So, has forfeited his side of the contest (in a vs. against me). I had already written my entry, however, and now have nothing to do with it. So, here you guys go.
Note: This story is not a part of any continuity, Mayhem or otherwise.
Note: Deadshot is my absolute least favorite character.
----------------------------
“Time's up, Lawton.”
His heart lurched. That couldn't be right – it was too soon. She had just gotten here. She couldn't go already. “No, that can't be right,” the man breathed, turning to face the guard behind him. “That's not right, Waller said an hour. She said I have an hour!”
“Ms. Waller has changed her mind.” The guard's face was stone-cold, unfeeling, uncaring. Unthinking, if Waller had her way.
“Please, just... just a little more time,” Floyd's voice raised an octave. It wasn't purposeful, no form of manipulation on his part – he was truly pleading, verging on begging, for the only thing that truly mattered to him. “Just a few minutes more, she won't notice--!”
“Say your goodbyes, Mr. Lawton.”
Too late. Michelle had taken the first opportunity to get her away from him... already, the woman was dragging her away. Zoe Torres. Floyd's daughter.
“Zoe, I... wait! I'll see you soon, baby! Daddy loves--” the glass-and-chrome door clicked shut with a sound of cold finality. On the other side, Floyd could see her gazing back at him over her mother's shoulder, waving one tiny hand 'goodbye'. “--You.”
It was all he could do not to drop to his knees. He glanced up at the lifeless, round clock emblazoned over the south wall of Belle Reve's visiting room. It had been ten minutes since she had arrived.
Ten minutes with his daughter, in the past month.
“It's time to go, Mr. Lawton.”
Floyd Lawton – otherwise known as the supervillain, Deadshot – slowly nodded, squeezing his eyes shut for just a moment, his back turned to the guard. A thin trickle of salty liquid dotted the corner of each eye before soaking into his skin, and he opened his eyes again, pretending that they wouldn't still be glistening. “Alright, let's go.”
Back through the cold steel halls of Belle Reve. Back past the cells, back to the office that he saw all too much of. Belle Reve had, at one time, been the only prison Floyd looked forward to seeing, the only place that offered hope. The only place with a 'get out of jail, with a catch' card. Now, he would give up both of his wrist-mounted cannons and his specially-designed marksman's mask to be tossed anywhere else. Arkham, maybe – he heard that escape from that place was a comically common occurrence. Even Blackgate Penitentiary, with its heightened security and less-gentle treatment of inmates, offered the possibility of a breakout being organized by one of Gotham's more organized super-criminals.
Belle Reve's walls held no more hope, not anymore. As long as he continued to survive his missions on Task Force X, Waller would think up more and more reasons to keep him there. The prospect of freedom, of 'working off your time', was an illusion, and a brilliant one at that. An illusion that not only he had fallen for.
He passed by seemingly endless cells on either side of him, hoots and catcalls echoing out around him. The inmates of Belle Reve either envied or worshiped Deadshot – any other perceived attitude, such as hatred or negligence, was the bastard child of one of the first two. Deadshot was a survivor. After countless years of Task Force X, of the Suicide Squad, the roster had circulated an endless amount of times. There was only a single constant – the man in the red-and-silver suit, with not a single superpower to his name. Deadshot's special ability was to shoot first and always hit, and it had never once failed him. He was a survivor.
A familiar doorway now loomed before him as the guard goaded him along. 'Amanda Waller', the sign on the door said. The level of the security in that office was hilarious – Waller's endless contingencies were equaled only by her weight, and her immense confidence. Nobody would dare attack her in her own office. She owned the balls of every inmate in this place, endless plans built up around her. Everyone had something important to them, and if there was one person in the earth who knew exactly how, and what, to threaten, it was Amanda Waller, the warden of Belle Reve.
“Go on,” the guard grunted, bumping Floyd gently with the butt of his rifle. Floyd nodded and reached forward, turning the knob and opening that flimsy little wooden door.
There she was. She was nauseating, and not only in the physical sense. Floyd had long since grown used to 'The Wall's' lack of attention to personal fitness. It was her eyes, her intense stare. The unflinching gaze of a woman who had unlimited power, access to the most ruthless and powerful villains on this planet or any other, and the uncontested ability to make them dance like her own personal, murderous puppets.
Power corrupts.
Absolute power spawns Amanda Waller.
“You're late, Floyd. I needed you here at exactly 1pm.”
“I was with Zoe, Waller, you know that. I came as soon as the order came.” Floyd entered the room with his head lowered, his eyes downcast. The things he could do to her, right now, if she didn't know about Michelle and Zoe. It would be so easy. It would be effortless. If only she didn't have his nuts in a vice that never let go, never stopped clamping down harder and harder and harder.
“Then maybe you should have gotten here before it came,” the heavy, dark woman growled, her eyes still boring into him, into his history and his soul. Her gaze softened only slightly as she turned back to her desk, drawing forth several medium-sized, octagonal pieces of paper. “I have a target for you, Floyd. A solo mission, related to Task Force X. You'll get double your time off if you make it back alive.”
Floyd leaned forward very slightly, his sharp eyes scanning the papers laid out on the desk. The face was familiar to him, closely so – it was the face of a ten-year-old boy, his face crunched in a sneer, the top piece of his face concealed by a domino mask. The boy was the current Robin.
“He's just a boy,” Floyd said softly, his tone emotionless.
“His name is Damian. We know he has a close relation to the endless nuisance known as the Batman, but more importantly...” Waller slid a small sheet of paper out from beneath the others, showing off another image. This one showed a man in a dark robe, with intense, glaring eyes, his face covered by a cowl. “Timeline scouts have confirmed that he is the grandson of none other than Ra's al-Ghul. Allowing him to grow to adulthood could result in one of the most powerful and cunning terrorists in history.”
Floyd Lawton took a careful step backwards, now parallel with the guard who had led him inside. “He's a child, Waller.”
Amanda brought her eyes back up to Floyd's, holding his gaze and drilling into his heart. Her voice dropped an octave and grew serious, deadly. “He won't always be. You know that this isn't negotiable, Lawton... think of your daughter.”
Floyd's eyes didn't leave hers. One hand twitched subtly, an unnoticeable exercise of his muscles. “I am,” he said quietly, before that hand found itself in the holster of that guard's sidearm, drawing the piece and pointing it at Waller's forehead. Her only reaction, the only reaction she had time for, was a slight widening of her eyes, a tiny gasp, before two bullets zipped through her skull and sent her brains splashing across the wall behind her.
Two bullets into the guard's heart, and Floyd was alone in the office. No sirens had been activated, no alerts – yet. He breathed in deeply, and tucked the ten millimeter into his pants. He had never truly understood the meaning of the term 'wanted man' until this second. He had to find Zoe – it may not be too late.
Log in to comment