Black who? III

She was making it too easy…

"Yes, yes. It does." He ruthlessly told her. "It's more an African-American type of name to be honest, but hey you do you."

"..." For the second time tonight, she looked stunned, lost for words. Though this time, she wasn't openly gaping at him. Just stuck dumbstruck with a look of pure loss.

He wasn't even joking or exagerrating. Jack was pretty sure that somewhere, out there, there were at least a dozen strippers or call girls who went by the name of Canary, Black Canary – 'probably someone cosplaying as her too' – Nightingale or some other variations of the name.

This was part of the reason why he was having a hard time taking her seriously. Any government personnel worth his salt in charge of a hero's PR, his supe's name and costume design, would have pointed out the blatant connotation between the heroine's entire persona and a worker of the sex industry. Were it back home, neither her hero's outfit nor name would have made the cut.

Jack shouldn't, he knew that he absolutely shouldn't underestimate someone based on appearance or name. However, it was hard not to when the woman concerned was dressed like the perfect caricature of a female hero drawn by a hentai artist. From all indications, the woman was a good heroine, really. Reliable, responsible, strong and dependable. A long-time hero who has proven herself and an excellent martial artist. Above all, she was a meta-human with a sonic-sound-based ability. An emitter's type supe. Someone who shouldn't be underestimated. If both of them didn't use their powers, she'd wipe the floor with him as his skill in hand-to-hand combats was painfully lacking.

Yet… "Seriously, why did you choose the name Black Canary as your hero's name tho? Of all the birds of songs you could choose, you settle for the one which died first, sacrificed to detect the presence of toxic fumes in mines…" Jack still couldn't bring himself to take her seriously right now. "Add to that the way you dress and your entire persona just doesn't scream 'badass hero, don't fuck around with'."

In her defense, the way she was scantily dressed might be totally on purpose and done so to distract an opponent. God knew that her appearance at first did with him. Still, in his opinion, seeing as she wasn't an Augmented with enhanced physical attributes, the trade-off of protection to inflict a distracted status effect wasn't worth it. Any stray bullet and she would either be dead or out of commission in a fight.

Black Canary furiously glared at him, silently bristling at the dig. Clenching her hands into a fist, she finally took a step back, teeth grinding in frustration. But soon, her looks of anger evaporated as soon as it came, whisked away and replaced by a small, serene smile, bleeding with satisfaction.

"So, you did indeed know who I was huh… " She stated, having picked up on his small slip-up. Not that it mattered at this point. "Good God, I'm getting riled up by a nobody," she laughed sharply. "Congratulations are in order it seems." The short-stack heroine directed a small smirk at him, "Good job for that. I can respect it, seeing as it has worked like a charm, I admit. This once, I will forgive you for the impertinence. Still, no matter what you think of my name or intentions–"

"You were literally in my face, trying to force me down to your level," Jack snickered, interrupting her – which had the effect of making her pursed her lips. "I'm still not hearing any apologies for that by the way. I should be the one who has to forgive you. Not the other way around. You committed some first-degree sexual assault shit on me after all."

Black Canary worked her jaw, opened and closed her mouth multiple times as if waiting to say something before ultimately settling on saying, "Still," and making a pause – deftly ignoring his comment. She was all but daring him with her eyes to say something. Jack was tempted to but he feared she would do something drastic so he didn't push his luck this time. Satisfied, she continued. "There's the matter of your presence in the city to talk about."

'Ah, so it came.' He thought with some grimness. The whole reason behind his presence here. Why she placed that special delivery order and made him join her all the way up there, consequently doing some kind of power play.

She was going straight to the subject.

Jack had derailed the conversation – with success – as soon as she first mentioned something about him not exactly being an 'ordinary' delivery man. He did his best to annoy, antagonize and rile her up until she became so fed up with him that she would rather pay then dismiss him than keep interacting with him.

However, it seemed like it wouldn't be the case.

Hum, he could still continue roasting her supe's name and get-up but it might get old rather quickly – he was a good comedian, not a reddit one, so recycling the same jokes over and over again wasn't his style when after the third time, the joke would be stale – especially if she chose to ignore his words and simply refuse to get rile up again.

Or decides to teach him a lesson and slap the shit out of him.

'How annoying,'

It was time to face the music, it seemed. Jack would rather keep teasing the shit out of the smoll, older woman but oh well.

