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#waylon jones my best friend....

martyrbat · 8 months

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my buddy, killer croc

[ID: a panel sequence of Waylon Jones sitting in his dressing room after going out and wrestling to a gawking crowd. He's in a purple robe with a pink towel over his shoulders and is sitting in front of a large vanity, which has several flowers on it. He says to the unannounced guest, “Oh. It's you. How've ya been, Mike?” His friend responds that he can't complain and that his side business of selling used auto parts is picking up. He quickly offers if Waylon wants to get in on the hustle but Waylon tells him, “I'm not into that small-time chop-shop stuff anymore... I've got a straight job here. Gonna see how far it takes me.” Mike responds, “Hey, I get it! Man, if I had your physique, I'd get into the wrestling life myself. I mean, with your physique, there aren't too many jobs other than wrestling, right?” Waylon looks away disgruntled as he raises his hand to rest his cheek against it.

His friend awkwardly tries to brush past the insult, “Speaking of wrestling, I brought my kid along and he was hoping he could meet you...” Waylon tells him, “I'll say hi to your kid. For twenty bucks.” Mike takes the deal and comments that he guesses a man has to make a living before he opens the dressing room door again. He enthusiastically tells his waiting son, “Come on in, Andy! Meet my buddy Waylon.” Waylon looks down at the child and tells him hey apathetically as Andy stares up at him with absolute awe. Andy has a large red burn scar on his cheek and shyly tells Waylon hi back before going, “You...” and trailing off. Waylon asks, “What? A monster? A freak?” before the kid excitedly gushes, “You're the best wrestler I've ever seen! It was so cool! The Lily Pad Flip! Did you come up with that? Where did you learn your moves? I want to be just like you when I grow up! Do you think I could take a photo with you?”

Andy excitedly throws his arms up in the air as he talks before reaching out to touch Waylon's hand. He stares at the scarred child, obviously surprised at the praise and genuine admiration that Andy has for him. Mike prompts, “What do ya say, Waylon? Then maybe we can come again and have you sign the photo?” Waylon looks down at Andy with a tender smile before reaching down to finally high-five him. He agrees, “Okay, kid. Let's take that photo.”

In present time, Andy is looking down at the photo and smiling to himself. He whispers, “you're back,” after seeing Killer Croc robbing a bank on the news. We see the photo, where Andy is sitting on Waylon's knee as they both smile. Waylon wrote, “To Andy. Nice to meet you” and signed it with his autograph and a little heart. END ID]

#WAHHHH #WAYLON :(((#waylon jones my best friend....#also side tracked but thinking of cocbat robe edition... they're little old men....#c: my buddy killer croc #crypt's panels #waylon jones #killer croc

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nerd-with-a-fun-permit · 7 months

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just finished listening to the Spotify DC podcasts and i have some opinions

The Flash: Escape from the Midnight Circus

Interesting story, not what i expected from a flash podcast. It was… odd. Alfred was a DJ? Captain Cold rapped? Barry is depowered for most of it (like flashpoint) it’s actually a lot like flashpoint tbh. it shows barry attempting to go back in time and fix a problem but it goes wrong and he ends up in an alternate reality where everything is terrible. but in midnight circus barry goes back in time for a much more selfish reason. Iris kind of breaks up with him. but he could have tried to fix their relationship but instead of the LOGICAL THING he goes back in time to stop himself from missing an award ceremony which is the reason iris broke up with him. but instead of ending up back in time he ends up in the body of an alternate universe version of him, who is in a death game reality tv show called the Midnight Circus. I’m not gonna say anything else about the story because i feel like i’ve spoiled too much to begin with. Cons, Barry isn’t a very likable character, not at all the fault of the actor, entirely the fault of the writers. and also it bears the curse of being associated with the DCEU flash movie.

Batman: Unburied

(insert “oh this, this is beautiful” meme)

Amazing podcast, fantastic voice cast, truly the podcast of all time. It stars mortician Bruce Wayne who is NOT Batman. he is obsessed with a serial killer called the harvester who steals the organs of his victims. then during a routine autopsy the harvester breaks into the morgue and stabs bruce. bruce survives and we meet thomas and martha wayne. bruce’s obsession spirals even further as the harvester calls him in his home and leaves him a little present in the fridge. i cant really talk about it much more because of spoilers BUT Barbara Gordon and Edward Nygma are in this podcast as well and Ed is the best part of the whole podcast.

The Riddler: Secrets in the Dark

somehow even better than Unburied! It stars Edward Nygma, aka the best part of Batman: Unburied and OH MY GOD it is so good. basically there’s a deranged vigilante who is murdering costumed criminals. it gets personal when the vigilante kills Jervis Tetch. a friend of Ed’s. and Detective Flass who SUCKS tells Ed that he will also be moved to the asylum that Jervis was transferred to. naturally Ed breaks out along with Waylon Jones and begins to investigate. the mo of the killer is a lot like that of Batman. curved blades were used to kill him, and apparently the killer had wings? Ed is attacked by the killer and he cuts an X into his chest and he is rescued by Batman. that’s all i will tell.

please listen to all of these. Escape the Midnight Circus is optional but the batman ones are NOT!

#dc comics #dc universe #batman #dc riddler #barry allen #podcast #spotify

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lawful-evil-novelist · 2 years

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Gotham Rogues Voice Headcanon Updates

Like I said, rogue headcanons, I’ll add links and such.

Angel Vargas: Rob Thomas (Smooth, All That I Am)

Drury Walker: The Unlikely Candidates (Bells, Oh My Dear Lord)

Edward Nygma: Imagine Dragons (Gold, Tiptoe)

Garfield Lynns: grandson (Oh No!, Best Friends)

Harley Quinn: Dead Posey (Boogeyman, Freak Show)

Harvey Dent: Shinedown (Call Me, Monsters)

Jack Napier: The Lumineers (Scotland, Ophelia)

Jervis Tetch: Cosmo Sheldrake (Come Along, Pelicans We)

Jonathan Crane: Poor Man’s Poison (Hey Mister, Devil’s Price)

Mary Dahl: Octavia Rose (Lost in the Rhythm, Delight)

Maximilian Zeus: Hozier (From Eden, Arsonist’s Lullaby)

Maxwell Mavis: Stromae (tous les mêmes, Ta fête)

Neil Richards: Soundgarden (Black Hole Sun, Fell On Black Days)

Pamela Isley: Bishop Briggs (CHAMPION, Wild Horses)

Viktor Zsasz: X Ambassadors (My Own Monster, Unsteady)

Waylon Jones: Johnny Cash (Wayfaring Stranger, God’s Gonna Cut You Down)

And I also made a playlist for the headcanons on both Youtube Music [Link] and Spotify [Link]

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brown-little-robin · 2 years

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My dearest beloved clone sons, happy. (src)

This is a collection of the moments from within the timeline of Strange Redemption when each clone is experiencing real happiness of one kind or another. And, because of the Stress, I am writing the context for each one. In order from top left to bottom right:

Two: proud of Three. He’s experiencing the Big Brother Emotion. Look at that beautiful lopsided smile! When Two is uncontrollably happy, his smile squishes up his whole face.

Three: in his element: talking to someone! Three smiles almost all the time; it’s his nature; but here he’s at his most genuine. He’s had an awesome idea and he’s explaining it—or maybe he’s expressing his excitement for someone else’s good idea. Three’s generous with his energy and he LOVES cool ideas.

Four: in his lane. relaxed. flourishing. Four doesn’t smile much around other people—too heavy with guilt and sin—but when he’s alone, maybe surveying a good day’s work weaving baskets or doing laundry? Yes, he’ll allow himself a real smile. This could be either of his main two alters—Thaddeus, the “older” one, or Thad, the “younger” one. Their smiles are fairly similar—tired, awkward-looking, slow, satisfied.

Inertia: Yes, finally, I’m introducing one of Four’s alters as his own person. This is Inertia, the black-and-green vigilante. Inertia is mission-focused and highly competent, a better runner than the others (who are more clumsy), but he’s less emotionally mature. And to feel like himself, he needs the Inertia outfit. I couldn’t put him in the Inertia outfit for two reasons: 1) the picrew doesn’t have it, and 2) Thad burned his Inertia outfit immediately after he defected. Inertia was furious and stopped communicating with the rest of the system. But he wasn’t upset about them rejecting the mission; he was upset about losing his suit and being misunderstood. The two main alters try to make peace with him eventually, and one of the first methods is a green-and-black cowboy outfit. It’s close enough to Inertia’s ‘real’ outfit and aligned enough with his values (highly competent keeper of right and wrong) that it actually works; the system slowly starts to be back in communication. Anyway, Inertia is smiling here in absolute euphoria at getting the visual trappings of his identity back.

Five: I bet you thought I was done with the angst. It took me a long time to convince Five to smile for the picrew. I made four (count ‘em, four) picrews of him in various scowls and pensive/yearning expressions before I finally realized that the only smile that makes sense for him is laughter. He’s talking to Two here, as he often does on his visits to the past. Two surprised him with a joke about mental illness, and Five laughed. Five comes to Two when he needs a reminder of what he’s fighting for, and he is getting one.

Six: he has finally gained some stability after becoming a magician. Six has embraced his entire story here; he’s wearing a shirt with the words All Time Low on it. (it’s a joke. he lost his speed so he’s at an all time low. he finds it funny. he might also listen to the band idk.) He’s in Two’s mansion; they’re going to have a movie night together. He’s smiling in a moment when Two isn’t looking at him, just a quiet, pointless smile because he’s happy. He’s looking forward to the movie. He’s looking forward to the traditional goodbye forehead kiss Two always gives his brothers. He’s looking forward to life.

Seven: Oh baby. baby baby baby boy. Okay I’m normal again. He’s smiling because he’s always smiling, because he has teeth like a shark, and if Seven closes his mouth he’ll bite himself and it will be literally and metaphorically ugly. He knows he looks horrifying with his jaw hanging open, so he smiles whenever he’s around people so that people aren’t afraid / don’t think he’s sad. But right now? He’s saying hello to Two’s best friend, Waylon Jones, also known as Killer Croc. He’s a little nervous, but his heart is soaring; he’s so so happy to meet someone who won’t be afraid of him, someone who can really truly understand what it’s like to have this awful mouth. He’s looking forward to commiserating about how hard it is to eat.

Eight: eight is experiencing that most blissful of emotions... clothes fresh out of the dryer. only for him it’s a hundred times better because he is also experiencing the emotion of pride at success. His whole life was Being A Supervillain. He had one (1) outfit, which he hated: the Inertia suit, thin, cold material that always made him feel naked and horrible. Yadda yadda, he died, he was in the speed force as a spirit of lightning. He’d never had a chance to live as a normal person before, but after his death, he discovered an ability to manifest himself into the world, at first as a human-shaped pile of lightning, then better and better, more and more like a real body until he was finally able to be mostly human. He can wear clothes now. Anything he wants. He can feel their weight and softness on his body. And now, in this moment, he’s just put on this giant purple hoodie (from Max) and the worm-on-a-string earrings (from Helen). He is so warm, and he is so happy, and he’s about to thank them for the gifts.

Nine: okay, so, the only uncomplicated happy smiles I have for him are outside the timeline of this fic... when he’s a lawyer triumphantly arguing a winning case, for instance. He smiles a lot in the fic, but it’s usually mean-spirited. For actual happiness, I have only this tremulous, ashamed smile (with the one-eye-closed habit that he picked up from Seven). This is when he admits that he forgot Two’s name, that he forgets everything, he’s sorry. (his brain is all messed up. there were problems with his cloning. he’s never been all there.) And two already knows that; Nine knows he knows that; but it’s such a relief to say it out loud. Nine is happy. He might start crying in a minute but Nine is happy. He can admit it. He’s safe.

#cloneboards #Strange Redemption spoilers

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redhairedwolfwitch · 2 years

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A String of Hearts (2) - Loose Tooth - Mary Hamilton x Fem!Reader - Batwoman

Part 1

Summary: a string of hearts, or ceropegia woodii, is a trailing plant characterised by its heart shaped leaves, but what happens when the string of hearts between you and Mary, grows poison ivy?

///

"Killer Croc. AKA Waylon Jones. Former professional wrestler who suffered from an unidentified infection that caused his skin to grow scales, hence, the appearance of a crocodile. Now, as the infection progressed, other physical abnormalities followed. Elongated jaw, claws, tail." Luke explained as he showed details of Killer Croc on the Batcave screens.

"I remember him. Batman killed him, right?"

"Whoah, no, no. No, Bruce tried to save him. Yeah, he took pity on him, he always thought that his violent tendencies were a result of the infection. They had Wayne Tech labs working on a cure for his condition. A way to reverse it, they never found it though..." Luke explained whilst you fiddled with your fingers.

"Batman only ever killed Joker. Jack Napier version anyway..." You remarked as Luke gave you a shocked look.

"How did you-"

"What happened to Waylon?" Ryan steered the subject back to the new Killer Croc.

"The GCPD happened. They had their own ideas of how to deal with KC, so they dropped a truck load of thermite into the sewer junction, lit the primer cord, and ran. So that tooth? Pretty much all that was left of him." Luke explained, your gaze on Mary as she suggested the tooth carried the same infection and had infected a new host.

"I have a question. Why's there a tree in here? I mean, I get the whole, bat motif, but this is a, 44 story building. Surely there's a more comfortable workspace available?" Alice asked as you chuckled.

"Bold of you all to assume this is the only Batcave."

"Did Barbara tell you that?" Luke raised an eyebrow as you shrugged, giving him a sheepish grin.

"I need to talk to the three of you. In private." Ryan stated, the four of you leaving the Batcave to head upstairs.

///

"I should probably put it out there right now, that I really do not do, reptiles." Mary explained as you bit your lip.

"I don't do fire. Firefly scared me as a kid..." You admitted, ignoring everyone's confused gaze as to why you were bringing Firefly up, whilst they kept talking about Killer Croc 2.0.

"Um... we don't really use the c word anymore..." Mary explained as Ryan frowned, looking confusedly at Luke.

"Crazy!" Mary blurted out, but the sound of a helicopter approaching had everyone looking at the windows.

"What the hell?"

"Seems we have a guest. Security cleared a landing request for the CEO of Jeturian Industries. Jada Jet." Luke turned his tablet around to reveal the stock photo of Jada Jet. Who is apparently insisting on a meeting with the Wayne CEO, and will not leave until she gets one." Luke explained, as everyone else discussed who the acting CEO is.

Ryan.

You didn't expect to be dragged away by Mary to help with all the dry cleaning she'd just picked up either, but that meant you didn't hear Sophie tell Ryan that Jada is her birth mother.

///

"I'm going to go dig around some old Oracle notes. See you later, babe!" You smiled, kissing Mary on the forehead before heading out.

Mary smiled to herself before heading down to the batcave with Luke to look at his Batwing suit.

///

"God, I miss you Babs. I miss my best friend." You whispered as you went over Barbara's files, your eyes landing on the Batgirl cowl in with them.

