Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

Duck was winning – for once. 

Oh, who was he kidding? Of course he was winning. He just needed to play to his strengths. And if those strengths happened to be convincing a hunk of muscle with no love for strategy but lots of love for spending time with his friends into playing chess with him, well, who were the others to judge?

“It’s alright Slam. Not everyone is born with a strong eye for battle strategy,” Duck said lazily, stretching his arms above his head . “You’re learning though! Keep at it and you might even beat me one day.”

Slam didn’t reply, rubbing the back of his head absently and mumbling to himself as he stared at the little black and white pieces. A gust of wind and Rev appeared abruptly behind Slam, hands behind his back and leaning intently over the gameboard. Duck recoiled, an undignified squawk catching in his throat. 

“Can I get a warning or do you like jumpscaring us? Jeez, we need to put a bell on you.”

Rev wasn’t listening. He hummed quietly under his breath and tapped his foot rapidly against the tile floor. Every tap lodged its way under Duck’s skin, pulling any focus he could give to his perfectly crafted chess strategy. If he were a less benevolent superhero, that roadrunner would be a feather duster by now.

After a moment (that felt like an eternity with how annoying those tapping sounds were), Rev plucked Slam’s queen off the board and slid it three spaces diagonally. The tapping escalated.

“Hmm, yeah. Checkmate,” Rev declared, darting away just as quickly as he had appeared. The breeze he created ruffled Duck’s feathers and knocked over one of his pawns. 

“Oh please,” Duck scoffed. “You think ten seconds is enough to topple my master plan? Think again, you –” 

But he was studying the board now, and the insult died in his throat. There was no way. Duck snatched his king, moving it forward, backward, side-to-side, diagonally… if Slam’s queen wasn’t in his way, it was his knight or one of his damn pawns.

He stood, shoving an accusatory finger toward Rev, who was now across the room watching Ace and Lexi play some co-op video game. “Cheater!”

Rev’s brow cocked. “That was a legal move – well as legal a move as you can make in a game simulating the horrors of war, right Tech?” 

Tech glanced up from whatever mechanical mumbo jumbo he was getting up to at the table, shook his head, and said nothing. Rev laughed.

“You’re not allowed to help him!” Duck gesticulated wildly to where Slam was seated behind him. “How is he going to learn if you keep babying him, huh? Ace, tell him!”

Ace didn’t look away from the TV when he replied. “All’s fair in love and chess, Duck.”

“Looks like Slam’s king has more allies than yours,” Rev quipped, grinning. 

Next to him, Ace groaned in frustration, dropping the game controller to the ground while Lexi shimmied her little happy dance. “I destroyed you! Three to nothing,” she jeered, nudging Ace playfully with her shoulder. Ace glanced ruefully up at Rev.

“I don’t suppose your ally powers extend to digital war, eh?”

Rev opened his mouth to respond when an electronic chime sounded at the conference table and the hologram of Zadavia flickered to life at its center. The hologram was a sight to behold every time, arching up several meters toward the ceiling. As far as Duck was concerned, it also didn’t hurt that Zadavia was stunning in this form: a behemoth with muted eyes and hair billowing around her as if she was underwater. 

A chess game seemed like such a juvenile thing to worry about, suddenly. Clearly there was superhero work to be had! Duck immediately quacked closer to her pixelated form, appearing in the chair across from Tech. “What’s happening, boss lady?”

“Oh good, you all are here,” Zadavia said easily, breezing past Duck entirely. The rest of the team wasted no time joining him and Tech at the table, Duck just hoped Zadavia took note that he was first. “The city needs your help again, I’m afraid. Rather, one of its more notable citizens does.”

Duck bristled. “One of its citizens? In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re superheroes, okay, not bodyguards?”

“And yet, this still falls perfectly in your jurisdiction,” Zadavia said, locking eyes with Duck at last. Her hologram form blurred her features and masked her expression, but even Duck couldn’t miss the way her lips pursed. He hoped he wasn’t in trouble again. The others were due for a good scolding.

“What’s the mission, Zadavia?” Ace asked, shoulders back, chin up. The mighty leader. Duck found it objectively funny that Ace was so committed to the serious action hero schtick when they were just hashing out the details of a mission at HQ. Who was the performance even for? 

Zadavia’s gaze paused on Ace for a moment before she continued. She conjured a photo of a middle aged woman with greying hair and kind eyes into the hologram beside her. “This is Chief Deborah Torres of the Acmetropolis Police Department, a key player in maintaining the safety of this city. And she’s missing.”

A murmur ran around the table. They all knew the implications of Zadavia’s tone. The circumstances that made her go “missing” likely weren’t good. 

“I’ve just received a ransom letter bargaining for her safe return,” Zadavia continued. “The contents are, unfortunately, rather… cryptic.”

Duck scoffed. “I wonder why.”

Cryptic was an understatement. It looked like a keyboard smash to Duck, a wall of random letters and numbers, and was probably the worst method of negotiation he had ever seen. One glance at the blank faces around the table at least confirmed he wasn’t crazy for not making sense of this mumbo jumbo. Tech and Rev were the only ones who seemed to make immediate sense of the numbers.

“This looks to be some sort of cipher,” Tech mused. His head cocked to the side, and Duck would have an easier time not making dog jokes around him if he didn’t look at numbers like dogs looked at a new toy.

Lexi scoffed. “There is no way Sypher has enough brain cells to pull off a kidnapping. That manchild could barely walk without someone holding his hand.”

“Um… no. I should have been more clear. The text in the lower portion of this letter is a cipher. It’s written in code. Either they anticipated the message would be intercepted or they refused to take any chances. Whatever it says, they’re not keen on it being public information. I should be able to decode it, but the text doesn’t appear to follow any classical cipher structures. I’ll have to adjust some of my existing code to run it, but it may take some time…”

Cipher, Sypher – whatever it was, they would handle it. Duck was more focused on the only legible text, that flickered and warped with the moving hologram. Thankfully everyone at the table who wasn’t a total geek seemed to be staring at it too.

Loonatics – How heroic are you really? One crime-fighting leader in exchange for another. I’ll be waiting where it all began. Come alone.

Ace’s eyes flash up from the text of the ransom note to Zadava’s face. The blue light from her hologram cast flickering shadows over his face, and Duck wasn’t sure he liked the expression he saw there. 

“Me?” Ace managed. He recovered quickly, seeming to realize that he was the obvious choice for a bad guy wanting to negotiate. He scanned the note again. “You know, if our friend here wanted a meeting, they could have just asked. I don’t bite.”

“I’m afraid there’s more,” Zadavia said flatly. “This was included with the note.” The text fell away and was replaced by an image taken from the Acme Times newspaper of Ace standing between the Chief Torres and the mayor in front of the city’s prison. The chief and mayor’s likenesses were untouched, but Ace’s face was almost unrecognizable, crudely scribbled out with red marker. Your move was written sloppily along the bottom of the photo. If Duck squinted, he could make out the faint lines of Ace’s smile underneath the red marks.

Oh hell no.

“I guess I can’t be surprised to see the guy doesn’t care for me much, eh?” Ace mused.

Duck was no stranger to goading Ace, to knocking him down a few pegs, but someone else? Someone who genuinely wanted to hurt him, whether that be a bad-faith reporter, supervillain, or wanna-be kidnapper with a letter fetish? That lit a fire in him that Ace’s snarky, goody-two-shoes persona never did. 

“Um, excuse me? You expect us to just go along with this? Send him into some psycho’s waiting hands? He’s the only one with the WIFI password! Surely there’s a better plan?”

Lexi gnawed the inside of her cheek, her nails drummed across the table. “I hate to say it, but Duck has a point. I don’t like this. Do we have any leads on who this cop-napper is?”

“Unsurprisingly, the signature is heavily encrypted,” Tech grumbled, projecting his computer screen with its own hologram for the whole team to see. Beside the letter and photo he had a program running and filling the screen with code. The fan inside the computer roared. “I’m running it now, but it could take days and there’s no guarantee it will yield any actually useful information.”

“Wow, your two slowest programs are the ones we actually need right now? Wonderful,” Duck grumbled. Tech growled. 

“I’ll do it.” 

Ace’s sudden input was so quiet, Duck thought he was hearing things. For a second, he thought he imagined it. Ace cleared his throat and spoke again, cautious but resolute. “I’m in, but we need a plan.”

 Zadavia offered him a tight-lipped smile. 

Reactions around the table, though, were varied. Slam let out a small grunt of objection. Tech would seem unbothered if not for the way he white-knuckled the gadget on the table. The table shook slightly as Rev bounced his knee rapidly underneath, his face falling. 

Lexi was the first to speak. “And what kind of plan would that be exactly? I don’t like any of this. It’s obviously a trap.”

“Well that depends on where this freakshow wants to meet,” Ace mused, lacing his fingers together on the tabletop. He smirked. “But either way, they don’t know who they’re trading for.”

Duck couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Are we actually considering this? Seriously?”

“I will communicate your intent to the authorities and provide you with updates as I receive them,” Zadavia continued. “And… do be careful. Zadavia out.” Her hologram flickered away, leaving the room darker and emptier. The room was silent except for the sound of Tech typing erratically, making some adjustment to his code and recompiling. 

But Duck wasn’t done. “Um, yeah, hi, hello. This plan better involve knocking down the door and kicking some villain butt, because Lexi has a point: this smells like a trap. Absolutely reeks of a trap. Lex, back me up here.”

Lexi stiffened. She turned to Ace then back to Duck then back to Ace again. “I’m not saying I like any of this, but if Ace says he can handle it, I trust him to handle it. We have until Tech’s algorithm finishes to come up with a plan, and once we have the location, we’ll scope it out.”

“It’s not like we can just leave the chief there, Duck,” Ace added drily. 

“That’s exactly what we could do!” Duck was well aware that he was speaking louder than was strictly necessary, but he was on a roll now. He got to his feet, slamming his palms down onto the table and leaning forward. “In fact I’d say that’s the best option. Step one: do nothing. Step two: get a new police chief. It’s foolproof!”

“Wow,” Ace deadpanned. “Next time we need to hunt for a mystery supervillain, we should just start right here.”

