Chapter 1
The bastard, the bastard, that was the closest that Kakashi could come to a real thought, everything else was instinct, trained and honed and he was going to GUT that white hair bastard-
And for a moment the universe hummed slightly, because when the world was tearing like this and two people had the exact same thought, that happened, because Kabuto was bearing down HARD but dammit Kakashi was STILL faster, still faster-
Had to be faster. That was the only, way, after all even with his borrowed (not stolen) eye burning in his skull like a hot coal.
Then the ground gave way.
Well, the ground gave way, then was dust, fine and silty and blowing UP because something deep and red was under them now, dragging at his skin, Kabuto's skin, judging by the fine lines forming and starting to bleed and that was a shit way to go, ha, served him right- Hope it's not doing the same to me, but he could already feel it starting on him and shredding the mask, it felt like tissue already.
It would have been better, he thought, watching the bullet in its trajectory, eye slowing it enough to watch, but even his reflexes...
It would have been a more impressive gesture, all things considered if the eye-hurting magenta bullet (how did he charge a bullet in the gun without blowing up the gun? ask later. Take notes) hadn't gone through his HAND.
Granted, his reflexes meant that it went between bones, he'd probably USE the hand again, and he was twisting in the air and it was DEEPLY satisfying to see one hit Kabuto through the glasses, in the eye, head exploding, expanding outwards like a bursting balloon, brain-confetti in the air.
A few more followed it, then went past Kabuto, aiming at the red... Mass.
Well, it did look a BIT like a mouth, Kakashi thought, curling inwards, turning, kicking off a fast crumbling tombstone to slow JUST enough to half tackle Remy, knock the gun out of his hand and grab a hold.
He wasn't actually sure it would do any good, but generally speaking, the man’s odds of surviving probably went up if he stayed close-
And that's twice he's saved your life, old man, Kabuto might had gutted you and he'll have had toxins on those blades by now,
And frankly if he was dying at least it could be in the arms of someone who didn't actively want him dead much.
Though judging by the mans expression it was probably good that sounds were being swallowed up by the roar of whatever the hell was happening. He looked like he was screaming and he smelled terrified. Defiant, but terrified.
Kinda cute, really, Kakashi thought with a wide smile as they impacted what turned out to be, in fact, the end of the universe as they knew it.
Or at least that particular chunk of it.
*********************
Remy LeBeau, known to many as Gambit, and to at least a few as ‘le diablo blanc’ and to a rather large fraternity as ‘that son of a bitch!’ in a variety of languages....
Remembered talking to Delta.
Remembered the world ending, or at least, his world.
Knew Kabuto was dead, and...
Remembered a smile, and a mouth. They weren’t the same, he knew it. The smile had been INSANE but the mouth hadn’t been human, it’d been, swallowing....
He rolled over in the mud and threw up cheerfully. Well, it was certainly colorful vomit, at least.
“Come on,” someone was saying, pulling him to his feet.
This got puke on his shoes since he hadn’t been done heaving yet. He still wasn’t done, but he was, at least, on empty.
Turned his head.
The young man hauling his along by the arm had deep red tattoo’s on his face that must have hurt like a son of a bitch and the slightly slitted pupils of a mutant. Sharp teeth, Remy nodded. Claws on his finger tips. A slightly feral slant. Okay, fine whatever.
Remy didn’t care. “You’re not wid dat crazy c’narrd, are y’?’
“I don’t know. I know a lot of people crazier than shit house rats. Hell, dating one of them,” and there was a faint crackle as if that, thing on his ear, radio? As if someone had heard that. “But they’re crazy in a good way,” the man went on, smiled at Remy sharply. “Tell me about your ‘c’narrd’?”
“Dis white hair s’of a bitch,” Remy said.
“Was he old or young?”
“He were a son of a bitch,” Remy managed, after some thought. “Wears a mask all d’time like his face s’thing special but I seen his face id just a face and-”
His combination escort and human crutch stopped. “You’ve seen Hatake’s face?” He asked, looking...
Remy wasn’t sure what to call that look but he realized it was the first time he’d felt anything from the man and it was very close to.. Hunger?
“What was it like?” Almost wistful now. “Did you take a picture?”
“... it were a face. Dere was a nose an s’lips and d’rest of what y’ get onna face,” Remy said warily, trying to get his arm free.
Oh, hell the man had a grip like carbon steel.
“It were a face,” Remy repeated.
“Was he with you when the schism happened?”
“D’what? Y’mean when d’hole damn cidy o Hong Kong tried t’blow up den eat idself and both dem white hair’d c’narrds were still fightin each other like dat was dere biggest problem?”
“Oh, you were in Hong Kong? ah,” he held out a hand. “Kiba, by the way. Inuzuki Kiba. So Kakashi was with you? That is what I smell then,” and he pursed his lips and whistled and a pile of dirt stood up and shook itself off into the biggest damn dog that Remy’d ever seen with a collar on.
Kiba growled something at the dog, and the dog nodded.
Remy didn’t like dogs. It has to be said that he didn’t like dogs. There were a lot of reasons, most of it had to do with the fact that dogs didn’t like HIM. Maybe it was the perpetual ozone scent of the cards, maybe it was just that one too many other dogs had nipped at his heels as he made off with the bosses’ personal property, maybe it was just that they were smelly hair damn things and he didn’t trust anything that eager to please, maybe it was that there were a great many cat burglars but NO ONE called themselves a dog burglar.
But he didn’t like them.
He really didn’t like huge, shaggy dogs with giant ears and far too intelligent eyes looking him over, nostrils twitching as if to say ‘Okay, bub I’ve got your scent now and you try anything funny I will hunt you down and eat you’.