"This could be useful..." picking up the cowl carefully and rotating it to glance over it in more detail.

///

"Luke, I... I'm dating someone... in case your rising heartrate meant-"

"Your hands were cold..." Luke fumbled, pulling his shirt back on as Mary nodded, agreeing it must be a problem with the suit, and not Luke.

///

Your phone buzzing distracted you from your trip up to Wayne Manor, nobody had really been around it since Tommy Elliot AKA Hush was pretending to be Bruce Wayne.

Entering the details Barbara had left, you turned the grandfather clock hands to the correct time, revealing what you'd known existed since you first met Batgirl.

The day she, Robin, and Batman took down Firefly, saving you and a load of other children in the process.

"Mare? What's wrong? Has Luke got it covered, because I still need to ask Ryan if she'll do some martial arts training with me..." You trailed off as Mary went quiet, getting sass from Luke as she tried to ask him if the suit was working fine or not.

Your eyes lingered on an old prototype of a Batgirl suit, an idea in your head, but you knew the others would hate it.

///

Your gloved fists hit the punch bag, earphones in listening to Vesper Fairchild's radio show talking about Batwoman taking down Killer Croc, and returning a missing girl with her mother.

Mary paused as she watched you punching the bag, frowning as you messed up your punch.

"Pretty sure your stance is wrong." Mary admitted as she approached, removing one of your headphones as her other hand ran over your hip.

"Show me?" You panted, turning around to smile as Mary chuckled, her fingers releasing your earphone wire so it would rest on top of your gloved hand.

"I'm pretty sure Sophie could show you better, to punch anyway... I'll just enjoy the view, and make sure you don't hurt yourself, I don't want to see you hurt, Y/n." Mary admitted as you sighed, leaning in to rest your forehead against hers.

"I know..."

///

#mary hamilton x reader #mary hamilton imagine #batwoman x reader #batwoman imagine #batwoman #cw batwoman #cw #mary hamilton #sophie moore #ryan wilder #luke fox #alice #poison mary #eventually anyway

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thenixkat · 3 years

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Characters on the Black superpower breakdown list

Hunk (vld) Static [Virgil Hawkins] Black Lightning [Jefferson Peirce] Kwame (Captain Planet) Storm [Ororo Monroe] Strag (Magi-Nation) Chur (Magi-Nation) Sistah Spooky (Empowered) Aqualad [Kaldur'ahm] Bronze Tiger [Benjamin Turner] Black Panther [T'Challa] Bumblebee [Karen Beecher-Duncan] Nubia (DC comics) Cyborg [Victor Stone] Taranee Cook (W.I.T.C.H.) Spawn [Al Simmons] Alex Wilder (Runaways) Blade [Eric Brooks] Brother Voodoo [Jericho Drumm] Falcon [Sam Wilson] Empress [Anita Fite] Green Lantern [John Stewart] Lightning [Jennifer Pierce] Pantha [Rosabelle Mendez] Tunder [Anissa Pierce] Vixen [Mari Jiwe McCabe] Agent 355 (Y: The Last Man) Prowler [Hobbie Brown] Prowler [Aaron Davis] Spiderman [Miles Morales] Rocket [Raquel Ervin] Icon [Augustus Freeman] Cassie (Animorphs) Anansi the Spider (Static Shock) She-Bang [Shenice Vale] Kipo Oak (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts) Zak Saturday (The Secret Saturdays) Catwoman [Patience Phillips] Frozone [Lucius Best] Erik Killmonger [N'Jadaka] Black Manta [David Ray] Holocaust [Leonard Smalls Jr] Tombstone [Lonnie Thompson Lincoln] Killer Croc [Waylon Jones] Deadly Nightshade (Marvel Comics) Ebon [Ivan Evans] Baxter Stockman (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles) Monica Rambeau (Marvel Comics) War Machine [James Rhodes] Steel [John Henry Irons] Cloak [Tyrone Johnson] Queen Bee of Bialya (DC Universe) Hot Spot/Joto [Isaiah Crockett] Alan Albright (Ben 10) Mal Duncan (DC Comics) XS [Nora West-Allen] Tempest [Joshua Clay] Star Boy [Thom Kallor] Kid Quantum (DC Comic) Jet (DC Comics) Jakeem Thunder (DC Comics) Slipstream (Static Shock) Boom (Static Shock) Tamara Lawrence (Static Shock) Hyde (Static Shock) Kangor (Static Shock) Brickhouse (Milestone Media) Madelyn Spaulding (Static Shock) Puff (Static Shock) Onyx (Static Shock) Replikon (Static Shock) Osebo (Static Shock) Mmoboro (Static Shock) Onini (Static Shock) Allie Langford/Nails (Static Shock) Miranda/Mirage (Static Shock) Adam Evans/Rubber-Band Man (Static Shock) Garnet (Steven Universe) Ruby (Steven Universe) Sapphire (Steven Universe) Bismuth (Steven Universe) Doc Saturday (The Secret Saturdays) Kilik Rung (Soul Eater) Tsume (Wolf's Rain) Blue (Wolf's Rain) Manny Armstrong (Ben 10) Bow (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) Netossa (She-Ra and the Princesses of Power) Numbuh Five (Codename Kids Next Door) Cree Lincoln (Codename Kids Next Door) Paninya (Fullmetal Alchemist) Jerso (Fullmetal Alchemist) Scar (Fullmetal Alchemist) Darui (Naruto) Killer B (Naruto) A/3rd Raikage (Naruto) Karui (Naruto) Omoi (Naruto) Muhammad Avdol (Jojo's Bizarre Adventure) Silver Sentry (TMNT) April O'Neil (Rise of the TMNT) Sid Barrett (Soul Eater) Usopp (One Piece) Spyke [Evan Daniels] Talon (Gargoyles) Winston Zeddmore (Ghostbusters) Wolf (Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts) Black Racer (DC Comics) Bloodwynd (DC Comics) Coldcast (DC Comics) Gravedigger (DC Comics) Mister Terrific (DC Comics) Blue Marvel [Adam Bernard Brashear] Night Thrasher [Dwayne Taylor] Jo (Kid Cosmic) Philly the Kid (Cannon Busters) S.A.M. (Cannon Busters) Amalia Sheran Sharm (Wakfu) Kaz Kaan (Neo Yokio) Dr. Facilier (The Princess and the Frog) Raven Baxter (That's So Raven) John Henry (Folktales) Darryl (Mercyverse) Asil the Moor (Mercyverse) Hork-Bajir (Animorphs) Ashio (Magi-Nation) Gogor (Magi-Nation Duel) Rayje (Magi-Nation Duel) Strom (Magi-Nation) Sugar Hill (Sugar Hill 1974) Thunder (Soul Eater) Fire (Soul Eater) Miruko (My Hero Academia) Rock Lock (My Hero Academia) Ogun Montogomery (Fire Force) Manifold [Eden Fesi] Yoruichi Shihōin (Bleach) Yasutora Sado/Chad (Bleach) Gantenbainne Mosqueda (Bleach) Zommari Rureaux (Bleach) Shuri (Marvel Comics) Alya Césaire (Miraculous Ladybug) Nora Césaire (Miraculous Ladybug) Max Kanté (Miraculous Ladybug) Razahir “Raze” Khemse (Underworld) Jermaine (Xiaolin Showdown) Piccolo Jr (Dragonball) Koen West (Cleverman) Xavin (Runaways) Goo (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) Wilt (Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends) Tobias Whale (Black Lightning) Zak Monday (The Secret Saturdays) Dion Warren (Raising Dion) Hex (Ben 10) Charmcaster (Ben 10) Annabelle Cane (The Magnus Archives) Oliver Banks (The Magnus Archives) Khalil Payne / Painkiller (Black Lightning) Issa Williams (Black Lightning) Perenna (Black Lightning) Giselle Cutter (Black Lightning) Brandon Marshall/Geo-Force (Black Lightning) T.C. / Baron/Technocrat (Black Lightning) Domino (Deadpool 2) Clayface/Ethan Bennette (The Batman) Ironheart (Marvel Comics) Silhouette (Marvel Comics) Fish Mooney (Gotham) Valerie Gray (Danny Phantom) Hack (DC Comics) Peek-A-Boo (DC Comics) Madam Slay (Marvel Comics) Alex (Totally Spies) Olivia (Pokemon) Abra Stone (Doctor Sleep) Tia Dalma [Calypso] Allura (Voltron) Raphael (RoTTMNT) Donatello (RoTTMNT) Leonardo (RoTTMNT) Michelangelo (RoTTMNT) Bebop (TMNT) Zack Taylor (Power Rangers) T.J. Johnson (Power Rangers) Aisha Cambell (Power Rangers) Jack Landors (Power Rangers) Tanya Sloan (Power Rangers) Scott Truman (Power Rangers) Noah Carver (Power Rangers) Joel Rawlings (Power Rangers) Will Aston (Power Rangers) Katie Walker (Power Rangers) Ethan James (Power Rangers) Max Cooper (Power Rangers) Cestro (Power Rangers) Damon Henderson (Power Rangers) Zane (Power Rangers) A-Squad Green Ranger (power Rangers) Kevin (Power Rangers) Shelby Watkins (Power Rangers) Zayto (Power Rangers) Hayley Foster (Power Rangers) Aisha (Winx Club) Flora (Winx Club) Catwoman [Selina Kyle] Rodger (Dino Squad) Koki (Wild Kratts) Darla Dudley (DC Comics)

209 characters thus far. If ya fave superpowered negro ain’t here, leave a name, pic, and list of their powers

#nix meows #black characters #black superheroes #black supervillains #long post

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gellavonhamster · 3 years

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cold weapons

Suicide Squad (2016) || Captain Boomerang/Katana || post-canon

ao3 link eng || this was first written and published on ao3 in Russian in 2017 but I didn't attempt to translate it into English back then.

“So, what do you think of them?” Colonel Flag asks.

Tatsu puts the folder containing the rap sheet of Waylon Jones, better known as Killer Croc, on top of three other folders.

“They’re complicated,” she replies after giving it some thought.

The materials in these folders could have formed her first impression about the members of Task Force X – or, as Lawton has aptly put it, the Suicide Squad. Could have, but did not, because they were given their first task earlier than expected. Which is why she doesn’t say “villains” or “scoundrels” or “worst team imaginable” – her first impression of them was formed in combat, and then in an empty bar in Midway City where they all drank together thinking it may be the last drink in their lives. She remembers all of this and says ‘complicated’.

“Very tactful of you,” the colonel chuckles. Then again, what kind of colonel is he now – an unwashed shirt, black circles under the eyes. Just another guy struggling with a deluge of work, a hard-hearted boss, and a troubled relationship with his girlfriend. “But yeah, they definitely aren’t simple,” continues Rick Flag, one of her few friends in the country that will never become her home, and Tatsu cannot suppress a tired smile.

“You like them.”

“They’re… tolerable,” Rick admits, and takes another sip of coffee. Lately he seems to be living only on coffee and whiskey and the verb “must” and (so Tatsu supposes, although they don’t talk about that) the hope that June Moone, who still hasn’t fully recovered from all the horrors she’s been through, will be all right – and will stop isolating herself and avoiding him. These means for not letting yourself just fall down and never get up are far from being reliable, but Tatsu herself lives mostly on revenge and duty and, for that matter, whiskey as well, to a certain degree, so it’s not for her to judge. “Most of them, at least. All of them minus the Australian.”

“At least he’s a good fighter,” Tatsu points out. This is the only good thing she can say about Captain Boomerang with full confidence.

“He’s not cut out for teamwork.”

“When we were fighting the Enchantress, it didn’t look to me like that.”

She does not put much meaning into these words. It’s just that at some point Captain Boomerang saved her, and she saved him – and good thing they’re even, because the last thing she needs is to owe a favour to someone so incompatible with the very concept of duty. She could have said much about the man who tried to escape at the very beginning of the mission and got a teammate killed (and for some reason stood up for El Diablo when Harley Quinn lashed out at him at the bar, and for some reason came back before the battle after trying to desert), but the only thing she’s sure of is that he’s a fine weapon; she can confirm that, being a weapon herself. At the end of the day, that is all that’s required from him.

At the end of the day, that is all that’s required from her, too.

***

It is possible that what she said about Digger Harkness sticks in Rick’s memory, because when the need to comb the area arises during the next mission, he sends the two of them to search through the same building.

“If he gets up to something, do whatever you want to him. No one’s gonna weep for him,” he flings off. This is in the heat of the moment, of course – Boomerang almost got into a fight with Killer Croc on the helicopter over some nonsense. Or rather, it was Croc that almost got into a fight with Boomerang after the latter provoked him. Complicated.

“You heard that, darl?” Boomerang addresses her with a smile so wide as if he hasn’t heard the last remark. “I’m all yours.”

Tatsu looks the other way and pointedly takes her sword out of its sheath – not completely, just a little. No further comments follow, and they part company – Deadshot with Croc, Flag with his team of spec ops, Tatsu with Boomerang – and go on a recce.

In the basement, they discover something that looks like a laboratory – if a place so far from being sanitary may even be called one. All their hopes to move without making a sound crumble as soon as they enter the room: the floor is covered with broken glass. Those who ran the place must have escaped in haste and couldn’t take the entire stock of the serum with them, so they opted to destroy most of it. Tatsu’s attention is immediately drawn to the object on the table in the middle of the room – a metal container with tubes going from it to several smaller vessels. She heads straight for the table, shards crunching underfoot. Boomerang follows her, apparently kicking the largest shards on purpose so that they fly in all directions.

“Looks like a hooch still,” he comments, having come closer, and gives a whistle. “Whoa, fuck, is that blood?”

Compared to the first task of their squad, this one looks almost effortless. Two gangs, the members of one of which possess the formula of the serum that grants superpowers to those who take it. A gun battle, collateral damage, the entire district on lockdown. If a few people weren’t noticed literally floating through the sky, the police would have been handling this. But this is an emergency, which is why they’re here, and the flying gangsters aren’t flying anymore, for Lawton is an exceptionally good shot.

As it turns out, the serum that sparked the conflict is based on metahuman blood – hardly donated voluntarily.

“I’ll contact Colonel Flag,” says Tatsu, eyes locked on the bloodied tubes, and then someone grabs her by the neck.

For the first time in her life, she really has to fight blindly – because her enemy is invisible.

Later, when the dead bodies gradually become visible on the floor like an eerie animated movie, it turns out there were four of them. Before that, Tatsu manages to lose her sword, recapture it, almost choke when an invisible hand squeezes her neck, slash one of the attackers in half, and plunge the blade into another’s stomach. Boomerang takes care of the other two, knocking over the container in the process.

Tatsu is listening to the silence that came after the fight, wondering if any other invisible foes are lurking around the corner, when she feels that something is wrong. Something is wrong with her – she just can't figure out what. Sometimes it happens that one feels unwell but cannot determine what exactly the problem is – she is experiencing something similar now. Until she realizes: the mask. Until she looks up and makes eye contact with Captain Boomerang, who is staring at her and grinning.

