Cleaning House - TRIGGER WARNING: Blood, Brutality

[Kenni]

Characters: Tate, Paige (Cuftbert), Open to All~
Setting: Some late, ungodly hour downtown, about a half-hour's trek from the outskirts of downtown Jump to the shipyard.
Previous Threads: None; Invisiboy's and Paige's intro threads!
Plot Summary: The youngest Dilettevole has to do some 'cleaning house' on his family's turf, and runs into a bit of..a misunderstanding, with a complete stranger, who is unfortunately on the irritatingly 'hero' side of things. Other hero-y or non-hero-y types might hop in to make things even more complicated, and all he wants to do is escape.

[Kenni]

Drip, drip, drip.

The boy removed his fedora in curiousity, having reached his destination.

Was it raining?

He peered up as he walked past a street lamp, the faint outline of a..person?
Hanging out a window that far?

Impossible.

--suddenly, there was a graying, stocky, middle-aged dead man in the obvious colours of a rival gang, lying in front of the boy's shiny Stetsons.
And where the man's head ought to be, a mess of pink and red mulch was all that remained.

"Did you have to do that to his head..?!" the boy hissed into the hands-free Bluetooth gadget at his elder brother, who was a whole hour's walk away.

"What on earth are you talking about, Tater? Get over here quick; we've got to get the cargo on this freighter before--"

Tate wouldn't say he hated surprises.
In fact, he adored them!

"You never said the cargo was gonna be so organic, 'Tino..!"

Every twist and turn in a comic plot, or a kids' cartoon? Delightful.
Time would tell if real-life could be as entertaining, but whoever had pulled this sick joke was the only one laughing this time.

"Look, rub the sleep outta your eyes and cut the crud. There's an hour and a half before this ship sets off so get here, cargo in hand, or I'll put you on board and have you explain to the Top where he is. Capisce?"

Tate didn't answer. He didn't need to; Valentino had already cut the line in annoyance.

Here he had to meet his brother at the docks in an hour..and something unexpected had just come up.

Or rather, down.

As the bloodied corpse had hit the tarmac with a sickening, wet THUNK!, Tetum Dilettevole had slowly shut the compact mirror he'd been watching his own back with.

They'd said the cargo would be in that building, the 3rd floor. Was this seriously the delivery?

He tipped the bill of his hat up, crouching, to fully take in what he was looking at.

What he was looking at, was a surprise.
The kind he did /not/ adore.

Valentino was waiting. The clock was ticking. The police couldn't see him here.
As the quiet gopher calculated his options, he came to a decision, but not before an inconvenience showed up, in the shape of a person.

At least she wasn't dead, too.

[Cuftbert]

For Paige Turner, her choice to run away from home was justifying itself with every passing day. Why, she'd been all over the city, explored the little hovels she could only glimpse as a child. She even made a new friend, her first friend! The sun had long set, but Paige was far too excited to find someone to take her in just yet. As the blonde girl strolled down the dimly lit streets, she had little fear of what might lurk in the shadows. She had powers, what could a common mugger do to her? Ahead, the silhouette of a young man caught her attention, a crook? Paige smirked and kept right on walking, she hoped he'd try something, anything to give her an excuse to kick his butt.

She didn't take more than two steps before a thick shadow smacked headfirst into the ground, the shape made all kinds of horrible squelching noises; it sounded like a ripe melon had just shattered into pieces. At first, Paige stood stock-still, shocked by the suddenness of it all. The longer she stared at the massive shadow, the more apparent it became that a body had just fallen right in front of the silhouetted man. A murder, someone just murdered that guy! Paige's first thought was to scream, maybe the police would come?

Paige's mouth was already quivering, her legs threatened to turn to jelly, what could she do against a murderer? The silhouetted figure was talking to nobody in particular, he didn't seem to be at all fazed by what he'd just seen, that could only mean he was in on it. Her choices were to run, forget she saw anything... or confront him. I have powers...I could take him! Paige reasoned, and she remembered all the news stories about the Teen Titans; her parents had decried them as irresponsible, kids who risked their lives for nothing, and that's exactly why Paige had idolized them.

If even one of the Titans were in her place, they would have already jumped into action. Paige's legs shook a little less, her face bore a look of determination -- she hoped it was determination. Resolve filled within the young girl, and just in time too. The silhouetted man's head turned her way, and Paige knew she didn't have much time. Nearby, Paige spied a box of newspapers -- her plan was obvious.