Ahh, that was the last reason, wasn’t it? He knew enough mutt like people, thank you.
Then it bounded off.
Remy felt himself breathe in, hadn’t realized he’d stopped, then heaved again.
“He’ll go find Kakashi,” Kiba said, patting his shoulder.
“... Great.”
“Now, c’mon there’s a medic tent over here,” Kiba said, dragging him along.
There was.
Tent wasn’t the right word, though, It looked like something a child would build in the back yard out of scraps, only large. Hastily stacked girders and massive chunks of concrete and road and a car or two made up the high, thigh walls, the ground had been dug out between them, and the roof looked like...
“Parachutes?”
“Yeah, Parachutes,” Kiba said. “Look, we threw it up in a hurry like half an hour ago.”
“Course y’did,” Remy said. The people in the... Structure looked suspiciously military. Well, there was rather a lot of fishnet and leather for military but Kiba here was wearing dark navy and something that could probably catch carp underneath it showing at the neck so maybe he was part of the first mobile male stripper battalion.
It was just they way they were moving. Like there was a hierarchy at work, and everyone knew it was there.
Even if they did dress weird.
Remy decided to just. Go with it. There was rubbish everywhere, he had his cards, felt like there might even be a gun in his coat pocket, even if his coat looked like... Leather pretending to be lace.
Juuust go with it.
Yeah... Sure.
*********
“Shithouse rat Crazy?” Crackled the little voice in Kiba’s ear.
“In a good way,” Kiba repeated. “Anyone know who that guy is yet?”
“No, sorry. We’re still digging out that first meteor,” Robin said. “And Hoshigaki just came to, told us all to go to hell, and stalked off with his insane little friend on his shoulder.”
“Ah, well,” Kiba broke into a lazy jog.
The party had gone...
Exactly the way they’d all half predicted.
But with more bang.
Total airborne assaults had been discussed, dismissed, brought up again, and in the end Nami had been up there with a few dozen humming birds.
Kiba didn’t really blame Kisame for being mad. It would be hard to say whose fault, exactly, it was that his leotard loving boyfriend had been there but Kisame hadn’t been thrilled to find out that Grayson stood a decent chance of getting toasted with the rest of them.
Protective bastard had probably saved the rest of them half by accident, even if every tree in three miles was now dry as dust and starting to crumble.
But it’d WORKED. Okay, a few people had damn near drowned, and the air was just starting to not rasp out the inside of your sinuses every time you took a breath, and they were all slogging through mud now, and when that damn sun got up and going it was going to be miserable as hell...
But no one was dead. Mostly. So far.
Hard to tell when a big chunk of city just falls on you.
Kiba kicked a sign that seemed to be advertising manicures, nose wrinkling. It didn’t smell like it’d been an occupied city, but his dogs where running noses down looking for bodies anyway.
Seven men in full army kit had been found, badly battered, one probably wouldn’t make it, but they were it, and they weren't, conscious yet.
It smelled like a city, though. There were food smells and trash smells and rat shit and exhaust and everything you’d find in a city except for people and the fact that even a very well MADE building doesn't take well to being dropped from a mile up.
And the superheroes were all pissed off.
Well, Kiba didn’t much care. They’d had the damn thing away from major cities, they’d pointedly not invited the press or caterers or anything normal or overly squishy, they’d had things delivered up to a week before....
Nightwing and Robin had been the most normal people there, by the standards of the planet and even Robin could quietly, and with a bit of effort, scale a slick glass wall hand over hand.
And now this, massive... Mess was here.
Kiba kicked the sign again and wondered how much of the place was salvageable, and if it’d be worth the effort to look it for crushed and scattered earrings and so forth.
“Dogs aren’t finding anything?”
“Two more soldiers. They’d got, official looking ID but we’re thinking parallel earth because no one here knows what the hell SHIELD stands for.”
“Stupid heroes,” Kiba started, thought about it. “I can think of a few things but I’m probably wrong. Elite Individual Division, for the last bit though?”
“Yeah, maybe, Rei’s trying to bring one around and Manhunter just got here but he says that they’ve got trained minds, and isn’t getting anywhere because apparently unconscious is tricky.”
“What’s the guy I found saying?”
“When we can understand him? That Kakashi’s a bastard and this is somehow all his fault. He also mentioned shooting someone named Kabuto in the head?”
Kiba didn’t trip and fall in the mud because the villagers didn’t do things like that, thank you. “Seriously? Kabuto?”
Then he remembered he was talking to a card carrying bat-clanner who all but had ‘thou shalt not kill’ written on his forehead.
Then he decided he didn’t really care. “Give him a fucking medal, then, if you think he’s not lying, and make sure when people start buying him drinks he doesn't actually drown.”
“Who’s Kabuto?”
“The man whose body I am now looking for,” Kiba said, not adding that if it looked like it might get up at ALL he was going to feed it to his pack then burn their shit for the next few weeks.
“And if he’s not dead and just injured?”
“If it makes you feel better I’ll package him up and send him to Kisame if there’s a pulse left.”
There was silence.
“Is he the one that did the bombings?”
“If it’s not him, it’ll be who he’s working for. He’s like a leech or a... What’s the fish that swims with sharks? He finds the biggest bastard in the world and then sucks em off or something, turns into their loyal little, peon and,” Kiba sighed. “He gets a lot of people killed.”
“Remora.”
“Yeah, those things.”
“We’ll keep an eye out for him, but according to LeBeau,”
“The one I found?”
