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[A Gamer in Gotham]—❈—09:: In Which I'm Reminded (once again) That This is Gotham
🕑 Added 2024-02-02 20:41:05 +0000 UTCHey, guys. This story will be going on a short hiatus for the next two weeks so I can work on Smells Like Teen Spirit.
I apologize to those of you who prefer this fic, but needs must.
I hope you enjoy this chapter at least.
—❈——❈——❈—
Annie looks like she desperately wants to wring her landlord's neck like a dish towel.
“That bastard,” she growls.
Keisha however, has other concerns. “Who the fuck are Kero and Gasoline?” she asks.
—❈—
Left to her own devices, I'm pretty sure Annie would have hunted down her landlord immediately and probably try to wring his neck.
Thankfully, she isn't left to her own devices, and Keisha and I… well, no actually, just me, can talk her out of that problematic path.
As satisfying as it might feel to rough up Annie's landlord for burning down his building (an act which hasn't only cost massive loss of property among people who barely have anything to their names, but has also claimed the lives of eight and counting), that's only justice half done. Barely. Because, not only will the landlord likely still get his insurance settlement, there will also be two professional arsonists, who are responsible for who knows how many murders, still walking the streets of Gotham.
And, I don't know if you've noticed, but the streets of Gotham have more than enough dangerous psychos walking it already.
While wanting true justice is all well and good though, it's going to take a little more than a burning desire for vengeance and dogged determination to see it happen.
No, if we want these people off the streets for any appreciable length of time, we're going to need evidence.
The problem with that plan of course, is that I don't know how we'll go about getting evidence, or if there even is any to get.
“I say we find him and rough him up a little,” Keisha suggests. “That'll get him talking.”
We're getting breakfast at a diner not too far from Annie's apartment, and we're multitasking by using the opportunity for a brainstorming session on how to handle this.
“That might work,” I admit. “But odds are it'll just blow up in our faces. You can't threaten a confession out of a person…” I pause. “Well, you can,” I admit, “but it won't hold up in court. Also, if these Kero and Gasoline characters are as good as it seems like they are, and if they've managed to keep their hands clean enough of their crimes, then him having any sort of business deal with them right before his building burned down is, while sus, not the smoking gun we need to put them away.”
Annie and Keisha scowl, unhappy at my words.
I sigh.
“Okay, again, is there a reason we can't just go to the police with this? I'm sure I could find us an honest cop to help us. I mean, there has to be at least one honest cop in this city besides Commissioner Gordon, right?”
Keisha scoffs. “Good luck with that,” she says cynically. “And honestly, I doubt Commissioner Gordon is half the saint he pretends to be.”
“Yeah, not with that moustache, he's not,” Annie adds, throwing in her two cents.
“I know, right?” Keisha says. “Like, you just know that motherfucker has got like a pedo sex dungeon in his basement, or something.”
The two women chuckle at their joke and I try not to shake my head.
You know, more and more it seems to me that Gothamites have such an intrinsic distrust of the police, that most of them might hesitate to dial 911 even if they were about to be murdered.
And, I mean, I can't exactly blame them for it, but Jesus Christ that's depressing.
“Okay,” I say, getting the conversation back on track. “If we're not going to the police then what are we doing?”
“You know, after your display at Big Ray's, I kinda thought you'd already know everything we needed to take them down,” Keisha says watching me carefully. “I mean, you knew the fucking code to Big Ray's safe, woulda thought getting dirt on some landlord would be easier.”
Annie looks awkward at her sister's words.
She glances at me, checking to see my reaction to Keisha obviously fishing for info on how I do what I do.
I roll my eyes.
“If you're not so subtly asking how I know the things I know, it's cause the universe is a gossipy tattletale that likes to tell me things,” I say. “And now that you mention it,” I continue, “I've been going about this all wrong; we should find your landlord first, if there's dirt on him somewhere, odds are good I'll know it then.”
“And then what?” Keisha asks. “We hand it over to the police?” She doesn't sound too fond of that plan.
I stare at her. “You really wanna hit someone, don't you?” I ask.
She shrugs. “It's my love language,” she replies sassily.
I snort, and Keisha smirks at me.
“Well, unfortunately, your love language is illegal, last I checked,” I say.
Keisha's cocks an eyebrow. “Says the guy I watched break a man's fingers for getting handsy,” she fires back. “By the way, hottest thing I've seen a guy do in weeks.”
