Winged One
Not the Simurgh
- Location
- definitely the ground
- Pronouns
- They/Them/It
...
And here we have the live feed from the inside of Taylor's skull.
Silence is Not Consent
- Thread starter justanothercat
- Start date
-
- Tags
- worm
Zedman7054
Eternally 3rd
- Location
- United States
And that's the fallacy of Carol's thought process. She thinks the only way to "save her family" is to put it back together and then work out the problem. And she's fixated on that. She doesn't understand that trying to fix the problem would have led to Victoria coming back. If Amy had been held accountable for her actions, for what she did to Victoria, either being put in jail or therapy or anything, she would have come back.
And now it's too late.
Putting off disciplining or punishing Amy, acknowledging what she did to her, has pushed Victoria away from the family.
Now Victoria is solving the problem her way, by staying away from her family.
And I feel for Sarah. She had a month to grieve her husband's and son's deaths and she comes back to the last of her family still in the middle of exploding. Again, she was too late to save her family.
Having the scene with Carol at the end was soooo good as well. It's a good reminder that while she did make the wrong decisions, it's also easy to see the horribly damaged woman she is. If Sarah, or Mark, or anyone else had been around, they might have been able to avert this string of tragedies, or at least mitigate it. Maybe it might not be too late for even Carol to get the help she needs.
- Location
- Somewhere in South America
- Pronouns
- She/Her
I have to agree with everything here.
Yet another fantastic chapter from Aleph and Cat and damn if it does not hit hard. I personally was worrying that conveying just how much this would negatively impact Vicky would be diminished by switching perspective (at the start of the chapter). However, after re-reading the past two chapters in conjunction with this one those fears were quickly put to rest. I really do not much to say not mentioned before by others. Carol dropped the ball hard here. I can't see New Wave coming back from this. And to top it all off, I can kind of comprehend where Carol's coming from. I'm not going to condone her behavior but examining her past and her mindset I really don't think she would have done anything else. She had Victoria when she was 18 and fresh out of therapy, and I'm not entirely sure she had ever healed from her trigger event.
At the very least the other adults didn't worsen the situation. Maybe if Mark was a little less passive, or if Sarah had arrived a little earlier the situation could have been cleaner all around. Alas, it wasn't meant to be.
Regardless, it's useless to dwell on could-have-beens. The only thing to be done is to keep pushing forwards (for the characters that is). On the writer side I hope there's not much pushing and that everything is going smoothly.
esotericist
A Weary Hand
- Location
- Lacey, WA
sixteen years ago. having crossed three state lines in seven hours of panicked driving with a confused cat crying quietly in the back seat. somewhere near forty voicemail messages.
"you can't leave like this."
"what am i supposed to do now."
"baby, just come back."
all for the sake of rebuilding a 'family' that nearly killed me twice. nevermind all the emotional abuse and manipulation. nevermind my repeated begging something be done before it was too late. then it was.
still, i'm making it through this story. maybe i can try to read ward again someday. except for carol, it was going well for me.
you're writing it well. thank you for that.
Last edited:
I'm so sorry you had to go through that. Thank you for sharing your story, and I'm so happy to hear that moment did not define you, just like Tori's start didn't define hers. If you ever need to take a step back from the story for personal reasons, please do so.
esotericist
A Weary Hand
- Location
- Lacey, WA
i have. i may very well do so again, it looks like there's a lot more to go. sometimes i leave the notification sitting in my alerts list for a couple days.
i spend a lot of time reading stories like this because something something externalized processing mumble mumble.
idk. but quality varies wildly. not everyone understands what they're trying to convey well enough to do the job well. and not everyone is depicting the same kind of awful, suffering varies.
this resonates tho, and sometimes that's hard, but it's been worth it. it's draining sometimes, but this story has been helping, and you and aleph are doing such a very good job depicting the struggles i know. that does so much more than i have all the right words for.
i'm grateful, and i felt i needed to try to express at least a little of what this has been for me.
Supernova 5.7
The asphalt was cracked and dirty beneath my feet. The grime and muck from the flooded sewers had been superficially washed away by rain since Leviathan's attack, but the rats and cockroaches and bacteria they had washed up to the surface lingered. It would take nothing short of a power washer to properly clean everything that had baked hard under the summer sun. The ground was tacky under my shoes, peeling away from the soles like weak adhesive with every step, and a foul smell stubbornly clung below the half-faded waterline on the walls. I lightened my weight on reflex, offsetting gravity just enough that my feet barely grazed the sidewalk, but didn't stop walking.
Couldn't.
Taylor was next to me. Skitter. One of the two. Her bugs were swarming nearby; I could hear them, somewhere through the fog that clouded my thoughts. How long did it take her to gather a swarm? A few minutes, at least. It felt like only seconds since I'd walked away from my– from the Dallon house. Or maybe it had been hours. I couldn't tell.
Step. Step. Step.
My heart sounded in my ears, hollow and constant. It felt like it had been plucked from my chest and hung out in the air in front of me, connected to my body by a faint invisible string. At any point someone might snip that thread and leave me to drop like an empty doll. Or maybe I'd drift into the sky, my last connection to the ground permanently severed. Either option seemed just as likely.
Part of me realized that I was stuck in my head again. That I should probably say something. Skitter was following my lead, walking slightly behind me, and I had no idea where I was going. Maybe she'd asked if I could fly us back and I just hadn't noticed. I should probably ask her.
Step. Step. Step.
My eyes were glazed; a faint film separated me from the rest of the world. I could still make out things nearby, though the sun glare off metal and glass was painfully sharp and the cracks in the brick and asphalt seemed to swim whenever I wasn't focusing on them. But anything further out devolved into faint shapes and distorted blurs.
My hearing was the same. Skitter's breathing was right next to me. Rasp in, breath out. Footsteps behind mine. But other sounds–the swarm, cars, buses, people, the slowly waking city–didn't penetrate through the haze.
Was this something I should be worried about? Could I even worry about anything right now? I wanted to… not be here right now. Wherever "here" was. But if I wasn't here, where else would I be? It was hard to care when I didn't even know what was wrong.
"I'm sorry."
Skitter's words pierced my daze. I slowly turned to look through her without slowing my pace.
"I broke a promise."
That made no more sense than the apology. A lot of people had broken promises to me lately. Which one did Skitter even mean?
"I promised next time, I'd…" she trailed off. In the back of my mind I debated reaching out to hold her hand. That was probably what I was supposed to do here. Right? Before I could decide, she shook herself and continued.
"I didn't pull the trigger. I said I'd kill her and I didn't." Her fists clenched. "There were no bugs on the patio. None. Like where I found you. I should've noticed that it was weird, but I was too focused on what we were walking into, so I missed her." She fell silent for a moment, looking down at her hands and the gun on her hip. I could practically feel her self-recrimination. "Another failure," she muttered, so quietly I wasn't sure it was even meant for me, then looked up at me again.
"I'm sorry."
I blinked slowly, trying and failing to summon an emotion to my face. So. That was where we were. The supervillain who'd housed me for a month was apologizing for not murdering my sister in front of me. I turned over the sentence again and again in my head to see if it made any more sense. To see if my own feelings would resolve into anything substantial.
She stopped in place and stared at me. I stopped walking to keep looking at her. The air between us vibrated, full of insects and expectations.
I dropped the box of clothes and crap I was carrying onto the hood of a car to free my hands up. "Why?" I signed for lack of anything else.
"Because I made you a promise. To keep you safe. That's important."
That made my heart beat a little faster. Oh good, I was still capable of feeling things. That was nice to know. "Why?"
"Why–" I could see the frustration through her mask. "Because it's important, Tori!" She took a step closer, not breaking eye contact. "Because it matters when I say something and don't do it. Because I haven't lied to you about something important yet, and I'm not going to start now."
"But you could." I looked at her blankly. "You could've lied about anything and I wouldn't know. Why didn't you?"
Her fists were clenching hard now. Insects spilled out of her hair. A moth brushed my ear somewhere. Or maybe a hornet. "Why are you asking me this, Tori?"
I shrugged. "I just don't… get it. Why you'd care. Why it would matter if you lied."
"Because it's a shitty thing to do!" she snapped. "Because I've already fucked up enough by accident! Because I swore I wasn't going to be someone who saw people who needed help and did nothing! Why are you even asking this, Tori? Do you want me to hurt you? Is that it?"
Something hot and sharp bubbled up from my chest, and I clung to it savagely. "Maybe I do." My fists shook. "Maybe that would be better than trusting people and then feeling like this."
"Where is this coming from?" she asked. Her head tilted as if trying to examine me. I barely stopped myself from spitting in her face. "What's–"
"Wrong?" A bitter scoff forced its way out. "What's wrong? Seriously?" My teeth ground as I looked at her. This person I'd placed all my hopes in.
How long until she failed me too?
"My entire family just finished throwing me to the street." I stepped closer with every word until I was within arm's reach. "My mom lied to my face to help my rapist, and my dad let her!"
The mask might've hidden her face, but it didn't hide anything else. "So why should I trust you, Skitter? Taylor? Why should I trust anyone?" My vision was blurring, my eyes stinging. Her outline smeared out into hazy splotches of dark gray on black.
"Why are you different?" "Why won't you hurt me?!"
The last few words ripped their way free, red and raw, and suddenly my feelings weren't so distant; they were swamping me in a wave, drowning me, washing me away. I was hunched over, gasping. I touched my face. Wet. Sticky. Tears. Snot. God, I was such a stupid bitch. I'd known exactly how this visit was going to go, right from the start. And yet I'd fallen apart the second I'd seen my sister on that goddamn couch. Pathetic.
"I'm sorry."
I coughed a weak laugh as the surge passed, leaving me empty in its wake. Wiping roughly at my cheeks with the back of one hand, I shook my head and leaned on the car I'd dropped my stuff on for support. Something resembling a smile formed on the second attempt as I looked up at her.
"Yeah? Me too."
The silence stretched out as we stood there. I closed my eyes and tried to center myself. Fuck, this was humiliating. Every step I took on this journey was just an opportunity to fall right back to the bottom. Like I was climbing a ladder where every other rung was rotten. How long until Taylor got tired of watching me crash and burn? How long until I blew through what remained of her patience and I was stuck alone–
Her hand landed on my shoulder, and my breath hitched. The buzzing and whining around us meant her swarm must be hiding us from view, but the only thing I could feel was her forehead on mine and her breath ghosting across my lips.
"I'm sorry she did that to you," Taylor murmured. The words were so quiet they barely reached me. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop it. I'm sorry you got hurt again under my watch. That you got hurt at all in the first place."
I tried to say something, but all that left my mouth was a watery hiccup. Color bloomed across my cheeks, and I hoped to god that her eyes were closed like mine. I doubted I was that lucky, but anything that might hide my shame was better than nothing.
"I should've asked what you wanted me to do if we found her there," she said softly, drawing me back out of my thoughts. "I didn't want to bring it up and…" She sighed. "It doesn't matter now. I'm sorry I didn't say anything."
I shook my head weakly. "N-not your fault," I rasped, the words barely more than a whisper. "Cou– c-could...n't..." I swore soundlessly and switched to signing. "You couldn't have known."
She gave a low chuckle, and I opened my eyes a crack. She'd pulled her mask off at some point, safely hidden by the surrounding swarm, and was tilting her head with a wry grin that I could hear in her voice. "That's my job though, isn't it? You're the hero, and I'm the big bad villain."
It startled a laugh out of me before I could even think to hold it back. Her grin deepened into a real smile. Her eyes traced across my face. "You okay?"
I stilled, took a slow breath in through my nose, held it, and let it back out through my mouth. Baby steps. I could do that.
I shook my head, and put a finger to her lips when I saw her mouth open. "No. Not yet. But better."
Taylor nodded slowly, her eyes not leaving mine. "Okay." She closed her eyes, and let out an exhausted breath before she opened them again. "You stopped me. From shooting her this time."
My arms clenched around where I'd been holding her waist – when had that happened? – and nodded.
"Right," Taylor said as she eyed me carefully. "When I said I'd shoot her next time after… well, when I made that promise, you didn't tell me not to. Did you change your mind since then?"
I closed my eyes, and focused on the feel of her silk beneath my fingers, absently tracing the bumps of her spine. I needed something to tie me back down to earth. My emotions were amorphous and vague, slipping out of my grasp as soon as I felt for them, but unlike my last few panic attacks, my memories and the logic behind my actions remained perfectly clear. The moment I'd seen Amy in that house, I'd known two things:
That I needed to leave. And that I couldn't let Skitter throw away the only chance she had to be something better.
Not over me.
"If you'd killed Amy back there, it wouldn't have helped," I signed. I didn't open my eyes to look at her. It was hard enough getting the words out as it was. "She deserves to be punished, but if we don't do it the right way, we're just as bad as she is."
The angry, betrayed, traumatized voice in the back of my head was screaming at me even as my fingers went through the motions. That it wasn't the same. That payback was different from self-serving perversion. That it wasn't fair that she got to move right back into the home she'd grown up in like nothing had happened, instead of eating a bullet and getting out of my life.
But anyone who said the world treated people the way it should was lying. That voice was hatred speaking, and hatred didn't make my decisions for me. I did.
"That's wrong and you know it." I could imagine the look in Taylor's eyes. The same one she'd had behind the mask when she was facing Dragon, stubborn and angry and righteous with it. "She's evil. Taking her down would be worth it. You're worth it."
I was shaking my head even before she finished talking. My feelings were miles away again, plucked out of me along with my heart to leave an empty space in my chest that left me strangely grounded. It would be a lie to call it serenity, but it was a detached, icy numbness that faked it pretty well, in feeling if nothing else. Taylor's righteous anger flowed over me and didn't move me an inch.
"No." I signed, eerily calm. "It doesn't work like that. You're trying to rebrand, to change your image. That all goes away if you kill her in front of my family."
"So what?" Her hands firmed on my shoulders. "This is more important. I was willing to be Skitter to save Dinah, and it worked, even with all the mistakes and fuck-ups. Why shouldn't I do this to make sure you're safe too? Why wouldn't I–"
"Because you'll leave!"
I almost hit her with the last gesture, it was that emphatic. The words hung in the open air. My chest was still a cold vacuum but my tears wouldn't stop; I could barely see her through them.
"You said you trusted me to go after Dragon. To get you back. Did you really think that didn't go both ways?"
My hands were shaking.
"This only works if you're there with me."
I was being selfish. I didn't care.
"If you're not there and I have to be alone again–"
My hands were pressed against my chest as she closed the distance and hugged me. Held tight against her, I tucked my nose into her neck and clung right back. She smelled like sweat and stress and the stink of the streets and safety.
"You can't leave," I traced into her back with trembling fingers. "I can't help you if I can't go with you. So don't go."
She squeezed me a tiny bit tighter at that, pressing my heart back into my chest. "Okay," she said, and I shivered at her tone. Another oath she'd break herself – and the world if necessary – to keep. "No leaving. I promise."
I sagged into her arms as I came apart. I must have been getting her silk hideously dirty with my tears and snot by this point, but if she was annoyed she didn't show it. The world seemed to blank out for a while. I only felt her body against mine. Her hand on my back. Her fingers through my hair. My nose against her neck.
There was no talking for a while.
"I think someone's coming."
Taylor's voice brought me back to the present. "What?"
She quickly pulled back and put her mask back on. "My bugs are picking up a flier about five hundred feet out. They definitely see us."
I hummed an acknowledgement as I tried to force my head into gear. For the first time I took in the buzzing swarm, a miasma of black and brown filling most of the block around us. Subtle, we were not.
"Do you know who they are?"
She shook her head. "Can't land bugs directly on her. Forcefield. I only noticed because of the circular gap in coverage and the bugs running into it when I probed."
A sheet of cold water ran down my back. Fuck. That sounded like Aunt… Sarah. I really didn't want to deal with her after that conversation in the house. What did she want?
"Might be Lady Photon," I signed. "Can't tell without seeing."
Skitter grunted, and took a step away from me. I glanced at her. "What are you doing?"
"Giving you an opening," she replied over her shoulder. "I'm gonna open a window. Let you see her without her seeing you."
My eyes widened as I realized what she meant. "No! You can't sacrifice–"
"I'm not," she said firmly. "I'm gonna bait her with a bug clone. But it's still better odds if we're apart."
I swallowed the rest of my words. Okay. She was taking this seriously. That didn't stop my racing heart, but I could deal with the rest.
"Thank you," I signed, and flashed her a small smile. Because bug clone or not, she wasn't dismissing my stupid almost confession. That meant a lot, right now.
She nodded, melting back into the swarm until I could only make out her silhouette because I knew where to look. On cue, a swarm of insects gathered near us and started to coalesce into an almost human form. I couldn't help but screw up my face. This part really never got any easier to look at no matter how many times she did it. It was one thing to see insects swarming around one another with inhuman coordination. Gnats and bees did that, perhaps not with as much precision, but without ever running into each other in mid-air or breaking from the group. But to see dozens of species of spider and hornet and fly and beetle cling to one another as they slowly built an almost human shape? Calling it creepy was an understatement.
