Along for the Ride

[party hat girl]

Hey there! Long time watcher, first time caller.
I've been writing this for a while now, and now have enough that I'd like to start posting it for people to read. I've written about 90k words at the time of this post, so I'm going to be posting more frequently to start, and then slow down as my backlog shrinks.
This is a story following an original character as she struggles and survives in Brockton Bay.
I want to explore some of the stuff that I like about Worm, so expect some canon-typical themes. If things ever get too dark or gross I'll let you know with content warnings at the top of chapters, but this is Worm, so. Balance accordingly.

I've been writing as a hobby for years now, but I've never posted anything online before... a little nervous about it, haha.
I hope that you enjoy!

Also on SB.

Content warnings for the story as a whole include:
Emotional manipulation, irreverence towards mental health, medical trauma and PTSD, and touch aversion.

—

She's going to be bitter, at the start. Please be patient.

—

Arc 1: Trial Run​

Physical therapy was hell.

Beyond just the healing from the holes they'd poked in me to keep me alive, my muscles were atrophied to shit. Turns out more than a year spent without any physical activity really does a number on those things, even with intermittent exercise from nurses.
If only I'd got my powers sooner. Right after. Or before, even.

Then again, with my luck they wouldn't even have stopped anything from happening.

But I did get a power.

I wasn't exactly thrilled with the consistency of it. Every so often I would get a blinding moment of clarity, the ability to move like I wanted to, to speak how I knew I should be able to without tripping over my tongue or choking on my own spit. Mere moments where my limbs wouldn't shudder, my muscles would listen, and everything else seemed doable.
And then I'd get nothing for days. My power would shudder, and shutter, and fizzle out. Time after time after time. Sure, something about getting them meant I could actually sit up and chew my own food. That was great, and I wouldn't complain about it for a minute. But most mornings I felt that if I had to listen to a nurse telling me 'just one more step' I'd lose my shit completely.

Of course, Brockton Bay's new miracle healer hadn't yet swooped in to save the day. That would be the easy answer.
"She couldn't help you before, but we'll make sure we get you on her waiting list!" The nurses all assured. The part they didn't say out loud was the, 'but, you know, you don't really need it.' Just muscle through it! Where's your American spirit? Your clear moments are getting so much more frequent! (They weren't.)

So, yeah. PT was hell. (PT, that's what we call it in the physical therapy game.) No way around it. I could probably cry uncle, out myself to the Protectorate and hope they take pity enough to try and help me. Rehabilitate me so they had someone else to throw at the gangs. But Panacea was New Wave, and they had a famously rocky relationship with the Protectorate. So I'd probably still be a cripple. Just one that wears spandex.

That, and I wasn't even sure I wanted to be a hero.

That's shitty to admit. You'd think I'd be nice and brainwashed towards the whole 'life of heroism' thing like a good little girl. But I don't know. Even the people on the news were always talking about how the Protectorate doesn't even care about its heroes. Legend was 'out' and 'gay,' but Bastion got recorded throwing out slurs like candy at a parade. So, you know. Trouble in paradise. It's not that I thought heroism was bad, per se, but I think I'd just been disenfranchised with the system in general, you know?

But besides all that, the main reason I muscled through PT instead of gambling on an easier route?

Finally being able to move felt good.

You take it for granted when it comes easy, but after the seventieth nightmare about being pinned down by a monster, only to wake up being pinned down by brain damage?
What I mean is, it felt goddamn good to be able to pick up a glass of water. To drink, by myself, with my mouth and not through some tube. It felt so good to be able to do it. I felt accomplished. I wanted to be able to look back and say that I'd done that. Look how far I'd come!
Some of that optimism was from the nurses, I'll admit. My physical therapist was a nice lady, despite how often I yelled myself hoarse at her. If she'd been any more of an asshole, I probably would have dropped it all and ran off to find Panacea myself.

As it was, I was starting to get restless. Like, really, really restless. My brain kept telling me to get up and go out and do something, but my therapists were insistent I kept the snail's pace and didn't push myself too hard.

So I snuck out and shoplifted in order to get myself a hero costume.
Stealing so I could do heroism. You know, to balance the moral scales a little bit.
And, look, I needed a costume, okay? It was for a good cause. I was going to use it to go out and fight crime, or something, so that's a moral decision. I didn't have money and my foster parents sure didn't deserve being stolen from. Super markets showed up in small towns all the time and forced out local business. I'd seen a TV program about it.

So after too long working at the frustrating, frustrating process of trying to have a functioning body again, I got geared up and started going out.

And lo and behold, my power started cooperating. I was only about five months into PT when I caved and decided to run around the Docks, so I was still stumbling frequently and needed breathers often. But my power helped. I would hear someone coming, and it would trigger and I'd be moving with perfect ease to get out of the way, or act casual, or scare them off.
I probably looked like a wreck, making it down one alley just to stop and catch my breath, let my muscles rest. But when my power actually worked? I felt incredible.

I, uh, didn't really find much crime. I'd seen enough interviews with super heroes to know that was pretty normal. I'd thought they were just playing it up to encourage people to join the white hats, but honestly, a dispatch office was sounding pretty great just about then. Or at least a radio scanner.

So when I say it took me four incredibly painful outings before something exciting happened, just know that I put up with all that for the good of Brockton Bay, or something.

If I'm being honest, mostly I was just bored, and cooped up, and too used to the pain to care.
I found some ne'er-do-wells on the nights before that, of course, but never anything really worth worrying about. People buying from their dealer, someone running off with a purse. Most of them scattered when they saw me in my crappy little cape costume. Those that didn't all scattered when my power activated, for one reason or another.
I never really had the ability to catch up.

So, yeah, the first big one was a gun deal I found on the fourth night out. I'd like to say I lurked out on a roof and saw what they had in their suspicious crates as they haggled over money, but it was more that I overheard people talking quietly in an alley and peeked in to see a thirty gallon plastic bin filled with newspaper and gunmetal. A few people stood over it, all of them ambiguously gangster-ey. Red and green outfits, fashion forward, lots of tattoos and a bearing that just screamed, 'look at all the testosterone I have.'
They hadn't even seen me when my power first activated.

The wheels behind my eyes began spinning.

Shutter-shutter-shutter-shutter-clunk-clunk-clunk.

Lemon. Bell. Lemon.

Ding!

Two of a kind.
So my power chose violence.

My spine swiveled and my legs bowed as my hand dislodged a loose brick from the corner of the building nearest me. My other hand came up from scooping a small piece of asphalt off the badly maintained alley floor. The arm holding the brick swung it back in a wind up just before I sprung out of my crouch. Both arms hurled their payload in the direction of the thugs; the rock hit a dumpster with a clang. The brick hit the thug nearest me in the face.
They all started scrambling, of course, but my wheels were already spinning again.

Clunk clunk clunk.

Clover, Bar, Bell.

Bzzt.

Shit. That's fucking nothing. My eyes ran around the alley and I stepped slightly into shadow and I smirked. Then I had control again. Luckily, the thugs had all looked in the direction of the dumpster when I'd hit it with the piece of asphalt. Two of the four had their hands at their waistbands, and one was leaning against the alley wall holding his face where he got bricked.

I tried to push my power as hard as I could, trying to get it to activate again. It never cooperated when I wanted it to, begged it to during PT. But it cooperated now, and the flutter-stutter started up again. Just as soon as one of the thugs decided to look right at me.

Lemon, Cherry, Lemon.

I rushed the guy who saw me, and he had a brief moment of shock before pulling his gun out. I didn't even flinch, hunching down before reaching him and jumping forward with my arms tucked and elbows pointed towards his sternum. His hasty movement to point his gun at me was aborted as the air left his lungs.
Even as my body moved and my heart raced, I idly wondered. Double lemons again? What were the odds of that? But I shouldn't look the gift horse in the mouth. I needed to follow up on that or I'd get shot.

Bar, Bell, Clover.
More nothing. Shit, shit. The gun guy I knocked over was dry heaving without any air, but brick-face was recovering, and the other guy with a gun had pulled it out and had turned around to face me.

"Stop!" my power made me shout, as though they'd just listen. The guy hesitated for a second, though, buying me a second as I kicked off the one trying to expel his lungs and ran around the corner out of the alley.

Please, please, please. I wasn't even asking for a jackpot. I begged my power to give me something useful. For once I wanted lemons. Give me all the lemons you got. It would make every time I slapped my physical therapist worth something.

Lemon. Cherry. Clover.

That's when I started panicking. This was ill-advised. I needed backup. Or a helmet, or something. What made me think I could take on four people at once? Had that even been a conscious decision, or had my power just started working without my input?
The two uninjured thugs rounded the corner, one with a gun drawn, the other with knuckle dusters on. My foot kicked at an empty water bottle on the sidewalk, but it just bounced against the shin of one of them as I turned tail and ran.

Clickclickclickclick-thunk-thunk-thunk.

Bell, Cherry, Cherry.

Okay, okay, we could work with that, right?
I swerved as I ran, and a gunshot pierced the night city quiet. I felt a tug on my pants, but couldn't look down to see if I'd really just dodged a bullet by that much.
I veered into the next alley down, announcing my arrival by immediately kicking a trash can and bleeding most of my momentum. The lid flipped off of the trash can and its handle landed in my hand as the trash can skittered on its edge before settling down behind me. I squatted behind the can with the lid in front of me as my power let go of my body and I heard shouts from the street. They weren't speaking in English, but I spoke enough of the universal language 'pissed off' to know they were mad at me.

I was just crouched behind a trash can like a terrified muppet. My heart was hammering, my whole body ached like none other, and I was inexplicably incredibly hungry. My power activated, and I nearly sobbed from relief.
I wasn't able to sob in dismay when it gave me Cherry, Bell, Clover, because it seized control of my limbs and I rolled backwards onto my back. My legs kicked out and pushed the trash can down and over towards the end of the alley just as the two thugs rounded the corner. I didn't see if they saw me, cause I was already up and running.

Clover, Bell, Lemon. The activations of my power were coming thick and fast, but they were fucking bullshit nothings.

I felt my whole self seize up as I shifted my momentum from running away from the thugs into running at a wall. I jumped up, kicked off, and spin kicked a broken bottle off the concrete and into the hand of the gun-toting thug who had just cleared the trash can mess I'd made. I had barely processed the thug swearing and dropping is weapon before I had dashed past a corner of the alley.
Holy shit, never mind. That was incredible. More of that, please. Since when were rolls like that useful? Clover, bell, lemon. That had been a nothing burger every time during PT.

Flutter-stutter, click. Cherry, Bell, Lemon. I paused in running to grab an ashtray off a fire escape railing and toss it behind me. Someone swore. I didn't bother looking back.

I got a Bar Lemon Clover as I rounded the corner back into the alley we'd started in, this time from the other side. Brick face was standing next to the bin of guns, a hand on his face and his eyes towards the street. My footsteps became almost silent as my pace changed in running past the van parked at the end of the alley. He didn't hear me until I was right behind him. Foot, meet crotch. My power let go of me just as one of my hands reached into my inner jacket pocket holding zip ties.

The wheels started spinning again, but my everything hurt so much. I wasn't fit. I wasn't even average. I was recovering from muscle atrophy and my vision was black around the edges as I tried to get my breath, the zip tie in one hand forgotten as I vaguely heard the thug on the ground whimpering.

Clover, Cherry, Clover. I barely even felt my body as it lifted me silently into the dumpster. I was exhausted, and I'd blown through my second wind some time around the spin kick.
This was stupid.

I just caught my breath in the foul air of the dumpster. I wanted to throw up, but I was pretty sure that would give away my hiding spot. Clover was avoidant, if I could put my finger on it. A two of a kind wasn't enough to really do too much on its own, but paired with a cherry and with how well my power was cooperating finally, I had to trust that the thugs couldn't hear or see me in the dim light of the night.

I was probably going to reek when this was over.

The thugs grouped back up in the alley after a few minutes, but I still hadn't caught my breath. It was nerve wracking to have them so close, but their tone of voice went quickly from alert and anxious to just kind of annoyed. A few words were exchanged in english, I was sure, but a combination of distance and dumpster meant I couldn't quite pick up what they were saying.

And then I felt the shuddering, whirling motion in the back of my head as my power started up again. That was bad. I never had enough control over when it started up. And, crap, I couldn't risk the 'lemon' in Lemon, Clover, Cherry.
So I tamped down on it.

Blood pounded in my ears and my head started throbbing. But instead of doing anything along the lines of 'lemon, clover, cherry,' the wheels in the back of my mind unlocked from their decided path and started to spin again.

K-chunk. Pitter-patter-pitter-patter, Clover, Lemon, Clover.

I hadn't really caught my breath, but my body still slowly stood a second after the spin finished and hucked a bottle across the alleyway and into the back of one goon's head. He fell forward and into the box of guns, and I was back down into the dumpster. My breath was racing, because goddamn, that had been a good hit. He'd probably been out cold even before he kissed the box full of metal. I just sat there huffing dumpster fumes as the guys in the alley started panicking again and my power started spinning again.

Bell, Cherry, Lemon. Without clovers I wasn't going to risk it, so I tamped down on it. The pain of doing it a second time made me grunt. It wasn't quite a real migraine, thankfully, but this stabbing pain had to be close to it. That was fine. I'd dealt with worse.
The reroll after tamping it down felt just as good as every other roll always did, but it didn't take away the growing headache.

Cliklikcliklikcliklikcliklik-clack-clack-clack.

Bar, Bar, Lemon.

I was going to have to trust it to help, because I really didn't want to have to stomp down on another roll. I'd done three in a row once early on, and it'd wiped me out for days. Screw everyone from the adoption agency.

My body leaned in towards the half of the dumpster with a closed lid and started speaking. My voice came out different than normal, deeper and more mature, magnified by the echo of the dumpster.

"I'm done playing around. Give up. Lay down on the ground with your hands over your head. I don't know if that guy will even get up from that, and I can do the same to the three of you in about two seconds flat."

The voice was kind of comical coming from me, the stunted little five-foot-nothing, so I vaguely wondered what the thugs were hearing. Was an echoey scary voice enough for them to cooperate? Maybe the guy I'd hit had really looked that bad. He'd certainly crumpled over like he was dead. Maybe they hadn't seen the glass.

I sighed as I felt the wheels behind my eyes whirl to life once more.

Lemon, Lemon, Clover.

I decided to go with it. If nothing else, it'd be nice to get some aggression out after how stressful this whole thing was.

I slid out of the dumpster silently. I could feel my body protesting every inch of the way across the alleyway.
Sure enough, three thugs were on the ground with their hands over their heads. The fourth was still toppled over the bin of guns. I pulled the gun out of the waistband of one thug. He was glaring at me something fierce.
I took note of their physical state as my body went about pistol whipping each of the three in the back of the head–the sound was horrible but satisfying, by the way.

One had a sizeable gash in the back of his right hand. That was the guy I spin kicked a bottle at. Another had ash all over his jacket and hair, and his eyes were red. Cool to know I was a good shot even when I wasn't looking, I guessed.
Then there was Brick Face, who looked like he'd taken a brick to the face and a boot to the crotch. That latter part can be hard to tell sometimes, but if you pay close attention to their face before you knock them out with an unregistered firearm, you can sometimes see the ghost of scrunched up man-pain.

I got control over my body again after they were all soundly unconscious. And god, what a body it was to be in control over.

To say I felt like shit was a massive understatement. I felt like a neglected happy meal toy left on the dashboard in the middle of august. My head was throbbing like someone had clamped a vice grip around it. I was huffing and puffing like a train burning actual garbage. And I could fell every fucking muscle in my body scream to be put out of its collective misery.

Still, I had a grim smile on as I fumbled with the zip ties in my inner jacket pocket. I'd fucking done something. My power had cooperated, kind of. Only a couple rolls that were actually any good, which sucked shit, but I'd gotten there. Four grown men, one emaciated little girl who shouldn't even be alive.

Fuck. Yes.

My power started rolling as the alleyway lit up with yellow light. I dropped the zip ties in surprise.
Shutter-stutter clunk clunk clunk.

My heart dropped in my chest as a man in glowing golden armor descended from six feet up, his winged golden boots shedding a pool of gold light where he set down.
Dauntless, in all his glory. He opened his mouth to speak, but I interrupted him.

"Well, you took your sweet time, didn't you?"

I didn't even look up at him, just scooping the zip ties up off the ground and going back to securing the baddies.
Bell, Clover, Bell.
'Bell,' which I didn't quite have a handle on meaning-wise. I was glad that my power hadn't leapt immediately to attacking him. But it seemed to have suddenly slipped back into the mode it used most of the time, where it didn't just immediately jump to ultraviolence. Neat.
Instead it decided to just be very rude. To Dauntless.

Dauntless–the Protectorate hero Dauntless, rising hero of Brockton Bay, primed and waiting for his spot in the triumvirate, that Dauntless–reached one arm up to awkwardly scratch the back of his neck. Was he not used to being badmouthed by teenagers in supermarket costumes?

"Sorry about that. It took me a bit to fly all the way here, we're a bit spread thin tonight. Still, you could have called this in." He gestured either to the bin full of guns, or the guy unconscious on top of them. I shrugged at him, playing at the cool, unbothered angle that my power had shunted me onto.

My whole body was shaking as I tried to tie up the first thug, betraying how un-cool I really was.

He kept talking while I hoped to god that my power would trigger and make me look less like an idiot in front of freaking Dauntless.
"Seems like you did alright. Are you hurt? You look like you need to sit down." He reached into a satchel at his side and pulled out what looked like an old-timey hand grenade, spherical and with a yellow decal.
Ah. Containment foam.

He approached where I was still struggling to thread the god damn tiny-ass hole in the zip tie. His armor illuminated me and I caved, looking up at him.

"Let me take care of these guys. Sit down and let the adrenaline wear off."
His voice was soft. Kind. Heart melting classic super hero stuff. And my power didn't shutter to life, so I did like he asked, backing up a few feet away to slump against the alley wall. And boy, did sitting down feel good.

Dauntless picked up the guys and carefully propped them up next to each other one by one, then dropped the foam grenade in the middle of them to encase them with an off-white foam.
He pushed the bin of guns away from the expanding foam, then he sat down on top of it facing me. He looked almost comical, sitting down wearing his glowing gold armor with his huge spear strapped to his back.
Almost. I was mostly just starstruck in general, and I didn't have the energy to really hide it at this point. If my power wasn't going to help me out, I'd just coast through this conversation as best as I could and stress about it later. Too tired for anything else.

Dauntless spoke in a conversational tone.
"You did pretty good with the costume. Better than a lot of new capes. I can see the vision."

I glanced down at my outfit. The compliment really meant something to me, coming from a hero as big as him, though that was tempered a bit by his mono-tone color palette.
My eye for style was trained by my years of quietly judging the weirdos on TV running around in spandex. Thus, I was more in the Miss Militia school of thought than people like Challenger or Battery. And I hadn't completely copped M.M.'s style, but I definitely took inspiration.

Sturdy army jacket in navy blue over a black tank top. Loose faded jeans with huge holes ripped over the knees. Like, thigh to mid shin huge, so you had a clear view my knee pads. Domino mask, fingerless gloves, Doc Martens, and pièce de résistance: a big blue ribbon around my neck like a flight attendant so I could keep my ugly-ass throat scar hidden.

I just hummed in agreement. I thought it was pretty good too.

"First time out?" he ventured.
Whirrrrrrrrrr. Kchunk kchnk chnk.
Bell, Bar, Bar.

I sighed, leaning my head against the brick and shaking it side to side, mussing up my hair more than it was already.
"Nuh-uh. Fourth."

A small pause.
"I'd say it gets easier, but… You have to make it that far, first." He inclined his helmet, which probably meant something, but I was too tired to interpret weird armor body language.

"Haven't died yet," I offered, mostly as a joke. The laugh I tried to follow it up with was hoarse, passively undercutting me.

"That looks like it was close," he said, gesturing to where my legs were splayed out across the alley floor. I looked down to what he was looking at, and saw a bullet hole in my pant leg next to the ripped knees.

"Nah," I said with a shrug. I wasn't really worried about that one. I think it would've missed no matter where the guy had aimed it at.

"Brute?" he asked, tone curious.

"Nah," I said, shaking my head. Even just the gestures were exhausting. Good grief. "Hard to explain."

"Isn't that how it is," he said with a smile in his tone. I couldn't tell if he was actually smiling, because his helm was mostly full face and also glowing.

I sat up straight as a van came to a stop outside the alley.

Dauntless shook his glowing head.
"Don't sweat it, they're just here for the bad guys." He gestured at the van where PRT officers were hopping out. One of them gestured to the bin Dauntless was sitting on with a 'sir,' and Dauntless stood up for him to drag it towards the van as his partners sprayed the glob of foam with some other fluid to start it melting.
"Forgot what I was sitting on for a second," Dauntless admitted, patting himself down like he forgot his keys or something. Then he reached into his satchel and grabbed something from inside with a muttered, "ah, right."

"This is my card. I really wish I could sit with you until you catch your breath, but like I said, we're a little spread thin here. I want to try and sell you the Wards program. If you're at all interested, give me a call. I'll answer if I can, or you can leave a message and I'll get back to you as soon as I'm able." He held out the card between two gloved fingers. The card was golden like all his armor, but it sadly didn't glow.
"I promise you can do more good with more people behind you. I won't preach at you. Just know I've seen too many good kids die cause they didn't have the right backup."

I took the card wordlessly. I felt simultaneously shamed and giddy. I had Dauntless' card!

"Oh. Okay. Thanks," I said sort of dumbly.

He nodded at me and turned to leave, and I was struck by an idea that left my mouth before I knew to censor it.

"Would you, uh, be able to get me a ride?"

He scratched the back of his neck, glancing at the PRT van being loaded up with foamy unconscious thugs and illegal firearms. He held up a finger, and then turned to the side to have a brief conversation on his earpiece. When he turned back to me he had his head tilted to the side in what I managed to interpret as a smile.

"How far do you need to go?"


And that's how I got Dauntless to princess carry me back to my neighborhood.

 

[party hat girl]

(AN) So there's a bit of an emotional sledgehammer in the third scene of this chapter. Somewhere between emotional manipulation and a mind whammy. Just so you're warned.

She's listening to: Fergie.
—

I ended up taking Dauntless up on his offer of a phone call. True to his word, he hadn't picked up, but he'd called back. I'd been terrified he'd call and one of my foster parents would pick up the home line, so I'd camped out next to the phone and Clover, Clover, Cherried my way out of telling Sasha what the phone call was about.

Sasha was my foster mom. She was nice enough, but always held herself a little bit apart from me. She had graying hair in a bob and a kind of librarian chic wardrobe even though she was probably a little old for the 'chic' part and not half as strict as she pretended to be. In her fifties or so, though I hadn't really committed it to memory when I'd asked.

My foster dad, Sawyer, had a job at a construction company that didn't actually involve constructing anything. Some kind of paperwork. He looked kind of like a male version of Sasha, with turtlenecks and half rim glasses. Not bad, he wore it well, but it lacked any real creativity.
They'd apparently been in the fostering game for a long while. Sawyer made plenty of money on his own and Sasha worked from home making artisan soaps and stuff on top of that, so they just cycled through all the kids nobody else wanted who needed a nice place to stay until a better place could be found for them.

I didn't have a better place waiting for me. I'd been told I might be here a while, and the Danleys were fine with that. They were actually incredibly patient with me, considering all my needs and how bitchy I got sometimes. Me and my power, I mean. A lot of the bitchiness came from emotional hand grenades lobbed out with the double lemons I rolled when just trying to navigate a conversation. I suppressed them when I could but I didn't have the strength to keep it under wraps all the time. I only wondered how many more of those they could take.

So when I told Sasha I didn't want to talk about who was on the phone while implying it was a doctor, she gave me my space and I felt just kind of incredibly guilty.

Dauntless was nice on the phone. He reassured me he wouldn't do anything with information like my phone number or the general neighborhood I lived in, even though I hadn't even really thought about that at all. Then he explained the Wards program and its benefits beyond just the practical of having backup, things like college funds and stuff. He even mentioned help with unique home situations, which would have worried me if he hadn't said it with all the casualness in the world.

Damn, he was good at talking. I envied him for that. Even if my power wasn't actively sabotaging me, I'd still have my foot in my mouth half the time. He mentioned that public speaking was something they taught any ward who wanted to learn it, and then further elaborated on other courses you could take for your larger hero career.

The words 'hero career' sent a spike of dread through me, I have to admit. It made me question again how much I really wanted to commit to this whole hero thing. I mean, rogues were a thing. I could go out and… sell my services as a kind of shitty hitman? What would that even look like? 'Hey, you wanna hire me? I can kind of almost take on four normal adult men and only panic most of my way to an early grave!'

So, okay, yeah. Maybe I was doing this hero thing.

—

I talked to the PRT director the next Monday, and signed paperwork on Tuesday. All in all, the process was swift and painless.

I mean, paperwork was really boring, but the secretary lady helping me and my case worker (I had to unmask to my case worker. She handled it well.) were able to explain everything concisely. Apparently my case worker had been prepped on all the paperwork already, so it didn't take that long. I did zone out some time in the middle and my powered spun up, leading to me surreptitiously stealing and snapping every pencil in the cup on the desk over the course of a minute. Feeling them break in my hands really helped the nerves, actually.
Which I do in fact realize is messed up. Just humor me.

The Protectorate headquarters was this massive floating thing with a huge rainbow forcefield bubble and motorcycles and helicopters and stuff.
The PRT H.Q., where the Wards were housed, was just kind of a building. They had a gift shop and a waiting area with plush chairs, for god's sake.

The Wards' base, though?

That was a sight to behold.

I still had a physical to take (wasn't looking forward to that) and power testing to start on (really wasn't looking forward to that), but secretary lady passed me off into the hands of city-renowned funky lion hat boy and resident Wards captain, Triumph, to be taken on a tour of the Wards base. I didn't really listen to anything he said, too distracted marveling at the tinkertech elevator and cool metal walls.
And, look, he had a really thick Brocktoner accent, it made paying attention hard.

Then we were in the Wards' base, and he wised up and shut up.

I was taken aback. I struggled to describe it.

Or, no. 'Big dome.' Those two words described it pretty well, actually. Still, it was really impressive seeing as we were like four stories underground. There were rooms on one side with walls that didn't nearly reach the ceiling, a kitchen-ish area to the right, a table and a whiteboard in the center, and to the left a corner with a TV and game consoles surrounded by comfortable looking couches and beanbags.

It looked like something out of iCarly.

"It looks like something out of iCarly," I said out loud.

"iCarly?" asked the department store mannequin with a clock motif.

Right, so, there were people here. All teens, scattered in a loose semicircle to one side of the central table.
And, great, was being asked a clarifying question really enough to get my power going? Jesus christ.
Cherry, Bell, Bar.

"It's a kids show about the internet and stuff," I replied ambivalently. "It's cool but kinda cheesy."

The kids in the room were all of varying ages. The oldest looked to be Triumph, who was practically an adult judging from the stubble behind the jaw of his feline chapeau. Then, just going by height, there's Aegis (who I suppose could be 12 if his power gave him that super physique), Clockblocker, blocker of clocks and fearer of stains, Gallant with the cute butt, Kid Win really playing up the kid angle with the pajamas he was wearing, and Vista.

Vista was the only one besides Clockblocker in full costume; Aegis, Gallant, and Kid Win were just in street clothes (for a certain definition of 'street clothes' in Kid's case) with their respective mask, helmet, and visor. It was kind of comical in Gallant's case since it was a full face metal helmet over a button down and slacks. I'd give him the benefit of the doubt, since I imagined a full suit of power armor was probably a pain to get in and out of, and I had forced them all to come in this morning for this meet and greet.

Triumph started talking.

"This is our new member, guys. Name still pending, and she's got power testing to do, but she's signed on and everything. Want to introduce yourself some?" He wasn't using my name because he didn't know my name and I didn't have a cape name. Or, I did have a cape name, but they wouldn't let me use it cause of some dumb Thinker in Alaska. I didn't even know what a thinker was, and one was already harshing my mellow.

Ah, here was my power spinning up again to really solidify that first impression.

Bar, Bar, Lemon.

Alright, workable. Would prefer there wasn't a lemon there, but–

"Heya, guess I'm Name Pending. Good to meetcha. My power's complicated, so don't ask. Just know I kick ass and take names about as often as I kick my own ass and make a fool outta myself." Kid Win and Clockblocker laughed, followed by Gallant after a delay, like he hadn't gotten the joke.
My shoulders were angled and I had a hand on one hip as I tilted my head at Kid Win.
"Love the costume, by the way." I raised an eyebrow and winked at him, eyes flicking up and down his blue and yellow Hero-branded pajamas. Dear God, I was oozing charisma. How was I going to maintain that?

Kid blushed beet red, and the first thing I did when my power gave me back control was smirk at him. That hadn't really been a conscious decision, but I wouldn't blame it on my power, either. It was good, though. I really needed to lean into the flow of my spins or else I'd come off as psychotic.

Kid cleared his throat to speak.
"Sorry, I'm, uh, on a new med. Fell asleep in my workshop and just woke up a second ago." He grimaced embarrassedly, and my smile turned more conciliatory in turn. I nodded at him. I understood that.

Clockblocker chimed in with his two cents. Two seconds? No, that's bad.
"You're one to talk. I think there's enough starch in that collar they'd serve it with salt and ketchup."

He was referring to my choice in attire for today. Sasha and Sawyer had taken me to get new clothes early on, and this was my 'formal' choice. The pale blue button down was real damn sharp, Clockblocker was right. The tie spangled with Miss Militia symbols was a concession to concealing my throat scar, since only rubes button up a shirt without wearing a tie.

I grinned.
"Throwing stones in your glass house, Clockblocker?"
I didn't even need to say anything about his costume, which was good because he probably knew every clock pun in the book.

C.B. put a hand to his chest as though wounded, exaggerating his body motions the same way Dauntless had. Full face masks, huh?

"It's good to meet you," Aegis said, stepping forward from the gaggle to extend his hand. I shook his hand, but I had to crane my neck to look up at him. He might actually be twice my size. "Sorry about the masks. Piggott didn't want us unmasking yet."
I just shrugged, freeing my hand from his. He stepped back, thankfully, because he took up about 90% of my personal bubble just by merit of size.

"It'll be good to have another girl on the team," Vista added, smiling at me. That started my power churning.
Clover, Lemon, Clover.

"Yeah, you've been the only girl since Battery, right? Kind of a boy's club, I was worried about that." I broke eye contact and glanced at the ground, scratching my scalp.
Vista fought to hide a smile.

"The guys are fine," Vista said, with all the guys standing next to her. "Triumph's graduating soon anyways, so he'll be in the Protectorate. Then it's Aegis' turn as team leader."

"Cool," I said, unsure how else to respond.
The conversation petered off from there. Introductions, brief discussion of powers, a rushed tour, but the clovers seemed to have ushered us to the end of TeenTalk with the Brockton Bay Wards.

Triumph took me back up to the business area of the building, and I got on with my day.

The physical was humiliating. New doctors always sucked. I don't want to talk about it.

Power testing was physically painful. I shouldn't have told them I could suppress the spins once they landed, because they had me do it twice before I cried uncle. My social worker had told me I could say 'no' to any request they made, which I started exercising judiciously.

I'd explained the cliff's notes of my power to the director the day before, which apparently gave their lab people enough to design tests. They were obnoxious. I immediately told one of the researchers his mother's maiden name, date of birth, and that he was at serious risk for pancreatic cancer. I didn't even know if that was true or not, but it put a damper on the rest of their tests of my social skills.
It didn't help that they couldn't even get my power to trigger half the time, and when they did, it mostly just did shit to get me out of the testing environment in whole, rather than following their testing guidelines. I did break a dude's leg with a Lemon, Lemon, Clover, though, so that's cool.

Things ended prematurely with a Clover, Bar, Bar that deftly convinced them their testing procedures needed work and that I wasn't going to give them anything useful today. They told me they'd get back to me when they had better ways to get results, so I'd still have to go back, but it ended the whole messy thing for the day and they let me go home.

I'm gonna skim over most of the nitty-gritty of my acclimation to the Wards program. That isn't really what this is about, and most of it was really boring.

I had a sit down with the director after that first round of power testing. She tried to chew me out about breaking a leg and knocking out those four thugs and screwing with the power testing people, but a Cherry, Lemon, Cherry cut her off before she built up too much steam, and defended my actions pretty well. Apparently the thugs I'd knocked out weren't more than mildly concussed, miraculously. Neither I nor Piggot had the knowledge of my power necessary to call that a lucky coincidence.
I think my harsh rebuttal had marked me as a 'problem' case for her, but I was probably destined for that particular designation no matter what. Believe me, for how much my power frustrated me, it probably screwed with other people way more.

They still wouldn't let me be named Roulette, and my power didn't give me a magical solution, either. I think I won most of the PR people to my side, but my power made me come off as really defensive and I don't think that that was a mountain I could've moved, anyways. Dumbass Alaska girl.

This sounds petty and dumb, but I'd really had my heart set on Roulette. It was a cool name with a good ring to it, and it was a kind of inside joke since my power was a slot machine, not a roulette wheel, even if sometimes it seemed like the odds were that bad.

But, yeah. I had wanted to be called Roulette, and none of the other names they suggested really struck home with me. It felt really shitty, having all these crappy answers suggested when it was going to be such a big part of my identity. Eventually I just said 'fuck it' aided by my power, and got them to settle on something that wasn't completely stupid.

'Bone Roller' wasn't exactly love at first sight, but I felt it could grow on me. They let me have input on the costume design; the skeleton motif had too much chance to come off as edgy, so I steered things in more of a Sanrio-cutesy direction. All in all, I was pissed, but mollified.


I ended up 'coming out' to my foster parents, too, just because I anticipated spending a lot of time away, and there was only so many times my social worker could vouch for me.

I sat them down in the nice little living room of their uptown house. They weren't rich, but only because they were constantly fostering and putting in some actual effort into making the kids happy. Sasha had designed the living room pretty well in my opinion; a weathered leather couch was draped with a few crocheted blankets, and the end tables each had lacey doilies positioned evenly. A large south-facing window covered the wall nearest the door, and I sat in a well-loved leather recliner facing the couch, basking in the warmth of a sunbeam with my hands nervously on my lap.

Sasha and Sawyer sat across from me, both looking somewhere between concerned and curious as to why I'd had them both sit down that Friday. They mirrored each other's posture, legs folded over thigh with one hand on the knee. It was kind of cute how similar they were to each other. They'd apparently been married for almost forty years.

I took a breath to start speaking, and my power chattered to life. I mentally crossed my fingers.

Clover, Clover, Cherry.
Evasive with a side of defensive? No, damn it, I was not putting this off.

I clamped down on the rollers mentally, forcing the semi-real mind-machine to struggle a few seconds before giving up on a reroll. It forced me to shut my eyes, wincing from pain, but it stopped me from aborting wholesale with those clovers.

"Marcie?" I opened my eyes, and saw Sasha was looking at me with some concern.

I had a sudden urge to crack a joke, cut the tension. I wanted to blurt out, 'I'm gay!' or laugh this all off as a prank. But the urge was mundane, not power inflicted, so I could resist it.

'Sawyer, Sasha, um." I started with utmost elegance. But my power was already spinning.

Clover, Cherry, Lemon. I sighed mentally, and let it ride. I really had no idea what it would do with that.

"So, don't flip out or anything, but I'm a cape."
My power puppeteered me as I cringed and looked away from them, then glanced back up to check their reaction. I wasn't back in control until Sawyer was already talking.

"Well, that's not at all the worst thing you could have said."
His tone was joking. Sasha slapped his arm only mostly playfully.

"Sawyer!" She chided. She looked at me with eyes full of curiosity "How long has that been a thing?"

"It's how I woke up," I offered, glancing away. I hoped she caught on and didn't prod too much at it.

"I know you've really been leaping feet-first into PT. Is that why?" Her tone was understanding and kind. I didn't deserve her.

"Kinda?" I scratched at my neck. "Can't you keep thinking I'm a badass who eats pain for breakfast?"

"Of course," Sasha assured, followed by an echo from Sawyer. "If anything, this just proves how strong you really are."

"Right," I said, blushing a little. This was really awkward. Power, a little help, here?

"What, uh, can you do, then?" Sawyer asked. He was leaning forward a little now.

"I have to admit I'm a little curious, too," Sasha added.

Okay, well.
"It's, uh, kind of complicated. It doesn't always really… cooperate." An understatement if ever there was one. I pursed my lips and tried to reach around in my brain for the lever of that elusive slot machine.
It started spinning, but I don't think I was the reason for it. Still, gift horses, mouths.

Chkchkchkchkchkchkchkchk-clunk-clunk-clunk.

Bar. Bar. Bar.

Cha-ching!

Jackpot.

Well, shit. How the heck was this going to go?

I shivered slightly in my seat, and my eyes unfocused for a second. Then I stared down Sawyer and Sasha with a sudden intensity.

"Sawyer Huckleberry Danley, fifty-eight years old, office worker, found to be embezzling in '88 but never properly convicted. Recovered smoker and alcoholic, history of substance abuse. Married for thirty nine years to Sasha Lizabeth Danley n'e Porter, fifty-seven years old, barren in early life due to untreated endometriosis, recovered alcoholic, history of substance abuse."

Sasha and Sawyer stared at me agog.

I let out a breath, then started shaking, my eyes watering.

"It–it does that. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to, I just, I can't choose what it does, and sometimes it–it hurts people, so I went to the Wards to help, pl-please don't hate me."
My mouth slurred and stuttered around 'please,' slipping into the rubber-tongued lisp I'd had early on in PT. My face grew redder and redder as my foster parents stared, and my shoulders started heaving as I started to sob, thick tears rolling down my cheeks.

I need to clarify that I still wasn't in control of my body.

This was apparently the best thing my power could do in the 'Bar' spectrum, which from my experience covered all things social. Negotiation, debate, blackmail. Emotional blackmail. To which I had a front row seat as my body went through the motions as though it were as real as anything.

The waterworks must have been what sent things home for Sasha and Sawyer, because they got up in tandem and wrapped me up in a hug from both sides.

My power kept going.

"I don't care about any of that, I promise, it's just, I c-an't–" My speech broke off into hiccuping sobs. I kind of resented my power for leaning into the slurred speech so much, fudging all my R's into W's like I was some preschooler.
It's what I'd sounded like for months while I worked on speech therapy. Humiliating.

The two of them were thin enough, me small enough, and the recliner big enough that they both ended up sitting down with me curled up in their laps. Sasha was rubbing a hand in circles on my back and stroking my hair when I finally was allowed back control.
I still let out sobs, because my body still felt sad. I buried my face into Sawyer's chest because I was embarrassed. It was embarrassing being vulnerable at all, but that ship had sailed when I got these shitty powers. Probably before that too, really. The whole 'breathing through a hole in my neck for fourteen months' thing had kind of dashed apart any semblance of dignity I might have had.

I wish I could say it felt nice to have someone hug me, but it really just made my skin crawl. I wanted my power to activate again and get me out of the situation it'd dropped me in, but no dice. I scrabbled around blindly in my brain for the lever and it eluded my grasp as it did every time I really needed it.

Eventually Sasha shifted me to sit up in her lap, and Sawyer got up to make tea. She stroked my cheek with one hand and whispered idle reassurances.

"It's fine, honey, it's nothing that's so big a secret."
Embezzlement wasn't a big secret? I didn't voice my incredulity.
"You've told Miss Emmi?"
My social worker. I nodded, but didn't trust myself to speak without croaking.
"That's good. I'm so glad you're doing something good. There's enough bad out there already."
I nodded again, but I didn't have anything to say.

I think she must have noticed how uncomfortable I'd gotten, because Sasha moved back to the couch when Sawyer came back with the tea.
We sat in silence as we drank, but Sasha smiled at me warmly when I asked to be excused.

I was still shaking bodily when I collapsed into my bed.

I hoped whatever that jackpot had accomplished, that it had been worth it.

—

I never remembered my dreams, but I knew it was always the same. Ever since I'd gotten my powers, I'd wake up and distinctly remember thinking, 'oh, this again,' but not any if what I was referring to. I didn't think it was anything very concrete. Something nebulous, unstructured. I got up and looked out the window one night. Stared up at the stars. There aren't that many out in Brockton Bay, but for a moment it felt like just a continuation of the dream.
It made me want to visit the ocean, or listen to whale sounds. But I couldn't remember what the dream was about.

So that's the state I woke up in from my impromptu nap. Sweaty, groggy, and thinking about stars. I heard Sasha's voice on the other side of the door.
"Marcie, honey, are you able to take a phone call? They said it was about a job fair."

Job fair? Why did that sound familiar?

Oh, right. That was the cover story they said they'd call under if they needed to reach me until I had an official Wards phone. I shook my head blearily, trying to clear out the dreams of tandem star oceans.

"Yeah, uh, that's the PRT, probably. Lemme get up." My voice came out bleary. I cleared my throat and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes.


"Marcie here."

The voice on the other end of the line wasn't one I recognized.
"Hello, Marcielle. this is Deputy Director Renick. I'm calling about the results of your physical. Are you okay to talk?"

I looked up at where Sasha was standing next to the kitchen door, then shrugged as she made a little embarrassed noise and made herself scarce.

"Yeah, I guess." My tone was guarded. I didn't like talking about medical shit to anyone, especially not strangers.

"Alright. This is good news, I promise. I'm not cleared to see the details, but I understand you have some general health problems that might get in the way of your career as a Ward. If it's alright with you–and you can say no, so don't feel pressured at all, we can't force this, of course–but if it's alright with you, we'll talk with New Wave in order to get Panacea to fix what she can. Does that sound like something you'd at all be interested in?"
He couched his statements and spoke like someone had a gun to his head. Something told me the man wasn't that good with people. But that wasn't the important part. What mattered was that he'd just offered to have the frumpy miracle medic fix my fucked up body.

I breathed in. Then out. I wasn't sure what words to use.

"You don't have to answer now, but the sooner we know, the sooner we can get you on her waiting list. I have to inform you that your membership as a ward isn't at all contingent on this, and if you're uncomfortable with it–"

"No," I interrupted. "No, I'm interested, it's just," I paused, trying to think of a word. "Big. You know."

