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

[T0PH4T]

Shelly meets us at the front, the apron ditched for a sensible windbreaker and a one-sling backpack. "Sorry it took so long, machine was a bear. Here's your card," she says, holding out the slip of plastic to me.

"Thanks." Once that's safely back in my wallet, I ball in my eyes and let out a small sigh. "Really though, if you feel uncomfortable at any time, tell me. Sam's really bold, and I'm still not quite used to it. There's nothing stopping you from saying no."

"I get that, but as come-ons go this one wasn't that bad." When I look up, she lifts her hands defensively dropping her gaze. "I mean, yeah, that was kinda pushy? But it was also pretty clear that he's into dudes and that he really was asking me out on your end, and you didn't seem opposed to it. Right?" she asks, looking back up.

I take a moment to examine her features. Choppy blonde hair, some shoulder length, some not, and spindly fingers with blue nails, each a slightly different shade. A sharp chin and long lashes, pale enough that they almost disappear against her skin, and green eyes that look almost semiprecious.

After a second I look away, shrugging. "I mean, you're among the most tolerable waitstaff I've ever encountered?"

Shelly sighs. "Great. Tolerable waitstaff."

"What my idiot partner meant to say was that he's bad at socialization, slow to trust, and that getting any sort of compliment from him is like squeezing blood from a stone." We both turned towards Sam as he exits the restaurant, zipping up his coat.

Shelly wrinkles her nose. "You smell like a brewery."

"I was just in one. Ice cream?" he asks, falling in step besides us. He took the beer to the face with remarkable grace, and a trip to the bathroom and a zipped-up coat later and you can hardly tell he was recently soaked in alcohol.

As we walk towards dessert, we learn a little more about Shelly. She's a college student, working part-time to compliment her scholarships, hoping to complete a masters degree. Apparently the main draw is not having to talk to people in the flesh, with a side order of finally learning how numbers work without having to deal with icky context. When Sam mentioned that he had a tech job she asked what programming languages he was using, at which point I became little more than a bystander as they went further and further into coding esoterica. It's nice, in a way, to not have to contribute to the conversation, and when we walk into the near-empty Scoops n' Slices Sam and Shelly are laughing like they've been friends for years.

"Chocolate, please," Sam asks a tired-looking teenager behind the counter.

Shelly leans over the glass racks, pressing her lips together as she considers the options. "Do you have honeycomb? That or orange."

"Cherry, whatever flavor you have," I add, quietly slipping up to the register before Sam or Shelly can. Once the charge is settled we sit down at a table outside, idly enjoy the treats in the warm summer night.

"What did you study in college?" When I don't respond immediately Shelly holds a hand apologetically. "I mean, it's also cool if you didn't go, but I don't get that vibe from you? Also you seemed basically with us until we started talking about ordered and unordered sets, so you've gotten somewhere in math."

"Dropped out," I say, shrugging. "I don't like talking about it."

Shelly blinks, then drops her head into her hand. "Now I wish I had some peppermint to wash the taste of shoe leather out of my mouth."

There's a pressure on my free hand when Sam gives it a squeeze, one I return gratefully. "No worries. It was a long time ago, and I'm doing pretty alright for myself nowadays."

After staring at the two of us for a second Shelley groans, shaking her head and sitting back up. "At the risk of tripping over myself again, what's actually between you two? I really don't want to misread what's going on here, and while this feels like a date you two also feel like a couple, so..."

"Eli wants to have more partners," Sam says quietly, the joking tone gone from his voice. "We're working together to put out feelers, and the guy we turned away tonight was one that didn't quite pan out."

"Oh," Shelly says quietly.

For a while we sit in silence, eating ice cream. Even when we finish, crunching through the cones and balling up the paper napkins, we don't talk, lost in our own thoughts.

"How would dating work?"

I start a little at the words, looking across the table. Shelly is looking off into the distance, rubbing her chin and biting her lower lip.

"It'd be really hard to run a multi-person date, even if everyone was interested in everyone. Seating would be a nightmare, the odds of being unable to find a place everyone wants to go skyrockets, and that's not even touching on the issues of balancing three schedules instead of two. Just thinking about the variables involved makes me think the normal issues people would face would go up exponentially. I'd have to talk to some psych students, but I also think that splitting time between multiple people would also make building closer relationships more difficult." She turns to look at the two of us, eyes focused. "How many partners are you interested in again? If I'm modeling this right trying to be involved with four people would be ten times as difficult as just sticking with this guy."

I blink. What?

"How'd you come to that conclusion?" Sam asks, leaning back in his chair and going slightly cross-eyed.

Shelly shrugs, unfolding a paper napkin and pulling a pen out of her shirt. "I mean, this is just a theory about something way outside my field of study, but thinking about all the stuff in relationships made me think of integrals, and from there I asked 'what sort of relationship do partners have?' I think it's exponential because problems tend to arise between people, and if you're drawing connections between points the number of unique line segments you can draw is always n minus one, where n is the number of points. If you have one you have zero, if you have two you have one, etc. Three partners have three times the number of problems two partners have because they have three points of connection, not one, four partners have six connections, five partners have ten."

I stare at the scribbles on the napkin, a combination of dots, lines, and graphs, then lift my eyes to Shelly. "I still don't understand this."

Shelly flares her nostrils, pulls another napkin free, and spins the pen around her thumb threateningly. "You will."

By the time an employee politely asks the three of us to leave I have learned more about derivatives, integrals, and the inner workings of Brockton U's academic politics than I ever wanted to. I barely understand half of it, Sam seems to check out somewhere in the area of matrices, but we still somehow leave with a basic understanding of the fancy number gymnastics she used to get the times ten multiplier. As we leave she picks up the napkins she wrote on and presses them into my hands.

"So you don't forget," she clarifies.

"Thanks," I say, looking at the napkin, then up to her. "You really care about this stuff."

She looks away as the three of us walk back towards the car park where Sam and I have left my PRT loaner. "I mean, I hope that I do. I've spent seven years on it."

"That's Eli-speak for 'you were really cool'," Sam says linking arms with me.

Shelly huffs. "Wasn't that cool. An undergrad could do this baby math."

"Baby math?" I ask, tilting my head.

She snorts. "Anything a computer can do is baby math."

"I think I'm going to have to fight you about that," Sam says. The words are light-hearted though, and when we finally get to the entrance to the concrete lot my cheeks are aching from the overuse of my smiling muscles.

"We should do this again sometime," Sam says sticking out a hand and smiling. "Good company is so hard to find these days."

"We should," Shelly says, taking it. After a moment she freezes and looks at me. "Um, I mean-"

Sam kicks my leg.

"I'd like to see you again," I say, holding out a hand. Our handshake doesn't last nearly as long, and it's only after I hear a pointed cough from Sam that I extend my arms for a careful hug. That goes better, with out lanky limbs folding around one another loosely. There's a smoothness to it, a feeling of 'fitting' that I don't quite get with Sam. He's great, wonderful even, but this little hug...

It feels like letting my guard down.

Another cough and we separate, hands flying up and away from one another. Sam looks at both of us pointedly, then turns around and heads for the car.

I turn back to Shelly, who's staring with an unreadable sort of contemplation on her face. She turns before it can fade, and I watch her go, thinking.

When I meet Sam by the car he's smirking.

"Like the view of her ass as you went?" he asks.

I glare at him. "We have beer at home too, you know."

 

[T0PH4T]

Making contact with rogues is always difficult, and not always for the wrong reasons. The PRT has a reputation for forcibly recruiting people, a statement which misses the fact that most of the people it forcibly recruits are felons at the least, a statement which in turn misses that a number of those felonies were basically justified. The end result of that mess is that independent capes range from basically-competent professionals that are willing to work with, if not for, the Protectorate to complete psychopaths that shoot anything with a government behind it, including uniformed police officers.

White Rabbit and Blue Caterpillar were somewhere in the middle ground. They gave us the rendezvous point at the last minute, demanded no more than two couriers, and an all-cash payment, all three of which were a pain in the ass like no other to get together. On the other hand they also didn't demand that we disarm, or that the two couriers be PRT agents instead of capes, all of which would've likely lead to the cancelation of our meeting.

Also, they provided the drinks.

"Do you smoke?" Blue Caterpillar is a Case 53, wearing a midnight robe with the cowl thrown back, leaving her insectile face on full display. Mandibles instead of a jaw, unblinking compound eyes, and a ruby red proboscis that occasionally shoots out to taste her own cup of leaf water. Her three-fingered, two thumbed hands are leathery, like elephant skin, and she sits with an absolute relaxation that makes it seem like we're in a parlor rather than seated around a cheap Bridge table on top of an abandoned warehouse.

"I regret to inform you no. Forgive me, but my vices are primarily of the industrious sort." Armsmaster has a full-face helmet on and sits with his back straight, the picture of courtesy. He sits in the south seat, facing Caterpillar directly and handling most of the questions. We drank in silence for a solid five minutes, which is apparently not uncommon when dealing with the more esoteric thinkers.

Blue Caterpillar tsks dismissively, drumming an unusually short beat on the table. "Such a paragon of virtue you are. Rabbit, if you be so kind as to add his portion to mine?" She casts an idle glance at me. "Unless you would care to join?"

I shake my head. Slowly. When it becomes clear I have nothing more to say Blue Caterpillar lets out an odd, doggish wuff. "Rabbit."

A bare-chested man slams a box onto the table, hard enough to spill all the tea cups and jump the pot off the table. Equally violently he opens it, tearing out plastic bags of finely-ground leaves, rolling paper, and a small packet of filters. As he goes through the motions of putting together a smoke, I give him another once-over.

White Rabbit wears a smooth full-face mask, porcelain white, with small indentations where eyes should be, a bulge where the nose should be, and a pair of ears that jerk in time with his sudden motions. A hatchet hangs at his waist, along with a brace of knives, with little more than an extremely ragged pair of black shorts preserving his modesty. His skin is heavily tanned, enough that I have to assume he spends most of his time in the sun belt, with faint needle tracks running up and down the insides of both of his arms.

I manage to keep my cool when he throws the unused material back in the box, slams the lid shut, then hurls it across the room to clatter against a wall. In front of him are three perfectly-rolled cigarettes, near indistinguishable from one another. He falls back into his chair, the small motion violent enough to make the poor chair creak, and crosses his arms, looking away from the three of us disdainfully.

Blue Caterpillar sighs. "I said increase the potency, not give me their share." When Rabbit doesn't move, she shakes her head and picks up one of the oblong white packets and gently clenches it between her mandibles, face squirming into something like a raised eyebrow. "Would you be so kind as to-"

Rabbit's hand shoots out, just as angry as before, this time with a plain white lighter. It flares, and just as fast as it appears it's gone and he's back to his crossed arms pose. This time he's glaring at me though, one leg bouncing furiously.

For while we all sit there, Caterpillar steadily working her way through the cigarette, never exhaling as the rest of us wait for her go ahead. Eventually something has to give, because halfway down she reaches up and plucks the tobacco from her mouth, letting loose a great cloud of pungent smoke.

