Her calloused hands were rough and marked with tattoos. In fact, the majority of her body was a canvas; Her right hand had a skull along the back, and the word 'JACK' prominently spread out along the back of her fingers, along with a small star on the center of her wrist. He loved looking at her tattoos, exploring the wrinkles here and there. She had so many stories that she didn't need to say anything, and the mystery of his former enemy is what kept him coming back here, to this small coffee shop on the lower east side.
Her green eyes glared into him as he rotated her hand around slightly, before catching himself. He offered her a smile out of apology, leveling a cybernetic eye on her disapproving face. "Okay, okay, I'm sorry." She drummed a sugar packet against the checkerboard table and tore it open with her teeth, dunking the little mix of sweetener into a mug of black Colombian. "I just can't take my eyes off you." He spoke quietly, bringing his own hands to rest together.
She chuckled and shook her head in disbelief, briefly running a hand through her short black hair. She didn't want to let him know that her face was lit up by his compliment, so she quickly assumed her tough exterior. "It's been a while. I figured you'd had your fill of me. How long has it been since we last locked horns, Max?" She stirred her coffee idly. The man across from her leaned back and eyed the pattern on the table, avoiding eye contact.
"About six years. I .. listen, I thought we'd moved past everything. I wasn't .."
"Still broke the law." She interjected quietly, zeroing in on him with those emerald eyes. Max felt as if a weight had been put on his shoulders, and slumped down the back of his chair. A scar burned in his right shoulder, the remnants of a .45 caliber's impact. Taking a sip of his tea, he leaned forward.
"I know I broke the law. You -" He hushed his tone. "You don't need to say it loudly. I know how I screwed up. I -" He dug his fingers into his temple, then briefly covered his mouth with his hand. Worried eyes scanned her face. She crossed her arms under her breasts and leaned forward, posturing her shoulders aggressively.
"Do you, now?" She spread her hands out slightly, her JACK tattoo prominently visible now. "Did you really need to do what you did? You knew what my job was. What I had to do, so, six years in the pen for what you did is getting off really easy, to be frank with you. You're lucky I didn't break in just to kick your ass." Her voice was quiet but pained. "You lied. You lied to me, and ..." She took a deep breath and sighed.
"So.. yeah, I did. I know. I'm sorry. I've had a lot to think about for six years, Rebecca." He took a long drink and reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. The diner owner glared at him from across the pastry shelf, then rolled his eyes and paced back into the kitchen. Taking a light to the cigarette, she'd immediately reach over and snap it from his lips. He gazed at her forlornly. "You're going to stickler me about smoking laws now?"
"I .." She grit her teeth. "I have a lot to stickler you about, Max. A lot to fucking stickler you about." Those hands curled into fists. "Six years. You lied to me, you got back in like what we had didn't matter, what.." The woman's hardened eyes welled with tears. "You threw it all away and didn't even think about what kind of a mark you'd left."
Max's face contorted with contempt. "Well, I - Fuck, they had me against the wall, Rebecca! Listen, some people paint paintings, some people swim in the ocean, I didn't know the clerk was there, I paniced and shot him, okay?!" He whispered, "I made a mistake!" He yelled now, throwing his coffee mug to the ground. "I fucked up, okay? What more do you want me to say? WHAT DO YOU WANT TO HEAR FROM ME?! SIX YEARS OF REGRET AND PROBABLY A LIFETIME MORE! WHAT IS IT YOU WANT?"
"I WANT YOU TO REALIZE WHAT EFFECT YOU HAD ON OTHER PEOPLE'S LIVES, MAX!"
"DON'T YOU FUCKING THINK I REALIZE THAT?!"
"You gave up what we had, you hurt that family by taking away their boy, he was just a teenager, Max! He was just a boy and you shot him!" She slammed her fists into the small diner table and practically barked her words at him. Max pressed two hands to his face, one cybernetic, one flesh. Shoulders shaking, the man wept.
She reached out, sliding her arms across the table and touched at him. He continue to cry quietly. Standing up, she stepped around the table and took him into her chest, her fingers sliding through his hair. He let out a muted scream into her shirt; The woman just stared ahead, watching a few alerted onlookers pass by on the late-night sidewalk.
"That night, I arrived before the cops, do you remember?" She spoke softly to him, releasing the tension in her shoulders with a sigh. "You tried to run, I was furious, so .. I shot you. You collapsed, the cops came, and.." She placed her hands against his shoulders and eased him away. "I could have killed you, Max. I didn't. I knew you made a mistake, even then. A life was taken. You needed to see justice for your crime, but .."
Max stared up at her, gloomy defeat painted on his face.
".. I couldn't shoot the father of our son." She motioned to the JACK tattoo, then took her phone from her blue jeans pocket and offered it over. A photo of a blonde-haired boy, about six years old, putting his mother in a headlock. "I can't forget what you did. I hated you for a long time. I told the police everything, I even told Jack that his father had to go away for a while, but .." She raked a hand through his hair. "If you really are penitent about what you've done, we're going to have to work to make things right."
"Jack.. The boy, he's .." He stared into the photograph, completely taken aback. He slumped back into his chair and spoke, his eyes never lifting away from the happy pair in Central Park depicted on the phone.
"He's our son, Maxwell. I didn't know I was carrying until about a month after the incident. I was going to terminate the pregnancy but I didn't. It's been hard for me, Max." She took her phone back and stowed it away in her pocket. Maxwell gazed at the floor for a moment, before looking up to meet her eyes.
"I .. I .. This is a lot to process. I'm sorry. I- I'm so sorry, Rebecca. I wish.. I wish I had kept my word to you. I wish I had stayed clean, i .. I'm sorry. I'll do anything to make it right. The man I was died that night you put a bullet in me. I want .. I want to make things right. I'll pay the family, help them, I'll .. I'll help raise our boy. Please don't deny me this. I .. I have to be a better man."
Rebecca crossed her arms.
"We'll see as we go, Max. I've got to let go of a lot of anger, and .. we're going to need to work this out between the two of us. He can't see any of it, you understand? And if you ever.." She shook her head, her voice adopting a bass. "If you ever do anything like what you did, skirt the law like you did, or get put in a situation like that, you tell me, and we'll fix it. You're clean, you're staying clean. Got me?"
"I got you." Maxwell stood, taking the woman into his arms. She resisted, planting her hands into his chest, before allowing herself to be hugged. "I'm staying clean." He repeated, planting his chin into her forehead. Tears of joy streamed from the former super-villain's eyes, perhaps the first happiness he'd felt in the better part of a decade. Arm in arm, the two stepped out of the small diner on the lower east side and made their way into a new adventure together.