"Of course," he tried to assure, but his tone didn't have the right warmth.
"If you need time–"

"Yes," I blurted out. "Yes, I want to, I mean. Just tell me when it'll happen and I'll show up."
I tried not to let the desperation leak into my tone.
"I mean, of course I want to. Duh, obviously," I tried to recover.

"Alright, Marcielle. Thank you. We'll let you know as soon as we have a time for you."

"Thank you," I forgot his name. "Sir," I finish.

"Of course, Miss Gabrielle. You have a good day."

I hung up the phone. I was shaking again.
Hopefully for one of the last times.
I breathed in.

"Fuck, yes!"

I might've yelled a little too loud and woken up Sawyer from his nap, but they were both glad for me. Sawyer warned not to count my chickens before they're hatched, but screw that. I was going to have my body back. Imagine all the cool shit I could do if I didn't want to throw up just going up the stairs!

I did still have to put a dollar in the swear jar, which wasn't ideal, but I think it was worth it.

 

[party hat girl]

She's listening to: Florence + The Machine.
—

I should probably explain what my schooling situation was like.
I'd missed the bulk of sixth grade and a chunk of seventh just being down and out, and I still hadn't actually gone back yet. It was late in the spring semester now, meaning I'd missed almost two years of school. So they told me that if I buckled down over the summer and studied up, I'd be able to rejoin just one year behind, and not two. It was really discouraging, frankly. I wouldn't say I loved school. No self respecting person would. But I did have some small scrap of self esteem left, and being a grade behind in school was going to be… Depressing.

So they had me doing this home study stuff. It was really boring. Stuff to read, workbooks to fill out. Sasha and Sawyer took turns double checking my work. It was home schooling, basically, just at an accelerated pace. I had whole chunks of books I was supposed to have learned by the time school started again the fall, just all the stuff I would've learned in sixth grade. And god, was it boring.

I didn't have a learning disorder. I really didn't. I was just really distractible, and honestly not that motivated. I mean, my career could just be 'cape,' right? What did I need to learn half of this crap for? I wasn't trying to be a historian or anything. I knew the names of the fifty states and I could probably point to China on a globe. What else did you need from me? Sadly, if I wanted to be a Ward I would need to keep my grades up.
There was this group called the Youth Guard that got on the Protectorate's case whenever they distracted kids too much from learning useless crap like algebra and long division. They were apparently notorious for their lawsuits. I'd seen a TV segment about it.

Basically what that meant, though, was that if they actually let me into the seventh grade in the fall, then I'd have to be able to keep up with the workload. And that was more pressure than I really wanted to contend with at all.

So you'll forgive me when I say I kind of blew off studying that week.

It's not like I was spending all my time doing nothing. I still had power testing to suffer through, and the PR team wanted to run final designs by me, and I was supposed to sit down with the director to have her spell out 'necessary degrees of force' because apparently that conversation wasn't actually over. So I had stuff going on.
I just wasn't spending the rest of my time responsibly. Like, sure, I could say I was catching up on shows and music I'd missed, but that wasn't really productive.

I spent a lot of time online, reading message board posts about capes. Brushing up on cape lingo, that sort of thing. The power testing people had told me that I was probably a 'combat Thinker,' which was a metric they used to assess threat and response levels for specific capes.

Looking up examples, I found the only two we had in Brockton Bay were both villains; Victor the nazi, and the much less threatening Uber. Both their powers sounded a lot better than mine on paper; being able to steal skills from other people or learn any skill temporarily both sounded a lot better than 'sometimes do cool stuff but a lot of the time run around like a chicken with her head cut off and also emotionally blackmail your foster parents.'

I'd never really been a cape geek. Not before, not even after, really. But recently I'd been getting curious about what the whole hullabaloo was about. I thought I got it, ever since the fight with the ABB thugs–that was the green and red gang, turns out.

I saw the term 'adrenaline junkie' tossed around derogatorily in some threads online. If fit too well to what I'd felt when I'd hit that guy's hand with the spin kicked bottle, or barely dodged the bullet with a lucky clover.
Like a hit of morphine.

Anyways.

I got news that Panacea could come over to the Protectorate building on Wednesday evening, so you have to believe me when I say that news made focusing just kind of completely impossible. I could probably make up the work by the end of the week when Sawyer would check up on it, anyways. So sue me if I kind of gave up on the concept for a couple of days. I was already interrupting my routine by not going to PT. No point in that anymore, even if I kind of missed stretching my muscles.

So I couch potatoed between trips to the PRT building. Sasha and Sawyer were always my drivers to physical therapy and now with my social worker mostly unnecessary for the daily goings on, they also took me to the PRT building.

They'd changed the way they talked to me over the weekend, just a bit. It wasn't quite something I could exactly put my finger on, but they were definitely different. Not less kind. Maybe more warm? Sasha had this expression every so often when I caught her staring at me. Not really pity, but maybe in that ballpark.
They both definitely smiled at me more often, and it never seemed disingenuous.

They tolerated me staying cooped up in my room for a few days. On the weekends I was usually like that anyways; PT had always been Monday and Thursday, though I did my own exercises every day. Still did them, too, just because it was a habit and I liked being active.
So I brushed up on some cape know-how, and went over to the PRT for power testing and design approval on Monday and Tuesday.

Power testing was less bad than the first one, but it was still not great. They gave me a selection of five different things to accomplish, and told me that if I did them, I'd get five dollars.
Yeah, they were actually bribing my power to activate.
It worked better, but not great. If I just got three different symbols on the roll then it usually didn't accomplish any of the goals. The Bell, Bar, Lemon I got I didn't trip the PRT agent I was supposed to play rock paper scissors with, nor did I tell him the secret code phrase, nor did I win the game of rock paper scissors. Et cetera.
Two of a kinds still worked when I got them, but everything wound down when I got a jackpot on Bells and knocked out the PRT agent to steal the roll of fives he had on him.
Somehow in all the ruckus they forgot to take the money from me.

The second day was more of the same, though they gave me a little notebook to write down every roll I got with my power so they could see if it was an even distribution or not. I immediately vowed internally not to do that and threw the notebook in a trash can on my way out, because that's just pointless shit to prove it's actually random.

PR on Tuesday was actually pretty fun, and I was glad for the diversion.

They had me in the big carpeted room they did photoshoots in, with a mock-up of my costume they'd made out of stuff like plastic and regular spandex rather than proper body armor or tinker kevlar and whatever. One wall of the main area was covered by a huge white sheet that curved down to cover a section of floor, and they set up these kind of umbrella-looking lights in front of it to illuminate evenly. There was a section of the room curtained off with a vanity and wardrobe inside. I'd peeked inside the wardrobe and it had all kinds of generic super hero stuff in there.

"Just slip it on and if it's really uncomfortable anywhere just let us know. This is just a temp, so don't be worried the final will be like that." The PR guy explained from the other side of the curtain.

The basic design of my costume took notes from what I'd worn out to wander the Docks. It didn't have to, since they said there weren't any good pictures of me in it floating around the internet, but they listened when I explained what I wanted the design to be like.
Concessions had to be made so I would fit in with the rest of the team. Instead of loose pants and tank top, the base of it was a black bodysuit with off-white armor plates. Over that was a jacket that was more 'biker' and less 'army,' but that was to lean into the 'roller' part of the name.

I wouldn't be given a motorcycle until I got to Protectorate age, I'd already asked, but that was the aesthetic they were going for. They said they were looking for someone with a bit more edge to round out the cast of the current goody two-shoes Wards, so they were hoping they could appropriate some of the biker thing away from the E88. The jacket had a few patches like skulls, bones, and skull and cross bones, and then all the symbols my power used along with some hearts and stars. The splash of color kind of took away from the rest of the black and bone thing it had going on, but the PR people assured me there'd be an editing pass on this photos and that the finished product would be cohesive.

The bodysuit went all the way up my neck and down to my wrists and ankles, so maybe it was more of a wetsuit? Combat wetsuit? The fashionable boots with bone toggles went over it, along with a pair of gloves with white bits over each finger segment and on the knuckles. They'd told me those would be weighted when I got the real things, which I was more than ready for. If I could actually put some force behind a punch I probably wouldn't have had to get a running start every time I rolled a lemon in that fight against the thugs.
The jacket went over the body suit, and a mask went over my face, though I had to fix my hair into two high pigtails so it wouldn't get in the way of the strap that went across the back of my head.

The mask was skull shaped, but, wait, don't leave. I swear it wasn't edgy at all. Just cartoony skeleton stuff. Sanrio-cutesy, right? So it was a rounded, glossy mask with circular eye holes with black lenses. It kind of had a dumb, shocked expression that I was a big fan of.
It was the shape of just the upper bit of the skull, so it went down only halfway over my mouth so that you could still read my expression. Finishing it off, there was a little black heart under the corner of the left eye.

All in all, kind of 'edgy at first glance but actually kind of cute.' I gave it a 7/10, adjusting for things they couldn't get quite right as a mock-up. They'd taken some of my input seriously where they could, so it wasn't that bad. I hadn't necessarily had veto power on my costume design, but there was some wiggle room since the PR people felt bad about how my first concept hadn't been able to work.

That, and I thought my power might have gotten them in my good graces. I was thinking along those lines more and more ever since the jackpot with Sawyer and Sasha. Either my power was getting stronger as I used it more practically, or it'd always been playing little social games and I was only now noticing. I wasn't sure how to feel about that.

Gift horses and mouths, I guess.

Still, every time the redhead PR girl asked if I wanted water, I was a little bit wary as to whether she'd be doing that if I hadn't passively mind screwed her with every stray Bar or convenient combo of other symbols.

My power didn't activate at all throughout the whole thing, interestingly. I was just kind of shunted along in the wake of all the PR people. Did what they told me to, posed how they wanted me to. It was kind of a nice break from the intrusive randomness of my power, even if I was just at the whims of a different force.
So I got them the pictures they wanted for promo shots. Apparently they were going to edit the hell out of most of them, hide most of the details of the costume in shadow, hence why they weren't stressed about the mock-up being imperfect. At the end of it I was tired from all the standing and posing, but overall it wasn't too bad.


Wednesday came without much fanfare.

I could barely wait until the scheduled meeting in the afternoon, so I was bouncing around the house with all my limited energy. I helped Sasha with her soaps, then I almost knocked over one bottle of gunk and took the hint to clear out. Then I made myself a PB and J. Then I made myself another one, and two more for Sawyer and Sasha before realizing Sasha was the only one home so she'd just have to eat two sandwiches.
She eventually acquiesced to me requests to drive me to the PRT building half an hour early on the off chance Panacea got there early too, though I think half of her reasoning was that it'd get me out of her hair.
So I sat on a bed in the PRT clinic just swinging my legs and listening to music for thirty-five minutes. Because of course she would be late.


The first words out of Panacea's mouth were,

"So, I can't really fix you completely."

That caused my heart to plummet down somewhere around the scarified wall of my stomach.

Panacea was famously frumpy. At least, that's what the boards had said, and I didn't disagree. Maybe everyone was comparing her to her sister, Limited Edition Bombshell Barbie™, which might be unfair, but it seemed like Panacea wasn't even trying. Her robe wasn't even fitted. Just hung there, loose, limp, hopeless. Kind of like her hair.
And kind of like my spirits, after hearing that the miracle teen still couldn't fix me.

She looked up from the clipboard she was holding and saw my expression. Consternation crossed her freckly, freckly face for a moment.

"I mean, I can heal most of it, it's just that muscle atrophy isn't…" She sighed. "I can't create mass from nothing, so underweight patients or those without much body fat may not be able to benefit from my help as much." That sounded scripted, but it at least explained the problem.
"You also more or less missed a year of growing up. Your growth was stunted because, well, you know." She gestured vagues at her clip board.

"Because I was in a coma for fourteen months?"

"Yeah, that," she replied, visibly uncomfortable.
"Look, I can heal your internal scarring, tune your metabolism, maybe kickstart a growth spurt. But you're going to be shorter than you would have, and you'll have to put on the pounds naturally. You've been doing well with that already, all told. You're at the final stretch, and I can help you get across faster. You'll feel better than you have since before the accident, that I can guarantee."

"Accident?" I bit out. I wasn't satisfied, and it wasn't an accident.

"Sorry, incident? I don't have the details, it's not important to my work." She glanced away from me. "Sorry."

My power started rolling. Cherry, Bar, Clover.

I breathed out a sigh, waving a hand vaguely.
"It's okay. I'm just… Defensive, I guess. Can we get on with it?"
And, oh, great, suddenly I'm not allowed to be mad anymore. Thanks, power. Love that from you.

Panacea nodded her head, biting her lips and straightening up. Collecting herself.
"Right, yeah. Do I have permission to heal you?" She held out one hand towards me, but not close enough to touch.

"You're not going to just start making changes, are you?" I wasn't sure exactly how much of what she'd said she was actually planning on doing, and this seemed like something I'd want to be sure about.

"Not unless you want me to. I can run everything I do by you. I do need to touch you to know where to start, though." She was still holding out her hand, which she shook at me as though telling me to get on with it.

"Right, okay." I sighed, then gestured resignedly. "Go for it." I held out a hand to hold hers. She grabbed my wrist instead.

"Holy shit," she breathed.

I raised my eyebrows.

She shook her head.
"How are you alive?"

I stared at her quizzically.

"Your brain," she started.

"You can't fix brains," I interrupted. And maybe it came out a little bitterly.

"I can't. But, uh, I can see them. Yours is dead. You should still be in a coma."

"The doctors knew that. Should be in my chart."

"It was, but they just said it was an abnormality." She shook her head. "Blood flow is there, but the neurons aren't firing. It's like you're asleep."

"Which I am not," I provided helpfully. I'd had enough people wowed by my medical abnormality at this point that it was kind of old hat.

"Right," she said, then looked uncomfortable. "Anyways, uh," she trailed off. Her grip on my wrist slackened from where she'd been gripping it harder.
"Okay," she muttered to herself. Then, louder, "You've been pushing yourself way too hard."

I just shrugged. "That's what I was supposed to do, right?"

She shook her head.
"Overexertion can be counterproductive. All your notes from your physical therapists said you were really committed to it, but there's such thing as too committed. Even on top of the atrophy and general damage, you're fatigued, heart rate spikes easily, and you have strain in your muscles and tendons that's really not healthy."

I shrugged again. "And you can fix that, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course. I'll do that now?" she asked, and I nodded.
"I need vocal confirmation."

I looked at her like she was an alien.
"Yes. Yes, do it."

She just pursed her lips.

But then she did it, and it felt amazing. Like every inch of me from my toes to my shoulder was relaxing.
"Holy shit," I breathed out. I saw Panacea smirking at me.

"So, I can give your metabolism a boost for now, but you're going to be really hungry for a while." She considered for a second. "You probably won't pass any drug tests, either." She brushed right past that with all the casualness in the world.
"But yeah, I'm fixing all the general stuff. You won't bruise as often, your heart rate should even out, and I'm fixing all your hormones. You'll probably restart your period, by the way. Sorry about that."

I scowled, but I didn't have my heart in it. I shouldn't be this mean to the girl who was (mostly) fixing my messed up body.

There were a few moments of silence that were awkward to me, but probably not to her. Her eyes were flicking back and forth, unfocused as she healed me.

"Oh, hey, you're tracheostomy girl. I remember you. That healed up pretty nicely, huh?"

I was wearing a green sleeveless top with a turtle neck to hide the scar, but of course she would recognize it if she could read my biology. I still didn't like her just saying it so casually. Wasn't that a breach of, like, secret identities anyways? I was wearing a domino mask for this. I decided not to mention it.

"Yeah, that's what the doctors keep saying." I frowned. "Can you get rid of the scar?"

"I can't do cosmetic work," she replied uncomfortably.

"Can't, or won't?" I frowned.

"Can't," was her answer, but she was a bad liar. My power, the absolute mensch, started spinning up.

Lemon, Bell, Clover. That was nothing. I could do with a little headache, so I forced it to ignore that and try something else.

Clover, Bell, Cherry. Damn it, that wasn't anything, either. But I let it roll, because a double re-spin would hurt way too much to be worth it.

"What was that?" Panacea asked curiously. "Your corona spiked and then you got a headache." Which organ was the corona, again? Didn't matter.

"Just my power, sorry," said my power. "It kicks off randomly sometimes. I stopped it so it wouldn't distract you, but it kind of gives me a headache." Wow, again with the mind screws. Pretending like you aren't in control right now.
Maybe I shouldn't anthropomorphize the schizo slot machine.

"Oh. Huh."

The rest of the healing passed with just her explaining bits and bobs of what she was doing. Apparently my hair was growing in a lot thinner than it should be, so she fixed that. Other than that I mostly knew what my problems were, and I was glad for them to be gone. Mostly.

"So, I used most of your fat to help your muscles along, but you didn't have much so, uh, like I said you're going to be really hungry for a while. You'll put on weight easier for the next few months, and puberty and growth spurts should help with the rest. If you keep to exercising and eating well, and don't push yourself too hard, you should see real results pretty quickly. I'm going to put in a suggestion with the director that you don't start duty or strenuous training for another two weeks, just so you can get your fat stores back online."
It was prattle. I flexed the muscles in my hand and arm. It wasn't much, but it felt good. Even better than just being able to move in general, now my every movement wasn't excruciating.
I'd forgotten how much pain I'd been in.

I grinned at her, then my power sprung to life.
Lemon, Bar, Clover.

"You know, you're not half as bad as people say about you. Sorry I was kind of a dick. If you hadn't noticed, I was in a lot of pain." I stood up and grabbed her hand to shake, even though it hadn't looked like she particularly wanted a handshake. Then my power affected the most super-hero of tones.
"If you ever need anything, just know Bone Roller is here for the people." I winked at her, and then just walked the heck out.


In the silence of the empty clinic, Panacea wondered.

"What do people say about me?"

—

I went out to the waiting area, out of mask, to give Sasha a huge hug, and then told her I'd bus back home because I wanted to show off to the other Wards.

"Why don't I just wait? The chairs are comfortable here and I have some writing I could be doing." She gestured to her little laptop, which she'd quickly pushed to the side when I'd dive bombed her for a hug. I wasn't really a huggy kind of girl, so her reflexes were to be lauded. I did let her go and stumble back onto my feet after only a second, though. Short hugs were the best kind of hugs, right after nonexistent hugs. Really, I didn't know what came over me.

"You have a kind of healthy glow now," she commented, gesturing with one hand towards my face.

I put one fist in the air.
"I feel like I could fistfight Scion!" I crowed. The receptionist turned to look at me, but screw him.

"Why would you want to fistfight Scion?" Sasha asked with a laugh. She reached towards me hesitantly, then brushed some hair away from my face.
She didn't used to do stuff like that.

"Someone's gotta keep him humble," I replied. Then I ran off back to the side hall where I could put on a mask and enter the bulk of the building.


I was still giddy when I got down the elevator into the hall in front of the Wards' room. I pulled open my eyelids with one hand as I leaned into the retina scanner, just to be sure it'd get a clean read, and my power started spinning up once the 'Masks On' buzzer sounded from inside.

Clutterclutterclutterclutter clunk clunk clunk.

Bar, Bar, Bell.

I ran into the Wards common area with one hand raised.
"Yooooo!" I yelled, running first to the nook of computers that Kid Win was at where he dutifully slapped my hand, then to the table in the center where Triumph was working on some kind of paperwork and he slapped my hand, then I ran to the area with couches where either Clockblocker or Gallant was, I couldn't tell because he was just in a tee and jeans and a domino mask, but whoever he was, he gave me the third high five.
"I got fuckin' juiced, man!"

Cute and blonde on the easy chair smiled at me. Perfect teeth.
"You saw Panacea, then!" He sounded genuinely happy for me. "I'm glad, it sounds like it went well."

"Heeeell yeah," my power replied. Because this still wasn't me. I was grinning about as broadly as would be natural here, though.

"Hey, congrats," said Triumph from his seat. He didn't sound like he even knew something had been wrong.

Kid Win piped up after with a quieter but more genuine, "yeah, congrats." I pumped one fist up into the air with a peace sign, then vaulted myself over the back of a couch and sat down, one knee bobbing.
My power cut out and my knee still bobbed. Seamless. Let's make it seamless.

"I haven't actually been in here by myself yet, the retina scanner's cool." I looked to where the blonde guy was sitting. "Wait, are you Gallant, or Clockblocker?"

He laughed.
"I'm Gallant. Actually, wait," he said, leaning forward to take his domino mask off.
"It's Dean."
I scooted one couch cushion over to be able to reach when he extended a hand to shake.
"You don't have to share your name if you don't want, obviously, but sometimes people say Gallant and I still think they're talking about someone else."

"You've been a Ward for how many years, Dean?" asked Triumph, who had removed his gold domino mask.
"I'm Rory, it's good to meet you. I saw the promo pics of your costume, it looks pretty good."

I nodded. I wasn't sure if I should be removing my mask here or not. I didn't want to cave in to peer pressure or just do it cause everyone else was, but I didn't really have a reason not to, and if someone called me 'Bone Roller' I might have the same problem as Dean, not knowing that was supposed to be me. My eyes flicked to where Kid Win sat at the computers, though, and he hadn't taken off his mask either. He looked like he was just going to let us have our own conversation.

Replying to Triumph, I said,
"Yeah, they let me give pointers about some stuff. It's not exactly what I wanted, but it'll grow on me I think."

"Ah, right. Yeah, you can't always win with the PR people," Triumph–Rory–said with a rueful smile.
He went back to his paperwork, and I turned back to Gallant.

"So what is your power? Kid Win said you weren't a Tinker, earlier."

"Right, yeah, should probably explain that." He ran a hand through his perfectly coiffed hair. "I can fire off blasts of energy that make people feel certain emotions, but I can also get a read of what someone's feeling just by looking at them."

"Woah." I breathed. "Like mind reading?"

"Less like mind reading and more like… Do you know what cold reading is?"

"Like on TV?"

"Yeah. It's not really ever that specific, and it gets hard because, well, people's emotions are complicated."

"That makes sense," I mused. Then I sat up straight, hands on my knees. "Hey, what am I feeling right now?"
He laughed.

"Well, you're in a lot less pain, I can tell that right off the bat."

I nodded.
"Correct," I said in an official tone.

"You're curious, there's some anticipation, and a lot less fear or cageyness than most people get when I tell them that, so good job, I guess."

"People aren't a fan?"

"Not usually. I think some people take it harder than others, but really it's barely more useful than just being able to read people's expressions really well."

Something occurred to me.
"So, wait, you're a Thinker, too!"
He laughed again.

He smiled. "That I am. Vista's kind of a Thinker, even, depending how you define it."

"How's she a Thinker? Doesn't she just, like," I made some hand gestures to try and show what warping space was like. I imagined it was like molding play dough.

"She can also feel all the terrain in her range, and she gets blindspots wherever there's people since she can't warp space just around them. Lots of powers have small stuff like that. But you're right, it's not part of her rating because it's not usually relevant."

"It sounds really useful, though." Most powers sounded more useful than my own.

"When it matters? Definitely. But we've all got our strengths and weaknesses."

He was easy to talk to. That was nice. I didn't really have any friends my age. I mean, I used to, but they were all… Hard to think about, these days. If I could become friends with some of these super powered teens instead, then I'd gladly make the trade.

"How'd you learn this stuff? I read up on some forums about it, but a lot of it was just ripped from technical documents and I think it was more meant for PRT agents than for heroes."

"Yeah, that's where the roots are. I think I got most of it from my girlfriend, honestly. She's a self-described cape geek, and that doesn't even say the half of it sometimes."

"His girlfriend is Glory Girl," Kid Win chimed in from where he was apparently listening in.

"Didn't you break up?" muttered Triumph.

"Yeah, yes, I pick stuff up from my girlfriend, Victoria," Dean said, speaking to me and ignoring the hecklers. "If you're interested, she could talk your ear off. Are you going to Arcadia Adjunct middle school? Maybe you could get lunch with us some time."
Wow, that was kind of him to offer. Lunch with Gallant and Glory Girl. Or, I guess Dean Whateverhisnameis and Victoria Dallon.

"Damn. No, I'm not starting til the fall. I dunno which one, I haven't asked. Arcadia would be cool, I think my foster parents live close to there."

"They make exceptions for Wards a lot of the time, too, just to keep us all kind of in one place. Even if not, I'm sure you'll meet her at some point. It's kind of a small world in the cape scene."

"Huh, alright," I said, smiling. I looked at the big clock above the television in the couch nook and, though I had no idea what time it'd been when I'd left Sasha, it reminded me that she was waiting.
"Oh, crap, I should go. I just wanted to drop in to show off my guns." I put up one arm and flexed. It was maybe a little less scrawny than it had been before Panacea had done anything, but not by much.

"You'd give Aegis a run for his money, I'm sure," Dean said with a smile. I grinned back, but I jumped up off the couch–jumped, because I had the strength to do that–and started back towards the elevator with a wave behind me.

"See you all later, I hope I can start patrolling soon! A couple of weeks, probably, but like, exciting!"

Kid Win over at the Console gave me a thumbs up which I returned, then I stepped back through the door out into the metal hallway out of the Wards H.Q.

I didn't realize how hungry I was until I was seatbelted into Sasha's little oldsmobile and my stomach growled audibly.

"Can we get fast food? Panacea said I needed to put on weight and that my metabolism was super charged so I should eat a lot." That was paraphrasing, but, you know.

"Sure, honey."
She didn't used to call me 'honey' so often.
"Burger and fries?" She offered.

"Fugly Bob's?" I ventured. The Bay's premier establishment for greasy fast food goodness.
Sasha smiled, glancing at me sideways from where she was seated.
"Maybe just this once." She leaned over a little hesitantly and kissed me on the forehead. Yeah, alright, that's weird. But I'm getting a burger out of it, so, you know.

Gift horses, mouths.

 

[BeeBadidoo]

nice story, really cool power. Looking at the story with interest. Keep up the good work

 

[Pyrelight]

Ayep, that's a Worm power alright. Superficially seems like it helps, but mostly gives you different problems while acting as a constant reminder, with an extra helping of psychological "fuck you" on the side because people aren't allowed to have nice things on Earth Bet.

Also less of a conflict drive and more of a conflict journey.

Though there is this much: the enemy Thinkers can't get you if you don't know what you're going to do either.

 

[party hat girl]

She's listening to: Lady Gaga.
—

Over the next too weeks I gained almost fifteen pounds, which would have strained credulity if it weren't for Panacea's hand in it. My period also started up on Friday which I wasn't a fan of, but Sasha took me shopping for that stuff. I'd kind of been hoping I wouldn't need them again, but oh well.

Looking in the mirror after all that change, I looked like almost a different girl.
I didn't like to look in mirrors, for the most part. Not since the sight greeting me was a skinny ghoul with crappy skin.

I looked so much better now. My bones were less obvious, my skin was clear and healthy. I was still short, but even my hair was growing in thicker. It'd been this boring limp brown nothing ever since the hospital, but now I was contemplating getting it cut short just so it could grow out even.
I hadn't gotten much puberty under my belt before the hospital, and I still looked closer to twelve than thirteen-going-on-fourteen. I was a bit short in general, and missing out on more than a year of growth hadn't done that any favors. But now I looked mostly like a normal early teen girl, and I'd settle for that. The scars on my throat and stomach weren't so great, but they were also a lot less obvious when my skin was filled out with more fat and muscle.

I was pumped. Just kind of constantly, really. I felt really good. I'd taken up running around instead of walking, just because moving felt so great. It was probably wearing on Sawyer and Sasha's nerves, but as long as I wasn't too loud about it and I didn't knock anything over, they were happy for me.

The two week mark was where Triumph had said I'd be able to start going out on patrols, and the PR people had said I'd do a Q and A introductory debut kind of thing in front of some reporters. My costume was supposed to be done, too, so I was excited to finally try the real thing on.

I finished up lunch that day in about four seconds flat and begged Sasha to let me go early. Though I think the Cherry, Bar, Lemon I rolled convinced her I needed to get out of the house more than anything else.
I might've started running in place in the middle of the kitchen and sworn not to stop until we left. I can't confirm or deny, though.

I'd started taking granola bars around with me wherever I went, because the hunger could strike at any time. Sawyer said I ate like I had a hollow leg, but even if my legs were hollow I didn't think they'd fit that much food in them.
So, with my granola bars packed, I grabbed my backpack that I used to carry like three things total, and sprinted out to the car.

I found my new costume just sitting in my locker at the PRT headquarters.

There were these little personal locker rooms for everyone to go into. They used a foot traffic 'air lock,' as Triumph had called it, where only one person was allowed into the hall for the locker rooms, the doors into the hall locking until that person entered one of the locker rooms. Then they had all the teenagers who worked at the PRT building use those locker rooms, so there was no way to know who went into which locker room or who came out as Bone Roller later on. Pretty neat system, if mildly frustrating when people took too long moving through it.

Just looking at the costume, I was way too excited to try it on. It looked so professional. The material for the bodysuit was cool to the touch but I couldn't tear it no matter how hard I tried, and the armor plating made this 'tok tok' sound when I hit it that told me it was the special ceramics they had talked about. The mask was a little heavier than the mock-up, but not by much, and I had neck muscles for days now anyways.

The whole look was, over all, a lot more cohesive. I looked into the mirror and posed a few different ways. The jacket had all its patches and buttons in sepia tones, the bodysuit felt expensive to wear, and the boots were probably the coolest thing since sliced bread. The gloves really were weighted–I'd need to make sure when I got to training that I'd be wearing them, cause they'd probably throw me off a bit to start.

They'd even given me a hairband with little plastic skulls on it, which was a new addition they'd talked about.
The plan for my hair–and I'd hashed out a plan for my hair with the PR people since the photoshoot–was to run this grease through it and slick it all back. The grease would darken it to be less of a brunette and more of a 'ravenette' (their word, not mine) to help with secret identity stuff. So I did that like they'd showed me, and it wound up looking pretty badass. The hairband went on top of that, then the mask, and goddamn. Hot. Hot, hot, hot.

You gotta believe me when I say I'm really not that self-obsessed. But like, you should've seen me. Hell of a look. I was gonna blow everyone on the boardwalk out of the water.

I got to the Wards H.Q. just maybe slightly five minutes late from all the mirror gazing I'd done, but my patrol partner didn't look to phased about waiting.

They'd stuck me with Battery for the first patrol, someone I hadn't seen at all yet. I'd crossed paths with Armsmaster very briefly the week before, but otherwise the Protectorate was foreign to me.
Apparently they thought Battery was still associated with the Wards by the public (she hadn't been a Ward since I was nine, but okay,) hence the choice. Battery was pretty cool, so I wasn't complaining. Her power had a weird drawback kind of like mine, kind of similar with the inconsistency and the parts where she was kind of just a squishy human until her power charged up. I wondered if she could relate to me.

"Hey, Bone Roller. Ready to go?"

"Ready? I was born ready," I said with a fist pump. I noticed Vista sitting at the line of computers ('console,' it's called the 'console') when she waved at me. I waved back.
"Hey, big V! Are you gonna be on the ear pieces?"

She warped the space between us so she was all of a sudden sitting within talking range, which made my stomach lurch. She was probably the most casual with her usage of power of the Wards.

Or maybe that prize had to go to me.

"Yup," Vista replied. "Have you been shown how they work?"

I nodded, tapping my left ear twice. "Yes ma'am!" I said, and I heard my voice come out of the console speakers behind her. Vista rolled her eyes, but she still smiled.
I turned back to Battery, who was now standing next to the elevator. "What are you waiting for, Battery? We've got criminals to catch!"

Battery laughed a little and shook her head. "Probably not on this patrol, uh, kiddo."

I looked up at her with a bemused expression that I hope translated with just the lower half of my face. She couldn't have made that 'kiddo' more awkward if she tried. Was she socially anxious?

It was a little awkward for a few seconds as we walked through the metal hallway out of the H.Q. Figured I'd cut the tension.

"So," I ventured as we were standing in the elevator.
"Are you Assault's sister or nah?"

Battery spluttered and turned very red. Caught red handed, I guess.

—

We got out of a PRT van and walked out from an alley in the boardwalk. The boardwalk was basically tourism central, and this was early summer. So it was jam-packed. The boards were all walked out so lots of people overflowed onto the pier and into the awnings of shops.
Still, everyone got out of our way when we moved, mostly. Battery waved at people as she passed, so I waved too. We only got about ten feet before someone tried to stop us, though.

It was a very touristy-looking middle aged guy with a receding hairline and a Brockton skyline Hawaiian shirt.
"Hey, are you the new Ward? What can you tell us about yourself?" He was holding a phone with both hands, camera pointed towards me.

My power started running, which could be a blessing or a curse.

Shkshkshkshkshkshkshkshk click, click, click.

Bell, Lemon, Bar.

Well, there was a Bar there, so I'd see where it went.

I smiled at him, tilted my head, then deftly snatched the phone out of his hand. Oh god, oh shit. No, no, stop, go back, undo.

I pointed the phone's outer camera towards myself, holding it up and at arm's length. In the corner of my vision, the guy seemed like he was actually happy with this turn of events.

"Hey, all! Name's Bone Roller!"
My power gave the name some stink. Said it like it loved the name, which I couldn't really boast yet.
"I'm excited to be the newest addition to the Brockton Bay Wards, and to start helping the people of Brockton Bay! I like rock music, taking my bike out on a summer day, and long walks on the beach." My body winked at that, which didn't seem necessary since nobody could see my eyes through the mask's black lenses, but what did I know. Clearly my power was the one wearing the pants in this relationship.

After my impromptu internet debut, I smacked the phone back into the guy's hand with a grin. Then I was back to myself, and he was pointing the camera back at me
"Well, thank you, Bone Roller!" the guy said, his tone clearly one meant for an audience. Everyone around us seemed pretty content to let this guy have his moment, so I guess he was going to have it.
"Is there anything you want to show off? Sneak peek of what your powers are?"
He was hunched over a bit so the camera could be level with my face, so he was a little hard to take seriously. My power started spinning up again, though, so I hoped that would save me from having to pretend to humor this guy.

tktktktktktktktk, Tchak. Tchak. Tchak.

Cherry, Bar, Bell.

And, hey, that's another Bar. I'd take it.
One finger went to the cheek of my mask as I tilted my head. There were those exaggerated movements I'd been noticing from the other heroes. I must have looked like a professional. Or a psycho. One of those two.

"Hmm, I can't give away all my secrets, but let's see…"
I paused as though to think. Something made me doubt my power needed the time to think.
"Ah!" I held up one finger, then once again snatched the phone out of the guy's hands. Pointing it at myself again, my posture changed to be a bit more hunched and when I spoke, my voice came out shockingly similar to that of the owner of the phone, all lower and adult. I hadn't even known I could make sounds like that.

"Alright, folks, that's about enough for this episode. I hope you all liked meeting Bone Roller! This is Nakyak signing out. Tune in again for more Nak Yakking!"

I need to clarify, that was my power, using my body to say that, in that guy's voice, while acting like him. I was going to have an identity crisis. That was one layer deep too many.

My power tapped the screen with one finger and then handed the phone back to the guy, who looked even more excited for having his phone stolen the second time. I was back in control as he thanked me profusely.

I always felt a bit gross when my power did things like that. The social stuff, I mean. Not even just the stuff like the jackpot and Sawyer and Sasha. It was the… loss of volition. Maybe it being social rather than physical just made it land home more.

My life hadn't been in my control in more than a year and a half now, though.
It was whatever.

As we left the guy behind, Battery leaned towards me and asked curiously, "Had you seen that guy's channel before?"

"Not a once," I said truthfully.

I couldn't help but notice all the other cameras still on me. Did that ever stop, or had I inadvertently gotten on a train without any brakes in that department?

I made the mistake of signing one autograph, and then suddenly everyone wanted one. I'd been told to practice my signature by the PR people, so I had a general idea of what to do for each one, just a jagged 'BR' that was quick and easy to replicate like they'd suggested.

One of the things I signed was a glossy print of one of the promo images from the photoshoot. where I was standing with my back to the camera and turning my head, showing off the jagged print 'WARDS' on the back of my jacket. The design didn't quite have an anarchy symbol, but there was a skull shape around the A, so it was half way there.
The print was nice, and the girl handed me a fat pen that wrote in white ink to go over the mostly black background. I gave her an extra little skull drawing that was shitty enough to look goofy.
I wanted to own that print for myself. Alas.

Eventually another person got in my face and asked me to show off, this time a guy closer to my age.
His actual phrasing was, 'why don't you show us what you can do?' with an undertone I wasn't a huge fan of, but it got my power rolling either way.

Bar, Clover, Clover, and I crossed my arms and tapped the side of my mask like I was thinking.

"Oh, I know." I nodded, then abruptly staggered back as though shocked, pointing up at the sky vaguely towards the bay.
"Oh my god, look at that!"
My tone was terrified and completely convincing. Almost everyone looking at me turned where I'd pointed to, where there was nothing but a clear blue sky.
Then I ducked and rolled into a gap between people and sprinted out of the crowd. Somehow, nobody followed after me as I slid into an alley between two buildings and my power relinquished control.
That was what Clovers tended to do, sadly. At least that one had been kinda funny.

It was probably the cleanest alley I'd ever seen. It was even lit with some old-timey looking bulbs on one side. There was a guy standing next to a side door of the other building, a 'Boardwalk Enforcer' badge pinned to his jacket.
I leaned back against the wall all casual-like with my arms crossed, then fumbled slightly as I tried to cross my legs too. I recovered with a chin-up nod at the enforcer.

"Sup," I said, cool as could be.

Enforcer dude just stubbed out his cigarette and walked back out into the crowd.

After a minute I got Vista in my ear asking where I was.

"Between two buildings, I guess? My power kind of just evacuated me. I didn't go far. Is Battery worried?"

"She just lost track of you. The alley next to where you disappeared?"

I nodded, then remembered she couldn't see me, and vocalized, "Yeah, yup."

Battery turned into the alley with a few people staring after her curiously. She looked a little stressed. Wonder why.
"Don't… Don't do that again." She was trying to loom over me, but she only had like four inches on me so it wasn't half as intimidating as she wanted.

I shrugged.
"I can make no guarantees."


There wasn't much patrol after that. It was all just autographs and a loop around the boardwalk. No more power shenanigans, though there were a few more neat things I autographed. One was an actual human skull, though they assured me it was a replica. Neat.

Once we got back to where we'd been dropped off, we hopped back into the PRT van and rode back to the PRT headquarters. When I got out Battery stayed in, leaning toward me a bit in her seat.

"Hey, good work today. You did really well, even with the alley thing."

"Thanks. Better or worse than your first patrol?"

She grimaced.
"Better. Way better." That sounded like a story, but the PRT guy looked like he wanted to get going (not actually, but I pretended he did because their mirrored face plates made it hard to know what they were thinking) so I rolled the door shut and went back to the Wards' room.

Clockblocker was down there, unless Aegis was secretly a skinny-ish redhead under all that muscle.

"Hey, B.R.! How'd the first patrol go?"

"Peachy keen. I stole a guy's phone and Battery lost me cause she forgot to hold my hand." I grinned. "Are you patrolling today, too?"

He looked like he wanted to ask a question, but like any polite guy he answered mine first.
"Oh, yeah, but it's the late shift. I'm actually here cause they're making me watch your debut announcement. You stole a guy's phone?"

"Yeah, my power did at least. I gave it back though." I gave a shit eating grin. "Then I stole it again." Before he could say anything, though, I countered, "Why do you have to watch my debut?"

He raised his eyebrows, but then shrugged. "The whole 'Clockblocker' thing? They either think it'll teach me how to be a good little PR boy, or it's just punishment duty. They had me sit in on Kid Win's, too."

"Clockblocker thing?" I asked.

"Oh, you don't know? I was supposed to be called Stopwatch, but I announced myself as Clockblocker in front of the cameras."

I laughed out loud. "Shit, really?"

"Yeah, seriously. They're still pissed about it, too." He grinned at me. He didn't quite have perfect teeth, but they were a symmetrical kind of jagged.

"That's hilarious." I was just standing there next to the elevator, so I moved over to the couch zone where he was lounging. And my power started running for some reason.

Clover, Cherry, Clover.

"I thought so too." Clockblocker replied. "They haven't let me in front of cameras since."

"That sucks," my power replied with my voice. Then I did a double take–or my body did, anyways–as I passed the big clock over the TV.
"Shit, is it that late? The PR people wanted to brief me on stuff, sorry, I gotta split."

"If you need to go, don't let me keep you. Go get 'em, slugger."

"Right, okay, sorry, bye," I said hastily, almost tripping over a low-lying footrest on my way back to the elevator.

I most definitely did not need to be with the PR people this early. My power was a dirty liar.
That left me with the choice between looking at least sort of normal and just leaving, or looking psychotic by explaining my power and trying to get the conversation back on track again. Damn it, power, I wanted to talk to the cute boy. Why did you have to be like that?

The problem was, if I didn't change things up now and actually try to explain, I might never be able to get to the place where I'd be able to. My power was embarrassing and annoying and hard to work around.
Would he even get it, if I tried to share?

Argh.

I sighed, and opened the door into the elevator hallway.

It wasn't worth the effort.


I just hid in a bathroom for an hour. The PR people didn't need me, and unless I wanted to explain my lie, then Clockblocker wouldn't expect me back in the H.Q. So I locked the door to the stall and put my feet up.
It was really boring at first, but then I realized I could get the internet on my Wards phone. They'd given me a phone for Wards purposes, which was cool. I'd thought it would only be good for, like, playing worm or whatever. I'd never had a smart phone before and damn they were actually cool. I couldn't download any apps from the app store, but I could browse forums and look stuff up. I could probably have listened to music if I had headphones or if I could figure out how do get it connected to my Wards-issued earbud. I didn't have my headphones on me and the earbud didn't show up under 'Bluetooth,' though, so I just sat crouched on the toilet lid and browsed stuff online.

I'd lost track of time when I heard a ping from my phone alerting me to an appointment in five minutes. Right, the PR thing, the whole thing I was there for.
I straightened up, then put on the parts of my costume I'd taken off in using the room for its actual prescribed purpose. I exited the stall and checked to make sure everything looked good, then I hopped to it and marched out of the bathroom.