"You wished for questions?" she asks.

"We are paying you for answers," Armsmaster says neutrally.

Caterpillar lets loose another tsk. "And people wonder why I offer so little assistance. What do you wish to know?"

"What will the location of the Empire's latest kidnaping targets, from five weeks to present, be in forty eight hours?" Armsmaster rattles off.

Another cloud of smoke. "Do not try to game me. Speak plainly."

Armsmaster puts his clasped hands on the table, tilting his head. "You won't bother considering my wants and needs, why should I consider yours?"

Rabbit's leg stops and his unreadable mask snaps over to Armsmaster, but Caterpillar is already waving him down. "Perhaps because you are not peering into could-be's and should-be's and trying to tell the difference using a crippled eye."

"Can you provide a concrete time at all?" I ask quietly.

There's a crunching sound as a knife appears in the table, curved and sharp and quivering with the force of the blow that implanted it. The three of us look at White Rabbit, who is ignoring Caterpillar and Armsmaster and staring at me, one hand hidden beneath the table.

I stare back.

Caterpillar languidly puts the smoke back in her mouth. Rabbit's hand moves above the table, cradling a small canister. He screws it into an unseen port on the bottom of his mask, and after a hiss he visibly relaxes. Armsmaster's hands leave the table, and I know I'm going to get a talking-to back at the base.

Eventually, Caterpillar speaks.

"Imagine a book, with thousands upon thousands of pages. Now imagine thousands of those, all unbound and scattered about. Return to the book, which too has been unbound, though a slow compilation has been occurring, gently placing each individual page upon the other in sequence. The words on the floor though, they change for looking at them. Even a cursory glance can alter plots, change characterization, render entire arcs meaningless."

Caterpillar leans forward. "A mirror does not help. A clouded glass, the haze of drugs, the brush of a finger, the stack of needles is so delicate that too much thought can disturb the gentle grace. Instead I must close my eyes, cast about with a net I do not fully understand, indeed, one I must resist an understanding of, and when I present my catch of these out-of-order pages they necessarily seem like gibberish."

Slowly, she tilts her head back. When she reaches vertical, the cigarette disappears down her throat, and then her head drops back down, mandibles lifted in a parody of a smile.

"Ask me, Black Cat, what questions you want. Provide your own answers, then compare them to mine when the events come to pass."

I mull over the offer, trying to balance the vagueness she wants and the specificity we need. The discreet glance at Armsmaster shows that he's not risking antagonizing either of the other capes any further.

I'm on my own.

"How can we find the people kidnapped by Victor?" I ask, enunciating each word.

Caterpillar barks a laugh. "Break the code, then watch the watchman. Surely you have something more difficult than that?"

I sigh. "This is going to be a long night."

 

[T0PH4T]

I'd like to talk about The Death of the Author.

Nominally, I agree with the statement "books are meant to be read, not written." This is not an unbiased opinion, as that theory affects my employment opportunities as well as viewership, but it wasn't until this debacle that I really had to put my money where my mouth is. After considering where the plot would be going, what I already had, and the likelihood that the former is worth the latter, I have decided that this story is done.

Simply put, the Good End is now canon. I'm going to nip and tuck away the caterpillar chapter and include the final Wards segment, but more or less we're outta here. The continuing plot lines are inconsistent with what I wanted to do with the story, needlessly edge, and frankly aren't that interesting. I am ret-conning the past three chapters as non-canon, and all information in them is to be considered non-canon as well. This also means losing five chapters I had pre-written but because they're worthless that isn't much of a loss. If you want to throw me any more questions I'll be more than happy to answer them while I put this thread in order.

Anyway, self-review:

What I did good:

• Made an OC: Eli is not the problem in this story, and frankly I enjoyed exploring his head. I think at this point I can claim the ability to make interesting people, both as side characters and as protagonists.
• Protectorate Are Not Idiots: Like Collagen, this was a story trying to push back against the "Protectorate is Evil" fanon. I think I've written a fairly even-handed administration, one which takes people's circumstances into account, and who would not be the worst employers in the world should you come into a set of superpowers.

What I did alright:

• Consistency: I'll get to this later, but from a technical level I did what I promised of a 1k chapter every day. This is not a difficult promise mind, and the quality was low enough (frequent SPAG errors, actual story content) was garbage enough that I'm not sure I think producing it actually counts as a feat.
• Canon characterization: I still don't have a good handle on Armsmaster, and basically all of Velocity and Dauntless are made up. On the other hand Colin is more than a robot here, Velocity has lines, and Dauntless exists as a plot-affecting character. I'd like to think that overall people basically bought these characters as canon, plus or minus a few years of jading.

What I fucked up:

• Pacing: This is a function of the production method, which is "crank out 1k words every day", but it's no less inexcusable. This story moves both too fast and too slow in places, and I wouldn't blame anyone who's asking about a time structure. Frankly speaking, there is no calendar, and including one would require a massive re-write.
• Plot: This story isn't one. I don't think that there is a single coherent narrative carried from chapter one to chapter thirty six, and that's horrible. The D&D group died out without doing almost anything, the car-bombing plot is going to be basically unresolved, and just in general things are kinda shit. Again a function of production, again inexcusable.

*****

I give Black Cat, pre-Jackie, a 6/10. I think that while it's got a LOT of flaws, Eli is a character that a lot of people liked and were happy to read about. Post-Jackie it's 3/10, maybe worse, on account of being too edge and inconsistent, hence the reason I'm declaring it non-canon. The best parts of this story (for me) were the Wards interactions, which occasionally reached 7 or 8 out of 10. I also got an infraction for that one scene, which I had to edit in post and should've run by amicii. There was more potential here than I was capable of capitalizing on, and I'm sorry to miss out on that.

Anyway, H4T signing off.

 

[T0PH4T]

I hold out my fist, and after a second a gauntlet of flesh and bone taps it. I smile behind my mask. "Good to have you here, Stitchskin."

He just ruffles the leathery folds of flesh on his back, moving past me to get to Armsmaster. I still catch the little flair he adds to the pseudo-wings on his back, a shared motion that almost no one else would notice.

"You know him?" Dauntless asks as Stitchskin takes a seat at Armsmaster's left hand at the head of the table, the leather of his costume creaking as he bends to sit.

"One of my better friends," I reply, shrugging. Dauntless leans back in his chair, seemingly non-committal, while the rest of the Protectorate perk up as Armsmaster raps his halberd on the floor three times for attention.

"To reiterate what was in the email, which you all read." No one reacts to the word, but Armsmaster still sighs. "Directors Lastrone and Piggot have done an analysis of criminal activity and come to the conclusion that Chicago can do without a few capes for a while. Those capes will be here on a six-week loan, barring emergencies, primarily to help assist us against the Empire."

"Still don't understand how you guys still have Nazis in your city," Stitchskin drawls, examining his claws. From the way the other capes bristle I can tell that they don't realize he's being completely genuine, that he's encountered a problem he fundamentally doesn't get, and is offering his help wiping out the problem once and for all.

"The other member will be arriving by plane. Desperado is a tinker, and will be spending her first few days double-checking her tech before going on patrol."

I stop listening after the name drop.

Desperado. Jackie. Jacks, sometimes.

I push away from the table and stand up. "May I be excused?"

Armsmaster nods, visor meeting my eyes silently. "We'll talk."

I spin around and walk out of the room, ignoring the weight of everyone's gazes. I press through the door, down to the nearest bathroom, then change directions mid-step and head for the helicopter landing pad. I need space, not a box.

I shake my head as I punch in my exit code. Location isn't the problem. I know that, I've known that for a while, and every time I think those words I do my best to go back down the chain of logic that keeps me from lying to myself.

The sea air is cleaner out her. It doesn't taste like exhaust, nicotine, or anything besides faintly of salt. There's always a breeze, strong enough and cold enough to make me thankful for my vest, and after two calming breaths I head over to one of two lawn chairs left out and settle down for a think.

One. I find social stressors more powerful than environmental stressors. Full stop. There's still an ambiguous feeling my chest when I think those words, when I put them in my heart of hearts and say 'this fits.' I don't like admitting weakness for what feels like no reason, even just to myself. Only once I've gotten that mantra understood as well as known do I move onto the next one.

Two. Jackie was a social stressor that I was fundamentally unequipped to deal with. This is both easier and harder to process. On the one hand, there's the instinctive urge to lash out at her, to think the worst, to dump all my issues into a box with her name on it and move on. On the other hand, I know that's bullshit, just like how I know I can't social, and this just requires a little more thinking than before. I bare my teeth behind my mask and run through all the reasons that my lack of graces isn't her fault, that this statement is impersonal, and regardless of what baggage she has it's not mine to blame with. Empathy, and if not that, sympathy. Eventually I wrestle my emotions into something resembling reason, but it still doesn't feel right. I move on before the knot comes undone.

Three. At the end of the day, we were just fuck buddies. The words are ugly in my head, tearing open old wounds and hitting me like a baseball bat. Air leaves my lungs and for a moment I white out, trying so hard to pretend that's not the case. Half-coherent thoughts whirl through my head, schemes and plans and hopes for some sort of real reconciliation, where the two of us would reopen our hearts to one another and go back to being the couple we never were.

I indulge in the fantasy for as long I keep them comfortable, then take a deep breath and slap myself in the face.

You can hit yourself hard if you have a mind for it. Even if you don't, I'm in good shape and know how to hurt. The blow leaves me gasping in pain and shock, and as the sharp sting settles into a dull ache I regain my breath, seizing on the pain and using it to clear my thoughts.

"You okay?" I turn around. Miss Militia is standing there, a pistol holstered at her side and a concerned expression on her brow.

"I'm stable," I compromise, shrugging and standing up. After cracking my neck from side to side, I walk back toward the entrance.

For a while we walk quietly, back towards the meeting room.

"I don't want to pry, but what was that?" Miss Militia asks.

I take a deep breath, hold it for a second, then let it out, shaking my head. "A professional, personal, and ethical embarrassment. The one that made me transfer. I have no idea why they decided to send her here, but they did."

"That sounds like a lot of potentially team-breaking secrets," she says cautiously, shooting me a sideways glance.

I shake my head again. "It won't be a secret for long. I'm going to ask Armsmaster to release the files concerning the incident, and after you've read that I'll give you my side of it. I don't want this to lead to anything stupid."

We walk for a little while longer.

"I'll try to keep an open mind." With that final shot, Miss Militia presses open the door to the conference room and we go back to bureaucracy once more.

 

[T0PH4T]

The first thought Jackie had when she looked at Black Cat was 'how the hell did he get that costume past PR?'

"New guy's here, yadda yadda play nice yadda yadda show him the ropes of all the paperwork and stuff, he comes from an indie background. Eyes-only stuff, don't ask for what I can't tell, and if anyone wants to bitch they can go to big daddy Myrddin and complain." Brava flopped into the office chair at the front of the table, kicking off into a spin, boredom oozing from every pore of her ren-faire dueling costume. "Spiel 'em, Kitty."

