Chapter Text
Spades lands on a rooftop that’s always been on his route through the city. He’s sure if he took more than a glance at where he regularly lands, it would have his boot prints etched into it from the countless times he has run through here just in the past month. He’s not too upset by it either, he enjoys the routine. He lives for the rush of adrenaline that comes with his job. He saves people, not really, and he fights villains on the regular. It is a lot of fighting and he clearly just chases the high of the adrenaline rush.
He’s been a hero for too long at this point. Alright, 2 years doesn’t sound like a long time, but he was a sidekick for two years before being named a hero. He also had that year of training before becoming a sidekick, so it's really been 5 years.
Spades can safely assure that he in fact hates his job. He never wanted to be a hero. He was eleven years old when he accidentally got too excited showing off his powers to someone he trusts more than the world. That didn’t go so well when the Hero Committee decided that he either needed to start training to be a hero or go to confinement. His powers weren’t even that dangerous most of the time! Some of the time? Okay, they might be a bit unstable, but he’s handled it!
A loud buzzing hits his ear and draws him from his rather wonderful thoughts on how absolutely amazing he is and how shit the system he works for is.
“Robbery at the bank on Perri Avenue.”
Great.
He doesn’t understand why people feel the need to cause trouble this far up town, especially at this time of night. He’s sure they’ve had to have figured out his schedule enough to know he operates from midnight to four in the morning, at latest, and Spades isn’t exactly fond of people holding him out here that long. He has paperwork to do after this!
Spades leaps the distance between buildings and barely registers street signs under him. He tapped his com to signal that he was on the way. It was a real bother.
He felt the wind rush into his ears. His suit was meant for stealth and mobility, so it isn’t difficult for him to reach the scene after a few minutes. He adjusts his long gloves one last time and taps the side of his mask by his temple. It doesn’t do anything, it’s just a mask after all, but it's a habit he has from the training masks where they had a zoom button.
He shakes himself out of it. He can think about bad habits and breaking them later. He spots Someone hanging close to the door to the bank lobby. They look rather antsy about the whole situation, but that sounds like a natural reaction.
Spades sees movement in the lobby, and thank the stars that the front of the building is just a huge window, because there he sees three others moving about and looking rather ridiculous.
Spades drops from the roof he’d used to scope out the situation. This doesn’t seem like a fair fight if he’s honest. He’s a fully trained hero, and they look so new to this. The rather anxious robber at the door immediately shrieks at his entrance and holds up their arms defensively.
“Is it baby’s first crime?” Spades asks rather condescendingly. He saunters over with very little care, seeing as they haven’t even bothered to tell their team who exactly is there.
Oh wait, the front of the building is just one big window.
Okay, maybe he’s actually the idiot here, but not really since they’re literally robbing a bank uptown where a hero responding to the scene is almost guaranteed.
“Walk away or there’s gonna be trouble, kid!” A different thief says from behind the one at the door. They put a hand on their buddies shoulder, almost like they are saying that Spades isn’t a threat. Well now he’s annoyed AND they hurt his feelings.
“You know I can’t do that. Now if you’d like to make this easy, and lower your sentence, we could walk the four of you to the station.” Spades did a big stretch that was a bit exaggerated with his arms over his head and leaning with the effort.
“That’s too bad. I was looking forward to an easy night.”
“Easy night? You robbed the bank in the upper city! I’m surprised I wasn’t called in the moment your shifty asses rolled up here.” Spades cackled out. “Guys, everyone knows the reason there’s crime in the lower city is because the tower hates sending heroes that far out. Just rob a bank closer to home when you know it’s closed.”
“Wait, are you actually giving us tips on doing crime?” The rather talkative robber asks. Spades can feel his tail swishing behind him.
“Someone has to! I’d rather you didn’t do crime at all since that usually ends up with someone getting hurt, but considering you all seem really new to this I’d feel bad if someone didn’t tell you. What are you guys even here for? Probably all have shitty underpaying jobs that abuses its workers and your landlords raised rent again despite everyone knowing at this point that housing prices should actually going down, not up, but they’re forcing your hand so you either move out which likely puts you on the street or you find some way of pulling together the money to afford the new prices.” Spades knows it's a rather specific scenario he’s built up and a whole ass backstory for these robbers. Makes it harder to fight them, but he’d rather see them as people first and foremost.
“That’s so specific…” The robber rubs the back of their neck and looks at the quiet one and shrugs. “You need to talk about it man? I thought heroes got paid good.”