I was supposed to meet in a dressing room adjacent to the theater half an hour before I was to be on stage, but I wasn't sure what they wanted me to be doing in that time. I certainly wasn't going to be dressing. I was already in my costume.

Greeting me in there were two of the PR people and one other guy I couldn't put my finger on.

I tried to remember where I'd seen his face before. Where…
Oh, right, he was the PRT guy from power testing. No, not the one with the broken leg. The other one. The guy I beat up to steal all his money.

Redhead PR girl started running a lint brush over me while PR guy started talking about what I was and wasn't supposed to do on stage. Don't swear, don't make rude jokes, don't announce anything you don't have permission to.

"Don't, for example, announce my name is something like 'The Bone Zone?'" I asked with a half smile.

PR guy didn't seem to think that was funny.

"So, they have a script for you," the buff guy from power testing butted in. He was holding up a slip of paper, but he wasn't offering it to me yet. In his other hand he had a ten dollar bill. "If you follow the script and don't screw anything up too badly, you get the ten bucks."
I definitely felt patronized by this, but I did want the ten dollars. Did they have some kind of special budget for this? Bribing my power hadn't even worked that well in testing.

I rolled my eyes.
"Okay, cool. Gimmie." I held a hand up for the script, making grabbing motions.
I skimmed it, got the cliff's notes, then crumpled it up and stuck it in my pocket.
"Gotcha, I can do that."

"Roller, that was two whole paragraphs. There's no way you memorized that," PR guy said.

"Nah, I got it." I tapped my head. "Thinker, remember?"
He looked skeptical. He pulled a sheet of paper off his clipboard and held it out to me.

"Read it, try to memorize it. There's another copy on the podium out there if you need it, it's okay if you don't remember the exact wording, but you need to at least memorize more of it. People expect the Wards to be a little awkward in front of the cameras, especially at your age. Just try and be yourself."

"And memorize the script," PR girl reminded.

I groaned, then sat down on one of the uncomfortable chairs.

"Wait, up, lemme get your butt first," PR girl directed. I stood up as she tore off the dirty sheet of her lint roller for another one.

The script was boring as hell. Pretty much just, 'I'm Bone Roller, I have a luck based power, hope you guys love Brockton Bay as much as me, mega patriot Bone Roller.'
I tried to memorize it, though, just in case my power didn't roll anything worth using and I had to commit to the party line.

The thirty minutes were taken up with PR lady checking every seam of my costume and PR guy saying stuff like 'and if you trip, do this.' He did tell me how to stop a sneeze if I felt one coming, though, so that was a cool trick I was eager to try out.

Director Piggot was technically the one in charge of the Wards, so she bustled through the dressing room about ten minutes before my set time to get on the stage. Walking looked hard for her. I wondered what that was about.

While Piggot talked I mostly just swung my legs and pretended to read the speech they'd prepared for me. PR guy had gone out to watch from the audience, and PR girl just kept checking her watch and craning her neck to listen to Piggot. Eventually Piggot gestured off to the side and started walking back towards us, and PR girl turned on my lapel mic and pushed me to my feet with a, "Go, go, go! Shake her hand!"

I wasn't sure if I was going to shake her hand, exactly. As soon as I was on my feet, my power was spinning up.

Cherry, Lemon, Cherry.

That was… probably okay, so long as I didn't punch Piggot in the gut. Cherries never tended to be too bad.
The bright lights of the stage made my head throb with a spike of pain as I entered. Was my power not squinting on purpose, or was it just dumb?

Approaching Piggot, I grabbed her extended hand roughly and gave it one solid shake, then slapped her on the shoulder probably harder than was necessary. She was apparently a professional, though, because she made no outward sign she cared.

I walked to the low podium in the center of the stage, and my power released me. I glanced at the paper sitting there, then out at the people. Dozens of people with cameras and mics all pointed at me. Not terrifying at all.
My power started spinning up when I didn't immediately spring into my speech.

Clatter-clatter-clatter-clatter, chunk chunk chunk.

Cherry, Clover, Lemon.
That wasn't great. Even just one Clover would definitely try and get me out of here, with how awkward I was feeling. I gripped the edge of the podium as a headache bloomed behind my eyes. It hurt, but it started the wheels spinning again.

Chakachakachakachaka, klik klik klik.

Lemon, Lemon, Bell.

Oh, that was even worse. What would a double Lemon even do here, try and take out one of the reporters? Or PR girl? Shit, my head hurt already, but I grit my teeth and clamped down on the flashing wheels in the back of my brain, pushing on them until they unstuck and started spinning again.
A real, proper barnbuster of a headache started up in my skull.

Tiktiktiktiktiktiktiktik, Chak. Chak. Chak.

Bell, Clover, Lemon.
That's not so bad, right? No Bars, but you can't win them all, right? I was suddenly in a lot of pain, and I didn't trust myself to cloak it well at all. Power could help me there, right?

So my power cleared my throat and started to read off the paper. Just standard press copy stuff. I didn't stutter, but I felt like I should have. I was sweating under my costume, and the lights were really bright. My head hurt a lot more than normal. Was I coming down with something? Maybe the granola bars had botulism or something.
While I started on the press release in just the most boring way possible, my hands were working on the inside of the podium. I wasn't looking at it so I couldn't be sure, but it felt like I was messing with some wires.

That couldn't be good.

A few seconds later my fears were realized; the loudest noise I'd ever heard blared to life out of the stage's loudspeakers. My body immediately hunched over and put my hands over my ears, squinting my eyes shut. I felt myself running blindly towards the edge of the stage. I opened my eyes when my power let go of me, and found myself on a trajectory to bowl over PR lady in the dressing room.

"Bone Roller!" she shouted, just as all the noise from the sound system shut off. My ears were ringing and my head was spinning and I tasted iron.
"Woah, woah, are you okay? What the hell?" She was holding my shoulders and staring at my face. I squeezed my eyes shut and pulled at my greased up hair.

"Ow, ow," I whined. It'd only been two rolls I'd held back, right? My head hurt so much.

"What happened? Jesus christ. Someone–" she shouted, but that made me cringe in on myself even more. "Fuck," I heard her mutter. "Let me get you a tissue, you're leaking like a faucet." She added something under her breath after that, but I didn't hear it.


—


Back at my foster parents' house, I curled up on the couch with a cup of tea and an eye mask. Apparently Sawyer got migraines sometimes, too, so he knew all the techniques for it. He was… Somewhere in the room. I could hear his newspaper turning every so often, the only sound in the quiet house. He'd come home from work early when Sasha had told him I was sick. He hadn't needed to do that, but he had.
I didn't have the energy to feel uncomfortable about that. It was just nice of him.

I'd had an intermittent nosebleed ever since the one that'd turned the back of my mask into a crime scene, so my nose and throat felt itchy. The tea helped with that. Sawyer had said that tea was just good for most things in general, and I was beginning to agree. I'd probably still prefer soda if we were going out to eat or something, but the hot leaf juice was finding its place in my cold, consumerist heart.

I was feeling better by the evening, but still not great. The pain was bearable, but part of me thought that was just because I was used to bearing a lot of pain. I stumbled around wearing the eye mask rather than take it off and risk suffering the light. I only got lost in the house once and that was because I'd forgotten the door to the den was right next to the door to the upstairs.

I went to bed with the migraine still stabbing me in the skull every few seconds, but in my dreams there was no more pain.

 

[party hat girl]

She's listening to: Panic! At The Disco.
—

Sawyer and Sasha got me put on two days of health leave. My headache was gone by the second day, but Sawyer had told me I should rest up anyways. I didn't need an excuse to goof off in my room, so it was fine by me.

Apparently power-related headaches weren't completely unheard of, and even Dean suffered from them sometimes. He'd sent a care basket to my house, which was really sweet. It had chocolate and a 'get well soon' card he'd signed. That went into my collection of super hero autographs, even though it was his civilian name and it was currently the only addition and also I didn't actually have a dedicated place to put the collection. It was a bad collection, forget I mentioned it..

I'd gotten two work e-mails over the two day break.
The first of them was to me specifically from the power testing people, and the other was sent out to all the heroes from some 'consultant.' What a vague job title.

The first one was kind of cool, though the second one put it in a bit of a concerning light.
The power testing people had concluded that further testing wouldn't be necessary and that they'd work off of field reports for now, which I was glad for. They had the final rating all scattered out on a spread sheet, but the bottom line was that I was a Thinker 4, Stranger 1, Master 1.

Explaining those numbers took a solid two sheets of paper, front and back, but the short version was that I was basically at human norms physically (not counting the brain thing), and that my power gave me information. More accurately it just used information I didn't know, so it was less of a thinker and more of a 'do'er, but Thinker was the term for it, so I wouldn't nit pick. The Stranger thing came from my ability to mimic body language and voices depending what I rolled. Then just Clovers in general. Made sense.

The Master thing was… Well, that was what the second e-mail was about. Apparently Masters–human Masters specifically, of which I was one–did not have a very good reputation among heroes. Among anyone, really. That made sense, when Heartbreaker was the name at the front of everyone's mind when they thought 'Master.'

The second e-mail was brief, but I wasn't stupid. I could read between the lines.

PRT Mailer <noreply-bulkmailer@prt.ene.gov>​

​

to me, aegis@wards.ene.gov, armsmaster@protectorate.ene.gov, assault@protectorate.ene.gov, battery@protectorate.ene.gov, … (expand ∨)​

​

Afternoon,​

​

Attached is a brief summary of government policy concerning friendly Master-rated Heroes on local teams. See second attached file for information regarding safety protocols and other procedures. Other documents referred to in this file can be found at the case office on the second floor of the PRT headquarters, or by searching the documentation database on the intranet.​

​

Thank you for your time,​

​

​

Thomas Calvert, PRT Consultant​

The attached files were mostly a lot of gobbledegook. One was basically just the Master/Stranger protocols, and those were just a memory game we got e-mailed every day.

I had voiced my frustration to Sawyer at dinner the second day, since he worked in an office, and he'd helped me solidify my opinion;
It wasn't really the content that mattered. It was the fact that it'd been mailed at all. It was a big, 'Hey! Just in case anyone missed it! This girl might maybe mind control you!'

Obviously, I hadn't told Sasha or Sawyer about the jackpot that'd gotten them so, I don't know, touchy-feely. I was never going to tell them about that. That was pretty much set in stone. I'd only actually broached the subject because I'd rolled a Lemon, Cherry, Bar at dinner and been so sick at the idea of repressing it that I'd let it roll. After it left me high and dry I'd gotten really uncomfortable half way through explaining the Master thing to Sawyer, but I think he'd just interpreted that as me being uncomfortable with the e-mail.

All my cards on the table? I wasn't thrilled with that aspect of my relationship with my foster parents, but I felt that I could make it work. Worst case scenario, things were really awkward with them until the state people found a spot for me in a different home. Best case scenario I had some kind of epiphany about how it was actually okay what had happened, and that it wasn't worth worrying about having faked a crying fit to get them to pity-love me.

Could I force that epiphany if I tried hard enough? I could read philosophy, or something. That's what normal thirteen-year-olds were doing, right? Half learning Nietzsche and posting edgy shit on their blogs?

My first day back was a little weird.

My costume was clean when I got it, which was good. That nosebleed had been a real gusher, I'd seen it, so I was kind of worried I'd come back to bleach stains or something. It looked good as new, though, and I half wondered if they'd made more than one. Surely they would, right? The 'Battle Damage Dauntless' action figure had to be some indication of what the heroes went through in Brockton Bay.
It turned out that somewhere during my sick days, I'd left the good graces of the PR people. It was either being forced to clean snotty blood out of my costume, or me sabotaging the sound system to ruin their PR event. One of those two. Certainly not a mystery third thing that who knows how many people had seen by now.

When I walked in at 6 PM for a late PR meeting, the looks I got from them were a mixed bag. The best I got was pity from redhead PR lady. The others looked somewhere between cold and resentful. I hesitantly sat down in the only chair available, a lone chair at the other side of the round table from everyone else. It felt like I was being interrogated, or something. Put on tribunal for war crimes.

"We got chewed out by New York for having to fall back on the video clips from your patrol for official distribution," one guy started. I didn't know any of their names, so I was going with 'green shirt' in my head. Green shirt had his arms crossed, classic defensive body language.

Why wasn't my power activating? This would be a real good time for a few Bars or Cherries.
I just sat there while the guy steamrolled on.

"We went with the patrol clips because the debut Q and A fell through and Piggot advised we don't try again." He glowered. "She advised that because someone decided it would be funny to sabotage the whole thing. You're only lucky nobody's been speculating about what really happened."
I opened my mouth, then shut it. I stared at PR lady for help, but she just turned away.

The other PR dude spoke up, the one with the blonde crewcut.
"The main takeaway for you should be that big, public, recorded incidents like your patrol stunt should always, always be floated by PR first. Having recordings of an official Ward snatching a man's phone away from him is bad, Bone Roller. I don't know how to drive that in other than the fact that it's bad."

"We're going with a different tact for you than the different Wards," PR girl cut in, not making eye contact. She was pulling something off her clipboard and unfolding it. It looked like someone's science fair project, but with more graphs and less baking soda volcano.
"We'll try for a more guerilla advertising method. It has the chance to be big, but it's a risky play and it might mean merch sales hit the toilet."

"Does this… matter to me?" That was kind of rude, seeing as it was their livelihood, but did I really care how much money they could make off my face? Or mask, I guess.

"... Yes?" She tilted her head. "Roller, more than half of some Protectorate heroes' pay comes from their share in merch sales. You've already made something like a thousand dollars from promo poster sales."

"I have posters?" I asked incredulously. I'd thought the stuff I'd been signing autographs on had just been custom print jobs. They made posters of me?

Crew Cut took this opportunity to stand up and walk out.

There was an awkward silence while green shirt rubbed the bridge of his nose and I just sat there agog at the thought of my own merch.

"Can I get one?" I asked.

"… After the meeting, Roller," PR lady promised.

The long and short of guerilla marketing was that, since what I'd done on the PR patrol hadn't been announced or formal in any way, then none of my advertisement would be. They'd still sell posters and stuff, but the bulk of my presence would be on social media, (which I'd been told in no uncertain terms I would not have direct access to) and in staged 'surprise' visits to various public venues. The first of those 'surprise' visits was scheduled for that weekend.

Afterwards, PR lady let me pick through the posters they had and choose one for myself. I naturally picked the biggest one, and went down to the Wards room to show it off.


"Ah, so she shows her face again," Clockblocker commented from where he was sitting at the console. He had his head propped up with one arm, elbow on the desk. He wasn't wearing his helmet, but the rest of his costume was on. It let me see his red, red hair.

"Show my face?" I asked hesitantly, brain jumping between my new Master rating, and my power lying to him about being late to a PR meeting. Had he somehow found out…?

"Yeah. You're by far here the least of all of us, even when we're not on patrol. Kid Win hangs out in his lab, but we hang out here off the clock, too. Don't you ever feel like you need to get out of the house?"

I glanced over at the corner with the TV and game consoles. A guy was sitting there, Aegis by process of elimination. He waved at me from where he was leaning over towards us. He had brown skin and long black hair. I waved back at him, and ran a hand through my own hair self consciously. It wasn't all grown in at the same texture now and it kind of gave it a weird messy look. The grease helped, but… I should have just cut it short.

"Uh, I guess not? My place is pretty cool. My foster parents are nice," because I brain screwed them, "and I dunno, I haven't had a reason to be here? My first patrol is today. I was actually looking for Triumph, is he here?"

"Not yet, he usually shows up just before. He's barely in here, too, but that's because he's moving up to the Protectorate soon." Clockblocker said it with a roll of his eyes. I smiled at that, though I wasn't sure why.

My power started spinning as Aegis spoke.

"Since you're here, you wanna play something? You've got half an hour." He gestured to the game consoles as my power rolled a Bar, Clover, Cherry.

Damn it, damn it. Clovers always seemed to make me run away. I didn't want to run away again. But the thought of another headache made my stomach churn.
Damn it, damn it, damn it. I let it roll. Hopefully it wouldn't be too bad.

"Oh. Maybe later? I actually wanted to, uh, look at my room here, since I have one now." I shuffled my feet, not looking directly at Aegis. And, no, I was blushing? This was so much worse than what I imagined. Abort, abort, please, god, no.

"Sure, that's fine. I'm around a lot, don't sweat it." He smiled and I turned away with a nod, feeling my ears burn. My steps towards the hall with entrances to the rooms were rushed.
When my power relinquished control of me, I stood stock still in the hall between doors marked 'Gallant' and 'Triumph.'

I heard Clockblocker say out in the main area,

"Aww, you made her nervous."

"Shut up, man," was Aegis' reply.
He hadn't been wearing a mask, and I hadn't even gotten his name. Damn it.

The room with 'Bone Roller' on the door was spartan. A desk, a dresser, a mirror, a twin size bed. All unfurnished. I tossed my poster roll on the desk and flopped down onto the bed to groan into the pillow.
I was juggling too many worries in my head. Did Clockblocker even care about the Master rating? He and Aegis seemed to be acting like it was just any other day. Was I just overreacting? Blowing it all out of proportion, making mountains out of molehills?

I spent five minutes in my room before I had to call it quits. Nobody could reasonably say they'd been just looking at an empty room for that long. I looked in the mirror, tried to fix my hair, then took in a deep breath.
I let it out.
No sense hiding from it. Either they hated me for something my power did or they didn't. I couldn't change things either way, so I'd just hope for the best.
I stalked out of the room.

My footsteps were heavy with my boots on, so Aegis turned to look at me as I approached. I slid one hand under my mask and pulled it over my head with one smooth motion. Then I sat down next to Aegis on the couch, and held out my hand.

"I'm Marcie. What are you playing?"

He shook my hand with a smile. Less 'prince charming' than Dean's, less boyish than Clockblocker's. Just a smile.

His shake was firm.
"Carlos," he introduced himself. "This is GTA, but multiplayer is really jank so we can boot up something else. Do you play fighting games?"

"I've never really played video games," I admitted.

"Shit, really?" Clockblocker commented from the console. I looked over at him, and saw that he had taken off his mask, too.
"I'm Dennis, by the way."

"Cool," I replied, feeling a little awkward. That was probably normal in a situation like this, right? He'd unmasked to me from, like, fifteen feet away.

"Dumbass," Aegis said with a slight smile and a shake of his head. He was probably talking about Clockblocker and not me. I mean, I was kind of a dumbass, too, but he'd been looking at the redhead.
"Well, uh, let's start you off with something easier," he said to me, standing up to change out the disc in the console. The one he put in was just an unlabeled disk with sharpie on it. When he sat down he was slightly further away from me than before. I tried not to hold it against him.
"Smash Bros is ported from Aleph, but it's better than all the stuff we have here. Kyushu sinking ruined the games industry, but that didn't happen on Aleph so we still have good Nintendo games if we rip them off shady sites."
I was familiar with the shady sites.

"Debatable," Clockblocker added from fifteen feet away.

"What, that Kyushu ruined the games industry?" Aegis asked.

"That there's such thing as good Nintendo games. But, yeah, that too."

"Whatever, man." Aegis shook his head. "Anyways, it's approachable for a first timer I think. Want to give it a try?"

I gave it a try. I'd chosen the big power armor person because Aegis–no, Carlos told me she was actually a lady, which was cool. My power started running as soon as the first match began.

It was a Lemon, Lemon, Bar. Needless to say, I beat him soundly, and then flicked him on the ear.
"And to think you doubted me," I said, tone coy as I grinned slyly up at him.

"Did you use your power for that?" He looked a little suspicious.

"Maaaaybe," I said with a roll of my eyes. I leaned back into the couch, and then I was myself again. I chose the power suit lady again and started the round as soon as Carlos had picked his guy, a different sword dude this time.
I didn't win any of the next rounds, but Aegis was good natured about it and I had fun anyways. I'd never really been a sore loser, and it was kind of funny how bad I was when I wasn't cheating with my power. It was hard to replicate the moves I'd felt my fingers make when my power had been in control.

Eventually the 'Masks On' buzzer toned, and we all hastily slipped on our masks. Carlos was in civvies so his was just a burgundy domino mask, but I was still in full costume.

"Bone Roller, Aegis, Clockblocker," Triumph greeted us. He was in his costume, in all its lion-ey glory. I set down the controller when Aegis paused the game, and twisted around to wave at him.

"Hey! Patrol time?"

"Patrol time," he answered with the utmost seriousness.

"He's been like that for almost a whole year now," Aegis confided quietly. "There's still a nice guy under all that. I think."

I grinned back at him, whispering conspiratorially. "Maybe I'll be able to crack his cold, hardened shell with the power of friendship." Carlos snorted, and I got up to go.
"We can play again some time later. It's kind of frustrating, but I think I was getting a hang of it."

"Yeah, you definitely were, for someone who's never played a video game before. Have a good time out there, be safe."

I nodded, then turned to go join Triumph at the door to the elevator. He was holding a disposable waterbottle.

"If you need to go to the bathroom or anything, do that now. It's two hours of running around without any breaks, so just make sure you're ready."

"Okay," I said with a nod. "I'm probably good. We're good to go, then?"

"Yeah. You have your earbud?"
I tapped my left ear twice.
"Yes, sir!" My voice came out from the speakers over by Clockblocker, who rolled his eyes and made to get up.

"Let me take a piss, then, if you guys are heading out early. Gotta stretch my legs."

"Right. We'll go up to the loading bay while you do that. Roller?" Triumph gestured towards the metal hallway. "As long as you're ready."

"Totally," I assured.

I was excited. This would be my first proper patrol. They said that a lot of the patrols usually were very boring, but there was still a chance I'd get into a fight. I kept running over the protocol in my head to make sure I wouldn't ruin anything. Call in disturbances before approaching, wait for the go-ahead. I could do that. I wanted to do that. Cause that would mean I would get to punch a bad guy.
I still hadn't punched a single bad guy in all my weeks in the Wards program, it was a serious tragedy.


About half way through the patrol, it seemed pretty likely that that tragedy was going to play out for even longer.

According to Triumph, the basic way that real patrols went when you weren't flyers and you didn't have someone like Vista who could help someone cover ground a lot faster, was that you would cover an area on foot while a patrol van looped around to the other end of your route, where it'd take you to another chunk of city. A lot of patrols were about showing the colors, but even then if you wanted to be practical about it, walking around on foot just wasn't a good use of time or resources.
When things got to the shifts after sundown–like the 7:00-9:00 patrol–they got less like the PR patrol and closer to what the Protectorate would do.

The wards were, at the end of the day, a practical branch of the government in Brockton Bay. In other places that might not be as true, but the Bay needed as much help as it could get, and heroes were always spread thin.
So this patrol was one that actually actively looked for crime to solve. Obviously we'd book it to any crimes that were called in, but there were very few things that made it all the way up the line to dispatch; most things, the police could figure out.

Triumph casually mentioned as we were walking that most nights the only things they would find were things that they just stumbled upon. That crushed to hear.

A couple minutes after that, though, my power started rolling.

Rattle-clatter, rattle-clatter, tok tok tok.

Cherry, Clover, Bar.

"Hey, Triumph, gimmie a sec? I gotta fix my," I gestured to my shoulder area with a shrug, pulling at the collar of my bodysuit. Triumph just nodded, and I slid down an alley as he turned his back.

And then I ran, full sprint, down three blocks.
Even with my power in control, that felt good. I wasn't to the point where I was any fitter than the average teen, but I was at least average. That meant I could run if I needed to, and my power seemed to think I needed to.
Even with my heavy, thick-soled boots, my footsteps were nearly soundless as I tramped down the alley and rounded a corner.

Around the street corner and twenty feet away were two men cursing up a storm while staring at a pile of packages on the ground behind an idling car.
I'd seen enough crime shows to know what a brick of drugs looked like. There were green-brown ones and off-white ones.

"Console," I muttered. Apparently my power thought the earbud would pick it up. That was cool.
"I'm on Fourteenth and Causeway. Two men, one armed, I'm unseen. They're arguing over a large quantity of drug paraphernalia and are currently distracted. Permission to engage."

My power relinquished control, but I stayed crouched behind the alley wall I was next to. In the same nearly-subvocal tone, I added,

"Triumph, I'm sorry, that was my power. I'm on Fourteenth and Causeway. Get here as soon as you can, but be quiet about it."

"I heard your call to console. Thanks for telling me. Be just a sec."

"Roller, this is console," I heart Clockblocker's voice in my ear. Or, no, Dennis. Or, no, wait, Clockblocker in costume, right.
"I kicked it up the chain. Take a second to catch your breath, let Triumph reach you."

I waited while the two guys started wrapping up their argument and cleaning up their mess. They were both burly white guys, one tattooed heavily and the other more discretely. The right angles and repeated Es and 8s showed off their gang affiliation pretty clearly. It made sense for the part of town we were in–this was uptown, where rich people with nothing else to do decided to get racist for their kicks.
I wasn't worried about them cleaning up their mess by the time I heard back from Clockblocker. None of the packages had opened, but they'd scattered around the curb a bit and the two guys didn't seem clear on how to carry them now that the bottom had fallen out of the cardboard box they'd been in. They eventually improvised by turning the box upside down, the absolute geniuses, but by then Triumph had caught up to me. He crouched down and patted me on the shoulder.

"Good work. Threw me for a loop for a second, but it's a good find." He didn't seem to be too annoyed about the fact I'd lied to him. Maybe when you had someone like Battery or Velocity on the team you got used to powers with frustrating aspects. That or he was good at hiding his frustration.

"Roller, Triumph, permission to engage–"

My power started running.

Taktaktaktaktaktaktaktak, clunk, clunk, clunk.

Clover, Bell, Bell.

Good enough.

"--so long as you still have the element of surprise," Clockblocker continued speaking as my power guided my body to move. I rolled from alley I was in to the street corner the guys were at, ending up on the other side of their car from them. Standing slowly, I slid a hand through the open driver's side window and pulled the gear shift. I didn't know how to drive, but apparently that was the one that started the car rolling because it slowly inched onto the two men who immediately started panicking. One dropped his end of the box of drugs, and the whole thing went scattering across the street.

"Dumbass! You forgot to park the fucking car?" yelled the guy who'd dropped the box.

"You dropped the fucking box, you goddamn fucking–" The second guy was cut off from his vulgarity by a focused burst of sound that I felt but only barely heard.

Triumph was a sound manipulator. It gave him a Blaster rating, and he had a bit of a Brute side thing going for him as well (on top of being built), but the blaster bit was the important one. He could emit directed blasts of sound of varying force and of varying frequency, which I was told to mean that he could hypothetically knock someone out without bursting their eardrums, which didn't make sense to me but what did I know. He'd said that if I thought of it as 'wind blasts' rather than 'sound blasts' I might get it better, because at the end of the day sound was just vibrations through air.

Anyways, he proved that hypothesis true when the two dudes kind of just collapsed into a dazed pile on top of the drugs. At least, it didn't look like their ears were bleeding, so, point for Triumph.

"Quick, you get their guns and I'll cuff them." He was already in motion, and I followed suit. "It just lasts a second."
To his point, the two guys were flopping around a bit, making drug-angels in the pile of packages. One tried to sit up, but ended up keeling over the side and cracking his head on the car.
"It messes with their inner ear," he explained casually while the guy started spewing profanities. The thug hadn't even noticed that I had taken the gun out of his belt.

Triumph got them cuffed, which was a good call on his part. He was at least as strong as either guy, but I would've had a hard time forcing them into the cuffs. Once he had them secure, he got into the car for a second to shift it back into park.
"Do you want to report in while I keep an eye on them?"

"Sure," I replied with a shrug.

"Console, this is Bone Roller. We have two perps in possession of a large quantity of drugs cuffed and waiting for pickup."
That sounded about right to me. Maybe I'd seen too many crime shows, but I thought I'd done that pretty well.

"Confirmed. Telling dispatch."

I waited a minute.

"Okay, I let the truck know. You didn't move from Fourteenth and Causeway, right? I should've asked before, I just assumed."

"Oh, yeah, we're still here," I said. I looked at the two guys who were slowly regaining their senses. Both were glaring but neither said anything. Were we supposed to read them their rights, or something?
Apparently not, since when the PRT truck pulled up a minute later, they just loaded the guys into the back and bagged up the drugs.
I wondered if Miranda rights were just something they did on TV, or if they didn't apply to the PRT. People were always talking about the PRT overstepping its bounds and muscling out the boys in blue. I guess I was a part of the problem, now. Huh.

"We're gonna have to talk about how you handled that," Triumph said after the truck rolled off and we were back on our route. I was about to look up at him when my power started rolling.

Lemon, Clover, Bell.

I was pretty sure I wouldn't just smack Triumph in the face with one lemon in a crap roll, and I was still really hesitant to suppress any rolls, so I said 'fuck it.'

"I handled it just as well as you did," I said, tone dismissive. As I moved past him I pushed into his side with my shoulder, which didn't seem to budge him even an inch. I didn't think that would be a proper dismissal, but Triumph didn't seem to have a reply. I had control when I was a few paces ahead of him, and I kept stalking along our path.

The patrol was only a couple of hours, and we didn't manage to find anything after that. No mystery rolls from my power, no more than passive aggression from Triumph.
I wished I could have gone out on my own. Then I'd have been able to get a proper fight, see what I could do now that I was feeling healthier. They were saying that solo patrols wouldn't be in the cards until I'd gotten a few more under my belt with the other Wards.
I could've taken those two guys by myself, easy, even before Panacea did her magic. I'd taken on four, and it'd been shit rolls the whole time.

When we got back into the PRT van to be taken back to H.Q., the silence became a lot more noticeable. I eventually made eye contact with Triumph and he sighed.

"Pushing a car on top of two guys could've gone very badly." He was frowning.

"I didn't," I replied. I raised my eyebrows at him, challenging.

"I watched it happen, Roller," he said with some exasperation.

"That was my power." I stared him down. I would have rathered my power gave me a magic answer here, but it didn't seem like it wanted to chime in on this topic a second time.

"If you need more time training before we–"

"No," I cut him off. "Nah. This is my power, man. If you get to sonic blast them unconscious when they're distracted by what I did, then I can run with what my power rolls. Don't be pissy just cause you was surprised the scawwy car started moving."
The baby voice might have been too much, judging from the way his mouth tightened into a line.
Still, they were just going to have to learn to accept that my power was the way it was. I'd sure as hell resigned myself to it.

"Out of line, Roller. When your team leader gives you constructive feedback–"

"I'll get back to you when I'm feeling constructed, Triumph." I said with a glare. Really, what was his deal? They hadn't been in any danger. I didn't think my power could really even put people in that much danger without a couple lemons.

"We'll talk about this later," he said with some finality. I just put up both hands in mock surrender.

"Sure. Whatever."
Which was probably stupid, but I was annoyed. What right did he have to judge me for something I didn't even have any choice in? The two guys had barely been hurt by the car. Asshole with the tattoos probably just got a bruised butt when he tripped.

I'd found them, hadn't I? Why wasn't that the headline news?


The patrol ended without much else said on the matter. When we got to the PRT building Triumph went to the Wards H.Q. and I just left. Sasha was there to pick me up, so I didn't want to keep her waiting.

She probably realized I was in a bad mood, because while I was doing my Wards paperwork for the patrol, she set a bowl of strawberry ice cream on the table next to me. She looked like she wanted to say something, but decided against it.

"Thanks," I said, looking back down at the two sheets I had to fill out. One was a general report where I ticked boxes about what happened on the patrol. The other was an after-action where I would write down everything I remembered about a fight. The first sheet had little letters and numbers next to some of the boxes; I'd ticked the box that read 'altercation with non-powered suspect,' so I had to fill out form PRT-C80. That was the second sheet.
I'd printed them both off on the home computer; they'd given me a thumb drive full of documents I might need when I'd told them I still had a bed time of 9:00.

I ate my ice cream before it could melt, and Sasha left me to my paperwork. I heard pages turning in the living room, which meant Sawyer was still up. I'd be in bed by 10, which was the compromise they'd made for nights I had a late patrol. I didn't have school to wake up for in the morning, so it wasn't too big a deal.
A little bit of me still resented it. I was a growing girl, now. How much did I really need a bedtime?

 

[party hat girl]

CW: In the middle of this chapter there's a tense workplace confrontation, and then a small mental breakdown.

She's listening to: Marina And The Diamonds.
—

I made my way into the Wards H.Q. the next afternoon. I wouldn't have patrol until that evening, so I figured I'd take up Dennis and Carlos' advice and just take some time to hang out. Besides, I had some discomfort stewing in my gut about the Wards program in general after the last night's patrol, and I wanted to try and replace them with something a bit more feel-good.

My first idea of playing games with Carlos hadn't panned out; didn't look like he was in. Triumph was at the console, but I did not want to talk to him, and from the way he avoided looking at me he didn't want that either. Nobody was sitting around, so I decided to see if Kid Win was in his workshop.

Lo and behold, there he was. I knocked on the doorframe as I entered, and he jerked upright to look back at me.

"Oh, hey, Bone Roller." He was wearing his visor without the rest of his costume. I smiled at him, and he turned back to what he was working on.
On the workbench in front of him was a huge ring of metal, looking like the cross section of some giant robot straw. There were a few others like that strewn around the shop, in sizes a little smaller or larger.

"What's that gonna be?" I wondered out loud.

"Oh, it's already done," he said with a shrug. "I mean, mostly. It'll all go together and make this huge gun. I called it the Alternator Cannon."
He looked up from the workbench at me. "Honestly, I shouldn't even be messing with it. Remember how I said I was on a new med?"
I remembered him in his PJs more than anything, but, yeah.

"Yeah."

"Well, this is what I made." He gestured to the metal rings around the room.

I raised my eyebrows.
"Damn. They gave you the good stuff."

"I guess," He said, looking distinctly uncomfortable. "Uh, the side effects, and stuff, weren't great for me."

"Oh, yeah. I know how that is." I frowned. He looked like was about to ask, but decided better. Probably for the best.

He ran a hand through his hair, turning to the side a bit as he spoke.
"Uh, yeah. So I've got it in here. They all kind of line up like onion rings or, uh, Spaghetti-Os, to save space, normally." He said it like I'd been wondering. I hadn't, really, but it was good to know he usually kept his workshop cleaner than this, I guessed.

"And what, you just… roll it out?" I pantomimed pushing a three foot wide wheel in front of me.

"No, uh, it'll teleport," he said, like that was the most normal thing in the world.

"You can teleport?" I asked, amazed.

"Not… really. It's a lot harder to teleport people, there's this thing, uh," he trailed off, looking uncomfortable again. "It doesn't matter."

I opened my mouth to speak, and my power shoved its nose into things.

Chitter-chit-chitter-chit, chak chak chak.

Bar, Bell, Cherry.

"If this is about the Master rating–" I started, and Kid Win's mortified expression told me that was definitely where his discomfort was stemming from.
My hands bunched up at my sides, pulling on my jacket sleeves.
"I–" I felt my face reddening. "I haven't, I promise, I swear, jesus christ. I wouldn't, you can't think I would," I spoke, words stumbling over each other.

Laying it on a little thick, power?
Kid Win seemed to panic.
"No! No, christ, I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm just awkward, and it's not something I've dealt with before. You're fine, you're so fine, Roller." He was red in the face too. He'd spun all the way around in his stool to face me. "It's okay, it really is, I just wasn't expecting to see you, and it was this whole thing with De-with Gallant, it's fine, I swear. I'm just an asshole." He winced.
"Please don't take it personally?"

My power let me go, so apparently I had to be the one to decide how to handle this hot mess I'd been dumped into.

Great.

"Uh," I started with all the elegance in the world.
"Yeah, it's." I swallowed, then scratched at my scalp, messing up my hairband in the process. "It's cool, we're good." I cleared my throat and looked away, kicking at the ground. "I would probably be worried too. It's just, you know…" I trailed off.

"Yeah," he agreed.

"You wanna hang out some time?" he asked all of a sudden.

I looked up at him. I was probably gaping a bit.

"I mean, I just figured, it'd help me get over it," he explained. He was somehow flushing even more red.

"Yeah." I nodded. "Yeah, yeah sure. What do you wanna do? Hang out at the mall or something?" Was that something real life teens actually did?

"Mall sounds good," he said, grabbing on to the idea like a drowning man to a life raft. "There's this cool tech store that has tinker-derived gadgets," he said, and then probably realized the dork shit that had just come out of his mouth because he shut up.

"Alright, nerd," I said with a half smile. "Text me about it?"

"Yeah," he said. "Uh, can I have your number, or,"

"Wards' phone," I said. I didn't have any phone besides that.

"Right. Cool," he said, giving a thumbs up.

"Yup," I replied. I bobbed my head, putting one hand on the door frame as I started on my way out. "So, see you later?"

"Totally," was his reply.

After I shut the door to his lab, I believed I heard the distinct sound of visor hitting workbench.

Damn.
I must have a sadistic streak, because I'd really enjoyed that.


I found Carlos coming out of the hall of personal rooms, a gym bag in one hand. He was out of costume, his long dark hair loose and hanging to his shoulders.

"Oh, hey, Roller," he commented. "I was just hoping I could find someone to spar. Was gonna work out and then ask Triumph, but he's on console for a bit. Want to see how you measure up?" He gestured to himself, wearing a self-defeating smile. I wasn't sure what the joke there was. That I could never hope to best him in a fight? I wanted to prove him wrong, all of a sudden.

"Sure, yeah. I could go a round or two," I said, pretending to know what I was talking about. Mandated training wasn't on my schedule for another two week, apparently on Panacea's say-so. I felt fine at this point in the process–great, even–but I supposed that the miracle doctor knew best.

Aegis suggested I get into gym clothes, so I went into my room to change from full costume into the shorts and high collar exercise shirt that Sasha and Sawyer had insisted I stock at the H.Q. the first time I'd come home sweaty. I still wore my mask and weighted gloves, since I liked the mask better than a domino mask and I wanted to get used to the sensation of throwing a punch with the powdered metal in the knuckles of my gloves.

We went up the elevator to a basement level mostly relegated to the PRT for training purposes. I heard the pop-pop of a gun range somewhere, but it faded out as we found a room with padded mats on the floors and lockers lining one side.

"So, uh, how much do you know about hand-to-hand?" he asked.

"Not a fuckin' thing," I admitted, secretly glad he'd asked. I wasn't sure how long I could keep up the ruse of being in any way competent. My mind flashed back to him handing my ass to me in fighting games.

"Alright," he said with a laugh. "Triumph would tell you off for swearing, but I'm not the boss yet so you've still got a few more months."

I grinned.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I started.

"Wow, you're really taking advantage of that," he said with a bemused expression. I kept swearing for a few more seconds until it stopped being funny.
"Right, so," he said, moving to take a stance in the middle of the padded part of the floor. "I have a lot of advantages over you in a fair fight. First piece of advice?"

I approached, sort of trying to mimic his stance and stuff I'd seen in kung fu movies. Lower center of gravity, on the balls of your feet, that kind of stuff.
"Don't make it fair?" I guessed.

"Exactly," he said, and he moved forward quick as lightning.

Clatter-clatter-shutter-stop, clack click clunk.

Cherry, Bell, Bar.

I swept low, turning over his calf as he tried to kick my legs out from under me. I gripped his leg from underneath and lurched upwards, sending him rolling onto his back.

"Don't make it fair. Check." I said with a grin, running a hand through my greased-black hair. The hairband wasn't in, so it didn't quite stay in place when I was moving.

Carlos–or Aegis with the domino mask on–looked up at me from the mat with chagrin.
"That was supposed to lead into me showing you how to take a fall properly, but I guess I gave you a live demonstration."

"Guess so," I said with a wide grin plastered to my face. I'd been grinning since the second my power left me. I offered a hand to help him get up, though I didn't do much of the work there.

"Right, so, you can't do that every time, right?"
I nodded.
"Probably worth learning how to do things right, then."

"I can't choose when my power activates," I warned.

"Right, that's fine. I'm more than fine with hitting the mat a few times, and I can fly if I get board of that." He smiled good-naturedly. "Honestly, it'll be good to have someone who can keep up."

"I'm not sure how fun my power will be to go up against, but sure." I ran my hand through my hair again, this time of my own volition.

"I'm sure it'll be fine," Carlos assured. I gave him a skeptical look, but he didn't fold.
"How about we just try and see?" he suggested.

It went pretty alright. He gave me general pointers on stance and style. He suggested I find Vista to get advice from too, since we both had similar issues with size versus most opponents. He didn't outright say that a spar would be a fairer fight between the two of us, but there was subtext.

My power had me duck under his guard once and flip him over my shoulder with his momentum, which was pretty freaking cool. He'd caught himself with his flight which was a little bit of a bummer, but whatever. He'd been impressed and told me it was a good thing I was going up against him, because he might have broken something if he'd actually taken the fall.
That got me thinking a little about how wise it would really be to try and spar with Vista. My power didn't really have a 'low' setting, as I'd seen… well, a few times, at this point.

Things were going well until Triumph poked his head in, probably half an hour later.

"Roller. Meeting with Piggot."

Triumph didn't look like he was in a good mood.

That made two of us, all of a sudden.

—

"Bone Roller, this will have been the third time you've sat down with me to talk about necessary degrees of force. Do you understand why that might be frustrating for me?"

Piggot sat at one side of the circular table in a PRT conference room. She was a big woman with some sort of health issue that couldn't be or hadn't been fixed by Panacea. I wasn't sure of the whole story there. Maybe if she were healthy, she wouldn't have such a huge stick up her ass.

I waited a moment to see if my power would bail me out here, but it didn't seem interested in helping. Cool.

"I'm using my power the best I'm able, Director."

Politeness was probably key, here. There was Triumph sitting in as well, and I thought half of the reason he'd kicked this stuff up the chain to the director was because of how rude I'd been to him. Live and learn, I guess.
"I'm filtering out rolls that I think would be detrimental to anyone's health, but I can only do that so many times before I'm down for the count. Is this really about putting a car in neutral to push over a couple drug dealers? Cause this seems like…" I gestured to her, Triumph, the conference room. "A lot."

