Silence is Not Consent

Brightness 4.6
The steam from the shower, still heavy and thick in the air, was slowly condensing on the glass, misting over the clear surface and fogging the reflections. The fine coat of mist became beads of water which steadily grew, reflecting and refracting the light from the single bulb overhead.

I kept my eyes on one in particular, watching as it built and built until its weight was too much to resist, dragging it down. The journey was glacial at first but rapidly picked up speed; the drop pulled other smaller dewdrops with it, leaving a slick trail carved through the mist on the mirror until it finally ran out of room. It teetered there, clinging to the edge of the glass for a moment, before falling down into the sink with a plink.

I stared at where it had burst apart for a moment, then looked back up from the porcelain to the fragment of mirror still hanging onto the frame. I closed my eyes, took a breath, and opened them again. Unfocused. My vision blurred until I could only see the fuzzy outline of my body through the cracks.

This close, through all the shards of glass, the girl staring back at me looked like a stranger wearing my skin. Jagged. Sharp. If not for the shock of bright yellow hair, the flash of blue in the eyeline, I might not have recognized her at all.

God, what was I doing? Why was this all so complicated? How did I get here? I didn't think I'd done anything wrong. I'd had reasons for everything I'd done; looking back I couldn't pick out anything since Skitter had rescued me that felt like a mistake, or that I wouldn't do again.

And yet, all those earnest choices had led me to a situation rife with problems that I had never imagined encountering and wanted no part in. I'd never signed up to face off with Heroes or flee from Dragon! I hadn't wanted to be party to a team of Villains ruling half the city, or complicit in their crimes! Why couldn't I just go home?

My teeth dug into my lip. I knew why. I couldn't forget.

Ever.

A shaky breath in. Skitter – no, Taylor; I couldn't think of her as Skitter right now, not after that. Taylor had left the room a few minutes ago after flying a change of clothes in for me via hornet express. At any other time the image alone would have me smiling. As it was, I couldn't even get the edges of my mouth to twitch.

Nothing about this situation was funny. Or easy. And there was no one I could ask for advice, nobody I'd known... before. Even if I dared reach out, I kept wondering what they'd say. What they'd think of my being here.

My fists clenched. My thoughts were running in circles. Again. I wasn't ready to deal with the… everything that my meltdown had dredged up. Or what I'd asked of Taylor. But I could focus on the surrounding details.

Like how I'd fucked up. Because I had. With the benefit of hindsight, I could see my mistake. Maybe it was a mistake I'd needed to make, but that didn't absolve me of it. I'd pushed Taylor too far, too fast. Implied intent behind her actions that might not have been there. That wasn't the same as condoning them, but I also had to admit I was the outsider here. Hadn't I just admitted how easy it was to get wrapped up in a situation entirely outside of my control? If Taylor had given me the benefit of the doubt again and again for this long, I owed at least that much to her.

My eyes caught on the fractured mirror again. It was barely holding together. In retrospect I was surprised that I hadn't put a hole through the wall. Which… was entirely unacceptable. My powers might be more unstable now, yes. And frankly, I could admit I probably was too. But that was the very first thing I'd been taught as part of New Wave: that our actions as capes were bigger than ourselves. Being a Hero didn't just mean having powers; it was an ideal and a vision for how they should be used.

I'd betrayed those ideals today. I'd fallen short.

I'd missed it in the moment, but looking back, Taylor hadn't been subtle about getting Charlotte and the kids away from me when I'd freaked out. I didn't know exactly what had happened, and I was still too raw to poke through the memories to piece it together myself. But I knew my aura had gone off again, at the bare minimum. We–I–had to acknowledge that.

My fingers curled around the soft cuffs of my hoodie, clean again, smelling faintly of detergent and fabric conditioner. Taylor had sourced more clothes than the initial ones she'd presented to me that first night, but this had stuck with me. Something about it, the fact that it was the first thing I'd worn at the time maybe? Meant it felt different. Safe. I needed that right now.

I looked at the mirror one last time, cracks and all. This was me, who I was, right now. I had to own up to it. For better or worse.

I turned, and pushed the door open.



"Find everything you need?" Taylor asked as I stepped back out into her room. She was standing near the bookshelf with her back to me – reorganizing, maybe? She was wearing a tank top and loose sweats, a marked improvement over the… previous situation.

I snorted. "Hard not to. Besides, you'd know if I didn't."

She paused, and I ran the previous sentence back in my head. Fuck. I hadn't meant to accuse her of–

"I hope you'd know by now that I'm not going to spy on you like that, Victoria," she said, confirming my thoughts. Was that a flicker of hurt in her tone? Or disappointment? Goddammit, I'd made a mistake already and the conversation hadn't even started!

"No, not like that!" I signed emphatically. "Just that if I had problems, you'd know. You'd hear from outside. I could knock. I know you'd hear."

Her shoulders slumped infinitesimally, and I resisted the urge to sigh. Talking to this girl felt like a minefield at the best of times, never mind now.

Seemingly mollified by my apology, she slid the book she was holding back into an empty spot on the upper shelf. I took a moment to consider her. Stalling for time, maybe. But there was also something… different about her.

I'd never seen Taylor in any clothing other than her signature silk, chitin, and kevlar armor. It made for an imposing figure, and by this point the entire city knew as much. But while I had been closer than most, and knew her proportions by this point, it was still strange to see her in casual clothes.

Her hair, black and shiny from the water, fell down her back in wet, unruly curls. It contrasted sharply with the white of her tank top, damp down the back from where her hair was dripping, slightly riding up as she strained to reach the top shelf. Taylor was a tall girl, taller than me, but even she couldn't reach everything.

The sweats she was wearing gave her a… softer appearance. Literally, since sweatpants were objectively the most comfortable form of clothing ever invented. But it was also the first time I'd seen her in anything that didn't look battle ready. She looked like any other girl. I could suddenly imagine meeting her in Arcadia, or passing by on the Boardwalk, or any other situation that wasn't the nightmare we were living through – and it said something that the idea of going to school or window-shopping at the Boardwalk like I had just a couple of months ago felt more foreign and unbelievable a concept than meeting Skitter there out of costume.

What would those two strangers think of each other? I couldn't help but wonder. The Taylor swallowed by Skitter's mask and the Victoria who wasn't broken – would they find anything in common? Any reason to talk, to share anything more than basic pleasantries before going on their separate ways? Two ships passing in the night? I couldn't help but feel a pang of loss at the thought, though exactly why I couldn't say. Much as Taylor had helped piece together the ruin of me that Amy left behind, I couldn't say it was worth it to meet her. That any of it was.

I bit my lip. That was the problem, wasn't it? That we had to meet this way at all. It wasn't fair, any of it. That we needed to go through this. Taylor's whole mess with Defiant and Coil, mine with Amy and Carol. None of it was necessary. Was it just circumstance? Bad luck? My gut twisted unpleasantly at the thought, the idea that acts of such horrific and intimate cruelty could be nothing more than accidents. Pointless punchlines to empty cosmic jokes.

"Tori?"

I blinked. I must have gotten lost in thought. Taylor had finished putting away her book, and was staring at me–wearing glasses? Had she needed glasses the entire time I'd known her? How had I never noticed?

"Glasses." I signed, almost unconsciously.

"Ah," Taylor said, reaching up to touch the square frames briefly. "Yeah."

We stood there for a moment.

"I didn't know you needed them," I signed eventually.

Taylor snorted. "Yeah, well, it'd be a bit of a deficiency in combat if I had lenses that could fall out of alignment, or contacts that could slip out."

"Then how?"

She jerked her head at the mask sitting on the table nearby. "I sourced duplicate lenses, and glued them into the housing of the goggles. Easier."

I stared at the mask with newfound appreciation. I had thought about it briefly, what felt like years ago now, but Skitter's costume looked professionally made, despite her having worn it since her debut. No one outside of established second gen triggers or the Wards had that kind of funding. That meant she did the work herself.

That was already more than most Independents did. But to go the extra mile and account for her own quality of life in the design? To not just accept the handicap and rationalize she wasn't going to be doing much reading with her mask on, but instead lean into it and integrate her glasses without compromising her protection? I knew I might not have come up with that after so much effort already spent on the rest. Especially not this early into my career.

"That's impressive. Wouldn't have known from looking."

A hint of red dusted her cheeks. "That's the point." She looked away from the mask and back to me. "Anyway, you wanted to say something? You were staring at me for an awfully long time."

I started to sign, and then paused mid motion. How would I even articulate what I wanted to say? It wasn't that I was hesitant to admit fault. I was squarely, if not in the wrong, then at least the place where I needed to acknowledge what I'd done to move forward.

No, the problem was that I was trying to dive into what was at best a sensitive topic with a cape who'd taken me in without question, and I had no idea where to start.

"Tori?" Taylor asked, taking a step closer.

I steeled myself. Nothing for it then, just start with the simple stuff. "I'm sorry."

Taylor tilted her head. "Why?"

"For…" I took a moment to swallow. My mouth was dry. "For losing control like that. In front of Charlotte and the kids."

She considered me for a moment. "You did do that," she eventually allowed, "and we do need to talk about it. The kids were scared."

My nails dug into my palm, but I kept quiet and took the scolding. Fair was fair. I'd fucked up and now I needed to hear this.

"But," Taylor said, "you were faced with… that… with no warning. We didn't plan for it. So long as it doesn't happen again… that's fine."

The breath left me in a rush. That… that was it? That was far less than I'd expected. I'd seen Skitter snap at her people when she'd been agitated, seen her... if not berate them, then at least address them when they'd screwed up. Charlotte in the midst of the Dragon incident came to mind. The tone she took with them was chilled at best. This... was not that. It wasn't quite warm, but it was a hell of a lot softer than I deserved.

Well. Fine. Fine, I could work with that. I was on the same page with her there. The last thing I wanted to do was to frighten a bunch of kids who were by outward appearance alone barely in the first stages of recovery.

"Agreed. Thank you for helping me in the aftermath." I looked away as I signed. I couldn't meet her eyes.

A slow sigh. "You're welcome. Someone had to. I'm glad you made it through."

That pulled a soft smile out of me. "Are you sure it wasn't too much? I know I was… asking a lot of you without much warning. Or discussion beforehand. And that sounds manipulative even to me–"

"Tori." She cut me off. "Did you intend to have that panic attack?"

I hesitated, feeling my stomach drop like the floor had fallen out from under my feet. I wanted to object, to argue how I should have had better control, should have kept my aura leashed even when I was emotionally volatile–

I shook my head.

"Would you have been able to calm yourself down on your own?"

Metal washed over my tongue. I felt the memory of spiderwebs parting between my shoulders, the couch turning into kindling between my fingers.

I shook my head.

"Did you need my help?"

Prickling in my eyes forced me to blink away a sudden wetness. I remembered the breathlessness. The terror. The way the world had spun, rootless and anchorless, alone in a dark pit of fear and filth and family-turned-foe.

I nodded.

"Then I don't see the issue."

I jerked up, my eyes snapping open to stare at her. My vision was blurry, but Taylor wasn't standing any closer. Her arms were slack by her sides. The walls rustled. Her lips were quirked up to one side in an awkward half-smile.

Was it really that easy?

"Are–Are you sure?"

She nodded. "You had a problem. I helped fix it."

I sniffled. Taylor had the grace to pretend not to notice as I discreetly brushed the tears out of my eyes. I had done more than enough crying for one day.

"Thank you. I appreciate it. That does just leave one thing."

She pursed her lips, but nodded at me to go ahead.

"I wasn't fair to you in our conversation before that moment on the radio."

She cocked her head. "This one you'll have to explain to me."

How to find the words… "The questions I asked. Do you remember?"

Her lips thinned. I was afraid of that. "Yes, I remember. If you want to revisit–"

I frantically shook my head. "No, it's not about that. I was trying to help you there. But I think I gave off the wrong impression."

"The wrong impression?"

I nodded. "I was trying to help you see what you did through fresh eyes. In a way you couldn't at the time. But I didn't mean you were in the wrong," my hands moved hard and fast, motions fiercer than they needed to be, almost sloppy, "for not having all the information when you got in too deep."

Taylor looked at me for a long moment. "I... don't understand," she said at last, and it sounded like it took an effort of will for her to say it.

Again, I crammed down the urge to sigh. She was trying. And I knew I was explaining this poorly. "Okay. Just trust me for a second. You did bad things, yes?"

Her hands were starting to fist at her sides, and the bugs on the walls were starting to peel off into the air, but she nodded.

"Okay. And I'm not saying those things weren't bad to do. We both agree there. But when you asked me earlier, if it was all pointless. If it was actually so easy the whole time."

I paused to take a breath. I had to phrase this correctly.

"It's not that simple, Taylor. What we did with Dragon only worked because I was there. Because you had someone to back you up; someone..." fuck, how did I say 'someone with an established presence and trustworthy reputation'? My ASL vocabulary was good, but not that good. "Someone... with a voice." I winced at the double meaning there, but it would have to do. "To say it was pointless because we solved it by reaching out ignores the effort it took to make reaching out work. The trust that we formed. The trust you earned."

"Then what was I supposed to do?" she asked angrily, taking a step closer. "That puts me back to the same damn problem! Of doing the wrong thing, or doing nothing!"

I took a breath. "You do what all of us do. Make the decision you can live with, and help the people you can."

"And what do you think I've been doing?" Taylor snapped.

"Look. You said you wanted to be a hero that first night, right?"

She scoffed. "Yeah, but that died as soon as Defiant–"

"No," I interrupted, "I'm not talking about a Hero as a job. I'm talking about the role. The code. The morals and virtues and principles behind the idea. Did you go out that night for other people, or for yourself?"

The bugs were swooping and diving through the air at this point, swirls and sinuous coils twisting through one another with dizzying complexity. I didn't dare look at any of them.

"Both," she finally said. "For others. And so that I wouldn't… turn into something I hated. Even though I did anyway."

I smiled softly. "Then that should answer your question. Try to remember that night, when you're facing one of those choices again. Remember the girl who stood up to Lung because he said he'd kill children. Remember the cape who was ready to fight Dragon for her people. Remember the Villain who saved a girl from her sister because it was right."

My fingers were burning from the end of that, but the look in Taylor's eyes was worth every painful tingle. Her glasses magnified the proportions of her face. Softened her otherwise sharp edges. There was something lost in there. A glimmer of something, someone else. That faint spark was worth the pain.

The silence stretched. She didn't seem to know how to respond, or what to say. So I braced myself and took the initiative. It only seemed fair after what she'd done for me.

I took a step forward. When she didn't stop me, I took another. Step by step, inch by inch, I drew closer until she was right in front of me. And still, that look in her eyes was there. As gently as a whisper, I brought my arms around her and wrapped her in a hug.

She made a quiet choking noise against my shoulder. I pretended not to notice. If I could provide a moment of comfort for the lost girl in those eyes, then I'd gladly turn a blind eye to her vulnerability while she took it.

And it wasn't just comfort for her. She was warm and gentle against me. Her hair smelled nice; fresh from the shower. Lilac and lavender.

After a moment, I hummed softly. This was exactly what I needed after that nightmare earlier today. It centered me, grounded me back to previous experiences like this with Dean. He had been so willing, so understanding of my need for distance and touch at seemingly contradictory times. It didn't hurt nearly as much to think about him lately but–




Wait.

Wait.

I just. Compared Taylor. To Dean.

Oh, fuck.


A/N:
So. Now we get into the meat of this arc. Where Tori can no longer deny the feelings she's having, and what they represent. The shower was the catalyst for this, yes, but not in the… sexual sense. Obviously. More the way that it demonstrated just how painfully intimate she was willing to be with this person that the only comparison she could make forced her hand. But now it's out in the open. I'm sure this will be handled appropriately and out in the open. Yep.

No essay today but I did have a lovely rec in the form of Together in Their Own Way. It highlights the way that intimacy and romance don't always go hand in hand, but that does not take away from either. Given today's subject matter, I thought it appropriate. See you monday!
 
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Brightness 4.7
Deer freeze when they're caught in a pair of headlights. Everyone knows that. But it's not behavior unique to them. A lot of animals have a fear paralysis response. Before highways and cars came along, playing dead was a successful, albeit risky, survival strategy. Possums do it, too. You find it in cats, dogs and rodents. It's not even uniquely mammalian. Chickens, snakes, sharks... the list of species that decided sometimes "freeze" is more successful than "fight" or "flight" is long and diverse.

Human beings are among their number.

