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Kastor was running on fumes, but he knew he couldn’t stop now - he’d managed to escape from Terminator’s headquarters, but only because Terminator had underestimated him, and he knew he wouldn’t get another chance if he let the villain’s minions catch up to him. He’d been awake for coming up on twenty four hours and, with the suppressant Terminator had dosed him with still built up in his system keeping his powers at bay, he was rapidly approaching the delirium stage of sleep deprivation. Terminator had brought him to his base once he’d confirmed that the suppressant worked, which, Kastor thought, was at least a bonus - if he managed to get out of this alive, Terminator would have to burn his headquarters, and wasn’t that a pleasant thought. He shook his head, aware that he was woolgathering, and kept up his slow, steady walk down the streets of Palace City - when he’d finally figured out where he was when he broke out, he’d laughed at the irony before hot wiring a car and heading straight to the downtown bus station. He’d left the car in the parking lot with an apologetic wince, hoping he hadn’t put the owner out too much, slipped into the station from one entrance, let himself get caught ever so briefly on the cameras, and slipped out from the bus bay without letting the cameras catch that. He wasn’t entirely convinced it would work to throw Terminator off the scent, but it was better than nothing, and even if it didn’t work it would still waste Terminator’s time and muddy the trail. And, either way, Kastor’s destination was definitely somewhere Terminator wouldn’t have guessed.
It took him a little more than half an hour of winding his way through Palace City’s downtown before he reached a pair of older apartment blocks with a narrow little alleyway between them. Kastor picked the lock on the gate with a safety pin he’d swiped from the car he’d hot wired and let himself in, being careful to lock up behind himself, before heading down between the looming apartment blocks to the odd little building tucked behind them at the end of the alleyway. The security on this building was somewhat tighter, but Kastor wasn’t completely helpless without his powers (unlike some other heroes he could name, he thought snidely as he finished breaking in), and soon enough he was safely tucked away in a cozy little basement underneath what was ostensibly an electrical shed. It wasn’t his safehouse - he didn’t have one in Palace City, he just wasn’t here often enough for it to be worthwhile - but he was reasonably sure that the safehouse’s owner wouldn’t be coming back soon enough to be a problem, not after the ruckus Ravager had been causing on Taros V that he’d heard about through the grapevine last week. And, more importantly, Ravager had a lab here, or at least he had last time Kastor had tangled with the assassin. Basic, sure, but it should be enough for Kastor to be able to figure out just how long the suppressant would stay in his system and, if necessary, engineer a purging solution if that time was unacceptably long. But first, he thought as he peeled off his stolen boots and collapsed on the couch, a nap. Just enough so he wasn’t hallucinating when trying to take a blood sample. Ravager was offworld. It was fine.
Spoiler: It was not, in fact, fine. Kastor came awake entirely too few hours later at the sound of a gun cocking and a deep, pissed off voice rumbling at him.
“You’ve got a minute to give me a very good explanation for what you’re doing here before I start making some assumptions I assure you you’re not going to like,” Ravager said, and Kastor groaned, then rolled over, still clutching the throw pillow he’d wrapped himself around.
“Goddamnit Liam, I thought you were on Taros V, what the fuck,” Kastor muttered, blinking owlishly at the heavily armed assassin in front of him. Ravager’s eyes narrowed, zeroing on on Kastor’s face, and he scowled.
“Phoenix. I don’t recall giving you access to my properties.” Ravager’s voice was flat and unimpressed, and Kastor groaned again, dropping his head into the throw pillow.
“You weren’t even supposed to be here, and I would have replaced anything I used. Honestly Liam, it’s not like you haven’t done worse, it’s fine.” Kastor knew he probably shouldn’t be mouthing off right then, but his filter had broken long ago when it came to Ravager, and he was fucking exhausted, aching in ways he didn’t even know he could ache, and five thousand percent done with everything, so while he knew better, he just didn’t have enough fucks left to care.
“Get out of my house before I shoot you.”
