Chapter 4: Blood and Whiskey
The knock came again, harder this time, a flat-handed thump that shook the flimsy door in its frame. Sarah was on her feet in a silent instant, her body thrumming with a sickening lurch from sleep to full-blown panic. Her hand shot under the thin futon cushion, searching for the grip of her pistol.
Her fingers closed on empty, dusty fabric.
Milo was watching her from the bed, his eyes clear and alert in the dim light bleeding around the blinds. No trace of the pain or the vulnerability from the night before. Just cold, assessing calm.
“Looking for this?” His voice was a dry rasp. He didn’t move, but his gaze flicked to the nightstand. Her gun lay there, next to an empty glass and a bottle of aspirin, the slide locked back, clearly unloaded.
“You disarmed me.” It wasn’t a question. The betrayal was a cold spike in her gut.
“I inventory my assets when I can’t sleep,” he said flatly. “Asset one: a wounded journalist. Asset two: a wanted vigilante, unregistered firearm. I separated the liabilities.”
Another thunderous knock. A voice, deep and impatient, echoed from the hall. “Davidson! Open up! Police!”
Sarah’s blood went icy. She looked at Milo, her mind racing. Was this the play? Hand her over to clean his own slate?
He held her gaze and gave a sharp, negative shake of his head. Then he pointed at her, then at the floor, a clear command: get down, stay out of sight. He gestured frantically toward the closet—a slatted, cheap thing overflowing with junk.
“Coming!” he yelled, his voice suddenly slurry and thick with fake sleep. He groaned, a performance of pain that was only partly an act, and began the slow, careful process of sitting up. “Keep your shirt on!”
Sarah didn’t hesitate. She moved like smoke, snatching her mask from where it lay pooled on the floor and slipping into the closet. She pulled the door mostly closed, leaving a narrow gap to see through. The space smelled of mothballs and mildew, and a worn leather jacket sleeve brushed her cheek.
Milo shuffled to the front door, holding his wounded shoulder, his face a masterpiece of aggrieved fatigue. He opened it a crack, the chain engaged.
“What?” he grumbled.
Two uniforms filled the space, their faces set in bored routine. The older one, a sergeant with a tired mustache, held up a phone displaying a grainy, zoomed-in photo. It showed a black-clad figure on a rooftop, features blurred.
“We’re canvassing. Seen this individual? So-called ‘Black Cat.’ Reports of vigilantism and associated disturbances last night in this district.”
Milo squinted at the phone, then snorted. “You kidding me? I was on a two-day bender and then some asshole mugged me for my leftovers. I’ve been right here, sewing my own arm back on. Haven’t seen Spider-Man.”
The younger cop tried to peer past him into the messy apartment. “Mind if we come in, sir? Just to check?”
“I do mind,” Milo said, his voice hardening. “I’m in my boxers, my place is a biohazard, and I have a constitutional right to not have my hangover photographed. You got a warrant?”
A standoff, brief and tense. The sergeant sighed, the sound of a man who’d had this conversation a thousand times. “We’re following up on a tip, Mr. Davidson. Your name came up.”
“My name comes up in the sweepstakes, too. Never win.” Milo coughed, a wet, unhealthy sound. “Look, if I see a lady in a cat suit, you’ll be the first I call. Right now, I need to contemplate the lifecycle of this particular stain on my carpet. Are we done?”
They were done. The door closed. Milo stood against it, listening to their heavy footsteps recede down the stairs. He didn’t move for a full minute. Then he let out a long, controlled breath.
“They’re gone,” he said, not raising his voice.
Sarah emerged from the closet, her mask back in place, but the damage was done. The line between them had been redrawn in blood and mistrust. She walked to the nightstand, picked up her pistol, and efficiently reloaded it with a magazine from her belt before securing it back in its hidden holster. The series of clicks and snaps were loud in the quiet room.
“A tip,” she said, her voice filtered and flat.
“Fisk covering his bases. Painting you as a public menace and seeing if I’m stupid enough to have you here.” He shuffled back to the bed, sinking down with a genuine wince. The bravado was leaking away, leaving pale pain underneath. “He knows I’m not dead. He’ll assume we’re together.”
“We are together,” she said, the statement hanging there, heavy and complicated.
Milo looked at her, a long, evaluating stare that made her feel like a specimen. “For now. Needs must.” He nodded toward the bathroom. “You should clean up. You’ve got my blood all over you. There’s a black hoodie in there that’ll drown you, but it’s less conspicuous.”
