Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

The world was ending. Scion was screaming with rage, and he was beating that rage into the world’s last remaining capes. At the makeshift clinic where Amy was running from cape to cape, I was arriving at a decision that might be the last I ever regret. 

“Amy,” I said as she stopped to take care of me, Bonesaw in tow. “Is there anything you can do to extend my range? Anything that might help?”

She gave me a long, hard look. “Yes, but I don’t like it. I might make you a god, or put you in a permanent coma. And there are a lot of ugly options in between. But we’re all dying anyway, so why not.” She shrugged. “Is there anything you need to get settled before?”

Good question. I wanted to make the best of what might be my last seconds as a conscious human being, to hold someone’s hand, to say last words. To kiss someone, no tongue. 

I looked at Tattletale, her eyes jumping from screen to screen, unaware of us. There was nothing I wanted more to hold her one last time. 

Well, there was one thing I wanted more. 

“No. Do it,” I told Amy. Use my brain as humanity’s Hail Mary, and God forgive me for what Lisa will do to you after. 

Her fingers reached for my forehead, trembling, when suddenly there was a loud noise coming from the battlefield. It took me a moment to recognize it for what it was. 

Thousands of capes, cheering. 

“Taylor!” Lisa called. “Come see this!”

She didn’t even turn around to us, her eyes on the screen, luckily. I ran to her,  leaving Amy behind, and saw the scene from many different screens. A cape I didn’t know was up in the air trading blows with Scion. 

No, not trading blows - taking them. 

But he was still up. One, two, ten blows from Scion, full force, or at least as powerful as anything we’ve seen, and he just blocked them with his arms, one after the other. 

He looked like an underweight teenager. His custom was a jeans and white T-shirt, with a “mask” that seemed to be another white T-shirt covering the top part of his head. Long blonde hair was flowing from the back. 

“Talk to me, Lisa.”

She looked up at me, and for the shortest moment her eyebrows drew close. What was she seeing? 

She turned back to the screen. “I can’t read anything off him. But it’s not an illusion or anything. He’s really there.”

“Why isn’t he fighting back?”

She smiled wide. “I think… he doesn’t want to. He’s talking to him.”

“What’s he saying?”

Lisa looked at the screen intently. Even though she didn’t have a view to their mouths, her lips moved slowly, mimicking the words. “Come on, bro,” she said. “Come off it. Come on. You’re having a bad day, but you gotta chill out. I know what it’s like. We all know what it’s like. That’s the point. Come on, bro. Just relax. I know it hurts. I know. Yeah, we’re all angry…”

She kept going, and so did Scion, swinging at the man, but every swing was a little slower, the rage in Scion’s face a little milder. They were slowly descending from the air, eventually landing on the ruined earth. 

Scion swung, striking the scrawny man on the neck, but the arm stayed there. Scion leaned on the man, like a sad drunk outside of a bar. 

Scion didn’t speak, but the emotions emanating off him changed. From the great rage to a sort of fatigue, and finally a sadness, but a sweet sadness. As if… he was accepting what had happened.

“There’s something I need to show you, my friend,” Lisa said, presumably still dubbing the man. 

Then a portal opened right next to them. 

It was like nothing I’ve seen before. Nothing like the clean, stable portals of the doormaker, nor the wounds Scrub and Labyrinth punched between the worlds. 

It was wild, like a hole torn into reality itself, a vortex of symbols around it. 

I’d expected it to be some sort of runes, but it was everyday English letters, twisting quickly around the portal, that was large enough for an airplane to go through.

On the other side was someone like Scion, except that she was feminine in the same way that he was masculine, perfect without being overly sexual. She had the same more-superhero-than superhero-look, but she was the color of white gold instead of pure gold. 

She emanated a longing so strong I could feel it from where we were. On the screen, people were breaking down in tears. 

Scion looked at the man for a long moment, and I thought I might have seen gratitude in his face. 

“Yeah, boy,” Tattletale echoed the man’s words. “Like you’re moving from world to world within this multiverse, I can open up a door to a whole new multiverse. Sick, isn’t it? And in this one - you were the one to die in that accident.”

Scion looked away, then went through the portal. I couldn’t see well through the storm of letters that was surrounding the hole in reality, but I think they weren’t touching each other, Scion and his counterpart, just floating in the air close to one another. The mysterious superhero flew into the portal after them, but was stopped before he got through.  

“Wait!” Someone yelled, and I clenched my teeth. Who the hell was so self important to intervene while the world was being saved?

The camera shifted to Acidbath. 

Of course.

“Who are you?” He begged the man. “What…”

The man turned and looked directly to the camera. He rubbed at the blonde stubble on his weak chin. He looked even younger than I was. 

“You don’t need to know who I am. What you do need to know is that…” He considered that for a moment. “The path to healing is painful and beautiful.” He stopped there, and for a moment he seemed embarrassed, as if that sounded better in his head. He shrugged. “Read more books. Eat more pussy. Ciao.” Then he followed Scion into the portal, and it closed after him. 

As unbelievably bizarre as all of this was, there was some comfort to be had by the fact that the strongest entity we have ever seen shared some of my values. 

For a moment, the entire world was silent.

Lisa was the first to break the silence. “They’re gone. They’re really gone.” The amount of tension that dropped from her was visible. She slouched, holding herself against the table with one hand. 

“Really, it’s over?” such a small sentence for such a big question. 

She forced herself up, her back still to me. “Yeah,” she said. “It’s over.”

Then she turned to me, and slapped me in the face, hard. 

I was so surprised I wasn’t even halfway to blocking it. 

I stared at her, shocked, and there were tears in her eyes. 

“You were going to leave.”

“I… what?”

“You asked Amy to play Russian roulette with your brain.”

“That’s not fair,” I said, still confused. “Russian roulette doesn’t have any positive out…”

She slapped me again, grinding her teeth together. “You were going to leave me again.”

“We were going to die,” I defended myself feebly. “The entire world…”

“And we could have died in it together. Instead you went ahead and got brain surgeon number one…” She had said the last part much louder.

“Fuck you, Tattle-”

“Shut up, rapist.”

I didn’t turn back to see the look on Amy’s face, but her silence said enough. 

“Lisa…” I started.

“Don’t Lisa me,” she said, and took a step back, leaning against her desk, rubbing her face with her hand. “Do you know how hard it was, when you left to be a hero? This is the question I’ve been dying to ask you, but I was too afraid of what I’d find out.” She looked back at me, and I knew that there would be no lying to her, that whatever she asked, she’ll have an answer. “Did you think about that when you were in prison, how I was doing? Tell me honestly, did you think about me once? When you were on your bunk, blazing books cover to cover, did you think about how hard it was for me? Not just that my best friend in the whole world decided to leave, but that I had to help her go? That I had to help you leave me?”

I thought back about my time in prison, reading book after book without any enjoyment, a guilt that manifested as restlessness. The restlessness was because of my guilt for her, but did I think about her? Wonder how she was doing? 

No, I was too much of a coward. I avoided that.

She grimaced, then sighed. “Yeah, that’s what I thought. I let you do that to me once, and now again?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, hating how stern I sounded. “I really am, but yeah, the world was ending, and I’m not going to apologize for trying to sacrifice myself in order to give humanity a chance to survive.”

She shook her head. “No, you wouldn’t be Taylor if you would, would you? You know, this really makes me feel sorry…”

I clenched my teeth. I knew that I was on the receiving end of a Tattletale attack, and I deserved it. 

She slapped me again. I could have blocked it this time, but I didn’t. She was doing me a favor by slapping me instead of saying whatever it was her power told her that would break my heart to hear. 

“I missed you. I couldn’t go back to the safe, convenient loneliness that I’ve had before, because I knew I could have a friend like you. Before I knew there’s someone in this world that I could trust like this, I didn’t feel bad for not having her around. And you came, and showed me that it’s possible. And then you chose to leave. I know, I know you had to. But it doesn’t change the fact that you chose them over me. I fucking missed you, dude. It broke my heart. Between Rachel and the boys, it’s not like I had anybody to talk to.” She took a long breath, calming herself down, and when she spoke again her voice was so quiet only I could hear it. “Brian clammed up real bad, you know?” 

Perhaps I was too lucky to celebrate. I could feel the tears coming, but I didn’t deserve to cry. Rachel suddenly came between us, facing Lisa. “That’s enough. She knows.”

“No,” I placed one hand on Rachel’s shoulder. “Let her.”

Rachel gave me a strange look, then nodded and stepped aside. 

Lisa looked at me, as if trying to understand my decision. Eventually, she continued. “He would barely say a word for a whole meeting, and the worst of it was that he was actively trying to hide how bad it was. What worried me more was that he genuinely thought we didn’t know. Can you imagine how betrayed he felt, thinking back of the times you spent together where he let himself be vulnerable to you, and you were already planning how to leave? I know why you did it, but still, you betrayed him. You deserve to remember that.” 

That had the tears burst out of me, sudden like glass breaking. 

At the end she did decide to go for a Tattletale attack. Or maybe she didn’t need her power in order to figure this out. Maybe that’s what it feels like when a friend tells you the truth.

I let my head fall. There was snot coming out of my nose, but I didn’t have any tissue on me. I felt like a sniveling child. I was one, I guess. 

She came up close to me, and hugged me. She hugged me hard, and as I cried, she cried with me.

“I won’t even ask if you’d promise to stay,” she said, her voice trembling. “I know you won’t. I wouldn’t love you if you were anyone else. And I do love you.”

I wasn’t sure what kind of “I love you” that was. It could have been an “I love you, but I have to let you go.” or an “I love you, and I want to be your best friend forever.” 

Or the scariest of all, the “I love you” that I actually wanted to hear. 

I held my breath, waiting for her to say more, and when she did, she was smiling again.

“I could tease you a little bit, but I love you too much - yes, I still want to be your friend. I’ll be angry with you for a while, but I want you to move in with me. After the world comes back to something we can pretend is normal.” 

I wiped my nose with my sleeve. “What are you proposing, exactly?”

She sighed, and smiled. “That you move in. You’re my favorite person in the world, and I want to spend more time with you. Those months before you left could have been spent so much better, if we weren’t both such idiots.” 

“I would like that. To live together. But…” 

“I know, if the world makes you choose between me and it, you’d choose… whatever it is you and Doctor Incest here were about to choose. And if I get my heart broken, I’ll accept that.” 

That was surprisingly sober of her, surprisingly quick. A part of me wondered if she’d reached that conclusion before putting me through that barrage… 

“I’m sorry,” she said, her green eyes so close to mine. “I had to tell you. Like, really, I had to tell you, or we would never be able to stay friends. It would have eaten at us. Both of us.” 

I nodded. I trusted her with that. I’d trusted her to know when to break my heart. 

I’ll trust her with everything I have. 

#

A year later, in NY-C

I was checking myself in the mirror before going out. Jeans, a T- shirt with my best jacket over it. Nothing that people would look at and think - “What’s this, Taylor/Weaver going on a date? I wonder with whom!”, but still, I wanted to make an entrance, to step into his apartment and know that I looked good. I hoped it made me look more “elegant skinny” than birdlike.  

“You look absolutely smashing, you know that?” Lisa said as her reflection appeared in the mirror, behind mine.

“I… I’m actually starting to believe that.” 

She came up behind me and kissed me on the cheek. That was a relatively recent development, that she would just kiss me anytime she wanted to express love. 

