two

"This is a dumb fucking idea, Ben," The Legend said, coke still clinging to the sweat on his big nose.

Ben stared at him until he looked up and met his eye. Then he smiled grimly and shook his head and said, "Don't fucking care, unfortunately."

"She's going to fucking kill you."

Ben tugged his glove on with a little shrug, pursing his lips. "I always loved fighting with her."

"You're a dumb cunt, you know that?"

Ben could always feel the switch between himself and the Hero. It was a physical thing; when he went from tolerant to intolerant, passive to aggressive.

His fist slammed into the kitchen table he stood next to, the wood of it bending into itself into a V in the center. His expression didn't so much as flicker.

"I left her in that torture chamber," he said, his fingers curling into a fist over the broken table. "So I'm going to go back and get her. I don't care how fucking stupid of an idea it is. I don't care how I have to do it. Or if she kills me. It's her revenge too."

The Legend lifted his hands in defense, leaning back in his seat on the couch. "Alrighty. Go all the way back to goddamn Russia, get your little girlfriend, go on a little coupley murder spree."

"You want me to take your other fucking leg?"

"Not necessary," The Legend said, tilting his head to the side to look over at Ben. Ben could see him eyeing him up through his sunglasses. "I'd suggest going to the Countess first, though. Without Quartz. That catfight might not be pretty."

Ben considered it. That one was his fight, wasn't it? The group backstabbed him, and dragged her into it as collateral, as awful as it was. But this was the girlfriend that they stuck him to like a parasite because they didn't like that the playboy liked someone outside of his inner circle.

Maybe he would regret not letting Brooke fight this battle with him. She would have the others with him, he promised it to her and himself. If she was mad at him for this decision, she was going to take it out on him along with the rest of her anger. Ben might as well start a tab.

His grievances were too strong right now. And his feelings were clouded, a little coked out to keep the thought of guns in his mouth and knives against his bones out.

"I'll need that address then."

A man named Mother's Milk had to practically muzzle Brooke to keep her hands to herself when they arrived at the Legend's house. She never liked that man. He always gave her the creeps. She couldn't tell if there was a reason for it or if it was just because he was a man. Nothing good ever came from people who called themselves Legends or Gods. That was why they were heroes, after all.

He still had his hands on her wrists when they walked into the older man's living room. Brooke steadied a glare on him, flexing her fingers, desperate to free herself. It wasn't impossible to quartz with them locked, it just usually ended up with stones and gems. Not a problem for jewelry companies. A problem for hostage situations.

"If you don't release me," she said through her gritted teeth, "I'm gonna fry your ballsack off."

The man laughed out loud, a sudden burst. Then, he clamped his mouth shut into the most serious face she thought she'd ever seen. Furious, even.

"Almost had you, M.M.," Billy Butcher said, clapping him on the shoulder. "Almost had you on our side again."

"Fuck you," M.M. spat, "and if you touch me again, she's gonna fry your ballsack off."

Brooke didn't deny it. If she didn't get released soon, she was bound to fry something.

"First, I have to deal with you lot, and now you're bickering like fucking birds in my–" The Legend started from down the hall, his voice becoming clearer as he approached. He stopped suddenly, and Brooke didn't know why, avoiding looking at him at all costs, until she spared a glance and released he stopped because of her. "Oh, if I had two nickels."

M.M.'s grip on her wrists tightened. "Don't you dare."

It was too late, though. Her elbows were flailing back, desperate to make contact with his ribs, his stomach, his dick, anything–

"Had to set her off, did you, Legend?" Butcher asked, leaning back against one of the lesser full walls. Lots of pictures and awards of himself. Expect nothing less from a man who calls himself Legend.

"He was here." Brooke didn't bother with the question. It was all but confirmed. She just needed to hear it. So desperate for it even when he abandoned her that she felt her eyes welling.

The Legend met her eyes with a grimace. "Of course he was. Had to get his suit, didn't he?"

Brooke felt her eyes flaring. She was going to quartz something. Her powers were always on her side, her only companion now, apparently. They sensed that she needed a release and they were finding an alternative. This was new, too. It used to just be her crystal hands. Her eyes were just a cute, genetic party trick.

How dare he break free and his first thought is his suit.