“Yeah, LeBeau, according to him he won’t have a head.”
“Man, that guy’s never gonna have to buy another beer again.”
***************
Sometimes, and Superman knew this as a cold, steely fact, there was no such thing as fast enough.
It would have helped if he’d been there to start, but the Villagers had been so very.... We have it under control we’ll draw out an attack, thank you but we do not need your assistance, please, tha’t when there had been mudslides on the other side of the planets he hadn’t spared them much of a thought until he’d heard the crash.
And he had heard it. He heard everything, but in the same way that a gunshot can be heard over the roar of a concert, he knew that whatever the hell that had been, it was bad.
So he’d gotten there, but it wasn’t fast enough, and luckily it didn’t seem like anyone had gotten hurt even if the trees were all, dying.
And then the rest of the league had gotten there and and they’d sorted out that it only LOOKED like there should be a million dead bodies strewn about, and Batman had shown up and generally pissed everyone off, and then... Then there’d been the scream.
It hadn’t been a good scream. It had been the sort of scream that shouldn’t have happened within a mile of a group of heroes like that, and when they’d gotten there in a rush...
Well, the screaming was more of a gurgle, now, the screamer a ball in the mud, staining the water around him and someone, something shimmering silver in the air VANISHING in that annoying way they did but he hadn’t heard it long enough to be able to find it again.
There was a moment where they looked at the injured man warily, and it had a lot to do with the way Green Arrow had needed almost a hundred and fifty stitches when he’d surprised one of the people that fell from the sky.
Then Batman was next to him, flipping him over the same time Superman started to move because he’d recognized him too.
A quick look showed that the stab in Iruka’s side was causing the gurgle, that it was BAD but the sort that they seemed to shrug off, and then.
Ah, the reason his face was covered in blood had a lot to do with the fact he was missing his eyes.
Well, one eye. The other was in his hand.
************
Remy had been handed a drink as soon as he’d stopped heaving.
It wasn’t his usual, but it was damn good tequila never-the-less. Someone had done that. Thing that Kakashi had done to him, once, and he wasn’t puke covered anymore, or mud covered, even if this jacket needed to be gracefully retired in a department store dressing room while he meandered out with a new one.
These pants, too, really. He supposed his socks were probably alright.
“Okay, got m’socks,” he said, half to himself, half to his tequila. “Dat’s something and,” and that was the third person that had given him a grin while bustling about.
That was not the way his life went, no. Every now and then people should look at him, and notice his eyes, like that guy, and recoil or try not to recoil or sometimes give him a knowing look, a fellow mutant.
Not, look at him and then, grin and wave and oh hell this one was coming over to see if he needed anything. “LeBeau?”
“Dat’s me,” Remy said, because it was too late to lie about it and. Fuck it.
“Did you really blow Kabuto into little pieces?”
“Just his head,” Remy said. “An d’c’narrd gutted me, so I owed him a bit.”
“Ahh,” she said. looked him over. “Who patched you up?”
“Dis big titty’d woman wid no sense of humor, dat’s what dey told me when I woke up,” Remy said. Thought about it. “Denada, something like dat, dat was her name, blonde femme but dat weren’t d’first thing you noticed about her,” he said, using his non-drink holding hand to pantomime out a chest that had some truly door opening knockers.
“Tsunade?”
“Mighta been.”
“You really got patched up by the fifth?”
“Id dat how you measure dem here? I guess a fifth’d be about right, mabbe two, if y’going by cups.”
“What?”
“Hnn?”
She tilted her head, looking him over again. “Can I see?”
“See whad?”
“Where she patched you up? She’s a master, we all thought she was dead but she’s one of the best healers on record. Please?”
“It’d just a scar,” Remy said, because she was giving him an outright hungery look and now that he was paying attention she had that same sort of... Calm bus rider feel Kakashi had only interested, the same was Kiba had been, interested when he’d said he’d seen Kakashi’s face.
They were weird fucking people. He handed her the flask quietly and pulled up his shirt.
She was gonna touch it, wasn’t she?
Yeah, she was. Pet it, really, trace the fine line and do something to it that would have scared the hell outta him without the tequila and the fact it felt weirdly familiar. Maybe it was the same sorta trick that the big boobed broad had used, something like it.
Kakashi had called it chakra-don’t-call-it-magic, and the idea that this woman might be from the same.. Anything like Kakashi was starting to put him on edge. “Y’got a good enough look there, cherie?” He asked.
“It bisected your liver, didn’t it?” she asked, staring at her fingers.
“id hurt,” he said, in a smaller voice than he’d meant, because..
Fingers pushing in, like a fist, and then the hospital, “Think mabbe y’can stop that now, cherie?”
“Who did the field work?” she asked. She was ignoring the request and he was starting to feel cornered.
“D’field work? Dat, y’mean who patch me up long enough d’fly me back to the quart?”
“Fifth.”
“Dat was Kakashi. C’narrd musta been followin me around t’get dere so fast.”
“Hatake Kakashi? The Copy nin?”
“D’what now?”
“White hair, wears a mask, has a stolen eye?”
“I d’know if he stole d’one eye but it don’t look like it’d come wid d’original package,” Remy allowed. “Can I put m’shirt down, Cherie?”
She ignored him again, well, at least her hand didn’t move. “I grew up listening to my dad talk about the time he met the Copy Nin and survived,” she said, almost dreamily.
“Y’from d’same. Place?”
“Oh, Rock, all the way. Used to be, anyway until this mess happened now we’re all just villagers,” she drummed her fingers. “He really saved you? Why? Are you a friend of his?”
