“Goddammit, Dangerboat.”  Overkill shoved the knife back in its pocket with one hand, peering into the newly-opened Amazon delivery box.  

“What?” Dangerboat’s optical input blinked on, sliding along its track.  “Did they backorder something?”

“What the fuck is this?” That was a typical Overkill answer, honestly, as was the disgust in his voice as he held up a plastic package of white socks, shaking them to emphasize a point. “I can’t wear white.”

“They’re socks.”  Reason was always Dangerboat’s default. It was also the approach most likely to fail with Overkill. “Nobody sees them. You’re wearing boots, right?”  

“That’s not the point!”  Overkill threw the sock package back in the box, on top of a similarly-white package of underwear.

“What? They don’t reflect the darkness of your tortured soul?” Dangerboat’s second default approach: sarcasm. Also unlikely to succeed.  

Overkill’s cybernetic optics flicked up to meet the input, glaring for a long moment. “Blood,” he snapped.  “Can’t get blood out of white.”  

“Here’s a radical concept,” Dangerboat retorted. “Bleach. Or, related concept, actually doing laundry instead of ordering new underthings every month.”

Overkill wrinkled his nose. “You wouldn’t let me install a washing machine, remember?”

“I don’t like the way the spin cycle feels,” Dangerboat huffed. “I’m allowed to have feelings. And opinions. Especially about things you attach to me.”

“Fussy,” Overkill scoffed.

“There’s a laundromat here.” Dangerboat pulled up a local map on the viewscreen, blinking an arrow over the sight. “Oh look, it’s only a few blocks away. And it’s open 24 hours.”  

“Laundromat.” Overkill spat the word, turning his back, pointedly, to the screen. “People.”  

Astonishingly, yes, there were likely people in laundromats.  But Dangerboat decided to keep that observation to himself.  For the moment. “Why can’t you go to a laundromat, like a normal person?” Not that much about Overkill could be described as ‘normal’.

“Because!”  He slammed his hand on the table.

“Because what?” One day, he would lead Overkill to something resembling rational thought. One day.

“Shut the fuck up.” Overkill snatched up the box, storming to the back section of the boat he called his ‘quarters’.  

One day, Dangerboat sighed. Not today.  

***

Can’t count on anyone, Overkill thought, grumpily, kicking the external door.  Especially not that jerk of a boat.  Because he’d known Dangerboat a little too long to believe that the white order was a mistake, an accident, or an Amazon glitch.  

And he’d had no intention of falling for Dangerboat’s stupid laundromat idea, stubbornly growling as he put on the white socks, the white underwear (briefs? Really, Dangerboat? Overkill was not a briefs guy!), for about three days.  Until he had what AEGIS liked to call a ‘kinetic interrogation’, and come back to Dangerboat refusing to open the door to him, telling him, bluntly, that he smelled ‘godawful’.

“You don’t even have olfactory sensors!” he yelled at the boat, pounding on the door panel.

“I can see it,” Dangerboat said, primly.  “Like that Peanuts cartoon character. Pigpen.”

“I am not a fucking Peanuts character!”  More cursing, for one thing. And stabbing.  Pretty easy to tell the difference, Overkill would have thought.

“And you’re not coming in till you’ve done your laundry. And walked through a car wash or whatever.”  

Overkill had an impressive arsenal of invective, and he let most of it loose on Dangerboat, standing there, blood and...other stuff...getting cold and crusty on him. It got him precisely nowhere (just colder and crustier) until Dangerboat popped a small hatch, and shot out a bag full of dirty laundry.  

“Fine. FINE,” he snarled, snatching up the bag. “But when I get back, we’re gonna talk.”  

“I’ve loaded the map on your helmet,” Dangerboat responded, placidly. “Have a nice time!”  

***

‘Have a nice time,’ Overkill mouthed behind the mask, as he pushed his way into the goddam laundromat. Which wasn’t actually called Goddam Laundromat, but something almost as stupid.  “Asshole.”  

“Excuse me?!” The man behind the counter shot him a look, the kind of look that Overkill normally answered with a throwing knife.  But this was his last set of clean(ish) stuff, so instead he settled for a huff.

“Wasn’t talking to you.” Though, odds are, the guy probably was an asshole, too. Just simple statistics.  For some reason, Overkill seemed to meet a stunningly large number of assholes.  

