All-Star and Sparrowhawk: Like a Bullet Through My Heart
Nate Carter frowned his usual lopsided frown as he flicked through the surprisingly extensive lingerie section of his local romantic gifts store, because those did apparently exist. His fingers prying apart the various laces and frills in a practiced yet understandably awkward manner, he fully committed himself to his frown, slipping into a full-on look of disgruntlement.
“I don’t think that’s in your size, sir.” A voice from behind him spoke. Nate turned to see a young female sales assistant, her hair tied into a neat and practical ponytail, placing various t-shirts covered in hearts on a shelf. “And even if it was, it’s not really your colour.”
Nate chuckled to himself, awkwardly scratching the back of his head. “You don’t think black and blue suits me?”
The girl shook her head. “With your skin tone and build, I’d go for white and blue. Maybe a third colour to really make your curves pop.” Standing from her finished task, she walked over to Nate and, as if to exemplify the reasoning behind her advice, drew a laced blue bra bordered by white frills and held it up to Nate’s chest. “Red, maybe?”
“Red, white and blue?” Nate asked, raising an eyebrow.
“I guess it is a little tacky.” The girl said with a slight giggle, placing the bra back on its rack once she had fully decided that Nate would not be able to fill it out.
“Well,” Nate said, looking to the lingerie once more. “I wouldn’t call it tacky. Think you can help me out here, though? I need to pick up a Valentine’s Day gift for my girlfriend, only I have no idea what she’s even into.”
“You don’t even know what she’s into?” The girl asked, somewhat baffled.
“She’s enigmatic.” Nate said with a brief nod. “It’s kind of cute sometimes.” His eyes wandered about the sparsely populated store as he took in his surroundings. The store itself was stocked to the point of bursting with anything and everything that could possibly spring to one’s mind when he conjured up a passing thought about romance. It was Valentine’s Day and the store was largely empty with the exception of a small number of single women looking to remedy their loneliness with the soothing balm of self-purchased gifts and a few men frantically searching for suitable gifts at the last second, desperately attempting to avoid being forced onto a lumpy couch for the night. A bored looking cashier with an acne-riddled face toyed with his cheap clip-on tie and hoped against hope that no one would pull him out of his boredom induced reverie with bothersome requests for price checks and stock inquiries. A delivery van sat unmoving outside.
“So why were you looking through lingerie?” The girl asked, drawing Nate’s attention from the van.
“Well, I’d like the lingerie, at least.” He muttered, turning away from the rack. “Maybe something handmade?”
“What are you, twelve?” The girl snorted.
“Boombox at her window?” Nate suggested, shrugging.
“What are you, fifty?” The girl chortled.
“Wow. I really hope you’re not working for tips or anything.” Nate said, rolling his eyes at the girl. “Maybe one of those frou-frou boxes of candy?”
“Look, I’m not saying it’s not the thought that counts…” She continued. “I’m just saying the thought doesn’t count that much.”
Nate shook his head disapprovingly, moving towards the chocolate section. “Were teenagers always this materialistic or do I have someone and/or something to blame for it? I’d like to blame MTV. Is MTV still a thing?”
“Not really, but you can still blame it if it’ll make you feel better.” The girl said, smiling to herself. “Well, listen, my last boyfriend was a guitarist and he wasn’t much of a gift-getter either. What he did was think about all the things he loved about me and used that stuff to pick the thing he loved most and to figure out what he should get me. At the end of the day, I didn’t even care about the fact that he got me a snowglobe because he put so much thought and attention into it that it felt like it really meant something, y’know?”
“What did him being a guitarist have to do with that story?” Nate asked, turning a lavishly decorated box of chocolates over in his hands.
“Nothing, really.” The girl admitted. “I just like telling people I dated a guitarist.”
Nate smiled back at her and thought to himself on all the moments he had spent with Alex. Fighting, talking, loving, sharing; giving meaning to each other’s lives and carrying each other’s burdens. I guess, Nate thought, she really is the best thing I have going for me right now. Turning back to the girl, he nodded confidently.
“I wish I could tell you it was love at first sight, kid. I wish I could say I knew I would be spending as much time with my girlfriend as I could the moment I first laid eyes on her. But that’d be lying, y’know? When I first met Alex, I kinda hated her guts. She was uptight, fierce and bossy as hell and I wanted more than anything to tell her where to shove it. But…Well, I guess it’s funny how when you really get to know someone, the very things you thought you hated about them can give was to the things you really start to love. I guess I first fell in love with Alex when she chewed my ass out for trying to pull something I was stupid to try to do. She challenged me. She showed me that she wasn’t gonna back down for some dummy from Hudson and she reminded me that that’s who I am: Just some dummy from no place special giving it my all to prove otherwise. Meantime, she was a nobody from New York who knew exactly what made me try so hard to prove myself because she was in the same boat. I guess at the end of the day, Alex is the only person out there who reminds me that I’m not the only little leaguer trying to rough it with the big boys and that, as long as she was around, giving it my all is the only option I got. With Alex around, I’m not just fighting to show everyone that I can; I’m fighting to show ‘em that we can. And I guess that’s what I love about her.”