I wished I were in my full costume. Triumph had grabbed me right out of the training room and hadn't even given me a chance to change. I felt like I was off my footing.
Piggot shook her head, folding her hands on the table.
"This is a follow up on your previous bouts of indiscretion in general. You weren't right to just run into that situation. The two men were armed, so you put yourself in needless danger when you escalated matters without attempting to bring them in quietly."
Triumph was sitting quietly through this, but he nodded as Piggot spoke.

"So, what am I supposed to do? I can't choose when it activates, I can't choose what it does–"

Piggot cut me off, speaking over me with more strength of tone than I thought she could manage.
"You broke an agent's leg, Bone Roller. On the night we took you in, you'd heavily concussed four men. You sabotaged your own debut event, and made serious errors in judgment on your Boardwalk patrol. What happened Saturday night wasn't the worst case scenario, but it certainly shows you haven't changed tact at all."

"How?!" I asked, frustration seeping into my voice. "How do I fix whatever this is? Cause I'm doing my best, here." My fists were bunched up underneath the table. Who the hell did she think she was?

"We can keep you patrolling with senior Wards members and member of the Protectorate until you have a better handle on your power. If it were up to me I'd keep you off the streets entirely, but we need all hands on deck with Purity's campaign against the ABB." I didn't know anything about that, but keeping me cooped up inside? On console? No way. No way.

"Nah. Screw that. And screw you for suggesting it." I stood up, pushing my chair back.

"Roller, sit down–" Piggot started, as Triumph said,

"Please, don't make this hard."

I glared at both of them. "You can't fix my power. I can't change how it works. So figure something out that lets me actually do something, or I'll just fucking quit."

"Language," Piggot chastised. "Your insubordination is a serious issue, Bone Roller. If you don't sit down, we're going to have serious discussions about your membership status."

"Did you miss the part where I threatened to quit?" I asked.

"You really shouldn't," Triumph advised. He was half way out of his seat, but he lowered himself back down as he spoke.
"The Wards program has more resources to help than just about anyone else. We can bring in experts, we have the resources to put time and effort into trying to help you. But you have to cooperate long enough for that to happen, Roller." He glanced at Piggot after that, as though expecting her to gainsay him. She looked like she'd sucked on a lemon, but she didn't chime in.

I scowled. I glared at the table. And then my power started running.
Fucking hell.

Flutter-flutter-shutter-shut, chak, chak, chak.

Bar. Bar. Bar.

Ka-ching!

Jackpot.

Goddamn it.
If anyone deserved it…

I let it ride. It would be a fucking shame to waste a jackpot, anyways.

I breathed in, then breathed out, and the tension slowly melted out of me. My grip on my chair and the table loosened, and I sat back down.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have gotten mad. It's just…" I sighed. "I'm really frustrated. With my power. I didn't want any of this. It feels like it's making me into a worse person, and I'm just…" I shuddered slightly, as though holding back a sudden sob, and my voice cracked.
"I feel trapped."
Piggot looked distinctly uncomfortable. Triumph was stone faced.
My power continued.

"I hate when it hurts people. I hate that it makes me do things I don't want to do." I made eye contact with Piggot. "I broke that guy's leg and I've heard the sound in my sleep every night since then. I hate that it happened, I want to just forget."
I had not in fact been hearing the sound every night. I mean, it was a pretty neat sound, all sudden and a bit gross. Was I supposed to be having nightmares about it?

I was still under my power's control. I hated it when it took so long. Not able to move myself, even my eyes locked into the specific movements my power demanded. It brought up bad memories.

"I…" I glanced away, breaking eye contact with Piggot. "I need help."

I heard Piggot sigh. When I looked back at her, she had her arms folded on the table as she leaned forward. "We can help, Bone Roller. You just need to cooperate."

"I can do that," I said with a nod. "I still want to be useful, I want to do my part to fix Brockton Bay. If that's possible still." My eyes flicked to Triumph and I looked away again, biting the inside of my lip.

Triumph nodded.
"It's possible. New heroes are always under a lot of stress. I'm sure we can forgive one small lapse, Director?"

"... We can, Triumph," Piggot said, though it sounded like pulling teeth. "We value you more as an active Ward than as a bench warmer in a costume. If you can work to do your best, we can try and accommodate on our end. But."
She tapped the folder she had on the table, the one marked with my cape name. "This needs to stop. We'll do our best to keep your specific circumstances in mind, but you need to put in real effort to hold up your end."

"Yes, ma'am," I replied, all meek and obsequious.

My power let me go as soon as we started talking about specifics. We seemed to have moved right past what I had done, and on to how to prevent it in the future.
They didn't have answers, but they did have restrictions.
I would've thought that a jackpot of Bars would have gotten me out of trouble. Apparently not.

They were going to be contacting experts, and I was going to start training daily with PRT agents and the other Wards. Piggot mentioned idly that the possibility of me accidentally maiming them was still good, which implied she trusted me about the fact that I wasn't actually in control. That, at least, was good. I was pretty sure she had thought I was lying about not being in control of my power. The jackpot must have cleared that up for her.

When all that was sorted and I was well and properly scolded, Triumph ushered me out of the conference room while Piggot made her slow, struggling movements to do the same.

"I regret my part in that." He ran one hand through his hair, unobstructed by his lion helmet as he'd opted for a domino mask today.
"I wanted to say, I was impressed with your restraint back there." He looked a little… guilty? Maybe embarrassed.
"I didn't handle this well, and you were right to be frustrated. I think I need a different outlook on some things, and I think that helped with some empathy." He sighed. "I'll try and go easier on you. I've seen enough people struggle with their power. I should've given you more grace."

I breathed in, and then slowly let out a breath. I so badly wanted to throw his apology back in his face. This whole thing wouldn't have been a problem if he hadn't needed his little teachable moment.
But, no. I didn't want to look like a psycho, and the jackpot had apparently set me up to be in Triumph's good books. I could… be the bigger person.

"It's fine, we were both being kinda pigheaded." I frowned. That wasn't as kind as I'd meant to to be.
"I was being an asshole about it. You were just doing your job."

Triumph chuckled. "Being an asshole isn't in my job description. I get tunnel vision about it, sometimes."

I couldn't help but notice his apology hadn't featured the word 'sorry' at all. Then again, mine hadn't either.
I gave him a hesitant smile.

"Friends?" I asked, offering a fist.

"Friends," he obliged, giving me a fistbump.

We parted ways when I told him I needed to stop in at a restroom. He went on his way. The bathroom door swung shut behind me.


I checked each stall, making sure it was empty.

And then I screamed.

"Fucking asshole! Fucking full of himself, rotten asshole!"
I kicked one stall, savoring the rattling vibration that went through it and into my leg.

"Goddamn, piece of shit," I threw a fist at a stall door. It swung back and slammed into the stall, my fist no worse the wear under my weighted gloves.

"Fucking two-face, fuck-face, spoiled brat, goddamn shitty fucking costume," I ranted, kicking the trashcan and sending it ricocheting off the wall to skid across the floor, paper towels fluttering.

"Fuck!"

'Friends,' I'd offered! And he'd taken it. Fucking rube! Burn in hell, mother fucker. Eat shit and die.


My tantrum only lasted a few minutes. I hadn't broken a mirror, I hadn't done worse than scatter the contents of a half-full trash can. I took in a deep breath. Then let it out.
It felt good to be able to express my emotions like that. Fourteen months of being unable to throw a tantrum just made it all the better now that I could.

Not that the tantrum helped that much. I still had patrol in… one hour. Not with Triumph, fucking thankfully, but it wasn't Dauntless, either, and I wasn't sure how well I'd get along with Armsmaster. I wanted to see Dauntless again. Maybe he could put things right. He'd seemed like he was in my corner.
Damn it.

I took a few minutes to fix my appearance a bit, straightening my gym shirt and fixing my hair. I'd need to get my costume eventually, but maybe a shower before then would be good. Get myself in the right headspace.


By the time Armsmaster texted me to meet him directly in the shuttle bay, I was feeling more or less normal, ish. Whatever my normal was, I mean. I had taken a shower and reapplied the grease to my hair. I was feeling alright, not incredible, but okay enough. I'd had the weird desire for a hug for a second there, but it hadn't lasted past me contemplating who I'd actually want to hug me. Not Sasha. Sawyer? Still no, probably. Maybe Dauntless, actually. There'd be the suit of armor in the way, I thought that might help.

Anyways, I was in full costume and mostly feeling alright when I got up to the loading bay and found Armsmaster standing on the curb next to where his motorcycle was idling. The thing stood upright rather than lean on a kickstand, which was kind of cool, I guessed.

"Hey, Armsmaster." I waved at him as I approached.

"Bone Roller. Want to ride on a motorcycle?" He gestured behind himself unnecessarily.

"Shit, really?"

"Ride, not drive. But, yes. Seriously." He had a half smile on. I gave him a full one in return.

"Heck yeah," I enthused.

I got on the bike behind him and he told me to hold onto his waist, and I guess that kind of counted as a hug but it didn't really feel like anything. He had the armor on, and the position was kind of awkward. But once we started moving it was great.
He slowed down in front of the PRT building, and I saw redhead PRT lady standing there with a camera. She waved and I waved back. She took a picture, and then Armsmaster revved into a wheelie and we were off.

Armsmaster was a pretty good driver, considering how fast he was going. If this were Grand Theft Auto (I'd looked it up after Carlos had mentioned it) then he would probably be missing the point pretty badly, but so far as living in a society went, he was killing it.
We zoomed around for a while. This was a 5-7 shift, and it being early June meant it was still solidly in the daylight hours, so this was mostly us just showing the colors. I imagined that PR lady would have a pic of me and Armsmaster up on social media platforms within the next few minutes.
Not a lot of crime happened at five o'clock on the weekend. More so than earlier in the day, but not enough that there was anything to do besides just kind of enjoy the wind in my hair. Armsmaster only pulled over once to ask me if I needed a break. I hadn't, so we'd just kept going.
At one point while we were on a sidestreet downtown, I heard Kid Win's voice in my earpiece.

"Armsmaster, Roller, there was a call to the police about multiple armed soldiers very close by. Armsmaster is pre-approved for engagement, Roller is supposed to sit out."
I felt a bubbling rage in my chest, but I bit my tongue. His use of the word 'soldiers' might indicate that I'd be in over my head, and even I could admit that.

"Right," I heard Armsmaster's voice in my ear. "Letting you off here, Roller. Sit tight while I see what I can do. Win, the address?" He'd already slid the bike off to the side of the road and patted my leg to get me going. I stumbled slightly on solid ground again, and he was gone before I'd caught my balance.

I heard Kid Win's voice in my ear again.
"Sorry, Roller, but if these are the guys I think they are, you really don't want to be involved. They have lasers. They shot a hole through my hoverboard once."

"Damn," I said, my tone still sour despite his reassurance.

"We'll get 'em next time," he said with a bit of an accent. I wasn't sure what he was referencing.

In the corner of my vision I caught some movement. I whipped around to see a man in full on combat gear, black with white highlights. He looked threatening enough, just from size alone and general bearing, but my power wasn't running. That was weird, but he didn't have any visible weapons.
The man took a step forward, both hands open and to his sides. With one hand he reached up to where his ear would be under the balaclava, and tapped twice. In his other hand was a cellphone.

I stared for a few seconds.
The guy was just looking at me.

I should have called it in. But, sue me. I was curious.

I tapped my earpiece twice, turning off its mic.

"You have a phone call, ma'am," the soldier said, holding out the cellphone. His voice was surprisingly normal.

I tilted my head, questioning, but then the phone in his hand started ringing. Just an ascending and descending default ringtone.

I squeezed my fists tight for a second, steeling myself. Then I stepped forward and took the phone out of his hand.
This was stupid. But, well. It was also kind of cool.

Sliding the phone indicator, I answered the call.

"... Yes?"

The voice on the other end of the line was smooth and calm.

"Hello, Bone Roller."
My power started running.

Ratatatratatatratatatratatat, chik, chik, chik.

Clover, Bell, Bell.

I didn't speak as I started pacing. The person on the other end of the line didn't seem impatient. I crouched down next to the decorative gravel outside the building we were next to. I picked up a stone, tossed it up, and then caught it between my thumb and the knuckles of my first two fingers.
The rock shot out directly at the face of the soldier standing by. I heard his reaction more than saw it as my body sprinted down the alley. He'd apparently been pretty surprised to take a rock to the eye.

I nearly slammed into a steel alley door to the building on the right. My fingers were punching buttons into the keypad before I even processed there was one, and I was through the door and shutting it behind me in less than a second.

I blinked a couple times, looking at the phone still in my hand and the call it was still hosting.

Right.

Just roll with it.

"Sorry about that. Your mook was making me uncomfortable. You should hire less fugly thugs."

"I take it you left him in the alley, then," the voice said, as though discussing the news.

"Yup."

"Perfectly alright. I'd prefer you comfortable. I'll let him know to give you your space, one moment," he said. The white noise on the call cut out for a second.
"There we are. Now, let's see. Bone Roller."
He paused. For dramatic effect? Jesus.
"A little bird told me that you haven't been having too good a time in the Wards program as of late."

My heart started beating quicker. "What, do you mean by that?" I asked, mostly just to give myself time to think.

"I mean that I may be able to offer you better employment." He paused again, either to give me a chance to speak or just let what he'd said sink in. I didn't even know where to start with what to say.
"Better pay, better coworkers, less oversight." His voice affected a smile. "More understanding."

"And, I'm guessing from the whole, uh," I waved a hand even though he couldn't see it. "Private military schtick, that the work isn't exactly legal."

I was just trying to get a picture here, really. Why the hell did he think I was the person to come with this offer? I was, like, a hero and shit.

"Don't think you can fool me into thinking you're a moral person, Bone Roller."

My heart was hammering in my chest. What was that supposed to mean? Why wasn't my power doing anything? Just one shit roll to get me into the conversation, then nothing?

"Don't worry. I don't judge–Quite the contrary, really. I'm not one either."
Why the fuck did this guy think I was like him? Wait, don't answer that. I didn't want to know which thing it was that got this guy's attention.
"S-so," I stuttered, "you want me to join you in your, what, your dastardly deeds? For better pay?"
I swallowed, but my throat was dry.

"Better pay, better support. I have access to everything the PRT would and better, if 'fixing' your power is really what you want." The way he phrased it. It made me think that whoever I was talking to, he had a power too. That wasn't exactly good news, but it gave me something to chew on. He continued.
"Frankly, I don't think any prison could hold you, but if you're worried about repercussions, then just know that I've broken my fair share of valuable assets out of Protectorate custody."

I blinked.
"That's what I'd be to you? An asset?"

"Yes." He said it bluntly. Honestly, the frankness was a breath of fresh air. I laughed slightly. He continued.
"I won't lie and say we'd be family. That's the Protectorate's game. I would pay you well, you would have respect, and you would have an opportunity to cut loose in a way I know you've dearly been craving." His tone got a little… off, there, but that was barely on my radar.
"And, importantly, you would have teammates you could count on."

"Teammates that I would be able to meet first? Before making any kind of commitment?"

The words came out before I'd really thought them through. They were rooted in a thought that I hadn't really considered that much.

Something was blooming in the center of my brain. A new idea. One I hadn't properly considered yet. It'd been there before, just, not something I'd given much attention. It hadn't really occurred to be as being a real, practical possibility.

The voice of the man on the end of the line changed subtly when he replied. Coy, self-assured. He had me on the hook, and he knew it.

"We could call it a trial run."

—

(AN)
This is not a Wards fic.

 

[party hat girl]

She's listening to: Avril Lavigne.
—

I rolled out of bed with a groan. I'd been up probably later than was advisable texting with Kid Win.

You'd think that was a bit of a tonal shift from being approached by a criminal with an employment opportunity, but my life didn't just stop cause somebody new wanted to hire me. I'd basically gotten asked out by a super hero, so I was going to take advantage of it.
And sure, I might have had some help from my power, but who was counting? Not me.

Chris was pretty funny sometimes, and we'd ended up trading music recs back and forth. He usually was in 'focus mode' when he was tinkering, but he'd said music sometimes helped him concentrate. He was into weird stuff like They Might Be Giants and Tally Hall, but I was trying to fix him.

Getting breakfast was pretty consistently the same way when I got up on time. Sasha and Sawyer sometimes let me sleep in, especially if I'd been having a hard time with PT (RIP, physical therapy) which would kick me into a later part of the pattern, but usually I came down at 7:10 or so with brushed teeth and PJs to get something like pancakes or french toast from whoever was making food that day.

Today it was Sawyer, and waffles. Sasha was sitting at the small dining table that fit in the other half of the kitchen–it wasn't really a full size dining room, but it had hard floor and Sasha had converted the actual dining room into her work area for soaps and crafts. Sasha was sipping on a cup of coffee with a book that she set down when she saw me. It was apparently a bad example to be reading at the table.

"Morning, sleepyhead," she said with a smile.
'Sleepyhead' was a new one. I ran a hand through my hair instinctively, thinking about getting it cut for the umpteenth time. It'd been pretty messy in the mirror, and I hadn't put too much effort into fixing it.

I got a waffle on a plate from Sawyer, then moved the tub of whipped cream from the counter onto the table so I'd have a better angle on it. Both my foster parents said I was getting taller, but I was still 'shortstuff' to Sawyer.
I sat down and cut myself off a piece of whipped cream-laden waffle. Chewing, I wondered out loud,

"What makes someone a good person?"

Sasha looked up from her own waffles, but she had food in her mouth so she didn't say anything.

"It depends who you ask," Sawyer answered.
Sasha scowled at him, swallowed, and then added,

"Not with food in your mouth, Marcie."

"Right, okay," I said, then took a second to clear the rest of the food out of my mouth. "What makes someone a bad person?"

"Is that a different question? Same answer." Sawyer said with a shrug. He opened up the waffle maker, judged it not quite done, shut it, and turned around with his back against the counter.
"You can think about morality in terms of net good and net bad, or some prescriptive evil or wrong, but all those things have their own definitions–"

"Please don't talk to her about Kant, Sawyer," Sasha pleaded with a tone that told me something like this had happened in the past.

"Okay, well," he paused, as though he had to reframe what he was going to say with that in mind. "Let's say there's two ways to think about it. In one, a good person is someone who enjoys doing good and doesn't enjoy doing bad, and being bad is the opposite. You are moral because you have a functioning moral compass. In the other, being a good person is just being someone who does good things instead of bad, and being bad is just being a person that does bad things, regardless of intent."

I tried to wrap my head around that as he spoke, tracking the words in my brain. I thought I'd heard something similar at one point before, though it'd been a lot more religious.

"Which one do you think is right?"

"The former, maybe," he said, looking a bit unsure.

"Alright," I said, happy with that as an answer. "So enjoying bad things is bad pretty much no matter what, right?"

"Uh, depending, yeah. There's lots of debates about that kind of thing." He ran a hand over his freshly-shaved chin. "Some reason you're asking?"
I grinned.
"Well, I'm a hero, aren't I?"

—

I was sitting in the living room reading a comic when I got a text on my new phone. I read it, frowned, and then moved to my Wards phone to text Kid Win.

Me: hey u work today?​

Kid Win: console first shift but after that nah​

Me: wanna make mall today?​

He took a few seconds to reply.

Kid Win: Sure! Do you need a ride? My parents are chill​

Me: nah dwai. meet there at 5:30 or is that too early?​

Kid Win: totally works​

Another pause.

Kid Win: see you then!​

I smirked, shut the Wards phone, and then texted back the unknown number on the phone I'd gotten from the mercenary.

Me: Yeah. Can we move it back to 8:00?​

Me: I got a hot date.
Unknown Number: Oh, *do* you?​

Unknown Number: But yeah 8 works for me! Will check with everyone else.​

Unknown Number: Okay! Meeting place can't be too public but 8:00 should be fine for the food court at Weymouth if you don't want to go too far ​

It took me a second of scrolling back up to double check I hadn't told her where the hot date was. I really hadn't.
My brain produced a tiny drop of fear, and my power started rolling.

Bell, Cherry, Bell.

Me: Don't do that? I don't think that's fun or funny. we haven't met or anything so maybe it'd be a different read if I knew you but like​

Me: kind of creepy tbh​

She took a while to respond, with a couple aborted '…'s interspersed.

Unknown Number: Yeah, sorry, that's fair​

Unknown Number: Still good for 8?​

Me: Yup! Masks or nah?​

Unknown Number: Everyone else is fine without but you do you​

Me: cool. cya then​

Unknown Number: Ta ta!​

Ta ta? Who the fuck talked like that? Mystery person, apparently.

I put all that to the side and went up to my room to try and find something to wear out of my closet. I could go the cowardly route and make a different outfit for each thing I had scheduled for today, or I could take some time and devise an outfit that would fit for both.

Thirty minutes later I came down the stairs from my room to Sasha's craft room. She barely looked up until I'd set down the fabric scissors and held up the long sleeve shirt in front of myself.

"I made this into a crop top," I explained unnecessarily to Sasha as she stared.

"It looks like you cropped off a lot," she said with a hint of disapproval.

"It's fine, it's fine," I assured. "I'll be layering up." Kids younger than me were wearing worse anyways.

"Alright. Are you going out, or just getting bored with your wardrobe?"

"Crap, I forgot to say." I facepalmed. "I'm going to the mall at, like, five. I might not be back til nine but I'll be at the mall the whole time."

"Did you think about asking permission first, at all?" Sasha wondered. She leaned back from where she'd been sitting hunched over her work area.

"Sashaaa," I complained, looking at her with my best puppy-dog eyes. She just raised her eyebrows, which only encouraged me.
"Sashaa-aaa-aaa," I continued, hunching over a little with each exhalation of 'aaa's.

From somewhere in the living room, I heard Sawyer add his own, 'Sashaaa.'
God bless, Sawyer.

"It's fine," she said with a shake of her head.
"It's fine," she said louder, when Sawyer kept going. I snorted.
"As long as you're back before nine. You have your Wards phone now, so text when you're on the way. When did you need a ride over?"

"I was just gonna bus?" I said, lilting up like a question at the end.

"And you know how to take the bus since when?" She asked.
Since sneaking out at night to stalk the famously crime-ridden streets of the Docks? No, that wasn't a good answer.

"I mean, if you wanna drive me, sure, I just didn't wanna bother you."

"You aren't a bother, Marcie. Never say that about yourself."

Ugh. That hadn't been what I'd meant.

"Okay, whatever, just, like, don't be a mother hen about it," I said with a roll of my eyes. I caught her trying to hide a smile as I turned away. I left the band of chopped-off shirt on Sasha's work table, then I bounded up the stairs.

I still had fashion to create.


Weymouth Shopping Center was the big mall here in Brockton. There were a couple more normal sized ones with normal things like shoe stores and cheesecake restaurants, but Weymouth was the one with laser tag and a movie theater with those new plush seats.
I'd told Kid Win to meet me at the east entrance, but I didn't see him immediately and looked down to check my phone to see if he'd said he was here. Nope.

I paced a bit, then checked outside the doors just in case he'd decided to wait out in the heat. I caught him as he was approaching.
He was in skinny jeans and a V-neck, though to his credit the shirt was tucked in and just a plain color. He was blinking to adjust to the indoor lighting so he didn't see me for a second. I was pleased to see his eyes flick up and down over my outfit when he did find me.

I was wearing a newly-cropped navy long sleeve, a pair of loose hanging blue jeans, and a denim jacket that Sasha had charitably said I'd 'grow into' but that I'd picked out specifically to be a bit oversized. My hair was tied back in a pony tail with a black scrunchie, the strays were kept away from my face with a few glitzy black barrettes, and I had on a pair of fingerless gloves.
Last but far from least, I wore a simple black choker. That was where his eyes lingered longest.

I grinned.
And my power started rolling.

Lemon, Lemon, Clover.

God fucking damn it.
I hadn't suppressed a single roll since the PR event. That might seem crazy, and I guess it was a little bit. Part of that was luck that nothing that bad had happened, but most of it was just the churning in my stomach I got when I thought about how badly my head had hurt last time.
Still, I was not going to punch Kid Win in the face the first time we hung out out of costume. Especially since this might be one of the last few times we'd still be on good terms.
So I clamped down on the struggling mechanism in the back of my brain, and it quieted down enough that I could make my own introduction.

"Hey, Chris. Make a wrong turn, somewhere?"

He checked the casio on his wrist.
"I'm, like, two minutes late," he said with some confusion. I laughed.

"Yeah, nah, you're good." I started walking down the ramp and into the mall proper, and he followed.
"So, where to first? Hot Topic? Wet Seal?" I clapped him on the back as he took pace with me. "Or, no, you strike me as more of a Gap guy." I saw the flash of abject fear and then more general discomfort strike his features. That was all I was in it for, really, so I bailed him out.

"I'm kidding, I won't make you clothes shop. You look fine, by the way, did your mom help you with that one?"

"She might have told me to tuck my shirt in," he said, smiling slightly and turning away. He was blushing. Cute.

"Eh, you still get points for it." I stopped stock-still in front of one of the standing mall maps, forcing him to backtrack a pace after he'd carried forward.
"Still wanna show me that tech shop?"

"Sure," he said with a considering look. "That's not too nerdy for you?"

"It probably is, but I mean, we're probably gonna walk into the Yankee Candle, too. Doesn't mean I'm gonna buy anything."

"Yeah, alright, that's fair," he said with a shrug.

Once I wasn't actively bullying him, Chris kept up conversation pretty well. When we got to the tech store he explained some of the things in there, and I asked follow up questions and stuff. Some of it was actually pretty interesting, so I found myself engaged despite my layman's viewpoint.
The whole purpose of the shop was to showcase new tech innovations people had reverse-engineered from tinkertech. There were never many that were absolutely groundbreaking, but our cell phones could browse the internet three years earlier than on Earth Aleph, so. You know.

Yeah, it wasn't really my thing, but it was kind of fun watching him talk about something he was interested in. Sometimes when he talked about one invention or another he'd get all wistful, like he wanted to one day be one of the greats. I wasn't even really sure what Chris did, tinker-wise. Tinkers usually had themes to what they made. He'd made a hover board and a huge cannon. What was the common factor between a hover board and a cannon?

Eventually we got on the topic of lasers, which lead on to laser tag, which lead to me betting him a milkshake I could beat his ass in laser tag. You know, normal teenager stuff, right? I was doing this right, I was almost completely certain.


Laser tag was fun.

I'd pretty much gained back all my weight (plus maybe a little more, but Sasha said I was healthy and just too used to looking unhealthily thin, so we'll shelve the body issues for now) and exercise was pretty much always just a fun thing for me, now. There wasn't any more of the bone-deep structural pain from before Panacea healed me, or any of the general weakness that came with being underweight. I was healthy, happy, and primed and charged to kick ass at laser tag.

We did one-on-ones, deciding on a best of three beforehand. The first game I got a Clover, Bar, Lemon that served a verbal beating along with the electric one.
Lasers are electric, right? He'd just been talking about that.

The second game I got a jackpot on clovers, which was funny enough I let it roll. It got me out of the whole arena, got my equipment onto a kid who was waiting in line, and left the whole damn establishment.
By the time Chris had figured out I'd swapped out a body double, I was lounging on one of the couches outside the laser tag place with a soda.
He'd insisted that had to be a forfeit, but I argued him down to a draw.
The third game a Bell, Bar, Cherry played defensively while we traded smack talk, which lead into a Clover, Bar, Bell that would've made me crack up laughing if my power hadn't been in control.

It'd asked, smooth as all hell,
"So, the milkshake. One straw, or two?" and he'd been so distracted I'd shot him a dozen times and left to hang up my gun before he even knew what hit him.

The milkshake, in case you were wondering, had two straws.
I'd insisted on taking a picture with him while we ate it, and it was only after wringing out a solid minute of begging that I promised not to send it to Dennis.

After that we still had an hour, and even though we'd already eaten desert Chris suggested we get fries to make it a meal. Which, you know, best meal ever, right? Sasha certainly wouldn't have approved.

During the 'meal' I'd seen one girl who just seemed to be people watching. She met my eyes and winked, which was a little forward, but maybe it was more a 'go get 'im!' type wink.

After the fries (and onion rings. I was hungry, sue me) we spent time wandering around the different stores, peeking in some and browsing in others. Chris was seeming more comfortable around me in general, which I took advantage of by pulling him into Hot Topic. I figured it was a better bet than any of the more overtly girly destinations I could take him, and he didn't immediately jump ship so I figured my choice was good enough.
It was like boiling a frog, I figured. Don't immediately take the guy to browse sexy underwear, you gotta bait him into it with Bad Canary posters and sweaters printed with Tim Burton characters.
Not that I was going to shop for sexy underwear ever, ever. I'd considered it just to see his reaction, but, nah. Not me. Probably wouldn't ever be me. Gross.

We ended up parting at 8 cause I'd told him that was our cutoff. He told me he'd still meant to get some work done in his workshop, which was an unnecessary excuse to leave but one that flattered me. I could've just told him to screw off, but he had to be nice about it.

It was good, though, since I wasn't sure exactly how to phrase 'I gotta go see some different people, now, but don't worry, they're totally not criminals or anything!' in a way that left out the criminals thing and didn't make him feel like dog crap after our sort-of date.
I mean, my power had been the one to turn it into an actual real date, not me. I was probably smooth enough to come up with the line about straws on my own, but I wasn't sure I had the grit to go through with it.

It was 8:03 when I made my way back over to the dining area. It was almost completely empty at this point in the night.

The people-watching blonde girl from earlier was the one I saw first, sitting at a table with three other people. They were all my age or around there, which answered my main concern.
And, yeah, my main concern had been that the criminal element I'd be working with would specifically be an adult criminal element. Sue me for caring. I hadn't exactly gotten much info on any of this, up til now.

There were two girls and two guys present. The fit black guy looked like he was probably the oldest, maybe seventeen or around there. He wore a tight-fitting tee and a pair of blue jeans and seemed to know that he didn't need to put in any more effort than that.

The other guy, sitting to his left, was a lot smaller and probably closer to my age. He had effeminate features, but not like in a prepubescent way. Just kind of graceful. His hair was in these nice black curls that I envied immediately. He wore a pink V-neck one size too large tucked into black jeggings that he had very possibly pulled from the women's aisle. It was working for him, though. Expensive-looking sneakers, too.

Across the table from him was a kind of blocky-looking girl wearing sunglasses and a jacket despite being indoors. Alright, the jacket comment was a bit unnecessary, considering I was also still wearing my jacket, but the sunglasses were weird. She had shaggy auburn hair, and besides those things she was basically wearing the same thing as the big guy. Jeans and a tee, though both seemed to have some authentic, uh, weathering.
I wasn't sure if grass stains had quite made it into Vogue quite yet.

The people-watching girl with the dirty blonde hair also had a bunch of freckles, on closer examination. She was probably the best dressed, in a cornflower blue top with white lace visible under the wide collar. Her jeans flared a bit at the bottom, and I could see her toenails were painted cause she was wearing this pair of white sandals that I kind of wanted to own a little.
She grinned at me, and it was a good grin. I wondered if my power could copy it, or if my face was just too different. She would be, like, model pretty in a couple years. I wasn't sure if I had those bones.

I was just about to sit down, when my power kicked into gear.

ClickclickClickclickClickclickClickclick. Clack. Clack. Clack.

Bell, Clover, Clover.

No, no. I needed to… Not run away. From this. Clovers would make me run away. The bell would make me fucking set off a fire alarm or something to really nail things home.

I grit my teeth and tried not to glare as I felt a headache bloom.
It wasn't nearly as bad as it'd been last time at two.

On a whim and because I didn't want to commit much thought to anything right about then, I sat down next to the pretty boy, just to break up the gender divide.

"Sup," I greeted.

The butch girl grunted. Big guy said 'hey.' Pretty boy replied with his own 'sup.'

I assumed the blonde girl was the person I'd been texting, because she started with an air of authority.

"Hey. I'm Lisa. And it looks like we've got everyone here."

She didn't seem to be able to turn off the smile, cause it just stayed on her face while she talked.

"Boss man has been in contact with all of us to different degrees, but he's trusted me with getting this meeting together and sorting out the basic who's-who and everything. So, last chance for people if they want to preserve secret identity stuff. We're all money-motivated, here, and I don't think any of us are dumb enough to break the rules about that stuff, so I wouldn't worry, but…" She trailed off, eyes flicking to me and then to the big guy.

Sunglasses girl just gave a snort.
"Get on with it. I don't want this to take long. Give me an address. I'll show up when I need to. The end."

Address? From what Blondie over there had said, we'd all been given different amounts of information. I was beginning to think I'd been given less than most.

"Right, I mean, that's the thing, right?" The blonde girl, Lisa, looked once more at me and the big guy. I shrugged.
He folded his hands on the table, then gestured with one.
"It's fine, go on."

"Okay."

She breathed in.

"So, we're all capes with different levels of experience but a general common theme of solo work or just, ah, let's say work in different contexts than the normal 'villain team' stuff." She glanced at me at 'contexts.'
"We're basically just here to hash out the basics. See if we can work together. If we can, we get paid weekly on top of the jobs we get just to stick together. If it's a wash, whatever, but–"

"Pay's still the same?" the big girl asked, interrupting Blondie, who looked at her with pursed lips for a second before responding.

"Yeah, it's the same. Two thou' a month baseline, on top of pay for jobs and whatever else he's promised you." She glanced at everyone else besides me. "If you don't like any of it, you can pull out any time, but it screws over the rest of us. And I'm pretty sure some of us really need this."

"I don't have complaints," the boy next to me said, leaning back in his bench stool with his hands behind his head. He stretched like a cat, which pulled his shirt up against his chest to give an outline of his ribs. He caught me staring and winked, which was fun.
"I'm just here for the vibes. Pay's a bonus." He straightened up, then twirled a finger in the air. "As long as you all are entertaining, I'm game." The way he spoke was relaxed, unworried. He had the air of someone very comfortable and not at all stressed about meeting four strangers of dubious morality. Maybe I could emulate that.

"I'm just here," I said honestly. Two thousand dollars was a lot of money, but even I knew that two thousand a month wasn't actually that great compared to a proper salary. I supposed it might depend on what the jobs paid, if I actually cared about the money.

The big girl spoke up again.
"I'm good. If nothing changed, I'm good. I don't want to make nice and chat." The girl had crossed her arms, showing off the fact that she filled up her jacket sleeves a lot more than I did mine. Her leg was bobbing under the table, which made me realize mine was, too. I stopped, she didn't. She looked like she was a hair's breadth from just getting up and leaving.

Big guy cut in.
"If we can just get some basic stuff down? Phone numbers, names where it's comfortable. Lisa can text us the place we're supposed to set up at?"

"Yup," Lisa agreed. "I could add us all to a group chat–"

"Please don't," the guy to my right asked. He pulled out his phone, which was a beat up flip model that might've been expensive at one point but was now a bit outdated.
"It messes with my phone and that's a pain."
He started pressing buttons like he knew what he was doing. I'd seen kids in TV shows who were good at texting, and he was like them. I didn't know how it was even possible. Last time I'd picked up a flip phone I'd thought it was the worst way to arrange letters ever. His had more buttons than just a dial pad, but way less than a full keyboard. I would've wanted something with a keyboard if I didn't have a smart phone.
Two smart phones.

"Numbers, names, go," he said idly. Lisa rattled off hers, which he rolled his eyes at. "I already have yours, dumbass. The other guys."

The big guy gave his number, and then the girl gave hers with a grudgingness that made me think she might not give it again even if asked.
"Everyone knows my fucking name, though."

"Yeah, yeah," the skinny guy said.
Did they know each other?

"Rachel Lindt, for the unenlightened," Lisa shared. The name pinged something in the back of my brain, something from a newscast back in the darker times. I just put it into my phone along with what I was 90% sure was the number Rachel Lindt had given.
"Hellhound, according to the PRT."

Rachel growled. Actually growled, like a dog would. It was an apt name, apparently.

"Bitch." she ground out.

"Rude," the guy next to me said idly, not really paying attention. He glanced up at me.
"Hey girl, name, number?"
He batted his eyelashes, and I laughed out loud. Whatever had been going on between Blondie and Hellhound was cut off as they both looked at me.

"I'm Marcie," I shared, deciding what the hell, might as well jump in. I gave out my number. Rachel didn't seem to be writing anyone's down or anything, but she'd given one out so she obviously had a phone.

"I'm Alec," he offered, not looking up as he typed into his phone.

I got a text a second later on the new phone that just read 'alec here.' The others apparently got a similar treatment, because the big guy and Hellhound both checked their phones as they buzzed and chimed respectively. Hellhound looked up from the message like she'd been personally aggrieved, and the look she shot Alec could've curdled milk.
Maybe we hadn't all gotten the same text.

Blondie–Lisa–tapped the table with a knuckle to get people looking at her.

"Right, so, I can send you all an address. Boss is providing us with a spot to hang. Secret lair, or whatever, but it's just a boring building in the warehouses that used to be a metal shop. Cleaning's already been done and there's probably a card table and chairs and stuff, but proper furnishing will be our job." She leaned on the table a bit, getting more casual as she spoke, holding up her head with one hand on her cheek.
"If this is something we're all wanting to do, it'll work for a first meeting. Not pretty, but it'll work. We can sit down there within the next couple days and talk powers, structure, some basic teamwork stuff. Get pizza or something."

Hellhound grunted.
"I have dogs. It's safe for them?"

Lisa paused, then nodded. "Yeah, they should be fine. Not much there besides some dust."

"You've been there?" the big guy asked. He still hadn't given his name.

"Nah," she said, smiling while tapping her temple with a finger. "I just know."

"We'll have to talk about that," he said with an air of authority. He was the oldest one here, the one who looked most adult, but Lisa seemed to be trying to keep the reins of the conversation.

"Def. But, like, does tomorrow work? Thursday?"

Alec rolled his head back on his shoulders lazily.
"I'm free all day."

"Yeah, same," the big guy answered.

Hellhound just grunted, but it was an affirmative grunt.
"Ten or later."

"If you guys thought I was getting up before ten…" Alec said, leaning on the table with a grin as he trailed off. That time, he'd entered my personal space bubble with the lean. I wasn't going to lose that game of chicken, though, so I stayed still.

Big Guy nodded.

"We can make it a lunch thing. I'll bring pizza, you guys can text me what you want." He leaned back to look past Alec.
"Marcie? Tomorrow work?"

"Uh, yeah," I said, wondering how none of the four people here had to be in school. Were they all just going to skip?
"Yeah, tomorrow works."
I wasn't really projecting that air of confidence I'd wanted to come in with, but four new people was a lot to juggle. I tried to compensate with a slantways smile.
"So, we're starting a gang?"

Lisa and Big Guy frowned. Hellhound–Rachel–grunted, as seemed to be her standard form of communication.

Alec grinned. He smelled like green apple shampoo.

"Great," Lisa said, clapping her hands suddenly, which caused Rachel to turn and looked at her like she'd just punched an old person.
"So, tomorrow, noon, we'll sort stuff out. If any of you need a ride, the crosstown bus goes pretty close." She made to stand up, picking up her patterned cloth handbag as she went.
"I won't keep you all. Good talk, nice meeting," she continued, but Rachel had already stood up and started walking out.

I just raised my eyebrows and gave Lisa a thumbs up. She traded it a small smile.

"As the locals say," Alec started, putting his hands on the table. "Welp."
He pushed himself up and to his feet, pointing finger pistols at us as he walked backwards.

"... We don't say 'welp,'" I said after he was gone, faintly insulted.

Big guy just sighed, then stood up. Lisa was still standing there. I was still sitting, so I got up too.

"Good meeting you guys. I hope this can work out." He nodded at both of us, then turned to leave.
That just left me and Blondie.

"Welp," I said with a half smile, then turned to go. I heard her jeans swishing as she walked to catch up with me.

"Big guy won't like that you're a hero. Hellhound might freak, too."
I raised my eyebrows at her.

"Did your boss tell you that, or do you," I tapped my temple, "just know?"

"Column A, column B. I can guess pretty well what their reactions will be, but the boss told me about your thing. I think it's fine, by the way." She shrugged the shoulder with her pack, adjusting the strap.

I pursed my lips. "Is it gonna be a problem? Can you guess that?"

"We're gonna want you to commit a crime," she said, staring me down. "Nothing huge, but it'll need to make it public that you're done with the hero thing. Protectorate won't be happy, it'll hurt their image, but they'll let it fly without too much of a fight." She smirked. "Just a heads up."

"What are you, psychic?"

"Yup," she said with a grin.

I rolled my eyes. It was either a lie, or an oversimplification. Either way.
"Alright, then you know I'm not gonna, like, rat you out or anything. Just tell them that."

"Cause you're so against committing a crime?" She had that smile on again. I could just steal it off her face.

"Alright, you got me, I'm a hardened criminal lowlife just looking for an excuse. That work for you?"

She rolled her eyes, but we were at the door, and she opened it for me. She spoke after we were out in the warm night air.
"You joke, but that's not that far off from the truth. I can tell." She tapped her temple again, and then I was the one rolling my eyes.

"I get the sense that's gonna get old."

"Probably!" she called out, walking off with a wave.

 

[party hat girl]

CW: Coil, and all associated creepiness

He's listening to: Grieg.
—

Thomas Calvert sat at the desk in his office at the PRT building. It wasn't really his office, it was the one they let all their analysts use, but for now the door was shut and the atmosphere was mostly acceptable for his purposes.

In another timeline, he was in costume in a warehouse near his construction site, sitting in front of cluster of monitors and doing his general busywork. News, stocks, construction oversight. His base wouldn't be liveable for another several months, and until then he had to make do with a nondescript warehouse outfitted with the barest amenities.

In the first timeline, he'd taken up an offer to look over some power testing documents for a unique new cape that the Wards were in the process of onboarding.
Not entirely unique, the power borrowed elements from some others he'd read on, but the confluence was interesting. The child's insistence on referring to it as a slot machine was notable, but delusions aside, it seemed to have a fair bit of potential. She, a girl of not seventy pounds, had broken a grown man's ulna in two places when put in combat testing, without a Brute rating in sight. She'd correctly guessed the order of cards in a deck, won rock paper scissors a statistically unlikely number of times, and managed to steal a roll of bills from a trained officer while there had been no less than four sets of eyes on her.

