Chapter Text
Running. He was running.
Fast, faster, fastest. Had to be the fastest. Had to be faster. Had to be fast.
The sound of his feet hitting the floor surrounded him. A second pair was behind him, following.
Mechanical whirring behind him. A hallway in front of him. A turn to the left.
He wasn't fast enough. He needed out. His fingers gripped the knife tighter.
A shot of pain through his back. No. Not a shot. Not a cut, or a stab. A slash, maybe.
There was a yell. It might have been him. He kept running.
The whirring behind him lessened. The hallway in front of him continued. Another turn. This hallway ended in a door.
A strong kick. The hallway no longer ended in a door.
A room. Desks on either side, files and pictures hanging up on the walls. Computers on both desks. An office, most likely.
The room had another door. Only for a few moments. It too fell outwards, allowing passage.
Finally, he smelled fresh air. No longer the musky inside scent.
A balcony. He leaped onto the railing with ease.
He perched there for only a moment as he judged the fall beneath him. Eyes narrowing, he let himself drop.
The landing caused another sting in his back. He might have winced. But there was no time for that.
The streets were empty. The sky was dark. The dark did not bother him.
He only looked over his shoulder once. On the balcony he had just left, a white figure stood.
Panicked eyes met buttons. A stitched smile met his frown.
A bloody chainsaw gleamed in the moonlight.
He turned back and slipped into the darkness.
The streets all looked the same to him. Buildings on either side, a lamp post every few meters. He zigzagged through them all the same.
After several minutes, he felt himself slowing down.
His back was aching again. The pain was stabbing into him, but it wasn't a stab wound.
The whirring filled his ears again, but it was not there. He closed his eyes, shook his head
His back felt warm. When he reached behind him, he could feel the torn edges of an uneven wound.
When he returned his fingers, he saw fresh drops of blood.
Blood. His back was covered in blood. But his hands were covered in blood, too. So were his arms, and his face, and his teeth.
He licked his fingers off, the taste of iron that covered his tongue well-known to him.
He pulled off the goggles and the white mask covering the top of his face in one move.
He would've shrugged the suit off, too, but the cold gusts of wind blowing past him were cold even now.
The mask and goggles dropped to the ground from his hand.
A voice called out to him.
The words bounced off of him, able to register their presence but not hearing what was said.
His vision blurred. Fog covered his eyes. His ears pinned back so far it hurt. His grip tightened.
A stab, a slice and a cut were all it took. A gasp was cut off by gargling. A thump as a body hit the ground.
It was not him. It would not be him. He was standing, and he would stay standing.
Crimson dropped from his knife. His eyes had shrunk into pinpricks as he stared down.
An old man laid before him. His previously dull green shirt was currently being stained red.
He did not know him. He would not either, now.
He took a step back, then reverted to his original position. He looked back where he came from.
There was no one.
He licked his lips, bared his teeth. He had not had much time to enjoy yet today.
He stumbled towards the corpse, eyes darting around manically.
A heavy blow of wind from above alerted him to a new presence and he pressed himself back to the wall.
A winged figure descended into the alleyway before he could run.
Recognition flooded his face, and he was left incredibly aware of his now maskless identity.
The avian was masked, like he was not. Not anymore.
Similarly, the avian was loyal, and good. He was not. Except with this, he never had been.
The white plague doctor-like mask would have made the avian's expression hard to read, but it did not hinder him. Her wings and body language were quite easy to read.
The arms stretched out either side of her showed she was tense.
The position of her feet that would allow her to quickly jump up showed she was fearful.
The tucked in wings showed she was calm and not here for a fight.
Despite this, he couldn't allow himself to relax.
The blood staining his fingers and his face was clear to see. He was a threat.
And she must've been sent to exterminate said threat.
Yet, she didn't make any move towards him, merely studying him from a meter away.
“You're hurt.” She stated.
She was right. He had been ignoring it, but the pain in his back had not lessened one bit.
“Bluebird.” He said through gritted teeth.
“Gato.” She responded. “Though not anymore, I'm presuming?”
