Not so Hot on the Trail
[“It was a bad week in a bad month; maybe even a bad year. Hell, if I was honest with myself I’d admit it was just a bad goddamn life. And today was a particularly bad day. I had just managed to escape a call closer than a 25¢ shave, but not without cost. For once I hadn’t been the only one to bring a gun to the fight, and the bastard with the metal arm had been hitting on all sixes.
Kevlar had caught the bullet meant for my heart, but the material wasn't designed to hold up against the kinetic force of a gunshot and I had the cracked rib to prove it. Only one other bullet had hit its mark— a layer of web over the hole in my inner thigh had slowed the stream of blood down to a trickle, but experience told me the bullet was lodged in my femur and it was going to stay there for nearly a day before my body spit it out.
Still, I had been in nastier scrapes than this…none of them came to mind at the current moment, but I was sure that was the case.”]
Noir was willing to admit that, perhaps, just this once, Dollface had been right and he would have been better off keeping his heaters in their holsters. He hadn’t expected the blond to have a piece of his own. He probably should have, normally would have, but he’d been a fair bit distracted for the last few days, the P.I. on the trail of a man who was proving hard to find.
Limping across the rooftop he had taken refuge on Noir groaned as he slumped against a large air conditioning unit. Reaching up he removed his fedora and dragged his mask off, thick black hair looking a mess as it was freed from the confines of the mask. Pale skin and dark eyes were revealed as well, his cheeks and jawline covered in semi-thick scruff, the man not having taken the time to shave since he had arrived in this universe.
A mix of pain and blood loss had Peter sliding down the metal box, wincing as the movement jarred his ribs. Once he made it to the floor the thirty-six-year-old dropped his hat and mask on his lap so that he could reach into his trench coat and pull out a half-empty carton of Lucky's. Tapping the carton against the heel of his palm he slid a cigarette out and between his lips, lighting it with a strike-anywhere match from another pocket.
Breathing the smoke in deep the man let his head fall back against the air-conditioning unit with a sigh. Today had not gone as well as he'd hoped. Not only had he lost a gunfight he had made precious little progress on his search for Erik, despite having asked around. It seemed like the man kept himself to himself for the most part. He was beginning to regret running off without getting the man's address first, or at least his phone number.
@markedmutant
