The next step (open)

Katherine gently took the cup from bugsy, and took a few sips which helped her calm down. She thought of what he had said, and of what questions she would ask him.
"Thank you" Katherine said softly before taking another sip of her drink, enjoying the flavour. "I only have three questions. Did you know what they were doing to us down there? Did you meet a man by the name of Michael Butcher during your time with Ember? Most important question: are you alright? With everything I've said and done, I want to make sure you're alright." Katherine took another sip of her hot chocolate, and sunk further into the couch. She may have been a murderer, but she really did want to make sure that bugsy was ok.

Bugsy sat cross-legged again on the chair and took a sip from his mug. "No. I had no idea what they were doing. Ember told me very little about Abstergo itself and honestly I didn't want to know. I liked my office job at the time. " He took a longer sip trying to remember the last time he saw Michael, "Yes I meet Michael. The last clear memory of him was when we first got to London." Bugsy wanted to ask a counter question, but he figured he should wait.

The last question he didn't know how to answer. Bugsy was badly hurt and confused. He was talking to the person that killed one of his only friends, but at the same time Katherine was also one of the nicest girls he had met. "I am okay." he said in a very dull tone.

Katherine studied Bugsy for a moment; she knew he was hurting, but she wasn't going to press him for any more questions. She took a few more sips of her hot chocolate, trying to enjoy everything, but knowing how she had hurt bugsy really put a damper on everything.
"Bugsy, I really am sorry for everything that I've done. I hope that you might be able to forgive me one day, and I will understand if you never do." Katherine took a few more sips of her drink, and stared into the mug as she gently swirled its contents about. She felt awful about the whole situation, like she had royally messed things up. She realised that Bugsy was likely still new to the area, and he probably didn't know the best places in the neighbourhood, so she quickly wrote him a list of the best takeout shops, restaurants, and pubs in the area. "The Abbot and Costello is the best place to go to if you're looking to drown your sorrows, and mister Banerjee makes the best curries that really warm the heart" Katherine said as she handed Bugsy the piece of paper.

Bugsy took the list and looked at it for a bit, "Thanks, I probably won't go to many of the pubs since I don't drink much, but its a big help." He paused for a moment then finish off his hot chocolate. "Well I better start working on this," He said getting up and grabbing the flash drive out of his pocket. "I will text you when I am done with the updates, but as I said it will take a bit since it is mostly a new area of coding for me along with that freaken other code to break." Bugsy stood there kind of awkward waiting for Katherine to leave, but not wanting to straight up tell her to go.

Katherine quickly realised that she was no longer welcome, and finished her drink as quickly as she could.
"Thank you for all your help, Bugsy. I hope you come right with both codes, and I really do hope I get to see you again" Katherine said with a small smile before she rose to her feet, and headed for the door. She opened the door, and stepped outside before turning to face Bugsy. "Thank you, Bugsy, and stay safe." With that, Katherine left, immediately heading for the Abbot and Costello.

Katherine knocked back a few drinks, not that it really helped her anymore at this point. Very little actually helped her anymore. She ended up in the corner of the bar, surrounded by empty bottles, and just as hurt as when she arrived.

Bugsy made a call to mister Banerjee to get some food and started working on the code for Katherine's cybernetics.

For the next week that is all that Bugsy really did, eat take out and work on code. He had to really dive deep into studying cybernetics to properly understand how the coding worked. He ended up spending three days on just researching. On the fourth day he took a break, finally leaving his apartment mainly to get a new wardrobe since his one set of clothes were pretty dingy now. The last three days were spent of fixing a few bugs in the code along with some minor updates to allow it to run smoother. Sadly over the past week, Bugsy made no headway on the ever growing code. The auto-hacker kept it at by for the most part. When it did get out of hand, Bugsy would step in for maybe a half a hour at a time to catch back up.

With one final tap of the keyboard it was done. He leaned back and let out a sigh "Welp there it is. All done." He paused for a moment to let his brain fully catch up and then grabbed his phone. He found the contact labeled K and sent out a message "The code is done"

Katherine kept herself busy with contracts for a week in an attempt to keep her mind off of everyone she had lost or killed. She hadn't slept in about three days, and when she did sleep, it was usually only for an hour or two. Her friends were starting to worry about her, and did everything they could to try keep her sane or to make her feel better. The only thing that seemed to make her feel better were the contracts, so they kept providing her with them.

Katherine was in the middle of a contract when she received Bugsy's message, so she couldn't read it at the moment. Thankfully, the message came up on the display in her mask. Upon reading the good news, Katherine moved much faster, her sword easily slicing through her enemies. She got shot a few times, but she didn't really seem to care.

