Chapter Text
She’d played right into their hands. She should’ve known better, should’ve known how to tell when she was being led. They hadn’t even been that subtle about it, but maybe that’s why she let it happen. Maybe she thought no one would really be that obvious, or that the trap wouldn’t be a good one. If it was the latter, then she’d been right, in a sense. It wasn’t much of a trap, just a regular old ambush. Or maybe she’d let it happen because she was one of those stupid heroes now, and by following them into the junkyard she thought she’d protect civilians from stray gunshots.
The "why” of Bumblebee entering that place of towering scrap didn’t really matter.
Angel had gotten wind of the shootout with one of the local Titans almost as soon as it started, idly scrolling her phone when the alert had popped up. She hated the news outlets and how they had to stick their nasty little noses into everything, but she was rather grateful for the behavior when it benefited her like this. She’d found the fight only a minute later, and had been following it since, watching eagerly from the highest rooftops as the hero and thugs battled. It was a bad habit of hers, watching Bumblebee's fights from a distance. One of these days she’d probably get caught doing it, and she hated the thought of it.
It wasn’t going to jail that scared her. She'd been behind bars many times before and her longest stint had only been two months– just one of the many perks of having a teleporter for a brother. No, what scared her was the idea of Bumblebee knowing she was watching. She didn’t want her to spend half a fight worrying that at any moment white wings could swoop down from above. Angel wouldn’t do that, but she knew Bumblebee couldn’t know that. Stupid heroes only saw the world in black and white, couldn’t fathom that maybe there was no ulterior motive, no plotting or scheming. That maybe all it was is an addiction to the way her heart fluttered watching that girl hit a man twice her size so hard a tooth fell out.
The point is that her little guilty pleasure, Bumblebee's astounding overconfidence, and a case of spectacularly good luck on the side of the thugs had all led to this situation. The Titan was grounded, a knife swipe having torn through the membrane of her right wings. It looked worse than it was, really. She only appeared to have one pair of wings because of tiny coupling hooks that kept the hindwings attached to the forewings. The slash had dislodged that coupling, making it seem as if her wing had been gruesomely torn in half. That wasn’t to say it was good, though. The wound ran vertically, cutting from the center of the forewing down to the center of the hindwing, the severed veins pouring blood onto the dirt.
She was fighting pretty damn good for a girl that was bleeding out and outnumbered, but it couldn’t last. She was wavering, the bullets coming too close and her hits landing weaker. Only two blocks away Angel perched, crouched on the very edge of an apartment building's roof, her arms casually resting on her knees. Her lips were pressed into a small frown as she watched. Where the hell were the rest of the Titans? Did they even know their leader was inches from death? No, of course not. Not once in her stalking had Angel seen Bumblebee pull out her communicator. Why would she? It had just been a simple shootout, the sort of thing Bumblebee dealt with on her own all the time, and now that things had gone sideways she needed both hands to fight.
These things happened. Headlines and social media posts about another hero cut down in their prime. The type of thing you responded to with a little frown and a, “that’s a shame,” before moving on with your day. Maybe if it was a big name or a hero from your city you’d give it a little more energy, but Steel was small and unemotional. Angel felt herself twitch involuntarily as a bullet grazed Bumblebee’s side. She stood slowly, pouring her magic into her wings as she unfolded them. The muscles running along her ribs grew, fresh fibers crawling beneath her skin and forming new attachment points, the shoulder blades of her arms grinding against the shoulder blades of her wings as the bones expanded. Within mere seconds she’d gone from having a wingspan of only two and a half meters to one of nearly six.
As a fist wrapped in brass knuckles contacted with Bumblebee's skull, Angel let herself fall from the rooftop.
—--------------------------
Johnny Comet had only appeared in Steel two months ago, but in that time he’d settled in nicely. He’d climbed ranks absurdly fast and had already hit the dying port city hard, nestling himself into the corrupt systems right beside the rest of Steel’s ticks. Thus far, Angel had been given no reason to have any opinion on him. She didn’t care much for the mundane criminal underground. She vaguely kept track of territories and who hated who, but that was about it. The most of her interactions came from the times someone planned something worthy of Titan attention and had the foresight to pay her to cause a distraction on the other side of town. She liked those jobs. Oftentimes the Titans would catch wind of it despite her work, and one or two of the boys would have to leave the fight to go deal with things. Fights were much more fun and lasted longer when she could put all her attention on Bumblebee.
But just because he was new and she was indifferent to his activities didn’t mean she didn’t know where he holed up. She’d already had a narrow list of places to check, made narrower by the lackey blubbering about moving product. There were benefits to sending out your lower ranking men for the work of distracting a superhero, particularly when those men know the heroes won’t kill or torture them, meaning there was no risk of them talking. Too bad Angel didn’t mind breaking some bones.
