So…Kick-Ass is Dead! I'd like to apologize to anyone that may have upset. I know, I was sad to see him go too. It was not my initial idea for the story, but I'll get to that in a moment. First, I'd like to thank anyone who has read this story and hope you have read the two proceeding "Still Kicking." If you haven't, please check out "Kicking Ass For Life" and "Life Kicked Back."

When I set out to write this, I did not plan to kill off Dave. I started writing because I wanted to spend more time with these fun, nutty characters. When I wrote KAFL, it was essentially my attempt to do a "Kick-Ass 2" sequel to the movie and emulate that distinct voice. LKB was more my story and went into things that I was interested in seeing such as more drama, more meta-deconstruction, and just exploring these characters as adults. It was also, ultimately, a love story between Dave and Mindy — albeit an intentionally understated and adult one that tried to get away from the angst and sweetness of adolescence.

I realized later that I still hadn't written an actual story when they were together. I wanted to see the domesticity of these characters and what years of living together might do to their quirks and personalities in daily life. That's how the story began. I didn't have an inkling Dave was going to die until Chapter 2. I probably didn't know for sure until either Chapter 3 or 4. The problem I have with a lot of sequels or ongoing stories is that they never finish and usually end up going in circles or flat out repeating themselves. If I returned to this well, I didn't want to just repeat my last two stories or even the original film/comic. For example, my first idea was to have the mob come after them and after a tragedy, they'd seek vengeance in costume….a la BD and HG.

I'll freely admit Marcus Cain is not my greatest creation, even though I like the satirical elements he brought, but he was able to take the story and characters to a different place that made the time it took to write this fic – and hopefully to read it – worthwhile. However, it's not meant to be a tragedy. Dave has always struggled with the responsibilities of adulthood. That goes back to the original Millar comic. I had him understand that in my second fic. In this one, he is embracing that "great responsibility" mantra and is finding a way to protect and serve a child he was sure that he couldn't. Hopefully, seeing their girl happy and safe years later and Mindy able to be the parent to her daughter Damon should have been makes it worth it for the characters and readers.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story. And if you did, please leave a review. If you do, I'll try to respond. I don't think this is necessarily my last KA fic, but I'm pretty sure it's the last of the story/universe I set out to write about a year ago. Thanks for reading!

Peace.