“You know what it is?” she said, looking back after a bit. “It’s smug. No. No, it’s misogynistic. All these bad girls really need is a good hard dicking and then they’ll be sweet innocent little flowers and they’ll happily prance off into the kitchen and bake shit.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how the heroines put up with it. I really don’t. But then, I was a piss-poor heroine.”
In the alternate universe coded ⎇001JW, super heroes and villains have been around for decades and tensions are rising between parahumans and their unpowered prosahuman cousins. This is Justice Wing In Nadir.
Music journalist Todd Chapman had an assignment to interview the third-tier super villain ‘Leather.’ Earlier that night, Leather and her henches were committing a robbery that got interrupted by Darkhood, a regional hero. The henches thought Chapman had sold them out and curb stomped him until Leather got back, knocked the henches around, and threw them out, leaving her alone with Chapman… who she just told to get undressed.
This post contains mature themes and frank discussions of sex and sexual themes.
Interviewing Leather (Revised)
Part Four
Tuesday Night
“Don’t get excited,” Leather said, rolling her eyes. “I have to see if you’re just in a shitload of pain or if you’re actually really hurt.” She was clearly unimpressed by my expression. Most days, she might have found it cute. Tonight? After having to tear into her henches because they beat the crap out of me – not to mention her own earlier ‘fun’ with the arrow-wielding superhero that screwed with her heist – she clearly wasn’t in the mood.
“Of course,” I said. “Never thought any differently.” I started to peel out of my clothes.
“Right. Sure. Whatever. Get undressed.” She opened a drawer, grabbing out flannel pants, a tank top, and a pair of panties. “I’m gonna check my own injuries and shower. When I get back I’ll give you the once-over.” She paused. “And way to not go through my underwear drawer, Chapman.”
“…I got bored?”
Leather snorted. “Hours of entertainment on my TV, books all around you, but you couldn’t think of anything to do so you rifled through my socks? And don’t correct me. Let’s just both go with ‘rifled through my socks’ so I don’t have to throw you against the wall the way I threw Marco, ‘kay?” Despite her tone, she didn’t actually sound upset. “Right. I shower. If you have internal bleeding, try not to die before I get back.”
“What happens if I do have internal bleeding?” I asked. I was in a lot of pain, but I hadn’t really thought about more serious injuries before then. The idea worried me.
Leather made a face. “One guy dumps you at the hospital while we push the panic button for the service. And Marco and the boys will wish they’d never been fucking born.” She half-stomped into her private bath.
So I got undressed. It’s a little weird. I hadn’t been beat up – I mean, really beat up – since I was a kid in junior high. Five years of covering rock, hip hop, punk and everything in between and I’d never taken a punch from anyone. Now? Every inch of my body hurt. My stomach hurt. My ribs hurt. My arms and legs hurt. My skin hurt. My lip was swollen and my eyes felt like there were ants crawling on them and the only reason I wasn’t throwing up was because I was pretty sure that would hurt too.
Was this just part of a day’s work for the henchmen? Beating people down, then taking a beatdown when it was your turn? Was the money worth it? Could any amount of money be worth it?
Fifteen minutes later, Leather came out wearing the flannel pants and the tank top. Her wet hair was wrapped in an old, hair-dye stained t-shirt. Her face was wrapped in a smile – clearly, she’d calmed down.
There was also an ugly looking scab on her left arm, around where her suit had been bloody before. “Jesus. You sure you don’t need a hospital?”
She grinning a bit. “Pretty damn sure. I heal fast. I’ll have a line scar by morning, then nothing by tomorrow night. I just cleaned it with iodine – it looks worse because I had to re-cut to get in deep enough.”
“Re-cut? You heal so fast that you actually have to—”
“Yup. I heal so fast I actually have to.” She grinned. “This wasn’t so bad. Rebreaking your arm halfway through a fight because it set wrong the first time? Sucks.”