After a year of sessions, I’ve come to trust Ms. Yamada. I was glad that Lisa had started talking to her regularly - not just because I thought it might help, but also because it meant that she was actually trusting someone with this stuff. 

Yamada had cleared it with me, and we decided that I’ll only consult her with my stuff, not with Lisa stuff. 

That was still something a psychotherapist wouldn’t imagine doing back in the pre-apocalyptic world, but she was the only psychotherapist I trusted.

(Aside from a short bout of time that I worried she might be a parahuman playing some sort of extremely long term plot to manipulate the most powerful capes on the planet. Luckily, Chevalier verified he’d seen footage of her where someone triggered in a mall where she happened to be, and she didn’t seem to be affected like parahumans usually are.)

I wasn’t sure what it was that this relationship was going to develop into, but I was happy with what we had. 

So, when Lisa urged me to take on a lover, I took her advice. It was even Lisa that pointed Rodrigo out, in a meetup of the new alliance of heroes. 

#

“You should go talk to that guy,” she’d said, and sipped from her paper cup.

“Why? Is your power telling you something?”

“My power’s telling me that he’s been throwing a glance at you every twenty seconds, and that he’s got the most wicked set of abs under that body armor. I know what you like,” she said, grinning. “He’s a little older but he’s not a creep. Almost sure that he’s just a really good guy, actually, which is better than my confidence for most people. Now go, you’ve got ten seconds before somebody grabs his attention and it gets awkward.”

“And say what, exactly?”

“Hi, I’m Taylor,” she said in a low voice. Then, in her normal voice, she commanded. “Go!”

She nudged me ahead, leaving me to wonder if I actually sounded like that. 

I’d tried her line, and it worked. 

After a mercifully short small talk he’d provided me his card, and told me that I could call him with whatever I thought he could help me with, his smile alone making the suggestion clear without being vulgar. He had a confident, kind smile, and I hate to admit that Lisa indeed knew what I liked. 

I called the next day, asked him out for a coffee, and he asked if I’d prefer to meet him in his place for a glass of wine. I thought about it, realized that I did, and after we’d finished the first glass (I stuck with soda from a wine glass, which he allegedly found charming) he’d made it very clear that he respects me deeply, but doesn’t want anything complicated. Capes don’t have time for relationships. It’s a liability. But that doesn’t mean they can’t enjoy romance, while their schedules permit it.  

After I’d put my clothes back on, he’d presented me with two bottles of perfume, and asked me which one I liked more. I took a sniff at each and chose one that smelled slightly of citrus, and he’d thanked me for my advice. The second time I came over, I smelled that perfume on him as I kissed his neck. 

A sweet gesture, particularly considering that I didn’t even know where one even got perfume, these days. There was a lot of stuff I didn’t know, but I was learning quickly, like how to feel like I actually deserved the passionate way he looked at me, even as we talked about books. (He didn’t know any of my favorite authors, and though I knew by name some of the books that he talked about, they were not ones that I’ve ever read. At his recommendation I gave Borges a shot, but never really enjoyed feeling that I was reading a summary of the book instead of the book itself.)

The looks, the conversations, were a sort of foreplay, the way he confidently communicated his attraction. 

I never learned to enjoy getting my hair pulled, but I appreciated how gently he introduced the maneuver, checking with me that I was okay every step of the way and respecting my eventual refusal without any argument.

He’d always made it clear that I was in control of the situation, and he was only making suggestions, and every bit of control that he claimed was under my assumed permission, to be reclaimed by me the instant I decided. 

He worshiped me, in a way, treating me like a goddess that it was his genuine honor and delight to serve. 

It made me feel really nice.

I knew it was a little fake, but even the fakeness was flattering, that he would put in the effort to fake it, just so I would feel more comfortable. 

I never had an orgasm with him, even though he made it very clear that he could keep going for as long as I needed, in whatever… mode of operations I needed.

From my humble experience and conversations with other women, I suspected I was just one of those girls who didn’t really achieve an orgasm from intercourse, and that was okay. 

Sex, it turned out, was not the magical experience I’ve read about in books - the intense, ego-killing pleasure followed by sweet fatigue. 

But that had advantages, too. At times, we’d even schedule our session before a big meeting, as I would have done with a running session. 

It was all very nice, really, but I didn’t love him. 

I loved Lisa. 

#

Still holding me from behind as I looked at the mirror, Lisa looked up at me at that new way of hers - she wanted to say something, but instead of hiding behind a grin she was letting me see that she was afraid of saying something. 

I loved that she was confident enough to do that, now.

I looked at her reflection in the mirror, as it looked at me. She didn’t need me to tell her I was listening. She needed me to give her time, and I did. 

“I talked to Yamada about something,” she said after a while. “I’d promised her I’d make you a proposal, and I will. But you have to promise that whatever I say, you’re not going to cancel tonight because of me. I want you to go, and I’m going to need at least a week to prepare. I won’t have the guts to tell you if I know we’re getting into a discussion about this right now.”

“Okay,” I said. “I promise.”

“There’s something that I’d like to try. And the only person in the world I want to try it with, is you.”

I went to Rodrigo that night, but I think that he could tell that I was distracted. I couldn’t stop thinking about Lisa. 

#

A week after she proposed the idea to me, I was hugging Lisa in my bed. She was laying on her side, safe in my arms, her cheek pressing against the base of my neck. 

“You know that color that the sky gets if the sun comes out right after it rains?” she said. “A sort of deep purple that contrasts hard with the sunlight falling on the trees? That’s what I imagine. Not just the colors, but like… the feeling of it.”

“Seriously? That’s what you think about?” 

“Yeah, either that, or a really blue sky. Or the sea, of course. What? That’s not that weird.” 

The way Yamada explained it to Lisa, a way to make ourselves more comfortable with the subject would be to lie in bed and talk about sex, or just talk about something, as long as we knew that was time in which we had our focus entirely on the other.

“It’s not weird, I’m just saying I’m surprised. I thought that maybe you’d focus on the way it feels physically, something like that.” 

“Nah, it’s more like… the abstract beauty of the thing. I don’t know. Okay, now tell me yours.”

I thought back. “Before Brian, it was mostly Brian. After Brian, well, it was still mostly Brian.”  

She raised her head a little. “And now?”

“Promise that you won’t laugh.”

“You just told me mine was weird.”

“I never said that. Just promise.”

“I promise,” she said, grinning in a way that made it clear that she was definitely going to laugh. 

I sighed. “Do you remember when we flew to the Simurgh, seeing if she would follow us?” 

She grinned. “Yeah?”

“So… I couldn’t help but think what if the Simurgh’s plan would be to change me, to find a way to affect me so I would become strong enough, mentally, to fight Scion.”

“I’m listening…” she said in a voice that made it clear she was having way too much fun in my expanse. 

“It’s stupid, but I thought up that whole convoluted way for it to make sense that the right thing with the Simrugh to do would be…”

“Yeah???”

“That she, um, used her powers of future seeing to give me the best orgasm ever.”

She laughed loudly and freely, and I savored the way my entire body shook with her expression of happiness. “Why am I feeling like there’s more you’re not telling me?” 

“Hey! No powers!”

“I’m not using my power! You’re blushing!”

“And…” I began adding.

“Yes…”

“If I really felt adventurous, I fantasized about her taking me by force. Just ripping open the walls of the Dragonfly and grabbing me by the throat, and…” I honestly hadn’t felt like I would ever tell anyone about this, but with Lisa, even as she was laughing, I felt like nothing could ever hurt me. “Beating the crap out of me, then making me come so hard I’d have a religious experience.” 

She burst with laughter. “That is so you.”

“I… think it’s for the better that I don’t know what you mean by that,” I said, and laughed along with her.”

“You know, even if we just do this once a week, just…” she hugged me a little tighter, “...this, that’s good enough for me.”

“Me too.” 

“And I think about the Simurgh sometimes, too.” 

“Seriously?” 

“Yeah, but like, it’s less physical. It’s more like, that she knows everything about me, and still wants me.” 

“So basically, how I feel with you,” I joked. 

She looked up at me, her green eyes suddenly very serious. “Really?” 

I returned her stare, surprised by how confident I felt. “Yes.”

She hugged me tighter, pushed me onto my back, and laid on top of me, her legs splayed over mine, her head resting on my chest. I felt as if something heavy  and warm was slowly sipping into me, dissolving my defenses. 

#

A week passed quickly with the constant distractions of work, but not quickly enough. 

My own conversations with Yamada had been a little different than Lisa’s. After… everything basically, I’d found it difficult to unclench. I’d found it difficult to just be with friends and enjoy the good times. 

Yamada had basically repeated the same advice in a thousand different ways - that I should stop being angry at myself for not being more relaxed. That I shouldn’t even have that as a goal. That I have every right to be on edge, after everything I’ve been through. 

(More than once, I accidentally saw her through my bugs, after a session, crying her heart out as soon as she thought I was outside of earshot. I didn’t know how to feel about that.)

She said I should stop trying so hard to relax, that at some point relaxation and happiness would appear on their own, like butterflies that only land on your hand if you don’t pay attention to them (a metaphor that she had realized quickly doesn’t really work for me, but I’d gotten her point).

And now, with Lisa in my arms, I felt like that was it - happiness.

Lisa had a list of ‘tasks’. Everytime we were done with one, like talking about our sexual fantasies, we’d move on to the next one, like giving each other massages. 

It was a little rigid, but every stage was exciting, and we’d both agreed to only go along with things we really wanted to try, to never do something sexual out of fear of disappointing the other. 

The third task was to touch each other. Just lay in bed and touch, wherever you feel like touching and being touched. Find what it is that you both like. 

Counterintuitively, because I was the one that was more… excited to advance, I left it completely to Lisa to choose how to escalate. To let her know that I was fine progressing at any pace she needed. At the moment, with me lying on my belly, while she straddled my back and did that thing that I liked at the back of my neck, I felt like this was going surprisingly well.

I liked it when she touched my neck the most. She liked when I scratched her lower back with my nails, not that I had very long nails. 

The next session, we kissed. Not a make out session as much as a series of pleasant experiments. 

On the one after that, we took off our clothes. There’s something funny about being naked next to somebody else without gaining some momentum first, arousal-wise. 

More than awkward, kinda… surreal. 

With Rodrigo and Brian kissing usually came before nudity, and so there wasn’t a moment of just being naked and that wasn’t mid or post sex. 

I didn’t want to tell Lisa, but I honestly felt more like we were children again than like this was going to become anything resembling the sex I’d had.

But childlike as it felt, it was still nice. We took a bath together, and as I massaged her foot she suddenly looked at me, as if having some sudden, grand idea.

I raised an eyebrow at her.

“Can I ask you something?” She said.

“Yeah.”

“Can I kiss you, now?”

I smiled. “Yeah.”

She clumsily turned in the bathtub, looking wholly ungraceful as she struggled to bring herself into a crouch, but also very cute. 

I didn’t move a muscle while she slowly positioned herself above me. I considered grabbing her hips, but decided against it. 

Zero pressure. 

She looked at me from above, her hands on the side of the tub. The only part of her body I was touching was her inner thighs, where she was sitting on me. 

She was close enough her hair fell on my face, as I looked up at her. In the personal darkness that only we two shared, she laughed nervously, as if realizing suddenly how close we were. 

