Author's Note: I think something's wrong with Webnovel. Are you guys able to see this chapter and comment on it? Let me know if it's showing up properly for you!
The morning sun filtered through familiar curtains, casting golden patterns across rumpled sheets. Jay's internal clock told him it was nearly noon, but his body felt reluctant to leave the warmth of the bed where Domino lay curled against his chest, her coal-black hair spilled across his shoulder like spun midnight.
He'd unconsciously teleported them here in the throes of passion the night before, muscle memory bringing them to the apartment he'd abandoned months ago after Doom's broadcast had made him a target. The familiar walls and furniture felt like ghosts of a simpler time, when his biggest worry had been keeping his identity secret rather than healing entire nations on live television.
A sharp knock on the door made them both freeze.
"WHOEVER'S IN THERE!" came a heavily accented voice from the hallway, thick with Brooklyn attitude. "Keep it the hell down! Some of us got jobs to get to, and we don't need to hear your goddamn marathon session through the walls!"
Jay's face went crimson as the reality of their situation hit him. His senses had been so focused on Neena that he'd completely tuned out everything else. Including, apparently, how loud they'd been.
"Jesus Christ," the voice continued, building momentum like a freight train. "Young people these days got no consideration for others! I got Mrs. Patterson next door complaining her knickknacks fell off the shelf, and now she thinks we got an earthquake!"
Domino bit her lip, fighting a losing battle against laughter as Jay looked like he wanted to melt into the mattress. This was his landlord, Mr. Kowalski, the seventy-year-old Polish immigrant who'd rented him this place when he'd first started his civilian identity.
"And another thing!" Mr. Kowalski was just getting warmed up. "I don't know what kind of Olympic gymnastics you were doing up there, but my ceiling light is hanging sideways, and something definitely got thrown around!"
Jay started to shimmer with teleportation energy, ready to flee from the embarrassment, but Domino's hand on his chest stopped him.
"Don't you dare," she whispered, her mismatched eyes sparkling with mischief. "Face the music, hero."
Her phone buzzed insistently. The caller ID showed "Gorilla Man" with fifteen missed calls and twice as many unread messages.
Domino's expression shifted from playful to guilty. "Shit. I completely forgot about the team."
Even in the afterglow of their reunion, responsibility was calling.
"They've been trying to reach me since I disappeared from the party," she said, quickly typing responses. "They're probably worried I got kidnapped or finally snapped and went on a murder spree."
Jay propped himself up on one elbow, studying her profile as she texted. "How long were we..." He gestured at the bed, the room, the evidence of their reunion.
"The entire first day of the new year," Domino said with a slight blush. "We literally spent January first locked in this room."
A grin spread across Jay's face. "You know, some people believe that whatever you do on New Year's Day sets the tone for the whole year."
Domino's eyes narrowed dangerously as she caught his teasing tone. Quick as lightning, she pinched his arm hard enough to make him yelp.
"I like you taking charge," she said, her voice dropping to a purr that made his breath catch, "but keep that energy for our bed, mister."
The possessive 'our bed' made warmth bloom in his chest.
"I need to meet my team. You should probably stay here," Domino said, glancing toward the window where the busy street below promised recognition and complications. "After Latveria, you'll be spotted in seconds. That's attention neither of us needs."
Jay smiled, that mischievous look she'd come to know well. "I've got it covered, babe."
Light and shadow began to dance around him in subtle patterns, bending and refracting until his features shifted completely. His light brown skin became pale and forgettable, his distinctive bone structure morphing into the kind of face that disappeared in crowds.
"Damn," she breathed, reaching out to touch his face and watching her fingers pass through the mirage. "This would be incredibly useful in my line of work."
"Better you don't know all the applications," Jay said, returning to his normal appearance. "Some surprises are worth keeping."
Domino wrapped her arms around his neck, pulling him down for a kiss that tasted like promises and new beginnings. "Come with me then. I want my team to meet the man who's been keeping me busy."
They dressed quickly, Jay reactivating his disguise as they headed for the door. The morning had burned away into afternoon while they'd been wrapped up in each other.
On the street, Jay noticed how differently people moved around his disguised form.
"This is surreal," he muttered as they caught a cab to Queens.
"What is?"
"Being normal and Invisible." He watched pedestrians through the window. "I'd forgotten what that felt like."
Domino squeezed his hand. "Stick with me. I'm an expert at flying under the radar."
