The ride to work had been encased in carefully-crafted silence. The radio was on low, but the metaphorical glass between the passenger seat and the driver's seat of Russ' truck was little Nathan. Quiet broken by anything but him would have shattered everything, and he had become increasingly chatty since coming to the unexpected realization that he had a father who wasn't in outer space or in some navy ship under the sea but right here and capable of being befriended. Nathan tried to please Russ in ways that he'd never had to work for with Marina(making Russ little drawings of trucks and motorcycles and trying to get Russ interested in Transformers and Ninja Turtles -- which was Nathan's newest obsession and he had the pair of bootleg DVDs in his little backpack to prove it). Nathan didn't bother Marina with stuff like that, and she figured it was because she was a girl or a mom or not expected to take an interest, and despite her trying, Nathan had finally hit the age where he just wanted to be with the twins upstairs a lot more than he wanted to be with her. He'd been with Marina his whole life. It felt like a fist.

The windows of the truck rattled as they cruised toward the mob-owned side of Gotham, and Marina only spoke up to point out which turns to tack before they ended up in the alley alongside the Gentleman's Club that had once belonged to Fish Mooney. It was more of a jazz bar than a strip club, but those red lights in the windows suggested that the girls who worked within wore very little. This winter was coming on cold, and Marina had bundled Nathan up tight in a parka that made him look puffed up like a marshmallow. s for Marina, she wore sweats and a coat, but she had a duffel of whatever to change into on her shoulder when she climbed out of the passenger side. She glanced at Russ once, gold eyes uncertain about a whole lot of shit even if most of it had to do with this new job. She tried to say goodbye to Nathan, but he was so invested in explaining the different Ninja Turtles that she finally just rustled his hair and kissed his cheek goodbye. The boy finally perked with a toothy grin, that first one missing and breaking Marina's heart because it was adorable but also a sign of innocence being lost. A couple more years and he wouldn't need her at all, or thats what it'd been like for her in her own life. Maybe if she was lucky the grins and joy at seeing her would last until he hit high school and chasing girls became more important. Fuck if she wanted to think about that.

"I'll be by late," she warned Russ s the door closed and bitter frost hissed briefly through the crack. She held up a series of gloved fingers that suggested maybe three o'clock.

But it was closer to four by the time the taxi pulled up outside Russ' place and Marina got out. She'd traded out her work clothes before leaving the club, and they were stuffed back into the bag. Because black cocktail dresses and fuck-disco pumps weren't rational for a Gotham winter. So it was the calf-cropped gray sweatpants again, her fishnets peeking out past that where her feet slid into fuzzy boots. Her sweatshirt was actually an old one of Shane's, it was black with a faded screenprint that wasn't even readable anymore.

She paid out the taxi with a chunk of her night's tips and walked up to the door looking like she'd gotten the Macy's makeup counter makeover sometime between when Russ had dropped her off and now. Her hair was wild kink. Her cedarwood eyes were smoked with blue and black and glitter, lips nude gloss. She knocked on his door and smeared a bit of mascara when she rubbed at one eye, tired. Tired from the change of work, tired from Russ, tired of having to even come here and feel the whatever of him cloud over her like cold hatred. She knocked again, breath huffing white in the air.

Late calculated itself in the slow inexorable tick of the analog clock on the bedside table. Three had been an alarm, tinny from the phone across the room. The garage was an up-early, crash-early kind of gig at the minute, cramming hours into a day like forcing quarters into an overstuffed sock. Long hours meant big payday, and a big payday meant a paycheck socked away in a box under the bed. He wasn’t 401K and investment portfolios, he didn’t know a spreadsheet from a word processor and Russ hated computers the way he hated disco and glitter-smeared college students crammed into drinking bars, wide-eyed and glossy with anticipation, the shine not yet rubbed off. But the box under the bed was a dream, something a little bigger than a shabby institution known for changing out paint colors along with the license plates.

