Lucian was testing various applications of Blackwhip in the open space before his apartment building.
As striking weapons, they were exceptional. He lashed at bottles and loose stones by swinging the Vestige like an actual whip, and most were crushed into dust at the point of contact, with larger fragments blasting away like shrapnel.
As expected, they were just as good at binding things. He could hold together a sizeable clump of steel and concrete by wrapping them in a Blackwhip net, dragging them around at the same time. The mass was easily four or five times his own volume—the sheer weight need not be stated.
It was as he was sticking to a wall using Blackwhip alone, applying it like some sort of suction cup, that his phone rang. He leapt back up to his apartment and entered, and his heart skipped a beat seeing that Maxie had finally responded.
M: 'okay this might sound like a weird question'
M: 'did you meet my brother and sister?'
Lucian stared down at his phone, thinking, 'Ah... so they were related.'
L: 'I might've? I met a man and woman that looked kinda like you. What were their names?'
M: 'did they tell you?'
'Cautious. That's good. Let's give her what she wants to know.'
L: 'Yeah, they kinda just showed up earlier. Bailey and Brodie?'
M: 'what did they look like?'
L: 'Bailey honestly kinda just looked like you, but bigger. Brodie didn't have the same red hair as you and your sister, and he had to walk in crutches. He did have green eyes, though.'
M: 'thats them! bailey told me they moved in next to u??'
L: 'Right, yeah. Friend of mine brought them over, said they needed a place to stay. I'm sorry about the fire...'
There was no response for a bit, maybe a minute or two. Luckily, it didn't seem like Lucian had pressed any wrong buttons.
M: 'thank you, luce'
M: 'but werent you staying at the restaurant?'
L: 'I actually found a new place a few days ago and moved in.'
M: 'bailey said you were squatting?'
L: 'Yeah... it's this abandoned compound not far south of Inigo's. Place is close by the river.'
M: 'is it safe over there?'
L: 'Relatively, yeah. It's basically completely deserted. People come by sometimes, but they sorta just hang out on the edges. Spotted some people staying in the other buildings, but only a handful. Planning to move in with your siblings?'
Maxie took a bit to respond again.
M: 'if they think its safe, i should'
M: 'i cant just stay at tammys forever after all'
L: 'Tammy's the girl you were with last night, right? She picked you up after the whole Robinson Park thing.'
M: 'yeah'
M: 'shes a good friend but i dont want it to look like im just freeloading off of her family'
...
Lucian's conversation with Maxie continued for a while, and they got to talking about each other's personal lives a bit more. She had quite a bit to tell, and Lucian was surprised that she would open up so easily.
Things eventually came to a point where they talked about each other's home lives.
Well, Maxie's for the most part. In Lucian's eyes, she might as well have been homeless this whole time. It looked like the only reason they could even stay at the apartment they were 'renting' was because Connor was in the owners' good graces pushing hard drugs for them, and most of the profits didn't even go to the Steeles in the end.
Lucian had to reveal portions of his own life as well; Maxie ended up asking him what things were like before he had to live alone. He had no problem telling, since it was all in a literal past life by that point.
His own family's financial status wasn't too far from Maxie's, though there were massive differences in their immediate circumstances. One of them being that they actually stayed in a small church under the priest's good graces during their most trying times.
They lived in a largely Catholic community, so it wasn't a strange situation. Lucian himself wasn't too big in the faith, and neither was his mother, but his father and sisters were.
He told fond stories of them—how his father was a big oaf and that his mother wore the pants in their relationship. How Lucian himself acted as the main parent for his sisters, because their actual parents had to work extra hard to get the family back up on their feet. How his sisters both wanted to be doctors, though in different specialties. How they constantly bombarded him with medical knowledge that they'd been studying up on long before they even had to think about college...
In the end, he insinuated that his entire family had perished. The fact of the matter was, Lucian was the only one to die, and everyone lived on. The Headmaster had told him as much when they first met. He wasn't sure if Maxie would ever learn that truth, but that was that.