I shuddered. “What happened tonight?”
“Not all Darkhood’s arrows are shockers or tear gas or have nets in them.” Her smile turned rueful. “Sometimes? They’re arrows. I’m a little more durable than the average guy on the street, and I do wear leather, but an arrow will screw with me if I’m not careful.”
“Jesus. You mean he tried to kill you?”
Leather snorted. “He’s old school,” she said, beginning to poke at me, checking for injuries. She seemed satisfied with my cries of pain and wimpish yelping. “He wasn’t trying to kill me. He was trying to slow me down. Give me a bad flesh wound. Try to take away one of my arms to throw me off.” She half-smiled. “If he were trying to really hurt me, he’d have put a few arrows in my stomach. He’s got the aim to do it.” She chuckled. “Or he’d poison the arrowhead. God, I hate healing poisoned wounds.”
“Does he ever do that? Really shoot someone?”
“No.” She began cleaning the blood off my face with a cloth she got out of a foil packet. It stung like mad.
I shivered, looking every which way at once. God help me, I was in tremendous pain but right then? I could really tell how good Leather smelled. Of course, she was damp, wearing flimsy clothes and she was practically on top of me. So I tried not to look directly at her. The last thing I wanted—
She giggled. So, you know, mission failed. “Sorry,” I said.
“Hey, at least I know you’re probably not dead. But don’t get any ideas. I don’t sleep outside the fraternity.”
“The fraternity? You mean supervillains?”
“Villains, yeah.” She smirked. “Or otherwise. I won’t pretend I haven’t had a few cowls hanging off my bedpost.”
“Really? Superheroes sleep with supervillains?”
She looked thoughtful. “Some do,” she said. “Honestly? It depends on the hero. There are trends – kinda broken down by… I dunno. Era.”
“Era?”
“Yeah. Old school heroes? The ones who started before the Excelsiors or Protectors went under? Most of them’d never knock boots with a villain. Not in a million years. Sometimes they want to, but they’re all about tension. Remember back when the Nightwatch was called Nightstick? The Nightstick and Cudgel days?”
“Yeah?”
“Well, there were always rumors about him and Lady Velvet. But you just know nothing happened.” She began probing his ribs with practiced fingers. “I mean, it’s not universal. Broadhead – Justice Wing’s archer? The one Darkhood’s ripping off? He’d probably nail a cute villain. And heroes who started in the last few years – since the Apocalypse Agenda? A lot of them’ll go for it.”
“Doesn’t seem very heroic,” I said.
Leather shrugged. “Depends on who we’re talking about. Some heroes? They’re clearly just into it. They like the sense of danger. They get off on bad girls. Half the time, they’re trying for a whole ‘bad boy’ image anyway – you know. Lovable rascal or dangerous loose cannon. It’s all a sex thing.”
I scoffed. “Seriously?”
“Let me guess. Your naiveté has trouble with superheroes having sex. Well, they’re not all like that. Not even all the ones I’ve slept with.” She half-smiled. “The others are way, way worse.”
“What do you mean?”
She sat back, thinking about it and tossing the blood stained antiseptic wet nap into a basket across the room. Over her shoulder. Nothing but net. For all the drama of Leather hoisting a henchman over her head or flinging a tire rim two hundred yards, it’s the little things that always stuck out. Her grace. Her aim. The sense that she always has her footing, even if she’s balancing on one toe. I don’t know how she ever maintained a secret identity back in the old days because just watching her cross a room made it clear she was parahuman.
She spoke back up, then. “It’s like this. Bad boys? They just want to have sex. It’s disappointing on one level, ‘cause you’d like to think they’d be deeper than that, but at least they’re straightforward. Fetishists? They want to have sex with me. Or more to the point with villains or bad girls. And you know? Works for me. At least then you know where you stand. When they tell you to keep your mask on? Big ol’ tell.” She lost her smile. “But some of these guys? Those heroes? They think they’re rehabilitating you.”