Duck stammered, trying to find a retort but came up empty. He was more passionate about saving this city than any of them – the glory was basically his only measure of self-worth. Who were these people? Self-preservation was not villainy .

He recoiled from the table like he’d been slapped. Five pairs of eyes stared back at him. Duck was no stranger to making an ass out of himself – it was basically a weekly tradition – but here the embarrassment felt so stark and… oddly personal? The one time he was trying to, completely seriously, do the right thing, and he was the butt of the joke again.

“Whatever,” Duck bit out. “Come find me when you all are done talking crazy.” He couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Pulse pounding in his ears, Duck strode into the hallway and shut the door behind him. 

The knock on Duck’s bedroom door came 20 minutes later – longer than Duck had expected, honestly. It was only a matter of time before one of them tried to lure him out with the promise of “respect” or “dessert.” 

A magazine was open on his lap. Supposedly there was an article that mentioned him, but the letters swam every time he looked down at the pages. He hadn’t read a single word. “It’s open.” 

The door slid open. Ace stepped through and shut the door behind him. 

“Ah, so you’re the one they sent to drag me back,” Duck mused, idly turning the page of his magazine. 

Ace’s expression shifted to something strange before he got control of it. “I came on my own.” 

“Mmhm. Sure.” Duck didn’t much care who they got to talk him down – there was rarely rhyme or reason to it, a roll of the dice every time – he was ready to hold the line this time. He didn’t become a superhero to watch bad guys from the sidelines when he could be kicking evil in its smug face. 

Ace sighed and leaned against the closed door, one foot propped up against it and arms crossed. He looked at Duck expectantly. “Care to explain what all that was about?”

“Oh don’t give me that look. You know I never realized it before, but the others must really hate you. None of them argued with you wanting to walk in who-knows-where completely blind when, for all we know, this psycho has an appetite for rabbit.” 

“Duck –”

“I mean it sucks to find out this way, but at least it’s out in the open now.”

“Du-u-uck,” Ace sing-songed, fighting a smile that was quickly overtaking his entire face. “I’m flattered you’re so concerned, but I’m a big boy. I’ll be fine.”

“I’m sorry, are you invincible and didn’t tell me?”

Ace chuckled, shaking his head. “You say that like we haven’t gotten out of tighter spots before. Besides, for all we know this really is just a hostage negotiation, and they’re tryin’ to get in our heads. Don’t let ‘em! I’ve been told I’m pretty good with words.”

He shot Duck a wink and Duck stared back. “Soooo, not invincible. Just cocky. Great.”

Ace’s smile faltered. “Oh come on, Duck…”

“‘Just a hostage negotiation.’ Are you listening to yourself?” It was Duck’s turn to laugh. He was fidgeting relentlessly with the magazine now, rolling it tightly like he was about to swat a fly. “I feel like I’m taking crazy pills here. Isn’t it, like, bad juju to negotiate with terrorists?”

Ace’s eyes narrowed. “And what?” His annoyance was building with Duck now, bordering on incredulous. “Risk the chief getting hurt? Or worse? I can’t have that on my head, you know that.”

“Eh, I don’t know. There’s plenty more where that came from,” Duck replied easily. “Plenty of those schmucks could be police chief, but we only have one bunny with laser eyes –”

Ace held a hand out in front of him, looking tired. Duck knew when he was being told to shut up, and it only made his temper flare. He got to his feet, leaving the magazine forgotten in the chair. 

“Duck, I’m going. You have to trust me. If you can’t do that, trust the rest of them.” Ace jabbed a thumb over his shoulder at the door. “Cuz it’s not like I’m going anywhere without doing some recon.”

 He sighed, peeling himself away from the door and placing a hand on Duck’s shoulder. His hand was warm and firm and Duck wanted to trust him like Lexi did. Wanted to believe like the others seemed to that if Ace was in charge they had already won. But Duck messed up enough to know that it could happen anytime, and this situation was too sketchy to risk messing up.

“Look,” Ace continued when Duck didn’t reply. “Get it together, okay? Take a walk. Drink some water. Come back when you’re ready.”

He dropped his hand and turned to reach for the door switch when Duck snatched his hand with his own. Ace stilled, looking down at their interlocked fingers and back at Duck. 

Ace’s eyes normally just looked blue, but this close, Duck could see the gold rings around his irises. The same color his eyes glowed when he used his power. Duck didn’t think it was related – he’d stared at his own eyes in the mirror and saw no orange flecks, so maybe Ace’s eyes were just like that.

Duck knew he must look absolutely insane, his eyes boring into Ace’s, willing him to understand everything he was leaving unsaid. They were so similar in their impulsivity, their inability to handle a serious situation like this. He begged Ace to understand him, to at least admit that Duck had a point. 

But Ace said nothing. He squeezed Duck’s hand once, hard, and left the room. 

Duck didn’t sleep well that night, which should have been a surprise to exactly no one. How could any of them sleep when their job security was on the line?

By midnight, Tech’s algorithm had somehow only run 30% of the possibilities. Tech hadn’t seemed surprised though, just hooked the computer to a power source and recommended that everyone get some sleep. They probably had a big day coming tomorrow.

Duck jerked awake to a pitch black sky and pain in his neck. The clock read 3:25 AM. At least he hadn’t slept with his neck contorted all night. 

He shuffled to a seated position, stretching his back at the edge of the bed. He really felt like an ass – more than usual. His sleep clouded brain told him he’d been out of line earlier, and it was probably right. Duck plucked his phone from the nightstand and rolled over, bringing up Ace’s contact to shoot him a late night im srry text before his pride caught up to him, when he noticed the small green icon next to Ace’s photo: Online

Of course that rabbit with a hero complex was awake. A rush of vindication rushed over Duck, and he kicked the blankets aside, stumbling out of bed into his slippers. Now that the others were asleep Ace was probably staring at his own ceiling thinking about how Duck was right all along. Perfect.

Still half asleep, Duck threw on an old sweatshirt over his pajama top and stepped out into the hallway in his slippers, suppressing a massive yawn. He walked on tip-toes toward Ace’s door, desperate not to wake any of the others. He just couldn’t deal with them right now.  

A faint clattering noise broke through the silence somewhere down the hall. Duck stopped dead in his tracks just a few steps away from Ace’s room and swiveled his head toward the noise. “What the…?”

He padded down the hall. The lights were off in the common area, a single water glass resting on the kitchen counter. He’d just peeked his head into the adjacent hallway when the noise sounded again, louder this time. Brash and metallic, like metal crunching and warping. Duck’s shoulders instantly relaxed when he heard it again, more rhythmic and predictable now. 

Someone was in the training room.

Duck followed the noise and punched his credentials into the door to Tech’s control pod for the training room. The control pod was the hub for the countless battle simulations Ace insisted on. Tech seemed to have a button for everything – they covered several panels surrounding a simple office chair. Screens with different settings and credentials lined one of the walls. 

Through the window on the other side of the controls, Ace stood brandishing his sword in the center of the dimly lit training room opposing the largest of Tech’s training robots. Duck watched the robot fire lasers that Ace easily deflected with the sword before it brought its boulder-sized fist up and brought it crashing into the space Ace had just been standing. Ace leapt out of the way, swinging from one of the rafters with his free hand and landing on the robot’s shoulders, his knees straddling the robot’s head where all its circuitry was housed. 

Behind him, a couple of the smaller, common robots rose from the floor, taking aim at his back. Without missing a beat, Ace pivoted on the larger robot, leaning his body back and sniping the two newcomers with his laser vision like he’d seen them coming. He returned his attention to the main opponent, lifted his sword. Eyes glowing gold with power, he plunged the blade into the socket joining the robot’s head and body.

The robot sparked, the lights on its body flickering out as it toppled to the floor. Ace rode it out, hopping off the hunk of metal once it had stopped moving and yanking the sword from its body. 

“There’s a better time for this surely,” Duck said finally through the intercom into the training room. 

Ace’s head jerked up, instantly meeting Duck’s eyes through the window.

“I couldn’t sleep.”

“You have a weird way of winding down for bed. I like to do some light reading myself, but whatever works for you.”

Ace ignored him. Duck punched a few buttons and the simulation melted away. Cameras strategically positioned to catch every angle on Tech’s monitors hung limp at their posts.

“Have you tried aromatherapy? I hear it works wonders. Lavender knocks you right out.”

Ace turned to restart the simulation from inside the training room, but Duck was faster. He teleported into the space between Ace and the control panel, slapping his hand away.

“Hey!” he protested.

“I don’t know what you think you’re doing, but if you keel over in the middle of hostage negotiations, you’ll make us all look bad.”

Ace tried to move around him, but Duck caught his arm, jerking him down into a kiss that was more tender than either of them felt at the moment. Ace inhaled sharply but relaxed into it instantly, body nearly going limp in Duck’s hands.

It hadn’t started this way between them. Duck still didn’t even know what this was. Until a month ago, Duck would have put good money on Ace not liking him at all

Ace groaned when they parted. “The cameras…”

“They’re off. Do you think I’m stupid?” 

Ace didn’t even look at the cameras to check, just rested his forehead against Duck’s shoulder and exhaled.

Since this… fling of theirs had started a month ago, Ace had been weirdly insistent that whatever this was stay between them, stay their business. Duck tried not to take it personally that the guy who greeted most situations with a shrug and a joke had suddenly discovered anxiety over this .

After a long moment, Ace stepped away and produced a microfiber cloth from his pocket. He spun his sword’s leather-clad hilt in his palm with more flourish than Duck knew was necessary, and the blade extended with a metallic shhhhk. Duck watched Ace methodically run the cloth over the blade, removing any imperfections – not that Duck had noticed any to begin with. 

Ace shook his head and finally met Duck’s eyes, seeming to return to himself after who knows how long training.

“It’s not… Look, I’m sorry. I wasn’t fair to you today. I know that. It’s just…” He paused, glancing down at his face reflected in the blade. “I’m not good at this part – balancing what’s best for the team, for the planet, for me.”

The sword’s blade retracted back into its hilt, and Ace looked up at Duck warily. What he saw must not have been completely reassuring, because he just groaned and clipped the sword back onto his belt. 