By the end of their lengthy text conversation, Lucian managed to convince Maxie to move in with her siblings in the squatting zone. In the end, it really was safer than the actual drug den that she used to live in, and he could keep a much closer eye on her if she were just two doors down.
They hadn't known each other for long, but that girl was seriously growing on him. His feelings for her weren't quite love-at-first-sight—more like an immediate crush—but his heart was developing something serious for her quite fast.
On top of that were the values that his parents had instilled in him. Hell, he would even give some credit to Father Ramon who had taken his family in. He would be damned if he didn't at least try to do something for Maxine, especially having the literal powers that he had been granted in his rebirth.
...
Not much later, Maxie had to turn in for bed. School would be back that day, but she claimed to not really care anymore. If anybody had to ask, she would just say that she was still sick from a fever or something like that. Most of her professors wouldn't care.
As for Lucian, he decided to get a nap in preparation for work in the morning.
◎ ◉ ◎
Nightwing. Former Robin, 'Boy Wonder.'
Richard John "Dick" Grayson.
He received a summons from Batman, instructing him to come to the Wayne Manor's Batcave. The message wasn't too detailed, and it hadn't been tagged as 'urgent' either. All he knew was that it involved Venom—possibly Bane, but the chances weren't likely. It wasn't like he had a monopoly of the substance.
The situation was also centered on the new vigilante that he had caught wind of: the Manticore, or 'man-eater' to some, who emerged in Gotham in the middle of October.
Intrigued, Nightwing hopped on the Wingcycle—his very own custom-built superbike—and drove to the manor the very sunset after he received the message.
...
Nightwing entered the Batcave through the waterfall entrance. He was greeted to the sight of the massive monitor array in the far back displaying an assortment of files.
He made his way over, greeting Alfred as he passed by, who bowed respectfully in return.
"It's good to have you back in the manor, Master Dick."
He flashed a smile in response to the Alfred's words. "No place like home."
Without turning around, Batman acknowledged his son when he drew near enough. "Nightwing," he said.
"I'm here. What's going on?"
He received a quick rundown of what Batman knew so far:
One Lucian Albrecht, otherwise known as the Manticore, has been targeted by a man named Aleck Donovan.
Batman believed that he was targeted for his viability for a new experimental variant of Venom, which he had definite proof that Aleck had been funding and planning himself. He even had a team of less-than-reputable scientific minds working on it day and night.
"That explains why Bane wasn't likely to be involved," Nightwing commented after the explanation. But something bothered him, so he had to ask, "We know that the Manticore's in the center of all this, but why do you only have a bespoke file on him?"
"That's because he has no records" Batman answered. "His 'existence' only goes as far back as two weeks and a few days."
Nightwing narrowed his eyes in intrigue. "Only a couple of weeks?"
Batman nodded. "Not even a single sighting of him before then? No school records, medical, not even criminal?"
Batman shook his head and pulled up an image of Lucian from the day of his 'birth' in Gotham. It wasn't of him spawning in; rather, of when he was coincidentally at the scene where Batman stopped a mugging. The image was clear, but Lucian definitely wasn't in Batman's focus at the time. He just barely happened to be caught in the frame.
"This is one of the very first sightings of him ever recorded," Batman explained. "He should have appeared as his younger self in any form of earlier media, but this is the oldest record that we could find."
"It's like he just appeared one day..." Nightwing concluded.
◎ ◉ ◎
"Another day over...!" Lucian grunted while stretching, loosening up his muscles that had started feeling stiff doing mundane work all day.
'I didn't expect this to be a problem that came with a superhuman physique...'
[ A creature's body requires work that is loosely proportional to its potential for exertion, ] Penny explained. [ If you didn't expend so much energy patrolling and fighting every night, you'd be feeling like this all day every day. ]
Silently in wonder at the revelation, Lucian turned around as the door to the restaurant opened behind him. Out came Maxie, who had come in to work after getting him to help her train once more at the gym, earlier in the morning.
"Ready to go to your new home?"