He wondered if the truth, that Kakashi was stalking him for who-the-fuck-knows-why reasons, would be the right answer. “Cherie, I got no idea what d’hell he thinks he is t’me,” he said, going with honesty. “But I me him in a damn cave and he been around ever since. I’m gonna put my shirt down, now, and if y’trying t’flirt y’worse at it den he is.”
“Oh, he flirts with you?”
And there was something violently annoying about that fact that THAT seemed to be why she was pulling her hand away. Not that he was in the mood for it, at all, but he reaallly didn’t like the implications.
“He tries, but he not dat good at it,” Remy said, pulling his shirt down and resisting the urge to also button up his jacket.
“Is he here?”
“I don’t know. He were wid me, when I...” red maw, insane smile. “I got no idea, petite, and dat’s d’truth.”
At least she gave him back his booze.
Judging by the way she took off, he’d need it when the next scar-petting perverted weirdo showed up.
Then they carried in the guy without eyes. Well, one eye.
Some of the people with him looked like heroes, or maybe villains, they certainly had the theatricality there.
And they felt like people. It was a tiny bit of a shock to realize that no one else had. Most people felt like people and really he didn’t have a very well trained tendency for empathy, or whatever the technical term for the charm was beyond saying he was easy to like.
Robin had felt, restrained but normal, Kiba hadn’t, the people who were giving him thumbs up, he had to focus on them to get any sort of, feel, and that made his head ache a little. Like focusing on fine print just a little too far away....
But the heroes. Or villians, were easy to read. Well, in that, they were there and they weren’t... Bored, way.
He watched them as alertly and as warily as he could manage with a half flask of tequila on a very empty stomach.
It wasn’t nearly alert enough because he jumped half out of his damn skin when the one that looked most qualified to dangle babies out of windows loomed at him.
“What are you?”
And Remy managed to stop the liquor from burbling in it’s container as he charged it on instinct, a moment.
“What am I? Mon ami? Don’t y’know?” He asked, smiling wide. This man looked... Well, he looked like a Grade-A sociopath with dramatic tendencies, but he also looked like he disliked Remy, a lot, without ever having met him.
The smile got a lot more genuine. He knew how to DEAL with people who hated him on sight!
“I know that you came through along with a large part of a multicultural city-centre,” the pointed headed one said. “And that these. Villagers seem to think that you’re on their side, somehow. But you’re not one of them, so, what. Are. You.”
Remy kept beaming. Now he was being intimidated. “Id’s just like home, mon ami!”
The man blinked. Well, Remy thought he blinked. His expression didn’t change but Remy got the feeling that he was slightly taken aback. “Now y’spoosed d’threaten me wid physical violence, cher, id d’way a shake down go, see? Cept you better do id quiet like causef’some reason all dese people think I got rid of a problem for dem, and if dey anything like dat white hair bastard den dey can probably feed you dat pretty cape of yours,” Remy rambled on, maybe it was the stress, the fact it’d been a long day, maybe it was just that the points on the weirdo’s head were somewhat funny.... But.. “And den dat white hairs bastard’d dink of a way d’make porn outta it. He made porn about me, d’ya know dat? Den he put id online and had me doing shit like mewl an I don’t mewl, dammit but he said I’d have d’prove id and-”
“Are we talking about porn?”
Remy blinked at the new person, arm around the dark gloomy bugger’s shoulders. “You look like Errol Flynn,” he said. “I bet y’got y’self a silly name, too, cause y’look like hero.”
“Green Arrow. What’s this about porn again?”
“I was trying,” growled the dark one, “To question him since the soldiers are waiting for us to dig OUT their leader, and we haven't found his alleged associate.”
“By talking about porn?”
“Stop. Saying. Porn.”
“Greeen Arrrooow,” Remy repeated. He looked at him, and nodded, then looked seriously at the other one. “And you be.. Black.. Splat?” He said, looking at the emblem. “D’hell id dat it look like a liddle devil thingy. Black Devil?”
Green Arrow snorted noising into the back of his wrist, leaning on Black-blob.
“I’m Batman,” Batman said, sounding pained.
“Dat’s nice! See? Now when he writes hid weird gay porn about d’two of you,”
“Wait, what?” Green Arrow said, snapping back to the here and now, and stepping away from Batman.
“He mabbe change id to Big Bat and D’Vermillion Shaft, like he just called me Thief in all dem damn thins, b’ if y’getting buggered by a ‘ScareCrow’ den y’know dat d’damn pervert, hey, dat’s my drink!”
“How drunk are you?” Green Arrow was asking, sniffing it.
“Drunk enough. Got a smoke?”
“I think,” Batman said. “You meant Verdant.”
“Mabbe, could be,” Remy agreed.
A pack of cigarettes was suddenly there. Like magic. “Do you you need a light too, sir?”
The Heroes, both glad to be be off the topic of pornography involving each other, turned.
“Hey, dere Delta naw I k’light id m’self,” Remy said, taking back his flask and holding it out. “Here, have a sip?”
“No sir, on duty,” Delta said.
“Do you take orders from this man?” Batman demanded, pointing at Remy.
Green Arrow just watched as Remy pulled out the slightly crushed cylinder, put it in his mouth and delicately lit the tip with his finger.
“No,” Delta said, and the lack of a sir made Remy snigger. “I take orders from Uzumaki and Fury,” he said. “Sometimes the Captain if it’s a public occasion.”
“Who’s Uzumaki?” Green Arrow asked.
“In all likelihood, he’s the one they they’re digging out of that hole,” Delta said.
