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Gosling 2.3

Taylor waited with bated breath as Grue continued to communicate with Tattletale over the phone. It wasn't particularly hard to tell that something had gone wrong with the tone of his voice and the unconscious bodies of the mercenaries that they had left behind as they had travelled to the Boardwalk.

Though, perhaps she should have expected that. When the goose was involved, things going wrong was less of a chance and more of an expectation. If you were dealing with it, the starting point was expecting everything to go wrong. Especially plans. She had learned that the hard way, multiple times. Thinking otherwise would only get you blindsided by some random bullshit.

As Grue hung up and turned to her, Taylor waited expectantly, looking at his skull mask as he stood still, not moving or speaking. His arms hung loosely by his sides, his burner phone in one hand that seemed almost on the verge of falling out of it.

"Our boss, Coil, has been... well, rendered mostly ineffective."

His voice was shaky. Unsure. Confused even.

Taylor didn't know what to make of it.

"What... what do you mean by that?"

"Apparently his base of operations was compromised. He's still active but most of his assets, and therefore our assets, have been seized by the Protectorate. Apparently, a fight nearby caused a hole to be blown into his base which revealed his location. The goose was... also involved."

Of course, it was.

"...so what does this mean for our plans?"

"I-... I don't know..."

Again, Grue sounded lost. Taylor didn't quite understand why but she could guess. Hearing that your boss had been taken down probably wasn't good for morale.

Taylor sympathized with him. A lot.

"So from what I'm getting, we're down one base of operations and all of our support?"

Grue looked up at Taylor. She wondered what expression he had on his face behind his skull mask. Was it one of confusion? Uncertainty? Fear?

"Coil still has access to some of his funds... but in broad terms yes. This... is this even worth it anymore?

The last part was almost whispered, a rhetorical question but Taylor heard it all the same.

And her blood ran cold. Was he... giving up?

No. I can't allow that.

"It is worth it."

Grue turned to her, his skull mask facing directly across from her as he stood silently in the middle of the alleyway.

"Is it?"

Taylor faltered. Grue's mask seemed more imposing than ever and suddenly she was brought right back to that other alleyway, where they had first met. This was a supervillain. She had forgotten that in the chaos of joining forces and planning, but she was reminded of that now. While Grue and the rest of the Undersiders may be better than most, they were still villains for a reason.

Yet despite that, Taylor refused to allow that to stop her from doing what she knew had to be done if she was to have any chance of getting the goose out of her life once and for all. That would be akin to conceding defeat to the goose even if it was a minor one, and she could not, would not allow that.

"It is. Look, the goose isn't going to stop just because you've decided to ignore it. I tried that, hell, both the ABB and Merchants barely even knew that it even existed before it decided to fuck them over for no reason at all. You live here, right? Well, the city isn't going to get any safer from this point on, it's only going to get worse and our only way of avoiding catastrophe is to put a stop to the goose, whatever way we can, before it makes things worse, and trust me, it will."

There was a lull in the conversation as Taylor took a moment to take a breath in. Grue seemed to be mulling over her words, as he stood in silence as well, unmoving and unresponsive.

Eventually, the silence was broken.

"...you do have a point. For fucks sake..."

Grue let out a deep, tired groan before he took her arm in his hand. Taylor almost flinched at the sudden contact but managed to rein herself in as the supervillain nodded to her.

"So... what now?"

"It looks like you might have to stay away from your house a little longer. We have to be ready to act at a moment's notice now that we can't rely on Coil to cover for us anymore. Are you fine with that?"

Am I?

She had made a big deal about having to home the day before but... with the city and the Undersiders vulnerable, could she just go back home, knowing that the goose was on the loose?

"...yea. Let's go back."

Her dad could wait. Hopefully. Even if it caused a pang of guilt in her chest as she thought about how worried he probably was. She would have to call him at some point though. Not from the burner phone Tattletale had given her, she didn't trust the supervillain for a second, but perhaps she could borrow a phone from a passerby if she got the chance.

Of course, she couldn't do it in the mask she was wearing, but hopefully, there would be a chance for that at some point.

As Taylor was deep in thought, Grue turned away from her and looked down the alleyway from which they had come. The next time he spoke, his voice was much firmer, and unlike before, there was now conviction in his voice.

"Alright. We'll go back the way we came, but we'll avoid the mercenaries. Tattletale said that there were Protectorate capes in pursuit of them, they might have found them by now."

