Archive of Our Own ^beta

The (man, murderer, thief who stole her family’s lives) is crumbled on the floor, limp, like a marionette doll with its strings cut. If Nova didn’t know better, she’d think him dead.

But that’s not what her power does.

She stoops low, ears still ringing. Pries the gun from his fingers carefully, flinching when he abruptly lets out a loud snore.

bang bang bang -

The warm metal, resting against her bare hands, makes Nova want to drop the weapon to the floor and stomp on it. Throw it far away. Drown it in the kitchen sink, let it never be seen again.

She knows better, though. She needs to keep it away from him. Needs to make sure the vile weapon doesn’t misfire.

Needs a way to defend herself.

The gun, still warm from firing just (seconds, minutes, hours) prior, still warm with her mother’s blood and the man’s body heat, and Nova’s, too, shakes in tune with her trembling hands.

bang bang bang -

Nova is six years old, and she doesn’t know how to fire a gun. Doesn’t want to know. Just wants to run and hide somewhere, and cry, too, because all she feels is numb right now - detached.

Nonetheless, she slides her finger over the trigger. Draws a shaky breath. Tries to press down.

Can’t.

“Pull the trigger, Nova,” She whispers furiously to herself. “Pull the trigger.”

She tries again, but her finger freezes halfway.

“Pull the trigger.” She orders herself, demands of herself. Her finger does not obey.

“Pull the trigger!” She cries. It sounds loud to her ears; conspicuous. Nova, who has just lost her entire family, doesn’t realize that the gunshots would have been louder than any shout of hers.

If someone was coming, they would have already.

But everyone on this street knows to mind their own business.

By now, Nova is sobbing even as she repeats the words like a lifeline: “Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger. Pull the trigger.”

The room is empty. The words mean nothing, except to the small girl standing over the body of her family’s murderer.

“Pull the trigger.”

That’s how her uncle finds her.

_

“Nova?”

The word shatters the silence to pieces. The three words - pull the trigger - have devolved into nothing but incomprehensible murmurs, distinguishable to no one but Nova. Maybe they’re not even spoken any longer. Maybe they’re just in her head, a constant rhythm on repeat, working in harmony with the sounds of gunshots Nova hears every time she closes her eyes.

“Nova...your parents...your sister…”

At the time, Nova is a child, still grieving, still in shock. She doesn’t see anything wrong with the absence of grief, or the lack of surprise in Uncle Alec’s eyes.

Only pity. Perhaps, regret.

“I’d always thought you might be one of us, but your father wouldn’t tell me what it was you could do…”

Perhaps, if Nova had been older, if she wasn’t still barely keeping the sound of gunshots from invading her head, she would have seen something wrong with the fact that Uncle Alec focuses on her abilities, rather than his brother’s death.

But as it is…
“Uncle Alec,” She wails, throwing herself toward him and burying her face in his chest. He’s wearing a helmet, but Nova can still see those familiar eyes - so like her Papa’s - and she clings to the sight just as she clings to the man who once called himself Alec Artino. “He shot them...he...he killed…”

He wraps his arms around her, and Nova can feel his heartbeat - warm, steady. For a moment, she can imagine it is her Papa there, instead, comforting her after a nightmare.

“I know.” He murmurs into her hair. “I know, sweet, dangerous child. But you’re safe now. I’ll protect you.”

Nova barely hears him. The gunshots have grown closer, battering against the feeble barriers she’s erected to keep them out.

“But you can’t call me Alec anymore, not out there.” He continues, his voice still calming, soothing, keeping her from falling apart. “All right, my little nightmare?” He smooths down her hair again. Nova can barely keep from sobbing. Her hands clench around the fabric of his shirt in a white-knuckled grip.

“To the rest of the world, I’m Ace. You understand? Uncle Ace.”

But she isn’t listening. And maybe he knows that.

Amidst her cries, Ace Anarchy raises the gun, points it at the sleeping man, and pulls the trigger.

_

“This is Nova.”

Uncle Ace says it immediately upon entering the tall, scary building that Nova doesn’t know. He says it like an order, not an introduction.

This is Nova.

“My niece.” He continues. “She’s a prodigy. Her family is dead, most likely killed by a gang.”

Nova stifles a sob at the reminder. Hides farther behind her uncle, where the room full of strange, oddly-dressed people feels less scary.

“Your...niece.”

This comes from a woman dressed elaborately, someone her mama would have called “vain” once upon a time - curls piled atop her head, heels shielding her feet, necklaces draped over a sparkling gold dress. Several bees buzz around her head, and upon noticing them, Nova tries to shrink back even farther, only to have Ace’s hand, resting on her shoulder, stop her.

