You're safe...? (Dire)

Malik chuckled.
"Well, unless this bike can get across the water... It don't matter... We need to go to Germany. The guy I asked said Germany... I'm NOT a fan..."
He said, slightly annoyed.

He tried to ease the annoyance radiating off the two by spinning her around playfully and said "I've heard it's pretty romantic there. I've also heard people want me dead there so it should be fun."

Maura tried not to yelp in suprise when she was spun around, doing her best to keep on her toes and come to a graceful halt. She looked up at Malik and the playfulness dancing in his brown eyes. It certainly was contagious. She felt the irritation receding already.

"Sounds fun. I'll have to find a place to hide my bike, I guess. And Italy is next door. They have the finest, cheapest wine, so I've heard. Plus I might be able to help you out and repay you a bit." She said, not noticing that her lips had curved into an ornery smile, or else she would have stopped it. Really, she hadn't ever met someone as twistedly fun to be around as Dire, "Let's book the next flight."

Malik nearly jumped for joy as Maura began to smile.
He LOVED seeing other people happy, it made HIM happy.
"Anyone ever tell you that you got a nice smile?"
He remarked, not really looking for an answer, as he pulled out his phone to get seats for the next flight.

"We got 2 hours, speed demon. We can hack it." He said as he hopped onto the bike.

After an hour and thirty minutes of straight Dire shouting out choruses to songs, they made it to the airport.
Somehow, they got seats together.
"Pretty traumatic first date, huh?"
He grinned

Long term parking was the best place Maura could find to 'hide' her bike, and airport security wasn't what it used to, what with not being able to account for Metahuman powers still. She had no idea how Malik got all his weapons in, but she knew making her gun intangible would leave it invisible to scanners of all sorts. It seemed like her forged passport that she kept in her bike for emergencies was still working its magic, too. By the time they got into the plane to board it, the wear of the day and going through the security process had worn its way into Maura's energy. She had almost forgotten that she hadn't slept the night before in favor of working for a client during the late hours.

"I'm scarred for life." She answered around a yawn as she tried to find her seat. It was a middle one. Once sat she ignored the flight attendants and captain, trying to keep her eyes open. "You'll wake me up if we're about to crash, right, Rey de las Sonrisas?" She hoped that all came out audible enough, but she wasn't really sure as her head had started to droop already.

Malik nearly missed the foreign in her sentence.
He was glad he didn't though.
To his translation (which was often off) she called him the king of smiles.
He loved it so much that it left him speechless.

When the flight was nearing its end, he abrubtly grabbed the sides of Maura's ribs while stifling a laugh.
"We're almost here, mi reina de los buenos tiempos."
He said hoping he got the phrase correct.
All of his accents were fluid and made him sound like he was from that native land, that is why his accent was so good.

He led Maura to a quite splendid hotel, speaking German fluently.
When they rushed into the room, he locked the door and peeled his shirt and jacket off.
He was never the most muscular man on earth (he never wanted to be) but he was definitely toned.
A lot of people told him he had kind of a Ryan Reynolds build.
Tall and toned.
And HOT DAMN he was smooth.
He twisted to an ungodly position to check the wound his healing factor didn't heal.
It was a nasty graze that went along his ribs.
He just shrugged and walked over to the computor.
"How's the shoulder?"

Maura would have punched Malik right where the sun doesn't shine if her shoulder hadn't been throbbing from sleeping in the awkward position for so long. She just side eyed him a death glare when he spoke Spanish to her, secretly impressed by his pronounciation, but mostly perturbed since she wasn't really a morning person.

As she followed him to the hotel he booked, five stars of course, she was also impressed by his German. Mark Twain himself spoke about the incomprehensible nature of the language and she had only a bit of experience in it herself.

Once in the hotel she threw her only bag that she'd bought at the airport along with new clothes on the floor and flopped onto the bed and let her face be buried in the thick comforter. She only turned to face Malik when spoken to and-

She froze when she saw his naked upper half. She'd never shared a room with someone, or anything really for that matter, so she wasn't sure if this was normal or not. Deciding maybe it wasn't a big deal and she was suddenly freaking out for nothing, she turned her attention to his battle wound. Her heart clenched with a different emotion. Guilt.

"It, uh-" hurt like hell. But she wasn't about to say that when he'd also been shot. Because of her. "It doesn't feel horrible. I should probably go wash and stitch it, though." She said as she jumped off the bed... wait, singular? As Maura picked her bag up slowly she scanned the room and only saw a love seat as the only other viable furniture to sleep on. Hopefully it had a pull out bed, or they solved this problem within the day.

