Broken Mirrors, Black Cats, and Other Wonderful Things [Worm][OC][Brockton Bay]

[T0PH4T]

I nod to Armsmaster as he enters the briefing room, a greeting he doesn't return. Velocity and Miss Militia were both here ahead of me but neither tried to start conversation. I haven't seen Dauntless yet, which means that he's probably the one on patrol.

After he's taken his helmet off, Armsmaster looks at me, light bags under his eyes making the stare deeper than I remember. "Before we begin this meeting, I would like to address the elephant in the room. Black Cat, do you feel fit to return to duty after your lapse?"

"Yes." I think about a million other things I could add, ultimately deciding against all of them. More excuses aren't going to be useful, and it's not like making up with my team is going to help with the legal storm.

He looks to the other two Protectorate capes in the room. "Do either of you have questions?" When they both shake their heads he grunts and the screen behind him flicks on, displaying a burnt out car. "Then we shall begin the discussion of the Empire's recent string of car bombings. On the surface level it seems to be focused on Asian business owners, nominal retaliation for Lung's rampage from last month. Thinktank analysis found that each victim also had a graduate degree or better though, and further postmortems confirm that the bodies in the car do not match the victim's dental records."

"Kidnappings? If so, when can we expect ransom requests?" Miss Militia asks.

Armsmaster shakes his head. "The families of the missing persons have not been contacted by the Empire, nor has the PRT received a note on their behalf."

Velocity snaps his fingers. "Victor wants to suck them dry."

"That is my working theory," Armsmaster agrees. The screen shifts to a heat map of the Bay, one which is nearly completely irregular. "This displays the residences of all doctors, engineers, and certified martial artists in the city which fit the usual demographics of the Empire's usual victims. While I've done my best to track down decorated veterans as well, a good number of them do not have a permanent home address." Several white lines appear across the map, twisted and passing through multiple splotches of deep red. "I've restructured our patrols to focus on the highest-risk areas and asked for further Thinktank time, but we are far down the queue."

"Is there anyone in town that we can tap for help?" I ask, trawling through my mental list of contacts. "Rogue postcogs, precogs, or clairvoyants that might have a bone to pick with the Empire?"

Velocity nods. "Blue Caterpillar can see quite far and accurately, but she tends to be almost uselessly cryptic. That, and White Rabbit is extremely gun-shy about letting people talk to her as she can only hold onto a single prophecy at a time without rendering the previous one invalid."

"Try to open up a channel of communication anyway." The slide moves on, this time displaying headshots of all the Wards. "The Wards managed their duties exceptionally well, surpassing all expectations both in conduct and professional performance. What rewards can we dole out for them?"

*****

Clockblocker throws up his hands as I enter the Wards common room, red hair on display and green eyes bright with mirth. "You're back from your vacation! See, if I punched a little girl in the face I'd be screwed, but apparently when you're a full member of the Protectorate-"

"Clock, knock it off," Triumph says, glaring at the younger Ward, then turning to me. "Black Cat, what brings you here?"

"Good news," I answer, smiling behind my mask, the expression only a little faked. "In recognition of your service, Armsmaster has decided that you may receive both additional combat training and additional patrols. Now, these are completely optional-"

A resounding cheer goes up from around the room, punctuated by hi-fives and whoops, including an enthusiastic "Round two!" from Vista.

I hold up my hands defensively. "That doesn't mean today, and you'll still need to get your parent's permission-"

This time the chorus is groans, punctuated by an equally enthusiastic and far louder, "Fuck!"

"Language," I say, glaring at the young girl from behind my mask. After the group stays quiet for a full five seconds I let my hands drop. "I'm still being kept out of the public eye for the aforementioned incident, which means that I'm going to be the one mostly responsible for the training sessions. The next one is in two days. See you then."

I leave after some more well-wishing, thankfully not accompanied by more jokes. From there I grab what little was left in my room, stuff it in a bag, then head for the motorpool to head back to Sam's place. Along the way I run into Roger.

"Hey," he says, bending over panting and holding one hand up. "Gimme a minute."

I wait patiently as Roger catches his breath, then stands up, brushing his hair a little and looking me in the eye.

"How're you doing?" he asks, extending a hand.

I take it and shake. "Better. Pay isn't reduced as much anymore, and I'm back to work."

Roger winces. "Still sucks. So, I missed the briefing, but from what I read of the after-action report it was basically wrong place, wrong time for the girl."

I grimace. "That's about the size of it. I still have a lot I need to clean up, but I'm hoping that I can put this behind me soon."

"Good," Roger says, rubbing his neck and looking to the side. After a second he looks back. "Anyway, I haven't seen you for a week, and given that I'm pretty sure you live on-base that's kind of worrying. If you need a place to crash-"

"Thanks for offering, but I'm currently sleeping with a friend." After a second I register the words that came out of my mouth and smirk at the unintentional pun. "In the literal sense."

Roger blinks. "Okay." After a second he digs his phone out of his pocket and holds it up. "In order to avoid miscommunications like this next time, maybe we should exchange info?"

"Sure." A quick tap later and I can see his profile pic in my contact list. Plus one person I can talk to. For a second we stand there awkwardly, his eyes gliding off me then latching back on a second later, while I try to think of a diplomatic way to ask him to let me go.

"I kind of need to get somewhere," I say carefully, motioning to move past him.

"Right, right." He takes a deep breath. "Wouldyouliketogotodinnerwithme?"

The world stops.

The silence is apparently all the answer he needs, and Roger quickly drops his head and steps to the side. "Sorry. Dumb question. See you later."

There's a second there where I could say something. Explain that it's not him, it's me, and that if he had been a little more vocal earlier I would've considered it. I could warn him that I'm damaged goods on a lot of levels, and that he really isn't missing much. Even something as small as a touch of solidarity, an acknowledgement of how fucking painful it is to ask and be turned down.

Instead I walk away as quickly as I can without seeming like I'm trying to get out and think as hard as I can about Sam.

 

[T0PH4T]

"Yes, I knew Dauntless liked you. I'm not blind," Battery says, scanning the streets as we walk through the nicer parts of ABB territory. We attract more attention and less interaction than we would in our usual haunts, which is both a blessing and a curse.

"Apparently I am. When did it start?" On the one hand, no one's going to be listening closely. On the other hand, I don't have the convenient excuse of unfriendly ears to dodge complicated questions.

Battery shrugs. "A week or so after you showed up. Can you think of anything you might've done to make him interested?"

That would be after our training sessions started, around the time he really started getting into it. I nod. "I can think of something."

"Why'd you turn him down?" When I walk beside her in silence for a block she sighs. "I don't have to get an answer, but I'd like to know if I have to worry about either of you coming to blows because one of you said the other one wasn't pretty enough."

I swallow the sudden bitter taste in my mouth as she accidentally treads over some tender ground. "Nothing like that. Roger is a fine man, and anyone would be lucky to have him. It is not an issue on his end."

"You're not wrong." When I give her a look she rolls her eyes. "I'm married, not dead. My husband's a perfectly good catch but he's also a lot of work, and if we didn't have powers I doubt we'd get along half as well. Roger is sweeter than cotton candy, it'd hurt to leave him in the morning, and there's some other stuff that I think he should've told you about before asking you on a date, but from an objective viewpoint I think you could do a lot worse."