“Pfft- No, I don’t need to talk about it! Anyways, could you guys just not rob the bank?” Spades is actually enjoying the back and forth, but he does still have a job to do. Those other two in the background seem to be figuring shit out and he’d rather minimize the amount of clean up.
The quiet one signs “How long does it take to find a button?”
“Too damn long! We’ve been peacefully chatting and your buddies aren’t getting shit done.” Spades says. He’s fluent in sign, most of the team is. He sees the shock on the silent robber's stance. They probably didn’t expect him to know sign at all. “Hey, I can’t have my lovely back and forth if I don't! Do you know how many vigilantes learned sign language just because they can’t get a voice changer?!”
He hears loud clattering from inside the lobby. He sighs. “This really has been a lovely talk, but I kinda need to get this over with.”
Spades manifests a deck of cards into his hand with a simple flick of his wrist. He draws a card.
Deafen
Spades stares at the card confused then looks up to see the robber saying something. He can’t hear them. He laughs hysterically. Did his powers really just sass him? Was he really talking that much that a magical deck of cards had to put a stop to it?
The two robbers run at him. He ducks out of the way and narrowly misses a punch to the gut. He’s a little pissed that he didn’t get a better card. Deafness isn’t exactly the most useful power in combat.
He throws up an arm in front of one of them just in time as he sidesteps. He watched them fall back onto the pavement. Spades fills in the silence of his head with the quirky background music over silent films. The ragtime songs that are all upbeat and make serious scenes funny and it's just a little too fast for what it's playing over.
The other robber throws themself at Spades. He ducks and moves to the side. They seem to be saying something. He still doesn’t have a single clue what they’re saying. Kinda annoying really. He starts signing at the guy, “Give up?”
They flip him off. Rude.
He grabs their shoulders and knees them in the stomach. They curl up for a moment before glaring at him. He throws a punch right for their jaw and feels it crack under his knuckles.
Ouch. Okay, maybe he shouldn’t have made up a whole backstory for this new friend and had witty banter together before this.
They collapse. The other one crawls over to them, and it seems they’re still trying to get their breathing back too.
Spades turns around to see a cloud of thick fog drifting to him. He turns back to see the two robbers trying to back away. Alright, spooky cloud is probably dangerous. Good to know.
He tries to see through the front of the building, but the gas is coming from inside the lobby. Really inconvenient if you asked him. Did they even have gas masks? This kinda seems like overkill. Spades pulls out the cards again.
Have a problem? Draw a card. Don’t know how to solve a problem? Draw another card. When all else fails, just draw another card. The cards know all.
Speed
Alright, fuck these cards. They don’t know shit. Is he supposed to just pull an anime move and run so fast he creates a small tornado? This is the real world, he can’t just do that! Maybe if the cards gave him weather control or wind manipulation, but no it gave him super speed. He’s deaf and he can run fast.
Spades is nothing if not adaptive, so he just hopes for the best and holds his breath as he sprints into the building. The gas doesn’t seem too bad, probably. He snatches someones shirt collar and barrels into the other. It does make him stumble onto the floor and knock the breath out of him. Really painful trying to not take in another, but he grabs their arm and drags the two out of the building.
He takes in a whole gasp of air before turning to glare at the two thieves. One of them looks completely stiffened, and the other is wheezing. Is that gas coming out of his mouth?
That can’t be good.
He double taps his com. The police should already be on the way, but just in case it's better that he send it in. He grabs the hero issued cuffs and starts cuffing the four. The two that tried getting away couldn’t dream of outrunning him with the speed card. He takes a moment to yawn and sign to the one robber asking if they’ll be able to communicate with the cops alright. They nod their head, so he smiles and turns around.
Spades feels his heart sink in his chest. It feels like an extra one hundred and fifty pounds has landed on his shoulders.
One of the leaders of a villain group. The biggest villain group. Lycanth in all their glory is just menacingly standing over Spades. Arms crossed and stood wide, looking down at him with that wolf skull mask covering the top of their face and the hood attached like it was a real wolf made into a hooded poncho. Rather short for a poncho, but Spades had no room to talk with his own cloak that didn’t even go to his elbows. Lycanth had a good few inches on Spades, and as far as villains went they definitely looked the most scary. They looked like they’d beat you to a pulp then be mad at you for it, and you’d let them. You wouldn’t question it, because they look like they could kill you in a moment's notice and you would be lucky if that’s all it was.