Shaking her head, she figured she could deal with that later and head for the bathroom, not bothering to shut the door since she was only checking the wound. The nasty looking, dry-blood covered wound with two pink bandaids slapped haphazardly over it. Maybe she should have stopped to take better care of that earlier. She pulled off her shirt and put on a tank top quickly, keeping her eyes on the gash to keep from pestering it. Then she got out the first aid kit with suturing supplies and began cleaning up the graze. It was going to be an awkward position to stitch from, but she'd done it before in less favorable conditions.

"What are you looking at on the computer?

Malik tried to keep his concern for Maura's health top priority, but he did answer her question.
"Getting intel on our enemy! We'll probably be here a day or two..."

Malik spun in his chair and slammed his shin into the bed.
"AGH VERDAMMT!!!"
After his sudden pain, he walked next to the doorway of the bathroom (not looking in)
"Do you need help with that? I'm not great at that, but I'm sure I'll have a better angle on it."

While waiting for Maura to respond, he moved his shirt and other few things he had over to the loveseat.
For he was sure Maura would not want to sleep in the bed with him, and he was for damn sure not booting her to the couch.

"Yes, if you could." She replied after snipping the first stitch she'd already made. Anesthetics weren't as easy to get on planes or keep refrigerated, but the stitching didn't hurt as much as the injury itself so she was alright with it. Heck, it sounded like Dire might be in more pain with his clumsiness than she was in. She handed the materials to him when he came back and offered her shoulder, "It's not too long, I could get away with eight."

As she spoke her eyes moved out into the room and she could barely see the loveseat, "Did you find anything on them, and, you know how tall you are, right? It'd be a lot easier for me to sleep on the couch."

Malik started stitching with precise elegance and finished in record time.
He deduced that his wound should probably have stitches, but didn't care enough to even try.
"Trust me, I've slept in worse places. Besides, you've been shot AND I'm probably going to find something to drink."

"On the company... It looks like they're an oil company around here somewhere.
Presumably into underground clone work, that would explain the bulk of guys we found...
I still don't get why they'd be in New York..."

He looked to Maura.
"Attracted by beauty, maybe?"

"Doubt it." She scoffed as she inspected his handiwork and went out to sit on the bed, wracking her brain to process the information she'd received. Clones? That was a pretty specific. She groaned as she made a connection, "Mierda. I... happened to come into the possession of some information a couple years ago on repetitive cell replication. A friend of mine wanted to take a look at it, but I kept a copy for myself..."

She trailed off in her half-truths as she realized what was happening. She knew too much. Maura knew she should have been expecting this, but she'd only been into the espionage business for two years. Her father had been into it for decades before he'd been hunted down. She frowned deeply and let out a sigh, throwing herself back into the mattress.

"I need a very dry Manhattan."

Malik was honestly done with the day at this point.
He didn't WANT to ask about how she got her hands on that info, because you never ask about another merc's job.
But she wasn't a Merc.
She was a...
He didn't know.
"Well, I'm not one to ask where you got info like that, because I'm not a goody-two shoes hero with nothing better to do...
But that info MIGHT help us find where we need to go much faster."
He said in a completely innocent tone.
He wasn't trying to push for anything he was just trying to help this woman clean up a small mess.

But he was ALSO not trying to talk about work on his vacation.
"I need working alcohol... Do you mind me asking how you got your powers?"

"Are we playing twenty questions now?" she asked, not without a hint of humor. She ignored the slightly very obvious tone earlier, not about to tell Malik she'd been all over the world stealing, spying, and being a mediating informant. And not because she felt she had to keep it a secret. Because, really, she'd just watched him kill probably two dozen people not even one day before so there wasn't much to be ashamed of. No, she just... well, she didn't know honestly. It just felt like it would ruin the odd atmosphere they'd built up to tell him. So she'd put it off until the next day. Probably.

Either way she didn't mind answering his question at all, "It's a hand me down power. It goes back generations in the family," she shrugged nonchalantly and flipped over onto her stomach. She propped her chin up with her good arm and stared at the shirtless guy. Still shirtless.

"It's probably not as interesting as how you got yours, right?" she gently prodded, not needing anything too deep but feeling it only fair to ask in return. She caught sight of Malik's wound again and flinched internally. Stupid emotions, "Do you want me to sew that up while we're here and your not covering it up?"