I mull over that thought, then decide to let it lie. If Roger wants to try and talk again, I'll tell him no and that will be that. If he doesn't stop then, well, no Director hates capes enough to permit sexual harassment in the workplace.

The rest of the patrol goes basically without incident, and shortly after filling out her forms Sharon heads straight for the sick bay. I think about following her and checking in on Ethan, and eventually turn away. I'm not quite close enough to either of them for that, and frankly I'd rather not try and offer meaningless words.

Instead I get into what's rapidly becoming my sedan and drive towards what's rapidly becoming home.

*****

Sam answers the door dressed in basketball shorts and a baggy shirt two sizes too big, sandy hair askew. Around a yawn, he asks, "How'd work go?"

"Well enough. Yours?" Meaningless pleasantries, but they give me time to think about what I'm going to say next.

Sam shrugs, sitting on the far end of the couch. "Had to pull apart someone's laptop to tell them that shoving rice into the charging port is not a way to preserve battery life, but besides that easy enough."

I lay down lengthwise, with my head in Sam's lap. Almost as soon as I stop moving one of his hands starts running over my scalp, the other falling to my shoulder and giving it a comforting squeeze. For a while we just stay there, enjoying the physical contact, enjoying touching and being touched, a quiet permission given and received.

He rubs a few strand of hair between his fingers. "It's growing out."

I hum in agreement, one hand going up to my jaw and feeling the few hairs there. "Might need to trim it."

"Do you have to?" When I raise an eyebrow Sam replies with a small smile. "I haven't seen you with long hair before."

"My hair grows thick, not long." That, and long hair is a major disadvantage in a fight. A handle, a source of pain, attached to the single most important part of the body. Much easier to just shave it off.

Sam looks up, settling back against the back of the couch, hand going still. "It was just a thought."

"A coworker hit on me a few days ago." The words come out unbidden, unwanted. When Sam doesn't respond, I continue. "I didn't say anything and he moved on, but I thought you should know. Honest communication and all that." Sam's hand goes back to gently tracing patterns on my scalp. "Sam, talk to me."

He looks down at me quizzically. "What's there to say? Did you expect me to be mad?"

I open my mouth, then close it, nodding. Sam snorts, nose wrinkling and a smirk sneaking across his face.

"You can't control who decides to comment on your ass. I mean, you could trash your appearance and try to push everyone away, but doing that when you enter a relationship would feel really weird. You didn't kiss him, did you?" Sam asks, tilting his head a little.

"No, of course not," I say instantly, heat flowing through me, sending my heart rate skyrocketing and muscles tensing. Never, not once, not to Sam, not to anyone. "I would never-"

Sam shrugs. "Then there's no problem."

I stop speaking and just stare at him. He puts on another small smile, open and honest. "Eli, I trust you."

One of my hands shoots up and pull him down for a kiss. Long, deep, and desperate in a way I almost forgot I had painful amounts of experience with. Sam moves from sitting to straddling above me, the hand on my shoulder gripping now, just this side of bruises.

Eventually we have to break off for air, panting and looking into each other's eyes.

"That might be the hottest thing you've ever said to me," I whisper.

Sam's eyebrows furrow. "That I trust you? Not the 'let me eat your ass' from last night?"

I drag him down again. "Very." Kiss. "Different." Kiss. "Contexts." Kiss. The last one lingers, and I feel Sam's fingers fumbling for my belt. I smile against his lips.

"Bedroom. Now."

****

Spoiler: Potentially Rule Breaking

In college, the few couplings I had didn't tell me anything about having sex. Nobody who was willing to sleep with me knew anything about what they wanted, and all the people who did know had paired up with one another by the time I was willing to put myself out there. After a few disappointing one-night-stands I stopped going to parties and tried focusing on studies. When I got powers, I cut that part of my life away entirely and focused on self-development. The number of identities that have been compromised by significant others is absurd, and marrying another cape doesn't help those odds much. For a long time, I thought that being a dedicated cape and an active sex life were two mutually exclusive things, and at some level I wasn't wrong.

And then I joined the Protectorate and met Jackie.

It took me two days to realize I was being flirted with, and even then I only realized that it wasn't the usual new-guy hazing a week after my first cape fight. She was a physical person, one who used little touches and body language more than words, and it wasn't until I felt her very deliberately grind against me that I got the message.

I said no for a long time. Jackie took that at face value, but also didn't stop asking. I didn't ask her to. A hip bump in the hallway, a brush of knuckles over knuckles, leaning into me a little more than was strictly necessary when we rode together in a PRT van, the occasional scrape of nails up my inner thigh when no one else was looking that would leave me aching for more for hours afterward...

In hindsight I'm surprised that it only took a month for the two of us to sneak off to a secluded corner of the West PRT HQ and hurry our way through a fumbling, frantic fucking.

After that first time we started thinking more. Jackie taught me what she liked, I learned what I needed to enjoy carnal activities, and throughout it all I couldn't help but wonder 'why me?' Jackie would give different answers every time, from my looks to my heart to my power to anything under the sun. All lies, all a part of the masked fear she didn't share with anyone.

Eventually I stopped asking, tension drained from our near-talks, and we became comfortable.

I think that I gave serious consideration to asking her to marry me at one point.

Sam's not like Jackie. She liked games, liked making rules that we'd both end up breaking, stretching out the play for as long as possible, and I moulded to her schemes. Sam's too passionate for that sort of subtlety, for back-and-forth, for acting. Instead he worships, he groans, and he tries to communicate one one hundredth of the sun inside of him. That too I mould to, egging him on with teasing scrapes, from teeth, from nails, as I slowly map the lines on his back that make him go supernova. It's a new story, one that always comes to the same ending, and one that that is eminently comfortable.

I can't compare the two. Apples and oranges, song and dance, blades and bullets, they're two different people, too different to overlay and reduce to a list of objectionable and pleasant traits. I'm not sure I could say which I enjoy more, or whether that's even a question that makes sense. Even now, lying in Sam's arm, sore and sweating and suffused with a haze of contentment, I can't help but wonder what it would be like to be in Jackie's arms, to feel her breath on my neck, to have her breasts pressing into my back rather than Sam's arms reaching around me

I turn around just enough to kiss Sam's jaw. He twists to meet me halfway.

"Love you," he whispers.

 

[T0PH4T]

I'm in the middle of learning how to shift gears on a manual motorcycle when the call comes.

Hannah and I drag our phones out of our pockets almost simultaneously, abandoning our examination of the many-knobbed handlebars to see what control wants this time. We both pause, staring at the message there.

EB. Simurgh. Kenya, Mombasa.

Hannah pushed me out of the way as she straddles the bike and guns the engine with one hand, the other affixing her bandana across her face. "Don't wait up."

I pull my own hood up, flicker out onto the street, then turn my head, head up onto the rooftops, and then start heading for the Rig.

Velocity is already there, armed with a flat pistol and a bandolier of knives. He nods once at me as I walk across the rest of the distance.

"Armsmaster is getting your stuff, plus some new toys. Where's Miss Militia?" he asks, all business.