She was far from consistent–the non-combat tests were about as likely to succeed as they were to spectacularly fail, and in all cases she sometimes deserted the testing environment entirely. But the inconsistency may be able to be ironed out, and even then, with the right support, her moments of blinding brilliance might well make her more than worth some time invested in nurturing her.

Perhaps some of his interest couldn't be categorized so thoroughly.
He was not typically one to act on hunches or 'gut instinct' or anything so nebulous. He preferred safe routes full of known knowns and as empty of unknowns as was ever possible. But he could admit in reading about her, in watching her testing videos, that he had been captivated by a certain je ne sais quois. Something in the way she moved, every so often acting with careful and practiced surety, yet between uses of her power floating as though adrift. Physically weak, yet with a tantalizing twist in her mentality just waiting to be unraveled and re-braided.
A weakness of his, perhaps. But it called to him.

He wouldn't invest too much in the way of resources, obviously. Not in timelines he planned to keep.
But what good was his power if he didn't use it to indulge himself, every once in a while?

Making a mental note, he closed the timeline where he'd stayed at his base. Nothing done there that he couldn't better do later, and the information he gleaned from his time in front of the monitors would be his to keep without any of the accompanying eye strain.

He split his evenings such that in one timeline he again sat in his warehouse lair as Coil, and in the other he was at home, preparing for a responsible bed time.

In the timeline where he was Coil rather than mild-mannered Thomas Calvert, he prepared five armed mercenaries and sent them to one particular uptown home.
He watched their movements from the body cameras in their armor. The quality wasn't incredible, but it was a secure connection with good uptime. The cameras were one of the many investments he had made in the interest of best leveraging his power. As all investments he made in that category, they were well worth his while.

Once the locks on the front door were taken care of, two of his mercenaries went up the stairs and into the master bedroom in order to subdue the parents. The other two turned down the upstairs hall to the right, opening the bedroom door with a construction paper rainbow labeled 'MARCIE.'

From the perspective of the mercenary furthest from the door, he saw a baseball bat fly into the head of the first mercenary's to enter the room, which then ricocheted off and into the head of the second. Despite the girl being about as heavy as a sack of flower and exhibiting serious muscle atrophy, they both crumpled like paper bags. How that was even physically possible, he was unsure. She didn't have any sort of Brute rating. They'd triple checked.

He heard the muffled shout of a child through the speakers.

"Home run!"

Coil sighed, mentally committing the men to more mock drills. He wasn't sure that sharper skills would have helped, there, but it couldn't have hurt.

The next soldier to enter had the girl closer than firing range and his gun in her hands before Coil could even process exactly what had happened. The camera tilted downwards at the sound of a shot, and the fourth man came in from the parents' bedroom to try and incapacitate her, gun leveled. A strike from the girl had the third mercenary's arm come up to redirect the barrel of the gun into his own throat. Coil winced as he saw the tinker tranquilizer sink into the man's neck. He crumpled immediately.
By the time the fourth mercenary had made it into the bedroom proper, the window was open and the child was gone.

A minute later and the house's burglar alarm was ringing. A few seconds after that, the fifth soldier, who had gone down to the main floor, crumpled to the side of a countertop with a sickening crunch. A splotch of something dark obscured the camera.
The fourth soldier came down to investigate, and Coil's last clear shot of the evening was of a young girl in an oversized T-shirt that read 'Got Milk?' holding a tinkertech rifle.

She fired a laser into the skull of his last standing man.

On the one hand, this was a disastrous outing and an embarrassment to both him and his forces.

On the other, he now knew for sure that he wanted the girl for his own.
How could he not, after a showing like that?


He found time for another kidnapping attempt in the middle of the day a week later. His mercenaries were in four different vans and had planned to box the car of the girl's mother in as she drove her charge home from a shift at the PRT. Before they could close off the traffic maneuver, though, the woman had changed lanes very abruptly. A moment later her car door flung open, and the girl escaped into a crowd.

Not necessarily a worse outcome, if it meant that the girl wouldn't be able to directly take on so many men at once and was thus resorting to evasive maneuvers.

Still, humiliating that one girl with a power as inconsistent as hers could escape his clutches twice in a row. That was a wound that would only be ameliorated by death or deference.
He had a preference, there, but if things took too long then he would have to settle for less.

The next attempt was a week and a half later. It wasn't every night that he could afford a timeline split or the forces required to host an attack.
Most of his efforts, it had to be said, were going into securing his foothold in Brockton Bay. It was a lesser jewel than Boston, but his relationship with Accord had evolved to a point where they both agreed the other was better appreciated from a distance.
Coil had his resources, and Accord and his contacts were still only a phone call away, but working up from next to nothing in a new city was laborious. He had at least twice as many plates spinning as someone without his power would, and it made for a lot of time that couldn't be spent on flights of fancy like seducing young Wards to a life of crime.

For the third attempt he tried another raid at her home in the dead of night.
This time, though, he decided to commit forty men. Not something he'd do if he planned to keep the timeline, but in this case it was warranted. Little mattered when the world ended in a matter of minutes.

His mercenaries approached from a wide angle using vans, and then closed in on foot from the surrounding neighborhood, hopefully giving very little chance for the girl to slip the net. She'd apparently been expecting them, which implied some level of clairvoyance not discovered in power testing.
Thus was the way of things. As with each thing he learned about the girl, this only deepened Coil's urge to get his hands on her power.

When they arrived the back door was open and her bedroom window was broken. He had his men fan out back into the neighborhood, with a few staying behind to search the home and secure the foster parents, who'd been woken up by their charge.
There were too many individual video feeds to keep track of every single one of his soldiers, so he had only the squad leaders opened up on the bulk of his monitors, the others relegated to a grid on a corner screen.
This meant that when things started happening, he didn't even grasp things fully until reviewing the footage after.

Two of his men had found her coated with dust and curled up within a hole in the drywall of the basement, hidden behind a stack of boxes she'd pulled in front. She surprised the two men by speaking their birth names in a different voice for each, presumably the voices of people important to the soldiers. Crude psychic warfare, but nonetheless effective; she toppled the first soldier into a pool table which knocked him out or killed him outright, and then she stole his gun and took out the second soldier. She went up the stairs then back down, picked up one of the merc's comms, and mimicked a call perfectly enough to draw the rest of the mercs out into the neighborhood. By the time they'd looped back around to the home, she was gone.

Better coordination could have avoided much of that, Coil would admit, but he was beginning to think that he just wasn't capable of pinning her down without getting lucky. He would have to try different approaches; If she wasn't able to be taken off guard, then the tried and true tactic of 'kidnap and interrogate/torture' wasn't quite feasible here.

The next week, a plainclothes mercenary approached Marcielle Gabrielle during a time both her parents were away. He already knew that she wouldn't answer the home phone now that she had a phone from the Wards, so he had instructed the mercenary to give her a cellphone. When he got word that it had been done, he called the phone he'd just given her.

He sat in his office in the warehouse, with his Tattletale to his right. Her hands were bunched into tight fists that he knew would leave small red crescents in her palms before they were done here.
The call came through on his computer, and he spoke.

"Bone Roller. It's good to finally meet." He struck a tone that was genial but not without mystery. His Tattletale had told him that she would respond best when she was curious.

"Hello to you, too, mystery caller. Is this your first time on the show, or have you tried to turn me to villainy before?"

He raised his eyebrows, then muted the microphone to sigh. Tattletale dutifully took the opportunity to say,
"Power use. Just push forward."

"Surprisingly astute," he said after unmuting the microphone. He gave his Tattletale a pat on the shoulder. She kept quiet.
"Does that mean you aren't at all interested? I'd hate to have you write me off before you've even gotten to hear what I have to say."

"If you hadn't noticed, I'm kind of spoken for. Sorry? But you'd have to have a pretty sweet deal. The Protectorate and PRT have resources, and they don't ask me to do stuff that'd get me tossed in prison."

"And you're happy with the Protectorate so far?"

"Dude, they got Panacea to heal me. I'm pretty freaking happy with that."

"The restrictions don't rankle? The testing, the PR?" he pressed. There was no point being elegant here; the timeline was destined to be closed, and his Tattletale could give him plenty of information from even crude methods.

"Testing was kinda dogshit, PR's giving me trouble, yeah. But like, the good outweighs the bad. I'm a good little girl scout, man. Who even are you?"
Tattletale leaned back in her chair and gestured that she had enough. He decided to let the conversation end naturally, though, because if he ended it suddenly then Tattletale would likely have a revelation about his powers. She'd done it in the past, and it took up so much of her attention each time. Best to just avoid that outcome.

"An interested party. One who expects your opinions to change quickly, once you get to know the PRT better." He paused, but she didn't reply. "You can keep the phone, Bone Roller. Consider it a gift. If you'd ever like to get back in contact, just give me a call."

"Yeah, I mean, okay, dude. Again, girl scout. Real true-blue hero, over here." In the corner of his vision, Tattletale rolled her eyes.

"Just keep it in mind," he said, and then hung up the call. He turned in his seat towards his Tattletale, who pursed her lips. As though she'd even dream of not giving him what he wanted.

She eventually capitulated, perhaps only to get this over with quicker. She was terribly predictable.

"The last part she was only barely convinced of," she said, crossing her arms. "Weak moral compass. possible sociopath."

"You're still reading up on those psychological papers, Tattletale?" he asked.

"Yes," she said, glaring at him. "Moving on–"

"Come now, pet," he said, injecting some danger into his tone. "Politely."
His Tattletale flinched. Then she continued, gaze shifting away, no longer glaring.

"She's not sold on heroism in general, it's just what she thinks of as the default path. If things get too frustrating and she isn't able to cope, she'll threaten to quit and then feel obligated to carry through with the threat when it comes down to it." She flicked her eyes back at him.
"I mean, that part's some speculation, but the general point stands. Bad temper, commits to things easily but doesn't hold the course."

Coil smiled at her, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his thighs.
"Alright, Tattletale. And anything else?"

"She says she hates her power but she doesn't, actually. Like she said, her main concerns are about safety from a legal perspective, and how much fun she's having." She scowled at the floor.
"Work against those and she'll be yours."

Coil leaned forward still, lacing his fingers under his chin.
"And her home life?"

She shook her head firmly.
"Don't know. Not enough information."

"Tattletale?" he asked, tone warning, pressing. She'd lied about such things in the past.

"Not enough information," she insisted. "She's being fostered, bonds probably aren't strong. Legal system would be a way to get at her." She put up her hands in exasperation, though she was still hunched over. "I don't know, adopt her yourself."

"Alright, Tattletale," he replied easily. "I believe you. If there's nothing else?" he asked, just to be sure.

"Nothing."

"Good. Good pet."

He ran a hand through his Tattletale's hair. Then he closed the timeline.

The path from there was relatively straightforward. Career sabotage was often easier done than said when it came to capes, who as a general rule had a knack for doing a bulk of the work themselves. All that he would have to do would be to mitigate her successes and accentuate her failures. A task he was uniquely suited for.

Every so often over the days and weeks he would take some time as Calvert to ask the girl for an impromptu meeting in an official capacity, under the guise of it being professional curiosity. He would attempt to get a handle on her personality, and she would cooperate for the most part. In one timeline she'd tripped him and then run away when he'd asked if she had time for him, which was humiliating, but he had ways to vent that stress that didn't involve putting himself or his ventures at risk.

He got a better understanding for what made her tick with his own observations and his Tattletale's help. The work he put into sabotaging her career was mostly rather subtle. He'd split the timelines during her first patrol of the boardwalk and chosen the timeline where she'd been more active because it gave him more to work with in alienating her from the PR department. That was slower going because he had less sway in that section of the PRT, but forcing Marcielle into a timeline where she sabotaged her own debut event had sped things along quite nicely. In the other timeline she'd been ineffably charismatic and showed off her power by kick-juggling a microphone. Things like that would be what he would prune, when he could. The more fun she had, the better she felt about her position with the Wards, the longer it would be before he had her working for him.

That was his goal, of course. He wanted her for the fact that she was useful, and because she seemed like a fairly easy target. Morally compromised, easily swayed, and powerful enough to be worth some effort? A sure investment, in his opinion, especially considering the synergy between his power and hers.
Perhaps she was a bit of a loose canon, but he held faith that he could temper her will. He'd get to her eventually.

The most concrete thing he did to work against her was to take a more active role in her power testing as Calvert. He had the freedom to offer his advice on a range of topics, and simply mentioning he had interest in her unique situation had gotten him the go-ahead to check through their findings and suggest changes of his own.

The addition of a Master rating was being considered due to a moment early on in testing where the girl had convinced all the staff present that the testing procedures as they stood weren't satisfactory. She'd suggested changes, offered solutions to some problems, and then left when everyone agreed that her points were valid and that they should take time to consider them. Later questioning of the researchers showed that the girl's arguments were logically sound and indeed spoke to some mechanics of scientific rigor that they found personally interesting, but that looking back they weren't sure they should have let her leave for the day and had mostly just been convinced of the urgency of it by her tone, body language, and general charisma.

It left definitions a little bit fuzzy. Technically speaking she could just be a regular human with high natural charisma, leveraging knowledge given by her power, and they could write it off as a Thinker rating. If she were a human Master, it certainly wouldn't be a directly mind altering power like was sometimes proposed for a modern definition.
So Calvert had countered that the PRT ratings as they stood described how best to deal with any particular threat, rather than any specific modus operandi on the power's part. Put simply, if Bone Roller's power gave her a superhuman ability to sway people to her side, then calling her anything other than a Master would be disingenuous.

He'd gotten his way in the end, cloaking his true purpose under the guise of playful intellectual debate with the head researcher.
The PR team had not been invited to that discussion; they would well know the damage even a Master 1 rating could do to a cape's reputation, especially when that Master 1 applied to humans.
Coil knew it too. That damage to her image was his express goal.

After things were done there, he'd taken the time out of his busy schedule to split timelines during her first proper patrol. A quirk of their power interaction was that he didn't need to interact directly with her in order to change what her power guided her to do between timelines. So in one timeline he stayed home, and in the other he went to watch his wall of monitors in the warehouse. By the end of the timeline he'd stayed home, Triumph had registered a formal complaint for misconduct against Bone Roller, and Coil's work was complete.

It was like taking candy from a baby, really. Without his intervention she'd likely still ruin her own career, just a little bit slower. As it was, he wondered how well he'd be able to assist her if they were on the same side. How well she'd do if he gave her the whole of his attention.

Two days later, after a disciplinary meeting with Bone Roller, Piggot had put herself under Master-Stranger screening. She suspected Bone Roller to have used her power to socially manipulate her into having sympathy for the girl, which was hilarious if only because it made him imagine Piggot having sympathy for anyone.
In her brief, though, she'd offhandedly mentioned that Bone Roller had threatened to quit. The girl had apologized and backed down after, but Tattletale confirmed for him that little Marcielle was, in fact, finally considering other options.

All he had to do was reach out and take her.


He set up his mercenaries along the patrol path for her patrol with Armsmaster. He had enough people working at the PRT and Protectorate bases that the scheduled patrol routes were available for him to peruse from the moment they were finalized. Armsmaster's patrol was a convenient choice because it meant that there wouldn't be accompanying PRT officers to deal with, and that separating the two would only require providing a distraction that Wards weren't cleared to engage.

His mercenaries were loaded into two different vans, one at one target, one at a target further along the patrol. The plan was to tell the first group of mercenaries to engage their target in one timeline, and fold that timeline if his attempt to get in contact with the girl failed. Split, tell the second group to engage and tell the first to move to a third location. Rinse. Repeat. Accord would have been proud.

He got her on the hook on his first try, though. The best laid plans of mice and men, he supposed. Altogether too often were they spoiled by little girls.

Their conversation was satisfactory.
More than, really, in the light of how little work he'd put into acquiring her. His plans for the girl were far from grandiose; his goal for tying together the younger loose ends of Brockton Bay into one convenient bundle had been ready for the last few weeks anyways, now that he had the young Vasil on board. Difficult, that one, but the carrots and sticks that Coil could provide on the subject of the boy's parentage proved to be the lever he'd needed to coax the boy out of hiding and into prospective employment. The young cape had said he would be happy just to sit around and play video games, but in Coil's experience that seldom held true for long.

The five youngsters would make a good enough radial group to his own mercenaries. Circus was skilled enough to work on her own in her one specific field. Chariot was difficult in that he wanted more action but was best suited to backline work, but Coil felt he was balancing that well enough. Trainwreck came from a different school of tinkering less useful for his organization at large, but he held the trainyard as 'territory' well enough. That, and his retainer was significantly cheaper than Chariot's. That damn brat ate up money like none other, though his results were admittedly worth the cost.

Overall, his plans were finally reaching a place where he could start making bigger moves. Tattletale's gang would help him secure his place in Brockton, and eventually they would likely be competent enough to prove as serviceable distractions for large chunks of the Protectorate. They would be the hand that caught the audience's eye, and his other assets would be the ones that hid the coin.

He smiled at his Tattletale as she sat across from him. She had, of course, been listening in on the phonecall. The shudder she'd given when he'd called her his 'little bird' had been well worth the glares he'd sent her way.
This was a timeline he had planned to keep if successful, so he'd been careful not to say too much to her that day, not to give any clue as to his power's nature. He was relatively sure she was still ignorant of that particular piece of information, unless her resistance to torture had made some dramatic increase in recent weeks.
One could never be so sure, and few hated him more than his precious Tattletale. She had all the reason in the world to work against him where she could, so he had to do his due diligence and not give her any undue temptations.

Enough to keep her pliable. But nothing that would come back to bite him.
For now, she was solidly his.

"Your thoughts, Tattletale?"

Her eyes flicked over him, like she did when she was taking in information. Trying to read him? She shouldn't waste her power like that. It would give her such a headache.
"She's interested. Her power only activated at the beginning when she ditched your guy. She meant everything she said. You knew the right buttons to press." She looked over to the door of his office, towards the warehouse proper and from there, the relative freedom he most times allowed her.
"That's about it. Can I go?"

"Not quite yet, Tattletale," he said carefully. He wanted to reprimand her for her skittishness, but there was time for that later.
"Tell me how you think she'd play with others."

"I don't know, I haven't seen enough from her. Going off that, and the stuff you sent me? Probably better than Hellhound, worse than Grue."

"Another Hijack, then," he mused.

"Yeah, probably. Maybe less money-motivated," she said, frowning. "You do want her on the team, then."
She'd figured out his plan to have her start a group a while back, and guessed most of his picks for it as well. He hadn't minded her knowing. It was a good reminder of her use to him, and keeping secrets from her was sometimes not worth the effort.

"Of course."
In his other timeline, the one where he'd held his first group of mercenaries back, he'd begun another conversation with Bone Roller, one that had started with her acting coy. He shut that timeline and again split, still speaking to Tattletale.
In one, he stood up, informing her they would continue the conversation later. He had better uses for his power and time than sitting here talking to Tattletale twice over.
In the timeline he was still seated, he took a folder from the top of his desk and handed it to Tattletale.

"The full dossiers on the three. Hers," he said, gesturing to the monitor that had been showing Marcielle, "is less than complete, but I'm hoping you can fill in the gaps."
He smiled wryly under his mask, and her lip twitched up into a small look of annoyance.
It was small moments like that in which he appreciated his Tattletale most.

"Their contact information is inside. Before you attempt to speak with Miss Lindt, check in with me. I hope to make use of the group's services by the end of next week." He patted the folder in her hands, which she hadn't opened up. He knew she was aching to read it all, so really, he admired her restraint.
"I trust you can handle this?"

She nodded.

He smiled.

It was good to have help you could trust.

Failing that, help that you could coerce was nearly as good.


—
(AN)
Tune in next week for Arc 2: Drawing Board.

 

[party hat girl]

She's listening to: Eminem.
—

I found myself staring out the living room window the next morning, just thinking.

I was sitting on the couch, and I had a cup of cold tea on the coffee table in front of me. Sasha had asked what was up and I'd just said I was moralizing. She didn't seem to think that a thirteen year old girl could have that much to do in the way of deep thinking, but she had still gotten me the cup of tea.

The main thing I was worried about was whether or not I was jumping into things too quickly. Shouldn't I be trying harder to stay a hero? It had to say something about my character that I was giving up on it so easily.

I mean, I guess I knew that about myself. It hadn't been as obvious after I'd woken up, but last year things had gotten… pretty dark, in my head.
The worst days in it all had been spent thinking about the world at large, the futility of it all. But I'd had plenty of spiteful thoughts about people in general, about people in specific. Newscasters, nurses, people I'd thought were my friends but who had stopped visiting after just two weeks. Family.

I wasn't a good person. I'd come face to face with that after being trapped in my own head for four hundred and thirty-four days. Got to know myself real well.

I wasn't a good person, but I wasn't living in a good world, either. The nice things that happened to me were because I'd gotten lucky. Sasha, Sawyer. Waking up.

The bad things that happened?

Those were just the default.

I brought a hand up to my eyes and found that I wasn't crying. I felt like I should have been, but then again, I was just kind of broken as a person.
That was fine. I couldn't help it. Couldn't change it.

Might as well lean into it.

I stood up and sighed.

I stretched my arms, left, then right. Across the chest, behind the neck, out and pinwheel. Foot to butt, grab ankle, lean forward. The other. Lunge left, lunge right. Ankles, calves. Touch toes. Stand up slow.

I popped my knuckles, I cracked my neck. And I put on a smile, just to see how it felt.

Felt alright.

So I decided to seize the day by the balls.


The Redmond Welding building was probably the sketchiest place they could have possibly asked to meet up at. It was this old brick building off in the unused warehouses over by the docks. The big metal door was so rusted it barely looked like it'd be able to open.

It wasn't a great part of town. The general lack of any kind of economic activity here had caused this area to stagnate and wither. Most of the buildings here were empty. Many of them had squatters.

I wasn't the kind of girl who'd be afraid to walk around this kind of neighborhood, though. I hadn't always been living in a cozy little uptown home with two nice, gainfully employed foster parents. This stuff was normal for me. So I looked like I fit in.
Blue jeans, black tank. I had a bulky brown canvas bomber jacket hanging off my shoulders just to keep it modest (that's a joke) and a thick choker of corded leather low on my throat. My boots were made for walking, and that's just what I'd done.

I mean, I'd bused over. But, you know.

The big doors were probably meant for trucks or something, so there was a more serviceable people-sized door a bit down to its right. The door looked newer than the rest of the building, with a shiny silver lock and handle that stuck out compared to the rest of the dull brick and rusted metal.
The door was unlocked, and it opened into an area about as large as the building's whole footprint. Like Lisa had said, there wasn't much in it besides dust and some gutted machinery.

A sketchy set of metal stairs spiraled up in one corner, leading up to a loft. I heard some movement from up there and the lower floor looked pretty inhospitable, so I let the door slam behind me and made for the stairs.

The second floor was refreshingly clean compared to the first. There wasn't much up there, but it had good bones.

There were about thirteen, maybe fourteen feet of clearance between the ceiling and the weathered wood floor, but the rooms that lined the middle section of floor on the left and right only had ceilings that reached about half that high. Those rooms and the hall between them took up the center third of the room, while the open area I was standing in took up another third. I could see there was another open area on the other side of the hall, but I was being greeted by Lisa, who was sitting on a metal folding chair next to a card table in the middle of the room, and managing to make it look comfortable.
She was in a pair of blue jeans and a white crop top with frilled edges. Her shoes were a pair of Legend branded sneakers, and her hair was held back in a blue claw clip. Good color coordination. Being polite, I pulled out my earbuds as she spoke.

"Heya, Marcie!" she greeted me, gesturing with her waterbottle. There was a window that took up the wall from the right of the stairs all the way to where the rooms started where there was an air conditioner replacing a couple panels of glass, but it wasn't doing that good a job of keeping the area cool. Probably because all the heat from the warehouse was coming up through the stairwell.

"Hey," I said, not moving to sit down. I did drape my jacket over the back of the chair next to her, though. Too warm for fashion.

I wandered through the hallway, looking inside each room. The walls were all solid sheets of wood bolted together and to the floor by brackets. It was probably supposed to be moveable, but it would work pretty well for long term if people weren't making too much noise.

Or, scratch that. The lack of a ceiling probably made for bad noise cancellation as a baseline.

The rooms were all about ten by ten feet. Enough for a bed, a dresser, a desk maybe, but not too much else. Still, it was only a little smaller than my bedroom, and they did all have a big chunk of window to look out through. Shit view, but it was natural light.

The middle room on the right was a bathroom. Why it was the middle one I couldn't say, but it had a shower cubicle, a toilet, and a counter and sink, all of which looked new. The bathroom was actually kind of huge compared to most I'd been in. I guessed that was just a function of it being the same size as all the other rooms.

"We could fit a way bigger shower in here," I mused out loud.

"That's so weird, I thought that too," Lisa called from where she was sitting.

The final area was a full kitchen, with enough space on the side for a table or even a couch. I was envisioning a seating nook with a TV. Flat screen, nice chairs. Damn, a sound system would be cool. We could buy all that stuff with our criminal money.

Or I could. The rest of these people might just be fine with living over a spider farm and talking at a card table. I didn't know them well enough to say.

The kitchen had an oven with a stovetop, a dishwasher, a sink, a toaster and microwave, and a refrigerator. It was fully kitted. It was the same width but about half as long as the first open area, but even with half as much room it was still spacious, maybe twenty feet from the hallway to the wall behind the sink.

"Good bones," I called out, opening the fridge. The only thing in there was a half-full 32-pack of water bottles.
I snagged one of those and went back to sit down next to Lisa.

"I know that wasn't a 'bone' pun, but it should've been." Lisa took a sip of her water. "You really didn't have much time to internalize it all before flying the coop, huh?"

It took me a second to realize what she was talking about.
"The Wards?" I ran a hand through my hair and scratched at the back of my neck. "I haven't flown the coop yet."

"We'll take care of that," she said with a shrug.

"Yeah," I said ambivalently. "I never really liked Bone Roller anyways. Figured it'd grow on me, but it hasn't yet."

"Thinking of going with something new? Bone Roller might still work for a bad guy."

"Eh, I dunno." My mind immediately went to Roulette. I could. Nothing was stopping me, really.
Somewhere in the process though, I think they'd ruined it for me. Damn.

"Had one you liked?" Lisa guessed. Or maybe it wasn't a guess, if she was 'psychic.'

"Yeah." I nodded. "Roulette. It's funny cause–"

"Cause your power's a slot machine, okay, yeah, an inside joke." she said, sitting up with a sly smile. I raised my eyebrows at her.

"Yeah, that."

She hummed, tapping at her jaw as she lounged on her rusted metal folding chair. There was no way the way she was sitting was comfortable.
"You really see it in your head like a slot machine?"

I nodded. The power testing people had been curious about that too.
"Yeah. Like it's sitting just behind my eyes. Kind of whirring and chittering away, when it kicks on."

"Huh."

I decided I might as well return the question. Make conversation.

"How does your power work? I don't need too many details, if you wanna keep the air of mystique," I assured.

She furrowed her brow, as though she hadn't really thought about it much before.
"Kinda like it's whispering in my ear. Not literally, but just like, another train of thought that I can tell isn't my own. If that makes sense?"

"Yeah, okay. That doesn't get annoying?"

"I can keep it shut up, usually. Kinda have to, cause I get headaches from overuse."

"Really? Mine does it the opposite." I gestured at my head. "When I make it stop working, I mean. I can do it once or twice, but more than that and I'm gone."

"That's frustrating." She frowned. "Your power would be way better if you could just pick and choose what rolls you took. Guess that'd take away the randomness element, though."

"Can't win 'em all," I said, not really invested in the topic. I pulled out my phone to check the time.
"Where is everyone? We said noon, right?"

"Yeah, we did. Rachel just doesn't care about being on time, Alec wants to be fashionably late, and Grue is waiting on pizzas. They'll get here soon."

"Grue?" I asked.

"It's his cape name. I could tell you his real name, but he'll do that today and I don't want to be that guy."

"Oh, yeah."
I just took for granted that she knew he'd share his name today. Seemed about right. On the topic of names, I asked,
"Rachel is kind of notorious, huh?"

I'd read up on Hellhound after getting home from the mall the night before. She was apparently a dangerous sociopath with multiple dead bodies to her name. Seemed pretty far out there for someone I'd be working with.

"Don't believe everything you hear. There's mitigating factors, I think. She's not like, a serial killer, so don't feel like you have to watch your back. She's a tough customer, but if we can work with her then she'll be our muscle. And we need that."

"Muscle?" I wondered. Rachel certainly looked strong.

"Don't get me wrong, you're good. But we need someone who can take on the likes of Hookwolf or Lung, if it really got down to it. I wouldn't want to go up against either of them, but her dogs would make me feel a lot more comfortable with the idea."
That made an amount of sense.
I wasn't sure I'd be able to take out the guy who could turn into a living blender or the actual literal dragon man, even with good rolls. If Hellhound could stand toe to toe with them, then dealing with some minor personality issues would be fine.
Not that I wasn't curious what my power would do if I were faced down with one of those guys.

"That's not something we're planning to do? Fighting Lung or Hookwolf?"

She laughed.
"Don't sound so disappointed. Most cape violence is between villain groups. That's just a matter of demographics. If we're going to be stealing stuff, there's good odds that the stuff we're going to be stealing belongs to the E88 or the ABB."
She preempted my next question with a, "and, yeah, burglary is probably going to be the bulk of it, but we'll talk about that stuff later."
She glanced at the time on her phone.
"Oh, hey, that should be Alec."

I looked at my own phone–the one I'd been given by the soldier dude, which I was mentally referring to as the 'crime phone.' The Wards phone I'd left at home, on the off chance they could trace it. I wasn't sure they had any reason to or that they even could, legally, but I didn't think it was worth risking.
It was 12:07. Apparently Alec's version of 'fashionably late' was pretty polite, because I heard the door to the warehouse slam a few seconds later. The metal spiral stairs creaked and I saw a head of black curls ascend. He waved as he entered the room.

"Hey there, girls. Jesus, I'd thought it'd be cooler in here," he said, leaning his head on the AC unit and pulling the collar of his shirt wide.
He was in a grey tee with the neck scissored off so it scooped down almost as low as the pocket it had on the front. When he tugged on the collar it probably left his chest mostly bare, but I didn't have a good angle to see. His jeans were black and ribbed, and he had on pair of black high top converse. He had his phone in one hand, but that arm was just hanging limply as he tried to cool off.

"Did you walk?" I wondered.

"Yeah, I figured, hey, it's not too far. Bus would take longer anyways." He straightened up, brushing hair away from his face, but that was just so he could turn his back to the AC unit. "What is it, fucking ninety degrees?"

"Eighty four, but it's humid," Lisa provided.

"God I hate the weather here."

He was still trying to cool down when Lisa sat up suddenly a couple minutes later.
"Pizza's here," she said with a grin, gesturing to her phone where it lay on the card table. Her phone buzzed a second later. What a showoff.
"He wants a hand with the door, BRB," she said, in real life. Like she spoke the letters out loud.
She stood up and skipped down the spiral stairs fast enough she might've gotten dizzy. I watched with some bemusement, and Alec dropped himself into the chair she'd abandoned.
He picked up her phone, but was foiled by the lock screen.
"Damn," he said, then put it down. He scooted the chair a bit and then leaned backwards, propping up his shoes on the folding table.
"So, eh, what's your deal?" he asked, while I heard Lisa and the big guy downstairs talking.

"I'm Bone Roller," I said with a shrug.

"Shit, the goth girl?" He slid his legs off the table and leaned towards me, elbows on knees. "I should've seen it earlier, you're so right. You look taller in person."

"I'm probably a little bit taller," I said, a little bit defensively. "Is my costume really that goth?"

He waved his hand in a so-so gesture. "Eh, close enough. It's in the ballpark. A couple more chains, some spikes and studs. Could get your lip pierced." He pinched his lower lip with thumb and forefinger, pulling it forward. "That's a great look, mask wouldn't hide it." He seemed to consider for a second. "Just said 'fuck it' to the whole hero thing?"

"Yeah, pretty much." That seemed like an accurate description.

Lisa came up the stairs and pulled out the chair to my right without comment, which made Alec frown.
"You're boring," he said as she took her phone from its spot in front of him.

"You're looking for a reaction. I'm not going to give you the satisfaction," she said, raising her eyebrows like 'so what,' unlocking her phone and scrolling through it.
"Rachel will be here in the next few minutes."

"Cool," the big guy said as he came up the stairs with less hyperactivity than Lisa.
"I didn't get a text from her about pizza, but I got the veggie, the meat lover, and a pepperoni sausage, just to cover bases. I asked about pineapple as a topping, Alec, but they said they had a religious exemption."

It took me a second to register what he'd said, then I sputtered out a laugh. He said it with such nonchalance.

"Little John's Pizza Barn, eh?" Alec read off the pizza box. "I'll keep them in mind," he said, a lazy smile tugging at one side of his mouth.

"I'm Brian, by the way," the big guy said as he set the pizzas on the table. "Sorry I didn't say last night, I was still weighing options."

I popped one box open and helped myself to a slice of pepperoni and sausage goodness.

"It's a big decision," Lisa assured him. "I think it was kind of a leap of faith the boss was hoping for. It's not like we're going to try and go after you or anything."

"Yeah," Brian replied. He looked down at the pizza boxes.
"We don't have napkins or plates, do we." He frowned. "I can run and get some, if you guys don't mind waiting?"
I looked down at where I'd already bit into a slice. Guy's too good for some finger food, huh?

"I don't mind," I said, looking at him as I licked off one of my fingers.

Lisa snorted.
"There's basic stuff in the kitchen. Paper towels. Uh, third cupboard from the left, above the sink." Lisa already had a piece in her hands, too.

We'd all had a slice or two by the time Rachel got there. It was pretty quiet, mostly just the sounds of eating. I was just wondering why my power hadn't gone off yet when I heard scratching footsteps come up the spiral stairs.
Two dogs came up first, both black with brown markings. One was more compact and had a shorter face, the other with a longer more approachable one. Both had leashes held by Rachel Lindt, alleged sociopath and murderer.
The dogs looked happy enough.

"Sit," barked Rachel before she'd reached the top of the stairs. The two dogs sat.

Rachel was in a tank top and combat pants. And god, did she fill out that tank top. I wondered briefly if she or Brian had powers that helped them get jacked, or just powers that necessitate they get jacked. They both looked like they put in some effort.

"I need a place to put the dogs. Basement's fucked."

"One of the rooms is fine for now," Lisa said, gesturing to the hall. "Just pick one and it's yours."

Rachel grunted. "Come," she told her dogs, and they followed her as she lead them into the first door on the left.
"Stay," I heard her say, and she shut the door behind her with a click.

"They'll be fine just sitting in there?" Alec asked around a mouthful of pizza. Rachel glared at him, kicked one chair out from under the table, and sat down.

"Yes," she answered, picking up a piece of meat lover and starting in on it. She didn't seem like she was going to elaborate. Alec just moved back to eating.

Lisa gave her some time to eat and the rest of us to finish. I'd eaten four slices by the time we were done which was a lot for me. I wasn't even sure if Panacea's tweak to my metabolism still applied. Was this just what puberty was supposed to be like?

Rachel wiped off her hands on her pants after finishing off her first two slices, but she'd already piled three more on a napkin in front of her. Just to claim them for herself, apparently.

"Where'd you get those?" she asked, pointing to the water bottles in front of Lisa, Brian, and I.

"In the fridge, other side of the hall," Lisa provided. Rachel just stood up and stalked off to get one.

When she'd sat herself back down, Lisa started things up.

"So, I should start by saying that the sign on bonuses for each of us are in the basement, along with a key to the building." She looked at us each in turn. "The money's two thou, like the monthly, but we'll still get the two thou again at the end of the month. That timer starts as soon as I tell the boss we've got a basic game plan for how we'll operate. He'd prefer that be sooner rather than later, and there's a casual deadline of this weekend, which is when he told me he might have the first job for us." She was seated a bit further from the table than the rest of us, which meant she didn't have to turn her head as much to look at us all.

"We should probably talk about powers first," she started, and speak of the devil and it may appear, my power started rolling. That blessed silence could only last so long, huh?

Bar, Bar, Clover.
Was it worth the headache, just to avoid the clover? No, probably not. Besides, two Bars meant a good first impression, right?

I stood up from where I was sitting and started consolidating the remaining food into one box.
In a sudden tone like a television announcer, I said,

"Most fucked up power wins a banana pepper!"

I was holding one of the neon green veggies between my thumb and pointer finger. I looked around at my audience and they looked back, reactions mixed between perplexed, hostile, curious, and entertained.
"Brian makes sensory deprivation smoke. Useful as heck, but boring." I tossed him a sauce cup from off the table, which he caught with an amused expression.

"Rachel powers up canines, but contrary to popular belief she doesn't actually brainwash them." I tossed her a sauce cup, and she was ready for it. She scowled as she caught it, but that seemed like her normal expression. "Badass, but surprisingly wholesome."

"Lisa is the world's greatest detective! She can learn your darkest secrets and often does so on accident, but it's only as bad as the people she's around." I tossed her the sauce cup underhand, and she almost looked surprised when she caught it. "Spicy, but still not quite there."
I spun on my heels, turning to Alec with a finger pistol and a banana pepper.
"Alec, though!" I flicked the banana pepper into the air. He blinked, leaned back, and then caught it in his mouth.
"Well, that's his to share," I finished with an exaggerated shrug. Then I scooped up the stack of pizza boxes and headed off to the kitchen. My power cut out in the middle of the hallway, but I continued walking even as I heard someone clapping. Someone else joined in the clapping, but it was a golf clap.

I put the full pizza box in the fridge, then set the stack of empties and crusts (Alec wasn't a crust eater, apparently) on the counter above the cupboard that held the trash can.
I wondered what about Alec's power was so fucked up. It was kind of messed up that my power had passed the ball to him like that.

I handed a water bottle to Alec as I sat back down, which he cracked open and drank from. The stem of the banana pepper was sitting on the card table in front of him.

"Great performance, Marcie," Lisa said from my right. I grinned at her. "But you didn't explain your own power."

"To be fair, I didn't explain Alec's, either." I frowned. "Uh, to be clear, Alec, I don't actually know what your power is. Kind of curious now, honestly, but eh."

He leaned forward and set his bottle down.
"You show me yours and I'll show you mine," he said with a smirk.

"It, uh, doesn't really work like that for me," I said with an awkward smile. "I can't really choose when it turns on. It kind of just does its own thing. It's good at keeping me safe, but beyond that it's hit and miss."

"Huh," he said. "Cool." He pointed a hand at Brian, and then curled his fingers inwards. Brian, who had been taking a drink from his water bottle, suddenly started spluttering. Water dripped down his chin, and Alec had on a shit eating grin.
"I do that," he said proudly. I looked between him and Brian, who was patting himself down with a few napkins. It had to be said that the wet shirt was far from a detractor to his appearance.

"You make people choke?"

"Eeeh," Alec creaked out, waving a so-so gesture. Then the gesture turned into a flick towards me, and I felt my arm spasm. I looked down at it, then back up at Alec with an expression of incredulity.

"Your super power is making people twitch?" That had to be the shittiest power I'd ever heard of.

"Twitch, sure," Alec said, shrugging. I looked to Lisa, who was frowning, and then to Rachel, who looked bored and annoyed, eyes flicking between all of us as she hunched over her pizza hoard.
"Twitch, then jerk, then move a bit. Then move a lot."
He held up both arms with his wrists limp like a dangling puppet, lolling his head to the side to make eye contact with Lisa.
"Then I've gotcha."

Understanding, a chill went down my spine.

"You're a," I paused for a second, "a human master?"

"Yup," he said, hands back in his pockets, tilting back in his chair. The picture of nonchalance. "Real scary. Mondo fucked up." He raised his eyebrows at me. And I recognized in his eyes something that I'd seen in my mirror one too many times.

A dreary, overcast resignation.

My power started rolling, rolling, rolling.

A Cherry, Bar, Clover. I internally scowled, because I really had a way I wanted to handle this. I didn't want to be defensive or evasive. He deserved not to feel shitty about himself.
So I clamped down on my power until it stopped moving. My left eye twitched with the pain, but one suppression was old hat at this point. I wanted to be able to handle this my way.

I grinned.

"That's cool as hell." I leaned toward him in my seat. "They gave me a Master one rating, you know? But it's just cause sometimes my power does mind-screwy stuff. How long does it take? Just a few or like, a bunch? Do you feel what they feel?"

Alec blinked. Then he smiled and leaned towards me. He still smelled like green apple shampoo, even though he also smelled like boy from all the sweat. So, gross, but actually not that gross.
"Yeah, it can take hours if they're kicking and screaming. Less if they secretly want it." He smirked, and I heard Lisa clap her hands behind me.

"That's all we needed, thank you, Alec. If we can get back on topic?" She looked to Brian, then to Rachel. "This is about team comp. We're going to be doing burglaries, mostly, some hit and runs. We need to hash out structure, basic game plans. Some of us probably have places they'd rather be?" She asked, looking at Rachel. Rachel, of course, grunted.

"You keep skirting around it, but we need leadership." Brian leaned forward, hands folded in his lap. "Right?" He looked at Lisa. "If we're doing this, then we're going to do it properly. I don't want to go in half-cocked and get taken in on our first job." He sighed. "The boss said you wouldn't be in charge. That you're just coordinating." He gestured to the rest of us. "We can vote on most things, but when a situation gets hairy we need to be able to fall back on one person who we know won't lose their head."

Lisa didn't look happy with the way he'd called her out, there. I'd assumed she'd be in charge just from the way she'd been talking. She had an information advantage, it would even make sense for her to take the role.
She visibly swallowed a lot of her frustration, and gave a performative shrug.
"Yeah, sure. I'm not gonna lie and say I'll keep my cool all the time. I was actually thinking I'd do better if I just hung back here, you know, the gal at home base, feeding you info, keeping things on track."

"Fuck that," Rachel said suddenly, slapping a hand on the table. "If this is getting split five ways, you're getting your hands dirty." She glared at Lisa, then at me and Alec, too, daring us to object.

Frankly, I didn't want to be on the other side of her ire, so I didn't object.

"My power isn't exactly great in a direct confrontation," Lisa said warily.