The new guy stepped forward, hood down but head still covered by a skin-tight bodysuit, with yellow lenses that completely obscured his eyes. It wasn't that he was too generic (God knows she'd met some horribly dull figures in her career) but that the outfit practically screamed villain. All black, yellow as the highlight color instead of blue, a military theme on the vest, with the lone concession to a disarming appearance being the ears on a removable hood. That, and his costume was full-face, further distancing him from normal people. Maybe the 'don't fuck with me' vibe was what they were going for, and if it was top marks.

Jackie still thought it was poor marketing.

"Teleporter, line of sight. Anyone in a ten foot radius of my arrival point becomes unable to perceive me for three seconds." He delivered the words with all the emotion of a robot, and after a silence stretched on for long enough to become uncomfortable he took a seat next to Brazier.

Brava sighed heavily. "We're going to need to work on your public speaking, buddy. Anyone volunteer for that?"

Jackie whistled and Anomaly put his hand up. "I would be more than happy to-"

"Someone who hasn't accidentally destroyed a man's career on live television or doesn't communicate exclusively in whistles and flirting, please," Brava interrupted, playing her gaze over the other four capes at the table, eyes flat with disinterest behind the red Zorro mask. "And no, Stitchskin, you are preemptively banned from corrupting him."

A wet hissing noise slipped out of the tinker's mask. "Fascists."

Brazier shook her head, as did Rag Queen and Pioneer. Eventually Gauss nodded, turning slightly to make eye contact with the new cape. "Black Cat, if you would be willing to come by my office after this meeting?"

Cat nodded once and didn't speak. Jackie smiled and leaned back in her chair, already thinking of fall-back plans as she began to establish a lock on Black Cat. Meals were the obvious time to try and build rapport, but if his clipped speech was anything to go by he'd probably object to any invasion of his alone time. He wasn't a tinker, so sharing notes wasn't going to be a valid excuse. Plus, that was how she'd bagged Stitchskin, and using the same strategy on successive members would be weird. Their powers were different enough that mentorship wasn't really a viable excuse, and even if they were it'd be condescending beyond belief to come onto him while teaching him how to aim.

In a way, the unknown path was freeing. She had no easy roles to slip into, no grooves to follow, no expectations for what was about to come. Restriction bred creativity, yes, but it also stifled imagination, and too much freedom was restrictive in its own right. If you could do anything, you had to do something that used as much of that freedom as possible. Otherwise, what was the point? Calvin got it, and while Richard was about the most despicable piece of sentient garbage he could've possibly decided to saddle himself with Calvin had the right to make whatever decision he wanted.

Even if it was the wrong one and she was a better lay and a better friend than literally a serial killer.

The meeting went on and Jackie planned her approach, smiling all the while.

*****

"Desperado!" Stitchskin growled, one wing broken and flopping uselessly behind him.

She was already on it, gun tracing the car flying through the air and warbling angrily as she pulled the trigger and held. The green beam slammed into the vehicle-come-projectile and kept slamming, altering the arc well away from the rows of stopped cars, some still occupied, and directly into a designer clothing store. Shame that, but appearances had to be maintained. After exchanging the used power cell in her gun for a fresh one, Desperado smiled. Or not, as the case became.

"Oi, corpsefucker! You're my fight!" Hardhand charged forward, hand partially merged with a motorcycle and brought the metal around in a short, brutal arc. Stitchskin keened angrily and met the improvised weapon with a clawed hand, the impact of the two parahumans booming across the intersection.

"Get the civvies gone, then find this idiot's boss and break his knees!" Stitchskin shouted. His beaked mask split open, strands of purple fluid dripping from the gap and a cloud of lavender gas began to spew sluggishly out, hissing and leaving boils where it came into contact with Hardhand's skin.

Desperado whistled an affirmative over the com and used a burst of speed to get away, bunching her jaw against the stab of pain that came with moving at over a hundred miles per hour for a second or three. Once the sounds of Hardhands and Stitchskin duking it out became simply 'nearby' rather than 'deafening' she went back to walking, the blur of the world resolving into sense again.

Hardhands was a brute in every sense of the word. Strong, tough enough to shrug off tasers, and with enough of a brain to be able to use his environment to negate small arms fire, he wasn't actually that big of a threat. No, the real issue would be whoever had hired him. Hardhands was a contract merc with next to no concern beyond where his next pay cheque came from, and that meant he never fought alone.

"Where oh where can my baby be?" Desperado half-whispered, half-sung to herself, scanning up and down the street. "The Lord took him away from me~"

A gas grenade flew through the window of the law firm next to her, rolling across the ground and spewing green smoke. Instinct had her blurring down the street, a short hiss escaping her as she caught herself against a sports car.

"Might want to get outta here, cowgirl." Desperado felt a smile stitch its way her face under the bandana, and as the cloud bulged and parted to reveal a scantily-clad horse-man it grew teeth.

Seabiscuit looked good with his shirt off. A lot of that was the tune-up he got after The Fiasco, and the rest of it was being the best damn person she'd ever met. His legs were digitigrade and fur-covered, with odd, alien hooves at the end of them. Slung over one shoulder was a messenger bag with strips of metal binding it, and his now-snoutish face shook itself once, over-long hair tossing fearfully. "Please, I don't want to see you two fighting again."

"She's gone to heaven, so I got to be good," Desperado shot back, lifting her gun and aiming over Seabiscuit's shoulder, waiting to reach out and find a target. "So I can see my baby when I leave this world~"

Another canister flew out, this time intercepted by an orange star that moved fast enough to be an orange line. This time the canister exploded into light though, and for a second Desperado was blind.

That was all the time Prospector needed.

She jerked her gun up and away from Calvin, gritting her teeth as she felt innumerable splashes on her skin and tasted half a dozen different chemicals while gas and poison cascaded down around her. Already some of them were working, lighting her nerves on fire and filling her mind with cotton and making her emotions go haywire, furious and depressed and lonely and hateful and vomiting as a million different signals went through her body at once, sending her falling to the ground in an uncoordinated heap.

"And you see, this is why you never send a thug to do a showman's job. I really need to stop asking the Folk for parahuman assistance, it's universally terrible." Through the haze of crossed wires she could hear leather shoes against pavement. Desperado managed to crack her eyes open, still sore from the flash bang, and looked up.

Prospector was dressed to the nines in a black suit, a tailed tuxedo with a string tie and a wide-brimmed hat, all patterned purple and green. A black domino mask covered most of his upper face, and what was exposed had a distinctly reptilian tint, just too much to ever be mistaken for a regular person.

He also had a bandolier of tinkertech slung around his hips, half-empty, and yet another one of his fucking canisters bouncing in his palm.

"I do say, you seem to be a bit under the weather there. I don't suppose you'd care for a little of my snake oil? It will cure what ails you, or you get a second sample free." Black eyes glinted behind the mask and lips twisted into a grin as he held the glass and metal tube up to the light. "I don't quite remember what this one does, but I'm sure it couldn't be worse than anything you're currently suffering from."

A hand came down on his shoulder, the nails black and shiny and the fingers too thick to be something that belonged to a human. With an effort of will, Desperado dragged her eyes away from the murderer in the suit and looked back to Seabiscuit.

"Prospie, no," he said, staring at Prospector. "You promised that you'd stop. Fight to disable, not to kill, and that once the fight was over you were done."

Prospector raised an eyebrow, idly prodding Desperado with his foot. "I think she still has some fight in her. What say you, whore?"

Desperado spat on the pavement. It tasted like peppermint, sweat, and yellow. "Fuck. You."

"Not for all the money in the world," he replied evenly, crouching down, canister in one hand, drawing Jackie's gaze. None of his potions were permanent. She focused on that thought, squeezed it hard enough to nearly shatter, and tried to hold down her hammering heart.

"Rich." The word was quiet, with the weight of a mountain behind it. Prospector froze, as did Jackie.

Slowly, they turned to look at Calvin.

He wasn't smiling, a situation that caused Jackie's lungs to spasm as she reached for a joke and Prospector's knuckles to whiten as his grip on the bomb in his hand tightened.

Calvin took a step closer, getting into Richard's personal space in a way no one else was allowed to. "Please. Don't."

Wordlessly, Prospector slipped the canister into his belt and stood, nodding once to the twitching and fallen cape. "Another time."

Desperado flared her power, locking onto Seabiscuit for as long as she could force her eyes to follow him, and when the two of them finally disappeared from view she let the tag linger, a one-way connection, hoping that this would be the time he realized that she was better and come back, come home.

She stayed locked onto him until Stitchskin came by, bruised and battered, and injected her with a system purge, burning away the confusion and leaving only numbness behind.

*****

"Why?"

Desperado adopted an expression of innocence, pressing one hand to her chest incredulously. They were on patrol, heading through the less-public and more-dangerous sections of the city. Director Lastrone liked pairing up the public-hazard capes together and sending them out of the public eye, and frankly Jackie appreciated that. The glory-seekers like Brava and Brazier could have their masses, drown themselves in shallow praise, while she drank deep from the more difficult pools to plumb.

Cat huffed. "Don't bullshit. New guy ragging is over. Calling it now, out with the real reason."

Desperado shook her head, dropping the act, then lightly bumped into his shoulder. It was always at the crisis points that the greatest gains could be made, but if you screwed up you could ruin things permanently. It was like fishing, in a way, but if you screwed up the hook you actually got forced to deal with the results.

For a block they walked in silence.

Then Cat made a distressed noise, the whine of a dog kicked too many times, a hope lost over and over again until it was closer to reflex than feeling. "Can you just talk? I don't like these fucking charades. I don't get them, I don't want to be wrong, and I'm really, really tired of being burned."

Desperado ran her tongue over her teeth, thinking, scanning the area around them.

Then she stepped into an alleyway and waited.

Soon enough Cat was beside her, glancing nervously over his shoulder. "We're off our route. Please, give me something."

Desperado went deeper, farther from the main streets, motioning to her bandana and smiling encouragingly.

Cat shook his head, even as he followed her. "We don't unmask on patrol. Dee, why can't you just talk?"

Desperado rolled her eyes. Such a goody two-shoes. Once they were good and hidden, she pulled off her bandana and motioned for him to lean down, her back against a wall and arms wide. When he hesitated she grabbed his hand and pulled, fingers lacing between his.

She could practically feel his heart jump.

Slowly, Cat lowered his head, expression still obscured by that damn mask. "Okay, we're out of the way, now what-"

Jackie's hand snaked around to the back of his head and pulled, dragging his cloth-covered face into hers.

The kiss wasn't one. You couldn't tongue someone through a layer, couldn't convey anything of meaning with just lips and pressure. Jackie got a leg around his, rubbing calf against calf and thigh against thigh as she pulled him closer, trying to make up for the barrier. It wasn't enough, wasn't close to it, but beggars and choosers. No sense in jerking too hard too early, even if it was unsatisfactory to say the least.

Jackie smiled against the mask as she felt Cat stiffen against her. Apparently the stoic edgelord wasn't quite so unflappable after all.

Then there was nothing beside her, save for something her mark was drawing her eyes toward...