Katherine arrived at Bugsy's apartment about half an hour after receiving the message, still wearing her Deathstroke outfit, a fair amount of blood on her. Katherine knocked on the door, eager to get the fixed and updated code from Bugsy. She even sent him a quick message telling him she was outside.

Bugsy had just drifted off to sleep for some well deserved rest when he heard the door knock. "Uuuuuuugh" he groaned ignoring it and then his phone went of with the message. He rolled out of bed begrudgingly wearing just sweatpants showing his skinny torso. He shuffled to the door and undid all the locks and traps. As he slide the door open he spoke "I thought we agreed you won't," his eyes widened, "WHOLE SHIT! That's a lot of blood!"

Katherine took off her mask, and looked at Bugsy with a huge smile. She had missed him, and she was overjoyed that he was able to help her.
"Sorry, I was in the middle of a job when I got your message, got a bit careless after that." Katherine looked down at herself, realising just how bad she looked in that moment. Arriving on someone's doorstep covered in blood wasn't exactly the best thing to do, especially when one was trying to get into another's good books. "I know what we agreed, and I'm sorry. I just got so excited when I read your message, I couldn't wait." Katherine help the wound on her shoulder, flinching slightly, but she was still smiling. "It's not as bad as it looks."

Bugsy looked down the hall to see if anyone saw and thankfully no one did, but there was blood spots here and there. He quickly pulled Katherine into the apartment. "Don't move from that spot" He said turning around and heading into his bedroom. He dug through his wardrobe and came back throwing the set of clothes he had originally met Katherine in, a pair of dark jeans and long sleeve black shirt. They had just be washed, but looked warned down. "Please put those on" He said turning around facing the wall. "Are you going to need any medication or are you good?"

Katherine carefully peeled off her clothes revealing various scars across her body, most of them were old gunshot wounds. She carefully studied her new wounds, assessing just how bad they were.
"I'm good" Katherine said with a sigh before pulling on the shirt. It was a bit tight around her chest, but she didn't mind it. Katherine pulled the pants on before folding her clothes up. "Thank you, Bugsy. You can turn around now." Katherine pulled some bags of money from various pockets along her suit, checking the bands to make sure she wasn't undercutting Bugsy. "One hundred thousand, as promised. I can't thank you enough, Bugsy" Katherine said quietly, unsure if anyone could hear what they said.

Bugsy turned around seeing Katherine in his clothes was a weird sight at first. She was very pretty , but that thought left his mind fairly quickly after seeing the bags of cash in front of him. He couldn't remember the last time he had this kind of money. Actually Bugsy never had this kind of money even when working at Abstergo at least not all at once. His eyes shined with joy. "Th...Thanks. Glad to do it" he stuttered.

There was a moment a silence. Then Bugsy spoke "Did you want to rest up a bit. I know I said no coming, but you are already here and look like you could use it" He headed to the kitchen and started boiling water for hot chocolate assuming she would stay around "Also I would like to ask some things about your cybernetics. If you don't mind of course."

Katherine thought about Bugsy's offer for a moment, and decided it would probably be best if she rested up for a bit.
"That would be amazing. Thank you so much, Bugsy" Katherine said with a warm smile. She carefully set about removing the bullet from her shoulder with a set of forceps she kept with her for just such an occasion. After that, she moved onto the two in her stomach while the app on her phone checked on the status of her cybernetics. "I don't mind at all, Bugsy. I'm not keeping any secrets from you, so you are more than welcome to ask me any questions you may have." Katherine finally pulled a bullet from her stomach, and set it on a piece of paper towel before moving onto the next one.

Bugsy poured the hot chocolate into two mugs bringing them over. As he turned toward the living room he saw Katherine pulling the bullet out of her stomach. He paused and gagged a bit. He took a moment to regain his composer then placed a mug on the end table of the couch for when Katherine was done. He then sat on the black chair facing a way from Katherine. "I'll let you finish before I ask anything," he said trying to ignore the sounds that were being made by the operation.

Katherine pulled out the last bullet, cleaning her wounds with an alcohol swab before gathering all the waste, and stuffed them in a bag in her pocket. She realised that Bugsy didn't have the stomach for it, and she had just pulled bullets from her flesh in his living room.
"I'm so sorry about that, Bugsy. I've gotten so used to it, I forget that others don't really like it all that much" she said sounding a bit embarrassed. "Unfortunately, if I don't do it, they tend to get stuck in there and Strange has to open the wounds again." Katherine grabbed the hot chocolate, and took a sip, smiling as she did so. She realised that Bugsy made a pretty decent hot chocolate. Katherine leaned back into the couch, relaxing in its comfort. "Thank you for the hot chocolate, Bugsy."