"So," Seeing as he remained silent, it emboldened her to push. "I heard a lot about you." She leadingly said, making a pointing pause.

"Huh huh."

"Lorenzo's new delivery man. A mercenary for hire coming from Russia. A magic user hailing from an alien world. A new meta-human with the power of telekinesis. Or simply a dude who lucks out by getting his hands on some advanced tech, going around cosplaying as a character from the video game Fallout New-vegas." Black Canary softly whispered, her voice carrying through the wind even while she was circling him like a vulture. "A lot of rumors concerning your origin are circulating around. One day, you were a nobody, an unknown, someone who's never been sighted in Gotham before, and the next week, you're the talk of The Bowery, Crime Alley and Burnley," she paused, smirking. "So, tell me, who are you truly… Rule?"

A brief look of surprise flashed across his face but it disappeared quickly.

As far as most people were concerned, he went by The Delivery Guy. Lorenzo was the only person who he directly told his supe's name. From there, he told it to some people who had specifically asked after him. For her to have heard it… she's been keeping an eye on him or made her research, that's for sure.

"I'm the Delivery Guy, duh." Jack drily replied, voice flat. "You literally said so yourself, I'm Lorenzo's new delivery man."

"Now, you're being purposely dense," she pursed her lips at his answer. "You know what I'm talking about; what I'm asking. Who are you and where do you come from?"

He rolled his eyes and let out a sigh, "Woman, I'm just some nigga in armor making deliveries. The fuck else there is to it? The fuck do you want me to say more?" The game of deflect, deflect, deflect and deflect, was on.

"Well, for starters, I'd like to get a straight answer to my question. I'd also like to know what you're planning to do in Gotham," Black Canary sassily answered. Yet, there was no mistaking the certain edge in her words, an idle threat hanging around that frankly, he didn't care about at all. "What are you doing in Crime Alley and Burnley?"

Jack stared at her, wondering if she was stupid, deaf or had low comprehension. 'Maybe all three,' he thought. With a dash of autism added on top.

Besides the fact that he didn't have any nefarious plot for the city, or was out looking to purposely fuck with villains or heroes, he wasn't going to answer any of her questions with anything but the most obvious answer.

"Delivering pizzas…?" He drawled with contemptuous ease. "What else would I do…? What else am I currently doing even right now? Seriously, I have more deliveries to make so can we just wrap all of this, please? Your pizza is going to become cold as it is. Yours and that of everyones!"

"You want me to believe that some 'nigga in armor' with powers is doing nothing else than working a minimal-wage job delivering pizzas…?" She questioned incredulously, not fearing the power of cancel culture. "You want me to believe that?"

"Believe what you want, I'm not here to convince you of anything, miss stripper." Her eyebrow twitched and it brought a smile to his lips. "I'm here to deliver your order, let me do my job. Sooo… about that payment, what it's going to be? Cash or debit?"

He already knew it would be debit in her case. She has no cash on her and the presence of what seemed like a small plastic card in her left jacket's pocket, told him this much.

"Look, I'm only worried about what your presence in the city entails. A meta-human like you working a high-profile job for a vulnerable target like Lorenzo will attract attention. The wrong kind of attention. You might become a target recruit for some gangs, or one to be eliminated if you prove to be cumbersome." Upon seeing that she wasn't moving him with her authoritative approach, she changed track. "Even if you truly want to be left alone and continue to do your job, you won't be. Simply by sheer virtue that you're one of the rare unaffiliated meta-humans in town." It was curious how certain she was that he was a meta-human. "You either will be forced to pick a side, or leave the city altogether."

"And I suppose you're going to be one of those people who'll force me to pick a side or leave the city…?"

"I won't," she refuted. "I'm only warning you."

Jack would have been much more inclined to believe her if she hadn't tried less than one minute ago to interrogate and make him spit out any information about him. She might have been simply trying to glimpse the motivation(s) of a new unknown element as a hero, but it didn't blind him from the fact that she's been quite heavy-handed in her method.

Still, it didn't hurt to keep a veneer of politeness in cases like this and pretend to nod along with the given justification. "I understand where you're coming from." He did even though he was annoyed with her. From her game, to her intimidating act and impromptu interrogation. "Thanks for the warning. I'll keep it in mind."

