(THE BLUE BEETLE OF BROCKTON BAY) CHAPTER TEN

Skidmark ran.

His boots pounded against pot-holed ground slick with rainwater and old oil, breath tearing raggedly from his lungs as he shoved past stacks of rusted pallets and dented shipping containers, the hard case clutched so tightly in one hand that his fingers had long since gone numb. Every instinct in his body screamed at him to keep moving, to keep running, to put as much distance between himself and that blue-armored monster as humanly possible before the thing decided it was done playing hero and started acting like what everyone knew it really was.

Because Adam Mustain might have been a lot of things, but he had never been stupid enough to think the man who killed Leviathan was ordinary

And now that same bastard was after him.

His heart hammered so violently it hurt, panic clawing at his chest with every desperate breath, and for the first time in a very long time Skidmark felt something he had spent years trying to bury beneath drugs, bravado, and enough noise to drown out his own thoughts.

Pure, animalistic fear.

He knew what this was.

He knew exactly what this felt like.

It was the same terror he had felt years ago when he was younger and dumber and still answered to Adam more often than Skidmark. Back before the tattoos, before the drugs, before the Merchants and the powers and the reputation. Before everyone started looking at him like he was somebody worth fearing.

Back when he had still thought life was fair.

That if you kept your head down and took enough punches and swallowed enough pride, eventually things would work out.

That had been before he learned better.

Before the alley behind the bar.

Before the blood.

Before the hospital.

Before fleeing to Brockton Bay.

His breath caught in his throat, but he shoved the thought away violently, almost tripping over his own feet in the process.

No. No, fuck that. He was not thinking about that right now.

Regret was an old friend to him, even older than most of the scars under his clothes. It lived in him, buried deep enough that most days he forgot it was there until something cracked him open and reminded him.

There were plenty of things he regretted.

He regretted being weak when it mattered.

He regretted trusting people who laughed while they hurt him.

He regretted every moment in his life where he had ever thought anyone was going to save him.

Most of all, he regretted the long chain of ugly little choices and uglier circumstances that had taken Adam Mustain and twisted him into the twitchy, half-mad, coked-out bastard everyone now called Skidmark.

But regret was familiar, and familiarity made it manageable.

He had learned a long time ago how to shove it down. How to swallow it whole and keep moving even when it clawed at his insides.

So he did what he always did when things got too big, too dangerous, or too overwhelming.

He pushed it aside and focused on surviving.

Pride did not matter. 

Dignity did not matter. 

Image did not matter. 

Survival did.

A burst of blue light illuminated the alley behind him, and Skidmark risked a glance over his shoulder. Blue Beetle was descending from the sky, too fast for him to do anything but scream: 

“Oh fuck, oh fuck, oh fuck—”

He stumbled, his foot catching on broken asphalt, and hit the ground hard enough to send pain lancing through his knee. The suitcase flew from his grip, skidding several feet across the ground before slamming into a dumpster with a metallic clang.

Blue Beetle landed between him and the only exit, the impact cracking the ground.

Skidmark froze.

For one horrible second, neither of them moved.

Blue Beetle stood there in his easily recognizable armor, wings slowly folding against his back, and glowing eyes fixed on him with an intensity that made him look less like a person and more like some alien executioner. Rain hissed off the armor in tiny curls of steam.

Skidmark’s mouth went dry.

He knew then, with sickening certainty, that this was it. 

Whether that meant death or merely getting the absolute shit beaten out of him depended entirely on the mood of the teenager who had murdered something the world had once believed unkillable.

And maybe that should have made him angry.

Maybe it should have made him defiant.

Maybe some part of him should have wanted to go down swinging.

Instead, he dropped to his knees before he even consciously decided to.

“Please,” he blurted, voice cracking so badly it barely sounded like his own. “Please, man, listen, I’m sorry, okay? I’m fucking sorry, I didn’t know, I swear to God I didn’t know—”

He hated how pathetic he sounded. Hated it. But hate had never once saved his life.

Begging had.

So Skidmark did what Adam Mustain had learned to do long before powers, long before gangs, and long before anyone had ever known him.

He begged.