Perquisite

There are benefits. Perqs, which is how Orpheus would've put it right before smiling that slow, flirty smile which didn't really mean anything *yet*, but might've, given time.

More time than Black Mask gave *them*, anyhow.

And that's one of the things that gets to her, gets *on* her, like the way dirt just sticks more when you're sweaty and pissed off and have shit to do -- people talk about Orpheus' and that Spoiler girl's deaths like they were something *Gotham* did.

Like the Wayne Tower or maybe one of the trees in Robinson park had picked up the knives and the sticks and the blowtorches and everything else Black Mask had used on the girl and done the job itself.

It didn't, and Onyx thinks she needs to remember that. Thinks maybe she'll need to *keep* remembering it, and telling herself to remember it, or else she'll wind up...

Not dead. Plenty of things can -- and maybe will -- kill her one day. Not being crazy. Not like *that*, anyhow. But she'll definitely wind up crazy, and maybe more fucked-up than she'd been *before* getting to the ashram.

Maybe even get herself a big old length of cape and some stupid-ass pointy ears to go along with it. That's not what she's here for, and that's *not* how she's gonna go out. It was a man who killed her boss, partner, friend, and not-lover-yet. An ugly sonofabitch who dragged his body around like a trophy and put on just enough of his face to fool people who had no right to *get* fooled.

Like her.

She's not crazy yet, and she still has a job to do -- even though it *isn't* the one she signed up for, and even though she's pretty sure it's a job that's not gonna do *her* any good.

She's got the Hill. She can feel it now. The smells aren't nothing like home, but they're close enough to work, and the sidewalks and streets feel right beneath her boots.

The people know her face -- the right ones, the wrong ones, and the ones in between. This is her place now, and she's had places before, but it's more important now. A little because of the purple and black armband, a little because of something else which she doesn't have words for.

She doesn't need them, anyway. It's all in the way the Hill changes around her and pricks up on her skin when something's not right, or just different. It's all in the way every little smackdown of a dealer or nut-busted wannabe rapist seems to lead her to *this* tenement, and *this* rooftop, and this little pointy-eared girl who wants to play again, tonight.

The girl -- the *Bat*girl -- gives her a perfect little bow and a behind-the-cowl smile that tells Onyx -- like she *needed* to know -- exactly how young she still is.

Even though the girl's hands are just like her own.

Benefits, right? *Perqs*.

Onyx takes the three steps that'll only leave another three steps between them, sets her leg just right, and draws a nice, straight line which is only invisible to people too damned ignorant to live.

The smile under the girl's cowl changes, sharpens, becomes something that puts sweet, cool ice in Onyx's veins and a smile on her *own* face.

"I don't have time for this tonight, babygirl," she says after she misses two kicks and a punch and hits the girl just *above* the kidney.

"Yes," Batgirl says right back, and comes *real* close to sweeping Onyx's legs out from under her.

"Then why we doin' this?" She's laughing. Sometimes it's a surprise to hear it, these days, but she's laughing.

Batgirl isn't -- not out loud, but Onyx has long since figured out that the girl's missing words for even more things than *she* is.

It's all in the way the girl leaves herself -- almost -- open for *two* different nerve-strikes, and the way the chop she lands on Onyx's knee only makes her stagger -- as opposed to being something that'll give her a limp for the rest of the night.

It's been almost a minute and neither of them are drawing blood, and it's... it's good, and it's what she *needs*, what she hasn't had for so *damned* long, because Orpheus never wanted to play like that and this girl, this girl...

"Baby, I don't have no time for *this*, neither."

"No," Batgirl says, agreeing, and doesn't give Onyx a black eye *or* a broken nose -- just knocks the breath out of her with the too-short wall running around the edge of the roof.

Just sends her tipping, leaning, falling... Gotham lights and Gotham darks and a scream a few blocks east which'll mean something to Onyx when she's back down on the ground. Later.

