Who: Max What: Narrative: Being Corbinian Where: Around Rainier When: The night that Corvus goes out as the Bat Warnings: Some language, as usual
Finding the facepaint had been easy. Putting on Corbinian's excuse for a suit had been easy. Deciding to actually scale the roof of the warehouse and do it, that had been hard.
Max wasn't a vigilante. She'd said it a million times, and she was pretty fucking sure no one actually believed her. But it was true. She had no desire to go out there and save people. She didn't like fighting, didn't like the guns she'd had to tuck in the belt at her waist to make up for the vulnerability she had that Corbinian did not. It was something that she couldn't explain, couldn't put into words, but it felt like operative work and a life she'd left behind. She'd seen too many people die in that life, and she hadn't given a fuck about it at the time. And looking down from Seattle's roofs and into the hearts of men who could kill and maim without blinking, it reminded her of herself.
She hated it.
She wore a vest under the bullet-riddled shirt that Corbinian wore, and her hair was carefully fixed to approximate a messy mass of curls of the right length. The facepaint hid her identity, but it did nothing to keep her from being herself. And that was the problem.
She knew Corbinian was fearless, knew he had nothing to lose, no one to lose, and it made him careless and aggressive in a way she couldn't be. The first assault she stopped that night made her think of her daughter, of the possibility of Amanda growing up without a mother. The second assault made her think of Luke, of leaving him alone to bear the weight of too much responsibility on his shoulders. The third assault made her think of Audrey, of all the anger she might not see melted away. And the fourth made her think of Thomas.
She stopped at four.
She knew she should have kept going, should have made it a dozen at least, but she was bruised and battered, and she'd managed to avoid shooting anyone. She wasn't that person anymore, the one who could shut everything off and take someone out without blinking when the blood sprayed in her face. She was worried that if she did this too long it would kick back in, the not feeling. That it would become easy again, second nature. She wasn't sure she could handle that.
She'd been visible, and she'd left the men alive, and she made slow but steady progress back to the warehouse before the sky got too light.
She stripped before she was even to the room with the cot, and she was in the shower even faster than that, the hot water streaming over her skin as she tried to wash everything away. She changed into a pair of Thomas' sleep pants and one of his gray undershirts, and she reached for her phone as she dried her hair. Alina answered on the first ring, and Max relaxed when she heard the soothing-soft sound of the mobile in the Aubade nursery.
The conversation didn't last long, only a few moments, but she felt human again once it was done. She slipped on her coat, and she grabbed her keys. She'd stop by the hospital on the way to Bathos. Then, maybe, she'd be able to sleep.