You are a Villian who's a single parent of a son. Recently they started dating someone. When you arrived to their house, you notice how their parent is the hero you fight daily. Your son and date went outside for some alone time, leaving you and the hero some time to talk.
Foreword: Inspired by a prompt from r/WritingPrompts. Set in my "Allied Heroes Commission" world.
I kept my smile neutral, knowing that Pinnacle could see through it. Just like I could see through his, and I didn't need any meta-powered awareness to do that. Spend enough time in my line of work and you learn how to do a mean cold read on just about everyone. Helps get an angle on them. Besides, for Cal's sake, I couldn't kick off and put a blade through the man's face, despite my better instincts.
I could see that the other man was thinking the same thing. The subtle shift of his eyes toward Faith, the faintest twitch of his jaw, the hint of a grind in his teeth. I extended a hand toward him, and felt a little thrill at the little twitch he made as I did so. I introduced myself, using my real name. Not my trade name, not even the civilian identity that most of the files on me had. He took my hand cautiously, but his grim was firm. The barest hint of a squeeze that could crush my bones to powder, which I took without even a grimace. Pain was an old friend, you learn to tolerate it growing up in the neighborhood I did.
"Hale Langston," Pinnacle returned the introduction. "So you're Callum's father, huh?"
"Cal," my son and I said in unison. "Don't like being called Callum," he said, as I added, "His great-grandpa's name."
"Faith, why don't you go upstairs and finish getting ready," Pinnacle suggested. "Callum-- Cal-- could you go grab a fresh case of drinks from the basement for us? You've been here, you know where they're kept."
"Sounds like a great idea, leave Hale and I here a chance to chat, eh?" I clapped Cal on the shoulder and let him head off to the basement, with that uneasy glance that teenage children who are date have, when their parents meet for the first time. So far as they know.
I made a show of looking around the room as we were left by ourselves. A few awards and photographs on the wall. The military credentials of Captain Hale Langston, his graduation from the academy, pictures in front of his plane, hanging out with his comrades, the usual. Wedding photos, family portraits. The picture of Langston and a couple of other people in front of a hangar might just have been at any Air Force base, had I not recognized it as Hangar Four from Pendelson AFB, aka Fort Farsight, part of the Commission training program.
"Nice place," I remarked, and turned to find Pinnacle already in front of me, looming as only he could, eyes glowing with cosmic energies. A vein throbbed on his forehead.
"Sureshot." My name in the trade. His voice was low, but there was an echo of power beneath it as he hissed, "If you even think about harming my family--"
"Thinking ain't the same as doing," I retorted, and flicked my eyes downward. He looked down to see that I had one of my hard-light blades at his throat. He was tough, I'd seen him take a speeding semi truck to the face without a scratch. But my hard-light could penetrate that impervious skin. "And you know me, Pinnacle. I don't take suicide jobs. I do something like that, you'd turn me into a smear on the carpet."
His eyes narrowed, and the echo in his voice subsided slightly. "You do tend to keep to small-time jobs," he conceded, grumpily, but his eyes flared brighter. "Could be you're stepping up in the world. Trying to find an angle, yeah?"
"And put my family at risk?" I tilted my head, and raised my other hand, then let the blade at his throat wink out as I raised the other. "Faith doesn't know, does she?"
Pinnacle looked at my hands, eyeballed me again, then took a step backwards. "I think she suspects, but she's never asked, so I haven't told her. Does Cal?"
I shook my head. "Far as he and Mary know, I'm a defense contractor." Partially true. In my line of work, you take the jobs as they come, regardless of who's paying. I don't ask questions, much, and my clients know the limitations. No children, no one incapable of defending themselves. Minimal collateral damage. Not all of my clients had been criminals.
I added, "They've said they suspect I kill people for a living, but they won't ask outright. They don't want to know the details. She doesn't want her perception of me to change, and Cal doesn't want to have to answer questions if someone like you starts asking them."
We stood there, staring at one another. On one side, Pinnacle, the paragon of the Allied Heroes Commission, a metahuman with seemingly limitless strength and a spectrum of cosmic power, the man who'd ended the Xenari Invasion and who'd battled against some of the worst threats the world had ever seen. On the other, Sureshot, the "Meta-Killer" who had been the end of more than a few street-level heroes, the assassin who could find an angle to take down anyone, a hitman who took jobs from the highest bidder, including the Umbra.
"Don't try it," I warned him, seeing his anger starting to spark up again. "You know I can flare up fast, I can find the angle to stop you, and my shield can block your energies."
"I can burn through it," he pointed out. But as he said it, I saw a flicker of doubt-- no, of concern.
I nodded. "Sure, but you have to burn hot to do that, and that'd set the house on fire." I didn't need to add what might happen then. His family at risk. "And if you put my son in danger, you know I'll reciprocate. I have the angle for that." And I pointed my finger upstairs, where his daughter was getting ready.
He ground his teeth, but took a deep breath, visibly calming himself down. "Okay. Maybe this isn't some game of yours--"
"I don't play games," I spat. "I'm not some clown like the Giggler. Fercrissake, can we just stop? Cal's going to be back up in a second."
"...and Faith'll be back down soon," he sighed. He eyeballed me as he extended his hand again. "For tonight, at least, bygones?"
"Bygones," I agreed, clasping it.
"And maybe I put in a word with the Commission," he added, sotto voce, as Cal's footsteps came back up the stairs. "Get you some gig work with us, work off your criminal debt?"
"Not tonight," I said. I let my voice raise a little bit as my son came up with a case of sodas. "But hey, if you can get me work that won't mean I have to leave town so much, I might be all ears." I suspected Commission work wouldn't pay as well as the Umbra, but it might just keep me from facing the prospect of jailtime in the long run.
Because finding an angle isn't just about taking down a target, when you think about it. Sometimes it's about finding a way out.
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