He looked, battered, but he didn’t seem to be in pieces. Well, literal pieces. Remy looked him over. If he’d been vomiting, then, well, he’d cleaned up. Well, so had Remy, come to that.
Delta gave a sharp looking nod, and marched off.
Remy watched him go.
“Why id it dat soilders, dey always walk like dat even when dey havn’t been marchig f’years,” Remy said.
“Who’s Uzumaki?” Green Arrow repeated.
“He dis pain in d’ass dat bosses around Kakashi,” Remy said, leaning back against the wall, taking a long, slow drag and feeling himself relax. “K’you two piss off an mabbe let me take a nap?” He said, plaintively, head turning to watch the bustle about the man they’d carried in.
It was kinda amazing that worked.
*******
It took the dogs ages to find Kakashi.
Too long, really, Kiba thought.
Man looked a mess, an he was stuck in what had probably been a tree an hour ago. Covered in fast decaying sawdust, like a ghost with rust-colored stains around him, red, clean tracks down his face.
And his hand. His hand was over his face. Defensively.
The bastard was unconscious, and covering his face.
Of course.
Kiba changed the channels on his radio. “Hey, I got one last fallen bird, here, it’s Hatake.”
He knelt, tensed, ready to leap back as he put his fingertips to Kakashi’s pulse.
He didn’t get stabbed. And there was a pulse.
Well, that was good.
“Hey, Kakashi,” Kiba tried. “Hatake. C’mon, blink or something, you lazy bastard. Naruto used to bitch about you all time,” he said.
It was.. strange to...
“C”mon, man you just got here. You’ll like it here. Iruka’s set up a fucking, hidden village of the obvious and...” Kiba started to carefully pet down Kakashi, feeling for, big wounds, poking with chakra, testing him for internal damage.
No response.
Damn. Well, maybe Rei’d do better.
He hoped Rei’d do better, anyway. He didn’t want to actually, bury one of their own. Not one from Leaf, at least. And the ones that, died when they hit or committed suicide when they got captured before anyone could get to them, they weren’t. Known faces.
“Come on, you don’t have to die here. None of us do,” he said, sitting down next to the limp form. Breathing, pulse. Not a lot else do do, then, not without knowing what happened. He didn’t smelled poisoned, not to Akumaru.
Akumaru nosed at Kakashi’s face, then licked it. Then backed off, face filled with dust, tongue lolling out.
Click click on the radio. “Hey, “ and he didn’t say Tim, not quite, though the start of a ‘th’ might have because he turned it into a “This,” that was a little short on the ‘h’. “This is a mess,” he told Tim. “Gonna bring him in.”
“He was someone you knew?”
“Yeah, sorta. Not really. Didn’t teach me,” Kiba said. “But he could have been. Uzumaki and Uchiha might have been stuck together no matter what but the third person could have just easily been me, been Shino, or Hinata.”
“That was your team, right? You never talk about them.”
“Yea, well, maybe you’ll meet them someday. We get new people all the time.”
“Maybe they went where Kakashi was.”
“I hope they weren’t standing on a nearby rooftop,” Kiba said, with a sigh.
Silence, then... “We on for the usual?”
“Yeah.” The usual just meant, Kiba’d hunt Tim down, at some point, in the next two weeks.
In their world, that was as steady as you got, after all.
Kiba flicked the radio off, and got to work. He had to stabilize Kakashi between two dogs without moving his hand from his face. He paused, turned radio back on. “Robin, head back to the base they made and curtain off an area for treatment.”
“He that torn up?”
“... He’s got a thing about his mask,” Kiba said. “It’s... Weird but I’m sure you can understand the importance of a mask. And the mask is gone so... Yeah. Double layers, if you can; we’re nosey people.”
“Is it an eye mask or full face,” Tim started.
“Half mask, lower half. If they put an oxygen mask on him that’ll do it,” Kiba said.
“I’ll take care of it.”
******
Remy got woken up later that evening. He hadn’t recalled passing out, or taking a nap, but he must have, because it was dark out now, and someone had put a few blankets on him.
“Are you alright?”
The voice was so quiet that Remy didn’t recognize it, at first, but he turned his head.
It was Kakashi, but Kakashi wasn’t talking to him.
There was another man, sitting, back to the wall too, IV in, in their makeshift little hospital.
Kakashi was a silhouette in a pale, white, shifting screen made of more parachutes.
“No, I’m not alright,” the man was answering, dark except for the white bands around his eyes, bandages, Remy realized. “Kakashi,” and Remy didn’t need to be empathic to hear the pain in that word, the words that followed. “Kakashi, it’s been a long time.”
“For me too.”
“Saw your student today.”
“Me, too,” Kakashi was saying. “Naruto went after him.”
“To kill?”
“He’s lost his faith in Sasuke’s ability to be rehabilitated, yes.”
“Shame. It was a bit on the stupid side but there was something nice about his.. Naivety,” a heavy sigh from the other man. “It’s been almost three years.”
“Did you think I died?”
“Not even for a moment. But I acted as if you had.”
“I never thought you’d survived,” Kakashi said. “But I acted as if you had, for a long time. Your way was probably better. Naruto outranks me.”
There was a low chuckle in response, a sort of dark molasses sound. Remy lay very still and listened to it, and felt suddenly like he was intruding, like a decent person would cough.
He didn’t cough.
Decent was for people that could afford it, after all.
“He really does,” Kakashi went on. “Tsunade doesn't, but it’s an old habit to do as she says.”
“That’s understandable. In theory I’m Ibiki’s equal now, but it’s strange to have the same clearance.”
“Ibiki’s here?”
