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It's your day off, and you're out walking with your favourite lady when you are ambushed by the mob. Happens to the best of you. In fact, it just did. That's alright. You're prepared. You got a lead just this morning that they were planning this drop and you came ready. And so did your girl.
Spades Slick takes a step out from around the corner and stops there in silhouette, fedora a sharp slice over his eyes, and he waits. Your eyes are fixed on him, so your girl catches it before you do. "But where is the rest of the devious Midnight Crew?" she asks. It's perfect, the way she looks at you and it's all serious intent.
Then the real ambush kicks in. Spades Slick's short friend gets the drop on you, by which you mean he actually leaps out of a tree and mostly onto your shoulders. You go down with a shout, and by the time he comes out on top, you on your knees and him with his arms around your throat from behind, you look up to see Spades Slick with his hands on your girl's shoulders. She looks frozen, unmoving, watching you and waiting with wide eyes. You had no idea they made eyes so big and gorgeous before her.
"Ha!" barks the short gangster behind you. "We got you that time, Problem Sleuth."
"Sure, kid," says Spades Slick, a smug grin forming on his face. It's like a zipper sliding across it, revealing sharp teeth through the quirk of his mouth. "They went down easy enough this time, but if you knew how many times this loser has made trouble for me..." He tightens his fingers on your girl's slim shoulders. "So don't get cocky, kid."
"Yeah, real sorry," says Slick's pal. "That's your job."
Slick looks unamused, but the triumph of his easy win is still evident on his face. "Shut up, kid," he says. "So what are we gonna do with these two?"
Your girl cranes her neck up to look at Spades Slick. "Yes," she asks openly, "what are you going to do to us, Mister Slick?"
"Mister Slick," he says, and the grin opens wider. "I like that. You know, I was going to set the both of you up with a pair of concrete shoes."
His friend, with you in a stranglehold, makes a weird sound, like "grk!". He sputters. "No way," he says. "We're not throwing her in the drink."
Slick turns his attention back to his cohort. "Calm down, kiddo," he says. "If I didn't know better, I'd think you had a thing for this dame." More interlocking white shark teeth are revealed.
"Shut up!" says his buddy, and lets go of you to leap for Slick, who, like the coward he is, ducks behind your girl. But his pal is quicker, and dives to the other side, and the two of them hit the ground wrestling in a flurry of teeth and fists.
You rush over to your girl. "I am perfectly fine," she assures you. "Would now be the appropriate time?"
"That's right, sweetheart," you say, and no lie, you feel a flush of pride. You've trained her so well. She's got that calm icy exterior like the classiest dames, capped with ruthless efficiency. She waits. She observes. And then, she surprises.
You reach into your jacket and she into her bag, and you pull out matched pistols. "Freeze, mobster scum," you both say, and you point them at Spades Slick and his buddy, rolling around growling at each other on the sidewalk. Slick lost his hat in the scuffle, and his pal has a handful of his hair.
The two of them obey orders, and look up at you astonished. Spades Slick is the first to speak. "Hey," he says. "There's no way you'd..."
"You were going to throw me in the lake with concrete shoes," you remind him mildly.
His pal chimes in too. "Hey, I was trying to protect you," he protests to your girl.
But, "You would have made me watch," she says evenly, and the gangsters looks shifty-eyed.
That's enough for the two of you. You know what you have to do. You look at each other, nod, and take aim. The second before you fire, the Midnight Crew seem to realize it's the end, and scramble for you, but that just means they take your rounds square in the face before they go down. Their howls can be heard for miles.
Your bloodthirsty girl is still making dakka dakka sounds, and you gently take the pistol from her hands. "There," you say gently to her. "It's all over now, sweetheart." The two of you turn to look at the devastation you've wrought.
Spades Slick and his short buddy lie groaning on the ground, soaked with the spray from the sweet neon water pistols you had the foresight to bring. Slick grabs his hat and puts it on without moving further, and Karkat shakes his head like a dog, sending spray everywhere. Slick lets out another frustrated sound.
You shake hands with your partner. "Good job, kiddo," you tell her. "Soon it'll be Kanaya, Queen of the Streets. She rules Midnight City with an iron fist! She punishes evildoers and wields Sleuth Vengeance against those who would stand in her way!"
"She wants an ice cream," says the Queen of the Streets, and Karkat is on that like he's ambushing it next. "Me too," he says. "Dad, get us ice cream."
"No way," says Spades Slick, slowly getting to his feet and dusting off his beaten-up black suit. "We lost. No ice cream for us, and whose fault is that?"
"You're the one with the wallet," says Karkat, and leaps for Slick's throat again.
Somewhere in their scuffle, you and Kanaya slink away and get ice cream. They follow eventually, Slick disclaiming that shoving some ice cream in Karkat's mouth would be the only way to shut him up. You're pretty much on the doorstep of the park, and the residents have backed well away at the sight of the city's most famous problem sleuth and the most fearsome gangster and their kids scrambling around and playfighting all over the place. That's fine. You don't need them. You've got all you need right here.
Karkat and Kanaya seclude themselves with their ice cream, and you think maybe that Slick was right about his kid having a bit of a thing for Kanaya. But you can deal with that later, and you just sit down with Spades Slick on the bench that the rest of the park has realized belongs to you guys and relax while your kids terrorize the playground.
"You've won this time," says Slick. It's the least threatening threat you've ever heard out of him.
"Yeah," you say, "we won this time." Implied, of course, is that you're just going to keep on winning.
But Spades Slick has a trick up his sleeve, one you should have been prepared for. "Or maybe it's a draw," he says, and you feel the barrel of your own water pistol pressed into your temple. You don't know when he lifted it off you, but he did, and now you don't have any defenses left.
At least Kanaya seems to learn from past mistakes, you think, and that's your last thought before Slick fires and soaks your hat and tackles you to the ground. The rest of the playground inhabitants just back up and give you a little more space to wrestle around in like you're the kids and this place was made for you.
Happens to the best of you. Happens to the best of you.