"As long as you do, it should be fine when–"

A bright flash of light lit up the night sky as an ear-splitting sound of an explosion echoed into the distance, ringing up like thunder and interrupting their conversation. The entire building seemed to shake and rattle onto itself as an earthquake rocked through the foundation. A burst of hot air made its way through space, clashing against the chilly night air, and causing the temperature to rise.

Jack briefly wobbled before quickly regaining his footing.

"What was that?" He asked, turning around to look at the cause of the explosion.

The sky was on fire. Smoke was rising into the air, clogging the night sky with black smog even as he watched a huge skyscraper being set ablaze; the high-rise building bent out of shape. Even from there, he could feel the intensity and heat generated by the fire which was spreading across the area.

He heard the sound of static coming from his right and turned back to see Black Canary putting on a pair of earpieces.

"I saw the explosion… Firefly… I… in the area… I'll be there soon… got it…" After a one-sided discussion – at least on his part – Black Canary put back her earpieces in her jacket before striding to the edge of the building and pulling out a kind of gun.

'No, is this a… grappling gun?' Jack couldn't help but question what he was seeing.

"Seems like our little conversation has to be cut short," she told him. "Shame. Didn't even have the time to eat that Supreme Pizza."

Blinking, he shouted. "WAIT!" Startling her as he walked toward her. "Wait, wait, wait, wait." He repeated, lower this time.

"What?" She turned her head to regard him.

"I know that people are in dire need of help and you gotta rush to the scene to save them," he started. "But before you go, you gotta pay for that pizza."

She gave him a blank glance. "Really?"

At the sheer look of disbelief she was giving him, he felt his face flush. "W-well, euh… yeah." Uncharacteristically from the young rogue, he spluttered. "Look, you made me climb 20 floors to deliver that pizza. I could have just toss the shit on the entrance floor and fuck off. Instead, I personally came over here, the least you can do is pay me…" His voice grew smaller toward the end. "... and tip me."

She stared at him. "Seriously?"

"I'm dirt poor…" Jack turned his head away, giving a small lie. "It's the only legal job I can do that helps me pay the bills…"

Black Canary stared at him. Her regard said it all and he felt his face flushed behind his helmet despite himself.

He was about to say nevermind and tell her to just go but before he could, she angrily pulled out a small, blue credit card and slapped it against his chest. "Be quick!" She snapped.

"Huh, y-yes!" He quickly brought up his wrist-mounted GPS and navigated through its interface menu. Once he found the Mobile card machine's function, he entered into the app, and typed off the order's price before pointing the GPS to her.

She deftly swept through the options and swept her card, paying the bill, even as an invoice of the order was being printed out.

"Here's your receipt–"

"You can keep it," she cut him out before he could offer her the receipt. The oh-so-natural action he used to do by reflex, was done at an improper time considering the actual situation. As she pointed her grappling gun at a nearby, smaller building. "And just leave the pizza on the floor here!" Black Canary yelled, breaking into a small sprint and firing off a cable.

The cable launched into the air, the hook lodging itself on the nearby building's anchor as the woman leaped off of the office building and swung through the air in a show of aerial grace.

"Holy shit!" Jack watched her become a tiny dot in the distance as she swung from buildings to buildings and soon, she was out of his sight and sphere. "They really do travel by swinging from building to building with an honest-to-goddamn grappling gun…"

He read this on the equivalent of this world's wikipedia. Batman and most of the non-supe heroes affiliated with him, tended to swing from building to building, travelling through the air and crossing vast distances like this while using a fucking grappling gun of all things.

It was a ludicrous thing to conceive and yet, he just witnessed Black Canary jump off a 20-storey high building and swing herself from building to building. The fact that the grappling gun managed to support her weight and carry her momentum…

'Ridiculous.'

It has to be Genius tech, he thought.

Humming, Jack watched for more time as two dozen red and blue lights raced through the streets of Gotham in the direction of the blazing fire which he could tell by its dwindling intensity, was already being put out.

However, after some time, he grew tired of the spectacle and decided to gently drop the pizza on the ground, finally preparing to leave the scene himself. It was while idly looking at the receipt between his hands that he noticed a small detail.

Jack blinked.

"Goddamn it!" And swore. "The fucking bitch swept no on leaving a tip!"

After all the trouble he went through!