“Talking to yourself then,” the man said, calmly. “Washer three’s open.” He chucked a keychain with a big 3 peeling off it at Overkill’s chest. “Detergent and extras on the bar. Don’t be a hog.”

It took a great deal of whatever self control Overkill had to stop himself from lunging over the table and grabbing the guy by his fraying plaid shirt. Instead, he gave a growl before stomping toward the machines, scowling behind his mask, because, fuck no, he wasn’t taking that off.  He didn’t do ‘secret identity’ shit; but that didn’t mean he wanted anyone to stare at his fucking face.

The layout was simple enough--long rows of washers down the right side, dryers on the left, a drunken zigzag of battered plastic chairs weaving down the center of each aisle. One exit, a fire door.  No second level. No hiding places. Tactically, a kill box.

A long rack along the top of the washers with those generic boxes of no-brand detergent and other stuff, like ‘fabric softener’, whatever that did. Didn’t sound manly. He wasn’t into it.

What he was into was getting his damn clothes clean, and ASAfuckinP.  Step one: shove the stuff into the machine.

“Oh, no, sweetheart.” A female voice, over his shoulder, as he was stuffing the laundry from the bag into the machine. “That’s just not right.”

“What?”  He whipped around, eyes flaring, looming over what turned out to be a tiny old lady. You know the type: flowered housedress, stockings bagging around skinny, blotchy ankles, hair like white candy floss.  “Fucking laundry.”

She seemed unfazed by the sudden turn, the salty language, or the looming, blue-glowing eyes above the black mask. “You don’t mix lights and darks.”  

“Watch me.” Seriously.  He was not a man to dare to do anything. He lived life on the reckless, dangerous edge.

She tsked. “It’s all going to come out dingy.”  

“Don’t care.” What the hell? Was she some kind of laundry fetishist?

It all went under the body armor, anyway, he thought, and then realized...that was close to what Dangerboat had said. Didn’t do much to improve his mood.  He stuffed the rest of the laundry in the machine.

“Is that blood?”

Goddammit.  He gave an aggrieved sigh, dipping his head for a moment. “Yes.”  Whoever this old lady was, she was nosier than Dangerboat.  Which was some kind of accomplishment.

He really wished he could come up with a reason to stab her, but even his notoriously limber moral code couldn’t flex that far.  So, okay, he couldn’t kill her, but he could at least use his considerable powers of intimidation. He stood up again. Maybe his intimidating loom worked better the second time around.  Worth a shot.  “Yes. It’s blood.”  Get the hint?  

The old lady gave that disappointed clucking sound again. “That’s never going to come out.”  

He brandished the bottle of bleach on the rack above the machine.  “Want to bet?”

“I bet that will just ruin those blacks.” She stepped past him, plucking a blood-stained pair of briefs out of the machine, squinting at it. Which was...fucking weird.  Who stares at a strange man’s underwear?  See? This was why he didn’t like people. Or laundromats.  Weirdos hung out here.  Maybe coming here at two in the morning had been a mistake.

“My stars, this is a lot of blood.” She squinted up at him. “Yours, dear?”

“No.”  Wait, why was he even answering her?  And why the fuck wasn’t she surfing out of here on a cresting wave of intimidating looks? Did her flowered housedress make her invulnerable?  This warranted further study.

But first. He snatched the briefs out of her hand, tossing them back in the machine.  

She nodded, turning to shuffle over to her own machine, next to his. “Let me get my bag. I have meat tenderizer and peroxide.”

That sounded...bizarre. Gross. Not entirely healthy--not like he was an expert about that.  Maybe she drank that shit and that why she was so, you know, messed up.

“For the bloodstains,” she added over the scuffing of her slippers.  “Silly boy.”  

He bristled. “Why the fuck do you care?” Seriously. Overkill’s Normal-o-meter was poorly calibrated, but damn. This old lady was still off the damn charts.  If she couldn’t be properly terrified of him, she could at least, you know, not just calmly offer to rub solvent into a stranger’s bloody underwear.  Just...weird.  

This was all Dangerboat’s fault. Somehow.  

“Young man,” she said, choosing the peroxide bottle and pouring it over the big bloodstain on the crotch, “You’re not my first villain, you know.”

“Villain?” What the fucking fucked fuck.  “I’m not a fucking villain!”  He was one of the good guys. Just with, you know, some Extreme (™) Methods.  