Dean, I thought, and my breath caught in my throat. My heart beat a hummingbird rhythm inside my frozen chest, but I couldn't move. Holding perfectly still wouldn't make Taylor lose interest, but try telling my hindbrain that. It felt like time had stopped, like that single fatal moment stretched out endlessly ahead and behind.

My racing pulse told me otherwise. It hammered on the inside of my ribs like it wanted to punch straight through my sternum. Would my forcefield protect me if that happened, or would it think it was friendly fire? I knew I could still cut myself shaving, so clearly my power had some way of telling when my pain was self inflicted.

(It let through people I trusted, too. I'd never thought of that as a weakness, before.)

Taylor's breath brushed my ear, and a trail of goosebumps ran down my neck like ants, tickling my spine. Fuck. Fuck I couldn't do this. Her arms were still around me, but now they felt stifling. Confining. Like they were trying to keep me here, keep me, close, couldn't get away–
Taylor must have sensed something, because she pulled back. "Tori?" she said, eyeing me up and down. "Is something wrong?"

That question. That question was going to haunt my dreams, I could tell. Was there anything wrong with comparing this girl to Dean? To feeling the same sense of safety and comfort in her arms that I'd felt in his? Was something wrong with the fact that this girl, who'd saved me from Amy, who'd just showered with me to ground me through a panic attack, was…

My eyes slammed shut, squeezing so hard they ached. I didn't want to. To name it. I knew what this was. I knew what I felt. But to name it, to actually acknowledge what I was feeling–

Out. I needed out.

"Tori?"

Reluctantly, I forced my eyes open again. Taylor's lips were firm, brow furrowed with what I thought was worry. I wasn't sure whether I wanted to be right about that or not. No, wait, her bugs were zigzagging behind her, all slightly offset from each other, like a crowd full of people shuffling from foot to foot. Definitely worry, then. Fuck.

"Did I do something wrong?" she asked, and...

Fuck. She'd done nothing but try to help and now my freak-out had her thinking she crossed a boundary. I- I needed to clarify that this wasn't her fault, but the walls were suddenly chokingly close and the thought of her touching me again sparked a jolt of revulsion I hadn't felt in weeks and I couldn't stay in this place any longer. I couldn't. I had to get out.

"No, no it's fine," I signed stiffly, stretching the corners of my mouth upwards into something approximating a smile. "I just want to go out for a walk. Run. Fly. Sorry, words."

She looked at me for a long moment, before nodding slowly. "Alright. You know where the exit is."

I was already turning before her voice caught me. "Be careful."

I didn't dare look back.

"Dragon might still be around. Just a warning."

Sure. That's all it was. I nodded shortly before hurrying to the rooftop entrance and taking the stairs two at a time. I could've flown, but I could almost hear Carol's "no flying in the house!" voice. Funny how the little habits stuck.

I pushed past what remained of the shattered door frame–we'd never gotten around to repairing it when Dragon was doing her stakeout–and got a glimpse of the orange-pink-purple sky of Brockton Bay. The sun was setting behind Captain's Hill, setting fire to the tops of the low-lying clouds and painting long, deep shadows in streaks towards the bay. A gust of wind swirled through my hair, and with it came a sweet, floral scent - a flowering vine on the building two doors down that had escaped its containment around the drainpipe and exploded out over the past month to engulf half the wall. The petals were small and purple and delicate; not a breed I recognised. Fresh beauty, blossoming in the still air after an apocalypse.

I shot up off the roof like a bullet, so fast I didn't hear the sharp crack of air marking my departure. My field kept the wind off me but when I flew this fast I still felt the stifling weight, trying to pull me back to Earth.

No. Faster.

I pushed and pushed, flying as high as I dared before the rapidly falling temperature reminded me that my shield only kept me safe; it didn't help me breathe. That had not been a fun experiment the first time, and I was hesitant to repeat the experience. Especially without Aunt Sarah there to catch me.

My eyes opened–when had I closed them?–to see Brockton Bay spread out below me. This far away, you could see the entire city at once. The setting sun lent a reddish golden glow to the buildings, and dusk light reflected off the water like a thousand stained glass beads. I could see the forcefield of the PRTHQ, still run aground next to the docks where Leviathan had left it. I could see the boardwalk, little more than wooden kindling after the last few months. To the North the train yards were lensed with heat-shimmer and little columns of smoke from trash can fires and chimneys, while the remains of the boat graveyard wallowed in the shallows; shifted by the waves but still stubbornly present. Winslow and Immaculata would be buried somewhere in the urban sprawl, and a moment's search found Arcadia as well, still surprisingly intact.

Zoomed out like this, the damage to the city didn't look nearly as bad as I'd feared. There were breaks and gaps in the structures, a few missing landmarks and a general sense of worn-down, beaten, battered exhaustion. The bits near the water were really bad, and the crater downtown had only grown larger since the destruction of Coil's base nearby. But for the most part it looked pretty close to how I remembered it. For all the damage that Leviathan had done, the city had survived.

On another day, it would have been a hopeful thought. It might be one yet. But right now, it felt damning. It felt like an accusation of how bad things had always been, that I could look at the city I grew up in, the place that I called home, after an Endbringer and the Slaughterhouse Nine had both had their way with it, and... barely notice the difference. Had it always been this bad? Or had I become inured to the worst of the violence and scars as they'd happened, bit by bit, as something once beautiful had turned sour and sick without me ever noticing–

I shook my head violently, hard enough that it hurt. No. No, that wasn't what I was here for. That was a path to another spiral. And was also not the issue I needed to face. As much as I wanted to distract myself with something else, this was too important. I couldn't lie to myself about this. Taylor. Taylor was… I had... it...

Okay. Okay okay okay. Go slowly. Break it down like before. That helped. Fact: I had compared Taylor to Dean. Fact: I had felt safe and comfortable in Dean's arms. Fact: Taylor's presence gave me similar feelings.

I… liked… Taylor?

Nausea stirred a bubbling pot of sour milk in my gut. I forced the words out anyway. Forced myself to think about them. No focus on the implications, or anything else. Just the statement itself. Did I like Taylor? Did I want to hold her hand? To hug her when she was scared? To protect her? To… to kiss…

Nails in my palms grounded me from the surge of bile. Okay, nope, no, that was. Too much. Inconclusive data on that question. That reaction could be recent trauma; I was self aware enough to admit that much. I had… experience… with Dean, but I could come back to that and reconsider later. So, ignore the sexual aspect for now. Did I want everything else I'd listed?

I barked out a bitter laugh, my vision blurring at the edges. Did I want it? What a ridiculous fucking question. I'd already done all of that. Now that I was looking at my behavior through that lens, I was amazed she hadn't already said something.

But then again, when could she have? How would Skitter have raised this subject? When would Taylor have had time? Had there been any point, at all, when we were both close enough that the topic needed to be raised and not dealing with some kind of imminent crisis? It had been weeks since I'd first woken to Skitter standing over me like the world's most horrifying angel, but it felt like years.

I bit my lip, hard. I was doing it again. Distracting myself. Slinking away from the main subject. Did I like Taylor? My feelings were nebulous. Faint. Wispy. It was easier to put things in concrete terms.

Taylor was obtuse, often indecipherable. She had committed acts of such astounding cruelty that I genuinely feared her career would end with an arrest no matter what she did from here on out. She had… saved me, when she'd had no possible benefit to doing so, when rescuing me had put her at odds with the most monstrous cape in the city. She'd threatened civilians and held Heroes at gunpoint, multiple times. She'd stepped into the shower with me after taking her mask off for the first time only an hour ago, just because I needed someone.

I worried about her. She frustrated me. I wanted her to be safe. I wanted her to do better. More than anything else, I wanted to understand who she was. What made her tick. How could she be so callous and violent one moment, yet sensitive and thoughtful the next?

The wind brushed my back with a caress that didn't make my skin crawl, and I turned under its touch to look out over Skitter–Taylor's territory. Even from this far up it looked vast. Unmanageable if not for her power's wide range. No, unmanageable even with that. I hadn't interacted much with the logistics side of her operations, but beyond the current crisis it was hard to see Brockton recovering with warlords at its helm. How could it? Who would seriously invest the money, the time, the risk, into this decaying wasteland?

I didn't know where that left me, in the long term. Hell, I didn't even know how Taylor saw me! As if this wasn't complicated enough. Between the trauma and Dean and–

Something caught my eye, over the ruins of the boardwalk. Was that… the coffee shop where we had our first date all those years ago? God. It felt like a decade ago now. I floated closer, then sped up as I realized I was doing it, needing to see it for myself.

Then I let go of my hesitation, and fell.

I dropped like a stone, leaning backwards into the headwind. It was almost peaceful, in freefall. The world was so silent, but for the roar of the air in my ears. I closed my eyes for a moment, enjoying it, before I reached for the embrace of my power.

It wrapped around me like it always did, the one security blanket I had in the tangled mess of my life. Instead of halting my momentum, it pivoted and shot me forward, quickly closing the distance between me and the boardwalk. I actually had to slow myself down as I approached, acceleration bleeding off me as the wind did its part to bring me to a stop.

The boardwalk was spread out beneath me on both sides, all splintered wooden decking and pulverized facades and flooded basements. The coffee shop was a small, quaint thing; the kind of chain that you could walk past a hundred times without ever really registering.

It was almost unrecognizable now, between the sun, Leviathan, and the Nine. The windows were blown out, of course, and the insides were dark. Trashed. Whoever was in charge of this had clearly either seen the damage and decided not to come back… or had never made it back at all. The only thing that confirmed my initial guess that I had the right place was the closed sign, dangling by one remaining chain. It was a miracle it hadn't come off yet.

This was where I had met Dean for our first date, all those years ago. He'd been so shy, blushing in red splotches that made him look more hot and sweaty and awkward than charming or suave. He'd overdressed too, wearing something that wouldn't have looked out of place in church. Maybe his mom had suggested the outfit? I'd never asked, though I'd teased him about it more than once. I'd just gone with a skirt and a cute jumper I'd had at the time. I'd been so nervous, so terrified he'd wake up and choose anyone else. I could still remember the look on his face when he'd first seen me. Like I was something amazing and barely believable that he'd lucked into; someone he still couldn't believe wanted him. Someone more than just a dumb teenage girl who'd almost put her eye out with a mascara brush that morning while talking to...

Anyway.

A dull pain squeezed my chest, the lingering echo of the way my heart had ripped open when I'd heard his name over the armband. I breathed through it, trying to focus on the happier memories of him. The details of that first date were blurry now, and the booths where we'd talked over milkshakes for hours long gone.

I didn't know why I came here. Maybe I just needed to know for sure. But all I could think about was that look in his eyes, the feeling of his arms around me. The dispassionate way the armband had reeled off his name among all the others.

It hurt. It didn't make any of this clearer. It just hurt. That Dean was gone, that I'd never feel his arms around me again, that there was nothing I could do or say that would tell me what he'd think of all this. What he'd tell me to do.

I didn't know how to answer the question beating at me. Hell, I didn't even know what had attracted me to Dean in the first place; how was I supposed to work through a– an attraction to someone else? Dean and I had known each other for years. There was history there. Intimacy. Affection. The kind of familiarity that only came from staying up until 2am at a slumber party, laughing at some shitty romcom. I couldn't remember when it had hit me, really. Suddenly, I was staring at his face while he was laughing at some joke, thinking that I wanted to hear that for the rest of my life. That was when it had clicked. Even through all the fights, the drama, the breakups… he'd been the one for me. A safe, welcoming harbor to come back to. A partner who could always settle me down and bring me back to an even keel.

That was… not what I had with Taylor. To put it mildly. She was inhospitable. Violent. Temperamental. Confrontational. Harsh. And able to be unbelievably cruel with seemingly no warning.

But she was also kind, when she had no reason to be. Empathized, when it made her vulnerable. Protective, even–especially–at her own expense. And entirely willing to go to war for the people she cared about.

What was anyone supposed to do with that mess of contradictions? What was I supposed to do?

Guilt hooked barbed claws through my ribs, whispering accusations in my ear. Was I just excusing her behaviors because she showed me her nicer side? No. If that were true, I wouldn't have called her out when her actions crossed a line. And if that violent side was really all there was to her, she wouldn't have listened. That was why I'd stuck with her this long. Even through the mess with Dragon, the Heroes before that, and everything else. She did listen. Grudgingly, most of the time. But even if she didn't like it, she was willing to hear me out when I told her she was wrong.

The wind picked up, buffeting lightly against my field as some trash from lower down the dock blew past and plastered itself briefly to my shin. My heartbeat drummed in my ears. I closed my eyes, and focused on my breathing. Slowing it down, narrowing my focus until it was just me and the rise and fall of my chest.

There was one thing that I didn't want to address, to even think about in all of this. I didn't even want to name it, because naming it would give it power. Thinking it might make it true.

But this was too important. I had to at least consider the possibility.

Amy.

She had done… a lot to me. I remembered far more of it than I ever wanted to. But at the same time, not nearly enough. Not enough to be sure. The days after she had initially… touched me… were foggy. Whether that was from the mind control itself or the violations that had followed, I didn't know. But I remembered the obsession. The intrusive clamor in my mind, in my hormones. The need to think about her. To be with her. In any way possible. It was sick, I'd known it even at the time, but it had still been there, drowning out any thought of restraint or sanity or shame.

I shivered, pulling my arms tight against myself, and wished I'd brought a bottle of something hot to wash back the bile. The sun was half gone over the horizon, and even through my hoodie the early July air was starting to get cold. Especially this close to the ocean.

Time to face facts.

I… liked Taylor. Maybe not romantically, although I could grit my teeth enough to admit I couldn't say that for sure. I hadn't ever liked girls that way before, that I could remember. Whether that was out of opportunity, heteronormativity, or just already being in a relationship for most of that period, I didn't know. There was no girl before Dean that I could compare to Taylor.

But.

Taylor had said that she'd forced Amy to heal me. She'd never told me the particulars, and at this point I didn't really want to ask. But there was that question. The nagging, creeping uncertainty in the back of my head, like a splinter under my skin. It refused to go away, this clammy dread that had taken root the moment I'd realized what these feelings were.

Would I have liked Taylor this way before?

Or had Amy left one last collar around my neck?


A/N:
This conflict was coming for a long time. A couple of people in the thread and comments have said as much, and for good reason. The creeping dread of the question Tori faces with this, is that it can never really be answered. Was she bi the whole time, and Amy perverted something she didn't even have the chance to understand herself first? Or is this an alien remnant of her abuser she can't quite leave behind, even if it would hurt her more to do so? How would you ever know for sure? You can't.

On a slightly lighter note, if you remember way back to the early days of the punchbuggy ship there was a fic by Caliiro named Intergalactic No Fault Collisions that popularized the pairing. My rec isn't for that though, but for their new fic From Fields of Elysium. Victoria is a detective who meets Taylor Hebert, a seemingly ordinary young woman who shares the same dreams of a hazy earlier life that Victoria does. It deals with family abuse, trauma, and the slow painful growth of two people in recovery. Happy reading.
 
The Official Timeline
It's come to my attention that some of the specifics on dates and timelines have been confusing. And my own writing has been a bit contradictory. Sorry about that. I went back and made a few edits (mostly spacing things out, the largest was shifting the PRT announcement one day later from when Tattletale told them about it), and events should now reflect the following timeline. I will amend this as we go. Please tell me if any detail doesn't match this.