In the harsh fluorescent light of the bathroom, Sarah finally looked at herself. Her suit was smeared with dark, rusty streaks across the chest and arms. Milo’s blood. She peeled the top half of the suit down to her waist, the cool air hitting her damp skin. Using a wad of rough paper towels and the harsh, cheap soap she found, she scrubbed at the stains on the suit’s polymer weave. The water in the sink ran pink.
She caught her reflection in the speckled mirror. A young woman with frightened eyes and tired shoulders. Just Sarah. The mask lay on the edge of the sink, empty. She splashed water on her face, finger-combed her tangled red hair. She put on the borrowed hoodie. It smelled like stale coffee and Milo—a sharp, woody cologne undercut by something uniquely tired and male.
When she came out, he had propped himself up with pillows. The blueprints from the rooftop—the ones that started this—were now spread clumsily across his lap with his good hand. He looked up.
Seeing her without the mask, wearing his clothes, was a different kind of disarming. The vigilante was gone, folded into a pile of black tech on his bathroom floor. This was just the kid from the coffee shop, the one with too much conviction.
“Feel better?” he asked.
“No.” She sat on the edge of the futon, keeping distance. “What’s on the blueprints?”
“A puzzle,” he said, his fingers tracing a line. “I was so focused on the sewer routes, I missed the destination. It’s not a distribution center. It’s a termination point.” He tapped a specific intersection. “These lines don’t connect to the main drainage system. They dead-end. Right under the old Clarendon Water Treatment plant. Decommissioned ten years ago.”
“Why ship a new, hyper-addictive drug to a dead end?”
“You don’t,” Milo said, his eyes glinting with that old, chasing-the-story light. “You ship people to a dead end. A processing plant. For what, I don’t know. But no one comes out of a Fisk dead end.”
The implication settled over the room, colder than the morning air. This wasn’t just about money. It was about something darker.
“We need to see it,” Sarah said, the words leaving her mouth before she fully thought them through.
“We do,” Milo agreed. “But I can’t climb a chain-link fence with one working arm, and you can’t go back out there with every beat cop looking for a cat burglar.” He studied her. “You have a day job, right? A life?”
“Café Lux, on 8th,” she said, defensive.
“Go to it. Be Sarah Morgan. Perfect alibi. I’ll do legwork from here—digital traces, permits, utility spikes. Old-school journalism.” He tried a smile; it looked more like a grimace. “We reconvene tonight. Compare notes.”
It was practical. It was sensible. It felt like a dismissal.
She stood, gathering her suit into a bundle. The intimacy of the night—the blood, the touch, the shared danger—was congealing into a transactional alliance. She needed access to his research. He needed her legs and her fists. That was all.
At the door, she paused. “You hid my gun. You didn’t have to do that.”
“I did,” he said, not looking up from the blueprints. “If you’d come out swinging, we’d both be in cuffs. This city doesn’t need two more martyrs. It needs someone to turn the lights on in the basement.”
She left, slipping down the backstairs like a ghost. The city morning was gray and ordinary, the danger invisible. She was just another student in an oversized hoodie, carrying a bag of laundry.
Back in his apartment, Milo waited until he heard the outer alley door click shut. He set the blueprints aside carefully. The pain in his shoulder was a persistent drumbeat.
He leaned back, staring at the water stain on his ceiling, seeing instead the freckles on her shoulders, the way her breath had hitched when she’d pulled the bullet free.
Useful. Very useful. And when all this was over, perhaps even enjoyable.
The day stretched, thin and nerve-wracking. Sarah moved through her shift at Café Lux like an automaton, steaming milk and scribbling orders with a constant, low-grade hum of terror in her veins. Every police siren outside was a direct message; every customer who looked twice was Fisk’s agent. Her knuckles were scraped raw from the rooftop fight she couldn’t remember, hidden under cheap band-aids.
Meanwhile, Milo swam through a digital swamp. Propped up with pillows and painkillers, his laptop glowed in the dim apartment. He cross-referenced city permits, ghost utility invoices, and traffic cam footage near the Clarendon plant. The pattern was a silent scream. Unmarked tanker trucks, always at night, their weight straining suspensions on the way in, noticeably lighter on the way out.