What did Ace expect though? He’d talked about ‘responsibility’ before, lounging on Duck’s floor with his feet propped up against the bed long after the others had gone to bed, but that didn’t mean it made sense to Duck. Nearly every mission the Loonatics had taken on was proof that Ace’s intuition was good – great even. Ace only got so much freedom to doubt his leadership when all of the evidence pointed to the contrary.

Duck, on the other hand, had learned a long time ago that self-doubt was a waste of time. Mistakes were inevitable. If he waited for validation to feel good about himself, he would still be waiting. If he didn’t stick up for himself, who was going to?

Ace narrowed his eyes. “I can’t make selfish decisions here, Duck.”

“Sure you can. I do it all the time.”

Ace’s face softened. He laughed a little, the sound punched out of him, and rubbed his face. 

Something fluttered in Duck’s chest. “I know, I know, you’re the noble and brave action hero we need but don’t deserve. I get it. You know that we don’t have to play by their rules though, right? Just let me come with you.”

The solution was so obvious to Duck. Supervillains didn’t play nice, so why should they? Damn Ace and his damn stubborn, selfless, heroic, charming schtick.

Ace cocked his head and gave Duck a pointed look, smirking. “I’m not more worth saving than anyone else in this city, Duck. Surely the ‘world’s greatest action hero’ should know that?”

A frustrated groan ripped from Duck’s throat. “Well this ‘world’s best action hero’ doesn’t care if you’re not around to see it, okay? I don’t want you to go, that’s gotta count for something, right?”

Ace reached out and took his hand, squeezing it as tight as he had that afternoon in Duck’s room. “It does. Believe it or not, I’m not doing this to spite you.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” Duck grumbled.

“Hey – I know you’re trying to look out for me, but I can handle myself.” Ace rubbed the back of Duck’s hand with his thumb, and Duck realized, annoyed, that it was actually calming him down. “Please support me in this. Although… If you can’t, I do outrank you. What I say goes, remember?”

Ace winked at him, laughing when Duck rolled his eyes. 

“Whatever,” Duck lamented. “Just… Promise me you won’t do anything completely stupid.”

For the first time that day, Ace’s grin was completely genuine. It could split his face. The prideful side of Duck wanted to still be angry, to push harder, but he couldn’t bring himself to worry with Ace so sure… even if Duck suspected that surety was born from stupidity. 

“Oh where’s the fun in that?” Ace asked, wagging his eyebrows. “That’s how I roll.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Duck said, pulling Ace toward the door. “Let’s get you to bed. I don’t want to have to come save you tomorrow because you were too tired to do your job.”

Chapter Text

“Alright gang, here’s the plan.” 

Ace unfurled a large sheet of heavy, blue paper on the meeting table. The precisely drawn lines on the graph paper depicted every inch of the sprawling warehouse as it had been built hundreds of years ago. 

In the end, the length of the encrypted text had likely been another layer of security. Coordinates would have done the job just fine, but instead they’d been given the full building name and legal address alongside the coordinates. Whatever. At least they were sure.

The meeting location was over 300 years old according to these blueprints, with a sizable lobby, wide-open floor, and a collection of offices nestled toward the back. It looked like every other industrial concrete box to Duck. Nothing about it screamed that this was a prime location to host superhero ransom talks. 

“I didn’t even know they still made physical blueprints,” Tech said, leaning over the table to get a better look. 

Ace shrugged. “I don’t know that they do, but these were easy enough to get. The building was condemned a couple years back after a certain meteor strike made the land around it unstable. I guess they had this out as reference for the structural integrity.”

For half a second, Duck wondered, What meteor?

I’ll be waiting where it all began.

Oh. 

Nice. Subtle. 

Lexi arched an eyebrow. “Oh so out of all the buildings in the city, our bad guys just happened to choose one with easily accessible plans? Seems a little convenient.”

Ace clearly thought the same. He chewed the inside of his cheek thoughtfully. “Very convenient, which is why we’re not ruling out the possibility of a trap.” He jabbed a finger at the bottom of the blueprint, where an arched symbol indicated the main entrance. “I’ll enter through the main doors here. Rev, Slam, I want you posted outside keeping your eyes peeled for any funny business. Anyone comes in or out, I want to know about it, got me?” 

Rev offered a hearty salute. “You got it, boss. These eyes don’t miss a thing. Unless they do, which happens more often than you’d think. Good thing I’m a GPS as well as pretty fast – if I do say so myself – because I will get the absolute drop on anyone creeping around within a five mile radius.”

Slam flexed, grunting his own affirmation while the others processed Rev’s reply,

“Nice. Lex, Duck, while I distract our gracious host, you’ll sneak in through the back and search for the chief. If we’re lucky, she’ll be trapped in one of these offices and we can get outta there before they realize their leverage is gone.”

Duck leaned over to Lexi to stage-whisper, “I thought being a superhero got us out of needing to go into the office for work.” 

 “Tech, meanwhile,” Ace continued, “will hold down the fort – and see if you can get any more intel on our letter-writing friend.”

Tech nodded curtly, not looking up from his computer until Rev nudged his ribs. His eyes shot up and flickered from Rev to Ace like he hadn’t fully processed that they were speaking. 

“Erm, yes.” Tech cleared his throat and scowled at his computer. “I’m not sure what I’ll be able to uncover at this rate. The IP address is obscured, probably using a virtual private network, and the location it gave is half a solar system away – which I highly doubt.” 

He drummed his fingers on the table while the others leveled blank looks at him… Well, everyone except Rev. That bird was smirking like Tech was doing something funny. After a moment, Tech shook his head. 

“I’ll let you know if I find anything, but in the meantime, I’ll keep tabs on communications and intervene if needed. I have access to a repository of every audio transmission sent through our network and can pinpoint the exact location of any one of our communicators in case of an emergency.”

Tech’s smug expression faltered slightly after a beat of silence. Duck glanced around at the others, unsure of what exactly was happening, and saw Rev roll his eyes.

“So basically, Tech can hear everything we transmit through our communicators. So if I send a message to, erm… Lexi!” He raised his communicator to his face –“Hi Lexi!” – and Lexi’s communicator crackled Rev’s voice over the speaker. “Tech will have access to those messages and our locations in case something unforeseen or terrible or really, really, really weird happens.” 

Rev patted Tech’s shoulder in a way that should have been condescending but was entirely genuine coming from him. 

“That wasn’t so hard, was it? Eh Tech?”

Tech gritted his teeth, color rising in his cheeks. He stepped to the side, prying Rev’s fingers off his shoulder with his free hand and dropping it down at his side. “Yes. What he said.”

Rev beamed.

“Once this is all set up, I’ll be able to know if someone needs backup and coordinate those efforts.” Tech looked pointedly at Ace. “But the main concern is getting in and out in one piece.”

Ace shot him a thumbs up. “I’m all over it.”

Duck wasn’t a body language professional or anything, but he liked to think he knew Ace pretty well over two years of working and living with the guy – and especially in the past month. His smile was a touch too wide, his posture too stiff. It was a far cry from the relaxed charm he had in situations he felt confident in. He was nervous, whether he chose to show it or not. Duck’s stomach twisted, and he told himself he wasn’t annoyed.

Who are you trying to fool? We’re in this together.

Ace caught him staring. His smile didn’t drop, but his eyes narrowed, concerned, when they locked on Duck’s. Duck wanted to read his mind. He wanted Ace to just drop the act and let him help. 

Instead, Ace clapped his hands together. “Let’s jet.”

The air by the harbor was downright acrid. Aside from the smell of stale engine oil, it was salty, fishy in a way that Duck could practically taste. He was always down for sushi, but as a duck – feathers and all – he resented the fact that this place was making him detest the idea of fish.

“Alrighty, let’s find our damsel in distress and get outta here,” Duck grumbled. They landed near what was the warehouse’s docking bay and what now appeared to be a canvas for local street artists. The city had a… variety of talent. All the way from an imposing pop art mural of superstar athlete Trick Dayley to bleeding graffiti letters spelling FUCK SUPERS.

Charming. Duck just wanted to go home. He wasn’t afraid of the danger, of course not, Danger was literally his name. He just preferred to face it in a place adoring members of the public might look on with wonder. Here, there was no one. 

It wasn’t just this one warehouse that had been condemned after the meteor, but the whole industrial district that bordered the harbor. When the meteor had landed in this harbor, the entire planet had gone haywire, and the geology of this area had never quite recovered. Duck finally understood what that meant now that he was confronted with it. Parts of the road had completely caved in, the ground cracked and uneven from the earthquakes that followed the impact. It wasn’t exactly an ideal location for them to tussle with another ne’er-do-well.

Something cold and slimy touched his leg, and Duck sprang back to see Lexi shaking sea water off her boots from a puddle she had stepped in. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” he squawked, grimacing down at his pants. “Watch where you're shaking. The water in this place is probably irradiated or something. That meteor probably gave the fish superpowers.”

“Oh don’t be jealous,” Lexi teased, but she flicked the rest of the water in the other direction. If it wasn’t so slimy, the water might have been pleasant. Summer was in full swing, and the sun overhead made the asphalt almost unbearable.

“Are you guys gonna be alright in there?” Ace’s voice was all business, his eyes hard when he turned to Lexi and Duck.

Lexi paused. “I don’t think it’s us you should be worried about, Ace. We got this.”

Duck stretched his arms over his head, looking at the warehouse graffiti, the nearest sinkhole, anywhere but at Ace’s face. “Yeah. I’m a big boy. I can handle myself.”

Ace looked at Duck like he’d never seen him before, like he wasn’t petty and annoying all the time. Duck stared at the ground, feeling heat rise in his cheeks that felt uncomfortably like shame. He didn’t know why he was acting like this. God forbid something did happen to Ace in there and he’d spent their last conversation being a catty little brat. 

“I’ll call if I need backup,” Ace said finally. The crooked smile he offered was belated. “Let us know if you find anything. Be careful.”

Duck watched as he, Slam, Rev, and Tech turned to head toward the main entrance and wondered what else he could have said.