He nodded stiffly. “Don't expect me to tell you my real name now too. You've already seen my face.”
“Wasn't planning on it.”
She stepped closer. He flinched, gripping his knife.
She paused, head tilting. “Seriously. You're bleeding, looks pretty bad. You need some medical attention.”
He grumbled, crossed his arms. “I'm not going to any doctor.”
“Alright.” Bluebird said.
And she promptly tackled him. And then lifted him up from the ground.
He shrieked, his sharp claws digging into her back, though not enough to break skin. His ears were pinned back as she lifted off, taking him with her.
Somehow, he did not fall as she flew through the empty streets. He did squeeze his eyes closed, however. He already felt nauseous without properly seeing how fast they were going.
Thankfully, the trip was short. The air around him slowed down after only a few minutes, and Bluebird's grip on him finally lessened as he was placed back down.
When he opened his eyes, he was in the branches of a tree. He frowned.
Quesadilla City did have many parks, that much was true. However, he was confused why exactly he had been placed in one.
Glaring, he turned his gaze to Bluebird, who had been studying the wound on his back. The slice. Would it be a slice? He did not know what to call this type of wound.
“I could've killed you for that.” He hissed, holding his knife against her throat.
“You wouldn't.” She said, clearly not threatened.
“I have killed for less, Bluebird.” He spat. “And clearly I haven't changed a bit.”
“I know you, Gato Branco,” She looked him up and down, pausing on his bloodied hands and mouth. “And maybe you haven't realized it yourself, but you are a good person. You're not a mindless killing machine, man.”
“So then I'm a mindful killing machine. Is that any better?” He sighed.
But he still pocketed his knife- after wiping the blood away with a bit of cloth.
Tail lashing, he backed off. “You know what, I'm not having this conversation. You can do whatever you want to do, and that'll be it.”
Bluebird nodded, though she didn't look happy about it. “Stay here.”
And so he did.
He stayed as she glided down from the tree.
He stayed as he watched her disappear between the buildings.
He stayed as the pain of the wound started flaring up again, this time with a headache as well.
He almost fell asleep at one point, but he knew that could be dangerous with the amount of blood he was losing. So he stayed awake, watching the moon from his perch in the treetops.
He didn't even notice that she returned until a weight landed on the tree branch. He jumped up and hissed at first, before he noticed it was her.
In her arms were several different types of medical supplies. He frowned. Apparently she was telling the truth about not forcing him to a doctor.
“Sit.” She said, patting the ground in front of her. Begrudgingly, he complied, back facing the avian.
“Take off your suit.”
He grumbled. “No privacy anymore, huh?”
“I've already seen your face, and I'd think that the privacy vanished with that.” She laughed. He did as told, a smile creeping onto his face.
She poked around the wound for a bit, before opening up a bottle and letting it run down the wound. It didn't sting, surprisingly.
“No alcohol?” He asked.
“Nope. Google says that's a myth, apparently. It says running water is a better way to clean wounds.”
He snorted. “You have all this first aid stuff lying around, and yet you need Google to know how it works?”
“I may have a clumsy roommate, but he's not clumsy enough to get a wound large enough to kill,” she chuckled. “How did you even get it?”
He regarded her with a cold stare. “What do you think? Your little buddy wasn't too happy about me leaving.”
She flinched. Paused the wrapping of the wound she was currently busy with. Took a deep breath, continued.
“...Oh.”
“Yeah, ‘oh’ indeed. Seriously, why do you keep standing up for that guy? It's practically an extension of the boss, and you don't like him either.”
“They're… complicated, alright?” She frowned, finishing wrapping the gauze around his waist and shoulder. “Anyway, I'm all done. Though I'm not sure I should just leave you out here. You need a shower, and do you even have a place to stay now?”
He rolled his eyes. “Great job at dodging the question, Blue. What's stopping you from leaving as well? At least you wouldn't get chased with a chainsaw.”
She stared at him for a moment, seemingly judging the offer.
“No, I'm not- I'm not done here just yet.”