The old woman tsked at him again. “You wear black. You’re carrying a significant number of knives. To do your laundry.” She shrugged. “In my day, we’d presume a man with so many knives was trying to compensate for something.”  

He glowered.  Excuse you, but he had nothing--zero, zilch, however you wanted to say it--to compensate for, thankyouverymuch.

She continued. “There is that mask, too. Only villains and luchadors wear masks in public, dearie.”  

“I’m not a bad guy!”

“No judgment from me, young man.” She straightened up, proudly. “I used to be a henchwoman, myself. Started in the typing pool and worked my way up.”  She gave a sigh, almost wistful. “That’s how women got ahead back then.”  

“The Terror? Did you work for the Terror?” Okay, maybe he’d have to ratchet down the rage in that talk he was still absolutely going to have with Dangerboat when he got back, if this turned out to be useful intel.

“Heavens, no!” She looked nostalgic. “We did work with his group once, though.  My boss was the School Nurse.”  

Damn. That was a long time ago.  Like, he’d still been in the Flag Five at the time.  He remembered a few of School Nurse’s more insidious actions: the Update Immunization Records Scare had been a big one. And he’d gotten caught up in the Mandatory Scoliosis Testing himself. He still had nightmares.

So much for this old lady bringing him a useful clue.  

Still. He wasn’t a bad guy.  “Lady, look. I’m a good guy.”  

She patted his gloved hand. “You just keep telling yourself that, sweetie.”  

“Stop calling me that,” and anything like that, really. Sweetie, dear, young man.  Come on! Show some respect. “Name’s Overkill.”

She gave a condescending nod. “That doesn’t sound like a hero name.”

“Well, it is.”  Though, honestly, he was beginning to doubt it himself.  A little.  Time for a quick check in:  fight bad guys? Yes. Right. So he was a good guy. Settled.

While he was having that micro-existential-crisis, though, the old lady had been digging through the machine. “Where are the pants?”

“What pants?”  Also, what the hell.

“Bloody underwear. Bloody socks. Somehow, you don’t look like the type to fight someone half-naked.”  

Yeah, that was a mental image he never wanted released into the spiritus mundi.  Thanks, old lady. Ugh.  “Wearing them.”  

“Ah.”  

“Ah?”

“That would explain the smell.”

“I don’t smell!” Right? He gave a sniff. Nope. Nothing. Just the mask interior.  

“You don’t smell. You’re not a bad guy.” She shook her head, and then sighed, as if bracing herself for something, then reached over and unclipped his belt.

“What the fucking hell are you doing?”

“Taking off your pants, young man. No sense washing the underthings if you’re just putting dirty clothes over top of them.”  

Actually that made all the sense to Overkill.  What didn’t make sense was an old lady stripping him in public.  He clamped his hands, hard and metal, down over her skinny wrists. “If you touch me again, I will stab you.”  There. See? A bad guy would have just cut off her hands. A good guy would give warning. He’s a good guy.  

She relented, releasing the waistband of his pants. And then there was the awkward moment as he let go of her hands, buttoning up his fly.  It was tough to keep his cool image in all of this, but well, he was Overkill. Tough was definitely on his resume.

“You really need to do something about the smell,” the old lady said, disappointed.

“I don’t smell!” Maybe she huffed too much peroxide or something. Or maybe this was some weak plot by a henchwoman of the School Nurse. But he. Did. Not. Smell.  

“Dude.” A guy, from across the rack of dryers. “You totally smell. I could go for a steak right now, in fact because of it.”  

Riiiiiight. Apparently this was the laundromat where all the lunatics hung out.  Overkill was surprised that that big blue idiot wasn’t around here, too. Which meant...he was probably behind it. Somehow.  

“You’re all crazy,” he said, slamming his quarters into the washing machine’s coinslot.  

“Says the guy with the face mask wearing tighty whiteys,” the dryer guy said.

“Shut up!” Overkill snapped. The washing machine began hissing, filling up with hot water.

The old lady shook her head. “Should always wash darks in cold water.”

“You shut up, too,” he said, slumping down onto one of the plastic chairs in the aisle, folding his arms over his body armor.  He was absolutely a good guy, and everyone here was crazy. Except for the proprietor, who was an asshole.  He was a good guy, but damn if he was ever going to wear white after this.