Who: Sentinel and Max What: A ride home Where: A rental car When: After the Masquerade, and the minor superhero altercation.
Sentinel knew the reaction of, who he now assumed to be the Bat, toward Max. He knew that reaction well because he’d had the same reaction, though he wasn’t allowed to do anything about it. So he’d stood there, done what he could to diffuse a bad situation, and not make it worse with his own garbage. Max was intent on getting herself into trouble, also pretty good at getting herself out of it, and it was safer for her if she didn’t know him. He’d learned that lesson the hard way once before. He wasn’t going to do it again. Not with her, she was too important.
But he was going to see her safely home. He had rented a car, just in case he needed it and he didn’t need that damn blue Prius to get recognized. He loved his car, but it wasn’t exactly inconspicuous. This car was a simple black sedan, he had joked with the car rental agent that it was a secret service car. He was driving calmly, doing his best not to white knuckle the steering wheel and it was taking every ounce of his strength not to pull the damn car over and tell her everything. Once the story ran on Monday...Well, she’d never understand.
“We’re getting a comm first?” he clarified, mostly just wanting to talk to her.
The motion of the car was doing nothing for Max’s current state of what the hell did I drink that I shouldn’t have?, and she was playing over what had just happened in her fuzzy mind with little hope of clarity. Thomas never treated her like a woman, and he sure never worried about her taking calculated risks. She had her hand pressed to her forehead and her eyes closed when he spoke, and she grinned, without even opening her eyes. “Seeing as you bastards managed to get yourselves all in the same room at the same time, I can only assume there was some stunning communicator dialog I missed out on,” she said. She’d figured that out even before Thomas had come along and scolded everyone.
She sighed, and she looked over at him in the dim glow of the car’s dashboard. She hadn’t realized he’d been drinking when he’d been with the others, but she did now. The scent of booze was heavier on his skin than on hers, and she opened the window a crack to allow cool, fresh air in the nondescript sedan. “Did you have a good night, Sentinel?”
He nodded, he wanted to smile back at her, but he couldn’t, but he did loosen his grip a bit on the steering wheel and allow himself to let the tension out of his body. “It wasn’t that entertaining, I was a little too tipsy and I think the Bat was ready to smack me around a little,” he said smirking just a bit. But that was really the last thing he wanted to talk about him tonight.
He sighed loudly and thought over his evening and wondered what the answer to that question actually was, “It was looking up,” he said shrugging a bit. Before...Well, before everything. If Johnny used terms like cockblock, it would have been mentioned. Instead he was just feeling vaguely sorry for himself. “You? Aside from the fact that you look like you aren’t feeling so hot.”
She shook her head slightly, keeping the movement to a minimum. “I danced with someone who I think we’d be chasing after most nights of the week,” she admitted, thinking back to the Hunter in his black cloak. She knew danger, she was trained to sense it, and that man was danger. “And Corbinian acts like a spoiled child sometimes and only makes things worse.” This group of heroes, it was a tenacious one at best, and she hated thinking she might have screwed the whole thing up. “I don’t understand what the hell just happened in there,” she told him. “With Corbinian, I mean. I got my ass handed to me in an alley and none of those men cared. Why the hell is it such a big damn deal now?”
“It’s alright I danced with a complete stranger and drank more than enough for all of us, God help us all if someone needs a fight tonight.” He had no idea what had happened during the masquerade, he was sure they’d find out. But for now it was just puzzling.
He looked over at her from the corner of his eye and smiled wryly, “I don’t know, you tell me,” he said almost challenging her to spill the beans.
It occurred to her that he shouldn’t be driving, but she was too tipsy to make him pull over. Instead, she shook her head. “Hell if I know. Nothing has changed between then and now.” It hadn’t either. If she was going to blame this on Thomas being protective, it should have applied to the night of the Mask Killer attack, and his only concern then had been Luke. Hell, she’d seen him the next day and the concern was still Luke, even once the boy was out of danger. “Maybe the Bat just doesn’t like losing his inhibitions for the evening.”
She looked over at him, and she caught that wry smile. “What’s the grin for, Sentinel?” she asked, quirking a brow at him.
“Well if anyone in this car would know what happened back there my guess is it would be you and not me,” he pointed out.
He had been drinking, and drinking and driving was certainly something he frowned upon, but he was 100 percent sure that the adrenaline that had been pumping through his blood had taken care of his drunkenness. He looked over at her then, and raised his eyebrows at her, “Nothing. Just curious. You say you have no idea, I believe you. This is clearly the honesty club, I have no reason NOT to believe you,” he said his tone amused.
She wondered, for just a minute, if he knew what had happened between her and Thomas a month and a half prior, but she discounted that as soon as she considered it. She hadn’t told anyone, and she would have bet her truck that Thomas hadn’t told anyone. She turned to look at him, the movement and the car itself making everything spin a moment. “Okay, what the hell are you talking about?” she asked him, her gaze going pinpoint sharp. “Tell me right now, or I’m getting out of this car and you’ll have to carry the guilt of leaving me on the sidewalk around for another month.”
“Come on,” he said looking at her incredulously, “I’m not an expert but I’m not an idiot. You don’t have to tell me,” he said seriously, “But whatever it was that inspired him to behave that way had nothing to do with his inhibitions. We’ve all acted crazy over a woman before. I don’t need details, I don’t even need confirmation. I just want to throw it out there. Emotions like that aren’t safe for any of us. Least of all him.”
