for those that have been reading these as i update, a small change has been made. narcissa's superhero name is now Scarlet Serpent rather than Viper, because i feel like Viper is too simple. anyway, enjoy this chapter!
[ 12 ]
THROUGHOUT HER LIFE, Narcissa had always been good at hiding, whether it was during training at Crux or running from deals gone bad or angry mob bosses. Pax Killdow had been a personal favourite - hiding from his boys was a task that sent adrenaline shuddering through her body. While the men shouted behind her, she wove through dumpsters in dank alleyways as if they weren't even there, sprinted down staircases and bombarded through windows with glass shattering all around her.
But now, when the life of someone that she actually cared for was in her hands, she found herself only able to watch Finn fade away in front of her very eyes. Seeing him for the first time in four years had brought back a lot of feelings that she'd forgotten about - anger, guilt, embarrassment, lust - and they were threatening to spill.
They'd opened the first door they could find - an empty storeroom littered with dusty shelves. An abandoned bundle of paper had been left behind, heaped on the floor in a way that could almost resemble the shape of a bed. After checking that nothing was under it, she put Finn down as gently as she could, hands trembling, not from his weight but rather the panic ricocheting around her body.
"Barricade the door with what you can. Create a wall of fire, mind control them, whatever it takes, understand?"
Narcissa didn't usually give or take commands, but in the rare occasions she did, the situation was dire. Thankfully Wildfire and Sasha didn't argue, their expressions earnest.
"It's not deep, but he's lost a lot of blood. Did you two see anything, when you weren't making out in the hallway?"
The two exchanged flustered looks, Sasha's knuckles white as she clutched the doorframe.
"We-we weren't in our right minds," she said slowly, the little amount of colour that was in her pale face fading as she spoke.
"Neither were Finn and I. What's your point, Siren?"
Narcissa laughed drily as she peeled the gold-covered shirt from Finn's torso, staring at the slash in his chest for a moment before closing her eyes. The laughter was gone, replaced with a knot of fear in her stomach. Tending to wounds like his wasn't something new for her - though she'd never been injured before, South and East Semper had their fair share of violence and street fighting, and everything else.
The suburbs of the North were notably less rough. Besides, Narcissa didn't waste her time on teenage boys fighting over football or whatever they were doing. No, now she was wasting her time on teenage boys fighting over the fate of the one home she'd always known. It was only marginally worse, she thought as she tore a strip of fabric from her t-shirt, stemming the blood flow. He was still breathing, so that was a plus, wasn't it?
"Wait. Let me do it," Sasha said suddenly, and Narcissa realised that she'd been staring the whole time. "You're shaking. It's not good."
She looked down at her hands, which indeed were shaking, more than she'd ever seen them before. A memory surfaces of years gone by, slipping through empty tunnels led by nothing but her racing heart. Clenching her fists, she sighed.
"Do it."
Sasha began to sing, barely louder than a breath. Narcissa didn't understand the words, but something was happening, because Finn started moving, eyes flickering open. Taking a shuddering breath, he smiled up at the ceiling.
"I was waiting for that."
"What?" Sasha asked softly, as if speaking to an unstable child.
Finn sat up, and Narcissa stifled a gasp. The wound in his chest had been replaced with shiny gold, real metal, and he seemed unfazed. Her weakness had been for nothing, goddamnit.
"You two to kiss," he nodded at Wildfire, who turned away, sparks flying from his skin. "Woo! Do you know what this means?"
"What?" Narcissa asked, still bitter about her worry.
"That I missed it because I was getting stabbed. So, Narcissa. What happened?"
"Do you really want to ask that after you literally just woke up after being gravely injured?"
He flashed her the signature golden boy grin. "Yeah." The lack of hesitation in his words made her want to bang her head against the wall.
"So when we went crazy, they did, too. Only they started making out, and we didn't."
Finn punched the air in victory. "Knew it! Ok, to answer your question - I have no idea. It was after I messed up the Agents - Franny and Keegan. Nice people, too."
Of course he knew their names. More people to greet with a smile, Narcissa thought scornfully, but let him speak.
"Go on."