"Pay attention, Tori," her voice floated out of the surrounding swarm once she'd finished. I jumped. It was off by about thirty degrees from the slightly denser part of the swarm I'd thought was her. "You might only have a few seconds."
Swallowing, I nodded and trained my eyes on the sky. A gap appeared through the swirling chittering darkness above us. I winced for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the suddenly-bright sunlight, before I gasped.
"That's Laserdream!"
Sure enough, my cousin was floating above us. Clad in her signature white on red costume, blonde hair flying behind her, clean and whole and beautiful, she barely seemed real compared to my surroundings of the past few weeks. Why was she here? Why now? What did she want?
"Skitter," she called down to us. "Do you have Victoria down there?"
"What's it to you?" The swarm hissed back, swelling and contracting like the beating of a giant heart. I glanced around and saw half a dozen denser spots and at least four more bug clones. The spot she'd spoken from a moment ago was empty.
"I just want to talk," Laserdream replied. She didn't float any closer, staring down for a moment longer at the first bug clone Skitter had made, then scanning the rest of the swarm and stopping on a pair of others five houses down from where I stood. Her hands weren't extended, and her signature red beams weren't charging.
Skitter snarled next to me, melting back out of the swarm and making me jump again. "How do I know you aren't lying like the rest of your family?" her bugs chittered upwards. "I don't feel very trusting right now, after what happened at the house."
Crystal paused at that. "I… I guess you don't," she said at last, drifting a little lower towards the wrong pair of silhouettes. It was hard to hear her over tens of thousands of insect wings, and I had to guess at some of her words. "I don't know exactly what happened back there. But I know I want to hear from her first. That's gotta count for something."
My partner glanced at me. For my part, my heart was caught in my chest. Half of me wanted to say no. To close off the risk of opening up one more time and having another family member stab me in the back.
But the other half stalled me. Wasn't this what I'd wanted all along? For one of them to listen to me first? If I said no… it would be because I was afraid. That's what decided it.
"Let her closer," I signed with trembling hands. "If she wants to talk, we can talk."
Skitter eyed me for a moment, and stepped close enough to brush my shoulder. "You don't have to, you know," she whispered under the noise of the swarm. "I can say no for you."
A warm surge of gratefulness made it through the shreds of lingering numbness and the underlying nerves they failed to mute completely. Even now, she was willing to take the fall for me. Was offering to, but leaving the choice mine. Even though she knew it would make her look even worse if I accepted.
"I'll tell you if it comes to that," I promised, looking her dead in the yellow-lensed eyes. I wanted her to know I was serious about this. "But I owe it to myself to hear her out. I won't be able to stop wondering otherwise." And that was the real crux of the issue. Outside of this weird headspace I was in, I knew I'd be kicking for weeks over this if I didn't find out for myself.
"Alright," the swarm hissed evenly. "No tricks."
"No tricks," Laserdream agreed as the swarm finished pulling away our protective cover. Despite the slight disconnect I still felt, my lips twitched at her double-take when the bug clones she'd been looking at disappeared back into the general mass of the swarm. She found us after only a few seconds of confused glancing around, and as she drifted closer her eyes landed first on Skitter, then on me.
"Victoria!"
She descended quickly, landing lightly about ten feet away in the center of the spot Skitter had cleared of insects. I swallowed again, feeling faintly sick, but curled my fingers into my palms and forced myself to hold firm. I couldn't run away from this.
Or… maybe that wasn't right. I could run away. Skitter would have my back. But I didn't need to run away. Not right now. It was okay.
"Crystal," I signed. "You're… you're here."
She smiled. "I… it's been too long since I practiced sign, Vic. I caught about one word of that. Sorry." She glanced at Skitter. "Can… can you tell me what she's saying?"
Taylor blinked behind the mask. "What?"
"You heard me." Crystal shifted uncomfortably, but didn't back down. "I want – I need – to talk to her. If talking through you is the best way to do that, that's what we'll do. Uh, assuming you're both cool with it."
The silence stretched between us for a moment. A sob caught between my teeth, wet and hot. It was everything I'd needed to hear for weeks.
"Yes," my partner said. "I can interpret."
That was my cue. Hopefully my fingers would work with me long enough. "Hi Crystal. I missed you."
"I missed you too, squirt," she said after Skitter finished verbalizing for me. Her face split in a small but honest smile. "I was worried we'd lost you."
My face shuttered at that. Right, it wasn't that easy. I couldn't just pretend like nothing had happened. Better to get the hard part over with. "How much do you know?"
She frowned. "I know that Skitter's had you for the past month, since the Nine." She eyed us carefully. "Or at least that you've been staying with her, I guess. I know that my mom and yours said… some things." She paused for a long moment, seemingly gathering herself, before she looked me in the eyes again. "But I also know I want to hear what happened from you."
Heat. Tightness. Relief.
"You remember when C-Crawler hit me?" Damn my useless fingers.
She nodded. "I know that the Undersiders got you out of there, gave you to Amy."
I forced myself to nod. "Amy took me. Healed me." I swallowed. "Changed me."
"Changed you how?" She bristled when the swarm growled and closed in around us. "I'm asking because I need to know, Skitter. She's my cousin. If she says it's too much, that's fine. But you owe her the chance to speak for herself."
The swarm hesitated at that, pulsing in and out. I could see Skitter's indecision in the swirls and eddies, the way the stinging bugs massed close to us but hesitated to cross the final few feet and her fists were caught between tension and release. If I wasn't careful, these two would start a fight. Over me.
"She tried to heal me from Crawler," I signed. I had to keep it clinical. Factual. To the point. It was the only way I'd get through this. "A lot of it is hazy. But the body she made was mutated. A... sprawling mass of flesh. Screwed up and wrong."
I swallowed, and shut my eyes. I couldn't look her in the eyes for this. "While I was like that, she raped me." Thank god Skitter was willing to say the words for me, because I couldn't. Not so soon after the first time. "Skitter saved me from that. Forced Amy to fix me, and leave me alone. I've been staying with her ever since."
"And Mom? Carol?" Crystal asked softly.
"They're taking Amy's side." My hands were on fire. So was my chest. My lips trembled. "They think Skitter's manipulating me. Controlling me. I don't know."
The sound of a swallow. And then, "I'm so sorry, Vic. I'm so fucking sorry."
I hiccuped miserably. My tears were blurring my vision again. But I didn't have to see Crystal to know the anguish on her face. I heard it in her voice.
"Yeah."
She took a hesitant step forward. "It… can I hug you? Is that okay?"
I nodded once, tightly. If I opened my mouth, I was going to fall apart again. I couldn't afford that here.
Crystal gave Skitter a cautious glance and got a nod in return that looked almost respectful, then turned back to me and took another step. I tensed as she drew nearer, tighter and tighter until it felt like I had lockjaw. Trapped beneath my own skin. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't–
"I'm not going to touch you, Vic," Crystal said softly. She couldn't have been further than a foot away. "If it's too much, I get it." The sound of an exhale. "I'm just gonna stay here. If you want to hug me, or move away, that's your call."
The air rushed out of my chest. It felt like a weight off my back. My choice. My decision. She was okay with me being the one to set the pace.
Thank god.
I closed the gap, wrapping my arms around her, holding her as tightly as I could. I buried my face in her hair and breathed in. For the first time, I was glad I didn't have my forcefield. My passenger… I would've crushed her. Now, I could cling as hard as I wanted to. Crystal held me just as tightly. But where before it would've felt stifling, imprisoning, now it felt like safety. A physical reminder that everything I'd left behind wasn't just some fucked up reminder of my past. A piece of the girl I used to be that didn't hurt to touch.
"Thank god you're here," Crystal murmured into my ear. "I was so worried. So afraid I'd lost you. Thank you for trusting me."
I swallowed tightly. "Than–" my tongue hung on the hard consonant, and it took me a second to force it out. "K-k'you f-for lis'ning."
I could feel her smile against my cheek. "Anytime, cousin." She pulled back to arm's length, but didn't let go of me. "I'm with you in this." She squeezed my hand meaningfully. "What our parents did… it's fucked up. But you got out. That's what matters."
I blinked the tears out of my eyes. "You're not mad?"
"Oh I'm mad," she hissed. Red light flickered around her hands and mine felt hot for a moment in her grip, like I was holding them next to an open oven. "But not at you. Never at you, Vic. Not over this."
She let out a slow breath, and the rage drained from her face, along with the heat. A distant part of me drew the comparison to how Skitter's feelings showed through her swarm even when she was suppressing them. "You and I both know what our family is like," she said bitterly. "I shouldn't be surprised they'd do this. But I still expected better. You deserve better."
I clenched my teeth tightly. "Hard to believe that some days."
She gave me a sad, knowing smile at that. "It gets better when you leave. As I'm sure you know now." She turned to Skitter. "Which isn't to say you're off the hook either. You might be better than our family, but that isn't saying much. If you hurt her, you'll need to deal with me."
Skitter cocked her head and considered Crystal for a long moment. "That won't be a problem."
Crystal scoffed, but seemed mollified by the response. She turned back to me. "Listen, I gotta go. I was late to the meeting Carol called to begin with, I'm only here because I caught the tail end of the argument and bullied where you guys went out of them."
She paused, swallowed, and reached around her back, fiddling around with the bag I belatedly realized she had on. "I'm… You need to understand that… you know what? Fuck it. I should just show you."
She pulled her hand back, and my heart stopped.
It was the tiara. My– her tiara. Glory Girl's. Half melted by acid and ruined by what must've been weeks of water damage. But it was still in one piece. Somehow.
"One of the heroes found it a week ago," Crystal said, shifting her weight from one foot to another. "I'm not giving you this as some sort of obligation." The look in her eyes was somewhere between fierce and gentle. "You don't have to take it. You certainly don't have to wear it. Hell, you could throw it in the bay for all I care."
She swallowed, and held it out between us. "But I think you have more of a right to it than anyone else does."
The metal was cool as it met my palm. Rough and flaky as bits of rust and corrosion came off against my skin. Even as I felt its weight it didn't feel real. Like a physical piece of the girl who died a month ago had come back to life and was sitting in my hand.
I looked back up to Crystal. She must've seen the myriad of emotions on my face, and gave me a gentle smile. "You don't have to say anything. It's gonna be okay. You want anything else, just ask me."
I smiled back haltingly and started to shake my head, then abruptly remembered the showdown in the living room. How I'd tried to speak my piece, and been unable to, because…
My notebook. My fucking notebook. I'd left my notebook in my room and I hadn't even thought about it. I couldn't even remember everything I'd written in there, I didn't want to think about it. What if Mark read it, if Carol, if Amy–
"I left my notepad behind. Upstairs. In my room somewhere." My signs were jerky. Frantic. Skitter didn't stumble; didn't so much as hesitate. "I use it to talk to people who don't know sign, but I forgot it. Can you get it for me before..." I winced, "they find it? I have a burner you can text me on to arrange somewhere to drop it off."
"Sure thing, Vic. I won't read anything in it, scout's honor. You got the number for that burner?" I blanked, but Skitter rattled it off easily, and Crystal dug her own phone out of a pocket and entered it.
"Okay, cool. I'll go grab that now. And give them another piece of my mind." She squeezed my shoulder one last time, then took a step back, glancing at Skitter. "I meant it. Take care of her."
Skitter nodded mutely. It wasn't like she needed telling.
Crystal gave me one last smile and shot back up into the sky. I stared after her for a moment before looking back down at the piece of ruined metal in my hand. I could see a warped, distorted reflection of my face in the gold colored finish. I'd hated the thing when Carol first suggested it. Thought it was tacky and overbearing. But a secret part of me had loved it. Loved the idea of finally getting to be the heroine they'd always wanted.
Irony was a bitter pill to swallow.
"Tori?"
I blinked, and turned to see Taylor. She'd taken a step closer, but no further. Her mask was still on, but the uncertainty was written across the planes of her shoulders. "Are you okay?"
I nodded. Because I was. Maybe I wouldn't be later. I had… a lot to think about. But right now, with the knowledge that Crystal believed me, and my partner had my back, I was alright. I teased Meepy's antennae with my finger.
Taylor looked at me for another moment, before giving a pointed look at the tiara in my hands. "It's okay if you want to put it back on, you know. Or if you don't."
I smiled at the pointed nonchalance in her tone. Of course it was. But it was sweet to hear her say it. "Thanks, Taylor. But I think my days as Glory Girl are behind me."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," I nodded, and then giggled. I tried to keep it in but it kept bursting out of me.
Taylor gave me a long look. "You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." I laughed. "But if you've got a spare silk suit handy, I might know a girl who could use one."
She chuckled to herself at that as I picked my box of clothes up again.
"I'll see what I can do."
A/N:
You guys deserved a moment of softness. And so did they. The light comes before the dark, and all that. Idk I'm tired and these girls are gay.
Today I have a double rec. First the standard one. This probably should've been paired with last chapter but I liked the last fic too much. With that terrible intro out of the way, Tit for Tat by k800 is a fantastic piece of Amy/Lisa content that the fandom needs but doesn't deserve. Can their whirlwind romance survive flaring tempers, a dark past, and an uncertain future? Will girls collide or will they pull through with the love they share for one another?Read the tags please
The second rec is by me! I posted another snippet today, Stained Glass. It's a one shot, entirely disconnected from this universe. I don't really want to spoil the premise, but I've put content warnings at the bottom if you need to know what you're going into for sure. Happy reading!
Couldn't.
Taylor was next to me. Skitter. One of the two. Her bugs were swarming nearby; I could hear them, somewhere through the fog that clouded my thoughts. How long did it take her to gather a swarm? A few minutes, at least. It felt like only seconds since I'd walked away from my– from the Dallon house. Or maybe it had been hours. I couldn't tell.
Step. Step. Step.
My heart sounded in my ears, hollow and constant. It felt like it had been plucked from my chest and hung out in the air in front of me, connected to my body by a faint invisible string. At any point someone might snip that thread and leave me to drop like an empty doll. Or maybe I'd drift into the sky, my last connection to the ground permanently severed. Either option seemed just as likely.
Part of me realized that I was stuck in my head again. That I should probably say something. Skitter was following my lead, walking slightly behind me, and I had no idea where I was going. Maybe she'd asked if I could fly us back and I just hadn't noticed. I should probably ask her.
Step. Step. Step.
My eyes were glazed; a faint film separated me from the rest of the world. I could still make out things nearby, though the sun glare off metal and glass was painfully sharp and the cracks in the brick and asphalt seemed to swim whenever I wasn't focusing on them. But anything further out devolved into faint shapes and distorted blurs.
My hearing was the same. Skitter's breathing was right next to me. Rasp in, breath out. Footsteps behind mine. But other sounds–the swarm, cars, buses, people, the slowly waking city–didn't penetrate through the haze.
Was this something I should be worried about? Could I even worry about anything right now? I wanted to… not be here right now. Wherever "here" was. But if I wasn't here, where else would I be? It was hard to care when I didn't even know what was wrong.
"I'm sorry."
Skitter's words pierced my daze. I slowly turned to look through her without slowing my pace.
"I broke a promise."
That made no more sense than the apology. A lot of people had broken promises to me lately. Which one did Skitter even mean?
"I promised next time, I'd…" she trailed off. In the back of my mind I debated reaching out to hold her hand. That was probably what I was supposed to do here. Right? Before I could decide, she shook herself and continued.
"I didn't pull the trigger. I said I'd kill her and I didn't." Her fists clenched. "There were no bugs on the patio. None. Like where I found you. I should've noticed that it was weird, but I was too focused on what we were walking into, so I missed her." She fell silent for a moment, looking down at her hands and the gun on her hip. I could practically feel her self-recrimination. "Another failure," she muttered, so quietly I wasn't sure it was even meant for me, then looked up at me again.
"I'm sorry."
I blinked slowly, trying and failing to summon an emotion to my face. So. That was where we were. The supervillain who'd housed me for a month was apologizing for not murdering my sister in front of me. I turned over the sentence again and again in my head to see if it made any more sense. To see if my own feelings would resolve into anything substantial.
She stopped in place and stared at me. I stopped walking to keep looking at her. The air between us vibrated, full of insects and expectations.
I dropped the box of clothes and crap I was carrying onto the hood of a car to free my hands up. "Why?" I signed for lack of anything else.
"Because I made you a promise. To keep you safe. That's important."
That made my heart beat a little faster. Oh good, I was still capable of feeling things. That was nice to know. "Why?"
"Why–" I could see the frustration through her mask. "Because it's important, Tori!" She took a step closer, not breaking eye contact. "Because it matters when I say something and don't do it. Because I haven't lied to you about something important yet, and I'm not going to start now."
"But you could." I looked at her blankly. "You could've lied about anything and I wouldn't know. Why didn't you?"
Her fists were clenching hard now. Insects spilled out of her hair. A moth brushed my ear somewhere. Or maybe a hornet. "Why are you asking me this, Tori?"