"Coming her by bike. No idea how long she'll be, but my estimates are less than five minutes. How long do we have until pick-up?" Trade questions for questions, ensure that no one's out of the loop, keep the information as concise as possible.

"Seven minutes. I've gotten the BBPD and the PRT agents currently on patrol clearing traffic for her." Armsmaster is clanging across the metal landing pad, two halberds strapped to his back, a third in his hand, and a metal briefcase in one hand. This suit of power armor is far more heavier than his patrol version, more blocky and crude, the silver so deep it almost looks grey. He holds the briefcase out to me, and when I take it I nearly sag under the weight.

"Night vision goggles that won't blind you for looking into a candle, monomolecular knives with disposable blades, and more mundane armaments," he explains as I open up the box and start strapping on. The buckles and layout are intuitive, simple, and completely unlike other tinkertech I've handled before. Normally when I use a teammate's gear they have to explain every single thing, to the point that the power gain isn't worth the hours and hours of training I need to sink into it to learn how to use it. With the golden blades and black handle though, one button ejects the blade and one button locks it. Simple, clean, and utilitarian in the best way.

I look him in the eye. "I'm not a front-line combatant. Even if the Ziz didn't pulp me after spending more than a second in her debris field, I'm pretty sure that a sharp knife isn't going to do much at all."

Armsmaster shakes his head. "I'm aware of your role. Search and rescue for all three Endbringers, along with small payload delivery against Leviathan and crowd management in the aftermath of the Simurgh."

I swallow a lump in my throat, the knife handle far heavier in my hand. "Right. Are we expecting many brutes this fight?"

Armsmaster nods. "The local warlord is a tinker capable of granting permanent, multiplicative bonuses to a host's biology in return for dramatic tradeoffs in other areas. His enforcers are capable of crushing rocks with their bare hands and healing from bullet wounds in less than a minute. They aren't more durable than normal, and wear heavy iron helmets to protect their brains."

"How long has the Simurgh been working on them?" Battery is wearing a full helmet now, tugging at different parts of her costume to get it to sit just right. Ethan is still weak on his legs, and I can only imagine what Sharon said to keep him from coming with her.

Sam.

"I need to talk to someone," I say quietly. Armsmaster nods and motions to the interior of the base. I'm gone a second later, flickering to the locker room, to where my civilian phone is, my connection to Sam. I fumbled the combination, almost cut open the locker, then press the keys more slowly, calmly. Haste makes waste.

I stare at the phone for a long time, trying to figure out what to say. Do I tell Sam? Do I not? What are my odds of dying or being driven insane versus my odds of coming back alive versus how Sam would feel in both scenarios. This is the wrong conversation to have over text, the wrong motivation for revealing it, and the worst possible time to even be thinking about it. Dragoncraft move too fast to have good cell service, and this isn't a phone that can email.

I have one text. Tops.

My work phone buzzes. I check it.

Two minutes.

I grit my teeth, hammer out five words, then hit send and throw my phone back in the locker. Once it's secure again I flicker through the halls back to the landing pad.

When I arrive the Dragoncraft is touching down, already half-full of capes. Miss Militia is back, being given a bandolier of tinker-tech munition by Armsmaster while hushed words are exchanged between the two of them. Dauntless is there, looking woefully under equipped with his weakly-glowing Arclance and shield. When he meets my eyes he looks away, and I wince behind my mask. That needs to be put to rest before we touchdown and start fighting. I take the seat next to him, nodding to the quiet woman on my other side. She's dressed in white power armor with red and black highlights, an eight stenciled across her mask. She pulls out a deck of cards and starts shuffling them one-handed, staring off into space and removing herself from the conversation.

Perfect.

"Hey," I say quietly.

Dauntless heaves a sigh. "I'm sorry."

I shake my head. "Nothing happened. No harm, no foul. I just wanted to..." I trail off, unsure of how to phrase the professional fondness I have for him.

"Tell me that I'm a good guy? That I'm nice? That it's not me, it's you?" The words are bitter but the tone is tired, an old wound reopened.

"I wanted to say that I already have a partner, and that if you had spoken up a bit earlier I might've said yes," I answer quietly.

We fly in silence for a few minutes.

"Oh," Dauntless says. His tone is still a little defeated, but I'd like to think it's less broken than before.

"You're the first to know." I lean gently against him, staring at the pair of capes across from us. One is a figure of glass, glowing purple from the inside out, while the other looks like a hole to space.

After a few seconds I feel Dauntless shudder beside me.

"I'm married, you know?" When I don't answer, he goes on. "I thought I loved her. I really did. We got along well, shared an apartment for years, and figured getting together was more 'making it official' than anything else."

He laughs without humor. "We did alright for the first few months. It was business as usual, paying bills and making meals, and we split the work equally. Happily. We thought that the little record keeping we had proved that we were in love. I mean, who else can make sure that the accounts are even, down to the cent?"

"And then I met a cape at work. I was a cop, you know?" he says, turning to look at me and making a finger gun. "Narcotics. White-collar, and part of the job was talking to a thinker who'd give us a head start. Anyway, the two of us just clicked. Boom. Spark of connection out of nowhere, completely uncontrollable, completely perfect, and even after the investigation was over they found reasons to come by and talk."

Dauntless sighs. "And then one thing led to another, I asked them out to dinner, they said yes, and we were dating. A married man and a cape."

I ponder that. "And your wife..."

Dauntless shakes his head. "Didn't know. Never knew until the thinker back tracked to her and asked me when I was planning to divorce her. Turns out they had been peering into every aspect of my life, trying to find a reason to dump me, and when they finally did they were hoping I'd choose them."

I pause. "Did you?"

I can make out an inch of a tight smile in the strip of empty space on his helmet, a smile filled with hurt. "No."

A chime sounds out.

"Dragon to all occupants, ETA is three minutes. First destination is the Command tent. All thinkers congregate here, along with anyone in a leadership position. If you are in Search and Rescue or Engagement, return to this vehicle after picking up your Containment Collars."

The craft dissolves into a swarm of last-minute gear checks, good-luck rituals, and in a few cases prayers. I see an honest-to-God priest muttering quietly to himself, hands together and eyes closed, and a figure decked out in scrap metal sitting across from them in the same position.

I'm not religious as a rule, but I still lift my eyes to the roof of the Dragoncraft. Even a casual examination of human history makes it difficult for me to buy the existence of the traditional god, but a request costs nothing. That, and superpowers are close enough to either miracles or curses that some higher power might be involved.

Please let this be a good day.

Then the doors open and we step into chaos.

*****

Emergency at work. Love you.

 

[T0PH4T]

It is terrifyingly easy to kill people.

Imagine a small piece of metal, roughly the size of a rock. Now imagine this piece of metal shaped into a roughly aerodynamic form. That is a bullet. You take a mixture of different minerals, apply heat, and suddenly that piece of metal is moving well beyond the speed any carbon-based life form can move without assistance.

Imagine a large piece of metal, at least as big as someone's head. Spread it out until it's half an inch thick. That is what it takes to stop that pebble of metal moving at high speeds.

