Chapter 1: Whiskey and Wrong Decisions
The jukebox wailed something mournful and twangy, fighting the low thrum of too many bodies crammed into too little space. Smoke hung thick, stinging Mercy Graves’ eyes and coating her throat. It mixed with the sour tang of spilled beer, cheap cologne, and the underlying funk of desperation that clung to places like The Rusty Nail. Neon light from outside bled through the grimy front window, painting shifting streaks of red and blue across the scarred wooden floor. Rain drummed a steady rhythm against the glass.
Mercy sat alone in a corner booth, a half-finished club soda sweating onto the cheap vinyl tabletop. Not her usual scene. Lex preferred his employees to maintain appearances befitting LexCorp's gleaming towers, not dive bars smelling of defeat. But tonight required discretion, a quiet meet with a nervous informant who’d insisted on this cesspit. He’s late, she thought, her fingers lightly drumming a silent rhythm on the table. Unprofessional. Annoying.
Her sharp gaze, honed by years of anticipating threats for Lex Luthor, swept the room. It cataloged the slumped drunk at the bar, the pair of truckers arguing over a pool table, the weary bartender polishing the same glass for the fifth time. Then it snagged on a commotion near the restroom hallway. A tight knot of men – three, maybe four – crowded a smaller figure pressed back against the peeling wallpaper. Even through the haze and the bad lighting, Mercy recognized the defiant tilt of the chin, the familiar cascade of dark hair currently disheveled.
Lois Lane.
The Daily Planet’s top investigative reporter was swaying slightly, one hand braced against the wall for support. Her eyes, though bleary, burned with a familiar, stubborn fire. One of the men, thick-necked and reeking of stale beer even from here, leaned in too close, his finger jabbing towards her face. His companions chuckled, low and menacing, forming a wall blocking any easy exit. Lois shoved at the jabber, a clumsy, off-balance push that only made the man grin wider. He grabbed her wrist.
Mercy sighed internally. Complications. Lois Lane was a persistent thorn in LexCorp's side, constantly digging, always asking the wrong questions. Letting her get roughed up in some dive bar could be… convenient. A temporary solution to a recurring problem. Lex wouldn’t shed a tear. She sipped her club soda, the bubbles sharp on her tongue. Just business.
But then one of the other men, a wiry guy with greasy hair, made a grab for Lois’s shoulder, his fingers digging in. Lois cried out, a sharp sound swallowed by the jukebox's drone but clear to Mercy’s trained ears. The sound wasn't fear, not exactly. It was outrage. Fury at being manhandled. That spark of undimmed defiance, even swimming in cheap whiskey, snagged something unexpected in Mercy. Not sympathy, never that. Perhaps… recognition? A flicker of professional distaste for clumsy thuggery.
Fine. Mercy set her glass down with a soft clink. She didn't rise quickly. She unfolded herself from the booth with the lethal grace of a predator emerging from cover. Two strides across the sticky floor brought her to the edge of the group. She didn't announce herself. Didn't shout. Her hand simply snapped out, fingers like steel cables locking around the thick-necked man’s wrist – the one holding Lois.
He startled, whipping his head around. "Hey! The hell—?"
Mercy applied pressure. Precise. Brutal. Targeting the nerve cluster just above the ulna. His grip on Lois instantly slackened as pain flared across his face. "Let her go," Mercy stated, her voice low, flat, devoid of inflection. It cut through the bar noise like a scalpel.
The wiry guy snarled, swinging a clumsy haymaker. Mercy didn’t even look at him. She stepped into the thick-necked man, using his bulk as a shield, while her free elbow snapped back in a short, vicious arc. It connected with the wiry guy’s solar plexus with a sickening thud. He folded like wet cardboard, gasping, eyes bulging, collapsing onto the sticky floor. The third man, younger, gaped, momentarily frozen by the speed and savagery.
Lois stumbled back, free, bumping against the wall. She blinked rapidly, trying to focus on Mercy, confusion warring with the alcohol fog and residual anger. Her coat was askew, hair falling into her eyes.
