Unheroic Life of a Certain Cape-Chapter 44 Shit Hit the Fan

Chapter 44 Shit Hit the Fan
March 1, 2025. Saturday. 10:17 p.m.
The spontaneous date with Onyx had been exactly what you’d expect from her, chaos wrapped in a seductive grin. Sex, liquor, and arcade games until the city lights blurred and the world became a kaleidoscope of neon and bass-thumping music. She had an appetite that would shame a wolf and a twisted definition of fun, the kind that made me feel both alive and vaguely hollow when it ended.
I didn’t expect the night to spiral the way it did. One second I was leaning against my car, cigarette burning between my fingers, and the next, the air shifted, sharp and biting, like the sky itself decided to turn against me.
Then came 'him' of all people.
“Caldwell!”
Before I could register, a blur of green and white crashed into me, my back slammed against the cold asphalt, and stars erupted behind my eyes. Windbreaker. The teenage golden boy of the Watch, a cape with a shiny PR smile and enough speed and aerokinesis to make him untouchable. Except, he was a jerk.
“Son of a—” I hissed as his fist drove into my gut, folding me like paper.
“You’re under arrest,” he barked, pinning my wrists with his knee as the cuffs clicked shut. “Resisting only makes it worse.”
I tasted copper. My jaw throbbed where his knuckles had split skin.
“Seriously?” I spat blood onto the street, glaring up at him. “You’ve got nothing better to do, Windbreaker? Go fetch a cat out of a tree or something.”
He leaned down, voice low but sharp. “Consider this payback.”
Huh? What did that even mean? It wasn’t like he knew I’m Eclipse, didn’t he? I remembered roughly one month ago how I blasted his leg with a darn shotgun.
…
..
.
The shotgun was steady in my hands, the smell of cordite thick in the air. Windbreaker had been fast, but not fast enough. I pulled the trigger, watched the slug tear into his leg, and left him screaming on the bloody pavement.
“FUCK!” yelled Windbreaker, fury and pain twisting his features. “FUCK! YOU—!”
I left, dragging my duffel bag filled with cash.
…
..
.
The irony wasn’t lost on me as he dragged me through the precinct like I was just another punk kid off the street. The officers stared but didn’t say a word. Maybe because none of them wanted to be the one to piss off a cape.
By the time the paperwork was done, I sat cuffed to a metal table in a cold interrogation room. Fluorescent lights buzzed above me, and the mirror on the opposite wall reflected a kid with a black eye, messy hair, and the calm of someone who’d learned to suffocate panic under layers of controlled breathing.
The door opened.
A man in a cheap suit stepped inside, his badge glinting under the light. “Detective Batista,” he introduced himself, sliding into the chair across from me. “You had quite a morning, kid. Assaulting two officers, resisting arrest… I’d ask if you have a death wish, but judging by that look, I already know the answer.”
I leaned back, the cuffs biting into my wrists. “One of your guys was feeling up my girlfriend. I don’t care what badge they wear, they cross a line like that, I’m gonna break their face.”
He studied me for a moment, his expression unreadable. With a casual shrug, he said, “You’re free to go.”
I blinked, caught off guard. “That’s it?”
“You see,” Detective Batista leaned forward, lowering his voice until it was barely above a whisper. “I’m a Crow, and we… are in fact friends.” The red light of the camera in the corner blinked out, and the surveillance feed probably died along with it. Silence swallowed the room. He slid a manila folder across the table.
I hesitated, then opened it.
Inside was a thin , a photo of a smirking man in an expensive suit, and a name I didn’t care to remember, some mid-tier unregistered cape scumbag who trafficked children from an orphanage like they were products to be bartered. Crow’s message was clear in bold typeface, the same phrasing as always:
“
Kill him. Make a show out of it.
”
I grimaced, the bile in my stomach souring everything. Fifth request this month. Different names, same filth. And like clockwork, every time I finished one of Crow’s assignments, the media spun it into some fairytale about a masked vigilante cleaning the streets as if I were doing it out of altruism. As if Crow wasn’t pulling strings.
I tapped the photo against the table. “Crow’s really pushing this narrative. What does he get in having me target this… fellow?” Attached to the was for me to make a public display out of it, like the many jobs he requested in the past month.
“It’s none of my business,” Batista’s lips quirked into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “If I were to make a wild guess. Perhaps Crow wants to make a hero out of you, like, say, a new brand of superhero. And right now, you’re trending.”
It had always been the Murder of Crows’ style to air someone’s dirty laundry as a show of power. However, not after an assassin killed that ‘someone’ in the equation. This wasn’t certainly good for optics. Someone might realize the patterns and think I worked for Crow now. I wouldn’t want that.