Ever since humanity learned that sharp things went through material more easily than dull things, offense has always outpaced defense. In order to block a projectile weapon from the same time period, it takes at least ten times the base cost of the weapon, and usually more to maintain and replace. A knight on horseback would cost an absurd amount of money and time to create, from training the knight to training the horse to training the blacksmith to make his mail and plate. Putting together a cavalry charge took decades of man hours and the mobilization of several populations, and resulted in one of the most terrifying sights in human history.

All of that work flushed down the drain as a mob of peasants with two weeks of training each use metal-limbed crossbows to turn them into pincushions at fifty paces.

A pair of frothing brutes, swollen with muscle and eight feet tall, are charging through the Mombasa streets. The local warlord's muscle, apparently far more vulnerable to mental effects than usual. All the civilians are either evacuated or dead, so they've turned their rage onto the street, smashing up the streets and breaking windows by throwing around cars. Normally, the rule for African warlords is to leave the populations and infrastructure alone. No one shits where they eat, and it's in everyone interest for the land and people to be in as good condition as possible. Apparently B-list capes here switch sides at the drop of a hat, and so long as you aren't shooting for the top spot the quality of life is exceptionally good.

Well, good until the Ziz came.

I teleport onto the shoulders of one of the brutes, carve off the top of its head, the stab the golden blade into the mush. I flicker to the other monsters, who's only now registering the loss of his ally, and repeat the action. I'm running out of monomolecular blades, slowly but surely, and when I do I'm probably done for the day. Regular gunfire doesn't destroy their brain fast enough, and regular knives can't get through their skulls.

"Black Cat, you have five minutes of exposure time left. Evacuation is advised."

I growl but nonetheless start flickering away from the slight glass-on-chalkboard noise in the background. As a teleporter I get a little more leeway with regards to when I disengage, but they still try to keep a healthy margin of safety for when people vulnerable to the Simurgh's manipulations try to fight her.

It's the smart thing to do, and I know that intellectually. The only way to even pretend to avoid the Simurgh's influence is to overbuild, over-prepare, and hope for the best. A master/stranger protocol, one which gets matched against the single most terrifying thinker on the planet. The urge to hurt is still there, though, a restless adjustment on the grip of my knife, an eye wandering over the landscape looking for targets. Only that violent impulse, the scream running over the back of my brain, and long practice let me know that I'm currently being mastered.

I slap the knife handle into its clasp and force my hands to my sides, baring my teeth and running through my breathing exercises.

Fuck you, Ziz. Fuck. You.

*****

There are two parts to fighting Endbringers. Step one is the event itself, battling a nigh-indestructible titan that regularly kills between twenty five and seventy percent of the defending parahumans. That part is the part that everyone helps in, where local capes and the Protectorate work together to try and hurt the thing enough for it to leave. People who die here get put on memorials, venerated, and on some level forgiven.

Then there's the aftermath.

For Behemoth, this means that you go over to the ravaged medical tent and wait hours to get any lingering radiation purged. For Leviathan, this means pulling scattered people out of freshly-made lakes, finding a way through the now-drowned city, and helping the locals figure out whether they'll need to move somewhere else tonight. For the Simurgh, that means detainment and analysis.

"Black Cat, you're up," a PRT agent shouts. I dutifully follow them, into the makeshift interrogation room. There are two more people there, one local cape in bright primary colored rags, and another local covered in obsidian and black glass. The one in rags frowns at me, while the one in black speaks at me in a foreign language.

"I'm going to be an interpreter between you and Anansi here. He's going to ask you some questions, look for fallout, and if all goes well you'll be sent home shortly. If not, Reënboog will take you aside and we'll figure it out later." In other words, he'll kill me.

I nod and sit down across from the man in black. "What do you want to know?"

Anansi talks some more, and after a moment the PRT agent looks to me. "Who was the last person you slept with?"

I take a deep breath, hold it, then let it out. So that's how it's going to go.

"I last slept with a man named Sam Strasberg."

The questions don't get easier.

*****

When we get back to Brockton Bay, I'm bone tired. Physically I'm sore and exhausted, barely on my feet. Mentally, I can barely register Armsmaster's words as he helps guide us off the Dragoncraft, tells us that we're to have two days of mandatory paid leave, and that if we want more we can email him at any time.

"Permission to teleport across the city?" I blink. Heavily.

Armsmaster frowns a little, then nods. "May I ask why?"

I wave my hand, stepping away from the group. "Personal. Tell you when I get back. Permission?"

"Granted." As soon as the whole word is formed I'm flickering. Teleportation doesn't take energy, not like walking does. Not like talking. Navigation isn't much more difficult, but I can still only barely make it back to Sam's apartment.

He left his curtains open, so I can flicker into the living room without trouble. After closing them, I check the time. Six in the afternoon. Sleeping then. I feel guilty about how grateful I am, how many questions I get to dodge until morning, but even that's muted. I strip in the bathroom, tossing my vest, mask, and bodysuit into the bathtub. I ignore the mirror, padding naked into the bedroom.

There's a rustle in the pitch black, cloth on cloth. "Eli?" I slip under sheets and wrap my arms around Sam wordlessly. Instantly he reciprocates. "How'd work go?"

"Please." My strings start snapping, one by one, the shadows closing in. "Let me sleep."

Then I think no more.

 

[T0PH4T]

Sam waits for me to wake up, then asks if he can leave my arms to go to the bathroom. I let him go without a word, and while he's showering I cook a quick breakfast. I'm still out of energy, but at least I feel capable of verbal communication. Eggs, toast, and a carton of fruit. Simple food, but hopefully enough to smooth over the coming conversation.

Eventually I hear the door to the bathroom open. I flip an egg one last time, then slide them onto a plate and carry the food to the table. Sam walks in with a towel around his waist and my suit in hand, staring at me with a blank expression.

I place a plate in front of him. "I'll explain. Promise. But first we eat."

Breakfast goes by fast. Then I wash the dishes as Sam goes to put on some real clothes, pour and drink a glass of water, wash that glass, and right as I'm wondering about whether we have any juice Sam coughs from the living room. Loudly.

"An explanation?" he says.

My shoulders shake a little as I walk in.

He's seated in an armchair, across from our usual couch. I take the gesture for what it is and lean forward, elbows on my knees and trying to organize the words in my head. I open my mouth one, then twice. Both times I cut myself off because it feels wrong somehow, or aborted, or just brutally dishonest.

Throughout it all Sam just sits there. Blank.

"I'm Black Cat," I say quietly, dropping my gaze to the floor. The least-frilly version I could come up with. "I didn't tell you because I was scared, because you'd have to sign NDA's, and because when people who know a cape's civilian ID break up with the cape it's such a massive piece of leverage that there can almost never be a relationship between them again."

For a while we both just sit there in silence.

"That hurts. What emergency did you run into last night that made you change your mind?" Sam's voice is tight. Controlled. I'm not sure it's angry though.

"The Simurgh," I answer, tracing the edges of the table with my eyes. Normally, after an Endbringer fight, I lock myself in a room with a full length mirror, and then stare at it with my shirt off until I stop thinking. I regret the ink, but it helps. Sometimes.

Another silence.

"Shit." This time the tightness is gone, replace with something like shock. "Wow. Um. Shit."