The thick-necked man wrenched his wrist free, cradling it, his face purple with rage and humiliation. "Bitch! You broke my goddamn—"
Mercy silenced him with a look. Just a look. Cold, assessing, promising immediate and severe consequences if he continued. It worked. He backed up a step, muttering curses, glancing down at his wheezing friend. He hauled the wiry guy up, both of them stumbling towards the exit, shooting venomous glares over their shoulders. The younger one followed quickly, eager to escape Mercy’s orbit.
Just like that, it was over. The bar’s din rushed back in, a wave of sound punctuated only by the moan of the wind-up guy on the floor trying to suck in air.
Lois pushed herself off the wall, swaying more noticeably now that the adrenaline surge was fading. She blinked at Mercy, trying to place her, recognition dawning slowly. Her eyes narrowed, sharpening despite the alcohol. There was no gratitude. Only wariness and a burgeoning, liquor-fueled belligerence.
Before Mercy could turn away, intending to vanish back into the smoky anonymity of the bar, Lois moved. Fast. Unsteady, but driven by pure instinct. She lunged forward, not to attack, but to corner. She slammed her palms against the grimy wood of the bar counter on either side of Mercy, effectively pinning her in place. The sudden closeness was jarring. Mercy could smell the cheap whiskey on Lois’s breath, mingling with the scent of rain from her damp coat and something uniquely Lois – ink and ozone and fierce determination.
Lois leaned in. Her voice, when it came, was a husky, whiskey-scented whisper, hot against Mercy’s ear. It vibrated with a dangerous mix of intoxication, lingering fear, and razor-sharp intelligence.
"What’s a LexCorp attack dog," she breathed, the words thick but precise, each one landing like a tiny hammer blow, "doing playing hero?"
Mercy didn’t flinch. She held Lois’s gaze, inches away. The reporter’s eyes, despite the alcohol, were unnervingly clear, probing. The question hung in the smoky air, heavy with accusation and a challenge Mercy hadn’t anticipated. The easy dismissal she’d planned curdled in her throat. This wasn’t over. It had just gotten infinitely more complicated. Outside, the rain hissed against the pavement.
Across the bar, near the flickering exit sign, Mercy caught a flash of movement. The younger guy from the group wasn’t gone. He lurked in the shadowed alcove by the door, his hand dipping into the pocket of his dirty denim jacket. His eyes weren't on his retreating friends anymore. They were fixed intently, with a new kind of malice, on Lois Lane’s back. The glint of cheap chrome winked in the neon as his fingers closed around something inside the pocket. A knife? A sap? The intent was clear. Revenge, redirected onto the easier target.
Mercy saw it all in a fraction of a second – the shift in posture, the predatory focus, the glint of metal. Lois, oblivious, her hot breath still ghosting against Mercy’s skin, her demanding eyes locked on Mercy’s own, waiting for an answer to her loaded question. The thug started forward, pushing off the wall, his path taking him straight towards Lois's unprotected back. Mercy’s body tensed, every muscle coiling. The club soda felt like ice in her stomach. She was pinned, literally and figuratively. A choice crystallized with terrifying speed: answer Lois, or act. Silence hung, thick and suffocating, for one more heartbeat.
The chrome glint in the thug’s hand wasn't a knife. It was worse. A cheap, spring-loaded sap – lead shot sewn into leather. Silent and brutal. Designed to crack skulls without the mess of a blade. He was already moving, weaving through the few patrons near the door with predatory focus, eyes locked on Lois’s exposed back.
Mercy’s calculation was instantaneous, cold. Answering Lois’s loaded question meant letting the sap connect. Letting Lois Lane, Pulitzer Prize-winning pain-in-LexCorp’s-ass, get brained in a dive bar by a two-bit thug she’d pissed off. Convenient? Maybe. But messy. And Lex hated messy. More importantly… the sheer clumsiness of it offended her professional sensibilities.
Action won.
Mercy didn’t shove Lois away. That would telegraph the threat. Instead, she used Lois’s own momentum against her. As Lois leaned in, demanding an answer, Mercy dropped her center of gravity and surged forward into Lois’s space, her shoulder driving hard into Lois’s sternum.