CANON
  • Sun 12th June - Slaughterhouse 9 leave Brockton Bay
  • Thu 16th June - Canonical Yamada Interlude with Victoria in the asylum

SiNC
Start of Arc 1
  • Thu 16th June - Skitter finds Amelia & Victoria, rescues the latter from the former. Victoria wakes up in a bathtub (1.1 - 1.5).
  • Fri 17th June - Victoria asks to call Carol, visits Bitch,(1.6 - 1.B)
End of Arc 1

Start of Arc 2
  • Fri 17th June - Victoria, Skitter and Bitch encounter the Heroes, Victoria has a flashback and flares aura. (2.1 - 2.3)
  • Wed 22nd June - Skitter reaches out to Victoria (2.S). Takes Victoria along to visit Dolltown, negotiates with Parian, gets shot by Flechette and flown back (2.4 - 2.8).
  • Thu 23rd June - Skitter receives treatment overnight, briefs everyone. Victoria goes to see Carol, Skitter attacks the Mayor's mansion. Victoria demands explanation, Taylor explains Coil (2.9 - 2.11). Meanwhile, PRT decide to call Dragon in (2.D).
End of Arc 2

Start of Arc 3

  • Thu 23rd June - Carol warns Victoria that Dragon will arrive in a week, tops, forcing her to do some fast-talking to Skitter (3.1).
  • Fri 24th June - Victoria convinces Skitter to go to the other Undersiders and gets them to call Dragon and try to negotiate with her, to limited success. Victoria asks for Skitter's help in confronting the Heroes; Skitter is down. (3.2 - 3.7).
  • Mon 27th June - The girls have a tense confrontation with the Heroes and get ambushed by Dragon's arrival on their way back, forcing a chase sequence that ends with them trapped back in Skitter's base (3.8 - 3.9).
  • Trapped inside, they navigate a tense phone call with Coil and Victoria cares for Skitter's injury, without her (yet) demasking. (3.10 - 3.12).
  • Thu 30th June - Taylor looks over her supplies/situation and is frustrated she can't do anything (3.T).
  • Sat 2nd July - Victoria tries to have a shower and has a breakdown instead (3.13). Aiden gets overwhelmed and runs away, Victoria goes out and retrieves him from Defiant (3.14). Skitter has a conversation with Victoria about her past with Armsmaster (3.15), interrupted by Dragon making her move and Coil's takedown (3.16 - 3.F).
End of Arc 3

Start of Arc 4

  • Sat 2nd July - Taylor takes the mask off, asks what the point was. Victoria talks her down, and Tattletale rings with news of an official PRT statement the next day. (4.1 - 4.2).
  • Sun 3rd July - PRT announcement about how they took down Coil, in which Dragon covertly apologizes. Carol announces Amy will be healing again. Victoria does not take it well, killing Cenpai as she has another panic attack. Taylor comforts her, gives her the new name "Tori" and helps her shower. Tori realizes the depth of her feelings and takes some time alone to think about what this means. (4.3 - 4.7).
  • Mon 4th July - Carol has breakfast with Amy, remembering how she showed up at her front door at June 16th and how she secretly hijacked the PR announcement to announce the healing schedule (4.C). Tori arrives back in the early hours of the morning, realizes her powers have changed, Taylor says they have to do power testing.(4.8)
  • Tue 5th July - Aisha Interlude (4.A) in which she spies on Tori and Taylor talking about something important, reads journal with Charlotte conversation (4.9).
  • Wed 6th July - Tori and Taylor visit Atlas. (4.9).
  • Fri 8th July - Power testing in the forest. Testing her aura and shield (4.9 - 4.11), Taylor attempts to contain the aftermath (4.T). Tori dissociates and loses memory until...
  • Mon 11th July - Undersiders meeting, discussing strategies, unmasking, Dragon call Taylor suggests field master screening. (4.12 - 4.14). Meanwhile, Brian is not coping well. (4.B).
End of Arc 4

Start of Arc 5

  • Mon 11th July - Tori attempts to argue the unmasking plan to Taylor (5.1), The two of them take the issue to Lisa who sees her own side of the issue (5.L). Tori talks out some final details with Lisa (5.2).
  • Wed 13th July - Tori goes over plans with Taylor for the Undersiders meeting. Taylor and Tori meet up with the rest of the group out of costume, and Tori tries to pitch the idea to the rest of the group. An argument breaks out, Bitch punches Tori and leaves (5.2). Tori flies after Bitch and they talk the problem out. Tori accidentally bonds with Rachel and is asked some hard questions (5.3). Tori gets back to Taylor and relays what happened with Rachel. Taylor shares some of the last few issues she's had with the Heroes in the past, Tori is determined to reach out to the Heroes to bridge the gap. (5.4).
  • Thurs 14th July - Skitter has a phone call with Dragon, arrange things with Defiant for the next day (5.5)
  • Fri 15th July - Tattletale, Skitter and Tori meet with Defiant in a neutral location to discuss plans. Defiant serves as intermediary for call with the PRT. Tori realizes she needs to address things with her family privately (5.5).
 
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Brightness 4.C
C/W: this chapter contains depictions of parental abuse, spousal abuse, ableism, and implied domestic abuse.


She woke to a grumbling stomach and the sound of birdsong outside her window; an offensively cheerful high-pitched noise that would not shut up and seemed determined to burrow inside her ears and force her out of bed at whatever unholy hour this was.

Carol turned to the side to glance at her alarm clock, and sighed. Six thirty. Her alarm would go off in about twenty minutes; there was no point in trying to get more sleep now. Besides, the gnawing ache in her stomach meant it was pointless to try. She needed to eat.

Tossing the sheets off her side of the bed and stretching as she sat up, Carol looked over at the man sleeping to her left.

Mark. He had been so… different, lately. She didn't know what to make of it. For so long the things in his head made it difficult to do anything. From cleaning the house, to taking out the trash, to caping, to feeding himself, Carol had stopped trusting her husband a long time ago.

It had been even worse after Leviathan. Mark had never really recovered from the coma or the brain damage he'd suffered defending their home. Before he couldn't be trusted to feed himself; afterward he'd had to be helped. Part of her had never quite forgiven him for that. For leaving her without leaving her, for taking away what little support she had, however unreliable, and replacing it with more of a burden than ever. It was a crude, ugly, awful thing to think; still more so to say. But when your partner of two decades was reduced to a near-vegetable with the functionality of a two year old it was hard to be charitable.

Lips pressed together in a tight, unhappy line, Carol watched Mark's face carefully as he snored. She brushed his over-long fringe away from his face and frowned. It had been too long since any of them had gotten a haircut, and it was starting to show.

Until recently, she would've cut his hair herself. Who else was going to see him, to notice? But then… Amy had done what she'd always said she couldn't. What, if Victoria was to be believed, it had taken Bonesaw threatening her to do. She healed her husband. He wasn't just back to the way he was before Leviathan, he was better. Alert. Curious. Questioning. Almost like the man she'd fallen in love with twenty years ago.

If it had been love.

Had it?

Another growl from her stomach interrupted Carol's thoughts. Pondering how long Amy's "fix" would last could wait. Right now she needed food.

She carefully slipped out of her side of the bed, the sheets barely rustling as they settled down onto the mattress. Carol held her breath, then sighed when nothing happened. Mark had always been a light sleeper, prone to waking up at the worst times possible. She wasn't ready to deal with him this early in the morning. Not when she was still getting her thoughts together.

He stayed sleeping soundly as she softly padded around her bedroom, putting on a slim bathrobe before easing the door open. No noises, and this early in the morning meant her youngest wasn't likely to be up yet. One less thing to deal with.

As she made her way down to the kitchen, Carol ran through the list of tasks she had allotted for the day. There were some remaining items and cases at the firm she had to get to, Piggot had wanted a meeting about god knows what, and she hadn't heard back from Dragon yet on the details from the raid and fallout.

They might be keeping her out of the loop, but Carol wasn't stupid. The Dragonflight had been in the Bay for almost a week; Victoria had to be in one of the places they'd had under surveillance. But the PRT weren't telling her anything, and Dragon was ignoring her requests for an update–

Amy appeared, almost out of nowhere, right in front of her when she turned the corner. Carol bit back a scream. "Amy!" she snapped, heart in her throat, "what are you doing?"

The girl blinked at her in sleepy, startled confusion. "S-sorry. I was up. Needed food."

Carol took a deep breath as her heart settled back down. "Be careful next time, it's not safe to startle people like that while everyone is so on-edge. You of all people can't afford to be reckless or irresponsible with your safety."

The girl nodded, glancing down and to the side, avoiding eye contact. Carol frowned, but held her tongue. Frankly it was a miracle the girl wasn't giving her lip this early. She'd take any boon she could, at this point.

The silence held as the pair walked the rest of the way to the kitchen. Carol studied her other daughter out of the corner of her eye. Her shoulders were slightly hunched inwards; her spine bent forward. She'd need to give the girl another lesson on heroic posture; the public needed clear symbols of strength and morale more than ever at the moment. The bags under her eyes were darker than usual, but then again Carol could say the same thing of herself.

No one had slept well since they'd found Bonesaw in their living room. Amy had gone missing for days afterwards. Victoria barely said a word for just as long, and then she went missing too. And when Amy had finally come back, she'd been… different.



"What do you want me to do, Mark?" Carol hissed, facing off against him across the disordered living room. "What's your suggestion? Please, share! You clearly have opinions; let's hear them!"

The man in front of her tensed; his shoulders came up defensively and his jaw tightened. "I don't know!" he shot back. "But since I came to, both of our daughters have gone missing, and it's been a week! Are you even trying to find them?"

Carol scoffed. "Of course I'm trying! You think just because you haven't been watching over my shoulder, I've been doing nothing? I've been following up any leads I can find, while you've been stuck at home 'recovering'. But please, if you have any better ideas, enlighten me. Tell me how you're going to fix this."

Mark flinched at the icy venom in her tone. "That... dammit Carol, you know that's not fair. I'm not saying you've been doing nothing, we both want them back. But I just… I don't know what to do."

She softened. It was hard not to, when she felt the same way. Part of her wanted to call out his backpedaling, remind him that he'd questioned her commitment to her family only seconds ago, but she wrestled it down. Now wasn't the time to treat her home like a courtroom.

"I know, honey, I know," she sighed rather than follow the impulse. "I want them back too. But we don't even know if the Nine are fully gone. We can't just go traipsing into gang territory, hoping that we'll stumble across them on the streets. This isn't the Brigade anymore."

She clamped her mouth shut and forced herself to stop talking there. It would be so easy to continue. To say what they both knew but dared not voice. That New Wave had been circling the drain for a long time now, and with both Neil and Eric gone, there wasn't much hope of a revival. Nevermind this mess.

"We just have to keep calm, and pursue all the available leads," she said instead. "However small. It's the only thing we can do."

Mark nodded. "I know. It's just… it feels so awful. Like we're not doing enough."

Carol grit her teeth. As though she didn't know that. As though she didn't feel the same way. It wasn't her job to have to manage him like this; couldn't he see she was already shouldering the entire team? Her daughters were in the wind, Sarah was still grieving and in no condition to lead, Crystal was little better, and now her husband was–

A knock on the front door interrupted her thoughts. The two glanced at each other, before smoothly sitting up from the couch and approaching the door together. Carol reached out to the doorknob with her right hand, conjuring a hardlight sword behind her back. She didn't have to look at Mark to know he was pre-charging an orb to throw.

At least this much hadn't changed. Their domestic life was a mess, but in the field they still made a good team.

Carol tensed as she pulled the door open. If this was an enemy cape she'd have to shift to her Breaker state in an instant to avoid getting caught in Flashbang's signature attack. In that moment she could use the distraction to get behind them and–

Amy looked up at her. Her hand was still outstretched in preparation to knock again. She was soaked to the bone, giving her the look of a drowned rat, and the rainwater dripping off her tangled, sodden frizz didn't help the image. She was trembling like a leaf, and her teeth were audibly chattering. Her clothes clung to her thin frame, ratty sweater and stained jeans dark and wet. Her other hand was folded defensively across her chest.

Carol wanted to hit her.



The porcelain clattered against the stone countertop. The sound was like a gunshot in the cold, tense silence of the kitchen. Amy hunched in her seat, flinching at the noise. Carol didn't acknowledge the reaction as she poured a single serving of cereal into the bowl, setting the box down before turning to the fridge to get milk.

Amy hadn't been eating well these past few days. God only knew why. But as always, it fell to her to take up the slack. If she didn't feed the girl, it would be sure to blow back on her somehow. Besides, a certain part of her almost wanted to just to get her to stop moping.

She looked miserable, sitting slumped on the stool in front of the breakfast bar. She still wasn't meeting Carol's eyes, instead fiddling with a napkin on her lap. It wasn't as though Amy was usually responsive in the mornings, to say the least, but something was off here. Normally Carol would either be dragging the girl out of bed or trying to lure her downstairs with the scent of coffee. But Amy had been up before her.

She clenched her teeth. "Something wrong?"

Silence.

Carol let out a sigh, just barely escaping through her nose, and turned to get the coffee machine started. Maybe that would be enough of an incentive to talk. Normally she would be more willing to drag whatever it was out of the stubborn girl, but this early in the morning she couldn't be bothered. Eventually she'd either talk or stop sulking about it; one way or the other the problem would resolve itself.

"C-Carol?"

Ah. There it was.

"What did we say about that?" she said, still facing away.

A swallow. And then, "Mom?"

Carol finished pouring the coffee beans into the grinder, closing the top and fingering the on setting. The high pitched whining would make conversation difficult, and Amy clearly wanted to talk about this now. So she could wait.

"That's better," she said, turning around. "What is it?"

"It… it's about healing."

Carol's eyes hardened, her hands clenching beside her. No, she had to shut this down now. Couldn't let it take it fester, take root, transform into something she couldn't deal with later.

"What about it?" she said evenly.

Amy looked to the side. "I-I know you want me to." She seemed to realize what she was saying, and looked back at Carol. Her eyes were wide and desperate. "And I want to! I promise I want to!"

She let the silence drag. "...but?"

Amy looked away again, down at her hands clenched around the napkin. "I just… don't know if now is the right time. If it's too soon, if people will see why–"

"People will see what they always have," Carol said smoothly. "New Wave has a reputation, and we have to keep that going now."

"B-but if the heroes–"

Carol growled, slowly placing her hands down on the countertop.

It was better than the alternative.

"I don't care about the Protectorate. You need to heal. You need to fix what you broke. Or do I have to remind you about the mistake you made?"

The girl swallowed, blinking tears out of her eyes. "No, you don't." She swallowed to whet a dry throat, and nervously licked her lips. "Can... can I see her?"

Carol's lips thinned.

"Finish your first week of healing. By then she should be away from that villain, and we can discuss it." It had been hard enough to get Panacea public credit for resolving the situation, but she'd needed to do it, approval be damned. It gave her the PR to get back to healing without these ridiculous accusations on her back, and she'd prove herself then. Piggot would understand, once she stopped shouting and remembered how much good Panacea did.

"But I don't want to hear any more complaints until then, do you understand? No more whining. No more requests."

Amy took a shaky breath, and nodded. Her mouth was a tight, thin line.

It suited Carol just fine. She wasn't looking for a response.



"Where. Were. You?"

Amy flinched back, her eyes darting around the room in search of an escape, but Carol didn't give her any time to think. She advanced on the cowering girl, using her height to tower over her. She'd waited until Mark had left to go tell Sarah that they'd found Amy. He wanted to use his newfound agency, the independence.

And she wanted the chance to interrogate Amy about what had really happened.

"I-I don't–"

"Get to the point," Carol hissed. Her hands twitched by her sides. "I don't care how complicated you think it is. You left a week ago, and Victoria is gone."

She trembled, still not making eye contact. Carol didn't need to meet her eyes to know what was hiding in them. Guilt.
"S-so you know that Bonesaw had… forced me to heal Dad," Amy started hesitantly, glancing up at Carol. She bit her lip. If Amy wanted to try to win some leniency by starting with information Carol already knew, she'd play along for now. Anything to get the story out of her. Once she had Amy's account, she could pick it apart and cross-examine her to find the facts.

Amy paused, looking up with nervously imploring eyes and waiting for Carol to nod impatiently before continuing. "I was… running. From Bonesaw. From everyone. The Siberian was coming after me and I d-didn't want you to get involved."

Carol had been in enough court cases to know when a client was lying to her. Amy definitely wasn't telling the whole truth here, but the bit about the Siberian seemed real. And the subtle shudder and the glance at the missing fingers of her left hand all but confirmed it. She'd let it slide.

Amy swallowed. "So the... the Crawler thing happened. And Victoria was… hurt. The Undersiders brought her to me. To fix."

Carol ground her teeth. "And you trusted them?"

For the first time in the conversation Amy looked up at her, angry. "No, of course not," she snapped. "But I had to get Victoria, and they had her. It was the only way. I got her, and took her away from them."

"Fine. But if you had Victoria and healed her, what happened for the rest of the week?"

Amy looked down at the floor again. "I… Crawler did a lot to her. I had to heal her. But I didn't know how. I-I messed up."

Carol could not hit her daughter. She could not do that. Her nails dug into her palm. "What. Did. You. Do. To. Victoria?"