Butcher had the audacity to grab her by the jaw, forcing her to look him square in the eye. She instinctively almost spat on him, unwilling to be handled like this by anyone but especially by a stranger. "You will cool it."

"You will get your hands off of me or you will lose them."

"You are welcome to try."

She grinned, toothy and feral, ready to burn his hands to the bone, when The Legend spoke up again. "Before you go splattering my walls, you should at least know where he's going." Then, after a moment's hesitation, he added, "And you also shouldn't splatter my walls. Do this outside. Where it can be washed away."

Brooke turned her attention on the old man, who visibly flinched under her gaze. Must still be flaring. Sorry. "Where?"

"Crimson Countess."

"He's going on a revenge tour," she said instantly, her lip fully trembling now. It was something they talked about through the walls. While her hands grew back and he spat out bullets like teeth. She couldn't stop a tear from streaking down her cheek. "Without me."

Billy Butcher released a groan. "Oh, for fuck's sake."

She turned her flaring eyes on him. Something solid dropped to the floor behind her. "I will–"

"Fry my nutsack. I heard you." He pinched his nose bridge between his fingers. That was all the attention that he gave her, talking to The Legend like she was nothing but a menace to him. As if Brooke asked to be broken out by these people.

This was not part of the plan. The plan was for them to catch the doctors offguard the next time they opened their icy vaults. For Ben to do exactly what he did but to also get her, for them to destroy everyone together.

And then to destroy the entirety of Payback.

Find Anastasiya.

Go to Malibu. Brooke told him everything about Malibu. That he would love it. A little secluded house on the beach just for them and Anastasiya.

He fucked it all.

Hughie, who she forgot had even come, bent down and grabbed something. He elbowed M.M. lightly. Then scoffed out what almost passed as a laugh.

"Rose quartz."

"What?" She asked, not glancing over her shoulder at him, pouting and lip trembling at a wall. If he wanted to address her, he would have to let her go and face her like a real man.

Another scoffing laugh. "No," he held out what was in his free hand, waving it a little, "rose quartz."

See? Brooke wasn't lying. She makes crystals. Another cute little party trick. Jewelry companies love her. It is so useless for being a hostage.

"Well, I'm not named after a fucking show pony," she said as dramatically as possible, wishing she could stomp for punctuation.

Oh yeah.

She stomped her foot as hard as she could, a rippling shockwave flipping through the floorboards like keyboard keys. What a song it was, too, when every one of the men went ass over head and her hands were released.

It did suck to be the most powerful person in the room and to be stuck in a bloodied hospital gown and barefoot. But she could do it. If any girl could, it was her. She did wish she had her suit back, though. Would have made it a little cooler.

Brooke cocked her head. "Do you have my suit, Legend?"

"You want me to tell you where your suit is while I'm knocked on my ass?"

"That's exactly what I want you to do."

The man scowled. Butcher's face was unreadable, fury written into every inch of it, but he didn't move. Hughie stared at her like she grew another head, and maybe she did. Who knew? Not her. They injected her with a lot of shit. Cut her hands and limbs off a lot. What if something grew back weird?

He gave her directions to the room her suit was in and she went to get changed. The boys did not stop her. She was honestly glad for it. As much as she boasted that she would hurt them, they were her chauffeurs to kill her boyfriend, and wasn't that sweet of them? Even if they kept binding her.

Changing was harder than Brooke thought it would be.

The long scar on her stomach stopped her dead in her tracks. The only one that stayed, every other one healed. The only one that she wished would disappear.

She put on her beloved pink suit, somehow the spandex looser than before. She feared the opposite. There goes her ego, shooting through the ceiling. Can you see it? Rivaling the Tower in height?

When she stepped outside, the men were all back on their feet, Legend back on the couch and looking exhausted.

"Alright, darling," Butcher said, and immediately Brooke scowled, "that will be the last of the shit you pull."

"It will not be," Brooke answered, because why would she lie? It probably wouldn't be.

"It will," Butcher shot back. "Because we're going to the Countess now."

Brooke took a step forward. Hughie physically shrank back. How could someone so tall be so small? She was never one to play with food, and he was hardly food, but...

Butcher's mouth twitched in a snarl. "You won't like what will happen if you keep testing my patience, darling."