Bugsy chocked back throwing up, "Its fine..... Just not my forte." He took a large swig of hot chocolate, "and completely understand able." So she had a doctor of some kind, Bugsy thought to himself. He then smiled back at the thank you. "So right you said you only had one cybernetic and it is just functional. No extra benefits from it?" He said crossing his legs and leaning forward a bit. He looked around quickly to make sure none of the blood and spilled on anything and thankfully it hadn't.

Katherine had made sure not to get a drop of blood anywhere in Bugsy's apartment, and was quite happy that she had succeeded. His question was certainly an interesting one, and completely understandable.
"There are absolutely no extra benefits from my cybernetics, it's purely functional." Katherine thought for a moment about any possible benefits that her cybernetics offered her, but there were none. "I don't really need benefits after what the serum did to me" Katherine said with a sigh as she hung her head, running her fingers through her long white hair.

Bugsy sipped his drink thinking. "And right, its your uterus that is the cybernetics and my last question is how do you implement the updates for it?" He was very interesting on how someone would update an internal cybernetic with out surgery.

Bugsy was also starting to think to himself that he wanted to learn more then just about Katherine's cybernetics. He wanted to get a foothold in your network of freelancers. He wanted to start tracking down the ever growing code to it source. He actually wanted to be part of a team again weird enough.

Katherine looked up at Bugsy at his question, thinking about it for a moment.
"It's done wirelessly now with a machine at my place. It's kinda like the first generation animus. Most cybernetics have gone wireless since 2016" Katherine explained before taking a few sips of her hot chocolate. "The older ones had a few flaws." Katherine looked down at her hot chocolate for a moment before looking back to Bugsy with a small smile.

"Oh that makes a lot of sense" Bugsy said kind feeling dull for not thinking about wireless. Bugsy finished of his hot chocolate and looked at Katherine, "Okay I'm in then. I still want to get that code done, but I want to learn more about cybernetics and actually be more of a help then I use to be" He paused for a moment realizing that everything he did at Abstergo had no value to anyone, but Abstergo. "I would still like my place to be kept secret, but it okay for your to stop by. I also want to finish the ever growing code first, but I am going to need help and you are the only person I can think to ask.Bugsy finally admitted it. He couldn't take on the world by himself. He need a team. He need another group of crows.

Katherine couldn't believe what she had just heard, Bugsy was in?! She was so happy he had decided to join her, as well as the fact that he was willing to help.
"Well, welcome to the family then, Bugsy" Katherine said with a smile. Now that she was allowed to come around too, she figured she might as well give him her address. Katherine quickly wrote her address on a scrap piece of paper, and handed it to Bugsy. "Dont worry, Bugsy, your location will be kept a secret. Feel free to pop by whenever you want. I'll be more than happy to help you whenever you need me."

Bugsy looked at the address "Wait is this your personal address?" He was confused. It was a nice gesture, but he was hoping to get the address of like a base or something. "Th..Thanks" He said in his normal awkwardness. "Not to sound rude or pushy, but is there also like a main meeting place/base. I would really like to talk to.." He paused for a moment to remember the name Katherine had said "Beatrix, I think"

Bugsy was glad to have someone as a friend, but he really wanted to get that code figured out. He had spent quite some time on it and he wanted to solve it as soon as he could.

Katherine took another sip of her hot chocolate, thinking everything through. There were new recruits hiding at the warehouse, so the garage seemed to be the only address she could give him at the moment.
"The Abbot and Costello pub is our primary base, and Beatrix spends quite a bit of her time there, or at the garage next door." Katherine finished her hot chocolate, and set the empty cup on the table. "The warehouse isn't entirely safe right now as I'm dealing with sensitive cases there." Katherine closed her eyes for a moment, quite tired from the week of contracts and very little sleep, as well as from her wounds.

Bugsy paused remembering the name, "Isn't that the bar you told me about? I'm guessing you run and or have them in your pocket.. He had a hint of joking to his tone. Bugsy went to his room and start to rummage around looking for some of his gear. "So how long would you like rest?" He yelled from the other room. Bugsy found his backpack and placed his ipad and a black scarf. This made Bugsy realized he needed to get a lot more gear to be a true freelancer. At least I have the money he thought to himself as a grin on his face.

Katherine lifted her head slightly, and looked towards Bugsy at his question, smiling.
"The Abbot and Costello? I own it, took over after Jack's death" Katherine said before letting out a small yawn. She studied one of her wounds for a moment, trying to figure out how much rest she needed. "I need at least half an hour." She was exhausted after everything that had happened that weak, and running on little to no sleep wasn't helping her at all. "If you're wanting to get to the pub though, we can leave right now if you want."