She didn’t have to look long in the abandoned section of the warehouse district to find the one building with activity, and it was rather obvious why he’d chosen this one. It was one of the few that had remained fairly intact from the fires that had led to this section being abandoned. Now that had been a good fight. She’d spent over a month sabotaging the water infrastructure in the area, and had even cashed in a favor with her brother to deal with the stupid twins. The boys had all been made practically powerless by her work; Aqualad had no water for his hydrokinesis, Mas y Menos had been split apart, and Speedy might as well have been blind in the smoke. She’d made that skirmish last the whole night, and she knew Bumblebee must still have scars from it. The cherry on top of the event had been the way the cops got themselves so riled up asking why she’d done it. There’d been nothing worth stealing even before she set the place aflame, and there’d been no sign that someone had paid her for it. She’d just told them they wouldn’t get it, and sat back with a grin as their frustrations grew.
She brushed away her reminiscence as she landed on the soot-stained metal roofing, letting the magic flow back out of her wings, the limbs returning to a more comfortable size. Angel didn’t bother with being all that quiet as she opened one of the skylights, knowing most noise would be covered by the sounds of voices and moving equipment, and that her presence wouldn’t be hidden for long. Carefully she lowered herself into the rafters, one hand loosely holding onto a vertical support beam as she scoured the ground below. Stocky guy in a suit with a nicely trimmed beard? Bingo.
After a moment of watching the man shout orders and double check work, she cleared her throat as loudly as she could. Stand casual, but not too casual. Keep your hands near your halos, but don’t look like you’re itching to grab them. Keep your wings folded, but be ready to fly. At once all eyes turned up towards her, and at least a dozen guns followed suit. She took stock of the ones she could see, keeping her head still to hide where she looked.
“Well! If it ain’t the supposed ‘Scourge of Steel City’ herself!” Comet raised a hand, silently telling his men to hold back from killing her for now. “To what do I owe the pleasure?” He gave her a relaxed smile, as if she were just an old friend dropping by.
Angel shrugged some, setting her hands on her hips and calmly turning her head to look around as if she was appraising the place. “Just wanted to talk. Figured I should meet the new neighbor and all that,” She smiled back at him, as if he weren’t currently in control of her life, “Set some ground rules.”
His eyebrow raised, and he did a small, silent chuckle. “Is that so?”
She nodded, still smiling. “Mhm. Y’see, just a moment ago I was going for a bit of a flight around the neighborhood, and saw some of your guys in this big fight with– oh, what’s her name– ah whatever, you know who I mean. Anyways, I’m watching this fight, and it’s the craziest thing, because I swear they’re trying to kill her! Got pretty close to it too, actually. Had her on the ground with a gun to her head and everything.” She spoke lightly, the same way you’d talk about the recent football game. “Thankfully they didn’t actually get to do it. I think the cops are probably picking them up now, or already picked them up. I dunno, I didn’t really hang around.
“I, uh, I did stop and chat a little, though. Y’know, just business stuff, like double checkin’ who their boss is, and what he’s up to, and how he’s doin’, that sort of thing. Good lackeys, I’ll tell you that. Actually had to break a guys femur before he’d hold a normal fucking conversation.”
Comet’s little smile had disappeared into an annoyed frown while a few of the men stiffened. She could see some put their fingers on the triggers of their guns.
“It’s no biggie, really,” she raised her hands in a helpless gesture, but was quick to put them back at her sides by her weapons. “I mean– you’re new and all! I can’t blame you! So I figured I’d just swing by real quick and let you know that, well, we don’t really do that stuff here. Y’know, killing heroes and all. Not sayin’ don’t kill people! Do whatever you want, I don’t care. It’s just, uh,” she clicked her tongue, “the Titans are sorta off limits?” She put on a nice, anxious grin.
The man below her snorted a little, before bursting into a full laugh that echoed around the warehouse. “Breakin’ femurs my ass. C’mon, sweetheart, you think I didn’t do my research before movin’ in here? Worst thing you’ve ever done is start a few fires. Listen, kid, this is big league stuff. People who stick their noses into things they shouldn’t? They end up hurt. That’s the business. If ya can’t handle a li’l blood here and there, maybe you ought’a find a nicer city and quit pickin’ fights.” He smiled in the way you smile at a toddler trying to count to ten.
She still smiled back, giving a little nod before clicking her tongue. “Can’t say I didn’t warn ya…” she mumbled just loud enough for him to hear, then spread her wings and propelled herself out the skylight. The visit out here hadn’t been for nothing, at least. She’d learned something important. She’d been certain for a while that none of the other criminals in Steel took her seriously, but now she had confirmation, as well as a pretty good hunch on how to make that change.