With her hand held towards the newspapers, the box shuddered and shook when its contents pressed against the fiberglass. Paige held her breath and clenched her hand into a fist, and the newspapers tore out of the stand, shattering the glass to pieces. Dozens of sports articles, dailies, and funnies hovered around the young hero, who stood tall and confident. "I know you helped murder that man!" Paige shouted at the man, she really didn't know, but it obviously the truth anyway.

One by one each newspaper sheet crumpled into a perfectly curved sphere. Paige walked forward with an innumerable number of them hovering around her. "Give yourself up, and I might not beat you senseless." The girl stated, with barely concealed cockiness. She was a hero as of now, and heroes could afford to be cocky.

[Kenni]

Communication is very important.
Miscommunications ought to be avoided at all costs.

Tate fully believed this, but more often than not, before he could stick up for himself and explain away a compromising situation, people jumped to their own conclusions.

Just like now.

He thought for a full 30 seconds before daring to answer the other super. She didn'tknow he was one too. The only suspicious thing about him was his calm in the face of death, here.

With the element of surprise on his side, there was still time and means to avoid the worst outcome: getting booked, without even knowing why he was with this particular cargo.

Tate straightened his tie absent-mindedly, pulling his hatbrim low over his eyes as he thought.

He needed more info, meaning more time, to get 'Tino to return his call. The blonde meant business, but meanwhile, he was in the dark about his own, so he did what he felt best in the situation.

Tate told her the truth.

"I'm innocent." As of yet, yes.

"I'm just as in the dark as you are, and I'm not talking about this moonless night, Signorina."

He had just an inkling of what was going on.

But ink was dark, too.

[Cuftbert]

Of course he was going to plead his innocence. Every villain did that, Paige knew she just needed to get him nervous, then he'd reveal everything. "Likely story, but you're standing there looking all calm and stuff. I don't buy it!" She declared, right as she stepped under a nearby street light dramatically. Granted, she was just wearing a mini-skirt and a t-shirt; not exactly a hero's costume, but the multitude of hovering paper balls was surely impressive in itself.

"Last chance, buddy. Come with me to the pol--" No, Paige realized that her parents would have called the police by now. She was a wanted girl. The irony of a hero wanted by the police was something she could do without. "We're gonna see the Titans, you and me, and you can tell them you're innocent. Refuse, and you'll get a face full of paper," the threat was more of a bluff than anything considering how little Paige knew about how hard she could throw things.

Again, he didn't need to know that.

[Kenni]

The sky was alive with newspapers and magazines, and he ducked, but still suffered a few razorsharp papercuts to the bridge of his nose, his cheeks, the backs of his hands, before letting the rest pass through him in the dark.

He would have to watch this one.

She stepped into the light and he forgot his rebuttal and need to watch her, ears growing hot beneath his wild curls and identity-concealing cap.

The hormonal teenaged mobster stared down at the corpse again out of respect for the girl's very visible and nice legs, and instead focused on how glad he was that his brother wasn't close by.

'Tino would've torn this poor chick a new one for being in the wrong place at the wrong time, but he'd tear Tate two new ones for being spotted in the first place.

The thought hadn't stopped him from calling 'Tino back on his earpiece; his brother deigned to pick up on the fifth ring, fifth try, and had caught all of the blonde's challenges and threats.

"Move. Now. I can stall for you, but we need to put that Stinger on board in 45, so don't get attached, 'cause if she follows you back she's takin' a long dive."

Well, at least he knew they were really, really after this member of the Stingers. He was supposed to be dead!
..probably!

Valentino swore bodily over the earpiece, beginning and ending the transmission, but stayed on the line this time.

Tate took this as 'concern', maybe even 'love'.
'Tino never offered to cover for him!

In turn, Tate cursed under his breath in his mother tongue (a habit he didn't like but had grown too deep into to stop right now); why had he let himself be seen! He was, after all, the self-proclaimed Invisiboy, Wind Wizard, The Vanisher..the lists of his fantasy aliases went on.

So did time.

He raised his hands and crouched again, palms bare, leather gloves deposited in his dark blazer-front.

"You're not really going to call the brass on me. I can hear it in your voice."

He didn't have time to ask what she was so uneasy about.

