you don’t get far in tim’s line of work if you don’t have some sense of awareness - an assassin who can’t watch their own back is liable to end up deader than their target should - so tim notices when someone is on his tail this evening . it doesn’t hurt that the presence makes the hair raise on every inch of his body , something like static tingling over his skin as he keeps moving , steps falling lightly as he trails his mark through the streets . the man’s abusive , both to his wife and his mistress , and the two had worked together to hire shikra for this job , which he’d happily accepted .
the route he travels from drinking with his friends says he’s heading for his mistress’ home tonight , stumbling slightly , and it doesn’t take much for tim to pass him by , bumping into him and sinking a knife into his belly that the man hardly realizes is there - after all , shockingly few people realize they’ve been stabbed until they see the wound . withdrawing the blade , tim moves past him , making his way to an alley and up a fire escape to watch him stumble further through the crowd , breathing growing rapid and movements frantic as he seems to realize that the ache in his stomach isn’t from too much liquor and not enough food .
he leans heavily against a lamppost and begins to retch as tim watches , washes of the night’s inebriation mixed with blood before he finally collapses , a few of the other people on the street moving to his side , but tim knows he won’t make it - blood thinned by the alcohol , he’s going to bleed out before anyone can arrive to stabilize him , and , while tim still snaps his usual photo from his perch , he doesn’t doubt the wife will receive the devastating news from a police officer this evening .
good . now he only has his tail to deal with .
Bart has to admit, that kind of tactic is effective. It’s not overly flashy, and it got the job done without drawing attention to the assassin. No one’s going to know who killed this guy. Bart wonders idly what he did and who he pissed off and how much money the assassin made. He’s clearly an assassin, that kind of precision and fluid execution- that wasn’t a crime of passion.
Zipping around, keeping to the shadows, up along buildings and watching over the sides of rooftops, Bart keeps an eye on things, and when the assassin breaks off to either head for another job, or back to a safehouse, Bart doesn’t waste time trailing behind him.
A predator this good knows he’s here.
With a static rush, he turns himself around the hitman, stopping on a dime to smile at him, eyebrows high. He’s not wearing his uniform, instead, worn jeans and a yellow and red light jacket.
❝ That was pretty good. Did you leave a blood trail from the knife? He never saw it coming. ❞ A few steps closer, ❝ He barfed up so much blood, too. ❞
