I’m trans. Quarantine is still pushing strong. I open my Zoom call for a musical theatre group meeting. I got two hours of sleep, not consecutive. I’m grumpy. I unmute. “Today has just been not my day. I’ve had no Monster drink. Ran out of books to read, and the only thing keeping me going is the fact that I’m currently wearing three socks.” My duet partner, my crush, the only other trans guy shoves his hands in his face and I look upon a screen of confused faces.
Summary: Victor Zsasz hasn’t seen Pandora Mills in a few years. Not since before this all started. But now that she’s back, he can tell… she’s back for revenge. Maybe she’ll spare a few bullets for her Ex.
Chapter one //
Victor Zsasz X OC
Tags: @klbwriting, @taintedmarker, @themasterplanner (If you want to be on the tag list, inbox me, I’ll start a new one)
~~~~~
Chapter two:
Pandora expected him to show up sooner than this. He honestly hesitated till now? He really was paranoid… for good reason. Victor Zsasz appeared in her peripheral as she walked the park for the fourth time. She honestly had to try to be an easy target. Not that he would shoot. Victor Zsasz knew better. Besides, the way he looked at her, she wasn’t in for a fight. Not right off the bat.
He didn’t want to attack her.
“Took you long enough.” She threw over her shoulder as she finished paying for her coffee off a small truck that sat along the edge of the Gotham City Park. Victor said nothing as she took her iced coffee and walked to her right. He followed. Pandora thought about jumping him, pinning him to the ground, just to see how he would react. But when she turned to look at him, he stepped backwards.
“Nothing? You follow me then give ME the cold shoulder?” She sneered.
“You’ve been gone for a while.” He blurted out. Pandora turned to face him completely. Victor Zsasz was still the same Zsasz she knew before she left Gotham. There was a time in her life when she had every inch of him memorized. Now she wondered if anything changed at all in this town.
“That’s what you’re going with?” She shot back at him with disgust. Pandora sucked on the straw in her cold drink hard, her eyes on him. He didn’t flinch, his eyes didn’t go to her lips. There was a time when he used to watch everything her mouth did. Now it was like he stared at a ghost he wasn’t sure was real.
“I don’t know what you want.”
“Oh, and that’s going to stay that way.” Pandora flipped from her scowl to a bright smile. His eyes looked over her face, she could see the physical toll her presence took on him. Good. “You haven’t changed, even a little.”
“You have.” He stepped closer. Pandora sent him a sharp look before turning on her heel. She marched across the pathway till she was at an opening in the trees. She turned and walked down the soft grass. Morning dew licked at her ankles as grass decorated her heels. A huge change in her was the heels. Young, naive, in love Pandora would never be caught in heels. It was boots and tactical shoes only. New Pandora could kill someone just as efficiently in six inch pumps as she could in battle boots.
She stopped at a picnic table and sat her coffee down upon it. Then propped herself up onto the table itself, her legs dangling over the edge. Victor kept up with her, as always, silent and eyes watching her like a hawk.
“What did you expect to happen?”
“I thought you’d never come back.” He murmured. She honestly wanted to smack him. To see if the real Victor Zsasz woke up from within the shocked shell of a man before her. Not that he was any less of a danger to her now than he ever was. He may not have changed, but that didn’t alleviate any of his threat to her.
“I’m not allowed to come home?” She cocked a brow at him.
“That’s not it.” He growled, his hairless brows knitted and eyes narrowed. “You left, for years, no word, no indication you were alive.”
“I’m sorry, last time I checked, black ops didn’t exactly have a phone home option.” Pandora snapped, “Besides, when I left, you weren’t exactly taking my calls.”
“You hated me.”
“You’re damn right!” Pandora pushed off the table, standing right in his face. His body coiled up. Like a snake, ready to strike. Pandora loved the way his body curled just slightly, the way his eyes took in all options for attack and retreat if needed. How strategic he always was.