"Call whoever you're comfortable with. I've got nothing to hide."

Yet.

In the next moment, he'd heaved the man over his shoulder and both bodies vanished from thin air, the faint pale lilac glow of his eyes and red of his cheeks the last to leave.

"I'm really sorry about this, but I've got to go now."

And he was sorry.
Maybe just not to her.

As an unfortunate parting gift, he left the spotlight girl a trail of blood to follow for at least the first ten minutes of escape.

[Cuftbert]

In hindsight, Paige would have realized that her paper folding would need more work. The cuts on the boy's gloves could have just as easily been on his neck or worse thanks to the odd edge sticking out of the paper spheres. Thankfully, the crook had the smarts to duck out of the way, it saved him from a very messy end. Good thing too, Paige couldn't take her eyes off him once his features became more focused. He looked younger than she expected, but that just depressed her more than anything; crime was ageless, it seemed.

As handsome as the young boy was, Paige scowled at his foul mouth. There was no reason to swear for absolutely no reason like that, crooks really did have terrible manners like in the movies. Paige's imminent scolding was foiled when the boy, in a shocking display of strength, hoisted the corpse over his shoulder. "Wait--" She started, right as the boy vanished into thin air. For a moment, Paige stared at the spot where he'd been moments before, not sure whether she'd fully seen what just happened.

"Shoot!" Paige exclaimed, and all of her paper instantly fell to the ground and rolled in all directions. Here she was, ready to apprehend her first criminal, and it turned out he could turn himself invisible? "No fair!" She shouted, hoping he could hear her, for all the difference that would make.

With no clear course of action, Page approached the spot where the body had been. As expected, the remains of his head were strewn on the sidewalk, and the sight made Paige empty her dinner on the sidewalk. "Hooogodthat'snasty, that's horrible," she choked out between coughs. She couldn't let whoever did this get off scott free, but there wasn't a lead in sight. "Huh..." Paige muttered, something had caught her eye.

A small trail of blood led further down the sidewalk, and more of it seemed to appear out of thin air. Just like that, Paige had gotten her second wind. "Gotcha..." she muttered with a smile, and she walked over a large grate that was expelling hot air. Her physical form turned completely white, then broke apart into rectangular sheets of paper that floated close together. The grate's air blew Paige far, far into the air, to the top of the apartment complex roof. There, she reformed into her human self, and the blood trail became much easier to notice from her new vantage point. Leaps from roof-to-roof were nerve-wracking, but for the most part Paige managed to keep up and stay relatively quiet. Even as the blood stopped appearing, the Papyrokinetic noticed whenever a piece of debris was kicked by.

The path was familiar to her, the crook was heading to the docks. But why? "This is pretty...fishy," Paige muttered, smiling at her own pun.

[Kenni]

As the boy looked back over his shoulder, he noticed the vigilante with the nice body had vanished, too.

Did they have similar powers?
That was interesting, but couldn't be uncommon.

He smiled faintly at the way she'd gotten him to flinch, yelling 'Shoot!' The Delightful Children had been in a too-close-for-comfort face-off against the cops once when he was 9, and their squad leader sure hadn't been a fan of 'hold your fire!' styled-commands. Tate would have laughed if he'd been truly alone, but that feeling of being watched, followed, it lingered..the masked girl couldn't be too far off.

Thanks to the occasional street-lamp, Tate scowled, noticing that although the body's blood had clotted and the trail ended, he'd been leaving a clear path! How had he not noticed this before?! He was better than this; what had all those simulations and odd jobs his whole training period, his whole conscious life, years in the making, been for, if he would let an operation be foiled by getting distracted by a girl!

Valentino interrupted his lamenting, speaking in an uncharacteristically measured, discrete tone.

"If you're being tailed, just keep calm so your cover doesn't come undone, little brother. She's got less to go on through second-hand info."

"Mn," Tate grunted in thankful acknowledgement of his brother's foresight, but annoyed he hadn't been thinking about all the debris he'd been kicking through, giving away his position.

Should she really be hot on his trail, this last stretch was crucial. He could already hear the pealing of bells and low croaking horns from different sea-vessels in a few minutes; once he hit the naturally-creaky wood beyond the empty expanse of concrete, the breeze helped conceal his noise for nature's.
His brother's formidable frame was visible aboard a large freighter, still arguing with a cross Danish woman a head taller than 'Tino, looking down her nose at the superhuman with some mixture of disdain and covetousness. 