Malik smiled.
"Nah, you don't have to. I can put the shirt back on, if you'd like..." He said with total bias for her opinion.

He shrugged.
"Well... My mama ran away from my dad. My dad was an abusive drunk, so that's why she ran. One day I fought back, got the shit beat outta me. So I tucked my skinny little tail in between my legs and ran away. Few scenarios later, I was in hell... Not like, the understood meaning... I'm talkin' for real hell. Made a deal with a devil. That's how the kickass specimin before you came to be. The only thing different about me is: I already got my revenge. I have no chip on my shoulder. I just love life now!"
He stood
"My powers don't allow me to get drunk. That kinda sucks."

He looked to Maura and asked, "So are we going to the base tomorrow or partying like it's Na-" He stopped himself, "OOPS! Can't say THAT! That could be deemed offensive."

"It's fine, it's fine." she mumbled regarding the shirt situation, feeling weird asking him to put it on since she didn't want to make a big deal out of it. She'd been to the beach before, it was fine.

As for his story, it certainly was more interesting than hers. Actual Hell? It seemed pretty legit in her book. The part that really interested her was the revenge part. Maura assumed it was revenge on the drunk father. And it seemed like Malik was pretty content to her. "Revenge, huh?" She ended up muttering. The girl had never much thought about the subject even though it had crossed her mind. If it had given Malik peace then maybe she should consider pursuing it...

Maura didn't have much room to comment otherwise on his background story as he stood up and complained about his non-existent alchohol problem. She smiled briefly, remembering the comment he'd made about it before and much more aware of the expression now, "I'm glad you're 'loving life' so much, but can you really party, since you can't get even a smudge sloshed?" She teased Malik, at the same time feeling a wave of comfrtability rolling over her as if something had held it back before that moment. She flipped over and grabbed one side of the blanket, pulling it over herself and rolling over in the giant bed a couple of times until she looked more like a burrito than a human, "I don't see why we can't do both, though. Party and then at least check out the base and come up with a plan. Or the other way around. Either way I'm going to need at least six more hours of sleep to do it."

Malik laughed when she teased him on his inability to be intoxicated.
He saw Maura curl up like a burrito in the bed and saw her go to sleep.
Only problem was: he couldn't.
He was still trying to process why a German cloning company was in New York. Maura couldn't have had THAT much information... Could she???
He dug some more and found that this was the only branch it had.
He was about to pull out more data, but he was presented with a chat box.
The other end said: You shouldn't be here.
After that it sent a video, he nearly clicked on it.
Then he realized it was a red room video.
I'm not stupid. Go fuck yourself!
He got up to take a walk as he heard the guy spamming red rooms.

Malik only made it one block before trouble hit him.
7 Japanese (?) men/women in stereotypical ninja hoods were surrounding him.
He went to press deploy but a hand jabbed out faster that he could comprehend. It twisted his arm around as a flurry of kick connected to his midsection.
Then a woman who looked like Jane from Tarzan came over and asked "Is he subdued?"
With no time for an answer, he felt 14 hands restraining him so he couldn't move.
The lady twisted his head to expose the veins in his neck.
She pulled out a needle and drew some blood.
He didn't know how much she took, but it was enough to knock him out.
The last thing he heard was: "I have what I came for... Do whatever you'd like."

After beating Malik to bloody pulp, they returned him to the loveseat with perfect silence and left.
His shirt was torn and the skin had nasty cuts and bruises all over his torso and he had a black eye.
He lay there sleeping. Probably until someone woke him up.

Maura felt good waking up, snuggled in her roll and refreshed. She unrolled herself until she was sitting on the edge of the bed. She yawned and stretched, rubbing her eyes until she saw him.

Battered.
Bloody.
Bruised.

"Malik...!" Her voice was a mere breath as she jumped up and went over to kneel beside the unconscious man. Her heart beat unsteadily against her ribs as her hands lingered awkwardly above the injuries to his chest. The fact that he was breathing was hardly any relief to her, "Que pasó...? Hey, wake up!"

She couldn't deny that her hands were trembling as she carefully laid them on either side of his face, thumb just barely grazing the darkness surrounding his eye. Her mind began racing with possibilities and guilt twisted sharply in her gut. This is why she hated having people stick around for too long. Horrible things always happened the moment she thought nothing bad would come of it. Maura felt fear welling up in her and tried not to let it drip from her eyes, but things were definitely more blurry than usual in her panic and her eyebrows knotted together tightly, "Malik, hey! Wh-what happened?"