“Not just people,” he muttered to the empty room, his good hand clenching. “They’re draining them. Of what?” A search for medical supply purchases linked to Fisk’s charitable foundation showed a bizarre surplus of saline solution, intravenous tubing, and high-end refrigerated storage units. The pieces floated, dark and disconnected, in his mind.
Sarah returned just after ten, the bag from a 24-hour pharmacy swinging from her hand.
She was wearing her black cat costume having done some scoping out work. The familiar polymers felt like a second skin, but they carried the chill of the city’s night air into Milo’s perpetually warm apartment. She dropped the pharmacy bag on his kitchen counter with a soft rustle, the sound too domestic for the tension humming between them.
“Antibiotics, the strong stuff,” she said, her voice slightly modulated by the mask. “More bandages. You look like hell.”
“You bring me gifts and insults,” Milo said from the bedroom doorway. “A real romantic.”
He was propped against the frame, and the sight made her pause. The rose was clenched between his teeth, a deep crimson slash against his stubbled jaw. He wore only a pair of dark boxer briefs, the bandage on his shoulder stark white against his skin. The casual, almost arrogant display of his battered body was a calculated shock.
Sarah raised an amused, but intrigued eyebrow, the expression clear even through her mask. “A rose? Really? Where’d you even find that?”
“Mrs. Gable next door,” he mumbled around the stem, his words slightly garbled. “Her window box. I told her it was for a story.” He took the rose from his teeth, held it out to her. “Seemed more interesting than ‘hello.’”
Before she could take it, his good arm shot out. His fingers hooked firmly into the utility belt at her waist. He yanked, pulling her off-balance and directly into him.
She stumbled forward, a surprised gasp caught in her throat. The hard planes of his chest met the unyielding polymer of her suit. He smelled of antiseptic, old whiskey, and that tired, woody cologne.
Then he kissed her.
It wasn’t gentle. It was hungry and direct, all the pent-up frustration and adrenaline of the last twenty-four hours channeled into the press of his mouth. The rose, forgotten, fell to the floor. Sarah’s hands, which had flown up to brace against him, froze. Every instinct screamed to push him away—this was a terrible idea, he was injured, he was using her.
But her body betrayed her with a molten surge of want. She kissed him back.
They fell onto the bed in a tangle of limbs and gear, the springs groaning in protest. He broke the kiss, nuzzling into the junction of her neck and shoulder, his breath hot against her skin. “You know,” he mused, his voice a rough vibration she felt everywhere, “this is significantly more fun than investigating municipal sewer maps.”
His hand found the seam of her suit’s torso. With a sharp, practiced pull, he ripped the sealed polymer open from collar to sternum. The cool air hit her bare skin, raising goosebumps. He pushed the material aside, burying his face between her breasts.
A low, shuddering moan escaped her. His mouth was everywhere, hot and demanding. When his lips closed around her nipple, drawing it deep into the wet heat of his mouth, the sensation was so intensely sharp it arched her back off the mattress. A man twice her age had her nipple in his mouth, and the forbidden thrill of it, mixed with the sheer physical shock, short-circuited every thought of the Kingpin, the blueprints, the city.
Her fingers tangled in his hair, not pushing him away but holding him closer.
The world shrank to the four walls of this dirty room, the weight of him, the expert pull of his mouth. Her hands raked down his back, careful of the bandage, feeling the shift of muscle and scar under her fingers. He didn’t treat her like something fragile; he handled her with a greedy, knowing precision that left her breathless.
“Off,” he growled against her skin, his fingers clawing at the ruined seam of her suit. “Get this damn thing off.”
She helped him, shimmying out of the torn polymer, the material pooling on the stained sheets like a shed skin. The cool air raised goosebumps, but his hands were immediately there, warming her. He kissed a trail down her stomach, his stubble a delicious abrasion. He hooked his thumbs into the waistband of her suit’s leggings and peeled them down her hips, his movements urgent, practiced.
Then he put his head between her legs.
His mouth was hot and relentlessly specific. Sarah cried out, a sharp, unfiltered sound that echoed off the barren walls. Her hands fisted in the sheets, then in his hair. Every coherent thought—Fisk, the blueprints, the bullet wound—dissolved into pure sensation. He worked her with a focused intensity that felt like an interrogation, one she was desperately eager to fail. A deep, shuddering moan was ripped from her throat, pleasure coiling tight and then shattering.