She kissed me, then. It was slow, and very soft, but it was the best kiss of my life. 

She drew back, less than an inch. “Is it okay if we stopped? I don’t wanna…”

“Yes, of course. We can stop whenever you want. That’s exactly what I signed up for.”

“I know, I just don’t want you to…”

“I’m having a very good time, Lisa.”

She blushed. “I’m having a really good time, too.”

And so, we moved to the stage that came after kissing. 

#

We were in bed, both on our sides, still dressed, she with her mouth against my neck. I was holding her with both arms, feeling strangely… honored. 

As if stepping into some inner sanctum, being shown some secret ritual that no one but its conducting priestess was ever allowed to observe before. I was honored that she would share this with me, that she would trust me. 

I didn't think she was as present as I was, as with me as I was with her, but that was okay. I was there, listening to her cute little pants, feeling the little shivers that ran through her body, smelling her skin and her salvia on my neck and her raw, naked arousal. 

She had one hand inside the front of her pants, the other clutching me tight by my upper back.

She… she was probably thinking about the Simurgh, or the color of the sky after the rain, lost in the sensation of how her own fingers felt to herself.  

I was okay with that. I was okay with not being the center of her attention, if that meant that she could enjoy this. If I could help. 

She looked up at me, suddenly. Her eyes were a fire, not distant or dreamy, not even hyper focused as men are in their passion. 

She was here, looking at me, seeing me. Her mouth was open in a slight grin, her hair messy. “I’m thinking about you right now,” she said, just a little out of breath. “I’m thinking about how much I trust you. About how safe you make me feel.” 

I… didn’t know what to say. I didn’t know what to think. I didn’t have a word for how it felt. Flattered? 

Loved? 

Whole? 

She kissed me, and I kissed her back. And she kept going, and I kept kissing her as she came, her mouth open as she lost herself. 

Lost herself with me. 

#

I loved the feeling of her skin on mine, loved being naked with her. I’d never felt very comfortable about my body with men, as pleasant as Rodrigo had made me feel. 

With Lisa it was different. I knew I wasn’t going to be judged by the same standard. 

Every one of her kisses felt like a declaration. Just like every random kiss on the cheek was a little “I love you” so were her kisses on my collar bone, and neck, and naval. 

It was a good thing that she didn’t have the fire in her that the guys did. 

Brian hungered for me, almost impatient to devour me, like a wildfire, and Rodrigo was more like an engine, powerful and full of heat but also safe. 

Lisa, it seemed, just enjoyed the way my skin felt on her lips. Enjoyed being close to me, enjoyed what the contact symbolized. 

She wasn’t in a hurry anywhere, and I wasn’t either. I liked the sound she made when I used my nails to scratch at her lower back, like a kitten. I liked the way her naked belly felt against mine. I liked how her kisses felt, I liked the excitement that rose in me as she went lower and lower, even if I knew she’s not going to do anything more than kiss my belly.

Brian had never gone down on me. A simple “I don’t do that.” was all he provided, and I didn’t enquire any further. Feeling about my body the way I did at sixteen, I wasn’t sure I wanted him to. 

At nineteen, I felt slightly better about myself, particularly after Rodrido, but even with him… Rodrigo had expressed his intent to go down on me every single visit. In the two times I gave it a shot, I found myself focusing more on what to do with my hands than actually enjoying myself, and gave up on it after. It was very flattering, each time that he suggested, but still I accepted that there were parts of my body that I liked, and parts that I was less comfortable with.

Lisa, to my surprise, was doing more than kiss my belly. She took a big leap and kissed my inner thigh, licked the skin, and finally bit it. 

Then she looked up at me. God, I loved the way she looked at me, smirking, pleased with herself for making me feel so good. 

But I was still nervous. 

“You’re beautiful, Taylor,” she whispered. “You’re the most beautiful human being I’ve ever seen.”

She kissed me, then, down there, and I let her. I trusted her completely, and trusting her… it felt even better than what she was doing with her tongue. But that, too, was becoming nicer and nicer, both of us finding a rhythm to this new, strange thing that we were doing. 

Why were there tears in my eyes? 

This was good. I was happy. So why couldn’t I stop crying? 

She stopped to look at me, like a lioness looking up from a body of water. She came up, kissed me on the mouth again. “Do you want me to stop?” she said, but by her smile I could tell that she knew the answer, simply giving me a prompt to think about what I want, so I could know what it is, myself. 

I shook my head, and she kissed my breasts and belly on the way down, until finally her tongue found its place again, it’s perfect place. 

I cried some more, and at some point I stopped crying, and my moans were free as I held on to Lisa’s hair, not even guiding her as she knew exactly what to do, just exercising some measure of control as I was riding these wild ocean of sadness and joy and pleasure. 

What was it that the boy who saved the world had said? The path to healing is painful but beautiful?  

#

I was lying in bed - the little spoon, for once. I could have stayed there forever.

“What are you thinking about?” she whispered into my ear.

“Guess.”

“You’re wondering what would have happened if the boy who saved the world would have arrived a minute later.”

I smiled. “Almost. I’m wondering what would have happened if he came a minute sooner.”

“Dammit.”

“Would we be here, now, if you hadn’t seen it in me? If I hadn’t thought up that idea, if you hadn’t gotten angry with me, if you hadn't told me everything…” I stopped myself. I knew that she didn’t like to talk about those times - she’d told me, and I wanted to respect it.

“It was terrifying, you know?” she said. “To think that I was so close to losing you. But let me tell you something, as someone who’s pretty good at knowing things - you’re too smart to wonder about how things would have been. How could things have been any other way? They were what they were. We gotta make peace with that.” 

I took her hands, pulled her arms tighter around me. “Easier with you here.” 

“Good.”

# 

The next day I texted Rodrigo, saying that I won't be over for a while. 

As expected, he was a gentleman about it, making it clear that I am very welcome to call him when I see fit, and wished for me that I enjoy whatever it is that I choose to do with the time. 

I did.  

Chapter Text

We were a distance away from the book store, just far enough so we didn’t have to worry about the old man chasing us. My ear was still strobing with pain where Sophia had tried to rip it off, but I barely noticed it. I’d accidentally just confessed my love to Brian, and worse yet, I was still talking, and the more I talked, the worse it became. 

“I just thought, um, you’ve gone out of your way to spend time with me, you were meeting me on my runs, invited me to be at your place alone, practiced grappling with me, and sometimes I felt like you keep sitting on me longer than necessary, and that one time…” I realized halfway into saying it that I didn’t have the courage to bring up that one time that I felt his boner as he choked me from behind. “...you bought me the amber…” I trailed off. 

How the fuck did I get it so wrong? I was sure that he was at least a little interested. 

“Ah, geez,” he said, standing only an arm’s reach away and yet, so, so far. “Sorry if I made it seem like I’m into you.” My heart dropped, hit the floor, and shattered against it. “You’ve got to understand, the only girls I hang out with are my little sister, Lisa who’s pretty obviously gay, and Rachel who I really hope is gay, you know?” 

I nodded, tightly. If Rachel was into boys, it was pretty much game over for her. 

He went on to explain how he was always busy with work after school, and he didn’t think about girls except for noticing when a good looking one was around. 

Which I wasn’t, I guess. 

I offered another nod, not trusting myself to open my mouth. 

“In summation, I’m an idiot, I’m really sorry, and you’re a clever, good looking girl who can find someone who doesn’t put their foot in their own mouth.” 

He was being sweet. He was actively trying his best to protect my feelings, and that made it all the more horrible. Made me want him so much more. 

I was going to cry myself to sleep tonight, I knew, and it won’t be quick, either. At least it would be a nice change of scenery, instead of crying because Emma wants me to, I’ll cry because he doesn’t. 

“I wish I saw you that way,” he continued, and I closed my eyes hard, already seeing where he was going and not wanting to hear the words. “It’s… more like you’re my—Aisha?”

I’m like his Aisha? What? 

I had to say, as much as I was prepared for rejection, that bit still took me by surprise. But he wasn’t looking at me, he was looking right behind me, and there she was.

As cold as it was outside, she was still wearing the same top that I wouldn’t even call underwear that she did last time - or was it another one? - showing the world how favored she was by the God of good genes. 

She had a sort of synthetic fur coat that must have been white at some point but had a sort of greyness at the edges now, as if she found it on the street or was given it by a friend who didn’t want it anymore. She wore the same torn denim, but with black leggings showing through the holes this time. 

She ignored me completely. “Sup big bro? You taking Bug Girl out around the town?”

“Aisha, what are you doing here?” Brian’s scolding tone seemed to come not from knowing that she’d done something wrong, I think, but more from just being caught off guard in the middle of a sensitive situation. 

“I was on my way to chill with friends when I noticed that I didn’t pack my headphones with me. Strange, isn’t it? I thought they were on my head, but suddenly they weren’t. Anyway, I was walking home to get them because fuck me if I’m going to spend the entire ride thinking about life or some shit, and there I see this girl sprinting out of the shop like, fshoo fshoo, good form and all, like an olympic sprinter. And she was quite a looker too, and then I stop to look and I see you two coming out of the store and I think to myself hey, big bro, but as soon as I approach you to say hi I see Bug Girl over her spilling her girl guts about how much she likes you and thinks you’re a good person…”

Well, that was that. I’m going to have to find another supervillain team. Preferably in another city. 

Brian was livid. “And you just stood here and listened to us talk?”

“I thought you’d see me at some point! I’ve been standing in front of your face for almost five minutes.”

Brian looked at me, checking to see if I had any input, but I only blinked. I wondered if Colorado had any good teams. I always wanted to live someplace sunny. 

He nodded in understanding, and spoke to his sister again. “Well, can you let us speak privately?”

“N-word please,” she said, actually pronouncing the name of the letter, followed by ‘word’. She got a glare from Brian. “What, you told me not to use that word, so I don’t. White people say ‘the N-word’ all the time. Anyway, you want me to leave so you could keep making your stupid mistakes, but I love you too much to let you, bro.”

“Aisha…”

“No, hear me out. Bug Girl got it bad for you, and you like her too. And now you gonna give her that bullshit about her being like Lisa and me? I’ve seen you around Lisa, bro, and that’s not the same thing at all.” 

Brian opened his mouth, but nothing came out. She was getting to him. I didn’t even want to say anything. I thought… I thought she might actually help.

“Yeah Bug Girl, I got you.” She turned from me back to Brain. “And you won’t give her a chance, because you’re too afraid of getting hurt or some pussy shit like that? Why is it that you find it easier to beat a man twice your size unconscious than tell a girl you actually like her?”

“You don’t understand,” he finally said. “People get hurt.”

“So? You’re hurting her anyway. You can, at the very least, show her a good time before you hurt her. Let her live her life. Looks like both of you could use some romance, and she looks like the kind of girl that gives head like her life depends on it.”

I felt like I was slapped. 

I mean, I’ve read about that online, and I did mentally prepare for a situation where I’d do it for Brian. I knew that it’s not going to be easy the first couple of times, but I was ready to give it my best efforts, if it made him happy. 

How did she make it sound so dirty?

“Aisha, you’re way out of line. Apologize right now, then leave. We’ll talk about this later.”

“Apologize for what? I’m helping you miserable virgins out. Peace.” She took a step back, spread her arms to the side to flip two middle fingers, and tilted her head. 

