Chapter 15: [15] A Kitten’s Intervention; the Ava Situation
Chapter 15: A Kitten's Intervention; the Ava Situation
—
Enrique went inside the villa with Anna, but as he had feared, neither Greer nor Ava were there to greet them. Suppressing a frown, he sniffed the air, trying to locate the two girls.
Hopefully, they haven't escaped. His sense of smell was sharp even in his human form, and he soon detected their scent coming from the closet in Greer's room. That was good.
"Those two are sleeping," Enrique lied to Anna, unwilling to confront them now. They were awake but must be hiding from the men in black outside. "Let's not bother them."
Anna quickly nodded and followed him up the stairs. Anna's bedroom was the first door after climbing the stairs. Enrique opened the door for her and then turned to walk to the second room right beside it, which was his room. Before he could walk away, Anna gently tugged his cape.
"Um…" Anna hesitated when he turned to look at her. "You're not coming tonight…?"
The villa was huge, so naturally, both Anna and Enrique had their own rooms. Yet, even though this was their third night in the villa, they had yet to sleep separately.
"Ah, I'm pretty tired today," Enrique said, looking at her. "You should just sleep too."
"I wasn't suggesting that we… you know… do 'that'." Anna shifted uncomfortably. "We can sleep in the same room, just sleep. I feel safer when you're close. Can you come?"
Enrique's eyes seemed unreadable for a moment before he nodded. "Alright. Sure."
Anna smiled brightly.
****
Ava Ayala and Greer Nelson hid in the closet for five more hours, fearing the suspicious men might come and find them. Fortunately, that didn't happen. Annoyingly, they realized Enrique and Anna had returned but hadn't bothered to warn them that everything was fine.
An annoyed Greer wanted to shout and wake those two, but surprisingly, Ava suggested against it. "Let's not do that. They worked hard; they must be tired," Ava hesitated before sighing. "Especially that guy. It seemed he gave his all."
"Oh." Greer blinked. "You like him now?"
"What? No. Of course not." Ava frowned. "Sure, he might be a decent 'Superhero' who cares for the helpless public, but that's not an excuse to neglect the people in his personal life. Let alone take advantage of them."
Greer watched her face for a moment before shrugging. Oh well, she's always been a bit too annoyingly stubborn. She just hoped this girl wouldn't cause trouble with Enrique in the future because of that trait of hers. Nothing good could come from making him their enemy, he was too strong.
"Anyhow, we should get some sleep before the sun rises," Ava yawned.
"I guess. Hey, let's sleep together."
"Huh?"
"Come on."
Even though Ava tried to resist, Greer easily pulled her to the bedroom.
****
The next morning, Enrique woke up earlier than the others. He had made that a habit in his last life to keep his health in check and didn't plan to abandon it in this life either—unless he ever got the chance to gain a power that eliminated the need for sleep.
[Good morning.]
"Morning." Enrique exchanged greetings with Mut while brewing coffee, carefully measuring the coffee powder into the boiling water.
Later, while drinking coffee, Enrique asked, "You don't sleep?"
[Time Zones,] Mut replied. [You may notice my lack of speech from time to time; that's when I take short naps. As a deity, I don't need to take more than a nap.]
"Oh," Enrique took a sip, adding. "Even Gods are confined by time zones, huh? Such a scary thing indeed."
[Indeed. My heaven is parallel with Egypt's time zone, so it's night here when it's night in Egypt. My son Khonsu doesn't need to sleep though, as a night-related Deity, he is immune to it.] Mut explained. [In my prime, I didn't require sleep either. I'll lose this weakness soon enough and return to what I once was, given how fast my faith is rising.]
"Aha," Enrique sipped his coffee. "Good to know."
If such a thing was possible for a deity, perhaps certain magical items would allow him to skip sleep too. He loved to sleep, sure, but if he could skip the 8 hours of sleep, his productivity would increase significantly.
That was for later, though. For now, Enrique needed to focus on his [Nova Games] company. He would need big capital for the future plans he had, so growing his company quickly was essential. There was also the problem with The Hand—related to Ava and Greer—but he couldn't do anything about it without The Hand approaching him first. So he kept that matter in the back of his mind for now.
Just as Enrique finished his coffee, his phone buzzed with message notifications. It was a message from Peter Parker, the kid who got his ass saved last night.
"Look at him contacting me now," Enrique licked his lips clean as he picked up his phone. How dare the brat not thank him earlier?
[Peter: Enrique? Thanks for the save last night. Really appreciate it. I am not good with texting, so I am not able to properly express my reaction. Just thank you so much, that was such a tight situation for me.]
Enrique involuntarily smiled a little as he read the message. It felt nice hearing that, truth be told. He sent back a message asking if Peter and his friends were alright, to which Peter replied immediately.