"-fuck?" Cat was talking, arms spread, nervous. She still couldn't see anything under that goddamn mask, but she'd worked through worse. Jackie spun her finger in a circle, smiling brightly and pressing her foot against the wall.

"What. The fuck." Cat turned away from her, pressing both hands flat against the wall, breathing heavily. "What. The actual fuck. Was that?"

Jackie snorted. "A really shitty kiss."

Cat spun around, both hands going to his head. "Yes! That I figured out!"

Jackie raised an eyebrow, smile firmly in place, waiting. Slowly, Cat put the pieces together. She could see them moment when he realized that yes, this was happening, it was happening to him, and that yes, he was reading things right. She caught the jerk of his head when he checked her out, the bob of his Adam's apple when he swallowed, and the shuffle of his feet.

Time to throw him a bone.

"Do you want me to stop?" she asked, ratcheting back the smile a bit, going from predatory to warm, lover to friend. After a second Cat shook his head, spinning on his heel and walking back towards their patrol. Jackie let him go, thinking.

This one was a little more skittish than she was used to. That or a lot worse at reading into things. Maybe, probably, both. More obstacles to overcome, more barriers to circumnavigate. A lesser woman, a lesser person would abandon the Cat and search for easier nookies. A more furious one would say 'damn the consequences' and try to kill Richard, claim Calvin for herself, and to hell with the rest of the world. A more depressed one would finally wrap her lips around the barrel of one of her pistols and pull the trigger.

Instead Jackie put back on her mask and Desperado walked back to the patrol.

*****

Jackie glared across the room at Richard. Richard glared back. They were both bound to chairs, struggling against tinkertech bonds, and in between them Calvin was pacing on his newly-acquired hooves.

"Fuck fuck fuck how do I deal with this I'm not that smart I just say nice things and try to make the world better and how the hell do you get training for this it's completely ridiculous why on earth would this happen here and now and why can't they be in the same room without killing each other and if literally anyone else besides me had gotten these powers we'd be in much better shape but noooooooo, I have to be the voice of reason and ARRRRRRGH!" Both hands flew up to his face, then dragged down around his snout. "And now I'm also a horse."

He looked at Richard. Then he looked at Jackie.

Calvin took a deep breath, far longer than he could previously, and after a few seconds clomped over to Jackie, crouching down. It was awkward with his new legs, and after a second he gave up and went on all fours, still level with Jackie's chest.

"Listen. I'm going to ungag you. I need you to not scream obscenities, to not provoke Rich. Right? Can you do that? For me?" he asked. Behind him Richard struggled harder, and Jackie imagined she could see the anguish in his eyes as Calvin picked her.

Jackie nodded, savoring the slump in his shoulders as one of Calvin's hands reached up to her mouth and slowly pulled out the rag. After smacking her lips a few times, she looked meaningfully at her legs, then jerked her head back.

Calvin stood back up, crossing his arms. "Nuh-uh. No way. Neither of you are allowed to get free until we have a situation where you're not going to try and blow off his head and he's not going to try and rip out your eyes. And no, that doesn't mean you can do something equally horrible to each other that's not specifically head-blowing-up or eye-ripping. Or anything worse than that. Or only a little better than that."

Calvin sighed, turning around and walking towards Richard. "An artist, a businessman, and a bartender all walk into a bar, and the one pouring the drinks has to be the one who negotiates the deals." Calvin leaned down, heavy breaths parting Richard's matted locks. "Listen. You're on the same rules as her. No jabs, no talking unless I ask a question, just don't engage with Jackie. Alright? I'd really appreciate it if you could do this, okay?"

Jackie's stomach twisted at the sight of Richard's nod, the focus of his dead, green eyes switching from her to Calvin, who never knew when he was getting ripped off, when people were taking advantage of him. Every cell in her body as aching to yell, to tell Calvin that he was being played, that Richard was fucking with him and that she'd told him so, that he was bad news on so many levels it wasn't funny. It was more painful to keep her lungs still, to keep her face inexpressive, than it had been to take the fountain pen to the chest.

But Calvin had asked her to play nice, so she did.

Calvin walked away, turning his head in the complete opposite direction for just long enough to let Jackie and Richard get a glare each. "Okay, now let's talk this out. Like adults."

He pulled out a roll of butcher paper and gently pushed it across the ground, holding up a packet of markers. "You guys are going to talk. To me. One at a time. If you make a reasonable request, I'll write it down in your color. If you make one that we might be able to negotiate, I'll write it down on the side. If it's unreasonable, you lose your turn and nothing gets written down. Do those rules make sense?"

Jackie jerked her head into a nod.

Richard rolled his eyes. "If you insist."

"Jackie goes first, then," Calvin said, uncapping a black pen and making a t-chart. "So, first request."

"Sex. Every day," she said, pointedly not looking at Richard.

Calvin whined, his altered throat making it come out almost as a whinny. "Why are you like this? No, I'm not going to let you try and twist the knife anymore than you already have. We'll talk about sleeping arrangements later, but that level of monopolization of my time is completely off the table."

"Regular dates," Richard stated, also avoiding looking at Jackie.

"Thank you!" Calvin said, giving the bound man a thumbs-up as he scrawled down the point in one column. "See, that's the sort of request I can do. Next time though please wait your turn. It's not that I don't trust you, but..."

"You don't trust me. Entirely reasonable. I haven't quite earned it." The words made Jackie taste metal, made her consider blurring out of her restraints and to hell with the consequences. Could Calvin see that Richard was lying, just saying what he thought Calvin wanted to hear and not believing a word of it?

"You don't sleep with either of us. Not him, not me, not anyone." The words tasted like ash in her mouth, but Calvin nodded and wrote it down nonetheless. A muscle bunched in Richard's jaw and Jackie felt a small thrill of vindication. She'd lost the second Richard had stolen the initiative, the moment he'd gotten the first point on the board. Now she was on damage control, mitigating the effects of Richard's poison in Calvin's ear and trying to make him pay for every inch he took from her.

The negotiations took hours. Part of that was Calvin trying his best to find compromise, part of that was Richard trying to twist the words into something that would give him an iota more power, and part of that was Jackie taking the time to think out how best to hurt Richard without being noticed by Calvin. She lost more than she won, giving ground over and over again in desperate attempts to drive a wedge between the two of them and failing every time.

When Calvin left, it was with Richard. He promised to call the police, to give them the code to her cuffs. When she didn't respond, he gave her a hug.

That helped. A little.

Jackie didn't talk to the police when they released her. She didn't talk to the Protectorate member, to the Ward that snuck into the interrogation room, to the PRT agents who tried to get Calvin and Richard's names out of her. She didn't give them, couldn't give them. That was one of the agreements. She couldn't tell them about what, precisely, she was involved in, what had happened, what was happening, anything at all.

Instead, she asked to see the director.

Eventually a woman came in, tall and gray-haired with sunken eyes and looking more tired than anyone else Jackie had ever known. She collapsed into the seat across from Jackie, and for a minute they both just sat there, appraising one another.

"What do you want?" Director Lastrone asked, staring at Jackie like she was a paperclip. Inconsequential.

"To join." When the words didn't arouse so much as a twitch, Jackie leaned forward. "I've got powers. Speed, making shit, a lock-on-"

"Marketing will talk to you shortly. Legal will sort your affairs out. So long as you haven't done a life-worthy crime, we should be able to take you." The words were delivered with all the enthusiasm of a customs official.

Jackie nodded. After a second the Director stood back up, physically pushing herself out of her chair, away from the table, looking for all the world like a puppet under the hands of a child who didn't quite understand how to properly imitate life. Brown eyes stared into Jackie's own, unreadable, then turned away as the Director stalked out of the room.

Only then did Jackie let a vicious smile spread across her face.

Richard was an asshole. More importantly, he was an asshole with little regard for the rules of society and people he didn't care about. She'd promised to stop trying to murder him, to leave his civilian ID alone, to never break anything unfixable. On the other hand, if someone else were to wring his neck, throw him in a cell and mysteriously lose the key, and if that was all just the long arm of the law coming around and punishing wrong-doing Jackie could hardly be held responsible for that. You reap what you sow, and Richard had sown an awful lot of misery.

She still didn't have a concrete idea in mind. She never would. Jackie was a doer, not a planner, someone who chased and chased and only knew why she was chasing after she'd caught it. That, and plans always failed at some point. Better to stay mercurial, to stay mobile, and take advantage of situations as they came.

She'd hang Richard with the rope he gave her, and once he was gone Calvin would be hers again. All she had to do was execute.

*****

Eli slept heavily.

It was cute. She could get up, pulls the sheets completely off of him, go take an extra-long shower, and when she came back he'd still be there, drooling on the pillow and lying on his side, the erection pressing into the mattress somewhat spoiling the picture of innocence. Really, the main barrier between him and a warm bed was finding the time to smile. You could find a member of the Protectorate that wasn't a Case 53 who was less than a seven, but you'd have to try.

Watching him stir was nice too. First his brow would furrow and his shoulders would hunch, a reaction to the cold. Then he'd curl forward, in on himself, and a genuine frown would come across his face. At some point he'd shake a little, and after that he'd get up, going smoothly from dead asleep to alert in less than a second. The first time he'd woken up with her in the room it'd prompted a teleport, one she responded to with a hug aimed at the lock her brain insisted was there. That was the only time she'd been late to the morning meeting, and also the morning they'd discovered that no, they didn't have time for another round before the morning meeting.

Jackie sighed against his neck, drowsy thoughts giving way to harsh reality. Eli was a temporary lay. He was a good one, more interesting than any of the other Protectorate capes and a damn sight better than the idiots she'd gone home with from a bar, but she wasn't sure how much he understood that. When she'd joked about him making up for their late arrival, she found a cake in the breakroom the next day. She'd talked to him after that, explained that she liked things fun and light. He'd agreed, agreed that neither of them were committed to anything, that it was just light fun. It still felt like a different language though, like they were both operating along different axes, and after wrestling for the right words she gave up and pulled him to her room to try a different method of communication.

Jackie hated words. She was convinced that, given half the chance, everyone else would too. Everyone had different definitions for everything, sometimes small enough to ignore and sometimes certainly not. You could sleep with someone and sleep with someone, you could fuck someone and you could fuck someone, and in both pairs of identical statements you had the two same, opposite definitions. If that wasn't proof enough of the uselessness of language, Jackie wasn't sure what was.

So she worked with things everyone understood. Jackie dealt in sideways glances, in half-lidded gazes, in a whole spectrum of different smiles that could say everything from lust to livid except that (unlike the words) no one would ever mistake one for the other. A touch on the arm was a better signal than any cipher or M/S password, a subtle posing more provocative than any amount of poetry. She could get through a day with fewer than a hundred words if she tried, and she'd personally never had any trouble making it clear what she wanted.

And then she met Eli.