She made it look so cool, like she just stepped out of a music video, as she walked backwards, not checking to see if she was walking into anyone. A young couple with grocery bags managed to narrowly avoid her, giving her stares which she didn’t even notice. 

“Don’t give up on him, Bug Girl.” She placed one hand on the back of her head, and made a motion of pushing it forcefully forward. “Work that neck if you have to. I believe in you!” She pirouetted away, surprisingly graceful in her own trashy way, and threw her head back, laughing to herself. 

We both stood there and watched her go. 

“I’m so sorry about that,” Brian said, rubbing his face with his hand. “I think she’s jealous of you getting my attention or something. Not that it excuses any of that.”

“It’s fine,” I said. “I think… I think she was really trying to help.”

We were both silent for a while, having no idea how to follow that.  

Brian sighed. “She does have a point, though.”

“Do I really look like somebody who gives good head?” Somehow the words managed to escape my mouth before I thought them through. My face turned hotter than I thought was possible. 

“No.” He shook his head. “I mean, I don’t know. I meant that she was right about me being afraid. Of hurting you, and of getting hurt myself. I don’t want to fall in love with you, Taylor, only for it not to work out.”

“Is that… Are you…”

“Not right now. Not that I know of. I have a feeling I wouldn’t know even if I were.”

“So… What are you saying?”

“I’m not saying yes.”

Fuck. Could I once, just once, have things going my way?

“But I’m not saying no either.” He smiled at me, and I felt like I was melting. God, I loved that smile. “And next time you feel like kissing me, do it because you want to instead of pretending that it’s a part of a scheme, okay?”

I took a deep breath, and decided, my hands shaking, not to be a coward. “Can I ask you for something now?”

“Sure,” he said, and I thought he genuinely didn’t notice as he licked his lips.

“Can I get a hug?”

A quick look of surprise, that settled into one of understanding. Then his long, muscular arms drew me in against him, faster and harder than I’d expected. My face rested against his chest - warm and softer than I’d expected -  while he pressed his cheek against my forehead. I felt so safe as I slowly let myself wrap my arms around his waist, and he sighed - a deep sigh of satisfied relief.  

There were tears in my eyes as I realized that he, too, needed this. Even better - he wanted this. Despite how loud the street had been just a moment ago, all was quiet now, every single sound muted and forgotten. All, except for one. 

“Wooo-hooooo! Hell yeah, Bug Girl! Get it!!”

Chapter Text

I allowed myself a sigh of relief as Bitch turned from this ignorance fueled hostility back to her ordinary everyday hostility. 

Amy had come through, and her counter-parasite really did heal the effects of Bonesaw's miasma, returning Bitch’s memories. 

“I was going to have Bently break you,” she said. “Why did you help me?”

Back to normal, I thought as I turned away from her. 

We could get back to our sisyphean back and forth after I helped Tattletale regain her memories. I knew it was easier for her because of her power, but I didn’t know if there was someone she was missing, like I’d missed my mother.

 “You couldn’t have waited until after you’d cured me before you put the bugs on your face?” Tattletale asked. She was smiling as she asked. “Unless you want me to drink that water.” 

She pointed at the water that I had landed in after Bitch punched me in the face. It was turning clear, as clear as road-hole-water could be, anyway. 

The effect spread from that point, the red mist of Bonesaw’s miasma turning grey and clear, spreading quickly through the alleyway that we were in. It really was working.  

“Sorry. No, I’ll help you out.” 

She gave me a stern look, pointed at me, and said, “No tongue.” 

I rolled my eyes, and leaned over to give her a quick peck on the lips.

Suddenly her expression changed, as if she realized something, and she placed her hands on my collarbones, pushing me back and avoiding my lips. 

Have I made things weird? Had she been joking about kissing before, and I took her seriously, making this awkward? 

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought that this-”

“No, that’s not it. It’s a beautiful gesture. Look, over there, where those pieces of broken asphalt are lying on the floor? I’m 85% percent sure that someone picked one of them and moved it away from the others.”

“What, like some kid kicked it?”

“No, somebody picked it up, turned it over, and put it down.”

“Why would anyone do that?”

“92% sure that was to leave a message for me or for someone with a power like mine. But the only message is that a message was sent. What for?” 

She looked at me again. “Never mind, we’ll solve this after I have my memories. Okay, sweet lips, give me some sugar.” 

She leaned forward, and just as I leaned forward, too, she turned away again.

Was she doing it on purpose? 

“What’s wrong?”

“They left the message so I could see it right before you returned my memories. What would they want me to know? Obviously, that I should wait a little longer before getting my memories back.”

“Why would they want you to stall before getting your memories? What kind of advantage does not having your memories give you?”

“You and Bitch are the only one here, so it has to do with the two of you. There’s something I can do with you that I can’t do if I remember who you ar… Oh no. I’m such an idiot.”

“What?

She looked down, and then up at Bitch, behind me. Something was off.

“Fucking finally,” Bitch said, picking up on something that I still haven’t. “I’ll be around the corner. Keep some bugs with me in case the Nine start shit.” 

I didn’t turn to her, couldn’t afford to take my eyes off Lisa, who raised her brow for a moment and then nodded, which I took to mean that she understood how my powers worked from the remark alone. Then she looked down again, nervously fidgeting with her fingers. 

I absentmindedly placed some bugs on Rachel and her dogs. 

“L… Tattletale, what’s going on? If you don’t trust me or something…”

She shook her head, but she still wasn’t looking at me. “That’s not it. Critter - no, Skitter, isn’t it? I don’t know your real name. I don’t want to. I know that I can trust you, and there’s something that I need to tell you before I remember everything. Ever since the miasma hit me, I was walking with this strange pain in my chest.” 

She raised her hand to silence me before I could say anything. 

“I knew right away that it had nothing to do with the miasma, because I remembered it being there for a while already. But I couldn’t quite remember what was the cause of it. I would have used my power against myself, but I’d done that once, and the existential after-effect of that fun experiment had made the worst of my migraines seem like a gift from God. Nothing ever really felt real since that one time, you know?”

I could imagine. I’ve seen what her power had done to Amy, at the bank and after the Siberian, and I suspected she'd been holding back on both times. If she saw herself with that same clarity, there would be nothing separating her from the pure stream of devastating information, and her power would similarly give her insight into her own process of self realization as she was happening, causing a feedback loop of devastation. 

But why was she telling me all of this now?

“It felt like I was missing someone. Like I’d been heartbroken, quite recently, and not by an abrupt event like a breakup, but a slow, painful process. Someone that I wanted to be very close, was far away, and it was becoming more and more clear that they would never get any closer.”

“Tattletale, I’m glad you’re telling me this, but we can do this after your memories are back. According to Amy, the Miasma causes lesions in the brain if we wait for too long…”

“One more minute, I promise. I won’t have the guts to say this when I remember who you are. This relatively fresh heartbreak echoes an older one. I see that now. My brother died, I don’t know when, or how, or what he looked like. I know that I loved him very much, and I know that his death was my fault. And when I look at you, now, I see that you are suicidal.”

“I’m not…” 

“Skitter, shut up. Please. You are. You will never throw a toaster in the bathtub - there’s something foreign in the brain of every parahuman that shifts our entire way of thinking so that we’ll get back into the battlefield, that we’ll fight, and from the look on your face I realize I never told you this, probably as to not ruin their day. That part exists, and it will stop you from committing suicide. But you are resourceful, Skitter, so you will kill yourself part by part instead, pushing yourself into dangerous situations that will give you an excuse to destroy parts of yourself. Have you killed anyone yet? No, but you’ve… lied to someone else so they would. Did that even achieve the ends that were supposed to justify those means?”

That wasn’t fair. I had to lie to Sundancer about killing civilians, or she would chicken out from using her sun against Bonesaw. Even if it ended up not killing her, that was a worthy gamble that could have saved thousands of people. 

“What are you trying to say?”

“That I will love you. When you stop my brain from rotting from whatever this Bonesaw engineered, I will remember how much I love you. And it will break my heart, and if you kiss me now, every time I remember that kiss it will hurt again. You’ve done that recently, told someone that loved you them and got rejected. It’s not the same, you want bang her… Him. And you want to kiss and hold hands. That’s not what I want. I mean, maybe I would like that, too. I’m not sure. But what I have for you, what I will have for you, is much worse than just that. I will let you do whatever you want, like a mother who can’t say no to their child even when they know they should. I will help you walk down this path, even if it kills you. People aren’t real to me like they are to you, I see the strings being pulled. All of them seem to me like processes, without anything even remotely resembling free will. And you do, too. But you are a beautiful process. You’re the most beautiful person I’ve ever seen, even if right now I don’t know why that is.”

“Tattletale, just…” I said. I couldn’t waste any time, but I had no idea how to react to that. “What do you want me to do?”

“Kiss me. But for real. Kiss me while knowing full well that we will drag each other down into the abyss and quite likely die together or enslave the world together or both. Kiss me now and for the rest of our friendship we will pretend that this was all miasma-induced madness and doesn’t really change anything.” 

It couldn’t be true. I didn’t want to die, I didn’t want to destroy myself, and I certainly didn’t want to enslave the world - whatever that meant. But I did want to save my friend from brain lesions, and after that I’ll have time to deal with… whatever that was. 

“Okay,” I said. “Come here.”

She took the two steps up to me then, took my waist in her hands and pulled me close. Even with how dirty and rugged and hurt we were, there was a soft tenderness to her body. Her eyes lowered, she put her face really close to mine, and only then met my gaze. There were tears in her eyes, as she smiled. 

“I take back what I said before. You can use some tongue if you want.”

I did.

Chapter Text

The Undersiders had finally bit on more than they could chew. Bakuda was ready for us, more prepared to kill than us, quicker and sm… she’d had a better plan, this time. Up until Regent flipped her truck. 

“Grue!” I called out. I ran to him, hugged him. 

This was great. Not only was he not dead, but I got to hold him again.

“Heya,” his voice echoed. To my surprise, he hugged me back, as if he… he was also worried? “I’m alright. Only a feint. Hard to tell whether it’s me or a blob of shadow shaped roughly like a person when the lights are out, yeah? Fooled her.” 

“Fooled me. Scared the fucking crap out of me,” I answered, “You fucker.” 

I had decided, at that moment, that he was going to be my boyfriend. I’d almost seen the chance disappear, and I was going to capitalize on it, no matter what it took. I’d never kissed a boy, never ever held hands with someone, but at that moment, I realized what they wrote about in the novels. 

I wanted him to take me. I wanted him to make me his.

“Nice to know you care,” he laughed a little, patted me on the head like someone would a dog, which, eh, made me feel some confusing feelings. “Come on. We should restrain the lunatic, get her out of here so we can drill her.”

I wouldn’t mind getting some of that, myself. “Sounds like a-“

An explosion, white light blooming, but not so close to us the we were in danger - it reached a crescendo and vanished, and we could see Bakuda, kneeling by the turned over jeep and screaming in pain through her vocoder. 

Regent howled with laughter, true sadism in his voice. “Her nerves are going wild. It’s like they’re turned up to ten thousand percent. I bet it hurts like a motherfucker.”

I looked at Bakuda, who kept making that monotone, tormented sound. It sounded like a very low quality, digitized phone call, and the person on the other side was in literal hell. 

She was twisted in an almost tetanic posture, her boots and upper back against the ground while her pelvis and back were up in the air, her hands in front of her curled up like she was being electrocuted. 