There was definitely mold in these offices. The damp air and smell of mildew made the air heavy and musty and Duck couldn’t wait for them to have a mission inside a spa – anywhere that wasn’t so nasty.

Halogens bathed the hallway in a clinical sort of light, flickering in a way that would give him a headache if he looked at them for too long.  This place was a post-apocalyptic version of every drab office Duck had ever stepped foot in, complete with the fabric-lined cubicle walls lining one side of the space. The off-white walls met speckled linoleum floors and stretched on, making the space feel liminal. 

Duck poked his head around into the nearest cubicle, but there was nothing interesting. Every surface was covered in a layer of water damage and dust, only a few family photos remained unscathed. He glanced at one of an older woman holding a baby to her hip and found himself wondering if she’d survived the meteor. 

Just how many people were sacrificed for Danger Duck to be the action hero he was today? He didn’t like thinking about it, it made him queasy.

The only other thing to catch his eye was a small black dome affixed to the ceiling with a faint red light blinking within. The security cameras were still operational in this dump? Surely protecting all the super valuable stuff still here.

Duck wrinkled his nose at the faded, industrial carpet, the whiteboard with notes for a meeting that would never happen. The harsh lighting made this place look more like Duck’s personal nightmare than it already was. He couldn’t fathom spending 40 hours every week in a place like this, he’d sooner drown himself in the harbor. 

While snooping through a second cubicle, Duck realized Lexi wasn’t following him. He popped his head over the gray fabric walls to see that Lexi had stopped just a few steps into the office space. She stared straight ahead as if she wasn’t seeing anything at all, frowning.

“Oh jeez, what do you hear?”

“...Nothing. Duck, I don’t think she’s here. The only person I can make out who isn’t us is in the main warehouse. These offices are empty.” She paused, eyes glowing faintly as she listened, then she grimaced. “Well, empty aside from the rats.”

“Super hearing will never not be super creepy,” Duck said, scanning the area again. He noticed more cameras now than he had at first, their small black domes placed at every vantage point, little red lights blinking within. He leaned closer to inspect one, but he had no clue what he was looking at. “Clearly there’s something here, or what’s the point of these buckets of bolts?”

When he quacked back to her side, Lexi was squinting at the flickering office lights overhead.

“If the building is condemned, why is there power here at all?”

Her ears twitched one, twice, and she spun on her heel. 

“The energy signature is coming from over there.”

She was pointing at a door toward the end of the hall that looked every bit as plain as the others did. Duck followed Lexi as she walked toward the door and tried the handle. Nothing.

Duck tutted, teleporting into the office and unlocking the door from the inside. He bowed deeply as he swung open the door. “My lady.”

Lexi was grinning and offered a little curtsy in response. “I can’t believe you get to teleport and I get to listen to traffic noise 100 floors down back at HQ. Super unfair.”

“Oh I won’t feign modesty, maybe one day you’ll discover a power as cool as mine. Although, you do have all the juicy gossip.”

“Eh, it’s not all it’s cracked up to be.”

Duck faltered as she walked by him into the dark office space. Did she really hear all that while she layed in bed at night? Couldn’t she turn it off? If she heard that, she certainly heard every conversation in HQ, including his recent late night rendezvous with Ace. 

Creepy. Did she tune all that out? Did she know? Did Ace know if she knew? Would Lexi tell either of them if she knew? 

Duck’s head hurt. He scrambled to think of something, anything, to ask that might gauge how much she’d picked up on.

“Sooo, you must hear a lot of crazy –”

“Ew, what is all this?”

Duck whirled back toward the room, for the first time taking stock of where exactly they were now. The office is an absolute wreck. It probably had all the makings of a normal office – desk, filing cabinet, minifridge for snacks – but Duck couldn’t see it underneath the mess. A duffle bag laid open near his feet, spewing clothes and toiletries across the floor. Files and paperwork were scattered across the desk, and behind it, a sleeping back was laid out on the floor. A generator whirred in the corner.

Ah. So that’s where the power was coming from. Even though the generator seemed massive inside this small room, Duck wasn’t sure how it could power the entire building. 

Lexi wrinkled her nose. “Is someone living here?”

Duck kicked at a granola bar wrapper on the floor. “Whoever it is desperately needs to call a maid.”

While Lexi gingerly waded through the mess and began sifting at papers on the desk, Duck shoved at the clothes with his feet to create a little walking path. He couldn’t pretend to be the cleanest guy on the team, but this was ridiculous. He spent most of his day with Slam, for goodness sake. Duck thought he was immune to mess. 

“Hey Duck,” Lexi called, her voice hushed, despite the fact that there was no one here. “There’s info about us over here.”

Duck turned to join her and immediately tripped over a surprisingly heavy black backpack that the dark had concealed. He went down, landing hard on the faded, industrial carpet. 

“You don’t say,” Duck replied blandly, rubbing at his lower back and narrowing his eyes at the offending bag. Damn thing could have killed him, then what would happen? Hm? The city would be down a valuable action hero, that’s what. 

He scrambled to right himself and knelt beside the backpack. When he yanked open the zipper to the main pocket, he was immediately confronted by a state of the art laser pistol staring back at him.

“Um… Lexi?”

“I think the chief was here,” Lexi was saying now, the sound of paper shuffling more urgent now. “There are, like, actual case files here and a grant application with her credentials.”

Duck jerked his head back to her, forgetting himself for a moment. “Oh yeah, because when I kidnap someone, I always make sure to bring their work too. Really adds to the misery, you know.”

He continued digging through the pack, noticing several hard drives and a laptop alongside other loose papers and gadgets. Duck slipped the laptop out of the bag and opened it on his knees. To his surprise, the screen lit up instantly, a small prompt asking for a 4 character code. 

Without really thinking, Duck typed 1 2 3 4. Nope. Then, A C M E …

The laptop came to life, revealing an online forum of some sort. He rolled his eyes. Easy. Take that, Tech. There’s room for two hackers in this group.

Now that he was looking closer, Duck realized he knew what website the computer was displaying… unfortunately. 

Duck made it a point to know every corner of the internet where the Loonatics were mentioned. He told them he was acting as a “publicity manager,” but it was purely to feed his own vain curiosity. He saw it all: news stories, grainy video shared to social media, fandom discourse about how close members of the team were. (Most of the speculation seemed to be about Tech and Rev, of all people. Duck tried not to be too offended by that.)

The website in front of him was one that Duck only visited on nights his self-loathing got the better of him. It acted as endless fuel for that monster, serving up content that made even Duck wonder if the Loonatics were really a force for good. He scrolled and scrolled through dozens of posts about how stupid their uniforms were, how annoying his voice was, but the legitimate complaints hurt worse. 

The post Duck stared at now lamented how Ace, and the team as a whole, got to choose how justice was done on a whim. What issues were they on the hook for? When Did that overlap with police responsibility? Did the Loonatics simply existing undermine the authority of police?

Still, Duck was certain they were responsible for far more than the public was aware of. Sure, most of the city’s infrastructure damage from supervillain incidents was paid for by taxes, but Duck had seen the stacks of documents Ace would unceremoniously toss aside when Duck came to visit.

Last week there had been an evening where Ace had the files open on his bed as they half-watched reality TV together, unable to put the paperwork off any longer. Duck had made a quip about one woman’s outfit and Ace just groaned, dropping a file and pushing his hands hard against his forehead. Duck plucked an official looking document from the pile and was faced with a page of jargon and policies he could barely comprehend. Something about an insurance claim for a local business Slam had tasmanian twisted into during their last mission. It was only then that Duck realized he didn’t know what happened to those places.

“Wait, we have insurance?” Duck had asked.

Ace peered at him through his fingers. “Unfortunately… or fortunately, I guess. Duck, we talked about it during the last meeting.”

“I’m not a details guy.” Duck sifted through the pile of claims and permits, struck by how much there was.

As though he’d read his mind, Ace sighed and picked up the file again, grumbling. “And this is only what Lexi wouldn’t take…”

So yeah, Duck knew there was a lot they legally took responsibility for… and a lot that Ace put off.

Something ought to be done about it, the post in front of him said.

Something ought to be done. Maybe they could hire a secretary or an accountant, Duck thought wryly, though he had a feeling that wasn’t exactly what the poster had in mind.

Duck glanced back up at the pistol resting inconspicuously inside the backpack, glanced back down at the screen, glanced back at the papers scattered across the desk. 

Puzzle pieces slotted into place. His heart sank into his gut.

“Duck? What did you find?”

Duck’s blood ran cold. He could feel his power begin to trickle up his spine like electricity. His chest felt tight with the utter audacity.

He stuttered, stopped, tried again. He dropped the laptop, and it rattled as it fell the few inches from his legs to the floor. 

“Duck?”

Duck staggered to his feet, the movements feeling jerky and weightless. “We need to go!”

By the time Lexi was around the desk, Duck was already out of the office.

Chapter Text

The path back to the exit seemed shorter than the trip inside had felt. After tearing through the halls and arriving back at the door they entered through, Duck took stock of his surroundings. There was really only one other direction to go: a set of double doors that led in the direction of the loading dock and, likely, the warehouse floor. He threw his body weight against the doors and stumbled through.

His lungs burned from sprinting. Biologically speaking, ducks were not meant for running. Duck doubled over, hands resting on his knees to catch his breath. At least his own poor endurance was distracting him from how dumb he’d been. 

They’d all been so dumb.

This hallway was wider, more industrial than the last. The floors and walls all seemed to be weathered concrete, and the outside wall was lined with tall metal doors for loading and unloading cargo – the loading docks. The end of the hallway was open, and Duck could see the end of a metal shelving unit.

Bingo.

Duck had taken one step into the hallway when the alarm went off. 

“Unauthorized presence detected.”

Of course.

Duck’s heart fell to his stomach. The alarm blared, ringing in his ears as he stood there dumbly. Why were there security measures here and not in the offices? The cameras didn't trigger anything? 

Because the warehouse is where the valuables used to be, you idiot.

Dammit.

“What did you do?” Lexi’s voice demanded from his communicator.

Duck grit his teeth, bringing his wrist up to his mouth to reply. “Well excuse me for having other things on my mind!”

