Gotham
October 11, 11:40
The Terror twins were exactly what I expected them to be; teenagers whose whole identities revolved around nothing but the powers they were born with. There was nothing denoting proper upbringing, foresight, and anything close to empathy for people that weren't each other.
They even tried to attack me, a completely harmless stranger who simply greeted them and asked why they do what they do.
Due to this, I didn't even try to appeal to their good or immature side. I met them on their own terms and proposed a deal; we fight and the winner gets whatever they want.
I didn't care what they wanted since they'd lose anyway, and they did. A snap of my fingers dropped them like sacks and I in turn dropped them off at Belle Reve with inhibitors slapped around their necks.
Once they'd calmed down and gotten a taste of what their future would be like for the next few decades if they didn't take the hand I offered them, then, I'd make my move and recruit them.
It would be so nice to mess with Waller again.
From Belle Reve, I teleported straight to the underbelly of Gotham. Not its metaphorical, seedy one, but the literal one where my next target called home.
Sewers were already a nasty place no matter the city you lived in, so imagine what Gotham's was like. The number of decomposing body parts and bones floating in the sewage grew with worrying speed the deeper I went.
'What else did I expect from this place?'
Someone going for a jaunt might have turned back at the nightmare-inducing sights and beyond nauseating stench, but I pressed on and dutifully followed the paths leading to the locations Croc was usually spotted and found him at the third one.
Like the twins, he also greeted me amicably. He tried to take a bite out of me the moment I edged close enough to the "pool" he concealed himself in, his jagged maw opened wide and headed straight for my lower left leg.
Unfortunately for him and fortunately for me, his beady reptilian eyes had been rendered ultra sensitive to bright lights due to his extended stay here.
Before he could clamp down, a simple mental command to the magic flowing through me turned my body into a high intensity strobe light. He recoiled with a growl and dove back in with a splash, one I shielded myself from with a telekinetic screen.
Not all of us could endure swimming in the flurry of the Gothamites' excrement.
We may have gotten off on the wrong foot, but once I canceled the light effect and stated my reason for tracking him down, Croc stopped circling the waters the exact shade as his reptilian skin and growled.
"You can't help me. No one can."
That stunned me, I won't lie.
"You did just hear me, right? One week. That's all I need to solve your problem."
"Liar!" He launched himself out of the pool and struck the screen I'd put up. Again. "All of you are liars!!"
"Ohh… I see what's happening here. You want proof. Is that it?"
I should've seen this coming. In my mind, Waylon's desperation should have made this a simple deal. However, his common sense seemed to have tempered his desire to be normal, probably due to someone else making false promises in the past.
"If I get a hero down here, will you believe that I am who I say I am?"
He kept circling and growling, his slit eyes fixed on me the whole time. Did he know he was doing that? Or had his animal instincts already overridden some of his human ones?
"Superman."
"...You want me to bring big blue, down here?"
No answer.
"Fine. I thought you'd say Batman but the boy scout will probably be the most down for this. Hold on, lemme call him."
To keep things transparent, I let the holo screen float above my watch and even enlarged it. Ron's splitting, albeit older and slightly bigger image appeared on the screen after a few seconds.
"Go for Superman."
"Hey supes. I need a favor. A small one. Or maybe a big one, if you consider where I need you."
"Okay?"
"Why? Are you in the middle of something?"
"No, I just thought you'd ask the team."
"Normally, I would. But the person I'm trying to convince requested you specifically."
"Who is this person? And what are you trying to get them to do?"
"~Sigh. I tracked down Killer Croc and offered him a way out of his… unique condition. He wisely did not believe me, so now I need someone to vouch for me."
"Oh… I see. Why though?"
"Excuse me?" This question from Superman would've surprised me if I didn't know what was happening behind the scenes.
"Why are you helping him? And why now?" Oh big blue, you have the subtlety of a flying brick.
"He's part of the villain reformation plan I pitched to my government contact. Instead of just throwing them in prison and forgetting about them, I single out the ones with potential or got dealt bad hands, give them the help they need, and turn them into, well… heroes."