She was becoming more and more annoyed. It was almost as if he was trying to keep them here for longer. Unless...
"This creepy little puff of smoke, typical supervillain stuff, whirled out-"
"Finn."
"What?"
"Stand up."
"I-"
"Stand up," Narcissa demanded, and he did, ever-so-slowly, looking her dead in the eye. In the dim light, his eyes were like the night sky in paintings - impenetrable black, ebbs of stars. They were so close that their foreheads almost touched, or would've, had Finn not been nearly a head taller. Either way, now was not the time to linger on it.
She kicked him in the groin. Lightly. But for her, lightly was what most people would consider oh-fuck territory. He fell, thrashing, to the floor like a fish out of water, or a dead fly. Like, when they twitched. It wasn't a nice sight, but him trying to keep them there wasn't very nice either.
"Shit, Narcissa," he mumbled from the floor. A needle stuck out from his side, the tip of it tinged with green as she pulled it out, holding back a gag.
"How long, Finn? How long?"
His eyes widened, pupils dilating. "When I got stabbed," he admitted. Suddenly, he stood up, racing to a bottle of detergent. The colour drained from his face as he gripped it, breathing heavily. Narcissa watched as the bottle turned to solid gold, feeling distantly sick.
The last time she'd seen him so weak was when they'd been twelve. The Grandmaster decided to start administering larger doses of their serums, and Finn's hit hard. Afterwards, they discovered that it had been an assassination attempt, and a mad scientist had slipped poison into his serum, but his enhanced immune system allowed him to survive. It was a miracle, really.
Was that what she was looking for now?
A miracle.
The words were sweet on her tongue.
"I didn't want to slow you down. I-I figured that I would be fine."
"You were wrong. God, can none of you think? These two," she pointed at Wildfire and Sasha, "make out in the middle of a mission, you don't tell anyone when you get injured-" Narcissa stopped, hissing with agitation. "The saviours of Semper City, and we've got Jesus Christ himself, Casanova and Snow White. Fan-fucking-tastic."
"Narcissa."
She ignored Finn, cracking her knuckles. "From now on, none of you have creative input. The North wing is where they should be - it's the most secure part of the entire headquarters. Along the way, find as much information as you can. Labs, files, whatever. I'm going with Jesus here, and you two horndogs go together."
Wildfire stared at Narcissa for a moment, probably thinking, "damn," but she didn't waste any time, heading out the door with Finn on her tail. It was a good thing that he didn't argue - she didn't have enough energy for that.
This supposedly short mission was proving to be a very long one, indeed.
[~]
"TAKE THEM OUT."
Finn's words weren't said aloud, but the silence was deafening nonetheless. She jumped, realising he was behind her, and the dart gun threatened to slip from her hands onto the shiny floor below. A high ceiling manned with CCTV cameras glared down at them, the art piece that Dollard Elementary had donated to the facility dangling from the ceiling in a whirl of colourful thread. It was like a huge, garish friendship bracelet, disgusting to the eye. How anyone could find it pleasant, she had no idea. Frankly, the sight of it made her want to gag.
"Gosh, isn't that threaded beauty so sweet?" one of the guards asked his companion, a machine gun in his hand.
Narcissa frowned.
"Of course. I just love kindergarteners. They're such little cuties!"
Her frown deepened.
"You know, my niece - so adorable! Her teacher says-"
But they never learnt what the guard's niece's teacher had said, because Narcissa readied her dart gun, unable to bear their conversation any longer, and shot the guard in the temple. No blood spurted out - she hadn't expected any, but the man tumbled to the ground with a loud thump. The dart shifted under his skin, not deep enough for permanent brain damage but deep enough to warrant something.
His companion cocked her gun, but her brown skin was already fading at the edges, turning shinier, more yellow. Her mouth opened, trying to let words out, but she was golden before she could make a sound. The tassels of the hideous art piece brushed against Narcissa's hair as she made her way through the corridor, Finn stepping out from behind the guard with a faint smile on his face. It wasn't the smile of a boy who had girls swooning at his feet, the boy who was a king amongst men. This was the smile of a young god, an usurper, of a kingdom falling at their feet.