“Oh. Uh, wow.” The girl said, somewhat awestruck. “So, I guess you can’t really get her a keyring.”
Just then, as if triggered by the word ‘keyring’, the back doors of the stationary delivery van burst open, creating a gateway out of which jumped three men and two women, each carrying large - and most likely illegal – assault rifles. Each of the armed individuals were garbed in thrown-together combat gear strapped carelessly to non-descript clothing most likely picked up for their disposability. Most noticeably, though, each of the stormtroopers wore white ski-masks with red love hearts sloppily painted onto their fronts, a stylistic choice which made them look entirely too ridiculous given the nature of their being there. Before anyone within the store had a chance to react, the masked people began firing their rifles at the ceiling, creating a harmonious rapping sound which quickly sparked shrieks of panic, fear and confusion as practically everyone in the store dove down, Nate included as he grabbed the sales assistant and ducked behind a row of mannequins. Once the masked people were satisfied that everyone in the room was paying attention to them, one of the women handed a megaphone to the other, who nodded to two of the men and flicked it on, shouting superfluously into it.
“Hear me, stripped and blinded sheeple!” She cried, using the word ‘sheeple’ completely unironically. “For too long you have been brainwashed into embracing this as the natural state of things! You’ve been guided, manipulated, made to feel insecure and for what? For a holiday which has no real meaning or value outside of blatant commercialism aimed at weak-minded fools to convince them that the true path to a healthy relationship is through the purchase of cheap cards and freshly pluckled flowers! I am talking, of course, about Valentine’s Day!”
“Oh, you have got to be shitting me.” Nate muttered to himself, peering out from behind his cover. He then turned back to the girl. “Do you have a gun?”
“I’m 18.” The girl replied, panic straining her voice.
“So, like a revolver, then?” Nate asked, half-jokingly.
Looking around, the girl reached into her store-assigned fanny pack, pulling a loaded revolver from its depths and handing it to a slightly surprised Nate. “Don’t give me that look, it’s Westside. And don’t tell my boss.”
“I’ll give you a ten on that survey thingy they make you fill out.” With that, Nate dove over his cover and ran forward, breaking out into a full pelt before sliding behind new cover.
The masked woman with the megaphone continued her rant, confident that everyone could hear her over the sound of gunfire and their own screams as her cohorts busied themselves kicking down shelves and riddling Valentine’s Day cards with bullets: “We are the Bleeding Heart Society and we have taken it upon ourselves to embrace the true essence behind Valentine’s Day! We reject its commercialist nature! We balk at the concept of equating romance to happiness! We sneer derisively at those who would sooner vanquish their convictions than be single! Valentine’s Day brings out the worst in all of us! It makes us petty because we want to be petty! We must fight against the true evil plaguing our world: Hallmark!”
“Wow, lady.” Nate shouted over the din. “You really came prepared with the speech, didn’t ya?”
The masked woman, obviously taken aback by Nate’s sassafras, briefly stopped screaming into her megaphone and drew a handgun from a hip holster. “Ah. If it isn’t Nathaniel Carter: The All-Star. I should’ve known corporate America would pull its government lapdogs on those who don’t buy into its sugar-coated lies!”
“Sugar-coated lies?” Nate repeated, confusedly. “Wait. You know who I am? You sure you don’t mean to say General Freedom or Force of July or something?”
He was answered in short order by the woman directing her gun at him and firing repeatedly, driving him back behind cover and drawing the attention of two of her fellow ‘enlightened’, who stopped stomping aggressively on a box of cream-filled chocolate and turned to her, levelling their rifles in anticipation of mowing down their new target.
“You should have stuck to oppressing the poor and performing tricks for the wealthy, All-Star! Our cause is too righteous to be put down by the likes of you!” The girl roared, keeping up her fire.
“Yeah!” One of the chocolate-stompers agreed.
“Too righteous!” The second chocolate-stomper echoed.
“Okay, seriously guys? Do you seriously think I’m here to stop you from beating up teddy bears and punting boxes of chocolate?” Nate retorted, frustratedly. “I am so off-duty right now it hurts.”