"You'll need to figure it out," Brian said. "I have to agree with Rachel." Rachel turned to look at him, looking surprised.
"If you're getting the same pay, you should be there on jobs. Marcie called you a detective? I'm gonna guess and say you'll still need to actually see the clues."
The way he spoke was firm, but final. I was getting the feeling that he'd be able to steamroll us in any conversation just by merit of being big and confident.

"That's… accurate," admitted Lisa, looking a little cowed. "But I'm no good in a fight,"

"Which can change. I was actually having some thoughts about stuff like training we should all have." Brian pulled out a pocket sized notebook and set it on the table.
"I'm only good in a fight because my power gives me an edge, and because I work at it. Not having a power that helps there isn't a good excuse."

"He does have a point," I found myself speaking up after him, getting a betrayed look from Lisa for my efforts. I just gestured to Brian and Rachel.
"None of us are Brutes, but you two clearly put in the effort." I gestured to myself. "My power works better when I'm fit. So I'm also trying." I shrugged. "I'm just kinda tiny."

"You'll get there, I think. It's hard to put on muscle at your age," Brian offered. I gave him a small smile.
Alec trailed a groan off into speaking.
"Rrrrrrright. I'm not working out. But I'm chill with being in the middle of things."

"Have you gotten in many fights?" I wondered.

"Not really, why?" He raised a single, pencil-thin eyebrow at me.

I gave a tight smile. "Being able to at least run turns out to be pretty important."

Lisa let out a long sigh.
"Right, so, we should all exercise better, cool, whatever. That doesn't matter right now. We just need to know who's going to be in charge." She gestured to Brian.
"And Brian wants that to be him."

"I didn't say that," Brian objected, but Lisa just tapped her temple. Brian's look got darker, Rachel looked like she was getting tired of the back and forth, and Alec just looked annoyed. Tensions were rising, and as it often did when that was the case, my power started rolling.

Tiktik tiktik tiktik tiktik, tchak tchak tchak.

Bar, Clover, Cherry.

"Alright, alright." I stood up. "Let's take a breather. Five minutes, I'm gonna get some air cause it's hot as fuck up here. After that we can put names in a hat, or something, but if we're gonna bite each other's heads off this isn't going to work."

I made my way down the stairs. On my way down I heard Lisa sigh and explain, "That was her power. But she's right, let's all take a minute to cool off." I heard a chair scoot back, and then a 'come' and the scratching of paws on wood a few seconds later. I was in control of myself in time to make the decision to hold open the door for Rachel. She glared at me and knocked into me with her shoulder as she passed.
Not appreciated, apparently.

I leaned back against the wall of the warehouse, standing in the little slice of shade provided by the building. My bare arms scraped against the texture of the brick a little, but it wasn't altogether uncomfortable. It was hot inside. Not quite as hot as out here, but at least outdoors there was a bit of a breeze.
I leaned my head up against the brick and stared up at the sparse clouds.

Hopefully Brian and Lisa had reached some sort of agreement by the time I came back up.

 

[sicilian]

This story blows my mind. It was subtle at first, but it's really an interesting power.

And Coil is scary in a social way other than as a blunt precog machine. I really like his depiction.

(Coil is dangerous and subversive in a way he isn't in Worm. Worm makes him feel like a one trick pony: precommit with an if-then tree a d you can take him.

This Coil sabotages careers, amplifies Thinker advantage, exploits Power-based randomness, Meets people in person to understand them better than they understand themselves. And he's still twisted. Danger danger danger.)

 

[party hat girl]

This story blows my mind. It was subtle at first, but it's really an interesting power.

And Coil is scary in a social way other than as a blunt precog machine. I really like his depiction.

(Coil is dangerous and subversive in a way he isn't in Worm. Worm makes him feel like a one trick pony: precommit with an if-then tree a d you can take him.

This Coil sabotages careers, amplifies Thinker advantage, exploits Power-based randomness, Meets people in person to understand them better than they understand themselves. And he's still twisted. Danger danger danger.)

Click to shrink...

Aaaah, you're so kind!
Yeah! Coil is a character I think about a weird amount. There's seeds of all this in Worm, but in canon he ends up being more 'Bond villain pastiche' because Taylor needs an immovable object and that's the role he serves in the greater narrative. I dig that, it's what we love about Worm. But thinking about how he would operate without Dinah as a crutch got me interested in his character. And, yeah, I really wanted to lean into those warning bells while writing the interlude, so I'm glad you understand

 

[Lavenderpuffle]

I love how this story explores the other side of powers in Worm. It's always the antagonists who have the wonky but powerful, self brain-fuck kind of power so it's such a new perspective for Marcie to have to deal with these drawbacks and mental issues while trying to be a decently good person.

 

[party hat girl]

CW: Medical trauma, PTSD, touch aversion.

She's listening to: Björk.
—

When I came back up the stairs, it was Lisa standing in front of the air conditioner.
"Rachel will be five minutes, she's letting the dogs stretch their legs."

I hadn't asked, but good to know. I decided to reply with my own non sequitur.

"We're gonna have to fix the heating up here pretty soon. Like, number one priority." I looked to Brian, Lisa, and Alec in turn. "It's only gonna get hotter."

"What a miserable place to live," Alec said, deadpan. He was leaning back in his chair, hands in pockets and feet tilting himself back and forth. He was just kind of staring up at the ceiling.

"Not local?" I wondered.

"Nah," he said, but he didn't elaborate. I half expected Lisa to offer an answer for him, but she was just slumped over the AC unit.

We sat there in awkward silence.

Rachel got back a couple minutes later, lead the dogs back to the room she'd left them in before, and sat down without a word to a non-canine.

"Can we get the fuck on with it?" she asked after a second of silence.

"Yeah," Lisa said, straightening up and stumbling back into her seat. "Yeah, let's." She had one hand at the bridge of her nose, her eyes scrunched up, but she composed herself after a second and smiled.

"Seniority," she said, as though it were some great philosophical revolution.

"For leadership? I'd hate to burst your bubble, but–" Brian started, but Lisa cut him off very vocally.

"At-at-at! Lemme talk. The one with the most experience should be in charge. I won't complain about that." She looked expectantly at Rachel, Alec and I. "How long have you guys been doing cape stuff?"

Alec stopped his rocking. "That's a messy question."

"Just, number of years since you first went out to do cape stuff. Easy answers only, don't need details," Lisa pushed.

"Four years," he said with a shrug. Four years?

"Just a month," I admitted. "I mean, I've had powers a lot longer, but I was…" I trailed off. "Not using them." I finished dumbly.
Lisa moved right past that and looked at Rachel, who scowled and hunched in on herself.

"Doesn't matter. Don't want to."

"For what it's worth, I don't want it either," Alec provided. "Just give it to Brian, he's clearly jonesing for it." He was hunched over the table now, practically laying half on top of it as he waved vaguely at Brian.

"Well, you have seniority on me." Brian said that with faint surprise. I was a little shocked, too. Alec had been doing this since he was ten or so, unless he was older than he looked. "But it's been two years of consistent paying jobs for me. Not all in Brockton, but some, so I know the cape scene. I can handle myself in a tough situation, and I know when a fight isn't worth it." He'd crossed his arms, and he was looking at Lisa.
"How long for you?"

"Just a year," she said in a chipper tone, putting her hands in her pockets and leaning back in her chair til its front legs left the floor. "Well, if Rachel and Alec don't want it, I guess it looks like that settles it. Damn."

She didn't sound that put off about it. I gave her a quizzical look, but she didn't meet my eyes. Had she know that suggesting that would leave Brian the leader? 'Probably' was my guess. She'd somehow managed to lose the argument and still make it look like she got her way. That was… impressive, if only for how petty it was.

"Soooo," Alec started. "Is this a, you say 'jump,' we ask 'how high' kinda deal?"

"Would that be a problem?" Brian asked with a frown.

"Nah, I'm chill." Alec put both hands up lazily, his face still plastered to the table. "Get paid either way. And, hey, you know." He sat up to level Brian with an impish grin. "I respond well to a strong hand."

Brian clearly didn't know what to do with that. His lifeline came in the form of a scowling dog girl.
"Rachel? That works for you?"

"Yeah, whatever. I still get to tell you to fuck off when I want."

Brian frowned, opened his mouth, and then apparently thought better of it. Lisa summed up what he must have been thinking:

"Good enough!"
She clapped her hands, which again annoyed the shit out of Rachel. That time she actually let out one of those growls. Lisa barely looked like she'd noticed.
"There's still an elephant in the room!" she declared. Brian put a hand to his brow and let out a sigh.

"What could it possibly be, Lisa?" The way he said it, it sounded like he had just then resigned himself to her as a person. A kind of, 'so this is who she is' moment. I'd seen it in others' eyes many a time.

Lisa, for her part, just gestured to me.

"I'm not that fat," I complained, trying to deflect. Why–oh, right, the whole 'hero' thing she'd talked to me about last night. That.

"Want me to spill the beans?" Lisa asked.

I would've answered, but my power started rolling.

Tchktchktchktchktchktchktchktchk. Tik, Tik, Tik.

Bar. Bar. Bar.
Brrr-ring!

Jackpot.

Another Bar jackpot?
Well, fuck. I didn't want to brainwash these nice strangers, but I didn't want to waste such a good roll, either. Plus, they were villains so maybe they deserved it, and I did want to solidify my position on the team…

"I'm a hero who wants to quit and pursue a life of crime." I shrugged lazily, tilting my head. The way I was holding my eyes was different. I could feel it. My eyebrows slightly higher, lids a little less open than normal. It was such a subtle change, but I didn't have anything better to focus on when I was locked out of moving how I wanted.

"So yeah. I barely thought through joining up with the good guys, and they got boring and really annoying. I'm not a good person, and I'm just looking for something to do with my time." I snorted. "I don't think my power is really built for non-violence, either. I kinda constantly worry about accidentally hurting someone, so I guess I just need an outlet." I put my hands up in an exaggerated shrug. "So, yeah. I guess I'm Bone Roller. But screw that shit."

I wasn't looking directly at Alec, but I saw his hand come up for a high five. My power puppeteered me to return it, and it was a choice high five. Top ten, solid smack.

"Preach," he enthused.

"Okay," Brian said. His arms were crossed. "I can… buy that. You know our faces, which I'm not a fan of, but we know yours, too, and there's rules about that kind of thing." That was the second time the 'unwritten rules' had been mentioned. A dumb name for them, really, when you could read about them online. "I don't think you're dumb enough to rat us out on purpose. Did you bring anything that could be tracked…?" He looked like he wanted to believe me, but was struggling with his own skepticism.

My power was still in control as I pulled the phone I'd got from the merc out of my pocket and set it on the table, and then stood up to pull my pockets inside out. "I'm not stupid, yeah. Here," I said, picking up my jacket and tossing it to him. He looked a little surprised, but he caught it. "Check. No wires, no trackers." I sat back down, stretching my legs out under the table.
"Just a shitty person."

Brian did go through the pockets of my jacket, which felt like a violation. My power still had control and I felt trapped.

"Here's to shitty people," Alec said with a smirk, holding up his water bottle. I quirked an eyebrow at him–one eyebrow, I couldn't do that without my power making me–and picked up my own water bottle, tapping it against his before taking a drink.

My power relinquished control after I set my water bottle down. I glanced at Lisa, who was frowning, and Rachel, who was visibly thinking. Brian stood with a sigh, and then circled the table to hand me back my jacket.

"Sorry to be suspicious. I just have a lot riding on this. You'd be fine if we don't give you info about the first job until it happens?" He set a hand on my shoulder, which seemed forward to me, but I still looked up at him and nodded.

"Yeah. That's chill."

"Alright. I hate to do that, but…" He trailed off. I shrugged my shoulders, and he moved his hand.

"I get it, don't sweat it," I gave him a reassuring smile. He nodded, biting his lips and breathing in, then let out a breath.

"Alright." He circled back around to sit down again. He looked at Lisa. "If that's everything?"
Lisa grinned.
"Pretty much!"

"Then let's talk about basic structure."

The following conversation was more or less just Brian spelling out the basics of what a job might look like, asking some clarifying questions to Lisa every so often. He seemed to have set his grievances with her aside, and she had mostly done the same, though I couldn't quite be sure if she was being less snarky than normal with him, just from lack of experience with her.
We'd be doing burglaries and corporate theft, which meant a lot of breaking in to places and hauling papers. Lisa explained that any equipment we needed for a job would be provided by the boss for free, within reason.

Brian sketched out a rough outline of what a break-in might look like with us; Rachel uses her dogs (I still wasn't sure on her power, but gathered that her dogs got strong rather than her herself) to get us into a building and distract, while we load things up in duffel bags. Lisa provides advance warning of any threats, and me and Alec play interference. Brian lets us escape under cover of darkness, rinse, repeat. It seemed like a pretty good plan for something he'd just made up on the spot, so I was enthusiastic about it.
Lisa was visibly uncomfortable with the thought of being in the action, but freely admitted she'd be more useful that way. Rachel got really annoyed at the suggestion that we might ride her dogs, but Lisa had cut in to make us shelve the issue for later, which everyone grudgingly agreed to.

Alec didn't contribute much to the conversation, rather choosing to slouch back in his chair and pull out a handheld game. It was probably somewhere around the half hour mark where I leaned over to see what was up on his screen, that Brian declared we'd probably gotten all we would get done today.

"Sorry," I said, blushing a little for having prompted that.

"It's fine. We can't sit and talk about this forever. Half of the problems we'll run into are going to be stuff we couldn't ever foresee, anyways. We just need experience together, and hopefully the boss realizes that and doesn't ask us to do anything too risky for our first job." He'd filled out several pages of his little notebook at this point, but he shut it and stuck it back in his pocket.

"It shouldn't be too bad," Lisa offered.

"Good," Brian said with some finality, which made Alec look up from his game.

"Does that mean we're done?"
"Yeah, I think so." Brian was standing up, prompting Rachel to do the same.

"Coolio," Alec said, tone laced with irony. He slid to his feet, shut the screen of his game and stuck it in his pocket, and then stretched out with a groan.
He caught me staring again, but I didn't balk.

"Anyone want an icee?" he asked, but he was looking at me specifically. "Figure I need to cool off."

I shrugged. "I could go for an icee." I looked at Lisa, who glanced between me and Alec and then shook her head.

"No, not touching that," she said, looking at Alec, and then to me. She leaned in to me and added, "You shouldn't either," but it wasn't quiet enough for Alec not to hear it. He laughed, and I raised my eyebrows at Lisa.

"You got something to share?" I challenged. But she shook her head.

"Nevermind." She grabbed her bag from under the table and pulled a strand of sweaty hair away from her face. Then she looked back at us once before turning to follow Rachel down the stairs.

"Sorry, but I'll have to pass," Brian said, gathering up the empty water bottles and unused sauce cups off the table. "I've got studying to do."
Was he in school, or wasn't he? How was he here if he had studying to do?
I figured it was just a white lie to get himself home faster, and I couldn't begrudge him that.

"That's chill. More icee for me, then," I said, grinning at Alec.

"There's a gas station like three blocks down, I passed it on the way here," Alec said, putting his hand on my back and pushing me towards the stairs. That was forward, but I wasn't going to complain about a cute boy being forward.
"That's cool. If you think you won't melt on the way?" I asked.

"Nah, it's chill, it's on my way home anyways," he said, taking the stairs behind me.


"So, Bone Roller, huh?" he asked as we started down the sidewalk. The sun was obnoxious, but I had accidentally forgotten my jacket in the loft, so at least I didn't have that burdening my shoulders.

"Yeup," I said, humoring him. "Bone Roller."

"What's that like?" he asked, putting a hand up to shield his eyes from the sun as he checked a road sign.

"Dunno, honestly. I've had a couple patrols but they're either boring, or something happens and I get in trouble for it." I sighed. "I'm supposed to do a PR thing this weekend, show up at a school or something. That doesn't sound fun to me, so if I'm an official villain before then that'd be cool."

"Official villain?" he said, some laughter reaching his bland tone. "What, like with a social media announcement?" He held up his hands in two Ls like a camera frame. "Hey, guys, Bone Roller, here! I'm gonna go rob a bank!"
He said it loudly, but there wasn't really anyone around.

I laughed. "Why not?"

He slowed down his pace for a second. "Yeah. Yeah, okay, so, you've got a budget of fifty bucks. And a camera guy. Let's blue-sky it."

"Blue-sky?"

"Like, in your ideal world, how's it go?"

I thought for a minute.
"How much does fake blood cost?"
He laughed out loud.

"Wait, are you coming out as a villain, or staging your own death?"

"Isn't that better? Like, I stage my death, and then the next day there's a suspiciously similar villain robbing the bank." I struggled not to laugh as I spoke.

"Wow. That's beautiful. I dunno where you get fake blood, but count me in."

"Wait, really?"
It'd been a hypothetical, but he seemed really enthusiastic about it.

"Yeah, really." He looked at me with a smile that inched up one half of his face. "Imagine you get on your phone in the morning, check your sites, and boom. Local Ward dies of fucking blood disease. Next story, new villain in town: It's Bone Roller with a mustache!" He cackled, and I joined him.

"Yeah, we can have fun with it," he decided, pulling a wallet out of his back pocket. He fished through it for a second, then handed me a fifty dollar bill. "There's your budget, director."

I took the bill with a grin.
"I have no idea where to get fake blood, though."

"Think miss know-it-all would know?"

"Lisa?"

"Yeah, her."

"Worth a shot," I mused. On a whim, I sent a quick text off too her. My phone was already dying, which was annoying.

We got to the Cumby's a minute later, and we both sighed when we got into the air conditioning. Alec even did this little spin-stretch as he raised his arms.

We both had our hearts set on blue raspberry for our icees, but Alec convinced me to switch to cherry lime so we could swap when we got bored of our flavors. He paid for both which I didn't object to (he clearly had money, and it cost, like, a buck anyways) and we went outside and sat in the shade of the building on a concrete retaining wall.

About a minute in to my icy my phone buzzed. I set down my cup, checking my phone to see that Lisa had replied with just a link that opened my maps app.

"Oh, Spirit Cape has it year round. That's cool."
That would be the costume retailer that had evolved from Spirit Halloween. Cape groupies and super fans were a big enough audience they could keep the stores open all year, and just add in Halloween stuff around October.

"For fake blood?" Alec asked. I nodded and picked my drink back up for a sip. It greeted my mouth with raspberry goodness, and I looked over to see that Alec had swapped our cups and was now drinking the cherry lime from mine.

"Oh, you shouldn't have," I said with mock sincerity.
He just smirked and leaned towards me. Close.

His fingers were cold when he tilted my chin up, and he tasted like cherry lime.

I blinked, dumbfounded, as he leaned back onto he heels of his hands, looking me up and down.

"I saw you staring at me a few times. Figured I'd shoot my shot."

I floundered to find something to say, and the blessed chatter of my power filled my brain as it provided its advice.

Clutter-clack, clutter-clack, chunk, chunk, chunk.

Bar, Cherry, Bar.

I stared blankly for a second more, then tucked a strand of hair behind one ear. "I just wasn't expecting it, is all. Nobody's ever kissed me before," my power admitted for me. My eyes glanced towards him and then away, and I could feel a blush on my cheeks.

"That seems hard to believe," he said with a smirk. "Didn't think you were gonna be all bashful about it. That's fun."

Fun? For a certain definition, maybe.

I let out a nervous chuckle, then took a sip of my raspberry drink. The swallowing motion felt foreign to me when it wasn't me doing the swallowing, the flavor somehow more sharp.

"I didn't hate it," I spoke, meeting his eyes only briefly. And I mean, well, sure. I'd been too surprised to really enjoy it, either.

"Good to know," he said with a languid shrug. "Want more?"

My power let go of me without answering, which was at once a blessing divine and a curse most foul.
My blush was reaching my ears when I croaked out an unintelligible noise.
God damn it. What happened to being cool, suave? He just kept looking at me.

He snorted.

"Dork."

Then he reached towards me again, and I nearly knocked over my cup with a spasmodic movement that didn't even have any purpose.
He kissed me again, and he still tasted like cherry lime, but his lips were warmer and I was expecting it so I felt more. It was like sparks were going off in my brain. My eyes had closed, so I hadn't seen when his arm reached around and touched my neck which–

Bar, Lemon, Bell.

–I didn't like, at all. My arm jerked and the drink cup toppled off the concrete blocks and onto the sidewalk. A hand went to my neck and I shied away, curling in on myself, which felt like exactly what I'd wanted to do but never would've had the courage for.

To his credit he'd stopped touching me, though I wasn't sure if it was because he had icee on his shoe or because I'd flinched away. My power didn't have me look at him as I spoke.

"Sorry," I got out quietly, a hand running over the lower part of my choker. "Not there."

My power let go of me several seconds later, and I stole a glance at Alec. He had one foot crossed over the other knee, and he was brushing at the toe of it idly.
He stared at me for a moment.

"S'fine," he eventually said with a shrug. I tried to understand his expression when he said that, because it didn't look any different from before we'd kissed. The same eyes, the same mouth, the same shrug.
"I get it."
He said that, but I doubted he did.

"Sure," I said, feeling empty.

"Should've asked if you had any, ah," he waved a hand. "Underlying issues. It's like playing roulette, with capes." I didn't know what he meant by that, but I didn't ask. He went on.
"If you still want to try and, ah, work through it," he said, leaning forward off the retaining wall and standing up. "You have my number."

I could smell something antiseptic. I looked around, but couldn't see anything to cause it.

I let out a shuddering breath.

Alec was putting in earbuds as he walked away. I wanted to ask him to come back. To kiss me again, because of how nice that had felt. But I didn't want him to touch me. Didn't like it when anyone touched me, really. Why should this be any different?


A time later I picked up the drink cup Alec had left. It was all melted, just some blue juice in a cup. I stared at it a few seconds, then stood to toss it in the trash can by one of the gas pumps.
I left the other cup where it had fallen.

—

I sat in the living room with a cup of tea I'd made for myself.
One of Sasha's candles was burning. It smelled like lemongrass.

I was listlessly scrolling through my phone when I got a notification. Patrol with Miss Militia in thirty minutes. I sighed.
I didn't want to. I loved Miss Militia, I wanted her autograph, I wanted to talk to her and compliment her costume. But I didn't want to.

I wasn't going to be a hero at the end of the week. That was fine, that was good. It's what I'd committed to, and I felt better about it than the alternative. But I just wanted it to be over with.

Sasha came into the living room with her hand bag and a smile. She stopped in front of the rack of keys when she saw me sitting on the couch.
"Marcie? You've still got patrol today, it's on your schedule. With Miss Militia, remember?" It took her a second and then she approached, her skirt swishing in my peripheral vision.
"Honey, is everything okay?"

"Yeah," I said, looking up at her, setting my phone down. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just lost track of time, I guess."
She looked down at me with concern and maybe some suspicion. I'd said I was hanging out with friends, today, and she'd let me go without too much argument.

"Did something happen?" she asked.

My power started rolling. I felt tired enough that I welcomed the excuse not to act for a bit.

Clover, Lemon, Cherry.

I stood up and pushed past her, jostling her with my shoulder like Rachel had done to me earlier. I wouldn't have been able to do much to move her even a month ago, but I was a healthy weight, now. My power used that new strength to be rude to Sasha.
"I'm fine. Just moody," I said it like a euphemism. "Gimmie a sec, I need to grab my stuff."

"Marcie…" Sasha objected weakly, but she didn't have the power to stop me as I went up the stairs.
I didn't have the power to stop me, either.


I didn't bother changing out of my sweaty tank and jeans because I knew I'd be getting into my costume. I just packed another change of clothes into my backpack and trudged down the stairs.
Sasha didn't look like she knew what to say, which I was totally fine with because I didn't want to talk.

She broached the subject in the car, where I didn't have the option to run away.
"Marcie, honey, if you ever want to talk about anything." She glanced at me for a second, taking her eyes off the road, which she never did even if we were at a stop light. "And I mean anything. Even if it seems dumb."

I sighed. She'd asked.

"What was your first kiss like?"

She let out a small laugh, then smiled faintly. "Is that what this is about?" She hummed to herself when I didn't reply.
"It was nice, I suppose." She trailed off for a minute before picking back up.
"It was Sawyer, actually. We went to middle school together, and he'd taken me to see a movie. He had on a button down shirt and he kept on tugging at it like it was trying to strangle him." She had on a fond smile and a faraway expression.
"Why? Did something happen?" she asked, again glancing at me even though the car was moving.

"Nah," I lied. "Just thinkin' about boys, is all."

"Someone catch your eye?" she asked.

"Yeah, a couple," I said, shrugging exaggeratedly.

"A couple, hmm? Don't go breaking any hearts, now."

"What's so wrong about that?" I asked, looking at her with a playful grin. She laughed.

"Boys have feelings too, even if they don't always show it. You have to be just as careful with them as they should be with you."

I frowned, thinking back to Alec's expression.
"Alright, yeah. No heart-breaking for me."


I found Miss Militia in the Wards H.Q. talking to Aegis. She looked like Miss Militia, my second or third favorite hero.
Aegis was in full costume, but he was visibly coming off of a patrol, his gloves laying on the table next to where he was sitting. He'd unclasped his mask, so he just slid it off when he saw it was me who had set off the 'Masks On' buzzer. His hair was sweaty underneath, but he seemed happy to be there.
Damn, wished it were me.

Space warped and I saw Vista fast walk from her room to the elevator in about three steps. She waved at me as she passed.

"I'd stop and chat but I'm in a rush! Go kick ass!" she said, which Miss Militia furrowed her brow at. I wasn't sure where the line was for what language was appropriate or not, but 'ass' seemed to be in a grey area.

"Bone Roller, good to finally meet you," Miss Militia said, standing up from where she'd been sitting on the table next to Gallant. She extended a hand, and I took it to shake. I noticed the green blur of her power flickering around various sheaths and holsters she had on, from hip to thigh to chest. Neat.

My power started rolling, because this was Miss Militia, who I'd idolized all my childhood, and I wasn't allowed to have nice things.

Flutter-flutter-flutter-flutter, clack clack clack.

Clover, Clover, Clover.

Goddamn it.

So, I had to weigh my options, here. On the one hand, a jackpot of clovers would be awesome because it'd mean I wouldn't have to… exist, in the wider world the rest of the night. I'd probably end up back home with nobody any the wiser. I'd already suppressed my power once today even if it'd been a while since, and I didn't want to have to do it again. That, and there was the chance that the clovers would make me fly the coop in a way that made things worse, not better. Who knew how long the escape would last.

So I clamped down on it. It hurt, but it was bearable. I cursed my power internally. Externally, I winced and rubbed at temples.


"Ow, christ. It's good to meet you too, Miss Militia. Sorry, uh, power weirdness," I waved a hand but my eyes were squeezed shut. Miss Militia, Miss Militia. Patrol. Right.
Damn, I wished I'd remembered something for her to sign. The poster would be good, but… Actually, I'd left the poster in my room last time. It would still work.
I looked up at her, and saw she'd put her hand down. I'd forgotten to shake. That'd been rude.
"Do we have time for you to sign a poster for me?" I asked, figuring I might as well double down on the rudeness.

She raised her eyebrows, what might have been concern turning into what might have been amusement. Hard to tell, with her lower face covered in the stars and stripes.

"Poster? Sure. Where's it at?"

I walked to my room and came back with the yard-long poster roll. I hadn't actually opened the tube up yet, so it was cool to see the thing. Miss Militia signed it with a white marker we had on hand for tours, and I rolled it back up and put it in my room.


After that rocky start, patrol wasn't too dissimilar from the one I'd had with Armsmaster. The motorcycle was standard tech rather than tinkertech, but the PR photo would probably come out just the same. Miss Militia was polite but didn't make too much conversation, and we didn't run into any crime that either of us needed to deal with. It was another 5-7 shift, so we weren't really even looking for crime.

… So why the fuck was I doing this?

Right, because I hadn't found a creative way to quit yet. I sighed, the breath in and out lost to the guttering sound of the motorcycle underneath me.

I didn't want to be this close to Miss Militia, but at least there were two costumes between us.

My mind started wandering to things from earlier in the day, and I found I wasn't really able to disentangle all the thorny feelings of the afternoon. I wanted to just go to bed and have sleep sort things out.

We rolled back around to the PRT building at seven, and I was out of costume and showered by 7:20. Sasha was in the car, but I only gave her an exhausted, "hey," before collapsing into the front seat and reclining it as far as it went.
Sasha didn't comment on the relative danger of being that reclined, she just slowed down to a few miles per hour below the speed limit.
I only realized I was asleep when I felt Sasha reaching over me to unbuckle me. I jolted awake and nearly smacked my face into her head. She straightened up from where she was standing outside the open passenger door.

"Don't," I started, grabbing at my stomach.

I didn't have a way to finish that thought.

"... Just don't," I got out weakly.
I unbuckled myself on my own and left a mute Sasha in the garage.

Bed was good. Bed was nice and comfortable and alone.

Sleep lead to dreams, though what I dream of I cannot say.

 

[Lavenderpuffle]

I can't tell if her powers reflect some kind of hidden desire or a good outcome, or if its actually truly random. I am very intrigued

 

[party hat girl]

She's listening to: Bryan Scary & The Shredding Tears
—

Things felt better in the morning.
Seriously, a lot better. I don't know what I was on last night getting so glum about everything. I just needed some sleep in me, that was all.

Brian texted at about ten o'clock to let me know that 'the big day' was Friday night, and that we'd get together in the afternoon for 'party planning.' He was using all this veiled language because our phones probably weren't secure, which I thought was pretty fun. I texted back to ask if I should just tell my foster parents it was a 'sleepover,' and he sent back an affirmative, along with a sidebar about how the AC at the loft was getting looked at and that there'd be a proper unit installed over the weekend.

We hadn't discussed the habitability of the loft much, but I was glad that he had it in mind. As I'd said, it had 'good bones,' but the lack of AC and any comfortable furniture made it less than desirable as a hang out spot. I didn't know what proper gangs of parahumans were like, but I had an image in my head of expensive couches, flat screen TVs, and glass tables to snort cocaine off of.
Yes, it was a very specific image. Don't blame me for having an imagination.

I'd also gotten a text from Alec. It'd been a link to an article about a folk tale and its various retellings, along with a short message.

Alec: https://commons.wi… [link]
Alec: this u?​

I'd skimmed through the article. It was a folk tale about a woman or a girl who wore a ribbon around her neck to hide the fact that she'd had her head chopped off. She eventually gets intimate with a guy, who takes off the ribbon and causes her head to topple off.

I'd tried to think of how to respond for a long while. Eventually I just settled on,

Me: yeah, pretty much
Me: is that okay?​

He'd taken a bit to reply, too, but I got a text back while I was doing my schoolwork.

Alec: totally.
Alec: I can be gentle ​

I wasn't really sure what to do with that.
I hadn't really been trying to lead him on or anything. I'd figured he'd be weirded out already. I mean, it was nice that he was still interested, it was really flattering. I'd never had any attention from guys, not before the 'incident' and certainly not after. I'd had friends who were boys, but they were just, you know. Boys. Not guys.

So having positive attention was nice. An ego boost.

But I didn't want… whatever had happened the day before to happen again. I should have been inured to the embarrassment, to the humiliation by this point.
Frustratingly, I apparently wasn't.

The whole question of 'intimacy' was something I could either try and parse out on my own all careful-like, or something I could just roll with and see what worked, whatever might happen.
The way I approached life in general, that second approach sounded a lot more appealing than the first.

So I scrolled through the list of emojis for a while until I found ones that I liked, a little yellow thumbs up, and a smiley that looked like the 5 on the pain scale.
That expressed my emotions perfectly.

Chris had also been texting me. He'd sent me a sweet little 'I had a great time tonight' message the evening after our date, and we'd been texting a little since. He'd told me to listen to some music so that was what was filling my earbuds. It was alright, but a little weird. Some of it was pretty great, but I felt like it was too whimsical for me.

I didn't know what to do about Chris, either. He was nice, but…
I thought back to Alec leaning in to me, and shook my head to forcefully clear our the thoughts.

Schoolwork was boring, so when a fourth person started texting me I took it as a sign to just drop it for the time being. Who knew having a phone was so much work?

This time it was Lisa.

Lisa: Hey you know you left your jacket here, but you and Alec left your money and keys too
Lisa: They're still there just in the basement kind of behind some bottles on a workbench
Lisa: [Media Attachment 109 kb]
Lisa: On that note: you're 2k richer! want to go shopping?​

Riiiiight. The money. How had I forgotten about two thousand dollars? For that matter, how had Alec? He'd said he was there for the vibes, which was pretty true for me too. I guess it hadn't been on my radar. Forgot it somewhere in the haze of heat and tension.

Me: uhhhhhhhhhh sure. it's hot AF out I'll be mega grody
Lisa: I can drive! I have a car.
Me: do you need my address or do you just know?
Lisa: Let's preserve the illusion of privacy. Send it to me?​

I sent her the address, then bit my lips, thinking about what to wear.
I interrupted the musing when I remembered I should tell Sasha I was going out. She and Sawyer were alright with me leave the house, they'd said they'd wanted to give me my space, but I was supposed to tell them when and where and who and blah blah blah. I had a phone now so they were less anal about it.

Little did they know, I actually had two phones. That made me at least 50% more safe, for sure.

Sasha was understanding but told me I should change into something more presentable, which I rolled my eyes at. I wasn't going to go out shopping in a white tee and gym shorts. Those were home clothes.

My real outfit was a white blouse and cargo shorts. It's a really important distinction. Sasha laughed when I showed it to her, so at least the joke landed. The blouse had swooshy glossy fabric and a high collar, which was good because the cargo pants were khaki which forced me into the only brown choker I had, which I'd already worn yesterday. That would've been a fashion faux pas, and I preferred my fashion pas to be entirely authentic.
Brown boots, white socks with frilled tops, and on a lark I went for a white hair band and put my hair up like I did as Bone Roller, minus the grease. If anyone asked, I'd say it was an homage.

Lisa rang the doorbell instead of just texting me to come outside, which lead to her meeting Sasha. I'd scrambled to get down the stairs to try and prevent it, but Sasha had gotten there first.

"Afternoon, ma'am," Lisa greeted politely, hands folded behind her back and bouncing. She was in a burgundy sleeveless blouse that brought out a little bit of red in her hair that I hadn't noticed before. She had a couple gold bangles on each wrist, and beneath the denim capris her shoes were a different pair of white sandals than she'd worn at the mall, chunky ones with a short platform heel.

Sasha wasn't letting me out, one arm on the door blocking my way through.
"Afternoon. You're here to pick up Marcie?"

"Yup! I'm Lisa." She held out a hand with the palm facing downward, which Sasha shook.

"Would you like to come in? I've got some juice or milk."
Of course she'd offer that. Like Lisa was four years old or something.

"Nah, we've got shopping to do," Lisa replied easily. I didn't want to shove past Sasha, but I wished she'd get out of the way.
"We should be back by six-ish, maybe seven."

"Alright, well, I won't keep you, then. You could come by for dinner after, we're always happy to have company."

I internally groaned.

"Oh, that's fine," Lisa declined, thankfully. "I've got some leftovers I gotta get to." She held out a hand to me, and I took the opportunity to duck under Sasha's arm. I didn't grab Lisa's hand, though, because it seemed patronizing to hold hands. I wasn't a goddamn baby.

Lisa's car wasn't in great shape. Its bumper didn't match the rest of the car, the tailpipe was rusted to shit, and the model itself was pretty far out of date. It had a winch to lower and raise the windows.
The inside was pretty clean, though, which was a pro in my book. I'd always hated messy cars ever since my mom started being the one to drive me around. Dad's car had always been like this, clean of crumbs and trash and with a little pine tree to keep the air fresh.

I reached under the passenger seat for the bar to pull it forward like I always had to. Lisa got in the driver's seat after me.

"She seems nice," she said, smiling as she turned the keys in the ignition. "Seatbelt," she said, and I scowled. "Not going til you put it on." She tapped her temple. "I know every way this thing could go wrong, and not wearing a seatbelt? It's just dumb."
I acquiesced after a few more seconds of glaring.

"You can read the car's mind?"

"I don't actually read minds. Greatest detective, remember? It's more about reading environmental clues. People are actually harder for me to read than things are," she explained, pulling us out of the driveway.
I wondered how old she was, because she didn't look legal driving age.
"Fifteen," she said, reading my mind. "I have a learner's permit, technically, but my power makes driving pretty easy, and talking my way out of a ticket even easier." She waggled her eyebrows at me, which made me laugh.
"Oh, I was thinking about it, and I think that faking your own death is actually a pretty good idea." She had her eyes on the road, but her know-it-all smile was still on her face. She liked showing off, very clearly.
I wished I could do that with my power. It never cooperated so easy.

"I'm taking it you didn't learn that from Alec."

"You asked where to get fake blood, it's not a huge leap. On the topic of Alec, though." She started turning her head to look at me, and my power started rolling.

TchktchkTchktchkTchktchkTchktchk, Clunk, Clunk, Clunk.

Lemon. Lemon. Lemon.

Ding Ding!

Jackpot.

Why, power? Why? Why now? Why not when I needed it?
I didn't want to fucking murder Lisa (that was my assumption about what a triple lemon would do) so I clamped down on it without hesitation. The throbbing in my head wasn't so bad.

"Huh," Lisa said, considering. Her brow furrowed a bit as she watched the road. "Let's not talk about Alec, let's talk about your power. Gimmie a sec."
She was frowning, and her driving had slowed a bit. She seemed a bit spastic, hopping from blood to Alec to, apparently, my power, but maybe that was her power dangling interesting information in front of her like a carrot on a stick.
"It tries to protect you more consistently than anything else. Does that seem right to you?" She glanced over to me, and I frowned, thinking.

"Yeah, mostly."

"It's better for combat than it is for social situations?"

"Yeah. Yes, seriously, yes." I said, breathing out a laugh. "I'd love it if it only worked in a fight. That would be great."

She hummed.

"I think it's trying to manipulate your social circles, put you in a better place. It picks at people's insecurities and brings up issues close to their heart. Makes you relatable, sympathetic." She frowned. "Given enough time, you could probably get Rachel to be your friend. Unless you said something that set her off before then…" She trailed off.
"Yeah, maybe not."

"She's that bad?" I asked.

"She doesn't think the same way as normal people. It's either just a fucked up past, or power weirdness. I'm not sure yet."

"Power weirdness?"

"Some people get minor-to-major personality changes from powers. It's not too common, but not too uncommon, either. Hard to find good data, when you factor in that trigger events usually result in some trauma–"

"They do?" I cut in.

She looked at me, eyes flicking to a dozen different parts of my face and body in a second or two.
"Maybe not a topic for right now, then."
She hit the brakes a bit harder than she would've needed to if she hadn't looked away from the road.

"Huh," was all I had in response. I guessed that fit what little I'd read about it; most villains had something very bad happen to them that caused their powers to manifest. The best heroes, the Legends and Alexandrias, they'd all had something very good happen.

I'd wondered if what happened to me counted as something good. It had to, didn't it? I'd woken up.

Maybe I was just too shitty a person to wind up as a hero, even despite that.

"Don't dwell on it, seriously," Lisa said, glancing at me. "Jesus, that was a dark topic to bring up. Sorry. Here," she said, rooting around in her handbag in a maneuver I would've pulled her over for if I were a cop. She pulled out a rolled up magazine and handed it to me. It was kind of crumpled, but it was a furniture catalog.

"We're going shopping for furniture, I should've said."

"Ohhh," I said slowly, flipping through the catalog. "That makes sense."

"If we play our cards right, we can get the other guys to chip in for the cost, and convince Brian to take a room in the loft."

"Brian's not going to use the base?" I raised both eyebrows. "He's the leader."

"He's worried about the number of rooms, cause Rachel wants one for her dogs. It's stupid, he says he's got his own apartment so he doesn't need it, but I have an apartment–"

"You're fifteen?"

"Not important. What is important." She took a hand off the wheel to point a finger at me. "We're gonna guilt him into having a room. With furniture."

"That'll work?" I said, skeptical.

"No. But it'll make me feel better for trying." She grinned, and I grinned back.
"It's just about making him feel more invested, really. If he has a stake in the stuff at the loft he'll be more likely to stick around, which is good because his power is really important to making a hit and run actually work.

"He makes smoke?"

"Sensory deprivation smoke, you said it. He can fill up a neighborhood and lead us through it, let us get away scott free. It lingers longer than natural too, and there's no real limit on how much he can make."

"Damn."

"Yup. He's just kinda flighty cause of some home life stuff that I won't get into."

"He told you all this?"

"Nah, not that stuff. I can't help it, so get used to it," she said, blasé. "The stuff about not wanting a room, yeah, we texted about that this morning and honestly I got pissed, so." She shrugged with both hands up, leaving her to steer with her knees.
She was a terrifying person to sit shotgun to.

We eventually got to a furniture store. It didn't quite look high end, but it wasn't selling anything second hand, either. Walking in, my nostrils were filled with the smell of leather and furniture polish.

"What, uh, what do we need?" I asked. "Cause I''m taking it we don't want to make everyone pay for too much stuff."

"Couch, recliner, coffee table, table and chairs," Lisa counted off on her fingers. "If we can get out under two grand, everyone but Rachel will be fine with it."

"Rachel's gonna be a problem?"

"In general, yeah. I'm still figuring her out. For now we can just kind of work around her. I'm having the boss talk to her about using her dogs for jobs, cause if we can't ride them or use them for transport then we're kind of shit out of luck."

There's that mysterious phone voice mentioned again. I was pretty sure an enigmatic, villainous benefactor was pretty much par for the course for cape criminal masterminds, but I had to admit I was a little curious.

"You know who he is? The boss?"

"Not, uh," she glanced around. "Not here. Let's just talk furniture, alright?" She moved to pat me on the head.

Bell, Clover, Cherry.

My arm snaked up to block hers, and I slid a foot in front of the toe of one of her shoes just as she was taking a step, which caused her to spend about four seconds trying not to fall flat on her face. By the time she'd righted herself, I was several paces away with my hands in my pockets and shoulders hunched.

"Uh," she said, for once without anything to say. "Sorry."

I raised my eyebrows at her.
"Yup."

A moment of awkward silence.

"Right, so, uh. Furniture," she said with some forced lightness, trying to recover some of her energy.