I shrugged. "I just don't… get it. Why you'd care. Why it would matter if you lied."
"Because it's a shitty thing to do!" she snapped. "Because I've already fucked up enough by accident! Because I swore I wasn't going to be someone who saw people who needed help and did nothing! Why are you even asking this, Tori? Do you want me to hurt you? Is that it?"
Something hot and sharp bubbled up from my chest, and I clung to it savagely. "Maybe I do." My fists shook. "Maybe that would be better than trusting people and then feeling like this."
"Where is this coming from?" she asked. Her head tilted as if trying to examine me. I barely stopped myself from spitting in her face. "What's–"
"Wrong?" A bitter scoff forced its way out. "What's wrong? Seriously?" My teeth ground as I looked at her. This person I'd placed all my hopes in.
How long until she failed me too?
"My entire family just finished throwing me to the street." I stepped closer with every word until I was within arm's reach. "My mom lied to my face to help my rapist, and my dad let her!"
The mask might've hidden her face, but it didn't hide anything else. "So why should I trust you, Skitter? Taylor? Why should I trust anyone?" My vision was blurring, my eyes stinging. Her outline smeared out into hazy splotches of dark gray on black.
"Why are you different?" "Why won't you hurt me?!"
The last few words ripped their way free, red and raw, and suddenly my feelings weren't so distant; they were swamping me in a wave, drowning me, washing me away. I was hunched over, gasping. I touched my face. Wet. Sticky. Tears. Snot. God, I was such a stupid bitch. I'd known exactly how this visit was going to go, right from the start. And yet I'd fallen apart the second I'd seen my sister on that goddamn couch. Pathetic.
"I'm sorry."
I coughed a weak laugh as the surge passed, leaving me empty in its wake. Wiping roughly at my cheeks with the back of one hand, I shook my head and leaned on the car I'd dropped my stuff on for support. Something resembling a smile formed on the second attempt as I looked up at her.
"Yeah? Me too."
The silence stretched out as we stood there. I closed my eyes and tried to center myself. Fuck, this was humiliating. Every step I took on this journey was just an opportunity to fall right back to the bottom. Like I was climbing a ladder where every other rung was rotten. How long until Taylor got tired of watching me crash and burn? How long until I blew through what remained of her patience and I was stuck alone–
Her hand landed on my shoulder, and my breath hitched. The buzzing and whining around us meant her swarm must be hiding us from view, but the only thing I could feel was her forehead on mine and her breath ghosting across my lips.
"I'm sorry she did that to you," Taylor murmured. The words were so quiet they barely reached me. "I'm sorry I couldn't stop it. I'm sorry you got hurt again under my watch. That you got hurt at all in the first place."
I tried to say something, but all that left my mouth was a watery hiccup. Color bloomed across my cheeks, and I hoped to god that her eyes were closed like mine. I doubted I was that lucky, but anything that might hide my shame was better than nothing.
"I should've asked what you wanted me to do if we found her there," she said softly, drawing me back out of my thoughts. "I didn't want to bring it up and…" She sighed. "It doesn't matter now. I'm sorry I didn't say anything."
I shook my head weakly. "N-not your fault," I rasped, the words barely more than a whisper. "Cou– c-could...n't..." I swore soundlessly and switched to signing. "You couldn't have known."
She gave a low chuckle, and I opened my eyes a crack. She'd pulled her mask off at some point, safely hidden by the surrounding swarm, and was tilting her head with a wry grin that I could hear in her voice. "That's my job though, isn't it? You're the hero, and I'm the big bad villain."
It startled a laugh out of me before I could even think to hold it back. Her grin deepened into a real smile. Her eyes traced across my face. "You okay?"
I stilled, took a slow breath in through my nose, held it, and let it back out through my mouth. Baby steps. I could do that.
I shook my head, and put a finger to her lips when I saw her mouth open. "No. Not yet. But better."
Taylor nodded slowly, her eyes not leaving mine. "Okay." She closed her eyes, and let out an exhausted breath before she opened them again. "You stopped me. From shooting her this time."
My arms clenched around where I'd been holding her waist – when had that happened? – and nodded.
"Right," Taylor said as she eyed me carefully. "When I said I'd shoot her next time after… well, when I made that promise, you didn't tell me not to. Did you change your mind since then?"
I closed my eyes, and focused on the feel of her silk beneath my fingers, absently tracing the bumps of her spine. I needed something to tie me back down to earth. My emotions were amorphous and vague, slipping out of my grasp as soon as I felt for them, but unlike my last few panic attacks, my memories and the logic behind my actions remained perfectly clear. The moment I'd seen Amy in that house, I'd known two things:
That I needed to leave. And that I couldn't let Skitter throw away the only chance she had to be something better.
Not over me.
"If you'd killed Amy back there, it wouldn't have helped," I signed. I didn't open my eyes to look at her. It was hard enough getting the words out as it was. "She deserves to be punished, but if we don't do it the right way, we're just as bad as she is."
The angry, betrayed, traumatized voice in the back of my head was screaming at me even as my fingers went through the motions. That it wasn't the same. That payback was different from self-serving perversion. That it wasn't fair that she got to move right back into the home she'd grown up in like nothing had happened, instead of eating a bullet and getting out of my life.
But anyone who said the world treated people the way it should was lying. That voice was hatred speaking, and hatred didn't make my decisions for me. I did.
"That's wrong and you know it." I could imagine the look in Taylor's eyes. The same one she'd had behind the mask when she was facing Dragon, stubborn and angry and righteous with it. "She's evil. Taking her down would be worth it. You're worth it."
I was shaking my head even before she finished talking. My feelings were miles away again, plucked out of me along with my heart to leave an empty space in my chest that left me strangely grounded. It would be a lie to call it serenity, but it was a detached, icy numbness that faked it pretty well, in feeling if nothing else. Taylor's righteous anger flowed over me and didn't move me an inch.
"No." I signed, eerily calm. "It doesn't work like that. You're trying to rebrand, to change your image. That all goes away if you kill her in front of my family."
"So what?" Her hands firmed on my shoulders. "This is more important. I was willing to be Skitter to save Dinah, and it worked, even with all the mistakes and fuck-ups. Why shouldn't I do this to make sure you're safe too? Why wouldn't I–"
"Because you'll leave!"
I almost hit her with the last gesture, it was that emphatic. The words hung in the open air. My chest was still a cold vacuum but my tears wouldn't stop; I could barely see her through them.
"You said you trusted me to go after Dragon. To get you back. Did you really think that didn't go both ways?"
My hands were shaking.
"This only works if you're there with me."
I was being selfish. I didn't care.
"If you're not there and I have to be alone again–"
My hands were pressed against my chest as she closed the distance and hugged me. Held tight against her, I tucked my nose into her neck and clung right back. She smelled like sweat and stress and the stink of the streets and safety.
"You can't leave," I traced into her back with trembling fingers. "I can't help you if I can't go with you. So don't go."
She squeezed me a tiny bit tighter at that, pressing my heart back into my chest. "Okay," she said, and I shivered at her tone. Another oath she'd break herself – and the world if necessary – to keep. "No leaving. I promise."
I sagged into her arms as I came apart. I must have been getting her silk hideously dirty with my tears and snot by this point, but if she was annoyed she didn't show it. The world seemed to blank out for a while. I only felt her body against mine. Her hand on my back. Her fingers through my hair. My nose against her neck.
There was no talking for a while.
"I think someone's coming."
Taylor's voice brought me back to the present. "What?"
She quickly pulled back and put her mask back on. "My bugs are picking up a flier about five hundred feet out. They definitely see us."
I hummed an acknowledgement as I tried to force my head into gear. For the first time I took in the buzzing swarm, a miasma of black and brown filling most of the block around us. Subtle, we were not.
"Do you know who they are?"
She shook her head. "Can't land bugs directly on her. Forcefield. I only noticed because of the circular gap in coverage and the bugs running into it when I probed."
A sheet of cold water ran down my back. Fuck. That sounded like Aunt… Sarah. I really didn't want to deal with her after that conversation in the house. What did she want?
"Might be Lady Photon," I signed. "Can't tell without seeing."
Skitter grunted, and took a step away from me. I glanced at her. "What are you doing?"
"Giving you an opening," she replied over her shoulder. "I'm gonna open a window. Let you see her without her seeing you."
My eyes widened as I realized what she meant. "No! You can't sacrifice–"
"I'm not," she said firmly. "I'm gonna bait her with a bug clone. But it's still better odds if we're apart."
I swallowed the rest of my words. Okay. She was taking this seriously. That didn't stop my racing heart, but I could deal with the rest.
"Thank you," I signed, and flashed her a small smile. Because bug clone or not, she wasn't dismissing my stupid almost confession. That meant a lot, right now.
She nodded, melting back into the swarm until I could only make out her silhouette because I knew where to look. On cue, a swarm of insects gathered near us and started to coalesce into an almost human form. I couldn't help but screw up my face. This part really never got any easier to look at no matter how many times she did it. It was one thing to see insects swarming around one another with inhuman coordination. Gnats and bees did that, perhaps not with as much precision, but without ever running into each other in mid-air or breaking from the group. But to see dozens of species of spider and hornet and fly and beetle cling to one another as they slowly built an almost human shape? Calling it creepy was an understatement.
"Pay attention, Tori," her voice floated out of the surrounding swarm once she'd finished. I jumped. It was off by about thirty degrees from the slightly denser part of the swarm I'd thought was her. "You might only have a few seconds."
Swallowing, I nodded and trained my eyes on the sky. A gap appeared through the swirling chittering darkness above us. I winced for a moment as my eyes adjusted to the suddenly-bright sunlight, before I gasped.
"That's Laserdream!"
Sure enough, my cousin was floating above us. Clad in her signature white on red costume, blonde hair flying behind her, clean and whole and beautiful, she barely seemed real compared to my surroundings of the past few weeks. Why was she here? Why now? What did she want?
"Skitter," she called down to us. "Do you have Victoria down there?"
"What's it to you?" The swarm hissed back, swelling and contracting like the beating of a giant heart. I glanced around and saw half a dozen denser spots and at least four more bug clones. The spot she'd spoken from a moment ago was empty.
"I just want to talk," Laserdream replied. She didn't float any closer, staring down for a moment longer at the first bug clone Skitter had made, then scanning the rest of the swarm and stopping on a pair of others five houses down from where I stood. Her hands weren't extended, and her signature red beams weren't charging.
Skitter snarled next to me, melting back out of the swarm and making me jump again. "How do I know you aren't lying like the rest of your family?" her bugs chittered upwards. "I don't feel very trusting right now, after what happened at the house."
Crystal paused at that. "I… I guess you don't," she said at last, drifting a little lower towards the wrong pair of silhouettes. It was hard to hear her over tens of thousands of insect wings, and I had to guess at some of her words. "I don't know exactly what happened back there. But I know I want to hear from her first. That's gotta count for something."
My partner glanced at me. For my part, my heart was caught in my chest. Half of me wanted to say no. To close off the risk of opening up one more time and having another family member stab me in the back.
But the other half stalled me. Wasn't this what I'd wanted all along? For one of them to listen to me first? If I said no… it would be because I was afraid. That's what decided it.
"Let her closer," I signed with trembling hands. "If she wants to talk, we can talk."
Skitter eyed me for a moment, and stepped close enough to brush my shoulder. "You don't have to, you know," she whispered under the noise of the swarm. "I can say no for you."
A warm surge of gratefulness made it through the shreds of lingering numbness and the underlying nerves they failed to mute completely. Even now, she was willing to take the fall for me. Was offering to, but leaving the choice mine. Even though she knew it would make her look even worse if I accepted.
"I'll tell you if it comes to that," I promised, looking her dead in the yellow-lensed eyes. I wanted her to know I was serious about this. "But I owe it to myself to hear her out. I won't be able to stop wondering otherwise." And that was the real crux of the issue. Outside of this weird headspace I was in, I knew I'd be kicking for weeks over this if I didn't find out for myself.
"Alright," the swarm hissed evenly. "No tricks."
"No tricks," Laserdream agreed as the swarm finished pulling away our protective cover. Despite the slight disconnect I still felt, my lips twitched at her double-take when the bug clones she'd been looking at disappeared back into the general mass of the swarm. She found us after only a few seconds of confused glancing around, and as she drifted closer her eyes landed first on Skitter, then on me.
"Victoria!"
She descended quickly, landing lightly about ten feet away in the center of the spot Skitter had cleared of insects. I swallowed again, feeling faintly sick, but curled my fingers into my palms and forced myself to hold firm. I couldn't run away from this.
Or… maybe that wasn't right. I could run away. Skitter would have my back. But I didn't need to run away. Not right now. It was okay.
"Crystal," I signed. "You're… you're here."
She smiled. "I… it's been too long since I practiced sign, Vic. I caught about one word of that. Sorry." She glanced at Skitter. "Can… can you tell me what she's saying?"
Taylor blinked behind the mask. "What?"
"You heard me." Crystal shifted uncomfortably, but didn't back down. "I want – I need – to talk to her. If talking through you is the best way to do that, that's what we'll do. Uh, assuming you're both cool with it."
The silence stretched between us for a moment. A sob caught between my teeth, wet and hot. It was everything I'd needed to hear for weeks.
"Yes," my partner said. "I can interpret."
That was my cue. Hopefully my fingers would work with me long enough. "Hi Crystal. I missed you."
"I missed you too, squirt," she said after Skitter finished verbalizing for me. Her face split in a small but honest smile. "I was worried we'd lost you."
My face shuttered at that. Right, it wasn't that easy. I couldn't just pretend like nothing had happened. Better to get the hard part over with. "How much do you know?"
She frowned. "I know that Skitter's had you for the past month, since the Nine." She eyed us carefully. "Or at least that you've been staying with her, I guess. I know that my mom and yours said… some things." She paused for a long moment, seemingly gathering herself, before she looked me in the eyes again. "But I also know I want to hear what happened from you."
Heat. Tightness. Relief.
"You remember when C-Crawler hit me?" Damn my useless fingers.
She nodded. "I know that the Undersiders got you out of there, gave you to Amy."
I forced myself to nod. "Amy took me. Healed me." I swallowed. "Changed me."
"Changed you how?" She bristled when the swarm growled and closed in around us. "I'm asking because I need to know, Skitter. She's my cousin. If she says it's too much, that's fine. But you owe her the chance to speak for herself."
The swarm hesitated at that, pulsing in and out. I could see Skitter's indecision in the swirls and eddies, the way the stinging bugs massed close to us but hesitated to cross the final few feet and her fists were caught between tension and release. If I wasn't careful, these two would start a fight. Over me.
"She tried to heal me from Crawler," I signed. I had to keep it clinical. Factual. To the point. It was the only way I'd get through this. "A lot of it is hazy. But the body she made was mutated. A... sprawling mass of flesh. Screwed up and wrong."
I swallowed, and shut my eyes. I couldn't look her in the eyes for this. "While I was like that, she raped me." Thank god Skitter was willing to say the words for me, because I couldn't. Not so soon after the first time. "Skitter saved me from that. Forced Amy to fix me, and leave me alone. I've been staying with her ever since."
"And Mom? Carol?" Crystal asked softly.
"They're taking Amy's side." My hands were on fire. So was my chest. My lips trembled. "They think Skitter's manipulating me. Controlling me. I don't know."
The sound of a swallow. And then, "I'm so sorry, Vic. I'm so fucking sorry."
I hiccuped miserably. My tears were blurring my vision again. But I didn't have to see Crystal to know the anguish on her face. I heard it in her voice.
"Yeah."
She took a hesitant step forward. "It… can I hug you? Is that okay?"
I nodded once, tightly. If I opened my mouth, I was going to fall apart again. I couldn't afford that here.
Crystal gave Skitter a cautious glance and got a nod in return that looked almost respectful, then turned back to me and took another step. I tensed as she drew nearer, tighter and tighter until it felt like I had lockjaw. Trapped beneath my own skin. I couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't–
"I'm not going to touch you, Vic," Crystal said softly. She couldn't have been further than a foot away. "If it's too much, I get it." The sound of an exhale. "I'm just gonna stay here. If you want to hug me, or move away, that's your call."
The air rushed out of my chest. It felt like a weight off my back. My choice. My decision. She was okay with me being the one to set the pace.
Thank god.
I closed the gap, wrapping my arms around her, holding her as tightly as I could. I buried my face in her hair and breathed in. For the first time, I was glad I didn't have my forcefield. My passenger… I would've crushed her. Now, I could cling as hard as I wanted to. Crystal held me just as tightly. But where before it would've felt stifling, imprisoning, now it felt like safety. A physical reminder that everything I'd left behind wasn't just some fucked up reminder of my past. A piece of the girl I used to be that didn't hurt to touch.
"Thank god you're here," Crystal murmured into my ear. "I was so worried. So afraid I'd lost you. Thank you for trusting me."
I swallowed tightly. "Than–" my tongue hung on the hard consonant, and it took me a second to force it out. "K-k'you f-for lis'ning."
