Chapter 2
Noir feels fuzzy. He tried to reach up, touch his aching head, but his arms do not move. He pulls on them for a few moments, not understanding what was wrong. He was sitting in a chair with broken armrests. Wait, no, he was tied to a chair with broken armrests. His arms were behind the back of the chair, and one leg was tied to each of the front legs.
Oh, right. The Nazis. Why would he have forgotten something as important as that?
Noir felt like he was moving in molasses, blinking several times as the world in front of him shifted around. Everything looked out of focus. His mask was still on, Noir noted, but his glasses were gone. That must be why everything looks so... disjointed. He clenched his hands, feeling the lack of a webshooter in his palm. Noir felt like that was important, somehow, but he couldn't remember why.
He should probably try to escape.
Noir fiddled with the ropes that bound his wrists together, but his fingers kept slipping around, losing their grip. He slowly became aware of a strange feeling in his right arm as he twists his wrists around. The moment he notices it, however, it begins pulsing with increasingly painful waves of pain. Noir sucked in a breath, or tried to, anyway, but that send black spots splashing across his vision as his chest decided to suddenly alert him to the fact that it hurt to breathe.
Noir's gasp of pain, however much he tried to stifle it, seemed to have alerted someone to his being awake. The shapes in front of him were moving around more, now, and made him feel sick to look at it. He closed his eyes, trying to shut out the motion.
A hand grabbed under his chin, dragging his face up. Noir pried his eyes open, wanting to see his enemy in the face. The Nazi's face swam in and out of focus, and it made Noir feel even more disoriented.
The Nazi grinned widely, then began speaking. "On behalf of the National Socialist Worker's Party, I, Commander Gerhard Fisch, am honored to have brought down one who opposes..."
Noir's eyebrows furrowed. "Y're nota Commder, y'd be in Gerny." He was vaguely aware that the words sounded wrong, but before he could process it fully, the Nazi in front of him moved. Like a skipping track, the figure seemed to move in jumps and starts as their hand hit him square across the face.
Noir's head whipped to the side, making the pounding in his head so much worse. His entire body seemed to have been jolted, sending new pain alerts throughout his body.
Fisch hauled Noir forward slightly, so that his arms were strained behind him even further. Their faces were so close Noir could see the stubble on his neck. Huh. Guess Nazis shaved, too.
"Once I report to my superiors that I have captured a Yankee, I'll be promoted to commander, and you'll be demoted to corpse. Got that?" Fisch snarled.
Noir blinked a few more times, as the words distorted in his head. The lack of an answer seemed to upset Fisch, who slammed Noir back into the chair with a sigh.
"You know, it's a shame, really. I always thought we could use someone like you." Fisch said, slowly rolling up his sleeves. He touched his armband almost reverently. "This here, it's a gift that too many do not appreciate. We will cleanse the world. People like me, we're the first line of defense against the mass of scum. Scum like you."
Fisch hooked a hand under the edge of Noir's mask, pulling it off in one smooth motion.
"That's a no-no." Noir said instinctively, even as the too-cold air hit his face sharply.
Fisch whistled, peering at Noir's scarred face. "Damn. This whole time, I was hoping you'd be a kike or something, so I wouldn't feel bad about killing you. Guess it makes sense though, huh," Fisch turned the mask over in his hands, eyes fixed on Noir's face, "Only a true man, an Aryan man, would be able to take out my men."
"Anyone could take out your 'men', Fisch. They hardly classify as men at all. More like boys-" Noir was cut off as Fisch hit him across the face. Again.
"Slapping me... is hardly... the most productive way of killing me." Noir finally gasped out, trying to carefully enunciate each word. Maybe if Mr. 'Commander' Gerhald Fisch would hurry up and shoot him, this pounding, aching sore of an existence called his life would come to an end.
Dying at the hands of a Nazi. He'd always figured it was how he'd go out, but he'd imagined it with fists flying, taking down as many of them with him as he could. Not trussed up like an animal for slaughter, defenseless and waiting to be killed at the whim of a captor.
How humiliating.
Fisch was speaking again, but Noir couldn't focus on the words. His ears were ringing. It reminded him of the time a firework had exploded down on Lincoln Street. It had shook the buildings, and he couldn't hear anything for days afterwards.
Noir eventually noticed that Fisch had stopped speaking, because his mouth had stopped moving. He seemed to be waiting for an answer. Again. Still, Noir's answer didn't really need a question in the first place.
"Screw you."
Noir's moment of satisfaction at watching the face in front of him contort into rage was well worth whatever would come next.
... Well, as Fisch brandished what appeared to be a metal club, Noir questioned that decision.
In for a penny, in for a pound. A pound of metal hitting his chest like a baseball bat, anyway.