“You lost anything, doll?” Harkness inquires innocently, with an emphasis on the last word, and his smile grows even wider and cockier.

Shit. Shit, shit, shit. The invisible man she fought hand to hand tore off her mask, and she didn’t even notice. But her partner, blast him, did – and picked it up.

“Give it back,” Tatsu demands, hand outstretched. She feels naked. In combat, during the mission, she is Katana, a single whole with her sword. A cold weapon. No one needs to see her face. Truly, if she was wearing only the mask and nothing else, she would have felt less exposed – all right, this is an overstatement, and she doesn’t even want to imagine such a situation. Meanwhile, Boomerang is in no hurry to return the mask.

“What did ya call me when that fucker was about to stab me?” he asks. Tatsu clenches the sword hilt. There is no telling how many enemies drunk on the magic serum are hiding in this house, and he’s dawdling. “You said…”

Damn it, what did she say? She saw one of the invisibles creeping up on him while he was fighting another – a bloodstain was floating through the air. She shouted…

“I said ‘George’”. Isn’t your name George Harkness?”

“You bet it is. It’s just weird. Most people don’t call me George, y’know.”

“How do they call you then?”

“Digger. Boomerang. Boomer. That Prick. All sorts of things, but never George. But you,” he winks, “can call me whatever ya want. I liked the way you say my name.”

“Give. Me. The mask.”

“And the magic word?”

“I will chop your hand off,” as a proof of her intentions, she puts the blade against his extended hand that is holding her mask. In fact, she would face no consequences for doing so. No one’s gonna weep for him.

Harkness makes a helpless gesture and hands her the mask.

“Can’t say no to you, luv.”

The mask helps her conceal her identity, but what is more important is that it helps her conceal needless emotions. Tatsu really hopes that her facial expression isn’t giving away that she’s ill at ease now. This is a weakness; weaknesses are not to be demonstrated. She feels deeply relieved when she puts the mask back on.

“Let’s get out of here,” she commands, turns around, and heads for the exit. Harkness trails behind.

“It ain’t fair, by the way. You know my real name, but I don’t know yours,” he muses. “Care to introduce yourself, eh?”

He asks the same question at least three times more before they return to Belle Reve, and each time she ignores him.

***

A week later, he still doesn’t know her name – but he learns something else.

They do away with the last members of the recent gang on the outskirts of the city. Both wretches have overused the unfortunate serum, in keeping with the best traditions of the clichéd movies about superheroes and supervillains that Hollywood keeps producing for some reason, even though it is more and more often possible to see nearly the same thing on the news. As a result, one of them got puffed up almost to the size of the creature that Superman died fighting, and the other couldn’t control the flames bursting from his mouth. He burned half of the shopping centre with customers, retail workers, and guards. With teenagers in the bowling alley on the second floor and children in the playroom on the first.

Santana… wouldn’t have approved.

Both problems eliminated, they leave: the firefighters and the cops will take it from here. Flag’s spec ops stay behind, because officially it is their victory; the general public shouldn’t know about the existence of Task Force X. Through backyards, they retreat in the direction of the abandoned construction site on the other side of the street; a car has been sent to pick them up there.

There is a workers’ trailer still standing by the construction pit. The door is not locked, and Rick, Deadshot, Croc, and Boomerang go inside. Jones’s arm is broken: his inhuman strength notwithstanding, he still was no match for his enemy – not the fire-breather, but the other one. Tatsu leaves them to figure out how to make a temporary sling, and wanders away. Not far from the trailer, a piece of tarpaulin stretched over the fence has come off, and she can see the building across the street. Tatsu sits down on the ground, puts her arms around her knees, and stares at the dandelions growing by the fence.

In her head, flames are raging.

She doesn’t look up, neither when she hears the footsteps approaching, nor when Harkness – and it is him, no one else in the Squad reeks of the mixture of booze and cologne like that – sits down next to her and cracks open a can of beer.

“You want some?” he nudges her. What extraordinary generosity. It is, however, perfectly possible that if she says yes, he’ll reply along the lines of “Well, then go and buy yourself some.”

“No,” Tatsu replies without looking and, after a short pause, adds, “Thank you.”

“Are you sure?”

With a sigh, she accepts the can from his hands, and takes a sip.

“This is disgusting,” she whispers, and takes another.

Harkness just snorts and opens another one. For a little while, they sit side by side in silence, drinking each from their own can, and study the wall opposite through the mesh of the fence – like out of a prison window. Old advertisements that are half torn off, graffiti, a writing proclaiming that life fucks us all – plenty of things to stare at to avoid looking the person next to you in the eye.

“So what the hell happened to ya?” Boomerang asks, and suddenly she could do with some serum for invisibility or, better yet, disappearing completely. Naturally, it is a fleeting impulse; she has no right to disappear. She has obligations – towards Flag, towards Waller. Towards herself.

“Nothing.”

“Nothing? You zoned out, Flag shouted himself hoarse before you heard him. Like you were someplace else. Didn’t ya?”

Why do you need to know? Tatsu thinks. If she almost rushed headlong into the fire, it’s her own business. If it only seemed to her that someone was there, it’s her own business. If she’s going to see things that aren’t there for the rest of her life, it’s her own business. He shouldn't have spoken. There is something comforting about being silent together.

“Nah, you don’t have to say if you don’t wanna,” Boomerang assents, and takes another pull on his can. “I just thought that you, well. Might wanna talk to someone.”

And they fall silent again. Yet now Tatsu feels awkward, which makes her angry at herself. She’s not obliged to pour out her heart to anyone who shows something that looks like care.

This silence doesn’t make it any easier.

“I have… bad memories,” she finally says. Now it won’t be as awkward: she answered his question. It won’t be, right? “About a fire”.

Harkness nods, looking at her attentively.

“Someone you knew died, aye?”

“My children,” she hears herself say, and wishes to disappear again.

“Fuck,” Boomerang says, embarrassed, and – unbelievable – looks like he actually feels bad about starting this conversation. “I’m sorry, I… well, uh, I had no idea.”

“It’s okay,” Tatsu says mechanically. Nothing is okay: she can still see Yuki’s tear-stained face, still hear Reiko’s voice, she is still watching the flames run up the curtains that she and Maseo picked together, she is still breathing in the smoke and still cannot believe she deserves a gulp of fresh air. She should have saved them. All of them.

Boomerang looks at her incredulously but doesn’t say anything, and bit by bit, the silence that she doesn’t want to run from returns – the kind of silence in which one is not alone.

Then there are footsteps again, and Flag approaches them.

“There you are,” he says with relief as soon as he sees her. Rick does not let himself overstep the limits of formality – they’re on a mission, after all – but he has obviously been worried. At the sight of Harkness, he frowns warily. “You! Quit getting on her nerves.”

“Who’s gettin’ on her nerves, Colonel? I was just tryin’ to help,” Harkness protests. It appears Rick’s words have wounded him a little.

“He was,” Tatsu says. “It’s all under control, Colonel Flag.”

Flag shifts his gaze to her and then to Boomerang again, and nods.

“Okay. In any case… follow me. We’re leaving.”

Tatsu gives her unfinished beer to Boomerang.

“Don’t talk about this to anyone,” she tells him. This might be an order or a request; she doesn’t really know.

He nods, and she thinks absentmindedly: who would have thought this man knows how to make a solemn face.

“Thank you,” she says again, hoping that he understands that this is not just about the beer or his promise to keep his mouth shut.

***

After a few days, Tatsu comes to visit him. In prison.

Actually, she comes to visit all of them, of course. Not more than fifteen minutes alone with each of them – Waller wouldn’t allow more. This request seems to have surprised her, but Tatsu is certain that Waller is already picturing the new threads she can use to manipulate her special operations puppets. So it is possible that one day this decision will blow up in Tatsu’s face – or in the faces of all of them. But she cannot shake off the feeling that she must do this – so that someone except Rick, who is already dealing with a lot these days, would notice in time if the inmates are treated with undeserved cruelty. So that she knows what’s on their minds, because it is safer to fight side by side with the people whose line of thought she can understand at least roughly. So that there is some kind of variety in their lives between the missions.

This is why she visits all three of them. Killer Croc, who looks like he’s not surprised to see her in the slightest and doesn’t really seems to care that she came, but doesn’t have any issue with that either. Deadshot, who looks like he is surprised, but doesn’t seem to mind answering her questions when she notices a stack of letters in the corner and asks him how his daughter is doing. And Captain Boomerang, who, when she enters his cell, looks like he can’t figure out if he’s dreaming.

“Katana?” he frowns perplexedly. He’s stripped to his waist, so she can see a couple of fresh scars he brought back from the last mission, and he’s got a black eye – when Tatsu saw him last, he had not. Must have quarrelled with the guards again. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to see you.”

For a moment he seems not to understand what she just said. Then he breaks into a smile – or rather a grin, wide and pleased. Very pleased.

“Aha! Knew it would end up like this,” he pronounces in triumph.

“Like this?”

“You,” he looks like he’s just proven a theorem of immense complexity, “missed me.”

“I haven’t missed you, Captain.”

A very, very pleased grin.

“And still you’re here.”

“I visited Deadshot and Killer Croc earlier,” Tatsu says, and sees his facial expression change instantly. Not for long: the grin is quick to return, and she wouldn’t be able to tell right away that he’s disappointed.

“Did ya now? And how are our fellas doing? Better than me, I reckon?”

“So it would seem. Did you fight the guards?”

“Why do you care, gorgeous?”

Indeed, why does she? Most likely, he picked a fight himself – and got his just deserts.

“Make up your mind,” Tatsu says, “if you think that I missed you or that I don’t care.”

Harkness chuckles and really seems to ponder over this for a while.

“Beats me,” he concludes at last. “Care to throw some light on it?”

No, Tatsu thinks, I don’t get it myself and I’m not sure I want to.

Instead of answering, she comes closer to him – so close that she can smell his sweat – and studies his face. She has to look up to be able to do that, which must look comical. Then again, he’s hardly stupid enough to laugh at her height or anything else about her, especially when she’s armed and he is not.

“You lost a tooth. What happened?”

“Didn’t get along with one of the Wall’s watchdogs.”

“You could have tried not to look for trouble for a change,” all of a sudden, Tatsu realizes that she’s mad. Really mad at him. They might get dragged to another mission this instant; whether they like it or not, they have to be in good enough shape to protect the society that the most of them have to atone before at least partially. They shouldn’t spend their energy and health on nonsense. Black eyes and knocked-out teeth are nothing, but it mustn’t come to any of them being out of action when all of them are needed. All their powers, all their skills. All the anger they should rather aim at something other than the people who can just press a certain button at any point – and dispose of the wilful weapon.

Boomerang bares his teeth – not like Croc, of course, but still threateningly. He looks dangerous now – big, sturdy, more than a head taller than her. But he still isn’t more dangerous than her – and both of them are aware of that.

“And they could have tried,” he speaks through his teeth, “not to talk shit about my mother for a change. They wanna talk shit about me, they can knock themselves out. I’ve heard enough ‘bout myself, I don’t give a flying fuck about what else they gonna say. But they’d better leave my mother out of it.”

So that’s what it is. They have found a quick and easy way to infuriate the man who has “MUM” tattooed on his chest. In uneven letters, like a child's handwriting. Tatsu noticed that tattoo as soon as she came in but didn’t look too closely at it. Now she feels like she has the right to look, to let her gaze slip lower, at the ridiculous writing that heaves with each furious breath of his, and then to avert her eyes at once.

“They have power, and you have nothing,” she says. “Do you enjoy being their plaything?”

“Oh, so I’m a plaything, darl? And do I have much choice who to be now? In these four walls, and,” Boomerang points at his neck, at the place where a bomb is implanted under his skin, “with this crap in my neck?”

Tatsu looks up again, right him in the eye.

“You already know who you are,” she tells him. “You’re a weapon. Broken weapons get discarded. And you’re letting them break you.”

He stays silent, just looks at her in an odd manner, as if she’s speaking another language but he has a vague understanding of what she’s saying and doesn’t like what he just heard – because it is the truth.

Tatsu still doesn’t understand why she cares, and with each passing minute she has less and less desire to learn why.

“Also,” she continues, “if you call me ‘darl’ or ‘gorgeous’ one more time, you’re going to regret opening your mouth.”

“Yeah? And how should I call ya?”

“Katana.”

“What, and that’s all? Nah, we might be weapons,” and she probably ought to remind him that there is no ‘we’, but in this particular case he’s right. Perhaps that is why Tatsu feels drawn to all of them: they’re cut from the same cloth, “but we’re alive as well. So far. Seriously, what’s yer real name? You know mine.”

“I should not disclose that.”

“Oh, come on. Listen,” he breaks into a pleased grin again. Another theorem proven. “How about a deal? You tell me yer name, and I will try to keep my temper if anyone else decides to stir me up. What do ya think?”

“As if you’re going to keep your word.”

Boomerang makes a show of putting his hand over his heart.

“For you, ma’am… anything.”

For you. All at once, she recalls Rick’s words: do whatever you want to him. How many minutes of the visit she has already spent on this predictably fruitless conversation?

“My name is Tatsu Yamashiro,” she says, tired, and then he smiles – not the way he did before, but in a calmer and more sincere manner. Gratefully.

“George Harkness,” he offers her his hand with an earnest air. “Nice to meet ya.”

Tatsu hesitantly offers him hers. Her hand looks very small and fragile against his huge paw, and he must be thinking the same because the handshake comes out very careful. He could easily break her wrist. She could easily kill him with one hand afterwards. But he holds her hand gently in his warm, pleasantly calloused palm, and Tatsu hastens to take her hand away, because this is a mistake of an even worse kind than the time he saw her without the mask.

“So you promise not to fights the guards.”

“I promise to try,” Harkness assures, but he’s keeping one hand behind his back.

“Don’t cross your fingers,” Tatsu says sternly. Real mature.

With a sigh, Boomerang repeats his promise, this time holding his hands within her view.

“But I ain’t promisin’ not to call you gorgeous,” he declares in the end.

“You know my name now.”

“But you’re still gorgeous.”

“Time’s up!” shouts the guard outside the door, and Tatsu cannot help feeling relieved that she has to go. She doesn’t regret visiting him, but all of this is too strange and awkward, and both of them might be weapons, but her position is different from his, and it is better not to forget that.

“Can I do anything for you?” she asks him on parting.

“Well,” Boomerang smirks. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

“With something I would actually agree to do?”

“Come again. Will ya?” This time he isn’t flirting; this time she can feel his insecurity, even shyness. As if he doesn’t like to admit to himself that what she answers is really important to him.

“I’ll try,” she says cautiously. She’s not going to make any promises: she asked Waller about one time only. She doubts if she’ll be allowed to visit them again – to visit him again.

“Try,” Harkness repeats, as if weighing the word on his tongue. “This means no.”

“This means I’ll try,” Tatsu says firmly.