“He’s here. There’s a lot of us, we’re rather organized.”
“It was different there.”
“I gathered.”
“Will you see again?”
“I might. I have hope. I would rather not have Sasuke be the last thing I’ve ever seen. Your hand?”
“Ahh, well, no thanks to LeBeau but it’ll heal fine.”
“Tell me about LeBeau?”
Remy scowled. it had better be good things and not more of that made up porn shit!
“He makes a strange little noise when he sleeps,” Kakashi said after a silence so long Remy was starting to get affronted. “But he doesn't know it, because when he pretends to sleep, it stops.”
“Ah, is that what that sound was?”
“Yes.”
Remy didn’t curse under his breath, or insist that he didn’t make sounds when he slept he slept nice and quite like a good thief.
“Remy LeBeau, multiple aliases, most commonly used, Gambit,” and now Kakashi sounded like he was reciting something, there was an almost singsong cadence to his tone. “Occasional member of the political group known as the X-men, a group of mutants under the direction of one Charles Xavier, mutants being,” and here he paused. “Well, randomized blood limits is the easiest way to describe it.”
“Meta. We call them Meta’s, here.”
“Noted.”
There was a silence that was almost tangible, then the soft sounds of someone standing with excessive care.
The man with bandaged eyes swayed like he was drunk, leaning on an I.V. for support. Walked directly into the curtains around Kakashi.
The shadow that was Kakashi was up, suddenly, moving the sheets, they were both shadows, now, then they were one shadow, for a moment. A short one.
If Remy STRAINED his ears, he could heard words. One or two. Not many.
But then the two figures on the bed weren’t, leaning on each other, anymore.
Remy was starting to feel like a voyeur. It wasn’t a unfamiliar feeling, but in this case he would have liked to be able to have some more tequila.
Then the one that was probably Kakashi was. Gone.
“Remy LeBeau?”
Remy rubbed his temples. Sat up, slowly, as the shade that was the other man lay back down.
“You should go after him. He won’t go far.”
“D’cannard ain’t m’friend,” Remy said. “Who’re you?”
“Umino Iruka.”
“You one of dem last name first cause family important like Kakashi?”
“Yes, I am.”
“Dat were a break up speech?”
“I suppose, in a way.”
“Ah. He not takin id well?”
“He’s unhappy that my eyes are gone, and that he failed to protect me. Probably. It’s the sort of thing he likes to blame himself for,” Iruka said. “Go after him.”
“Why? Why d’hell should I do dat? Den he just get id in his head that he okay t’follow me again.”
“Why do you keep saving his life?”
“Cause id keep working out dat way!”
“He thinks it’s destiny,” Iruka said. His voice sounded like it was fading. Drifting. “He’s funny like that.”
“Can I ask y’ a question?”
“Hmm?”
“Why d’ya all feel like y’sleep walkin?”
“I don’t know what you mean,” Iruka said.
And he didn’t answer when Remy repeated his name.
******
Crackle crackle.
“Well, try hitting it?”
“We could have, you know, the jack ass, go get him. He’s offered to. I know Ibiki told him to mind his own business but he’s pretty laid back.”
“Might have to let his woman into the perimeter.”
“Haa, her but not the army?”
“Well, he’s already doing us a favor by keeping all the civilians the hell out.”
Nami leaned wayyyy out over the hole. It was in the center of a crater, about four feet across, and VERY deep. If she helded her radio out, very straight, it got a crackling signal.
“How y’doing down there?” She asked.
Crackle, Crackle, then, “I think,” came a very tightly controlled voice. “That in another hour, if Gaara isn’t here, I’m getting out my way.”
“They got the satellite pointed at us now, man. You’re really gonna make us explain a five story fox-aura?”
“I’m embedded in fucking clay. Tell Delta that in sixty I’m going to the fourth seal and clawing out of here. He’ll tell you how far back you should all get.”
Nami sighed. “Goddamit,” he murmured, mostly to her self.
Hiko sighed. “I’ll go tell Delta,” she said.
“Dammit, I had concert tickets,” Nami said. “For this friday. D’ya know that? And Lois is gonna biiitch if I don’t talk to her for like, five hours about all this.”
“She always bitches.”
“Yeah, but I can usually get away with drugging people when they get too annoying.”
“Point.”
Nami groaned. “Go tell him. If it’s more than the four miles we got everyone else at, tell me, I’ll send a bird to get the loud mouth and we’ll draw straws to see who gets the humble pie.”
*******
It was ten, actually.
At least, that was what Lois had gathered. Funnily enough, a few of the villagers seemed to be alright with being within the radius, and told her she was welcome to join her.
It’d been awkward to explain, but Nami had managed it, though she’d dropped that strange accent once or twice. Lois had pretended not to notice. The fact that the villagers were deliberately trying to act slightly dumb wasn’t a story. Yet.
It might be if they ever pulled this “Bomb? What bomb?” shit again, but it’d probably be the last story she got out of them.
“The thing is,” Nami said. “What, Umazaki is is fairly...” She looked. “Who’s the biggest monster you know? Now picture that, locked in someone’s head. Really well locked, mind you. So we’re told. And it must be true cause if it could bust out, we’d know. There wouldn't be any Umazaki left, for starters. But he’s gonna tap into that, to get out. It’s a whole lotta power but it’s not gonna look...” She grimaced. “My sister died when the fox attacked the first time. Imagine that hell had a smell, well, we’re all gonna be, smelling it. So we’re pulling way back to avoid having panic attacks.”
“You’re still here?”
“I’m all outta sisters.”
”And I’m allowed to stay because...”