I blinked. “What?”
“The James Bond thing. They think that when they stick the almighty wonder penis into the bad girl, through the healing power of orgasm they’ll make her see the light, realize the error of her ways, swear off badness and come to the light side of the force.” Leather scoffed, looking away. “They think they’re doing you and the world a favor by getting you laid.”
I didn’t know what to say to that. It was clear Leather was uncomfortable, but the reporter in me wanted to hear more. So for once I just kept my mouth shut.
“You know what it is?” she said, looking back after a bit. “It’s smug. No. No, it’s misogynistic. All these bad girls really need is a good hard dicking and then they’ll be sweet innocent little flowers and they’ll happily prance off into the kitchen and bake shit.” She shook her head. “I don’t know how the heroines put up with it. I really don’t. But then, I was a piss-poor heroine.”
“It didn’t sound like you were a bad heroine. It sounded like you helped some people. And like you cared.”
“Yeah. Yeah, I cared. Fat lotta good it did me. But if I padded my suit, I’d be popular and all the boys would like me and then I’d make the papers every day of the week.” She shook her head again. “Fuck that. I look damn good and I can lift a motorcycle over my head and make that look damn good.”
I bit my lip. Which hurt, so I stopped doing that damn fast. “So… what about Darkhood?”
“What about Darkhood?” she snapped.
“Is he a bad boy or does he wield redemptive genitalia?”
Despite herself, Leather snickered. “Neither,” she said. “He’s old school.” She shook her head. “I don’t think he was around back in the day or not, but he acts like it. I should make it clear – some newer heroes still try to do things the old way. And sometimes take a lot of crap for it.” She smiled a bit. “Honestly, Darkhood was pretty impressive in the field. He was a damn hard fight.”
“You sound surprised.”
“He’s third tier, but not high up enough to get recruited by even the low levels of Justice Wing. And he doesn’t have anything going for him. He’s a guy with a bow and arrow and fake SCA props with circuits in them. Studded leather. Whole medieval theme going on, but real engineering and training underneath it. Guy like that gives someone with actual parahuman abilities a good hard fight? You know he’s the real deal.” She shrugged. “I make fun, and let’s be fair, the man dresses like that guy you pretend you don’t know when you see him at a Renaissance festival. But still…”
She hopped onto the bed, crossing her legs in the air and landing in lotus. “Put it this way. Meridian City is Vortex’s town. She’s the B-Lister. The second tier. Reserve member of Justice Wing. One of the Guardians of Actuality. And she has a power that’s damn hard to work around – teleportation gates and holes in space and frames of reference and all that.”
“Okay?”
“And needless to say, she’s gotten attention from the media. But then, she’s a D cup. Not a Double D, but still. She’s camera friendly – she’s got the look. The papers love her. The tabloids love her. She’s not first tier, but people all over the country’ve heard of her.”
“Okay, I follow you. What’s this got to do with Darkhood?”
“Darkhood still goes out every night and cracks skulls. Every night. In her town. And when he saw me – and I’m a real honest to god not-normal-human who’s good at what she does – he went in shooting. And when I got the bow out of his hands, he still came at me instead of running.” She shrugged. “You asked me what a superhero was? And asked why I gave it up? I gave it up because I couldn’t live his life. I couldn’t be an also-ran. I couldn’t…” she waved her hands in front of her, almost helplessly. “I couldn’t cope. He can.”
“You sound like you like him.”
Leather smirked. “Jealous?”
“Does he count as ‘in the fraternity?’”
Leather laughed. “Yeah,” she said. “He shouldn’t, practically speaking, but he does.”
“Why shouldn’t he?”
“You know what? Put some pants on. The examination’s over. If you die in the night, it’s not my fault.” Leather rolled over backwards, dropping onto the floor in a standing position. “I’ll get you something for the pain, and we’ll make you up the guest bed in here.”
