Bliss meets Pain. They learn valuable life lessons.

"It doesn't feel good. I can tell you that much. Always looking back and wondering, no, knowing that others would be safer, more successful, hell, happier, if you would just leave them alone. If I would just go into the night, never to be seen again." Bliss dropped the cigarette into the alleyway. It fell slowly illuminating the darkness and sending the shadows into hiding.

But, it never went out. It stayed on the ground in silent harmony, fighting back against the darkness that overtook and controlled the alleyway. If she never watched the cigarette fall she would not know of its existence on the ground, but since she saw it and knew its qualities she could not remove her eyes from it. "Is it enough to stop evil, or do I need to do good as well? I think I'm finding that they are not one in the same. Stopping evil is so much simpler than doing good, or even trying to be good." Her fingers gripped the rough texture of the brick between her fingernails and ran them along the surface. It etched at her follicles, but retained nerve over her senses to grimace. "I think if I helped make lives better I would be proud. Not just of myself, but of everything that I accomplished. I've been proud of my work before, but never of myself."

“I wonder the same thing, but I try not to think about it.” Pain paused to puff on his shriveled cigarette, observing the woman out of the corner of his eye. When she dropped the cigarette, he only briefly paid it attention. Instead her eyes grabbed his attention, a look of guilt and hopelessness; he hated that look. Pain wanted to say something comforting, but thought it to be impossible. He knew how she felt; words never fixed anything for him, but maybe it would be different for her.

His eyes left hers, down to the dark abyss in search of something intelligent to say. He found nothing and sat in silence until the woman spoke again. “It is.” Pain said softly in response, exhaling a cloud of grey into the darkness. He continued to listen to her, he was good at that; one of the few things he was.

The words he sought came to him, but he did not want to say them. They bubbled in his head and his conscious demanded that they were set free. “Then do just that, make yourself proud before you run out of time. We can’t change the past, but we can still make a difference if we try.” With that, Pain rose to his feet and spat out what was left of his cigarette down into the alley. “You should probably get out of here.”

"Thanks." She said in an ambivalent manner. What exactly she felt thankful for she left to the air. She tucked it away in the oblivion. While the seconds turned to minutes, Bliss sat within the shell of failed plans. She needed to get away from New York, anywhere would do. Anywhere that she could hide away from herself. "I should leave." She spoke more of stating an observation than giving a fair well. "I should find somewhere that I can do something good."

Bliss walked towards the fire escape with her shoes in her hands. The metal grating felt cold against her bare feet, but it kept her heels from getting trapped in the gaps of the scaffolding. Drops of water clung to the stairs of the railing, letting her take herself down to the dark alleyway. Within the aroma of the dumpsters and ill intent of the alley Bliss caught the image of the cigarette smoldering from a puddle. The filter sank within the puddle, lifting the lit end out of the water. A line of smoke continued to trail out of the dark. She smiled under the shadows along her face.

It was the best he could do for her. Whatever it was that she did tonight, it didn’t really matter to Pain. The Big Guy usually didn’t let people off the hook, but he believed in her statement, he saw the good in her. The hero’s icy blue eyes glared off into the darkness, they radiated with confidence in his gamble. “Good luck.” He stated simply as the two went their separate ways. Pain turned away as she began her descent down the fire escape, he never saw a thing.

He didn’t want to, but figured it best if he talked with the local authorities and lie to them about losing their perp. The Big Guy leapt from the rooftop, heading towards the sirens to get this over with before returning home to deal with his mess of a life. The woman's words stuck with him, beating on his eyelids like the mob. The darkness and the silence worked him over from the inside with his thoughts.