"So, Brian likes modern stuff, and Alec is into the whole loaded drug dealer aesthetic, glass tables and fur rugs and stuff," Lisa started as we wandered around. We got a couple of looks, being two teenagers looking for furniture without any adults.
"We can compromise between them with stuff that looks good but isn't actually that expensive." She grabbed the corner of one desk, yanking at it to see how sturdy it was. "Anything that looks good and won't fall apart is good for now. Alec's gonna want to decorate as much as you do, but it's just necessities right now."

We went around and picked out some stuff. There were often sets of furniture with just one or two pieces on display, the others in pictures on a stand next to them. I liked to think that I had a good eye for style, and the offerings here were alright enough.

The main expense was a grey sectional couch that Lisa said was a good deal but that had a price tag I cringed at. The plush black leather recliner was next expensive just by itself, but the thick glass table was comparatively cheap. It had corners you could crack a toddler's skull open on, but the only concern was Rachel's dogs, who Lisa said were trained well enough they wouldn't be at any risk.
The table and chairs we decided on for the kitchen were from the same set as the coffee table, dark grey stained wood with beige cushions and a glass tabletop. I wasn't thrilled with the kitchen chairs, but they'd do. From the catalog and the stuff in the furniture store, I was pretty sure there wasn't any such thing as a good looking set out there that fit our criteria.

At the end of all that, it was seventeen hundred plus tax and delivery, putting it close to the two grand budget. Spread among four people that was more bearable. It wasn't like I was complaining; I didn't really have anything to spend the money I'd be getting on. It wasn't really important to me.
I wasn't really sure what was important to me.

Lisa explained that she was having them deliver to a place that wasn't actually the loft, where the boss could send some more trustworthy people to pick up the furniture and move it in. The people moving the stuff in and the ones fixing the AC were apparently one and the same, and our boss just had a hookup on people who did reno work for super villains. Handy.
"Well," Lisa said, dusting her hands off unnecessarily after all the heavy lifting we'd watched other people do. "That's done. Wanna shop for real, now?"

"Oh, was that on the schedule?"

"I told your mom you'd be back by seven."
I had a brief double take as I rearranged what she'd said in my head.

"She's not my mom." I frowned. "She wouldn't want to be my mom."
Lisa's eyes were flickering over my face. How good were her powers of deduction? Was she reading through all my dark secrets as we spoke? She'd said to get used to not having secrets, but I wasn't sure how easy that would be. I wanted to know the level of detail she had, because that was important.

She didn't reply for a second. Eventually she just took out her car keys and said, "Here's to shitty moms, I guess," before clicking the key fob and making the car beep outside.

The car was swelteringly hot. Lisa rolled down her window and I did mine, which helped, but not much.

"Jesus christ," she muttered, turning on the car and quickly shifting into reverse. "Lemme get us moving, get some freakin' airflow."
She pulled us out of the furniture store's parking lot and onto the road, and the air that whipped through the windows helped. Lisa apparently wasn't a music listener in the car, which was strange to me, but she did seem to be very comfortable filling up the silence with talk.

"So, mall, boardwalk, or Lord Street?" she asked.
Those were the three main places to shop, assuming she meant the Weymouth mall. The boardwalk was a sucker's bet, mostly full of overpriced cheap shit to sell to tourists, but there were a couple designer stores that I might even be able afford to shop at once my criminal money started rolling in.
Weymouth Shopping Center I'd just been at, and seen most of what I'd want to check out with Chris.
The Lord Street Market, though. That was a bunch of street vendors who rented stalls to sell stuff. It wouldn't be as crowded on a weekday, and I had a lot of fond memories of shopping there with people who didn't care about me anymore. I was hit with a heady wave of nostalgia.
"Oh, and we should stop at Cape City, too. That's by the mall, but–"

"The Market," I interrupted. "I haven't been there in a while."

"Heck yeah. There's still some good picks on the weekdays." Lisa shifted us into another lane and turned us in the general direction of the market.

When we got there, she gestured for me to open the glovebox. inside, on top of some registration papers and road maps for the East Coast, was a Cinereal-branded lunchbox. It had a raised metal print of Cinereal in her grey-hued costume, halfway emerging from a storm of ash. The box was dark grey with lighter grey speckles.

"Woah, nice. Love Cinereal. Don't these have asbestos in them?"

"No, not actually. She just said that because she hates merchandising. It makes that one a collector's item, though."
I raised my eyebrows. Not bad.
"Why a lunch box?"

"Dunno, thought it'd be funny. Guess all you guys' favorite heroes, fill the lunch box with your ill-gotten gains."

I nodded. It was a dry kind of humor, but I could appreciate it.
Curious, I asked, "Who's Rachel's favorite?"
I struggled to imagine her liking any super hero.

"Mouse Protector," Lisa said with a flourish.
I stared at her gobsmacked.

"No way," I breathed.

"Yes, way. I'm, like, ninety percent sure. I was sixty percent before she took the box so it was a bit of a guess. She's either her favorite, or one of her favorites, however much she thinks about it. She owns at least one piece of branded clothing."

I… guessed there was the animal connection? Maybe she just grew up watching the shows. Don't judge a book, apparently.
Once I had some money in my pockets, we got out of the car and Lisa offered me some sun screen after getting some for herself. I accepted, smearing it over myself then having Lisa check I wasn't streaky.

The market was a little slow that day, which wasn't abnormal for a Thursday. It was this big concrete slab with lines of stationary stalls built into it. Some of the stalls were twice as big as the others, but all had roofs to keep the sun off the wares. The place had been around for decades, and you could tell by the weathering on the wood in some places, but it had charm, and it had an important place in every Brocktoner's heart.
There were the normal things for tourists, stuff like Brockton Bay College sweaters and tees and mugs that said 'I Touched The Bubble in Brockton Bay.' But then there were stalls rented out by crafty stay at home moms like Sasha did once a month. There were people selling frozen treats, hot dogs, popcorn. We passed a stall with one lady who had a bunch of puppies in cages. My lip curled at that, which Lisa noticed.

"Dog lover?" she asked.

"I mean, I like dogs. Puppy mill shit is gross." I didn't bother lowering my tone for the benefit of the lady we'd just passed.

"Maybe you can bond with Rachel over that," she suggested. I frowned.

"Why does that have to be my job? She seems like she doesn't really want to be friends with any of us."

Lisa started picking through some racks of clothes as the person minding their stall smiled at us both.
"Doesn't have to be your responsibility. It's just what's on my mind. I get the feeling it's not an issue that'll just go away, and I really want this whole thing to work." She sighed, pulling a vintage patterned jacket off the rack and holding it up in front of herself to show me.
"You think I could pull this off?"

"I don't know if anyone could," I answered honestly.

"Okay, that's a maybe, then," she said with a roll of her eyes, sliding it back into the rack.

We didn't get to the good stuff until we found last season's stuff from some of the designer stores.
There were some stalls that were just extensions of the shops on the boardwalk, which was dumb and a waste of time to go through because it was all the same stuff at the same prices. But then there were stalls with the stock from those same shops, for things they hadn't been able to sell and weren't willing to hold onto anymore. That was the good stuff.

I was looking idly for stuff I could use for a new costume. I knew I'd need to ditch the Bone Roller persona just because I wasn't in love with it and I wouldn't settle without something I really liked. I had the seeds of an idea in my head, but I needed to refine. It meant that the stuff I was looking for was very specific. I was looking for something that really spoke to me. So I didn't end up with as much hanging off my arm as Lisa did.

Her fashion sense was good, but her sense of style was different enough from mine that our picks weren't really overlapping much at all. She'd found one blouse I'd been very jealous of, with a loose black front and strappy back, but she'd backed down and let me get it when I tried my puppy dog eyes on her. It was good to know those still worked.

I'd been looking for chokers the whole time we were there, but the selection wasn't great with it being a weekday, and it was a bit specific a thing to be looking for. I did find a couple sets of earrings that made me want to get my ears pierced again, though that sounded like a pain. Maybe I should've gotten them done before I'd seen Panacea. That would've been a genius move.

In the end I only spent a couple hundred dollars, the most of that going into a jacket that would work for my costume.
Lisa spent significantly more, but apparently she wasn't worried about money at all. There weren't changing booths to try things on at in the Market, so it was always a little hit and miss for how well things fit, but she seemed to be confident in a lot of different items. It might have helped that she had the body type of the average consumer. I still had to make sure I found things that fit me, but not too well because I was supposed to get a few more inches before I was finished growing.

On our way over to Cape City, Lisa started back in on one of her earlier aborted conversation threads.

"So you want to quit the heroes, right?"
I nodded.
"Yeah, yup."

"And you want to fake your own death to do it?"

"I thought it'd be funny, yeah," I said, maybe a little defensively. It would be funny.
"Not like, actually fake my death. Just kind of stage it so it gets the point across like, 'hey I'm not doing this thing anymore, smell ya' later' kind of thing."

"Yeah, I get that." She hummed.
"So I see two main problems. One is that the PRT know your name and face, the other is that again, but for your parents."

"Foster parents."

"Right. So, the first one isn't too much of an issue. They don't arrest anyone in plainclothes, and as long as there's reasonable doubt that you're not this villain, they'll just try and catch you out in costume."

I nodded. That had been more or less my understanding of the dynamics at play. I mean, I honestly hadn't really thought about it much. There were only about five people who could match my face to my cape persona, anyways. It wasn't like Piggot was going to release my John Hancock to the wider world and not expect villains to flock to my house, like, immediately.

Lisa kept going.

"So as long as you don't murder a bunch of people or become national news, you should be fine on that front. Your parents are a little bit harder to work around, but as long as you aren't too obvious about your shift to villainy, I don't see why there's any reason you can't just do like plenty of other teenage villains and just go out under their noses."
I nodded.
"You're explaining this to me, why?"
I knew everything she was saying.

"It just doesn't seem like you've thought about it much," she hedged, glancing past me as she changed lanes.

"I don't think about a lot of things. More of a 'do'er."

"They say that's a cardinal weakness for Thinkers," Lisa mused.

"Not thinking?" I laughed. "That makes sense."

She laughed too, but she didn't seem to think it was very funny.


After that, the trip to get fake blood would've been uneventful, if it weren't for the fact that I'd decided to go looking through the aisles of Cape City to see if I found anything that inspired me among the crappy dollar-value junk items.

And boy, did I.

 

[party hat girl]

She's listening to: Twenty-One Pilots.
—

Friday was the day. It was the day I was ending my career as a Ward and starting up as a villain.

Booyah.

Lisa and I had gone on a smaller, more manic shopping spree after our regular sane one in order to find me stuff to finish my costume. There was still work to be done, but not much.
Lisa had suggested I keep the body armor from my Wards getup, and I'd agreed it was a good idea.

Technically, my first criminal act had been stealing my own super suit from the PRT. I'd had console duty last night during the late shift, and I'd just 'accidentally' taken my suit home with me.
I wasn't even sure how they believed me, but maybe I projected a crazed enough persona that people figured something as brain dead as taking the getup home was in the cards for me. Triumph had just texted me to let me know there was a form to fill out for that (of course there was) and that I should bring it with me the next time I was in.
He hadn't even questioned why I'd taken the thing of hair oil with me, too.
Dumbass.

So, anyways, I still had to repaint that to make it less obviously Bone Roller's suit, but I wasn't going to do that quite yet. I had a use for the unaltered costume still.

That is, staging my own death.

I'd texted Alec about my plans for it until some time after midnight, and had fallen asleep with my phone on my chest between messages. So I'd been a little bit groggy in the morning, which had necessitated coffee. Lots of coffee.

I met up with Alec and Lisa at ten o'clock, down in the docks and a bit towards the warehouses. I had a backpack full of stuff, and Alec and Lisa had stuff as well. Alec had said he'd be the camera guy, but Lisa had convinced him that she would be able to sell the appearance of a terrified onlooker better. So he'd helped with the special effects, and after everything was on camera he left to go back to his own place and cool down before we met up again for our pre-crime meeting.

I was simultaneously disappointed and relieved when he left. He was funny in a very deadpan way, and he was nice to look at…. but I wasn't sure. I didn't know what my feelings were, and Lisa had refrained from saying anything about him.

It had taken us a while to film, set up the death scene, and then clean me up enough to be able to walk down the street, but once we got back to Lisa's apartment the editing went a lot faster than I'd thought it would.

Her apartment was nice enough, if small. She had a modern taste in furniture like Brian reportedly did, with tall white chairs with orange cushions sitting next to the granite countertop of the a kitchen. The other half of the room was taken up by a grey recliner and side table next to a balcony door with a dingy view of the docks. A short hall branched off on one wall to a bathroom, laundry, and presumably a bedroom though the door was shut. Fairy lights ran along the ceiling, and a painted wood pallet acted as picture stand for a couple photos of her and an older boy who looked very similar to her. There was a water stain in one corner of the ceiling, and it didn't really look that lived in. Like she hadn't been there long.
It wasn't bad. But not great, either.

She'd hooked up her phone to a weathered laptop that was a couple years old, and pushed receipts and a bowl of keys to the side of the counter to give herself space


Apparently Lisa was really good with computers, because when I saw the finished product I was impressed. You could barely tell there was a cut. She'd said the changing angle of the shade between sections would tune in any vigilant onlookers, but on first blush it was… really convincing. Part of that was my power, but I'd have to credit most of it to Lisa's eye for detail.

"So, eh," Lisa asked at around two or so when it was all done with. I still had fake blood behind my ears.
"You wanna post it to your official social media page?" She had a twinkle in her eye.

"You can do that?"

"Yup," she said, clearly very proud of herself. She spun her laptop back towards her self and typed into her browser a URL she'd been to before, where a login prompt was asked for. She typed in 'bone_roller_ene' and then a password, and boom. She was on the other side of the social media feed I'd never been allowed access to. A half dozen pictures of me, interspersed with memes and links to headlines and merch. The follower count read 8k, which seemed like a lot to me.
Lisa opened up the 'post' menu and started uploading the movie we'd made.

"Fuck, this is gonna be good," I breathed.

"Yep. You wanna do the honors?" She turned the laptop back towards me then moved the track pad to hover the cursor over the 'Post' button.

"Uh, is that everything? Like, I'm not forgetting anything, right?"

"All you have left to do is tape off and paint your suit when it's out of the dryer." She raised her eyebrows at me. "You're not having second thoughts."
She said it as a definitive statement, because apparently she knew.

"Yeah, no, just want to be sure. It's kind of–"

She snapped her fingers.
"Oh, wait, Wards phone," she said. "They're gonna ping it when this gets posted. Where's it at?"

"At home, you told me to leave it."

"That's accurate," she admitted. "We're gonna want to brick it sooner, rather than later. They'll probably call you as soon as this is posted. You don't keep it on silent…" She sighed. "Yeah, okay, lemme drive you back to your place so you can get it, you can give the director a 'fuck you, I quit' voice mail and we can dump it. Sound good?"

"I think my power made the director like me, or at least not hate me, so maybe just an 'I quit' works."

"Huh, okay," Lisa said, shutting the laptop screen. "Anyways, you probably want to ask your boy toy for his number, right?"

I gave her a look of disgust.
"Boy toy? Who says that?"

"Me, clearly," she said with a roll of her eyes. "Let's just get moving, princess."

Lisa brought her laptop with her into the car, and we drove back to my place in a small rush. We didn't have an large amount of time between then and when we were planning our job.

Sasha wanted to chat with Lisa when she came in with me, so they got to talking while I went upstairs to grab my Wards phone. I pulled Kid Win's number off of it, read the last couple messages he'd sent me (he was listening to Björk now because I'd tried to get him to compromise on his weird music) and then ran down the stairs to head back out with Lisa.

"Grab your PJ's?" Lisa asked.

The story was that it was a sleepover, after all. Though I did have my PJs in my backpack.

"Yup."

"Let's roll, then."

So we rolled, after only some brief haranguing from Sasha.


After I hucked my phone into the bay, we went back to Lisa's apartment just to grab my costume out of the clothes drier (she'd offered her landry machines to clean out the fake blood), and then we went to the Loft where the rest of the gang would meet us for the pre-crime meeting.

Cause today was the day. For the crime.

It wasn't quite as hot as it had been on Wednesday, and the AC unit was doing its damnedest to keep the temperature lower than the 80s, but it was still toasty inside the warehouse. I checked my watch and saw it was 2:25. Enough time for the first coat of paint, at least.

Lisa helped me get the suit hanging up so that I could get at its whole surface with the fabric spray paint we'd picked up the day before. We just settled on putting it on a coat hanger (of which she had a dozen in her car) and hanging it from a metal rack thing that Lisa said had been used to lift boats for weld jobs. If we timed it right, we'd be able to get on two layers before the job. I wanted a total of three, but the last one would take a lot of taping off detail work, which neither of us were excited about. As it was, we'd taken the ceramic plates out (they came off pretty easily for ease of washing) and sprayed down the whole suit with a matte dark grey for a base color.

The armor plates were a bit harder to set up in a way we could spray them easily, but our solution was to stand up each one on the end of one of these greasy metal tubes Lisa said had been conveyor rollers at one point. They were precarious as all hell and would probably all topple over if we even nudged them, but we were careful and they all got a coat of light grey. They ended up kind of boring-looking, but we'd get them with a gloss coat once they were dry.

The front door to the warehouse was open to keep some air circulating, so we didn't hear when Brian came in.

"Hey, girls," he said from behind us, and I nearly jumped and knocked one of the ceramic plates over. That would've been bad.

"Oh, hey, Brian," I said, carefully stepping away from our handiwork. "Me and Lisa were just doing some painting."

"I can see that," he said casually. "Could smell it, too. Good idea to air the place out a bit. Why not do it outside?"

"Too easy to see," Lisa chimed in for me. "This is safer, since it's pretty obviously a cape costume."

"Fair. Roof, maybe?"

"That's…" She pursed her lips. "Yeah, that would've been smart."

"And you're supposed to be a Thinker," I said, elbowing her in the ribs.
She looked at me, scandalized.

"Hey, I helped you with all this. This is the thanks I get?"

"Let me buy you a burger?" I tried.

"I accept burgers."
Brian shifted his grip on his backpack, drawing our attention back to him.
"I'm guessing Rachel and Alec are going to be late?"

"Alec's on his way but he's walking, so he'll be a few. Rachel should be here in a minute."

"Handy," Brian commented, raising his eyebrows at Lisa. She just gave him a smug expression, raising one eyebrow with one wrist limp on her hip. She was just full of those little smarmy looks. I wondered if she practiced them in the mirror.
"I'm gonna go set up upstairs. Lisa, if you're done here, would you mind going over things with me first? If the boss is using you as his contact, I need to know stuff as soon as you can tell me."

"He is. I'm the contact. The end. I don't think there's any way around it, so there's no point getting on my case about it," Lisa said with restrained frustration.
It was the continuation of an argument I'd heard half of as we hung out today, with Lisa complaining every time she got a notification from him.
I didn't really want to be a part of that at all, so I let them both go up the stairs while pretending I had something to be doing down here. I didn't think it'd fool Lisa, but, well, a fifty percent hit rate would be good enough to be suspicious in the MLB. So I'd take it.


Rachel came in a few minutes later, though I'd heard the clinking of her dogs' chains before I saw her. She glared at me, sniffed the air, and then scowled.

"That shit's going to fucking stink this whole time?"
My power apparently didn't think I could handle myself here, and started rolling.

Ratta-tatta-ratta-tatta, chak-chak-chak.

Clover, Clover, Lemon.

"Fuck yourself with a rake, Rachel," I said, putting up a middle finger with a sneer. I stalked past her on my way to the main door, pushing into her with my shoulder. It didn't manage to move her much, but it made both her and her dogs growl.

Well. So much for 'maybe you can bond with her.' Sorry, not sorry, Lisa.

I got in control of myself when I was outside the warehouse and in the adjoining alley. I frowned, because that hadn't really gone very well. I wasn't unused to saying rude shit with lemons in social mode, but it wasn't something I wanted to get used to, either. I just kind of stood there stupidly in the alley for a bit.

I caught Alec as he was coming in, cause I was just hanging around outside.

"It's not that hot up there, is it?" he asked in lieu of greeting.

"Huh?"

"You're standing outside, dork. I'm asking if it's cooler out here than it is upstairs."
Ah.
"Oh, I dunno. I just cussed out Rachel cause my power thought it would be a good idea. I was hiding out here waiting for you."

"You're not scared of the terrifying murderous dog girl, are you?" He quirked an eyebrow.
I wasn't sure if he was saying that being scared of her was wise, or mocking me for having a self preservation instinct. His delivery was just too deadpan.

"Not scared, more like…" I searched for the words. "Convinced of my own frailty."

"I can respect it," he said idly, giving me a sidelong glance as he moved on into the building.
"Have you been painting?" he asked, squinting into the warehouse as his eyes adjusted to the dark.

"Oh, yeah, my costume. I guess I didn't mention. I'm repainting the Wards stuff for part of it."

"Aaaah. Cool." He approached the setup. "Still wet?"

"Yeah, that coat just went on a bit ago. It's hot enough that Lisa said it'd be plenty dry enough to tape off or clear coat by the time we're done with the meeting."

"Nice, nice," he said, crouching and craning his neck to look at different angles of the armor plates. I was a little worried he'd knock them all over, but I tried to exercise some trust.
"What's the design gonna be?"

"Just stripes for the body suit. I wanna do more detailed ones on the armor, but that's a lot of work getting symmetrical and I have to put the gloss coat on still, so–"

"You're gonna paint on top of the gloss coat?"

"Oh. I mean, I guess I was. Don't have time for the armor detailing today, so I figured it'd be fine."

"I mean, it could be. What paints are you using?"

"Um, regular?" I frowned. "Like, store bought ones?"

"Show me," he insisted, and I acquiesced, showing him to the workbench we'd set the spray paint cans on.

"You know about paints?"

"It's a hobby," he replied smoothly. "Want me to help with the detail work later?" he asked, looking at the label for the gloss coat.

"Yeah, sure, if you want to," I said, trying to sound casual. I really did want him to help, and not just because I wasn't looking forward to the work.

"Then don't put on the gloss coat yet. It can wait. Nobody's supposed to see us anyways, right?"

"I was kinda thinking about doing the social media thing," I said, looking away with a sudden blush. I hadn't said that out loud to anyone.

He laughed, which did not help my embarrassment.

"Oh, no, that's great, no, don't turn away. No, it's cute. Cool, I mean, it's really cool."
He didn't seem to be able to keep his giggles in, though.
"Like, 'Hey guys! New villain here, 'bout to go rob a bank!'" He cackled harder, and I saw him clutching at his stomach.

I frowned and glared til he composed himself.
"You done?"

"Aw, come on, don't be bashful. They don't like that on camera."
He smirked. I scowled.

"Well, maybe I won't, then," I said petulantly.

"Nah, you gotta, now. If you don't then I'll have to, and you don't want to see that."

I snorted. Would he be like the model boys who took pictures after showers and made duck faces?

"Would that be so bad?"

"I'd go out of my way to make it be, yeah." He raised his arms to the side. "So?"

"I guess the suit will be fine without the gloss coat for now."

"Attagirl," he said, lightly punching me in the shoulder. That apparently settled, he made for the stairs. I followed up after him.

He was wearing jeggings again.

Upstairs, there wasn't any talking going on. Rachel was in the chair she'd been in the last time, on the side of the table closer to the window, and Brian had taken up a seat to her right with a notebook in front of him. Lisa was on his right, kicking back in the folding chair and tapping into her phone. She looked up at me as I came up the stairs, and I felt my phone buzz with a notification. I checked it idly as I moved a chair to sit at the corner between Alec and Lisa, rather than between Rachel and Alec. Cause Rachel looked pissed.

Lisa: Rachel would've kicked your ass after putting her dogs away if you hadn't hid from her. She still wants to, but she's waiting for the right time. Head on a swivel!​

I looked up from my phone at Lisa, then to Rachel. She did look mad enough to throw a punch.
The thing was, despite what I'd said to Alec, I wasn't really scared of her hurting me. Nobody had managed to hurt me since I'd gotten my power.
Not that that many people had tried, but still.

I looked the dog girl in the eyes.

"Rachel, do you want to hit me now, or later?" I asked.

She scowled at me, clenching her fists as she kicked back her chair and started to stand.

"What?" Brian asked, sounding completely lost as he looked up from his notes.

"Rachel wants to hit me," I said simply, a heady feeling starting up inside me. "I'm about to explain to her why that's a bad idea."

I had no idea if I should have been confident or not.

"You're fucking with me," Rachel said, standing behind Alec's chair. Alec, who was trying to crane his neck all the way around to get both of us in his field of vision.

I stood up and stepped away from the table to make it easier on him, and held my hands to the side, taunting.
"Not a bit. Take a swing, slugger. Let's see how ya' do."

"Wait, now hold on," Brian said, getting up from his chair. But my power was already rolling.

Flutter-flutter-flutter-flut–Clunk, Clunk, Clunk.

Lemon, Cherry, Bell.

Her fist brushed to the side of my stomach as I abruptly pivoted. My arms wrapped around hers, and I pulled her forward and slid around her to pivot an elbow into her back. In less than a second I had her on the floor with her arm pinned behind her back.

My power let me back in control, and I could feel my pupils dilate.
Holy fuck that'd felt good.

"You fucking good, Rach?"

"God damn it, Marcie, get the fuck off of her," I heard Brian say, but my power had rolled a Lemon, Bell, Clover before I'd even really registered that he was trying to pull me off her.

My free arm came up in an elbow that hit something softer than bone but harder than flesh. I heard his muffled, "Ow, fugk," a split second later, telling me it'd been his nose.

I'd disengaged from Rachel in a movement that sent her face bouncing off the hard wood with my boot, and I was standing several paces away from her and Brian when my power let me back in control. My pulse was roaring in my ears.

Lisa spoke up with a bit of urgency as Brian made to move for me again.
"Stop. Stop, Brian, don't try. She might actually kick your ass."

I smirked at that.

"No, stop, don't fight," Alec said flatly, a slight smile playing at his mouth.

"Jesus fucking christ," Brian said under his breath, taking a hand away from his face to show a trickle of red coming from his nose. It didn't look like I'd broken it, at least.
"Rachel, don't," he said, annoyance evident in his tone.
Rachel was getting up and glaring daggers at me. One half of her face was scraped up from where she'd kissed the floor, and there was a cut on her lip.

"She's had enough," Lisa supplied, though the act of saying it made Rachel look like she was once again considering violence.
"We can get back to things now. Nobody's going to pick a fight they can't win, right, guys?" She raised her eyebrows at all of us. I just tilted my head shrugged, my hands in my pockets.

"I dunno. Doesn't seem like that applies to me."

Alec laughed, at least.

Brian let out a labored sigh.
"Marcie, if you know what's good for you, sit the fuck down. Rachel, don't touch anyone. I'm going to my car to get the first aid kit." He sighed again. "Then we can get started."

I did sit 'the fuck' down, but only after Rachel did first. She was still glaring daggers at me, but I assumed the lack of texts from Lisa meant that I wasn't in danger of any more fun. I tried to keep my smirk down to a minimum, but it was an exercise in willpower.

"That was cool as hell," Alec said, nodding at me. "Glad you're on our side."

"Glad to be here," I said, a little bit of passive aggression in my tone as I looked at Rachel.
If she cared, she didn't show any sign.

Brian came up with a red toolbox-looking first aid kit a minute later. His nose had stopped bleeding and he'd wiped off his face, but apparently the kit wasn't for him. He set the box on the table between his chair and Rachel's, sat down, and scooted his seat towards her. He popped it open and fished out some alcohol swabs and a big band-aid.

"Turn," he said, holding up an alcohol swab as Rachel stared at him.

"What?" she asked, like he'd just insulted her.

"Turn," he said more firmly, gesturing to her face with twist of a finger.

I looked to Lisa, who was raising an eyebrow. I didn't know what to make of this, but I imagined she did.

"I can do this myself," Rachel protested, scowling at him and moving to grab at the box.
Brian pushed the box away.

"No. I'm doing this to make a point. Shut up and turn your head."

After another second of glaring, she caved and did as he said, turning away to give him access to the scrapes my power had given her. They were bleeding enough that the whole right half of her face was covered with blood.
I shared a glance with Alec, who smirked and waggled his eyebrows, looking between Brian and Rachel.

I didn't think that was the point that Brian was trying to prove, but also, I could see it.

Rachel barely even winced when he scrubbed at her wounds with the alcohol wipes. He wasn't being incredibly gentle, which was probably wise considering it'd been the floor to inflict the wounds. Wouldn't want all that grit getting in your face meat.

She ended up with a large bandaid covering one cheek and cheekbone, and a smaller bandaid on her brow. We all watched the whole time Brian… took care of her. Because, jokes aside, it was intimate in a weird way.
Neither of their expressions had changed the whole time, but Rachel's face was flushed by the end of it. Her fists were clenched underneath the table, and she looked about a hair's breadth away from storming off.

Brian stood and wordlessly packed up the first aid kit. He put the scraps of packaging from the band-aids and alcohol swabs into his jean pockets, and then folded his arms. Still standing, he addressed us, looking at us each one by one.

"Do you understand why I did that?" he asked, finishing with his eyes on me.

Lisa had a smile that said she knew, but it was an uncomfortable smile. Alec didn't seem like he gave a shit about whatever posturing Brian was doing right now, his hands in his pockets and his slouch as deep as ever. Rachel just stared forward at the wall between me and Lisa.

When I didn't answer, Brian continued.
"I did it because we're a team now. Officially. We're getting paid to be together. We're getting paid to work together. So if we're a team, we have to start acting like it." He looked at Rachel, then back to me.
"I don't know what the fuck went on between you two, but it stops now. I should expect better from both of you. You're both professionals in some capacity."

He turned to Rachel.

"Rachel, act like the confident badass who has her shit together like I thought you'd be when I heard about you."
He'd started to turn to me, but Rachel had muttered under her breath,

"Words."

"Words? Yeah, words. I'm the leader now, like it or not. So when I say shit you gotta fucking listen." He stared at her, and his expression wasn't quite a glare, but that same intensity was there. Rachel looked away after a few seconds.
He turned to me.

"Marcie. I can't tell you to act your age, because honestly I need you to be better than that. Just… at least try and not act like you're twelve."

"I'm thirteen," I said defensively.

"Well, I need you to act like an adult, frankly. Might as well get a head start on it. Gangs with infighting like this don't get up off the ground, much less pull off successful jobs. I don't want to have to break anyone out of jail. So just, please, try and fucking cooperate."
The last few words he said he put his heart into. He did look genuinely frustrated.
I sighed. Then my power started rolling.

Clover, Clover, Lemon.

Goddamn it. The clovers would be annoying enough, but I didn't want to escalate anything, here.
I clamped down on my power, and it slowly shuddered into dormancy.

"Yeah, sorry." I glanced at Rachel, but the apology wasn't for her. Probably because I wasn't actually sorry, and I just wanted Brian to not hate me.

Rachel just grumbled something that could've conceivably been misheard as an apology, but Brian accepted it and sat back down, moving the first aid kit off the table to set it on the floor.

"Alright."
He looked glad to have it over with.
"Let's get to talking about the job, then."


Pizza was apparently just for special occasions, so I didn't have anything to occupy myself when things started getting boring. My leg started bobbing around the same time Rachel's did, but she'd stopped as soon as she'd noticed and scowled at me like I was doing it to mock her.
"So, Lisa's gone over the details with me. The target's a corp in downtown, pay's four kay a person."

"And, Alec, your sign on bonus is still downstairs," Lisa interrupted.

"Ah, right, that," Alec said, leaning back in his chair. "Yeah, I'm gonna forget again."
He smirked when Lisa made a noise of disgust.

As though there hadn't been any interruption at all, Brian continued.
"Getting in and out we'll use Rachel's dogs. We've already talked about it," he said, glancing over to Rachel as she scowled at him, "and we'll be able to squeeze Lisa, Marcie, and Alec on one with me and Rachel on the other. Rachel has duffel bags we can sling over their backs, which we'll fill up and run out to the dogs.

"Just two?" Alec asked.

"There's four bags–" Brian started, misunderstanding Alec's question. Rachel cut him off.

"Two dogs. Gotta train 'em. Don't want some fucking purse chihuahua with people trauma."
She grunted, looking away. "Working on a third."

"Right," Brian said, looking at Rachel and then back at his notebook. After a second he found his spot again.
"The building itself is a filing house for a real estate agency. No guards, nothing worse than a reinforced door, and we're just stealing paper." He gestured to Lisa, who had opened up her laptop and was now turning it around to show a property listing for a low rise brick building in the financial district.

"Why us, then?" Alec asked, voicing a question I'd been having. "Why not just hire a burglar?"

"It's a lot of paper to move, and the Protectorate response times in downtown are really low." He glanced at Lisa, who took that as cue to speak.

"We should be good on that front. Velocity's in the bad part of town tonight," she said, gesturing to the air above her because we were in the 'bad part of town,' "Battery isn't on patrol, and Dauntless isn't much faster than traffic speeds unless he burns a charge of his power on his boots, which he probably wouldn't even if he knew the alarm was cause of a parahuman disturbance."
Brian nodded.
"So we don't have to worry too much about the Protectorate, but downtown is New Wave turf, so there's a chance we run into one of their fliers. For that it's base game plan, we'll have Marcie and Alec running interference. Lisa, Rachel and I will all be loading bags, but if Lisa gets the hint that there's someone coming, then we all get the hell out of dodge unless they're already there. Priority is always going to be getting away, so if we don't have to fight then we really, really shouldn't."
He looked at me in specific when he said that, for some reason. I was a bit offended. I wasn't stupid; I was well aware my odds in a fight against Glory Girl were about nil. I knew my limits.
He looked back down at his notebook for a second and Lisa suggested,

"Bonus pay?"

"Right. There's five kay bonus pay if we find a specific folder. That's mostly why I have Lisa loading and not just standing lookout. She finds it, we all get an extra thousand."

"Better fucking find it," Rachel said darkly.

"I'm pretty sure I will. Pretty much a done deal. I think he has it set up that way so that if he calls off the job, he only has to pay us four thou each instead of five."

"Calls off the job?" Alec asked.
I rolled my eyes. Lisa grinned.

"You weren't listening when I explained that last time, but the boss is going to just call off jobs for us last minute sometimes. We'll still get the base pay for our wasted time. I think it has something to do with his power, but I'm not sure yet." She tapped her temple with a prideful smirk.

"Boss does have a power, then?" Brian raised an eyebrow.

"Yeah, I'm almost positive about that. Thinker or something in the ballpark, hence why he's hiring us to do stuff. I'm not supposed to talk about that, though."
She didn't seem terribly concerned with breaking the rules.

"Interesting," Brian commented.

"Boring," Alec countered. "I don't give a crap. When are we doing this?"

"After sundown, so some time around nine," Brian answered.

"Oh my Goood," Alec exhaled, flopping back in his chair with his arms limp. "We're gonna talk about this shit for hours?"

Lisa and I laughed. Brian didn't seem to think it was very funny.

 

[party hat girl]

Rachel uses the R-word in this one.

She's listening to: Ke$ha.
—

Most of the stuff we talked about was the heroes we might expect to see, and what we'd do in the event we encountered them. All of that just boiled down to different variations on 'run away very quickly,' but Brian and Lisa seemed to think it was important, so we went over it. Rachel clearly wasn't very patient through the whole thing, getting up twice to walk her dogs and a third time to use the restroom. Alec was visibly bored and cracked jokes when he found a chance. He'd said something crass about Glory Girl which had gotten a snort from Brian, and then he'd gotten up to see if my armor was dry.
It had been, so he'd taken the bodysuit and plates up the stairs with him and started taping off designs while I gave him a couple notes here and there.

Over all we weren't that professional, but speaking for myself I wasn't really that worried about anything going wrong, either. The chances of a cape stumbling upon us were slim to none, and our odds of getting away seemed pretty solid either way. Brian knew from experience that one of the only capes that could counter his darkness in town was Cricket, one of the E88 cage fighter psychos, and short of a coincidental encounter it wasn't very likely that she'd show up; the filing house was technically E88 territory, but who that part of town really belonged to was New Wave.

And, yes, maybe some of us were paying more attention to how delicate Alec's fingers were than to exactly which way we were supposed to fuck off in the event of a rampaging Hookwolf.

Once we were all wrapped up Lisa suggested we post my video. We hadn't actually done that yet–it'd been one thing and then another since we'd gotten to the loft, and if I was being honest I was kind of a distractible person.
She got the web page on her laptop and I clicked the 'Post' box with a flourish for the benefit of my audience of four, and we watched the video as a group. Alec looked happy with it, but Brian and Rachel didn't seem to get it. Their loss. Brian commented that it seemed realistic, at least. Rachel just sullenly asked if she could leave.

We had two hours before nine, which was when we'd go down to the commercial district for our heist. Alec had sprayed the designs onto my costume about the an hour before the meeting finished, and they would hopefully be dry by nine.

Lisa hinted I buy her the burger I owed her, and Brian picked up on that and suggested we go to Fugly Bob's for a late dinner.

Rachel had declined to come with, muttering something about 'stupid yuppies.' After she'd gone off with her dogs, Lisa explained it was because her face was known to the public. Not terribly common for capes, but from what I'd read, Rachel hadn't ever really tried very hard to hide her identity.

Brian's car was nice, just as clean as Lisa's and visibly newer. I wouldn't go so far as to say it was new, but it was a nice car and it smelled clean. He didn't have bags full of clothes in the back seat, either, so Alec and I sat back there while Lisa navigated unnecessarily.
I had to give it to Brian, he had the patience of a saint. A saint that still glared and eventually lost his cool after the fourth, 'turn right here.'
I was almost positive Lisa was doing it to annoy him.

Fugly Bob's was, as I've previously established, Brockton's premier establishment for greasy goodness. They had this thing where you could buy this fuck-off huge burger and if you ate it without getting up, it was free. They had a board inside with a bunch of photos of the most miserable people you'd ever seen, all of whom had just gone through fast food hell. It was great, and half the reason I liked eating there.

The photos, I mean. I wasn't anywhere near dumb enough to try it myself. The thing was bigger than my head.

We took the booth by the corkboard and Alec and I spent the time after ordering poking fun at the people who'd beaten the Challenge. All of them looked tired, greasy, and like they deeply regretted their life choices. The exceptions were the ones front and center, who were all heroes who'd done it as a PR stunt. Challenger herself (the cape, not her namesake burger) was standing in her red bodysuit and epaulets with a cheeky grin and a thumbs up. She'd even signed the photo.
It was weird, because nothing I knew about her power told me she'd be able to eat a huge burger any easier than a regular joe.

"Her brute power makes her resistant to internal damage," Lisa supplied, smarmy as all get-out. I hadn't even been staring that long. "She could probably eat a brick and come out the other side mostly fine."

"Should you be wasting your power like that?" Brian asked, ever the sourpuss.

"Oh, shush. I'm not gonna get a headache. I'd wondered about it the first time I heard about it, no power squandering going on here." Her grin widened as Brian shut up after seeing the waitress coming with our drinks. She very clearly loved getting the last word.

It was the boys on one side of the booth and Lisa and I on the other, with me and Alec on the inside seats. While Alec took a sip from his coke, I felt his leg casually brushing up against mine. It made my heart hammer. I wasn't even sure if it was a good hammering, at first, but I decided after a few seconds of contact that yes, it was in fact good to be touched by a cute boy. The two layers of fabric between us might have been what made it the most bearable, really.

I took a sip of my cherry soda, focusing on keeping my head cool.

Food came, and we all started in on our burgers. Alec did this thing where he licked his fingers after every fry he put in his mouth, it was weird as hell. Thinking back he'd done the same with the pizza, but it was more normal when it was between slices and not between individual fries.
And, okay. You might wonder why I was watching him eat but, hey, where else was I supposed to put my eyes? He was right there in front of me.

"Any of you play any good games recently?" Alec asked after he'd run out of fries. He peeled open his burger and picked the pickles off, tossing them onto my tray.

"Aegis had me play Smash Bros with him," I offered.
Alec laughed.
"Of course Aegis would like Smash Bros."

Brian glanced around us as though looking for someone who might overhear. I wasn't worried about it.
"Not so loud with the cape stuff," he chided, but his tone wasn't too pushy.
"I've been playing some Mass Effect when I have the time. Played the first one, really enjoyed it. New one's just as good. The Aleph one, I mean, I don't know if the Bet version is out yet."

"Oh, yeah, heck yeah. I blew through that in like a week, but it was good as hell. Kind of been back on a cod kick, lately, though."

I wasn't really sure what fish had to do with anything, but I was pretty far from experienced when it came to video games. I let them have their conversation.
Lisa made eye contact with my when Alec's leg moved, hooking his shoe around my ankle. I hadn't visibly reacted, I didn't think, but Lisa was raising an eyebrow at me. I just rolled my eyes. Whatever it was she didn't like about Alec, she could save it.

Food was good. Burgers were always good, it was hard to fuck up a burger and even then Fugly Bob's was one of the best. When it came time to pay I pulled a stack of cash out of my back pocket and got a weird look from the waiter.
I should probably have put it in a wallet, but I didn't have a wallet. My Wards ID was all I'd bother to put in it, and I didn't even need that anymore.

Back in the car, Lisa had been demoted from copilot and had been forced to swap chairs with Alec by a firm stare from Brian.
Once we started rolling she leaned towards me and opened her mouth, and I mentally prepared myself for something annoying to come out.

"You should probably float the social media thing past the group, by the by," she said, a bit lower than speaking volume. "Brian wouldn't react well if it were a surprise."

"Huh?" I asked, not bothering to keep my voice down. Alec turned around in his seat and raised his eyebrows at how Lisa had leaned in to me.
"What's that big a deal about it?"

Lisa gave up on subtlety, probably because I'd smashed it to pieces and thrown it out a window with my 'huh.' Speaking at a more normal volume, she said,
"It's not a bad idea, from a PR perspective. It's just something we'd want to think about before diving into."

"What's this?" Brian asked, not turning his head from the road.

"I'm gonna make little videos about super villain stuff, kind of spoof the social media thing they were trying for with Bone Roller," I said, unworried.

"And post them online?" Brian asked.