“Yes. My niece.”

“Uncle...Ace.” Nova remembers the “new” name at the last moment. Her voice is barely a whisper. She clutches Dolly Bear, who Uncle Ace had scooped up along with most of her clothes to take with them, tightly by one ragged arm. “Who is she?”

“This is Honey.” Ace tells her. “Sometimes, people call her Queen Bee.”

“You can call me Honey, though, sweetie.” Honey smiles brightly, the suspicion that plagued her earlier all but gone, or hidden. Honey seems like someone who is very good at faking things. “And may I call you Nova?”

Nova nods, almost imperceptibly, and wishes all these people weren’t staring at her like she’s some puzzle they have to figure out.

“It has been a very hard day for Nova.” Ace raises his voice slightly as he notices Nova’s uncomfortable, almost nervous shifting. “I’m going to take her up to her bedroom and get her settled in, understand? We will introduce the rest of you at a later time.”

Murmured agreements. Ace gently steers her from the front room and toward a small side hallway, and Nova lets him, feeling numb and disconnected from the world.

_

Nova can’t sleep.

She lies in the - admittedly, luxurious - bed, staring at the ceiling, alone with her thoughts. Her feet are cold. She curls her toes beneath the blanket, but the action does not warm them.

Nova can’t sleep.

Nova can’t sleep, because whenever she closes her eyes, the gunshots come back, ricocheting to and fro within her skull. Nova can’t sleep, because when she closes her eyes, all she can hear is Evie’s screaming -

Nova can’t sleep. It’s not even nighttime, although she doubts Uncle Ace cares. She doesn’t either, really. All she wants right now is to sink into oblivion, away from everything, away from reality, but she can’t s l e e p.

She wants her Uncle to come back, but earlier, she told him to go away, that she didn’t want him, she wanted her papa -

And he left.

And Nova can’t sleep.

She wonders what time it is. Maybe twelve in the afternoon? Lunchtime, although Nova isn’t hungry.

“I will be back soon, little nightmare.” Her uncle told her earlier. Thirty minutes? An hour? Two?

He’s not back.

Nova told him she didn’t want him. Now, alone, six years old and frightened, she wonders if Uncle Alec-Ace will give her up.

She doesn’t want to be given up. He’s all she has, now.

Nova tries to sleep, but all she hears is gunshots.

_

It’s dinnertime. Nova’s eyes are red and puffy from crying. As Uncle Ace steers her into an opulent dining room, she feels like crying more, but she doesn’t.

Instead, she straightens her spine and follows Uncle Ace to the seat he pulls out for her. Sits down. Twists her fingers together, nervously.

Ace is to her right, but he’s not looking at her - instead, he’s focusing his attention on a man with a bloated head, who seems to answer all of Ace’s questions without Nova’s uncle ever voicing a word.

A mind reader, then. Nova’s heard of them, both on the news and in bedtime stories. They’ve always scared her.

On her other side - to the left - is a man with scars all over his face, missing both of his eyebrows and a good chunk of his nose. He, too, frightens Nova. She attempts to sink into the folds of the chair, wishes he wouldn’t look at her.

She doesn’t want anybody to look at her.

“Hey - hey, Nova.”

Nova, reluctantly, turns to face him - a habit ingrained from the long lessons on manners her mother gave her that Nova, who lived in a world ruled by chaos, would never need.

“I’m Leroy.”

“I’m Nova.” She whispers. Leroy already knows that, of course, but she doesn’t know what else to say.

“It’s nice to meet you, Nova.” He says.

Nova almost smiles. Then she remembers why she’s here, and the smile falls right from her lips, shattering into pieces that nobody can see but her.

_

It’s clear right from the start that Ace Anarchy doesn’t know how to take care of children.

He leaves Nova alone at the wrong moments, comes closer when she wishes he wouldn’t. Doesn’t tell her bedtime stories. Doesn’t comfort her. Doesn’t do - well, anything, really.

Oh, he tries. But Ace is a revolutionary more than he is Nova’s uncle, and he’s often gone, busy with planning, organizing attacks. Busy cataloging possessions given to him in tribute; war prizes for a war within the shadows. Busy speaking of a glorious future to new recruits - a future where it is prodigies on top, always, never again to be shunned or hunted.

Ace Anarchy might be capable of setting the world aflame with little more than words, but he’s not fit to take care of a grieving six-year-old girl.

Instead, the task falls to his Anarchists.