"I'm here. Signora Nielsen can cast off on time." Tate kept his invisibility up until he reached the ship's deck, and had laid a tarp over the body in a corner, plus pulled 'Tino out of sight in the small deckshed to see their cargo.

"...what have you done, little brother..?"

"What have I done..? Didn't you do this? With your bare hands?"

"...uuugh. This is The Stingers' M.O., Tater. Their strongarms execute like barbarians. Would we do this, even in gloves?"

Their hissed conversation was further shielded by motors starting up below deck. 'Tino searched the man's pockets; they would have to run his I.D. back to intel to see why he was offed by what seemed to be his own gang..but of course, his person was empty of I.D. The Stingers were brutal but not total idiots.

"No, no of course not..we..we're far more careful about leaving DNA trails; no way would you make such a jagged rip, look; whoever did this probably..used their fingernails..!"
Valentino ground his teeth together at the clunking sound of Nielsen returning above, gave Tate a look, and held up a hand.
5.

There was no time to try and hide the corpse.

They had 5 minutes to do something about this failed metahuman cargo shipment, while the older Dilettevole stalled their cold contact on the stairs.
He had a pretty good idea how, from the way she'd been eyeing him.

Tate lugged the body back down the boarding ramp after 'Tino had ripped a portion of the man's collar into a portion of his own jacket; this would be the best they could do to determine their framer.

The youngest Dilettevole had by this time completely forgotten why they had been so quiet and kept up invisibility; out of the light of the street-lamps, he now dangled the anonymous Stinger over the salty sea.

[Cuftbert]

The docks smelled about as bad as they looked -- salty sea air filled Paige's nostrils, nauseating her, while the sound of waves smashing against the shoreline gave her uncomfortable reminders of her last visit to the ocean. She'd been at the beach, swimming just as she always did, when her body started to feel like it weighed a hundred pounds, tops. What's more, she could feel water inside her, drowning her, but she hadn't even gotten higher than her waist. In the end, she narrowly avoided drowning thanks to her parents, but that was the beginning of a ten-year long house arrest. This time, mom and dad weren't here to save her if she fell in this time, the thought sent chills up the young girl's spine.

Unfortunately for Paige, the hustle and bustle of the docks made it difficult to keep track of her invisible mark, and there wasn't as much debris for him to kick on his way. A brief ride on the salty air led Paige to the rooftop of a warehouse. There, in her human form, she watched and waited. 

There were many boats, most of them little dinghies used by trawlers. The one that stood out the most, however, was a pristine looking freighter near the far end of the pier. Paige strained to catch a look at whoever might be on it, and she was immediately drawn to a beefy looking man in a well-tailored suit. He was arguing with a woman, but something drew him away and out of sight past the deckshed. Could that be one of his people? Paige wondered, thinking back, the boy was dressed just as sharply as the burly man, so it wouldn't be too illogical to assume. Plus, it was extra shady for someone so well-dressed to be at a place like this at such a late hour. If Paige had been on the fence, what she saw next was the metaphorical hand that pushed her over it.

A silhouette near the boarding ramp, that of a human-like body being held up. It was difficult to see at this distance, but the shape was very limp, like a corpse... That was what drove Paige to leap off of the roof and explode into a cyclone of paper carried by the shore-side breeze. If she was wrong, then she'd likely end up in jail for trespassing, but if she was right and didn't act, then a murderer's accomplice would escape. Paige tried to push the unsettling image of the sea out of her mind, heroes didn't let fear cripple them!

...But some heroes, namely ones who couldn't quite control their powers fully, didn't know how to think ahead. Paige could sense the wind was going to push her too far and make her overshoot the boat. Though she tried to fight against the wind, it was futile in such a fragile form; as the freighter drew closer, Paige was left with one option.

She turned back into her physical form.

On the bright side, Paige didn't fly into the sea. She did, however, smack straight into the large pole in the middle of the ship. With a panicked scream, Paige grasped wildly for anything to slow her rapid fall to the ship deck. Ropes, wires, both slowed her descent, but not enough to make the ensuing fall to her back any less painful. The thump could be heard by anyone nearby, and Paige suspected she had landed very close to some undesirable folk.