I notice Annie's cheeks redden at that, and when I look at her, she suddenly finds the scenery of the crappy diner mighty interesting.
I stare at both women for a moment.
Well… that's that mystery solved, I guess.
Two people walk past outside the diner in that moment, and since we're right next to the (not too clean) windows, I spot them easily, and the name bars floating above their heads make me blink.
“Huh,” I mutter. “What are the odds?”
“What is it?” Annie asks, she and Keisha tracking my gaze to the objects of my attention.
“That's them,” I say, and both women stare at me in confusion.
“Kero and Gasoline,” I explain. “That's them.”
“Wait what!?” Annie asks, she and Keisha fully interested in the pair now.
“Them?” Keisha asks, her dubiousness obvious in her tone.
I get why.
The pair outside are old. In their late fifties, at least. They're a man and a woman; and based on their facial resemblance and their shared last name, they're either siblings, or they're one of those married couples who turn into each other as they age.
I've never been able to decide on whether that's cute or creepy.
I [Observe] them.
Huh. Married couple then. Met in an orphanage when they were teens, after their families both died in ‘freak fires’.
Discovered they both had a love for watching things burn, burnt down the orphanage, ran away together, married at nineteen, and still very much in love… both with each other and with setting things on fire.
Wow. What a beautiful love story. Lights a fire in my heart, it does.
“They've set hundreds of fires,” I tell Annie and Keisha. “Many of them have claimed lives.”
Annie looks at me, then back at the older couple, utterly freaked out.
Keisha hides it better, but my words get to her too. “So, you're saying that those two have killed—”
“One hundred and fourteen people as of this morning. Yes.”
Keisha swallows, then she sighs. “This is why I don't fucking trust old, white people,” she says.
I look at the couple again right before they take the corner and disappear.
Carter and Susie Whitfield. They look so in love, so harmless, so… ordinary.
They look like the nice neighbours in a middle class suburban street that everyone only has good things to say about.
This shit is diabolical.
And it's not even a Gotham thing; they're from Philadelphia, and they've spent their lives moving from place to place to avoid drawing attention.
“We need to go after them,” Annie says rising.
Keisha and I rise too.
The waitress materializes next to us, and I give her a crisp hundred dollar bill and ask her if she can help us look after Keisha's bags.
Keisha, of course, is hesitant to leave her bags in the care of a stranger, but she has little choice.
“Why are they even here?” Keisha asks, as we try, and probably fail, to follow the older couple without looking suspicious.
“They probably like to look at their work,” Annie says.
Keisha pauses for a moment. “Oh, come on,” she says finally. “They can't be that cliché. Right?”
True to Annie's words, the couple, making it look like they just happened upon the scene, stop at Annie's building and watch the still smoking building.
They whisper among themselves, and, like she's just another picture obsessed person in this social media world, the woman pulls out her phone and begins to film the building.
Just then, firefighters bring out another corpse, covered in a white sheet and rolled out on a stretcher, and none of us miss how the woman takes particular care to film that.
“What the fuck?” Keisha whispers, genuinely horrified. “This is some next level fuckery. What are we gonna do?”
“I’m gonna kill them,” Annie says simply.
Keisha and I stare at her, and, for one moment, the job, or class, or whatever the hell it is, above Annie's head, glitches out.
For one moment, it changes from [Waitress] to something else, before changing back again.
For one moment, it changes from [Waitress] to [Avenger].
And while, yes, I understand that this is a very serious matter, all I really want to do right now, is pinch the bridge of my nose and complain about how, of course the first person I meet I'm Gotham is about to Jason Todd.
To make matters worse, to her sister's declaration of intending to commit murder, Keisha's only reaction is a shrug and a “Yeah, I'm down.”
Because, why not, right? This is Gotham after all.
Comments
Sage Berthelsen
Frank Castle reference would fit better than a Jason Todd. If someone starts stealing tires and throwing tire irons or threatens chopping Big Ray’s head off, that’s a Jason Todd mood.
George Tasie
Don't mind Eugene. He's being a drama queen. Though, to be fair, this is Gotham, it wouldn't be entirely surprising if in ten chapters Annie has gone full-on Punisher.
thevolunteer
Wait, am I missing something? Or is he just comparing [Avenger] to Red Hood’s approach to crime?