“In here? Not the cot?”
“The cot’s down with the guys, remember?” Leather was walking back into her private bath. “Tomorrow, they’re going to be flush with cash and feeling good. They’ll be cool with you, then. Tonight, I screamed at them and slapped them around a little. They’re feeling ego bruised. So let’s not push it.”
“Right,” I said. I forced myself to stand, and walked – well, charitably it was walking – to where I had my bag with the clothes they’d bought for me. I got out a white t shirt, and the sweatpants they grabbed for me (and which had become my default pajamas) and managed to get them on with only a few quiet, manly tears and three expletives.
“Much better,” Leather said, coming out with a glass full of water and some pills. “Here. Take these and drink all the water. And you might want to go to the bathroom now.”
“What are they?” I asked, looking at the pills in her hand.
“Powerful mind control drugs. Eeeeeevil mind control drugs. Also, the marijuana that makes the kids all crazy.”
“Why would you need to mind control me? I can barely stand.”
Leather rolled her eyes. “Ibuprofin and codeine, dumbass. That should make sleeping possible.”
“I thought you needed a prescription for codeine.”
“Jesus. I stole well over a million dollars worth of electronic shit tonight, and you’re giving me flack over codeine?”
I allowed as to how she had a point. And I took the pills.
Leather opened a side closet. She pulled out a deflated airbed – looked about twin sized. It had a built in pump which she plugged in and started inflating.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s just like camp.”
“Yeah. Tomorrow I thought we’d make lanyards and macaroni art. There’s pillows and a twin sheet in that same closet. Limp over there, limp them out, and limp them over to me so I can be kind to your limping ass and put them on the airbed for you.”
I did my best not to limp. I failed. She was kind enough not to laugh as she put the sheets on. “Cool,” she said. “And guess how nice I am?”
“Way nice?”
“Way, way nice,” she said, fluidly standing and walking over to her bed. “You get to have my very best silk comforter tonight.” She pulled the bloodstained comforter off the bed. “Do you like the modern art approach I’ve taken with it?”
“I feel so connected to the piece,” I said dryly.
Leather cocked her head, looking at me as she dropped the wadded up comforter onto the airbed. “You know, I don’t get you, Chapman.”
“What’s not to get?”
“You. I know you’re here to interview me and learn what makes bad guys tick and maybe get a few sexy shots of me to sell magazines. But you just had your ass kicked and you’re asking me questions like nothing happened. Why? Who are you trying to be?”
I considered. “I dunno,” I said. “Hunter S. Thompson, I guess. Or Tom Wolfe.”
She arched an eyebrow, smirking. “Tom Wolfe maybe. You’re no Hunter Thompson.”
“What makes you say that?”
“You asked what the pills were.”
I let that one go. “Anyway. I’ve always loved that sort of thing. Truman Capote or Gay Talese. That sense of being in the presence of history, whether it’s big or small – giving a sense of the life in it and around it. You know?”
“Sure,” Leather said. “It’s not that Frank Sinatra had a cold. It’s what effect the cold had and how life changed for all the people around him.”
“Wait, you’ve read ‘Frank Sinatra has a Cold?’” I asked, a little stunned.
That was a mistake. Leather’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, I know. What a shock. Tattooed chicks in leather don’t read Esquire, right? Go to bed, Chapman.” She half-stormed back to the other side of the room.
“Well I’m sorry,” I snapped. Maybe it was the codeine. Or maybe I really am just stupid. “I just didn’t notice In Cold Blood or The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test next to Laurel K. Hamilton’s Vampires in Panties on your bookshelf!”
That stopped her. She turned to face me. And God help me, I understood right then. I understood the difference between a performer or rock star playing a character and an honest to God supervillain. She was mad. Really mad. I’d crossed a line. “You should reconsider your words,” she said. Her voice was cool and smooth. No laughing. No giggling. No profanity. No sarcasm. Just an almost seductive steel with a razor sharp edge. “Otherwise, I might choose to be offended.”