"Got it. So we return to base, what then?"

"...we were planning on waiting until someone called a meeting. It was bound to happen sooner rather than later with the chaos going on in the city. The plan was initially to meet up with you and go there once it happened, but it looks like we... I mean Coil's going to have to be the one to pull the trigger."

"A meeting? With who?"

"Who else? The other villains in the city. All of them."

Tayor blinked.

"Wait hold on, what do you mean who else? You're going to bring me to a meeting with Lung and Kaiser? You can't be serious..."

"What else can we do?"

Taylor stared at the supervillain with incredulity.

"Oh I don't know, go to the Protectorate maybe!? Work with them, at least until the current crisis has passed? You know, the guys whose whole job is keeping the city safe from... from shit like this!?"

Grue sighed.

"They won't let us go at the end of a cooperation like that."

"Wha- how do you know that!? I mean come on, this is something that affects the entire city! Surely they can see the bigger picture here."

"Maybe some of them can... but others just don't care. Director Piggot for one. And... some capes as well. Look, we've had bad experiences, all right? Some heroes aren't as heroic as you may think."

Taylor looked at Grue. Really looked at him. He didn't seem to be lying. There was something more behind those words. A story perhaps.

She shook her head. That meant nothing. He was a supervillain and she was only working with him for the sake of convenience and nothing more.

"You can't seriously expect me to believe that going to Lung and Kaiser is a better idea than going to the Protectorate."

"The villains in the city have met in circumstances like this before when a greater threat arrived in the city. Such as the last time the nine came into town. You want the goose dead right? Well, the other villains are the best way to make that happen. Trust me."

Taylor didn't know how to respond to that. Trust him? She... could she? He was a supervillain. One that had helped kidnap her. But he, and even the rest of the Undersiders, didn't seem like terrible people. As much as she didn't like how they had met, there were definitely worse outcomes for a kidnapping than a temporary alliance. Also, the Undersiders were similar ages to her, and as much as she hated to admit it, they had been the first people to not treat her like dirt in a very long time.

And of course, the goose still needed to die.

"...fine. But for the record, I would like to say that this is a terrible idea."

Grue nodded and began to walk away from Taylor as he gave his response.

"I don't disagree... but it's the best choice we have."

As Taylor followed him back to the Undersiders base, she wondered if that truly was the case.

(~)

It didn't take long to return to the base, the pair avoided the downed henchmen as they went, and soon enough they were right back where they had started.

Taylor found this a tad irritating, but she quelled the feeling.

That being, said the sound of shouting within the house that the Undersiders used as a base that could be heard from outside it did not encourage her as to the situation.

Grue seemed to linger at the doorstep and Taylor waited behind him as he seemed to compose himself for a moment before he moved to push the door open.

That was before it slammed open by itself, knocking Grue's hand away as he winced in pain.

"I'M LEAVING! GOODBYE!"

The familiar figure of Tattletale was standing in the doorway, back turned to Taylor and Grue as she yelled back into the house before turning in place, only to freeze upon seeing the pair in front of her.

Grue moved to block her path while Taylor continued to hide behind him.

"Tattletale?"

The supervillain looked conflicted but eventually settled her hands on her hips.

"Move. I'm leaving."

"Wha- you can't just..."

"Can't just what Grue? Coil's gone, or as good as. You'd better get out while you can too."

"What do you mean get out? Get out of where?"

"Where do you think? Out of this hellhole."

"You're... leaving Brockton Bay?"

From behind the arguing supervillains, Taylor watched on, unsure of what she was supposed to do in a situation like this. Tattletale seemed to be leaving, which on one hand, not good because that was one less cape to throw at the goose, but on the other hand, could she really stop her? Taylor barely knew Tattletale, barely knew any of the Undersiders really. What right did she have to interject on their internal conflicts?

Yet she had already done so once before hadn't she? Grue had been ready to bail out as well before she had convinced him to stay on target.

Stepping forward, Taylor moved over to Grue's side, helping block off Tattletale's path out of the building. The supervillain turned to her, her mouth a grim line with her eyes hidden behind her mask.

"You-"

"Don't want to hear it. Get out of my way."

"Wha-"

"Shut. I'm leaving and you of all people aren't going to convince me to stay."

Taylor recoiled, puzzled.

Me of all people?