The girl quivered in front of her, hunching in on herself. "I-I tried to fix her. I p-promise I tried. Crawler got her with his spit, all this horrible acid and venom and enzymes and... s-so I made her a– a cocoon. To keep her together so I could heal her. A-and it was working, I got... I stabilized her and got her away from the Undersiders, as fast as I could. I found a workaround for how much biomass she'd lost. I fixed all the acid damage, I had the venom byproducts under control and I was cleaning up the leftover damage from the enzymes. But I– I got tired. It had been hours. And I hadn't slept, or eaten, or... so I took a break. Just a short one. I was scared and we were alone and I needed– I just needed someone to tell me it was okay."

She sniffled, blinking back tears. "S-so I changed a couple of things in her cocoon so she could give me a hug, a-and smile at me, and– and help me keep going, but... then I had to reverse what I'd done to keep healing her, and it caused complications, so I had to deal with those. And then I had to wait a while to be sure she was stable and all the healing was finished, s-so I took another break, and changed some more things, but... that caused more complications."

"What kind of complications?" Carol demanded. She felt sick. Something between the lines here was wrong; her instincts were screaming at her.

Amy sniffled again. Carol wasn't sure she'd even heard the question, or if this was all just pouring out unstoppably now that she'd started. "I... her hormonal and neurochemical levels were all unbalanced from all the pain and trauma and... stuff. So I put her in a trance so I could work on her. Without her backhanding me as she thrashed. And I had to put her further under because her body kept getting further and further from– and I was going to fix it, I was going to put everything right, put her back to normal and make her forget the whole thing so she wouldn't have to remember, but I just– I kept messing up and having to make more and more changes and it was getting harder and harder to fix them and get back to how she started, and I was so scared because... because she hated me. Hates me. For what I d-did to her."

Carol's hands flickered, fingers curling around weapons that weren't quite there. Yet. "So you're telling me that you violated your sister. And couldn't put her back together. For a week."

Amy nodded miserably. "I-I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to go home. Not when she was l-like that. Wanted to fix it. But everything I did just... broke her worse."

And there it was. The thing she'd been so afraid of this whole time, ever since she'd locked eyes with that angry five year old in that closet all those years ago. The outcome she was so certain of since Sarah–damn her–had convinced her to take Amy.

She'd known it would end up like this. That this snake, this imitation of a daughter, would betray everything she loved. And yet now it had finally happened… she didn't feel anything. Maybe it was numbness. Guilt. Satisfaction at being proven right.

Deep breaths. In through her nose, out through her mouth. Carol hadn't been to therapy in close to two decades, but some of the little things still stuck. She knew if she reacted now, she'd explode. She'd tear the girl in front of her apart. And she couldn't do that when she didn't have all the information yet.

"So then why are you here?"

Amy snorted, wiping the snot from her nose. It spread across the back of her hand in a shimmery, slimy streak. "S-Skitter found me."

Carol's breath froze in her chest. A vice clamped around her ribs. Fear and rage curdled in her gut, coiling around one another in a writhing, crawling tangle. "What."

"S-she found me. Threatened to kill her unless I left. I… put her back. As best I could. Then I left. Didn't know where else to go. So."

It was the betrayal she'd always expected, always known was coming. Amy had broken her sister, and then abandoned her to a villain to save her own skin. But… Carol didn't see the gloating villain she'd been picturing all these years. Not Marquis' skin-crawling smirk. Not even that… man. Instead, she saw a small, scared, broken little girl. Someone who'd made a mistake, who hadn't known how to fix it, but had tried her best to help her sister anyway. Someone forced by a villain, by a captor, to do something awful.

Amy had hurt her sister. Had, from the sound of it, turned her body into something unrecognizable and twisted. But… she hadn't wanted to. She'd been trying to help. To rebuild her sister after Crawler had maimed her. And, villain or not, she'd succeeded.

Slowly, she stepped forward. Amy tensed, but didn't move. Carol's hands came up, palms out, and still she didn't move. That was what convinced her. That Amy was willing to stand there, in the knowledge that Carol could cut her in half, and think she deserved it.

She reached out, and pulled the girl into a hug. Amy squeaked but she didn't let go, holding her daughter tightly against her.

"We will find her," she whispered, a fierce promise against her ear.

How could she do anything else?


A/N:
That was Carol. And Amy. You wanted to know what was happening, how Amy got back to her home, why the radio announcement went the way it did. Now you do.

I don't have a ton to say beyond that. This chapter is… I always wanted to do Carol justice in this story. I read the canon interlude so many times to get this right. And while the subject matter is… less than pleasant, I hope I managed that much. If you want more reading on the subject, today I'll link some of the external reading I did on Abusive Parenting, and how they perceive their own children. It helped me get some of the particulars right. It is not light reading. Otherwise, take care of yourselves out there.

This last point is... sorta spoilers? Though it's more to do with my direction as an author, so read at your own discretion

Tori will never be at risk of being raped or mind controlled by Amy again. No matter what the text might look like, know on the narrative level I'm never going to write that. Now granted, the threat of that happening might be real for Tori, and she'll react accordingly. But if you're sensitive to the content itself, know that I'm never going to write that. This story has not, is not, and will never be about that.
 
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Brightness 4.8
I don't know how long I spent staring at the ruins of that cafe, but by the time I got my bearings again night had fallen. I'd been doing that a lot recently. Losing time. Drifting off into reverie for hours. The wind had started to pick up in earnest now, the cooling earth combining with the still warm water of the Bay behind me to fuel an offshore breeze. It tugged playfully at the hem of my jacket, brushing along my arms and legs as if inviting me to follow it out to sea, away from this city of pain and prejudice.

I pulled my arms in close, shivering. Hours spent staring, and I hadn't come to any new conclusions or insights. Not that I'd really expected any. How was I meant to know if I'd really been 100% straight before? What kind of test was there for that? Who could I even trust to help me figure it out?

I bit my lip. No, I couldn't afford to go down that rabbit hole again. For the time being I had to focus on the immediate, actionable things. I was… attracted to Skitter. To Taylor. I could admit that. But acting on it would be a horrifically bad idea in every way imaginable.

For one thing, while I didn't want to get pulled into another panic spiral, it was an objective fact that I didn't know where these feelings were coming from. Skitter had saved me when I had no one else. She'd protected me over and over and over. How could I be sure that my feelings weren't misplaced gratitude or warmth from that? I didn't have to talk to a therapist to know starting any kind of a relationship with doubts like that was ripe for disaster.

And that assumed these feelings were even mine. If Amy had really changed that part of me… then I had no idea how deep the change went. Would it revert suddenly? Turn into a twisted parody of affection or deepen into her brand of sick obsession? Would it wink out when (if) things got sexual, or would adding sex into the mix trigger pathways of addiction designed to keep me caged? Maybe I was catastrophizing, but just the thought of the landmines that might be lurking in my hindbrain was awful enough that I felt like giving up on relationships for life.

And none of this was even touching on the fact that Taylor was still fucking Skitter! New Wave or not, she was still a Villain! In what world could anything between us possibly work? This wasn't some star crossed romance where the power of love and friendship prevailed! I'd had that life, and it died with Dean. I wasn't about to risk opening myself up like that again.

No. Better not to act on any of it. Keep my distance, set new boundaries if I needed them. Taylor would understand. Especially in light of the past few days. There was no need to complicate our already fragile relationship. I wouldn't force her to bear the burden of my sad obsession.

I shook my head, letting my hands hang loose by my sides. Slowly, sadly, I looked up at the cafe one last time. In the waning sunset, the play of shadows and light on broken glass gave it a pretty, fractured beauty. For a moment I was back in that afternoon with Dean so long ago, charmed by the cute tables, the nice waitstaff, by him. Not a care in the world.

Then it was just dark shapes in darkness, and Dean was dead again.

There was nothing left for me here.



It had taken some time to find my way back to Tay–Skitter's territory. I was approaching it at night, and most of the city still didn't have lighting, though some areas like downtown and the commercial district were starting to come back on. That left most of Taylor's area as patchy, feeble streetlights standing out in the inky blackness. It took me a good half an hour to find the specific flickery street lamp that stood a few doors down from her base. And that was where I was hovering now.

I worried at my bottom lip. What was I supposed to say, if she asked me what had happened? Where I'd gone? I didn't want to make things even more awkward than they already were. She didn't need to know about my likely misplaced feelings. But if she asked me directly… I felt like I owed her honesty, at this point.

I swallowed, and slowly unclenched my fist as a moth fluttered across it. There was nothing for it. If Taylor didn't ask, I wouldn't tell. If she did, I'd worry about it then. Either way, standing around here when she clearly knew where I was would just make things worse.

I let myself drift down, coming to a stop just in front of the door on the ground level. I went to knock, but the door opened inward on me before my fist made contact. I blinked as I came face to face with Charlotte. She didn't have her mask on.

For a moment, her silhouette blurred and Skitter was standing in her place. Thin silk skirt ragged and torn. Bugs streaming off of her in pulsing waves. Silk bodysuit and kevlar body armor still stained a dark red.

A blink, and she was Charlotte again.

"Boss told me you were standing outside," she said to my unasked question. "Figured you might need an invitation."

I smiled. One way or the other, it seemed that I had finally earned the girl's trust. Now I just had to keep it. Easier said than done.

"Thank you, it was getting cold out there."

Charlotte frowned, and I cursed inwardly. Of course she didn't know sign, and I was going to have to get the notebook and–

"She says thank you, she was getting cold," a voice from behind Charlotte whispered.

A shudder ran up my spine. I peeked over her shoulder and immediately regretted it. Taylor (and really who else could it have been?) had put together some kind of a vaguely humanoid shape of what looked like hornets and cockroaches and spoken through it. Or... vibrated, maybe? The sentence was almost incomprehensible through the buzzing and chittering, but it was close enough to make out the words. Christ, that was unsettling.

"You're welcome," Charlotte said, cutting off my thoughts. "Catch anything on your way back?"

I shook my head.

"I didn't see anything either," Taylor said. "We should be clear for the night."

I froze. That… that wasn't normal. It had been prickling at the back of my neck for a while, but suddenly it came together.

Skitter had never shown the ability to hear someone else that clearly through bugs. At least, not nearly this clearly. See me sign, yes. I hadn't figured out the details with her before now, but I'd signed enough without visual contact to know she could see me regardless. But she'd never had a full on conversation with someone she couldn't hear with her ears before. I'd noticed as much when I casually referenced bits of conversations I'd had with Charlotte and others, and she'd needed clarification earlier. And those had happened in the house with her! Unless she was truly frighteningly paranoid and had been keeping some of her cards close to her chest this whole time, something was off.

"I need to talk to you," I signed carefully. "Are you in your room?"

Taylors bug mass nodded at me (and what a sentence that was), so I took that as my cue to hurry upstairs. I tried to put my thoughts in order as I went, taking the longer inside route instead of just flying up to the roof entrance. Normally a sudden, unforeseen new trick like this… wouldn't be a big issue. Or at most I'd file it away as another power idiosyncrasy. Perhaps Taylor's emotional state interacting with her power expression.

But given recent events, I couldn't afford to write it off as just a fluke. Not after my aura had gone off that first day with Skitter and Bitch. And then again later. That… third hand from my forcefield. A million other tiny things I hadn't had time to put my finger on until now.

My power wasn't mine anymore. I didn't know how different it really was, but I was certain it had changed. And if there was a chance that was true for Taylor too, finding that out in combat could get us both killed. We needed to know going into whatever mess was coming next–and I knew something was coming, if only because it seemed like something always was–so we could plan ahead with full knowledge of the tools we had available.

Taylor was already waiting for me just beyond the entrance to the third floor. "Tori?" she said, inspecting me. Her mask was off, and her eyes were sharp and assessing. "Is something wrong? You were out past midnight."

I bit my lip. "Yes… and no."

She tensed, shoulders rising, one hand straying to where her mask hung from her hip. "Are we in danger? How close? Where?"

No, no, this was getting us onto the wrong subject. "Not that kind of problem. You heard Charlotte earlier."

Her brow furrowed. "Yes… I did. Did she say something else?"

I shook my head. "No. That's the point. How did you hear her, if you were up here?"

Taylor's face cleared. "Ah. I had my bugs near you. I heard through those."

Dammit, I was right. While this might be good in the long run… no cape liked talking about their powers. And especially not their triggers. I'd have to approach this carefully. "Have you always been able to do that?"

Taylor frowned, the tension disappearing as she considered. "No, it's recent. A few days ago I think. I tried before but anything like seeing or hearing would just blast me with garbled noise and fuzzy patches of light and dark and give me a migraine. But I can make out the odd word or sentence, sometimes. More so since Leviathan and the Nine than before." She looked back up at me. "Is this leading somewhere?"

I swallowed. "Trust me. Need data points. How do you sense through bugs normally?"

"Tori," she said, tensing slightly, "I don't know why you're suddenly asking me all about my powers–"

"Trust me," I begged, looking her dead in the eyes. "I think I might know what's going on. But I need to know for sure. Don't want to poke something sensitive by accident."

She looked at me for a long moment. "Fine. I can sense every bug in my range individually. And move them too."

For a moment, all thought of my theory failed me. My jaw dropped as I struggled to process the sheer mind-boggling level of information and control that simple sentence implied. She knew where all of her bugs were to such a degree, without line of sight or a numerical limit? And could control them individually? I didn't know how many bugs on average there were in a city block, but it had to be millions. Maybe tens of millions. For the kind of swarms she could gather in the range I'd seen her demonstrate? I wouldn't be surprised if it edged into tens of billions.

Fuck, if anything proved our powers came from somewhere else, this was it. No human brain could manage that kind of processing power. Every human brain on the planet put together would probably fall short.

Okay, okay. No getting lost in the absurdity of Skitter's power. Calm down, focus on the immediate. I needed to confirm restrictions. "No line of sight? Numerical limit? Can you perceive space or distance through bugs alone?"

She nodded. "No limit that I've found, if they're in my range they're mine. And I'm not sure if judging space is accurate, it's not like it's attached to a distance measurement unless I have a comparison. But I know where all of them are just like I know where my hand is when I'm not looking."

Proprioception. That's what she was talking about, except outsourced and externalized to a scale I'd never heard of. Not only tracking every bug, but also every bug's position relative to the rest. I'd treated her swarm as an extension of her body before, but I'd never realized it was so literal. I'd have to figure out how to better exploit that later.

"Okay. Last question, I promise. What were you feeling when you started to hear through them? When you heard through them best?"

Her shoulders went right back up, and she glared at me. I didn't look away. I knew what I was asking, knew what she'd likely say. But this was too important not to be sure.

"Alone," she said finally. "Scared. Helpless."

I let out a breath. "Thank you, Taylor."

She huffed. "Here's where you tell me why you needed to know."

I held in a knowing look. Not the time. "Have you heard of Sechen ranges?" My hands ached as I painstakingly spelt the unfamiliar word out sign by sign.

She cocked her head at me. "I don't believe so. Not with that term anyways."

I looked around the room. While I could explain this verbally, a diagram was usually better. Taylor seemed to understand my look, as she had her bugs pick up a pocket notepad from the nearby bookshelf and fly it to us, along with a pen. I watched the coordination with new appreciation - a dozen wasps all gripping the edges of the book, spaced far apart enough that their wingbeats didn't interfere with each other, flying in perfect formation - and gave her a thankful look before setting it down on the table.

I flipped to a two-page spread and started to draw a basic diagram of a humanoid figure, along with the twelve power classifications. Opposite it, I wrote: "You know the basic power classifications by now. Has anyone told you the theory of emotional links between them and triggers?"

Taylor shook her head almost before I finished the sentence. Alright, good to know what I was working with. "Researchers hypothesize that certain types of powers are more prevalent during certain emotional states while triggering. It's not exact, but it is a correlation. Master powers, for instance, are typically linked with isolation"

I could feel her tense next to me. "Your point being?"

I finished the diagram, and focused on the link between the outline of the human I'd drawn and the link to the 'Master' label.

"Sechen ranges are a further corollary to this"

I wrote the word 'isolation' inside the person.

"As your feelings more closely match the state of your trigger"

I drew an arrow towards 'Master'.

"Your power gets stronger. Faster. More reliable or pliable. Focused."

Another arrow, back to the person.

"This in turn influences your emotional state in that moment, causing a feedback loop with power expression and experimentation"

I turned back to her, and I didn't need to explain more to see that she'd understood.

"Yeah," Taylor said, taking a step forward to look at the diagram more closely. "I hadn't heard of that name before. But Li–Tattletale explained it to me in similar terms."

I tried to ignore that near slip.

"Have you noticed this yourself?"