Most commonly, it’s Leroy Flinn (or “Cyanide”, as she’s heard others refer to him) who does the most for her. Despite Nova’s initial impression of him, he’s quite gentle, if awkward at times. He’s the one to tuck Dolly Bear in at night - Dolly Bear only, because, it seems, Nova’s inability to sleep is not a temporary thing. When that discovery is made, it is Leroy to simply say, “Well, that’s interesting, Nova.”, instantly soothing her by just not questioning.

(Gunshots in her head)

But it’s not just Leroy. There’s Honey Harper, too, who fusses over Nova’s appearance with an intensity that can be scary sometimes, but also calming. Honey takes the time to braid Nova’s hair each morning and wash her clothes - possibly the only thing that stops Nova from becoming a wild, unkempt child, wandering with torn sweaters and tangled hair.

Ingrid (Detonator) quickly becomes the sarcastic Aunt. Honey, the doting mother. Leroy, the father-figure Nova no longer has. Winston Pratt (Puppeteer) the childish and immature but consistent play-mate.

And then - Ace.

Her uncle.

_

“You’re like the Renegades,” Nova tells him one night, on the rare occasion that he actually comes to her with some idea of “bonding” that always just ends with silence.

Ace Anarchy, revolutionist, villain, and uncle, stills. “What?” He asks her. His voice is dangerous.

Nova doesn’t notice.

“You have costumes.” She says. “And you save people. Only, you do it for real.”

Ace raises an eyebrow, prompting her to continue.

“You saved me.” Nova says, changing everything. “They didn’t. They didn’t come.”

“You’re better than them.” Nova says.

“You’re a hero.” Nova says.

Ace Anarchy places an arm around his niece’s shoulder, and Nova leans into him, oblivious to any thoughts he has of future uses for the Anarchist’s newest member.

_

“I don’t know how to talk to him.” Nova admits to Leroy. He’s not so scary, anymore - Nova has learned there are scarier.

Like Phobia, always in black, drifting through the cathedral like a wraith. Whenever Nova is near him, the gunshots explode. So, Nova makes a point not to be near him.

“Talk to who?” Leroy asks, already knowing the answer. He’s sitting across from Nova at the now-empty dining table that also serves as a place of strategy and counsel three times a week.

“Uncle Ace.” Nova says miserably.

Leroy has nothing to say. He, also, does not know how to talk to Ace Anarchy. Ace is a master of manipulation, greatly charismatic, and a ruthless but effective leader...but Leroy’s not sure anybody’s ever talked to him.

He’s lying and feeling terribly guilty about that fact when he says, “Try to find something you have in common.”

Nova nods. Her mother had told her that, too, once upon a time. “Okay.”

_

It works.

As it turns out, all Nova needs to do to get in her uncle’s good books is to curse the Renegades.

Their name. Their costumes. Their so-called “heroism”.

“I hate them.” Nova hisses. “I hate them, I hate them, I hate them. They let everybody down. They’re liars.”

Ace smiles down at her, the expression somehow twisted on his face, as if he isn’t used to it. “How would you like to share that with the world?”

_

Nova doesn’t sleep.

Instead, at night, she joins her uncle at the dining table, where he explains plans to her in a simple, broken-down way that she can understand. Well, her and Dolly Bear - as if Nova would leave her precious bear alone without her.

He goes over maps and alliances, lists of prodigies, lists of gangs.

One night, his finger pauses over the inked word ROACHES. He picks up a pen, and, with a small, triumphant smirk in her direction, crosses it out with one vicious slash of his hand.

“I traced your family’s killer back to them.” He explains to her. Even now, the words “family” and “kill” together in the same sentence have Nova freezing. “And do you know what, my sweet little nightmare?”

“What?”

Ace runs his fingers through her hair. “They’re all gone now.”

_

Nova’s life with her uncle and the Anarchists blurs together in her mind.

It’s often the same routine each day. In the mornings, eat breakfast, alone. During the hours from 9 to 12, wander, or practice reading. At lunch, eat with Leroy or Honey, where they make meaningless small talk with each other or with her.

At dinner, she eats with the entirety of the Anarchist “inner circle”, attempting to shrink away from the gazes of the scarier attendees, like Phobia and Atomic Brain. She doesn’t even know their real names - only what they do.

Especially what Phobia can do.

Nova has since been moved down from Uncle Ace’s side. She understands, of course. She has to understand.

(He tells her that he knows she understands, and so she understands)

Dinner is a time of planning. The most valued advisors sit near Ace.

