"Ha ha ha ha stayin' alive, stayin' alive." Cafas sang under his breath, wincing as a rib gave way under the repeated compression. He'd been warned that could happen. Really, he shouldn't have felt too sorry for the man that had put a knife to the throat of someone he loved. He did though. Maybe it was the fact he was dead? Cafas wasn't sure what had happened, but the dude wasn't breathing, and he hadn't found a pulse.

I should have attended that class at the library.

His knowledge was entirely theoretical, provided by the internet. Like, one info-graphic and the site it had provided a URL for. He had to try though. He couldn't leave that man's life as a scar on Maya's conscience. Couldn't condemn his family to a life without him. Couldn't bear the idea he had someone waiting for him at home that loved him like Cafas loved Maya. The man himself was scum. That didn't mean his loved ones needed to suffer.

Breathe damn you.

He was sort of aware that there were people around him. New people, not just con-goers with cameras. He tried to pay attention to them, but CPR was harder than it looked. Even Cafas was having some trouble keeping it up. Someone was pulling him away. Cafas recognised the uniform of an ambulance officer on the person kneeling opposite him. He didn't recognise the rellow box he was holding until the paddles came out. That made him move his hands pretty quickly.

"CLEAR."

The body arched and slumped. Cafas stood and took in his surroundings.

"CLEAR."

Where was Maya? She'd need him. He'd have to give a report too. Plus those gun barrels weren't going to unwind themselves from the monks' ankles.

"CLEAR."

...

"He's breathing! Get him on the Gurney, quickly, bring some police."

That was a relief. Cafas was coming down from his asrenal surge. His body felt heavier than he remembered, his sense far duller. His eyes fell on an angel in the crowd, through the pink hair dangling in front of his eyes. A bit bloody, almost certainly in shock, but she still made his heart flutter. His feet carried him to her almost of their own accord.

"Is he dead?"

Cafas dropped onto his haunches and wrapped Maya into a hug. "No. They got him back." he planted a kiss on her cheek, letting her go to fish a packet of tissues out of his utility belt. He dabbed one on his tongue a couple of times to wet it, turned Maya's head by the chin, and started gently wiping the blood from her face. "You alright? Physically I mean. Emotionally we can talk about later, without the audience." Her nose was still bleeding gently. He pinched the tissue to her nose and coaxed her into tilting her head forward.

Cafas sincerely hoped that near miss wouldn't haunt Maya like his past haunted him. He snaked his free hand into hers and held it tenderly, trying to let her know he was there.

"Oh." She didn't sound sad. She didn't sound happy either. Maybe a tiny bit surprised? The hug was unexpected and her arm was squished at an odd angle. Oh. So, he would still be in trouble. But not dead. It was probably good that he wasn't dead. Not a waste.

Maya blinked and moved her head back when something moist touched her face. She mopped at her eyes quickly so he wouldn't wipe those for her.

"Are you... moming me?" It was just ludicrous enough to sort of pull her out of her funk. The face she was making didn't seem to stop him from dabbing at her nose.

She only whined with a little "ow" when he pinched her nose. She could actually feel that and it made her voice nasally afterward. "It's not broken... I'm pretty sure." But she wasn't feeling terribly confident about anything just now. "Is it?" He was the expert here. Hadn't he broken his nose a whole bunch of times?

A paramedic came by to relieve Cafas and free him up to finish releasing the monks from their metal bonds. Maya squeezed his hand. It'd be okay.

She got a bigger hole in her costume than was repairable, some tape and gauze for her collarbone and neck, and some tape for the nose. Maya didn't bother to complain about what she was sure was bruising. It was well under the spandex and there was no way she was getting naked here. She did get a cold compress that smelled like hospital, though. The paramedic crunched it and shook it around before handing it off and moving to see Cafas. So it was chemical. Cool.

Maya sneezed and cringed from the various ways sneezing hurt.

She hoped the Sebastian's Witnesses didn't say anything about her that would keep them all here longer.

Cafas smiled for Maya, even though he really didn't feel like smiling. He felt rather like throwing up from a mixture of exertion and worry. His Maya was in shock though, and there was really only room for one of them to be having a breakdown at a time. "No, I'm boyfriending you. Mothering would involve chastising." His smile gained just a hint of actual humour. "And I don't think it's broken, no. Looks like they did their best, though."

The paramedic that came over to relieve him brought Cafas back to the reality of the situation. Right, there'd be statements to give, evidence to collect, witnesses to interview. He parted from Maya reluctantly, lips lingering on her forehead just a bit longer than the officers trying to get the witnesses up and moving were willing to wait patiently for. One called out to him, a SWAT team commander, by the uniform, using less than polite language. Cafas scrutinised the man. He had a feeling he'd be hating that man for some time to come.

The ex gun barrels clattered off the ankles of their shooters as Cafas approached. A SWAT officers hauled the men to their feet almost as roughly as Cafas had thrown them to the ground. All the roughness wasn't doing them any favours.

"Bout time."

"Yeah, sorry, must have used up all my timing making this a zero casualty shooting." The X-man rolled his eyes at the machine gun toting officer. The man huffed and started marching the shooters off. One of the regular cops approached with a clipboard and pen. "Need a statement Johnson." Cafas sighed and nodded, trying to organise his thoughts.

He barely noticed the paramedic that approached half way through. He almost waved the man away, but he was just doing his job. A very familiar Harley Quinn was attending to some of the witnesses a few yards away. The crime witnesses, not the unicorn monks. She waved, and there was something in that wave that suggested Cafas hadn't heard the last of her efforts.

He finished running through events as he could remember them. The officer got him to sign the paper, clapped him on the shoulder, and walked off to take more witness statements. Cafas was left standing alone, his paramedic having realised there was very little to do for the large X-man. He took a moment to focus before returning to Maya.

"Monks are on their way to the station for interrogation. Currently they are choosing to exercise their right to remain silent. Reports say the fake cop is going to live, his heart just couldn't cope with the stress and suffocation." Cafas rubbed his eyes, the adrenaline crash was leaving him very tired. "So... How are you?"

Maya watched him work. She didn't mean to. It was like magnetism. It just happened. She tried to see other things, but it didn't matter where her eyes were pointing. She had a 360 view.

She got to hear rude remarks and how he interacted with the officers. The crowd that never went away got their moments in their spotlights and signed their witness statements. Eventually someone came with a statement for her to sign. She asked him to read it to her and body language was enough to let her know that the man was rolling her eyes.

"It's that or no signature. This could be a blank page for all I can see." And that was probably just making more paperwork for herself later, to prove that she could accurately judge situations and tell a good guy from a bad guy.

The faux-officer had already left on an ambulance, presumably. Maybe his costume had been convincing. Maybe not. Maybe she was only grasping at being useful here in these kinds of situations. She did her part in the end as best she could according to the vague tip they'd received. Though, if they'd known they were looking for Sebastian's witnesses from the start, should she have gone in costume?

For all her attention earlier, Cafas managed to sneak up on her after she'd signed her statement away. At least, she was surprised that it was him, for some reason. The full head mask had done his hair no favors.

"Sounds like somebody needed another hit of immortality." She immediately regretted making that joke. She also regretted cringing. Who knew all those facial muscles were involved in the nasal area?

Maya shifted the cold pack away from her ribs and only used a little help from Cafas in order to get to her feet. Did somebody need that cold thing? Or was she supposed to take it? "Face hurts more than anything else. Should probably see the doc. After sleep." Sleep sounded a-ma-zing, to be honest. Right up there with a shower.

"I'm taking you home." Because they could ghost now. They'd been unmasked for hours. Felt like days. "So, shh. Let me girlfriend you."