Lexi was saying something else, but Duck heard metal scraping against metal that drowned her out. He jerked his head up to see a security door lowering faster than he’d prefer between him and the warehouse.

“Can’t talk, gotta go, bye,” Duck chanted before severing the connection. Lexi was saying something else, but Duck prided himself on being able to tune out nonsense when there was important hero work to be done.

The stabbing pain in his lungs came back with a vengeance when he charged the lowering door, a thick, steel thing descending from the ceiling along a metal track. A few feet away, Duck dove forward, sliding on the concrete floor through the shrinking space and scrambling to move his legs out of the way before the door could crush them.

That was close. Way too close. He should have just quacked it. He stood, wiping dirt from his uniform as he surveyed his surroundings. He could still hear the alarm blaring, could still see the red lights flash. He wondered where Ace was for all this.

“Ace!” Duck hissed into his communicator. 

No response. 

He swallowed. 

Duck returned his attention to Lexi, saying as blandly as he could manage: “So, you were saying?”

“What was that?” Lexi demanded. It would have been hard to make her out over the alarm if she weren’t yelling at him. Duck cringed.

“The chief is in on it!” Duck tried to keep his voice down, though he wasn’t sure it mattered over the noise. “She wants to get rid of everyone with super powers – not just the bad guys!”

He gingerly poked his head further into the warehouse floor, but he saw no one. Just shelves and shelves of forgotten inventory. The place was a wreck, like no one had bothered to come back after the place had been evacuated. The earthquakes and sinkholes and whatever else had happened here had done a number on the place. Aside from the boxes and machinery strewn about, deep cracks had etched their way into the floors and walls that made Duck feel like he was standing in a house of cards that might crumble at any moment. 

He kicked at a chunk of concrete the size of his head and grimaced. 

Lexi huffed. “Yeah, I gathered. What I don’t get is why you couldn’t have waited two minutes to explain that to me so we could handle this together. None of you boys think , I can’t believe –”

Mid-blare, the alarm suddenly stopped. The lights disappeared with it, leaving Duck in total darkness for several moments before dim emergency lighting flickered on across the warehouse. Patches of yellow light hit shelves and piles of boxes and cast harsh shadows over the warehouse floor. 

Oh hell no. Were the emergency lights using the generator in the office? Did the generator have a backup generator? Did the building actually have power from the grid until now? Duck’s head hurt.

“You’re welcome,” Tech’s voice came wry through the communicator. Duck had so many questions and zero capacity for them right now. How freaked out should they be about Ace’s radio silence during all this?

“Yeah, yeah, whatever,” Duck barreled on. Tech was most likely listening in anyway, and they didn’t have time for this. He needed to find out where Chief Torres was, like, yesterday. “I don’t know how long she’s been listening to all those crazy superhero conspiracies, but it can’t mean good things for –”

“Ace…” Lexi breathed. 

“Danger Duck is on the case. I told you this whole thing was a waste of time from the start.”

“Oh no, you are going nowhere without me. Do you think I could brain blast through to where you are?”

Lexi tries and it only reflects back at her “guess not”

Tech’s startled “No!” crackled through their communicators at the same time as Duck cried, “Are you kidding me? Did you not see the earth literally falling apart around us?”

Lexi groaned, but Tech was still talking. “Look, the blueprints we found indicated –”

CLANG!  

Duck severed his communication line instantly, crouching behind a stack of cardboard boxes and peering deeper into the warehouse – not that he could see anything in this damn light.

Something solid had fallen hard on the other side of the warehouse, and a long way by the sound of it. Duck strained his eyes but all he could see were shadows shifting in the distance.    This was it. 

The warehouse had looked massive from outside, but inside it seemed never ending. The ceiling towered so far overhead that Duck had to strain to make it out. Row after row of steel shelves towered overhead, fading away into the dark with the ceiling. The workers could have probably benefited from some superpowers of their own to access whatever was stored at the top. 

His first instinct had been to quack to the top of the shelves for the birds-eye-view approach, but he scrapped that idea instantly. The chances of him seeing anything up there were slim to none. Instead, Duck crouched behind the nearest shelf and peered through the shelves for a sign of something – anything – but he could barely see beyond the piles of forgotten inventory. He tutted, annoyance settling deep in his gut. What kind of meeting place was this anyway?

Somewhere, a rational voice in Duck’s brain knew why this dump was the chosen spot. It was probably just a super convenient coincidence that someone was trying to take away their power in the spot responsible for it to begin with, but still that had a sort of poetic irony to it. The reason was probably as simple as this place being abandoned. 

No one came to this part of town anymore. Duck heard plenty of rumors about it being haunted by the workers who had died in the meteor crash. Any one of them could be put down here with no witnesses… and that story could be spun however the chief wanted. Probably.

Shadows shifted on the wall on the opposite end of the warehouse, stopping Duck in his tracks. Some shuffling, muted voices he couldn’t make out. 

Dammit, of course it was when he and Lexi got separated that her super hearing would come in handy. Keeping his eyes trained on the dancing lights, Duck crept to the end of the aisle and peered around the shelf. 

The corridor he stared down was a break in the aisle between two shelves Duck couldn’t see the other end of and was littered with supplies and machinery, some untouched from the day this place was abandoned, others toppled and in various states of disrepair. He teleported several shelves down the walkway, reappearing behind one about halfway between himself and the direction of the voices. 

He glanced around the corner to check on the commotion, but the movement had stopped. 

Duck whirled around. Every direction looked the same. The same industrial shelving, the same concerning cracks in the concrete, the same creepy lighting. Nothing was moving. The room was quiet. Still. 

His pulse thrummed in his ears and Duck stood rooted to the spot, mad at his stupid body for its reactions. Out of all the missions he could be on his own for, it had to be the one in the spooky warehouse with the spooky emergency lighting, trying to find Ace before the spooky supremacist did. Where the hell was he?

Duck quacked up onto an empty shelf several levels up and surveyed the scene. The height helped, though not much. He craned his neck and leaned out to get a better look, clutching the metal frame like he was a pirate on a mast, trying to see where those voices had shuffled off to. Stillness pressed on him in the dark.

“Oh great,” he muttered, staring across at the faintly glowing light that had started this whole mess. It had moved, right? He’d heard something? Of course he had. Danger Duck was a lot of things, but blind wasn’t one of them. He knew what he saw. 

Or at least he was pretty sure.

“Duck?”

The sound that left Duck’s mouth when his grip slackened on the metal frame was entirely undignified, but it slipped out all the same when he jerked his head around in shock and toppled off the shelf –

– and directly into Ace.

They crashed into the concrete floor, Duck sprawling over Ace’s legs. His bones jabbed painfully into Duck’s ribs, but somehow Ace was the one looking pained. 

Duck couldn’t focus on that now. He’d make it up to Ace later, because how lucky was he? This rescue mission was finally looking up. He couldn’t speak at first, breath knocked from his lungs as he writhed on the floor.

“Ace!” He burst out once he came back to himself, gripping Ace’s shin. “She’s here! Torres is here. I don’t think she was kidnapped at all. There’s, like, a whole living situation in the office, and it makes Slam’s room look clean –”

He felt like Rev, the words tumbling from his mouth like a crazy person. 

“-- whatever! Basically, she hates supers. She has all these files on us, and she’s trying to get rid of all of us, starting with –”

But Ace wasn’t looking at him anymore. His gaze had shifted to where Acmetropolis Police Chief Deborah Torres stood wide-eyed and staring down at them. She was shorter than Duck remembered. 

Duck’s body disconnected from his brain. He jerked onto his knees, winding up to launch a power egg, body electric with power. The force of his throw knocked his knees out from under him, sliding on the concrete floor and sending him onto Ace’s legs again. Ace yelped, shoving him away. When Duck swiveled his head back to where the power egg had exploded onto the side of a nearby shipping container, the chief was gone. Thick, orange drops fell to the floor. 

Shit shit shit.

“Are you nuts?” Ace, surprisingly, didn’t sound angry but instead breathless, frantic. Duck could work with that. He seized Ace’s bicep in a death grip and quacked them to any conceivable hiding spot in this galvanized hell hole.

They reappeared behind a vehicle of… some sort. Duck was pretty sure it was a forklift – that’s what warehouses had, right? The body was a faded orange, the metal components coated in a matte black finish. Manhandling Ace so his back was pressed up against the carriage was easier than he’d anticipated. Ace wasn’t fighting back, but Duck was clearly trying his patience.

“Duck –”

Ace grabbed at his wrist when Duck clapped a hand over his mouth and scanned their surroundings. He thought he saw something shift in his periphery, but Ace chose that moment to fully pull Duck’s hand away, glowering.

Footsteps. Dull thuds echoing through the huge space, and closer than Duck would have preferred. Ace heard them too, his ears twitched. At the same time, they poked their heads just over the forklift tire to assess the sound and saw Chief Torres pacing the corridor. She glanced skittishly down aisles and pulled her cardigan tighter around herself. If her worry lines were visible from this far away, the woman needed a better skincare regimen. She wasn’t that old.

Duck’s first instinct was relief. He had been so sure she’d go full-on supervillain when he first saw her, but she just looked lost. The pride in his chest deflated slightly as she turned slowly away. It disappeared completely when glanced back at Ace, unsure how to interpret his expression. 

Ace was staring at her back, his jaw worked like he was chewing the inside of his mouth. Duck would pay good money to peer into Ace’s head when he was focused like this – or anytime really.

Duck’s mouth was dry. His brain spun. Had he somehow gotten it wrong? Did Ace just accidentally stumble into the easiest rescue mission of all time?

Chief Torres hesitated in his periphery and wandered further into one of the aisles. Just before she disappeared behind the shelves, Duck noticed the light glinting off the APD issued laser rifle she had tucked against her body. 

Embarrassing, that gulping made a sound. 

Ace glanced back at him. Duck’s face must have given away the low panic building inside of him, because Ace grimaced and sank back against the forklift body, rubbing at his face. He looked tired. Somehow, the harsh lighting made the bags under his eyes look even deeper. Duck wondered if he’d gotten any sleep last night.