A pair of jeans hung over the back of a chair jostled close to the bed. The bed itself was a knotted mass of sheets, the kid crammed in against the wall, blocked off with pillows and snoring sugar-plums and toy soldiers, somewhere lost in dreamland where good kids went when they crashed out. The little bag, jammed full of plastic crap and toys, had been pushed up against the door. Three had come and gone, in the quiet cold of the night and he’d rubbed bleary eyes, knocked the phone off the side of the table in haste not to wake Nathan, and promptly sunk back into deep, dreamless sleep.

Now the knock at the door stirred him, frowsy-haired and eyes thick with grit from unshed sleep. Yeah, first thing he checked was the little kid crashed out in the bed, one arm flung high above his head, the other hand twisted under his head like that kind of stretched-out, cat-limber pose was comfortable to sleep in. Aware now that it was not Nathan that had woken him, Russ hustled into jeans, the belt undone and clanking at his hips as he stumbled in the dark toward the door.

He opened it on glitter and smeared mascara and yawned without adulteration. “It’s four in the fucking morning,” he said, sleep-thick, and turned away from the doorway toward the inner recesses shadow-heavy in the apartment. It wasn’t an invite. But it wasn’t a fuck-off-and-die. Somewhere behind a half-closed door, the belt clanked again, and emerged wearing a shirt and carrying boots. No words.

"I told you it'd be late," Marina told the front door as it fell partially closed right in her face. Cash was nice, but the irritation had built up all night between the ass grabbing and the catty waitresses… and now this falling shut like Russ didn't give a fuck if she'd come around at all. She caught its wood with the palm of her hand, fingernails painted in white tips like she'd traded out blue glitter for a french manicure in the past couple of days. Inside, she stepped out of her furry boots with the snow and ice frosting thick, but melting fast. She left them by the door, glancing up at the metallic clang of Russ' belt buckle. He was carrying boots of his own, she watched with smoke and glitter eyes, saying nothing for a moment. Russ looked less that five minutes awake, and Marina looked up all night. She glanced expectantly toward the couch, expecting to see Nathan sleeping there, but then she realized he was elsewhere. Somewhere softed and blanketed and likely more home-like. She wasn't sure she liked it, but she didn't comment on it or ask where the boy was.

"You going somewhere?" And her French manicured nail indicted his boots as she stepped across his floor in fishnet stocking feet. The cropped sweats ended just past the knee, she peeled out of her sweatshirt because the inside of Russ' place was warm, and underneath was a simple, longsleeve v-neck tee, lemon yellow cotton that made the sparkle of whatever glitter powder that coated her neck and clavicle turn her skin closer to gold.

Yeah, she’d said late like it was a threat instead of a promise, but late was closing hours at a bar, the greasy glasses turned upside down. Late wasn’t the yawn of cold night enmassing early morning like they went hand in hand. Nathan was out like the dead and Russ glanced back at him in the rucked sheets as he did up the buttons of his shirt. When he rounded out into the hall, boots in hand, Marina had shucked hers like shells.

“You wanted a ride,” he said bluntly. This was, after all, the purpose of the moonlit cab-ride, the flit across town to the warm apartment, to the sleeping kid. Marina wanted to get from point A to point B, Nathan intact like a joey latched tight to its momma. Nah, Nathan wasn’t sacked out on the couch; by the time he’d passed the fuck out, Russ had gathered him as easily and unprotestingly as a bunch of loose clothes. He didn’t know why she was shedding clothes: his head was filled with drowsy cotton clouds and he wanted to go back the fuck to sleep as soon as was possible, given the wake-up call on the alarm for seven am.

“I can pick the kid up,” he gestured to the door and dug his keys out of the detritus of a side-table. “You wanna start the truck?”

Marina eyed the offered keys to the truth like any barracuda when they say something shiny. She wasn't sure if it was a sign of trust or just a trade, there'd been a time when Marina would have taken the keys with a thank you smile and split with the truck before some stupid man could have even gotten his shoes on. But now things weren't so easy, because Nathan was asleep upstairs. And as much as she'd have loved a joyride like nostalgia in the old days, find a stranger or an old ex and fuck in the front seat in a position that made her ass set off the horn, her bent heel kicking the flashers on, antique cowtipper country on the radio.