[Peter: Uh, we are fine. But… they found out. The three of them. That I am Spider-Man. That's why I couldn't text you last night; they had me busy all night. Don't worry, I remember your advice. I had them promise me to never leak this. I think they are trustworthy.]
"Hmmm…"
Enrique tried recalling who the three students beside Peter were last night. When he failed to recall them, he just asked Peter. Peter's reply made Enrique blink.
Aha… Ned, the knock-off MJ, and Liz. Eh, only Liz is the unaccounted one here. The other two would have learned about it at some point anyway, Enrique thought to himself. After a moment of consideration, he came up with a response to ease Peter's mind and then sent a text.
[Enrique: I don't know about this Ned and MJ you speak of, but just leave Liz Allan to me. I doubt she'd reveal your secret anyway, but I will talk with her about this just in case.]
Peter thanked him once more for thinking about him and soon took his leave when apparently his aunt called him for breakfast.
[Peter: By the way, Aunt May wants to thank you some time for saving me and my school. So don't mind dropping by if you have time!]
That was Peter's last text as Enrique promised to visit that kid's house later some day. Right now, however, he needed to train with Greer.
****
Anna, Ava, and Greer woke up not long after that. Enrique had prepared coffee for them too. While Enrique was cooking food, Greer decided to join him and help. The two kids didn't know how to cook, so they just sat at the dining table and chatted amongst themselves.
After eating, they had a mandatory break before starting their training.
However, a minor problem arose.
"So how exactly do you suggest I spar with Anna if touching her means I lose?" Ava asked while looking at Enrique. "Such a fight is unfair, and we are not doing boxing, so just covering our fists with clothing wouldn't work."
"Sadly, your points are correct," Enrique agreed. "For now, though it would be sweaty, Anna has no choice but to fight in her Super Suit with her gloves on. Even if the suit gets her sweaty, it's still comfortable enough for her to move. You'll only have to be careful with her face since it's still exposed, but I'm sure you can manage that."
Ava thought for a moment before sighing. Everyone here was realizing the challenges Anna had to face. Anna herself didn't look troubled, however. She seemed excited to learn how to fight.
Soon, Ava and Anna started sparring while Enrique stood in front of Greer on the other side of the hall.
"You're not transforming?" Tigra asked, looking at Enrique, who wore black loose trousers and a tank top of the same color.
"No. I won't use either my Suit or my transformation," Enrique said. "Not at the start, anyway. I want to start from the bottom, with close to zero powers."
He said 'close to zero' because being Mut's avatar gave him a partial physical boost even without the Suit. Then there was the mutant gene, that gave him considerable strength boost even in base form. He wanted to start training from here and slowly go up.
"I also want to slowly start spreading my beast Transformation through my body, in separate stages, instead of entering the final form from the start," said Enrique. He could somewhat do that already, managing to not bring out his claws, but it wasn't perfect. "Let's call the current me 'Gear 0' for simplicity's sake and start from here."
Greer looked somewhat confused but didn't question it further and just went along with it. Soon, the fight started.
****
The training lasted for four hours, with short breaks in between. There were a few instances when Ava's skin accidentally touched Anna's face, but since it was for a very short time, neither of them was hurt.
The case with Greer and Enrique was different. As the fight progressed, Enrique involuntarily kept transforming into his beast form. At one stage, he entered his full form, with huge spiky claws coming out of his elbows and wrists. So he had to stop the fight there unless he accidentally hurt Greer.
"This is annoying," Enrique complained in a deeper voice than usual and then drank water from a bottle that looked too small in his now large hand. "I am stuck like this until I sleep. Fuck."
He had, at least, retracted his spiky claws. After which, he had to enter his [Lightning Cloak] state to heal the gross, open wounds that the claws left.
The three girls were on the side, sitting on their butts and huffing as they sweated buckets and chatted amongst themselves.
– Bzz!
Enrique's phone buzzed from beside the girls, making him sigh. His hands were too big to use his phone right now.
"Ava, can you bring me the phone?" he called out since she was the least tired girl there.
Ava hesitated for a moment before nodding and approaching him with the phone. Enrique thanked her and barely managed to unlock the device to find Peter's newest message.
[Peter: Also, uh, forgot to ask this before, but do you know that cat-woman from last night? At least do you know if she's safe or not? She was last night's hero too, in the students' hearts.]
Enrique was about to reply that she was probably fine, but then his phone rang. This time, it wasn't a message. It was an audio call.
A call on my business number… Enrique noted as he sighed again, realizing his voice was coarse and monster-ish right now. But he had to take the call since it was on his business number.