Maybe she was. Two wet stains were spreading at the top part of her pants.

“We didn’t see her regain consciousness,” Tattletale clarified. “And she was about to use that opening to throw that bomb directly at you, Skitter. But it dropped out of her hand… Regent?”

He shrugged. “My powers are shot. I didn’t do anything.”

Tattletale looked genuinely disturbed at that. “Then who…”

“It doesn’t matter right now,” Grue chimed in. “We need to grab Bakuda and get out of here.”

We did. If somebody did help us, we’ll find out later who and why. For now, we picked up Bakuda’s rigid body, doing our best to avoid the slowly expanding stain on her crotch. Her screaming hadn’t stopped, and up close, coordinated with the slight movements of her body… I could get an estimate of how much pain she was feeling, realizing it was more than I could imagine. 

I was really glad she didn’t hit me with that thing. Who knows what could have happened?

Chapter Text

“Grue!” I called out. 

“Don’t you fucking dare!” He turned his head around. 

I disentangled from Bitch’s grip, avoided Grue’s clutching hand and slid from the dog’s back  to the ground. I didn’t land with both feet under me, so I tipped over and rolled. 

“Ballistic, take my seat!” I shouted, as I got my feet under me. I glanced behind me at Crawler and broke into a run. The millions of bugs that were on him were weaving webs, slowing him down.

“Skitter!” Grue barked the word. 

“Just go! I have a plan!” Easier to lie when I was shouting, my face hidden. 

They picked up Ballistic, held him so he won’t fall as the dog accelerated, and bolted. I was left behind in moments. 

“Run, little girl!” Crawler’s broken voice was so low I felt it more than heard it. “I’m getting free, and I’ll catch you soon. I’ll penetrate your body with my tongue and play with your organs. I’ll have Bonesaw saw us together so you can’t die, and inflict upon you a suffering you literally can’t imagine. I will do this for months taking you with the Nine from city to city. Even a nuke won’t save you. Your friends have abandoned you. These are the last moments of sanity you will ever experience before I drag you into despair.”

I didn’t know if I had ever ran as fast as I did then. My movements were practiced, smooth, but even the exertion of my limbs didn’t completely hide the peng of terror that I felt.

No, not terror. 

Regret. 

Why the hell did I leave my seat for Ballistic? What did I expect to get from that? Status? I definitely didn’t care about him enough to feel like I should sacrifice my life for him, and if I believed Crawler, I probably just gave up on more than that.

An awful tearing sound was heard from behind me, like a million silk threads tearing at the same time, and then the laughter that sounded like it came from several colossal beasts, so low it shook my ribcage. I didn’t have to turn around to know that Crawler had begun running. I could feel the impacts of his footfalls through the asphalt.

I needed to find a way to survive right now. Through the sewers? With his weight and the condition of the infrastructure combined, I may as well bury myself alive, though it probably would be better than getting tongued to death. 

Would Amy make it in time? I left her with a lot of bugs to work with, but I didn’t know if even she could  make something that would take me away fast enough, soon enough. Would Genesis make a new form? Most of her forms couldn’t really slow down Crawler, and even if they did, I had nothing to do about it, just keep running and wait for her to show up. 

From the bugs and force of the vibrations on the road I could tell that Crawler has covered more than half of the distance now, barely a hundred feet behind me. I wasn’t quite in the state of mind to solve math questions, but I had a feeling it would take him far less time to cover the rest of the distance.

Sewers it is then. Really? Was I just accepting that I would die here? Everything I still needed to do... 

I didn’t have time to think about that. I’ll contemplate death after the sewers fall on me, not when Crawler is having fun pushing his tongue between my lungs. 

I looked for a manhole, but there weren’t any. How common were they, anyway? One every block? Maybe Crawler will accidentally crush me to death when he holds on to me? Maybe after a day of getting acid lacing my organs I will stop feeling the pain, and sink into some sort of stunned torpor? A life full of unnecessary pain, of suffering for other people’s amusement, ending in the same way. 

I couldn’t afford to cry now, I needed to see. I sent the bugs forward to feel for any entrance in the asphalt, but it was too late. 

The entire street bent as Crawler leaped into the air. 

I tried to change direction while he was in the air, but his body was so large, his future-area-of-impact so large, that I knew it won’t do anything to save me. 

I was ready for him to fall on me, I was ready for the last of my tortures to begin. I slipped on the road as I turned, my soles not giving me the traction I needed for the acceleration I planned for. 

I was ready for him to land, closing my eyes and holding my breath.

But he didn’t. 

After a moment, I looked up. 

He wasn’t there. There was a light in the sky, moving quickly. It was a couple of hundred meters above me, and gaining fast. 

It was Crawler, I realized, and the light was from the friction of air against his body, like a spaceship penetrating the atmosphere, but in reverse. He was going up. In the span of seconds he was almost invisible, like a star, getting smaller but also brighter, as if he was still gaining speed. 

I kept watching, transfixed, and soon the light was gone. I wasn’t sure if it was because he got far enough that the light got too small to see, or because he exited earth’s atmosphere.

Could Crawler survive the vacuum of space? Probably. 

He could probably survive atmospheric reentry. But if I remembered physics correctly, there was a velocity high enough from which he would just never fall back to Earth, and though I had no way of estimating if the speed he was sent up with was enough, I had a feeling that whoever did that to him wouldn’t just let him fall back. 

Somebody just saved my life. More than my life. But who, and why?

Chapter Text

Lunch on the toilet was routine now. Every school day, I would finish off my brown bag lunch, then I’d do homework or read a book until lunch hour was over. 

I was thinking I would spend as long as I could on Mr. Gladly’s assignment before reading the book in my bag, because I wasn’t enjoying it very much. It was an official cape biography, and I suspected it was all mad- 

The door of the bathroom was shoved open, so hard it banged against the wall. 

I froze. I didn’t want to rustle the bag and clue anyone that I was there, so I kept still and listened. I couldn’t make out the voices, as they were obscured by giggling and the sound of water from the sinks. 

There was a knock on the door, making me jump. I ignored it, but the person on the other side just knocked out again. 

“Occupied,” I called out, hesitantly. 

“Oh my god, it’s Taylor!” Madison exclaimed with glee, and I felt the thrum of terror with which a mouse recognizes the screech of a hawk. She was always goading the others, waiting for them to do something to me before she felt safe enough to join the bullying. 

I couldn’t hear what Sophia was saying to her in response, but I recognized her voice even though it was only a whisper, could hear the vicious leer in it. 

Madison giggled. “Yeah, do i-” she started, when the door banged open, louder this time, as if someone pushed it with both hands. Someone strong.

The paper bag and last bites of my lunch fell to the floor as I stood up and went for the door, grabbing at the lock to pop it open. I hesitated. 

On the one hand, I could use this distraction to rush out of the bathroom before Sophia started doing whatever it was.. 

On the other, if this was someone that would help them, I’d be giving up what little defense I had. 

Please, I thought. Please let it be a teacher.

Sophia's voice was a snarl, hostile with more than a pinch of actual fear. “Who the fuck are you? What's with the fucking mask?”

“You’re Sophia, right?” The voice that answered was familiar, though the tone was so bitter, so hostile, I couldn’t believe Í’ve ever heard it before. I would have remembered. “I thought you’d be taller.” I could hear the sound of heavy footsteps  as he walked casually into the girls bathroom.

Emma's voice was polite, reasonable, but she was obviously scared. “Listen, this is the girl’s bathroom. You can’t be here.” 

Sophia snarled. “I don’t know what you think you’re doing but-”

“Shut the fuck up, Shadow Stalker. I don’t think any of your Heathers understand the only reason I’m not punching your teeth down your throat is because she asked me not to. There is a version of this story where she gets out of that stall to find you bleeding on the floor and the first thing she does is give you first aid. Madison would just stand there and stare, like the coward that she is, but she, that you were about to pour juice on, rolls you on your side so you don’t suffocate. But I’m getting ahead of myself.” 

He took a deep breath, and nobody said anything. I was trying to piece together what he said together, but none of it made sense. Shadow Stalker? The Ward?

“Sophia, I don’t know what happened with Steven but it’s no excuse to be a dick to literally everyone around you. The Wards are actually trying their best to help you, and Missy is a fucking saint-”

There was a sound like somebody punching a wall.

“Please don’t interrupt me while I’m speaking-”

“You motherfucker!” I’ve never heard Sophia shriek so high before. “You broke my hand!”

“No, you broke your hand.” He sighed. “Could we please not do this?”

“Soph.” Emma’s voice, quiet. “Don’t.”

I leaned against the door of the stall now, even more afraid than I’d been before. 

“You really shouldn’t protect her, you know. She literally watched you getting almost-raped and just waited. She wanted you to become like her in order to justify how horrible she is. It’s not your fault, but it is your responsibility to snap out.”

“You know who I am,” Sophia said. “You know what I’m capable of.”

“For the love of God Shadow Stalker, don’t make me break your other hand. She’d be mad enough with me as it is. Well, not exactly.”

“What do you want?” Emma’s voice again, stable but tense.

“To finish a fucking sentence without being interrupted by anger-management-issues. Emma, listen to me. I get that you think you’re on some beyond-good-and-evil shit, that you see things as they are, and other people are all idiots. But in reality, Taylor could have stopped you for a while now.”

Did he know? This seemed like a good time to intervene, and I opened my mouth to speak, but I didn’t know what to say. 

“Everytime you did the worst thing you could imagine, everytime you put her flute in the trash or something like that, she chose not to have you disappear.”

“Is it true, Heberet?” There was still pain in her voice, mixed in with the anger. “You a parahuman?”

What was I supposed to say? I didn’t want to tell her the truth, but I didn’t think lying would work, either.

“You interrupt me one more time, Shadow Stalker, and I swear to God I’m gonna break my promise.”

There was a pause, and all were silent. Even I found myself silenced by the violence implied in that voice, and I wasn’t the one being threatened. I think.

“Do you understand what I’m telling you, Emma? Everything you’ve learned from Sophia? It’s paper thin. It’s not real. Go see a professional, stop this madness.”

“No.” Emma’s voice was quiet and resolute. “You can’t do anything. You can’t make me.”

He took a deep breath, let it go. “Okay,” he said finally.

Okay?

“Okay?” Sophia asked. 

“I didn’t want to do this. We’re going to have to do the whole ghost of the future yet to come type shit.” 

“You don’t who you’re dealing with, fuckboy,” Sophia growled. “I’ve got friends in places you wouldn’t -”

There was a sudden drop of air pressure, and the sound of wind gushing. Emma and Sophia screamed, then suddenly their screams sounded as if they were coming from very far away, then stopped completely. The wind stopped as suddenly as it stated.

“I’m sorry Medison, but you’re not going on a future trip with your friends. I’m afraid you’re not worth it, as you have no free will.” His footsteps crossed the room, and I think I heard Madison panting in panic. 

“Taylor?” she said. Her voice was so high. “Can you tell him to stop? I’m sorry about everything. I didn’t want to do it, I just wanted them to think I’m cool and-”

There was a thump, as if someone was slammed against the wall, and then a loud snort followed by a gurgling, as if someone was drawing snot all the way from their nose to their throat, then a loud spitting sound. 

The process repeated itself three or four times. Madison remained silent the entire time.