And she comes again in a week. And the week after next. And a week after that.

***

“Why didn’t you walk away in Midway City?” Tatsu asks him once. “When Rick broke the control panel. You left then; why did you return?”

A lot of water has flowed under the bridge since the time Captain Boomerang dared to smart off Amanda Waller. Several successful missions, slightly more respectful attitude on his part – and his cell already bears a passing resemblance to a place for living, even if for living quite miserably. Now there is even a table, and a chair that she gets to sit on as guest privilege. Harkness is sitting on the floor opposite her. The question seems to catch him unawares, but only for a moment.

“Huh? Why did I return? Gotta live up to my name, that’s why. Have you ever thrown a boomerang, luv?”

I’m going to throw you somewhere one day, Tatsu thinks, yet without much irritation.

“And jokes aside?”

Boomerang attempts to feign an offended sigh.

“How do ya think? Plenty of options, all right. You gonna try to guess which one?”

Tatsu frowns.

“Is this a psychoanalysis session? Were you bitten by Harley Quinn?”

“Nah, Blondie didn’t bite me, I would’ve remembered. So don’t be jealous,” his voice gets playful again, and Tatsu stifles the urge to roll her eyes. “Lookie here… suppose I suddenly realized that I can’t leave you guys! ‘Cause you’re my mates. One for all, and so on. Don’t believe me?”

“You said something about plenty of options. What are the rest of them?”

He scratches his chin thoughtfully.

“We-e-ell… the second, ‘course, is that I wanted to save the world. Not that the world smiles upon me every bloody day, but I still wanna live! And for everyone an’ their mother to know that the bastards like us can also be heroes. Don’t you like being one of the good guys, eh, Tatsu?”

“I’m not ‘one of the good guys’”, Tatsu protests. “And it’s not me that we’re talking about. Any other options?”

“There was no point in leaving. That was still gonna be the end of the world, aye? So I’d rather meet it in battle and in good company than on the run. All the same it’ll be the end. There you go.”

He stops talking, and in the silence that falls Tatsu can hear the footsteps of the guards in the corridor. Once again she wonders what the duty attendants that monitor everything through the surveillance cameras think of their conversations. They must make for the strangest and most pointless reality show ever.

“The third one,” she says.

Boomerang looks a bit disappointed.

“Why?”

“Not the first one, because none of us meant anything to you then. You had just met us. And it didn’t seem like you were upset about letting Slipknot down,” Tatsu explains. She doesn’t intend to offend him – she’s just saying the truth. Once, he claimed it himself that they understand each other – here’s some understanding, he’s welcome. “Not the second one either, because you’re not stupid – no, stop smiling. You never believed that if people like us stop the Enchantress, someone would learn about that. Only the third option remains.”

Harkness nods slowly.

“Yeah,” he agrees, and his eyes turn pensive, abstracted, as if he is there again, in the night city frozen in anticipation of the apocalypse. As if he sees himself – and makes a choice once again. “And that’s what happened in the end, didn’t it?”

“So the third option, then?”

“So it is.”

But something in his face makes Tatsu think that he was hoping for a different answer.

***

Time flies; weeks and months go by. Tatsu spends them fighting, spilling someone else’s blood, occasionally drinking with Flag at a bar or in his apartment – a bachelor’s home again; reading books – most of the plots seem too naïve and unimaginative compared to what goes on in her life, and that is even for the best, and visiting the members of the Suicide Squad in Belle Reve. Some people go clubbing Friday evenings, and she goes to prison Friday afternoons.

“Don’t get attached to them,” Rick scolds her.

“That is rich coming from you,” Tatsu replies, and he has enough self-awareness not to argue. Lest he gets offended, she chooses not to tell him that sometimes she and Lawton talk a little about him good-naturedly behind his back.

During one of her visits, Harkness raises a topic she has totally forgotten about.

“Hey, come to think of it, we never had that drink,” he points out. Tatsu doesn’t understand what he’s talking about, and it must be written all over her face, because he continues. “Remember I asked you out for a drink? In Midway City, before we fought the witch.”

Tatsu has to make an effort to remember: indeed, he said something of the sort, but it never occurred to her to take those words seriously.

“We had a drink,” she counters. “When… when you shared your beer with me.”

He shakes his head, dissatisfied.

“At the construction site? That’s bollocks. I’m talking a proper bar… nah, a restaurant! With crystal glasses an’ candles an’ shit… Like normal people.”

“Candles,” Tatsu mumbles. She tries to imagine the two of them at the table at a restaurant; the picture turns out pretty absurd. On the other hand, a lot of what has happened in her life during the past few years can be deemed absurd.

“Yeah. Candles,” echoes Harkness, and continues with a crooked smile, “well, that’s me jokin’ around. In the near future,” he gestures in the direction of the small barred window of his cell, “I won’t be able to take you even to a fucking McDonald’s.”

They don’t talk about the hypothetical dinners at a restaurant anymore, but the absurd picture stays with Tatsu, who still feels somehow indebted to Boomerang – for no reason, as she keeps telling herself – for that conversation at the construction site. She doesn’t like to feel the weight of unpaid debts on her shoulders – yes, that’s what it is about.

One day, she finds a way to pay that debt back.

***

She waits for him in the car outside the prison gate. She hears him first; she cannot make out what exactly he is yelling at the guards, but that surely isn’t ‘good evening’. Then the door of the jeep is open, and someone must have kicked him in the rear because he literally falls into the car. Tatsu shrinks back on instinct.

Then Harkness looks up – and notices her.

“Katana?.. Hey, what the hell’s going on? They didn’t let me take the boomerangs, didn’t let me take anything…”

“Close the door,” Tatsu tells him, and when he, still confused, obeys, tells the driver, “Let’s go.”

The car pulls away.

“I still don’t get what’s happening,” Harkness reminds her. “Sure, I’m happy to see ya, but… you weren’t ordered to take me to the woods and finish me off under the radar, huh?”

“If Waller wanted to get rid of you, she would have had you killed in your own cell, and that’s all.”

“Wow, thanks for honesty. So where are we going?”

“To a restaurant,” Tatsu says, and turns away. Yet again it crosses her mind that it is a terrible idea.

“A restaurant?” Harkness drawls quizzically.

“As far as I recall, you said that the beer at the construction site is ‘bollocks’.”

She should turn back to him, of course. The problem is that Tatsu is ninety-nine per cent sure that if she meets his eye now, she will blush. And she is by no means going to give him any sign that might be interpreted as taking an interest… of a certain kind. She has already blundered more than a few times.

Therefore she stubbornly keeps looking out of the window. Then again, she doesn’t even need to look to picture how his facial expression is changing now; she’s seen this rakish grin enough times.

“Holy cow. Tatsu, are you serious? We’re really just going to a restaurant? We’re getting outta this shithole where they only give us porridge with rat crap to gorge ourselves on lobsters and drink wine? Oh, fuck me sideways,” in the end, she turns to him and sees him throw back his head and burst into laughter, narrowing his eyes happily. “I’ll be damned! Am I dreaming? I must be dreaming. Pinch me.”

“I can assure you you’re not,” Tatsu says, and realizes that she is also starting to smile despite herself. She has visited him and the others in Belle Reve often enough to know that porridge with rat crap, unfortunately, is far from being just a figure of speech. After such a diet, a meal at a restaurant must seem like the pinnacle of happiness.

Boomerang shakes his head, apparently still unable to believe her.

“Holy fucking shit. How did you do that? How do you even do all that? I’ve told ya you’re unreal, have I?”

“Yes, you have,” Tatsu confirms patiently. And more than once – too often for her to attach great importance to it, too fervently for it not to please her at all. “Let’s put it that way: this is Waller paying me for a… favour.”

“A favour, then. I take it a lot of some poor suckers died?”

“No,” she shakes her head. And it is true – but there still was a lot of blood. Both the man Waller indicated and his bodyguards turned out to be worthy adversaries. The whole thing went not as smoothly as she wanted it to – not that she wanted to; not that she would kill another person she knows nothing about if she could help it. Nothing to assure her: this one deserves it. Everything turned out rather… nasty. She had to burn the bodies. Then she got home in a haze, tended to a couple of fresh wounds – or rather, just scratches. And then she went to the bathroom and spent a long time soaping herself, as if the invisible filth that bothered her the most could be washed off with shower gel.

Afterwards, she rummaged through her modest wardrobe and dug out the only dress she has about in America. Nothing special: wine red, below the knee length, sleeveless but with a pretty high neckline – very demure. The first and so far the last dress she bought after… after. If she and Rick didn’t have to accompany Amanda Waller to some event once, she wouldn’t have bought this one either. She put it on, combed her hair, still wet after the shower, with her fingers, looked at herself in the mirror – and flew into a rage, pulled off the dress, and could barely stop herself from tearing it to shreds. Restaurant or not, what does it matter? The last thing she needs is for him to think she dressed up for him.

So the situation might be a little less absurd than it could have been. Both of them look like they’re going on another mission with the others, only she isn’t wearing her mask – he has already seen her face anyway – and he isn’t wearing his ever-present coat. It is no wonder he wasn’t allowed to take it – Waller wasn’t going to let him out of Belle Reve armed, and to let him wear his coat would probably be as unwise as to hand him all his boomerangs. Tatsu has no doubt that everyone and their dog have already searched through the personal belongings of the Squad, but she wouldn’t be surprised to learn that somewhere in his inside pockets Harkness has as many boomerangs as he is listed as having officially. She witnessed this man produce from his bosom at least four different lighters, a massive stack of dollars, a pocket knife, small binoculars, flat-nose pliers, and a toy unicorn. She has to admit: sometimes she doesn’t understand how he even does all that either.

It appears that the thoughts of Captain Boomerang also turn to the contents of his pockets.

“Hey, how the hell are we affording this, though? Make no mistake, I’d stand treat, but my stash is in the coat, and these assholes didn’t let me take it, y’know.”

“Don’t worry about that. Waller is paying for everything,” she explains, unable to suppress a grin, because this part, possibly the most unbelievable part of the entire affair, gives her a sort of silly, spiteful joy. Task Force X is a comparatively recent project, but they’ve already cleaned up so much mess for Amanda Waller that Heracles and his labours don’t even come close. A dinner at a restaurant is the least thing she could offer them. So when Boomerang explodes with laughter and gives her a conspiratorial wink, she looks him right in the eye and smiles. Another mistake. Then again, this is not the first time they share a secret.

He puts his hand on her knee, and she shakes it off immediately; this is way too far.

“I see you took your sword with ya,” Harkness observes, not giving any sign that something didn’t go the way he wanted.

“I am to keep an eye on you.”

“Yeah. How about…” he leans in closer, and the smell of cologne blasts up Tatsu’s nose. She can only hope it is due to external use only, “we chop off his head,” he nods at the driver, “and drive the fuck away from this? Huh?”

The driver, who can definitely hear everything, doesn’t turn, but Tatsu notices him tense up.

“You’re kidding,” she says dryly. He may be, or he may be not – with Digger Harkness, one cannot always tell.

“Why kidding, doll? Zip, and done. There’s no way you enjoy working for Waller.”

“I do not. But if you pull some stunt,” Tatsu feels for the sword hilt, and Boomerang sees that – very well, it is good for him to see that, “I will chop your head off. I really hope it won’t come to that.”

“And what’s it to you? Scared of me? But I’m unarmed,” he claps himself on the chest demonstratively, implying that he has no weapons on him. “Why do you care if it does?”

“I just wouldn’t like to do that,” she says firmly, and it’s true. It works well; he doesn’t even mention running away for the remainder of the day.

This might be the strangest evening in her life.

Waller’s man drives them to a French restaurant whose name she cannot read but is almost sure that the phrase was chosen solely because it sounds impressive. They are let in through the back door, so no one among the other guests, who are sporting evening dresses and suits, pays any attention to her crop top and sword or to his… appearance in general. Their table is one of those located in alcoves, away from prying eyes, but Tatsu feels they are being watched. Which means Waller doesn’t trust her too much – well, she can understand that. She is part of a special team composed of deranged madmen, and she must admit she likes these deranged madmen more than she likes certain normal people known to her. Of course, she is Flag’s right-hand woman, but it is most likely that Waller doesn’t trust Flag either. It is doubtful whether there are any people in this world that she trusts at all.

Waller is rich. Their little feast will not shatter her wealth, all the more so since the restaurant she sent them to is not the most luxurious. But they still have a field day ordering loads of food and a bottle of the most expensive wine on the menu.

“To honour among thieves?” she suggests, when they raise their glasses for the first time.

“Didn’t ya say yer not a thief?”

“That is true,” she admits, and adds inwardly, I’m a killer.

In the end, they drink to the Suicide Squad. Then to Lawton and Jones, currently languishing in their cells. Then to Zoe Lawton, who is acting in a school play next week. To a lot of things. He asks her about her life here, in America. At some point she finds herself trying to explain to him what taiyaki is, and him telling her about banana sandwiches, and she can’t remember why they started talking about this at all. The bottle becomes empty, and another appears as if by itself.

They don’t talk about the past. They don’t talk about the future, because there might be no future at all – they can’t know for sure, what with their way of life. That evening, Tatsu laughs and thinks: good thing I’m drunk – it almost gets easier for a while.

When it’s time to leave, Harkness gets pig-headed.

“Whoa, no, no, no. Already? It’s too early, are you kiddin’ me?” he booms out when they exit the restaurant. He protests, but she drags him by the hand and he stumbles along after all, treading heavily like a dancing bear. “Let’s go someplace else, luv. Look at the pretty stars.”

“We are already late. And you… you have to go back to jail,” Tatsu tells him. The stars are pretty indeed, but she regrets looking up at them, because her head begins to spin. Thankfully, she isn’t wearing high heels. Thankfully, she doesn’t have any high-heeled shoes at all, or she could have been possessed to wear them. “Sorry,” she adds when they get into the car and set off. “There is no other way.”

“Back to jail,” Boomerang repeats with disgust. Sprawling on the seat, he unzips his hoodie, and Tatsu is swept over by the smell of cologne again. Weirdly, it doesn’t annoy her as much as at the beginning of the evening. “I’m a fucking Cinderella. I’m not back by midnight, they turn me into a pumpkin.”

“Cinderella,” Tatsu echoes, and giggles: everything is way funnier now. The driver makes a sudden turn, and she is literally thrown at Boomerang. Her cheek presses to his chest – and stays there. Tatsu feels drunk and sated and drunk again, and sleepy too, and he makes for a decent pillow, and she can’t make herself move away.

“Oh, you think it’s funny,” Harkness mutters with mock offence in his voice. It seems he’s about to fall asleep too. “Well, go on, laugh.”

They drive back in silence, and through the drowse Tatsu feels the warm arm around her waist and thinks: good thing I’m drunk, I can pretend I’m asleep.

The road to Belle Reve is long, but it still feels like they reach it too quickly.

“Inmate,” calls one of the guards, “get out.”

Harkness, his eyes still closed, moans with discontent.