"So this is just to make your proposal to the DOD more convincing."
"Why yes. Considering that the alternative involved bombs in necks by a woman who hates villains even more than she hates heroes—though I don't think there's much distinction—I'd say my idea is better. The people I help still have their autonomy."
He looked plenty disturbed at the lore I just dropped on him. "Why didn't you say anything?"
"Because I handled it? You guys don't give me reports on things you handle."
Oops. I slipped up.
Superman responded in a resigned yet relieved tone. "How long have you known?"
"Since the start of the call. Can you come over now? He just needed to see I'm not a scammer. Shouldn't take long."
"Where are you?" Superman sighed, seeming disappointed. Probably in himself.
"I'm dropping a platform and sending you the coordinates."
With that, I dropped the call and my arm with the watch on it. Blue light in the shape of a disc flashed on the ground a few feet away, near some broken liquor bottles and faded to reveal a Zeta platform.
"You believe me now?" I gave the no longer circling Croc my attention.
More growling. Fine then.
A tall column of yellow light flashed atop the platform and vanished, leaving Superman in its place.
Shit. I should've warned him about the smell.
"Sorry," I said when I noticed his nose twitch more than once.
"It's alright," he climbed down the platform and walked toward the edge of the pool, unbothered by the filth.
"Hi," he waved. "I heard you wanted to see me."
Croc grew shy all of a sudden. He retreated to the back of the pool and I was certain he'd dive under if Superman got any closer.
In a much gentler, but still deep voice than he spoke to me with, he asked, "Is it true?" slitted eyes flicked over to me for a split second. "Can he really help me?"
"If he says he can, then yes I believe him. You know Poison Ivy?"
"Yes."
"He helped her today. Just this morning."
Has it really been that short? I guess travelling makes life seem longer.
"Ivy? She's no longer crazy?"
I held back a chuckle. Supes didn't.
"Yes, you can say that."
"..."
"I don't like the way I am. I hate it. I've never been normal. Even since I was a boy. The "croc" has always been a part of me. You say you believe him. But what happens if you fail? I don't want to go through that again. I won't."
Ah… I see what he's talking about. Damn.
I would've loved to tell him that failure was downright impossible. Not with the tech I had on hand, and not with the knowledge I had on how to give and take powers away. But Superman had the stage, so I let him continue.
"It's okay to be afraid. That's normal, and human. And you know what else is human? Trying again and again, even when it seems impossible. So it's okay to feel crushed. Just don't let it define you."
Now was my time to butt in. "And if this helps, Waylon, I promise you. If me and my team can't help you, I'll give you a new, better place to live and a job. A proper job. Or if you want, the more extreme option, a new body. One with no croc in it. I'll give you my word."
"He can do that?" Croc asked Superman.
"Yes, you can trust him."
Thank you. You finally said it.
"...Okay."
Whew.
"So, what do we do now?"
"First, we get outta here," I said before Superman even looked my way. A portal snapped into existence with a wave of my hand and a tap on my watch sent the platform back into Subspace.
The sound of parting and splashing water accompanied Croc on his way to the bank and out of the pool. To his much obvious surprise, Superman didn't flinch nor move away and rather extended a hand to help him.
After a brief bout of shock and deliberation, the crocodilian man took the offered hand and soon joined us, reaching his full, towering height of nearly 8 feet.
Still holding on to the hand Superman said, "Let's have a proper introduction. Hello, I'm Superman."
I swear I heard Croc's voice choke up. "...Kille—No. Wayl–Waylon Jones."
.
.
.
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Providence
October 11, 12:48
Some things come easy, and other things, you have to climb an unexpected hill to get them.
Getting Waylon to believe me fell into the latter category. Getting Dr. Spence and her entire team to all jump to the SHIELD ship fell into the former.