Before the tremors even subsided, he was moving up her body, his own need blatant and pressing against her thigh. He fumbled for a condom on the nightstand with his good hand, his breathing ragged. She took it from him, her fingers surprisingly steady, and sheathed him.
He didn’t ask. He just looked at her, his gaze dark and questioning in the low light. She answered by wrapping her legs around his hips, pulling him into her.
He entered her with a single, slow thrust that forced the air from both their lungs. A sharp, pleasurable burn gave way to a staggering, full heat. He stilled for a moment, forehead damp against hers, his body trembling with the effort of control. Then he began to move.
It wasn’t gentle. It was a driving, desperate rhythm fueled by pain and fear and a sudden, shocking hunger. She matched him, her hips rising to meet his, her legs locking tighter around him, pulling him deeper. The bedframe slammed against the wall in a steady, protesting beat. She was loud, and she didn’t care, each gasp and cry her own private rebellion against the silent, watchful city.
He finished inside her with a choked, guttural sound, his body buckling as he buried his face in the crook of her neck. She held him through the aftershocks, her own release still echoing in her veins, her fingers tracing the sweat-slick line of his spine.
For a long time, they just lay there, tangled and spent, the only sound their slowing breaths. The neon from the sign across the street painted shifting blue bars across the ceiling.
Eventually, he shifted, rolling onto his good side but keeping her close. He kissed a slow path down the knobs of her spine, his lips soft and considering now. His palm came to rest heavily on the curve of her ass, a possessive, warm weight.
“You’re going to be trouble,” he murmured into the nape of her neck, his voice rough and sleep-slurred. “Real trouble. I want to see you after this. The suit, the mask… I want to see you without any of it.”
She twisted slightly to look back at him over her shoulder, a playful smirk on her swollen lips. “You’re forty and you just got shot. That was pretty decent stamina for an old man.”
He pinched her ass lightly, making her yelp. “Says the girl who was screaming my name. Not ‘Black Cat’ saves the city. Milo. Loudly.”
She laughed then, a real, unguarded sound that felt alien in the grim apartment. He grinned and tugged her onto her back, covering her mouth with his in a deep, lingering kiss that tasted of salt and them. He snogged her senseless, until she was breathless and dizzy again, all the sharp edges of the world blissfully blurred.
When he finally pulled away, they were both smiling stupidly at the ceiling, the absurdity of it hanging in the air with the dust. The blueprints were still on the floor. The city was still out there, waiting. Kingpin was still hunting them.
But for these few stolen minutes, they weren’t.
They were just two people in a messed-up bed, and it was enough. For a few more minutes, anyway. The city’s ambient groan finally seeped back in, a reminder waiting in the wings.
He traced a lazy circle on her hip with his thumb. “So. Clarendon plant. Dead-end pipes.” His voice was a rumble against her back. “I think he’s filtering them.”
“Filtering?” Sarah craned her neck to look at him.
“The people.” He kissed a vertebra, his lips moving with his words. “The new drug. It’s a cocktail, right? Fentanyl and a neuro-stimulant. What if the stimulant isn’t synthetic? What if it’s… harvested?” He kissed lower, his stubble scratching pleasantly. “Adrenaline, cortisol, dopamine—the cocktail the body makes when it’s terrified. He’s not just moving product. He’s manufacturing it. From the source.”
The idea was so grotesque it made her stomach clench. She stared at the cracked plaster wall. “A farm.”
“A refinery,” he corrected, his mouth finding the dimple at the base of her spine. “Feed in desperate people, pump them full of fear, drain the chemical result. It’s efficient. It’s utterly fucking monstrous.”
“We need to get inside,” she said, the plan forming through the haze of his touch.
“We do. Tomorrow night.” His hand splayed across her lower back, holding her in place as he continued his slow, distracting exploration. “I’ve got a contact, a disgruntled city inspector. He can get us schematics for the interior. You’ll do the climbing. I’ll do the talking.”
“You’re in no shape to do the talking,” she murmured, shivering as his lips brushed a sensitive spot.
“I talk fine lying down.” He nipped her skin playfully, then rested his cheek against her. “Can’t believe I just slept with Black Cat.”
She smiled into the pillow. “Regrets?”
“Are you kidding? According to a poll in the Gazette’s lifestyle section last month, you’re the third-most fantasized-about public figure in the country. Right behind that actress from the space opera and the首相 of Japan.” He chuckled, the sound vibrating through her. “I’ve just blown past the fantasies of several million men. My ego may never recover.”