“Captain Boomerang,” Tatsu says softly, freeing herself from his embrace. “It’s time.”

There is nothing to be done. He’s already about to step out of the jeep, when he suddenly moves closer to her again.

“Hey, darlin’,” he says, looking her right in the eye. “Aren’t ya forgetting something?”

It takes her some time to realize what he means: he must be expecting her to kiss him. All at once she remembers everything that has happened this evening, and awful shame washes over her: it is no wonder he’s expecting that to happen.

“Inmate, get out!”

She shrinks back.

“Good night, Captain,” she tells him as dryly as she can. He looks wounded but says nothing, and almost obediently lets the guards escort him back to his cell. Tatsu closes her eyes and rubs her temples wearily. Tomorrow she is going to regret drinking so much. She already does – and that’s not the only thing she regrets.

She has to stop seeing him.

***

At first, she even succeeds. Next Friday Tatsu, as always, goes to Belle Reve to see the Squad – all of them save for Harkness. She feels sick at heart because if she did promise him anything, it was to visit him, and now she’s going back on her word because of her own stupid weakness. But there is no other way.

“He asked about you,” Waylon tells her a week later, when she brings him the latest issue of Playboy. Tatsu almost doesn’t feel weird anymore when buying it, and doesn’t try to imagine anymore what the news stand clerks think when she pays them for it. Such periodicals cause her a feeling of light disgust, but Croc, who gets let out of jail only to be thrown into another trouble spot, deserves at least some small joys.

“Who?”

Waylon, no doubt observant like all the quiet ones tend to be, bares his impressive teeth.

“You know who.”

It seems a logical solution to give up on these visits at all – but in that case she would betray all of them. Perhaps this little tradition is much more important to her than it is to the prisoners, but Tatsu is almost sure that it means something to them as well. She has no right to deprive the rest of them of this bit of understanding, companionship, normalcy because she wasn’t smart enough to stop the game she and Boomerang started before it became too late.

At home – not that the apartment she’s renting here deserves to be called ‘home’ – she, unable to fall asleep, unsheathes the sword and runs the tips of her fingers along the cool blade. A tender, habitual movement – like touching the cheek of a loved one.

“I’ve lost my way, Maseo,” whispers Tatsu. The place where the souls of the people struck down by this blade are trapped is still a mystery to her, but she knows that Maseo will come as soon as she calls him – as a voice from afar, as nebulous shapes in the swirls of smoke, as the peace and safety granted by the presence of someone dear. “I’m afraid of my own heart.”

I know your heart, Tatsu. You have nothing to be afraid of.

“It makes me act rashly. Makes me succumb to false feelings.”

I know your heart, Tatsu, and it incapable of falsehood.

Only the ones that are already far away can speak so vaguely and with such unrelenting honesty at the same time.

“I will always love you,” she whispers ardently. Not because she doesn’t want him to think it is not so; not because she herself feels like it is not so anymore either. She knows for sure that she is always going to love him, for she loved him as a lover, as a husband, as the father of her children, as the only thing she had left after all her life fell apart, burned in that damned fire. He will stay in her heart until her last breath – even if she has to close her heart to the rest of the world. Once she used to think that after all she’s been through, it isn’t going to be an issue.

And I will always love you, her husband replies, and Tatsu blinks back tears with a deep sigh.

“I just wish you were alive,” she tells him for what must be the hundredth, or maybe a thousandth time.

If he was with her – not as smoke or a voice, but as flesh and blood – he probably would have kissed her gently on the nape of her neck, as he often used to do.

I just wish, says her husband – no, the soul of her husband, which is already rushing away, deep into the world she shouldn’t hurry to go to if she doesn’t want this sword to fall into wrong hands, that you were happy.

***

Literally the next day there is a message from Metropolis that some giant snake-like beast is terrorizing the city and devouring people. The monster was last seen crawling into the building of the opera – which is where their squad heads to after reaching the city.

“Look at that freak,” Harkness comments in a low voice. The creature is curled up slumbering on stage, and they are watching it from the catwalks above. “Not a family of yours by any chance, eh, ‘gator?’

Waylon steps towards him, and the planks creak under his feet, threatening to break.

“Say that again,” he growls.

Tatsu bares her sword and wedges herself between them. Waylon backs off reluctantly.

“Knock it off,” she tells Boomerang. It feels like everything has come full circle – the day Harkness picked up her mask, he also had a run-in with Jones. The day they were sent to fight the Enchantress, she also put the blade of her sword under his chin. Why did she even think something would change?

“Oh, so you’re talking to me after all?”

“Enough,” Tatsu hisses. She really wants to try to explain everything to him. Maybe if she tries to put her feelings into words, many things will become clear to her, too. But if he thinks they are going to discuss this now, he is mistaken.

On the neighbouring catwalk, Rick is looking at them in a rage, gesturing both of them to shut up. Harkness steps closer; now the blade of the Soultaker is within a hair’s breadth away from his neck. A single careless movement, and blood will be spilled. A wild idea crosses her mind: it looks as if he’s into this. Tatsu licks her lips.

“Y’know,” Boomerang begins, lowering his head a little so that it is easier for him to look her in the eye, “I think you’re scared of me. Or of yourself, hell if I know. Am I right?”

A loud rustle comes from beneath, and the next instant the monster bites through the middle of the catwalk they’re standing on, and both of them are falling down. Tatsu manages to grab some rope, but when she tries to climb it, her hands slip, and she comes tumbling down.

The fall is far from being soft, even though she falls on the tatters of the curtain, which the snake must have torn earlier. She is lucky not to hurt her head, but her left leg and hip are aching. Only the awareness that there is no time to lie around makes her summon up all her strength and get up. Her sword is nowhere to be seen, and Tatsu is overwhelmed by fury: now she is useless.

The snake roars and shakes its head, trying to shake off Croc, who is trying to bite through its scales. Rick is shooting at the monster from above, and Deadshot, who is already on stage somehow, is doing the same from below, dodging the blows of its tail. Tatsu sweeps her eyes weakly over the stage and suddenly notices a hole broken in it. At the very edge of the hole, the hilt of her sword is sticking out of the floor. Moving as quickly as it is possible to do that with a limp, Tatsu hurries there.

The moment she pulls the sword out of the stage, Harkness’s head pokes out of the hole. Not waiting for him to ask for help, Tatsu helps him get out.

“Are you…” both of them begin in unison and drop it immediately, because the snake has managed to shake off the bothersome little crocodile – who is hopefully just somewhere on the floor and not in its belly – and is moving towards them, slower than before but still pretty speedily. They scatter, and Tatsu charges at the monster with her sword drawn. Harkness throws a boomerang at the creature, aiming at its eye, but it dodges at the last second.

Eventually, with joint forces they manage to kill the beast. To be on the safe side, Lawton fires a round into its open jaws. The long body shudders one last time and falls still. For some time, the five of them stand there looking at it.

“Where could this thing even come from?” Rick mutters.

“Remember what the Wicked Witch of the West said when she tried to get us to join her? The world is changing, the time of magic has come, blah, blah, blah,” Lawton reminds him. Rick nods absentmindedly; these are not happy memories.

Jones kicks the dead snake.

“Maybe it meant no harm,” he points out in his deep voice.

“Croc,” Rick says wearily, “it ate people.”

“So did I.”

“But at least you didn’t chew the curtain at the opera like a disgraced diva?” Lawton asks, struggling not to grin.

“Nuh-uh.”

“Well, then it’s okay.”

Rick titters nervously, and the next instant all of them are shaking with laughter.

Tatsu is drinking water straight from the tap in the restroom, when Harkness comes in.

“This is a ladies’ room,” she says reflexively.

“Hey, I just wanna wash my face, is all.”

Without waiting for her to answer, he comes closer and starts washing at the neighbouring sink. Tatsu casts a sidelong look at him and notices that the water is turning red.

“Show me your face,” she orders.

“It’s not a bad face, what’s yer problem?”

“I’m serious.”

He rolls his eyes, but stands still while she examines his face, only wincing when she dabs at the cut on his forehead with a paper towel.

“Just a scratch,” he assures at once.

“Just a scratch,” Tatsu agrees. She scrunches up the towel and throws it into the sink. She would like to keep her hand on his face, pretending that she’s still wiping off the blood, but she’s done pretending.

“How about you?” Boomerang asks quietly.

“Fine. A couple of bruises. You were lucky today,” she says just as quietly, and takes off her mask. Tomorrow they might not be as lucky. “I’m happy for you.”

“And I’m happy you got out alive… darl.”

For a moment she wants him to ruin everything. To reply with a jibe, to crack another dirty joke, to try to grab and kiss her only to get smacked. Not to stand motionless in front of her like he’s afraid to scare her off. It occurred to her once that from the outside their relationship might look like an attempt to tame a wild animal. Perhaps this is a mutual process.

Do whatever you want to him.

She stands up on tiptoes and kisses him.

For an instant, Harkness freezes – possibly trying to figure out again if he’s dreaming – and then pulls her closer and kisses back. Drinks her hungrily, like this is both the first time and the last. Bearing in mind what their lives are like, it really might be the last.

Tatsu doesn’t immediately realize why she suddenly doesn’t need to stand on tiptoes anymore.

“Put me down–” she starts, but gives up and wraps her legs around his waist. Boomerang grunts with satisfaction and switches from her lips to her neck. His beard, fortunately, is softer than could have been expected.

“Stop drinking so much,” Tatsu breathes out, now that no one is trying to shut her mouth. “You taste like…” all English words slip her mind, “like… a beer cask.”

It tickles her when he laughs into her neck.

Someone simply must enter now – Rick, Floyd, Amanda Waller, the president of the United States, but no, no one is trying to stop him from squeezing her hips, to stop her from running her fingers through his hair. Weapon to weapon, blade to blade. Red-hot metal to red-hot metal. Melting until something new is forged – without fear, without regret, without the past, without the future.

Clearly, Maseo wants too much: she remembers what happiness is, and she is sure she’ll never ever be happy again.

But she can take a shot at being alive.

#suicide squad #katana #captain boomerang #tatsu yamashiro #digger harkness #kaboom #captain boomerang x katana #boomerang x katana #dc #my fic #gella talks skwad #talk talk talk #my magnum opus lmao #amazed i managed to translate this. i am not a woman i'm a god indeed #once again i still know nothing about the geography of the dceu!united states #and whether a city like metropolis could have an opera house

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noladyme · 4 years

Text

Chess. Chapter 6

Y/N never hurt anyone who didn’t deserve it. She only took what she needed, or what she felt others needed. She’d stayed out of sight for a long time, avoiding anything that could get her in to too much trouble. But for some reason Rick Flag shows up in her life, and in an instant, everything changes.

TW: Violence, language, sexual themes, blood

(This story is obviously non-canon, i.e. Diablo and GQ, but I hope you’ll enjoy it either way. Let me know if you want to be added to the tag list.)

“St. Roch, Louisiana. We’re staying in our own backyard”. Flag was reading from a tablet; as we were taken through a long hallway, leading from the cellblock, to what seemed to be a large garage.

I had a guards pistol aimed at me, as it’s owner followed my every move, with cold eyes.

I had spent the rest the day before, trying to wrap my mind around my new situation.

I was officially a prisoner at Belle Reve – a high security penitentiary, in the sweatiest asscrack of the Louisiana swamps. I was there for the kidnapping and assault of judge Jeremiah Kelper.

The assault and maiming had been of such a horrible nature, that I was committed to this facility, without trial. My conviction was a formality, as I apparently confessed to the guards of Belle Reve, the night of my arrival.

I was to serve life, without parole.

There was no mention of the incident in Wayne Tower in my file.

Unofficially, I was the newest member of Task Force X, a top-secret group of meta-humans, and people with exceptional skills, required to complete missions of a classified nature.

These individuals also happened to all be convicted felons, and the scum of the earth.

There was Floyd Lawton; a.k.a. Deadshot. The man who never missed a shot. During dinner – sloppy joes, yum… – he’d shown me a picture of a cute 8 year old girl, who had his eyes.

“She’s a bit older now, writes me every day. She just got an A on her biology report!”, he’d exclaimed proudly. It was clear Floyd loved his daughter, more than anything.

Killer Croc – Waylon Jones. He was huge, terrifying; and made me feel safer than I had in weeks, just by his presence. Croc – as he insisted on being called – had won me over, by calling me cher’.

I’d talked to him about Sammy, and recounted some of the trucker stories he’d told me.

After Croc’d told me he’d once eaten a truckdriver, he said: “I’m glad it wasn’t your boss. He seems like a decent guy”.

I’d been surprised by the gentle and kind demeanor of Chato Santana; or, Diablo, as they called him. I’d seen a videoclip on the news once, of him torching a group of inmates at a prison he was held at. I thought he’d be a hothead – pun intended – but he turned out to be calm and remorseful about his violent past.

Harley. Now, she was a different story. She was about as calm as a puppy on poppers. She also seemed to have no remorse for anything she’d done, as the sidekick and girlfriend of the Joker. I was equal parts terrified and enthralled by her person.

She’d spent most of the rest of the day, singing lullabies to a picture of a hyena, and doing her nails. Once, she’d disappeared for about an hour, before returning to her former activities, with a satisfied smile plastered over her pretty face.

We soon discovered what Harley had been doing, when the napping Digger Harkness – Captain Boomerang, the australian – suddenly screamed; jumping up and down, scratching at his body.

“Ants! Bloody fire ants!”, he’d yelped with a shrill voice; running towards the bathroom.

He’d returned a while later, shaking his coat, and sending the giggling Harley a deadly look. His arms and neck were covered in tiny and angry red welts; that he’d scratched at for the rest of the day.

This was my new family. I was very aware that none of us had chosen to be here, but it seemed that we were all determined to make the best of it, until such an opportunity arose, that we’d be able to leave.

Apparently, Harley had tried to run multiple times – even having made it back to the Clown; and stayed of the grid for a few months, before arriving back at Belle Reve, with a pair of roller skates, and a taxidermized beaver.

I didn’t know when or if I’d be able to escape; so for now, I decided to settle in.

---

In the middle of the large garage stood a helicopter the size of a tank. In front of it stood six crates; each of our names written on the side of one of them.

The rest of the squad seemed to know the procedure. They opened their crates, and dug through them. Flag paced back and forth in front of us, carrying a machinegun.

“You know the deal”, he hollered. “Three weapons. Two ranged, one for close combat. Croc and Diablo, you are both the exceptions”. No weapons for them, I guessed.

“Oy, colonel”, Digger called.

“No, Digger”, Flag answered, before the aussie had a chance to ask. “Boomerangs do not count as close range, though they can be used as such. You bring two. No more”. Digger cursed under his breath.

They’d all been through this before. I couldn’t help but feel like it was the first day of school, and that I’d forgotten my backpack at home.

“You alright?”, Floyd asked from behind me.

“Yeah”, I answered. “It’s just…new. How do you do this? How do you work for these people, who treat you like shit, and then demand that you risk your lives for them?”. I bent to open my crate, and started going through the equipment in it.