I remembered her throwing Marco across the room into a wall. I remembered her slamming her fist into the bagman’s stomach then using the move to lift him over her head. I remembered her warning. ‘I have no fucking sense of perspective,’ she’d said. And right then? I got it. In Leather’s lair – in Leather’s world – crime was what Leather said it was, and punishments were doled out by her whim and her will, and there was no appealing her judgment.
Those jokes about the Jack O’Knaves killing people over getting his breakfast order wrong didn’t seem so funny, all of a sudden.
I shivered, and the shivering hurt, even through the growing warmth of the codeine. “I’m sorry,” I half-whispered. “I made a dumb assumption. It was wrong. I was wrong. I’ll try to do better.”
Leather lifted her head, looking down at me even though I’m taller than she is. Looking down, like she was looking at a bug and wasn’t sure if she found it cute or creepy. Considering whether to put it outside, ignore it, or crush it.
“Okay,” she said, her bearing shifting and her muscles relaxing. “Just be careful about that.”
“Okay,” I said.
She looked to the side, and as scary as she had just looked? Now she just looked young. Young and lonely. “I don’t read that shit any more,” she said, quietly. “I kinda got over it.”
I cocked my head. “If I make a guess, will it get me killed?”
“Maybe.”
Well, that was fair. “Dynamo Girl read that sort of thing, didn’t she.”
Leather’s muscles tensed for a moment. Then they relaxed. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “It’s not like I hear voices or anything. I’m Dynamo Girl, just like I’m Leather.”
“Of course.” I frowned. “What’s your real name, anyway?”
“Leather.”
“You had it changed?”
“No, I just don’t care.” She fell onto her bed. “I like Leather. I like the name. If you go and look up my arrest record you’ll find a civilian name on all the forms, but so what? I never use it. Hell, the last time I did use it was as the secret identity that waited tables and walked stiffly and clumsily while the real me wore red lycra and fought purse snatchers. But even then… even then, I was Dynamo Girl. The other name was the mask.”
“So you have no attachment to your – what did you call it? Your civilian name? I don’t want to call it your ‘real name’ because it sounds—”
“Leather is my real name. Good. I’m glad to hear you got that. A lot of people fuck that up.”
“So what about to your family? Or your past?”
Leather scoffed. “No family to speak of – a norm sister out in Wyoming, but we haven’t spoken in years. She doesn’t know I’m parahuman. She sure doesn’t know I’m a criminal.” She snickered. “Man, to see her face when this magazine comes out. Anyway, my folks were nice enough but they’re dead. High school was just… high school. And then I decided to save the world.” She snorted, derisively. “That didn’t work out, so now I live for me and everyone’s happier. My name reflects that. I’m Leather. End of statement.”
I got into bed. The codeine had kicked in well now – I felt a bit spacy, and tired, and warm, and I didn’t hurt nearly so badly. “Right,” I said. “That makes sense.”
“Oh! Hang on!” She rolled out of bed and dashed back into the private bath.
I got used to the bounciness of the airbed, settling down. The codeine was feeling really nice right about then.
“Here.” She came out, holding what looked like a blue domino mask. “Put this on.”
“Huh?”
“Jesus. Just lift your head up.”
I lifted my head up, and she pressed the mask to my face, around my eyes. To my surprise, it was ice cold. I may have yelped but I didn’t move, while she delicately tied it into place. “What is this?”
“Gel mask. You stick it in the freezer until you need it. That’s why I keep the minifridge in there. Well, that and not wanting to go downstairs for soda when I have a before-dawn craving.”
I shivered as she stood up. “It’s cold.”
“Wow. I can see why you became a journalist. You sure tell it like it is.” she slid back into her bed. “It’ll help reduce swelling. More comfortable and less ooky than putting steak on your face.”