Slowly, gently, she kissed the flesh in front of her, one hand tracing idle patterns over his stomach while the other squeezed him tighter. He didn't get it. Not quite. She wasn't sure what the baffle was between her and him, what complications prevented understanding, but with Eli she always needed to think a little harder, work a little more to make sure he got the message. It was a good kind of work though, exercise for her mind, and a welcome challenge after months of stagnation. She'd be lying if his over-reliance on words wasn't part of the attraction, just as she'd be lying if she didn't abuse his form-filling skills to their fullest extent.

Eli shivered slightly in her arms. Jackie began to hum, patterns turning to gentle rubs. Soon enough the shudders went away, replaced by shorter, sharper breaths.

He was waking up.

"Morning," he whispered, one hand creeping around to join hers. She drummed her fingers in response, smiling. For a while they lay there, mutually enjoying the sensation of having another human in the same bed. Jackie had learned that not everyone could do that. Some had tried to fill the air with words, with platitudes. Some had wanted to get up and get on with their lives, treating the bedroom like some separate dimension, disconnected from the real.

None of them had been given a second night.

Calvin understood how to enjoy silence. The two of them could lay down on a couch, barely touching, and let hours pass with nothing happening. It wasn't a matter of willpower, skill, or action. If anything, the act of trying to be quiet invalidated the whole exercise. Instead, Jackie would sit back and wait, letting the moment overwhelm her. The game would end when she started thinking outside of the moment, where her mind wandered onto other subjects, when the moment stopped being enough.

Eli was kind of similar, in a way. He didn't talk much, and while it was clear that no small amount of that silence was the fear of saying something wrong, there were also the more comfortable stretches, the ones where he was willing to simply sit down and enjoy what was happening to him. He would let her drape over his shoulders, laugh at nothing, and settle down in his lap when she needed a seat.

It wasn't the same. Calvin had a habit of trying to introduce her to other people, of trying to bring her into larger groups where the silence could never last. Eli was needlessly skittish, too worried about the potential loss of a risk to even consider the potential gains. They were the same sort of person, each with their own little flaws and flavors, just different enough that she'd never be able confuse the two.

"We should probably get up. Actually get up, not just be awake," Eli said quietly.

Jackie snorted in disdain, nonetheless pulling her arm out from under him and sitting up, swinging her legs over the side of the too-thin bed. After stretching, she stood up and started walking towards the bathroom. The water started running before she was halfway there, and when she peeked at the frosted glass there was a pale form visible through it.

Jackie smiled, then opened the stall door and stepped into the slowly-growing cloud of steam.

They weren't the same but variety was the spice of life, and if Calvin could put up with Richard's body count he could put up with her particular method of killing time.

*****

"Fifteen minutes," Cat said quietly.

Jackie rolled her eyes at the reminder. Like she hadn't read the rules for the interview a million times. Like she didn't have the terms and conditions of meeting Calvin practically memorized. Like she hadn't come clean to Eli about what Calvin meant to her in order to get his backing on this.

The PRT agent at the door checked their ID, got their M/S passwords, and only after receiving independent verification from Director Lastrone does she let them in.

"Fifteen minutes," she said. Jackie would've scowled, but Calvin was in sight.

"Hey." He was sitting on the other side of a table bolted to the floor, brute manacles chaining his hands down and similar shackles around his feet, dressed in an orange jumpsuit with the word 'villain' in black down the side. He was still smiling, and behind her bandana Jackie couldn't help but reciprocate.

She took a seat in a metal folding chair while Cat stood behind her. There were cameras in every corner, but so long as she kept her focus on Calvin's face, ignored the trapping around them, she could pretend like things were normal. "Hey."

He glanced at Cat, then back to her. "Who's this?"

Jackie shrugged. "Black Cat. Trustworthy."

"Someone you've slept with." The words weren't a question but she nodded anyway. Calvin sighed wistfully, looking back to Cat. "You're lucky to have caught her eye."

"Sometimes I wonder about that." The words are light but Jackie winces at the ease at which he says them, the forced casualness that makes her feel wrong inside.

"Prospector." The name brings Calvin's eyes back to her, and she puts on her most professional facade as he shakes his head.

"I'm keeping my mouth shut. Sorry." Calvin leans back in the seat, spreading his arms as far as he can. The jingle of chains makes her wince, and he winks at her. "Don't worry about it. They're pretty comfortable, all things considered."

"I've taken a look at your rap sheet," Cat interrupted. Jackie twisted to look over her shoulder. Cat was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, but his voice was soft. "Property crimes, lots of them, but relatively few physical engagements. When you did get into fights they were short and fast, with a minimum of personal and property damage. As a Protectorate member I can't make any promises, but informally you have a good chance of probationary membership instead of jail if you cooperate."

"Does this make you the good cop?" Calvin joked.

Jackie shook her head, leaning forward, clasping her hands together. "Give him up, you go free. Go wherever you want, do whatever you want. Just not with him."

For a minute the three of them were silent, looking through the glass at one another. Jackie felt a twitch in her leg, an urge to bounce her knee. She gripped her knee, focusing on the pressure, keeping her gaze on Calvin's face.

Eventually, he shook his head.

"I'm not leaving him," Calvin said quietly, staring at his cuffs. "He's puts up a good front, but he really doesn't have a lot behind it, you know? A monolith when he needs to be, but as soon as the door to the outside closes it all falls apart."

He looked up, straight into Jackie's eyes. "You can handle yourself. You could do it before me, you can do it after. He can't. That's why I went with him, why I'm not with you now. I trust you to hang in there. Him? He'd be gone in a week."

"And the piles of corpses in his wake?" Cat asked neutrally.

Calvin winced, and Jackie could've shot Cat for making him frown. "Trust me when I say this is nowhere near as bad as it could be. If I wasn't there to remind him about the heat killing brings-"

"But the best is with him not out there at all." Calvin didn't respond to that, and this time Jackie did turn around to glaring at Cat, drawing no visible reaction. "What would it take to get you to turn him in? Again, I can't promise anything, but knowing where to start might let him avoid the 'cage."

Another silence stretched out, long enough that Jackie had to fight the urge to turn around and check the clock, check how much Calvin-time she'd spent being useless and not enjoying his company. She'd called in a lot of favors to get this meeting. Prospector had demonstrated both the willingness to assault PRT HQ's to get people back and the chops to pull it off, and delaying Calvin's departure for a max-sec parahuman detainment facility had been almost unacceptable.

If Jackie left this session with nothing to show for it, she wasn't sure she'd be able to get a repeat performance ever.

"Could you get him complete amnesty?" The question was so quiet Jackie almost missed it, and when the words did make it through her brain she had to fight the urge to hiss at the thought of Rich getting off scot-free. "A full pardon for everything, everything you know about and the things you don't. An ironclad promise that if we come in you don't jail him, don't fine us, nothing. Can you let it all go?"

Eventually, Jackie shook her head. Quietly, softly, Cat said, "No."

Calvin smiled, rueful and sad. "Then I don't think you've got anything I want. Thanks, but I'd like to spend the rest of my time catching up with Desperado. Mind giving me some-"

The wall exploded.

Desperado had her gun out and up before the dust had settled, seeking targets. She was alone, but help would be on the way in minutes, tops. All she had to do was hold out until they had the numbers advantage again, and Prospector would be screwed. She flicked open a utility bullet and fired, letting loose a blast of air.

Then she saw the body.

Calvin was lying on top of Prospector, limp, motionless. A knife handle stuck out behind his left ear, bleeding only a little, and a few feet away Cat was standing with one hand shaking before him.

"I didn't mean to," he whispered quietly.

Jackie snapped her lock onto Eli and fired.

The tag moved. She fired again. Jackie was dimly aware of Richard flipping Calvin over, searching for a pulse, finding nothing. The com in her ear said something. She tore it out and fired at the target again. It was getting farther away, gone out the hole in the wall, so she switched over to the penetrator cartridges, the ones that could bore through engine blocks and multiple buildings. The lock kept moving, too fast for her track.

She waited.

PRT agents filtered into the room, foaming Richard, who was screaming for a medic, for someone to fix Calvin, to bring him back from the dead. That cut off when they covered up his face. One of the agents put a hand on her shoulder. She let him, lowering her gun, waiting.

The target stopped.

Jackie's arm lifted smoothly and she shot again.

They tried to foam her. She blurred, the pain a distant thing, flying out of the hole Richard had made in the wall. As Jackie hit the sidewalk and started blurring towards the target she took inventory of her ammunition. Nonlethal for the most part, confoam rounds and hardlight, enough to subdue non-brutes and little more. A few incendiaries, one more penetrator clip, and a few other odds and ends. Hardly enough to wage war, to hunt down a murderer.

It would have to do.

When Stitchskin caught her, hours later, after she'd lost the ability to blur, when she was staggering forward on torn muscles and hate, when he tore a hole in space and pushed her through the rift, she was almost glad for the blackness

*****

"Hey."

Jackie examined the latest batch of ammunition. Matter-destabilization, short duration, mostly useless on its own. Follow it up with anything, though, and you could get through just about anything. It was good enough. She pushed the rack of munitions aside and pulled out a tablet. Now that the anti-brute tech was done she could work with Gauss on her pistols.

"What do you think of the velocity enhancement effect? I know you mostly focus on magnetic-based movement but this seems close enough to your wheelhouse to be worth looking at."

Ariel walked stiffly to the other side of the table, standing with her hands held before her, like she was afraid of touching anything. After a moment she sat down, meeting Jackie's gaze.

"I would like to talk about your assignment to Brockton Bay," she said slowly.

"What about it? They have a Nazi problem, I can tinker up a solution in short order." Jackie turned away, pulling out a sketchbook. Metal was a theme, and with what was effectively a magnetic tinker right next to her there might be something she would whip up right off the bat that could tilt the odds in her favor.

"Are you going to be able to work with Black Cat again?"

"Of course," Jackie said, blinking away the sudden lock her power gave her. When she looked up Ariel had her brow furrowed and mouth set firmly in a frown.

"Convince me," she said.

Jackie sighed. "It would be unreasonable to expect Cat to have engaged Prospector with anything less than lethal force. Seabiscuit jumped in front of him of his own accord amidst a cloud of dust, which combined with the disorientation following a teleport would make it extremely difficult to double check the target. Furthermore Seabiscuit had been sandbagging hard, and as a result was not restrained properly. It was a tragedy, but ultimately one based upon reasonable actions."

"Straight out of the mission report," Ariel said, shaking her head. "Convince me that your emotions are settled."

Jackie narrowed her eyes. "My side bitch killed the man I love. That's never going to go away. I can, however, maintain a sufficiently professional demeanor to not shoot him at a meeting."

Ariel stared at Jackie for a long moment, then dropped her head into her hands and groaned. "They need the back-up. You need the fight. I really, really want to say no anyway. Give me one reason to ignore my instincts."

For a long moment Jackie was silent.

"If I do not get some closure on this, I will go insane," she said quietly.

Ariel processed that.

"Will you promise not to hurt Black Cat in any way?" she asked.

Jackie nodded, expression carefully neutral. "I promise that I won't hurt Cat."

Ariel let out a breath with a huff of air, shaking her head. "Fucking good enough."