She nodded. "Sometimes my power is a bit quicker to respond. My range tends to fluctuate. At first we thought it was random, but she pinned a lot of the behavior according to this. The closer I am to…" she paused, and I let her work through the moment herself. This was part of the reason why I wanted to be so delicate about this. "The closer I am to that," she said finally, "the bigger it is."

"Right." That made sense, her trigger condition seemed a fairly straightforward emotional link in that respect. "I was afraid of that."

Taylor looked at me. "Afraid? Why? Knowing more about our powers is good."

I closed my eyes, and took a second to put my feelings into words. "Yes, knowing our powers is good. The problem is that we don't."

She frowned. "What do you mean?"

I opened my eyes, glaring at her. "What do you mean what do I mean? Taylor, these ranges are supposed to be temporary. Do you feel that way right now?"

She shook her head.

"Then what is Charlotte telling the kids downstairs?" I pressed.

She stilled as my point hit home, and opened her mouth, but I kept going before she could speak. "We're in a power vacuum right now, Taylor. Coil and the Travelers are gone, and Dragon is probably already on the way out. If you want to keep doing this, you need to know exactly what you can do and how. For the civilians at the very least. And you just finished telling me your power may be changing permanently and you don't know why. We need to test this, both of us."

"Both of us?" she asked. "Tori, I don't know why you're so upset about this. If my power is changing we can find out–"

"It's not just you!"

The silence hung over us. My hands shook from the force I'd finished the last sign with, one trembling finger pointing at her.

"My aura. My forcefield. That hand," I stumbled over the word, "that came out of me a few days ago. None of that is normal. I have no idea how much is different, how much Amy might have changed."

I swallowed. My fingers ached, bones throbbing painfully in time with my pulse.

"So you're saying our powers, yours and mine, are different. Changing."

I nodded. The moth from earlier brushed my cheek. She stewed in broody silence for a moment. Then...

"Okay then."

I blinked. What? What was okay about this? I looked up, and had to hold back a groan. Taylor's jaw was set, and the look in her eyes was one I knew all too well at this point.

"If our powers have changed, we just need to test them to see what's new. Together."

Well. That just left me to do a long session of power testing, while trying not to step on any trigger landmines, right after I realized what my feelings were.

Fuck.


A/N:
I really love this aspect of Tori's arc. Obviously it's fit in between everywhere else, but the realization of her (maybe) feelings isn't an all at once moment. Rather it's the point beyond which she starts to interrogate everything she feels about Taylor. Is the trust real? Where does it come from? Is she just bonding to her savior? Is this affection platonic? Romantic? How can she tell?

Maybe this is just me being ace-spec, but I tend to think the actual lines between romantic and platonic affection are actually a lot simpler than people think. If you try and get yourself out of the box of "my partner is my end all be all and everyone else is secondary", it turns out a lot of the behaviors and feelings you associate with romantic intention also translate to friendship. Only the context changes. But if you don't have that context, how can you tell?

Anyways, today's rec is another fic by JarHills. Graceful Beginnings tells us the story of Weaver trying to get used to the Chicago Wards, and figuring out where her boundaries are. Prescient for this chapter. It's a oneshot, and it features a rare pair so well done here that I'm totally not obsessed with the idea of their dynamic now. Nope.
 
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Brightness 4.A
The house was pretty unassuming on the outside, with the same water stains and accumulated dirt from decades of smog worked into every crevice. It was three stories high, but that wasn't much taller than the surrounding properties.

Really the only thing that made her give it a second glance was the person she'd seen walking towards it. A teenage girl with dark brown hair and thin bone structure. She'd had her suspicions, but the domino mask confirmed it. This was the right place.

She had to move quickly as the girl pulled the door open, slipping in just behind her. She could've just waited for her to disappear inside and then opened it herself, but why draw attention and make her job harder than she had to?

The space inside was a converted duplex; one big ground floor living room with the dividing wall between the properties removed. Or mostly removed. It looked like Skitter had picked a place halfway through some renovations as her base and slapped patch jobs on all the remaining bits of cut-away drywall and exposed insulation.

"What, was this the only place big enough you could find?" she muttered. Nobody answered. Obviously.

Despite the general house-flipper's state of the building, the people living here had obviously done their best to make it homey. A bunch of mismatched couches and cushion piles were scattered around the room, along with three tables in completely different styles and a few other bits of furniture scavenged from the surrounding houses. A bunch of kids were lounging around in small groups, some listening to a home radio, others talking or playing. The sound of the door opening attracted their attention, and she hastily scooted past the teen and popped into the window seat to the right of the door. She stayed crouched there, ready to slide away if anyone approached. Getting sat on by accident was a hilariously bad way to get found out. Even if it wasn't as disastrous for her as it would've been for anyone else, it was still embarrassing as hell.

"Charlotte!" Three of the kids tumbled off a couch and ran over to the girl she'd followed in. All of them were younger than her; one little girl and two just on the cusp of their teenage years. Her age. "You're back!"

A soft smile snuck onto apparently-Charlotte's face, before she forcibly smoothed her expression. "Of course I'm back," she mock-scolded. "What, did you think I wouldn't be? Dragon's gone, remember?"

"Yeah, but you were taking forever!" the lead kid complained. He was a gawky hispanic boy, half elbows and knees. "I- Tia's hungry!" He nodded back at the little girl clinging to his shirt. Probably his sister, from the resemblance.

Charlotte sighed and swung her backpack off, dropping it next to the door. "Yeah, yeah, I know. But the boss had me talk to one of her people. You all wanted air conditioning, didn't you?"

"Yeah, but that's not happening until next week," said the older girl; black, with a frizzy poof of hair tied back tight and a hairband caging stray flyaway strands. "And we're not just hot, we're hungry. C'mon, please?"

Charlotte sighed again. She seemed to do that a lot. Not surprising, with Skitter and Glory Girl both in residence. Or 'Victoria', since apparently she'd ditched the old name. Was she going to get a new one? Who knew. Neither of them, probably. Skitter hadn't picked her own name – hadn't picked any name, to hear Alec tell it, even by the time they'd hit the bank. And 'Glory Girl' didn't exactly speak to imaginative naming skills.

... she was getting distracted. Shaking her head, she tuned back in. The rest of the kids were starting to get up and mob Charlotte, surrounding her and clamoring for a meal - which, okay, a fifteen-year-old's home cooking couldn't be that good, but on the other hand it wasn't like she had much competition with the city in this state - and she was slowly but surely giving in under their pestering.

"Fine, fine. What do you want?" she said, looking around at them. "And no, I can't do bacon again. Breakfast is over."

That was an instant downer; several of the kids stopped with their mouths open and a couple of others made sounds of disappointment. One girl at the back wasn't put off, though, and piped up with a cry of "chicken nuggets!" that got general support.

"Alright, chicken nuggets," Charlotte said, nodding. "I can do that." She turned towards the kitchen.

Paused.

And looked back at the window. With a slight frown, she walked over. There was nowhere to spring to; the kids had milled into the way. All she could do was shuffle back on the window seat as Charlotte got closer. Too close. Right in front of her, eyes locked, breath fanning over her face as she reached up towards the curtains. Had she noticed her? She must have. There was no way anyone could miss her, not when her knees would be pressed into Charlotte's stomach if the older girl leant forward just a little more...

"Charlotte? Is something wrong?"

"Is someone out there?"

Charlotte blinked. Her eyes focused, then creased, then unfocused, again. With a slightly deeper frown, she drew back, rubbing her face.

"I... no. Nothing out there. Just making sure." She blinked a couple of times, then walked back to the kitchen at the far end of the room, followed by the cheers of the kids as they scattered back onto the couches and cushions.

Back on the window seat, Aisha slowly let the breath fall past her lips. Of course Charlotte hadn't noticed her. Why would she? Why would anyone? It was difficult even on a good day to turn her power off; even now she could see the effect smothering everyone in the room like some sort of a muted haze. Although maybe see was the wrong word, because it wasn't physical. More like a pull, a sense of suction.

People forgot her. That was the simplest way of putting it, but also the cruelest. She had such a hard time staying in people's heads that she fell out of their awareness the instant she entered it. No-one could keep her in mind, so long as her power was on. She knew that. She'd known it for a month. And yet… sometimes it was nice. To pretend. To think she mattered enough, was present enough to have to hide.

What a fucking joke.

Aisha shook her head, idly adjusting the fit of her gray jumpsuit and pulling the scarf further away from her neck. She could see why the kids wanted A/C so bad; she was baking in here. And Charlotte hadn't even turned the actual oven on! Why the kids would want bacon now, when they could practically fry it on the asphalt outside–

Fuck. She was getting distracted. Again. Aisha huffed in frustration and made her way upstairs, deliberately stomping louder than she needed to. She'd only meant to watch Charlotte for a brief moment to begin with. She'd known the girl was Taylor's lieutenant, even if she hadn't known her name until now. But while Charlotte had confirmed she had the right place and let her into the building, she hadn't come here for Skitter's lieutenant.

The second floor was unsettling enough to make her pause on the landing. Aisha had known Taylor had a thing for bugs; with her power it'd be stupid not to nerd out over them. She was pretty sure none of the others realized just how much the girl emoted and expressed herself through her insects. Hell, she was pretty sure Taylor herself didn't realize it either. The way her flying bugs started swooping and diving in angry formations when she was pissed, or the way her spiders and ants started jittering around nervously when she was checking out Brian all seemed pretty instinctual. But right now, the contents of the aquariums and glass cages were in a frenzy.

Centipedes scratched fruitlessly at the sides of the glass. Spiders danced back and forth on their webs. Flying insects filled the air in a mad, chaotic pattern that folded over and through itself in a way that was nauseating just to watch; beetles and hornets and flies and lightning bugs all unable to stay still for even a second. Aisha could sympathize, but right now their agitation was a pain in her ass.

Her lips pursed. This was going to be tricky. Her power kept her safe from being heard or seen or smelled, but if she disturbed too many bugs, Taylor would notice the 'empty spot' she left behind. She was gonna have to get through without letting them touch her.

Heel bouncing, fingers flicking at her cuffs, Aisha settled back and watched. Her eyes flicked over the churning swarm as dense patches formed and dispersed, as shapes seemed to appear and twist and fold and break apart. She swayed forward a couple of times, almost diving for clear spots on impulse, but the hand she had wrapped around the stairwell handrail held her back. After an agonizing, drawn-out minute of following the pattern, she spotted an opening. A lapse in the curtain trailing away from her along the left-hand wall for a few seconds as bugs bled away into a wave sweeping sideways across the room. She took a few quick steps, inserting herself in the gap and following along the track until she slipped back out near the stairs up to the third floor.

She hopped up a couple of steps and paused, watching the bugs for any reaction, any break in the pattern or sign of an ordered search. There was none. Aisha breathed out a sigh of relief. If anyone could detect her here, it would be Taylor. And after having Mannequin in her territory not too long ago, she wouldn't react kindly to a possible intruder.

Plus, her knowing Aisha was here would spoil the entire point of this.

It was only when she got to the top of the stairs and opened the door that she caught a glimpse of the people she'd actually come here to see. Taylor, and Victoria.

Aisha was careful to open the door slowly as she entered the room, sliding it shut behind her. Her power allowed her some leeway, but it wasn't perfect. Actions she took weren't always as unnoticeable as she was. The last thing she needed was Taylor flooding the room with insects just because of a creaky door. Once she was safely inside, she turned her attention to the girls in question.

Taylor had her mask off. That was the first thing she noticed. Aisha could count the number of times she'd (intentionally) seen Taylor's face since Leviathan on one hand. And she was on her team! Was her brother even aware that Taylor had unmasked to the former hero she was standing across from? She'd have to needle him about it later.

Aisha shook her head, and looked at the pair again. Their body language was tense. Not quite confrontational, but she'd clearly entered in the middle of a charged moment. Now if only the two would talk so she could find out–

"You realize what you're asking of me, right?" Taylor asked.

Aisha's hands, previously fiddling at the clasp of her belt, stilled. This was it. She had to pay attention.

Victoria nodded, and her hands moved, gesturing and twitching like they had back when they'd called Dragon. Sign language? Fuck. Aisha couldn't make heads or tails of it.

"I know why you're asking," Taylor said through gritted teeth. Right; she'd been translating back at the warehouse. "Just like you know why it's not that simple for me to–"

She took a breath. Wow. The insects had already given away how pissed she was, but seriously; Aisha hadn't seen Taylor worked up like this in… ever, maybe? At least since the Nine had been around.

Victoria nodded again, gestured something and smiled, small and soft.

The fight went out of Taylor all at once. Her shoulders sagged, her head dropped. She slumped down until she almost looked like she matched Victoria's height.

"Fine," she muttered. "But I'm only sharing this because it's important. I don't want to. But…"

She seemed at a loss for words, before slowly bringing her right hand above her left, loosely clawed facing her chest, before bringing them downwards as she clenched her hands into fists.

Victoria nodded. Were her eyes watery? Aisha stepped closer, but even a few inches away she couldn't quite tell.

And then there was just… gesturing. Sign language. Ugh! Victoria, fine, but why'd Taylor have to leave a perfectly functional voice unused? How was she meant to eavesdrop now? Aisha groaned, running her hands through her hair. Of course this would happen. Of course when she finally came out here to see what was going on with her brother's not-girlfriend and the ward (hah) she picked up, they wouldn't even talk out loud in front of her.

She shot a glare at them. They were obviously talking about something juicy; Aisha could tell that much even without words. Taylor's lips were thin and her angular face looked even thinner and sharper than usual; Victoria's cheeks were flushed and she was looking at Taylor like she'd vanish if she so much as blinked. Whatever shit they were sharing was important. But what use was it knowing that if she couldn't tell what either of them were saying? What was she supposed to do now? This was so pointless.

Just as Aisha was about to bash her head against the wall in sheer frustration, one of Taylor's gestures caught her eye. She had pointed briefly at a nearby table. A table with a notebook lying on it. Well, she'd already come this far. And it's not like she had anything else to do today. Brian was a mess who could barely manage his territory, so Aisha had been responsible for most of it since Bonesaw; something she'd only suffered through because she loved the big idiot. But now that he was finally starting to get his feet under him again, she was free to spend a little time snooping.

Plus, she thought with a bitter snort, it wasn't like anyone would care anyways.

She sighed as she sat down, taking the opportunity to stretch her neck and shoulders. She was rewarded for her efforts with an audible crack. Standing in one position for so long tended to strain her muscles; she wasn't used to it. Too twitchy, flighty, couldn't stay still. The teachers always tried to have her ass for it in class until she screamed at them, and it's not like Celia paid any attention–

No. She was here for this book. She focused on it, tossing it up in the air and catching it again. It looked worn, but then again most things were these days. The water stains and tattered corners were common to almost every book that had survived the floods.

But this was different. The creases on the cover and curl of the spine suggested this was used, and often. The sticky annotation notes coming out of the side attested to that as well.

Aisha turned the first page, and frowned. "I want to call my mom." That was the first sentence. It looked choppy, like the writer was unsure of the phrase even as they wrote it. And then, below it, "She hasn't heard from me in a week. She thinks I'm dead."

She turned the notebook back to the cover. It wasn't labeled, but it didn't have to be. There was only one person this notebook could belong to. One person who had to use a notepad to talk because she couldn't use her voice.

Aisha grinned. Now this was more like it. Flipping through the pages, she noticed the conversations tended to change at random. Ideas would start and flare out before dying suddenly. She supposed that made sense, since she was seeing half a conversation. But it was still frustrating. The Mom angle looked promising, until it suddenly devolved into asking Skitter who she got? Confusing.

She shook her head, frowning. She glanced up at the two girls. They were still in close conversation, Victoria frowning more heavily now. She almost looked like she was trying to reach out, but with Taylor still signing she kept her distance.

Aisha sighed. Maybe she'd have more luck with the sticky notes.

"Hey Charlotte"

Aisha grinned. Jackpot.

"I need to talk to you about something"

This was the problem with this approach. It was better than nothing, but it was hard to tell when there was a pause in the conversation, or when two phrases happened back to back. and
"Not like that, no. Can we just talk somewhere else?"

Aisha frowned, looking over the lines. It was subtle, but the first sentence was written with a heavier hand, pressed slightly more into the paper. Running her fingers over it confirmed it.. Anger, maybe?

"You… you don't like me, right?"

The words were separated by enough space that she suspected there had been a gap in the conversation, even if the previous line hadn't indicated as much. Aisha glanced over at the not-couple. No, still talking. Victoria was leaning against one of the wooden bedposts now, looking worried. She hadn't missed anything.