“Why’d you have that thing?” I asked, my voice a bit remote now. I was floating, and even the mask’s icy coldness felt distant.
“Because when you wear a shaped leather mask on your face, someone will love punching you in it. A lot.” She smiled, wryly. “My first official ‘I’m a real villain now’ mask had a metal guard that went over the nose. I asked why I’d need that… then realized the person giving me the mask had clearly had their nose broken eight or nine times.”
“Oh.”
“Oh, he says. Good night, Chapman.”
“G’night,” I said.
And you’d think that would be the end of it. I’m not even sure when the lights went out. I think I slept for a while. All I remember was the darkness, all around me, floating on air, the pain just kind of melting away.
“Kegels.”
I blinked. The word had come from… nowhere. Just out of nowhere. It took me a moment to realize that Leather had actually said it. I hadn’t dreamed it. “What?”
“I’m answering your question.” She was whispering. It felt weirdly intimate – like she was talking inside my brain. Admittedly the codeine probably helped.
“What question?”
“From before. You asked me why it’s a bad idea to sleep with Darkhood, even though he’s in the fraternity.” I heard her roll over. “Kegels. Well, vaginal muscles.”
“I don’t get it,” It weird. Whispering about this in the dark. I thought of camp again. Whispering after lights out. Talking about things you and your bunkmate would never discuss in the daylight.
“My muscles are stronger than normal human muscles,” she said, still whispering. “All my muscles. You going to write about all this?”
“Yeah,” I said. “Why?”
“Then write that too. Guys – normal guys, like you… they want to have sex with girls like me. Only I don’t have sex with normal guys like you because just having a good time can injure you. I have to be too careful. I have to relax all my muscles, all the time. It’s not worth it. It’s no fun, and I get self conscious.”
“Huh. I guess I never thought about it like that.”
“Yeah.” She snorted again. “Growing up… even before primary parahuman expression I never dated anybody. Just didn’t fit into my world. Later on… I remember a guy. Fun guy. Into it. Into me. And I liked that. I liked him.” She laughed, bitterly. “I broke his pelvis. You ever have a broken pelvis? I have. It sucks.”
“Wouldn’t it heal quickly, like everything else?”
“I broke it before I expressed, dumbass. Shut up.” I heard a thump – her head hitting her pillow, maybe. “This is one reason I stopped using a civilian name. The ‘secret identity.’ Secret identities aren’t just putting on horn-rims and acting like a nerd, you know. You have to pull everything back and tie it into a knot, and act like you’re prosahuman without ever making it look satirical.” She scoffed. “Say I fell in love with someone in my secret identity. Say that waitress had a regular customer, and they fell in love and got married. What kind of sex life would Jane Q. Notleather have? What kind of intimate relationship could I possibly have with some norm guy like that? I couldn’t ever dare to have an orgasm. I couldn’t even get too into it. I’d break something, or bruise something. If I let myself enjoy it, it’d be like he was fucking a drill press.”
“Okay. So what about girls?”
Leather snorted. “Not my scene. I knew a couple who wanted me to want it, but…” She sighed. “I don’t like to talk to girls my own age. I sure as Hell don’t want to fuck them. Straight up Kinsey zero, as far as I can tell.” She chuckled bitterly. “I knew this one villain. Cool chick. I really liked her as a person. She was an exception, I guess. But I didn’t… I told her I wasn’t into that. She got so angry. Told me I was confused and brainwashed and that bisexuality was the human norm and honestly anything she thought would get her into my leather bodysuit.” She scoffed again. “Ended up breaking her arm when she wouldn’t hear ‘no.’ Last two times we met she tried to kill me.”
“That sucks.”