"Oooooh God...why am I still conscious...? Why...?" Paige moaned hoarsely. Pain wracked her entire body, but by some miracle, nothing felt broken. Paige hacked out several breathless coughs while mentally cursing her stupidity. "Stop...criminal...scum," she added in the hope that somebody was around to hear her.

[Kenni]

At 4 minutes left, the startling sound almost had him and his unlikely travelling companion sipping saltwater.

At 2 minutes left, his very dead companion took the plunge by himself.
Accompanied by heavy debris tied around his arms and legs of course, with some cast-off roping, to give the sharks a fighting chance of supper in a few.

Valentino was the first to rush back up to deck. He was wiping some rouge off of his lips and shivering.

There was someone squirming about near the main mast as Tate arrived back on deck, so the older Dilettevole shrunk back into the shadows, silently asking their contact to halt in her position behind him on the stairs.

"..what happened..and what are you doing here?" the youth asked in genuine puzzlement, bigger problems than vigilante stalkers on his mind now that their turf had been compromised.

"I don't mean to be rude, Signorina, but aren't you tired of this yet? It's nearly 5 in the morning." After effectively asking if it wasn't too late past her bedtime, Tate got down on one knee and propped only the achey stranger's head onto a sack of premium rolled rugs that hadn't been stored below deck yet.

"Listen, I can take you anywhere you need to go, but we have to leave now. It's not safe."
It wasn't wise to move someone so soon after they'd taken such jolting damage.

Valentino couldn't believe his eyes. His voice grated through on the earpiece.

"What did I say about getting attached? Finish her off. NOW. We don't have time for this! I've..explained the situation to the client, now--"

"--not while she's down..!" Tate muttered, looking over his shoulder at his two shadowed associates to shield his words.

[Cuftbert]

The searing pain from any sort of movement was so great that Paige, when she realized she'd been discovered, couldn't do anything but lie there. The voice sounded familiar, and she didn't like it at all. "Sto-- nngh!" She yelped when he lifted her onto the rug -- even moving that little hurt. Once she numbness subsided, she did feel a little better, more comfortable at least. The boy's attempts at small talk did little to lighten her mood, what right did a murderer have to tell her what to do?

"And let you get away with murder? No way." She muttered sharply, wincing with every word -- talking was starting to hurt too. Paige tried to keep up a brave facade around the crook, a hero didn't whimper in the face of evil. Her determined scowl wasn't very convincing, however, with a quivering lip and the occasional hiss whenever some part of her hurt.

Another voice from some kind of phone made himself very audible, and his orders were clear. The reality of the situation hit Paige hard: she was helpless at the hands of some very bad people. For the first time, she felt afraid. She'd messed up, and it was going to cost her. Stupid, stupid, stupid...

Paige scowled, a scowl borne of genuine anger. Not like this... Her left hand curled, and the skin around her wrist shifted uncomfortably. It felt as bad as it looked; Paige was sweating, subtly writhing in place, until she couldn't control herself -- she screamed. Freeing itself from her wrist was a slice of her own skin, it looked horrifically similar to notebook paper.

A circle of blood seemed from Paige's wrist, but she wouldn't allow the shock of it to wear off before she could act. She forgot pain as her hand flew up at the boy's head, and the skin-paper launched itself flat to his face, and it threatened to completely cut off the oxygen going through his mouth and nose. Adrenaline began to pump through Paige's body, nothing else could explain how she scrambled to her feet and turned around to face the suited boy. "You're not taking me out that easily!" She shouted, launching herself at him, her fist reared up and ready to connect with his annoyingly handsome face.

[Kenni]

“With all due respect, you have no idea what you’re on ab—OOF!”
If just moving her head had caused that visceral a pained reaction, the last thought in the meta-mobster’s mind was that this girl was going to hop up and attack.

There was an amused chuckle that certainly didn’t come from Valentino through Tate’s Bluetooth, as the boy struggled to breathe for all of 2 seconds before allowing the paper to phase through his head clean to the other side.

Then, he took a spirited knock to the lip as Paige toppled him to the deck floor. Face burning with part adrenaline and startledness, he hardly held out for a second after the stinging blow before phasing through the floor.

His snazzy hat flew off into the wind, seemingly with the blow to the face.

Nielsen had made a raunchy comment about how, like Valentino, the youngest Dilettevole didn’t fall far from the tree when it came to women.

Instead, he fell with this one.