Who just stands there and waits for a hero to just turn around? They could’ve easily just said something, or they could’ve easily thrown him out of the way. They have enhanced strength from their guess. What the files fail to say is that it isn’t just strength. Spades knows from experience, Lycanth has so much more going on than just a bit of an extra punch, and he knows he can’t win this fight.
It would take a single hit for Lycanth to put Spades in urgent care on the brink of death. He’s not exactly fond of the medic unit in the tower, call him a coward but he doesn’t see any way he’s going to escape this one without running.
Lycanth is mouthing something. Speaking? He can’t hear the words, but he does catch one from his guess. “Move” well shit, guess he’s just in the way. Maybe he should move.
His legs are stiff and he can’t force them to do much more than tremble. So this is what Freeze feels like. He’s so scared that his body just won’t listen. This is some real background character moment he’s having. He’s literally a hero! He was trained to fight villains like Lycanth, to fight with his team to take them down!
Spades has never had to face Lycanth alone before though. The whole team knows that Spades would easily lose that fight. He talks too much, gets too distracted, and he takes too many punches. He isn’t good with getting trapped in close quarters, he likes gorilla warfare and sneak attacks and all of the things that he’s used to because they work for him. Wait, is he still standing in the way?
Lycanth seems rather annoyed by this. Him too, he wasn’t exactly looking forward to this robbery and now there’s a high level villain just staring at him!
Shouldn’t the police be here already?! Where the fuck are they?
Lycanth says something else. Spades doesn’t understand, but guessing by the change in posture and the way it looks like they’re gearing up to slug him in the face it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know it was something along the lines of last chance.
Spades takes a deep breath. Cards, he pulled two, what were they? Deafen and Speed. Shit he’s been deaf this whole time! Okay, this interaction makes a bit more sense. Besides the point, he has a report to write after this and an empty apartment to go sit in and this is kinda holding all that up. He’d rather not die, thanks.
Speed. He has speed. What was that one question about speed and strength? He’ll look it up some other time, but here's hoping speed wins.
Spades ducked under Lycanth’s swing. Honestly it was kinda lazy, so Lycanth probably isn’t too serious about this. Stars above, let’s see if that gives him a chance.
He tries to kick them in the shin, and it hits! Instant gratification, he kicked the strongest villain!
Lycanth takes the moment to lift up their leg and slam it down before Spades can pull his own back.
Moment over.
Spades feels the shock of pain that could paralyze you just from the shear force it has. His bone snapped. It’s a complete break, no questions about it, and Lycanth is reaching to grab him by his collar.
Despite better judgment telling him “don’t run on the broken leg” fight or flight says “run, idiot you won't win!” So Spades dashes out of the way and just far enough that he’s out of reach and heaving for breath from pain. His leg isn’t holding up, and he really needs that to fix itself.
Lycanth seems kind of mad. Maybe it's cause Spades isn’t really cooperating and definitely can’t hear a word right now. Maybe he should’ve said that. Yup, he should’ve tried telling his future killer, “sorry, I actually can’t hear anything right now. I’ll just be on my way now, please don’t do any illegal things while I’m gone.”
Food for thought, has a hero ever just asked a villain to stop? Cause Spades is pretty sure he’s never seen that before. He doesn’t doubt that it would be a whole mess and the villain absolutely isn’t going to just stop because they were asked nicely, but has anyone tried it yet he thinks not.
Lycanth is rushing for him before he has a moment to voice his new revelation. Kind of rude really. What has he ever done to them? Kick their shin? That was in the past, get over it! Wait, no actually that means he should get over his very broken leg. On second thought, why are they so pissed off? They broke his leg!
Spades dashes so they’re out of the way and just behind Lycanth when they skid to a stop.
His leg most definitely isn’t appreciating the super speed running and standing and all. Probably unhealthy. Lycanth is surprisingly good at turning on a dime. They just whirl around at him and tackle him to the ground.
Not his best moment, he’ll agree, however he is currently the strongest and weakest person in existence and today seems to just be one of those days where he gets no breaks.
Lycanth punches him in the chest. He was too busy blocking his face, and they’ve taken the opportunity to beraid his ribs. His poor ribs! They’re just being the friendliest of boys and protecting his vital organs! They really had to do his boys like that?
He feels the waves of pain as every hit makes his vision flash white and his throat feels so strained. He can only assume he’s screaming like he’s dying.
