Imagine an alternate direction of Hard Talk...
She could hear him breathe on the other end of the line. Like he was building up to something. "Yes, why? Why do I need to explain that my sister tearing me down in front of my parents, while they say nothing, on the worst night of my life is something I can be upset about?"
"So, this is all about Natalia?" Of course, baby brother has to make it all about himself. "That's why you're putting everyone through all this?"
He played the role to the hilt, putting on airs of maturity by breathing deeply to steady himself. Except his control failed partway through, and he couldn't stop his rising voice straining against the limits of Alena's tiny phone speakers. "Setting aside the fact that apparently nobody has any problems with the way she behaves, you do know that I got kicked out of school that night?" I asked. "You don't think that might have been a touch upsetting for me? Not just for Mom, but for me? That it would have been hard to deal with even if I was in my best mindset, which I wasn't? Even if I didn't have my sister tearing me down and Mom effectively blaming me for everything that went wrong? Do you know how badly that could have gone?"
That phrase. That whole idea slammed into Alena's mind with the sudden force of a closing beartrap. She was no cape groupie, but people talked, and the handful of media accounts and twitter feeds that graced her phone delved into fringe theories and wild speculation as much as anything. On recent events, the Ungodly Hour, triggers and tropes of cape life.
"Apeiron."
"What."
"You- him. The Enigmatic Articifer." She swallowed an uncomfortable gulp of air. "I've heard- I mean, what happens on someone's worst days. What can happen."
Silence on the other end. No static or even the hint of breathing that had previously underscored Jozef's explanation. For a second Alena felt fear-true mortality. A deep and watery feeling of religious terror. She was reminded of a meme thread one of her coworkers had shared, where clips and photos of capes, especially local ones- were paired with topical quotes. Or not so topical. Like the Flashbang ones.
But one stood out. One clung to her memory along with those lurid water-cooler conversations about capes and the offensive gossip. How someone was just one bad day away from super powers. And how about someone had taken a picture of one of Apeiron's suits in the time-field, and set it to a quote that at the time made no sense. ""I never said, 'The superman exists and he's American.' What I said was 'God exists and he's American.'"
It turned out that quote had come from a comic written on Earth Aleph, and only recently had made its way to Earth Bet.
The most powerful being on the planet short of Scion was on the other end of the line. Her baby brother was on the other end of the line. Jozef Duris was Apeiron.
"-lena. Alena!"
Jozef's rising shout was enough to snap her back into focus, and she was glad for the wordless wet squawk that slipped past her lips. That it swallowed up the first words tumbling out of her mouth- sorry. And she was, but she was smart enough to know the difference between true sincerity and the existential dread of appeasing someone bigger, stronger, with more power over you. Like her own mother when she made a mistake, or her teachers or her boss. Now her brother.
"J-Jozef?" Alena licked her lips, thinking. There was a chance. A tiny chance she was wrong. Or that Jozef would take the first opportunity to laugh it off. To make her think it was impossible- that he couldn't be the Enigmatic Artificer.
"Yes."
For a second she imagined the uptick at the end, the curl of his voice that'd make the single word into a question. Without thinking, she felt herself slump into her chair, relieved. And a fraction of a second later, she realized the truth- not just an acknowledgement, but an answer.
"I-I-"
"I'm sending you something." He cut her off with such an uncharacteristic decisiveness that she almost didn't recognize his voice.
"Ah- A text. Email?"
"Priority mail- it should arrive tonight. A watch. It should help keep you safe."
Safe. Safe? "You still. I me-"
"Stop." Jozef never interrupted her, even at his angriest he just stood there and took things. From Natalia, from Mom. Twice now in the same conversation he cut through to her. He spoke as if it were the most obvious thing in the world "You're family- of course I want to keep you safe."
Alena's throat seized up, but she managed to croak out a helpless but. Jozef just carried on as if he knew what she was going to say. Maybe he did. "The line is secure- and you've known me for my entire life short of these past few weeks. Nothing about my powers have ever changed the fact that you're my family and that I don't want to hurt any of you or see you hurt. If you're going to apologize, think about what you're apologizing for before you say it."
So Alena did, and over the line she heard the faintest murmur of other voices. A piqued tone huffing something 'about god damned time' and other sounds. Jozef's friends. In a hot second, Alena realized he could've probably hidden that from her, that the casualness of her overhearing through his phone was as much a performance as anything- but an effective one.
There was a scuffle then, on the other end of the line-and Jozef's muted cry of dismay as he seemed to be pulled away. The line went dead, to dial tone, and Alena was left holding the phone chiming softly in her ear.
Then it rang. It tumbled from her hand and clattered on the living room floor, and to her dismay the screen cracked lengthwise- but she could still gingerly accept the call. "J-Jozef?"
"No-" A young woman's voice- maybe even a teenager. "This is Aisha. I'm one of Jozef's friends."
Hearing her brother's name pronounced so awkwardly made Alena blink, nearly unable to compute. This Aisha seemed to carry on without noticing. "Anyway- so Joe's got something he has to take care of, and we'll probably give you more info once your watch arrives. In the meantime I'm going to lay out some facts for you- You ready?"
No. Never. Yes. "I think so..."
Aisha took a deep breath. "Okay- so talking with Joe and all his friends and seeing what a piece of work my own mom is like- your mother is an abusive control-freak. She means well but that's what makes it so terrible. She fucked up- she is fucked up, and passed that on to your sister, you and Joe. I can't make this choice for you, but everything I know says the best thing you can do right now is block your mom's number, her emails- even your dad's if you have to. The less contact you have with any of that toxic nuclear waste dump, the better. Look up that quote by C.S. Lewis if you want to understand where Joe and I are coming from."
Abusive? If it were any other day, any other time Alena might've shot upright, screamed into her phone- that some random woman would even say such a thing about her mother. But this was Jozef, the brat, the darling baby. The problem child.
Except...
Maybe he wasn't the problem. And that was a problem in and of itself.
"I can't just... she's my mother." Alena sighed, already exhausted from work and the reveal after reveal. "I can't just block her without explaining why."
"You can. You should." Aisha insisted. "You're the only one who can- oh I'm sure we could set your watch up to do it, but it wouldn't count. Anyway- I wanted to just make sure you knew where we stood and that Joe was fine. It was just a workshop addition. Hopefully we'll get this all handled."
"I... Okay." Alena sucked in a steadying breath. "Not sure how I'm going to be able to sleep after all of this, but... thank you. And tell Jozef that... that he can call me again, if he wants."
"I think he'd appreciate that. See ya!"
the line went dead once more, and Alena stared at her broken phone.
The next morning, arriving at her apartment door as if by magic postal fairies, was a thin envelope with bubble wrapped interior. Inside was a stunningly gorgeous silver band of gleaming metal and fine chain links. When she read the note and asked the watch's assistant to help set her preferences, she glanced back her broken phone and the brochures she'd looked up for replacements.
"Huh."