After escaping Gotham's nasty bowels, Superman escorted Waylon and I to the lodgings prepared on Providence with his unique mutations in mind. Every piece of furniture was larger and sturdier, and so was every appliance and anything that needed to be manipulated with hands.
Before I could shoo the grumpy croc into the shower, I took a sample of his blood and scanned him with the Father Box. It was the test results of this sample that fast tracked Dr. Spence's team's transfer to Shield's nascent science division.
That and the challenge I threw at them with the promise of letting them work with the one of a kind genetic manipulation technology I had. Frankly, the fact that I told them to examine Croc's DNA and come up with a way to make his powers toggleable was enough.
I guess for scientists, getting to experiment with superpowers was the dream of a lifetime or something.
Anyway, I sent the accumulated data on the Kobra Venom cure along with everything, and they promised to have something for me in two days tops. That same information was relayed to Waylon, who'd thankfully made use of the shower by the time I got to his place in the complex.
Normally, I'd leave right for the next potential recruit, especially since they were the last on the list. However, my experience with Waylon had given me a prompt to slow down. Besides, it was midday.
I took some time to have lunch with Mike, the two of us sitting not far from the other in the lab while we worked on separate things.
He worked on the final preparations for the Ascension project while I gorged on the spring rolls and thick and chilled chocolate milk from his kitchen, trying to juggle that and the final touches on the Dionesium inspired device supposed to transform Croc's genetic defect into a meta-gene.
A third thing to focus on got added to the mix when a call from Felicity came through. Something overtook me that instant and I fumbled the things I was holding. Thankfully, my agility and Spider-Sense could be applied to more than just fighting.
Order was restored on the plate and a flick of all my fingers, cleaned me up. Magic was so damn useful.
"Hey," I answered the call.
"Hey. Can we talk?"
"Sure. I'm not busy," I said, ignoring Mike's head shake in the background.
"In person."
"Oh. Okay. Should I come to you? I'll come to you."
A portal opened at the end of my sentence and I hurried through.
"Hey," I smiled upon seeing her in person.
She smiled back. "Hey. Thanks for coming."
"Sure no problem." I looked around the room. This was her mom's house.
"Is she home?"
"No. Definitely not."
"Oh… I wanted to say hi. Guess we can go straight ahead then."
"I'm sorry."
"For what?" I chuckled.
"You know what."
"~Sigh," I stepped forward and grabbed her by the shoulders, gently, rubbing her arms up and down. "We talked about this. You don't have to apologise."
She leaned into my touch and adjusted her glasses. "No. I need to. I spoke to my mom about… my father. She told me the truth. I was wrong. This whole time."
"That's what's bothering you? Baby, you're fine. Tell me, do you still wanna get married now that you know the truth. Be honest."
"...No. ….It feels too early."
"That's because it is," I laughed. "If we were both sure that we wanted to be joined at the hip for life, would that matter though?"
"No."
"But this is the case where I'm the one who's sure that you're the one. I'll admit, it stings a little bit. But again, I can't fault you for that. Just like I can't fault you for feeling some type of way about marriage."
"...You're awfully understanding about this."
"Well, you can thank Klarion for that. Dyi–Nearly dying gives you crazy perspective. And that perspective has shown me that there is no love without choice. That keeping secrets from those you love, almost never ends well."
Perhaps she sensed the shift in my tone, but she raised her head from my chest at the last part.
"What did you do?"
"I tracked down your father and had a conversation with him."
She went rigid in my arms and I quickly added, "There was nothing weird like threats or anything. I just wanted to meet my girlfriend's father and the one keeping me from marrying her."
"That man," she calmed herself when she realised her own sharp tone. "Is not keeping me from anything."
"I know. It was a joke. A tasteless one. I'm sorry."
She buried her face in my chest. "Ughhhhh. You went to see him? Why? What did he say? You know what, don't tell me. As a matter of fact, let's not talk about him again."
"As you wish," I did the motion of zipping my lips.
She embraced me fully and I did so in turn. "Thank you," she mumbled into me.
"You're welcome. Always," I gently caressed her back.