"No, I'm genuinely asking. You at least have a… neutral opinion on me, being here, right?"

Aisha grinned. Now this was useful information. Victoria wasn't just looking to pick fights, that would be expected. But she wanted honesty. That was different.

"Okay. I need to tell you something. And I want your genuine honest opinion on it. No bullshit. Can you do that?"

No direct answer on what Charlotte had given, but this was still good. Needing not just honesty, but an opinion from Charlotte on something from Victoria? This was getting interesting.

"No, not like that."

The words were rushed, almost an afterthought. What had Charlotte guessed wrong? There was no way to tell. Scrunching her nose in annoyance, Aisha kept reading.

"When she found me my sister was… raping me. Among other things. She saved me from that."

... what the fuck?

She blinked, went back and reread the sentence. No, yeah, that was what it said. Full stop. Aisha let out a low whistle and took a moment to sit back and think. Taylor hadn't said anything about where or how she'd found Victoria. Just that she was offering her shelter as a cape. Aisha had figured it was something to do with the Nine or some shit. But this was…

She could feel the emotions from the word itself. The tremble written into the lines of ink on paper. The ever so slight pause between 'sister' and what she'd done. No, there was no faking that.

"Shit," she muttered. "No wonder Taylor didn't say anything." She glanced over at Victoria, who was still riveted on Taylor, looking vaguely horrified. Taylor's face was a blank mask, jaw set, staring fixedly at the floor as she signed. Huh. Sharing something heavy, then. Maybe that announcement Lisa had called about, how Panacea was going back to healing? That'd sure as fuck put her in a bad mood, if she was in Victoria's shoes.

"Yeah. So my feelings are going to be biased on her, I know that."

Aisha snorted without humor. Biased, huh? Yeah, that was one way to put it. Though to be honest she couldn't blame the girl. Frankly, it'd probably have saved everyone a bunch of headaches if Taylor had finished the job and killed Amy Dallon wherever she'd found her, because now there was a massive walking problem to be dealt with. But that could come later. For now, the rest of the notebook beckoned.

"I'm getting there. But so much of my world was turned upside down between Amy and Skitter saving me and…"

The sentence seemed to trail off, stumbling into the next page. Aisha was just about to turn it when a sound like a gunshot startled her. She looked up sharply, knife jumping to her hand, only to see Victoria fingering the remains of the bedpost she had been holding. Her face was twisted in a snarl of... Rage? Grief? Hatred? Maybe some mix of all three.

Taylor was looking away, her hands fisted by her sides. Insects had flooded the nearby walls while Aisha had been focused on the notepad; a veritable sea of chitin and mandibles. Great, so they were both pissed off.

Victoria got up from the bed, and slowly approached Taylor. Aisha tensed. Victoria was strong and damned fast when she wanted to be. Aisha's power was good, but it worked best on the unaware. If Victoria was about to hurt Taylor, she might only have one shot at intervening.

But instead, Victoria reached out… and folded the taller girl into a hug.

Aisha blinked. Taylor seemed to be startled too, standing stock still. But gradually, as the bugs and flies settled back down on the walls, she wrapped her arms back around Victoria.

Well. That changed a few things. She hadn't really been serious earlier, but as she turned the page Aisha wasn't exactly surprised by what she saw.

"I'm starting to feel things. When I'm with her. And I don't know what to do about it."

A brief pause, and then.

"Yes. Please don't make me say it."

No, Aisha mused, glancing at the pair out of the corner of her eye, she really didn't have to say anything at all.

"Feels a bit out of place after a local apocalypse, yeah"

She snorted. Looked like Victoria still had a sense of humor. Good for her, Aisha supposed. And she wasn't wrong. Trying to figure out how your crush felt about you in the middle of the city you live in falling apart? It sounded like something out of a cheap paperback.

"No. Not directly. I only realized recently."

Now that was interesting. Taylor had been blindingly obvious that day in the apartment, putting together furniture with Brian. It had been so funny to give her shit over it. But that paled against how cuddly she was being with Victoria now. Aisha honestly hadn't thought Taylor knew what hugs were, for a while.

And Victoria was only just now realizing she might have feelings? Was she lying to herself, or just really dense?

"…once or twice. Maybe. But it was hard to tell at the time. Lots of other factors."

Aisha frowned. More of that talking disconnect again, it looked like. Once or twice what? Something Victoria might not be sure of. Thinking Taylor had noticed? Thinking Taylor liked her back?

"Not really. But she learned to sign for me, for what that's worth"

More juicy details. So Taylor hadn't already known how to sign? She'd learned, just for Victoria? Interesting, interesting. And a sign that Taylor was seriously invested in this chick. Learning a new language wasn't something you just did over a weekend. Though, maybe Aisha would have to try picking it up. If it turned out to be easy, she'd be able to eavesdrop better on them. Maybe wait for them to spill something she could hold over them before letting them know she'd understood it; that'd be fun.

Course, there was an even chance she'd have forgotten about the whole thing by the time she got back home. Aisha knew her own mind, and her own attention span. Maybe she'd just drop hints that she understood to freak them out, some time. All the hilarity, none of the work.

She glanced over. The girls were still hugging. Jeez, this was sickening to watch. Taylor hadn't been this sappy even over Brian. Thirsty as hell, yeah, but not this. Aisha turned back to the notebook, but the next line gave her pause.

"That's not what I'm saying, don't put words in my mouth."

The words were pressed hard into the paper; indented even through to the page beneath. With Victoria's strength it was probably a miracle the paper hadn't torn. The ink was so deep that it had bled and smudged from the edges of the letters. And finally, underneath it, shaking slightly...

"I just don't know what to do. Where to go from here. With her. Or myself."

The conversation trailed off from there to something boring about kitchen duties, but she'd gotten what she wanted. Aisha picked up her phone from her belt and took a quick shot of the two hugging while she still could. Then she flipped the page and started to capture the whole conversation, as best she could.

She grinned. She'd hit a couple of setbacks, and she hadn't gotten to spy on their conversation the way she'd wanted, but she finally had what she'd come here for.

Blackmail.


A/N:
I want to thank Aleph for almost singlehandedly making this happen. She had the idea for the interlude, both with Aisha and the excellent addition of the notepad and onesided conversation, and then proceeded to rewrite half the content to make it far more readable than it otherwise would be. Seriously she's fantastic, and all of you should leave nice big comments on Postdiluvian Road for it.

So we get to see more behind the scenes at the hideout. Half of a conversation between Taylor and Tori, and another half between Tori and Charlotte. I really like giving pieces of the narratives in layers like this, it lets the reader pick them apart at their own speed.

Speaking of Aisha, today's rec is an excellent post on the mechanics of Taylor/Aisha, and more broadly has a lot of really interesting and thoughtful character analysis on Aisha as Worm progresses and a bit into Ward. Happy reading!
 
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Brightness 4.9
My head was still spinning as I held Taylor in my arms. She was warm and solid, a weight against my chest I could focus on as I tried to fit everything from the last few minutes in my head.

It had been safer to share than to stay silent. Testing powers this heavily involved Sechen ranges, and that meant toeing the line of the raw wounds that powers grew from. Experimenting with the mindsets and traumas that fed the expressions of our powers meant we were almost guaranteed to put things together. That made it safer just to explain the truth instead of letting guesswork and assumption hold sway.

Or at least, that's what I'd told myself at first. It was true. I still stood by it. But I also had to admit when she pressed me that I just... cared far too much about her not to want to know. To sympathize. To connect with the most fundamental, brutal shared truth of every cape.

I'd told her mine, in halting terms. It seemed so trivial to call it a basketball game. As if that was all it had been. But Taylor had stayed silent as I'd explained the reasons behind it, how it was just the straw on top of the mountain of other shit on my back.

And then…

I knew first generation triggers were bad. And mine was no picnic. But to be betrayed and harassed by her former best friend with no explanation? To have that go on for more than a year with no one acting on it or giving a shit? And for it to culminate in that?

I rubbed Taylor's back softly.

The cruelty of it, the sheer sadism they'd torn her down with, the ways they'd fucked with her head and abused her trust... it made me sick. All of it. And not just in the literal sense. It was almost impossible not to look back on her behavior as Skitter in retrospect, and wonder how much of it came out of that hurt. Some of it I had to read between the lines for; Taylor didn't go into detail, but...

'They let me have friends, once or twice,' she'd said. 'Then took them away.' I couldn't help but imagine what that must have felt like. People getting close, pretending to care, pretending she could rely on them, trust them. Only for them to turn out to be snakes in disguise. Every person who seemed sympathetic or offered her support, stabbing her in the back. Until she started mistrusting anyone who tried to worm their way into her confidence, learned to push back against anything that seemed too good to be true. Until that definition expanded to anything that didn't make her miserable and alone.

And that was just one of the tactics they'd used. One part of a months-long bullying campaign that she summarized like every sign was blood wrenched from a stone. They'd taught her, through precisely-applied pain, over and over again, that anything good in her life was a lie and a trap and would hurt her even more if she let her guard down. Any new person who seemed to like her. Any slackening off of the bullying that gave her a respite. Any sign of favor or support from the teachers - the authorities. Until she slapped away even the genuine attempts to help and stewed in paranoia even when they weren't planning a thing. Practically doing their work for them.

The implications in every halting sentence stunk like an open grave.

Capes were, by definition, a product of the triggers that made them. It was the first thing they'd taught us in Parahumans 101, and I'd known that much before I even went to my first class. But sometimes it really hits you all at once what it meant to have an entire society defined by individual trauma and cruelty like this.

My mind went back to that idle thought earlier, about meeting Taylor outside of the powers and capes and violence that had come to define our lives. But now, I thought about what that girl would've looked like. Would she have smiled, waved at me? So much of the strangeness of that hypothetical was trying to match Taylor's current behavior with that situation. It was hard to tell how much of the girl I'd come to know was built between those two moments; the summer before last when her best friend had first turned on her and January of this year when she'd sunk in the last nail.

I squeezed Taylor, before slowly pulling back to meet her eyes. They were slightly glazed behind her glasses, as if seeing elsewhere for a moment. With her bugs, that might well have been literal. But after a moment, distant dark green focused back on me.

I smiled encouragingly, releasing her to free up my hands. She cocked her head, but didn't pull back further. I'd take that as a victory.

"What happened to Emma and those girls?" I asked, carefully watching her face and the bugs in my periphery. Volcanic rage boiled low in my belly. I knew I was pushing boundaries here, but we'd established going into this that we could stop at any point. It was too important not to. And I needed to know. Not just if the trauma went further forward than that shit with her locker. I needed to know if they'd gotten away with it. If they were still walking around unpunished, with their families backing them up, without even an attempt at justice. I knew the answer, but I needed to hear it from her.

Taylor shrugged. "There was talk about suspending them, but it went nowhere. Emma's dad was too convinced that his precious angel could do no wrong." I could almost hear the bitter undertone on those last few words.

"And the other girl? The one who pushed you in?" I asked. She hadn't named her, but she was enough of a recurring character that–

"She doesn't matter. I've moved on." Taylor's signs were… I wouldn't necessarily say calm. Her fingers were too twitchy for that. But they were resolute. Firm.

I nodded slowly, reaching out to squeeze her hand one more time. If she wanted to put it behind her, I wouldn't press further. We both knew the basics now of what emotions and triggers (hah) might set off different power states, and that was all we needed.

"Thank you for telling me," I signed as I stepped back. "I know it wasn't easy."

Taylor shrugged. "If it helps, it helps," she said, confirming the moment was over. "If there isn't anything else, I have some errands to run. I'll need some time to figure out a place to test all of this anyways."

I nodded. This wasn't the kind of thing you could rush, powers were dangerously unsafe to experiment with even when you knew what you were doing. I started to walk out the door when a moth fluttering on my hand stopped me. "Taylor?"

She was frowning when I looked at her again, her lips pursed. "...Can I ask you for a favor?"

I nodded before I realized I was doing it. After that talk and the vulnerability she'd just showed me, I couldn't think of anything I wouldn't give her.

And besides that, there was a faint tremor in her voice. Fear? Embarrassment? It was hard to say. And now wasn't the time for an interrogation. If I had a problem with what she wanted, I'd voice it as and when it came up, not before.

"I need to run an errand tomorrow." She looked out the window, her brows furrowed behind her bangs. "I can do it alone but…"

I smiled. "Say no more."



"I need to tell you something."

We were standing in front of the garage that Skitter had brought us to, a half hour's walk from her base. It was plain looking, almost indistinguishable from a dozen others we'd walked past already. Only a slightly askew 'condemned' sign set it apart from the rest. Hiding in plain sight.

"What is it?" We were still trying to work out the details around power testing after our conversation yesterday, so we'd agreed to get her errand out of the way today. Though I was starting to regret my commitment to not pressuring her for more details. Even if my gut at the time told me she'd been too fragile to push.

She paused, trying to gather the right words. "What's in here is… you remember how we had to work with Amy to fend off the Nine right?"

I bit down on my lip. Yes. I remembered.

Skitter waited for my nod to continue. "She made some… special bugs for me. Some relay bugs to extend my range–"

Christ, she could do that? That was such a dangerous power synergy I didn't even know where to begin. Skitter was scary enough with her baseline range. You could base a whole partnership on the strength of a combination like that, not that Skitter would sink that low.

"–and a large bug for me to fly on."

I put my inner freak-out on hold to frown. This had better not be going where I was thinking it was. My last flight on that bug was… best forgotten. But if she was going to pretend I didn't remember, I wasn't exactly eager to correct her. The moth… Meepy (I still couldn't believe she'd actually called it that when I'd asked), fluttered reassuringly against the back of my hand.

"The beetle is in here," Skitter finally said, turning back to look at me. "I need to feed him." Ah, that would be why she'd brought a giant bag of meat with us without telling me anything about it.

I considered that for a moment or two, sorting through my feelings. "Why didn't you tell me before we got here?" I finally asked. I had a lot more questions clamoring for attention, but that was the most important one.

She shrugged. "It hadn't come up. Thought you knew something about it. And…" she paused. I waited. The bugs chittered sharply around us. The waves of the swarm undulated slowly, vertices and corners of almost-shapes coming together and bending like weird four-dimensional shapes before falling back apart into a chaotic mass.

"I didn't want to remind you of Amy," she said. "Didn't seem fair."

My breath left me in a rush. Of course. Of course that was the reason I'd needed to drag out of her. Goddammit Taylor.

I smiled, and carefully brushed a warm thumb along Meepy's backside. "Thank you." I was still… hesitant at best to handle one of her bugs so intimately after I'd pulverized the last one. But from the insistent way that she'd kept nosing into my palm over the last few days, Taylor clearly thought otherwise.

Skitter nodded brusquely. "I said I'd warn you, and I meant it. But I need to feed Atlas. He has no instincts; he can't even eat or move without me telling him to. Are you okay with that?"

I nodded. If I'd seen the bug–Atlas–without warning, I might've reacted differently. Made the instinctive connection to his obvious creator. Or even worse, remembered the last time I'd seen him. The wind in my hair, the acid in my skin, the screams in my throat. But Skitter explaining all of this… It didn't sanitize it. But it made him hers. And that was okay.

Though I'd have been lying if I said my heart rate didn't climb a little as the door opened, and the full bulk of Atlas became visible. Brute or not, it's hard not to have a reaction with a bug longer than you are tall pointing mandibles big enough to cut a grown man in half at you from a bare few feet away.

Despite my shield, I was no exception to that rule, and I felt my feet leave the ground for a second as I floated up instinctively, ready to fly away. But Skitter just closed the door behind us and slipped off her mask.

"Hey Atlas," Taylor said, her voice low and soft. "It's been a while. How have you been doing?"

Atlas stepped forward and nosed into her palm. Taylor smiled, and started getting the bag off her back.

I frowned. Atlas was under her control right now. She'd said earlier that if a bug was in her range that control was absolute down to the millimeter. Anything that bug could physically do, unconsciously or not, she could manipulate. Which meant that she was pantomiming affection with a bug fully under her control.

I looked over at her. Taylor's face was soft as she pulled each steak out of the bag and placed it down in front of him. Atlas immediately bent down and devoured it, pulling it past his jaws with one meaty gulp. He hummed, the resonant buzz from the wings under his shell thrumming through my chest.

"He's dying."

I blinked and looked away from Atlas. "What?"