Nova is six, and hardly an expert on the silent war being waged outside the opulent hall her uncle has practically barricaded her within. She isn’t much of an advisor, and so she sits nearer to the end, by Winston Pratt.

And three times a week, counsel is held by Ace in that same dining room.

“We’ve won, dearest.” He tells her, when she asks. “But even winners can lose again, hmm?”

Later, when the Renegades rule, it is advice she holds close to her heart.

_

“Uncle Alec.” Nova peers around the doorway of his ‘office’. Of course, Ace Anarchy would never deign to call it something so mundane, so it’s referred to as his planning room, instead - a small space with a single mahogany desk, overflowing with correspondence, maps, and hastily scribbled notes.

“Ace.” The man corrects absently. He’s not wearing his helmet - one of the rare times he doesn’t, in fact. Most of the time Nova sees him, his face is shielded by that coppery material that reminds her so much of her father.

“Uncle Ace.” Nova amends. She shifts, full of nervous energy, and says nothing.

It’s nearly one in the morning. For a normal child, this would be far past bedtime.

But Nova doesn’t sleep.

A minute passes. Two.

Then: “Little nightmare, if you’re going to say something, say it. I won’t be mad.”

Nova, who has seen Ace spitting red-faced at posters of the Renegades, sincerely doubts that.

(I want to be a superhero too.)

The words catch on her tongue. Nova swallows, and turns away.

_

It is a month after Nova first came to live with the Anarchists, and she’s turning seven.

She tells her uncle this, not quite sure what she expects. Her parents would always attempt to scourge up a new doll or a pack of fruit gummies, but Ace is unpredictable. Not, despite his appearance, very like his brother at all.

What she doesn’t expect is this:

“Nova, do you want to hear a story?”

Nova nods. Ace nods, too, sharply.

They settle on Nova’s bed together, Ace near the end, Nova curled up by the pillows.

“Once upon a time,” Ace begins, “There was a group of idealistic young people. Do you know what idealistic means, little nightmare?”

Nova’s head bobs up and down. She doesn’t, but she wants to impress him, and Uncle Ace doesn’t seem to see through the lie.

“Well, there was a group of idealistic young people, and they were hunted, and shunned, and unwanted…”

Later, Honey Harper gives Nova a new coat, and Leroy places a handmade wooden bird in her hand. She puts the bird on her nightstand and wraps the coat around her shoulders, but the gift she values most is her uncle’s story.

_

It’s been four months since Nova first arrived to live with the Anarchists when Ace leaves her.

He leaves her in the catacombs beneath the cathedral, along with a backpack packed with food, water, and two blankets. When Nova realizes what he’s going to do, she screams.

She runs forward and wraps her fingers around his wrist in an attempt to stop him, tears already coming hard and fast.

He can’t leave her. He can't, everybody always leaves her -

“Uncle Ace!” She wails, holding on as tight as she can. Her fingernails, blunt and filed off by Honey, still manage to dig crescents into his skin from how hard she's clinging to him. “No, no, no -”

Gently, he pries her off. Smiles reassuringly.

“Shhhh,” He whispers, taking the time to calm her even though he’s clearly in a hurry. Upstairs, shouts and shrieks permeate the air. The ceiling shakes ominously, bits of concrete flaking off to create dust. “Shhh, little nightmare, don’t cry - I’ll come back for you.”

Nova wipes her tears away. Demands, “When?”

“Soon,” He promises her, and he walks away, leaving Nova behind him.

_

“Where’s Uncle Ace?”

It is two weeks later, and Nova has finally scrounged up the courage to ask. She and Leroy sit within her train car in the subway tunnels - she at the head of the sleeping bag, him at the end.

It reminds her of her uncle’s story.

Leroy shifts. Looks down, away from her. “Nova, your uncle’s gone away for a while.”

“No, he hasn’t.” Nova protests. “He said he’d come back, and he always comes back. So why isn’t he here?”

“He’s…at a better place now.” Says Leroy, the words clearly foreign on his tongue. He’s repeating the same words he himself heard as a child, when his mother told him, amid her tears, that “Nana’s gone now.”

It’s clear that he doesn’t believe them.

“Without me?” Nova hisses. “He said he’d come back! He promised!”

“He’s with your parents, now, Nova.” Says Leroy, “And your sister. And you know what? One day, you’ll get to see him again…”

“My parents are dead.” The words fall like the execution orders Ace was so fond of giving, heavy and final. Nova’s bottom lip trembles.

She isn’t stupid. She knows what Leroy’s trying and failing to say gently.

She wipes fiercely at the tears pooling in her eyes, because little nightmares don’t cry.