“Look, guys: I never thought I’d see a lie being fed to us through human propaganda!” The masked woman sneered, gloatingly. “I’m not a robot, man! I can’t be turned on and off at the man’s will! Nothing will stop us from ousting Valentine’s Day as the turbulent sham it is! Nothing will stop us from showing the corporate fatcats that we will not lie down and take it any longer! Nothing will stop us from exacting-“
“Ooookay, that’s enough.” Nate said, having finished getting a feel of the environment around him. Standing up briskly, he pointed the revolver at a Valentine’s Day banner hanging over the group of violent rebels and fired once, severing one of the strings suspending it from the ceiling and causing it to flop down on top of the two chocolate-stompers, smothering them in its thick embrace and preventing them from firing their weapons as they shrieked out in surprise. The woman, quick to act as she was to rant, dove behind cover as the other two Bleeding Hearts turned their attentions from kicking over displays to firing on Nate’s position. Cursing, Nate dashed from his now exposed cover and jumped over a table with an agile handstand, using the brief split second in which his hand kept him suspended in the air to flick a ceramic plate with a love heart on it at one of the shooters, hitting her in the throat and sending her spiralling into a display, choking.
“Don’t you ever get tired of being a slave to the man? Don’t you ever feel the need to question orders?” The masked woman shouted out, moving to a new position.
“Don’t you ever stop talking?” Nate snapped back, firing his revolver at the other Bleeding Heart, hitting the man in the kneecap and the shoulder and toppling him instantly. “Seriously, I mean. Have you, like, even breathed since you came in here?”
“Justice doesn’t breathe!” One of the chocolate-stompers yelled, freeing himself from the confines of the banner.
“Pfffthaha, what?” Nate laughed, sliding into new cover as the second chocolate-stomper freed himself and the two began opening fire on his location. “Did you even hear what came out of your mouth just then? You people are worse than Gazerbeam.”
“Y-You’re worse than Gazerbeam!” One of the chocolate-stompers stuttered, feebly.
“No,” Nate replied, waiting for the exact right moment. “You’re worse than Gazerbeam. Me?” Springing from cover the moment he heard one of the men reloading, Nate fired a single bullet at the other man’s foot, prompting him to cry out and fall to a knee. As the man fell to the floor, clutching his wound and howling, Nate fired one more fired one last shot over the hopping man’s head. “I’m awesome.”
“Wh-What?” He managed to choke out between his wave of expletives over his ventilated foot. “You…Missed?”
“Nuh-uh.” Nate said, shaking his head and pointing up.
The man looked up just in time to see a box of fine china falling from the towering shelf behind him towards his suddenly very vulnerable head. “Right. Of course not.” He managed to say moments before the box crashed into his head, knocking him flat out.
“Do bad guys not watch cartoons or something?” Nate asked mere seconds before the reloading man, ditching his weapon, charged him with a violent punch to the face which staggered him. The larger man grabbed Nate by his collar and sent a knee into his stomach, eliciting a splutter as he threw him through a display. “Okay...Best two out of three…”
The man, cracking his knuckles as he advanced, mounted the downed Nate and began raining blows down on him furiously. Through his frenzied beating, Nate reached out and grabbed a decorative vase, lifting it and smashing it into the side of the man’s head. The man hollered and fell off of Nate, giving him some brief respite to reach for his dropped revolver. With the gun just a few centimetre’s out of reach, large hands grabbed Nate into a headlock and squeezed, the sounds of the man’s grunting foreshadowing his warm, freshly-spilt blood tricking onto Nate’s cheek. Struggling, Nate felt for the man’s face and, locating his eyes, drove both his thumbs into them, eliciting a high-pitched squeal from the man and causing him to loosen his grip on Nate’s neck just long enough for him to send a headbutt up into his jaw. The large man fell back as Nate recovered, bleeding from his evidently broken nose. Grabbing the man and pulling him to his feet, Nate pulled him into a sleeper hold and squeezed through gritted teeth as the large man struggled, helplessly. As soon as the man went limp with unconsciousness, Nate let go and spat some blood, walking over to his revolver and lifting it off the ground.
“If anyone asks, that was really one-sided and I kicked your ass.” He joked to the unconscious man just as a shriek rang out through the store. Whirling around with his gun raised, Nate wasn’t all too surprised to see the masked woman holding the sales assistant in front of her, gun pointed directly at her temple. “Aw, come on, lady.”