The cab dropped them outside a bar that looked like it had been designed by someone with trust issues and a grudge against natural lighting. The nameless establishment in Queens fit perfectly with the kind of place where mercenaries would conduct business: all dark corners and scarred wooden tables that had seen too many questionable deals.
What greeted Jay and Domino as they stepped through the door made him question every life choice that had led to this moment.
Hit-Monkey sat perched on the bar like a tiny, drunk overlord, a bottle of beer in each paw, chittering complaints about American alcohol quality. His perfect black suit was disheveled, his usually immaculate fur sticking up like he'd been electrocuted.
At a corner table, Gorilla Man and Machine Man had cornered a group of women who looked progressively more annoyed by the second.
"But seriously, ladies," Kenneth Hale was saying in his refined British accent, gesturing with arms that could bench press a car, "how many men can honestly say they've fought a gorilla and lived to tell about it? I'm quite literally an animal in bed, which makes me quite the catch if you want to experience some genuine BBC action."
"And I'm technically superior to human males in every measurable way," Aaron Stack added with metallic enthusiasm that somehow managed to sound perverted. "My stamina is unlimited, and I come with built-in customizable attachments for optimal pleasure delivery."
The women exchanged looks that clearly said 'get us out of here' and practically sprinted for the exit.
Across the room, Masacre had gathered a crowd of rough-looking bar patrons, gesticulating wildly as he preached.
"¡Hermanos!" he called out, his priest collar gleaming under the bar lights like a beacon of divine madness. "The word of Dios is clear! We must love our enemies, turn the other cheek, and then BLOW THEIR FUCKING HEADS OFF in the name of righteous justice! Sometimes Jesus needs backup with the smiting, sí?"
The crowd looked torn between religious reverence and complete confusion.
But the real spectacle was happening near the pool table. Deadpool and Slapstick had set up what appeared to be a carnival game designed in hell's basement.
A hand-painted sign read: "$20 TO PLAY - TRY AND HURT SLAPSTICK, WIN $1000! (Warning: May cause existential crisis regarding laws of physics and urge to chase roadrunners!!)"
A long line of eager participants stretched across the bar, each armed with increasingly creative weapons. Baseball bats, mallets, frying pans, and one particularly optimistic individual with a medieval flail.
A burly construction worker brought a sledgehammer down on Slapstick's head with enough force to crater concrete. Slapstick's eyes bulged out cartoonishly, complete with little birds tweeting around his flattened skull, before he accordion-folded back to normal with a perfect "BOING!" that seemed to come from thin air.
"NEXT!" Deadpool called out cheerfully, pocketing another twenty like he was running the world's most dangerous lemonade stand. "Step right up and test your might against cartoon physics!"
"Holy shit," Jay muttered, taking in the three-ring circus. "This is your team? I finally remember their antics at the party!"
Domino's eye twitched. "Oh, they are so fucking dead."
What followed was swift, merciless, and beautiful in its efficiency.
Within thirty seconds, all six members of the Mercs for Money were kneeling in a perfect line, hands behind their backs, sporting matching lumps on their heads that defied physics in Machine Man's and Slapstick's cases.
Domino stood before them like an angry mother discovering her kids had thrown a house party, smoke literally rising from her clenched fists.
"I am tired of your shit!" she began, her voice carrying the kind of authority that made grown killers whimper. "I leave you alone for ONE DAY, and I come back to find Hit-Monkey drunk off his ass, Kenneth and Aaron sexually harassing civilians, Masacre inciting a religious riot, and Wade running an illegal gambling operation!"
Jay bit his lip to keep from laughing. Domino in full protective mode was both terrifying and endearing.
"Can't you behave like actual adults instead of making me babysit you like overgrown children with anger issues?"
"In our defense," Gorilla Man said carefully, like he was defusing a bomb with his voice, "you did disappear without warning. We were... processing our anxiety inappropriately."
"And I was conducting legitimate research into my invulnerability," Slapstick added helpfully, managing to look innocent despite the chaos around him. "The data could revolutionize cartoon physics!"
Domino's glare could have melted steel. "Sit. Stay. And Shut the fuck up."
[A/N]: The next goal for a bonus chapter is a whopping 500 power stones! It seems tough, but I believe you guys!!
Support my work and get early access to 45+ chapters, exclusive content, and bonus material at my P@treon - Max_Striker.