The reactionary phasing took the two teenagers through the wooden deck to the lower deck, where they slammed bodily onto a metal container.

His elder brother swore up a storm, launching himself down the stairs past the mirthful madame making light of the situation.

As soon as Tate had realized they were falling, although it pained him to no end in a very different way than it would Paige’s aching frame, he instinctively clamped down on the new vigilante in a bear-hug of sorts. Tate pushed her face into his neck, having found the girl’s scalp through her hair, and his fingers found her waist just below the back of her shirt in their descent, perfecting the phase so that she didn’t leave any limbs behind up-top.

They fell with his back to the metal, and because it wasn’t a very short fall, his wincing continuation of the conversation came back with a severely less painful feedback and only partial swimming-headedness.

“Well, may novv taken you out, but you’ve certainly taken me down. Or've I, you? Still'live, Signorina?” he asked in the positive, some blood dripping onto the cool surface below them from his lip, a slur to his speech as everything began settling back into place from breaking their fall.

BANG BANGBANG BANG came a knocking on the side of the 8ft container.

“Who’s dead? We’ve got a schedule to keep.” barked ‘Tino in the negative.
Solid once again, Tate raised an arm off of Paige in reply, his fist curled up in proprietary recoil after having held the warm girl in his arms.

Again, only Valentino’s family members could tell that despite the brusque nature, his askance merited concern.

[Cuftbert]

Paige had little time to feel good about her first successful punch, not when she found herself pulled into a tight, yet somehow tender embrace. Unsurprisingly, Paige was not amused. "What are you--mmph!" The Papyrokinetic was forcefully pushed into the boy, muffling her objections. Worse still, his hand slid down her back far enough that Paige gave a stifled yelp in surprise -- she could've sworn he had given her a squeeze.

They were eye-to-eye with each other, their foreheads were practically touching, and their lips--

And just like that, they fell through the floor. Paige's terrified screams were cut short when the two hit the ground -- a metal container this time. The boy's body had broken her fall, and when Paige managed to pull herself away from his neck, she and he had locked eyes, she couldn't stop staring at them. He really was as handsome up close. No, maybe handsomer...

The snide questions broke Paige out of her, ahem, silent admiration. He was still holding her tightly against him, and Paige was uncomfortably aware of how close their lips were. "N-No, still alive..." She muttered, realizing a second later that she could have said something cool and heroic, stupid stupid stupid. "You have...powers?" She asked, curious as to how someone with superpowers ended up becoming a criminal.

A loud banging against the container jolted Paige, the voice of the man who wanted her dead was sounding out right below her. All pretense of niceness was broken, and she rolled right off of the boy once he'd moved his arm. After standing up and steadying herself, Paige didn't dare move to the container's edge, and she stared at Tate with renewed scorn on her face. If the boy didn't want to hurt her, she'd have to take care of the people that did. "Not me!" Paige shouted, she turned and leaped off the container right below the older, beefier man. Her sneaker-covered foot was on a perfect path to pummel the man's face, just like in the movies. Hopefully like in the movies...

[Kenni]

"I-I-I have powers!"
Smooth Accurate.

The eye-contact, the skin-contact, contact, contact everywhere.

His nerves weren't completely shot just yet.

Due to his unwilling charge's screaming, Tate's ears were ringing, sure, but his chest was drumming with adrenaline and other teenage proximity side-effects he tried to banish from his mind as quickly as possible.

She was blonde, bright-eyed and very, very close, so his very-much powered physiology made them get very, very far away from each other, very, very fast.

"So do you, sì? Let's talk about these truths at...at length, after..y...~!"
He passed out from the strain, then passed out of the plane of existence for one more drop.
This phasing sequence sure was getting old.

Paige had suddenly been straddling him at her standing height, and he was suddenly looking anywhere but up, his face a deep flush.
Why did girls insist on wearing strips of nothing like it was commonplace? It certainly wasn't functional. Was it?

When the phaser came to, he was clanging around inside the container. At least it wasn't with an invalid papermancer or whatever she called herself.

An angry heaving barely audible over his hidden flails signalled Valentino's introduction to Paige's fresh kicks.
The strongarm super caught her foot as it had made contact with his cheek.

"Why hello there. I've heard so little about you. Enlighten me."
Valentino was barely restraining himself from tearing this little slip limb from limb, as one by one, Tate used his limbs to drag himself out of the cargo box and into the dim lightning below-deck. He wobbled to his feet as he was referenced.