I could feel her smile against my cheek. "Anytime, cousin." She pulled back to arm's length, but didn't let go of me. "I'm with you in this." She squeezed my hand meaningfully. "What our parents did… it's fucked up. But you got out. That's what matters."
I blinked the tears out of my eyes. "You're not mad?"
"Oh I'm mad," she hissed. Red light flickered around her hands and mine felt hot for a moment in her grip, like I was holding them next to an open oven. "But not at you. Never at you, Vic. Not over this."
She let out a slow breath, and the rage drained from her face, along with the heat. A distant part of me drew the comparison to how Skitter's feelings showed through her swarm even when she was suppressing them. "You and I both know what our family is like," she said bitterly. "I shouldn't be surprised they'd do this. But I still expected better. You deserve better."
I clenched my teeth tightly. "Hard to believe that some days."
She gave me a sad, knowing smile at that. "It gets better when you leave. As I'm sure you know now." She turned to Skitter. "Which isn't to say you're off the hook either. You might be better than our family, but that isn't saying much. If you hurt her, you'll need to deal with me."
Skitter cocked her head and considered Crystal for a long moment. "That won't be a problem."
Crystal scoffed, but seemed mollified by the response. She turned back to me. "Listen, I gotta go. I was late to the meeting Carol called to begin with, I'm only here because I caught the tail end of the argument and bullied where you guys went out of them."
She paused, swallowed, and reached around her back, fiddling around with the bag I belatedly realized she had on. "I'm… You need to understand that… you know what? Fuck it. I should just show you."
She pulled her hand back, and my heart stopped.
It was the tiara. My– her tiara. Glory Girl's. Half melted by acid and ruined by what must've been weeks of water damage. But it was still in one piece. Somehow.
"One of the heroes found it a week ago," Crystal said, shifting her weight from one foot to another. "I'm not giving you this as some sort of obligation." The look in her eyes was somewhere between fierce and gentle. "You don't have to take it. You certainly don't have to wear it. Hell, you could throw it in the bay for all I care."
She swallowed, and held it out between us. "But I think you have more of a right to it than anyone else does."
The metal was cool as it met my palm. Rough and flaky as bits of rust and corrosion came off against my skin. Even as I felt its weight it didn't feel real. Like a physical piece of the girl who died a month ago had come back to life and was sitting in my hand.
I looked back up to Crystal. She must've seen the myriad of emotions on my face, and gave me a gentle smile. "You don't have to say anything. It's gonna be okay. You want anything else, just ask me."
I smiled back haltingly and started to shake my head, then abruptly remembered the showdown in the living room. How I'd tried to speak my piece, and been unable to, because…
My notebook. My fucking notebook. I'd left my notebook in my room and I hadn't even thought about it. I couldn't even remember everything I'd written in there, I didn't want to think about it. What if Mark read it, if Carol, if Amy–
"I left my notepad behind. Upstairs. In my room somewhere." My signs were jerky. Frantic. Skitter didn't stumble; didn't so much as hesitate. "I use it to talk to people who don't know sign, but I forgot it. Can you get it for me before..." I winced, "they find it? I have a burner you can text me on to arrange somewhere to drop it off."
"Sure thing, Vic. I won't read anything in it, scout's honor. You got the number for that burner?" I blanked, but Skitter rattled it off easily, and Crystal dug her own phone out of a pocket and entered it.
"Okay, cool. I'll go grab that now. And give them another piece of my mind." She squeezed my shoulder one last time, then took a step back, glancing at Skitter. "I meant it. Take care of her."
Skitter nodded mutely. It wasn't like she needed telling.
Crystal gave me one last smile and shot back up into the sky. I stared after her for a moment before looking back down at the piece of ruined metal in my hand. I could see a warped, distorted reflection of my face in the gold colored finish. I'd hated the thing when Carol first suggested it. Thought it was tacky and overbearing. But a secret part of me had loved it. Loved the idea of finally getting to be the heroine they'd always wanted.
Irony was a bitter pill to swallow.
"Tori?"
I blinked, and turned to see Taylor. She'd taken a step closer, but no further. Her mask was still on, but the uncertainty was written across the planes of her shoulders. "Are you okay?"
I nodded. Because I was. Maybe I wouldn't be later. I had… a lot to think about. But right now, with the knowledge that Crystal believed me, and my partner had my back, I was alright. I teased Meepy's antennae with my finger.
Taylor looked at me for another moment, before giving a pointed look at the tiara in my hands. "It's okay if you want to put it back on, you know. Or if you don't."
I smiled at the pointed nonchalance in her tone. Of course it was. But it was sweet to hear her say it. "Thanks, Taylor. But I think my days as Glory Girl are behind me."
"Yeah?"
"Yeah," I nodded, and then giggled. I tried to keep it in but it kept bursting out of me.
Taylor gave me a long look. "You sure you're okay?"
"Yeah." I laughed. "But if you've got a spare silk suit handy, I might know a girl who could use one."
She chuckled to herself at that as I picked my box of clothes up again.
"I'll see what I can do."
A/N:
You guys deserved a moment of softness. And so did they. The light comes before the dark, and all that. Idk I'm tired and these girls are gay.
Today I have a double rec. First the standard one. This probably should've been paired with last chapter but I liked the last fic too much. With that terrible intro out of the way, Tit for Tat by k800 is a fantastic piece of Amy/Lisa content that the fandom needs but doesn't deserve. Can their whirlwind romance survive flaring tempers, a dark past, and an uncertain future? Will girls collide or will they pull through with the love they share for one another?
The second rec is by me! I posted another snippet today, Stained Glass. It's a one shot, entirely disconnected from this universe. I don't really want to spoil the premise, but I've put content warnings at the bottom if you need to know what you're going into for sure. Happy reading!
- Pronouns
- Male
exhaling the greatest sigh of relief in this moment of peace
No seriously, that was sooooooo nice to read. The last few chapters have been the worst kind of tension where the consequences was literally the loss of family in ways worse than death, and CRYSTAL comes in clutch! The best of them all.
IndigoPhoenix
Devourer of Citrus
- Location
- Everywehere
Or don't. That twist came out of left field. I have been backstabbed. Betrayed. Bamboozled.
esotericist
A Weary Hand
- Location
- Lacey, WA
yeah. of course, as is often the case, crystal knows how to be that kind of family at least in part because she also had to deal with the family that did this to tori. maybe not the same way, or to the same extent, but she lived through some of those dynamics too. (btw, this is pretty well reflected in the parts of ward i did manage to read, and i think our authors are still doing an excellent job with the characterizations)
still, in my experience, going through these kinds of upbringings tends to do one of two things: force you to rationalize it, and thus perpetuate it, or force you to go "no, fuck that with an acid-coated jackhammer", and be better.
this is part of why i find some of the fandom's dichotomy with amy fascinating, because a lot of the time it's just wish fulfillment when they throw amy in the other direction, but if you actually pay attention to the social conditions, the pressures, and the whole everything prior to the s9 shit she really was plausibly at a turning point where she could have flipped the other way. it wouldn't have taken much.
but we didn't get that narrative. 🤷♀️
- Location
- Somewhere in South America
- Pronouns
- She/Her
Breaking a cycle is always hard. It's the path of most resistance after all. Perpetuating the horrible, fucked up conditions that scar people mentally for decades to come tends to be more emotionally comfortable than the long, ardous struggle to try your best to make sure shit like this never happens again.
Thank you so much! Super glad you've been liking the story so far. I know I was really concerned about the pacing particularly in Binary and Brightness, so it's a relief to know it hit the way I intended. I hope you like the rest of this arc! Now that we're done with the breather chapter it's full speed ahead.
Supernova 5.8
I hated unpacking my clothes. Always had, ever since I was a kid. Something about the task struck me as pointless, even when I was six. I knew intellectually it was important. At first it was just because Carol would be angry if I didn't. Later it was other things. A tidy room helped with mental health, good social presentation showcased and reinforced a drive to take care of yourself, the list went on.
But for all that I could recite the various arguments in my sleep, my willpower drained away the moment I set that box of my old things on my bed. It was meaningless busywork. Folding clothes that you'd wear once and then toss in the laundry, only to iron and fold them up again, going through the same pointless cycle until you died.
"...you okay?"
I started, and realized that Taylor had probably been watching me silently glare at my clothes for the better part of a minute. "No, sorry," I signed, trying to keep the flush off my cheeks. "Was thinking."
She hesitated. A few errant spiders spilled off her and scuttled off to take up redundant sentry positions, as though she weren't already aware of everyone in the building and needed the extra precautions. "Yeah?" she prompted after a moment longer.
I glanced at the box again, trying to put words to my thoughts. It wasn't about the folding, not really. That was just an excuse. The truth was, for all, that I wanted my things back, I didn't want to think about them. What they meant. What it would feel like to reach back into the life of the girl I'd left behind.
Taylor seemed to sense my conflict. "If you want, I can help…"
I turned back to her and smiled. Her posture was stiff, bordering on rigid. Her expression was neutral, but that meant nothing with Meepy fluttering in helpless circles on the back of my hand and the spiders pointlessly keeping an extra watch on territory she could already sense.
She was nervous and uncertain and awkward, and she'd put the offer out there anyway. Even though she probably didn't know what the problem was or how to help, she was still trying.
I shook my head, feeling a warm, fond glow in my chest. "No, thank you. This is something I need to do myself." I paused. "There is something else you could do for me though. For us."
She visibly perked up at that, as I knew she would. "Yeah?"
I let out a slow breath. It was something I'd been considering since that call with the PRT, really, but I'd wanted to get my family issues squared away first. Now it was time to go through with it.
"I need to talk to the rest of the Undersiders." I looked her dead in the eyes. "Brian, Aisha, and Alec. One on one would be best, but I'll take what I can get. At this point, my family knows what I'm doing. The PRT are at least willing to listen. Now I need to see if we can pull this off."
Taylor stilled. Dragonflies and bees drifted between us, like motes in a beam of sunlight. "Why alone?"
I swallowed tightly, but didn't let my hands waver. "It's something I need to do myself. If I'm really going to be working with you guys, I can't keep treating your teammates like they're going to bite me."
The way Taylor looked at me said her concerns ran deeper than that, but she didn't voice them. "You know that there's no going back from this, right?" she said instead, crossing her arms. "You can still pull back. We might even be able to handle the rest of your idea ourselves, or something close to it. Maybe not the unmasking, but stepping back from villainy; Lisa seemed open to that. You don't have to associate yourself with us in a big public announcement."
My breath caught in my throat. Was this where she told me I'd failed to convince her; that she and Lisa weren't willing to unmask? What then? Would she make me leave? Kick me out when I had no one left? Maybe Crystal could take me in. Last I'd heard she was living in the dorms, but I knew at the very least she wasn't at Sarah's house. She'd said she was late so–
"Tori!"
I flinched, and suddenly slammed back into my body; lungs burning, hands shaking. I let the air escape in a rush, and my head swam. My chest was heaving; sweat trickled down my face and strands of hair were plastered to my forehead. Taylor was standing in front of me, her brows furrowed and her lips pursed.
"Breathe. Slowly. That's it."
Habit kicked in, and I matched my breath to hers. In, and out. In, and out. The drumbeat of my heart slowly faded out of my ears. With its absence came a headache and a wave of dizziness, and I sank down to sit on the bed behind me.
Taylor crouched down to keep us at the same eye level.
"You okay?"
I nodded jerkily. I had no idea where that had come from, humiliating as it was to admit. I knew this was part of the recovery process. Knew that Taylor by this point would understand as much. But that didn't mean it hurt any less to suddenly be reduced to a shaking, helpless mess.
"S-sorry," I signed a minute or so later. "Anxiety."
She nodded slowly. "I can see that." She paused for another long moment, something subtle and complicated and unhappy happening to her mouth and the little muscles around her eyes. If she wasn't so close, I wouldn't have seen it at all. "If it's about the Undersiders–"
I shook my head quickly. "No. Not about them." I almost kept myself from saying anything further, but that tiny, barely noticeable worry on her face was too hard to ignore. "Was worried you'd say no. That you'd leave. Make me leave."
Meepy stilled from where she'd been climbing up my left shoulder. Taylor's face froze for a moment, then she slowly closed her eyes, looking tired and even more worried and – it was a guess, but a confident one – blaming herself somehow. Despite this whole plan and more than half her problems lately being my fault.
"Tori, no," she said, her voice tight. "I just… I wanted to be sure. For you to be sure about this."
My fists clenched. "No. That's not fair. Not fair to you. It isn't right for me to…" my words were failing me but I was so angry at myself, I couldn't let the subject drop here. "You have the right to choose for yourself what you do. If this plan, the unmasking and stuff – if it's too much for you… I can figure something out. It's your choice."
The words hurt. They throbbed like a migraine behind my eyes and sunk into my hands like acid. But I had to say them. We were codependent. Fuck, we were so far past codependent at this point it was laughable. But even so, I refused to make this choice for her, or pressure her into it.
I wouldn't be able to bear it if she hated me for it later
"No, that's not–" Taylor cut herself off and frowned. A light crinkle across her brow, her mouth still drawn into that tight, unhappy line that dipped down a little at one side. "I'm not going to throw you out, Tori. I said I wouldn't leave, and I meant it."
She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I know I said I wasn't totally convinced at the meeting with the rest of the team earlier. And I meant it. You still need to sell me on unmasking, even if you're... right about the warlord stuff being non-viable, long-term. But giving you shelter, protecting you, keeping you safe; all that is bigger than arguments."
Her eyes opened again, and I saw that familiar fire behind them. Not quite safety, not quite violence. But protection all the same.
"You said it was accountability. About standing up for people, and doing what was right." She visibly clenched her hands. "I don't… have much experience in that. I tried to do what I thought was best as much as I could, even when all my options were bad ones. But never what I really wanted." Slowly, her fists relaxed, her hands opening again to show her palms. "I remember the arguments you laid out when you came up with this plan. They made sense. They still do. I…" she swallowed tightly.
"I trust you. When Dragon was on her way to take us out, I couldn't see a way out." Her eyes were sharp. Cold. Calculating. "She was coming in force. I thought we were done. But you, you found a way. By calling her directly, changing the rules. And it worked."
She slowly stood up, and offered me a hand. "So yeah, I'm in. One way or another."
I grinned, and let her pull me up. But I didn't stop there. I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," I traced across her back. She was warm. Soft. But solid under my hands. A reassuring presence, a rock that I could cling to. I needed that. Now more than ever.
"Always," she breathed into my ear. She pulled back and gave me a long look. "I'll tell the rest of the team to arrange meetings, then. You good here?"
I nodded. I'd meant what I said earlier; this was something I wanted to do for myself. And not just to avoid any witnesses for my seemingly inevitable breakdowns.
"Alright then. I'll text you when we have something." With that, she headed for the door, closing it behind her with a soft click.
Now all that was left was me, and my ghosts.
For all that I'd bitched earlier, and for all that I hated doing it, it was easy to get lost in the process of folding and organizing clothes. It was mechanical and mindless, and it let my mind wander. That was part of why I'd hated it, once upon a time; I always circled back to it being a waste of time. But it let me gather my thoughts, now.
I'd only skimmed over the idea earlier, but the more I thought about my relationship with Taylor the more worried I became. Codependency was not a healthy basis for people to know one another, regardless of how romantic the stories made it out to be. It was dangerous. I'd taken entire courses on it, both in Parahumans 101 and in the Wards. It was why we were encouraged to see mental health professionals, to branch out in our connections in our cape lives. You couldn't stake all your emotional health on one person. Even if they could support the weight of your emotional labor – even if you supported them in turn; especially if they staked everything on you in return – it wasn't healthy.
I picked up a pile of folded shirts and made my way to the dresser, groaning as I opened it and found it full of old shirts, jackets and sweatpants. I'd need to clear all of this crap out first. I set the shirts back at the foot of the bed and got to work, pulling the old rumpled stuff out and flinging it all up towards my pillow. My mind kept working.
What if I was leaning too hard on Taylor? On Skitter? Would I even know? At this point, it was hard to name a single aspect of my life she wasn't intertwined with. She'd fed me, sheltered me, protected me, for weeks on end. She kept me safe from the Heroes, from Amy, from her own team. She listened to me. She cared when she didn't have to. She held me when I cried.
I knew what that looked like, from the outside.
How could I claim to be an independent hero when I was painted head to toe with Skitter's brush? And that was assuming I even got to try! Skitter had arranged for a field screening by a PRT psychologist, and they wouldn't just be looking for Master influences. Any kind of untoward relationship would be a warning sign. And this situation had more red flags than the Hindenburg. I wasn't being controlled by Regent, but I might fail the interview anyway just from how emotionally compromised I'd become.
I paused halfway through arranging the fresh shirts in the empty drawer, and couldn't hold back a bitter chuckle. Wouldn't that be perfectly ironic? The person who saved me, yet again being pointed at to claim I wasn't able to make my own choices. As if that attitude wasn't what had put me in this mess in the first place.