He was silent as she held back. There was a moment he waited to see if she would strike. When he was convinced she was to hit, he relaxed and stepped up to close the space between them. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m home, and I’m looking for work. A girl’s gotta pay rent.” She sneered darkly up at him. Victor’s hands clenched in his leather gloves. Still always the suit and vest type. A stylish killer. Pandora had once been someone who wore just basic attire. Nothing flashy, nothing exotic, just to get the job done. Now she sported skirts and pantsuits, vests and blouses. She looked like a professional in the city, with the added plus of two pistols, three switch blades, and an attitude of a Rottweiler in attack mode.
“Penguin is off limits.”
Pandora smirked and leaned back on her heels. “Oh? So… why did he call this morning, asking if my schedule was open tonight?”
Victor’s eyes widened.
“Looks like you got some competition as the assassin of Gotham.” Pandora moved back to her table and propped herself back up on it. Taking her iced coffee, she took the straw in her mouth and took a sip. His eyes went to the straw this time, but they weren’t full of hunger or lust like it had been once. Now it was anger. “You’ve gone soft.”
“You don’t know anything.” He stormed up to the table, a slap of his hands to the top of it. Pandora broke out in a cat like grin. Victor reeled back, realizing his mistake. It was written all over his face. He’d shown his exposed nerve. Everyone had one, and his was right there. In his pride, deep under where most would lash out.
“Oh, I know that you are just a puppet to the mobsters. You could run this city into the ground, and yet you just sit back and take your orders like the good doggy you are.” Pandora put her cup down and leaned forward so her face was close. Closer than it had been in a long time. “Go home, Victor, your collar’s showing.”
His face pinched up in anger, but he shoved past her. Pandora watched in wicked glee that he disappeared into the trees.
The truth was, she missed this place.
It has been a long time, atleast a good 10 years since she has seen the city and yet it was still the same city. Different Mobsters, different cops, same bullshit. And she missed it. She missed the cat and mouse games, she missed the danger of guns and knives to her throat. But the nostalgia wasn’t enough, she wanted payback.
Falcone got what he deserved…
But Victor Zsasz’s punishment would come slow and painfully. The same way he ruined everything, she would ruin him. It was time to be the player… not the played.
~~~~~
Victor stood inside his apartment, his hands clenched hard at his sides. There was a bomb inside him, it threatened to explode. He needed to defuse it. If he let it get to him, he would slip. Victor Zsasz never slipped. Instead he peeled off his gloves. Breathing in and letting it out slowly as he did so. He lay them on the table to his right. His hands shook as he pulled and loosened his tie.
Counting down, 10… he put the tie onto the table and began to unbutton his vest. 9… She was there, hands on his belt loop, smiling up at him happily. The room was dark except for two candles on the table. There was blood splattered all over her cheek, her eyes open and full of animalistic energy. Their guns lay scattered on the floor. 8…
Victor felt his body tense up as he blinked away the memory. The first kill. It was like playing a movie over and over in his head. They had been set up together by Falcone.
7... He needed a female to keep one target entertained while he crept inside and killed the other. Then they would both take care of the first one, after extracting some information from him. Pandora was that distraction, and she came wrapped up in a delicious bow. Daughter of a military man and woman, born and raised in Gotham. She could dissect a person with a butcher knife just as fast as Victor. And she had a problem with authority. Young and naive, she was so… everything he wanted. 6...
Victor was not ashamed to say he was smitten with her right away. 5...How she fit against him, how she grinned at him. How fast she learned to be an extension of his gun. They worked so well together. They cooked together even better. 4... Pandora was the small bubble of happiness that Victor indulged on every moment he could. 3...
But that bubble popped and he was the person who pushed her over the edge.
2…
1…
Victor Zsasz pushed himself into the shower and let the water beat over his head.
She was here to ruin him. She would be the person to do it.
He can’t let her do this. There was too much at stake. Victor had slipped in front of her earlier but that would never happen again. Pandora would just have to face him with her gun if she wanted a shot at him. Because no one would take this away from him…