I smile weakly, still tracing the table with my eyes. "The Protectorate is preparing a press release. Chances are it will be out later today, if it's not already."

"No, I mean like I have no idea why'd you go to one of those."

The chair creaks and when I've lifted my head Sam is already pacing, nearly stomping, across the room. "I mean, what do you add? Do you have some sort of anti-matter bullshit hidden up your sleeve? Monomolecular claws that you don't show the public? A way to dodge the scream that means you need to go?" He stops pacing and sits down next to me, glaring. "Eli, what the fuck?"

My smile stays in place. "No antimatter, no claws, no special resistance. Just a run-of-the-mill Stranger."

Sam stares at me.

I shrug. "I usually run with Search and Rescue. Travel in the wake of Endbringers, pick up the people who can be picked up, get them to the healers, then back to the trenches." I rub my arms. "And the thing is, it's not about hurting them. Never is."

Piece by piece, link by link, I explain the logic of an Endbringer fight to Sam. The known futility, the attempts to minimize casualties, to figure out what's happening. How half the battle is knowing what you're fighting over, and the other half is making sure you don't lose. That I know fewer people die because I'm willing to decrease my odds of survival, and that as suicidal activity goes this is some of the less dangerous.

I don't tell him everything. I don't tell him about Leviathan's real power, about the roast-pork scent of Behemoth's wake, about the second part of fighting the Simurgh. I'm not sure how much he would get, even if I was able to force words into the proper shape. A burden shared is a burdened halved, but I think both Sam and I have had enough.

Eventually, I run out of energy and stop. I just got up, just had a meal, but I'm exhausted. I rub my eyes and yawn, then look at Sam, who's looking at me like I've grown a third head.

"So. That's me." I turn away to look at the closed drapes. I drop a hand between us, palm up. Waiting.

Eventually I feel Sam's fingers thread through mine, the calluses on the tips mismatched with the ones one the inside of my hands.

"Do you want to know about what it was like growing up in the middle of fucking nowhere?" Sam asks.

I nod. "More than anything."

*****

We both take some vacation time, Sam more than me, but with Ethan up and about I also have a little more leeway when it comes to my hours. We have a lot of sex, enough that Sam and I both joke about honeymoons, but more of it is spent just talking.

Sam tells me about a small town in the middle of nowhere, where everyone knew one another on a first-name basis, everyone knew how to hunt, and people were basically nice. Most everyone nominally attended church, almost no one went to college, and your life was mapped out almost from day one. It was nice, in a suffocating way, and if things had been different he'd probably be married to some boy he'd known since kindergarten with a pair of brats squalling at his side.

Well, someone threw a great old speed bump on that path called Orlando.

"I don't like reading. Not really," he clarifies, invisible in the dark. I blow out a breath through my nose, disturbing the fine hairs on his chest. "I like things that makes sense. That work. Books don't make sense, don't fit a code block, none of that shit. But Orlando? It was like a new fucking world opened up. I kept reading and rereading it, even after we were supposed to give it back, and the ideas kept bouncing around in my head, about boys becoming girls, about girls like boys, and one late night when I was masturbating I thought 'how great would it be to have a dick right now?' and from there it was a long series of lies and half-truths to getting the fuck out of there."

"You read Orlando in high school?" I ask, looking up. I think I can catch a glint of teeth in the dark.

"Staff didn't read the book before assigning it. They replaced it after it had corrupted only one generation."

I smile. "They corrupted the right one."

Sam growls playfully. "You're a dork, you know that?"

"You play video games. I don't." I take a breath in, savoring the scent of sweat and sheets and Sam, and kiss his chest. A hairy arm slips to take my hand, and for a brief moment all is right with the world.

I don't think either of us have trouble sleeping for a while.

 

[T0PH4T]

I teleport, then duck as an automated turret tries to take my head off with a blast of crimson energy, forcing me to jump away from Vista's unprotected back. I see a distortion of air and flicker again as Triumph's scream passes through the space I was, once more twisting-

Aegis crashes into me with bruising force from above, slapping a water balloon into my face.

"Got you!" he shouts. A ragged cheer rises from the rest of the Wards, and I can't help but smile through the water soaking my mask.

"Good job. Let's take ten," I say, flipping down my now-sodden hood and peeling back the bodysuit. This cheer is far more vocal, and the movers in the group dash for the rec benches to secure their favorite drinks, leaving the less-mobile members to plod along behind slowly.

Clockblocker slides up beside me, hair slick with sweat and cheeks flushed with exertion. He has an unusually serious expression on his face and his helmet clutched between his hands. "Be honest, how much were you holding back?"

I think about lying, then dismiss it. "I'm holding back as much as any Protectorate cape does when they engage with minors. Armsmaster isn't going to whip out the plasma blade against Newter, Miss Militia isn't going to snipe Liar Liar from five blocks away, and Velocity isn't going to cut Othala's throat at the speed of sound. Villains might hold back a little less, but in general I've been fighting you in such a way that you're expected to lose but victory is possible."

Clockblocker nods. "In other words, a lot."

I lift up my hands helplessly. "Ninety percent of the crime you're going to be fighting is mundane humans doing stupid stuff for fun. Five percent of the crime is going to be mundane violence that your power is still overkill for. Four percent of the time you might fight a villain or new trigger, and there you'll have to think on your feet."

"And one percent of the time we run into monsters. Except this is Brockton Bay, with Lung and Hookwolf," he counters, shaking his head. "Do you think we could take either of them? Honestly, if both sides were going full throttle?"

I pause, considering the scenario, then Dennis's feelings, then how much the truth could hurt.

Slowly, I shake my head.

"Kid Win is a tinker. He can beat anything given time and money. You seem to have an absolute offense, and your synergy with Vista is insane. Vista's power itself has some horrifying potential, and if you guys engage him before he ramps up with Chris fully kitted out, and Vista's already breaking the battlefield, I think you could take him."

Clockblocker mulls it over, then sighs.

"Except Kid Win isn't going to be kitted out because he doesn't know his speciality. Except Vista can't go full ham because that would destroy the city. Except my power doesn't de-escalate him and past a certain point I'm not going to be able to touch him without bursting into flames. Except Lung's never, ever going to let us pick the battlefield, he's never going to engage without Oni Lee, and he's sure as hell not going to let us do whatever we want to him."

I nod in agreement. "Fair fights never happen. If you caught Lung early, I think you guys could foam him and be done. If he picks the fight that's not going to work."

For a bit we both just stand there.

"Then what's the point?" he asks.

I hold up one finger. "Nothing goes according to plan. Lung could mistime his arrival, misjudge how much force could be brought to bear against him, or he could just make a mistake when fighting you guys. Capitalizing on that would require training, good reflexes, and a lot of luck, but it could happen." I raise a second finger. "Not everyone is Lung or Hookwolf. I wouldn't go full throttle on anyone who wasn't trying to kill me, and they would reciprocate, leading to a safer environment for everyone. I'll still try to catch them, they'll still try to steal, but it's not a fight to the death or Birdcage." I raise a third finger, this time adding a smile. "Also, it's fun, right?"

Clockblocker passes his helmet from hand to hand, a contemplative frown on his face.

