives…but-"

"Wait…you knew? You KNEW all this time and you let it go on? You knew what he did…what he's STILL doing and you STILL think we need to stay with him?"

"Would you rather go back to the shelter?" her mother asked, looking up at her daughter at last.

"HELL FUCKING YES!" Lexi shot out. "Anything would be paradise compared to living with him!"

"I can't go back there,Hanna. You don't know what I had to do just to keep you safe there. That life, staying up all knight so no one messed with us, making sure that no other woman tried to claim you as their daughter and use you to get out of that hell whole themselves, trying to make sure you always got enough to eat, giving up my meals half days to ensure that, I can't go back."

Lexi just stared at her mother. She stared at her gaunt figure, stringy pale hair falling into her colorless eyes. They had once been as bright as the stars, it had been along time ago and that particular memory was faint, but Lexi still remembered nonetheless. She had never really looked at her mother before. Not like she was looking now. Now, instead of seeing a frightened woman who was in the same boat as her, she saw a coward who cared more about her own safety than her daughter's. Even though she didn't seem to particularly care about herself either seeing as how she willingly stayed with a drunken abuser. Whoever this woman sitting infront of her was, it was not the strong proud mother she knew and loved. This woman was a stranger, a skeletal husk of what her mother had been.

"You bitch." She whispered. "You cowardly bitch. You would rather risk getting beaten to death and let your own daughter get violated everynight than do the right thing; do the strong thing." She was shaking and her hands were going numb from shock. "I've had it. I won't finish school. I'll leave, tonight, without you and you can stay here and wither away if that's what you want to really do but either way I'm gone by sunrise."

"Hanna, please." Her mother pleaded. "At least stay till you finish school. He's already taken your childhood…don't let him take your ticket to a good future too." Her eyes were wide and pleading and weak. Lexi couldn't bare to look at them.

"Like you give a rabbit's lucky foot what kind of future I have. You just don't want to suffer him alone. You're so fucking pathetic!" her mother covered her mouth, tears springing to her already too wide eyes. But before she could say anything, a loud noise came somewhere behind a stack of crates. Fearfully, Lexi's mother pushed her daughter behind another large box.

"Be quiet, please." She whispered.

"Maggie!" Lexi peered through a crack in her shield of boxes and saw Dale storm up to her mother, either not seeing or not caring about his step daughter. "What the hell do you think you're doing out here? Planning on leaving me?" his words were slurred and Lexi could tell, even from her hiding place, that he was heavily intoxicated. She heard her mother try and speak calmly to him, to reassure him that she was just getting some fresh air and that she was just about to come back home. "Don't give me that you bitch!" he shouted. "You want to leave? You should have just said so, I'll help you leave!"

Lexi's eyes over flowed with tears as she told Duck the story.

"He held her down under the water till she drowned." She choked out, her shoulders shaking and her knees drawn up to her chest. "The last thing my mother heard me say to her was that she was pathetic. He went home and made it look like she had skipped town, abandoned us. They couldn't even find enough evidence to arrest him let alone convict."

Duck was stunned beyond words. He had no idea what he could say or do that would sound sensere enough.

"That's why I can't do anything about him now. They didn't believe me then…why would they believe me now?" she was looking at him, pleading him to give her a reasonable answer. But he was lost. He'd rather try and figure out Tech's latest invention on his own than try and give a logical explanation of why she wasn't being taken seriously by the brainless cops. He gripped her shoulder in what he hoped was a reassuring touch.

"This time…you have back up." He finally said. "We are all behind you one hundred and ten percent. I may not understand all of what that bastard did to you…but I know enough to want to egg him into the next life and beyond. Your mom knows you feel bad about what you said…I know she does." Lexi whiped her eyes and looked questioningly at him. "My own mom died…in a car reck. My dad…felt guilty…so guilty that he hung himself the night of the funeral…but I know she didn't blame him. It's the same with your mom. You've spent your life since she died fighting for other people…you're strong, independent and give a mean brain blast. You can even beat me up, ME, Lexi. That's saying something…" For once she smiled at his annoying boastfullness. "You grew up to be the kind of woman she wanted you to be, one who fights back and one who has a good future. You made something of yourself, and I think that's what really counts." He gave her a smile as he helped her to her feet.

She thought about telling him what her step father had told her that afternoon but decided against it. There was only so much emotional crap she could handle in one night. She threw her arms around him in a greatful hug. "You're a good friend, Duck."

"I'm a 'best' friend." He corrected her, hugging her back. Just then his communicator went off.

"Duck, you have'n any luck? We can't find her anywere!" Ace's voice rang out in mear hysteria.

"Calm down, Bunny, I got her." Duck said. "We're heading back to HQ now, don't have an Easter Egg."

"Duck, please don't tell anyone what I said." She asked before they took off for home. He grinned at her.

"hey, it's your story, Lexi. If you want their big noses in it you can tell them."

…Devilish prick aint he? But, aww, Duck you're such a great guy! I know this story is going a bit slow, sorry…lol but there's like one more slow chapter before things start to…'rev up' lol it's after midnight again so my jokes are really bad…anyhow, just type a little comment in that box at the bottom there and then hit that pretty little 'next' button. I will say that next chapter is clean but TechxRev fans will LOVE and HATE it…READ ON MY PRETTIES!