"Wake up." I slapped Bane across the face. He didn't.
"I said wake up!" I stamped down, hard, right where it would make a grown man swear he'd never been a man again. Bane's eyes fluttered open. Superboy slammed a huge hand over his mouth to stop whatever guttural roar he was about to let out.
"Listen up, BITCH!," I said, leaning down so my skull-mask was inches from his nose. "You're going to give us information. You make the right noises and I might let you keep the rest of your freedom."
Superboy eased his grip and Bane stared at me like he wanted to peel me in half and make paper mâché out of my spine.
"I'm going to kill you, puta," He curse.
I pressed my fingers into his eye sockets just enough to make him scream. Superboy slapped his huge hand over Bane's mouth again, eyes wide—part disgust, part "what have we got on our team?"—and looked at me like I'd graduated from sadistic torturer school.
"Can you read his mind, M'gann?" I asked, because when you've got a headache of a puzzle you might as well use the telepath on staff.
"Okay." She bent forward, soft and focused, her eyes like moons. For a second the air thrummed as her empathy tuned into him.
She twitched back. "There's… football. Spanish commentary. Scores. He's… reciting fútbol stats."
Of course he was. Of course the man who slams continents together to make a point is hiding his secrets behind passable, macho sports commentary. Classic misdirection.
I raised an eyebrow. "That's it?"
"She's trying," Superboy said, voice rough. "He's blocking her."
I shrugged like a man whose patience had already been stretched into thin wire. "I can help with that."
I fumbled at my belt—because of course I'd pinched something useful—and produced a can of bug spray I'd snagged from a convenience stall in Metropolis. [Baygon]. The brand name was about as heroic as my résumé, but it had a satisfying hiss. I flipped the cap up, shoved the nozzle into Bane's slack mouth, and pressed.
HISSS~
"ATTANO!" Robin, Kid Flash, and Aqualad shouted in unison, aghast.
"Shut up!" I hissed back. "This is for science—and interrogation technique number three hundred and twelve: make them cough up the truth." Bane choked and sputtered, lungs convulsing. Tears ran down his cheeks. His mask rattled against his jaw. The venom tubes at his neck whooshed, fighting the foreign chemical. He gagged. He cursed. He bled profanity in a dozen languages.
For a blink, it was chaos—Miss Martian recoiling, Superboy trying to pry the can free, Robin snapping orders.
After enough hacking for theater, I elbowed him in the jaw. Hard. "Fuck it," I said, and he collapsed—unconscious, mouth still smeared with bug-spray foam. Superboy eased his grip, brow knotted between disgust and relief.
Miss Martian sank closer, calm and clinical. With Bane out like a light, she slid into his mind like someone picking a ripe mango: patient, precise, and hungry for what's inside. The telepathic fog cleared; images clicked into place.
"There's a maintenance corridor behind the southern processing vats," she said quietly. "A false wall—boulders stacked into an access point. It opens only with a palm-print scanner. Kobra's been redirecting shipments through that hatch into the old docks—northwest quadrant."
Robin's eyes sharpened. "So we need a print. No voice key. Good." Relief and focus tightened his features. "We prepare for entry."
I glanced down at the unconscious giant and then at my own gloved hand, where the Outsider's mark hummed like a private radio station. "We should've just let M'gann read him while he was Unconscious," I said, shrugging as if moral complicity were a minor wardrobe malfunction. "Would've saved a can of Baygon and a potentially embarrassing lawsuit."
Kid Flash made a face like he'd eaten something sour. "You—literally—forced deodorant into his mouth."
"Technically insecticide," I corrected. "Besides, it worked." I shifted my weight, nonchalant, and then decided to be extra useful: I grabbed a clean rag, wiped whatever foam was left from Bane's mouth, and peered at the big man's hands. "We need a print."
There was a beat of moral flinching—a collective intake of breath. Robin's lips pressed thin. "You're not—"
"Oh please," I said, rolling my eyes. "You want the scanner to accept a ghost? A photograph? A scanned copy? The maintenance panel wants skin. If you've got ethical qualms, I accept payment in therapy bills." I had my blade out before anyone could stage a protest, but I gave them the courtesy of not doing anything theatrical. Just pragmatic. Surgical.
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And once again, Robin had up and fucked off without bothering to tell anybody where he'd gone. My blood pressure shot up like a thermometer in a rave. First on the chopping block: Robin. Second: Batman, for failing to install a basic "don't vanish without telling the team" app in his protege. Expecting common sense from a man who dresses like a bat and punches weirdos was, frankly, ambitious.
"Why can't Robin just give us a heads-up?" I grumbled as we ghosted through the cavernous warehouse—pipes glinting, vats bubbling, the whole place smelling like bad chemistry and worse management.
"I'll go find him!" Kid Flash volunteered—but before he could zip off, he tripped and swallowed something. A hardened cow shit I'd prepared just in case I needed to be… well, an asshole.
Time hit that delicious, horrible pause where you can hear the world take a breath. Wally's eyes bugged. He choked. His face went cartoonishly betrayed.
Earlier, I'd prepared an artisanal lump—hardened cow shit, cemented for texture and maximum dignity damage—reserved for moments exactly like this.
Wally's pupils went white. Before he could do anything useful, I moved: a shadow's hand, fast and practical. I grabbed him, slammed him down, and pinned him to the floor so hard his swagger deflated.
"Listen up, you shit," I snarled. "You already caused trouble earlier. I don't want you messing up again, so behave. And what's in your mouth? Cemented cow shit." I grinned like a demon.