“No love, boo hiss. Just ignore me, it’s not like -“ Kastor knew he was whining, but he was also genuinely unsure how successful he’d be at getting up, and he was fully prepared to make it Ravager’s problem…but, of course, he’d forgotten about the teensy little problem of why he couldn’t get up in the first place: the suppressant. He was cut off by the retort of Ravager’s gun and searing pain in his right bicep and he shouted, jerking into the couch, as Ravager’s bullet passed cleanly through the meat of his bicep and buried itself in the floor behind the couch. He pulled in a deep shuddering breath, trying not to sob as the pain throbbed through him, the familiar sensation rapidly becoming unfamiliar as it ached worse instead of knitting itself back together. He flopped over on his back and waved his left hand frantically at Ravager, words tumbling out of his mouth so fast as to be almost unintelligible.
“Stop stop stop fuck suppressants I’m not healing what the fuck oh my god…” He pressed his eyes closed, breathing through the pain, and hoped Ravager got the picture before he shot him someplace significantly more deadly.
“What the fuck do you mean, suppressants?”
Ravager’s tone had shifted to angry and Kastor felt him looming over the couch. He scrubbed at his face and swallowed the lump in his throat, then gritted out, “Terminator pumped me full of some new suppressant, works super fucking well, obviously. Came here because it was close by when I escaped and I hadn’t slept in almost twenty four hours and there was no way I was getting back home before I got caught or passed out.”
He paused to take a breath, not sure where to even go next, but then he felt Ravager stand bend down and scoop him up off the couch. “Liam, what the fuck?!”
“You should have led with the suppressants. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you somewhere fatal.” Ravager’s voice still sounded angry, but Kastor was getting a little woozy so he filed that away to be dealt with later. The big assassin set him down on the counter in the bathroom and Kastor leaned against the mirror, watching as Ravager pulled out a first aid kit, opening it up and pulling out the shears.
“Stay still, idiot boy,” he said, and then he was cutting the ratty hoodie Kastor had stolen from the guard’s break room off of him, carefully peeling it away from the bullet wound. Kastor watched in mild fascination as Ravager cleaned and bandaged the wound, his hands quick and skillful.
“I wouldn’t have thought you’d be good at this, since it’s not like you usually need it either,” Kastor remarked as Ravager was cleaning up. The assassin grunted, throwing the bloody towels into the trash bin.
“You know I didn’t always have regeneration powers. Besides, it’s not like I always work alone.”
Kastor chuckled, now somewhat hazy from the combination of blood loss, adrenaline crash, and the remaining sleep deprivation, and Ravager glared at him, then scooped him back up and carried him back to the couch, crouching on the floor next to Kastor after he lays him back down.
“Tell me about these suppressants - I know you’ve been here for a few hours, nothing I know about should still be in your system.”
Kastor groaned again, dropping his uninjured arm over his eyes. “Fucking Terminator - I don’t know if he made it himself or if he’s working with someone, but he got me almost a week ago and loaded me up with whatever this new formula is. I think it’s stored in fat deposits instead of the usual blood-based formulas, based on the fucking feeder line they threatened to shove in my throat if I didn’t eat the fucking peanut butter sandwiches they forced on me every time they dosed me up and I’m assuming that makes it longer lasting. I haven’t been dosed in coming up on twenty hours now, but he had me for a week so I don’t know how long it’ll take for me to purge the doses I got then. I was going to use your lab, try to figure this out, once I’d gotten enough sleep to be functional, you know?”
Ravager made a considering noise, then stood up. “Right. I think it’s time for idiot heroes to sleep. I’ll start running the tests, and I’ll give you some painkillers once I know it’s safe. You’d better rest up, Pheonix - you owe me, again.”
Kastor huffed, shifting slightly in hopes of finding a more comfortable position. “Yeah, I know. This would be easier if you’d just admit that I’m right about collateral damage and contract sourcing, you know - “
Ravager scoffed and turned away, heading towards the lab. “I’d say you can wait until you’re not dead on your feet to feed me that line again, but I wouldn’t want you to think I was encouraging your attempts. It doesn’t matter if I change my mind or not, Phoenix - there’s too much blood on these hands to be a hero, and I’d rather be a plain-dealing villain than let the league muzzle me, and one of these days you’re going to see that I’m right.”
Kastor shook his head, but didn’t respond. It was an old argument, and he had yet to win it when he was in full health, so he wasn’t about to waste any energy on it now. Ravager returned with a tray of vials and an IV stand, and, as he got to work, Kastor’s exhausted body finally gave up the ghost and, once again, he passed out.