"Oof!" Lois gasped, the whiskey-scented breath exploding from her lungs as she was propelled backwards, stumbling.
The movement was abrupt, violent. It put Lois directly in the path of a rickety bar stool. She crashed into it, sending it clattering sideways, and landed hard on her backside on the sticky floor, dazed and winded. But crucially, it also yanked Mercy out from between Lois and the bar counter.
The thug, committed to his swing, found his target suddenly replaced. Mercy stood where Lois had been pinned, facing him. His eyes widened in surprise and fury as his arm completed its vicious arc. The sap whistled through the air where Lois’s head had been a split-second before.
Mercy didn't block. She flowed. Her left hand shot up, not to intercept the sap, but to clamp onto his wrist above the weapon, arresting its momentum with jarring force. Simultaneously, her right foot snapped out in a vicious, low side-kick. It connected perfectly with the outside of his leading knee.
The crack was sickeningly loud, cutting through the jukebox’s drone. A wet pop of ligaments giving way. The thug screamed, a high-pitched, animal sound of agony. His leg buckled grotesquely inward. Mercy maintained her grip on his wrist, using his collapsing weight to wrench his arm down and behind him in one brutal, practiced motion. She drove his face, sap still clutched in his now-useless hand, straight down onto the edge of the overturned bar stool Lois had hit.
Crunch.
The scream cut off into a wet gurgle. He slumped, motionless, blood already pooling darkly on the filthy floorboards from his shattered nose and likely fractured cheekbone.
Silence descended, heavier than before. The mournful twang from the jukebox sounded obscenely loud now. The few patrons who hadn’t already fled were frozen, staring. The bartender had finally stopped polishing his glass, his mouth hanging open.
Mercy straightened, breathing evenly. She didn't spare the unconscious thug a glance. Her gaze snapped to Lois, who was pushing herself up onto her elbows, shaking her head as if to clear it. Her eyes, wide and momentarily unfocused, locked onto Mercy. The fury was back, mixed with shock and the dregs of drunkenness.
"You… you shoved me!" Lois sputtered, scrambling awkwardly to her feet, wincing and rubbing her tailbone. Her coat was covered in grime and something sticky. "What the hell is wrong with you?"
Mercy stepped over the prone figure, ignoring the spreading bloodstain. She kept her voice low, flat, cutting through Lois’s indignation. "He was coming for you. With that." She nodded curtly towards the sap lying beside the thug’s limp hand. "You were in the way."
Lois followed her gaze, her angry retort dying on her lips as she saw the weapon, the blood, the unnatural angle of the man’s leg. The color drained from her face, leaving her dusky skin pale beneath the bar’s harsh lights. The reality of what had almost happened, what had happened inches from her, crashed through the alcoholic haze. Her bravado flickered, replaced by a dawning, sickening comprehension.
"He…?" Lois swallowed hard, her eyes darting from the sap to Mercy’s impassive face. The reporter’s mind was visibly churning, piecing together the split-second sequence Mercy had engineered. Shoved away from the blow. Shoved into safety, however ungraceful. Saved. Again.
By Lex Luthor’s assistant.
The wariness flooded back, sharper now, cutting through the lingering shock. Lois straightened her coat with trembling hands, a futile attempt at regaining composure. "Why?" The single word was loaded. It wasn't just about the thug. It was about everything. The intervention against the first group. This brutal rescue. LexCorp’s shadow looming over it all. "Why bother? Why not just let him…?" She couldn't finish the sentence, gesturing vaguely at the carnage.
Mercy met her gaze. The air still stank of blood, cheap whiskey, and stale smoke. The rain hissed against the window. The easy answers – LexCorp policy, professional courtesy – tasted like ash. Lois Lane wouldn’t buy them anyway. She saw too much. The truth was messier, more inconvenient. A flicker of something uncomfortably close to… kinship? Recognition of a similar, stubborn fire that burned despite the grime? Or just the ingrained reflex to neutralize threats efficiently, regardless of who they were aimed at?
She bit her lip.