“Worse case scenario, you end up crying a while. You panicking won’t hurt anyone or anything, and it’s sorta unlikely that you’ll, feel what’s really frightening. We booted out the tights-brigade, too, except for Flash, and Supes. Anyway, two minutes to go. Enjoy the light show.”
“Because the two of them could get away quickly enough?”
“Because Flash won’t leave, and if a measly thing like a demon can make Superman go nuts, your planet’s a little fucked anyway might as well do it now,” Nami said with a wink.
Lois started to open her mouth, when the first lancing ray of red light pierced the early morning mists.
Just one, at first, a thin red line that fades slightly as the sun came up higher.
Nami was taking slow, deliberate breathes.
Lois watched the light, then Nami. “You’re afraid of him?”
“Fear isn’t useful. I’m just. Very aware of how.... Can you feel the tremble in the ground? That’s a man sized object clawing its way free. I am not afraid.” Nami set her jaw. “I do not even believe that anything will go wrong, but people who have been in car crashes get tense in them, don’t you think?”
*********
Remy watched the light too. “Okay, y’crazy c’nnard, what d’hell am I lookin at?”
“You’re looking at Naruto.”
“He a beam o light now?”
Kakashi didn’t answer. He was sitting on a burnt out neon sign, a tall one for coca-cola, ten feet off the ground, with his bandaged hand cradled gently in his lap.
“Okay, he not a beam o’ light,” Remy muttered, climbing up after him, sitting down on a protuberance. “Dat one of his liddle tricks, den, like your yours wid m’drawers?”
“Yeah, something like that,” Kakashi murmured.
“So. Dis ain’t home.”
“What gave it away?”
“If dis were home, d’X-men’d be here, being X-men, an running round; ‘stead it’s a bunch o you people, but dere ain’t no shield. Dis ain’t home,” Remy said. “It’d weird.”
“I haven’t gotten a feel for it yet,” Kakashi said. “But when I do, I’ll tell you. Extend the same courtesy?”
“Since when d’you d’fcourdesy, y’white haired jackass,” Remy grumbled. “Y’ain’ ever been curdeeous’ in y’life.”
“Maybe if you asked nicely, I’d make an exception for you?”
Remy ignored that. Then. “Why’d ya grab me when we wend throu dat big ol gullet?”
“Because.”
“Cause why?”
“Because I wanted to protect you.”
“Id just shot y’ in d’hand!”
“It will heal.”
“Yeah, mabbe but generally even d’most forgiving person don’t give y’a big ole hug and den... Why y’so beat up an I fine?”
“Because I got what I wanted.”
“Which. Had been t’protect me? Y’gonna say dat was you?”
“Yes, I am.”
“What d’real reason y’been so weird ad me?”
“You saved my life. Twice now.”
“Dat ain’t d’real reason. I think y’lying, dere. What d’real reason?”
“It is the reason.”
“What d’other reason, den? And if y’say love ad first sight or sumdin like dat, gonna blow y’up.”
“Well, you are attractive.”
“Got d’cards here, homme.”
“You remind me of me. A little. And I suppose I feel sorry for you because of it.”
“And course cause y’feel sorry for me, y’hound me?”
“You’re involved now. I haven’t done well, but I’ve tried to keep you safe,” Kakashi said. “And you keep saving my life, instead of the other way around.”
“Dat a really poor reason f’y’t’decide t’want me,” Remy grumbled.
“I have led a rich, and varied life with a very solid groundwork of poor decisions,” Kakashi said. “Wanting someone unobtainable isn’t even in my top ten.”
"Y'know Ida been a lot less unob’ainable if y'weren’d such a son of a bitch," Remy said after a while. “Mean, y’ started out okay, y’got me oudda dat room, but, den what? Y’slap a collar on me? Dat were shity. Mabbe y’ earned a few point back doin dat, wha dat was, d’dat girl who were killin me but den I had t’carry y’outta dere? Y’couldn’t just, mabbe stab her in d’head? Y’good wid knives y’shoulda stabbed her in d’head.”
“She was in my head, a little. I couldn’t actually move,” Kakashi said.
“Oh. Didna0 know dat.”
“Well, now you know.”
“What id like being insane, cher?”
Kakashi gave a half laugh. “It’s never boring.”
“Were d’porn y’way of flirtin too, cher?”
“In a manner of speaking. I also, just like to write it, and I do often use people around me as character's because, well, it makes most people more interesting to write them getting fucked. It’s fun to see how close I can guess their character before talking to them.”
“Y’dinna get me right,” Remy said. “I don’t mewl.”
“You’d mewl if I fucked you,” Kakashi said, suddenly cocky.
Remy gave him SUCH a intense glare for a moment Kakashi was probably expecting lasers.
Kakashi.... Decocked under that glare. “That was just funny,” he murmured. “And the Thief character was very popular on my blog.” He swung his feet. “I gave him a really cool backstory, too,” he muttered.
Remy sighed, and bit. “What was it? Were I a prince in disguise?”
“Did you read it?”
“Were I really a prince in disguise?”
“No,” Kakashi said. “Fallen angel.”
“Touchin, cher.”
“Is cher better than cannard?”
“Yeah, id is.”
“Hnn. Upgrade,” Kakashi said. “How many conversations while we watch the sky bleed before I graduate to blowjobs?”
“Shu’dup, c’nnard.”
“Cause I can arrange for the sky to bleed more.”
“C’nnard y’gonna get down graded t’fuck face.”
“Like, daily,” Kakashi went on.
“Shu’dup, fuck face.”
“What if I’m blowing you?”