“Yeah, Duck, I saw it.”

His tone was almost enough to take away the satisfaction of being right… almost.

Was Ace happy Duck had come? He better be. Duck hoped he was. He would probably die of embarrassment if Ace thought Duck was too protective of him. Which he wasn’t. Obviously. Ace just had a tendency to jump head first into situations without a plan. Although, somehow that always seemed to work out for him where it didn’t for Duck.

Duck shifted to move closer to Ace, then thought better of it and shifted back, resting a hand on his knee instead. Ace looked up.

“I got this,” Duck promised, puffing his chest out. 

Ace didn’t look so sure. 

“Hey! Don’t give me that look! It’s one lady with a gun, I’ve fought worse. Deuce was technically some guy with a gun, and we beat him. Twice.”

Ace exhaled sharply through his mouth, something that was probably supposed to be a laugh. He wasn’t quite himself, caught in the middle between the Ace who showed Duck his nerdy kung fu movies and the guy who gave him orders. His eyes were soft when they met Duck’s, and it sent Duck’s resolve tumbling. 

The air turned red when the laser whizzed between them. It singed Ace’s cheek before landing somewhere behind them, leaving the air smelling like burned hair.

Ace moved to act, but Duck was faster this time. He shoved Ace down toward the floor where no stray laser blasts could get him and vaulted through the forklift cab toward the shooter. Chief Torres was crouched behind some overturned crates, bracing her rifle against them to line up her next shot.

She swerved, changing her aim as soon as she saw Duck, but Duck teleported just before the shot went off. He reappeared behind her and couldn’t stop the smile that stretched his cheeks when she startled and jerked back. 

“Not easy to dance with supers, is it, lady?”

Duck quacked again when she lunged at him, landing on the crates and peering down at her sprawled on the cracked concrete. He didn’t have to show off this much, but the look of rage he got when he used his powers was more satisfying than efficiency. 

He teleported one last time as her hands grasped at the ground for the gun, reappearing by her head and kicking the rifle just out of her reach. She groaned in frustration, and Duck had never felt more like an all-powerful superhero. He put a boot between her shoulder blades to hold her in place and smirked.

“Ace, get your fuzzy butt over here. That was almost too eas–”

One of Torres’ free hands snaked down and found his other foot, and before Duck could really process that he hadn’t actually restrained her, she was shoving at it. His foot slipped, and he fell as though in slow motion until his back crashed against the floor. His head whipped back hard and a sharp pain shot through his skull. Duck suddenly couldn’t see anything at all. 

One thing people didn’t understand about head injuries was how quickly they warped someone’s perception. He tasted blood.. Shapeless colors swam before his eyes. He saw his old boss, the orphanage, his mother. 

“I’m sorry mommy…” Duck slurred. He blinked blearily, trying to come back to himself. He still felt disconnected from his body when he felt something cold and metallic at his temple.

All the fight left his body and he shrank down against the floor. He didn’t need to be totally present to know how badly he’d messed this up. Again.

“… both of you. This will be easier if you cooperate.” The chief’s voice sounded distant and warped in Duck’s ears, like she was yelling from above water.

“Eh, easier for who exactly?” Ace’s tone was the light, smarmy one he used to get under people’s skin. If he could hear Ace this clearly, he must have come running, and that meant… 

Duck’s heart fluttered despite the fact that this was neither the time nor place to be charmed by a superhero doing his job.

“Don’t you dare turn those eyes on me, rabbit. I swear I’ll shoot.”

The metal barrel of the gun was shaking, digging sporadically into the base of Duck’s head and making the pain swell. He swallowed. At the sound of the cocking gun, he forced his eyes open. Slowly, his vision returned and the room stopped spinning. 

The world was sideways and blurry from his place on the floor. Ace stood a few yards away, staring somewhere over Duck’s body. His power had swelled and settled behind his eyes, and the yellow glow they gave sent crazy shadows around the warehouse.

Ace, what the hell are you doing? Just shoot her!

The moment felt endless. Finally, the glow faded from Ace’s eyes and Duck’s heart sank with it.

The pressure on the back of his head let up. A breath gasped out of Duck’s lungs he didn’t know he’d been holding.

“There we go,” came a voice, saccharine sweet, from just behind him. “See, negotiating without superpowers is just as effective, hm? Puts everyone on equal standing.”

“It sure doesn’t look like you’re interested in negotiating,” Ace bit out. He was clearly going for dry, flippant, but tension edged it out. Duck still didn’t understand why Ace wasn’t just finishing it. Clearly he could. He groaned from his pathetic heap on the floor, twisting his body so he wasn’t lying on his arms anymore. Ace’s eyes flicked down to him and narrowed.

But Duck barely saw him. He tried summoning his powers as inconspicuously as possible, the exact opposite of what he usually trained for.

“It wasn’t supposed to be this way!” Torres insisted, her voice calm and patient like she was speaking to a child. Duck wanted to roll his eyes. “Even now, him stumbling in here like a buffoon was pure luck. These… mutations? Pure luck. And yet, here you are with no formal training protecting this city from other mistakes just like you, leveling entire sections of the city in the name of public safety? Please.”

Duck felt the gun press into him, tapping his shoulder almost flippantly. Ace stiffened, his jaw working. 

“Watch it, would ya?”

She wasn’t listening. 

“What’s even worse is that you’ve managed to charm half the city into believing the efficacy of this Saturday morning cartoon bullshit! I’ve worked as a public servant in this city for 30 years, fighting to make Acmetropolis a better place to live, and APD doesn’t see a shred of the public appreciation and notoriety you do.” The laugh she let out was too musical for the situation. “The city was safer before you, surely you can see that?”

Power finally surged up Duck’s spine, warm and tingling, and spread outward to his fingers, his toes, his brain. He squeezed his eyes shut to hide the orange glow. 

“The people who live here were better off. It’s my job to do the hard thing, so I have to take the candy away from the children. It’s bad for them, even though it seems so good at first.”

When she paused, the quiet was thick, and when the barrel of the gun tapped at Duck’s shoulder again, he was ready for it. His body twisted on the ground, power egg swelling to life in his palm, and she jolted backwards.

“Hey!”

The egg exploded into the barrel, sending orange goo splattering over both of them. Torres recoiled, and Duck took the chance to swing his leg against her ankle, sending her stumbling back and toward the ground. 

He quacked before she hit the floor, reappearing in front of Ace, fighting stance, ready for anything. His eyes didn’t stray from her thrashing form on the ground. “Yeah that’s right, bitch! How do you like it?”

Duck was, in general, put off by missions dedicated to protecting a single VIP. He hated it with Tweetums, had hated even the principle with the chief, but he’d be lying if he said he wouldn’t sacrifice an entire city to stand between Ace and some crazy lady with a rifle. Maybe that made him a bad superhero. Right now, he couldn’t find the will to care. 

Ace’s hand found Duck’s shoulder and nearly made him jump out of his feathers, his fingers digging slightly into the uniform. The shock, though, was quickly replaced by the image of Danger Duck, action hero extraordinaire, shielding Ace from imminent danger – power flowing through him, Ace cowering back while he neutralized the threat.

Oh Duck, Ace would say when Duck took him into his arms and quacked them to safety. I was wrong to underestimate you. How can I ever repay you? Maybe the team would throw him a party. Maybe Duck would say something sly and pull Ace closer as an explosion went off behind them…

Instead, Ace applied more pressure, pushing Duck a step to the side and blasting the gun out of Chief Torres’ reach with his laser vision. It went flying, clattering to the floor near boxes of old inventory, smoking faintly from the barrel. 

Torres groaned loudly, pushing herself into a seated position and clutching her arm. It had twisted in a way that made Duck cringe. When he glanced back, Ace held his sword loosely at his side and looked warily down at her.

“What exactly was your plan here?”

She didn’t answer, opting instead to glare as they approached, her chin turned up at them. Ace’s face was carefully neutral as he considered her now. 

Duck knew firsthand how important the Loonatics’ reputation was to Ace. Heck, Ace’s professional relationship with this lady had been so important to him. Duck wondered if Ace was disappointed that the team had seemingly failed so spectacularly in that aspect or if, like him, he was just wondering how she could possibly think this city would be safer with her at the helm.

It all happened so fast.

One moment Ace opened his mouth to speak, the next the haze of smoke was so thick in the air that Duck gagged.

Flames were growing in the distance, sending corrugated boxes, paperwork, and other crap ablaze before Duck could even determine what it was. Underneath the smoke was the scent of something… familiar? Almost sweet? 

His heart sank. The laser gun, clogged with the residue from Duck’s superpowers, wasn’t venting its heat properly, and now…

Ace sheathed his sword and turned to Chief Torres. Within seconds he was in front of where she was kneeling on the floor, grabbing her uninjured arm and hauling her to her feet. “Let’s cut this meeting short, shall we?”

Duck turned back and watched helplessly as the fire spread in their direction, lighting up the items up the shelves as it went. Some items, like paper, burned fast and hot and were reduced to ashes in a matter of seconds. Others, though, caught slower and released smoke in a thick, dark cloud. The rate at which the warehouse was becoming blurry through the haze was not comforting. Duck’s eyes burned with it.

He thought of the security door back the way he came and if others had closed when the alarm tripped, if the air really had nowhere to go.

“Um, Ace…”

“Everyone out of the building. It’s getting a little hot in here.” Ace’s voice was low through the communicator. Duck tore his eyes away from the encroaching flames to snatch Ace's arm and remind him that getting out required, you know, a way out, when he was interrupted again.

Duck heard the explosion before he saw it. The deafening crack of ignition, the reverberation like thunder. Somewhere several aisles over, shelves began to shake and teeter as the room flashed. When the first shelf fell, Duck tackled Ace to the floor, leaving Torres to fend for herself as she stumbled to the floor beside them. 

Rubble pelted his back. He sucked in a mouthful of thick, ash-laden air and squeezed his eyes shut when a metal crate crashed to the floor behind them. The sound reverberated through his bones, sending a gust of air over his sweat slick body.