And then, nothing. I waited to see if the man would either try to get my door open, or open the bathroom door, but nothing happened. 

His voice was very close to the door on the other side of the door. I just almost recognized it. “My advice to you is to join the Wards. It’s going to be hard with Sophia there, but hopefully after we come back from our little trip she’s going to behave. The Wards know about the locker, but not about everything that happened after, and if you tell them they will have your back. Okay?”

I didn’t know what to say. “Okay.”

“Taylor, I…” On the other side of the door he sighed. “I’m sorry. Not just about breaking my promise to you. But about everything.”

“What promise?” I asked, just as another gust of wind came, and soon after, silence.   

There was too much to think about. A parahuman had come here, to stop the bullying? Sophia was Shadow Stalker? Emma was almost raped, and that had something to do with her turning on me? This parahuman took them somewhere, and I only had his word to count on that he was going to bring them back. What if they needed help? 

I took a deep breath, and opened the stall door. The bathroom was empty aside from Madison, who stared blankly into space, her lip trembling. 

There were strings of spit on her face. The yellow, almost green kind, one long streak going all the way from her eyebrow, hanging from her eyelashes, over her nose and lips, some of it getting into her mouth.

“Madison,” I said. “Madison, look at me. Are you okay?”

It took her eyes a moment to find me, then she shook her head. After a long pause, she managed to speak. “No.”

I hated her. I really did. But she needed help. God damn it. 

“Come on,” I said. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

I got some toilet paper from the bathroom, and wiped the spit off of her face, then slowly guided her to the sink where I helped her wash her face until she took over and started doing it herself. When she was done, I was waiting for her with some paper towels. 

She looked at me through the mirror, as if afraid to look at me directly.

 “I did this to you,” she said. Her voice was very quiet. “I spat in your face.”

“Yeah.”

“It feels horrible. I made you feel horrible.”

I shrugged. “Yeah.”

“I’m a horrible person.” She sounded so miserable.

To my surprise, I put a hand on her shoulder. “You don’t have to be,” I said. 

She nodded, then took the towels from my hand and wiped her face. 

I dared feel a pinch of hope, instantly followed by the thought that this was all an act, that Emma and Sophia had planned this somehow. 

I looked at Madison, at the regret in her eyes. She wouldn’t be able to fake it this well. 

Now that the danger was over, the questions bounced in my head at a dizzying speed. 

Who, how, why, and most importantly, what did it mean when this person that I've never met talked about a promise he had made to me? 

Chapter Text

It was three in the morning, and his daughter, Taylor, wasn’t home.

Danny could feel the anxiety shaving the years off his life. His own mind, his own imagination were killing him. He resisted the urge to get down on his knees and pray - he had promised himself long ago that he would never do that again. 

But he managed to hope, to imagine how silly he would feel when Taylor got back home from a particularly long run, or maybe hanging out with friends she never told him about… 

At midnight?

No, he couldn’t avoid the more sensible conclusion, that his daughter went out for a walk in the middle of the night, and one of the thousands of predators that stalked this city, poisoned with desperation and bitter hate, found her as a victim. 

One of the thousands? More likely, a few of them. He really didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want to imagine it, but his mind couldn’t stop. 

Taylor running down some darkened street as a hooded figure stalked behind the corner, listening to her shoe strikes and anticipating the right moment to pounce; her surprised scream as he caught her and dragged her to the alley where his friends were waiting; her voice, steady but so terrified as she tried to reason with them; the sound of their laughter, of fabric being torn; the broken helplessness in her voice as she called for help before a dirty hand grabbed her by the mouth; her muffled sobbing as they took turns hurting her-

Danny considered punching the wall, but he didn’t remember where the steel sections were and breaking his hand would only make him more impotent than he already was. More importantly they didn’t have the money to fix the things that were already broken. 

He couldn’t breathe. The tv showed some documentary, images of the ocean cutting to some old lady talking with an excited expression. It wouldn’t distract him, not when every fatherly instinct in his body called for him to go out into those streets that have taken his daughter from him and murder. 

And he would. He knew with absolute certainty that he could kill a man tonight, if he needed to. 

But if she got back home and he wasn’t there…

He looked at his phone, wanted so much to pick it up and call Annette, to get her calm wisdom, her advice that always seemed so obvious after she’d said it, like it was the only rational thing one could have thought, even if he never would have thought about it himself. 

You asshole. He thought. How could you leave me like this? How could you just go and die? Didn’t you know how badly I would need you? 

He was being pathetic, feeling sorry for himself when he should have been practical. He picked up the phone, checked the battery. Three out of four bars.

A plan formed itself in his mind. Take the phone, leave a note for Taylor to call him the instant she got back, drive around and look for her. If he finds her and the men that were hurting her…

An image flashed before his eyes: himself standing in a courtroom with an orange coverall, admitting with neither shame nor pride that he indeed intentionally killed the men that were hurting his daughter. 

He could live with that. 

“Gotta find her first, Danny boy,” he mumbled to himself.  

He pocketed the phone and went down the stairs, found a pen and a piece of paper to write down a note, when he heard a knock on the back door. 

He was at the door in a second, opening and reaching to hug-

It wasn’t Taylor. He barely stopped himself in time from colliding with the stranger standing in the dark. 

It was a boy, about Taylor’s age. Scrawny, blonde, but with a strange, confident look in his eyes, clear even in that darkness. 

“Who the hell are you?” Danny said, surprised by the harshness of his voice. He could barely bear his disappointment that it wasn’t Taylor. 

The boy had a pained expression. Wasn’t he in Taylor’s class? “It’s difficult to explain, and I don’t want to lie to you. Can we skip this-”

Danny grabbed him by the shoulders “Where the hell is my daughter?” he growled. A part of him noted that he should probably tone it down. Another part of him acknowledged that he simply couldn’t.

“I’m here to help,” the boy said, sounding more tired than afraid, which annoyed Danny. “Taylor needs your help. Can we just talk?”

“I asked,” Danny let his grip on the boy's shoulder tighten. “Where is my daughter?”

The boy sighed. “At the docks, taking one of Brockton Bay’s scariest villains through the most intense session of cock and ball torture that you’ve ever seen.”

Danny didn’t so much decide to, as accepted that he might bash the boy’s face in. “You think this is funny?”

“No, I think she’s a supervillain, and though she’s physically safe right now she’s going to need you. You haven’t been there for her when she needed you. Not with the grief, not with the bullying. Are you gonna be there for her now, when she needs you the most?”

His daughter. A supervillain. A bad guy. Danny wanted to be relieved, but he wasn’t. “How do you know all this?”

“Please take your hands off my throat.”

“Sorry.”

“Can I come in? There’s a lot to talk about, and I don’t think you want this gossip either.” He looked back at the neighboring houses. “We have like three and a half minutes before Taylor comes back and makes herself some toast.”

As he held the door open, Danny had to consider that he was going insane. Everything felt so real, like when you got into a fist fight or kissed someone for the first time, but at the same time so unreal, like all of this would dissipate at the light of day. 

“Smaller than I imagined,” the boy said as he entered the kitchen. Danny closed the door and turned on the light. He examined the boy’s pimpled face. 

Yes, he was sure that it was someone from Taylor class, but he couldn’t remember the name. “Is she really a supervillain?”

“She has superpowers, but she hasn’t yet decided which side she’s going to be on. I don’t think that part matters.”

“Then what does?”

“First of all, you need to know that your mother in law is a bitch, and you shouldn’t take her advice on anything.” The boy turned to him, and his gaze was surprisingly stern. Who was this boy, and why wouldn’t he just give straight answers? “Second, she’s going to need you there. She’s going to need you on her side, no matter what. She’s stronger than you are. She inherited your rage, and she suffered more than you ever did.”

Was that true? Danny knew Taylor was having a hard time at school, but she never had to work, to see all of her projects fall apart, her city fall apart, the woman that she loved most in the world… Well, that part wasn’t fair. 

“You both had the potential to become parahumans,” the boy said. “You just never suffered enough to trigger it.”

Was that how that worked? Was that true? How the hell could anyone know this? “I… What should I do?”

“Listen to her. Tell her that you know, and that you don’t judge, respect her decisions. Maybe convince her that robbing the bank is a bad idea, as it’s going to serve as a distraction for another villain to kidnap a girl, something that Taylor will regret all of her life.”

“Please.” Danny hated the impotence in his own voice. “How could you possibly know all this?”

“I’m really sorry, “ the boy said, and he really looked like he did. “About everything. I know what it’s like, you know?  I know what it’s like to pick up the phone and want to text someone and to have to be reminded that they’re just not there anymore. It sucks more than anything.”

Danny found himself angry again, but he knew it was a defense, an attempt to push the boy's words away, to hide his own pain, even from himself. The anger dissipated the moment he saw the single tear running down the boy’s cheek.   

The boy wiped it away. “But you still got Taylor, and she needs you more than you know. Please don’t be angry with her. She always did try her best.”

Danny pulled out one of the chairs, very slowly, and sat down. It was too much for him. All of this, he didn’t know how to deal with it. “What… what am I supposed to do?” He asked again. 

“Just sit here, and wait for her to get back. Shit…” He looked out through the window. “She’s almost in view of the house, now.” He moved quickly to press the switch, and the room sunk into bluish darkness. “I gotta go before she gets here. She’s very lucky to have you, Danny. I wish I had someone like you in my life when everything went to shit.”

“You’re a supervillain too, right?”

The boy chuckled, then came closer to Danny. He was so much smaller than Danny, so young, and yet Danny found himself terrified of him. The boy bent down, put his face very close to Danny’s, and kissed him on the cheek in a way that made him think that the boy was clearly not American. 

“I’d like to think so,” he whispered. “Goodbye, Danny. And good luck.”

Then he straightened, opened the door to the bathroom, closed it, and whatever he did in there made a sound of a powerful, sudden depressurization. 

Danny had a strong feeling the boy wasn’t there anymore. 

For a long moment Danny sat there in the darkness. Taylor had superpowers, he acknowledged slowly. That made her some strange friends. It felt like too much to handle, but it didn’t matter. He would find a way. He was Taylor’s father. Her only parent. 

It was too much responsibility to shoulder, but he had no choice but to shoulder it so he would. 

He heard the key being put into the lock and rotated slowly, as if the person on the other side tried to sneak back in. The door opened, and there his daughter was, safe and sound. 

“Dad?” she asked, squinting in the darkness. He had her arms around her before he could think about it. 

“Taylor. I was so worried.”

She hugged him back. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to worry you, I just…”

“I know,” he said. He breathed her in, noted the smell of burnt hair. “I know everything.’

She pulled back, looked up at him. She was so young. It surprised him sometimes, the seriousness in her expression on such a young face. “What do you mean?”

“I think,” he said. “That we have a lot to talk about.”

Chapter Text

Aisha looked at the trail of blood that led to the old, abandoned building. The Nine had to be in there. 

If she snuck in now, sliced each of their throats… Even if she just cut Jack’s throat, The Nine will fall apart, and everyone will have to acknowledge that it was Aisha that delivered that final strike. That final blow? Didn’t matter. They wouldn't be bossing her around anymore and ignoring what she said.

She reached for her bag, pulled out the taser and knife, and entered the building. 

There was a boy waiting there, in jeans and a white t-shirt, sitting on the stairs. He was blonde and pale as shit, the kind who spent more time in front of a computer than he did playing ball. 