But that wasn't Marina anymore. Couldn't be. She'd asked Shane if he thought she was old, if he thought she was pretty. He'd been comforting, but Shane always was, so maybe in way that made the reassurances feel less reassuring. She wasn't sure there'd ever been a time she had felt like second place wasn't only an option, but a possibility. She was pretty sure that Russ was fucking somebody new. That'd been his story from day one, and she rarely saw him these days, so any chance of thinking shit was different now just wasn't coming. She glanced around the place, trying to scout out any feminine touch briefly, then figured it didn't really fucking matter, did it?

"No," she said finally of starting the truck. She avoided the keys and stepped for the kitchen where she managed to tear one of the last paper towels off of the roll. She ran it under the drip of the kitchen sink and used it to wipe some of the glitter and charcoal smudge from beneath her eyes. Opposite side took the lip gloss off, a snake snedding its skin just a little bit at a time. Marina rounded back toward Russ, but stayed on the kitchen side of the doorway. "He's asleep, let him sleep."

Her manicure ruched the lion mane sprigs of dark ribbon curls near her temple. "You can let him stay here, I'll crash on the couch, and get him home in the morning."

Her mouth was without venom, and her eyes looked makeup-smudged, tired in a way that didn't have much to do with needing sleep. The manic rarely slept. "You got anything to drink around here?"

Russ didn’t think shit over, chew on it like it was masticated tobacco in the side of his cheek getting ready to spit. He didn’t chew nothing over, he ate like shit was going to be taken away from him and he didn’t give things an awful lot of thought. He didn’t think Marina old or haggard: she looked much the way she always had give or take the glitter but he wasn’t looking for a fireworks show or a pissing match and the door had slammed closed on Vegas as securely as it had shut out frenzied fucking and bad news hook-ups. He was half-asleep, and not given a hell of a lot to thinking about anything. He blinked, once and then twice at the tearing of a paper towel - the fuck, was she going to clean up the kitchen or something? And then order was restored as she used the last of his shit to clean up herself.

Letting the kid stay soundlessly dead to the world sounded like a good plan, and not going out in the cold to rattle half-way across town in the truck from the shop was just as good. Russ was already thinking about the cluster of sheets still warmed from sleep and the pillow and he shook his head to the quest for something to drink. Nah. Wasn’t shit in the place, he had to leave to drink and the appeal of sticky-floored bars had dimmed in the wake of a tide of recriminations and accusation.

“No,” he said, with a yawn and he palmed across his face. “You want the couch, you can have it. Blanket’s on the back. Going back to bed.”

She padded, feline in hunting mode, out of the kitchen, and her toes peeked through little torn holes in the fishnets, lacquer witch-black on that manicure. There was still glitter and kohl smudged into a halo around her eyes, faded now, but more Marina than that glamazon shit had ever been. She liked simple things, cat eyeliner and red lips and red heels… she didn't have any of that. Very briefly and very barely, she teethed the inside of her bottom lip. A minimal bite that wanted to taste blood, but wasn't visible from the outside. Few things about Marina were visible from the outside. She was still amped from a night of work, and she watched Russ yawn like he didn't give a fuck so long as he got back to lounging. Just like a male fucking lion, wanting to nap while she did all the fucking hard work, blood in her teeth.

She licked her mouth and peeled slowly out of her sweatshirt. Not like she was going to sleep in it. The bra beneath was neon green, had random black lighter tucked into one of the cups and peeking from the edge like it was safe keeping the way other women might have kept money safe. Then the sweatpants, down her legs with a kick. She was still a little buzzed from work, high from days of redecorating and rearranging her closet and taking Nathan on adventures. No sleep, but she wasn't tired, she could go, go, go for three days before crashing usually, and thats when she liked her late afternoon sleeps. Her tugging the sheets over her head and no moving without complaint.

