"...she just walked through a wall," Foggy said. He sounded 80% terrified, 20% aroused.
"That's what it sounded like," Matt admitted. "I wasn't sure. It seemed very unlikely."
"That is a lot of black leather," Karen said, and she sounded about 80% aroused and 20% terrified.
"No, Matt," Foggy said, and grabbed the back of Matt's coat just before he could make his escape.
"I have to do something," Matt argued. "The structural damage -"
"OK but," Karen said. "Um. What exactly are you going to do about people who can walk through brick walls like they're made out of cardboard?"
Matt was still twisting, trying to break Foggy's hold. "They're going to smash up the city!"
"And - what - you're jealous because it's not you punching people and destroying property?" Karen asked.
**
"Daredevil," Catastrophe said, kindly, "sometimes you need to take time, get your head on straight, approach the world from a place of self-love."
The eastern European mobster with bad hair (and a semi-automatic) that she was holding three inches off the ground by the neck kicked and made some interesting noises.
She tossed him to the right, where he crumpled, gasping. Catastrophe grabbed his semi-automatic and bent it in half (it made a bizarre straining noise before it broke; Matt had honestly never heard that before), before kicking another one with a baseball bat square in the face. The spindly heel of her boot (steel; Matt had recognized the tap of steep on concrete) tore into his cheek.
"Take me, for example," she said. "I go out, I do my job, I'm single right now, I'm not on a schedule - "
Matt dropped flat to avoid the bullets; Catastrophe simply walked through them at a leisurely pace, and snatched the handgun away from the third mobster. "- I work, yeah, but I try to be home by 5AM," she shouted, because it had gotten noisier than expected. None of the mobsters were happy. "Make some caffeine-free tea, grab one of the cats, snuggle a little bit before I go to bed. Self-love is a practice."
"How do you get the cat hair off the leather?" Matt asked.
"Oh." She shrugged, and then said, "sorry, I shrugged. Um. One of the Trinity found this thing on Ebay, it's perfect for cat hair. Way better than those tape things, y'know?"
"I don't," Matt said, faintly. "I don't. Um. Have cats."
"Oh no," Catastrophe said. For the first time, she sounded genuinely distressed. "I mean, I get it, an animal is a twenty-year commitment, but if I can just say: you seem like the kind of guy who could really benefit from a therapy animal."
"Allergies," Matt said. "Speaking of which. There's - this building is on fire."
"Yeah," Catastrophe said, thoughtfully. "Y'know they have a new service, I admit, it's kind of yuppieish, but you can rent a cat by the hour? I'm just saying. You give off a vibe."
"Fire," Matt said.
"Frostbyte can handle it," Catastrophe said.
There did in fact seem to be - another one. Of them.
"Is it snowing inside this building now?" Matt said.
"Easiest way to put out a fire," someone else - Frostbyte, apparently - said. "I don't have a place to keep an animal but I went to that cat library, Catastrophe, it was surprisingly soothing."
"I told you!" she said. "Didn't I tell you?"
**
"Therapy is not overrated," she said, which was probably the second most alarming thing someone had ever said while sharpening a knife. Karen was inexplicably fond of and terrified by Catastrophe.
"Amen," Foggy said.
"I just go out and punch people," Matt said, crossly. "Mob-related problems are very rarely solved with talk therapy and anti-depressants."
"Daredevil," Catastrophe said. She looked reproachful, and also like her winged eyeliner was perfect. "Violence feels good, of course -"
("what of course, there is no of course about that," Foggy interrupted.)
"- but it won't solve the deeper problems in your life."
"It's like -" Frostbyte shrugged out of her sleeveless fur-lined hoodie. She was wearing a white leather bandette underneath it, and her abs might have been better than Matt's, to be honest. "Bandaids don't fix bullet holes, right?"
"Too true," Catastrophe said, examining the holes in Frostbyte's hoodie.