My laughter stopped dead when I picked up the next folded item, though. It was a white skirt. Nothing unusual, really. I'd bet I had another five just like it. But… it was the same color of white that Glory Girl used to wear. Hell, it was around the same length too.
Slowly I looked over the rest of the clothes. A denim jacket. Knee high boots. Camisoles. Skirts. Tank tops. Jumpers. Leggings. Crop tops. Frocks. Blouses. Skinny jeans. They all belonged to someone else. Someone who was comfortable showing skin. Someone who felt safe in her own body, and with other people seeing her. Had it really been only months since I'd worn any of this? It felt like years. Like I was looking at the clothes of a middle schooler. Tight and ill fitting and obnoxiously naive. Someone pretending to be older than they were without the slightest idea of what that meant.
I bit my lip, carefully folded up the clothes, placed them in the dresser and closed the drawer. Not slamming it took an effort of will. That was enough of that for one day. I wasn't… willing to deal with any of that right now. I still had all the clothes I'd been using for the last month. My baggy jeans and hoodies and ratty sneakers were safe, and perfectly sufficient for my needs. It was okay to take breaks, and come back when I was ready.
Meepy provided a welcome distraction, fluttering along my jaw long enough to get my attention before settling in my open palm.
"Meet Alec tmrw, Brian and Aisha day after. Ok?"
It took a while for the morse code to come across her wingbeats, but I was in no hurry. When she finished, I swallowed. This was it. If I was really committing to this, I couldn't afford to treat Taylor's team like rabid animals to avoid at all costs.
"Yes."
Fifteen hours later, I found myself in unfamiliar territory, southeast of Downtown, in the shantytown near the beaches where Regent was set up. It turned out it was easy to feel optimistic talking to Taylor in the comfort of my room, old clothes or no. Staring at the door to Alec's lair was another story entirely. I'd touched down several minutes ago, and I had yet to knock.
A good portion of my hesitance was fear. I didn't like admitting it, but I did, if only to myself. My hackles had risen as soon as I'd seen the bottom floor. A small store that likely sold clothing or handbags before Leviathan. I said likely, because very little of the decor remained. Washed out with the tide, no doubt.
Washed out and replaced. Where shelves and stands and window displays once stood, now there were sculptures of glittering glass. Some were humanoid statues, others were more abstract, but every one was made of thousands of pieces of broken glass, interlocked and set together like three-dimensional jigsaws. A deliberate showing of Regent's control over Shatterbird. Past tense, now. I wondered how long it would take for someone to smash them to pieces. That it hadn't happened already said a lot about the control he had over his territory. Or the fear he commanded.
A wave of goosebumps crawled over my arms and up the back of my neck. I was stalling. No one else was here to push me forward. Not Skitter. Not even Meepy. I was outside of her range. Taylor had asked me if I was sure I wanted to go alone this morning, while I was getting ready to leave. My words had caught in my throat, and I'd given her a hesitant smile. If she'd had any reservations, she hadn't voiced them before I'd left.
I clenched my fists, closed my eyes, and counted to seven. I breathed, in and out. Inch by inch, I felt the tension leave my frame. I was okay. I was here of my own free will. Regent–Alec–wouldn't control me like... she had. And even if he did, Skitter would save me. Neither of us had said anything, but there was an unspoken agreement that if I failed to return by nightfall, she'd come looking for me with an army. Or if I came back and didn't address her with the name-sign I'd given her, or didn't know Meepy's name, or any one of a hundred other warning signs.
I finished my fourth count of seven, finished exhaling and opened my eyes, forcing myself to ignore the glittering sculptures. The door to the shop apartment loomed in front of me. The final barrier. The last thing stopping me from–
I knocked three times, wincing at the smarting on my knuckles – it was a lot harder to judge force now – and waited.
The door opened to reveal a man in his mid thirties, with brown hair, loose jeans and a rumpled button-up shirt that had the top two buttons undone. He looked at me for a moment, then tilted his head.
"Finally decided to show up, huh?"
I froze. This… this was Alec talking, right now. I didn't have any proof, but I knew in my bones it was him. I bit my bottom lip hard enough to hurt, almost hard enough to draw blood. I'd known about this going in. Known what I was getting into. But to have it slap me across the face like this–
I nodded tightly.
The man–Alec–grinned. "Well don't stay outside on my account," he said, turning to amble back inside and gesturing for me to follow him.
I didn't let my feet touch the ground.
Alec was sitting on a couch on the upper landing. There were other people around, no doubt puppets as well, but I couldn't focus on them. He filled my vision.
He was relaxed. That was what struck me first. His shirt was half-open, showing pale white skin and stark collarbones. Good genes. His black hair was effortlessly tousled in a way I knew took a lot of work to maintain, and his jeans were well fitted, showing off his legs nicely as he leaned back and propped up one foot on the table in front of him. His scepter dangled lazily from one of his hands, and his smirk grew wider as his eyes met mine.
I wanted to hit him.
"There you are," he said. The voice was different but the drawl was the same as the man who'd now taken up station behind his couch, confirming my guess. "I thought you'd spend all day in front of that door."
I dug into my pockets and pulled out my notepad and pen. I'd remembered that much this time.
"Alec"
"That's my name, don't wear it out." He twirled his scepter once. "So what brings you here? Your…" he paused. "...warden, didn't make it sound like a social call. Actually, she didn't seem keen on you being here on your own at all. Hey, how hard did you have to argue to ditch the chaperone?"
I ground my teeth. The words were jibing, and I knew he was trying to rile me up, put me off balance. But at the same time they were so flat. He was provoking me, but he didn't seem to care. There was a surface layer of interest in needling me to see if I'd make a mistake, but beyond that he seemed... apathetic. Like I was just one of the statues downstairs, for all he cared about me.
Well, regardless of his level of investment, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait. "I wanted to talk to you about the plan. Unmasking"
His shallow grin didn't twitch. "Don't see what we have to talk about, then. You and Taylor have it all figured out, yeah?"
I bristled, and made myself count to ten before I started writing again. I couldn't afford to break my pen or, more likely, tear the paper. "That's not fair, and you know it. If we do this, we're a team. This is big. Your opinion matters"
He let out a laugh. "I told you already, though. Back at the monument? I'm in this gig for the money. It's Lisa and Taylor that have all the fancy plans and higher ambitions and noble causes. I'm a simple man. As long as I've got my creature comforts, I'm content."
"It can't be that simple," I pressed. "You must have some concerns. Income? Safety? Family?"
Alec snorted as soon as he finished reading. "Ahhh, good one. Tell me, Glory, do I look like the kind of guy to go to Thanksgiving and cut the turkey with Ma and Pa? Hell, do any of us in the Undersiders seem like well-adjusted kids from decent families?"
My fingers twitched, and I glared at him.
"Nah," he said, yawning theatrically and reclining further back in his chair. "Nothing worth talking about there. Though I'll admit to being curious as to how you're planning on doing this."
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"You know," he said, gesturing vaguely at the space around us. "How you plan on framing all this as something the PRT could tolerate? We talking an afterschool special? Blog post? Radio talk show interview? All of the above?"
I felt like I was getting whiplash from the topic changes. But I kicked my brain back into gear. "Probably some pre-recorded message. Easier to personalize us, long enough to deliver a complex message, short enough to be repeated and cut easily." That's how Carol had preferred to do this kind of thing, anyways. We didn't have the ability to call a press release, but releasing an official statement would be almost as good.
Alec hummed. One of his… people came by to leave a glass of water on the table. They caught my eye, winked, and left. I shuddered.
"And what if this goes wrong?" he asked, drawing my attention back. "You gonna keep us safe from the real big bad villains out there? Plenty of people will be mad enough about Hijack to come looking for a fight."
I nodded. This much I'd agree was a legitimate issue, and one I was happy to address. "It's going to be difficult at first," I agreed. "In the first few weeks we might shift territories around, make sure we don't stay in one place too long. Imp and Skitter will be fine no matter what, and Lisa will be working on security and active screening of people in your holdings. I'd like to set up some kind of an emergency panic button between us all, so we can ring for help if something goes wrong." I paused. My hand was hurting like hell, and this was probably enough for the basics. "That's just the start, but does it answer some of your questions?"
Alec shrugged, glancing at his pocket when his phone buzzed, and then back at me. "Sure, I guess. Lisa and Taylor are good at sniffing out snitches, and it's not like anyone can keep track of Aisha for long."
There was something in his expression for a moment that felt deeper than the superficial mask. A kind of guarded not-quite-fondness? Or perhaps resigned amusement; I wasn't quite sure. And frankly, I wasn't about to ask. If there was something going on between him and Aisha, that was their business and I wasn't going to put a foot in it for fear of setting something off. Still, it was a little reassuring to see his apathy didn't extend to everything in his life. There was a person in there, somewhere under the jaded sarcasm and passive-aggressive comments.
"What about the PRT though?" he asked, snapping me back out of my thoughts. "Our champions of shitty justice. What's to stop them from just taking me in on the spot?"
"Well that'd be part of the deal we're working out. Suffice to say that they'll cooperate as long as we behave." I paused, and glanced at the obvious thralls all around us. "Which reminds me, what exactly has Hijack done that I might have to worry about?"
He paused, giving me a long look. "You sure you want to know? You can still pretend that Hijack is a different person. Less complicated that way. I know half the team tries not to think about it."
I bristled at the emphasis he put on 'complicated'. I knew I'd been hesitant to talk to Alec and Regent both until this point. For reasons that I still thought were valid, but they didn't matter now. It served neither of our purposes to dance around the point.
"If we're doing this, we're doing this together. I'm not going to ignore what you did, but I do want to hear why from you first."
Alec hummed for a moment before shrugging. "Not too much you'd need to worry about beyond the obvious. I controlled a lot of people and did a lot of shit people would be upset over. Difficult childhood and all that."
I bit my lip. He was being overly obtuse, possibly deliberately so. He was inviting me to pry deeper. Or perhaps daring me? His false facade was still up, but I was pretty sure this actually mattered to him, enough to prompt a reaction. Defensiveness, at least. And maybe shame?
"Like what things? Murder?" I knew it was tactless to ask so bluntly, but it was best to establish the worst case scenario and work backwards. I was willing to cooperate with Alec, but this meeting was about information gathering first.
He let out a short laugh. "Nah, not much of that. Once was enough for me."
My eyes sharpened. Fuck. "Once?"
His eyes narrowed, staring right back at me, and his knuckles tightened ever so slightly around his scepter. "You don't get on Bitch for hers, yeah?"
The statement hung in the air for a long moment. We both knew what he wasn't saying. Rachel had killed someone soon after her trigger. I'd known as much before the Undersiders, given that her identity was an open secret in the PRT. But there was also some confusion as to how involved that death was in her trigger.
Generally speaking, capes did get some leeway soon after discovering their powers. Part of me hated that fact. The idea that someone could be "special" enough that they could literally get away with murder. But I was also aware that most powers ranged from dangerous to outright lethal. Suddenly being handed a weapon during a moment where you might be traumatized and lashing out already...
I gave Alec a slow nod. That was his baggage to disclose. If he said it was the one time, and it was involved in his trigger, then I wouldn't press further. "Fine."
He rolled his eyes. "Glad I have your approval then." Before I could respond to that he kept going. "Other than that, most of what I did was use people to steal for me. You know what being homeless is like – oh wait, you don't."
I dug my fingers into my palms. I knew he was being deliberately antagonistic, though I wasn't sure why. But as much as I hated to admit it, he had a point. I'd had a home, loving or otherwise, my whole life. Carol might have been worried about budgeting, but I'd never had to wonder where my next meal was coming from.
With that said, "Stealing to get by is one thing, But what about the people you used to do it?" I gestured around us. "The people you used because you could?"
Alec shifted back in his chair. Somewhere further back in the apartment plates clattered against each other–someone else starting to make lunch?– but he didn't take his eyes off mine. "You know my power," he said, with a faint edge of scorn I thought was probably real. "It's not exactly PR friendly. I did what I had to. Hell, I sandbagged as Regent for months."
He waited for me to give a nod before he continued. "I won't pretend that I didn't take people for fun. I'm not some sort of hero, regardless of what you want the PRT to think at the end of this. But at least as far as Brockton, I didn't keep any civilians that didn't say yes."
I blinked. "And I'm supposed to believe that?"
Alec snorted. "You can believe whatever you want, princess. But you can always trust me to be lazy. I still have to sleep. Keeping unwilling people is a pain in the ass; the more of them there are, the bigger the pain it is. Unless there's villains we could use, and I hardly think you're getting upset over Shatterbird at this point, it does nothing but paint a big target on me and risk someone getting their hands on a kitchen knife every night. Why would I do that when I could pay people twenty bucks an hour instead? I'm not gonna pretend they love it, but if you're going to slap a criminal label on anyone paying people to do shitty jobs to make ends meet, you'll be arresting half the city. PRT included."
I paused. Huh. I'd never considered it like that. I still didn't entirely like it. But it was a far sight better than I'd expected. And it lined up with his own motivations. Far easier to pay people what was effectively small change to do what he wanted, and skip the flak that came with it. The PRT wouldn't see it that way without some convincing, but I could work with that, especially if a few of them came forward and testified to that effect with some kind of proof they were speaking for themselves. "And going forward?"
His eyes snapped back up to mine. There was something dangerous there. "Excuse me?"
I didn't flinch. "Going forward, what are you going to do? Hiring civilians is one thing. You might be able to do that if you're more transparent. But you couldn't use them in fights. And you definitely couldn't take villains anymore." I knew I was pushing things, but I had to lay out the expectations as clearly as I could. It wasn't even me making these rules, not really. It was just the limit to how far I could see the PRT willingly bending on the subject and not immediately calling our bluff.
"So you want me to handicap myself? To let go of my insurance and half my powerset?" Alec leaned forward, resting the scepter back in his lap. "You're asking a lot for someone who isn't even on the team."
My breath caught in my throat. I very carefully unclenched my fists, and lashed my aura even tighter to me than I usually did. I couldn't afford a loss of control here. Any sign of aggression would be catastrophic.
"No more than I'm asking Taylor to do by not swarming people. Or Rachel by not tearing people apart. We're in this together." I frowned. "Do you even want to play cape anymore? Why bother fighting at all, if all you care about is enjoying yourself? Find something legal you can do and do that. Give it some thought. There's got to be something. Helping people with nerve damage, maybe."
The silence held for a long moment, as Alec seemed to genuinely think about it. Then he scoffed, and shrugged.
"Yeah, sure. Alright. The power of friendship it is, then. I'll think about what I can use," he had his puppet wave an arm at me, "Hijacking powers for, legally. I'm sure there's tons of people who'd love to employ me." Another affected yawn. "Good luck or whatever, and let me know when it all goes wrong so I can say 'I told you so'. Was there anything else?"
I blinked. Was… was that it? Really? "You seriously don't have any objections beyond that?"
He gave me a long, pointed look, and grabbed the game controller on the table.
Apparently not.
"Hey barbie, you still kicking?"
I flinched, and barely held in a sigh. Another day, another part of the city, and another reminder that facing down the Undersiders alone hadn't gotten any easier. And it wasn't helped by Aisha popping into my awareness out of nowhere. At least this time I'd kept my response tamed. Mostly because I'd gotten Taylor to remind me before I came here that I might get startled by sudden movement or noises in Grue's base, without mentioning exactly why.
"Hi Aisha, Brian."
The girl across from me grinned and swung her legs, almost falling off the edge of the armrest she sat on. "Come on," she taunted. "Don't be boring! Have some fun!" Beside her, on the seat of the long black couch, her brother sat in full costume save the helmet, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and watching me with a frown.
We were in the room above an old gym close to downtown. It had gone out of business a few weeks before the Leviathan attack, but that hadn't stopped the leader of the Undersiders from taking over the place.
I'd been surprised when I'd walked in, though. I wasn't sure what I'd expected from Grue's lair, but given his flat affect and short tone he hadn't struck me as the type invested in other people. Nonetheless, the gym was pristine by most standards these days. The entrance was open and inviting, with a receptionist at the main desk who (almost) looked happy to be there. They obviously hadn't hooked up any of the treadmills or electronic machines, but everything else looked usable. And a good portion of the mats had been laid out in an open area centered around a basic first aid station.
It hadn't gone unnoticed by the locals. The main floor was bustling with people. Some were working out, obviously, but just as many were talking, getting wounds taken care of or using the showers. Keeping a community center like this running took work. Even just passing through as the receptionist led me up to the second floor, I could tell that much.
"Aisha." Brian's words were quiet. Soft. But it was enough to snap the both of us out of our respective thoughts.
"Yeah yeah, don't get on my back, you know I had to do it to her."
"Did you really?" If his tone hadn't been so dead, I'd have said he was snapping at her. I'd known he and Aisha were siblings. I'd expected some ribbing there, but this was sad. It left me in the bizarre position of having to defend Imp of all people.