I leaned forward, phasing through the cuffs with practiced ease, the steel clattering onto the table. In a blink, I was inches from him, my voice sharp as broken glass. “Never contact me in my civilian identity again. Ever.”
He didn’t flinch. Instead, he leaned back in his chair, casual as he pleased. “Last time, you burned down Beth’s Burgers and took their cash. That’s the only reason you’re here. You won’t do the same to us, kid. Trust me, you don’t want the Crows holding grudges. Ever seen a crow holding a grudge? It’s bad.”
I let the silence hang heavy for a moment before letting a slow grin stretch across my face. “Don’t test me. Grudge? There’s no need for any if each side holds their end of the bargain.”
I left the room without another word, the hallway outside feeling colder than it should. My pulse was steady, but my mind was a storm. Crow knew my name, my face, and where I slept at night.
Shit had officially hit the fan.
11:03 p.m.
Time sure moved quickly.
It was almost midnight when I stepped out of the precinct. The air was sharp, cool, carrying that faint tang of rain that never quite reached the ground. Streetlights painted the sidewalk in long shadows, and there she was, leaning casually against the red sports car, hair back to its shimmering silver, arms crossed like she’d been waiting for hours.
Silver straightened as soon as she spotted me, her smile soft but bright enough to cut through the night. “I’m driving,” she said, already reaching for the keys in her pocket.
I arched an eyebrow, playing it casual despite the dull ache in my jaw from Windbreaker’s earlier greeting. “Sure,” I said, walking past her.
She opened the passenger-side door for me, her hand brushing mine briefly as if by accident.
“Wow,” I muttered as I slid inside. “Such a gentlewoman.”
She tilted her head, that quiet, almost bashful smile curving her lips. It made something tight in my chest loosen, just for a moment. Man, I could never get tired of that smile.
The engine hummed as she eased us out of the parking lot, headlights sweeping over the cracked asphalt. The city stretched ahead, but my attention kept drifting to her, the way the dashboard lights softened her features, made her look… untouchable.
I leaned back, voice quiet but edged with curiosity. “Why are you staying with me, Silver?”
Her hands tightened slightly on the wheel, though her expression stayed calm. “Because,” she said, her voice steady, “I fell in love at first sight.”
I blinked, caught off guard, then let out a small, sharp laugh before I could stop myself.
Her brows furrowed, and she threw me a glance from the corner of her eye. “Something funny?”
“Nothing,” I said quickly, though the smile tugging at my lips wouldn’t die. “I just find it… curious. I took the chip out of your neck, Silver. Told you to move on. Hell, I even gave you enough money to start over somewhere far away. And yet…” I gestured vaguely toward her, “…here you are.”
She shook her head, her hair catching the glow of the dashboard like threads of moonlight. “That’s just how much I’m head over heels for you.”
I looked at her for a long moment, silent, until she added, almost too casually, “If you told me to kill myself, I’d do it.”
The words hit like a fist to the gut. My mouth went dry, and I grimaced. “There’s no need for that,” I said, my voice firmer than I intended. “I love you… just enough. Don’t ever say something like that again.”
Silver’s grip on the wheel loosened, and her lips curved again, softer this time, tinged with something almost sad. “Alright,” she murmured. “But you have to promise me, you won’t die before me, okay?”
“No. We’re gonna live forever.”
Silver looked offended, but then she laughed.
We drove in silence for a while, the city blurring past us in streaks of neon and shadow. Then I reached into my jacket, pulled out the folder Detective Batista had slid across the table earlier, and showed it to her.
“Go to this address,” I said.
Her eyes flicked to me before lowering to the folder. “What’s this?”
“A job,” I answered, watching the streets narrow as we turned off the main road. “Not necessarily high-risk. Single target. An unregistered superhuman.” I paused, then added, “An empath. Like you.”
She looked at the , quiet, thoughtful, and I could almost feel the gears turning in her head as she read.
I didn’t say anything else. Instead, I let my body loosen, my form phasing through the passenger seat and sliding seamlessly toward the back of the car. The metal around me blurred and then solidified as I reappeared in the trunk space, crouched in the dim orange glow of the small interior light.
With practiced ease, I stripped out of my civilian clothes and into the suit, matte-black fabric hugging every line of muscle, the tailored jacket falling neatly over the reinforced vest, the slim utility belt clasping around my waist. I pulled the porcelain mask from its secure case, the cracks stitched together like spiderwebs, and pressed it to my face. The bonnet mask followed intangibly, snug against my skin, the stitched seams framing my jaw as the wide-brimmed hat settled over everything in superimposed intangibility.
By the time I phased back through the seat, settling once again in the passenger side, the transformation was complete. Eclipse sat where Nick had been.
"I will make quick work of this, and then we can have our date.”