*After* this, right here:

Batgirl yanking her up and throwing her down to the surface of the roof. Batgirl with her hands around Onyx's throat like a child's version of the kill-you game, with her thumbs pressing down in a different game.

A big girl's game.

"No," she says again, and shifts the way she's straddling Onyx's waist until it's as clear as the look on her face under the cowl *isn't*.

A week ago, the girl might've tried to take it off. Not tonight.

"Do it anyway," she says, and Onyx knows full well that it's a question, even though it doesn't *sound* like one.

Even though she isn't listening for it, as opposed to the snarl in her own voice which ain't nowhere close to *words*, to the soft thud Batgirl makes when Onyx rolls them, to the girl's exhale when Onyx pins her in a way that has nothing to do with a fight.

And after that...

After that, it's just the way the girl's uniform shifts and moves just as easily as it should for a non-meta vigilante who'll need to get bandaged up more often than not -- that Robin boy's suit is *insane* -- and the way the girl's thighs feel on her hands.

Smooth and sleek and hard, only soft where the scar tissue has built up a little. She wants to call Batgirl 'little sister' when she spreads and arches up, wants to tell her she knows her, that she wants her and she *likes* her, but she settles for a "babygirl" which is almost far enough away from a growl to count.

Batgirl moans for her like she heard it all, anyway, and maybe when Onyx takes a few minutes to think about this later -- *if* she does -- it'll all make sense.

For now, she fucks the girl fast and hard with two fingers, fucks her until her hard, narrow shoulders tense and twist against the roof, and the sounds the girl makes sound just as animal as Onyx feels.

After, when she's licking her fingers clean, the girl tries to sit up, but Onyx only has to jab her a little to get her stay still.

After *that*, she goes down, sucking Batgirl's clit like she'd never sucked Orpheus' dick, and then tries to do it differently, because she doesn't want to think about how she'd never really called him 'Gavin,' and how she doesn't know if that made a difference to the man or not.

The girl's gloves are sleek and cold on her scalp, sliding down until they can rub against the stubble on the back of her neck, where the hair always grows in fastest.

Here, for this, the girl is silent as the grave. Listening.

Onyx lets her hear.

When she's done, she stands, and moves back a few paces, and wipes her cheeks with the backs of her hands, and waits.

The girl is sitting up, tights still down around her knees and cowl not loose enough that Onyx can't see the confusion under it.

"Yeah?"

A frown. "I want... I *want*."

"I know."

The frown shifts, deepens, lightens. "Not... now?"

Onyx grins at her. "I *said* I didn't have time, didn't I?"

The girl waves a hand at her like she's trying to say something difficult and confusing, but she doesn't *look* like that, so...

So Onyx has no fucking clue, really. "You okay?"

A brief nod, then a whole 'nother frown. "You?"

Yeah, this is what it was about. Some kind of Batgirl thank-you note on top of everything else, or maybe under it. Maybe it doesn't matter. "No," Onyx says. "I'm not."

*That* gets a smile out of the girl. "Okay. You'll come to Bludhaven again soon."

It's not a question, nor should it be. Onyx nods, and gives the girl a bow which is nowhere near as perfect as she can make it.

It makes the girl laugh, out loud, just like that -- sprawled half-naked on a rooftop in a neighborhood the girl *under* the mask doesn't belong in. It makes sense -- in *exactly* the same way as everything else.

Walking skulls and dead, good men.

Someone else might call it the other side of the coin, or maybe not. Onyx really wouldn't care even if she *did* have time to think about it, and... she doesn't.

She goes over the side of the roof, swinging from the fire escapes and thinking idly about whether she wants to start using jumplines and all that other good shit. When she hits the ground, she tilts her head back and sniffs the air. It's not like she can actually smell wherever the rest of tonight's trouble will come from, but it feels right to do it anyway.

Just like the girl's eyes on her back, laser-sharp and just a little scary.

A death she won't die tonight.

end.

Reference images taken from BATGIRL #60.