Nighthawk: A Superhero Story (closed for Siobhancan99)

[Halcyon638]

“Okay. I’m upgrading you to ‘definitely going to get lucky tonight,’ ” Gabi teased, then kissed Monica back, keeping it fairly chaste. She received a text and quickly glanced at it before putting her phone into her coat once more. “Kendra was asking if maybe we wanted to meet up with them before school starts,” she added, referring to a friend of hers from work who was dating Monica’s former fellow stagehand department, Graham. “There’s a Turkish place they want to check out.”

At the next stop, a band of four twenty-something guys dressed in jeans and hoodies made their way into the car. They conversed among themselves, though occasionally, one would steal a not exactly surreptitious glance at Monica and Gabi. “Yeah, Schultz got his hands on some of that shit the other night. It’s supposed to be like molly and coke mashed up times a million…Don’t know, man. He knows a guy.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica looked over at the quartet while keeping an arm loose around Gabi "you guys talking about swat?" She ran her hand along Gabi's hip "you know that drug turned that girl into a monster and the Nighthawk nearly killed her right? Doesn't seem worth it to me to mess with it. Even if its just a small chance. Getting beaten to death by a superhero because I took the wrong party drug seems. I dunno. Sort of against the point."

 

[Halcyon638]

The group of guys turned their attention to the two women now. “Hey there,” one of the men, sporting a mop of curly fair hair, said.

One of the others, an overweight guy in a Prospect City Whirlwinds jersey, said, “Yeah. Swat.” They listened to Monica as the train raced through the tunnel. “I don’t know. A chance to get super high or get beaten down by a woman in a black bodysuit. Sounds like a win-win to me.” The other men laughed.

The curly-haired guy smiled. “Sorry about Aidan here. Guy has problems. I’m with you.” He settled on the seat next to Monica, leaning back and putting an ankle across his knee. “So. What are you girls up to? You wanna come party with us?”

 

[siobhancan99]

Shaking her head Monica slipped her arm around Gabi a little more "No we're going home to curl up and just have some couple time" Trying to drive home to Aiden that they weren't available without being rude about it. Giving him the 'yeah we're lesbians' out. "We have class coming up and we didn't get much time together over the holiday" which was a lie, what with Gabi's mother having accepted them as a couple "So I hope you understand that if you were me you'd wanna head home for the night too."

 

[Halcyon638]

The curly-haired man nodded. “Totally, totally.” He got up now and moved back toward where his friends had gathered. “It’s kinda late. You should really be careful. These neighborhoods can be kinda rough.” Gabi continued to hold Monica’s hand tightly.

The dark-haired girl sighed as they walked to their apartment. “God. There are some times I just feel really, really lucky I don’t have to try to date one of…those,” Gabi said, shaking her head. “Assholes.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"they're called men baby and you dated one for like 3 months" She laughed and tugged Gabi in, then lifted her up, letting her feel her strength. She knew it gave the girl a little thrill "what I want is for you to undress and we can pile the blankets on and just hold each other, skin to skin. If you want I'll get Thadeus out of your room." she had gotten her girlfriend a replacement for Thadeus T. Bear, Thadeus, A Bear, for christmas. "I just want to feel you against me and be close to you."

 

[Halcyon638]

Gabi smiled. “I don’t remember that, but if you say so…” She giggled, pleased, as Monica lifted her into the air. “Mmm. Sounds amazing.” She raised her neck up so she could place a kiss on Monica’s lip. “Yes! Bring him. He’s the only man I need in my life.”

A little while later, Gabi was lying in Monica’s bed, blankets hiked up to her chin against the cold air. “Get in here and warm me up!” she demanded. When her girlfriend crawled in with the teddy bear, the dark-haired girl nestled the stuffed animal against her right arm and the right side of her body while letting Monica press in against her from the left side.

The blonde girl could the soft, now-warming curves of her lover against her. “When you let me sleep in your bed last semester…like, before we’d done anything…I was so happy and scared and excited all at once.” She kissed Monica’s forehead.