Then a water balloon smacks him in the back of the head and all serious thoughts are banished in favor of spending the unused ammunition from the exercise. With powers.

Spoiler: A/N

The rest of the posts from after this are non-canon, but some people seem to like them so they're going here anyway.

 

[T0PH4T]

I look Piggot in the eye. "You can't be fucking serious."

She looked back. "Do I look even remotely amused at this?"

"No but you still can't be serious." I have had bad days before. Horrible ones, even. This somehow takes the cake.

"Thanks to the ruling of Esperanza v. State in 2003, the marital status of Protectorate members is property of the state, and he did ask for it," Piggot says, looking at me flatly.

"But I can get a divorce afterwards, no?" I ask, beginning to pace frantically. "There's gotta be a way out." I have no idea how I went through more than five years of working for the PRT and only just now found it out, but it literally could not come at a worse time.

"If you have children." I stop and stare at her, mouth dropped open. She raises an eyebrow. "Black Cat, I did not make the laws. I simply enforce them. The girl you struck comes from a powerful family, and while her older sister is a bit young-"

"She is eighteen! I am twenty-seven!" I shout, throwing my arm wide. "Why do I have to marry the older sister of the girl I struck?"

Piggot sighs. "Just be glad that age is a metric that prevented you from being forced to marry her. Youth Guard literally burned down the house of the woman who tried to auction off her son's hand at age thirteen, then systematically hunted down and slaughtered everyone who tried to bring it back the tradition."

We both take a moment to shiver at the power of Youth Guard. You only fuck with them once. Then it's back to a furious silence, filled with more pacing on my end and silent contemplation on hers.

The the silence breaks.

"I have included an escape clause, though."

I whip my head towards her. "Tell me."

"Have you heard of Dunbar's number?" she asks, turning in her chair to look out the window. "An anthropologist once concluded that human being have only enough room for roughly one hundred and fifty social bonds in their brains. This is defined as the humans you are willing to sit down and have a beer with. An addition to the theory was developed by social thinkers, who concluded that the more intense the socialization, the lower number of people who could fill the role."

I furrow my brow. "That sounds like nonsense."

"Nonsense they can't disprove is treated as fact," Piggot says, spinning around in her chair and steepling her hands. "I have made the claim that any marriage to a person with an already-filled social circle would be futile, and this render the hand impossible to offer. I have also successfully argued down the number substantially, as you are among the least-social humans I know, including Armsmaster."

I nod. "Fair enough."

"Thinktank analysis has 'concluded' that you have enough space for five people in your life with the significance of a marital partner," she continues, emotionlessly adding the air quotes. "If you can come up with five partners by the end of the month, then Mr. Rooflago will withdraw his plea. You will also have to go on two dates a week with his daughter, and you are expected to give her a fair shake."

I nod. "Fake five relationships. I can do that."

Piggot raises an eyebrow. "Who said anything about faking? Mr. Rooflago has a social thinker on staff who will be able to determine the strength of your affection. Cat, you have to fall in love with five different people."

I stay still, thinking about that. About baring my soul to five other human beings, about being confronted with all of their worst aspects as well, of the ensuing social-fu I would need to balance five different sets of feeling, of the million and three things I'll have to remember, of the drain on my time, of the inevitable questions of more physical relationships while I'm still involved with Sam...

For one second I comprehend it all.

Then I fall down and comprehend no more.

---

"I think he's coming around!"

Slowly, I emerge from the depths of sleep. I blink away the sleep in my eyes, then look around.

I'm in the infirmary, surrounded by the other members of the Protectorate in plainclothes. Ethan and Sharon are in chairs at the wall across from me, while Hannah is reading something at my side. Robin is peeling an apple, and Colin makes a final few taps at a tablet before tucking it under his arm. Roger is on my other side, a hopeful look on his face.

"You okay?" he asks, one hand heading towards mine, then pausing.

I blink, sitting up. At some point I got peeled out of my costume, and now I'm in a hospital robe and nothing else, with my tattoos peeking out from under the paper. Wonderful. "Maybe. Don't feel fuzzy-headed or anything." I trawl through my memory and frown. "The conversation I had with Piggot, was that real?"

Colin nods once, looking around the room carefully. "I know, but no one else needs too."

I sigh, shaking my head as I swing my legs over the side of the bed and placing my feet on the cold infirmary floor. "Apparently legal fucked up and if I'm not in love with five people by the end of the month then I have to marry an eighteen year old girl."

I can practically taste the silence it's so thick.

"How even?" Hannah asks, slightly cross-eyed.

"That sounds barbaric and regressive," Sharon says flatly.

"Bullshit, isn't it?" When the room turns to Ethan he just raises an eyebrow. "I read the fine print on the contract, but because I married Puppy I don't have to worry about it so much. Pretty sure everyone else in the room besides Roger is grandfathered out."

I turn to Roger, who's suddenly gone pale. A wild idea crosses my mind, one which I promptly squash as I walk for the door. First, Sam.

"I need to talk some things over with my partner," I say.

The last thing I hear before the door closes is, "He has a partner?"

 

[T0PH4T]

All things considered Sam took the double reveal pretty well.

He slams down the fifth beer in two hours down on the table, eyes more than a little unfocused. "Guess that explains your weird hours. And your random disappearances. And the pay cheque that lets you eat out every day. And why you had to crash with me after Black Cat punched that school girl."

"I didn't want to tell you earlier because power imbalances tend to affect relationships." I haven't had anything to drink, and frankly I can't keep up with Sam.

Sam drops his head to the table. "Attractive, loaded, a cape, and apparently he also needs four other people in his life. Fucking. Figures."

I reach under the table and take his hand. "I didn't plan this fiasco. I didn't want more than you. If it's too much, I can always just default and run away."

Sam tilts his head to look me in the eye, squeezing my hand. "You'd go on the lam if I didn't like you getting emotionally committed to other people? Just up and leave your job like that?"

I smile. "Mover/stranger. Nearly impossible to catch if I don't want to be caught." The fact that I wouldn't be able to take him with me goes unspoken, but I there's a flash of a smile on his face before he rolls his head the other way, obscuring his face from view.

For a while we sit there, just enjoying the contact.

Then Sam speaks.

"I'm not going to like it. At all. But I think I might be able to live with it. I have some conditions though," he adds, sitting up and looking me in the eye.

I adjust my seat and lean forward. "Lay them on me."

"First, I want to meet everyone you decide to pursue. This is nonnegotiable," he says, looking me in the eye.

"I wouldn't have it any other way," I reply honestly. This is going to be hard enough to pull off without engaging in some bullshit who-knows-what-about-who scheme that would inevitably blow up in my face.

"Second, I need to know how far each relationship goes." When I don't immediately respond, Sam's eyes soften a little. "I'm not talking about giving me the word-for-word of every single coffee date, but if you start sleeping with someone else..."

I squeeze his hand. "I'll try. But I can't make that promise for anyone else, and I'm not sure which side I'd come down on if someone asked me not to talk about it."

"Hopefully that'll be covered by condition one," he says, shaking his head. "I also don't want this to be about sides. You, me, and whoever else shows up, we don't do a democracy, we don't try to codify things, we don't do tit-for-tat account balancing. Either we all agree on something or we don't agree at all. That's condition three."

