A/N: Here it is! The first chapter :) I hope you guys like it lmao, be sure to comment and all that good stuff (I live on those btw, like honestly I will probably write a lot more if I get feedback and if I know how you feel about it, etc.)
- Cleo
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CHAPTER ONE | “my songs know what you did in the dark”
IT WAS MUCH TOO DARK for Vick’s liking. Even though she was notorious for doing things done exclusively in the dark (not including sexual things, mind you), she did not exactly like running into walls and tripping over her hostages because she couldn’t see two feet in front of her.
“Who the fuck turned off the lights?” she growled, most definitely not in the mood for games. All she wanted was $100,000 dollars in unmarked singles, and she'd be damned if she didn’t leave with exactly that. "Cipher, I swear to god if you don't fix it in the next ten seconds-"
"Or y'know, you could just go turn on the lights yourself.” His voice crackled in her comms unit, sending pain through the side of her head and making her that much closer to killing someone...
“If I can’t see where the light switch is, how the hell am I supposed to turn on the lights?” She ran a hand through her hair and tried to resist the urge to pace, knowing that she’d likely just stumble over someone and fall onto someone else. It would’ve been too awkward. So instead, she let out an exasperated breath, and fumed. Fumed as if she were a cartoon character with smoke coming out of her ears.
“That’s… that’s a good point, Vick. Let me see what I can do,” he replied, and the static in her ear went silent.
“Don’t bother, I’ve got it!” Darcy called, and the lights flickered on, illuminating the bank. She sighed in relief and thanked God that she was not blind anymore, then proceeded with her heist. She smiled coldly at the employees and customers gathered in a circle at the center of the bank, and continued what she was saying before she was so rudely interrupted.
“Finally!” she exclaimed, clapping her hands together the way annoying kindergarten teachers do. “Now where was I? Right! Okay, so you guys are going to be good and stay quiet, because I’ve got a gun and you don’t-” She stopped mid sentence and counted the people sitting before her. There were only seven of them. She lost a hostage.
Her thoughts were confirmed when somebody jumped out from behind the counter and attacked Darcy. You have got to be kidding me, Vick thought, staring at the scene with her mouth hanging. He lunged for her, his arm swinging out for Darcy’s face. Her face snapped to the side from the impact, and Vick had to resist the urge to cry out. Darcy swore, holding a hand to her cheek as she looked at her attacker with rage flashing in her eyes. He smirked and moved in for another punch, but this time Darcy was ready - she dodged his attack, stepping to the side at the last moment so that he had no time to stop himself from falling flat onto his face.
Link stepped forward and shot him, effectively eliminating the ‘threatening’ part of the threat. The gun had been on a non-lethal setting, but that didn’t keep him from screaming like a girl - and as if setting off a chain reaction - everyone else started screaming as well (three or four hostages also started crying, giving Vick a headache).
Link bent down to slap another pair of zip-ties around the boy’s wrists (to this day, Vick still hasn’t figured out how he got out of the first pair). “That’s what you get for trying to be a hero,” he hissed into the boy’s ear before dragging him back to where the rest of the hostages were sobbing about how they were ‘going to die’. Vick couldn’t help but roll her eyes. As if she’d waste a bullet on any of them.
God did she hate heroes. They were stupid and reckless, yet society thought of them as brave and selfless. They’re all idiots. Only then did it click for Vick (excuse the rhyme) - why the boy looked so familiar and couldn’t stop smirking even though she was pretty sure being held hostage by three villains (four if you counted Cipher) had to be the kind of experience where one pees in one’s pants. The boy was a hero. Literally.
“Li-” she hesitated, catching her mistake. “Wilkes, look at him. He is a hero. He’s-”
“I’m glad you think so,” the boy interrupted, with only a slight grimace of pain. “I try to be brave even in the most dire situations…” The boy rambled on as Vick looked at him with surprise, not knowing whether she should punch him and then shoot him or just kill him first. “...anyway, as I was saying, I think the world is a bit lacking in heroes, especially right now, so I thought I’d take my chances.”