"It isn't actually as dumb as it sounds," Lisa chimed back in, unwilling or unable to let a conversation take place without her input. "Think about how often Uber and Leet have been in and out of jail. They're not actually harmless, but people think of them that way. They have a sort of charisma, or at least one of them does, and they put it on display to keep on the public's good side."

"I wasn't thinking about it as a… tactical decision," I said, furrowing my brow. I'd just thought it'd be fun, or funny, or at least something to do.

"And it doesn't have to be. But as long as you're smart about it, it can be a pro, and not a con." She leaned over past the gap between the seats, pulling her seatbelt to its max length with a series of clicks.
"I can go over her stuff before it gets posted, use my power to make sure it's not giving anything away like our hideout location or secret identity stuff. I think it'd be good for image, and, well," she waved her hand vaguely in Brian's personal space. "She'd enjoy it. It'd be something to keep her occupied."

"I resent that," I said mildly.

"I think it'd be a riot," Alec provided helpfully.

I sighed.
"Thank you, Alec."

Brian shooed Lisa back into her seat and took a second to think, his thumbs drumming on the wheel at ten and two.
"Yeah, I mean, as long as it's a group thing between you and Lisa, and it won't make missions harder on the rest of us. Yeah."
He added after a second, "Nothing live, obviously."

"Obviously," I said, making a mental note. I mean, I hadn't been planning on live streaming a bank robbery or anything, but I also hadn't not been planning that. I supposed it would probably mess with the element of surprise.

That settled, we drove in relative silence back to the loft. We still had about an hour, but I wanted to get all my costume stuff together as much as I could. The loft would be a better place to hang out once the furniture arrived and we got working AC.

The paint seemed dry when we got back, but Lisa told me to give it another half hour before messing with it. I was fine with that; I had other stuff to get together.

The main thing was the jacket, the one I'd just picked up at the Market the day before. It was a modern mix of a racing jacket and bolero, made of glossy synthetic. The sleeves were loose and ended in cuffs that clung to the wrists, while the body hung straight and cut off a bit under my ribcage. It didn't button shut, with a wide open front. The upper bits of the body and sleeves were navy, while the lower halves were a dark grey. Reflective silver stripes ran down the arms… and it had shoulder pads.

So, yeah, it'd been a hell of a find.

When the suit was finished drying it would go under the jacket. I had the repainted gloves, but the boots were new; the old boots had been too 'Bone Roller,' and I also didn't want to ruin them with paint. I could just wear them in civvies some time, cause they really were nice. The new boots were some understated and chunky ones in a sort of combat-ish style, grey with a bunch of silver buckles that went half way up my calves. They had a heel, but it was only an inch and I could handle that much.
They fit pretty well, thankfully, but I'd need to do a little bit of breaking them in so I wore them while I waited for the suit to dry.

Once it was finally ready to put everything on, I commandeered the bathroom in order to change. I could've used one of the rooms, but I both wanted and needed the mirror. Cause I was putting on a wig.

I had to watch a tutorial on my phone on how to put up my hair with a billion bobby pins and put on the hair net, but I got there eventually. Someone knocked on the door toward the end, but I told whoever it was to fuck off.

I still had face paint to put on, but it was quick as hell; just vertical lines from eye to jaw with dots on the outer edges, then blue lipstick and just a bit of sparkly blush on either cheek. I wasn't usually a makeup girl, but this was a special occasion.

I had three different pairs of sunglasses to choose from, all of them over-large enough that they'd serve as a proper mask. I settled on the pair that most matched the theme I was going for, then put them on and looked in the mirror.

I couldn't get an angle on my whole costume cause the mirror wasn't huge, but what I could see was good.

The bodysuit was now light grey with reflective silver lines in a kind of circuit board pattern. It was infringing on Battery's IP a little, but she was the one who'd stolen it from Tron in the first place, so.
The armor plates were a darker grey, with the same reflective silver as the bodysuit in lines around the edges of each piece. The lines were really crisp, and even enough I couldn't tell that Alec had been freehanding it. Super good.
Still no pants, but I was a lot more comfortable with how I looked more recently. They'd given me room to grow when they'd designed the Wards costume, and I was filling it out better now. With the little rib decals on the chest covered up and all the weight I'd gained, looking in the mirror didn't make me think there was an underlying joke in the costume about being a skeleton. So that was a plus.

The boots, the now-grey gloves, a white neck kerchief a la flight attendant, and a straight silver wig in bob style. The reflective strands of fake hair went down to just under my chin, with bangs down to the top of the sunglasses. Those were a wide ovular band with white edges and one long blue lens from leg to leg. Very fashionable. Very sci-fi.

And for anyone who didn't quite get that I was supposed to be a robot, the pièce de résistance: Deely-boppers with little disco balls for orbs.

Yeah, I was some hot shit.

I had my hand on the bathroom door when my power started rolling. Annoyingly, it didn't even give me anything fun;

Cherry, Clover, Bell.

I just backed away from the door, flushed the toilet, and then moved into a corner.

"Thank you, power, for that wonderful contribution," I muttered with a sigh.
Then I exited the bathroom for real.

"Oh, damn," was Alec's reaction, which I was more than a little pleased about. He'd been the one waiting for the bathroom, apparently.

He looked me up and down, waggled an eyebrow at me, and then stepped past me into the bathroom.
From inside, he called out,
"What's the theme? Lady Gaga robot?"

I laughed. It came out sounding a little nervous.
"I mean, that's kind of part of it."

"Huh, cool."
I could hear him clearly due to a lack of bathroom ceiling, so I moved off into main area before he got to his business.

Brian was sitting in a chair, a leather jacket in his lap and a motorcycle helmet on the table. He was in sturdy black jeans and a black long sleeve turtleneck, tight enough you could see every one of his well-defined muscles, if you wanted to stare. He looked over at me with a kind of bemused expression for a second, then just shook his head.

"We might have benefited from a talk about stealth in our costume designs, but I guess that ship's sailed." He waved me off when I frowned.
"No, it looks good. I love the style, my little sister would be all about it."
Okay, that sounded like it was damning with faint praise.
"Stealth doesn't mean that much when you have me around, anyways," he said, probably seeing some of my annoyance. He held out a hand and it pooled with black darkness that started to billow outward like smoke for a second before he shut his hand and ended the flow. The cloud of smoke remained for a second, black as anything, before it winked out of existence with a wave of Brian's hand.

"Neat," I offered, staring where the smoke had been for a second before looking at his jacket and helmet where they sat on the table. The helmet had a custom visor, shaped like a skull but much more realistic and threatening than the one that had made up my mask.
"It's kind of weird how similar our costumes were," I noted.

"Yeah, they don't usually do that," Brian said, shrugging his broad shoulders and leaning back in his seat a bit, making it creak beneath him. He set a hand on his helmet and spun it around to look at the visor.
"I haven't been working local much, or they probably wouldn't have. Probably didn't think I was worth designing around since I've been in Boston more than Brockton. I mean, I don't think we would have beefed, if we met in costume, but it's not usually something they'd do, I don't think."

I nodded.
"They were trying to cut in on some of the motorcycle gang stuff Hookwolf and people have going on. They didn't mention you at all, so you probably weren't on their radar."

"That's honestly good to hear. People talk about cred and notoriety, but that's not the kind of person I want remembering my name, haha." He chuckled lightly, and it was kind of a low rumble from his size.

Rachel came up the stairs with her dogs in tow, though for once she didn't move to put them in the room she'd claimed. She was dressed in a tee that'd had its sleeves torn off, the arm holes open halfway down her sides to show off a functional sports bra. I wouldn't have taken her as a skirts girl, but I clearly didn't know her. It was plaid and came down past her knees. From the skin between there and her combat boots I could see her legs weren't shaved, which wouldn't have been my first choice but it did lend her a certain je ne sais quoi.
She had a dollar store bulldog mask in one hand, but she hadn't put it on. Seeing me she blinked, glared, and then moved to yank a chair from under the table to slump down in. She pointedly didn't look at Brian.
After a moment, her dogs both trotted over and sat next to her very patiently. Neither were on a leash.

I grabbed a chair for myself and sat closer to Brian rather than risk being in Rachel's personal bubble. If her power was to augment dogs, and if the dogs were as mean as they looked, then I wasn't actually as keen on picking a fight with her right now.
I wouldn't want to have to hurt a dog.

Alec came out of the bathroom a minute later, after which Lisa came out of the room to its right to take his place in the bathroom.

Alec's costume was very ren faire, with a billowing white shirt tucked into grey leggings. He had black leather boots with a folded cuff at the calf. Weirdly, the heels were as tall as mine were which… I didn't hate.
He had an understated Venetian mask, white with some gold filigree around the eyes, and the points of a silver crown wrapped around the top and into his hair. The mask's face was placid, and the view of his eyes I had didn't betray any emotion even as I heard the smirk in his tone.

"You like?" he asked, striking a pose with one knee up and a wrist limp on his forehead.

I grinned.

"Hell yeah."
Brian nodded, though he didn't compliment Alec.
"When Lisa gets out we should go over names. I don't expect we'll run into anyone to listen, but we should get in the habit of only using our cape names when we're in costume."

Rachel just let out a laugh. One of her dogs perked up slightly, but set his head back down after a second.
"Stupid. Everyone knows my name."

"That's not the case for all of us," Brian said, as though he needed to remind her. I was sure she knew. She just liked making trouble.

"Bitch," Rachel said. I raised my eyebrows, which Alec saw and laughed.

"What?" I asked.

"It's her cape name," Alec said, sliding into the chair next to me. "Story is, she heard it enough times she just figured, damn, I guess that's what they're calling me, now."

"That's not–" Tight anger in her tone.

"Joke, dumbass. Jesus, save the machismo for the people who care."

Rachel growled, causing her dogs to both perk up, but she didn't press it. I wondered why she'd choose 'Bitch' as her name. It was transgressive, edgy, I kind of got that. But the PRT had just taken to calling her Hellhound, so it hadn't really worked out that way.

Alec just kicked back in his chair, putting both boots on the table, one leg crossed over the other. The way he was moving was a little different. He had some of that public-facing energy that I'd noticed in the Protectorate heroes. A sort of played-up charisma in his body language. I wanted that. I wanted to steal it for myself. My power showed me how, sometimes. And I tried. I just wasn't sure how well it came off.

Lisa came out of the bathroom a couple minutes later. Similar to Rachel, if you ignored the mask than you'd be forgiven for thinking she wasn't really in a costume at all. She wore a royal purple long sleeved shirt with a high collar, a subtle black eye design printed on the front. Her pants were black leggings with a purple diamond pattern. Both parts of the outfit showed off her curves, which I guessed was good for her.
Her mask was just a black domino mask you could pick up at any costume store, but she'd blackened her eyelids and the skin around her eye with some product to make it more 'villainess' and less 'clearly on a budget.'

"Well," she said with a grin, looking at us all in turn. "Don't we look like we're about to start some trouble."

Brian cleared his throat.
"Yeah. Good to see us all in our professional outfits. We should go over names."

"Tattletale," Lisa started, putting a hand on her hip and leaning to the side like she was posing for a picture.

"Regent," Alec said, flourishing with one hand while he still rocked back in his chair.

There was a slight pause, then Brian shared, "Grue."

Rachel glared at me. I raised my eyebrows. I was going to go last.

"Bitch," Bitch said after a second. And it was a fitting name, all told.

I stood up from my chair and took a step back from the table, then stood with a wide stance, arms held out to my sides.
I moved my limbs with jerky, shuddering angles, rotating my torso and shuffling my feet in the new boots.
I ended with my hands on my hips and a grin on my face.

"Slot Machine."

Alec and Lisa clapped, and Brian grudgingly joined them after a second.

"That was retarded," Rachel said simply.

I broke from my robot stance.
"Yeah, okay, that's fair," I said, not really bothered. She was probably going to hate everything I did, after I kicked her ass. I was fine with that.

Alec leaned forward, elbow on knee, staring at me.
"That's gotta be taken already."

"So?" All the good names were taken.

"Nah, it's cool. Regent probably is, too. All the cool ones are. Just gotta beat up the other guy if you ever find him."
"I could totally kick other Slot Machine's ass," I said confidently. "Probably some British dude. Slot is slang for murder, across the pond," I explained.

"Yeah, alright, that's kind of badass," Alec said, still staring at me with his inscrutable mask.

"We're done here?" Brian interrupted. "We don't exactly have a time crunch, but I'd like to keep to schedule.

I put my hands up. "Fine, okay, let's do crimes. That's cool too. Didn't want to have a pleasant conversation anyways."

"Marcie," Brian said warningly, breaking his own rule about using cape names.

"Nah, it's fine, do your thing," I said, hands still up as I sat back down.

"I was just going to have us get into the van."

"Yeah, okay, right," I said, standing back up with exaggerated effort.
Rachel stood, too, ordering her dogs to follow her as she went down the stairs. She was followed down by Lisa, then me and Alec, with Brian taking up the rear.

We had a van for this job. It wasn't our van, per se, but it was what we were going to use to store the money once the dogs got us in and out. I'd asked why we couldn't just use the dogs the whole time, or just use the van, but the answer had been that we needed the dogs big in case there was trouble, and we needed the van because the dogs were conspicuous.
If we ran across town on giant dogs, people would probably call either the Protectorate or Emily Elizabeth, whichever one they had on speed dial.

So we piled into the van. Brian was driving and Lisa had been re-promoted to co-pilot, so it was just Rachel, Alec, the two dogs and I in the back. There weren't actually any seats, so I just sat on the one wheel well and Alec took the other. Rachel seemed fine being on the floor with the dogs, one hand on each.

I noticed an acrid smell a second after we started moving. Something between ozone and formaldehyde. It freaked me out for a second, but I saw the cause pretty quickly: Rachel's dogs were growing.

Maybe 'growing' wasn't the right word. They were definitely getting bigger, but not like they were just scaling upwards how I imagined. Their skin split apart and they both started panting, tails wagging violently. The flesh within boiled outwards, cords of muscle overtaking fur, spikes of bone extending out from their joints and spine. I watched with some awe as the one with a longer snout, the German shepherd (I'd looked it up) grew its tail to twice its length in proportion, turning it into a bulky, sinewy fifth limb.
They were quickly each about the size of a pony and took up most of the room in the back of the truck.

I could feel the rottweiler's breath on me as it panted. They were both less distinctly dogs and more like giant lizards of meat and bone. Each individual part was clearly permutations on 'dog,' but the palette and composition made it all come together to form something monstrous. They weren't symmetrical, with spurs of bone jutting oddly, but I had no doubt that either one could snap my bones between their jaws like so many baby carrots.

Apparently she'd only stopped growing them because they were as big as the van would allow for. No wonder they could go toe to toe with the likes of Hookwolf; they probably outweighed him at their full size, even accounting for the fact he was made of solid metal.

Brian and Lisa were having a quiet conversation up front, but the sheer amount of meat between us meant I couldn't hear any of the words.

I felt the van slow to a stop, and I heard Brian's raised voice from the front seat though I couldn't see him at all past the dogs.

"All good back there? We're here, location's a straight shot from where we're at, four blocks down and on the left. We're out of cameras right now, but that changes when you go down the alley."

"Just open the fucking door," Rachel said from where she was sandwiched between her two huge dogs.

Alec got up to open the fucking door, and my power started rolling.

Chkchkchkchkchkchkchkchk clunk, clunk, clunk.

Cherry, Bar, Bar.

I had my phone out and I was recording as I exited the van. The camera was in selfie mode, and I was holding it up like I'd seen people doing online. It was very much 'of a style' with what was popular on the internet right now, at least from what I knew.

"Hello, Brockton Bay!" I said, tone chipper, a smile on my face that was a slight variation on my normal one. I tried to memorize the muscles my power was using, because I liked how it looked in the selfie cam.
"Slot Machine here, and I'm about to defraud a real estate agency!" I took sudden steps to the side and swept my camera one side to another, catching an image of the alley around us and of Rachel–no, Bitch and her dogs.
"Behind me you'll see the beautiful Rachel Lindt, A.K.A. Hellhound, A.K.A. Bitch, who will be having her good boys over there scratch at the front door a little bit. As you may be able to tell from their size, that might not bode well for the door's structural integrity."
As I was speaking, Rachel had slung herself up and onto the back of one dog, which was already closer in size to a full sized horse than the pony it'd been moments ago. She steered her dog, the ex-rottweiler, a bit close to me in what was probably an attempt to bowl me over, but my power had me step clear of her. My fingers switched the camera from selfie mode to the back camera, just in time to catch her dog knocking down the door to our target, along with a good chunk of adjoining wall.
Then I shut off the video, and my roll ended.

"Jesus christ," I heard Brian mutter as he made his way past me. His voice had a bit of an echoey quality, and streams of pitch-black smoke streamed from vents in his helmet. Eerie. Cool. Shame such a cool power had to be paired with such a stick in the mud.

We all made our way towards the caved in section of wall, four duffel bags between us. We had looting to do.

 

[party hat girl]

CW: Medical trauma, PTSD, touch aversion.

She's listening to: Gorillaz.
—

So, I might have underestimated how boring my part of the job was.

Brian, Lisa, and Rachel at least got to be inside, looking around, loading heavy paperwork into duffel bags. I just got to play lookout and hope nothing bad happened. It made me pretty annoyed, actually, to the point Alec pointed it out.

"If you pace faster, I think they'll get done quicker."

I glared at him.
"I wanted excitement."

"Maybe Kaiser will show up," he said with a shrug.

"I dunno if I could take Kaiser," I said honestly. "Could you?"

"Car battery, jumper cables, done. Next."

I laughed loud enough someone might have heard if they'd been in the neighborhood. This part of the city was pretty quiet at night, though.
"Okay, what about Hookwolf? Wait, no, same answer, right?"

"Maybe two car batteries, not sure."

"Uh," I tried to think of another E88 villain. They cycled through so often it was hard to remember which ones were still an active threat. "Alabaster?"

"Conveniently placed cement mixer," he said, changing how his legs were crossed as he leaned back against the brick wall.
I really liked his costume. Had I said that? I should probably say that.

"I love your costume, by the way."

"Thanks. Yours didn't wind up so bad, either." He gestured to my bodysuit specifically, which made me self conscious for a moment. I wasn't like the New Wave girls or Battery, who had figures to back up the skin tight costumes. I mean, it wasn't skin-tight, they didn't give those to Wards. Just, form fitting, and I didn't really have form to fit it.
Or I wasn't used to having form. I was probably getting there. It was kind of hard to find objectivity. Sometimes I'd look in the mirror and still see my old self there for a second or two.
It hadn't really sunk in yet.

"Thanks," I said after a brief, awkward silence.

He didn't speak in reply, just gesturing with one hand for me to approach. I did so hesitantly, stopping a step away from where his boots were keeping him leaned up against the wall.
He peeled away from the wall, then started walking a circle around me. I could feel his eyes on me even as he crossed behind me. I saw his hand snake up in my peripheral vision to move the body of the jacket a bit, getting a look either at the design he'd put on the chest, or something else he thought was worth looking at there.

He ended up very close, one hand tugging at the collar of the jacket, his wrist resting on the fabric between collar bone and shoulder plate.

"I don't usually do the seduction thing," he said, tone horribly casual.

"You, uh, seem to be pretty good at it," I said, trying to fight a blush.

"Sweet," he said, and I didn't think it was him calling me sweet, but it didn't help the blush either.

My power started rolling all of a sudden. Why? He hadn't even made a move or anything.

Lemon, Bar, Bell.

So, I could tamp down on it and not spoil the mood. Or I could use my power as a 'get out of jail free' card and excuse myself from what was quickly becoming an awkward situation.

Lisa poked her head out the ruined section of wall, but in that same moment I had taken Alec's collar in my hands and pushed him back against the brick next wall to her. She blinked in surprise as I put myself very close to Alec.

"Oh, Alec, Marcie, don't make out on the job!" I said in a sing-song, mocking tone. Then I rolled my eyes with an exaggerated head motion before maintaining eye contact with her as I licked the side of Alec's face.

Alec, for his part, seemed content with being a prop for my power's purposes.
Lisa? She looked positively revolted. She just retracted her head back inside, and I was back in control of myself.

I felt like I should apologize, but I couldn't see Alec's face to know his reaction. It didn't look like his eyes had changed at all. He just moved his hands up to mine and extricated his collar from my gloved fingers, then moved to stand up straight.

"I'd return the favor, but," he said, gesturing to his mask where it covered his mouth.

"Is that what you're in to?" I asked with a sputter. He'd caught me a little off guard.

"I could ask the same thing of you," he countered lazily, leaning back against the wall with his arms crossed.

"That was my power," I said, moving to scratch my scalp but finding a wig in the way.

"I know," he said with a tilt of his head that might have accompanied a smirk. "Either way, it was fun at least. You throw your men around often?"

"That was a, uh, one-time think, I thing," I got out, feeling myself blush. Where was my charisma? Where was my bravado? I was a cape, for god's sake.

Alec laughed his laugh, but before he could follow up with anything, Rachel and Grue came out of the wall hole.

"Alright, time to go," said Grue. He had a duffel bag over one shoulder, and Rachel and Lisa had one they were carrying between them. They were visibly quite heavy, and they loaded them onto the dog with the shorter tail as Rachel called the other over.
Once both dogs were loaded up with the bags, Brian and Rachel got on one, Rachel in front with Brian behind her, and the rest of us got on the other, the one with the long tail. Lisa seemed distinctly uncomfortable with the idea of Alec holding on to her, so it was her in the front, then me, then Alec. The way his arms wrapped around my midsection made my blush go nuclear, but I didn't have to worry about that for long because the world was suddenly plunged into darkness.

Not even just darkness, either. It was utter silence. If I couldn't feel my own limbs, I might not even be sure they were there. It even felt like Alec and Lisa were further away, which I knew couldn't be true. When I took a deep breath in to try and steady my breathing, I still smelled Lisa's shampoo and the faint chemical smell of the dogs. That grounded me a bit, as little as I was thrilled about either of those things.
She was using something lavender-scented. I'd always hated that smell.

The dog-thing beneath us started bucking just about as soon as the darkness had engulfed us, but a second later it had stilled, and then started again into what felt like a loping gait. I had to actually hold on to Lisa and try to get a better grip on its asymmetrical bone spurs with my legs, but between the three of us we managed not to fall off. I didn't love having to hold on to Lisa like that, it kind of ruined the thing with Alec having his fingers feeling at my ribs, but the ride was quick and over with after only a few seconds.

The darkness around us dissipated, though I couldn't see the sky. Grue had smoke flowing off him and to the ground where he was standing next to the van, but all the smoke that drifted up or around us disappeared swiftly. Neat.
We were only illuminated by the van's lights as we got off the dogs and loaded the duffel bags into the back. Nobody said anything until the van was loaded up and Rachel was back on one of her dogs with Grue.

It was Grue who sent us off.

"We'll lead you guys a few blocks, then you park and wait til the smoke is clear before driving off. Rachel and I will lead the smoke out a few blocks then find someplace for the dogs to shrink. Good?"

"Good," Lisa called from where she was already seated on the driver's side. I wasn't sure how much I trusted her to be our getaway driver, but I guessed it was better than having someone who didn't know how to drive at all try it.

Alec and I got into the back, and ended up sitting on top of the duffel bags. We shut the door behind us and sat in the still silence of our bubble surrounded by shadow. I listened to the engine start up and felt as we started moving.

And then Alec had pushed himself on top of me, pinning me down on top of the bags full of paperwork.

I probably could've gotten him off me if I wanted to.

I, uh, did not want to.

He pulled his mask up over his head and I felt him press it into one of my hands.
Then he licked me, chin to ear, and I laughed.

"You fucking goofball," I crowed, and he jeered, still trying to hold me down as I struggled. "You freak, get off'a me you goddamn weirdo," I said, playfully trying to roll him off of me on the uneven terrain. I felt my leg spasm when I kneed him in the side, then my arm did the same when I tried to karate chop him in the neck.
"Hey, I'm not using my power," I said breathlessly, but he ignored me, sending another spasm through my midsection that made me almost conk my head into his.
"Jesus christ that almost hit you," I complained, though I wasn't actually mad.

I wasn't… this wasn't bad. I couldn't remember the last time I'd had someone touch me and I'd been 100% okay with it. And maybe this wasn't quite that, either, but it was at least in the 90s or upper 80s. That was cool.

"If you two could stop crumpling up the merchandise, that'd be just real keen," I heard Lisa's droll voice from the front seat.

"Getting paid either way, TT," Alec said, sitting up with his knees to my sides. "You don't have to listen if you don't want to. Put on the radio, tune us out."

I felt the vehicle swerve, and heard something impact the dashboard.

"God damn it with you, Regent!"

Wow, and she actually sounded pissed, there.
"You're just lucky I'm a decent person and haven't told Mars about your shit. Makes me feel shitty that I haven't, honestly, since you're apparently too much of a coward to own it."

I heard Regent sigh. It was a tired sigh.

"You pick up hints, right? Then take this one: I'm over it. You don't need to be pissy about it just cause you can't get over whatever tragic backstory you've got going on. My past stays in my past. If you're jealous of that just come out and say it." He reached down and put a hand on the side of my face. His skin was warm.
"Don't try and harsh my mellow just because you think you know what's going on."

There was a second's silence where I just felt his thumb on the edge of my lips and heard Lisa's hands tightening their grip on the steering wheel. He wasn't looking at me, but seeing the utter dispassion in his face made me wonder what it was he'd been talking about.

Lisa had said that most capes had trauma. That idea fit well with what I knew about trigger events. Alec didn't seem like the kind of guy who had had something good happen to him. Neither did he seem like someone who had had something bad happen, and had overcome it. Obviously, he wasn't a hero.
But he certainly wasn't a Lung, or a… a Jack Slash. Sure, there wasn't much light in his eyes. But there wasn't much light in the eyes to go around in this gang.
I decided to say my piece.

"Lisa, if you know something, I suggest you keep it to yourself."
I sighed.
"Speaking for myself? If you shared my shit, I might actually kill you."

I wasn't sure if that was entirely true.
But I was sure it wasn't wholly untrue, either.

There was a solid minute before she said anything, by which point the van had stopped and the silence had returned.

"Consider it shelved," she said, tension evident in her tone. I couldn't see her, but I doubted she looked pleased.

Her fault for being nosy.

Alec stared at her for a few seconds, then looked back down at me, his eyes a little less terribly cold.
"Anyways." I felt his fingers drum on the side of my face. "Where was I?" he asked, and as he leaned down my power started rolling.

Bell, Bell, Cherry.

Lisa had said my power was trying to protect me, and to manipulate my social standing. What exactly did it think I needed protecting from, here? Bell was something like 'counter' or 'distract.' Cherry was defensive. I didn't want to be defensive, didn't want to distract from this. I mean, I didn't want a repeat of the last time, but–
Nah. I pushed my power down. I wasn't going to be a baby about it this time either way. I pushed down on my power until it stopped struggling.

Alec shifted his position over me, sitting down on my hips with his calves to his thighs. It left his knee right over the right side of my stomach, and the weight there was something I hadn't been ready for.

A dozen half-felt ghost sensations crowded my brain, of prod, jostle, check, turn, "you're such a strong girl."

I wanted it to stop, but I'd ignored my power when it'd been trying to help me.

I didn't realize he'd kissed me until he'd pulled away. I'd been like a dead fish, surely.

I tried on a frown, found it a little lacking, then tilted my head back towards Lisa and glared. She was a good target for my anger.
"Not now, Alec. I think someone killed the mood." My voice came out a little thready.

"Shame," he said, though he didn't sound torn up about it. I looked back at him, and he just shrugged. "I'm not gonna push. Lisa would probably bite my head off."

"Oh, fuck off," I heard Lisa mutter from the front seat.

He got off of me, for which I was thankful, and in a moment we both were seated on the duffel bags. He occupied himself with his phone. I just stared at the van wall. Lisa said nothing. The van hummed.


We started moving a short while later, the obtrusive blackness outside the front windshield being replaced with the more natural darkness of the city at night. If Brian had done as we'd planned, then he would have lead the cloud of darkness away from us so that we'd be unnoticed when we started moving. Bait and switch.
He'd wander to the edge of his cloud and wait for Rachel's dogs to shrink, a process that she claimed took a little while. Then they'd just walk back to the loft in civvies. A perfect crime.

Despite the summer heat, the air between us was decidedly chilly as we parked the van to the side of the loft and got out to make our ways inside. Lise made eye contact with me briefly. Whatever she was going to say was quelled by my glare.

The warehouse had a different feel at night; gone was the thought that it might one day be a nice place to hang out and watch a movie, all there was in the moment was the present reality of it being empty, creepy, and dark. Lisa flicked the lights on when she got up the stairs, but she just pulled a chair away from the table and sat down to look at her phone.
Alec made an amused face and looked at me, and I smiled a bit. It didn't quite feel natural.

"I'm gonna get out of my costume," I decided, electing to take the bathroom first.

The novelty headband and the wig came off first, then the hair net, and then the pins keeping my hair in place. It was a bit wavy when it hung, and I ran a hand through it to get it less messy.
The gloves came off, followed by the jacket, then the boots, then the body suit. I decided to just change into my PJs because I didn't want to get back into my day clothes. They weren't that dirty, but they weren't clean, either.
I took off the makeup and washed my face, then I decided to get brushing my teeth done with just cause I might as well.

I came out of the bathroom in my socks and pink-and-blue Narwhal-themed PJs. Narwhal with the capital N–nothing against the marine mammals, I just thought the cape was cooler.
Lisa looked at me with a blank expression for half a second, then put on a smile that I could tell was even more performed than her usual.

"We never settled the thing with the sleepover. Want to bunk with me? I've got space and it's better than trying to hang out here." She gestured at the AC unit. It wasn't so bad here now that the sun was down, but the building retained warmth very well and the little window unit was struggling to keep up still.
"I can look at your video, too, maybe help you with setting stuff up."

Something about the way she was talking to me, it got on my nerves. Like she was talking down to me. I was barely more than a year younger than her. Sure, I was short, but where did she get off?

But, yeah, that did sound like a good plan. She was clearly offering an olive branch. It'd be shitty of me to slap it away.

"Yeah, alright." I nodded. 'That sounds good." I turned to sit down in my chair between her and Alec. Alec looked up from his phone and gave me a wry smile.

"She's just trying to keep us apart, you know."

That hadn't actually occurred to me. Was I being too generous with my interpretation of her offer, or was he being too cynical?

"I need someplace to sleep," I said, frowning slightly. "Told my foster parents that I'd be back in the morning. Don't want to just hang out here."
Alec raised both his eyebrows at me, and then his implication sunk in. I felt my ears heat up.
"Oh, no, I mean, I wouldn't–" I trailed off when he started laughing. I wasn't sure where I'd been going with that sentence, anyways.

"You make it too easy," he said, looking back at his phone with a smirk still stuck to his face.

I just crossed my arms and maybe pouted a bit. Eventually I pulled my phone out of my backpack (no pockets in the jammies) and started scrolling through the message boards.
I was actually kind of tired by this point in the night. Nine was usually my bed time and even though I hated it, it was my routine. Now it was getting near ten o'clock, and I'd already brushed my teeth. My body was just primed and waiting to collapse onto something soft.

I might have dozed off a bit, because I jolted into wakefulness when I heard the metal steps creaking behind me. It was just Brian, in his turtleneck and jeans, with a backpack over one shoulder.

"Good work tonight, all. Probably overkill to have us all there, honestly, but if the boss is paying then it's easy money." He jerked a thumb behind him. "Rachel split, she said she had to be up early. Lisa, any confirmation from the boss? Noticed the van's gone, unless you parked somewhere weird."

Lisa looked up from her phone and nodded. "He had his guy pick it up ten minutes ago. Money's here in cash, they put it on the worktable downstairs. We got the bonus for the file he needed, so it's 5k. I already called Rachel and told her."

"She picked up?"

"Yup. She just doesn't text," Lisa said, glancing at me and Alec for some reason.

"Huh. Alright, that explains why she hasn't gotten back to me on anything."

"If you don't call too often it won't bug her. She hates you less than she does Marcie and Alec."

I raised an eyebrow at her. After a second I asked,
"I get me, but why Alec?"

"Bad first impression?" Alec guessed, not even looking up from his phone.

"Bad first impression," Lisa agreed. I remembered back to how she'd glared at him when he'd been texting all of us when we first met at the mall.

"What did you text her? When we first met up?"

"Huh? Oh." He glanced up from his phone at me, then back down. "Porn vid. I thought it was funny."
I laughed.
"What was–"

"You don't want to know," Alec interrupted, at the same time Lisa said,

"You really don't want to know."

"Gotta preserve some of that innocence," Alec said, looking up at me with a cheeky grin. God he was cute.

"Right," Brian said, in a tone that meant we should get back on topic. He hadn't sat down yet.
"Lisa, if everything's on track?"

"Yup."

"Then I'm gonna head out, if that's cool. It was good work, but I don't think there was anything worth talking over. Nothing went wrong, so." He gave a thumbs up, and it was less painfully awkward than it could have been, but not by a lot.
"Good work, team."

As he left down the stairs, I tried for a "Good night!"

He replied with a "Night!" that was somewhat muffled by the floor between us.

"Dork," Alec accused.

"Just being polite," I defended. He rolled his eyes.

Lisa cut in.
"Alec, you still have your two grand downstairs."

"Right, right," he said, standing up from his chair and stretching out. His floofy ren faire shirt untucked a bit, and he pulled it the rest of the way out of his leggings. He started unbuttoning his shirt as he made his way towards the bathroom, a process I watched with some idle attention. Lisa rolled her eyes at me, but I ignored her.
After he got up, Lisa took a moment to go into her room and change back into her street clothes. The yoga pants and sweater were peeking out of her over-full backpack when she came back out, and the black product she'd had around her eyes was mostly gone. That, or it was entirely gone and she just hadn't been sleeping well.
She had the strap of her backpack over one shoulder, and didn't move at all to sit down.

"You want to head out now? I've gotta get to bed, get a fresh start on tomorrow." She shrugged the shoulder she had holding up her backpack and let the ring of her car keys dangle from a finger on her free hand.

I nodded, glancing over at the bathroom Alec had disappeared into.
"See ya', Alec," I called out.

"Good ni~ight!" he sang out in a mocking tone, the noise rising from the missing ceiling.

"Oh, wow, screw you too." I scowled.

"We should put a ceiling and a fan in there," Lisa mused as we made our way down the stairs. "My power is bad enough when I can tell exactly when the last time someone took a shit was. Hearing it happening might actually kill me."

"Think you could sell Rachel on that one?" I asked, thinking about group finances as we both picked up our stack of bills off the table on the ground floor.

"Maybe. Probably not, but maybe." She thought to herself a minute. We got outside, and she unlocked her car and we both sat down.
"It'd be the same as with Brian, it'd be good to have something that she feels like ties her to the group. But selling it in the first place isn't going to be easy. She's strapped for cash and even with as good a gig this is, she's probably still going to be looking for other jobs where she can."

"Seriously?" I wondered what the hell she could be spending that much money on. "What is she, a single mom?"

Lisa laughed, and looked like she was about to say something, but then stopped suddenly.

"Huh?" I asked.

"It's personal shit," she said, eyes flicking between me and back at the stairs going up to the loft.
"I don't think it's a big secret."
What was she being cagey for, all the sudden?

"Go for it," I said with a shrug. I didn't really care that much about Rachel's privacy, frankly.

Lisa pursed her lips, but she did go on.
"She has a ton of dogs she takes care of. Ones she's rescued from kill shelters and dog rings, or just ones with abusive owners when she sees them." Lisa shrugged. "She takes good care of them, but it's expensive, even with her power giving her an edge."

I frowned.
"I don't really need my money. I wonder if she'd accept donations."

"Probably not. I mean, she'd accept anything you gave her, but she would be suspicious about it." She frowned in thought as she made a right turn. "Or maybe not. I'm not confident about her, yet."

"Huh." It made me wonder how confident she was about how my brain worked. I didn't even know how my own brain worked, maybe she could give pointers.

We drove to Lisa's apartment in a silence that was somewhere between awkward and tired. Looking at her more closely, I figured the circles under her eyes were about halfway natural, halfway a lack of enough makeup remover. That still left a sizeable natural racoon eye that I wondered about. She'd mentioned people with powers often had trauma. Did insomnia count as trauma?

"It's from using my power too much," Lisa said. Apparently I'd been staring too long.
"I mean, I don't get as much sleep as I should just as a general rule, but that's on me, haha." Her laugh didn't have much humor in it.
"I've been trying to figure you all out. Trying to keep the house of cards from collapsing, you know?" She had a slight manic edge to her tone there for a moment.
"I mean I won't talk about Alec, right," she glanced at me, "cause that's, ah, taboo, apparently. But he's only half ways motivated by money and like he said day one, he will just up and leave if things get boring. The boss has use for him even as a solo worker, so we'd just kind of be shit out of luck if that happened."

She sounded like she was rambling, but I let her. Maybe she was just thinking aloud, or maybe she was just having a little mental breakdown. I'd been there before, either way.

"I won't get into your shit cause you know it. You're about as invested as he is, and sure, we're all entertaining for now, but I'm not an entertainer. I'm not fucking Circus. I'm not here for fun. I just want some kind of goddamn foothold here in the city, you know? Make something for myself, get allies."
She sighed, and we accelerated maybe a bit faster than we should have on a residential street.
"And, yeah, socially Brian's fine, but he's not tied down and he doesn't want to be. He could just up and leave at any time. He needs the money, and the boss has other incentives for him, but they aren't unique to him, and Brian's got very little patience for all the Big Brother shit.

"And Rachel, god, Rachel, she's the emotional equivalent of a trainwreck loaded up with landmines."
The analogy there was a bit loose, but she waved me off before I could say anything. "She has her thing, and she does it, but anything that gets in the way? Punch, swear, or ignore. I swear she's more like an abused dog than a person–"

She winced visibly, putting a hand to her forehead. The car swerved briefly but she righted it quickly. "Fuuuuck," she droned. She had both hands back on the wheel, and was squinting down the street. We'd slowed down a lot.

"You good?" I asked. She didn't seem good, but, you know, it's the thing to ask.

"Yeah. I'm fine." She sighed. "I need a book on dog psychology, is all."

I raised both my eyebrows at her, but she shook her head.
"You don't want to know." I frowned, and she shook her head. "Look, you're the one who said no personal shit. I don't want you to fucking kill me, remember?" She looked at me with an expression that was slightly crazed. Had she taken my threat that seriously?
"Yes, yeah, I took it seriously. And I'm gonna let you sleep in my apartment, because I'm a fucking lunatic…"
She started trailing off into near-indiscernible mutters.

I snorted, and she laughed, too, but it wasn't a happy laugh.
"This is gonna work out, Marcie. Just you wait, I can… duct tape us all together. Make a proper, functioning team of us, yet."
She breathed out a sigh.
"I'm rambling."

"Yup," I agreed. Good to see she was self-aware, at least.

She leaned back in her seat and let out a long sigh, getting back up to a more normal speed as she got us through the worst parts of the Docks and into less unrespectable places. We drove into a parking garage nestled between several apartment buildings, and my nose was greeted with the scent of gasoline until Lisa rolled up her window. That held the smell off until she parked and we both got out.

Lisa's apartment building connected to the garage through a walkway that had seen better days. As we crossed it, I looked down at the alley below and wondered how much I should worry about the way the metal creaked beneath our feet.

The interior of her building was just halls and rooms, halls and rooms. I'd been here before, and I'd been in similar buildings, too. Depressing off-white paint leading to depressing off white popcorn ceilings. They both might have been a pure white at some point, but age and use had fixed that.

Her apartment I'd already been in. It was nicer than the hallways, but it was still cramped. It definitely seemed like the kind of place a single high-school aged girl would rent out to get out of the house, cheap and at least moderately respectable. She kept it clean, and her eye for style was alright. It was still crammed between a dozen other identical rooms, and I could hear the thrumming of someone's music a floor away.

She turned the lights on to medium with the dial next to the door, and I leaned over to unlace my shoes. I was still in my PJs and I'd already brushed my teeth, so I just set my backpack next to my shoes and wandered in to just kind of stand there.

Lisa said I could sit down, that she'd be a minute, and she went about her evening while I tried to stay awake in one of her tall chairs next to the kitchen counter. I watched her move a few times between her room and the bathroom, doing things like changing into her own pajamas (silky white and green pinstripes) and putting her hair back up into a bun.

I ran a hand through my own hair. I'd come to the conclusion that I was mostly imagining anything being wrong with it. I still wanted it cut.

She came out of the bathroom with a toothbrush in her mouth. She looked at me, nodded, then walked back into the bathroom. A minute later I heard her spit, heard the sink run, and she came out again.

"So, you can have the bed or the recliner. I'm really fine with either, I sleep in that thing half the time anyways." She jerked her thumb towards the recliner. It looked pretty comfy, but…

"I really hate waking up with a back ache."

"Back ache? How old–" she started with a grin, but then stopped, suddenly ashen faced.
"You, uh, I don't think you'd get one still. Panacea… Panacea did good work."

I nodded. I didn't offer anything to make her feel more comfortable in this line of conversation.

"Still, uh, yeah, bed's made, sheets are clean, ish. Go for it, just, uh, lemme get some stuff."

'Some stuff' apparently just meant a pillow with a T-shirt pillowcase. It was fabric from two shirts, cut to strips at the edges and tied together to make a case. I saw one side read 'Class of '08' and the other was actually a sports jersey.
Class of '08. Middle school? Or maybe her power let her skip a few grades. Wished it were me.

I didn't bother to ask because I couldn't really bother to care. I was tired and I just wanted to sleep.

Her room was a bit messy, but in a way that told me she'd put some effort into cleaning. Laundry was in a pile, the drawers of her dresser were all shut, and the carpet had lines in parts from the path of a vacuum cleaner. The bed was queen sized with a comforter draped neatly over it though not tucked in. As I collapsed into it, I smelled a hint of the lavender I'd noticed on Lisa earlier.
Not ideal, but it wouldn't stop me from getting to sleep.


I fell asleep almost immediately. I remember getting up at one point to use the bathroom, but otherwise?
I know only that I dreamed.