"...Ava, help me out here. Take this call and say the stuff I tell you to say." Enrique had no choice but to ask for help. Ava sighed but nodded soon.
Ava received the call as Enrique whispered to her while she held the phone on the loudspeaker.
["Hello?"] a mature female voice spoke from the other side.
"This is… Nova Games. How can we help you?" Ava replied as Enrique guided her.
"This is Lydia Hardy, founder and CEO of Hardy Legal Corporations." The voice replied with booming confidence. "I wish to speak to CEO Enrique Nova, if possible. It is about a business proposal, I wish to extend legal help, and lawyers, to his cause. If possible."
Enrique paused, somewhat recognizing her name. Hardy? As in, Felicia Hardy? Same family, or what? He was curious if this was a coincidence or not. Then, with Ava's help, Enrique agreed to a meetup.
X-x-X
Earlier
Felicia Hardy's kleptomania has been acting up ever since she encountered the shiny man the previous day. She knew she had to get a piece of him if she ever wanted to sleep peacefully at night.
The question is, how? Felicia tapped her finger on the desk, eyes locked on the computer screen in front of her. She had been searching for anything related to "Supernova" and his true identity for hours but had no leads. She did notice some "footprints" that suggested his name and public address had been discovered and published recently, but all core information had been wiped out. Felicia wasn't an expert, but it seemed to her that such clearance wasn't the work of one person. Did he have an organization behind him?
"It would be problematic if that's the case," Felicia thought aloud. "If I try too hard to track him, they might reverse-track me, and my identity will go boom."
She covered her face with her hands and leaned back in her chair, moaning in annoyance. "So annoying~ Ah. Should I just visit a psychiatrist?"
Deciding to stop her pointless search, Felicia grabbed her smartphone, about to order some food, when a message popped up in her school group chat.
– Ping!
Felicia frowned in annoyance, about to dismiss the notification, when the message caught her eye.
"…What the fuck?"
—1st-year student, Flash Thompson, paid a pro hacker to find Super-Nova's true identity.
Felicia's eyes widened as she clicked the notification to view the full message.
—Though the hacker didn't have much of a lead, saying his personal info has been locked away in a manner that makes it seem that he didn't even have a past. However, the hacker did manage to find something interesting connected to this Hero, along with his real name.
—Guys, it seems the recently hyper-popular game, Subway Surfers, actually belongs to the company called [The Nova Games], which is owned by Enrique Nova–the real name of Super-Nova.
...Ah shit, Felicia cursed in her head. Of course. This new company named Nova Games somehow had Spider-Man promote their game, which was suspicious. Supernova knows Spider-Man very well. How did I miss this connection before?
Felicia was more than a bit annoyed that Flash was trying to dig out the identity of a superhero and even leaking personal information about him. If made public, who knows what sort of problems Supernova—no, Enrique—would face?
Sure, she was doing the same, but she aimed to own him, while Flash was just being a fanboy. Nonetheless, this was useful information. She just had to find the main office of [Nova Games] and then steal something to grab his attention.
Felicia sent a warning message, telling Flash not to spread this news and urging those who had seen it to keep their mouths shut if they were at all grateful to Enrique for saving their lives. She wasn't sure how many would listen to the words of a socially detached girl, but she gave it a try, unwilling to make things harder for her shiny hero.
"He…hehe~"
Later on, Felicia came up with a better idea than stealing from a superhero. What if he beat her against a house, like he did with those two tigresses? She knew that this Mr Nova didn't like her as much as she liked him, so if he caught her, he might just throw her behind bars.
She needed a better plan. Reluctantly, she decided to convince her mother to take a look at Nova Games and maybe make a deal with them. With Nova Games' only game being so popular, her mother might just agree. There was also the "savior" card Felicia could use to convince Lydia Hardy, though she doubted she'd need to go that far.
Sooner or later, it would be revealed who was behind [Nova Games], and many troubles would reach out to Enrique and his company. Knowing her mother, as the ambitious lawyer that she was, Felicia was sure she wouldn't want to miss this business opportunity. Hopefully, he didn't have a permanent lawyer yet, her mother could strike a deal if that was the case.
****
Present
With Ava's help, Enrique managed to set an appointment to visit the Hardy Corporation HQ and meet with Lydia Hardy a week later. There weren't many details discussed in the call, but Enrique had a rough idea of what the meeting would be about.
What he didn't understand was—why? Why did this decently large corporation suddenly contact him? Enrique researched the company after the call and found that it had a good track record with partnerships and sponsorships. This corporation was cautious, so what convinced the owner to reach out to an entirely new company like [Nova Games]?