“Look”, said Floyd. “Ain’t none of us here who wants to be here. Except for maybe Harley”, he smiled, and looked at the person in question.

She was swinging an oversized fairground hammer, almost knocking over a soldier who was busy checking out her ass.

“We do this, because we have to, for one reason or another”. He looked at me seriously. “I’m here for my little girl. Every time I finish one of these missions, I’m one step closer to seeing her again; and to show her that her daddy’s not a monster”.

I pulled out my jacket, stood up, and looked at it.

“You find whatever reason you need to do this, but make sure it’s important enough, not just to survive for, but to live for”, Floyd finished, patted my shoulder, and walked away.

I sighed and returned to my crate. I had no idea what in my life was important enough to live for at this point.

I didn’t have a family to protect or impress. That had all ended after Hatter had entered my life.

Sammy… he was a friend, but he’d be better of if I didn’t return. Ever.

That left my cats. But they were fine where they were.

So what?

I was interrupted in my train of thought by Flag, who suddenly appeared next to me.

“Hey. You need to get ready. Liftoff in 10”.

“Sir, yes, sir”, I retorted, and rolled my eyes.

I went behind a tall crate to change into my outfit. Leggings, top, boots, jacket; and finally, my claws. I tested the knives once, against the crate in front of me, carving through the thin metal easily.

Retracting the claws, I went to join the others.

Flag stopped me before I had a chance to enter the chopper with the rest of the crew.

“One last thing, Chess”, he said, and pulled out a strange looking harness, made out of some synthetic material and wires.

“What’s that?”, I asked, skeptically.

“This is an armed device, that will explode, should you decide to… smile, without being ordered to do so, by myself”.

I looked him, dumbfounded. “You’re gonna blow me up if I go invisible?”, I guffawed.

“No”, he answered. “I’ll blow that nano-bomb in your neck if you try to run away. This device will explode on it’s own, whenever its sensors recognize that you are using your powers”.

I shook my head, confused.

“If I’m not here to do that, then why am I here?”.

Flag used a strange key to unlock the harness.

“After what happened yesterday…” he started. I interrupted him.

“You mean when I didn’t run away?”, I spat.

He was unmoved by my exclamation.

“After what happened yesterday”, he repeated, “Waller seems to think it would be better if I take control of when you should… do your thing. You’ll be able to make things you touch invisible, as usual; but you cannot disappear yourself”.

He held up the newest addition to my outfit, to let me put it on.

“From now on, you will be wearing this whenever you are not in your cell. I can disarm the device at any time, for as long as I deem necessary”.

I stepped back, shaking my head.

“No”.

Flag frowned.

“Put it on”, he said, a slight edge to his voice.

“No”, I repeated, and crossed my arms in front of me.

Flag exhaled through his nose.

“Put it on, or I’ll put it on you myself”, he growled. I tilted my head, and raised my eyebrows at him.

“Is that a promise?”, I asked.

He raised his chin, and looked down at me.

“I can have one of GQs men do it”.

I ripped the harness from his hands, and begun to put it on; trying to figure out where each strap was supposed to go.

There were two straps, one going over each shoulder. One strap went around my torso, from my back to my front. Holding it all together, was one last strap, starting from my back, going down between my legs, and connecting with the others, on the middle of my chest.

Flag grabbed the straps in front of me, connecting them to a round disc, with a small red light in the middle. He tightened the harness as much as he could, making me bump against him; and locked the disc with the key.

“You go invisible; you die. You try to take it off; you die. You even think of trying to steal the key, guess what…”.

“I die?”, I jestered.

“You die”, he answered.

I tried to move around in the strange contraption.

“How am I supposed to pee in this?”, I asked angrily.

“We’ll climb that mountain when we get to it”, he answered, and turned his back to me, walking away.

“Old Fashioned”, I called after him. He turned around.

“What?”, he asked.

“If you’re gonna ride me this hard, it’s only polite to buy me a drink”, I said; turned my back to him, and walked away to join the squad.

---

Landing in St. Roch, our first destination was an old gas station just outside of town. It was abandoned by its owners; probably due to the explosions going off less than a mile away.

“You have your orders”, Flag called. “We go in discretely, locate our target, and take them out”.

“It’s probably going to be more complicated than that”, Diablo muttered next to me. Croc growled in agreement.

“You know, Flag, we’d probably be even more discrete, if you didn’t have Y/N here tied up like a Christmas ham”, Floyd smirked at him.

Flag frowned.

“This is Chess’ first mission. Let her find her legs before we throw her into it”, he said. “Let’s head out!”.

“Someone’s got a crush”, Harley said in a singsong voice, skipping past me.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”, I asked.

Digger chuckled, and followed her.

“She means, he wants a gander at your map of Tassie”, he winked back at me, and took a swig of the can of beer he’d taken from one of the fridges in the small store.

I shook my head, and feeling a machinegun between my shoulders – I was just thrilled that the Tweedles had joined us on this little fieldtrip – I followed the rest of the group.

Sneaking past a checkpoint – Floyd taking out the inhabitants from afar – we made our way downtown.

I heard crying from behind a dumpster, and stopped to see what it was. A young woman was hiding behind it; shaking in fear.

“Are you ok?”, I asked, reaching a hand towards her.

“Chess!”, Flag called, from a few yards away. “Get your ass over here”.

“She might need help”, I said, and stepped towards the crying woman.

She recoiled from my touch.

“No! Please leave me alone!”, she cried.

Floyd came up behind me.

“She’s afraid of us, Chess”, he said. “Just leave her alone”. He went back to the group, who continued down the street, leaving me alone with Flag and the terrified woman.

I backed away from her, a lump in my throat. Turning around, I walked up to Flag, trying desperately to hold back tears. Behind me, I heard the woman get up, and run down the street, away from us.

I looked up at Flag.

“I wasn’t going to hurt her”, I said quietly.

“I know”, he said shortly. “But she doesn’t”. He made to touch my shoulder; but changed his mind, straightened his back, and turned around.

“Let’s go, kitten”.

We joined the others.

“That was quick”, Harley smiled. “It’s ok, colonel. It happens to all men”.

“Lady, I will rip your pigtails off with my bare hands”, he growled at her, stomping to the front of the group.

“Never happened to me”, Croc winked at Harley, who beamed back at him.

Another checkpoint. Digger took care of this one.

Huddling up behind a couple of cars, we finally saw our target. A lieutenant of Ra’s Al Ghul, who had been stirring up trouble, laying the groundwork for a new stronghold for his master. They had chosen to set up shop in the town square; having tied up a group of around 10 hostages to a statue in the middle.

Flag started barking orders in a hushed voice.

“Alright. Floyd, you got the roofs. Keep in radio contact”. It was clear he trusted Floyd more than the rest of the group.

“Croc, see that van? Make sure anyone in it, and in the immediate vicinity of it, don’t have the chance to warn the target”. Croc went down on all fours, and disappeared into a nearby shrubbery.

“Diablo and Digger. I want you on each side of that building. If they do spot us; I want you to bottleneck them into that alley”, he said, pointing in the direction he meant. “GQ, you and your men join them. One on the flame, two on boomer”. Digger scoffed at the nickname.

“Harley; I want you… actually you just do whatever it is you do, without giving the rest of us away”, he sighed at her.

“Sure thing, boss”, she mock-saluted him. “Go team!”.

“You got your orders. Go!”, he finished; and the group scattered, each to their assigned positions.

“What am I supposed to do?”, I asked, feeling slightly left over.

“You stay on me”, he answered, and looked through his binoculars.

A few minutes went by. Hearing a growl from the direction of Crocs assigned post, I saw blood spatter on the inside of the windows of the van.

I heard Harleys voice yelling; “Batter up!”, followed by a clank and a loud scream.

Some of the lieutenants soldiers began scrambling.

“Goddamnit, Quinn!”, Flag cussed. “You! Stay here!”, he growled at me, and ran in the direction of Harleys voice, leaving behind his binoculars. I picked them up, and looked through them.

In the square, the soldiers were rigging up chains and wires around the hostages. Connected to the wires were multiple red sticks I recognized from movies I’d seen. Dynamite.

I looked in the direction Flag had gone. He and Harley were arguing quietly behind a bus.

I looked back at the town square. Our target was walking back and forth in front of the hostages, ranting about something I couldn’t make out.

I tried zooming in with the binoculars. Military tech for the win, I thought, and looked through them again.

In his hand, the lieutenant was holding what seemed to be a tablet. Large numbers read 5:00. The bastard walked up to a teenage boy, who had a stick of dynamite strapped to his chest. He put his hand on his cheek, and said something to him, that made the boy break down in tears. He then pressed a button on the screen. The numbers began to count down.

4:59.

4:58.

4:57…

Fuck!, I thought, and threw the binoculars on the ground.

Reminded of my harness, I rolled my eyes. Ok. So I couldn’t smile. But I did know how to move quietly and quickly. I pulled up my hood, and closed my jacket.

I snuck forward. I heard a gunshot and a grunt behind me, and looked back; seeing an enemy soldier on the ground, a bullet hole right between his eyes. Thanks, Floyd, I smiled up at the roof of a nearby building, seeing Deadshots white hood disappear back into the darkness.

I moved forward again, hiding behind a truck. A stone landed on the ground next to me; and looking in the direction of the thrower, I saw Flag waving at me.

“Get back!”, he mouthed at me angrily. I shook my head, and looked towards the hostages. Continuing forward, I suddenly heard a beep. Looking down, I saw the light on the disc on my chest turn from red to green.

Looking back at Flag – his wrist raised, pushing some buttons on what looked like a watch – I smirked, and nodded at him. Thanks, I thought.

A purr moving through my body; I smiled.

Readying my claws, I ran towards the square. A soldier looked in my direction, having heard my movement, but unable to see me. Oops. Quietly now, I thought, and scaled a car next to him, making as little sound as I could.

I saw Digger and the Tweedles running towards a group of soldiers exiting a building. They finished them of quickly, but not before having drawn enough attention to make the lieutenant aware of their presence.

He yelled something I couldn’t I understand, and dropped the tablet he had been holding.

Gunfire sounded, and I ran faster, making my way to the group of hostages.

I reappeared, startling a few of the hostages who screamed at me.

Picking up the tablet from the ground, I desperately began pushing the screen, trying to make the countdown stop.

2:35.

2:34.

2:33…

There was no way I could stop the detonation.

I spun around, ran to the statue, and began pulling at the wires.

“You’ll make it go off!”, the teenage boy from before shouted at me.

I ran to the back of the statue, finding a simple lock, holding together the two ends of the chain intertwined with the wires.

This I can handle, I smiled, and got out my kit.

I managed to break two of the lockpicks, my hands shaking from the stress of the situation. I looked at the tablet on the ground.

1:01.

1:00.

0:59…

Taking a deep breath, I gave it one more try. Please, please, please!.

The lock opened.

I grabbed one end of the chain, and ran with it around the statue, releasing the hostages. The teenage boy carefully pulled at the tape that held the stick of dynamite to his chest, and put the red stick gingerly on the ground.

“Thanks!”, he smiled at me, and ran. I smiled after him.

An elderly woman was having trouble keeping up with the others.

0:37.

0:36.

0:35…

“Just go on”, she yelled at me.

“No!”, I answered, and ran to put her arm around my neck. Stumbling a few steps forward, the woman was suddenly lifted from the ground, screaming, as Croc – with a smile plastered across his gruesome face – ran to safety, the old woman hanging over his shoulder.

We did it!, I thought, and went to run after him.

Someone grabbed my leg, holding me in place. Looking down, I saw the lieutenant – a gash across his face, and a gunshot to his chest – laughing up at me. His strong hands were holding on to my leg, making it impossible for me to move.

I looked towards the group waiting for me at a safe distance. The hostages were continuing down the street, running towards sirens and blinking lights.

0:15.

0:14.

0:13…

Flag screamed something at me, Edwards and his soldiers holding him back.

I yanked at my leg, desperately trying to get the dying man to let me go.

0:09.

0:08.

0:07…

I lifted my fist and screamed; cutting through my captors arm. He let go with a yelp; and I ran.

0:03.

0.02.

0:01…

0:00.....

Tag list:

@gloriousgam3r

@hyp-oh-critical

#rick flag #rick flag x reader #rick flag fic #rick flag imagine #suicide squad fic #suicide squad imagine #deadshot #harley quinn

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justforbooks · 4 years

Photo

On Western Stars, Bruce Springsteen Rides in the Whirlwind

A look inside the LP being hailed as The Boss’s best since Magic

In his memoir Born to Run and its live companion piece Springsteen on Broadway, Bruce Springsteen describes his first drive cross-country, when he was 21 years old. That would place that journey around 1970, ’71. Let’s pretend that at the end of the trip he found himself in sunny Southern California (not “down San Diego way,” but in Los Angeles) and decided to hang around there, writing songs, playing acoustic gigs, and by ’73 was getting some cuts on Linda Ronstadt albums, generating buzz as a solo performer from shows at the Troubadour, and the record labels started showing interest, resulting in a deal with Asylum, or Reprise.

Springsteen’s L.A. debut album released that year, let’s call it Greetings from Griffith Park, Ca., might’ve sounded something like his new Western Stars. When he began hinting about this solo project a few years back, Springsteen referenced the SoCal sound of the late ’60s, specifically Glen Campbell’s records of Jimmy Webb songs, and on Western Stars you can hear him aiming at the sweepingly melancholy vibe of “Wichita Lineman,” “Galveston,” and “By the Time I Get to Phoenix.” In Dylan Jones’s upcoming book The Wichita Lineman: Searching in the Sun for the World’s Great Unfinished Song, Springsteen says about Campbell’s singing, “It was simple on the surface but there was a lot of emotion underneath.”

Reviewers have been scrambling to play spot-the-musical-influences on Western Stars, and that’s fun to do. I hear some Johnny Rivers with the Wrecking Crew and Marty Paich’s strings lurking in the corners; Waylon Jennings’s version of “Good Time Charlie’s Got the Blues” (many people have pointed out how much “Hello Sunshine” resembles that song); the string arrangements Nick DeCaro did on Reprise albums for Gordon Lightfoot (Springsteen even has a song called “Sundown,” like Lightfoot’s big hit from ’74), Arlo Guthrie and Randy Newman, or the ones Bergen White charted for Tony Joe White; the hyper-literate, vivid Americana of Mickey Newbury. What a cool game! Nilsson! Jim Croce!

But Western Stars isn’t just evocative of the California sound of the early ’70s; it has, underneath its cinematic strings, the downbeat feeling of the movies that were coming out in 1973, populated by characters who couldn’t really be called heroes: Badlands (of course), Charlie Varrick, High Plains Drifter, Kid Blue, The Last American Hero (which Springsteen referenced on The River’s “Cadillac Ranch”), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, Scarecrow, Walking Tall. (In ‘73, Springsteen’s not-yet-manager Jon Landau was reviewing films—including some on this list—for Rolling Stone.) Those Watergate-era films, road movies, neo-Westerns, stories of outcasts and revenge-seekers, inform the landscape of Western Stars. On the title track, Springsteen reaches back a bit further: “Here’s to the cowboys, riders in the whirlwind” (see: Ride in the Whirlwind, Monte Hellman’s existential black-and-white western from 1966, starring a pre–Easy Rider Jack Nicholson). Sometimes Western Stars feels like an unmade film with Michael Sarrazin, Barbara Hershey, and Warren Oates.