“I didn’t want to have to do this, pig, but you left me no choice!” The woman said, aggressively. “I am going to walk out of this monument to social oppression and socio-normative fallacy and continue my crusade against commercialism unharmed and, unless you want the blood of an innocent on your hands, you will do nothing to stop me! The Bleeding Heart Society will not-“
A bullet to the eye-socket cut her short, kicking her head back and leaving her standing frozen in an awkwardly surprised position for a split second before she slumped to the floor, unmoving. His last bullet fired, Nate lowered the revolver and lifted his shades. “You okay, kid?”
“Y-You shot her…” The girl answered, looking at the dead woman’s mangled face.
“Well, yeah…” Nate said, awkwardly. “She was taking you hostage.”
“No, yeah, I get it.” The girl said. “I never understood why the heroes didn’t do that in the movies.”
“Right?” Nate concurred, walking over to help her to her feet.
Standing with Nate’s help, the girl looked down at the once talkative woman’s still body and turned to Nate, nudging him. “You totally missed an opportunity for a ‘Dirty Harry’ reference there, though.”
“I did?” Nate asked before the realisation dawned on him and he looked down, disappointedly. “I did. Um, do you need help cleaning any of this up?”
“Don’t bother,” The girl said, shrugging. “I might get a day off.”
“Nice. I guess this sort of thing doesn’t happen a lot. Especially on Valentine’s-“ Nate started, suddenly stopping himself and slapping the side of his head. “What time is it?!”
The girl blinked in shock at his sudden change in tone and checked her phone. “About 5:20. Why?”
“I’ve gotta be at the restaurant by 5:30!” Nate groaned, running a hand down his face. “And I don’t even have a gift!”
“Just take anything and leave!” The not so bored cashier screeched out from behind his station. “Please!”
“Remember, dude: Just think about what you love about her and get her something based on that.” The girl added, reassuringly.
“Something I love about her…” Nate muttered. “I think I’ve got it. Thanks, kid. For everything.”
“Hey,” The girl said with a friendly smirk. “Call me Amy.”
Alex Harper, aka Sparrowhawk, sat at a table for two at a fancy restaurant downtown, gazing out of a window. Nate was thirty minutes late and, whilst she was a patient woman, she was also something of a perfectionist. Tapping her finger impatiently on the table, she politely waved the waiter off and contemplated, for the fourth time since she arrived, having a couple of breadsticks and leaving. Just as she turned her gaze to the breadsticks and prepared to take one, Nate came rushing into the establishment, his face covered in little plasters and his suit sloppily thrown on.
“Uh, Carter. Table for two.” He said hurriedly to the appalled maitre'd. “My girlfriend might’ve already come in. Blonde hair, nice bod? Slightly visible vein on her neck when she gets real mad?” The maitre’d gestured at the table where Alex sat, arms folded and eyebrow arced. “There it is.” Nate murmured at the sight of the vein, nodding to the maitre’d and moving towards their table. He hastily threw himself into his seat and smiled at Alex. “You look nice.”
“You look a mess.” She replied, taking Nate’s head and turning it left and right to fully estimate the extent of his injuries. “What happened, Nate?”
“I fell down the stairs.” He said, dismissively.
“Nate.” She persisted.
“…Into a bunch of crazy terrorists.” He said, smiling an awkward smile. “I think they met on tumblr or something.”
She frowned at him and let go of his face. “Try to get into less fights. I don’t want anyone to think I’m abusing you.” She gave a slight smile which let him know that everything was alright.
“It’d be funny if I wasn’t so sure you could kick my ass.” Nate chuckled, scratching the back of his head and reaching into his suit pocket. Feeling around, he drew an envelope from it and handed it to Alex. “Happy V-Day, babe.”
Raising an eyebrow, Alex smiled once more and opened the envelope. “You didn’t have to get me anything, Nate.” She said, pulling the card out of its container. Though the envelop was relatively unscathed, the card itself was completely riddled with bullets almost beyond the point of recognition. The love heart adorning its front had several holes in it and was frayed at the edges. Opening it up revealed a slightly more legible message, which Alex read aloud. “’Roses are red, violets are blue, I couldn’t afford either, I hope this will do?’” Blinking, she looked up at Nate, who continued to beam enthusiastically at her.
“Ta-da?” He said, uncertainly.
Rolling her eyes, Alex laughed to herself and put the card to one side, leaning in to plant a kiss on Nate’s lips and hold his hand. “Happy Valentine’s Day.”
“You know,” Nate said, smiling goofily at her. “I really do love the way you roll your eyes at me.”
As the waiter came by to take their orders, they tenderly squeezed each other’s hands and contentedly brought an eventful Valentine’s Day to a warm and peaceful end.
