God Hates A Gambler 3A

(Chapter 3 was getting too long so I split it into 3A and 3B. There will also be a Chapter 4. I have rules about not bogging a chapter down with too many narrative beats to preserve reader attention)

The groan slipped out before his eyelids even bothered to seperate.

Consciousness came to him like a slap to the face; the usual sounds of Finger River Gotham his alarm clock. Specifically dogs barking, people yelling, and something that could have been a gunshot or a car backfiring but was most definitely a gunshot, all coming together to bring him back to the waking world without even a hint of kindness.

“J-Jesus H…”

Another groan slid out, a jagged scrape of noise pushing out his dry-ass-throat and dragging him messily out of the only decent sleep he’d managed in two days.

Already awake, he knew he couldn’t lie here forever.

Not with the smell already hitting him worse than the sound from outside.

Mildew. 

Rotting floorboards. 

The sick sour musk of an abandoned mattress that had been hit with the bad decisions and night sweats (and so much worse) of at least three previous squatters before he ever dragged it into this room. 

If sound and smell were bad — “Oh, f-fuck me running…” — touch was so much worse, because every single individual inch of his biological hardware hurt.

His ribs screamed a grinding complaint as soon as Chance tried to pull in a breath deeper than a shallow sip, arms throbbing and heavy as they lay at his sides on the stained mattress he called his own. 

And his face…

His face felt like somebody had used it for batting practice.

Which was barely an exaggeration, considering the size of last night and that big bastard’s hammer-hands.

Fuck.

He had managed to drag his beaten meat-sack back here after Sportsmaster let him go. 

And yeah, let him go. 

Because Anthony Chance Pratt may have been stupid but he wasn’t an idiot. He knew there was absolutely zero universe where he escaped that rooftop on his own. The hulking bastard just took the Scarecrow canister, and laughed at him again, before he just jumped right off the edge of the building.

Which left Chance bleeding on the gravel and tar-paper roof like he was just a piece of trash not even worth the effort of kicking into the gutter.

Chance had taken his sweet time after that.

Not because he was lazy, more because he was beat to dogshit and back.

Winding his way through the absolute worst parts of the Gotham grid, scaling flaky fire escapes with arms that barely supported his own weight, ducking under overpasses and cutting through flooded alleys; it might have added an extra hour and a half to his trip but he had to make absolute sure he lost that Sportsmaster guy before limping his way back across the invisible border of the Narrows.

Here.

Home sweet fuckin’ home.

Chance’s squat was a two-story rowhouse three blocks deep into the Narrows, half-condemned just like a chunk of the spots in this neighborhood. It was the exact kind of structural shitshow that made it clear the previous tenants either died of a bad batch or ran in the middle of the night.

Chance didn’t know which and he was pretty sure nobody from the city ever bothered to double-check either. 

So, perfect for a squat.

Well…

Almost perfect.

All Chance had to do was drop a good three hundred crumpled dollars on a sketchy local handyman, a part-time tweaker. Nah, he might have been full-time. Whatever he did on his own time, it didn’t really matter because the guy was able to piggyback the electrical lines with a bootleg reconnect and tap the neighbor’s water pipe to get Chance set up.

It wasn’t legal.

Hell, he was pretty sure it wasn’t even safe.

But it belonged to him. 

Which made it actually perfect.

At least until the city finally brought a bulldozer to this section of the Narrows or some local crew felt like these peeling walls could make a good trap house.

A third groan scraped his throat until he tasted blood and Chance decided enough was enough already. Get your ass up, bro. He forced his elbows to bend, biting back another noise of pain as the cheap fabric of the twisted-up thrift-store vest pulled tight across his bruised chest. Why did I sleep in this costume?

Probably because he was too beat up to do anything but pass out, honestly. Not a good enough reason, though, considering the metal clip of his cheap bowtie was halfway to choking him back to sleep. The black goggles were still strapped tight around his head, the thick elastic band throbbing right into his temples, cheap plastic lenses completely fogged over with his own dried sweat. Fuck the why. How did I sleep like this?