She avoided his eyes. He scoffed. “Your loss, I guess.”
He stood up, stretched. He picked the bloodied, torn suit back up, shrugging it on half-heartedly. “So, I guess this is goodbye, huh?”
He couldn't see Bluebird's expression, but he could tell she was frowning. “Are you seriously going out into public looking like that? You still look like a mess, no offense, not to mention you haven't gone un-cat yet.”
Oops. That was correct.
He quickly allowed his ears to turn back to human, his claws to become fingernails, and his tail to recede into his body. “Alright, but what do you expect me to do about the rest? It's not like I thought to bring any extra clothes before I went a bit…” He waved his hand by his head. “You know.”
He hadn't really meant to escape today. It had just been another stupid thing about how ‘important for the company’ the heroes were, and he got a bit carried away.
Bluebird pinched her nose- or where her nose would be- and sighed. “Listen, man, just- follow me, you can use my shower, and I'm sure I've got some old clothes lying around- my roommate's a heavy sleeper anyway.”
His eyes widened, heart feeling full. “Oh.”
Bluebird tilted her head at him. “What's up?”
“Well, I mean, you do realize I have murdered like- at least a dozen people, just today? And you're letting me into your house? When you'll probably never see me again?”
“I don't think you would do anything to me. Like I said, I trust you, Gato, even if neither of us truly know each other.”
“...Alright. Thanks, Bluebird.”
True to her word, she led him to a simple apartment at the edge of the town center. He flinched at the bright lights flashing on, night vision fading away.
He hadn't been in a normal house in a while, he realized. For the past few years it had just been Federation buildings, and before that…
It was weird, to be in such a normal place when his life was certainly… not.
Nevertheless, he decided to simply ignore the normalcy and go take a shower like Bluebird had requested. He did feel much more clean after the blood had been scrubbed from under his fingernails, he found out.
The clothes he had been given were quite plain, but he supposed that would help him blend in. It consisted of a black jacket, a light purple shirt, and black pants. He knew it wouldn't last forever, but he treasured it all the same.
He hadn't kept any of his Federation stuff. Most of his belongings had been left behind in his room there, and nothing could convince him to keep the white suit he wore as ‘Gato Branco’.
The only thing he kept was the knife.
As he finished getting dressed, he thought about saying a final goodbye to Bluebird.
He couldn't think of anything to say that hadn't already been said.
Despite them both being heroes, her life had always been much more normal than his.
She was already involved in his business enough. Apart from the Federation, she was the only one who knew he was Gato. And she'd helped him today.
So he decided not to say anything, as he slipped outside, and into the streets.
—
1 year later
—
Cellbit groaned as he sat in his office. House? It was technically his house, but it didn't really have any of the normal ‘house’ things.
He slept on the couch more often than in the cheap bed he'd quickly bought when he was first moving in, his dining table was treated as a desk for different files, and there was barely any decoration.
It was still the best place he'd lived in.
The reason for his current annoyance was the newspaper that had just been delivered to his doorstep.
The ‘Federation News’ logo blared at the top of the page like always. It was the most reliable newspaper in the city. That being said, it was still incredibly biased towards the Federation in every instance, and anything even slightly negative about them was still edited away.
Right on the front page was a picture of several victims of what he'd started calling ‘the incident’ or ‘the worst week of his life’ or ‘the best week of his life’, depending on his current mood.
The headline felt like it was mocking him specifically.
‘One year since the murder spree that caused the death of Federation hero Gato Branco; killer still a mystery’
A bold-faced lie, of course. And an old one at that- they hadn't changed the story since the day after it had happened.
He knew they knew the truth. They could plaster his identity all over the internet if they wanted, but instead they decided they'd rather brush it all up into a neat little pile and brush it under a carpet of lies.
He was so annoyed he barely paid attention to the other articles in the newspaper, instead only quickly paging through them.
However, one of them caused him to pause, eyes widening.
‘Vigilante seen prancing the streets; is this ‘Spider-Man’ all that he seems?’