He was looking directly at her. “Could you just not?” He asked. He sounded more irritated than worried or angry. “One of them is already sensing you, and if one of the Undersiders gets captured and fridged trying to save you, you’re going to hate yourself forever.”

“What the fuck is fridged?”

“Be thankful you’ll never find out.” He sighed. “Also,” he raised  a finger. “If you don’t want to be traumatized by watching your brother in a very intimate situation, you should probably take more note of when you use your power.”

“Who are yo-”

For a moment Aisha forgot why she was there, by the staircase of some old building. She felt like she was just thinking of something… Oh yeah.. She was about to kill The Nine. Why had she stopped here? 

Probably because it was a horrible idea. What if one of The Nine had a power that countered hers? If she had fucked this up and the others had to save her… 

She turned back, walked far enough that she could be confident The Nine wouldn’t hear her, put the knife and taser back in her back and pulled out her walkie talkie.

She pressed the button and turned off her power. “I know where The Nine are,” she said.   

#

“Hey, Chevalier? Yeah, just one question. Maybe we shouldn’t initiate a conflict where we are likely to lose in a drilling platform in the middle of the ocean? You know, like leave some room for retreat which we’re obviously going to need? Just saying.”

#

We were in the van, on the way to our first mission together as a supervillain team. My hands were sweating, and for some reason the range of my bugs extended by what felt like twenty percent. “Tattletale, can I bug you about something?” 

Regent chuckled. “Pun intended?”

I said “What?” at the exact same time that Tattletale said “No.”

“No the pun wasn’t intended or no she can’t bug you?”

“No as in- “ Tattletale started saying, when an object flew in through the window, passed in front of Grue’s mask over the driver seat, made a sharp turn and landed right in my lap. 

Everyone but me and the dogs moved in some defensive way, protecting themselves from an expected blast that didn’t come. 

I picked it up. 

It was a paper plane, which was weird. Doubly weird because the window beside Grue was closed. 

Tattletale was the first to speak. “What does it say?”

I unfolded it, and read the message inside. 

Panacea is at the bank, and if you take her hostage she’ll call Glory Girl and both you and Tattletale will regret it. Also this entire bank robbery is a decoy for the obduction of Dinah Alcott that your boss (Coil) is planning, and if you help him with it you will regret it forever. Like seriously, why else would he pay you so much?   

And below that, in handwriting that was getting smaller and smaller to make the out of the rest of the space: 

P.S. Brian is also into you, but he’s too shy to let you know. Besides, you can do better. 

I looked up at Tattletale. “Is Coil our boss?”

#

“You needed s-”

"AAAAAHHHHHHHH-WE-CAN'T-HEAR-YOU-WE-CAN'T-HEAR-YOU-WE-CAN'T-HEAR-YOU-SHUT-UP-GLASTIG-YOUR-ENTIRE-PERSONALITY-IS-A-TRAUMA-RESPONESE-AAAAAAAHHHHHHHH....."

#

Jack knew exactly what he was doing.

He and Bonesaw were standing each on either side of The Siberian, protected by her power, and you could tell he enjoyed rubbing in our faces how invincible he was.

His smug gaze moved from the Undersiders to Ballistic and Sundancer, who were unlucky enough to come out of Coil headquarters just as we did. His grin widened even more - I got a feeling that the fact that they were so powerful made him enjoy making them powerless so much more. With The Siberian there, none of us could do anything. I had bugs at the ready, as numerous as the stars in the sky, about half of them venomous, but they didn’t make any difference.

“My test?” he said in a smarmy tone. “I made Cherish do everyone else’s tests all over again.”

Tattletale grinned, and it was at that moment that I realized why she took the risk of walking around with half of her face exposed. Even Jack reacted to her smile, the most minute shade of worry on his face. 

“You know,” she said. “Cherish has been playing you. She’s been conditioning you, little by little, and by the time she’s done you’re going to be -”

Everything moved so slowly. Jack snarled; his knife hand began drawing an arc, starting at his hip and going steadily to where the knife would point at Tattletale’s face, sending the projectile slash across her mouth; and just as the swing gained momentum…

The Siberian flickered, and then was gone. 

Jack canceled the slash and turned the motion into a sharp turn. “Somebody got Manton.” He said as he picked Bonesaw up and broke into a sprint. 

“Fuck!” Bonesaw screamed, before my swarm descended upon them. For the first time ever, I gave them the order to kill. 

I turned away from the thrashing, dying murderers, and looked at Tattletale. I couldn’t help but feel a sense of joy at seeing how uncut her face was. 

Chapter Text

“Were you really a monster in the end? A warlord, an alien administrator? A vicious killer with a cruel streak, mutilating your enemies and secretly enjoying it? A bully, if you forgive me for using that word?“

I looked down at my hand. 

“Or were you really a hero? Do the good intentions win out? Was it Glaistig Uaine’s strength or yours, that held her back from saving Scion in those final moments?“

“Why… does it matter?” 

She sighed, and for once, I saw real sadness in the eyes shaded by the brim of a fedora. “Because I want to know how much of a monster I am, for doing this to you.“ 

I felt a chill. Was part of it my passenger? Both of us? I opened my mouth to reply, and I couldn’t. Didn’t deserve to, either way. 

“It’s okay. I got the answer, myself.“ 

I looked away. I looked up. My eyes were wet. So many stars. The universe is so vast. 

We’re s- so very small, in the end. 

The moment drew long. I knew Contessa was going to shoot me, and for a moment I’d made peace with whatever came. But as the moment drew longer and longer, an unease came over me. 

Just do it already, I wanted to say, but I didn’t want to die. Not really. I turned to look at her, finding myself wishing not to stare down the barrel of a gun. 

There was a man standing in the meadow, staring down at contessa. He wore a white shirt and jeans, and a ‘mask’ made of what seemed like another white shirt, tied around his face. 

He had a small, grey case in his hand, that somehow made me think of camping gear. 

When had he gotten here? How? 

Contessa looked at him, and from the way her eyes widened, I had the feeling he was immune to her power. “Who…”

His voice was bitter and sharp. “What kind of bullshit dichotomy is that, huh? A hero or a monster? Everybody’s a bit of a sadist. You wanna tell me that you didn’t have just a little bit of fun drowning that japanese teenager in coke, or fucking up Taylor’s crew in New Delhi? Don’t even answer me. I got the answer, myself. ”

He took a deep breath, as if calming himself from a strong, violent urge.

“I won’t kill you, Fortuna, but I’m not above smacking you in the face. A hero or a monster. Jesus christ. Sadism is an evolutionary adaptation, and our ego reconciles it with our moral and social context. Read a fucking book.”

She sat there, staring at him and saying nothing. I didn’t blame her—I didn’t exactly know how to conceptualize this, either .

I expected Contessa - why did he call her Fortuna? Was that her real name, and if so, how did he know it? -- to stand her ground, or to at least look like she was planning a way of escape, but she was either genuinely stunned by what he was saying, or pretending to be. 

“A hero or a bully?” His voice had a steady rhythm, but there was a fire behind it. He reacted as if it was him that was being insulted, not me. “If you knew half of what she’s been through… if you knew the magnitude of the grief and heartbreak she pushed down in order to do the things that needed to be done. Fuck you, Fortuna. A coma? I’m absolutely certain that the ghost of your father, if it can see you now, is ashamed of you.”

The sob that choked out of her was so sudden she seemed as surprised as I was. 

“Go into those woods over there and don’t disturb us,” he told her and pointed. “The doormaker is going to be asleep for the next ten minutes or so. When the door opens, you may go, but if you interrupt this conversation even once, my hand is connecting with your face, you feel me?”

She nodded, tears running down her eyes, got up, turned around and walked away at a normal, measured pace. 

I’d never thought I'd see the boogeyman crying. She seemed surprisingly human. 

Was he like Tattletale, or was it something completely different? I had resigned to die only a moment ago, but now my brain was swarming with questions. Who was he? What was his power? Was he here to recruit me as a weapon, or something entirely different? 

He turned to me. His eyes were very blue. I couldn’t help but feel I knew him. “I don’t want to recruit you. Í’m here to help.”

Another mind reader, great. 

He winced. “Can’t turn it off, I’m afraid. Would if I could.”

“I believe you. What kind of help are you here to give?” I felt more in control talking out loud, instead of just passively waiting for him to pick my brain. 

He stepped into my range, casually ignoring my power. It didn’t get a grip on him. 

He put the little kit down and opened the zipper that went around it. Inside it was a camping stove and little packets that I couldn’t quite see in the dark. “Fortuna, I mean, Contessa, whatever, she was about to put two bullets in your head and send you into a coma, chickening out of killing you while basically taking your life away. It angered me. Would you like some tea? I’m making coffee for myself either way.” 

The fact that he offered me tea while preferring coffee himself communicated either some precog ability or some intensive preparation work. “Yes, thank you.” 

I had a feeling I wasn’t going to die, and it stopped feeling dignified to lie on the ground. I used my stump and one remaining hand to push against the dirt, slowly getting myself seated on a rock. “So you came here to stop her from shooting me?” 

He took out the little stove, placed it on the dirt, made sure that it was stable and that the attachable parts were clicking correctly into place. “That, and more. I can take your powers away, as well as the passenger. I know you find it unimaginable to give up power, but that’s more the passenger than you. Well, I guess the distinction between you two is unclear, but if there was a Taylor that existed before that trigger event, I guess that Taylor would have had less trouble giving up that power, but that Taylor was dragged by the passenger to commit all sorts of heinous acts, and was changed in the meantime.”

He was rambling, and I wasn’t sure what he was trying to get at.. 

“Sorry.” He fixed the makeshift mask, and I got the feeling it was more of a nervous fidget than anything else. “I’m proposing to basically restore your brain to a passenger-less state, with all of your memories intact, and move you to Earth Alef.” His accent changed on the word ‘Alef’, as if it were important for him to pronounce it correctly. “Where you could be with the version of your mother that exists in that world. And your dad, of course. And money, if you want some? I’m mumbling again. I… knew that there would be only one chance to get here, to talk to you like this. I should have prepared better.”

The way that he said it made it feel like he knew me, like he’s watched me. “Okay, let’s say that I believe that. Before I take your offer, there’s some stuff I need to know. First of all, who are you?”

“I wish I could tell you, but I can’t use my name here, not even my real body. All I can tell you is that I’m not Greg.”

That was an odd thing to say, but as soon as he took off his mask I understood why he’d said it. 

He looked exactly like Greg, the boy who I haven’t seen since Dragon outed me in the cafeteria, the same confused boy that confessed his love to me, or something similar to love. But he was older, about as much I would have expected from two years, his hair longer, and there was an intensity in his eyes that the boy I knew never had.

“I’m not body-snatching him,” he explained. “Just copying.”

“Why… can’t you use your name here? Or show your face?”  

“We’re being watched. Don’t stress, they can’t affect us here in any way, but I have some stakes in other realities, and if people knew that I was here, it might complicate things there.”

“Are they like you? A particular power? Parahumans from another dimension where things happened differently?”

“No, not parahumans. I wish I could explain. I can basically do anything in this universe, but I can only access it in a very limited range in space and time.”

He took out a box of long matches from the kit, took two out and then looked around. “Can you give me some cover so I can light this? It’s windier out here than I expected.”