Shaking his head, Chance forced his spine to straighten, legs swinging heavy over the edge of the mattress. Socked feet hit the bare floor and he flinched almost immediately, cold biting right through the thin cotton.

The bathroom sat exactly thirteen steps away.

It took him a solid ten seconds to actually cross the distance with one hand flat against peeling yellow wallpaper for balance, his ribs still warning him not to piss them off by breathing too deep. Got the message.

The hinges whined their usual protest as he stepped into the bathroom, Chance leaning over the sink for balance as he stared right into the cracked mirror. A massive spiderweb fracture ran diagonal right across the center of the glass, splitting his reflection into two halves as uneven as could be.

The face staring back at him looked like someone that had backsassed the Batman.

Bags hung heavy under green eyes, deep and dark enough to pack a week of groceries in. His lip was split bad, the left side swollen thick and crusted over blood that had long-dried hours ago. A bruise bloomed across the left side of his face, purple and ugly against his already pale-ass face. 

His hair was… 

Not that bad, actually. Sure, it was getting a little long but he could clip the dirty blond locks with some scissors easy enough.

It was his eyes, though. Those stood out more than usual with how tired they looked.

Real tired.

…fuck.

Chance raised his arms as slow as he could go, but even that wasn’t careful enough. He bit the inside of his cheek to swallow a hiss, something in his shoulder protesting something as simple as him yanking the red bandana all the way off his neck. Damn it. The fabric fought him, stiff and crusted with dried sweat and exhaled moisture.

The goggles came next, but the second they left his head — “Give me a break, man.” — a sharp crack echoed through the empty bathroom.

Another fresh hairline fracture ran straight down the left lens, joining the already-splintered black plastic and the fully spider-webbed right lens. Five bucks.

That was five actual dollars he did not have anymore. 

Five dollars he would have to scrape together just to replace a piece of plastic if he wanted to keep running this incredibly stupid villain angle.

Chance let the goggles fall on stained porcelain, fumbling fingers already going for the clip-on around his next; the cheap metal clasp digging deep into the skin of his throat. When it finally snapped loose, he tossed it onto the counter right next to the goggles.

The vest fell next. 

The wrinkled button-up went with it, both of them hitting cold cracked tiles in a messy heap and Chance wasn’t gonna pick them up any time soon. He wasn’t sure if bending over right now would be the perfect trigger to make him black out and crack his skull. 

Instead, he just scowled at his bare chest in the mirror, taking it all in; the whole disaster of bruises that mapped the ribs, the ugly splotches across his stomach and the scattering of scrapes along his neck where he hit the rooftop gravel way too hard. His arms were no better at all, beat to all hell, with one massive hand-shaped purple grip-mark that matched perfectly to the size of Sportsmaster’s mitts.

Wow. He whistled as he blinked at himself. You look like hammered dogshit, Chance.

This was the hustle now.

Getting his ass kicked into a near-coma by an actual supervillain with his own Whizipedia page, all for a job that didn’t even pay out.

Speaking of pay out…

Chance let his eyes drift shut as he leaned forward, pressing more of his weight up against the ceramic. He let his awareness sink down, all the way back to the part of his mind where the power sat.

He didn’t have a name for the power. Well, at least nothing simple like Super Strength or Storage or Thick Skin. Chance had taken to calling it Loaded Hand, mostly because the game felt like it was rigged against him. 

Three slots.

Storage, occupied. Still holding a stolen switchblade, a hundred and twenty-three bucks, a half-empty pack of stale gum, and three loose batteries. Explosion, maybe half-full after wasting charges on Sportsmaster.

And the last slot, completely empty and hollow, just waiting for another card.

Alrigh, give me an out. He focused and pulled hard. C’mon, baby.

The slot spun, cycling rapidly through invisible possibilities, a mental roulette wheel clicking down toward a payout as Chance held his breath with fingers crossed. Please be healing.

He needed that.

Please be some kind of healing bullshit.

The slot slowed to a stop and the card finally turned over and locked into place.

Chance opened his green eyes, hands falling back to his sides as he stared into the cracked mirror. “C’mon, man. Are you serious right now?”