Duck slid off Ace’s body for the second time that day (admittedly not in the way he would have preferred) and assessed the damage. Ace’s suit was filthy, but he was otherwise unharmed – good. Based on his expression, Duck was sure he was in for another lecture, but the tension in Ace’s face released slightly when he met Duck’s eyes. His gaze flicked to Duck’s temple.

“Hey thanks, superhero,” Ace joked softly, brushing away stray rubble and dislodging something sharp from a gash in Duck’s head. Duck hissed and brought his hand up, thankfully not finding much blood there, but damn it hurt. He hadn’t even felt it until Ace touched him.

The fire was starting to crawl to the shelves around them now. It had slowed down with the lack of fuel in this section of the warehouse, but Duck felt the effects all the same. Every swallow was like needles in his throat. His mouth was too dry, he couldn’t throw back any more saliva to soothe the sting. 

In all the commotion, Torres hadn’t even tried to get away. She lay coughing into the rubble, and kept her eyes on the floor when Ace hauled her up again. Strands of graying hair had fallen out of her tightly styled bun, hanging limply around her face.

Another crack! of fracturing rock sounded where the explosion had triggered, and Duck saw a sliver of blue-hued daylight slice across the ceiling.

“Here? Here?”

Duck had never been so happy to hear Slam’s grunting. His gruff voice boomed off the walls and Duck could have cried.

“Here! Slam, here!” Duck’s voice was wrecked. He doubled over wheezing, but each gasp a knife in his lungs. He just needed to breathe and he couldn’t breathe. Was the room hazier than before?

Duck didn’t know how lightheaded he was until Ace’s arm was around his waist. He slumped immediately against Ace’s side and tried to inhale the scent of him, but the smell of smoke was rudely all-encompassing.

“Oh no no no no, I can’t hold both of you,” Ace was saying, even though he made to move to shrug Duck off. His voice didn’t sound normal either. Oh, Duck was going to kill Torres for this.

Gruff voices in the distance, then one, louder, that sounded like Lexi. Duck raised his head blearily and tried to see what was happening through blurred vision, but he saw nothing. Then Duck blinked and came face to face with another beak. Rev’s face filled his vision, wide blue eyes staring at him with too much concern. Ugh. Duck pushed him away weakly.

Rev, who’d forced him to try birdseed. Rev, who’s endless yapping sessions starred in Duck’s nightmares. Rev, who just wasn’t Ace.

But before Duck could find the oxygen to object, Rev had scooped him up and carried him like a bride back through the warehouse and through a hole blown into the side of the building. Duck groaned when his feathered butt hit the searing asphalt, he just couldn’t process things at the speed Rev moved – he could barely keep up with his own stuff. The blazing sun was actually a reprieve compared to the hellish place they’d just stumbled out of.

It wasn’t Rev staring at him when Duck opened his eyes, but Lexi. Her mouth was a tight line, her eyes glassy like she’d been crying, though Duck could only guess what had made her waterworks go this time. She stared at him for a beat, then seized and shook him violently.

“What were you thinking?” Lexi demanded while Duck’s headache grabbed on even tighter. “At least tell me when you’re going to do something stupid so I can come too!”

She wrapped her arms around Duck’s shoulders and squeezed. He gasped, feeling sweet, sweet oxygen flood his body, and he gulped it in mouthfuls while Lexi hugged him.

Over her shoulder, Duck spotted Rev again as he helped Ace stumble out of the warehouse. That bunny still hadn’t let go of Chief Torres since the explosion. 

He looked awful – in a rugged, heroic, super hot kind of way. Smoke and dirt clung to the yellow in his hair and his uniform. His eyes were half-lidded, and his body half-bowed, like he just couldn’t hold himself up anymore. 

Once he and Rev had returned to the group, Ace released Torres’ arm and she slumped down to the asphalt beside Duck, gasping when the impact jolted her bad arm. But Ace either didn’t hear her or didn’t care. He didn’t even look at her as he doubled over like Duck had done in the warehouse, his knuckles turned white where his hands gripped his knees. 

Lexi went to him immediately, circling him in her arms and burying her face in his shoulder before pulling away coughing. “You both smell terrible.”

A laugh punched out of Ace’s lungs, the sound wheezing a bit, and Duck fought the urge to go to him, to protect him somehow. They were fine now. Everything was fine now. 

In his periphery, Duck saw Tech approach the chief and kneel in front of her. He was just glad someone was watching her, but Ace must have seen it too. He let out some unintelligible sound that would make Slam proud and reached in their direction. Lexi pulled back to study his face while Tech raised his eyebrows, but it was Duck who spoke first.

A dozen ways of explaining this whole bizarre experience flashed through his head, but in the end, Duck could only make his mouth say the words, “She’s nuts.”

Ace coughed, the sound thick and ugly, and straightened. He turned back to the chief and she instinctively shrunk back against the pavement. Her eyes trained on Ace’s every movement, flicking from his feet to his hands to his face. Tech glanced between them, looking confused but mostly unimpressed.

“... So, what’s your plan for me now?” Torres asked finally. Her voice was just as wrecked as the other two. 

Ace assessed her for a moment. “I think it’s time we had a chat with your friends at the station, don’t you?”

Chief Torres laughed, somehow amused, disbelieving, and condescending at once. She pushed through the breaks in her voice when she said, “You think that’ll end it? That everything’s so black and white? This doesn’t end with me. You don’t think others on the force – in this city – see things the same way? I may lose my job, but I won't lose my influence there.”

Ace faltered, something shuttering behind his eyes. Tech sighed. He pulled his hand away from Torres, rising and moving back to stand between Rev and Slam.

She glared at each of them like a disapproving mother. “Word of advice: pay attention to more normal people and you might see more of us than you think. Really, it's only a matter of time before someone finishes the job.”

Duck daydreamed for a moment about stepping forward and slapping her across the face. 

What a hypocrite. He’d never heard so much bullshit in his life. So she was angry with them for circumventing law enforcement and acting in their own self-interests while she had been caught doing the same thing? Unbelievable. He thought they were friendly with the Acmetropolis police…

The realization also roused the familiar pang in his chest that came with being looked down upon. Duck was getting better at shoving that down the longer he was in this business, but it seemed to rear its head at the worst times. 

Ace crouched down to eye level with her, balancing on the balls of his feet, and a beat of silence passed before he said, “That’s the thing about you extremists.” The corner of his mouth quirked up, and he looked strangely unbothered now that they were back somewhere with oxygen and sunlight. “Acmetropolis is more than just this and this .”

He gestured to her then to himself as he spoke. Torres looked down at a crack in the asphalt where weeds were starting to poke through. Maybe there was hope for this area recovering after the meteor. 

“I need to speak with my lawyer,” she said, voice clipped. 

Ace sighed, rising back to his feet. “And you think we see the world in black and white, eh?”

Even though Ace’s demeanor was cautious but triumphant, Duck knew she wasn’t bluffing. Torres was one of hundreds of people – maybe even thousands – who used that scary hate forum every day. She may be the only one with the resources to pull off a stunt like this, but Duck knew better than any of them that there was more where that came from. 

Next time, he’d be ready for them.

Chapter Text

The police came quickly. Faster than Duck expected, they were joined by an entourage of police cruisers, a firetruck, and an ambulance that seemed weirdly insistent on getting him treatment for smoke inhalation. While firefighters set to work on the warehouse, an EMT fretted over Duck’s swollen throat and the gash on his head.

Duck didn’t need someone with a tongue depressor to tell him that his throat was swollen. He just needed, like, a million glasses of water and some sleep. When the EMT gave him a wary look and recommended a breathing tube, Duck decided the conversation was actually over and swallowed down the spasm in his throat as he turned away.

Slam and Rev were helping spread water and flame retardant through the warehouse, Slam’s water cyclone doing way more than Rev’s frantic back-and-forth with a water bucket could ever do, but it was the thought that counted. Ace and Lexi were huddled by the police cruiser, giving hushed statements to a pair of immensely uncomfortable looking officers. 

“What’s the damage?” Ace asked as Duck approached, giving him a slight smile that made Duck feel weightless for a moment. 

“Ugh, they’ll probably be chasing you down with tubes soon enough. They think I can’t breathe just because of a little smoke! Do I look like I can’t breathe?”

Duck’s voice betrayed him and wheezed on the last syllable. Ace raised his eyebrows at him, and he flushed.

“They already cleared me,” Ace said. He gestured to where the other EMTs were transferring the chief onto a gurney and tending to her injured arm. “I think Torres got the worst of it. They’ll take her to the hospital before we sort things out with the cops.”

“What? Well that’s just not fair, you breathed in just as much smoke as I did, mister.”

Ace shrugged, smiling like he was proud of himself. It faded the next moment. “You’re sure you’re fine?”  

“Yes dad,” Duck grumbled and gestured to the gauze that had been taped over the cut on his head. “At least this won’t get infected now.”

The officer in charge, a man nearing retirement, bustled forward to collect Duck’s statement. Duck’s throat worked trying to swallow the saliva that was collecting there. He could breathe okay enough, but swallowing was like torture. 

He was two words into his statement, Ace and Lexi whispering behind him, when Lexi appeared at his side and slung an arm around Duck’s shoulders. She offered the officer a polite “sorry please excuse us” as she led Duck away. He heard Ace telling the officer, in that personable way he was so good at, that Duck wasn’t doing well and would give his statement when they met back at the police station. 

After a moment, Duck let himself relax into Lexi. In spite of himself, he was so stupidly grateful for all of them.

His throat was already feeling better the next day. Duck actually ate real food that morning after pounding water and smoothies after the warehouse incident.

He sat outside on HQ’s landing deck as the sun started to set, getting his medically mandated “fresh air.” In general, he didn’t love it out here, it smelled like engine oil and manual labor, but there was a perfect view of the craziness that had gone down at the harbor. 

Duck didn’t turn around when the door slid open. Slam always came out here for his quiet moments, watching the birds or listening to the traffic below. He actually welcomed the company. Of all his teammates, Slam was probably the least likely to smother him with sympathy. 