I swallowed a sigh. Considering he was powerful enough to silence Contessa, I doubted this was necessary, but still I squatted closer, felt where the wind was coming from, and blocked it as best I could with my one hand. 

“Use both hands,” he said, smiling.

Was that supposed to be funny? Before I could think of anything to say, the stump began to tickle, a sensation that was surprisingly pleasant, somehow reminding me of the feeling of peeling off the wrapper of a present. Flesh began to form, as if flowing into an invisible mold. The sensation progressed up my phantom limb, from my elbow through my forearm, until finally fingers grew to life. I rubbed my new thumb and forefinger together, and looked at him. 

He gave me an all-knowing-smirk then gestured with his chin towards the stove. I covered it with both hands, and soon a blue flame came to life. He placed a little pot of water over it. 

“You said you’re limited. How?” I asked.

“In time, I’m limited from more or less when you started doing superhero stuff, a day or two before you went out in custom for the first time, up to this moment in time and a little further ahead. In space, I can mostly enter this dimension where you are, though not only you. Rachel when she met with The Siberian, Lisa when Leviathan struck, Brutus when Bitch took him to attack the dog fighting ring.”

That seemed awfully arbitrary. Why those moments, those people?

“There is an author in my reality. Not a parahuman, but not ordinary either. Your universe was real before he wrote about it, I think, but he managed to tap into it, through you. And when he wrote about you, your struggles, and your suffering, we were there and we read it. You suffered, and you felt so alone, but we were there with you. Not every time, but many of them. At those hard days in school, when Emma made you cry, we were there, and we cried with you. We didn’t know you were real. When you put maggots in that guy's eyes, when you hugged Lisa as she cried in the shadow of the Simurgh, but we were there, and we understood.”

All that time, I was being watched? “

That’s… a lot to take in,” I said, my voice surprisingly flat. 

“That’s what she said,” he said, and chuckled. “Sorry.”

I was getting the feeling he wasn’t spending a lot of time with people. Well, he probably heard that too, didn’t he? From the look on his face, he did. I shook my head, trying to get my bearings, trying to understand what it meant that someone wrote a book about my life, about my most private and desperate moments. Did they read about the time I spent with Brian? My lonely nights in prison? 

I didn’t want to know. 

I looked at my new hand, clenched it into a fist forced myself to focus on something substantial. “How does any of that explain your being here?”

“Where he made a connection with this universe, I can create a port and enter.”

“Isn’t that a paradox? If an ending was already written, how can you change it?”

He winced, and I got a bad feeling. “I was hoping that you wouldn’t ask that. I can’t change what happened, but I can create a new reality in which things happened differently.” 

I looked to the direction where Contessa left. There was a reality in which she shot me in the head, leaving me in a coma. Not a pleasant thought, but not much worse than what I had to endure when working with Coil, knowing that they are realities… yeah. 

“If I go to Earth Alef, will I still have eyes on me, reading my thoughts?”

“No. You will be there for yourself, I’m almost certain.”

“Almost?”

“Someone could theoretically track you, but it’s more work than you’d imagine, and I don’t think anyone will go through with that.”

I felt like I could relax a little. I hoped it was not exactly at this point of relaxation that he would flip the tables on me, but he didn’t seem like the type.“What are you going to do now?”

“I’m open to suggestions, but I was thinking about going to go back in time, cover as many access points that I can, and save you from getting here in each one of them.”

“And it won’t change what’s happening here, but open up a new dimension each time.”

“Does that bother you?”

“Yes. But… It would be nice to think that there is a Taylor somewhere that didn’t have to sacrifice everything in order to save the world.”

“There will be.”

A strange thought occurred to me. “How many times does each dimension happen? How many times did Contessa shoot me in the head?”

The water had reached a boil, and he turned off the stove, pouring some into paper cups. He placed a tea bag in one cup and handed it to me.

“Thank you.”

“You’re very welcome,” he said as he opened up a jar with some black, fragrant powder that smelled like coffee mixed with herbs I’ve never smelled before. He tossed a spoonfull into the water, mixed and sipped. He winced and mumbled, “Why do I always do this to myself?” 

In his normal voice, he continued. “Hundred of thousands of times. Maybe millions.”   

I felt like I was punched in the stomach.

“I can’t stop what already exists from existing. I can only come back and create a new one, intervene before you let Amy turn you into Khepri, or before Bakuda gets you with the pain bomb, or before the bullying gets really bad. Which would mean dealing directly with Sophia and fucking Emma.” A rage was suddenly aflame in him, and it was frightening to see in a being so powerful.

“Don't Hurt them,” I said. 

He looked at me, as if startled. “Are you sure? They….” 

I clenched my fists, both of them. “I’m sure. Even if it means letting them bully me. What you did to Contessa before… You were like Emma. Don’t do that to them. I can handle it. I have handled it.”

He covered his eyes with his hand, pinching at the bridge of his nose. The emotion was so intense, so sudden, that it took me a moment to understand that he was crying. There was something unnerving in seeing a man cry, particularly one who was so powerful.

“This…” he said, his voice almost unbroken. “This is what I came here for. Thank you. You saved me again.”

“Hey,” I said, not knowing whether to come closer to him or not, and instead getting stuck with my hand awkwardly half way between us. “Are you going to be okay?”

“Yeah,” he said, sniffing. “I’m just a little overwhelmed. I knew I wanted to come here, to do what I could for you, but I didn’t expect it to be so… I don't know. I need to vent it somehow. Probably going to go back in time and take it out on Crawler.’”

“Can you throw him into space?” I said, trying to smile. “I always wondered if that would actually stop him.”

He wiped his eyes, and smiled too. “I’ll try. Anything else?”

“Stop bonesaw from capturing Grue? And Tattletale from getting her face cut open? And Dinah from getting captured by Coil?”

“Will do. Now it’s time for us to go. Doormaker’s going to wake up soon, and when he does people are going to get here. I can stop them, but you don’t want to be a part of that, I think.”

“Why didn’t you make him sleep for longer?”

“In all seriousness? I didn’t want you to see me cry, and thought I could hold on for that long.”

“You’re a little harsh on yourself, aren’t you?”

He laughed. “Look who’s talking.”

I laughed, too, but not as loudly or freely as he did. It was still pretty awkward. “Thanks for everything. But…“

He raised an eyebrow at me, and waited.

“I don’t know if I’m ready to live again. To commit to a life. Get a job, make friends… I don’t know if I can go back to thinking like that.”

“You’ll figure it out, Taylor. You always do. You know, דo many of us owe you. You saved us. You saved me.”

“I didn’t even know you existed,” I said quietly.

“No, but you still did. Just by facing that same suffering that I have, by showing me that it’s possible to get through it. I was in a bad place when I stumbled across the story of your life. I don’t know where I’d have been without it. You don’t have to do anything, just accept it.”

“ I… I guess I could try to do that.”

“Good luck, Taylor. And say hi to Danny for me. I always respected him.”

A portal opened behind me. It wasn’t like The Doormaker’s, but instead a wild vortex surrounded by English letters. I placed the paper cup beside me, still half full, and stood up. Was he going to take away my powers? My passenger?

“Already did,” he said. 

I nodded, not turning to look at him. All I had to do was step through, and I’ll be in a new world. It was better than getting shot in the head and being put in a coma, but… Was it spoiled of me to wish that Lisa and Rachel, even Aisha, could come with me?

“Holy shit,” I heard him say. “I’m a fucking idiot.”

Three portals opened. Doormaker portals. Did he awake sooner than expected? 

No. 

On the other side of the first one was Lisa, sitting by her computer, looking at us with surprise. 

In the other was Rachel napping in a pile of dogs. She woke up, surprised. 

The third one was empty. 

“Lisa,” Not-Greg said. “Please tell Aisha to knock it off.“

He pronounced her name wrong, as if he only read it and never heard it being said. 

He turned to me. “What? Then how are you supposed to pronounce it.”

“Aisha.”

“Oh fuck.”

“A mind reader, huh?” Lisa said as she stepped through the portal. She closed her eyes, squinting hard. 

Not-Greg laughed, turning away in disgust. “Okay, okay, stop that, will you?”

“What’s going on?” Rachel asked as she stepped out of her own portal, two dogs in toe. 

He turned to her but didn’t make eye contact, looking down instead. “They won’t let Taylor live in this world. I’m sending you all to an earth without super powers, where they can’t get you.”

“What if someone else like you…”

“Unlikely, and it’s better to not…” he burped loudly. “Think about it too much. Also I’m going to take away your powers. You’ll have to accept people love you regardless of how smart you are. Aisha, no more assassinations. Rachel…”

He thought about that for a second.

“You’re still going to be really good with Dogs. I’m not gonna take that away from you. But also, you’ll gradually become better and better at reading human facial expressions. At some point you’re going to be so good at telling when someone lies Lisa will be envious of you.”

Rachel glowered at him. “And if I say no?

“You won’t. It’s the only way to save Taylor and be with her. You can stay here, if you prefer, but I’m not letting you be the only people with powers in a world of baseline humans.”

“Can I take my dogs?”

“Yeah.”

“Can I take Casie?”

“She’ll be waiting for you there.”

She considered that for a second. “Okay.”

Aisha appeared behind him, but he didn’t seem startled. “I want to bring the Heartbroken.”

“I’ll bring them also, but without powers.”

“Fair enough.” She shrugged. “That’s probably for the best.” 

“I have so many questions,” I told him. “I could have questioned you all day.”

“I don’t know what questions you have, but I think I know what answer I can provide.”

“What?”

He took a deep breath. “All things fall and are built again, and those that build them again are gay.”

That sounded familiar. From a book that I’ve read long ago, maybe? 

He nodded, smiling.

Aisha chuckled. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t worry,” Lisa said, smirking. “You’ll figure it out.” 

He looked at her and nodded again, his smile just as smug as hers. “Enough,” he said. “Out you go.”  

Lisa put her hand in mine. It was surprisingly moist, sweaty, but it didn’t bother me at all. My hand was sweaty too. I looked at her, and she looked up at me. Her smile went all the way up to her green eyes. I never really noticed how pretty her eyes were. 

“Did he just…”

She nodded. “Yeah.”

Rachel gave us a confused glare. Her eyes darted from our held hands to our faces. She was figuring it out, too. 

I offered a hand, and she engulfed it in hers. A warm, confident grip.

I had a feeling everything was going to be alright. 

We stepped through the portal.

#

After the girls passed through the portal, Not-Greg was left in the clearing alone. 

A chilly wind blew, making that beautiful sound as it passed among the leaves. 

He sighed, then sipped his coffee. “Still watching, huh?” He said to the empty meadow, knowing full well that he was being heard. “I’m gonna go back to write that bathroom scene. I assume you’ve already read it. It’s going to be the most challenging one, but I hope that I succeed doing what Taylor asked of me. Funny that you know if I succeeded, and I don’t.” 

He pinched at the bridge of his nose. “This is a beautiful game that we are playing here, but sometimes I wonder if it’s just another addiction - hanging on to the positive feedback on works that will never be fully my own instead of putting in the work to my own original work. Who the hell knows what’s the right thing to do.”

He sighed, sipped at the coffee again. The clouds moved, exposing a bright moon, and the entire clearing glowed in a pale light. 

“Thank you for joining me on this weird ass journey. I truly hope you have a wonderful day.”

He opened another portal and stepped through, leaving the woods empty.