For a moment, she wanted to be his queen.
But then she remembered awkward teenagers under the cover of stars, heroes with weights too heavy on their shoulders. She remembered warm lips and broken promises, treacherous thoughts and even more treacherous actions. That wasn't to say- never mind. It didn't matter. He probably didn't even remember.
"You coming?" he held out his hand, and Narcissa took it after a moment of hesitation.
And they walked like they were on top of the world.
[~]
SHE DIDN'T WANT TO REMEMBER, but she did, anyway.
They'd been thirteen, and she was sat on her bed, staring at the sky. There was nothing to stare at, just a chalky charcoal sky, not quite black. It was the smoke, Wildfire had told her. Semper City made up thirty percent of the South-East's pollution. Narcissa suspected it was from thousands of cigarettes being lit at once, sometimes things less tame than cigarettes. Other times, it was the hulking factories that lined the banks of the Hartsicke River, with clouds of noxious gas dark enough to be seen from Mexico.
She could never make up her mind.
It was after a knock at the door that she'd torn her eyes away from the sky, slipping down from the windowsill onto her bed. For a second, she considered pretending to be asleep, but that would be long and fruitless. Anyone with eyes could've seen that she clearly hadn't been planning to indulge in slumber for a while.
"What?"
"Come out."
Finn was standing at the door, the magnificent bastard.
"Why?"
"Open and I'll tell you."
Rolling her eyes, she pressed her thumb to the door. It slid open to reveal a familiar lanky boy, a wide grin on his face.
"Hi."
"Go to hell, Finn." She wrapped her fingers around the doorframe, hiding the smile that tugged at her lips.
"Only with you, Ciss."
"Every day is hell with you, you dickhead."
He led her down the hall, up countless flights of stairs. Usually, his explorations ended with fits of laughter and running around empty rooms, but tonight, there was something else in the air. Her fingertips slid past a fire exit sign, the little green plaque shining in the darkness, bathed in moonlight. How real that moonlight was, she didn't know, but it was pretty anyway.
"Where to today?" she asked eventually, losing her foot after yet another step.
"Forty-seventh floor. Rooftop garden. We're having a midnight picnic, Nana."
"God, these nicknames," she huffed. "Nana's slightly better than Ciss, though." Ciss was too familiar. It was one of the only things she could remember from her early life; her parents had called her Ciss. Nana, stupid though it was, was sort of cute, though she could rather die than admit it. "Also, you got food, then?"
He gave her a devilish smirk. "Of course, Nana. I would never let a lady starve."
"I'll snap your neck in a second."
"Ok, fine. I would never let anyone starve. I'm a feminist, don't worry."
Narcissa nodded, her thick black ponytail rippling down her back. "I know you wouldn't," she found herself laughing.
At last, they came to a stop outside a locked door, and she held her breath as Finn dug a card out of his pocket, swiping it on the door. It opened with an electronic beep, revealing a garden so beautiful that it didn't look real.
"Charmed this one out of Agent Boyle. She says I remind her of her son."
"How sweet. Show me the merch, golden boy," she said, stomach grumbling on cue. Finn cocked his head, taking her by the hand towards a blanket that had been laid out on the grass. It looked as if it was from his bed, and her heart did a strange flip-flop in her chest as they sat down.
A load of candy was laid out on top, along with a bottle of Cherry Cola - her favourite. In the midst of the sweetness, she discovered bundles of cherries, which she popped in her mouth to the sound of Finn chuckling. Spitting the pit out into a napkin, she sat back, admiring the scenery. Fairy lights were strung from the trees, casting a golden glow over their faces as they stuffed their faces with gummy bears and cupcakes and everything in between.
She poured herself a cup of Coke, standing up by the balcony to look out at Semper City. The finest of the South, people said. In the haven of Crux, it was. Outside, there were people bleeding and dying, with no-one to care. For tonight, she decided, she would brush that thought away. The maps of headquarters and all of the city along with the addresses and phone numbers would stay under her mattress for a few days longer.
"It's a cool city," Finn said simply.
She kissed him.
[ end ]