She arched an eyebrow. He’s got some guts. “Are you done?”
The boy shrugged. “Pretty much, yes. Unless you’d like to hear about the time when-”
“I’d rather not, thank you.” She turned back to her partners in crime. “Wilkes, take the money. Stranger, go help Wilkes with the bags. We’re taking this boy with us.”
Darcy laughed. “You know, if you wanted a boy toy so badly you could’ve just asked me. I don’t mind sharing.”
“I wouldn’t mind being your-” the boy started, but Vick cut him off.
“I’m not kidnapping him because I’m lonely, Stranger,” Vick said, scowling.
The boy looked at her in confusion. “Then why else-” He paused, his eyebrows knitting closer together with each passing second.
Vick smirked, unable to keep herself from thinking oh how the tables have turned. “Foolish boy,” she drawled, her smirk spreading into a full out grin. “To think I wouldn’t recognize you, Bloodbender.” She spat out the last word like it was poison, and then pressed her fingers into his open wound, pulling him up into a standing position. His face twisted into a rather strange expression of pain before he let out a strangled cry.
Right at that moment, Vick decided that armed robbery was perhaps the worst form of robbery - there was way too much screaming and crying and noise in general. And when she thought it couldn’t possibly get any worse, the faint sound of sirens found their way into Vick’s ears. She let go of Bloodbender and averted her attention to the more dire situations at hand. “Wilkes, make sure the zips on the rest of them are secure, yeah? And Cipher,” she said with her finger pressed on the small device in her ear, “I need you to-”
Cipher’s broken voice cut her off. “Negotiate with the police when they make the call. Yeah, I know boss. On it.” Vick smiled, more than a little satisfied that her team knew her well enough to finish her sentences.
“You said you wouldn’t hurt anybody,” a woman whimpered, and Vick glared at her, effectively shutting her up.
“Technically, I didn’t.” She ignored the sobs of seven terrified civilians, and gestured for her team to follow her out the backdoor. Once they got out safely, Link opened the sewer passage for them.
“In you go, Superboy,” Vick said before pushing him into the hole in the ground. He landed with a splash and a thud, followed by a groan. “Oops.” She lowered herself down until her feet came into contact with the rungs of a ladder, and began climbing. Darcy was next, climbing faster than Vick could ever dream of, and she had to scramble down to the ground just to avoid being sat on by her best friend.
She dropped down into the murky water that no doubt consisted of things that would make her stomach turn if she thought about it too much, and so she focused instead on the task at hand. She pulled Bloodbender out of the more than questionable brown liquid and pressed her gun into his back. “Run,” she ordered.
“You’re sure that’s Bloodbender?” Darcy asked skeptically, eying the boy out of the corner of her eye as she ran alongside Vick. “You’d think that such a renowned superhero would be a lot better at hand-to-hand combat.”
She opened her mouth to speak, but it wasn’t her that answered Darcy’s question. “Usually I have no need for hand-to-hand combat, thank you very much. But otherwise, I’m fairly sure I’m the superhero known as ‘Bloodbender’, yes. Why? Would you like my autograph? I don’t sign boobs though, even though you do have a really nice-”
Darcy shoved a fist into his stomach. “Don’t finish that sentence,” she warned.
“-rack,” he managed to gasp out, right before receiving yet another punch in the gut.
“She did warn you. It’s your fault for not listening. Dipper,” Vick said with one hand pressed against her comms unit. “Did you get their call yet?”
“Yes. They think you’re still in the building,” he replied, his voice barely there over the static. Vick cursed herself, remembering that the connection was always bad underground.
“You parked over the sewer entrance, yes?” she panted, dragging a winded Bloodbender along behind her.
A pause. “I’m insulted. Honestly Vick, who do you think I am? Of course I did. In the Welfare Bank’s very own company van, actually.”
She grinned wickedly. “I’ve taught you well. Radio silence.” She pulled the earpiece out of her ear and dropped it into the water before she reached the ladder that led right up to the safehouse that they’d named as their rendezvous point.