“Slam, check it out! You can see the fire damage to that warehouse from all the way up here –”

He turned to point it out and saw Ace standing a few steps behind him holding a bottle of fruity soda in each hand. Duck’s favorite. He knew it was a small gesture, but something in his stomach fluttered at the thought of Ace stopping after his visit to the police station to pick up the bottles. They certainly didn’t keep any of it at HQ, Duck would never drink anything else.

While Duck’s brain short-circuited, Ace wandered closer, holding a bottle out to Duck before sitting beside him. Duck accepted and stared dumbly at the smiling mascot on the label. Their legs dangled over the edge of the landing, 100 storeys off the ground. Duck drank half the bottle in one go.

“Thank you,” Ace said after a beat. Duck snorted. 

“Oh please, I didn’t save you from anything.”

Ace chuckled and took a long swig from his bottle. “Okay, maybe not for that, but for everything else. You were right. I was reckless, and you were right.”

Duck narrowed his eyes, wondering what the catch was. Did something happen with Chief Torres at the station? “We had no way of knowing that though.”

“Still, I like that you make me think about those things. I need it.” Ace gestured behind them, to the rest of HQ. “They care, and I value what they say, but it’s different from you, you know? You’re always gonna tell me how it is – whether I want to hear it or not.”

Ace offered a crooked little smile. Duck wondered if the air had always been so thin up here.

No one had ever needed Duck, not really. Not before the meteor and not after. No one at the orphanage really wanted him around, no one at any of the dead-end jobs he’d had before becoming a professional superhero. It was annoying at first and taught him to fight for the scraps of recognition he received, because he knew he had so much he could offer. Over time, it grated on him until he felt like all he did was fight.

The friends he had, even Pinkster, that porky bastard, enjoyed his presence at best but were always closer with someone else. Duck didn’t necessarily make other people’s lives worse… but he certainly didn’t make them better.

Getting recruited to the Loonatics had been his way to turn that all around, sure, but to hear so plainly that he was making Ace’s life better? Ace Bunny, arguably the greatest action hero to ever live, Mr. Perfect, Prince Charming, needed him around? He felt like he was cresting the top of a rollercoaster, a moment away from plummeting down the track.

Annoyingly, though, Ace was almost never wrong. So maybe Duck really had finally done it?

Duck opened his mouth to say… any of that, but the words caught in his throat. Ace gazed at the city like he hadn't just said the most life altering thing Duck had ever heard, eyes tracking a helicopter circling overhead. 

“Hey, at least you found her!” Duck said instead, clapping Ace on the shoulder. Deflecting was good. Deflecting was easy. 

Ace rolled his eyes, but he was smiling. “Wow.”

“Seriously, how was it at the station?”

“Honestly, not much happened after you left,” Ace said, then exhaled sharply. “The guy slated to become interim chief isn’t particularly happy about it. Torres has good lawyers. Since nothing actually happened, it looks like she might get away with a slap on the wrist. I should probably contest it, but I don’t want to make it into a whole thing with the police. We still have to work with them.”

Duck blinked. “Nothing happened? A fire happened!”

“That was technically me,” Ace said wryly, bringing the bottle to his lips again. 

“Oh my bad, I didn’t see you bring that rifle into the building,” Duck muttered. Ace shrugged.

“Superpowers caused the rifle to malfunction. As far as they’re concerned, superpowers caused the fire.”

Duck wanted to scream, to cry, to throw something into the city below. “Because a crazy lady had a gun!”

“I know,” Ace sighed, leaning his body slightly into Duck’s. “I know.”

Ace’s hand was on his thigh, resting just above his knee. Duck still had half a soda sitting on the landing next to him, but he scarcely remembered what soda was now.

Ace glanced quickly behind them, and Duck scarcely had time to process before Ace kissed him. His body was solid and warm, the texture of his street clothes strange against Duck’s arms. He smelled like fresh laundry and the electric heat of superpowers. 

It occurred to Duck that he still hadn’t showered, but Ace didn’t seem to mind.

“This is so unprofessional of me,” Ace grumbled when they pulled apart, but his heart wasn’t in it. 

Duck smirked. “Oh noooo, that’ll tank your annual performance review. So, what are the recommended disciplinary measures? Asking for a friend.”

When Ace laughed, indignant, Duck saw the scene disconnected from his body – the two of them tucked together, far above the city – and couldn’t believe what his life had come to. 

He would have said something sentimental, but Ace started talking about a journalist who’d showed up at the police station and the moment was gone. Duck watched Ace lean back casually on his hands and didn't hear a word he said. Somehow, despite Duck being himself, he hadn’t screwed this up yet.

If only those chumps at the orphanage could see him now.

Duck was chugging his fourth glass of water in a row in front of the kitchen sink when Lexi entered the room. She didn’t say anything, just leaned over him to fill the electric kettle at the sink and hit the little plastic switch on it with her thumb. The kettle roared to life, steam emitting from the spout almost instantly.

Lexi had a rhythm to the way she moved, like she was always moving to a song in her head. It was kind of captivating watching her move from one cupboard to another, selecting a tea bag from her neatly organized box and a tall mug, one of many, many gifts from Tweetums.

He placed the empty glass on the counter with a sharp thud and exhaled sharply. When he turned around, Lexi was bobbing the tea bag up and down in her mug, steam swirling around her face as she considered him.

“Admiring me again?” Duck asked. He struck an exaggerated pose.

She smiled. “How’s your throat?”

Ugh. Duck couldn’t wait to heal so people would stop asking. People who said any type of attention was good were liars. He was meant to be admired, not pitied. “Fine? More annoying than anything.”

“Yeah,” she agreed, sipping her tea. It smelled like flowers. Gross. Duck wrinkled his nose, who wanted to drink flowers?

They fell into an easy silence, Duck washing his water glass while Lexi leaned against the counter, carefully sipping the tea. The sight of all that hot steam made Duck’s burned throat sting all over again. 

The sky was dark through the large bay windows, bright moonlight giving the kitchen a blue hue. Nearly everyone had gone to bed. Duck had heard Tech tinkering in his lab on his way to the kitchen, but he never seemed to sleep. When his mind wasn’t weighed down by other things, he nursed a half-baked theory that Tech was actually part robot. 

“Oh, you were right, by the way,” Lexi added after a moment. “I do hear a lot of crazy stuff around here.”

It took a moment for the sentence to sink in, but once it did, Duck was sure Lexi could hear how his heart started thudding. “Anyone who has to listen to Slam snore has my condolences.”

She gave him a look that Duck didn’t quite understand, smug but hard around the eyes. Duck couldn’t tell if he’d been caught out, and felt strangely like he was being called out by his mom. He cleared his throat. 

“Have you, ah, talked to anyone else about that…?”

Smooth.

“Nah,” Lexi said, removing the tea bag from her mug and placing it on a small saucer. “But I think he already knows.”

Duck ground his teeth together. He had to know didn’t he? Ace and Lexi were practically inseparable. Every moment Ace wasn’t with Duck he was with Lexi – the guy was rarely alone. He definitely knew the breadth of Lexi’s super hearing better than Duck did. There was no way he had forgotten, was there?

But based on everything Ace had ever said, the space he put between them when Duck came too close to him in front of the others, he couldn’t imagine Ace would keep something like that to himself. Ace didn’t want her to know. It was, like, the only thing he was adamant about: a squeaky clean superhero image.

Lexi glanced up again and Duck tried to remember how his face muscles normally sat. He made a pathetic show of neutrality. 

“Don’t worry,” Lexi told him, glancing around conspiratorially before adding, “You’re not the only ones with secrets.”

Well that wasn’t ominous at all.

He wanted to be alone. He wanted Ace to come find him. He wanted an appropriately weak supervillain to threaten the city so he could feel useful. 

Women, always speaking in riddles. Was Slam the only one who said what he meant around here?

“Hey,” Lexi said, laughing a little. She crossed the kitchen and placed a reassuring hand on his shoulder, staring at him intently. “Hey, you know I’m always here for you, right? We’re a team.”

“Yeah, yeah,” Duck heard himself say. He felt his walls go back up, the gate to whatever this moment could have been slamming shut. He hated it, hated feeling so defensive. But he couldn’t see a way this conversation didn’t end with him being the fool. He couldn’t take that right now.

Duck brushed her hand away, and Lexi retracted it without any fight. Sure she could be too much, but she also knew how to read people in a way that made him feel inherently understood. “Feel better, Duck.”

Then she retreated to the lounge and Duck stood there dumbly for another minute wondering what he should do. Should he do anything?

Whatever, he was exhausted. Hadn’t the doctor told him rest would help him heal? He felt anything but zen now. Maybe he’d see if Slam was awake. Slam was one of the best listeners Duck had ever met and gave surprisingly great advice if you could get past the speech impediment. Duck had worked through a ton of stuff over meals with that hunk of muscle.

Duck’s mind wasn’t present for the walk back to the bedroom hallway. He was lightheaded, his footsteps too heavy. He knew he was being stupid. His teammates cared for him in the roundabout, sibling sort of way he cared about them. Weird that he had thought of Ace that way too until recently.

His body connected with something solid in the hallway, and Duck recoiled back. Rev stared back at him, eyebrows raised. He was still dressed in his suit at this hour, and while it was comfortable, that was not a choice Duck would have made.

“Whoa Duck, someone has two left feet tonight. I know people usually say that about dancing – you’d say it about me if you saw me dance – but, man, we really can’t get a hang of this whole walking thing.” Rev paused. “Hey, how are you feeling?”

Why did everyone keep asking him that?

“Yeah, fine. Yeah.” He hated how the defensiveness weaseled its way into every word. “I mean… actually fine. Just need my beauty rest, you know how it is.”

Rev let out a low whistle that was more of a chirp. Duck found him more endearing when he wasn’t talking.

“Don’t I know it,” Rev agreed, sighing whimsically. He shifted rapidly from foot to foot as he stood, and Duck thanked the meteor gods that he hadn’t ended up with whatever element of Rev’s superspeed made him so antsy. The team thought he was insufferable now. “Anyway, sweet dreams, Duck!”

At the end of the hall, Duck saw light poking out from beneath Slam’s door. When he went to knock, he saw Rev down the hall punching in what must have been a 20-digit code to Tech’s laboratory and shutting the door gently behind him.