Enrique's confusion didn't last long, he soon reached a conclusion. Lydia Hardy… So she really is Felicia's mother. Enrique blinked. Perhaps Black Cat is trying to repay me after I saved her life? Or is it about…
He stopped thinking. He could never be sure about women. Sometimes, they were quite hard to understand, even for him. Also, wasn't her mother just a small-time lawyer in the comics? This company seems big. Enrique frowned at himself. A weird timeline I ended up in.
Whatever the case, his business would be more secure with the help of a large law corporation. However, there was another problem. I don't have my educational certificates. I don't have my educational certificates. This is 2011, and I have close to zero worth to big companies without that. Enrique smiled a little. Thankfully, using the money I scammed from SHIELD as well as my game revenue, safely forging the required documents would be easy.
As a corporate giant in his last life, Mr Nova was aware of such procedures. He used to personally know the leaders of facilities that helped create fake identification and other documents. That was one of the reasons he asked for a week before the meeting. He would use this time to create the necessary fake documents.
Later that evening, Enrique was preparing to leave the house alone to visit a broker who'd help him with the document problem. Tigra, however, seemed determined to tag along.
"Hey, come on, I want to go out and see the sun once in a while too—it's been six months!"
The sun had set already. Enrique pointed to the window.
"That's not the point; the point is I must go out!" Greer grumbled like a little girl. "Anna can take my powers for a bit, that's how nobody would notice if I tag along with you."
Enrique deadpanned. "What if The Hand attacks you?"
"You'll keep me safe."
"I didn't think you trusted me this much."
"That makes the two of us. I was expecting an outright rejection."
Enrique sighed in defeat. "Alright. Anna, help her with her powers for a bit. I'll take the little lady out for a walk."
Greer cheered while Anna looked slightly jealous. Anna Marie had tried talking Enrique into taking her with him, but it hadn't worked. However, she understood the difference between her situation and Greer's—who'd been away from the open world for a long time—so she didn't complain. Anna touched Greer softly, and the older woman winced as her skin lost its mutant color and regained its original, human one.
Later, Enrique and Greer left together.
****
It took Enrique just over an hour to complete the required procedures. Money spoke louder than words, and the broker didn't waste Enrique's time. Enrique was to receive his papers in five days.
At this moment, he was on a night out with Greer. "Seriously, you didn't have to bring me here. I was fine even if we just returned," Greer giggled as she took a seat opposite Enrique in the coffee shop. "Thanks."
Enrique smiled back at her but said nothing. A while later, a waiter came to take their order and soon delivered it. Greer was drinking a flat white coffee and casually chatting with Enrique when she suddenly paused, falling silent.
"Mhm, by the way…" Greer started slowly. "I am technically about to snitch on my friend, so I would appreciate it if you didn't make it obvious that I told you this."
"Hm? What are you talking about?"
"Ava doesn't like you. She proposed to me that we run away and take Anna with us." Greer explained, pausing as she hesitated. "They saw us at the gym that day. Both of them. Ava thinks you are taking advantage of Anna because of her unique situation. Though I personally think you'd have done the same to any other girl, you heartless bastard, but that's beside the point."
"Hmm…"
Enrique just tilted his head casually while Greer narrowed her eyes, looking at him expectantly.
"So, what are you going to do? I'm telling you, you can't hurt Ava. Otherwise, I will leave with her right away. I am only telling you this so that you tell me what you'll do in return."
Enrique started to chuckle, smiling at her. "Gratitude for letting me know. Don't worry, I won't hurt her. It just means she has a good heart…? I don't know, it sounds kinda hypocritical and pretentious to me, but that's basically most heroes and good guys."
"So?"
Enrique shrugged, continuing. "I wouldn't actually do anything if you decided to run away at this point. I will probably find someone else to learn Martial Arts. When you have money, such a thing isn't hard to learn. So feel free to leave if you think I am endangering you. As for Anna…"
Enrique laughed again, while Greer started to sweat just a bit. The situation at the table shifted immediately when Enrique paused his laugh. He looked at her with his gray, silver eyes shining softly.
"I don't think she will leave. She's a good girl. She loves me, and I like her. She knows that. She has left me once, and I highly doubt she has the courage to do that again. She knows what awaits her if she dares to." Enrique smiled. "And I don't mean it in a threatening way. It's just the truth."
Greer Nelson shrunk back a bit and straightened her back subconsciously as Enrique stared into her eyes, his gray eyes as cold as steel. "Now, let's finish eating. We have a long night awaiting us."
….
Half an hour later, inside a hotel, Greer was still being stared at by those gray eyes, except this time there was a pleasant glint in them as the owner of such eyes made her moan like a violin.
**
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Author Note: Here's another small change. Black-Cat's mother was shown as some rando businesswoman in the original work, which isn't accurate to the comics, since she was a lawyer in the comics. Now she's a lawyer in this fic too.
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