"He's dying," she repeated as he tore apart another cut of meat. "He wasn't meant to last much longer than a day when he was made. That's the only reason she made him at all."

I nodded. That made sense. I know I… wouldn't have trusted Skitter back then. Not with that.

"But we needed to fend off the Nine," she continued, sitting back on her haunches. "So she made him and the relay bugs anyway. They were supposed to die after a few days, since they didn't have any way to eat or reproduce."

"So how is he alive and eating right now?" I asked the obvious question after she didn't say anything further.

Taylor hummed, looking down towards her feet. "One of our teammates second triggered. Told you earlier. It allowed us to give him a digestive system."

That's right, she had mentioned that. It felt like ages ago now. "So why is he dying anyways?"

She shrugged, still looking down. "It's not perfect. We only had a few moments to do it before we lost the effect. It's based on a human's digestive system. I have no idea what to feed him, if he can even get all the nutrients he needs, how often…"

She trailed off, and looked at Atlas again. His eyes were focused on us, but now that I looked closer they were dull. Almost glazed over.

"He has no hunger cues. No hint about how much he needs. Or how bad he is." Taylor shut her eyes, one hand gripping her thigh. "All I know is that every time I check on him he's a little bit more tired. Moves a bit more slowly. At first I thought that was from fighting the Nine but…"

She gestured at his right leg. I took a step closer, and then saw that it was trembling ever so slightly. It was subtle, barely noticeable, but Atlas was having trouble keeping his own body weight off the ground.

"The damage keeps piling up. I'm hoping if I feed him more often that might help but…" she sighed, standing back up and grabbing her mask. "I suppose there's nothing for it. I'll just have to keep an eye on him, probably not use him in the front line as much–"

I reached out and caught her left hand. Taylor paused, halfway to putting on her mask. She looked at me.

"Yes?"

"You care about him," I signed.

She frowned. "Well of course I do. He's an asset and if he isn't deployable anymore I need to take that into–"

"No," I signed, shaking my head. "Not like that. You care."

Taylor looked at me for a long moment, before closing her eyes and giving me a defeated nod. I smiled sadly, sympathetically. I wouldn't push her any further, but it was important. To recognize these things as they were happening. Grief didn't just lair in the moment of tragedy, it followed in its wake and built a den in its anticipation, too. I knew that all too well by now.

She finished putting on the mask and looked back at me as we walked through the entryway. Inscrutable and impenetrable again. The facade of the warlord, impossible to hurt, over the all-too-vulnerable girl within.

"Thank you," Skitter said.

I nodded, and the door swung shut behind us with a metallic clang.



"You wanted to test here?" Skitter asked from behind me as we touched down on the forest floor. With her shoulder doing better we'd decided on the piggyback carry to fly this time. Easier on my arms, less chance of her falling, and better aerodynamics. Not to mention I was at least trying to pretend to have boundaries between us.

I nodded as she slid off my back with a soft thump. It had taken two days for us to settle on a location we'd agreed on. She'd wanted to go to the boat graveyard. Less people, less chance of collateral damage. A sentiment I'd appreciate, if it weren't for how wide open and gang infested it was these days. The last thing we wanted was someone stumbling across us testing something potentially dangerous.

No, we needed somewhere more out of the way. And so I'd taken her flying further afield.

We were a fair bit away from the city at this point, having flown for the better part of an hour. Not at my top speed; I was trying to be careful and not lose my passenger, but we were still a fair ways away from any signs of civilization. This area had everything we needed. Cover and trees to block line of sight, enough wide open space to judge distance, and plenty of bugs. A perfect environment.

"So, how do you want to do this?" Skitter asked, stepping into my peripheral vision.

I hummed, taking in the environment around us. We needed a better understanding of our power sets. For Skitter that mostly involved range, sensory information, and possible restrictions; testing things like potential line of sight benefits, multitasking capacity, control dexterity, and capacity. Having even a rough estimate of her limits and the uses she could turn her power to would allow us to better plan and utilize her abilities.

The same went for me. I wanted to test my flight, as well as my strength. With my other abilities so volatile, I didn't trust anything without confirming it for myself. Especially my aura and my forcefield.

The former I was scared of, if only because of what had happened the last time I'd let it out. Another benefit of going to the city outskirts; no one around to worry about. But my forcefield… I had no idea what was going on with that. There had been that third hand, and the texture had felt slick and shifting ever since Amy, but I didn't know what that meant.

Nothing for it but to find out.

"Alright," I signed, "We need to test both of us, but first we need boundaries."

Skitter cocked her head. "Boundaries?

I nodded. "Boundaries. We already have some about the aura, if anything else happens like that we need a signal or something ahead of time."

Skitter hummed. "What would be bad for you?"

"Too many bugs on me," I signed immediately, "especially if I'm not expecting them. Anything in my eyes, ears, nose or mouth."

She nodded immediately. "I wouldn't test something like that on you."

I frowned. That was a statement with a couple of truck-sized loopholes, but I'd take it for now. "And also…" I swallowed, clenching my nails into my palm. This was important. We might have to get into close combat at some point and I didn't want to–

"Breathe, Tori." Skitter was in front of me, the eyes of her mask harsh but familiar. Meepy fluttered against my hand. Slowly, my chest stopped heaving.

"Whatever it is," Skitter started, "you don't have to–"

I shook my head. "No. Too important." I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. I couldn't look at her while I said this. It would be too much.

"Don't push me down and get on top of me. I don't–can't deal with that."

There was a pause. "Thank you for telling me, Tori," Skitter said. "I'll avoid it."

I nodded. My breathing was still fast, but manageable. Okay. I looked back at Skitter, and forced a strained smile. That was the hardest part out of the way. The rest of this would be a cakewalk in comparison.

Right?



A branch let out a sharp crack under my foot. Fuck.

Instantly I shot away, barely missing the bugs rapidly converging on my position. God, I'd spent one second looking to see if Skitter was hidden behind one of the trees and I was paying for it now.

I slipped between the tree branches, hoping they'd obscure her vision, but the game was up at this point. If her range extended where I was–and I knew it did judging from the buzzing behind me–then any disturbance to the foliage was likely to give me away. I was good at moving through the forest, but I wasn't perfect.

The faintest glint ahead caught my eye; light sheen on a strand of spider silk that I saw by chance more than skill. I juked right, avoiding the tripwire, but felt the miniscule brush of another snapping against my ankle. A swarm of gnats burst out of the trees to either side, trying to latch on and tag me in places they'd be difficult to get off. She was unsettlingly good at that.

I knew Skitter was trying to harry me, herd me into a corner where she could cover all the angles. And she could do it too. She'd won the last two games that way. But I had one thing she didn't.

Speed.

If I found her before she managed to tag me, then I might be able to pull through from behind. The question was where she was–

It was brief. A tiny slip in my vision to the far right. A gray splotch on brown bark. But the human brain is incredibly adept at picking up patterns, often (ironically) when it's not deliberately looking for them. I focused on a spot just off-center from where I'd seen her – a trick I'd learned stargazing on late-night dates–and slipped carefully between trees and branches as I made my way closer. Gray moved against brown again, the movement standing out in my peripherals. Yep, that was definitely her.

As if on cue, Skitter made a break for it, running for a dense thicket of bushes that would give her cover. She was trying to stall me, betting that any distance she put between us and any extra time I had to spend digging her out of the foliage might be enough to let the net she was weaving close in on me. And if I didn't take it seriously, that was exactly what would happen.

I grit my teeth and pushed myself harder. The wind whipped at my hair, the flapping of my hoodie giving away my position. But I wasn't trying for stealth now. It was a sprint to the finish line, and my vision narrowed as the distance shrank.

Two hundred feet.

One hundred and fifty.

One hundred.

Seventy–

A mass of flies and gnats snuck out from a fat, half-rotten tree just in front of me. Fuck, she'd baited me into making a sprint, counting on my speed to lock me into a path. And she was right. I was too close and committed to slow down now.

But I could change my course.

I pushed as hard as I could to the right, while still keeping on the same track. Right towards the tree that the gnats had come out from behind. I put an arm in front of my eyes. This might hurt.

My forcefield broke on the bark with an almost imperceptible snap, and for a moment my momentum halted. In that split second of contact I pushed hard to the left, angled just behind the gnat swarm. I shot past them as the tree exploded behind me, boomeranging around to the trunk Skitter was trying to get behind. I'd have to get the angle just right–

My eyes widened. My forcefield! It had just broken, I couldn't use it to stop my fall! I forced myself to decelerate as quickly as possible, hoping it would be enough.

I landed on the ground just in front of Skitter with a bang, taking the brunt of the impact with my knee and shin, folding myself into a roll to distribute the force as much as possible. It helped, but not by much.

Finally, I found myself gasping and laid out on the ground, with what felt like half my body stinging angrily. Skitter appeared upside down in my vision, leaning over me.

"I think that makes three wins to two for me?"

I smiled, shook my head, and pointed at her breastplate. She looked down, and huffed out a laugh. A streak of white was smeared down her left side, where my hand had brushed her on the way down. I admit I was proud of that. I was worried the chalk on my hands wouldn't show up enough on her armor to prove that I'd done it.

"Alright," Skitter said, looking back down at me, "Three for you. How did you do that last trick?"

"Forcefield," I signed with a grin. "Used it to bounce off the tree."

She cocked her head. "Bounce?"

I nodded. "You know how every action has an equal and opposite reaction and all that. My power lets me exploit that, basically ignoring a bit of physics. I can treat the forcefield as a 'wall' to redirect my momentum, without actually splattering myself."

Skitter nodded. "Makes sense, but that would leave you…"

I nodded when she didn't continue. That was the obvious achilles heel of the technique; it left me without my shield immediately after. It meant I couldn't do it back to back, and I couldn't use my shield for anything else (like punching) in the aftermath. That severely limited the utility, but it was still good at getting out of a pinch.

"Regardless," Skitter said, "that was well played."

She offered me a hand, and I gladly took it, letting her pull me back to my feet. At this point my forcefield had come back on and I could've just floated back up, but it was still good form to accept help from… no. Not teammates. But. From people you were training with. New Wave had taught me that much.

Skitter noticed my frown. "Something wrong? You want another game?"

I shook my head. The training exercise we'd come up with was good in that it allowed us to test a number of different things at once. We'd quickly found out that Skitter had no clear upper limit (if the twelve and a half million creatures currently under her command were anything to go by), and nothing to do with line of sight. But her range fluctuated.

Our little game of hide and seek helped to flesh that out, along with testing her bug senses. She still got Thinker headaches from sight, but hearing was coming along nicely. It didn't seem to improve just by practicing, but she'd said that 'mindset' helped, which was another brick to add to the Sechen range conclusion. She was so used to using her sense of proprioception to judge distance and tag people she'd floundered for a bit without it. But that was what this was all about, and forcing the issue seemed to have pressed her enough to start showing improvements.

For my part, I made sure my flying worked the same way it used to, as well as the smaller tricks I'd learned. Like gradually lightening my footsteps as Skitter got better at hearing me make my way across the forest. Speed and agility came into play when she eventually caught onto me. I also got to test my strength in limited quantities. Obviously I didn't want to destroy the forest for no good reason, but Skitter had taken to hiding under or near objects that required a great amount of force to move.

Eventually she'd learned better.

But we were reaching the point of diminishing returns. Practice was good, but repetition without focus was damaging. We needed something to break up the pattern, even if the exercise itself was useful.

"Your control is good, and the hearing is definitely better than it was a little while ago," I signed, rolling my neck and wrists. "We should definitely do this in the future, but I have a better handle on where you are now."

Skitter nodded. "Which just leaves…"

I nodded. The unspoken question during all of this. My aura, and my forcefield. The latter I knew almost nothing about, the former I knew entirely too much.

"Let's go with the aura first," I signed eventually, forcing the words out through burning fingers. If nothing else, I knew what to expect there.

Taylor nodded, taking off her mask. "So that you can see my facial expression while doing this," she said when I asked. "It's all emotion, right? You need feedback."

I smiled. That was unexpectedly kind of her, and I appreciated it. "Taylor… if it goes like last time–"

"Then I'll know it wasn't your fault," she said, cutting me off. "We're here to see if you can change it. If you can't, at least we know that much going forward."

I nodded. It still didn't feel right. I was going to possibly–probably–hurt the closest friend I'd made since Dean died. And there was nothing I could do about it.

"Hey," Taylor said, taking a step closer. "I signed up for this. I consent. Alright?"

I nodded, biting my lip. Yeah. Yeah, that actually did help. More than I'd thought it would.

Okay. Okay then.

I took a deep breath in through my nose, closed my eyes, and deliberately activated my aura for the first time in a month.


A/N:
Hooo boy this is a long one. It didn't start as such, but between the different scenes and tones I had to shift between, the time skips and settings involved, and the sheer content I needed to cram in, it wasn't a surprise that it just didn't die. I'm hoping that these chapters don't become the norm simply because I'd start to be afraid that I'm padding the story rather than sticking to what matters, but so far my betas keep telling me I'm worrying over nothing.

Also a slight tangent, but some of you were right earlier when you guessed that they were talking about their triggers in the Aisha interlude. And I just wanted to point out my (personal) opinion that The Locker Talk is way overdone. I knew it had to happen at some point, it's too important not to. And while I knew I could write a scene that was compelling in its own right, ultimately it would just be a collection of what you've likely already read. So instead I decided to write it without writing it. Ultimately, your imagination is likely far more intimate and cutting than any dialogue I could write.

Today I have a bit of an awkward rec, but still a good one. Ryuugi has a long, excellent story by the name of Arana featuring a post GM Taylor encountering the world of Bleach in the afterlife, and struggling to make sense of her place between it and what she left behind. But I'm not reccing that directly. Instead I'm pointing to several excellent informational posts within that thread from the author concerning the Influence of Shards, the Circumstances of a Trigger Event, and Classifications vs Mechanics of Power Interactions. Fascinating reading, and helps immensely when planning out your own power or character. Happy reading!
 
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Brightness 4.10
It was like unclenching a muscle I'd been tensing for a month. The pain was so sharp, so intense that it punched the breath out of me. My head swam, lightheadedness leaving me woozy on my feet; a high-pitched ringing filled my ears as every other sound faded away.

As I swayed, my aura blasted outward like a bomb going off. I felt it expand, spilling out of me in a wave, buffeting the trees and surrounding air. I half-expected to see bark crack and branches snap from the force.

But for all its savagery, there was no outward sign as it slammed into my surroundings. My aura was always my most difficult power to describe because it wasn't a physical thing. I couldn't see it, and I didn't get tactile information from it like I did my forcefield. Still, I could tell how intense it was, and right now it was as strong as it had ever been. As bad as the last time with the Heroes and–

Taylor!

I looked over to her, only to see exactly what I feared. Her fists were clenched by her sides, her eyes wide behind her glasses. Her body itself was cast iron cooled too quickly; rigid as a tree branch in winter. More likely to snap than bend.

But her bugs told the real story. The swarm was spasming, thousands of bugs buzzing around us in a frenzy, dragonflies and moths and beetles fighting in midair. No, not fighting, colliding. They were trying to move everywhere, up, down, closer, further, away, and she couldn't control them. Or worse, couldn't even tell where to have them go.

I didn't need to ask Taylor what emotion I was projecting right now. This was pure, unmitigated terror.

I swore and hastily tried to yank my aura back in closer. When people asked, I usually described this part of my power as being a sort of slider. It was usually on to some extent, but its effect was too small and subtle to notice; barely any more impactful to people's moods than smiling or scowling at them. It could flare up instinctively when I was stressed or surprised or my mood suddenly changed – something I knew all too well by this point – but I could dial it back down as soon I realized it was acting up.

My lips pulled back from my teeth in a strained snarl. That wasn't what was happening now, though. It was fighting me; there was no other word for it. My aura didn't want to be dialed back. I'd never had this problem before! My power did what I wanted, why wasn't it–

I dug my nails into my palm, and closed my eyes. Okay. I knew going into this that my power, and especially my aura, might not behave the same way. This much was expected. I couldn't dial it back. But what I could do was turn it off, and figure things out from there.

I pulled. My aura flared out even wider, battering the trees, howling terror at the world. For a moment it seemed like it wouldn't listen at all, before it crashed back into me with a snap that made my sense of balance lurch like a drunken cow, rebounding so fast I stumbled.

I blinked, and slowly shook my head in the quiet. That was… I had no idea what had happened there. That was not normal.