"It's fine. I'd been quiet for a bit. But I wanted to talk to the two of you." There. Nice and neutral, and it drew us back to the subject at hand.
Brian lifted his head to lock gazes with me for the first time. His brown eyes were bloodshot and dilated. I could see the circles under them even on his dark skin. His mouth was a tight line across his face, and I was willing to bet his skin was stretched tight over his knuckles under the leather gloves.
He was hanging by a thread.
"About what?"
I swallowed. I had to phrase this carefully. While I'd technically pitched this idea to them already, that attempt hadn't gone well. In fact, given that my first pitch had been interrupted by a punch to the face, it was probably best to start at the basics.
"Back at the park, I said you all should unmask. But I haven't had time to talk to the two of you about it since."
"Oh?" Brian sat up, scowling. "Finally decided it might be good to consult the leader on that?"
I kept my expression forcibly calm. Pause. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus. "I said I'd been busy and I meant it. I needed to talk to my own family and it went," my hand hurt, and I stretched it out surreptitiously, "poorly. But talking to all of you still matters. I don't want to guess at what concerns you have, or what you're willing to do. Which is why I'm here now."
"You had a whole speech about knowing better than us last time," Brian said. "Why should I trust anything you say now?" Aisha wasn't smiling. That more than anything else told me that I'd fucked up.
"Because I made a mistake." My throat was tight. "I wasn't treating everyone as an equal. I'm sorry. I'm here to do better. What problems do you have with my proposal, and what can I do to help?"
"It would help if we knew what you wanted in the first place, Barbie," Aisha snarked. She swayed back towards the couch side of her armrest and bumped her shoulder into Brian's. "As far as we know, your plan is to put our faces up on a billboard and paint a big bullseye around 'em for the Nazis."
That… was fair. Most of my explanation had been to Taylor and Lisa. And they'd evidently respected me enough not to go behind my back to try and explain things. Yeah, this was on me. I shook my hand out and started writing.
"The current plan is for the Undersiders to announce themselves as independent capes who got caught up with Coil by accident, without knowing his real plans. Unmask in the process to help your legitimacy and accountability, while holding the PRT to the same standards. How we do that varies but the biggest immediate concern would be keeping everyone safe."
There was a pause. Brian seemed to be considering as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, scowl fading. "And the PRT is just gonna go along with this? Why?"
My heart climbed a few inches higher in my throat, and I went through another seven count of breathing. Calm. Control. This wasn't a problem; I just had to treat them as equals. Especially given my earlier behavior. I owed them that much.
"You know what Amy did to me." It was a statement. But Brian still shook his head. Huh. I'd thought that was well known at this point. How out of the loop was he? His claims of being the 'leader' were looking flimsy, but... now wasn't the time to bring that up. Questions for later.
"She raped me." The words were sharp, hard on the page. The paper pressed inwards around firm lines. My hand didn't shake. My eyes were dry. "The PRT has supported her and the members of New Wave who support her by letting her go back to healing. If they don't back our story and do something about her, then Lisa spreads that info to the four winds. Protectorate recruitment goes through the floor, and they'll probably lose a lot of the capes they have now. Nobody feels comfortable with someone like that getting her hands on them, and if the PRT is hiding her, who knows what other predators in their ranks they're covering up?"
It was dirty. That we had to resort to this. That I was having to blackmail the PRT with my sister's crimes just to get them to do the right thing. That they were holding justice for what she'd done to me over my head and forcing me to jump through hoops to even acknowledge it had happened. That we had to bargain at all to get a group of kids a second chance, when I'd seen other local villains do far worse and be all but ignored by the authorities.
But if this was what it took to make the world a little bit better, then I'd do it.
Brian was looking down at the floor, fingers interlacing and clenching tightly. When he looked back up at me, there was something new in his eyes. "Yeah. Alright."
I nodded shortly. Thank god, he didn't seem interested in pursuing that topic any further. I was already out of energy and it wasn't even noon yet. "That still leaves any issues you'd have with unmasking, or what the Undersiders will do going forward."
"Big Bro got into this for the money, and me," Aisha said from my right, barely avoiding giving me a heart attack. "I'm in this for him, and it's fun."
I glanced at Brian, but he didn't say anything further. I was sure there was something unsaid here, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was. "Do either of you have any skeletons in the closet that might pose a problem for this?"
Brian shrugged. "I was a bouncer for a while. Knocked some heads." He glanced at Aisha for a moment before adding, "That was about it."
I let out a short breath. Okay. That was one problem solved. "What about safety concerns? You have a lot of people here. You clearly put a lot of money into the gym. Is there any other place or people that might be in danger?" I was trying to be as delicate as I could here, but there were only so many ways to ask "how upset would you be with me if I got your family killed?" The answers were never good.
I knew from experience.
"No one worth caring about," Aisha said, throwing herself back onto the couch and leaning back against Brian. "Just the two of us, and this place."
Her words were deceptively light and easy, but something on her face told me I'd regret pushing this. I saw her brother lean ever so slightly into her, and something clicked. The gym. The people downstairs. The obvious care over a building in a comparative wasteland. None of it fit with the leader in front of me. He was despondent at best, borderline apathetic at worst. Not like Alec was. This spoke of trauma, and his symptoms didn't match the drive needed to care about small details and day-to-day management.
What, then? Was it Aisha stepping in for him? Maybe, but I wouldn't put it down as my first suspicion. She'd gone out of her way to sell herself as being in it for the chaos, and nothing I'd seen had contradicted that impression. I could see her taking charge of some of his workload, but her power made it difficult for her to delegate or run anything. Lisa then? Taylor? Some combination of the two? Something was off here.
I shook the thoughts away, all too aware of another headache coming on. I was getting distracted. Too lost in my head. Again. And there was no one to snap me out of it this time. I had to stay focused. "Okay, that's good to know. Safety would definitely be a concern we'd talk about. Constant watch on every base. Regular patrols and lookouts. A shared panic text alert. That kind of thing."
Brian glanced at his sister and nodded as he turned back to me. "Yeah, alright."
My head pounded, and I closed my eyes for a brief moment. When I opened them again the world seemed to swim. Yeah, okay, I was at my limit. "I'm sure we have more to talk about but I'm, just, not cut out for it right now. Head hurts. Can we cover the rest later? We can swap numbers and hash it out." It was okay to admit weakness here. It was fine. These were Taylor's teammates, if I could admit this to her, I could admit it to them.
Brian locked eyes with me, and there was a sad sympathy in his gaze. "Yeah, sure. Talk later."
I gave him a hesitant smile, handed him my phone long enough for him to send himself a text and started making my way back home.
A flight of midges latched onto me the moment I got back into Taylor's territory, and the wave of relief almost took me out of the sky. She didn't say anything–I was flying too fast for her bugs to risk that–but just knowing she was there spread warm contentment from my chest up my neck and down my arms.
She was waiting on the rooftop, as I knew she would be. She'd changed out of her costume into a faded red T-shirt and dark pants. Her curly hair stirred in the breeze–or, actually, knowing her, from all the bugs in it. I hid a tired grin behind my hand as I landed.
"So how'd it go?" she asked, walking up to greet me. A flight of mosquitoes brushed past my ears, even as a dragonfly hovered next to my nose for a moment before shooting off again. A butterfly flapped lazily over my knee before landing on my shoe, and Meepy settled gently on my forearm. I could only guess at what the senses of all the bugs were telling her, but it felt nice anyways. To know she was checking up on me. To know she cared.
"Good," I signed as I shot Meepy a fond smile. "Brian and Aisha were… strange?"
Taylor hummed as she turned to look out over the city. We had a vantage point fairly low down in the scale of downtown, but it still let us look out over a lot of the surrounding warehouses. If you strained yourself you could just barely make out the ocean from here.
"Brian has… a lot on his plate," she said eventually.
I nodded. That much had been obvious even to my untrained eye. "They weren't as closed off and weird as Alec was. And they agreed too. They seemed tentatively open, provided I give more details later." I winced as my head throbbed. "Had to leave early."
Taylor turned abruptly and focused on me. "What happened?"
I flushed red as I realized the implications of what I'd said. "No, nothing bad. My head was hurting and I thought I was spiraling. Said we'd get back to it later."
She relaxed, and the buzzing I hadn't even noticed starting up around us quieted again. Taylor couldn't afford to be too blatant with her swarm when she was out on the rooftop in her civvies – not that that would be a problem for too much longer if we really went through with this – but some reactions were entirely unconscious.
"Alright then." She paused, considering me. "You need more sleep. And water. You've been running yourself hard with planning and worrying these past few days. If you go get a meal and a shower now and then try to sleep through the afternoon, will you be good by tomorrow?"
I quirked an eyebrow at her and closed my eyes, feeling the weight of my body, the soreness, the aches and pains that had become background noise, the throbbing pain in my head. I weighed them as best I could, and nodded slowly. "Probably. Why?"
Taylor pursed her lips. "Because Lisa called me and mentioned that she wanted to come over to talk about rebranding."
I closed my eyes, and gripped the railing with my right hand. My thoughts moved sluggishly. Right. The rebranding. I didn't get to talk about that with Brian and Aisha, even though I'd meant to. Headache. Fuck. Okay, I could deal with that later. But Lisa had a point. While the Undersiders couldn't really pull off a full rebrand when they were unmasking, it would be good to change at least some of their aesthetics. Lisa probably already had some ideas about it.
"That sounds good," I signed as I opened my eyes again to meet curious hazel. "She's right. We do need to talk costumes."
Taylor nodded, but my thoughts were elsewhere. Because there was something I'd not considered in this. Or perhaps it was better to say I'd avoided thinking about it until now.
If Glory Girl was truly dead… I needed to choose who took her place.
But that could wait until tomorrow. For now, I was breathing in the ever so slightly salty air with Taylor on a sunny morning. And that was enough.
A/N:
God I'm so tired. I hate this chapter. Aleph hates this chapter. Hopefully y'all don't. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go pass out.
Today's rec is We All Fall Down by Slider. It's post-gm smugbug done right. It's hard and painful and tinged with regret in all the right ways. Read it. Or don't I'm not your mom.
But for all that I could recite the various arguments in my sleep, my willpower drained away the moment I set that box of my old things on my bed. It was meaningless busywork. Folding clothes that you'd wear once and then toss in the laundry, only to iron and fold them up again, going through the same pointless cycle until you died.
"...you okay?"
I started, and realized that Taylor had probably been watching me silently glare at my clothes for the better part of a minute. "No, sorry," I signed, trying to keep the flush off my cheeks. "Was thinking."
She hesitated. A few errant spiders spilled off her and scuttled off to take up redundant sentry positions, as though she weren't already aware of everyone in the building and needed the extra precautions. "Yeah?" she prompted after a moment longer.
I glanced at the box again, trying to put words to my thoughts. It wasn't about the folding, not really. That was just an excuse. The truth was, for all, that I wanted my things back, I didn't want to think about them. What they meant. What it would feel like to reach back into the life of the girl I'd left behind.
Taylor seemed to sense my conflict. "If you want, I can help…"
I turned back to her and smiled. Her posture was stiff, bordering on rigid. Her expression was neutral, but that meant nothing with Meepy fluttering in helpless circles on the back of my hand and the spiders pointlessly keeping an extra watch on territory she could already sense.
She was nervous and uncertain and awkward, and she'd put the offer out there anyway. Even though she probably didn't know what the problem was or how to help, she was still trying.
I shook my head, feeling a warm, fond glow in my chest. "No, thank you. This is something I need to do myself." I paused. "There is something else you could do for me though. For us."
She visibly perked up at that, as I knew she would. "Yeah?"
I let out a slow breath. It was something I'd been considering since that call with the PRT, really, but I'd wanted to get my family issues squared away first. Now it was time to go through with it.
"I need to talk to the rest of the Undersiders." I looked her dead in the eyes. "Brian, Aisha, and Alec. One on one would be best, but I'll take what I can get. At this point, my family knows what I'm doing. The PRT are at least willing to listen. Now I need to see if we can pull this off."
Taylor stilled. Dragonflies and bees drifted between us, like motes in a beam of sunlight. "Why alone?"
I swallowed tightly, but didn't let my hands waver. "It's something I need to do myself. If I'm really going to be working with you guys, I can't keep treating your teammates like they're going to bite me."
The way Taylor looked at me said her concerns ran deeper than that, but she didn't voice them. "You know that there's no going back from this, right?" she said instead, crossing her arms. "You can still pull back. We might even be able to handle the rest of your idea ourselves, or something close to it. Maybe not the unmasking, but stepping back from villainy; Lisa seemed open to that. You don't have to associate yourself with us in a big public announcement."
My breath caught in my throat. Was this where she told me I'd failed to convince her; that she and Lisa weren't willing to unmask? What then? Would she make me leave? Kick me out when I had no one left? Maybe Crystal could take me in. Last I'd heard she was living in the dorms, but I knew at the very least she wasn't at Sarah's house. She'd said she was late so–
"Tori!"
I flinched, and suddenly slammed back into my body; lungs burning, hands shaking. I let the air escape in a rush, and my head swam. My chest was heaving; sweat trickled down my face and strands of hair were plastered to my forehead. Taylor was standing in front of me, her brows furrowed and her lips pursed.
"Breathe. Slowly. That's it."
Habit kicked in, and I matched my breath to hers. In, and out. In, and out. The drumbeat of my heart slowly faded out of my ears. With its absence came a headache and a wave of dizziness, and I sank down to sit on the bed behind me.
Taylor crouched down to keep us at the same eye level.
"You okay?"
I nodded jerkily. I had no idea where that had come from, humiliating as it was to admit. I knew this was part of the recovery process. Knew that Taylor by this point would understand as much. But that didn't mean it hurt any less to suddenly be reduced to a shaking, helpless mess.
"S-sorry," I signed a minute or so later. "Anxiety."
She nodded slowly. "I can see that." She paused for another long moment, something subtle and complicated and unhappy happening to her mouth and the little muscles around her eyes. If she wasn't so close, I wouldn't have seen it at all. "If it's about the Undersiders–"
I shook my head quickly. "No. Not about them." I almost kept myself from saying anything further, but that tiny, barely noticeable worry on her face was too hard to ignore. "Was worried you'd say no. That you'd leave. Make me leave."
Meepy stilled from where she'd been climbing up my left shoulder. Taylor's face froze for a moment, then she slowly closed her eyes, looking tired and even more worried and – it was a guess, but a confident one – blaming herself somehow. Despite this whole plan and more than half her problems lately being my fault.
"Tori, no," she said, her voice tight. "I just… I wanted to be sure. For you to be sure about this."
My fists clenched. "No. That's not fair. Not fair to you. It isn't right for me to…" my words were failing me but I was so angry at myself, I couldn't let the subject drop here. "You have the right to choose for yourself what you do. If this plan, the unmasking and stuff – if it's too much for you… I can figure something out. It's your choice."
The words hurt. They throbbed like a migraine behind my eyes and sunk into my hands like acid. But I had to say them. We were codependent. Fuck, we were so far past codependent at this point it was laughable. But even so, I refused to make this choice for her, or pressure her into it.
I wouldn't be able to bear it if she hated me for it later
"No, that's not–" Taylor cut herself off and frowned. A light crinkle across her brow, her mouth still drawn into that tight, unhappy line that dipped down a little at one side. "I'm not going to throw you out, Tori. I said I wouldn't leave, and I meant it."
She closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I know I said I wasn't totally convinced at the meeting with the rest of the team earlier. And I meant it. You still need to sell me on unmasking, even if you're... right about the warlord stuff being non-viable, long-term. But giving you shelter, protecting you, keeping you safe; all that is bigger than arguments."
Her eyes opened again, and I saw that familiar fire behind them. Not quite safety, not quite violence. But protection all the same.
"You said it was accountability. About standing up for people, and doing what was right." She visibly clenched her hands. "I don't… have much experience in that. I tried to do what I thought was best as much as I could, even when all my options were bad ones. But never what I really wanted." Slowly, her fists relaxed, her hands opening again to show her palms. "I remember the arguments you laid out when you came up with this plan. They made sense. They still do. I…" she swallowed tightly.
"I trust you. When Dragon was on her way to take us out, I couldn't see a way out." Her eyes were sharp. Cold. Calculating. "She was coming in force. I thought we were done. But you, you found a way. By calling her directly, changing the rules. And it worked."
She slowly stood up, and offered me a hand. "So yeah, I'm in. One way or another."
I grinned, and let her pull me up. But I didn't stop there. I pulled her into a hug. "Thank you," I traced across her back. She was warm. Soft. But solid under my hands. A reassuring presence, a rock that I could cling to. I needed that. Now more than ever.
"Always," she breathed into my ear. She pulled back and gave me a long look. "I'll tell the rest of the team to arrange meetings, then. You good here?"
I nodded. I'd meant what I said earlier; this was something I wanted to do for myself. And not just to avoid any witnesses for my seemingly inevitable breakdowns.
"Alright then. I'll text you when we have something." With that, she headed for the door, closing it behind her with a soft click.