I nod. "Should I write this down?"

Sam shakes his head. "That'd defeat the whole point of it, I think. Also, we need to talk to someone who's actually in a polyamorous relationship, figure out good conflict resolution strategies, all the little things that might help keep things from falling apart."

"You know someone?" I ask hopefully.

Sam shrugs. "In a city where Nazis are the second major power, LGBT communities tend to be tight-knit and heavily armed. I'll put out feelers. Also, fourth condition is that I reserve the right to add more conditions. This is also nonnegotiable."

"I won't accept them without thinking about them but yes." Making promises about the future is always a dicey thing, but these are open-ended enough that I feel comfortable they won't come back to bite me. That, and I trust Sam to not abuse such power.

"Good."

"Good."

Another silence stretches out.

"Sleep?" Sam asks.

"Sleep," I agree.

The two of us push away from the table and head for bed.

*****

"Eli."

"Roger."

We're both in the locker room, changing out of our costumes and into plain clothes. I haven't seen him in anything other than flannel button-ups and today is no different.

"So..."

I sigh. "If you have anything to say about the marriages-"

"Willyoumarryme?"

I snap my head to the side. Roger is looking away but I can see the flush on his neck.

"I'm currently getting a divorce and I don't want to be placed in a position of vulnerability after it goes through and you seem nice enough-"

"Roger." His proper name stops his rant and he turns around, eyes hopeful.

"I know next to nothing about you," I say bluntly. "I already have a partner, and even if I didn't I would want to think a little harder about these things. I am not going to marry you."

Roger deflates a little and I feel a twist in my chest, like the times when I punch school children. He's like a puppy, in that causing him even the slightest amount of reasonable pain makes you feel like a dick. Also the way his eyelashes flutter and and bangs fall forward.

The mad idea resurfaces.

"Get a civilian ID release form." Roger perks up at the words, mouth open to say something and I stop him with a raised hand. "I'll introduce you to my partner, we'll talk things over with them, and if that goes well maybe we can think about something more. This isn't promising anything, just putting out feelers."

Roger nods slowly, moving in for a hug. I straight arm him, appreciating the feel of the pec beneath my hands as I narrow my eyes and he drops his arm.

"Meet us at the Carrion Pit at six. We'll have a table, you just need to join. Okay?"

"Okay," he says. After a second he looks down at my hand. "You can-"

"Right," I say, stepping back and resisting the urge to shake my hand. I give him a stiff nod and turn away, walking out of the locker room and towards the motor pool.

Halfway to my car my work phone buzzes. I drag it out and check the screen.

Ethan and I would like to have you over for dinner some time soon. Please bring your partner, we'll have the paperwork out of the way beforehand.

I sigh, dropping my arm and looking at the ceiling. Thank God for Sharon. I'll probably take her up on that offer, though I'll have to find the time between the mandated dates (ugh), talking to Roger tonight, and making time for Sam-

My phone buzzes again and I drag it out. It's from Ethan. I flip it open.

Bring your own condoms.

I stop dead in the hallway. A PRT agent passes by me. Then another.

I take one deep breath, hold it, and let it out. Slowly, precisely, I take a screenshot, send it to Sharon, and put my phone back in my pocket.

My phone shakes like crazy on the drive home. Each and every time sounds like victory.

 

[T0PH4T]

"You know when I asked you to bring me to meet the people you were thinking about I didn't mean today." Sam's fingering his coat, already nearly done with his first beer. When I told him we were going out on a date with a coworker in the evening he nearly had an aneurysm, but after more than a few kisses he regained his usual confidence.

"I didn't plan this. It just made logical sense at the time," I clarify, drumming my fingers on my glass of water and reminding myself of just how terrible I was at peopling sober. We're in a back room right now, away from prying eyes.

The usual waitress comes in, her eyes flicking between Sam and I. "Um... there's a guy at the door that says he's looking for Eli and his partner? I told him I'd check for you but if you want him gone I can just tell him you're not here."

"Nah, send him in." Sam tilts the bottle all the way back, then brings it down with a surprisingly-restrained clack against the hardwood. "Also, can I get another one of these? Or two more?"

"Sure," the waitress says slowly, walking backwards out of the room. Once I'm sure she's gone, I look to Sam.

"What's her name?" I whisper.

Sam gives me an incredulous look. "Her name?"

"They don't wear name tags and she's never introduced herself to me." I don't understand why some restaurants skip on the name tag. It seems like such a reasonable thing to do. Faulty memory? Write it down. Weird accent? Spell it out. Faulty social? Just look at someone's chest for a reminder.

"It's Shelly," he says, shaking his head. "How do you not know the name of a girl who's been giving you meat for weeks?"

"Months," I correct as Shelly returns this time with Roger in tow. His face lights up as he sees us, taking the seat across from me and asking for the special without looking at it.

Once Shelly is gone again Sam starts his show.

"Who the fuck do you think you are?" he growls, leaning over the table on one arm. Roger pales, drawing a smile from Sam as he sits back up. "Sorry, just had to assert dominance."

Roger nods slowly, giving me a weird look somewhere between concern for me and fear. I sigh. "Sam, please don't try to scare off the people that might help keep me from marrying an eighteen-year-old girl. Roger, this is Sam, my partner for the past few weeks. Sam, this is Roger, a coworker who helped me avoid a crowd."

Sam's hand goes from supporting him to extended, palm open and fingers stretched. "Nice to meet you. He/him/his."

Slowly, Roger takes it. When Sam doesn't do the stupid pain-grip thing Roger smiles cautiously and shakes it twice.

"Good to meet you Sam. Roger, he/him/his." Once we're all settled he clasps his hands and smiles nervously at the two of us. "So, it's be been awhile since I've gone out on a date. Is there a-"

Sam drops his head into his hands. "Oh my god it's another Eli."

I frown. "I was not that bad."

"You were worse, but you also spent a longer time around." Sam looks up and smiles at a shocked Roger. "I work as an independently contracted computer programmer. My hobbies include most types of gaming, working out, and sleeping with this idiot. I'm nominally okay with the idea of Eli having more people in his life, so long as they aren't assholes about it."

Once Sam's done, I motion to Roger. "Tell us a little about yourself. I know your name and almost nothing else about you. What do you do when you're not Dauntless?"

Roger sighs, shaking his head. "To be honest? I try to figure out how to be Dauntless better. Working out, martial arts, read up on legal texts, try to live up to the mask."

"Wait, you're Dauntless?" We both look to Sam, who's blinking incredulously.

Roger nods. Slowly. "Yeah."

Sam leans back in his chair, blowing out air and shaking his head. "Sorry, it's just that you look really different from how I'd imagine you'd be."

Roger smirks. "You mean not six foot three, more built than a professional wrestler, and a less than perfectly handsome face?"

"Is him being Dauntless that big of a reveal?" I ask, turning to look at Sam. "I'm Black Cat and you basically took that in stride."

Sam points to me. "First, you followed that up with 'hey, I need to fall in love five times' and that took precedence." He turns his finger to Roger. "Plus, Dauntless. No effective power cap, gold and silver, armed with lightning, one day Triumvirate-tier. A bit cooler than a teleporter with a gimmick."