Oh, I haven’t mentioned how good this album is, how memorable many of its lines are. “Fingernail moon in a twilight sky/Ridin’ high grass of the switchback”: his imagery is as crisp and clean as his fictional Montana sky. “Boarded up and gone like an old summer song.” It’s Springsteen’s best album, by far, since Magic (2007), and I already prefer it to the much-revered (in some quarters) The Rising. For one thing, it isn’t carrying the burden of expectations of The Rising (“We need you now!” someone supposedly shouted at Bruce in the street after 9/11, and can you conceive of the pressure? Would anyone have yelled that at Billy Joel?), and it isn’t bearing the heavy sonic weight of Brendan O’Brien’s production. Western Stars feels more open. These tracks have been in the works for some time; he mentioned the project in interviews around the time of the autobiography, but it had to wait until the whole Born to Run/Springsteen on Broadway phase was over. Maybe, by that point, he’d tired of his own narrative voice and his own story and got down to shaping others. These songs are all in the first person, but that person isn’t Bruce Springsteen. They’re hitchhikers and wayfarers (aren’t they kind of the same thing?), stuntmen and bit players. They’re like the characters in the early ’70s novels by Larry McMurtry (Moving On and All My Friends Are Going to Be Strangers), and I wonder how Springsteen missed out on writing a song about a rodeo cowboy.

Springsteen is also liberated musically. He didn’t have to consider, as he did with the woeful Working on a Dream and the clunky, well-meaning Wrecking Ball, how the songs would translate in the context of a live show with the E Street Band. You can’t imagine them schlepping around a big string section to recreate these songs, and there wouldn’t be anything at all for Jake Clemons to do, and even Max Weinberg would be fiddling his thumbs for a big chunk of the set. No doubt a few of these tracks will find their way into the possible 2020 tour (please, not “There Goes My Miracle” and “Sleepy Joe’s Café”; we don’t need him straining to be Del Shannon, or the band pretending to have fun on a Jay and the Americans knockoff), and if “Hello Sunshine” gets to replace “Waitin’ on a Sunny Day,” all the better.

Western Stars suggests an America divorced from this moment in history. The only cultural reference is to John Wayne (in ’73 he was doing junk like The Train Robbers), and the one allusion that nudges the album into the late 20th century is to a blue pill for ED. Otherwise, the album would have sat pretty solidly in the Nixon era. For anyone who expected Springsteen to be a beacon of hope that the country will get through this current crisis the way it did through Watergate and 9/11, or who wanted him to draw stark pictures of our heroes and villains, Western Stars may feel slight, or like a challenge he gave himself to complete a genre exercise. But if Darkness on the Edge of Town was Springsteen’s film noir, this album is his bleak road movie, his characters nursing drinks, recalling old loves and old wounds. By the time we end up at the final track, looking at the remnants of a beaten-down motel, we’ve been along on one of Springsteen’s most rewarding rides.

Daily inspiration. Discover more photos at http://justforbooks.tumblr.com

#JUST FOR BOOKS #Bruce Springsteen #Western Stars

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redjaybathood · 5 years

Text

People take issue apparently with Roy Harper being associated most strongly with Jason Todd because there was no hint of their friendship in pre-52.

Their main problems were:

1. Jason is a snotty kid, Roy wouldn’t have wanted to hang out with him.

2. Writers are trying to make Jason into Dick by giving him Dick’s friends. (thus somehow robbing dick from roy or something lmao)

3. Roy was made into an outlaw by being in Outlaws. He wasn’t like that before.

4. Roy and Jason don’t have anything in common.

So, if you’re totally ignoring both New52 and Rebirth, ignore this post.

1) Jason was over 15 (as he was 15 in the year zero; does New 52 timeline makes sense? Is there established timeline for Rebrith? Not to my knowledge, no, and yet) when Jay and Roy met.

As I remember it, Roy Harper was struggling with his addiction, heavily drinking, and living in Gotham, homeless, on the streets - in Dick’s home city - to boot, at the time.

Yes, their age difference would make hanging out slightly awkward, perhaps, though maybe not - for friends 5-8, and even 10 years is not that much, it’s not like they would have been in romantic relationships while Jason was underage.

And they did not hang out together then - Jason was murdered shortly after. Just a case of bad timing. But he did help Roy when no one did, and he did say Roy can visit him anytime, that he would be glad be friends with him - because everyone needed a friend.

2) While Roy was struggling, while he found himself on a verge of suicide by a rogue, the only person who gave a shit about him - except Robin who couldn’t very well give him all that much support because he, well, was murdered, - was actually Waylon Jones.

Where was Dick at the time? Why didn’t he help Roy? I don’t know.

And meeting Waylon was also one of the most cherished memories of Roy.

3) When Roy was wrongfully imprisoned in Ethiopia/Quarac jail (please note: he was wrongfully accused by people who hired him under the guise of liberating their homeland - so him ending up an outlaw was actually a misconception; but after Jason rescued him from jail Roy didn’t have anywhere else to go, and he could handle a little misconception because he actually was doing something good, so none of that ‘Jason made an outlaw of Roy).

Also, the person who rescued him out of jail? Jason. And Kory. Not Dick.

Where was Dick? I don’t know.

And I should mention, only three people had that much influence over Jason so he voluntarily would go to the place he died - and still struggles with PTSD aftermaths.

4) Jason and Roy do, in fact, have a lot in common. They both were taken in by a vigilante millionaire and it didn’t end well. They both feel betrayed by their father figure, kicked down when they needed a hand up. Their relationships with respective families almost non-existent. There’s no one who would understand that sort of betrayal better than each other.

This point could be illustrated by too many pages, but I also think it should be pretty obvious.

In conclusion: While pre-52 Dick very well might have been one of the best friends of Roy, belittle Roy’s current relationships in his life, and yes, Jason was, at the time of Roy’s death, one of the most important people in his life, just because you don’t really like Jason/like Dick better is fucking petty.

#roy harper #dick grayson #jason todd #am I saying something controversial here?#because i'm pretty sure at least one person blocked me because I added it to the reblog of the post #where people lamented how roy harper is most often associated with jason todd #no duh they had their series together #as a team and as a duo #and they were there for each other #is it a fucking bad thing?#that roy harper had one fucking person in his life who trusted him?#and who he trusted?

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jennathearcher · 5 years

Note

Suicide Squad for the fandom thing 💕💕💕

Send me a fandom and I’ll tell you:

The character I love: Oh my god can I say all of them??? How can I choose just one??? jk it’s Chato :P

The character I hate: GRIGGS (yes I even love to hate this version of the Joker)

The character I would call if I was in trouble: Floyd for sure

The character who I’m in trouble with: HARLEY DEFINITELY

The character I would trust to plan my birthday party: June Moone

The character I would share fries with: Waylon Jones

The character who would be my best friend: I wanna say Harley but for whatever weird reason I really want to be friends with Rick Flag okay don’t @ me

The character I would hang out with on a rainy day: Chato again he would be really fun to hang out with when it’s dreary and melancholy out

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!!

#ooc #edelweissroses

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tabloidtoc · 5 years

Text

Closer, April 1

Cover: Julia Roberts and Richard Gere of Pretty Woman -- Our Special Bond

Page 1: Contents, What I’ve Learned -- Ashley Judd, Joke of the Week -- Buddy Hackett

Page 2: Generation Wow -- Polka dots -- Wendie Malick, Judith Light, Amanda Peet, Naomi Watts

Page 3: Lee Ann Womack, Maya Rudolph, Laura Dern, Shonda Rhimes

Page 4: Drew Barrymore explains why aging is a luxury

Page 5: Samuel L. Jackson -- the world’s no. 1 box-office star has no plans to retire, Hugh Jackman tuning up for The Music Man

Page 6: Elvis Presley -- The King’s bling goes up for sale in England

Page 7: Hellos & Goodbyes

Page 8: Picture Perfect -- Kiddie Corner -- Mariah Carey and twins Monroe and Moroccan, Angelina Jolie and kids Knox and Vivienne and Zahara and Shiloh

Page 9: Giada De Laurentiis and daughter Jade, Helen Mirren and grandson Waylon Hackford

Page 10: Jenna Fischer and BFF Angela Kinsey, Reese Witherspoon, Sharon Osbourne and Dr. Evan Antin and a snake

Page 12: Sarah Jessica Parker, Rita Moreno and Busy Philipps and Gloria Calderon Kellett and Justina Machado

Page 13: Tim Burton, Gabrielle Union

Page 14: Wayne Brady on Let’s Make a Deal, David Alan Grier and Leslie Jordan

Page 16: Sandra Dee -- a lifetime of heartbreak

Page 18: Cover Story -- Richard Gere and Julia Roberts -- nearly 30 years after Pretty Woman brought them together the film’s stars still share a sweet friendship

Page 20: Randy Travis -- the country music legend battled back after a massive stroke with the help of the woman he loved Mary Davis

Page 22: Anthony Quinn -- he had a passion for life

Page 24: Felicity Huffman and Lori Loughlin -- actresses accused of crossing legal lines to get their kids into college

Page 27: Spot the Difference -- Sean Giambrone on The Goldbergs

Page 29: Horoscopes -- Aries Shirley Jones

Page 30: Entertainment -- Woody Harrelson on The Highwaymen, Natalie Morales on Abby’s, In the Spotlight -- Mark Hamill

Page 32: Movies -- Lupita Nyong’o on Us

Page 33: Marvin Gaye

Page 34: Television

Page 36: Great Escape -- Alison Arngrim of Little House on the Prairie on Montrose, California

Page 39: Food -- Please try a plant-based diet, like this Roast Onion, Beets and Radicchio salad

Page 40: 5 ways to live longer

Page 42: Readers Ask -- Quantum Leap was supposed to leap into Magnum, P.I., Marcus Welby, M.D., Whatever happened to the cast of Little House on the Prairie -- Melissa Sue Anderson, Lindsay Greenbush, Melissa Gilbert, Michael Landon, Karen Grassie

Page 43: Best Day of My Life -- Richard E. Grant

Page 44: Who Am I? Paul Rudd, Jennifer Aniston, Sylvester Stallone’s hobby is painting, It Happened This Week

Page 45: Closer to the Heart

Page 46: Elizabeth Ashley still going strong at 79

Page 50: Clark Gregg and Jennifer Grey having the time of their lives

Page 52: Secrets of The Facts of Life on its 40th anniversary -- Charlotte Rae, Lisa Whelchel, Kim Fields, Nancy McKeon, Mindy Cohn

Page 54: Carl Reiner -- what I’ve learned at age 97

Page 56: Ella Fitzgerald and Marilyn Monroe -- inside their surprising friendship

Page 58: On the Move -- Chris Cuomo

Page 60: The Big Picture -- Jane Fonda and her dad Henry Fonda and Lauren Bacall in 1960

Page 62: Style -- Wedges -- Martha Stewart

Page 63: Gene Tierney circa 1950

Page 64: The style of Salma Hayek

Page 66: Beauty -- secrets to a sparkling smile -- Sofia Vergara

Page 68: Best Friends -- Alan Cumming meets the adorable Esther the Wonder Pig

Page 69: Shania Twain and a horse, Brooke Shields and her dog Pepper, Gary Burghoff saved Private Charles Lamb on M*A*S*H in 1974

Page 70: My Life in 10 Pictures -- Martin Short

Page 72: Flashback -- Jaunty fedoras on Frank Sinatra in 1965 and Sam Rockwell now, Grace Jones in 1976 and now

#tabloid #julia roberts #richard gere #pretty woman #ashley judd #buddy hackett #vegan #plant-based diet #salad recipe #beet salad

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lizard-hair · 6 years

Text

The Angel of Gotham City

(or, lizardhair posts his fic on tumblr too because he likes attention...but you should really just read this on ao3)

“Yeah, I seen it. Well, it’s shadow, anyhow.” The woman took a drag off of her cigarette. “Those wings have gotta be giant. An' I’m telling ya now, that thing is dangerous. A criminal in the makin’.”

“Do I believe this being to be an angel? Absolutely.” The man nodded, solemn. “Yes, an answer to this city’s supplications, sent by our Heavenly Father.”

“Probably just some freak’s science experiment.” The man grinned lecherously before continuing. “Or a sex doll come to life.”

“A new Rogue, maybe? It scares me, whatever it is. Flying overhead like some kinda bird of prey. Ugh.”

“I think she’s super pretty! My mommy says I made it up, but I really did see the angel! I found one of her feathers, but daddy said it just fell off a bird. He threw it out ‘cause wild birds are dirty.”

Waylon Jones scratched his scaly head as he turned the TV off. The signal had been as weak as usual--reception wasn’t great when you lived in the sewers--but at least he had managed to tune into the news.

“An angel, huh?” Waylon said to himself. “Seems ‘bout as likely as anything else in Gotham.” He laughed. “Wish I could see her for myself, though.” Fishing out an old flip phone from his pants pocket, Waylon used the tip of his right index claw to type in his friend’s number. “Should really just put the guy on speed dial,” Waylon mumbled.

Drury Walker had not, in fact, watched the 9 o’clock news, so he was glad to have gotten the story from Killer Croc. He held out a hand, allowing one of the many moths that fluttered around him to alight on his palm. He spoke to it, his voice barely a whisper.

“A God-sent angel seems unlikely to me, 5502, but a metahuman...a metahuman is quite probable.” Drury’s faceted eyes glittered in the dim room. “I could use an assistant, you know.”

Moth 5502 flapped its wings, rising once more into the air and rejoining its brothers and sisters. Drury watched the thousands of insects as they danced, his own wings quivering in response to their movements. It would be nice to have another Rogue with proper flight abilities. Firefly relies on his jetpack, and is a damned pyromaniac to boot. Man-Bat’s transformation is unpredictable, his wings weak and unwieldy.

“But you, apparent angel, might be the answer to at least my prayers.”

Killer Moth flew between Gotham’s skyscrapers, doing his best to ignore the light of the city’s nightlife. Up in the dark sky, he was near-invisible--and nigh-undefeatable. Not even the Bat’s grappling hooks could reach this far. Or so I hope, thought Drury.

It was difficult to search for a being whose appearance was unfamiliar to him, save for the knowledge that she had wings...and was supposedly beautiful. Drury had no idea of this “angel’s” habits or hiding place, meaning that locating her would be dependent on luck.

“And I have never been all that lucky,” said Drury. Nonetheless, regardless of the results of his quest, it was exquisite to be able to stretch his wings and feel the wind blowing through his antennae. He had been lurking landbound in his hideout for far too long, he realized. But so it went when absorbed by an experiment.