Bloodbender grinned up at the ladder. “Finally! Is this where we stop? Because damn my thighs are burning.”
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“IT WASN’T EVEN THAT LONG of a run!” Darcy cried, visibly tired of Bloodbender continuous and unstopping moaning.
“Then maybe you should get me an ice pack and I’ll shut up,” he offered, and Vick chuckled.
“Yes, or I could knock you out and it would achieve exactly the same effect without us having to go buy ice,” she reminded him as she tied him to the chair. The knots were getting much too confusing, and she couldn’t concentrate with Bloodbender making such a racket.
He gasped. “You wouldn’t!”
Darcy raised an eyebrow. Vick only laughed. “That face right there? She’s warning you. Remember what happened last time she warned you and you didn’t listen?” (Vick felt vaguely like a kindergarten teacher at that particular moment.)
He opened his mouth, then closed it again.
“That’s what I thought,” Darcy said smugly, crossing her arms over her chest.
“So, Stranger, why is it that you’re the only one that doesn’t wear a mask?” The boy asked, a smile playing at the corner of his lips.
Link groaned. “Can we please put a piece of duct tape over his mouth?”
“If you can find any duct tape, be my guest,” Vick replied as she crumpled to the hard, concrete floor of the basement. At least it’s cold, she thought to herself.
“Or you could just ignore my question. It’s okay. It’s not like I was expecting an answer or anything.”
Darcy raised an eyebrow. “You know, when the villains start answering questions that could reveal their identities, it usually means that the hostage is never seeing the light of day again.”
Vick chuckled. “That is very true.”
He shrugged. “I don’t particularly like daylight. Reminds me of my cousin Sunny. Speaking of people who remind me of people I know, you remind me of this girl that dumped my friend Nolan…” He trailed off, squinting up at Darcy.
Vick glanced over at her friend and saw her tense. It was a miniscule reaction, but a reaction nonetheless. She wondered what Bloodbender could have possibly said in that sentence that would’ve shaken Darcy.
She didn’t get to think about it for long though, because Dipper (codenamed Cipher) came tumbling down the stairs.
“Jesus fuck!” he cried, curled into a ball at Vick’s feet. She could hear Bloodbender scooting his chair over to get a better view of the scene as Dipper’s brother started laughing.
“Dude,” Link said in between his haughty chortles, “I don’t think you did the whole ‘grand entrance’ thing right.”
Dipper scowled up at his brother. “I was going more for a ‘fall down the stairs and twist your ankle’ kinda thing, for your information.”
“Well you sure as hell got that one down,” Darcy muttered under her breath before walking out of the room.
Dipper rolled his eyes. “Think what you want - I’m still better than all of you.”
Vick simply cocked an eyebrow.
He pushed himself off the ground, and sniffed the air. “Bruh, y’all smell like shit. Go take a shower, will you?”
Darcy walked back in the room with a towel. “There’s only one bathroom, and unless you’d like to take a shower with me, you’re going to have to wait.” With that, she bounded up the stairs and disappeared behind the door, leaving Vick to swear explicitly under her breath.
“I would rather shower with you than smell-” Bloodbender started, but Link cut him off with a chuckle.
“Been there done that - and trust me, you don’t want to shower with her.”
Dipper looked at his brother in disgust. “When did that happen?”
He only smirked before turning to face Vick. “So what are we going to do with Superboy over here?”
Vick opened her mouth to speak, then closed it again. What were they going to do with him? If her life were a movie, she’d probably torture him for information on the superheroes’ plans, but she’d never really had much experience with that kind of villain-try and she’d probably end up killing him before getting any usable information. Plus, she really didn’t want to add murder to her already plentiful rap sheet.
“I’ll stay here and watch him. Throw him in the gigantic closet upstairs and see if I can get anything out of him,” she decided.
"A closet? I don’t think that’s going to work. I’m a bit claustrophobic.”
Vick frowned. “Wilkes, I swear to God, If you can find me a piece of duct tape, I’m sure I can convince Stranger to introduce you to some of her model friends.”