“Yeah.” She sighed again. “I get it. Most people aren’t like that, gay, straight, or otherwise. But supervillains aren’t most people. Hell, look at my management style from earlier tonight. I attacked two henchmen. I hurt two henchmen. And tomorrow we won’t even bring it up and they won’t say a word or even be upset, because they work for a supervillain and that’s just how it is.” She took a deep breath. “I was ready to permanently cripple you over that ‘Vampires in Panties’ crack. You get that, right? I wasn’t pretending. I’d already figured out which vertebra I was going to break.”
I let that sink in. “I was out of line,” I said. “I get that.”
“Yeah. I bet. A couple of women I’ve known… I’d… I’d have been willing to try, you know? They meant the world to me. They cared. But… I’d be lying there going through the motions. It’d be that waitress barely moving in the bed, all over again.”
“So you stick to guys. Specifically guys like you. Supers.” I shifted, fighting to stay awake through the codeine and the fatigue and the ache.
“Yeah. Only that’s not… you don’t have a relationship like that. Supervillains make bad boyfriends. Too much competition. We’re all the stars of our own stories. We don’t want to be supporting characters.”
“And heroes?”
Leather was quiet a long moment. I thought she might have fallen asleep. I didn’t push.
I don’t know how long it took, but she spoke up again. “Bad boys are worse than supervillains,” she said. “And the fetish crook-chasers? They don’t want a relationship. They want to fuck Leather, not eat fucking breakfast with some girl behind Leather’s mask.”
“And the redeemers?”
“You think I could fall in love with one of them? With someone who thought he was better than me? I told you – they’re misogynists. I’d have to give up my self respect, and I’m not going to ever do that. Not for anyone. Never again.”
I shifted. The air bed bounced. It was like I was floating. Like I was on a cloud. This is what supers feel like, I thought. This is what it feels like to be floating in the air. “But you sleep with them?”
Leather paused. “Yeah,” she whispered.
“Why?”
“Who else is there?”
I didn’t have an answer to that.
I heard her turn over, and punch her pillow into shape. She sort of sighed, dropping her head down. I heard it, though I couldn’t see it in the darkness.
“Hey Leather?”
“Yeah?”
“Who did Dynamo Girl sleep with?”
No answer.
“Sorry,” I whispered.
“No one,” the whisper came back. A voice in the darkness. “She was old school.”
The above is a revised version of Original Interviewing Leather part 7, and is canonical for the ⎇001JW Justice Wing timeline.
A disclaimer: Leather has strong opinions. Leather has deep seated issues. Leather has anger management problems and no sense of perspective.
Leather is a fictional character. Her views should be taken within the context of the story, and do not necessarily represent the views or opinions of the author. It shouldn’t need to be said, but in this world it’s sometimes a good idea to say it. I have flaws of my own. I don’t have room for Leather’s.
Thanks.
I go over some of this in an open post on the patreon, for the record.
I’m honestly curious just how much she’s fronting here and how much was the truth.
Either way, I’m sure Broadhead’s mask isn’t gonna be hanging from her bedside. Leather has standards.
Also, I’m betting Beguile has been enjoying the reporting of Leather’s crimewave. The fight with Darkhood would have at least gotten a smirk, I’m sure.
Later on, I’m betting she’ll actually get some laughter out of it. Less than if something else had happened, but there should be a few chuckles in the future.
Leather has standards, sure. But if she’s willing to take the misogynistic ‘good guys’ on the general principle ‘who else is there?’ I’m pretty sure ‘senior Justice Wing hero Broadhead’ wouldn’t have too much trouble unless he sabotaged himself in the windup. So, you know. 60/40 against, but still — forty percent’s decent odds.
But then again, setting aside the rumor mill, as near as we can tell Broadhead’s actual behavior with female presenting villains falls under “old school.” Oh, his mouth earns him a thrashing on a regular basis, but Lady Velvet claims he’s “all talk,” and I tend to trust Elle’s opinion in these matters.
Besides. From Broadhead’s point of view? Leather’s like eight. He’s said before that he’s pretty much only attracted to women within ten years (either direction) of himself. That’s absolutely not Leather.