(story also posted on ao3 - user name: thefudge)

So, heads up, I haven't read the comics, I'm just basing this off the movie and the little background I know about these characters. The first oneshot takes place right after the movie. Enjoy!

Chapter 1: mask

She feels really stupid.

Not a feeling she's accustomed to. She's made mistakes in the past, but she paid for them and honored them and made sure never to repeat them. If she ever feels foolish nowadays it's for letting her guard down.

Technically, she's dealing with more literal guards now. She's come to visit him.

She found out from Officer Flag that he's been kept in solitary confinements for weeks. That was the price for sassing Amanda Waller. Privately, Tatsu thinks someone had to tell Agent Waller off for the way she'd handled the mission, but Boomerang could have chosen his words better.

Now she stands in front of his heavily barred cell and listens to him throw a tantrum. He's shouting abuse and demanding to be let out and making a rather ineffectual spectacle of himself. By the look on the guard's face, this has been going on for some time.

Typical.

The guard slits open a shaft in the door. Apparently, Tatsu is only allowed to speak to him through that small opening.

"May we have some privacy?" she asks in her soft English. She almost hates how tentative it sounds. Japanese gives her levity and purpose and rhythm. English is like a vast, ungoverned ocean.

The guard shrugs and moves out of earshot, but she can still see the uniform behind her.

Tatsu has to stand on her toes to raise her face to the shaft.

"Captain -"

"Katana, sweetheart!" he cries out when he sees the white mask at his door. "Thank God, you beautiful angry warrior! You'll get me out of 'ere, won't you?"

She is, as always, flummoxed by his loud presence and unsettled by his mad grin. He looks worse for wear. She's pretty sure he's got a smell too, but he's still his irritable self somehow.

"I don't have that authority, Captain Boomerang."

His grin wilts for a moment, but he quickly regains his footing. "Ah, call me George, luv. We've been through hell and back, haven't we? We can be familiar."

"I'd rather not," she answers carefully.

"Why ...I'm hurt, Katana. I thought we were chums. Good chums. The best of chums."

Tatsu wrinkles her nose. "Isn't that fish?"

He laughs, tilting his head back and revealing some nasty bruises on his throat and chest. Tatsu feels the urge to reach for her katana, although she does not understand her own instincts. She simply does not like abuses of power. He does not deserve this treatment. Not quite.

"Yea', it's fish. But you know what I mean. We're friends. Do a friend a favor and get me out of here."

"I told you, I can't -"

He interrupts her with a brush of his hand. "Sure you can. You could bring this entire place down with just a swoosh of that sword of yours."

Tatsu looks down at her weapon and feels a blush creep slowly into her cheeks. She's thankful for the mask. Few people compliment her on her deadly skills, they just take them for granted. But he is only trying to get her to do what he wants. She knows this, but she can't follow through to the logical conclusion. Namely, that she should just go.

"Y'know, luv, I never told this to anyone, but you were always my favorite of the bunch," he says with an inviting wink.

"Really?" she asks dryly.

"Ya don't believe me, but it's true. When I saw you get on that chopper I felt a funny feeling in my gut, like that girl is going to stick, ya know what I mean?"

"Stick where?" she asks disoriented.

"In here," he points to his chest, and she fights the reflex to roll her eyes.

"Captain Boomerang -"

"George," he corrects.

"...George. I know you do not have feelings for me. I know you are feigning this preference. Do not embarrass yourself further."

He seems a little jolted by her directness. She's never been one to shirk her words. His leer is replaced with an almost genuine smile.

"See, that's why you're my favorite. You never bullshit a bloke."

"Yes. Bullshit is your specialty."

She instantly regrets saying it. She shouldn't respond to his taunts, she should be above this. But she wants him to know she is not fooled. He is a con man, par excellence.

He laughs heartily. "Fell right into that one, didn't I? But if you're not here to set me free from this torture chamber...then why are you here?"

She hates how quickly he can switch from mirth to solemnity. She's never sure which is which with him.

"I came to check on you. To see if things are all right." It's a weak answer and she knows it. But it isn't far from the truth. She is not sure about the truth, either way.

"See if I'm still alive you mean?"

She winces. "They aren't treating you very well, I know."

"Hohoo, there's the understatement of the year. I hear Croc's got cable in his sewer. I'd live in a sewer just for a tooth brush."

"You would," she confirms, half-question, half-statement.

"Well, at this point I'd take anything. Cos I fuckin' stood there and fought for this city and this stupid planet with all of you, and all I got to prove it is this crummy cell room."

Tatsu mulls over his words. She can't deny their validity. He has a point. He's brash and rude and deserves to be notched down a peg, but he wason her team. Still might be.

"I will talk to Flag," she says uncertainly. She's not sure she can do anything. She's on thin ice as it is. Agent Waller doesn't particularly trust her.

"Ya will?" he asks and his voice grows unctuous and cloying again.

"I will try."

"Sweetheart, remind me to kiss you when I get out."

She ignores his tepid joke. He makes light of their alliance. I's just his way. But he knows...he knows about her husband. He has seen her pray to him. He has seen her cry into her sword. The memory feels like a bucket of cold water. She straightens herself up.

"I'd rather not remind you."

He stares at her for a moment too long. "When are you coming to see me again?"

She folds her arms, withdrawing herself from him. "If I fix your...situation, you will know."

"Aw, that's not an answer, luv. How do I know you won't just forget about me?" he teases, drawing out the words obscenely.

Tatsu wonders why she finds him the least bit tolerable. He is so different from everything and everyone she has known. Perhaps that's why.

"I don't forget easily and I will do as I promised. Goodbye, then."

She turns awkwardly to leave, because she's always been terrible at departures, but he calls her back, and his voice sounds less sure than before.

She returns to the shaft.

"Yes?"

"Ye can't just leave like that. Not without saying proper goodbye."

"I said goodbye -"

"Take off your mask."

She blanks. "What?"

"Never seen you without it, luv. If I die here today or tomorrow, which is very likely, mind you, I'd like to see yer face."

You have seen me without it, she wants to say. He was there, staring with the rest of them when she was crying before the big battle. But...actually, the memory isn't quite true. He hadn't looked. He had turned his face away when she had cried.

And now she feels stupid again. She can't ask him why. Why he hadn't looked then. Why he wants to look now. Why is she still here?

He comes closer to the shaft until his breath is almost hitting her face. His eyes seem to pry her mask off by sheer will. She feels naked almost. Trapped under his gaze.

But no, the mask is still there.

She takes a step back.

"You will not die. Today or tomorrow," she assures him formally. And he will not, not on her watch. No one else needs to die. No one.

He chuckles wryly. "I'll be waitin' then."

She turns and walks away fast, faster than she ought to. Her feet take her far away, but her mind is circling that small shaft, wondering why she can't let it go.

But at least now she has a new mission. Yes, that is what it is. Nothing more.