 

[siobhancan99]

"I was kinda scared I'd sleep-grope you." Monica laughed and kissed Gabi's chin. She nestled in against her, moving to fit against her girl more comfortably. She was mostly kidding about that, but it was sort of true. She let her fingers wander, not looking for sex as much as intimacy, loving the softness and warmth of her lover against her body. She sighed and closed her eyes, listening to Gabi breathe, feeling the subtle rise and fall of the other girl's chest "mmmm this feels good. Just what I needed."

The next morning, she woke spooning Gabi, who was spooning the bear. She slipped out and had a quick shower, then met Thalmer for the first day of weapons training. After dealing with that, she cracked a bottle of water and sat with the man for a moment "I"m going to need you to help me break into an earth company and steal a piece of Centauri Tech we can't allow to fall into the hands of the humans." She said in Centauri "I'll make the arrangements, but this is important and I can't do it by myself."

 

[Halcyon638]

Thalmer nodded, the sunlight through the broken windows of the abandoned building they were sparring in illuminating beads of sweat on his sculpted face. He let his bo staff clatter to the ground. “Sounds like fun.” A wry grin spread to his lips. “So. Are we talking a team-up? What kind of tech?” he said, reaching into his blue duffel bag. A moment later, he produced an ice pack, which he tossed over to Monica. "That hip is going to bruise."

 

[siobhancan99]

"some kinda power source or something. My source didn't have the actual name" which meant 'I can't remember what the thing is called' "but yeah, team up, masks. whole nine. Gonna have supervillain names to drop and everything since I can't steal stuff as the nighthawk. you know?"

 

[Halcyon638]

The Centauri man nodded and stretched out his neck a bit. “Very tempting.” He asked Monica for some additional information about where the item was being held. “Hmm. Sounds like a tough nut to crack, especially for one person. Significant risk. Long hours of reconnaissance and planning. What do I get in return? And don't tell me some cushy future job in the Centauri Empire. I'm kind of a 'live in the moment' type of guy."

 

[siobhancan99]

"I'm sorry was there something besides doing the work of the Empire and maintaining our secrecy on this planet and our technological advantage over a population orders of magnitude greater than ours that is not already part of your mission?" Monica arched an eyebrow "I mean, its in a vault with all sorts of other tech do-dads i'm guessing so. Steal whatever you want."

 

[Halcyon638]

Thalmer picked his staff up off the ground and spun it idly. “That’s all well and good, but not really what I had in mind. You know what I want. I know you know, ‘cause you want it, too,” he said, breaking the staff down into two pieces.

“A really, really good burger. And you’re buying. I’ll drive.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"you know we're gonna have to eat on the way back too. We should scope out good places that are between here and there. though... maybe we should just eat here on the way back." She grinned "cause you know we're gonna be starving, especially if we have to fight."

 

[Halcyon638]

Thalmer smiled. “Sounds like a plan. But I’m starving now and I’m willing to bet you are, too. Come on.” He grabbed his gear and headed out into the daylight, walking toward his SUV.

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica headed to lunch, then called her father. She was curious to see what he and Alex had figured out about the signal and if it had any implications on their timetable. For now they could proceed at their leisure, but that might change depending on what was happening.

 

[Halcyon638]

At lunch, Thalmer tried to get to know Monica better, asking her some questions about her upbringing as a Centauri girl, her college experience, and a few surprisingly non-creepy questions about Gabi. He alluded to his “responsibilities” keeping on the road most of the time, and to not having much of a connection to any place or anyone as a result, though it was still couched in the jokey, occasionally crudely flirtatious tenor of much of his interactions with her.

Her father answered in a somber tone. “The good news is that Sutter was able to decrypt some of the messages. The bad news is that someone’s sending excerpts from the Britharion Codices to someone. Those are the holy texts of the Totality. Sutter thinks it’s possible it’s just two true believers communicating, but it could also be another level of code that he can’t currently decipher. In any case, the fact that someone most likely from the Totality is in touch with someone down here isn’t great, and we can’t figure out a way to block or divert the signals. Yet, at least.”