Now all that was left was me, and my ghosts.
For all that I'd bitched earlier, and for all that I hated doing it, it was easy to get lost in the process of folding and organizing clothes. It was mechanical and mindless, and it let my mind wander. That was part of why I'd hated it, once upon a time; I always circled back to it being a waste of time. But it let me gather my thoughts, now.
I'd only skimmed over the idea earlier, but the more I thought about my relationship with Taylor the more worried I became. Codependency was not a healthy basis for people to know one another, regardless of how romantic the stories made it out to be. It was dangerous. I'd taken entire courses on it, both in Parahumans 101 and in the Wards. It was why we were encouraged to see mental health professionals, to branch out in our connections in our cape lives. You couldn't stake all your emotional health on one person. Even if they could support the weight of your emotional labor – even if you supported them in turn; especially if they staked everything on you in return – it wasn't healthy.
I picked up a pile of folded shirts and made my way to the dresser, groaning as I opened it and found it full of old shirts, jackets and sweatpants. I'd need to clear all of this crap out first. I set the shirts back at the foot of the bed and got to work, pulling the old rumpled stuff out and flinging it all up towards my pillow. My mind kept working.
What if I was leaning too hard on Taylor? On Skitter? Would I even know? At this point, it was hard to name a single aspect of my life she wasn't intertwined with. She'd fed me, sheltered me, protected me, for weeks on end. She kept me safe from the Heroes, from Amy, from her own team. She listened to me. She cared when she didn't have to. She held me when I cried.
I knew what that looked like, from the outside.
How could I claim to be an independent hero when I was painted head to toe with Skitter's brush? And that was assuming I even got to try! Skitter had arranged for a field screening by a PRT psychologist, and they wouldn't just be looking for Master influences. Any kind of untoward relationship would be a warning sign. And this situation had more red flags than the Hindenburg. I wasn't being controlled by Regent, but I might fail the interview anyway just from how emotionally compromised I'd become.
I paused halfway through arranging the fresh shirts in the empty drawer, and couldn't hold back a bitter chuckle. Wouldn't that be perfectly ironic? The person who saved me, yet again being pointed at to claim I wasn't able to make my own choices. As if that attitude wasn't what had put me in this mess in the first place.
My laughter stopped dead when I picked up the next folded item, though. It was a white skirt. Nothing unusual, really. I'd bet I had another five just like it. But… it was the same color of white that Glory Girl used to wear. Hell, it was around the same length too.
Slowly I looked over the rest of the clothes. A denim jacket. Knee high boots. Camisoles. Skirts. Tank tops. Jumpers. Leggings. Crop tops. Frocks. Blouses. Skinny jeans. They all belonged to someone else. Someone who was comfortable showing skin. Someone who felt safe in her own body, and with other people seeing her. Had it really been only months since I'd worn any of this? It felt like years. Like I was looking at the clothes of a middle schooler. Tight and ill fitting and obnoxiously naive. Someone pretending to be older than they were without the slightest idea of what that meant.
I bit my lip, carefully folded up the clothes, placed them in the dresser and closed the drawer. Not slamming it took an effort of will. That was enough of that for one day. I wasn't… willing to deal with any of that right now. I still had all the clothes I'd been using for the last month. My baggy jeans and hoodies and ratty sneakers were safe, and perfectly sufficient for my needs. It was okay to take breaks, and come back when I was ready.
Meepy provided a welcome distraction, fluttering along my jaw long enough to get my attention before settling in my open palm.
"Meet Alec tmrw, Brian and Aisha day after. Ok?"
It took a while for the morse code to come across her wingbeats, but I was in no hurry. When she finished, I swallowed. This was it. If I was really committing to this, I couldn't afford to treat Taylor's team like rabid animals to avoid at all costs.
"Yes."
Fifteen hours later, I found myself in unfamiliar territory, southeast of Downtown, in the shantytown near the beaches where Regent was set up. It turned out it was easy to feel optimistic talking to Taylor in the comfort of my room, old clothes or no. Staring at the door to Alec's lair was another story entirely. I'd touched down several minutes ago, and I had yet to knock.
A good portion of my hesitance was fear. I didn't like admitting it, but I did, if only to myself. My hackles had risen as soon as I'd seen the bottom floor. A small store that likely sold clothing or handbags before Leviathan. I said likely, because very little of the decor remained. Washed out with the tide, no doubt.
Washed out and replaced. Where shelves and stands and window displays once stood, now there were sculptures of glittering glass. Some were humanoid statues, others were more abstract, but every one was made of thousands of pieces of broken glass, interlocked and set together like three-dimensional jigsaws. A deliberate showing of Regent's control over Shatterbird. Past tense, now. I wondered how long it would take for someone to smash them to pieces. That it hadn't happened already said a lot about the control he had over his territory. Or the fear he commanded.
A wave of goosebumps crawled over my arms and up the back of my neck. I was stalling. No one else was here to push me forward. Not Skitter. Not even Meepy. I was outside of her range. Taylor had asked me if I was sure I wanted to go alone this morning, while I was getting ready to leave. My words had caught in my throat, and I'd given her a hesitant smile. If she'd had any reservations, she hadn't voiced them before I'd left.
I clenched my fists, closed my eyes, and counted to seven. I breathed, in and out. Inch by inch, I felt the tension leave my frame. I was okay. I was here of my own free will. Regent–Alec–wouldn't control me like... she had. And even if he did, Skitter would save me. Neither of us had said anything, but there was an unspoken agreement that if I failed to return by nightfall, she'd come looking for me with an army. Or if I came back and didn't address her with the name-sign I'd given her, or didn't know Meepy's name, or any one of a hundred other warning signs.
I finished my fourth count of seven, finished exhaling and opened my eyes, forcing myself to ignore the glittering sculptures. The door to the shop apartment loomed in front of me. The final barrier. The last thing stopping me from–
I knocked three times, wincing at the smarting on my knuckles – it was a lot harder to judge force now – and waited.
The door opened to reveal a man in his mid thirties, with brown hair, loose jeans and a rumpled button-up shirt that had the top two buttons undone. He looked at me for a moment, then tilted his head.
"Finally decided to show up, huh?"
I froze. This… this was Alec talking, right now. I didn't have any proof, but I knew in my bones it was him. I bit my bottom lip hard enough to hurt, almost hard enough to draw blood. I'd known about this going in. Known what I was getting into. But to have it slap me across the face like this–
I nodded tightly.
The man–Alec–grinned. "Well don't stay outside on my account," he said, turning to amble back inside and gesturing for me to follow him.
I didn't let my feet touch the ground.
Alec was sitting on a couch on the upper landing. There were other people around, no doubt puppets as well, but I couldn't focus on them. He filled my vision.
He was relaxed. That was what struck me first. His shirt was half-open, showing pale white skin and stark collarbones. Good genes. His black hair was effortlessly tousled in a way I knew took a lot of work to maintain, and his jeans were well fitted, showing off his legs nicely as he leaned back and propped up one foot on the table in front of him. His scepter dangled lazily from one of his hands, and his smirk grew wider as his eyes met mine.
I wanted to hit him.
"There you are," he said. The voice was different but the drawl was the same as the man who'd now taken up station behind his couch, confirming my guess. "I thought you'd spend all day in front of that door."
I dug into my pockets and pulled out my notepad and pen. I'd remembered that much this time.
"Alec"
"That's my name, don't wear it out." He twirled his scepter once. "So what brings you here? Your…" he paused. "...warden, didn't make it sound like a social call. Actually, she didn't seem keen on you being here on your own at all. Hey, how hard did you have to argue to ditch the chaperone?"
I ground my teeth. The words were jibing, and I knew he was trying to rile me up, put me off balance. But at the same time they were so flat. He was provoking me, but he didn't seem to care. There was a surface layer of interest in needling me to see if I'd make a mistake, but beyond that he seemed... apathetic. Like I was just one of the statues downstairs, for all he cared about me.
Well, regardless of his level of investment, I wouldn't give him the satisfaction of rising to the bait. "I wanted to talk to you about the plan. Unmasking"
His shallow grin didn't twitch. "Don't see what we have to talk about, then. You and Taylor have it all figured out, yeah?"
I bristled, and made myself count to ten before I started writing again. I couldn't afford to break my pen or, more likely, tear the paper. "That's not fair, and you know it. If we do this, we're a team. This is big. Your opinion matters"
He let out a laugh. "I told you already, though. Back at the monument? I'm in this gig for the money. It's Lisa and Taylor that have all the fancy plans and higher ambitions and noble causes. I'm a simple man. As long as I've got my creature comforts, I'm content."
"It can't be that simple," I pressed. "You must have some concerns. Income? Safety? Family?"
Alec snorted as soon as he finished reading. "Ahhh, good one. Tell me, Glory, do I look like the kind of guy to go to Thanksgiving and cut the turkey with Ma and Pa? Hell, do any of us in the Undersiders seem like well-adjusted kids from decent families?"
My fingers twitched, and I glared at him.
"Nah," he said, yawning theatrically and reclining further back in his chair. "Nothing worth talking about there. Though I'll admit to being curious as to how you're planning on doing this."
I blinked. "Sorry?"
"You know," he said, gesturing vaguely at the space around us. "How you plan on framing all this as something the PRT could tolerate? We talking an afterschool special? Blog post? Radio talk show interview? All of the above?"
I felt like I was getting whiplash from the topic changes. But I kicked my brain back into gear. "Probably some pre-recorded message. Easier to personalize us, long enough to deliver a complex message, short enough to be repeated and cut easily." That's how Carol had preferred to do this kind of thing, anyways. We didn't have the ability to call a press release, but releasing an official statement would be almost as good.
Alec hummed. One of his… people came by to leave a glass of water on the table. They caught my eye, winked, and left. I shuddered.
"And what if this goes wrong?" he asked, drawing my attention back. "You gonna keep us safe from the real big bad villains out there? Plenty of people will be mad enough about Hijack to come looking for a fight."
I nodded. This much I'd agree was a legitimate issue, and one I was happy to address. "It's going to be difficult at first," I agreed. "In the first few weeks we might shift territories around, make sure we don't stay in one place too long. Imp and Skitter will be fine no matter what, and Lisa will be working on security and active screening of people in your holdings. I'd like to set up some kind of an emergency panic button between us all, so we can ring for help if something goes wrong." I paused. My hand was hurting like hell, and this was probably enough for the basics. "That's just the start, but does it answer some of your questions?"
Alec shrugged, glancing at his pocket when his phone buzzed, and then back at me. "Sure, I guess. Lisa and Taylor are good at sniffing out snitches, and it's not like anyone can keep track of Aisha for long."
There was something in his expression for a moment that felt deeper than the superficial mask. A kind of guarded not-quite-fondness? Or perhaps resigned amusement; I wasn't quite sure. And frankly, I wasn't about to ask. If there was something going on between him and Aisha, that was their business and I wasn't going to put a foot in it for fear of setting something off. Still, it was a little reassuring to see his apathy didn't extend to everything in his life. There was a person in there, somewhere under the jaded sarcasm and passive-aggressive comments.
"What about the PRT though?" he asked, snapping me back out of my thoughts. "Our champions of shitty justice. What's to stop them from just taking me in on the spot?"
"Well that'd be part of the deal we're working out. Suffice to say that they'll cooperate as long as we behave." I paused, and glanced at the obvious thralls all around us. "Which reminds me, what exactly has Hijack done that I might have to worry about?"
He paused, giving me a long look. "You sure you want to know? You can still pretend that Hijack is a different person. Less complicated that way. I know half the team tries not to think about it."
I bristled at the emphasis he put on 'complicated'. I knew I'd been hesitant to talk to Alec and Regent both until this point. For reasons that I still thought were valid, but they didn't matter now. It served neither of our purposes to dance around the point.
"If we're doing this, we're doing this together. I'm not going to ignore what you did, but I do want to hear why from you first."
Alec hummed for a moment before shrugging. "Not too much you'd need to worry about beyond the obvious. I controlled a lot of people and did a lot of shit people would be upset over. Difficult childhood and all that."
I bit my lip. He was being overly obtuse, possibly deliberately so. He was inviting me to pry deeper. Or perhaps daring me? His false facade was still up, but I was pretty sure this actually mattered to him, enough to prompt a reaction. Defensiveness, at least. And maybe shame?
"Like what things? Murder?" I knew it was tactless to ask so bluntly, but it was best to establish the worst case scenario and work backwards. I was willing to cooperate with Alec, but this meeting was about information gathering first.
He let out a short laugh. "Nah, not much of that. Once was enough for me."
My eyes sharpened. Fuck. "Once?"
His eyes narrowed, staring right back at me, and his knuckles tightened ever so slightly around his scepter. "You don't get on Bitch for hers, yeah?"
The statement hung in the air for a long moment. We both knew what he wasn't saying. Rachel had killed someone soon after her trigger. I'd known as much before the Undersiders, given that her identity was an open secret in the PRT. But there was also some confusion as to how involved that death was in her trigger.
Generally speaking, capes did get some leeway soon after discovering their powers. Part of me hated that fact. The idea that someone could be "special" enough that they could literally get away with murder. But I was also aware that most powers ranged from dangerous to outright lethal. Suddenly being handed a weapon during a moment where you might be traumatized and lashing out already...
I gave Alec a slow nod. That was his baggage to disclose. If he said it was the one time, and it was involved in his trigger, then I wouldn't press further. "Fine."
He rolled his eyes. "Glad I have your approval then." Before I could respond to that he kept going. "Other than that, most of what I did was use people to steal for me. You know what being homeless is like – oh wait, you don't."
I dug my fingers into my palms. I knew he was being deliberately antagonistic, though I wasn't sure why. But as much as I hated to admit it, he had a point. I'd had a home, loving or otherwise, my whole life. Carol might have been worried about budgeting, but I'd never had to wonder where my next meal was coming from.
With that said, "Stealing to get by is one thing, But what about the people you used to do it?" I gestured around us. "The people you used because you could?"
Alec shifted back in his chair. Somewhere further back in the apartment plates clattered against each other–someone else starting to make lunch?– but he didn't take his eyes off mine. "You know my power," he said, with a faint edge of scorn I thought was probably real. "It's not exactly PR friendly. I did what I had to. Hell, I sandbagged as Regent for months."
He waited for me to give a nod before he continued. "I won't pretend that I didn't take people for fun. I'm not some sort of hero, regardless of what you want the PRT to think at the end of this. But at least as far as Brockton, I didn't keep any civilians that didn't say yes."
I blinked. "And I'm supposed to believe that?"
Alec snorted. "You can believe whatever you want, princess. But you can always trust me to be lazy. I still have to sleep. Keeping unwilling people is a pain in the ass; the more of them there are, the bigger the pain it is. Unless there's villains we could use, and I hardly think you're getting upset over Shatterbird at this point, it does nothing but paint a big target on me and risk someone getting their hands on a kitchen knife every night. Why would I do that when I could pay people twenty bucks an hour instead? I'm not gonna pretend they love it, but if you're going to slap a criminal label on anyone paying people to do shitty jobs to make ends meet, you'll be arresting half the city. PRT included."
I paused. Huh. I'd never considered it like that. I still didn't entirely like it. But it was a far sight better than I'd expected. And it lined up with his own motivations. Far easier to pay people what was effectively small change to do what he wanted, and skip the flak that came with it. The PRT wouldn't see it that way without some convincing, but I could work with that, especially if a few of them came forward and testified to that effect with some kind of proof they were speaking for themselves. "And going forward?"
His eyes snapped back up to mine. There was something dangerous there. "Excuse me?"
I didn't flinch. "Going forward, what are you going to do? Hiring civilians is one thing. You might be able to do that if you're more transparent. But you couldn't use them in fights. And you definitely couldn't take villains anymore." I knew I was pushing things, but I had to lay out the expectations as clearly as I could. It wasn't even me making these rules, not really. It was just the limit to how far I could see the PRT willingly bending on the subject and not immediately calling our bluff.
"So you want me to handicap myself? To let go of my insurance and half my powerset?" Alec leaned forward, resting the scepter back in his lap. "You're asking a lot for someone who isn't even on the team."
My breath caught in my throat. I very carefully unclenched my fists, and lashed my aura even tighter to me than I usually did. I couldn't afford a loss of control here. Any sign of aggression would be catastrophic.
"No more than I'm asking Taylor to do by not swarming people. Or Rachel by not tearing people apart. We're in this together." I frowned. "Do you even want to play cape anymore? Why bother fighting at all, if all you care about is enjoying yourself? Find something legal you can do and do that. Give it some thought. There's got to be something. Helping people with nerve damage, maybe."
The silence held for a long moment, as Alec seemed to genuinely think about it. Then he scoffed, and shrugged.
"Yeah, sure. Alright. The power of friendship it is, then. I'll think about what I can use," he had his puppet wave an arm at me, "Hijacking powers for, legally. I'm sure there's tons of people who'd love to employ me." Another affected yawn. "Good luck or whatever, and let me know when it all goes wrong so I can say 'I told you so'. Was there anything else?"