She had no clue what that meant. But as Tattletale tried to step forward, Grue stepped in front of Taylor and blocked his fellow villain's path.

"You can't just leave Tattletale, not now when so much is at stake."

Tattletale's eyes were hidden but Taylor could feel her eyes narrowing.

"Grue I know you're used to being Coil's lapdog but he's gone now. All you ever did was follow his orders, and now of all times, you're going to start being an actual leader? Please. Also, you of all people should want to leave the city as well."

"And where would we go!? I've lived in this place for my whole life, I'm not going to leave it even if I can't get what I want from Coil anymore. Also if we're talking about following Coil's orders then you have no room to talk."

Tattletale seemed to rear up at this, causing both Taylor and Grue to tense as a sort of quiet anger burned in the supervillain's eyes before she slumped down, her voice now much smaller.

"You think I had a choice?"

Grue went silent.

A brief silence descended upon the group as Tattletale and Grue stared each other down. Grue's use of the word we didn't escape Taylor and she wondered for a moment who Tattletale was referring to before a voice cut through the silence with all the bluntness of a wreaking ball.

"You can't leave."

A new voice sounded out from inside of the building. A familiar one. Tattletale let out a small sigh as she turned to the side, revealing the form of Bitch behind her. The dog mask-wearing superhero was now without a mask, standing alone in the hallway leading up to the door, a heavy-set expression on her face.

Taylor couldn't help but stare for a few moments. It was the first time she had ever seen a cape without a mask.

Bitch was... well fairly close to what Taylor had expected. A blunt face with thick eyebrows outlining an expression of what looked to be anger. Despite that, her words had been cracked with emotion, the words uttered as if in desperation rather than as a statement.

Taylor didn't know what to make of the situation. Bitch seemed oddly vulnerable, something the goose hunter had yet to see from the supervillain in the brief interactions they had shared. She didn't have long to mull over that though as Tattletale eyed up Grue and Bitch to either side of her. She seemed to take their measures for a few seconds each before her head fell into her hands.

"For fucks sake... fine. Fucking fine. I'll stay until this shit is over but the second it is, I'm leaving this place behind me. Maybe even the country, to Mexico or something. Somewhere far in any case. Happy?"

Bitch gave a simple nod as Grue remained silent, mulling over her words for a moment before giving a brief nod as well. Tattletale seemed to shrink into herself, seemingly resigned to her fate as Taylor continued to watch on in trepid optimism.

Success? I guess? I'll take it.

Her thoughts were interrupted as Bitch looked over at her for a moment with a serious glare on her face. Both Tattletale and Grue seemed to freeze in place as well, as both stood between the goose hunter and their fellow supervillain. Yet as Taylor tensed, the supervillain simply dismissed her and turned away.

Taylor blinked.

"...what just happened?"

Tattletale chimed in.

"That means she's getting used to you."

"...oh. Ok then?"

Taylor blinked as Tattletale pushed herself off of the doorway and went back into the building with one last look at Grue that he returned with a small nod. Taylor ignored it and walked in after Grue, back to the place she had left only a mere few hours prior.

The interior of the base hadn't changed, aside from some stuff being on the ground when they hadn't been before but Taylor chalked that up to the chaos of receiving the news that you were now effectively unemployed.

One thing that hadn't changed though was the form of Regent sprawled out on the house, scrolling through his cell phone as the rest of the Undersiders and Taylor entered back into the building. Not even looking up from his phone, he slowly rose up from his sprawled-out position and into a sitting one before raising a hand and waving it to and fro.

"Yo, Tattletale I thought you were leaving?"

Tattletale huffed and didn't comment while Grue steppe forward.

"Yes, we're all in this together now, at least until we make it out the other side alive. That includes you as well Regent."

Regent finally looked away from his phone, his circus mask lolling over to the side as he glanced at the group now standing in the living room.

"Hmm? Oh yea sure, teamwork horray. Not like I would miss this regardless though."

"Don't have anything better to do, right?"

Regent snapped his fingers before pointing at Tattletale.

"Always."

Grue shook his head before sitting down on the couch next to Regent while Tattletale walked over to a chair and collapsed down upon it, sliding down the seat until her head was almost merged with her shoulders. Taylor remained standing but scooted over to a wall to lean on so she didn't feel out of place.

"So what's the plan?"

"...we need to hold a meeting at Somer's Rock."