"Baby brother seems to know something, else you'd be out cold somewhere out of my hair, Bambina."
Just like in the movies?
Partially just like in the movies.

"Don't kill'er, 'Tino! She's..she's with me!"
There, that was pretty movie-like.

"She doesn't look, talk, or scream like she is," 'Tino returned flatly, dangling the annoying but mini-skirted super by her shoelaces.
'Tino took a look from beyond the girl's socks at a quite-done-with-this-nonsense Nielsen, and the trio worked themselves off her ship, some more in control of their motor faculties than others. He easily fended off any attempts to strike back at his body, by holding her an arm's length away like laundry.

Which was pretty far, considering the size of his arms.

"Per favore, she can't answer if all the blood's rushed to her head, let her down..!"

She already hated him and must think him a lewd ruffian, so it was going to take some time to sort things out.
Sometimes, it was tough being alive.

Valentino thought about it..and dropped her. Whether she landed on her head or not wasn't his problem. Tate flinched; he couldn't have baseball-slid to save her this time, still wincing all over from their shared embrace descent.

"Must you always refuse being diplomatic when it comes to this sort of thing..?"
The strongarm simply scoffed incredulously, waiting to see why they weren't just ending the kid now.

Tate shot his brother a death-glare. Meekly crouching at her side, he relaxed his furrowed brows.
"Can't you just forget what you saw tonight..? Let us handle this. You have no idea what you've gotten yourself into."

[Cuftbert]

One moment Paige was standing awkwardly on her foe's face, the next, she earned herself an excellent view of the floor from all too uncomfortable perspective. Hooogod this guy is strong! Paige thought, and in a panic she began to thrash about, anything to dislodge the beefy man's hold on her. To the girl's dismay, he merely had to seize hold of her other foot and hold her straight out like a smelly bag of trash. The man's arms were so long that her wildly swinging fists connected with thin air, eventually Paige gave up entirely and let her arms dangle uselessly.

The man sounded far more intimidating when he made Paige stare up at him, and in her current position she was more inclined to cooperate. Her bravado was all but forgotten, the guy was terrifying. "P-P-Paige. I'm a new herOH!" Her cheeks flushed, and she squirmed and wriggling uncomfortably.

Gravity was playing a cruel prank on her skirt -- if it hadn't left little to the imagination before, it sure did now. Her skirt was pressed upward in an attempt to regain her modesty, and she couldn't have done it any sooner. From behind, she could here the boy shouting at the man, his older brother, apparently. He was trying to save her life for reasons Paige didn't understand, but fully appreciated from the way his thuggish brother was eyeing her. The wannabe super thought it wise to shut up for now, the brute looked annoyed enough without her contribution.

Circumstances, namely, circumstances involving Paige being carried out by a man who may or may not have the intent to kill her. "P-Put me down! This isn't a fair fight!" She pleaded as she swung about with every step -- it made holding on to the hem of her skirt too difficult for her liking. Thankfully, her suited ally followed close behind, and his brotherly bond was strong enough to convince the strongman to let her go.

Naturally, it wasn't delicate. Though Paige had good enough reflexes to twist her body so that she could avoid landing on her head, landing flat on her back and on a concrete surface was no less painful. "You didn't need to be so rough..." She half-whined, half-whispered. To add to the soup of misery, the concrete was soaking wet, and it sent Paige jolting to her feet as salt water seeped through her shirt and was absorbed by her skin -- it didn't feel good to put it mildly.

So there she sat before two people, one of which was prepared to dump her right into the ocean and the other who appeared to have been smitten by her following his invasive hug. The scared child wanted to reassure these criminals that she'd do whatever they wanted and forget all about their encounter. Paige didn't want to be that kind of person; she knew she was different, she had to have standards. A Titan wouldn't surrender, so neither would she. "I'm never gonna stop until that murderer is brought to justice," Paige declared to the two, "so if you don't want me putting you both in jail for helping whoever killed that guy...you'd better get rid of me now."

There wasn't confidence in Paige's ultimatum. Truth be told, she was cold, hurting in more ways than she could possibly count, and scared for her life. It was a simple, factual statement without any hint of bravery or bravado. Even now, Paige couldn't look the two in their eyes, she couldn't stomach whatever plans they had for her in the wake of this defiance.