"...whoever she was, she wasn’t a Steve. She clearly wasn’t a Steve. So you didn’t lie to me. I get that.” She took a breath. “Was it a good offer?”
“Amazing offer. You couldn’t match it.”
“Yeah, well. How screwed are you, now?”
He laughed, slightly. “Pretty screwed.”
“Hey spiky!” Leather shouted, tearing the box open and aside and lifting the Mountbatten Urn where it could be clearly seen. “Is this what you’re looking for? Huh?”
Darkhood skidded to a stop. “Leather! Put that down – gently! We can talk about this!”
“Yeah, about that? So not my style!” She giggled. “Think fast!”
I stared, my hands working my camera almost mechanically, as Leather did a forward in-air roll and flung the priceless urn out and away from herself, far over Darkhood’s head.
“You change your circumstances, so you change your role. You wear a different face.” The Steve took a deep breath. “I do it all the time. Every time I head into the field, I’m somebody else.”
“I can’t imagine that,” the blond said. “Just… flipping like that.”
“Sure you can,” the Steve said. “When you call your grandmother, your whole attitude changes — you even get more of a southern accent.”
“Well… sure… but—“
“We all do it. Everyone does. I just… do it more completely. And every Cowl or Cape and every Crook who keeps a secret identity does it every day. The masks are external. The change is internal.”
"I know you don’t care. I know that. You’re a Crook — you don’t have to give a damn about my feelings but you’re always just—“ He shuddered again. “I know I’m fired. I don’t care. But I can’t — not today, okay? I just can’t play along today, all right?"
“I’m sorry, maybe I never explained something to you,” Leather hissed. “You don’t add people to my plan without telling me!”
"...Chapman’s not babbling. He’s asking questions. He won’t stop asking questions.”
“Isn’t that literally what an interviewer does?” the brown haired bagman asked.
“No. An interviewer follows a script — maybe digging a bit deep here and there, but not too much. All he wants are easy answers he can write up to everyone’s satisfaction. You read a couple’a issues of Amplifer, right? Those things are PR. We talked about this. There’s never surprises.”
“And?”
“And Chapman’s asking questions.” Marco was frowning. “He isn’t putting together a breezy little five page publicity exercise. He’s trying to understand. He’s actively trying to understand.”
The Steve was frowning. “Marco’s right,” he said. “He’s…”
Pieces fell into place. “Oh shit, he’s a journalist,” the Steve said, softly.
“Four henches?” Chapman looked around, then looked right at the Steve. He clearly hadn’t even noticed the Steve was in the room before now.
“Yeah, he’s on the job tonight too. He’s Steve.”
“His name’s Steve?”
“His job’s Steve. Every job needs a Steve.”
“One day?” Marco asked. He paused. “Oh shit, you got a bite.”
“A bite?” the brown haired bagman asked.
Leather beamed. “Yes I did, Marco! Yes I did! That brings me to the next item on the agenda…
“Or sometimes it’s just… it’s just what they do, and I have no idea why. I mentioned Bandolier? He loves Paramount City. And he really wants to kill the Beacon, but he’s also… he’s a friend and I don’t want to bag on him, but he’s… protective of her. He hates her but doesn’t want to hear shit about her. I know it’s not sexual or romantic or stalker-twisted-things-its-romantic. I just don’t know what it actually is. It’s like… rival baseball teams, only it’s a hero and villain and the villain builds a lot of deathtraps.”
“I don’t want to have to rescue you, Chapman. I’m not going out there to rescue you or perform for you. I’m going out to fight crime. And believe it or not? That’s not easy and that’s not safe. Not for me, not for innocent bystanders, not for idiot reporters, and not even for the criminals I’ll be taking down. And if you go waltzing around playing out your Truncheon fantasies, you might get hurt. You might get killed. Or? You might get me hurt or killed. And more likely than either of those? You might get some innocent bystander hurt or killed.”
She stepped back, her eyes still intense as lasers as they burned into mine. “Get this in your head, Chapman. We’re. Not. Getting. Anyone. Killed.”
"Leather's a cool boss. If we keep our noses clean for a few weeks? Then she'll forgive us and the next time we fuck up it'll be another speech. But, y'know, if we fuck up before that? She wasn't kidding last night. She's got no sense of perspective. She will burn your house to the ground and laugh while she's doing it." He laughed. "She doesn't always look crazy or sound crazy, but trust me, man. She's crazy."
“Jesus – look at this!” She stabbed her finger at the bed. “That quilt cover’s silk. You know how to get bloodstains out of silk? You been reading Hints from Fucking Heloise, Marco?”
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