“Den at least y’d be quiet!”
“Alright then,” Kakashi said. “I’m probably on too many pain depressors to get off properly anyway but I’m sure I can manage a blowjob.”
Remy did NOT squawk or flail or whatever the hell that leg twitch had been a start of. He just stared at the other man for a while, trying to find a category other than ‘fuck face’ that didn’t call the species of the other man into question, before grinning. “No y’can’t.”
“I’m sure I can. We’ll never know if you don’t take your pants off.”
“No, y’can’t, cause it’d lide out, and y’can’t wear a mask when y’sucking cock,” he paused, considered this, and amended. “Well, y’can’t suck cock wid dat sorta mask on. So tell y’what. You take dat mask, off, dat thing dat y’damn near pissed y’self over on d’roof, and you can put dat mouth where ever d’hell you want.”
And he could FEEL the cracks in that, calm, this time, cause he was waiting for them, and giving himself a headache, trying to feel for them.
“Y’like one of dem people dat need’s t’keep dey toothbrushes all lined up, and id gotta be d’right color, right?” Remy said, grinning. Goading, now. “Like a kid dat can’t have d’peas touching d’carrots or dey throw id all on the ground. Come on, den, y’a grown man, y’wanna fuck led’s fuck. Take d’mask off.”
Kakashi wasn’t even talking now, and Remy turned, started to climb up the slightly crumbled wall, get closer too eye level. “Here, fuck face, I’ll even take d’mask off for you, den I can get me nice close, good long look at y’ mug. Again. Cause I seen id before, y’c’nnard.”
Panic was starting to tremble out of Kakashi like steam. Remy reached out a hand, then stopped.
Softened, slightly.
“Y’all kinds of fucked up, aren’t you?”
Kakashi nodded. A tiny, tense little nod that was almost a shudder.
Remy exhaled, and kissed his temple. “Y’ need some serious help, C’nnard.” He thought about it for a moment and tried to touch Kakashi’s chin, but he went so rigid that...
Ah, yes, the mask. He pulled at Kakashi’s hair instead and the man looked straight like pulling the strings of a puppet.
Put a second kiss on Kakashi’s lips, through the thin fabric of the mask. “Y’ever get sane enough t’lose dat thing of fabric, y’can try lookin me up and mabbe I say yes t’drinks, allrid?”
He rolled his eyes when he got no response, and nodded Kakashi’s head for him. “Y’es Remy, y’sure are being nice,” he said, in a very BAD imitation of Kakashi’s voice. Then he let go. “Alright den.”
It was a bit of a long hop down but he made it look. Mostly good.
Now where was that man with the damn tequila? Wasn’t he the big damn hero? Why was he sober?
****
****
Remy made it back to the ‘tent’ in time to get damn near slapped with the FEEL of a scream.
Someone was in pain so bad that it felt like a broadcast, like a telepath switched to broadcast while getting kicked hard in the balls.
Remy promptly got sick all over himself and passed out.
***********
Superman could... Hardly blame that man. He wasn’t entirely sure of what he’d just seen, because it was mostly magic in origin and it didn’t make a lot of sense-
fine, Chakra based. He privately agreed with Batmans ‘if it breaks the laws of physics, thermodynamics and common sense, then it’s magic no matter how badly you misspell it!’ theory. Well. Not theory he’d just, growled it once when a particularly fat hummingbird have giving him a valentine, because it apparently thought that he could be persuaded into being called ‘Hummingbirdman’ with enough wooing.
But what he’d just seen had looked like it hurt.
Iruka certainly hadn’t enjoyed it. He could actually see the tiny, micro fractures and muscle tears that Iruka had just given HIMSELF...
As a result of whatever the blonde in full millitary kit had done.
- Umazaki. He didn’t have any indication of rank, but one of the other soldiers, who had the marks of a captain on him, had done what he said without question.
And he had just...
Superman could almost see the energy, when they did regular tricks, and that had been like a full fireworks display com pared to the normal flickers of light and brilliant ribbons.
This had looked like Iruka was being filled with fire.
And then he’d started to scream.
Umazaki was nodding. “Sorry, Professor, had to be sure,” he said, with a non apologetic half shrug.
Umino whimpered.
That had Batman tensing, interesting enough. And Flash. You had to be watching to catch him.
“Fuck you, Naruto,” Umino managed, after a long, panting moment. “I should have failed you with more... tenacity.”
Umazaki snorted, shrugged. Looked at the crowd like he’d just noticed them, and produced the most insolent ciggarette that had ever been lazily lit up by a finger tip. “Someone should deal with LeBeau, over there, the pucker. He’s mildly empathic, according to the files and this was probably nasty-”
Iruka waved hand, cut him off. “I don’t care what you’ve managed to turn yourself into, here, I outrank you, you brat,” he said. “Take everyone new to the village, find Ibiki, do what he says.”
***********
The body, the flesh was wrong, metallic, but Sasuke could still feel chakra flow into it, out of it. Very strange.
But his now, more so than before. The transplant had been a bit on the desperate side, forcing the body swap Jutsu to work while blind had been, difficult but opening his eyes up fully behind metal lids had been akin to joy.
Anyway, the man had been a criminal and a psychopath and tacky to boot. Sasuke didn’t feel particularly bad for crushing his soul right out of this damn useful body.
His brother was here, he could feel it.
Hell, he could do more than feel it, he could see the bastard, eyes clouded, looking almost like a Hyuga on the cover of a Magazine, next to that blue bastard. Rolling Stone. Strange name for a magazine.
How dare Itachi have anything resembling a peaceful existence.
*******