After sketching out designs for taser bullets that conducted through metal they really shouldn't be able to, Ariel left. Jackie kept up the mask for a few minutes, calmly going through her own master/stranger detection process. Paranoid? Certainly. But when you were planning treason paranoia was just good sense.

Once she was sure no one was looking around her workshop, she pulled out the black-market laptop, clicked through half a dozen redundant security tests, and checked her one-use inbox for news about Eli Shane.

She wouldn't hurt Cat. Words were precise, like scalpels. Twist them, even slightly, and no one could ever understand what was going on. More to the point, Jackie Avendeena paying a visit to Eli Shane wouldn't be against Protectorate policy. They couldn't prevent independent citizens from interacting with one another, couldn't stop them from walking into an apartment building for a friendly visit. It would give away the game to any villainous thinker worth their salt, and there were enough of those that it was a needless risk. Besides, if things came to a head they could always just fire one of the capes involved.

That would be fine. Jackie would be done with her work by then anyway.

Once that was done, Jackie closed the laptop, secured it in a box with a lock she was fairly sure was unbreakable, and went down to the shooting range. Her thinker power covered for a lot of that, ensured that she could track a single target for miles. It took time to apply to unfamiliar targets though, and building up the muscle memory helped with draw speed.

She nodded at the quartermaster as she checked out a revolver, roughly like her tinkertech pistols, and one hundred rounds of ammunition. She stepped into a specially-cleared range, tucked her ears into the muffs carefully, and settled her heart and breathing.

In. Out.

Jackie tied a belt across her hips, staring down the range, at the concentric circles of the target, not seeing them. Once the holster was secure, she put the revolver in, carefully, and let her hand rest gently on the handle.

The rest of the night was filled with the crack of gunfire.

 

[T0PH4T]

No one condemns me. No one demands that I transfer to a different department. No one refuses to patrol with me. In general, news of my manslaughter charge is met with understanding and a lack of judgement.

Within that lack of outright rejection though there's a lot more variation.

Colin is more or less unchanged. He already knew about the situation as a whole, so that makes sense. Hannah also doesn't alter her behavior around me, or at least not in a way I notice. Robin and I don't interact much in the first place, and regardless of his thoughts he seems to keep it from affecting our professional relationship.

Sharon isn't happy. At all. Ethan's 'officially' understanding. They're managing to stay out of my way, partially assisted by a shake-up of the patrol schedule. I think Sharon's more mad about how I let personal feelings screw things up, while Ethan's worried about how I went straight to lethal against Prospector. Either way, we don't talk much in the break room anymore.

Roger avoids me, full stop. I try not to be too hurt.

Alex is a big help, both as a patrol partner and as a shield from social interaction. Everyone wants to talk to the new guy, especially when they're loud and willing to share their opinions. He's abrasive, enough that after a few conversations people start talking around him, but that's a defense all of its own.

He can't be there all the time, though. Tinkering takes time, especially when he and Armsmaster disappear into the lab for hours on end. When that happens, I have to try my absolute best to avoid Jackie.

She's almost a different person now. Her hair is grown out, down to her shoulders, and when she's in costume she gathers it back into a scrunchie. She's gotten both more talkative and more distant, greeting everyone by name while also never really committing to any conversation in particular. Gone are the little touches, the smiles, the whistling. Instead Jackie's the picture of professional courtesy. It feels wrong, but I'm the last person that should engage. Instead I ask Hannah to go shooting with her and hope for the best.

Nothing blows up for the first week, and for that I'm grateful. Jackie and I don't talk, don't look at one another when we can at all avoid it. Colin keeps us on different shifts, on different patrols, separated as much as possible. We're seated apart at meetings, never alone together, and both of us are quietly tracked whenever we have access to weapons. For there to be any more precautions taken would take us firmly into 1984 territory, something which no one wants to happen.

I still wake up from nightmares of being shot from half a mile away, through walls, through people, through Sam. My stomach still aches when I see her weapons, old scars acting up and reminding me just how terrifying a lover scorned can really be. As the days go by without disaster though, I relax. You can't stay fearful forever, and eventually I got used to the occasional jolt of weakness that came when I saw a five-gallon hat and bandana.

The pressure from her eyes never quite goes away, though.

*****

"Crusader and Victor on 18th and Yew!" I shout into my com, flickering through the tight corridors of the apartment building as fast as I can, trying to outpace the spear-carrying ghosts. "Mooks with assault rifles in support and they have hostages."

"Reinforcements are incoming," the PRT agent running console assures me, even as I burst onto the roof of the building, then teleport to the fifth story of the neighboring complex before Victor blows my head off. "Desperado and Dauntless are closing, we'll notify you of additional forces as they become available. ETA is three minutes."

I bite back a curse and instead double back and duck out of the way, trying to catch my breath. One round. I need to hold out for one round. In this corner, a teleporter with non-lethal knockout toys and a knife. In the other corner, a supernaturally-skilled sniper and a legion of ghosts, dug in and armed to the teeth.

Easy.

I flicker back out into the street, quickly leapfrogging to an empty strip mall as a veritable tide of barely-visible figures flow across the battlefield. The Empire's taken over an apartment building, now sporting tarped-up windows with narrow slots in them, too thin for me to get clear sight into. Outside a line of people kneel on the pavement, hands behind their heads, spread out all along the block.

It's a trap. A good one. I leave, the hostages get executed. I play hard to get, the hostages get executed. Things get too hairy, the hostages get shot in not-instantly-lethal places and the Empire makes their escape. They've picked their ground well, too. The buildings are crammed together, leaving me with fewer lanes of movement, all obstacles that don't hinder Crusader's ghosts at all. If I do go outside, try to get out of the maze, Victor gets to take pot-shots. The only reason I'm still alive is that they seem unwilling to kill hostages to force me to stay still and take my bullet to the head.

Smart, for a bunch of white-supremacist fuck-heads.

Then a spear erupts from the wall beside me and I need to stop thinking and start running.

*****

A combination of questionably-legal rifles and good shooting on Miss Militia's part managed to keep the hostages alive, but Velocity had to disengage the fleeing Empire capes after Cricket joined their patrol and started trying to tear his throat out. Maybe I could've engaged her, made the chase go on for long enough to draw out Purity but at that point I had two different bleeding holes in me.

"Broken shoulder blade, ruptured lower intestine, and extensive blood loss. Also a number of lacerations all over your body. How'd you get this beat up fighting the Empire's C-list?" Panacea asks, brow furrowed in concentration as my flesh writhes, pushing itself back together. A unit of blood is feeding into my other arm, and the two things together are making feel a lot better. The painkillers are also probably helping with that.

"Oh you know, a few messed up teleports and some genuine concern for human beings being held in execution-style positions tends to make staying not-stabbed and shot difficult," I reply, counting the ceiling tiles. "Did you know that there are four off-color squares?"

Panacea sighs, stepping away from me. "I've fixed the majority of the damage and cleansed your systems of the incipient Staph infection, but I'm going to have to recommend a night of rest, antibiotics, and a lot of red meat and salads."

I give her a thumbs up, still staring at the ceiling. "Hey, could you get me a phone? I need to call someone and tell them I'm going to be gone for a while."

She departs without saying anything but I trust that she'll get a talkie-box to me. She's a good kid. Little bit of a negative Nancy and smells like a nicotine-flavored chimney, but a good kid.

Eventually a nurse comes by with my civvie phone. I fire off a text to Sam, telling him that I won't be home, to not worry, that I'll give him all the nitty-gritty when I get back. Forty-eight hours, tops. Shortly after that the drugs really kick in and I pass out, dreaming of home.

 

[T0PH4T]

When I wake up sober, I remember the text I sent. Specifically, I remember just how bare-bones it really was and wince. One of the many reasons I don't get intoxicated with any amount of frequency. Once I get cleared by a doctor I head to the locker room, change into my civvies, and head back to the apartment as fast I am legally capable of. I snap off texts at red lights, giving Sam the heads-up on my ETA and asking for lunch recommendations. When I check my phone three or four stops later there aren't any responses, I decide to stop for crepes and coffee. If he's working, the calories will be something to talk over. If he's still asleep, the caffeine will wake him up.

It's nearly nine by the time I get back to the apartment, fumbling a key out with one hand and balancing cardboard boxes and pair of paper cups in the other. When I push through the door I see that Sam is both awake and dressed, a grim expression on his face. The cold worry in his eyes kills the greeting on my lips, and only after she re-crosses her legs do I notice Jackie sitting across from him.

"Sam-"

"Stop."

The rebuke hurts.

"Jackie's told me some stuff, then backed it up." Sam's not looking at me anymore. He motions to the other empty chair. Not to the place on the couch beside him.

Slowly, I sit, leaving the food and drink on the table. I keep my gaze on Sam, away from Jackie. She doesn't seem any more happy than I am, but she also didn't seem like a woman who'd...

Fuck. I have no idea what she said. I'm flying blind.

"Is there anything you want to tell me about?" Sam asks quietly, glaring at the coffee table.

I swallow. "I accidentally killed someone Jackie cared about."

The crack of her knuckles popping is deafening.

"Nothing else?" Sam asks.

I shake my head. "Sam, what's going-"

"What did you do in the summer of two thousand?" he asks.

I stay very, very quiet.

"Plane tickets to France. Train tickets from Paris to Syracuse. Ledgers of smugglers headed to Libya. A statement from a thinker who specialized in destroying electronic records." Sam recites the items with a detached indifference. One fist is lodged in the other, and one of his fingers is rising and falling in a steady rhythm, generating a steady clicking noise.

Jackie laughs, and when I look at her she's as amused as a gravestone. "You would not believe how difficult it was to track down those receipts. Record keeping has really gone to shit these days."

"News sources in Africa are either unbelievably shit or unbelievably honest, depending on what warlord is in charge," Sam says. One of his legs is bouncing now, a nervous tic that comes up when he wants to punch something. "Journalism in Libya from two thousand to two thousand and three was shit because the guy in charge killed anyone who didn't print the stories he wanted. Derrida. Anyone he touched could just disappear at will."

I almost correct him. Almost. Something must be given away in my expression though, because the corner of Jackie's mouth turns up in a mockery of a smirk. She doesn't say anything though, and when Sam looks up at me I have my face under control.

"So, the best-case scenario here is that you fought against him. You tried to do some sort of insurrection, tried to overthrow a man who enslaved hundreds, and at some point came back here. That is the most benign thing I could see you doing with this stuff. Is that what happened?" He has a shaky smile on, one that's hoping really, really hard to be right.

I cast a sideways glance at Jackie.

"That's a no, then." Sam's voice is heating up a little, and now his foot is making audible sounds when it comes into contact with the floor. "See, the worst case scenario is that you were his right-hand man, going around and executing political dissidents, cutting off noses, making people disappear when Derrida couldn't, you know, just your average KGB secret-police stuff-"

"I didn't kill political dissidents." The words slip out faster than I can think, and as soon as they're in the air I wish I could shove them back into me, digest them, and never think them again.