My jaw drops and Roger looks at the table bashfully. "Actually, Eli's a lot better at being a hero than I am..."

"Bullshit," Sam says confidently. He gives me a pitying look. "Buddy, I'm sorry, but Dauntless is the man little boys want to grow up to be. You're their teen edgelord phase. One of these things is better than the other."

"Really, Eli's great!" Roger insists, lifting his head with an earnest expression on his face. "He went toe to toe with Oni Lee! I'm learning a lot from him, and-"

"Learning? Is this an affair with your student?" Sam asks, mock disappointment coming across his face.

I sigh. "I'm teaching him how to fight. Blades, tactics, movement, and some projectile work. It's not like that." I turn to look at Roger and see his face fall.

Damn. Apparently it was like that.

Sam pinches the bridge of his nose. "Eli, you useless antisocial homosexual."

"I just thought that because you were taking time out of your day to see me it meant something," Roger mutters, sipping at his water and avoiding eye contact.

I look at my silverware. They don't take the steak knives out until they serve the meat, which means that stabbing myself out of my misery would be unusually difficult. "If anyone on the team had substandard skill I would seek to correct it. I had an opportunity to do good, so I did."

"Would you do grappling practice with Miss Militia?" Roger asks doubtfully.

"Grappling practice?" Sam asks, eyes wide.

I throw up my hands. "I'm a teleporter. I can close the distance. I move in, grab people, and shock or stab them until they stop moving. In other words, grappling."

"You just made that sound way creepier than it needed to be. Also, grappling practice doesn't sound particularly chaste," Sam says.

The conversation devolves from there.

 

[T0PH4T]

Eventually we ate, and once we had enjoyed our meal we moved onto more serious conversations. Sam talked about himself, I talked about my past, and Roger talked about his wife.

Who he was currently trying to divorce.

Who he had had affairs with before.

I think it was at that point that my opinion on Roger really settled. I didn't think he was a bad person, or at the very worst was a dull sort of evil. Maybe it was proximity and time, maybe it was sound ethical reasoning, but even after hearing about the fights he had had with Nell ("far better than I deserve") I couldn't bring myself to dislike him. He had screwed up, kept screwing up in the same way, and was trying to avoid being the biggest screw up.

I could sympathize with that, but I also didn't want to invite it into my home.

Roger sighs. "This isn't going well, is it?"

I wiggle my hand, my second gin and tonic half empty. "I think I like you more now that I did when the night started. I definitely know you better, and I think that counts for something."

"But you also sound like romantic radioactive waste," Sam says bluntly, and I wince and the crass words.

Roger takes it with little more than a shrug and a gaze into his beer bottle, an IPA that he asked for without looking at the menu. "That is not a bad description of my current marital situation."

"I do genuinely hope things turn out amicably," I clarify. "It's just that..."

"It's a mess of complicated and conflicting issues that you don't want in what looks like a happy relationship?" he asks, a bitter smile on his face.

"Yeah, that," Sam says, shaking his head.

Roger takes a long pull on his beer, quietly looking at the ceiling. Once the drink is gone, he sighs and gently places the glass on the table. "It was worth a shot."

"Hey." When Roger looks up, Sam has a hand extended and a warm smile on his face. "It was nice meeting you anyway. Plus, I got some stories about Eli to whip out in case of an emergency."

"People don't actually try to blackmail other people with embarrassing stories, do they?" I ask, scratching my head.

"Depends on the context, but mostly yes," Roger says, taking Sam's hand and shaking it for the second time that night. I groan and swallow down more of my drink. The worst part is that Sam's mischievous enough to find some harmless way to use it, embarrassing but not crippling, and I have no idea how to respond. Pranks never made any sense to me.

We exchange well-wishes, and after Roger's phone buzzes he takes his leave. Once the doors are closed Sam turns to me, expression unusually serious. "Are all of your coworkers like that?"

I raise my eyebrow. "There's a hard limit to what I can tell you about them without a form, but basically no. I'd trust them all with my life and they're essentially decent people, but Roger is a special case in a lot of ways."

"Good, because otherwise you'd be fucked." When my jaw drops, he snorts and waves at me dismissively. "Listen, I know how I like my men: a little broody, sharp as a knife, and capable of playing catcher. Roger checked none of those boxes, and if every date was going to be dissecting some poor sap's love life I think that fleeing from the law would save us both the most misery."

"Tell me what you really think," I say sarcastically, going back to my drink. I'm down to the ice cubes now. As I crack one between my teeth I extend my pointer finger at eye Sam balefully. "Also, point of order we never got to correct: I'm not homosexual."

Sam gives me a flat look.

I sigh. "I kissed a boy before I kissed a girl, yes, but in college I played for both teams and my last serious partner before you was a woman. Currently I have no idea what label fits best, but homosexual probably doesn't."

Sam rolls his eyes. "You're so gay that Legend is your pick for most attractive human. Keep denying." He pauses, looking over to me. "Out of curiosity, how viable is your former-"

"Not at all," I snap.

After a tense silence, I lower my head. "Sorry. Still raw over that one."

"I get that," Sam says quietly, giving my thigh a reassuring squeeze.

The door opens and we both look up, Sam's hand flying back to his lap. Shelly's there again, this time with the cheque and yet another beer for Sam.

"Um, did the other guy skip out on the bill?" she asks, craning her neck into the hallway. "I don't see him, so you two might be stuck with it."

I shake my head, working a few ice shard to the side of my mouth so I can speak freely. "Nah, we called him out here, we can pay for his meal."

"Cool," she says, walking over and placing the slip of paper on our table. "Now, the total comes out to-"

"Out of curiosity, how long did it take for Eli to accidentally charm you?" Sam interrupts, hands folded across the table. I choke as bits of frozen water get caught in my throat, and after two heavy thumps from Sam I'm left struggling to regain my breath.

"If I'm going to be perfectly honest, maybe the third time he came here?" Shelly replies nervously. "Like, I didn't move fast enough, he's all yours, I don't even know if he'd be into me 'cause, well, you know-"

"Sam, what the fuck?" I whisper, glaring at the other man. "This is not okay."

Sam just smiles through it and motions to the seat across from me, where Roger was sitting not fifteen minutes ago. "He just radiates an aura of mystery that also says 'fuck me', right? Kinda the same for me, actually. Out of curiosity, when do you get off shift?"

Shelly blinks. "Eleven. Are you propositioning me?"

Sam points at me, face the picture of innocence. "On his behalf. Any chance you want ice cream and could get out early today?"

I slap my card on the bill and bury my head in my hands. "I am so sorry for his actions, normally he's better behaved than this in public, I have no idea why he'd harass you like this-"

Shelly grabs the card and the check, nodding. "No promises, but the owner likes me. Give me a minute to get this logged and give her the heads-up and I'll meet you at the door. There's a great place a little walk away if you're up to it."

She's spun away before I can fully process what just happened. I look at Sam, who's grinning like a mad man.

"Sometimes the best things are already in sight. Now, I know this date is sudden and that you don't handle sudden well, but I think that if you keep an open mind-"