A quiet cough next to me reminded me of my partner in not-crime. I looked over at Taylor and winced. She was a mess. Her forehead was beaded with sweat and her hair fell down around her face in matted, sweaty strands; her hands trembled slightly even as she reached up to clean her glasses.

None of her insects moved.

"I'm sorry," I signed, for lack of anything else to say. "I didn't know it would be like that."

Taylor took another moment, closing her eyes and relaxing her shoulders. She breathed in, out, in, out, steady and ferociously controlled. Like a runner after half a dozen back-to-back sprints, forcing herself not to gasp.

"No, I don't think you did," she said eventually, glancing back at me. "What the hell was that, Tori?"

I took a step backwards, trying not to cross my arms. "I'm sorry, you know I didn't mean to. I tried to pull it back faster but it… fought me."

Her eyes sharpened at that. "Fought you how?"

I frowned, trying to find the right words. "It didn't want to come back in. Usually I can adjust it. But this snapped like a rubber band."

"Was there pain along with it?" she asked. "I know I got a lot of Thinker headaches when I started pushing senses, I still do."

I hummed, considering. "No, I don't think pain is the right word. More like standing up too fast with a muscle cramp. My hands hurt worse than that just signing, so it's not a big issue."

"Mmm. I got the disorientation at first as well, back when I was–"

Taylor stopped abruptly and stared, considering me for a long moment. "Your... hands hurt while signing?" she said. Her tone had changed; from businesslike and clipped to slow and careful. I frowned.

"Well yeah, I'm still getting used to it, and I sign a lot more than you do."

Her gaze didn't leave my face. "Victoria, I practice signing every night. And it's been a month. My fingers don't hurt."

"And?" I signed, glaring at her. "So maybe you're better at it than me, whatever. My aura felt more like a muscle cramp. There was pain, but not hurt pain, more like stretching pain–"

"No, that's not what I'm trying to say," Taylor said. Her mouth opened, before she hesitated. "Can you give me a minute to find the right way to describe this?"

I nodded. Despite my annoyance at her straying from topic, a faint feeling of unease bloomed. I hadn't seen Taylor hesitate often. I didn't like the implications of it here. I had no idea what she was trying to say here, but I could give her some time to figure it out before it turned into another threat. Suddenly paranoid, I glanced around for any sign of trouble. The forest was surprisingly peaceful when we weren't actively trying to destroy it. The usual sounds of bugs and insects were absent, which just left the wind in the trees, the creak of wood and the occasional bird call in the middle distance.

"Okay," Taylor said, startling me out of my daze. I glanced back at her, bracing myself for whatever bad news she didn't want to tell me. "I'm not saying I'm better at signing than you. All I'm saying is that it doesn't hurt for me when I do it."

I frowned. "Well it's not like you feel pain normally. You were walking around with a metal bolt through your shoulder a week ago!" My fingers slipped.

Taylor blinked at me. "That's not… we can talk about that later. That's not what I'm trying to say anyways. What I meant is that I'm pretty sure it's not meant to hurt period."

I stared at her. "What?"

"Tattletale sent me some extra books on ASL," she said, her eyes going distant. "I meant to give them to you when I finished. Less teaching about how to speak it, and more historical background, statistics, that sort of thing." Her eyes refocused. "The point is, none of them said anything about finger fatigue or stretches."

"...so what are you saying?"

Taylor swallowed. "If your fingers are in pain, I'm pretty sure that's you. Not the ASL."



We spent the rest of the morning after that bombshell determinedly avoiding the subject and experimenting with my aura, trying to push the field in and out. It fought me every step of the way, but gradually it at least got easier to pull back in.

It was a start.

Still… my heart wasn't in it. I kept going over Taylor's words in my head, and what they meant. How could I have not noticed something that basic, that obvious, for a month? Why would I just assume that this was normal?

My cheeks burned just thinking about it. The entire time I'd been learning ASL I'd been in pain, tripping and flubbing and gritting my teeth through every little flicker or flare. And I'd never thought to bring it up, or even comment on it.

A bitter laugh escaped me. Then again, why would I have? Who would I have told? I hadn't started having deep, emotional conversations with Skitter until recently–something that still felt weird to say–and that left my options slim to none. I was learning, I'd told myself. It was okay to struggle at first. That was part of growth.

But this… this was different. Because if Taylor was right then this was… well, I didn't know exactly, but chances are it would stick around until something fixed it. Forever, maybe.

My heart hammered in my chest. How much of the rest of my body was screwed up by what she'd done to me? Would I ever know? Every ache and pain, every misstep or stumble, every tiny little problem was now a threat hanging over me like a thundercloud. Even my voice

I grit my teeth, closing my eyes. Skitter was away, trying to walk far enough that my aura didn't affect her physical body while still keeping tabs on me with her bugs, but in truth I didn't really want any part of her to see this.

I hated it. This… thing that had been done to me. It had been simmering in the back of my head this whole time. How stupid and hard everything was now that I couldn't talk. My hands being fucked up was just the shitty icing on a shitty cake.

How much was it to ask that I could talk to someone right in front of me? Why did every part of this process have to be awkward and painful and difficult?

Why me?

Meepy fluttered against my hand and I sighed softly. There wasn't a reason, really. I knew that much. Bad things happened to everyone all the time; welcome to Brockton Bay. But something about this felt specifically, intimately cruel.

I breathed slow and deep, focusing on the moth in my hand. She was small and soft, a tickling presence against my palm. Her wings brushed my fingertips as my hand loosened. They were dry and a bit dusty.

Okay. Maybe I had… something going on with my hands. Something that made it harder to sign, or write, or tie the laces of my sneakers. I couldn't do anything about that right now. But I could get a better handle on my power. That was under my control, and Skitter was depending on me to get it right. I could focus on that, and deal with the rest later.

"Ready." Skitter's voice came buzzing through the rest of the bugs around us. I shivered. Didn't know if I'd ever get used to just how creepy the sound of that was.

I gave her a short nod, and released my aura again. Now that I'd gotten some practice it didn't explode out as violently as it had the first time. That was an improvement. But it expanded inexorably to its maximum all the same, despite how I tried to slowly let it out.

I grit my teeth. One way or another, it looked like I couldn't control the radius of my aura anymore. Fine. But that was only one part of this test.

I brushed my finger over Meepy.

"It's better now," Skitter said through the bugs next to me. I grinned. Just as I suspected then. Part of the aura's effect, we had gathered, was physical reactions in the body. The production of neurotransmitters and chemicals that altered stress levels and emotional expression. I didn't know enough neuroscience to say for sure, and I certainly couldn't measure it definitively, but I guessed that Skitter only having her bugs in range abstracted the feelings on her end.

"What do you feel?" I checked.

"Fear," she said in a chorus of buzzes and clicks. "Anxiety. Can talk through bugs. Talking in person is harder."

I hummed, considering that. "Would it affect your ability to fight, right now?"

"Yes," the swarm replied immediately. "But I might be able to get used to it."

I was already nodding, thinking the same. If she could learn to operate within the aura, even if it was just through her bugs, that would be a huge advantage; one we could leverage. Though I'd have to be careful of the long term effects. Prolonged stress could fray a person's nerves at the best of times, nevermind in the middle of a fight. But that just left the other half of our little experiment here.

"Okay, starting now."

I closed my eyes, and took several deep breaths. My aura generally worked by amplifying and redirecting how people saw me, either through the lens of fear or awe. At least, it had until now. But as I'd realized and Taylor pointed out later, this didn't make sense with the behavior after Amy… touched me.

The Heroes shouldn't have been affected that way, with Skitter and Bitch. And frankly, Skitter shouldn't have either. Which could only mean one thing... The emotion mechanism, or the association had changed somehow. And the only way to make sure was to test it.

I frowned, biting at my lower lip. Power use was instinctual. It was one of the earliest things taught in Parahumans 101, and I'd known how to manipulate mine since I'd triggered. But now it was… it felt like fumbling in the dark for a light switch. Except I didn't even know if there was a switch to hit.

After several long minutes, I groaned and opened my eyes again. "Anything?"

The swarm, which had since formed into an approximation of a person, shook its head. "Still fear."

Fuck. This wasn't working. Maybe my approach was too abstract. Okay, back to basics then. Why had my aura changed? What would the new deciding factor be? If this was a Sechen adaptation stemming from... what had happened to me, then it would be some kind of response to that. Something to defend me from... not Amy going forward. But what she'd done to me back then.

My aura hadn't stopped her because even when I'd used it, it hadn't made her scared. It had keyed off how she'd seen me, and she hadn't feared me. She'd wanted me, and so my aura couldn't drive her off with terror. The only tool I'd had that didn't need me to touch her had been useless, because she'd determined what it made her feel.

So maybe...

I closed my eyes, and focused. But instead of concentrating on my aura, this time I pictured Taylor. The swarm clone in front of me, and the girl herself. Nevermind the aura, what did I want her to feel right now? Competent. Capable. Safe.

I trusted Taylor. I'd trusted Amy, too, and I'd been horribly, nightmarishly wrong. But Taylor wasn't her. Taylor would never be her. She'd saved me from her. She was willing to fight the Heroes over it.

I didn't need to make her feel scared. I didn't want to. She was my ally. She was my friend.

It was like a fumbling peg slotting into the right-shaped hole. I gasped as my aura shifted with another faint lurch to my inner ear, the tint of the world changing ever so slightly. Skitter's clone immediately dissolved before instantly reforming, the insects humming and chittering.

I opened my eyes and looked at her, but I didn't even need to sign to ask.

"Not fear," she confirmed. "Confidence."

I smiled. "See if I can hold it while you walk back?"

She nodded, and I closed my eyes again. Now that I had formed this connection, it was a lot easier to reach for this mental "switch". So long as I kept the association between the person and the emotion, it was straightforward. But every time I lost focus, it flipped back. Every time I let it out, it defaulted to fear. My aura was a weapon now; something to keep everyone at bay when I couldn't think straight, encouraging only those I chose.

I slipped several times over the long minutes that it took Skitter to walk back, and she let me know until finally I had the process more or less down.

Skitter nodded as she finally came up alongside me. "Good work."

I grinned back, "Thanks. You helped."

"We need to figure out our powers, it was necessary," she said. "It's possible that your passenger might be behaving strangely after what Amy did, so be careful."

I blinked. "My what?"

"Your passenger," she said, crossing her arms. "The thing connected in your brain that allows you to access powers. You must have known about this."

"No, I get you meant my power," I signed, horribly conscious of the deep ache in my fingers that accompanied every flex they made, the clumsiness of some of my signs. "But why are you calling it that? The books just talk about the bits of the brain that powers come from. Where did you get that word for them?"

"Bonesaw."

I froze, my breath caught in my throat.

She what?

"I must have heard that wrong. Where?"

"Bonesaw," she repeated. The insects blanketed us in a rapidly thickening cloud, quickly blocking out the outside world. For once I was thankful for the additional protection. "She told me about some of her theories regarding powers and where they come from. She called them passengers, said they were connected to us through parts of our brain."

This was… this was too much. How would this even have come up in conversation? Why would she even have been having a conversation with Bonesaw? Despite the little voice screaming in the back of my head that I didn't want to know, I had to ask for more. If only to see where this insane theory went.

"And she told you what?"

"Powers are supposedly connected in two places. The corona pollentia, and the gemma."

I nodded. That made sense, and it followed what limited academic studies had been done on the topic.

"The pollentia varies depending on the person, but the gemma is what controls active power use." Her voice was clipped, matter of fact. Despite the absurdity of the information she was citing. "Even if you're aware of your power in the abstract sense, without the gemma you can't do anything with it."

"And how does she–" I stopped myself midsign. No, I damn well knew how Bonesaw would've gone about finding this information. The real question was why Skitter was citing this as fact. "Why do you believe her?"

Taylor's body language stiffened, which was saying something considering how reserved the girl was to begin with. Hornets buzzed in angry drill formations above her head, a bristling nimbus of chitin and anger.

"I know because she demonstrated it. On me."

I stopped breathing. I watched, wide-eyed, as she struggled for words for a moment.

"When we found… Grue, she captured the rest of us. Told me about my power as she…"

My hand flew to my mouth, the bile bitter on the back of my tongue. My other curled into a fist, fingers digging harshly into my palm until blood welled beneath the nails. A bright burning star was lodged in my chest, pulsing in time with my heart.

How had this never come up? How had Taylor survived that, nevermind been lucid enough to remember what she'd learned there? How could she reference it so casually without having a breakdown?

"She talked as she worked on me," she continued flatly. At this point I was too scared to say anything, less I set something off I didn't even remotely know how to fix. "I could feel my bugs. But I couldn't do anything with them. She told me she disabled my gemma with a protein she made. So. Yeah. I believe her."

I wanted to puke. That was… I didn't even know if I had the words. Sick. Twisted. Nightmarish. It was easy to attribute those things to Bonesaw, because they were all true. God, just look at what she'd done to Mouse Protector and Ravager. Fusing an independent comedy Hero to the body of her worst enemy? And forcing the two to parade around as a fucked up meat puppet? It would've beggared belief if not for her record of atrocities every bit as bad.

But imagining Taylor, spread out on a table, helpless as Bonesaw started to take her apart…

"I'm sorry," I signed softly. My eyes were blurring so I couldn't see how she was responding, but I imagined I heard a small intake of breath. "That's… you don't have to tell me more."

"It's fine," she said tightly. "I only brought it up because you mentioned powers. She said that there's something that… connects with us during our triggers. That it lives in our heads somewhere, monitoring us. If that's true, maybe it has something to do with your forcefield."

Forcefield. Right. That was something I could focus on. The Bonesaw stuff… I couldn't think about that. I didn't want to think about that. I wouldn't reject Taylor if she wanted to talk about it; I was the last person who'd ever deny her comfort for her private nightmares, or refuse to acknowledge them.

I wasn't that pointlessly cruel.

But unless she brought it up, I didn't want to think about it. Not here. There was something sickly unsettling about exploring my powers based on the knowledge of one of the worst people on the planet. Who had gained that insight by dissecting people over and over until she'd found what she wanted. Who'd probably kept taking them apart even after that.

Not all knowledge was good knowledge. Some things weren't worth knowing.

"Okay. My forcefield. We'll focus on that." Taylor and I exchanged a look that said 'we'll agree to drop this for now', the same as we'd shared over the damage to my hands. I wasn't going to let her bury trauma this bad in the long term. But there was a time and a place for everything.

"Right," Skitter said, drawing us back to the task at hand. "Any precautions?"

I nodded. "Best that you stand back for this though. It has a Brute factor, and I might not be able to control it at first."

She nodded. "Do you want me to tag your skin with bugs so I can sense the shape or outline it?"

I hummed. That was a good idea, but I couldn't be sure that the bugs would survive the process. "So long as you might be fine with losing them," I said eventually.

She nodded, and I waited as a swarm of midges and mosquitoes touched down on my skin like ballet dancers, tiny bodies evenly spaced across me in neat rows. Skitter herself retreated off to a safe distance, well out of range of even the worst-case scenario for any potential thrashing around.

I took a deep breath, and closed my eyes. This part I was a lot less sure about. It wasn't like I'd ever thought my forcefield could change to begin with.

Passenger, if you're really there, I could use some help.

My shield flickered on. The bugs rose with it, resting a half inch above my skin. Just like I'd suspected. I'd noticed Skitter's bugs going through my shield for a while now, but like with my aura, it defaulted to keeping everything out when it first came on, and it was easy to keep them from passing through. Good to know.

I grunted, my heartbeat hammering in my ears. I had done this before, if only by accident. It was just a matter of remembering the sensation of that other arm, pushing it–

My forcefield unfolded out of my skin.

My breath caught in my throat.

It was wrong. It was wrong. It was wrONG–


A/N:
So. That happened. I know I said I have rules on my cliffhangers, and that's still true. But you guys are gonna have to trust me on this one. I hate to leave you on this note, but it really was the only way I could split this. The next chapter… yeah. I'll say more on monday.

In other news; Taylor is so fun to write from the outside. She's privy to the most inside information frequently spelled out in front of her on a chalkboard, and is friends with the best Thinker on the planet for Figuring Shit Out. "What do you mean you don't know about the maybe parasites living in your brain that give you powers?" She's so normal.

Today's rec is a much lighter(?) piece by Silvia Norton again. I Just Want To See Her is… I almost don't even want to say anything because the story is so good. Mind the content warnings, but otherwise going in blind is probably best. Know that I think it's genuinely the best example of its genre in the fandom.
 
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