Lycanth pulls back for another swing and Spades manifests the card deck. He looks at Lycanth in their horrifying wolf skull mask and draws a card.
Warp
Spades is pretty sure he’s never seen this card before. He has no clue what it means, and there’s no time like the present to find out. He wants something to happen, anything, he just wants to be out of the way.
In an instant both himself and Lycanth have shifted from the middle of the street to inside the lobby of the bank.
It hasn’t completely aired out yet. The air tastes kind of sour and bitter. It smells musty, like if you went into a cave that has too much humidity and animals have clearly been in here cause it just smells bad.
Lycanth seems to notice this change after getting a good punch to Spades’ face.
They’re in the gas cloud. Lycanth stumbles back from Spades and seems to be shouting.
He feels a buzzing in his lungs. Shit, he wasn’t supposed to breathe this in was he? Problems for if he lives.
Lycanth throws themself out the door and into the clean air.
They stumble. They take two more steps and their legs give way.
Spades is still in the gas.
He’s still in the gas.
Spades warps himself out of the gas. He’s beginning to like this power, he can just manifest somewhere else. His stomach is kinda swimming right now, but it’s fine. Just the price to pay for being the best.
He barely has the strength to move his head, but he does catch a glimpse of the villain stumbling away and coughing. He would make a funny joke about getting a better mask with an air filter, but he’s pretty sure he’s going to die in the next five minutes if this gas is poison.
Sirens start approaching and Spades is finally realizing just how long it took for the police to get to the scene. Were they just hanging around? What could’ve possibly taken that long?
He had a whole fight and a half before they got here!
Spades pulls out all his cards and the deck. He taps the Deafen card to the deck and watches it disintegrate, and then he did the same to the Speed card. He brought the Warp card to his chest and looked up at the night sky.
He felt his hearing return and just continued to lay there as officers scrambled around trying to grab the detained robbers. They seem to be ignoring him.
“Spades!” He hears a frantic, familiar voice yell.
He can’t look around anymore, he just doesn’t have the strength to. His muscles just felt too heavy.
“It’s alright, kid, I’m here. Let’s get you home.” Spades blinks trying to register who it was. A mask covering the left side, their right, and the upper part of their face. Spades felt his chest rumble. Was he purring? He doesn’t purr! It must’ve been a growl, he doesn’t purr, so this person must suck. Bad person, don’t call him a kid!
“Showman! Showman, I’d like to ask a few questions!” Spades heard someone calling. They had a nasaly voice and it really hurt his ears to hear it.
He felt the ground give way under him and he felt a lot warmer. He blinked a bit more and the dude bro that called him a kid was holding him. He isn’t some kid that needs to be carried! He can warp his way home just fine, as soon as he figures out how it works.
“We won’t be taking questions. You’ll receive everything in time.” The voice sounded scratchy. Did they just wake up? Oh no, Necro is going to be so pissed that he got hurt and needed to be carried back to the tower!
Spades grumbled as loud as he could manage, but they didn’t seem to pay him any mind and he was getting shoved into a car.
He heard the door slam, the driver door open and then slam, and suddenly it dawned on him. He’s going to have to write the report after all this. Can he catch a break? It really isn’t his night.
“Onyx, are you an idiot? Trying to die? Is this your way of trying to get off of midnight patrols? Therapy is in the budget! You don’t have to throw away self preservation the moment it's an option!” Wow, they sound mad. Why? They aren’t his dad!
“You’re not ma dad!” Spades said sluggishly. Why was it so hard to talk?
“Like that matters! Onyx, I’ve been raising you for how many years now? You know what, you’re grounded.” They say sternly. Kind of exasperated. They should get that checked out, it really kills the vibe.
“Nooo-” Spades whines. He doesn’t want to be grounded. He has dates to go on! Men and women that need to fawn over how perfect he is! He needs to get Radio to teach him that one sign… What was it? They’ll remember, he’ll try describing it and they’ll know. He has shit to do is his point!
“Kid, you are the biggest pain. I’m going to get you to Fae and leave you. I’ll just leave.”
“Dad, nooo-” Spades cried. “We already have milk, don’t go!”
“Thought I wasn’t your dad.” They said deadpanned. Spades has half a mind to give them a one star Yelp review. Top Ten worst car rides he’s had.
He closes his eyes and feels like he’s going to pass out. He’s going to pass out. He’s decided consciousness is for the weak.