Taylor raised her hand hesitantly at Grue's statement.

"Yeah, about that, uhh, can I not be there for that?"

Grue shook his head and moved to speak but Tattletale started talking before him.

"We're going to need a way to show we can be helpful and you're our best bet right now because you can see the goose. Besides, you're a part of the team now just like me. Since we're in this together we're doing this together as well."

Taylor's hand fell as she glared at the purple-cloaked supervillain who still seemed to be trying to mould with the chair in which she was sitting. Yet as the goose hunter opened her mouth to speak, Tattletale raised a finger in the air.

"Ah-ah Fowler, if I have to put up with this bullshit so do you. No getting out of this one."

Grue looked at Tattletale for a moment before turning to Taylor to give an apologetic nod.

"She's... not wrong. At least about the first part."

Taylor sighed.

"Right, of course she is... so how does this work anyways?"

"Well someone is supposed to call a meeting, but with the ABB on a war path and the merchants... indisposed, it's going to be difficult to gather everyone to talk things out. So we have to initiate it ourselves. While Coil's base of operations has been wiped out, he should be able to call a meeting at Somer's Rock. So the first step is to call him... then we go from there."

At grue words, Tattletale seemed to let out a disgruntled noise but didn't comment as Regent pulled out his cellphone again and started scrolling away.

Taylor meanwhile, mulled over his words. She didn't know how to feel about entrusting things to the person who had just been taken mostly out of the equation without warning. it didn't speak well to their competence. Still, wasn't like there were any other options aside from confronting the ABB and merchants directly and trying to talk sense into them.

Yea, good luck with that.

"Sure sounds good. Or not good but it works."

She had been saying and thinking that a lot recently. Somehow along the way she had gotten used to it as well.

As Grue opened one of the burner phones and Tattletale somehow sank deeper into her chair, Taylor pushed herself off of the wall, taking her mask off of her face. It wasn't exactly like the others hadn't seen her face anyway.

The ringing of the phone filled the now quiet building as the Undersiders waited in varying degrees of anticipation.

A/N:

Oh boy, this is going to be a long one.

First of all, apologies for the three-month or so wait for this chapter. This was due to a large number of factors which I'll outline in this note but if you're reading this, I would first like to thank you for sticking around and reading this story. While this fanfic may not be my passion project or anything like that, it was something I created because I wanted to have fun and make jokes and share it with others so the amount of people who have followed or watched this story is really amazing and I can't thank you enough for the support.

Now onto the reasons for the delay.

While you may be thinking it's something related to not having time, that is not the case. I had plenty of time to write but the thing is I kind of started to have issues with this story. First of all, there's the fact I fell out of the worm fandom. I'm not entirely sure how this happened but one day I was reading worm fics and the next I had moved on to other fandoms such as Pokemon, BattleTech and Star Wars. So my interest in writing for the Worm fandom diminished as a result. And instead of writing for Worm, I started writing stories for other fandoms, of which I have only published one so far.

Then there is my confidence in writing. I'm going to be completely honest, I've had issues with my own writing for some time now. With the widely positive response this fic has gotten, I've had a bit of trouble believing that my writing is good enough to justify the amount of attention it has gotten, and for this fic especially because it centred around comedy, I had even more confidence issues because it's very hard to tell when you are writing something funny and when you just think you are writing something funny. And yes, the comments on this fic are almost all positive but the saying "you are your own worst critic" really applies to me in this case. Whenever I go back to the earlier chapters of this story, I can't help but notice issues and mistakes and whenever I go to the newer chapters I can't help but wonder if I did enough. That alongside the high follower/watcher count has made my fic seem inflated to me, like it was getting more attention than it deserved because people just liked the concept of the fic and not the actual fic itself.

Anyway, I have resolved most of my issues on this fic, and am now more confident in my ability as a writer. Regardless, this chapter barely had any comedy because I still don't know if I have the ability to write humour well.

Now, though I did not have any time constraints when this fic initially went on an impromptu hiatus, that is unfortunately no longer the case. Summer break has ended and I am now in uni, which means my time to write has been significantly cut short. Additionally, as I am still writing other projects, I cannot promise regular uploads for this one, but I will try my best to update at least every month or so at the very least.

That about wraps it up, so I'll just end by saying thank you again for reading this fic. This is still my longest and most read project by far and it's been a great journey, for me at least.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter (and the fic).