Maxie nodded. "Yeah, I got my stuff right here." In her hands was the same eco-bag that she had gotten her supplies in two nights ago.
"Alright, let's go then. You wanna walk, or do we get a cab?"
Maxie turned her gaze to the side before answering, seemingly trying to assess the roads before coming to a conclusion.
"Let's just walk," she decided. "I'm actually feeling kinda bored, so... I'm thinking we should take the scenic route."
Lucian smiled slightly and offered a hand. Maxie flushed a little, looking down at the ground before placing hers in it.
Seeing the adorable misunderstanding, Lucian couldn't help but titter. "I was offering to carry the stuff for you, but if you insist~"
Surprisingly, Maxie didn't withdraw. She instead steeled her expression, huffed, and tightened her grip.
'This girl's gonna be the death of me in the best way possible.'
...
Maxie let Lucian lead her to the place he claimed to be staying at. The area around their workplace had already darkened, but out by the river, the sun could still be seen setting—it wasn't obscured by Gotham's smog cloud, nor was it hidden by the skyline because of the angle. This allowed for a stunning view of the squatting zone, with the weathered and partially demolished buildings highlighted by the warm, golden glow. Even Finger River glistened like fine silk threads riding a gentle breeze.
Lucian led her down a winding path through rubble, which was so intricate that she was sure no normal person could find it.
'This reminds me of when Luce showed me his stash of money,' she thought.
Eventually, they made it past the hidden foot path, which led to a half-destroyed apartment building with its right side mostly intact. The space before it had been cleared out—the rubble that used to litter the place was probably used in Lucian's secret trail. Since the two of them were still some distance away from the building, they talked some more along the way.
"This place doesn't look so bad," she said with a hopefulness in her voice.
"It can get pretty great once you've gotten used to it," Lucian agreed. "I actually plan to build a garden up on the roof. See how it's flat? We have access to it from the stairwell, so yeah."
Staring up at him, Maxie asked, "What kind of garden?" as they continued walking.
She knew that her brother grew cannabis in the houses of several friends to then sell to his customers, so maybe Lucian made some extra money that way as well?
"Not sure yet," Lucian answered. "The most practical would be a vegetable garden, but I don't know what would grow well here—if anything could grow at all—and which season... if I had more resources, I could just build a greenhouse, but oh well."
Lucian's answer was a bit surprising. In his situation, Maxie would have never thought of anything near that. She would've been focused on keeping the place secure and getting 'ordinary' work to ensure she was fed.
Sure, Lucian's idea was built on sustainability as well, but the greenhouse seemed... luxurious to her. It sounded like something that only those with a lot of time and resources could think about. Then again, Lucian did have an abundance of time. Maybe it was that?
"Here we are," Lucian said, stopping right in front of the partially-demolished apartment building. It had five levels, and one room stuck out to Maxie. It was on the third floor, and the windows had metal bars and rails protecting them.
"Do you live in that one?" she asked, pointing at the reinforced room.
"Yeah, I do."
"When did it get like that?"
"I worked at it for... two nights and a day? There was a lot of stuff just lying around in the area, and I took what I could. I had some help from a friend too, so it wasn't hard."
Maxie accepted the explanation for the moment, considering what she had heard from Bailey, and ascended the stairwell with Lucian in the lead. Up on the third floor, he seemed to be taking her to his apartment, but stopped just two doors away from it.
He knocked, and surprisingly, Bailey opened up.
"Max!"
Bailey practically leapt out of the threshold and pulled her sister into a big, tight hug. It was then that Maxie realized—she had never let go of Lucian's hand the entire time. It only came into her attention after he backed up a bit to give them some space. Her hand felt... unusually empty and cold once they separated.
"I'll give you two some time to catch up," said Lucian. "If you need anything, I'll be inside until seven."
Max and Bailey watched him retreat into his unit. Once he was 'gone,' Bailey fixed her sister one of those wide, teasing grins.
"I saw that, you know~?"
"Saw what?" Maxie furrowed her brows.
"You've been holding his hand this whole time, huh?"