Baltimore, Sunday Night

[spin_kick_snap]

Banzai rarely patrolled Sunday nights, taking the night off to rest and prepare for the upcoming week, but since she'd bailed on patrolling on Friday, it seemed only fair to make up for it tonight instead. Crime around the club and various campuses would be lower, but there were still plenty of drug deals, muggings, and various other, more dangerous crimes for her to stop instead. And it wasn't like Banzai was going to miss spending extra time manhandling drunk idiots into cabs and breaking up fights in alleys over stupid bullshit the participants couldn't even remember four steps away from the club itself.

The Ukranian mafia had all but vanished from the city over the past few months; apparently losing the Butcher was enough to convince them that Baltimore wasn't worth the effort. In a way, Banzai almost missed them; they were good practice for when she'd be going up against the Seventeens in LA eventually. Patrolling around Stanford (if she got in, please God let her get in) probably wasn't going to be all that much effort, so she was already making plans to portal down to LA proper at least once a month to get in a proper patrol.

Spotting Jewels, one of the working girls that was part of Banzai's loose confederation of informants, Banzai swung down from the rooftop to land on light feet nearby. Always good to check in, see if Jewels had heard of anything going down, make sure that no one was bothering her, pass along money and supplies to stay in Jewels' good graces, all that good stuff.

It felt good to get out and patrol. For all her speeches about wanting to do good for the people around her and make the world a better place, Banzai had to admit that the real reason she ran around in rainbows with a bokken on her back and rope darts in her belt was a lot more selfish. What could she say?

She loved this.

Comments

[rebelseekspizza]

And if she caught Dante on a good day, he might have even admitted that it was cool to watch her go, regardless of how stupid the outfit was. But genuinely good days were hard to come by with him anyway, and he was having a distinctly middle-of-the-road one right now.

So he just went after her, lagging behind despite his own above average speed. He did manage to keep the cigarette between two fingers in spite of all the jumping and running, though, so as far as he was concerned, by the time they got to the diner roof, he was doing okay.

[spin_kick_snap]

He fed her ego in other ways and, honestly, being Banzai was the one place in her life where Kathy didn't need outside validation. Doing what she did the way she did it was enough for her.

Maybe that's why she liked her alter-ego so much, come to think of it.

By the time he made it to the roof, the gi and mask were off and Kathy was pulling out a cute tanktop and an oversized Loyola sweatshirt. That was also a bit of misdirection; hopefully anyone who saw her change would assume she was wearing a shirt for her college and start looking for clues there. "Hey," she said with a wave, pulling off her pants without concern for modesty. "Another minute and I'll be ready to go."

Pull on shirts, pull on jeans, take down her coiled braid and put it into a ponytail instead...The shift from superhero to civilian took remarkably little time.

[rebelseekspizza]

"Don't sweat it," Dante said, shoving one hand into his pocket and using the other one to bring his cigarette back up to his mouth. He took a puff and settled down on the edge of the roof, stretching his legs out.

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"Are we going to one of those bars that serves pub food?" Kathy asked, her stomach growling loud enough for Dante to hear from his vantage point. "Or do your plans involve a seedy place where the floor is sticky and we'll have to fight for stools and stuff."

Did she have her fake ID? Oh good, yeah, she did. Kathy shoved that into her front pocket as well as a bit of cash to cover a few drinks.

[rebelseekspizza]

"I was just gonna keep walking until I found a bar that didn't play shitty music," Dante said, shrugging idly. He peered down to see if there was anyone wandering around below, then tapped his cigarette over the gap, watching the still-burning ashes drift on down.

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"I'll let you be the arbiter of what is and isn't shitty music then," Kathy said, pulling her ponytail out of her sweatshirt. "But if there's semi-decent music coming from the same place that I can get a burger or three, that has my vote."

Hoisting her duffel back over her shoulder, she came and stood next to him, carefully angling herself to be upwind. "Let's go get you that beer."

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante looked up at her, then nodded down towards the ground. "Take the jump?"

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Kathy's grin was bright and instantaneous. "Always," she said, and vaulted over the side.