She didn't want to sleep on the couch, she didn't want to sleep at all. She wanted to have fun, and Russ used to be fun, but now he was palming his face like she didn't even register as anything more than a television program he could turn off at will. Maybe he'd stumble back up the stairs, maybe she'd stab him in the back -- she sucked on her bottom teeth, reminding herself not to get dramatic. But she was a neon bra and fishnets, little scrap of black under the hosiery. Her exposed skin was powdered honey, and she'd smudged her eye make-up mostly off, but she stared at him like poker hand laid down. Chips shoved forward. Walk away, she fucking dared him without words.

He wasn’t amped. Electricity didn’t lick through his veins and spark nerve-endings like a fourth of July celebration. Russ was tired, the kind of thick soporific sluggish that was being entrenched deeply in the belly of sleep until the knock at the door. He thought the kid’s faint sighs as he slid into sleep like it was water was calming and he wanted the sheets and the bed and another couple hours pinched out of the night before the dawn shook itself cool over Gotham.

And then Marina started stripping off layers past the point of Gotham-winter exterior shed as the warmth spread past the surface, down to neon scanties and tights. She didn’t have to say a fucking word, he knew the look same way he remembered the fights, the fucks, the temper tantrums and the incandescent shit-show that followed. No knee-jerk reaction followed: Russ looked inward and found he’d given up bad-idea-fucks as a New Year’s resolution because no needling of blood prompted reaction.

He looked at her, the scutter of so-close sleep crawled his jaw as easily as the regrowth of beard and blinked. “There’s a blanket on the back of the couch.” He turned, dropped the boots with a clatter, and began the climb back the fuck to bed behind the door, with the little kid happily oblivious his momma was playing for high-stakes in the living room.

Russ was already going for the stairs, so he missed the slip in her expression. The way that the cat-like gleam of her eyes widened into something sad because of all the smudged make-up that was smeared around her eyes. Now it looked like instead of wiping it off, she'd cried it off. But Marina didn't cry, she didn't. She didn't, so she didn't recognize the feeling of glass crammed tight in her throat, and she couldn't swallow past it. There was moisture brimming from the black lines of her eyes, and she furiously wiped her palms over it to make it stop. She'd been angry enough to cry plenty when she'd been pregnant, she'd been angry enough to cry just because if she didn't, murder was a real possibility. But she didn't just start crying because some man, Russ of all fucking people, turned his back on her. That was what he did, but…

She wiped at her eyes again, getting angrier with every heartbeat, angry at herself. When had she become so undesirable? Unwantable? Any flirtation that happened at the Iceberg Lounge didn't count for shit because that was just men being aggressive for the sake of other men. But here, standing half naked in his living room, and Russ just…

She'd always been the one with the ploys and the plots and they fucking worked. There had to be somebody else -- but hell, even if Russ was seeing him, its not like that'd ever stopped him before. Marina still held grudges over old wounds like that, and they weren't deep, but the unfamiliarity of self-loathing made those things deeper.

Was she ashamed? Marina didn't think that she'd ever been ashamed before, and she glanced down at the neon bra with the fishnets, wondering if she'd missed something over the years. Shane had assured her that she was still the prettiest in all the land, but that was something that Shane had to say because he took care of her when she fell apart.

She wanted to scream and break and knife his furniture, his heart out, his stupid fucking handsome face. But the boy was asleep upstairs. So instead, with a sniff that betrayed the earlier threat of tears, she hissed at Russ when he was all the way up the stairs.

"FUCK. YOU." He didn't want to see her? He'd never see her again. The front door flung open and stayed that way letting cold and bits of snow grazing inside as Marina marched outside of the house like she planned to disappear or maybe just freeze to death. She'd left behind the boots, the sweats, the shirt, and she marched down the iced curb in fishnets and neon, arms wrapped tight around herself.