Link blinked. He looked like he was going to say something but hesitated, pondering her offer. “Deal,” he said, then bolted up the stairs.
Vick smiled smugly to herself, and turned to Bloodbender.
“You totally did that just so that when Da- I mean, Stranger -comes out of the shower, you’re guaranteed to be next.” Dipper said with a wry smile.
“Not only because of that. I really would like to be able to shut him up,” she said defensively, gesturing towards Bloodbender. “So, Superboy, why didn’t you skip town like you and your super friends usually do during this time of year?”
He glanced up. “Are you interrogating me now?”
Vick shrugged. “Trust me, if I were interrogating you, you’d know it.” She paused, more for dramatic effect than anything. “No. I’m just curious. What happened? Decided you could handle Power Out is it? Stayed thinking you could kick some major villain ass with those shitty skills of yours? Or maybe your trust fund just wasn’t as big as you thought it was.”
He scowled, a hint of annoyance crossing his face. “If you must know, it was because a certain somebody emptied my savings account a couple weeks ago.”
Interesting. A couple weeks ago, Vick and her crew had decided to try out something new. Instead of doing the traditional armed robbery type, they opted for a more sophisticated con involving more hacking and pickpocketing. “Is that so?” she asked with a steady voice, trying not to betray her amusement. “And who do you think this ‘certain somebody’ was?”
“Dunno, but I’d bet it was that tech guy of yours.” He nodded in Cipher’s general direction, and received a wide grin from the curly-haired boy. “Look at that. He practically radiates ‘smug.’”
Vick uncrossed her arms and pushed herself off the wall she had been leaning on. “Well, I assure you that it was not intentional.”
“Actually, I’m pretty sure that any kind of bank robbery would be considered intentional.”
She paused, letting her eyes roll up in thought. “I prefer the term financial misunderstanding. ‘Bank robbery’ makes us sound like barbarians.”
The door to the basement swung open, and a wet-haired Darcy came down the stairs dressed in only a towel wrapped around her body. “I’m going to go take a walk. Need some fresh air,” she announced, wringing a smaller towel through her hair.
“Not like that you aren’t. Change before you go out,” Vick instructed, hoping that she would get the hint.
Darcy rolled her eyes. “Fine, mom.” She ducked into the other room and came back with underwear, a pair of jeans, a t-shirt and a leather jacket. She threw the jacket over Bloodbender’s face, and gestured for Dipper and Vick to turn the other way. She changed quickly - in mere seconds she was fully dressed and ready to actually change. She took a deep breath, smirked to herself, and in the blink of an eye she was a completely different person. The long red hair she always used as Stranger was gone, replaced with pale blonde hair that fell in choppy pieces to her shoulders. Her eyes had morphed from their usual shade of dark brown to a striking grey that sliced into her face like a cold piece of rock. She had become substantially shorter - now, she was merely a few inches taller than the short frame of Vick’s body. “Is this better?” she asked, one side of her mouth tugged up into a smirk.
Vick and Dipper turned back around to see the new Darcy with a look of childish innocence plastered across her face. “Yes. Thank you.”
Even though Vick had seen Darcy ‘change’ her appearance multiple times, it never got any less surprising. The way she could literally become a whole different person in zero point two seconds still sent shivers down her back - and shards of glass through her heart. It was a constant reminder that even though she considered Darcy her ‘best friend’, the only things she knew about Darcy’s life were the things that happened after their acquaintance. And over and over again, Vick has had to remind herself that the mystery that was Darcy Wellington may end up getting her killed - because only the good could have superpowers, and Darcy was definitely a villain through and through.
Vick swallowed hard. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go take a shower.”
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WHEN VICK GOT OUT OF the shower, she opted to stay upstairs instead of going back down to the basement for two reasons - 1) she didn’t particularly care for Bloodbender’s antics and 2) she really did not want to have to go through her mask collection to find one that would somewhat match the grey shirt and olive green joggers she was wearing and 3) she lied, there’s actually a third reason which is that while her custom masks are of the best quality, she much prefers not having to keep her identity concealed.
