A Villain's Hero

Chapter 9 - Matteo

Nothing.

Matteo had no idea what he expected to find, but this wasn't it.

Again, no success.

They dug up George's grave for nothing. His body was half decomposed, but it still resembled a man who had died years ago. Plus, after they quickly took a sample of his DNA, they immediately got an answer that brought them back to square one. George Barlowe was lying in his coffin, exactly where he had been laid all those years ago, and the Legion agents had disturbed his rest for no reason.

"Keep your head up. Even failure is a step forward." Max's hand landed on Matt's shoulder in a reassuring gesture. The blond almost shook it off automatically but held back at the last moment. Max wasn't the reason he was irritated, and so it would be unfair of him to take his bad mood out on him.

"Now what?" he asked instead.

"Now we have more questions we need answers to," Max replied, and Matteo frowned. That wasn't what he wanted to hear. Max obviously noticed and chuckled before adding, "We'll get more footage from that day. We'll find out exactly what happened and who impersonated poor George and why."

Matteo nodded automatically, agreeing with the plan, and was glad that Max knew exactly what to do since he couldn't think rationally at the moment himself.

"In the meantime, we'll wait for the Revenger to reappear. He obviously knows more than we do, and it would be nice if he shared his knowledge," Max added.

"Yeah, right." Matteo laughed, but it wasn't a happy laugh. "The day Revenger volunteers to help us will be the day I believe in miracles."

"I never said it had to be voluntary," Max replied, his laugh sounding genuine, unlike Matteo's.

...

In the end, they didn't have to wait long to go ahead with their plan. The Revenger showed up again out of nowhere. And although Matteo had encountered him in various circumstances, it was never while robbing a bank.

When he showed up at the scene, he was surprised at how ordinary the inside of the bank looked compared to other robberies. No panic, no broken glass anywhere, and from the information he'd been given, Revenger hadn't taken any hostages. It almost sounded like he was just visiting the bank if he hadn't broken into their vault.

Matteo, however, was not going to be distracted by the situation. He knew Revenger well enough to know that he was unpredictable and shouldn't have been surprised by this.

It didn't take long before he finally saw his archenemy, and sure enough, Revenger was once again strutting around like it was a normal day for him and he hadn't just walked out of the bank vault.

Matteo's eyes briefly fell on the area behind the masked villain, but everything seemed fine. None of the safe deposit boxes seemed to have been opened, and nothing was rolling around on the floor. That could mean two things - what Revenger wanted wasn't in the safe deposit box, or it was so small that the villain had managed to hide it in his suit.

"Are you going somewhere?" Citadel said in a firm voice, alerting him to his presence.

"Oh, hi, C!" Despite his deep voice, Revenger sounded almost pleased to see him. Matteo knew full well, however, that this was just a provocation and that the masked villain would do anything to get a reaction out of him. And he wasn't about to do him that pleasure.

He rolled his eyes and answered, "You know robbing a bank is below you, right?"

"Oh, C, I didn't know you had such a high opinion of me." The masked criminal put his hand to his chest in a theatrical gesture, and Matteo was getting irritated. Instead of fleeing from justice, Revenger was conducting the conversation as if he were sitting down to tea.