An abrupt flash of white in the darkness below.

“Feathers,” Killer Moth said, banking to his left and beginning his descent.

Drury stood on the roof of an abandoned office building, a safe distance away from the decrepit wooden water tower in the roof’s center. Sorry lodgings for an angel, he laughed to himself.

“Miss?” Drury called, his voice raspy. “Are you in there? I have no wish to harm you; I only want to talk.”

A faint noise from within the tower. Movement, perhaps?

“I believe you and I may have something in--” Drury suddenly became aware of a smell. It was the scent of garbage and rot. “--in common,” Drury finished. This may have been a mistake, he thought. The image of rotting bones picked half-clean of meat flickered in his mind’s eye, the sound of tearing flesh echoing wetly. But when the angel emerged from the water tower, Drury’s fear vanished as soon as it had appeared.

She appeared very human, this angel. Nothing like Moth or Croc. The only abnormal features were the broad white wings and feathery, coal-grey hair. And the eyes. The angel’s eyes were visible even in the faint lights from the city below, yellow irises locked on the other metahuman.

“Greetings,” said Drury. “I am he known as Killer Moth.” He took a small, non-threatening step forwards. “And you must be the angel I’ve been hearing about.”

“I’m not a miss," said the angel. “I’m no angel, either.”

Drury flicked an antenna. “Apologies...mister?”

A nod. Then a pause. “You’re really...Killer Moth? The Rogue?”

“I am indeed,” said Drury. The not-angel looked more relaxed now, though his wings still seemed ready to pop fully open at any moment.

“What do you want with me?”

“Let us start with your name, hmm?”

Yellow eyes darted to the side, then back to Drury. “I’m Giovanni.”

Giovanni? A large name for such a small creature, thought Drury. But out loud he said, “A fine name for a young gentleman. Italian, are you?”

“My grandparents were.” A flash of those strange irises. “You really think Giovanni is a good name?”

“Yes?” said Drury, caught off-guard by the odd question. Don’t tell me that this boy has an ego the size of Riddler’s, he thought.

Then Giovanni smiled. It was wry and crooked, but there was genuine happiness, too. “Cool,” was all Giovanni said. He walked over to Drury-- past Drury, and plopped down on the edge of the roof. “Have a seat,” Giovanni said over his shoulder.

Drury hesitated, then shrugged. He sat to the boy’s left, and the two both rearranged their wings as they looked out over Gotham.

“It’s nice here,” Giovanni said.

Drury couldn’t help but scoff. “Few would have such kind words about this city.”

“It’s nicer than where I was. I’m from Bludhaven,” Giovanni said before Drury could ask. “It was all steel mills and fisheries. So much stinking fish...”

“What prompted you to leave?”

“I...just didn’t belong there. Bludhaven might have been where I grew up, where I lived, but I was never really... alive while I was in that place.”

Though Drury was a poor judge of emotions, the young man he was sitting besides appeared sorrowful, yet angry. Drury sighed inwardly and decided to ignore it in order to keep the conversation moving. “And now you are in Gotham, residing in a water tower full of what I assume is your own garbage and leftovers.”

“Yep,” said Giovanni. He turned to face Drury and winked. “But fuck, do I ever feel alive.”

“...You are a peculiar young lad, Giovanni,” Drury said, feeling something akin to amusement.

“They called me that a lot back in Bludhaven,” Giovanni said. “Just in more... impolite terms.” He got to his feet and yawned, then shot a grin at Drury. “Do you know what else they called me, Killer Moth?”

Drury’s mouth formed something that could be considered a smile. “Pray tell, what else did they call you?”

Giovanni snapped his white wings open, and Drury could now see that there was a line of ink-black on the very bottom of the secondary feathers, along with an obsidian patch at the tips of the primaries.

“Seagull,” said Giovanni, and he dove off of the roof. He was out of Drury’s view for only a few seconds before shooting, with a great flap of his wings, into the night sky. Drury heard the boy let out a whoop of joy as he flew higher, then shot back down to the roof, a gust of wind heralding his landing.

Drury nodded slowly, smile still pulling at his lips. “Gull,” he said. “A shorter alias for a new life, perhaps?”

Giovanni laughed, and it was the cry of ocean birds. “If you’re asking me to team up with you and commit crimes, my answer is “hell yes.” I mean, this is Gotham, and I am one of those scary metahumans.”

Drury stood and patted Giovanni’s bony shoulder. The young man obviously knew what he was getting into, and was not only willing, but enthusiastic . It was strange, but he felt almost proud of the boy. These younger folks are impressive. Evolution at its finest, I suppose, Drury thought. To Giovanni, he said,

“Come now, I will show you to my laboratory. You are most welcome to take up accomodations there.” Drury paused. A Rogue he may be, but he wanted to make this clear. “However...if you follow me, there will be no going back to your civilian lifestyle.” With that, Drury stepped off the edge of the roof and into the warm air.

Killer Moth caught an updraft and began gliding upwards; a moment later, he heard the sound of feathered wings flapping after him. My luck has finally changed, it should seem, he thought. Croc and my dear moths will be overjoyed.

“I like the sound of it,” Giovanni said to the lights of Gotham City as they unfurled beneath him. “Gull.”

#batman #Killer Croc #Killer Moth #fanfiction #fanfic #lizardhair writes #smoking//#insects//

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lawful-evil-novelist · 6 years

Note

This might seem like a very weird question, but if you haven’t mentioned it before- Who are your top 5 or 10 Least favourite rogues + favourite rogues and why? Hope you don’t mind me asking

I CAN ABSOLUTELY DO THAT FRIEND. I’m only going to do a top 5 least favorite because I like most rogues, but I will do a top 10 favorites.

Top 5 Least Favorite

5. Dollmaker-Dollmaker is creepy, and not the kind of creepy I like where it makes a compelling character. No, he’s just creepy and uncomfortable and I don’t like it.

4. The Joker-Joker is a very compelling and interesting as a concept and if you list off his personality on paper he’s a decent character. But he’s usually utilized poorly, and overused to the point of annoyance.

3. Professor Pyg-Nope. No. Nah. No.

2. Lyle Bolton-You all know why I hate Bolton, I don’t think I need to explain that.

1. Dr. Hugo Strange-Look, you all know my problems with Strange, you all know why I hate him, I don’t want to repeat myself.

Top 10 Favorite

10. Pamela Isley-I absolutely love Ivy and how gray her morality is. She has points but she’s going about these points the wrong way. She complains about no one listening and then doesn’t listen herself. Usually, I’d hate a character who is so hypocritical but her conviction really makes you grasp her side and see her anger, while acknowledging that she is still, on some level, wrong.

9. Maximillian Zeus-I find nothing more amusing than Maxie, and nothing more enjoyable. Maxie is one of the few characters in a fictional world who grasps the gods of a pagan mythology perfectly, while also not believing in the same ideals. Maxie is far, far kinder than Zeus in the actual mythology, but he’s still uncaring about humanity as a whole and has a superiority. The only thing you notice is that he considers people he respects as fellow gods and legendary heroes, and that’s kinda the biggest honor he can bestow. It’s fascinating to get into his head and look at how he sees the world.

8. Drury Walker-Look, I was introduced to Drury in probably the worst way, through The Batman where he’s just a dweeby nerd who gets special powers from a fluke. But I love Drury in the comics. Drury in the comics is so enjoyable. He’s a gun for hire, ingenious, but clearly has had to build himself from nothing and doesn’t trust the establishment. I also thoroughly enjoy that he will literally do anything for money and is so open about it he’ll literally switch sides if he’s offered more cash. He’s not loyal to anyone but himself and has no shame in showing that off.

7. Waylon Jones-Firstly, I fucking love this crocodile man and he is beautiful fuck what anyone else says. Secondly, Waylon has got to be the most enjoyable example of prejudice shown in an extreme light. Usually I take issue with these “monster prejudice” stories but they did really well with Waylon in the comics. It’s really clear from how he talks and interacts with other characters that he was not born acting like a monster, but is reacting to how he was treated. When he realized no one would see him as anything but a monster, he gave up and became the monster.

6. Garfield Lynns-I like Garfield for many of the same reasons I like Drury. It’s so obvious Garfield has no loyalty, that he does not care, that he is brilliant and has no shame in his skills or lack of loyalty. I find these characters enjoyable for their sheer lack of fucks to give. It’s so obvious characters like this have been told they won’t amount to anything and just being even moderately well known is enough for them.

5. Edward Nygma- Okay so Edward Nygma barely cracks my top 5 but he is still there so fight me. Edward is bar none one of the most amazing shows of an intelligent, curious character who radiates charisma. He is absolutely the most fun to watch just because of how happy he is to be doing ANYTHING. He has so much energy and he’s so entertaining I just can’t help but crack a smile whenever I see his stupid face.

4. Mary Dahl-Mary Dahl is so enjoyable I can barely put it into words. She just has this energy, how she switches so quickly from this dead-serious and almost furious irritation to her excitable childish nature. She so obviously loves twisting everyone’s expectations around and scaring the shit out of people. AND I LOVE IT.

3. Bane-Okat no joke, I wanna know if a single person exists who does not love comic Bane. Comic Bane is intelligent, he’s strategic, he’s sarcastic, and he’s ruthless, but he acknowledges that he is not infallible, he struggles with addiction, he’s unsure of himself, he refuses to take credit for the good he does do because he doesn’t see himself as worthy of praise. He is just a character with so much depth and nuance and just-I love this man guys, he is the actual best.

2. Lonnie Machin-Now I used to hate Lonnie but recently he’s shot up my list of favorite characters because I’ve begun heavily identifying with him. And this isn’t because he’s perfectly relatable, he’s kinda a jerk sometimes, but there’s something about having a villain around your age who has the same problems with society that you have. Lonnie is so adamant about fighting for people who have nothing and who are thought of as nothing and it’s so inspiring to see a kid stand up for people, and stand up for himself, and get people to notice problems with the world he lives in. Does he pull this off? No, not really, he’s kind of over the top with it, but his heart is in the right place and I like that.

1. Jonathan Crane-Okay, you guys have aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaall heard me ramble about Jon and his character so I won’t waste your time here. You know why I love this walking trainwreck. He’s great, and he also needs to sleep.

#asks #answered #Anonymous

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chaoticdumbassary · 7 years

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Arkhamverse Fic Recs

So, I really like fic recs, so I decided to do one for the Batman: Arkham Series, since it can be hard to find good fics in this universe. Recommendations and comments under the cut.

If He Had Come and the sequel Desiderium by bronwe_iris Jason Todd has been a prisoner of the Joker for nine months. Then, against all odds and all hope, Batman rescues Jason and brings him back to Wayne Manor to recover. But has Batman come too late to save what is left of Jason? (AU of the Arkham Knight video game)

This is without a doubt my favorite Arkhamverse AU. The writing is amazing. The characterization is amazing. Everything about these stories is amazing. There's a reason why they're on most Jason Todd fic recs.

The Edward Nigma, Private Investigator Series by Queen_in_the_North One year ago, Edward Nigma awoke from a coma missing his memory and his compulsion to leave riddles. One year later, he finds himself in a Gotham that's changing and not for the better. Who will be his friend? Who will be his foe? Most of all, can Edward Nigma exist without riddles?

A good series if you like AU set in the Arkhamverse and Edward Nigma.

Cigarette Smoke and Snark by ScaryScarecrows A collection of one-shots involving Jason Todd.

ScaryScarecrows has one of the most unique and catchy writing styles I’ve ever seen. It’s addicting.

Bet On It by catsaremyboyfriend there's a member of the militia in arkham knight who goes "yeah, and if i lose this bet i have to tell the arkham knight he'd look better in a cape" and i wanted to write that fic so here we go.

This is one of my favorite Arkhamverse fics. I love it so much. It's everything you could ask for in a fic about the Knight and his militia. The last line killed me.

Encryption by batwayneman As she watches Scarecrow's broadcast, Barbara knows what she must do.

One of the tags is ‘Barbara is a badass’. What more do you need to know?

All of No Man's Land is Mine by wouldyouliketoseemymask In the years between the events of Arkham Asylum and Arkham Knight, Scarecrow plots his vengeance.

A great piece covering the gap between Asylum and Knight. The Origins interminsion is probably my favorite chapter because it’s reminiscent of Scarecrow Year One.

to see a perfect forest through so many splintered trees by girlsarewolves Darkness. Cold. All she knows is the absence of light and heat. Her life has become nothingness. She doesn't even get the blessing of sleep. Sometimes she hears things. Sometimes, there's a voice, breaking through the haze. Harsh, frigid, familiar; a voice she would know anywhere, no matter how different it may sound now. "Some day, Nora," he says. "Some day I will find the cure. I will be able to bring you back into the world. And maybe then I will finally remember what it is to feel warmth."

A heartbreaking oneshot set before, during, and after In From The Cold.

Server Access by deathofaraven The server room was cold and unfriendly, but the company was nice. One of the few things Barbara actually appreciated about the GCPD. And if there was someone around to appreciate his intellect...well, Edward wasn't complaining.

A surprisingly cute oneshot set pre-Origins centering on a friendship between a pre- Riddle Edward Nigma and a young Barbara Gordon.

Blossom by thelinksthatconnectus (orphan_account) Jonathan Crane is in Arkham, The Joker is gone, and Poison Ivy is dead. Harley, having escaped from Arkham, is left to try and pick up the pieces of dreams that she no longer has. However, she may not be as alone as she thinks.

An emotional Harlivy oneshot set after Arkham Knight.

Reptilia by CanidSerpent He looks like a vile genetic experiment gone wrong, he knows that. It's not the hard part, it's not what makes him despise humanity and all it stands for. It's because they are a hopeless and fearful species, that grovels and cowers at the slightest hint of danger. To him, that makes them worth nothing less than meat.

A short introspect on Waylon Jones. It’s a good read if you’re a fan of Killer Croc.

empty apologies don't mend broken glass by girlsarewolves Forgiveness is not in their nature (they'll always come back to each other eventually)

A short SelinaIvy piece with great chracterzation. A little NSFW, but not really.

The Butterfly Effect by Me It happened in an instant. One moment Gordon was being escorted by Batman to the Clocktower. The next, he was being hauled into one of the Militia's APCs, Batman nowhere in sight. (AKA the Batman: Arkham Knight AU where the Arkham Knight and his Militia are successful in capturing Commissioner Gordon.)

I know it might seem kinda shameless recommending one of my own fics, but I really like the premise of this fic and think you might as well. Just like the real life Butterfly Effect, the story deals with the consequences brough by what you would think is an insignificant event.

Insight by Me A series of Oneshots set in the Batman: Arkham Universe about the Arkham Knight and his Militia from the Militia's perspective.

This right here is some of my best work. I love this collection so much sometimes I can’t even believe I was the one who wrote it. And I’ll be updating it soon, so there’s that.

#dc #batman: arkham series #fic rec

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