“Has Darcy come back yet?” she said to Link, who was lounging on the couch watching NCIS reruns. His mask was lying on the coffee table, next to a bottle of Budweiser.
“Nope. She’s taking an awfully long walk.”
“Huh.” Vick fell back onto the couch and was immediately met with the stench radiating off her teammate. She scooted as far away from him as possible before saying, “You know, you can go shower now.”
He looked up at her and wrinkled his nose. “Oh yeah. Okay, yeah. I probably should.” He stood, brushing off imaginary dirt and picking up his mask before making his way to the bathroom.
Vick sighed and decided she should probably go down to check on Bloodbender. She dragged herself off the couch and switched off the television before forcing herself to go to the gear room. There, she found the drawer labeled with her name and pulled it open to a large variety of masks. She briefly flipped through the super-hero style masks that only covered her eyes before deciding on a black scarf-like mask that easily covered her nose and mouth in style. She put it on, wrapping the warm fabric over her face and fastening it behind her head.
The floorboards creaked gently under her as she walked down the stairs, the cold wood stinging her bare feet. She didn’t mind too much, but it wouldn’t have hurt to have some warm, fuzzy socks at that moment. The door closed behind her, making her jump slightly as she stepped onto the freezing concrete.
“Jesus,” she whispered under her breath, scurrying across the room to find a pair of socks, or shoes, something. She found a pair of socks - one of the boy’s judging by the sheer size - and pulled them on, despite the fact that her feet only occupied half of each sock. When she returned to the room where Dipper and Bloodbender were conversing about something that rhymed with “cubic square”, they stopped midsentence to stare at her.
“What?” she asked, her eyes widening.
Nobody said anything. She knew that the mask would muffle her voice a bit, but it couldn’t have muffled it that much.
Bloodbender was the first to speak. “Well well well, the notorious Incognito has a face! Well technically it’s only half a face, but I guess that’ll do for now. I’ll admit, I always thought you were a guy with a really weird high pitched voice.”
She scowled and turned to Dipper. “What’re you staring at, Cipher? Or did you think I was a man as well?”
Dipper’s eyes grew to the size of moons. “No of course not!” he reassured her, shaking his vigorously.
Vick cocked an eyebrow and glared at him.
“Hey Incognito!”
It took her a second to register that Bloodbender was talking to her. She spun around, annoyed. “What?” she snapped, making a mental note to buy a lot of duct tape next time she goes out.
“I lied. I want to see your face,” he said, with more confidence than Vick cared to admit.
She scoffed. “Yeah, and I want the superheroes to stop messing with my plans. I guess we can’t all get what we want, can we?”
He pursed his lips, determined to get exactly what he wanted. “Fine. How about I tell you my real name, and you show me your face?”
Vick laughed. “You really think I’m an idiot, don’t you?”
“Uh… no?”
“How am I supposed to know whether or not you’re lying to me?”
His face fell. “Oh.” His brows furrowed, and for a second he looked like a confused puppy. “Wait. I have my ID. I’ll tell you my name, you show me my face, and then I’ll tell you where my ID is so you can confirm or whatever.”
“And if your ID is a fake?”
“Dear, only criminals use fake IDs,” he said, in the most condescending tone Vick has ever heard (and she knows people that get their face printed on a shirt and then go around wearing said shirt while dealing drugs.)
“Fine. Tell me your name,” she said, even though she had no intention of showing her face. Because there was no way in hell she’d be able to contain Bloodbender after Power Out was over, and she didn’t exactly find the idea of murdering him because he’d seen her face very appealing.
The corner of his mouth turned up into a smile that she knew much too well. It was the kind of smile that little kids got when they’d been begging their parents to buy something and the parents finally give in. It was the kind of smile that ran rampant on superheroes, and the one smile that Vick couldn’t stand.
“My name,” he said, his smile only getting bigger with each second, “is Deez Nuts.”