She couldn't just leap down to the ground; her body wasn't built to take that kind of impact. Instead she bounced, bleeding off speed so that her descent was controlled.

[rebelseekspizza]

But Dante had no such trouble. He just pushed off the edge, plummeting down and landing easily on both feet, a little like the cat she was always accusing him of being.

He did have to shrug his coat back on his shoulders, though; it'd slid right off onto his arms.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Showoff," she accused, coming down to land beside him on all-but silent feet. Granted, she'd been doing the same thing, but she wasn't about to let that stop her from calling him out on it. Especially since she was doing it with a smile.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante threw her a smirk.

"Let's bounce," he said.

Yeah, he knew you were a showoff, too.

[spin_kick_snap]

She couldn't come up with a good return pun that didn't involve bursting into a few bars of Defying Gravity, so she just saluted him and started strolling down the street. "So what counts as shitty music?" she asked. "Anything that's not EDM or 80s power ballads?"

[rebelseekspizza]

"Britney Spears," Dante said thoughtfully. "That weird 90s Eurodance shit..."

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"Boybands," Kathy said with a thoughtful nod. "Bet you're not a fan of boybands."

Probably most of the 90s in general.

"How about R&B?" She would judge you so hard if you didn't like 90s R&B, Dante.

[rebelseekspizza]

"You mean stuff like TLC? That's okay," Dante mused. "I mean, not all the way up there, but okay."

[spin_kick_snap]

"En Vogue? Salt n Pepa? Mary J. Blige? Missy Elliott? Boyz II Men?" Kathy had to restrain herself from listing off every artist she had on her iPod. "The 90s were amazing for R&B. If you don't know much, you're missing out."

Kathy had surprisingly eclectic taste in music.

[rebelseekspizza]

Dante rolled his eyes. "I know," he said. (He may have stored a whole bunch of music trivia in the parts of his head most people used for school, over the years.) "I just think Fanmail was a great album."

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"CrazySexyCool," Kathy countered. "I'll take 'Creep' and 'Red Light Special' over 'No Scrubs' and 'Unpretty' any day. And that's taking into account how overplayed 'Waterfalls' was, even into the 2000s."

[rebelseekspizza]

"No, I'm sorry," Dante said, shaking his head. "If I never have to hear 'Waterfalls' again in my life, it'll still have been a wash. And fuck, Fanmail has shit like 'My Life' and 'I'm Good At Being Bad', too."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Oh, I agree with that," Kathy said with a laugh. "And 'I'm Good At Being Bad' is probably the best track on that LP. But I still say CrazySexyCool has better songs overall."

That wasn't a conversation she'd ever expected to have with Dante and she was utterly delighted they were.

"Look at you with all this secret music knowledge locked away. I would have thought that if it didn't have electric guitars, you weren't interested."

[rebelseekspizza]

"Hey, now," Dante protested, shooting her some side-eye. "I listen to a fuckton of EDM."

Not all of which had guitars. By far!

"Also, you're wrong, but what else is new?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Hardly my fault you like to keep yourself locked up tighter than Fort Knox," Kathy said, merrily flipping him off. "You know, if you shared facts like this, I wouldn't be so wrong all the time."

[rebelseekspizza]

"You know the important shit already," Dante said, shrugging.

The most important of which he hadn't actually chosen to share at the time, but whatever, that was ages ago. "How's that place look to you?"

He nodded to a small bar up ahead. Didn't look too pretentious or anything, at least.

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Better yet, there was even a small menu taped to the window. Nothing fancy, just a list of burgers, fries, and a couple other salty options that would encourage more drinking.

"Perfect," Kathy said, practically drooling at the promise of a burger. "Definitely way better than continuing to look. The music not an insult to your delicate sensibilities?"

Hope not, because Kathy was already walking inside.

[rebelseekspizza]

As far as Dante could tell, they had the Foo Fighters blaring over the stereo. Not the choice he would've gone with, but it wasn't actively pissing him off. "I can live with it," he said, walking after her. "Stomach calling?"