Sam laughs, sharp and brittle. "Oh, that's oddly specific. Mind clarifying who you did kill? What they did to deserve it?"

"He had put a fissure on me, I was going to die if I didn't-"

"I showed him your mission reports," Jackie says. My hand twitches towards a knife that isn't there, the walls come just a little bit closer, and now she's showing all her teeth. "The ones that survived. Not enough to convict you in court, even if anyone in the States gave a damn about what happened. Your five years of good behavior would probably keep you out of the 'cage, and it's not like you were shooting for a leadership position anyway. A whole lot of money, time, and favors, blown for what are essentially a few rumors about a guy who mostly doesn't care about what people think of him." She leans forward. "Mostly."

"How'd he get you under his thumb?" Sam asks, throwing up his arms and standing up. "What possible scenario occurs where he gets the jump on you? Did you get mastered? Lose your powers to a trump? Did you just get really, really stupid for a while?"

I let Sam catch his breath, let his arms fall to his side, let his fingers curl into fists. I watch him sit back down on the couch, shoulders slumped, exhausted.

Once I'm sure he's done, I swallow once. "The first-year mortality rate for capes in Africa is twice that of the US. The five-year mortality rate is a third. Quality of life bounces between destitute and superior to most European countries, depending on who's in charge. If you don't play the game, if you don't aim to be king, it's not hard to live more than comfortably on the salary of an enforcer."

For a long time the apartment is silent.

Eventually Sam stands up and heads for the door. "Pack your bags."

I nod once, eyes beginning to burn, throat closing up. I head towards the bedroom, thinking about which suitcase to use, which one is his, which one is mine, and how that's suddenly something I have to consider. The bright shirts go in first, pastel colors and shades that I had to push to wear. It's almost a relief when I cover them up with my usual grays and blacks, the ragged jeans that I wash too much and that are in constant threat of destruction.

Were in constant threat of destruction.

When I finally come back out, Jackie's gone. Sam's waiting by the door. He stops me as I try to move past him, a finger on my shoulder, freezing me in place.

"I'm going to think. A lot. Once I've done that, we can talk again. But for now, I need space." The hand drops away and I move again, something like hope keeping my feet from dragging, keeping my eyes focused in front of me.

Time. He needs time.

I can do that.

Out on the curb, I see Jackie. Slowly, I walk up beside her. She looks at me apathetically. I come to a halt, looking down, hands very deliberately relaxed.

"Why the fuck did you do that?" I ask quietly.

Her lips tighten. "You killed Calvin."

"You know I didn't mean to."

"And that's why you're alive." She steps forward, into my space, eyes narrowing. "You killed my future. One mistake, one fuck up, and that was the end. Full stop. They drugged me to the gills for a week, trying to keep me sane. I couldn't tinker without making a gun to shoot myself, couldn't blur without trying to make my heart give out, couldn't switch my mark to anyone that wasn't you. It was hell in my own mind."

"So you ruin me," I say.

"So I ruin you," she confirms, stepping back, shrinking, growing older. I see the wrinkles around her eyes for the first time, a slump in her shoulders. "I ruin you, as thoroughly as I can. I tarnish your name, disgrace your lovers, and burn your hope to the ground. You destroy my future, I destroy yours."

"What if Sam takes me back?" I ask, one fist clenching. "What if it didn't work? What if my future isn't tied up in-"

"Finish that sentence and we both die." She's holding a small metal box with two lights on the side of it between us, eyes dead.

I stop talking.

"If Sam takes you back, I tell Armsmaster about Jakkals. If that doesn't work I tell the public. If that doesn't work I'll find something else, dig deeper into your past, maybe find out who you really are. If there's nothing there I'll invent something, force you to make something, lose/lose situations in an endless stream until you finally break. There's no way out of this, Cat" — the name comes out as a hiss — "so stop trying to escape and make a fucking choice." After a few more seconds of silence she puts away the box and walks away, leaving me alone in the city.

 

[T0PH4T]

My renewed residence at the PRT HQ goes mostly unremarked. Only Roger ever knew who I was staying with, and now that we're not on speaking terms he's hardly interested in my altered housing status. Alex stopped asking when I told him I wasn't going to talk about it, and the full-face costume keeps the bags under my eyes from showing to the rest of the team. When Armsmaster asks me if I'm fit for duty, I say yes. It's not even a lie. The publicity patrols have never been so simple, the civilians so easy to ignore.

It's hard to worry about the drapes when your house is on fire.

Officially, Protectorate capes are permitted their work phone. Unofficially no one ever checks if you have another and I spend my patrols waiting for my link to Sam to vibrate. When I'm off shift I wait in my room, listening to music, trying to read, passing the time as fast as I can, leaving the plastic siren rest on my bedside table. I charge it religiously, before bed and whenever I'm in the room. I know that's supposed to be bad for the battery, but that's a long term thing that I'm hoping won't matter.

I didn't expect a response the first day. Or the second. I reason that the third day would be optimistic. On the fourth I figure something must have come up at work. Day five is an exercise of very carefully thinking around the problem. On the sixth I think about trying to make first contact before putting the phone down, six digits entered.

On day seven I think I understand what the silence means.

*****

"Eli."

"Ethan."

The shower room is typically quiet. Now that words have been exchanged we can both move on and-

"You're not doing alright."

I sigh. "I am doing alright enough."

"Except for the whole 'terrified Chris into babbling' thing." I give Ethan a sideways look but he's just scrubbing his pits, staring at the wall in front of him. "And the broken Nazi bones from when we ambushed that Empire shipment. And not really reacting at all that one time Roger tried to give you a hug." He puts the bar of soap back into his shower basket. "You're pretty odd but the full-on cold shoulder was out there even for you."

"Roger asked me out once. I said no. His continued physical contact was unwelcome. I did no wrong." I shut off the shower and head over to the lockers.

A second later Ethan's shower shuts off as well. "There's wrong and there's wrong. Hookwolf is wrong. Lung is wrong. The Endbringers are wrong. That's the stuff Battery throws cars at, where Miss Militia gets to use the fancy bullets." He steps up to the locker next to me, spinning through a combination and revealing a flannel, boxers, and work jeans. "There's also little wrongs. Empty toilet paper rolls, people smiling when they should be frowning, and hurting when it's not necessary."

"What are you getting at?" I ask, tugging on pants.

"Talk to me." When I turn to look at him he's already dressed, arms crossed and mouth set. Ethan's maybe the least built out of all of us, probably a result of his power. He looks less threatening than, say, Triumph, but out of all of us he's among the most dangerous in a fair fight. It shows in his stance, arms crossed and eyes meeting mine fearlessly.

"No." I turn away, pulling a shirt out of my locker and tugging it on with short, sharp motions.

"Colin is worried about you." I keep dressing, ignoring him. "I'm talking asking-for-auditors worried. The kind of worried that means we'd grind to a screeching halt, doing nothing but attending workplace harassment seminars and doing trust falls until something literally caught fire in the city."

I close my locker quietly, spin the lock once, then turn to look at Ethan.

"Fuck off."

For a long second he keeps standing there, appraising me. Then he shrugs and moves past me, staying clear of any potential touch. From a striker, it's a sign of non-aggression, of stepping down. From a person, it's a sign of disdain. Here, it might be both.

I put it out of my mind and check my phone.

Nothing.

After a few minutes of staring at the screen, I finally give in to the temptation and start typing. When the first message is shit I delete it before sending, then type another one. I delete that too. Delete. Delete. Delete.

Eventually I have something workable. Short, to the point, and hopefully unemotional enough that it seems like something reasonable and not something desperate. I read it for neediness, for fear, for anything that would send the signal 'unhealthy relationship'. Maybe it'd be more honest to just type and rant and let thing flow, but it also wouldn't mean anything. It'd be a cruel thing to do, needlessly so, to dump all of my shit on someone else's shoulders. I keep quiet about the really horrible things, about the nightmare stuff, because I didn't think there was a point in telling Sam.

Honestly, there still isn't.

I swallow twice, looking at the words. I think I know what Sam means after ten days of silence. I really, really think I get the message. It'd be hard not to. On the other hand, I am also bad at reading people, at understanding how people work. I've misunderstood more cues than I care to count, sometimes humorously and sometimes not, and misunderstanding this one wouldn't be the first time I had screwed myself over more than reality was actually intending.

On the other hand, maybe sending this text is the straw that breaks the camel's back. Maybe this is what finally convinces Sam to drop me like a rock and find someone who's a little less high-maintenance, who has fewer skeletons in their closet.

I'd never blame him for that.

There's a whoosh. I stare my thumb, the treacherous digit that made the decision for me, and ultimately decide against cutting it off. That wouldn't solve anything, and the deed's done now. I put my phone back in my pocket and head for my rooms, anticipating a long, sleepless night ahead.

*****

Are we still a couple?

No.

 

[T0PH4T]

Firearm accuracy is a perishable skill. That mean that I have to dedicate regular time and effort to maintaining and developing it, time which is under pressure from half a hundred other sources. Recently I found a few extra hours in my schedule, and rather than spend them moping I decided to see how much of my pistol skill I retain.

Turns out not a lot.

"Disgraceful." The words, shouted, are still muffled by my ear protection, and after double checking for other active shooters I take them off and turn around, one foot on the pedal to bring in the target paper.

Hannah is shaking her head, looking at my performance. "Sloppy grouping on a still target with a twenty two. I've seen PRT trainees with better marksmanship."

I shrug. "Been a while."

Hannah steps into the stall next to me, pinning her own target paper in place. "Just promise me you'll get better aim before you step outside with live rounds."

I nod and replace my ear protection, sending the target back to the wall. For a while we both shoot, sending rounds down range and tearing the paper to shreds. I start relearning old habits, the ache on my trigger finger bringing back muscle memory from when Jackie taught me how to aim.

My next shot misses the paper entirely and I let out my breath in an untrained huff. Can't think about that now.

Once I've gone through my rounds I head back to the quartermaster to return the weapons and casings. When I turn around Hannah is there, waiting at the door.

"Let's walk," she says. I stifle a groan and join her. More unwanted pseudo-therapy. The faster I endure it though, the faster it goes away. I just need to keep my head down and mouth shut.

For a while we move without talking, wandering aimlessly through the base. We're both in civvies so we don't get more than a passing glance from the guards, and when a tour comes by to see the Wards we get shoved aside unceremoniously by the tour guide, a haggard-looking man who has no idea who he's pushing around. We let him, and when the group is gone we share a smile.

"You know you're supposed to be seen on PR patrols," Hannah says casually, ruining the mood.

"Not my fault people don't look up," I reply, going back to walking. It was nice, hopping across rooftops with Roger. He didn't ask questions, didn't press for information, just patrolled like everything was normal.

She huffs. "The point is to be seen. It's what we're paid to do. Part of that is actually making an effort."

I cast a glance at her. "I make effort. I go to hospitals, to schools, and play the damn PR game. I do everything I am legally required to do-"

"And nothing more," Hannah interrupts, stepping in front of me. She's tall, tall enough to look me in the eye, and her browns are as hard as steel. "Being a member of the Protectorate isn't a job, Eli. Screwing up is someone dead, not a late form. Get over your fucking heartbreak or put in a transfer request."