She laughed, a full, unguarded sound. “A poll? They polled that?”
“It was a very slow news week. The piece was titled ‘Idols in the Shadows: Who Captures the Public’s Midnight Imagination?’” He adopted a pompous, announcer’s voice. “The enigmatic Black Cat scored highly for ‘mystique’ and ‘perceived athleticism.’ I can now confirm the athleticism.”
She rolled onto her back, swatting his good shoulder. “Shut up.”
“What?” He grinned, a real, uncynical grin that changed his whole face. “Think this would make the front page? ‘Grizzled Journalist Bags Elusive Vigilante: Source Confirms “Stamina Surprisingly Adequate for His Age.”’”
“They’d run it below the fold,” she shot back, smiling. “Next to the weather. ‘Local Man Achieves Mediocre Dream.’” She slipped out from under him, the cool air hitting her sweat-damp skin. She found her torn suit on the floor and began pulling on the leggings.
He propped himself up on an elbow, watching her. As she bent to search for her top, he leaned in and nuzzled the soft skin behind her ear. “I want round two,” he whispered, his breath hot. “After we take down Fisk. A proper one. Somewhere that isn’t a field hospital.”
A thrill, sharp and sweet, shot through her. She straightened, turning to face him. “Slow down, tiger. You’ve got a hole in you. And we’ve got a refinery of nightmares to burn down.” She padded to his small kitchenette, filling his dented electric kettle. “Coffee first. Then planning. Then maybe not dying.”
He swung his legs over the side of the bed, wincing only slightly. He came up behind her as she scooped cheap grounds into a French press. He slid his good arm around her waist, his fingers splaying possessively low on her stomach. He kissed her shoulder, then her neck, slow and promising.
She leaned back into him for a second, allowing the warmth. Then she elbowed him gently. “I’m making coffee. You’re in the way.”
He released her, but his hand came down in a quick, playful slap on her ass. The sound was crisp in the tiny kitchen. A jolt of pure, secret pleasure sparked through her. She didn’t protest, just shook her head, hiding her smile.
“After Fisk,” he repeated, his voice low and serious now, all teasing gone. “That’s the deal. We wreck his world. Then we take a real night for ourselves.”
She poured the boiling water, watching the grounds swirl and bloom. The plan was insane. The odds were impossible. The man behind her was a complication she couldn’t afford. But as the bitter, necessary scent of coffee began to fill the dismal room, for the first time, it didn’t feel like a last stand.
It felt like a beginning.
Sarah pressed the chipped mug of black coffee into Milo’s good hand, the steam rising between them, mingling with the faint scent of antiseptic still clinging to his skin. As she leaned in to offer it, his free arm snaked around her waist, yanking her against him so suddenly she sloshed coffee over the rim of the mug and onto his bandaged shoulder.
“Fuck—!” he hissed, jerking back, but she was already laughing, the sound bright and startled.
He grinned, unfazed by the pain. “Sorry, kid. Reflex.” Then, ignoring the burn, he pulled her into a deep, hungry kiss, tasting of coffee and rebellion.
Sarah broke away laughing, shaking her head as she wiped imaginary tears from her eyes. “*Casanova*,” she teased, her voice thick with amusement.
She reached up and wiped a smudge of coffee from his jawline with her thumb, then popped it into her mouth. “Tastes like cheap gas station brew. Morning breath’s a side effect of your charm, old man.”
Milo’s answering laugh was rough, but genuine, the kind of sound that made the lines around his eyes deepen. He tossed the ruined bandage into the sink and pulled a fresh one from the first-aid kit Sarah had brought, wincing as he applied it with one hand. “I’ll take it. Better than smelling like soybean paste and desperation.”
Sarah leaned against the counter, watching him.
The coffee had done its job—her mind was sharp, her body humming with a mix of caffeine and lingering adrenaline. She took a slow sip from her own mug, the bitter liquid grounding her. The apartment was quiet except for the distant hum of the city outside, the occasional car horn, the low murmur of a neighbor’s TV.
Milo finished securing the fresh bandage and reached for his coffee. His fingers brushed hers as he took the mug, sending a small jolt through her. He didn’t pull away. Instead, he held her gaze, his expression unreadable.
“So,” she said, breaking the silence. “Clarendon plant. Dead-end pipes.