I blinked. Was… was that it? Really? "You seriously don't have any objections beyond that?"
He gave me a long, pointed look, and grabbed the game controller on the table.
Apparently not.
"Hey barbie, you still kicking?"
I flinched, and barely held in a sigh. Another day, another part of the city, and another reminder that facing down the Undersiders alone hadn't gotten any easier. And it wasn't helped by Aisha popping into my awareness out of nowhere. At least this time I'd kept my response tamed. Mostly because I'd gotten Taylor to remind me before I came here that I might get startled by sudden movement or noises in Grue's base, without mentioning exactly why.
"Hi Aisha, Brian."
The girl across from me grinned and swung her legs, almost falling off the edge of the armrest she sat on. "Come on," she taunted. "Don't be boring! Have some fun!" Beside her, on the seat of the long black couch, her brother sat in full costume save the helmet, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees and watching me with a frown.
We were in the room above an old gym close to downtown. It had gone out of business a few weeks before the Leviathan attack, but that hadn't stopped the leader of the Undersiders from taking over the place.
I'd been surprised when I'd walked in, though. I wasn't sure what I'd expected from Grue's lair, but given his flat affect and short tone he hadn't struck me as the type invested in other people. Nonetheless, the gym was pristine by most standards these days. The entrance was open and inviting, with a receptionist at the main desk who (almost) looked happy to be there. They obviously hadn't hooked up any of the treadmills or electronic machines, but everything else looked usable. And a good portion of the mats had been laid out in an open area centered around a basic first aid station.
It hadn't gone unnoticed by the locals. The main floor was bustling with people. Some were working out, obviously, but just as many were talking, getting wounds taken care of or using the showers. Keeping a community center like this running took work. Even just passing through as the receptionist led me up to the second floor, I could tell that much.
"Aisha." Brian's words were quiet. Soft. But it was enough to snap the both of us out of our respective thoughts.
"Yeah yeah, don't get on my back, you know I had to do it to her."
"Did you really?" If his tone hadn't been so dead, I'd have said he was snapping at her. I'd known he and Aisha were siblings. I'd expected some ribbing there, but this was sad. It left me in the bizarre position of having to defend Imp of all people.
"It's fine. I'd been quiet for a bit. But I wanted to talk to the two of you." There. Nice and neutral, and it drew us back to the subject at hand.
Brian lifted his head to lock gazes with me for the first time. His brown eyes were bloodshot and dilated. I could see the circles under them even on his dark skin. His mouth was a tight line across his face, and I was willing to bet his skin was stretched tight over his knuckles under the leather gloves.
He was hanging by a thread.
"About what?"
I swallowed. I had to phrase this carefully. While I'd technically pitched this idea to them already, that attempt hadn't gone well. In fact, given that my first pitch had been interrupted by a punch to the face, it was probably best to start at the basics.
"Back at the park, I said you all should unmask. But I haven't had time to talk to the two of you about it since."
"Oh?" Brian sat up, scowling. "Finally decided it might be good to consult the leader on that?"
I kept my expression forcibly calm. Pause. Breathe in, breathe out. Focus. "I said I'd been busy and I meant it. I needed to talk to my own family and it went," my hand hurt, and I stretched it out surreptitiously, "poorly. But talking to all of you still matters. I don't want to guess at what concerns you have, or what you're willing to do. Which is why I'm here now."
"You had a whole speech about knowing better than us last time," Brian said. "Why should I trust anything you say now?" Aisha wasn't smiling. That more than anything else told me that I'd fucked up.
"Because I made a mistake." My throat was tight. "I wasn't treating everyone as an equal. I'm sorry. I'm here to do better. What problems do you have with my proposal, and what can I do to help?"
"It would help if we knew what you wanted in the first place, Barbie," Aisha snarked. She swayed back towards the couch side of her armrest and bumped her shoulder into Brian's. "As far as we know, your plan is to put our faces up on a billboard and paint a big bullseye around 'em for the Nazis."
That… was fair. Most of my explanation had been to Taylor and Lisa. And they'd evidently respected me enough not to go behind my back to try and explain things. Yeah, this was on me. I shook my hand out and started writing.
"The current plan is for the Undersiders to announce themselves as independent capes who got caught up with Coil by accident, without knowing his real plans. Unmask in the process to help your legitimacy and accountability, while holding the PRT to the same standards. How we do that varies but the biggest immediate concern would be keeping everyone safe."
There was a pause. Brian seemed to be considering as he rubbed the bridge of his nose, scowl fading. "And the PRT is just gonna go along with this? Why?"
My heart climbed a few inches higher in my throat, and I went through another seven count of breathing. Calm. Control. This wasn't a problem; I just had to treat them as equals. Especially given my earlier behavior. I owed them that much.
"You know what Amy did to me." It was a statement. But Brian still shook his head. Huh. I'd thought that was well known at this point. How out of the loop was he? His claims of being the 'leader' were looking flimsy, but... now wasn't the time to bring that up. Questions for later.
"She raped me." The words were sharp, hard on the page. The paper pressed inwards around firm lines. My hand didn't shake. My eyes were dry. "The PRT has supported her and the members of New Wave who support her by letting her go back to healing. If they don't back our story and do something about her, then Lisa spreads that info to the four winds. Protectorate recruitment goes through the floor, and they'll probably lose a lot of the capes they have now. Nobody feels comfortable with someone like that getting her hands on them, and if the PRT is hiding her, who knows what other predators in their ranks they're covering up?"
It was dirty. That we had to resort to this. That I was having to blackmail the PRT with my sister's crimes just to get them to do the right thing. That they were holding justice for what she'd done to me over my head and forcing me to jump through hoops to even acknowledge it had happened. That we had to bargain at all to get a group of kids a second chance, when I'd seen other local villains do far worse and be all but ignored by the authorities.
But if this was what it took to make the world a little bit better, then I'd do it.
Brian was looking down at the floor, fingers interlacing and clenching tightly. When he looked back up at me, there was something new in his eyes. "Yeah. Alright."
I nodded shortly. Thank god, he didn't seem interested in pursuing that topic any further. I was already out of energy and it wasn't even noon yet. "That still leaves any issues you'd have with unmasking, or what the Undersiders will do going forward."
"Big Bro got into this for the money, and me," Aisha said from my right, barely avoiding giving me a heart attack. "I'm in this for him, and it's fun."
I glanced at Brian, but he didn't say anything further. I was sure there was something unsaid here, but for the life of me I couldn't figure out what it was. "Do either of you have any skeletons in the closet that might pose a problem for this?"
Brian shrugged. "I was a bouncer for a while. Knocked some heads." He glanced at Aisha for a moment before adding, "That was about it."
I let out a short breath. Okay. That was one problem solved. "What about safety concerns? You have a lot of people here. You clearly put a lot of money into the gym. Is there any other place or people that might be in danger?" I was trying to be as delicate as I could here, but there were only so many ways to ask "how upset would you be with me if I got your family killed?" The answers were never good.
I knew from experience.
"No one worth caring about," Aisha said, throwing herself back onto the couch and leaning back against Brian. "Just the two of us, and this place."
Her words were deceptively light and easy, but something on her face told me I'd regret pushing this. I saw her brother lean ever so slightly into her, and something clicked. The gym. The people downstairs. The obvious care over a building in a comparative wasteland. None of it fit with the leader in front of me. He was despondent at best, borderline apathetic at worst. Not like Alec was. This spoke of trauma, and his symptoms didn't match the drive needed to care about small details and day-to-day management.
What, then? Was it Aisha stepping in for him? Maybe, but I wouldn't put it down as my first suspicion. She'd gone out of her way to sell herself as being in it for the chaos, and nothing I'd seen had contradicted that impression. I could see her taking charge of some of his workload, but her power made it difficult for her to delegate or run anything. Lisa then? Taylor? Some combination of the two? Something was off here.
I shook the thoughts away, all too aware of another headache coming on. I was getting distracted. Too lost in my head. Again. And there was no one to snap me out of it this time. I had to stay focused. "Okay, that's good to know. Safety would definitely be a concern we'd talk about. Constant watch on every base. Regular patrols and lookouts. A shared panic text alert. That kind of thing."
Brian glanced at his sister and nodded as he turned back to me. "Yeah, alright."
My head pounded, and I closed my eyes for a brief moment. When I opened them again the world seemed to swim. Yeah, okay, I was at my limit. "I'm sure we have more to talk about but I'm, just, not cut out for it right now. Head hurts. Can we cover the rest later? We can swap numbers and hash it out." It was okay to admit weakness here. It was fine. These were Taylor's teammates, if I could admit this to her, I could admit it to them.
Brian locked eyes with me, and there was a sad sympathy in his gaze. "Yeah, sure. Talk later."
I gave him a hesitant smile, handed him my phone long enough for him to send himself a text and started making my way back home.
A flight of midges latched onto me the moment I got back into Taylor's territory, and the wave of relief almost took me out of the sky. She didn't say anything–I was flying too fast for her bugs to risk that–but just knowing she was there spread warm contentment from my chest up my neck and down my arms.
She was waiting on the rooftop, as I knew she would be. She'd changed out of her costume into a faded red T-shirt and dark pants. Her curly hair stirred in the breeze–or, actually, knowing her, from all the bugs in it. I hid a tired grin behind my hand as I landed.
"So how'd it go?" she asked, walking up to greet me. A flight of mosquitoes brushed past my ears, even as a dragonfly hovered next to my nose for a moment before shooting off again. A butterfly flapped lazily over my knee before landing on my shoe, and Meepy settled gently on my forearm. I could only guess at what the senses of all the bugs were telling her, but it felt nice anyways. To know she was checking up on me. To know she cared.
"Good," I signed as I shot Meepy a fond smile. "Brian and Aisha were… strange?"
Taylor hummed as she turned to look out over the city. We had a vantage point fairly low down in the scale of downtown, but it still let us look out over a lot of the surrounding warehouses. If you strained yourself you could just barely make out the ocean from here.
"Brian has… a lot on his plate," she said eventually.
I nodded. That much had been obvious even to my untrained eye. "They weren't as closed off and weird as Alec was. And they agreed too. They seemed tentatively open, provided I give more details later." I winced as my head throbbed. "Had to leave early."
Taylor turned abruptly and focused on me. "What happened?"
I flushed red as I realized the implications of what I'd said. "No, nothing bad. My head was hurting and I thought I was spiraling. Said we'd get back to it later."
She relaxed, and the buzzing I hadn't even noticed starting up around us quieted again. Taylor couldn't afford to be too blatant with her swarm when she was out on the rooftop in her civvies – not that that would be a problem for too much longer if we really went through with this – but some reactions were entirely unconscious.
"Alright then." She paused, considering me. "You need more sleep. And water. You've been running yourself hard with planning and worrying these past few days. If you go get a meal and a shower now and then try to sleep through the afternoon, will you be good by tomorrow?"
I quirked an eyebrow at her and closed my eyes, feeling the weight of my body, the soreness, the aches and pains that had become background noise, the throbbing pain in my head. I weighed them as best I could, and nodded slowly. "Probably. Why?"
Taylor pursed her lips. "Because Lisa called me and mentioned that she wanted to come over to talk about rebranding."
I closed my eyes, and gripped the railing with my right hand. My thoughts moved sluggishly. Right. The rebranding. I didn't get to talk about that with Brian and Aisha, even though I'd meant to. Headache. Fuck. Okay, I could deal with that later. But Lisa had a point. While the Undersiders couldn't really pull off a full rebrand when they were unmasking, it would be good to change at least some of their aesthetics. Lisa probably already had some ideas about it.
"That sounds good," I signed as I opened my eyes again to meet curious hazel. "She's right. We do need to talk costumes."
Taylor nodded, but my thoughts were elsewhere. Because there was something I'd not considered in this. Or perhaps it was better to say I'd avoided thinking about it until now.
If Glory Girl was truly dead… I needed to choose who took her place.
But that could wait until tomorrow. For now, I was breathing in the ever so slightly salty air with Taylor on a sunny morning. And that was enough.
A/N:
God I'm so tired. I hate this chapter. Aleph hates this chapter. Hopefully y'all don't. Now if you'll excuse me, I'm gonna go pass out.
Today's rec is We All Fall Down by Slider. It's post-gm smugbug done right. It's hard and painful and tinged with regret in all the right ways. Read it. Or don't I'm not your mom.
- Pronouns
- Male
I don't hate this chapter. Nothing super exciting happens as it's mostly groundwork but those are damn near essential in every fic and the little tidbits we get of both characterization and direction are fun for anticipation.
Love/Hate the hints that Victoria isn't going to be able to communicate for much longer due to whatever issues Amy's patchwork did to her cerebellum and nerve endings. That's going to be ugly, and I wonder if Alec's ability to look at nerves is going to essential. Grue's copy ability might help too and Lisa would probably be the primary mouth piece for a while as she might be the only one that can grasp what she can say if she needs that help.
And Bitch will absolutely give her puppy therapy, and everything will be happy and awesome.
Please.
Love/Hate the hints that Victoria isn't going to be able to communicate for much longer due to whatever issues Amy's patchwork did to her cerebellum and nerve endings. That's going to be ugly, and I wonder if Alec's ability to look at nerves is going to essential. Grue's copy ability might help too and Lisa would probably be the primary mouth piece for a while as she might be the only one that can grasp what she can say if she needs that help.
And Bitch will absolutely give her puppy therapy, and everything will be happy and awesome.
Please.
esotericist
A Weary Hand
- Location
- Lacey, WA
that fic left me crying for a few hours when i found it the other week.
incredibly written. hurt tho. fortunately i have a spouse who hugs on request.
YuffieK
(Verified Ninja Princess)
Tori is actively suppressing her aura and forcefield. Powers want to be used and Fragile One is VERY big on the HALPING! meme. Pretty sure somethings going to explode at the worst possible moment because this is Worm and nobody can have nice things no matter how hard they try.
- Location
- A rock hurtling through space...
Might be that power phenomenon where being put in a situation where you can't use your power causes the power to adapt so you can use it again, like what happened in canon with Valefor?
Last edited:
nmWarden
Webcomic Glutton
- Location
- Texas
Ah, invisible trauma. The sort of thing that a lot of Worm villains acquire, in addition to their old baggage. You know, we never see Brian share Aisha's power in canon. It is a bit redundant with his darkness. But if he could get out of earshot of her while she stays in his darkness, then he might finally conjure up the will to let his walls down. Tears won't fix his problems, but they are a physical symptom of a complex problem.
Who am I kidding, he probably wouldn't get a useful form of her power... Hmm. He could use Bitch's power though. Lisa's would probably come with more severe headaches, without her control to clamp down on the power. He really doesn't get much synergy from the Undersiders, eh? Stuck with temporary allies and enemies to choose from.
I could make more parallels between Brian and Tori. The parallels aren't going to matter unless Brian choose to open up, or Tori learns what happened to him. Instead I'll remind everyone that someone who survived the battle was present and saw Brian's second trigger. Parian. She saw his monochrome Siberian clone, the healing, and so-on. And she has talked with Tori once before.
Parian creating a gift for Grue, a thank you and "hope you recover" object or clothing, would be marvelous. Particularly if Tori gets to retrieve and deliver it. All that has to happen is Parian seeing the Undersiders announcment and contacting Skitter's phone. Parian is quite unhappy, but this could help her move on from the horrors she saw too. Brocktonite pride, y'know?
On a completely different note… Aisha is torn between Brian, Alec, and cape stuff. Tori's mention of her sister's crime helps with NONE of those. What a shock, juicy gossip didn't improve her mood. Just news that validates Aisha and Brian's beliefs that The System is shitty. But. Together, they can realize that this is why Tori is still fighting for this. To do it right instead of beg for mercy, to rely on hopes. Use the stick and wave it around, instead of using carrots.
Lastly- is the implication that their dad works at the gym, but they are hiding the connection from the team? Their dad seemed to survive Aisha's trigger event attack. Bringing him back into the fold after Brian's incident could be canon.
Last edited:
Aminadab_Brulle
Decimus Computator
I mean, she knows about the Bonesaw torture and that one of Undersiders has second triggered, it's just the issue of combining those two facts.
You all have been very patient. So I'm proud to finally announce the fanart is done. Thank you so much to all of you who donated, and JadeDemilich who so graciously offered to pay for a second commission on top of the first. I'm really happy with how these came out, and I hope all of you are too. I'll post the two pieces below.
I almost forgot to credit the amazing casualCarnation who actually painted these two pieces. If you're interested in seeing more of her work (or perhaps commissioning something for yourselves), she can be found at art_by_thing on instagram.
I almost forgot to credit the amazing casualCarnation who actually painted these two pieces. If you're interested in seeing more of her work (or perhaps commissioning something for yourselves), she can be found at art_by_thing on instagram.
"You really aren't going to give up, are you?"
Binary 3.12
"Next time, I'm pulling the trigger."
Brightness 4.4