I blink.

Her eyes soften. "I know because I spent some time correlating your check in times to the bedrooms. There's a gap, and you came back two weeks ago. You're reasonable enough to report home damage to the PRT, which means that it's not something material. That. Sucks."

She pokes me in the chest. "It's not the end, though. You can bounce back. Calm down, get your shit together, and go back to doing good work. I've asked Armsmaster to give you a few more days, but that's it. That, plus the last two weeks, are your last chance. Understand?"

I nod numbly and she turns around walking away. I watch her go, then start walking towards the gym, thinking about the past few days. About the casual cruelty, about neglect, about being so caught up in my own head that I didn't notice the stubble on my face. I rub my jaw. When was the last time I shaved?

I think back, then swear quietly to myself.

I've really fucked up, haven't I?

*****

I stare at the slice of chocolate cake in front of me. One that I didn't order. After acknowledging its presence, truly and completely, I look up at the waitress. "Another gift from a lady at the bar?"

She shakes her head. "Me. And not for... that. Just to try and cheer you up."

After a long, entirely-too-awkward pause, I sigh and push the plate away. "I don't like dessert."

"Try it anyway." When I level a slightly more intense gaze at her, she glares back. "Maybe you don't like most desserts, but this one will work. You won't know unless you try."

I shake my head. "Or maybe I've thought about it long and hard, carefully considered all possible variables, and rationally concluded that cake isn't for me. Cheque. Please."

A silence stretches out.

"What's my name?" she asks.

"No idea," I respond. "Cheque."

"Shelly," she says.

"Shelly, can I please pay for my meal and leave? I have a bed to get back to." The last bit is unnecessary, deliberately misleading, and harsh in a way I try to avoid. I'm also so not in the mood for come-ons that I really can't put it into words.

"An empty one."

I pull out my wallet, pull out a pair of twenties, and drop them on the table as I stand up. A miserly tip, but this time I think it's justified.

"There's an ice cream parlor two blocks down," she says quietly as I put on my jacket. "They do a blood orange sorbet that's more tart than sweet and whenever I break up with someone I usually go there and drag someone pretty home as a distraction for a few hours."

"Pretty like you?" I ask, pulling up the zipper. The words comes out more questioning than biting though, and I squeeze my eyelids together as a wave of exhaustion passes over me. It's not sleep deprivation, not overwork, but these last few days I'm just been tired for no reason. Coffee doesn't help much, and Armsmaster is adamantly refusing to bust out the tinkermeth unless an actual emergency hits.

"Pretty like you," she corrects. "Lean, dark hair, sharp features. A little girlish, maybe. Usually not a girl. The partner's not for everyone though, but I think the ice cream is."

I take a long, hard look at Shelly. Brown, shoulder-length hair, with streaks of blonde running through it, a little choppy in a way that makes me think she cuts it herself. Large green eyes, filled with genuine sympathy, and a mouth set in a defiant line.

My mouth opens and then I remember Jackie.

"I'll think about it," I say, digging out a ten putting it on the table. She doesn't stop me as I walk away, and it's only after I'm safety driving again that I let myself consider what just happened.

Shelly tried to help. That much was clear. I told her no, she gave her two cents anyway. I'm not mad though, which means that for whatever reason I like her advice more than I liked Ethan's or Hannah's. Her advice had a practical element to it, things I could do on my own, and maybe that's why I actually considered turning around and going to that ice cream parlor.

Except Jackie.

Staring at the red light, I really consider Jackie's oath for the first time. What it would mean to have her haunting my life, looking over my shoulder, and digging up unwanted secrets whenever something starts to grow. If I don't kill her, if I don't flee the country, if I don't disappear so completely that she could never track me down, I will never have a relationship again.

If I tell Armsmaster, she'll be transferred. That'll give away the game though, and more than likely she'll just resign and spend her life as a villain trying to screw me. Same for if I resign. Unless I can get her 'caged she's not going away, and if her run through the city trying to kill me didn't do that destroying my unrecorded tryst with Sam isn't going to.

I give some thought to killing Jackie. To what I'd have to do, to how I'd have to live, if I wanted to pull it off. After another few blocks of driving, I come to the conclusion that it's possible. I'd have to pack up my life afterwards, completely relocate, change my name, disguise my powers, and never let the mask drop again. I would be trading my life, Black Cat, for a chance at romance.

After flashing my badge, I park the loaner, check the keys back in, and head to my room. I put on music, something mindless and numbing, already more than half memorized, and fall back onto the bed.

"You win."

 

[T0PH4T]

Chris's tinker workshop is not nearly as well-organized as Colin's. A bin sits by one wall filled with what looks like broken components and half-finished projects, while a shelf right next to it is filled with smaller bins, each filled with a different type of component. There's a sketching board right next to it, with paper and pencils rather than a touchscreen, and in the middle of the room is a massive table surrounded by tools and a single high-set chair, upon which the Ward in question is perched.

Chris turns off his power tools and spins around the smile on his face dying as his eyes rest on me. I wince internally and gently rap the door frame. "Can we talk?"

"... sure," he says, not moving from his seat. I move out of the threshold and lean against a bare wall, drumming my fingers against my thigh as I try to figure out how to phrase this next part.

"I would like to apologize," I start, staring at his chin. From this distance with a full-face mask, it can reasonably be interpreted as eye contact.

"For the training exercise." It's not a question, but I nod anyways.

"You guys are Wards. The scare tactics I used on you were not appropriate for a training exercise and not appropriate for use on people I was supposed to be helping." I swallow once, shaking my head. In the moment, it was a way to release pent-up stress. In hindsight it was stupid, obviously wrong, and ethically indefensible.

I need better vision.

Chris scratches the back of his head turning away from me. "To be honest, I really haven't thought about it much recently. Yeah the whole 'invisible ninja of death' thing was scary, but Oni Lee's like that with knives, right? So apology accepted."

I adjust my stance against the wall. "As a more material show of my good will, I made a cake. It's sitting in the main room, and I haven't told the other Wards yet."

He starts to get up, then pauses, looking at the tangle of wires and metal on his worktable, a torn expression coming across his face.

"How large would you like your slice?" I ask, angling myself towards the door.

"No, it's fine," he says, turning back around and standing up, one hand drumming on his leg. "I wasn't getting anywhere anyway. A break might help."

I nod and walk out of the room, at least one debt discharged.

*****

I duck around the Arclance, flicker past the shield bash, and spin around to place a blade under Roger's neck. He freezes at the touch of the training weapon, and after the unsense wears off he relaxes and stands back up.

"Still can't tag you," he says, shaking his head and stepping away from me, falling back into his usual stance, Arclance ready to jab and Arcbubble held out in front of him. His elbow is bent, ready to snap straight and meet an incoming blow, and I nod approvingly.

"Most non-thinkers can't tag me and I'm prioritizing not getting zapped over a lot of stuff. That, and in a serious fight I'd never be able to break through your bubble. You're doing well." I flip the wooden knife once and fall back into a fighting crouch. "Again."

The morning after losing, things were different. It wasn't so much that things were better, not at all, but that things were bearable. I managed to get through a patrol with Miss Militia without glaring at a reporter until they ran away, rescheduled training with Roger, and started talking with Armsmaster about doing more M/S training with the Wards. The last one is going to take some time, but I'm hopeful.

I still don't work with Jackie. Sharon and Ethan are back on speaking terms with me, but I'm a long way from being able to eat with them. Robin and I have started an odd sort of correspondence around languages, him teaching me Spanish while I pay him back with Afrikaans. It's not much, but it's more than we started with.

Roger fires his Arclance wide, then drags the bolt back into line in order to hit me. The novel trajectory takes me by surprise, and instead of flickering out of the way I taste toothpaste as the thunderbolt sends me to the ground.

"Oh my god, are you alright?" A brief moment of disorientation later and I register him above me, with heavy footsteps indicating a PRT medic coming over as well.

"I'm good," I say, slowly sitting up. I don't have the fuzzy feeling of a concussion, no blood in my mouth, and when I flex my muscles don't scream at me in pain. Completely unlike getting tased. "This is probably a good place to call it, though."

Once the PRT medic has given me a clean bill of health we head to the locker room to shower and recuperate. Once we've both blasted the sweat from our bodies and begun to dress, I reach out.

"That was new," I comment.

Roger sighs. "I didn't mean to blindside you like that. Really. I just knew the bolt was going to miss and reached out to fix that."

"No harm done," I say, buttoning up my civvies. "You're going to have to update your paperwork though. Good luck."

This time he laughs dryly. "There's an abbreviated form for power changes developed for trumps. It takes ten minutes to fill out, has a turn around time of days, and doesn't require a witness if you're been with the Protectorate for more than two years."

I sigh, shaking my head theatrically. "More example of classification-based discrimination. Did you know that I have to take a test on master/stranger protocols every other month? An actual test, with a proctor, grades, and everything. They don't actually do anything if you fail it, but I still have to sit in a room for an hour and stare at the PRT trooper who drew the short straw and has to watch a grown man in a Halloween costume fill in bubbles with a number two pencil to feed to a scantron."

Roger's jaw drops as we leave. "You're kidding."

"Not even a little bit," I assure him, a faint smile opening across my face.

*****

We both show up to the meeting armed. Jackie'd be stupid not to, and I have no idea how she's going to respond to my speech. That means that when she comes up to the helicopter pad she's got her tinkertech revolver on display, the safety button already undone, while I have my hands resting by loosely-sheathed knives.

We spend the first minute just appraising one another, waiting.

"If I give up, what do you do?" I ask.

"Blow my brains out, probably," Jackie replies nonchalantly. "Rich is in the Birdcage, so killing him is basically a formality. You're the only loose end left." She laughs. "Don't think this was quite the long-term relationship you were looking for."

"I don't mean suicide," I clarify. "What if I stop reaching out? What if I stop trying to form relationships with people? Let's say I'm professional but not friendly with my coworkers, stay in my room when I'm not at work, and never say more than absolutely necessary to anyone. What do you do then?"

Jackie shrugs. "Stick around and sever any bonds that end up happening accidentally. Hopefully you'll die before I do, but if you want to bring it to a head right now we can do that."

I shake my head. "I don't want to fight. I just want to tell you that you've won."

There's another pause.

"Come again?" Jackie asks, the confusion in her voice palpable.

"It's not worth it," I say, hands dropping away from my knives. "I play by your rules. No friends, no lovers, turn down promotions. I exist as Black Cat, you exist as Desperado, and Eli and Jackie both just fade into nothing. Can we live like that?"

For a long while, Jackie just stares at me, slack jawed.

Then she chuckles, low and dangerously, and turns around, heading for the door.

"You're really too nice, Eli."

I spend an extra hour up there, thinking, about Jackie's reaction, about what I'm giving up, and about what I want. I weigh the costs and benefits one last time, then sigh quietly as I, too, head for the door.

Sometimes it doesn't pay to want to stay alive.