Fucking Kid Flash. I wanted this mission to be 100% stealth, but of course, he had to fuck it up. A sigh escaped my lips. Him tripping and eating shit wasn't a coincidence. I had to use [Bend Time] to freeze everything, trip the bastard, and make him eat the crap before he followed Robin and ditched us.
Wally's eyes bugged. His face turned pale, and for a second, it looked like his brain had quit mid-thought. Then, inevitably, the inevitable happened.
He vomited. A spectacular, horrifying arc that splashed across the concrete like a badly painted mural in a kindergarten gone rogue. Bits of hardened cow shit, now partially softened, joined the regurgitated mix. I stepped back, holding my nose under the skull mask and trying to suppress a laugh that threatened to erupt into full-blown maniacal cackling.
Miss Martian immediately hovered closer, green-tinted aura flaring. "Oh my—someone clean him up!" Her hands stretched toward him, telekinesis ready to absorb all offending matter into a convenient mental garbage chute.
Superboy, who until now had been staring blankly as if witnessing an alien ritual, gagged and took a step back. "Why… why did you… why… he—ugh! This is disgusting!"
"Technical term: enhanced stealth sabotage," I said, shrugging. "Also, science."
Aqualad, never one for theatrics—or maybe just always tired of my shit—groaned, his lips pressed tight. "Attano, this is… why?" he said, voice low tired, deadly calm. Then, with a flick of his fingers, water erupted from the pipes above the warehouse ceiling. A translucent cascade shot down like a rescue hose, splashing over Wally with precision and pressure that could have knocked a small goat over.
Wally gagged again, coughing, spitting, and flailing as the water diluted the horror in his mouth and hair. "H-Hey! That's… TOO MUCH WATER!"
"Relax," I said, leaning back against a crate and enjoying the spectacle. "It's called cleansing, my dear germ-laden speedster. You'll thank me when you don't smell like a fertilizer factory in the middle of a mission."
"Attano!" Aqualad barked, nostrils flaring. "Enough!"
I tilted my skull mask toward him and gave a slow, deliberate middle finger at Kid Flash. "Il stop when the resident speedster stop fucking us up."
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Robin returned just as I was about to start a lecture on proper mission hygiene—his cape fluttered, boots silent, but his sharp eyes told a story of information well-earned. He crouched beside me, whispering sharply, "I've got intel. Kobra… they've done something with Bane's Venom."
I raised an eyebrow beneath my skull mask. "Go on, Mr. Mysterious. Spill."
"They've enhanced it," Robin said, urgency in his voice. "Mixed it with something else—Cadmus Blockbuster serum. The cultists call it 'Kobra Venom.' Stronger, faster, more addictive. It's… lethal. Bane's formula was terrifying on its own. This? This is a weaponized nightmare."
"Cadmus Blockbuster, huh?" I muttered, circling him like a predator in a cheap horror flick. "So they're taking daddy's monster juice and throwing in lab-grade steroids. Charming. Did anyone tell them subtlety is a thing?"
"Nope," Robin said dryly. "Kobra doesn't really… do subtle."
I folded my arms over my chest, the skull mask tilting as I considered Robin's words. Cadmus Blockbuster serum. My gut tightened just thinking about it—Bane's Venom alone was a freight train of enhanced muscle and pain tolerance. Mix in Cadmus-grade biochemistry, and you had a nuclear option strapped to a man's skeleton. Lethal, addictive, and, apparently, now in cultist hands.
"Alright," I said, pacing slowly, enjoying the sound of my own boots against the concrete. "So Kobra didn't just hijack Bane's operation—they supercharged it. They're basically cooking meth with nuclear-grade steroids in vats and calling it a Sunday smoothie. Charming."
Robin gave me a sharp look, ears flicking under his cowl. "Attano… this isn't a joke. The Kobra Venom they're producing? One dose could turn a regular person into a Super-Bane in under a minute. They're unstable, hyper-aggressive, and virtually unkillable without heavy firepower."
I let out a low whistle behind the mask. "Unkillable Super-Banes? You mean my kind of party. Count me in."
Robin added. "Comms are jammed. Whatever they're running, it's blocking all outgoing signals. We're on our own for intel relay. No back-up calls, no satellite feeds. Nada."
"A helicopter," Superboy said, tension sharpening his tone. "Someone's landing nearby."
"Must be the buyers or whatever," I said, excitement creeping into my voice. "Or just Kobra being dramatic. Either way… fun."
I leaned slightly toward Aqualad, the resident voice of reason, green eyes glinting. "Alright, Aqualad, give your orders."
He took a breath, the calm before the storm, hands tightening into fists. "We need intel first. No rash moves. Find out who the buyer is, how much of the venom they're after, and if they brought muscle. Move carefully—observe without exposing yourselves."
I snapped my fingers under the mask. "Observe, infiltrate, intimidate… got it. Chaos with a subtle touch."
"Everyone pair up," Aqualad continued, voice crisp. "Robin, you're the point observer—get eyes on the helicopter and surrounding compound. Miss Martian, scan for any psychic resistance. Superboy and Attano—cover potential exits and any immediate threats. Kid Flash—stay put and do not swallow anything else. Understand?"
Wally gulped, eyes wide, nodding rapidly. "Y-Yeah. No swallowing, got it."
"Good. Let's move," Aqualad ordered. "Silent approach. We need to see who's here and why."
The team split efficiently, shadows in the dim, flickering light of the warehouse. I lingered just long enough to enjoy the symphony of chaos in my head—the distant thrum of the helicopter, the faint hum of vats, and the smell of chemical ambition.