Work Text:
If he ever remembered to, Peccant Scofflaw would have to mark this on the calendar as the day he maybe started shit he couldn’t handle. The docks were mercifully mazelike tonight with their haphazardly placed shipping containers, but despite that the Snooping Scout was unusually hot on his trail. He had to be really pissed off, then, to go beyond the blinding rage he normally jumped to. As a reminder of this, a knife thunked into the wall where Scofflaw’s head had been seconds before he dove around the corner.
Scofflaw sucked in a breath, but decided that if Scout was that mad at him, he ought to take steps to smooth things over. They had a delicate-balance-thing going on, where Scout actually hated select members of the law more than he hated Scofflaw’s team, and if that dynamic shifted, Scout would end up focused more on taking out the Twilight Scoundrels than trying to upstage Snowman. And if Scout focused was anything like he was tonight, well, Scofflaw felt just a little shred of worry at the thought.
Also, he had run into a dead end.
Of course, there were never really any dead ends for him, but as long as he was trying to play fair he had to act like it. Scofflaw raised his hands and turned around.
“Hiiii Scout!” he said pleasantly, and leaned out of the way of another projectile blade.
Scout snarled and pointed another knife at him. He opened his mouth to start talking, which was when Scofflaw looked at his watch. He counted out a minute and a half and then tuned back in to the end of Scout’s rant. Well, the end of part one, and it was while he was taking his breath for part two that Scofflaw put on an embarrassed face.
“You’re not still mad about the eye thing, are you?”
Scout sputtered for a few seconds, then spread out his hands - there was a knife in each - and pointed at himself, particularly the ugly, newly scarred over wound down the left side of his face.
“Naah, Scoff, does this look like a guy who’s mad about his lost depth perception? I’m cool as a fuckin’ cucumber!”
Scofflaw was no detective, but he had a hunch that Scout was being a little sarcastic. He also had the feeling that laughing at Scout and his terrible attempt at banter would be a bad idea, and besides, he was throwing knives again. Scout was fortunately still too mad to aim, and Scofflaw easily dodged them. He stood up and smiled sheepishly while he fixed his coat.
“Would it help if I told you I was sorry?”
“Oh really?” Scout sneered, “Didn’t stop you from cracking eye-jokes.”
Scofflaw shrugged helplessly and stuck his hands in his pockets.
“I was trying to make light of the situation!”
“You did it for ten minutes while I was rollin’ on the ground, asshole!”
“What can I say, you looked really down.”
Scout choked on his words and he nearly dropped his knife while his brain tried to wrap around that.
“Well gee, you only cut out my fucking eye!”
“It was an accident!”
Scout growled and narrowed his eyes - whoops, eye.
“You accidentally stabbed me in the face.”
Scofflaw grinned innocently and shrugged again.
“I thought you were going to duck the other way! Bad luck, y’know?”
Scout’s eye twitched. He took a deep breath, though that didn’t remotely calm him down, and he raised his blades again.
“Yeah - well - shit, looks like you’re unlucky enough to - have me - fuckin’ - accidentally stab you a couple of times!”
Man, it was hilarious to see Scout try to come up with good one-liners, really, it was. And much as Scofflaw would have liked to stick around and try encouraging a better one, well, he was friendly, but not stupid. He finally took his hands out of his pockets, and dark smoke billowed out after them. Scout roared, but by the time he reached the Scofflaw-shaped cloud, his target was already long gone. But not very far.
“Scout, Scout, I can’t let you assault me,” Scofflaw sighed from where he was lounging on top of the wall of shipping containers. Scout started swearing at him and his ‘dark magic bullshit’, and since Scofflaw knew there’d be no end to that, he continued.
“I mean, if you do time before I do, that’d just be fundamentally wrong.”
“Goddammit Scofflaw get your ass down here and drop the fucking shadowman bullshit and fight me like a fucking MAN you coward!”
A knife clattered against the side of the containers, nowhere near high enough to be any worry. Which was good, really, because useful as the poofing trick was, it was kind of tiring, and only PI was good at doing it repeatedly. That, and being a smaller target was why Scofflaw was just laying on the containers now, and lazily watching Scout over the edge of it.
“I really do feel bad about it, y’know,” he said regretfully, shaking his head “is there anything I can do to make up for it?”
“Go fucking kill yourself!”
“Maybe a gift basket? Cookie bouquet? Lifetime discount at the House of Knives?”
The hesitation was minute, but Scout still threw another knife before Scofflaw could get his hopes up. Oh well, it was worth a shot.