She laughed. She couldn’t help herself. “Sentinel, the Bat doesn’t have any feelings for me that don’t add up to regularly scheduled annoyance. I’m a pain in his ass, and I push him when he doesn’t want to be pushed, and that’s the long and short of it.” There was something wistful in her voice, something that said her feelings in the matter might not match the Bat’s. “He doesn’t have any emotions for me that make anything unsafe,” she added, almost gritting her teeth.
She held her temper for a minute, but in the end she just couldn’t keep it up. “Why the hell can’t he have a life like the rest of us? That’s what you’re saying, isn’t it? Screw the fact that he doesn’t want me; even someone like him needs something to come home to.”
He laughed right along with her but for a completely different reason. Maybe the feelings were different, maybe the feelings weren’t exactly normal, but they were there. He could tell mostly because he certainly had some kind of feelings and he knew reactions. He got it. But he wasn’t in the mood to argue about it. “You’re probably right, you are a pain in the ass,” he teased.
He was shocked by her mini-outburst and he thought she was missing the point completely. “That may be, but it doesn’t mean it’s wise. Take it from someone who knows, people and relationships get in the way. You don’t get to have it both ways. I don’t have a life, we’re all living a lie and the minute we let someone into the lie...Is the minute everything falls apart. The poor people we might come home to one day deserve better than that.”
“I’m willing to buy that if it’s a civilian, but there are plenty of people out there who do what you do.” She didn’t say ‘we,’ and it was intentional. She wasn’t a vigilante, she didn’t save anyone. She offered support, yes, but that was all. “Are they off limits too? Are you telling me that you’re both going to have to live miserable, lonely lives for no fucking reason?” Her head throbbed, and she wondered why she was yelling, and she slumped back in the seat a moment later. “You’re all idiots,” she finally said, soft and resigned, closing her eyes against the pain in her head and the spin around her. “Life’s too damn short not to feel something.”
“Date a superhero dot com?” he countered quickly. “Is that like J date? Because I know what’s going on in my head, I can guess what’s going on in the heads of the rest of us...I don’t want to date someone as screwed up as I am,” he said, but he wasn’t all that serious. “My point is that it has nothing to do with not feeling things. Believe me I feel plenty, and it’s obvious that the Bat does too, I’m not going to pretend like I don’t, I’m not going to pretend like it’s not painful, but...We suffer certain things so we can make other people lives that much better. We risk our lives, and when your life isn’t your own, when you share your life with someone, you have no business risking it, and you have no business risking the other person’s either.”
“That’s bullshit,” she said quietly. “I know it’s risky. I know that. It isn’t that I don’t appreciate the added risk to both parties. But it’s worth it, Sentinel. Having someone at the end of the day, someone who understands all this, all the trouble, all the sacrifice, someone who understands why the hell we do what we do, that’s worth it.” She looked over at him. “Someone you don’t have to wear a mask around, someone to trust.”
He chuckled, “That may be,” he said softly. It was a nice idea, it was an idea he could get behind and it was an idea that he wanted for himself. But he was too timid to take it, and he wasn’t strong enough to do it. He needed to live one life or the other right now, and it seemed to him that he wasn’t going to be able to have his cake and eat it too. “Well good luck with that, I hope that it works out for everyone who wants it,” he wasn’t a complete jerk. He just didn’t understand the “worth it” part. He barely felt comfortable around his friends, he barely felt comfortable having people that close to him at all. It wasn’t for lack of wanting.
“We weren’t talking about me, Sentinel,” she said pointedly. “I have a nine-to-five life, remember? I don’t wear a mask, and I only pretend at being what you all are.” She looked out the window as the drop-location came into view, and she climbed out without a word and went to retrieve a communicator. When she returned, she had her heels in her hand and the circles beneath her eyes looked dark through too-thin skin.
It was only a few blocks to Bathos from there, and she let her eyes close again, quiet in the still of the car.
He shrugged, “Pretending or not, nine to five or not, you’re in it one way or another,” he said finally. “I have a nine-to-five too, I have a life, it’s just not real, skulking around helping people, not letting anyone see my face...That’s real. Which is ironic. But I’m okay with it, I chose this, it’s...What I’m supposed to be doing.” He looked down as she exited the car and stared at his hands for the entire length of time she was gone. He didn’t know what else there was to say.
She made some good points, but he knew from his own experience how things had to be. He’d made the mistake earlier of letting his guard down, and whatever she had going on outside of her nine-to-five and outside of Johnny and the Bat and Sentinel and this whole mess, it wasn’t something he needed to worry about. Even if he wanted to.
They drove on in silence and he pulled up to the apartment building. He shook her arm gently, “We’re here,” he said as he opened his door. He left the engine running though and got out to open her side of the car. He held his hand out for her to help her out of the car, prepared to walk her in if she so desired.
She swayed sleepily as he helped her out, and it took her a minute to find her bearings and step away. “I can take it from here, superhero,” she said. “You’ve got people to save, and I just have a bed in my immediate future.” She lingered there a moment longer, and then she turned around and went inside, her steps slowed down by more than drink and exhaustion.
He squeezed her hand, he hadn’t meant to, but he did it anyway, he didn’t care if it was too personal. He watched her as she went inside, making sure that she made it in the building at least. Once she was out of sight he contemplated sending a text to Mason to make sure that Max made it home alright, but decided he would check later.
He closed the car door and walked back around to his side of the car and drove off, he didn’t know where he was going but back to his apartment was the last place he wanted to be.