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica hmmmed "there's no way to see who is getting the messages? I mean if they're all coming in from some feed or whatever they have to be like... going somewhere from the relay right? It seems like at least the messages that originate on earth should be trackable in some fashion."

 

[Halcyon638]

“That I can tell you. Seems like they’re coming from somewhere in Pennsylvania. Outside of Pittsburgh. I could probably triangulate the location with more precision with time. Could take me a day or two, tops,” her father said.

 

[siobhancan99]

"yeah lets get on that. If there's a Totality agent here, I don't want them kidnapping me or anything. Best to just deal with it. Another thing is that Sutter seems to be operating under the illusion no earth government knows about us. I mean, how realistic is that? surely some of us defected when shit hit the fan, right?"

 

[Halcyon638]

There was a pause. “I’ll start on that right away, honey. Unfortunately, even if there’s not a Totality agent, with the Totality in charge of the High Command, what’ll happen is they’ll basically send out an APB to any Centauri agents within 500 miles to come for you, including our old friend, Thalmer. But if we can find out more about these communications from the source, that would help. Would it help if I did some of the legwork on this? Went to Pittsburgh?"

 

[siobhancan99]

Monica interpreted the silence to mean her father had defected. It made sense. He was as American as apple pie, so to speak. Football, old cars, old rock, all that was missing was Jesus and well none of them were going to be churchy any time soon. "We should talk about my other question sometime soon but no, you should not go to Pittsburgh." Mostly because he wasn't good at it and it was dangerous "Unless you physically need to be there to get a lock on the signal. There's better stuff for you to be doing. Property record searches. Also... I know the separation hasn't been great but you need to talk to mom and get information on all the Centauri agents who didn't come back who might be in the Pittsburgh area. Frankly at some point they need to give us the goods on all of them. A totality double agent might motivate them properly. See what you can get. Ultimately I am going to need numbers on how many battle caste are on the planet, as god knows we might have to fight some day. But even low caste can be traitors, so I need everything they've got."

 

[Halcyon638]

“Fair enough,” Monica’s father said regarding her suggestions about how he could better use his time. “Let me see what I can dig up. I just don’t want you to feel pulled in a million directions, especially with school starting up next week.”

Gabi entered the apartment, her coat lightly dusted with snow. She gave a little wave and smiled. “That’s…a good question regarding the government. It’s possible that one of them was caught or defected…though I have a feeling they would have been trying to track down the rest of us if that was the case. I can’t really say. Regarding numbers…yeah, that, too, is a bit of a black box for us, unfortunately.”

There was a pause. “If I were to try to contact your mother…there’s always the risk that the Totality is monitoring her communications, especially with her having made a deal with Sorrinel. I do have…someone else I can try to contact who I trust, though. He might be able to get her a message or get that information. What do you think? There’s risks with each strategy, but also risks if we just sit around ostensibly playing it safe.”

 

[siobhancan99]

"you could just talk to her in English. the probability that anyone out there speaks it is pretty low. still, maybe have your friend talk to her in English. double safe. We need that fucking info. We need to be able to keep track of assets and liabilities on this planet, and also figure out what the feds know. who might be working what angles. who is embedded still in other nuclear powers. some day all this information is going to be useful" she had plans, bigger plans than being some vigilante. "anyway, lets focus on pittsburgh for now."

 

[Halcyon638]

“You’re right,” her father said regarding the need for intelligence. “I’ll look into that. After Pittsburgh. Talk soon. Love you.”

Gabi had changed out of her work clothes and into her workout clothes. “Hey, baby. Did you want to walk me over to the gym?” She started slipping on her coat once more. As they headed out into the cold, the Latina placed her gloved hand in Monica’s and asked, “So, are we still good with meeting Kendra and Graham for dinner tomorrow night?”